April 19, 2020

Learning from Jesus…the Father’s Perfect Child (a Bible Study)

April 19, 2020/ jan

The parent-child metaphor is perhaps the most tender picture of our relationship with God as believers. This is so movingly expressed in the Scriptures by the Hebrew term for Father God "Abba," meaning "Daddy." In our last post, we explored the truth that in reality we are all adult-children deep down who still really need a Father in order to do an adult life right here and now.

Let's look at Jesus, the perfect Son of our Abba Father God, and do a little digging into the Scriptures. Let’s ask the Spirit to speak to our child-hearts.

April 16, 2020

Feeling like a "Child Incognito" especially Now

April 16, 2020/ jan

Helpless! Not in control of anything … the virus devastating our country and the world, our economy drastically in jeopardy, even our daily life changing every day. The good news is that our adult lives in this crisis world was never meant to be lived on our own. We have a Father with whom we can be needy and vulnerable so that we can face what is before us. So join me as we revisit what is means to be …

April 08, 2020

We Died to Sin in the Death of Christ . . . Count on it! (Part 3)

April 08, 2020/ jan

Today is a Day of Reckoning...but not how you think! Usually we use that term to mean to give an accounting, a calculation, a settlement of accounts. In fact according to Wikipedia, it can mean a host of things from the final judgment day to heavy metal albums and Nintendo games.

But in the Bible sense, EVERY day is a Day of Reckoning. This word reckon in the Greek is often rendered consider. In other words, "count on something to be true". My reckoning doesn't MAKE it true. It already IS true, so I count on it and live from it. So each day is THE day to reckon to be true what God says is true...because it IS true…

April 02, 2020

Lenten Meditation: a Word of Reunion

April 02, 2020/ jan

Now I lay me down to sleep. I pray the Lord my soul to keep. If I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take.

So goes a traditional nighttime prayer taught by American moms to their children for generations. It may seem odd to us today that there would be the mention of death in a child's prayer. But scientists say that sleep is the closest we come to death while still alive. The Greeks even had a proverb,

Sleep and death are brothers.

However, in the first century, Jewish moms taught their children a different bedtime prayer...quoting Psalm 31:

Father, into Your hands I commit my spirit.

March 31, 2020

Lenten Meditation: a Word of Completion

March 31, 2020/ jan

Tetelestai!* It is finished! The death of Christ on the Cross is the HINGE of human history...and nowbefore He breathes His last breath... a cry of victory,It is finished!

What's finished? It must be something BIG,...look at what happened when Jesus died:

At that moment the curtain in the sanctuary of the Temple was torn in two, from top to bottom. The earth shook, rocks split apart, and tombs opened. The bodies of many godly men and women who had died were raised from the dead.

March 29, 2020

Focus on the CROSS: the Last 7 Sayings of Christ with B.C. 2001

March 29, 2020/ jan

How to refocus on Christ and the Cross during these unsettling, fear-filled days of the COVID-19 pandemic? I usually post a review of all of our Lord’s beautiful final words before His death on the Cross during Holy Week.

But I decided this year to share this post at the beginning of each of the remaining weeks of Lent. It will take us back “beneath the Cross” via links to each saying and also via an amazing “cartoon” from days gone by — B.C. (Johnny Hart).

I love this post because it was such a serendipitous delight to find this clipping in my file a few years ago. So I can't help but share it year by year.

Would you meditate along with me ... and revisit Christ's seven sayings for the Cross this week? [See links below] It's truly "holy ground" as we reflect on the Cross, what our Lord went through, but mainly, what He accomplished there. What a perfect preparation for the joy, freedom, and release of the Resurrection.

March 26, 2020

Lenten Meditation: a Word of Personal Need

March 26, 2020/ jan

Thirst is a primal need in all of us humans...more demanding even than hunger! We can go quite awhile without eating, but a very short time without drinking. Jesus on the Cross had refrained up to this point from satisfying His thirst. Instead He drank the Father's cup to the very last drop! He became sin for us...the Sinless One! Jesus took our place, and the Father turned His back. The punishment for sin had been accomplished...spiritual separation from God....for US!

Now in fulfillment of prophecy, Jesus expresses His own physical need:

After this, Jesus, knowing that all was now finished, said ( to fulfill the Scripture), “I thirst.” A jar full of sour wine stood there, so they put a sponge full of the sour wine on a hyssop branch and held it to his mouth. John 19:28-29 ESV

March 11, 2020

Lenten Meditation: a Word of Abandonment

March 11, 2020/ jan

Abandoned! Left on the "doorstep of Life"...but with no Rescuer in sight! What happens next in the unfolding drama of the crucifixion of our Lord is incomprehensible!

It's an abandonment so profoundly mysterious that it boggles the mind...but ravishes the believing heart! Let's watch it unfold...

It is noon. By this time, Jesus has already forgiven ...

March 08, 2020

Lenten Meditation: a Word of Family Affection

March 08, 2020/ jan

Dear woman, behold your son...behold your mother. (John 19:26)

Jesus has a special love for His own. As we've already seen with His forgiving and saving attitude in the midst of excruciating agony, His concern was not with His own suffering. Rather His attention was next drawn to His precious loved ones at the foot of His cross, His mother and His beloved disciple John.

What agony Jesus must have seen on Mary's face.

March 05, 2020

Lenten Meditation: a Word of Salvation

March 05, 2020/ jan

Truly I say to you, today you will be with Me in Paradise. Luke 23:43

Jesus seems to have a special love for lost people. I love the stories He tells in Luke 15. The first is the beloved story of the shepherd who has a hundred sheep but leaves the ninety-nine to look for the one that is lost. Then when he finds his lost one, he calls in his neighbors and friends to rejoice with him.

