Category: Sharing the Gospel

Snowy, Slushy, Salty Shoes

02/04/2014Gospel, Sharing the Gospel, Spiritual Walk, , , , 4 Comments

I have a frisnowBootsFeb2014aend who is a beautiful, influential, charming, and well-thought of woman. She is godly, respected and many women look up to her.

Recently she and I attended an event on a snowy evening. When we walked into our hostess’ home, our shoes were snowy, slushy and salty. My friend quickly grabbed a roll of paper towels and a trash bag and as each woman arrived she wiped the mess off every shoe.

Those of us having our shoes wiped clean felt somewhat uncomfortable. In our eyes, the work of wiping shoes seemed far beneath this woman.  While it was difficult to accept her service, it was sweet to witness her servant’s heart. My friend embodied Jesus’ charge to believers:

“Jesus called the Twelve and said, ‘If anyone wants to be first, he must be the very last, and the servant of all.’” – Mark 9:35 NIV

Jesus didn’t just teach this truth, He lived it. Our Lord Jesus Christ, stepped out of heaven, leaving the glory of God, the place where He is continually worshiped and adored as God, and lived in a human body to serve others even unto death.

Jesus did this. Jesus, the Alpha and the Omega, the One who is, and who was, and who is to come, the Almighty, humbled himself and became the servant of all.

“…made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness… he humbled himself and became obedient to death – even death on a cross!” – Philippians 2:7-8

Jesus’ attitude was selfless obedience. He put human beings above Himself, and He put obedience to the Father above all. Jesus, God the Son, did not consider His equality with God the Father as something that He had to grasp with a tight fist. Jesus set His equality aside for you and for me. He died to cleanse and save us.

We can’t clean ourselves up; we can’t remove the muck and the mud of sin’s filth from our hearts. Our self effort is like trying to wipe our slushy shoes off with a dirty rag: we simply spread the filth around. We need the Servant to wash us clean.

When we accept Christ’s sacrifice on our behalf, our hearts are washed clean by His blood. The blood of Jesus wipes the sin away and secures God’s forgiveness. He never holds our sins against us again. The stain of sin is permanently removed.

Christ’s cleansing assures our salvation.

We are clean, but we live in a dirty world. And, sometimes we track the filth of the world into our lives, our homes and our ministries. It’s difficult to serve God and His people when our hearts are dirtied up with selfishness, and pride.

Thankfully, Jesus’ blood continues to cleanse, and removes the mess of selfishness and pride when it is confessed.

Is there a place of service that you’ve dismissed because you thought it was beneath you? Maybe it seemed like wiping slushy shoes? Would you reconsider as you take into account Jesus’ attitude toward serving you?

Living In the Present Tense

01/31/2014contentment, Death Grief and Mourning, Gospel, Sharing the Gospel, , , , , , , , 21 Comments

dadnboys1_30_2014a 

Dad would’ve loved this record-breaking winter. Not that he enjoyed the cold and snow, but he was always up for a challenge.

He would have gone out every day just to prove he could. Level 3 snow emergency – ha! That wouldn’t keep him parked. -40° wind chill – ha! That just meant putting on the lined jacket.

Then he’d call to tell me about the brutal cold, the deep snow, how many cars he’d seen in the ditch, how much he slid around, and how well he handled the icy slick roads. And if he fell on the ice, he’d tell me about that, too.

That was the “old normal”… knowing dad would be pushing the limit, and waiting for the phone to ring in the evening so he could tell all about it.

The “new normal” is talking about dad in the past tense. The “new normal” is not getting a call from him. The “new normal” is realizing the finality of death.

That may be our new normal, but it surely isn’t dad’s!

What is dad’s “new normal”? Can it even be called “normal”? Is there anything “normal” about being in the visible presence of Jesus every moment? Of continual praise? Of ceaseless joy? Of pure love? Of a sinless existence? Can we begin to imagine? I don’t think so…

“No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him” – 1 Corinthians 2:9

What do we know about heaven? We know it’s real. We know that Jesus is there. We know that those who trust in Him will be with Him in heaven when they leave their physical bodies.

