Day 3....RUINED!

"Woe to me!" I cried. "I am ruined! For I am a

 man of unclean lips, and I live among

a people of unclean lips, and my eyes

have seen the King, the LORD Almighty." Isaiah 6:5

I am going to start my post with, wow! God meant for me to read this today. Right here in this moment. I pray that my post does not step on anyones toes and that it is not read harshly. Because I will be honest. God put me through the ringer on this one.

Mr. Nasser said it perfectly, "We are incredibly self-absorbed people." All we seem to think about is our appearances, what we want, how to get what we want, when will we get what we deserve. As Mr Nasser puts it self-absorbness leads to two things cockiness and shame. If we feel like we are doing a good job, we somehow get a complex like we are above other people. If we feel like we aren't measuring up, we feel like complete failures.

In my devotion, Mr Nasser made the perfect point that as Christians, we normally focus our self-absorption on "my growth" or "my progress".  We talk about wanting to be like Jesus and instead of loving Jesus we spend all of our time comparing ourselves to others.

I love the book of Isaiah, I don't know if Ive ever shared that fact about myself. But I really do. In fact the opening verse in this devotion is one of my favorites. Because it was read to me right before I gave my own life over to Christ. See, Isaiah was a prophet. He went around telling people to stop living in sin and how if they didn't repent from their wicked ways, they would spend eternity separated from God. Then one day, God revealed himself in a vision to Isaiah.

1In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord seated on a throne, high and exalted, and the train of his robe filled the temple. 2Above him were seraphs, each with six wings: With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they were flying. 3And they were calling to one another:

“Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty;

the whole earth is full of his glory.”

4At the sound of their voices the doorposts and thresholds shook and the temple was filled with smoke.

5“Woe to me!” I cried. “I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty.” -Isaiah 6:1-5

The angels in this passage had six wings, two that covered their eyes. Because God is so Holy that the light blinds even them! And they repeat over and over "Holy, holy holy!" In front of God, His holiness swamps our petty selfishness and shatters our pride. In front of Him we are broken, helpless and hopeless-unless God himself touches us.

I wonder if my preacher will read this, because I chuckled to myself when I read the next paragraph. Mr. Nasser then talked about how we have dumbed down Jesus to our level and how we tend to treat him like a buddy, "or we call the Father 'the man upstairs". The phrase "the man upstairs" fires my preacher up! LOL! I never thought about it, until he spoke about it in a sermon one Sunday morning (Yes, Brother Mike, I was listening). To me, it wasn't a big deal, until Brother Mike made the point that when we speak of God, the Alpha, the Omega, the Creator, of complete Holiness, it is a BIG deal to dumb him down with such a cliche name. To quote Mr Nasser "Yes, Jesus calls us friends, but be sure of this: Jesus stoops from the blinding majesty of his heavenly throne in order to stand next to us and call us friends. He didn't come from the next street over. He created the entire Universe!"

When Isaiah saw God, he cried out "woe is me!" Mr Nasser made the point that Isaiah had said this phrase many times before, but never about himself. But in the presence of God, all the sudden, Isaiah realized how unclean he was and what trouble he was in. He was ruined.

See, it's like the potter and the clay, we ask God to break us and mold us again. God wants to ruin our already dead lives in order to resurrect in us real life. Again, Jesus brought us "Good news" not "Fun news", but you can't realize how good the news really is until you realize how bad off you are. And when facing God with how bad you are, there will be change, I'm not talking a little bit, I'm talking about your life being dumped upside down. As Mr Nasser put it, "Our lives will then be driven by conviction, not just convenience."

But visions don't just happen. We can prepare our hearts and position ourselves to hear what God has to say, but ultimately only God can initiate a vision. Most visions, come in a time of desperation. Isaiah's vision came in the year that King Uzziah died. A time when the country was in turmoil. God saw an opening in Isaiah's insecurity and was able to break through. Stability produces passivity, upheaval breaks us, and opens us up.

Isaiah screamed "I am ruined!" There he stood before GOD! Imagine what you would have yelled. Realizing all your impurities and having nowhere to run and hide, no way to fix it. But then God touched him.

6Then one of the seraphs flew to me with a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with tongs from the altar. 7With it he touched my mouth and said, “See, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for.”

-Isaiah 6:6-7

So what was Isaiah's response to this?



8Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom

shall I send? And who will go for us?”

And I said, “Here am I. Send me!”

9He said, “Go and tell this people:

ACTION! Isaiah took action.  As a christian, you are going to be one of three types of people when it comes to witnessing God's holiness.

