ApprehendingGrace.com

¹¹But you, man of God, flee from all this, and pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance and gentleness. ¹²Fight the good fight of the faith. Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called when you made your good confession in the presence of many witnesses.
1 Timothy 6: 11-12

As I read this passage a few days ago, my attention was captured by one phrase: “Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called.” What a great exhortation to consider as we look forward to 2010. I looked up the word that is translated “take hold” and found that it is a cousin to the word from which ApprehendingGrace.com gets its name.

The word katalambano is used by Paul in Philippians 3:12, when he says “I press on to apprehend that for which Christ has apprehended me.” (For more on how the blog was named, click here.)

The word used by Paul in 1 Timothy is epilambanomai. It means to take hold of, to seize or to take possession of.

I want to do that with my “eternal life.” I have claimed Christ as my Savior. I have asked Him to forgive me of my sins. I seek to give Him full authority in my life. I want also to fully take hold of the eternal life to which I have been called. To me, that is much more than the eternal life I will some day live out with my Lord. It means living this life differently from those who do not have the promise of eternal life after this life is over:

• It means living this life with freedom from condemnation from myself, others or Satan.
• It means living this life with a willingness to take risks that I might otherwise be too timid to take because Christ is in me and has made many promises in and for my life that have yet to be fulfilled.
• It means aligning my priorities with the priorities of God.
• It means constant dependence on a God who has promised to supply all I need for life and Godliness (2 Peter 1:3) and has promised to never leave or forsake me (Deuteronomy 31:6, et. al.).

Our first series of blogs this year is going to focus on what it means to take hold of eternal life. I know, I wrote a blog earlier in the week in which it looked like God had given me a theme for 2010 –

“Learning to hear God’s Voice more clearly and regularly. Of course that requires listening for His voice, as it says in verse 3 – ‘…the sheep listen to his voice.’ It also carries with it the implication that I will follow His Voice after hearing it.”

The two subjects dovetail quite nicely – living the eternal life means living ever attentive to God’s Voice. And I think combined He has given us a great theme for 2010. I don’t have a nifty catch-phrase or title, or a perfectly gift-wrapped paragraph that defines it yet. But God is developing it in my heart as I type. I’m sure it’ll fall into place soon.

In the meantime, come back regularly as we “flesh out” what it means to take hold of the eternal life to which we have been called. Our next blog in the series will be by a guess blogger, my husband Phil. Watch for it early next week.

While considering the issue of stopping the misfires of my brain when I’m trying to read God’s Word or enter His presence, God brought to mind several interactions I’ve had with children and young adults over the past few years. I’d like to share them with you.

From the Mouths of Babes…
One young friend came up to me recently and stood looking at me expectantly. When I asked how she was doing, she launched into a long, animated (in my mind, anxiety-producing) discourse about how busy she was. She didn’t say anything wrong, per se, but remembering the conversation hits me like a slap in the face. As I re-hear her words and remember her demeanor I realize that she was reciting her crowded schedule (which included being too busy for breakfast) to impress me and win my approval.

She is not alone. God brought to my mind other interactions in which teens have recited their busy schedules in an attempt to seem more grown-up or to impress the adults in the room. In each case, the things they were doing were good things, but what has come clearly into focus for me is the very high value that has been placed on having a busy schedule, rather than placing the high value on the activities themselves or even lack of activities so that we can spend more time face to face with the eternal God.

…Come the Values of the Adults
Children learn to value what the adults around them value. Our children are learning that busy-ness carries a high value. I wonder if they also see that quietness is a high value. I wonder if they see that sitting at the feet of God is a high value. I think in many cases they do not, because they see the adults around them willing to overload their schedules and adjust their time with God to do any of a number of things, most of which do not rise to the level of interrupting our time with God.

