Wednesday, February 24, 2016

Wednesday, February 24, 2016

“Live your truth. Express your love. Share your enthusiasm. Take action towards your dreams. Walk your talk. Dance and sing to your music. Embrace your blessings. Make today worth remembering.” 
~ Steve Maraboli

NUMBERS 11-13

“11 Moses said to the LORD, “Why have you dealt ill with your servant? And why have I not found favor in your sight, that you lay the burden of all this people on me? ”

MARK 5:21-43

“33But the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came in fear and trembling and fell down before him and told him the whole truth. 34And he said to her, “Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease.”

JOURNAL

Faith and Action. Those are the two words that recently have lodged in my mind as God's calling to his people. It's not faith without action or action without faith it is the combination of the two that put us squarely in the heart of obedience to God. It is also in these two actions that shame and fear cannot exist. Following this path I believe waters the seed of the Kingdom that has been planted in our hearts in such a way that it begins to grow. The more we experience the Kingdom growing within us the more it begins to spill out into our relationships, our families and our communities.

Monday, February 22, 2016

Monday, February 22, 2016

“To believe in something, and not to live it, is dishonest.”
~ Mahatma Ghandi

NUMBERS 7

“89And when Moses went into the tent of meeting to speak with the LORD, he heard the voice speaking to him from above the mercy seat that was on the ark of the testimony, from between the two cherubim; and it spoke to him.”

MARK 4:21-41

“30 And he said, “With what can we compare the kingdom of God, or what parable shall we use for it? 31 It is like a grain of mustard seed, which, when sown on the ground, is the smallest of all the seeds on earth, 32 yet when it is sown it grows up and becomes larger than all the garden plants and puts out large branches, so that the birds of the air can make nests in its shade.”

JOURNAL

The Kingdom of God being compared to a mustard seed reminds me of the verse in Luke 17 where Jesus says that "the kingdom of God is within".  A small hope or word can transform a life.  The hope of Christ planted in a heart can produce a tree of life that gives to all those that encounter it. 

Wednesday, February 17, 2016

Wednesday, February 17, 2016


“Prayer is not asking. It is a longing of the soul. It is daily admission of one's weakness. It is better in prayer to have a heart without words than words without a heart.”
~ Mahatma Ghandi

LEVITICUS 24-25

“35“If your brother becomes poor and cannot maintain himself with you,  you shall support him as though he were a stranger and a sojourner, and he shall live with you. 36 Take no interest from him or profit, but fear your God, that your brother may live beside you. 37 You shall not lend him your money at interest, nor give him your food for profit. 38 I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt to give you the land of Canaan, and to be your God.”

MARK 1:23-45

“35 And rising very early in the morning, while it was still dark, he departed and went out to a desolate place, and there he prayed.”

JOURNAL

To realize that Jesus needed time alone every morning to pray, helps me to realize that I must do the same.  It is a matter of beginning a day with connection to God.  Being able to surrender my will and hopes and dreams to God should not seem to be something that I run away from...yet often I find that I am resistant. I don't want to surrender or submit and it is in these moments that I feel confusion and distraction.  Without fail...when I surrender to prayer and being quiet and truly listening, a joy comes over my heart and a peace begins to calm my soul.  

Thursday, February 11, 2016

“Pleasure is always derived from something outside you, whereas joy arises from within.” 
~ Eckhart Tolle 

LEVITICUS 13

“45“The leprous person who has the disease shall wear torn clothes and let the hair of his head hang loose, and he shall cover his upper lip and cry out, ‘Unclean, unclean.’ 46He shall remain unclean as long as he has the disease. He is unclean. He shall live alone. His dwelling shall be outside the camp.”

MATTHEW 26:20-54

“33 Peter answered him, “Though they all fall away because of you, I will never fall away.” 34 Jesus said to him, “Truly, I tell you, this very night,  before the rooster crows, you will deny me three times.” 35 Peter said to him, “Even if I must die with you, I will not deny you!” And all the disciples said the same.”