1. Your going to be the person who can walk away unchanged
2. your going to be the person who it affects some
3. your going to be the person who will never be the same from it

So the question today is, what person will you be?

day 2...Hard words

"ON HEARING IT, MANY OF HIS DISCIPLES SAID, 'THIS IS A HARD TEACHING. WHO CAN ACCEPT IT?' FROM THIS TIME MANY OF HIS DISCIPLES TURNED BACK AND NO LONGER FOLLOWED HIM"

-JOHN 6:60,66

So how would you describe Jesus? How about a 'rock star'? That's how Mr. Nasser describes Him in the middle of his ministry. Did you know that when he fed the fish and loaf to the thousands that we are not talking about around 2 or 4. We are talking anywhere from 15 to 20 thousand people! Thats a big following considering the time! But if you think about it, everywhere he went the blind were seeing, lame were leaping to their feet, people of their deathbed were walking around like nothing ever happened! Of course people were amazed, wouldn't you be? But then His teachings got harder, like when he claimed to be the son of God. It was too bold a statement for some. Healing people was cool and all, but claiming diety?

Jesus said to them, "I tell you the truth, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. -John 6:53

That's when the thousands dwindled. He looked to the disciples and asked them, "don't you want to leave too?" Imagine standing in their shoes, how easy is it to support someone when everyone agrees? In our day, Jesus in mid-minstry being the rock star, would be on the wheaties cereal box! Or as Mr Nasser put it, have a Nike sponsor-ship at least! But suddenly, instead of being a roadie for KISS, your suddenly looked at like a follower of a crazy person. But it was my favorite disciple, Peter who spoke first, saying this "Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. We believe and know that you are the Holy One of God." And then there were 12.

Mr. Nasser makes an excellent point in the fact that Jesus didn't come bringing "fun news" but brought "good news" instead. If we expect to be entertained by the news, we will leave the minute God asks anything of us. Jesus' goal in  coming wasn't to entertain us but to bring Glory and Honor to the Father. So hard words are apart of the faith. Mr Nasser put it this way, "if you don't hear any hard words from God, it's a good sign that you aren't his child at all."

"My son, do not make light of the Lord’s discipline,

and do not lose heart when he rebukes you,

because the Lord disciplines those he loves,

and he punishes everyone he accepts as a son"

Hebrews 12:5-6



It's like the young man that came to Jesus. He was very wealthy and asked Jesus how to obtain eternal life. Jesus first told him that he must ovey all the 10 commandments, the young man knew all the commandments and said he had kept them. He then looked to Jesus looking for more. So Jesus told him to sell all his possesions and give all his wealth away to the poor. The bible states that it was then that the young man walked away very sad because he had a lot of wealth. Mr. Nasser made the point that a lot of ministers will use this to try and convince you to open your wallet, but really, the point Jesus was trying to get across was, are you willing to give it all? Or do you have idols in your life?

God will shine light on your idols in His own time, yes yours! Mine, yours, everyones! We all have idols, whether you want to admit it or not. It could be that you love your spouse more than him. You could put your job before His purposes. You could love hanging out with freinds more than spending time with Him. God wants you to be the child He intened. As Mr Nasser put it, "you joined the team are you really not going to listen to the best coach in the world?"

I know this post has been long, but if you've made it this far, I want to finish it with a quote from Mr Nasser, again I feel like I have been hit with a ton of bricks.

"Our "etertain me" culture has made us spiritually soft and emotionall mushy. We expect hings to happen simply by pusshing a button or clicking a mouse. Repenting of spiritual idolatry is hard, brutal work, and this culture has not prepared us for it. Still it is essential if we intend to walk with God. When God shows you that something besides him is occupying the center of your life, don't expect it to just melt away. It won't. Don't expect it to step down graciously. It won't. Don't expect it to come out without a fight. It won't." -David Nasser

day 1...taking up your cross

"THEN JESUS SAID TO HIS DISCIPLES, 'IF ANYONE

WOULD COME AFTER ME, HE MUST DENY HIMSELF

AND TAKE UP HIS CROSS AND FOLLOW ME.'"

-MATTHEW 16:24

So day 1 is all about taking up the cross and what that means. Have to say, Mr Nasser gave some history on the cross that even I did not know. For instance, did you know that as you walked from town to town, that they actually had men hanging on crosses outside as you entered the towns. Add that intimidation to the knowledge of how they hung you there and you slowly suffocated and the fact that it was a symbol of execution. I can only imagine the faces of the disciples as Jesus spoke those words to them. The cross is supposedly one of the most violent execution tools in history. So in modern day terms, you could kind of consider it like someone looking at you and saying, "Hey if you really love me, you would go jump in that electric chair". So imagine the looks Jesus got from that statement. But Mr Nasser made an excellent point in the fact that taking up your cross, meant total obedience to God. Completely denying yourself, to bring honor and glory to Him. But first you have to deny yourself.......

This is where the not so fun part comes in, you have to first deny your wants for God's. I know, as a christian, I should not word that as the "not so fun part". But come on, I'm trying to be honest and any honest christian will tell you that walking in the truth is not easy by any means and is definitely not without its troubles. So how do we deny ourselves?

1. deny yourself gossiping
2. deny yourself that show, that has horrible, unGodly values in it
3. deny your wants and serve someone else

and so on and so forth.....

I could rattle off a hundred specifics, but honestly its really about denying our human selfish ways and longing for God's ways. I'm not going to in anyway pretend that this is an easy task, after all as you read from yesterday's post, I tried this devotion once before and quit only a few days into it. But I feel like God doesn't need big important people to get things done. What He really wants is for a heart to say, "God, our way is not working, we need You! Here I am, send me!"

