Tag Archive | Jesus

What Is Truth?

Jan19

truthWe have been inundated lately with ‘fessers; those who now feel the need to come clean on some sin of the past about which they have been silent heretofore. Lance Armstrong comes first to mind. I supported the guy. Never failed a drug test, yadda, yadda. Remember O.J? I didn’t think there was any way he could have committed the terrible crimes of which he was accused. I’d seen him run with a football. I knew him. I have a Barry Bonds bobblehead on my shelf. I’d like to believe him. Recently we’ve been hearing about Notre Dame football player Manti Te’o. He is denying having a role in the dead-girlfriend hoax. I don’t know him at all, but I’d like to believe him. I’m all for the “innocent until proven guilty” way of doing things.

Those are some athletes I can think of.

Don’t even get me started on politicians.

Movies that depict the good guys, like police officers or firemen, going bad make my blood boil. I was a faithful watcher of the TV show “24,” but I was always so irritated by the traitors, the evil infiltrators who lied and schemed and made people trust them. Made ME trust them. It’s just not right.

There is something deep within us that wants truth. We want to be able to trust people. Those who lie to us break our hearts down deep inside. I don’t want to become a cynical person, but the plethora of public liars puts us at a disadvantage. Who, really, can we trust? If my spouse says he’s not cheating on me, can I truly believe him? If my sons say they aren’t looking at pornography on the computer, do I take them at their word? (Yes, but I also have a filtering and accountability program on all the computers.)

Where is the integrity? Who can we really trust?

In John 14:6, Jesus declares, “I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” Phew. Finally. And how can we know that we can trust Him? Look at His track record. Has He ever not followed through on something He said He was going to do? Has He ever told us anything that wasn’t true? That’s what got the pharisees so upset: He told the truth, and it didn’t reflect well on them.

Try Him; test Him. He is trustworthy. His followers died painful deaths for what they believed to be true about Him. I believed Lance Armstrong, but I wouldn’t have died for him. I didn’t trust him that much. He is human, after all.

Ah, that would be the difference: human vs. divine. One you can never fully trust; one you can bet your life on.

Thankful today for:

774. Giggling girls

775. flowers in January

776. grades nearly done

777. people I can trust

778. old friends

779. new growth

780. scented oils in a warming bowl

781. service projects

782. shadows

783. orange juice

784. natural health care

785. my sisters, who make me smile

786. my brother, even though I never hear from him 🙂

787. worship music

788. warm sunshine streaming in my windows

 

 

Hello, My Name Is _________

Jun22

When David and I started having children, honestly, we didn’t think too long and hard about their names. We picked what we liked, then looked through the baby names books to be sure they didn’t mean something weird. We also didn’t tell people what we chose, because we didn’t want the “Oh, that’s an interesting name” response. We feel good about what we chose: their names mean justice, gift of God and bright, shining sea (or German for morning).

I know that some people agonize over their children’s names, wanting the names to reflect what will be true about them in their life. If only we could determine our children’s futures by their names. I would have named my first-born Rich. Just kidding.

People in earlier times carried names from generation to generation: surnames, middle names, last names, maiden names, nick names. What a child is named is with them forever (unless they go to court and pay to have it changed).

Whereas the names we give our children may not always fit them, there is One whose name fits Him to perfection: Jesus.

There is power in the name of Jesus that can’t be denied. An old song I used to sing as a youth goes like this:

At the name of Jesus, at the name of Jesus, we have the victory!

At the name of Jesus, at the name of Jesus, Satan will have to flee.

Tell me who can stand before us when we call on His great name.

Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, we have the victory!

“Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved” (Romans 10:13).

There’s is another song popular today, sung by Natalie Grant. Listen to it here, and have a blessed day.

Thankful today for

393. wonderful worship songs

394. new plants

395. coffee drinks

396. crispy apples

397. the opportunity both my boys have to participate in a local outreach with their youth group next week

398. the anticipation of a much quieter week next week 🙂

New Shoes

Apr30

I love buying shoes. But I’m also frugal, so I don’t buy shoes that cost a lot of money. And, compared to many, I don’t actually own very many pairs. But I love to buy them. I have something in mind  now that I’d like to go hunt for, and I do have some money saved up in my little allowance budget, so I think I might hit a couple of the nicer department stores this weekend and see if I can find what I’m looking for. My husband doesn’t understand this. He doesn’t need to understand it; he just needs to live with it. I’ll stay on my side of the closet.

