My Name Is Written On The Palms Of His Hands

there is a powerful verse in Isaiah, in the Old Testament that says:

Isaiah 49:16  Behold, I have carved you

on the palms of My hands;

When you read that in the context of this picture….

it makes you catch your breath… or it does me…

if you’ve read more of my blog before you’ll knwo that i totally believe that God is personal.  not indifferent or far away, but close and near and here and right with us and for us and his love is everlasting.    the Isaiah 49 verse goes on, after saying our names are written on teh palm of his hands, to say that we are continually and always before him.  always and continaully.  all the time.  forever.  now.  5 minutes ago.  in 3 days.  when we are awake and asleep.  all the time.

and he loves us.  he loves us.  he loves us.

the verse right before the one i have shared above (Isaiah 49:16) reads like this:

Isaiah 49:15  Can a woman forget her suckling child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? Yes, they may forget, yet I will not forget you.

as hard as it is to imagine forgetting ones child it CAN happen.  people neglect their children, they abandon them, they give them up, the reject them.  but as a mother of 2 lovely children they are always in my heart and thoughts nad i carry a photo of them with me always.  when they are at school and kindy i relish my time alone, but part of me misses them.  i cannot forget them.  i cannot help but love them and have compassion for them.   but some mothers do.  that is their life and this is not to judge or condemn.  it is to contrast that God is not like that.

His love is everlasting.  his love is constant.  when all else fail and fade, he is there.  he is secure.  always.   his love and mercy are forever.

Wash Me

Have mercy upon me, O God,
         According to Your lovingkindness;
         According to the multitude of Your tender mercies,
         Blot out my transgressions.
Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity,
         And cleanse me from my sin. 
For I acknowledge my transgressions,
         And my sin is always before me.
Against You, You only, have I sinned,
         And done this evil in Your sight—
         That You may be found just when You speak,
And blameless when You judge.

Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean;
         Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.
Make me hear joy and gladness,
That the bones You have broken may rejoice.
Hide Your face from my sins,
         And blot out all my iniquities.

Create in me a clean heart, O God,
         And renew a steadfast spirit within me.
Do not cast me away from Your presence,
         And do not take Your Holy Spirit from me. 
Restore to me the joy of Your salvation,
         And uphold me by Your generous Spirit.
Then I will teach transgressors Your ways,
         And sinners shall be converted to You. 
Deliver me from the guilt of bloodshed, O God,
         The God of my salvation,
And my tongue shall sing aloud of Your righteousness.
O Lord, open my lips,
         And my mouth shall show forth Your praise.
For You do not desire sacrifice, or else I would give it;
         You do not delight in burnt offering.
The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit,
         A broken and a contrite heart—
         These, O God, You will not despise.

Psalm 51

 

Create in ME a clean heart, Lord.  Continue to transform me and change me to be more like you, more loving, more gracious, more holy, more wise.  Wash me.  Help me to have a soft heart towards people, to see the best, to hope the best, to speak with kindness.   Renew to me the joy of loving people and seeing them follow you.  Heal where I hurt Lord and let me not live out of that place, but hidden in You, satisfied in You, strengthened in You.  I yield my heart, my life, my mouth, my thoughts – all to You. 

A Revelation of God’s Love

 ³⁶ Then one of the Pharisees asked Him to eat with him. And He went to the Pharisee’s house, and sat down to eat. ³⁷ And behold, a woman in the city who was a sinner, when she knew that Jesus sat at the table in the Pharisee’s house, brought an alabaster flask of fragrant oil, ³⁸ and stood at His feet behind Him weeping; and she began to wash His feet with her tears, and wiped them with the hair of her head; and she kissed His feet and anointed them with the fragrant oil. ³⁹ Now when the Pharisee who had invited Him saw this, he spoke to himself, saying, “This Man, if He were a prophet, would know who and what manner of woman this is who is touching Him, for she is a sinner.”
⁴⁰ And Jesus answered and said to him, “Simon, I have something to say to you.”
So he said, “Teacher, say it.”
⁴¹ “There was a certain creditor who had two debtors. One owed five hundred denarii, and the other fifty. ⁴² And when they had nothing with which to repay, he freely forgave them both. Tell Me, therefore, which of them will love him more?”
⁴³ Simon answered and said, “I suppose the one whom he forgave more.”
And He said to him, “You have rightly judged.” ⁴⁴ Then He turned to the woman and said to Simon, “Do you see this woman? I entered your house; you gave Me no water for My feet, but she has washed My feet with her tears and wiped them with the hair of her head. ⁴⁵ You gave Me no kiss, but this woman has not ceased to kiss My feet since the time I came in. ⁴⁶ You did not anoint My head with oil, but this woman has anointed My feet with fragrant oil. ⁴⁷ Therefore I say to you, her sins, which are many, are forgiven, for she loved much. But to whom little is forgiven, the same loves little.”
⁴⁸ Then He said to her, “Your sins are forgiven.”
⁴⁹ And those who sat at the table with Him began to say to themselves, “Who is this who even forgives sins?”
⁵⁰ Then He said to the woman, “Your faith has saved you. Go in peace.”

