New Wine Uncorked: Following Jesus: Into the Promise Land or the Polluted Landfill

#love #trinity #jesus #newwine #nwnws 

Following Jesus means that you know Him, or at least have an idea of where He is leading… So what then of the path in front of the Jesus follower? Is it a path of promise or a polluted one drowning in toxic “love.” 

In this episode of New Wine Uncorked, Phil, Kayla, and Matt traverse the wonderful terrain of love… When we follow Jesus on to the path of love, where exactly does this path lead? And am I equipped to walk such a path? 

Recorded live on Fridays at 10am (pst) New Wine UnCorked seeks to step into culture with a heart bent towards engagement, reconciliation, and relationship. 

Dialogue is the truth of participation as dia via Latin from Greek dia-logos invokes a participatory conversation. It is interactive. From dia "through" + legein "speak." Going through the Word so to engage through our word, New Wine seeks to uncork the impossible possibility of the human and our pursuit of this Uncommon God so to realize our common good. 

New Wine Uncorked - Love Beyond Limits: The Impossible Possibility?

#love #trinity #jesus #newwine #nwnws Knowing God’s heart means consistently, radically, and very concretely announcing, through our words and deeds, that God is love. And in this proclamation, we announce that every time fear, isolation, or despair begin to invade our soul we not only know this is not something that comes from God but that in such times our hearts have to cling ferociously to God. In this episode of New Wine Uncorked, Phil, Kayla, Jim, and Matt traverse the wonderful terrain of love… Love of God, Love of self, Love of neighbor. Recorded live on Fridays at 10am (pst) New Wine UnCorked seeks to step into culture with a heart bent towards engagement, reconciliation, and relationship.

Lovely is...

On the cross Jesus’ final breath was breathed out so that we might breathe in His life.
His last words were meant for us...

“It is finished.” 

No longer is there any chasm, any separation between the Creator and the created, for when Love was nailed to the cross the world witnessed how lovely is death.

And in our witness of death’s beauty, we experience how lovely is life. No longer does death have the sting of victory for in Jesus’ lovely death we are set free to realize how lovely is life.

As we celebrate the glory of Easter contemplate these two truths:

Lovely is death. In Jesus' death perfect love overwhelms the darkness of fear, the darkness of pain, the darkness of anxiety... the darkness of sin. For in His death we meet love, for He is love and “perfect love casts out fear.” Lovely is the death of the One who is love for through His death we are baptized in His glory so that we might “walk in newness of life” (Rom 6:4).

Lovely is death is the truth of all those who “lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely” so that we might be consumed by Jesus, “the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God” (Heb 12:1-2).

Lovely is life. The joy of the cross is rooted in its destruction of our death so that through the death of Christ we might become baptized into the loveliness of life. Through the Spirit our hearts are awakened so that in hearing His voice we might truly live (Jn 5:25).

Lovely is life is the truth of all those who believe in Christ that “though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in Me shall never die” (Jn 11:25-26). For in Christ and through the Spirit, we are more than conquerors because in His death we become “the resurrection and the life.”

Only when we see how lovely is death can we experience how lovely is life. Only when Easter is lived through Christmas and Christmas through Easter can and will the Church become the eruption of hope bursting forth from the empty tomb! Amen Jesus! Tweet

Heaven is here...Do we hear?

Yesterday felt like an earthquake with the murder of God... 

And now... the deafening silence of Saturday...

The sound of Saturday's silence is the rumbling of love. A love bursting from the seams... waiting for Sunday's explosion.

But until then, the silence is powerful. The fear palpable. The angst overwhelming. And yet, in the midst of the silence, the tomb is calling out -- do you hear?

Today - as it always has - humanity is crying out for the hope of the empty tomb. And this year, the church needs to celebrate with bold-faced print, heart-filled streams, and tenacious prayers, heaven's hope.

That is, the Church needs to make clear the Kingdom of heaven is here... Do we hear?

