Your Mission: Why Wear a Hat This Week

We traipsed through the Little Hundred Acre Woods again just last week and paused by the osage orange thorn bush growing wild in the fence line. Although Spring has come early, its branches have yet to show its beauty in bloom.

My farmer husband calls it a horrid weed to be painted with full strength RoundUp. My children know it as "a crown of thorns," a plant that is so precious, one must touch it gently, examine it, discuss it repeatedly and at length, all because its prickly branches are a reminder of our Savior's suffering.

Years ago, my mother fashioned some of the wild branches into a circlet, an Easter decoration to focus her family on Christ's pain and sacrifice before the beauty of the resurrection. My three children beg for the privilege of placing that literal crown of thorns of tender heads each time they visit. When they are finally granted permission, it is never with grins but is always a serious, somber moment, for this crown, too, will pierce and draw blood.

My oldest, Wyatt, named it a "God hat," and I haven't been able to think of it otherwise since.

John 19:2 describes Christ on the day of His crucifixion: "And the soldiers platted a crown of thorns, and put [it] on his head, and they put on him a purple robe."

Those thorns, though, didn't just sprout from the earth on that day. They had been growing all across the earth's surface, digging in deep and entwining their roots around the sin-stained heart of mankind ever since that day back in the Garden of Eden when Adam and Eve chose disobedience and became permanently separated from intimacy with God.

Those thorns were part of the curse, when God said, "Cursed is the ground because of you...It will produce thorns and thistles for you" (Gen. 3:17-18).

Hanging on that cross, Christ both symbolically and literally took the curse of sin represented by the curse of thorns upon Himself.

Righteousness became unrighteous. Sinlessness because sin for all time. The curse of Eden came full circle and pierced the head of the One who had come to undo its power.
Earlier, Christ spoke of thorns in a parable, thorns that "grew up and choked it [the Word], and it yielded no fruit" (Mar. 4:7). It was these same thorns that He willingly bowed His head to accept so that we may be able to bear fruit in Him.

Without His taking on that crown, that curse, we would be like the ground that "yields thorns and thistles, it is worthless and close to being cursed, and it ends up being burned" (Heb. 6:8).

As Palm Sunday grows ever closer, we must remember the thorny crown that our Kingly Savior chose to wear so that we would not. I'm challenging you to do what I plan to do--take one day this week and wear a hat--any hat. When you do, let its presence remind you of the weight of that "God hat" crown of thorns placed on His head for you and me.

A Drink of Cistern Water

Once the thermometer inches above 80 degrees like it did this past week, our household begins consuming more water to replace what the body loses through profuse sweating in the south Louisiana sun.

I take for granted being able to walk in the kitchen and turn on the tap for a high pressured stream of crystal clear, filtered water. But in other parts of the world, water is much more difficult to come by.

In the deserts of ancient Israel, fresh, pure living water was scarce, which led people to dig individual or community cisterns for storing large quantities of rainwater. A typical cistern was 2-3 feet wide at the top, 15-20 feet deep and was carved out of solid limestone to hold several thousands of gallons of rainwater underground .* Still, during the severe drought of summer, many would dry up.

Although most cisterns were covered with a large chunk of rock to keep out critters in search of a drink, you can imagine how much debris accumulated over time in these giant water vats. According to the International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, “Cisterns, belonging to the common natives, are rarely cleansed, and the inevitable scum which collects is dispersed by plunging the pitcher several times before drawing water. When the water is considered to be bad, a somewhat primitive cure is applied by dropping earth into the cistern, so as to sink all impurities with it, to the bottom.”

In other words, having access to cistern water was better than having no water at all, but the water was stagnant and stale, at best. And at worst, it was contaminated with animal excrement that washed in the cistern along with the rainwater and perhaps even small dead animals who fell in and drowned.

Knowing how cistern water would taste, why would anyone choose it if she had access to living water?

