Posts Tagged ‘jesus’

I am the Nativity

Wednesday, December 21st, 2011

Living in darkness

I am a weary traveller.

There is a plan charted out, birthed before the ages. This path has been worn not only by necessity, but in utter anticipation for my passing through. One generation will praise His works to another. My part in the story keeps me moving forward. Having received the baton of faith, I prepare to hand it off.

I am a census taker,

rigid and law-abiding. There are rules to be kept and religion feeds that beast. The church-girl in me keeps records and checks things off lists, shoulds and woulds. Then Grace is born and the columns and lines cannot contain Him, cannot, even to the nth-degree hope to define Him.

I am the inn-keeper,

the rooms of my life and heart overcrowded and full. Life and age and circumstances, not to mention the busyness of the times, filling every nook and cranny. I almost hopelessly shrug Him off – no room, but a longing to fulfill destiny drives me to make a place for Him, keep Him here close…

A Light has come. A Light has come!

I am the star.

There are people watching, looking for the hope I’ve been given and I am leading them somewhere. May I lead aright, pointing them to Jesus. All for Your name, Lord. For your acclaim and Your fame in the earth…

I am Mary.

I am incredulous at the call of God on my life. Heart palpitating, palms sweaty, “How can this be?” I question God’s reasoning, His trust in me at all, His relentless pursuit. I concede with a tentative sigh, “Then may it be unto me as You have said. I am Your servant, I will obey…”

I am Joseph

whose goodness as a moral and loving man could be so wrong-spoken of, his motives and very character questioned in light of his participation in the Plan. That he risked so much in spite of possible loss of reputation, possibly friends and family even – all for the Glory. May it be said of me.

I am the shepherds,

kneeling low, sore afraid for the dazzling brilliant power of the revelation of Glory, the ear-splitting loudness of it roaring through my frame. Everything being promised by these heavenly hosts, too strong to comprehend, almost – I need, I need. God has seen me, He has heard my cry and He has thundered in response: Good news – great joy!! A Savior is born today! Peace on earth and goodwill toward men from God! God’s very good-will and Peace towards us. Overwhelming, unbelievably good news!

I am the angels

singing of God’s great love, a messenger of the joy of my salvation, spreading the great-great promise of His love, His good-will and His Peace toward those who dwell beside me on earth. Sweet, sweet song of Salvation

I am a sinner,

trudging along, too many times unaware of all that God has given. Forgiveness, at my fingertips. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Forgiveness, right there for the acceptance, a hall-pass from death to life from a faithful and just God, by the bloody, agonizing death of Jesus Christ – to His conquering resurrection. Just like that! [snap fingers here} Forgiven.

Arise, shine.

I am a wise man.

Having seen and followed Your star, I bring my gold, my treasure (family), my belongings, all that I am or have or ever will be or possess and, bowing down, I place them at your feet. Any thing I have came from You anyway. There is nothing of it that I desire beside You. Please receive all I place here as my worship…

I am a wise man.

I bring my incense, pouring out my prayers and petitions to You. And in love, like the love You have shown for me, I pour out my life for my family and friends. And I ask You, from the deepest recesses of my heart, to mend and repair relationships and bring healing for hurt, beauty for ashes, and rejoicing for mourning. And may this prayer be true and not contrived and may it be pure and not for self-gain. And may it be a sweet-smelling offering to You.

I am a wise man.

I carry Myrrh, the embalming oil. And I fall face down with all I can muster, nothing in my hands but bondages of sin and death and my own feeble attempts to save myself, but I give it to You and You raise up the dangling-ring of the keys to death, hell and the grave, taken by force when you led captivity captive and set. me. free. And in place of an oil that cannot heal the rips and scars on my nearly-fatally wounded soul, You pour a fresh oil on my head, a wild-ox anointing and my leaf is green Forever-life is established and I am set free from the law of sin and death. Forever.

I am. the Nativity.

This came to me as a prayer just pouring from my heart yesterday morning upon waking. May love and joy come to you these days leading to our Christ-mass-worship. And may you comprehend your place in the story that began so long ago like you never have before. NOTE: I will try to go back soon and add scripture references.

Tags: christmas, jesus, nativity, prayer
Posted in JESUS, Lover of My Soul, Keep Christmas, Songs I am Singing, Stuff I Actually Think | 5 Comments »

The BEST way to Spread Christmas Cheer

Wednesday, December 14th, 2011

As Buddy-the-Elf loves to tell us~

The {BEST} way to spread Christmas cheer is {SINGING loud} for all to hear.

Read this blog this morning on nine lessons you can learn watching the Will Ferrell movie, Elf (2003), already a Christmas classic for sure. {CLICK HERE} I most love the scene where Buddy hears that “Santa” will arrive at the store the next day. He jumps up and down screaming

“S a a a a a a a n n n t a a a a a a a a a !!!!”