What if today we “trust in the name of the Lord” so that we might “rise and stand upright?” What if today we who love the Lord, “shout for joy” by rising and standing upright by praying for the world today? (Ps20) 

What if the prayers of our heart were filled with the blood drops of Jesus?

What if we filled the silence (isolation) with the sound of our prayers?

As long as we live we should pray and pray unceasingly. Today is a gift from God for in His silence He speaks boldly, asking us, how will we respond to the actions of Christ? 

Will we step into the beautiful paradox that erupts from the cross? Will we step into the silence with the powerful and joyful noise of our prayers? Will we be the prayer song for the world to hear?

TGIF

Have you ever stopped to think what makes something good? Is something good always something to be thankful for?

Today many around the globe are engaging two truths: the cross, the COVID-19. For which can, should, do we exclaim: TGIF!

On this day called Friday, is there a reason to thank God? So many thank God for Friday and yet what is such thanks rooted in?

Might this day be the day when TGIF strikes at the core of the soul? Might this TGIF be a time when we pause to give thanks for the Friday that changed everything?

This Easter is different... As it should be. Truth is, the hope is that over the days past, we have grown closer, stronger, deeper with Jesus. And in our closeness we have found life to be what it is meant to be the closer I am to Him. And yet, how often do I neglect this truth?

Might this Friday be the day when we use the stay-at-home to really go home? To return to the One who is our home? What if today we pause and socially distance ourselves from the darkness, pain, angst of sin by embracing the One who is good? The One who radically altered the course of history thereby giving us the “goodness” of Good Friday.

As we go through the day, let us be mindful of the act taking place on our behalf... Let us ask the Holy Spirit to awaken us to the truth of what our King has done in order to give us the goodness of this life... 

As you enter into prayer this day - and throughout the weekend - be creative in the ways you meditate on God's word and in His presence. You might begin by listening to How Many Kings by Downhere, allowing the melody and lyrics to further awaken your heart to the truth of the One nailed to the rugged tree. 

Poured out

Every moment I spend with Jesus is yet another moment I am filled with wonder. Every minute I spend in prayer is time I spend taking in the beauty of eternity. In Christ and through the Spirit, I have come to know this—Love.

This week is known to many as passion week. This week marks the intentional movement of the Light of God into the inferno of God. This week marks the moment when the love that came to town becomes the love that engulfs the town. This week marks the time when love steps into our pain, our silence, our turmoil, our darkness, our depression, our virus...

Truth of this week is that in the death of life's living hope, the hope of our life erupts. When we step into the truth of Christ's passion we are consumed by His presence and from His presence we can become His power. And the greatest eruption of His power and presence poured out is prayer.

Through the Spirit the truth of heaven's love can be multiplied... if we are willing to be poured out. When we come before His throne of grace we find the peace, the hope, the joy of heaven. We find that in Christ we are not alone, and in our unity we find strength.

We are not alone because He is our strength, our defender, our refuge in the storm. When we embrace the Spirit so as to step into the heart of Christ we come to find that through all the trials He has always been faithful, bringing healing to our soul.

Let Jesus be your everything. Today, become engulfed in the prayer of Christ—His prayer to the Father for the protection, the blessing and the glory of His beloved.

“I have given them the words that you gave me, and they have received them and have come to know in truth that I came from you; and they have believed that you sent me. I am praying for them. I am not praying for the world but for those whom you have given me, for they are yours” (John 17:8-9).

For the truth of His love is the truth of our eternal joy. He came to wrap us up in His arms so that we might have peace, so that we might know that we are His own. Jesus’ prayer for us should bring our hearts to such a place of worship that we can do nothing but proclaim:

“You amaze me, Redeem me, You call me as Your own.”

If we say we love Jesus, our lives right now must show we love Jesus and the greatest way to do this is to jump into the “heart of Jesus” by jumping into prayer for the sake of the other.

