The Loss

Philippians 3 But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For His sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish in order that I may gain Christ and be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith, that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and may share in His suffering becoming like Him in His death that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead.

How do you measure your worth? Is it found in what you possess or in who you belong to? Is your focus on accumulating treasures on earth or are you concentrating on sending them ahead of you into eternity? Would we be willing to lose everything to gain Christ and to count all that we have as rubbish compared to being conformed to His likeness by the death of our selves.

For the last couple of weeks Ken and I have had the opportunity to experience a life very different from our own. For the second time in two weeks we are in the Carolinas with Ken's work. Last week we spent 3 days and 2 nights in a luxury golfing community and this week we have been 3 days and 2 nights at the Hilton Hotel. I have found that it takes very little exposure to wealth for me to want a lot of it.

After all, who wouldn't want to live in a gated community in a multimillion dollar home, play golf all the time, drive a convertible Mercedes down to the marina to launch your yacht in beautiful South Carolina? Who wouldn't want to have the very best of everything including shopping and lifestyle accommodations?

I am beginning to think that I wouldn't. Not really. In these last two weeks I have imagined what my life would be like if I really lived this life instead of just pretending to. And what I found is that I don't like my behavior as much. It's not quite as happy and content as I thought. My peace is not what it should be. Wanna know why? My focus is turned to the earthy. The temporary. And in doing so it has tuned, just a little, from Christ. I took less time out of my day to think about Him. To talk to Him. To worship Him. To read His words of life. I wasn't really doing anything sinful, just more shopping, more eating out, more sightseeing. But suddenly I find that I might just get used to this.

Maybe that is why God made me lowly. Because He knew that if I had a whole lot, I might forget who supplied it.

So this morning I am making a different choice. I am remembering Him, the Rock from which I was hewn. I will remember my first love. My desire. My Beloved. For nothing on earth can compare with knowing Him. Everything else can be counted as loss, rubbish to me this morning.

That I may know Him and power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His suffering becoming like Him in His death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead.

But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.

The Hour

Matthew 24 But concerning that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only. For as were the days of Noah, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day when Noah entered the ark, and they were unaware until the flood came and swept them all way, so will be the coming of the Son of Man...Therefore, stay awake, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming. But know this, that if the master of the house had known in what part of the night that the thief was coming, he would have stayed awake and would not have let his house be broken into. Therefore, you also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect.

Are you ready? Are you sure?

If Satan cannot convince us that the coming of the Lord is a lie, then the next best thing is to convince us that it is not happening today.

Eat. Drink. Be merry.

It is the American dream. Life. Liberty. The pursuit of happiness. It is our right as citizens of this country. But is it Scriptural? Is it the attitude of Christ in the life of a believer?

So today I must ask myself...Do you believe this? And does your life reflect it? Ouch.

The truth is that if I really believed that Jesus could come at any moment today and that there are people that I know and love that would spend an eternity in hell, that this would be a very different day. I would be asking the question to everyone...Are you ready? Are you sure?

But do we really believe?

Luke 12 The land of a rich man produced plentifully, and he thought to himself, What shall I do, for I have nowhere to store my crops? And he said, I will do this: I will tear down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I will say to my soul, Soul, you have ample goods laid up for may years; relax, eat, drink, be merry. But God said to him, Fool! This night your soul is required of you, and the things you have prepared, whose will they be? So is the one who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich towards God.

Stay dressed for action and keep your lamps burning, and be like men who are waiting for their master to come home from the wedding feast, so that they may open the door to him at once when he comes and knocks. Blessed are those servants whom the master finds awake when he comes. Truly I say to you, he will dress himself for service and have them recline at the table, and he will come and serve them. If he comes in the second watch, or in the third, and finds them awake, blessed are those servants.

Awake, O sleeper and arise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.

II Peter 3 Since all of these things are thus to be dissolved, what sort of people ought you to be in lives of holiness and godliness, waiting for and hastening to the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be set on fire and dissolved, and the heavenly bodies will melt as they burn! But according to His promise we are waiting for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells.

So....Are you ready? Are you sure?

