4/8 by Frances Mencia

“I follow Jesus – The End. How does that sound?” I asked my teenaged daughter when I was describing what Lee had asked me to write about.

“That’s great, mom; A+ for you. Way to take this seriously.”  She’s right (teenagers are right more often than they get credit for). With so many things going on in life, it is hard to slow down and really think about what it means to follow Jesus. I mean, I am not a deep thinker and being asked to write something alongside many of the great deep thinkers of our church is intimidating. Also, if I do think deeply, am I going to like the answers I find? With the many challenges I have faced this past year, have I followed Jesus in the way He commands, or have I doubted?

Feeling inadequate when quoting scripture – I always feel I am quoting out of context - there has always been a poem I reference since I was a teenager. The final passage echoing through my thoughts whenever I am in times of trouble:

Footprints in the Sand (adapted):

One night I dreamed I was walking along the beach with the Lord.

Many scenes from my life flash across the sky. In each scene I noticed footprints in the sand. Sometimes there were two set of footprints, other times there was only one.

This bothered me because I noticed that during the low periods of my life, when I was suffering from anguish, sorrow or defeat, I could only see one set of footprints,

So I said to the Lord,

"you promised me Lord
That if I followed you, you would walk with my always. But I have noticed that during the most trying Periods of my life there has only been one set of footprints in the sand.

Why, have when I needed you the most, have you not been there for me"

The Lord replied,

" the year when you have seen one set of footprints, my child, Is when I carried you.”

4/7 by Marcia Randis

Ever notice how what God gives to each of us, He expects us to in turn, give to others? Things like love, understanding, faithfulness, kindness, forgiveness, and compassion?

        Psalm 119:73-80 New Revised Standard Version (NRSV):

Your hands made me and fashioned me; give me understanding, that I may learn your

  commandments. May those who fear You see me and be glad, because I wait for Your word. I            know, O Lord, that Your judgments are righteous, and that in faithfulness You have afflicted me. O may Your loving kindness comfort me, according to Your word to Your servant. May Your compassion come to me that I may live, for Your law is my delight. May the arrogant be ashamed, for they subvert me with a lie; but I shall meditate on your precepts. May those who fear You turn to me, even those who know Your testimonies. May my heart be blameless in Your statutes, so that I will not be ashamed.

A number of years ago I was first challenged to "give up something" for Lent. Not taking it very seriously at first, I chose to give up "manipulation." With that, God quickly brought me to a place where I realized how serious my "addiction to manipulating others to get my way" truly was. Allowing God to transform me during Lent brought me along an interesting stretch of road as I chose to continue to follow His lead through a series of life altering shifts. 

The next year brought me to the understanding that I was relying too much on my "God given right" to ask for, and receive forgiveness when I would all too often act according to my own personal desires. Learning to ask Him for permission first (instead of waiting until I needed forgiveness), led me to a stronger heart for forgiving my enemies. The path also led to more readily being able to forgive myself and accept God's forgiveness. It should probably be no surprise that this made me a lot more aware of the need to seek forgiveness for my errors from those "enemies."

Following this path brought me out of an almost constant state of resentment, arrogance, and some amount of self-righteousness. It quite naturally gave me an even stronger desire to build bridges and restore relationships in Christ. By last year, God was challenging me to stop mounting my own defenses, and to stop judging others. He urged me to trust Him to shield me as He had promised He would. So I gave up self-defense for Lent.

I am still working at following. It is safe to say there is always another step, another twist to the path God lights for us. This year He is calling me to be less critical of others, to have more gratitude for more things in my life, and to love and affirm all that I can. This has been tough for me in a world where we have all gotten so good at finding fault almost everywhere. There is no end to what is wrong with the world and many of the people in it; but this is not what God has called us to seek. Is it?

4/5 by Chris Nevlin

Mark 9:14-29

New International Version (NIV)

Jesus Heals a Boy Possessed by an Impure Spirit

14 When they came to the other disciples, they saw a large crowd around them and the teachers of the law arguing with them. 15 As soon as all the people saw Jesus, they were overwhelmed with wonder and ran to greet him.

16 “What are you arguing with them about?” he asked.

17 A man in the crowd answered, “Teacher, I brought you my son, who is possessed by a spirit that has robbed him of speech. 18 Whenever it seizes him, it throws him to the ground. He foams at the mouth, gnashes his teeth and becomes rigid. I asked your disciples to drive out the spirit, but they could not.”

