January 15th, 2016, Isaiah 40:28-31

Isaiah 40:28-31

28 Have you not known? Have you not heard?

The Lord is the everlasting God,

the Creator of the ends of the earth.

He does not faint or grow weary;

his understanding is unsearchable.

29 He gives power to the faint,

and to him who has no might he increases strength.

30 Even youths shall faint and be weary,

and young men shall fall exhausted;

31 but they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength;

they shall mount up with wings like eagles;

they shall run and not be weary;

they shall walk and not faint.

God's word is amazing!

Today in the midst of a Master's program, feeling tired, even maybe a bit overwhelmed.

Getting ready to help lead a debate team, nervous, don't want to let anyone down on the team...

I sit an am reminded....

Can you not hear a bit of the scold in that parent's loving voice

"HAVE YOU NOT KNOWN? "

You've see His love before.

You've experienced His care and protection as well!

But you are tired and have forgotten.... AGAIN!

Notice where your strength lies... IN HIM!

Not in your own weak, feeble, frail, mortal being...

But in the Almighty's STRONG, SOLID, UNBREAKABLE, IMMORTAL SELF.

He will give you strength.

But will your life be effortless? Will it be so easy that you never learn like a spoiled child experiencing the real world for the first time?

Think about an eagle. What does the Mother Eagle do?

When the baby is ready to learn to fly what does the mother do?

From the HIGH nests on the tallest tree's the mother PUSHES the baby out.

The mother says it is TIME to learn...

But the entire time the mother is right there and if the baby is to able to fly she doesn't wait until the baby hits the ground but SOARS DOWN AND CATCHES THE BABY ON HER BACK!

WITH THE WINGS OF AN EAGLE HE LIFTS YOU UP!

He will not let you stumble and fall when you are dependent on HIM!

So walk, Run, this journey of Faith knowing that your HOPE and STRENGTH is in the LORD.

Praise God that it isn't in me.

God you are simply amazing!

We give you our lives.

Lord I pray that we will all see that YOU MUST COME FIRST!

Above all else.

Our Job, our family, our friends. YOU MUST COME FIRST.

These earthly things are temporal but your are eternal!

I am so in awe that by giving you my life, my family, and my all that you give it back to me renewed, restored, and thus I am able to enjoy them so much better than I could before!

God I praise you!

With all my breath may I praise you!

Mark 12:28-33 Jan. 10th, 2016

Day 10:

Mark 12:28-33

28 One of the teachers of religious law was standing there listening to the debate. He realized that Jesus had answered well, so he asked, “Of all the commandments, which is the most important?”

29 Jesus replied, “The most important commandment is this: ‘Listen, O Israel! The Lord our God is the one and only Lord. 30 And you must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, and all your strength.’[a] 31 The second is equally important: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’[b] No other commandment is greater than these.”

32 The teacher of religious law replied, “Well said, Teacher. You have spoken the truth by saying that there is only one God and no other. 33 And I know it is important to love him with all my heart and all my understanding and all my strength, and to love my neighbor as myself. This is more important than to offer all of the burnt offerings and sacrifices required in the law.”

Ever wonder who this "Teacher of Religious Law" was?

Did he want to trick Jesus or was he curious?

Vs. 32 and 33 could be read as COCKY such as "See I told you there is only ONE GOD and you aren't it!"

Or it could be read in awe "They say you are a heretic but you speak with truth and grace and wisdom! I'd follow you!"

The point I got out of this was WATCH HOW YOU READ THE WORD!!!

When we read the OT as nothing but this mean God, we see God has having a streak of evil which HE CAN NOT HAVE!

When we read the N.T. and Jesus being all about just love (And not in a good sense but in that of a pansy sense...) we get the wrong picture... the two don't seem to mesh...

Yet the word LOVE in the OT was a word that didn't have any emotional connection to it... it was all about basically commitment!

LOVE, commit, treat others better then yourself.

I know one of the issues I have is that I frequently will expect MORE grace to be given to ME then I am willing to give to others.

