Smorgisboard

The temperatures have risen just enough to make the snow melt and what is left behind be heavy. If it could just stay this warm for another day my driveway would probably be down to the concrete, but I have a feeling that's not going to be happening.

I was going to get to this over the weekend since the kids were not here, but, I decided to veg and lay in bed half of my Saturday and do absolutely nothing the rest of the day. Its a rare convergence of situations that I try not to pass up. I probably won't see another day like that for a good 4+ months.

So - here are some of the newest nuggets from my spirit, in no particular order:
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Ps. 138:2 AMP (thank you Bible Gateway.com):
²I will worship toward Your holy temple and praise Your name for Your loving-kindness and for Your truth and faithfulness; for You have exalted above all else Your name and Your word and You have magnified Your word above all Your name!

The item in this passage that caught me was the part about the word being above the name. For some reason that perplexed me. Isn't His Name above all things?? All things would include His Word, no?

Then the Holy Spirit made an interesting point - what good is His Name if His Word means nothing? It is the Word, and His faithfulness to watch over His Word and keep His Word that is the foundation for His Name carrying the weight that it does.

How many people do we have in our lives that promise to do this or that or be on time or anything and then fail us? How many of us would be willing to risk our own reputations to give a positive recommendation of those people for jobs or for others to befriend? Very few of us would - or we would but be very open about the serious shortcomings in those peoples' trustworthiness.

Their names would mean nothing because their own disregard for integrity would have brought their name down in weight.

Action - or inaction - on what we have said determines the way our names are magnified - and God is no different.

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Son vs. Holy Spirit

Mark 3:28-9 (NIV Biblegateway.com)
Truly I tell you, people can be forgiven all their sins and every slander they utter, ²⁹ but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will never be forgiven; they are guilty of an eternal sin.”

Ahhh the 3 in 1 Godhead. All parts are equal, right? So, how if, in the time of this text, slandering Jesus Himself can be forgiven, but, go after the Holy Spirit and it's Hellfire, pestilence, brimstone and NO SOUP for you?! This didn't seem to make sense.

Verse 30 goes on to say that He said this because the scribes were saying Jesus had a demon/was of Beelzebub, but that still didn't seem to explain why there would be this break in equality of the Trinity.

The more I meditated on this the more it was revealed that, in this time, Jesus still had not died, therefore had not yet risen again or ascended so the Holy Spirit was still in a holding pattern around Him, waiting for the moment at Pentecost to be released among the entire Earth.

At this point, people could still take Him or leave Him in His statement of being the Son of Man/God. They could refuse Him because His greatest act had not yet been done. It was still conceivable to the Jews that He really was just a super-prophet - the return of Elijah - working side-by-side with John the Baptist and the predecessor to the Messiah.

That disbelief and rejection could still be forgiven.

But to reject the Holy Spirit would pretty much (not totally) have to come at Pentecost and later. At a point where Jesus had already died, risen and ascended. His victory over all things at that point had been secured and to reject Him as the Messiah and the evidence of Him through the Holy Spirit crosses that line.

Now, I'll be the first to admit (and my bff will not hesitate to concur b/c she's usually the one chiding me) I've called God a liar, even for brief moments. Anytime we say something is totally impossible we call God a liar.

Does that condemn me to Hell and NO SOUP for me?! Ummm, I've gotten good enough that as soon as I hear my spirit say something like that I catch myself and repent - so as long as I don't die in the 3 seconds between uttering it in my heart and repenting I'm probably OK, he he. But it takes work to re-train the mind to really truly believe all the things that He has said and promised.

Like a husband. God knows I know He's said a good one is on the way. But dammit, if I don't get him in my life soon by the time he does show up I'm gonna be like 'Ummmmm, you weren't here when I really needed you so, um, I can live without. Thanks for playing though.' And send him packing. Poor thing wouldn't have a chance. And don't think I'm not that stubborn.

And trust me, after seeing a bunch of guys at O'Hare Airport walking around in skinny jeans I can be celibate for the rest of my life without ANY issues. My mental eye has been forever burned with those nasty images - worse than when I was a swimmer, believe it or not!