Luke 7:36-50

 

Lets just get into this passage:

I love this passage for the unsaid things – what did this woman know about Jesus – had she encountered Him before – had he prayed for her, healed her, delivered her? What motivated her to spend a whole years wages on expensive rare oil and break it over jesus and extravagantly and demonstratively and so publicly show her affection and thanks to Him.

Did she ever consider that he would turn her away?

Look down on her with distain?

Reject her?

Tell her what a waste of money it was?

Like the religious leaders did, like even Judas, a disciple of Jesus did….

I think this woman had a revelation of God’s love – and was responding to it.

What came first the chicken or the egg?

What came first – God’s love or her worship?

1 John 4:9-11 ⁹This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son^[a] into the world that we might live through him. ¹⁰This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for^[b] our sins.

The amazing thing about God’s love is that it comes first – we don’t earn it or have to work our way to be good enough to get it first.

Over and over again the bible says BEFORE we deserved it, WHEN WE SUCKED, when we were sinners not even caring about God He loved us….

You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. ⁷Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. ⁸But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Romans 5:6-9

But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved. Ephesisans 2:4-5

This is no small thing. What Jesus did on the cross – its no small thing. The redemption plan from the beginning of time – it is no small thing. Does it not sound absurd and extravagant to you that the Son of God loved you and gave himself for you? Does it not sound absurd and extravagant to you that Jesus took all the punishment and wrath that we deserve upon the cross in our place? Does it not sound absurd and extravagant to you that God gives you all of the gifts of salvation simply through faith – that He lavishes His love upon you unconditionally?

Yet this is the truth. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Romans 5:6-9

The woman with the alabaster jar had being a prostitute – can you hear the disdain drip as simon THE LEPER says: This Man, if He were a prophet, would know who and what manner of woman this is who is touching Him, for she is a sinner.” But she had a revelation of God’s love and knew that ment she could approach Him

You see a revelation of God’s love begins first encounter and realizing WOW GOD IS REAL, realer than the air you breathe and the seats you sit on. It begins with responding to His invitation of salvation – to become new, forgiven, holy, righteous – part of His family.

Just as married people stand up the front and “get married” / have a wedding – we can mostly all look back to a “start point in faith” – the time when we became born again and believed in Jesus…

But it takes living married and in love the rest of our lives to make a great marriage. A wedding doesn’t hey presto great marriage – it takes time, commitment, choice, surrender, kindness, joy, adventure, communication, passion – to make a great marriage. It takes a revelation of love for each other and choosing each day to make the marriage work for a lifetime.

In a similar way it’s like that with our relationship with God.

It begins with salvation but there is so much more on offer. We’re created to know God, to know His love, to have supernatural relationship with Him here on earth as well as on the other side of eternity. We’re created to feel His presence and live in friendship with God. It begins with being born again but continues through love.

A revelation of God’s love keeps our eyes fixed upon Him and His greatness and His gloriousness and on what He is doing over what our circumstances say.

A revelation of God’s love will get you through the darkest times – the flood and the fire because you have it settled in your soul that God loves me and that He is with me and for me and that nothing can separate me from His love and that in those times He is our refuge and our strength. A revelation of God’s love reminds our heart and soul to trust in our Almighty God. It rests in Him. Our hearts are confident when filled with His love.

A revelation of God’s love will overflow out of us and spill onto others as we want them to experience the reality of salvation and relationship with God. It keeps us excited about the future and the adventure that God has planned out for us and keeps us pressing forward into that. When the woman with the alabaster jar came and broke it over Jesus – the fragrance of the oil filled the house – it transformed the atmosphere and people became aware of something remarkable – the presence of Jesus – in our lives, when we respond to the revelation of God’s love for us it overflows and touches other people and people see God at work in our lives.

A revelation of His love restrains us and keeps us walking on the narrow path, throwing off those things that want to distract and entangle us.

A daily encounter with the love of God will produce a daily compulsion of obedience to the voice of God. The Ramp

Walking and following Jesus, taking up our cross and denying ourselves, living a no compromise life, obedience and transformation, all begins with one thing. Knowing that God loves me and that the Son of God, Jesus Christ, gave His life for us to pay the penalty for our sin.

Staying in love with Jesus all flows from knowing His love, from keeping it fresh with God.

Stepping out into the greater things that God has called us to do, fighting the fear and talking to strangers and our friends and family about God, all is fueled by knowing His great love and wanting others to know that reality too.