As I recall these conversations, I’m convicted about the part I’ve played in reinforcing the value of a busy schedule for these young followers of God. I’ve reinforced it by the way I’ve responded to them and by the example that I’ve set. I’ve communicated that having a busy schedule carries a high value. Perhaps more to the point, I’m convicted about what my over-busy schedule says about me.

What Does Your Over-Busy Schedule Say About You?
Our over-busy schedules may say a variety of things about us:

• We need to be busy and involved in many things to feel important.
• We need to fill every moment of every day so that we don’t have time to deal with the hurt that’s inside.
• We don’t know how to identify those things God has called us to so we jump into everything without first attempting to discern how God wants us to spend our time.
• We know what God has called us to, but we don’t know how to say “no” to those things He hasn’t put on our plate.
• We have a large appetite for activity – we enjoy many things – but we haven’t disciplined ourselves to make only the best choices.
• We are unwilling to trust the results to anyone else, including God.

The list surely isn’t comprehensive, but I get stuck on that last one.

Is God All Sufficient or Isn’t He?
An over-busy schedule sometimes denies the sufficiency of God. Too often I realize that my schedule becomes over-busy because I feel like I have to do it all myself. If I don’t do this, who will? If I don’t work on Sunday, who will put food on the table or how will everything else get done? If I don’t plan this church event, who will? If I don’t take the kids to this ball game, how will they get there? The answers may very well be:

• God will provide it or maybe I need to do with less food, things, or activities!
• Someone will step up or the event won’t take place (and that’s OK)! (If no one wants to plan the event, perhaps it’s just another activity that increases our over-busy schedules instead of bringing us closer to the peace of God.)
• Another child’s mom or dad will take the kids to the event or maybe they shouldn’t go! (We begin teaching our children about wise schedule choices when we choose wisely between activities, not attend all events.)

I like most of the things in my schedule. They are there because they have value. But sometimes the value of God is eclipsed by the clutter in my life. And when my highest value is blocked by the clutter, my life gets scrambled and the misfires in my brain increase exponentially.

God Has a Solution
God woke me up early one day last week while and I found myself with a whole extra hour and a half before I had to leave the house. I spent it with Him. It changed the course of my day. I confess that when I got out of bed, I was afraid that getting up so early would cause me to collapse before the day was over, but I consciously trusted God to carry me through the day. I was fine all day. God is speaking to me and demonstrating to me the value of an uncluttered life. It allows me to REST in His sufficiency. It allows me to walk in peace through stressful situations because the responsibility isn’t really on my shoulders.

I’m certain this is the beginning of many blogs about de-cluttering our lives and trusting God with what we can’t do –because we can’t do it all and still keep an uncluttered life. Peace eludes us when we rush franticly from one activity to the next. At least it eludes me. You can’t chase after peace, you must wait for it.

I invite you to join me in this journey toward God’s peace. I’m not sure where it’s leading, but I know that God has grace to carry us through.

And an Assignment
De-clutter assignment for this week: Pick a day during which you will purposefully set aside everything that screams to be done and everything else that you want to do, and sit before the Lord for longer than you would typically spend in devotions. Be sure it’s a place and time that is quiet. Trust God to handle all that needs to be done while you rest with Him for awhile. Read a little more Scripture than you normally would. Listen to the quiet. Breathe in the quiet. Whisper prayers to God. Seek His peace. If you like, play soft worship music in the background (that puts me to sleep, so I don’t do it). Don’t come with a long prayer list. Don’t spend the whole time reading Scripture. Just rest with God. This is a time for you to be restored and refreshed by the peacefulness of God’s presence. Resist the temptation to leave God’s presence too soon. Your goal (for those goal-setters out there) is to experience the peace God can bring into a cluttered life if you push away the clutter to focus on Him.

You might not accomplish your goal! If you’re new at pushing away the clutter, it might be difficult for you to rest in quiet with the Lord. That’s OK. Try it again next week. Spiritual formation is a process. You will get better at it if you commit to it. You will begin to experience the peace God can bring and that peace will do two things:

1. Enable you to face the cluttered life with more purpose and peace.
2. Cause you to desire a less-cluttered life so that you can more easily find God’s peace regularly.

