Open Arms

Hey guys,

 Hope you’re having a good week despite the gloomy weather.  Here’s an exercise for you…

 Open Arms – Eugene Peterson

Read this passage several times.  As you read, listen for a new perspective on the way life is, or the way God is, that stands out to you today.  Perhaps you will notice that God can have dangerously “hot anger,” yet under other circumstances He is tender and open to a people who have walked far from intimacy with Him.  Maybe you’ll be struck by the pigheadedness that kept some Israelites from taking “God’s outstretched hand.”

 Then Hezekiah invited all of Israel and Judah, with personal letters to Ephraim and Manasseh, to come to The Temple of God in Jerusalem to celebrate the Passover to Israel’s God… and they sent out the invitation from one end of the country to the other, from Beersheba in the south to Dan in the north: “Come and celebrate the Passover to Israel’s God in Jerusalem.” No one living had ever celebrated it properly.  The king gave the orders, and the couriers delivered the invitations from the king and his leaders throughout Israel and Judah. The invitation read: “O Israelites! Come back to God, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, so that he can return to you who have survived the predations of the kings of Assyria. Don’t repeat the sins of your ancestors who turned their backs on God, the God of their ancestors who then brought them to ruin—you can see the ruins all around you. Don’t be pigheaded as your ancestors were. Clasp God’s outstretched hand. Come to his Temple of holy worship, consecrated for all time. Serve God, your God. You’ll no longer be in danger of his hot anger. If you come back to God, your captive relatives and children will be treated compassionately and allowed to come home. Your God is gracious and kind and won’t snub you—come back and he’ll welcome you with open arms.” 

(2 Chron. 30:1,5-9 MSG)

 Study the perspective you’ve absorbed, looking at it from different angles and holding it up against different experiences you’ve had.  Do you ever fear approaching God because you worry He might snub you?  Have you ever refused grace?  Consider a specific situation.  Then become aware of God’s presence with you.  Tell Him what was going on during that time.  How does the God of this passage (offering His “outstretched hand” to the Israelites) compare to your image of God in that situation?

 Close your time today by saying the Lord’s Prayer.  Speak the words aloud very slowly.  Picture the righteous but compassionate God described in this passage, the One who is hearing your prayers now: “Our Father in heaven, reveal who you are.  Set the world right; do what’s best— as above, so below.  Keep us alive with three square meals.  Keep us forgiven with you and forgiving others.  Keep us safe from ourselves and the Devil.  You’re in charge!  You can do anything you want!  You’re ablaze in beauty!  Yes. Yes. Yes. 

(Matt. 6:9-13 MSG)

 Amen!

 Praying for you this week.

 To the King!

Katy

Change in the Church

Hey guys,

 

So its time for our weekly Sundesmos devotional again.  Let me know if your email has changed or if I need to make any updates with your contact info.  So school has started, Patrick Swayze has passed away, the trees are starting to turn colors already, no health care reform yet, and Kanye West has made a fool of himself once again.  Wow…what fun times we’re living in!

 

For many of you I know that the last month or so has been full of transitions…

 

School.

Job.

Friends.

Life.

 

Life is full of transitions…of change.  Thank God.  Aren’t you glad that we get to experience change in our life?!  God is in the business of changing things, making things new.  “What we see is that anyone united with the Messiah gets a fresh start, is created new. The old life is gone; a new life burgeons!” (2 Cor. 5:17 MSG) 

 

God is also changing His Church.

 

For those of you who attended Western Yearly Meeting sessions this past summer, or heard about them, my prayer is that you have had time to process and pray for this organization.  I’m sure there have been many feelings swirling around about the Church and its purpose and how God’s people behave in His name.  For those of you who weren’t here and don’t have a clue what I’m talking about, I’ll be happy to fill you in on the details if you would like.  The Yearly Meeting is in crisis and is experiencing the dire need for change and desperately needs your prayers.  We’ve all had feelings about what our role in the Church should be and what changes need to be made.  I completely understand the desire to run…fast…away from anything that resembles hypocrisy and unauthentic believers, from constant conflict and ineffective ministry, from gossip and slander and pain.  It’s tiring and draining and doesn’t seem anywhere close to what God has in store for His people.  I understand that and completely agree.  Some of you have seen this Yearly Meeting and maybe even your local Meetings swirl around controversy and conflict your whole lives; that’s all I’ve experienced since I came to work here three years ago.  It’s painful and feels like such a waste.  It’s sad to see so little spiritual vitality in a group that has so much to offer our post-modern society.  For those of you who have left the YM or are debating leaving…I understand.  I had to pray a long time about whether God wanted me to stay here after Yearly Meeting sessions and continue to work for an organization that appears to not hold to the basic beliefs they say they do, an organization who blatantly disregards the blood Christ shed for me on the cross for the sake of a façade of unity and love.  I understand.  But…through that process of discernment I was reminded of a harsh quote from St. Augustine as he was talking about the Church, the Bride of Christ.  He said “the church is a whore, but she’s my mother.”  It feels like we as a Church have been unfaithful, that we have caused (and experienced) so much pain and hurt.  That we are dirty and messed up and unlovable.  But she is our mother, the one who gave birth to us.  Tony Campolo writes:

