Jeremiah

Jeremiah 39:1-43:13

Yesterday we joined in Jeremiah’s plight in the cistern during the war and I’d like to continue that journey today.

When we left Jeremiah yesterday the Ethiopian Eunuch, Ebed-melech, had stood up for him and rescued him from the muddy cistern where he had been left to die by the ruthless princes. Jeremiah had been safely returned to the court of the guard where he was still a prisoner. He was fed and clothed and dry and still able to interact with the people who remained in the city.

Today’s Word of the Day starts with the pronouncement that The Chaldeans had finally breached the city. Just as God said they would. Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, gave a command concerning Jeremiah: “Take him, look after him well, and do him no harm, but deal with him as he tells you.”

I just find it incredibly interesting that Jeremiah’s own people falsely accused him, threw him into the dungeon, a muddy cistern, and prison while the pagan king of Babylon not only sets him free, but commands his soldiers to “look after him well” and to “deal with him as he tells you”! Talk about respect for a man of God! But I guess we also have to remember that these are also the people who were on the winning end of the prophecy Jeremiah was sharing. (And not the other way around.)

Anyway, as we begin reading chapter forty of Jeremiah we find the captain of the guard taking Jeremiah aside and saying to him,

“Now, behold, I release you today from the chains on your hands. If it seems good to you to come with me to Babylon, come, and I will look after you well, but if it seems wrong to you to come with me to Babylon, do not come. See, the whole land is before you; go wherever you think it good and right to go.” Jeremiah 40:4

After all this time and all this struggle with his own people, it’s the enemy that sets him free. Well, no, not really; it’s GOD that sets him free through the Chaldeans. God has used the very thing that was causing Jeremiah’s people so much turmoil to set him free from the chains that bound them all. And he was free to go wherever the LORD led him. And he was so respected by the captain of the guard that if he chose to go with him, Jeremiah would be well taken care of. In other words, the captain would continue protecting him from his own people who had so obviously turned on him.

Isn’t it such a glorious story? It reminds me of yet another glorious story of a man scorned and shunned by his own people. He was a man who was falsely accused, thrown in a pit and eventually executed even though he had done nothing wrong in His entire life. I’m talking, of course, of Jesus. And it was through His bondage that we have been set free; free indeed. It is through His stripes that we are healed. It is through His obedience that we are made right with God. It is through His sacrifice for our sin that we are forgiven. It is through His Grace that we are made whole. It is through His Spirit that we are able to discern truth and lie.

By the grace of God I am what I am, and His grace toward me was not in vain. Paul said that. Paul, the one responsible for the murder of Stephen. Paul, the man who led the hunt for anyone who claimed to be a Christ follower. Paul, the one who got knocked off his high horse so hard that it changed his life. Paul knew what he had done. And he knew what all he had been forgiven for, all of it. God’s grace covers so much more than what we like to give it credit for. We in our fleshy humanity love to take responsibility for things and take credit for things that we didn’t have anything to do, and pass the blame whenever we can. God’s grace covers all of that. God’s grace breaks the chains that bind us to the prison of sin. And when we really truly grasp the enormity of His forgiveness towards us, well, it changes you. Changes you beyond anything you could hope or imagine.

By the grace of God you are what you are. HUMAN. Faulty, frail, forgetful, inconsiderate, rude, mean, spiteful… Although sin may about, His grace abounds all the more and swallows the sin up as if it were never there to begin with. That’s GOD! That’s GRACE! That’s FREEDOM! That no matter how bad we’ve been in the past, there is no sin that is “too bad”, “too big” for God to forgive it; to forgive YOU. He loves you sweetie.

Surrender to His love for you today and just listen to the clattering of the chains as they fall off your arms. When you choose Jesus, you are forgiven. Now go and through the power of the Holy Spirit indwelling within you, sin no more. You have become the righteousness of Christ in this world, live like it.

