hope
Turn Us Again to Yourself
By Linda Rex
LOVE
December 22, 2019, 4th Sunday of Advent—I was reading a devotional this morning which used the story in the gospels of a man who was bound by demons and wandering about in the tombs, in the region of the dead. This man broke any chains that held him, but when Jesus spoke to him, he found true freedom.
How often I have felt like this man, wandering about in my own personal chains, unwilling to be shackled by the bonds of love God has for me. How often I have harmed myself rather than submitting myself to the love and grace of God as expressed to me in his will for my life! I know I am not alone in this—I see it often in people around me. It is our human condition apart from God’s merciful intervention.
One of the most basic steps in facing our addictions and being freed from them is coming to understand that apart from the intervention of a “higher power’, we cannot be free. We can try harder and harder, we can work the plan faithfully, but we have to eventually end up at the place where we realize in a deep and significant way that apart from divine intervention, we have no hope of ever being any different than we are right now.
God’s method of intervening in our circumstances did not involve him being a distant, cold and uninvolved deity. Nor did he seek vengeance on us for our pitiful failures at trying to be what we believe we need to be in order for him to accept us. God’s way of turning our hearts back to him, of restoring our relationship with him, was to enter into our very existence as a human being and to personally turn us around back into face to face relationship with himself.
Historically, the nation of Israel was in many ways like you and me. They were brought into relationship with God, but they refused to let him be the center of their life. For a while they would live as his people, but in time they would turn away from him, back into their idolatry and hedonism. They would reap the results of living life on their own terms, come to the end of themselves, and then turn again to him—for a while.
But this was not a surprise to God. None of this is. He knew long before our cosmos existed that we would have this proclivity to turn away from him to other things. He knew it would require his personal involvement to restore us back to our original design so that we could be the image-bearers of God he intended us to be.
We hear the cry in Psalm 80:2b-3, 7, 17-19 of the psalmist Asaph asking three times, “Turn us again to yourself, O God. Make your face shine down upon us. Only then will we be saved.” Prophetically he pointed to a Son who would be the source of our genuine revival, the only means by which any of us will be saved. Our only hope of being people who would never abandon God would be for God to himself turn our hearts back.
So we have in Isaiah 7:14 the promise of a virgin bearing a son who would be called Immanuel, meaning ‘God with us.’ What a thrilling promise! This Advent season, as we gaze upon the nativity scenes we see around us, as we are reminded of the reason for the season, we are given a hope for something more than our constant failures to love. We are able to have peace of mind and heart because we know God has sent us a Savior—someone who has done and will do what we cannot and will not do. We are able to have joy, because we are celebrating the reality that God has come and stands in our stead, on our behalf, filling us with his real presence in the Holy Spirit.
Advent reminds us that when Israel had absolutely no hope of ever getting anything right with God ever again, God did not forsake her. He came himself, in the womb of a virgin, allowing himself to be carried as a promise to his people of their deliverance. Advent reminds us that we are not left abandoned in our sin and selfishness—there is a Savior who is one of us and yet is God himself—he has come to bind us once and for all to God with unbreakable cords of love and grace.
The kingdom of God has come in Jesus Christ, and today we as his people are pregnant with his presence by the Holy Spirit. God is even at this moment working deliverance in this world—preparing for the day when all things will be transformed completely and God will finally dwell forever with humankind. Our failures to love, our sinfulness and the evil which so often enslaves us, do not and will not stand in the way of God accomplishing what he set out to do from before the beginning of this cosmos. He will finish what he has begun—he is the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end.
Advent teaches us love in a profound way—of God’s desire to be near to us, so near that he actually enters into our human existence himself. The presence of God in our humanity is the greatest gift of love God could ever give. He knew the cost of this gift would be the suffering and death of his Son, but he gave it anyway. He knew the rejection of his Spirit which would occur, but he gave his Spirit anyway. God freely gives—do we receive?
Whatever struggles we may have with our addictions or failures to love God and others, we find in Jesus that God is present and real in the midst of them. He is at work, as we are willing, to heal, restore, and renew. We are given Jesus Christ—he is in us and with us by the Holy Spirit. What is our response?
I’ve often thought that Joseph was an incredible man. He had betrothed himself to a young virgin who turned out to be pregnant with someone else’s child. He could have made a public spectacle of her—but he was so loving in not wanting to do this. And when God told him to marry her anyway, he did it (Matthew 1:18–25). His humility and sacrificial spirit bear witness to the humility and sacrificial Spirit of God himself. Will we in this same Spirit of humility and sacrifice receive the wonderful Gift of God in our humanity? Will we surrender to the reality we are in desperate need of God, and God in Christ has come, is present now by the Spirit, and will come again one day?
Thank you, Abba, for loving us so well. It was not enough for you to create all things, to set everything in motion, and to walk away. You dove right in, taking our very humanity upon yourself in your Son Jesus, renewing us from the inside out. Thank you for sending us your Spirit, enabling us to be one with you, and to be healed, restored, and renewed, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
“… concerning His Son, who was born of a descendant of David according to the flesh, who was declared the Son of God with power 1by the resurrection from the dead, according to the Spirit of holiness, Jesus Christ our Lord, through whom we have received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith among all the Gentiles for His name’s sake, among whom you also are the called of Jesus Christ; to all who are beloved of God…” Romans 1:3-7a NASB
Finding Gladness and Joy
By Linda Rex
JOY
December 15, 2019, 3rd Sunday of Advent—In spite of the overflow of Christmas decorations, holiday events and carols on the radio, I find an undercurrent of sadness and despair rearing its head here and there. There are memories of the past which bring sorrow and pleasure and there’s news of the present, both personal and community, which bring pain, anger, and compassion. How do I reconcile this season of Advent with the real struggles of the human heart and mind?
Whether we like it or not, we need to be able to come to terms with the contradiction or conflict between what we want to believe is true or do believe is true and what we experience in our day to day lives. There are times when we can’t help but ask, “What kind of God would …. ?”—and insert those questions which immediately come to our mind. They are all summed up in this—what kind of God would leave us in our hell and not come to deliver us?
We’re not the only ones who wrestle with the disconnect between reality and belief. Imagine believing that God has given you the responsibility and inspiration to prepare the way for the coming Messiah, so you go out and courageously begin to tell everyone to repent and believe, and the next thing you know you are rotting away in prison waiting for the day you will quite literally lose your head. And the Messiah who you were preparing the way for is doing nothing to deliver you. He’s your first cousin, after all, shouldn’t he be doing something about it? If he was really the Messiah, wouldn’t he intervene in a dramatic way to save the day?
