Lenten Meditation: a Word of Personal Need

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Lenten Meditation: a Word of Personal Need

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

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God LOVES Me! What if I Said it Differently?

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God LOVES Me! What if I Said it Differently?

We know how much God loves us, and we have put our trust in his love.
1 John 4:16a NLT

I have an adorable three year old granddaughter named Claire. She lights up my life. The sad part though is that she lives miles away, so I don’t get to see her very often, certainly not as often as I would like (as in “every day”)! When I do get to visit with her, we like to walk together, holding hands and chatting about all kinds of things along their street — birds, houses, street signs, holiday decorations — you get the idea.

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Lenten Meditation: a Word of Abandonment

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Lenten Meditation: a Word of Abandonment

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 ... 

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Be Ye Glad...Oh Yes!

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Be Ye Glad...Oh Yes!

As we were beginning worship one morning at church, I was arrested by the beauty and the message of a song I hadn't heard or sung for many years.

Those of us who were young adults during the late 60s into the 70s and 80s may remember "Be Ye Glad" as a peaceful balm to our souls. So when those opening words and melody penetrated my consciousness, I had to stop and reflect on every word.

In light of all the upheaval in the world, along with the upheavals in your own world, why not take a few moments and listen, reflect on the message, and even sing along….

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His Qualifying Life and Death

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His Qualifying Life and Death

I just spent several hours in an exercise that I never would have dreamed would be so valuable. And so I would love to share the fruit of my “what I thought would be agonizing” afternoon and evening with you, my dear readers. My project? Transcribing just a ten minute sermon into pages of type. But in the process of it all, my mind received greater clarity and understanding and my heart just leaped with joy and thanksgiving for my beautiful Lord Jesus, who is my Savior and indwelling Life.

So please watch the video first. It is truly powerful. And then if you long to understand and relish the message on a deeper level, read the transcript that follows.

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Lenten Meditation: Eulogize your Living Loved One

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Lenten Meditation: Eulogize your Living Loved One

In our week’s Lenten meditation, we focus on the Lord’s care for His dear mom as His own death approaches. How tender, how like a beloved son of a beloved mom! Caring for our treasured loved ones is at the heart of “family” in the purest sense of the word.

However, we often forget that true caring can be much deeper and more needed than merely physical care, as critical as that is. There’s a caring that touches heart and soul…one that meeting physical needs approaches, but a caring that perhaps only loving words can reach.

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Words from the Cross: a Word of Family Affection

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Words from the Cross: a Word of Family Affection

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.

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Lost & Found: a Scripture Meditation

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Lost & Found: a Scripture Meditation

The most important thing about you is your concept of God.

And there is a corollary to that.

The next most important thing about you is what you think to be God’s attitude, His “feelings” toward you. These are basic to who you think you are and will influence how you think and live your life.

And in reality, what you believe about God and yourself in relationship to Him are based either on God’s truth or on lies instigated by the enemy of your soul. Those lies are most often perpetrated by significant people in your life who have been believing and living by these same lies for themselves — parents, family members, friends and “enemies,” the “culture,” and even religious leaders.

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Lenten Meditation: a Word of Salvation

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Lenten Meditation: a Word of Salvation

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.

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The Forgiven Forgive

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The Forgiven Forgive

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.

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Forgiveness Revisited

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Forgiveness Revisited

Several years ago, I met with a group of moms to explore one of our Lord's first words from the Cross: Father, forgive them for they do not know what they are doing. Luke 23:34

As our discussion went on, we talked about the struggle we all have to forgive our offenders.  I shared a short section from a book that years before had an incredible impact on me in the area of forgiveness.

I used to think that the struggle to forgive was itself sinful...as well as the horrible feelings I had in the whole thing.  But I've come to realize that the struggle and the feelings are all part of the human condition on this earth. 

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Lenten Meditation: a Word of Forgiveness

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Lenten Meditation: a Word of Forgiveness

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.

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Lenten Meditation: Last Words and Conversations

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Lenten Meditation: Last Words and Conversations

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.

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Dust to Dust but Glory to Glory!

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Dust to Dust but Glory to Glory!

From dust you have come, and to dust you shall return. 

Ash Wednesday has taken on a new meaning for me in recent years, since my 91 year old mom passed away early in November 2015. There was something that arrested me right in my tracks the day of my mom's funeral. I was undone by deep sobs of realization. And the depth of it had been helped along by the incense and the reverence afforded the treatment of my dear mama's frail little body being put to rest (or so they say).

But it wasn't the finality of it all. It had already been final when she had breathed her last, days before.

No! It was the Sacredness that came crashing through!

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Lenten Meditation: Dust to Dust

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Lenten Meditation: Dust to Dust

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]

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Another Love Song to Jesus ... Through the Years

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Another Love Song to Jesus ... Through the Years

Happy Valentine’s Day!

To celebrate, I would like to share one more love song. This time, my husband was the one to say, "This is a God song."

And it's true. Even though he and I consider this one of "our songs," it can only truly and honestly be sung to the Lover of our Souls, our wonderful Lord Jesus Christ.

Here's the song...sing it to the only One who can love you perfectly forever.

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A Love Song to Jesus

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A Love Song to Jesus

When my husband John and I were seniors at the University of Arizona, the Carpenters were at the top of the music charts.   We embraced them as our group who sang our songs as we were "a-courting."  Their mellow sound and rich melodies fed our romantic feelings toward each other and toward life in general. At our wedding, we danced to, you may have guessed it, "We've Only Just Begun." Lyrics like "White lace and promises, a kiss for luck and we're on our way" made it the perfect song to start out a new marriage...or so we thought.

But as the years have rolled by and reality and maturity have set in, so has the realization that the romantic expectations of youth are so unrealistic and can only truly be fulfilled by an Almighty God.

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How NOT to Hear God

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How NOT to Hear God

As I awaken in the morning, there are often those dark and empty pulls threatening to grab hold of me first thing. When I give in, I’ll likely not hear or see God all around.

The only God-Voice that I do hear is . . . "don't get sucked into that downward pull.” It’s the fleshly self, happily fed by the enemy of my soul and the unwanted circumstances of my world around me. The Holy Spirit warns where this is headed -- death all around . . . and He rescues if I let Him.

And so today I remember a poem

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Hearing God...when getting mixed messages

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Hearing God...when getting mixed messages

I have a precious friend named Kitty. She sees and hears God EVERYWHERE! Her favorite "mantra," so to speak, is"He is is SO personal!"  And that's what I love about Kitty!

However, for Kitty and for all of us, hearing God can be a little tricky.  Jesus said we DO hear Him if we belong to Him. But how? Where does the hearing take place?

Kitty and I had such a conversation the other day.  Here is my paraphrase:

Kitty:  I'm struggling.  One minute I hear this message in sermons and songs and blogs,

"Wait upon the Lord.  Keep silent and wait." 

And that's what I'm trying to do. But then the next minute, it is

"God is waiting for you to step out in faith, and then He will move." 

Which is it?

Jan:  This is the key, Kitty...

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