It is she who taught you about Jesus.  I want you to remember that the Bible teaches that Christ loves the church and gave himself for it (Ephesians 5:25). That’s a preeminent reason why you dare not decide that you don’t need the church. Christ’s church is called his bride (11 Con 11:2), and his love for her makes him faithful to her even when she is not faithful to him.

How we can clean up the Bride and prepare her for her Bridegroom?  I came to the conclusion that God is not finished here yet, He has not given up on WYM and He still has work for me to do here, at least for now. 

 

My ministry here seems to be changing and I feel the work of Sundesmos is changing.  If you feel like you can no longer be a part of WYM please don’t feel like that means you can no longer be a part of the Sundesmos ministry.  Sundesmos will continue to be a place where Jesus Christ is first and foremost in everything that we do.  I will be doing campus visits this fall and we’ve got a mission trip back down to Alabama already being planned for Jan. 1-8, 2010.  Remember, Sundesmos means that which binds together, a band or bond and that bond is the redemptive power of Jesus Christ. 

 

This David Crowder song has been truly helpful for me these last few weeks. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zg-1yM6insA

The verse at the end of the video is difficult to read but it says:

I wait for the LORD, my soul waits,
       and in his word I put my hope.

My soul waits for the Lord
       more than watchmen wait for the morning,
       more than watchmen wait for the morning.

O Israel, put your hope in the LORD,
       for with the LORD is unfailing love
       and with him is full redemption.

Psalm 130:5-7

 

If you want to talk about WYM or if you have a prayer request of your own, please don’t hesitate to give me a call or write me an email.  You guys really are the reason I feel God is keeping me here at WYM.  God loves you so much and wants you experience His love and His call on your life in a truly dynamic way.

 

Blessings!  Praying for you!

 

To the King!

Katy

Good-byes

Hey guys,

So, this is going to be my last email devotion for the summer. 

 

The group going on the WYM Young Adult Kenya Trip leaves a week from Sunday.  You can follow our itinerary on the WYM website.  We’d love it if you would join us by praying for us while we’re traveling and we can’t wait to share about our experiences when we get back. 

 

There are many things going on this summer including camp at Quaker Haven and our upcoming WYM Sessions July 31-Aug. 3.  We love finding ways to incorporate young adults into WYM programming so let me know if you’re interested in helping out at Quaker Haven this summer.  Plan on coming to WYM Sessions where we’ll have a Sundesmos Young Adult programming track for all the young adults to be a part of during Sessions and we’ll need chaperones for the Young Friends program.

 

As we move into summer I hope you’ve had a great school year.  Sometimes we have to say good bye to people and places only for a short time and sometimes it’s longer, but either way its hard to say goodbye.

 

Good-bye

by Frederick Buechner

 

            A woman with a scarf over her head hoists her six-year-old up onto the first step of the school bus.  “Good-bye,” she says.

            A father on the phone with his freshman son has just finished bawling him out for his poor grades.  There is mostly silence at the other end of the line.  “Well, good-bye,” the father says.

            When a girl at the airport hears the announcement that her plane is starting to board, she turns to the boy who is seeing her off.  “I guess this is good-bye,” she says.

            The noise of the traffic almost drowns out the sound of the word, but the shape of it lingers on the old man’s lips.  He tries to look vigorous and resourceful as he holds out his hand to the other old man.  “Good-bye.”  This time they say it so nearly in unison that it makes them both smile.

