a “DUUUUUDE!!!!” moment

when’s the last time you had one of those “DUUUUUUUDE!!!!” moments while reading the Bible?  I totally had one of those moments this week as I read Ephesians 5…and couldn’t get past the first 2 verses.  :)

oh my goodness I get so excited when God’s Word comes alive in fresh ways!!!  watch out, world!

ok dude – totally grab your Bible right now.  I’ll wait.  or go to www.biblegateway.com.  it’ll be fun, I promise.

if you continued reading and you never grabbed your Bible or went to the website, I have 1 word for you: Revelation 21:8 (yes, that’s 1 word…1 word, 3 numbers, and a punctuation mark…or something).

I just had coffee.  and I’m stoked on Jesus.  the combination creates quite the energetic, rabbit-on-steroids effect.

ok, ok, I’ll make it easy on you – here’s what Ephesians 5:1-2 (NLT) says:

^“1 Imitate God, therefore, in everything you do, because you are His dear children. ² Live a life filled with love, following the example of Christ. He loved us and offered himself as a sacrifice for us, a pleasing aroma to God.”

isn’t that mind-blowing?!?!

no – ok – I mean yes, it is.  but let me explain what I’m finding in these 2 verses.

first off, did anyone notice it calls us to be imitators of God??  what??  and it says to imitate God in everything we do.  hokey pete.  and why?  because we are His dear children.  I like how the NIV puts it: it says we are His “dearly loved” children.  ok so you’ve got all the who, what, why, where, when’s all answered right in this verse.  who?  us.  what?  be imitators of God.  why?  because we are His dearly loved children.  where?  well, I guess everywhere, because it says in everything we do.  when?  …all the time, because, again, it says in everything we do…  BAM!

class dismissed.

no I’m kidding, don’t leave yet. there’s more.

so we’ve got all that going on in verse 1.  then in verse 2, it says live a life filled with love.  the Greek word for “love” in this verse is “agape”.  the definition for “agape”, according to my Strong’s concordance, is:

“…usually the action love of God for His Son and His people, the action love His people are to have for God, each other, even enemies…”

the action love!  I don’t know if I’ve ever heard “agape” explained as the “action” love.  so verse 2 says, “Live a life filled with love [in action], following the example of Christ. He loved us and offered Himself as a sacrifice for us…” 

right there it tells us what living a live filled with agape, action-love looks like: it looks like following the example of Jesus, who loved us so much with agape love, that He offered Himself as a sacrifice for us.  so what does agape love look like?  serving.  forgiving.  praying.  sacrificing my own selfish desires/wants for the good of others – for the glory of Jesus.

living a life FILLED with agape love looks like living out the “one another”’s in the Bible.  wash one another’s feet.  love one another deeply.  forgive one another.  pray for one another.  everyone who’s up for doing a “one another” study of all the “one another”’s in the Bible, raise your hand!

(my hand’s raised.  you can’t see it.  but it really is.)

living a life FILLED with agape love looks like following the example of Jesus in everything that we do.  in EVERYTHING that we do.  and by doing this, we will be imitators of God.  dearly loved children imitating their perfect Father.

#bassdrop

did anyone else have a “DUUUUUUUDE!!!” moment??

may our lives be filled with agape, action-love.  for Jesus.  and for others.  even our enemies.

the reality of “Christmas”

today I got to take communion in a way I never have before.  I had to walk through dirt and bend down before a cross to take the elements.

see, our church doesn’t have a building.  we rent a place at the local fairgrounds, but sometimes other events want the building on Sundays and we have to meet somewhere else.  we’ve met outside a few times (thankfully it was in the summer-ish months).  and we’ve met in the indoor roping/rodeo arena quite a few times.  today, we were in the arena.

and it was cold.  it’s been in the 50’s and 60’s for so long, but today it decided to be about 15 degrees with a windchill of –6 or something insane like that.  while there was some heat in the building, I still kept my 2 coats on.

there was nothing “pretty” about it.  it was dirty.  it smelled (or so I was told).  it was cold.  condensation dripped on us from time to time.

