Power in the Blood

September 2, 2017

Power in the Blood

Hebrews 13:20-21

“May God, who puts all things together, make all things whole,

Who made a lasting mark through the sacrifice of Jesus,

The sacrifice of blood that sealed the eternal covenant

Who led Jesus, our Great Shepherd, up and alive from the dead,

Now put you together, provide you with everything you need to please him.

Make us into what gives him pleasure,

By means of the sacrifice of Jesus, the Messiah.

All glory to Jesus forever and always!

Oh, yes, yes, yes!”

Just one week after Hurricane Harvey hit Texas many organizations are looking for ways to help out. Just prior to the storm I was contacted by my local blood center saying that it was time to give blood again since it has been about 8 weeks since I gave last. They are always looking to take my blood, not just because they are a blood center but because I have a rare blood type that can be used in multiple applications.

Per my conversation with those at the blood center they told me that they would be giving me a tee shirt for giving blood. I don’t really pay much attention to what they give away as they have given me cooler bags and blankets before, but this particular shirt peaked my interest once they gave it to me.  As I read it, it took me back to an old hymn that I probably haven’t heard in decades, but remember my mom singing when I was a little boy. This is what the shirt read….

                “The Power to Heal is in My Blood.”

As I sat there with my blood flowing into a bag, pondering this saying, I could not help but think about that hymn my mother used to sing many years ago…

                “There is power, power wonder working power, in the blood of the Lamb.

                There is power, power wonder working power in the precious blood of the Lamb!”

It is easy to forget the calling and power of those things we do, but more importantly the things that God is doing through us and the importance of giving that to others.

As I happened to take all of this in I needed to ask the question “What is the true purpose of blood?” Now I know you cannot live without blood, but why?  What is so important about it? So I looked it up and found out why blood is so important to bringing life to our very being.

There are 3 main purposes of blood-

-          Blood allows for oxygen and nutrients to be carried throughout the body. Without the appropriate levels of oxygen or nutrients our bodies would start dying off.

-          Fascinating enough our body produces platelets, which are found in our blood, for the purpose of carrying off waste and bad cells that are throughout our bodies. It is a natural homeopathic remedy to heal our bodies.

-          The third purpose of blood is to create homeostasis. This means to bring life to our organs allowing them to function together in the environment and purpose they were created to function.

As I thought about this a little further my mind raced about many different things:

-          The importance of sacrifice in the Jewish faith and why the Passover was so important.

-          Just how important the sacrifice of Christ’s death was on the cross and His resurrection.

-          And how we can be like blood to those in our surroundings.

First let me expound on the Jewish faith of Passover. The very last plague God instituted against Egypt was the death of the firstborn. You see the first born was the lifeline to both the heritage and future of a family. Without the firstborn son the family would die off.

In order for the families of Israel to be protected they needed to kill a lamb and paint the entrance of their homes with the blood. Back  in those days blood too was consider very holy and depending upon the animal the blood was even more sacred than others simply because it meant life. In Exodus 12 though, scripture talks about the significance of taking the blood and putting it on the door frame for their protection.

Many may not understand the significance and symbolism of the door. Doors where the entrance to a given building but the frame was (and still is) comprised by three separate elements; two door jambs (one on either side) and a lintel or header which is used to protect the weight that is over your head. You see the header is there to give way to the path but the jamb is there to transmit the weight coming down on the header to the foundation so the opening is made without being crushed. Exodus 12 clearly talks both about the header and the 2-jambs or door posts being covered by the blood, we cannot understand the significance of the blood used for their protection. God spoken those very three components to show the Israelites that He was going to be their full protection; above them and beside them and as long as they move in obedience the blood would give them life, protection and direction.

Unless you understand this concept you cannot fully understand the second concept about Christ’s crucifixion and resurrection. Although the church ties the two stories from the Old and New Testaments together very few may pick up on even the symbolism there. First you have a crown which was placed on his head causing blood to flow from above. Secondly you have two posts from the cross which one held his arms as the other held his body. Both posts were covered with His blood due to the severe beating He obtained. It is through the cross (the door) where He shed His blood that we have been redeemed and protected from the weight of sin and death.

