Jesus loves me, this I know. This category is about Jesus, the Living Word, my prayers to Him, my worship of Him, His relentless pursuit of my heart and His invitation to me to come to Him in Sabbath, my Savior, my Rest.
“I bought a new journal this week because my old one had filled up, and I had more time this morning than usual to linger with God before heading in to the day. So I pour myself a cup of coffee, sit down on the couch, and pull out the journal. I always feel strange about writing on the first page of a new journal – all those, clean, white pages, nothing yet having been set down. It feels momentous, kind of like a new beginning. Or at least a new era. What will unfold? And what shall I put on the first page? I always have this feeling that it needs to be significant. After all, this is the opening page of a new book in my life, the next chapter with God. It seems to deserve something so weighty. Something transcendent.
“Looking down at the blank page, I quietly ask God in my heart, What needs to go here?
“You know what he said.
“My love.
“So that is what I write down. That is all I write on the opening page. Two words. “My love.’ It is more than enough. Whatever else gets written in this journal, whatever stories told, whatever prayers, all the processing of life, let it all come under this. Let it be a continuation of this, His Love.”
Psalm 19.11-14 the Message
Clean the slate, God,
so we can start the day fresh!
Keep me from stupid sins,
from thinking I can take over your work;
Then I can start this day sun-washed,
scrubbed clean of the grime of sin.
These are the words in my mouth;
these are what I chew on and pray.
Accept them when I place them
on the morning altar,
O God, my Altar-Rock,
God, Priest-of-My-Altar
What are the first words you’ll write -on this fresh, clean-slate, blank-page of a New Year?
True confessions: My Christmas card “greeting” this year is shamelessly ripping off Jack Hayford’s Christmas teaching, “The Angels are Still Singing” because I so LOVE this timeless message.
For these days and these times, for the the things that made 2010 maybe a less-than-perfect year and for the brokenness that sneaks up on us season after season, for the weariness that comes from a battle being waged against us by the enemy of our souls, for the good times and in spite of the bad times ~
and mostly for the hope that remains because Jesus Christ came ~ a SAVIOR, remember today:
The angels that sang and rejoiced in the sky pronouncing PEACE & GOODWILL on the night Jesus Christ was born are the same angels who now attend to the household of faith! “Are not all angels ministering spirits sent to serve those who will inherit salvation?” Hebrews 1.14
Dig it, friends and familia! The angels of the Lord are near. Listen for the song – it’ll be good news for sure. Did you notice how often the angels said “fear not”?
Our Christmas card this year:
Click on the image, then click again to see in full size (cuz it is a big card! :D )
This image was captured in early November at a nearby farm (remember the world’s largest corn maze?!?) Gavin 7; Hunter 6; Guinivere 5; Gemma May 3; Averi-J 2 1/2; Amelie Belle 7 mos.; Sawyer 3 mos.
Merry Christmas, PEACE and GOODWILL to you and a very Happy New Year! ~ from the Rhoades family!
There is some great stuff out on the web particularly dissecting and thoughfully interpretting C.S. Lewis’ Father Christmas character, a man in red who brought what was needed to defeat the witch and make way for Aslan to usher in the Christmas celebration and end the Winter of the World. He represented the coming Hope of the world, the great anticipation symbolized by the evergreen Christmas tree standing strong against the skeleton trees of Winter. The Narnian Father Christmas brought the beavers and the children gifts, not like the materialistic Turkish Delight which, after consuming, caused the devourer to crave more and more, but he brought what they needed: weapons to destroy the evil of the white witch. People who delve in to C. S. Lewis’ grand factastical allegories understand much more than I ever will.
But I thoroughly empathize and understand the longing in children’s hearts around the world and through the ages who have longed for a father to love them, a father who believes in them and knows how to give them good gifts. That isn’t hard to comprehend, is it, in this day and age where so many children are raised in fatherless homes or homes where a man resides, but does not lead his family, does not fulfill his call?
I grew up around Christians spending their time trying to prove Santa was a tool of Satan (and if you move a couple of letters around, “doesn’t it prove Santa is Satan??!”) and the point has been missed, truly. The point has been misunderstood completely that while the Santa Claus our commercialistic society has created does to seem to garner more focus than the Son of God himself, though it is supposed to be Jesus’ birthday we celebrate, isn’t Father Christmas, or Santa Claus also a representation of the longing in people’s hearts for a daddy who loves them, makes them laugh and delights in them? One who’ll give them what they need to defeat the woundedness and evil in their worlds?
