My neighbor, who I’ve been lightly acquainted with for a couple years, has been changing. As she’s walked past my house her gait has slowed. She’s lost weight. Her skin is different – less elastic, thicker, weathered looking. I’ve watched the change happen over the last couple of months and wondered what could be causing it. When she stopped to chat a few days ago the mystery was solved. My neighbor, not yet 40 years old, single mother of 6, has stage 4 lung cancer.
I love God. It’s all consuming.
The Holy Spirit is alive and at work. I have witnessed Him in the tears and words and hearts and minds and actions of the people of my community this week. I have been filled with a Love for those people (for all of you) that is beyond my words.
It is like the peaceful joy of a well tended garden (including birds and bees) plus the permeating warmth of the sun on a perfect Spring day times infinity. To watch God at work in and through, and the concurrent tumble of falling into deep and sublime Love with you people, you wonderful people, is an incredible gift.
God is growing a pastors heart within me. He has allowed me to see all of you with just the slightest hint of the way Jesus does and I am swooning. I didn’t know pursuing ministry would feel like this.
All I can say this week is that I love the Lord. I love Him. And I give Him my life. My all. My everything.
Revelation 4:8 New International Version (NIV)
8 Each of the four living creatures had six wings and was covered with eyes all around, even under its wings. Day and night they never stop saying:
I know how those winged creatures feel. Praise God.
This week, day and night, praise God.
Praise God.
Be blessed.
Matthew 27:54New International Version (NIV)
54 When the centurion and those with him who were guarding Jesus saw the earthquake and all that had happened, they were terrified, and exclaimed, “Surely he was the Son of God!”
What will it take for US to realize who He is?
For the Centurion, it took the skies blacked midday. It took the quaking of the Earth. It took the curtain torn. The rocks split. The tombs opened. And the rising of the sleeping Saints.
Do we also need such signs to fathom this truth?
If we saw the same awesome display would we finally be ready to hand our lives over to Him? To trust His Power, obey His Wisdom, and stop. being. so. afraid?
Would we finally trust His Love for us even as we begin to comprehend how vast, how mighty, how capable, how material and how prescient it actually is?
Would we finally understand that
EITHER GOD IS EVERYTHING OR HE IS NOTHING?
Would we finally choose?
Today I present this to you. No Earthquake. No darkness. And no half measures.
EITHER GOD IS EVERYTHING OR HE IS NOTHING.
Choose.
You know the feeling, right? The sense of dread as you ease your car to the end of the parking lot driveway and see a person standing there holding a sign. You know you have to stop right in front of them because you can’t just peel out into traffic. That feels really uncomfortable and so what do you do? Smile? Wave? Ignore and pretend you don’t see?
According to this weeks scripture, there’s a different approach to take. Continue reading
Here is the scripture for this week.
2 Corinthians 4:16 New International Version (NIV)
16 Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day.
I find myself, coming out the other side of this sickness, with a renewed ardor for God. In my feebleness, I had to accept that, no matter how much I desired things to be different, I was unable to be effective. I was in a position of total and complete powerlessness, unable to care for myself or for my children. I was helpless, and I was isolated. It was a reminder for me of how truly vulnerable I am. Continue reading
I am so sick. The skin on my lips is peeling off because I have to breathe through my mouth, my sinuses are blocked, my head feels like there is an axe in it, my throat hurts, and I have a deep, rattling, painful cough that hurts my throat more. My body is aching, my energy is completely gone.
For two days I could not speak, I could not care for my children, I could not bathe, I could do nothing but lay in bed with my eyes closed, drifting in and out of borderline hallucinogenic sleep and waiting until I could safely take the next round of fever reducer. I have been brought low. Continue reading
This week I’m drawing our attention to the last commandment of the 10 commandments that God gave to Moses. The very 10 commandments written on tablets of stone that Moses later busted up in a fit of anger after seeing that Israel was worshiping a Golden Calf in his absence. These commandments are God’s approach to ethics, great advice for happy living and they still apply to our lives today. Continue reading
Good Morning,
How long are we willing to suffer the same problem? Hoping for change? Hoping, perhaps, that God will magically change it for us at no significant effort on our part?
How many times are we going to say, ‘Yeah, I need to do that.’ or ‘Yeah, I should try that.’ or ‘Yeah, I should look into that.’ How many months are we going to say these things over and over and over again and do absolutely nothing any differently? And then continue to wonder why we still suffer? WHY isn’t God helping us!?
We have faith, right?
Here’s what scripture says about it…
Hello All,
So many of us have recently been tested. Most of us aren’t out of the woods yet. There is new hope with the new year, but the problems we’ve been facing still haven’t concluded. We are struggling with our issues, giving them to God and taking them back and then giving them to Him again. It’s the dance we do as believers. This weeks scripture is for that:
1 Corinthians 10:13New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)
13 No testing has overtaken you that is not common to everyone. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tested beyond your strength, but with the testing he will also provide the way out so that you may be able to endure it.
We are reminded here that with every problem, there is a provision. Let’s say that again – WITH EVERY PROBLEM, THERE IS A PROVISION. God, who Loves us and guides us in our growth in Christ, doesn’t give us tests and temptations that are beyond our capabilities. Furthermore, He provides for us all that we require to move through the challenge to it’s final conclusion.
Contemplate this weeks scripture and know that, whatever you are facing, God has provided the strength, faith, courage, focus, resolve, humor, community, and other resources that you need to endure it and find your way out.
Write it out, tape it to your mirror or refrigerator, and allow this beautiful word from 1 Corinthians to enter your spirit in some way this week.
Be blessed!
Born Again Jen 