September 21st, 2009 by Kristi Stephens

My mother trained me well – the purpose of a fireplace is to have a mantle to decorate seasonally.

I have followed her advice to the best of my ability. :) I am also blessed with a husband who enjoys decorating with me, and who happens to be quite creative and talented. Changing out the decorations is something we love to do together.

Of course decorating for Christmas begins with the mantle:

I love to pare it down for simple spring and summer decorations:

And now fall has arrived. I love fall. The crisp mornings, the warm afternoons, the colors, the falling leaves, visits to orchards and pumpkin farms, the anticipation of Thanksgiving… not to mention apple cider and pumpkin whoopie pies. Oh, yes.

This weekend we welcomed fall with some autumn decor, starting with the mantle as always. :)

More festive additions:

And, of course, the front door:

Welcome, fall – we wait for you all year long. Come and stay a while, won’t you?

What do you do to Feather Your Nest for the changing season? Hop on over to the Fall Festival at Hoosier Homemade for more inspiration!

September 20th, 2009 by Kristi Stephens

Image via Wikipedia

Did you know that “communion” or the Lord’s Supper has roots in Exodus? We miss so much of the necessity and beauty of Jesus’ ministry on our behalf because we do not know and appreciate the Old Testament. It’s exciting to learn, though, and I pray God continues to speak through His Word and deepen your walk with Him – during communion in your church and every day!

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Luke 22:20
Likewise He also took the cup after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in My blood, which is shed for you…” (NKJV)

Those words are probably familiar with anyone who has spent much time in churches where the Lord’s supper (communion) is celebrated. Sometimes, because we usually lack a solid understanding of the Old Testament (and the Old Covenant), we fail to really appreciate what Jesus was saying here. Let’s take a look.

In Exodus 19:5-6a, God makes a tremendous offer to Israel.  ‘Now therefore, if you will indeed obey My voice and keep My covenant, then you shall be a special treasure to Me above all people; for all the earth is Mine. And you shall be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.’ The people enthusiastically agree in verse 8: Then all the people answered together and said, “All that the Lord has spoken we will do.”

Much like a marriage, Israel is entering a unique covenant relationship with God. In fact, throughout Scripture God refers to Israel as a wife (usually an unfaithful one!) And like a marriage, this is a 2-sided covenant. Notice God’s stated condition: if you will indeed obey My voice and keep My covenant. Chapters 20-23 are a bit like a “preview” of the rest of the law before the covenant is officially ratified.

We will discuss more in future posts why the law was (and is) important. What we are going to focus on today is the three-part process of ratification, or official enactment, of the covenant in chapter 24. Please read this whole chapter on your own, as I will only be pulling out a few verses here.

**Part One: Blood**

Exodus 24:7-8 Then he took the Book of the Covenant and read in the hearing of the people. And they said, “All that the Lord has said we will do, and be obedient.” And Moses took the blood, sprinkled it on the people, and said, “This is the blood of the covenant which the Lord has made with you according to all these words.”

What is the deal with the blood??? In ancient times, if someone wanted to solemnly swear and oath and “cut covenant,” they would take some animals, cut them in two, and arrange them so that the two people who were forming a covenant would walk through the halves. Disgusting, but meaningful. The idea was: if I break my end of this agreement, may I be like these poor animals here. May this be like my blood.

[Check out Genesis 15 - that is exactly what God is doing with Abraham. Only... Abraham doesn't walk through! Only God does! His promises to Abraham were unconditional, because Abraham didn't have any conditions to fulfill in the covenant!!]

As Moses sprinkles the blood all over the people, this was a solemn thing. They understood what was happening: if I break my end of this 2-sided covenant, my blood is on my own head.

**Part Two: Meal**

Exodus 24:9-11 Then Moses went up, also Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel, and they saw the God of Israel. And there was under His feet as it were a paved work of sapphire stone, and it was like the very heavens in its clarity. But on the nobles of the children of Israel He did not lay His hand. So they saw God, and they ate and drank.

This is definitely one of those passages that seems like should tell us more! But, apparently this is all we need to know. As they ratify the covenant, the leadership of Israel goes up the mountain and literally has a meal with God.

**Part Three: Writing**

Exodus 24:12 Then the Lord said to Moses, “Come up to Me on the mountain and be there; and I will give you tablets of stone, and the law and commandments which I have written, that you may teach them.”

This is pretty self-explanatory – God writes out the covenant on tablets of stone and instructs Moses to teach the people.

Now… what does this have to do with communion?? I know I’ve never heard a communion message from Exodus!! :) Let’s go through the 3-part process of ratification for the new covenant.

**Part One: Blood**

Luke 22:20 Likewise He also took the cup after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in My blood, which is shed for you.

Remember the Old Covenant? The blood was sprinkled on them, symbolizing their blood! You break this covenant, your blood is on your own head! What’s different now? It’s not my blood! It was Jesus’ blood shed for me!

**Part Two: Meal**

Luke 22:14-15 When the hour had come, He sat down, and the twelve apostles with Him. Then He said to them, “With fervent desire I have desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer; for I say to you, I will no longer eat of it until it is fulfilled in the kingdom of God.”

Another meal… again symbolizing the fellowship within a new covenant relationship.

**Part Three: Writing**

Hebrews 8:10 “For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put My laws in their mind and write them on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people.”

The law isn’t on tablets anymore – it’s on our hearts and in our minds!

