He'll love till the world ends

Life's been crazy, as usual, but I can't say that I would change that for anything.  Sometimes I think that crazy is good, and other times that good is crazy... it gets complicated. 

 But no matter what, I want to talk about something that I've been relearning lately:  God won't give up on you.  It doesn't matter what you do, how horrible you've been, what your past is like.  God simply won't give up.  He won't let go.  I'm listening to a song by Disciple right now, an older one called After the World.  You've probably heard it before...

 "Was I there for the worst of all your pain?
And was I there when your blue skies ran away?
Was I there when the rains were flooding you off of your feet?
Those were my tears falling down for you, falling down for you

(chorus)
I'm the one that you've been looking for
I'm the one that you've been waiting for
I've had my eyes on you ever since you were born
I will love you after the rain falls down
I will love you after the sun goes out
I'll have my eyes on you after the world is no more

Did I arrange the light of your first day?
Did I create the rhythm your heart makes?
Could you believe when your candle starts to fade
I want to be the one that you believe
could take it all away, take your heart away"

This song is a direct letter from God to me—this is when I love music so much, when the lyrics stands out among the beat and teach me something that I wasn't even looking for.  In this case, it's teaching me that life, however horrible, however hard, is lived with a certain SomeOne at my side.  And that SomeOne has loved me since I was born, and He'll love me until the world ends. 

 That's true for us all—God will never, never let us go or stop loving us.  He is there for the worst of our life, just standing there next to us, waiting for us to talk to Him.  Waiting for us to recognize Him, to let Him help us through.  He won't let you go.

Footsteps

This is the video "Footsteps" by New Tribes Mission, featuring the Bible Translator Lisa Kappeler.  It's an amazing look into the lives of the people serving the Lord on the mission field.

My Hero

I was listening to the radio today and heard the song Hero by Abandon.  The song has a really neat chorus in it—

There he goes—a hero

A savior to the world
Here he stands with scars in his hands
With love he gave his life so we could be free
The savior of the world

The song really made me stop and think—it's truly about what trusting, believing, and living in God is all about—the Savior of the world, the One who stands watching us with love in His eyes as He is nailed to a tree.  This is the One who let men beat Him, women spit on Him, carried His own cross up the hill until He collapsed under the weight and pain.  He gave Himself to us to be killed, and He let us kill Him without mercy.  And then we watched Him die.
Acts 3:14-15 says exactly what I'm trying to get across here: "You disowned the Holy and Righteous One and asked that a murderer be released to you.  You killed the author of life, but God raised Him from the dead." (emphasis added)

We, (you, me, everyone) in this crazy, broken, hurting, dead world we live in killed that Man.  And it wasn't just a man—it was the Lord, God, the One and Only, the Beginning and the End.  The Author of Life.  Our Creator.

He died, we live.  He rose, we'll rot.  How do we explain this?  Christ the Lord died, we killed him, but then He rose.  And here we are—alive in the body, moving, living, breathing, but when we die, we don't ascend into heaven, we get tossed into the ground.  As I read my Bible during school today I came across some other people who were wondering about this—why the Savior of the world died, and why we killed Him—and why He rose and we die.  The people of Acts were sort of concerned about the whole confusing thing, so Peter began explaining it to them.  They were "cut to the heart" and scared, unsure of how they would enter heaven if they were simply going to die.  They asked Peter and his friends,

"'Brothers, what shall we do?'

Peter replied, 'Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins.  And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.  The promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off—for all whom the Lord our God will call.'"  (Acts 2:37-38, emphasis added)

That's what the song makes me think off—here's this guy with blood running off his hands, his head, his feet, with bruises and cuts all over his body, and yet he endures it without complaint.  For us.  He wants us to understand that a true hero is one who loves above all else, who doesn't mind ridicule, who is willing to forgive.  He is the hero, the Savior of the world.

