Next Steps: One Vision

Last week we learned that Nehemiah’s heart was broken when he learned of the devastation in Jerusalem. He wept, he prayed, and came away with a vision of restoration. He asked for, and was granted permission from the King of Susa to go to Jerusalem. When the time was right, Nehemiah went to the Jewish leaders and said to them, ‘“You see the trouble we are in: Jerusalem lies in ruins, and its gates have been burned with fire. Come, let us rebuild the wall of Jerusalem, and we will no longer be in disgrace.”I also told them about the gracious hand of my God on me and what the king had said to me.” (Neh. 2:17-18).  The leaders immediately agreed, and joined Nehemiah in his vision.

Before I move on, I want to back up to verse 10 of chapter 2. When Nehemiah arrived in Jerusalem, he appeared to the governors of that area with his letters from the king. Their response– When Sanballat the Horonite and Tobiah the Ammonite official heard about this, they were very much disturbed that someone had come to promote the welfare of the Israelites.  We need to pay attention to this point. The people in power were not very happy that someone had come to help those who were oppressed and downtrodden. They didn’t make things easy for Nehemiah, but he was a person with a vision and he was not going to be distracted.

Vision. One vision. And as the people worked together under the leadership of Nehemiah, the things that were broken were restored.

One vision. We can trace God-ordained leaders all throughout scripture who were given a vision from God, but I want to focus on the one vision that was given to us.

When Jesus asked his disciples who they said he was, Peter responded with the words: You are the Messiah; the son of the living God. (Mt 16:16). Jesus responded by letting Peter know that it was God who had revealed that truth to him, and Jesus went on to say …on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it. (16:18). 

That’s a familiar verse and we brush over it pretty quickly, however, there is more to that verse than meets the eye.

The word translated “build” can mean to actually construct something, but it can also mean to embolden.

The word translated “church” is the Greek word “ekklesia” which has nothing to do with a building. It literally means “a gathering of citizens called out from their homes into some public place; an assembly”. 

Ekklesia is a compound word made up of two words, one which means “from” or “out of” and the other means  “to call” “to invite” “to give a name to”.  

The word translated “Hades” means “the realm of the dead”, “the grave”, “the place of departed souls”.  

And the word “it” actually means “her, it(-self), one, the other, (mine) own, said, (self-), the) same, ((him-, my-, thy- )self, (your-)selves, she, that, their(-s), them(-selves)”  The word is not speaking of an inanimate object, but of people.                                                                 (All translations from Strong’s Concordance; http://www.blueletterbible.org)

What if we read Matthew 16:18 like this: On this testimony, this foundation that I am the Messiah, the anointed one, the Christ, I will embolden my invited, called out ones–the ones I will give my name to, the ones who will be my citizens in the public arena, and death, the place of the dead, the grave will not prevail against them.

If we read that verse in that way, the vision of Jesus for his people, the citizens of his Kingdom, the Kingdom that he talks about throughout his entire earthly ministry all of a sudden makes sense in light of “the church”.  The vision includes all of us who call Jesus our Lord. It doesn’t highlight a specific denomination, a specific type of church, or a specific type of people.  Anyone who recognizes the lordship of Jesus and lives his/her life from that place shares in the one vision.

What is the one vision? Laura and I have written about it over and over and I’ll write about it again. The one vision is the combination of “the great commandment” and “the great commission”.

Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’  This is the first and greatest commandment.  And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’  (Mt. 22:37-39)

Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. (Mt. 28:18-20)

One more translation–the phrase “make disciples of” is actually the word “teach” and means to be the disciple of one; to follow his precepts and instruction.

Jesus gave this commission to his disciples, so basically he is saying–you who follow my precepts and instructions, go to everyone, full of love for them and immerse them in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit–model what this looks like (teach), so that they too can learn to follow my precepts and instructions.

Nehemiah shared his vision with the people and they worked together for restoration.

Jesus has shared his vision with us. Will we work together with him for the restoration of people? His vision is not program based, it’s people based. It’s a living vision. Can you imagine if every Christ follower across the face of the planet decided that loving people right where they are, and teaching them, modeling for them, Jesus as he presents himself in the gospels was the goal of their lives? It starts with each one of us deciding individually that we want to live that way.

I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received.  Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love.  Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace.  There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to one hope when you were called;  one Lord, one faith, one baptism;  one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all. (Eph. 4: 1-6)

One vision–the Kingdom of Heaven expanding on earth. Are you in?

–Luanne

“Jesus has shared his vision with us.Will we work together with him for the restoration of people? His vision is not program based, it’s people based. It’s a living vision…”

A living vision…

I’ve been rolling these words that Luanne wrote around in my head. A living vision… How would you define that?