Those are things I want in my life. They outshine the having a brain that misfires because it’s going in too many directions at once. They come with a price – a weeding out of the clutter in our lives. Is it worth the price? You bet!

Grace & peace, friends.

Be very careful, then, how you live—not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity,
Ephesians 5:15-16a

It is so tempting to live carefree! Sometimes I just plain get tired. And the older I get, the more tired I get. But God’s Word applies to us whether we are 2, 22 or 102 years old. Now granted, a two year old doesn’t understand very much about living wisely. But it is certainly an age at which they can begin to learn. And the life of a 102 year old isn’t quite the same as the life of a 22 year old. And those of us that are somewhere in between – well, I’ve learned that each decade brings its own challenges to living carefully. In each age, there is a temptation to live carefree, the definition of carefree just changes a bit! At 2 it means don’t bite your sister! At 22 it means watch your entertainment! At 52 it means don’t grow weary in well-doing. At 102 it means watch your thoughts and attitudes. Or something like that. (Details may vary based on personal temptations.)

God’s Word, however, tells us to live “carefully”, not “carefree.” We are enjoined to “Make the most of every opportunity.” I need this encouragement, this urging on to greater things.

A television show I used to like (a couple of decades ago) was Hill Street Blues. It was a cop show that always began with the morning briefing. At the end of the briefing, the Sergeant always said, “And Hey! Let’s be very careful out there!” That’s what God is saying to us. The policemen and women were being charged to be careful because each day they faced danger. The same is true for us – each day we face temptation from the enemy who is trying to trip us up and cause us to fall into sin. Let’s not kid ourselves – yes, it is a fall into sin, but it is always a conscious choice to fall. The enemy can catch us by surprise if we’re not living carefully (and sometimes even when we are), but there is always a point at which we decide to no longer be careful and “allow” ourselves to fall.

Living carefully doesn’t mean not experiencing the freedom that living in Christ makes available. Living in Christ’s freedom is freedom from condemnation and guilt. It is freedom from religion. It is freedom from bondage to sin. And such living brings a lightness in one’s spirit that makes one feel carefree. That’s wonderful. I hope that we can all grasp that. The kind of carefree we ought to avoid is the kind that causes us not to care about how we are living.

Living carefully does not mean living in bondage. I’m not talking about a set of rules that we need to keep – being very careful not to break any of them. I’m talking about how we live so that we please God and allow Him to shine through us.

Living carefully does not mean being a workaholic – even if it’s being a workaholic for the Lord! God’s example to us and best plan for us is to work, then rest. His Word speaks strongly about honoring the Sabbath (as in considering it important enough to include in the Ten Commandments!). Science teaches us that resting allows our bodies to refresh and heal themselves regularly. Business studies show that creativity is greatly enhanced by regular times of rest. We will have more energy to live carefully if we rest regularly.

I want to represent Christ well in the world in which I live. That means I must be very careful in how I live.

Lord, help me because sometimes I just want to stop being vigilant. Help me to make the most of every opportunity and rest in between the opportunities, trusting you to handle them while I sleep.

About a month ago, my pastor suggested something whose time has come! He suggested that we go home, find a box, write out all our excuses on individual pieces of paper, crumple them up, throw them in the box and close the lid on them. It was something I needed to hear. I am ashamed to admit that I have more excuses today than I had six years ago. I have the same excuses I had six years ago plus a whole pile of new ones. I don’t want to have excuses. I want to have a heart that always says “Yes, Lord.”

I like to think that I have that heart…but the problem is that I have this stack of excuses that even keeps me from hearing God give me new assignments. When the excuses short-circuit hearing God’s voice, I am deceived into believing that I have the “yes, Lord” heart. If I received a clear word from the Lord with a new assignment, I’m pretty sure I’d say “yes, Lord.” I just can’t receive the clear word because every time God tries to speak to me, I short-circuit the connection with an excuse.

