Tag: faith

Control Freaks – Chill!

On By Judy GlasserIn MarchLeave a comment

Her home was demolished.

Everything she knew was gone.

Her city was burned down by foreigners.

All of her friends and neighbors were killed, only her family was saved.

Things didn’t look good for Rahab.

She and her family were still a live but every one and everything else from her life was gone.  Crushed.  Burned.  Now she had to live in the enemy’s camp.  What good could possibly come from this situation?

Well, we know the rest of the story.  Rahab’s name would later show up in the lineage of Jesus!  She was Jesus’ great, great, too many greats to count, grandmother.

God had unbelievable plans for Rahab when he saved her from being destroyed as Jericho burned.  She didn’t know it.  I’m sure there were times as she started up a new life in the camp of her former enemies when she wondered why she was still alive.   Everyone else except her family was dead.  Everything that she had known before was gone.

Rahab had no way of knowing that God was going to bless all of creation through her lineage.

Just like I have no way of knowing what God is doing as I struggle through the twists and turns of life, trying to figure out how to transition from phase to phase.  Looking back, the pieces often make sense.  But it can be very hard to navigate through the maze of today.

I just don’t know.

But God does.  So I focus on him, trusting him to show me the way one day at a time.  Its often one step at a time.  Trying to control the world causes frustration and stress.  Trying to control even my little space in the world is impossible.

This last year of my life really proved this to me.  I ended up in so many places I never thought I would be – never wanted to be.  God is working good things out of the evil that is done.  I am already seeing some of the good things but there will be many more that I will never see.

Like Rahab.

So I will trust you, Abba Father.

 

Watch Closely Now

On By Judy GlasserIn MarchLeave a comment

I love it.

God is not limited by cultural rules.  He created justice, he is just and he acts justly.

Whenever we see God’s actions and directions not lining up with current culture, we need to take note of it.  We know that God is right and our culture is wrong in every one of these instances.  Sometimes it takes our culture thousands of years to catch up to what is right.

The historical account of Zelophehad’s daughters in Numbers 27 is one of my favorites.  We’ll call the Z’s daughters from now on  🙂

At that time in history, women were considered to be the property of men and most men had more than 1 wife.  When Z died without having any sons, Z’s five daughters asked to inherit his property.

What!?

That just wasn’t done.

Women didn’t inherit property.  They WERE property.

When Moses took this case to God, God directed him to give the property to the daughters as an inheritance.  He stipulated that they had to marry within their tribal clad so that the land stayed with in the family.  If you think about it, that makes a lot of sense since the land was physically divided by clans.  This kept everything organized as God had designed.

I bet there were many long and heated discussions by the male leaders of the families as they gathered around the campfire at night!  This story is only 4 paragraphs in the Bible but I’ll bet the arguments against doing this could fill up several scrolls if they had all been written down.

I’m sure the same concern came up that was discussed with King Xerxes later in the book of Esther.  If these women received this request now, they are just going to ask for more and more.  A dangerous trend was starting!  But we read that they made the right decision and obeyed.

It took thousands of years but – yes, women inherit and own property now.  As recently as the 1950’s women were generally considered not capable of inheriting and running large properties and businesses.  But way back in ancient times, God knew he had created women equal to men.  Different, but equal.  He set a spiritual leadership hierarchy in place that has everything to do with order and process and nothing to do with intelligence and aptitude.

And our culture has finally caught up to God’s truth….. in most cases.

Please help us live by your truth, Abba Father.

Everybody is Doing it……

On By Judy GlasserIn MarchLeave a comment

But that doesn’t make it right.

Peer pressure can be a very strong influence in our lives and it can push us in a direction we don’t want to go.  It can give us ‘permission’ to do things that aren’t good for us, causing negative consequences to happen in our lives.

“Do not follow the crowd”.do-not-follow-the-crowd

God told the Israelites this thousands of years ago in Exodus 23.  And we have the same issue today.  When we see a lot of other people doing something, we can start to wander and think its ok.  All of these people can’t be wrong, can they?

Yes, they can be.

Yes, they are.

If I want to live a life of truth and integrity, I need to build my house on the Rock which is God.  He is the creator of truth.  He designed justice.  He knows everything.  The crowd has no effect on his right and wrong.

When I am in line with God, I am in line with how he created me to be.  I’m in line with ‘why’ I was created.  I was going to say that I’m in line with the universe but that sounds like the beginning of a song from the 60’s. 🙂

If I’m not building my house on the solid ground of God’s truth, it’s going to get washed away by the next storm.  A lot of the mess we see in our culture is the result of people’s houses getting washed away in the storms of their lives.  And there’s always another storm coming our way.

What is your life built on?

God’s truth?

Or the wavering, changing, untruth that defines our culture?

This is an important question for each of us to answer for ourselves.  It has eternal implications.

Thank you for your truth, Abba Father.

Justice For All

On By Judy GlasserIn March2 Comments

Equal Justice.

