It’s New Year’s Eve, and around the country and globe, millions of people are making New Year’s resolutions, and toasting to them. I am not one of those people. I have not made a New Year’s resolution in years! I know better…I am invariably one of the majority that breaks their resolutions, often before the old year has even had a chance to ride off into the sunset. After joining the crowd for many years and coming up with resolutions, I finally got smart and admitted that this great idea just did not work for me, and instead set me up for failure and disappointment. So I gave up. I resolved to make no more resolutions, the one resolution to which I have been able to stick! Ironic, isn’t it?

Let me be clear: there is absolutely nothing wrong with New Year’s resolutions. Just the act of making the resolution is a way to join into an activity with others, and then compare notes about how things are going, or not going. It can promote a sense of belonging and camaraderie. Setting goals, which is really what resolutions are, is a wonderful life skill. Preparing to work towards the goal, mapping out a course of action to achieve the goal, and following through to the end despite bumps in the road, are all valuable life skills. I have accomplished some goals, and yes, I do try to do all of those things, but for some reason, just not around New Year’s Eve.

New Year’s Eve for me is a time to reflect back on the goodness of God over the past year, and to cast off those things that are not from Him. We are made new by His grace, because of what Jesus Christ did for us, not by anything that we have done or can do. Our job is to believe, have faith in God, and accept what He has for us.

2 Corinthians 5:17 Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come.

How can I be “in Christ”? One way is to remain united with Him in faith, day after day, not based on how it feels today or tomorrow, but based in the knowledge that He has died, resurrected and ascended to sit at the right hand of the Father. When I am “in Christ” I am grafted into Him as a branch (me) is on a vine (Jesus), and the longer that I remain grafted into Him, the stronger that connection becomes, and the more like the vine this branch becomes. And eventually I bear the fruit that the vine is designed to bear! I don’t have to be the same old me that I was; I can choose to let that go, remain in Christ and accept those new things He has promised.

Isaiah 43:18-19 “Remember not the former things, nor consider the things of old. ¹⁹ Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.

I love these verses. They remind me of the gentleness and kindness of God when I mess up: He encourages me not to dwell in the past, not to look backwards at what went wrong, but to look forwards so I can see this “new thing” that He is doing. I love that it is kind of vague: God is encouraging us to keep our eyes on Him so we don’t miss what He is doing, the ways that He is making, or His provisions. As a human being, I can plan, prepare, map out and strive, but I can’t out-plan God! He sees things and knows things that I cannot. If I keep my eyes and ears open to Him, I will perceive this “new thing” that He is doing, and not miss it.

Ephesians 2:10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.

Yup, that’s us! His workmanship: other translations use the word “masterpiece” and “handiwork”. The Greek word “poiema” is translated as “workmanship”, from which we get the English words “poem” and “poetry”. You are His poem! Remember the 1961 song by Johnny Tillotson (songwriters Mike Anthony and Paul Kaufman) “Poetry in Motion”? (Yes, I’m showing my age here!) That’s you, you are His poetry in motion. Notice the order here: you are God’s poetry in motion, created by Him in Christ, so you can do righteous works, which He has set aside for you, so you could go ahead and habitually do good deeds. Your creation in Christ precedes your works. Your good works have absolutely nothing to do with it! Thank goodness. Because if my ability to stick to resolutions is any indication, I’d be looking more like a disaster in motion than poetry in motion!

This New Year, my hope for you is that you will allow the grace, goodness and power of God to change you from the inside out, make you a new creation, forgetting what was in the past, and looking forward to what the Lord has in store for you as His workmanship. May God bless you. May you grow in His marvelous light, grace and love in 2022. Happy New Year!

Tomorrow, December 25^th, is the day we celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ. His coming had been expected for many generations, spoken about with great hope, prophesied about and anxiously waited for. Jesus, the Messiah, was coming to save the people of God, the Jews! In the Old Testament, God’s people could not keep themselves out of trouble, because they kept walking away from their God, and choosing to worship and follow other gods. But they knew about the prophesies and waited anxiously for their salvation. Unfortunately, when He came, many rejected Him.

But God had a much bigger plan in mind. He intended to not only grant salvation to the Jews through faith in their Messiah, Jesus Christ, but to grant salvation to the whole world! In Luke 2:10-11 the birth of Jesus was announced to some shepherds out at night taking care of their sheep: “¹⁰ But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid; for behold, I bring you good news of great joy which will be for all the people; ¹¹ for today in the city of David there has been born for you a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. ” God chose shepherds to be the first ones to hear the news about the birth of Jesus: He didn’t choose the high priest, or governors, or the richest man in the land. He chose the lowly shepherds. Jesus is Savior for all.

John 3:16 tells us: “¹⁶ For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.” Whoever believes in Him: God intended salvation through Jesus Christ for everyone, not just a select few. He is an “equal opportunity” God: all He asks is that you believe in Jesus.

Jesus came to set captives free, to bring healing to hearts and bodies. When Jesus first started His public ministry, He quoted a prophecy from Isaiah 61:

Luke 4:18-19: “¹⁸ “The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me,
Because He anointed Me to preach the gospel to the poor.
He has sent Me to proclaim release to the captives,
And recovery of sight to the blind,
To set free those who are oppressed,
¹⁹ To proclaim the favorable year of the Lord.””

Jesus went on to say that this prophecy had been fulfilled in front of them that day, speaking about Himself.

That is our Lord: anointed by God to preach, mend hearts, set free, heal, release and bring God’s favor to people. In order to do all that, He had to be born as a baby, grow up into a man and be the perfect sacrifice for us. That’s how much God loves us: He willingly sacrificed His son for us, who willingly gave up His life for us.

Do you know my Jesus? If you do, God bless you and Merry Christmas! If you don’t but want to, the Bible tells us that those who search for Him with an honest heart will find Him. Start by reading about the birth of Jesus in Luke chapters 1 and 2, (since it is Christmas!) and then read the gospel of John to understand His great love for us. I know that when you seek Him you will find Him. I pray that you will come to know Jesus, the Light of the world, as your personal Savior and have a personal relationship with Him. He will never let you down! Merry Christmas!

“We’re talkin’ ’bout please and thank you
They’re called the magic words
If animals could talk,
You’d hear the fishes and the birds
Saying please and thank you,
‘Cause they’re the magic words”(an original song from the Barney show)

We were taught early in life the importance of saying please and thank you, and of having good manners, everything from using those words, to no elbows on the table, to being respectful to elders and so many other things. There are cultural and ethnic nuances to manners that vary widely throughout the world. I am one of those who believe that good manners, in any culture, are important. It is sometimes a trend that I see slipping away as the world, communication and socialization changes. The basics found in good manners are often what help to start a relationship; they indicate to the other person: “I see you” and “You have value”.