Christmas

Today is Christmas. I am sitting here in a warm house, with my grandparents, parents, sisters, and brothers standing around, joking and talking with one another.  My dad is cleaning pans from breakfast, and the boys are playing with battery-operated cars they found in their stockings.  The dog is successfully (for the most part) dodging the little missiles, one eye on the cars and the other shut as she tries to get in her mid-morning nap.  If you sat down and looked around, it would look like a peaceful day in the life of our family.  But if you got up and started talking among the children, you would find out more.  They are joyful in the celebration of Jesus, excited at the remembrance of His birth.  They know that this is more than a fun day off school with new toys to play with and grandparents to visit—it's one of the most important days of the year.  Christ the savior was born today—is there anything more that matters?  Is there any birth that was special enough to compete with the joy and love that came in that small package one Christmas day thousands of years ago?  Never!
Today is Christmas.  We celebrate with joy.  I pray that you and your family have a merry one, filled with new memories and the remembrance of old ones.

The Purging of Dross

Seemingly unaffected by her anguish, the dragon continued. “Now for another question.” As the sizzle and stench of her burning flesh permeated the room, he turned on his lasers and focused the beams on her eyes. “You say that you now know why you must be set aflame.” He paused for a moment as if to let his words add to her suffering. “Why?” “I … I …”She couldn’t speak. The flames climbed to her waist and slowly crawled up her back, onto her wings, and up to her chest. Heaving, gasping, panting, she tried to force out an answer, but the words wouldn’t come. Were they even in her mind? Did she really not know after all?
“Bonnie Silver!” Abaddon shouted.  His call echoed throughout the chamber, repeating again and again. “Why must you be set aflame?”
Even as he finished his question, her name continued to echo.  Bonnie Silver … Bonnie Silver.
She spat out her words, each one a torture. “My … my name … is Silver. All dross … is purged… and my body … is a living … illustration.”
“But you must have some dross remaining. Hidden lies in secret places?” His eyebeams brightened. “Envy? Lust? Or do you seriously want me to believe this notion that the dross is already gone? Is your mask one of pride after all?”
“No!” she screamed. “Not a mask. … God purged … my dross … long ago."

This quote from one of my favorite books, The Bones of Makaidos, by Bryan Davis.  The passage above illustrates to a great extent the life that we live in Christ if we are believers.  So often the devil comes back to me, whispering doubts about how I wasn't forgiven, how my sin still remains.

They are lies.

Once God forgives us, we become new people.  The dross we once were—impurities covering the silver of God's creations—gets burned away, killing the person we once were and giving us a new life.  Through the purging of our dross, we are left "blameless and pure, children of God without fault" (Philippians 2:15).  Not only is the sin washed away, but our lives take on a new direction.  Though the temptations of this life still pull us to the wayside on occasion, they cannot overcome us. 

This is why the passage is such a wonderful example of our lives as Christ-followers. Our old bodies died with His when He lay lifeless on the cross, and our new ones rose with Him three days later.  Jesus took all the wrath of our sin, the destructive seeds that we sowed, and killed it, along with the people who sowed the seeds.  Those people were you and me.  We were purged of the dross we once carried like burdens, dragging us down into mud of our own making.  And now it is no longer us who live, but Christ in us (Galatians 2:20).

And I rejoice in that fact, in that simple, childlike solution that paid so incredibly dearly.  With the words, "it is finished" (John 19:30), it was finished.  Death died.  Life sprang up from the dry ground, and filled our hearts with something new, something clean.  Jesus became our life, and death no longer has hold.  And with Bonnie Silver in that passage I can say, "It's not a mask.  God purged my dross long ago."

Of Chaos and Peace

Now and then I come to a point when I'm so busy that I don't get time to write for my blog, let alone the half dozen books I'm working on, my journal, and the many people I write letters to.  I love to write.  It's that simple.  But this is the first time this week that I've had a chance to sit down and write up a post that really reflects what I've been thinking lately. 

We started school this week, tackling the Geometry, Writing, and Spanish books like they're the worst challenge we'll ever face.  As I sit here, with a cup of green tea in front of me and the impending notion that I really need to work on my Spanish course, I'm beginning to find an old truth, and make it into a new one. 

The truth is this simple: everything will be done in its proper time.  Life will go on whether I do my Spanish lesson today or get in two tomorrow instead.  And sometimes other things are more important than a Spanish lesson or math homework.  This truth has been widely spread since the book of Ecclesiastes was written, but the modern world seems to have forgotten it in the meaningless busyness and bustle of our daily schedules. 