We are called to live ever more deeply in the knowledge that God has shown us extravagant and unmerited love and grace. We’re called to take our cues from the woman at Jesus’ feet, whose gratitude was so intense that it poured itself out in service and worship.

God is faithful. His love endures for ever. He loves us with an everlasting love. His love is so great that Jesus Christ stretched His arms out on the cross and died, paying the penalty for MY sin, for OUR sin, that we might know this love.

How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! 1 John 3:1

The woman with the oil had a revelation of God’s love and it won her over totally. She didn’t care what the religious leaders said, she didn’t care about her past, she wasn’t held back by fear – she had to respond.

⁴⁰ And Jesus answered and said to him, “Simon, I have something to say to you.”
So he said, “Teacher, say it.”
⁴¹ “There was a certain creditor who had two debtors. One owed five hundred denarii, and the other fifty. ⁴² And when they had nothing with which to repay, he freely forgave them both. Tell Me, therefore, which of them will love him more?”
⁴³ Simon answered and said, “I suppose the one whom he forgave more.”
And He said to him, “You have rightly judged.” ⁴⁴ Then He turned to the woman and said to Simon, “Do you see this woman? I entered your house; you gave Me no water for My feet, but she has washed My feet with her tears and wiped them with the hair of her head. ⁴⁵ You gave Me no kiss, but this woman has not ceased to kiss My feet since the time I came in. ⁴⁶ You did not anoint My head with oil, but this woman has anointed My feet with fragrant oil. ⁴⁷ Therefore I say to you, her sins, which are many, are forgiven, for she loved much. But to whom little is forgiven, the same loves little.”

We are all loved much. We have all being forgiven much. Our sin cost Jesus His life. Our love drove the nails into Jesus’ hands and feet. Our sin caused Him to cry out “my God my God, why have your forsaken me.”

How then will we live?

We will live like the woman.

We will live experiencing God’s love.

We will live loving Him in response – because that is what our obedience and worship is. Response to His love for us first.

We will know God and know His love and love Him in response, releasing fragrance to those around us.

The Lord is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and rich in love. We can never earn His love. It’s a gift, given to us, lavished upon us.

Tonight do you know that God loves you?

Like totally?

Are you living responding to His love?

Like totally?

Tonight the challenge is for us to be like the woman with the oil – to know we are forgiven, to get a fresh revelation of God’s love for us.

If you need to encounter God again then this is the space to do it.

 

notes from message to young adults church, sunday night

Live Together, Die Alone

In the words of the great Lost – “live together, die alone” – it isn’t actually too far untruth for us as Christians.

We’ve being put together, in the church, in community, in a family – for a reason.

Lostism aside – together we are stronger, but as individuals we can become distracted, diswayed, discouraged and destroyed easier.

We live and succeed together but we can fall and fail alone.

You have a part to play – you’re part of the family – part of the community – part of the burgher… (theme of the night at youth group!)

So what’s up with the burgher???

 

 

The word Burgher is, according the wonderful world of google a Dutch word Burger meaning citizen, commoner or inhabitant of a city/town.

For us, the church is the burgher. Not “just” The River, but like the capital The Church – all Christians everywhere all around the world – but also including The River. The River is our burgher that we belong to and are part of. Bags me be the cheese )

And just like how a burgher is made up of different bits that add flavour and add to the taste and delishness of the burger, so the church is made up of different people who add flavour, I mean strengths and gifts to accomplish the plans and purposes of God.

You see God didn’t think it would just be a cool idea that we have meetings on Sundays and nzeal on Friday nights, just cos, you know, what a cool idea… these times we get together are for a purpose and the whole church thing isn’t just a good idea but a great idea with a mission!

The reason we come to church and come to youth is to worship God, learn more about Him, encourage each other, get connected to God and others, get empowered and equipped and transformed so we can get out there and change the world.

God calls the church a family. Cos we’re ment to love each other, be real and honest with each other and help each other in the good times and bad.

Your family is ment to be your safe place, where you can be yourself, where you can say, hey I need some help, where you can also have fun, learn how to be a grown up, be mates and have adventures together.

Who here has chores at home? *interaction*

So back to the burger thing. Imagine if we were all meat patties. A friend of mine had a picture on his facebook page of a guy who ordered a burger in McD’s with 12 meat patties. GROSS! Or imagine a burger with just lettuce. Or worse still, just onion!

God, and Paul puts it this way:

You can easily enough see how this kind of thing works by looking no further than your own body. Your body has many parts—limbs, organs, cells—but no matter how many parts you can name, you’re still one body. It’s exactly the same with Christ. By means of his one Spirit, we all said good-bye to our partial and piecemeal lives. We each used to independently call our own shots, but then we entered into a large and integrated life in which he has the final say in everything. (This is what we proclaimed in word and action when we were baptized.)

