Give me faith

Flat on my face the feeling is stale

No trace of joy, my cheeks are pale.

Been down this place a million times,

Turning and hiding and running around

Anything to keep everything in numb lines 

Deaf to my voice or silently He stays

No sign or miracle streamlining my way.

The abyss the dark the chaotic frenzy 

Waiting, waiting, wondering if He sees me. 

Give me what I need, 

But help me want it too.

But if it must be uncomfortable 

Lend me faith to pull me through. 

  

All the pressures and threats 

Are loud and terrifying,

In the silence let Your light be magnifying. 

Search me, and know me, Lord be in my core.

Where darkest fear and cruel words abound even more. 

Sit with me in the valley of death,

Calm me and lead me by Your very breath. 

Though the way is long and I see no end,

Give me faith that cleaves to You at every bend. 

Jmegrey 

Hebrews 2: Suffering death

I am compelled to write this because I am in need of being reminded of what I know to be true and to weed out where any lies may have infiltrated my mind via my heart.  

“We must, therefore, pay even more attention to what we have heard, so that we will not drift away.”

Hebrews 2:1

When I am not paying attention to what God's voice is saying or that His presence is with me, then it doesn't mean I'm not paying attention to anything.  It means I'm paying attention to something or someone else other than God.  Don't be fooled into thinking you are doing such a tedious thing as to "pay attention" when it is actually something we are all constantly doing.  You paying attention means that you are focusing on something, that could be food, social media, homework, money, work, or sex.  You are always thinking about something.  Thinking about something means you are giving attention to something...you are paying something your attention as if paying a cashier money for an item, you pay something with the payment of your focus with your thoughts.  It's funny that the word used is payment.  Our payment, which is something we give to someone or something is in the form of our thoughts rather than dollars.  We are paying attention, just like we would dollars, and getting something back in return.  So who or what are you paying the most thoughts to?  You will know because it will be the one ruling your mind, and if it rules your mind it rules you. 

Giving payment back to God, payment of focus and thoughts, is to receive Him as the one who rules our minds and is King of our whole life.  We must continue, as Hebrews 2 says, to "pay even more attention (pay more thoughts to God and the Word, Jesus, who spoke to us directly as one of us) to what we have heard, so that we will not drift away."  In other words, when we stop paying God we start paying someone or something else, and that becomes our ruler as we drift away from God.  Payment is being made today.  Who are you paying your attention to?  That will be the ruler of your mind. 

---

“For He has not subjected to angels the world to come that we are talking about. But one has somewhere testified: What is man that You remember him, or the son of man that You care for him? You made him lower than the angels for a short time; You crowned him with glory and honor and subjected everything under his feet. For in subjecting everything to him, He left nothing that is not subject to him. As it is, we do not yet see everything subjected to him.”

Hebrews 2:5-8

Who is he talking about in this passage?  It sounds like it's Jesus because it says he was crowned with glory and honor, but it's not just about Jesus. 

He is talking about you and me.  We are "man" that God created in the beginning.  We are the ones made in His image and given the mandate or the responsibility to cultivate God's creation.  God's world.  Now when sin came, God had it already in mind to prepare a new world for those who would resist sin and follow God, and this new world is what we refer to as "Heaven" or in Revelations as the "new Jerusalem." (Rev. 21:2)

Here's how I broke it down to show that this is about you and me...it says:

“and subjected everything under his feet. 

For in subjecting everything to him, 

He left nothing that is not subject to him."

This is what God wrote about man in Genesis 1:26 and in Psalm 8.  Everything was put under man's feet.  So that it was man's responsibility to rule and cultivate and care for God's creation.  All the animals and plants are under our rule.  Not that they are obedient to us, but that we are made to care and govern over them as humans because God equipped us to.  

"As it is, 

we do not yet see everything subjected to him."

This shows that even though that is how God created the order of the world to be, because of sin entering into the world, it is not what we see happening.  People neglect plants and animals in favor for their comfort or self-glory.  There are numerous places in the world that suffer poverty and malnourishment because humans neglect to care for the lands around them, but rather they care for their own immediate gratifications.  It's not so much about governing and cultivating God's creation as it is about securing one's own livelihood.  Things, as we see them today, are not the way they're supposed to be according to God's initial Word in the beginning.  However, even though we see that not all things are subject to us right now in life, because of the corruption of sin...

"But we do see Jesus —"

We don't see everything subject to man in God's creation at present, but we have seen Jesus in history who came into the world as a man just like you and me.  So what does that have to do with us?  Why is it that the writer of Hebrews talks about a world in which God has made for people and not Angels?  And then says that it's supposed to look like this, where everything is subjected to man, but in actuality we see that it does not look the way it is supposed to be...but that we can look at Jesus?    Well, Jesus is the way it is supposed to be.  

"But we do see Jesus — (He came in flesh and blood as a baby and grew up to be an adult just like us...He came as a human) 

made lower than the angels for a short time (just like us, we are lower than Angels right now because they are spiritual beings which is eternal and we are made of flesh which is temporary) 

so that by God’s grace 

He might taste death for everyone — (Jesus was a recipient of God's grace, just like us, and he died just like we will all one day die.  His death was different from all the others because while He was made into a man like us He remained to be the Word of God, so His death was not only the death of a man but the resurrection of the Word.  He might taste death for everyone: he might die as a human so that he knows what it feels like and looks like to die, but having done it himself He shows us that it is finished.  Death is no longer a threat to man, because God became man and conquered death as a man who faced it--by dying.  He showed us that it is possible for man to now live without the fear of death, because of God.  God has saved us through His Son Jesus.  Not only by His death as the means, but also by His example, His way of life as a man, and his resurrection life and place next to God as the means to our end.  We follow Christ into the way, the truth and the Life.  

"crowned with glory and honor 

because of His suffering in death."

We acknowledge that Christ is alive and seated next to God, crowned with glory and honor because He is sitting next to God!  If you're anywhere near God you must be crowned with glory and honor for such a position.  We all say we believe that Jesus is Lord, meaning that He is crowned with glory and honor.  But we often leave out the second part that says: "because of His suffering in death."  Death might be powerless now in terms of keeping us down and doomed, but it does not mean it can't still produce feelings and sensations of suffering both mentally and bodily in us.  Yet Christ was crowned with glory and honor--seated in the presence of God--because He suffered in death.  The reason He got to where He is now is because He defeated Death by suffering it.  By going through it.  By not fearing its power.  

And we draw near to God in just the same way.  

It is through our suffering that feels death's approach or threat (getting old, losing fleshly value, pain, loss of memory or strength, loss of life itself) that we gain our life in the presence of God for eternity, crowned in glory and honor just as we profess to believe for Jesus.  Jesus is our way, our truth about who we are and who God is, and our life eternal not our life in the temporary.  

If Jesus suffered in death to bring glory to God, then our suffering in moments where Death is imminent also is our action of giving glory to God!  How passive it might always feel!  To never actively give God glory in the way we think it means to give God glory, just as it feels quite passive in acknowledging our ruler being the one we give payment of our thoughts to!  It is so subtle yet it is so true.  Nobody means to be governed by their thoughts of lust or beauty, but it is exactly what happens when a person is always concerned about having affection or sex or a younger more perfect looking image.  Such a person can be spotted as obviously as a tiger among fish.  

You are what you think about--

even if you don't think so.  

Yet Christ is not only the way to life but He also showed us the way by becoming one of us, entering our story, and making it His-story.  We are people of experience and we love to read stories about how things happen for people.  We understand life through stories.  Showing us  by His-story that life was in dying, not in suicide but in the facing of death, because death approaches all of us.  We are all getting older, weaker, and coming to an end in the flesh.  For some that might look and feel sooner than it does for others (for example I feel like I am going to just die if I never get certain things in life like the perfect job or a family of my own or some kind of purpose for my existence, but that is all the threat of everything soon reaching an end revealing that it will all be over soon and I will no longer have that chance at having what was, for the moment, life for me). Christ showed us that the approach of death would feel painful, because it will look like the end of life and all the possible joys within it--vanishing--but Christ's story reveals that in it (suffering in the face of these Death threats and in death itself) there we would find our greatest source of true life.  

"For in bringing many sons to glory,  (many sons means you and me!  That's not talking about Jesus because Jesus is not plural.) 

it was entirely appropriate that God — 

all things exist for Him and through Him — (whether we agree with that or not) 

should make the 

source of their salvation 

perfect through sufferings. 