All of this brings me to my final point of being like blood to those in our surroundings. It is through the blood that life, healing and oxygen are found. Likewise it was through the sacrifice that Christ did on the cross that we find life (through salvation), healing through His sacrifice (Isaiah 53:5-6) and our breath where He has made us whole.

As I pondered about this I remembered what Christ said before His ascension to His disciples….

-            “Believe me: I am in my Father and my Father is in me. If you can’t believe that, believe what you see- these works. The person who trusts me will not only do what I’m doing but even greater things, because I, on  my way to the Father, am giving you the same work to do that I’ve been doing. You can count on it. From now on, whatever you request along the lines of who I am and what I am doing, I’ll do it. That’s how the Father will be seen for who is in the Son. I mean it. Whatever you request in this way, I’ll do. (John 14:12-14)

So if you align this with the power of the blood and our mission we need to realize that we are like blood. We are called to breathe life into people and their situations. We are called to bring healing in sickness and in brokenness. We are called to flow out of the abundance of our faith so we can grow and bring growth as God created us to be. When we do this through Christ and move in obedience, having the lintel over our heads painted with the blood of Christ to protect our minds and our ears and the posts (our right and our left) to guard our heart and those who stand by our side. We can then find ourselves in the center of what God designed us to be. We are called to bring life!

CAL

GPS.....Understanding the Importance of Men and Women

GPS.....Understanding the Importance of Men and Women

Proverbs 27:17

'You use steel to sharpen steel, and one friend sharpens another.'

I was asked the following question today...

'I know we are to get our validation from God, but do you believe that is the job of others as well?'

What an interesting and easily misunderstood question one can derive. At first glance one may think yes, especially with the verse I shared above. Before one can answer this question in full they must understand the roles of men and women and just how important they are for their individual purpose especially when it comes to being in a relationship.

One of my favorite shows on TV just happens to be 'The Amazing Race.' It is not my favorite show because of the places they go or the challenges they have. No it is for a much different reason; the social experiment. This past season the show took a slightly different direction pairing up perfect strangers together to see how they would relate with each other. When you watch the show you find that there is one major issue of conflict which happens to be the conflict of destination verses direction. Usually this can be diminished when you know some as you know their quirks and how they tick, but just like this past season not knowing each other lead to drama on a supersized level. One thing I have noticed is that the guys are the ones driving as the women typically navigate in the show.

Marriage and relationships are very much like "The Amazing Race." It may seem like relationships are just some twisted joke simply because we do not understand the roles God has created us for.

Let me talk to the guys for a minute. Guys you wife or girlfriend is the most important person to get you to where God is leading you. Many men make the mistake of misinterpreting the verse in Genesis that talks about making a 'help mate' or 'helper' for him, but what if this has a different context to it than many assume? What if she was your spiritual GPS (Gals Petitioning in the Spirit)? Yes that's right a spiritual barometer. What if she was made and given to you in order to help you finish the 'amazing race' and see where God is leading?

Ladies don't think you are off the hook though just because I brought them up first. Women must understand that men are also made for women as a helper for them as well. Men are the visionary.

Let me explain this a little. Throughout my travels I have stayed at many hotels. One thing I noticed is that in the lobby of many hotels they have an area of the things you must see, explore and experience. Men are those brochures at the counter of the hotels that hold excitement and adventure but it requires a GPS to get to the adventure ahead. Being in an unknown town it is very important to have a guide of GPS to get to the destination where the vision starts.

Imagine though if you were going to go some place and you didn't update the software on your GPS or IPhone. You will not be able to avoid closed roads, construction, traffic learn short cuts. If you have a GPS but no vision you will go nowhere. Likewise if you set out on a journey having vision but have no GPS you can get easily lost or diverted from your destination.

Men, your job is to bring direction and vision to where God is leading, but having a good Gal Petitioning in the Spirit you certainly can't go wrong. Women, on the other hand having someone with Godly vision is going to take you on an epic journey if your man is plugged in with God.

God made men with the purpose of bringing the wisdom of God as women were made to bring the heart of God into the situation. If men think their wisdom is far more important than listening to the GPS, they will find getting to God's destination will take longer than expected. Likewise if women do not trust the wisdom, with balance, they will tend to play things safe and miss out on what God has epic to show them.

