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God chose you as the first fruits for salvation, through sanctification by the Spirit and through belief in the truth, to which he called you through our gospel, so that you may obtain the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. 2 Thess. 2: 13-14

I saw a quote earlier. “Your past is not God’s future for you.”  Many would argue that. They say that so much of what they have suffered continues to visit them over and over again. They continue to get sick. They continue to sustain disappointments. They continue to get fooled by people. They continue to face losses. They continue to work with challenging financial parameters. They experience life as a cruel cycle and the abundant life seems nothing but a dangling carrot.

This fallen world will continue to be fallen until Jesus comes or I die and step into His presence. My ultimate future will look nothing like my past or my present. Praise God! But until then, my circumstances here will continue to be challenging, if not cyclical. Life will continue to present set after set of problem solving exercises, but in the midst of that reality, the kingdom is also here now with respect to my internal world.

• My spirit is already seated with Christ in heavenly places. (In my past, it was not.)
• In God’s eyes, I have been declared righteous. In the past, this was not the case. I was a condemned woman.
• My soul has been ransomed from the snares of sin and death and is being sanctified. (In my past, it was not.)
• My past is not my future. My past is not even my present.

So circumstantially, how am I to regard my life when painful things keep repeating themselves? I have to remember that from the outside, things are often the same. But the inside? That is to be in the process of continual radical change. Here’s an example. When my mother died, I was thirty years old. I did not have a strong connection to God. I had no idea how to draw close to Him to weather the trauma of losing a mother. I floundered, grew depressed and inconsolable, and my faith suffered for another decade. Much further down the road, my father died of cancer. My relationship with God was alive. Scripture had driven my root system deeper into the person of Jesus. I knew how to live in hope, draw strength from my Savior, and put scripture into practice. Everything was different even though cancer had once again re-appeared in my life in the death of a parent. Same circumstances. Different internal world.

My past is not my future. My internal world can resemble eternity with Jesus. Right now. In Christ, God has made it possible for my soul to live in paradise.

You walk with me and talk with me. You tell me I am your own. That changes today entirely no matter how ongoing my affliction. Amen

But those who do what is right come to the light so others can see that they are doing what God wants.  John 3:21

This scripture seems to indicate that I should do what is righteous so others can see it.  Is this a promotion of piety?  There are scriptures that warn against fasting for someone else’s approval, or praying lofty prayers to impress others, or making sure certain people know how much money was given to the kingdom.  Self-exaltation can’t be what is meant here. 

This is Jesus’ closing statement to Nicodemus and though this ruler of the Jews came to Jesus as one who probably believed he was living a life that pleased God, he left having been introduced to a new paradigm of what it means to live as a true disciple. 

Those who do what is right must first come to the Light.  It all starts with exposure of sin and the beholding of the Righteous One.  There is no way to spend time with the Him without an awareness that rule-keeping can be sinful if self is the focus.  I discover that the only way I can do anything that pleases God is to bask in His glory and depend on His grace to live as His child. 

From there, I want others to know that the ways that I choose to live (that might look impressive) are only possible because God changed this sinner’s heart.  I don’t want them to be impressed with me but, instead, enamored by a God who makes living like this possible.  When others see me do what is humanly difficult ~ forgiving others, trusting God instead of taking care of things myself, praying instead of worrying, giving grace to someone that doesn’t deserve it ~ these are indications that I am connected to God and something otherworldly is happening here. 

When I keep the rules and am proud of it, others notice but are turned off.  

When I depend on Jesus to help me do and say what He would do, people see the humility and power of a resurrected Christ. 

My witness and impact never starts and ends with me.  Amen

But the men [angels] reached out their hands and brought Lot into the house with them and shut the door. And they struck with blindness the men who were at the entrance of the house, both small and great, so that they wore themselves out groping for the door. Genesis 19:10-11

God is faithful to protect His children. The men who came to Lot and his family, the ‘angels unaware’, shut the door to the outside gang who had come to do Lot’s visitors harm. Knowing their numbers and their strength, knowing they could probably still break down the door, the angels struck the members of the gang with blindness. Even that didn’t stop them. They were still obsessed with finding the door and breaking in ~ so strong was their obsession with sexual perversion.

