New Year, New Me?

I have looked at previous blogs I wrote in 2011, 2012 and 2013 all pretty much had the same "resolutions", and all were epic fails.  Why do I consistently make goals or resolutions that by the middle of the year cause me to feel like a failure going into the next year?  Does this happen to anyone else.  Does anyone know anyone who has actually completed these ridiculous resolutions we set?  Last year I lost and gained the same 20 lbs at least 3 times.  If I would have just stayed the course, I would have been at my goal weight by the end of the year.  

Paul told the Philippians:   Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: forgetting what is behind and straining towards what is ahead, I press on towards the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenwards in Christ Jesus (Phil 3:12-14).

I look at these voices as a resounding encouragement in my own life.  But I think I have become so accustomed to them that I am guilty using them as a crutch.  If I fall off the diet wagon, fail to make changes that I know will forever impact my health, or  just in the simple obedience of being a true follower of Christ, I tend to say things like this.

..I press on 

..though a righteous man falls

..my body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, etc. ,etc., etc.

We can all use scripture to fit our ever pressing need at that time.  

I'm not trying to start off 2014 as a kill joy, but I decided it might be worth studying some of the "life scriptures" and seeing them in context so that I might be able to figure out what makes me start strong and finish so poorly. And I made a discovery.  Its because I did not see view them in context in the first place. I just took the parts of those passages and made my failure okay in the eyes of God. Guess what, it's not okay!!  Yes, God still loves me, yes Jesus still roots for me, and yes I am responsible for the choices I make and when I choose wrong or just blatantly sin (I'm a commuter it happens), I fall on these passages to justify my failure.  It's time for permanent change!

I'm not making resolutions.  I'm going to focus my energy on living my life in obedience rather than justifying my failure because I know God loves me anyway.  I'm tired of falling on my face before God and crying out why.  I even catch myself saying things like "God why did you let me go there".  

There are things God has been dealing with me about for years .  So this year I will finish well, because if you read Phil 3:12-14 in context, the whole purpose of finishing well is to make Him known.

Brethren, join in following my example, and observe those who walk according to the pattern you have in us. For many walk, of whom I often told you, and now tell you even weeping, that they are enemies of the cross of Christ, whose end is destruction, whose god is their appetite, and whose glory is in their shame, who set their minds on earthly things.  For our citizenship is in heaven, from which also we eagerly wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ; who will transform the body of our humble state into conformity with the body of His glory, by the exertion of the power that He has even to subject all things to Himself (Phil 3:17-21).

Follow me as I follow him (1 Cor. 11:1)

The journey continues....

~cv

P.S.  Unlike previous years, this year I will be keeping up with my blog.  

The Majesty of the Cross

It is 4:28 am on a Saturday morning and for the life of me, I have no idea why I am wide awake. This happened to me yesterday as well, but it was to my advantage because I was able to get to work ultra early and get off before the traffic started to build. at any rate, being up and fully alert without coffee on a Saturday morning does not make me happy but until my body realizes that it needs at least 4 more hours of sleep before I go and tutor all day long, I think I will blog for a bit.

I have been pondering on several things lately. I keep telling myself that I need to write more. I love putting the thoughts I have down on paper. It's almost therapeutic, but for some reason I just can't seem to find the time. Maybe this is why I am awake so early on a Saturday morning. So not knowing what to write about I went back to some old blogs to see what I had written about and found a list of things I said I would blog on last May (10 months ago) and have not. The list (seee May 2011 blog), was enought to keep me blogging for a full year. I realized none of those things have really burned into my soul as much as the topic I will blog on this morning. And that is the absolute beauty of the cross, the beauty of blood stained wood and the majesty and glory it represents. For those of you I tutor, that would have just made a really great thesis statement!

We have been singing a new song at church. We have been singing this song for quite some time. But for some reason the last time we sang it, I got to these words and I thought to myself "how can this be beautiful"?

As crimson covered
Over sinless hands
Your majesty
For all to see
In raging storms and quiet cloudless days....
...Beautiful Jesus

Have you ever seen the movie the Passion of the Christ, or truly looked upon a true rendition of that crucifixion? There is not much beauty there, to the inexperienced believer there is not much majesty there either. If you look close enough, you will see deep love, and if you gaze just a little longer you will understand the words of that centurion in Luke 23:47 - Now when the centurion saw what had happened, he began praising God, saying, “Certainly this man was innocent.”

To understand the beauty of the moment you have to understand that crucifixion was usually only done to criminals. What crime did Jesus do? He loved, he healed, he forgave, he fed, he supplied, he caused Lazarus to be raised from the dead. What had he done that was so horrid that he deserved to be butchered, beaten, spit upon and then hung on a cross "for all to see"? He didn't do anything at all. He was just radical enough to be dangerous. He was fulfilling scripture. He was saving the world. But he was no criminal. So looking back at my thoughts on this song, I was just thinking about three basic truths that hang in the beautiful, majesty of that cross.

