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Where will we make our home?

And she said, “Look, your sister-in-law has gone back to her people and to her gods; return after your sister-in-law.” But Ruth said: “Entreat me not to leave you, Or  to turn back from following after you; For wherever you go, I will go; And wherever you lodge, I will lodge; Your people shall  be my people, And your God, my God. Where you die, I will die, And there will I be buried. The Lord do so to me, and more also, If anything  but death parts you and me.”
Ruth 1:15-17 NKJV
http://bible.com/114/rut.1.15-17.NKJV

He who has My commandments and keeps them, it is he who loves Me. And he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and manifest Myself to him.” Judas (not Iscariot) said to Him, “Lord, how is it that You will manifest Yourself to us, and not to the world?” Jesus answered and said to him, “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our home with him.
John 14:21-23 NKJV
http://bible.com/114/jhn.14.21-23.NKJV

We choose each day who it is we are making our home with. Are we making our home with the world? Or are we a traveler here in this place making preparations for our eternal home? What we do today,  how we live,  is the reflection of what our heart truly desires – indicates what we truly believe. What will your life say today about where you have chosen to make your home?

As we make decisions about selling our home and moving to the farm,  I hope that our decisions are not as much about the house that we will be constructing – as about the home that we will be making for our family and friends.

Lord, don’t allow us to be satisfied living a life where you have not infiltrated every area of our life. Lord,  create in us a hunger to leave the temporary and worthless things of this world and to cling to the abundant life of a day filled with the fruit of your Holy Spirit. Teach us to love and serve and honor you in our actions, in our service,  from the time we wake up until the time that we go to sleep. Teach us to side step empty religious practice and to instead, dive into a life swimming in your presence. Teach us to love. Teach us to live. Amen.

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Costly? Valuable.

When He had called the people to Himself, with His disciples also, He said to them, “Whoever desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me.  For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake and the gospel’s will save it.  For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul?  Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul?  For whoever is ashamed of Me and My words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him the Son of Man also will be ashamed when He comes in the glory of His Father with the holy angels.”
Mark 8:34-38 NKJV
http://bible.com/114/mrk.8.34-38.NKJV

Deny ourselves.
Take up our cross.
Follow Christ.
Die to self.

In a world of nominal and worldly “Christians” – where the capitalist dream of wealth,  comfort,  security,  and pleasure rules people’s hearts and desires – this call seems quite contrary to to the cheap and easy grace of a Roman’s Road Sinner’s Prayer splashed on a television screen as the evangelist asks for money to be sent in to buy his latest merchandise. In fact, it seems quite contrary to the altar calls and spontaneous baptisms of the mega-churches of our day.

Christ is talking to us about a costly type of discipleship that doesn’t just ask for intellectual ascent by thinking that we believe – but He tells us about a sacrificial life lived following Him that proves that we believe.

“If anyone comes to Me and does not hate his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and his own life also, he cannot be My disciple.  And whoever does not bear his cross and come after Me cannot be My disciple.  For which of you, intending to build a tower, does not sit down first and count the cost, whether he has enough to finish it —  lest, after he has laid the foundation, and is not able to finish, all who see it begin to mock him,  saying, ‘This man began to build and was not able to finish’?  Or what king, going to make war against another king, does not sit down first and consider whether he is able with ten thousand to meet him who comes against him with twenty thousand?  Or else, while the other is still a great way off, he sends a delegation and asks conditions of peace.  So likewise, whoever of you does not forsake all that he has cannot be My disciple. “Salt is good; but if the salt has lost its flavor, how shall it be seasoned?  It is neither fit for the land nor for the dunghill, but men throw it out. He who has ears to hear, let him hear!”
Luke 14:26-35 NKJV
http://bible.com/114/luk.14.26-35.NKJV

“Do not think that I came to bring peace on earth. I did not come to bring peace but a sword.  For I have come to ‘set a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law’;  and ‘a man’s enemies  will be  those of his  own  household.’  He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me. And he who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me.  And he who does not take his cross and follow after Me is not worthy of Me.  He who finds his life will lose it, and he who loses his life for My sake will find it.
Matthew 10:34-39 NKJV
http://bible.com/114/mat.10.34-39.NKJV

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Learning Repentance, Receiving Peace

The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance. But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a roar, and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved, and the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed.  Since all these things are thus to be dissolved, what sort of people ought you to be in lives of holiness and godliness,
2 Peter 3:9-11 ESV
http://bible.com/59/2pe.3.9-11.ESV

Teach me Your way, O Lord , And lead me in a smooth path, because of my enemies. Do not deliver me to the will of my adversaries; For false witnesses have risen against me, And such as breathe out violence. I  would  have  lost  heart, unless I had believed That I would see the goodness of the Lord In the land of the living. Wait on the Lord ; Be of good courage, And He shall strengthen your heart; Wait, I say, on the Lord !
Psalms 27:11-14 NKJV
http://bible.com/114/psa.27.11-14.NKJV

Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him, knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, dies no more. Death no longer has dominion over Him. For the  death that He died, He died to sin once for all; but the  life that He lives, He lives to God. Likewise you also, reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord. Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body, that you should obey it in its lusts. And do not present your members as instruments of unrighteousness to sin, but present yourselves to God as being alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God. For sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under law but under grace.
Romans 6:8-14 NKJV
http://bible.com/114/rom.6.8-14.NKJV

“The Lord  bless you and keep you; The Lord  make His face shine upon you, And be gracious to you; The Lord lift up His countenance upon you, And give you peace.” ’
Numbers 6:24-26 NKJV
http://bible.com/114/num.6.24-26.NKJV

Your ways confound the wise. Men of flesh fear their own deaths, as their instinct is to avoid it at all costs. But you have taught us that death is the way to life. Help us to do what is difficult – to die to ourselves, to kill our old ways and to become new, walking in your will.  Teach us to be genuinely sorry for our sin,  to hate it more and more,  and to run away from it and into the life and purpose you have for us. Teach us to bring glory and honor to your name in the lives that we live. Strengthen us to see our enemies of temptation, rebellion, worldliness, and self fall dead and defeated at the foot of the cross. Amen.

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Created for Good Works

And you He  made  alive,  who were dead in trespasses and sins, in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience, among whom also we all once conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, just as the others. But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it  is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.
Ephesians 2:1-10 NKJV
http://bible.com/114/eph.2.1-10.NKJV

It is not our good works that earn our salvation, but through good works are a blessing and an opportunity to participate in His Kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven. Yes, we are familiar with the wages of sin. We have walked that path before and we have experienced the consequences of that life. But God has offered us a new, abundant life in Christ – one of forgiveness, fellowship and relationship as we learn and grow in a new life,  following His example.

Lord, do not let us forget our past, otherwise we might become proud thinking that we have accomplished something on our own. Do not let us be paralyzed by guilt and shame of our past disobedient ways,  otherwise we might miss out on the glorious opportunity to serve you now. Let us remember the redeeming powerofthe Blood of the Lamb, and the strength and power of your Holy Spirit. Help us to realize the value of this amazing gift of grace and to walk in grattitude today, Lord. We love you. Amen.