For the One who sanctifies 

and those who are sanctified 

all have one Father."

I loveeeeee this verse right here.  This is like...so logical haha. I love it because it makes sense.  It's not abstract or fuzzy, but it's so clear.  God had Jesus suffer not because He's a mean and cruel God but because That's the only way we get to life.  Sin makes us die, death threatens us, and we suffer because of sin having brought death to us.  So it makes sense that God would have His Son suffer death for us  not only because He saved us in doing so, but also because like Father like Son they are consistent with the truth the way and with life.  If God suffered His Son dying for us, then as newly redeemed children of God we also suffer death approaching as we are also being brought into adoption as God's children.  Jesus is our brother.  And what our big brother went through is what we are also going through because we are family.  We experience the same things, we gain the same things, and we have the same Father.  

"That is why Jesus is not ashamed 

to call them brothers,”

Hebrews 2:8-11

You and I are called the brothers of Jesus.  

As a woman, I don't find that odd at all.  I find the word "brother" to mean something beyond a male, but to be defined by relationship.  A brother is kin, it means we are family.  Jesus came as a man, born of a virgin woman, and if I live in His existence (or His presence) then I live in Him who was a man which makes me a brother too.  Not that it makes me male, but it makes me family.  

“Again, I will trust in Him. 

And again, 

Here I am with the children God gave Me."

Trust and being present is something we do again and again and again.  We trust and then we trust again.  We stand in the presence of our family of God again and again because we will forget who these people in the church are.  

"Now since the children have flesh and blood in common, Jesus also shared in these, 

so that through His death He might destroy the one holding the power of death — that is, the Devil — and free those who were held in slavery all their lives by the fear of death.”

Hebrews 2:13-15

Now, I'm at the point where my brain feels like it's going to explode or fry out. Haha.  I can't think straight.  So even when I want to pay my thoughts to God there are times I am unable to do so.  When I am unable I enable grace.  When I am able I think about God because in doing so He governs my life with love and joy and peace that surpasses understanding.  But when I am unable I enable grace which awes me into praising God for who He is and for who I am because of Him.  

Man.

Crazy.

God.

Amazing.

Fearless yet suffering,

Jmegrey 

Authenticity: real is real

Authenticity is real and it can't be anything but the real thing.

When you're real then what you do is real. 

Simple and true.  Real is real.  

Being authentic comes up against a lot of the things we never realized were only images.  You might think you're authentically about something, but when the fire tests your authenticity it reveals who you really are.  

These fires blaze through our decisions, they're our values, and they're our choices.  Okay so decisions and choices are the same thing, but the point is....soon enough the real you is exposed.  The you behind the hidden heart.  You might be able to have an image of who you think you are or what you think you're all about, and that could be based on what you know to be "good" or "right" in your mind, but all that knowledge means nothing when it comes to who you really are.  I can know a lot about what a doctor does, what a doctor looks like and how a doctor speaks.  But that does not make me a doctor.  I may be able to look the part if I stole a white coat and stethoscope, but I would not actually be a doctor because the qualities I mentioned are only the most obvious.  However, behind the obvious lies a complex and deep inner character of someone who had to decide that they were going to dedicate 7 hours a day for months to study for the MCAT exam, then they were likely going to pull out a scary amount of money on loan, risking a lot of debt for the next 10 years, then skip out on a lot of fun things they saw their friends doing to stay home and memorize which tendons connect to which bones and what happens when an artery coagulates, and instead of a salmon salad they had instant ramen every night.  The point being, the kind of person that wants to be a doctor is determined.  If I can say nothing else about their character it would be to say they are definitely diligent.  Now they could have other great qualities like kindness and gentleness, but those are what make a doctor.  Diligence and determination make a doctor because the decisions require giving up a lot and taking risks.  In that way who we are in life is revealed by our decisions, not our obvious appearances.  

As someone who says that they love and enjoy God and desire to know Him more, it's about my decisions more than appearances.  At the end of the day, only you know what's real and what's not.  What's happy and what's just an apathetic or will-less "whatever".  I think there are values that a believer can check themselves with to see if what they think matches what they know.  For me this has been two things:

First, I ask the Spirit, do I genuinely love people so that I see them the same way I see God?  In other words, are people or each person I encounter in life as valuable to me as God?  Or are they just means of doing good or being charitable; do I see them and not just their reactions to me.  If I see them as the latter then I might be a charitable person or a nice person, but it does not reveal me to be a follower of Jesus unless the first outcome is happening.  

(John 13:35: "By this all people will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.")

Second, I ask, am I in need of being reminded that God is there because I can't do this alone?  Am I committing everything to His Sovereignty so that no matter what I trust that He is having His way which is obviously good even if it may not look that way to me at first?  This is important because it means I'm always doing whatever I'm doing with God...and this becomes particularly important when things don't go as expected or as planned in my mind, or if I am planning too much ahead of time without room for the unknown.  All I need to remember is that God has a will which is being done, and my will is always there noticing that with more and more thankfulness to be in His.

(Isaiah 55:11- "so My word that comes from My mouth will not return to Me empty, but it will accomplish what I please and will prosper in what I send it to do.") 

I'm sure there are other indications that might help me see the condition of my hidden heart, but those two have been the most effective ones in my life lately. 

I watched the hunger games (warning: movie spoiler in this paragraph), and the story is about a girl who loves two guys.  One guy is the one she has grown up with and who appears to have the same values as her and who loves her very much, and the two of them are best friends.  The other guy sort of messes up a lot and gets rejected by her at first because he appears to be some random rich kid, but he falls for her regardless of how she treats him.  He also ends up having his mind messed with and tries to kill her.  However, one of the end scenes has the first guy (her best friend) who decides to be a part of an attack on civilians, not as his idea but for him it meant freedom and the decision fit into his values....and that one decision revealed what he really loved, and more than her it was freedom for a nation. This wasn't a bad thing, it just made him someone different than what she had probably expected.  He would make a great leader or soldier, but not her lover.  She has to pick between the two for who she will choose as her lover not as her fellow soldier.  The other guy shared core values with her, difficult decisions that may not have been ethically stable, but they shared a similar value of every human life even if at the expense of their own or something threatening, and he was also more about the immediate people in his life, and in the end even though he tried to kill her at one point (because he was brainwashed) at the core of who he was and what he valued it showed through his decisions.  

You can't hide forever what's in the hidden heart. 

Eventually it will be revealed, and probably is being revealed in our everyday decisions.

It was weird, but watching that movie filled me with new strength.  It made me want to walk fearlessly into authenticity.  To be who I am in Christ, regardless of what is seen or what people might think or say.  The truth will unfold, and there is a sense of relief and hope in knowing that.  For now, and for much of this life only God fully knows what's inside of my heart, and I know, too, only through relationship with Him. 

“This is what the Lord God says: Woe to the foolish prophets who follow their own spirit and have seen nothing." 

There is always our will and God's will.  The difference is that God's will is always getting done, while our own is liable to disappoint and fail because we might have different agendas than God.  We might have ideas for what life should be about or how God should and will make us happy, but we hold on so tightly to these expectations or pictures in our minds that when life happens, we see nothing.  It is only when we are in relationship, authentic communion with God, that we begin to see what He is doing unfold in our lives.  Less and less is the question of "why God?" because more and more it becomes "what does this mean?" The difference between the two questions lies in our trust in God, because asking why is more like demanding that God explain Himself or asking that God give us a reason for His reason, which is absurd since there is nothing above God's reason.  Exodus 33:19 states that God will have mercy on...the good people?  The right people?  The clean people?  No.  It says "I will have mercy on who I have mercy."  There is no reason for why He does what He does because no reason exists above His will.  

Asking "what does this mean" is openness to right interpretation.  Does God ridicule or criticize or condemn your life or does He interpret it as His plans for you so that you have no fear of falling from that good and perfect plan as you inwardly desire Him and His will more and more?  He says, "My sheep know My voice, and follow Me, and nothing can snatch them away from Me." (John 10:27-28) Whenever I feel or hear the threat of being wrong or messing up or being too far from who I am supposed to be, I silently sit before God in honesty and He speaks a better word that rises within me to follow Him rather than the accusations piled against in my mind.  I know His voice, and I know it well because it always leads me to life.  I follow His voice, and His alone keeps me safe. 

