Posts Tagged With: reading through the bible in a year

Me Lord?

Posted on April 8, 2013 by Tamar

Judges 6:11 – 8:21

Word of the Day: “But I will be with you” Judges 6:16

In Judges 6 we find the story of Gideon. God sends an angel to call Gideon and let him know that God has chosen him to deliver his people out of the hands of their enemy. And I just love the angel’s greeting “The LORD is with you, O mighty man of valor.” It proclaims to Gideon how GOD sees him. God sees him as a mighty man of valor! Gideon hasn’t conquered anyone yet, but God sees him, not as he is, but how he will be! And why do we think he will be a mighty man of valor? Because the LORD is with him!

Gideon then responds, “Please, sir, if the LORD is with us, why then has all this happened to us? And where are all His wonderful deeds that our fathers recounted to us, saying, ‘Did not the LORD bring us up from Egypt?’ But now the LORD has forsaken us and given us into the hand of Midian.” Oh my goodness how it can feel like that sometimes can’t it!!! We’ve got the enemy army literally breathing down our necks, we’re scared witless and God seems to be nowhere to be seen! And we immediately question where God is in all this? The Bible tells of all these awesome things, these awesome deliverances that He has performed, yet where is He for me when I really need Him? Get what happens next!

“And the LORD turned to him and said, ‘Go in this might of yours and save Israel from the hand of Midian; do not I send you?” What is God’s answer to Gideon’s question of where is God? I’m sending you! Gideon mentions the Israelites deliverance out of the hands of the Egyptians and God basically says “You’re it buddy! I’ve chosen you like I chose Moses, now lead My people to fight the enemy and you will win.” God doesn’t just answer his question; He tells Gideon that HE is the answer!

Well, of course what other response would Gideon have other than, “Please, Lord, how can I save Israel? Behold, my clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my father’s house.” Gideon answers God the way every other leader that God chooses answers Him, with an incredulous, “Me Lord?” Gideon points out his weakness to God, and I can just see God nodding in agreement as if to say, “Yup, that’s exactly why I picked you.”

Now here is the key, and I mean THE key to absolutely everything in life. “And the LORD said to him, ‘But I will be with you…'” We focus on the things that we can’t do that God asks us to do, and He points out to us, “That’s why I asked you to do that, because YOU can’t do it. If you were to try and do it under your own strength you wouldn’t be able to, but because I am with you and doing it through you, for you, then it is not your strength that shines, but Mine.” He tells us, “Peace be to you. Do not fear; you shall not die.” There are times in life when God calls us to something that makes us feel like we’re going to die, of embarrassment, or fatigue, or of fear, but we won’t! Because He is with us. He is always with us, because He has promised never to leave us or forsake us. Never. Not ever. Period. He will never forsake us in our weaknesses.

God has called me to a life lived publicly. It wasn’t something I asked for, at least not that I remember anyway. It is, however, something that He has called me to and trained me for. And so here I am, bearing my heart and soul daily to anyone who comes along and decides to read it. And while I have a very outgoing personality, I fear the rejection and humiliation that can come from living in a glass house like this. Before I sat down at my desk to write this morning I felt the need to sing. So, I pulled up YouTube on my phone and looked up the song that was on my heart, and then another, and then another, until He brought me to the cluster of songs He had been waiting for. The first was “Hold me Jesus” where one of the verses called out my struggles with Him right now. Ever since reading Jonah I’ve been realizing more and more things that I’ve been running away from and questioning why I’ve been running from them. A verse from this song reads “Surrender don’t come natural to me, I’d rather fight you for something I don’t really want than to take what you give that I need, and I’ve beat my head against so many walls, now I’m falling down, I’m falling on my knees.” And it rang true, I’ve been running, I’ve been fighting, I’ve been beating my head on walls and I’m done! I don’t want to run any more. I don’t want to fight anymore. And I certainly don’t want to beat my head against any more walls! So I’m falling. I’m falling on my knees and allowing You to catch me Lord.

The next song was “Here I am Lord”. “Here I am, Lord. Is it I, Lord? I have heard you calling in the night. I will go, Lord, if you lead me. I will hold your people in my heart.” For someone who was born for the stage and has loved being the center of attention her entire life to be suddenly terrified of the stage and the attention that it will bring, well, that’s where I am right now. Yet, here I am Lord. I have heard you calling, and I will go, Lord, because You are with me. God why is this so hard for me, it shouldn’t be! Yet here we are in the wrestling ring dukeing it out over and over again. You are my wall and my fortress, so why do I beat my head against You???

Lastly, I sang with Kari Jobe “You are for Me” and in the third time through the chorus when she sang “I know that you will never forsake me in my weaknesses” He showed me a picture of me standing on a stage. Lord who am I? Who am I to stand on a stage and speak of Your goodness and Your faithfulness? Who am I that people would listen to what I have to say about You? My family is nothing and I am the least in my family, and yet it is me that you have chosen to fight this Enemy that our family has fought for generations, lifetimes, centuries. And yet You are with me so who can be against me? You have called me, so who am I to question Your judgment of my abilities.

