Loco o No?

Estas loco?

15 to 20 years ago, I may have thought I would do something loco for God – like jump out of a plane with a banner attached proclaiming John 3:16. That's just silly, not crazy.

My platinum-blonde-pixie-cut-six-earring-tattooed self of yesteryear could not have imagined a homeschooling-Suburban-driving-stay-at-home mom of at least five. God's crazy plan is so much different from my own. And I love it.

I don't actually call His plan crazy and I'm not doing anything crazy for Jesus. I am simply following His call for our lives. To some, it looks a bit crazy. That's OK. If it is, I am so grateful for the craziness.

We have been called to adopt again. Five or six kids is hardly crazy. The part that will get a few relatives choking on their Christmas ham is the method of adoption.

God has graciously and delightfully called us to embryo adoption. Never heard of it? Neither had we. We will adopt embryos (though not considered adoption legally: perhaps more on that later) and up to 2 to 3 will be implanted so I will carry and deliver our adopted child/ren. Though we don't know all the why's of God's calling, we know He has been very clear.

When God calls, we are to step out in faith and obedience. As this loco thing unfolds, I'm so excited to see what God is doing in our midst.

(I apologize that I didn't take the time to convert to a Spanish keyboard: yes, I am aware of the upside-down question mark and accent in estas ;) )

I See Dead People

I am sure most of you remember the cute kid in that movie years ago that said, "I see dead people."

What a nice 3-days-before Christmas posting.

I love Christmas. I like to reflect upon many memories of Christmas past and present. I get caught up in the glitter, the lights, the gifting, the memories made and held, the baking, the eating, the family time, parties with friends....

And I nearly didn't make it to the festivities this year. Unless you are very close to me, you cannot know the profundity of my experience in Israel. By the grace of God and His prayer warriors, I am alive this Christmas. God came down to me and healed me that I might celebrate His advent with my family this year. I am hyper-aware that many who began the year cannot say the same. Many people have passed on since last Christmas. The impact of God's divine healing in my life and His physical touch cannot be understated. I believe I will never be the same.

I am alive this Christmas. But I see dead people. 

I don't have crazy nightmares or visions, nor do I hang around zombies or ghosts. I saw dead people while I was Christmas caroling, when I attended the Holidazzle parade, as I strolled the stores for the next good deal. Dead people drive by me on the roads, dead people ring up my items. 

Christmas for dead people can be a time they can enjoy temporarily as the seeming goodwill of men is in full-swing. Some of them can fake their happiness through another disastrous family get-together. Others may take in the season and not be fooled by the joy and peace heralded that never comes. That is because dead people have at least one thing in common this Christmas: they do not hover around a manger to worship God With Us. They do not run to the stall with exceeding joy to worship the King. They do not span thousands of miles to bring gifts to Jesus. 

These cannot have any joy, peace or even love this Christmas. Because dead is dead. 

The physical reality of that statement is tragic, but the spiritual significance is catastrophic. Thankfully the true Joy and Peace and Love gifted to us on Christmas is also Hope. Hope for the world full of spiritually dead people.

I was not saved from death on April 10, 2011. God came down to me in the form of a human baby, chose to save me--predestined to save me-- even before that first Christmas. He saved me through the Christ child.

But having that experience, I feel it is time for me to get really real. Families and friends who have lost people this year or Christmas's past are not the only ones with the burden of death. There are millions of dead people this Christmas that need to be made alive in Christ. They are spiritually dead and if they physically die in this state, they will spend an eternity of "Christmas's" separated from God and in torment and suffering. 

Christ came to testify to the Truth. And He indeed is "the Way, the Truth and the Life."He came to show us the Father and to give us a way to be reconciled to the Father through Himself. He came to raise the dead-- yes, some physically-- but most importantly, the spiritual dead. So, I am purposing to get real this Christmas and share "the reason for the season" with those I know are dead. 

Christmas for most is not a season of joy and peace, though most people fake it well. It cannot be a time of rejoicing without Christ. Dead is dead. But alive in Christ is worth rejoicing and praising and dancing and singing about Jesus and the work and result of His first advent and anticipating His second advent.

