God works in mysterious ways doesn't He. Often times we find ourselves in the most unlikely places because of a series of unlikely events. They are 'unlikely' in the sense that they were nothing we imagined or planned them to be. The point is this: God endlessly and faithfully works all things together for His glory and our good. What seems unlikely may be exactly what God has intended all along.
Believe that everyone who yields their person and plans to God will see every character and circumstance along the way in the ever-present light of God's everlasting plan.
God has set apart a people for Himself and He confirms His promises to them generation after generation. God promises this to Abraham, saying “And I will establish my covenant between me and you and your offspring after you throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your offspring after you” (Genesis 17:7). The deepest promise God ever made is the one He confirms day after day. “I will be your God and you will be mine.”
The most difficult and depressing series of events will never extinguish God's promise. Many times that promise is amplified during those difficult times. God calls us to be steadfast and immovable, as He is, so that we may see His love and power in every circumstance.
Let's take a look at a story about God's people. It involves many stories and series of unlikely events, but in the end it proves that God is ever-present and always faithful. Let's begin at the end and work backwards.
There was a time when God's people were suffering a drought that lasted seven years. What had begun as Abraham's family was quickly becoming a great nation, but they were all in danger of being wiped out by the drought. Rumor had spread that the Egyptians down south had plenty of food that had been stored up from years of harvest. Jacob, Abraham's grandson, sent his sons down to Egypt to try and find food, lest they starve. Through a miracle that was years in the making, the Lord provided for His people in a most unlikely way – through the power and forgiveness of a son; Jacob's son Joseph.
To give the end meaning we must explore those unlikely events which preceded it.
It all began with a dream. Joseph's dream.
We read about it in Genesis 27, when Joseph shares two dreams with his brothers. His brothers had already hated Joseph, but these dreams sent them over the edge. Joseph told them, on two occasions, that according to his dreams, he would rule over them one day. That is a wild dream – it enraged Joseph's brothers. In their anger they threw him into a ditch and sold him into slavery. They went home and told their father that Joseph had been killed by a wild animal. While his father was grieving, Joseph was sent into slavery in Egypt.
It wasn't long before Joseph had proved himself to be useful to an officer of the Egyptian Pharaoh. The officer was so impressed with Joseph that he put him in charge of the entire household. Joseph was doing pretty well considering the dismal circumstance, but then another unlikely event occurred. The officer's wife tried to seduce Joseph but Joseph remained steadfast and resisted. He actually fled the scene, but when he did, the officer's wife made a fuss and claimed that he tried to seduce her. This lie landed Joseph in prison before he could make a case for himself.
After a while in prison, Joseph found himself with two new cellmates. They both had strange dreams one night and Joseph was able to interpret them correctly. It meant good news for one and bad news for the other, but the Lord remained faithful to Joseph, who found favor with the men. Years later Joseph was released from prison to become the servant of the Pharaoh because of the dreams he interpreted.
Joseph interpreted a dream of Pharaoh's and warned him that he needed to store up food and resources for an impending drought that would last seven years. Trusting Joseph, the Pharaoh put him in charge of all of Egypt's resources.
What started with a child's dream had taken Joseph through a series of very unlikely events, most of them tough, and landed him as the number two in charge over Egypt. Even so, things were about to get stranger still.
During the years of drought Joseph's brothers ended up traveling into Egypt to seek supplies. The spoke directly to Joseph. Believing that their brother was either dead or miserable in slavery, they didn't notice Joseph until he revealed himself to them. Once they recognized Joseph, they all wept and asked forgiveness.
Joseph replied, “Do not fear, for am I in the place of God? As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today. So do not fear; I will provide for you and your little ones” (Genesis 50:19-21).
That child's dream had come true but it was far unlike anything Joseph would have imagined or planned. Joseph was able to provide for his family and God's people because God had been directing him all those years, but the decision was still left up to Joseph. Had Joseph remained bitter toward his brothers and never forgiven them, he could have refused to help them. God's people may have starved to death if it weren't for God's provision and Joseph's response.