Take a moment and listen to I am not alone by Kari Jobe and let the truth of this song invigorate the glory of your day as you are poured out in prayer for the sake of the world. Amen Jesus!

for further teaching and thoughts from Dr Farlow visit his YouTube page 

Identity of this moment

Identity... we easily lose sight of who we are as we get caught up in the hustle and bustle of the holidays. Truth is, the holiday season can be something spectacular... if we do not get swallowed up by the rush of society and allow the consumption of stuff to define us. And this only happens when we push pause so that we might recognize the truth of identity...

Who we are is found only in God. Our creation comes from the One who is - Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. He created us. He sustains us. He is the ground of our life, our relationality, our meaning, our joy, our hope. 

During the times of rampant running to acquire stuff, what we need most is to pause so that we might return to God.

“Return to your God,” Amos tells the Israelites, and he is telling this to us as well. Like the Israelites, we too turn to the idols of this world to fill the voids we have created through our rampant running around. We consume the goods of society in such a frantic manner that who we are is not only lost in the shuffle, but subtly re-defined by this world.

The words of Amos are meant to shake our perspective so much so that we might return back to our King. So that we return back to the cradle in the cave in order to fall down and worship the baby who will eventually hang on a cross for our sake...

Might today be the time to pause and reflect on the truth and identity of this moment... of this season... so as to realize the truth and identity of you?

The truth of your identity is this... You are loved... You are God's beloved and He wants nothing more than to dote on you this day and every day after. Question is, will you allow Him? 

Will you pause this moment so as to be embraced by eternity? Will you pause this moment and look into the loving eyes of that baby in the manger and see the truth of identity... the truth of love... the truth of you?

The Crux

Through Christ we come to realize that our restless heart understands itself only if it comes to understand true reality. Such reality that is only experienced through the love offered by the divine heart that breaks for us upon the Cross. It is a love that was broken wide open on that rugged cross so as to be poured out into our hearts by the Holy Spirit (Rom 5.5).

Truth is, our hearts are in need of a revival. Each of us needs to be reminded not only who we are, but why were we created - or better yet, the purpose of our personhood. And this is why we need Jesus…

Jesus is the crux of Christianity—He is the core of our faith, the foundation of salvation—He is the Christ. However, many today balk at the aforementioned. Sure we are willing to accept Christ as being a “good teacher,” but as the Son of God, the salvation of humanity, our actions (and our words) hardly support anything other than a belief that to be a Christian is to simply memorize Scripture, follow rules and do good deeds. But being a disciple of Christ is so much more…

Throughout the Bible we witness the truth that God is love. And in this truth we come to know the beauty of His mercy. To know Christ is to know love so as to experience His merciful love. Dietrich Bonhoeffer writes:

The mercy and love of God are at work even in the midst of his enemies.  It is the same Jesus Christ, who of his grace calls us to follow him, and whose grace saves the murderer who mocks him on the cross in his last hour.

Yes Jesus was and is a “great teacher,” but to keep Him only as such is to place Him in a human constructed box. When Jesus took on flesh He became mercy for us. To know Christ is to know mercy. To know mercy is to be mercy, which as Paul writes, is to participate or fellowship in Christ’s sufferings and His death. Being precedes doing.

Christ’s love and mercy know no bounds. He loves friend and foe, and He calls us to do the same. When we know Christ, we know salvation and from such knowing our hearts experience the revival from His love poured out by the Holy Spirit. It is a love that elevates us from being simply observers of His life to the extraordinary place of participants in His truth.

We are called to fellowship in Christ’s sufferings and conform to His death – this is what it means to workout our salvation; this is what it means to participate in Christ’s performance. We are called to be mercy, compassion, and most of all, love. This is what it means to be a player and participant in God’s drama.

Room at the inn

Have you ever wondered about the foundation of your beliefs? Have you ever thought about the craziness faith?

Take a moment and think about Christmas...Think about its foundation and what we are asked to believe...

Truth is, this thing called Christianity does not make sense to this world. And why would it? A baby born in a dirty cave because there was no room at the inn, is said to be the Savior of the world. This same baby grows into a man that we are called to follow and emulate even though He does crazy things like walk on water, fraternize with the outcasts, heals the lame and cares for the prostitutes.

