Tag: Jesus

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The Glory of the Cross

Dear Sister,

This may seem like an unlikely music video for glory, especially its beginning, but please take the five minutes or so to watch the entire thing. The New Testament cannot speak of glory without Jesus and the cross. Jesus was crowned with glory because he suffered on the cross, “But we see him who for a little while was made lower than the angels, namely Jesus, crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone” (Heb 2:9). And we get our glory because of what Jesus did on the cross, “To this he called you through our gospel, so that you may obtain the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ (2 Thes 2:14).”
There are two heart swelling moments for me in this video that have visualized for me the glory of the cross. The first comes when the wrath of hell is being blocked by the cross and the second is the man RUNNING to Christ in heaven. Oh how I glory in the cross because my wrath was taken by Jesus! Oh how I glory in the cross because it enables me to run to Jesus forever more! Glory!

All I have is Christ

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A Good Friend

Dear sister,

I always thought I knew what friendship was until I was asked to write about it. Hmmm…I know that friendship on the east coast is hard at first but lasts forever while friendship on the west coast is instant yet can be fleeting…or so stereotypes tell. I do know a bad friendship when I see one. Yet when I try to define it I come up lacking. As a Navy wife living overseas and knowing a friendship may last for only a year or three, it makes me question even more what real friendship is. So what is friendship?
Funny enough, I found myself singing a song that my two year old listens to…forgive me for quoting song lyrics in the midst of this conversation…BUT, here is what Sovereign Grace Music is teaching my daughter…and me:

A friend will always think of others
A friend will overlook a wrong
A friend sticks closer than a brother
A friend is patient all along
Jesus, let me be the friend You are to me

CHORUS
A good friend, true friend
Here to help you through friend
Strong friend, kind friend
You can have what’s mine, friend
Best friend, sure friend
Humble and a pure friend
Lord, I wanna be a good friend

A friend will help me do the right things
A friend won’t lead me into sin
A friend will help me when I stumble
A friend will lift me up again
Jesus, help me find a friend who’ll make me wise

Wow, are you as convicted as I am? A humble and a pure friend, a friend that won’t lead me into sin, a friend like Jesus. Jesus. I never put friendship into the realm of theology before this letter to you. Yet when I asked my husband how he would define friendship, the first thing he said was to be like Jesus. Jesus lovingly and humbly rebuked His friends when they were in sin or being tempted to sin. He was there in the tumultuous storms with them. He gave his life up for His friends. Would I do that for my friends? Even if I only know them for a year or three? That’s what He did. Jesus is a friend of sinners, why? Because they are the ones that need Him…we are sinners. We need Him. We need to trust Him. We need to give our lives to the only true example of a lasting and meaningful friendship. Jesus, may the friendships that I make here on earth model the one you gave to me freely when I was at my worst and was not a friend back.

Your sister,
Colleen

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Choose Joy

Dear sisters,

“What makes you happy Colleen?”  My husband asked.  I thought for a second.  After a tough day of the constant training of a tenacious two year old, I do find respite in a frothy latte and a bowl of cookies and cream ice cream.  A smile comes to my face as I lounge and indulge in the smoothness of both on my tongue.  The delicate delights of this special treat may last that night, but the doleful doldrums of training a sinful heart return in full force the next morning.  I feel like in this world I often seek immediate happiness in my circumstances, but what I really desire is a deep lasting joy.  But what is joy?

Joy is not contingent on a dessert or massage.  As a believer, the Lord commands me to have joy in all circumstances…even ones that are difficult and painful.  James writes to dispersed Christians to “Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds.”

But how do we do that, sweet sisters?  How do we have joy when all our children are crying at once?  When a loved one dies?  When we have another miscarriage?  When our adoption falls through?  When we feel as though our marriage is falling apart?  Oh, it is tough.  It is so tough to choose joy.  Yet we are commanded to throughout scripture.  The hope we have is that scripture tells us from where true and lasting joy comes.  It comes from Christ!  When we find our joy in the fact we have been forgiven of our sins and saved from the eternal wrath of God because of what he did on the cross, we have joy!  We are thankful Jesus took our ultimate fate of death and gave us eternal life in heaven!  That means our trials on earth get put in the proper perspective so even in the sadness of our circumstances, we have a deep joy in our hope in Christ!  Even in our disappointments and hardships, we know this world is not our home.  Our home is yet to come and sadness, death, tears, fears, and disappointments will all be forgotten!

If that is not encouraging enough, scripture also tells us we find joy in trials as we realize the Lord is drawing us to Himself during these times.  He is near to the broken hearted and hears all our cries.  He is making us more dependent on Him which is where we want to be.  He is shaking off the chaff of our lives, making us more like Christ.  He loves us so much that our trials bring us closer to Him, rather than further away.  Our trust in the goodness of our Sovereign God in difficult times brings us unadulterated joy!

Oh, live here sister!  Choose the joy that only comes from Christ!  Don’t settle for the fleeting happiness of a latte or ice cream.  Don’t live in the despair of circumstances.  Lift your eyes to the heavens where your help comes because in our weakness, He is strong.

Your sister,

Colleen

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Oh Man, This is Love!

Dear sister,

I just finished watching a TV show where a side story was about love. Two characters are discussing it when the romantic asks his literal and cerebral girlfriend to list three reasons why she loves him. She answers matter of factly, because he loves her, he loves their daughter, and he has an amazing physique. He smiles. Then she asks him why he loves her: “I don’t need a reason.” She smiles coyly and shyly says how romantic that was. My own left-brain spins its own questions: Is love something that I will never be able to define, only feel? Can I lose or forget it? Will it really last forever? I hear my friends tell my daughter they love her and I tell my nieces and nephews that I love them. Is this the same love I have for my own daughter and husband?