Exodus passage continued:

"You did not go up to the gaps or restore the wall around the house of Israel so that it might stand in battle on the day of the Lord."

Authentic believers care about the church.  They care about the body, the people, each person with a name ...matters.  Nobody should slip through the gaps or be left in their misery, because authentic people who commune with God know that this battle is not against flesh and blood (he or she or they are not the enemy), but that God cares about His sheep and would even be willing to leave 99 to search for one lost one.  It's not about the numbers but about each and every one of His own that matters.  I may not be able to know each and every person, but I can focus on the in front of me, next to me, or near me so that everywhere I go there is someone to care for.  

Now I'm not saying that if you don't possess these qualities then you are not authentic, or maybe ...maybe I am.  Because I don't possess all these qualities in my inner character, yet that does not mean they are not true.  The Word is true and God is true, even if that makes everyone a liar, including myself. 

(Romans 3:4- "By no means! Let God be true though every one were a liar, as it is written, “That you may be justified in your words, and prevail when you are judged.”). The reason I'm pointing these things out about authenticity is to show us and myself how much grace we receive each day as we admit to the truth about our hearts--as we take this journey with God of honesty and cultivate an authentic relationship with Him.  The hard part is seeing how far and evil we are, but the glorious part is being washed in the gospel and in His will every single time.  There is no fear in His perfect love.  The goodness of God outweighs the evil in the world ....there's no comparison!

This means that even when we have moments where we begin to lose hope, we see that we only began to lose hope because we first trusted in God to do a good work, and what we expected God to do is not what we see, yet that does not mean He did not do a good work nor does it mean that we did not hope in Him, it must mean we are now at the place where we let go of our expectations and trust more deeply in God.  This inception of hope and trust goes deeper and deeper and deeper as we walk honestly and hopefully and trustfully with God for the completion of His will. 

“My hand will be against the prophets who see false visions and speak lying divinations. They will not be present in the fellowship of My people or be recorded in the register of the house of Israel, and they will not enter the land of Israel. Then you will know that I am the Lord Yahweh."

Now when the wall has fallen, will you not be asked, ‘Where is the coat of whitewash that you put on it?’

You profane Me in front of My people for handfuls of barley and scraps of bread; you kill those who should not die and spare those who should not live, when you lie to My people, who listen to lies.”

Ezekiel 13:3, 5, 9, 12, 19

Real is real.  A coat of whitewash cannot withstand the day of its destruction by God, but the one who has put their hope and trust in God as their refuge will never be abandoned.  

Real is real.  

Be real about trusting God for the outcome.

Jmegrey

Preaching the Gospel to myself everyday

God, 

I'm frustrated that there is no certainty, no sign, no conviction or fullness in my heart to reassure me that it's You.  I know I've sinned deliberately, I know I could have done better, I know I made bad choices, and I understand that comes with responsibility, but what about Your gospel?  When I think about Your gospel, that no sin or bad decision is more powerful than Your gospel, I find I must be forgiven and sometimes it fills me with the presence and taste of Your love and grace, while today it just fills me with suspicion and guilt.  I need the truth to settle the thoughts in my heart.  

God, my Father in heaven.  I'm sorry.  And I'm not sorry with tears or with the right thoughts or even the right heart.  I'm sorry because I miss You. I'm sorry because I want You.  I'm sorry because I know You mean more to me than my idols, yet I fall for their momentary seductions ...just like the prostitute that Hosea married. 

I'm sorry because without You there is no me. 

What am I looking for Lord?

What exactly do I want? 

Why do I feel stuck, yet know that I can't be stuck if I have You always with me? 

What is going on in my heart of hearts?

Spirit, search me and know me, 

See if there is any grievous way in me, 

And lead me into life everlasting.

It's like cotton in my mouth or wool over my eyes. It feels like a stomach ache or cramps.

The chaos of my lost soul is wandering in futile places searching for futile answers, and then I'm flat on the ground with my cheek to the floor staring at the nothingness in my life.  Without You there is no meaning.  Without You there is no life for me. 

Yet it is strange that hope will not leave me.  It is so persistent, it's like a tick in times like these.  When everything isn't what I expected, and in fact it's all quite out of my hands, hope will not budge from me.  Are You pushing me along to the next area of growth? Even in my disobedience, are You having mercy on me? 

“And this will be My covenant with them 

when I take away their sins. 

Regarding the gospel, they are enemies 

(the Jews are enemies to the Gentiles in regards to how they upheld the Law)

for your advantage 

(to be free), 

but regarding election, 

(but some of the Jews, even if wrapped up in the Law are still loved and saved because they are Mine by My will which is irrevocable)

they are loved because of the patriarchs, 

since God’s gracious gifts and calling are irrevocable. 

As you once disobeyed God, 

but now have received mercy 

through their disobedience, 

(God even uses disobedience to fulfill His will)

so they too have now disobeyed, 

(Their disobedience was in living by right and wrong, the commandments of God, rather than by the gospel in their heart of hearts) 

resulting in mercy to you, 

so that they also now may receive mercy. 

(From those who have the gospel can now show mercy on those who live by obedience to the commandments of right and wrong, aka: the Law) 

For God has imprisoned all 

in disobedience, 

so that He may have mercy on all. 

Oh, the depth 

of the riches 

both of the wisdom 

and the knowledge of God! 

How unsearchable His judgments 

and untraceable His ways! 

For who has known the mind of the Lord? 

Or who has been His counselor? 

Or who has ever first given to Him, 

and has to be repaid? 

For from Him and through Him and to Him 

are all things. 

To Him be the glory forever. Amen.”

Romans 11:27-36

Again, it is true.  This is the truth, and it's overwhelming that such a gospel has been given to us, to me.  So unbelievable at times, because I know how wrong I am!  I feel the law at work in my mind and in my body!  I have shame and guilt and despair ready to break the dam and drown my soul.  Yet there is the bright morning star, Jesus, and I am carried above the waters and into this glorious gospel.  

Despite no strong feeling of joy or even gratefulness, although there is a little (the size of the hope and belief I have in the gospel), I can feel the battle of light against darkness in me.  Where there is no joy there is darkness, but even the dark is light to You.

“even the darkness is not dark to You. 

The night shines like the day; 

darkness and light are alike to You.

Your eyes saw me when I was formless; 

all my days were written in Your book 

and planned before a single one of them began. 

God, how difficult Your thoughts are for me to comprehend; how vast their sum is! 

If I counted them, 

they would outnumber the grains of sand; 

when I wake up, 

I am still with You.”

Psalms 139:12, 16-18

All my days have been planned.  Last night was planned and written in Your book, today is planned written in Your book, and 5 years from now is already planned by You and written in Your book. 

Even now, Lord, capture my thoughts that accuse me of what's right and wrong! 

“I beg you that when I am present I will not need to be bold with the confidence by which I plan to challenge certain people who think we are behaving in an unspiritual way. 

(I feel in myself a fear that others may begin to think that what I hold as truth is unspiritual or wrong, but Paul reminds all believers that this battle is not about the behavior or external things that are visible...because if that were the case then I am definitely wrong.  I see sin everywhere in me, on me, coming out of my actions!) 

For though we live in the body, 

we do not wage war in an unspiritual way, 

(We do not wage war against the behaviors or the external sins of the body)

since the weapons of our warfare are not worldly, 

(The weapons have nothing to do with what we see or do in actions, our weapons are not to try harder or become better or change our behavior)

but are powerful through God for the demolition of strongholds. 

(Our weapons tear down the root beneath those actions, which are of a spiritual nature)

We demolish arguments and every high-minded thing that is raised up against the knowledge of God, 

taking every thought captive to obey Christ.

(The thoughts are what matter, and the thoughts obey Christ, even if the actions do not)

Look at what is obvious. 

If anyone is confident that he belongs to Christ, 

he should remind himself of this: 

Just as he belongs to Christ, so do we. 

(Because nothing brought me to Christ save grace, so nothing of what I see in another believer will qualify that person as saved or not, because by grace we all stand equal with one another.  Whether some look or appear to be more "holy" while others appear "rebellious" it does not make a difference.  It is obvious that if I believe I am saved, like Paul writes here, then I know others who believe are also saved since there is no visible measure of qualification, only grace.  So I take that as an internal cue in my thoughts that when I begin to think another person is wrong or doing something that is not what a saved person should do, I will remember it is grace, and if I am saved, then so are they.  Amazing....that makes me love them rather than judge them.  God is a genius.  It also means that if I feel judged for my decisions as being wrong and fear grips me, I can relax because I am saved by grace. Wonderful, wonderful.) 

