Who Keeps Moving My stuff? Oooooooh...Me

A few weeks ago at work, I was listening to some messages on Youtube, and I just let it go to the next one…the next one…then I found myself listening to a Biblical teacher, Dr John Barnett, and he explained something that got my attention. He said, “I used to teach a youth group, and something that I noticed is most people think of idols as just something that we love more than Jesus. But imagine we have a shelf of a couple of levels, and you put things on it in your life that matter to you. First of all, Jesus goes right up on the top shelf. People would say, ‘See, look, I have Jesus up there and I’m quite excited about that.’ Then they put things on other shelves that are important, but life happens and then there are lots of things and some are just making their way up there with Him on the top shelf. Not intentionally to compete with Him, but because they are life. They are important to us. Car, girlfriend, bank account, phone, electronics!! It’s not that they are more important than Jesus, it’s that they become just as important.”

In life, it’s so incredibly easy to get caught up in doing things, important things, sometimes even ministry things, and missing out on the relationship we have in Christ. In such small movements, and maybe even unnoticeable priority shifts, things on our lower shelves get shifted up higher and higher until Jesus is in a crowded area with a lot of our stuff. I can assure you that it’s tough to reflect Christ in our lives when there’s so much sharing the same place as Jesus in our lives. “Who put that up there?!! Oh… me.”

Here’s an interesting way to look at the shelf explanation. I wonder what Jesus’ shelf looked like during His ministry. I’m sure God the Father was on the top shelf and second shelf were people. Us! In Matthew 26:39 “He went a little farther and fell on His face, and prayed, saying, “O My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as You will.”  Jesus’ highest priority was the Will of His Father and not his own. I would think that this should be our highest importance in our lives. “Jesus, Your will, not mine.”

I have noticed in my journey from where I was in life, as I walk in a relationship with Jesus, that all the things I could move from one shelf to another shelf are moving down as I listen to and follow Jesus. In other words, things in my life are not as important as I thought they were. God has been working on me in areas of priorities in finances, possessions, relationships…family. They are not drifting away; it’s just that I’m not trying to make Jesus share the importance of things. He’s at the top as our Savior should be. And maybe I need to clear my top shelf of my stuff for Him and only Him.

Jesus must increase, but I must decrease. (I think I’ve heard that before!)

—Brian Rainey

Sound Your Trumpet!

Playing an instrument in a band can be wonderful, exhilarating, intimidating and stretching.  Every musician has their own part in order to support their instrumental section. The woodwind section consisting of the flutes and reed instruments plays a large part in a  band. The percussion section, of course, are usually the loudest instruments heard, due to the fact that they are largely responsible to keep the beat or the tempo of the song. And finally, there is the brass section, in which I played the baritone horn in high school. It was quite the adventure getting into that band! I had played the piano since the age of four, but I had never seen them actually wheel a piano around on a flatbed during the high school football halftime show! So therefore I needed to learn another instrument that I could play in the high school band. I consulted my very talented cousin Carol. She played everything! She taught me to play the baritone horn, which in fact has the same fingering as the trumpet, so I learned two instruments while only learning one!! I loved it! Due to Carol’s gift for teaching, I was able to go ahead and make first chair baritone! Whoo Hoo!! 

I was recently thinking about the trumpet, and it reminded me of the incredible book in the Bible called Nehemiah. It’s about a Jewish man named Nehemiah who was called by God to rebuild the wall of Jerusalem. Nehemiah gathered workers together in order to accomplish the task at hand. Whoever felt that God Himself was leading them to help in the massive project joined him. In groups, they all focused on specific areas of the wall, so they were very spread out. The wall was huge, so the distance between the workers created a vulnerability. The officials of the territory were not in favor of God’s people accomplishing the project, so they would frequently interfere with any type of distraction possible. Other times there would be other trouble that would ensue. Here is what the passage from Nehemiah says:

13-14 So I stationed armed guards at the most vulnerable places of the wall and assigned people by families with their swords, lances, and bows. After looking things over I stood up and spoke to the nobles, officials, and everyone else: “Don’t be afraid of them. Put your minds on the Master, great and awesome, and then fight for your brothers, your sons, your daughters, your wives, and your homes.”

