Lion and Lambs

My mother gave me the book, 90 Minutes in Heaven by Don Piper, over a year ago. I never picked it up because I was skeptical about the message. By the title, I incorrectly believed the entire book would be about this man’s experience in heaven. Recently I was given a more detailed description of the book and encouraged to read it. I am very thankful I got the nudge because the book shows surprising vulnerability and is very well written, easily holding my attention.

The author was in a horrific car accident and pronounced dead at the scene. He laid in the tarp covered car for more than ninety minutes. After a very lengthy and challenging recovery, including living near death for awhile and enduring many surgeries, he is left in a state of pain 24/7. His words are very encouraging to anyone who lives with chronic pain and/or illness.

All that to preface an exerpt from the book that speaks my heart, to my friends and family, words that I could never express:

Some people who have known me for a long time see me as a courageous figure. I certainly haven’t seen myself that way-not for an instant-because I know too much about the real me. …. A number of individuals have said to me in the midst of their own difficult times, “If you could go through all you endured, I can go through this.” I’m glad they’ve been heartened by my example, but I’ve had a great deal of difficulty accepting myself as a source of inspiration and courage. I don’t know how to cope with their admiration and praise, because I didn’t do anything. I wanted to die. How uplifting can that be?
When people tell me how inspiring I’ve been, I don’t argue with them, of course, but I remember only to well the time David Gentiles told me that he and others would pray me back to health. I lived because others wouldn’t let me die. Those praying friends are the ones that deserve the admiration.

So, I say thank you to Don Piper for his courage in sharing these very personal feelings; and I say thank you to my friends and family who have prayed, and continue to pray, for me. These same people, and others, never stop supporting and encouraging me. This is why I continue, and am able to persevere.

I decided it was time for another book report on Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire by Jim Cymbala.

This time it is from a part of the book where he was talking about seeking boldness in prayer. Jim refers to the trusting and faithful prayer of the apostles after they were released from prison. This is accounted in the fourth chapter of Acts. First I am going to give you a run down of what happened that led up to the prayer.

The apostles were talking to the people after they had healed a man and it upset the Saducees, as Acts 4:2 says, ” being greatly disturbed because they were teaching the people and proclaiming in Jesus the resurrection from the dead. ” So the Saducees put them in jail for the night and the next day they were brought before all the upper crust. Here is where it starts getting good. They questioned Peter by whose name they healed this man. Peter responds, being filled with the Spirit, “let it be known to all of you and to all the people of Israel, that by the name of Jesus Christ the Nazarene, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead–by this name this man stands here before you in good health.” 4:10. There is bold, but it gets more intense.

The rulers and higher ups are all impressed with the apostles confidence, realizing that these are untrained, uneducated men. Now they have to decide what to do with them because they have no grounds for punishing them so, “they commanded them not to speak or teach at all in the name of Jesus.” 4:18. Now I would be high tailing it for a place to hide out for awhile, with my mouth shut, but not Peter or John, they tell them, “Whether it is right in the sight of God to give heed to you rather than to God, you be the judge; for we cannot stop speaking about what we have seen and heard.” 4:19-20. That is so incredibly bold, what faith, what trust! That is how I want to be when I grow up.

There is more to this story…click the 2 at the right to read the rest of it.

Another quote from The Grace and Truth Paradox, that is not only profound but also so perfect for this blog:

At the end of The Voyage of The Dawn Treader, the children see a bright white lamb, speaking in a “milky white voice.” As they talk, suddenly “his snowy white flushed into tawny gold and his size changed and he was Aslan himself, towering above them and scattering light from his mane.” The lamb of grace is the lion of truth.

Sometimes we see Him as one, sometimes the other.

Always He is both.

I am reading another great book, “The Grace and Truth Paradox” by Randy Alcorn. In it he gives a great definition of Grace:

Christ took the Hell he didn’t deserve so we could have the heaven we don’t deserve.

Isn’t that a marvelous way to put it? I have known that it means that, but wow. I am humbled.

The book, “Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire” , by Jim Cymbala of the Brooklyn Tabernacle, is incredible. I have been studying it since I have been here, and I have been very excited about it. I want to share some of the highlights that I have been learning.