While good manners are important, having the right heart is even more important. Good manners are the actions that are seen, but they must come from a genuine heart of care, otherwise, manners are simply a superficial action. Most importantly, we are to have a thankful heart, “an attitude of gratitude”, especially in relationship with our God. 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18: ^“16Rejoice always; ¹⁷pray without ceasing; ¹⁸in everything give thanks; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.”  Really?  In everything? But what about when that fool cut me off? In everything… But what about when my kids refuse to come to church? In everything… But what about when I the doctors gave me the news? In everything…

Notice that verse 18 says: “in everything…” not “for everything…”. That little word makes a world of difference. It is God’s will for us that we maintain a grateful heart despite and in the midst of difficult circumstances. “For everything” would mean that we had to be thankful for all the bad things that happen. I have a hard time buying into that thinking, especially when I take into account that our adversary comes only to steal, kill and destroy, and is the driving force behind many of these bad things. I am not thankful to or for him at all! We can be thankful for the character traits that grow out of living through difficult circumstances, such as perseverance, patience, faith (also known as the fruit of the Spirit); we can be thankful for the peace that passes understanding that God provides in every situation; we can be thankful that Jesus Christ is right there with us through it all, because He has already been through it all. Gratitude involves taking our eyes off the circumstances and putting them on our Savior; those negative circumstances will lose their influence over our thoughts and hearts as we focus on Christ. God wants us to have a grateful heart so that He can  help us through difficult circumstances.

Cultivating an attitude of gratitude takes concentrated effort and practice. It is not something that comes naturally to us humans. We tend towards selfishness; the world pushes us in that direction and Satan is invested in having us nurture selfishness because we are stronger when we walk united in our faith than when we walk alone. It is a constant and conscious process to set aside our own selfish desires and intents, and instead think first about God, and secondly about others. How often, when we go before the throne of God, do we go there because we want or need something, instead of just going to Him because we love Him and think He is awesome? Or how often do we forget to notice what He has done, and instead launch into what is lacking? Carrying an attitude of gratitude demands that we first go to God with a thankful heart just because He is, that someone of His omnipotence would even look at us, let alone call us His children. Lauren Daigle sings a beautiful song, First, (written by Jason Ingram, Mia Fieldes, Paul Mabury, Hank Bentley and Lauren Daigle) that starts out:

“Before I bring my need

I will bring my heart

Before I lift my cares

I will lift my arms”

Before you bring your plea, make sure you bow your knee. Before you ask Him, praise Him. He so deserves our praise and our gratitude!

Carrying an attitude of gratitude means doing whatever is asked of us without “fussing and mussing” (one of my mother’s “mom-isms”) about it. Philippians 2:14-16 “¹⁴Do all things without grumbling or disputing; ¹⁵so that you will prove yourselves to be blameless and innocent, children of God above reproach in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you appear as lights in the world, ¹⁶holding fast the word of life, so that in the day of Christ I will have reason to glory because I did not run in vain nor toil in vain.” This also is not something that comes easily to us humans. Let’s face it, we often like to grumble, and we can usually find someone who likes to grumble right there alongside us! When we engage without complaints, the light of Christ shines through us, and sets us apart from the darkness in the world.; verse 15 tells us that we become (prove yourselves) free from fault (blameless) and not mixed with evil (innocent). If that is true, then the opposite must also hold true: complaints leave us open to blame, and leave the door open for evil to walk in. Well…that’s a different take on grumbling and disputing! Think back to the stories of the children of Israel in the Old Testament: they were always complaining about something. The result was that they turned away from their God and worshipped idols, and had all kinds of bad things happen to them. Their response is a great example to us of what not to do if we want to have an attitude of gratitude, stay in fellowship with God and enjoy the blessings of that fellowship. Our ability to carry an attitude of gratitude, and not complain, becomes a witness of the grace of God in our lives, the light that shines in the darkness.

Giving thanks well involves having a consistent attitude of gratitude towards our God in all situations, being willing to submit without grumbling and arguing, and keeping our hearts in the right place. And if we can display good manners towards others, we can also display them towards Him: say “good morning” to your Lord every day, approach Him with respect, and always thank Him for every good and perfect gift that He has given and will give. Reflect His light in your attitude of gratitude for all the world to see. God bless you!

Joy. When you hear the word, what do you think of? A smile? Laughter? Christmas? A girl’s name? A movie? In the 2015 Disney movie, Inside Out, Joy is an animated feeling who shares space with all the other feelings. But Joy starts out not liking to share her space with others, because she does not like what the other feelings bring up. She wants the little girl whose head and heart she occupies to feel only joy. She is quite jealous of her space, and tries not to allow the other feelings to have a voice. 

As humans, we have lots of conflicting emotions: we may feel both sad and happy at the same time. We may be terrified by a scary movie, yet be riveted by it and unable to turn our eyes away. We cry tears of joy and tears of sadness. We may be deeply in love with someone with whom we are angry. Joy is an emotion that is sometimes sought after, and sometimes rejected. Those who tend to be joyful all the time may be scolded: “You’re too happy; what are you hiding” in a half joking/half serious way. Those who tend to show no joy may be rejected and isolated because it’s hard to spend time with them.

The Bible has quite a lot to say about joy. The NASB 1995 version of the Bible uses the word “joy” over 200 times. Let’s look at a few points here.

Jesus and joy: Jesus’ birth was both heralded and received with joy; from the beginning, joy was closely connected with His presence. When the angel announced the birth to the shepherds, the angel said: “… “Do not be afraid; for behold, I bring you good news of great joy which will be for all the people;” (Luke 2:10). The wise men saw His star: “When they saw the star, they rejoiced exceedingly with great joy.” (Matthew 2:10). They knew what the presence of the star meant and couldn’t wait to be a part of the coming of the Messiah! In the Gospel of John, Jesus spent a lot of time speaking with His followers about the kind of relationship He had and would have with them, and gave this reason for doing so: “These things I have spoken to you so that My joy may be in you, and that your joy may be made full.” (John 15:11). It was important to Jesus that His disciples understood and had joy. Jesus was able to accomplish what He did, to suffer and die for us, because He knew the joy that was waiting for Him on the other side of His suffering: “² Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.” (Hebrews 12:2) Joy sustained Jesus as He suffered unimaginable pain and humiliation to become our Savior. It is His joy that sustains us, when we know and understand the depth of our relationship with Him.

Joy as a fruit: Jesus taught His followers about the nature of their relationship so that they could have His joy, and so that their joy could be “made full”, meaning that their joy would be made perfect through Him. (Perfect joy is quite a concept! Let that sink into your spirit for a minute. We spend so much time in the world chasing happiness, when what we really need to chase is Jesus.)