For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive.  I Corinthians 15:21-22

Bread Lessons

To the Church in Laodicea

To the angel of the church in Laodicea write:

These are the words of the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the ruler of God’s creation. I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other! So, because you are lukewarm—neither hot nor cold—I am about to spit you out of my mouth. You say, ‘I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.’ But you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked. I counsel you to buy from me gold refined in the fire, so you can become rich; and white clothes to wear, so you can cover your shameful nakedness; and salve to put on your eyes, so you can see. Those whom I love I rebuke and discipline. So be earnest and repent. Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with that person, and they with me. To the one who is victorious, I will give the right to sit with me on my throne, just as I was victorious and sat down with my Father on his throne. Whoever has ears, let them hear what the Spirit says to the churches.

A couple months ago, I was preparing my bread dough, a new recipe so I read into the details of making the perfect batch. The trickiest part of bread dough is the yeast, of course. Bread recipes and bakers will advise to let the yeast soak into lukewarm water. Lukewarm water is ideal for yeast to be absorbed and your bread will rise faster. Cold water does absorb the yeast but it takes the dough much longer to rise. But the thing you never want to do with yeast is to absorb it with hot water. Hot water kills the yeast and the dough will not rise.

I have made bread many times before without knowing the reason for avoiding hot water. This new lesson in bread making reminded me of yeast in the Bible. In most instances, the Bible speaks of yeast negatively, like the yeast of the Pharisees and Saduccees-- their hypocrisy (Matthew 6:6-12). Paul likens yeast to false teaching (Galatians 5:9).

As Paul is addressing a situation involving a sexually immoral brother and the Corinthians improper handling of the sin, he writes:

Your boasting is not good. Don’t you know that a little yeast leavens the whole batch of dough? Get rid of the old yeast, so that you may be a new unleavened batch—as you really are. For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed. Therefore let us keep the Festival, not with the old bread leavened with malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth (I Corinthians 5:6-8).

To attain the nice-looking, puffy loaf of bread we Americans are accustomed to, we soak our yeast in lukewarm water since the yeast thrives in lukewarm. To our shame, we Americans—in some areas of the church—have attained a nice-looking, puffy church, with the yeast of sin able to thrive in our lukewarm spirituality.

Lukewarm spirituality was the mighty rebuke of Christ to the church of Laodicea. The strong image of Christ vomiting the church out of his mouth causes me to shudder and wonder. It seems that Christ is so sickened by indecision, flip-flopping, people trying to please both God and man, so sickened by a church that confesses Christ with their lips but their hearts are far from him (Isaiah 29:13), that He would vomit. He would actually prefer us to be cold over lukewarm! At least we and the outside lost would know where we stand if we were cold. Lukewarm makes it hard for an unbelieving world to distinguish truth from all else.

This church, and its direct implications to the church age in which we live, seems doomed and condemned as Christ proclaims that [we] are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked. And we think we are rich.

For us and for Laodecia, a hopeless state. Sin runs rampant even in the church, and like the Corinthians, we not only tolerate it, sometimes boast in it. In the name of tolerance and living down to the standards of the world, we are afraid to share the intolerance God has for sin. We are afraid to tell people of their impending judgment before the Almighty.

We refuse to share the truth of John 3:36, Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him. The wrath of God is a destructive force and nothing can assuage it except Jesus Christ Himself. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God’s wrath through him! (Romans 5:8-9) If people cannot understand our death sentence, people cannot understand why we need Jesus.

And with the Joel Osteen’s, Benny Hinn’s, and Rob Bell’s shaping so much of the American church, the “good news” is reduced to lukewarm, ho-hum news. That we would reduce our Jesus and His sacrifice to nothing seems the great sin of our lukewarm American experience. We seem to have no more truth to offer or good news to share. If the “people walking in darkness” don’t see their need for rescue, will they follow the Light even when they see it, as He reveals Himself? Will we open the door to Jesus who declares “Here I am! I stand at the door and knock”?