I am reminded of this parable told by Jesus:

¹⁵When one of those at the table with him heard this, he said to Jesus, “Blessed is the man who will eat at the feast in the kingdom of God.”

¹⁶Jesus replied: ”A certain man was preparing a great banquet and invited many guests. ¹⁷At the time of the banquet he sent his servant to tell those who had been invited, ‘Come, for everything is now ready.’

¹⁸“But they all alike began to make excuses. The first said, ‘I have just bought a field, and I must go and see it. Please excuse me.’

¹⁹“Another said, ‘I have just bought five yoke of oxen, and I’m on my way to try them out. Please excuse me.’

²⁰“Still another said, ‘I just got married, so I can’t come.’

²¹“The servant came back and reported this to his master. Then the owner of the house became angry and ordered his servant, ‘Go out quickly into the streets and alleys of the town and bring in the poor, the crippled, the blind and the lame.’

²²“‘Sir,’ the servant said, ‘what you ordered has been done, but there is still room.’

²³“Then the master told his servant, ‘Go out to the roads and country lanes and make them come in, so that my house will be full. ²⁴I tell you, not one of those men who were invited will get a taste of my banquet.’”
               Luke 14:15-24

I don’t want to take the passage out of context – it is intended to challenge the Jews who believed they would be partaking of the great feast in the Kingdom of God. Jesus was speaking to people who in most cases had not accepted Him as the Messiah. We are not in the same situation as the Jews of Jesus’ time. But there are some principles we can draw out of the parable.

Each person had an excuse. Each person missed what God had for them because they chose to do things that could have been done by someone else. One commentator shot down all three arguments:

• “I must go see the field” – if he had just purchased the field, he had likely just seen it;
• “I must try out my new oxen” – if he had the money to buy five oxen, he surely had people working for him who could try them out;
• “I just got married” – according to Jewish law, that was a valid excuse not to go to war for a year, but it wasn’t a valid excuse for missing a great banquet, especially one that they had already committed to attend.

These men chose to attend to matters of livelihood, commerce and family rather than the banquet. According to one commentary, they would have RSVP’d – promised to attend – but instead of keeping their promises, they made excuses.

Having said “Yes” to Christ as not only my Savior but also my Lord, I have put in my RSVP to accept any invitation He extends to me. Yet I suspect there are times when He begins to extend an invitation and I preempt Him by saying “but…..” or “I can’t because…” or “I could if…” or even “when….then I’ll…”

Please don’t get me wrong. There are times when people will ask us to do something and our priority (or more accurately, God’s priority for us at that moment) is to take care of business or commerce or family. But I suspect that there are many more times when God asks me to do something and I short-circuit His request with one of the many excuses I seem to carry around “for such a time as this.”

Lord, make my “for such a time as this” opportunities be ones in which I choose to serve You, not convenient times to pull one of my old excuses out of my back pocket. Better yet, Lord, help me to pull those excuses out one by one, look at them, then crumble and lay them at the foot of Your cross. No more excuses, Lord!

Are you like me? Do you have too many excuses in your hip pocket? Do you suspect that your excuses are keeping you from even hearing the opportunities God might have for you? Do you suspect you’re missing opportunities to say “Yes” to God and serve Him with all your heart? If so, I pray that you will join me in my prayer I prayed above. And I pray that you will join me in the effort of identifying your excuses and bringing them before God one by one. I suspect one of two things will happen with each excuse: Either God will shatter the excuse with His wisdom – you will see the utter irrelevance of the excuse – or He will enable you to make your excuse a sacrificial offering to Him – that you will lay that excuse upon His altar and say “no more Lord. With Your help, I will not use this excuse to keep me from following Your will.”

I’d love to hear how it goes for you. Add a comment below or e-mail me at sandy@ApprehendingGrace.com.

