Rejoice Always!

I want to share something I read this morning in a devotional by Ann Voskamp.  I have found this truth in my own experience, but she has given it words.  And reading them just really hit me.  I hope you get something from them too. :)

 

The following are excerpts from Ann Voskamp, On Thousand Gifts Devotional: Joyous Grace:

 

"Dear brothers and sisters, when trouble comes your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy." 

James 1:2 NLT

 

Can we really expect joy at all times?

 

"Rejoice in the Lord always.  I will say it again: Rejoice!"  Phil. 4:4

 

I may feel disappointment and the despair may flood high, but to give thanks is an action and rejoice is a verb and these are not mere pulsing emotions.  While I may not always feel joy, God asks me to give thanks in all things because He knows that the feeling of joy begins in the action of thanksgiving.

 

Joy doesn't negate all other emotions - joy transcends all other emotions. 

 

Only self can kill joy.

 

The demanding of my own will is the singular force that smothers out joy. 

 

Dare I ask what I think I deserve?  A life with no discomfort, no inconvenience?  What do I really deserve?  God does not give rights but He imparts responsibilities - inviting us to respond to His love-gifts.  Proudly refusing to accept this moment, dismissing it as no gift at all, I refuse God.

 

Joy - it's always obedience.

 

Thy will be done.  This is the way the self dies.

 

I humbly open my hand to release my will to receive His...I accept the gift of now as it is - accept God - for I can't be receptive to God unless I receive what He gives.

 

Today, Lord, open my hand to joy in surrendered obedience.

My thoughts:

 

As I read this, many thoughts came to mind, but the example I want to share is about marriage.  I often hear people say they married the wrong person.  I say, the right person is the one you are married to.  Maybe you did not choose as wisely as you could have, but God's will is not that we find the "right" person (put in any circumstance here, job, etc.).  God's will is that we be sanctified and live as Christ lives.  Jesus came not to be served, but to serve and give his life.  The answer isn't who our spouse is, but our surrender to who our God is.

 

I pray that the Holy Spirit will give us eyes to see His many gifts of grace and that in choosing to give thanks and obey, we will find the joy He promises.  Let us pray for our own marriages and those around us.

 

The Power of A Song

With the rise and fall of the notes, music has the power to lift or lower our emotions.  Song speaks to us and, at times, for us.  Behind every song there is a story.  The song writer shares his story in the writing, while we the listeners hear our own story in the telling.  And a connection is formed between the writer and the listener.  A bond that says we are not alone.  There is someone who knows, who understands.

We yearn for story and song and find beauty in them, because God has created us in his image and he is the author of the ultimate story.  Since the beginning of time God has been writing His story and inviting us to see our own story within His.  To find a connection with Him and know that we are not alone. 

If we will have ears to hear, we can hear Heavens melody and our joy is made full.  He will put a new song in our heart, a song to share with others.  I know he has done it for me.

I waited patiently for the Lord;
And He inclined to me and heard my cry.
² He brought me up out of the pit of destruction, out of the miry clay,
And He set my feet upon a rock making my footsteps firm.
³ He put a new song in my mouth, a song of praise to our God;
Many will see and fear
And will trust in the Lord.

Psalm 40:1-3

Holiness

I want to share a little personal experience with you.  After returning from our recent cruise and feeling a bit gluttonous, my husband and I embarked on several days of fruit and/or liquids only.  It became evident from our bodies reaction that the detox was needed.  Yikes!  I also realized the detox my soul needed. It was certainly a confirmation of why I have felt compelled to fast during Lent. 

After a couple days of nothing much to eat but fruit smoothies, my tastes and desires began to change.  Instead of my normal desire for junk, I was dreaming of simple healthy food.  As I discussed this with my husband, he agreed and we talked about how when you are hungry, you are satisfied with simple food, but when you are constantly full, it takes something more spectacular, more pleasurable, i.e. junk food laden with salt and sugar. 

 

Isn't this so in our spiritual life too?  When we are hungry and in need we find such satisfaction in God, but when we become constantly full of the world, we lose our appetite for Him and need to seek bigger and better pleasures.

