Christian friends,

May I “write frankly” to you? I initially began this blog with a lengthy introduction, and 5 paragraphs later, I realized it would be more useful to speak straight. So speak straight I will. I want to talk about our intake. For this blog post’s usage, let’s define intake as what we consume on a regular basis; what we take into ourselves, either mindlessly, habitually, addictively or intentionally. We are naturally built consumers. Another word we could use is worshippers. God made us needy creatures. We need an average of 8 hours a day of sleep to function. We need food at least 3 times a day. We need water even more often and in larger quantities than we need food. Our naturally needy rhythms point us to a God who is our daily bread, our Sustainer, our Provider, the Source we are designed to depend upon. But it is not our physical intake I want to focus on. It is our spiritual intake.  What do we take in for our spiritual nourishment?

If you’re like me, you may have spent little time thinking about where your spiritual nourishment comes from. Perhaps you’ve received enough training to know you need time studying God’s words, but your quality time with God is consistently inconsistent at best. Prayer time is infrequent and short, and full of requests for your day to go better and circumstances to ease. Your time with Christian friends is okay, but it’s certainly not iron sharpening iron, striving hard to follow after Jesus together, asking hard questions and loving each other fiercely toward your Savior and those He came to save. You like the sermons you hear on Sunday, but by Tuesday, any application you wanted to carry into the week has fallen off the table. Certainly you haven’t “intentionally” strayed from God and good spiritual nourishment, you tell yourself. However, neither are you passionate for Jesus, tasting the goodness of God in your daily struggles and joys, and eager to spread the fragrance of Christ everywhere as a disciple of Jesus is commanded.

This is a serious business. Literally, not to be too dramatic, because God is perfectly clear in His word: this is life and death. We are all on a death trajectory toward eternity being punished justly for our sins, and God, not wanting anyone to perish, sent us the most wonderful gift in the world: His one and only Son, that whoever believes in him may not perish, but have eternal life. God then placed that good news in the hands of 120 followers, then gave them the Holy Spirit, and they were then equipped to fulfill their calling to go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to obey all that Jesus has commanded them. Because they obeyed, I’m part of God’s family! So are millions of others throughout time. And God’s not done saving people! He is so patient, wanting all to know Him! We Christians have the same charge as our first-century brothers and sisters: to make disciples, to spread the beauty of Jesus everywhere. Personally, I have seen how entertainment, our cultural priorities and norms, and my sin have blended together to keep me inactive in God’s kingdom. And not just me. This seems to be a common tactic of our enemy. If he can’t win us to his kingdom, he’ll do everything he can to render us useless and impotent in the kingdom of God. Then we will do him no harm, but perhaps even do him good.

This is war, friends. We know who has won the war; we’re just fighting out the end battles until our Commander appears. How do you want to be found by Him when He appears? I guarantee that every one of you who has the Holy Spirit of God in him/her wants to be found fighting, working,  investing what God has given you for the good of His kingdom and purposes, and not your own. We will regret every time we chose entertainment over Jesus’ mission. We will regret our passivity. We will regret wasting our time focusing on making ourselves comfortable instead of being overwhelmed by the glory of God in Jesus and boldly going in His name, by His power, to tell the world the good news that Jesus came to save sinners.

Is Jesus your first love? Do you believe to your core He truly everything you need? Are you tasting and seeing that the Lord is good? As I have done, have you forgotten your God? Have you left your first love? Have you replaced him with other good, but unworthy things? If this is striking chords in your heart, and you have left your first love, and want to move from your passivity and enter the battle, first let me urge you to get on your knees right now and confess to the Lord whatever it is you have loved more than Him. Whatever has captured your time and attention and love. I would so prefer you do that rather than read the rest of what I have written. Go to Him! He loves you! Forgiveness is already yours in Christ. God already knows your heart. His conviction is truly a gift, so we may leave its clutches through the power of Jesus who has risen from the dead and defeated sin for us, SO THAT we are freed to obey God through His power! If you don’t yet hate your sin, but you want to, ask him for hatred of your sin, so you can cast it aside and cling to Him.

Then let me ask you this hard question that as a personal trainer I would ask my weight loss clients: take a look at your daily intake. Spiritually, look at what you regularly put in front of you for 1. entertainment, 2. comfort, 3. distraction, 4. mindless activity, 5. social media, 6. sustenance. What are you taking in? What is your “diet”? Another diagnostic question to ask in this current climate: how much time do you spend on your phone or in front of your computer unrelated to work each day? According to Shona Murray in her book Refresh, in 2013, women spent an average of 12 hours a week on social media alone, with an average of 150 check-ins on their phone a day. Let’s ask ourselves: what is the first thing I look at in the morning, and the last thing I do before I go to bed? Where do I spend my free time? What do I consume on a regular basis? Where do I go when I’m sad, angry, discouraged, or hurt?

Take the time to log what you are taking in. Remember, we all consume. We all worship. The question is who or what are we worshipping. I don’t mean to equate consumption and worship, but their relationship by nature is closely intertwined. You spend time and attention with who/what you worship. You will receive nourishment (whether it be poison or life) from who/what you worship.

