This might make you angry….

 I Haven’t Blogged in a While

 …’cause I really didn’t have  anything extraordinary to share. Life is really good and I am grateful. I am about  to be a first-time aunt and my sis and her  husband are finally back in the ‘ham. I  would love to have amazing things to constantly blog about but I don’t. It seems false for me to force it so I haven’t.

 But Today is a New Day

 …and I have something to share I have recently been introduced to the writings of  Brennan Manning and he is challenging me  in ways I cannot yet articulate. (but there will be forthcoming posts soon!) Below is something fantastic and raw and I had to share it with you!

Excerpt from Ruthless Trust

“Sensing that if I bare my soul I will be abandonded by my friends and ridiculed by my enemies, I remain in hiding, borrowing from the cosmetic kit to put on my pretty face. I veil my unstated distrust behind a cheerful countenence, mask my fears behind sanguine pretense, and

present a false self that is mostly admirable, mildly prepossessing and superficially happy.

Later, I hate myself for my flagrant dishonesty. Who can I turn to?

In what may be the most stunning sentence in the entire Bible, Jesus says, “I call you my friend.

Raw honesty with Jesus about our doubts and anxieties, our lust and laziness, our shabby prayer life and stale religiosity, our mixed motives and divided hearts is the risk we take in the certainity or being acceptible and being accepted.

It is the full and mature expression of invincible trust.

Jesus is the friend who will never fail, the faithful one who will never be lacking in fidelity, even when people are unfaithful to Him, the stranger to self-hatred who estranges us from self-hatred.” 

Brennan Manning  ”Ruthless Trust”
pp. 102-103

My Thoughts

I find myself hiding from God because of my own self-disillusionment. I think, “I’ve been a believer for 7 years! I should be “better” than I was when He first saved me, right?”

So I see myself as a failure, the condemnation sinks in and I hide. It is no better when the church I love so much reinforces my beliefs about what my failures mean:

I am weak
I am lazy 
I am an immature Christian
I should have “this” under control by now
I am not plugged in at church
I am not in a Sunday School class
My quiet times aren’t regular enough
I am not filled with enough of God’s spirit
I have not memorized enough scripture
I am not enough
I am not enough 

And when those who have put me on a pedestal see glimpses of my imperfections they in turn become disillusioned. They get angry. Their own fears rise up that if their preachers, teachers, leaders, elders, deacons, small group leaders and other pedestal-dwellers aren’t doing any better than they are then there is no hope for them either. I represent what they fear the most.

So we all end up hiding. We all end up far from communion with God because we believe He is keeping an account of all of our failures. This is the LIE that keeps us from Him, isn’t it? But there is hope in the TRUTH of the the gospel that calls all imperfect, haggard sinners to come and drink daily from the river of life. The Life-Giver who does not hate us as we hate ourselves says, “Come, all you who are weary…” 

The Lies I Learned in Church

I believed that I could come to Jesus initially as a ragamuffin but, later had to come as a Pharasee. After a undertmined amount of time had passed I was no longer allowed to come to Him as the messed up girl he rescued. I had to put on the appropriate clothes, speak appropriate “Christineese”, attend all of the appropriate church events (on time), serve in all of the appropraite ministries that complement my gifts and talents, please all of the appropriate people, meet all of their expectations and

just
sin
less.

The Poverty of My Soul

This, I am finding is a bunch of crap.

I ‘ve been miserable and I am tired of it! I want the freedom to live as a beggar EVERYDAY! I can play the role I was given when I entered the church, be clean on the outside and still be full of dead men’s bones-or I can come as a little child to the lap of Jesus -no matter how much mud covers me.

I am beginning a journey of learning what actually pleases God and not what pleases man. I apologize in advance-I am going to make some of you mad in the process. But I love you

My hope is that the outcome of authentic Christianity will be a richer prayer life and communion with God and that the overflow of this will be pleasing to him, joyful for me and attractive to a lost world.

“One of the teachers of the law came and heard them debating. Noticing that Jesus had given them a good answer, he asked him, “Of all the commandments, which is the most important?” ”The most important one,” answered Jesus, “is this: ‘Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself. There is no commandment greater than these.”

Jesus
Mark 12:28-29 

 

He Will Gather the Lambs in His Arms

HE WILL GATHER THE LAMBS IN HIS ARMS.

Isaiah 40:11

“Our Good Shepherd has in His flock a variety of experiences. Some are strong in the Lord, and others are weak in faith; but He is impartial in His care for all His sheep, and the weakest lamb is as dear to Him as the strongest in the flock. Lambs are prone to lag behind, to wander, and are apt to grow weary; but from all the danger of these infirmities the Shepherd protects them with His arm of power.