In every circumstance, God's provision and our response work together. We must understand that as the Lord is always working for His glory and our good, our response still matters.
God has provided an incredible way for you to know and experience His provision day after day.
Will you respond to God?
Take some time to think about where you are today and how you got there. Take a trip down memory lane and examine those events that had powerful impact on your life. How has God used those to bring meaning and perspective to the life you live today? How have you responded along the way? How should you respond now and in the future?
Sunday, July 17, 2011
Wednesday, July 13, 2011
Discipline
[I had a great opportunity this summer to do a study on Qualities of Spiritual Leadership with College Journey. These are the qualities that were included in the study. They are outlined in Oswald Sander's Spiritual Leadership]
Discipline is essential to the development of all spiritual gifts and qualities of leadership. This modern world has made it increasingly difficult to maintain any level of real spiritual discipline, but that should not be an excuse for laziness and lack of purpose. Each person was created for a great purpose – to be discipled in the Lord and declare His greatness. We can declare His greatness every day of our lives, but to become a great disciple requires great discipline.
Discipline is the preparation the occurs for the Lord to work mightily through His people. It is always initiated and sustained by His Spirit so don't be fooled into thinking that discipline is an independent endeavor. The spiritual leaderJesus’ knows that the Father leads them into enduring discipline.
Discipline preserves, practices, and produces. It preserves oneself in purity. It practices the spiritual gifts and disciplines. It produces the spiritual fruits. “And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ” (Philippians 1:6).
“We have had earthly fathers who disciplined us and we respected them. Shall we not much more be subject to the Father of spirits and live? For they disciplined us for a short time as it seemed best to them, but he disciplines us for our good, that we may share his holiness.
“For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it” (Hebrews 12:9-11).
Discipline is the grace of our Heavenly Father, who longs for us to be made holy in righteousness. He will not forsake us nor abandon us. When discipline is difficult and painful, know that it produces the fruit of righteousness.
True leaders are more disciplined than most. They “work while others waste time, study while others snooze, pray while others daydream” (Sanders, Spiritual Leadership). A life of faithful discipline readies the leader for any struggle, enables them to lead others, and most importantly places them in constant communion with the Lord.
For all of the gifts and qualities of spiritual leadership, discipline is the harmonizing quality that enables and develops each.
Discipline is essential to the development of all spiritual gifts and qualities of leadership. This modern world has made it increasingly difficult to maintain any level of real spiritual discipline, but that should not be an excuse for laziness and lack of purpose. Each person was created for a great purpose – to be discipled in the Lord and declare His greatness. We can declare His greatness every day of our lives, but to become a great disciple requires great discipline.
Discipline is the preparation the occurs for the Lord to work mightily through His people. It is always initiated and sustained by His Spirit so don't be fooled into thinking that discipline is an independent endeavor. The spiritual leaderJesus’ knows that the Father leads them into enduring discipline.
Discipline preserves, practices, and produces. It preserves oneself in purity. It practices the spiritual gifts and disciplines. It produces the spiritual fruits. “And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ” (Philippians 1:6).
“We have had earthly fathers who disciplined us and we respected them. Shall we not much more be subject to the Father of spirits and live? For they disciplined us for a short time as it seemed best to them, but he disciplines us for our good, that we may share his holiness.
“For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it” (Hebrews 12:9-11).
Discipline is the grace of our Heavenly Father, who longs for us to be made holy in righteousness. He will not forsake us nor abandon us. When discipline is difficult and painful, know that it produces the fruit of righteousness.
True leaders are more disciplined than most. They “work while others waste time, study while others snooze, pray while others daydream” (Sanders, Spiritual Leadership). A life of faithful discipline readies the leader for any struggle, enables them to lead others, and most importantly places them in constant communion with the Lord.
For all of the gifts and qualities of spiritual leadership, discipline is the harmonizing quality that enables and develops each.
