Deuteronomy

Eyes that SEE

Posted on July 7, 2013 by Tamar


Deuteronomy 1:1-3:22

“Your eyes have seen all that the LORD your God has done” Deuteronomy 3:21

“Your eyes have seen”, it’s such a powerful statement. It’s such a powerful concept, eyes that see. We take them for granted all too often, and yet some have eyes that are shut so tightly that even the brightest light has trouble penetrating.

There is so much that I long to say to you, things that I pray God opens your eyes to, today and every day. “Blessed are the eyes that see what [I] see! For I tell you that many prophets and kings desired to see what [I] see, and did not see it and hear what [I] hear and did not hear it.” (Luke 10:23)

Do you know what I see?

I see the Word of God laid out before me filling my lap every morning. Do you know what I see in that Word?

I see God’s love for me. I see His deliverance from evil for me. I see His unshakable faith in me even when I have proven myself so untrustworthy. I see His willingness to put His good name on the line by attaching it with mine. I see His people coming to church to punch their time card and say they’ve been there only to rush back out the door in order to go do something else. I see His CHILDREN begging for bread at the doorsteps of idols because they’ve never been taught that they are God’s righteous children through Christ. I see the LORD’S Beloved Bride opening herself up to be ravaged time and time again by “lovers” who don’t care a bit for her; all because she doesn’t realize that she’s been bought with an un-payable price that has redeemed her beyond any human ability to pay. His Bride is YOU.

Right now you may be reading this nodding your head in agreement and thinking of someone else, but it’s YOU. I don’t want to see others walking through their lives without opening the gift that God has placed in their laps. There is POWER in the Word of God, a power beyond your wildest imagination. Sure, that sounds good, and you may believe it, but have you experienced it? I have. And I can tell you that even the little nibble I’ve experienced is nothing compared to the power and glory of Jesus that waits just beyond those simple books covers.

As Christians we were created to rule this world, just read the creation story. “Dominion over all the earth” it’s kind of a big deal. Yet how much ruling do you feel like you’re doing right now? God has given you the keys to an eternal kingdom. A place where His power and majesty lives and breathes and bestows upon you the strength and courage to keep moving forward through the sludge of life that we deal with day in and day out. Those keys lay in the palm of your hand in the middle of an open Bible. You need only take them out and USE THEM.

What good is having a car if you never drive it? What’s the point of buying that gorgeous new dress if you never wear it? Why spend time making that gourmet meal if you never eat it? What’s the point of having a Bible if you never read it? What’s the point of having eyes if you never use them or ears that don’t listen to the still soft voice of Jesus whispering through the turning pages of a Bible? If your spouse wrote you a love letter would you never read it? Or would you get it out time and time again to pour over their words of adoration for you?

Jesus loves you. YOU. But unless you’re reading your Bible on your own, it’s next to impossible to feel the full force of His love toward you. If I called you my friend, but never answered your phone calls am I really being your friend? Ring, ring, your Bible is calling…

“Son of man, look with your eyes, and hear with your ears and set your heart upon all that I shall show you, for you were brought here in order that I might show it to you. Declare all that you see to the house of Israel.” (Ezekiel 40:4) God is SHOWING you His love for you each and every day, are you opening your eyes to see it? God has brought you to this place in your life where you HAVE SEEN the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living, are you declaring to the world what you have seen or are you keeping it hidden under a basket?

You have tasted and seen that the Lord is good, are you telling people about His goodness so that they may taste it too? How will they know if someone doesn’t tell them? How do you know that that someone isn’t you? What if God has placed you in this circumstance of life, for such a time as this, so that you can reach that one person who’s planted right next to you in the garden of life?

“Lord, I pray for eyes to see You and ears to hear Your voice loud and clear. In Jesus’ name, Amen!”

Categories: 365 Life, Deuteronomy, Writing Through the Bible in a Year | Tags: , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

An Eye for an Eye

Posted on May 18, 2013 by Tamar

Today’s Reading: Deuteronomy 19:11-22:30


Your eye shall not pity. It shall be life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot. Deuteronomy 19:21

Reading this today it just seemed so harsh! Have no pity? None? And yet this just proves to me how AWESOME our God is.

Take a look at Deuteronomy 21:18-21 again:

“If a man has a stubborn and rebellious son who will not obey the voice of his father or the voice of his mother, and, though they discipline him, will not listen to them, then his father and his mother shall take hold of him and bring him out to the elders of his city at the gate of the place where he lives, and they shall say to the elders of his city. ‘This, our son, is stubborn and rebellious; he will not obey our voice; he is a glutton and a drunkard.’ Then all the men of the city shall stone him to death with stones. So you shall purge the evil from your midst,, and all Israel shall hear, and fear.”

How often are we that rebellious child? I don’t know about you, but I’ve lost count myself! So while that punishment is what we deserve, it’s not what we receive!

Take a look at the very next passage, Deuteronomy 21:22-23:

“And if a man has committed a crime punishable by death (like being a rebellious child) and he is put to death and you hang him on a tree, his body shall not remain all night on the tree, but you shall bury him the same day, for a hanged man is cursed by God. You shall not defile your land that the LORD your God is giving you for an inheritance.”

A man hung on a tree is cursed by God eh? Mark 15:34 records that on the cross Jesus cried out, “Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?” which means, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Did you know that the twenty second Psalm starts with those exact words?

“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me, from the words of my groaning? O my God, I cry by day, but you do not answer, and by night, but I find no rest. Yet you are holy, enthroned on the praises of Israel. In you our fathers trusted; they trusted, and you delivered them. To you they cried and were rescued; in you they trusted and were not put to shame. But I am a worm and not a man, scorned by mankind and despised by the people. All who see me mock me; they make mouths at me; they wag their heads; He trusts in the LORD; let him deliver him/ let him rescue him, for he delights in him! Yet you are he who took me from the womb; you made me trust you at my mother’s breast. On you was I cast from my birth, and from my mother’s womb you have been my God. Be not far from me, for trouble is near, and there is none to help. Many bulls encompass me; strong bulls of Bashan surround me; they open wide their mouths at me, like a ravening and roaring lion. I am poured out like water and all my bones are out of joint; my heart is like wax; it is melted within my breast; my strength is dried up like a potsherd, and my tongue sticks to my jaws; you law me in the dust of death. For dogs encompass me; a company of evildoers encircles me; they have pierced my hands and feet – I can count all my bones – they stare and gloat over me; they divide my garments among them and for my clothing they cast lots. But you, O LORD, do not be far off! O you my help, come quickly to my aid! Deliver my soul from the sword, my precious life from the power of the dog! Save me from the mouth of the lion! You have rescued me from the horns of the wild oxen! I will tell of your name to my brothers; in the midst of the congregation I will praise you; You who fear the LORD, praise him! All you offspring of Jacob, glorify him, and stand in awe of him, all you offspring of Israel! For he has not despised or abhorred the affliction of the afflicted, and he has not hidden his face from him, but has heard, when he cried to him. From you comes my praise in the great congregation; my vows I will perform before those who fear him. The afflicted shall eat and be satisfied; those who seek him shall praise the LORD! May your hearts live forever! All the ends of the earth shall remember and turn to the LORD, and all the families of the nations shall worship before you. For kingship belongs to the LORD, and he rules over the nations. All the prosperous of the earth eat and worship; before him shall bow all who go down to the dust, even the one who could not keep himself alive. Posterity shall serve him; it shall be told of the Lord to the coming generation; they shall come and proclaim his righteousness to a people yet unborn, that he has done it.”

