Sunday, July 31, 2011

August 1

Sin is more than turning our backs on God, it is turning our backs on life! Immorality is much more than adultery and dishonesty, it is living drab, colorless, dreary, stale, unimaginative lives. The greatest enemy of Christianity may be people who say they believe in Jesus but who are no longer astonished or amazed.

Mike Yaconelli Dangerous Wonder 25

Thursday, July 28, 2011

July 29

When parents understand their role, they understand that they do not exist to answer every question their children have. Parents must help children discern the important questions, the life-giving questions. Christianity must do the same. Alan Jones says that priests "are not so much people with answers as ones who guard the important questions and keep them alive.:

Mike Yaconelli Dangerous Wonder 46,47

Wednesday, July 27, 2011

July 28

For many of us, the fear that protected us from dying when we were young prohibits us from living now. Fear keeps us from experimenting, from taking chances, from trying the new, from choosing the discomfort of exploring uncharted waters, from stepping out in the darkness, from going where no one else has gone.

Mike Yaconelli Dangerous Wonder 61,2


Tuesday, July 26, 2011

July 27

It is time for Christianity to become a place of terror again; a place where God continually has to tell us, "Fear not"; a place where our relationship with God is not a simple belief or theology, but the constant awareness of God's terrifying presence in our lives...Our God is perfectly capable of both calming the storm and putting us in the middle of one.

Mike Yaconelli 125, Dangerous Wonder


Monday, July 25, 2011

July 26

Just finished rereading Dangerous Wonder by Mike Yaconelli. I think it meant more to me now because I have kids. The next couple days, I'll leave you with some of my favorite quotes to ponder.

Reality is complicated, life is complicated, God is complicated. His footprints are not easy to see in the dust and dirt of the real world's trail. And when we are lost in the forest, we want to find God's tracks. When it's dark and we're stuck in a boat during a gale, we don't want dark, indistinguishable shapes roaming around on the water. We get frightened when we lose track of God. We get terrified when we are not sure what God is doing...One of the glorious complications of God is His ability to reveal Himself in the unrevealable. God is not lost when we are. God is waiting for us even in the darkness!

p132

Sunday, July 24, 2011

July 25

He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, so that we might die to sins, and live for righteousness; by his wounds we are healed.

1 Peter 2:24

Here in this verse, Peter is saying that Jesus died so that we could die to sin. I sense I do not fully appreciate the vulgarity of my sin, nor do I treasure the gift that it is to live for righteousness. There is a famous image of two lines moving away from each other at an angle. One is our understanding of our sin, the other is our understanding of God's righteousness. In between, is the cross. As we grow in these two understanding of these two things... sin and righteousness... the cross gets bigger.






Thursday, July 21, 2011

July 22

In all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future; nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Romans 8:37-39

If that don't help you, I don't know what will.



Wednesday, July 20, 2011

July 21

Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying, "This is the way, walk in it."

Isaiah 30:21

I wish I heard this voice. But you know, if I'm honest, how long have I actually tried to listen for it? I say I want to hear his voice, but I need to remember that listening is also required!





Tuesday, July 19, 2011

July 20

Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God.

John 1:12

A friend of mine told me about this home he visited last month in the Dominican Republic. It was a home for abandoned children with disabilities. It made me cry just to think about it. There are children who have biological parents that have been discarded, for whatever reason. It made me want to adopt each and every one.

Believe it or not, it is actually what God wants not only for them but for all of us.


Monday, July 18, 2011

July 19

I am the gate; whoever enters through me will be saved.

John 10:9

I am the kind of person who will do something different, just for difference sake. If the flavor of the week is cherry, I'm going peach. Why am I like this? What does this say about me?

If there is a gate, why I am tempted to entertain the possibility that there might be an alternative entrance? Since there is a gate, why enter any other way?


Sunday, July 17, 2011

July 18

Here is a great prayer my friend Fil prays every day:

Lord, I am willing to receive what you give
release what you take
lack what you withhold
do what you require
and be who you desire.
Amen.


