Who can dwell in Your tent?

Psalm 15 is not good. It is not a nice, sweet song of praise. It is not comforting. Psalm 15 asks an honest question, gives an honest answer. Honestly, we cannot do what the answer requires. "Lord, who may dwell in your sacred tent? Who may live on your holy mountain? The one whose walk is blameless, who does what is righteous, who speaks the truth from their heart; whose tongue utters no slander, who does no wrong to a neighbor, and casts no slur on others; who despises a vile person but honors those who fear the Lord; who keeps an oath even when it hurts, and does not change their mind; who lends money to the poor without interest; who does not accept a bribe against the innocent. Whoever does these things will never be shaken." (Psalm 15:1-5 NIV) Honestly, after reading this I was left with the initial thought "I can't" Immediately after that thought the Holy Spirit stepped in, "Good. You see, if you could do it on your own you would never know Jesus. Me and you would never meet. You can't dwell in the tent of the Lord, oh, but He can dwell in you!" This psalm points out our insufficiency and highlights His all-sufficient power. So instead of reading Psalm 15 and being discouraged I can read it and be joyful, thankful, confident. Even if for one day I could live up to those standards, just one day, I would be living under the Law. My relationship, standing, and justification with the Lord would be based upon my deeds. It would be dependent on me. How far off is that? How could I for one second believe that I could handle that? The creation determines how the creator sees, interacts, and values it? Not in this world. While the requirements in Psalm 15 will never be fully achieved by me I can still hold them as standards to reach for. But in my reaching I can rest easy in the results. When, not if, I fail I do not lose the dwelling of my Lord. Praise be to Him forever on high, even when my lips forget to bring it.

please you, judged by Him

i'm sure this is not an original thought at all. i am not the first to think of it or say it, but i also know that no one has been saying this to me recently. well that is except for the Holy Spirit.

and in that case, no thought is original because i, you , we are not original. we come from The Original.

here's the thought. i want it to be an encouragement for those stuck. i want it to be a reminder for those who already know. i want it to be a light for those who have not had the revelation. i want it to bring glory to the One who deserves it. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit glory to You and all that You are.

in this life you can live for others. you can please others. you can live up to the standards others put out there. you can strive for the approval of those above you, beside you, in your family, those you look up to, etc. you can try and satisfy the needs of others. you can do and not do things based on how you want others to feel about you. if you don't want others to think poorly of you, you may try to live by the standards you've made up in your mind that you think they hold. you can hold in hurt because you don't want to feel judged by others. you don't know what they will think of you after they hear that you....

but guess what?

all those people. all those lists. those standards. the rights and wrongs you lived by.

you will not stand before them at the end of this life.

those people and things have nothing to say about your eternity.
they do not determine how your eternity is spent.

if you are not living to please and glorify the Lord then you will suffer from major whiplash at the gates.
you won't even be able to remember the names of those whom you pleased on earth in the light of Jesus Christ the Savior.

so don't be stopped from doing the things you feel are going to glorify the Lord just because someone else may think less of you. and at the same time don;t discount others feelings because they aren't as high as the Lord.

balance. always find the balance of kingdom things within this world through your personality.

He is good. He has reminded me of these things. they are not my judge of eternity. they are those who get to experience Him trying to bring eternity here.

Jesus, stand behind

last Sunday i was blessed with a reminder. 
a reminder of freedom. 
a reminder of grace.
a reminder of love.
a reminder of new allegiance.


Romans 7:4-6 states:
 "Therefore, my brethren, you also were made to die to the Law through the body of Christ, so that you might be joined to another, to Him who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit for God.  For while we were in the flesh, the sinful passions, which were aroused by the Law, were at work in [a]the members of our body to bear fruit for death. But now we have been released from the Law, having died to that by which we were bound, so that we serve in newness of the Spirit and not in oldness of the letter."


i was reminded about the freedom i gained through Christ's life, sacrifice, and Resurrection. through Him i was released from the standards the Law called me to. if you read the first 3 verses in Romans 7 you will be shown an analogy of marriage. 

we were once married to the Law. this husband held impossible standards for us to live by and offered no encouragement or help in attaining those standards. living under him is called legalism. 


