Author: tracy

I feel like Covid has given the entire world a chance to pause, access, and reset their lives. I think everyone’s circumstances and schedules have changed enough at times throughout this year that we have been forced to re-evaluate our priorities and take a second look at what is actually valuable to each of us. I’m wondering what you have learned. Have you found the hollowness of stuff? Do you recognize the slavery of busyness and packed schedules? Is time with people more precious than ever? Are you drowning trying to keep your head above water with work, remote learning, and home upkeep? Have some of your relationships been strengthened? Has fear gripped your heart in a new way this year? How about with God, has your relationship with Him changed in 2020? I wish we could all gather together to discuss our thoughts and the things we have learned in these past eight or so months. To be honest I think I am still processing through some of these questions, working to solidify the good learned and weed out the unproductive from my heart and life. I hope that we can all recognize the good in the opportunity that God has given us to pause and reset during this pandemic. I don’t know when we might get another year like this one in our lifetimes and I don’t want to waste this chance we have to get real about what matters most to each of us. (Don’t misunderstand me, I don’t wish to relive this year ever again…I just don’t want to miss God’s good gifts in the midst of this mess!)

This morning as I was reading I was struck by God’s offer to us in John 7:37. Jesus says to us, “Anyone who is thirsty may come to me! Anyone who believes in me may come and drink! The scriptures declare, ‘Rivers of living water will flow from his heart’. “ I love Jesus’ use of one of the most common and necessary things in everyone’s life to offer the Spirit and explain him to us.

-His offer is accessible to all. He starts with the word “anyone”. There are no qualifications beyond believing in him. His offer is not limited by time, country, age, race, ability, sex, means, or anything else besides choosing to believe in him.

-His offer is understood by all. Every person ever, experiences thirst. We know thirst every day since our bodies require fluid to function and live. Everyone who is old enough to understand knows that thirst is best quenched by water. Water is one of our most basic needs.

-His offer is plentiful. Rivers are bigger than creeks or brooks. He offers us generous amounts of “water”, more than we would ever be able to use in a lifetime.

 

His offer is actually the gift of the Spirit. In verse 39 it says, “When he said ‘living water’, he was speaking of the Spirit”. As I spend more thinking through the questions in the opening, I realize so much is cared for and cleared up in the gifts or fruit of the Spirit. Gal 5:16-25 takes about 2 minutes to read through and sums up the battle in our hearts between how we want to live and how we sometimes actually live. In verses 22-23 Paul lists the 9 characteristics that the Spirit produces in us when we belong to Christ. They are: self-control, gentleness, faithfulness, goodness, kindness, patience, peace, joy, and love. I am going to get real here and go through the list of questions again and list the ways these nine fruit apply for me personally.

-Hollowness of stuff- When I have self-control I look for less stuff. When my heart has peace and joy, stuff is much less appealing.

-Packed schedule- It takes self-control to not say yes to every invitation, and faithfulness to properly evaluate each commitment. Peace inside allows me to not get tangled up in fear of missing out.

-People become a higher priority when I love with God’s love, when goodness and kindness rule.

-Drowning in responsibility- Self-control helps me tackle responsibility instead of looking for escape. God’s peace surpasses all understanding and allows me to move through impossible circumstances with power beyond my own. Being patient always helps, running my own agenda is selfish while taking time to consider others benefits all. (Often when I choose patience God often multiplies my time.)

-Relationships improved-For me gentleness takes a little more time. It is worth the time it takes. My choosing goodness and kindness are always going to improve a relationship. When I am filled with joy, it is endearing and encouraging to all. Patience in me allows for others needs to be considered and met. Love is the backbone of relationship.

-Fear-God’s peace changes my entire outlook. It doesn’t remove the issue, but has the power to turn my mindset 180 degrees.

 

The last question I think I’ll leave for each of us to consider on our own. How has your relationship with God changed during these past 8 months?

 

 

 

Wonderful; Inspiring delight, pleasure, or admiration. Extremely good; marvelous

Counselor; Trained to give advice or guidance on personal, social, or psychological problems.