^14-18I want you to think about how all this makes you more significant, not less. A body isn’t just a single part blown up into something huge. It’s all the different-but-similar parts arranged and functioning together. If the foot says, “I am not a part of the body because I am not a hand,” that does not make it any less a part of the body. ¹⁶ And if the ear says, “I am not part of the body because I am not an eye,” would that make it any less a part of the body? If the body was all eye, how could it hear? If all ear, how could it smell? As it is, we see that God has carefully placed each part of the body right where he wanted it.

^19-24But I also want you to think about how this keeps your significance from getting blown up into self-importance. For no matter how significant you are, it is only because of what you are a part of. An enormous eye or a gigantic hand wouldn’t be a body, but a monster. What we have is one body with many parts, each its proper size and in its proper place. No part is important on its own. Can you imagine Eye telling Hand, "Get lost; I don’t need you"? Or, Head telling Foot, "You’re fired "?

1 Corinthians 12:12-21

Did you know that you use more than 200 different muscles to walk? If your feet and their muscles are not working well you aren’t going very far. Furthermore, if you dislocate a tiny bone in your foot your whole body is miserable. Feet are awfully important. So why should the foot say, “I don’t count; I’m not important; no one ever notices me; no one cares about what I do. If I do anything, no one sees me or cares about me. I don’t belong. I might as well give up.”

Just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, ⁵so in Christ we who are many form one body, and each member belongs to all the others. ⁶We have different gifts, according to the grace given us. If a man’s gift is prophesying, let him use it in proportion to his faith. ⁷If it is serving, let him serve; if it is teaching, let him teach; ⁸if it is encouraging, let him encourage; if it is contributing to the needs of others, let him give generously; if it is leadership, let him govern diligently; if it is showing mercy, let him do it cheerfully. Romans 12:4-8

The church is made up of different bits. We’re not all worship leaders or musos. We’re not all preachers or talkers. We’re not all evangelists or pastors. We’re not all prayers. We’re not all good at being friendly. We’re not all good at working out what the Bible really says. We’re not all good at design or working the sound desk, or figuring out the finances, or making babies happy, or baking, or singing, or organizing everyone for lunch on Sunday, or going into the prison, or thinking up creative ideas for events. But if we didn’t have someone doing crèche then people like tash wouldn’t be able to lead worship. If we didn’t have friendly people like Rowena we’d all sit at home alone eating our marmite sandwiches on Sunday afternoon. If we didn’t have cool people like *media person* we’d all be making our own words up to the songs that the band lead us in… We’re all like super delish bits of the best burgher in the world…

Remember what Jack in Lost said?

Live together, die alone.

We’ve being put together, in the church, in community, in a family – for a reason. Together we are stronger, but as individuals we can become distracted, diswayed, discouraged and destroyed easier. We live and succeed together but we can fall and fail alone.

In Hebrews 10 it says: And let us consider one another in order to stir up love and good works, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as is the manner of some, but exhorting one another, and so much the more as you see the Day approaching. Hebrews 10:24-25

One of the reasons we’re put into church/community is to stir up the good stuff, encouraging one another, helping each other follow Jesus in the hard times and the good times.

Now this doesn’t just mean saying nice things to each other: it means being honest, being real, being there in someones life. It means listening to each other and learning from each other. The bible says we should confess our sins to each other and that we should with love give each other a slap if we see someone heading the wrong way – okay, maybe it more suggests going and talking to them and saying the hard honest things that will stop someone from falling over and making tragic mistakes.

Don’t give up on coming to church – they need you, we need you and you need them. I don’t reckon church is an optional extra for us as Christians. The foot cant say to the elbow, I don’t need you. I’m just going to amputate myself and go do my own thing. The knee cant kick the stomach out… a body pretty much needs all the bits to function together. If God invented the church then it’s pretty important.

So how does this work in real life.

First. God creates churches. Be part of one. Join in. Get involved. Do something. Help out. There are lots of ways to get involved – even really practical things like crèche and handing out the notices are important.

Second. You’re part of the burgher! God created YOU and made YOU the way YOU are with gifts and talents and cool stuff. Your cool stuff helps other people. Your cool stuff helps the church. Your cool stuff helps The Church capital letters. Your cool stuff will help people learn more about God and draw near to Him and get saved and get free and healed and all that good stuff.

Third. Recongize that it takes all of us together to go forward and make it work. All of our gifts, all of us working together. It’s all about loving God and seeking His Kingdom first.

Altar call:

Tonight the main thing you get is that you belong to a family. A really big family! A family with God as our Dad and lots of brothers and sisters. And you’re important and you have a part to play.

Firstly – be part of the family. Be born again.

Secondly – ask God how you can contribute. What’s your part? Together we can and will go forward into great things with God.

 

notes from message for youth group – theme = burgher = community