Thursday, July 14, 2011

July 15

This is the quote I'm using for the bulletin on Sunday.

"According to Jesus, by far the most important thing about praying is keeping at it...keep on beating the path to God's door, because the one thing you can be sure of is that down the path you beat with even your most half-cocked and halting prayer the God you call upon will finally come, and even if he does not bring you the answer you want, he will bring you himself. And maybe at the secret heart of all our prayers that is what we are really praying for." Frederick Buechner Wishful Thinking pp 86-7


Wednesday, July 13, 2011

July 14

Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus...let us draw near to God with a sincere heart in the full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water.

Hebrews 10:19,22

The High Priest used to tie a rope around his waist for the simple reason that he might die once he stood before God in the Most Holy Place. Is there anything more radical than the idea that we can now approach the most Holy of Holies without fear? When Jesus poured out his blood the inaccessible became the all accessible. Go therefore, enter without fear and draw close to the one who loves you. Amen.



Tuesday, July 12, 2011

July 13

My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you.

John 15:12

Are you kidding? Jesus, how could I possibly love anybody the way you have loved me. How could you possibly command this. All this to say, you must see more in me than I see in myself. Either that or you are crazy. Maybe both.

Jesus must have really, truly believed in the power of the Holy Spirit that was to come and take up residency in our hearts. That is the only way I can see him commanding such a thing as this. Jesus really believed. He wouldn't have commanded it otherwise.


Monday, July 11, 2011

July 12

Therefore, there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death.

Romans 8:1-2

There are ways that you can be freed from facing the penalty of a law. You can abolish the law. You can escape the law. You can follow the law. But all these are partial. Because say the law is a good law - how can you abolish it without making things worse? Or say you escape the law - you will be a fugitive and the law might someday catch you. Or say you follow the law - what happens then when you break it?

No the best way to be freed from facing the penalty of a law is for someone to fulfill it. That is what Jesus Christ has done for us. His work is not partial but permanent.


Sunday, July 10, 2011

July 11

This inspired me, to what I do not know, though I know it's not to this!

http://hereandnow.wbur.org/2011/07/08/diana-nyad-swim


Thursday, July 7, 2011

July 8

Check out these three verses...

John 14:6 I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

I John 5:12 He who has the Son has life. He who does not have the Son of God does not have life.

John 11:25-26 I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?

Do you see it? Life hinges on Jesus. Your life hinges on what you believe about him. Nothing, at least as it pertains to life, matters.


Wednesday, July 6, 2011

July 7

God tells us to love two things:

God and Others.

He never, not once says to love yourself. The closest he gets is to tell us to love our neighbors AS we love ourselves.

Does this mean that God does not need to tell us to love ourselves because we do it automatically without being told?

Or does this mean that there is something about love, something in its nature that necessitates that it must be given? In other words, love by nature cannot be hoarded. It happens when and only when it is given.

Need to chew on this one.


Tuesday, July 5, 2011

July 6

Tonight at a meeting, my friend and pastor Clyde, gave us a synopsis of a poem he was given years ago about Revelation 3:20 "I stand at the door and knock." In the poem the person is barricading the front door only to discover that Jesus is at the back door. It kind of freaked me out to be honest.

But it did get me thinking. What door is Jesus knocking on in your life?

Monday, July 4, 2011

July 5

Surely your goodness and unfailing love will pursue me all the days of my life.

Psalm 23:6

All the days of my life...

When reading Scripture, I am often startled at the seemingly overusage of the word "all." Certainly, God does not pursue me like this every day. Does he?

Or like Psalm 103.

He forgives ALL my sins
Heals ALL my diseases.

All of them? Is David serious?

What if he is?


Sunday, July 3, 2011

July 4

Surely your goodness and unfailing love will pursue me all the days of my life.

Psalm 23:6

Notice the word pursue. So much of my life feels like I am pursuing, chasing after the good, searching for love...what could it mean for me that these things I so long for are actually chasing me?