In Jeremiah 2:13, God criticizes Israel for just that…for choosing to dig its own cisterns rather than rely on Him for the refreshing, living water: “For My people have committed two evils: They have forsaken Me, The fountain of living waters, To hew for themselves cisterns, Broken cisterns That can hold no water” (Jer. 2:13).

The problem isn't the physical act of digging an underground rain barrel. Instead, it's the attitude of self-sufficiency. When the rain failed to fall, Israel would rely on its cisterns to provide rather than on God to sustain them through the hard times.

Jesus tried to explain this concept to the Samaritan woman, a woman who would have understood the benefits of living water over cistern water: “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you, 'Give Me a drink,' you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water…. Everyone who drinks of this [well] water will thirst again; but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him shall never thirst; but the water that I will give him will become in him a well of water springing up to eternal life" (John 4:10, 13-14).

Christ identifies Himself as the living water that purifies, as the only sustainable source of water…quite the opposite of what a cistern provides.

Each day, we can choose to carve out our own cistern. To do so means we are choosing to trust in ourselves to meet our needs and wants instead of relying on God to satisfy our thirst. And since by nature, we are all broken, human vessels, we should realize that trying to provide for ourselves in our own strength, with our own talents, through our own successes—it’s useless. The water collected by our own hands will seep out slowly until we are dry and unable to provide for ourselves any longer.

My prayer is to leave the cistern of self-sufficiency and rely in faith on the fountains of living water like David did: “As the deer pants for the water brooks, So my soul pants for You, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God” (Ps. 42:1-2).

* “Ancient Cisterns” Bible Background Study. http://www.bible-history.com/biblestudy/cisterns.html.


(Posting from the archives this week as I am literally overwhelmed with a twin's sinus infection coupled with packing for a last minute car trip to see my brother and his wife at the 100th Cherry Blossom Festival in D.C. Pray for us all good health and journey mercies.)

Happy New Year!!! (Again)

My calendar reads March, the third month of the year. With the first quarter of the year nearly gone, I'm already looking ahead to the half-way point, lining up my summer teaching load, evaluating progress in the year's goals, and crunching the numbers to see if the bank account can swing an above-ground swimming hole for lessons.

In my father's office, is another calendar, one that shows a year is now ending and another one ready to begin. This is the Jewish calendar, which sets the first month of the Jewish year in the middle of March-April.

Nissan .

For those who follow the Jewish calendar, the old year is winding to a close. Even for those Christians like me who are not Jewish, we are still grafted into the vine, adopted into Christ's family. As such, this "new year" is important for us, too.

And such a new year starts out with a bang!

The first month of the Jewish year began with the Festival of the Passover where on the fourteenth day, each family would kill a lamb and put its blood on the doorpost. As commanded in Leviticus, "The LORD’s Passover begins at twilight on the fourteenth day of the first month" (Lev. 23:5).

This part of Passover was then followed by the Feast of the Unleavened bread, starting on the fifteenth day of the month and lasting for seven days: "for seven days you must eat bread made without yeast" (Lev. 23:6). In Jewish households, all leaven had to be purged from the house, symbolizing the purging of sin.

Finally, the Passover season would end with the Feast of the Firstfruits, the day after Sabbath, wherein the priest would wave a sheaf offering as a promise of the harvest to come: "bring to the priest a sheaf of the first grain you harvest. He is to wave the sheaf before the LORD so it will be accepted on your behalf" (Lev. 23:10-11).

The very first Passover was celebrated in Exodus 12. Before that large group of Israelite slaves took one step towards the promised land, before they crossed on dry land through that wall of water at the Red Sea--they celebrated Passover.

Their new year, their new life symbolically began with that Passover, one where they were covered by the blood and purged of sin as they looked forward to the cross where Christ would play the part of the spotless lamb.

