Jesus Loves YOU

Jeremiah 19:1-22:30

I’m heading out to the zoo with my daughter for her school field trip so I’m taking the day off from writing. However, for your reading pleasure I pulled up an old post that centers on a scripture from yesterday’s Word of the Day. Enjoy! J

It’s HOT right now! I don’t know about you and where you live, but here in Indiana it is hot and dry! The once lush and fresh green grass in our yard now has large brown dead patches that just happen to be in all the sunny spots where it is the hottest. The ground has large cracks in it that have opened up and beg for the moisture from heaven to come and quench its thirst. But there is no rain to answer the ground’s prayer. It reminds me of the verses about the shrub and the tree in Jeremiah 17. The LORD tells Judah

“Cursed is the man who trusts in man and makes flesh his strength, whose heart turns away from the LORD. He is like a shrub in the desert, and shall not see any good come. He shall dwell in the parched places of the wilderness, in an uninhabited salt land.”

The first part of this verse sounds so harsh, CURSED is the man… shrub in the desert… no good will come his way… dwell in the parched places… wilderness… uninhabited. Yet look at WHY that man is cursed and living in parched places, his HEART has turned away from the LORD. If you read down to the very end of this section of Jeremiah 17 to verse 13 we may understand a bit better why turning away from the LORD would cause dryness.

Jesus tells the Samaritan woman at the well that “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink’, you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water…. Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” (John 4:10, 13-14) It’s funny; I’ve never noticed the significance of how Jesus began His conversation with this woman, “If you knew the gift of God.” The gift of God, THE stream of living water that springs up from within us, the Holy Spirit! (John 7:37-39) And KNOWING that gift, personally, intimately, its like nothing on this earth!

I’m still just beginning to learn how to tap into this spring of Living water and draw from the well of the Living, breathing Spirit of Life. The Holy Spirit was never really something we heard about much in church or Sunday school, when I was young or even still. Plenty about Jesus and His sacrifice on the cross, but mostly I just remember learning a LOT about how to be a good person. I’m only just now learning, through searching on my own, how being a good person is a FRUIT, a consequence of knowing this gift of God the Holy Spirit. A few years ago I was blessed beyond measure with the gift of speaking in tongues (read about this in more detail here).

Speaking in tongues is one of those things that I remember reading about in my Bible late one night in high school and thinking to myself, “You know, it’s too bad that things like that just don’t happen anymore. That’s really a miracle!” Up until only a few years ago I was completely clueless that there are entire denominations of Christians that not only believe in speaking in tongues and actually have the gift to do it, but they speak in tongues during their church services even!!! I had no idea! In Acts whenever the apostles came upon anyone who was a believer in Christ and hadn’t received the gift of God, the baptism of the Holy Spirit, they would lay hands on the believer and pray for them and they would not only receive the Holy Spirit but they would then immediately begin speaking in tongues and prophesying. The apostles saw this gift as a critical one for all believers. Why? I’m still not sure, but I’m working on it! All I know so far is that it was important to them to make sure that everyone received this gift, so it MUST be an important one… which is why I’m passing all this information on to you! The Holy Spirit, in at least the book of Acts, always came and then as if to prove that He was dwelling within that person allowed them to speak in languages that they did not know AND caused them to prophesy something reserved only for prophets until Jesus came along!