Everyone thinks he is weird, but hardly able to contain his exuberance he explains,

“I know him!”

I want to be like that about Jesus, my Savior! I want to be almost unable to contain my excitement because I KNOW HIM!!

~

Gemma showed up for pre-school this morning, and upon seeing the family-tree lit up waiting to be decorated, exclaimed, “Well I didn’t see that tree coming!”

Later while doing some school-work, she exclaimed, “Aw, nutcrackers! I forgot my bookbag!” ***hahahahahhaha*!! THAT is some Christmas cheer, too!

This is ME singing Really loud-can you hear me?? HARK, the herald angels sing….**

Tags: cheristmas, christmas cheer, elf, jesus, singing
Posted in JESUS, Lover of My Soul, Keep Christmas, Songs I am Singing | No Comments »

Offering

Thursday, September 8th, 2011

What it really means to be an intercessor.

….and to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed?

2 He grew up before him like a tender shoot,

and like a root out of dry ground.

He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him,

nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.

3 He was despised and rejected by mankind,

a man of suffering, and familiar with pain.

Like one from whom people hide their faces

he was despised, and we held him in low esteem.

4 Surely he took up our pain

and bore o u r suffering,

yet we considered him punished by God,

stricken by him, and afflicted.

5 But he was pierced for {our} transgressions,

he was crushed for {our} iniquities;

the punishment that brought us peace was on him,

and by his wounds w e a r e h e a l e d .

6 We all, like sheep, have gone astray,

each of us has turned to our own way;

and the LORD has laid on him

the iniquity of us all.

7 He was oppressed and afflicted,

yet he did not open his mouth;

he was led like a lamb to the slaughter,

and as a sheep before its shearers is silent,

so he did not open his mouth.

8 By oppression and judgment he was taken away.

Yet who of his generation protested?

For he was cut off from the land of the living;

for the transgression of my people he was punished.

9 He was assigned a grave with the wicked,

and with the rich in his death,

though he had done no violence,

nor was any deceit in his mouth.

10 Yet it was the LORD’s will to crush him and cause him to suffer,

and though the LORD makes his life an { O F F E R I N G } for sin,

he will see his offspring and prolong his days,

and the will of the LORD will prosper in his hand.

11 After he has suffered,

he will see the light of life and be satisfied;

by his knowledge my righteous servant will justify many,

and he will bear their iniquities.

12 Therefore I will give him a portion among the great,

and he will divide the spoils with the strong,

because he poured out his life unto death,

and was numbered with the transgressors.

For he bore the sin of many,

and made intercession for the transgressors

{aka the wrongdoer, the miscreant, the guilty party, the villain, the sinner, the evildoer}.

Jesus, the great Intercessor. He was familiar with pain. So He knew how to take ours – both what we’ve been hit with and what we have dished out.

My sweet mama called today and we talked about love, the real stand-in-the-gap, intercessory-like-Jesus kind of love. It is the love that says :: even if your sin/rejection/disdain kills not only my heart but also my mortal body, I will still love you ’til the day I die. I’ll love you while you pound the nails into my hands, I will love you when you spit in my face. I will love you while the blood runs from my body and my life-flow hits the ground. I will love you until the day I die.

Wow.

It is a wonder, Jesus being who He was was, I can even lay claim at all to being a “Christian.”

Tags: intercession, jesus, love greater than death, prayer, standing in the gap
Posted in JESUS, Lover of My Soul, Stuff I Actually Think | No Comments »

Take Me Back

Friday, April 22nd, 2011

Ohmygoodness, I L O V E D late 60s/early 70s soul music like the Stylistics and the Four Tops; give me some Marvin or Stevie or even Smokey; but wow-o-wow for the Supremes, the Chi-Lites or Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes, mm-mm-mmm. A Motown Label on an old vinyl in a thrift store still sets me heart to beating fast.

It wasn’t just love songs and radio pop soul music that I loved, though, for since as far back as I can remember, I have loved-loved-LOVED music that brought the Presence of God into the room.

Andrae Crouch.

Oh, yes, Andrae Crouch. L O V E him. Wrote about him before HERE. And HERE. And as far back as HERE. Reeeeeeeeeeeeeeally wanted him for Heaven Fest this year, but breakdown in communication or something? And he parted ways with the guy we were working through. Sad! *sniff, sniff

But he was just the power-and-Presence-of-the-Holy-Spirit music to me in my early teens and on. Got to see him in person and LIVED on Andrae Crouch: Live at Carnegie Hall and later Live in London. Had 8-tracks, cassettes and record albums. My dad loved him, too, so there was always a lot of Andrae in the 70s for us! This 5 or 6 minute sampler on Amazon.com – ahhhhh. Just click on number 1 and let-er-play. And-why can I not play the piano like that?

Ephesus Girl.