I looked up the definition of “life” and “alive” in a few different dictionaries, as well as the characteristics of living things according to biology curriculum from several different sources.These traits were listed in every source I read as characteristics of a living organism:

capacity for growth, ability to reproduce, functional activity, continual change, responsiveness, breath

The vision Jesus gave to his followers that Luanne described above contains all of these signs of life. It is–indisputably–a living vision.

So what, then, would we call a vision that lacks these traits? A vision that centers on inanimate objects like buildings or furnishings; one that resists change; one that has no capacity to grow or reproduce; one without functional activity or the fluid elasticity to breathe? If what I defined above is a living vision, then a vision without those traits can only be considered, by contrast, dead--or, at best, dying…

How is our vision? Are we joining Jesus in his living vision, understanding that his ways revolve around people, not programs? Do we follow his lead to engage with people like he did, allowing the spirit to breathe kingdom life through us into those we encounter? Or are we clinging to a vision that’s barely hanging on, one that is on life support, one that depends on the machine of systems, programs, and power to live? Are we carrying the mantle of a dying vision?

If we find that we are, in fact, operating with a dying vision, we can take heart… Luanne mentioned above that we can work with Jesus for the restoration of people. And sometimes the people that need restoration are the ones staring back at us in the mirror. Restoration is synonymous with revival. To revive something is to restore life or to bring something back from the edge of death. Restoration breathes new life into the dying. Restoration is a kingdom value, one that Jesus demonstrated over and over again during his ministry–and one that he employs today in big and small ways in all of our lives.

I experienced this on Sunday morning. It had been a whirlwind of a week, and I felt pretty depleted. The knowledge that the coming week would pile even more on top of my already overflowing plate left me feeling weak in the knees, like they might buckle beneath the weight. And then, in the middle of a gorgeous song about communion, this line washed over me:

I am the bread, given for every man… I sustain you.

It was as if Jesus himself spoke the words into my core through the beautiful voice of my friend… Something came alive in me that had been dying… My eyes filled as my heart swelled and I knew that my restorative Savior had come to revive me, to pull me back from the edge of depletion and frustration and exhaustion to remind me that all the things I have to do, all of the deadlines and demands I must meet–I don’t have to rely on my own reserves. He sustains me. He fills me up. He leads me beside still waters and restores my soul (Psalm 23) in the middle of the battlefield. He brought life to back to the vision that was dying in me. And while this week has already been exhausting and frustrating in many ways, I have remembered those words, “I sustain you”, over and over. And even when it’s hard to say, much less believe, leaning into those words really does bring new life. A deep breath. Every single time.

This is only one example of how Jesus brings restoration and revival, how he breathes his living vision into us. The vision, it’s not ours. We didn’t come up with it. The vision, this living vision for all of humanity, for our world–it is Jesus’ vision. We carry it because we carry his breath in our lungs, and when we start to run out, he breathes it fresh into us again. If we are carrying a vision that doesn’t line up with the kingdom Jesus brought to earth, we are bearing the weight of a dead or dying vision. One with no power to bring restoration or new life. One that causes brokenness rather than bring restoration. One that cannot unite but only divides. If we find that’s what we are carrying, we are free to take it off and put it down. And when we do, we can pick up the living vision of Jesus. It will first restore our own souls. But we’ll find that is a living, breathing, changing, growing organism that will move us out toward those at the edge, those who also need new life to rescue them from the dying.

Luanne ended her writing with this: One vision–the Kingdom of Heaven expanding on earth. Are you in? 

What if we all said yes…?

–Laura

Fan the Flame

For this reason I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you…for God gave us a spirit not of fear, but of power and love and self-control  (2nd Timothy 1:6-7).

Pastor Beau took us to this portion of Paul’s second letter to Timothy on Sunday. It’s important to know that Paul and Timothy shared a special relationship–Paul loved Timothy like a son, and Paul saw things in Timothy that Timothy struggled to see in himself. Been there! I’m grateful for those whom God has placed in my life who have seen things in me that I struggle to see in myself and have encouraged me to step out in faith. I pray that you have those people around you as well.

Paul’s second letter to Timothy was the last one that he wrote before he was executed. He knew that his time was running out, so he is once again encouraging his young friend to grasp who he is in Jesus. He encourages Timothy to boldly take hold of the call on his life.  Paul had left young Timothy in charge of the church in Ephesus–a big deal for a young man. There were a lot of people in Ephesus, a lot of different life philosophies; there were people trying to distort the simplicity of the message of Jesus–and for all Christians who lived under the thumb of the Roman Empire in that day–there was a lot of danger as evidenced by Paul’s arrest, and the martyrdom of many, including-eventually- Paul.

Timothy’s fear made sense. Paul, in his love for Timothy (and his love for Christ), gently reminded him that the Spirit who lived in him was not a spirit of fear but one of power and love and self-control (or a sound mind).