I have to believe Him when He tells me that He will be with me and that that will be enough. I have to believe Him, because I have no other choice. I can’t not do what He calls me to do because I’d never be able to live with myself for eternity knowing I didn’t do it. I can’t not do it, because there are people out there that I don’t even know that are counting on me to obey His call. And just like Joseph, his pit led to the salvation of all of Egypt. What if my pit can lead someone, just one, to salvation; then isn’t worth it?

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

Week 2 Video Guide

Posted on April 8, 2013 by Tamar

Handprints of God

Pictures of God’s faithfulness:

-The Good Shepherd

-He called them to b______.

-“I have shown you many g______ w______ from the Father; for which of them are you going to stone Me?” John 10:32

-“If I am not doing the works of My Father, then do not believe Me; but if I do them, even though you do not believe Me, b______ the w______.” John 10:37-38

-Noah

-“I have set My bow in the cloud, and it shall be a s______ of the covenant between me and the earth.” Genesis 9:13

-God has given us something p______ that we can look to and we can touch and see them and k______ and r______ that God has made a promise.

-He is faithful and good and just and He w___ do what He says He will do.

-God gave Noah a picture of His promise, the r______.

-Abram

-God gave Abram a picture of His promise, the s____.

-John 10:17-18 “I lay down My life that I may take it up again. N__ o__ takes it from Me, but I lay it down of My own accord. I have a______ to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again.”

-The two identical ingredients in the four gospel “casseroles” are:

1) Cried out loudly

Matthew:     Krazo – Raven’s piercing cry. Cry out loudly with i______ sounds that express deep emotion.

2) Gave up His Spirit

Mark:     Ekpneo – To G______ up the G______.

Ek – Out from and to. Out of the depths of the source and extending to its impact on the object. A separation from something with which there has been close connection.

John:     Paradidomi – from para & didomi, properly means to give (turn over); hand over from, as in to deliver over with a sense of close personal involvement.

Para – an emphatic “from”, means “from close beside“. It stresses nearness. Para implies an intimate participation.

-God is with us, no matter where we are, no matter what we’re doing, no matter what is going on in life, God is w______ u__. He gave us His Holy Spirit to remind us of the promise of H___ l______ for us.

-He is so f______!

-Isaiah 41:8-13

-We need to imagine b___!

After the Video:

-Jesus called His Disciples to believe and He calls us to the same thing. What is He calling you to believe Him in/for right now? (There’s always something.)

-“Tell us plainly” – how many times do you wish that God would just speak plainly to you??? Does God ever answer your questions… but not the way that you want Him to?

-Compare the definition of the Greek word Krazo with Romans 8:26, what do you think? Cool right?

-If we need to be imagining big, what is the biggest thing that you could imagine?

Categories: 365 Life, Joshua, Jude, Judges, Waiting, Writing Through the Bible in a Year | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

March On

Posted on April 7, 2013 by Tamar

Judges 3:24 – 6:10

Word of the Day: “March on, my soul, with might!” Judges 5:21

If God’s sees us as Christ, shouldn’t we agree with Him and at the very least try to see ourselves and others in that Light? In Judges 6:34 it tells us that “the Spirit of the LORD clothed Gideon” in Colossians 3:3-4 it says “For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with Him in glory.” Paul says to us in 2 Corinthians 5:16-21, “From now on, therefore, we regard no one according to the flesh. Even though we once regarded Christ according to the flesh, we regard Him thus no longer. Therefore, 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. For our sake He made Him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God.”

What kind of love does that? What kind of love takes everything horrible about us and brings it upon Himself for punishment, saving us from the horror that we deserve in the process? What kind of love is that? Only the perfect love of God. That love, His love doesn’t rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices instead in the truth! And the truth is that His love has borne our sins, His love has taken everything wrong about us and erased it with the blood His love shed for us. His love believes in us, in YOU, so much that His love would rather die than live without you by His side for every moment of every day of your life and for all eternity. His love endured a kind of torture that we will never understand. His love for us, His amazing Grace that has forgiven us completely is our Hope and our reassurance that no matter what happens in this life, it is for our good. Because HE is good.

In those rough spots of life we have to just let go of the control we think we have and simply trust His love for us to see us through whatever it is that is happening. Life is hard, but it’s so much harder without Him.

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

Seeds

Posted on April 6, 2013 by Tamar

Judges 1:1 – 3:23

Word of the Day: Now the angel of the LORD went up from Gilgal to Bochim. And he said, “I brought you up from Egypt and brought you into the land that I swore to give to your fathers, I said, ‘I will never break my covenant with you, and you shall make no covenant with the inhabitants of this land; you shall break down their altars.’ But you have not obeyed my voice. What is this you have done? So now I say, I will not drive them out before you, but they shall become thorns in your sides, and their gods shall be a snare to you.” Joshua 2:3

Immediately as my eyes fell on the phrase “thorns in your sides”, my brain perked up. I’ve seen this phrase before, just yesterday in Joshua 23:11-13 “Be very careful, therefore, to love the LORD your God. For if you turn back and cling to the remnant of these nations remaining among you and make marriages with them, so that you associate with them and they with you, know for certain that the LORD your God will no longer drive out these nations before you, but they shall be a snare and a trap for you, a whip on your sides and thorns in your eyes, until you perish from off this good ground that the LORD your God has given you.” So now the LORD my God has me curious, I know of a few other places in the Bible that I’ve seen this phrase, but where else could it be and what exactly is He trying to tell me through the thorns today?