Did you know that the Bible has several things to say about feet and shoes?

The first one that comes to mind is Isaiah 52:7: “How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of those who bring good news, who proclaim peace, who bring good tidings, who proclaim salvation, who say to Zion, ‘Your God reigns!'”

Then there’s  Ephesians 6:15 and the armor of God: “With your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace.”

There are quite a few others verses mentioning shoes (or sandals, really, as that was the common footwear in Old and New Testament times). I guess the point I want to make is that what we wear on our feet is important.

Not our physical feet, our metaphorical feet.

“Your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace.”

“How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news.”

Are we ready to go at a moment’s notice? If God calls us, will we talk to our neighbor? Our co-worker? Our friend? Are our feet ready to move?

Jimmy Choo makes some beautiful shoes (and for a mere $600, a pair can be yours).

But I like what Jesus is asking for better: proclaim peace, bring good tidings, proclaim salvation, say to Zion, “Your God reigns!”

Put on your shoes. Let’s go!

Thankful today for:

237. choices

238. digital photos

239. miraculous healings

240. birthday celebrations

241. that my husband is back in Florida

242. math answer books

If God is For Us

Mar9

If God is for us, who can be against us? And conversely, if God is against us, who can be for us?

When a problem comes up, do you pick up the phone first and call the experts, or do you pray?

When you’re making a decision, do you list the pros and cons first, or do you pray?

When you’re having a meeting, do you just have it, or do you pray first and throughout that meeting?

Let me tell you a story of a time when we dramatically saw God work after we prayed.

Our school, Trace Academy, rents space from my church. At the beginning of this school year, our facility underwent a fire inspection. This is a regular occurrence. When I was the one in charge of the facility, I had the same inspector every year and we never had any problems. This year, a different inspector came. And apparently, this inspector thought very highly of her authority. She gave the usual laundry list of things to move, fix or improve for fire safety, but then she fixated on the fact that we had four or five preschoolers being cared for in the nursery while their moms were working on campus.

What she determined could have shut us down.

So after panicking for a few moments, we were called to pray. I specifically prayed that God would either change this woman’s heart, or that He would remove her from her position.

Long story short, several weeks later–we had a 30-day deadline–the person now responsible for the facility for our school tried to call this inspector. Time after time she was unable to get in touch with her. Finally, someone else in the fire inspector’s office told us that she was no longer with the department. (!)

Is that a God story or what? They sent a new inspector who gave us a clean bill of health, and we were able to Imagecontinue business as usual, only with a more clear sense that God is on our side, and that we are doing what He wants us to do. I believe as a direct result of prayer, that fire that could have devastated us was extinguished.

Honestly, no authority on earth could have shut us down if God wanted us to keep going. We believe what we’re doing is from Him, and a power-hungry bureaucrat is not going to be able to shut that down.

David and Goliath

Paul and the Roman guards

Jesus and the grave

What God wants to accomplish and whomever He wants to use can never be defeated.

Thankful today for:

93. glasses

94. the sound of someone else doing the vacuuming

95. date night with my younger boy

Follow the Leader

Feb20

“So don’t lose a minute in building on what you’ve been given, complementing your basic faith with good character, spiritual understanding, alert discipline, passionate patience, reverent wonder, warm friendliness, and generous love, each dimension fitting into and developing the others. With these qualities active and growing in your lives, no grass will grow under your feet, no day will pass without its reward as you mature in your experience of our Master Jesus. Without these qualities you can’t see what’s right before you, oblivious that your old sinful life has been wiped off the books” (2 Peter 1:5-9 MSG).

Some people think that once they have “asked Jesus into their heart,” that they’re done with their part of the bargain. They’re “saved” now and have that fire insurance. They think that’s all they needed to do.

Maybe that’s why so many people are turned off by Christianity: Christians don’t act much like Jesus.

Remember the childhood fame “Follow the Leader”? You had to do exactly what the leader was doing. Go where they went; hold your arms like they did; skip if they skipped. Do what they did. Act like they acted.

What a great idea. Let’s follow our Leader. I bet if we do, others will want to join us.

Today I’m thankful for:

39: a 3-day weekend

40: a son who likes to help cook

41: an approaching anniversary getaway with my love