Category: Jesus

Taking The Lord’s Name In Vain

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Exodus 20:7 “You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes His name in vain.

So the people of God try to follow this mandate by not saying phrases like ‘Oh my God’. Only we need to really look at what this commandment means because it encompasses so much more than that. Attaching God’s name to our opinion is what it means to take the name of the Lord in vain. When we attach his name to a statement we had better be sure we understand his point of view before giving his endorsement.

What we do know is that he has told us not to take his name in vain. In other words we are not to take his name and attach it to our own agendas. We can’t assume to know the mind of God. We have clear direction, as we know what his word says since it’s written in the bible, but we can’t afford to second guess God as the commandment is clear that he will not hold us guiltless.

My kids love to say things to other parents like, “I’m sure my parents wouldn’t have a problem with it.” They say this in instances where they want to do something but they don’t want to check in because they aren’t completely sure we’re really okay with it. So while they say they are sure, we are not always okay with it. We tell them all the time, they need to check with us first before they agree to something in our name. This is what this commandment is saying. God is saying that we are not to add His name to things that are not of Him. Do not add His name to things you think are of Him.

How do we take the Lord’s name in vain? By professing Christianity and not living the lifestyle it takes to profess it. Matthew Henry’s Commentary says it like this:

Those that name the name of Christ, but do not depart from iniquity, as that name binds them to do, name it in vain; their worship is vain (Mt. 15:7-9), their oblations (the act of offering something) are vain (Isa. 1:11, 13), their religion is vain, Jam. 1:26.

Some of the other ways we take the Lord’s name in vain is by vows (I swear to God) that we don’t keep. Or when we lie under oath (So help me God).

Matthew Henry continues that God is jealous for his honor. Of course he would be. We all hate when people put our names on things we don’t approve of. This is why we have to be careful about what we say God is for and what he is against. Human reasoning doesn’t apply to God. In all things there is the heart factor and that is what God judges.

When Christ hung on the cross he said, “Father forgive them for they know not what they do.” In other words there is grace when we don’t know any better. Does this mean that this grace excuses followers of Christ? Well, when we are ignorant of a precept, maybe for a season, but our responsibility as followers of Christ is to get ourselves straightened out in things of God so I believe that after a while there is a time when we begin to take not only the name of God in vain but the grace of God in vain as well.

Get A Bigger Bully

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When the bully at school took your lunch money what did you do? Some people had an older sibling they’d go to or they had a friend who had a older sibling. They would go to that older sibling and tell them their problem and the older, bigger sibling would go up to that bully and push back, and often the bully left them alone. Your solution to the bully problem was going and getting a bigger bully. I always envied the kids who had older siblings!

Well what’s changed from those days? Honestly, think about it, you have a bully that picks on

YOU all the time!

His name is Satan and he comes and tries to take your lunch money most days. Only now the situation looks helpless! Calling our older sibling seems silly as what can they really do to help us in these adult situations? So Satan keeps on picking on you and he dares you to call on your friends for backup because he thinks he can take them too.

Only you have the key in your pocket! Maybe you haven’t thought about it but the way you handled it as a kid works!

Jesus is your elder brother.

All you need to do is go tell your older brother that the bully down the street is picking on you. The same way you used to combat the natural bully is how you combat the spiritual bully. Call Jesus into the fight, he belongs to a whole kingdom that has an army on the ready to fight your battles. And let me just tell you a secret,

Satan is scared of Jesus.

So the next time you find yourself being bullied, don’t cry, don’t lose sleep, don’t worry or stress, and certainly don’t give up your lunch money!  Just go get a bigger bully!

The Christian Dress Code

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The Christian dress code is the controversy that keeps on going. What do you wear to church?

It seems to be one of the controversies where we make judgment calls on others based on their outfits. I have to admit I am conflicted and (maybe?) outdated on my thoughts here. On the one hand, I LOVE the idea of “Sunday Best” and I dress for church. The question becomes what is best for me on Sunday may not be so for you. On the other hand, I hate the fashion police mentality. Jeans on the platform, no jeans on the platform is one question. Most Christians have rules on this.