So, I started with a simple word search through www.BibleGateway.com. There were 53 instances of the word “thorn” in both the New and Old Testament, several of them looked familiar while others were new. Numbers 33:55 sounded mighty familiar, I wonder why… “But if you do not drive out the inhabitants of the land from before you, then those of them whom you let remain shall be as barbs in your eyes and thorns in your sides, and they shall trouble you in the land where you dwell.” I was beginning to see the theme here! In each mention of the thorns, so far, God is talking about driving out the current inhabitants of the Promised Land. Hmmmm… I think it’s time to dig a bit deeper into this my friends.

In studying the Bible there is something each student must remember, the Bible defines itself. What I mean is, if something in the Bible reaches out and grabs your attention look at where else in the Bible it might be mentioned. By doing this the Bible will end up explaining itself. For example, the word thorn literally jumped off the page at me today, grabbed me by the neck and said “pay attention to ME!” And while I can glean quite a bit of information from that one mention of the word “thorn” in today’s reading. I will glean considerably more if I look at all the other stories where the word “thorn” is mentioned. Another example of this is in Jesus’ telling of the parable of the Sower and the Seed. In Mark chapter 4 we find Jesus teaching from a boat just off shore to a very large crowd. He shares with them the parable of a farmer, or sower, who goes out to his field to sow his seed. As he tosses the seed on the ground, some of the seed falls on the path where the birds come along and eat it. Some of the seed falls on rocky ground where it quickly grows but then whithers just as quickly because it has no root. Some of the seed falls among thorns and they grow up around the seed choking it and causing the seed to yield no grain. But then there is the seed that falls on the good fertile soil that produces grain and yields a huge harvest for the famer. After the crowd has left for the day and Jesus is left alone with his twelve closest disciples they ask Him about the parable and its meaning. His response to them is a huge key for us today! “Do you not understand this parable? How then will you understand all the parables?” This is Jesus telling them that this particular parable is particularly important in translating many other parables, symbols and messages within the entire Bible.

– “The sower sows the word.” This tells us that anywhere in the Bible where the word “seed” is mentioned, it can also be assumed that it is a parable and the seed is referring to the Word or messages from God, spoken or written.

– “And these are the ones along the path, where the word is sown: when they hear, Satan immediately comes and takes away the word that is sown in them.” I personally had this happen to me when God spoke His first words of His radical Grace into my life, and I can vouch for the ferocity in which those words are snatched away from you, with talons that tear the flesh! There are times in life when our heavenly sower is sowing His word into our life and we can feel it hit the flesh of our hearts. As we are just barely beginning to wrap our brains around the concept, or hoping that maybe God really is that kind of good, when the Enemy comes along and snatches that hope right back replacing it with his Doubt, Fear and Ignorance. He snatches Words of Hope with his biting words of Hate and Greed before we ever really even know fully what we had in our hands to begin with. There’s a commercial out right now, I think it’s for satellite TV, where a woman is just stepping off her porch with her little dog to go for a walk on this nice bright sunny day when a huge bird of prey swoops down out of nowhere, snatches the dog away from her and flies away with it in its talons. That is precisely what the Enemy does. God’s word is a great gift of Light, and Love and Hope for His people. It is food for our souls, but the Enemy doesn’t want us to actually eat it because if we do, we will grow and bear fruit making it harder for him to stop us. So he snatches it away before it can ever take root in our hearts and become imbedded into our souls.

– “And these are the ones sown on rocky ground: the ones who, when they hear the word, immediately receive it with joy. And they have no root in themselves, but endure for a while; then, when tribulation or persecution arises on account of the word, immediately they fall away.” In this instance the seed, or personal message from God, is not immediately snatched away, but rather is allowed to grow briefly. I experienced this with the second instance that God sowed His words of radical Grace into my heart. This time, it sank in deeper than the first, and I entertained it briefly. I wondered if God could really love me that much, if He could forgive me that completely, I hoped that He could. And yet life would creep in and bring me into hot situations where Doubt would convince me that His goodness wasn’t really “that good”. And I would wither away again.

-“And the others are the ones sown among thorns. They are those who hear the word, but the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches and the desires for other things enter in and choke the word, and it proves unfruitful.” Ahhhh… here we are, back to the thorns and on to the third time that God sowed His word of Radical Grace into my life. I’ll never forget the day; at least I pray that I don’t! It was my 32nd birthday. I was sitting in my red recliner in front of the TV watching a sermon on grace. The pastor shared his own personal testimony of how God’s radical Grace finally caught up with him. He was young and passionate about the Lord, desperate to please Him in any way that he could. I could TOTALLY relate to this! I was so on fire for God and yet having been steeped in legalism my entire life I was desperate to be perfect in order to please God. Little did I know, that’s not what pleases Him. In fact, my perfection is what kills Him. That day I sat and listened to the pastor’s story through tears, his story was my story. I was so desperate to please God and adamant about never sinning that I was constantly sinning. I was so focused on being good for Jesus that I had completely stopped looking at Jesus and was completely focused on myself and my sin. In trying to please Him, I left Him. I became so focused on what I was doing that I was totally missing what He was doing…and more importantly I had completely missed what He has done.

