Redemption | itsawonderfilledlife

Posts Tagged ‘Redemption’

The Rocks Cry Out

Posted in WONDER, tagged absolute truth, ark of the covenant, Creation, Friedrich Nietzsche, god is dead, jerusalem, Jesus, King David, King David dancing, Luke 19, michal daughter of Saul, promise, Redemption, Thanksgiving, the rocks cry out on May 9, 2013| Leave a Comment »

“The essence of all beautiful art, all great art, is gratitude.”
Friedrich Nietzsche

When I read the above quote by Friedrich Nietzsche I was certain that it was an example of Luke 19:40, “I tell you,” he replied, “if they keep quiet, the stones will cry out.”

4_dont-let-the-rocks-cry-out

Nietzsche, a brilliantly knowledgeable man who lived in Europe in the mid to late 1800’s, did not believe in absolute truth. Although born to parents who sought a life of faith with Christ (his father a Lutheran pastor), Friedrich believed that, “Christianity was from the beginning, essentially and fundamentally, life’s nausea and disgust with life, merely concealed behind, masked by, dressed up as, faith in “another” or “better” life (Nietzsche’s The Birth of Tragedy). An atheist most of his life, Nietzsche is probably most known for the phrase, “God is dead,” which is included in a couple of his books.

The passage from Luke 19 is the story of Jesus entering into the city of Jerusalem on a donkey (much as his mother who rode into Bethlehem on one, carrying Him in her womb). The people thought that He would fulfill the hope that the kingdom of God was going to appear at once (v. 11).

As He came close to the city people were shouting”

“Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord!”

“Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!” (v.38)

It is then that the Pharisees said to Jesus, “Teacher, rebuke your disciples!”

They did not get it. Although, like Nietzsche ,they were probably very well educated, knowledgeable men, probably even men who were raised with the law, and the stories of generations past, they did not believe that Jesus was indeed who He said He was. They thought that the crowd, no doubt a large and loud crowd, were claiming Jesus as the royalty that the Pharisees did not believe was king.

They saw Jesus as a man, they did not see him as their Savior.

It reminds me of when the ark was being brought into Jerusalem. David, like this crowd hundreds of years later, could not contain his excitement that the ark of the covenant was coming into his holy city, it was coming … home. As David removed his royal robes, Michal (Saul’s daughter) was disgusted by David’s ‘unkingly’ public behavior.

Michal,

like the priests,

like Nietzsche

could not see how worth celebrating

the God of the promise,

the God of redemption,

the God of Creation.

Why David danced as the ark entered Jerusalem, and the crowds of people sang as Jesus entered the same was

simply

completely

sincerely

thanksgiving.

May the beautiful and great art of our singing and dancing always be with thanksgiving!

Otherwise,

the rocks will cry out!

“The essence of all beautiful art, all great art, is gratitude.”
Friedrich Nietzsche

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Be Healed!

Posted in WONDER, tagged 1 Peter 2:24, be healed, exorcism, healing, healing prayer, just for laughs, Mark 10:52, Redemption, your faith has healed on April 12, 2013| Leave a Comment »

f48e91f9256378b3effa81fd667c1d00 I came across the above prayer while ~~wasting~~ spending a few minutes on Pinterst recently.

It struck me that this prayer is so different from the television and movie versions of praying for healing.

I have had the privilege of seeing healing in the lives of people … miraculous healing! I have even seen and participated in the equivalent of an exorcism. Never though, have I seen someone being hit in the forehead, like we sometimes see by the television ‘healers’, or people yelling at high pitched voiced “Jesus”, or the head-spinning of the movie Psycho. Instead, the healings that I have witnessed have come over time (God’s time), after quiet prayer, and always with an element of surprise … like a hoped for, but unexpected gift.

I have also witnessed countless people (myself included) who have prayed with the masses, and healing has not come … and loved ones still die, and finances do not improve, and disabilities are still disabling, and pain remains.

