January 29,2010

My Mother-in-love passed away last night. Please remember our family in your prayers. We know she is with Jesus! We know she is out of pain, and she has a new body! We just have to deal with our emotions, our memories and our lost. Thank You.

Church last night was awesome! I saw chains breaking, and shackles falling off... you should have been there. ...these things God has revealed to us through the Spirit searches everything even the depths of God. 1 Corinthians 2:10
But Mary was treasuring up all these things in her heart and meditating on them. -Luke 2:19
She closed her eyes and listened, stealing time like a hidden metronome, as high and as wide as she dared to think, but she still could not begin to comprehend. She, a common child of the most humble means who had never read the Scriptures for herself, was embracing the incarnate Word. The fullness of the Godhead rested in her inexperienced arms, sleeping to the rhythm of her heart. She hummed a song she did not know, a song being sund by the choir oa angelshovering over her head but hidden from her carnal senses. The deafening hallelujahs of the heavenly host were silent to mortal ears except through the sounds of a young woman's voice who had unknowingly given human notes to a holy score. The tiny baby boy had robbed her heart. "So, this is how it feels to be a mother," she mused.
She crept back into the stable, wrapped Him in swaddling clothes and laid Him in the manger. Just down the path, the sun peeked gently over the roof of an inn full of barren souls who had made Him no room.
May my meditation be pleasing to Him; I will rejoice in the Lord. - Psalm 104:34

Holy Spirit at Hobby Lobby

I went to Hobby Lobby in West Columbia on Wednesday, and I was so blessed by Joann who cut my clothe. She is annointed. She helped me with my walk. She told me things, God has been telling me for sometime. So, I surrender to the Holy Spirit, God have your way with me, lead me, teach me, mold me! Anyone who needs a blessing should go be and talk with Joann. And please remember her in your prays. Most of you know, New levels, new devils. But we can overcome! And Wednesday night at Praise Church was awesome! Phil filled in for Pastor Tom who has gone to the mountain again. And Phil did a great job, and he keeps us laughing too. Phil showed us in Bible verses that after we are saved from our sins, God will show them to us and we will loath ourselves because of the sin. But it is to keep us from getting all high and mighty because we are saved from our sins, we are the chosen ones. Read Ezeikel.
God has chosen the world's insignificant and despised things -- the things viewed as nothing -- so He might bring to nothing the things that are viewed as something. - 1 Corinthians 1:28

While they were there, the time came for her to give birth. -Luke 2:6
The time. The time toward which all "time" had been ticking since the kingdom clock struck one. These words in Luke 2:6 refer to the most important segment of time since the first tick of the clock. The second hand circled tens of thousands of times for thousands of years, then finally, miraculously, majestically-- the time came. God's voice broke through the barrier of the natural realm through the cries of an infant, startled by life on the outside.
The Son of God had come to earth, wrapped in a tiny cloak of human flesh. "She wrapped Him snugly in cloth and laid Him in a feeding trough--because there was no room for them at the inn" (Luke 2:7)
Father God, You have brought all things together in Christ--things both in heaven and on earth. Therefore, we who have put our hope in Jesus our Messiah praise His glorious name (Eph. 1:10, 12). Obedient to Your call, He has met us in our deepest need... just when we needed Him most.
But when the completion of the time came, God sent His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those under the law. _ Galatians 4:4-5

In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that the whole empire should be registered. -Luke 2:1
I have heard the questions thousands of times: Why do we celebrate Christmas on December 25? How do we know when the birth of Christ took place? Why celebrate Christmas at a time originally set aside for ancient pagan celebrations? In the Jewish calendar, the fourteenth day of the first month is called the day of conception. If our God of perfect planning and gloriously significant order happened to overshadow Mary on the fourteenth day of the first month of His calendar, our Saviour would have been born toward the end of our December. We have absolutely no way of knowing whether or not He did. But I would not be the least bit surprised for God to have sparked His Son's human life on one Passover... and ended it on another. I am a hopeless romantic when it comes to celebrating Christmas, the birth of my Savior. Until a further "Hear ye! Hear ye!" comes from heaven, December 25 works mighty fine for me.
Go and eat what is rich, drink what is sweet, and send portions to those who have nothing prepared, since today is holy to our Lord. - Nehemiah 8:10