Do jeans make me sing better or worse?

Do jeans say something about me?

What is it that it says about me?

Does it say I have such a great relationship with Jesus that we no longer pretend that I am not a jean’s kind of girl and wear a pair most days?

What length of skirt pleases God? Does one below the knee make him happy or does he like my bony knees? Boots, do they offend him or is He more concerned with my open toed shoes because they show my red polish?

And if God only judges my heart does he care what is on the outside or is what on the outside determine what is on the inside?

So many questions and I have more! Could it be that God wants me in church regardless of what I wear? Does God really hate for me to show my shoulders or do you hate for me to show them? Is he really offended by flip-flops or are you? Did he create me with a certain style or did I pick one up?  Do I need to change for him or for you? Would it bother you to wear a suit if I didn’t? Would it bother you if I wore a dress and you preferred pants? Why does it bother you?

Why does it bother me that it bothers you?

And while we are here, who appointed either of us spokesperson? I have a confession, I hate when people wear pajama bottoms or slippers to Sunday service. I don’t care if they wear them to bible study.

What would Jesus do? Would he be thrilled that I chose to be with a group of followers who want to access the power of unity in prayer or would he be appalled at my clothing? Would he tell me to get over myself and love people and quit caring what they wear or would he ask me to gently guide them to more holy clothing? Although, admittedly he technically has never asked me not even with the pajama wearer.

What is holy clothing?

This is going to sound so stupid, but it’s my blog so I will take license today, but Nirvana’s song Come As You Are keeps going through my head as I write today.

Come as you are,

As you were,

As I want you to be,

As a friend, As a friend,

As a known enemy,

Take your time, hurry up,

The choice is yours don’t be late, take a rest….

Come doused in mud,

soaked in bleach,

As I want you to be,

As a trend, as a friend….

The song always invokes a “make up your mind” feeling when I hear it. As if nothing the writer did was the right thing to do. As if people tell him to come as you are but really want him to come as they need him to be.

This is what the Dress Code invokes in me. As if no matter what side I pick on this issue it won’t be right. No matter what I do it won’t be right. Help me Jesus to allow me to see in others what You sees in them.

Let me look past the exterior to the beauty that was created in each of you. Let me instead of looking at your outfit; see the fingerprints of your creator.

I think I could find peace in that. Maybe.

Maybe I could get past all of this. I still prefer to dress in ‘Sunday Best’ but whose to say I’m right? Maybe I could past all of this.  Then again, I’d probably still check out your shoes.

Be Still and Know

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Psalm 46:10 “Be still, and know that I am God;

How often are you just quiet before the Lord? How often do you tune out he static of life to truly listen to what is going on within you?

New age calls it meditation, but followers of Christ call it meditation as well. The process is the similar because the principal of meditation doesn’t change.

Psalm 48:9 Within your temple, O God, we meditate on your unfailing love.

The temple of God is not a place. You are the temple of the Holy Spirit.

1 Corinthians 6:19 Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God?

So what does it mean to meditate on the word? When I worked in a large city I had a masseuse who taught me to mediate because she said I was too tense. She said I had to get to a quiet place in my mind and the way to do that was to count back from 100 to 1 with each breath until I could do so without any other thoughts of things to do, thoughts of breathing or anything else that came to mind to distract me. Honestly, I was never able to do that. My mind would wander and I’d forget where I left off in the breathing. It’s impossible to not think about anything, so I changed my meditation time in to learning to be still before the Lord. Have you ever tried to still your mind? It’s very difficult. Yet, the bible says that God speaks to us in that still small voice. (1Kings19:12) The only way to hear a still small voice is to be as quiet as possible. When people whisper you have to be quiet and draw near to hear.

