Once and for all?

O Lord , how manifold are your works! In wisdom have you made them all; the earth is full of your creatures. Here is the sea, great and wide, which teems with creatures innumerable, living things both small and great. There go the ships, and Leviathan, which you formed to play in it. These all look to you, to give them their food in due season. When you give it to them, they gather it up; when you open your hand, they are filled with good things. When you hide your face, they are dismayed; when you take away their breath, they die and return to their dust. When you send forth your Spirit, they are created, and you renew the face of the ground. May the glory of the Lord  endure forever; may the Lord  rejoice in his works, who looks on the earth and it trembles, who touches the mountains and they smoke! I will sing to the Lord  as long as I live; I will sing praise to my God while I have being. May my meditation be pleasing to him, for I rejoice in the Lord . Let sinners be consumed from the earth, and let the wicked be no more! Bless the Lord , O my soul! Praise the Lord ! (Psalms 104:24-35 ESV)

When you send forth your Spirit, they are created, and you renew the face of the ground.

When God sends forth His Spirit we are created and the face of the ground is renewed! God sent His spirit to us on Pentecost the birthday of the Church but is that the only time?

When you send forth your spirit… the psalmist wrote this a long time before Pentecost, did they have to wait that long?

Is the sending of the Spirit a once and for all event? Or does God send His spirit and create things when He needs to or feels like it?

Why are we afraid to have the spirit blow through our lives?

Chosen

“But now hear, O Jacob my servant, Israel whom I have chosen! Thus says the Lord who made you, who formed you from the womb and will help you: Fear not, O Jacob my servant, Jeshurun whom I have chosen. For I will pour water on the thirsty land, and streams on the dry ground; I will pour my Spirit upon your offspring, and my blessing on your descendants. They shall spring up among the grass like willows by flowing streams. (Isaiah 44:1-4 ESV)

Have you ever wondered where your protection has come from. Fear seems to be a part of our everyday life. Few is the thing that always seems to creep in and take over. We fear what will happen to us, to our loved ones. Things that we can not control try to takeover our lives and control our thoughts and actions.

The one who has made you and formed you in your mother’s womb chose you before the beginning of time. So the creator of the world has your best interest in mind.

So allow the one who has chosen you to take your fear away!

Spiritual fruit ≠ Religious nuts

But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy,drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit.(Galatians 5:16-25, ESV)

I have heard it before that God wants us to be spiritual fruits, not religious nuts. We need to be set on fire by the Spirit, not bound by the laws of a religious system. You see when Jesus was here He turned the religious system on it’s head and we now say that it was done once and it will not happen again. Does that mean that God is not going to do something that we do not expect? I hardly believe that.

God is calling for us to be set on fire by the Holy Spirit to be blown where she will send us.The Spirit is a consuming fire that will set our lives on fire and send us out to fill the world with love!

That is what I love about the picture above. All of the fruits are written on

 

hearts! You see, I have heard it said that there is one fruit of the Spirit and that is love, and all of the others are descriptions of the love that we have in the consuming fire of the Spirit! I am not saying that this is true, but in some ways it makes sense. Love is the thing that draws us to God, Love is the thing that fills us, love is the thing that changes us, and all of the other “fruits” are very good descriptions of how one is if they are on fire with the love of God.

So allow the unstoppable, consuming, passionate, bright, pure, hot, wild Holy Spirit fill you and lead you to where God has called you!

 

Deny thy self…

20130515-201409.jpgAnd he said to all, If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it. For what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses or forfeits himself? For whoever is ashamed of me and of my words, of him will the Son of Man be ashamed when he comes in his glory and the glory of the Father and of the holy angels. But I tell you truly, there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see the kingdom of God. (Luke 9:23-27 ESV)

What does it profit a person to gain the whole world, to have everything someone could want here, and forfeit the best that is to come?

Take up your cross daily… You see the cross was the mode of torture in Jesus’ day…

And here He tells us to take up our cross daily. We are to lose ourselves in he Father as Jesus did. The night before the crucifixion Jesus asked God 3 times to find another way for this to happen. Jesus didn’t want to go to the cross.

How many times do we hear God telling us something and we don’t want to listen because it will make us change what we have always known to be true, or what we have always done? Jesus k we the plan and yet He questioned for a different way. It is ok to wonder what God has in store. It is ok to ask of there is a other way. But in the end it comes down to, taking up your cross, and saying not my will but thine be done. We must deny what we want an follow God. Wherever He leads, because I guarantee that it will be better than where we are headed all on our own.