Whether we like it or not, God seems to be a God of contradictions, of two seemingly polar opposites held together in the tension of love and grace we find in Jesus Christ. Here he is, a fulfillment of all the hopes and dreams of his people, of the promises for deliverance, renewal, gladness and joy, and yet he comes as an infant, born of a virgin yet the cause of many other babies being slaughtered, growing up as a human boy ridiculed by his peers for being illegitimate, eventually rejected by his people, and executed on a shameful cross. The profound contradictions are an essential means of expressing the reality of Christ’s identity as being both fully God and fully man.
And this is where Advent finds its joy and gladness in the midst of sorrow, suffering, abuse, evil, and horror. What we must understand more than anything else is that we were never meant to be left alone in the midst of all we are going through. Even though these consequences are most certainly a result of our choices as human beings and the brokenness and imperfections of our cosmos and our humanity, we were never intended to have to resolve any of this on our own. We were always meant to be partners in our existence with the One who made it all.
A better question would be to ask, “What kind of God would so ache for his lost and suffering creation that he would set aside the privileges and community of his divinity to enter into his creation and begin to heal it from the inside out?” And what would it take for God to heal what he has made? It would require assuming upon himself what was broken and sinful, and step by step, moment by moment, hour by hour, within our humanity, forging a new existence for us even when it meant dying an excruciating death at the hands of those he came to save.
This seems all pie in the sky. Why even believe there is such a God? He doesn’t seem to care about the fact that I can’t come up with enough money to pay for Christmas presents this year. He doesn’t seem to care that my child is laying in a hospital bed, dying of incurable cancer. He seems indifferent to the reality that I cannot solve this problem with my family member who is shackled by a habit that won’t let him go. What kind of God would let these things go on and on and not solve them?
Jesus’ answer to John the Baptizer was much different that the one he was probably expecting. John wanted to know whether or not Jesus was the fulfillment of all the expectations of his people. By what was happening in his life at that moment, it really didn’t seem like he was. But Jesus sent his disciples back to John, saying “Go and report to John what you hear and see: the blind receive sight and the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, and the poor have the gospel preached to them. And blessed is he who does not take offense at Me.” (Matthew 11:2-6 NASB) I am doing the work of the Messiah, he said, so don’t be offended if it doesn’t look the way you expect it to look or that I don’t release you immediately from your personal dilemma.
Did you notice what Jesus was doing for the poor people? He wasn’t giving them money. He wasn’t making them rich—he was preaching the gospel to them. People who needed to be healed were being healed, some people were even being raised from the dead, and others who were struggling were being given the message of hope, a call to turn away from themselves and to turn to Christ. In all these things, Jesus was fulfilling his role as Messiah, but there were many people who were present on earth at this time who did not experience what these people Jesus helped experienced. And John, as a witness to the Messiah’s ministry, was for a time one of these seemingly overlooked ones.
Perhaps John needed to be reminded of the story from his people’s history of Shadrach, Meshach and Abed-nego, three men who served with the prophet Daniel as leaders in Nebuchadnezzar’s kingdom of Babylon. The king built a great golden image in Dura and then told everyone they had to worship it or be thrown into a furnace. The day came when the three men were challenged by some Chaldeans with not obeying this decree. The king asked them why they would not obey him.
Their reply is instructive. They told the king that they would only worship Israel’s God and that their God would save them. But even if he didn’t save them, they would still not bow the knee to the king’s idol. They had the opportunity to face the possibility that God might not intervene for them in the way they expected and they determined beforehand that even if God didn’t come through in the way they expected, they would still believe and trust in the goodness and love of God. How many of us can say we would respond with the same fortitude, faith, and humility?
So, the story continues: They are thrown into the furnace which had been heated seven times hotter than before. In fact, it was so hot, that the men who threw them in died from the heat and fire. At this, the king’s anger began to subside. But after a while, the king saw four men walking around in the fire, one of which they described as being like “a son of the gods”. At this point the king called them out of the fire, and the three men came out, untouched by the flames.
Even though these three men bore witness to God, refusing to compromise their belief in him, they still were faced with death and destruction, the loss of life and liberty. God did not come through for them in the way they wanted him to. But they had already decided beforehand not to be offended by God’s lack of intervention in their circumstances. Are we as equally willing to allow God to be the God he is? Are we willing to, rather than asking God to repent and to change his mind, allow him to work things out his own way on his own time schedule, trusting in his perfect love?
This is a real struggle for us as human beings. If Jesus really is God in human flesh, where is he right now while my life is falling apart before my eyes? If God really does care about me and love me, then why doesn’t he intervene and remove my suffering and struggle? How can he be a loving God and expect me to deal with this pain, this personal struggle, day after day after day?
It is important to grab hold of the beautiful mystery of Christmas—of God coming into our humanity, living our life, dying our death, and rising again. This means there is no part of our broken human existence that he does not, in this moment, share in. Perhaps we must linger in the fire a little longer, but we were never meant to bear these flames alone. Maybe we must cry again for the loss of someone dear, but here is Jesus weeping with us, present in this moment by the comforting Spirit in our pain. Awaken to the spiritual reality that Jesus is in us, with us, for us. This isn’t just wishful thinking, but a true reality.
May the Holy Spirit awaken in you an awareness of the real, present Lord. May you begin to experience God’s comfort and infinite peace in the midst of your struggles and pain. May you not be offended that God does not meet your expectations of deliverance. And may you know, beyond a shadow of doubt, that you are deeply loved and cherished, in spite of what your circumstances and feelings may be telling you in this moment. May you find and experience the inner gladness and joy which is solely a gift of the blessed Spirit of God straight from the heart of the Father through the indwelling Christ.
Dearest Abba, come to us. Meet us here in the flames of our suffering, grief, loneliness, and pain. Holy Spirit, make real to us the endless deep love of God. Remove our doubts and fear. Free us from the shackles of our resentment, bitterness, and feelings of offense. Forgive us for refusing to believe. Grant us instead the grace to rest, to trust in your perfect love, through Jesus our Lord. Amen.
