heaven on earth

“But beyond these, my son, 

be warned: 

there is no end to the making of many books, and much study wearies the body. 

When all has been heard, 

the conclusion of the matter is: 

fear God and keep His commands, 

because this is for all humanity. 

For God will bring every act to judgment, 

including every hidden thing, 

whether good or evil.”

Ecclesiastes 12:12-14 

Good morning family forever,

It sure doesn't feel like you guys are family, especially when many of you don't live under the same roof as me, don't go out of your way for me when I'm hurting like my mom does, don't pay for my gas and phone bills like my dad does and don't buy me expensive gifts like my brother does.  Nope, I feel like most of you guys take rather than give haha. Take my pride, take my comfort, and take my last shred of dignity.  Yet, you guys are my more real family.  

The very ones God has called me to lay my life down for.  My pride, my time, my money, my very last breath if that's what is needed!  Yet my idea of family is more about getting love than giving it, until I'm reminded that I won't enjoy Heaven if I hold on to that lie.  In fact, Heaven will feel more like hell if I live thinking my own way is right.  (Read the book of Judges to see what community is like when everyone just does what is right in their own eyes!) 

 If I perceive something as good I will walk in that direction, away from what I perceive as bad or threatening. 

But what if my perception of good and bad is wrong?  (Which it naturally is when I'm not communing with the Holy Spirit.)

Loving the body of Christ is focused and in the body feels more like death.  Haha.  You give, give, and give and in the end get little to nothing in return from the ones you give to.  No recognition for all the hard work that goes on behind the scenes--this is a spiritual litmus test for our hearts.  Seeing what you really wanted from all your work, compared to what Christ got for all of His:

A life of constant obedience leading to death. 

Can you be satisfied with that?  

Probably not entirely! 

Haha but maybe a little.  

Maybe a part of you knows that there are some things inside of you that need to die.  

Things that control or enslave you to do things you don't want to do that take you further from God. 

Things inside of you that threaten you if you don't obey them.  But in order for those lies in your mind to die it takes feeling death inside of you.  Which is scary.  

We all know only God could control something as out-of-our-hands as death.  No human has the power to control whether or not they will die or what will happen after they do...that's all for sure God.  So when we enter into things like feeling death we enter into feeling our utter and complete helplessness and GIANT NEED for God.  Which is our true reality after all the security blankets have been stripped away.  

What if we stopped looking for how to get love and instead began looking for opportunities to give it away?  This is hard work resulting in feeling death inside (which is never pleasant) but it is a needed death of what is in me that is against God...and being against God is the real bad!  The real death! 

Imagine the kind of community and youth group we would be if that's the mentality we all had!  A competition for who could outdo the other in laying down their life!  

That is what Heaven will be like.  

And Heaven can begin now. 

Haha.  Love you guys.

Jmegrey

Day 1 with Jesus before He goes to the cross

Good morning family, 

Today marks the beginning of passion week.  That means today is the start of Jesus's last days before he went to die a tortuous death in order to save us from eternal death!  

Last night i had another brief vision of dying and waking up in a desert with barren beams that looked like an attempt to build something, but abandoned.  As far as I knew and could see all there was was dry, hot, and sandy desert before me.  There was no real direction to go, no purpose, no hope of something more than the desert, no Savior, and no one that loved me.  It was an eternity of vast nothingness and unquenchable fear-stricken loneliness.  It was forever desert and forever alone...and all the mental discomfort that went hand in hand with that.  It was death and Hell for me.   I felt it so real, and fear filled me with stark realization that this could totally happen to me because I have no control over what happens when I die.  Death is a looming mystery that we must acknowledge is completely out of our ability.

All power and control belongs to God and to God alone.  None of us can guarantee that we can safely procure our eternity after death.  That is why we must see Jesus for what He did.  He secured our eternity from eternal Hell to eternal Heaven.  Now we can walk with God's sent Son in these last days to hopefully better understand what God did to give us assurance of salvation.  

Let's walk with Him together in our hearts.  

Observe our Savior and His words, His actions, and the plan of God in His obedience.  

I invite you to the city of Bethany, come sit at the table to eat with Jesus and Lazarus (a man raised from the dead!), and Martha will serve us a home-cooked meal.  

“Six days before the Passover, 

Jesus came to Bethany where Lazarus was, 

the one Jesus had raised from the dead. 