God is both heart and wisdom and when we can understand that we can walk next to each other as a partner in an epic journey God has blazed for them together. This requires one very specific element that enhances the characteristics each have as God instituted in them to get to the end of the race. It is found in that relationship with Christ through the word. It is like the update for our iPhone or the brochure found at the hotel to encourage a new adventure. When we do not tap into that we ended up living off our past experiences and old software that can mislead us in the direction God is leading.

Guys it is your job to bring the vision to your family, marriage and relationships, but that also requires you to listen to the heart of your wife as God may be downloading the information to her to avoid traffic, detours and danger. Ladies it is your position to listen to the your husband to find the vision so you can experience where God is leading.

God has made us not to lead, follow or be subservient to the other. No His purpose is to allow you to sit next to each other navigating and bringing direction to see what God is about to reveal. God brings people into our lives NOT to find validation in each other rather to keep our eyes focused on what God has scribed on our hearts and to take us to the next level.

Jeremiah said it right...

"For I know the plans I have for you said the Lord. Plans not to bring you harm, rather a hope and a future." - Jeremiah 29:11

Live out your calling and see where God leads as it is epic!

CAL

Finding Beauty

July 28, 2017

Finding Beauty

James 1:22-24

22 Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourself. Do what it says. Anyone who listens to the word but does not but does not do what it says is like someone who looks at their face in the mirror and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like.

I recently shared a post called ‘From Victim to Valued.’ I guess you can see this as a continuation from that post, but the next step in that journey.

I know the choice of verse may be unconventional at first glance, but I think anyone reading this will catch on rather quickly to what I am about to share. As I was preparing for my day I was listening to a new song from Planetshakers called “You Call Me Beautiful.” It is typically one of those songs I would bi-pass simply because it is a little slower, but honestly it was the inspiration of this post and why I chose the verse I did.

In the movie ‘The Help,’ (one of my favorite movies) one of the most enduring and important lines happens to be made by Kathryn Stockett to the little girl she cares for. She says “You is smart, You is kind, You is important.” Let that sink in a bit.

The truth is each of us; man, woman and child desire to hear that we are valued and beautiful. So often we lose that value due to a trauma, death or rejection, but we desire to hear “You are valued, you are beautiful.” It is in our brokenness though we replay those negative words that have hurt us like the rewinding of a movie. We desire to cut the film and splice it back together.

It reminds me of the days of the cassette tape. Anyone who had a cassette player would tell you that there were times that the player would suck up the cassette and tangle it. I remember many times taking them apart and fixing them. The problem was if a tape was chewed up the tape would wrinkle and garble while other times they would break. It was easy to fix as you could cut out the bad and the magic of Scotch Tape could put them back together. There was one problem though. Fixing the tape and splicing it back together you would get a skip or dead space. Something was missing.

Our brokenness is much the same as the cassette tape. We find parts of our lives chewed up and maybe even broken and try to fix it with the Scotch Tape of life; things, people, friends, relationships or even addictions. We go on knowing the brokenness and even realize that something is missing desiring for that remastering of what once was or what is desired. We don’t realize that there was a CD that was made and in that CD it is absent of the ‘gap.’

Wow, I did not think that this journal would even hit home with me as it does!

The reality is life is no different than the mirror James talks about. We hear the word but forget the word. We look in the mirror and forget how God made us always looking for validation in our brokenness. We look to another to hear “You is smart, You is kind, You is important,” but forget what God has said about you…..

“God spoke: ‘Let us make human beings in our image, make them reflecting our nature… God created human beings; He created them godlike, reflecting God’s nature. He created them male and female… He looked over everything He had made; it was so good, so very good!” – Genesis 1:26, 27, 31

But you know that is not all He has said….

“I’ll show up and take care of you as I promised and bring you back home. I know what I am doing. I have it all planned out- plans to take care of you, not to abandon you, rather to give you the future you hope for.” – Jeremiah 29:11

“He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart, yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end.” – Ecclesiastes 3:11

“She is more precious that rubies; nothing you desire can compare to her. Long life is in her right hand; in her left hand are riches and honor. Her ways are pleasant ways, and her paths are peace. She is a tree of life to those who take hold of her; those who hold her fast will be blessed.

