Lettuce for a disciple's spirit

I often have cravings for tossed salads, the mix of fresh in a bowl always jumps with flavour, each ingredient enhancing the taste of the others.
 
Sunday's message was the third in a series about:

#1 - Following
#2 - Jesus
#3 - Together

The big screen behind the pulpit displayed a head of green leaf lettuce, or perhaps it was buttercrunch, I couldn't be sure.  The reason became apparent as our pastor began to read from the Word of God in Hebrews 10:

let us draw near to God with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful. And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds. Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another —and all the more as you see the Day approaching. Hebrews 10-22-25 NIV

What an exceptional way to allow our brains and spirits to soak in these truths from the lettuce chapter, I mean the let us chapter.

After church we almost always gather with others for a meal at a local diner.  Most ordered breakfast, as usual.  I however ordered a garden salad!

Next time you see a bowl of mixed greens, I suspect you'll think of these words of encouragement too, words we need to feast on and live out daily.

Joining Michelle and others as we try to live out what we learn...

 

Without ceasing...

Yesterday was Sunday, yes.  And it was Pentecost Sunday, yes.  And it was the Global Day of Prayer, again.  For many years I have organized and led prayers gatherings for this day that the whole world prays, so I was not surprised to be asked to give leadership to yesterday morning's time of worship.  I was also asked to share a short message, a meditation of sorts.

Here then, is what I shared:

The grounding scripture for The Global Day of Prayer has always been:

if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land. 2 Chronicles 7:14

The Lord gave me words to a poem or maybe it is a song without melody:

What we sow in tears
we shall reap in joy
if we humble ourselves and pray.
Casting out our fears
we are in Your hands
when we humble ourselves and pray.
We are quickened by the rhythms of Your heart
and strengthened by the power of Your love.
We are welcome to come boldly to Your throne
to hear the words that only You could say.
Freedom waits for us
in Your presence Lord
when we worship You day by day.
You will hear our cries
and will heal our land
if we humble ourselves and pray

I’ve known a lot of people however, who are not sure if they really know how to pray. The whole thing seems somehow mysterious and complicated. Sure, it’s not too hard to recite a prayer that has already been prepared, like what we’ve been doing this morning, and indeed the words are powerful, especially when millions of people join in the same prayer.

In the New Living Translation, Ephesians 3:12 says:

Because of Christ and our faith in him, we can now come boldly and confidently into God’s presence

I really sense that our loving Lord wants us to know that praying is not so much about ritual and formula but all about relationship and time spent with Him. About boldly coming into His presence…

Brother Lawrence wrote the book called Practicing the Presence of God. He spoke about how he had chosen to spend every minute of every day aware of the Lord’s presence with him, whether he was worshipping, praying, or washing the dinner dishes. He said:

There is not in the world a kind of life more sweet and delightful than that of a continual conversation with God.

A continual conversation. I think that might be what Paul meant when he told us in 1 Thessalonians 5:17 to Pray without ceasing

While I was spending quiet time with the Lord, asking Him what He wanted me to share today, He led me back to something He had told me a couple of years ago about prayer time…

Listen - less talking - more listening - even as the quiet waiting may feel strange or uncomfortable.
I sometimes find it hard to be heard in all of your chattering.
If you come to Me filled with your own understanding, how can I teach you?
If you already know what you're looking for, how can I show you something new?
Listen. Wait. Let My Spirit move you. Laugh. Weep. Pace. Dance. Release the words The Holy Spirit gives you - even if only the Spirit can understand. For I tell you, the Holy Spirit will interpret the mysteries of your prayers.
The Spirit works to both explain Me to you - and explain you to Me - a conduit working in both directions - a highway you can choose to travel straight to My heart.
Are you willing to come?

 Henri Nouwen said:

Why is it so important that you are with God and God alone on the mountain top? It's important because it's the place in which you can listen to the voice of the One who calls you the beloved. To pray is to listen to the One who calls you "my beloved daughter," "my beloved son," "my beloved child." To pray is to let that voice speak to the center of your being, to your guts, and let that voice resound in your whole being

Let’s take a moment then, right now, to come before Him, not only as a group, but as individuals, to listen to what His heart wants to share.

Lord, we love you and are always filled with wonder at the thought that You would desire to talk with us. I know that You know the things that are concerning us this day, the people we know that are hurting, or lost or sick. For now, we leave that list of needs and requests in Your capable hands and simply come, as You requested, to allow You to speak into the centre of our beings. As we take this time in silence, speak Lord, for indeed Your servants are listening.

Even though it was my own voice doing the speaking, my spirit heard...
So I'm joining with Michelle today, praying that I use what He chose to share

 

Believe?