For if I boast some more about our authority, which the Lord gave for building you up and not for tearing you down, I am not ashamed.

(Only when my authority is God can I boast, because if it were me I would be ashamed.  I'm not qualified, nor am I clean or holy enough to direct anyone toward God, but I can do so unashamed because it is God who has cleansed me and called me to this glorious gospel that builds the hearts of those who believe in it up and not tear it down.  This is why I can share the gospel unashamed despite what I know to be true about me, that I am the worst sinner I know, because it's not by my behavior that I am able to boldly speak but by this gospel that saved a wretch like me.  I am one beggar among many beggars pointing to where we can all find bread!) 

For we don’t dare classify or compare ourselves with some who commend themselves. 

But in measuring themselves by themselves and comparing themselves to themselves, 

they lack understanding. 

(May I always look at Jesus and not myself when I feel the need to be reminded that I am right...that I am perfect and righteous.  In such a way I will always be right haha, so when I am wrong I know I've stopped looking at Jesus!) 

We, however, will not boast beyond measure but according to the measure of the area of ministry that God has assigned to us, 

which reaches even to you.

(Whatever I do in ministry, I do because it is the Father's will that it be so.  Whether it looks to me like it's flourishing or failing, I drop all expectations and hold on to my desire to please Him, without knowing exactly what that looks like.  So that in everything I do I will naturally give all the glory to God, in every circumstance and in all my relationships.) 

So the one who boasts must boast in the Lord. For it is not the one commending himself who is approved, but the one the Lord commends.”

2 Corinthians 10:2-5, 7-8, 12-13, 17-18

How do I know I am commended?  Because I am clothed in the obedience of Jesus.  An alien obedience!  It is not my own but a gift!  

Okay, there's my certainty.  My joy.  My refuge.  God, keep me here in Your presence all day, everyday.  Remind me when I forget.  Prone to wander, Lord I feel it, prone to leave the One I love.  Take my heart Lord, take and seal it, seal it more than I ever could! 

Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing

Come, Thou Fount of every blessing

Tune my heart to sing Thy grace

Streams of mercy, never ceasing

Call for songs of loudest praise

Teach me some melodious sonnet

Sung by flaming tongues above

Praise the mount, I'm fixed upon it

Mount of Thy unchanging love

Here I raise my Ebenezer

Here there by Thy great help I've come

And I hope, by Thy good pleasure

Safely to arrive at home

Jesus sought me when a stranger

Wandering from the fold of God

He, to rescue me from danger

Interposed His precious blood

O to grace how great a debtor

Daily I'm constrained to be

Let that grace now, like a fetter

Bind my wandering heart to Thee

Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it

Prone to leave the God I love

Here's my heart, O take and seal it

Seal it for Thy courts above

Come, Thou Fount of every blessing

Tune my heart to sing Thy grace

Streams of mercy, never ceasing

Call for songs of loudest praise

Teach me some melodious sonnet

Sung by flaming tongues above

Praise the mount, I'm fixed upon it

Mount of Thy unchanging love

Songs of the heart,

Jmegrey 

Glorify the Father not the praise of man

Jesus knows our intentions, but His words never accuse, they are always gentle with wisdom.

Even to his enemies, like Judas who was accusing Mary of being wasteful when she could have sold her perfume for money to give to the poor. 

“Jesus answered, 

“Leave her alone; 

she has kept it for the day of My burial. 

For you always have the poor with you, 

but you do not always have Me.””

John 12:7-8

In other words, I am God, and I've come to you now at this point in time to reveal my Father to you all.  The person you see before you is an exact representation of the God you serve.  I am of I Am.  And I am about to be given over to death, and I will be no more.  What sort of significance does that have for you?  Are the poor more significant than Me?  Is money more important than Me?  Or am I the chief of all of which all things fall in submission.  And if I am about to be murdered and will no longer be with you, then let it mean much for Mary who has understood this.  As for you, Judas, this is Me explaining to you what Mary already knows.

“Jesus found a young donkey and sat on it, 

just as it is written: 

Fear no more, Daughter Zion. 

Look, your King is coming, 

sitting on a donkey’s colt. 

His disciples did not understand these things at first. 

However, when Jesus was glorified, 

then they remembered 

that these things had been written about Him 

and that they had done these things to Him.”

John 12:14-16

Jesus arrived in front of all His admirers and the people who praised Him for raising Lazarus from the dead, and He grabbed an ass and sat on it.  This was not a cultural move of someone who is royal or respectable.  An ass was just as ridiculous back then as they are now.  It was the silliest animal to ride on let alone be praised while riding.  Yet, Jesus chose the ass because He was the key in the entire scene.  It could have been a a pig or a turtle that He rode in, but it was an ass, because that was prophesied before all time (in other words God had said in an earlier time that when Jesus came He would ride on a donkey).  It also reminds us that it doesn't matter how or what Jesus uses, cuz if Jesus uses you or her or him, then that is enough to make it worthy.  

Again, by the looks of things, the disciples were probably shocked and puzzled as they just stared at Jesus.  Jesus took hold of the donkey and then proceeded to get on it, and was like "okay, guys, your King is ready to go!" 

The disciples were like...."uhhh, Jesus you are the King of the world...that's a donkey..." 

They didn't understand why the heck Jesus would ride a donkey.  But it was because they were so focused on the inadequacy of the donkey and not on the adequacy of Christ!  

But later, it says, when they saw Jesus glorified and raised from the dead, they were like...ohhhh we get it.  You planned it all out, that it was a donkey and that we helped you find that donkey for You to do your royal stride through the town on.  You planned it all out.  Because....we get it now, we see it...because You are God.  In other words, we didn't get that You were always in control, and that You use us for Your purposes, which included the donkey, but now we know that all things have their purpose in You, because You only do what the Father says.  We get it now, the Father has His ways, even when what we saw didn't make sense to us.  They got it. 

“Jesus found a young donkey and sat on it, just as it is written: Fear no more, Daughter Zion. Look, your King is coming, sitting on a donkey’s colt. His disciples did not understand these things at first. However, when Jesus was glorified, then they remembered that these things had been written about Him and that they had done these things to Him."

Then as all this praise and admiration is going on it says that there were some Greeks, AKA the intellectuals or the people renowned as being really smart and therefore their opinions really mattered in society, they came up to Philip.

The story says:

"So they came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee, and requested of him, 

“Sir, we want to see Jesus.” 

(Probably, I'm just guessing, it was with a tone of "You're welcome."  We want to see Jesus, do you see who we are.  We are the Greeks.  We like this Jesus guy so we want to see Him and as you can guess our opinion of Him matters because we have a lot of influence on society.  You're welcome Philip.)

Philip went and told Andrew; then Andrew and Philip went and told Jesus. Jesus replied to them, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.

(...I skipped a part in the middle where Jesus basically goes on to say that unless you die you won't ever be this "big deal" that you think you are as a Greek or an intellectual or a rich person.  Jesus said, “If anyone serves Me, 

he must follow Me. (Not the other way around. It's not as they assumed when they told Philip they wanted to see Jesus, make it happen Philip.  It doesn't work like that.  We follow Jesus.  We find Jesus.  We go to Jesus.  And He said,

"Where I am, there My servant also will be. 

If anyone serves Me, the Father will honor him.”

John 12:26

In other words, if you want to see Jesus, only way is to serve Him.  You wanna meet Jesus it's only if He's first called upon you.  You wanting to see Jesus can mean two things: 1.  You want to see Him because you want Him 2.  You want to see Him because you have an opinion about Him that you want to assess.  Jesus was a basically saying, I don't care what you think about me, whether you're Greek, Jew, rich, or poor, or whether what you think is good or bad about me.  I don't care whether you like me or not, because I am who I am.  I know who I am and where I am going.  

Jesus finished by saying:

"Father, glorify Your name! ” Then a voice came from heaven: “I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again! ””

John 12:14-16, 21-23, 28

I mean, this story used to befuddle me.  These innocent Greek guys who are probably praising Jesus or at least they have positive views about Him, go up to Philip like "we want to see Jesus, and by see Jesus we mean, we want to meet Him personally so set up the time and place for us."  and innocent and naive Philip is like "oh okay let me go ask."  And then Jesus goes into this speech about a seed falling to the ground and dying in order to produce something of value.  And then He is like FATHER! Glorify Your name! 

