Mindful of Christ - envy

Like a red hot poker shoved into my soul is envy

a piercing burning that goes straight to the core

of the deepest levels of who I am and what I long for

Oh Lord, it hurts

coming suddenly and unexpectedly

a sudden boiling swirling typhoon of the soul


the pain of what I deeply wish and long for

but has not been granted


what I think would make things better
would make me better

what you have not given at this time
and quite possibly might not give

Oh Lord, I don't want this green poison in me
choking out you and blinding me toall the good you have so graciously given me

1 Corinthians 4:7-8The Message (MSG)

7-8 For who do you know that really knows you, knows your heart? 
And even if they did, is there anything they would discover in you that you could take credit for?

 Isn’t everything you have and everything you are sheer gifts from God? 

So what’s the point of all this comparing and competing? 
You already have all you need.
You already have more access to God than you can handle. 
Without bringing either Apollos or me into it, you’re sitting on top of the world—at least God’s world—and we’re right there, sitting alongside you!

"Isn't everything you have and everything you are sheer gifts from God?"

Yes, everything, everything is a gift from you

You are the source of all life, all goodness, all everything that I need

You give different gifts to different people at different times in our lives

stop comparing

we all need you, desperately and deeply

we all receive from you, deeply and generously

What you want most to give, is YOURSELF

What I need most right here and now is YOU

You alone can cool the burning

You alone can fill to the brim and even overflowing with your love

your care, your goodness, your peace, your kindness, your self-control

your hope, your joy

Galatians 5The Message (MSG)

The Life of Freedom

5 Christ has set us free to live a free life...

13-15 It is absolutely clear that God has called you to a free life. Just make sure that you don’t use this freedom as an excuse to do whatever you want to do and destroy your freedom. Rather, use your freedom to serve one another in love; that’s how freedom grows. 

For everything we know about God’s Word is summed up in a single sentence: Love others as you love yourself. That’s an act of true freedom. If you bite and ravage each other, watch out—in no time at all you will be annihilating each other, and where will your precious freedom be then?

16-18 My counsel is this: Live freely, animated and motivated by God’s Spirit. Then you won’t feed the compulsions of selfishness. For there is a root of sinful self-interest in us that is at odds with a free spirit, just as the free spirit is incompatible with selfishness. These two ways of life are antithetical, so that you cannot live at times one way and at times another way according to how you feel on any given day. Why don’t you choose to be led by the Spirit and so escape the erratic compulsions of a law-dominated existence?

19-21 It is obvious what kind of life develops out of trying to get your own way all the time: repetitive, loveless, cheap sex; a stinking accumulation of mental and emotional garbage; frenzied and joyless grabs for happiness; trinket gods; magic-show religion; paranoid loneliness; cutthroat competition; all-consuming-yet-never-satisfied wants; a brutal temper; an impotence to love or be loved; divided homes and divided lives; small-minded and lopsided pursuits; the vicious habit of depersonalizing everyone into a rival; uncontrolled and uncontrollable addictions; ugly parodies of community. I could go on.

This isn’t the first time I have warned you, you know. If you use your freedom this way, you will not inherit God’s kingdom.

22-23 But what happens when we live God’s way? He brings gifts into our lives, much the same way that fruit appears in an orchard—things like affection for others, exuberance about life, serenity. We develop a willingness to stick with things, a sense of compassion in the heart, and a conviction that a basic holiness permeates things and people. We find ourselves involved in loyal commitments, not needing to force our way in life, able to marshal and direct our energies wisely.

23-24 Legalism is helpless in bringing this about; it only gets in the way. Among those who belong to Christ, everything connected with getting our own way and mindlessly responding to what everyone else calls necessities is killed off for good—crucified.

25-26 Since this is the kind of life we have chosen, the life of the Spirit, let us make sure that we do not just hold it as an idea in our heads or a sentiment in our hearts, but work out its implications in every detail of our lives. That means we will not compare ourselves with each other as if one of us were better and another worse. We have far more interesting things to do with our lives. Each of us is an original.

