Posted by: jakinnan | January 17, 2014

01/17/2014 Scripture

sunrise mist

Then Jesus asked them, “Would anyone light a lamp and then put it under a basket or under a bed? Of course not! A lamp is placed on a stand, where its light will shine. For everything that is hidden will eventually be brought into the open, and every secret will be brought to light. Anyone with ears to hear should listen and understand.”

Then he added, “Pay close attention to what you hear. The closer you listen, the more understanding you will be given[c]—and you will receive even more. To those who listen to my teaching, more understanding will be given. But for those who are not listening, even what little understanding they have will be taken away from them.”

-Mark 4:21-25 NLT

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Posted by: jakinnan | January 16, 2014

A Recovery

LR Carp fishing competition 06-09.07.09

God is coming. He has not abandoned us, and he never will. Yes, the pain of life is sometimes too intense to be borne. But when from that place we cry out to Jesus to save us, the heavens rejoice, the demons tremble in defeat, and the Holy Spirit who is closer than our skin transforms us. Jesus is inviting us to recover those parts of ourselves we have tried to hide or lop off in hopes of being more acceptable. God wants us to love him with all of our hearts. God has purchased all our freedom with his blood. Including the portions of our personalities we would like to change, the dreams long buried, and the wounds we have ignored. They are being kissed awake by the Holy Spirit. Come alive, my Beloved. Awaken. Remember. Jesus has come to heal us and restore us to himself, to others, and even to ourselves.

– Stasi Eldredge, Becoming Myself

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Posted by: jakinnan | January 16, 2014

01/16/2014 Scripture

Dandelions

But Jesus overheard them and said to Jairus, “Don’t be afraid. Just have faith.”

Then Jesus stopped the crowd and wouldn’t let anyone go with him except Peter, James, and John (the brother of James). When they came to the home of the synagogue leader, Jesus saw much commotion and weeping and wailing. He went inside and asked, “Why all this commotion and weeping? The child isn’t dead; she’s only asleep.”

The crowd laughed at him. But he made them all leave, and he took the girl’s father and mother and his three disciples into the room where the girl was lying. Holding her hand, he said to her, “Talitha koum,” which means “Little girl, get up!” And the girl, who was twelve years old, immediately stood up and walked around! They were overwhelmed and totally amazed. Jesus gave them strict orders not to tell anyone what had happened, and then he told them to give her something to eat.

-Mark 5:36-43 NLT

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Posted by: jakinnan | January 15, 2014

Who is Your Shepherd?

Bighorn Sheep

My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand. I and the Father are one. —John 10:27-30

In John 10:27, Jesus the Good Shepherd included three significant characteristics of His day-to-day experiences with His flock. He wasn’t tentative about His role or His expectations, and described His sheep as people who listened to Him, whom He knew, and who followed Him. His statement reaches across the centuries to ask, Are you one of His?

These truths weren’t delivered out in a field on a casual summer afternoon; Jesus spoke them with authority in the Temple, surrounded by people who were divided about His identity “Many of them said, ‘He has a demon, and is insane; why listen to him?’ Others said, ‘These are not the words of one who is oppressed by a demon. Can a demon open the eyes of the blind?’” (John 10:20-21).

Jesus’ teaching and actions sparked arguments. Some rejected Him, but others were captivated by His words. When this mixed crowd became confrontational, He sorted them neatly into those who were of His flock and those who were not.

The Savior’s words invite you to review your relationship with Him. In fact, Scripture urges us all to “examine yourselves, to see whether you are in the faith” (2 Cor. 13:5). A great place to start is to consider His statements, “My sheep hear my voice; I know them, and they follow me.”

Do you hear His voice? Sheep recognize their shepherd’s voice because they know him. Does the Lord speak to you through His Word? If you find yourself increasingly familiar with what Jesus said and eager to think about and obey Him, you are living in the flock. If you can’t honestly hear His voice, you have to decide if you’ve wandered off and need to return.

Does Christ know you? A shepherd can pick out his sheep from a mixed flock. Butknowing is more than recognizing—it’s love, intimacy, and transparency. Are you comfortable with Jesus knowing everything about you? Do you welcome Jesus’ awareness the way David did in Psalm 139:1, “O LORD, you have searched me and known me”? Either He’s your Shepherd or you are treating Him as a stranger.

Are you following Him? Recognizing the call to relationship and heart obedience that Jesus expects ought to make you pause. Sometimes you may need to confess, I hear His voice, but I’m not always understanding what His Word is telling me to do. Becoming aware of your need for more direction actually means you are hearing Him.