 

Our Father is extremely good, inspiring admiration because He gives perfect guidance to us in every area of our lives. He is marvelous because He gives us the exact right advice in every situation we bring to Him. He knows each of us so intimately He shares perfect direction with us for our own issues, for how we live in and respond to the world, and for our individual thoughts. I cannot comprehend how He is able to do this for the millions of people alive each day on this earth. It makes my head explode, trying with my human mind to understand God’s knowledge of and ability to communicate with everyone. Yet I know it is true. I have experienced His direction over and over in my life and I know countless people in other towns, states and countries who experience the same personal guidance regularly from our Father…our Wonderful Counselor.

“Wonderful Counselor” in Isaiah’s time, was a name describing hope in a very dark time. People were not following God. God had been reaching out to people for years and they continued to ignore Him. God told Isaiah when He sent him into the world with God’s message that the people wouldn’t listen. God told him to speak anyway because eventually a few would end up taking his message to heart. So Isaiah obeyed and spoke what God told Him to speak, for decades he spoke what God asked him to say. Isaiah 9:6 says, “ For a child is born to us, a son is given to us. The government will rest on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.” Isaiah told people that hope would be coming in Jesus. God was going to communicate with people in human form, He was coming to live with us and also die for us. He was going to deliver all people from their sin with His death and resurrection. Hope for everyone, then and now, Wonderful Counselor to all who believe in Him!

 

God is exceptional, distinguished, and without a peer. He is the one who gives the right advice every time.

 

 

John 14:6

 

“I am the way, the truth and the life. No one can come to the father except through me.” God is absolute truth. He doesn’t just know truth or arrive at truth after much study, He actually is truth. While this concept is hard for me to wrap my brain around and I am not articulate enough to explain this concept or expound on the theology behind it, I do believe it as fact in my life. I am 100% positive that He is perfect truth because I have read about His character in the Bible, I have experienced first hand His truth, in wisdom and answers throughout my entire life, and in my relationship with Him I hear Him speaking truth into my mind when I am seeking Him. I am as sure of this fact as I am of any other fact in my life. The beauty of a perfect Father who is absolute truth brings amazing comfort to my heart as this world is on a path of destruction.

Look, I realize that each one of us has to at some point come to the place where we believe God is who He says He is. We have to choose Him and we have to trust that the Bible is actually His written word to us. This choice never felt hard for me. It didn’t seem like too big of a stretch. Maybe because I chose God when I was young the decision was simple. I hope that all of you have experienced God enough in your own lives to be confident that He is who He says He is. I hope that you have chosen Him so He is free to reveal to you His truth in your own personal experiences. It is powerful! It is rich and amazing that the creator of the universe loves each of us so much that He wants a personal relationship with us so we can share ourselves with Him and He also shares Himself with us individually. It is crazy, beautiful, ridiculous and the best possible gift ever!!

Jesus is the way the truth and the life. As the “way”, He is our path to the Father. He is in fact the only way. We can do nothing to earn our way to relationship with God. Jesus gifted us that path. Are we thankful for this gift? Do we regularly tell Him how much we appreciate Him trading his life for ours? What words can convey our gratefulness for this kind of gift? As the “truth” He is the reality of all of God’s promises. Everything that God told people in the Old Testament would happen actually did. Jesus fulfilled God’s plan by becoming human, giving his life for ours, raising from the dead, and returning to heaven. He will return to earth to gather His believers to heaven with Him when God’s chosen time arrives. Do we praise God and worship Him for His plan? Do we give Him the praise He deserves for accomplishing that plan for our benefit? As the “life” Jesus joins His divine life to ours both now and forever in heaven…eternity. Are we looking forward to the day when we see Jesus face to face? Do we live knowing this earth is not our home?

 

I am comforted, refreshed and refueled this morning spending time thinking on God, Truth. The fears, frustration, wrongs, and broken things that were weighing on me earlier are in much better perspective now that I have given God back His rightful spot in my heart.

 

1Peter 2:7

 

My level of frustration in the current reporting and news cycles continues to grow. Truth is so hard to find and identify in all of the talk. It seems that everyone has an agenda and reports to their desired end. On just about any given topic you can find people earnestly arguing with opposing facts. How can the average listener find the truth? How do we weed out the untruths in a report and find the nuggets that actually are true?

