created to love Him...

"Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and the of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age." ~Matthew 28:19-20 The word "disciple" means "learner or student." It's the root word for "discipline" which means "training, instruction, correction." To discipline my children is to train them in the right way they should go, to correct their wrong behavior to become right behavior. Within discipline, or being a disciple is the belief that perfection hasn't been reached. Practice is needed. Correction is needed. Encouragement and rebuke is needed in order for the goal to be achieved.  When Jesus gave His disciples the mandate to make MORE disciples, the goal was for them to re-present Him so that they, and the people who followed, would become like Him. Christlikeness. To become like J...

During Redeemer's service this past Sunday morning, Pastor John spoke on the power and importance of remembering what God has done. Remembering keeps me centered in who God is and His faithfulness to me, especially in times of uncertainty or hardship. Remembering is heading back to my story with God, my testimony, my experience with Him. Theology can be discussed, argued over, debated. But it's my experience with God that can never be taken away. It's my proof that propels my faith.  As he spoke, John showed this picture of an incredibly significant event that took place at Redeemer in April of 2011 where Heidi Baker was beginning to speak at Darren Wilson's Furious Love Conference. We miraculously managed to squeeze 700-800 people into our building to hear an incredible panel of speakers and revivalists.   And here is what I remember... As Heidi started to speak that morning, I had walked off the stage after leading worship and I noticed she didn't have a music sta...

Read Psalm 62.  I'll wait.  Waiting. What a horrible curse word in our Western mindset. No one wants to wait, to experience delayed gratification. Eww. The state of awkwardness that comes while waiting for something leaves us hanging in the balance between patience and impatience, thankfulness and grumbling. More Eww.  Waiting. Taking a pause to trust in another's timing for the outcome.  Waiting . It's a worship muscle that for the Jesus follower must be worked out, developed, exercised.  Waiting. Cannot be separated from trust. It builds our stance. Because God is faithful, I can wait. Without waiting, we become fragile in our faith, our trust in God. Every small gust of suffering that blows our direction topples us over. Our pain threshold becomes low.  Waiting . It builds endurance to brace ourselves and trust when answers don't come quickly or when deliverance isn't instantaneous.  Waiting. Divides. Reveals hearts - true believers and faithles...

  A few weeks ago, I was working on my Bible study and the lesson referenced a story from Numbers 21 that made me feel confused, honestly. It's a story about the Israelites who had yet again grown impatient with God and crabby about the food He was giving them and well, just plain mad about their deliverance wilderness experience! So, God, in response to their faithlessness in His promise to provide, protect and deliver, sent "fiery snakes (vs 6) among the camp and they bit the people, and many died. This caused a wave of repentance among the Israelites. They took responsibility and stopped the complaining. And so, God instructed Moses to make a fiery serpent and set it on a pole and anyone who looked at it would be healed and live.  This was confusing to me.  So, I dug in and began to look at what this snake on a pole was all about. The snake on a pole wasn't magical, so what was its significance? I found it mentioned again in the book of 2 Kings 18 where, many years lat...

"We do not know what to do, but our eyes are on You."  2 Chronicles 20:12, this verse that comes in the middle of the unknown, the fear, the grasping at straws for the next move. This verse that is uttered out of the mouth of King Jehoshaphat, who's country is on the brink of war, outnumbered by a pagan, demonized military advancement. The Moabites and Ammonites had encamped around Judah. They set up camp as a military strategy. As they camped, they slowly moved into Judah, with all of their pagan practices and worship of other guys. Their strategy was to cause the Israelites to slowly compromise their commitment to God, the one true God. As they moved in, Judah was pushed to shift and lower standards to accommodate pagan standards. They were pushed to comply with the world - it's points of view, it's way of living, it's way of worship, it's fearful/human response to life in general. To comply. To panic.  In the middle of this comes 2 Chronicles 20:12. ...

Our culture is in an identity crisis. We don't know who we are. We don't know why we're here. We don't know why we were created. We live with our eyes on the ground, with limited sight and perspective, just trying to be happy, do good deeds, resist temptation. All of this doing and spent energy without realizing that the Lord wants His people to know Him, to understand His heart. He created us out of desire for communion and fellowship with humanity. But we've lost vision of God's high vision for us. Instead, we're trying to find our own purpose in life.  In that searching, aspects of our identity have been found and magnified to become our only identity. Our sexual identity is a prime example of this. All of us are sexual beings, God created this to be a PART of who we are, but it is most definitely not ALL that we are, or even the major part of who we are. But it's been exponentially exaggerated to become all that we embrace or all that we make known t...

The doorway into knowing God, or the knowledge of God, is the awareness that what you think you know is nothing compared to the reality of Him. Who is God really? The one who cannot be contained or fully defined by our limited human minds reveals Himself in the Word. But is He even contained or fully defined there, or is His Word only the beginning? Psalm 113:5-6 says, "Who is like the Lord our God, who is seated on high, who looks far down on the heavens and the earth?"  God can be unnerving because we can't define Him. He defies definition. He's outside of our world. This verse states that God has to humble Himself to behold the things in our universe. He's transcendent, and when we get glimpses, have moments of beholding Him we don't the words in our limited language to articulate Him.  I've grown up in the church my entire life, particularly one church my entire life. I remember well in my late teens, twenties, even into my thirties having this concept...

  My family, and many others from Redeemer, just returned from the Holy Spirit conference at Green Lake, Wisconsin. This conference is a lot of work for Michael and I, and so many others who contribute to make it happen, that many years I feel too worn out or task oriented to show up to this conference with much level of expectation. God always does incredible things as we gather here year after year and, if nothing else, our times of worship are so sweet. People come hungry, ready, hearts engaged to have Jesus seen and heard. It's the easiest "arena" so to speak to lead worship in. This week...was a new ballgame for me. In all of my busy-ness, God met me. In all of my organizing and leading, God provided so many moments of stillness to hear Him. He brought clarity and direction for me. He put words in my heart, understanding for His current transformation happening within me. He worked on the foundation and building of my faith and my purpose - personally, within my fami...