19 “You unbelieving generation,” Jesus replied, “how long shall I stay with you? How long shall I put up with you? Bring the boy to me.”

20 So they brought him. When the spirit saw Jesus, it immediately threw the boy into a convulsion. He fell to the ground and rolled around, foaming at the mouth.

21 Jesus asked the boy’s father, “How long has he been like this?”

“From childhood,” he answered. 22 “It has often thrown him into fire or water to kill him. But if you can do anything, take pity on us and help us.”

23 “‘If you can’?” said Jesus. “Everything is possible for one who believes.”

24 Immediately the boy’s father exclaimed, “I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!”

25 When Jesus saw that a crowd was running to the scene, he rebuked the impure spirit. “You deaf and mute spirit,” he said, “I command you, come out of him and never enter him again.”

26 The spirit shrieked, convulsed him violently and came out. The boy looked so much like a corpse that many said, “He’s dead.” 27 But Jesus took him by the hand and lifted him to his feet, and he stood up.

28 After Jesus had gone indoors, his disciples asked him privately, “Why couldn’t we drive it out?”

29 He replied, “This kind can come out only by prayer.”

Whenever I read a passage like this, I tend to imagine how the story might sound if someone were telling the story today. Instead of saying that the boy was possessed by a spirit, he’d probably be described as having a disorder. From there, phrases like “Everything is possible for one who believes” could be directed towards promoting the power of positive thinking. It seems like we’re reluctant to take things literally anymore and reserve our faith for only the most basic theological ideas.

I like to dwell on the supernatural aspects of passages like this. Apparently the disciples and the teachers of the law thought the child’s problem could just be dealt with naturally, reluctant to acknowledge the real problem and the real solution. Even at the time, Jesus marveled at the “unbelieving generation.” Is our generation much different? We’re probably less likely to acknowledge the spiritual, especially in something as small as a child’s affliction. But the gospel is based in spiritual things. Do we often attribute parts of scripture to symbolism if we find them too difficult to believe? Jesus’ words seem pretty relevant, even to us today: “You unbelieving generation… how long shall I stay with you? How long shall I put up with you?”

I like the father’s response to Jesus: “I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!”

4/4/14 - By John Schroeder

The season of Lent lasts 40 days to commemorate the 40 days Christ spent in the wilderness resisting temptation by Satan and preparing himself for public ministry. (Matthew 4:1-11). I find the particulars of the temptations Satan placed before Jesus fascinating. They were not "fleshy" temptations, not wine, women, etc. They were temptations designed to play on Jesus' godly nature. "Show me just who you are - prove that you are God incarnate!" is the theme of what Satan attempts to get Jesus to do. And yet Jesus resists.

Paul put it so well in his letter to the Philippians:

Phil 2:4-9 - do not merely look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others. Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men. Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

The theme of this blog is "follow." We always talk about following Jesus, but do we understand what that really means? Are we willing to follow Jesus here? Do we understand that to follow Jesus is not about discovering ourselves, but about denying ourselves? We have just seen two stories in which Jesus flat out denies his very nature.

Jesus even tells us this thing:

Matt 16:24-25 - Then Jesus said to His disciples, "If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me. "For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it; but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it.

Lee preached a few weeks ago about the cost of following Jesus. Did we listen? Here is that cost laid out for us in no uncertain terms - we are asked to deny ourselves to the point of death. Again, the Apostle Paul:

Gal 2:20-21 - I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me.

To follow Jesus means to be crucified with him. We have to die!

It is easy to focus on verses like John 10:10 or Matthew 7:7-8, but do we really understand that the promises of those verses lie on the other side of dying with Jesus on the cross? Too often we assume they simply arrive at the doorstep and we can put them in our pocket and go about our merry way. Those promises can only be fulfilled when we allow the Holy Spirit to kill our desire for self gratification. Those promises can only be fulfilled when what we wish for is to be emptied. It is the moment that we take God's grace for granted, that we think ourselves somehow, in any fashion, worthy of it, that it most eludes us.

We talk a lot about worship in the church. Sometimes I wonder if we really understand what that means? Among the lectionary readings for this date is Psalm 22. When was the last time you read that from beginning to end? Some think Christ quoted this Psalm on the cross. Consider just the first three verses:

My God, my God, why have You forsaken me?
Far from my deliverance are the words of my groaning.
O my God, I cry by day, but You do not answer;
And by night, but I have no rest.
Yet You are holy,
O You who are enthroned upon the praises of Israel.

