Live as children of light...and find out what pleases the Lord.

Ephesians 5

 1 Follow God’s example, therefore, as dearly loved children 2 and walk in the way of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.
 3 But among you there must not be even a hint of sexual immorality, or of any kind of impurity, or of greed, because these are improper for God’s holy people. 4 Nor should there be obscenity, foolish talk or coarse joking, which are out of place, but rather thanksgiving. 5 For of this you can be sure: No immoral, impure or greedy person—such a person is an idolater—has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God.[a] 6 Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of such things God’s wrath comes on those who are disobedient. 7 Therefore do not be partners with them.

 8 For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light 9 (for the fruit of the light consists in all goodness, righteousness and truth) 10 and find out what pleases the Lord. 11 Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them. 12 It is shameful even to mention what the disobedient do in secret. 13 But everything exposed by the light becomes visible—and everything that is illuminated becomes a light. 14 This is why it is said:

   “Wake up, sleeper,
   rise from the dead,
   and Christ will shine on you.”

 15 Be very careful, then, how you live—not as unwise but as wise, 16 making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil. 17 Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the Lord’s will is. 18 Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery. Instead, be filled with the Spirit, 19 speaking to one another with psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit. Sing and make music from your heart to the Lord, 20 always giving thanks to God the Father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.

50 Things Everyone Should Know

Just for fun...someone sent this to me:
50 Things Everyone Should Know

The word "queue" is the only word in the English language that is still pronounced the same way when the last four letters are removed.

Beetles taste like apples, wasps like pine nuts, and worms like fried bacon.

Of all the words in the English language, the word 'set' has the most definitions!

"Almost" is the longest word in the English language with all the letters in alphabetical order.

"Rhythm" is the longest English word without a vowel.

In 1386, a pig in France was executed by public hanging for the murder of a child

A cockroach can live several weeks with its head cut off!

Human thigh bones are stronger than concrete.

You can't kill yourself by holding your breath

There is a city called Rome on every continent.

It's against the law to have a pet dog in Iceland!

Your heart beats over 100,000 times a day!

Horatio Nelson, one of England's most illustrious admirals was throughout his life, never able to find a cure for his sea-sickness.

The skeleton of Jeremy Bentham is present at all important meetings of the University of London

Your ribs move about 5 million times a year, everytime you breathe!

The elephant is the only mammal that can't jump!

One quarter of the bones in your body, are in your feet!

Like fingerprints, everyone's tongue print is different!

The first known transfusion of blood was performed as early as 1667, when Jean-Baptiste, transfused two pints of blood from a sheep to a young man

Fingernails grow nearly 4 times faster than toenails!

Most dust particles in your house are made from dead skin!

The present population of 5 billion plus people of the world is predicted to become 15 billion by 2080.

Women blink nearly twice as much as men.

Adolf Hitler was a vegetarian.

Honey is the only food that does not spoil. Honey found in the tombs of Egyptian pharaohs has been tasted by archaeologists and found edible.

Months that begin on a Sunday will always have a "Friday the 13th."

Coca-Cola would be green if colouring weren’t added to it.

On average a hedgehog's heart beats 300 times a minute.

More people are killed each year from bees than from snakes.

The average lead pencil will draw a line 35 miles long or write approximately 50,000 English words.

More people are allergic to cow's milk than any other food.

Camels have three eyelids to protect themselves from blowing sand.

The placement of a donkey's eyes in its' heads enables it to see all four feet at all times!

The six official languages of the United Nations are: English, French, Arabic, Chinese, Russian and Spanish.

Earth is the only planet not named after a god.

It's against the law to burp, or sneeze in a church in Nebraska, USA.

You're born with 300 bones, but by the time you become an adult, you only have 206.

Some worms will eat themselves if they can't find any food!

Dolphins sleep with one eye open!

It is impossible to sneeze with your eyes open

The worlds oldest piece of chewing gum is 9000 years old!

The longest recorded flight of a chicken is 13 seconds

Queen Elizabeth I regarded herself as a paragon of cleanliness. She declared that she bathed once every three months, whether she needed it or not

Slugs have 4 noses.

Owls are the only birds who can see the colour blue.