So as you look back at the verse in James

- Anyone who listens to the word but does not but does not do what it says…

Are you hearing the words God has said about you but forgetting as a result of the crushing words of others? Are you looking in the mirror one minute than forgetting what you look like and who you are simply because of a tragedy or busyness of life? Understand this; God sees you because He is that mirror you are looking into. He has not forgotten your image. He did not declare His promise over you with empty words. He called you ‘GOOD.’ He told you He would not ‘ABANDON’ you and made you with ‘PROMISE.’ He is wanting to reveal your’BEAUTY’ in the right time. He called you “PRECIOUS.’

God has remastered your cassette to reveal your value.

He has looked you in the face and said ‘You is smart, You is kind, You is important.’

He is looking to reveal your Beauty!

CAL

From Victim to Valued

July 21, 2017

From Victim to Valued

Psalm 119:30-32 (MSG)

²⁵ I’m feeling terrible- I couldn’t feel worse!

Get me on my feet again. You promised, remember?

When I told my story, you responded; train me well in your deep wisdom.

Help me understand these things inside and out so I can ponder your miracle-wonders.

My sad life’s dilapidated, a falling-down barn; build me up again by your Word.

Barricade the road that goes Nowhere; grace me with your clear revelation.

I choose the true road to Somewhere, I post your road signs at every curve and corner.

I grasp and cling to whatever you tell me; God don’t let me down!

I’ll run the course you lay out for me if you’ll just show me how.

I have been stewing over this journal for a couple weeks now and just haven’t had the time to put things together as I needed to. Once I read this verse I felt I needed to stop what I was doing and take the time to write this. Being in the construction field I have always looked for ways to take something old and repurpose it into something new. It may be a revitalized piece of furniture, or maybe some barn wood or old beams to make some new rustic exposed beams in a family room. God has called us for our value and not so we can seem like a victim or an old barn of yesteryear ready to fall down. He is looking to take those things in our lives that have been broken down and repurpose them into something new enhancing the history and memories of what once was into what something can be.

Anyone that knows me would know a couple things about me; I love old things especially cars and houses. It is not because of what it is, rather of what it once was and what it could be. It is about the value.

When I was in high school I had worked hard and bought a sports car, but not any sports car. I bought a 1988 Fiero GT coupe. The car was a beauty and fast. Due to being in college I decided to sell the car and surprisingly I got the same money out of it as what I bought it for. Now 25 years later I wish I had that car again, but finding the same car would cost me almost ten times what I sold it for.

Over the years I have searched for another car like this, or a 1965 Corvette, but I understand one thing; value has a cost and value takes vision.

This past weekend I was at a conference for a mentoring program and something struck me as one of the speakers spoke. We had been talking about what social things can hold people back from being their greatest.  As I sat there taking in everything I came to the realization that there is one critical thing that separates one from failure to success. That thing is deciding to be a victim or being valued.

As I reflected on this simple factor I thought about many different aspects of life where this reigns true. I thought about the boys in our mentoring group that come from a single parent home and maybe living in a shelter, but when I these 13-16 boys I don’t see them as being less, rather finding their abilities and encouraging them to grow into what God made them to be.

This past Tuesday I went with one of the other leaders as he had organized and made the connections with an auto dealership to create a summer internship for these kids to give them opportunities that very few kids may have the ability to obtain for various reasons. Understand that this leader did not just find connections with just any dealership, rather he connected these kids with the dealership that is invested in NASCAR and has produced drivers like Jimmy Johnson. As I watched what he did for these kids and what this dealership is doing for the community, I was speechless.

I have taken this just one step further though and had to look at the idea of victim to value in more than material things and community work and look at it in the scope of relationships and family. Currently more than 52% of all marriages in the US end in divorce, including in the church. Much of this has to do with a lack of value in relationships where to one or both partners do not feel valued by the other, which then trickles down to the children and becomes a generational problem. As a result it is likely to lead to dissatisfaction, infidelity, divorce and even victimhood, where some never grow out of or find their value once again.

Imaging for a moment if you were like that child that was being mentored and was given the opportunity to thrive like what my friend Tim and the dealership had given into your relationships. Would you still live as a victim or would you graduate to being valued in order to see what God has on the horizon for you?

In the book of Exodus there is a story about Moses leading the Children of Israel into battle against the Canaanites. The battle they were fighting was long and hard and Moses realized that when his arms were up they were winning, but when his arms fell the Israelites were losing. When Aaron and Hur recognized what was going on they each grabbed one of Moses’ arms to hold them up and they became victorious.