1 Peter 2 tell us that some people will stumble over Christ because they reject Him or refuse to believe He is who He says he is. I understand the fear and confusion of falling for an untruth. None of us wants to be in the position of aligning ourselves with someone and later finding out that the person has been dishonest about his character or personhood. People will always let us down at some point. No human is perfect. Jesus is the only “spotless lamb”, blameless, perfect, absolute truth. 1 Pet 2:7 says,” You who trust Him recognize the honor God has given Him. But for those who reject Him, the stone that the builders rejected has become the corner stone.” The One that people couldn’t believe in, is actually the most important One of God’s church. He is completely trustworthy, precious to all believers, and the foundation of the church.

In Eph. Paul talks about the church as “the body” of Christ. Jesus is the “head” and each believer is another member of the body. Here in 1 Pet., Peter tells us that the church is a living, spiritual temple, where Jesus is the foundation and cornerstone, and each believer is another stone in the building. These word pictures help us to understand, in a clear and simple way, how the church is supposed to function because of who Jesus is. He is the foundation because He gave His life to make a way for us to have relationship with God. We cannot be in God’s presence unless we are washed clean and made pure. We have no way to make ourselves pure. It is impossible for us to do on our own. So Jesus took our place and paid our cost with His own blood, His life for ours so we can live in relationship with God. Using Peter’s analogy, without Jesus there is no cornerstone or foundation for the church. Let’s take the analogy a bit farther. One stone does not make a building or even a wall. One stone is kind of useless on it’s own. It takes many stones to make a building…many believers to make the church. We should remember especially now in this super isolated time of living, that we need other believers. In our individualistic society, it’s is easy to depend on ourselves instead of remembering that He built the church on interdependence between Christians. The notes in my Bible say about this passage, “When God calls you to a task, remember that He is also calling others to work with you. Together your individual efforts will be multiplied.” Beautiful!

 

 

Mat 12:40, 24:27

 

“For as lightening flashes in the east and shines to the west, so it will be when the Son of Man comes”. Matt 24:30-31 goes on to say, “And then at last, the sign that the Son of Man is coming will appear in the heavens, and there will be deep mourning among all the peoples of the earth. And they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. And He will send out his angels with the mighty blast of a trumpet, and they will gather his chosen ones from all over the world–from the farthest ends of the earth and heaven.”

Does this passage excite you? Are you longing for this moment in time or does it strike fear into your heart? Maybe you feel a mix of the two emotions, excitement with a little fear or anxiety for the uncertainty surrounding these events. These verses talk about events unlike anything we have ever experienced before in life! With all that is going on in the world today, many people are looking forward to the end of life on this earth. The hope of heaven is tangible in our current earthly climate. I also think it is very normal to have some apprehension around seeing the face of God for the first time in our lives, no matter how long we have had relationship with Him. When we see the reaction of others in the Bible as they experience God face to face, we see that most fall facedown on the ground. If I begin to sense worry or fear in my mind over these future events, all I have to do is concentrate on the One I will be meeting, and fear is wiped away. While the Son of Man’s majesty and Lordship will always cause unmatched respect and humility that will most likely drop us to the ground, we have to remember His other character traits that we know so well after studying them for the last year. His love for us is so perfect that He willingly gave His life to pay the price for our sin. He purchased us out of the consequences we deserve so we could have relationship with Him and live forever with Him. Seeing Him face to face will certainly be daunting since we have never experienced Him physically, but we have to remember how deeply He desires relationship with us. He is doing all of this to be with us. Being gathered up by His angels and taken to heaven has to be good!

Safety and assurance of being included when Jesus comes back is completely dependent on our choice now to accept His gift. If we do not tell Him we believe in Him and accept His death on the cross as payment for our sin, then reading these two passages in Matthew should strike fear in our hearts. Jesus’ return will be swift and sudden. If we have not chosen Him by the time He returns, there will be no chance for last minute repenting or changed minds. The decision we have already made about the truth and reality of Jesus will determine our eternal destiny. This is big, friends! I want for every one of you reading this to know for sure that Jesus is real and true. I want all of you to be experiencing relationship with Him now so that you never have to wonder what your fate will be on the day He returns.

