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But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God, waiting from that time until his enemies should be made a footstool for his feet.  Hebrews 10:12-13

The enemy of God is the god of the anti-kingdom.  He does not war silently.  Peter says that he is like a lion and his roar is ferocious.  In the plains of Africa where lions roam, I’ve read that a lion’s roar can be heard five miles away if there are no competing noises.  I can picture what happens with the sound, can’t you?  Every potential prey stops what they’re doing to listen and discern how close, or how far away, their predator is.  Every living thing is on edge.

While there are certainly periods in my life that are peaceful, they are short lived.  I feel the enemy’s breath on my cheek.  His roar is the bedfellow, and the precursor, of spiritual attacks.  He customizes devastation to hurt as much as possible.  He targets my areas of weakness.  He waits for my vulnerable moments.  Where the ground is shaky beneath my feet, he lies in wait for the perfect moment to gain the upper hand.

I dream of the day when I will see consistent evidence that every enemy is under God’s feet. The picture is that of a Ruler who wins the battle against an opposing king.  Victorious in battle, he puts his foot on the neck of the enemy as a sign of conquest and subjugation.

As a child of God, I am waiting for the time when every spiritual enemy of Christ will be visibly under the authority of King Jesus.  Victory has already been declared now but I do not see that sweeping defeat as a reality.  Not yet.  There is still fighting and while I engage in the battle, where is my King?  Seated at God’s right hand in a position of rulership.  Where are His enemies?   Already beneath Him.  Look how Satan’s kingdom is described as ‘levels of rule and authority, power and dominion’ and Jesus is above them all.

 God seated Jesus at His right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come.  And He put all things in subjection under His feet.  Ephesians 1:20-21

At this present time, and from my earthly perspective, I am unable to see that reality.  But one day I will.  Until then, I must know who my Victor is.  I must believe that He has authority, and has conferred that authority upon me, to rule over our spiritual enemies on His behalf.  Satan will continue to act as though he still has all the power if I let him.  The Word of God is my sword and God will show me when and where to speak it, to impose limits and parameters to the activity of the anti-kingdom.  During this brief period when Satan is still allowed to roam the earth and wield some destructive powers, the church must battle and look forward to the day when every enemy will be vanquished, put under God’s feet, and then eternally subjugated.

Without You, I’m no match for them.  With You, and in You, there’s no contest.  The victory is Yours and the victory is mine.  Amen

Seeing the crowds, he went up on the mountain, and when he sat down, his disciples came to him. Then he opened his mouth and taught them. Matthew 5:1-2

Jesus withdrew from the crowd, went up on the mountain by himself, and was joined by his disciples. He began to teach the beatitudes. Humanly speaking, His sermon could have benefited the crowd he left behind but instead, Jesus chose to share it with His chosen few. Some messages just aren’t for everyone.

The beatitudes were a collection of kingdom principles so difficult that only the ears of His true disciples could understand them. Religious leaders wouldn’t have grasped them because the spiritual posture of each beatitude could only be understood through a relationship with Jesus. True spiritual understanding is theology learned through relationship, through a deep intimacy with the Savior.

I have heard some anointed messages in my lifetime. By earthly definition, they weren’t always insightful or clever. Something otherworldly was going on. From the time the speaker opened his mouth, my heart was burning. As truths poured out in quick succession, I was too stunned to take notes. The message went to so deep a place that I couldn’t have explained to anyone what I had heard. My body felt heavy under the warm hand of God and I just prayed someone had recorded it.

Such is the impact when reading the beatitudes. When I take them in slowly, I am stunned by Jesus’ words. Each one is too hard for me to apply. I can wonder why Jesus would give a sermon like this if it’s impossible for me to apply it.

The beatitudes hold up a mirror to His perfection and allow me to see my fatally flawed reflection. Each one describes Jesus and I recognize my need for the Holy Spirit.  Without a personal Pentecost, I am unable to walk by the power of the Spirit.  With it, the essence of each beatitude can begin to bubble up in my regenerated heart. I won’t have to live as an actress, appearing one way while hiding inner corruption. I can be authentic through and through; admittedly imperfect but in the process of supernatural change.   

Fill me with Your Spirit. Repentance and dependence will characterize my life. Amen

On that very day Noah and his sons, Shem, Ham and Japheth, together with his wife and the wives of his three sons, entered the ark.  Genesis 7:13

COVID19, and the slower pace of life it has introduced, has given many opportunities for in-depth conversations with family.  This morning, as Ron and I sat down to watch our church service online, he turned to me and asked this question.  “When you get to heaven, who would you be interested in talking to?  Someone that isn’t a mainstream biblical character?”  I sat for over a minute in silence before answering.  Finally, I knew.  Noah’s wife.

