1 Peter 1:3-5

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to His great mercy, He has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God’s power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. 

Wow. That’s a really long sentence and it’s sort of hard for me to wrap my mind around it. It starts off with His great mercy. Because of His mercy, His love, His desire for a right relationship with us, because of His great name/glory…  This is at the basis for everything that follows. This is the basis for our whole relationship with Him. God knew before He ever created us that we would sin, fall apart, take the wrong road, run away from Him, but He created us anyway. And He decided from the beginning that He would give us the Law which would not be quite right, but it would help us to see we could not do it alone, we needed Him, and it would get us yearning and ready for the coming of His Son. His Sacrifice. His Secret Rescue Plan (as the Jesus Storybook Bible puts it). This was Plan A. We did not somehow mess up His plan and He had to send Jesus, no, He knew it from the beginning and He chose to create us anyway. He chose love, mercy, and grace. He chose to see His glory fully revealed through it all.

So because of this, He has caused us to be born again to a living hope. I have a love/hate relationship with the term “born again”. It sounds so churchy. Plus giving birth to my own children was rather traumatic. But it still gives us this picture of being a new thing. Starting over. Putting all the other junk away. You aren’t that person anymore. And there is a level of trauma to it. When you decide to put that old self away, it’s a kind of death. And killing all the stuff you have put on a pedestal and allowed to control you is going to be hard. Satan doesn’t just say, “bummer” and let you kill off your previous self so easily. So while we are born again, new people in Christ, shedding that old self (thus the picture of Baptism as we die and rise again like Christ when we are immersed in the water), the other guy, that horrible Satan, he follows us around. He tries to shackle us back into the old things. That question he asked Eve, “Did God really say…” He’s using the same line with you. Interjecting the same doubt. “Can God really handle your dating life?” “Is God really listening to your prayers?” “Does God really want to teach you through this hardship?” He would love for you to try and step back into your old self.

But we are born again. And not just to a trying harder sort of life, but to a living hope. Through Jesus, you know you are currently born again, but you can also know that you will be resurrected to live with Him in eternity. Eternity. If that’s not a living, breathing hope, what is? But further, we see this idea of inheritance. I have a relative that loves to talk to me about inheritance and all I want to do is enjoy their presence. I don’t want to think about the inheritance part because it means their death. I’m sure the Disciples felt similarly about Christ. But His death had to come, and we now how this amazing inheritance! Not only do we get to have eternity with Him, our true Father, and be ultimately perfected when we are in His presence, we get something while we are here too. He didn’t leave us without anything on Earth. He gave us the Holy Spirit. Because Jesus died, we received the Holy Spirit. And He is doing Jesus’ work in everyone who will receive Him. You can have Him in your life, writing God’s desires for you on your heart, guiding you in the path He has set, loving others through you, giving you eyes for God’s people that match God’s heart, and so much more. We have this beautiful inheritance. And this inheritance helps us to communicate with God because He speaks on our behalf, He translates our groans when we can’t even form the words. He comforts, strengthens, gives courage, gives grace, and so much more. It’s beautiful.

imperishable, undefiled, and unfading,

Good news. No one is taking this inheritance away. Not anyone. You already have the inheritance of the Holy Spirit, but the other one, the one of eternity, the one of perfection, is being kept for you in Heaven. Oh, the Father eagerly awaits a day when all is made right and His children are once again made whole. It is imperishable. It’s not going anywhere. It doesn’t need refrigeration. It doesn’t salt to be preserved. God is keeping it safe for you. It’s undefiled. No matter what you do, it does not become tainted. You can’t mess this inheritance up. It is unfading. It can’t be bleached by the son, it has no expiration date. You cannot go too far, that you cannot come back to this beautiful thing.

Peace

This weekend I went on a retreat for high schoolers and go to lead a family group. It was in a beautiful place, and while I was somewhat sick for most of it, I still think it was exactly God’s plan that I was there.

Don’t you love how sometimes you go to serve someone, and God teaches you so much as well?

We worked our way through Colossians 3 during our sessions, and God really brought so many things to my attention.

“…and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator….Put on then as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly…And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him.” (Colossians 3:10-17, ESV)

There’s a list above this of all the “do nots”, but it’s not about these lists really. The legalist in me wants to write these on my door each day and check off my accomplishments so that I can end the day feeling holy. But that’s not it. It’s not a checklist. It’s about chasing after Christ, following Him with all of yourself. It’s about living sacrificially and allowing Him to make the choices. I want to be hidden in Him.