If you are confident in your relationship with Jesus, I hope that this passage inspires you to urgency in sharing your good news with those you love and anyone you know who doesn’t have relationship with God. Since we don’t know the day or time of Jesus’ return, we have no idea how much time is left for others to choose Him. Typing these words has awakened me again from complacency in sharing my good news. Visiting this passage today gives me new fervor in praying for those I know are not open to or interested in the truth of Jesus. Matthew’s words remind me that this is life or death. I can’t be complacent or shy in conversations. I always have to be willing and able to share truth about Jesus.

 

Are you ready to see the Son of Man appearing in the heavens?

 

Is 8:14

Are you tired this morning? Do you feel mentally and physically weary from trying to finish a project, land a sale, fight a disease, prep for an upcoming event, stay positive for a never ending need for discipline, work on a difficult relationship, or help in a hopeless situation? Are you exhausted from living in fear of the future, being “chased” by a virus, having to change careers (teaching your kids) or searching for a job to support your family? We all know how it feels to be at the end of our rope. The ways that we get to our ”ends” look different for each of us, but we all know how it feels to not be able to put one foot in front of the other to begin the walk out of a tough situation. We have all felt too worn to continue the battle and longed for a break from our circumstances. God offers relief. He tells all of us in Isaiah that, “He will keep you safe.” His name today is Sanctuary.

The definition of Sanctuary is protection or a safe place; a place of refuge or rest. If you are in the middle of hard stuff, does this not sound like the sweetest relief? This promise of rest, refuge, and safety looks in my mind like falling into a soft fluffy cloud or running through the door of the fortress with the gates closing behind me as my pursuers stand outside in frustration at their missed opportunity. (Maybe I watch too many movies!) God offers us rest and reprieve from our troubles. He doesn’t offer to remove the troubles or to pull us out of the situation. He offers rest and refuge in the midst of our struggle. So what does this “rest” or “safety” look like? Have you experienced His “place of refuge” in your life? For me it usually comes while I’m spending time with Him, praying. I usually organize my prayer time with confession first, concentrating on who He is next, and then pouring my heart out and asking for help third. Last I thank Him for who He is to me and what He has done. The place where I experience His safety most often is when I am praising Him for who He is and concentrating on His attributes. In theory this time is set aside to worship Him with words. It is time to praise Him and honor who He is, but for me it becomes the time where I recognize that He loves me and has all ability to handle whatever situation I am in. When I verbalize who He is and how fiercely He loves me, I am changed from worry and fear to rest and peace because I realize that He knows my circumstances, cares that I am in the circumstances and has power and ability to change the circumstances. I am reminded how much bigger than me He is. Instead of being overwhelmed by my circumstances, I realize that because of Him I am not alone in my situation and I have hope where on my own there is little or none.  The truth is that my circumstances have not changed during this time of prayer. My mind changes when I give God time and space to be my sanctuary.

 

 

I wonder how you experience God’s gift of sanctuary in your life?

 

 

Ps 51:12, Lm 5:21, 1 Pt 5:10

About 20 years ago I was gifted a pair of Jenny Lind style twin beds from my parents. The beds were purchased by my grandparents and had been in their house before my parents got them. When they were purchased they were stained a dark rich brown. When my mom inherited them she wanted to update them to make them more usable in her home so she painted them. Over the years they were painted several more times to match whatever room they were being used in. By the time I got them, they were thick with layers of crazy colored paint and guess what style of furniture finish was back in fashion? Right, natural dark wood was the craze of the day. I was young and dumb and decided I’d just sand them down and re-stain them. I started sanding by hand. That got maybe one or two coats of paint off on the flat parts of the beds. The bulb shaped spindles and grooved frames were still loaded with paint. Not to worry, my energetic self found a family member to borrow a hand sander from and I attacked the beds again. This time I got down to the wood on the rounded bulbs of the spindles and the flat parts of the beds, but all of the rest was still multiple shades of paint. By then I was weeks into this project, I had little kids and little time to do the labor intensive, intricate sanding work, and I was missing the expertise it took to bring these beds back to their natural beauty. I had no choice…if I was ever going to be able to use these beds, I needed help! I bit the bullet and paid some guy to “dip” them in paint stripper for me. It still took me a few more days of sanding, a day to stain, and several more days to varnish, but I got them back closer to their original beauty, and definitely to a usable state. Now, ask me if I have ever tried to restore another piece of furniture since! The answer is a firm no!! I had bitten off way more than I could chew when I tackled the project and that decision and month of work has left a lasting memory in my mind that won’t ever be forgotten. I learned my lesson.