The resounding theme of this book is to “Call upon the name of the Lord,” which Jim points out, translated in the bible means, to cry out, or to implore. I love this that He wrote:

God says, “I’ll help you, I really will. When you are ready to throw up your hands, THROW THEM UP TO ME! When you don’t know where to turn, TURN TO ME!!

Man, that’s great stuff! So simple, yet so profound. Then later he includes this scipture, which is another one that I know I have read, but in the context of this book, on crying out to the Lord, just really got me.

Rev 5:8 …when the twenty four elders fell down before the Lamb, each one was holding a harp and golden bowls, full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints.

What we say to Him is so precious, a sweet smelling fragrance, that He keeps it like a treasure!!

You can count on hearing more about this book in the future, it is so moving, and so black and white, I love it.

On my pastor’s recommendation, I decided to read Revelation to start my “Pressing into the Word” here. In the opening comments from Jon Courson’s Application Commentary, New Testament, Jon writes, “Read your bible and you will discover that every time someone had a fresh vision, new understanding, clear revelation of the Lord, it was received when, like John, they were on Patmos.” I knew I’d come to the right place, I am looking for a fresh vision and I believe that God has been telling me that He has one for me. I indeed feel like I have come to a Patmos in my life, and I need to learn what God has for me here.

Revelation 1:2

Who bare record of the word of God, and of the testimony of Jesus Christ, and of all the things that He saw.

Here Jon asks, “Are we going to personally receive it in our heart and freely release it to others?” One of the things that I was so excited about with this trip was that I knew I would be learning some great stuff, God is faithful that way when we commit our time to seek Him, and that I would be able to share it, via this blog, with other people. When God fills me up I almost feel like I am going to burst until I can share it. I get very passionate and excited about what He teaches, hoping it will help, comfort, encourage, grow, others as well.

In that, I was very encouraged by these thoughts from Jon:

But if you are hearing, studying, learning, praying, and reading for the purpose of embracing what you receive and sharing it with others, the Lord will give you continual revelation.

WOW! That just makes me more determined to do my part, because I LOVE sharing Him!!

Has anyone out there read through “My Utmost for His Highest“? A couple of my friends were talking about different devotionals, and one of them brought up My Utmost. She said that it was a real ‘in your face’ kind of devotional. I thought, cool, I like the kind of lessons that really stretch and challenge you. So I got one, and at $4.oo, what a bargain. Now tell me just how much would you pay to get hit with a 2 x 4? Talk about in your face, they should make the cover woodgrain so at least you would see it coming! It does live up to the stretching and challenging though, so I would still recommend it, but you have been warned!

Okay, I am hoping you all formulated an answer in your head since only one posted a comment with an idea. The first gift of Christmas as written by Richard Paul Evans and narrated by my honey ‘John Boy’, oh sorry, I mean Richard Thomas:

I sat down in the rocker in front of the illuminated Christmas tree and I lay my head in my hands. Somewhere between the angel and Mary’s house I had figured it out. The first gift of Christmas. It just came. It came to my heart. The first gift of Christmas was love. A parent’s love. Pure as the first snows of Christmas. For God so loved His children that He sent His son, that we might someday return to Him.

In the epilogue he writes:

More than giving, more than believing, for these are mere manifestations. The sacred contents of that box are a parent’s pure love for a child, manifested first by a Father’s love for all His children, as He sacrificed that which He loved most and sent His son to earth on that first Christmas day so long ago.

I HIGHLY recommend to everyone to read this book if you can. It is only 86 pages, a very quick read, but oh so powerful. I think I have “read” all of his books now, on audiotape, and each one is excellent and really holds interest. He also has a book about how the writing of the Christmas Box came to be, some of which is on his website.

Now for key purpose number 3: Helpful Service.

Rick writes:

Everyone knows the spirit of Christmas is giving. But the best gifts are often ones you can’t wrap in paper. They are gifts of service-where we offer our time, our talents, our connections, our ideas, or our energy to serve those in need around us.

He encourages us to look for opportunites to do simple acts of kindness during this season. I think that is a great challenge for whoever accepts it. I know that for many of you this is a way of life, but for Christmas, maybe we can stretch a little bit and do at least one thing that we wouldn’t normally do, maybe something that costs us a little more.