“The wilderness and the desert will be glad, | And the Arabah will rejoice and blossom; | Like the crocus | It will blossom profusely | And rejoice with rejoicing and shout of joy. | The glory of Lebanon will be given to it, | The majesty of Carmel and Sharon. | They will see the glory of the Lord, | The majesty of our God. … And the ransomed of the LORD will return | And come with joyful shouting to Zion, | With everlasting joy upon their heads. | They will find gladness and joy, | And sorrow and sighing will flee away.” Isaiah 35:1–2, 10 NASB
“My soul exalts the Lord, | And my spirit has rejoiced in God my Savior. | For He has had regard for the humble state of His bondslave; | For behold, from this time on all generations will count me blessed. | For the Mighty One has done great things for me; | And holy is His name.” Luke 1:46b-49 NASB
Is That the Alarm—Already?
By Linda Rex
HOPE
December 1, 2019, 1st Sunday of Advent—Years ago my body clock used to wake me up before my alarm went off at five in the morning. I was grateful for this because there was nothing I hated more than to be woken from a sweet dream by the hideous drone of the alarm clock. I’ve had that alarm clock for years and now when I set it and then turn it off, in the morning it still buzzes. It’s on those days when I’m trying to sleep in and it wakes me up anyway that I have a distinct desire to throw that old alarm clock in the waste bin.
Back when the apostle Paul was writing his letter to the people in Rome, I doubt very much he had an annoying electric alarm clock. But he understood very well the need for us to be woken from our sleep—to resist our tendency to find that place of least resistance and stay there.
We are entering the season of Advent, when we reflect on and celebrate the entering in of the Word of God into our humanity in the incarnation. The people of Israel had longed for many years for their messiah to come and rescue them from their oppressors. They had the scriptures preserved by their prophets and priests which told them about his coming, and they longed for him to bring to pass the new age of the Spirit when they would be given the heart to obey and serve their God.
The sad reality of the first advent of Christ was that when he did come, he was not recognized. He was not what the people expected, so they rejected him and in the end saw that he was executed in an excruciating death on the cross. What they longed for and wanted for so long, they did not accept, but denied and rejected. They preferred their spiritual sleep, their political power, their religious trappings, and their physical comforts rather than being willing to awaken to their need for the Messiah to deliver them from evil, sin, and death.
If they had been alert to the spiritual realities, they would have remembered the lesson found in their history in the story of Noah. The people of Noah’s day had their focus on eating, drinking, and all the everyday activities of their lives. Even though Noah and his family were a clear witness to them of their coming destruction, these people ignored the warning. They had the opportunity to be saved, but they refused it. The ark was built, the animals—who obeyed the call to be saved—were placed on the ark, but when the flood came, only Noah and his family entered into that salvation and survived the flood.
When Jesus spoke of his second advent, he used the story of Noah to alert people to their tendency to ignore the warning signs of coming destruction. As human beings, we often know the right thing to do, but we don’t do it, even though we know the possible consequences of not doing it. We realize that following our flesh reaps us death and destruction, but we still choose to listen to its desires and fulfill them. We have been given deliverance from evil, sin, and death in Jesus Christ—but what do we do with this gift? This is a critical question.
As human beings, our sinful proclivities draw us down a path God never meant for us to go. And this is why Jesus came—why we celebrate the season of Advent. Jesus came to free us from our sinful nature and to write within us a new heart and mind which wants to live in the freedom God created us for. God in Christ took on our sinful humanity, lived our life, died our death, and rose again, bringing us into the presence of the Father. This is the spiritual reality of our redeemed human existence—the objective union of God with man in the person of Jesus Christ.
God has done in Christ all that is needed for our salvation. He has built the ark, gathered the animals, and has everything in order, ready to save us. We are as good as saved—evil, sin, and death have been conquered by Jesus. We have new life in him—the flood of God’s grace and love has come to cleanse the earth, but are we on the ark? Are we living in the spiritual reality of God’s redeeming grace? Or are we still asleep—laughing at the idiots who would build a big boat when there is no rain or water to be seen?
Paul emphasizes our need to wake up—for our salvation is nearer than when we first believed. Indeed, the more we grow in our relationship with our God, the more we see our need for redemption, and the brighter the light of his redeeming grace is in the dark places in our hearts and lives. We can continue to live as though God has not saved us, is not saving us, will not save us. Or we can wake up to the reality that this is exactly what has happened, is happening, and will happen.
Advent is a time to be reminded of our need to wake up to the signs of the times—Christ has come, is present now by the Spirit, and is coming again to restore all things. We need to be alert to the spiritual realities and live in the truth of who we are as God’s beloved adopted children. The family we have been adopted into does not live in the darkness, but in the light. Our Abba loves and is loved, and this is what we are created for—to love God and love our neighbor.
Our old ways of self-centered, self-reliant, self-indulgent living are but a bad dream. We have a new life we have been given, the life of Christ, and we are to waken and live in the truth of who we are in him. Our loving Father says to us, “Get out of bed, get your dark pajamas of evil, sin, and death off, and put on the heavenly garments of grace and love, the Lord Jesus Christ. Get busy in the new day of your existence in the kingdom of light.”
We sometimes get obsessed with trying to figure out when Jesus Christ is going to return again. But Jesus says to us, “Wake up. Be attentive to my presence and coming right now.” The advent or Parousia (coming and presence) of Jesus Christ is actually one long extended event. Jesus came over 2000 years ago, died and rose again, but sent his Spirit, being present with us even now, and will come in glory when he returns again.
The calling for the church is to live awake to the real coming and presence of the Lord Jesus Christ right now—to live in a constant state of expectation, longing for his real presence in our everyday lives, alert to what he is doing and will do even now to redeem, restore, and renew all things. We are encouraged to put off our old ways of self-centered living and put on the new life given us in Christ. Yes, the alarm is going off and we may not want to admit it, but the truth is—it’s time to wake up!
Dear Abba, we’re finding it hard to get out of bed, to awaken to the glorious reality of our new life in Christ. Help us to get our old pajamas of evil, sin, and death off and to gladly put on our Lord Jesus Christ, the heavenly garments of love and grace you have handmade for us. Holy Spirit, keep us ever awake to the spiritual realities, to God’s presence in each moment of every day, and enable us to live in the truth of who we are in Christ. In his name we pray. Amen.