In John’s account of the cross he tells us that Jesus’ final words were “It is finished”. He had done it. He had finished the work God had sent him to do. He had been hung on a cross (also known as a tree).

You see, Paul tells us in 2 Corinthians,

“if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. Working together with him, then, we appeal to you not to receive the grace of God in vain. For he says, ‘In a favorable time I listened to you, and in a day of salvation I have helped you.’ Behold, now is the favorable time; behold, now is the day of salvation.” (5:17-6:2)

My friends, today is the day of favor, today is the day of salvation! Jesus is alive. He has paid the penalty FOR US! “it shall be a life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot.” Our lives should have been taken on that tree, but He put His Son there instead. Our eyes were the ones that deserved to be spit in, but He did that for us. Our teeth deserved to be gnashing outside the gates of heaven but because of Him they’ll be singing inside them. Our hands, our feet, they deserved to be nailed to that cross on that day, but He took them instead. For me. For you. For all of us, because that’s how Amazing Love really is.










Categories: 365 Life, Amazing Love, Deuteronomy, Writing Through the Bible in a Year | Tags: , , | Leave a comment

A New Year

Posted on May 17, 2013 by Tamar

Read: Deuteronomy 16:1-19:10

And it shall be with him, and he shall read in it all the days of his life, that he may learn to fear the LORD his God by keeping all the words of this law and these statutes, and doing them, that his heart may not be lifted up above his brothers, and that he may not turn aside from the commandment, either to the right hand or to the commandment, either to the right hand or to the left, so that he may continue long in his kingdom, he and his children, in Israel. – Deut. 17:19

Wow! How quickly things can change! As many of you know, last year God issued me a challenge to write through the Bible in a year. And I’ll admit I have failed miserably in getting all the way through in a year’s time. BUT I’ve come SOOOO much farther than I’ve ever been before and learned so much more than I ever thought possible, but I still have not completed the task I was assigned. Specifically, getting it accomplished in a year. Yesterday God blessed me with a terrific birthday present for the website, pens with the name on them!

I sat by the door waiting for the UPS guy to get up to the porch with them, I was soooo excited! I ripped open the box grabbed the first pen and immediately put it to paper… nothing. It refused to write. I tried another one, nothing. It wouldn’t write either! “Oh you have GOT to be kidding me! I can’t give these away, people will hate them! They don’t work.” I grabbed another one out of the box, “Lord! Please! Why won’t these work!?!” This one tried to work. The ink started to flow and then stopped and then started again and then stopped again, “UGH! They are so inconsistent! None of them are writing the first time I go to write with them! What is the deal?”

“Really annoying isn’t it.” God says.

“YES! It’s driving me crazy! I don’t want people to not like their pen because it’s inconsistent. I mean this has my name on it!”

And He says, “Then how do you think I feel?”

BAM!!!!! Conviction!

“Yes Lord. I will do better at writing every day like You called me to.”

When I started writing for the Lord I fondly referred to myself as His pen. I wasn’t the author of these books, He was. I wasn’t the writer of this blog, He is. Yet as time progressed I became less and less reliable to do what He had called me to do. I was getting tired. Very tired to be honest. I have never, not ever been able to read through the Bible from cover to cover. I’m not really sure why, I just haven’t. Yet I am DETERMINED to make this happen. Period. God challenged me to do it and if there’s one thing about me you need to know it’s that I am STUBBORN. Just ask my husband or my parents. When I get my mind set on something there is very little that can stop me. This is one of those things. I don’t want for people to throw God’s pen away because it writes inconsistently. God is constant, so I need to be too. He has given me the mission of reading and writing through the Bible in a year and helping others do the same. I’ve seen the change that it’s made in my life, TREMENDOUS change! I want others to know the joy that comes from those daily intimate moments with God in His word and through writing about it in a simple little journal. It’s amazing to me how something so easy can make such a HUGE difference in a life. I want others to know the POWER of God’s word living and acting in their lives. The system that God has helped me create to help us on this journey is amazing. I’ve never seen anything like it! It’s something that is variable in depth where you can spend as little or as much time digging into it as you want. Knowing full well that the deeper down the rabbit hole you go the closer you get to God’s wonderland! He is so magnificent! I hope you can see that today. I pray that you can see that today, His glory, His marvelous love for you in wonderous ways. (Jennifer)

So after the conversation about the pens, I was convinced that writing daily was imperative for me and my schedule. I knew that it was something that I was supposed to protect in my life. So of course, what is the very thing that became next to impossible to get to today? My pen and paper! I retreated into my bedroom with my Bible and shut the door behind me for some really precious intimate time with Jesus. But I made a huge mistake; I brought my phone with me. So of course, it kept ringing and I kept answering it between paragraphs. Until finally the Holy Spirit says to me, “If you were being intimate with your husband in here right now would you be answering the phone?”

“Of course not!”

“Then why are you answering it now?”

WHOAH!!!

Now I need to tell you, convicting conversations like this don’t happen between us very often. Usually they’re very different and very lovey toward each other. So when I get two in a row like this I realize just how much this means to Him. I’ve seen the difference consistent reading of the Word can make, I’ve lived it. I’ve preached it. And yet here I am, having fallen from it. I have allowed the business of life to get in the way of the romance of life. Intimate alone time with my Savior is PRECIOUS and yet I have forsaken that and that hurts Him. I could hear it in His voice. I mean, here He’s busting through walls to get me where I am and I’m not willing to spend 30 minutes reading His love letter to me every day? What kind of gratitude is that?

And yet, there is my Savior, loving me and cheering me on all the same. A couple of days ago I was jumping on the trampoline with Anna. She asked me to lay down on the trampoline with her and make a leaf angel. I told her “No, I don’t want to get leaves stuck in my hair.” And the moment the words were out of my mouth I could sense that the Holy Spirit was saying something to me, I just wasn’t exactly sure what until yesterday while I was reading Darrell Creswell’s blog. He mentioned Matthew 18:3-5, “Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever receives one such child in my name receives Me”

I just kept staring at this picture. It’s PRECIOUS. Yet I knew that there was something in it that Jesus wanted me to find. As a teacher I have lived my life around children. They are some of the wisest beings on the planet! So this verse is tucked down deep into my heart because I KNOW that children have more to teach us than we have to teach them. So what did these two children have to teach me? I asked Him, “Lord, what are you trying to show me?”

“What do you see?”

“They’re so DIRTY.”

“Is that often a characteristic of children?”

“YES!” I laughed.

“Why?”

“Because they’re not afraid to get dirty.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s fun.”

“Do you think maybe that’s My message when I’m telling you to be more childlike in your faith? Don’t be afraid to get dirty. Go have fun then come wash in the water of the Word, that’s what Grace is all about.”

I get so afraid of doing things wrong, of messing them up, that I forget why I’m doing them in the first place; because they’re FUN! I LOVE writing! I LOVE my alone time with God! Yet so often I catch myself thinking it’s something that I HAVE to do instead of something that I GET to do. We are the FIRST generation to have God’s Word as accessible to us as it is. Being in the Word every day is a luxury that NO ONE before this time has EVER been able to indulge in. Not like this. Abraham was never been able to curl up in a comfy chair with a steamy mug of joe tickling his wiskers and scan the pages of a well worn Bible. Moses never had that, Sarah didn’t get that, and even the Disciples didn’t do that, only us. The printing press is a very recent commodity not to mention smart phones and the internet that put His word in our pockets at the touch of a screen. We are so spoiled and we forget that all too easily. I forget that all too often.