A man named Charles Osborne had the hiccups for 69 years!

A giraffe can clean its ears with its 21-inch tongue!

The average person laughs 10 times a day!

An ostrich's eye is bigger than its brain

Crazy Love: Overwhelmed by a Relentless God

Crazy Love: Overwhelmed by a Relentless God by Francis Chan

 

 

 

I've got my friend Benjamin to thank for referring this awesome book to me! Wow, what a read. It's more than a "read," actually. If you let this one go in (and I'm gonna have to read it again to get even some of it to go in) this one will change your life. Check out this quote from page 62: 

If someone asked you what the greatest good on the earth is, what would you say? An epic surf session? Financial security? Health? Meaningful, trusting friendships? Intimacy with your spouse? Knowing that you belong? The greatest good on this earth is God. Period. God's one goal for us is Himself. 

The Good News -- the best news in the world, in fact--is that you can have God Himself. Do you believe that God is the greatest thing you can experience in the whole world? Do you believe that the Good News is not merely the forgiveness of sins, the guarantee that you won't go to hell, or the promise of life in heaven?  

The best things in life are gifts from the One who steadfastly loves us. But an important question to ask ourselves is this: Are we in love with God or just His stuff?

Ouch! But this book is not just lovey-dovey stuff. No way> You've got chapter titles such as Profile of the Lukewarm, Serving Leftovers to a Holy God, and Your Best Life...Later. (I love this last one the most!) 

The books turns from a challenging curtain call on our mediocre love dramas to an all out invitation to become obsessed with God! That's right...obsessed. 

But I wish Chan would have just stopped there, and let it be all about good feelings of love and flowers and stuff. You know.. walks-in-the-park-with-God sort of love. But he doesn't stop there. He has to take us further -- to a Calvery shaped love. He tells the story of the Amish school shooting in 2006 in Lancaster, where crazy love took hold the day after the shooting and Amish people from the community "visited the shooter's family to say they had forgiven them." Forgiven them?! For shooting their children!??! What?!?  I put the book down after that... 

for a while...

didn't touch it...

couldn't...


A few days later I caught my breath and found the strength to consider it... and not just read it, to try and let the thoughts of love really go in a little more. And I read: 

"That sort of forgiveness is incomprehensible to the world; because of it, people have even accused the families of being bad parents, or not dealing properly with their anger, or living in denial."

and...

"It is just this sort of love that is crazy to the world: true love, a kind found nowhere but through Christ."

Crazy Love indeed. That's our Lord! 

He died for our sins -- CRAZY!
He asked God to forgive those who killed Him -- CRAZY!
He told His followers they would do even greater (love) things -- CRAZY!


[side note: Gregory Boyd would add an application exercise to this chapter in Chan's book that simply goes like this: "Ask God to bring to mind the person or persons whom you think have hurt you most...now forgive them. Now do it again tomorrow. And the next day."]

Chan wraps it up with some profiles of crazy lovers of God, including Rich Mullins, Rachel Saint, and Shane Clainborne, to name a few. But all the descriptions of these lives are ... well... crazy. How could they really live this way? Give this much? Trust so greatly? Love with such abandonment?  I have to say it can only be by God's Holy Spirit. And that's why I just bought the sequal to Crazy Love: Forgotten God. 


Judging by the description on the back, my guess is one cannot really grasp Crazy Love without taking hold of Chan's followup. 

Product Description

A follow up to the profound message of Crazy Love, Pastor Francis Chan offers a compelling invitation to understand, embrace, and follow the Holy Spirit’s direction in our lives.

In the name of the Father, the Son, and … the Holy Spirit. We pray in the name of all three, but how often do we live with an awareness of only the first two? As Jesus ascended into heaven, He promised to send the Holy Spirit—the Helper—so that we could be true and living witnesses for Christ. Unfortunately, today’s church has admired the gift but neglected to open it.

Breakthrough author Francis Chan rips away paper and bows to get at the true source of the church’s power—the Holy Spirit. Chan contends that we’ve ignored the Spirit for far too long, and we are reaping the disastrous results. Thorough scriptural support and compelling narrative form Chan’s invitation to stop and remember the One we’ve forgotten, the Spirit of the living God.