Over the next few Sundays, we will be exploring different fears. Pastor Beau’s topic this week was the fear of rejection.

Rejection means to refuse, dismiss, desert, abandon someone. The Urban Dictionary says this about rejection: “It makes you feel depressed, lonely and like a worthless reject who will never amount to anything or find someone worthy to love or love you in return for who you are because you are not good enough.” 

Even reading that definition causes emotion to swell up inside me. Unfortunately, we’ve all experienced rejection at some point in our lives, and because of the worthless way it makes us feel, we then live with the fear of it happening again which affects our lives in more ways than we could ever imagine.

Pastor Beau worded it like this: “The fear of rejection is the product of lies we believe based on previous life experience.”

Those lies can include thoughts such as:

My value lies in what I do.

I’ll never be good enough.

My presence doesn’t matter.

I can’t depend on anyone.

If I don’t go along, they won’t like me,

and so many other things.

I really hate that rejection is part of life–it absolutely makes sense that we’re afraid of it. It feels horrible. It’s easy to identify past rejection. It’s more difficult to recognize how the fear of rejection, based on that past rejection, affects our lives on a daily basis. In order to do that, we must have some self-awareness.

Pastor Beau pointed out that the fear of rejection can cause us to reject others.  It keeps us from connecting. It keeps us locked up in our own prison. It keeps us from deep relationships. It keeps us from loving with all that we are. It keeps us from blessing others with our gifts. It holds us back from receiving the fullness of God’s love and forgiveness, and it keeps us from connecting deeply with ourselves and our God given purpose. When we find ourselves pulling back from others and building invisible walls, we must learn to do some personal inventory to try to figure out what past experience our current reaction is connected to. What fear is driving our behavior? Is it the fear of rejection?

Fear is powerless–until we give it power. 

So, the Apostle Paul, who wrote: Am I now trying to win the approval of human beings or of God? Or am I trying to please people? If I were still trying to please people, I would not be a servant of Christ. (Galatians 1:10),  Paul, who experienced constant rejection in his ministry, and was imprisoned again because the message that he carried was once again rejected in violent ways, reminds Timothy–God did not give you a spirit of fear. Paul reminds Timothy that The Spirit that God gave to Timothy is

The Spirit of power,                                                                                                                               

               The Spirit of love,  

                              The Spirit of self-control. 

I believe that Paul’s word order was very, very intentional. I believe that Paul was remembering the words of Jesus, who told his disciples: You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth (Acts 1:8). Paul was reminding Timothy that The Power within him was the One who would empower him to carry the message of Jesus and His Kingdom to those around him.

Paul also penned the words: If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all the mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give all I posses to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing. (1st Corinthians 13:1-3.)  Paul was reminding Timothy that the Holy Spirit would empower him to carry out his call with courageous agape love.

In addition, Paul wrote of self-discipline and a sound mind when he wrote the words: Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect.  (Romans 12:2 NLT) And, …take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ (2 Cor. 10:5).

So, Paul is saying to Timothy–remember who you are in Jesus. Don’t fall into the enemy’s trap of feeling inferior or ill-equipped to be who God has made you to be. Instead, fan into flame the gift of God which is in you.

Clarence Jordan translated that verse like this: “I’m reminding you to shake the ashes off the God-given fire that’s in you.”

I. Love. That!

There is a God-given fire within us. Have you stoked it, or quenched it? Paul implores us in 1st Thessalonians 5:19 not to quench the Spirit.

Pastor Beau brought to mind a campfire and what’s involved in keeping the fire going. If the fire is not tended, it will grow cold; however, if it is stirred, if new fuel is added, if ashes are gently blown on, the fire will continue to burn.  And sometimes, it looks as though it is out–gray ash covers the coals, and no visible smoke rises, but if you throw water on what appears to be dead,  a sizzle is heard and steam rises from the buried coals that are still burning–it can be fanned into flame again.

Paul wrote these words to Timothy centuries before electricity was a reality. The weight of Paul’s encouragement for Timothy to fan into flame the gift of God was huge. Fire provided warmth, light, fuel for preparing food–fire sustained their lives. A household in ancient times would not have allowed their fire to go out. And if it did…neighbors shared live coals with one another, so that the fire could be rekindled. Lack of fire could be deadly. I’m sure that Timothy understood the life-giving importance of what Paul was implying. Do we?

We must fan into flame the gift of the Spirit–the power of the Spirit that we’ve been given to carry the message of Jesus. We must allow God to mess in our business, stir us up, rearrange things, show us how to think His way…and then carry the flame of His love to those who don’t yet know that there is a God who loves them, who will never reject them, who will never abandon them, who will never treat them as worthless, who has proved by the death and resurrection of His Son that they have more value and worth than they can imagine, and who invites them to His table which is open to all.