When I looked at the name of God for this morning, that bed project popped into my mind. It’s the only thing I have ever tried to restore, and it didn’t go well. When I start considering the type of restorer God is, the job becomes even more insurmountable. Most of us humans struggle to restore things. God is in the business of restoring hearts, minds and people, not pieces of wood. He has the power and patience to work on us, to restore us from sin, to bring back the joy of our salvation, and to place us on a firm foundation. To this Peter says, “all power to Him forever! Amen” I couldn’t agree more!

We serve a God who is perfect, all knowing, all powerful, and created each of us individually. He knows us intimately. He loves us deeply. He knows what is best for each of us when we probably think we know what is best, but truthfully only know what we want. He is willing and patient enough to do the labor intensive, intricate work of restoring us. He has the expertise to know exactly what motivates us and what reshapes our thinking and He is powerful enough to arrange our circumstances so our extra layers of yuck/sin can be scraped off. God can do for us what we are not able to do for ourselves. On some issues, we don’t even realize that we need to be restored. God’s perfect truth pinpoints what needs to be changed or scraped away. Because He knows us intimately, He is able to reveal to us where we are buried under layers of wrong thinking and how we are justifying sin to ourselves. His power and might can change any circumstance to help us see truth. All of this personal and individual work is done on our behalf to restore us, to set us back on a firm foundation. He is the perfect Restorer!

 

 

Malachi 3:3

“For he will be like a blazing fire that refines metal, or like a strong soap that bleaches clothes. He will sit like a refiner of silver, burning away the dross. He will purify Levites, refining them like gold and silver, so that they may once again offer acceptable sacrifices to the Lord.” This is Malachi’s warning to the people of Israel, specifically to the Levite priests who had become corrupt stumbling blocks to the people of Israel instead of spiritual leaders to them. The people’s relationship with God was broken because of their sin, and they were showing no signs of changing their ways. Hypocrisy, neglecting God and careless living have devastating consequences…we read about it all of the time in the Bible, but do we believe the same is true in our own lives? Hopefully as participants in this blog, we are experiencing shorter periods of time where neglecting God and careless living describes our lives, but the Israelites were characterized by being unfaithful. Even though they weren’t openly saying they rejected God, they were living as if He did not exist. Men were marrying women outside the faith who were worshiping idols, people were choosing divorce for no reason other than they wanted a change, and people acted like they could do anything without being punished. Then they wondered why God refused to accept their offerings and bless them. This society sounds so much like ours today, it is frightening.

So God speaks through Malachi of the process of refining metal. In this process, the raw metal is heated with fire until it melts. The impurities separate from it and rise to the surface. They are skimmed off, leaving the pure metal. Without this heating and melting, there could be no purifying. I wish we could have witnessed what this process actually looked like in people’s lives for the 400 years after Malachi, but the Bible is silent for this period of time. We know that God did what He said He would because Zechariah is the next priest mentioned after Malachi and He was faithfully serving God in the temple when we meet him in the Gospels.

What can we learn from this name of God? If God is our purifier just as He was the purifier of the Israelites at the end of the Old Testament, what can we expect? I think we need to start by putting this name in the context of our relationship with God. Let’s start with the fact that He loves us and desires to be with us so deeply that He gave His only Son to pay the price for our sins. He did the work and made the way available to us to have relationship with Him. We may also have to look back at a few more of His characteristics to put this name into the proper perspective.  He is our atoning sacrifice, our author and the perfecter of our faith, our comforter, compassionate, our defender, familiar with suffering, our fortress, gracious, our holiness, our hope, our peace, and our resting place. In the context of who God is and how He cares for us, does it not stand to reason that His purifying us is for our good?