The Place Prepared

Matthew 26 Now on the first day of Unleavened Bread the disciples came to Jesus saying, Where will You have us prepare for You to eat the Passover? He said, Go into the city to a certain man and say to him, The Teacher says, My time is at hand. I will keep the Passover at your house with my disciples.

Will you be prepared to serve Him when He calls you with a need?

What an awesome honor. The God of all the universe, the Messiah of the entire world, the Lord of Hosts, needs a place in your home to rest and have His last meal with His friends before He suffers. For you. For me.

One last peaceful meal. One last chance to share His heart. One last happy memory to sustain the Lamb of God through the torture to come. The wine. The bread. And the cup of suffering. Before the agony of the cross.

Who was this man who held a room in preparation for the Son of God. A place prepared. Waiting for the time when it's Master would have need of it. A common room. An uncommon purpose.

My time is at hand. I will keep the Passover at your house.

The last time that the Passover Lamb would need to be sacrificed for the sin of the people. This time it would finally be sufficient to pay the debt. A perfect Lamb. Without spot or blemish. Pleasing and acceptable to the Father.

Do you have a place in your life that is prepared for your Master? Is it clean and swept and ready for his use? Is it waiting for the time when He will have need of it?

He is calling to us. He is calling to you.

Do you have the room prepared?

The Darkness

John 11 After saying these things He said to them, Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I go to waken Him.

Jesus alone has the power to waken us from sleep.

Just as God spoke, Let there be light and there was, He speaks to our hearts and light shines in. Before Jesus came to me, my entire life was lived in the darkness. My soul, my heart, my thinking, my habits. It was not so much that I chose this, but that I was unable to produce light on my own. We are in darkness until the light of Christ shines forth in us. And how would we recognize light unless we had walked in darkness?

The Bible says that when Jesus learned that Lazarus was ill, He stayed two days longer before returning to Bethany.

Why?

Then Jesus told them plainly, Lazarus has died, and for your sake I am glad that I was not here, so that you my believe.

This is a hard concept. Was darkness allowed in my life so that when Jesus shined His light into my life, others could see and God would be glorified? I believe that it was for this purpose. And sometimes I just cannot tolerate that thought. It is hard to understand. A loving God allowing tragedy in our lives so that it might allow Him to show Himself strong in us.

Maybe it is this...we can't see the final outcome and He can. We live in the here and now and He lives in the everlasting.

Lord, if You had been here, my brother would not have died.

Jesus said to her, I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in Me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in Me shall never die.

Do you believe this?

I do. I believe that bad things happen to good people. Life is hard. Sometimes tragic. I also believe that God is in control and that He is always good. I believe there is coming a day when He will finally and for all time, set things right.

The man who had died came out....Jesus said to them, Unbind him, and let him go.

The Shepherd

II Samuel 7 Now, therefore, thus shall you say to My servant David, Thus says the Lord of hosts, I took you from the pasture, from following the sheep, that you should be prince over My people Israel. And I have been with you wherever you went and have cut off all your enemies from before you. And I will make for you a great name, like the name of the great ones of the earth. And I will appoint a place for My people Israel and will plant them, so that they may dwell in their own place and be disturbed no more. And violent men shall afflict them no more, as formerly, from the time that I appointed judges over My people Israel. And I will give you rest from all your enemies. Moreover, the Lord declares to you that the Lord will make you a house.

Do you remember what your life was like when God found you?

I took you from the pasture, from following the sheep.

Not leading or shepherding. Following.

I was thinking about my life as I read these verses. Our children are grown and doing so well. They are spending time together and becoming such great friends. Ken and I have a great marriage and a wonderful home. We travel and have a awesome life. Things are good. And maybe that is why these verses mean so much to me. There was a time when my life was very different than it is now. A world away from this. It was so hard. Heartbreaking.

And that is what God did for me. He stepped into my life and changed everything. My career. My family. My home. My life.

I would have thought that I had little in common with David, the King of Israel. But maybe we all have something in common as believers. We are redeemed by God. We are changed by knowing Him. We are saved from our old lives; from our old habits; from our old way of thinking. He takes us from the pasture, from following the sheep and builds for us a house.

Father, thank You for finding us. Where we are. How we are. And thank for you loving us enough not to leave us that way.