Generations later, the Jewish exiles returned home after 70 years in Babylon. Once there, they rebuilt the temple, dedicated it, and then came the start of another year and, you guessed it, another celebration of Passover:

"On the fourteenth day of the first month, the exiles celebrated the Passover. The priests and Levites had purified themselves and were all ceremonially clean. The Levites slaughtered the Passover lamb for all the exiles, for their relatives the priests and for themselves. So the Israelites who had returned from the exile ate it, together with all who had separated themselves from the unclean practices of their Gentile neighbors in order to seek the LORD, the God of Israel. For seven days they celebrated with joy the Festival of Unleavened Bread, because the LORD had filled them with joy by changing the attitude of the king of Assyria so that he assisted them in the work on the house of God, the God of Israel. " (Ez. 6:19-22)

This Passover was very similar to that very first celebration in Egypt. Those who once were slaves were now given their freedom. Those who were once far off had found their feet making desert tracks again to the Promised Land.

With that celebration of a new year, the Scripture above shows the people's attitude was one of joy. Their focus was on setting themselves apart from the world, on purity.

We're still about a month away from the Passover Festival (Jewish Year 5772: sunset April 6, 2012 - nightfall April 14, 2012). Yet, this side of the cross, how much more should we be excited about this coming of a new year?

When God became flesh and dwelt among us, He became our passover lamb, covering us with His blood and making us "unleavened" before being raised as the"the first fruits of those who are asleep" (1 Cor. 5:6, 15:20). With His death, He started not only the New Year, but also a New Age with a calendar now counting down to eternity.

As we prepare our hearts for our Lord's death and resurrection, our attitude looking forward and backward to Passover should be one of joy. Our focus should be on setting ourselves apart from the world, on becoming more pure.

Diagnosis: Habit Resistant

How long does it really take to form a habit? "Thirty days to a better you" seems to be the mantra of glossy magazine covers at every checkout counter.

Yet, a 2009 study in the European Journal of Social Psychology concludes that the answer isn't nearly that swift. There is no magic day that once you reach it, you're home free. Instead, "it depends."

On average, forming a new habit takes 66 days. Simple habits like "drinking a daily glass of water became automatic very quickly but doing 50 sit-ups before breakfast required more dedication."* It makes sense that the more the new habit requires of us, the longer it takes to become second nature.

What interested me, though, was one of the researchers' conclusions: "A sub-group took much longer than the others to form their habits, perhaps suggesting some people are 'habit-resistant'."*

Ouch. Habit Resistant.

I've felt this resistance. It's especially strong when the new habit I wish to form involves overcoming my flesh?

Being in the word daily. Bending the knee in my prayer closet. Fasting. Ministering to others. Doing physical, intellectual, and spiritual exercise. It's these good habits that strengthen my relationship with God, that improve my mind, body, and soul.

But these are also the habits I'm most resistant to, when I must die to self, sacrifice something else to cultivate the new habit.

God's Word recognizes this. The New Testament constantly encourages believers to form good habits, even when the resistance of the flesh seems overpowering.

Paul said, "Therefore as you have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him, having been firmly rooted and now being built up in Him and established in your faith, just as you were instructed, and overflowing with gratitude...For in Him all the fullness of Deity dwells in bodily form, and in Him you have been made complete" (Col 2:6-7,9-10).

Here, Paul reminds us that a Christian is already complete in Christ when he became "firmly rooted" in Him. Yet, Paul also emphasizes that a Christian is still becoming complete, is still being "built up" and "established."

To be built up in Christ, to be established in Him requires what others have referred to as "spiritual disciplines,"** the practice of which is for our sanctification, to make ourselves more like Christ. These spiritual disciplines (prayer, fasting, confession, frugality, etc.) don't come easily. We must intentionally, habitually strive to be more like Christ--not in an "Uh, it's time to do that again" type habit, but in a habit that we desire to practice, striving to overcome the flesh and create a deeper relationship with Him.

Cultivating a habit can make our relationship with God second nature, automatic, like breathing.

Paul again tells the Colossians of this need to become complete in Christ: "We proclaim Him, admonishing every man and teaching every man with all wisdom, so that we may present every man complete in Christ. For this purpose also I labor, striving according to His power, which mightily works within me" (Col 1:28-29).

Here, Paul emphasizes that becoming complete in Christ isn't easy but requires "labor" and "striving," not in our own power, but in His power.