1. Love. It was for love and no other reason that Jesus did what he did. Terry and I were in Austin last weekend visiting the kids. We were traveling around Sunday morning before Terry and I had to leave to come back home and somehow we got on the topic of missions. John said, he didn't see the point in the going to another country and invoking your belief system on them. I looked at him and said "love compels us to do things we don't understand". It was for love that Jesus came, it was for love he died. Pure and simple. John 3:16 - for God so LOVED the world... He truly does love us! And once you get a glimpse of that love, you feel it deep down inside of you. You don't just sing it in a song, because it compels you to look at everything around you in a different light. Your never the same again once you get this simple truth down in side of you. The reason people lay their lives down everyday for others is based out of nothing short of love. You won't and probably can't save something you don't have passion for. Jesus had passion for all - that alone was his only motive - L-O-V-E.

2. Forgiveness. When Jesus said "it is finished", he meant it. Never again would we have rules and sacrifices that helped us to get to God. It was over - on that cross hung the forgiveness of the world, "for all to see". I drive throughout the City of Houston quite a bit. Depending on my route to and/or from I get to see two huge crosses within our city. One is the St. Jospeh Hospital downtown and the other is on Beltway 8 West. And while these are both beautiful, they just don't do it for me as much as when I look into my mind and see the beauty and majesty of that one cross that set me free. God is not mad at you, He is not waiting for you to mess up so his can put his thumb of judgment on your life (been there, done that) and He is not ever going to stop loving you. The Bible is really clear on this. Romans 10:9-10: that if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved; 10 for with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation. If we truly are forgiven, we live our lives like we are forgiven, we are easily led to forgive others and we understand that nothing we can do on our own can save us.

3. Hope. Love bears all things, believes all things, HOPES for all things, endures all things, love never fails (1 Cor. 13:7-8). My hope is in this one thing, that Jesus is my savior, he loves me beyond measure and his promises are true and for me. This has been a year of struggle health wise for me. I get well only to relapse and feel like I take two steps forward and one step back. It has been a journey that I have not enjoyed much. I wish I could say I have embraced this struggle, but at times the pain and exhaustion of dealing with it is just too much to bear on my own. My hope still is unwavering that God is faithful, even in my trial and circumstance. Even as I type this today, there is a song playing in the background which says "let hope arise". Hope is what pulls us through these tough times. Our hope is in Jesus, and all that he did when he gave his life. My favorite scripture this month is Psalm 118:17, I will not die, but live, And tell of the works of the LORD.

Three simple truths. Yet for most of us, the simplicity that brings majesty to the cross is just too much to understand. We always think there needs to be some formula to make something work. Or that God has a hidden agenda someplace. There is no hidden agenda. Love - the basic ingredient for the cross. Forgiveness, the need for man to have it, because we can not save ourselves. Hope, that what we believe and who we believe is rock solid and never wavering.

And with that, I have heavy eyelids and think I will grab another hour or two of sleep before my morning starts in full force. Peace be still my friends, embrace the majesty of the King of Kings today. --Peace be still....

What does it look like?

My daughter said something to me during a short visit from Austin last week. In a tender moment (she does not share these with me often), she said she was trying to discipline herself to not go to the Lord each day out of duty or some mechanical formula which she was taught, but that out of a pure heart and devotion for His love and His working in her life. What a concept. Here is this young woman that I was given the great priviledge of hopefully not screwing up too bad and she is speaking into my life without ever knowing it.

I love quiet time. I hate it when I don't do it, put it off or tell myself it's not important. I have journals all over my house and sometimes, usually when I'm reorganizing things I will pull them out and try to see areas of my life where God has moved profoundly and changed me, I will see areas He is still working on years later and commit to NOT going around that mountain again, or I will just sit and laugh at some of the stuff I thought was God, but now realize I should not have given Him credit for that at all! I will be the first to admit that I probably come to the Lord each morning with some sort of formula. I will read a devotional, I will read some scripture, I will reflect, sometimes journal, sometimes pray, sometimes do both, but always it's the same methodology -- so now I am asking myself that same question. Why do I come to the Lord? Is it out of some kind duty that I have put myself into a cookie cutter recipe of or is it out of a true love and devotion to spend time with the lover of my soul? I think the "Christianology" word for this is "Putting on Christ". What does that look like in our lives? What does it mean to put Christ on each and every day? Is there a formula for this?

As many know, I have recently started Yoga therapy as a way to help my health. Going to that mat two times a week is not enough. I really should take what my therapist teaches me on Monday and Wednesday and put it into practice, but I think I have developed a mindset that I am only doing this for my health and for no other reason. Yoga would not be my first choice in any exercise program. First it is much harder than I ever expected to be, it is very challenging to concentrate on balance and form while in a standing position, usually on one leg. But there are three poses that I really love. I love Prayer, Childs Pose and Corpse. At the beginning of every session we warm up by doing a series of stretches which always end in the position of me standing still on my mat with my hands in prayer and about a 2 minute hold. It is during this short 6 minutes that I can truly focus on the Lord and his good ness in my life. It is in this position that I can tell God how truly grateful I am. Child's Pose finds me prostrate and bent over from a kneeling position, and even though I don't hold this position for very long it once again reminds me to be humble and take baby steps. Recovering from a major Lupus flare is a marathon not a sprint. And corpse finds me laying down at the end of my session and quietly reflecting on the peace of God in my life, unfortuneately this is not always evident any other time in my life.