After Jesus resurrected and ascended into heaven, He sent His Holy Spirit (also called the Helper and Comforter) to His followers, just as He had promised He would, so they would never be alone. That same promise applies to us today; when we believe in Jesus Christ, we are born again into His family, and have the Holy Spirit. What we do with that gift affects our walk with God and our lives. Galatians 5:22-23 says: “²² But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, ²³ Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law.” Notice the second fruit: joy. How do we get fruit? If you know anything about gardening or farming, you know that you have to tend to your plant in order to get fruit: you water it, feed it, make sure it gets light, and maybe talk to it (yes, some of us do that). So it is with your gift of Holy Spirit: feed it by reading the Bible, praying, spending time in the presence of the Lord, seeking Him out, and the resulting fruit will fill your life. Don’t feed it well, and you may still get some fruit, but it will be puny, not as big, flavorful and perfect as God intended!

The joy of the Lord is your strength: In Nehemiah 8:10, Nehemiah and Ezra were ministering to the Jews: “¹⁰Then he said unto them, Go your way, eat the fat, and drink the sweet, and send portions unto them for whom nothing is prepared: for this day is holy unto our Lord: neither be ye sorry; for the joy of the Lord is your strength.” The Jews captivity in Babylon had ended and they returned to their land and rebuilt the city. When the book of the law was read before them, they became sad and upset at how they had sinned against their God, and wept.  God did not want the people to wallow in their sorrow for their wrong actions; He wanted them to rely on and look to Him. He did not want them to waste another day in mourning, but instructed them to set it aside, and instead focus on His joy. When we keep our eyes on circumstances, instead of on our God, we miss out on all He has to offer. Sometimes, those circumstances can look very proper: in the passage above, the Israelites had been in captivity because they disobeyed God; God had now taken them out of captivity and brought them to Jerusalem. They must have had many mixed emotions, relief, sorrow, repentance. But God, in His grace and mercy, told them to set all of that aside and instead put their eyes and hearts on Him, enjoy what He had provided for them, and be strengthened in the joy He was offering to them. God sees and knows our hearts. When we come to Him with honesty and humility, we do not need to live in guilt, sorrow or condemnation. He willingly forgives us and replaces our sorrow with joy.

When we accept the grace and forgiveness that God always extends to us, when we approach Him with a truly humble heart, His joy becomes our strength. We can overcome any challenges that are thrown at us and move those mountains!

It is not where we have come from, what we have done or not done that matters. It is whether or not, right now, we accept that Jesus, the Light of the world, is our Savior, that He died for our sins, is resurrected and alive today. He lives in us through the Holy Spirit! His joy is in us. I pray that you experience His joy, guard it fiercely from things that try to steal it and experience the peace and strength that only He can give. God bless you!

I love my mother. She was a no-nonsense woman who was smart, hardworking, tolerant and kind. She grew up in England in the first few decades of the last century; the cultural and generational influences were evident in how she approached life and her overall philosophy of life. One of her favorite sayings was some version of “You made your bed, now lie in it”. In other words, you created the problem, now deal with it. Her favorite Scripture on the other hand was Philippians 4:8: “Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, dwell on these things.” My mother worked hard to find the good and focus on it in the midst of any struggle she was going through, or in people she met. She was not a warm and fuzzy person, but she cared.  She had compassion for others that was independent of her own circumstances and needs.

The Merriam Webster Dictionary defines compassion as: sympathetic consciousness of others’ distress together with a desire to alleviate it. To frame it more elaborately:

“Compassion literally means “to suffer together.” Among emotion researchers, it is defined as the feeling that arises when you are confronted with another’s suffering and feel motivated to relieve that suffering.

Compassion is not the same as empathy or altruism, though the concepts are related. While empathy refers more generally to our ability to take the perspective of and feel the emotions of another person, compassion is when those feelings and thoughts include the desire to help. Altruism, in turn, is the kind, selfless behavior often prompted by feelings of compassion, though one can feel compassion without acting on it, and altruism isn’t always motivated by compassion.” (https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/topic/compassion/definition)

In Exodus 33, Moses asks God to show him His glory; God responds by saying that no man can see His face and live, and then lets Moses know that because he has found favor with God, God will allow Moses to see his back. So, God puts him in a little crevice in a rock and covers him up until God has passed by, then uncovers him. In chapter 34, verses 7-8, God describes Himself in this way: “The Lord, the Lord God, compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in lovingkindness and truth; ⁷ who keeps lovingkindness for thousands, who forgives iniquity, transgression and sin; yet He will by no means leave the guilty unpunished, visiting the iniquity of fathers on the children and on the grandchildren to the third and fourth generations.” Why did God have to add that last part after that beautiful beginning? It somehow seems mean spirited, in opposition to compassionate. But having compassion does not mean that you have to let go of all standards and expectations. The Israelites had been immensely disrespectful and disobedient towards God by turning away from Him yet again, and this time because they thought that the man of God, Moses, was taking too long up on the mountain talking with God! They got impatient and built themselves a golden calf to worship instead of the one true God. We should not be surprised that this made God angry. Yet even in His righteous anger, He allowed Moses to intercede for the people, and agreed to still go with them, guide and protect them. When I have someone turn so harshly and quickly on me, I am not that quick to have compassion and mercy. And even worse, this was not the first time that the Israelites had turned their backs on God, despite His miracles before them. Compassionate? Yes. Just? Yes. Jealous? Yes.

From the start, God identifies Himself as a compassionate God who is slow to anger. That compassion for the Israelites prompted God to continue to be their God, claim them as His people, and stay with them through everything. It must have taken a great deal of patience to work with the Israelites. Although if I am honest, it must take a great deal of patience to work with me as well. I am not as faithful as I could be to the God I profess to love and serve! And He does have to show me or tell me things over and over again before I start to listen. Have you ever noticed how often the Bible tells us not to be afraid, and that God is with us? It’s because we all need to hear it over and over again for it to sink into our heads and our hearts. God, in His compassionate nature, does not mind being repetitive for us.

Perhaps our most compelling example of compassion is the Man, Jesus Christ. The gospels describe Jesus as having compassion on those around Him, and that compassion drove Him to heal, feed, teach and be with those for whom He had compassion. Jesus was willing to give up His own comfort to demonstrate compassion; He extended His “workday” and went without rest in order to meet needs. Take the feeding of the five thousand for example. Matthew 14:13-16 starts the account of the miracle just after Jesus had heard that His cousin, John the Baptist, had been beheaded: “¹³ When Jesus heard what had happened, he withdrew by boat privately to a solitary place. Hearing of this, the crowds followed him on foot from the towns. ¹⁴ When Jesus landed and saw a large crowd, he had compassion on them and healed their sick. ¹⁵ As evening approached, the disciples came to him and said, “This is a remote place, and it’s already getting late. Send the crowds away, so they can go to the villages and buy themselves some food.” ¹⁶ Jesus replied, “They do not need to go away. You give them something to eat.”” Jesus could probably have used some alone time with His Father to mourn the death of His cousin, but His compassion pushed Him to set aside His own grief and help those who needed Him.