Amazing Grace (My Chains are Gone) by Chris Tomlin

Jeremiah 35:1-38:28

Today I would like to dig into a small sample from the Word of the Day. Tucked away amidst the story of a raging war that was poised and destined to break through Jerusalem’s gate, we find the prophet Jeremiah. He has been given a word for the people of God. It’s a word that if followed will save their very lives, however, it’s not a word that is welcomed by many of them. The Chaldean’s are breathing down their necks and God has sent word to His people through the prophet Jeremiah, that the Chaldean’s will win this war. He strongly suggests to them that they surrender themselves to the Chaldeans as prisoners of war in order to save their lives. If they don’t surrender, the Chaldeans will conquer the city, kill those inside it and burn it down to the ground.

Like I said, not many people were very happy with what Jeremiah had to say about the war. Eventually it got to the point where several princes got tired of hearing him tell the people to surrender to the Chaldeans. So they went before the king and told him that

“he is weakening the hands of the soldiers who are left in this city, and the hands of all the people, by speaking such words to them. For this man is not seeking the welfare of this people, but their harm.” (38:4)

To which the king replied, “Behold, he is in your hands, for the king can do nothing against you.” (38:5) In other words, do whatever you want to him, I’m not going to stop you. (He was probably tired of hearing the doom and gloom message too.)

So these princes took Jeremiah and lowered him into a cistern that had a good amount of mirey mud in the bottom of it.

And this is where I must pause for a brief moment in order to breathe and turn our gaze to the present. Our world has grown suddenly dark and frightening and altogether different than it was just a few short years ago. And besides that, even on a personal level, we can completely relate to this poor prophet. He is simply doing his job. Faithfully relaying a painful message to the people he loves for the God he worships and what does he get in return? They don’t listen and they throw him into a pit where he sinks down into the mud. Lovely. Talk about gratitude! He’s trying to save their lives and they throw him into a pit.

I’m fairly positive that there is at least one element to this story that you can relate to. We’ve all been the messenger of bad news at some point in our lives. It’s not fun. But that doesn’t make it any less necessary. And yet once that message is delivered who is it that usually bears the brunt of the reaction? The messenger.

I’m also fairly positive that some of you out there can relate to feeling like you’ve been thrown in a pit where you’re sinking into the mud hopeless, helpless, and left to die of starvation. But this is where the story really gets good.

Enter Ebed-melech the Ethiopian, a eunuch who was in the king’s house. He had heard that Jeremiah had been put into the cistern and was apparently outraged enough about the treatment of God’s messenger that he decided to do something about it. Now here I have to point out, this man was a foreign slave in the king’s house. He was not a man of position, nor a man of wealth, power or influence. At that time, for a servant to go to the king uninvited most likely spelled out instant death in most circumstances. But this wasn’t most circumstances. This foreigner was about to march himself right up to the king and tell him that what he had just allowed these men to do was wrong and he knew it. Ebed-melech, placing his own welfare aside,

“said to the king, ‘My lord the king, these men have done evil in all that they did to Jeremiah the prophet by casting him into the cistern, and he will die there of hunger, for there is no bread left in the city.’ Then the king commanded Eded-melech the Ethiopian, ‘Take thirty men with you from here, and lift Jeremiah the prophet out of the cistern before he dies.’ So Ebed-melech took the men with him and went to the house of the king, to a wardrobe in the storehouse, and took from there old rags and worn=out clothes, which he let down to Jeremiah in the cistern by ropes. Then Ebed-melech the Ethiopian said to Jeremiah, ‘Put the rags and clothes between your armpits and the ropes.’ Jeremiah did so. Then they drew Jeremiah up with ropes and lifted him out of the cistern.” (Jeremiah 38:8-13)

Some scholars believe that Jeremiah wrote Lamentations 3:52-65, I’ll let you be the judge:

“I have been hunted like a bird by those who were my enemies without cause; they flung me alive into the pit and cast stones on me; water closed over my head; I said, ‘I am lost.’ I called on your name, O LORD, from the depths of the pit; you heard my plea, ‘Do not close your ear to my cry for help!’ You came near when I called on you; you said, ‘Do not fear!’ You have taken up my cause, O Lord; you have redeemed my life. You have seen the wrong done to me, O LORD; judge my cause. You have seen all their vengeance, all their plots against me. You have heard their taunts, O LORD, all their plots against me. The lips and thoughts of my assailants are against me all the day long. Behold their sitting and their rising; I am the object of their taunts.”