Moving back to a big city, I've noticed once again the hectic lifestyle modern American people live.  We need to go, go, go, and do, do, do.  Nothing can satisfy our desires better than to see the products of our efforts.  We need to continuously surpass each other in our accomplishments, and put ourselves as high up in the "caste system" as we can before we die.  But in reality, that's not what life's about. 

Life is about living.  To the best of your ability.  Not to become the most influential American of all times, or a well-known and famous inventor, or the millionaire of the century.  Our job here on earth is to live up to God's standards—to use our time wisely.  Not to build ourselves up, but to encourage and strengthen others in the faith.  And if the Spanish book waits a day in order to fulfill that job, the world is not going to end.

So many times we get caught up in the wiles of the world, sure that we need to "go above and beyond" and become the "top man," when all that we really need to do is live our lives to the fullest extent that God wants us to live our lives to.  To become the best is the world's way, and we are called to be a light to the world, not to become part of it.  This doesn't mean that you need to stop working hard, or quit trying to become good at something.  It just means that your top priority should not be to "look good" in the world's eyes.  Being the best and brightest, the top in your particular field, isn't always the adventure that the Lord is choosing to send you on.  Sometimes we simply need to live slowly, quietly, so we can impart peace in the chaos of this world. 

And that's the truth I relearned today.

Hate and Humility, part 2

Continued from part 1.

I want to repeat the last verses we went over in part 1, so you can read this separately.  Please do read over part 1, even though I'm back tracking a bit here.  It will help the both posts make a little more sense.

"So I find this law at work: Although I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; but I see another law at work in me, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death?"

It's making me think that Paul's not quite as level and dependable as I grew up believing.  Suddenly, he seems as vulnerable to sin as the rest of us.  It makes me amazed, however, what he says in the next verse.

 "Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!"

Thanks?  God?  Deliverance?  Paul looks not to a mere mortal to save him from his sin; he looks to God.  God and his deliverance, which comes through the Lord Jesus Christ, is what saves us from sin, even after we accept Christ as our Lord. As Christians, we view Paul as a role model; a fellow Christ-follower who led a great amount of people to the Lord.  In fact, through his writings, he's still leading people to faith!  But the best part about this passage is the vital reminder that even Paul, a good Christian who led many hundreds to Christ over the last almost two thousand years, wasn't perfect.  He struggled with sin with the best of us; at times, it got the better of him.  But the important message in this passage lies within the last verse:

"So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God’s law, but in my sinful nature a slave to the law of sin."

Don't beat yourself up about sinning, but don't try to sin.  You are a slave to God in the same way that your sinful nature is a slave to sin, and God wrestled sin to the ground when Christ rose from the dead, a victor over hell.  Over sin.  Over eternity.  Christ gave us a second chance, a chance to forget our sin nature and its temptations and follow him.  The only question on the table is this: are we able to accept the gift, and completely live for Him?

Seventeen

Today is my seventeenth birthday, and I was going to use today's post to write down my hopes and goals for the coming year.  When my fingers hit the keyboard, instead of hopes and goals, this is what came out.  I want to share it with you.

Dearest Jehovah,

Thank You for the adventures You have led me on, the growth that You have prepared for me.   I have passed through both the flames of Satan and the sun of the pleasant fields of beauty You have created with me in mind.  I have fallen from Your grasp of my own accord, left Your embrace for a life of my own, thinking foolishly that it would give me the freedom I wanted, the freedom I thought I deserved.  But time and time again, no matter how far I, in my inability and weakness, have fallen, You are always there to catch me, to hold me tight, and to love me the way that no one else could ever love me.  Though I am but a slave, a worthless waif, You guide me into the paths that the Prince once walked, the paths that I now walk in His name.  You have made me Your princess, loved me as Your daughter, and let me call You my Abba, my Father.  You have become the One I live for, and with my every move I pray that I may achieve my desire to become closer to You and learn more of Your ways. You are my life, for my own has died.  You are my mind, for my own has perished.  You are my heart, for my own has broken.  You are my spirit, for without You I would not have one.  You are my Father, my Brother, my Love.  I live for You, and one day I shall die for You.  Thank You for rescuing me and loving me as Your own, for taking me from the sinister paths of the Evil One and giving me a new direction in which to travel. You are my All-in-All, my Alpha and my Omega, my Beginning and my End.  You hear the cry of my very soul when I am in anguish and You come to my rescue, forgetting the reason that I became hurt, forgiving the fact that I have time and time again turned my back to You.  In this next year, let my life be lived with the sole purpose of giving my all to You.  I cannot leave Your presence, or flee from Your Spirit. You are always here with me, to comfort and protect me. And I love You, Yeshua.  I love You, my Lord, my Protector, my Provider. 