We need to be completely covered up in His Word, reading, meditating, memorizing, immersing ourselves in it all the time.

We need to let His peace rule. I’ll be honest that I struggle with what this really means. I am trying to connect to Him and let His peace and His joy run through me like an IV even when the circumstances around me do not speak to peace or joy.

We need to remember that our actions are a reflection of our relationship. We do not live in a vacuum. Our actions affect everyone around us, and even affect ourselves, if that makes sense. The way we act shows other people if Christ is real in us our not. Our actions show the world who Christ is – what are your actions saying about Him? But our actions also inform our future behavior and feelings. Our brain takes our feelings and reactions to a certain situation and stores them for future use. When we tap into Christ for our hope, healing, comfort, strength, joy, etc, our brain does not forget. Our brain remembers and helps us to do that each time we face a similar circumstance. But, if we respond the way the world responds in anger, in fear, in despair, etc, our brain remembers that too.

So go get into His Word and let it change you. Take time for Him all day so that you are reminded of His power, name, glory, and ability. (If your phone can’t do all the things each day without plugging in, you definitely cannot. You are more complex than a phone, but your energy source, Jesus, is also much more powerful. Plug in.) Draw on His peace. Go to Him with all things. Work and act as if you are a missionary, because you are!

And the best news of all, He will be with you.

Nearness

How do you connect with the Lord?

I feel like He has made us all so differently and the way that we find ourselves in awe of Him, connecting with Him, is different. I even feel like sometimes different seasons come with different points of contact. Different ways that we feel His nearness.

In college, I went through some deep struggles. I did not know I could feel so low at times nor that someone else could change my life so intensely with only their words. College was not lacking in joy, but also brought plenty of struggle. And I began to run. I originally got the motivation to run from greasy food, and too much pizza, but I think God just used that to draw me to Himself in an unexpected way. To help me deal with the pain of running, I began to pray.

These times of intimate, honest, raw, prayer to the Lord became my lifeline and my grounding point. I need Him and He was there for me. I felt Him near to me. I knew He was working.

After I got married, I began to expand things that I loved to do and I started to go camping. I had no idea that I would love camping so much. I knew I loved going to camp but that’s not the same. I had no idea that the thing I loved about my favorite experiences at camp were in fact the elements that were most like camping. Because you see when I am camping, when I am outside, when I am away from all the normal, all the media, all the world, I can see more clearly, I can think more clearly, I can hear more clearly. I connect with God’s creation and it, in turn, points me to the Creator Himself.

One constant that has really received lots of extra love from me recently is music. God is so good with music. Music has always been important to me, but recently it has been the way that I achieve calm in the midst of three kiddos. When they are at war, when my heart is angry, when we all struggle with kindness, patience, and love, we can turn on some music, we can take a breath, we can redirect our focus. We sing, we dance, we are quiet, and we reboot our attitudes.

Recently I have also been, writing. It feels so good to me to think through all that God is saying to me and write it down. I am a verbal processor, so when I cannot talk things out, it’s hard for me to organize my thoughts. Writing helps me to “talk it out” even if there’s no one speaking back.

How are you connecting with God best in this season? Go seek it out. Seek and you will find. Knock and the door will be open to you. (Luke 11:9)

Being Different

In today’s reading of Deuteronomy, I was just impressed upon that God expects us to be different. God expected His nation to be set apart and He asks the same thing of us today. He gives us Himself, He gives us His Word, all so we would look different from the world.

But then I got some news today. Something horrible has happened to a friend and I am shaken. I am heartbroken for them. But they are choosing hope and joy, they are choosing the Lord, they are seeing that He is real, they are knowing the Truth in this time. And it’s beautiful how they model joy in grief.

They look different from the world.

They are a lighthouse to others.

They are showing all of us that our grief does not have to defeat us and that the Lord is there to carry us.

This tragedy reminded me of a beautiful song by Dave and Jess Ray. I hope it gives you hope today and reminds you that He’s with you. I have no wiser words than this.

Open Wide

I have loved reading through Deuteronomy much more than I expected and definitely more than I have loved reading through it in the past. I have always dreaded the ending of Exodus and the progression of the next few books because, while they contained some narrative, always felt mostly like law that means nothing to me.

But it’s not.

God has really brought fresh and beautiful perspective to me as I have read through these books. He has shown me His design, His beauty, and His love in the Law.