If you look up Lamentations chapter three you will also find these words a few paragraphs earlier:

“Remember my affliction and my wanderings, the wormwood and the gall! My soul continually remembers it and is bowed down within me. But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope:
The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases; His mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. ‘The LORD is my portion,’ says my soul, ‘therefore I will hope in Him.’ The LORD is good to those who wait for Him, to the soul who seeks Him. It is good that one should wait quietly for the salvation of the LORD. It is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth.” (verses 19-27)

Yes my friend, “God is not unjust so as to overlook your work and the love that you have shown for His name in serving the saints, as you still do.” (Hebrews 6:10) Just like God saw Jeremiah having been thrown into that pit, He sees you having been thrown under that bus. He is, has been and always will be the God who sees. He knows the troubles you’ve seen because He has been right there with you in them all! And just like in Jeremiah’s case God sent help from the unlikeliest of sources; your help is on the way as well.

Ebed-melech took great care in delivering Jeremiah from that pit. He went so far as to even fetch some royal rags to cushion Jeremiah’s already sore arms and sides from the rough rope with which they were using to deliver him. God didn’t just deliver Jeremiah; he delivered him in style and with great care and tenderness. Ebed-melech’s actions showed such compassion and love for this man of God that it’s hard to believe that he was a non-believer…. or was he? God even had the king send with Ebed-melech THIRTY men to draw him out of the cistern. There is no way that it took all thirty of them to get one tiny man out of a cistern. Even in this God shows His tendency toward providing an abundance of help in the salvation of one of His loved ones.

Our God is a God who loves and cares for us so much that He doesn’t just deliver us from the pit; He joins us in it until help shows up from above.

You’re never alone my friend. He loves you too much for that. Fear not, for “behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age”. (Matthew 28:20)

Jeremiah 32:1-34:22

“Behold, I am the LORD, the God of all flesh. Is anything too hard for Me?” Jeremiah 32:27

Well, I just finished watching one of my all time favorite movies, Facing the Giants. And I’m so glad that I found it on my really old saved recordings because I really needed to watch it today. I’ve been feeling pretty down in the dumps lately and really discouraged about my ministry. And now I know why, it’s because I’ve been facing the Giant.

There is a giant in this world that hates me and absolutely everything that I stand for. He hates my God and everything that He has done and will do for me. And the thing is, the Giant knows that my God is the God that opens doors that no one can close and He closes doors that no one can open. And the only thing that the Giant can do about it is to scare me and intimidate me into thinking that I’m not able to go through the door.

Satan holds us hostage with an unloaded gun. He can’t fire it, but he certainly likes to make us THINK that he can and that he will. But, is there anything too hard for God? Is there anything that He can’t do? No, He’s GOD!

But then there’s a second half to the equation that must be investigated; because it’s the empty gun that the Giant has been pointing toward me: And it’s a thought, “Sure God CAN do anything, but is He willing to do anything for you.”

In the gospel of Matthew chapter six verse twenty-five through thirty-four we read these words of Jesus,

“Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And which of you being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will He not much more clothe you? O you of little faith? Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.”