I also love the book of Ephesians. Just always thought: now Paul knew how to communicate with these people. It mixes the right amount of richly-romantic and mystical Bride-of-Christ imagery with just the right amount of practical here-is-how-it-is-done language. He speaks of mystery and marriage and a spotless bride and husbands loving their wives like Christ loved the church all that. Go get ‘em, Paul!

Jesus

Sometimes the mystery and magic, though, gets muddied, lost. Sometimes we have “seen enough to know we have seen too much” and we are dirtied and poisoned and broken and bleeding, just sitting in the yuck-of-life getting hard-hearted because tenderness leaves us too vulnerable. An innocence stolen, a trust broken, a love damaged.

And then we remember – there is a place where those things were taken into account before I knew I would even have needed them to be. There is a place. It is where resurrection happened, where Jesus rolled away the stone and darkness and death that had held our hearts. Jesus had hung on a cross, yes, wounded for our transgressions, bruised for our iniquities. His blood had flowed freely to cover the wrongs done to me, the wrongs I have inflicted on others. He bought my freedom. He took the keys of death, hell and the grave. He rose again and it was a done deal.

Jesus set us free and somehow the enemy managed to dupe us and has stolen our freedom and our hearts. We sigh and say ‘Life….’

Makes me think of Gal. 3.1…O you foolish Galatians…

Or as The Message puts it~

You crazy Galatians! Did someone put a hex on you? Have you taken leave of your senses? Something crazy has happened, for it’s obvious that you no longer have the crucified Jesus in clear focus in your lives. His sacrifice on the cross was certainly set before you clearly enough.

How did we get here?

The Ephesians weren’t much better.

Despite the love letter God had given them through Pul the Apostle, in John’s Revelation, God rebuked them, He saw their works, knew they hated evil – He could see all that. But He pointed out that they had fallen so very far, left their ‘first love.’ He didn’t leave them hopeless, though. He reminded them to return to that love, to remember the height from which they had fallen and go back and do the first things again. New life, new love, restoration! Fresh. Clean. Whole and holy.

Sometimes you just need your spiritual innocence restored, don’t you?

As we have walked through Holy Week, I have not been a bit interested in observing religious dates on given days of the week for the sake of remembrance alone, but I have cried out for a return, a restoration of my heart to flesh. Transformation. I am open to God renewing and restoring to me the JOY of my salvation {Search me, O God and know my heart} and I am praying for the resurrection power, that same power that raised Christ Jesus from the dead, to give life to my heart.

Take Me Back

Enter Andrae on Easter week. A song from my way-back-in-the-day past. Just remembered it. Started singing it. “Take me back – to the place where I first received You, where I first believed…” I have been singing this as a prayer all week.

Romans 8.11 Amplified “And if the Spirit of Him Who raised up Jesus from the dead dwells in you, [then] He Who raised up Christ Jesus from the dead will also restore to life your mortal (short-lived, perishable) bodies through His Spirit Who dwells in you.”

So, Happy Easter. May Easter (the high holy day of every Jesus follower) 2011 be for you a very holy and set apart day. And may you be made new and alive because what Jesus did was enough, more than enough. And may your heart be softened and trusting again. Return to your first love. Sing with me and Andrae, if you want. And Danni Belle Hall, “Take me back…” yeah-let’s go remember the height from which we have fallen. Back - not to a cross on a hill, but to the open grave of a risen Savior, where we first believed…

Tags: andrae crouch, easter, jesus, take me back
Posted in Celebrations & Festive Events, JESUS, Lover of My Soul, Songs I am Singing, Stuff I Actually Think | 2 Comments »

Shopping Carts

Tuesday, October 6th, 2009

My current soapbox:

I would like to submit this suggestion to people everywhere: walk the 12 feet to place your shopping cart in the cart-corral when you are finished with it, pul-eeeeeze. Seriously? The corrals are everywhere. It isn’t hard.

Cart Corrals-Here is what they look like:

Be polite. Be moral. Be thoughtful. And especially if you have that plastic stick-on fish-thing on the back of your vehicle? Be an example since you are advertising that you are, indeed, a Jesus-representative.

Because…

If Jesus and the 12 Disciples came out of WalMart with 3-days worth of groceries and living supplies, sure. Peter would be too zoned in on his stuff to think about placing the cart in the right place and Judas would probably just give it a shove and let it hit your car. But Jesus?…

Tags: jesus, moral living, wwjd
Posted in Stuff I Actually Think | 4 Comments »

WWJD?

Friday, September 25th, 2009

The question really isn’t “What would Jesus do,” as much as it is,

What is He doing – through you? Today? Right now, right where you are?

Because He isn’t living our lives for us. We are. And the way we live is His expression in the earth. In the store. At the restaurant. In the parking lot and on the interstate. It’s His expression where we work and in our homes. So what is Jesus up to right where we stand?