Jesus told two parables that describe compassionate behaviors. One is known as the Parable of the Good Samaritan (we still use that phrase today; in fact, there is a law called the Good Samaritan Law that protects people who show compassion). In Luke 10:30-37, Jesus tells the story of a man, a Jew, who was badly hurt and left to die on the side of the road. No one would help him, including a priest, indeed they avoided him, except for the Samaritan who went above and beyond to ensure that the man was taken care of. What is remarkable about the Samaritan, is not only that he helped, but that he did it despite being part of a group of people who were despised by the Jews.

Also found in Luke, in chapter 15 is the other parable, The Parable of the Prodigal Son, or the Forgiving Father, as some like to call it. This son had taken his share of the inheritance early, and left home. He squandered all his money until he had none left and was forced to perform the most degrading and menial jobs just to survive. He finally came to his senses and decided to go and ask his father, who was wealthy, for forgiveness and a job. When his father saw him, Luke 15:20, tells us that “his father saw him and felt compassion for him, and ran and embraced him and kissed him.” The father did a lot more than just kiss his son: he got him the best robe, gave him his ring and sandals, and prepared a feast. In fact, he was so good to him that the other son was jealous, and the father had to help him understand what compassion was all about.

In all these accounts, compassion was the motivation for some kind of action. Compassion may start as a feeling, but it always results in action. Compassion is when we can look past the exterior, see the need underneath and are willing to do something to take care of that need. Compassion moves us to give of ourselves beyond what we believe we are capable of. Compassion that is driven by the love of God bears fruit, profits the receiver and giver.

My mother had compassion. We were not a rich family by any standard, yet she gave others what she could. I remember one instance in particular: we did not have a washing machine and always did our laundry by hand in a big wash tub and hung it out to dry. It was hard work. One day, I remember coming home and seeing a woman washing our laundry, dressed in her beautiful traditional Arab dress that she had handsewn and embroidered. I knew we had little, but when I asked my mother some time later how and why she had hired her to do laundry, she simply replied that we had more than the woman did, and the woman had children to feed. Much to my mother’s delight, that woman washed our laundry for years!                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                

My mother did not speak much about her faith, but in her strong and steady manner she shone the Light of the world on others. She lived her faith as best she could, in the way she believed she should, by taking care of others’ needs in her own quiet way.

My encouragement to you is that you rest in Jesus Christ and allow the Light of the world to shine through you and onto others. Through Him we have strength and perseverance to do what we doubted we could. It is through His grace, and because He first loved us, that we have compassion for others that moves us to action. It is for His praise and glory that we are moved to act out of compassion. God bless you!

Forrest Gump, in the movie that goes by his name, famously said: “My Mama always said, ‘Life was like a box of chocolates. You never know what you’re gonna get.’” Forrest’s Mama was a smart lady! Just when you think you know what you are doing, or what you are getting, when the last piece of chocolate you ate was delicious, life throws you a curveball. Or maybe it’s your kids, or your husband, or your boss that throws the curveball. Whoever or however the curveball is delivered, it comes at you when you least expect it and when you are most likely to be feeling content with how things are going. How you see that curveball, the meaning that you give to it, how you have prepared for it, will determine the outcome.

God tells us in His Word that we should expect curveballs. John 16:33 tells us “…In the world you have tribulation…” (trouble or suffering). In Psalm 23 verse 4, David writes “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, you are with me; Your rod and Your staff [shepherd’s equipment to help sheep] they comfort me.” God tells us that bad things will happen and promises to be with us in the worst of circumstances. Back to John 16: before Jesus told His disciples that they would have tribulation in the world, He said to them in the first part of v.33: “These things I have spoken to you, so that in Me you may have peace….” “These things” …what are they? Whatever they are, I want to know so that I can have His peace in the midst of curveballs coming at me!

Jesus said a lot in the Gospel of John before making the statement to His disciples in v.33 “These things I have spoken to you, so that in Me you may have peace. In the world you have tribulation,…”. Let me pull out a few that stand out to me.

John 14:27:“Peace I leave with you; My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Do not let your heart be troubled, nor let it be fearful.”

Jesus Christ promised His disciples that they would experience a peace previously unknown to the world, given by Him. Imagine a place and time when you are at peace. Imagine what it feels like, smells like, looks like. Imagine yourself in that place. Feels great, right? Until an unexpected storm creeps up and wrecks it! The peace we have through faith in Jesus Christ goes farther than that. It is beyond our understanding, because it is not found in things we can experience with our five senses, but only in what we can experience through spiritual senses. Philippians 4:7 echoes this when Paul writes: “And the peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” We comprehend with our minds, but this peace goes beyond what we can grasp with minds, yet protects our minds from things that might cause distress. In the absence of peace, there is often chaos and instability. Imagine watching that curveball coming at you, not knowing exactly what direction it’s going to take, and experiencing peace. Having incomprehensible peace when you have a curveball flying towards you…what a gift!

In John 13, Jesus has His last supper with the disciples, washes their feet and tells them of His coming betrayal. Jesus must have known how heavily His words weighed on their hearts, because He starts out the following chapter by encouraging them that what is about to happen gives them a hope for the future, even though at the time they did not fully grasp what He was saying.

John 14:1-3: “Do not let your heart be troubled; believe in God, believe also in Me. ² In My Father’s house are many dwelling places; if it were not so, I would have told you; for I go to prepare a place for you. ³ If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself, that where I am, there you may be also.”

As a believer in Jesus Christ, we have an expected end: we know that we will spend eternity with Him and with the Father. Revelation 21:22-23 describes the new Jerusalem “²²I saw no temple in it, for the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb are its temple. ²³And the city has no need of the sun or of the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God has illumined it, and its lamp is the Lamb.” That is our expected end, to spend eternity in the presence of God. No need of a church or temple to congregate in to worship together: just stand together in front of God and worship! No need to turn lights off and on to dispel darkness: the Light is always on and darkness has been dispelled already! We may not know what curveballs life throws at us, but when we have confidence that God in His grace and mercy has granted us salvation through faith in His Son, Jesus Christ, curveballs lose their power to rock our world. We KNOW what our end will be, and everything else is temporary.