A few weeks ago I was asked to preach at our church yesterday.  We have been working our way through the Gospel of John the last littel while, and I was given the John 4:43-54 to focus upon.  Here I share a bit from my notes:

After the two days he left for Galilee. (Now Jesus himself had pointed out that a prophet has no honor in his own country.) When he arrived in Galilee, the Galileans welcomed him. They had seen all that he had done in Jerusalem at the Passover Festival, for they also had been there.

Once more he visited Cana in Galilee, where he had turned the water into wine. And there was a certain royal official whose son lay sick at Capernaum. When this man heard that Jesus had arrived in Galilee from Judea, he went to him and begged him to come and heal his son, who was close to death.

“Unless you people see signs and wonders,” Jesus told him, “you will never believe.”

The royal official said, “Sir, come down before my child dies.”

“Go,” Jesus replied, “your son will live.”

he man took Jesus at his word and departed. While he was still on the way, his servants met him with the news that his boy was living. When he inquired as to the time when his son got better, they said to him, “Yesterday, at one in the afternoon, the fever left him.”

Then the father realized that this was the exact time at which Jesus had said to him, “Your son will live.” So he and his whole household believed.

This was the second sign Jesus performed after coming from Judea to Galilee.
John 4:43-54 NIV

It was probably not easy for this man to leave Jesus and go back home with only Jesus word that his son would be healed. I’m sure he wished that Jesus would have come to his home and touched his dying child but he was forced to simply believe in Jesus and take him at his word without doubt or hesitation. He was ready to return home and face ridicule and laughter because he trusted in Jesus' word.

I can only imagine the worry that must have remained in his mind. Have you ever received a promise from God yet couldn’t quite reason how He was going to make it come true?

Most of us can quote the famous scripture defining faith from Hebrews 11:1. The NIV version reads:

Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.

I like the wording of the New Living Translation:

Faith is the confidence that what we hope for will actually happen; it gives us assurance about things we cannot see.

Even so, while you continued on in your journey where there times that doubt began to settle in?

We are told that this man’s measure of faith was rewarded during the trip back to Capernaum. While he was on his way, his slaves met him, telling him that his son was alive and well. In response to his inquiry about when his son’s health improved, the slaves said, “Yesterday, in the seventh hour [about 1:00 PM] the fever left him.” That was the very time that Jesus had said to him, “Your son lives.”

Can you imagine the wonder that must have struck his heart, to think that his son began to recover as soon as Jesus spoke health over him? We’re told that therefore, he “believed” and so did his household.

I want to share a story about struggling to believe a promise I felt God had given to Rick and I.

It was October or November 2006 when we first received an email from Watoto Childcare. We were expecting mail filled with news and prayer requests, but this was a letter asking us to consider joining a Global Team going to Kampala, Uganda to build houses in November 2007.

We prayed and talked and talked and prayed and asked people we trusted for advice and counsel, and then we prayed some more. We sensed that we were to send in an application and if God wanted us to participate, the applications would be accepted.

It was hard to keep our mind on other things while we waited. In only a matter of weeks we received another mail that began “Welcome Global Team Members” !!

God had given us our answer. We were going to Uganda. We began talking, and praying, and writing letters seeking support, and praying, and speaking in churches doing presentations about our mission. We knew that when God calls you to missions He makes sure the funding is secured, even if you have to wait until the last moments…

We investigated flight arrangements. The travel agents quoted a price and said no deposit needed to be made until a month before we were travelling. What a wonderful escape hatch. If funds didn’t come in, we didn’t have to worry about paying for flights.

Then oil prices rose. The travel agent sent notice that if we wanted to freeze the rate we would have to pay within the next month. I remember saying to Rick “This is where the rubber meets the road. This is when we prove whether or not we really believe God will send us.”

We paid for the plane tickets.

We began charting our donations and mailing funds in to the Watoto Canadian office. We booked appointments for our required yellow fever, typhoid and other vaccinations.

Were we really going? It seemed hard to believe, and harder still when we were receiving no news from Watoto. We carried on, in faith, much the same as the nobleman returned home with just a promise.

When we finally received our next email, it included a detailed itinerary and asked for our arrival times. We found out later that they considered us firmly part of the team from the moment they sent the welcome letter, the very same time we knew that God had said “Go”

God had been true to His Word, but as we looked for signs in the natural world around us, we began to doubt.

So this morning I ask myself and I ask you:

Do we really trust in Jesus' word. Do we need signs and wonders before we can trust and believe?

 
 
Sharing today with Michelle and others who listen and act on what they hear...