Jesus did everything from this place.  The place of the heart cleaved to God as being glorified.  He could've basked in the praise of the Greeks, who probably wanted to commend Jesus for His wisdom and all the good things He was doing, but Jesus could care less about their praise.  All Jesus cared about was the God His Father be glorified.  That The Father's name would be glorified and not His own.  

He wanted them and everyone to know that if you follow me that's enough because it means you know who God is. If your heart has died and you've given your life over then that life has died and will now be like the seed.  It will fall, but God will raise it to produce the value it can.  This is all about God.  Stop looking at my wisdom or my works and look at God!  If you liked the wisdom and you were impressed by the works, look at the Father!  Glorify Him, not me.  

Jesus continually showed the disciples His example for redemption.  He was showing us the way.  This is the truth.  That all of life and all of the things that are worthy of praise and glory belong entirely to God!  Don't get it twisted.  Everything we do is something that is made to bring God glory, and that is the truth and purpose of why we do have anything in this life.  It's purpose is the glory of God.  Is there any more worthy purpose than the glory of God?  We glorify God, or I should say...lowly creatures like us actually get to glorify God.  It's like a diamond that get appraised for its value.  The person who says it's worth thousands or millions of dollars is someone who is fit to say that it is...a gemologist or what not.  They get to say "this diamond is worth a million dollars" and so it is!  In a similar fashion we get to say, "God is God" but not because what we say makes Him God, just like the gem guy can't point to a piece of lint and say that it's a diamond and then everyone is like "okay that piece of lint is now a diamond because he said so."  No.  But because the gem guy has insight and the ability to know what is and isn't a diamond. 

We have insight and ability to know who is and who is not God.  And that is why when we give God glory it is that we have been given the ability to know God!  We have this gift that is good and true and life-giving.  Our knowing God is amazing.  Jesus was saying, "Father Your name be glorified!"  Because Jesus knew that God is God and that's the most honorable truth.  He didn't need to hear that from the Greeks nor did He need to get their approval, He was like, "Unless you die you can't even begin to see or know what I see and know"

And that was that.  The Greeks were put in their place, and Philip got a taste of what to do in situations like that.  That in all things, when the praise of man comes knocking on your door, you remember that all praise belongs to the Father!  Just like that.  You know if you know.  You don't know if you start thinking you can somehow meet God on your terms.   Jesus wanted them to know the heart of the person who knows is like that of a seed that dies.  It gets real desperate and weak...until it lets go of the control of life itself and falls flat on the ground.  Jesus was saying, "This is how meet God."  Because He is life, and if you have been holding on to any notion of life apart from God it needs to be laid down.  Come to the real source of life by dying, then see and know that God raises you up.  His way.  With His life.  And for His glory.  

Jmegrey 

Fill me with Jesus.

Lord, 

Fill me with Jesus.

Everyday.

God guide my eyes upward when the things below seem to threaten me.  Lead my gaze to You where You sit on the throne above all thrones and see me.  Let my hands and my heart fly to You as I trust in Your power over whatever situation is before me, whether fear or loss, boredom or rejection, loneliness or insecurity, unforgivenes or anger, hurt or desire, in everything Lord bring my eyes to see You as higher and greater than all of that.  That You have prepared the way for me to walk in, and that each circumstance of every day is preparing me for the promises.  

Lord I need to be emptied of my selfish ambitions and filled with Jesus. 

Lord give me faith to walk in your ways, to see others as those I love instead of as people I need love from.  That when I see You I will see them too. 

Father, put the example of Christ in my hands and in all that I think and do. 

In Jesus name I pray,

Amen.

---

I heard an amazing reminder today.  

Before Jesus was about to leave, what was the very last thing, the most important thing He did for His disciples?  He knew it was going to be the last moment he would have with his friends, his followers, his chosen who would go out into the world, and what did Jesus do for them? 

“Before the Passover Festival, 

Jesus knew that His hour had come 

to depart from this world to the Father. Having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them to the end.

Jesus knew that the Father 

had given everything into His hands, 

(Do you know that the Father has given you everything too, when He gave Jesus to you?  Or does your thought life and actions reflect a lack or a feeling of incompleteness that leads to hopelessness and complaining? Jesus knew.  Even in the face of His coming murder, He knew the Father was greater and that His promises were solid.). 

"that He had come from God, 

and that He was going back to God. 

(Jesus KNEW who He was and where He was going!  Do you know who you are and where you are going?  Do you really know who you are and really where you are actually going?  Because if you do then you wouldn't question or doubt either of those things, you would know, just like Jesus knew here.)

This is the amazing part.  

It says He knew, as if the thought suddenly occurred to Him that He was about to leave soon to go where the Father had said He would go, back to His place by the Father!  Jesus knew this was it and it was as if that thought happened he realized what He needed to do as the most final and important lesson for His disciples to have and hold for the rest of their lives, his transition was right then and there at the dinner table: 

"So He got up from supper, 

laid aside His robe, 

took a towel, 

and tied it around Himself. 

Next, He poured water into a basin 

and began to wash His disciples’ feet 

and to dry them 

with the towel tied around Him.

When Jesus had washed their feet 

and put on His robe, 

He reclined again and said to them, 

“Do you know what I have done for you? You call Me Teacher and Lord. This is well said, for I am. So if I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet.

For I have given you an example 

that you also should do 

just as I have done for you.”

John 13:1, 3-5, 12-15

When I heard this it hit me. 

What am I living for? 

I see the celebrities in their perfect bodies and beautiful clothes, I see the stars on reality shows laughing, I see the pictures on Instagram of those who are traveling and making art and I want that.  I want what they have, or I look at my life and see how far I am from having better things.  I grow silent and feel pathetic, I cry or I try to find some other way to gratify my desire for more. I look for something else.  How can I get what I want?  The selfish ambition creeps up on me like a silent fart.  It isn't seen or heard but I know it's there by all the signs, the signs of greed, envy, lust, and discontent.  It's a stench in my soul, as foul crap.   Yet when did it happen, how did it suddenly creep up on me like that?  But the greater truth is Jesus.  I look and see Jesus and read what His last lesson was.  The very last thing He, it says He got up from the dinner table, it was as if it was so abrupt because He knew it was so crucial. 

“Jesus knew that His hour had come to depart from this world to the Father. Having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them to the end.

Jesus knew that the Father had given everything into His hands, that He had come from God, and that He was going back to God. 

So He got up from supper, laid aside His robe, took a towel, and tied it around Himself. 

Next, He poured water into a basin and began to wash His disciples’ feet and to dry them with the towel tied around Him."

Just like that.  

No frilly or smooth transitions or a care about what they might think (in fact Peter spoke up about what He thought and Jesus responded and just proceeded.). But he got up, and it says He knew. 

He knew who He was and where He was going. 

It says He loved the disciples to the end! This was the end.  His love culminated in the final display of what He wanted to give to His disciples as the most important lesson of all. 

So simple and so Jesus.

He got up. 

Put His robe to the side, 

Picked up a towel and wrapped it around him,

Just moving in motion one after the other, 

And then he grabbed a basin and started filling it with water (I imagine the disciples are probably watching all of this happen with the most cutest confused looks on their faces, haha) 

And then just like that, after the water is in the basin Jesus probably got down on the floor and dunked the first pair of mud-caked toes in the water and just washed.  It says he washed their feet. 

And each person, as they got their feet washed, got their feet dried by the towel Jesus had put on at the beginning because He knew exactly what He was doing.  He was dead set on washing their feet as the last lesson before He would depart back to the Father. 

Then He says, did you see that? 

Did you see what I just did?

I know you don't understand because it's so counter cultural and it goes against everything you thought was right and good, but did you see what your Master and Lord just showed you? 

Jesus is for sure.  He literally finished the last pair of feet, and once everyone had been washed He gets back on His own two feet and gets His robe, probably tosses the nasty towel in the laundry and then it says he goes back to reclining.  He's chillin!  He's not like "yea, I'm awesome" or "show me your thankfulness".  He literally just goes back to how He was before, because nothing in His heart had changed.  It was love from start to finish. 

"When Jesus had washed their feet 

and put on His robe, 

He reclined again and said to them, 

“Do you know what I have done for you? You call Me Teacher and Lord. 

