Posts by Dorci

Nice Try, Sheldon

Posted on by Dorci

Every once in a while you hear someone say they don’t believe in God or the Bible because, they say, the Bible has contradictions.  Most people would probably be hard-pressed to actually name one, but as I watched an episode of Young Sheldon – the television show about a budding scientist and atheist who is forever exasperating his Christian mother by raising his hand in the middle of church to ask the pastor a question – he asked one particular question I thought was intriguing and I took it as a challenge.

 

In the middle of the service, Pastor Jeff quotes Jacob in Genesis 32:30, “For I have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved.”

Sheldon immediately turns to his mother and says in all his precociousness, “Is this an appropriate time to mention that John 1:18 says, ‘No man hath seen God at any time.’ Who’s right? Jacob or John?”

 

Hm.  Who is right?

So I started with Genesis, jumped to the beginning of chapter 32 and read to the end of it. There’s a lot going on in these verses, so I’ll keep my answer focused on the immediate action Pastor Jeff quoted.

Jacob is on his way to meet up with his brother Esau, and he’s a little freaked out. It’s nighttime and he’s alone, when suddenly a Man appears and wrestles with Jacob until dawn.  After refusing to let the Man go until He blesses him, which He does, “Jacob called the name of the place Peniel (meaning Face of God): ‘For I have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved.'”

Then I flipped over to the book of John, chapter 1. John begins by describing the God/Man Jesus – the Word, the Logos, or expression of the Father – that He was in the beginning, that He was with God, and that He was God.  He goes on to describe the deity of the Man, Jesus Christ, that He is the Light born into this world by the will of God.

And then John goes on to say “No one has seen God at any time. The only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him.”

Of course Jacob and John are both right.

Jacob saw God in the form of a Man.  In fact he wrestled with Him all night.  (Ever wrestled with God in prayer?)  Jacob was able to handle seeing and dealing with God in this humbled form covered by flesh.

So when John says no one has seen God at any time, he is saying no one has seen the full glory of the Almighty God (but the Son has shown Him to us).

Even Moses was only allowed to see the back of God.

There have been many times I’ve casually read a portion of scripture that seemed to make no sense at all.  It didn’t line up with my preconceived idea of who God is, or it seemed to contradict another part of scripture.  By now though I know the Bible isn’t wrong. I am. 100% of the time.

Because I don’t understand it just means my mind is smaller than God’s. Any god whose mind is no bigger than mine is no God at all. And yet the grace of God has revealed Himself to us in His Son. 

Because our human understanding is limited, it takes the Spirit of God to interpret His Word and give us understanding.  I know that if I pray for wisdom, and really dig into God’s Word, study it and learn what it actually means, I’ll discover the Bible is never contradictory.  Not even between the Old Testament and the New. God is the same, yesterday, today, and forever.  His Word is unerring and perfectly compatible with itself.

And by studying it my understanding of God grows, and so does my love for Him.

If you are reading this and you’ve kept your distance from God because you’ve heard the Bible has contradictions, maybe you even have something in particular in mind you believe is a contradiction, I encourage you to read it for yourself.  Seek out someone you believe might have the answer, or can dig into God’s Word with you to discover the truth.  There’s a website, Got Questions, that allows you to submit questions and also has a large archive of past articles.  And I’d be willing to give any questions you have a shot.

And for us who are believers, let’s keep studying God’s Word, or maybe we need to start.  There is a lot of teaching out there that is very unscriptural, even among some who seem to have authority, and we need to have a solid understanding of God’s Word, and discernment, so the enemy doesn’t deceive us, leading us to believe things about God that aren’t true, causing disillusionment and drawing us away from Him.

Let us emulate our Berean brothers and sisters, who were “of more noble character than those in Thessalonica, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true.”  Acts 17:10-11 

There are a lot of treasures in there to uncover.

Happy studying,

 

Sunday Praise and a Prayer for Wise Building

Posted on by Dorci

“With praise and thanksgiving they sang to the Lord:
‘He is good; his love toward Israel endures forever.’
And all the people gave a great shout of praise to the Lord,
because the foundation of the house of the Lord was laid.” Ezra 3:11

 

Heavenly Father, we praise you. We praise you because you’ve laid the foundation of our salvation, which is Jesus Christ, and you’ve made us the temple of your Holy Spirit. Lord, I simply ask you today to help us keep our hearts and spirits focused on you. With all the distractions we have coming at us from so many directions, help us keep The Main Thing, the main thing.

Help us remember that this life is about Who you’ve called us to believe in, to trust, to follow, to proclaim. Help us use the limited time and the gifts you’ve given us to be about our Father’s business, and build only on the foundation of Jesus Christ, serving Him only, building by your Spirit and not our flesh.