I expect them to have patience with me but I am unwilling to give it to them.

Value others more than you value yourself... See them with the broken heart and extreme PASSION that God does! It will CHANGE YOU!

Jan. 9th, 2016 1 Peter 1:3-9

1 Peter:1:3-9 (NLT)

3 All praise to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. It is by his great mercy that we have been born again, because God raised Jesus Christ from the dead. Now we live with great expectation, 4 and we have a priceless inheritance—an inheritance that is kept in heaven for you, pure and undefiled, beyond the reach of change and decay. 5 And through your faith, God is protecting you by his power until you receive this salvation, which is ready to be revealed on the last day for all to see.

6 So be truly glad.[a] There is wonderful joy ahead, even though you must endure many trials for a little while. 7 These trials will show that your faith is genuine. It is being tested as fire tests and purifies gold—though your faith is far more precious than mere gold. So when your faith remains strong through many trials, it will bring you much praise and glory and honor on the day when Jesus Christ is revealed to the whole world.

8 You love him even though you have never seen him. Though you do not see him now, you trust him; and you rejoice with a glorious, inexpressible joy. 9 The reward for trusting him will be the salvation of your souls.

I really enjoyed the message version this morning but didn't think it fully captured the GLORY of this verse...

It was so perfect today for me....

1) Because I can not begin to tell you the number of people I have spoke to this very week who are dealing with these 'trials'. Yet as I keep encouraging them, this verses proves that they have something to still rejoice for!

The Trial is now, but it isn't permanent. It may seem like it won't end, that the sorrow doesn't go away, but there is a SALVATION and a HOPE that we can focus on in Jesus' eternal home for us.

2) Because as I was reading it a song was playing on my Spotify list... "Bless the Lord" by Will Reagan. It just repeats on the chorus "Bless the Lord oh my soul and let all that is within me SHOUT OUT!!!"

What if? What if in your sorrow you choose to SHOUT OUT to God with PRAISE?

What if? What if you focused on HIS saving Grace and Hope of eternity and not on your present trail?

If your focus was not inward but OUTWARD would that change your position? Would that change your posture of praise?

There was a time that Mandy and I were experiencing a deep trial in our life. We knew we were on the journey God wanted us on... but it was not easy.

One day someone told us, in fact it might have even been in a sermon... I can't recall... but they challenged us to pray over our past and ask God to show us all the times he SHOWED UP for us!

As we did we began to step through our lives chronologically. We had things like our marriage, our first born etc... but along the way an amazing thing happened...

You see we remembered things that we had forgotten.

As a child I spent some time in the hospital. The doctors had come down to only one possible cause and that was the word "Lukemia". How scary for a young child. I can still see my mother standing next to the dr. crying.

But then I remembered that God healed me. It became something as simple as an allergy to Red Dye #40!

Then we walked down life further and God reminded us of Skylar.

You see our first ultrasound of Skylar we found that her heart was on the wrong side of her body. Now there is a anomaly where all organs etc are reversed but it was only her heart. Thus outside the womb her blood would flow in the wrong direction and she would not survive. It was like this for multiple ultrasounds... BUT GOD showed up and healed her!

HOW DO WE FORGET THESE TIMES WHEN GOD SHOWED UP?

It's like the Israelites who continually SAW GOD but then turned and forgot him or cursed Him.

We are so FICAL as humans...

We get so focused on our CURRENT issues the we MISS how much GOD LOVES US!

What do you need to do today to be reminded about WHO GOD IS and HOW HE HAS SHOWN UP IN YOUR LIVES?

Jan. 8th, 2016 2 Corinthians 5:17-21 (Message)

Jan. 8th, 2016
2 Corinthians 5:17-21
16-20 Because of this decision we don’t evaluate people by what they have or how they look. We looked at the Messiah that way once and got it all wrong, as you know. We certainly don’t look at him that way anymore. Now we look inside, and what we see is that anyone united with the Messiah gets a fresh start, is created new. The old life is gone; a new life burgeons! Look at it! All this comes from the God who settled the relationship between us and him, and then called us to settle our relationships with each other. God put the world square with himself through the Messiah, giving the world a fresh start by offering forgiveness of sins. God has given us the task of telling everyone what he is doing. We’re Christ’s representatives. God uses us to persuade men and women to drop their differences and enter into God’s work of making things right between them. We’re speaking for Christ himself now: Become friends with God; he’s already a friend with you.