One day a man came to Jesus and asked Him “Teacher, I will follow you wherever you go.”  And Jesus said to him, “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.” (Matthew 8:19-20) This phrase “lay his head” is a very unique phrase in the Greek and it’s only found one more time in the Bible, you wanna know where??? At the most pivotal moment in all of history, the cross! “When Jesus had received the sour wine, He said, ‘It is finished,’ and He bowed his head and gave up His Spirit.” This verse is so profound I have to take it slowly and allow us all to savor this bite of spiritual steak for a moment. “When Jesus had received the sour wine,” Let’s first focus on “sour wine”. In the Garden of Gethsemane in Jesus’ last few moments of freedom He prayed “My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as You will.” That cup Jesus is speaking of, it’s not a literal cup of wine; it’s a spiritual cup, a cup filled with the grapes of wrath, all of The Father’s wrath and judgment poured out into that cup. While on the cross when Jesus was given a physical cup of sour wine, it was pointing us to remember the spiritual cup that Jesus was accepting on OUR behalf in that moment. And Jesus received it. He didn’t refuse it, because He certainly could have, but He didn’t. He then said “It is finished.” Not many words on this earth are more musical to our ears than those! Jesus took that cup of wrath, drank down the whole entire sour thing, slammed it down on the table in front of Satan and said IT’S FINISHED! They are paid for; they are free and clear, clean and MINE! And it is at THIS point that Jesus lays down His head. The man that wandered this earth for the last three years with not a single place to call His own and lay His weary travel-sore head down to rest, on the cross He finished His work and He rested. He wasn’t able to rest until WE were free! Jesus started this life free, but He would not rest, He refused to rest, until every last drop of that sour wine had been drunk down and sat there in His perfect belly. He drank the poison just for you. But wait, that’s not the end of the story! There’s still more to tell! Because then, after He bowed His head to rest, He “gave up His Spirit”! The words “gave up” in the Greek are so beautiful! It’s the word paradidomi, and it means to give over into (one’s) power or use: to deliver to one something to keep, use, take care of, manage,

When my husband and I had been dating for about a year, Christmas came around and I wanted to give him something that would tell him just how much I desperately loved him. I racked my brain trying to think of something that he would like but nothing was coming to me. Then one night when I lay down to go to sleep I snuggled up with one of the stuffed animals that he had gotten for me and looked at my ragged old white teddy bear “Snowball” that I had gotten when I was small and had slept with every single night since I got him. And then I knew what I would give him. The night came when the two of us exchanged gifts, I don’t remember what he gave me, but I’ll never forget what I gave him. I ran upstairs to my room and carried Snowball down behind my back and somewhat un-ceremonially handed him to Sean. He got the strangest look on his face so I explained to him that “since I now sleep with the stuffed lion that you gave me I no longer “need” Snowball, so I thought you would like to sleep with him so that it would remind you of me every night.” As I was explaining this my heart was ripping in two and the tears just flowed. Giving away my precious bear was much harder than I had expected it to be, (Garden of Gethsemane) but I wanted to show Sean how much I loved him and this was the way, I knew it. So I did it anyway. I was giving over into Sean’s power my beloved possession for him to keep, use and take care of. And while no where NEAR the sacrifice that Jesus made, I think it perfectly illustrates what He was doing in that moment on the cross. Jesus gave up His most precious possession, the thing that made Him who He was, who He IS. He gave up His SPIRIT. He gave it up for us to receive. It’s like we were sitting with Jesus at that table across from Satan and the Father and Satan is pointing his boney accusing finger in our direction and reminding the Father of every single thing that we’ve ever done wrong and trying to get the Father angry enough to pour out that sour wine into the cup and serve it to us. And He did. And so there we all sat at this table, with a cup filled with sour wine before us, and a cup filled with sweet Holy Spirit wine before Jesus and He reaches across the table and exchanges our sour wine for His sweet wine! Take, drink, this is My blood poured out for the forgiveness of many! And yet here we are, still today, only sipping away on that beautiful cup of sweet Spirit before us, allowing ourselves to become dry and crusty and dead. When all the time, there, right in front of our faces is a cup FILLED with LIVING WATER! It’s amazing to me.

In today’s reading God takes Ezekiel out to a valley filled with dried lifeless bones and tells him to prophesy (or speak a message from God) to these bones. It was WHAT God had Ezekiel prophesy over them that caught my attention this morning. “Thus says the Lord GOD to these bones, Behold, I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live.” (Ezekiel 37:5) That word “breath” in Hebrew is the word ruach and means breath, wind, or spirit! But get this! Only a mere nine verses later God uses this very same word again when He says “And I will put My Spirit within you, and you shall live,”