Isn’t it true that the spouses and children of prominent people are often the most interesting?  They haven’t had a voice as they’ve quietly lived behind the scenes.  They’ve seen so much but said so little.  We may know how their ‘famous loved one’ feels about many things but we cannot assume they are a carbon copy in their beliefs and perspectives.  

Noah’s wife lived with Noah hundreds of years before God spoke to him with a mandate to build a boat.  What kind of person was he before the call?  How did she experience him?  Did they have a good marriage?  We don’t know but we assume the answer is yes simply because he listened to God and followed the difficult path of obedience.  But not every believer is a Christ-like mate.  Life is messy and man is sinful.  

What was it like for Mrs. Noah to support him while he built the ark?  How many nights did he want to quit?  Did she ever despair of his health when she saw the toll it was taking on him?  How did she handle the criticism of the world around her?  It’s one thing to be personally criticized but quite another to see someone you love suffer ridicule. What were her thoughts about the ark?  Did she ever doubt that her husband had heard God’s voice?  

And what did she think and feel on that morning that it was time to board the ark with her family?  When she heard the mighty sound of God’s hand shutting the door, did she fear of what would come next? She had no experience with a boat on open seas.  She’d never seen a mud puddle!  

So many of our thoughts are of heaven these days.  We long for the stability of the kingdom and the righteous rule of Jesus as King. Like Noah, we see a depraved world that is disintegrating more and more into lawlessness.  We are much like Noah’s wife, mere witnesses on the sidelines.  She holds such intrigue this morning.  

You have your own answer to Ron’s question.  One day you will pull up a chair.  You’ll make a cup of coffee, or iced tea, and share a 1,000-year conversation with your person of interest.  Relish the anticipating.  Such is the stuff of the kingdom and such are the ruminations of the saints.  Our deferred hope has many shades and pictures.  My fireside chat with Mrs. Noah is my daydream today.

Don’t let me be afraid to read the scriptures with holy imagination.  Amen

But somewhere it is testified in these words: “What is man that You are mindful of him, or the son of man that You care for him? Hebrews 2:5-6

A little boy attempted to recite the Lord’s prayer.  He said, “Our Father, who art in heaven, how do you know my name?”  That child had no idea he was capturing the wonder of these verses.  He misquoted the prayer but correctly summarized this direct quotation from Psalm 8.  On a distant hillside, a shepherd boy gazed into the heavens and was awestruck by the privilege of being thought of by God.  All David had to go on were the stories of his ancestors, truths about God from the Torah, and the experience of being part of a nation God called ‘Israel, my glory.’

In 1968, when Apollo 8 circled the moon, the astronauts took turns reading the story of creation.  You might have heard them recite it on archived recordings.  What’s more meaningful than that is when Buzz Aldrin landed on the moon and celebrated communion.  As he did, he read this verse from Psalm 8.  “What is man that You are mindful of him, or the son of man that You care for him?”  It was under radio silence so no one got to hear it.

What does it mean that God is thinking of me today?  Am I a fleeting thought?  Is it like when I run into an old friend and hear them say, “It’s really strange that I would see you today.  Last week, out of the clear blue, I thought of you.”  While that’s slightly meaningful, it’s not life changing.  It’s clear that I was just someone’s stray thought whereas God is preoccupied with me.  With the billions of people on earth, He doesn’t divide His time to think about me for just a split second before moving on to someone else.  He is ever conscious of my every breath, every sigh, every joy, frustration, tears and celebrations.  He is intimately acquainted and eternally committed in Covenant love that He initiated.

On this day, right now, how are you feeling?  Alone, challenged, intimidated, forsaken, perhaps even betrayed?  Savor every word of this love letter.  If it’s familiar, don’t read it on auto pilot.  Take your time.  It’s one of many expressions of love but a perfect one for this moment in time.  Allow the wonder of what it means to belong to God infuse new iron into your foundation.

But now the Lord who created you, says: Don’t be afraid, for I have ransomed you; I have called you by name; you are mine. When you go through deep waters and great trouble, I will be with you. When you go through rivers of difficulty, you will not drown! When you walk through the fire of oppression, you will not be burned up—the flames will not consume you. For I am the Lord your God, your Savior, the Holy One of Israel. Don’t be afraid, for I am with you.