So I'm excited! Probably going to be just as challenging as Crazy Love. There's no grasping God's love or His Spirit. But at least we can open our hands wide with palms up and pray -- "God give us your love and your power and your ways -- for they are greater than ours on any day."  

Perhaps then our days will be a little more filled with some crazy love.  

 

Journey to Life: The Kingdom is

aJourney to Life: The Kingdom is

 

The Kingdom of God is...

• not a matter of eating and drinking, but of righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit

  • not a matter of talk but of power

 The Kingdom of God is...

• A place of Rescue

For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves.

 The Kingdom of God is...

• A place where the King dies for our sins, in our place. 

For this reason he had to be made like them, fully human in every way, in order that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in service to God, and that he might make atonement for the sins of the people.

God presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement, through the shedding of his blood—to be received by faith. He did this to demonstrate his righteousness

I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.

 The Kingdom of God is...

• A place of LOVE

knowledge puffs up while love builds up. 

whoever loves God is known by God. 

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.

Love never fails.

Follow the way of love and eagerly desire gifts of the Spirit, especially prophecy.

Do everything in love.

For Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died.

The Kingdom of God is...

• A place of FREEdom

You, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh ; rather, serve one another humbly in love.

Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.

It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.

In him and through faith in him we may approach God with freedom and confidence. 

Live as free people, but do not use your freedom as a cover-up for evil; live as God’s slaves. 

The Kingdom of God is...

• A place of Fruit

 I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.

This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.

You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit—fruit that will last—and so that whatever you ask in my name the Father will give you.

So, my brothers and sisters, you also died to the law through the body of Christ, that you might belong to another, to him who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit for God.

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness.

In the same way, the gospel is bearing fruit and growing throughout the whole world—just as it has been doing among you since the day you heard it and truly understood God’s grace.

Live a life worthy of the Lord and please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God.

The Kingdom of God is...

A PLACE like no other place on Earth, because it's not on Earth, it's in Heaven; a PLACE where all of the above exists and you feel them in your heart and in your friendships and in your family; a PLACE where the above breaks into your life and lives and your ekklesia; a PLACE which is spiritual and magnificent and expanding throughout the Earth, sometimes hidden, sometimes visible, but always present; a PLACE where we partner with God, accepting His gift and His gifts, and believing who we ARE in Christ -- a new creation! 

A PLACE where the King is actually a Shepherd; and we are His Sheep because we here His voice, and we follow....where ever He may lead.

I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.

The one who enters by the gate is the shepherd of the sheep. 

I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me 

They too will listen to my voice, and there shall be one flock and one shepherd.

For the Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd; ‘he will lead them to springs of living water.’ ‘And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.’

The Kingdom of God is...

Wake up to Worship Him

I really hate that it often times takes a break from the routine and the daily grind to take time to worship Him. This morning the kids and I praised Him in the kitchen to "Mighty to Save," a little, and most beautiful pause, from cooking breakfast. But then, like a dove flew in, the next song brought me to the throne. There is Nothing, by Laura Story.

There really is nothing. Nothing compares to knowing you, Lord.

~~~~~~~~~~

Verse 1:
Lord I come before You
To honor and adore You
For who You are and all that You have done
Lord I am not worthy
My heart is dark and dirty
Still somehow You bid for me to come

Pre-Chorus:
So clothe me in humility
Remind me, that I come before a King

Chorus:
And there is nothing
There is nothing
More precious, more worthy
May I gaze deeper
May I stand longer
May I press onward to know You Lord

Verse 2:
May our time be sweeter
May I be a keeper
Of the promises I make to You in song
Lord may I remember these moments of surrender
And live my life this way from this day on

Pre-Chorus:
So clothe me in humility
Remind me, that I come before a King

Chorus:
And there is nothing
There is nothing
More precious, more worthy
May I gaze deeper
May I stand longer
May I press onward to know You Lord

Pre-Chorus:
So clothe me in humility
Remind me, (pause)...that I come before a King

Chorus:
And there is nothing
There is nothing
More precious, more worthy
May I gaze deeper
May I stand longer
May I press onward to know You Lord

May I press onward to know You Lord