accusations

ac·cuse

verb \ə-ˈkyüz\

: to blame (someone) for something wrong or illegal : to say that someone is guilty of a fault or crime

 So, this past week I’ve been thinking about a post I wrote a few weeks ago called, crazy safe. In that post I had expressed my reluctance to come into God’s presence feeling that I can’t stand in the throne room of God because I’m too, well, guilty.

But that former post just kept coming back to me again and again. And as I thought about how gracious our God is, I realized how crazy I am to be so reluctant to stand in the place where I am safest.

I love it when God gives us glimpse as to what’s happening in heaven. The following verses from Zechariah three got me to thinking even more about how safe it is in God’s throne room:

¹ Then he showed me Joshua the high priest standing before the angel of the LORD, and Satan^[a] standing at his right side to accuse him. ² The LORD said to Satan, “The LORD rebuke you, Satan! The LORD, who has chosen Jerusalem, rebuke you! Is not this man a burning stick snatched from the fire?”
   ³ Now Joshua was dressed in filthy clothes as he stood before the angel. ⁴ The angel said to those who were standing before him, “Take off his filthy clothes.”
   Then he said to Joshua, “See, I have taken away your sin, and I will put fine garments on you.”

There are two things I want to point out about this story; one, there is an accuser, and, two, there is a rebuker. If you’re not sure who’s who, let me clear that up; Satan’s the accuser, God is the rebuker.

The story is truly fascinating to me because I’ve never really thought about what the devil does in God’s presence.Verse twelve, in Revelation, gives even more evidence that one of Satan’s favorite jobs is to accuse. Just in case you’re not convinced take a look at this passage from Revelation Twelve:

¹⁰ Then I heard a loud voice in heaven say:
   “Now have come the salvation and the power
   and the kingdom of our God,
   and the authority of his Messiah.
For the accuser of our brothers and sisters,
   who accuses them before our God day and night,
   has been hurled down. 

Accusing is what makes Satan tick. After all, it says that he stands there day and night to indict us—he never grows tired of it. But I’m thinking he’d better find a new job because the accusations he makes against us are rebuked time and again.

God doesn’t bring us into his throne room of grace to scold, punish, acuse or scare the living daylights out of us. He brings us in because he’s made it a place of safety.

So when you or I enter that throne room of grace, we can enter with confidence. For each and every accusation that Satan makes against us is rebuked by our precious God. He’s dealt with our sins, every single one—taking them to the cross where Jesus bled and died so that Satan can never again accuse us, not of one single thing.

Remember this important truth, today and always. Stop listening to the voice of the accuser. Listen to the voice of God who rebukes Satan’s lies on your behalf. Enter God’s throne room of grace and stand confidently in his love for you. When you do you will discover that being in God’s throne room is truly the safest place to be.

crazy thoughts

Can I just start this entry by making something very clear? I am not, I repeat, not a theologian. Never have been and never will be. So if in this entry, I somehow insult you with my thoughts, please forgive and have grace. Okay, sigh; just feel better getting that off my chest.

How many of you have seen the movie, Avatar? Just the other night, I bought it off of Amazon and downloaded it to our Amazon account. Now, I realize that some of you may not be fans of the fantasy genre, so if you haven’t seen it allow me to give you a brief summary.

 

Oh.My. How does one succinctly go into the story line that is Avatar? 

The main character, Sully travels to a distant moon called Pandora as part of a military force whose sole goal is to mine for Unobtanium which is a highly valuable mineral found on this moon. The problem is that the native tribe, the Na’vi,  live directly over the richest mining field. Sully’s job is to become one of the Na’vi in order to gain their trust and convince them to move away from their sacred ground. 

Through his time spent with the Na’vi, Sully not only grows to love the people, but their land and sacred ways as well. In fact, the movie closes with Sully forever forsaking his human life to become a member of the Na’vi tribe. In the very last clip, Sully’s eyes open with a kind of excitement and joy reflected in them . End scene.  

You might be thinking to yourself, why all this talk about Avatar?  I don’t know about you, but I love a good story. For me, sometimes a story takes a complex idea, one that is above my pay-grade, and makes it understandable—in an everyday sort of way. After all, Jesus often told stories, parables, to teach us about the Kingdom of Heaven.