Dear Lord,

there is so much in this passage that I need to hear and deep down absorb.

please help me to receive your words

to trust and receive you into our deepest parts

whatever pain we are experiencing right now

you want to set us free to know your love for us   deeply     truly

and to be enabled to love others

help me right now where I am today to receive the gift of your love

of your Holy Spirit 

to let your fruit grow in my life and let go of all I am clinging to to try to desperately meet my deep need of you

you give me yourself

you hold nothing back

you intend good for me

fill me with you

and your love 

enable me to love 

you are the greatest gift

i love you Lord

amen

Do You See This Woman?

36 One of the Pharisees asked Jesus to eat with him. Jesus went into the Pharisee’s house and sat at the table. 37 A sinful woman in the town learned that Jesus was eating at the Pharisee’s house. So she brought an alabaster jar of perfume. 38 She stood at Jesus’ feet, crying, and began to wash his feet with her tears. She dried his feet with her hair, kissed them many times and rubbed them with the perfume. 39 The Pharisee who asked Jesus to come to his house saw this. He thought to himself, “If Jesus were a prophet, he would know that the woman who is touching him is a sinner!”

40 Jesus said to the Pharisee, “Simon, I have something to say to you.”

Simon said, “Teacher, tell me.”

41 Jesus said, “There were two men. Both men owed money to the same banker. One man owed the banker 500 silver coins.[a] The other man owed the banker 50 silver coins. 42 The men had no money; so they could not pay what they owed. But the banker told the men that they did not have to pay him. Which one of the two men will love the banker more?”

43 Simon, the Pharisee, answered, “I think it would be the one who owed him the most money.”

Jesus said to Simon, “You are right.” 44 Then Jesus turned toward the woman and said to Simon, “Do you see this woman? When I came into your house, you gave me no water for my feet. But she washed my feet with her tears and dried my feet with her hair. 45 You did not kiss me, but she has been kissing my feet since I came in! 46 You did not rub my head with oil, but she rubbed my feet with perfume. 47 I tell you that her many sins are forgiven. This is clear because she showed great love. But the person who has only a little to be forgiven will feel only a little love.”

48 Then Jesus said to her, “Your sins are forgiven.”

49 The people sitting at the table began to think to themselves, “Who is this man? How can he forgive sins?”

50 Jesus said to the woman, “Because you believed, you are saved from your sins. Go in peace.”   Luke 7:36-50 

Footnotes:

1. 7:41 silver coins A Roman denarius. One coin was the average pay for one day’s work.

International Children’s Bible (ICB)

The Holy Bible, International Children’s Bible® Copyright© 1986, 1988, 1999, 2015 by Tommy Nelson™, a division of Thomas Nelson. 

Do You See This Woman?

Simon saw only a sinful woman

repulsive, undesired, rejected

But Jesus truly sees us as who we really are

both the need, the failure, the shame 

and who He means for us to be by his grace

What He Saw

O Praise you

What Jesus saw was a lost child coming home

What He saw was love and worship

gratitude and faith

What He saw was a gift that ministered to Him

The Gifts

"... you gave me no water for my feet. But she washed my feet with her tears and dried my feet with her hair.

 45 You did not kiss me, but she has been kissing my feet since I came in! 

46 You did not rub my head with oil, but she rubbed my feet with perfume."

Even her tears,  even her tears

were a blessing to him

her love was a refreshment to Him

her gratitude a beautiful fragrance to anoint him

What Do You See?

How do I see myself, others?

So many ways to see    

        or not see as the case may be....

SEE HIM  and how he sees

then I will see aright

" Then Jesus turned toward the woman and said to Simon,

 “Do you see this woman? 

When I came into your house, you gave me no water for my feet. But she washed my feet with her tears and dried my feet with her hair. 

45 You did not kiss me, but she has been kissing my feet since I came in! 

46 You did not rub my head with oil, but she rubbed my feet with perfume.

 47 I tell you that her many sins are forgiven. This is clear because she showed great love. But the person who has only a little to be forgiven will feel only a little love.”