I could write pages on the aforementioned men, but what about me? How rapidly does the yeast of my pride—sin—rise in my lukewarm spirituality? How often can I be confident that I am “hot” for Jesus? How foolish of me to not remove the plank plunged into my own life. I thank God that while He will not tolerate lukewarm, He gives us hope. He gives me hope: Those whom I love I rebuke and discipline. So be earnest and repent.

Unlike other churches, Jesus had nothing with which to commend Laodicea. But His love is deeper still. Because He loves us Laodiceans, He warns us with rebuke and discipline. That we would repent in earnest before it is too late!

The Counselor says we are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked. I counsel you to buy from me gold refined in the fire, so you can become rich; and white clothes to wear, so you can cover your shameful nakedness; and salve to put on your eyes, so you can see.

The refining fire is hot, it will kill sin in the process of purification. As we put our trust, hope, even our very lives into Jesus, He will give us white clothes of His righteousness. Come now, let us reason together, says the LORD: though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red as crimson, they shall become like wool.  Jesus Himself initiates reconciliation and restoration. I pray that we would follow the counsel of Jesus and rub our eyes with the Word of God, the Word Became Flesh, and see Jesus for who He is. Then we will recognize His knocking at the door of our church.

Hot is the only temperature that kills yeast. If we let the Spirit of Christ overtake us, we can only be hot for Him—He allows no cooling. And the yeast—our pride and sin—will die. And we will open the door.

If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with that person, and they with me. To the one who is victorious, I will give the right to sit with me on my throne, just as I was victorious and sat down with my Father on his throne. Whoever has ears, let them hear what the Spirit says to the churches.

Epitaphs

Noah walked with God. Genesis 6:9

Confounding

I recently returned from my first trip to Israel. That I am even able to write that is confounding to me. As I was there, map scales and boundaries became real, and became really small. While in Israel, I was able to see into Lebanon ("yeah, it's right over there"; "huh."), Syria ("and those ridges there have several missiles pointing here", "huh."), Jordan ("yep, remember, just across the Dead Sea"; "oh yeah! huh."), the West Bank ("seriously?! there, RIGHT there?!"; "yes, that's it"; "huh.") And, though we weren't close enough to see into the Gaza Strip, there were enough IDF choppers and fighter jets in the air as they were again launching rockets into Israel, I got the point.

The fact that Israel exists, that an obscure people-group that were scattered across the globe nearly 2000 years ago after the Romans sacked Jerusalem and chased them down to the point of worrying about the 960 that made it to Masada, the same obscure group that was nearly wiped out in the Holocaust directed at them, that this group still exists and is in their own homeland, is just bizarre. There, of course, is no logical explanation that, though surrounded by enemies on all sides and beyond, this tiny strip of land is a national home for the Jewish people. As a student of history, this would be enough to convince me that something more is in the works: the fact their existence is so befuddling would have me considering a supernatural phenomenon. But dare not take my word, nor anyone else's. God's Word stands true and uncorrectable. Bizarre? Illogical? No, God.

When the sun had gone down and it was dark, behold, a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch passed between these pieces. On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying, "To your offspring I give this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates, the land of the Kenites, the Kenizzites, the Kadmonites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Rephaim, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Girgashites and the Jebusites.


This is God's covenant to His people Israel, descendants of Abraham. Earlier in Genesis 12:2, God promised to make a great nation through Abraham. In Galatians 3, Paul explains that, as Jesus is the "new covenant", those of faith...are the sons of Abraham. And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, 'In you shall all the nations be blesses.' So then, those who are of faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith (Galatians 3:7-9). Some would use this passage to deny the Jews their covenantal homeland.

BUT, God's covenant in Genesis 15, written above, was a covenant He made with Himself. Though He made it TO Abraham, Abraham did not make it WITH him. Abraham, who is representative of the Jewish nation, does not have to hold up any end of the bargain, so to speak. God holds both sides. God makes this covenant unconditional, backed by God Himself. And, of course, God cannot go back on His own Word. The land of Israel-- though not yet fully experienced in modern-day lines-- is a homeland for God's chosen people, the Jews. (The focus here is the land of Israel, for more on the misconstrue-ings of replacement theology, perhaps a study in Romans 11 could get you started).

