Tag Archives: Lent

Feb25

snow day whatever makes you comfortable

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snow day whatever makes you comfortable

zionone of the things that i think folks always get caught in is law versus faith.  the law is easy. it’s a set thing. the law is readily available. the law is quantifiable. the law is tangible. you can FIND the law. you can read the law. you can justify the law. the law and the following of the law is measurable. there can be clear judgement based on the the law. the law is comfortable. that’s it. In the law there is comfort.  everyone wants to do and think and believe that which makes them comfortable.

what i have found is that which makes us comfortable is not the same as that which God requires, desires or even has prescribed. the things that make us comfortable are also the things that have broken up our households and families. the things that make us comfortable are generally the things of least resistance. comfort keeps us in our homes watching tv and cooking more food than we will ever eat on a snow day, instead of serving God by serving people.

it is definitely easier to write off everyone who does not look like act like walk like talk like live like love like think like us.  when folks and situations don’t fit into a quantifiable equation, then life stops being easy. relationships require thought and consideration, people become more than just people, but become human and we have to begin to imagine them not in the image of the law, but in the image of God. that’s work, that’s hard work, that’s uncomfortable work, generally, because it makes us have to know God. yea, i know, we all know God, the heaven and hell and law God, but do we know the compassionate, living, loving, merciful, just, forgiving, healing, faithful God?

getting to know God, really know God can put us in an uncomfortable situation. the uncomfortable part comes mainly because to know God is to faithfully trust God. to faithfully trust God, means to in all situations and relationships asking God for wisdom and discernment. getting God’s wisdom and discernment  means that once we know better, we must do better. treat people better. have better relationships. live better lives.

lol the crazy and most uncomfortable part about all this is that all of a sudden when we are no longer bound by the law, but operating in faith and thereby grace, we realize that life isn’t and never really was about us. our living is about God and all about glorifying God. we glorify God through reconciliation and forgiveness and compassion and respect and tolerance and healing and comfort and caring for others the way that God cares for us.

snow days are great ways to start becoming uncomfortable. we are already not doing what we would normally be doing. let’s take the next step

loving God. thank you for your faithfulness even and especially when we haven’t been faithful. thank you for the opportunity Lord to spend quality time with you. Lord in the name of Jesus help us to not get caught up in the expectations and normalcy of others, but strengthen our resolve that we are able to operate and love and live our lives in faithfulness to you. healing and delivering God, help us to see our children and our families and our associates and even ourselves as you do – in your image. in the name of the One who came to abolish the law that we might operate in faith and in your grace. amen

Feb21

rainbows and promises

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Snapshot 2015-02-21 13-10-17Genesis 9:8-17

There it is, not with a pot of gold, but with something far more significant. The bow in the sky  even in the cold icy snow is our reminder of God’s covenant with Noah. The promise that God made with not just Noah but with all successive generations – that’s us! God promised that the bow will remind him never to destroy the earth with a flood again! God has established that he is faithful, that he keeps his covenants to us – successive generations.

Being stranded in this cold icy weather provides a great time to reflect on the promises God has made to us and how faithful God has been to those promises. It is significant that in the midst of both literal and figurative storms the bow in the sky doesn’t just remind our just and faithful God about his covenant to us, but it also provides us comfort and peace as we think on all the promises of God!

Magnificent and Merciful God we bless your Holy and you Righteous name! We thank and extol you for your faithfulness towards us especially when we have not been faithful to you. Incline our hearts to see your covenant with us as an opportunity to trust you with all that we are. Help us dear God to be faithful, trustworthy, promise keepers that reflect your love. In the covenant name of Jesus we pray. Amen.

Toni Belin Ingram

Feb19

trusting believing living

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I have always marveled at those who hear from God, those whose path is guided by God’s truth, those who trust fully and wholly in God for their lives and livelihood. I thought of them as folks who were super special, extraordinary, incredibly favored folk. Then I did a restart on my life, putting my trust, cares, concerns and family in God’s hands. Not only did I learn that I too am super special, extraordinary, incredibly favored, but I learned YOU are too! You just have to live it. Not the fake it until you make kinda living, but wholeheartedly trusting God with all that we are.

This Lenten season is the perfect opportunity to restart our spiritual lives. To truly spend time in devotion and meditation to hear from the Lord. To embrace the Lord’s ways and trust God for our lives. To sit still in the early quiet of the morning pushing through the distractions of life, family needs, bills, what’s for dinner, enables our minds, souls and hearts to hear the God’s truth of how God wants us to live trust and forgive.

