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God bless America?

July 4th, 2010 by Kristi Stephens

A Fourth of July fireworks display at the Wash...
Image via Wikipedia

This was originally posted on July 4, 2009.

In our Bible study we’ve been working through the book of Malachi using Kathy Howard’s Before His Throne. A couple of weeks ago she pointed out something that really struck me from Malachi 1:6-9.

“A son honors his father, and a servant his master. If I am a father, where is the honor due me? If I am a master, where is the respect due me?” says the LORD Almighty. “It is you, O priests, who show contempt for my name.

“But you ask, ‘How have we shown contempt for your name?’
“You place defiled food on my altar.
“But you ask, ‘How have we defiled you?’
“By saying that the LORD’s table is contemptible. When you bring blind animals for sacrifice, is that not wrong? When you sacrifice crippled or diseased animals, is that not wrong? Try offering them to your governor! Would he be pleased with you? Would he accept you?” says the LORD Almighty.

“Now implore God to be gracious to us. With such offerings from your hands, will he accept you?“-says the LORD Almighty.

The priests in Malachi’s day were approaching a holy God with attitudes of contempt, offering defiled sacrifices and then asking, with great audacity, for God to bless them and be gracious to them. Kathy Howard pointed out the modern day version of this scenario in our own country.

Especially at this time of year, the rallying cry of the country seems to be “God bless America!” We post this slogan on billboards and sing it out with emotion and emblazon it on our t-shirts. Thinking about the general attitude toward God in our country, and the severe lack of true fear of God even within most of our churches… how dare we stand before the throne of a holy God, with hands open and ready to receive, asking Him to bless us?

In contrast to this very self-serving prayer, we would do well to consider the prayer of Nehemiah before seeking Artaxerxes’ favor to rebuilt the wall in Jerusalem:

They said to me, “Those who survived the exile and are back in the province are in great trouble and disgrace. The wall of Jerusalem is broken down, and its gates have been burned with fire.”
When I heard these things, I sat down and wept. For some days I mourned and fasted and prayed before the God of heaven.

Then I said:
“O LORD, God of heaven, the great and awesome God, who keeps his covenant of love with those who love him and obey his commands, let your ear be attentive and your eyes open to hear the prayer your servant is praying before you day and night for your servants, the people of Israel. I confess the sins we Israelites, including myself and my father’s house, have committed against you. We have acted very wickedly toward you. We have not obeyed the commands, decrees and laws you gave your servant Moses.

Nehemiah 1:3-7

Today as we celebrate Independence Day, I am deeply grateful for the freedoms that we have in our nation. We do not take lightly the sacrifices that have been made that enable us to worship God openly, speak freely, live securely, and enjoy a level of prosperity unknown to the vast majority of people in this world.

However, if we truly love our country and the people in it, we as believers must wrestle with the fact that our prayers should resemble more the mournful cry of Nehemiah than the hypocritical and audacious prayers of the wicked priests in Malachi’s time. Before we can cry out “God bless America!,” shouldn’t we be praying with a heavy heart, “We have acted very wickedly against you! We have not obeyed the commands, decrees, and laws you gave… Have mercy on us, O God!”

We have a great national heritage. Many of those who have gone before us have sought to honor our holy God. God did bless America, and we are profoundly grateful. May the Church take seriously the need for repentance before we can utter a request for God’s continued blessings.

The God our nation claims to be under is holy. Tremble before Him, America. May He have mercy on us, for we are a wicked and rebellious people.

Celebrations

April 5th, 2010 by Kristi Stephens

We are still at my parent’s home as I write this – I thought I would give you a glimpse into the glorious weekend the Lord gave us to celebrate the gift of redemption and life He gave us!

We checked out the butterflies at beautiful botanic garden near my parents’ house…

It was a beautiful day full of family time!

And we’ve had some good mom/daughter/sister bonding!

I asked my dad to take some pictures of me to refresh the ones on my blog, which also meant I got some like this:

We had our second annual family seder, and this year it was much more “official!”

So official, in fact, that Elijah himself came to our seder to explain it to us:

And as I write this post, I realized we forgot to take any pictures on Sunday!  :)  The cousins have had a fantastic time playing together, we pulled out the old slides and projector last night, and have laughed until our sides hurt!  A few tears here and there… but good tears.

I hope you had a wonderful and blessed weekend celebrating the resurrection of our Savior.  He is risen, He is risen indeed!

My Rabboni

April 4th, 2010 by Kristi Stephens

This is a repost from April, 2009.  May you have a blessed day celebrating the hope of the resurrection!

I mentioned before that one of my most favorite Easter stories is Mary Magdalene’s encounter with the risen Jesus in the garden. Just thinking about this story starts making me teary.

We know from the gospel accounts that Mary Magdalene had quite a past. We don’t know details, but at one point Jesus drove seven demons out of this woman (Luke 8:2). That alone tells me that she is a deeply devoted follower of Christ! How can your life be transformed that radically and you not be completely committed to Your Savior? Add to that the fact that she was part of a group of women who followed Jesus, caring for his needs (Matthew 27:55-56) – this is a deeply personal connection. She has probably done their laundry in the river and worked on those stubborn stains, she has cooked their meals, she has voluntarily served and been available and witnessed the day to day activities of this God-man called Jesus.

