Tag Archives: John Piper

Did you notice me?

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Tiny Prints Cyber Monday

Excited to be back for #FiveMinuteFriday where we write for the love of writing! Join others at Kate’s place and see where the took the word prompt, NOTICE.

“God does not exist to make much of us. We exist to make much of Him.” ~ John Piper

The message of Jesus in Matthew 23 was not just condemning the scribes and the Pharisees. What He had to say is just as relevant to us today. “The greatest among you must be a servant.” Matthew 23:12. Selfishness is rampant in our society and in the Church. We are so busy focusing on our needs and wants that the importance of servanthood seems to take a back seat. We weren’t put here on this earth for our ultimate happiness. We were put here to worship and recreate, and that means spreading the Good News and making disciples. “Go ye therefore…” Matthew 28:19.

Did you notice me?

“Beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, we are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.” 2 Corinthians 3:18.

Noticing HIM changes US! 

If I am focusing on Him first, if HE is at the center, then it isn’t so much about ME. If I brag about the things I have done then I get the credit. But when I boast about what Christ is doing in my brokenness then I slip into the shadows and He is noticed.

notice me

“Each time he said, ‘My grace is all you need. My power works best in weakness.’ So now I am glad to boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ can work through me.” 2 Corinthians 12:9.

We trade that mirror (quit looking at ME) for a window and start looking OUT at the world around us by focusing on the needs of others. When we realize we aren’t here just for our own happiness, it changes our heart and our mind. Jesus summed up the Law in two sentences:

“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.” And number two? “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” Mark 12:30-31.

Did you notice me?

When it comes down to it, He was sent here because He loved. “For God loved the world so much that he gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.” John 3:16.

Guess what we were sent here to do? You got it, to love. “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.” John 13:34.

Lord, help us to put away the mirrors and start looking out our windows so others will notice YOU instead of me.

Kingdom2

A wall of fire around you and the glory in your midst!

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I have been so blessed by the following passage of scripture lately. Since I cannot get away from it I thought I would share it with you and remind us how near and real our God is!

In the Book of Zechariah, second chapter, we see a promise to Jerusalem that isn’t really just for Jerusalem.

If we look harder we can see a promise for us.

“Then I raised my eyes and looked, and behold, a man with a measuring line in his hand. So I said, “Where are you going?”

And he said to me, “To measure Jerusalem, to see what is its width and what is its length.”

And there was the angel who talked with me, going out; and another angel was coming out to meet him,who said to him, “Run, speak to this young man, saying: ‘Jerusalem shall be inhabited as towns without walls, because of the multitude of men and livestock in it.

‘For I,’ says the Lord, ‘will be a wall of fire all around her, and I will be the glory in her midst.’” Zechariah 2:1-5.

The Man with the measuring line foretells the hope of a rebuilt Jerusalem and a restored people. But here we have a different word used for measuring line than in 1:16, for this angel is measuring and planning out  the immeasurable capital of God’s earthly kingdom, instead of the temporary Jewish capital of Jerusalem.

Could that “angel of the Lord” be Jesus Christ Himself? Who else could measure a city without walls and limits?? “I go to prepare a place for you…that where I am, there ye may be also.”  So he is not just measuring a “city”, but also speaks of EXPANSION! The capital city of the MILLENIAL kingdom will be larger than our finite minds can comprehend. And the Kingdom of God continues to grow exponentially since Calvary!

Now, when speaking of Jerusalem, it’s again, not the physical space, but those that call it “home”. It cannot be referring to the rebuilding of the walls because that is Nehemiah’s job; he comes along in 446 BC, about 70 years AFTER Zechariah.

Here the vision talks about a city with NO walls. The absence of walls does not signify exposure to danger, but rather the massive increase in numbers of people and animals to be found in the restored city, so that it could not be enclosed within walls. Here, only 50,000 were returning, the majority of them were staying in captivity.  So it must be figurative, an allegory, a metaphor. It was SYMBOLIC.

They CANNOT be measured; they CANNOT be counted because they are innumerable!

They are THE CHURCH! Maybe the angel of the Lord was measuring in anticipation of the growth of the Church? Maybe he was measuring to see how much they would have to enlarge even the Heavens themselves to contain The Church!