 

And that is what this fast is to me...self-denial in order to be hungry for God.  To make sure he is my master rather than my flesh.  "Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, ² fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. ³ Consider him who endured such opposition from sinners, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart." Hebrews 12:1-3

 

Jesus said to the Father in John 17:17-19,  "Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world. For them I sanctify myself, that they too may be truly sanctified."  And the prophet Isaiah talked of a highway of holiness in chapter 35, verse 8.  "Therefore, since we have these promises, dear friends, let us purify ourselves from everything that contaminates body and spirit, perfecting holiness out of reverence for God." ( 2 Cor. 7:1)  God desires our holiness and has given us His Spirit to accomplish it.  So, this week let us pray for one another and for the Church at large, that His holiness be perfected in us through faith.  We can pray with confidence, knowing that our sanctification is the will of God and He will answer according to His promise and faithfulness.

 

"May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through. May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. " 1 Thess. 5:23

 

Reality Shows

I admit I am prejudice against reality shows.  They are a pet peeve of mine, because whose reality are they any way?  Not the majority of humanity for sure, if any at all.  Vacation isn't reality either.  I know, I just got back.  Reality was the next day...unpacking, loads of laundry, cleaning house, scrubbing the toilet.  There was no one to clean up after me, make my bed or scrub my toilet. 

The truth is, a good dose of reality is what most of us need.  I know it sure helped me.  I had just returned from part vacation and part meetings.  Both parts were excellent and could have been a bit heady.  Not to worry, for standing over the porcelain throne, I was reminded of my normalcy.  Who am I?  Just someone, like everyone else, an ordinary girl doing a dirty job.

Praise God for His lessons in humility.  If I am going to boast I will boast in Him alone!  ¹⁷ But, “Let the one who boasts boast in the Lord.” ¹⁸ For it is not the one who commends himself who is approved, but the one whom the Lord commends. 2 Corinthians 10:17-18.

²³ This is what the Lord says:

“Let not the wise boast of their wisdom
    or the strong boast of their strength
    or the rich boast of their riches,
²⁴ but let the one who boasts boast about this:
    that they have the understanding to know me,
that I am the Lord, who exercises kindness,
    justice and righteousness on earth,
    for in these I delight,”
declares the Lord.

Jeremiah 9:23-24

 

 

The Death of Self

Have you ever noticed how the worst thing possible always happens to you?  How the most tragic circumstance is always the one happening to you?  Why is that?  How is that possible? 

It is amazing how all my life I have been a mediator.  It is woven in my DNA to try and reconcile both sides, to find a solution, to achieve balance.  I can see and have compassion for each persons view point.  I can remain unbiased.  That is unless I am involved.  Then suddenly all objectivity goes right out the window!

Ahhh...self...our best friend and worst enemy!  We fight tooth and nail to hang on and keep it supreme when what we really need is to kill it.  Or better yet, let it die with Christ.

In Romans, Paul makes it clear that when we are baptized into Christ we are baptized into his death (Romans 6:3).  And this in order that we might have a new life.  Not our old life made better, but a new life!  His life!  Therefore, our attitude should be one of humility just as Jesus' was; an attitude that put others first.  We can not live this reality unless we give up seeking to control and make our own way.  The only way to new life is surrender to death.  "For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it."  Luke 9:24

This seems a backward idea to us.  But maybe it is we who are standing backward and God is simply turning us back to the proper view.  And when we finally turn and look, what a glorious view it will be!  "For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face." (1 Corinthians 13:12) 

"Since we have such a hope, we are very bold,

¹³ not like Moses, who would put a veil over his face

 so that the Israelites might not gaze at the outcome

of what was being brought to an end. ¹⁴ But their minds were hardened.

For to this day, when they read the old covenant, that same veil remains unlifted,

because only through Christ is it taken away.

¹⁵ Yes, to this day whenever Moses is read a veil lies over their hearts.

¹⁶ But when one turns to the Lord, the veil is removed.

¹⁷ Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.

 ¹⁸ And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord,

are being transformed into the same image

from one degree of glory to another.

For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.

2 Corinthians 3:12-18

 

And so I have hope, that as I reckon my self to dead in Christ, I will live to God.  I will continue to be transformed into His image and able to be humble and see the others side, even when I am involved.  Oh the hope of glory that Christ has bought with his death, burial and resurrection!  Hallelujah!  To God be the glory!