I think we can all agree that being “refined until the impurities rise to the surface” does not sound pleasant. But can we also agree that sometimes, for specific reasons, this process may be necessary for us to become the people who God wants us to become? Are there things we hold too tightly to, or is there specific sin we refuse to be honest about in our lives? Are we blind to certain behaviors or beliefs that are enjoyable for us?  I hope that we are seeking God and His truth in our lives. I hope that we are not professing God from our mouths yet living for ourselves. I hope that when sin arises in our lives, we are honest about it and asking God to help us turn away from it. I hope our hearts desire right living so much that we can see the benefit of God being our purifier.

 

I hope this morning that our hearts are like David’s in the 139^th Psalm. “ Search me oh God, and know my heart. Test me to know my anxious thoughts. Point out anything in me that offends you, and lead me along the path of everlasting life.”

 

 

Heb 12:2

Our verse today is smack dab in the middle of a paragraph. We can’t really understand it’s meaning unless we look at the context around it. Heb 11 is considered the- “Hall of Fame” heroes of the Jewish faith- chapter of the Bible. It is an entire chapter of accounts of people throughout history who trusted God and followed Him. Many saw or were part of miracles, some spoke prophesies, others saw their lives spared or their families lives spared or raised from the dead. If you haven’t read through it lately it is a powerful reminder of who our God is. Chapter 12 of Hebrews starts out with the word, “therefore”. “Therefore”, lets us know that to understand what is coming, we have to know what was written before, so let’s look at chapter 12 in the context those heroes of the faith in chapter 11.

Heb 12, (vs 1) “Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a huge crowd of witnesses to the life of faith, let us strip off every weight that slows us down, especially the sin that so easily trips us up. And let us run with endurance the race God has set before us.

(vs 2) We do this by keeping our eyes on Jesus, the champion who initiates and perfects our faith. Because of the joy awaiting Him, he endured the cross, disregarding its shame. Now he is seated in the place of honor beside God’s throne.

(vs 3) Think of all the hostility he endured from sinful people; then you won’t become weary and give up. After all, you have not yet given your lives in your struggle against sin. “

 

Jesus is our champion. He initiated our faith by doing the work of becoming human and giving His life on the cross to buy us out of sin, wash us clean and place us back into God’s family. Is this not enough? Has anyone else ever offered to take your place in punishment for the whole of your sin? But God’s love is so vast, so deep and so all-encompassing, that giving His life for ours is not enough. He wants more for us. Being saved from death is not a big enough gift from Him. He wants to help us change and become more like He is. He wants to help us love others like He loves. He wants us to experience the joy that He has. So He is willing to enter our lives, have relationship with us and do the work of helping us change, to perfect us. Are you not blown away by this kind of love…this sacrifice…these gifts?

Since Jesus has done the work of making a way for us to have relationship with Him, what is our part in this relationship? How do we hold up our end of the bargain? We all know that relationships require two parties and both parties have to be committed to the relationship in time and energy for that relationship to form and stay healthy. There is usually ebb and flow in relationships where one is able to give more time or energy for a period of time than the other, but one party can not sustain the relationship on it’s own over the long haul. Verse 2 tells us the short answer, “We do this by keeping our eyes on Jesus”. So simply written, but I feel like it takes a lifetime to learn how to do this consistently throughout each day, so we are characterized by focusing on Him. So what if we start thinking of our relationship with God just like we do any other relationship we currently value? Instead of the “Sunday school” answers we are temped to throw at this question of what our part is, let’s consider what it takes to grow and maintain human relationships. Long term, close relationships require time spent together. Even in the rare cases where relationships grow from a long distance, time communicating between the two parties is essential. As trust grows between the parties, honesty, vulnerability, and shared experiences become the foundation of the relationship. When all of these criteria are met consistently, love and relationship grow and flourish. The Bible is clear that we are made in God’s image so it stands to reason that the same efforts that foster relationship with humans must be effective in our relationship with God. To evaluate our relationship with God, I think we have to ask if we are actually spending time with Him consistently. Are we trustworthy to keep our word to Him? Are we honest and vulnerable with Him allowing Him in to all parts of our hearts no matter how uncomfortable we feel about showing them to Him? Are we sharing our days with Him so we have experience to draw on in the future when we face tough circumstances and feel alone in them? I don’t know about you, but I have work to do.