In Deuteronomy 15, the whole purpose is to talk about the Sabbatical Year and the rules that entails, but there is a portion of it that really struck me. It’s so important for today. It goes like this:

“If among you, one of your bothers should become poor, in any of your towns within your land that the Lord your God is giving you, you shall not harden your heart or shut your hand against your poor brother, but you shall open your hand to him and lend him sufficient for his need, whatever it may be…You shall give to him freely, and your heart shall not be grudging…You shall open wide your hand to your brother, to the needy, and to the poor in your land.” (Dt. 15:7-11)

Yes. Over and over, yes.

How have so many of us lost sight of this in the present? In a time when many of us have more wealth than we can even see, we are closed handed and we are hoarding unto ourselves.

In a time when so many spend a quick $5 on a Starbucks while there are children who do not know if they will have dinner tonight. A time when we will spend $20 to take our kids to Chick-Fil-A, but cannot spare extra for someone who does not have a coat this winter.

Or maybe you really are paycheck to paycheck with your money, but how do you spend your time? How many hours a day are spent checking your phone or checking out Netflix?

There is need. There is real need. And God has commanded that we show up.

In Francis Chan’s Crazy Love, he points out that so few of us are truly obsessed with God. “People who are obsessed with Jesus give freely and openly, without censure. Obsessed people love those who hate them and who can never love them back.” Later he says, “People who are obsessed with Jesus live lives that connect them with the poor in some way or another. Obsessed people believe that Jesus talked about money and the poor so often because it was really important to him (1 John 2:4-6; Matt. 16:24-26).”

If we truly have the heart of God, if we have allowed Him control of who we are, if we have His Spirit dwelling inside of us, if His Law is written on our hearts, than we will care for the poor!

It’s written all over the Old and New Testament – God must mean what He said! He does not change His mind. He expects that we would have compassion like He has compassion. That we would see people, really see them, and meet their needs.

James 2:15-17 says, “If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, be warmed and filled,” without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that? So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.”

Don’t be dead! Don’t just say, “I’m praying for you.” Yes, pray. But also act!

“Obsessed people are more concerned with obeying God than doing what is expected or fulfilling the status quo.” -Francis Chan, Crazy Love

Who cares if you have the most popular shoes, the in car, the cool friends, the best shorts, the perfect hair, the right body/size, or whatever it is that drives you for acceptance. You are accepted by God and that’s enough. Forget about the status quo! God sent Christ and the Holy Spirit into our lives so that they might be abundant (John 10:10).

And you know what makes it more abundant? Complete, whole-hearted, loving, sacrificial generosity.

God takes care of His people and He is calling you to be a part.

Life Force

Today I was reading in Deuteronomy 12-14 and thinking about how God told the Israelites over and over not to eat the blood of the animal because it is the life force. I just wondered, though, if there was more to think about there, more to read about there. So, I went searching.

I found an interesting article and my little nerd heart exploded knowing this extra information about what was possibly going on there. (Now, let’s remember the Scripture interprets Scripture, so that should be our standard when reading outside information. If it contradicts Scripture, it cannot be correct.)

At first he talks about the lack of death in the Garden, and how when humans were permitted to eat meat, the pouring out of the blood was a reminder that we share a similar life force with animals (blood), humanizing them in a way. But he goes on to show that blood was use to “kofperesh”, wipe clean or ransom, the people of God. This was true in the Temple. The priest would use the blood of an unblemished animal, as outlined in the Bible, to atone for the sins of Israel. God required the sacrifice of “life”, He required death, to atone for to pay the ransom for sins. So blood takes on a new connotation. It’s purpose was to ransom. So, they did not eat the blood of the animals here because blood is from God and given back to God as a ransom for sin.

And while I found this information to be exciting and interesting, the animal’s blood was not ever enough was it? What God commanded was that sin should be atoned for by the sinner. Life for life. We deserved to die for our sin. “For the wages of sin is death…” (Romans 6:23a)

But God.

How many times will we say this? I hope it never gets old for us. But God gave us a way out. He did not need us to complete Himself, He knew we were messed up, but He chose us anyway. He does not need relationship, but He does want it. So He made a way.

The animals were never meant to be a lasting solution. They were an intentional bandaid on the problem, pointing the people to the need for a Savior. Foreshadowing how Christ would pay that ransom, the Lamb of God.

“He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world.” 1 John 2:2

“The next day he saw Jesus coming to him and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!” John 1:29

“These will wage war against the Lamb, and the Lamb will overcome them, because He is Lord of lords and King of kings, and those who are with Him are the called and chosen and faithful.” Revelation 17:14

(the article was found at https://www.haaretz.com/jewish/portion-of-the-week/1.787509)

Remember

“The Lord has done great things for us and we are filled with joy!” Psalm 126:3

As the people of Israel are learning how to follow God, He tells them (and their leaders tell them) to remember what He has done. These people are living with the memory of some incredible things!