JOURNAL

It is confusing at times to read the path for those with leprosy and how they were commanded to live alone in rags.  Such a sad path and turn of fate, it is a reminder that life is often not fair.  We are marked for death and failure even in the moments when we feel confidence in our commitment as Peter did in his declaration that he would never deny Christ. It is this reminder that our only hope is found in the comfort and joy of knowing and being loved by God.  The external is never where we find the evidence of God. While it can be seen here in the magnificence of his creation...it is ultimately found in the inner resolve of the heart.

Wednesday, February 10, 2016

Wednesday, February 10, 2016

“In the same way a Christian is not a man who never goes wrong, but a man is enabled to repent and pick himself up and begin over again after each stumble--because the Christ-life is inside him, repairing him all the time, enabling him to repeat (in some degree) the kind of voluntary death which Christ Himself carried out." ~ C.S. Lewis 

LEVITICUS 10-12

“ 3Then Moses said to Aaron, “This is what the LORD has said: ‘Among those who are near me I will be sanctified, and before all the people I will be glorified.’”And Aaron held his peace.”

MATTHEW 26:1-19

“ 13Truly, I say to you, wherever this gospel is proclaimed in the whole world, what she has done will also be told in memory of her.”

JOURNAL

Aaron's sons are consumed by fire after not following instructions and yet here is a prostitute who is honored for "wasting" a bottle of perfume. In these passages I am reminded that often what makes sense to us is not what makes sense to God. He is after our heart and our heart solely.  Therefore it is not the letter of the law but our heart and it's intent that is what matters.

Tuesday, February 9, 2016

Tuesday, February 9, 2016

“You may have noticed that the books you really love are bound together by a secret thread. You know very well what is the common quality that makes you love them, though you cannot put it into words: but most of your friends do not see it at all, and often wonder why, liking this, you should also like that. Again, you have stood before some landscape, which seems to embody what you have been looking for all your life; and then turned to the friend at your side who appears to be seeing what you saw -- but at the first words a gulf yawns between you, and you realise that this landscape means something totally different to him, that he is pursuing an alien vision and cares nothing for the ineffable suggestion by which you are transported. Even in your hobbies, has there not always been some secret attraction which the others are curiously ignorant of -- something, not to be identified with, but always on the verge of breaking through, the smell of cut wood in the workshop or the clap-clap of water against the boat's side? Are not all lifelong friendships born at the moment when at last you meet another human being who has some inkling (but faint and uncertain even in the best) of that something which you were born desiring, and which, beneath the flux of other desires and in all the momentary silences between the louder passions, night and day, year by year, from childhood to old age, you are looking for, watching for, listening for? You have never had it. All the things that have ever deeply possessed your soul have been but hints of it -- tantalising glimpses, promises never quite fulfilled, echoes that died away just as they caught your ear. But if it should really become manifest -- if there ever came an echo that did not die away but swelled into the sound itself -- you would know it. Beyond all possibility of doubt you would say "Here at last is the thing I was made for". We cannot tell each other about it. It is the secret signature of each soul, the incommunicable and unappeasable want, the thing we desired before we met our wives or made our friends or chose our work, and which we shall still desire on our deathbeds, when the mind no longer knows wife or friend or work. While we are, this is. If we lose this, we lose all.”  ~ C.S. Lewis

LEVITICUS 7-9

“23And Moses and Aaron went into the tent of meeting, and when they came out they blessed the people, and the glory of the LORD appeared to all the people. 24And fire came out from before the LORD and consumed the burnt offering and the pieces of fat on the altar, and when all the people saw it, they shouted and fell on their faces.”

MATTHEW 25:31-36

“34Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father,  inherit  s the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. 35For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink,  I was a stranger and you welcomed me, 36  I was naked and you clothed me,  I was sick and you visited me,  I was in prison and you came to me.”