Monday, July 11, 2011
Midsummer Update
Summer is already past halfway over?! Say it isn't so!
It's been a great summer so far and I wanted to give you an update on what I've been doing and what I'll be doing before long.
This summer I've been really blessed to intern with the college ministry at Journey Church. I love this church, love the people, love the leaders, and love the opportunities they have to serve and connect with the community, both locally and globally. Adam, the College Pastor, has given me some awesome projects and challenges along the way and it's been a lot of fun and really encouraging. My prayer each week is just that God would take the work out of my hands and just use me however he chooses so that the college ministry would grow inwardly and outwardly. Pray along with me in that. Let's be Spirit-led.
Come mid-August I will go to Colorado Springs for a 4 month internship with Engineering Ministries International (check out their website at http://www.emiusa.org/). I'll be living with a host family and working as an engineering intern on a project based out of Thailand (check out the details at http://www.emiusa.org/projects/projectprofile_5550.php). I'll also be working with the company TSC Global, helping better design and fabricate their already awesome roof designs (check them out at http://tscglobal.org/).
The vision of the project in Thailand is to use sustainable earth-based materials to design and build a primary care hospital and medical training facility. When I say primary, I mean primary – this facility will service a dozen remote villages that we won't even be able to travel to. We will incorporate the TSC roof into the design and then travel to Thailand for 2-3 weeks at the end of September. While we are in Thailand we will build a smaller facility and teach the locals how to construct the structure safely and strongly. After we leave the locals should take the designs and materials for the main facility and then construct it according to our instruction. Once completed, the facility will provide basic medical care to communities who have none. It will also be a place of education and medical training. It will ALSO be Christian faith-centered – a place where people can come to know Jesus through community, Bible studies, and prayer. This is a really incredible project for a number of reasons, but the two that excite me most are the provision of health services and the proclamation of the Gospel! Thailand, being a predominately rural and Buddhist nation, is in great need of both.
When I return from Thailand I will spend the rest of the semester working on the TSC roof designs. Our focus will be to improve the design for withstanding seismic and earthquake activity. We will also work on the design to improve its connectability with other structural systems while also designing a rain-water collection system. It will be a lot of lab tests with trial and error – hands on stuff that I love to do!
I am so excited for where God has me now and where He's taking me. Pray with me that I will be faithful to follow everywhere He leads, trusting He will enable me in all things.
It's been a great summer so far and I wanted to give you an update on what I've been doing and what I'll be doing before long.
This summer I've been really blessed to intern with the college ministry at Journey Church. I love this church, love the people, love the leaders, and love the opportunities they have to serve and connect with the community, both locally and globally. Adam, the College Pastor, has given me some awesome projects and challenges along the way and it's been a lot of fun and really encouraging. My prayer each week is just that God would take the work out of my hands and just use me however he chooses so that the college ministry would grow inwardly and outwardly. Pray along with me in that. Let's be Spirit-led.
Come mid-August I will go to Colorado Springs for a 4 month internship with Engineering Ministries International (check out their website at http://www.emiusa.org/). I'll be living with a host family and working as an engineering intern on a project based out of Thailand (check out the details at http://www.emiusa.org/projects/projectprofile_5550.php). I'll also be working with the company TSC Global, helping better design and fabricate their already awesome roof designs (check them out at http://tscglobal.org/).
The vision of the project in Thailand is to use sustainable earth-based materials to design and build a primary care hospital and medical training facility. When I say primary, I mean primary – this facility will service a dozen remote villages that we won't even be able to travel to. We will incorporate the TSC roof into the design and then travel to Thailand for 2-3 weeks at the end of September. While we are in Thailand we will build a smaller facility and teach the locals how to construct the structure safely and strongly. After we leave the locals should take the designs and materials for the main facility and then construct it according to our instruction. Once completed, the facility will provide basic medical care to communities who have none. It will also be a place of education and medical training. It will ALSO be Christian faith-centered – a place where people can come to know Jesus through community, Bible studies, and prayer. This is a really incredible project for a number of reasons, but the two that excite me most are the provision of health services and the proclamation of the Gospel! Thailand, being a predominately rural and Buddhist nation, is in great need of both.