“”Go,” said Jesus, “your faith has healed you.””
Mark 10:52

The verse above has been a stumbling block for many, when it comes to healing. I have seen many people (myself included) wrapped up in “your faith has healed you” and wondered why they (we) do not have enough faith for the healing to occur. But Jesus did not always say this once someone was healed. As a matter of fact, Lazarus, raised from the dead, could not have prayed in faith for his healing … he was dead. When Jesus fed the five thousand, the people had no idea of the miracle that was going on, to provide lunch for them. And, most importantly, Jesus did not heal everyone who touched His robe, who came to see Him lakeside, who had faith.

In the New Testament, most verses pertaining to healing are referencing spiritual healing, healing from the original sin that we all bear since sin entered the human existence in the Garden of Eden. It is this healing that God sent His son to accomplish redemption (saving, healing) for all.

Oh, Jesus did heal, and even brought people back from the dead, but the healing He came to accomplish was healing of our minds, the healing of our hearts, the healing of our spirits. It is interesting that often Jesus told those who He healed to NOT tell anyone. Perhaps He was concerned that His message of physical healing would become more important to people than His message of spiritual healing? This is just my guess as He did not always tell people to not tell of their healing either.

f48e91f9256378b3effa81fd667c1d00

“He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness.
By his wounds you have been healed.”
1 Peter 2:24

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The Sex Trade

Posted in Guest Post, WONDER, tagged 100 huntley street, Brian McConaghy, Cambodia, chapel, guest post, horror, Light, Ratanak International, Redemption, sex trade on March 5, 2013| Leave a Comment »

6954433df19278e31fa16459d806097e Well, I got your attention, didn’t I?

Due to the title of this blog, my stats will be through the roof.

You would not believe the sort of searches that I awaken to each and every morning. It is, at times (too many times) offensive, frightening and causes me to wonder what causes these men to seek images and words of child sexual assault. I also smile when I realize how ironic that these, presumably male, seekers who are looking for something so dark, have come to my blog, which I pray is saturated with the light of Christ.

I heard about Ratanak International at my workplace in a high school, when the founder (and former RCMP Investigator), Brian McConaghy spoke to our high school students and staff. Over five hundred individuals sat there, in utter silence, while this rather plain-looking, middle aged man told simply the facts of the lives of too many young girls (as young as five).

No one walked away unchanged.

Today I bring to you a video produced by 100 Huntley Street. Please watch it, not because it is ‘good’, but because the more people who know what happens to little girls all over the world, the more light that is shed on this dark, dark hell on Earth …

the easier for redemption to come to those who need it’s re-birthing breath of fresh air …

and light.

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Redeemed

Posted in GOD, WONDER, tagged celebrate, cleansed, God's redemption, hebrews 10:10, holy, Isaiah 44:22, Job 19:25-27, recycled, redeemed, Redemption, sins, Son of God, swept away, Thankful on January 15, 2013| Leave a Comment »

To be redeemed is to be saved, to be freed, to have the chains of your life cut free from your wrists, your ankles, often at a price you could not pay, so another steps in and pays your debt.

There are many ways, many circumstances, from which we can be redeemed.

Old bananas that are getting not just brown spots, but soft spots as well, can be taken and made into delicious banana bread. The paper products that we use can be recycled and made into new paper products rather than become landfill. But I am not thinking of the redemption of ‘things’ I am thinking of the redemption of people, of lives, of souls.

The person singing too loudly for their musical abilities, can be surrounded by others with much more talent, who join in the chorus, and make the bad of one sound good when surrounded by many (thank you to those who, with musical ability, surround my poor singing each Sunday). The person who has been in prison, convicted of a terrible crime, can be found innocent, and set free from his or her prison chains. The person whose sins have been erased by a holy and loving God …

Humanly speaking redemption, God’s redemption of mankind, is impossible to understand.

It makes no sense that I am saved, freed, through the innocent, perfect blood of the son of the God of this world. It makes no sense that He would choose me over holy, and that through the sacrifice of the holy One, I am made holy (“for God’s will was for us to be made holy by the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ, once for all time” Hebrews 10:10).