He finds newborn souls, like young lambs, ready to perish-He nourishes them until life becomes vigorous. He finds weak minds ready to faint and die-He consoles them and renews their strength. All the little ones He gathers, for it is not the will of our heavenly Father that one of them should perish. What a quick eye He must have to see them all! What a tender heart to care for them all!

What a far-reaching and powerful arm, to gather them all! In His lifetime on earth He was a great gatherer of the weaker sort, and now that He dwells in heaven, His loving heart extends to the meek and contrite, the timid and feeble, the fearful and fainting here below. How gently He gathered me to Himself, to His truth, to His blood, to His love, to His Church!

With what effectual grace did He compel me to come to Himself! Since my conversion, He has frequently restored me from my wanderings and once again gathered me within the circle of His everlasting arms! The best of all is that He does it all Himself. He does not delegate the task of love but condescends Himself to rescue and preserve His most unworthy servant. How will I love or serve Him enough?

I long to make His name great to the ends of the earth, but what can my feebleness do for Him? Great Shepherd, add to Your mercies this humble request: Grant me a heart to love You more truly as I ought.

 C.H. Spurgeon

 

Jesus lost me at “hello”

If I had been in the crowd the day Jesus said the following words, would I have walked away? This is how He introduces Himself-by asking people who desired to follow Him to count the ACTUAL cost of following Him:

“In the same way, any of you who does not give up all of his possessions cannot be my disciple.” -Luke 14:33

“If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters—yes, even his own life—he cannot be my disciple. -Luke 14:26

“Anyone who loves his father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves his son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; and anyone who does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me.” -Matthew 10:37-38

Did Jesus really mean what He said? He never said, pray a prayer and accept Him or follow the “roman road.” Declare Him God…even the demons believe and shudder. Are we willing to come to Jesus on His terms and not ours? I don’t think I actually, ever counted the cost and I am faced with the decision now.

The only conclusion I can come to is this: He MUST be worth so much more than what I have!!! He is supremely worthy of all of me and nothing less. This is truth. Will I obey?

Amy

D. Platt’s sermon: “The Gospel Demands Radical Sacrifice”

 

my heart is heavy

 

There are so many things today that make my heart heavy The stories out of India of the believers in Orissa having their homes and churches burned by Hindu radicals. The advent of Ramadan and the lostness of 1.3 billion Muslims. My friends suffering overseas in closed, Musilm countries and right here at home a friend’s family being attacked by the enemy.

What makes my heart the heaviest is my lack of prayer for all of them. It is so easy to pretend that the details of my comfortable life are somehow more important than their need of my prayers. God have mercy on my prayerlessness and faithlessness. Awaken my soul to the leadings of Your Spirit and help me to throw off all of the things of this world that hinder. 

Download Ramadan Prayer Guide >>

 

all i possess

The richness and fullness of God’s grace.

The power that raised the dead, far above
   all earthly power and authority.

Adoption as an heir and daughter.
Every spiritual blessing in heaven.

Made old and blameless before God.
Redemption and forgiveness.

Knowing the mystery of God’s will.

The riches of God’s glorious inheritance, promised and sealed with the Holy Spirit.

A Chosen Race-A Royal Priesthood-A Holy Nation!

The assembly of the firstborn- Free access to the inner courts of heaven!
Draw near with confidence to the throne of grace!

In Ephesians, Paul prays that God will give us a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him. 

That we will have the eyes of our hearts enlightened THAT WE MAY KNOW the hope to which we have been called!

Pray that God will enlighten the eyes of our hearts to see that we already have ALL things in Christ. 

He has not withheld anything from us. More than that He has given us His SON and all of the blessings that come with being children of the KING!!!     

Rejoice today saint You lack no good thing!

 

embrace our comfort or embrace the cross?

An excerpt from the sermon that changed my life and walk forever.

“We have retreated into our nice, big buildings. Where we sit in our nice, cushioned chairs. Where we are isolated and insulated from the inner cities and the spiritual lostness of the world. Were we give a tip of our hats to world missions and evangelism while we go on designing endless programs that all revolve around us. And while we should be on the firing line for God, many of us are still in the nurseries of our churches drinking spiritual milk!

We have two options: retreat into a land of religious formalism and wasted opportunity giving ourselves to a nice show every Sunday, pleasing our conscious but not really making a difference in the world. Or we can risk everything for the purpose for which we have been created. And I want to say to you this morning, Church at Brook Hills, let’s risk it all. For the sake of the billion people who havn’t heard the name of Jesus let’s risk it all. And for the million people in Metro Birmingham, let’s risk it all…

We will either die in our religion or die in our devotion.”