You have within you the Spirit of power, love, and a sound mind. Fan it into flame. Renew your mind. Reject the enemy’s fear mongering, and use your gifts to embrace the world with the warmth of the Spirit’s fire. Use the power within you to light the world with the love of God.

–Luanne

“We must fan into flame the gift of the Spirit… We must allow God to mess in our business, stir us up, rearrange things, show us how to think His way…and then carry the flame of His love to those who don’t yet know that there is a God who loves them, who will never reject them… and who invites them to His table which is open to all…”

His table. Pastor Beau talked about the table, too. He said, “Ultimately, we overcome rejection by coming to the table.” What table are they talking about? The table of communion. The Eucharist. The tradition that, sadly, has become an emotionless part of a church service for so many–but offers to us a solution for our brokenness, even the brokenness of rejection.

The solution to all our brokenness is found in more brokenness…

During the meal, Jesus took and blessed the bread, broke it, and gave it to his disciples:

Take, eat.
This is my body.

Taking the cup and thanking God, he gave it to them:

Drink this, all of you.
This is my blood,
God’s new covenant poured out for many people
for the forgiveness of sins. (Matthew 26:26-28, Message)

Jesus, knowing the men with Him in that upper room, knowing their hearts and how they would reject and betray Him in the next hours and days, offered Himself to them. His brokenness, to absorb all of theirs–and all of ours. His brokenness, so they–and we–could be made whole. He invited them into His new covenant in all of their brokenness, just as they were. They didn’t understand the gravity of His words–not yet. But they soon would.

Similarly, many of us don’t understand the implications of the invitation to come to the table. I didn’t understand. There is still some mystery around the way Jesus communes with us at His table, and I like it that way… But my understanding has certainly grown. I read in Ann Voskamp’s The Broken Way that Jesus’ words in that upper room are the same words spoken in a Jewish marriage proposal. That the last supper was actually a marriage covenant. Ann writes, quoting the pastor who told her about it,

“In other words, Jesus says to you with this cup, ‘I love you. I want you. I covenant Myself to you. I commit to you. This cup is the new covenant in My blood which I offer to you. Do you love me? Will you covenant yourself to Me?‘” She goes on to write, “Every abandonment ever experienced could be abandoned in this sacramental act… How can it be? When we’re naked and ashamed and alone in our brokenness, Christ envelops us with His intimate grace. When we’re rejected and abandoned and feel beyond wanting, Jesus cups our face: “Come close, my Beloved.”

This is the invitation. This is how we can begin to overcome rejection. By saying yes to His invitation. Pastor Beau emphasized that each of us has a standing invitation. Those words I wrote above? Jesus speaks them to all of us, over and over again. He asks us to come and be united with Him, to take Him in, so that He becomes part of our very being.

“All our brokenness is only healed by union–

With-ness breaks brokenness.” (Voskamp)

With-ness breaks brokenness… I love that so much. But that statement, while true of our being “with” Christ, means more than that. Because we don’t come to the table alone. We can, and should, commune with Jesus daily in our personal lives. But the picture is incomplete without one another. There is a with-ness that represents the Kingdom of God, the kingdom Jesus brought with Him when He came to us with skin on. It is the with-ness that Beau was talking about when he said that rekindling our fire happens individually AND in community. It’s not an either/or. And this is the part that a lot of us are afraid of…

Pastor Beau said, and Luanne highlighted above, that “the fear of rejection keeps us from connecting.” Ann, again from The Broken Way, writes:

We all long for the belonging of communion and yet there is this fear of the closeness of the fellowship. Love is our deepest longing–and what we most deeply fear. Love breaks us vulnerably open–and then can break us with rejection.

The fear of rejection can keep us from coming to the table. Even if we hear Jesus’ personal invitation to us, and believe that He wants us there, we’re not always sure we’re welcome to come. Because “they” may not want us there… As Pastor Beau said, we may feel that way because of a past church experience, or because someone put certain parameters or requirements around being “allowed” to come. We may have been wounded and felt rejection at the table, from those who wanted to control it.

But the thing about it is… the table belongs to Jesus. It’s His. He gets to do the inviting. And he makes it clear–over and over again, in the words He said, in the people He associated with, in the way He conducted Himself–that His invitation is open to all of us. Male, female, Republican, Democrat, divorcee, adulterer, addict, young, old, rich, poor, homosexual, healthy, ill, Catholic, Baptist, Muslim, Buddhist, atheist, agnostic, evangelical, transgender, immigrant, homeless, celebrity, veteran, felon, Black Lives Matter proponent, and MAGA proponent–all. are. welcome. at. the. table. ALL. Every ethnicity. Every nationality. The table levels the playing field. Because none of us is “worthy” of the body and blood of Christ. Not one of us. And if anyone is excluded from the table, then we all are.

