New Covenant Gospel - Immense Implications

In a culture urgently in need of reformation, believers have to bear in mind that we are the change agents. We are the kindling for the fire...

...a thorough study of Western history will reveal that periods of renaissance and reformation follow on the heels of the church's return to first things. Great periods of Renaissance and Revival and Reformation come when the church perseveres in its return to the first things of New Covenant grace (versus any emphasis on the law as our means of righteousness), a Christocentric gospel (versus a program-centered, selfcentric message), and radical love for the community they fellowship with, otherwise known as their very own local church (versus floating from church to church).

When a believer puts all her emphasis on second things, she ends up losing first and second things. When she places all her emphasis on first things, trusting God for the second things, God gives and includes secondary things freely.

Stay with the New Covenant message, preach the Finished Work of Christ, plus nothing. Live a love that is tough...a far different lifestyle than attempting "tough love".

Don't think "tough love". Rather, think "Love is tough." And then get your rear-end out there and love those who are a bit unloveable...the ones that most resemble you. The love of God is rugged. Love is patient. It isn't easily offended. It does not leave. It believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. It never fails. You can't wear it out. You can't make it quit, because it always wins. Love wins because it is tough. Strong. Weathered. With relentlessly kind eyes, and ever open hands, ready to bless. It rejoices in the truth of the fact that all sin has, at the cross, been forgiven - past, present, and future.

Build your life around these first things: New Covenant Message, the Finished Work of Christ - plus nothing; and showing your community a love that is tough...love them relentlessly, delight in them without fail, and you will be used of God to bring Reformation to your church, your family, your business community.

History proves it.

Standard of Living

I realized today that I am an odd bird. I know I can lean to the "tad bit eccentric" side of the personality scale. What I mean is, I realized I am odder than even I first thought. (Okay, most of you already knew that, but I am just now catching on.)

I am listening to a business book from Audible.com (a site I can't recommend highly enough...a bibliophile's symphony of words!), and I heard the phrase "standard of living". My mind instantly thought of Shalom. Not the word "Shalom", but the whole thing...the whole idea of the word...the whole lifestyle of that word as it applies to relationships.

Yes. When I heard the phrase "standard of living", from a book on business, I naturally thought first of my relationships, not of how big my house is, or the level of our income. Weird, I know.

The relationship that is the most strained in our lives might be our relationship with our oldest son, the Marine. The relationship we have with him is better than it has been in recent years - we call it "strained" based on our standard of living. We are accustomed to lots of unity and joy in our relationships. We are accustomed to being close with friends and family.

He came all the way home from Camp Le Jeune, of his own volition, to surprise us over the past Labor Day weekend. He just wanted to be home. We weren't expecting him, and sometime after midnight on Friday night/Saturday morning, there he was, standing in our hallway. Sort of a Hallmark moment, only I was on Ambien. Think of the Waltons, only the momma is on drugs come bedtime, and John Boy chews tobacco and can be mean as a snake.

We were happy to see him, and we enjoyed a great weekend together, the whole family. Most families would take that in a heartbeat. We consider the relationship "strained" based on the depth of relationship and unity we are accustomed to having in our family. We are used to a higher standard of living. Because of past hurts and a few as-yet unresolved issues, things aren't quite Shalom....yet.

But dang. We are so rich. Honestly? We are a stinking well-off couple, my preacher and I. Our standard of living is high.

We are so in love. I'm talkin' the sort of love that cheers each others heart significantly, secretly squeezes each others glutes, goes out for walks and ice cream, and a gaze that still meets across a crowded room. Eyes that light up when we see each other...that kind of love. High, high standard of living. Lotsa Shalom.

And we like each one of our kids, and their spouses. In his sweet, funny, open, dinner-table moments, I take such great delight even in that "strained" relationship with my oldest son. I know it won't be strained forever. Strained...not estranged. That's the grace of God, in action.