This is well said, for I am. 

So if I, your Lord and Teacher, 

have washed your feet, 

you also ought to wash one another’s feet. 

For I have given you an example 

that you also should do 

just as I have done for you.”

Wow.  There is no television screen or Instagram photo or applause, there's this guy that has all the power in the room, and He strips off his clothing (which also signifies an indignity about His appearance...imagine you're at dinner and you suddenly remember you have an important thing to do so you just do it right there without any care for what the other people will think or say and imagine if that important thing was something that made you appear indignant like removing a wig or crying right there in front of everyone.) here's Jesus with the highest honor and reputation and image among all the other guys, and he just gets up, takes his robe off, grabs a towel and ties it around his wait and then find a basin and fills it with water, all the while the disciples are sitting at the table stunned in confusion and just perplexed at what's happening.  Then Jesus does the unthinkable.  He does the unthinkable. 

Jesus starts washing feet.  Not just a pair of feet but 12 pairs of feet! 

And!! 

Jesus washes his betrayers' feet!!

I mean, what?!

Jesus washed the feet of the guy He KNEW was going to betray Him. 

Can we let that sink?  I mean, come on. 

What is that.  

Who does that? 

Who knowingly serves the guy that stabs them in the back? 

Jesus does. 

Jesus does, and He asked "did you see what I did?"

Do you see what He did?

May we begin to walk into the will of the Father willingly and knowingly in every circumstance and situation, ready and confident about who we are and where we are going as we wash the feet of others, including those we know have hurt us.  Jesus didn't speak much as He usually does using parables and sermons, but the last thing He did was to show us, this is it guys.  This is what it looks like.  This is what my entire life given for you is going to look like, did you see it?  Now as I have done for you, do for one another.  This is the very last lesson before I go. 

How many of us, when we look at our lives, see Jesus's example given to us?  Do we see this swift and confident movement of dignity off, on my knees, washing lots of dirty feet, drying, and then when it's all said and done just reclining as if it was nothing but the right thing to do.  No looking around for approval, no hesitation, no nothing.  

It wasn't something he did to get admiration or applause, he did it because He was saying this is life.  Even though I'm your master, which is true, this is what life looks like.  This is the way.  The truth. And the life.  

Believe Me? 

And the disciples did.  They believed.  Every one of them (minus Judas) was murdered for this belief.  (John was exiled, but he was the only one who wasn't killed for following Jesus) Because they knew death was nothing, they knew like Jesus had when He showed them that this was life! They knew who they were and where they were going.  They saw what Jesus showed them, and they it showed in their lives too!

I pray that I would know who I am and where I am going.  That I would see Jesus and what He gave me.  That I would do everything from this place, this confidence and swiftness.  We are here but for a short time, everyone is going to die eventually.  But what is everyone living for?  I found myself praying to God after reading this passage, what have I been living for that averted my eyes from Jesus to all these other people and things?  

Jesus is the way when I am lost.

Jesus is the truth when I am confused or conflicted. 

And Jesus is the Life when Death threatens me. 

Be filled with Jesus today. 

Jmegrey 

Hebrews study (empathy and promise)

Angels are great, but God has chosen Jesus whom He made into a human to inherit His kingdom.  Humans will inherit the Kingdom, not Angels.  Jesus inherited God's kingdom by sonship, and we receive this same sonship through completed adoption.  And as adopted children grafted into this inheritance that was destined for Christ, who has chosen willingly to share this with us, how amazing is that?!, we too are now heirs, and coheirs with Christ and with one another.  Jesus inherited from God, and we inherited from Jesus, but God willed that it would all happen from beginning to end.  Without God's will Jesus would not have given us this inheritance because Jesus only does what the Father wills.  So we can say, for short, Jesus inherited what God gave Him, because that was His Son, and we inherit what God gives us through the mediation of Jesus because we have become sons and daughters of God.  The Angels minister to us as His children, we have Angels ministering to us!  Although we may not see them or know exactly when or how this is happening, the Word says they are sent out to serve those who are coheirs with Christ!  If you believe you are a child of God you must also believe that Angels serve you by ministering or encouraging you on this process of going towards the promise of the inheritance.  That's cool.  It's probably happening right now, or maybe everytime I blog or speak with someone. 

“So He became higher in rank than the angels, just as the name He inherited is superior to theirs.

Are they not all ministering spirits sent out to serve those who are going to inherit salvation?”

Hebrews 1:4, 14

So pay attention to the kind of words or encouragements around you, it could be Angels sent by God to minister to you.  You have help in an abundant number or ways if you will pay attention and allow God to show you these awesome things!  

“We must, therefore, 

pay even more attention to what we have heard, so that we will not drift away."

Words, thoughts, feelings, are all things we live by, and so we can either pay attention to them or let the wind toss us whichever way it pleases.  We can feign indifference or apathy.  Or we can desire purpose and design by God because in desiring to know this we are not changing His plans but are participating in them.  No matter what God will have His way, but whether we participate in them will be another matter.  Whether we are in awe at what He is doing or completely oblivious will be on us.   

"and subjected everything under his feet. 

For in subjecting everything to him, 

He left nothing that is not subject to him. 

As it is, we do not yet see everything subjected to him."

Everything is happening as subjection to God.  We serve a powerful God.  Every thing, person, weather, circumstance, and everything is subject to Christ.  Even though we may not see it yet that doesn't mean it is not yet.  But it means we don't see it yet, there is an element of faith necessary for us to believe it despite not seeing it. 

"For the One who sanctifies 

and those who are sanctified 

all have one Father. 

That is why Jesus is not ashamed 

to call them brothers,

and free those who were held in slavery all their lives by the fear of death. 

For it is clear that He 

does not reach out to help angels, 

but to help Abraham’s offspring."

We have the same Father as Jesus.  Jesus is our brother, and we have the Holy Spirit in us as our mark that Christ says in essence: that's my kin! My family!  My coheir, because the Spirit I have is in them.  We share a unity in the Spirit.  It is the Spirit of God that sets us apart from our old self and sheds light on who we are now by the Spirit.  

Empathy as the means of help we receive:

For since He Himself was tested and has suffered, 

He is able to help those who are tested.”

Hebrews 2:1, 8, 11, 15-16, 18

Why is empathy helpful? 

Empathy is when someone is able to place themselves in your shoes and experience what you experience with you, so that you are not alone nor are you not understood.  Empathy is having a friend by your side to take on what you have taken on and, at times, the right friend can even lead you in the right direction for how to go forward in a difficult situation.  By allowing all the emotions and thoughts to be fully expressed, you can empty yourself of those things that needed emptying before moving on.  Otherwise we carry excess baggage from our pasts into the future, but Christ is our empathetic friend who takes all of our emotions and thoughts for every situation and knows how to experience them with us because he has been where we have been in humanity.  He knows the way age and beauty affects our cultures, or how acceptability gives rise to our sense of being okay, and all the other ways in which this world can play tricks on us by our own thoughts and emotions.  He knows the power of being affected.  He knows this power more than we do because He died because of it.  He was killed by it.  So there is no feeling or thought regarding our hardship that he cannot most fully step into with us, since none of us has yet endured such hardship to the point of

Death.  Point being, He knows what we are feeling and thinking, because He's been there too.  

He's been in our shoes and it wasn't good.  It was evil, it was painful, and it was what hammered His body to the cross.  So Jesus knows, man, He knows that what we suffer is not easy.  Every time we share with Him we never get sidelined or misunderstood as being weak or pathetic, because that would also imply that Jesus died a weak and pathetic death.  Jesus knows that the sickness of sin, when it prevailed, was powerful over humanity, and when He broke that power through the giving of Life eternal, He did so by giving us His Holy Spirit.  Now we have Christ in us, our friend, who takes all the sin and the power sin had over us, when we lay them down continually and everyday for Him to take through empathy, and as we empty our emotions and thoughts connected to sin He fills us with His way to move forward. 

He is not only like our therapist, but our Doctor, our lover, our guide and our Leader.  Imagine that!  You have all those things in one person.  Not only is your Leader the one you follow, but He is also the one who heals you when you're sick, and the one who kisses and embraces you whenever you want, and the one who listens to all your problems, and the one who tells you which way to go.  

Jesus was faithful to God.

“He was faithful to the One who appointed Him, just as Moses was in all God’s household.”