Due Process.

Our modern justice system was modeled after the laws which God gave Moses.   The culture at that time was filled with cruel kings who capriciously imposed evil and sub-human punishments upon their people.  The processes and procedures God set up brought a higher level of due process and equal justice than that culture had ever seen.

The Mosaic laws were meant to teach the value of life to the people and raise the level of ethical conduct within the Israelite nation.

One of the key words there is ‘ethical’ which means ‘how one should live’.  Our current culture has morphed that definition into ‘how I think I should live’ and ethics don’t mean anything with that definition.  When we lose a compass, any shared standard of ethics is also lost.  This explains a lot of the mess in our culture today.god-is-our-compass

Because our compass can only be one person – God.

He created us.  He knows how he designed it all to work.  He wants the best for us.  He is omnipotent – he can do anything.

There is nothing and no one else who knows us and loves us like God.

When I make him my compass, I am plugging into the Creator of the Universe.  It’s not what I think is right that matters.  What matters is what God thinks.

And so I read God’s word.  Study God’s word.  Memorize God’s word.  And I’m very serious about this journey towards the truth.

I’m very glad you are on this journey with me.

We love you, Abba Father.

 

So Undeserved

On By Judy GlasserIn February4 Comments

I have worked hard.

I have more than paid my dues.

I’ve planned and struggled and persevered.

I can feel like I’ve earned it – everything.  I deserve it.

But what I have really earned from our perfect and holy God is eternal separation from him.  My rebellion, sins and lack of so-underservedconsistency deserve condemnation by my Father God.  And you aren’t off the hook, either.  We share this tendency to sin and rebel, don’t we.

A re-enactment of Sodom and Gomorrah – that’s what we deserve.

But that’s not what God offers us.  He offers us salvation through this son, Jesus.  He offers us an unwarranted gift of grace and mercy.  He offers us unconditional love for today and unconditional love for all of eternity.

As I trust in Jesus to lead me through my life here on earth, I receive peace and joy and strength and purpose.  I am so undeserving of all of this.

In Deuteronomy 6, we read the list of things God was planning to give to the Israelites –

cities they did not build,

homes filled with good things they did not provide,

wells they had not dug,

vineyards they did not plant.

The list was long.

And Moses went on to tell the Israelites ‘when you eat and are satisfied, be careful you do not forget the Lord.’

I have a very long list of things that God has given me.  I know you also have a long list.

Let us be humbled by how undeserving we are.

Let us not forget our Father God who gives us everything we have.

The best and most important thing he gave us was Jesus – our salvation and our role-model for life here on earth.

Thank you, Abba Father.

Does It Make a Difference?

On By Judy GlasserIn FebruaryLeave a comment

Do I act differently?

Do different words come out of my mouth?

Do I look different?

Is there an obvious difference in my life – other than going to church – because I’m a Christ- follower?

There should be a difference – right?  It should be all different – how I act and speak and look.  God is in the process of transforming me  – a big religious word for this is sanctification.

Believing in God, trusting in Jesus and obeying the Holy Spirit’s promptings and guidance should change my life from what it would be without God.

I’m reading in Exodus that Moses’ face was radiant after he met with God.

What would it take for my face to radiate after meeting with God?  What about your face?

I know Moses actually went inside the tent and ‘met’ with God but don’t we also meeting-with-god‘meet’ with God every time we read and study his word?  We meet with him when we have a conversation with him in prayer.   And when we worship him.

What would it mean for us to genuinely radiate God’s love and mercy and truth in our lives?

Please open our eyes and our hearts, Abba Father.

Mediocre

On By Judy GlasserIn FebruaryLeave a comment

Unexceptional.

Uninspired.

Unexciting.

Unremarkable.

I have been told that the definition of mediocre is inconsistency.  I agree – a lack of consistency will get you mediocre results every time.

If I had to use one work to describe the Israelites after they were freed from Egypt, I would use inconsistent.

We read in Exodus the dramatic account of God dividing the Red Sea to let the Israelites go through on dry land – a wall of water on their right and a wall of water on their left.  Wow!

Then God drowns the Egyptian army right in front of their eyes.  That’s exactly what should have happened to the Israelites!  But it didn’t.

We’re told in Exodus 14 that the people “feared the Lord and put their trust in him and in Moses his servant.”

For awhile.

They actually trusted God and Moses for just a very short time before they started grumbling.  Right after their song of praise to God, we read they are complaining that they were going to die out in the desert.

Inconsistent.  “I believe” one day.  “Oh, maybe I don’t” the next.

Mediocre.

Is our faith like that?  One day we’re trusting God with everything and the next we’re grumbling and doubting?

This really challenges me because I don’t want to have an inconsistent, mediocre faith.  I don’t want to have the same ‘on again, off again’ response to God that the Israelites had.

That kind of faith will not stand strong through the trials that keep coming my way.  A mediocre faith will sink under the waves of frustration, anger, sadness and pain that wash over me as I try to deal with all the ‘stuff’ life throws at me.