I scanned my book titles to help me define love. I found some on adultery, on keeping the marriage pure, rekindling marriage, dating, parenting, and even one on loving to eat and hating to eat. None purely on what love is. Ahhhh, but there is one! It’s the oldest love story ever written and gives the true meaning of love. It tells of a married couple living in a garden who made a life ending choice that deserved death. They didn’t die right away because love promised them a deliverer to pay for their evil choice. They decided to trust in this promise and love gave them life.

Their children and children’s children continued to choose to do evil yet some of them put their trust in love’s promised deliverer. This deliverer would come and defeat the death that cursed their lives. Those who trusted in this promised one who defines love, lived forever with no curse! Then one day it happened…the promised deliverer came to earth to live like us as man, but who never chose to do evil. He lived a perfect life, loving God the Father and loving all mankind. Then in this love, he died. He was tortured and killed because of this love. But on the third day…he rose again! He conquered the curse that gives death and put His love on all those that trust and believe in Him. And this love will bring him back again to take those who trust Him to paradise!

Oh man, this is love! God is love. Jesus is love. 1 John 4:9-11 says: “This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.” Love is totally committed for another’s good. Love dies for the unlovely. Love serves the ungrateful. Love is faithful though His friends and family are not. “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails” (1 Cor 13:4-8a).

So YES!! Love can be defined…God is love. Because of what Jesus did on the cross, defeating death and giving us His righteousness I can never lose or forget love. And YES!! It really does last forever. Do we need a reason to love? It may be romantic to say no, but how amazing is it to have the ultimate reason to love not only our husbands, children, family, and friends, but also all our neighbors? Jesus is this reason. Is your love defined by Him? Sweet sister, do you love others because Christ loves you? What a great time of year to answer this question as we remember when love came down to earth. Merry Christmas!

Colleen

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Learning to Let It Go

My Dearest Sister,

It’s happened again, hasn’t it? A particular person in your life has sinned against you – and it’s definitely not the first time. You try to fight the desire for vindication rising up in you, but in the end you just can’t ignore its stubborn little voice: “You’ve already dealt with this before, too many times. You always forgive [insert name here], but this just keeps happening. Really, what’s the point anymore?” And then you cross your arms, stick your chin out and say “Not anymore!”. Sadly, sister, this is something that I can relate with all too well. I have been told on more than one occasion that I have a “tender heart” (translation: “breaks easily”). When someone offends me, I usually have a hard time letting it go. Let’s face it: Forgiveness isn’t something that comes naturally to anyone. When someone hurts us, we want them to get what they deserve, don’t we? If only they could feel a little bit of the pain they’ve cause us, then maybe they would learn their lesson; Maybe then they would understand.

However, when Peter asked the Lord how many times we should forgive a brother who sins against us, Jesus replied, “Up to seventy times seven.” That’s 490 times! I certainly hope that you never have to forgive somebody on that many separate occasions, but Jesus gave us a big number to make the point that we are to forgive our brother or sister in Christ as many times as they sin against us; as many times as it takes. It was not until I was an adult that God really began teaching me this lesson. I remember thinking, “But Lord, this is the same sin that they committed just two days ago! How am I supposed to forgive them when I am still so hurt, when my heart is still raw?” And just as those words had formed in my mind, I heard the Lord’s voice in my heart: “But I have forgiven you unto everlasting life and my mercies are new each morning.” Whoa! Talk about humbling! I had never considered that what I was feeling must only be a tiny fraction of what God feels. We sin against Him daily, yet He is always there with open arms, just waiting to shower us with His limitless forgiveness. So how can I, as a forgiven sinner washed clean by the blood of Christ, be so stingy with my own forgiveness towards my brethren who have received the same absolution from sin that I have?

Jesus talks about this attitude of ours towards forgiveness in Matthew, Chapter 18 through the parable of the unforgiving servant. You remember the story: a king forgives a servant who owed him 10,000 talents (roughly 150,000 years worth of wages) and surprise – couldn’t pay his debts. Then this same man finds a fellow servant who owed him just 100 denari (about 100 days wages) and demands payment, refusing to hear the man’s pleas for mercy. The king then confronts the man whom he had first pardoned, saying “You wicked servant! I forgave you all that debt because you begged me. Should you not also have had compassion on your fellow servant, just as I had pity on you?” Then the king delivers the servant to the torturers until he can pay all that is owed. “So my heavenly Father will also do to you,” Jesus concludes, “if each of you, from his heart, does not forgive his brother his trespasses.”

Do you know those old iron ball and chains that prisoners in Saturday morning cartoons used to wear? Anywhere they went, they had to drag that heavy weight behind them. That’s what un-forgiveness is like. When you think about it, it’s pretty hard to do anything for Christ with a deadweight shackled to our ankles. Even in my youth, I have spent too many years dragging around that ball and chain. Not only does it make us weary and bitter, but it also separates us from open communion with God. Mark 11:25-26 tells us that if we “have anything against anyone, forgive him that your Father in heaven may also forgive your trespasses.” There is no way around it, my dear friend: We cannot stand before God with the prison weight of un-forgiveness strapped to us. And I ask you, what is more torturous to a Christian than being distant from the Lord? Whether it is their first or five-hundredth offense, we must be able to let the sins of others go and wipe the slate clean; Otherwise, it becomes our own personal burden to bear.

~Your Sister,

Lauren