Hebrews 3:2

He was faithful to the One who appointed Him. 

Christ was faithful to us that believe in the same way He was faithful to God.

“But Christ was faithful as a Son 

over His household. 

And we are that household 

if we hold on to the courage 

and the confidence of our hope.”

Hebrews 3:6

Hope is that which we cannot see.  It is invisible.  There is no proof before us except what is told to us by the Words written in the Word.  In Hebrews 3:6, in John 3:16-17, in Galatians, in Deuteronomy, in Isaiah, and in the entire Bible.  Those words are the only proof we have that are above any other proofs.  

Instead of thinking we need more proof we need to think we need less doubt.  We need to make up our minds, because we can.  We need to struggle and resist the urge to disbelieve and fight to believe with all that we can.  I believe God wants this effort on our part, the effort to choose to believe in such a certain and made-up-my-mind kind of way.  The effort of yes, I believe and that's it.  Supported by the truth in the Word, and filling our minds with the life of Christ and all the ways in which He revealed Himself to be our yes for every promise God ever gave us.  We say yes and make up our minds that this is true.  That Jesus did take away all our sins.  That He hears us, and listens to every detail of our thoughts and emotions to help us empty of them.  That He kisses our souls and hugs our feeble minds.  That He guides us in the direction we are to move forward in.  This is what we have from God, by Jesus, through the Holy Spirit.  We have this, and there is no doubt about it.  But when doubts assail you, soften your heart by having faith to believe.  Let yourself be wholly entrusted to a God who could ruin you or slow pain to happen to you.  Entrust yourself to God despite suffering.  Entrust yourself to God even if you don't know the outcome, because you believe that He is good, that He heals, and that He loves you so whatever might happen will be according to His supreme wisdom regarding what is most excellent for His children.  We entrust our futures to this God when we believe what we have other proof save His Word. 

“Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says: 

Today, if you hear His voice, 

do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion, 

on the day of testing in the wilderness,”

Hebrews 3:7-8

And as for our own conduct, we can practice what we profess is the condition of our heart by seeing if the way we respond is that of a person who has this great promise in God!  If someone promises me that today, no matter what, I am protected, safe, and going to be given good things through every thing life has for me in this day, no matter what I see, then I will either believe this and it'll show because everything that happens will be according to this belief or I will say that I believe this but what I really believe are my feelings and thoughts according to what I perceive as good or bad.  The one who believes, believes God, but the one who says they believe but fears, believes their feelings and not God's promises.  And this is because believing despite feelings and thoughts (and not without them, since we are never without thoughts and feelings, we are humans!) is difficult.  It's ...weird and strange because how can we believe something we don't feel and think?  Only by knowing the Word.  The Word must replace our thoughts and the Word helps us empty our feelings (through honest prayer when we dump them all out to Him with tears and snot) and the Word gives us His Word.  Then by something we have no power or control in, God transforms our hearts.  So this is difficult, but we have ways that we can help each other out, and that is by being the Word or giving the Word to others on days that we have it certain and powerful in us!  On days we have the Word at all, we must give this to others because everyone needs this, and this is true encouragement.  To bring the gospel to their thirsty souls or their embers of hope that are in desperate need of being fanned into flame. We receive in order to give.  And we give only what we have received. 

“But encourage each other daily, 

while it is still called today, 

so that none of you is hardened 

by sin’s deception. 

For we have become companions 

of the Messiah if we hold firmly 

until the end the reality 

that we had at the start. 

As it is said: Today, if you hear His voice, 

do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion.”

Hebrews 3:13-15

If you cannot give the Word to others it must mean you do not have it yourselves!  If you realize this, understand the situation.  You are not abiding in the Word.  You are a branch without a source of life!  You are a dead man walking.  Is that okay with you?  There is no complaining or nothing that could be said in your defense.  Your heart reveals it all.  Anyone who is okay with their lives as dead men walking, not concerned about having the Word nor subsequently about giving this great encouragement to others has no excuse but their own pride and apathy.  Indifference makes no room for love.  But if, upon hearing the Word or reading it, you tear open your heart to the truth and depth of what this means, you expose yourself to the awful truth regarding your pride and apathy, and it makes you a desperate needy person, then God has proven Himself to be with You for only God can cause us to come to Him in such a way.  He uses all of who we are to bring those He has called to Him.  When we realize our great and desperate need for Him, it was Him who gave us this realization for His good pleasure that we then be convicted to go to Him.  He is both the cause and the end of our salvation, the author and perfecter of our faith (Heb. 12:2).

Do not harden your hearts friends. 

Otherwise you will not enter into His rest, you cannot enter into His rest because you will be too caught up in trying to create your own.  Rather take faith, in the measure you have, and bring your feelings and thoughts to receive the empathy of Christ by access of His Spirit in us, and take the promises in place of the doubts and fears.  

Jmegrey 

The Word and Not-The-Word

“Jesus answered him, 

“What I’m doing you don’t understand now, 

but afterward you will know.””

John 13:7

In the words of one of my sassy youth teens, "Yaaaaaaaas."  

We hit a circumstance in our life where this seems to be the case, asking God: "God, what in the world are You doing?!"  

Not so much with a questioning tone than an accusatory one.  Our hearts might be full of tension or anxiety or some other feeling about the future, and in not understanding why things are not going our way we sort of feel in our nerves what our mouths are too chicken to say.  Things like:

"What did I do wrong to make You so mean to me?" 

"How did I incur Your wrath to be put in this situation?"

"Why won't You be more helpful?!"

"Where are You when I need You the most?!"

"Why do I even bother asking..."

"Your way is not that great."

"God, I don't like You right now."

The last thought is the worst.  Because then the guilt hits you like a volleyball, smack into your face, breaking your nose, causing blood to drip down and everyone stares at the mess you are.  You are down.  You feel the pain, you see the blood, and things are not the way they're supposed to be.  

Your heart is racing, eyes are scanning the situation, mind is fuzzy, and nothing explains why you do what you do next.  You might cry or get up stone-faced like you don't care, but behind whatever external facade you put up, you are hurt.  I'm not talking about the actual volleyball, I'm talking about the part where you finally admit you don't really like God, and that means he doesn't really like you either.  If we believed He liked us, let alone loved us, and believed that He was God and His word was true, then we would be happy campers in any circumstance.  It's like a billion dollars at the end of a single day of shoveling dirt.  In other words, His "worth-ness" or "worthy-ship" for whatever we are asked to endure will be incomparably light and easy.  

1. I believe in Jesus.

2. Everything that happens to me will work out for my good (Romans 8:28)

3. Nothing that happens to me will be bad in the end. (Romans 8:28)

4. The absence of anything leading to something bad means that all things lead to something good. (Romans 8:28)

5. Everything in my life is good. 

Wow.  Is everything always stemming from "all will be well" or "crap!  What the heck?!"  Like the centurion who cried out desperately when something seemingly "bad" was happening in his life (his boy was harming himself and doing things that threatened the safety of his life), do you find yourself realizing you suddenly want to believe, but how can you when things are like this?!  (Mark 9:24).  How can we believe in Jesus when there are bad things happening in our lives, like suicides, rape, and diseases.  What the heck God?!  What are You doing up there?  Why aren't You helping out or preventing these bad things from happening if You're so real, so good and so for us?  

We turn the tables on God.

I believed for good things to always happen, but God didn't follow through on my expectations.   We secretly might discover the premises as follows:

1. I believe in Jesus ...to give me everything good according to what I deem is good. 

2. Everything that happens to me will work out for my good (Romans 8:28)...the way I want it to work out. 

3. Nothing that happens to me will be bad in the end. (Romans 8:28)...and I'll be able to tell because it won't ever be that bad to begin with. 

4. The absence of anything leading to something bad means that all things lead to something good. (Romans 8:28)...and I'll be able to tell because nothing will look or feel bad in the first place. 

5. Everything in my life is good....because that's the way I see it. 

There is no faith in this sequence, no necessary trust or hope is involved.  It's all nerves and sight.  What you see and what you feel is the truth in absence of faith about any given situation or circumstance.  This includes you if you are of those seeing or feeling their singleness as something bad, or their marriage as something bad, their kids (or lack thereof) as something bad, their looks as something bad, their age as something bad, their financial situation as something bad, their health as something bad, their work as something bad, their families as something bad, their relationships as something bad, their life as something bad.  