So why not use Avatar. A movie that seemingly has nothing to do with religious things. Or does it? You see as I watched Avatar and how the character Sully began to love being Na’vi over being human, and chose to become one of them to the very core of his being, something occurred to me. Maybe Sully’s joy over becoming Na’vi was the same for Jesus when he became fully human.

I may be on shaky ground here but stay with me. 

According to Wikipedia, Jesus referred to himself as the Son of Man 81 times. While in the epistles, Jesus is only called the Son of Man four times, in the Gospels Jesus is recorded as using it all the time. In fact, Son of Man, seemed to be his favorite self-designation.

The question is why? Why would Jesus choose that designation to identify himself? After all he had every right to call himself the Son of God because that’s exactly who he is. 

Maybe you feel the same way, but I never really understood why Jesus would call himself the Son of Man. I mean, I know the right Sunday school answer; Jesus called  himself Son of Man because he is both true God and true man. I don’t have a problem with that. I get that. But if I was both true God and true man, I would choose to call myself Son of God nine times out of ten. It just sounds better. More important. More lofty.

But maybe Jesus referred to himself as the Son of Man so often because he was proud to be human. He loved humanity. After all, as humans we are God’s prized creation.

Before I close, I wanted to share a scripture with you that might illuminate what I’ve been making clear as mud. 

 After Jesus was arrested, he was taken to the court of the high priest to stand trial. While there he was questioned but remained silent; that is until there was one question he couldn’t help but answer. And what he had to say spoke volumes as to how Jesus really felt about becoming one of us.

Matthew 26:63-66 The high priest said to him, “I charge you under oath by the living God: Tell us if you are the Messiah, the Son of God.” 
   ⁶⁴ “You have said so,” Jesus replied. “But I say to all of you: From now on you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Mighty One and coming on the clouds of heaven.”^[a]
 
When asked, Jesus acknowledged truthfully that he was the Son of God. But when he spoke about the day of judgment, Jesus once again choose his favorite self-designation; Son of Man. Just in case you missed it, here it is again.

“But I say to all of you: From now on you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Mighty One and coming on the clouds of heaven.”^[a]

 

End Scene.

He is not here.

Matthew 28:5-7 The angel said to the women, "Do not be afraid, for I know that you are looking for Jesus, who was crucified. He is not here; he has risen, just as he said. Come and see the place where he lay. Then go quickly and tell his disciples: 'He has risen from the dead and is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him.' Now I have told you."

He is not here; he has risen.

I traveled up to my hometown this past weekend. It was my niece’s confirmation and I wanted to be there for the important occasion and celebration. On Saturday, in between preparations, I slipped away to take a walk to the cemetery where Mom and Dad are both buried.  As I made my way along the path, a sort of sadness overtook me. And as I stood at their gravesides, I waited for the tears to come. But they didn’t.

He is not here; he has risen.

In the midst of my sadness a jolt of hope entered in. I remembered this well-known verse from the Easter season--a reminder from God and a promise: my parents weren’t there anymore either. Mom wasn’t there in that grave. Not the true part of her. Dad wasn’t either. They were gone to a much better place. Because of their faith in Jesus, my parents are very much alive. In a beautiful and perfect place that I can’t even begin to imagine.

He is not here; he has risen.

Yesterday morning, my little girl asked how old Grandma Toie is. Not how old she was when she died, but how old she is now. It would have been so easy to say, ‘Well, honey when she died she was seventy.’ And I nearly found myself saying those very words to her. But a small smile came to my lips and I realized that the faith of my child was strong and sure. Grandma Toie is very much alive. ‘She’s 71,’ I said. Satisfied with that answer Katie went back to eating her bowl of cereal. Then I asked her a question, ‘Do you suppose they celebrate birthdays in heaven?’ And we all agreed that, yes, they must.

He is not here; he has risen.

The other day, I told a story about when I was a little girl and did a very silly thing. Mom had made mint chocolate brownies, my favorite. One afternoon, while she was visiting with some of her friends, I snuck into the kitchen and found them and proceeded to eat half the pan. Half. When I had finished telling her the story, my daughter got a twinkle in her eye. “Mom, I can’t wait to get to heaven because I’m going to tell on you.”