JOURNAL

More and more I realize that the kingdom of God initially is what grows within once God has inhabited your heart. Everything is seen from a different perspective. People become brothers and sisters rather than competition and enemies. Possessions become blessings and tools rather than symbols of worth. God becomes father and intimate friend rather than judge and punisher.  Heaven becomes a part of you rather than a destination to aspire.

Friday, February 5, 2016

Friday, February 5, 2016

“[To have Faith in Christ] means, of course, trying to do all that He says. There would be no sense in saying you trusted a person if you would not take his advice. Thus if you have really handed yourself over to Him, it must follow that you are trying to obey Him. But trying in a new way, a less worried way. Not doing these things in order to be saved, but because He has begun to save you already. Not hoping to get to Heaven as a reward for your actions, but inevitably wanting to act in a certain way because a first faint gleam of Heaven is already inside you.” ~ C.S. Lewis

EXODUS 37-38

“ 43And Moses saw all the work, and behold, they had done it; as the LORD had commanded, so had they done it. Then Moses blessed them.”

MATTHEW 23:23-39

“25 j “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you clean the outside of the cup and the plate, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. 26You blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of  the cup and the plate, that the outside also may be clean.”

JOURNAL

Obedience starts in the heart. Authentic true obedience cannot be faked, it is something that comes from within and does not concern itself with the outside world. Obedience must start with a heart change from within. There is no other way. That heart change is a result of receiving the love and forgiveness of God. 

Thursday, February 4, 2016

Thursday, February 4, 2016

“A great man is always willing to be little.” 
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

EXODUS 34-36

“Bezalel and Oholiab and every craftsman in whom the LORD has put skill and intelligence to know how to do any work in the construction of the sanctuary shall work in accordance with all that the LORD has commanded.”

MATTHEW 23:1-22

“The greatest among you shall be your servant. 12 Whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted.”

JOURNAL

God gives the skills and talents with which to live out our calling in life.  The skills and talents are within each of us and it is in our obedience that we find joy.  Therefore if I am to look to things to exalt myself I will only find myself humbled but if I understand that I am not the creator of my talents and humbly accept them and use them in honor of God then God will exalt me.

Wednesday, February 3, 2016

Wednesday, February 3, 2016

“Lack of direction, not lack of time, is the problem. We all have twenty-four hour days.” 
~ Zig Zigler

EXODUS 31-33

“The LORD said to Moses, 2“See, I have called by name Bezalel the son of Uri, son of  y Hur, of the tribe of Judah, 3and I have filled him with the Spirit of God, with ability and intelligence, with knowledge and all craftsmanship...”

MATTHEW 22:23-36

“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. 38This is the great and first commandment. 39And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. 40 On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.”

JOURNAL

God fills a man with everything he needs to create a great life in obedience. With that God asks that we love him first and then love others. The ability he gives us is intended to be used for good not for selfish gain. When we trust our abilities and put faith in achieving for reasons outside of our devotion to God then we are headed to a path of self-destruction.

Tuesday, February 2, 2016

Tuesday, February 2, 2016

I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. ~ Henry David Thoreau

EXODUS 29-20

“I will dwell among the people of Israel and will be their God. 46And they shall know that  I am the LORD their God, who brought them out of the land of Egypt that I might dwell among them. I am the LORD their God.”

MATTHEW 22:1-22


“The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who gave a wedding feast for his son, 3and sent his servants to call those who were invited to the wedding feast, but they would not come.”


JOURNAL

I hate how easily I forget the amazing blessing of one day, one hour, one minute, one second. The fact that I live in this world and live as a human being with the capacity and ability to imagine and create is truly astounding. I hate how easily I get lulled into concerning myself with fear and shame. I want to live each moment and cherish each breath. I want live a creative life whereby I give the best of myself in creating moments that reflect the imagination and talents that I have been blessed.