An absence of faith in what we see and feel will become our truth.  Without faith there is no capacity to believe in Jesus, only a knowledge of Him, but all the right words and understanding will be dumped into the trash if you base your knowledge on what you see and feel.  I see this, I feel this, and so it must be this. 

Rather, what would it be like to live by faith?  To see this, to feel this, but then to grab something not felt or seen.  It sounds crazy, how does one even handle something they neither see nor feel?  It is impossible, like telling a child to glibe.  The child wonders...what is glibe?  They have never seen this word nor do they know what it feels like to glibe as an indication that they are actually glibing.  Unless I tell them what it is.  Unless I say glibing is when you glide across the floor while bobbing your head.  Now, I made that up, but I wanted to show how faith is a lot of like the word glibe to anyone who has never seen or felt something they were told to do.  

But we were told.  We were told by God that faith is believing without seeing that God is real, good, and loves you.  That Jesus died for you.  That you are forgiven.  That God is powerful and more powerful than anything that you might have once thought was a threat to you.  Faith is removing the flag of truth from what you see and feel to what God has said.  You plant the flag of truth in His Word.  You plant your flag of truth in His word.  That is faith.  To uproot what you thought was real and true off of the land of sight and feeling, and onto the fertile soil of the Word.  The Word is Jesus.  You plant your flag in Christ, because where your truth is there your life will be also.  He says, faith is this....and like the child who was told what glibing is, we can proceed trustfully by the words which defined what we were told. 

Where is your flag of truth?  Is it planted in the land of sight and feeling?  Or is it planted in the Word, Jesus?  We have the words of life because the Word became flesh and told us Himself that this is the way.  The Word said God is the only one true God, that all our sins have been forgiven fully and sufficiently by His body, and now we have all the promises of God!  Is your flag of truth in that place or another place? 

Test your self. 

What makes us not like the very God who gave us everything, including the promise that everything is going to work out for our good, except that our flag of truth was planted in the land of the enemy of God?  Whatever is not for God is not in Him, for all things exist in Him, and apart from Him all things die.  

"yet for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist."

-1 Corinthian 8:6

“I am the vine; you are the branches. The one who remains in Me and I in him produces much fruit, because you can do nothing without Me.”

-John 15:5

I hear myself and others say this all the time, "but it's so hard!" 

It's only hard because your truth is not in Him.  Simple as that.  If your truth is in the Word, it's very simple.  Allllllll this that we see and feel...is what we see and feel, but all the truth about what it all means is in what the Word says.  It doesn't mean we won't see and feel, it just means that what we see and feel will need to get its meaning from the Word not from culture or friends or anything or anyone else. 

It's like looking through a pair of goggles underwater, it looks and feels murky, but what does it mean when you see a school of fish?  What informs you about what you see?  Isn't it what you know from what you've heard or read?  Maybe a magazine with words or a friend or teacher's words come to mind and they inform you about what you see.  Words inform us of the meaning of what we see and feel.  We are either being informed by The Word or by words elsewhere.  

Jesus was apt to prepare his disciples against these "elsewhere" words like when Peter's words were “Lord, are You going to wash my feet?" (These words sound innocent, but they are not The Word.)

The Word to Not-The-Word:

“What I’m doing you don’t understand now, 

but afterward you will know.”

Not-The-Word to The Word:

“You will never wash my feet — ever! ” 

(Not-The-Word has the appearance of humility but not the substance)

The Word to Not-The-Word:

“If I don’t wash you, you have no part with Me.” 

Not-The-Word said to The Word:

“Lord, not only my feet, but also my hands and my head.” 

The Word to Not-The-Word: 

“One who has bathed,” Jesus told him, “doesn’t need to wash anything except his feet, but he is completely clean. You are clean, but not all of you.”  

For He knew who would betray Him. This is why He said, “You are not all clean.”

-John 13:6-11

I encourage you all to pray with The Word.  Allow your words to speak to The Word, and listen.  Let your Not-The-Word approach The Word in communication and friendship. 

We speak not to be The Word, but to know The Word.  Your you comes to His Him, and only one of you will be Lord and the other will be servant.  

So my words are free and must necessarily meet The Word because only then will I know and be informed of the truth regarding my words.  Is what I see and feel finding its meaning in The Word or in my words?  I will only know by what my words actually are and what The Word is.  I need both a knowledge of what I see and feel and the knowledge of what He says in His Word.  

Plant your flag in the Word and live in the places between the land of the Word and the land of what you see and feel.  You can be in many places over the span of 80-100 years, but you can only plant the single flag of truth at one place at a time.  Keep it planted in The Word. 

Don't just assume your flag is planted in The Word, and it be found not.  Or that it is planted in Not-The-Word rather than in The Word, when it is.  Don't assume, period.  But strive for more certainty and find in the striving a meeting with God to be where it all gets resolved.  

One way to test whether your flag is planted in The Word is by the measure and depth of your hope.  The absence of bad is not just to be okay, but it is the celebration for the deep hope of something glorious.  

There is no lukewarm Christian.  

Romans 3:4 says, 

"Let God be true, 

and every man a liar."

And celebrate that!  Because those other words in you or in others or in culture, are usually condemning and/or threaten your life.  But let God be true and every man a liar.  There is no threat that comes up against The Word, which has said:

"I am willing!  Be made clean!" (Mathew 8:3)

"Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease.” (Mark 5:34)

"I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." (John 14:6)

"“Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom." (Luke 12:32)

"And be sure of this: I am with you always, even to the end of the age." (Matthew 28:20)

"Therefore I tell you, her sins, which are many, are forgiven—for she loved much. But he who is forgiven little, loves little.  

And he said to her, “Your sins are forgiven.” (Luke 7:48)

"Do not fear, for I am with you; do not be afraid, for I am your God. I will strengthen you; I will help you; I will hold on to you with My righteous right hand." (Isaiah 41:10)

"Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven."  (Matthew 5:3)

"When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come." (John 16:13)

"Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him." (Matthew 6:8)

"Your faith has healed you." (Mark 10:52) 

"But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous." (1 John 2:1)

"(Nothing) will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord." (Roman 8:39)

"Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid." (John 14:27)

"In that day you will not ask Me anything. "I assure you: Anything you ask the Father in My name, He will give you." (John 16:23)

“Aren’t two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them falls to the ground without your Father’s consent. But even the hairs of your head have all been counted. So don’t be afraid therefore; you are worth more than many sparrows.” (Matthew 10:29-31)

Phew, and so many more from The Word.  Herein lies my truth flag from which I get all my meaning from what I see and feel.  Sometimes it's right away, but most of the time it's with much fighting and resisting temptation and crying and suffering that I am carried from one land to the one where The Word is.  And I plant the flag again and again and again, because I can.  Why wouldn't I?  Is it too much work to shovel for a day at a time to get an eternity of reward?  This life is 80-100 years long, or shorter, and we know this for a fact.  

“For if the dead are not raised, 

Christ has not been raised.

If we have put our hope in Christ 

for this life only, 

we should be pitied more than anyone.”

1 Corinthians 15:16, 19

“But God gives it a body as He wants, and to each of the seeds its own body. Not all flesh is the same flesh; there is one flesh for humans, another for animals, another for birds, and another for fish. There are heavenly bodies and earthly bodies, but the splendor of the heavenly bodies is different from that of the earthly ones. There is a splendor of the sun, another of the moon, and another of the stars; for one star differs from another star in splendor. So it is with the resurrection of the dead: Sown in corruption, raised in incorruption; sown in dishonor, raised in glory; sown in weakness, raised in power; sown a natural body, raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body.

However, the spiritual is not first, but the natural, then the spiritual.

And just as we have borne the image of the man made of dust, we will also bear the image of the heavenly man. Brothers, I tell you this: Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, and corruption cannot inherit incorruption. Listen! I am telling you a mystery: We will not all fall asleep, but we will all be changed, in a moment, in the blink of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we will be changed. For this corruptible must be clothed with incorruptibility, and this mortal must be clothed with immortality. When this corruptible is clothed with incorruptibility, and this mortal is clothed with immortality, then the saying that is written will take place: Death has been swallowed up in victory.

But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ! Therefore, my dear brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always excelling in the Lord’s work, knowing that your labor in the Lord is not in vain.”

1 Corinthians 15:38-44, 46, 49-54, 57-58

I will stop here only because I may end up copying and pasting the entire bible in one post haha.   

Jmegrey