Father God IS the Father of Christmas who gave Jesus.
1 Tim. 1.11 says, we have been entrusted with “the glorious gospel of a blessed [happy] God.”
You have a Father who is happy. He thinks well of you. He rejoices over you with singing. He delights in you and knows how to give you even better gifts than what an earthly father could (Matthew 7.10-12]. He’ll give you all you need to defeat the enemy of your soul. That is a lot of HOpe!
Even as a really young kid, once I started reading, “It Pays to Increase Your Word Power” in Reader’s Digest was a favorite of mine. I love words, I love phrases that string them together in a way that lights up my brain. I am a word-lover. And I love to give words as gifts.
So you’d think by now I’d perhaps have mastered the use of them somewhat, have some ability to use them for great things.
I cannot believe how prone I remain to blurt out the worst possible words at the most inappropriate moments; how quickly I will still employ the profane in spite of knowing thousands of other ways to communicate even my frustration. I say the wrong words at the wrong time in the least-effective way so {stinking} often. Just….yuck. Bleeehhh.
See? Nothing.
If only my “spoiling it all” by “saying something stupid” was as nice as “I love you.” sigh
Do not be quick with your mouth, do not be hasty in your heart to utter anything before God. God is in heaven and you are on earth, so let your words be few. Ecc 5.2 NIV
My song for Sunday a week ago got me totally in to an Andrae mood. So, I pulled out all my Andrae Crouch and the Disciples LPs and played them this week, sang along! He is just one of the voices of my life, one of the greatest musical infleunces. I am begging Luka to book him for Heaven Fest for me (and everybody else!). I found this interview he did online at www.oneway.orgwhere he explained how young and “green” he was, even when he wrote the song I shared last week, “The Blood Will Never Lose its Power,”
“When I first wrote ‘the Blood’ I was 14; I didn’t even know what the song meant…(The Blood Will Never Lose Its Power, Take the Message Everywhere, Light Records, 1969)…it just came. …Didn’t know what it meant; wasn’t driving a car; I was totally green to what was going on.”
Interviewer: And it (the Blood…) has meant so much to people all of these years.
“It’s the Word, so it was really a prophetic message that lives on forever that, “the Blood Will Never Lose Its Power.” Many songs came that way. Those early days were exciting and adventurous. Everything was new. Just like I don’t know what God has in store for me, now. It’s that same kind of excitement.”
Another of his songs I so love, one I find myself humming or singing quite regularly, is one which reminds me that what I have, I need to share. “Tell Them” is the good news that THE God of the universe, while they are yet sinners, loves the people around us – just the way He did with us. And He came to give them life. I find it appropriate to kick off this “season of good will” with the joyful message of a Father who loves us~
Tell them even if they don’t believe you
Just tell them, even if they don’t receive you
Tell them for me
Please tell them for Me
That I love them
And I came to let them know.
Tell them
When it seems you are forsaken
Just tell them though it seems your earth is shaken
Tell them for Me
Please tell them for Me
That I love them
And I came to let them know
Tell that lonely man who walks the cold streets all alone
Tell that crying child who doesn’t have a home
Tell those hungry people dying lost and in despair
They don’t even know that I care
Won’t you tell them on the streets and tell them on the highways?
Compel them, even on the byways
Tell them I can mend the broken hearted
Restore the ones who have parted
And I came to let them know
And I came to let them know
It is appalling to think how long I often go, rushing here and there in the busyness of life, full of the great news of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, yet neglecting to share it. Neglecting to go and compel…
Andrae Crouch. Demos Shakarian. Beth Moore. And a song…
It started with my dad making me watching Jesus Explo ’72, nearly having to drag me from my room at the time, which I wrote veeeeeery extensively about HERE (click!).
Andrae Crouch and the Disciples sang and oh, I loved their sound, oh yes! I sang my heart out to many an 8-track or cassette tape of his music. Andrae is the soundtrack of my spiritual heart and soul from about 1972-1980.