            It was a long while ago that the words God be with you disappeared in the word good-bye, but every now and again some trace of them still glimmers through.

 

My response is to get down on my knees before the Father, this magnificent Father who parcels out all heaven and earth. I ask him to strengthen you by his Spirit—not a brute strength but a glorious inner strength—that Christ will live in you as you open the door and invite him in. And I ask him that with both feet  planted firmly on love, you’ll be able to take in with all followers of Jesus the extravagant dimensions of Christ’s love. Reach out and experience the breadth!  Test its length! Plumb the depths! Rise to the heights! Live full lives, full in the fullness of God.

 

God can do anything, you know—far more than you could ever imagine or guess or request in your wildest dreams! He does it not by pushing us around but by working within us, his Spirit deeply and gently within us.
               Glory to God in the church!
               Glory to God in the Messiah, in Jesus!
               Glory down all the generations!
               Glory through all millennia! Oh, yes!

Eph. 3:14-21 (MSG)

 

Have a great summer!  God be with you!

 

To the King!

Katy

 

Unchanging Crazy Love

Hey Guys,

 

I know this is a crazy time of year for everybody and we’re getting down to my last devotionals for the year as summer draws quickly closer.  So hear are some thoughts for this week…

 

The end of the semester.  The end of school.  The end of winter.  The end of relationships.  The end of a job.  The end of life as we know it.

 

Transitions are hard.  Closure is hard.  The unknown is hard.

 

Sometimes it feels like the times we are living in are constantly changing and there’s no certainty in anything.  Money.  Job.  School. Church. Family. Friends. Media.  They all change.  There really is no certainty in this life.  Sometimes that’s exciting and sometimes that’s crazy scary.

 

But for sure…one thing that will never change is that the God of this universe love you!

 

Sometimes it’s hard to fully grasp that concept.  I mean how crazy is it that God, the creator of all things, loves little ole me and you.

 

A pastor in Southern California, named Francis Chan, recently wrote a book called Crazy Love; Overwhelmed by a Relentless God.  He explores this concept in more depth in a video called “Just Stop and Think” at www.crazylovebook.com under the Videos section.

 

In the midst of all your craziness take some time to stop and think about the crazy love your Heavenly Father has for you!  How does the basic truth of the gospel message change you?

 

            This is how much God loved the world: He gave his Son, his one and only Son. And this is why: so that no one need be destroyed; by believing in him, anyone can have a whole and lasting life. God didn’t go to all the trouble of sending his Son merely to point an accusing finger, telling the world how bad it was.  

He came to help, to put the world right again.

            John 3:16 & 17 (MSG)

 

Blessings!

 

To the King!

Katy

Spring Clean

Hey guys,   So the last couple weeks we’ve been remodeling the WYM office and it’s been a chance to reorganize and do some spring cleaning and purging of stuff.  It’s a real cleansing process to do spring cleaning not only of your stuff but also of your self.     Are there things in your life that are cluttering your time and energy?   Are there people who take more from you than they give?   Are there mindless, time-sucking activities that are consuming time that could be spent in another way?   How does it affect your life when you are in need of a good spring clean?  As busyness consumes us we find fewer and fewer uncluttered spaces in our lives.  How do you think God feels about that?  Last weekend we celebrated Easter…we celebrated the death and resurrection of the One who came to make our lives clean. Now we look inside, and what we see is that anyone united with the Messiah gets a fresh start, is created new. The old life is gone; a new life burgeons! Look at it! All this comes from the God who settled the relationship between us and him, and then called us to settle our relationships with each other. God put the world square with himself through the Messiah, giving the world a fresh start by offering forgiveness of sins.  2 Cor. 5:16-19 (MSG)   Are you living your life as a new creation in Christ inside and out?  Most times the outside, our lives, is a good reflection of the inside, our hearts.  We find ways to stay busy and preoccupy ourselves with more and more things and more and more obligations so we don’t have to clean house.   Even as you find yourself running around in your busyness, may you take some time to do a little spring cleaning of your heart and of your life.   To the King! Katy

Remembering Easter…Remembering the Cross

Hey guys,

 

So I missed sending out the devotional last week because our office was getting remodeled and my computer was tucked away in a closet far from the reaching of my inspiring thoughts.  But I hope you have all had a chance to prepare yourself for this Holy Week. 

