A REVOLUTIONARY SHIFT “Because he has focused his love on me, I will deliver him. I will protect him because he knows my name. When he calls out to me, I will answer him. I will be with him in his distress. I will deliver him, and I will honor him.” - Psalm 91:14-15 ISV The holidays can be so busy.  I love this season, but with all of the “extras,” by the time the last ornament is tucked away, I can feel wiped out. That is when I start looking around and realize that, while the tree may have been beautiful and Christmas dinner delicious, somehow in the busyness, my priorities got out of whack.  Does this ever happen to you? I look in the mirror and see that along with my credit card bill, my waistline has expanded.  And I’m exhausted and grumpy, because after six weeks of running around and eating holiday foods, I desperately need a nap and a break from indulgence. I have spent moments with the Lord in this season.  But like the difference between going t...

A PRAYER FOR THE PRODIGAL Father, it’s getting cold outside.  I look out the window at the frosty rooftops of my neighbors, and my heart sinks to think of those without a roof over their head or hope in their heart.  I think of those held prisoner in the clutches of addiction, those without food to eat and whose only socks are threadbare with holes. Father we lift the homeless, the lost, the sick, the addicted and the vulnerable.  We lift those who left rashly, wandered away or were taken.  We lift those in rebellion, those who were abused or forgotten.  Have mercy upon them, Lord!  We pray for their safety.  We pray for their provision. Deliver them from evil!  Send an angel of mercy! Still the tongue of the deceiver!  Convince them of Your love! Lift the fog and break the chains that keep them in darkness.  Arise Spirit of repentance!  Set their hearts and minds toward home! Good Shepherd leave the 99, and go out into th...

A WAY IN A MANGER “And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord. This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.”” – Luke‬ ‭2:8-12‬ ‭NIV‬‬ I love this time of year.  It starts with the beautiful season of giving thanks, crisp night air and the crunch of brilliant leaves under foot.  That gives way to the twinkling of lights, fragrant boughs, beautifully wrapped packages and mugs of hot cocoa on frosty, winter mornings. If we were not careful, it would be easy to shift the birth of the Savior to second position in this season.  With the noise, hustle and hurry of th...

THE EVERLASTING WEIGHT OF GLORY “And give thanks FOR everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.” - Ephesians 5:20 This is such a hard verse.  I Thessalonians 5:18 is much easier to accept which instructs us to “Be thankful IN all circumstances.” We can conceive of thanking God while IN pain, but the thought of thanking Him FOR it is quite another thing.  How do we scrape up the wherewithal to thank Him for the very things we have dreaded and prayed would never happen?  How do we thank Him for the bad news, the disappointment, the betrayal or the death? Like a child with a fear of needles, we are sick and want to get better, but we are terrified of the prescription. What happens inside our body to fight infection and disease as a result of the medicine is invisible.  So we must face the fear and wincing pain of our prescription, and trust that it will do the work in us that we need. We hold fast to the hope that: “...This light, tem...

I had an eye opening moment at the grocery store yesterday.  The store was busy and my cart was full with a vast array of holiday and specialty foods that I rarely buy.  The Christmas music playing was particularly annoying and unusually loud.  I was feeling overwhelmed and my irritation was rising.  A tinge of resentment crossed my mind as I wondered why the responsibility always fell solely and squarely in my lap to organize and pull together family events. Feeling the pressure and the weight of the obligatory labor and the earned exhaustion that I knew would be forthcoming, I glanced casually at the older gentleman who was walking toward me.  My cart was shockingly full, but his cart had maybe five sad, little items in it.  He may have had plans to spend Christmas at his daughter’s home, or these few things may have been last minute items he needed for a Christmas gathering.  That may have been the case, but I suspect his cart was nearly empty, ...

PEACE IN THE CHAOS “They will act religious, but they will reject the power that could make them godly. Stay away from people like that!" - 2 Timothy 3:5 (NLT) It has been a chaotic season for most of us.  The to-do list, challenges and responsibilities pull at us from all directions.  Our tendency is to be drawn to the things that shout the loudest.  In the din, we miss the Lord’s still, small voice that calls us into intimacy with Him.  In the busyness of preparation to celebrate His birth, we do not want to miss the whole point of the celebration. How unfortunate it would be to accomplish the technical aspects of a visual celebration without truly celebrating in our hearts—to have an appearance of worship—going through the motions—while our minds are on the to-do list and the merry-go-round of chores.  Going through the motions does not bring the peace we desperately need.  It is only through taking our thoughts captive and disciplining our minds...