So, the confounding nation of Israel is a testament to God's faithfulness and His faithful Word. As the borders seem small and enemy nations foreboding, God is bigger. God is real and still connected to His people Israel, remaining faithful even in their unfaithfulness, not because they are holier than the rest of us, but because God is holy. So, as I have experienced tiny Israel, I have experienced a big, Holy, Faithful God.

"What Happens in Israel Stays in Israel"

Ironic that very phrase which is my quote is the opposite of what God has been using to convict and refine me within the days of my return. There is much to write about-- life lessons and transformation that I hope to write about for years to come. But in the past few days, the one incident that I did not want shared, that I wanted left in Israel, is the one that has been speaking to me and bringing me to confession.

Last Sunday evening I found myself in a Jerusalem emergency room. An IV with fluids and I was back in the hotel in a few short hours. Me being me, I was embarassed to suddenly be the center of attention and stubborn about going. I begged not to go, I told the nurse that I didn't need to be there, and argued with the doctor about a silly x-ray, of all things (a signature on a form said "I won", by the way).

And, again ironically, the fact that I didn't want to be the center of attention made me just that when it should have been God that was the center as His family worked to care. Christ's body was to be glorified in the actions of my new family surrounding me. In what I may have thought was humility was actually my pride in full swing. My pride covered up the love and willingness of God's saints who wanted to wash my feet in a sense. My pride, guised as humility (a false humility to be certain), overshadowed the steadfast love and care of Val, Mark, Chris, Marlene, Marlys, Max, John, Derrick, Carl, Pam, Helen, Harry, Brad, Lynn, Shelly, Dick, Jane...and all the others who were doing exactly what Christ has called His body to do. I am so sorry.

If my pride had not been present, I probably would not have ended up in the fiasco anyway. There were earlier chances to realize and repent. At dinner that night, I knew a few people were watching me, since signs of illness began earlier in the day. Knowing I needed to eat and drink, but knowing I was shaking too much to do so, I figured I would wait out everyone at the table and eat and drink when they had left. All I had to do was have the humility to ask for a straw and I would have been able to get the water down...something I couldn't do later. Pride wins small battle. When things got worse, and now everybody knows, I could have taken the wheel chair up to my room and perhaps gotten liquids in there-- my pride had me walking to my room, not being wheeled up by someone else. Pride won, pride got the best of me, pride landed me in an Israeli ER. My dark pride, my false humility, could have covered up all the other people who were shining around me. Thankfully, the light of Jesus shines brighter.

Thank you for being the love of Christ to me Val, Mark, Chris, Marlys, Max, Heather, Victoria, Kevin, Marlene, Ron, Eileen, Marilyn, Jackie, Mick, Phil, Donna, Brian, Linda, Harry, Helen, Gill, Sharon, Dick, Joy, Harvey, Jane, John, Tammy, Karl, Pam, Derrick, Anne, Shelly, Greg, Debra, Brad, Tammy, Carol, Paula and Leah. I love you my family and I have tears of joy thinking of you and what you mean to me.

Prayer

I don't know how to say it
I don't know what I need
The great longings of my soul
Oh Spirit, intercede

And here I am again
Worrying on my knees
Hindered prayers again
Spirit, won't you please

Come convict me of my sin
Cleanse me, free me from within
Plead my case and make it known
Intercede before the throne

Search me, cleanse me, intercede
Renew, transform me
That my prayer would be

Sweet to you like incense
In every circumstance
My own will gone
Your will be done

I approach the throne of grace
Lord, I seek your face
Covered by my Savior's blood
Confident of your true love

Search me, cleanse me, intercede

Renew, transform me
That my prayer would be

Aroma for your bowl
Lips cleansed with coal
My will foregone
Your will be done