Prepare!

“A voice of one calling: ‘In the desert prepare the way for the Lord; make straight in the wilderness a highway for our God. – Isaiah 40:3

“In those days John the Baptist came, preaching in the Desert of Judea and saying, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near.  This is he who was spoken of through the prophet Isaiah: 'A voice of one calling in the desert, Prepare the way for the Lord, make straight paths for him.’ – Matthew 3:1-3

“It is written in Isaiah the prophet: I will send my messenger ahead of you, who will prepare your way – a voice of one falling in the desert, ‘Prepare the way for the Lord, make straight paths for him.’” – Mark 1:2-3

“As is written in the book of the words of Isaiah the prophet: ‘A voice of one calling in the desert, Prepare the way for the Lord, make straight paths for him.’” – Luke 3:4-5

“John replied in the words of Isaiah the prophet, “I am the voice of one calling in the desert, ‘Make straight the way for the Lord.’” – John 1:23

Isaiah foretold it and every Gospel in the New Testament repeated it – PREPARE!  Prepare for what?  The way for the Lord!!  Without doubt, no matter the task, with no concern of where you are sent, what you are asked to say or do or not say and do.  Easier said than done, huh?  How many of us can honestly say we are completely, 100% prepared?

Noah was prepared for the rain even though the place he lived was plagued with drought, why?  Because God told him to be prepared!  He was ridiculed and made a laughing stalk, but he did not let the opinion of others deter him from fulfilling what God had called him to complete.  In the movie Facing the Giants the main character is told the following parable from an elderly Christian man:

Two farmers in the face of a drought began praying for rain.  One farmer continued tilling, planting, fertilizing the land, preparing his fields for a harvest while the other farmer continued to pray, but did nothing to his fields.  Which farmer trusted the Lord to answer his prayer?  Which farmer received God’s blessing?

Moral to the parable?  You have to prepare your fields if you want to receive the blessing God has for you AND you have to trust the Lord to answer your prayers even in the face of a drought.  Christians face spiritual drought from time to time just like farmers face physical drought.  There are seasons in our lives when we feel like God is not with us, that He is not answering our prayers, times of loneliness from the Holy Spirit.  During these times, God has not left us, He is preparing us for a future blessing.  Maybe our season of drought is the ridicule we face from non-believers for “building our ark.”  God has not left us, He is preparing us for the flood we cannot see.

Just like Amanda Dalton said in her message on Sunday, an Olympic runner preparing for a race does not just wake up the morning of the race and decide to run.  There are months and years of preparation involved.  Training schedules of running & cross-training, weight control and nutrition programs and most of all determination.   But as a spectator on race day, all we see are the runners performing, the preparation each runner does is done alone. 

What God does as He prepares us might not be seen by the world, but we know the blessing is at the finish line.  The race is ahead, be prepared to run.

 Called by Christ,

Amanda

Where is your Bethel?

¹⁶ When Jacob awoke from his sleep, he thought, “Surely the LORD is in this place, and I was not aware of it.” ¹⁷ He was afraid and said, “How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God; this is the gate of heaven.” ¹⁸ Early the next morning Jacob took the stone he had placed under his head and set it up as a pillar and poured oil on top of it. ¹⁹ He called that place Bethel,^[a] though the city used to be called Luz. ²⁰ Then Jacob made a vow, saying, “If God will be with me and will watch over me on this journey I am taking and will give me food to eat and clothes to wear ²¹ so that I return safely to my father’s house, then the LORD^[b] will be my God ²² and^[c] this stone that I have set up as a pillar will be God’s house, and of all that you give me I will give you a tenth.”  - Genesis 28:16-22

How many of us have been to that place?  You know that moment in your life where you are so close to God you feel His very presence all around you!!  The Holy Spirit falls on you so heavy you can barely move from the place you stand.  God himself speaks to your heart and because your spirit is so in tune with His you hear his voice resonate throughout your entire body.  He speaks so loudly and clearly to your heart that you really do hear it in your ears.  Nothing else on earth matters and for that moment in time you feel the power of The Almighty; you are scared and silent, yet joyful and alive.