And therein lies the key to overcoming habit resistance--Christ, Himself, who works within us.

When we find it difficult to cultivate habits that we know God's word commands, that we know will bring us into a deeper relationship with Him, then, we must ask the Spirit within to help us overcome our fleshly resistance. And we must not give up.

God's word says that "a righteous man falls seven times, and rises again" (Prov. 24:16). Our flesh is weak. It is resistant to habits that don't feed it. Yet, in Him, we can be strong enough to dust ourselves off and keep going.

* "How Long to Form a Habit." PsyBlog: Understand Your Mind. 21 Sept 2009.
**For a discussion of spiritual disciplines, see: Charles R. Swindoll. So, You Want to be Like Christ, Thomas Nelson, Nashville, TN. 2005.

Can Sin-Shackled Dust Be God's Friend?

The first upbeat chords rocket through the van's speakers. I sing along with the first verse: "Who am I that you are mindful of me / That you hear me when I call..." The words resonate within me. Then comes the refrain, and I stumble over the words, clench jaw over the chorus that repeats "I am a friend of God / He calls me friend."

God as my friend? I can't assume to be so presumptuous. It's inconceivable . A relationship, yes. A friendship? How can holiness be friends with sin-shackled dust like me.

Besides, friendship is reserved for the elite of the elite in that Hall of Faith in Hebrews. Right?

In the Old Testament, I've only located two individuals whom God called His friend--Moses and Abraham.

Of Moses, Scripture says, "Thus the LORD used to speak to Moses face to face, just as a man speaks to his friend" (Ex. 33:11).

Twice, Abraham is referred to as God's "friend forever?" and then as "Abraham My friend" (2 Chron. 20:7, Is. 41:8).

For God to call these men friend makes sense--Abraham, the Father of Israel who offered his son in sacrifice, who left home and family for some nebulous promised land somewhere, someday. And then there's Moses, the man who challenged a Pharaoh before leading a group of malcontents from captivity, around the wilderness for forty years, and finally to the banks of the land of promise.

I get this. But they're completely out of my spiritual league.

The problem, though, is that in the New Testament, James revisits Abraham's friendship with God, implying that this friendship is something attainable for all believers: "and the Scripture was fulfilled which says, 'AND ABRAHAM BELIEVED GOD, AND IT WAS RECKONED TO HIM AS RIGHTEOUSNESS,' and he was called the friend of God" (Jas. 2:23).

How can we become a friend of God?

The first requirement is clear. Faith. Not dead faith, since James is infamous for his stance that made Martin Luther want to hack the letter from the Bible-- "faith, if it has no works, is dead" (Jas 2:14). Faith in action is a key element to friendship.

Jesus makes a similar statement to His disciples: "Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends. You are My friends if you do what I command you" (Jn. 15:13-14).

Here, this Scripture seems to lay out two additional requirements besides faith in action. First, Christ calls "friends" all those who obey His command to "Love one another." Jesus then tells these friends to "bear fruit" before reiterating the command to love.

The twice repeated command along with a mention of bearing fruit seems to imply friendship with God requires not only FAITH in action but OBEDIENCE in action, which can be summed up as LOVE in action.

The amazing thing? The part that really gets me? Back in 2 Chronicles where God calls Abraham His "friend forever," the word translated as "friend" ('ahab) is translated as love or beloved in 174/208 of its usages in the Old Testament.

One of those 174 usages is likely quite familiar to you and speaks of God's mercy: "showing lovingkindness to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments" (Ex. 20:6).

The verse could likewise read "to those who friend Me and keep My commandments." And there, we have Christ's own words in John about friendship, now echoed way back in Exodus.

While James recognizes Abraham's faith as the reason for his friendship with God, the Old Testament Hebrew and Christ's words about friendship make a direct link between friendship and love.

In short, the three are all one and the same--to truly believe in God is to love God is to obey God is to be the friend of God.

What an invitation.



Image: Paul Hazelton's Dust Sculptures...and I just thought those dust bunnies were worthless.

