Source of Hope

 

 Source of Hope

Do you know that the Lord wants to bless us?

I have been reading the Bible in a yearly plan. I have never been a fan of reading the Bible through a year and always stop when they get to the parts I don’t really care for but learning that the Bible is one continuous story from beginning to end of His love for all of us I decided to join. Not just for me but for others that have been intrigued to what it is all about. It has caused something that has made me more aware of how God has always desired to bless us. God’s Word in itself has been a big blessing in my life. Learning that word “blessing” was used from the beginning in Genesis God’s covenant promise to Abraham, “I will make you into a great nation, I will bless you, I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, I will curse anyone who treats you with contempt, and all the peoples on earth will be blessed through you.” Genesis 12:2 Those words were spoken from the beginning over all of our lives.

I heard a bible teacher the other day and I had lost track of her over the years. She was a teacher that started something inside of me that helped me understand the Bible in a way that would result in how I write today. At the time I would do her studies and it would completely go over my head. But even as I couldn’t fully grasp it in a way, I began to understand that the Bible which I thought was a big scary book was actually the wisdom that would carry me through all my years. I remember as a young mom and how she talked about putting Scripture down on cards and keeping them everywhere. And when those lies came I could speak God’s truth over them. And boy did they come from how I was parenting my young children, to attacks on my marriage, to how I saw myself. But I did it and I remember the lies one day. The girls were young girls and being at home all day with them was taking its toll on me. I can’t remember the lie but I could feel it. I started to allow it to take part and then I remembered the Scripture card in my back pocket. I took it out and started speaking outloud it over and over. Anytime we take God’s Word and speak it over lies the enemy loses power. Many years later the lies are still attempting to come. They just come differently. Of course they do because the enemy knows anytime we are growing closer to the Lord he moves in to try and distant that. But the blessing of God’s Word was meant to renew, restore, and transform my mind to what He says. Even typing that settles something deep within my heart and mind that begins to remember His promise to me. We are loved, cherished, forgiven, known, and we are His Beloved ones. 

“Live No Lies” is a bible study I have been doing with the Lord. The ability to recognize and resist the enemy and how he tries to steal our peace. “I will bless you” has always been the desire of our Father but it is my choice to walk with Him. God took an oath to bless us and to take care of us when we feel the lies of the enemy. That verse says, “I will curse those who treat you with contempt.” God’s special protection over us. I don’t have to live those lies. That teacher that taught me in a way that changed my life went through so many things. And as I listened to her yesterday I could hear the joy in what she had suffered. Those Scripture verses she encouraged us to tuck away became deep roots of acknowledgement within my heart and mind that continues to remind me today. And will tomorrow. That is what God’s Word does. 

So what if a couple of verses began to take root in our hearts and minds?

“Make your ways known to me, LORD; teach me your paths. Guide me in your truth and teach me, for you are the God of my salvation; I wait for you all day long.” Psalm 24: 4-5

Soak in this verse. Let it wash over your mind. Ask the Holy Spirit to guide you. He is listening.

Then God Said

 Then God Said        

I have been studying the Old Testament and how God spoke from the beginning of time. Seeing how many times you see, “God said to them”reminding them of who they were. The recipients of this book were the Israelites before they entered the promised land and after the years of their captivity. All they knew was what they had been told but that wasn’t their story. God was rewriting their story.  

How has He rewrote yours? He is always in the process of making us become more like Jesus. If we allow that.

I think one of the most powerful things God gives us is our testimony. How we can explain what Jesus has done is a story that can only be done through our life. I love hearing when other people are vulnerable to share their darkness to light and yesterday I had that opportunity when I heard a story about Tyler. 

Tyler used to live a life in a gang.  He shared how he was led to that life. Growing up with a father who misused the word of God in a way that He wanted nothing to do with God led to a life held in captivity. Until that one day when God finally got a hold of him and transformed his understanding about who He was. He was going to end his life and asked God, “God if you are real am I supposed to do this?” God kept putting a name into his mind. It was that guy that would guide him to surrender his life to Christ. That surrender led to his greatest discovery ever. A Father who was madly in love with him. But even more he shared that it was those people that continued to disciple him and still do today. I learned that Genesis was written to people that thought they had been forgotten. God never once takes His eyes off us. Just like the Israelites and Tyler we are always on His mind. God rewrote his story. That is what He does. 

