The Great Trade Off

"Blessed is the man who fears the Lord, who delights in His commandments. He will not be afraid of evil tidings; his heart is steadfast, trusting in the Lord." Psalm 112:1,7

We live in an age of bad news. The media delights in it. Bad news sells better than good news. We can't seem to tear ourselves away from the latest 'crisis' updates. We watch all news channels, scour the paper, check the news online several times through out the day.

We're a worried people. There's plenty to worry about, isn't there? There's the economy, the housing market, jobs, or lack thereof, gang violence, drug cartels, terrorism, global warming, poverty, dictators, war, natural disasters, cancer causing food, salmonella outbreaks, swine flu. Everybody pick one and ready...set...PANIC because life as we know it is about to end!

I have to admit that my heart is not plagued by worry, though these things can and most certainly do affect me. I'm not immune to trouble; I've experienced pain and hardship along with the rest of the human race. At times my life has seemed like a nightmare that I couldn't wake up from, and yet, I'm not afraid of what a day my bring, even though I know they sometimes bring horrible things.

Jesus wasn't kidding when He said, "My peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, not let it be fearful." John 14:27

I have tested this out and I know it's true. I have peace, even in the darkest hour, and my darkest hours have been so dark I couldn't see my hand in front of my face. The Lord has never left me, and that same peace is available to all who know and fear the Lord. He'll take your worry and leave you with peace as you place your trust in Him. What a great trade off!

"Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus." Philippians 4:6-7

In My Garden

By the way, these photos are completely unedited. I'm figuring the new camera out!

Answers

I received an interesting comment on my post "Searching". This is it:

"The questions you typed are deep. I have a few of my own; Why am I here? What is in store for me? The list is endless. You must have a certain amount of courage and faith to want to obtain the answers."

Let me say here and now, courage and faith are not what has driven me to find answers, desperation has. If I didn't have answers to the questions I posted yesterday, and the ones posed above, I have no reason to live. Yet I do live, and live joyfully, because the Lord is my strength and salvation. I have the answers that give me reason to live, and they come from where else but the Book of Life, the Bible.

Who will I be in the next life? I will be myself, but like Christ. "Beloved, now we are children of God; and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we know that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is." 1 John 3:2

What is love? Jesus is God's love displayed to us. "In this the love of God was manifested toward us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him. In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins." 1 John 4:9-10

When will I die? God has already determined the length of your life, and there is nothing you can do to add to or take shorten that time. "Your eyes saw my substance, being yet unformed. And in Your book they all were written, the days fashioned for me, when as yet there were none of them." Psalm 139:16

But death is not the end of life. "For we will surely die and become like water spilled on the ground, which cannot be gathered up again. Yet God does not take away a life; but He devises means, so that His banished ones are not expelled from Him." 2 Samuel 14:14

"And as it is appointed for men to die once, but after this the judgment, so Christ was offered once to bear the sins of many." Hebrews 9:27-28

Through the sacrifice of Jesus, we can have eternal life. "For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God set forth as a propitiation by His blood, through faith, to demonstrate His righteousness, because in His forbearance God had passed over the sins that were previously committed, to demonstrate at the present time His righteousness, that He might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus." Romans 3:23-26

Where are they now? Those who have rejected Jesus Christ (a.k.a. the goats) will spend eternity in hell after death, away from God and all goodness of which He is the source. Those who have accepted Jesus as Savior, loved Him, and served Him (a.k.a. the sheep) will spend eternity in heaven with Him when they die. "All the nations will be gathered before Him, and He will separate them one from another, as a shepherd divides his sheep from the goats. And He will set the sheep on His right hand, but the goats on the left...And these will go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into eternal life." Matthew 25:32-33, 46

Why did this happen? God has a purpose for everything that happens. While we don't always know the intricate details, we know that His ultimate plan is to conform us into the image of Jesus through sanctification, which is brought about by testings and trials. "And we know that God causes all things to work together for good for those who love God and are called according to His purpose, for whom He foreknew He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son..." Romans 8:28-29

"For this is the will of God, your sanctification..." 1 Thessalonians 4:3

"My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience. But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing." James 1:2-4

Why am I here? Man was created to have fellowship with God."He has shown you, O man, what is good; And what does the LORD require of you but to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God?" Micah 6:8

That is accomplished through Jesus Christ. "But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ... and that He might reconcile them both to God in one body through the cross, thereby putting to death the enmity and He came and preached peace to you who were afar off and to those who were near." Ephesians 2:13, 16-17

