Newness of Life

(this is a repost from 2012) Jesus has issued us an invitation. If you can believe you may cease from your striving and enter My rest. Labor in the Greek is translated kapiao, to feel fatigue, to work hard, to toil. We labor under the weight of our anxieties, fears, habits, and addictions. The ways in which we labor are many. We labor under the weight of our fears. We labor to pad our bank accounts, get out of debt, or keep up with some real or imaginary person. We labor to gain and keep the respect of significant others and the list goes on. We labor on and seldom experience more than a fleeting rest. Apart from the rest of Christ, we are indeed heavy-laden. We are to labor, but not for the things that perish because those things do not offer rest for our souls. This is really what we are after even if we don't realize it. If I just have this person, job, or salary, then I will feel joy and peace. Not so. After Jesus fed the 5,000 the crowds followed him across the lake. Inst...

Wow. I thought that I had done my time in the wilderness, but as God would have it, No Such Luck. Here I am again, searching for some sign of life in the yawning horizon. Doubt fills my heart with cold fear. I am alone. I am finished. I have been in a season of total nothingness, absolutely unmoored and pointless for a few years proceeded by a few years of the most intense emotional pressure I have ever experienced.  Bob Sorge says that waiting is the hottest fire a believer can endure. Our response can mean the difference between entering the promised land, or falling over dead in the wilderness. I have been crying out to the Lord in my own wilderness. Have you led me out here to die?  Perhaps dehydration has caused me to hallucinate that you were actually leading me somewhere? Doubt is like a swarm of mosquitoes on a muggy summer's eve, growing stronger with each life-sucking bite. As my faith wanes, temptation rushes in on me, grasping at my heart with it's...

 I saw something afresh during worship a few weeks ago. How I love for the Lord to show me new things, to expand my understanding making intellectual truths real to my heart. It is so exciting to know Him, to love Him. I always want to know Him more, to love Him more. What I saw in worship put me on my face with tears of worship, gratitude, and adoration. I saw this. While singing a song about Jesus coming to earth and overcoming, I saw him facing evil. I saw him facing evil and loving in return. I saw his own people hurling insults at him. I saw the people accusing him of being demon possessed. I saw his own mother and brothers calling him back home because they thought he was out of his mind. I saw the Jews chanting, "Crucify him! Crucify Him." I saw Peter denying that he had ever known Jesus. I saw the crowds surging towards him to throw him down off of the cliff. I saw the Roman guards whipping his back. I saw them mocking him. I saw the masses laughing, p...

Mark 1:12 "And immediately the Spirit driveth him into the wilderness." This has always intrigued me.  The fact that this happened immediately after his baptism by the Spirit (came down on Him as a dove), suggests that there was a sense of urgency. It appears that God urgently wanted to settle the score with Satan. Jesus came to reclaim our relationship with God by overcoming Satan, as a man . He was righting Adams wrong. Jesus is called the second Adam in the book of Romans. The first Adam sinned and handed  his nature down to us. We have been bent towards deception, selfishness, and rebellion. Yet Jesus, as the "second Adam," overcame Satan's temptations. In Romans, Paul explains that just as we inherited a sin nature from Adam 1, by faith we can inherit an obedient nature through Adam 2. In Christ, we were created anew. So awesome! But first, Jesus had to confront Satan and this time, not give an inch. So God...

Eat More! Jesus said a lot of fascinating things while he was on earth, and some of his sayings were hard to accept. If we were to create a top ten list of hard sayings of Jesus, probably topping the list would be this statement: “Unless you eat my flesh, and drink my blood, you have no life in you.”  This statement separated the men from the boys you could say, and many left.  Thankfully, Jesus was speaking in terms of metaphor.  He expertly wields metaphor comparing spiritual truths that are mysterious to physical truths that are easily understood and relatable. Jesus goes on to say that his flesh is real food, his blood is real drink. Food and drink nourish our bodies, they are gathered and consumed, resulting in health and vitality. Communion is a reminder of the reality that we live through His life by trusting in him. “This is my body, broken for you.” His broken body and spilled blood is a daily, vital spiritual reality that is as real as food. To li...