“Tell on me?” I asked, “What do you mean?”

“I’m going to tell Grandma Toie that you ate all those brownies.” Then she skipped off happy as could be in the knowledge that someday she would get to “tell on me.”

He is not here; he has risen.

Because Jesus lives, we also will live. Death will not have the final say. Someday, it will be swallowed up in victory. During this joyous Easter season may we, with child-like faith, trust and believe this most important message:

He is not here; he has risen.

What a Friend

Today I was thinking about what a friend we have in Jesus. Remember that hymn? It was one of my favorites when I was a kid. I loved to sing it in church, and, back then, it really was true. Even if no one else got me, Jesus did. What a friend, right?

Nowadays, I think of Jesus as my friend, but there are times when I wish I could have been his friend while he lived on earth. What was he like? Did he joke? Did he cry and give hugs when he knew someone was hurting? In the Bible, we don’t get a lot of details about feelings. It’s the story plain and simple. But I have to believe that Jesus was a likable, even lovable, kind of guy. Take, for example, this little gem of a verse found in Luke 2:52:

⁵² And Jesus grew in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man.

This verse comes after the story of the boy, Jesus, in the temple. I love it. He grew in favor with God and men. You know what that says to me? People liked him. They really liked him. Not because he was the Son of God. Nobody really knew that except for Mary and Joseph, and sometimes even they forgot.

Take, for example, the event that took place just before the above verse. Mary and Joseph had gone to Jerusalem and were on their way home when it occurred to them that Jesus was nowhere to be found. Mary and Joseph frantically searched Jerusalem looking for their oldest, until they found him in the most unlikely place . . .  

After three days they found him in the temple courts, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions. ⁴⁷ Everyone who heard him was amazed at his understanding and his answers. ⁴⁸ When his parents saw him, they were astonished. His mother said to him, “Son, why have you treated us like this? Your father and I have been anxiously searching for you.”

⁴⁹ “Why were you searching for me?” he asked. “Didn’t you know I had to be in my Father’s house?”^{[f] 50} But they did not understand what he was saying to them.

When Mary and Joseph found him in the temple it says that they were astonished. Makes me wonder what astonished them. The fact that he’d been there for three days seemingly indifferent to the panic they must be feeling, or were they astonished for a completely different reason? Maybe because Jesus, their first born, had always been so responsible, kind, caring, obedient. This was completely out of character for him.

And I have to admit that when I heard that story as a child, it seemed so out of sync with the very nature of who Jesus is. But, the more I think about it, the more it seems that something was going on that needed to be dealt with. Jesus was twelve. In another eighteen years or so, he would begin his ministry. I think God needed to jog Joseph’s and Mary’s memory.  Jesus was His Son, His eternal Son. God didn’t do it to be mean but to prepare them. To remind them. Jesus had a job to do. He wasn’t going to be a carpenter for the rest of his life. He had a job to do, and no one else could do it.

So, no, I don’t think Jesus was being snotty that day. He was preparing the ones he loved for what was to come.  And when Jesus did begin his ministry I think Mary, his mom, the one who loved him with all her heart, missed him most. And maybe, of all the other people who had been around him throughout his childhood, Mary understood him best. But after the incident at the temple, I don’t think she ever forgot just who Jesus really was.  

Fast forward eighteen years or so to another place where a celebration was in full swing. A wedding. Jesus was there. So were his disciples. So was Mary. Here’s the run-down in the account of Luke.

¹ On the third day a wedding took place at Cana in Galilee. Jesus’ mother was there, ² and Jesus and his disciples had also been invited to the wedding. ³ When the wine was gone, Jesus’ mother said to him, “They have no more wine.”

⁴ “Woman,^[a] why do you involve me?” Jesus replied. “My hour has not yet come.”

Again the verse above seems rather rude or harsh. Why would Jesus speak to his mother like that? But, Mary didn’t seem offended in the least. Because after he says the above, his mother says to the servants:

⁵ “Do whatever he tells you.”

Seems to me there’s more than meets the eye in this exchange. Maybe Jesus says this to her with a smile on his face, or a wink. If he had intended to be rude or harsh, Mary wouldn’t have confidently told the servants to “Do whatever he tells you.”

