OUR VICTORY

"Then David ran and stood over the Philistine and took his sword and drew it out of its sheath and killed him and cut off his head with it.  When the Philistines saw that their champion was dead, they fled."  1 Samuel 17:51

glory in the display of God's power & might!

This is the end of the well known story of how David defeated Goliath.  David knew that the battle was not about flesh and blood armies and their weapons.  It was about being in covenant with God.  David couldn't believe that "the armies of the living God" would be so intimidated by "an uncircumcised Philistine"!  Why not?  Because circumcision was the sign in their very flesh that they belonged to God who had chosen them and invited them to be in covenant with Him.  God had made promises to them.  This was real to David and he did not face Goliath alone.

a precarious place on the journey

"...You come to me with a sword and with a spear and with a javelin, but I come to you in the name of the Lord of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied.  This day the Lord will deliver you into my hand, and I will strike you down and cut off your head....For the battle is the Lord's and he will give you into our hand."  (1 Samuel 17:45-46a;47b)  Until you've been in a battle for your life, or a loved one, or something equally precious, you can't appreciate the power of knowing we are aligned with God Himself.  It takes the threats of the enemy of our souls to stir us up and make us angry, as David was, over what he's trying to steal, kill and destroy.

We do not need to come into our battle with weak knees, unsure of the outcome, pleading with God to do something to help us.  God receives us in whatever state we come to Him, but our true position is so much stronger than we often realize when we are under attack.

The enemy roars at us through circumstances with the goal of intimidation.  He wants to do harm of course, but he also wants to drive us from God and make us afraid.  He wants to disrupt the relationship we have with God and our fellowship with Jesus.  Relationship is paramount with God.  We were not saved by Jesus so we can be religious, but so can be free and delighted children of a Perfect Father.  That relationship cannot help but stand out in a world of lost orphaned hearts seeking the significance and security they crave.

glory at the end of the day

As the world scene becomes darker the light of our joy and our peace and our love shines all the more noticeably.  But our opportunity to glorify God in His love for the world and His great compassion can be smothered when we begin to shrink back from the enemy's threats.

All I want to share today is a truth that God allowed me to see this past year.  It is simply that Jesus cut off Goliath's head for me!  I don't have to muster up my courage and face him as David did.  Jesus did it... and I am in Jesus!  He's my King.  He's my Lord.  He won and his victory is my victory too.  He cut off Goliath's head.  It is finished.  And I am free.  So are you.

Coming in Humility

bringing good news of great joy

"Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son,"  Hebrews 1:1-2a

"Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel"  Matthew 1:23

"And this will be a sign for you:  you will find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger."  Luke 2:12

If you were God and you wanted to speak to wayward and faithless people through your son, how would you go about it?  Our human wisdom would send someone clothed in signs of Authority and Glory to command their attention and respect.  But God sent his Son as a newborn child, as weak and vulnerable as human beings can be.  The son's paternity was surrounded by scandal -- and his first place to sleep was a feeding trough in a barn.  Where we would make a big deal, God provided His Son with an incredibly humble beginning.

We know that all through his life, Jesus experienced the humiliation of rejection and the disrespect of religious leaders who tried to discredit and entrap him.  It culminated with the humiliation of the Cross.  Where we try for recognition and significance, Jesus allowed himself to be misunderstood and denigrated.

"all things were made through him..."  Glorious!

God has been speaking to me about this lately by uncovering pride.  He has done this by allowing me to see how angry I can become when I feel dominated.  No one wants to feel inferior or stepped on, of course, but I know (at least in my head) that no one can make me feel that way unless I let them.

When I was wrestling with these feelings in a recent situation, I was reminded that comparison and competition for approval or recognition are signs of striving for a sense of significance once again.  We are created to be significant, not to gain adulation, but to bring something really important and unique to our portion of the world.  But this God given purpose can get so distorted by sin.  The truth is, each one of us is significant because of who God made us to be and because the Spirit of Jesus Christ lives in and through us.  No one can take that away.

it wasn't like our romanticized nativity scenes...