“Do this, knowing the time, that it is already the hour for you to awaken from sleep; for now salvation is nearer to us than when we believed. The night is almost gone, and the day is near. Therefore let us lay aside the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light. Let us behave properly as in the day, not in carousing and drunkenness, not in sexual promiscuity and sensuality, not in strife and jealousy. But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh in regard to its lusts. Romans 13:11–14 NASB
See also Matthew 24:36–44.
Changing Our Inner Lens
By Linda Rex
September 15, 2019, Proper 19—The parable about the lost coin nearly always brings to my mind the many times when I have lost something important and have searched all over in my attempts to find it. As I get older, I’m discovering that it’s getting easier for me to lose things and harder for me to find them. I confess that on occasion I have had to use my landline phone to call my cellphone because I could not find it anywhere.
My daughter dreads hearing me say that I can’t find my glasses because she knows they could be just about anywhere. She immediately checks to make sure they are not on my head—sometimes things are not as badly lost as we think they are. Sometimes we just need to change our viewpoint or our perspective, or what we believe to be true.
This parable of the lost coin shows the heart of our loving Abba, who is willing to go to great lengths to ensure that each of his children has a place at his table. It’s bad enough that we believe he’s looking for reasons to exclude us, but then we also often believe that he is indifferent as to whether or not we’re even present in his life. Neither are true.
The coin the woman searched for was a drachma, worth about a day’s wages. Back when I was an hourly employee earning minimum wage, losing a day’s wages was equivalent to not having any water that month or not being able to put gas in the car. When I lost a day’s wages or lost a valuable check, I was concerned. I needed every penny I earned. I had bills to pay and kids to feed and care for.
The diligence with which the house got searched increased with the value of the item lost. The urgency with which this woman searched her house was a reflection of the value she placed upon that lost coin. It is a reflection of the passion with which our Abba searches for his lost ones. Finding those who are his lost ones and bringing them home to be with him was very important to Abba—so important that the Word of God, his Son, came into our cosmos, shared in our humanity and our suffering, and brought us home to be with Abba forever.
There is no person today who is completely and totally lost, who is not found in Christ. On God’s side, he has searched out and found each and every one of us—including us in the humanity of our risen Lord. Our lostness is a matter of unbelief, not of spiritual reality. What we believe about God, about ourselves, and about who Jesus is and what he did, is critical. If we believe we are lost, forsaken, and abandoned, we will live as though that is true. But if we believe Christ has come and brought us home to his Father (which he has), then we will live as though that is true, and live in the joy, peace, and hope of God as we participate in Christ’s perfect relationship with his Father in the Spirit.
Now sometimes we can be so sure of our own goodness and righteousness that we don’t realize we have wandered away from the God who loves us. This was what Jesus faced when the scribes and Pharisees began to criticize him for eating with sinners. When we begin to delineate between righteous people and sinners, including ourselves in the righteous group, we are in a dangerous place. We are declaring ourselves as having no need for Jesus and for what he did for us. We are denying reality.
Jesus emphasized our need to see ourselves accurately—as sinners in need of grace. As long as we believe we are righteous and do not need to be saved, we have no need of Jesus. We can live in this place of denial all our lives, but there will come a point where we will need to face the reality that apart from Jesus, we are lost. Apart from his finished work in his life, death, resurrection and ascension, we don’t have life today or hope for the future. We need to accept the truth that our eternity, and our present, are wrapped up in Jesus—he is our life. He is our right relationship with God and others.
There is great joy in heaven, Jesus said, when someone throws away the blinders and begins to see themselves with clear vision. Confessing the truth about ourselves paves the way for us to begin to live and walk in truth, in the spiritual realities in which we were included when Jesus came in our place on our behalf. And living in the reality that we are sinners saved by grace, beloved adopted children of the Father, changes how we treat those around us.
Instead of focusing on the failures, faults, and weaknesses of those around us, we focus on Christ—on him being at work in each person and in their lives by the Spirit, helping them come to see and believe that they too have been found and brought home to the Father. Rather than offering ridicule, criticism or condemnation, we offer encouragement, comfort, and understanding. Rather than rejecting or belittling them, we pray for them and offer them appropriate support.
It is in these ways that we participate with Jesus in searching for the lost and bringing them home to the Father. God has already done the hard part in the finished work of Christ and the gift of the Spirit. Now we get to join in as we follow Christ and the lead of the Spirit as God works in each person’s life to bring them to faith. We pray for them and share the good news with them. We share the love of God, extending the grace and mercy of Jesus, and trust God to finish what he already has begun in each person’s life.
So, today, how do we need to reconsider the way we look ourselves and the people around us? Are we using a clear and accurate lens? Do we see things through the lens of Jesus Christ? We may need to ask Abba for new glasses—or maybe we just need to clean the grime off of them so we can see things the way they really are. Either way, we may just discover that what we believe is lost has already been found.
Dear Abba, thank you for so diligently searching for us, finding us, and bringing us home to you. Give us clear vision, the lens of your Son Jesus Christ. Fill us anew with the Spirit of truth so we not only see the spiritual realities, but also the truth about those you have placed in our lives. Enable us to love them as you have loved us, through Jesus our Lord and by your Spirit. Amen.
“Both the Pharisees and the scribes began to grumble, saying, ‘This man receives sinners and eats with them.’… I tell you that in the same way, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance….In the same way, I tell you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.’” Luke 15:2, 7, 10 NASB
Ready and Waiting
By Linda Rex
Back in the late 1990’s, Y2K was a common descriptor used to describe the changeover between 2000 to 2100. I was amazed at the number of apocalyptic movies which came out around that time. It seemed that many people besides Nostradamus held strong opinions about how the world was going to end and if/or when Jesus Christ would return.
I have read many books and articles over the years which talk about how Jesus is coming to punish all the bad people on earth while rescuing his good people from the coming evil or “great tribulation.” Often the focus is on how bad this world is becoming and how desperate we will be to have Jesus rescue us from all the evil Satan is going to perpetrate in “the end times.”
Whatever God decides to do in order to fulfill the scriptures he inspired in his Word, what really matters to me in the long run is that Jesus is coming back for his own and he will once and for all make right the wrongs of this world, bringing to fruition what he completed on the cross. The symbol of the bread and wine blessed and shared at the last supper is like the promise of a groom to return one day in the future and to take his bride home to be with him forever. Meanwhile he has a dwelling place to prepare for her and spends her days preparing in anticipation of his return.