Yup, wish I could have known Jesus back when he walked on this earth. But, regardless, I’m sure glad to have him as a friend now. He seems like the kind of guy who’d always have my back. And just so I don’t forget, so you don’t forget, I’ll close with the first verse of a hymn that intrigues me even to this day.

What a friend we have in Jesus,

all our sins and griefs to bear!

What a privilege to carry

everything to God in prayer!

O what peace we often forfeit,

O what needless pain we bear,

all because we do not carry

everything to God in prayer.

crazy temptations

Luke 4:1 Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the desert, where for forty days he was tempted by the devil. He ate nothing during those days, and at the end of them he was hungry.

You know, sometimes I think we give Jesus a bad rap. I know for a long time I did. Because he is the Son of God, I assumed that he had it easy while he lived on earth. After all, he is God’s Son how hard can it be to resist temptations. Easy - peasy, right? But, unpack the verse above and you’ll get a different sense for how difficult life must have been for him. What’s more, knowing he suffered when he was tempted should give us hope and comfort. The same Spirit that gave Jesus the ability to stay strong lives in us, too.  

First, let’s unpack that verse. Here’s the deal. Jesus had just been baptized. He had fulfilled his Father’s will. After he was baptized, God’s Spirit, the Holy Spirit, descended on him in the form of a dove and his Father spoke from heaven, “You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.” (Luke 3:22)

Figuratively speaking, I suppose Jesus was on the mountaintop. So where does God lead him next? He sends him to the desert, to be tempted. Nothing mountaintop-ish about that experience. He ate nothing. Nothing, for forty days, and, sorry to state the obvious, but he was probably hungry - really hungry. I don’t know about you, but I miss breakfast and I’m hungry by mid-morning. Hungry and grouchy.

This is what Jesus was up against. He was in the valley now. No mountaintop experience here. He was probably as low as low could be, and, at a moment when he was weakest, the tempter was ready. Ready to knock God’s Son off his feet. After all, Satan knew what he was doing. They don’t call him crafty for nothing. This was one of his best shots to bring Jesus down.

Maybe it’s the way Jesus responded to the devil. It all seemed to come so easy. And maybe because the account in Luke sounds so simple and matter-of fact, I’m led to believe that Jesus had it easy. But he didn’t. Not even close. He suffered. He really did. In fact, the book of Hebrews gives us an inside look at what Jesus was really going through.

Because [Jesus] himself suffered when he was tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted. Hebrews 2:18

Did you catch that word, that one important word? Suffered. Jesus suffered. It was no picnic. He may not have even expected it. He had come from the mountaintop, and, in a matter of days, found himself in one of life’s deepest valleys.

 You see, Jesus understands. He really does. He knows what it’s like to face some of life’s greatest temptations. He knows how hard it is to resist, to just say, “No.”  Next time you’re facing some of your greatest temptations remember this, the same Spirit that lives in Jesus, by faith, lives in us, too. Don’t make the mistake I made for so long. Jesus didn’t have it easy. Life was hard. Go to him, bring him your pain, and, remember, he’s suffered. He’s been there, too.

Regret. Yes, that’s what I was supposed to be writing about this week. Funny thing, I actually had to look back at my first blog about “the big three” to remember what the third one on the list was. Kind of regret that. Yes, that was my lame attempt at cracking a joke. Hope you don’t regret reading this. Okay, I’ve really got to stop and get to the serious stuff.

Regret, there it is. The last of “the big three”. When I look back on my life, there are a lot of things I regret. The big one that comes to mind is adopting my husband’s sense of humor. But there are plenty of others, so, I thought I’d make a top ten list of my biggest regrets in life.

My Top Ten Regrets

10. Buying glasses in the third grade that matched Estelle Getty’s from the show “The Golden Girls”.

9. Letting my husband see pictures of me wearing those glasses.

8. T.P,’ ing my high school science teacher’s front yard. Yup, got caught. By the police.

7. Skipping, for the first time ever, my last period of the day and running into my mom when I was filling my car up with gas.