21 How? you ask. In Christ. God put the wrong on him who never did anything wrong, so we could be put right with God.

This is a very familiar passage.  I have heard it, read it, quoted it... so I choose to write it out in the Message as that is so different from my almost stagnate memory of this verse.

In doing so it came alive again!  
I just finished a book on seeing ministry through the example of the Trinity.  In this book we see first that we had to understand each person of the trinity and how the three are one.  Then we begin to see the joy filled intimacy that they have.  We see how that Joyful intimacy creates glad surrender to each other because of the joy the experience in their relationship.

Does that joy filled intimacy in relationships describe us?  Do we enjoy being with other believers?  Or do we 'forsake the fellowship?'  Maybe we enjoy some of the people but not all... 

Do we see others as objects and if those objects do nothing for us we ignore them?  Or do we recognize each individual has unique gifts that will complement the whole? 

Yet the basic premise of it is this "Before you can have God’s heart for others, you must know His heart for you.”  If you are lacking in understanding the true intimacy of the Father to the Son to the Holy Spirit, then you can not begin to fathom the intimacy that He has for you.

Are you seeking God FIRST before all else?  Ministry flows OUT of worship and love for our savior.  Relationships flow out of a relationship with our father!

Jan. 4th, 2016 Psalm 98

Jan. 4, 2016 Psalm 98

1 Sing to God a brand-new song.
He’s made a world of wonders!
He rolled up his sleeves,
He set things right.
2 God made history with salvation,
He showed the world what he could do.
3 He remembered to love us, a bonus
To his dear family, Israel—indefatigable love.
The whole earth comes to attention.
Look—God’s work of salvation!
4 Shout your praises to God, everybody!
Let loose and sing! Strike up the band!
5 Round up an orchestra to play for God,
Add on a hundred-voice choir.
6 Feature trumpets and big trombones,
Fill the air with praises to King God.
7 Let the sea and its fish give a round of applause,
With everything living on earth joining in.
8 Let ocean breakers call out, “Encore!”
And mountains harmonize the finale—
9 A tribute to God when he comes,
When he comes to set the earth right.
He’ll straighten out the whole world,
He’ll put the world right, and everyone in it.

Sometimes I just love the way the Message breaks things down.
While it isn't an actual translation it is a tool to help explain things.

God's judgement, his love, his worthiness of our praise... it never ends.

This passage calls us and the earth to rejoice in our God through songs, words, talents, etc!  LET IT LOOSE!
But what are we celebrating?
That God will return!
And that God will be the judge....

WAIT A SECOND!!!
We hate to be judged.  We say "How dare you Judge me..."
We even miss use scriptures often to say that we shouldn't judge others...
(That would be a whole other post, but there are two key scriptures... one in context is talking about Christians to the world and not to judge those who are not saved... but then Christians to each other are called to hold each other to a higher standard out of LOVE! So we are to be accountable to each others as Christians...)

Yet we are to celebrate that GOD is coming again to Judge us.  To hold us accountable.  To reward and to punish.

That is a sobering thought for some but a freeing and joyful thought for others.
No matter what we have done God is righteous.  He is FAIR.  He is JUST. HE is love.  And for all of us who call him Lord, who seek to give him lordship over our lives, who live in such a way to bring him praise...  though we face trials and may give into sin we still have a God who listens to our call for forgiveness and FORGIVES!
This is a judge that I can freely lay my life at His MERCY and trust that He will be JUST.

Are you ready to rejoice in that God?

Jan. 3rd, 2016 Ecclesiastes 3:11-15

Ecclesiastes 3:11-15

11 Yet God has made everything beautiful for its own time. He has planted eternity in the human heart, but even so, people cannot see the whole scope of God’s work from beginning to end.