In today’s Word of the Day we find SEVERAL instances where the LORD proclaims “good things” upon His people through the prophet Jeremiah. He begins by reminding them of the LORD’S faithfulness to His word in the past:

“You brought Your people Israel out of the land of Egypt with signs and wonders, with a strong hand and outstretched arm, and with great terror. And You gave them this land, which you swore to their fathers to give them, a land flowing with milk and honey. And they entered and took possession of it.” (Jeremiah 32:21-22)

“What You spoke has come to pass, and behold, you see it.” (Jeremiah 32:24)

Then He speaks of the future good in store for His people:

“I will bring them back to this place, and I will make them dwell in safety. And they shall be My people, and I will be their God. I will give them one heart and one way. … And I will make with them an everlasting covenant, that I will not turn away from doing good to them. And I will put the fear of Me in their hearts, that they may not turn from Me. I will rejoice in doing good, and I will plant them in this land in faithfulness, with all My heart and all My soul. For thus says the LORD; just as I have brought all this great disaster upon this people so I will bring upon them all the good that I promise them. … I will restore their fortunes, declares the LORD.” Jeremiah 32:37-39, 40-42 & 44

“Thus says the LORD who made the earth, the LORD who formed it to establish it – the LORD is His name: Call to Me and I will answer you, and will tell you great and hidden things that you have not known. … Behold, I will bring to it health and healing, and I will heal them and reveal to them abundance of prosperity and security. I will restore the fortunes of Judah and the fortunes of Israel, and rebuild them as they were at first. I will cleanse them from all guilt of their sin against Me and I will forgive all the guilt of their sin and rebellion against Me. … They shall fear and tremble because of all the good and all the prosperity I provide for it. … Give thanks to the LORD of hosts, for the LORD is good, for his steadfast love endures forever! For I will restore the fortunes of the land as at first, says the LORD.” Jeremiah 33:1-3, 6-8, 9b & 11b”

God is faithful to His word. Always. Even if it’s painful to believe right now, just keep moving forward, you can do this because He is with you and on your side!

Jeremiah 30:1-31:40

“Ask now, and see, can a man bear a child?” Jeremiah 30:6

Today’s message was so pivotal for me as a mom. It is another free chapter from my book “Mommy“. Please enjoy!

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“But the noble man makes noble plans, and by noble deeds he stands.” Isaiah 32:8

Oh my friends! God has just led me down the sweetest little rabbit trail and I do hope you join me in going down it once again! Our Father is so wonderful and has such a heart for women, just wait til you hear what He’s shared with me just now!

I’ve had this verse (above) written out on my desk for probably about a week now, just waiting for the opportunity to get to write about it. I just so love the message of it, that our noble deeds help us stand uprightly. Oh how little did I understand it! It’s amazing to me how much life one word can bring to the scriptures, how differently it can cause us to look at them. I was curious to know if the original Hebrew word for “noble” was the same in this verse as it is in the Proverbs 31 woman’s verses. So I looked them up! OH WOW! Turns out that they are two different words in the Hebrew that just “happened” to both get translated into the same word in English. BUT it’s in their differences that makes them special, check it out!

In the Isaiah verse the word noble in the original Hebrew means: inclined, willing, noble, generous, and in the KJV version there is no mention of it being a noble “man” either. In other words, I feel that we could certainly translate this verse as “the willing woman makes generous plans, and by her inclination to be generous she stands”. What do you think? I like it. LOL. I feel like I’ve certainly lived that verse, just today! I had no real plans of leaving the house this morning… at all. I was all dressed up in my comfy clothes, my hair wasn’t really done, I hadn’t even brushed my teeth yet, when Gabe just could NOT get motivated to move this morning. So I told him that I would take him to school, just this once. I got Anna ready and we headed out, leaving all the lights on in the house and everything. I barely even locked the door! When we got to the school I saw my friend Lisa’s car in the parking lot and got all excited and exclaimed, “Oh Lisa’s here!” And before I was even out of carline I had decided I needed to go in and say “Hi”… slept-in hair, non-brushed teeth and all! At least Anna looks good I resolved. Before I even got all the way into the school I remembered why Lisa would even be at the school today, it’s Monday, she’s leading Mom’s in Touch! Well, then I just knew that I was supposed to be there! I had never attended before, but had been wanting to, so apparently today was the big day! When I got into the room where we meet, Lisa was nowhere to be found, so I started going through the room (the “detention” room, although they don’t call it detention any more they call it the responsibility room) and I prayed over the chairs and the desks and for the children that would be sitting in them this week. Hoping that mine wouldn’t end up there! When she was able to join me, it was just the two of us today and we were able to have a simply delightful conversation and we prayed over the children and teachers, the school and the town and everything we could think of! Today, because I was willing to just follow the Spirit’s leading of my gut I was able to pray and be a part of something special that God has going on in our town right now. To me, that’s what this verse is about. Not when we are worthy of being used, but simply when we are willing to be used, God uses us, sometimes in very powerful ways.

