Surprised by Grace

The Big Fish - Phillip Ratner

I'm almost finished with this book Surprised by Grace - about the account of Jonah - You know the one about the prophet that doesn't want to go, the boat, the storm, the big fish, three days in the belly of the beast and then spit out on the shore.

Most of us have heard about Jonah or seen the Veggie Tales movie but have you ever really thought about it?

Well Tullian Tchividjian has.  As he walks us step by step through the account weaving into his retelling historical artists paintings, sculptures and from Herman Melvill's Moby Dick  he extrapolates on Mapple's sermon he helps us to see what God is telling us through Jonah's life - his human life, someone who loved God yet ran from him, a sinner, a prophet, and ultimately shares something about God and ourselves.



A quote from the book:

"God owes no explanation to Jonah (or to us) for what he has done with the Ninevites.  But in his overflowing grace, he works to help Jonah (and us!) to understand it all better.  God is still coming after Jonah (and us!) to teach us more about his grace.

"God never gives up on you.  There's no one whose patience and forbearance toward you will ever be greater or longer lasting than God's.  Your wife or husband won't be this patient with you - your kids won't, your friends won't, your coworkers won't, your pastor won't.  They'll all fail you at some point.  You'll feel dehumanized, cheapened, discouraged, depressed, or radically disappointed by everyone and everything in this world.

"But not by God. Nothing and no one will ever be as patient and forgiving toward you as God is.  In all of existence, God is the only reality who refuses to give up on those he knows.

"In unforgettable events and imagery, the story of Jonah reveals how this perfectly patient God pursues fugitives - a God who has every right to give up on rebels like us and to move on, but doesn't.  It's a story that reveals forever the heart of God for sinners from every race, every age, and every social class."
- Tullian Tchividjian in his book Surprised by Grace -  (pages 138-139)



Surprised by Grace: God's Relentless Pursuit of Rebels

Video from Author

Seeing and Savoring Jesus Christ

I just finished reading this devotional - you can download it free from here:
Seeing and Savoring Jesus Christ

I really liked this walk through of who Christ is.

He isn't a hippy Jesus that we can contain in our pocket bringing Him out to comb His flowing hair like some kind of Ken doll. He is the Savior, He is Mighty, in Power and He is worth knowing. Not inventing our own version of who He is but loving Who He really is. This is a very Biblical look at Jesus. Come See and Savor Him.

Devotional: Psalm 34:8

God and His sense of Taste

How can we Taste and Know Him?

Psalms 34: 8

Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good!  Blessed is the man who takes refuge in Him.

God and the sense of Taste

When taste is mentioned in the Bible it is often paired with the word honey there seems to be a metaphor  between the taste of honey and our relationship with God.  

What is the figurative meaning of this honey? 

I’m always struck by the imagery in Revelation 10:10 of the account of the scrolls and honey in.  I always imagine this giant angel straddling a lake holding this huge scroll.  That I am there - in the position of (John)  and I have to eat that scroll.  For whatever reason the scroll is easy to eat as it tastes good like honey but when it hits my stomach it gives me the worse heart burn.  The taste is then bitter.  What were the words in that scroll?  The bitterness did it come from the knowledge of the world turning it’s back on God?  Was it about our time or was it about biblical times?  Or could it be about both?  How would that sit in your stomach?  How did that sit in John’s?  That knowledge?  I imagine it is me and how it would sit in mine.  

Okay so what? 

God wants us to taste Him, through his word.  To develop a liking for his word even when it is bitter.  The knowledge given to John by the words on that scroll were sweet.  God wants us to know him, to taste him through his word - The Bible.  To taste and know that the Lord is good.  Better than honey, better than the sweetest honey comb.  

My response to this is what

How can I taste God, what can I physically do.  With my mouth with my body to be a living sacrifice to him.  Tasting God ....

For some reason I am thinking of: 

The prodigal son. 

I’ve been thinking about this - since hearing my husband read the account to my daughter Lucy from one of our children Bibles.  The story illustrates how the son asked for his inheritance and left and then after experiencing the world, realizes how good he had it with his father and goes back to him ready to grovel and be a servant in his house.  The father has missed his son and when he sees him from a long way off runs to him and embraces him.  

How good of a Father - he throws a cloak of a master on him, kills the fatted calf and has a party.  He is ecstatic his son is home.  

That is such a picture of our world and God.  God is the father - we are his “Sons.”  He came and died for us all and we can all have part of his inheritance.  There is in fact two inheritances.  We have the gift of this world from our Father and then if we choose we can take part in the gift of our inheritance in heaven.  

Like this prodigal son - we can reject the Father’s heavenly inheritance and take what we can get right here and how.  We can reject his authority in our lives and live the way we want and forsake the inheritance of heaven or we can live under our Father’s loving authority working for him and gain not only the inheritance of heaven - the treasure that we are storing there - but we can enjoy a loving relationship with our Father.  

So what does this have to do with taste?

Taste and see the Lord is Good - 

Taste and see that God has your bests interests in heart.

If you are not a prodigal - don’t be like the older brother - jealous of those who come into relationship with God after living a life of sin.  Rejoice with the Father at their coming home.  Seek to find those prodigals and introduce them to your Father and spread the gospel of Christ. 

We can live our lives with a bitter taste in our mouths or we can taste the honey that is from God’s word and live as a sacrifice to God.