So today, after grappling with my hectic life to get to my desk and my computer to write something down, I open it up and my ever-changing background is a picture of my husband at the Tough Mudder he ran last June. And I just stare at it as my computer is booting up. In this picture he is at the top of a VERY difficult obstacle helping someone else get to the top. He is COVERED in mud from head to toe, he is absolutely exhausted, yet he’s not moving on to finish his own race, he has paused to help someone else accomplish the task that he has just tackled. And not on his lonesome either I might add. You see, that’s how difficult this obstacle is. You can’t really accomplish it by yourself. You have to have at least one person helping you. That’s kind of the point of this obstacle, actually the entire Tough Mudder race. It’s all about team work and helping the other runners get to the finish line together. The people ahead of you help you up, and then you help the people behind you and everyone finishes.

Staring at this picture of my Beloved today I was so struck by how perfectly it mimics the race of life and faith. We can’t do this on our own. We just can’t. No matter how much we try, no matter how much we want to, we can’t run this race alone. We NEED the people who have gone ahead of us to help us up. And the people behind us NEED our help to make it through the obstacles ahead of them. But together we ALL finish the race to win a prize that is imperishable and secure and VERY well worth the effort. We strive to enter into His rest; a promise for the centuries before us, for us, and for those after us. To enter into the rest is realizing that the work has been finished from the beginning.

“Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. And on the seventh day God FINISHED his Work That He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work that He had done.” Genesis 2:1-2

The work has been finished since the beginning. God set all the dominoes in place in six days. On the seventh, He tipped over the first one and sat down to watch them all fall into the PERFECT pattern that He created. How beautiful is that!?! The work is finished, and all we have to do is REST in knowing that the work is over. We have to rest in confidence knowing that our lives aren’t about what we do or don’t do, they’re about what GOD is DOING in them and through them. I used to think that we would sit up in heaven and chat about the things that WE did here on earth. Now I don’t think that’s what we’ll be doing at all. From heaven we will be able to see the big picture God created with the dominoes and we will stand in such absolute awe of it that all we will be able to talk about is what GOD did with us. Not the other way around. J

AS struck as I was with this picture of my husband helping others finish the race well I know I wanted to share it with you. So I went to my picture program and pulled up all the photos from that day. I found three video clips of Sean’s three attempts to scale the half pipe. I want you to watch them and notice, the “cloud of witness” surrounding the racers, cheering them on, urging them forward as they try their hardest to scale this insurmountable mountain. I also want you to note that this obstacle is within sight of the finish line and comes after about 12.5 miles of pure hell. These people are past the point of absolute exhaustion. They were “done” about ten miles ago, yet chose to keep running simply because they wanted to finish. Sheer determination is the ONLY thing that is keeping them going at this point. That, and the cheers of those surrounding them. These videos may be of my husband, the strikingly handsome man in the orange shirt, but place yourself in them when you watch them. Picture that mountain you’ve been trying to climb as the half pipe. Picture the people in your life as the people at the top trying to pull you up. God has surrounded you with a great cloud of witnesses, some you can see and hear and others you can’t. But know that they are ALL cheering for you as loudly as they possibly can. With every fiber of their being there are pulling for you, praying for you, doing everything they’re allowed to do to help you get past this obstacle.

I may not have met my goal of the entire Bible in one year. But that doesn’t mean I have to stop trying. Like Sean in this video, I made it farther than I’ve ever made it before and THAT IS an accomplishment. A huge one. Now it’s time for me to back up, take what I learned from the first attempts and do my best to make it all the way up this time. And if I don’t, there’s always next year. J

I’m going to be taking the next few days to pull together all the resources from the last year, pray and with the Holy Spirit create a more efficient plan of attack for this coming year of reading and writing. I would greatly appreciate your prayers in this as I am learning how absolutely critical this challenge is for ALL of us. Also, during this time I would like for you to very prayerfully consider joining me on this next attempt up the pipe. I can fully attest to the power of daily reading, even if I wasn’t successful in fully accomplishing the goal. I got close enough to know that it is a worthy goal to attain. And I would love to go through this TOGETHER with YOU. Let me know in the comments section if you’re in this with me. The reading plan is available in its entirety on the “Printables” page. It includes links to every single day’s readings! Together we can do this my friends!

Categories: 365 Life, Deuteronomy, Idols of Stone, Writing Through the Bible in a Year | 7 Comments

Jesus Took it All

Posted on May 16, 2012 by Tamar

Today’s Reading: Deuteronomy 32:1-34:12

You know, it’s amazing to me how I’ve read some of these things time and time again and never picked up on the weight of significance that they have. In reading today in Deuteronomy I was, of all places, sitting on my bathroom floor. I had stayed up late last night finishing a post and so my husband and I both inadvertently overslept this morning. Which consequently meant that I didn’t get my snuggle time with Jesus this morning like I usually do. Instead I started my day with the morning chaos of getting two males ready for school and work and out the door all with a four-year-old girl hanging on my leg begging to watch Phineas and Ferb. Sigh… not my preferred relaxing way to start the day, but I’m not complaining, all of that is a tremendous blessing and I appreciate it greatly! In fact I wouldn’t know what I would do without it; we have fun in the morning. So having my morning routine disrupted meant that I was forced to grab my Bible, lock myself in the bathroom for about thirty minutes and devour what I could from His word before going any further into my day. And there, in the midst of my back leaning against the vanity doors, toes perched against the wall, Bible teetering on my knees, no pen to take notes, daughter knocking “Mommy….” I noticed something. The majority of what we read today and yesterday was curses, darkness, dread and condemnation – not very fun to read about and start your day with… unless you know the end of the story. There I was on the cold linoleum floor and the Holy Spirit ever so softly whispers “He took it all”. I wept.

Jesus took it all. Every curse that we’ve spent the last two days reading about, Jesus took them; every one of them, He took it upon Himself at the cross. For our sake, for you, for me, for our children and our children’s children God put all our darkness on Jesus. Jesus knew no sin; He went through His entire life without sinning. And yet here I am, when I was focused on the law and couldn’t go an hour without sinning! Jesus took it all so that through Him, His sacrifice, His blood, we might become the righteousness of God. US, righteous. Jesus saved us from the law, He became the curse for us. Wow! What a mighty God we serve! Lord Jesus thank You! May we live this day in absolute awe of the sacrifice that You made all for us!

Jesus Paid it all by Kristian Stanfill


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Talk to Him

Posted on May 15, 2012 by Tamar

Today’s Reading: Deuteronomy 29:1-31:30

Yesterday while writing I stumbled over something that rocked my world. Love, God’s love, is perfected with us. God isn’t complete without us, just like my grandpa whose wife just went home to heaven a few months ago. The other day he said to me “I never knew how much it would hurt”. To be without this woman of his dreams, the partner of his soul, it hurts. Without the object of his love he is in pain, excruciatingly so. God feels that without us, He is in excruciating pain without us in His life. I can’t imagine the pain that Jesus felt on the cross, physical and spiritual, but I am imagining that it was something akin to a birthing pain. The kind of pain that you endure because you know that the reward that comes from that pain is so very worth the cost. The joy that comes from holding that baby in your arms makes the pain of birthing it fade into nothingness. The joy that Jesus feels, holding you in His arms, filling you with His Spirit, loving others through your arms and your words and your deeds, it’s all worth it for Him. And because His Spirit is within you, like a husband within his wife, the more you get to know His gentle nudging and groaning the easier it is to respond to Him. I have found that often times it is not in the manner that most people would expect but rather at times that love comes out in a convicting way through the truth that can sometimes hurt. That doesn’t make it any less the truth or love. My husband tells me when he is frustrated with me, when he is proud of me, and when he is pleased with me. But he is a very quiet man and often times I have to draw it out of him, God can be like that. It has taken me years to learn how to read my husband’s feelings and I’m still not that great at it. The same is true with God, our union with Him is one of give and take, gentle nudges in one direction or the other. Yet at the same time it is also late night conversations in the dark through tears and laughter in the park over the funny things the animals are doing at your feet. It’s through telling glances over the dinner table, a conversation with your eyes; that’s what being married to God is all about. It’s a constant conversation in all the different forms of communication. We wouldn’t dream of only talking to our spouse once a week for an hour. Yet with God it’s the common concept that as long as we go to church and spend our time there every week then we’re doing what God wants us to do. If I went to visit my husband at work for an hour a week, but never talked to him any other time during the week would that make any sense? For the longest time it was my belief that as long as I did all the right things I was doing what would please God. Little did I understand at the time that what pleases God the most is when we acknowledge His presence.