A Tongue Lit By Hell's Fire

Whoever first coined the little ditty about sticks and stones breaking bones but words never hurting him was a liar. Words hurt. They can do immense damage, many times leaving scars much greater and much longer lasting than the bruise of a stone or bloody gash from a stick.

Most of us have both used our tongues for evil and have received third degree burns from such a hell-bent tongue. Likewise, we have all used our tongues for good and have had our hearts warmed by others' tongues as well. Good or bad, our memories hold tight to the actual words much like a burr in an animal's coat. Some conversations, we can repeat verbatim twenty years later even though we may not remember the time, place, or any other trappings of that day.

Because God knew the power of words, He cautioned us as Christians to use our tongues for good, not evil. James said, "the tongue is a fire, the very world of iniquity; the tongue is set among our members as that which defiles the entire body, and sets on fire the course of our life, and is set on fire by hell... it is a restless evil and full of deadly poison. With it we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse men, who have been made in the likeness of God; ¹⁰ from the same mouth come both blessing and cursing. My brethren, these things ought not to be this way" (Jas. 3:6, 8-10).

Here, James first denotes the tongue's tendency to speak evil, to act as a fire that devours, as a poison that destroys an entire body...an entire life. He also notes where such fleshly tongue-tendencies come from--hell.

However, in the same passage, James mentions that the Christian's tongue can also be used for good, for blessings, towards other men and towards God. Though James doesn't use the exact words, the implication is that this tongue-tendency comes from the opposite location--from heaven, or in this case, from the third part of the trinity, the Spirit that resides within.

Although the tongue may have both conflicting tendencies since flesh wars with the spirit within, James makes it clear that we must strive to use our tongues only for good and not for evil.

Many times, even when we suppress the Spirit and speak otherwise, it is perfectly clear as to whether we are using our tongues for good or for evil. But what about those times when it's gray, when we're unsure, when maybe we're unsure our motives are 100% pure in the speaking? What then?

I believe part of the answer is housed in another usage of the same term tongue.

In the book of Acts, Paul describes the indwelling of the Holy Spirit as "cloven tongues like as of fire," which "sat upon each of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance....we do hear them speak in our tongues the wonderful works of God" (Acts 2:3-4, 11).

This tongue literally came down from heaven and commandeered each man's fleshly tongue so that it spoke (in James' words) to "bless our Lord and Father."

A second effect of these heavenly tongues was unity.

The first indication of unity is that even though there were many different nationalities and languages present, each man heard in his own tongue, one man asking "how hear we every man in our own tongue, wherein we were born?" (Acts 2:8).

A second indication of unity was the Christians' actions after the tongues of fire. Paul writes after this event that "all that believed were together, and had all things common; And sold their possessions and goods, and parted them to all men, as every man had need. And they, continuing daily with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, did eat their meat with gladness and singleness of heart" (Acts 2:44-46).

As such, it seems there are two indicators we as followers of Christ can use to determine whether our speech is of a tongue lit by hell's fire or by heaven's fire. First, will my words serve to glorify God? Will they serve to bless others or God, Himself? And secondly, will they serve to bring unity or division?

It's not a fail-proof checklist. But there have been many times when asking myself these two simple questions would have saved me miles of scorched earth that I had to reseed in repentance.

Photo: Michael Wells' Photography

When You Want to Throw in the Towel

I know what it's like to be bitter. I have spent near sleepless nights dreaming of what I would say to the one whose lies have caused my family such pain. I have cried in anger over the unforgivable injustice my husband has suffered, have questioned God's justice, have felt the bile welling up in my soul to choke off any forgiveness I had already offered but would need to extend again and again...and again.

Even so, I also know what it's like to let it go and move on, to serve God and accept His just decision to not act...even when my circumstances don't change.

Although I'm neck-deep in the book of Jude, my head keeps turning to look further down the rabbit trail of Moses' act of defying God, the action that kept him from stepping foot into the Promised Land.