Thank you, Lord, for Jesus Christ! Thank you for promising Him way back in Genesis 3, and then faithfully revealing your plans, purposes, ways, and character throughout Scripture. Where would we be without His blood shed on our behalf? Our blood would be on our own heads, for we can never be holy as you are.

I Corinthians 6:9,11
Don’t you know that those who do wrong will have no share in the Kingdom of God? … but now your sins have been washed away, and you have been set apart for God. You have been made right with God because of what the Lord Jesus Christ and the Spirit of our God have done for you. (NLT)

September 17th, 2009 by Kristi Stephens

If you haven’t picked up on it, I tend to be a rather intense person. Sometimes I wish I could just stop thinking so much about e.v.e.r.y.t.h.i.n.g. One cannot take life seriously all the time. And so, I do love me some stupid humor.

Come laugh with me. :)

This SNL sketch makes me laugh just thinking about it!

Tim Hawkins cracks me up:

…and if only I could find a clip of 30 Rock with Dr. Spaceman talking about diabetes…

Laughter is good medicine! :) What do you love to laugh with?

September 16th, 2009 by Kristi Stephens

On Tuesday I posted God’s Big Story, which is something that has been rolling around in my head for years and finally has been making its way onto paper the last couple of weeks. I was thinking about writing this explanation post and then an old friend from college just called to say that she was thinking about giving The Big Story to a friend of hers, and we were talking about why I wrote it, etc. I think it would probably be appropriate for me to fill you in, also! :)

I have pondered for years the way we as believers typically share the Gospel with someone. If you were trained to share your faith in the past, you probably were encouraged to write out your testimony and then share the problem of sin and the solution of salvation through Christ. Sometimes we hand out tracts that summarize the Gospel into a few short bullet points.

The problem is, as time goes on our society is becoming more and more biblically illiterate. Add to that the postmodern bent to people’s thinking (who are you to say that I “sin”? Who defines what “sin” is and who “God” is? My truth is different than yours! I agree that Jesus was a good man but I think you’re being judgmental to say that He is the “only way”), and we are increasingly speaking different languages.

This was cemented in my mind and heart a few weeks ago when I was speaking with a friend who leads classes at our local Pregnancy Support Center. She had a particularly interested and spiritually curious group who had asked a lot of questions. She mentioned something about Adam and Eve at one point in their discussion, and then realized that many of them had never heard of Adam and Eve! How do you explain the Gospel to people with absolutely no Biblical foundation?

To answer this question, it is helpful to go to the book of Acts. The early church was sharing the Gospel both with Jews who had all the background and needed to connect the dots and see that Jesus was the promised Messiah they had been waiting for, and with Gentiles who had no understanding of the True God whatsoever.

Acts 17 is a fascinating study of evangelism. When Paul arrives in Thessalonica, he goes to the synagogue – “on three Sabbath days he reasoned with them from the Scriptures, explaining and proving that the Christ had to suffer and rise from the dead. ‘This Jesus I am proclaiming to you is the Christ,’ he said.” (17:2-3) His audience understood his language – the Jews had been expecting The Christ, the promised Seed. What they needed to understand was that Jesus was the Christ! So, he started right at what they needed to understand.

Later in Acts 17, Paul is in Athens and engages the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers in conversation. “Some of them asked, ‘What is this babbler trying to say?’ Others remarked, ‘He seems to be advocating foreign gods.’ They said this because Paul was preaching the good news about Jesus and the resurrection. Then they took him and brought him to a meeting of the Areopagus, where they said to him, ‘May we know what this new teaching is that you are presenting? You are bringing some strange ideas to our ears, and we want to know what they mean.’” (17:18-20)

They didn’t get it. It was “strange” to their ears, it sounded like babbling – it was as though they were speaking another language. So, when Paul spoke in the Areopagus, guess where he started? Not with Jesus, but with creation – “The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth…” (17:24) He built a basis for understanding so that they could see who Jesus was and why it mattered.

We are surrounded by many people who not only don’t believe in Jesus, they might not even have heard of Adam and Eve, the fall, depravity, and the One True God who desires to have a relationship with them. When we walk by them with our Christian slogans on our t-shirts, or hand them a “four spiritual laws” tract, or tell them at Christmas, “Jesus is the reason for the season”… it sounds like you’re speaking a foreign language. Tell them they are sinners, that Jesus is the only True Way, and they are confused or angry – it doesn’t make any sense in their mental framework!

I have found that it is very hard to find resources that explain the whole story of Scripture – either for “unreached Americans” who haven’t been taught anything about Scripture, or for new believers who find it confusing to crack open the Bible for the first time and don’t know where to start or what in the world it means.

This is why I wrote out God’s Big Story – to give people some mental “pegs” to hang Truths on in further conversation. After explaining the whole story, creation, the fall, sin, Israel and the law, Jesus … it all makes so much more sense! It is my prayer that it will open doors for further discussion, further questions, further openness to the Truth.

Please feel free to download the PDF of The Big Story. Feel free to use it on your blog or church website. Grab the Big Story button on the right hand side – it will link readers back to the God’s Big Story post here on Run the Earth, Watch the Sky. Read it and use it in discussion with your unsaved friends.

Whatever you do, I pray that this will give you some ideas on ways to share and explain His Truth. We’re not in the synagogue anymore, folks – we’re in Athens. We’re surrounded by people who think we are babbling in a different language. Let’s stop babbling to ourselves and start helping it to make sense to the unreached around us every day.