As if that wasn’t good enough, check out what the word noble in Proverbs 31:10 means!

“A wife of noble character who can find? She is worth far more than rubies.”

In this verse, the word noble is transliterated from the Hebrew word “chayil” and it means: strength, might, efficiency, wealth, army. Personally, I found it very interesting that “noble” wasn’t listed anywhere in there! ANYWAY!

I was thrilled however to see that the first definition of the word chayil was strength. “A wife with strong character who can find?” You know, that’s just not something I expected to see! I don’t know why, I know that strength is a quality that God placed within many women, yet it still surprised me to see it there in black and white all the same. So many times as women, we have to be strong when everyone else around us is being weak. Those moments when we are forced to take charge simply because no one else is. To stand up for what’s right when no one else is willing to. I really feel like God honors that in us. We as mothers have a really hard job to do, one that no one else can do for us, or like us. And yet in our society, the role of “Mommy” is so drastically under rated! If only they truly understood. If only WE truly understood! God’s plan for us is so much better and brighter than we often give ourselves credit for. Yes, we may spend the majority of our day changing dirty diapers and scooping out the litter box, wiping runny noses and keeping everyone in line… but there is so much more nobility and honor in that than anyone often realizes.

Take this example straight from Jesus: “Then the righteous will answer Him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed You, or thirsty and give You something to drink? When did we see You a stranger and invite You in, or needing clothes and clothe You? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit You?’ The King will reply, ‘ I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of Mine, you did for Me.'” Matthew 25:37-40

Mommy, how many times have you put food in that hungry tummy of your child? How many times have you given drinks to that thirsty little throat? How many times have you had other little friends over to play? How many times have you clothed that little naked body of your child? Friend, I tell you the truth, when you did those things for your child; you were doing them for Christ. Now. Just TRY to convince me, that being a mom isn’t a noble and worthy position for a woman to hold! Yes, you will feel dejected, and alone often as a mom, especially if you are a stay-at-home mom. But please know that every single outfit that you fold that your family thinks just MAGICALLY appears in their drawers clean the next day, isn’t going unseen by the One who sees us for who we really are.

Jeremiah 26:1-29:32

“Do not hold back a word.” Jeremiah 26:2

Today I want to share with you a very powerful mom Truth. This is word for every single mom out there, so feel free to share share share!

God is El Roi – the God who sees me.

Please enjoy this free chapter from my book, “Mommy“.

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“Hagar, servant of Sarai, where have you come from, and where are you going?” “I’m running away…” Genesis 16:8

Oh, can you relate to Hagar? Do you feel so mistreated that you long to just run away? Do you get so tired of being the one at the bottom of the totem pole… you know, the one at the bottom holding everyone up… and getting ZERO recognition for it. That’s the job description in the classifieds next to “Mommy wanted”! Woman willing to submit to her husband, clean up after and cook for her family, run errands, be a taxi service, juggle the entire family’s social calendar, make sure everyone is fed, clothed appropriately, and has clean faces before they walk out the door, all without a single thank you or even a high five or a way-to-go-Mom. Yes, moms are the unseen glue that holds every family together. We are the ones that make sure our families all walk around looking like movie stars while we look like hell warmed over or Frankenstein’s bride on a good day. Now, don’t get me wrong, when given the time and opportunity we moms clean up pretty well and can generally get down-right hot… but how often do we really get the time AND the opportunity? Plus, if given the choice between a bath and a nap… we usually pick the nap!