Living in the United States, many have come to value freedom over all else. Further, we have come to equate freedom with individual rights and the moment that my rights have been even slightly bumped, we cry foul. We then turn to our democratic government believing that it is their responsibility to protect our rights and we join political parties and various political organizations to make our rights a priority and to protect them.

The problem is that this wars against much of what we ought to be living as a follower of Christ.

 Let me say at the outset, I am a proponent of being involved in our government. I do not in any way shape or form believe Christians should eschew government involvement. Further, I am in favor of all people, regardless of race, creed, ethnic background, gender, or sexual orientation being treated fairly and equitably. As a woman I’ve faced way more discrimination and demeaning treatment than I would wish on anyone.

As a Christ-follower, however, I see two serious issues with the attitudes that can take root deeply in our psyche, when we allow democracy to go too far.

It’s Not About My Rights
First, as a Christ-follower, it’s not about my rights. It’s about Christ, having Him formed in me and living my life through Him.

When I read the Gospels, I don’t see Christ standing up for His rights. I don’t see Him demanding anything except a respect for and honoring of God. I know the moment that attitude rises up in me that says “what about my rights?” or “I deserve…” – I know that in that moment I’ve lost sight of Christ. Democracy has gone too far when it fosters the idea that my rights are superior to all else, when it causes me to have the default position that being wronged is an actionable offense.

I do not see that in Christ. I see Him laying down His life for His sheep. I see Him forgiving offenses and not keeping score (thankfully). I see Him taking the punishment I deserve and saying “I forgive you.” That ought to be my default position, not “I demand to be treated equal or I will take action to force you to do so.”

We have become an overly litigious society because we have allowed the world to convince us that our freedom is more important than our walk with Christ. That having my rights respected is more important than walking in forgiveness. Essentially, we have allowed the world to influence us to the point that we often establish “our rights” as our god. Lord forgive us.

We Live in a Kingdom
Secondly, when we live with the “democracy” mindset, it is very easy to forget that we live in a Kingdom that is ruled by a King. In our democracy, we live our lives from the perspective of organizing to get what we want (or at the very least arguing interminably to get what we want). It’s a perspective that wars against an attitude that says “here I am, send me.” (Isaiah 6:8)

As Christ-followers, we are not only children of the King, we are also subjects of the King. In the United States we struggle to understand the King/subject relationship because our very development as a nation plants in us the DNA not of a slave, but of independence – of one who glories in their freedom. Being independent is not a good quality for a Christ-follower. God wants us to be dependent on Him and it is a very hard practice to learn when everyone around us preaches independence and freedom. Yes, it is for freedom that Christ has set us free (Galatians 5:1), but read the entire book – He has set us free – released us from the “curse of the law” (Galatians 3:13).

We live in a Kingdom, and in a Kingdom the King rules. I am thankful that I serve a loving, merciful, compassionate King. But I must regularly be reminded that I serve a King, and what He says and wants is far, far more important than what I want.

Final Words
Again, please do not read into this that I believe we should not work to improve our government or that we should not pursue equitable treatment for all. Let’s work hard, however, to follow Christ first, embracing His attitudes and purposes. The Apostle Paul put it this way:

Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death – even death on a cross!
          Philippians 2:5-8

Lord, help us to stay Christ-focused in heart and mind and attitude.

God bless America.

Enjoy your 4th of July celebrations!

Today is my husband’s birthday. The day his mom struggled then knew the joy of having her fourth (and last) child. The day he cried his first audible (to humans) cry. More likely than not, the day I was conceived. Since I was born 9 months to the day after Phil was born, we often say that God created me especially for him as a gift to him on his true birth day.

I think it would more accurately be said (from my perspective) that the Lord who knew me even before I was conceived was working, even before I was conceived, to create the perfect husband for me.