 

There are so many distractions to keep us from thinking about what exactly it is we are celebrating this weekend.  The crazy weather has kept us on our toes, the busyness of our lives diverts us from the life in Christ we should be living, the conflicts and tragedies of our world overwhelm us. 

 

Remember what happened at Easter? 

Remember the new birth and reconciliation we can have because of Christ’s death on the cross?

 

Here’s a reading from author Henri Nouwen after reflecting on an Easter service he attended at L’Arche Trosly, a place that enables people with and without disabilities to share their lives in communities of faith and friendship.

 

Good Friday: day of the cross, day of suffering, day of hope, day of abandonment, day of victory, day of mourning, day of joy, day of endings, day of beginnings.

 

During the liturgy at Trosly, Pere Thomas and Pere Gilbert…took the huge cross that hangs behind the altar from the wall and held it so that the whole community could come and kiss the dead body of Christ.  They all came, more than four hundred people – handicapped men and women and their assistants and friends.  Everybody seemed to know very well what they were doing: expressing their love and gratitude for Him who gave His life for them.  As they were crowding around the cross and kissing the feet and head of Jesus, I closed my eyes and could see His sacred body stretched out and crucified upon our planet earth.  I saw the immense suffering of humanity during centuries: people killing each other; people dying from starvation and epidemics; people driven from their homes; people sleeping on the streets of large cities; people clinging to each other in desperation; people flagellated, tortured, burned, and mutilated; people alone in locked flats, in prison dungeons, in labor camps; people craving a gentle word, a friendly letter, a consoling embrace, people…all crying out with an anguished voice: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken us?”

 

Imagining the naked, lacerated body of Christ stretched out over our globe, I was filled with horror.  But as I opened my eyes I saw Jacques, who bears the marks of suffering in his face, kiss the body with passion and tears in his eyes.  I saw Ivan carried on Michael’s back.  I saw Edith coming in her wheelchair.  As they came – walking or limping, seeing or blind, hearing or deaf – I saw the endless procession of humanity gathering around the sacred body of Jesus, covering it with their tears and their kisses, and slowly moving away from it comforted and consoled by such great love…With my mind’s eye I saw the huge crowds of isolated, agonizing individuals walking away from the cross together, bound by the love they have seen with their own eyes and touched with their own lips.  The cross of horror become the cross of hope, the tortured body became the body that gives new life; the gaping wounds become the source of forgiveness, healing, and reconciliation.

 

By entering through faith into what God has always wanted to do for us—set us right with him, make us fit for him—we have it all together with God because of our Master Jesus. And that’s not all: We throw open our doors to God and discover at the same moment that he has already thrown open his door to us. We find ourselves standing where we always hoped we might stand—out in the wide open spaces of God’s grace and glory, standing tall and shouting our praise.  There’s more to come: We continue to shout our praise even when we’re hemmed in with troubles, because we know how troubles can develop passionate patience in us, and how that patience in turn forges the tempered steel of virtue, keeping us alert for whatever God will do next. In alert expectancy such as this, we’re never left feeling shortchanged. Quite the contrary—we can’t round up enough containers to hold everything God generously pours into our lives through the Holy Spirit!  Christ arrives right on time to make this happen. He didn’t, and doesn’t, wait for us to get ready. He presented himself for this sacrificial death when we were far too weak and rebellious to do anything to get ourselves ready. And even if we hadn’t been so weak, we wouldn’t have known what to do anyway. We can understand someone dying for a person worth dying for, and we can understand how someone good and noble could inspire us to selfless sacrifice. But God put his love on the line for us by offering his Son in sacrificial death while we were of no use whatever to him.  Now that we are set right with God by means of this sacrificial death, the consummate blood sacrifice, there is no longer a question of being at odds with God in any way. If, when we were at our worst, we were put on friendly terms with God by the sacrificial death of his Son, now that we’re at our best, just think of how our lives will expand and deepen by means of his resurrection life! Now that we have actually received this amazing friendship with God, we are no longer content to simply say it in plodding prose. We sing and shout our praises to God through Jesus, the Messiah!  Rom. 5:1-11 (MSG)

 

Remember?!

 

May you find the joy, peace and hope in our resurrected Lord this week and through out all of your life.

 

To the King!