As part of their remembering, they are to talk about Him with their children “when you are sitting in your house, and when you are walking by the way, and when you lie down” (Dt. 11:19), and write it on the doorpost, and wear it on your body – this is how they remember what the Lord requires, this is how they remind themselves of His great work.

Loving the Lord with all of your heart, soul, mind, and strength becomes easier when we remind ourselves of who He is and what He has done. When we consider the miracle of the Exodus, the provision for Isaac, the protection of Rahab, the appointing of David, the changing of Paul, the redemption of Peter, and most importantly the beauty of the cross and His resurrection, we begin to see that God is indeed capable of being with us through our problems. God understands us. God provides. God heals. God comforts. God equips. God strengthens. God guides. God stands with us. God carries us. He is able.

And when we realize how big He is and remind ourselves of all he has done, we cannot help but spread His name and making His glory renowned. We cannot help but desire to keep His commands and walk in His ways because we see that they are far superior to our own.

We reorient our entire lives around our obsession with Him, consuming His Word with voracity, telling others with urgency, and loving as He loved.

So here’s what I am asking of you today – tell me your big stories. Let’s remember together. How has God showed up in your life? How has He brought you through trial, how has He given you joy? How is He working in a way that cannot be explained? How is He speaking? Where do you see Him?

Lest you be ensnared by it

God has called us out as a people for His name, for His glory. He started this in Abraham and continued His work throughout the Bible. We, as Gentiles (I am assuming most of us would be considered Gentiles), have then been grafted into this family through Jesus Christ. But that does not change how we are to respond, we are to respond as God’s chosen people.

“For you are a people holy to the Lord your God. The Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for His treasured possession…be careful to do the commandment and the statutes and the rules that I command you today…the Lord your God will keep with you the covenant and the steadfast love that He swore to your fathers. He will love you, bless you, and multiply you” (Dt. 7:6-13).

The covenant is different than it was here, but God’s devotion to it does not change. God’s devotion and love for His people does not change. God’s requirement for obedience does not change.

But despite the warnings of the Bible, we forget. Over and over, we forget.

I love in verse 25 how it says for us not to take in piece of the world (in this case, the countries they were conquering) “lest you be ensnared by it”. 

And we are still struggling with this today. We are not taking spoils from wars against the Amorites or keeping their idols as our own, but we are still deeply guilty of putting things of the world in places where they have no business. We are making money of utmost importance, we crave acceptance, we delight in the passions the world offers, we work ourselves to death. We take what the world values and make it valuable in our lives, yet God has already told us that this very thing will ensnare us! It will pull us away from Him rather than toward Him.

The prince of this world and all that he values is not seeking to place you into God’s hands and on the path to abundant life. He seeks to destroy. He seeks to ensnare.

So, take care! Keep watch! Dare to live a life that shows up as different in a sea of the same.

Hear, O Israel

Is anyone else in love with the Shema like I am?

It feels like such a privilege to be reading this chapter of Deuteronomy today because the Shema means a lot to me. It is still so relevant and even includes parenting tips, ha.

Deuteronomy 6:4-9

“Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates. (ESV)

There is so much packed into these verses and there is no hope in me unpacking it all here and now. Not just because this is not meant to be a book, but because my littles will be up any moment!

The Lord your God is one. He’s the only one. There’s only one of Him. Not only does this definitively say that all the other things in the world proclaiming to be gods or all the other things we like to put up in our lives as gods are worthless, but this also points to the Trinity. 3 persons, 1 God. I won’t even try to give you one of the illustrations here because it is so true that they all fall short. The Trinity is a difficult concept for anyone. There’s only one God, and He is one.

You shall love the Lord our God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your might. Every single piece of you should be devoted to the Lord. Again, there’s not the space here to discuss the exact theological and historical significance of “the heart” and what that means, but you should study it. It’s beautiful! But the point is that God wants all of you, not just a part. God does not look at you and your life, saying, “if you just give me the dating part of you that’s enough”…no. He wants the whole thing. The Bible says over and over that God is a jealous god. Since He is perfect, the very best thing in the world, He knows that the best thing for you is to focus your whole life on Him and give Him control. He has a righteous jealousy. He wants you to give all your life to Him and let Him transform it because He wants to give you abundant life, for His glory and His name.