This dude that we hail as king was beaten to death - I mean he represents everything that is sooo not American hero - right? No bone crushing did He do - He let them crush Him. No whooping a little a$$ - He allowed them to beat Him to His last breath.

And so at Christmas what is it we celebrate? 

Love... Christmas (like Easter) is the celebration of love... Love incarnate. Yes Christmas is the celebration of the greatest gift given... God Himself...

Immanuel - God with us. At Christmas, God with us is said to us by God Himself, we come under a lordship . . . We come under His Lordship which is bathed in radical love.

In Jesus Christ we understand the Word of God as the epitome of God’s grace. It is a word of radicalness...

Why do Christians do what they do? Why do Christians act in ways deemed crazy and insane by the world?

Because they have been visited by the truth of Christmas... Their hearts have been overwhelmed by the eruption of God's radical love...

And what did they do with this love? They said yes. Radical Christian love happens when there is room at the inn of our hearts... Amen Jesus!

Merry Christmas...

Is there light?

In light of devastation - emotional, physical, spiritual, what is life? In light of pain, turmoil, trouble, what is life? In this life is there light?

Devastation all around seems to dampen the delight of divine beauty.

How it is that we can move into the holidays with hearts filled with good tidings and cheer? Where is our hope?

The complexity of the answer as to where is our hope, is found in the simplicity of what was done some 2000 years ago for the whole of humanity. Birth...death…hope.

Yes, a baby was born so that as a man He might hang on a tree.

One birth. One death. One tree. Three nails. Eternal hope.

Hope is wrapped in the truth of Immanuel - God with us. The only way to engage the happenings of today while seeking to celebrate the truth of life is found in the One who is life.

Jesus came to reign down hope. He came to shower us in joy. And with His entrance on the world stage He gave us the way to respond to the darkness that suffocates life.

Yes, Jesus came to suffocate us in His all-consuming love...

It is in His breath-taking performance that we are given the oxygen needed to ignite this world with His crazy insane love. A love that gives us the power to step directly into the devastation by giving ourselves over to the truth of Christmas... I mean really giving ourselves over.

When we give into the Christmas truth we find the truth of Mas Christ is what suffocates my darkness with the light of His eternal flame. And in the burning truth of His eternal love we come to witness the glory of heaven as it erupted through the birth of a baby. A birth that fills our hearts and lungs with the air of truth behind (and within) Christmas.

Let us this day prayerfully embrace the Holy Spirit so that we might exhale the grime of life. Let us this day ask the Spirit to fill us with His strength so that we might inhale the unrelenting Christmas hope that erupts in the birth of divine love. Amen Jesus.

Eruption of Thanksgiving...

To give thanks insinuates something to be thankful for; it points to something beyond ourselves that has impacted our lives in such a way that our response is one of gratitude and praise.

Today many of us will find a multitude of “items” or “people” who fit this bill, and truth be told, many of us do have a plethora of things and/or people for which we are thankful.

But what if we stopped and took a moment... What if in the midst of all the food, football and fellowship we are missing the deeper, underlying foundation of thankfulness?

I wonder for those who bear the mark of Jesus - for those who call themselves followers of The Way, how many will illumine the cross on this day?

It is the cross where thanksgiving is found…it is where thanksgiving erupts.

As soon as we gaze upon the cross our hearts, our eyes are taken to the scene of the manager hidden away in the dusty, dirty, dark crevasse of a mountainside. Yes, thanksgiving is found from the cradle to the cross for it is here that we find the One who is the ultimate giving of thanks…Jesus Christ.

For God so loved the world that He gave… Our giving of thanks is the direct result of being given Love. That is, we must always remember that hanging on the cross is the One born in the manger—not just any baby, but the One who was with God, the One who is God, the One who is with us...The One who is Love...

Might some time today we give pause to the majesty of the cross? Might we stop to thank the One who gave of Himself so that we might receive the truth of ourselves? Might we take a moment and enter the drama of salvation so as to become the faithful performance of love?