Throughout chapters 14, 15, and 16, Jesus speaks to His disciples of the coming of the Holy Spirit.

John 14: 16-17 “¹⁶I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may be with you forever; ¹⁷that is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it does not see Him or know Him, but you know Him because He abides with you and will be in you.”

John 14:26 “²⁶But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I said to you.”

John 15:26 “²⁶“When the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, that is the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, He will testify about Me, ²⁷ and you will testify also, because you have been with Me from the beginning.”

John 16:7 “⁷But I tell you the truth, it is to your advantage that I go away; for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you; but if I go, I will send Him to you.” 

In their heaviness of heart, Jesus was trying to encourage His disciples by letting them know that even if they did not understand it at that time, His departure would end up being a blessing for them. I am not a Greek scholar, but sometimes it’s useful to dig deeper into the meaning of words that are translated into our English language; English is a beautiful language that sometimes falls short of conveying the full beauty of the meanings of words. The word translated in the above passages as “helper” is the Greek word “parakletos”. It means “one called alongside to help, comforter, advocate, intercessor”. That’s a lot of depth wrapped into one word! This “parakletos” that Jesus speaks about, and will send, wears many hats; He is the Spirit of truth, abides in us, is with us forever, will teach us, will remind us and will testify about Jesus. If He is all those things, I think He can certainly handle a few curveballs! Jesus promised to never leave us alone, because the Holy Spirit, “parakletos”. that He sent, is always with us and will teach us how to handle those surprises that life likes to throw our way. We by ourselves are not able, but in the power, knowledge and truth of the “Parakletos”, we are able.

When we rest in Him, allow His peace to surround us and remain in us, as He promised, life’s curveballs are not so disruptive. When we have confidence that He will handle them with us, and will teach us how to handle them, they don’t seem so scary. When we are assured that our end involves remaining in and with the Light of the world for eternity, while curveballs come and go, they have no power. When we focus on the solution, Christ, and not the problem, curveballs, we are enabled and empowered to knock them out of the park and score a home run!

Jesus is the Light of the world. There is no darkness in Him. When we rest and remain in Him, we live in His light, which exposes the darkness. God bless you as you continue to seek the face of our Lord. He promises us that those who seek Him will find Him!

I love plants: trees, flowers, shrubs, fungi, grasses: they are all beautiful! I don’t have a spectacularly green thumb, but I also don’t have a completely brown thumb. I have grown my fair share of plants, and also killed a few. I’ve always tried to have plants in my home, although right now it’s hard to because my cats like to nibble on them, which isn’t great for their health. I tried getting them “cat grass” but they still preferred my plants, so I had to move them all to higher ground to save them.

I have always wanted to grow an avocado plant. I don’t know why, but it’s been a desire for many years. I have gone through many avocado seeds in my attempts to grow an avocado plant, have tried for many years, and in different ways. I stuck toothpicks in the side of the seeds and propped them up in a bowl full of water. I waited patiently (I thought) for WEEKS looking every day to see if the roots had started to grow. After a few weeks of no roots, I thought to myself “Maybe the seed is dead” so I threw it out and got another one. I tried the same thing again, and got the same results. So I took the seed and put it in a pot in soil. Maybe I needed soil to grow seeds. I left it outside the side door so I could check it every day. But 2 days later I came home to a neat hole in the dirt and no seed: one of those little critters that lives around my house, a squirrel or chipmunk, must have sniffed it out. What?? How could a little critter smell that seed under the dirt. So I tried again. Same outcome. I must have gone through this same routine two or three years in a row. And I still didn’t have an avocado plant.

This year, I vowed to try something different. I was DETERMINED to have a plant. I Googled information and read a few “how to”s. I chose my course of action: I took a seed and poked toothpicks into its sides, three toothpicks to make sure that it was securely propped up on top of the bowl. I made sure that there was always enough water in the bowl to have at least the bottom of the seed covered. The water got murky, but I never dumped the whole thing out. And I waited. For a long time. Weeks went by, then months. And nothing. The seed cracked, but nothing. Then one day, I picked the seed up out of the water to check it for the hundredth time, and looked in the crack, and saw it! A small white something! Could that be the beginnings of a root? I put it back in the water, and watched it every day, making sure that there was enough water to cover the seed, and now the white something. The seed had been there for so long that the toothpicks were starting to loosen, but it was still propped up on top of the bowl. And the roots grew. Beautiful curly white roots that would one day sink into soil and be the anchor for the plant. I waited for months after the roots started to grow, just to let them gain length and strength. They grew agonizingly slowly, but there was PROGRESS: nothing died.

And then the time came to plant it. I got a pot and soil, and carefully planted the seed in the soil, roots down, covered it up, put it on my kitchen counter under the window where there’s plenty of light, watered it well, and waited. And waited. And waited. Nothing. I dug into the soil to make sure the seed was still there and checked if anything was growing. Nothing. Maybe I had buried it too deep. So I made a little hollow above the seed and a few days later… a shoot! How wonderful! A tiny reddish shoot made its way through the dirt and to the light! It grew slowly, but it was growing! The tiny shoot bent towards the window, seeking the light. I turned it every day so it would grow straight, and every day, it bent towards the light. No leaves, no real form other than a stalk, but it is a living, growing shoot. The shoot is only a few inches long, but it is alive and it is growing. And one day it will be a beautiful plant with a trunk, branches and leaves, and maybe even an avocado!

Growing in Jesus, the Light of the world, is a bit like that avocado seed. We can immerse ourselves in the Word and surround ourselves with believers but sometimes we don’t see the results we want when we want them: so we get impatient, and change course, try something else, or think that we are defective and will never learn or grow. Here’s a thought: no one, you included, is so defective that God cannot reach you, touch you and heal you, through Jesus Christ. In fact, He delights in putting broken things back together. Isaiah prophesied about Jesus saying:

“The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me,
Because the Lord has anointed me
To bring good news to the afflicted;
He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,
To proclaim liberty to captives
And freedom to prisoners;” (Isaiah 61:1)

You and I are exactly why Jesus came to this earth!

We, just like seeds, have to not only be in the right conditions to grow, but also be willing to absorb the nutrients provided and wait patiently for the results. If we get impatient, switch to something else, we may miss out on what God has in store for us. Sometimes, being in all that dirt and waiting for things to happen may just seem too difficult. And it is… when we try to do it alone. But when we do it with Jesus, it becomes easier and suddenly, we start growing! The growth can sometimes be small and almost imperceptible, like the tiny white beginnings of a root. Instead of the water only surrounding the seed, the seed starts to reach out into the water, growing roots into it and letting the water touch more of itself. The more we grow in Jesus Christ, the more we stretch out towards him and allow Him to change us, the more we can receive from Him. As our roots grow, and our foundation becomes firmly embedded in Jesus Christ, we start to reach up and out into the world. Our reach might at first be small and hesitant, as though feeling our way in the world, but then it starts to grow into a thing of beauty. When we grow in grace and walk in the love of God, when we allow Him to work in us and through us, we become more beautiful because we are HIS reflection. We take on His beauty, not our own.

