karen under grace

2007-03-30T13:29:00.000-07:00

Pigs and Authority

Pigs have more authority than satan.

Why do we give satan 'place' or recognition in our lives, in our thoughts, in our actions? He has no authority over us - except what we inadvertantly give to him by his deceptions.

When Jesus and His disciples sailed into the country of the Gadarenes (Mark 5: 1-20, Luke 8: 26-39) they encountered a rather wild man who wore no clothes and lived away from the population in the burial tombs. Mark 5: 3-4 says that "no one could bind him, not even with chains....chains had been pulled apart by him and the shackles broken in pieces; neither could anyone tame him." Mark 5: 2 explains that he had a 'unclean spirit,' and Luke 8: 27 goes further by stating he "had demons for a long time."

One of the amazing things about this account is that these demons immediately recognized Jesus as the Son of the Most High God. They spoke directly to Him, actually pleading with Him to leave them alone in the man and not torment them. When Jesus asked for their name they answered "Legion" (Mark 5:9, Luke 8: 30) because there were so many of them in this one man.

Here is a question: in what way would Jesus be able to 'torment' these demons?

Answer: by casting them out of the man and into what the NKJV calls the 'abyss' (Luke 8: 31). The American Heritage Dictionary defines the word abyss as "primevil chaos, an unfathomable chasm." Since satan and his demons are spiritual beings, they must inhabit a physical body on earth to function. As spirits they live powerlessly in the ether, unless they can deceive their way into flesh and bone.

This is the reason they begged Jesus to "Send us to the swine (that were feeding nearby), that we may enter them." And the herd of swine was more willing to drown themselves than be inhabited by the legion of demons (Mark 5: 12-13).

Pigs have more authority than satan and his demons.

And if pigs have more authority than satan, how much more authority do we, as believers in Jesus Christ, have over all things?

God Himself gave man dominion over all the earth (Genesis 1: 28), and Jesus restored what Adam had lost (Matthew 17: 11).
We have been redeemed from the bondage of sin and death by the incorruptible blood of Jesus Chist (I Peter 1: 18-19 and I Peter 1: 23).
All authority in heaven and earth has been given to Jesus, and he Himself has given this same authority to us (Matthew 28: 18-20).
Jesus himself said that we would do greater things on earth then even he had done (John 14: 12).
We will do greater things because the same resurrection power that raised Jesus from the dead resides in us (Ephesians 3: 14-20)
We have the mind of Christ in us (I Corinthians 2:16).
Everything on earth is subject to Jesus and has been put under His (and our) feet (I Corinthians 15: 25-27).

So why do we give satan any place or recognition in our lives? He is a defeated foe; he has been de-fanged! All he can do is roar at us, and he can only devour us if we do not recognize that our life and identity are in Jesus Christ (I Peter 5: 8-9).

Pigs have more authority than satan.

2007-02-25T14:05:00.000-08:00

Trapeze

(Credit to Arthur Meintjes for this teaching)

When the circus train came to town it arrived with much fanfare and excitement. The elephants helped set up the large tents and the lions and tigers paced in their cages, waiting for the shows to begin. There were jugglers and clowns and fire-breathing acts.

But the greatest and most anticipated attraction was the trapeze artists. This particular troupe of trapeze artists was extraordinary; they performed stunts that were astounding and unimaginable - quadruple mid-air spins mixed in with twists and turns and multiple people flying through the air at one time.

They always practiced and performed with a safety net underneath them.

A reporter for the local newspaper was curious as to why they did all their performances with the net. His first question to the performers was, "Wouldn't it be far more thrilling for the audience to see these stunts without the benefit of a safety net? Aren't you cheating the audience by having a net under you to save you if you miss a catch and fall?"

Without hesitation the leader of the trapeze troupe answered, "We do not have the net below us to catch us if we fall. The net is our assurance, our confidence, our guarantee. It gives us the ability to work at our peak performance at all times, to perfect what we do. When we can work without worry we absolutely put on our best performance every practice and every show. And our artistic and athletic skill levels grow each time we climb up the pole to the swings. Without the net below us we would not be the best trapeze artists in the world".

God has given every born-again believer an incredible safety net. Because the New Covenant is between God and Jesus it can never be broken. Jesus made the peace with God for us, and we come under this Covenant through faith in Him and His completed work on the cross. This Covenant is our guarantee, our assurance, our promise, and our confidence. This is what God wants me to know about my life with Him:

*Right now I am a new creation, a new person, a new species (II Corinthians 5: 17)
*I have the life of God; Jesus' life (zoe life) is my life (John 10: 10)
*The same resurrection power that raised Jesus from the dead resides in me (Phil 3:10-12)
*I am the Father's beloved child (Romans 8: 15-16)
*I am heir to His entire Kingdom (Romans 8: 17)
*I am the righteousness of God (I have right-standing with God) in Christ Jesus (II Cor 5:21)
*All things are mine: the world, life, death, things present or things to come (I Cor 3: 21-22)
*All authority has been given to Jesus in Heaven and on Earth (Matthew 28: 17)
*As Christ is, so am I in this world (I John 4: 17)
*I will do greater things than Jesus did while He was on earth (John 14: 12)
*God wants me to approach Him with boldness and confidence (Ephesians 3:12)
*God will never leave me or forsake me (Hebrews 13: 5 and Matthew 28: 20)

The word "salvation" in the Greek is "soteria," which means "rescue, safety, deliverance, health, prosperity." My salvation is assured, it is guaranteed by the blood of Jesus Christ. Because of Christ I am inseparable from God, and God cannot distinguish the difference between me and Jesus!!