When I return from Thailand I will spend the rest of the semester working on the TSC roof designs. Our focus will be to improve the design for withstanding seismic and earthquake activity. We will also work on the design to improve its connectability with other structural systems while also designing a rain-water collection system. It will be a lot of lab tests with trial and error – hands on stuff that I love to do!
I am so excited for where God has me now and where He's taking me. Pray with me that I will be faithful to follow everywhere He leads, trusting He will enable me in all things.
Wednesday, July 6, 2011
Freedom
Celebrate freedom.
Freedom on the Fourth of July conjures up all sorts of images. One of the first images that comes to my mind is William Wallace standing on a hill with one hundred other men screaming the word at the top of their lungs. Those men fought bravely for their freedom hundreds of years ago just as all our service men and women work tirelessly and fight bravely for our freedom today. It takes thousands upon thousands of dedicated persons to give us a level of security today, and we often take that for granted. It takes one person to tear down those walls of security and bind us in the shackles of fear. That person, the one who brings fear and death, looks different to a lot of people. I'm not writing as much about him though. I'm writing about the one person who secures our eternal freedom, that we may live fulfilling lives today.
Jesus Christ.
This is a brief meditation on the book of Galatians, written as a letter to Galatia by the apostle Paul. The book spends itself in the pursuit of making a case for our freedom in Christ. This is worth reading, writing about, and talking about. Let's not waste our time.
For those who long to know God, we must first gain some perspective on ourselves. How can you view anything properly if you aren't even sure of the lens you are viewing it through?
To gain perspective on ourselves, it doesn't take long to begin to understand our depravity and our need of a greater good, a Savior. If we would plumb the depths of our depravity, we would find in our hearts the tendency to turn good things to bad. Glimmers of light break the darkness whenever we experience true goodness, but those glimmers radiate from the truth that stands outside of ourselves. This is the true light. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. Call this truth the Word of God.
And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. [John 1:14]
Jesus used his life and ministry to do many things. He spoke of the Truth but he also spoke to each person individually, showing them how they had come to misunderstand the truth. He exposed every misuse of what God had created for good, declaring that the Kingdom of Heaven, the Kingdom of God, was here and being made full. At the fullness of this Kingdom, there would be no evil. [Revelation 21]
With such a powerful message, many expected Jesus to show his power by creating a kingdom of government on earth. They expected a warrior, a leader, and Jesus was those things, just not in the way they first expected. Jesus exposed the awful use of power by the authorities, which had be used to enslave and oppress people, by being a mockery in court where he was ridiculed, shamed, and tortured. The power of Jesus and his cross scream loudly “Look at what you've done – this is not the way things were meant to be. You've lost your freedom. You've made a mess of things.”
Freedom was lost under the law, but because of Jesus' death at the hands of the law and at the hands of God, freedom is again ours.
For freedom, Christ has set us free. Stand firm, and do not submit yourself again to slavery. [Galatians 5:1]
We do not live in this freedom from Christ by continuing to rely on ourselves. We will never climb a ladder of good works into heaven.
In his letter, Paul goes as far to say “You are severed form Christ, you who would be justified by the law; you have fallen away from grace.”
“For through the Spirit, by faith, we ourselves eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness.” [Galatians 5:4-5]
The only thing that counts is Christ. Faith begins and endures in love.
So this is the message of freedom. When we lost freedom because we subjected ourselves to slavery by our own sin, when we made bad things out of the good things God gave us, God made a way through Jesus. He made a way back to Him, back to freedom, and only through Jesus. What Jesus has done, do not attempt to do better. Do not attempt to continue to earn the free grace of God by working tirelessly at making yourself better. That's not freedom – that's slavery to the law and slavery to self, the very things that Jesus has freed us from.