We live in a similar time to that of the Old Testament prophet, Hosea who proclaimed this message throughout Israel:  "There is no truth or knowledge of God in the land," (Hosea 4:1). Our culture does not know God. Some may know facts about God or be able to answer Bible trivia. But our culture does not have an intimate, living knowledge of God that dwells in the depths of who they are.  Similarly, the church is following suit. The Body of Christ as a whole is Biblically illiterate, but worse, is God illiterate. Corey Russell, in his book Pursuit of the Holy, says this: "The greatest problem for the church in this nation is not a sin problem as we would typically think of sin. Rather, it is the subject of God - who He is, what He's like, and who we are to Him. Our mandate is to know Him intimately, yet we do not understand who He is. We show up at church one day a week, throw our money into a bucket and listen to what the man or woman of God has heard lately. We woul...

It 's "pride" month.  So...I've been spending every day this month so far looking at what God's Word says about "pride," reminding myself of His truth. The Bible has much to say about pride. Not one of those things is positive. The Jesus-follower has no room for pride, should have no place in it, no connection at all. So to have an entire month out of our year devoted to "pride," setting aside what this month boasts of even, is mind boggling to see any Jesus believer supporting it. The basis of "Pride Month" is the celebration of self, celebration of the identity one embraces. Self is exalted above the good of any other person or being. Self is worshiped. This is the core of pride, all pride. Self worship over God worship.  I'm thinking much about our culture, as I'm sure most of you are, too. I'm thinking of it's direction. I'm thinking of how worldly and unwise it is in its pursuits and thinking. The surface self...

Satan is called, "the accuser of God's people," in Revelation 12:10. This verse not only gives our enemy this name but also it talks of his demise: "And I heard a loud voice in heaven saying, "Now the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of His Christ have come, for the accuser of our brothers and sisters has been thrown down, who accuses them day and night before our God. (vs 11) And they have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb and the word of their testimony , for they loved not their lives even unto death."   The heart of the accuser is looking for faults, failures, screw-ups, imperfections, poor performance...anything that he can bring up to make our minds linger on who we were, instead of who God has made us to be. Lingering here, dwelling on our sin nature, keeps us in performance mode...trying to fix it, trying to make things right, trying to change our own hearts and actions. This was the life of our old self befo...

This year I have been participating in Bible Study Fellowship's bible study called, "The Kingdom Divided." BSF has had a huge impact in my life and given me a great love for God's Word...HIGHLY RECOMMEND IT! I've been leading a group in my home in hope to help bring this great ministry to my home town in Monroe, Michigan.  I can't even begin to write about the impact this study has had. It has focused on the Old Testament stories of the divided kingdom of Israel & Judah, and all of the prophets who were sent with God's loving, desperate call and pursuit for His people to repent from idolatry/sin and to return to His heart and desire for them. I have seen great sin, great rebellion, great stubbornness, great stupidity in humanity in this study...I've seen my own heart in need still of God's healing and purifying work in my heart. I've seen our nation in this study and cultural downward spiral. Most importantly, I've seen the incredible ...

Is Jesus the King of your life?  If not, why? How would your life change, do you think, if He were your King? If so, how do you know? What does that mean to you...today?  We celebrated Palm Sunday yesterday. This is quite possibly my favorite Sunday out of the year! I'm always excited & ready for Holy Week to come...what would I be without the resurrection? Dead. In my sin. In absolute bondage to my self-centered ego and ridiculous silly logic as the trajectory of my life. I would be filled with selfish purpose, greed and self-preservation. I would live in fear of others and their opinions. I would live obsessed with status and getting ahead. Sin. Dead in my Sin.  My living began not 44 years ago on December 7th, 1978 when my mom labored for my earthly entrance. That was the beginning of the hope of my living. As we all were, I was born with a sin nature and so if what I believe is true, I was born in death. That's a happy thought right there!  My actual living b...

 God is love. God is "agape." Agape is different than "eros," which is most often the definition of love that the world offers and understands. Every song on the radio is about this kind of love.  "Eros," is physical, sexual, emotional. Agape is also different than, "phileo," which is the word for brotherly love, like the love we have for our family and friend relationships.  Agape is different and holds a different strength, power and motivation. It's the word used to define God's love in 1 John 4:7-21. I've been caught by this section for a few weeks now. Agape is a love that transforms us to our very core to look and act like God, Himself. It's a love so powerful that it actually changes us and changes our perception of God, ourselves and others. Agape love brings the awareness of how holy God is, my sin nature in comparison and how incredible it is that God sent Jesus for us - it's self-sacrificing for the sake of another ...

We do not define God. God defines us.  This is the starting point of my faith. This is the beginning of humilty for me, a heart bowed low in worship.  Like a tantrum-throwing toddler, I may not always like the sovereignty or the parenting of God, but I am content that He is the end all, has the first and final say. He is the Potter. I am the lump of clay that needs work, molding, refining fire, redeeming beauty. HIS love defines me, not this world's perverse understanding of "love." HIS love defines me, not even the church's definition of love does this because His love is higher, more powerful than we mere humans could arrogantly assume we understand, or tie up in a nice, logical box.  How high, how wide, how deep, how long is the love of God (Ephesians 3:18)?  I do not accept our world's weak view of love, more importantly God's love. "Love is love" is just...FALSE. Any love isn't love. How ridiculous it is to believe this! Any love, without bo...