Without someone being willing to come by our side and hold our arms up, we may never recognize the victories God has before us. Sometimes it seems far easier to throw in the towel and give reason for our failures rather than pick ourselves back up and see the value God has made us for. Just like the classic cars I mentioned we need to understand the true value of something whether it is a relationship or a tangible item and that it requires a lot of work and investment in order to maintain the value. Some look at things for its net worth, but I look at things for its glory of what once was and its potential of what is to come.

Each of us has a history and in that history we have had tragedy. It is in that tragedy though that we come to a crossroad of either being a victim or being valued. Just like in that verse above we can be the old barn falling apart and look for someone else to give us value only to find ourselves even more run down than before. The psalmist says one thing so very important though: "build me up again by your Word."

How are things going for you to be built up? Are you allowing the Word to build you up or are you that old barn ready to fall over with the right storm?

Remember this as you go about your day. Understand what a 'barn find' is and apply it to your life as well as the lives of others as you go about your day. Allow God to pull off that cover that has been hiding your value of yesterday and allow Him to restore your glory to what will be. More importantly though, ask God to give you His vision that you may see others as the ultimate 'barn find' so you can see God reveal their epic value as He created them to be. Think and pray today for that person you can build into God's glory.It may be your spouse, a child, a family member or even an ex, but allow God to show you that value in others. You may be surprised as it may be you that God will lead someone into your life in hard times to restore you and bring new opportunities to!

July 1, 2017

The Joseph Journey

Hebrews 11:22 (MSG)
2 By an act of faith, Joseph, while dying, prophesied the exodus of Israel, and made arrangements for his own burial.

Each of us has a journey. Some journeys may be like Daniel in the lion’s den, others like Paul with a radical revealing and yet others like the Apostles Peter or John where you are gun hoe to sign up for God’s calling and find it wasn’t exactly what you thought it would be like.

Throughout my journey many people have thought my journey was much like Job where everything was taken away and suffered health and financial issues, had friends turn their backs on you and even had some people try to convince you that God’s promises may be misunderstood and that you should just give up and move on. Maybe you feel the same way, but the truth is throughout the journey, although the facts of what I have experience over mostly the past 10 years resembles Job, God has shown me that my journey resembles more of Joseph.

Just like Joseph, God has revealed many dreams, visions and promises to me. Some of those things consisted of my ex-wife’s past before I even met her, promises of my children before they were even born, things that have yet to have taken place and other things that have dual meanings to them. In the process of sharing some of these dreams I have been attacked, ignored and persecuted or scrutinized for what promises God has in store.

Here is just one promise and dream I had to give you an example of what I mean.

In July of 2004 my family and I moved to a town just outside of Daytona Beach, Florida. We had a beautiful house on the 16th green of a golf course, but moved to an area where we did not know anyone and were unfamiliar with the area. About 3 weeks of being there we heard that there was a hurricane scheduled to hit the area. Central Florida had not had a hurricane hit the area in over 100 years and what was to come had never happened in Central Florida.

About a few days before the storm hit I could not sleep. My kids were freaked out as they thought the ‘Hamburger King’ was coming to rain down on us. In my restlessness I sat out in the Living Room where I passed out at 3 AM in the recliner and saw three tornadoes bouncing around on the golf course trying to get into our yard and subdivision. They were dancing around like a pinball game but could not come in due to what looked like an invisible dome that covered our house and the houses of our neighbors.
When the storm hit it took out our power for about 4 days and even longer for our neighbors. The sound was like a freight train blowing through for several hours. Our kids camped out in the closet that night when Hurricane Charlie blew through as my wife and I did not sleep much. When I got up in the morning, to my surprise I saw that not a single house in the subdivision had damage to it but the entrances from all four sides were blocked by either flooding or downed trees that we all worked together to clear.  As I looked on the golf course from both my yard and the yards of other neighbors we saw downed trees that had fallen onto the golf course and not on our yards.  Later that day we found out that a tornado had torn through the town, came down the golf course and jumped over our subdivision to another area before dissipating.

At the time I did not think that much about it until the hurricane season ended that year. It turned out that season we were hit with three separate hurricanes bringing different effects to the area but preserving our home.

