ESTABLISH THE WORK

"And let the beauty of the Lord our God be upon us,

And establish the work of our hands for us;

Yes, establish the work of our hands."

Psalm 90:17 (NKJV)

I have things I know I am called to do. For my family. For the Kingdom of God. I also have things I think I am called to and desire to do. My concern is that what I desire to do may not be what God desires for me to do. The thought that it is not hurts a little. Because I so desperately want to. I love doing it.
This prayer of Moses will become part of the prayer of Rhonda. I know God has good works for me to do based on Ephesians 2. I desire for God to establish that in me. That the work of my hands be for His glory and not mine. That my hands would do the work that has been prepared, and that they would be firm in doing so.
What work of your hands has God established for you?

WHERE'S THE BEEF?

I know I had said we would talk about 2 Peter, but I am not there. It is not where me heart is right now. I don't want to force it. I don't want my writing about it to be contrived. Right now my heart is in Numbers 11. I encourage you to read it on your own, but I will give you the run down on the part that is so speaking to me.
The meat.
Israelites are out of Egypt, complaining against God because they have no meat.
Oh we should have stayed in Egypt...
Oh why did you bring us out here to die...
Oh if we only had meat our lives would be perfect (my interpretation)...
So the Lord says fine. You want meat - you got it. So much so that it is coming out your nostrils and you will despise it! And so it was.
This passage challenges me, and I hope you, to look at yourself. I had to ask myself what have I been complaining about? What do I think I need so desperately? Money? Girlfriends? Fame? What is it? Am I dangerously close to God giving it to me in such abundance that I despise it? Many of us can testify that the very thing we thought would make our lives perfect was the very thing that brought us down and made our lives worse.
Oh that I had more dates when I was single...
Oh that I had more popularity...
Oh that we had more money...
How many stories have you read of lottery winners whose lives were ruined by the money? How many stars would desire to be able to walk into a coffee shop and not be mobbed by fans or paparazzi? How many, men and women alike, have gone through so many members of the opposite sex they connect with no one? Just one night after the other. Sure it all sounds great and fun at first. I mean who doesn't want a little more money, a little more popularity and notoriety. I know there were and are times I do. But for me, those are desires of the flesh. If you read on you will find that the people who complained the most died and they called the place Kibroth Hattaavah, or Graves of Craving. Let me tell you when I saw that ...Graves of Craving... it hit home. I really don't know if I can put into words how it impacted me and has stuck with me. Whether I crave attention or cheesecake, those cravings can lead to death if they replace the one True God I should be craving. That is a term that will stick with me. Am I setting myself up for a grave of craving? Am I digging it myself?
I also saw a fine line between beseeching and complaining. We are perfectly within our rights as children of God to ask for things, and He is perfectly within His to deny or grant. The line is crossed when we don't accept that answer and our hearts turn away, even a little bit. He has to be enough, meat or no meat. Dates or no dates. Money or no money. Fame or obscurity. The kids of Israel, they did not accept the answer. Their hearts turned from grateful children to whiny brats. I have been a whiny brat myself. I understand.
So how about you? Any thoughts? Anything you want to share that you thought would make all things better and it ended up making all things worse? Any grave of craving you fell into?
Trust me those three words will be in my mind for a while. I hope they will yours too.

LAST THOUGHTS

Just some final quotes from A Call to Grace by David Nasser.

"Grace never replaces God's standard, it fulfills God's requirement and enables God's standard to be lived out through our lives."

"Grace without truth can lead to liberalism. Truth without grace can lead to legalism."

"Grace is not safe, but it is always good."

"We have all to often confused grace with passivity, avoidance, or indifference. Grace is neither passive, avoiding of confrontation, nor indifferent. Grace is what it is. It is holy and truthful. Truth gives us convictions and the courage to confront, while grace allows us to speak these convictions with consideration and tact."

"As Christians, although we must lovingly live among people we don't agree with, this is not an excuse to compromise our own convictions (John 17:15-17)."

"He (Christ) never compromised the standard, yet He never acted in a spirit of condemnation."

Good words for this age in which we live.

DAY 35 - A Call to Grace

Thought I had forgotten about you didn't you? Nope. Nor have I forgotten about 2 Peter. And I am finishing my grace book. Lots of stuff rolling around. So today we are gong to talk about day 35 of A Call to Grace.
This day is entitled Masterpiece. The entire book is referencing Ephesians 2:1-10. The passage focused on this day is,
"For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus..."
Nasser takes this day to discuss that you and I are masterpieces in the eyes of God. The two things that make us these exquisite works of art in the eyes of the Creator of the universe are:
first, the fact that we were created by the Master, and second, we are authentic works of art.
Nasser makes the point that we as Christians are all created to be different (authentic) yet we were all created by the same Person (Master), and thus bear the same signature.
That last bit to me is wonderfully freeing. We are all created to be different. To be our authentic selves. With authentic gifts, authentic talents, authentic roles to play in the advancement of the Kingdom. We are not supposed to be carbon copies of the hippest worship leader, or newest teacher, or the most grace filled lady we know at church. We are to be us - authentic us. The only one we carbon copy is Christ Jesus. Even in doing that, we would still be authentic. My church doesn't have to be like the church down the street and vice-versa. It is okay that we are different.
But in that difference some things are the same. One thing is the same for us all... Jesus Christ. We can disagree about a lot of things, but Jesus is not one of them. And that is freeing as well. Because when I get with people who are different, I can find the one common thing, Jesus. On Him I can focus. Him I can point to and draw from.
So in the freeing of being an authentic creation, there is also something unifying in being made by the same Person.
So many times we focus on striving to be authentic, we neglect the unifying factor. Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the King of Kings, the Sacrificial Lamb, who sits at the right hand of God for you and for me.
What a masterpiece!

DESIGN? IDENTITY?

Great post by Holly.
Really great.
Design versus identity.
Read it.
Please.
Click here.

CAN YOU CHECK FOR ME?

According to Mr. Nasser, Jesus never used the word "grace" in the New Testament. I have checked and could not disagree. Would you mind checking?

Nasser says the reason Christ never used the term "grace" was because He was grace.

Interesting.

Hhmmm.

Ponder on that this weekend.

I was catching up on my Wednesdays with Beth and guess what the first one out of the shoot was... How to deal with chastisement from God. One of the points she made was how God takes our consequences and makes them a teachable moment- that is chastisement. To supernaturally take over the consequences and use them to correct us for our profit and His glory.

Here is how I think I see it. We will all have things happen in our life and they are exactly that- things that happen. Divinely ordained, but happen from what seems out of nowhere from our perspective. We will have consequences of our decisions. If we are in Christ Jesus, the punishment is not ours. Yes, we will be chastised and corrected by God, and praise His name when we are. For it means He cares enough to make us more like Him. He does it because He loves us. We will not face the punishment though. Jesus has done that for us. However, if we are not in Christ Jesus, there will come a day when will have the punishment. A final day when we will no longer be teachable, be able to be corrected, when it will be too late. Breaks my heart to even fathom a day when it is too late. God, who is SO incredibly patient and kind and desiring for us all to repent, will draw the line at some point in time. That is what is weighing heavy on me today. For my family and the world.