There’s something else about that little avocado shoot: even as a tiny shoot less than an inch long, it grew in the direction of the light that came in through the kitchen window. That little shoot had to have the sun’s light to grow into what it was designed to be from the beginning. We are the same. As we start to grow, we too always seek the Son as our source of life and light; if we get turned around, He tugs on our hearts to turn back to Him. We cannot grow into the person He has called us to be without Him. Not only are we rooted in Him, but we also gravitate towards Him for our light and life. Jesus truly becomes our all in all.

Whether you need to have patience with yourself or with someone else, I hope the story of that little avocado seed will resonate with you. God has a plan for that little avocado seed, built right into the DNA of the seed, and He has a plan for you as well. May the light, love and grace of Jesus Christ surround you, nurture you and love you through all the dirt in your life so that you bloom in His marvelous light.

April 4, 2021

Happy Resurrection Sunday! He is risen! Jesus Christ has conquered the grave! Hallelujah!

On the eve of Passover, Jesus Christ willingly gave up His perfect life for you and me. He knew what was coming: the betrayal, the trial, the beatings, the crucifixion, and death. But He also knew what was on the other side, and the Bible tells us that he was able to endure the agony “for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame” (Hebrews 12:2). Jesus Christ, the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, couldn’t care less about the shame that people threw His way, the names He was called, the jeering and the taunting, because He knew what was coming, and why He was doing it. Jesus knew that He would be raised again on the third day, and ultimately be seated at the right hand of the Father, and it kept Him going til the end. He knew that He was doing it in place of you and me, and that He would be saving all of mankind; and that’s why He did it. He did it out of pure love.

Jesus was talking to His disciples in John 15: ^“12 “This is My commandment, that you love one another, just as I have loved you. ¹³ Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends.” We have salvation, eternal life, peace and joy because He laid down His life for us, because He loved us so much. John 3:16 and 17: ¹⁶ “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life. ¹⁷ For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him. “ God is love, of that I am sure.

How do you respond to such a great love? How can you ever say thanks for such an enormous gift? Well…one way is to accept it, to take that step of faith, and accept Christ as Savior and Lord of your life. I promise, (even better, He promises) He will never let you down! Another way is by loving others: 1 John 4: 19 – 21: “¹⁹ We love, because He first loved us. ²⁰ If someone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for the one who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen. ²¹ And this commandment we have from Him, that the one who loves God should love his brother.” Having a bad day? Remember what Jesus did. Feel like saying something sharp and hurtful? Remember what Jesus did. His death and resurrection can put into focus those things in life that just bother us, and help us to overcome them and be more like Him. But first, you have to know Him as your Savior, so you can be born again and made a new creation.

There is much to say about this gift of salvation that has been so freely given to us from our God. But the message is always the same. God so loved…Jesus’ showed that greater love…He paid the ultimate price to save you and me by giving up His life on the cross. The Light of the world shines brightly today, because He is resurrected and lives in you and me when we believe in Him. Today, if you don’t know my Lord as your Lord and Savior, I pray that He will meet you where you are, touch your heart, and you will know Him and love Him, because He first loved you. And if you do already know Him, I pray that His light will burn brightly in your heart, and fill you with grace, love and gratitude. God bless you!

Waiting…I have waited a long time to finish this blog. Some of the waiting for inspiration I need to own, since I did not actively wait, abide and rest in the Lord throughout the last few weeks. Had I done so, I might have received inspiration to write this sooner. But I will never know…

Patience is sometimes one of my better qualities; I can help others problem solve and agonize through decisions they have to make; I can repeat myself over and over again when others forget; I understand and empathize with the growing pains associated with change. Then there are other times when I do not have patience, do not want to wait, and expect everyone to be on the same page as I am. Even God. Sometimes, I think He is not moving quickly enough, or is making me wait too long for an answer, and I start sounding more like the five year old version of me than the adult version. I am very thankful that my God has infinitely more patience and grace than I do, and loves me through it all!

God wants us to wait for Him. He is not the kind of God that immediately fulfills every need as soon as there is even a glimmer of it. He does not always give all the answers right away, and sometimes gives them a little at a time. He certainly does not follow our schedule, but does things according to His divine timing. After all, isn’t waiting what faith is? “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen” Hebrews 11:1. I like the King James version: “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” Waiting makes us flex our faith muscles; faith is what gives our hope shape, or “substance”, and brings into view those things that are not yet seen. Faith is what it takes to please God; He so completely wants us to trust Him with every part of our being and our lives.

But waiting can be hard; so how do we accomplish this waiting in a manner that glorifies Him and helps us overcome our carnal impatience?

Waiting, abiding and resting. Related yet distinct words.

Most of us understand what “waiting” means, both from experience and the dictionary. In the Old Testament, wait is: to wait, look for, hope expecting something to come to pass. In the New Testament, there is a sense of perseverance added to the meaning of waiting. Sometimes we may feel like we are waiting for something that will never come, but with God, we never wait in vain because He never does not show up: or…He always shows up!

Psalm 40:1 “I waited patiently for the Lord; And He inclined to me and heard my cry.” The psalmist spent time waiting patiently, intently and expectantly for the Lord, and he was not disappointed. The Lord stretched out towards him, bent His ear towards him, heard his cry, and responded by “He brought me up out of a horrible pit [of tumult and of destruction], out of the miry clay, And He set my feet upon a rock, steadying my footsteps and establishing my path” (v.2, Amplified Version). The psalmist’s patient waiting was rewarded by the Lord, and he found stability and assurance.

Jesus’ last instruction to His disciples is found in Acts 1:4  “^]Gathering them together, He commanded them not to leave Jerusalem, but to wait for what the Father had promised, “Which,” He said, “you heard of from Me; ⁵ for John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.” The disciples heeded this instruction and remained in Jerusalem; because they obeyed and waited, they were a part of the first outpouring of the Holy Spirit, and experienced the joy of speaking in tongues as well as receiving the power that they needed to do the work He had instructed them to do. Had they not waited, or been frustrated with waiting, they might have entirely missed this greatest gift.

