The Word

As I write, the associate pastor of my church is jamming on his guitar and singing his heart out to the Lord.  I love my church.  It is a church that follows a weekly lectionary and this week's lessons really got under my skin.

The gospel lesson appointed for this week, the umpteenth week after Pentecost, is Matthew 13.  You may recognize this as "The Parable of the Sower,"  at least that's what the subtitle in my Bible says.  So here's my question; why do we call this the parable of the sower and then spend so much time thinking and talking about the quality of the soil?  The vast majority of sermons and teachings I have heard or read on these verses exhort and admonish us to remove the rocks or watch out for the thorns.

I think that misses the point.  I think the point is the sower sows lavishly in all kinds of soil and stuff generally springs up.  God is generous.  He sows lavishly and He wants us to do the same, to share His grace and His word abundantly without becoming soil inspectors.

The importance of this is emphasized in this week's OT lesson Isaiah 55 where the prophet reminds us that God's word "will accomplish what I [God] desires and achieve the purpose for which I [God] sent it."  He further promises that "instead of the thornbush will grow the pine tree, and instead of the briers the myrtle will grow.  This will be for the Lord's renown."  So maybe we should quit with the soil inspecting and just rejoice in the liberality of God.  As we liberally slather on the sunscreen during this hot July, let's apply the Word of God just as liberally and see what  He will do.

BEHOLD

So, I am reading through the book of Joshua because it is assigned summer reading for Charlotte United Christian Academy and I am on staff there.  What started as a duty has become an adventure, a treasure hunt as the Holy Spirit shows me all kinds of cool stuff.  I love how He does that!

For example the other day I was in Joshua 6 and I read, "See, I have delivered Jericho into your hands..."  I got stuck on the word "see" rendered in KJV as "behold".  It is a word used often in the Scriptures and one which I used to think of as sort of just a precursor, an interjection of sorts; designed to get our attention but not really significant other than that.

Now, I believe that single word was key for Joshua and for us.  It is a spiritual imperative!  God invites us to see into the spiritual realm.  He gives Joshua the outcome of the battle before He gives him the battle plan.

"See" is an invitation and an exhortation to step out of fear and into faith; to step out of old mindsets and opinions and embrace God's vision.  If we don't see what God sees we will never be who He wants us to be.

As a young woman I wrote a song that says, "One thing I would Lord that is that you would make me the woman you've envisioned me to be."  That is still my prayer!  Open our eyes Lord so that we can walk into our destiny.  After all seeing is believing!

A Passion for His Presence

I had a truly fabulous day yesterday due mostly to the amount of time I spent in the word.  I got on my ipad (Thank you to the friends who purchased it for me!) and looked up one of my teachers from my DTS in Scotland.  I was dismayed to learn that Ken McGreavy recently went on to be with Jesus but so grateful for his archived teachings available through the wonders of modern technology.

I listened to a teaching on Mark 2, the story of the friends who dig the hole in the roof.  You know the one?  Ken was talking about the magnetism of the presence of Jesus.  The crowds that inevitably surround Him testify to that.  He also spoke of the disruption of the presence of Jesus;  the hole in the roof, the offended people certainly testify of that.

I got to thinking how much I love the magnetism of Jesus.  I love the touchy feely sense of His presence during worship.  I am not so much in love with the disruption of His presence.  Yet both are necessary if we are to be made whole.  He did not come so things could remain the same and I think there is a whole lot of shaking going on just now.

Ken closed by saying while he loves all the talk of having  a passion for the presence of Jesus, he wants to remind us that God has a passion for our presence; THE CROSS testifies to that.

Stir up within us your passion and presence. Disrupt us Lord!

KIM

Freedom Isn't Free

It has been a while since I've posted.  There has been a lot going on and frankly I have been in a bit of a funk.  So maybe I can blog my way out of the doldrums. 

So yesterday was Memorial Day and such days of unbridled patriotism make me think of my dad who has been with Jesus for over a year now.  I think of watching him in parades and of the salutes from NCO's as we went into the PX.  I think of the nightmares he had when he came home from Vietnam, all unmentioned by him.  He shared little until many years later when my little brother became a Marine too and even then he would not share everything.  His private horrors were unknown.