The Timing

Esther 4 And who knows whether you have not come to the kingdom for such a time as this?

Timing is everything.

It is amazing to me how God orchestrates the timing of my life. Perfectly. For his glory and for His purpose. When we left California in April and drove home to Tennessee, I had no idea what God had in store for me this summer. So much has happened, not only in our family, but in us. So many works of reconciliation. So much going on with our kids. One child got married, one got engaged, one bought a house. So much has happened with this blog and with the possibility of it being put into print. The trip to Israel and the hope of a future with that work. All a part of God's timing for me. For us. Divine appointments. Interventions of God's will on my own. God has so interrupted my life and, like always, improved it immensely.

How could I have imagined the wonderful works that the Lord would accomplish? He is always more than I expect. More than I deserve. More than I can imagine.

Today, we are in North Carolina, by the sea. It is beautiful. As I sit looking out at the changing leaves, the changing season, I wonder what God has in store for me next. Is this season of my life over as well? When we were driving home in April, spring was coming to life in the south and it was a beautiful thing to witness. It was as if I was seeing life come into being. I was unaware that life was awakening inside of me. Blooming. Blossoming life fed by the water of the Holy Spirit. This blog has been a documentary of sorts of the awakening of God in my life. It has allowed others to glimpse into the summer of my Pentecost. Life from death. Hope awakening.

Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.

As the world prepares to sleep for the winter my prayer for you and for me is that Christ would awaken in our hearts. Fresh. New. A flaming fire. An unquenchable thirst. A longing. May we never be satisfied with just being saved from sin. I want all of Him. A consuming passion for His presence. A never ending longing for the Word. A living, breathing passion for the work of the Holy Spirit. Awaken in us Lord. Stir us up in our spirits. Fan into flame the spark that was placed in us at our salvation. Pentecost, Father.

The light of Israel will become a fire and His Holy One a flame.

For the Lord your God is a consuming fire.

The Room

Matthew 23 Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you clean the outside of the cup and the plate, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence.

At the beginning of the week I started a new project. I love new projects.

I emptied out the office where I am writing. I am turning it into a prayer room. A total makeover. I painted the entire room, hung new shelving and bought new furniture. I framed pictures from Israel and everything is looking fantastic. It is beautiful. I worked so hard all week to get it done as quickly as I could so I could get back to writing.

In fact, I worked so hard that I really didn't have much time for anything else. I found myself distracted during our Bible study this week; not really paying attention. Anxious to get to work so that I could get finished and enjoy my new space. After a couple of days I noticed that my prayers felt kind of flat and that when I would try to write it just felt forced so I would put it away thinking that I would pick it up later when the room was done. I attributed all this to being out of sorts since my place of quiet time with the Lord was under construction. I felt sure that when everything was back to normal that everything would be back to normal.

Yesterday the room was finished enough that I was able to move back into it. It looks great and I was so excited.

I sat down to write and....nothing. I read my Bible for a while; I prayed. Nothing. I thought, maybe I just need to worship, so I did. I wrote God a note about how awesome He is. I meditated on His goodness. I went to church today and, still, nothing from the Lord.

Until I read these verses. Scribes. Pharisees. Hypocrites. This can't be for me, can it? Lord I love you. I read, I pray, I worship. Not me, Lord.

And so He speaks....The writing was a gift Connie. A gift for my beloved one who was content to sit and listen. Who wanted ME. First. Foremost and above all. Do you still? Did I ask for a new prayer room? Did you even notice that I had gone as you breezed by Me every day? How long did it take for you to realize My absence? Two days? Three?

Oh Father. I am so sorry. And so foolish. How could I prepare a room for You while ignoring my relationship with You? You dwell in my heart, in my soul. Not in a room made with hands.

The prayer room is beautiful. And God desires good things for His children. Nothing wrong with that. But my heart was in the wrong place. My relationship with Him is above all things. It has to be my priority. Hearing from Him has to be my greatest desire. He is my portion. He is my prize. Not a room, a relationship.

I am writing again, obviously, but only after the Lord confronted me with these verses. And I agreed with Him. My cup looked pretty on the outside but the insides were full of greed and self-indulgence.