Side note here:  We should never put up barriers that limit our expansion or outreach. Walls confine and God doesn’t want His message to be confined within walls!  The life changing message of the Gospel is to go forth into the whole world as the Creator had planned!

And the message is even deeper than that…let’s go on!

Jerusalem shall be inhabited as towns without walls for the multitude of men and cattle therein… There will be such prosperity and growth for the people of God that Jerusalem will not be able to be walled in any more. “The multitude of people and livestock” will be so many that Jerusalem will be like many villages spreading out across the land without walls.

They were to have prosperity, the angel was measuring to enlarge! But prosperity, without protection?

The literal city was surrounded by mountains, which were walls as well, but even they couldn’t keep the enemy out for always…the enemy could go over the mountain, it could go around the mountain, it could scale a normal wall. But a wall of fire?  Not just a wall ON fire but a wall OF fire…continual protection, no one can get through, over, under or around this wall of protection to Jerusalem, the PEOPLE of God… The Church! His presence was all the protection they would need!

“The angel of the Lord encampeth round about them that fear him, and delivereth them.” Psalm 34:7

Many were called to come “home”, but decided to stay in “captivity”, so to speak. “Come! Come! Flee from the land of the north,” declares the Lord, “for I have scattered you to the four winds of heaven,” declares the Lord. Come, Zion! Escape, you who live in Daughter Babylon!”

For this is what the Lord Almighty says: “After the Glorious One has sent me against the nations that have plundered you—for whoever touches you touches the apple of his eye— I will surely raise my hand against them so that their slaves will plunder them. Then you will know that the Lord Almighty has sent me.”

They may have been born in Babylon, definitely spent much time there. Maybe they were more comfortable or had forgotten the promises of God. The things of the past were no longer important to them!

The Lord was calling them to come away, to actually flee, in haste, to come back to Jerusalem. It had been spread all over the world, and we know that wherever the people of God are, there the Church of God is, it is not tied to places! I will dwell in your midst…“And many nations shall be joined to the Lord in that day, and shall be my people: and I will dwell in the midst of thee, and thou shall know that the LORD of hosts hath sent me unto thee.” 2:11

He was calling them back and He wasn’t just asking them to dwell there.

John Piper says, “God is never content to just give us the protection of his fire; he will give us the pleasure of his presence.”

And that’s where we are today. We are called to come “home”. To BE the Church. Not to just be “at church”, or “in church” but to literally BE the Church in this last day.

Because it can never be contained in a building. It was never meant to be contained!

We have the Power, the Authority, the Influence, and the God-given Ability to change our world.

Nothing can pass through to us without first passing through Him and His will.

In Him we are safe and secure.

“For safety is not found in the absence of danger,
but in the presence of God.” ~ Diane K Hiltz Chamberlain

He will never call us for something that He would not equip us for and if He is going to give us the protection of His Holy Ghost FIRE then He is also giving us the PLEASURE of His Presence!

He said, “I will be…” That is a promise! A promise from Almighty God.

You know one more thing He mentions there? It’s very possessive. Because our God is a jealous God. But did you notice in the verse I read, the interesting “insert”?

Right in the middle of telling them to flee Babylon He says, “…for whoever touches you touches the apple of his eye…”

He says He will plunder those that plundered the people of God. The New Living Translation says it this way, “After a period of glory, the LORD of Heaven’s Armies sent me against the nations who plundered you. For He said, “Anyone who harms you, harms my most precious possession.”

He didn’t forget about them! He not only came back to get them but He says He will take care of anyone who gets in His way or tries to harm the “apple of His eye, His most precious possession”.

He fights for you, He steps in on your behalf. He is FOR you.

Be encouraged today and know that the Lord God Almighty IS a wall of fire around YOU and He is the GLORY in your midst!Kingdom2

Down in the Dirt!

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, “Don’t judge each day by the harvest you reap but by the seeds that you plant.”
Robert Louis Stevenson

“And great multitudes were gathered together to Him, so that He got into a boat and sat; and the whole multitude stood on the shore. Then He spoke many things to them in parables…” Matthew 13: 2,3.