Gracious and eternal God, still our minds of the distractions of our lives. Open our hearts that our sinful souls and bodies feel your forgiveness and healing. Lord reveal to us who we are in you. Show us holy and merciful God the plan that you have for us, that we see ourselves as you see us, in your image. Loving caring God enable us to embrace the quiet and faithfully trust you with all that we are and ever hope to be. In the trusting name of Jesus we pray.

Feb19

pursuing God’s Provision

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pursuing God’s Provision

Here we go again. I hear the Lord say. Ash Wednesday is here they’ll parade in and out of church, put some ashes on their heads, commit to a fast for the next forty days and the entire time ask others what is allowed and what’s not can they eat this or that all the while succumbing to the distraction of being on a fast. You know the distractions that make you talk about what you’re giving up fasting, never what you could possibly gain.

What would it mean to fully and faithfully fast. Not to hear folks talk about our piety for fasting, but rather to hear God talk about who we are in the free pardon of sins and our circumstances. What if on this Ash Wednesday, we weren’t so busy parading around, but inwardly expressed our sinfulness and our need for forgiveness to the One who has already forgiven us. And then commit to operate in the grace and forgiveness of Christ.

Holy Righteous and Eternal God show us the fast that you choose. Teach us merciful God to not get so caught up in the ways of this world that we forget who we are in you. Strengthen us loving God that in the time of trial we will reflect your peace and your righteousness in our lives. In the faithful name of Jesus we Pray. Amen.

Feb17

Hardships endured

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Hebrews 12

1Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. 2Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. 3Consider him who endured such opposition from sinful men, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.

4In your struggle against sin, you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood. 5And you have forgotten that word of encouragement that addresses you as sons: 
   “My son, do not make light of the Lord’s discipline, 
      and do not lose heart when he rebukes you, 
 6because the Lord disciplines those he loves, 
      and he punishes everyone he accepts as a son.”[a]

7Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as sons. For what son is not disciplined by his father? 8If you are not disciplined (and everyone undergoes discipline), then you are illegitimate children and not true sons. 9Moreover, we have all had human fathers who disciplined us and we respected them for it. How much more should we submit to the Father of our spirits and live! 10Our fathers disciplined us for a little while as they thought best; but God disciplines us for our good, that we may share in his holiness. 11No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.

12Therefore, strengthen your feeble arms and weak knees. 13“Make level paths for your feet,”[b] so that the lame may not be disabled, but rather healed.

14Make every effort to live in peace with all men and to be holy; without holiness no one will see the Lord.

I am excited about Fasting and Praying and Journeying to the Heart of God with www.ibelin.me and his facebook and twitter group.  There is something about being around other like minded people to help keep you motivated and on the straight and narrow path.  I look forward to sharing in the devotions and the prayers.

What I recognize is that I also need to expand and express myself more than I have.  So I have decided that in addition to journeying with the group, I will catalog my own journey through the Lenten Season texts.  Prayerfully, my witness will encourage others to want to know Christ more intimately.

Hebrews 12:7a says endure hardship as discipline – how appropriate this text is for me right now.  As a mother and wife and daughter and pastor and sister and friend I endure not only my hardships of finances, physical and mental well being, job security, health and wholeness, but in my co dependence, I have also for many years experienced the hardships of those that I am in relationship with.  So many of us are losing our homes, have lost our jobs, in relationships that are not working, do not like who it is that we have become are enduring hardships that we do not understand, let alone have the ability to manage them.

I do not suggest that God has ordained these hurtful hardships for us, but I do believe that as we go through the hardships of life we have the opportunity to be trained and to learn from these hardships.

I lost my job many years ago, the embarrassment I felt made me feel overwhelmed and like a failure.  For months I refused to leave the house except to pick up and drop off kids, after I gained 40 pounds, I was on the floor crying because no clothes would fit and I cried out to God to ask what had I done to deserve this.  God yelled back, “nothing, but what are you doing to prevent it from happening again?”

Verse 11 says No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.

12Therefore strengthen your feeble arms and weak knees. 13“Make level paths for your feet, so that the lame may not be disabled, but rather healed.

God gave me the opportunity to reclaim myself not for me, but for God, to have peace and to be able to participate as a witness that this life is not about me and about who I desire to be and what it is I believe makes me important, but rather I was and still am able to reclaim myself and build myself up for those that I witness to.

Let us Pray

Gracious God, thank you for loving me enough to allow me to endure hardships and learn from them.  Thank you for the opportunity to witness to your goodness and to your grace and to your mercy.  Strengthen and encourage me that I am able to speak peace and healing to those who are experiencing hardships now.  Help me to live in peace and strive to be holy so that those I am in relationship with will come to know you more intimately.  In Jesus Name Amen.