The psalm is in fact a psalm of praise - read the rest of it. Thus if Christ was quoting it when he cried out on the cross, then praise for the Father flowed from the deepest agony imaginable. There was no praise band or organ, no choir or worship leader. I doubt given the physical state he was in Jesus could have even held a tune. It would appear that worship and sacrifice are inseparable - in fact one could conclude that sacrifice IS worship - not a "sacrifice of song," that's too easy. If we are truly to follow Jesus and praise God we are to sacrifice life itself.

The good news of God's grace is not that we do not have to die - it is that death is not final. The good news of God's grace is that when we totally deny ourselves, when we do allow ourselves to die, we wake up to all those wonderful promises of abundance.

The hardest part is that we have to experience that death every day, every moment. We are saved but we are, for now, still sinners. When we experience those little small reminders of the abundance promised to us, it is too easy to think, "Well, I'm through that now!" It is so easy to take those tidbits of the promise fulfilled and assume that we can claim our rightful place. It is too easy to forget that who we follow denied his rightful place in the wilderness and then moved inexorably towards the cross. We have no rightful place - we only have our denial of it.

So what does this mean in practical terms?  We all sacrifice our money and most of us some of our time.  We hunt for the latest cause to pursue in the name of God.   But in the modern age sacrifice of time and talent is not deep enough sacrifice.  Remember, we are to follow Jesus all the way to death.

Dying to self is really about the little stuff not the big stuff.  Non-Christians volunteer and do charity work.  Not that we should not volunteer or do charity work, but it is how we do those things that should separate us from those that do not enjoy life with Christ.  Turning again to Paul:

Gal 5:22-24 - But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.  Now those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.

Those "fruits" are the measure of our sacrifice.  Just before Lent, we enjoyed a Wednesday night lecture from author Hugh Hewitt on his book "The Happiest Life."  In his book, Hewitt suggests that happiness is found in giving (not getting mind you) of seven gifts: encouragement, energy, enthusiasm, good humor, graciousness, gratitude, and patience. Notice that some of those gifts, like patience, are common to Paul's list of fruits.  Other gifts are only available to us to give if we have the fruits.

The giving of gifts like these is heart of the sacrifice that is demanded of us to follow Christ on the deepest levels.  Gratitude, when life does not seem gracious.  Encouragement when we are discouraged.  When we set aside our negative feelings to give others positive interaction, then we are finally on the road to the sacrifice of Christ.  By comparison, giving away money is easy.

Joining Christ in His crucifixion is not a "part way" deal.  We have to go all the way.  We can die to "smokin' drinkin' and chewin'," but its not enough.  We have to die to grouchy, grumpy and ill-mannered.  We have to die to self-pity and ill-humor.  We have to die to pride and vanity.  We have to die.

Thankfully, there is the resurrection - but it comes only after death.

4/3 by Erna Hackett

Mark 5:21–43 

32 But Jesus kept looking around to see who had done it. 33 Then the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came and fell at his feet and, trembling with fear, told him the whole truth. 34 He said to her, “Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace and be freed from your suffering.”

Lent is a season of repentance and being laid bare in our brokenness and neediness before Jesus. Perhaps one of the most difficult areas of pain and suffering is long-term physical illness. This story in Mark reveals a woman who has been bleeding for 12 years. She has experienced the embarrassment and humiliation of seeing doctor after doctor and lost her money along the way. The illness has isolated her from her community, she would have been considered ceremonially unclean, and hence not allowed to participate in many aspects of Jewish life. It would have kept her from places of worship, she would not have been allowed into a synagogue or the temple, so she would have felt isolated from God. And this has gone on for many years. This woman has been suffering for a long time. Nothing brings us to our knees like ongoing suffering. Suffering without a promise of end is a unique type of pain.

This woman is desperate when she comes to Jesus- reaching out her hand. And she is healed. But for Jesus that is not enough. He doesn’t just want to physically heal her. He wants her emotional, spiritual, and relational world to be healed. 

He stops and takes the time to hear her whole story. 

He calls her daughter. 

He brings her out of hiding and lets the whole crowd witness her healing. He makes sure that the crowd witnesses Him calling her daughter. Everyone gets to hear His affirmation of her faith. 

For any of us persevering in physical illness, or persevering with someone who is ill, let this story be an encouragement. 

Jesus sees. 

Jesus stops and takes time to interact with us. 

Jesus knows that physical illness takes a toll on more than just the body. 