 

“Then God said, “Let there be light,” and it was good, and God separated the light from the darkness.”Genesis 1:3-4

The Israelites were enslaved in darkness and captivity and God was telling them that wasn’t their identity. From the start God said the Light would never overcome the darkness. Chaos will occur but we are called to be the Light of Christ in the dark world.

“He made known to us the mystery of his will, according to the good pleasure that he proposed in Christ as a plan for the right time- to bring everything together in Christ, both things in heaven and things on earth in him. Ephesians 1:9

The promise God has for us has always been restoration. Since sin entered the world God has been in the business of redeeming and restoring lives that think they have to live in captivity of what is occurring within their lives. He desires to restore us but that is a choice. There is no place that you can’t go that is too far for Him to take you back. It is in the surrendering that He can begin to restore. 

Our circumstances don’t define our future. Even if what we have known in the ways we have lived our darkness and captivity of our minds and hearts that can’t stop the love God has for us. His Light can break though and restore anything. God has always been mindful of us. Jesus has always been the plan and still is!

Tyler gets it. Only three years into his journey and he knows he can’t take a step without God. He knows that if he is ever going to make it he has to keep God his number one priority. And he has men who continue to walk along with him helping him to remember and point him back to Jesus. But hearing him talk he was so far beyond so many people I know that have been Christians for many years. People can see Jesus working in him and are now drawn to know more about it. Not because he is flashy or has a big presence but because of the Presence of the Living God working in him to accomplish more than he could ever ask or imagine. Even hearing him speak I could hear the joy as he is continuing to work within him and the desert he says that God has him in as he is continuing to trust that God is with Him.  The Israelites wandered for many years never once were they off God’s radar. 

God is radically transforming Tyler. He is doing life together with people that are following after Jesus. His heart breaks because he desires to shift the atmosphere of discipleship. Helping others to know Jesus and what that means for their lives. 

Father,

Thank you for stories of your redemption. Thank you that our past doesn’t define our future. What you say is the final say. Thank you for those that walk alongside us and encourage us and remind us of our purpose in you Jesus Christ It is all for your glory so that others can know you.

Amen

 

Be Made Well

 Be Made Well

“Just then, a woman who had suffered from bleeding for twelve years approached from behind and touched the end of his robe, for she said to herself, “If I can touch his robe, I’ll be made well.” Jesus turned and saw her. “Have courage, daughter, he said. “Your faith has saved you.” And the woman was made well from that moment.” Matthew 9: 20-22

Studying the healings Jesus did shows me different ways that he healed. Some were healed by a touch but this one was done by her touch. The most remarkable part I found was that Jesus felt it as the crowd was pushing in. He knew her touch. And she knew one touch of his robe she could be made well. 

I heard the words that prayer is a matter of survival. Praying like we know that prayer is the only way we will make it. Like that desperation of that woman with unending bleeding that had been cast aside, her touching Jesus led to healing. Immediately it stopped. I can’t imagine what all the enemy would say to her before she made that bold move. The negative thoughts she must have heard in her mind before pressing in. But she knew Jesus was capable of healing her. She knew if she could just reach out and touch his robe, “ I’ll be made well.” 

She reached out for Jesus. I can almost picture Jesus looking at her as the crowd probably stood with mouths open wide in astonishment at what had just occurred. She was not only considered unclean but unworthy by all who witnessed that and then Jesus called her daughter and let her know she had been made well. She had extra ordinary faith. Her faith made her well.

We can too. I attended a teaching on healing and praying that has led me to learn more about how Jesus did this as he walked on earth. The teacher who taught us said, “Go back to the gospels to see where this occurred so I have been doing that lately. Even more than that it has had me taking a look at my prayers. Examining how I pray and approaching prayer more boldly. Not just for me but others around me, my community, my world. Healing can occur anywhere and with anyone. And as I sat in a packed auditorium with over 1,000 people this past Monday it was that reminder of how people do want more. Because sometimes I think I get caught up in the, “Can you really do that?” type of mindset when Jesus clearly tells me, “Let it be done according to your faith.” And that switches gears within my heart and mind to know that what He says He will do He will accomplish.