John 7:37(MSG): On the final and climactic day of the Feast, Jesus took his stand. He cried out, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink!”

If anyone is thirsty… come to the table. Come commune with Jesus. It is meant to be a place of welcome. A place of renewal. A place to bring our brokenness and share in the ministry of the breaking–together. No matter how many times we’ve rejected Jesus, He will never reject us. He keeps inviting us into His healing embrace. And He gives us the opportunity to be ministers of reconciliation (2 Corinthians 5:15-18), rather than wielders of rejection. He invites us into His own brokenness, to experience the breaking of our own brokenness by the power of with-ness. And then He invites us to offer our brokenness and with-ness to others as part of the beautiful, upside-down Kingdom He brought to us. And in the middle of all the shared brokenness, as we sit together around His table, the power of fear–even the fear of rejection–is broken. Fires are stirred and kindled, lies replaced with truth, and the breaking births new life.

But we have to be willing to come. To respond to the invitation. To believe that there is a place where we are wanted and welcomed, a place where acceptance–not rejection–is bestowed on all. Jesus is waiting there. Will we come? Will we take the first step and trust that He’ll be there? If we have been the rejected one, if we are afraid, will we come? And if we have rejected others, will we hear the invitation as a call to lay down our pride and selfishness and let Jesus change our minds about some things? Will we come alongside those we see as “others”? Will we walk to the table hand-in-hand with those we disagree with? Will we take a seat next to someone we once vilified–or maybe still vilify?There’s no room at the table for arrogance or religiosity. It’s not a place to argue opinions or policies. We can’t judge each other at the table, because none of us belong there on our own merit. None of us. It is by the grace of God that we come. And we’re invited to come together, to see the image of God in each face around the table. We don’t have to agree on everything to come. We don’t have to believe exactly the same way. The invitation isn’t ours to give or withhold. It belongs to the One whose body and blood was given for all. It belongs to Him alone. He says, “Come”. Let your fear of rejection be broken by the embrace of the One waiting at the table with a place set for you…in the midst of the places set for all.

–Laura

Stories

 

 

Communion: derived from com “with”, and  unus “oneness, union”

When Jesus took the bread, gave thanks, and broke it, he was making a grand statement. The word thanks in this passage (Luke 22:19)  is the Greek word eucharisteo which literally means thanks and grace. If you’ve read Ann Voskamp’s beautiful book One Thousand Gifts you know that she breaks down that word by telling us that

-the root word of eucharisteo is charis– the Greek word for grace;

-the root word of charis is chara, the Greek word for joy.

So grace, giving thanks, and joy are all tied up in this one word. Jesus gave thanks—this incredible grace recognizing, rooted in joy thanks–right before he broke the bread. Right before he said “This is my body broken for you.” less than 24 hours before he would be hanging broken on a cross offering himself for us in a very literal, grace filled way.

John shared his personal story with us, told us about the Sunday morning a little over six years ago when he had to confess his sin before the church, and the beautiful way that Jesus came to him in a vision later that day, offering John communion–the bread, the cup–and John said that Jesus was not mad at him, but offered communion with grace, with warmth, with compassion. Jesus came to John in his brokenness.

We were in a dark season, John and I. He was beginning to find freedom and healing once his sin was brought out into the light. I, on the other hand, entered the darkest season of my adult life. Twice I contemplated suicide. When I realized that I could not end my own life, I begged God to kill me. I begged Him for weeks. He said no. Then I begged Him to release me from my vows. He again said no. So I yelled at Him, then do not waste this pain!!  I did not know how I was going to make it through that season of my life. I couldn’t imagine ever experiencing joy again.  But just like Jesus met John in his brokenness, he met me too.

It was winter, the days were short. After work I would go to my room, turn off the lights, turn on the electric fireplace, lay on the floor in the dark with worship music on and cry, and pray, and listen. I can’t describe what happened, but Jesus was there. I was not alone. He ministered to me in my brokenness. He met me where I was. He didn’t condemn me for being broken, for being devastated. For about a month he just sat with me. Then, one night, the song “Dance With Me oh Lover of My Soul” came on, and just like John’s vision of Jesus offering him communion, I had a vision of Jesus with his hand stretched out to me asking me to dance. I got up off the floor and danced with Jesus. I can’t explain that, but I can tell you that it was a holy moment, and the first moment that light began to enter my darkness.

Brokenness. None of us desire it. But Jesus, in His brokenness invited us into real life. His broken body, his poured out blood are an invitation to take off our masks, enter in just as we are, accept his extended hand, see this communion for what it is–Jesus’ marriage proposal to us. And we get to respond by eating the bread and drinking the cup as a way of saying “Jesus, I accept  your life and I give you mine in return.”