The strange thing was when we lost our house in 2008 we did more preparation then we did four years prior. Even with the preparation it was not enough to save our house from being damaged by Tropical Storm Fey. At the time it was extremely frustrating to deal with as my business took a major hit just prior to the storm due to the down turn of the market. We ended up going through bankruptcy and the only thing we still had was our family and our house, but even both of those things were to come to an end within a year.

In the midst of the trial I can say that I still saw God’s hand in the process. The Red Cross moved in to help the residents of the area with supplies even before the insurance companies or FEMA made their way out to the area. Just that simple gesture of help from the Red Cross showed that God shows up in the midst of a hellish situation.

When I faced my divorce it was a whole different story of God showing up. Just like Joseph I have found myself in a hole (financially, mentally and health) in a metaphoric way. I have found myself being sold out, lied about, and imprisoned (again in a metaphorically). When I have been imprisoned I have called out asking to not be forgotten and still having dreams, yet in my anger and frustration watching God reveal more of His grace and things yet to come.  In the struggle I have seen God’s blessings and in those drought times I have experienced His provision.

Since God has revealed my Joseph Journey a few years ago I cannot help but think about all of the emotions Joseph himself had to have experienced. I am sure he dealt with anger, betrayal, hurt, loneliness, joy, sorrow, promise and blessing. The crazy thing is throughout his years of the highs and lows, plight and blessing he secretly held onto two promises God revealed in the process. The first was God would restore his family. He didn’t know what that looked like but in the process of expectation he kept moving forward on where God was calling him at the time. When it did happen, he was overwhelmed with emotion yet again and wanted to test his siblings to see if they had gone on a journey of transformation like he did and have a change of heart. He knew that it was not good enough to just pick up where they left off many years prior, rather he wanted to see that God had moved in a mighty way to bring repentance and healing in order to bring a better understanding and bond for the future of their relationship.

The second thing he held fast to was God delivering him from the past of the place where his plight took place. At the beginning of this journal I shared a verse about the promise of Joseph’s body being taken out of Egypt and reburied in the Promise Land. Too often we ask God in our journey to deliver us out of our hard times or otherwise known as ‘Our Egypt,’ but we easily forget about it when we experience our blessing or reconciliation.

In the movie “The Shack,” Mack has an encounter with God the Father, Son & Holy Spirit. As a result of being consumed by the injustice of the murder of his daughter he plans to leave the presence of God, but before he does Seri (the one who represents the Holy Spirit) tells him the direction to get out but asks him for some help in the garden. She gives him a hoe and takes a sickle to cut down some overgrowth. As they are working and talking she asks him what his thoughts are of the garden. He says ‘It is beautiful but wild.’ She agrees but a short time later they come onto a poisonous root that she tells him that the poison will kill him if he touches it but mixed with the nectar of a given flower it has supernatural healing powers. She continues on to reveal to him that the garden they are in is his soul.

You see it is very easy to get lost in the process of the journey and be consumed by the injustice along the way. If we allow the overgrowth it can bring up the poison, but if we take the promise and mix it with the pain we can come up with the supernatural healing meant for others in order to bring reconciliation.

When I have reflected on this promise and journey of Joseph, I cannot help but understand that maybe the process took so long simply because God needed to remove the feelings of injustice and anger and judgment from the heart of Joseph. It is easy to see the story of Joseph and the promises that took place but it is a different thing when you are the one living the process out day in and day out, year after year.

In the past 8 to 10 years I can say that my emotions have been all over the board, but one thing remains the same; keeping my eyes on God’s promises. The two prayers I have been asking God repeatedly have been for reconciliation of my family and the deliverance out of my Egypt.  I don’t know when either will happen, but I do trust God enough to know that His word remains true.

Maybe you are struggling with something that you would consider your Joseph Journey. It could be your health or maybe financial or relational issues, and you feel stuck and seeing no resolve. Take a look at the injustice, seek the promise and try to find a way the take something that is toxic and turn it into a blessing for others and see what God is going to do. It may be that God is preparing you for something epic before He restores that which was lost!

CAL

How is Your Soil?

May 27, 2017

How is Your Soil?