 I wrote this tribute in 2008, but was reluctant to publish it in my blog because it seemed so self serving. This year, I am rejecting that notion for several reasons.

• Phil has been a fantastic example of a godly husband throughout our marriage. If reading this helps any man become a better husband to his wife, that is a worthwhile use of this space.
• Our culture is awash with women who do not choose to honor their husbands. If this blog encourages a single wife to honor her husband today, it is a worthwhile use of this space.
• This tribute gives a glimpse of a life lived for Christ and a marriage committed to Christ. There will always be difficult times to work through and doing so together is one of the joys of marriage.

With that being said, here is my tribute to the greatest man on earth!

Phil –

Thank you for loving me. For seeing in me more than I could ever see in myself. For showing me God’s unconditional love. It seems that no matter how much I fall short, you love me. And without heaping negativity on me in any form, you urge me to become better than I am.

Thank you for being my cheerleader, loving me the way God created me and encouraging me to  be me when others have said “no, you can’t.”

Thank you for making up for my weaknesses (like not cooking or cleaning much), covering them with your actions, demonstrating your love for me.

Thank you for putting our future ahead of our past and our present. For always knowing that God had more for us, even when I slid toward doubt.

Thank you for introducing me to God. For your tenacious faith in the midst of my anti-faith. For your patience and perseverance until the Holy Spirit to change my heart.

Thank you for pursuing God in good times and bad. For all you’ve taught me as we study together or prepare to teach others together. What a blessing to be a study partner with you! You enrich my relationship with God.

Thank you for encouraging and guiding my walk with God. For recommending books you think I should read. For asking me how my spiritual life is going. For praying for and with me.

Thank you for your tender heart and willingness to take risks. What a risk I was 32 years ago! (And maybe still am today!) Thanks for seeing the payoff, even before I did.

Thank you for being my business partner for 21 years and my life partner for 31. What a life! God has been so very good to me!

Thank you for holding me together in the hard times, for celebrating with me in the great times and for making the in-between times more fun that they ought to have been! Thank you for being the fun that balances my seriousness.

Thank you for loving me.

I love you…more than you can ever know, more than I can ever say.

Happy birthday, love.

      
A God Chaser is a person whose hunger for God exceeds his grasp, whose passion for God’s presence presses him to chase the impossible, in hopes that the Uncatchable might catch him.      
          Tommy Tenney, in his book The God Chasers

 I want to be a God Chaser! How about you?

As our church prepares to participate corporately in an extended fast, several things have been rattling around in my brain:

As we sample from the buffet of life, the more we eat of those things that have no nutritional value, the less room we have for the things that will nourish us.

Of course this applies to real eating – the more ice cream and cake I eat the less room I have for veggies & fruit. But it also applies to all of life’s activities. The more mindless TV I watch, the less time I have for reading or exercising. Now I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with ice cream and cake or even mindless TV. I’m just saying a steady diet of them makes us fat and weak, both physically and spiritually. And if we partake of those things FIRST, we close the door to those other things that can bring us great joy. Lord, help me to make good choices.

    “So don’t worry about having enough food or drink or clothing. Why be like the pagans who are so deeply concerned about these things? Your heavenly Father already knows all your needs, and he will give you all you need from day to day if you live for him and make the Kingdom of God your primary concern.
     “So don’t worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring its own worries. Today’s trouble is enough for today.
               Matthew 6:31-34 (NLT)

If we focus on what we’re giving up instead of what we’re gaining we’ll never be happy.

Which would you rather have – a life of contentment or a life of lack? You can have either life from the same circumstances. Again, I’m not saying that there isn’t real lack in some of our lives. But for most of us, we have a house in which to live, enough food to eat and people who love us. I want my focus to be on those blessings, not on what I lack. As we look toward the fast, I can look at things I might be giving up and feel bad about that, or I can look at what I hope to gain and be excited for things to come. Our culture is so acclimated to looking at what we don’t have and wanting bigger, better and more. Lord, help me to be content with You and not long for all those other things.

for I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want.
              Philippians 4:11b-12

One of the purposes of fasting is to strip away all the things that grab our attention and turn it away from God – to help us realize that He is the source of every good and perfect gift and to be content.