Let’s face it being a mom is tough, especially if you’ve spent any time in the work force! Out there, what you do gets seen, it gets recognized, it get acknowledged and sometimes even complimented. Out there you’re somebody with something to offer… in here, your home, you’re just mom. A nobody with nothing to offer. At least that’s what the world says anyway. It amazes me to see from our society’s point of view when it comes to stay-at-home moms. It’s as if, other than child-care for those who do “work”, we have nothing to offer the world at large because they think we’re sitting around eating bon bons all day. But oh how mistaken they are!

There is little more frustrating to a stay-at-home mom than when someone asks her, “So are you working yet?” As in, are you doing something outside the home to earn a paycheck yet? As IF a paycheck defines your worth to society and your family! Hardly! Just look at Hagar! She had been Sarai’s faithful handmaiden for years, was her friend and confidante through a lot of Sarai’s marital turmoil and childlessness. Hagar was there through it all. Then Sarai gets the bright idea to take matters into her own hands and gives Hagar to her husband Abram as a wife. Hagar gets pregnant and a little cocky around Sarai and so Sarai starts getting downright mean to Hagar… as if it was somehow Hagar’s fault that Sarai was barren and unhappy. Not able to take the abuse Sarai was handing out, Hagar fled from her. And that is where we find today’s opening verse. “The angel of the LORD found Hagar near a spring in the desert;” Genesis 16:7 Notice it doesn’t say “an” angel of the LORD, but “the” angel of the LORD. Honey, she saw a pre-incarnate Jesus! THE One and Only! And then, better yet, what does it say next? Found. Jesus found her, you usually only say you found something when you’ve been looking for it because it is somewhere it’s not supposed to be. You know, like “I found your shoe… in the middle of the livingroom floor… when I tripped over it!”

Hagar had not been treated with the respect she deserved and she ran away from where she was supposed to be, where God wanted her. So He Himself came looking for her, and asked her “Hagar, servant of Sarai, where have you come from, and where are you going?” He knew the answers to both of those questions! But did she? Do you? Today in this moment I’m finding myself in Hagar’s sandals with the LORD sitting at the foot of my bed as I write – literally having run away from my family – saying to me “Tamar, mother of Anna and Gabe and wife of Sean, where have you come from and where are you going?” Sometimes it’s just so hard to keep going, to keep moving, to keep doing all these meaningless things that no one sees or thanks me for! Who in their right mind would want to spend 18+ years of their life sweeping up dropped Cheerios and wiping noses??? OK, well I suppose that it wouldn’t be 18 solid years of those things, eventually they grow up to wipe their own noses and stop dropping quite so many Cheerios, but right now it certainly doesn’t feel like it will ever end!

Lord, it’s so hard when even my husband doesn’t acknowledge the things that I do for our family! I feel so invisible, so insignificant, so… dust-like.

“Then the angel of the LORD told her, ‘Go back to your mistress and submit to her.'” Genesis 16:9

Siiiiiigh…. Yes Lord. I will continue to serve my thankless family, for YOU.

“The angel added, ‘I will so increase you descendants that they will be too numerous to count.” Genesis 16:10

NOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!! Please Lord, I know that children are a blessing, and I believe that, but please, no more babies!!! I’ve got enough on my plate right now the way that it is!!!!!

“She gave this name to the LORD who spoke to her: ‘You are the God who sees me,” for she said, ‘I have now seen the One who sees me.'” Genesis 16:13

Lord THANK YOU!!!!! Thank you that all those things that I do for my family that they never see and never acknowledge, YOU see them and YOU acknowledge them! Thank you that the little details that I put into mothering are not COMPLETELY un-noticed, rather they are simply un-discovered by the ones for whom they are intended for. Thank you Father that you see me in my occasionally abused state and You validate my pain. You ease my suffering. You give me purpose. Thank You Lord that you are El Roi, the God who sees me, and everything that I do.

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.