“And out of that hopeless attempt has come nearly all that we call human history—money, poverty, ambition, war, prostitution, classes, empires, slavery—the long terrible story of man trying to find something other than God which will make him happy.”
― C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity
Tag Archives: Lord
Tuesday Teaching ~ Heaven is way better than Disneyland!
“It would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.” ― C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory
I have a 5 year old who thinks he knows everything. His experience in life is so limited yet he is so stubborn, as 5 year olds tend to be, that he often misses out on something glorious. He missed out on the thrill of the beach all summer because he begged and pleaded that every day we just go to the pool. “It is way better” he said. We finally got him to the beach and now he loves it so much he wants to go all the time. It would be like telling a kid who’s never been, “We are going to Disneyland tomorrow!” only for it to fall flat when he screams that he wants to stay home and play video games. I think of the angels up in heaven and how they must pity us 1000 times more than we pity the ignorance of our own children at times. Take a moment and try something that may seem a bit silly. Find a Christian friend, or if you are by yourself, go stand in front of a mirror. Jump up and down and shout, “Yay! Yay! Yay!, I get to go to Heaven soon!” You may laugh at first just from the mere silliness of it. But then really think about it. It will bring great joy to your heart!
Friday Fruits Audit ~ Your Words
Do you bridle your tongue?
The words you say have the ability to direct your life; either to a sinful destiny or a godly destiny. I choose the latter, however, I often fail. I pray daily for help in this area and get sad when, once again, I blow it. James put it so well when he discusses this in the below passage. Readers were well acquainted with the understanding behind the examples of bits and horses, rudders and ships. They would have heard these analogies often. To compare those ideas with the tongue and the body makes one not think that you can control the body physically with the tongue but that the bit and the rudder controls the DIRECTION the horse and ship go, so similarly the tongue controls the direction a man goes; his is destiny to live a controlled, godly life.
“If we put bits into the mouths of horses so that they obey us, we guide their whole bodies as well. Look at the ships also: though they are so large and are driven by strong winds, they are guided by a very small rudder wherever the will of the pilot directs. So also the tongue is a small member, yet it boasts of great things. How great a forest is set ablaze by such a small fire! And the tongue is a fire, a world of unrighteousness. The tongue is set among our members, staining the whole body, setting on fire the entire course of life, and set on fire by hell. For every kind of beast and bird, of reptile and sea creature, can be tamed and has been tamed by mankind, but no human being can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison. With it we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse people who are made in the likeness of God. From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. My brothers, these things ought not to be so. Does a spring pour forth from the same opening both fresh and salt water? Can a fig tree, my brothers, bear olives, or a grapevine produce figs? Neither can a salt pond yield fresh water.” – James 3:3-12, ESV
How many times do we have to mess this up before we get it right? Probably until we are home with Jesus. However, it is not something that we should overlook. Actually, having the Holy Spirit dwell in you means that your words, if slanderous, used for gossip, cussing with friends because it is funny, or any other ungodly use should have a somewhat immediate effect on your own spirit. I’m not saying you will be perfect and never wrongly judge or criticize someone. I am also not saying that the occasional profanity won’t slip from your mouth by accident. The difference is that the moment it does, if you are truly walking in the Spirit, you will feel convicted. It won’t be months later or even weeks or days. It will be within a moment or two. Perhaps even an hour if you are really in a funk. But that conviction will weigh heavy on your heart. It will cause you to notice right away as a reminder to do better next time. If you are growing as a believer in Christ, you will notice growth. The more you are convicted and continue to walk in the Spirit, the better you will get at bridling your tongue.