Several years ago a movie by the name of Jerry Mcguire came out, perhaps you’ve heard of it, and there was a scene in it that became very well known. The main character Jerry and his girlfriend were standing in an elevator with another couple that just happened to be deaf. As the elevator lifted them all higher to their destinations the deaf couple silently signed to one another with definite looks of complete and total adoration towards one another and then the doors opened and they exited the elevator. Jerry turned to his girlfriend and asked “what did he say?” and she told him “He said, ‘You complete me’.” Then through the course of the movie Jerry and his girlfriend end up splitting up, he hits the big time and once there realizes that it means nothing to him without someone to share it with so he goes speeding back to his girlfriend’s house where she’s having a party and he storms in the door, says “hello” and then enters into this big long drawn out speech about how much he loves and needs her and none of the success meant anything without her and she finally stops him and says “You had me at hello”. *romantic sigh*

There God was up on His throne, He had it all, fame, fortune, power, prestige but it meant nothing without someone to share it with. His life was hollow without us! How awesome is that??? We complete HIM! We are His other half, His love, His Beloved. That’s how He sees us, His Beloved.

Does He complete you? Does God’s Spirit fill you up in ways you never knew you were empty? He can! But He’s a gentleman, He stands at the door and knocks… and then waits for you to open the door to Him. He will never force His way into your heart, He will wait to be invited. But OH! Once He is invited in you will never want Him to leave. You won’t be able to imagine your life without Him, because He DOES complete you in ways that you never knew He could. God has a way of making your life whole in ways that you will make you simply shake your head in disbelief. I keep finding myself saying “God, how can you be this good to me?” I see Him everywhere and in everything now.

Today my daughter and I went on a walk in the park where the trees grow right up next to the trail.

Those trees are filled with life, from birds

to bees, squirrels and chipmunks the lifesongs of all that surrounded us simply resonated. At one point there was this sharp chirping sound that was coming from a fairly low spot in the trees very near us. Keeping my eyes trained on where I thought the sound was coming from I slowly crept closer to it, camera in the ready and then I spotted the noisemaker, a chipmunk on a twig! I’m not sure that I’d ever been that close to one before today. As we walked I was in awe of the way that the sun warmly stroked the heads of some of the flowers while others immediately next to those in the sun were in the cool dappled shade from the trees’ leaves above. I was amazed at how the power of the perfume of a stand of flowers could overwhelm my senses as I passed them by. I was intrigued by a side trail that led to I knew not where, only to look closer and see God’s glory reflecting from the face of a lone flower on the side of the mystery dirt path. To me, to see nature, God’s creation is to marvel at God Himself. To know an artist you look at their work, to know an author your read their books, to know a friend you talk to them. Delve deeper into your faith, test yourself and your motives today. Are you operating on a surface level in your relationship with Jesus? Are you only going through the motions of faith, or are you soaring above the storm through faith? Question yourself, how have I seen God today? Where have I seen God today? Have I been Jesus for someone today? What you do for the least of these you do for Him.


Categories: Deuteronomy | Leave a comment

Imperfect Me

Posted on May 14, 2012 by Tamar

Pray

Read: Deuteronomy 27:1-28:68

Well, today’s the day we come to the passage of scripture that I’ve been dreading and looking forward to the most. It’s the if-then statement of blessings and curses. For anyone who is a student of ancient law you know this section very well… I know I do! This is the section of scripture that almost killed me. You see, I had discovered God, like, REALLY discovered Him; I came to the eye opening experience that God isn’t just some religion He’s REAL! The God I had learned about my entire life was, well is, real. I was so in awe of this creator God wanting a relationship with me that I was desperate to please Him. I was so in love with this man named Jesus that I wanted to DO something to gain His attention, His favor, His love and approval. Well, I’ve always been fond of the Old Testament, the stories, the people, the rules – so clear cut, like bold black and white drawings it was so easy to see who was in the right and who was in the wrong. I could read those rules and follow them and KNOW that I was pleasing God, right? I could do everything that everyone on the radio, behind a pulpit or behind a pen told me to do and I could know that I was gaining God’s favor right? Oh, so wrong! It makes me want to weep remembering the cords of religion that I tied around myself during that time in my life. I was trying so hard to please God and by doing so I was making Him weep. I was trying so desperately to be someone else when all He wants me to be is who HE made me to be – Imperfect ME.

I went to extremes to try and please God, I was exhausting myself trying to make Him happy with me and He lovingly sent me several messengers to tell me that He was happy with me and to stop trying so hard to please Him. But I didn’t listen. I didn’t listen because I was afraid. I was afraid that if I did something wrong, if I tripped and fell in my faith that God would get angry and curse me. I was spending so much time reading in the Old Testament without reading it through the filter of the cross that I was falling deeper and deeper into a pit of despair. It got so bad that I was constantly asking God to forgive me throughout the day, hardly an hour would go by without a sin occurring and that was on the days when I hadn’t even left the house. And then I heard it, the words that changed my life. Not instantly mind you, the Accuser would have none of that, it was a word of hope that God planted deep into my heart so that it would be rooted deeply enough to withstand the tugging and clawing of the Accuser. That word was “forgiven”, past tense, as in it’s done, finished, over, I have been forgiven. Not He is in a constant state of forgiving me, I have been forgiven. Everything that I will ever do that stands against me in the court of Heavenly Law HAS BEEN (past tense) forgiven.

You see the key to my dilemma was that I was trying. I was trying to be good, I was trying to do the right thing, I was trying to love others with my works, I was trying trying trying trying… But that’s just it! His burden is EASY and His yoke is Light! When we are in Christ there is no trying, there is only doing or not doing. When Jesus died on the cross He went through so much more than all the physical things that we saw. Jesus was fulfilling a supernatural law, supernatural things generally can not be seen with physical eyes. Jesus endured so much MORE than we even know about, things that we could never or would never want to imagine, and part of my prayers this morning I was thanking Him for what He gave up for us on the cross, so much more than we could ever imagine and you know what He told me “I gave it all”. Jesus was not born of man, He was born from the Holy Spirit of God, He was fully man and fully God – how, we will never understand this side of heaven, but He was. That day on the cross Jesus did something, He took upon Himself a task that no man before or ever again will ever have to endure, He took upon Himself total and complete darkness. By allowing the Father to pile upon His shoulders the entirety of our sins He was allowing the Father to completely cover Him with darkness. The One who is The Light was smothered in our darkness. And for that time the candle was snuffed completely out. In Matthew 27:50 it tells us And when Jesus had cried out again in a loud voice, He gave up His spirit. His spirit, THE Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Truth and Love and Peace and Patience, the Spirit of joy and kindness, goodness and faithfulness, gentleness and self-control; the Spirit that made Him The Messiah He gave that up – for us. For me. For you. He gave up His absolute most precious thing in life and in death, He gave up His Spirit. The essence of who He is, He gave that up for us.