through Christ's death we died to the Law. we were released from legalism. our new husband justifies us before the Father and offers the purist form of grace, mercy, and love. this husband is Jesus and living with Him is called freedom.


the problem comes when we try to please our new husband by turning back to our old husband's standards. this just doesn't work. what wife today would be pleasing her new husband by turning back to her old? none. and the same applies to us. Jesus is not the Law. the Law pointed to Jesus and opened our eyes to the fact that we need a savior because we can't do it on our own. but once you have chosen a life with Jesus you must stop living under the Law. 


this means when we accept our freedom we stop trying to earn it. it is a gift. one that is not earned. one that no one is worthy of. one that you can not live up to. so simply accept it. 


now the only thing i could pray and think about after hearing all of this...


"Jesus please stand behind me."


it is often prayed for Jesus to stand and go before us. we want Him to be the leader, the one making the way, what we look forward to. but the reality is that we do look back. we turn back to legalism and trying to justify our relationship with Jesus through our works and deeds. so while i fully desire for Christ to be before me, i need Him to stand behind me. 


for when i turn back and start thinking about having a Jesus-plus(acting as if Jesus' grace isn't enough and adding things to the list) kind of day i need Him to stand behind me and say,


"oh my bride, don't you remember. you have been released from your old husband's ways. he only offers death. i have given you life and will never stop doing so. turn around and stop trying to please death."


so next time you start falling into old ways. next time you find yourself feeling guilty because you didn't have a quiet time that day. next time you think the Lord feels any less love towards you. next time....


pray that Jesus would be standing behind you. 

thirsty roots

Jesus tells us that apart from Him we can do nothing. He tells us that His Father is the Gardner, He is the vine, and we are the branches. If we remain in Him we survive, we thrive, we bear fruit.

There's a saying- "I thirst for the Lord."

I never really questioned this saying much, It made sense to me. We get thirsty in our daily lives and we get a drink to quench that thirst. So using that in a spiritual sense translates well. We get thirsty spiritually and we need Jesus to quench that thirst. But I had never thought of that saying in light of Jesus' words in John 15.

He is the Vine,
     we are the branches...

Plants survive by being watered. A vine supplies the branches with water from its roots. The branches thirst for the nutrients that the vine gives them.  A branch cannot survive on its own. A branch cannot be separated from the vine and maintain life.

Neither can we survive on our own apart from Jesus. He is our supplier of life's essential nutrients. he is the living water, the well of life. We are not just craving a sip of Jesus, although a sip of Jesus provides enough life for the whole world. We are craving to be intertwined with our one source of life.

Death was simple, but getting there was an act of love

Naturally the Easter season has me thinking about Jesus: His life, death, and resurrection. I had a new thought recently. We always talk about how He died for us, His death, 'I can't believe He died for us'...but was it really a big deal that God died? Not really. He is God and He is not defeated or overcome by death. Death was not an end for Him. Dying wasn't the big deal. It had to be done, of course, to fulfill scripture, cover our Fall, and reconcile the relationship between God and man, but rising from death was a simple task for our God. 

What I see as the big deal is the fact that Jesus chose to leave His heavenly dwelling and enter the human world. He submitted to what it meant to be human and deal with temptation, anger, pain, sickness, hunger, etc. All while knowing what was ahead of Him. He didn't just die. Jesus took on humiliation through a friend's betrayal, walked in chains at the mercy of soldiers, was beaten to an unrecognizable state, nailed to a cross (the Romans truly knew how to inflict the most painful forms of torture), and then hang there till death came upon Him. 

Death was probably the easiest part. To leave all the pain, no longer face temptation, forget hunger, and every other human aspect that falls short of being God. Jesus was, is, and always will be a constant overflow of love from our heavenly Father. I am drawn back to this poem that somehow came from a pen I was holding one morning. Read it, soak it in, and thank the Lord for the perfect sacrifice of Jesus and the victory that came through His resurrection. 

In Your presence

    there is no comprehension,

                  no way to contain.

The words You spoke,

    the beating You took,

             the blood You shed.

All done by the authority

     in Your name.

You promised the temple

     to be destroyed.

       to be rebuilt in just three days.

The mocks were made

      with laughing loud.

But on the cross you revealed to the proud

      that pride comes

                  before the fall.