Katy

Fellowship of Believers

Hey guys,

 

I came across this article in Radiant Magazine this past week and I felt like I needed to share it with you guys.  I know sometimes it’s really hard to see the necessity of going through the motions of church.  Believe me, I’ve done my fair share of church shopping and I know how sucky that is.  I’ve got some pretty funny stories about church shopping too…ask me about them sometime…and sometimes membership at Bedside Baptist is so much easier.  But even if you need to take a break from Church at times please don’t stay away for good.  Its an important part of your spiritual walk.

 

Fellowship with Believers

by Ann Swindell, a freelance writer and graduate student.

 

            With the plethora of spiritual opportunities available today, it can seem like corporate worship is only one aspect of our spiritual lives. With Christian conferences, concerts, books, downloads, specialized Bibles and personal Bible studies at our fingertips, the local church has, for many of us, taken a backseat to everything else.

            But without corporate worship at the center of our walk with Christ, our faith can become polarized and self-serving. We read the Bible through our own lens of experience and fail to talk to others about what we are reading. We sense God’s guidance in our lives but never ask other believers about the path we want to take.

            And so the local church—and the accountability there—is central to our growth as believers in Christ. The reason for this importance is simple to understand but difficult to live out: fidelity. Just like fidelity in marriage, fidelity to the local church commits us to something greater than ourselves—a group of people seeking to serve Christ in and through one another.

            Staying in one congregation, especially when the going gets tough, is not an easy thing to do. The truth is this: Staying at the same church and being committed to the messy group of people who make up that unique body of Christ is hard. Like any spiritual discipline, it requires effort, energy and loads of self-sacrifice. Are the people there unlike you? Christ’s disciples did not always see eye-to-eye either. Are the leaders imperfect? Welcome to humanity. Unless you have some theological qualms with the church, or the leaders are acting immorally or condoning unholy practices, staying in our local body of fumbling believers will teach us more about Christ’s love and fidelity to us than almost anything else.

 

Words of Wisdom…

“The local congregation is the place and community for listening to and obeying Christ’s commands, for inviting people to consider and respond to Jesus’ invitation, ‘Follow me,’ a place and community for worshiping God. It is the place and community where we are baptized into a Trinitarian identity and go on to mature ‘to the measure of the full stature of Christ’ (Ephesians 4:13), where we can be taught the Scriptures and learn to discern the ways that we follow Jesus, the Way.”
Eugene Peterson, The Jesus Way

 

“Christianity means community through Jesus Christ and in Jesus Christ. No Christian community is more or less than this … We belong to one another only through and in Jesus Christ.”
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together

 

 “Dare to love and to be a real friend. The love you give and receive is a reality that will lead you closer and closer to God as well as those whom God has given you to love. ”
Henri Nouwen

 

I want you to get out there and walk—better yet, run!—on the road God called you to travel. I don’t want any of you sitting around on your hands. I don’t want anyone strolling off, down some path that goes nowhere. And mark that you do this with humility and discipline—not in fits and starts, but steadily, pouring yourselves out for each other in acts of love, alert at noticing differences and quick at mending fences.

You were all called to travel on the same road and in the same direction, so stay together, both outwardly and inwardly. You have one Master, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who rules over all, works through all, and is present in all. Everything you are and think and do is permeated with Oneness.

Eph. 4:2-6 (MSG)

 

THE CHURCH NEEDS YOU JUST AS MUCH AS YOU NEED THE CHURCH.

 

Find time to be with a Body of believers this Lenten Season.  Christ wants to move in His people.

 

To the King!

Katy

Sickness of the Body

Hey guys,

 

So this week I’ve been fighting this cold that just won’t go away.  You ever had one of those?  I’m not the type to get sick very often and when I do I try to just push through it because there’s usually more important things to do than to be sick and I think my immune system should just do its job.  But this week things have been different. 

 

On Monday the team from WYM that is preparing to go to Kenya in a little less than two months got together to get our shots, our vaccinations for the trip.  You know a little typhoid, yellow fever, polio cocktail of injections.  It was a great bonding experience.  We sat and listened to this very interesting doctor talk about all these crazy diseases that we don’t know anything about and how to eat and take care of ourselves while in a developing country for two weeks.  After our Q&A time with this doctor, (who we all believed has a very cushy job traveling all over the world and then talking to people about it and giving them shots) we each got our individual cocktail of illnesses injected into our arms.  The biggest draw back being that if your body is already fighting a cold it will probably stop fighting that cold in order to fight these new diseases who have infiltrated your body.  Hence the prolonged nature of my afore mentioned cold.