Some sects of Christianity are so focused on the Law, the Ten Commandments, and following them to the letter, that we have lost the whole point of the Gospel message, GRACE! Jesus didn’t come to abolish the Law, He came to fulfill it! Do you know what that means? It means that the Law was a prophecy of the perfection of God that would literally put on flesh and walk among us. It means that Jesus was the fulfillment of the Law in the most perfect way! Just like when a prophecy is fulfilled it is finished, so too is the Law finished in Christ! When the Law was given on Mount Sinai, it was given as a picture of what was to come and God told the Israelites to follow these commands. But then when Jesus came what was it that He told His chosen Disciples? “Follow Me”. Jesus is the total embodiment of the Law, only MORE perfect. If the Old Covenant had been completely perfect then there would have been no need to create a New Covenant now would there? But that is precisely what Jesus came to do! He came to give us a New Covenant with a New Command. “Love one another as I have loved You.” “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and all your soul and all your mind. Likewise, Love your neighbor as yourself. In these two all the Law is summed up.” While the original Law consisted of thou shalt not’s, the new command is not a don’t, but a DO. Why? Because God knows how He created us! He knows how Satan works! If God tells us don’t eat from this tree, then the first thing Satan is going to do is tempt us with all his seductive ways to get us to eat from that tree. The Law alerts us to sin. If there is no command that tells us not to covet, then we are so much less likely to covet. Those without the law are a law unto themselves.

On the day that Moses came down from Mount Sinai with the two tablets of stone 3,000 people died because of their sins. On the day of Pentecost when the Holy Spirit of Jesus came down and filled His people, enabling them to do what He had called them to do, 3,000 people were saved and brought into eternal Life. There is a reason they call those Ten Commandments the Law of death, it’s because it kills. But the Spirit of God brings Life! And with that Spirit, and focusing on the death of Jesus instead of ourselves and our own sinfulness, we are brought out of darkness into His marvelous Light!

Does that mean that we should go out and murder because we no longer follow the Law? NO!!! It means that we follow the Spirit of the Living God because we have been forgiven so completely that the slate that held our sins was wiped clean by the blood of Jesus before we were even born!

God showed me a picture once, He talks to me a lot in pictures, where there was a teen praying in his bedroom asking God to come into his heart and be his Lord and Savior. This teen was COVERED in little round stickers that had “SIN” written on them. Every sin that he had or ever would commit was literally covering him. And at the moment he opened his heart and began praying Jesus appeared behind him and silently started picking stickers off the youth. And one by one as He plucked them from his shirt Jesus said, “this is Mine…. this is Mine… this is Mine… this is Mine…”

Our sins are no longer ours when we give ourselves over to Christ. In that very moment they belong to Him. Our sins are part of who we are, and when we surrender our lives to Him, they belong to Him too; every single one of them, past, present and future. And in that moment we become like Him, sinless and pure in the eyes of God. We are forgiven COMPLETELY without spot or blemish. Now do we look like that to the world, no way! Do we see ourselves like that? Not usually. But should we?

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

No Running

Posted on April 5, 2013 by Tamar

Joshua 23:1 – Jude

Word of the Day: “Be very strong… &… cling to the LORD your God” 23:6 & 8

I’m going to be honest; I’m on the verge of losing it right now. There are some things in life that God calls us to that just aren’t easy and all you want to do is run as far away from them as you can… the story of Jonah comes to mind. Running away didn’t work so well for him so I’m going to guess it won’t for me either. God has whales in all kinds of shapes and sizes and He knows how to use them to effectively bring His runaways back around to where He wants them to be.

The saddest part of it all is that the very thing I want to run from is most likely the very thing that God is planning to use to deliver me to the place He wants me to be. It’s one of those things that I can feel in my gut that it’s right… but it’s hard to tell because at the same time the butterflies in my stomach are flapping their little wings ragged right now!

And then here is today’s reading, always perfectly timed, and all about clinging to God and reminding us of His faithfulness in the past. Because after all, He is “the only God, our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority before all time and now and forever.” Jude 25

And we “have seen all that the LORD [our] God has done to all these nations for [our] sake, for it is the LORD [our] God who has fought for [us].” Joshua 23:3 So we’ve got to be strong and do it! We’ve got to do those hard things that God calls us to do. We’ve got to stand up and fight for Him, with Him, through Him! Why? Because, “as for [us], no man has been able to stand before [us] to this day. One man of [us] puts to flight a thousand, since it is the LORD [our] God who fights for [us], just as He promised you.” Joshua 23:9-10 God has promised to fight for us, did you catch that? He has promised to fight for you, in whatever way you need fought for, He fights for you.

We can’t forget that “not one word has failed of all the good things that the LORD your God promised concerning you. All have come to pass for you; not one of them has failed.” (Joshua 23:14) Not one.