Let your celebrations be magnificent this day! Stand, dance, shout for joy! And in your moments of bliss don't forget the One who is thankful for you! Amen Jesus!

So Loved...

How do we really know that God loves us?

Have you asked Him?

This weekend we witness how much love has been poured out on our behalf...

This weekend the tragedy of Friday, the silence of Saturday and the awakening of Sunday should erupt in joyful jubilation as we remember just how much we are loved. Oh yes, we are so loved...


So why not right now stop…take a knee and ask…Ask the Spirit to speak to your heart. Ask Him to destroy, remove, crush any obstacles that are hindering you from hearing the voice of the Crucified King as He hangs there on that rugged tree. Ask the Spirit to touch the eyes of your heart…

“Then He touched their eyes, saying, ‘According to your faith be it done to you.’ And their eyes were opened” (Matt 9.29-30).

We will only see when we are blinded by grace. When we turn to the cross so as to embrace the silence, the surrender, the solitude, the strength, the beauty of this weekend. 


In our embrace of His heart, that was drained for us on that cross, we lose the dead weight of selfishness so as to gain the greatness of Savior. And when we are engulfed in the greatness of Savior we realize the greatness of ourselves.

We realize that to be in His image is to be extraordinary, it is to be the deed and truth of love. For when we recognize the staggering reality of this weekend, we realize the truth of how much we are so loved...

So go ahead, ask Jesus how much He loves you. Ask the Spirit to open your heart so you might truly see. And when you open the eyes of your heart, you will find the divine hand of love stretched out so that it might embrace your heart and softly whisper, 

“My child for this I have waited, for this I came. To receive you into my arms, broken, lifeless, dead to self so that I might cover you in My love, fill you with the Holy Spirit and raise you up into our divine heart so that now you might finally realize you are so loved.”

Heaven's passion

No matter what may come your way, when we are in Christ through the Spirit, nothing in this world can separate us from His love. All we need is to find our place in prayer so as to realize our place in His heart.

God’s great desire for His people is that we feel secure in His love and in His power. Everything else in life may be unstable—our health, our family, our job, our education, our society, our world. At any given time and within any given moment you may feel as if you are out on a ledge forty stories up in an unpredictable wind. You feel yourself losing balance and falling, and every brick you grab pulls out of its mortar. When we walk according to "ourself" the ground beneath and the pillars all around us will only crumble.

Stability only comes from the One born in the stable.

Paradox of life is that being in Christ is the riskiest decision you can make…according to the world.

And yet saying "yes" to Jesus is the greatest decision you can take security in. Saying yes to Christ is saying yes to the crazy of life so as to find the stability of heaven's passion. As Paul writes, life in Christ is: tribulation, distress, persecution, famine, nakedness, peril, sword—we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered (Romans 8:35–36).

Paul knew the craziness of a life of a disciple but he knew that the love of Christ was even crazier in its power, presence and passion.

“In all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us…for nothing will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord” (vs 37-39).

Paul’s life of faith was much like ours, one many questioned as to why do it? Why live such a life? Why give sacrificially when you are beaten, ostracized, criticized, while being opposed from every side?

But for Paul, as is for us today, the stability and power needed comes from the truth of being in Christ. For in Christ and through the Spirit we encounter the heart of God so as to find security in His love and strength in His power, even if everything else in the world is uncertain.

We have to be willing to fall to our knees and thank the One who became sin so as to seal us with His eternal love. Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection far surpass all understanding and knowledge and yet they are so simple that a child can understand that Jesus loves them. This is why Christ’s incarnational performance is to be the foundation of who we are if we are to be the foundation of love this world so desperately needs.

Jesus wants to be our security. Question is, “How will you respond to the life Jesus is calling you into? Resting in His security or trying to secure your own rest?”

Father Almighty, in Christ and through the Spirit, we are covered in Your eternal security and presence so that we might be the covering of Your love for all the world to experience. Amen Jesus!

