Transformed Mind

  Valentines Day & Ash Wednesday (Feb 14), an interesting combo of holydays this year. Valentines Day of course we think of love and romance, a time to express emotions, hand out little cards, boxes of chocolates, and for some reason a fat baby with wings and a bow and arrow. Love in scripture goes deeper than some of the superficiality we get on the commercialized day of Valentine, for it proclaims, “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.” (John 15:13) Ash Wednesday is the beginning of Lent, a time of self denial, fasting, prayer, and the giving of oneself to contemplate God’s ultimate act of love that culminates on Good Friday. It’s a time to think of our own mortality. During the imposition of ashes whereby a person makes the sign of the cross on the recipients forehead you may hear the words, “All are from dust, and to dust all return.” It’s a sobering thought. And working in a hospital I really think about this quite a bit, deat...

"You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me, yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life." - John 5:39-40  Book of Kells image Jesus here is talking to the Pharisees, the religious folk of his time and isn't too happy with their arrogant blindness. It's the equivalent of being a PhD in political science, writing articles for professional journals about current political affairs, pouring into students the knowledge you've obtained and then one day a living US president walks in and you have no idea who they are. He says, "Don't you know who I am I'm the one you've been writing articles about, those economic policies were my doing, everything that's right with this country has my fingerprints on it. My staff have been pushing my agenda for years to get things done." And nothing, you're clueless. You actually think this guy is pulling your chain ...

1 The LORD is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The LORD is the stronghold of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?  2 When evildoers assail me to eat up my flesh, my adversaries and foes, it is they who stumble and fall.  3 Though an army encamp against me, my heart shall not fear; though war arise against me, yet I will be confident.  4 One thing have I asked of the LORD, that will I seek after: that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the LORD and to inquire in his temple.   David knew conflict/adversity since a boy. At the taunts of Goliath the Philistine he courageously said, "let no man's heart fail because of him, your servant will go and fight with this Philistine." And from that day on he was a fierce man of battle, brutal hand to hand combat where your opponents blood was ever in your presence, think Game of Thrones or Braveheart, it was as intimate as one could get in the taking...

"It is not the thing we spend the most time on that moulds us most; the greatest element is the thing that exerts most power." - Oswald Chambers Chambers here is talking about the Atonement of Christ. That what Jesus did on the cross is the single most powerful thing in the history of humanity and that event should be the driving force in our lives.   I think of St. Paul who spent a great portion of his life studying, learning, and growing to become this great Jewish teacher, to be the absolute best. As he says, "If anyone else thinks he has reason for confidence in the flesh I have more: circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless." All of this time and energy trying to prove himself, trying to be someone, something. His passion was there, his dedication was there, but as Thomas Merton state...

"For I would have you know, brothers, that the gospel that was preached by me is not man's gospel. For I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it, but I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ. For you have heard of my former life in Judaism, how I persecuted the church of God violently and tried to destroy it. And I was advancing in Judaism beyond many of my own age among my people, so extremely zealous was I for the traditions of my fathers." - Galatians 1:11-14    Pretty amazing stuff. Paul didn't have to confer with others about the gospel, he met Jesus on the road to Damascus. He experienced truth incarnate, the word of God made flesh, and forever changed. How about you, what's your story of transformation if any? Paul here before being blindsided by the risen Jesus thought he was on the right track in life. He tried to literally destroy the church. Just look at Acts where Stephen is stoned to death... "Then they cast him out ...

Listen to full sermon here (Scroll down to …from Restless to Fulfilled)  http://journeyqueens.com/podcasts/overwhelmed/ So here we now come, to the meat of Paul’s prayer, and what does he pray for, he prays, “that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith.” Just like Jesus didn’t come to make bad people good, but to make dead people alive, because in all seriousness we are all dead in our sin without Jesus’ redemptive work on the cross, so like that, he did not come from heaven to make our external circumstances; jobs, relationships, health, perfect, but to change us from the inside out, to completely gut our inner being, to utterly destroy that selfish ‘meism.’ I don’t need a better job, more stuff, a better wife, husband, girlfriend, boyfriend, or the like; I need a new me. I need God, according to his vast, immeasurable, unend...

As Paul writes this letter to the church in Ephesus, things are not going well in that metropolis of trade and shipping. The church there is experiencing fear AND hostility. Culturally, Ephesus was a strong city that had many marks of a bustling metropolis of the ancient world. Its harbor provided shipping and trading opportunities and its former claim to fame, the Temple of Artemis, still provided opportunity for local artisans to profit by making idols, little silver and wood statues. Paul’s teaching about Jesus though turned people from and against idol worship and therefore deprived these artisans from their source of income. In the Book of Acts one of these artisans, Demetrius, states,  Men, you know that from this business we have our wealth. And you see and hear that not only in Ephesus but in all of Asia this Paul has persuaded and turned away a great many people, saying that gods made with hands are not gods. So things are bleak as persecution persists against the ...