in the love of Christ

I wear jeans to church. I wear dressess and khakis to church. I wear my scrubs to church. You would think that after a certain amount of time people would stop caring so much about the way people prepare their outsides for a church service and... well not care at all instead. I was going to say that maybe they should care about how people prepare their inside but I can tell you one thing...it isn't any of anyone's business. (Maybe I am a little fired up...can you tell?) Jesus rebuked the pharisees for only cleaning the outside of the cup and ignoring the inside and we have not learned our lesson. If I spend more time preparing my makeup and outfit for the day, church day or work day or school day or whatever, than I do spending time learning what the Lord has for me that day or in prayer with Him, then I have not got my priorities straight. I am not coming up with an excuse to be lazy. I am not condemning anyone for looking nice on Sunday morning, I try as often as ...

This lesson of obedience continues to challenge me, specifically self preservation over obedience.   Jeremiah 42, a few of the remnant of Israel come to Jeremiah and beg him to seek Gods word for them. They seem earnest in their seeking God's will. They ask, "May the Lord be a true and faithful witness against us if we do not act in accordance with everything the Lord your God sends you to tell us. Whether it is favorable or unfavorable, we will obey the Lord our God, to whom we are sending you, so that it will go well with us, for we will obey the Lord our God." (Jeremiah 42:5, 6 NIV). They seem so real about it all!  And what happens: the unfavorable choice in their eyes is what is chosen. God asks them to stay where they are, in the land they are being mistreated in by the Babylonians, a land of war, instead of going to Egypt where there is no fighting and life would be easier. The irony of Egypt being their desire is strong, but moving on.  God says, "Indeed, a...

Yep. That is what I am hearing , I say to myself. No broom is gently cleaning the window’s screen. No water is running through the water heater. It is the leaves. The leaves are rustling, wafting that scent, the clean one that opens rooms and forces blood through the body. It is more than alarming. To notice it, to feel it in the ears causes such deep emotion, pure elation in that there is something happening to something apart from myself and it is lively, renewing, volatile. Sitting on the couch, reviewing some work, my head turned sharply because I thought I heard something. I look back down and realized I nearly missed it. As if I had been wrong, I assured myself that there was nothing there. But there was! There was something there just not something present enough to cause physical fear or alarm. It was just the leaves , I thought to myself. Just the leaves! Who am I? Close your eyes, woman, and take your mind off these trivial words. All they have taught you is to forge...

A few months ago, I heard one of our pastor's say something that I may have heard before but never hit me until that moment. He asked the congregation after a lengthy story, "What can we do in return?". Now I don't really remember the story very well and I can't tell you what lead up to this point but most of the congregations said something along the lines of "Commit to Him" or "Praise Him". That is what pastor Jamie knew we would all say. He stopped and said, "No. We surrender." The bottom line in that moment: our culture around here has gotten so involved in how committed we are to God when our commitment will never be enough. I read Jeremiah 33 yesterday and man did I hear God speaking loud and clear (note: when I say I read I really mean I listened on my Holy Bible app so it did kind of sound like God speaking loud and clear). The chapter is God telling Jeremiah about what a prostitute Israel has been. He says that the peopl...

Now that word: obedience.  It is a much stronger word than it appears. Those nine letters mean so much, especially to my spiritual health.  Jeremiah, a prophet of old testament Israel was a great man. I read about all the ways he stood for Gods word and was crushed by the people of Israel.  He truly persevered in a time that it was not such a good thing, socially, to be him. More than a few times he has to flee for his life, get beaten up by people who are supposed to care for him and prophesy the Word of God, though it went against what would please his listeners.  It surely did not help that many other prophets were around prophesying some easy-listening to their crowds.  Jeremiah's prophesies were often things that the Israelites most definitely did not want to hear.  He prophesied about lengthy occupation by the Babylonians as well as multiple full scale destructions of Jerusalem.  He was feared and abused for that. God continued to speak through him, as hard as it made his...