Live in love. Walk in the Spirit of God, which is no longer our spirit, but His. Produce the fruits of the Spirit [Galatians 5:22-24] – but remember that those are produced by the Spirit and not yourself.
What God has done, let no man un-do. Jesus set you free, so walk with him and don't wander off trying to do it all yourself.
That's freedom, eternal freedom.
Freedom on the Fourth of July conjures up all sorts of images. One of the first images that comes to my mind is William Wallace standing on a hill with one hundred other men screaming the word at the top of their lungs. Those men fought bravely for their freedom hundreds of years ago just as all our service men and women work tirelessly and fight bravely for our freedom today. It takes thousands upon thousands of dedicated persons to give us a level of security today, and we often take that for granted. It takes one person to tear down those walls of security and bind us in the shackles of fear. That person, the one who brings fear and death, looks different to a lot of people. I'm not writing as much about him though. I'm writing about the one person who secures our eternal freedom, that we may live fulfilling lives today.
Jesus Christ.
This is a brief meditation on the book of Galatians, written as a letter to Galatia by the apostle Paul. The book spends itself in the pursuit of making a case for our freedom in Christ. This is worth reading, writing about, and talking about. Let's not waste our time.
For those who long to know God, we must first gain some perspective on ourselves. How can you view anything properly if you aren't even sure of the lens you are viewing it through?
To gain perspective on ourselves, it doesn't take long to begin to understand our depravity and our need of a greater good, a Savior. If we would plumb the depths of our depravity, we would find in our hearts the tendency to turn good things to bad. Glimmers of light break the darkness whenever we experience true goodness, but those glimmers radiate from the truth that stands outside of ourselves. This is the true light. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. Call this truth the Word of God.
And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. [John 1:14]
Jesus used his life and ministry to do many things. He spoke of the Truth but he also spoke to each person individually, showing them how they had come to misunderstand the truth. He exposed every misuse of what God had created for good, declaring that the Kingdom of Heaven, the Kingdom of God, was here and being made full. At the fullness of this Kingdom, there would be no evil. [Revelation 21]
With such a powerful message, many expected Jesus to show his power by creating a kingdom of government on earth. They expected a warrior, a leader, and Jesus was those things, just not in the way they first expected. Jesus exposed the awful use of power by the authorities, which had be used to enslave and oppress people, by being a mockery in court where he was ridiculed, shamed, and tortured. The power of Jesus and his cross scream loudly “Look at what you've done – this is not the way things were meant to be. You've lost your freedom. You've made a mess of things.”
Freedom was lost under the law, but because of Jesus' death at the hands of the law and at the hands of God, freedom is again ours.
For freedom, Christ has set us free. Stand firm, and do not submit yourself again to slavery. [Galatians 5:1]
We do not live in this freedom from Christ by continuing to rely on ourselves. We will never climb a ladder of good works into heaven.
In his letter, Paul goes as far to say “You are severed form Christ, you who would be justified by the law; you have fallen away from grace.”
“For through the Spirit, by faith, we ourselves eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness.” [Galatians 5:4-5]
The only thing that counts is Christ. Faith begins and endures in love.
So this is the message of freedom. When we lost freedom because we subjected ourselves to slavery by our own sin, when we made bad things out of the good things God gave us, God made a way through Jesus. He made a way back to Him, back to freedom, and only through Jesus. What Jesus has done, do not attempt to do better. Do not attempt to continue to earn the free grace of God by working tirelessly at making yourself better. That's not freedom – that's slavery to the law and slavery to self, the very things that Jesus has freed us from.
Live in love. Walk in the Spirit of God, which is no longer our spirit, but His. Produce the fruits of the Spirit [Galatians 5:22-24] – but remember that those are produced by the Spirit and not yourself.
What God has done, let no man un-do. Jesus set you free, so walk with him and don't wander off trying to do it all yourself.
That's freedom, eternal freedom.
