Monday, September 27, 2010

Treason

Treason is the serious act/acts of betrayal against one's sovereign.

Do you commit treason?

So I have a piece of kidney stone that I am still waiting to pass. It has been stuck in my ureter for almost a month now. Fortunately it is not excruciating like the first one, just more of a nuisance from time to time. The crazy thing is it is only like an inch from my bladder so with the amount of fluids I take in everyday, it should have been flushed out by now. Apparently it's comfortable.

I wrote a couple of weeks ago about making war on sin. I have been trying to make war on my sins. Areas of my life that I desperately need to turn over to God and allow Him to sanctify. One of my areas is self discipline. The problem with my self discipline is obviously my "self". Self always gets in the way. Self spills into other areas of my relationship with
God. Self spills over into my relationships with my husband and children. Self spills over onto myself and then I become "self"ish.

Ashlie taught Bible study two weeks ago and talked about sin. I have been also listening to a couple of sermons where the focus has been sin. So I am listening because we all have a problem with sin. Becoming who God created us to be is difficult and even discouraging sometimes because we know we won't be complete until the very end. So we have to wait. What are we doing while we are waiting? Are we comfortable?

Adam and Eve made a trade. I guess we could say they committed treason. They betrayed God in the garden. They betrayed their Sovereign. In the majority of countries in this world treason is punished by death. So is ours. Fortunately for Adam and Eve, God also extended His mercy and grace to them that same day as well. As He does with us.

Do we really take our sin seriously? It is something that has been there or is there that we are comfortable with? Is it something that is just a "little" nuisance? Is it something that should be flushed out?

My stone has been a daily reminder to me of sin. It is something that was never meant to be in my body. But it is also a glorious reminder of God's creation. How awesome our bodies are. How they are intricately and mysteriously made. How even my body knows when there is a foreign substance in it, it makes war on it to get rid of it. How God's design is perfect, even in a fallen world. How He is Sovereign.

I don't want to commit serious acts of betrayal against my Sovereign. Not that any of us do. But I know I am taking the "self" out and asking for God to help discipline me. Because my sin is more than just a nuisance and I should be more than uncomfortable with it. Sin is so excruciating to God that someone has to pay for our treason.

Complete in the end. Mercy and grace. Perfect design. Jesus Christ.

Read 1 Peter 1:5-11.

Tuesday, September 14, 2010

Flawed

I go every week and eat lunch with Nia and JJ at school. It's loud, messy, and germ-y, but I love visiting with Nia and JJ and looking at all of the other little toothless smiles at their tables. Fortunately Nia and JJ still like me to hug and kiss on them even in public in front of their friends. I also manage to get a few wipes of their mouths every now and then, with my spit and finger of course.

Last week half way through lunch, JJ looked at me and said, "thank you for coming to eat lunch with me Momma." I felt like Mrs. America. I go and eat lunch with them just because I love them. The fact that he was grateful, for an instant, for the time we had together was precious. He was thankful because he loves me back. What a perfect, brief picture of how our relationship with God is suppose to be.

We started Bible Study last week (we meet again today if you want to come) and Ashlie, our leader, started at the beginning, literally. She talked about creation and how God spent all the days before man creating the world just for man. God created everything for our contentment. We were created to be content. We were created to only need Him. Adam and Eve had absolutely everything. Work was joyful. The garden was perfect. They had the very presence of God with them. He walked with them. He conversed with them. They had no needs. They had no wants. Or they should have had no wants.

Then they went outside of God's design.

I wrote a quote of Ashlie's down from last week that has stuck with me. She said, "anythingoutside of God's design is flawed, it is just stuff we lust after." Eve lusted after the knowledge of good and evil. Adam sat back, watched, and then lusted as well. I cannot imagine being in the very presence of the Holy God everyday and wanting something else.

But I am in His presence.
I still want something else.
I am flawed.

So as a person who has surrendered my life to Christ, I have to live each day in God's design. I have to seek the things that are above where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. (Col 3:1) I have to set my mind on the things above, not on the things that are on earth. (Col 3:2). I have to learn to be content and not lust for things outside of God's design. I have to learn how to overcome my flaws while living in a flawed world.