From now on all generations will call me blessed, because the Mighty One has done great things for me, and His name is holy. - Luke 1:48-49
Mary had probable been too scared to celebrate before, but Elizabeth's confirmation of God's miraculous work set her free! Whether or not young Mary began physically jumping up and down with joy and excitement, her insides certainly did!
I am totally blessed by the thought. Nothing is more appropriate than getting excited when God does something in our lives. I think He loves it!
Scripture draws a picture here of a reflective young woman with an unusual heart for God. Her statement that"all generations will call me blessed" was not voiced in pride but from shock. God seems to love little more than stunning the humble with His awesome brand of intervention. Please don';t lose the wonder of this. Marvel with me at the fact that Mary was plain, simple, and extraordinarily ordinary. I always felt the same way growing up. Still do, deep down inside.
That's part of the beauty of God choosing someone like you and me to know Him and serve Him. May we never get over it.
There is no one holy like the Lord.
There is no one besides You! And there is no rock like our God. - 1 Samuel 2:2

Holy Spirit

When Elizabeth heard Mary's greeting, the baby leaped inside her, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. - Luke 1:41
The two women had one important predicament in common - questionable pregnancies, sure to stir up some talk. Elizabeth hadn't been out of the house in months. It makes you wonder why. As happy as she was, it must have been strange not to blame her sagging figure and bumpy thighs on the baby. And to think she was forced to borrow maternity clothes from her friends' granddaughters. But maybe Elizabeth and Mary were too busy talking between themselves to pay much attention. Can you imagine their conversation over tea? One too old, the other too young. One married to an old priest, the other promised to a young carpenter. One heavy with child, the other with no physical evidence to fuel her faith. But God had graciously given them one another with a bond to braid their lives forever.
Women are like that aren't they? We long to find someone who has been where we've been, who shares our fragile places, who sees our sunsets with the same shades of blue.
He comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any kind of affliction, through the comfort we ourselves receive from God. -2Corinthians 1:4

Mary asked the angel, "How can this be, since I have not been intimate with a man?"
-Luke 1:34
I wonder if Mary knew when He arrived in her womb. Brothers in the faith might be appalled that I would ask such a question, but female minds were created to think intimate, personal thoughts like these! I have at least a hundred questions to ask Mary in heaven. And no doubt Mary will have some interesting stories to tell. Part of the fun of heaven will be hearing spiritual giants tell the details of the old, old stories.
Mary certainly wouldn't have thought of herself as a spiritual giant, would she?
Could a teenager have fathomed that she was to give birth to the Son who was the radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of His being?
Oh yes, the news was good. The best. But the news was also hard. When the winds of heaven converge with the winds of earth, lighting is bound to strike. Seems to me that Gabriel left just in time for Mary to tell her mother. And I have a feeling Nazareth was about to hear and experience a little thunder!
For the Father Himself loves you, because you have loved Me and have believed that I came from God. -John 16:27

Jesus

You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you will call His name JESUS. - Luke 1:31
Do you realize this was the first proclamation of our Savior's name since the beginning of time?
Jesus- the very name at which every knee will one day bow. The very name that every tongue will one day confess. A name that has no parallel in my vocabulary or yours. A name I whispered into the ears of my infant daughters and son as I rocked them and sang lullabies of His love. A name by which I've made every single prayerful petition of my life. A name that has meant by absolute salvation not only from eternal destruction but from myself.
A name with power like no other name.
Jesus.
What a beautiful name. I love to watch how if falls off the lips of those who love Him. I shudder as it falls off the lips of those who don't.
It has been the most important and most consistent word in my life. Dearer today than yesterday. Inexpressibly precious.
Jesus.
You were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and be the spirit of our God. - 1 Corinthians 6:11

January 5, 2010

He is Jesus.
The One and Only.
Transcendent over all else.
To know Him is to love Him.
To love Him is to long for Him.
To long for Him is to finally reach
soul hands into the One true thing
we need never get enough of.
Jesus.
Take all you want.
Take all you need.
Till soul is fed.
And spirit freed.
Till dust is dust.
And Face you see.
Jesus Christ.
He's all you need.