But God had something more to show me!  He reminded me that Jesus laid down all outward evidence of his true significance - his divinity, his glory, his rightful power, in order to be a servant of God's redeeming purpose.  He led me to remember Philippians 2 where I eagerly read:  "Do nothing from rivalry or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves....Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men." ( verses 3; 5-7 italics mine)

"Where is he who is born king of the Jews?"

What a lovely time to be thinking about the humility of Jesus as we approach our celebration of His birth.  We now know that it was a magnificent day when Mary laid him in the manger and the heavenly hosts sang to the shepherds in the fields; when the Spirit called wise and learned kings to find him.  Isn't it astounding that these men traveled for many weeks certain that it was their privilege to bring gifts and to worship this child?  We appreciate all this now, but it was mostly hidden then.  There must have been times when Mary and Joseph needed all their faith to remember that the plans and purposes of God Himself were interwoven with their hardships.

It helps me a lot to think that this humble mind of Jesus is ours as well in Him.  Our significance is not measured in earthly terms, but in heavenly ones.  I pray that Christmas will transform my heart this year by the humility of Jesus in the face of his true majesty.  It seems that God is fond of using a still small voice when He shares tremendous secrets.  Only those who listen intently will hear Him.

signs of the Advent at church

"He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power."  Hebrews 1:3a

"Therefore he had to be made like his brothers in every respect, so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people." Hebrews 2:17

Thank you, Jesus.

The Tree of Life

seasons change

Yesterday was Thanksgiving Day and I truly hate to confess that it didn't quite live up to the Hallmark Channel/Martha Stewart standard for me.  I really am thankful for so many things and for my relationship with God Himself, but I seem to be in a place of transition or change these days.  It feels like the leaves I see fluttering down outside, some old things are dying away and the landscape is becoming bare.  I can't quite see what the new will look like yet.

God has definitely been calling me to a new level of thankfulness in my heart with reminders on several fronts of how important that attitude is.  I read the devotional Jesus Calling, and every day has been saying something about thankfulness.  But it feels like my contentment meter reading has been tending more to the low side.  So after my Thanksgiving Day let down I knew it was time to take the issue to Jesus in prayer.  After a lot of honest venting and an equally honest look at scripture, I felt God reminding me of His promises to be with me in any and every circumstance.  For this reason, I do not need to be anxious.  In fact, God promises that when I bring my requests to God with thanksgiving, the peace of God will rule in my heart.

Sometimes I can hear scripture like that and its truth will instantly change the atmosphere of my soul.  But this time I didn't have peace and my anxious thoughts continued to rattle around.  

a barren tree

My breakthrough came with this thought popping into my mind:  I was camping out under the tree of the knowledge of good and evil!  That hit some kind of nail on the head for me.  How so?  I saw it fairly quickly -- I was trying to figure out what was "wrong" and what was "right" about me and others who I love and am concerned about.  I was trying to find the path to fixing the wrong things and bringing contentment to my heart.  Sounded reasonable to me.

But we are offered a great privilege - access to the Tree of  Life!  Our first ancestors were banned from it so that they would not live forever in their fallen state.  In their case, release from earthly life apart from God was merciful.  But in Jesus, we are made right.  We are no longer separated from God.  We have eternal life and we have it with God.  By eating from the Tree of Life we gain healing of our souls, we gain wisdom, we become more like Jesus.

a place to prosper

The tree of the knowledge of good and evil is a trap.  It keeps us occupied with things we have no control over and ultimately cannot change.  Jesus is our answer and it distracts us from casting our cares on him and trusting him and being loved by him.  Jesus is our Way (to God, to righteousness, to heaven), our Truth (the dispel-er of the enemy's  lies) and our Life (now and forever).  He is the Source of everything we need.  I don't know about the tree in the Garden of Eden, but I think the "tree of life" is a symbol of Jesus for us.  When we eat of that tree, we are partaking of the promises of God which are "yes and amen" in Christ Jesus.  We are trusting in God's plans to prosper us and not to harm us, to give us a hope and a future.  We experience the satisfaction of enjoying the Presence of Jesus in the midst of whatever is going on.