6. Trying to fry a steak in my college roommate’s brand new skillet. (Still feel bad about that one.)

5. Letting the dog sleep on our bed.

4. Letting the dog sleep on our bed. I so strongly regret this one that I had to list it twice.

3. Introducing my kids to the cartoon, Wow Wow Wubbzy. seriously. regret. that.

2. Buying the little black dress that fell apart when I tried to wash it. (Hmmm, maybe I wasn’t supposed to wash it.)

And the number one biggest regret in my life . . .

1. Spending too much time regretting my decisions.

So, I guess there should be some gravity to this silly post. What do we do when we’ve made a mistake that we regret? Since I dogged him at the beginning of this post, I’ll make it up to my husband. Bad humor or not, he does give some pretty good advice.

Shortly before we got married, I made a mistake. Though I don’t even recall what I was stewing about, I distinctly remember the advice that my, then fiancé, gave to me. Don’t look back. Learn from your mistake and keep going forward. I don’t know why, but that day, the advice he gave kind of set me free. He was right. I didn’t need to regret the past; I just needed to learn from it. When you think about it, regret is a little bit like guilt. It’s a feeling, a fear, that just holds us back. So, learn from your mistakes and keep moving on. Best advice I ever got from a man whose sense of humor is questionable, but whose advice is always sound.

 

Neither go back in fear and misgiving to the past, nor in anxiety and forecasting to the future. But lie quiet under [God’s] hand having no will but His. ~ C.S. Lewis

The Big Three

John 8:31 To the Jews who had believed him, Jesus said, “if you hold to my teaching you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”

You know what I’ve realized about myself? I’m a fretter and a stewer. Mostly about mistakes or bad decisions I’ve made or unfortunate circumstances that I find myself in. These are all feelings that have led me down a path I really don’t want to be on with thoughts that have never done me any good - fear, guilt, and regret. Yup, the Big Three. The three that can stop me in my tracks. Lock me in a prison of despair. Immobilize me. If there was ever a person who has been led down the path of misery too many times by these treacherous feelings, it would have to be me.

I have felt guilty about entirely too many things, dwelt entirely too much on my mistakes, shortcomings, screw-ups. And you know what I’ve found? That as good and pious as it might seem to grovel at the feet of God, begging forgiveness for my poor sinful condition, it isn’t really what He wants. In fact, I think carrying around a load of guilt is exactly the opposite of what He wants. I think He wants me to believe.

Believe what? Believe that His Son paid the full price for all of my sins, all of them. And holding on to guilt is kind of a slap in the face to Him when you think about it. It’s like I’m telling Him, ‘Yes, I know that Jesus loves me. Yes, I know that He died for my sins, but I think I need to add something to all of that by groveling on my knees to show just how sorry I am.’ And, while I think it’s vitally important that we are repentant, that we are sorry, I think once the mercy is asked for, God wants us to stand up and keep moving in the right direction.

Proverbs 24:16 [F]or though the righteous fall seven times, they rise again.

You see, I think the Big Three are feelings God never meant for us to carry around. Think about it. If you had a child who had broken your favorite vase or golf clubs or whatever, a child who was truly sorry and admitted that they’d done wrong, you’d punish them. But afterward, after all was said and done, would you want your child to carry around a load of guilt for the rest of their childhood? Of course not. 

So the big question is, why do we? If Jesus came to do what He truly wanted to do – set us free, why would we remain behind bars of guilt when the door to the cell has already been cracked wide open? You see, Jesus did come to set us free. Set us free to run in the path of His commands. So let’s try something shall we? A New Year’s Resolution that might just revolutionize our relationship with God. Believe the truth – the truth that God has removed our sins and our guilt -  as far away from us as the east is from the west. I don’t know about you, but this is one New Year’s resolution that I’m looking forward to keeping – maybe even for a lifetime.

The Sun is Following Me

For the past week or so my daughter has been amazed and delighted by the fact that the sun is “following her”. At first I thought it was so cute and couldn’t help but smile at my amazingly, adorable daughter. Later on in the week I began to think about what she was saying and realized that my daughter could be a little philosopher. The sun is following her. Why, yes it is. And, come to think of it, the sun is following me, too.

I must confess something here. Sometimes I doubt. Yes, you read it correctly, I doubt. Lately, these doubts have centered around the idea of what eternity will be like. In the last year or so I’ve contemplated what it will be like to see God in heaven. After all, I’ll be only one of hundreds of thousands who may be entering the pearly gates on the exact same day, and possibly, well probably, some will be entering at the exact same time.