For “If anyone builds on this foundation using gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay or straw, their work will be shown for what it is, because the Day will bring it to light. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the quality of each person’s work. If what has been built survives, the builder will receive a reward. If it is burned up, the builder will suffer loss but yet will be saved—even though only as one escaping through the flames.”  1 Cor. 3: 12-15

Lead us, Lord, so that what we build will survive, and we will receive your reward. In Jesus’ eternal name we pray, amen.

Sunday Praise and a Prayer for Healing

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“Praise the LORD, my soul;
all my inmost being, praise His holy name.
Praise the LORD, my soul,
and forget not all His benefits –
who forgives all your sins
and heals all your diseases,
who redeems your life from the pit
and crowns you with love and compassion,
who satisfies your desires with good things
so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.”
Psalm 103:1-5

Dear Heavenly Father, we praise you.  I come to you today and lift up to you so many us who are suffering with severe and prolonged physical illness.  Lord, it’s so easy to lose focus of you when we or a loved one is suffering and there seems to be no end. The day to day pull to focus on the pain, the illness, the medications, whatever it may be, can be overwhelming and exhausting. 

Lord, we need your strength.  We need your presence to overwhelm us and turn our eyes back to you, to gaze on your beauty, your grace and mercy, your compassion which never ends. Help us remember that our suffering is in your hands, and through it we can identify with Christ’s suffering, with His death and resurrection, for we have died to sin and you’ve made us alive in Him to the spiritual things which are infinitely of more worth. 

We ask for your peace that surpasses all human understanding, for your wisdom to lead us every day, and for your joy fill us to overflowing, that we would be a walking testimony of your love and goodness, of the fact that this is not our home, that we wait as we put our hope in a future home, a future life where all things will be made new.  So whether you heal us in this life, and I pray if that’s your will for any of us that you would, or if you heal us in the next life, may you be glorified in ways we can only imagine. 

Please use us Lord to proclaim your name, to have compassion on others, and to show the world your grace that many would be saved, and those away from you would return. 

“Therefore we do not lose heart.  Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day.  For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all.  So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.” 2 Corinthians 4:16-18

May your will be done on earth, Lord, as it is in heaven.  May you bring a revival to our own hearts, to the body of Christ, and throughout the world.  Maranatha!  In the eternal name of Jesus Christ I pray, amen.

Sunday Praise and a Prayer for Focus

Posted on by Dorci

“But no one who belonged to Christ’s churches in Judea
had ever seen me (Paul the apostle) in person.
They had only heard that the one who had been cruel
to them was now preaching the message that he had
once tried to destroy. And because of me,
they praised God.”
Galatians 1:22-24

 

Dear Heavenly Father, we praise you.  We praise you for revealing yourself to us, for putting your Spirit in us and for giving us new hearts. You’ve replaced our hearts of stone and given us hearts of flesh, all for the sake of your holy name.  Lord, forgive me for the times I’ve let my heart get stony again. Please continually remind us to live in a way that reveals the new hearts of love you’ve given us so we might encourage, build up, and comfort our brothers and sisters, that they might praise your name, and so the world can see our hearts reflecting your love that they might turn, repent, believe in you, and praise your name.  Help us live lives worthy of your calling, to remember our purpose and stay focused on you so that through us you might bring peace to a broken and hurting world, and praise to your name.  In your name and for your glory, Lord Jesus, amen.

Lesson From a Rescue

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“Even to your old age and gray hairs I am He, I am He who will sustain you. I have made you and I will carry you; I will sustain you and I will rescue you.” Isaiah 46:4 (NIV)

We had been scouring rescue facilities for months looking for just the right dog to adopt into our family. We finally found a little black Lhasa Apso mix who had a past only God knew. He had been a stray picked up by the county, full of ticks and matted hair. He seemed unfazed by whatever adventures he’d had while living on the street, and his big, brown eyes begged us to take him home. We instantly loved him.

We soon discovered he was not completely unaffected by his time lost and alone. Not only did his body need to be healed of an infection left by all those ticks, but his little heart did, too.

For months I never saw him close his eyes. He’d lie on the floor with his big brown eyes wide open, as if he were afraid to let down his guard. He loved walks to the park, but when that trip was taken too late one night, we discovered how afraid of the dark he was. And every once in a while while lying inside the house, with nothing going on around him, he’d jerk his head around looking for something that wasn’t there.

We treated his physical ailments and spoiled him with as much love as we could. I’d stroke his wavy black hair and remind him over and over “You’re safe now. We’re going to take care of you.”

Months later he was lying on my lap and I reached over and held his prematurely graying paw, and for the first time I saw him close his eyes.

It suddenly occurred to me how much I was like him. I may not have lived on the street (although I came close), but for many years I was lost and alone.