As I personally wait for my own groom to wed me, I’m seeing that we can look forward to Jesus’ return with either dread and fear or longing expectation and desire. Do we believe that even now he is present by his Spirit in every situation and loves us faithful and completely? Are we spending our days preparing for his coming and caring for those who are suffering or in need as we wait? Do we believe that our Beloved will come again and take us to be with him in glory forever?
There is a dress hanging in my room which was picked out with this special day in mind. This brings to mind the robes of righteousness Jesus has given us to wear. We are encouraged to cast off our old garments of sin and shame and to don the new outfit Jesus created for us in his incarnation, crucifixion, and resurrection. We know that when he comes, we will be like him (1 John 3:2), and since he shines with great glory and beauty as the eternal God/man, we will be given glorious bodies which will be dressed up in his very own righteousness.
I was so grateful to watch and help as our ladies lovingly and creatively dressed up the church for the wedding tomorrow. The candles and flowers, ribbons and paper bells tell everyone this is a very special day. A special meal is being prepared for the reception by a gifted man which will bless all those who eat it. Everything points to the celebration of the joining together of two lives into a new oneness or whole.
What Jesus did was to perfect our humanity and to include us in his perfect relationship with his heavenly Father. Our human focus is so often on our moral behavior rather than on how we are bound together with God and one another in love by the Holy Spirit. We were designed for this perichoretic oneness with God and each other—and the only way this could or would happen was through God transforming our humanity from the inside out. In Jesus, the joining together of two substantially different essences into one being made possible our new existence as adopted children of the Father.
The Word of God entered into our sphere of existence and in his life, death, resurrection, and ascension, joined our humanity with his divinity. In the sending of his Spirit, he enabled each of us to participate in a real way in these spiritual realities. The point of Jesus’ return includes the reality of heaven and earth joining together forever in glory. The new heaven and new earth, with the glorious new Jerusalem as her brightest gem, is the culmination of God’s story laid out in Scripture—Eden and its glories now surpassed by and fulfilled in the new heaven and new earth where God will dwell with man.
We can look forward to the second coming of Jesus with anticipation and expectation rather than dread because God has given us these wonderful and precious promises. Jesus has blessed us with the seal of his Holy Spirit, his personal presence in us and with us from the Father. Our hearts can be filled with joy, faith, hope, and love, for Christ is faithful and will come again to take us to live with him forever in that beautiful world he is creating for us while we wait for his return.
Thank you, God, for wanting to live with us forever, and for being willing to pay the steep price for our redemption and restoration. Thank you, Jesus, for your faithful promise and precious Spirit, by whom you live in and with us even now. Thank you that you are coming soon—we love you and want to be with you even now. Amen.
“And the city has no need of the sun or of the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God has illumined it, and its lamp is the Lamb. The nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it.” Revelation 22:23-24 NASB
“Jesus answered and said to him, ‘If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our abode with him.’” John 14:23 NASB
When Christmas Gets Messy
By Linda Rex
LOVE—The Christmas celebration at my house this year hasn’t been at all what we anticipated or planned. The lovely Christmas tree with its shiny ornaments and bells was taken out by one half-grown kitten. Our other cat never showed much interest in the tree, but we knew this might be a different story with the kitten, and it was.
We didn’t mind losing the tree–it was an old artificial one and the base had been held together by hanger wire for a couple of years now. The kitten was fascinated with the the old tablecloth we used for a tree skirt. The tree skirt ended up torn in half, and carried to other parts of the house. Her obsession with the tree branches and one certain Christmas bell caused her to knock the tree over, and in the process, what was left of the tree base ended up broken.
The cat-astrophy meant all the ornaments and pretty ribbons were put away and the tree was taken down. But the loss of the décor, though sad, was not the end of Christmas. It just meant the celebration was going to be different this year. We’re already thinking about a cat-proof tree for next year.
This is a good illustration of what Christmas is about though. Our commitment to a little creature who in her innocent and fun-loving heart ruined our decorations remains unchanged. Sometimes love means disrupting our lives for the sake of another—maybe even not having things the way we prefer them to be. People and pets are messy, and they have the ability to inconvenience and irritate us. But love enables us to set such things aside or to deal with such things with grace, and to make room for people and pets in our lives anyway.
Our Christmas celebration has already ended up different than we expected this year with my son not being home with us. But we’ll still do many of the fun things we like to do—bake cookies, share with others, open gifts, and sing Christmas carols. We’ll celebrate Christmas with others at church, light candles at the Christmas Eve service, and take communion together with our brothers and sisters in Christ. And we’ll rejoice in the great gift God gave us in sending his Son to us for our redemption and salvation.
Somehow the fundamentals of Christmas really have nothing to do with the trappings of Christmas and have everything to do with the reality that God has come to dwell with man, and we are forever changed because of it. God’s love for you and for me was so great that he was not willing to allow anything to come between us, and he was willing to put himself at great expense and inconvenience for our sake to ensure that we would be included in his life both now and forever.
You and I are not much different than the little kitten who is just seeking life, enjoying a moment of pleasure without realizing or assuming responsibility for the consequences of our actions. We often go about our lives indifferent to the spiritual realities, not realizing the impact we have on those around us both in bad and good ways. Many times it isn’t until the tree falls that we realize what we are doing isn’t really a blessing for those around us.
We have a gracious and loving God who is well-acquainted with our faults and failures. God did something incredible and amazing when he created human beings in his own image. And he declared from the very beginning that what he made when he created us was very good. God doesn’t make worthless items. All he made is good—even the annoying little kitties who ruin our Christmas decorations.
It wasn’t enough for God to make everything very good. He ensured the restoration of our fallen humanity, and with it this fallen creation. He came himself in the person of the Word, taking on all that was fallen, and in himself Jesus made, is making, and will make everything new. In Christ, the messiest person has new life and hope for a new day. The miracle of Christmas is light in our darkness, hope in our despair, and peace in our anxiety and distress.
If you are struggling through a difficult Christmas this year, wondering how you will ever make it through, Jesus Christ offers you his hope, peace and joy, and the most gracious gift of love anyone could give—he offers you himself, in your place, on your behalf. He offers you his Spirit, the gift of love, grace, comfort, and renewal. He offers you his perfect relationship with his Father—one which is never ending and filled with love and understanding.
Life may continue to be difficult. Christmas may continue to be messy. The struggles may not seem to get any easier. But in the silent moments as you ponder the baby in the manger, do you not feel it? Do you not hear it? For you, the heartbeat of love, of tender care, of deep unending affection, will never cease—you are loved now and forever, and held in the embrace of the holy One, while the angels sing.