I just completed my first-ever Beth Moore Bible Study(confetti flying through the air- bells and whistles going off, and all that jazz). In one of the sessions toward the end, she was preaching up a storm about the blood of Jesus and started quoting the lyrics to Andrae’s song, “The Blood Will Never Lose its’ Power.” Wow-it brought back a flood of memories – maybe especially because just that very day, the physical therapist I have been seeing about the Labor-Day-weekend knee-wrenching episode, had said, “You know, it is probably time to get the MRI and look at getting surgery. And oh how I hated that. You see, this very same knee had been broken and mangled before and after two+ years of 24/7 pain, God just healed it. Just like that. While I was running up and down these massive industrial stairs to the finance office at Heaven Fest 2009. It was crazy!
So Beth quotes the words to this great song, resisting, she says, the urge to actually sing it out.
And I remember. 1972. Davenport, Iowa.
I had the flu, apparently. Achy beyond comprehension. A fever of 104. Sort of delirious. Just misery. It was a Sunday, but I was 12, and old enough to be alone in my utter despair, so off to church my parents and family went…me left on the couch, just sort of moaning. My mom had the left the television on very low, I couldn’t really hear it beyond my whimpering, but it was background noise, as I lay there suspended in a gauzy pain, the kind that makes you cry out to Jesus for relief making you acutely aware that you haven’t been crying out to Him for much of anything recently. You think about making deals, promises, but haven’t the strength and know He is probably glad for that.
At some point, however, the sound of TV seemed suddenly to have become louder. I became aware of what was on. Demos Shakerian was hosting his weekly Full Gospel Buisiness Men’s Fellowship International show. And his guest? Andrae Crouch. I don’t remember what they talked about, but at some point, Andrae moved to a grand piano and started singing this song. And I am telling you, the Presence rode in on that melody and just poured over me. That room turned in to a holy place as that song filled the air, the volume somehow mysteriously louder, clearer than it had been (in the days before you could just use a remote to change the volume!).
“The blood that gives me strength from day to day…”
I started to cry as I heard those words which were etching truth into my very heart. Andrae sang and I felt healing surge through me as pain just – went! Gone. My head stopped throbbing, I started worshiping. It was strong, but tender; it was mighty and powerful, but for me, not against me. Andrae sang and sang and angels must have been singing along. I was very suddenly and immediately energized and whole – like not one thing was wrong, not one. No more pain, moaning, no more achiness – all of it: gone! I grabbed the thermometer and took my temp, it had instantly fallen to exactly normal! I felt light as a feather, ready to dance with joy.
I hopped up, got dressed and walked 2 1/2 miles to church. Didn’t even get a day off school because of that flu.
The knee.
Just finished up a big fundraiser. About 2/3 of the way through the evening last night in heels (covering lots of area at high speed), it started popping out of place again. Today it is so very sore. Today it feels like I will be a cripple forever. I am on the couch on a Sunday morning, sort of achy all over from the last few crazy days, wondering: is there a numerical limit to how many healings one knee gets? Or could He do it again? Would He?…
Patrick’s Vimeo page…couldn’t keep hold of the embed, for some reason?
Guess where I’ll be? I am directing the first-ever fundraising dinner for SkateMinistry led by Uriel Leubcke. It has turned in to quite the event, almost double in attendance to our projections. My bestie, Patrice of Patrice’s Pantry is serving Beef Wellington (I’m in!), Chicken Cordon Bleu and Gluten-free Vegetarian Lasagne. This cool video by my friend Patricko (I added the “o”) will kick off the program. The evening’s festivities will end with a professional Skate Demo and Uriel preaching it up in case any of the guests don’t know Jesus. The music will be Christian reggae and the vibe? Nothing less than super cool.
Running a fundraiser is kind of like doing a wedding (I did 5 last spring). There’ll be 200 at this one. There is venue, vendors, music, decor. You have to make seating arrangements, hound people about RSVPs, print prgrams and fill packets. There are catering issues (like we are double what we thought so we need more ovens) and rentals and making sure the parties involved are dressed correctly. The PowerPoint loop during dinner to inspire, and a video that will cause chills…Lighting and candles and pens that work are big deals in a fundraiser. Making sure to thank everyone appropriately and give gifts is important, too. Weeks of prep com down to one crazy-event-filled evening. There just isn’t an emotional bride given to teary outbursts with a fundraiser. Oh, wait…that is me in this scenario. *sniff, sniff
Can’t wait to spend a Saturday night with my new bunch of great friends {a lot of whom have crazy-amazing balance and unbelieveable endurance…AND love Jesus!}.