So what if I started approaching prayer more ferociously? What if I was more bold like that woman and went for it believing that Jesus will do what he says? 

Can you imagine her story after that? Not just hers but everyone around her. They saw the physical and spiritual transformation in one touch. 

I haven’t been healed physically yet. At least fully that is because I have received the touch of a prayer warrior during this journey that healed something occurring that was beyond the MS. Out of nowhere one morning I woke up with this unexplainable pain in my face. I went into work that morning and it would come in waves. I had people pray as I had for this weird symptom that wasn’t like all the others I have become accustomed to. I went to the dentist thinking it might have had something to do with something that was going on in my mouth to have them do an xray and find no answer to the pain. I hesitated to call the neurologist because I didn’t want to face what that meant. Any time you show new symptoms with MS that can mean more disease progression. I called and the nurse immediately called back and she wanted to see me the next day. But that day those prayer warriors just prayed as the pain continued. They were thinking it might be Trigeminal nerve and that meant a whole new regimen of medicine and lots of future pain. As I prayed I was very clear with the Lord that I did not want this but in the same prayer I knew that whatever it was He was with me. That I trusted Him. The pain kept occurring in waves and it was some of the worst pain I have ever felt. I went to bed that night and woke up the next day and there was no more pain. I could feel it in my face when I had been having it the day before but not the same stabbing and piercing pain.  The pain had left and I knew I had been healed. The MRI I had to have two weeks later showed no more disease progression and that meant no flare and no new medicine. God had healed me.

At the recent prayer service he was talking about his bold prayers as he studied how Jesus went about healing. For seven years he studied the gospels and kept praying not healing anyone. And then he felt the Lord prompt him once again and that led to his first healing.  Healing for a man with MS. As I sat in that crowd even before the word MS came out of his mouth it was like God was dropping it deep within my mind. All the healings Jesus had done through him and MS was his first. He argued with the Lord to let it be someone else but the Lord was clear that man was who God was leading him to pray for healing.  But even more than that it was how he prayed for that man. Just like my friend had prayed and touched me for the symptom I was having. Immediately could come but waiting on the full healing has grown my dependence upon the Lord. The full physical hasn’t come yet but I know the spiritual is so much better. My faith has made me well.

Father,

I don’t even know how to end this writing but there is no dismissing our ability to pray bold prayers. I know the practice of prayer builds our faith and connection with you Jesus. So what if we began to write down what is in our hearts and started praying with the Authority we have been given because of you Jesus? I have to believe that would change things around us and it would change us. Help us to pray in a way that would grow our faith. Praying that we know you changes things. You are the God who sees it all. We trust in you alone. We are made well because of you.

Amen

In the Unseen

        In the Unseen

God hears our every prayer.

“Do not lack diligence in zeal; be fervent in the Spirit, serve the Lord. Rejoice in hope; be patient in affliction; be persistent in prayer.” Romans 12:11

We have been recently doing a series about bold prayers. I am seeing this common denominator around all the churches. That prayer is what we do as a church. That prayer is how God moves within lives. Prayer is still one of those things that we can say to people that don’t have a relationship with Jesus yet that won’t cause them to shut us down. “Can I pray for you?” or “How can I pray for you?” I even asked a little one yesterday as he was having discomfort from a bandage all down his arm because he kept scratching. He came to me in tears and I knew it just wasn’t the bandage but the rough morning and asked him, “Can I pray for you?” To which he nodded yes so I did. 

All throughout the Bible we have examples of people praying. Some were examples of people that knew God but others were those mustard seed size prayers of faith. Those people that knew a little about God and prayer but were wanting more. Even those people that knew God had started out with those mustard seed sized prayers. Like my friend Kimmy. 

As a newly diagnosed person with MS I noticed something right away when it came to support. There wasn’t any. There was a little but the majority was fear based. Fear of the unknown. Fear of what the disease could do? So I would pray for other people that were newly diagnosed to come into my life because I knew if I was feeling the fear so many others would be. It was one of those simple prayers, “Lead me to others that have this disease” but it came in a way that would change my life as well as my friend's. 