His extended hand offering a broken man communion. His extended hand offering a broken woman a dance to the song of all songs. His extended hand offered to you, asking you to remove your mask, and enter into the most beautiful relationship ever. Grace. Thanksgiving. Joy. Will you accept? Will you offer yourself in return? Will you enter in?

–Luanne

In January 2012, I read Ann Voskamp’s book One Thousand Gifts, that Luanne referenced. It changed my life. For real. I had never heard the word “eucharisteo” before–now I wear a bracelet almost every day that bears the inscription. Because I don’t ever want to forget. I don’t want to forget that gratitude and grace and joy-they all come together at the Eucharist, the table of our Lord’s Supper. I don’t want to forget that gratitude precedes the miracle every. single. time. I don’t want to forget that naming everyday graces as gifts-the daily practice of thanksgiving-reorients my heart toward the Giver of everything, of every breath I take… It became part of the fabric of my heart, the rhythm of my life. And then, life got really hard. Really, really hard. As I thought through what I would write this week, I remembered a piece I wrote three years ago, called “The Dance of Grief and Gratitude”.  Interestingly, I even used the same scripture in it that John used in his sermon this week. So, I thought I would share some excerpts from that piece here-a window into my heart during a time when I was violently wrestling with brokenness and gratitude and how in the world they went together. God had asked me during that season, more than once, if I would thank Him now, when my world was broken-when I was desperately broken, too. I was vehemently opposed. This is a glimpse into my process through my dark night of the soul…

“I forgot. As time passed, I started to forget. This practice of gratitude, of counting gifts, remembering His goodness, it became a “sometimes” practice. And by the time my life began to turn a corner and loss started to come into view, my vision was cloudy and I had soul-amnesia. I didn’t hold fast to the truth of who God is and all He has done. I didn’t take hold of the truth of His goodness in everything.

So when I grieved the loss of a perceived calling, when I grieved the recurrence of a monster disease and eventually the early death of my precious mother, the last thing I wanted to do was thank this God who had allowed the pain that tore my heart and soul into a million tattered pieces…but…

True gratitude requires death. Death to myself, to my own will, to the way I would do things if it were up to me. True gratitude recognizes that each moment we are given, full of things we perceive as good or full of what we would call bad, is a gift from the hands of our Father. Not one breath is guaranteed. Every second is grace.

Every second? Did I really believe that?

As I tried to come to grips with the freshly re-surfaced question, I re-read words that I had forgotten…

‘ “On the night when he was betrayed, the Lord Jesus took some bread and gave thanks to God for it…” (1 Corinthians 11:23-24). Jesus, on the night before the driving hammer and iron piercing through ligament and sinew, receives what God offers as grace…? Oh. Facing the abandonment of God Himself, Jesus offers thanksgiving for even that which will break Him and crush Him and wound Him and yield a bounty of joy.’ (One Thousand Gifts, Ann Voskamp)

Jesus gave thanks with the cross in view. With death creeping ever closer. With the knowledge of all that he would face in a matter of hours. He opened His hands, and not only did He receive the bitter, the hard that God had given, but He did so with a heart full of thanks.

On the next page of Ann’s book, she writes, “The Eucharist invites us to give thanks for the dying. To participate in His death with our own daily dying and give thanks for it… I lay the torn bread on the tongue and I remember and press it to the roof of my mouth and the bread melts and I give thanks for the dying”.

I give thanks for the dying…

How, Lord? How do I give thanks for the dying? How do I say thank you for pain, disease and death? For facing the rest of my life without my Mom? How do I do that?

Ephesians 5:20 says ‘…always giving thanks to God the Father for all things…’. All things. Even this.

The tears fall raw and wild as I remember words I read in my Mom’s journal not long after she died. ‘Thank you, God, for the RA and the Pulmonary Fibrosis.’ I remembered her last few days with us, her understanding and acceptance of what was ahead. She said, more times than I could possibly count, ‘Glory to God for the life that I’ve lived. I choose to live for Him-whether it’s here or in Heaven’. And she meant it. She understood that we all have an expiration date, that death is guaranteed as a result of life. And she thanked God for it all. Even for the murderous disease that took her life…

To respond to every moment that flows from the hands of God with gratitude is the hardest thing of all. To see every moment as grace-every single second-is anything but easy. Because it is an opening of my hands to receive whatever God chooses to give, whether bitter or sweet to my tongue. It says, ‘You alone are God. I am not. I trust you enough to take you at your Word. That you are a good God. Purely good. And the things in life that don’t feel good now, you can make good out of those, too’. When I respond to God with gratitude, I lower myself. I remember that I don’t deserve anything. I don’t deserve another breath…but He gives it. I don’t deserve any grace… “But He gives more grace” (James 4:6a) I am reminded that I was bought with a price by a God-man who gave thanks for all things, even in death, and how could I ever be anything but grateful when I’ve been given a gift like that?”