Why?

So that we could continue to worship Him in lip service only?

So that we could keep following the same religious rules that had tied up all the Israelites for thousands of years?

NO!

He gave up that most precious Spirit of His very own so that He could share it with us!

On the day that Moses walked down the mountain with the Law written on tablets of stone 3,000 people died. The Law is referred to as the ministry of death. Yet on the day that the Holy Spirit came on Pentacost and wrote itself onto hearts of flesh 3,000 people LIVED! The Holy Spirit, Jesus’ spirit, is the Law of Life, it is the ministry of love! Following Jesus isn’t about following rules made up by men, it’s about following the man you love!

Almost twelve years ago I stood next to my Beloved in the front of a church filled with family and friends and bedecked with flowers, satin bows and plenty of tulle where I vowed to never leave or forsake him, the love of my life. A few short years later he decided that he didn’t want to work in a factory for the rest of his life and that he needed to go back to school to be a mechanic for Mercedes. In order to do this our little family of three had to move three hours away from our quiet little small town life in our huge rental house and live in a tiny apartment in the suburbs of the big city of Chicago for two years. We would be on an extremely tight budget that left no room for frivolities like trips to the zoo with a two-year-old, or even weekend movies. Those were two hard dark years, but we found ways to have fun and enjoy where we were at the time. And above all that, we got through it too! At no point did I ever consider not going to that hard place with my husband, not once. Was I upset that he asked me to leave the comforts of our hometown, the closeness of our parents and everything that we had ever known about life? Yes, yes I was. But did I believe that he was asking this of me because he knew that in the end having endured this time of difficulty would benefit our family tremendously? Yes, yes I did. As much as I hated the thought of leaving my home and family, the thought of leaving my husband was unthinkable. I was more than willing to go wherever he thought was best for our family, and I agreed with him.

Love isn’t about rules. Love doesn’t insist on it’s own way. Love is about being with the one that you love. My husband and I don’t have a set of rules for each other that we follow; you have to take out the trash for me to love you, you have to make sure my laundry is always done for me to know that you love me, you have to have sex with me everyday… love isn’t like that! We would never dream of treating our spouses like that… yet it’s OK for us to think that that’s how Christ treats His bride – the Church? Do we really see Him that way? I did. I saw Him that way for a very long time. And you know what the result of that was? The harder I tried to be the perfect girl for Him, the more I failed.

My husband is an absolutely amazing man. He does so much for our family, he sacrifices so much of his time and his own plans just for us; to make us happy. And yes, there are times when he has to stick to his guns and do what he had originally planned because he knows that its important. But whenever possible he is more than willing to bend over backwards to spend time doing something to help us because he loves us. This weekend he had plans of his own, I’m honestly not sure what they were but I know that they were plans to work outside. I wanted to paint the kitchen before our daughter’s birthday party this coming weekend. And while he certainly didn’t have to help me, remember he had other plans that didn’t include painting the kitchen with me, he spent hours taping the cabinets and counter tops for me (I’m horrible at this part of painting) so that the finished product would look just that much better. Folks, that’s love. That’s love in the deepest sense of love, giving of yourself and your time and talents for the ones that you love and care the most about. Jesus did that for us on the cross and He’s still doing it today. At this very moment He is sitting at the right hand of God talking to the Father about us and what He, our husband, thinks is best for each and every one of us. That’s love. Jesus sitting as our advocate in the courtroom of heavenly Law where the Father is the judge and Satan the Accuser stands against us trying to remind us of our continual sins. Notice I said trying to remind US of our sins, he knows there’s no point anymore trying to tell the Father because Jesus is there, sitting in His own finished work of ultimate forgiveness as living breathing proof that we have already been forgiven for what we do and say.

Do you feel like I do right now? Like you need to DO something to thank God for this ultimate forgiveness, this radical grace? I was praying asking God what He thought I could do for my husband to thank him for what he did for me this weekend and God said “ask him what he desires from you”. And it clicked for me, “OK Lord, what do YOU desire from me?” Now, get ready to be blown over by His response because I know I was.

“Try”

“Uhhhh… try what Lord?”

“Try to be perfect”

“Um, Lord, haven’t we already been through this? I’ve tried that, I can’t do it remember the harder I tried to be perfect the more I failed miserably.”

“Beloved daughter, what is perfect?”

“Without flaw or blemish”

“and who made you?”

“You did”

“Do I make mistakes? Did I make you flawed?”

“For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well.” Psalm 139:13-14
ESV

“So is there any part of you, physically, emotionally, or spiritually that I did not make? Is there any part of you that is flawed or blemished in MY eyes, your maker?”

“No”

“Remember, My ways are not your ways; My standards are not your standards. I don’t expect you to be Me! I expect you to be who I made you to be, YOU!”

 

1 John 5:13-17 By this we know that we abide in Him and He in us, because He has given us of His Spirit. And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent His Son to be the Savior of the world. Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God. So we have come to know that and to believe the love that God has for us, God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. By this is love perfected with us, so that we may have confidence for the day of judgment, because as He is so also are we in this world.


As Jesus is so are we. Love perfected with us. We KNOW that we are living in Christ because He has given us His Spirit! This is the LIGHT! Jesus gave it all on the cross, He gave it all to us and the all that He gave us was Himself, His Spirit. And when we choose to get married to Jesus, whether standing at an altar in a church or in our backyards or even in our cars; we receive the greatest gift of all time – His Spirit! God, the Spirit of the living breathing God comes and lives in your flesh. And that Spirit of God that lives in us is nothing less than the Spirit of LOVE. But that’s not all, there’s more, by God’s Spirit of love living within us, love is perfected… love is perfected with us… love wasn’t perfect without us. God wasn’t perfect, isn’t perfect without you and me living in Him. Woah! That’s huge! To say God isn’t perfect without little old imperfect me, well, that’s a mighty statement. But there it is! And think about it, it makes perfect sense, love isn’t love without someone to love! In Christ’s love we are made perfect, the unpalatable is made palatable. Like a strawberry protein shake, the dusty pink powder is made useable when it is mixed with the milk, through Christ our imperfections are made perfect.

As Jesus is so are we.

Categories: Deuteronomy | Leave a comment

Seeds

Posted on May 13, 2012 by Tamar

Pray: Morning Prayer

Read: Deuteronomy 23:1-26:19

This is actually a word that I caught yesterday too but it wasn’t that word’s time quite yet; today is. The concept of a promised land isn’t just for the ancient Israelites, and it’s not just about heaven someday, did you know that it’s for you – today?!? It really is! Each and every one of us has a promised land, a place that God has promised us; whether it’s a physical land, material item, a calling, a career, a child, a dream fulfilled, you name it! I believe that in this life we can have many promised lands in many different areas of our lives, but honestly, there will be a main promised land. For me it is my calling, my ministry.

The promised land isn’t something that we originally seek on our own, rather it is something that God shows us a little peek of, promises it to be ours, and then we wait as patiently as possible while He prepares it for the proper time. The Promised Land, for each of us, is something different yet like Abraham waiting for Isaac, it may take many years to get to that place of promise, perhaps even generations. Abraham never lived to see all of his own promises from God completely fulfilled. Yes, he got to hold baby Isaac and watch him grow. He got to see, live in and walk through the promised land of Canaan but he never got to see his children live and thrive there; they moved to Egypt to be with Joseph before that could happen. But the promise was given to Abraham first then passed down through the generations until just the right time when Moses came along and God used him to lead their whole family out of slavery (plus a few Egyptians too)! The seed, or children, of Abraham had to wait a long time before their promised land was again in their sights, but God is faithful to His promises and He delivered them into it just like He said that He would; on the day that He said that He would!