I think putting on Christ is very much like any other discipline in our life, it may become mechanical at first, but eventually it should bring change and we end up doing it out of a pure love and devotion for Christ and what he did with us. And I think that is what Tessa meant when she said - I don't want to do this becuase I have to, but I want to do this because I am in a relationship with Him and out of that love and devotion I want to.

I don't want to feel guilty when I don't come to the Lord, I want to be okay with whatever time I carve that day. I don't think it's a mechanical formula we put together so that we can feel good about ourselves and mark that task off our list that day. You know, brush teeth - check, eat food - check, seek the Lord - check? There has to be more to this all that! I believe it's important for us to come to the Lord not just with our wants, needs and whining over our emotions, but because there is something that comes from sitting in a position of expectancy that the God of the Universe would meet with us. I am always amazed that no matter what time I carve out, be it 10 minutes, 30 minutes, an hour or hours -- that I know that I have been in His presence and He has met with me.

This week I'm reflecting on transformation. So naturally I am concentrating on what God's word has to say about transformation. In closing I want to use some scriptures as a guide for putting on Christ in your life out of Phillipians 4:7-8 - "And the peace of God which suprasses all comprehension will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. THEREFORE, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is lovely, whatever is of a good report, if there is anything worthy of praise, dwell on these things."

Until next time friends,

Selah

Who do you say I am?

Very few things rock me to the core of my being. But this past week I was leveled by God. I think one of the things I truly love about God is his ability to meet with his people. It does not seem to matter if there are 4 or 400 gathered; He is always faithful to show up in the midst of us.

As I began to feel better this week, I ventured out this past Wednesday evening to attend a mobilization meeting for the upcoming onething© conference which will be coming to Houston in the fall. It was a small gathering of about 30-35 people. As we had a time of worship and prayer before the actual meeting started I just began to weep. Maybe I was starved for the presence of the Lord, or maybe it was when I was a questioned as we sang the popular song “Healer”.

Matthew 16:13-16:

13When Jesus came to the region of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, "Who do people say the Son of Man is?"
14They replied, "Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, Jeremiah or one of the prophets."
15"But what about you?" he asked. "Who do you say I am?"
16Simon Peter answered, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God."

I made a decision this week regarding my health. Having spent most of the month of July feeling horrible and barely able to move each morning, I finally said enough is enough! I believe God is able to heal me. But as I sang that verse “I believe you’re my healer” I began to hear this voice in my heart and brain asks me “Who do you say I am”? Trying to ignore the voice it asked again and I knew that voice, I knew I had been pegged and I knew I had no response. I have spent the past 4-6 weeks living like I had no power or victory in my life.

When Jesus asked this question, it was Peter who gave the final answer. Jesus followed up by telling Peter that on his knowledge of who Jesus is, that the church would be built, nothing would prevail against it and then in vs. 19: I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be] loosed in heaven."

So here is my dilemma. We are the church that nothing will prevail against. It’s not a building or a group of people; it is just us normal people who are followers of Him. How often do we say we believe God? We believe he is our provider, our healer, our friend, etc. But we live our lives paralyzed by fear, lack and sickness. I’m honest enough to admit that I often just get mad at God for not showing up to rescue me, but this past year has taught me valuable lessons in sovereignty, trust, and just knowing “He is”. I have not always liked the path I am walking in, but I always seem to have known that I did not walk alone. So I was a little put off that God would ask me “Who do you say I am?”

I cried. I cried the next day as I studied these scriptures in Matthew. Because if I’m honest with myself, I don’t really live out who He is and who I know He is in my life. There had to be something in my life that the Lord would ask me this, questions this specific rarely come without reason. So I am examining myself, trying to look back specifically on the past 4-5 weeks where I have really felt isolated, alone and without much hope. There was not even any reason for it, my doctors came up with a treatment plan that would keep me well; I just had to get through the flare.

But none of that changes anything unless I truly know who He is. And He would be I AM. In fact throughout most of the Bible we are told who He is. He was constantly reminding the Israelites that I AM. He either told them who He was to assure them of his favor or wrath in their lives, or many times he told them who he was so that they would see his love, kindness, provision or compassion towards them. He always wanted them to know who he was and that was I AM. In the Psalms, David wrote over and over again who God was. He is my big revelation – I know who I AM is, and I know who I am not without him. Who do I say He is? I am feeling better and honestly ever since last Wednesday I think I turned the corner in my health. More importantly I turned a corner with the Lord. Who do I say he is? He is all I need Him to be – He always was.

Nothing makes the enemy happier than to see me shrink back and give in. Sometimes we have to encourage ourselves, we have to know that no matter what He is who He is.

Peace be still,

-cv