God described my particular brand of going to the tree of the knowledge of good and evil as trying to know why; trying to do the "right" thing to avert trouble; trying to understand so that I can prepare for the future or fix it; pursuing the outcome that I want.  And He described the tree of life for me as a place of surrender, release, and receiving.  It is where I lay down my expectations, even my needs, and let him provide what He knows is best.  It is where I hear Him, am reassured that I am loved, receive wisdom, encouragement, genuine hope.

God's beauty

Whatever is going on deep inside is not altogether settled.  I think that the image of the change of season when the leaves turn brown and drop off the trees may be pretty profound for me.  A lot of things that I took for granted and enjoyed are being removed, but now I see that their removal makes more room for Jesus in my heart.  I think that is a very good exchange and can say that I am thankful for it.

Scriptures referred to:  Psalm 23:4; Philippians 4:6-7; Genesis 2:9 and 3:22; Revelation 2:7; Romans 3:22-24 and 5:18-19;  Ephesians 2:12-13; John 14:6; 2 Corinthians 1:20; Jeremiah 33:3; Psalm 17:15 and 63:5

Warrior Prayer

The enemy does not want us to pray because prayer is powerful.  We have surely heard that before.  And yet I am often tempted to discard prayer requests for big situations far away from my daily life.  That happened recently with something I received in the mail.  I hate to admit it, but I almost tossed it in the trash because I really can't read all the stuff that comes everyday.  Almost, but I didn't.  I opened it and discovered the article quoted below.  It reminds me of just how enormous our power is to bring God's will about in just the way that Jesus told us to pray: 

our nation needs powerful prayer...

"The greatest agency put into men's hands is prayer.  Prayer from God's side is communication between Himself and His allies in the enemy's country.  Prayer is not persuading God.  It does not influence God's purpose.  It starts with Him. True prayer moves in a circle.  It begins in the heart of God, sweeps down into a human heart upon the earth, so intersecting the circle of the earth, which is the battle-field of prayer, and then it goes back again to its starting point, having accomplished its purpose on the downward swing."*

Prayer like this comes from a relationship with God in which He implants the intention of his heart into ours.  Anyone can receive it, but we often don't.  I imagine that God sees who wants to hear and has faith to act on what they hear.  He also calls and equips certain of his children for this kind of relationship with Him.  It is a high calling.
 

White Sands Missile Range Museum, NM

I had never thought about myself as God's ally living in the enemy's territory, but it is true. God is the Captain of the Armies of Heaven and He invites us to participate in the process of delivering His orders to them through our prayers and declarations of truth.  He gives us a role in getting His will accomplished because He created us for relationship.  We are citizens of heaven even though we still live on the earth in our current bodies.  Ultimately we are learning how to rule and reign with Christ in the future (Revelation. 19:8;14 and 20:4).  That's our true destiny!

I confess that I have been 'way too comfortable with my earthly life, but with the way our country is changing I am realizing more and more how out of step I am.  I may feel like an alien here, but how much better to be an ally of God!  I think we are going to have more and more opportunities to choose where our allegiance lies.   

If we knew we were qualified to pray God's will and see it done, wouldn't we pray more boldly?  The victory was won at the cross where Christ made a public spectacle of the enemy (Colossians 2:15).  Jesus gave us the authority of His Name to use when we pray (John 16:24).  God has given us armor and a sword - His Word (Ephesians 6:14-19), and the Holy Spirit to accomplish His will  (Zechariah 4:6).  We may not be grown up into the fullness of this, but we are progressing in that direction by God's grace.  Dear Father, may we realize who we are beyond the everyday activities of our lives!  We were born, and born again, for such a time as this!