48 Then Jesus said to her, “Your sins are forgiven.”

49 The people sitting at the table began to think to themselves, “Who is this man? How can he forgive sins?”

50 Jesus said to the woman, “Because you believed, you are saved from your sins. Go in peace."   

For When I am Forgetful

All that I am, praise the Lord.
    Everything in me, praise his holy name.
2 My whole being, praise the Lord.
    Do not forget all his kindnesses.
3 The Lord forgives me for all my sins.
    He heals all my diseases.
4 He saves my life from the grave.
    He loads me with love and mercy.
5 He satisfies me with good things.
    He makes me young again, like the eagle.
Psalm 103: 1-5  International Children's Bible

Only he can do great miracles.
    His love continues forever.
Psalm 136:4 ICB

Oh Lord, 
help me to remember all your kindnesses
to not forget these two things:

You alone do great miracles

Your love endures forever

Emblazon this on my consciousness today

You are the God of miracles

When all I see and feel is limitation and pressure and concern
the parameters I cannot get beyond

You are the God who is outside this box that I feel trapped in
You are the God who busts the box apart
You are not limited by anything
You are able to work in ways I cannot imagine
You are able to do what I could never conceive
You are amazing

You may not do what I want 
when I want it

But you are working, loving, caring and doing
in ways I cannot understand or perceive

And your ways and works are glorious

But even more glorious

You are the God of enduring love

No one loves like you do

10 True love is God’s love for us,
 not our love for God. 
God sent his Son to die in our place
 to take away our sins.  I John 4:10 ICB

Love never gives up.
Love cares more for others than for self.
Love doesn’t want what it doesn’t have.
Love doesn’t strut,
Doesn’t have a swelled head,
Doesn’t force itself on others,
Isn’t always “me first,”
Doesn’t fly off the handle,
Doesn’t keep score of the sins of others,
Doesn’t revel when others grovel,
Takes pleasure in the flowering of truth,
Puts up with anything,
Trusts God always,
Always looks for the best,
Never looks back,
But keeps going to the end.
I Corinthians 13:4-8a The Message

4 Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous, it does not brag, and it is not proud. 5 Love is not rude, is not selfish, and does not become angry easily. Love does not remember wrongs done against it. 6 Love takes no pleasure in evil, but rejoices over the truth. 7 Love patiently accepts all things. It always trusts, always hopes, and always continues strong. I Corinthians 13:4-8a ICB

8 Love never ends.

Only you are all these things all of the time

Praise you O Lord

 help me to remember these two things today:

Only he can do great miracles.

    His love continues forever.

Psalm 136:4 ICB

The Joy of Being Loved

Luke 15:11-32J.B. Phillips New Testament (PHILLIPS)

11-19 Then he continued, “Once there was a man who had two sons. The younger one said to his father, ‘Father, give me my share of the property that will come to me.’ So he divided up his property between the two of them. Before very long, the younger son collected all his belongings and went off to a foreign land, where he squandered his wealth in the wildest extravagance. And when he had run through all his money, a terrible famine arose in that country, and he began to feel the pinch. Then he went and hired himself out to one of the citizens of that country who sent him out into the fields to feed the pigs. He got to the point of longing to stuff himself with the food the pigs were eating and not a soul gave him anything. Then he came to his senses and cried aloud, ‘Why, dozens of my father’s hired men have got more food than they can eat and here I am dying of hunger! I will get up and go back to my father, and I will say to him, “Father, I have done wrong in the sight of Heaven and in your eyes. I don’t deserve to be called your son any more. Please take me on as one of your hired men.”’

20-24 So he got up and went to his father. But while he was still some distance off, his father saw him and his heart went out to him, and he ran and fell on his neck and kissed him. But his son said, ‘Father, I have done wrong in the sight of Heaven and in your eyes. I don’t deserve to be called your son any more ....’ ‘Hurry!’ called out his father to the servants, ‘fetch the best clothes and put them on him! Put a ring on his finger and shoes on his feet, and get that calf we’ve fattened and kill it, and we will have a feast and a celebration! For this is my son—I thought he was dead, and he’s alive again. I thought I had lost him, and he’s found!’ And they began to get the festivities going.