15-18 Our enemies learned that we knew all about their plan and that God had frustrated it. And we went back to the wall and went to work. From then on half of my young men worked while the other half stood guard with lances, shields, bows, and mail armor. Military officers served as backup for everyone in Judah who was at work rebuilding the wall. The common laborers held a tool in one hand and a spear in the other. Each of the builders had a sword strapped to his side as he worked. I kept the trumpeter at my side to sound the alert.

19-20 Then I spoke to the nobles and officials and everyone else: “There’s a lot of work going on and we are spread out all along the wall, separated from each other. When you hear the trumpet call, join us there; our God will fight for us.”

This passage points  to something that I highly value: we need each other in order to accomplish the purposes to which God has called us. What has become a normal part of my life is this. I have put together, what I call, a Prayer Team. I find when I go through everyday life, I frequently come upon situations that cause me to feel very vulnerable. Whether it be a medical situation surrounding labs, a procedure or new condition.  Or, it may be a family crisis where I am desperate for God’s deliverance. I BLOW MY TRUMPET!!!!!! Just like they did on the wall of Jerusalem. My “trumpet” is an email, informing my team of the details of what is going on, what I need them to pray for and thanking them for supporting me. I know that God hears the prayers of the saints. The Bible says :

James 5:16 

Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective.

My challenge for you is this. Do you have a Prayer Team of people that you KNOW will be consistently praying for you? Are you willing to SOUND YOUR TRUMPET and ask for help, or are you trying to live in a form of isolation and not bother anyone with your problems? I would encourage you to look at the book of Nehemiah and decide for yourself. Maybe it’s time for you to form a prayer team and learn to play the “trumpet” too! 

Blessings Friends,

Lois Robinson

How Big?

My sweet almost-5 Carter found two dead bugs on a window- sill. He brought them to me.

“Look, Mom-Mom! Look at their little legs! Aren’t they cute? Awwwww … They’re so cute, Mom-Mom!”

I’m not too fond of bugs, dead or alive, but he loved them, and wanted to keep them, so I of course allowed him to keep them on my window- sill. He was happy.

“They’re all dead! Will they go to heaven?” I sincerely hoped not, but I allowed as how they were made by God and God would decide. That satisfied him, and he came back several times to see them.

But I was left thinking about the fact that God had indeed made them, and had given them life as only He is able to do. Their tiny legs (so cute to Carter), and their beautifully designed under-wings, and their unique digestive system, and their tiny, tiny eyes  ----  all this for a lifespan of just a few days, to end up a treasure on a little boy’s window- sill.

And then I thought about the eggs they developed from, and how all of God’s creatures grew from eggs. And I was again overwhelmed by the Mind that designed the eggs and wrote within them all of the instructions on how to grow and what to be. I thought about our DNA and our brains and how there are parts of our bodies, and our brains, which we still don’t understand.

I have long loved thinking about what fun it must have been for Jesus to pick colors for all the birds, and for all the flowers, and animals, and everything else on this glorious earth He made for us to enjoy.

And I thought about that question, “How big is your God?”

Our God, who spoke into being all the intricacies of our human bodies, and the three stomachs a cow needs, and the way our earth moves around the sun; how can we belittle Him?

How can we ever doubt him, or think we can ever have a problem too big for Him to handle? Here we are, mere created creatures who because of His love for us have been given the fantastic privilege of being able to talk, actually TALK, to the Being who designed and created not only us but so much more than we can even begin to understand!

O Christians, trust Him! He is so completely, totally able! I know that sometimes the answers don’t come when we think they should, and may not be the answers we wanted, but God is there, seeing everything, forgiving everything and loving you more than you have ever been loved.

HOW BIG IS YOUR GOD?

—Norma Stockton

A Story of Jesus in the Midst of Lingering, Deep-Seated Disorder

Later on there was a Jewish festival (feast) for which Jesus went up to Jerusalem.