12 So I concluded there is nothing better than to be happy and enjoy ourselves as long as we can.

13 And people should eat and drink and enjoy the fruits of their labor, for these are gifts from God.

14 And I know that whatever God does is final. Nothing can be added to it or taken from it. God’s purpose is that people should fear him.

15 What is happening now has happened before, and what will happen in the future has happened before, because God makes the same things happen over and over again.

From the very first verse you'll find yourself stripped of your control today. If God makes things beautiful in its own time... well what things? Ecclesiastes has just told us what things in the prior verses... There is a time for sorrow, for pain, for laughter and joy... Each THING has been ordained by God for you to go through at that time.

Or put it this way: "For each of these God has appointed its time or season, and in its season each is good. But man does not recognise this; for God has put in his heart an expectation and longing for abiding continuance of the same, and so he fails to understand the work which God does in the world."

We find that all of human kind have 'eternity' in our hearts. What is the biggest argument of our day? Is there a God or not? Is there a creator or not? Ultimately it is an argument of eternity. If we see the world and all its sufferings only, and miss the beauty and the joy that comes as well into this world, then we miss the point. We focus on one to the detriment of the other. Suffering overwhelms our joy. Pain excludes us of our peace.

Yet we don't have a clue what God is doing. We can't see the puzzle. only the piece in our hands. It might be a jagged and rough piece and we are upset that God has us with it at this moment... so we give up... and miss the beautiful piece He had prepared for you next.

Notice then in vs. 14. Enjoy life. This doesn't mean we fall in love with our money, or fall in love with the happiness that we feel when we are extravagant. It means that if you are blessed with funds, or blessed with possessions, or blessed with something completely different... see them as GIFTS from God and they will NEVER control you. But even knowledge can corrupt if seen as of ourselves and our own hard work... Even insight can be prideful if seen as of our own devising and not given to us by God.

The Gift is not greater than the GIVER!

The last two verses can really be a struggle. We love our Dr. Who stories, or our Voyagers, or our Sliders (All Sci-Fi shows for those who don't know). In these we watch as time can be changed, history re-written, futures manipulated. Yet... they can't be. God has it written out.

OKAY WAIT.. does that mean no matter what I do I am stuck.... Predestined as you will... where is my Free Will?

Picture it this way: God is not controlled by Time. He invented time! So to Him our mortal timeline was ended when it was created.

He can see simultaneously the beginning and the end. This is how the prophecies of the Messiah of Jesus could be given thousands of years earlier with clarity and details. He KNOWS what choices we will make before we made them. He watches as we make the same mistakes over and over again, but rejoices when we come back to Him. He is a creator who wants relationships with his creations.

The promise, the joy, in this is that God has a plan! Nothing can shake His plan! AND YOU ARE APART OF THAT PLAN! In Holy Fear we worship our God. He is not our friend, but a parent who is friendly. He is not just love, but also loving justice.

HE has placed the longing for Him and for Eternity into the hearts of all men. Will you help to share your love of Him with others? Connect them to the only one who can fill the hole in their heart that they seek to fill will unhealthy relationships, drugs, alcohol, and many other imitations of God.

Jan 2nd, 2016 Lamentations 3:22-26

Lamentations 3:22-26

22 The faithful love of the LORD never ends!

His mercies never cease.

23 Great is his faithfulness;

his mercies begin afresh each morning.

24 I say to myself, “The LORD is my inheritance;

therefore, I will hope in him!”

25 The LORD is good to those who depend on him,

to those who search for him.

26 So it is good to wait quietly

for salvation from the LORD.

I don't post my handwritten one because, well I have horrible handwriting.

This verse reminded me of a Lectio Divina. "Divine Reading". This was a practice of monks but can be a great exercise of reading a passage of scripture. But it fit this verse especially because of the theme of waiting.

As I was reading there were a couple words that stuck out so I did some study of them....