Sobering thought when those of us who are believers think about running to God’s throne and being greeted with the best bear hug ever. So, how exactly will that work? If there are thousands of us dying at the same time, how in the world are we all going to fit on his lap?

I’ve confessed before that I am no theologian. But, my tiny little theologian may be on to something. The sun follows her. Doesn’t matter who else it shines on, or even on how many billions of people it is shining on at the same moment. The sun shines on her. It follows her. It’s her sun. When I heard her make this comment for the third time in a week, it reminded me of a verse in Revelation.

Revelation 21:23 And the city has no need of sun or moon, for the glory of God illuminates the city, and the Lamb is its light.  (NLT)

I’ve heard this verse in the past and felt perplexed. What did it mean  when it said the Lord will be its sun? I always thought it meant that God is so radiant we won’t need any other lights in heaven. But the profound statement from my daughter made me think about it a little differently. Maybe being in heaven is a little like being in the sun. It doesn’t matter how many billions of people are there. For each one, God shines on them, and it doesn’t in any way make it less true that he's shining on others at the same time.

Do you get what I’m saying? I guess it could be looked at a little differently. Have you ever wondered how God dwells in each of our hearts at the same time? How can God’s Spirit live inside of me and the millions of others who call Christ, Savior and Lord? While I can’t explain it, I can testify to it. I know that God’s Spirit lives in me and just because he dwells in others hearts at the same time doesn’t take away from the fact that he loves me, he fills me, he follows me.

So maybe heaven is like that in a sense but on a more physical level. If God can dwell in our hearts spiritually speaking in this world who’s to say that he can’t do something like that in a more “physical” way in heaven. Somehow God being God, I have to believe that he has no limits. So, maybe I don’t understand what it will be like to arrive in heaven, nor how I’m going to get “my turn” to sit on God’s lap. Guess some things have to be accepted by faith. But my little girl taught me something this week. When it comes to the sun, and to God, all things are possible.

Pain in the Heart

There are two verses in the bible that I absolutely hate.  Shocking, I know.  But, I think you'll understand why when I share what they are.  They're found in Genesis 6:5-6;

The Lord saw how great man's wickedness on the earth had become and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time.  The Lord was grieved that he had made man on the earth, and his heart was filled with pain. (NIV)

My NLT translation reads this way:

Now the Lord observed the extent of the people's wickedness, and he saw that all their thoughts were consistently and totally evil.  So the Lord was sorry he had ever made them.  It broke his heart.

The last translation I shared especially upsets me.  To know that God was sorry he ever made man, that it broke his heart to watch all the evil unfold and engulf his beautiful creation.  Gets me every time.  I guess I shouldn't be surprised that it is possible for God's heart to break too.  But, I kinda am.  I never think about a holy, omnipotent God having feelings.  But, when I stumbled across this verse, it almost broke my heart to read that God's heart "was filled with pain."  And, I dare say, it has been that way on more than one occassion. 

I think of days like 9/11, or Hurricane Katrina, or the recent storms that have devastated the south, and I wonder what God thinks on days like that.  I wonder if God's heart breaks nearly every day when, time after time, pain and destruction wreak havoc on a world that was meant for so much more. 

But nothing gets me like the day he had to watch his Son die; a day when God's heart was filled with more pain than you and I can ever imagine. The worst part of it all?  He couldn't do a single thing to stop it.  No, let me rephrase that; he wouldn't do a single thing to stop it.  Why?  Because, if he did, you and I would be lost for eternity.  We would be permanently separated from God - unable to feel his love, protection, commitment to us.  We were lost.  God wanted to bring us home.  So, he did the unthinkable and set himself up for a heartbreak like no other.  Turning  his back on the Son he loved so much, he placed the blame and punishment we deserve on the only one who had never broken his heart.  Jesus.  

So, the next time you're tempted to think 'God just doesn't understand what I'm going through,' take a look back at Genesis.  God understands pain; he understands heartbreak.  It's simply a lie that God doesn't know or care what we're going through.  Remember the pain that he's endured.  Bring him your own.  Maybe, together, you can find a way to heal a broken heart.