Worship!

and it was the duty of the trumpeters and singers to make themselves heard in unison in praise and thanksgiving to the Lord), and when the song was raised, with trumpets and cymbals and other musical instruments, in praise to the Lord, “For he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever,” the house, the house of the Lord, was filled with a cloud, (2 Chronicles 5:13, ESV)
We are called to worship! We are called to raise our voices in unison and sing praises to our God and King!
Have you ever been in worship and not felt like singing? 
Have you ever been in worship and seen someone who wasn’t singing? Was it a member of a praise team or choir? Were they “on stage” leading worship and not singing praise?
Isn’t that what this verse calls us all to? It says we need to lift our voices in unison and sing praises to the King! We need to lift our voice with the voices around us and sing to God. We are leaders of worship for those around us and if we are not singing then why should they? And if we are not singing are we really worshiping?
So next time you are in worship sing in unison with the voices raising praise to God and feel the roof being lifted and the presence of the Holy One filling the place.

The Voice

Ascribe to the Lord, O heavenly beings, ascribe to the Lord glory and strength. Ascribe to the Lord the glory due his name; worship the Lord in the splendor of holiness. The voice of the Lord is over the waters; the God of glory thunders, the Lord, over many waters. The voice of the Lord is powerful; the voice of the Lord is full of majesty. The voice of the Lord breaks the cedars; the Lord breaks the cedars of Lebanon. He makes Lebanon to skip like a calf, and Sirion like a young wild ox. The voice of the Lord flashes forth flames of fire. The voice of the Lord shakes the wilderness; the Lord shakes the wilderness of Kadesh. The voice of the Lord makes the deer give birth and strips the forests bare, and in his temple all cry, “Glory!” The Lord sits enthroned over the flood; the Lord sits enthroned as king forever. May the Lord give strength to his people! May the Lord bless his people with peace! (Psalm 29, ESV)

The Voice is a search for the next big star. Based solely on the persons voice and not how they look or whether  or not they can dance. I must admit I have not watched the show that much, but I am usually impressed by the talent that is shown forth on the show, even for those who do not get selected to be a part of one of the teams.

But is The Voice really finding The Voice?

There was one voice that moved over the water as a wind and spoke all of creation into existence…

Our psalmist tells us the voice of the Lord shakes the wilderness. The voice of the Lord makes deer give birth and strips the forest bare. The voice of the Lord is over the waters. The voice of the Lord is powerful. The voice of the Lord breaks the cedars. The voice of the Lord flashes forth flames of fire (other translations say makes the lightning flash.) The voice of the Lord is mighty and powerful.

But the best part of this is the voice of the Lord speaks over you in love, as you are one of His creations and He wants to be with you and help you. His voice, the voice, moves over you with love!

Let them be one…

“I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word,  that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me.  The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one,  I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me.  Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory that you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world.  O righteous Father, even though the world does not know you, I know you, and these know that you have sent me.  I made known to them your name, and I will continue to make it known, that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.” (John 17:20-26 ESV)

That they may all be one…

What does that mean? That we may all be one, united in what God has called us to.

As I think about us all being one I ponder over the number of Lutheran denominations there are. Now I ponder on Lutheran denominations because I am Lutheran. But there are many different denominations for each denomination. Even Catholics have more then just the Roman Catholic…

So I googled Lutheran Denominations and got a long list and on the page was a link to Lutheran denominations in North America so I clicked the link. This link showed 37 different Lutheran denominations in North America. I had heard at one point there were 95 in North America. But still 37 different kinds of Lutherans is a lot. How can we all be one?

And that is the thing of Jesus’ prayer for all of us. He is asking that we be united as He and the Father are united. They are not the same, but they are one. We are not the same but we are one.

There is a story about a man named Danny who comes across a man with a well used floppy bible. Danny asks him if he is a believer and the man replies yes. Danny then asks a number of questions to make sure he is actually a believer. You can guess how this ends. If someone disagrees with one part of my faith then they are a heretic and are not a true believer.

In the garden, as the Jewish authorities were on their way to arrest Jesus and have Him put to death Be prayed that we may be one. United in Him and the Father. He did not ask that we would agree on which hymns are good or what kind of bread we should use for communion or what age should people be allowed to take communion or that we would agree when a person should be baptized. He asked the Father that we could be one, united as He and the Father are united.

Our unity is in Jesus’ death on the cross for us all.

So live in the tension of not agreeing with all of your brothers and sisters but united in the mission we all share: to tell the world they are lived by God!

Was before me…

And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. ( John bore witness about him, and cried out, This was he of whom I said, ” He who comes after me ranks before me, because he was before me. “) And from his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father’s side, he has made him known. (John 1:14-18 ESV)

Have you ever wondered how God is ever present and knows everything that is going on?

When Jesus came to be here with us He took on our nature and our life. He became us. But before He became like us, He created us. He was there from the beginning and played a part in all of creation. That is comforting and gives us a peace, because He knows all about us the things that we don’t even know about ourselves.

So live in the knowledge that Jesus knows all about you and loves you still!