Whatever is good and perfect comes to us from God above, who created all heaven’s lights. Unlike them, he never changes or casts shifting shadows. In his goodness he chose to make us his own children by giving us his true word. And we, out of all creation, became his choice possession.
               James 1:17-18

This morning I’ve been humming a song we sang in worship yesterday…

I will wait…I will wait for the Lord. How good is the Lord, to those whose hope is in Him.
I will wait…and let God be God. I will wait, I will wait for the Lord.

(Thanks, Pastor Larry, for writing it.)

Be blessed, all!

I’ve just been reading in Leviticus about all the offerings the Israelites were to offer to God and what (finally) struck me is that in every case, they use the word “offering.” It might have been a peace offering or a guilt offering or some other kind of offering, but they were always an “offering.” They may have been required offerings, but they were still offerings. That is, the Lord required these offerings as a way for them to receive forgiveness (albeit temporary forgiveness) for their sins or show their devotion to Him. And yet, they are called “offerings.”

What began to sink in was the attitude of humility that the word “offering” carries with it. An offering is something given in hopes that it will be accepted – the husband-to-be offers his hand in marriage to the woman in hopes that she will say “yes” or an offending co-worker brings a cup of coffee or donut in hopes that relationships can be restored and peace can returned to the office. An apology is an offering – it is given in humility and in the hopes that it will be accepted. The attitude of the heart in each case is humility and hopefulness. Of course with hopefulness there is anticipation of good things to come.

When I read in Leviticus 5 that a person is to bring a lamb or a goat, but if he cannot afford that he can bring two young doves or pigeons, and if he cannot afford that he is to bring a tenth of an ephah of fine flour, I am ashamed to admit that the thought that ran across my brain was “who’s to say what he can afford?” Immediately the Lord whispered in my ear – “It’s a heart issue.” In other words, our hearts ought to be so devoted to God and so sorry for our sin that we desire to bring the very best and most we can. It’s not a “how little can we get away with to make up for our sins?” Rather, it’s how much can I offer to the Lord to show Him how sorry I am and how much I love Him?

And that brought me to the question – “How do you view your offerings?” Are they obligations, or are they opportunities to express your love to God? Do you give them as a part of your Sunday morning routine, or with an attitude of humility? When you write out your check or search for the money in your wallet, is it just something you do out of duty, or is an act of worship? Don’t get me wrong. Obedience is a good thing. Bring your tithes into the storehouse (Malachi 3:10). But obedience that is not done with the right heart is its own form of rebellion. Think of the child who spits out his apology in obedience to his parent’s command. The child was being “obedient”, but not making a sincere offering from his heart. No, in his heart there was rebellion – “I’ll say I’m sorry, but I won’t mean it. So there!”

I doubt that you make your offerings with the same blatant attitude as that child, but I know that there are times when I unthinkingly offend God by giving my offerings with a heart that isn’t fully “in the moment” (that is, I’m not even thinking about it, I’m just on autopilot) or has a hidden agenda of expectations from God instead of humble anticipation of His acceptance of my offer. When we are “in the moment” and our attitude is humble anticipation, imagine the joy we can receive when we know that our offer has been accepted!

Scripture teaches that God loves a cheerful giver (2 Corinthians 9:7). That doesn’t mean He loves the giver who is a cheerful person. That means he loves it when we give with a cheerful attitude – and that means we are in the moment – purposefully thinking about what we’re doing and doing it cheerfully.

Lord, forgive me for all the times I have spent the offering time on Sunday morning reading the bulletin instead of making my offering to You in humility and joy. Forgive me for the times I write out my check out of obligation instead of with joyful anticipation of bringing joy to the One I love the most.