I wish I could say that in the three years since I wrote that, I haven’t forgotten. But I have. I do. Sometimes, I forget the power of eucharisteo, forget to live grateful and aware of the gifts that God gives. Sometimes, I pick up a mask and slap it on-covering the image of Jesus that’s being forged in me as I learn to live fully alive in Him. I had to lay one down today, in fact. Before I came to the table, I came to the feet of my Jesus and confessed again my brokenness, this mask I had picked up. I laid my heart before Him and do you know what happened? He met me in that space. He was there drawing me long before I made the decision to come. It’s what He always does. He is always inviting, always beckoning us to come to the table…

When we are most broken, Jesus offers us His broken body and spilled blood to fill in and repair our most shattered places. He comes to us, the ever-faithful groom, and He lifts the veil of all of our masks, and extends the invitation again: “Will you take all that I am and let it invade and cover and complete all that you are not? Will you give me your broken, depleted, sin-stained life so that I can give you my abundant, whole, forever life? Will you embrace dying to yourself so that you can wake to your real, unmasked life in me? Will you? I choose you-in all of your brokenness-to be my beloved bride-do you take me to be your groom?”

What response can our broken, tattered hearts give but a humbled and grateful, “I do”?

–Laura

Covenant Marriage

“I have never heard that before.”

I have heard-and said-this sentence many times over the last eight days. It started with last week’s sermon when John set before us the picture of the two trees in the garden.This week, John and Luanne shared with us stunning perspectives on marriage, Christ and His Church and Communion that many of us were completely unfamiliar with.

Following these two profound sermons, I have had conversations full of questions like,

“How have I never heard this?”

“Why was this never taught?”

“How could we have missed this?”

All of these questions give us the opportunity to blame someone else for what we didn’t know. The church we grew up in, our parents, our circumstances, etc… But here’s the thing:

Both of these sermons are found, firmly grounded in and proven by the Word of God.

These two messages that have profoundly affected many of us are not actually new news. They are ancient truths. So why didn’t we know? Why hadn’t we heard it and understood before now?

Because now we have finally gotten tired of eating someone else’s communion.

What in the world do I mean by that?

I think for a long while now, much of the collective Church has been content to eat what’s on the table in front of us. Whatever has been dished up, we have consumed without raising objection–even if the food is cold and stale. We’ve been happy to do things as they’ve always been done. And we have accepted as truth what was possibly nothing more than washed-up tradition and works of fiction.

The result of this kind of diet is both tragic and beautiful. Tragic because we are what we eat. And if we haven’t been eating Jesus… we aren’t being Jesus. We are seeing this play out in churches, communities and nations like our own where many Christians are not living the love of Christ and the Good News is being used to wound rather than to welcome.

But there is a beautiful result, too. A result that has been the catalyst for sermons such as the two we have experienced the last two weeks.

We get hungry for something more.

In God’s great faithfulness to us, He stirs our hearts as His Spirit moves to open eyes and ears and hearts to the Truth that has been there all along. And we get hungry. We begin to pray prayers like these:

 I pray that from his glorious, unlimited resources he will empower you with inner strength through his Spirit. Then Christ will make his home in your hearts as you trust in him. Your roots will grow down into God’s love and keep you strong. And may you have the power to understand, as all God’s people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep his love is. May you experience the love of Christ, though it is too great to understand fully. Then you will be made complete with all the fullness of life and power that comes from God. (Ephesians 3:16-19 NLT) 

[I always pray] that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may grant you a spirit of wisdom and of revelation [that gives you a deep and personal and intimate insight] into the true knowledge of Him [for we know the Father through the Son]. And [I pray] that the eyes of your heart [the very center and core of your being] may be enlightened [flooded with light by the Holy Spirit], so that you will know and cherish the hope [the divine guarantee, the confident expectation] to which He has called you, the riches of His glorious inheritance in the saints (God’s people),  and [so that you will begin to know] what the immeasurable and unlimited and surpassing greatness of His [active, spiritual] power is in us who believe. (Ephesians 1:17-19 AMP)

The thing about praying prayers like these? God loves to answer them. He loves to take us deeper into Himself because He loves us and He desires that we earnestly seek Him. He longs that we get it. That we get how wide, long, high and deep is His love for us so that our eyes may be enlightened by a spirit of wisdom and revelation to grasp and cherish the hope to which He has called us.

Can we have a really honest moment? We have held the Truth in our hands and missed it. We have claimed to know Jesus but lived like we don’t. We have let our faith grow stale and complacent, been content to be spoon fed a lesser gospel void of the passion and intimacy God desires to have with His people.