What does it take to break under the hand of God? Personally, it has taken a lot. My own heart was so darkened that it took a lot of time and pain to bring me to the end of myself. I wanted what I wanted ~ and I was obsessed in my own private and stubborn way. I have since learned that if not taught the sweet fruit of submission when we’re young, the desire for personal autonomy magnifies over time. So much harder to submit at 45 than at 4 years of age. That’s why we teach our children to obey the first time. We’re preparing them to say, “Yes, Lord!” when Jesus calls them.

You may be watching the Lord break the will of a loved one. You may be shaking your head at how stubborn they are. (And also humbled at the memory of how stubborn you were.) You wonder how much longer. Though they have felt the heavy hand of God, they are still groping for the door that leads them to satisfy their cravings for sinful pleasures.

Though it may look hopeless today, it is not. Not all believe, we know that. But those who burn the brightest for the kingdom experience a pivotal moment when they surrender in the fire. As you watch the crushing of that person you love, know that God knows their limits and frame. You can trust His hand that afflicts – even in your tears for their repentance.

Lord, you hear my cry. It’s hard to watch someone fight before they bow their knee. I know Your justice but I am comforted that You are also limitless in mercy. Amen

Come now, let us kill him and throw him into one of the pits. Then we will say that a fierce animal has devoured him, and we will see what will become of his dreams.” But when Reuben heard it, he rescued him out of their hands, saying, “Let us not take his life.” And Reuben said to them, “Shed no blood; throw him into this pit here in the wilderness, but do not lay a hand on him”—that he might rescue him out of their hand to restore him to his father. Genesis 37:20-22 

There is a father who will take out his anger on his children today. He will cut them to shreds with a sharp rebuke and they will shrink and go into hiding. He’s done it before. He even saw the damage in their eyes but that did not deter him. 

There is a middle-aged woman who will see dreaded circumstances repeat themselves. She will say, “Oh no, not again!” but she will make the same disastrous choice she made the last time. She does not see that God is giving her another chance in order to do something different.

Reuben, for all his faults, did make a different choice. (Although not one that was drastic enough.) He had sinned against his father many times throughout his youth and had experienced the stab in his own heart as he saw his father’s pain. The last offense he committed was sleeping with Bilhah, his father’s concubine. With that fresh in his memory, he will not agree to take the life of Joseph, his father’s favored son. He could not bear the thought of Jacob’s grief yet again. 

Do I really learn from my mistakes? The magical answer is ‘yes’. Who is going to repeatedly put their hand over an open flame? That is naive. When bad behavior is generational, thoughts of stopping the pattern don’t come easily. By default, we live as our fathers did. 

Jesus told Nicodemus two critical things. 1.) ‘That which is born of the flesh is flesh.’ We are like whom we came from. I am a product of a mother and father and will possess not only their physical characteristics but their holy and sinful bents as well. I will not deviate without spiritual transformation. And, 2.) ‘That which is born of the Spirit is Spirit.’ I am to be like by new Father because I was born of His Word and His Spirit. So here’s the question that replays in my mind? Am I more like my new Father than my earthly parents? I should be if the new birth and the things of the Spirit are nurtured. 

How does this relate to learning from my mistakes? When I repeat the foolishness of my youth, the Spirit of God calls to me. “Why are you doing that? You’re now my own daughter and I’m calling you out to be like me, not them.” Past mistakes are a mirror. I see the reflection of my former self against the reflection of my brother, Jesus, standing next to me. With just a glance, I walk away and have no appetite for the former things.