Isaiah 43

I am concealed in the shadow of God’s hand.  Isaiah 49:2

The definition of a shadow is an image cast by an object.  The word doesn’t usually bring warm feelings.  Someone hiding in the shadows is a person with a questionable agenda.  Someone afraid of their own shadow is a poor soul gripped by shyness.  Someone who sees shadows in the night is one who sleeps lightly.  And we know the familiar phrase in the 23^rd Psalm, ‘in the valley of the shadow of death.’ 

While the topic of shadows makes us think of something foreboding, shadows can also be beautiful.  How about these references.

I dwell in the shadow of the Almighty.  Psalm 91:1

I am concealed in the shadow of God’s hand.  Isaiah 49:2

And, I take refuge in the shadow of my Father’s wings.  Psalm 36:7 

God is also described as One who casts a shadow, and His shadow provides shade from the heat.  Isaiah 25:4  His presence shadows His children ~ going with them wherever they go. Psalm 121:5

If I am in Christ, I am overshadowed when the Spirit conceives something holy, or heals something broken, or prepares something yet unformed.  In these days of our family’s sorrow, we are overshadowed.  We are being refined in the fire, healed in our brokenness, and watching for redemption still unformed.

For each of us who are overshadowed by Your Spirit, we rest while You create.  Amen

Behind enmity of any kind, there’s always something bigger going on; something sinister in the spirit world that exacerbates seeds of discord. Satan loves division among people groups. He favors anything that God hates. God calls His children to unity; Satan calls his children to discord. God calls His children to love one another; Satan calls his children to kill and destroy. Whenever prejudice is not dealt with, it intensifies with each generation. Sin is never dormant. Left to itself, it will grow, giving Satan an opportunity to get even more mileage out of hatred.

Racism and prejudice are rampant and on full display.  Whites against blacks. Arabs against Jews. The North against the South. Old money against new money. The rich against the poor. But God would want me to personalize this even further. We are often born into homes with family prejudices. I was. There were feelings of animosity against a certain relative who, sadly, couldn’t do anything right to lessen the feelings of hatred. There was a prejudice against a neighbor who had acted foolishly years back. Their name couldn’t even be mentioned without the re-telling of their story of shame. It’s possible for us to hear family stories around the dinner table and feel a dislike for someone without a personal reason of our own. It’s in the blood, just as it was for Haman.

God is a God of reconciliation. Whenever prejudice can stop with us, let’s make this our holy ambition. Seeds of righteousness will be passed on to our children. A war, local or even international, might just be prevented if generational biases were healed at the foot of the cross.

So Jacob served seven years for Rachel, and they seemed to him but a few days because of the love he had for her. Genesis 29:20

This is one of the rare moments in the Bible where sentiments about romantic love are expressed. Does love at first sight exist? Yes. Is there such a thing as people just ‘clicking’ when they meet? I believe so. It happens in friendship. Why not romantic love!

Jacob so loved Rachel that working for seven years to acquire her as his wife was hardly a sacrifice. If we were to ask Jacob about it in today’s vernacular, he might reply, “It was nothing!” And we know what he means. When I love to do something, the time that expires as I engage in the activity is irrelevant. Hours go by as if they were minutes. This is how I feel as I do many things; record in the studio, engage in the graphic design of new marketing materials, organize drawers and closets, even explore colors, textures, and fabrics.

There are people that I love deeply and serving them also seems effortless. I wouldn’t think twice about sacrificing in some way for them. I love to see them happy no matter what it costs me.

What is Jesus asking you to do today that seems steep? There is a cost. He said there would be. It is cross-shaped. Paul said that it was love that constrained him to endure hardship. It is lack of love that causes many to abandon their faith. When things get difficult, there is no relationship to sustain them. Knowledge of God without experience does not build emotional and physical endurance in Christian service.

There are days each of us lose perspective. They are related to the moments Jesus spent in the garden asking His Father if He might be spared the cross. But one day, no matter what we’ve suffered, I believe we will all say something similar. “I loved Him so it was easy to spend my life.”

Internal pep talks fizzle out quickly, Lord. It is Your voice and the memories of our time together that give me supernatural strength. Amen

 

“What shall we say the kingdom of God is like, or what parable shall we use to describe it? It is like a mustard seed, which is the smallest of all seeds on earth. Yet when planted, it grows and becomes the largest of all garden plants, with such big branches that the birds can perch in its shade.” Mark 4:30-32

I believe and I have seen with my own eyes ~ my own transformation. Amen

By faith he left Egypt, not being afraid of the anger of the king, for he endured as seeing him who is invisible.  Hebrews 11:27

What happened in Moses’ invisible world took him far.  He left his adopted family, forfeited his place in the line of royalty, and then took on the responsibility for leading over 603,000 children of Israel out of Egypt and across the desert to their new homeland.  He endured stresses most of us will never feel, suffered the love/hate relationship with a fickle people who worshipped God one day and Baal the next, and he did all this while enduring the many griefs of his own personal story.  What carried him through it all and gave him the strength to endure?  Connection with the One who was invisible.

