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Episodes
2 Corinthians 3:18 And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another.
Episodes
Wednesday Mar 06, 2013
Wednesday Jan 23, 2013
Thursday Jan 19, 2012
Thursday Jan 19, 2012
Tell Me the Story Again!
When my children were small (4 of them), they loved to hear/read/ watch certain stories over and over again. I would have to talk them into something new. And when I was successful, that new story was repeated over and over again. Not surprisingly, this led to amazing memorization, especially for Austin.
Wanting to redeem Austin’s love of stories and ability to repeat, verbatim, I began to try to replace his sweet, but silly tales with stories that gave a Scriptural principle or were directly from Scripture. I wanted more than “Pooh and the Blustery Day” to fill his little head. Knowing all the lay ahead of him, all the things of this world that will vie for his heart, I wanted anchors for his heart to find its rest in the Lord–Psalm 2, Psalm 23, John 14.
As an adult, I am not that different. There are certain stories with which I never tire (you shared yours in your group). In fact, I like to hear/read/ watch them again and again (ad-naseum for Jeff- Jane Austin-ish). Lines from great stories, movies I can quote with a simple cue.
As God looks at what I am drawn too, I wonder if there are other stories He desires to put before me to anchor my restless heart?
In these past couple months, as I have read over the passages we are about to study, I know the answer is YES. There is a story God continually puts before me. Looking back it is the same story Has been putting before me since He brought me to Himself. And it didn’t matter whether I was in a season of relative comfort, conflict, confusion, or chaos it anchored my restless heart.
Wednesday Apr 13, 2011
Wednesday Apr 13, 2011
The thought of rewards-particularly the idea of being motivated to do good in order to gain rewards may trouble us, but it’s not only biblical, it pleases God. Eternal rewards are the crowning piece of our salvation by grace. Freely forgiven, God empowers us for good works, then rewards us for the good works that he has brought about in us. In of themselves our righteous acts are like filthy rags but God chooses to purify them in his own sight and honor them with reward.
Derek Kidner, “To Hear God’s ‘Well done’ is the most innocent and most cleansing of ambitions.”
Wrap up Neh. Neh is marked by a great understanding that God remembers (not about forgetting)- marks, accounts, thinks-on what we do, why we do it, in order to reward us. Neh’s desire for God to remember, to reward was God-given to him and to us.
C.S.Lewis, Mere Christianity, “If there lurks in most modern minds the notion that to desire our own good and earnestly to hope for the enjoyment of it is a bad thing, I submit that this notion is no part of the Christian faith. Indeed, if we consider the unblushing promises of rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased. It is since Christians have largely ceased to think of the other world that they have become so ineffective in this one.
Neh was effective in this world because he was convinced that he would receive a reward for refusing to be far too easily pleased by this world. God would be his judge and would reward him for the good he has done, not man.
What is crucial to understanding that “well done” is the most innocent of motivations is to see what “good deeds” Neh counts on God to remember-what Neh has done for God’s people to glorify God’s name. First is deeds of compassion.
Wednesday Apr 06, 2011
Wednesday Apr 06, 2011
In response to their repentance, God has rescued His people from captivity. He has united them as His beloved people, using them to restore and rebuilt His Holy Temple and city whose walls were broken down and its gates destroyed by fire in just 52 days! He has shaken their enemies to their core and washed them with His Word reviving their hearts, bodies and souls. In response they vow to observe and do all the commandments of the LORD, to not neglect the house of our God. They celebrate by pausing and purifying themselves to evidence their dedication to the Holy City- their joy in His presence is heard far away.
With such restoration, rebuilding and revival why doesn’t the book of Neh end at the dedication? Why is there a chapter 13? After such a solid dedication to NOT neglect the house of their God, why does Neh find the people neglecting the house of God?
Naïve, ignorant, or lazy about the reality that things never stay as they are. Life is not static, it is in constant motion-three forces: Human restlessness, God- working to transform people into his image and Satan’s working to corrupting the good work that God is doing. What is restored, rebuilt and revived will not stay that way unless there is an intentional, proactive effort to protect it.
C.S.Lewis, “There is no neutral ground in the universe: every square inch, every split second, is claimed by God and counterclaimed by Satan.”
Israel was either too casual or prideful about the reality of their restless nature caught between these two forces. So after about a ten-year absence Neh finds that Israel has broken her covenant to keep God’s law. Neh 13:4-5 records the key to Israel’s slide.
Neh 13:4-5 … Eliashib the priest, who was appointed over the chambers of the house of our God, and who was related to Tobiah, prepared for Tobiah a large chamber where they had previously put the grain offering, the frankincense, the vessels, and the tithes of grain, wine, and oil, …
Eliashib, appointed by Neh to gate-keep the sacred storerooms of the temple allowed Israel’s enemy, Tobiah, to move into the temple. Tobiah, related to Eliashib by marriage, had audacity-not just a toe in the temple, his belonging replacing the sacrifices of the people. Tobiah inhabits the nerve center of the community-influence and corruption
We each have a gate-keeper that unfortunately cannot always be trusted like Eliashib. Our Eliashib is our flesh. Tobiah is our sin nature, related to us, but our arch-enemy. Our sinful nature has audacity. If our flesh does not submit to the Spirit of God and allows even a toe’s bit of sin nature to move in, it will have the same audacity as Tobiah and bring all its belongings into our heart, overpowering that which God has restored, rebuilt and revived to make His name famous.