It was on an app for MS that I met her. We lived in different states but shared the new diagnosis together.  I had a relationship with Jesus but she didn’t know much about him. Four years ago God was taking both of us on a completely different journey. After spending time on the phone with Kimmy I knew she needed a community. She was starting to seek God with all her heart. She had been to churches before but this was different. She was looking for somewhere different, not just the same as she had grown up with.  She didn’t know of any churches around her area that led me to do a google search. She had mentioned she was watching “Chosen” at the time and God was starting to show her things through the show that led her to reading her Bible. So as I searched I came across a church that was doing a sermon series on, “Chosen” and told her about it. She went. She is now doing a bible study in that same church. When I saw that last night on Facebook I almost started crying. How God could allow me to see Him work within Kimmy’s life would start something within me. Seeing how hungry Kimmy was to know the heart of God made me hungrier. Watching her faith grow still causes me to remember when I don’t see those results from prayers prayed. I have got to meet Kimmy face to face and spend time with her and still text her writings each time I share a new writing. We are connected in a way that is beyond our understanding. 

Sometimes God allows us to see how He works and sometimes He doesn’t. That is always going to be the fight within my heart and mind. It is a battle ground but God is the One who fights for me. Again, the choice is mine. And sometimes I remember this but a large amount of time I don’t. Then I see things like with my friend Kimmy that will cause me to tear up and remember. “Father forgive me when I forget and help me to remember.” 

We are free to pray. When we pray God moves. It isn’t just in us but in so many things unseen. God has been teaching me that lately. Keep praying. He is listening. Keep praying because things will move. 

Kimmy is just one example. Kimmy who works in a casino is being used in a way that only God could use her. We have all been placed in our unique situations as partners with Jesus to reveal the heart of God. In the little one with the bandaged elbow having a hard day, to the neighbor that has just shared some really bad news, to the person that has just been given a diagnosis, to the resident who sits in prison waiting to go home. 

So what if we prayed for opportunities for God to move? What would happen then? 

Rooted In God

 

 Rooted In God

Being around preschoolers is always an opportunity to see things through different eyes. Even as I will sit at circle time and watch them as something is being revealed the wonder in their eyes can’t be dismissed. The questions they have are why things are the way they are. The explanations that they come up with to why things happen. They display “wonder” everywhere they go. I love to learn from them. It causes me to get excited as I am learning alongside them.

“In him you also were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and when you believed. The Holy Spirit is the down payment of our inheritance, until the redemption of the possession, to the praise of his glory.” Ephesians 1:13-14

Preschoolers gather knowledge by gathering facts. It is only after something they have seen or heard that they can begin to make sense of why something occurs. But this works best when they experience something. The same is true with us. It is only after we experience the transformational work of Christ in us that things can make sense. Living our lives apart from Christ creates wonder in us when what we thought would fulfill us doesn’t. That was my experience. Telling me what I should be doing and living  within the boundaries He created to keep me safe was something I wanted nothing to do with. It was only after experiencing lesson after lesson apart from Christ that the restoration could begin to occur. I had to see the need and believe and receive His insight that would begin to change my understanding. Like those preschoolers as I attempted to gather knowledge and try to understand I had to establish a relationship with God before the understanding could occur. 

Only the work of the Holy Spirit. Allowing God to begin to plant something so deep would change everything.  Beginning to see things through His eyes would change my eyes to see things through a lens of discovery and wonder.

Father,

We are your perfect design. Your love for us can produce a harvest of righteousness. It can transform our wisdom and understanding of how we were meant to live. Your promise is our promise of a life that can be lived when we believe and receive the free gift of your Holy Spirit, a deposit that is fully paid because of Jesus. To Him be the glory that we are rooted in Christ. 

Rest For Our Souls

Note: This picture was sent to me a couple days ago. Pictured is me at 18 years old in a Senior memory book. To see those eyes I can see a girl who was wandering and searching when what she was looking for was there all along. It would be many years later and many consequences that I would recognize what I needed and who my identity is in. But if it wasn't for the story that He was rewriting I wonder if I would be writing and sharing today..