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

Not One

Posted on April 4, 2013 by Tamar

Joshua 21:1 – 22:34

Word of the Day: “Thus the LORD gave to Israel all the land that he swore to give to their fathers. And they took possession of it, and they settled there. And the LORD gave them rest on every side just as he had sworn to their fathers. Not one of all their enemies had withstood them, for the LORD had given all their enemies into their hands. Not one word of all the good promises that the LORD had made to the house of Israel had failed; all came to pass.” Joshua 21:43-45

I don’t know if you’ve ever received a promise from the LORD, but I have and I can tell you that God’s promises aren’t small. He’s not a small God with small dreams for us. He’s not a God that thinks small things towards us, He has BIG dreams, BIG thoughts and BIG hopes for us… which makes them all the harder for us to believe Him for them because to us they’re impossible. They are totally and completely unattainable on our own, which is exactly why God dreams them for us, because He wants us to accomplish them WITH Him.

I have always loved dogs. When I was in elementary school my best friend had a little chestnut Dachshund. She was the spunkiest, cutest little thing I had ever seen and I wanted one desperately. I grew up, got married and immediately started hounding my husband to get a dog… we got a cat. Fast forward another 11 years and two cats later (the first one died) and I was still begging my husband for a dog. One day we were in Tractor Supply Company looking for something for my dear hubby and it just happened to be one of their pet days, where they host animals from a local shelter and you can adopt them. There was this beautiful pit bull there named Rumpke. They named him that because he was found next to a Rumpke dumpster. He and his foster person were just walking through the store and he walked right up to us. The look in his eyes absolutely broke my heart, he wanted a home, and I wanted to give it to him. As Rumpke and his person left, the kids and I immediately turned on my husband with our own puppy dog eyes and pleads to take him home with us. He was a rock, “No”. I gotta give him credit, he never budged and that had to be really really hard for him because he’s a great dad and husband and loves to spoil us. I will be completely honest and tell you that I went home and prayed and sobbed over that dog for weeks. Literally, for weeks! I prayed and prayed and prayed for Rumpke. I even went so far as to pray that he would run away from the foster home and come find us… if it be God’s will for us to have him of course. But day after day, there was no Rumpke on my front porch. The other thing I prayed for during that time was my Isaac dog. Sarah’s son Isaac was the child of promise, I wanted my dog of promise; the PERFECT dog for our family. And I thought I knew what that was, except I’m not God. So as I prayed and prayed for Rumpke, each time I would end with, “but LORD, if he’s not my Isaac dog, then I don’t want him.” And I really did mean it.

About a year later I caught the dog fever again, but it was different this time. I can’t explain how it was different; all I can say is that it was just different. I started surfing PetFinder.com, but not for just any dog I was looking for my Dachshund. I spent hours over months looking for just the right dog, at just the right price from just the right place. Maybe that’s how it was different this time, I could just feel God’s Spirit leading me. If you’re not used to that feeling, then there’s no way that you can understand what I mean when I say that, but there’s just this feeling in your gut when you just know something is right. Some say it’s women’s intuition, but I’ve learned it’s the Holy Spirit moving within me, leading me in the way that I should go. Anyway, the day came when I searched PetFinder and saw this precious miniature Dachshund named Luigi. It was his name that caught my attention first because at the time my son was playing Mario Kart ALL the time! The second thing that caught my attention with Luigi was his picture, he was licking his nose! It was such a silly pose that it made me laugh out loud the first time I saw it and I loved him instantly. Although he was a little farther away than I wanted to drive, it was only an hour. I made some phone calls and a LOT of prayer and we ended up bringing him home. He was so malnourished that all the fur had fallen off his ears and he was beginning to even lose the fur on his tail! L He needed love and food, fast! I’ll never forget the day I brought him home. He had just had his surgery when I picked him up from the vet, he was still shaky and sleepy so I had to hold him in my lap all the way home (oh darn). I brought him into our house and he tried to stand up and walk, but still couldn’t. His legs were so wobbly he almost fell down several times! The kids were due to get off the bus in about thirty minutes, the dog and I had both had a huge day, so I scooped him up, lay down on the couch and he curled up on my chest. His poor little skinny naked body shivered from cold and probably a little anxiety from all the drastic changes he had just undergone, but I think part of him knew that I loved him because he snuggled his little black and brown head up under mine. For half an hour I just lay there petting him trying to get him to stop shivering.

Before we brought him home we discussed his name. We all liked Luigi, quite a bit in fact, except we were giving him a new home and a new life so didn’t that warrant a new name as well? We thought so. Oh the names that we came up with, but the one we liked the best, the one that fit the best, was the name that my husband chose; Skippy. You see we have a story in our family that my great grandma Tyra had a dog named Skippy… a very spoiled dog. We’ll just say he was quite “plump”. And one day my great grandpa came into the kitchen and started giving grandma a hard time about always spoiling the dog and giving him food he shouldn’t have. The next thing you know grandpa turns around and says “Here Skippy, have some bacon”. Yeah, GRANDMA is the one spoiling the dog… sure grandpa! J To this day whenever someone in our family is making bacon the Skippy story usually gets told.

So here we are adopting this dog that is literally skin and bones and barely anything else and what he needs more than anything is love and some bacon. What better name than Skippy? A name that means “spoiled”. He came from a home where they couldn’t feed and provide for him the way that he needed, he was so socially inept that it has taken many hours of training to get him able to function in a town full of other dogs. And yet I doubt that he remembers much of those five years in his life because all day every day he is reminded, by his name and full food bowl, that he is no longer in that place anymore.