The scriptures make it very clear that the bones Ezekiel was speaking to were “very dry” (v. 2), yet all Ezekiel did was speak the Word of the LORD over those dry lifeless bones and they came to life. Yet it tells us that they still didn’t have “breath” or “spirit” and so the LORD God tells him, “Prophesy to the breath; prophesy, son of man, and say to the breath. Thus says the Lord GOD; Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe on these slain, that they may live.” God was having Ezekiel speak straight to the Holy Spirit to COME, breathe on these afflicted souls and bring them LIFE! The Spirit of the Living God brings LIFE! Drink Him up today! Soak Him in! Drain that cup before you, down to the very last drop! He is desperate for you and a relationship with you, do you want Him? Are you dry and thirsty and need a drink from the well of Living Water? Speak; prophesy to the four winds, “O Breath, breathe on me that I may live!” Ask the Holy Spirit to come, to fill you with His Holy fire! He is a gentleman; He does not go where He is not wanted, so you must ask Him from your heart, from your belly, your innermost being to COME. Speak it out with your lips “COME”, no more is necessary, just “Come”. He knows your heart; He can hear that it beats for Him.

As I am finishing this final edit before I post this, it is raining! Hallelujah! May the Holy Spirit rain on ALL the dry and thirsty souls today! May He FILL YOU UP with His sweet wine of victory! Amen!

Jeremiah 12:1-15:9

“But You, O LORD, know me; you see me, and test my heart toward You.” Jeremiah 12:3

I was recently asked to share my heart for women’s ministry and when I opened my mouth to speak I was a little surprised by what came out; as were the rest of the people in the room. We were surprised because what came out was this, “I want to create a lust for the Word of God in His Bride … Bible study should be like really good sex, you just want to go back for more.” It was in that moment that I was able to see the sleeping giant within me rise up and take its rightful place in my life. I’ve never put my heart into those words before. But once they were out I could see plain as day that it’s the Truth.

The cold hard fact of the matter is that this isn’t just my heart; it’s God’s heart too. He really does want “the whole package” of a marital relationship with us. All too often we shy away from the touchy subjects, like sex, because they’re just that; touchy. They’re so private its taboo to talk about them. But therein lays the danger. If we’re too scared to face Truth, then that leaves those “touchy subjects” un-touched by the Light. It leaves them all too vulnerable to be masked by Satan and his lies of half-truth.

The fact of the matter is, the Truth makes people uncomfortable. That’s why we shy away from it. But that doesn’t make it any less the Truth. When Jesus stepped up to the plate He made people very uncomfortable. He is the living, walking, breathing, talking embodiment of a perfect Law they couldn’t keep. And they hated Him for it. They hated how He made them look foolish. Simply His presence made the darkness in each of them quiver in fear that their false beliefs would be discovered; that their works of religion would be counted not as righteousness (as faith is) but as filthy menstrual rags. (Isaiah 64:6)

He was, is and will always be the Truth. And when the Truth came He dispelled all the lies, the people clung to. He took the stones from their hands and showed them how to love one another by forgiving them completely.

The truth is, it’s hard to be honest with people. It’s hard to wound someone in love and then deal with the consequences. It’s so much easier to kiss them and tell them that nothing is wrong.

My heart has been is and always will be to create a lust for the Word of God in the heart of His Bride. The Church is the Bride of Christ, His WIFE. What is the one thing that sets the marriage relationship apart from all other relationships in life? What is that one thing you do with your spouse that you DON’T do with anyone else? Sex! And God desperately yearns to have relations with His wife, the Church… YOU. That is the truth. And believe it or not, He actually does want more than the sweet pretty face that we Christians love to put on sex. He wants the raw wild abandon that comes from passionate sex. He wants the panting and groping and heat of the moment. He wants that with us, because it’s in those moments when we are truly our naked selves. It is at THAT point that we are naked and unashamed with our Husband.

As Christians we love to slap on a happy face and guild all the edges. But that’s not who God made us to be. He made us from DIRT. He made us to be dirty and messy and covered in grime. And He is perfectly OK with that because then He gets to bathe us. It is through our lack of perfection that He shines. If we’re perfect, or think we are, then we don’t need or even want Him so what would the point be? If we see ourselves as being perfect on our own, then we have no need for a Savior or our Creator to come and fill in our imperfections.

The truth is, we’re not perfect. And we do need Him. And anyone who tells you otherwise is selling you snake oil.