Jesus cares enough to address all the ways that we feel affected. 

And Jesus has the power to heal. 

4/2 by Mary Wilson

I like being busy, and I love to cross items off my to-do list.  A product of my American culture,  I enjoy being productive, getting things done and reaching goals.  Waiting around for something to happen or someone to come can wear me out!   Yet the Bible tells us that waiting can be a blessing especially if we are waiting on the Lord.

I am still confident of this:

I will see the goodness of the Lord

in the land of the living.

Wait for the Lord 

be strong and take heart

and wait for the Lord  Psalm 27:13-14

Waiting on the Lord might seem like a serious speed bump on a busy Monday. But actually waiting on the Lord in prayer can be like taking an express train. While I enjoy some good quality time with Jesus, He is planning my day and making priorities clear. I can trust him to keep my paths straight. The Lord encourages fruitfulness and industry, but he prefers we check in with him before we bolt out of the gate. In fact, He loves when we ask him to be involved in every aspect of our lives .

“His pleasure is not in the strength of the horse,

nor his delight in the legs of a man;

 the Lord  delights in those who fear him 

who put their hope in his unfailing love.”   Psalm 147:10-11

Waiting for the Lord is not like the waiting at the DMV.  Waiting on the Lord calls us to engage in some of the most crucial work of our lives : listening, praying and discernment. Sometimes the Lord gives us wonderful activities to grow us while we are waiting for his guidance. My best story about waiting has to do with the three years I waited for Andy to propose.  Shortly after I met Andy I knew that I wanted to be his wife. (Cross engagement ring off my list!)  But the Lord had so much to teach me before I was ready to start on that adventure.  He wanted me to fix my eyes on him in prayer and Bible study.  He gave me lots of training during those years.  Working as a youth advisor along side the world’s most energetic youth minister (my future husband)  required making sacrifices and taking risks. It made my job as a TV producer look like a cake walk.  It gave me lots of great insights into the man I was to marry.  For one thing, I learned how much he loved every kid he ever met and that I would have to share him with more kids than I ever imagined. But after waiting on the Lord and Andy for three years, I was okay with sharing, because I loved those kids, too.

I realize now that during those three years my Love Perfect Father was working out what was best for me and Andy.  If I had only known just how how busy he was preparing me for marriage, I never would have worried or cried about not getting a wedding ring when I wanted.  

I still have trouble waiting, but I take comfort in knowing that God is busier than ever working out his purposes for my life.  As the giver of my life and lover of my soul, I have a permanent spot on his to-do list!  That confidence gives me  determination to join the psalmist in waiting on the Lord all day long. 

4/1 by Lana

I’ve been really obsessed about following God lately – scratch that, I’ve been really obsessed with following gods lately.  I verbally proclaim that I want to seek after Jesus and truly know his heart, but my mind has been elsewhere.  It’s been focused on myself: my life plan and my comfort.

I confess, my thoughts each day are consumed with how unsatisfied I feel and what I need to do to change that feeling. I’m constantly thinking, “What’s the ‘best next step’ for me? Surly, if I could only find the perfect new job or move to an exciting new city I will find contentment – I will be able to follow God without hesitation, distractions, or doubts. I toil and worry about these things because I want to follow Jesus, I want to know him more than I do now.” …Let’s be real, that’s not about Jesus, that’s all about me.

I’ve learned that by constantly fixating on my future, I’m not allowing God to meet me where He’s brought me today. I’m keeping Him from doing the work in my heart that He planned from the beginning to do at this very place and season of my life.

I’m realizing that sometimes the “best next step” is not taking one; and following God means sitting tight, being still, giving it all up, and letting God do the good work He started inside of my heart. I must trust that at this moment in my life, God has me exactly where he called me to be.

Until he calls me elsewhere, I need to be patient, live in the present, and allow God to do the work. He may not lead me where I expect, but ultimately His will is better than my own.

Great, my conclusion is a bunch of very broad and cliché statements that are easy to say, hard to do.  So…. how do I actually live them out? How do we live them out?

I’m still figuring that out, but thank goodness God has all the answers and has given us His Son, His Word, His Spirit, and His body to meet us exactly where we are.

•  Philippians 1:6 - Being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.
• Psalm 37:7 -  Be still in the presence of the LORD, and wait patiently for him to act. Don't worry about evil people who prosper or fret about their wicked schemes.
• Matthew 16:24 - Then Jesus said to his disciples, "Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.”