Last, because we are looking at what our part is in relationship with God, we can’t forget about addressing our sin on a regular basis. If we aren’t willing to be honest, name our sin and ask for forgiveness in conversation with Him, we are creating a canyon between our selves and God. Jesus’s payment is the only way to bridge that canyon and we have to acknowledge it when we realize we have sinned. If we don’t address it routinely and ask for forgiveness, our relationship will not be able to grow. We all know this in our heads, but are we actually in the habit of looking back over our days for sin? Are we consistently making time each day to acknowledge the specific choices we make and actions we take or don’t take, to tell God we know we have messed up? Do we go to Him throughout the day when we realize we have sinned? This is part of honesty and vulnerability and without it relationship is broken. Praise God that He never withholds His gifts, time or energy from us! Jesus is our champion who initiates and perfects our faith!

 

 

Luke 2:51, Phil 2:8, Heb 5:8

 

Do you remember being a kid and the thoughts that rolled through your mind when you were forced to follow rules or do jobs you didn’t want to do? Did you think, “I can’t wait to be an adult so no one can tell me what to do, and I’ll get to do whatever I want to do, all of the time”?  If only that were true… Obviously now that we are on the other side of childhood we see that the demands on our time choices, societal rules, government regulations and work responsibilities far outweigh the 15 minute jobs assigned to us as kids like sweeping out the garage or picking strawberries. Most of us would welcome childhood tasks over our daily adult responsibilities these days. As kids, we couldn’t understand the weight that our parents were carrying or the discipline they were trying to teach us by requiring some tasks. What is the saying? “You don’t know what you don’t know”!

Today we get to look at three different places in the Bible that tell us about Jesus choosing to be obedient as a human to human parents, to human government and to His Father while here on earth. I don’t think we can begin to comprehend what that was like for Him. Humbling, humiliating, uncomfortable, painful, frustrating…all words that weakly describe what leaving Heaven and His King’s throne to become human must have been like for Him. But He did it. He chose to complete the plan. He humbly left His home and rightful spot in heaven and lived an entire human life with family, work, friends and a mission that we can never fully understand the weight of, because He loves us. He wanted to make a way for us be able to have relationship with Him. We are that important to Him.

Every year as Jesus was growing up, His family made the trip to Jerusalem for the Passover celebration. The year that He was around 12 years old, His family headed for home at the end of the celebration and at the end of the first travel day his parents realized Jesus wasn’t with them. Panic! They returned to the city and eventually found Him in the Temple sitting among the teachers and listening to them and asking questions. His parents were frustrated with Him for not sticking with the family and He responded to them by asking why they had to search for Him. Didn’t they know that He must be in His Father’s house? They didn’t understand what He meant. Luke 2:51 says that “He returned to Nazareth with them and was obedient to them.” Such a short simple sentence, but its meaning and action are loaded with more weight, humiliation, and patience than we can understand. Philippians 2:6-8 explains my point beautifully. “Though He was God, He did not think of equality with God as something to cling to. Instead He gave up His divine privileges; He took the humble position of a slave and was born as a human being. When He appeared in human form, He humbled Himself in obedience to God and He died a criminal’s death on a cross.” The commentary I read on Heb 5:8 says that, “Jesus’ human life was not a script that He passively followed. It was a life that He chose freely. It was a continuous process of making the will of God the Father His own. Jesus chose to obey even though obedience led to suffering and death.”

I think that sometimes I downplay in my mind what human life was actually like for Jesus. I tell myself that He was perfect, He was mighty, He knew all and because of these traits, He had a special “hall pass” from the frustration of life. But now that I think through this in light of His name “Obedient Son” I realize that being God made human life harder instead of easier. He faced the same things we face during His entire life, but He knew who He was and that He could remove Himself from the situation at any second. He chose daily to stay. He also knew the perfect home He left and His position of King over all and still He chose to leave it behind to complete the plan. Knowing what His future on earth held for Him, He chose to sacrifice His life and give it for us. He chose the ultimate gift of love, His life for ours. No other can or will offer you this.