25-32 “But his elder son was out in the fields, and as he came near the house, he heard music and dancing. So he called one of the servants across to him and enquired what was the meaning of it all. ‘Your brother has arrived, and your father has killed the calf we fattened because he has got him home again safe and sound,’ was the reply. But he was furious and refused to go inside the house. So his father came outside and called him. Then he burst out, ‘Look, how many years have I slaved for you and never disobeyed a single order of yours, and yet you have never given me so much as a young goat, so that I could give my friends a dinner? But when that son of yours arrives, who has spent all your money on prostitutes, for him you kill the calf we’ve fattened!’ But the father replied, ‘My dear son, you have been with me all the time and everything I have is yours. But we had to celebrate and show our joy. For this is your brother; I thought he was dead—and he’s alive. I thought he was lost—and he is found!’”

J.B. Phillips New Testament (PHILLIPS

This is a tale of two sons, both wanting to have nice things and enjoy life

but only one of them comes to love, to know the joy of being loved

Both sons had so much

a loving father and home

many, many nice things

but it was not enough for either of them

So the one demanded his share of his father's wealth and then abandonded him

he sought adventure, pleasure and fun

He found it... for a while

Then he found deprivation, hunger, alienation, shame and desperation

He came to a truthful acknowledgement of his own selfish and destructive choices

He acknowledged that all along he had a Father who loved him 

and would do what was right to take care of him

He saw both himself and his Father in a new and more truthful way

He summoned up the courage to return home

to face whatever was to come

to clearly state his own behavior as wrong

to admit the damage he had done to the relationship 

He was willing to do whatever it would take to make things right in time

What he found was beyond belief -

joy in his return

love for his person

forgiveness for his wrongs

absolution of his debt

a return to his place in the family

What was his response?

How could it be anything other than joy, pure joy

grace, gratitude and amazement

knowing he deserved none of this

deserved lots of things he was not getting 

getting lots of things he did not deserve

The joy of being loved,deeply truly loved for no reason at all other than 

A Father's love

The other son also wanted all the nice things around him and a good time with his friends

But he never found it

He felt like a slave 

he didn't feel like he got what he deserved

He thought he was okay and would get it eventually

until his brother returned

and the father lavished the best they had 

on another

He even refers to his brother as "your other son"

He had missed developing a relationship of love with his father and with his brother

He had lived all those years not enjoying what was right there all the time

the deep and wonderful love of such a father

He was doing what he did for what it would get him

not out of love for such a Father

Oh, Lord

help me 

not to miss YOU

YOU in all things

YOU above all things

YOU more than anything

YOU are here

right now 

right here 

yearning to love me

deeply

truly 

Both sons thought the treasure was the stuff that belonged to the Father

But only one discovered that the real treasure was

the Father himself

to be enjoyed

right here

right now

 ‘My dear son, you have been with me all the time and everything I have is yours. But we had to celebrate and show our joy. For this is your brother; I thought he was dead—and he’s alive. I thought he was lost—and he is found!’”

John 14:1-7 Phillips

14 1-4 “You must not let yourselves be distressed—you must hold on to your faith in God and to your faith in me. There are many rooms in my Father’s House. If there were not, should I have told you that I am going to prepare a place for you? It is true that I am going away to prepare a place for you, but it is just as true that I am coming again to welcome you into my own home, so that you may be where I am. You know where I am going and you know the road I am going to take.”

5 “Lord,” Thomas remonstrated, “we do not know where you’re going, and how can we know what road you’re going to take?”

6-7 “I myself am the road,” replied Jesus, “and the truth and the life. No one approaches the Father except through me. If you had known who I am, you would have known my Father. From now on, you do know him and you have seen him.”

J.B. Phillips New Testament (PHILLIPS)

J. B. Phillips, "The New Testament in Modern English", 1962 edition by HarperCollins