In Acts 10 we find the account of Cornelius who was told by a man in shining clothes, while he was praying, that his prayers had been heard and to send for Peter. Cornelius obeyed, and then waited. But while he waited, he did not just sit idly. He gathered his friends and family to his house so that they also could be present when Peter arrived and would be able to hear what Peter had to say to them. Cornelius’ waiting was active; he anticipated a positive outcome; he had faith that there was important information Peter had to share with him, and he wanted to make sure that everyone he loved would hear it as well. So he brought everyone over to wait with him. When Peter got there, Cornelius was done waiting, dove right in and told Peter to go ahead and speak whatever God told him to!

While we are waiting for God’s time to come to fruition, how do we wait? Do we wait keeping an eye on the clock, impatiently tapping our fingers while we count every second that passes? Do we wait by trying to move time along a little faster or by trying to do the work for God? Do we distract ourselves with the things of the world, and throw ourselves into work or family or service? Or are we like Cornelius, waiting and anticipating in faith, and preparing to receive what God has in store?

Perhaps the best way to wait is to abide in Him.

Abide, as it is used in the Bible, is an old word with a deep meaning of rest and continuance; it means to remain stable or in a fixed state, to continue in a place. There is no restlessness in abiding, no looking for something better, no longing for anything else, no lack. It conveys a sense of satisfaction and fulfillment in the waiting. In John 15, Jesus talks to his disciples about how important it is that He abides in them, and they in him.

John 15:4-11 “Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in Me. ⁵ I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing. ⁶ If anyone does not abide in Me, he is thrown away as a branch and dries up; and they gather them, and cast them into the fire and they are burned. ⁷ If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. ⁸ My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit, and so prove to be My disciples. ⁹ Just as the Father has loved Me, I have also loved you; abide in My love. ¹⁰ If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love; just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and abide in His love. ¹¹ These things I have spoken to you so that My joy may be in you, and that your joy may be made full.”

When we abide in Christ, and He in us, any waiting that we might have to do is not idle time: we can still bear fruit while we are waiting on the Lord. When we abide in Him, we abide in His love. Remember that “abide” is a verb, which signifies some kind of action: abiding is not a passive process by which we wait to have the Lord do everything for us and watch things fall into our laps. On the other hand, on our own we are pretty useless, while in Him we bear fruit. So, when we abide, our job is to focus on Jesus as our sustainer, our vine, from which we, the branches, gain strength and nutrition so that we are vibrant and productive.

I can tell you from experience that abiding takes practice, much like waiting does, and although it does become easier with practice, I cannot say that I have “arrived at” perfection in abiding or waiting. When we abide, we are actively aware and in the presence of the Lord; we are actively seeking His will; we are actively speaking with and expecting to hear from Him; we are minimizing external (worldly) distractions in order to focus more fully on hearing from Him. Abiding is a conscious decision to make Jesus a priority in our lives and move ourselves in such a way that we remain with Him. No drifting, no wandering off, no huffing and puffing or thinking that the grass is greener on the other side. Notice also that even though Jesus told His disciples to abide in Him, the end result of that was to their benefit, not to their torture…it was so that their joy would be “made full”. God does ask us to do things that are not always easy or even pleasant, but the end result of those things is for our benefit. What a gracious God we serve!

Let’s take a look at resting, another word that is related and adds further depth and learning to the act of waiting for God. Resting is an important idea in the Bible. Right from the beginning, in Genesis 2:2, it tells us that after God had worked for six days to create the world, when He had completed all His work, He rested on the seventh day. The word sabbath (or Shabbat in Hebrew) means to rest, and the Jewish people still do not work on Shabbat. If God rested from all His work, then I certainly need to rest as well! In the Old Testament, according to Levitical laws, the land needed to rest (lie fallow) every seventh year: a sabbath for the land. This was so that the land could regain some of the nutrients that had been used up over the previous six years and produce bountiful crops again. In Hebrews 4, the Word tells us that in order to enter into the rest that God has prepared for us, we must believe, and just as with the Israelites, we run the risk of not being able to enter into His rest if we choose to enter into disobedience. But when we do enter into His rest, we can drink from the Fountain of Living Water, and eat of the Bread of Life, and be refreshed.

From the beginning of the Bible to the end of the Bible, rest is important. Science today has learned a lot about the value of sleep to the human body, but there is still a lot that science does not know about what exactly happens during sleep, how our bodies know we need sleep, and how it benefits us. But our God, who did after all create sleep, does know. And we can rest securely in the knowledge that if He created it, if He Himself rested, then we also need to rest in the Vine in order to produce fruit and have fullness of joy.

There is so much to learn about waiting, abiding and resting, and just how we do that might differ for each of us. Our God works with each of us in a unique way, providing us with what we need, and teaching us in a way that we can hear and learn from Him. One thing I am certain about is that one outcome of all three is peace. When we are in alignment with the will of the Lord, when we are actively seeking Him out, when we choose to set aside our own agendas and wait patiently for Him, we can be assured that we will experience His peace in our lives.

My prayer for you is that you become increasingly mature in waiting for the Lord, that you rest in Him and receive His sustenance, that you abide in His dwelling place, and that He is your hiding place from the struggles and chaos of this world. I pray that His peace overwhelms you, and His love envelops you. God bless you!

Thanks for reading. I pray that it has brought you closer to the Lord.

I admit it: I love quick fixes and self help solutions. I like seeing a problem and being able to resolve it quickly and easily, and then not have to think or worry about it anymore. It’s satisfying and empowering and definitely a feel good moment. But not everything has or should have a quick fix. Some things just take time.

We are surrounded by self help books and articles that instruct us to follow a few simple steps in order to achieve the goal of the moment. In the United States, the self help industry is a multi billion dollar industry, and growing. On TV, social media, magazines and the internet, we are further bombarded with ads that tell us: “Fourteen days to no more belly fat” or “Four weeks to thicker shinier hair” or “Five weeks to your whitest smile ever”. Self help books carry equally seductive and enticing titles, promising big rewards. Sounds good, right? And we fall for it, with our money, our hearts and our time.

Don’t get me wrong, there are great resources in the self help industry that have really helped many people, and wonderful products that do what they say they will do and are beneficial.  We can use fresh ideas and products in order to accomplish goals, including in godly pursuits. The question is: where is your heart?

Quick fixes and self help solutions at their heart take away from our understanding of God as the answer and our sufficiency in all things. The essence of both is “me centered” rather than God centered. They are rooted in “I can do all things” thinking, and not in “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me” (Phil 4:13) thinking. It’s about building a better version of you.

If I can call anything a quick fix, it would be the solution for death. Salvation through Jesus Christ. Romans 10: 9-10 says “that if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved; ¹⁰ for with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation.” Believe in your heart, confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved. That’s it. Death has been conquered, and you have the promise of eternity with your Lord.