How will the world end? The earth will burn up on the day that God judges those who rejected Him."But the heavens and the earth which are now preserved by the same word, are reserved for fire until the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men." 2 Peter 3:7

What is in store for me? Eternal life is in store for you, be it in heaven or hell. "And many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, some to shame and everlasting contempt." Daniel 12:2

You are the one who chooses your ultimate destiny. "...I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore choose life, that you...may live." Deuteronomy 30:19

Our sin creates a gap that keeps us from God and from fulfilling our purpose: to have fellowship with God. Life is empty and pointless without Him because we were created to be with Him. Jesus came to fill that gap. He did it through His death and resurrection. When we turn from sin and accept Jesus' sacrifice on our behalf, fellowship with God is restored. If we rejectJesus' sacrifice, we will ultimately end up in a place were He is not and where all goodness, and beauty and comfort are not--hell.

What we choose to do with this gospel message is what determines our destiny. We can reject it, or accept it with thanksgiving. I exhort you, if you haven't already, choose life, that you may live. I've chosen life, and without it, I couldn't live.

Searching

Everyone is searching for something. I went to Google a few minutes ago and for no particular reason, typed in the word 'when' and a list of popular searches beginning with that word popped up. One question that stood out was, "When will I die?" There were 953,000,000 results trying to help me find an answer to that question.

Intrigued, I typed in the words 'what is' and the questions "What is love?" came up in the list. There were 119,000,000 results for that one.

I continued entering question words into Google and was amazed at what came up. Here's the list:

Who will I be in the next life?
What is love?
When will I die?
Where are they now?
How will the world end?
Why did this happen?

These are the things people are trying to find the answers to, a surprising lot of people. As Christians, we have the ultimate answer to all of this searching: the good news of Jesus. Let's go out and share this news with the searching world!

Collaboration

Jen's chalk art + Matt's photo + Jen's editing =

Nobodies

"I am poor and needy, and my heart is wounded within me. Help me, O Lord my God! Oh, save me according to Your mercy, that they may know that this is Your hand-- that You, Lord, have done it!" Psalm 109:24, 26-27

Have you ever felt insignificant, like you don't have much to offer the Lord? I do. I feel broken and like I can never do things quite right. I have nothing to recommend myself to the Lord. My natural gifts, talents, and abilities are mediocre at best. This isn't false humility. There are thousands and thousands of people smarter, wiser, richer, and with more influence than me, yet the lack of qualifications is exactly what the Lord is looking for in a servant.

A person's obvious inability makes for a wonderful platform for the power of the Lord to be displayed. I was listening to one of my favorite radio Bible teachers yesterday, Bob Coy. (You can download his sermons here.) His church grew very large very quickly and he was interviewed by church growth analysts. They couldn't understand why that church grew as much as it did because he didn't use any of the "right" church growth strategies. In fact, the pastor really struggled with completing high school. He was told that statistically, his church shouldn't have grown. This pastor's answer was a little sarcastic and something to the effect of, "Well, isn't that amazing, it must have been God!"

"He said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness'... For when I am weak, then He is strong." 2 Corinthians 12:8,9

Nobodies become great in the Kingdom of God when we offer Him our weakness and let Him be strong in us. He doesn't 'need' us, but He wants to use us to accomplish His purposes. Then we get to share in His glory in the sense that we are identified as servants of the Most High God, and you see, no one is a nobody when they're serving Him!

Mary, Mary, quite contrary, how does your garden grow?

I was reading in Psalms today and it got me thinking about my garden. I've wanted an herb and tomato garden for several years now and this spring it has become a reality. We put one in a few weeks ago. I use the term 'we' loosely. Matt did most of the work, building the beds a la Pioneer Woman, and putting in sprinklers. My brother filled the beds with dirt and fertilizer. But I did plant, as evidenced in the picture.

Now besides the tomatoes, herbs, and strawberries that were already growing, we have teeny tiny lettuces and carrots popping up from the seeds we've planted. Soon I'll need to be on the lookout for weeds. The tomatoes will need some plant food soon too, and I've already sprayed the big plants with soap and water to ward off bugs.

This garden has been a fair bit of work thus far, and it's just begun. In the months ahead we'll continue to nurture it until harvest time. Assuming of course, that novice gardeners like us will be able to keep these plants alive! I admit, that I don't really know what I'm doing with this whole gardening thing. I'm learning as I go along.