All too often we shy away from facing our true human nature because it scares us. But we don’t have to be afraid of the gritty texture of our nature because it’s who God made us to be: an imperfect creation in need of a PERFECT God. And the more we seek that perfection in ourselves the more imperfection we will find. However. When we seek His kingdom and His righteousness, His perfection and His beauty, we find it every time! And it fills us so completely that it satisfies that primal urge within us to seek perfection. You know, it’s almost like He planned it that way. 😉

There are a lot of genteel ways to say it, but what it all boils down to is sex. God has given us the perfect human example of the type of relationship He wants with us and it is defined by sex. He wants to know you the way a husband knows his wife and He wants for you to know Him that way too! He wants to reveal His secrets to you, His private parts that He doesn’t show to just anyone and everyone. But He is a gentleman; He absolutely positively will NOT force Himself on you. He won’t do anything to you or with you until you are in a committed relationship for life with Him. He respects you enough to keep marriage before sex.

His word, and time in it, impregnates us with knowledge, wisdom, abilities, comfort, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control, the list goes on and one. And once birthed we’re able to show and share those fruits of our relationship with Him. Sex is performed in secret; even the children formed from the very act are not allowed to witness the participation. Jesus talks of prayer in the same terms. He tells us not to pray on street corners but to pray in our rooms with the doors and windows closed, effectively shutting out the outside world and creating a private environment allowing you to be naked with God and free from the prying eyes of others who will judge and condemn you with shame.

This long dormant seed in my heart has been re-awakened. It has burst open with such force that it surprised even me. And I know now that I can’t allow anyone to hide its light any longer. God placed this seed of Light, this flower, in me for a reason and it wasn’t in order to hide it from anyone. From day one God has trained me and stretched me and prepared me to say these hard things, talk about the thing that most people have trouble hearing; God wants YOU. Not only is sex the image God gives us in the Bible, it’s what people today know. If there is one thing today’s society knows a LOT about, its sex! Could there be a more effective parable to give them? And they NEED this message because they’re chasing after perfection and relationship in all the wrong places! They need to know how much God loves them, how much He wants them, and how much He longs for YOU.

It’s time for us to re-connect Love with sex. Satan has stolen sex and turned it into something naughty and wrong. Well, the age of his reign has come to an END and its high time we take back what he has stolen! Sex is pure and raw and beautiful. It’s intimate and loving and satisfying and there is NOTHING wrong with that!

If and ONLY if you are married and with your spouse; the next time you have sex and you’re looking deep into each other’s eyes and your bodies are pressed together as one unit think about this: “THIS is the kind of passionate relationship Jesus wants with ME.”

That is the kind of relationship I have with Him and that’s the kind of relationship I pray for you to have with Him. I pray for the kind of EXPERIENCES in His word when you have a page turning, can’t write fast enough, can’t read fast enough to keep up with the rabbit you’re chasing, hugging, puffing, romp between the covers of His Word that ends with you laying your head back with a sigh of pure gratification! I pray you experience that for yourself, and soon, because it will work wonders in your marriage! Trust me, I know.

My friend, don’t be afraid to show God your wild=side. Psst, He’s already seen it, He created it, so why not just go with it and see where He takes you.

Jeremiah 8:18-11:23

“Thus says the LORD; ‘Let not the wise man boast in his wisdom, let not the mighty man boast in his might, let not the rich man boast in his riches, but let him who boasts boast in this, that he understands and knows Me, that I am the LORD who practices steadfast love, justice, and righteousness in the earth. For in these things I delight, declares the LORD.'” Jeremiah 9:23-24

Oh Lord, where shall I start today!

My friends, you are SO PRECIOUS to me! You have no idea!

The time is drawing near when we all will desperately need the love of a savior to draw us through the troubles that will surround us. Troubles that neither wisdom, nor might, nor even riches will pull us through. It will only be truly intimate relationship with the God of all Lights that will pull us through the darkness we are approaching.