If you close your eyes even right now you can picture it so clear it is like you are there again in your mind and perhaps for just a brief moment we start to feel Him again.  The physical setting of the room, the memory is crystal clear, but the feeling, well not so easy to relive.  How we all long to get back to that place when our heart met with God’s and he spoke to us, individually.  What happened? We might ask ourselves.  Why can’t I get the feeling again?  Why doesn’t God speak to me anymore?  We might even re-visit the place physically, thinking we can re-experience the wonderful awesomeness we felt once before.  Problem is God was not in that place physically, He was in YOU, spiritually.

Why did it have to end?  Just like Jacob, we may experience a God-moment too amazing to be true.  We leave promising ourselves we will do whatever it takes to stay in-tune with God so we can experience HIS presence again and again.  But just like for Jacob, life happens. Jacob, travelled on to Paddan Aram, got a job, married and had children.  Hmmm, sounds familiar, (well except travelling to Paddan Aram, I don’t even have a clue where that is!!)   Not to say that you aren’t suppose to work or have a spouse and children, but when we “leave” our Bethel, life takes God away from us.  The 10 minute prayer time every morning slowly disappears because we keep staying up too late the night before.  Reading scripture on lunch break is too hard because all the conversations in the break room are too loud or too interesting.  We just cannot make it to church every Sunday, after all we have to have a life too!!

The excuses pile up all the while your life continues out of control with the stress of trying to manage everything on your own.  Where did it all go wrong?  Why can’t I get back to that peaceful feeling I had?  Where is God now?  Truth is God is still with you, He never left and never will.
 

                “As I was with Moses, so I will be with you; I will never leave you nor forsake you.” – Joshua 1:5

“Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said, ‘Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.’” – Hebrews 13:5

So the question you should ask is not how do I get back to where I was, but how do I get back to who I was?  What things were you surrounding yourself with spiritually at the time of your Bethel experience?  Were you in a season of prayer and meditation?  Fasting for a spiritual break-through?  Maybe you were involved in a Bible study that drew you close through scripture.  Or perhaps you were on the road to Emmaus and your eyes were opened to Christ with the reading of the scripture and breaking of the bread?  Think back, remember it clearly in your mind and heart.  What were some of the things you were experiencing and doing that lead you to the moment when God spoke directly your heart?  God didn’t just show up because you willed Him to, you heard His voice because you were “in-tune” with Him and recognized it by not the sound, but the feeling!!

If you want to get back to your Bethel perhaps you need to begin practicing those same things again.  Or maybe you need to try something different.  Are you in the Word daily, weekly?  Do you spend any time with just you and God?  It isn’t easy to make time for God, but then He never promised it would be easy, He only promised he would always be there.  God is waiting to meet you at your Bethel again.  He lingers at that place everyday hoping you will come back to see Him, feel Him, experience HIS presence.  How long will you keep Adonai waiting? 

 

Jacob took nearly 27 years to return. Genesis 35:1,9-11, 14-15

“Then God said to Jacob, “Go up to Bethel and settle there, and build an alter there to God, who appeared to you when you were fleeing from your brother Esau.”

“After Jacob returned from Paddan Aram, God appeared to him again and blessed him.  God said to him, ‘Your name is Jacob, but you will no longer be called Jacob; your name will be Israel.”

“Jacob set up a stone pillar at the place where God had talked with him, and he poured out a drink offering on it; he also poured oil on it.  Jacob called the place where God had talked with him Bethel.”

Notice the last sentence quoted, “Jacob called the place where God had talked with him Bethel.”  God did not speak to Jacob, He spoke WITH him!!  The Creator of the Universe is waiting to have a conversation WITH YOU!!  Things and people weaken your faith, listen for God’s calling and go back.  Once you are there you will find you have the strength & faith to withstand the trials of everyday life.