A mediocre faith just won’t cut it for me.  So consistency is one of my goals.

I have found that this helps – when I feel doubts and questions starting to surface, I he-is-alays-faithfulremind myself of the many ways God has blessed me in the past.  I remember all of the promises he has kept and all of the mercy he has shown me through the years. Remembering his faithfulness to me helps me continue to be faithful back to him.

Consistent.

Not mediocre.

Thank you, Abba Father.

Where’s the Light?

On By Judy GlasserIn FebruaryLeave a comment

Evil thrives in the dark.

Greedy, selfish hearts.

Angry, bitter souls.

Cruel minds crawl out into the dark – looking to harm the innocent.

In Exodus, we are witness to an epic battle between Moses and Pharoah – actually God and Pharoah – and Pharoah is losing badly.

By chapter 10, God had sent 8 plagues causing wide-spread disease and hardship for the people, death and destruction for livestock and crops.

And the intensity of the plagues continued to grow.

It’s significant to read that the 9th plague – worse than the other 8 –  was darkness.

Darkness spread across Egypt for 3 days.  It was so dark, they couldn’t see anyone else around them.

Pitch black for 3 days.

Can you imagine the depression, anxiety and fear?  This plague affected their minds – it was worse than the rest.  Because we can’t go somewhere else to get away from our minds.   We can’t avoid thinking.

They couldn’t stop feeling the oppressive darkness – the void where light and warmth used to be.

Pitch black for 3 days.

I love the fact that there was light where the Israelites lived.  I visualize a huge spotlight shining down from heaven onto the Israelites.my-people-live-in-the-light

The light of God’s love.

God’s care.

Light for God’s favorite people.

Bright, warm, good.

Those of us who trust in Jesus live in that light every day.

The light of God’s love and care – his favorite people.

God wants to transform any darkness in my life into light.

He  wants to transform your darkness into light as well.

He wants to fill any voids in our lives with warmth and goodness.

His spotlight of grace, strength and wholeness shines down on me everyday, filling my mind and heart with his love.

I feel it.

Do you feel it?

Thank you for your light, Abba Father.

 

Use It!

On By Judy GlasserIn JanuaryLeave a comment

What do we already have?

A car?

A house?

Education?

Experience?

Passions like sports, food, teaching and mentoring, or music?

God asks us to use whatever we have to serve him and grow his kingdom here on earth.  So how does this apply to me?

My house is used for a small group Bible study.  It is also used sometimes for meetings about the Women’s Ministry I serve in.

My car has been used to bring neighbors and friends to church activities.  It is also used to pick up women I am mentoring as we go have lunch and talk and grow our faith.

God gave me an education and experience so I could have a great career.  I use those same assets as I serve in church.

God gave me passions for teaching and mentoring and music and he has given me opportunities to serve him in all of those areas.

During the discussion at Moses’ burning bush, God told Moses to go to the elders of what-is-in-your-handIsrael and tell them that God was going to bring them out of the misery in Egypt.  Then the elders were supposed to go with Moses to ask Pharoah to release the Israelites for 3 days to go into the desert to worship God.  Moses replied, “What if they don’t believe me?”

And God said, ” What is in your hand?”

Moses already had the tools, experience and passion he needed to obey God.  He just needed to use them.

Moses had his staff in his hand and, when he threw it on the ground, God turned into a snake.  I would believe God was in the middle of what was going on if I saw that, wouldn’t you?

Just like he did with Moses, God intends to  use what he has already given me for his purposes.

He intends to use what he has already given you to help grow your faith and  to grow his kingdom here on earth.

God is asking us, “What is in your hand?”

Thank you for all of the things you have already given us, Abba Father.

What’s Next?

On By Judy GlasserIn JanuaryLeave a comment

So many decisions…

its hard to figure out our next steps.

A lot of options.

Why can’t we get a burning bush like God gave Moses?  It was big.  It was dramatic.  Moses couldn’t miss it.  If we got one of those, then we would listen and follow, right?burning-bush

In my life, God gives me what I would call burning potted plants.  They are a lot smaller than a bush but when I’m reading God’s word, praying and listening, God will set fire to the next small plant – lighting the way to my next decision – and then my next.

Here’s how it works – I’m regularly reading God’s word and listening to how he want to me to apply it to my life.  I pray – expecting God to move and answer but keeping my mind open knowing that God can answer in a way that’s much different that what I could be looking for.

I watch.

And he lines up my circumstances, one step at a time.

He will also add confirmations along the way.  Godly people around me will say something that reinforces a recent burning plant.  And it’s not unusual for my pastor on Sunday to say something that confirms my direction.

When God knows I am watching and listening, he can work through all of these things to make my next step clear to me.

I have found that I don’t need a burning bush if I’m paying attention.  My small burning  plants work just fine:)

Thank you for your guidance, Abba Father.