"Woman, why are you crying?  Who is it you are looking for?"  Jesus said to Mary Magdalene, John 20:15.

Because Jesus is staring her in the face and asking this question, it almost seems to me as if He is really asking, "Aren't you looking for me?"  How come you're missing it?

Yesterday as I read this in my sickbed, I felt that Jesus was pointedly asking me this question.  It's funny how sometimes you can be so busily about His business (doing this, doing that) or so focused on your ministry tasks (contact, connect, recruit, mobilize, evangelize) that you end up missing the point.  The point is to find Jesus. 

Just like the point of prayer is not to get something; it is to invite Jesus into your heart and life and situation, so that He can unleash His measureless power and then you can respond in worship -- which is ultimately what we've all been created to do.  The point of prayer is, in other words, to get Jesus. 

The point of my relationship with God is... my relationship with God.  The point is to enjoy being in Jesus' presence.  Not solely to do great things for Him.  How'd I miss that?!

Confessing Jesus
Romans 10:9-10, "That if you confess with your mouth, "Jesus is Lord," and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved."

Inward conviction always calls for outward expression. In order to truly be saved, you must not only believe it in your heart but you must say it aloud also. You say aloud to God that you believe and also, you say it to others.  For if you really believe something, you certainly would not keep it to yourself. You wanna shout your conviction to the world. This is what I mean by "inward conviction calls for outward expression."

But what does it mean to confess that Jesus is Lord?  This verb in these two verses has always tripped me up. Why does Paul say that we must "confess" it?   Confession is usually admittance of something you did wrong.  How does that work with confessing Jesus?

When you acknowledge that Jesus is Lord, you are admitting that you are not Lord, you are admitting that the way you have been living your entire life with YOURSELF on the throne is WRONG. You have been wrong all your life in living it by your own devices in accordance to your own pleasures. You are confessing that you have been living by the lies of this world, "brainwashed" by the Old Tapes.  And now, you are going to live by the Truth! You are now going to live by the better way. In "confessing that Jesus is Lord," you are in essence renouncing the past. And that is pretty key in becoming a new creation in Christ... =)

secret choices.
Jesus once said, "There is nothing concealed that will not be disclosed, or hidden that will not be made known." Matthew 10:26

we all have many, many moments daily when we must make choices. the majority of the choices we make are private - no one knows about them. they are "secret choices." But the Lord knows. and these secret choices you make before the Lord always becomes public. you don't think that they will ever, you don't think that they do -- but they do. what you choose in the private of your heart and mind translates into the way your walk with God is (your intimacy with Him)... and it translates in how you relate with others. did you make a choice that honors or dishonors God? are you making choices that choose Him first or yourself/your flesh? are you obeying Him or not? your secret choice will become public. and all the other choices you make after that - even if you think they are separate and distinct from all your previous choices, they are really not -- they all build on top of each other... and determine your character for your entire life. secret choices ALWAYS become public!!

Adam & Eve made that poor choice of disobedience because they were deceived to believe that God was withholding something good from them.  Standing on the outside, we can't help but decry their actions and say, "how stupid!"  God had given them access to everything - EVERY thing - but that one tree.  He wasn't withholding something good!  He had already give them all the best.  -- this is what we say standing on this side of history.  And yet, it's so easy for us also, in the same way, while we're in the midst of waiting for that which is unknown to wonder if, in the silence, God is withholding something good.  Soo easy.

But those are the moments we have to stamp out the lie and grab ahold of His promises as anchors.  Like Psalm 84:11, "...no good thing does He withhold from those whose walk is blameless."  Psalm 103:5, He "...satisfies your desires with good things..."

That is God's desire.  We can believe His promises - for He is NOT a man!  Trust.  Obey.  Wait.  Rest.

Sandpaper Moments

When I went to 6th grade camp, we were given short pieces of rough, ugly, junky looking manzanita wood.  We were told to take a peice of sandpaper and rub it against the wood during the whole week of camp.  The sandpaper was really harsh.  The energy we threw into rubbing the wood caused heat to form, dust to fly and arms to ache.  But then somehow, somehow, at the end of that week, our ugly pieces of wood became smooth, beautiful, polished decorator items.  Awesome transformation.