And we have friends. Such friends, we have! Men and women who serve God with passion and purpose, and who love well, and who lavish grace on one another. My friends show me Jesus, all the time. We have friends new, and friends old. Friends young, and friends old. Friends who are mentors, and friends who are mentees.

Standard of living? Ours is off the charts. We don't eat ribeye steak very often, but we do have lots of grilled chicken - sometimes a bit dry, granted - but we live in good, healthy relationship, even though we had to wage a little war to make the peace.

Almost Undisturbed Shalom.

"Better is a dry morsel, and quietness therewith, than an house full of sacrifices with strife." Proverbs 17:1

A Change of Mind - A Daily Reality

These are my actual notes from this past Sunday. As I was taking them, I suddenly was inspired to make it a blog post, so I whipped out my smart phone and snapped the picture. In front of God and all my rowdy friends.

They are so used to me. No one blinked, no one thought it odd at all. I think they all know that anything and everything can and will become Blog Fodder for the Preacher's Wife.

The Finished Work of the Cross? Utter perfection.

My attitude and belief structure? In need of change. Every day.

Repentance simply means to change your mind. When you first came to Christ, you changed your mind in regards to either 1) Your need to be right, or 2) Your need to be wrong. In coming to Christ, you chose to think differently. Through the foolishness of preaching, you were made to realize that to think less of yourself was not enough...you realized you weren't to think of yourself at all. You were led to believe that salvation was all about Jesus and not what you did or could do, right or wrong.

You were led to believe that, right? Because that would be the effect of the preaching of the cross. True belief, and true repentance - a change of mindset.

As you received Him, in the same way, you walk with Him. Twenty, thirty, forty years later, if you are a spiritual person, if you are maturing, you will be changing your mind. Your actions will always follow suit.

Another term for all this? "The Renewing of the Mind".

An Impromptu Trip to the Mountains...and an Impromptu Shooting Competition - Pictures, not Animals

Tim gets credit for this one. ::sigh:: He saw this, and locked down on the brakes of his Ford truck. He jumped out the driver's side door with my camera, composed the shot (manual mode, all the way...shutter speed, apperture, zoom, and focus...he set it all!) and shot it. Darn him. The dappled sun was hitting the base of this tree like a spotlight.

...a Flycatcher...I got this shot, but nevermind. It pales in comparison to Tim's moss-on-the-base-of-the-tree shot. I feel a competition coming on. And I will win. He has no right to get better shots with my Nikon and new 55-200 mm lens than I get with my Nikon and 55-200 mm lens.

...fungus...again, spotlighted by dappled sunlight. Again, Tim. Incredible shot. This is exactly how it appeared - glowing. This shot is "SOOC"...that means "straight out of camera", no retouching, no photoshopping. In fact, not a single photo has been Photoshopped.

My mountains...

My beloved Smokies...can you see why they are called the "Smokey" mountains?

Side-lit splendor...golden autumn sun...no other time of year has this quality of light.

I got it! I got the shot! When you slllllllow down the shutter speed, you get that lovely sheeting action, when you shoot moving water. Fast shutter speed = seeing water more like the naked eye sees it, sometimes even freezing individual droplets in the picture. Slow shutter speed = that flow-ey, sheeting action. Love!

(Slowing your shutter speed, plus shooting in overcast conditions is not for the faint of heart, however. This shot best not attempted without a tripod...not without tears and swearing. Just kidding about the swearing. And the tears. But I was frustrated. I didn't bring my tripod. I asked Tim to bend over, and I planted my elbows in his back and shot for several minutes. Not kidding. He is so good to me. That man patiently watched me shoot scenes around the Smokey Mountains for three hours, until past dark.

In this shot above, notice how the surrounding, stationary non-water parts of this photo are not tack-sharp. No tripod. Tim's back helped, but next time, I am bringing my tripod.)

So proud of this shot. No tripod. No Tim's back, either. But I managed it. I set the camera to shutter mode, set the speed for a slow shutter, and compensated with apperture. ISO was 800.

Quotable Quote

"Let us endeavor so to live that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry."