Tags: christianity, jesus
Posted in JESUS, Lover of My Soul, Stuff I Actually Think | 1 Comment »

Glorious Morning

Monday, August 3rd, 2009

“Full many a glorious morning have I seen
Flatter the mountain-tops with sovereign eye,
Kissing with golden face the meadows green,
Gilding pale streams with heavenly alchemy…”

From William Shakespeare’s Sonnet 33

Update on Life.

It is a Monday, a glorious, beautiful Monday morning. Heaven Fest is 5 days away. Robbin and Jake’s wedding on Saturday was a delightful and joyful event, going off without a hitch. There will surely be facebook pics posted soon, somewhere?…

My friend Pearl’s dad died Friday. He had been ill for some time, but it is still never easy. I only met him once or twice, but I know him through the big, loving family he raised, through his daughter, who is a woman to be praised. He is whole now, and with the Lord, he has gained life.

The Great Outdoors.

Last week’s late afternoon or nighttime thunder showers have saturated our yard to a new level of green, it being August in the arid-Rocky-Mountain-region, and all. Dave mowed and trimmed yesterday and I have spent the morning enjoying the bird-song, the gentle breeze and my time with the Lover of my soul, pulling a weed or two, harvesting a few tomatoes (leftover quesadilla with thick, juicy slices of red goodness for breakfast) and an armful of beets (to be roasted for dinner…I will try to enjoy them). The upside-down tomato, now in its’ place for about 5 1/2 weeks is boasting 5 little spheres of future deliciousness.

Dwight Schrute on The Office: “First rule in roadside beet sales, put the most attractive beets on top. The ones that make you pull the car over and go “Wow, I need this beet right now.” Those are the money beets.”

I’m reading a provocative and poetic book.

From Eternity to Here – Rediscovering the Ageless Purpose of God by Frank Viola. I started before family reunion and am just entering part two (about halfway through). It is so good. I have so little time, but I am enjoying it thoroughly everytime I open it. Fresh revelation. Resonating reminders. Goooooooood stuff. Join me?

O Happy Day!

Tim Hughes sings it this way:

“O what a glorious day

What a glorious way

That You have saved me!”

Turn it up, sing along. Dance a little.

It IS a glorious morning!…Jeanie

NOTE TO SELF: Praise Him all day long!

Tags: beets, book, dwight schrute, frank viola, from eternity to here, garden, heaven fest, jesus, the office, tomatoes
Posted in Home & Garden/Food & Seasons, JESUS, Lover of My Soul, Love & Marriage, Songs I am Singing, Stuff I Actually Think, TV & Movies/Books & Entertainment | No Comments »

Service

Monday, June 22nd, 2009

I’ve heard the real me is who I am “in the dark,” who and what I become when I think no one sees.

This morning the opening line of a poem came to me*,one that impacted my thinking way back in the day, probably almost 30 years ago now. You gotta love Google. I typed in what I remembered and there it was. It’s about serving. It’s about the exuberance of our faith being translated into true love, Jesus-love. It’s about letting the enthusiastic God-talk line up with the daily walk. It is about serving like Jesus did. It is who I wanna be when I grow up, even when, especially when, no one else sees…

You know, Lord, how I serve You

With great emotional fervor

In the limelight.

You know how eagerly I speak for You

At women’s groups.

You know how I effervesce when I

Promote a fellowship group.

You know my genuine enthusiasm

With my Bible study group.

But how would I react, I wonder

If You pointed to a basin of water

And asked me to wash the calloused feet

Of a bent and wrinkled old woman

Day after day

Month after month

In a room where nobody saw

And nobody knew.

-unknown

It’s time to live the life…Jeanie

*The remembrance of this piece may have been triggered by Confluence’s block party this past Saturday in the City. Some very busy HF leadership team gave their entire day to doing pedicures for people who could never afford it. They truly washed feet all day long.

Tags: jesus, poem, serving
Posted in JESUS, Lover of My Soul, Memories & Melancholy, Stuff I Actually Think | No Comments »

Happy Easter ~ Joyous Easter!

Sunday, April 12th, 2009

Matthew 28: There is nothing to fear here. I know you’re looking for Jesus, the One they nailed to the cross. He is not here. He was raised, just as he said.

With the arrival of Jesus, the Messiah, that fateful dilemma is resolved. Those who enter into Christ’s being-here-for-us no longer have to live under a continuous, low-lying black cloud. A new power is in operation.

The Spirit of life in Christ, like a strong wind, has magnificently cleared the air, freeing you from a fated lifetime of brutal tyranny at the hands of sin and death.

God went for the jugular when he sent his own Son. He didn’t deal with the problem as something remote and unimportant. In his Son, Jesus, he personally took on the human condition, entered the disordered mess of struggling humanity in order to set it right once and for all.

Romans 8 The Message