Tristan went to Austria to play drums for a missions worship team recently.
Austria has chocolate and really good pastry (and tafelspitz, and germkenodel). and is where Arnold Schwarzenegger came from. Julie Andrews made their hills famous as she twirled and sang. Lots o’ composers were from this little nation (Mozart, Beethoven, Strauss, Brahms and more). It is mainly Catholic, but mostly in a traditional, religious way. And it is a great mission field.
Tris and the worship team take on the castle.
Got to see pictures and hear his experience last night. The missionaries throw country music into the worship set list because people are drawn to that. A little Keith Urban here, a little Brad Paisley there. But they did not “get” Brad’s song, “I’m Gonna Miss Her,” about a guy whose wife gives him an ultimatum. They thought they were misunderstanding the translation and asked, “Why would a man choose fishing over his wife?” Perplexed, they were.
And it turns out they are NOT fans of “The Sound of Music.” Tris said they find it campy and believe it paints them in a bad light, to which my husband speculated sarcastically, “You mean because they sided with the Germans?!” Never-mind him, Tris. You went. You played. You ministered!
And everytime one of Tristan’s photos did show some beautiful hills, it was hard for me not to break into song. They did get that right!
I doubt this Austrian street drummer knew he was no match for our Tristan. Ahem.
When my kids go, I stay and pray. My honor to do so, to share my kiddos with the nations! And Tristan is wonderful. He brought us Mozart’s Balls (chocolate truffles, people) from the land of “singing hills” and coffee, too. Yum!
Stormie got baking chocolate. Mmmm…what loveliness awaits us this holiday season, I wonder? NOTE: Careers with McDonalds are available there, it seems.
Wanna hear some awesome Holy-Spirit-anointed drumming by Tristan Kelley?Right HERE! Click on “Freedom” (also down-loadable) for 34 minutes of his playing with scriptures on the topic read by Pastor Lewis Brown and Lewis Brown Junior (Proxy). Very cool!
In other family-missionary travels news…
Mary Jean just returned from 6 weeks Scotland, England, Estonia, and Norway~
That woman travels and teaches! AND she brought me ART! A signed and numbered piece called Heart Garden in a series of paintings about the heart (from Proverbs 4.23)…isn’t it beautiful? There is actually so much to look at in all the details!
In the dark of all All Hallowed Eve, 24 years ago today, a light was born
“You are the light of the world, a city on a hill cannot be hidden.” Matthew 5.14
Last year I sang to you for your birthday, remember?
“So hold onto Jesus, baby wherever you are…”
This year, I am singing this song of great wisdom over you and your sweet life. I really do hope you’ll have no fear and never be afraid to dance, to fall, to succeed, to make a mistake or try what your heart wants to try.
I really do hope that – that you’ll live your life in the middle of the fulness of joy Jesus has for you! And may it cause dancing and rejoicing! Thank-you for loving my son like you do and for raising my granddaughters like you are. You are the beautiful girl your parents raised so well to share with us and we are grateful. And glad to call you our own.
I love you wholly, Jovan. I have you in my heart. Happy Birthday!
You shine!
“…so that you may become blameless and pure, children of God without fault in a crooked and depraved generation, in which you shine like stars in the universe as you hold out the word of life—…” Philippians 2.15-16 NIV
Yes. I do. I h a t e it. This is my nearly-2000-word {highly-opinionated} essay (w/no pictures) on WHY~
I don’t hate little kids, all cute and dressed up coming to my door with an open bag. That actually requires a lot of trust in this day and age and I look at it as a chance to bless the little children, a chance to be a nice neighbor. Trick-or-treating does not bother me, really, because the kids (young kids only, please – you kids that are old enough to work – go buy your own dang candy) are just excited to get to wear a costume and eat more candy than they should. I hate, literally loath, despise and abominate Halloween, but maybe for reasons different than you’d imagine…
The Horror of Retail {mwa, mwa, mwa….}
For 5 years I ran a retail party store. Halloween was the BIG ONE. It drove our sales for the year and I had to be number one (I just HAD TO!…andwas!!, ok – strike that last prideful statement), so can you imagine my deep loathing for both milking-Halloween-for-all-it-was-worth for the money we could rake in and just hating the symbols that have come to represent it all? I set everything and worked my head off (can you say 90+ hours a week during the evil-season??) to sell to people who would purchase useless styro-headstones, “bloody” goblets and giant fuzzy spiders. Fog machines were the biggest rip-off and anything witchy-skeletony-or-ghoulish you could add double-D batteries to so it would light up or make some horrific noise were big sellers.