but as I walked across the dirt in the arena to take communion, I had to hold back tears as suddenly, the birth of my Savior and the death and resurrection of my Savior became even more real to me.

in the modern day church, we like things neat and clean.  we like our services to be neat and clean.  we like to appear neat and clean (regardless of what our hearts look like).  we often like to go to church, leave feeling good, and then go about the rest of our week.

and Christmas has turned into the exact same thing.  we focus way too much time and money on gifts.  we like our houses to be all decked out with “holiday cheer” and the gifts under the tree to look just right.  we love to read books that recount the Christmas story of little baby Jesus, all clean and neatly wrapped in a blanket in a manger with nice looking parents looking over him and curiously tame donkeys and cows laying near by (which – in reality, I’ve rarely seen tame donkeys and cows that like to lay angelically next to people.  and where is the manure?  like, really.)

the reality of it all is: the birth of Jesus wasn’t clean.  it wasn’t clean at all.  in fact, it was really really messy.

I mean, have you been inside a stable before?  they’re not exactly the most sanitary of places.  there’s manure.  there’s dirty hay.  I’ve heard they can smell pretty bad (I wouldn’t know firsthand).  I guarantee if you tried to have a baby inside a stable these days, child services would be called on you.

and there was bloodshed.  there was a lot of bloodshed.  Herod was King at the time, and when he heard there was a newborn “King of the Jews”, he was furious.  he ended up ordering his men to kill all baby boys under the age of 2 in and around the city of Bethlehem (check out Matthew 2).  I think most of my life, I’ve heard that part of the “Christmas story” and haven’t really given it a second thought.  but this really happened.  baby boys were murdered left and right.  mother’s screamed and begged for their child’s life to be spared and they were shown no mercy.  their baby boys were murdered before their very eyes, their blood covering the their mother’s clothing.

the birth of Jesus wasn’t neat and pretty.

then there’s the whole genealogy of Jesus, the line from which He came.  there was nothing pretty about this either.  if you read the genealogy of Jesus (like in Matthew 1), you’ll probably recognize some of the names from their stories in the Old Testament.  Jesus came from a line of murderers, adulterers, liars, prostitutes…the list goes on.

the birth of Jesus wasn’t neat and pretty.

which leads me to ask – what kind of God would send His own Son to be born in a messy, lowly stable?  what kind of God would choose a completely messed up line of people to send His Son to be born into?  what kind of God would send His own Son to earth anyway?

the God who loves us so much more deeply than we will ever comprehend.  the God who created the whole ability to love, the whole concept of love.  the God who is love.

He sent His Son, Jesus, to be the Ultimate Sacrifice to pay for our sins.  To anyone who chooses to believe and follow Jesus, God extends this awesome gift of grace.  restoration of our relationship with God.  a personal relationship.  He is not a far-off God that just watches things happen.  He is personal.  He is involved.  He desires for us to know Him and He delights in us!

^”And may you have the power to understand, as all God’s people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep his love is.  May you experience the love of Christ, though it is too great to understand fully. Then you will be made complete with all the fullness of life and power that comes from God.”  ~Ephesians 3:18-19

Where is the sun?

Dear Wyoming,

If you do not allow the sun to shine soon, I may have to take more frequent trips to my other home in Florida. Yes, my other home - how does that make you feel, hearing that you're not the only home in my life? I hope this news causes great jealousy to rise up within you and it leads to the cloudy skies clearing and the sun shining brightly. Your cloudy December skies are killin' me.

Sincerely,
Jen

I just looked out the window and saw a dog walking with its leash dragging behind it. About 20 feet behind him, I saw his owner come into view - a very old woman slowly walking with a cane. Sweet, but It begs the question - how on earth is she going to catch the dog's leash if it tries to take off??

Random event of the day.

My days are numbered

Today my friend told me I have lived out West now long enough that I could get a ticket if I don't change my Florida license plates.

I asked how a cop would know I've been out here long enough. And they gave me a "seriously?" look and reminded me its a small town and my car stands out.

I would blow them off. But they also happen to be a state trooper. Ok so maybe they know what they're talking about. Maybe.

Oh sad...I might have to relinquish my Florida plates. This is a sad day.