Forget my last name today, Lord. I am Christine – of God’s heart. In Jesus’ name, Amen

For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that He might destroy the works of the devil. I John 3:8

That is a thought provoking verse ~ that Jesus came to earth to destroy the works of the devil. Wait, didn’t he come to die to redeem mankind? Yes. But God’s over-arching mission was that the works of the devil might be destroyed through Jesus’ incarnation, through His survival as a toddler under Herod’s murderous rampage, through the crucifixion of the innocent Lamb, and through His resurrection unto glory. Throughout His ministry, Jesus didn’t ignore His enemy. He engaged him by often imposing limits on his freedom.  (“Do this, not that, go here, not there. Be quiet!”) He engaged him, too, by the relentless deliverance of people from sickness and demon possession. 

And, Jesus engaged Satan in the desert ~ ever giving us a template for how to handle temptation. (Luke 4) Jesus looked behind Satan’s smokescreen, identified the real intent, and quoted appropriate scripture.

 
Satan said, “If you are the son of God, turn this stone to bread.” Behind the smokescreen was ~ “Prove you are God and fill your stomach now.” The issue was not hunger but getting Jesus to do something God didn’t tell him to do.

Satan said, “I’ll give you all this authority and its glory.” Behind the smokescreen was ~ “Waiting is hard and I’ll give you kingly rule early if you worship me.”   Satan’s desire for worship was what originally caused him to defect from his place in heaven.

Satan said, “Throw yourself down and see if angels will take care of you.”Behind the smokescreen ~ “Let’s just see if God takes care of you.” This time it was Satan who quoted scripture, “For He shall give his angels charge over you, to keep you in all your ways.” Psalm 91:11  Jesus was savvy and quoted Deut. 6:16 back at him. “You shall not test the Lord your God.”  What did that mean? ‘Testing the Lord your God’ means to doubt God’s care and goodness.

There are numerous ways for me to deal with my enemy as well. When I obey God, trust God, step out in faith, and when I believe His Word over my own instincts, all of these destroy the works of the devil. In intercessory warfare, when I rise up to use my authority in scripture, limits are placed on Satan’s activity once again. And when I ask God for the spiritual eyesight to see behind the smokescreen of each temptation so that I can quote appropriate scripture back at him, his works are destroyed. 

Lord, our enemy is not acting like a defeated foe. But he is. He acts like he has all power. But he doesn’t. With Your Word, make my mouth a sharp sword. Amen

All who do evil hate the light and refuse to go near it for fear their sins will be exposed.  John 3:20 NLT

Whether infant, boy child, or adult Jesus in full time ministry, He was the Light of the world. Throughout His ministry, He told us what Light does.  It draws and warms the searching heart but it also exposes and convicts.  It probably wasn’t long after Jesus’ birth that His righteous gaze saw clear through people, even the souls of His parents. Their sins had to be an open book.  Was Jesus ever punished simply because the adults in His life felt exposed by the light of His glory?  And what about His siblings?  Talk about tension in the house!

Though scripture doesn’t fill in the blanks of Jesus’ childhood, these are the kinds of things I can safely assume because of what Jesus revealed about Himself.  His light exposed darkness ~ whether child, adolescent, or adult, Roman solder, or Jewish leader.  It divided child’s play and it challenged the rabbis in the temple.  It most assuredly pierced conversations at family gatherings.  

His Light still exposes. My own sin is under His gaze.  How many times have I felt the burning in my heart!  It happens when I’m just thinking about wrong-doing and it gets really intense when I go ahead and do it.  The burning is conviction and guilt, but it is also sadness that I have grieved Jesus.  Exposure can cause anyone, even the most seasoned saint, to wonder if God’s love will be faithful in the face of failure.  The same Light of the world that exposes also bathes the sinner in a love that melts away all fear.  