 

So you’re thinking…”thanks for sharing Katy but we really don’t care about your cold and what does this have to do with anything?”  And I say…”that’s a great question!  Let me take you into the clouded snot-filled realms of my brain and I’ll share.” 

 

It’s interesting to think about our bodies and how intricately organized they are with complex functions and relationships.  And it kind of reminds me of the Church.  There are quite a few times in Scripture that the image of the human body is used to describe the Church.  With that in mind, think about what happens in a church when it gets sick with conflict or mistrust…the ministries of the Church are put aside or fail because of all the time and energy used to deal with the sickness of the Church Body.  In Matthew chapter 18 the disciples have just asked Jesus who the greatest person in the Kingdom of Heaven is and He starts to talk about the simplicity of childhood and how we must change and become like a little child in order to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven.  There a certain level of health that you only find in childhood.  There’s energy and innocence of mind, our bodies are more nimble and resilient.  We haven’t had the time to pollute our bodies with all the toxins of the world.  It can be the same way with the church.  The longer a church has been around, the larger and more complex and humanly run a Church gets, the more risk there is for human contamination and the more effort needed to stay healthy and focused on Christ.  Right after Jesus gives this talk about childhood he says:   

Woe to the world because of the things that cause people to stumble! Such things must come, but woe to the person through whom they come!  If your hand or your foot causes you to stumble, cut it off and   throw it away. It is better for you to enter life maimed or crippled than to have two hands or two feet and be thrown into eternal fire.  And if your eye causes you to stumble, gouge it out and throw it away.  It is better for you to enter life with one eye than to have two eyes and be thrown into the fire of hell.

(Matt. 18:7-9)

That is some pretty extreme treatment that Jesus is requiring of us.  But if it’s the Kingdoms of Heaven and Hell that we’re referring to it’s some pretty extreme consequences if we don’t.  What are the treatments that you see the Church needing to be prescribed?  What treatments do we as Western Yearly Meeting need to endure? 

 

We know that doctors aren’t trying to torture us by giving us prescribed treatments for our illnesses.  We know they have our health in mind and that some times we have to endure pain in order to get healthy.  Are we willing to do this also as a Church?  Are we willing to go through the pain in order to get healthy?  Or are we going to limp along with a bum leg because it’s too painful to cut it off?

 

Please keep Western Yearly Meeting in your prayers.

 

To the King!

Katy 

Barclay’s Catechism

Hey guys,

 

Some of you are on Spring Break or thinking about Spring Break in the coming days and mid-terms maybe in the foreseeable future.  If you’re lying on a beach somewhere or sitting in front of a computer here are some thoughts for you…

 

I picked up Robert Barclay’s Catechism and Confession of Faith today and I found it was a good reminder of why it is that we celebrate Easter and what exactly it is that we believe.  And as we look toward Easter in a month or so it’s helpful to have that reminder.  Robert Barclay was 24 yrs. old when he wrote this work.  Supposedly he wrote it to engage the Reformers and their Westminster Confession in dialog about certain key issues, whether they were similarities or disagreements, that Quakers shared with those around them in the Church.  A catechism, according to Wikipedia, is “a summary or exposition of doctrine, traditionally used in Christian religious teaching from New Testament times to the present.  Catechisms are doctrinal manuals often in the form of questions followed by answers to be memorized, a format that has been used in non-religious or secular contexts as well.”  So it is in that format that I give you a few things to think about this week from Barclay’s Catechism…

 

Q. For what purpose did Christ come into the world?

A.        Rom. 8:3 – For God has done what the law, weakened by flesh, could not do; by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and to deal with sin, he condemned sin in the flesh.

 

1 John 3:8,5 – Everyone who commits sin is a child of the devil; for the devil has been sinning from the beginning.  The Son of God was revealed for this purpose, to destroy the works of the devil… You know that he was revealed to take away sins, [and in him there is not sin].

 

Q. Was Jesus really crucified and raised again?

A.        1 Cor. 15:3-4 – For I handed on to you as of first importance what I in turn had received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, and that he was buried, and that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures.

 

Q. What was the purpose of Christ’s birth, death, and sufferings?

A.         Luke 2:30-32 – …my eyes have seen your salvation, which you have prepared in the presence of all peoples, a light for revelation to the Gentiles and for glory to your people Israel.