Love Beyond

When is there a time that we don't need love?

Holiday seasons only illuminate and exaggerate the truth of our need for love. And here is the absolute of love's truth: In Christ we encounter the fullness of love. Yes, in Jesus we meet the "realness" of love because when we encounter Jesus we encounter love.

It is a love that is beyond... It is a love that is here... Now

A love that is crazy, insane, inviting, intoxicating, scandalous, scrumptious, fiery, fierce, radical, relentless, real... 

It is a love that has come to saturate our hearts, our souls, our minds and our bodies so that we might fall deep... oh so deep, into the heart of God. 

But please be mindful of one thing... It is a love that will mess you up... It will rock your world... 

Problem for so many of us is that we are afraid of love. We are afraid of entertaining the idea that we are lovable.

And so we close ourselves off. To each other. To ourselves. To Jesus.

What is holding you back from opening up? The greatest gift you could give yourself this Christmas season is the gift of love. 

He is here. He is waiting. He is love...

To Become...

Sometimes don't you want to call a timeout on faith so that you might live according to the flesh just this one moment?

Yes, to be honest, I do... But then again when Paul talks about being the greatest of all sinners, he looks over at me because he knows a wrestling match is about to begin regarding this very title.

Daily I struggle with living out the truth, the way and the life of Jesus. Why? Because Jesus was one crazy dude that mesmerized life with His all-consuming, all-combative, all-conquering, fiery love.

I mean how many of us would look at the one who just beat us so fiercely that we have but one breath still in us and with reckless abandonment of love ask that this person be forgiven of their actions?

How many of us would look our abuser in the eyes and tell them,

How many of us would look into the eyes of the one crushing our wrist bone as he pierces through our skin such that our flesh tears from the bone and with tears in our eyes softly whisper, "Friend, you know not what you do. You know not who you are. But I know... And I want you to know this, I love you."

This is Jesus... This is Love... This is who I want to become...

Who do you want to become?

Podium Participant

Transformation...

Such a wonderfully sexy word, concept, slogan...

So what is transformation? In the midst of the "olympic world" right now, transformation seems to be akin to one who was 4th in 2012 but worked hard so as to become "transformed" over the last 4 years into a "podium" participant.

But is this really what transformation is? Nothing more than behavior modification? Is the podium participant truly transformed? What happens after the podium? Truth is, the podium is not the epitome of transformation - at least not in the realm of faith...

When speaking from a Christo-centric perspective, transformation takes on eternal significance because it is rooted in the way, the truth, and the life of the One who came to transform our hearts, our souls, our whole humanity... He came to transform so we might go and act...

Truth is, Jesus was intentional in His act of transformation. That is, He came to us - to you and me - so as to invite us into His eternal act of love. And if and when we say yes, we find that in Christ transformation is real.

Participating in the will of God occurs when through the Holy Spirit, Christ becomes the pattern of our life, when He becomes our first love. As Paul writes:

“Be imitators of God, therefore, as dearly loved children and live a life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God” (Eph 5.1-2).

A life that has this world as its first love seeks peace and hope in the comforts of the world. But a life in love with Jesus stands in stark contrast to a life lived in love with the world. For the truth of the Christian faith is that peace and hope are only found in the One who is peace, the One who is hope.

When He is our hope we can step into everyday and see it as an opportunity to be intentional in how we love the other. That every moment is an opening to be love.

And how do we become love so as to be love? We follow in the way of the Master Builder who told us, “Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did it to one of these brothers of Mine, even the least of them, you did it to Me.”

We become love by building up the other through our intentional acts of love. Moments that will open up into amazing encounters that allow us to invest in the heart of our community by investing in the hearts of the other.

Truth is, this world is in need of more people who seek to elevate the other rather than tearing them down. Daily each one of us should strive to be a servant who seeks the betterment of society. Daily each one of us can make a difference through our intentional acts of service. For when we seek to serve the other, we live out the truth of being love. And in our intentional acts of love, grace, compassion, mercy, and justice erupt and overflow so as to begin transforming the landscape of this great nation of ours.