Dr. David Platt
The Church at Brook Hills

 

House Church Leader and Family Evicted from Home

China (Voice of the Martyrs Update)
On July 2, Public Security Bureau (PSB) officers evicted prominent house church leader Pastor Hua Huiqi and his family from their home in Beijing, China.

According to China Aid Association (CAA), “Hua and his family were resting in their rental apartment when PSB officials led by Officer Yang Jian used a 10-pound hammer to break down the doors and locks of the apartment. Hua’s brother was beaten by police officers and suffered severe damage to his eye. Hua and his family, including his 90-year-old father, were forced onto the street with their furniture. They are currently in search of a new home and are being hosted by a Christian family in Beijing.”

According to CAA, “The Chinese government has expressed its intentions to either detain Hua until September 30, a date well after the Olympics, or to remove Hua and his family completely out of Beijing during the Games. The Chinese government had branded Hua and other human rights and religious activists as ‘troublemakers’ and is adamant about keeping such people from attending the games in August.”

“We have predicted that things like this would happen ahead of the Beijing Olympics,” said Todd Nettleton, Director of Media Development for The Voice of the Martyrs. “The Chinese government is determined that there will be no distractions and no embarrassment when the eyes of the world turn to Beijing next month. Our Christian brothers and sisters, like Brother Hua and his family, are not ‘troublemakers,’ as China’s government says. They are simply Christian people who want the freedom to follow Christ according to their conscience.”

This recent incident is the latest in a series of attacks, arrests and imprisonments Pastor Hua and his family have endured from the PSB. In January 2007, Hua and his 76-year-old mother, Shuang Shuying, were attacked and wounded by seven police officers while walking near a 2008 Olympic hotel site in Beijing. CAA reported, “They were kicked to the ground and later taken to the Olympic police station for questioning.” Hua’s mother was sentenced to two years in prison, while Hua served six months. In October, while under house arrest, Hua was repeatedly attacked and beaten by police at his home. CAA reported, “Hua was reading his Bible at his home despite police surrounding his house. He was sent to Beijing Tiantan Hospital because he lost consciousness after repeated beatings from the police.”

Shuang Shuying remains in prison and is very ill. According to CAA she is being held in a medical center because her health has deteriorated. “The doctor said she is too weak to send to a formal prison because of heart problems, diabetes and other medical problems,” CAA reported.VOM contacts say she is being held hostage by police in order to put pressure on Pastor Hua to reveal names and information of believers.

VOM encourages you to pray for believers in China. Pray for Hua’s family who are living under intense persecution. Ask God to watch over his elderly parents who are great examples of faith and courage. Ask the Holy Spirit to convict the persecutors and draw them into the knowledge of Jesus Christ.

 

lessons from the ice cream man

After lunch with Amber and Heather the ice cream man showed up at Amber’s office. His name is Vincent and he is the happiest man I have met in quite a while He was smiling, full of joy and enthusiastically sold me a strawberry popsicle. 

Vincent explained that he is from Guatemala and only works in the States during the summer months. Vincent goes home when it is too cold to sell ice cream and he prefers EVERYTHING in his homeland.

Vincent’s Observations:

1. People here are not as hospitable or friendly.
2. (North) Americans work too much and spend too little time with their families.
3. There aren’t enough lakes, rivers or volcanoes for his taste. 

I don’t think I have ever been as happy at work as Vincent was in his ice cream truck today. 

Lessons learned…

 

amateur lovers (a.k.a. why relationships are so hard)

Amateur Lovers
Switchfoot

“Everyone I know needs love like drugs
Like a common cold we could never shrug

My baby and me we’re missing the same stuff
We’ve all got a disease, deficiency of love
Every day we still try, every night we still cry
Driving home on the 805

(chorus)
We don’t know what we’re doing
We do it again
We’re just amateur lovers
With amateur friends.”

Jesus is the only professional Lover…

 

Where am I?

He Himself is the Answer
I was listening to Michael Card on the radio discussing prayer. He was talking about when we have questions and God gives Himself as the answer. Like with Job…God didn’t give him answers, He gave Himself.

Where Are You?
At a recent conference Card said the audience was asked, “Where are you? Not, where do you pretend to be spiritually or where do you wish you were, but where are you, right now, with God?”  A major, Christian leader stood up in tears saying, “I have never asked myself that question and I am afraid to ask. I am afraid to see into the darkness of my own soul. I am afraid to see what is behind the pretense and the facade.”

I needed to write this down to remind myself to ask. I am afraid too…