No one knew her like Jesus. He had seen her at her very worst. I’m sure she wrestled with knowing the evil that was in her past, and yet when He looked at her, she saw no condemnation, no mockery, no insinuations of her guilt. She saw forgiveness. She saw love that she had never experienced before.

She knew Jesus in a way few people ever would. She knew Him well as the Son of God, healing the sickness of her soul. She heard Him teach with power and authority even as He compassionately touched the crippled and set aside “important” things to hold little children and laugh as they babbled to Him about the silly nonsense in their heads. She knew His favorite foods, the intonations of His voice, His mannerisms and facial expressions.

And suddenly, she found herself witnessing His torturous death along with the other grief-stricken women who had followed Him. (Matthew 27:55-56) I cannot even imagine the depth of their agony. Were they silent? Were they angry to see what was happening? Who was the first who could even utter a word? I sometimes wonder if I could have even stayed. How awful must that have been? Even in our deepest anguish, can we match the depth of pain of watching the One they knew was the Christ be murdered before their eyes?

We know that they stayed, for Mary Magdalene and “the other Mary” were present when Joseph of Arimathea laid Jesus’ broken body in the tomb and sealed the entrance with the stone. (Matthew 27:59-61) What was it like to walk back home? To think that the One you believed would change the world, the One who you thought was the Promised Messiah who would make everything right again, was lying dead in a tomb never to live again? I imagine there were no sounds but the soft thuds of their footsteps on the dirt path as they walked back to where they were staying. Surely the question in their minds was “What now?”

We don’t know what happened on the Sabbath. I wonder if they were in hiding out of fear of the Jews, as we find the disciples doing after the resurrection. First thing on Sunday, though, we find the women walking to the tomb, intending to anoint Jesus’ body with spices. (Mark 16:1-3) An act of love, but they must have been dreading the task. They expected to find His dead body, grieve and mourn and honor Him the best they could, and go back – to what?

In her wildest imagination Mary could not have anticipated the experience that awaited her.

Then the disciples went back to their homes, but Mary stood outside the tomb crying. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb and saw two angels in white, seated where Jesus’ body had been, one at the head and the other at the foot.
They asked her, “Woman, why are you crying?”
“They have taken my Lord away,” she said, “and I don’t know where they have put him.” At this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not realize that it was Jesus.
“Woman,” he said, “why are you crying? Who is it you are looking for?”
Thinking he was the gardener, she said, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have put him, and I will get him.”
Jesus said to her, “Mary.”
She turned toward him and cried out in Aramaic, “Rabboni!” (which means Teacher).

John 20:10-16

Today I am thinking about my Rabboni. The One who knows the depth of my sin and chose me for His own. The One who washed away my guilt and sees me through eyes of love. I long to know my Jesus as Mary did – not just to study Him as an academic exercise of mind, but in the depth and core of my being to know Him.

As we think about His death and agony on the cross, praise the Lord that we know the end of the story! He is risen! He is risen indeed!

And one day (hopefully soon!), we will see Him face to face.

One day I will hear Him say my name.

Oh what a day, wonderful day, that will be!

Image from wikipedia.org

So, who am I?

April 3rd, 2010 by Kristi Stephens

Last night we watched my sister and brother-in-law take part in their church’s excellent Easter drama.  The performance was deeply moving, and I found myself looking at each character… wondering who I was in the story.

At any given point in my life, I can be some kind of combination of all the characters in the Biblical account of Christ’s life and passion.

  • The Pharisees, who loved their ability to keep the law more than they loved the One who fulfilled it.
  • The adulteress, deeply aware of her own sin, shamed before the community, and desperate for Christ’s forgiveness and restoration.
  • The children, who ran to Him full of faith and excitement, nothing holding them back from seeking and responding to this God-man Jesus.
  • The disciples, who loved Him and believed Him, but also faltered in their faith as they tried to understand God’s plan that was much bigger than they could have dreamed.
  • The crowd, who joyously waved palm branches and welcomed Him but didn’t understand the price He would pay and the cost of following Him.
  • Barabbas, who deserved to die and yet was given freedom when the Sinless One took his place.
  • Judas, who appeared to be a follower and yet sold His Savior for a bag of silver.

I find myself wondering… who am I?

I don’t know.  I don’t know who I am in this story.  And the thing is, even when I start out well and follow Him with the greatest enthusiasm and purest motives… I falter.  My sin trips me up.

Am I a soldier, mercilessly beating my Lord?  Am I a Pharisee, blinded by self?

Who am I?  Will I ever really know?

My motives are never completely pure.  My heart is bent toward sin.  My will and perception tainted by the fall and my own sinful choices.  What I desire to do I do not do, and what I do not want to do I do…

But I know who He is.

I know who My Redeemer is.

He is the Christ, the Son of the Living God.

He has the words of eternal life – to whom else would I go?

He is who He said He is.  I believe Him.

So even when my own self shifts, my motives falter… this one thing I cling to.

I know who He is.

And ultimately, that’s all I need to know.  That’s all I need to cling to.  He defines me.

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