We must understand and know the LORD’s steadfast love for us. (Genesis 24:12, Exodus 34:5-6, Psalm 6:4, Psalm 13:5, Psalm 17:7, Psalm 118) We must understand and know His justice. (Genesis 18:25, Matthew 1:19, Matthew 12:15-21, Romans 3:22-26, Romans 3:20, Romans 4:25, Romans 5:1, Acts 13:38-39, Romans 6:7) We must understand and know His righteousness. (Genesis 15:6, Deuteronomy 9:5, Deuteronomy 9:6, Job 29:14, Psalm 4:1, Psalm 5:8, Isaiah 51:7, 2 Timothy 4:8, Titus 3:5, Hebrews 11:7, James 2:23)

It is in our understanding and knowledge of these things that He delights. It’s important to Him that we “get Him”. He wants us to know Him as intimately as He knows us. But that can only come through time spent with Him. Spent reading His word and in prayer. He wants to share His secrets with you. Will you let Him?

Jeremiah 6:1-8:17

“Says the LORD”

Few words are more profound that those. The LORD spoke this world into being. His word is solid and sure like the cornerstone of a building. But even more profound that this, is this:

“I spoke to you persistently,”

Not only does God speak, He speaks to YOU and He speaks to you persistently! In an ongoing conversation that never ends He speaks to you through all of creation. He speaks to you through the Bible. He speaks to you through other people. He speaks to you through TV shows, and movies, and song lyrics and you name it! His possibilities are endless, if we are but willing to listen.

What is God saying to you today? What is He using to convey His message? And what effect is His message having on you?

He loves you my friend. And He desperately seeks a conversation WITH you. Won’t you join in?

Jeremiah 3:15-5:31

“Return, O faithless sons, I will heal your faithlessness.” Jeremiah 3:22

What a week it has been! I feel like I’ve been riding on a roller coaster! At some point the ride will stop and I’ll be able to get off at the station right? I could use some steady ground about now!

And today, that’s the Word of God. Stable and consistent and always applicable for my situation in life. I don’t know how He does it, I just know that He does it.

I’ve been holding on to this little gem for a few days now, just waiting for the right time to share it with you. Waiting was hard. But when I saw Jeremiah 3:22 I knew it was the right fit because the first step in this journey through the Bible takes place in the Garden of Eden in the moment just after the peak of humanities faithlessness; the fateful bite of the forbidden fruit. Turn with me, if you will, to Genesis 3:22-24 and the conversation God is having with Himself over the fall of man and what He should do about it.

“Then the LORD God said, ‘Behold, the man has become like one of us in knowing good and evil. Now, lest he reach out his hand and take also of the tree of life and eat, and live forever – therefore the LORD God sent him out from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he was taken. He drove out the man, and at the east of the Garden of Eden he placed the cherubim and a flaming sword that turned every way to guard the way to the tree of life.”

Someone could look at this passage and think that God is speaking out of anger toward man and choosing, out of anger, to deny man the gift of eating from the Tree of Life. But that’s truly not the case at all. No. God is too wise to act merely in anger toward anyone or anything. Casting humanity out of the Garden of Eden was NOT a decision He took lightly. No, God drove them out of the garden because it was the right thing to do. The Tree of Life bears fruit that when eaten grants eternal life, and there was no way that God was going to allow His precious creation to stay in that naked and ashamed state for all of eternity. No, He had a plan; it was for their good and not their harm. It was a plan for a future hope that would redeem the greatest mistake humanity has ever made. But in order for that plan to work He had to do something that would hurt Him more than it hurt man; He had to drive them from the very place that had been created just for them. So while the plan involved pain, it was for their good was it not?

Next, if you’ll turn to Ecclesiastes 3:14-15 you’ll find even more good news! It may look a little familiar because we were just there a few days ago. (It’s almost like I planned that ahead of time isn’t it. *snicker*)

“I perceived that whatever God does endures forever; nothing can be added to it, nor anything taken from it. God has done it, so that people fear before Him. That which is, already has been; that which is to be, already has been; and God seeks what has been driven away.”

Whatever God does endures forever, what an amazing statement! If we look back at the entrance to the Garden of Eden to the cherubim and the flaming sword we will, forever, see them standing in that entrance. They won’t move, they won’t change, they stand there for all eternity guarding that entrance to Paradise and a face to face relationship with God the creator Himself.