The disciples asked him why Jesus chose to use parables, or stories, to relate the Gospel and get His point across. He answered them, “Because it has been given to you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been given….Therefore I speak to them in parables, because seeing they do not see, and hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand.” Matthew 13:11, 13.

The Gospel appears very different to those who are on the “outside looking in”. It can be compared to being on the outside of a church or a building that has stained glass windows. On the outside you cannot see the beauty that has gone into the detailed work of the glass. But step inside of the building and there you can clearly see the fine detail and expert craftsmanship that the workman has labored to put into his effort.

Before we find Truth, the Gospel can appear that same way to us. We cannot understand what we see, what we read, or what we hear. It is foreign to us. But once we receive the Holy Spirit, it is as if the Light has been turned on! We can now see!

In The Parable of the Sower we have four players:

  • The Seed, which is the Word of God.
  • The Sower, the one communicating the Word of God.
  • The Soil, which is the hearts of the people.
  • Spiritual growth and maturity.

Sometimes called The Parable of the Four Soils, Jesus is talking about a man who sows seed on four types of ground:

The Hard Ground, “by the way side”. Here the seed cannot get into the dirt at all; it is good for nothing but food for the birds and animals!
The Thorny Ground, the seed can grow but the thorns choke the plant that does try to make it.
The Stony Ground gives enough depth for the seeds to start to grow but not enough for them to get any roots because there is not enough deep soil.
And the Good Ground is where the seed can take root and produce much fruit and grow as it should, healthy and strong.

Down in the Dirt

I love the Parable of the Sower because Jesus actually takes time to explain it Himself! He expounds that the seed that “fell on the footpath” represents those who hear the message about the Kingdom but don’t understand it. Then the enemy comes and snatches the seed away that was planted in their hearts.

The seed that fell among the Thorns is like those who hear the Word of God, but all too easily the message is crowded out by the cares of life and the pleasures of this world, then no fruit is produced.

The seed on Stony Ground represents those who hear the message and immediately they receive it with joy and gladness of heart! But since they don’t have deep roots, they don’t last long. As soon as they are persecuted, made fun of or any little problem comes along, they give up.

But the seed that fell on Good Ground represents those who really hear and understand the Word of God and “produce a harvest of thirty, sixty, or even a hundred times as much as had been planted!” Matthew 13:23 NLT.

So, what kind of soil are you? What’s your dirt? When you hear the Word of God do you let it grow in your heart and take root?

Or do you let Satan steal your joy? Does every little thing that comes along rob you of the peace that really belongs to the child of God?

“So get rid of all the filth and evil in your lives, and humbly accept the word God has planted in your hearts, for it has the power to save your souls.” James 1: 21 NLT.

What kind of fruit are you bearing? “By this My Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit; so you will be My disciples.” John 15:8 NKJV. Is HE glorified in YOUR life? Does your life reflect the glory of God?

John Piper says it so beautifully, “God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him!”

What kind of sower are you? Do you stir up division, cause strife and contention wherever you go? Or do your footsteps bring peace and comfort? Are you a healer? Do your very words cause calm to come into a room?

Are you sowing GOOD SEED?

“For the word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.” Hebrews 4:12 NKJV.

“…plant the good seeds of righteousness, and you will harvest a crop of love. Plow up the hard ground of your hearts, for now is the time to seek the LORD, that he may come and shower righteousness upon you.” Hosea 10:12 NLT.

Remember, there are four types of people. Be one of the “few” who “get it”. Don’t water down the message. Don’t try to change it! Take it as it is given, this is where the power really is. And this is when you will begin to see fruit in your life. Joy will come!

“Let your roots grow down into him, and let your lives be built on him. Then your faith will grow strong in the truth you were taught, and you will overflow with thankfulness.” Colossians 2:7 NLT.

Sharing with Faith-filled Friday, The Dwelling Tree, Faithful Friday, A Proverbs 31 Wife, Hear it on Sunday, Playdates@The Wellspring, Monday Musings Modest Mom , Character Corner, Top 10 Tuesday, Teach Me Tuesdays, Titus Tuesdays, Domestically Divine Tuesday