And that’s where the quick fix ends. Salvation opens the door to a lifetime of following Christ, the basics of which are found in the greatest book ever written, the Bible. The Bible, as the revealed Word and Will of God, tackles topics like faith, love, discipline, leadership, marriage, children and so much more. Let’s take a quick look at faith.   

Beyond salvation, faith is not a “quick fix”. It is not a “one and done” situation where you can go through the motions, move your lips, believe in the moment and then go on with your life just as if you had never prayed for salvation. When His disciples asked Jesus why they could not cast out a spirit, He said to them in Matthew 17:20 “And He *said to them, “Because of your meager faith; for truly I say to you, if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move; and nothing will be impossible for you.” The kind of faith Jesus was talking about is a gift from God that is to be unwrapped and used, nurtured over time. You may receive it miraculously overnight, because God is the author of quick fixes, or it may grow over time through studying His Word and getting to know Him. A mustard seed is one of the smallest seeds, and our God, knowing how weak we are, just asks for that small amount of faith for Him to be able to work with. Faith is progressive and cumulative; it is also a choice. You cannot expect faith to grow if you do not know the person (God) in whom you are having faith, or what you are choosing to believe.

Romans 10:17 “So faith comes from hearing, and hearing by [through] the word of [concerning]Christ.”

Sounds quite simple, right? I think God, in all His wisdom, set it up like that because He knew how hard it would be for us.

This is where my mind jumps in and tries to take over, tries to analyze, plan, rationalize, and whatever else God created our minds to do, and then I run with. Our minds are truly incredible. Imagine the mind (God’s) that could have created such an astounding piece of equipment! Yet our minds so often get us into trouble, or a place we do not want to be. Faith is not about understanding what is going on or is about to go on, and then believing in it. Faith is about NOT understanding, and still making a choice to believe just because God says so. A key to not allowing my mind to take over is to practice stilling my thoughts so that I can focus on God and He is able to speak to me through His Word. The world calls that meditation, and there are lots of books, videos and classes that teach how to meditate. The difference in Christian meditation is the focus does not turn inward on self, but rather outward to God.

Faith is clearly important to God: Hebrews 11:6  “And without faith it is impossible to please Him, for the one who comes to God must believe that He exists, and that He proves to be One who rewards those who seek Him. “                                                                                                                                                                                 

It is also important that faith moves into action. This is addressed in James 2, where the author states several times that faith without works is dead. Verse 18 states: “But someone may well say, ‘You have faith and I have works; show me your faith without the works, and I will show you my faith by my works.’” Verse 20 goes on to say “For just as the body without the spirit is dead, so also faith without works is dead.” We Christians are created in Christ Jesus for good works, rather than earning salvation by good works (Ephesians 2). This is a critical difference. The only “work” we have to do to be saved is confess faith in Jesus Christ, and once saved then we have work to do, and the work that we do is for His glory. By setting it up in this way, our Father takes the focus off us, and onto what Jesus Christ did for us in order to give us salvation. There is such freedom in knowing that I do not have to be “good enough” to receive salvation, but Jesus Christ was more than good enough when He chose to die to save me.

A life of following Christ is transformative in every way, not simply a better version of the old you. In John 3, Jesus was talking to a rabbi, a Pharisee; in v.3, He tells the rabbi “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” In order to receive the fullness of what God has to offer us, we have to be born again, not a physical rebirth but a spiritual rebirth through the finished work of Jesus Christ as we read previously in Romans 10:9-10. We are to put off the old man, renew our minds to what God says, and put on the new (Ephesians 4:22-21), to shed the former in order to have the latter. 2 Corinthians 5:17 tells us that we are a new “created thing” when we are in Christ Jesus. Let that sink into your mind and heart for a moment: you are new!

Let’s go back to the quick fix idea. I said earlier that God is the author of quick fixes; the Bible is full of miracles: healings, calming the storm, making the sun stand still, averting certain death, and so many more that occur instantaneously. In Genesis, God created the world and everything in it over 6 days by simply speaking it into being. He did not need to build, tear down, rethink, retry etc. He simply spoke it into being and then looked at it and saw that it was very good. God is able to do all that. But in an effort to help us build our faith and reliance on Him, He also wants us to wait on the Lord as we can read throughout the Bible.

Psalm 27:14 “Wait for the Lord; Be strong and let your heart take courage; Yes, wait for the Lord”

Psalm 130:7 “Israel, wait for the Lord; For with the Lord there is mercy, And with Him is abundant redemption.”   

Proverbs 20:22  “Do not say, “I will repay evil”; Wait for the Lord, and He will save you.”

Isaiah 40:30-31 “Though youths grow weary and tired, and vigorous young men stumble badly, ³¹ Yet those who wait for the Lord will gain new strength; they will mount up with wings like eagles, they will run and not get tired, they will walk and not become weary.”

Acts 1:4  “Gathering them together, He commanded them not to leave Jerusalem, but to wait for what the Father had promised, “Which,” He said, “you heard of from Me;”   

There are many accounts in the Bible of people having to wait for the promise of God to be fulfilled. One of the most well known ones is the story of Abraham who was promised by God that he would be a father of many nations, through his wife Sarah who was older and had no children. Abraham and Sarah had to wait 25 years to see the fulfillment of that promise through the birth of their son Isaac, but both of them felt that they had to take matters into their own hands rather than wait for God to fulfill His promise. Their solutions did not turn out well, but God still fulfilled His promise despite their momentary lapses in faith and their disobedience. (Read Genesis chapters 12-25 to learn more about Abraham and Sarah.) He truly is a faithful God. One of the most remarkable parts of this account is that despite Abraham’s faithless actions, he was still identified in the Bible as a man who had faith in his God, as was his wife Sarah. Our God wants us to have faith, and also knows how weak we are.  

Hebrews 11:8-11 “By faith Abraham, when he was called, obeyed by going out to a place which he was to receive for an inheritance; and he left, not knowing where he was going. ⁹ By faith he lived as a stranger in the land of promise, as in a foreign land, living in tents with Isaac and Jacob, fellow heirs of the same promise; ¹⁰ for he was looking for the city which has foundations, whose architect and builder is God. ¹¹ By faith even Sarah herself received ability to conceive, even beyond the proper time of life, since she considered Him faithful who had promised. “

So faith in God, in our Lord and savior Jesus Christ is vital to following and doing His Word and Will. Waiting for the Lord allows Him to work in our lives in ways that only He can know and do. More about waiting on the Lord next time…

My hope for you is that you have chosen to say “yes” when our Lord has called you to salvation and that your faith increases daily. My hope is that you know that the truth on which your faith stands and grows is an infallible truth. And if you do not know Christ as your Lord and Savior, my hope is that you will read Romans 10:9-10 again and accept the free gift of salvation. God bless you as you continue your journey with Him.