There is no one to blame but ourselves. We hold the living Word of God in our hands. We have a personal relationship with Jesus and His Spirit abides in us who believe. If we have never seen these things before, it’s because we have never looked. We have forgotten our first love and though He has never ceased His pursuit of us, I think we have allowed our love for Him to cool and become commonplace when He desires to sweep us up into the wild romance of truly living in step with Him.

And… He doesn’t shame us for missing it. He doesn’t scold us. He doesn’t accuse.

He gently, lovingly comes and offers us the cup of His covenant again. And again. And again…

He comes to us, His Beloved, and He invites us to remember. To remember that we are His bride, bought with a price, sealed as His. To remember that the day is coming when our Groom will come and take us to the place He has prepared for us. Even when we are the unfaithful, adulterous fiance, He comes and invites us to reconnect to Himself.

God is stirring up His Church. He is aligning the hearts of His people and connecting messages across the globe. He is removing scales from our eyes and tearing down lies we have believed. He is reminding us that His Word is alive and His Spirit is moving and what will be our response? Will we be the generation that reaches to the ends of the earth saying,

 The Spirit and the bride say, “Come.” Let anyone who hears this say, “Come.” Let anyone who is thirsty come. Let anyone who desires drink freely from the water of life. (Revelation 22:17 NLT)

What is your response? Jesus is holding out the cup of His covenant, His promise to you, to me. Will we say yes to His proposal? If we’ve said yes, will we renew those vows and live from the understanding that we are His Beloved and He is ours?

We may have never before heard the truth in all its fullness the way we did this weekend. But now we have. And it is the most beautiful invitation into the fullest life with Jesus, the life He longs for us to say yes to.

What will you do with what you now know? What will I do with it?  I pray we each will lay aside the stale communion we have grown accustomed to and enter into the intimate, personal communion that Jesus desires we experience with Him.

–Laura

The year was 1999. John and I were home from the mission field for a few months. During that time, we attended a conference, and during that conference one of the speakers asked us to close our eyes, to picture Jesus however we saw Him, and to visualize Him looking us in the eyes and saying “I love you.”  I closed my eyes, I visualized Jesus the way I picture Him, but I could not get myself “one on one” with Jesus. In my vision, I was part of a multitude and Jesus was telling all of us collectively that He loves us. When that moment in the conference was over, I leaned over to John and asked him, “Was that hard for you?” He said no. I was deeply disturbed and knew that I had some work to do around knowing that Jesus loves me. Yes, He loves all of us. But He also loves each of us.  We have to know that. We have to know that. We have to KNOW that.

I began by asking God to show me, to teach me. I had a part to play in this too–to believe that what He says is true and to replace lies with truth. As I began to believe and let myself experience that He loves ME, my entire relationship with Him began to change. All of a sudden, I didn’t have a quiet time out of duty, but I couldn’t (and still can’t) wait to get away with Jesus one on one. Prayer wasn’t a before meals and before bed habit, it became a life-line, an ongoing conversation, a joy. Loving others wasn’t a forced “supposed” to, it became an outflow of His love flowing through me. Serving in the church and elsewhere wasn’t an obligation or a “have-to”, but became weightless–an honor, a privilege, a divine partnership.

ALL of the abundant life that Jesus promises hinges on us knowing that we are loved individually, and the natural response to that love is love.

I continually ask Him to help me understand it, to grasp it more deeply. Laura referred to Ephesians 3:16-19 in her writing  ^“I pray that from his glorious, unlimited resources he will empower you with inner strength through his Spirit. Then Christ will make his home in your hearts as you trust in him. Your roots will grow down into God’s love and keep you strong. And may you have the power to understand, as all God’s people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep his love is. May you experience the love of Christ, though it is too great to understand fully. THEN you will be made complete with all the fullness of life and power that comes from God.”  

In the last month I have heard these verses from four different, unrelated speakers, and the “how wide, how long, how high, and how deep” part was the K-Love verse of the day not too long ago. God is speaking loudly to His bride—“Please, Church, get this! I LOVE you. I LOVE you, I LOVE you.”

So, when I came upon  the paragraph in Ann Voskamp’s book The Broken Way, about the cup that Christ offers being a marriage proposal, I had to know more.   I have been blown away by what I learned, by what I shared. How could any of us settle for “religion” when Jesus himself has proposed to us?  Oh– I pray that we get it!  There is no one like Him, no love like His, and nothing else in all of creation has the power to transform my life, your life, and this world. Do you believe it? Do you believe that He loves YOU?

Jesus says to you–you the individual you– I Jesus, take you from this day forward to love you, to comfort you, to honor and keep you, for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, and forsaking all others be faithful to you as long as we both shall live. Will you accept my offer, will you accept my life and give me your life, your love, your faithfulness in return?”

What will your response be?

–Luanne