Now there is in Jerusalem a pool near the Sheep Gate. This pool in the Hebrew is called Bethesda, having five porches (alcoves, colonnades, doorways).

In these lay a great number of sick folk—some blind, some crippled, and some paralyzed (shriveled up)—waiting for the bubbling up of the water.

For an angel of the Lord went down at appointed seasons into the pool and moved and stirred up the water; whoever then first, after the stirring up of the water, stepped in was cured of whatever disease with which he was afflicted.

There was a certain man there who had suffered with a deep-seated and lingering disorder for thirty-eight years.

When Jesus noticed him lying there [helpless], knowing that he had already been a long time in that condition, He said to him, Do you want to become well? [Are you really in earnest about getting well?]

The invalid answered, Sir, I have nobody when the water is moving to put me into the pool; but while I am trying to come [into it] myself, somebody else steps down ahead of me.

Jesus said to him, Get up! Pick up your bed (sleeping pad) and walk!

Instantly the man became well and recovered his strength and picked up his bed and walked. But that happened on the Sabbath.

So the Jews kept saying to the man who had been healed, It is the Sabbath, and you have no right to pick up your bed [it is not lawful].

He answered them, The Man Who healed me and gave me back my strength, He Himself said to me, Pick up your bed and walk!

John 5

This story about Jesus and a man with a ‘lingering’ disorder keeps knocking around in my brain these days. I’m not quite sure why. But here are a couple of thoughts that have stood out to me…and maybe they’ll start knocking around in your mind, too.

This guy had something that had plagued him his whole life.

The translation I’m using describes it as ‘lingering’ and ‘deep-seated.’

It also says that others around him were ‘blind,’ ‘crippled,’ ‘paralyzed,’ and ‘shriveled up.’

They were all waiting for a system for how to get well…and it was a limited system. There was space for only a few, and there was not space for this man. The system limited him for getting well, getting free, getting healed of his deep-seated disorder. It wasn’t powerful enough to help with the depth of what he was carrying. And the system wasn’t strong enough to deal with the scope of debilitating needs all around.

He couldn’t get set free by the system or by the pattern of what everyone else was doing.

But it strikes me very deeply the way that he DID get set free, that he got healed: he came face-to-face with the person of Jesus. Jesus didn’t do any fancy system or pattern of special things. He Himself just made this guy well. It was Jesus. It was being in His presence. It was an encounter with Jesus. It was the merciful, powerful, full-of-ability-and-capacity-choice of Jesus, a real person.

I don’t have much to say besides that story keeps coming to my mind.

Are there ways you tend to turn to a system to heal you, to save you, to make you well? Are there ways you’re ’waiting in line’ for your healing and there’s not really space for you in the system? I know for me I tend towards looking to a system for what I need because it’s more controllable, I can understand it and explain it more easily. If you look further in the passage, this healed man received a lot of grief about his healing because he couldn’t explain it in the current rules of what was acceptable.

I’d like to encourage you to look to Person of Jesus, look to His very real Presence for the very real needs that you carry today. For the things that you’ve carried for a long time, the things that are deep-seated and lingering, what if Jesus is right in the midst of all the people, asking you if you really want to get well? Your reality probably is that you are most likely surrounded by people who genuinely are crippled, who are blind, who are paralyzed, and shriveled up on the inside, and they, as well, need you to blaze a trail away from waiting for the ‘pool to get stirred,’ and to turn to the Person of Jesus…and to show them the way, too.

My guess is that He fully sees you, in all that you have experienced and all that you are experiencing, and His eyes are full of mercy and capacity to heal.

—Sarah Howard

Are Your Words Improving Your Friendships?

Relationships require work and lots of grace. This week I want to share a blog authored by Paul Tripp. In his blog, Paul offers to us wise suggestions to improve our friendships with others. Friendships can be sometimes frustrating and other times they can be life-giving. So this week, let us consider how to improve the gift of friendships we may have in our lives. Click here to wisely improve your friendships.

—Diego Cuartas