But there’s more to this verse than meets the eye. Not only is Solomon’s statement about the permanence of God profound, it’s amazingly comforting for someone who lives in a world that is constantly changing and shifting like the sand on the shore. But to God who is eternal, that which is the present, it already has happened. And that which is to be in the future, it already has been. How amazingly peaceful, like the waves rolling back and forth over the shoreline, this Truth that no matter what is going on in our lives, from God’s viewpoint in eternity it’s already happened, is over and we’re hanging out in heaven sipping the lemonade He made with our lemons.

But then my friends, comes the Wham-o of a statement that just rocks my world. “God seeks what has been driven away”. I’ve got to be honest, when I came across that one the other day I cried. It wasn’t new to me, but it’s what I needed to hear.

I think humanity has been tormented with that moment from the Garden for a very long time. We were created in the image of God. We were created for a face to face relationship with Him. Yet in that moment in the Garden when God sent Adam and Eve away the space that His presence was supposed to fill inside them was ripped away leaving a eternal hole that only the infinite Spirit of God could fill. And yet humanity has done it’s upmost best to try and fill that hole with anything and everything but God.

I don’t know about men, but I know that women have a desperate need to feel needed and wanted and desired. And guess what, that desire can really only be fulfilled by God and His desire for us. I wept last night for many reasons, but mostly because I was feeling rejected. And in that moment as my mind went through the list of ways I felt rejected it came to the resting place where God sits and waits for me to remember Him. And there He was just waiting to remind me that even if everyone in the whole world rejects me, He doesn’t.

That word, “seeks”, in Ecclesiastes 3:15, it’s the Hebrew word baqash. It means to seek, require, desire, exact, request, to find, secure. God doesn’t just seek you, He requires a relationship with you in order to be complete. His love is incomplete without someone to receive it. He so desperately desires a relationship with you.

And then there’s that phrase “what has been driven away”. In Hebrew it’s the word “radaph” and it means to be behind, follow after, pursue, run after, attend closely upon, to eagerly aim to secure, to pursue ardently.

Now tell me, according to these scriptures alone does it look like God is angry with you? Would someone who is angry with you seek you because of an eager aim to secure you and keep you safe? Or would that be something that someone does because they love you and care about you and want to do what is in your best interest?

Let’s check out Psalm 23:6 for a minute and then I’ll ask you that again. “Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of the my life and I shall dwell in the house of the LORD forever.” Do you see that phrase “shall follow me”? Yeah, it’s that same Hebrew word, radaph! What part of goodness and mercy following you all the days of your life conveys a message of lingering anger and rejection from your Father? God seeks what has been driven away. His mercy follows you ALL the days of your life. Any misstep you make, Mercy and Goodness are there to pick you up, dust you off and help you recover.

But wait! We’re not done yet! There’s more!

If you take a peek at John 6:37 you’ll find Jesus telling the crowd that He is the Bread of Life, the manna sent from heaven, and then He says, “All those the Father gives Me will come to Me, and whoever comes to Me I will never drive away.” (NIV)

Did you catch that? He took us all right back there to that fateful moment that burned all of humanity when our Beloved Creator cast us out of the Garden of Relationship with Him. He took us right back there and showed us that guarded entrance. We looked at it forlornly knowing full well that there was no way we could get back in and He explains to us that He is the Way. Jesus is the key that unlocks that guarded door and opens it up to a fully restored eternal relationship with our Father God the creator! Now if that isn’t good news I don’t know what is!

God is desperately in love with you my friend. He desires you more than you could ever imagine. And even if the entire world rejects you, He accepts you and loves you enough to chase after you day after day in order to get your attention. He is desperate for a relationship with you, a real relationship where you talk and hang out and do stuff together for fun. He no longer calls you servant, because a servant doesn’t know what His master is doing. He calls you FRIEND because He desires to share His secrets with you; secrets that no one else in this world knows. (John 15: 12-17)

Take comfort today my Beloved, no matter how rejected you may feel, it is simply a complete and total lie from Satan; because you are completely and totally loved and accepted through Jesus.

(P.S. I have not had time to proof read/edit this post, if you see typos please tell me!!!!!)