But it is what God has promised. And I do want it - I want it ALL - even if it is seemingly after a season of when I could really use it (like the husband and a great breakthrough in my finances). The Holy Spirit whispers to us (and sometimes screams it at us) the Word and the meditations of the Heart of God.

And, to tag into the previous post - if His Word is worthless, so is His Name. He is faithful to do what He says He will do - and the Holy Spirit reminds us of this - to say that what the Holy Spirit reveals is fake and lies is to do what is mentioned in verse 29 - it calls God a liar and reveals our lack of faith and trust and is a signal of unbelief.

Its a daily battle, but one that is slowly becoming one in which I am more and more victorious. I would like to not grieve His heart as much. Greatness is to be bestowed to those willing to receive it.

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I am continually reminded of something Apostle said at the end of a song on 24/7:

'We are that company of people who dare to believe that You are who the Bible says You are; You can do what the Bible says You can do; and we can have what the Bible says we can have; and we can do what the Bible says we can do; and we are that group of people who are crazy enough to just believe it and bet our lives on it - day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year.'

God will have His people - and I surely will be part of that heritage. And yes, I'd bet my life on any and all of His promises any day, any time, minus the few seconds of unbelief that manifests every now and then (yes, I know the man of my dreams is on his way and my provision is secured).

He either is God and all His Word is infallible - every last letter - or we can't trust any of it - including the birth, death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus - the very foundation of our salvation - and where does that really leave us? Bordering on the NO SOUP for you line with the other goats that have been weeded out of the herd.

He is the I AM. Plain and simple. And I love that, and trust that. He's the only faithful real man I've ever had (Monty's been eunuched so he can't count, sorry sweetie) and His Word is Truth. Hmm, time for that soup ;)

Peace!
La. Sra.

Jesus Wept

I was driving down the road a week or so ago and there was a Gospel song on the radio. I was half-listening to it but I caught enough words to realize they were discussing Lazarus' callback from the dead.

I thought on that event and remembered this was the passage where Jesus wept. And I began to wonder why.

Why would the Son of God be weeping when He knows He is capable of all things, including raising the dead?

What would cause Him to be so moved?

And I got an interesting answer from the Holy Spirit.

He wept because He realized and felt the despair the family and friends had in their hearts because He had not yet conquered death through His own death and resurrection. The promise of Heaven was not yet undeniably secured for humans and death was still a sentence - yet Mary and Martha still hoped and believed on Him.

He was agitated because He hated death and knew at that moment the world was still bound by its power. He knew he could call Lazarus back from the grave but the sentence of death would still be in place.

He was torn in His spirit because He agonized over what was soon coming with the Passover and His crucifixion and how He was going to suffer (remember the drops of blood-sweat in the Garden) but He was also acutely anxious and chomping at the bit at that moment to see it come so the end of the sentence of death could be eradicated.

All those emotions, and more that what I had been told, swirling in His spirit. Enough to bring weeping tears to His eyes.

We've all been there. The times we live the overwhelming emotions that you understand why people in the OT used to rend their clothes. The times we just want to scream and get it ejected from our own spirits so we can focus even more intently on the duty we are assigned to do.

He lived that, too. And after His release He raised the dead. We don't have a High Priest who didn't experience what we do on a daily basis. He's the perfect intercessor.

What comes for us after we push through the emotions?

Below is an excerpt from the passage:

John 11 (From the Amplified, compliments of BibleGateway.com):

³⁰Now Jesus had not yet entered the village, but was still at the same spot where Martha had met Him.

³¹When the Jews who were sitting with her in the house and consoling her saw how hastily Mary had arisen and gone out, they followed her, supposing that she was going to the tomb to pour out her grief there.

³²When Mary came to the place where Jesus was and saw Him, she dropped down at His feet, saying to Him, Lord, if You had been here, my brother would not have died.

³³When Jesus saw her sobbing, and the Jews who came with her [also] sobbing, He was deeply moved in spirit and troubled. [He chafed in spirit and sighed and was disturbed.]

³⁴And He said, Where have you laid him? They said to Him, Lord, come and see.

³⁵Jesus wept.