Blessing God ~ Busy Bee
Sometimes I go about my day busy at all the tasks at hand, wondering how I will ever get through them all. If you take a look at the bee in the below photo he is busy at his task. It seems as though he is looking down and never gets a chance to look up from his work. Sound familiar? Martha had the same issue and Jesus was actually in her house! Wow! Talk about life perspective. I want to be Mary and choose the good portion, and look to Jesus. Pastor Todd Smith of Crossroads Community Church preached a great sermon where he asked everyone to have a garage sale on all their life’s stuff and get back to simplicity. He detailed how hard it is to make things simple and how easy it is to complicate things. I encourage you to listen to his sermon called “Follow Me: The Commission” if you get a chance.
“The Busy Bee”
“Now as they went on their way, Jesus entered a village. And a woman named Martha welcomed him into her house. And she had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet and listened to his teaching. But Martha was distracted with much serving. And she went up to him and said, “Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Tell her then to help me.” But the Lord answered her, “Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things, but one thing is necessary. Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken away from her.” ”
– Luke 10:38-42
Photography by Jen O’Sullivan
Blessing God Series
Rain from the Lord
Grass in the Field
Parable of the Pearl
Rocks Cry Out
Flourish
Joy in the Thorns
Perfection
Fruit
Everything
Integrity
Hiding Place
Wonderfully Made
Quote of the Day ~ C.S. Lewis on Jesus
“I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept his claim to be God. That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic — on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg — or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God, but let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.”
― C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity
Blessing God ~ Wonderfully Made
You moms out there know the weight of this verse. Anyone who has gone through a full pregnancy understands the miracle of life. How awe-inspiring is our God!
“Wonderfully Made”
For you formed my inward parts;
you knitted me together in my mother’s womb.
I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
Wonderful are your works;
my soul knows it very well.
My frame was not hidden from you,
when I was being made in secret,
intricately woven in the depths of the earth.
Your eyes saw my unformed substance;
in your book were written, every one of them,
the days that were formed for me,
when as yet there was none of them.
– Psalm 139:13-16, ESV
Photography by Jen O’Sullivan
Blessing God Series
Rain from the Lord
Grass in the Field
Parable of the Pearl
Rocks Cry Out
Flourish
Joy in the Thorns
Perfection
Fruit
Everything
Integrity
Hiding Place
Shana tova!!! ~ Happy New Year ~ May you be ascribed in the Book of Life! Enjoy your Rosh haShana!
For on this day shall atonement be made for you to cleanse you. You shall be clean before the Lord from all your sins. It is a Sabbath of solemn rest to you, and you shall afflict yourselves; it is a statute forever. (Leviticus 16:30-31, ESV)
Take time today to reflect on your year. How did you do? How can you better follow what God commands you to do. How can you serve Him more fully. More of Him and less of you.
Have a truly blessed Yom Teruah / Rosh haShanah!
~ Jen
Blessing God ~ Grass in the Field
We are so fully busy every day and every second. Ask anyone you come in contact “How are you doing?” and 9 out of 10 will say something like, “Busy” or “Swamped” or “Just waiting for my vacation” or “Looking forward to the weekend.” Is that you? Do you answer that same way? Take the next 7 days to start answering that question differently. Say, “I am so blessed!” or “How gorgeous is today?!” Take time to remind yourself of all the good that is in your life rather than dwelling on your trials.
“Grass in the Field”
“But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.”
– Matthew 6:30-34 (ESV)
Photography by Jen O’Sullivan
Blessing God Series:
“Rain from the Lord”
Blessing God ~ Rain from the Lord
We often ask God to bless us. How do we bless Him back? Through prayer and giving thanks, through reading his word, through our actions and how we relate to others, and through our talents. Here is my feeble attempt to use my God given talents to give glory back to him. Bless the Lord, Oh my soul and all that is within me, bless his holy name!
“Rain from the Lord”
“Ask rain from the Lord
in the season of the spring rain,
from the Lord who makes the storm clouds,
and he will give them showers of rain,
to everyone the vegetation in the field.”
– Zechariah 10:1
Pink Magnolia
Photography by Jen O’Sullivan
God is Holy. God is Just. God is Love.