And then there were the costumes. We sold all those crappy costumes plus face paint and fake blood, stitches, etc.
And people would FILL those carts and spend hundreds of dollars. I both loved racking up the sales AND I disrespected seeing people waste that much money on something like Halloween, a “holiday” that really celebrates nothing that means eternal anything to me.
The worst part though? The company “encouraged” (read: forced) us to “dress up” – the whole month of October! It is fun for like, three days. The other 28, not so much. I have been a nun, a gypsy, a bunch of grapes. There were platinum blond wigs, Cleopatra headdresses and hot pink beehives. I was never “evil,” just dressed, all the while managing a hopping Halloween staff, chasing shoplifters, receiving Christmas and trying to make that transition as fast as humanly possible and just gritting my green-hick-farmer teeth to get through.
Suffice it to say I had more Halloween than I ever wanted and enough to last 37 people a lifetime. Yuck.
The Great Halloween Debate
And to top it off, I have spent almost a lifetime in the middle of the great Halloween debate: Is it OK for Christians to Participate?? OR Is it an evil-pagan holiday dedicated to devil-worship that we should avoid at all costs? I gotta tell you, I DO wish to avoid it all costs, but not for spiritual reasons, necessarily because the devil doesn’t own my days – not any of them. Dare I say I think it falls under the Romans 14 directive for disputable matters?…I do. Let the stoning begin…
Jesus loves me this I know, for the Bible tells me so!
This year my home church decided not to have the Halloween alternative they usually have. And nobody knows quite what to do.
When I was growing up (in my very Christian, very strict Pentecostal preacher’s home), our parents let us trick-or-treat. In retrospect, that seems crazy. I couldn’t cut my hair, wear make-up or listen to the radio, at least “legally”, but I got to trick-or-treat. Strange. The church hadn’t been super-sensitized to the meanings and origins of the day back then. They still really thought it was just kids dressing up and getting lots of candy. And even after it became a “test of righteousness” in Christian circles, the churches my dad pastored still usually offered an alternative like a “Harvest Fest” with fall activities and the kiddos dressing up. I remember church bulletins reminding everyone that no “ghosts, ghouls or goblins” were allowed to attend, but costumes were welcomed.
Dave’s family was an absolutely-not Halloween family. I was from the use-the-opportunity-to-witness stream. My earliest memories are of my mom explaining to me that I had to do a “trick” to get a “treat,” and wow, was I ever willing! My trick was always to sing a song of some sort and since we didn’t do secular music, my song always had something to do with Jesus. The first year I could sing it all, I did – at every. single. house. “…for the Bible tells me so.” Deep breath, the person tries to give me candy, I whip my bag away from them , my mom reminds me, and whale on, “Yes, Jesus loves me! Yes, Jesus loves me!…” They were prisoners to the end. But I would not take that candy until I had witnessed of the Lord’s love the full way through.
Pagan Roots
It seems H’ween has its roots in pagan Celtic festivals, the Druids dancing around bonfires and offering sacrifices to the spirit world for the harvest. So actually – having a church “Harvest Festival” is not an improvement on Halloween, necessarily. During the ancient pagan fetsival, Candy Corn would begin to fall from the sky, just kidding…just checking to see if you are still reading. ;p Haha.
In the 8th century, the Pope moved All Saint’s Day to November 1, so October 31st became “All Hallows Eve” and most people think he did it to claim the 31st back for Christians, which frankly, I applaud. What I bind on earth is bound both here and in heaven. We do have some authority in Jesus’ Name, people!
I digress.