Then one fine day God saw me and rescued me. He adopted me as His own. He removed the enemy that had so viciously attached itself to me, cleansed me from the inside out, and began binding up my wounds. 

Even though it’s been many years, that anxiety and fear can creep back in when I face a new hardship, or even the possibility of one. Will God still take care of me? Has He forgotten me? Is He tired of providing for me?

I turn and see Rocky at my feet and know it’s not too much to take care of everything he needs. He is my furry little reminder that if I can love and take care of a little dog like that, how much more will God love and take care of me? 

No, everything isn’t perfect. God hasn’t given us a dog’s life. But He has given us something infinitely better – a lifetime of walking with the Lord as He uses the imperfection of our lives to draw us closer to Him, to mold us into the image of His Son, and prepare us for a life when everything will be perfect.

He is our Provider, and not only will He provide for us in this life, He’s also preparing a home for us with Him in the next.

That word “sustain” in Isaiah 46 is the Hebrew word sabal.  It means to be gravid, meaning to be pregnant, to carry one’s young.  What a tender thought, that the Lord will carry us, as a mother carries her children, from pregnancy, and the Lord says, even to our old age will He carry us.  He will provide for our every need.

As our perfect provider, He is all things to us – our rescuer, our strength, our fortress, and countless other things, from birth to death, and beyond. We can live with confidence knowing that as we trust and follow Him, laying our needs at His feet, and knowing He’s well aware of them even before we do, He will provide for every one, both present and future, as He loves us and has compassion on us. We are His children, and He forever delights to show us His mercy.

 

 

September 11 Spurs Us On

Posted on by Dorci

As we reflect on this day 17 years ago, we are reminded that in an instant everything can change.

Whether the change involves an entire country, or our own personal sphere, we never know what a day can bring.  Life is short.

All around us there are lonely people to love, hurting people to comfort, hungry people to feed, thirsty people to give something to drink, impoverished people to clothe, imprisoned people to visit, and lost people to tell the good news that a Savior has come.

May the remembrance of this day, the soberness of the hour of our lives, and our love for Jesus be the catalysts that seek the power of the Holy Spirit, minute by minute, to “lay aside every weight and the sin that so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us. Let us look to Jesus, the author and finisher 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. For consider Him who endured such hostility from sinners against Himself, lest you become weary and your hearts give up.”  Hebrews 12:1-3 MEV

Though we will have trouble in this world, let us rejoice and have peace – Jesus Christ has overcome the world.

Sunday Praise and a Prayer for Refining

Posted on by Dorci

“Praise be to the LORD, for He showed me the wonders of his love
when I was in a city under siege. In my alarm I said,
‘I am cut off from your sight!’
Yet you heard my cry for mercy when I called to you for help.
Be strong and take heart, all you who hope in the LORD.”
Psalm 31:21-22, 23

 

Dear Heavenly Father, we praise you.  We thank you for your everlasting love, a love that is so profound, so complete, so encompassing, that we can never fully comprehend it on this side of heaven.  Lord, there are a multitude of ways we can find ourselves under attack, whether it’s from people, from our own failing bodies, or as a target of your enemy, but you constantly surround us with the strength of your  protection and provision. 

No matter what’s happening in our lives, we need not fear. We trust that you use those times of trial as heat that brings to the surface the dross of our hearts –  those hidden weaknesses only you fully see. 

Help us remember we don’t need to hide from you because of those weaknesses, but you call us to come to you in the confidence of your love and grace, in the name of your Son, and confess those weaknesses – our fears, our anxieties, our pride, and give them all to you, that you might refine us as pure gold, and prepare us to enter into your presence. 

We put our hope and trust in you again, for you are worthy, our LORD and our King. We pray all this in the mighty name of Jesus, our Messiah, amen.

 

Sunday Praise and a Prayer for Comfort

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“Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God.” 2 Corinthians 1:3-4

 

Dear Heavenly Father, we praise you.  We praise you that you are at once righteous and compassionate.  That you are holy and yet you draw near to us, and draw us near to you so that you may stand with us in our trials, identify with us in our pain, and comfort us in our suffering.

Thank you for the peace your comfort brings our hearts, the courage it gives us to walk in the midst of our trouble another day, and the compassion it fills our own hearts with for others who are suffering, too.

Lord, as you lay hurting or struggling people on hearts, or bring them into the scope of our lives, may you continue to fill our hearts with your grace and compassion and the boldness to step out in faith and comfort them with the comfort you’ve given us. May your love anoint our hearts with mercy and may we have deep and tender love for one another.

Help us continue to abide in you – never letting go for one second – so that you are glorified as the comfort you give us and that we share with one another is a bright light in the middle of a dark world. May our lives, as your Spirit flows through us, magnify your name and draw others to you.  In the precious name of Jesus, the Savior of the world, amen.

