The Trial 09

 

“He didn’t say a word.” His silence must have been deafening, screaming conviction of sin in those who knew what was happening. His silence was shocking because He was innocent. Once the events were set in motion, there was no time to ask questions or protest the injustice. But if there would have been time for personal reflection, what could have been said? The thief on the cross asked to be remembered in paradise while others shouted humiliation and ridicule. I wonder what my response would have been. What level of conviction would I have had?

1. Someone has said that the average person is crucifying himself between two thieves: the regrets of yesterday and the worries about tomorrow.” - Warren W. Wiersbe, Be Loyal (Matthew): Following the King of Kings

   
   

   “Why does God permit difficulties to come to our lives? Sometimes He has to break us before He can make us. Sometimes He has to reveal to us what we’re really like before He can make us into what He wants us to be.” - Warren W. Wiersbe, Prayer, Praise & Promises: A Daily Walk Through the Psalms

Garden of Gethsemane 08

 What would it have been like to be with Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane?  Would I have sensed the grief and trauma that Jesus experienced?  It is very comforting to know that Jesus felt traumatized by what was ahead, taking on the sin of every one of us, dying alone on the cross.  His love as the Creator must be and have been overwhelming.  Jesus prayed to the Father, which I need to do.  There are many issues in our lives that seem unfair, overwhelming, and beyond our control.  There is no emotion that you and I have that Jesus didn’t experience  

“You are able and I am not; You know what is best and I do not; you know the end from the beginning, I cannot; you should have your way in all this and I should not; you must be glorified and I must not; so praise God from whom all blessings flow. The sovereign Lord is my strength - Habakuk. 5:19 (Eugene Peterson - quote) I’m counting on God’s rule to prevail. You are my God. Burn thread words in my heart. Whatever we have to endure its all about you that we may live above it and through it. A belief in God is never passive. He does according to His will no one can stop Him. Daniel 4:35. I stop listen and pray.” - Chuck Swindoll, Lessons from Habakkuk

The Last Supper 07

 What would it have been like to be present with the disciples at the last supper?  I think I would have been confused to what was really going on.  I may have questioned myself that I missed some of the key points of Jesus’s teaching.  I don’t know that I would have been prepared for communion or Judas’s departure.  But I think the atmosphere must have been very somber with the expectation that life would never be the same again.  I wonder if I take following Christ as seriously as I should, as I think about how the last supper impacted the disciples.  Jesus’s words, attitude and actions would be taken very personal.

Good disciplemaking requires both intentionality and relationality. It means being strategic and being social. Most of us are bent one way or the other. We’re naturally relational, but lacking in intentionality. Or we find it easy to be intentional, but not relational. We typically tip (or sometimes lean) one way or the other as we begin the disciplemaking process. But tipping and leaning won’t cover the full picture of what life-on-life disciplemaking requires. It’s not just friend-to-friend, and it’s not just teacher-to-student. It’s both. There is the sharing of ordinary life (relationship) and seeking to initiate and make the most of teachable moments (intentionality). There are the long walks through Galilee and the sermons on the mount. Disciplemaking is both organic and engineered, relational and intentional, with shared context and shared content, quality and quantity time.

David Mathis, Habits of Grace: Enjoying Jesus through the Spiritual Disciplines

  “I fear many imagine God as far too small. Even if you say the right words and articulate good doctrine, if you are not somehow unsettled by God’s mystery, somehow overcome by his greatness, it’s probably because you have domesticated him. Accessibility to information about him has inoculated you to his grandeur.” - David Mathis, How to Stay Christian in Seminary

Loneliness Revealed 06

 The past two years have revealed a growing loneliness among many of us.  The mental health of people at every level in society seems to be deteriorating, even among close knit families, organizations and churches.  Todays reading advises to focus on the needs of others and to reach out. I’m finding that it is very difficult to develop the two way interaction with some folks that I had previously taken for granted.  Perhaps it’s because of the political division and vivid restrictions but there seems to be mistrust among many. I need to pray more as I try to plan what I want to say  

‭‭2 Timothy‬ ‭4:16-18‬ (‭MSG‬‬)

“At my preliminary hearing no one stood by me. They all ran like scared rabbits. But it doesn’t matter—the Master stood by me and helped me spread the Message loud and clear to those who had never heard it. I was snatched from the jaws of the lion! God’s looking after me, keeping me safe in the kingdom of heaven. All praise to him, praise forever! Oh, yes!”

“No man is greater than his / her prayer life. The leader who is not praying is playing; the people who are not praying are straying. We have many organizers, but few agonizers; many players and payers, few pray-ers; many singers, few clingers; lots of leaders, few wrestlers; many fears, few tears; much fashion, little passion; many interferers, few intercessors; many writers, but few fighters. Failing here, we fail everywhere.” - Leonard Ravenhill

When Angry - THINK 05

 The past few months have revealed so much division and anger throughout the globe.  It’s so tempting to react impulsively to divisive talk or to run and avoid all deep conversation. Rick Warren’s wisdom using the acronym THINK, has great insight. It takes much more than slowing down the reaction time to divisive talk  Developing the strategy and mission to be positive, loving, pointing others to the Savior, is a priority.   