March 03, 2020

The Forgiven Forgive: a Q & A to help

March 03, 2020/ jan

How hard it is for us to forgive, isn’t it? In our last post, we discussed some points that truly make sense in the entire process of forgiving others. But let’s backtrack a bit more and look at this as a Biblical Q & A session.

The following are notes from a talk I gave to a small group of young married women (I was the “older woman teaching the younger” Titus 2). So why not use this as your own personal Bible study and see what the Holy Spirit reveals to your heart and mind for your particular situation.

February 29, 2020

Lenten Meditation: a Word of Forgiveness

February 29, 2020/ jan

Alexander Pope (1688-1744), English poet, once said,To err is human; to forgive, divine.

So true...but we humans more readily echo what someone else has said,

To err is human, but to get even? THAT is divine.

We struggle so, with forgiving our offenders! Perhaps that's why we are amazed and awestruck to realize that Jesus' first words from the Cross were ones of forgiveness.

February 26, 2020

Lenten Meditation: Last Words and Conversations

February 26, 2020/ jan

The last words of a dying person are important. They can communicate good or ill to those left behind. Why? Because the last words are so final...and so revealing of what was uppermost in the person's mind as he was leaving this earth to face his Maker. I've never been at the bedside of a dying person. But I have been with a few people just days before their death.

February 25, 2020

Lenten Meditation: Dust to Dust

February 25, 2020/ jan

I grew up in a liturgical church. So from my childhood into my early adulthood, I observed the church calendar. Ash Wednesday marked a real turning point in the calendar year. It was a turn from comfort, frivolity, and enjoyment (think Mardi Gras) to a time of repentance, self-denial, and mortification called Lent. Ash Wednesday was a day when we all remembered that someday we would each die and face our Maker. The priest would put the sign of the cross on our foreheads in black ashes and say,

Remember, Man, that thou art dust and unto dust thou shalt return. [based on Genesis 3:19]

December 20, 2019

4th Week of Advent: I Wonder as I Wander

December 20, 2019/ jan

My friend Penny is a walker (a very serious, fast walker, by the way). But Penny doesn't just walk for exercise, she also "walks" closely with the Lord. So when Penny shares, I listen. And when she shared about a favorite Christmas carol, it made me take notice. Why? Because while walking, Penny has been doing what this song describes.

December 16, 2019

Advent Devotions: Hail, the Incarnate Deity!

December 16, 2019/ jan

We would give up everything we've ever written to have penned this one verse, a stanza that comes as close as is humanly possible to capturing the splendor of who Jesus is.
Jesus Manifesto: Restoring the Supremacy and Sovereignty of Jesus Christ, by Leonard Sweet & Frank Viola, p. 173-174

What is that one verse? that one stanza? Authors Sweet & Viola are referring to the last stanza of the well-known carol, Hark, the Herald Angels Sing.

In my opinion, however, it isn't just the last stanza that is all glorious with the splendor of Christ...it's the entire song. In fact, even the stanzas that were removed* from the older version are splendid indeed. But I'm getting ahead of the story.

December 13, 2019

3rd Week of Advent: EMMANUEL, Our God is WITH Us...

December 13, 2019/ jan

If ever we needed to know God is WITH us in every possible way, it's NOW, after another year of the unanswerable "why's" of life. We struggle to make sense of all the violence, suffering, and injustice we see all around us. Though we can't know the answers, we can turn afresh to the One Who has us in the palm of His Hand. The God Who became One of us...flesh and bone and joint and sinew...who experienced every emotion possible, raw and gripping, tender and affectionate! He felt it all! And He feels our current struggle with us too!

December 09, 2019

Advent Devotions: The Mega-JOY of Emmanuel

December 09, 2019/ jan

Joy is the flag that flies over the soul when the King is in residence!
Chuck Swindoll

Years ago, I was leading a small group of ladies through Paul's letter to the Galatians. In chapter 5, we came to a familiar passage:

The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness,and self control. Galatians 5:22-23

Julie was in that small group that year, and Julie was from Great Britain. I asked her about Chuck's metaphor. She assured me that it was true. When royalty is in residence at the palace, the flag flies. It's the signal to the "subjects" that their monarch is present.

December 07, 2019

2nd Week of Advent: the Really Good News -- GOD with US!

December 07, 2019/ jan

"The Good News isn't just that Jesus died for our sins. The Good News is EMMANUEL...GOD WITH US!" So declared Deb at the end of our Bible Study.

As John and I drove home that evening, we reflected on her statement. We recalled a conversation we had had years before when we were discussing what the heart of the gospel ("Good News") is. The Good News isn't just that our sins are forgiven so we can go to heaven someday (and now we just do the best we can in the meantime).

December 03, 2019

Advent Devotions: the WITH-ness of our God {from nearness to oneness}

December 03, 2019/ jan

Jesus Christ the Son of God became one with us, so that we could be one with Him!

This glorious truth is at the heart of the Incarnation. God became one of us! One with us! Why? So that we could experience union with God.

And that takes us back to our 3 Greek prepositions for with: (see previous post: The WITH-ness of our God (prepositions):

para, meaning beside, nearby, in the immediate vicinity or proximity, alongside
meta, meaning with, in close association with, in companionship with
sun, meaning together in intimate union, inseparable from

A Branch in the Vine