Thursday, June 16, 2011
Speak IN Christ
Get this… 2 Corinthians 2:15-17
For we are the aroma of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing, to one a fragrance from death to death, to the other a fragrance from life to life. Who is sufficient for these things? For we are not, like so many, peddlers of God’s word, but as men of sincerity, as commissioned by God, in the sight of God we speak in Christ.
Are you living like the fragrance of Christ to a world that is both living and perishing? Am I?
That last verse is powerful! We are not just walking around like salespeople for God – as it He needed salespeople. We are the living, breathing, speaking aroma of Christ. “In this way, love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment, because in this world we are like Jesus.” [1 John 4:17]
Paul continues his plea… 2 Corinthians 3:1-3
Are we beginning to commend ourselves again? Or do we need, as some do, letters of recommendation to you, or from you? You yourselves are our letter of recommendation, written on our hearts, to be known and read by all. And you show that you are a letter from Christ delivered by us, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts.
Are you looking for proof? Look at the work of God in the hearts and lives of His followers.
Everyone who follows Christ should be an example of Christ. What does it mean to be a fully devoted follower of Christ? The quickest answer I can think to that question is “I’m not sure everything that entails, but I sure do know that I can’t do that by myself.” Everyone who tries to follow Christ without being changed by Christ and sustained by Christ will inevitably miss out on the abundant life that Christ speaks of.
The point is to find our capability, our sufficiency, our everything in Christ.
Such is the confidence that we have through Christ toward God. Not that we are sufficient in ourselves to claim anything as coming from us, but our sufficiency is from God, who has made us competent to be ministers of a new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit. For the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life. [2 Corinthians 3:4-6]
When you follow Jesus, you are a minister of the new covenant, a living example of his love. Don’t just speak and do things for Christ – speak and do them in Christ.
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
Paradoxical Christ?
par·a·dox
–noun
1. a statement or proposition that seems self-contradictory or absurd but in reality expresses a possible truth.
Majesty and meekness. The Lion and the Lamb. The swordsman and the victim.
These poetic paradoxes provide pictures of wholeness.
A powerful dialogue emerges in Mark 8:27-38 where Jesus asks his disciples “Who do people say that I am?” They told him “John the Baptist; and others say, Elijah; and others, one of the prophets.” Jesus asked them “But who do you say that I am?” Peter answered him, “You are the Christ.”
The Christ. That’s very familiar to us today because we grew up hearing Jesus was the Christ. It’s a much different statement when Peter says it – it’s revelation, revolutionary, and it flies in the face of the Jewish culture of that day. Peter answered in plain language. The word for “Christ” literally means the Messiah, Son of God, the anointed one. The ‘anointed one,’ as in a king, is interesting because that’s exactly what God’s followers were waiting for. Peter and the rest of them were waiting for a Messiah, a king, to deliver them from the hands of their oppressors, establishing a kingdom and consecrating the kingdom from the pagans.
Now Jesus is continually saying that the Kingdom of Heaven, or Kingdom of God, is at hand. It’s in the present, not future, so whatever Jesus is saying and doing as he says this is actually in service of this kingdom. That’s quite different from what much of the Jewish culture believed.
According to generations of history and expectation, most people believed that the Messiah would display his power by forcing the evildoers off their thrones and establishing himself as the king. Jesus knew his power must be displayed in a much different way though. He spoke plainly when he taught his disciples “the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes and be killed, and after three days rise again.” That’s a powerfully lucid prophecy. It’s also very different from what Jesus’s disciples were hoping for. Perhaps Peter was hopeful for the day when he would lord his power over his enemies alongside Jesus, but now Jesus was telling him there would be suffering, even at the hands of the religious. Peter was upset and he pulled Jesus aside to confront him. But turning and seeing the disciples, Jesus rebuked Peter and said “Get behind me, Satan! For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man.”