Merry Christmas!
Dear Abba, you hold us as the holy mother held her Son Jesus, gazing with deep love and affection upon us, willing to do whatever it takes to keep us close to you, living in the truth of who we are as your beloved children. Comfort, heal, strengthen and help each of us—free us from our despair, loneliness, and grief. Grant us the grace to know we are beloved, held and provided for both now and forever, through Jesus our Lord and by your Spirit. Amen.
“Awaken your might; come and save us. Restore us, O God; make your face shine on us, that we may be saved.” Psalm 80:2a-3 NIV
“And he will be our peace…” Micah 2:5a NIV
A video of this blog may be accessed here.
Reason for Joy
By Linda Rex
JOY—Who is Jesus to you? At this time of year, we often focus on an infant, born in Bethlehem, who was placed in a manger. The Christmas story can seem like a sentimental fairy tale which really has no application to real life. How is does any of this apply to those of us who are struggling to find the strength to go through another day, to keep from drowning in sorrow and grief?
This sweet child in reality came into a world under Roman rule which was plagued by unrest and discontent. Jesus Christ was born in a Jewish culture which over the years had mixed with Greek Hellenism, and had substituted a historical religious faith with one based on political expediency, money and power, and faithfulness to a human standard and the seeking approval and applause of others.
The circumstances of this infant’s birth illustrate the difficulties which arise when a couple struggles to obey God’s call upon their lives while living in the midst of an often violent and officially pagan culture. It seems that often their obedience to God was intertwined with their necessary obedience to the government. Joseph found he had to go to Bethlehem, to the region of his forefathers, because of a Roman census. But in doing so, he fulfilled the prophetic word about the Messiah. The family was told they needed to flee the wrath of the king and go to Egypt, and it turns out this was prophetically exactly where they needed to be to fulfill Scripture.
We are often so immersed in our culture, our circumstances, and our experiences, that we can easily believe God is uninterested, uninvolved, and indifferent to our struggles and suffering. We feel as though we ourselves cannot change anything, or that we must bring about change.
In reality, God is the one who must bring about real, lasting change. We forget that whatever we do if it is not founded in God himself, has no enduring value. What this means is that all which God created from nothing was going to return to nothing apart from the entrance of God himself into creation to redeem, restore, and renew it.
God worked even from before the beginning of this cosmos to ensure that what he made would endure and fulfill the purposes for which it was created. This meant orchestrating different events, working with and through different people and patiently enduring their failures, stubborn willfulness, and disobedience. And then, when the time was exactly right, when all was prepared, when the world and the Jewish people were prepared to give birth to the Messiah, the Word took on our human flesh.
The human story is one filled with struggle, pain, suffering, and death. But it is also filled with joy—joy in the midst of sorrow, grief, and dark nights. There is great joy expressed in the Scriptures by those who experience God intervening in their difficult circumstances and saving them in impossible situations. It seems that in reality, our Lord is a victorious warrior who loves to rejoice over us as we experience his love and grace in the midst of our darkness, hopelessness, and despair.
On that dark night when Jesus was born, the shepherds saw and heard the angels share the wonder and joy of God over his Son’s birth. Our heavenly Father had waited and prepared for a long time for this special event—it was a wonderful, joyous occasion which he knew would change things forever. He knew that in giving his one unique Son, he would in time have many other adopted sons and daughters as his beloved children. And this would bring him even greater joy.
Advent is a great opportunity to reflect on our need to wait on God—to learn to wait as God waits. We wait, not apathetically, but intentionally, working to prepare the ground for the planting of the Word of God. John the Baptist came to prepare the Jewish people for the coming of the Messiah. He had a significant role, for he was to testify that this person who he baptized and who received the Holy Spirit in a special way was indeed the Messiah.
His words seem harsh to us—he was critical of the religious and civic leaders, and called people to repent and be baptized for the remission of sins. But he never pointed to himself—he always pointed away—to the one who would baptize with the Holy Spirit and with fire. Jesus would transform our humanity in his life, death, resurrection, and ascension, and would send the Spirit so that each and every person could participate in that true renewal and transformation he had forged for them.
Today we wait for the return of Christ, the second Advent, in the same way. We prepare our hearts and our lives by removing the weeds of sin, self, and Satan through repentance and allow the seed of God’s Word to penetrate into the core of our being. We receive the gift of God’s indwelling Christ, the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus, and we walk in the Spirit day by day. We daily testify to the truth of who Jesus Christ is—our Savior and Messiah, the Redeemer, the One who baptizes with Holy Spirit and fire.
We testify to the reality that Jesus Christ, beyond his entrance into this world as a tiny infant, is our divine warrior who went into battle on our behalf. He left behind all the glories and privileges of divinity to join us in our humanity. And he fought in hand-to-hand combat against sin, evil, Satan, and even death. His weapons of warfare involved submission, humility, and simplicity, and the ultimate weapon—death and resurrection. And he won. He rose victorious, ascending to his Father, carrying all of humanity into his Abba’s presence.
What Advent and the birth of Jesus mean for us today is that in the midst of darkness, loss, sin, evil, and even death, we can have joy, real deep joy. This joy reaches beyond our human experiences into the true spiritual realities where we are held in Christ in the presence of Abba by the Spirit. There is hope, peace, joy, and love in the presence of Abba, and it is all ours—we are fully victorious in Jesus Christ. Nothing can ever come between us and the love of God in Christ. We, even on a dark and gloomy night, can gaze upon the face of the divine Son and rejoice, because he is a victorious warrior!
Thank you, Abba, for the precious gift of your Son. Thank you for not leaving us in our darkness, pain, and sorrow, but for lifting us up and giving us the victory over evil, sin, Satan, and death in Jesus. Holy Spirit, bring us close and enable us to see clearly the face of the Father in the face of his Son, so that we can fully participate in the divine love and life Jesus has created for us. Abba, fill our hearts overflowing with your joy, through Jesus our Lord and by your Spirit. Amen.
“The LORD your God is in your midst,
A victorious warrior.
He will exult over you with joy,
He will be quiet in His love,
He will rejoice over you with shouts of joy.” Zeph. 3:17 NASB
A video of this blog may be accessed here.
