Fighting with Myself

I don't know about you but when I got up this morning, I brushed my teeth, washed my face, got on the scale, took my vitamins, and picked out my clothes for the day.  I paid attention to any new aches, stretched my muscles and got ready to go to the gym.  I may have registered a new wrinkle or blemish.  I paid a lot of attention to my flesh and blood body.  Then I remembered.

While we are in this tent, we groan and are burdened because we do not wish to be unclothed, but to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling so that what is mortal will be swallowed up in life.--2 Corinthians 5:4

This body will not last.  It does not house my life. My life comes from God.
In fact, my body ties me to sin.  

God has redeemed my soul.  He lives in me.  So my body, which is still corrupt, still dying, exists as a constant opponent to what lasts forever--my Life, my God.

Because my body does not bring me real life, I walk day after day in uneasy communion, frustration, and war. Until God redeems and restores my physical body as He has done for my soul, I will continue to do this.

My body is mortal--belonging to death.  God is Life. 

The Spirit of God lives in me and, as such, glorifies God.  It can do nothing else.  While I yet live in a body, my job is to remember that His Spirit can and must overcome my  body.  His Spirit is stronger because it came from Him and what life I have comes from that Spirit.

While I live, body and Spirit war constantly, but the Spirit conquers whatever indulgence I am tempted to grant the body.  This is the root and purpose of self-control.  I train my body, which dwindles to eventual dust, to obey my Spirit, which lives forever.

So I still brush my teeth, and try to stay fit, but remember that I cannot become more beautiful or more comfortable.  I will become less so the longer I live.  Not only will my body continue to decline, but as my Spirit becomes stronger, the tension between them will continue to build.  The war between them doesn't end while I live, but escalates as my body demands more and my Spirit grows in God.

We groan inwardly as we wait for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.  For in this hope we were saved.  Who hopes for what he already has?...If we hope for what we do not have, we wait for it patiently.--Romans 8:23-25

The Ultimate Family Reunion

For many, the holidays are all about togetherness.  We go over the river and through the woods, promising to be home for Christmas where we sometimes catch a glimpse Mommy kissing Santa Claus.  Of course, rubbing up against relatives sometimes falls short of expectations, but that's OK.  We already enjoy a perfect family relationship. 

First, we are God's inheritance and He is ours:
When the Most High gave the nations their inheritance, when He divided all mankind, He set up boundaries for the people according to the number of sons of Israel, for the Lord's portion is His people, Jacob His allotted inheritance.--Deuteronomy 32:9

God is our foundation and we are His building:
For we are God's fellow workers.  You are God's field, God's building.--1Cor 3:9

God has sacrificed for us and we sacrifice to Him:
You, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to Christ Jesus.--1Peter 2:5

We belong on one another.
All things are yours...all are yours and you are of Christ and Christ is of God.--1Corinthians 3:22

God sends us His glory and we return it through Christ.
All I have is yours and all you have is Mine.  And glory is come to Me through them.--John 17:10

What we enjoy with Christ is more than a family reunion.  We share hope, hope for more than a distant heaven.  We share the realization of God's design and promise.  In fact, this relationship is heaven, and it begins now.

God assigns us fathers, mothers, spouses, and children as objects of service.  We share love and experiences with them, but we can't forget that the Creator of the universe has welcomed us into a relationship that predates and supersedes them.

Coloring Inside the Lines

Sometime before 1508, Leonardo da Vinci took up a pencil and began to sketch. He knew what men were meant to be--the image and likeness of God--and he intended to remind them in a place where they would have to look toward heaven to see it--on the roof of the Sistine Chapel. He drew boldly, a muscular Adam, naked and vulnerable in his first moments of life, but his first strokes bore only a shadow of what da Vinci saw in his head.

His first sketches incorporated no color, no texture, no life. Only black and white, they carried the image, but shared no likeness with the finished product. They didn't yet breathe.

We share the same incomplete state. God created us in His image but intends for us His likeness, and as we live and let Him do His work in us, He fills in the empty places, transferring with His own finger an eternal glory only He can confer.

We are not like Moses, who would put a veil over his face to keep the Israelites from gazing at it while the radiance was fading away. But whenever anyone turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away. And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord's glory, are being transformed into His likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is Spirit.--2Corinthians 3:13,16,18

We begin as an outline, a vague echo of our Creator, and as we live and daily approach Him with sincere humility and reverence and repentant acknowledgement of sin, He fills in all the empty places with His own life, His own blood. One by one, all the small details bring dimension and make us more real, not only more like what God made us in His head, but like the first Adam, perfectly complete, who walked in Eden by God's side in the cool of every day. We take on life, and what began as a poor shell assumes heavenly glory.