Let’s sit here for awhile. Jesus shatters the notions of how the Messiah will come into power. He’s the Lion of Judah (what everyone hoped for) but he is also the Lamb of God (what no one expected). What seems paradoxical is actually a picture of wholeness. When Jesus was expected to overthrow the regimes in control, he instead laid down his life, and in so doing he triumphed. Jesus showed his supreme power by laying his life down for us. The power in the cross exposes how desperately we need Jesus. Jesus uses his sacrifice on the cross to show how true power serves instead of exploits people. That’s not a paradox – it’s the original and eternally intended design of God.
Later on Jesus makes it clear again that power and leadership is evident through service and not position. While James and John ask for seats alongside his thrown in Heaven, Jesus said this to his disciples: “But it shall not be so among you. But whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be slave of all. For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” [Mark 10:43-45]
Jesus’s followers saw him as a lion whose voice would thunder and crush the enemy. Jesus was that lion, but he was also the lamb because the enemy was not who we originally thought. The enemy was not just the men who misused their power to oppress the vulnerable – the enemy was us also. Jesus became the sacrificial lamb to save us from our own enmity with God. While we were still sinners, Jesus Christ died for us. While we were enemies of God and we mocked Him and we claimed to be wise, profaning the good things of God, God himself took our punishment out of His unfathomable love.
It’s a much more gracious thing, through sacrificial love, to deliver us from depravity and death to life than it is to whisk us into seats of pride and power where our own depravity may be perpetuated instead of confronted. Jesus is gracious to us. He is not a paradox – he is the excellent wholeness of God, image of the invisible.
Majesty and Meekness
Jesus, high King of Heaven, displayed majesty and meekness when he humbled himself as a servant, a man, being obedient even to death on a cross, making known to us the path to life through him. He is exalted in the highest place. [Philippians 2:5-11]
The Swordsman and the Victim
Jesus gave his life as a ransom for many. He did not run from the will of the Father, but instead he was obedient. He cared for his disciples and gave clear example of how to follow him and follow the Father, losing none of them. We crucified him but he took upon himself the ‘cup of judgment.’ [Isaiah 53, Mark 10:38, John 17:12, Mark 14:42]
The Lion and the Lamb
Jesus alone is able to deliver us into the Kingdom of Heaven. Jesus is the Word of God, our High Priest, the Lion of Judah, the Lamb of God – everything. I see a picture of heaven with God on a throne, Jesus at his side, and their Spirit ever present in and amongst us. Our attention is on them. [Revelation 5:5-7]
Tuesday, May 3, 2011
Labor in Prayer
Prayer, the noun, has been on my mind a lot lately. What does prayer mean? What does prayer look like?
Prayer, the action, has been on my heart a lot lately. I've been convicted to be in prayer more and more recently.
Maybe PRAYER (the noun) is more about placing the PRAYER (the person) in a place of humble submission before the God, yielding all of man's plans to the will of the Father. Maybe that's why the verse "Pray constantly" isn't just two words but an attitude towards life!
Maybe God pushes people to pray about doing His will before He ever shows them that will is because He wants to develop the PRAYER (the person) before He develops the PRAYER (the thing, His will).
Maybe that's part of laboring in prayer - starting before things become clear and not giving up when they become unclear again.
Lord, make us faithful PRAYERs who are humbled at your throne.
Check out this video.
Prayer, the action, has been on my heart a lot lately. I've been convicted to be in prayer more and more recently.
Maybe PRAYER (the noun) is more about placing the PRAYER (the person) in a place of humble submission before the God, yielding all of man's plans to the will of the Father. Maybe that's why the verse "Pray constantly" isn't just two words but an attitude towards life!
Maybe God pushes people to pray about doing His will before He ever shows them that will is because He wants to develop the PRAYER (the person) before He develops the PRAYER (the thing, His will).
Maybe that's part of laboring in prayer - starting before things become clear and not giving up when they become unclear again.
Lord, make us faithful PRAYERs who are humbled at your throne.
Check out this video.
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