‭‭James‬ ‭1:19-21‬ (‭The Message translation)

“Post this at all the intersections, dear friends: Lead with your ears, follow up with your tongue, and let anger straggle along in the rear. God’s righteousness doesn’t grow from human anger. So throw all spoiled virtue and cancerous evil in the garbage. In simple humility, let our gardener, God, landscape you with the Word, making a salvation-garden of your life.”

Everyday Opportunities 04

 How readily do I do what God prompts me to do? If I’m honest, I think I do more out of habit than being spontaneously ready. I’ve had experiences when the Spirit prompted me, and I did follow through resulting in great blessing, but how many times have I been indifferent or asleep! At the same time, I’m confident that God is using my consistent good habits but I want to be expectant and ready when God nudges me, shows me, and allows me to witness His work.

Today’s reference:  

Proverbs‬ ‭3:27-29‬ (‭MSG‬‬)

“Never walk away from someone who deserves help; your hand is God’s hand for that person. Don’t tell your neighbor “Maybe some other time” or “Try me tomorrow” when the money’s right there in your pocket. Don’t figure ways of taking advantage of your neighbor when he’s sitting there trusting and unsuspecting.”

“ God does not exist for my happiness, but I exist for his glory. And when I am glorifying God, I am also enjoying him. Worshiping God is the flourishing of ourselves and those around us. So it is only in communion with him that I find genuine satisfaction which can weather unhappy circumstances. I don’t naturally know this because I’m a sinner. Rather, I have to be confronted with God in his holiness and majesty, accept that I am the problem, and then flee to his mercy in his Son. And then he unites us also to each other as members of his body—gifts instead of threats. That is what Christians should be saying. Maybe I’m living on an island, but I just don’t hear enough of this” - Excerpt, Recovering Our Sanity by Michael Horton

Undistracted

 “In truth, we are all trying to build the airplane while flying it—figuring it out as we go. This means more off-ramps than on-ramps, more chances for confusion than certainty, and more ambiguity than clarity. In a word, much of life can leave us feeling completely, inextricably, absolutely, and totally distracted. When this happens, one of the first casualties is our joy.” Excerpt, Undistracted by Bob Goff

“We settle for the safe and distracted life we know rather than the one God has promised is available to us. Sure, we can agree that Jesus wants us to be new creations, but if we keep doing what we’ve always done, we’ve got to admit there’s nothing new about it. A total reset isn’t easy, and it involves risk. Maybe an enormous tragedy or loss causes us to reset. Or a reset might be the result of making time to clear our minds in the morning. ”

“ “Our hearts all beat a little differently, and I’m glad they do. Some thump fast, and others thump slow. Things that instantly blow your hair back might be a yawn for someone else. What totally bores you could totally light up someone else. What makes you weep may not cause someone else to notice. Something that is no big deal to you could fillet another to the bone. Be patient with each other when this happens. We all have a heart condition; it just shows itself in different ways. Someone who doesn’t know me might make assumptions about my heart without knowing what it’s actually doing. In the end, we’re all looking through a keyhole at eternity as we try to figure out our lives today. ”

“Jesus’ friends were distracted arguing about who got the big chairs next to Him in heaven. Jesus interrupted their silly argument by dropping some eternal clarity on them. He said that unless they changed and became like children, they would never enter the kingdom of God. I had been raised to think you just prayed a prayer and somehow the right combination of secret words opened up heaven’s gates, but evidently there’s more to it. It’s a childlike faith—not a childish one—Jesus said would do the trick.”

“There are twenty-five hundred creatures on earth known as “one-day insects.” By contrast, one of the longest-living animals on earth is a type of deep-sea sponge that could be more than eleven thousand years old. If we lived that long, we would probably look like a bunch of sponges too. Most people are living like one-day insects, but we need to be a little more spongy by doing things that will last. I will say, though, don’t throw shade at the one-day insects either. It’d be good to borrow some of their worldview because, like James said, we don’t know what tomorrow will bring.

“The people I enjoy the most aren’t looking to me for validation; they have already arrived there for themselves knowing they are not perfect but that God loves them anyway. They recognize that life is trying to put them in a prison cell of head fakes and faulty expectations. It’s refreshing to be around them, and if this is the kind of person you are becoming, lay out the red carpet and invite these people into your life.”

“This is a safe space we’re in together, so let me ask you a few questions. What are you doing with your life? Have you drifted from a place that feels like home? Have you demoted yourself from an optimist looking for virtue to a modern cynic? Are you quick to anger and dismay, or do you find silver linings and possibilities everywhere you look? What would it take to begin looking for the virtues in people and the circumstances you find yourself in?”

“Don’t wait until you are old to ask yourself: What have I done with all that time? Why not ask yourself right now? What am I going to do with all the time ahead of me? What do you want your answer to be? Once you decide what you want the future to look like, make a couple of moves like your life is actually yours to live—because it is. ”