~Mark Twain

What do you want your husband, children, close friends, and other family members to be able to say about you when you die?

Live that way. Get to it. Now.

You never know...you know?

Fall Decorating

I began the process of putting away most of my summer kitchen today. I plan to pack away the turquoise blue mugs, all the blue glass, and the particularly summer-ish turquoise blue tea towels. Then, I got out my packed-away spice-orange things.

Here is a sneak peek:



The weather here has been a bit fall-ish this week. This makes me feel poignant. I still love September, but I dislike seeing summer go away. So, to cheer myself, I've begun the switch-out to autumn...getting out the harvest wheat sheaves, the pottery and glass in varying shades of ivory and spice pumpkin.

Last year, the palette was white, orange, and brown...with shades of each between. This year, I am sticking with the same palette, but adding a small touch of turquoise, too. I've left out a few of my turquoise summer things, only now instead of there being a strong note of turquoise, it is just the barest of accent color.

I'll post more photos when I'm done. I hope your September is Blessed and Highly Favored...

...in Christ, there is no such thing as not Blessed and Highly Favored.

How God loves us!

Obvious and Simple

"Obviously, the law applies to those to whom it was given, for its purpose is to keep people from having excuses, and to show that the entire world is guilty before God. For no one can ever be made right with God by doing what the law commands. The law simply shows us how sinful we are." Romans 3: 19-20, NLT

Simply. "The law simply shows us". We human beings love to complicate the Gospel in an effort to justify our own existence. We want to make our good works the thing that the Gospel is all about, when the Gospel is way more scandalous than that. The Gospel is about blood sacrifice that speaks of a shouted grace, freely given, and vigorously appropriated by those who can see simple things clearly.

Our good works are the cosmetics...the adornment...the accessorizing, if you will, of the One Work that Matters...the finished work of Christ. Look up your Greek in Titus 2, where it says that we are to adorn the Gospel with our good behavior.

Kosmeo. Yeah...we get our English word "cosmetics" from that Greek word. I need nothing else, in the way of proof text, but there is a lot more than that...however, it is September, it is Labor Day, and I am feeling mellow.

So if you wanna keep believin' that your works are anything more than (beautiful, significant, because all that is truly beautiful is significant) adornments to beautify the message of Scandalous Grace...go right ahead. One of us is wrong, and it isn't me.

Obviously. How about that word? "Obviously, the law applies to those to whom it was given..." (um, and that would be Old Covenant Hebrew People...)

Unfortunately, that darn veil obscures the obvious for many believers. What should be obvious....ain't. It is satan's Grand Scheme. To obscure the obvious. He's very, very good at it. Every day, I uncover some small (or large) truth he has managed to minimize, distort, or obscure in my understanding. And I get to happily repent and change my mind.

"After all, repentance is a gift...an opportunity...an invitation to The Good Life." And, by the way, that is a quote from The Preacher's message in church yesterday. It was - no bull - the best message on repentance I have ever, ever heard. Foundational. In the context of the Gospel. You do not want to miss it. And "obviously", repentance is part of the Gospel, and has always been preached at Harvest Church.

(I know, right? We are so "imbalanced"...)

But it's September. It's Labor Day, and I am feeling really mellow, so I'll save the fullness of all the past weeks and months of Romans study for another post.

Summer's last gasp. I am enjoying it. I am loving these days of simple dinners and detailed desserts, and the four or so pounds I've gained be hanged, I truly do not care...

...of waiting for the green beans I planted late to come in...of grandsons and first football games of the season. Of breakfasts at Burger King with the goal if discipleship and the attainment of so much more. Days of ridin' with my baby in his Ford pickup, listening to a Kenny Chesney tune. Days of takin' the back roads. The long way home. Puttin' a little gravel in our travel.

All my ducklings are in the nest, for today. It is Labor Day, friends. Let us rock it together, shall we? Some things really are so simple and obvious.

Simply Rock This Day. With Obvious Grace.