Even believers who have known Jesus for years admit, “I’m not following perfectly.” Jesus knows you can’t follow Him flawlessly. In spite of that, He invites you to follow Him anyway—and provides His constant presence to help you do what you are incapable of doing on your own. This is why you can call Jesus your Shepherd: He acts and loves like the perfect shepherd even though you’re not a perfect sheep. Thank Him for being your Shepherd today.

– James MacDonald

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Posted by: jakinnan | January 15, 2014

I Will Go Before You

Lighted Path

I will go before you
and will level the mountains;
I will break down gates of bronze
and cut through bars of iron.
I will give you the treasures of darkness, riches stored in secret places, so that you may know that I am the Lord, the God of Israel, who summons you by name. (Isa. 45:2-3)

God’s imagery of going before us lets us know that he desires us to go on a journey. This is not so frightening. Most of us are aware that the Christian life requires a pilgrimage of some sort. We know we are sojourners. What we have sometimes not given much thought to is what kind of a journey we are to be taking.

Not realizing it is a journey of the heart that is called for, we make a crucial mistake. We come to a place in our spiritual life where we hear God calling us. We know he is calling us to give up the less-wild lovers that have become so much a part of our identity, embrace our nakedness, and trust in his goodness.

As we stand at this intersection of God’s calling, we look down two highways that appear to travel in very different directions. The first highway quickly takes a turn and disappears from our view. We cannot see clearly where it leads, but there are ominous clouds in the near distance. Standing still long enough to look down this road makes us aware of an anxiety inside, an anxiety that threatens to crystallize into unhealed pain and forgotten disappointment. We check our valise and find no up-to-date road map but only the torn and smudged parchment containing the scribbled anecdotes and travelers’ warnings by a few who have traveled the way of the heart before us. They encourage us to follow them, but their rambling journals give no real answers to our queries on how to navigate the highway.

– John Eldredge, The Sacred Romance

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Posted by: jakinnan | January 15, 2014

01/15/2014 Scripture

sunset wave

Late that night, the disciples were in their boat in the middle of the lake, and Jesus was alone on land.  He saw that they were in serious trouble, rowing hard and struggling against the wind and waves. About three o’clock in the morning Jesus came toward them, walking on the water. He intended to go past them,  but when they saw him walking on the water, they cried out in terror, thinking he was a ghost.  They were all terrified when they saw him.

But Jesus spoke to them at once. “Don’t be afraid,” he said. “Take courage! I am here!” Then he climbed into the boat, and the wind stopped. They were totally amazed, for they still didn’t understand the significance of the miracle of the loaves. Their hearts were too hard to take it in.

-Mark 6:47-52 NLT

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Posted by: jakinnan | January 14, 2014

Unlikely Conversations

Yosemite Rainbow

Today, if you will hear His voice, do not harden your hearts. – Hebrews 4:7

An attorney was trying to deliver an important paper to a man who was determined to avoid him. The man reasoned that the attorney had some type of subpoena, so he went out of his way to dodge him. Fourteen years passed, and the man finally found himself in the hospital, dying of cancer. Through a strange series of events, the attorney was admitted to the hospital and was assigned to the same room as the dying man.

The man turned to the attorney and said, “Well, you never got me. I’ve escaped you all this time, and now it doesn’t matter. You can even serve your subpoena. I don’t care.”
The lawyer replied, “Subpoena? I was trying to give you a document that proved you had inherited forty-five million dollars!”

Many people go out of their way to avoid Christians and the opportunity to have a relationship with Jesus Christ. All the while, their hearts grow harder, and they risk becoming calloused to the point of no return. We don’t know when that point will come in their lives. Maybe you even know someone who seems to have already reached it.

We can take heart when we look at the conversion of Saul of Tarsus. It was so radical and unexpected that when it happened, first-century Christians thought he was attempting to infiltrate their ranks and persecute the church even further. They didn’t believe that God could save someone as wicked and hostile toward the church as Saul. They couldn’t wrap their minds around a change of that magnitude. But we know that Saul became Paul the apostle.

If you know someone who seems so far gone and permanently hardened toward the gospel, keep praying. You never know. That person just might be the next Paul.

– Greg Laurie

Photo: Leasha Hooker

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Posted by: jakinnan | January 14, 2014

From Formula to Relationship

FallStream

Our false self demands a formula before he’ll engage; he wants a guarantee of success; and mister, you aren’t going to get one. So there comes a time in a man’s life when he’s got to break away from all that and head off into the unknown with God. This is a vital part of our journey and if we balk here, the journey ends.