 

Rom. 3:25 – …whom God put forward as a sacrifice of atonement by his blood, effective through faith.  He did this to show his righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over the sins previously committed.

 

Eph. 5:2 – …live in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.

 

Col.1:20-22 – …through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross.  And you who were once estranged and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, he has now reconciled in his fleshly body through death, so as to present you holy and blameless and irreproachable before him.

 

Heb. 9:12,14 – He entered once for all into the Holy Place, not with the blood of goats and calves, but with his own blood, thus obtaining eternal redemption.  How much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from head works to worship the living God!

 

1 Pet. 3:18 – For Christ also suffered for sins once and for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, in order to bring you to God.  He was put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit.

 

1 John 3:16 – We know love by this, that he laid down his life for us.

 

Heb. 9:15 – For this reason he is the mediator of a new covenant, so that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance.

 

Q. What scriptures prove the divinity of Christ against those who falsely deny it?

A.        John 1:1 – …and the Word was God.

 

Rom. 9:5 – …to them belong the patriarchs, and from them, according to the flesh, comes the Messiah, who is over all, God blessed forever. Amen.

 

Phil. 2:6 – …who, though he was in the form of God, [Jesus] did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited.

 

1 John 5:20 – And we know that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding so that we may know him who is true; and we are in him who is true, in his Son Jesus Christ.  He is the true God and eternal life.

 

Q. What does Christ say about the unity of believers with him?

A.        John 14:20 – On the day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you.

 

John 15:4-5 – Abide in me as I abide in you.  Just as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me.  I am the vine, you are the branches.  Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing.

 

John 17:20-21 – I ask not only on behalf of these, but also on behalf of those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one.  As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me.  The glory that you have given me I have given them, so that they may become completely one, so that the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.

 

Take time to reflect on God’s word.  What is He trying to say to you?  How do you feel about and understand these passages.  Your God wants to be in dialog with you.  Talk to Him.

 

To the King!

Katy

Only the Father

Hey guys,

 

Here’s some thoughts today from author Henri Nouwen:

 

 

Only the Father

So do not throw away your confidence; it will be richly rewarded.  You need to persevere so that when you have done the will of God, you will receive what he has promised.

  Heb. 10:35-36

 

Everything we know about Jesus indicates that he was concerned with only one thing: to do the will of his Father.  Nothing in the Gospels is as impressive as Jesus’ single-minded obedience to his Father.  From his first recorded words in the Temple, “Did you not know that I must be busy with my Father’s affairs?” (Luke 2:49), to his last words on the cross, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit” (Luke 23:46), Jesus’ only concern was to do the will of his Father.  He says, “The Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees the Father doing” (John 5:19).  The works Jesus did are the works the Father sent him to do, and the words he spoke are the words the Father gave him.  He leaves no doubt about this: “If I am not doing my Father’s work, there is no need to believe me” (John 10:37); “My word is not my own; it is the word of the one who sent me” (John 14:24).

 

Jesus is not out Savior simply because of what he said to us or did for us.  He is our Savior because what he said and did was said and done in obedience to his Father.  That is why St. Paul could say, “As by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so by one man’s obedience many will be made righteous” (Rom. 5:19).  Jesus is the obedient one.  The center of his life is this obedient relationship with the Father.

 

Our lives are destined to become like the life of Jesus.  The whole purpose of Jesus’ ministry is to bring us to the house of the Father.  Not only did Jesus come to free us from the bonds of sin and death, he also came to lead us into the intimacy of his divine life.  It is difficult for us to imagine what this means.  We tend to emphasize the distance between Jesus and ourselves.  We see Jesus as the all-knowing and all-powerful Son of God who is unreachable for us sinful, broken human beings.  But in thinking this way, we forget that Jesus came to give us his own life.  He came to lift us up into loving community with the Father.  Only when we recognize the radical purpose of Jesus’ ministry will we be able to understand the meaning of the spiritual life.  Everything that belongs to Jesus is given for us to receive.  All that Jesus does we may also do.

 

 

May you see the life of Jesus in new ways and see how your spiritual walk is always walking in the direction of obedience and dependence which leads you to a personal intimate relationship with your Heavenly Father.

 

Praying for you.

 

To the King!

Katy

 

P.S. Please be praying for the Yearly Meeting the next couple weeks.