Is It A Weed Or A Flower?

I read a devotion today by Ann Voskamp where she described a walk through the woods with her children.  At one point her little girl asked if she could pick something.  Here is the story in Ann's own words:

 

"What do you want to pick, hon?"

"These."

I follow the direct line of her very certain index finger.

Those?

"Oh, but Shalom..." I chuckle. "Shalom, you sure you want to pick a bouquet of those?"

She's pointing to a clump of burdock.

Burrs.

The nasty hooked balls that snag you going by, Velcro to your sleeve, tangle to your hair,

knot to your pant legs, your backside, your dog.  Those.

"Shalom, that's a burdock, those prickly and stickly things that get stuck in your hair, remember?"

"But they're purple Mama." She says the word purple like it's jeweled, like it's royal and lush. 

She plucks a stem.

"I like these better than daisies, because - is white even a color, Mama?"

She yanks on another stalk.

"These are all purple." She says that word again and it's all sugar-rich on her tongue.

Shalom puts her burdock in a vase.

A plant isn't a flower but a weed only by function of its place.

Transplant the weed to the heart and it blooms into a flower.

Love is ridiculous and reconfigures everything.

All that I have deemed weeds in my life are only weeds

by function of whether I want them in this place or not.

Lord, cause me to transplant all my weeds into wild wonder simply by thanking you

 for the grace of them in this place.

 



"He called a little child to him, and placed the child among them.  And he said: “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven." (Matthew 18:2-3)  Could this be what Jesus was talking about?  The wonder of a child.  The humble faith to see.  That weeds can become flowers.  To be able to see past the harshness, to behold the beauty.  In order to believe that God does work all things for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.  And that purpose being to be conformed to the likeness of His Son, Jesus. (Romans 8:28-29)  The faith to see the weeds in our life as flowers because they are conforming us to be like Jesus.

 

When Jesus came to earth, he quoted Isaiah 61and told them that in him the scripture was fulfilled.  He came to proclaim good news to the poor, bind up the brokenhearted, proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners; to comfort all who mourn, to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of joy instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair.  He came to turn our weeds into flowers.  He came to give spiritual sight to the spiritually blind and to bring glory to His Father. 

 

"Time can only work age into the skin." - Ann Voskamp  In our hearts of faith we can forever be young.  Pray that we will have eyes to see His grace and mercy in all things, being thankful and beholding His beauty and glory.

Fasting: Is It For The Church Today?

Fasting…really?  Do people still fast?  Why?  I thought that ended with the Old Testament?  These are all questions posed by the church today and they are valid questions, especially in our culture where sacrifice is seen as weakness and success is measured on possessions rather than character.  Perhaps the question of fasting is even more critical today, as Satan progressively deceives us into ineffective living with materialism and busyness.

Though fasting is not an exclusively Christian activity, it can be traced throughout the Bible.  Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego are an Old Testament example of those who fasted to honor God (Daniel 1:8-16).  In the New Testament we see Jesus fasting (Matthew 4:2) and the early church (Acts 13:2-3, 14:23).  In the sermon on the mount, Jesus addresses the proper way to fast with the expectation of when they would fast, not if (Matthew 6:16-18).  So maybe the question is not if we should fast, but what is fasting, why and how should we do it.

The basic definition of fasting is to abstain from food.  It is a voluntary denial for a purpose.  For a Christian, it is a voluntary denial in order to seek God.  It is a humbling of ourselves and declaring our utter dependence on God.  “It is written: ‘Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.’” (Matthew 4:4)  We offer ourselves to God for His glory.  We hunger more for the fullness of God than worldly pleasures.

We fast to awaken our soul.  “ ’Everything is permissible for me’ – but not everything is beneficial.  ‘Everything is permissible for me’ – but I will not be mastered by anything.” (1 Corinthians 6:12)  Fasting reveals to us the things that control us, whether that is food, entertainment, or unhealthy emotions.   Richard Foster in his book, The Celebration of Discipline, says, “We cover up what is inside us with food and other things.  Anger, bitterness, jealousy, strife, fear – if they are within us, they will surface during fasting.”  Of course the reap and sow principal applies…what you put into will determine what you get out of it.  Don’t misunderstand, it is not declaring that these things are bad, neither is it a matter of self-mastery, which leads only to pride, but it is experientially knowing that we hunger for God above all else.  And though breakthroughs will undoubtedly come as a result, we must see the reward of fasting as God Himself.  We can neither earn favor nor manipulate God to answer prayer through fasting.