Leading a group of malcontents could not have been the easiest job in the world. In fact, except for the meeting with God face to face part, it sounds pretty miserable. Throughout Exodus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy, the Israelites were constantly complaining about something--no food, daily manna but no meat. Add 2.5 million "are we there yet's," to the mix, and Moses might have been able to blame them for his prematurely grey hair, had being in God's immediate presence not taken care of that already.

The Israelites' complaints may have started differently, but they always seemed to end the same way--"we might as well have just stayed slaves in Egypt."

This time when Moses finally lost his temper and sinned against God, "There was no water for the congregation" (Num. 20:2). And so, this new generation did what their fathers before them had done 38 years before--come to Moses to complain: "The people thus contended with Moses and spoke, saying, 'If only we had perished when our brothers perished before the LORD! Why then have you brought the LORD’S assembly into this wilderness, for us and our beasts to die here? Why have you made us come up from Egypt, to bring us in to this wretched place? It is not a place of grain or figs or vines or pomegranates, nor is there water to drink'" (v. 3-5).

My humanity would have felt like calling down a lightening rod to grind them into powder right then and there, but like always, Moses went to bat for the people. In the very next verse, he and Aaron "came in from the presence of the assembly to the doorway of the tent of meeting and fell on their faces" (v. 6).

God was clear. Moses was to "speak to the rock" (v. 8). But as we well know, Moses did not. Instead, he "struck the rock" (v. 11). It seems even a man who meets face to face with a holy God on a daily basis still must contend with his own humanity.

But why? What was different after 38 years* to make Moses "not believ[e] Me [God], treat Me as holy in the sight of the sons of Israel" (v. 12). Why did Moses' anger at the people's discontent boil over into disobedience? Was it a rash act of anger? Or was it a conscious choice to disobey, to strike versus speak?

Scripture doesn't record Moses' heart. Yet, though man saw only the action, God did see the heart--the heart of both Moses who struck the rock and of Aaron who did not, both hearts which were condemned for lack of faith in God and disrespect for His holiness.

There is one major difference about this people's complaint than the others, something mentioned one verse before the lack of water scene plays out: "Then the sons of Israel, the whole congregation, came to the wilderness of Zin in the first month; and the people stayed at Kadesh. Now Miriam died there and was buried there" (v. 1).

No matter their differences over Moses' choice of a wife or their differences caused by the time Miriam challenged his authority so that he had to pray for God to spare her from leprosy--this was his sister, the one who had helped her mother hide him from Pharaoh's swordsmen, who had watched from the reeds as he floated down the Nile in a basket made of reeds towards a princess. This was his sister, his helper, the "prophetess" who had led the women in worship with "the timbrel in her hand" after Moses held up his rod to part the Red Sea (Ex. 15:20).

Could it be that Moses was still mourning his sister's death when the people started complaining about lack of water? Could his human grief have played a part in his anger against a people with an "It's all about me attitude" lack of sympathy? Or could human grief have even played out as lack of faith in God?

I don't know. But what I do know for certain is that after God chastened Moses, he didn't walk away. Even after Aaron's death at the end of the chapter so that Moses was now without brother or sister, even then, Moses did not abandon this stiff-necked people.

Surely he was lonely to now be one of three remaining aged ones in a group of youngsters. Surely he was more than a little disappointed to not be allowed in the Promised Land after dragging several stadiums worth of people around the wilderness for forty years. A lesser man would have been bitter, would have turned his back on God when He said "No Promised Land for you!"

But Moses continued to follow the Lord, to lead the Israelites all the way around Edom to the Jordan River where they would finally cross over and take possession of the covenant land of promise.

This is what should give us pause--that Moses accepted God's decision as just, that he did not let his disappointment get in the way of his ministry, his divine appointment in God's kingdom plan.

Even with the Holy Spirit residing within us, even meeting with God on a daily basis, it's easy to become disappointed or bitter over circumstances, and leave what God has called us to do, be, or even God, Himself.

Let's strive harder to be like Moses. To not walk away when anyone else would.



*Date per Matthew Henry Complete Commentary