Anyway, back to Psalms. This is what I read:

"As he loved cursing, so let it come to him; as he did not delight in blessing, so let it be far from him." Psalm 109:17

Alright, so how did that Psalm get me thinking about gardens? Because this verse illustrates the principle of reaping and sowing. If I plant carrots, I can't expect to grow watermelon. Garlic will not grow if I plant cucumbers. Plant cursing, and you will harvest curses. Fail to plant the seeds of blessings, and you won't harvest blessings.

This is principle is also found in Galatians 6:7,8:

"...What a person plants, he will harvest. The person who plants selfishness, ignoring the needs of others—ignoring God!—harvests a crop of weeds. All he'll have to show for his life is weeds! But the one who plants in response to God, letting God's Spirit do the growth work in him, harvests a crop of real life, eternal life." -MSG

After reading today I asked the Lord a few questions about my garden in my soul:

What kind of a crop am I harvesting now?
What am I planting?
What should I be planting?
Do I have any weeds that need to be pulled out?
What should I do to ensure that I have a good harvest?

You see, just like in my herb and vegetable garden, I don't really know what I'm doing in this soul garden either. But the Lord, the Master Gardener, has a plan for my garden, and if I follow it, I can't help but have a tremendous harvest.

Now, what about you? How does your garden grow?

Thank You Jesus

"Most assuredly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it produces much grain." John 12:24

Happy Easter!

Off and On, In and Out

"The help of man is useless. Through God we will do valiantly." Psalm 108:12b-13a

This is often just the opposite of what we do, isn't it? As Christians we 'trust' God, but we make our plans based on what seems most logical and prudent. We seek out advice and wisdom from lawyers, counselors, businessmen, financial advisers, and experts. We put forth our best ideas and solutions, ask God to bless them, and then we give it a go.

When it doesn't work out as we had hoped or fails completely, we wonder what happened. We thought we were trusting God, but really we were making plans on the assumption that we knew what was best, so God couldn't help but bless them.

We really like the "Through God we will do valiantly" part, but we trip up on the part about man's help being useless. We're not supposed to run our plans by God, He works His plans through us when we wait on Him. It's kind of like this:

The Christian life is like a train ride, you know your destination (heaven), but you don't know how many stops you'll have along the way, where you'll be stopping, or even how long your journey is going to be. That's why the help of man is useless. We don't know anything!

Let the Lord direct you on your trip. Ask, "Is this the train you want me to get on? Is this the stop I should get out at? Should I go in to that town? How much time do I spend there?" Wait for His answer. He always answers His children.

What He usually doesn't do is let you know what is too far along down the tracks. He'll let you know in time to get on or off. He'll tell you when to go in or go out. He shows us the next step or two to take and once we've done that, He'll show us the next.

This kind of waiting on the Lord leads to the most amazing life. You'll see and do things you never could have imagine possible. You'll end up where you least expect it, but you'll be content there, because the Lord will meet you in every place He leads you.

And that is a life lived valiantly through God.

Even though it was, like, two days ago...

Palm Sunday, I mean. If you're a church going person, you've probably heard the story annually, back as far as you can remember. I have probably heard it at least twenty-seven times, probably more because I listen to teaching on the radio and of course I've read the story myself many times.

However, I'm a firm believer that you can never hear the Word of God too many times. Old stories that I've heard too many times to count are still full of new lessons, or lessons that need to be re-learned.

The Lord spoke to me on Sunday, it wasn't during the sermon, though that was powerful (If you're interested in hearing that message, it's not up yet, but it should be here soon. Click the date of 4/6/09). It was before the sermon during worship. We were singing a song with the words "hosanna, hosanna!" No surprise, since it's Palm Sunday, after all.

My mind flashed to the scene over two-thousand years ago.

"Hosanna! Hosanna," the people shouted as Jesus rode into town on a donkey colt. They waved palm branches and laid out coats for Him to ride on.

Hosanna. It basically means "Save us now, God," and was used in worship.

My mind flashed to another scene.

"Crucify Him! Crucify Him," the people shouted as Pilate brought Jesus before them, the same people who were worshiping Him and crying out to Him less than a week before.

Now a new scene: I saw myself, hands raised in worship on a Sunday morning; and then I saw myself on a weekday afternoon defiantly sinning.

I am just like the crowd of worshippers turned mob of murderers. But the amazing thing is, He still answered my prayer: Save me!