So they gave a dinner for Him there; 

Martha was serving them, 

and Lazarus was one of those reclining at the table with Him. 

Then Mary took a pound of fragrant oil — pure and expensive nard — anointed Jesus’ feet, and wiped His feet with her hair. 

So the house was filled with the fragrance of the oil. 

(Do you smell it?  Imagine watching Mary come in and pour out $6,000 worth of the most expensive perfume from Neiman Marcus all over Jesus dirty feet!  300 denarii is about $6k in US dollars.  And then to kneel down and wipe it with her hair...a mixture of dirt and expensive oil on feet. 

The actual perfume was called “spikenard” and in Hebrew is called Nard meaning “light.” 

A fitting perfume for the One who is Light.  (1 John 1:5)

$6k!  For feet!  And we are watching this happen and it probably shocks us as the expensive aroma hits our nostrils with a powerful presence, but then directs our hearts to really see that this man with us is truly worth every bit of what Mary has just poured out....everyone but one guy.) 

Then one of His disciples, Judas Iscariot (who was about to betray Him), said, “Why wasn’t this fragrant oil sold for 300 denarii and given to the poor? ” 

He didn’t say this because he cared about the poor but because he was a thief. He was in charge of the money-bag and would steal part of what was put in it. 

(The contrast of Mary and Judas is like light and dark for us as we watch his speech against her actions.  His speech turns our hearts from the worthiness of Christ to the money.  Mary made us look at Christ by her money, but Judas made us look away by it.)

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 12:1-8 

This last bit is spoken for us to hear.  

The food that Martha has made for us is maybe getting cold.  Martha is standing by the doorway of the kitchen peering into the dining room.  Lazarus on our left at the head of the table is silent, Judas is indifferent on our right and Mary knelt next to Jesus across from us.  The Son of God has just been anointed for burial.  In a few more days we will see Jesus killed, and Mary has prepared us for this as a reminder that it is He whom we serve and not our money.  Judas and Mary make one thing clear by their attitudes: their view of Jesus. 

Let's carefully look at Jesus today from our spot at the table. 

Jmegrey

Task and Ability

Now this is the message we have heard from Him and declare to you: God is light, 

and there is absolutely no darkness in Him.

(1 John 1:5) 

This morning I had a vision of God going to the core of my being and finding the scared little girl covered in soot and darkness and the instant He hugged me I transformed into light.  

So I prayed...

Search me O God, and try my thoughts, know me!  See if there are any offensive ways in me and lead me in Your way everlasting! 

I heard the words:  Passions and desires

Are my passions and my desires aimed in having You? 

This morning I just wanted to jump straight into my reading for my quiz today.  I didn't want to spend an hour with You, because my prize was getting what I needed to get done, done. 

My prize is my to do list. 

My idols are Task and Ability. 

Father, I need Your help! 

I don't want to be enslaved to Task and Ability!  

I want to be Your slave because You are the only Good and True Master who not only I am called to serve but am called into adoption as Your child!  

Task and Ability only seek to destroy, steal, and kill me!  Yet why do I follow their orders?

There is disorder in me God. 

Task and Ability say that in order to be worth any standing value I have to prove myself to myself and to You and to others. 

But You say in order to be worth all standing value I must put off my flesh and put on Christ. 

So then I stand looking at Task and Ability versus Christ.  

Christ looks weak and incapable, while Task and Ability look strong and shiny! 

But my eyes see only what my mind has been taught to know, so I need a knowledge that is higher than mine to give me new eyes to see and a new understanding of what things mean.

I need a renewed perspective. 

The law shows that this and this will mean this, yet Your new law says that Christ has finished fulfilling the requirements of the Law--which I myself could never do!  Therefore to live and move and breathe and have my being in Christ is the only way to expose Task and Ability for the frauds they are!  

They tempt me to believe that I could fulfill something to be someone!  But in the end I find by experience after experience that I cannot be anything but broken apart from the grace You give me in Christ.  

“I say then, walk by the Spirit and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh. 

For the flesh desires what is against the Spirit, and the Spirit desires what is against the flesh; these are opposed to each other, so that you don’t do what you want. 

But if you are led by the Spirit, 

you are not under the law.  (Task and Ability do not teach you how to live anymore)

Now the works of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, moral impurity, promiscuity, idolatry, sorcery, hatreds, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish ambitions, dissensions, factions, envy, drunkenness, carousing, and anything similar. 