Sometimes it seems that God leads me to places where it is like sandpaper on wood.  The experience is harsh, hot, rough and dusty... It's disagreeable, and it makes me furrow my brows and frown!  But THE REALITY  is that without sandpaper moments, I would always remain a rough, unsmooth piece of wood, unpolished and unfinished...  -- why would I want to be so junky? 

Let me ask the hard questions of myself, lay down the selfish wishes and dreams, confront my insecurities, walk through the difficult circumstances and allow God to polish me into a thing of beauty!

God hates divorce.  (Malachi 2:16.) 

There aren't many places in the Bible where God says point blank that He hates something.  So needless to say, God's adament stance on this issue really made an impression on my heart when I read about it Friday morning.  God hates divorce!

These thoughts were underscored during my conversation with the 70-yr man on the plane.  He shared with me that he and his wife had divorced many decades ago.  I asked him why they split up and how they had gotten together in the first place.  And then I asked, "Do you regret it?"  And he said, "Yes."  And then - to my surprise - tears formed in his eyes and his voice broke as he said to me, "It was so painful."  What a picture.  It's been more than 30 years since the divorce, and yet because divorce is so painful, it was still causing him to cry in front of a perfect stranger. 

God hates divorce because that was not what He had planned from the beginning.  He created the marriage covenant to be "for life".  Once you're "one flesh", breaking apart really is like tearing up flesh - painful and not highly recommended. 

The marriage covenant is deeply important to Him.  What a reminder to me of the wisdom of taking my time and not trying to rush into anything.     

This week as I was thinking about what kinds of choices I wanted to be making, I was struck by the thought that the choices you make is the story you're writing.  Meaning - whatever choices you make becomes the story that you will be re-telling later.  So the question is - what kind of story do you want to be writing?  What kind of story do I want to write?  I want to be proud of my decisions, so I'll be happy (not embarrassed) to re-tell my story later... 

Steps to Distancing Yourself from God
(Steps I don't recommend yet fall into quite often.)

Step 1.  You experience a trial, difficulty, something painful, displeasurable, adverse to your desires or expectations.

Step 2.  You say to yourself, I can’t (don't want to) deal with the pain right now [so you ignore it, push it aside]

     or I don’t have time to think about it right now [and refuse to think about it]

Step 3.  Repetition of Step 2 for several days

Step 4.  The pain/trial becomes something unthinkably dreadful hanging over your head like a dark, ominous cloud.  It’s now built up in the back of your mind so much that it just feels like something too overwhelming and impossible to deal with.  So you continue to push it away.

Step 5.  Your prayer times have gone from short, surfacecy and superficial to nonexistent.  You have, at this point, effectually shut God out.

Step 6.  Congratulations!  You now recognize the feeling of Emptiness and Distance from God.  “I can’t hear God anymore,” is the general feeling you have.

[The question you now must face is, How do I get back to God?  The answer lies in searching His heart.]

Moral:  Press into the pain!! Deal with it as soon as possible, so you can avoid these Steps to Distance.

Hesed (a brief word study)

Yesterday I mentioned “hesed” in my prayer.  I thought I should explain.  I first discovered the word in Hosea 6:6 (NIV), “For I desire mercy, not sacrifice, and acknowledgment of God rather than burnt offerings.”  The word “mercy” here is translated from the Hebrew word “hesed.”

Hesed is also used in Hosea 6:4 (in speaking of the Israelites), “Your love is like the morning mist, like the early dew that disappears.”  Love is the translation of hesed here.

In the NASB, both the word love in verse 4 and mercy in verse 6 is translated as “loyalty.”

According to the NIV study Bible, the word hesed refers to right conduct toward one’s fellowman or loyalty to God or both.  So… mercy, love and loyalty are interchangeable.  So when I wrote hesed yesterday, I meant that I was praying for someone who would offer hesed (loyalty to God, to his fellowman, and to me!)…