Thank God He gave me Christ.

I was listening to a sermon today by Matt Chandler. He was talking about how so many "Christians" are content living their flawed lives in a flawed world. He asked "why don't we make war on our sin?" Why do we not take it seriously? Why do we give into the lusts of this world? It is all so short.

So I am challenged. I am challenged in my flaws, in my sin, to live for Christ. I have everything I could ever need to be content in my relationship with God. I have the Holy Spirit's presence. I have God's Word. I have the power of prayer through God. I have the fellowship of other people who live for Christ. I have the ability to make war on sin. I have hope.

I go and eat lunch with my kids because I love them.....
JJ was thankful because he loves me back......

And in that, there is no flaw.

May you find contentment in God, live inside His design, and make war on sin.

"Therefore, as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him, rooted and built
up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in
thanksgiving." Colossians 2:6-7

Sunday, September 5, 2010

Guilt

Sometimes our legs get knocked out from underneath us and we land on our butt. It takes a while to figure out how to get back on our feet. God may have us there for a time, or He may decide to help us stand back up right away. It hurts when we land, it hurts even more trying to stand. Either way, being on our butt, or on our feet, we cannot do it alone.

Having my kidney stones knocked me on my butt, both literally and figuratively. Getting blindsided by pain is no way to start a Monday. Then of course, the rest of that week went downhill from there. By that Friday, the 13th mind you, (I'm really not superstitious) I was left with a 10 inch plastic stint in my ureter, pain, another large stone still in my kidney, and an assortment of other by products of surgery that I will spare you the details on. That Friday the only thing I could really do was take a shower and then rest because I was exhausted.

As if I hadn't done enough butt sitting that week, the figurative set in---my guilt.

I know all the phases of grieving and I have seemed to experience them differently. I didn't think I would go through the guilt phase of grieving. But here I am. I am not really a crier but have been crying almost everyday for the past few weeks. God really gave me a glimpse of how sick my Mom felt and opened my eyes to a lot of things I didn't understand. So the onslaught of "I wish I would have done this... or I wish I could say that..." began.

Guilt is a horrible thing because it is a response to something that can never be changed. It makes it hard to stand. It breeds into other areas of our life as well. It cripples us and makes us ineffective. It can even take us from sitting on our butt, to lying flat on our back.

So my guilt spilled over into my relationship with God. Since I was already feeling defeated in grief, let's attack what can enable me to stand. We all know that the main part of a relationship is spending time with somebody. How God desires time with us. We usually put our "time" with God into a small window of our day. We feel like we have to read our Bible, pray using some acrostic, maybe journal a few thoughts, and close it up to mark it off our "to do" list. Some days we get so hurried that we don't even spend time with God, but hey He is so forgiving so we will start over again tomorrow and make it right. Right?

I am so thankful that God ended that attack quickly. He told me the only way He wants me lying flat on my back is in worship and humility with Him, not in guilt. So He stood me up.

Why is my time with God locked into a timeframe everyday? Why do I feel like I have to set in place these motions each morning? Why does it end there? Why is it on my "to do" list? Is that worship? Is that a relationship?

God wants all our time. He wants all of us. He asked me why am I not praying without ceasing? Why do I say "amen" in the morning and leave it there? Why am I not picking up my Bible throughout the day reading scripture? Why do I not pray every time I think about something or someone? If I really want Him to continue to sanctify me, why am I limiting it to a set time each day. After all, we don't grow and change as humans only 20 to 30 minutes a day, we do it all day long. He wants us to get use to standing in worship or lying prostrate in worship of Him all day now. Because that is what we will be doing in eternity.

When God knocks you on your butt :) it is my prayer that you will spend all day, everyday getting to know Him and trying to stand. And if you can't stand, spend all day, everyday lying prostrate in humility and worship. That your quiet time would change to your quiet day. That reading our Bibles and praying would be so ingrained in our life that we would never view it as a separate time of our day. It is who we are. It is what we do. It is life.

He already knows us.......let's not limit our knowing Him.....because He is limitless.