Because of God's safety net in my life I have the ability to live my life to the fullest (John 10:10). I do not have to worry about my place in God, or that He is looking at my performance to give me value or worth. I have the confidence to be exactly who God has created me to be, to use the gifts and talents He has given me, and the assurance that He will always be there for me.

(picture credit: NYTS New York Trapeze School - yes, this is a real school!!)

2007-02-12T08:25:00.000-08:00

Karen, Graham, and Don at
Wausau West Hockey Parent Night, January 25, 2007

2007-01-23T12:57:00.000-08:00

top photo: the Heart Nebula (Hubble telescope)
bottom photo: crabapple blossoms (kms)

"Indescribable"

(song written by Chris Tomlin)

From the highest of heights to the depths of the sea
Creation's revealing Your majesty
From the colors of fall to the fragrance of spring
Every creature unique in the song that it sings
All exclaiming...

Who has told every lightning bolt where it should go
Or seen heavenly storehouses laden with snow
Who imagined the sun and gives source to its light
Yet conceals it to bring us the coolness of night
None can fathom...

Indescribable, uncontainable,
You placed the stars in the sky and You know them by name!
You are amazing God!
All powerful, untameable,
Awestruck we fall to our knees as we humbly proclaim
You are amazing God!

2007-01-22T20:22:00.000-08:00

High School Hockey Season is in full swing! This is Graham, skating for the Wausau West Warriors. Currently we are in 3rd place in the Wisconsin Valley Conference, with 9 wins and 3 losses. But this week we made the "State Honorable Mention" list, and our power ranking is 10th in the state. The Valley Conference has two of the 'top-10' high school hockey teams in the state, so we have great competition (check out the state rankings at www.wisconsinprephockey.net).
Are you looking to find me? I'll be at the Marathon Park ice rink for games every Tuesday and Thursday night from now until the end of February!!
Go Warriors!!!!!

2006-12-30T19:39:00.000-08:00

This week we celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ, Lord and Savior,

"Who, being in very nature God,
did not consider equality with God something to be grasped,
but made himself nothing,
taking the very nature of a servant,
being made in human likeness.
And being found in appearance as a man,
He humbled Himself
and became obedient to death - even death on a cross!
Therefore God exalted Him to the highest place
and gave Him the Name that is above every name,
that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow
in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father."
(Philippians 2:6-11 NIV)

"The thief does not come except to steal,
and to kill, and to destroy.
I have come that they may have life,
and that they may have it more abundantly."
(John 10:10 NKJV)

"Behold, I make all things new"
(Revelation 21: 5 NKJV)

2006-12-21T18:37:00.000-08:00

This is what Christmas should look like in the middle of Wisconsin, but not this year. This picture of my deck was taken one year ago, on Christmas Day 2005.
Our December has been very warm, and today it rained all day. Gloomy. Foggy. Damp. No Sun. Hockey Game cancelled because streets may turn icy.
Hockey Booster Club Christmas Party also cancelled. My "white-elephant" gift will have to wait for another day to be traded for a different, equally spectacular white-elephant.
But it is a GREAT DAY because all my sons are home, so no matter what the weather is outside, I am happy inside.
Merry Christmas to all my friends.

2006-11-28T19:54:00.000-08:00

High School Hockey Season has officially started (Hoorah!!), and tonight Graham got his first Varsity Goal!!
Congratulations, Graham, and keep up the hard work!! Good things will come your way.

2006-07-07T14:21:00.000-07:00

Its been a looooooonnnnnnng time since my last post. Alot has happened, including Christian's high school graduation on June 6th. In September he'll be off to fry bigger fish in college. Godspeed, my son!!

2006-05-11T11:10:00.000-07:00

Yup, I'm a proud mom!! Happy Mother's Day to all my friends who are MOMS!!!

Christian

Graham

Jordan

2006-05-08T18:57:00.000-07:00

What does the face of God look like?
I'm not asking this to be facetious (meaning "humorous and flippant;" but a pretty good play on words, don't you think?). And I don't mean do you think of that picture that hung in all our Sunday School rooms of Jesus as a White Anglo-Saxon Protestant. You know the picture. He has long, blonde, wavy hair that is parted down the middle, an oval face, intense blue eyes, long aquiline nose, and his beard is perfectly groomed. Well, Popular Science Magazine did a cover story about 4 years ago about what Jesus probably looked like based on genetics and skeletons that archeologists have found of Jewish men from that region and same time. Sort of shattered in my mind what I thought He would look like. He probably would have been very short in stature, hirsute (polite word for "hairy"), with very dark curly hair and almost black eyes. The shape of his head would have been round, and His nose would have been kind of bulbous and pushed-in a bit. The picture they forensically created of Jesus was not of a good-looking man, and you know, the prophecy in Isaiah 53: 2 bears this out: "He hath no form nor comliness; and when we shall see Him there is no beauty that we should desire Him."