Now look at what you’re consuming. What is it? Do you see any patterns? Any commonalities? How much, dear Christian friend, are you taking in the sustaining, life-giving wisdom and words of God? How much are you taking in worldly entertainment or wisdom, or just plain distraction? Does your spiritual diet nourish your relationship with God and help you grow in Christlike-ness, or is it malnourishing?

Whatever we take in is what will come out of us. I will have nothing good to offer anyone if I don’t soak myself in God’s word with His Spirit illuminating truths to me and changing me from my fleshly self. I won’t have God’s agenda unless I make it a practice to constantly set mine aside through regular repentance. I won’t love the people God put in front of me to love when I’m distracted by earthly pleasures or issues which have no bearing or weight in the eternal glory of God, and are not worthy of my time and attention. Simply put, you and I will miss out on living the abundant, fruit-producing, kingdom-building, disciple-making, Jesus-following life of good works God has prepared for us if we do not set aside our idols and our entertainment for the sake of Jesus’ name. He poured out his life so we could have ours. Would it not be an utter waste if we took His gift of life, paid for by His blood, and held onto it so we could build a comfortable life? No! May it never be! May we be moved to the very core of our being with the understanding that were it not for our beautiful Savior giving up everything He had, suffering God’s wrath in our place, we would be lost. Eternally lost. Dead in our sins. Alone. Without God and without hope in this world. May we remember our state without Christ, and our blood-bought sonship in Christ! May God’s love and grace overwhelm our hearts so that they overflow with gratitude and loving affection toward Him! May we begin to love what He loves and hate what He hates, so we can do good with our small breath of life we’ve been given!

I don’t want to waste one more minute. Will you join me in leaving the mud puddles for a holiday at the sea? Will you leave the foolish, momentary pleasures for the incomparably beautiful, everlasting, glorious ways of God? You don’t have the power to do so on your own. But praise be to God, the same power that raised Jesus from the dead lives in you!

He can do it. Ask Him.

 

 

Yesterday, without prior notice, God gave me a taste of what life is really about. It came through an errand with my kids.

We were at a Christian book store, picking out my six-year-old daughter’s first Bible. Having settled on the version we wanted, we were now faced with the choice of style and readership level. Pink or purple? Action or journaling edition? Easy reader or original text?

It had been a busy morning. As any mom of young kids can tell you: if you survive the gauntlet of never-ending questions, discipleship moments, melt-downs, cries for food and drink, potty stops, and everything in-between, with a long view of the future and a desire to pass along the beautiful, life-giving truths of God to your kids in every day life, it’s a miracle of the Holy Spirit of God. That does not happen naturally. (Side note to moms: what God has called you to in raising little humans takes supernatural strength from God every single day in every single mundane task in front of you. Brick by brick, decision by decision, God is using you and the world around you to form these little people. The little things you do each day, the norms you are setting, your demonstration of your relationship with God to them, are so important, and you need God’s strength moment by moment to build good into them. We will either build good or evil. It will be a mixture of both, but if you can show them day after day how Mommy isn’t perfect, but dependent on Jesus for getting out the door, for strength to discipline well, for wisdom to know how to shepherd hearts during another fight about whose car is whose, you have given them a priceless gift.)

So there we were, having faced some of the typical gauntlet of a Thursday morning errand run. My two younger boys plunked down on the ground and began paging through kids’ Bibles. I was thankful for the few moments of uninterrupted time with Grace, though I would occasionally check to see if they were ripping pages out of said Bibles. I began talking through some of the differences with her, as she would pick out Bibles that “looked nice”. Then came one of those glorious moments! Slowly, unobtrusively, in the ordinary of daily life. God used me to shepherd a little girl’s heart toward Him through His word, and blessed me in the process.

We had it narrowed down to three Bibles: a journaling edition, an easy reader (modified translation), and an Adventure Bible (Grace had approved all stylistic cover choices!). The conversation went something like this:

Grace: “Mom, how come the Bible is so small? I mean, why are the words so small?”

Me: “Well, honey, the Bible is actually 66 different books written by different men through the Holy Spirit. So the Bible is 66 books all put into one about Jesus. See? The Old Testament was written before He came, and the New Testament was written after Jesus came.”

Grace: “Oooh! So, how do I know where to go? Can I just read anywhere?”

Me: “Yes! It takes a long time to read the whole Bible. But let’s take one of your stories you know from our Bible time at home, and I’ll show you where to find it in the real Bible.”

Grace: “Okay! How about when Jesus rose from the dead?”

Me: “Yes! Great story! It’s actually in four different books: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Let’s go to John.” We go to John 20. “It starts here, Grace. ‘Now on the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb early, while it was still dark.’ ”

Grace: “That sounds familiar! I know I’ve heard that before, but I probably haven’t heard all of it, I mean the way it’s written here in the Bible.”