Thank you for exposing my sin.  I get to be freed from its clutches and also feel the warmth of Your embrace.  Amen

All who do evil hate the light and refuse to go near it for fear their sins will be exposed. John 3:20 NLT

The darkness makes mischief-makers bold.  Most sexual abuse happens at night because victims are probably sleeping and can easily be preyed upon.  Many other crimes happen at night, too.  Under the cover of darkness, evil men creep around to unleash destruction, whether person or property.  The fact that no one can see them lessens the risk of them getting caught.  The intensity of the crime increases as they are emboldened by their invisibility. 

I’m convinced that the dark forces of Satan’s kingdom work in the dark too.  Though most of us have never seen a demon, we imagine that they lurk in the shadows.  Paul warned in Ephesians 4:12 not to stuff our anger out of sight lest we put it down into the darkness.  The implication is that nothing good happens outside of the Light of God’s grace. 

Add a few spotlights to a home property and you have more protection.  Light exposes what is hidden.  Just as it is in the physical, it is often in the spiritual.  The Light of the world enters the room and men instinctively know that He can see clear through to their soul.  The intents of their hearts, their innermost secrets, are not hidden from the Light of His gaze.  For the one who loves his sin, there is much to hide.  The evil person shrinks back and runs back into the shadows. 

If only sinners could stay long enough in the Light, they would experience uncomfortable exposure, yes, but they would also bask in Jesus’ love and hear the call to adoption.  It is a wooing to leave captivity in exchange for freedom.  To leave a life of sin in exchange for a life of conformity to Christlikeness.  To leave the shadows for God’s circle of light.  What peace awaits anyone who decides to embrace Christ and live in His presence.  No need to hide.  No need to fear.  No need to fear disclosure.  This is the person who sleeps peacefully at night.  Few regrets.  Whatever remains is calmed by the assurance of God’s redemption. 

The question for each person, and I’m asking myself this as I write ~ ‘Am I, in any way, afraid of the Light of my Savior?’

I want to live, always, confident in our eye contact.  I am a dancer in the Light.  Amen

And as Moses lifted up the bronze snake on a pole in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, so that everyone who believes in him will have eternal life.  John 3:14-15 NLT

This is the Gospel.  God is holy and must deal with our sin.  God is also love and offers us mercy.  To receive it, we must turn from our sin through repentance and look to Christ. 

The last thing the Israelites wanted to do was to look at a snake, a brass likeness lifted high up on a pole. Seeing the snake reminded them of the curse God had brought upon them because of their grumbling.  Only some were willing to look at it – and live.  The rest chose to nurse their grudge against God for whatever reason or they felt God’s remedy was preposterous and refused to humble themselves.  They chose death over life.  

The last thing any of us want to do is look at the gruesome scene of a crucifixion, to someone lifted up high on a cross.  Couldn’t there be some other extension of mercy than to have to look to Jesus, beaten and bruised, suffering unspeakable horrors?   Anything else would be easier to take.  Only some are willing to look to Him – and live. The rest choose to nurse their grudge against God for whatever reason or they feel God’s remedy of His only Son is preposterous and they refuse to humble themselves at the foot of the cross.  They choose death over life. 

This is ultimately a love story.  Bitten by sin, we all face a death sentence.  We are cursed.  There is only one remedy and we don’t get to decide how we’ll be saved.  But the One who does decide is a Savior who loves us ~ so much so that He was willing to take our curse upon Himself and die in our place.  He was hung, high and lifted up, on a cross.  Our curse was put on Him and He was despised, shamed, and rejected.  Oh, but when we look to Him, consider and then repent of our sin, we live.   

Jesus, sometimes the power of the story of the Gospel washes over my soul in a fresh way.  This moment is one of them.  Thank you.  Always, you are high and lifted up.  Amen

Humans can reproduce only human life, but the Holy Spirit gives birth to spiritual life.  John 3:6 NLT

What did Jesus mean when He talked about flesh and spirit with respect to the new birth?