The noise of the world often drowns out the possibility of hearing from God. We have noise wherever we go. We have even created noise machines so as not to sleep in silence. The very thing we need to exist in peace, wisdom and love, we drown out in the chaos of life. Jesus often went away from the crowds to be still. You must often get to a quiet place in your life where you are still. In those moments of stillness are where revelation comes, where problems can be resolved, and where wisdom is imparted. In those quiet moments is where God speaks to the scared part of your heart, the wounded part of your heart, the healthy part of your heart, and the inquisitive part of your heart. Is it any wonder that the enemy of your soul surrounds you with noise? Televisions that are on all night, music in elevators, can you ever find a quiet place unless you make room for it? Some people I know actually feel edgy in quiet times. Simply they have not learned to be still. Quiet makes them nervous because they’ve never learned to dwell in the peace of stillness. Quiet can be scary because it forces you to face fears.

Noise is sent to distract us from the union between God and us. I’ve heard people say that they decided to shut the TV off for a set number of days and that boredom caused them to read the bible. Do you have a quiet place? Can you access it regularly? If not, I urge you to find one. Try to find a place where you are still. To find a place where you are able to hear God’s still small voice. It’s the direction and the peace you need. Sometimes my best prayer time with God is when I am quiet and I listen rather than speak.

Carrying Out Our Servant Assignment

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1 Corinthians 3:1. But for right now, friends, I’m completely frustrated by your unspiritual dealings with each other and with God. You’re acting like infants in relation to Christ, 2. capable of nothing much more than nursing at the breast. Well, then, I’ll nurse you since you don’t seem capable of anything more. 3. As long as you grab for what makes you feel good or makes you look important, are you really much different than a babe at the breast, content only when everything’s going your way? 4. When one of you says, “I’m on Paul’s side,” and another says, “I’m for Apollos,” aren’t you being totally infantile? 5. Who do you think Paul is, anyway? Or Apollos, for that matter? Servants, both of us – servants who waited on you as you gradually learned to entrust your lives to our mutual Master. We each carried out our servant assignment. 6. I planted the seed, Apollos watered the plants, but God made you grow. 7. It’s not the one who plants or the one who waters who is at the center of this process but God, who makes things grow. 8. Planting and watering are menial servant jobs at minimum wages. 9. What makes them worth doing is the God we are serving. You happen to be God’s field in which we are working. 10. Using the gift God gave me as a good architect, I designed blueprints; Apollos is putting up the walls. Let each carpenter who comes on the job take care to build on the foundation! 11. Remember, there is only one foundation, the one already laid: Jesus Christ. 12. Take particular care in picking out your building materials. 13. Eventually there is going to be an inspection. If you use cheap or inferior materials, you’ll be found out. The inspection will be thorough and rigorous. You won’t get by with a thing. 14. If your work passes inspection, fine; 15. if it doesn’t, your part of the building will be torn out and started over. But you won’t be torn out; you’ll survive – but just barely. 16. You realize, don’t you, that you are the temple of God, and God himself is present in you? 17. No one will get by with vandalizing God’s temple, you can be sure of that. God’s temple is sacred – and you, remember, are the temple. 18. Don’t fool yourself. Don’t think that you can be wise merely by being up-to-date with the times. 19. Be God’s fool – that’s the path to true wisdom. What the world calls smart, God calls stupid. It’s written in Scripture, He exposes the chicanery of the chic. 20. The Master sees through the smoke screens of the know-it-alls. 21. I don’t want to hear any of you bragging about yourself or anyone else. Everything is already yours as a gift – 22. Paul, Apollos, Peter, the world, life, death, the present, the future – all of it is yours, 23. and you are privileged to be in union with Christ, who is in union with God. -“The Message”

It’s Easter!