Called by Christ,

Amanda

The Disciple Jesus Loves

When we hear the word love, many different things come to mind. Some might think of their spouse, perhaps their children, others might think of parents or close siblings and friends. All of these pictures of love connect to an actual physical being, someBODY comes to mind, not something. God's love is different from any love we have or give. What do you think of when you hear about God's love for you? What do you picture? Ever see the clouds right after a storm when the sun is shining down with rays of light? It almost looks like the heavens have opened up and God's love is shining down. Is that how you picture God's love? Maybe you think of the immeasurable blessings God pours out on us like rain. Can you see it? Pictures & words spelling out your blessings falling from the sky by the thousands!!
God's love is unconditional, never-ending, all-powerful, soft and loving, but yet protective and firm. HIS love is the teaching of how OUR love should be. ​

Jesus gives us this example of God's love:

​^"This is my commandment: Love each other in the same way I have loved you. There is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends." - John 15:12-13 (NLT)

I would bet that most people can likely count on one hand the number of people they would actually DIE for; children, of course, parents, siblings, maybe a very close friend. But Jesus does not specify who based on their relationship to us, no HE says "for one's friends." Well now that seems a bit much!​  But then that is exactly what Christ did for us, not just as a friend, but as a brother.  Jesus himself is our brother and we are all children of God. 

Jesus on the cross is the symbol of grace, God’s grace.  It is through God’s unconditional love we receive the mercy and grace we do not deserve.  As defined by Brad Bledsoe on Sunday, “Mercy is when God doesn’t give you what you do deserve; Grace is when God gives you what you don’t deserve.” 

“But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in our transgressions – it is by grace you have been saved.” – Ephesians 2:4-5

“. . . because judgment without mercy will be shown to anyone who has not been merciful.  Mercy triumphs over judgment.” – James 2:13

Mercy triumphs over JUDGEMENT!!  We are not subject to the judgment of God for our committed sins because of His great mercy for us.  Through grace given on the cross by Jesus, our brother we are not condemned to the sufferings we deserve.

“Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death.” – Romans 8:1

“In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace that he lavished on us with all wisdom and understanding.” – Ephesians 1:7-8

 Lavished grace, how beautiful the image of God’s grace lavished upon us.  The grace we don’t deserve, that has existed for us even before we were in need of it, poured upon us.  Preveinient grace is grace that has “followed us” from the time we were born.  Then at some point in our lives we reached out to the God of love we now know so well and received from Him that grace he has freely given.   And a love like no other is born.  God’s love for us is given, not earned because we can do nothing on our own to earn God’s love.  Unconditional love that sustains us and lifts us, keeps us going and never leaves us.  When it comes down to it, love is what it is all about.  And nobody in the Bible, except Jesus himself, had that figured out better than the disciple, John. 

 Many times people, especially young kids will ask me where should I start when I begin reading the Bible.  I always tell them John and never really understood why until the message given this past week.  The book of John, like all the Gospels of the Bible, tells the life events of Jesus here on earth; with some variations of course, but the most distinct difference is John tells about whom Jesus was, not just what he did.  John shows us through his eyes the love Jesus has for us.  John called himself, “The disciple Jesus loved.”  What an amazing testament of John’s faith.  He knew Jesus’ heart so deeply that he referred to himself with such a bold and beautiful title.  How many of us have that confidence in the Savior’s love for us?  If people cannot even have the boldness to pick up the grace God leaves at the Alter for us and trade in the garbage we carry around, how can we be a people bold enough to claim the title of the disciple Jesus loves??!!

 We are all guilty at some point in our Christian lives of carrying around our sins and short-comings with shame until the burden has pulled us so far down from the love of God we no longer feel “Christ-worthy.”  That is where mercy and grace are vital to receive the love God has for us.  You must first receive the grace God has for you, letting go of that which he wants to take from you, to truly feel His unconditional LOVE.  Just pray this simple prayer and your burdens will be lifted, giving you the freedom to accept and feel God’s love.

            "Lord Jesus, I believe you are the Son of God. Thank you for dying on the cross for my sins. Please forgive my sins and give me the gift of eternal life. I ask you in to my life and heart to be my Lord and Savior. I want to serve you always."

Be bold; claim the title you are deserving of, The Disciple Jesus LOVES!!

Called by Christ,

Amanda