Love,

Grace

For us girls

One of my favorite Bible passages of all time happens to be Psalm 45:10-11.  It says,

"Listen, O daughter, consider and take ear.  Forget your people and your father's house.  The king is enthralled by your beauty; honor him, for he is your Lord."

These verses means a lot to me, and not just as a, "Oh, God just said to take off on my own and forget about the rest of my family!" type of thing.  I view this as the way that we are to worship Him. 

It's an earnest plea for God's daughters to seek Him before anything, or anyone, else.  Before the people we know.  Before the family we love.  Jesus Christ loves us and is spellbound by how beautiful we are before Him.  He wants us to spend time with Him—as His lover, His daughter, and His friend.  God desires you to serve Him, and to worship Him as only you can. 

This passage was shared with me by one of my camp counselors at camp this summer.  When she shared it, I realized that it was the first time that I had truly seen a Bible passage jump out at me this much.  I have known my whole life that God loves me and wants the best for me, and that I look, act, and live the way I do because it's what He desires, but I never thought that He was actually enthralled by my beauty.  Not only outwardly, but my inward beauty.  I haven't really given too much thought on how much God loved me, or how I should act towards that love.

Instead of pulling away, my prayer is that I will lean towards my Lord.  I need to give my all to the One who loves me so dearly, the One who is so enthralled by me beauty that He would die for me, and me alone.  My desire is to be so close to my Father, my Lord, my Christ, that my day-to-day "busyness" and hectic lifestyle doesn't hinder my ability to continue growing closer to Him.  If I needed to, could I leave my family for His sake?  Instead of being bombarded by the little things in life, I want to be fully focused on the one Big thing in life, the Being who has captured my heart.  I want you to make it your prayer, too.  God is completely and utterly in love with us.  Are we willing to return that love?

An update on life

           My poor blog has sat forsaken for the last ten weeks, while I have been having an amazing (though exhausting) time watching God at work in my and my family's lives.  I want to share a little bit of what God's done this summer:

As some of you know, I left home in early June to serve and grow in the Lord at Eagle Lake Camp (ELC) in Woodland, Colorado.  I was part of the Crew program, which meant that I grew for five weeks alongside other teens, learning more about Christ and working at the camp.  Instead of the usual five-week commitment, God had other things in mind, and I ended up being at ELC for ten weeks.  I did the Crew program two sessions instead of one, and had the opportunity to learn, grow, laugh, and serve double the time I had originally planned.  Halfway through my time at Eagle Lake, I found out that my dad had lost his job.  He found another in late July, and will soon be working for Compassion International in Colorado Springs.  We are in the midst of selling our house in Iowa and are starting to pack up for the move (an adventure with the small children running around everywhere!). 

Throughout the many transitions that have been taking place in my life lately (coming back to the "real world" after 2 ½ months of Christian camp, getting ready to relocate to a different part of the country, beginning to look at the monster piles of school work ahead of me this next year...), I've been able to find God in the middle of everything.  He has been the eye in the hurricane, the safe spot in the center of the storm.  I have been excited to see my faith deepening to new depths, and my hunger for Christ is growing every day. 

            Being at camp in Colorado, away from family and unable to contact them very often, was definitely challenging at times—especially while my dad was job hunting and my mom was trying to get the house ready to sell while pregnant.  I wanted to be there for them to help with my younger siblings, but God's presence in my life made it obvious that I was exactly where I needed to be.  As hard as it sometimes was (though not always—ELC is a wonderful place!), looking back, this summer has been both one of the best and one of the hardest ones yet—and I can't wait to see what God holds in store for me next!

An eleven-year-old sharing Jesus

This is really inspiring to me, and hopefully to you, too!