I watched the HBO series The Pacific with my brother over Christmas vacation.  Those men and countless more men and women suffered hell so that you and I could be free!

All of this led me to dive into Galatians this morning.  Jesus literally suffered hell so that we can walk in freedom.  So today and everyday from now on I want to live in a way that says I appreciate the cost of freedom, the freedom I enjoy as a citizen of the USA but most especially the freedom I have as a citizen of God's kingdom.  "It is for freedom that Christ has set us free.  Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened agian by a yoke of slavery." Galatians 5:1

IT IS FINISHED!

IT IS FINISHED!  The most powerful words in human history!  What it takes three words to express in English the apostle John records in the single Greek word-tetellestai.  Finished!  Complete!  This is no whimpering word of surrender-no throwing in of the proverbial towel, though one may well imagine that Jesus' enemies and indeed the enemy of our souls believed it so!   No!  This is a victory shout; for in surrendering His will to the Father, in surrendering His back to the smiter and His body to the executioner JESUS IS VICTORIOUS!
Tetellestai-IT IS A VICTORY SHOUT  for Jesus and for us!

In Greek it is an artist's word-the word a sculptor  would use when having put down his chisel he stepped back to admire his work!  Finished!

It is a merchant's word often scribbled atop invoices and shouted in the marketplace to proclaim a debt paid in full!  TETELLESTAI  Our debt paid in full, God's masterpiece of redemption accomplished!

The tense of this verb is interesting though.  It conveys the sense that while it is an accomplished work it is somehow ongoing, leading scholar Richard Niehaus to conclude that perhaps the best translation for John 19:30 is, "It is finished but it's not over!"  Indeed our work has just begun as Jesus gives us the task of sharing the "goodness" of this Friday with a world lost in sin.  Redemption's story demands that we live our lives in such a way that when we are ready to give up our spirits we can say with Paul, "I have finished the race"  and with Jesus, "Father, I have accomplished the work that you gave me to do."

It is finished but  it's not over because to borrow a phrase from a sermon oft quoted by Christian sociologist Tony Campolo, "It's Friday but Sunday's coming!"

TETELLESTAI!  IT IS FINISHED!

Mercy Triumphs

This evening I am posting from my iPad, a gift from some very dear folks at my church. The grace and love shown me at Resurrection transforms me much as the Beast and Belle are transformed. (Spent the past few weeks helping out with CUCA's production of Beauty and the Beast.). Maybe more on this at another time.

Today I am contemplating why it is that when I witness someone do something dangerous or stupid in traffic I get angry and cry out for justice? When someone is late or doesn't come through for me, I want justice. I yell loudly (at least in my head) for vindication. However when I am the perpetrator, the transgressor as it were, I demand mercy.

The cross of Jesus means that "mercy triumphs over judgment". He didn't just pay for my sin. The words of a song from a number of years ago proclaim that the wrongs we have done and the wrongs done to us were nailed on that cross.

So because justice was satisfied on that cross, I should not be so swift to demand satisfaction for other's offenses. I need to learn mercy and it's triumph, for Jesus sake. Paul reminds us that He is a God rich in mercy. Good thing because I am a person in such need of mercy.

"Can these Bones Live?"

I have been asking the title question frequently of late, since I am aging and spending time at the gym is not as effortless as it once was!  You may recognize the query as the one the "Son of Man" asks the prophet Ezekiel in chapter 37.  As I have thought about the question I have come to see it as an encouragement for Ezekeil and by extension us to see things differently.

Where Ezekiel saw not just bones but dry bones- not just dry bones but very dry bones, the Lord saw hopelessness and a need for His powerful prophetic word to breathe life. In short, Ezekiel saw a problem, the Lord saw an opportunity, a need that He was fully capable of meeting.  He wanted Ezekiel to see what He saw and to speak life. 

He wants the same from us.  I am by nature somewhat of an Eeyore but I am learning to rebuke the Eeyore within and to ask the Lord to help me see through His eyes- to see the prophetic, life-giving opportunities that surround me everyday.  Even very dry bones can become a vast army when we acknowledge along with Ezekiel, "O Sovereign Lord, you know!"  He does know and He does care and He will breathe life even into very dry bones!