MERRY CHRIST-MAS! Recently, I was chatting with a friend who asked what I was wanting for Christmas this year. Being both blessed and a contented person by nature, there wasn’t really much in the way of material things that I truly desired. I don’t speak Spanish, but living in California, it is common to see Spanish words. One can’t help but pick up a few words here and there.  This morning as I was typing a greeting to a friend, I saw the word “Christmas” in a new light.  I saw it as “Christ-mas.”  “Mas” in Spanish means “more.” In the celebration of the birth of the Savior, we celebrate the gift of Emmanuel—God Himself coming to live with us. With Him comes love, joy, hope and rescue.  In His name we have salvation, adoption, deliverance and peace with God.  In Him we belong, are wanted and accepted.  Isn’t that what we all truly want and need? I now know what gift I want this year.  I want Christmas itself.  I want more Christ—the g...

BEGETTING DESIRED FRUIT “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.” – Galatians 5:22-23 NIV The verb “beget” is not a word used very often.  As a matter of fact, the lists of who begat whom in scripture are very often glossed over on our way to what we consider meatier passages. However, scripture is careful to describe Jesus as the only “begotten” Son of God.  It describes his lineage —who He came from. Mary was overshadowed by the Spirit of God, the power of God rested upon her, and she carried within her the Son of God—Jesus, the first fruit of those who have fallen asleep (1 Cor 15:20). Mary could not will herself to become pregnant.  It was the power of God that came upon her that brought about Jesus’ miraculous conception.  Mary needed only to be willing. When we look at the list of the fruit of the Spirit, we see a similar lineage.  To bear spiritual fruit requi...

BLESSING THE FATHER’S CHILD “Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse.” - Romans‬ ‭12:14‬ ‭NIV‬‬ Many of us are working diligently to learn to be “blessers”—those that are purposeful to bless and be a blessing to those the Lord places around us. As the Body of Christ, we are endowed with authority to speak blessing and to be a blessing.  The Father strategically positions us to be agents of grace and mercy, ministers of comfort and bringers of peace and hope as we share the hope of Christ within us to the hurting. We can be so wonderful at blessing others, but at the same time we can say some of the most cruel, demeaning and heartless things to the Father’s child.  We are that child. We tell ourselves that we are stupid, ugly or lazy—that we will never amount to anything. We speak curses over ourselves saying that our plans will fail, that we have no willpower, we are useless, we were a mistake, we will always be poor or will never get well. We would...

STICKS & STONES “He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.” – Micah 6:8 NIV “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt me.”  We have probably all heard this saying before, or some variation thereof.  Too bad it isn’t true. While sticks and stones can hurt us, often it is the invisible fiery darts of a sharp and unrestrained tongue that inflict the most painful and lingering damage. I have long forgotten the pain from a hard punch to the arm, but I can still recall how it felt to be ridiculed or taunted.  While I can now view past events through wisened eyes, there is still a faint imprint of those events impressed on my soul. Recently, I have encountered Christians bludgeoning one another with not only harsh words, but scripture, attempting to win arguments.  If we use the Word to inflict harm, we miss the whole point of t...

THE VOICE OF OUR TEARS “Meanwhile, the moment we get tired in the waiting, God's Spirit is right alongside helping us along. If we don't know how or what to pray, it doesn't matter. He does our praying in and for us, making prayer out of our wordless sighs, our aching groans. He knows us far better than we know ourselves, knows our pregnant condition, and keeps us present before God. That's why we can be so sure that every detail in our lives of love for God is worked into something good.” – Romans 8:26-28 (MSG) What a beautiful picture these verses paint of the intimacy with which the Lord not only knows, but cares for us.  Our prayers don’t need to be eloquent, or even coherent to be understood by Him.   Our groans and our tears are laced with thousands of thoughts and feelings that lose their way on the way to our lips.  In His profound mercy, He interprets every sigh, and He knows the hurt behind every groan and the reason and meaning of every tear.  What a...

A PRAYER FOR THE LONELY “Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or terrified because of them, for the Lord your God goes with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you.” - Deuteronomy 31:6 We don’t have to be the only one in a room to feel alone.  We can be in a coliseum full of people and still feel lonely, because we feel alone in our skin.  Scripture’s wisdom encourages us to not forsake meeting together as a church (Hebrews 10:25), which is a tremendous blessing.  But it is only an internal companionship that will keep us from feeling loneliness in that packed coliseum.  We are created to live in community with one another and also in ongoing relationship with the Lord. Father, we come before You.  Your Word says that where two or more are gathered in Your Name, You are there in the midst of them (Matt 18:20).  Even though we may be miles apart, in the Spirit there is no distance.  So Lord, as in Acts 19:12 when Paul sent a blessed ...