Before the moment of Adam’s greatest trial God provided no step-by-step plan, gave no formula for how he was to handle the whole mess. That was not abandonment; that was the way God honored Adam. You are a man; you don’t need me to hold you by the hand through this. You have what it takes. What God did offer Adam was friendship. He wasn’t left alone to face life; he walked with God in the cool of the day, and there they talked about love and marriage and creativity, what lessons he was learning and what adventures were to come. This is what God is offering to us as well. As Oswald Chambers says,

There comes the baffling call of God in our lives also. The call of God can never be stated explicitly; it is implicit. The call of God is like the call of the sea, no one hears it but the one who has the nature of the sea in him. It cannot be stated definitely what the call of God is to, because his call is to be in comradeship with himself for his own purposes, and the test is to believe that God knows what he is after. (My Utmost for His Highest, emphasis added)

The only way to live in this adventure—with all its danger and unpredictability and immensely high stakes—is in an ongoing, intimate relationship with God. The control we so desperately crave is an illusion. Far better to give it up in exchange for God’s offer of companionship, set aside stale formulas so that we might enter into an informal friendship.

– John Eldredge, Wild at Heart

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Posted by: jakinnan | January 14, 2014

01/14/2014 Scripture

Mtn Stream

Then Jesus called to the crowd to come and hear. “All of you listen,” he said, “and try to understand. It’s not what goes into your body that defiles you; you are defiled by what comes from your heart.”

Then Jesus went into a house to get away from the crowd, and his disciples asked him what he meant by the parable he had just used. “Don’t you understand either?” he asked.“Can’t you see that the food you put into your body cannot defile you? Food doesn’t go into your heart, but only passes through the stomach and then goes into the sewer.” (By saying this, he declared that every kind of food is acceptable in God’s eyes.)

And then he added, “It is what comes from inside that defiles you. For from within, out of a person’s heart, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, wickedness, deceit, lustful desires, envy, slander, pride, and foolishness. All these vile things come from within; they are what defile you.”

-Mark 7:14-23 NLT

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Posted by: jakinnan | January 13, 2014

The School of Thankfulness

Zion Sunrise

Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever. Give thanks to the God of gods, for his steadfast love endures forever. Give thanks to the Lord of lords, for his steadfast love endures forever. 
—Psalm 136:1-3

Every follower of Jesus is enrolled in the school of thankfulness—and too many people are flunking out. Because the Bible frequently urges us to thank God, expressing gratitude should be of continual interest. No matter how long you have known Him, you will never stop discovering fresh reasons for thanking Him.

In Psalm 136 we see three expansive titles for God that are each a reason for gratitude, because each reminds us “his steadfast love endures forever.” The first title “the Lord” is His awesome, sovereign name, Yahweh. The second title “God of gods” highlights His supremacy. He’s not God among other, lesser gods—there’s no one else in His category. The third title “Lord of lords” points to God’s divine authority and His rightful rule in our lives.

We serve the awesome, sovereign, supreme God—who not only has authority to reign in our lives, but authority to rule over those things that would rule over us. God loves us like no one else, ever. Yet we still find it difficult to thank Him always and for everything—we need to be schooled in gratitude.

Scripture shows there are three learned levels of thankfulness, similar to our educational process. That’s why a regular review of the development of a thankful heart is important.

First, there’s basic elementary school thankfulness. Hebrews 13:15 says, “Through him then let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that acknowledge his name.” Thanksgiving is the sacrifice.

You might think, Okay, I know I should be more thankful. Fine, I’ll make a list of things I’m grateful for. I’ll make the sacrifice. I’ll be thankful.

Congratulations—you’re an elementary school graduate. It’s a place to start, but don’t stay there.

Once you have developed a consistent habit of thanksgiving, it’s time to graduate to the next level: high school thankfulness. First Thessalonians 5:18 says, “In everything, give thanks.”

You’re making progress in gratitude when you discover something to be thankful for inevery situation. The picture may be dismal, but learn to find a bright spot—a hint of God’s presence. For example, you may not feel thankful for your spouse at the moment, but you’re thankful for your kids and the life you have together. Or you might not feel thankful for your job, but you’re thankful for your health insurance and the ability to provide for yourself. In other words, go after deliberate, if selective, gratitude.

Finding something to be thankful for in everything is certainly a step above having only random grateful thoughts. But there is still plenty of room for developing a deeply thankful heart. Here’s what you’re going for: graduate school thankfulness. Ephesians5:20 says, “Giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

No matter what’s happening, no matter how dark the moment, God is in control. He can be explicitly trusted. He’s working out a purpose beyond what you can imagine. Some of it you’ll see in this life; some of it you’ll see in the life to come. Give thanks to God—always and for everything! Go for it. Thank Him for the hardest part of your life. Just say, “Thank You, God, even for this,” and trust in His steadfast love which endures forever.

– James MacDonald

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