Lift Up Your Heads
By Linda Rex
HOPE—Last night I read a post on the local police precinct page which told the story of a missing person. Struggling with depression due to the loss of a loved one, this person left her life behind and disappeared into the metropolis of Nashville.
As I read this story, my heart went out to her. I thought of what I might say to someone in her situation. It’s really hard to find anything meaningful to say to someone who is extremely depressed—I’ve been there, and it just doesn’t help.
My genetic makeup means my postpartum depression with both of my children turned into clinical depression, and in times of extreme crisis, I am susceptible to depression. I remember one day I forced myself to take my newborn son for a walk even though I was in a horrid blue funk. I could barely get one foot in front of the other. When I got home, I received a call from the nurse who helped with my pregnancy—she lived nearby and had seen me out walking. She asked me a few questions and then told me I was depressed. “Call the doctor,” she said.
I made the call and I’m glad I did. I learned that my mother had suffered this same difficulty with having her children and it was a natural response to what had happened to me. Depression is not something to be ashamed of or to pretend isn’t happening. It’s a real thing, and needs to be dealt with. If we need medication to help get our brain readjusted, then that is what we need. If we need counseling to change the way we respond to people or events, then we need to get it and make the changes needed to get well.
We express our love to our family and friends by getting the treatment we need, whether counseling or medication, and we keep with it, even though we may think we don’t need it any more. Some forms of mental illness require ongoing medication—we need to be humble enough to keep taking it even though we think we don’t need it any more. This is a real struggle, and I can understand when a person wishes they could live without this necessary medical intervention.
Taking into account our need for medication and counseling, though, we also need to grasp the reality to the core of our being that we are now and forever held in God’s love. We are entering the time of Advent, the time in which we contemplate and celebrate the coming of our God into our humanity in the infant Jesus, and we begin with hope.
The people of Israel and Judah had wrestled in their relationship with God for millennia. God called them into relationship with himself, explained to them what it looked like to live in relationship with him, and gave them a way of grace, of sacrifices and liturgy, through which they could draw near to him and express their love and devotion to him. As time passed, this nation turned away from God, experienced the consequences of having done so, and then turned back again, only in time to turn away again. Finally, God allowed the destruction of the temple and the captivity of both Israel and Judah.
In time God set the nation free to return to Jerusalem and to rebuild the temple. But from that time on, Israel/Judah has always been under the control of another nation. Between then and the time of Jesus, they experienced oppression, the desecration of their temple, and the lack of prophetic leadership. Lost in the darkness of God’s silence, the nation cried out for deliverance. And where there was such darkness, gloom, and despair, God entered.
We can get so focused on our despair, on our suffering or loss or the feeling that we are left all alone, that we often miss what is right in front of us. Indeed, as Luke writes, when we see everything falling apart in our lives or our world, that is when we need to realize that our redemption is near. God’s kingdom is at the door—for the simple reason that God is present, God is near, in the person of Jesus Christ.
God indeed entered Israel’s darkness and suffering, though in a way which was different than expected. God may have had a heavenly choir blessing the event, but God’s coming or advent was the birth of a baby placed in a manger, in humble circumstances, completely dependent upon his mother and father and caught in the midst of a dangerous world which was already seeking his death.
The coming of the Word of God into human flesh sparked the death of Bethlehem’s infants—the evil king Herod could not stand the thought of anyone being king but him. And yet, in the midst of this darkness and evil, the light had dawned. God was present in the person of Jesus Christ. God was experiencing every circumstance we go through in our broken world, coming to know personally the pains and trials of our human existence. He knew laughter and sadness, joy and pain, loss and blessing—everything which makes us what we are. And he did not sin.
It was not enough that God came to us to be where we are and what we are. He gave himself over completely to us, allowing us to do to him whatever we willed. He allowed us to pour out on him all our wrath against God, all our refusal to allow God to be the God he is. Since creation we have sought to make God conform to our will, refusing to submit to his. And Jesus paid the price for it, even though he didn’t deserve it.
Darkness—in so many ways. It may have seemed, as Jesus hung on the cross, that there was only death and oblivion ahead of him. But he knew the secret of hope: When everything is falling apart, our redemption is closer than ever—it is near, right at the doors. How did Jesus know this? Because he knew his Abba intimately. He knew that even though it felt like he was abandoned and all alone, that nothing could ever separate him from his heavenly Father. Nothing, not even death or evil, could separate the heavenly oneness of the Triune God as Father, Son, and Spirit. God’s love, which binds us to him, never fails.
Because of who Jesus is—God in human flesh—and what he has done—died in our place and on our behalf, rising again from the grave—we have hope. We may lose friends and family members to death, but we are bound together in Christ both now and forever, and death no longer has power over us. In Christ we have the hope of the God’s presence in our every day lives and circumstances in the Person of the Holy Spirit. Christ’s ascension to God, bearing our humanity, and the sending of the Spirit, means we are never alone, ever. This is our hope.
In the midst of horrific loss and destruction, God is still near. When we have lost those dear to us, are caught in despair and feeling all alone, the truth is we are never alone. Immanuel—God is with us. When things look as though they are coming to a catastrophic end—God’s redemption is near. Lift up your heads—for here he comes!
Thank you, Abba, for loving us, for sending your Son to dwell in our humanity, redeeming us from all we brought upon ourselves. Holy Spirit, grant us the great hope of Jesus, that we may know with certainty that Abba loves us and will never leave us, no matter how things may look right now. Grant, loving Spirit, that we might experience the reality of Immanuel, God with us, in Jesus our Lord. Amen.
“But when these things begin to take place, straighten up and lift up your heads, because your redemption is drawing near. … So you also, when you see these things happening, recognize that the kingdom of God is near.” Luke 21:28 NASB
A Cry for Redemption
By Linda Rex
This morning I was browsing social media as I was finishing up my morning exercise routine. I was touched by a friend’s post which described a very painful and difficult circumstance they were going through. My heart went out to them and I wished there was some way to help. But there wasn’t.
My go-to response, of course, is to pray. This can seem such a feeble response when often people need some real tangible assistance in difficult circumstances. But for those of us who do pray and count on prayer as our go-to response, this is actually the most powerful and effective thing we can do when encountering a life tragedy, struggle, or difficulty.
This week there was another mass shooting, this time in my home state of California. No doubt, there will be more cry for effective gun laws, and, which I think is more to the point, more focus on getting veterans the help they need when they are struggling with PTSD and other post-conflict issues. But all the laws we can write do not change or heal the human heart. We live in a society which seeks to regulate human conduct from without by laws or by social pressure, and to heal broken human beings with social programs and medication.