“…as long as we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord” – 2 Corinthians 5:8 NIV

“I desire to depart and be with Christ, which is better by far” – Philippians 1:23 NIV

We know that we will recognize each other. We know we don’t become angels. We know we remain ourselves.

Can we be sure that we will go to heaven? Yes! The glorious truth is that when we trust our salvation entirely to Jesus and the work He accomplished on the cross, our eternity is secure.

Trusting Jesus means we recognize that it is not about how good we are, but about how bad we are. We must admit that there is nothing good in us. Nothing. Not 80%, not 50%, not 10%, but 0%. We ask Jesus to save us from the sin that enslaves us 100%. We ask Him to enter into our person and live His life through us. We surrender to Him, and then we are saved. From that moment on, nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus. It is God who saves us, secures our salvation, and brings us to heaven.

“To him who is able to keep you from falling and to present you before his glorious presence without fault and with great joy…” – Jude 24, NIV

Dad would’ve loved this winter… but I’m sure it can’t touch how much he loves the Springtime of eternity!

dadnboys1_30_2014b

“The Mom Award”

01/24/2014Sharing the Gospel, Spiritual Growth, Spiritual Walk, , , , , , , 16 Comments

If you’re a mom, you’ve probably given yourself one or more, “Mom Awards”. You know the ones I mean: “Worst Mom of the Hour/Day/Week/Month/Year or Decade”; and the most despised: “Worst Mom of the Century”.

I have a closet full! There are days when I received all of them in one afternoon.

I’ll never forget one of the “Worst Mom” awards I received… I gave it to myself the winter before this family photo was taken.

marcia1986

In my defense… it was winter, and it’s not easy being a mom of preschoolers cooped up in the house for days. Danny had developed a habit of masterfully pushing Bobby down every time he saw Bobby standing still. I warned Danny: If you do that again, I’m going to push you!

Danny pushed. Bobby fell and started crying. I gave Danny the “you’re in for it now” look!

Immediately, Danny started to quickly back away, in stocking feet on a vinyl floor. I reached toward him, he lost his balance, slipped, fell and hit his head on the cabinet. He started crying. Bobby was still crying. And I sat down beside them, crying.

That night, sitting between Dan’s bed and Bob’s crib, still crying, I wrote them both a letter of apology in case they ever recalled this horrible day in therapy as adults. I still have the letters. Just in case.

There, it’s out there. I’m the worst mom ever. And, I have more stories I could tell…..

Guilt? Yes! Feeling like a failure? Yes! Like King David, I cried out to the Lord:

“My guilt overwhelms me – it is a burden too heavy to bear. My wounds fester and stink because of my foolish sins. I am bent over and racked with pain. All day long I walk around filled with grief.” – Psalm 38:4-6 NLT

There is no way to remove the guilt. We may try to cover over it with kind acts – I probably made cookies for them later on, or let them watch their favorite TV show. I may have tried to ease my conscience by telling myself I was doing my best to be a good mom. I had to keep my word. I had to teach Danny right behavior. It was just a little bump. Barely nothing. And surely nothing in the grand scheme of things.  And, while all of that was true, my heart ached because I had hurt my child by my own hand.

There was only one way to remove the guilt: Come to Jesus and confess the sin.

If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. – 1 John 1:9NIV

“For our guilty consciences have been sprinkled with Christ’s blood to make us clean…” – Hebrews 10:22 NLT

As a mom I’ve gotten really good, I think, at asking for forgiveness, both from the Lord and from the boys. Sometimes now, the boys will laugh at me when I bring up long ago events and ask for their forgiveness. It is worth the laughter because I love to dance in the freedom that comes with forgiveness.

MarciaSonsWeddingDance


Are You Hungry?

01/10/2014Holidays, Sharing the Gospel, , 16 Comments

2013 Christmas

Do you have photos from Christmas that are similar to these? Oh, how yummy all that food was two weeks ago! But, now it’s January, and just about everyone I know is dieting, myself included!

You can relax, this is not about dieting — I wouldn’t touch that topic with a 10-foot chocolate-covered pretzel rod.  But it is about food… and promises.

I will suggest, though, that food issues are not new to humanity. Remember Adam and Eve? Talk about a food issue! Just one bite and we’re still working that one off.