I do want to quote Mr Nasser on one thing he said, because it struck me like a ton of bricks and I couldn't say it better myself. "What is Jesus' call in this passage of scripture? It is a call to die, a call to let your selfishness starve to death because you don't feed it. If it won't starve, we have to grab our selfishness by the throat and strangle it. once again, remember we are talking spiritual, not physical issues. Because Satan is not gentle in dealing with us, we cannot be gentle in dealing with sin."

A call to die

I'm starting a new devotional book, well..., it's not new, it's actually one that Justin and I picked up about a year ago. I naively picked it up thinking this would be an "easy" devotional for Justin and I to do together.... *Insert wrong buzzer sound here*! I should have been tipped off by the title, "a call to die", got to give a round of applause to David Nasser, He knows how to put us Christians on the spot for sure. But, I think it's only healthy spiritually to be challenged to grow, otherwise we just sit stagnant in the water and we all know that is not the grand plan that God has for us. We were created for so much more! So here goes! I accept your challenge Mr Nasser! I am going to indulge into your 40 day journey. I only made it a few days when I first tried it and to be honest, my heart was not in the right place, but I'm hungry to be challenged. I am longing for something more right here and now. So God I hand this experience over to you. I want you to renew me. I pray for strength, perseverance, and humbleness as I go on this journey. Finally Father, I pray to come back changed.

Day 1 starts tomorrow.....

Love thy enemy...

I probably don't have to ask....we all have enemies. You can deny it, but you do, everyone does. No I'm not saying there is some evil scientist out to get you for your super powers! But we have all been offended or hurt at some time. I find it intriguing that we are suppose to love our enemies according to the Bible. Sure, it's easy to love family, it's even easy to love friends and people that are always there to support you. But what about these people who tear us down? But as I've said I don't know how many times before, God set us apart for greater purposes. We are called out by the creator to love those who have not only offended us, but even those who have spit on the face of Christ. We are called to love those who rebuke Him, because he loves them.

“A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” John 13:34-35

I've heard my entire life to love thy enemies, but I don't believe that in my lifetime I've ever seen it. That all changed this month. I'm not going to pretend to know all about what's going on in Egypt, I'm not big into the news or current events. I know, I know....say what you want. I find as a mom of three with a hectic schedule, that I miss a lot of things. I'm convinced that God will catch me up one day. But I took an interest in this particular story from Egypt, because I found myself sitting in tears as I watched. All I could think was, "...what love..."

While the protest were going on in the square in Egypt the Muslims gathered to pray. Regime guards and rioters began to attack the Muslims, throwing stones. When all the sudden, Christians linked arms and jumped in the way of harm to protect the Muslims! They held off the rioters and protected people that renounce Jesus.... What is there to say except....what love! Father I pray that you fill me with that love everyday! That I would be willing not only to lay my life down for a stranger, but for a stranger that doesn't know You! I have to think that when Jesus said, people will know you are My disciples if you love one another, that he saw faces such as these. So this post is in honor of my brothers and sisters all around the world, who are standing in God's name! Keep changing the world!



God of Miracles

restore health unto thee,

For I will

and I will heal thee of thy wounds,

saith the LORD; because they

called thee an Outcast,

Jeremiah 30:17

Father, You are so truly amazing. I don't glorify you enough for what you have done. Last year when I was sick and in the hospital, the doctors were looking for cancer. I watched my family suffer as we waited, I prayed and dwelled with you for a month. When the results came, the doctors couldn't explain it, they called it a fluke, I call it Your hand. Then we lost everything, it seemed like a firestorm, but your have opened new doors in your time, such as allowing me to go back to school. Over the past year, You have brought people I love back to me. You've restored relationships in my family that were thought to be forever lost. You brought my brother home safely from deployment. Father, You promised that we would never walk this rocky road alone, and I could point out over 100 times that you have saved me just this year alone. Father you never leave me, never forsake me, and You are the first on the front line to defend me in times of trouble. So to You be the glory! To You be the praise! I am awe-stricken by how even in my weakest moments, You shine through!

new thing; now it

Behold, I will do a

shall spring forth; shall ye not know it? I

will even make a way in the wilderness,

and rivers in the desert.

Isaiah 43:18-20



For I am weak...

2 Corinthians

⁹ But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. ¹⁰ That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

God you have brought changes my way. Today was my first day at my new job. Though not an easy job, you have provided me a wonderful opportunity. On my way home tonight, I was listening to some country music in my car and a song came on that said, "even on my weakest days, I grow stronger." I couldn't help but be reminded of this verse. You said that you power is made PERFECT in my weakness. I'm strong in hard moments not because of my strength but Yours. By me not feeling such control, gives You a chance to take total control. And somehow, Father, as tired as I am, as weary as I am, I'm not discouraged. I honestly believe that this peace is Yours and I'm clinging to it. So Father, I'm claiming my weakness today and praying that in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, and in difficulties, that Your power is perfected and that You shine through it all. Thank you for Your presence today.