 

Which Jesus?

Image via Wikipedia

We continue to move slowly through the book of John.
This is not a complaint.  Slow is good.  Meat is meant to be chewed.
Last week Jesus turned water into wine astonishing those who witnessed this, His first miracle.
This was a Jesus we love, a friendly, party loving type of Jesus.  He enjoyed helping others have a good time.

This week, we meet a different side of Jesus:

When it was almost time for the Jewish Passover, Jesus went up to Jerusalem. In the temple courts he found people selling cattle, sheep and doves, and others sitting at tables exchanging money. So he made a whip out of cords, and drove all from the temple courts, both sheep and cattle; he scattered the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. To those who sold doves he said, “Get these out of here! Stop turning my Father’s house into a market!” His disciples remembered that it is written: “Zeal for your house will consume me.”  John 2:13-17 NIV

This is a stern, serious, angry Jesus.  This is perhaps not the Jesus we like to think of.
But it is Jesus indeed.  The Jesus Who cares.  The Jesus that will not tolerate injustice.
The Jesus Who shouted out:

My house will be called a house of prayer, but you are making it a den of robbers
Matthew 21:13b NIV

Yet this is still the same Jesus Who cares enough to assure that we all are treated fairly.
Jew or gentile;  man or woman;  adult or child.
Same Jesus. Same God. Still love made flesh.  He loves.
Can we love all aspects of Who He Is?

And the question we were left with was:
what might He need to clean in our own temples?

I am soiled, torn
cracked and dry
often no more than dust
yet He loves me enough
to come
pouring down on me
like good clean rain
leaving me moldable
again in His hands
He alone can shape me
into what I need to be.

Come visit Michelle's place to read what others are hearing and using today!

For this very moment

Image by Scott Schram via Flickr

Yeserday's message began with the reading of Colossians 1:15-20 -

The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy. For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.
Colossians 1:15-20 NIV

but there was one modification from the NIV text.  The pastor replaced pronouns to use the correct proper name - Jesus.

The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For in Jesus all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through Jesus and for Jesus. Jesus is before all things, and in Jesus all things hold together. And Jesus is the head of the body, the church; Jesus is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything Jesus might have the supremacy. For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in Jesus, and through Jesus to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through Jesus blood, shed on the cross.

The sound of Jesus name repeated over and over again dripped joy into my spirit.  Jesus is not just any other "he" or "him".  Jesus is the first, the One Who went before us, comes beside us, and calls us to abide.

In Jesus all things hold together and I recall how before I surrendered my heart, things in my life would regularly fly apart.  Jesus, His Father, His Holy Spirit, the blessed Triune God, knows all things, sees all things and uses all things to mold us, perfect us and continually transform us more into His own image.

There were words spoken about reconciliation and forgiveness, as it was a communion Sunday.  The pastor shared that every person that you have ever, or will ever need to forgive was placed in your life to teach you more about forgiveness. 

Whoooosh........ it was like a cleansing wind blew through the room.

I sat silent in His presence in the pew, allowing my mind and heart soak in the truth that my spirit was hearing from His Spirit:

Everything that has every happened in your life up until this very moment was to prepare you for this very moment.  The same is true for every moment that is to come.

With a grateful heart I shared in partaking of the body and blood of Jesus, knowing that I am safe and loved in His care.  His desire is for you to know that same peace.  Give Him a few minutes, even now, to speak life and truth into your life.

Stop by Melissa's to see what others have picked up on Sunday to use on Monday

Be still

The new pastor arrived last week and began work.
She spoke from the pulpit for the first time yesterday morning. 
The air was electric, breath was held.
"We have been waiting for this moment" spirits whispered.

She talked about the frantic pace of packing, and moving; the heart ripping pain of saying farewell to the people and lives they knew on the West Coast and the swamping sense of being overwhelmed.  Then she shared the brief precious words the Lord shared with her.

Be still.  Shhhh.  I've got this.

And the room exhaled.  Wheels stopped churning.  Peace descended.  A holy hush as the Spirit shifted, settled, calmed each heart.

Today the Lord continues to speak to me.

It has been a long road.  It's okay to rest now.

The LORD will fight for you; you need only to be still.  Exodus 14:14 NIV

Be still, and know that I am God Psalm 46:10a NKJV

Be still and rest in the Lord; wait for Him and patiently lean yourself upon Him Psalm 37:7a Amplified

What joy comes from resting in His love, surrendering to His ways, opening our hands and releasing all that we have been clutching for so long.

Be still.  Shhhh.  I've got this.

Stop by Graceful to visit Michelle and others using it on Monday