In Genesis eleven when we first meet Abraham his father is traveling to Canaan with his son Abraham, Abraham’s wife Sarai and Abraham’s nephew Lot. Yet the traveling party never makes it all the way to Canaan, they settle in Haran instead, perhaps because Abraham’s father was sick, who knows. The Bible doesn’t say why they left in the first place or why they stopped short of their goal, but I find it very interesting that something within Abraham’s father inspired him to travel towards the land of promise and managed to get Abraham half-way there. After his father dies at Haran God comes to Abraham and says “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.” (Genesis 12:1-3) Notice here that God doesn’t point out that He’s going to take Abraham to Canaan, just to “the land that I will show you”, it just happens to be Canaan the land that his father had set out for years ago. The journey his father started Abraham finished.

In Genesis, chapter fifteen, God promises Abraham that He will bless him with a child to inherit the newly mentioned “very great” reward (Genesis 15:1). God also promises that this seed will be planted in the land that he is now standing. So while Abraham is in that place of promise as a stranger his child’s children will stand there as residents, deeply rooted in the rich soil of promise. Abraham carried on his own father’s dream of living in Canaan, his children will continue that dream of not only living there, but possessing it. They will not be foreigners, strangers in that land of Promise; they will live there, they will thrive there and it will be their possession. And what-da-ya know, low and behold a few hundred years later not only were the descendants (or seeds) of Abraham as numerous as the “stars in the sky”, but they were also the owners of their very own Promised Land! That place that generations ago God and Abraham stood and cut a covenant of blood signifying that God would uphold his promise to Abraham, they now stood in that promise, on that land, and it was theirs. They could hold that dirt in their hands and say “This is my possession”. They were able to plant seeds of their own into that dirt and watch them grow, bear much fruit and flourish!

Each and every one of us is filled with seeds of our own. Seeds of faith… seeds of hope… seeds of love… seeds of promise… the seeds of all the generations yet to come they are all within us. Being parents, mothers and fathers, we are in the process of tending to those seeds that have been planted and are now growing outside our bodies. As we tend to our children day in and day out we are filling them with new seeds. Seeds of faith, seeds of hope, seeds of love, seeds of promise, seeds that will continue to grow within our children to someday bear fruit to feed all the thousands of generations within them that are yet to come.

In today’s reading, chapter twenty-five verses five through ten, we read about the custom of taking your deceased brother’s wife and perpetuating his name. This section of scripture is special to me because it directly relates to the first Tamar’s story in Genesis thirty-eight. She was in this very situation where her first husband, Er, died before she had any children with him. So she was given to his brother, Onan, to bear a child in Er’s name. Only when Onan, went to “do his duty” he spilled his seed onto the ground denying her any hope of having a child with him in his brother’s name. Well, God really didn’t like how Onan was abusing Tamar and removed him from the picture. At the time Er’s youngest brother, shelah, was too young to fulfill his duty to Tamar; so Tamar’s father in law, Judah -great grandson of Abraham, sent her to live with her father. This was a huge disgrace to her. As Shelah grew of age Judah did not do what was right and give Tamar to him to be his wife so that she could bear sons in Er and Onan’s names through Shelah. At that point, when it became obvious that Judah wasn’t going to do the right thing, Tamar had every right to completely disgrace Judah and his entire household by publicly removing his shoe and spitting in his face. But she didn’t do that. She didn’t want to bring disgrace to the family that she had married into. So she chose to force Judah to do the right thing instead. In spite of having been disgraced herself, she chose to honor Judah and his household by slyly tricking Judah into sleeping with her, at just the right time of month no less, in order to ensure a child through Judah’s family line. She was not only standing up for herself and her own rights as a widow, she was standing up for the honor and the future of their family! Tamar stood up for those little seeds within herself that hadn’t had a chance to grow yet. She stood up for those little seeds of generations to come; Perez and Zerah – the twins she bore from Judah, Hezron, Ram, Amminadab, Nahshon, Salmon, Boaz – the husband of Ruth, Obed, Jesse – the father of David, King David – the father of the second Tamar and Solomon, Rehoboam, Abihah, Asaph, Jehoshaphat, Joram, Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, Hezekiah, Manassah, Amos, Josiah, Jechoniah, Shealtiel, Zerubbabel, Abiud, Eliakim, Azor, Zadok, Achim, Eliud, Eleazar, Matthen, Jacob, Joseph, and even King Jesus. Each and every one of those ever-so-important people were within her womb, waiting to have a chance to live, to sprout and grow, to make an impact on this world and if she hadn’t stood up for them, they never would have been.

When we plant seeds of faith and hope and love into our children we are doing so much more than simply tending to the sapling sprouting in our little home garden. We are tending the mighty tree that will bear the seed containing fruit of all the generations to come! And who knows what those little generational seeds will do? We have the opportunity to not only carry on (or sever) the generational cycles that have been passed down to us, but also the opportunity to pass them down to the next generation. I have a magnet on my refrigerator that says, “You can count the number seeds in an apple, but only God can count the number of apples in a seed.” And it is so very true! God knows each and every apple that will come from your seed, He knows the fruit that each precious seed will bear, and plant and grow in its life and time and in all the lifetimes to come. God knows the plans that He has for you… and your generations to come. He knows the plans and He knows the promises and He will be faithful to fulfill each and every one of them just like He did with the Israelites and their own Promised Land.

When the LORD promised Abraham a son to inherit his legacy AND the land they were standing in; each and every one of those numbered starry-eyed children was in Abraham’s loins at the time the promise was given and sealed with blood. Beloved… when God made these promises… He wasn’t making them to Abraham alone, He was making them to us all. For, as believers, we are all Abraham’s seed. Oh my friend! WHEN, not if, not maybe, but WHEN you come into the land the LORD your God has promised you as an inheritance, take possession of it, live deeply rooted in it, love being in it, rejoice because of it! Because it’s YOURS, all yours, live in the abundant life that Jesus’ blood sealed for YOU. Like turning your nose up at a dinner your mother slaved over just for you, it would insult Jesus if you didn’t dig in and enjoy the freedoms and the pleasantries of this life full-well knowing that they are but a shadow of what is still yet to come. The future Promised Land of Heaven. May you live abundantly today under the promise of Him who is does exceedingly abundantly above all that you can hope or imagine! Amen!

Categories: Deuteronomy | Leave a comment

Mixed Up

Posted on May 12, 2012 by Tamar

Pray: Morning Prayer

Today’s Reading: Deuteronomy 19:11-22:30

My word for the day: “Mixed”

So I’ve been feeling the Spirit’s leading for the last few weeks that I should start a “word for the day” where I share with you the word, or words, in the reading or from the reading that really popped out to me at the time I read. But the time wasn’t right until now. Yay1 J God has been talking to me a lot about teaching you more about meditation. I mention it often but I haven’t really ever taken the time to actually tell you about it. Many times when we hear the word meditate we first think of a monk on some mountain top cross-legged, closed eyed, oooooohhhhhmmmmmm-ing along to himself. And yes, that is one way of meditation, but truly meditation can also be as simple as laying down on your bed, or the floor, breathing deeply to calm and relax your mind and body and talking with God about what you’ve just read. I’ve mentioned a lot lately God’s responses to the things that I have asked Him about that day’s reading, this is often when I receive those responses from Him – while meditating.

Today, one of the many things in the reading that popped out to me was the section in chapter twenty-two about not mixing things.

*Verse 5: A woman shall not wear a man’s garment, nor shall a man put on a woman’s cloak, for whoever does these things is an abomination to the LORD your God.