Exodus 3:17

"So I said, I will bring you out of the affliction of Egypt to the land of the Canaanite and the Hittite and the Amorite and the Perissite and the Hivite and the Jebusite, to a land flowing with milk and honey."

One thing most people do not know about me is my love for growing things. Since I was young I enjoyed growing a garden, planting the landscape and even trying to make sure things grow. As of the past several years though, it seems as if nothing has been growing or at least has been yielding fruit for the harvest.

As I was listening to a sermon tonight a thought hit me with the pastor’s message. He was talking about when you are a citizen of a given country you are a reflection of the culture of your country and when you go to another country and find an embassy representing that country it stands out as a representation of that given country, it’s culture and background and if you are away from your place of residence you can step into that embassy and have a sense of familiarity. He continued to talk about how the church is to be like and embassy and more importantly we as believers need to be like an embassy whereto when someone steps into our lives our home that they see that reflection of heaven in our lives.

So you may wonder, ‘How does an embassy relate to farming or growing things to yield a harvest?’ Plants need the right conditions in order to thrive. If the plant is accustom to a continued resource of water the roots will not grow in a fashion to where they go deep and strong and if it is moved from this common environment to a more dry soil the plant will die. With that said farmers and growers have learned that if you make the conditions more varied with the watering, nutrients and  soil and weather conditions you can expand the places where given things can grow, flourish and produce a harvest.

Thinking about this I could not help but think about a promise God gave Abraham and later repeated in a little more detail to Moses years later. God said “I am going to give you a land flowing with milk and honey.” Over the past 4,000 years or so this same land that was promised to the Children of Israel had found itself a barren desert. Most of us do not understand it as what is today is a far cry from what the land was even just 75 years ago.  There is documentation throughout history that the very land that Israel is on was a barren waste land several times as well as a land of blessing and flourishing. It was documented in Ezekiel as a land that was abandon. Daniel talks about it as a land war torn and deserted. Jeremiah (which many love to quote Jeremiah 29:11) talks about the land as a land wiped out and even historians talk about the area just within the past 100 years as a desert. The interesting thing is in every single case God’s promise never changed. He said it would be a land flowing with milk and honey and on several occasions it was and something happened to create a dry and barren land.

So why did the land of promise turn to a desert waste land and what brought it back from the dead? Let me take you back to World War II and the time just before, which will shed light on the same things that happened in prior generations. Prior to World  War II the Gaza, West Bank and areas up to Bethlehem were more like our abandon towns in the wild west or forgotten cities on old Route 66 in the Mid West with rundown buildings, broken down walls, land that hadn’t had anything grown on in years and a dwindling population due to the lack of work, wealth or promise so it just became an abandon land. As a result of Hitler many Jews fled to this land to escape the atrocities of Hitler and his henchmen. The only people living there at the time were some Arab nomads. It was thought that the refugees and the nomads could coexist, but the nomads did not want the limited resources wasted on them and would have preferred them to die instead. Long story short the Jews that fled to the land derived ways to bringing the ground to grow things again and become self sustained. When this happened it created the Arabs in the land to become jealous of the wealth and harvest where they wanted to drive out the Jews. In 1948 the UN established a country called Israel where the Jews and Arabs would live together, but it has resulted in much strife and blessings of the land they inhabited.

God calls us to be planted into regions where it seems like all hope is lost and a land that looks desolate. This may be a physical wasteland, but more importantly it is a spiritual waste land. Maybe it is our calling where God calls us into our physical struggles to grow stronger roots to prepare us for our transplant. Too often it is easy to question why God doesn’t allow for us to be planted near continued blessing but rather some type of hardship (health, finances, family, loneliness, trauma or any other thing) only to plant us around other people who are struggling with the same things that God has brought us through.

In order to have a harvest you must be able to cross pollinate. Very few plants can produce a harvest through self pollination. In order to get tomatoes one must plant a healthy tomato plant around others. It is by this simple reason why God allows us to struggle in a situation so we can cross pollinate others who are like us with our same experiences so we bring forth a harvest. It is never that the harvest comes alone rather with the help, strength and likeness of others. Unless we take account of our soil and realize it is God who has created our very sustenance to be healthy in order to bring a harvest in others. Additionally it should be our goal to be an embassy where others similar can find refuge and hope so that eventually they too can be transplanted to bring a harvest to another. It is in that safe haven of familiarity we bring the most important thing to others; HOPE. It is in that hope though we bring can make what was once a desolate and abandon land into a land flowing with milk and honey.