But I'm not really asking about what we think the actual physical appearance of God looks like. And I have a reason to pose this question: What does the face of God look like?.

My dad died on February 1 of this year. He was an angry, bitter, and unpleasant man for my entire life. After I got saved I tried to talk with him about God many times, but I could never crack the shell that he had built around himself. As he got older and sicker I was very worried that he would die not knowing Jesus. But an awesome thing happened for me that put my heart to rest about his salvation. In January 2005 I had a word of prophecy spoken over me that said God had heard the cry of my heart for my family. My entire family was roped-in by God; that there was only so far that my family members could go to avoid Him, but ultimately they would be saved in His time and for His glory. So I had the faith and the confident expectation ("hope") that he was not going to die before he got saved.

And something miraculous did happen that last week my dad was alive. My husband, my brother, and I drove to the state where my parents live, and during our final visit with him I asked him if he would accept that Jesus Christ died on the cross to pay his sin debt and so that he could have eternal life. (My brother was angrily kicking me under the chair because he was so mad).

My dad said an interesting thing. he said that he had always known about God and Jesus, and he did believe that Jesus was his Lord and Savior. BUT.....when his father (my grandfather, who I never knew) died in 1947 the parish priest refused to do a funeral service for him or bury him because he had owned a bar. The priest judged my grandfather as unworthy to receive the final Catholic sacraments because he owned a bar. I was asounded!!! My dad had never told this story to anyone! He had kept this one (admittedly horrible) incident in his heart for 59 years, allowing his hatred for one man to color and shape every part of his life! At that moment I told my dad about the God that I know and love, a God whose love for all men is so great, and His desire for a relationship with us is so overriding, that He made the way, through Jesus' sacrifice, for us to be together as a family. My mom's pastor saw him the next day, and it was then that my dad prayed and accepted Jesus into his life.

When the three of us drove home late that Saturday night I was sitting alone in the back seat of the car listening to the rain that was pounding on the roof. My husband and brother were sitting in the front seats talking, but I couldn't hear what they were saying, so I was sort of lost in my own little world. I asked God, "Why did my father spend all those years in hatred and bitterness? Why would he never even attempt to listen to me (or anyone else, for that matter) all the times I tried to talk with him about You"? And God said back to me, "BECAUSE TO YOUR DAD THE FACE OF GOD WAS SOME ANGRY OLD PRIEST WHO DID NOT LOVE ME, AND WHO DID NOT REPRESENT ME WELL ON THE EARTH."

Do we accept, as Christians, that we have the awesome privilege of representing God on earth? The dictionary defines "privilege" as "A special advantage, immunity, permission, right, or benefit granted to and to be enjoyed by an individual or class. Such a right or advantage held as a prerogative of status or rank".
We have the advantage, the right, and the rank to be God's ambassadors; his FACE on earth. Condoleeza Rice as the Secretary of State is the face of the United States to all other countries of the world. She represents who and what the United States is. How are you and I representing God in our little corners of the world? What is the face of God you are showing?

You know, I could blame that angry priest from 1947 for what he did to my father. But I am also at fault for being for many years judgemental and legalistic about God to my father. I judged him as unworthy of a relationship with me because of his anger toward me. Jesus purposely ate at the tables and traveled with people that His society deemed umworthy of love or recognition. He is not a respector of persons, and His love for all people is unconditional. And I believe that my dad is in heaven. Better late than never!!

So I ask again, "What does the face of God look like?"
Or better, "How are we representing the face of God on earth?"

2006-04-29T20:23:00.000-07:00

April 29, 2006

I'm going to take the plunge and dive into the blogosphere. I am encouraged by a friend's blog because he is putting out Big Ideas about God and our place in His world, and he is generating some thought-provoking discussions. Now, I don't pretend to have alot of new thoughts or ideas about who the God I believe in and love is because He has written it all in His Word. But I do know that my perception of who God is has been radically changed in the last 5 years, so much so that I want to try to record my journey of ongoing revelation and see if anyone else is interested in coming along with me on the ride.
To get this endeavor of mine jump-started, Here is a quote from the book "Searching For God Knows What," by Donald Miller (it's on pps 13-14):

"So if the difference between Christian faith and all other forms of spirituality is that Christian faith offers a relational dynamic with God, why are we cloaking this relational dynamic in formulas? ....And are the formulas getting us anywhere? Are modern forms of Christian spirituality producing better Christians than days long ago, when people didn't use formulas and understood, intrinsically, that God is a Being with a personality and a will of His own? .....I started reading the Bible very differently. I stopped looking for formulas and tried to understand what God was trying to say. When I did that, I realized the gospel of Jesus, I mean the essence of God's message to mankind, wasn't a bunch of hoops we needed to jump through to get saved, and it wasn't a series of ideas we had to agree with either; rather, it was an invitation, an invitation to know God."