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Luke 24:1. At the crack of dawn on Sunday, the women came to the tomb carrying the burial spices they had prepared. 2. They found the entrance stone rolled back from the tomb, 3. so they walked in. But once inside, they couldn’t find the body of the Master Jesus. 4. They were puzzled, wondering what to make of this. Then, out of nowhere it seemed, two men, light cascading over them, stood there. 5. The women were awestruck and bowed down in worship. The men said, “Why are you looking for the Living One in a cemetery? 6. He is not here, but raised up. Remember how he told you when you were still back in Galilee 7. that he had to be handed over to sinners, be killed on a cross, and in three days rise up?” 8. Then they remembered Jesus’ words. 9. They left the tomb and broke the news of all this to the Eleven and the rest. 10. Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the other women with them kept telling these things to the apostles, 11. but the apostles didn’t believe a word of it, thought they were making it all up. 12. But Peter jumped to his feet and ran to the tomb. He stooped to look in and saw a few grave clothes, that’s all. He walked away puzzled, shaking his head. -“The Message”

Aren’t you glad we are not puzzled anymore? Praise you lord for the freedom you restored us to. May we never take your sacrifice for granted.

A Dinner Invitation

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Psalms 15
1. God, who gets invited to dinner at your place? How do we get on your guest list?
2. “Walk straight, act right, tell the truth.
3. “Don’t hurt your friend, don’t blame your neighbor;
4. despise the despicable. “Keep your word even when it costs you,
5. make an honest living, never take a bribe. “You’ll never get blacklisted if you live like this.”

Bought With A Price

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Dear Pastor Susan,
My girlfriend and I live together and when we asked to serve at our church, we were told that we couldn’t until we got married. With the economy the way that it is we can’t really afford to do that. What is the policy at your church and why do churches say they need help then turn it down when it’s offered?

Thank God for bible believing churches! We believe the same as your church. You got to get this part of your life settled, then you move into position. Since you’re a believer, I won’t throw scripture at you but here is the best way I can explain it.

You see, Jesus came and bought you with a price. He laid his life on the line for you. He still gave you the choice to follow him or not but you chose to follow him. That carries with it a certain responsibility. It means that when God says if you love me keep my commandments you agreed to those terms. So since you know his commandments and you took the deal you can’t then say that you receive the gift of salvation but refuse to follow the lead of the Father. The two conflict, as well they should. I know that you said it’s not doable right now to get married due to the economy but I’m unclear why. Marriage is a license at city hall and your Pastor conducting a covenant ceremony.

You don’t get to rent a woman and she doesn’t get to rent you. You don’t get to rent Jesus for just a part of your life. In all cases it’s all or nothing. Don’t be deceived by the message that says it’s all good and you can repent for it later. God put these boundaries in place to save you from heartache and the pain it causes. 2 Corinthians 6 (okay, maybe just a scripture!) says we should not take the grace of God in vain. Yes, you are right the church always needs help but it’s working through a process of perfection (meaning maturity).

I’m really glad to respond to this right now. We are learning all about this in our bible study and I’ll write more about that in a future post. In the meantime, we are praying for you and all of those who find themselves in your shoes. I hope you will do the right thing!

15 Minutes

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This morning started out like any other. I was getting ready for work, my husband was taking the kids to school. At 7:45 a.m., Lulu was outside, the house was all to myself and I saw an opportunity to change the bed sheets. Only I took one look at my bed and decided that I was so tired, I wanted to just go back to bed. So I did. I laid down and covered up and just had one of those random thoughts about nothing moments.

In a short amount of time and without a thought in my head, I began to sing a Spanish song, Estar Contigo. The chorus says, “to be with You is the best decision I could’ve ever made. Your blessings could stop if you remained by my side. I would be complete as long as I can be with You.” All I can explain was that it was just a random shout directly from my heart to the heart of God. Then the peace of God washed over me and I felt a connection. There were no words spoken between us. Just being together was overwhelming and right.

I got up and finished getting ready. My morning completely changed in the span of 15 minutes. That’s all it took. Prayer doesn’t always have to have words. Sometimes, being together is enough. My day went so beautifully after that. Get quiet and let your heart speak.