Toward Bethany

I woke up this morning, like you did, opened my eyes, and took a first conscious breath. I still lived. I rejoice in that and no wonder. Life is a great gift. At the same time, however, I know what still waits. The days of my life are numbered and today, one fewer of them remains.

Life, in fact, frames itself in deaths. Not only does physical ability decline, but the cross also casts its relentless shadow. My flesh eventually fails on its own, but Your example of sacrifice says that I must voluntarily kill my independent will. I must join You there, on the cross.

I don't want to do this, of course, but that's because I have not looked far enough ahead. You not only tell me to die with You, You tell me to rise with You.

I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which He has called you, the riches of His glorious inheritance in the saints and His incomparably great power for all who believe. That power is like the working of His mighty strength which He exerted in Christ when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly realms.--Acts 1:11

You created me in Your image and want me to follow You. Your path lead to Calvary and so does my own. I daily work out my salvation, my own death to sin and self-indulgence. But Your path came through the empty tomb and straight to Bethany, where you ascended in the power You always possessed, but did not exercise.

Bethany waits for me, too. My physical life's days tick off one by one, but Your power lifts me from their progress toward death. As I lay down the days of my life before You, You raise me to Your side. My own ascension will not come through practical or physical victory, it comes only in greater proximity to You.

You told me that You will take me to be where You are. So I look to You, and walk toward Bethany.

Thought for today: Toward what destination are you walking?

Remembering to Fly

Two years ago, my husband had cancer and I had to consider what would happen if he died. As a man of both great courage and faith, he weighed death with equanimity thinking, like Paul, "to live is Christ, to die is gain," but I did not. I could release him to heaven and know that he went to joy, but I knew all to well that I would be left behind. "What about me, Lord? You may take him, but I would stay here alone. What about me?"

You said this:
Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from the will of the Father.--Matthew 10:29

Then I remembered. You, Father, have the plan for all things and exact that plan at every step. Not one thing happens that can divert it. Your plan is holy and you show me the way to walk in it. Your Son, a very part of You, is Your Word and reigns with You. Your Spirit shows me the way to follow. All three operate according to your plan, which you constantly make known, and this plan exists eternally with You, a pillar of the universe You created.

Whatever is happening around me may seem random, but You will not allow me to be destroyed unless it was Your will from the beginning. If I am lost, I am lost already. If I am Yours, I cannot be lost.

For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future.--Jeremiah 29:11

I am safe with you.

Thought for today: How is God asking you to trust His plan for you?

The 40th Power

For thirty-nine chapters, the book of Isaiah cries out blistering warnings: cities and civilizations will fall. Jerusalem, Egypt, Moab, Babylon will be defeated. The Nile will dry up. The land will be desolate. God will enact judgement on the idolatrous.

Isaiah sings a sad litany of sin, details the error of those who said they loved God. It builds a tower made of example after example of wrongdoing and then topples it with one wide swipe. God's people bury themselves in the rubble, a pile that dwarfs 9/11 in that it is anchored by sin and condemned by eternal judgement.

Then, I turn the page.

Comfort my people, say your God. Speak consolingly of Jerusalem and proclaim to her that her period of exile has been completed, that her iniquity has been forgiven...A voice calls out in the wilderness--clear the way of God; make a straight path in the desert, a road for our God.--Isaiah 40:1-3

Blossoms rise in the field, voices open in song, and God carries his people on eagles' wings. Suddenly, hope and strength grow where only dust and ashes lay. But they do not come on the strength of men. They come only with the power of God.

Ascend upon a high mountain, O herald of Zion; raise your voice with strength! Raise it, fear not; say to the cities of Judah, "Behold your God!"--Isaiah 40:9

Men, then, remain weak and corrupt. If they finally triumph, it is because God carries them in His mighty arms. If they rise from ashes, He clears their eyes. Beginning with Chapter 40, Isaiah draws a stunning picture of the heights to which God can raise men who look to Him. He shows us our future. He shows us our Savior.

Exponents in math show growth densely multiplied and mathematicians call them powers for a reason. Each successive power builds on its predecessors, zeros upon zeros, until they soar in imagination. Isaiah's prophecy builds in much the same way, and by Chapter 40, he has taken us nearly to heaven. From then on, we see visions and dreams and images of God's beautiful powers that inspire and bring hope to anyone sad and torn. Isaiah, through intense contrast, sings of God's glory in a way that multiplies grace and soothes our spirit.