If we are naïve, ignorant, casual about our gate-keeper, our flesh, we will, like Israel, compromise the community of God by compromising our commitments to God. What is restored and rebuilt and revived will not stay that way without proactive gate-keeping.
Wednesday Mar 30, 2011
Wednesday Mar 30, 2011
Martin Luther, “The essence of sin is that man seeks his own in everything, even in God.”
As we looked this week at the idea of dedication, I had to ask myself the questions, Do I live like God has set me apart for His use, or rather than the Lord is set apart for my use?
1999 bestseller, Cat ‘n Dog Theology: Rethinking your relationship to the Master. There is a joke about cats and dogs that conveys their differences perfectly—A dog says, “You pet me, you feed me, you shelter me, you love me, you must be God.” A cat says, “You pet me, you feed me, you shelter me, you love me, I must be God.”
Cat ‘n Dog Theology, by Bob Sjogren an Gerald Robison is a humor filled, scripture based way of communicating the need for Christians to re-think their relationship to God. Not recommending.
The Israelites in Neh day have much more than a humorous Scripture based book to evaluate their relationship to God, they have had a living encounter-many- with Him. In response to their repentance, He has brought them back from captivity and restored them to His Holy City. He has united them as His beloved people, using them to restore and rebuilt His Holy city that was in trouble and shame-broken down and its gates destroyed by fire (52 days!) -In just 52 days, no less, shaking Israel’s enemies to their core. Then Lord God washed them with His Word reviving their hearts, bodies and souls.
With such living encounters with the covenant God, His touch, His feeding, His shelter, His love, the people could have assumed they were god. “OK, God, thanks for the city-we’ll take it from here.” But what we see in Neh 12 is that their response to all He has done is to say, loudly, so that they are heard far away, “You Must Be God.”
The Israelites get that the restoration, rebuilding and revival they have been experiencing is not about them., but about God’s glory revealed to the nations.
J.G. McConville, “When the people march on the walls to the Temple they do so after having placed the temple once again at the center of their thoughts The walls thus appear for what they are: not a monument to the strength of Judah—heaven forbid!—but God’s gift for the protection and perpetuation of his name in the world.”
Wednesday Mar 23, 2011
Wednesday Mar 23, 2011
Jeff and I have been married almost 24 years. 25 being a time when many renew their vows, I tried to find the originals- couldn’t! Had to watch the video-2 sets, traditional- to love, comfort, honor and keep in both sickness and health, richer or poorer, forsaking all others as long as we both shall live-ones we wrote. As I thought about facing Jeff and repeating these now, knowing what I know now, it would be a different experience. For now I know what it means to keep them in sickness and health (Aubrey, death of family, holding my hair when barfing). What it means to keep them whether rich or poor- stress on marriage of finances. And the battle to choose to forsake all others-to not even give into the temptation of what it would be like to be married to someone else.
After 24 years of marriage, I have a deeper awareness of what it takes to keep these vows and the pain caused by breaking the traditional vows. Knowing what I know now about marriage and myself, I would better know what vows to write as my personal vows.
I think about this with the people of God and their renewing of their vows. To move forward in their restoration with God, repopulating of God’s holy city, there had to be a deep awareness of what it would take to keep their vows and the pain of breaking them.
Looking back to Neh 10, it is interesting that although they vowed to keep God’s entire law, to find their life in His Word, they gave special attention to their marriage relationships, their rest and their resources. Facing the Word, it exposed them. Knowing what they know now about their covenant relationship and themselves, they underscore what they must have known was the root of their neglect of the house of God, their idolatry/captivity.
In the New Covenant that we have entered into in Christ, beautifully taught by Pamela, God no longer dwells in His Holy City, but in each of us that has placed our faith in His son. His Holy Spirit indwells us, making us the house of God-heart body and soul. And if we are honest, like the Israelites, our neglect of this house of God - has its roots in the marriage relationship, rest and resources. In order to move forward in our restored relationship (NEH11, we need to underscore these as well (Neh 10)
Wednesday Mar 09, 2011
Wednesday Mar 09, 2011
On a recent business trip with my husband, I had the chance to visit two friends from my past - I anticipated that my life would be considered worldly with one, freaky out of this world to the other. (We think people think about us far more than they do.)