  THE INVITATION “The trumpeters and musicians joined in unison to give praise and thanks to the Lord. Accompanied by trumpets, cymbals and other instruments, the singers raised their voices in praise to the Lord and sang: “He is good; his love endures forever.” Then the temple of the Lord was filled with the cloud, and the priests could not perform their service because of the cloud, for the glory of the Lord filled the temple of God.” – 2 Chronicles‬ ‭5:13-14‬ ‭NIV‬‬ What an awesome, if not terrifying, sight that must have been, to see the glory of the Lord filling the temple! Had I been in that congregation, I suspect my knees would have buckled and my face would have been firmly planted on the floor. A powerful lesson is tucked, half-hidden in these verses.  It wasn’t during a prayer or sermon that the glory of God fell in that place, but during worship.  When they shifted the focus of their attention from their needs and themselves to acknowledge the L...

THE GREATEST GIFT “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs." - 1 Corinthians 13:4-5 We are into the full swing of the Christmas season.  We hustle and bustle and make our plans for the perfect day, the perfect gifts and the perfect meal. For some of us there is an underlying dread about the after Christmas credit card bills, unmet gift expectations and concerns about family drama.  The pressure steals so much of the joy we should be experiencing, that we eagerly await December 26th so we can take it all down. I don’t think this is at all what the Lord had in mind when He left His seat at the right hand of the Father to live among sinners, the unrepentant and the unwashed.  He left the opulence of Heaven to take the lowest place.  He exchanged royal robes and a scepter for a servant’s towel and carpenter’s t...

SWEETHEART, YOU ARE CLEAN “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” - I John 1:9 I had a bad dream last night.  I don’t remember anything about it other than at the end of the dream I was looking in the mirror and I saw that I was filthy.  I was crying and saying, “Lord, I’m a mess!  I’m a mess!”  The Lord’s response was, “Sweetheart, you are clean.” Even now recounting the brief snippet of the dream, tears are rolling down my cheeks.  We get ourselves into messes, we make poor decisions or take matters into our own hands, because the Lord seems to move too slowly.  We make messes of ourselves and our lives, and then look in the mirror and realize that to clean ourselves up is more than we can manage. Father, we thank You that as our Father, You can do for us what we cannot do for ourselves.  Praise You for loving us, mess and all, and for washing us clean by the work...

THE OTHER 90 PERCENT “Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.” – James 1:2-4 No one enjoys suffering for any amount of time, let alone enduring longsuffering.  Through it, however, the Lord works in ways that our minds cannot even imagine. Living in a fallen world, there is peace in knowing that the Lord has not abandoned us to fend for ourselves.  He is tender-hearted toward us in our pain, drawing close to comfort us in our tears.  As a hen gathers her brood, He offers refuge and loving kindness under the shadow of His wings (Matt 23:37). “we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin.” - Hebrews 4:14. Jesus’ suffering was a work far greater than what was obs...

FAITHFUL OBEDIENCE “Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him.” - John 14:21. Our dog, Luigi, is a furry, comical beast with four lightning-fast legs. Bred to herd, he loves to run.  And while he is generally eager to please, he also has a rebellious streak. When he is close and he can hear and see me, I can give him a command, and he will be eager to obey and receive a reward.  When I am out of sight, however, all bets are off. Living in the country, there are times he will run after a deer or turkey, and momentarily be out of sight. That distance transforms our normally obedient boy into a rebel. The distance combined with nature, can tempt him beyond his ability to resist.  In those moments, when I call Him, I can almost see the wheels turning in his head, as he considers his options. Luigi is so precious to me.  He doesn’t understa...

A PRAYER FOR THE DISCOURAGED & BETRAYED “While he was still speaking a crowd came up, and the man who was called Judas, one of the Twelve, was leading them. He approached Jesus to kiss him, but Jesus asked him, “Judas, are you betraying the Son of Man with a kiss?”” – Luke‬ ‭22:47-48‬ ‭NIV‬‬ What a woeful thing to betray the Son of God!  And Jesus saw it coming. I have had conversations with those who have espoused that Jesus was weak to not have stopped a known betrayal from happening, and for having remained silent when questioned by authorities about His deity. The direct opposite is true. He knew His role was that of Savior. It was unsurpassed strength that caused Him to willingly forfeit His life in order to fulfill His purpose. He endured the pain, suffering, humiliation and brutality of abandonment and betrayal, so He could know every pain and temptation that we face, and respond selflessly and sinlessly to win our freedom. Father, we are so grateful that You...