 Rest For Our Souls

“You are near, LORD, and all your commands are true. Long ago I learned from your degrees that you have established them forever.” Psalm 119: 151-152

Do you know the wonder of God’s Word?

It was only when I began to look up that I could see what I was missing. I had to hit my rock bottom before I saw the need for something to save myself. Knowing my desperation for something that made sense was only when I could recognize that what I needed was there all along. God has been planning redemption from the beginning. He is always in the process of redeeming and restoring lives. But if we don’t recognize that need to be saved from ourselves we will never recognize the wonder of a God who rewrites stories. He has been doing this since the beginning of time as He knew we would never make it on our own His plan for restoring us has been written into each of our lives. The choice is ours.

He established order. He sets things in motion and desires we would be His first love above all else. But knowing this and knowing Him are two completely different things. And no amount of knowledge of His Word can compare to knowing how near He wants to be to each of us. 

“God speaks both to determine our environment and to engage our minds and hearts.” J I Packer

I read today that God wants to set His Word upon our hearts. My change only started occurring once I determined to engage with Him. Realizing that God desired me to bring it all before Him and allow Him to work within my mess. Partnering with Him to allow that change to happen. 

It never once was about God trying to rule me. It was always about the relationship He wanted to have with me. Engaging in a relationship that has taught me about His heart and love for me.

Father,

Your Word reveals purpose, power and presence in our lives. When we wonder more we can know you more. Your faithfulness is for all generations; you established the earth, and it stands firm. Thank you Jesus that you provide saving grace for each day. In that we can have rest for our souls.

Amen

 

Come and See

  Come and See

   “God’s love was revealed among us in this way: God sent his one and only Son into the world so that we might live through him. Love consists in this: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, if God loved us in this way, we also must love one another.” 1 John 4:9-11

We are meant to live our lives with the aroma of Christ on us so that others will come and see. The love that we are meant to display is a Divine love made visible so others can experience that love of Jesus. 

“Divine love is characterized as an ongoing, other-regarded concern that is unmotivated by the object's worth and spontaneously extends to all, including the undeserving.” Donald Bloesch

Jesus was always displaying this kind of love. The kind that met people wherever they were. The woman at the well, Zacheus, Saul, and my life. Divine love met me when I was in a mess. My little understanding of what it meant to follow Jesus was completely revealed when I met a widow at twenty-two years old. A brochure on our apartment door in a new town and newly married couple led us to the greatest love I had ever experienced. A widow that dedicated herself to a church of young marrieds took me under her wing. I told her everything I had ever done. All the shame and guilt I had carried for so many years I revealed to an eighty-three year old stranger who became my mentor. She took me to my first bible study where I met another lady who lost her two sons and her husband in the last couple years to death. She too was a widow but at a much younger age. It was there that I saw in that young twenty something widow that I will never forget. Her faith and peace was unshakable. It even accompanied me many years down the road. Her faith resonated in a way that I could see that no matter what she had a peace that surpassed all her understanding. She had an unexplainable glow of peace even after all the loss. She knew Jesus was with her. 

Love was made visible through two women that met me at my worst. It was then and there that they told me that I didn’t have to clean myself up before coming to Jesus. He would take me as I was and do the cleaning himself. He desires to meet us in our messes. The enemy wants us to think that we need to not come until we have changed but the truth is Jesus is willing and ready to meet us wherever we are. So we should be able to meet others that way.

I heard someone recently say, “Today the church is not called merely to explain Jesus, but to embody this invitation. Our lives become the doorway. Our peace, humility, repentance, a love whisper to a watching world. Come and see.” Not a "I am right, you are wrong" kind of posture but a, “Come and see what Jesus has done for me” in our everyday lives. A readily available life ready to meet others wherever God has placed us. In our neighborhoods, schools, workplaces, and homes being that extension of His Divine love.

Father,

The world around us is looking for something to satisfy. We have seen the effects in this world when we continue to live for ourselves. You want us to understand your love, you don’t hide that from us. We are the ones that don’t receive all that is waiting for us. Jesus, help us to go out with the aroma of you everywhere we go. That is how others can come and see all that you have for them. We have seen and testify that the Father sent you as the world’s Savior so that others can know you Jesus.

Amen