In our reading today I was overwhelmed by how many times the word pastureland was used. I couldn’t help but think of the twenty-third Psalm while I was reading it.

The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters. He restores my soul. He leads me in paths of righteousness for His name’s sake. Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff they comfort me. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; you anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the LORD forever.

This week’s reading has been so wonderful in that it is all about entering into a new place. Entering into a new land, the land that God had promised them generations earlier. The reading this week has been about promises being fulfilled and God showing His people, not just His provision and protection but also His amazing grace and faithfulness. These Israelites that were fighting these battles throughout the promised land had never tasted the food of Egypt, they had never felt the taskmaster’s whip flicking their skin and tearing through it, they had only ever known the provision of God in the wilderness. They had only ever heard of what a life of slavery was like, never having experienced it themselves. Neither had they experienced the amazing abundance and goodness of the Promised Land and everything that it held within its bosom. Then one fateful day, they up and move out of the wilderness and across the Jordan. When they get to the other side, like Skippy, they undergo a bit of surgery; they shed some blood in preparation of entering their new forever home. And then the battles start, and one by one by one each and EVERY enemy is defeated; they all go home and REST from the war. It has been won. And as they each settle into their lounge chairs at the end of the day they sigh at the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living because not ONE word of all the good promises that the LORD had made to the house of Israel failed. Not… one.

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

Land of Promise

Posted on April 3, 2013 by Tamar

Joshua 18:1 – 20:9

Word of the Day: Joshua 18:3 “How long will you put off going in to take possession of the land, which the LORD, the God of your fathers, has given you?”

So much of the reading for this week has been the defining of the boundaries for the people of Israel and the battles they had to fight in order to gain that territory given to them by the LORD. This message resonates with me so fiercely right now as I feel like I have been fighting for my territory for ages now… and yet what is my word for the week? “How long will you put off going in to take possession of the land, which the LORD, the God of your fathers, has given you?” You see the LORD has given us each a territory, a land of promise that is ours for the taking… but we have to stand up and fight for it. Just like the daughters of Manasseh had to stand up and voice their desire for what had been promised to them. And while it may not be easy, God has promised that land to us. He has promised that He will fight with us for that property and we know that if God is with us then WHO can be against us?

For months now I have been faking it. I’ve been saying that I am believing God for the things that He has promised me for my life and yet I haven’t been acting in faith on those promises. There are areas of victory in my life that I have yet to achieve a full victory in them simply because I have allowed the fear of failure to hinder me from even trying to stand up and take action in that area. For months now God has been nudging me to act like the teacher I know that I am, yet have I even once stood up before a group and taught? Well, yes… once. But only once. God has blessed me with a land, a stage, have a taken it? Barely. I’ve dipped my toes into the edges of the water, but I’m not even knee-deep in it yet. And if the purpose is to part the waters, well I have yet to get that far. But I will! Because I know that God is with me, and I know that He will fight for me I need only to be still and know that HE is God. I need only to move in the direction He tells me to move and the waters will part before me and I will walk across on dry ground! I will stand on the stone in the center of the Jordan and I will remember this day.

Last week I had a “come to Jesus” meeting with a dear friend of mine where she sat across from me and sternly reprimanded me for failing to stand up for my “flock”. While I had always thought of my little women’s group as my flock, I had never referred to it that way and I had certainly never accepted the true responsibility that came with that position of shepherd and teacher. I failed them. I failed me. I failed God.

But just because I fell, doesn’t mean I have to stay there!!!

In Joshua 19:47 we read, “When the territory of the people of Dan was lost to them, the people of Dan went up and fought against Leshem, and after capturing it and striking it with the sword they took possession of it and settled in it, calling Leshem, Dan, after the name of their ancestor.” Sure they had lost the territory that God had given them, but did they let that stop them from taking it back? Did they just run away and say, “Well, apparently God didn’t really want us to live in this land after all….” NO! They stood up, grabbed their swords and their shields and they went after that ground that the enemy had stolen from them!

We can’t just sit around on our thumbs and sigh, “Oh well, maybe it just wasn’t meant to be…”, “I guess I wasn’t supposed to get a job that nice” or “I must not be worth God’s time to listen to my cries for help and deliverance from this pit I’m in…” Nope, God has excellence planned for us! “For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will hear you. You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you, declares the Lord, and I will restore your fortunes and gather you from all the nations and all the places where I have driven you, declares the Lord, and I will bring you back to the place from which I sent you into exile.” Jeremiah 29:11-14

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

Manasseh

Posted on April 2, 2013 by Tamar

Joshua 13:24 – 17:18

Word of the Day: “the daughters of Manasseh received an inheritance along with his sons.” Joshua 17:6

The daughters of Manasseh were bold, bold enough to go up and request ownership of what had been promised to them; land. Every Hebrew name in the Bible has tremendous meaning behind it, so when we find them we can dig deeper and find a hidden second meaning in a story or verse if we look up the meanings of the names. In this particular verse the Holy Spirit tugged at my heart strings for the name Manasseh. In this verse the daughters could have been referred to as the daughters of Zelophehad, because that is whose daughters they were. Istead, they were referred to as the daughters of Manasseh. So I flipped back to Genesis 41 to the story of Joseph and then skimmed until I found the names of his two sons in verse 51. “Joseph called the name of the firstborn Manasseh. ‘For,’ he said, ‘God has made me forget all my hardship and all my father’s house.'”