I tell you about these things in advance — as I told you before — that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. 

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faith, gentleness, self-control. 

Against such things there is no law. (Not even Task and Ability could offer something better than these or deny their exceeding value!)

Now those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.”

Galatians 5:16-24 

Our bodies have passions and desires that direct our attention to what the body aims for. 

Our daily lives will either result in sexual immorality, fits of rage, disunity, and the like

Or in love, joy, peace, patience, goodness, kindness, faith, gentleness and self control. 

This is the truth whether your perspective believes it or not, the Word of God is explicit about revealing where our passions and desires must be put off in order for His to be put on. 

What are your passions and desires aimed at today?  Prayerfully bring them to God and you will be humbled (by your emotions against God) that you cannot change on your own.  You need help because you are not enough to change you.  Those who ask, seek, and knock will be answered.  

Bring your need. 

Love you guys. 

When what you don't see is actually Jesus

Good morning family of faith,

This morning I woke up so angry which lead me to prayer to find out I was actually afraid.  And God gave me this passage:

"When the disciples saw Him walking on the sea, they were terrified.
“It’s a ghost! ” they said, and cried out in fear.
Immediately Jesus spoke to them. “Have courage! It is I. Don’t be afraid.”

“Lord, if it’s You,” Peter answered Him, “command me to come to You on the water.”
“Come! ” He said.
And climbing out of the boat, Peter started walking on the water and came toward Jesus.

But when he saw the strength of the wind, he was afraid.
And beginning to sink he cried out, “Lord, save me! ”
Immediately Jesus reached out His hand, caught hold of him, and said to him, “You of little faith, why did you doubt? ”
‭‭Matthew‬ ‭14:26-31‬ ‭

If you saw a figure in your room late at night, would you be scared?  I would.  What if that figure was Jesus?  Dang.  I thought about this some more and realized that there are some fears I have that could be Jesus.

But first, before I know it's Jesus I fear it to be something that isn't Jesus.  Something bad.  Something scary.  Something like death or pain.  Something I don't want!  Like a ghost in my room!
But what if it was Jesus?
When Jesus walks by on the water the disciples don't know that it's Jesus at first.  They just see something with their eyes and they think it's a ghost!  They're going by what they see,
until they hear Jesus say
"Have courage!  It is I!"

Courage.

It's what we need when we are scared. Without courage we can't change the course of our thoughts/action to think or do any differently.
Fear cripples us into running away or avoiding something.  But courage will keep us from running or hiding.

And like Peter I find myself in his shoes quite often asking God for something to help me believe it's really Him!
That I can go towards the thing I feared because it's really Jesus in front of me!  But it don't look like Jesus!
All I feel from what I see is fear.

Courage is what i need to not run away from what looks threatening, but this courage comes from faith in Jesus.

When Peter stepped out and walked on the water he started off with His eyes on Jesus but he shifted his eyes and saw the wind and now it wasn't just the ghost-like figure that scared him but the situation was maddening!  The wind looked threatening!
Peter was defying the natural laws of gravity!  Peter was doing something that he had no mental control over.  The capacity to make sense of his situation was gone and now he looked at that- the wind- instead of Jesus and he began to sink!
He cried out to Jesus to save him, and Jesus immediately reached for Peter and said:
"I got you"? No.
Did He say "what's wrong with you?"  No.
Did He say "you suck at life". No.

Jesus said
"you of little faith, why did you doubt?"

Jesus is doing something with Peter.  He's teaching Peter how to live without fear.

Fear of what he sees or fear of the inability to make sense of things.  He's teaching Peter how to live by faith which results in less doubt and more belief in Jesus.  He diagnosed Peter's issue: "little faith"
And questions Peter to think about the "why."  The why for Peter was the winds.

This was a reminder for me that I needed to read because I woke up angry, finding out that I was afraid.  Afraid of what I saw and what I thought because of it.  The winds of doubt looked overwhelming.  And i cried out to Jesus.

If you start to drown He will catch you, but remember it's not about survival.  It's about faith in Jesus.  We are being given opportunities to take courage today.
The thing you tried to run from or avoid out of fear (fear of rejection, fear of death, fear of being treated like trash) is all the wind you see in a threatening situation.
But keep your eyes on Jesus not on the winds, because only Jesus has the power to give you everything you need.

Love you all,
Jmegrey