Me: “Yes, honey. The kids’ Bibles we’ve read to you at home are written by people who have read God’s word, and then wrote a story about it for kids to understand. But look, Grace! See what we just read in John? Do you remember John, who was a disciple of Jesus? (Grace nods). Well, honey, he wrote this book. He wrote those words, sweetie! Through the Holy Spirit! And it’s been preserved for so many years, and now we’re able to read them, too!”

Grace (eyes widening): “What????”

Here’s where I lost it. I started crying. In the middle of the bookstore, with my kids around me, with strangers walking by. None of it mattered. I remembered Jesus, how he explained to the disciples on the road to Emmaus after he rose from the dead, how everything written about Him in the law, all the prophets, and all Scriptures is about Him. I remembered the persecution of the early church. I remembered the scribes who so carefully copied these accounts of Jesus and letters of Paul and others, which became the New Testament. I remembered the martyrs who died to bring us the Bible translated into the common tongue, so everyone could have access to God’s word. I remembered the attack God’s word has been under, and yet how God’s word is not bound! I saw God’s faithfulness to preserve His words so that my six-year-old daughter could read them, and come to taste and see God’s goodness to us in Jesus Christ. I saw how this moment of discipling my daughter toward Jesus was exactly what I wanted to do with my life.

I was blessed enough at 20 years old to have an older woman, Katherine, take me under her wing and meet with me regularly. Her one stipulation: that we memorize Bible verses together. This relationship is where God showed me the beauties, the never-ending riches of knowing God through Jesus by studying His word. Memorizing was simply a way to meditate on God’s word in a culture that teaches you immediate results are the only results. It also put God’s words in my heart, so I could hear Him speak to me. His truths replaced the lies I had believed. His word is alive! It cuts to the heart! It is utterly supernatural. I’m running out of words to explain the life God brought to me as I studied His words. I want to share that gift of knowing God our Father because of Jesus our Savior through His word and the power of the Holy Spirit changing our hearts.

Let me lean on another, much wiser brother in the faith who has better words than me: George Mueller. These excerpts are from an audio podcast by John Piper on http://www.desiringgod.org, entitled “George Mueller’s Strategy for Showing God”.

The question posed here is: How shall we have such happiness that enables us to let go of such earthly pleasures and passions; vain and worthless in comparison? For example: when I want to watch movies and disconnect instead of meeting with God. I want to spend Thanksgiving in the comfort of my home rather than feeding those without homes. I want to use my money to make my life more comfortable, rather than using it to buy a single mom a car, or giving to my church so the gospel of Jesus Christ can go out to all corners of the world. How shall we have such happiness that enables us to let go of such earthly, vain pleasures and passions?

George Mueller: “This happiness is to be obtained through the study of the Holy Scriptures. God has therein revealed himself unto us in the face of Jesus Christ. Happiness in God comes from seeing God in the face of Jesus Christ through the Scriptures. In them we become acquainted with the character of God. Our eyes are divinely opened to see what a lovely being God is, and this good, gracious, loving heavenly Father is ours, our portion for time and eternity.

The more we know of God, the happier we are. When we became a little acquainted with God, our true happiness commenced. The more we become acquainted with Him, the more truly happy we become. What will make us so exceedingly happy in heaven? It will be the fuller knowledge of God. 

Now in brotherly love and affection, I would give a few hints to my younger fellow believers, as to the way in which to keep up spiritual enjoyment. It is absolutely needful, in order that happiness in the Lord may continue, that Scriptures be regularly read. These are God’s appointed means for the nourishment of the inner man. Consider it, ponder over it, especially should we read through it regularly through the Scriptures consecutively, from front to front, and not pick out here and there a chapter. If we do, we remain spiritual dwarfs.

I tell you so affectionately, for the first four years after my conversion, I made no progress, because I neglected the Bible. But then I regularly read on through the whole with reference to my own heart and soul. I directly made progress. My peace and joy continued more and more. Now, I have been doing this for 47 years. I have read through the whole Bible about 100 times (he was then 71 years old). And I always find it fresh when I begin again; thus my peace and my joy have increased more and more. I saw more clearly than ever that the first and great and primary business I ought to attend to every day was to have my soul happy in the Lord. I saw the most important thing I had to do was to give myself to the reading of the word of God, and the meditation on it.”

What is the food of the inner man? How do we make our souls happy in God? By primarily reading of the word of God. And not simple reading, but considering what we read, pondering over it, giving time to let God work His way in us, and applying it to our lives.

Yesterday, I got to help my daughter take a step toward making her soul happy in the Lord through the Scriptures. I am very aware that I have no power to do so. All is in the hands of God. I was simply an instrument of His in her life. But I do know this: I have experienced, tasted, and seen the goodness of God through the study of His Word. I still do. Being able to share the riches of Jesus with another human being who, yesterday, happened to be my daughter, is the main reason I’m alive, and it’s exactly what I was made to do. God help me, I will continue doing so as long as I live.

Grace picked out the journaling version of the Bible, because, as she put it:

“I want to write down what God is teaching me, and then look back later and see everything that He has done.”

Me too, sweetie. Me too.