So, then there is a biblical scripture-storm that erupts annually against having any part. One of the scriptures often cited is Ephesians 5.7-12 NLT:
7 Don’t participate in the things these people do. 8 For once you were full of darkness, but now you have light from the Lord. So live as people of light! 9 For this light within you produces only what is good and right and true.
10 Carefully determine what pleases the Lord. 11 Take no part in the worthless deeds of evil and darkness; instead, expose them. 12 It is shameful even to talk about the things that ungodly people do in secret.
Or, there is Deuteronomy 18.10-12 NLT
10 For example, never sacrifice your son or daughter as a burnt offering. And do not let your people practice fortune-telling, or use sorcery, or interpret omens, or engage in witchcraft, 11 or cast spells, or function as mediums or psychics, or call forth the spirits of the dead. 12 Anyone who does these things is detestable to the Lord. It is because the other nations have done these detestable things that the Lord your God will drive them out ahead of you.
And there are lots of other verses that are used to promote total abstinence from any type of Halloween participation. And they are important scriptures with definite guidelines for what we should and shouldn’t be participating in. But I honestly don’t see them saying “Little kids dressing up and trick-or-treating is anti-scriptural.” I just don’t. My grandbebes, who will dress as Nacho Libre or a Strawberry or as princesses or Batman this year? They will NOT be calling forth spirits of the dead or hosting seances. We will not sacrifice them as burnt offerings. They will NOT participate in drunken parties and godlessness of that sort and I will teach them to speak up for righteousness through their vote as citizens and to protect the helpless and feed the hungry. That is how they are being raised. They are being raised to be who God created them to be (light!) and to do what God has ordained for them to do and to fulfill their destiny for God in their generation. Period!
The devil doesn’t get my grandbebes. I truly and humbly do not see trick-or-treating as the step into a dark realm. If anything, I see it as “Hallowed,” like the old Pope wanted it to be because he went to enemy’s camp and took back what was stolen (know that song? Don’t make me sing it here!). My days are the LORD’S. All of them! And it is a great time to show our babies the difference between light and darkness by not worshipping death, not giving in to demonic influence and avoiding rebelliousness (which is as the sin of witchcraft and rarely gets corrected in Christendom).
Renunciation.
You know what, though? If you came from an occultic background where you used the 31st as part of demon worship and you have walked away from it being born into Christ and you have renounced that past – by all means, don’t participate. It holds something for you it doesn’t for me. Don’t be enslaved into any bondage you have been delivered from again! I would stand with you in that, and I mean that! Or if you just have a strong conviction that you don’t want your family to participate, because to you, it seems like being part of an agreement with the world, part of this godless generation and you’d rather make a stand here – then make that stand. I support you in that, but Romans 14, again…
Figure it out. Study it through. Pray. Ask the Lord. Listen. And be obedient there and let’s not let a disputable matter polarize us as Christians, or get us fighting one another in scriptural-sword fighting. Because? Then the stupid-head devil wins. Geesh, people – it is when he breaks our unity that we are trashed – not when some low-level demon flies around a room impressing the idiots who want that sort of thing. RESIST HIM, seriously. He HAS to flee!
I loathe, despise and abominate* Halloween because of how it separates us and causes holier-then-thou crap and we make each other the enemy instead of THE enemy. And I hate all the blackness and darkness because I am of the Light, but oh, by the way, I shine ever so much more brightly in the dark places. I say kick-him-in-the-butt and bless the little children when they come to your door: give the best candy, the biggest smile, the greatest encouragement and give ’em a God-bless-you, because that actually is within your power to do. Heaven will hear and attend to your blessing! May His will be done on earth as it is in heaven! On Halloween, even!
‘Nuff said.
*In the book version of Meet Me in St Louis, the sisters show their distaste for things by saying “I hate, loathe, despise and abominate {fill-in-the-blank}”. I think it is used a time or two in the Judy Garland movie, too. It is a fav family quote.
“Live as people of light!”
RT @ pastormark via ryan may: “If you’re one of those Christians who is going to give out tracts for Halloween, also give enough candy to make a kid a diabetic!” Haha!
It is appalling to think how long I often go, rushing here and there in the busyness of life, full of the great news of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, yet neglecting to share it. Neglecting to go and compel…