God is Holy, God is Just, and God is Love.
God is the Almighty Creator of this universe. “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” – Genesis 1:1 He is also the one who made us. “then the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature.” – Genesis 2:7 With this in mind, we must admit that He is ultimately in charge of us. He created us to have a relationship with him and it was perfect.
He is Holy, meaning he is set apart from anything or anyone on this planet. Because he is holy he desired for us to be holy too. “Since it is written, “You shall be holy, for I am holy.”” – 1 Peter 1:16 In the Bible, Peter is referring to Leviticus, the 3rd book of the Old Testament. “For I am the Lord your God. Consecrate yourselves therefore, and be holy, for I am holy.” – Leviticus 11:44
Unfortunately, because we have a choice in how we respond to God, sin entered the world because people wanted to use their freedom in a selfish way (Genesis 3). They decided to do things their way rather than obey and follow God. Their choice in favor of sin rather than obedience to God caused them to be separated from God. We are now born into that sin and no longer have a perfect holy relationship with God.
God is also Just. By this he must be the perfect judge. He cannot merely overlook this sin because it goes against everything that he is. He requires justice and he promises that he will punish sin. “For behold, the Lord will come in fire, and his chariots like the whirlwind, to render his anger in fury, and his rebuke with flames of fire.” – Isaiah 66:15
It is pretty clear in the book of Second Thessalonians too, “in flaming fire, inflicting vengeance on those who do not know God and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. They will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might,” – 2 Thessalonians 1:8-9
The wages of sin is death and complete separation from God. “For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” – Romans 6:23 I’ll say it again, we have no option other than complete separation from a holy God. “but your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, and your sins have hidden his face from you so that he does not hear.” – Isaiah 59:2 Your payment for your sin will be required and that is what Hell is. By the grace of God, however, he has provided a solution.
God is Love. “Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.” – 1 John 4:8
He is the purest form of it. He came up with a perfect solution to the sin problem. A love so crushing that when you think about it, no human would do what he did. This loving good news is that he sent his only Son, Jesus Christ, God in living human form. “He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation.” – Colossians 1:15, to pay, in-full, the price of your sin by becoming the ultimate sacrifice. “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” – John 3:16 Have you ever read the verses beyond John 3:16? I encourage you to do so right now. Click the above link to John 3:16 and find out what it says.
Did you know that Jesus died in the most brutal way possible, death by the Roman cross? You may be immune to what it means to die by the Roman cross. Not only was it meant to be the most humiliating but it also was the most painful and drawn-out death possible. But, get this, he did not deserve it because he was innocent of what they accused him of. He lived a life we could never live. A perfect life. “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” – 2 Corinthians 5:21
He died a death that we fully deserved. “For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit,” – 1 Peter 3:18 Yet he conquered that death by raising again from the dead to prove to the world that only through him could this debt be paid. “For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again,” – 1 Thessalonians 4:14
You still have a choice and it is up to God to move you and you to accept the free gift of grace he is so lovingly giving to you. “because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved. For the Scripture says, “Everyone who believes in him will not be put to shame.” For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; for the same Lord is Lord of all, bestowing his riches on all who call on him. For “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” “ – Romans 10:9-13
Living a good life, being kind to others, doing good deeds, and giving to charity will not get you into Heaven, it is only by the grace of God. “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.” – Ephesians 2:8-9 The only way to Heaven is through Jesus Christ. “Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” – John 14:6
You must turn from your sin and trust in Christ. “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” – 1 John 1:9 It also states in Acts, “Repent therefore, and turn back, that your sins may be blotted out,” – Acts 3:19
Give your life completely to God and have faith in Him. “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” – Philippians 3:9 Ask him to forgive you of your sins and ask God to take control of your life. “… you turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God,” – 1 Thessalonians 1:9 Thank the Lord that he is Holy, Just, and is Love.
Maranatha! (Come, Lord Jesus!)
Holy. Just. Love. 