Faithful Love (or Steadfast love) actually means COVENANT LOYALTY. This verse again reminds us of the Covenant that God made with Abraham, with Israel, with you and me. It is a faithful love. It won't end! AMEN to that! God's love will never end. As we heard on Christmas eve, all other things will end, Faith will end in Heaven, Hope will be fulfilled in Heaven, but LOVE will continue for all ETERNITY!

Next v 25 and 26 both use the word WAIT... but they are actually different words in Hebrew.

Vs 25 wait is a word that has the idea of 'TENSION of enduring'. Waiting in tension.

Vs. 26 wait means DUMB. SILENT. WAIT. Waiting in a way that you are unable to speak.

Vs. 25 the word Seek can also mean to READ REPEATEDLY

Think about these verses as a whole. When we are so overwhelmed with the realization of GOD'S GREAT MERCY, his COVENANT with us, His FAITHFUL love when we are unfaithful....

These feelings should bring us to a 'stillness' before our God.

We should be silent and wait for HIS direction!

This is a great exercise to remember as we start out this 31 days to READ REPEATEDLY the verses you are writing. Don't just gloss over them. Pray them. Say them over and over and put emphasis on different words....

"The STEADFAST love..." "The steadfast LOVE..."

'GREAT is your faithfulness" "Great is YOUR faithfulness" "Great is your FAITHFULNESS"....

What will God show you when you silently, without words, without seeking to direct God to what you want to hear today?

Will you WAIT silently for the 'salvation of the Lord?'

A Poem Woven of Ache and Beauty written by a foster care child

A Poem Woven of Ache and Beauty

November 8th, 2013 | by Jedd Medefind | Categories: Adoption, Foster Care | 1 Comment

The CAFO “Families for Children” Conference today in Orlando pulsed with energy, stories and rich instruction on how churches can effectively act for foster youth and families.  One thing I’ll long remember is a poem written by Juliette Lauk, a 17-year-old whose vibrant smile makes a shooting star look dull.  Juliette spent much of her childhood in foster care before being adopted as a teen by a young couple just 14 years her elder.

The Lauk family shared their unforgettable story via live interview on stage.  It’s a story with hurts no child should ever have known…struggles and dashed hopes…and ultimately the formation of an unlikely family.

We hope to ultimately make the video of the interview—or at least audio—available.  But for now, Juliette gave me permission to share a poem she’d shared with me when we were preparing for the interview.  Written while Juliette was in the 10^th and 11^th grades, it speaks transparently of both the deep ache of her early years…and hopes born through her parent’s love.
 
 

No longer will I bleed

So pitifully I stretch

out my hand.

I clench my fist till my

wrist bleeds.

my body bleeds dry as

I sit in a closet in order to contain these emotions

in hopes they would

not define me,

yet they consume me,

they torture me and I bleed.

Those emotions release suppressed memories.

Displaying all my insecurities

mocking my dignity,

stolen from me

They take all the mirrors and

surrounded me

and I see nothing!

Not even my reflection.

However, I’m not sure if

I want to see my reflection

standing in a puddle of pain

I stood as my mindset

Is unable to move.

Still I get ready to smile

the camera captures on two

Right after that yellow light flashes…

I turn back to black to blue

I need not to be

placed in pity

I am already there

as well as the voices in my head, and

the shadows that

I could not run from.

With every step I take they

follow me, they take from me

till I have nothing but my name,

And I shall hold on to it

For it is the only thing

that remains the same.

It is the only thing I am

sure of and

though people may change it,

it shall not change

So I shall carry it with all its

disgrace. With all its shame.

I shall embrace it

With all its beauty

that will never change.

My only trace of consistency, though I live in constant change, inevitably

running from the shadows, that haunt me.

I ran from state to state of mind.

I shall run no more!

I must face those

who defaced my mentality.

Causing me to

Confuse my worth

due to the work

of human hands.

Given over to the ideas of promiscuity

because someone decided to

erase barney and barbies from

the t.v.

Games lost their meaning

“let’s play hide and seek”

In Fright, I would hide, in hopes that he

Might not find me,

Just for one night,

everything would be alright.

