The goodness of God: John & Revelation
When we speak of God’s goodness in our lives, how often do we allow this simple truth to deeply reside in the crevices of our hearts and settle into our everyday lives where it matters most?
What does it mean to live as though God IS good?
Often, we can understand these truths on the surface, but our hearts and minds have not fully embraced what this means for our current reality– that Jesus is the “light of men” and has overcome darkness, both now and in eternity!
The Goodness of God: In Matthew, Mark & Luke
I always knew my calling was to be a wife and a mother. That dream’s first half became reality when my husband and I married. Many tears were shed, and prayers were spoken about our request to become parents. However, I didn’t know I would have to wait ten years into our marriage before I could fulfill the role of mother.
In the books of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, there is a story about a woman who had an issue of blood for twelve years. Can you imagine? The Bible doesn’t say, but did she also have other symptoms along with the bleeding?
As Was His Custom: Repent. Believe. Follow.
It wasn’t until I sat in a discipleship seminar that a lightbulb blazed on inside my soul. It was the realization that Jesus preached the Gospel.
Wait- what? I thought the Gospel was Him.
And it is. Jesus is a BIG PART of it. But there’s more. And when I realized what He preached about, when He was preaching about the Gospel, all the bells and whistles began to sync together into a perfectly harmonized song.
As Was His Custom: Serving
We live in a world preoccupied with greatness. As humans, we follow star athletes, celebrities, artists, and leaders, and we yearn for significance in the individual corners of our own lives. We pursue financial gain, popularity, appeal, and admiration. We seek to be known and praised. We find satisfaction in attention and aspire to feel important in the eyes of others. Throughout history, this obsession has taken many shapes and forms, but it is the same, nonetheless: conquering kingdoms, rising to power, acquiring a following, generating wealth, gaining importance.
When Jesus came, however, He modeled an entirely opposite ambition and aim. Instead of seeking greatness by these standards, Jesus turned our entire way of living on its head, swinging the pendulum to the other extreme. He taught that in His Kingdom, the key to greatness is, in fact, found in becoming less:
Jesus both taught and modeled in His earthly ministry a different objective– Serving is the way of God’s Kingdom.
As Was His Custom: Fellowship Part 2
While the gift of salvation is certainly a personal decision one makes individually, the restoration of fellowship with God opens up the gift of fellowship with His church. Eugene Peterson refers to our association with and participation in the body, the church, as “part of the fabric of redemption.” We can’t separate our fellowship with God from our fellowship with other believers and truly experience the fullness of what Jesus offers. They are inextricably tied, and it is within the context of common fellowship that we experience the fullness of what Jesus came to bring, in community with his Body: his imperfect, beautiful, messy, and beloved church. We see the early church experiencing this same fellowship: “They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.”
As Was His Custom: Fellowship Part 1
What comes to mind when you hear the word fellowship? If you grew up in the church as I did, you may envision a potluck dinner after service in the church’s fellowship hall, or perhaps a small group cookout. Fellowship may also spur on ideas of gathering, of togetherness, or simply being with friends and family, within or outside of the church. Fellowship as a whole is a great concept. Who doesn’t want to belong, to be a part of, to have fellow friends and family with whom we share life’s experiences?
In examination of the life of Jesus, he, too, enjoyed the blessings of fellowship. Yet the fellowship he walked in and emulated for us is far more profound than what one may experience simply at a church get-together or gathering with friends. While it certainly can include such experiences, there is so much more. The fellowship seen in and through the life of Jesus is central to His mission, life-altering, and available to each one of us who choose to receive it.
As Was His Custom: Fasting
While we don’t hear much about fasting in our modern faith circles, the power of this singular spiritual discipline is wholly worth pursuing. In my own faith journey, I’ve reaped the profound benefits of fasting and prayer, particularly when seeking direction, to hear more clearly from the voice of God, and to experience a breakthrough in an area of struggle. While I find such a powerful and extensive topic intimidating to write about, I’m eager to illuminate Jesus’ example and teaching in this custom while emboldening each of us to follow Jesus and experience more of Him through this practice.