Come As You Are

Posted on by Dorci

You continue to be on my heart, and I know that’s because you’re on Jesus’s heart. 

He loves us and He wants us to know – if we’re struggling, if we’re resisting, if our shame is keeping us from coming to the cross, from receiving His forgiveness and love, whether for the first time or the hundredth – my friends, look at the cross.

Look at Christ nailed to it, stripped of His clothing, beaten, bloody, spat upon, receiving the punishment saved for the worst of the worst.

Other gods, other religions require people to clean themselves up, to suffer for their sins, to pay penance to be forgiven.

But not Christ. He paid the penalty; He suffered for our sins; He bore the shame for us so He could take it from us. He doesn’t want us living with it. 

No matter how far we’ve gone from Him – a day, a week, a decade, we’re only a step away. Only a prayer away.  Only one Name away – Jesus.

If a whole prayer seems too overwhelming, just start by calling out the name of Jesus.

And not just any Jesus. The Jesus who was in the beginning, the Jesus who created all things, the Jesus who left His throne in heaven and came down to us fully God and fully man, the Jesus who was the Messiah prophesied about, the Jesus who is the Savior of the world, the Jesus whose sacrifice paid for your sins and the sins of the world.

And once the door is opened with His Name, confess your sins, and receive the abundance of His grace and mercy and love. It’s why He came, it’s why He died, and it’s why He rose again, and lives to intercede for us.  It’s why He leaves the 99 to go after the 1. It’s why He never gives up. It’s why He invites you to come as you are.

 

 

Come As You Are
by Crowder

Come out of sadness
From wherever you’ve been
Come broken hearted
Let rescue begin
Come find your mercy
Oh sinner come kneel
Earth has no sorrow
That heaven can’t heal
Earth has no sorrow
That heaven can’t heal
So lay down your burdens
Lay down your shame
All who are broken
Lift up your face
Oh wanderer come home
You’re not too far
So lay down your hurt
Lay down your heart
Come as you are
There’s hope for the hopeless
And all those who’ve strayed
Come sit at the table
Come taste the grace
There’s rest for the weary
Rest that endures
Earth has no sorrow
That heaven can’t cure
So lay down your burdens
Lay down your shame
All who are broken
Lift up your face
Oh wanderer come home
You’re not too far
So lay down your hurt
Lay down your heart
Come as you are
Come as you are
Fall in his arms
Come as you are
There’s joy for the morning
Oh sinner be still
Earth has no sorrow
That heaven can’t heal
Earth has no sorrow
That heaven can’t heal
So lay down your burdens
Lay down your shame
All who are broken
Lift up your face
Oh wanderer come home
You’re not too far
So lay down your hurt
Lay down your heart
Come as you are
Come as you are
Come as you are

No Matter What

Posted on by Dorci

Finally, Saturday’s here!

I’ve been waiting all week long to share this song with you. We live in a rough, critical, judgmental, even cruel world, and it’s not hard to get sucked into that worldly vortex that colors our world dark gray, where even our view of God is obscured.

Where our perspective of Him is shaped more by the negative people and circumstances around us, and even what’s going on within us, than by the truth of His holiness, righteousness, love, and forgiveness.  If that’s you – maybe you knew God at one time but have walked or drifted away, or maybe you’ve never known God at all – this song is for you.

There is hope. While there is breath there is hope, because Jesus lives.  Jesus Christ came to give us life, and through Him God’s grace is big enough to cover whatever you’ve done.  All He wants is your heart.  I pray you hear these words, and come to Him now. Come as you are, and He will receive you with open arms, no matter what.

 

 

No Matter What
by Ryan Stevenson

A lot of us grew up believing
At any moment we could lose it all
And at the drop of a hat
God might turn His back and move on
A lot of us feel like we blew it
Thinking that we’re just too far gone
But I want you to know
There’s still a hope for you now
No matter what you’ve done
You can’t erase His love
Nothing can change it
You’re not separated
No matter what
There’s never been a better time to get honest
There’s never been a better time to get clean
So come as you are
Run to the cross and be free
Oh, be free
No matter what you’ve done
You can’t erase His love
Nothing can change it
You’re not separated
No matter where you run
He’s always holding on
You’re still a daughter, you’re still a son
No matter what
I don’t know what you’ve been taught
Don’t know what you’ve been told
All I know is my God
Will never let go of you, no
And I don’t know what you’ve seen
Don’t know what you’ve been through
All I know is my God
Will never let go of you
He’ll never let go!
He’ll never, never, never let you go
No matter what you’ve done
You can’t erase His love
Nothing can change it
You’re not separated
No matter where you run
He’s always holding on
You’re still a daughter, you’re still a son
No matter what
You’re still a daughter, you’re still a son!
No matter what