In my innocent

mind I wondered why I

could not just turn over the sand. Rewind time.

I wished someone could see in my hazel eyes

that I cried as I tried to

verbalize all the words I could not find in my undeveloped mind

to let you know,

I was becoming

a tool that grown men

masturbate to.

I used to sit in closets to contain

my insecurities.

Closets helped me suppress

those imageries and memories

of people who touched me

while claiming they would

protect me.

They spoke of love

I believed it to be fickle

Still I got ready to smile

the camera captured on two

Right after that yellow light flashes…

I turned back to black to blue.

After all the flashes, my light burnt out.

I walked in darkness.

When the shadows caught up with me,

I had learned that most people

believe what they were told to believe.

Manipulation was key.

I told them to believe the smile

That I had been taught to believe from a lot

of good liars: mostly me

But I took an eraser

to that smile

and ripped the ban-aid

off my heart.

I am prepared for surgery.

Ready for God to repair me

and whisper softly

to that little girl inside of me

something comforting

so that she may sleep and

no longer worry about the

monsters on her bed

nor the shadows in her head

They who have died,

Shall remain dead.

But I can no longer play dead

in a world I was born to live in

no longer can I survive off the

emptiness that filled me.

So I will re-open all

those self-healed wounds and allow

for true healing

When I gain the strength

to get up and walk out of the

darkness

I will claim his light

No longer will I look at

the distorted shadows of lust

I shall see the beauty of trust,

the beauty of life that the light brings

Finally I will be called by name: Beloved.

I will stretch out my hands.

No longer will I bleed.

I will stretch out my hands

and He will grab hold of me.

The three letter swear word in Church "S3X"

As a guy, I fall into the stereotypical GUY column of "why on earth would I ever read a Marriage book"...

This book was written for me.  First off it catches the attention of the guys out there with the title! Like they say, sex sells... Then it is written primarily to the men by Ed Young, with sections to the women as well.

All through the first couple chapters you can catch yourself going 'oh that applies'  preach it!  And then it hits home.

Having been married for 11 years now and having 4 kids, so many of the 'sexcuses' that are mentioned in this book apply to our marriage.  I read this book thinking of so many things that I wanted to put into play that would bring our marriage better strength and intimacy that would last as we move forward with God's plan for our lives (Adopting 2 special needs children from China).

After reading this book I want to buy cases of them and give them away to all the married couples in our church.  No one tells you that your marriage may grow cold, or monotonous.  Could that be why so many people are getting divorces, especially in the church?  When a bump comes they question their entire marriage?

This book will bring you closer together (IF you follow through with what steps are mentioned); and it will bring you more intimacy as you learn to "become one flesh" or one person.  It is hard to love your spouse as you love your self when you think of them as a separate person and not an extension of yourself... yet this book teaches us to work towards being ONE...

This book will change your life.  And it's not just for married couple either.  It gives advise to those who are engaged or even unequally yoked.  (And rightfully so they set the guidelines that the intimacy part is designed by God ONLY for married couples!)

Here is what the publisher had to say about this book.
The predominant message in our culture is that it's okay to have sex whenever, wherever, and however we want. Sex has become just sex. But while society has taken sex too far, the church hasn't taken it far enough.
God wants couples to make love in marriage-with passion, with purpose, and with pleasure. Marriages aren't experiencing all the benefits that come from a healthy sex life. Couples are facing a barrage of influences that keep them from connecting with each other regularly-the kids, the career, the house, the errands, etc.
SEXPERIMENT shows people that sex in marriage is more than just sex, and it's more than a chore. The Youngs believe it's time to get back to understanding the context of sex in marriage and that it's time for couples to break the barriers keeping them from a healthy sexual relationship. Couples ought to experience the benefits of having sex regularly, intentionally, and creatively. SEXPERIMENT will allow couples to discover that the intersection of God and sex can lead to a life punctuated by exclamation marks! 

Pick up a COPY or 2.  You won't regret it!