They thought they could defeat You

    by putting You to death

But after three days

    You breathed new life

            with just one breath.

The temple was rebuilt

      not of stone, of wood, or clay.

The temple was made new

     it was rebuilt in You.

The stone rolled back

   and from the grave You walked.

The Savior was alive!

    the man that they

                once mocked.

Before You walked this earth,

    winning was the enemy.

But through Your blood,

      the Truth and Life,

he has no victory over me.

You sent the Helper to dwell,

       dwell in my heart,

                my soul,

                      my mind.

So with all I am

      and all I have
  please let us be intertwined.

Your death and resurrection
       are not just a story
They are the proclamation  of victory!
       Victory over the devil!
       Victory over the flesh!
       Victory each and every day!

Thank You for reconciliation.
 I submit my life to be
       in constant admiration.
Though I may fail
       and I may slip
Your love will never fail
     and I will never be
           let from Your grip.

In Your presence is where
      I want to be.
Fear and trembling, joy and singing
All of this I get to share
       with You
Because I am not chained
   or held, but in You
           I have been made free.

You took my place on the cross
     so have Your way in me
On this earth let me be
    the lips that speak Your words.
In this place let every
     heart and saddened face
               be renewed in who You are
So that each new life
     may be of You
             a living memoir.

Thank You for Your grace
     and thank You for Your love.
Please be my guiding light
    when darkness closes in
So that from the hands
      of the enemy I may
            ascend like a dove
Let me be Your living testimony
    to tell of all You've done.
To share with the world
     that each and every heart
          has already been won.

The Lord is Holy,
     Pure, and Strong
And all my days I
     I will work
to make that
       my life song.
  

The beauty of engaging

So I've been reading through the old testament since the start of the year. If I were to be honest I would have to admit that with this process comes some times when I have to ask the Lord to really make it stand out. It can get dry, or so I always thought. I have never read through the entire Bible from cover to cover and I decided to do so this year. You hear the jokes about how dry the sections are with all the commandments and sacrifice rituals. But for me it has only made me appreciate Jesus more. God and man were in perfect relationship. The fall brought sin. Separation entered the relationship. No longer could man freely interact or come before the Lord. Sacrifice after sacrifice, attempt after attempt to re-engage. What if that were the case today? You sinned, well go get a goat, or bird, and some grain. Repeat daily because we all fall into sin everyday. Praise Jesus Christ that we do not have to! We don't have to go to one certain place or have a priest step in on our behalf. Jesus was our sacrifice once and for all. Through a beautiful display of selflessness stepping in and taking the best the world could throw at Him, Jesus made an eternal way for us to come before the Father. Take a few minutes today to really soak that in and appreciate our savior. We take Him for granted too often. And the fact that we can engage with the Lord at any time, in any place, and in any situation... Let your heart fall to its knees and be humbled in His beauty. The way I see it, He took our place on the cross so we ought to take His place here. "Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship." -Romans 12:1

salty conversation

"Let your conversation be always full of grace, 

seasoned with salt,

so that you may know how to answer everyone."

-Colossians 4:6

everytime I read through this verse I am intrigued by the idea of seasoning my conversation with salt. what exactly does that mean? while I have always been intrigued I never really looked into it. I simply read over it and gave it importance in my mind, but i didn't know why. well as I read through the letter of Colossians today I gave more effort to the whole process. I pulled one of my New Testament Survey books off my shelf to see what was said about the letter. there were several things I learned and some old things were just buried deeper into my mind. and of course, the last thing that is said about this letter has to do with 4:6. the author wrote, "since salt retards corruption, speech 'seasoned with salt' probably means speech that is not corrupt or obscene." (Robert H. Gundry) 

salt is always associated with food. 

salt brings flavor.

salt turns the ordinary into the sensational.

Christ  calls us to be salt to this world. well, not ourselves exactly, but to use ourselves to be a medium which He uses to season the ordinary things of the world with the salt of His truth, beauty, and grace. with our mouths we have the opportunity to speak what is not ordinary. we can bring flavor to the conversation. 

through our speech the lost may taste and see that the Lord is good. when we hear something that is corruption of His truth we can throw some salt on it and preserve His goodness throughout the earth.