The danger in my over-thinking, besides making unfair judgments about them judging me, is the assumption that if my life in Christ seems odd to both, I must have it right. -but still looking to man –me-, to determine what it means to be alive in Christ
God’s Word alone determines what it means to be alive in Christ. Looking to anyone or anything else causes me to miss abundant life. If I do not look to the Word to define life, I will look to others and eventually be enslaved to the cultures around me. Even “churchy” cultures can enslave if they do not line up with His Word. Thankfully, when I, by God’ grace, experience the presence of God through the Word of God I am exposed-like this weekend. I am challenged once again…
John Piper, "Will I find spiritual communion with God sweet enough, and hope in his promises deep enough, not just to cope, but to flourish and rejoice in him?"
This is the kind of communion with God we see in Neh 9. The communion with God in the midst of their choice foods, sweets and the celebration of the feast of booths must have been so beautiful that it caused them to recount the life had lost-many times- and are still, in some ways, still missing.
It must have been deep enough and sweet enough to cause them to dare to hope that they could be flourish once again. Looking to the Word of God, once again, for life, they knew repentance comes before flourishing.
Wednesday Mar 02, 2011
Wednesday Mar 02, 2011
Asked a few times recently about my “call” to teaching. Never thought of it as a “call”, blessed to have been led to the Lord by one who taught me that all in Christ are “called” to teach God’s Word.
As a brand new believer, Toni-lee said I had been soaking it in long enough- time to start discipling. Invited gals from school over for a Bible study. “Prepared,” just about finished when a Jehovah witness came to the door. Tried it out on her. Gals came over next day. Opened my Bible, my “study” notes gone! Quickly prayed and flipped my Bible open, randomly, landed in Philippians. Read the passage, “expounded” it and one of the gals prayed to give her life to Christ. (don’t recommend this style of discipleship)
It was clear to me that day that the Word of God is…
Heb 4:12 For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.
It was clear to me that it was not about me, it was the Spirit of God, using the Word of God that brought new life to Laura.
In my journey I have unfortunately made things more complicated than need be. In what I believe to be an honest desire to “feed” I have been known to bring out way too many courses! (Firehose)
Tuesday praying about this message struggling with its simplicity and prayed to God. A leader had a dream-I was so complicated, I sang a song and you all followed a horse out.
As I teacher I live in the tension between being faithful to the Word of God, to handle it accurately, and yet never forget that the Scriptures don’t need me to change lives. I may get to come along for the ride, but it is God alone who changes lives.
Why I LOVE Neh 8. As we have studied this historical account of God restoring, rebuilding His people, it has been tempting to put Neh on a pedastal. We are told it is God’s work, but hearts long to follow a person and be distracted by Neh good and godly leadership. And then we come to what appears to be the climax of the book of Nehemiah, the revival of the people recorded in chapter 8. And now there is hardly any mention of Neh. In fact, written in 3rd person.
It is true that another, godly man, Ezra, a priest and a scribe is involved. And we can’t exactly say that Ezra just threw a bunch of scrolls and the ground to see where they would land (phil).
Ezr 7:10 For Ezra had set his heart to study the Law of the LORD, and to do it and to teach his statutes and rules in Israel.
Ezra had been sent about 14 years earlier to Jerusalem by Artaxerxes to teach the divine law and insure that worship was being carried out in the temple. But Ezra’s priestly heart, his intense study and stellar teaching are not center stage. God’s presence is,
J.I. Packer, “God now acted in a way that put His human agents in the shade. …He visited his people, preempting their attentions and making his presence felt among them in a way that had not been the case before.
The Spirit of God, gave the people of God all they needed through the Word of God. He desires to do this for us.
Wednesday Feb 23, 2011
Wednesday Feb 23, 2011
Dawn Treader -“It is quite beautiful…for make believe map of a make-believe world.” “There is the source of your trouble-dark island. A place where evil lurks. It can take any form. It can make your darkest dreams come true. It seeks to corrupt all goodness, to steal the light from this world.” “How do we stop it?” “You must break its spell.”
Third in C.S. Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia series, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader begins with Lucy and Edmond and their obnoxious cousin Eustice, returning to Narnia. Narnia is a place where animals talk, where good battles evil. Each book features as its heroes children from our world who are magically transported to Narnia, where they are called upon by the lion Aslan to help Narnia and restore the throne to the rightful line. This particular adventure is a bit of a break from the Lion the Witch and Wardrobe and Prince Caspian. The previous two centered on battles against evil tyrants, “Voyage” offers a greater view of the Narian world by sailing further than any man, woman or mouse has sailed. It is also the darkest. Lewis explores the broader nature of evil with themes of greed-power, beauty, money. This scene explores both the source of evil as well as how to break its power.
Reminds me of where we are in our journey through Neh. Neh and the Israelites, in their return to God have had to battle over and over against evil tyrants as they are being restored as a people. And now as people being rebuilt, about to finish the rebuilding of the wall, the historical account gets a bit darker. Like the pull of Lewis’ Dark Island that seeks to corrupts all that is good, we see evil lurking to do the same. It takes many forms in its attempt to make darkest dreams come true.
But we also see what it takes to break the spell, to resist the evil seductions of both the secular and spiritual world.