For thirteen years Joseph went through some really low spots in life, his brothers threw him in a pit and planned on killing him. Only to then decided to profit from him instead and sell him into slavery. Then he served in Potiphar’s house as his faithful slave for many years until Potiphar’s wife wrongfully accused him of molesting her and he was thrown into prison for doing the right thing and running away from her! He was in prison several years, met some gentlemen, interpreted their dreams for them and asked them to remember him when they got out… well the one that lived anyway. But the cupbearer forgot about Joseph when he got out of prison and Joseph sat there for a few more years, just waiting for his chance. Waiting for God to set him free; free to fulfill the purpose he had been created for. And then that day came. And Pharaoh called for Joseph, bringing him out of jail and into the second highest position in the entire kingdom. Joseph was given a wife, who bore him children, the first of which Joseph named Manasseh. Why? Because his life had turned around so completely that he had to commemorate it with his son’s name. He didn’t ever want to forget this moment where God had come through is such a brilliant way that it made all the years of suffering and hardship make perfect sense. Suddenly Joseph could see clearly the fruit of all those years of waiting. They had made him strong and prepared him for what he was made to do; the saving of many lives.

These daughter’s of Manasseh, they are the daughters of that moment, the children of that time in Joseph’s life where everything was so good that he couldn’t remember the hard stuff that lead up to it. These daughters received the inheritance that was promised to them along with all the other sons of Manasseh because those daughters were just as important in the eyes of God as the sons were.

Times may be tough right now, but they won’t always be. Times of refreshing will come, not may come, they WILL come. But don’t live in those moments if they’re not here yet. Live in the moment you are currently standing in. It’s the only one you’ve been given and it’s a gift, that’s why they call it the present. Is this moment painful? Live in it. Live in this pain, KNOWING with certainty that it will not last forever. Live in this moment right now knowing that this pain has purpose and meaning. And while you may not know what that purpose or meaning is right now, know that there will come a time when you will have a moment named Manasseh where everything from the past will come into focus and it will all make sense and it will all be so good that you will be able to thank God for those hurts of the past. Because you will be able to see how those hurts caused you to grow in the direction He was pointing you.

Think about the cross. That moment was the absolute lowest point of many of those Disciples lives, and it was certainly the lowest point of Mary’s life. Her completely innocent baby boy was hanging on a cross! But now we, and Mary, can look back at that moment as the BEST, most high moment in all of history! On that day, in that moment, none of those people knew what was really happening. But today, in this moment, we do. While there is no way for us to fully understand what all happened in that moment of the cross, we certainly understand so much more than they did.

We each have a cross to bear; but we don’t carry it alone. Jesus carries it with us, because He is always with us and will never forsake us.

He loves you.

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

It’s Worth It

Posted on April 1, 2013 by Tamar

It’s Worth It

Week 1 Video Guide (Printable version click here)

-The story of Achsah can be found in Joshua chapter 15 verses 16-19.

–Jabez expand my BORDERS.

-Jael is in Judges 4 & 5

-Woman of God who isn’t a______ to do what needs to be done.

After the Video:

-God turned the camera off; Tamar’s plans for this video were different than His. What is something in your life where your plans ended up being different than God’s? And how did they turn out in the end?

-At what point did Tamar’s Mask of Perfection come off? What do you think caused it to come off and allow us to see what was underneath? What had she been using to mask her true emotions?

-What kinds of things do you use to mask how you are really feeling at any given moment in time? Is a smile often your mask?

Categories: 1 John, 2 John, 3 John, 365 Life, John, Jonah, Joshua, Waiting, Writing Through the Bible in a Year | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Apart from Me

Posted on April 1, 2013 by Tamar

Joshua 10:22 – 13:23

Word of the Day:

“And Joshua captured all these kings and their land at one time, because the LORD God of Israel fought for Israel.” “And the land had rest from war.” Joshua 10:42 & 11:23

The other day I was feeling low and the phrase “apart from Me you can do nothing” kept popping in and out of my head. I felt like a failure, I felt like “no one” was reading my blog or my books and I felt like I was being a horrible mom. In frustration I flopped down on my bed and allowed my mind to go where God was leading it. I looked up John 15:5 “I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in Me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing.” And as I allowed myself to really ponder on the message of that phrase a picture began to fill my mind’s eye. A large pink shiny heart made of rock became clear and defined. “Apart from Me you can do nothing.” Next a small part of the heart near the bottom tip broke off and separated itself far away from the heart. “A part… A part… apart… Apart from Me you can do nothing“. But then the small part of the heart slowly slid back to rejoin the heart and re-attached itself in such a way that you could barely tell where the separation had been in the first place. And this is where the Holy Spirit really got me. “A part of Me you can do EVERYTHING!” My eyes flung open in surprise and delight. Everything. I can do everything, anything, all things through Christ who gives me strength! You know, it’s one thing to hear it, or even say it, but to see it and believe it, well, that’s completely different!