And, then there’s Esau who, in Genesis 25:27-34, bought a bowl of soup in exchange for his birthright. Esau looked at his immediate circumstances and decided a bowl of soup was more valuable than God’s promises. Because Esau’s focus was on his immediate hunger, he didn’t see any value in God’s Word. For Esau, inheriting the promises was like inheriting the wind.

It’s interesting that God created humans to need food. I wonder if God intended for us to experience physical hunger so that we might understand spiritual hunger and recognize our need for spiritual food.

Jesus says: “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.” Matthew 5:6 – NIV

Have you ever experienced such a strong desire for righteousness? I think most of us have because we have no righteousness of our own. That bowl is empty. We can try with every ounce of our being to “be good”, but we know we can’t be “good enough” to fill the empty bowl within us.  We know there’s always more that we could and should be doing.

In our heart of hearts, we know we can’t ever measure up to God’s standard of perfection. We know that we are far from perfect and we can’t get right with God. On our own, we are doomed; starving and parched for a righteousness that is beyond our reach.

But what about the promise that if we hunger and thirst for righteousness, we will be filled?

Jesus says: “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry again. Whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.” – John 6:35 NLT

“Coming to Jesus” means admitting that you are empty, that you can’t satisfy God’s demand for holiness and that only Jesus can. Jesus is the Food that satisfies our deepest craving: our spiritual hunger and thirst for righteousness.

This is a promise God has given us, just like the promises He gave to Abraham that were handed down to Esau. Like Esau, we have a choice, do we believe God or not?

Are there promises of God that you undervalue, and fail to claim as your own, because your focus is on the physical things you hunger for today? Nothing can satisfy the desire to be right with God except Christ’s righteousness. Only the God who gave you the desire can provide the Bread of Life that will satisfy it.

Refunds and Exchanges

01/03/2014Gospel, Sharing the Gospel, , 12 Comments

Don’t you just hate the refund and exchange lines after Christmas? Sometimes it’s easier to keep something we don’t like rather than stand in that line. Maybe that’s why we work so hard to find the perfect gift for those we love.

Although, there are moments when we fall victim to a great marketing plan, salesman, or impulse and pick up the worst possible gift. Then we pay for it twice: once at the cash register and again when we stand in the returns line.

Our first parents, Adam and Eve, made a purchase that I’m sure they’d like to return.  When they succumbed to the serpent’s persuasion and ate the fruit sin and death entered Eden and remains with us today. They would one day physically die, for the wages of sin is death. (Genesis 3)\

“When Adam sinned, sin entered the world. Adam’s sin brought death, so death spread to everyone, for everyone sinned.” – Romans 5:12

They also experienced spiritual death. When they chose to sin, they were separated from God who is holy and cannot abide sin. We are born spiritually dead, separated from God, and living under the influence of our sin nature.

Once you were dead because of your disobedience and your many sins… By our very nature we were subject to God’s anger, just like everyone else.” –Ephesians 2:1-3

It may look fun, living apart from God, after all, who wants the continual conviction of falling short of God’s holy standard? We all want freedom to do what we want. But true freedom is not being able to do what we want; true freedom means not living with fear, guilt, worry, or shame. True freedom is being able to stand in the presence of God cleansed and forgiven.

We can’t return to Eden, nor can we return the sin nature that’s born in each one of us, but we can exchange it! And, amazingly, the line is not long, nor is the process difficult.

Actually, you are the only person in the line, and Jesus is waiting for you to step up to Him. When you come to Jesus, it’s as easy as saying “I have nothing to bring, I cannot clean myself up, nor change my own heart. I believe that you are the One and only way to the Father, and I ask you to wash away my sin and enter into my very being. I freely choose to submit to you as my Lord and my Savior.”

You were dead because of your sins and because your sin nature was not yet cut away. Then God made you alive with Christ, for he forgave all our sins. He cancelled the record of the charges against us and took it away by nailing it to the cross.” – Colossians 2:13-14

What a way to start the year! Cleansed. Forgiven. Spiritually alive. Freed from sin’s power. Freed to live for God. Have you made the exchange? If not, why not today?