* verse 9: You shall not sow your vineyard with two kinds of see, lest the whole yield be forfeited, the crop that you have sown and the yield of the vineyard.

* verse 10: You shall not plow with an ox and a donkey together.

* verse 11: You shall not wear cloth of wool and linen mixed together.

I was perplexed by all these things that were not allowed to mix and in my margin I wrote “don’t mix: keep things separate… but not any more, now He tells us to mix!” When I wrote the word “separate” God caused me to think of Him telling the Israelites to be separate from the other nations, set apart. They were not allowed to socialize with them, marry them, nothing. They were then much like the Amish are now, not that they aren’t polite when outsiders meet or talk to them, but they live in a completely separate world from us. This is what God called the Israelites to do in that time.

And then there was Jesus. (Oh isn’t His name just like a song?!? I love it!) When Jesus came, all those people that the Hebrews weren’t supposed to socialize with, the lepers, the prostitutes, the Samaritans, all of them flocked to Jesus… and He welcomed them. Before He was crucified a gentile (non-Jewish) woman came and begged Him to heal her daughter to which Jesus replied that His miracles were for the Jews, but when she persisted saying that even the dogs get to eat the crumbs from the master’s table He caved and healed her daughter in that moment. So even at that time, before the resurrection, Jesus was reluctant to offer Himself to those outside the Jewish faith and nation. But AFTER the resurrection is a completely different story! After the resurrection Jesus appointed Paul to minister mainly to the gentile nations and people! Although the message of salvation through Jesus was first intended for the Jews, it certainly was not intended for them ONLY.

So with all this in mind, when I finished reading today’s section I lay face-down on my bed, my Bible nestled by my head and I questioned Him “Lord, for what purpose did You mix these things together?” And I just love what His response was! “To make something new!” He then proceeded to show me what He meant. He beckoned my ear to hear my husband in the kitchen mixing up his recovery drink (the protein shake he drinks after he works out). I could hear him pouring the milk, tapping the pink powder out of the measuring cup, snapping on the lid and then shaking the contents vigorously. The milk in the shake is palatable by itself but you would never ordinarily eat the protein shake power on its own yet when mixed together they created something completely different and new and perfectly lovely! The milk on its own is wonderful, pure, good for your body. Then there’s the powder, it has all the elements in it to be something good and healthy for our bodies, but on its own it just doesn’t work. However when it is mixed with milk or water it is just the thing your body needs to help it grow strong and healthier than it would if you had just drank water or milk. Separate they are both good, together they are better.

As I am writing this God is really opening my eyes to the next level of this lesson, I love how He does that! God, through His word, is that milk and we are the powder. His word, the Bible, is pure it’s good, it’s everything that we need… except it does us no good if it sits on a shelf and gathers dust from lack of use. Then there’s us, the dusty powder; when sitting in the can on the shelf we too are quite useless. We have the potential to be something great and do much good, but without the word of God within us, the Living Water flowing through our veins we simply aren’t that palatable. Ahhhh! But together, mmmmmm, now that’s a tasty new drink! Together with God through a daily walk with Him we become something altogether different, someone that has the ability to bring health and healing to another dusty powder person. We have the ability to show them the milk! We have the ability to show them the stream of Living water that we go to everyday to fill up our own cups to keep ourselves from becoming dusty powder once again. We have the ability to open our mouths and spew out the water of His work to hydrate a thirsty soul. We have that ability through Christ.

You know, it’s good to be “mixed up” with God! Don’t you think so?

Categories: Deuteronomy | 2 Comments

A New Book

Posted on May 11, 2012 by Tamar

Pray: Morning Prayer

Today’s Reading: Deuteronomy 16:1-19:10

Oh my friend, to stand where I stand now, on the banks of the Jordan river with my toes tickling the water’s edge watching them part. This morning I stand on the cusp of a new season in life, and knowing that it is a new season is rare. The seasons of life usually come and go with such fluency that we rarely notice the passing of one season and the beginning of the next; but not this time. The last twenty-four hours have been a complete whirlwind of activity! And while the teacher in me is desperate to tell you what God showed me through His word this morning, the friend in me is antsy to share with you the happenings of my life, so I think I will let the author in me speak first by telling you that I will be writing what the Spirit leads me to write and I will trust that the teacher in me will find a way to be a really great teacher by somehow working the lesson into the story. That is what will make the lesson more fun and interesting to read about, right?

So last Thursday night, a week ago from today, God has me stop on the way home from dance class to take pictures of the field of yellow flowers, the sundog and a street sign and just as I’m snapping the picture of the street signs He whispers “crossroads” to me, freezing me in my place, hands still lifted with camera ready to shoot another shot of the street signs. This same thing happened last year, not the street signs mind you, but God telling me about the crossroads that I was standing in and telling me to choose the path I wanted to go down. Now, I don’t know about you my friend, but this certainly has never been a regular occurrence in my life… until now that is!

There I stood literally in the middle of a country crossroads with the Holy Spirit speaking to me about choosing a path! What’s a girl to do? Choose a path, right? Ahhh, but which one? The path I’m already headed down has been one serious adventure so far, but yet I know that there are dangers untold up ahead, do I want to keep going? Then there’s this other way, the path where there are fewer dangers, but then there are fewer adventures as well. It would still be a ride, but it would be more of a kiddie ride at the fair rather than a roller coaster at a big amusement park. It’s almost like God’s got me standing at the crossroads of two paths in the park, one leads to the big rides and the other leads to the smaller, less intimidating rides, and asks me, “so which one do you want to ride? Both will be fun, I’ll be with you no matter what, and whichever ride you choose when it’s over we’ll still be going home together. So, whatcha think?”

Well, being the adventurous type I knew that I would never be able to stand my heavenly self looking back on my life and seriously saying “I took the easy road”. So I told God I’d take the adventure. The very next day things started happening, mostly just in my spirit, perhaps it was preparing for today! Monday morning I was overwhelmed by the message that God had given me to speak, a message of redemption and thankfulness through the sacrifice of praise, how lucky am I that I get to spend my life speaking a message like that??? But then God really kicked me into gear! Tuesday is usually my day off, I don’t cook or clean I only write and… well… sleep. (I gotta rest sometime with the crazy schedule that I keep.) Yet, strangely enough I found myself completely compelled to finish formatting the book I had been working on, “From Donuts to Daycare”. I worked on it all day like a mad woman, copying and pasting, resizing photos, pulling everything together until I got to the last chapter “The Pink Polka Dot Kitty”. I went to add the post after that one and stopped in mid-air, “nope, this one doesn’t go in here.” And I knew that that book was finished. So I went to work on the cover page again and looked at the title “From Donuts to Daycare” and I said “Lord, that’s a great title… but there isn’t a single thing in this book about donuts OR daycare!!! What’s the deal?” If I hadn’t already been sitting down I probably would have rolled on the floor laughing at His response. “Well, I had to get you started working on this book somehow and I knew that giving you the cover and title would be the only way to do it, so I gave you a cover and a title.” And in that instant I knew that that book’s name wasn’t “From Donuts to Daycare”. Having just spent an entire day working through it I had read bits and pieces from each chapter and was able to watch the story develop and unfold right before my eyes. That season in my life hadn’t been about donuts or daycare, it was about finding the Pink Polka Dot Kitty – Grace. And not just any grace, God’s radical grace! The kind of grace that is so good you have a hard time believing that He can be that good! A grace that He showed me through a stuffed pink polka dot kitty that I bought as a gift for my daughter.