Apart from Jesus we can do nothing, BUT a part of Jesus we can do everything! It was amazing and wonderful, but He wasn’t finished with me yet. As I lay there with eyes now wide open to my own potential another figure began to emerge, a pair of the bluest most beautiful eyes I had ever seen. Yet they were filled with sadness and pain. I immediately recognized them as the eyes of Jesus, pain-filled because of my current state of torment. I had fallen down into the snake-pit filled with mud and doubt-vipers that bite and cling no matter how hard you shake them. And these eyes had seen me struggling to break free from the torment of the fear of failure. He was there in the pit with me, all the time speaking the truth that would free me “apart from Me you can do nothing”. But instead of hearing those words as an assurance I received them as accusations “you’re apart from God”, “You’re not in Him”, “You’re never in Him”, “You can do nothing”…

But the love of God pursues like a dog on the hunt, that hound of heaven will not give up, on me, or on you. He will pursue you with the truth of His love for you to the day you die… maybe even after who knows!

When I finally exhausted from fighting the doubt-vipers I yielded to the Truth; apart from Him I can do nothing. Period. But I’m not apart from Him now am I? Because He has promised us to NEVER leave us or forsake us, “For I am ALWAYS with you” (Matthew 28:20)… so can we ever truly be apart from the love of God? Is it possible that height or depth, angels or demons, or anything else in all of creation separate us from the love that is in Christ Jesus? NO!

This is the truth, there is no apart from Him once you’ve decided to believe in Him! There is only “a part of Him”. And when you are a part of Him, you can do anything. Anything is possible for those who believe and are called according to His purpose.

Did you know that He has a purpose for you? Really, He does. And while you may not know what exactly that purpose is, He does. He created you for a reason, to do something that only Y.O.U. can do. No other person in all of time has ever walked your path and worn your shoes, you are 100% unique. You were created to be you, so why would you want to change who you are?

Can a baby walk before it’s ready to? No. It can try, but the muscles in its legs aren’t strong enough to hold it up and it would fall. Does the parent scold the child for falling? Absolutely not! They congratulate the toddler for trying, they cheer the child’s near success, and they encourage another attempt.

We are all God’s children, mere toddlers in the faith, trying desperately to walk in perfect Jesus-sized shoes when we haven’t even learned how to walk barefoot yet! And then the Enemy, through self-condemnation and the judgment of others, scolds us for falling. And like the snake-pit we can’t hear the words of truth for what they really are because all we can hear is the hissing of snakes breathing “failure!” often times it is in those times of utter exhaustion where we allow ourselves to be cradled in the arms of L:ove that the beating of the drum of our heart stills long enough to hear that small voice of peace saying “Apart from Me you can do nothing…but you’re never apart from Me are you? For I am always with you, I will never leave you, I will never forsake you and NOTHING you do can separate you from My love for you. I have taken you from your hiding place, from the farthest corners of the globe. I have chosen you for My very own, My Beloved and My friend. I no longer call you servant, because servants don’t know their master’s secrets. No, I call you friend, because I want to share many secret things with you today… things that I don’t tell just anyone, only you – My Beloved, my friend. Did you know that I am yours – all yours? I am. Like a husband belongs to his wife, I am all yours; to have and to hold. The two of us, you and me, we are married, bonded in a way that is ever more intimate than any human relationship, because ours is a marriage of the heart. Where My heart touches your heart and your heart touches Mine. Nothing on earth can even come close to the intimacy and satisfaction that that brings us both. Did you know that I long for you? Oh how I do! I yearn for you in ways you could never understand. But do you know what I yearn for the most? To hear you say My name. I want to touch you in ways you’ve never been touched before that make you scream My name. I want to touch you in ways that make you whisper My name with a longing for Me that aches and begs to be touched more. I want to hear you say My name at work and at home, to your friends and your family, because I want them to know Me too. I want My name to cross their lips like it does yours, in love and respect. I want to light a fire in your bosom so bright that it can not be extinguished and it can not be denied. I want that fire of My love for you to burn away all the comments of judgment others say, all the cords of lies that have entangled you. I want that fire, My fire to fill you consuming all your fears and shame. I love you, for who you are, how I made you to be, shameless and unafraid because you have been filled to the brim and overflowing with how desperately I love you. How ferociously I hunger for intimacy with you, to be touched by you and to touch you in return. My dearest love, no matter how far you run, from the depths of the seas or the heights of the mountains, from my left scarred hand or to My right, no matter where you go, I will be there, waiting for you when you arrive. I may even ask you what took so long. I am God, I am timeless, I am limitless and I am yours all yours, just waiting for you to call, waiting to help, waiting to love you the way you deserve. My Beloved, you deserve Me. You were made for Me. I love you.”

As His eyes of absolute love floated above my face, He licked His thumb, and then reached out and wiped the mud from my left eye. He licked His thumb again and wiped the mud from my right eye. And then He smiled, because He knew His attention had made me better.

He really does love us, more than we could ever hope or imagine.

In Jesus.

Categories: 365 Life, Joshua, Waiting, Writing Through the Bible in a Year | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 11 Comments

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