This is the struggle we have in our world today—a society in which each feels free to do whatever they want according to their conscience and desires, but often without concern for the others who share this world with them or for the creation either. I keep being brought back to the basic fundamental description of how we are to live as human beings—of what we have been created for. As made in the image of God, we are meant to live as unique yet equal individuals in a unity which reflects that of the Father, Son, and Spirit—created for this divine relationship with God and one another. Jesus described it as loving God with our whole being and loving our neighbor as ourselves.
Our struggle to exist together in this world to day is due to our refusal to acknowledge there is an ultimate Source which defines our existence and which gives us direction for our lives. We want to have control over our existence and our decisions, and not allow anyone to infringe on our preferences or our space. Somehow we think that submitting ourselves to someone, most especially to God, limits us in some way, and deprives us of our ability to be all we can be.
In reality, our greatest struggle lies within ourselves. We are broken and wounded, and all these things affect how we handle life, and how we treat one another. When Jesus said that we are to love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength, I believe he was pointing out our need to be fully integrated as human beings, with all of us being fully devoted to our Abba. He knew the human proclivity to create inner silos, where the good parts of us are separated from the bad parts of us, and where our inner divisions become a space for the evil one to enter and cause destruction and despair.
To be fully integrated within ourselves by necessity means that God needed to reform our humanity after his image—we had rejected our humanness as God had meant it to be. Jesus, when he walked on earth, lived in intimate relationship with his Abba. He said that he and his Father were one. Jesus lived fully focused on that relationship, seeking out his Abba in the midst of trouble and stress, and drawing upon his strength and power by the Spirit to deal with the issues he faced in his life.
In spite of how he was treated and the uniqueness of his personhood as the God/man, Jesus stayed fully integrated to the end. He, by the Spirit, held fast to the truth of who he was as the Son of God and the Son of Man. Jesus did not have a good side and a bad side, but was simply the Word of God in human flesh—the One who became sin for us so we could become the righteousness of God in him. He came to redeem our humanity and give us a new life by the Spirit which in him is fully integrated within itself and in relationship with God and others.
As I was reading the lectionary scriptures for Sunday, one of the passages from the book of Ruth popped out at me. We read in Ruth’s story that her mother-in-law Naomi, who lived for a time in Moab, had lost both her sons and her husband, and so sought to move back to her home town of Bethlehem to rebuild her life. Ruth, being a Moabitess, was considered a Gentile but she embraced Naomi and her faith, and went with her back to Bethlehem.
Ruth was in a very difficult position, but it seems that God kept his eye on her. She went to glean grain after the harvesters, which was what poor people did back then, and she ended up in the field of someone who was in her extended family, a relative named Boaz. In due time, Naomi told Ruth she should invoke the levirate law of that day and ask Boaz to redeem her property and by extension give her the children she did not have by her first husband so her property would stay in the family. So Ruth courageously did as her mother-in-law instructed, not knowing what the result would be.
Boaz’s reaction is interesting. When she appealed to him to exercise his right of redemption, he told her he couldn’t—there was someone closer who could. But he said he would see that this was done, either by himself, or by the other who was more closely related to her. Then he sent Ruth home. When Naomi heard how it went, she said, “Wait, my daughter, until you know how the matter turns out; for the man will not rest until he has settled it today.”
A lot of times we think and act as if God is indifferent to our suffering and our struggles. We may believe he shouldn’t be bothered with the little details of our lives, or that he’s not really willing to intervene in our difficult circumstances. When we lose dear ones, we often believe God doesn’t care about us any more—why else would he let them pass away? In reality, we need to see God as the One who will not rest until he has settled the matter today—immediately, as promptly as he possibly can. It may not be according to our time schedule, but in God’s time schedule, he is treating it as urgent, as needing his immediate attention.
Secondly, God is the one who has the right of redemption. He is as closely related to us as he could possibly get in the Person of Jesus Christ. He took on our humanity, reintegrated it with its Creator and within himself as God in human flesh, and took it with himself through death and resurrection, so we each could have new birth—a new life in him. God in Christ is to us a restorer of life and a sustainer in our youth and old age—no matter where we are in life, he is our Redeemer.
The cry I am hearing in the media today, social and otherwise, is for a redeemer. Humans such as political leaders often try to fill this role, and we temporarily give them our allegiance. But in reality, none can do what our Redeemer does—they cannot change or heal the human heart, nor can they transform people’s lives or give them divine redemption. There is no one like our God, who saves! We pray because we have a Redeemer who will not rest until he has healed, restored, and renewed. We pray because we know and trust he is faithful, gracious, and loving, and he will finish what he has begun in us.
Only God has the capacity and the heart to heal someone from the inside out. Only Jesus, the divine Physician, can change someone’s heart and desires into what they ought to be. Only the Spirit, our Comforter and our Peace, can work transformation in human beings, bringing them into Christlikeness.
Our participation in all of these things is to, like Ruth, place ourselves at Jesus’ feet and ask him to exercise his right of redemption on our behalf, to wait patiently for him to move in our circumstances and in our lives, and to embrace the relationship offered to us and to faithfully live within it for the remainder of our days. Our participation includes learning to live and walk in truth, to be integrated within ourselves so that we, in Jesus and by the Spirit, are loving God with all our being and loving our neighbor as ourselves. We have every reason to hope—for he is ours and we are his, and he will be faithful to the end. This is why we turn to him, believing he will not fail us. And this is why we pray.
Thank you, Abba, for your faithful love, and for giving us your Son to redeem us. Thank you for sending your Spirit to renew, restore, and heal us—transforming us by your grace and love into the very image of your Son, and so to reflect your likeness. We desperately need a move of your Spirit in our world today. We need you to heal, restore and renew all this we have broken, and to transform human hearts by faith. We trust you will not rest until this is accomplished. Show us how we can participate with you in your mission, and to passionately do so as you lead us, through Jesus and by your Spirit. Amen.
“Then the women said to Naomi, ‘Blessed is the LORD who has not left you without a redeemer today, and may his name become famous in Israel. May he also be to you a restorer of life and a sustainer of your old age; for your daughter-in-law, who loves you and is better to you than seven sons, has given birth to him.’” Ruth 4:14-15 NASB
Our Life in the Trinity 