And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. First things first, we have the Holy Spirit! That should be a source of praise every day! We have the exciting benefit of living post-Jesus’ resurrection which means we get to have the Holy Spirit in our lives unlike the people of this time period. But it’s more than that. It’s a daily commitment. You have to decide each day to spend time with the Lord all day, to keep His Word near to you, to surrender all day, every day.

You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. Your life should be a testament to the Lord and what He has done. Teaching your children and living a life of evangelism should not be difficult for us if we have done all the things above. When we are full of Him, He is the natural out-pouring of our heart. We feel like it is a pleasure to tell others, it is our natural conversation. We prefer to talk about Him rather than the most recent episode of whatever or perhaps even the World Series. He is all encompassing. It feels like a privilege to tell our children and teach them about God. Hearing your children talk about the Lord from the heart is one of the greatest privileges of my entire life. Nothing tops it.

You shall bind them…you shall write them…
So maybe we do not keep up this practice in the same way as Old Testament followers did. We do not wear a phylactery or affix a mezuzah to our doors. This had many different purposes, but I do wonder what are we doing to remind us of this word?

So here’s me. I am so guilty of not keeping Him close to my heart always, keeping His Word before my eyes, speaking about Him as I go, letting “busyness” and the “to do list” be my god. I am committed to change though. I am getting up earlier than I have for a while to read His Word and write about it. I am writing down things I am thankful for daily to remind myself. And now, I am going to memorize the shema in Hebrew. I’m not saying this is for everyone, but I am saying that your faith needs to be active. Find what works for you and actively pursue His Word in that way!

“And the Lord commanded us to do all these statues to fear the Lord our God, for our good always, that He might preserve us alive, as we are this day. And it will be righteousness for us, if we are careful to do all this commandment before the Lord our God, as He has commanded us.” Deut. 6:24-25 (ESV)

The Path of Life

Some mornings, I need to change it up. I need to do something different to plug into the Lord. So today I listened to a sermon from The Village Church (Matt Chandler) called The Path of Life and it was exactly, I believe, what God had for me this morning. In fact, at this point in the church’s life (I am way behind on these sermons), they were going through Exodus and this one covered the Ten Commandments. While I am in Deuteronomy, I was just reading the review of the Ten Commandments. God is so good! I encourage you to give it a listen.

He talked about a lot of the things I talked about yesterday in my blog, but one thing that really struck me today was this. He asked, Are you stuck in a prison of sin or a prison of the Law? While the prison of sin is meant to speak to to those who do not already follow Christ, I have so felt this lately. I have felt like impatience, anger, frustration, and tension have taken over a large part of my life.

Many people have said “this is parenting”, but it does it have to be? Isn’t God bigger than that? Isn’t God capable of giving me those things in abundance? Isn’t He capable of using me as a vessel and doing His work through me? I do not have to be chained to these emotions! And in this there is hope. God sent the Law and fulfilled it in Christ to set us free! God wrote the Law on our hearts so that we would not be chained to sin, but free in Him.

And sometimes I feel imprisoned by The Law. Don’t you? I have this idea in my head of all the “do this” and “don’t do this” things. I have a mental list of laws that govern my life. While rules are good for sure, they are not to define our salvation. I end up thinking that if I do not perform a certain way that I have earned God’s rejection. If I raise my voice to my kids, it feels like more than sin or mistake, it feels like ultimate failure. If I let a day go by where I do not every chore done and end the day with a perfectly clean house – you guessed it, failure. I start to build a glass house of accomplishment that says to myself and the world “I am a good person. I am handling this. I am ‘godly’.” But it’s all built on this false idea of law and more law, but no grace. The glass house is easily shattered.

But The Law was never supposed to be singularly successful, it needed to point us to a Savior. It sends us to Christ. It begs for grace and mercy.

So if you need some permission to take a step back from this prison you have built yourself and believe that when the Bible offers grace that some of it is for you, you can have mine. You do not need it, but you have my permission. Because God is reaching out to you in grace, in love, in mercy, in truth, in forgiveness.

So Matt Chandler challenges us to go read John 15 to remind us the key to all of this and that is to abide. We need to remain in Christ, fully submersed in His will, His purpose, His love. He’s willing to do the heavy lifting! He’s willing to give you a new heart! He’s willing to give you patience. He’s willing to give you love. He’s willing to take away your anger. He will write His Words on your heart to give you a new heart. Abide in Him and He will abide in you.

So I give you the same challenge – go read it. Go remind yourself. Do not delay.