To be born physically, the union of a man and a woman are necessary.  Coming from them, I resemble them.  I have their DNA in my bones.  I have my grandmother’s nose, my aunt’s musical ability, my father’s gentle spirit, my mother’s gift of compassion, and a combination of their gestures and facial movements.  That’s why Jesus said, ‘That which is born of the flesh is flesh.’

To be born spiritually, there is also a birth by a parent.  A new Father calls me His child.  He touches my dead spirit and brings it to life.  I’m given a new nature, His nature.  I’m given undeserved righteousness, His righteousness. Begotten of God, I become like the One who gave me a spiritual birth.  That’s why Jesus said, ‘That which is born of the Spirit is spirit.’

But, am I more like my earthly parents or my Heavenly Father?  If I’ve been born again, my second birth is to trump the first.  The second birth is to re-define my whole identity.  It is meant to re-shape whatever has been disfigured by formation inside my human family.  My perfect Father intends to re-parent me.  He’s eager to fix what was broken and mature what was stunted.  He blesses the righteous seeds of my parents while challenging the sinful legacies. That creates friction ~ both in me and in my family.  Yet, this is what spiritual growth involves.

I can pray the sinner’s prayer, call myself a child of God, but never engage in a Father/daughter relationship. I do not experience His endearing ways. From lack of intimacy, I don’t become like the One who gave me spiritual life.  I cling to the patterns, habits, and beliefs of my earthly family.  My history normalized their dysfunction and it feels uncomfortable to step out of line.  My family might not like it if I honor Jesus before them.  I will potentially lose favor.  

Yet, this is the call.  I am to leave father and mother to follow God.  ‘The family way of doing things’ is to no longer bind me if ‘the family way’ is out of step with the kingdom.

I don’t like not fitting in.  I am uncomfortable with criticism, especially from family. Your likeness is what I seek so give me grace for whatever friction my follow.  Amen

Jesus replied, “I tell you the truth, unless you are born again, you cannot see the Kingdom of God.”  “What do you mean?” exclaimed Nicodemus. “How can an old man go back into his mother’s womb and be born again?”   John 3:3-4 NLT

The kingdom-related things that take place between people and God are invisible.  The new birth is invisible.  The washing away of sins is invisible.  The cleansing of our conscience is invisible.  God is invisible.  The Spirit is invisible.  And Jesus, once visible, is invisible once again.  

The new birth is no small thing.  Whomever I am ‘born of’ determines who I am like.  Children inherit the attributes of their parents.  I was ‘of my father the devil’ until the new birth.  I was in his clutches and, like him, my own flesh drove my decision making.  Now, I could be on good behavior but it was only because it was self-serving.  My heart was alive to sin and dead to God.  This captivity was invisible.  

But oh, there was a day when God said ‘let there be light’ to my own spiritual eyes.  Jesus came into view (though invisible) and nothing has ever been the same.  I was born of heaven and my entire nature changed. I was no longer like my father the devil.  God touched my spirit and I was born of Him.  My likeness was transformed to resemble my new Father.  I had new spiritual DNA.  (Invisible) Whenever there is birth, the one who gives birth bears pain.  My birth into God’s kingdom cost me nothing.  The pain was borne by Jesus.  

What can be seen by physical eyes todays is least important.  Real life happens behind the veil.  God’s promises are at work in my life.  Invisible.  Jesus is praying for me.  Invisible.  I am being sanctified.  Invisible.  Jesus is preparing a home for me.  Invisible.  Every prayer I pray is being answered.  Invisible.  

My faith is in One unseen and in a kingdom yet unseen.  Do kingdom things become visible in this life?  Oh yes!  We know that.  We see people change, provisions appear, diseases healed, seasons perpetuate, and God is everywhere if we look for His fingerprints. In Sunday School a few days ago, our teacher mentioned an Elizabeth Barrett Browning quote. 

Earth is crammed with heaven,

 And every bush afire with God.

But only he who sees takes off his shoes,

The rest sit around and pluck blackberries.  

Give my spirit eyes 20/20 vision.  Amen