Jeremiah 29:11

“For I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans to prosper you and not for harm, plans to give you a hope and a future.”

Jeremiah penned these words while he was in jail and the land was barren and the Children of Israel were in captivity and without hope. If Jeremiah could stand firm in adversity, where do you stand with how things look in your life today? In other words what is the condition of your soil?

CAL

Mission Impossible

May 5, 2017

Mission Impossible

2 Corinthians 3:18 New American Standard Bible (NASB)

¹⁸ But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit.

When I was growing up one of my favorite TV shows happened to be “Mission Impossible” with the late great Peter Graves. With each episode Jim would be greeted by someone with a riddle then go into a room somewhere to get a briefing of his mission on a recorded portable dvd player. At the end of the briefing the voice on the recording would say:

“Your mission, should you choose to accept it Jim…this message will self destruct in 5 seconds.”

As I was thinking about this devotional and how it relates to the journeys we have in life, I thought about just how much life can be so much like entertainment and the things we watch. We come to a crossroad, like Jim did in ‘Mission Impossible,’ where God shows us that we have a mission and it certainly will be very challenging. Now we can be like the action hero and team like in “Mission Impossible” or we could be like Steve Martin in “Planes, Trains & Automobiles” where everything goes wrong and we cannot get a break and we feel the guy we are teamed up with is the devil as everything goes disarray.

As I have been reflecting on my mission and the road I have found myself on I can honestly say that there have been times that I have been Peter Graves and looking for the adventure knowing the road is hard but the promise is great and rewarding. There have also been times where I have found myself like Steve Martin and asking what else could go wrong or saying ‘it can’t get any worse’ only to realize that it certainly can.

In bible study the other day, one of the ladies who was leading, gave a great illustration of just how life is and what God does as a result. She gave us each a rubber band of which we talked about its characteristics of. You see, a rubber band was made for a purpose and in its purpose if was made to be stretched. Often times though we think that if God stretches us any more than we already are we will break. But what happens to a rubber band that has been left in a drawer for an extended period of time and never stretched or has been stretched and left there yet never is given the opportunity to recoil? It finds itself not being able to be useful and eventually break due to its continued state of being when stretched.

So often, I am sure you can relate, I find myself wanting to be used by God but not wanting stretched. I know when I am stretched there is much pain, pressure and tension, but there is also something else: PURPOSE. It is when we are stretched and sign up for that mission that seems impossible we can look back and see where God brought us, how we have effected others along the way and how much deeper into relationship with God we can go.

2 Corinthians 3:18 talks about the journey and mentions that the journey is to be in relationship with God and trust Him through the process. It continues to talk about the journey making us transformed into His image as He takes us from glory to glory, but I feel that may be misunderstood. Some may think that from ‘glory to glory’ means that everything is good, but what if it had a slightly different meaning to it? Imagine if it actually said something like this:

“God is transforming us into His image in His glory from trial to trial.”

Not always is the journey on the surface glorious, rather it is in those stretching times in the journey that God carries us from glory to glory so we are encouraged and do not lose hope in His transforming work.

As I was wrapping my mind around this concept I came across a remake of a song last night called “Nothing is Impossible.” What I didn’t hear before in this song was an additional verse that says:

“Speak to every limitation

Victory is my Declaration

Same Power that Raised You From the Grave

Is in me so I will give You Praise”

So what sets you apart on your mission that seems impossible and allows you to go from glory to glory? It is realizing the power God has given you, the promises He set before you and that passion to endure. Jim knew the power and promise ahead because he was focused on the destination unlike Steve Martin’s character who was also thinking about his destination but allowed himself to be overwhelmed by the adversity rather than the journey.

What does your journey look like? Are you focused on the promise or the problems? Do you remember where God brought you from or do you allow the fear of the task ahead to consume you to where you would want to return to Egypt?

God is burned a purpose in you and as a result is transforming you through His glory. Take a few minutes to look where God has brought you if you think the mountain is far too big to get beyond. Remember after night comes morning and after pain comes promise.

KEEP MOVING FORWARD!

CAL