State flags at Mt. Rushmore

*From article:  "Prayer:  A War Measure" by S.D. Gordon in Prayer Point, a Samaritan's Purse magazine, Fall 2012, pg. 30.

The power of waiting

We want to see, but faith is “the conviction of things not seen” (Hebrews 11:1b ESV).  Or perhaps I should say “I want to see” because that’s what my circumstances have been revealing to me about myself.

I consider myself to be a woman of faith after so many years of learning to let go of my problems to God.  I used to be tense and driven and desperate at heart.  I was fearful and full of unacknowledged grief.  I lived alone even when surrounded by others.  That I should have turned to God and believed that He was real and could be trusted took faith.  The practice of choosing to believe and let go of my controlling actions, and even thoughts, was the practice of faith in practical ways.  God arranged for the rubber to meet the road over and over and over.  And yet He’s not finished.  There is a different kind of faith-action that He’s teaching me about.  It’s really the faith of inaction, or waiting on the unseen.

I wanted to write about waiting on God but He helped me out by putting it together with our hope in the unseen when my daily reading began today at Hebrews 11.  Those first words arrested my attention:  “Now faith is the assurance (substance in NIV) of things hoped for, the conviction (evidence) of things not seen.” 

This really isn’t new, is it?  We often express our faith by waiting for something we hope for.  Maybe we don’t hope with much assurance or conviction, but we hope, we ask God, and we wait.  Maybe it’s for prodigal children to turn back toward home, or for remission of an illness, or strength to endure the decline of a parent.

Sometimes the “hope” can be more like wishful thinking.  And the “waiting” can be an escape from realities that must be faced before real change can occur.  But God says true hope has substance and reality as if what is unseen is already there.  And when we have that what we hope in becomes invincible.

If we have no evidence in the circumstances, no substance of what we long for in our world, no conviction in our heart of truth that defies the obvious external reality, then true Biblical faith gives us evidence and conviction.  It allows us to see what remains unseen.

This is the faith I desire to grow in right now for an important relationship.  There seems to be no more action to take on my part.  There are no right words to say that will open up understanding.  There is just God’s very precious answer to my cries, saying “Let me handle it”.  When everything in me wants to do something or say something or even think something that will fix it or relieve it, His word to me is clear.  He will handle it, and I am to let Him.

And so that’s where waiting comes in.  Waiting on the Lord is not helplessness, it is powerful.  It is the faith that may witness the moving of mountains.  It is being held in the strong heart of God while He does things that no human being can accomplish. 

Zion National Park

Hebrews 11:3 reminded me that “by faith we come to understand that the universe was created by the word of God” and that everything we see, everything, did not come from anything visible.  If God created the mountain from nothing we can see, why wouldn’t He be able to move it at His will?

But this is where we can falter, because we can’t always know or understand His will or purpose.  We can know He is good and that He promises the work all things together for good (Romans 8:28), but we don’t know what it will look like.

Hebrews 11:13 reminds me that Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob “all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar”.  All the heroes of the faith commended in the verses that follow were looking ahead to the promise of Christ.  He was unseen to them in the future and he is unseen to us in the past.  But he always existed and is always real.

I sense God calling me to join hands with those who “lived in tents” while they looked forward to "a city with foundations whose designer and builder is God” (Hebrews 11:9-10); those who “acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on earth” and “desire a better country, that is a heavenly one.” (verses 13 & 16).

This is not to say that the relationship I long for will not come to be in my lifetime, but it is not a guarantee that it will happen as I expect, and it is not the basis for the peace I seek in waiting on God to “handle it”.

I want my peace to be filled with the faith to love rather than self-protection, self-justification or anger.  God offers to hold my heart and hold my hand as I wait with Him and for Him.  This is hard and yet a glorious opportunity.  Is what God is doing more valuable than what I want to see and have now?  I believe, but help my unbelief.  I am waiting.