So in the same instant that I knew the name of that book wasn’t “From Donuts to Daycare” I also knew that its name was “The Pink Polka Dot Kitty” and that I had already made the cover weeks ago when I wrote the piece about the kitty. So by Tuesday evening I was finished formatting and had the entire book uploaded to my Kindle e-book publisher. Yay! By Wednesday morning it was available for download on Kindle. Yay! I went to my Parks & Prayer meeting at the park on Wednesday morning, which lasted FIVE hours! It’s too bad none of us like each other, I got so sunburned. Anyway, while we were praying I asked for prayers for “The Pink Polka Dot Kitty” and while we were praying one of the ladies says “God says I need to order twenty-five copies”… WHAT???? She’s co-hosting their Mother’s Day banquet this coming Friday and wanted TWENTY-FIVE copies in the next two days! I told her I would do what I could. That evening when she came by my house to drop off the check to pay for the books she asked me to come to their women’s book club in two weeks to talk about “The Pink Polka Dot Kitty”! YOWZA! So in twenty-four hours my life went from placid and serene to crazy and frenzied! Suddenly I had twenty-five books to get printed, a speaking engagement to prepare for, a little girl to take to Kindergarten screening and oh, do a little writing along the way too while you’re at it sweet-heart.

I started this day much like I do every day with my Cinnamon Apple tea and my Bible, but very quickly got spiraled into the chaos that comes with stepping out into the unknown. Now please don’t read me wrong, by no means am I complaining, it just may seem that way due to the spinning of my head at the moment! When Daddy picks us up to dance, He likes to spin and make us a little dizzy at times! It amazes me to no end how quickly things in life can change. I’ve just sold more books in the last twenty-four hours than I have in the last year! Only God can do something like that.

Categories: Deuteronomy, Writing Through the Bible in a Year | 1 Comment

Wow Our God is AWESOME!

Posted on May 10, 2012 by Tamar

Pray the Morning Prayer

Today’s reading: Deuteronomy 12:1-15:23

As the LORD your God has blessed you, you shall give to Him. You shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the LORD your God redeemed you; Deuteronomy 15:14-15

This morning was interesting for me, as I was reading through today’s reading I kept noticing all the mentions of blood – how could I not after yesterday with the Holy Spirit singing “blood and water flow…” over and over again? Anyway, by the time I got to the end of the reading I had several things underlined to go back over them later after I had allowed the reading to sink in a bit. I lay down to meditate on the reading and work over it in my head and just kept praying “Lord, what do all these old rules have to do with us today?” The more relaxed I became the louder His voice became until the Holy Spirit said “He is a just God”, then opened my eyes where they fell on the section of underlined scripture where Moses is detailing his instructions for a slave when they don’t want to leave their masters house.

Therefore I command you this today. But if he says to you “I will not go out from you,” because he loves you and your household, since he is well off with you, then you shall take an awl and put it through his ear into the door, and he shall be your slave forever. (15:15-17)

My eyes fell first onto the bold section and then ran back up the page to the beginning of what I had underlined to put it into context. When I read “I will not go out from you” I was immediately reminded of God’s promise to us “I will never leave you or forsake you.” (Hebrews 13:5) And realized that this commandment for a slave is a foreshadowing of what Jesus would do for us all!!!!! Read it again!

if he says to you “I will not go out from you,” because he loves you and your household, since he is well off with you, then you shall take an awl and put it through his ear into the door, and he shall be your slave forever. (15:15-17)

Jesus was pierced
for our transgressions, He was crushed for our sins, the punishment that was supposed to be ours He bore for Himself! If that isn’t love I don’t know what is! Because He loves us He did this for us! And because God is just someone had to take the punishment for the sins. So Jesus stepped up and said “I’ll do it Dad. I can handle it, they’re worth every second.” Through the blood sacrifice of Jesus we have been redeemed out of slavery to sin and into Life through the Spirit! Hallelujah! God is just, and He poured that justice out onto Jesus because they both knew that we wouldn’t be able to take it ourselves. But even better than all that is the fact that Jesus not only took it all Himself, but He took it all plus extra. He not only paid our bill, He tipped the waiter too! He left nothing for us to pay, nothing other than a debt of gratitude toward Him. Paid to Him through the use of the gift that He gave us, a relationship with HIM!

This morning I got my bill for the web address that I’ve been using for the last year www.TamarMinistries.net God led me to keep the address and have it point to the blog to keep everything consistent and flowing smoothly. Anyway, when I opened the bill for the address renewal I found that the balance on the account was zero! I was floored and just kept shaking my head and saying “How Lord? How can I owe them nothing when it cost me so much last year?” I have still to figure out how my balance was zero to pay for another whole year of web-domain name hosting, but I’ll take it! But as if that wasn’t enough, God really wanted to drive this point home today so He gave me a second scenario to share with you.

My husband is a mechanic for Mercedes, so of course, I drive a Mercedes. (It was cheaper for us to buy a Mercedes than to buy any other car! Yup, God’s that good!) As I pulled out of my parking space at the park this afternoon after our Parks & Prayer meeting I noticed that the car was making a funny noise. As I pulled out onto the paved road in the park I noticed that my car seemed to be leaning a bit to one side and when I let go of the steering wheel it pulled dramatically to the lower side… yup, I had a flat tire. And not just any flat tire, this was a rim-of-the-wheel-was-driving-on-the-ground kind of a flat tire. UGH! So I carefully pulled into the gas station across the street and up to the air station, popped in the three quarters that I just “happened” to have in my purse – I never carry change. But when I tried pumping air into the oh-so-very-flat tire, nothing happened. And I’m not talking about, a little air went in and the tire re-inflated a little bit. No I mean NOTHING happened! The air was leaking right back out of the tire just as fast as the machine was pumping it in!!! Well, being a girl I doubted myself and my tire filling abilities so I went into the station to see if the only other soul in sight, the attendant, might know anything that I could be doing wrong to get air into this tire. He asked the lady in back in the kitchen to see if she knew of anyone in town that did tires, pulled out a local phone book and jotted down the number onto a scrap of yellow paper for me. Now, again I have to point out here, my husband is a mechanic… who has a side business of mounting demotion derby tires for other demo drivers… he knows a thing or two about tires. I know that if I have something going on with our car and I don’t call him and ask his opinion first then I’m an idiot! So when the attendant is giving me the number of a local tire company the first person I called was, of course, my husband. And his first reaction was, “Call the Mercedes roadside assistance line! That’s what it’s there for.” It hadn’t even dawned on me to call the manufacturers service line for help! (There’s a huge lesson in that right there, but I’m going to pass it up to get to my original point, however ponder on it awhile and I’m sure the Holy Spirit will enlighten you as to where I would have gone with it if I had the time to go down that rabbit trail.) My first fear, how much will it cost???

So I called the Mercedes roadside assistance line, talked to the technician that they sent out to save me, he arrived in his somehow still crisp clean and perfectly white Mercedes uniform shirt and ended up swapping my flat for the spare. But how much did it cost??? It was free! Absolutely positively zero charge for him to drive 45 minutes out to where I was, change my tire and drive another 45 minutes back to work!!! Seriously? How can something like that be free? I mean, this isn’t a service like AAA where I have to pay for it every month or every year, this is a service that I get just because my car is a Mercedes!

Yeah, God really IS that good.

Jesus paid the price for us. The entire price, He paid every penny and then some. We don’t have to pay for ourselves every month or even every year; no. We get premium roadside assistance, any time day or night, JUST because we’re driving with Jesus. Just because we’re in the car with Him we get luxury service all day, every day for FREE. Wow, our God is awesome!!!!

Categories: Deuteronomy | 1 Comment

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