Our taste gives us such joy - lets use it to taste the Lord and see how Good He is. 

Packing, sorting and going! We leave soon!

We fly out Nov. 9th!

That's right the day is finally here - we have been very busy!  We received a deadline for our support on Sept. 8th and had to have our funds to go by Oct. 1.  I wanted it to arrive by my 38th birthday on Sept. 24th and it did!

We have the support we need to head overseas.  Yeah!

Needless to say I have not been a very good blogger.

Busy packing, sorting, piling, cleaning up the mess from all that.  Trying to cut down on stuff!  So much stuff and we have gone through this before and I hate this part.

5 tickets = 10 bags at about 50 lbs. each that is about 500 lbs. of stuff.   I wish books didn't weigh so much or that we didn't love books so much!   Then there are the carry ons.

clothes
books which includes homeschool stuff
toys

All this for 5 people!  For two years!
Agh!

There is so much I want to write about and several unfinished blogs to finish and post and I will get to it.

JURY DUTY

I had Jury Duty for the months of July - Sept.  2010 I wrote a letter to be excused for Aug and Sept hearing nothing I assumed I asked too late.  July we were called in and I ended up on the Jury.  We heard the opening statements then adjourned for lunch.  When we returned they had us wait in the jury room for about 45 mins.  Then they brought us into the courtroom and told us the case had been settled.

This gets me thinking about my own guilt.  My own sin that I take to my judge and who then takes it and covers it with His blood.  He puts it as far as the east is from the west.

On the jury I was called to be impartial to hear the facts of the case and then render a judgment guilty or innocent.  I believe in the judicial system and even though I had my thoughts from the opening statements I was wondering what the defense was going to do to give us evidence or a cause to say he was not guilty. 

My not guilty pardon from my Heavenly Father is so clear in:

John 3:16

For God so loved the world that he gave his only and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not parish but have everlasting life. 

God loves us so much that He came down to earth and died for us!  I marvel at that love.  His love for us is so real and so tangible that if we believe in Him, he gives us eternal life.

God knows everything there is about me - the good, bad and the ugly.  Yet, He forgave me.  He continues to mold me and to shape the future.  How amazing is that.  

I got called into Jury duty again in September only to find out that I had been excused for August and September.  It would have been nice if someone would have told me.  I never thought to ask if I had been excused.  

It is the same with God.  He has excused everyone who believes in Him and the work that was done on the cross.  That the debt for our sins has been paid by Jesus Christ. 

I ended up showing up to a place I didn't have to because I never thought to ask.  I never called the Court and asked if the judge had excused me.  I ended up showing up to a place I never had to go to.   If I would have asked I would have found out that I was forgiven.  

There are a lot of people who are going to be showing up somewhere when they die that they don't expect because they never asked if they had been excused.  If the "pardon" had come through.  They never went to the judge and told Him that they believed He had the power to forgive them.  They end up taking the penalty on themselves because they just thought if they were good, nice and didn't hurt anyone they would end up being not guilty.  

Confess with your Mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe....

I ended up staying that day of jury duty and then called to see if I was now still excused or if I had now lost that.  They said I didn't need to report for jury duty any more.  By that time I was kind of frustrated because I had resigned myself that I was on jury duty and I kind of liked it.  This may be a bit of a stretch but, isn't that the way sin kind of is in our lives.  We know it is wrong and yet we continue to return to it again and again. 

I have been freed from my sin, but yet the world offers so much of it to us on a platter.  We need to take each thought captive and flee from sin.  I used to tell my neice to keep her running shoes on.  I thought of Joseph when he was being suduced by Potiphar's wife and how he ran.  

That is how we need to be with sin - we need to know when to run from it.  We need to be active in capturing each thought and responding to sin with the word of God ready on our tounge.  The only way that happens is when we are in right relationship with Him.  

If we don't pray, if we don't talk to God, if we don't read his word are we in relationship with Him?  If our life is all about ourselves and the things we want to do and the places we want to go then have we truly trusted God with anything?

There is a video my husband showed to me once - of a guy and a girl that are walking and they come upon a stagnet stinky pond  - they are disgusted by it.  Then a guy pops out of the middle of it and is shouting happily.  They ask him what is he doing in there.  He looks around and realizes that he is in the middle of this yucky pond and then doesn't know what he is doing there.  So they tell him to come out but he is unable to get out of the pond.  So the guy goes to help him.  He gets him out of the pond and all three of them are standing on the shore and the guy that they got out of the pond thanks them - then goes back into the pond and dives under again.  The girl tells her friend to come on come out of the pond he says yeah I will then turns around and dives back into the cess pool.  She can't believe it.  They say the don't want to be in the middle of all that "yuck" but they keep jumping back into it.  Sin is like that - we look at it and say gross but when it comes time to really give it up we just don't want to.

The last day to call in for jury duty was Sept. 28th.  I had set my phone for it and when it went of I called just to see - not planing on going in but wondering what was going on.  The call in report was that our term of jury duty was over. 

We all are appointed one time to die and then comes judgement.  Have you truly trusted your life to Christ?  Have you went to the Judge and asked him to pardon you.  The truth is it is already granted but if you don't go to Him and ask to see it and trust your life to Him it won't be granted to you.  You will pay the price which was already paid for you.  Is anything worth that?