As Was His Custom: Teaching
On hundreds of Sundays, I padded down the blue-carpeted basement steps to our newly constructed Sunday School rooms. I followed as other children walked into their respective classrooms. I looked forward to Sundays, as I enjoyed learning about Jesus, but I especially loved being taught by Doug Livgren. Now, looking back, it's because his love and passion for Jesus superseded just "getting through the Sunday School curriculum." My class would enter, girls giggling and boys shoving to get to seats, and Doug would walk in and command attention from us. What I remember most was having light bulb moments through his teaching, and honestly when I taught third-grade boys Sunday School in college, I thought back often and used Doug's methods.
Teaching is one of the many customs/habits of Jesus. Immediately following his 40 days in the wilderness (Luke 4), he begins traveling, preaching, and teaching in synagogues throughout the countryside. He even taught (albeit briefly) in His hometown of Nazareth. (Click here for a blog post on this topic!) However, Jesus' teaching slightly differed from what we're used to in our Western context. Jesus, more than likely, was educated in rabbinic tradition (see here for more info).
As Was His Custom: Silence
I remember the first time I experienced true silence. I was 11 years old and had just spent a week at my grandparent’s home all by myself. My Grandma Gus and I had attended musicals, gotten my ears pierced, and shopped until we dropped. She’d taken me to tea houses, watched Anne of Green Gables (with Megan Follows- because that version is a part of my DNA!), and rode my Grandpa Gus’ horses at sunset. That week was one of my most beautiful times with my grandparents on my mother’s side.
But in one of the most traumatic experiences of my life, on the way to surprise my Grandpa at work with ice cream, an intoxicated driver t-boned the car my Grandma and I were in. Our vehicle spun, rolling violently eight times into a bean field. When our car came to rest upside down, I was unconscious, pinned between the dashboard and the windshield. My Grandma’s seat belt had snapped, leaving her bleeding out on the ceiling of the car, now on the ground. My parents were over 12 hours away, and even though my Dad left immediately after receiving that awful phone call, I was relatively alone for several hours in that hospital room in Princeton, IL.
Women of Valor: Amy Carmichael
As I read the words of Amy Carmichael, she seemed to be a friend that I already knew. The sister I never had. The woman who discipled me to Christ without me knowing. She wrote, "There are times when something comes into our lives which is charged with love in such a way that it seems to open the Eternal to us for a moment, or at least some of the Eternal Things, and the greatest of these is love. It may be a small and intimate touch upon us or our affairs, light as the touch of the dawn wind on the leaves of the tree, something not to be captured and told to another in words. But we know that it is our Lord. And then perhaps the room where we are, with its furniture and books and flowers, seems less "present" than His Presence, and the heart is drawn into that sweetness of which the old hymn sings. The love of Jesus, what it is; None but His loved ones know."
What to Look for In a Bible Study
I’m constantly being messaged about what to look for in a Bible study.
“Hey Meg, have you heard anything about this new Bible study author?”
“Do you know of any Bible studies on anxiety?”
“Are there any Bible studies I need to avoid?”
I love getting questions like this. And I generally have answers to these questions. But it does seem as though every time I turn around, I find another new Bible study author, and they don’t always have credentials I’m comfortable with. But I digress. What I initially look for in my study now may surprise most people…
Before You Open Your Bible…
Here's the thing I believe is the downfall of most Bible reading.
People, JUST START READING.
And that works for the most part. Until you run into something that doesn't make sense, seems to contradict something else you read, or makes you question everything you thought you knew about our Creator.
The more I understand and study this crazy, intense, and intentionally designed book, the more I'm blown away.
Here are some things that will set you up to be more interpretative of the text rather than just taking it at face value.
Meshing the old with the new
We took turns and crouched beside the slab that tradition declares to be the place where Jesus’ body rested… but when I walked out of that church, although I was sad for the cost my Savior went to save mankind… I was full of joy that He had loved me (us!) enough to give up HIS life.