Fasting is foremost about the condition of the heart.  If we are unrepentant and unchanged afterwards, then it was simply a diet.  And so, it can take different forms as the Holy Spirit calls us individually.  The most common form is abstaining from food.  This can be one meal a day, one day a week or an extended period of time and can be either a partial or complete fast.  A partial fast is abstaining from only certain foods, such as Daniel did in the third year of Cyrus.  For three weeks, while he mourned, he ate no choice food, meat or wine and used no lotions. (Daniel 10:2-3)  A complete fast is eating no solid food and drinking only water or juice.  As we see in the above illustration of Daniel, fasting from food can be accompanied by abstaining from other things as well.  In modern society, even more important than food, might be fasting from TV, the internet, shopping, or a consuming hobby.  The essential thing is your motive and that you spend the extra time humbly seeking God.  God is looking for broken and contrite hearts, who seek Him and not just His gifts.  (Hebrews 58:2-4)

I have limited personal experience with fasting, but recently I did twenty days of a Daniel fast.  What I now know, is that it isn't about the deprivation, it is about the battle for my soul.  It is not giving up something...it is giving myself up to someone.  A giving up of the temporal for the eternal.  Humbling myself before one who is greater than I.  Yearning for what I cannot produce or control.  Surrendering myself to God.  This fast made me acutely aware of my choices.  I could no longer just "go with the flow", doing whatever comes naturally.  I had to measure each decision against what I had committed to and see if it measured up.  I discovered the importance of setting my mind.  Whichever direction we set our mind to that is what we will follow through with, no matter how much we argue with ourselves to the contrary.  (Romans 8:5-9, 12-13)

 Would you not be willing to give up something of far lesser value in order to gain a treasure that is beyond what you could ask or imagine? Since Adam and Eve, we have fought sin and its destructive consequences.  But no consequence has been greater than our broken relationship with God.  We lost not only the beauty of the garden, but everything He is.  Pride replaced trust; blame replaced love; sorrow replaced joy and worry replaced peace.  "What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul?" (Mark 8:36)  When we take this epic struggle to our solitude with God and deal with it there, we emerge with compassion, peace, joy, kindness, etc. (Galatians 5:22-25)  Only then can we meet the world’s needs, for the fruit of the Spirit is precisely what the world needs.  If we do not face it in our solitude and fasting, then we take our struggles with us to our encounters with others.  We have little if anything to offer and usually end up inflicting harm.  A monk from 1100 A.D. was reported to have said that as a young man he wanted to change the world, but found it difficult, so as he got older he decided instead to change his community, but as an old man he realized he should have started with himself.  Our transformed lives ought to be our compelling witness, so we need to draw near the glory of God and be set ablaze to burn with His light.

 I have been a believer for 30 years, but am confident that I have been missing out on much that is freely offered by God, because I have sought him on my terms...not his. Even in my fasting I must come to him rightly.  I do not fast in order to trade for what I want or persuade God to act on my behalf.  I fast in order to seek Him.  I come to be changed.  I am on a journey to the heart of God.  Will you join me?

Lent is March 5 - April 19

Lent means forty - 40 days of preparation for Easter.  It also comes from the Anglo-Saxon word meaning "to lengthen."  Just as the sun is lengthening the days of spring, so it is a time of spiritual lengthening, stretching and growing in Christ.  Keep in mind that it is the Son who does this lengthening in us.  Lent is not to be an added burden, but a time of reflection, repentance and seeking to return to our first love.  Lent prepares us so that upon Easter's arrival we can joyfully celebrate and give thanks for all it means to us in Christ.

A part of Lent is the practice of fasting - a giving up of something.  This fasting is a grace that helps us focus.  This is a great opportunity to exercise a spiritual discipline that will draw us closer to the One who is our salvation.