Let us this day be love by feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, housing the homeless, welcoming the stranger, and freeing the enslaved. Let us this day step off the podium and become transformation by lavishing our love on the other...

Transformation begins with the heart…it begins with you…

Fall into His heart

Read James 1.2-25

Ever have those times when you feel like doing nothing but crying? Times when you hardly want to get out of bed and have no energy to do anything, let alone prayer or reading the Bible. You know those times when every door seems to close, every way seems to be darkened and everybody seems to have turned their back to you?

Times when even God seems distant and unloving and you actually wonder if He even sees you…

Strange truth of faith is that through our trials we find growth, because we find Him… 

“Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. And let endurance have its perfect result, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing” (vs. 2-4).

Joy? How so? Because such trials have a way of pressing us to go deeper with God. When we are brought to our knees we see fresh truths about God intersecting with our lives in the hardest of times. When we fall to our knees so as to cry out to His heart we realize what David did: “He sent from on high, He took me…He rescued me,” –and here is the best part—“because He delighted in me” (Psalm 18.6-19).

How many of us, when we cry out to Jesus, realize that He has entered into our suffering with us, broken down the barriers of sin and eradicated death so as to reach out and rescue us because He delights in us?

In our trials we are not expected to fall back on our own power, control or resources. No, Jesus wants us to embrace the Spirit so as to “rely not on (myself) but on God who raises the dead” (2 Cor 1.9).

All Jesus wants is for us to fall into His heart so that He can take care of us.

There in our suffering and through our trials Jesus says to us, “I want you to have peace. I want you to be deeply joyful. I want you to believe in what I say and what I do — to have unshakable faith. I want you to have the kind of peace that I give, not the world. The kind of joy that I give, not the world. The kind of faith, I give, not the world. I want you to have the truth of love and the truth of faith—I want you to have Me.”

Do you want Jesus? Then go to Him, embrace Him and receive His love…Amen Jesus!

Choose Joy

Read Psalm 100; John 15.1-11

All around people struggle to find happiness. I know I get caught up in this battle. But what I have come to find is that I am not in search of happiness, but joy…And He is right there before me.

Truth is, there is a difference between happiness and joy. Happiness is usually something on the surface—it comes and goes with our feelings. But joy…joy is different. It is deeper. It is alive and in our soul.

One of my favorite authors, Henri Nouwen once wrote:

“Joy is not the same as happiness. We can be unhappy about many things, but joy can still be there because it comes from the knowledge of God’s love for us…Often we discover the joy in the midst of the sorrow. I remember the most painful times of my life as times in which I became aware of a spiritual reality much larger than myself, a reality that allowed me to live the pain with hope. I dare even to say: ‘My grief was a place where I found joy.’ Joy does not happen to us. We have to choose joy and keep choosing it every day. It is a choice based on the knowledge that we belong to Jesus and have found in Him our refuge and our safety, and that nothing, not even death, can take Him away from us.”

Yes, unlike happiness, joy is essential to spiritual life. When we are not joyful we cannot bear fruit. Jesus calls us to Himself so that His joy may become ours and that our joy may become complete…if only we go to Jesus.

Joy is the experience of knowing that you are unconditionally loved and that nothing — sickness, failure, emotional distress, wandering, oppression, doubt, war, or even death — can take that love away.

Right now (you may need to find a “secret” place) let yourself celebrate joy…let yourself celebrate Jesus. Stand up, dance around, sing out, throw your hands up in the air, laugh uncontrollably, fall to your knees, cry profusely… whatever you need to do to celebrate heaven’s joy, do it. 

Right now forget formalities and normalcy. 

Right now enter into the joyous praise from Mercy Me and let this beautiful song fill your heart… Greater.

Right now embrace the Spirit and choose Joy by stepping into the crazy insane love of Jesus and celebrating His undeniable love for you. Amen Jesus!