The Offering God Gave
Notice that it was in this same attitude that God gave His offering – with His whole heart and in humble anticipation of the joy to come when His offering would be accepted by men and women. That offering, of course, was His Son Jesus, whom God gave as the sacrificial lamb – the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world (John 1:29). Do you see that Jesus is the fulfillment of the Old Testament system of sacrifices and offerings? That He is our sacrificial lamb, offered once for all?

Unlike the other high priests, [Jesus] does not need to offer sacrifices day after day, first for his own sins, and then for the sins of the people. He sacrificed for their sins once for all when he offered himself.
                Hebrews 7:27 (NIV)

The question is “will you accept His offering?” It is an offering consistent with those we’ve read about in Leviticus, but of such a higher degree that it issues in a new covenant. The new covenant holds the promise of an eternal inheritance – life forever more – even for those who have not kept the old covenant.

The blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a heifer sprinkled on those who are ceremonially unclean sanctify them so that they are outwardly clean. How much more, then, will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself unblemished to God, cleanse our consciences from acts that lead to death, so that we may serve the living God!

For this reason Christ is the mediator of a new covenant, that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance – now that he has died as a ransom to set them free from the sins committed under the first covenant.
                Hebrews 9:13-15 (NIV)

Should you have any doubt, let me be clear. God is calling you. He is calling you to serve the living God. He is calling you in love.

This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.
                1 John 4:9-10 (NIV)

Will you accept his offering? What will you offer back to him in response?

I’m sitting in the library before my last class of my last course working towards my Master’s degree. Because of Phil’s heart attack, they’ve been gracious enough to give me extensions on a couple papers, so I still have 2 papers to write and 1 book to read…but attending my last class is still reaching a major milestone. I was thinking as I drove here today about priorities. If you had asked me a few years ago, before I returned to finish my Master’s, I would have told you that I didn’t have time in my schedule to miss one day a week of work and spend most evenings and Saturdays studying and/or writing. But then God put the desire into my heart, my husband encouraged me, and I took the big step. And today is my last class.

One thing this has taught me is that “I don’t have time” is a pretty poor excuse for not following dreams that God has put in your heart. I didn’t think I had time. But I re-arranged some things, I dropped some things, and I let some things slide (like housework – that’s always the thing I let slide!).

Another thing it’s taught me is the need to take action when we feel the nudge of God. I’ve wanted a Master’s degree for about two decades! I’ve looked into them before and always been discouraged because of how much time they would take and how much money they would cost. But this time, it was more than just me wanting something. It was a God-nudge that prompted me to action. And I’m so glad I responded. It’s pretty easy to ignore a God-nudge sometimes. Don’t do it. God nudges us toward our dreams because if we’re following after Him, He’s the one who has put those dreams in our hearts. He wants us to pursue them as much or more than we do.

A third thing is to not make assumptions or decisions based on the lack of earthly things – i.e., “I don’t have time, money, talent”…God provides. Don’t dismiss what seems like unachievable God-given plans because of lack. He provides.

 People often see me as “having it all together” and not being intimidated easily. That’s not always very true – I just put up a good front. For me to return to school alone was a real challenge for me. I’m afraid of driving long distances by myself, but every class I had to drive over four hours just to get to and from school. I’m easily afraid when I’m by myself at night, but every class I had to drive home over deserted country roads between 10pm and midnight. And I was very nervous attending classes alone (because I really am shy at heart). I don’t share these things to say “look at me, I overcame all this.” No, I share it to say YOU can overcome whatever is holding you back to pursue the dreams God has put in your heart.

For I can do everything with the help of Christ who gives me the strength I need.
               Philippians 4:13, NLT

You may have noticed that Thursday is a day that a blog usually appears – they were written from this library as I would read Scripture and pray as a transition between my work life and travel to getting ready for class. Guess I’ll have to find a new Thursday hang-out spot for writing blogs!