What happens in the unseen realm, in the life of every child of God, cannot be underestimated.  It’s what propels us into the line of fire, some even into martyrdom.  It gives iron to the weak.  A revelation of God, through Christ and through His Word, shapes things not visible to the naked eye.  Right now, as you are reading this, the Holy Spirit is working in your own invisible realm to guide your thoughts, personalize this scripture, and lead you to be different five minutes from now than you are now.

As you and I interact with God and His Word today, here are just a few of things that will happen that are imperceptible to others.  God will reveal Himself and enlarge our view of Him.  God will disclose things to our minds, and hearts, that will bring inner change.  God will give me a word to speak that will plant heaven’s seeds on earth’s soil.  (It will prosper because His Word trumps all other forces at work.)  God will re-direct me when I am starting to wander off into wrong lines of thinking and feeling. God will revive me through a whisper when I sink under the pressures I can’t yet anticipate.  God will reward my obedience with peace and confidence.  All of this is invisible.

Scripture speaks of God’s child residing in peace and safety.  Does God keep His promise when I look into my external circumstances and see turmoil and danger?    Let us not doubt.  Peace and safety are the bedfellows of any of us who keep our eyes on the invisible God.  Like Moses, we  are constantly changing in the presence of the Almighty.  We endure.  We do not fear.  We rise out of the ashes.  We think soundly.  We speak wisdom in the presence of the foolish.  And like Peter and John, we stand before others and give testimony in such a way that others perceive we have been with Jesus. (Acts 4:13)

Let these scriptures be our benediction.

 I solemnly charge you in the presence of God, who gives life to all things, and in the presence of Christ Jesus, who made the good confession before Pontius Pilate, to keep all His precepts without stain or reproach until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ.  He alone possesses immortality and lives in unapproachable light, whom no man has ever seen or can see. To Him be honor and eternal power and dominion! Amen.  I Timothy 6:13-16 AMP

He was a murderer from the beginning, and has nothing to do with the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies.  John 8:44

My storytellers can be people around me but I can also be one as I process things with or without God.  Satan is also a storyteller and I will be lied to.  His default language is lies.  A default language is what someone speaks instinctively. Satan lives and breathes falsehood.  In our justice system, someone is considered innocent until proven guilty.  But with the devil, I better realize that he is always guilty. The paradigm is flipped.

If he’s whispering his version of my own story in my ears, how will I know it?  He will say anything that puts me in bondage.  The most important thing on his agenda is to corrupt my trust in God.  The lies usually start with that goal in mind.  “See, your faith is in vain. God can’t be trusted. You’re foolish to believe His promises.  They’re not for you.”  On it goes.  If trust is breached, my relationship is fractured to the point where I am left completely vulnerable.  If I shut my ears to God, they’re wide open for someone else to fill them.

If I want to know if I’ve succumbed to the enemy’s re-write of my own story, I need to look for the symptoms that point to the lies; despair, hopelessness, depression, unresolved anger, jealousy, futility.  If any of these have taken over my soul, I can be sure there has been an editor from the pits of hell interpreting my story.  I need to be on guard, take every thought captive, and remember that life is one sifting exercise after another.  Thoughts come in ~ I examine them ~ then I keep them or throw them away.

I used to believe that certain events, or certain people, ruined parts of my life. It wasn’t true. Yes, they caused pain but it was my interpretation of the events and what I concluded about myself and God that put me in long term bondage. Jesus was never tormented about who His Father was.  He never stopped believing that He was God’s beloved Son.  He was never trapped by futility and despair.  Though He suffered more than any human being, He never believed lies about his pain.  He knew that everything He suffered was redemptive and would lead to glory.

Each of us need to figure out where we’ve been lied to and renounce it.  We will have a list of things to discard.  We will be telling God, “I used to believe ‘that’ but I renounce it as a lie.  Now, I believe ‘this’.”  I state the lie and replace it with a truth-telling scripture.  The enemy’s stronghold is broken, legal ground is taken back, and abundant life and freedom become mine.

 The only version I crave, and will believe, is Yours.  Amen