Isaiah 44:22 says, “I have swept away your offenses like a cloud, your sins like the morning mist. Return to me, for I have redeemed you.”

They are swept away … like the dust on the floor, like the sand as the tide goes back out … never, ever to be exactly the same. Cleansed, re-created, and re-birthed into a new creation. All that was, is no more.

What good reason to celebrate! To be thankful.

“I know that my redeemer lives,
and that in the end he will stand on the earth.
And after my skin has been destroyed,
yet in my flesh I will see God;
I myself will see him
with my own eyes—I, and not another.
How my heart yearns within me!”
Job 19:25-27

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War: Professional Enemies Verses Human Friends

Posted in canada, Guest Post, life, WONDER, tagged armistice day, Falkland War, Freedom, Mariano Velasco, Neil Wilkenson, Redemption, Remembrance Day, soldiers, veterans day, wars and rumors of wars, Worship, WWII on November 11, 2012| Leave a Comment »

“And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars.
See that you are not alarmed,
for this must take place,
but the end is not yet.”
Matthew 24:6

I do not know all that is involved in the meaning behind the passage above. Wars and rumors of wars have been taking place almost since Adam and Eve first ate of the fruit that they were instructed not to eat.

Today is Remembrance Day (Veterans Day, Armistice Day) a day that brings a watery-eyed stare to the eyes of veterans, a day for those of us living in peace and freedom an opportunity, not to glorify war, but to thank those who sacrificed for the gift of peace and freedom.

There is nothing like hearing the stories of freedom attained during WWII as the Canadian soldiers (and others) marched into Holland, or the stories of Jews who survived the Holocaust, because of the freedom attained through the lives of others, to push me to a cenotaph on November 11 … it is the least I could do.

Soldiers are not warmongers, they are men and women who are called to give … give their time, their youth, their will, and even their lives. They are fulfilling not a desire to kill, but a desire to prevent others from being killed, abused, demeaned, disrespected. They are fulfilling their job, as instructed to do so.

But it does not mean that those with whom they are enemies in wartime, are enemies in times of peace.

My family and I are blessed to see the redeeming work of God every Sunday, just by going to church. You see, the make up of our church is something that only God could do, and He has done it so well. On any given Sunday our sanctuary is filled with individuals from all over the world. And, in the pews sit many veterans … Canadian, German, and (until recent years) Russian … wartime enemies, peacetime friends.

I struggled with locating a ‘guest post’ for today. I so wanted something that would be meaningful, respectful, honoring.

So, in light of my earlier words about freedom, I want to introduce you to Neil Wilkenson, a British Gunner during the Falkland War, and Argentinean fighter pilot Mariano Velasco. During this war Neil shot Mariano’s plane down, and has been dealing with post traumatic demons ever since. In an effort to find inner peace, Neil wanted to find out what happened to the fighter pilot he shot down. This is the story of their reunion, and the freedom that was found by these wartime enemies.

In the words of Neil, “the welcome was everything I had thought of, no thoughts of hatred, nothing but pure admiration for each other and as former professionals we both understood it was our duty to carry out what we had against each other back in 1982.”

Another, more intensive link is here.

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Why Do I Call Myself Christian?

Posted in GOD, WONDER, tagged C. S. Lewis, Christian, Creator God, Faith, Grace, Redemption, Savior, Sin, St. Thomas Aquinas, unseen on September 20, 2012| Leave a Comment »

Why do I believe in an invisible God? Why do I believe that I am a sinner in need of a Savior? Why do I have faith in a man who was executed, who rose from the dead, and then was carried back up into the heavens?

Why do I call myself Christian?

I often wonder if those are the unvoiced questions of people around me who do not share the same beliefs. I often wonder if I have answered them myself, fully and completely. I wonder how many times I have left the scars on the hearts of others for how I have injured the name of the One I follow.

As I traverse this road of life, I do believe that to make such claims means I need to be confident of my beliefs, of my worldview.

From my earliest memories, I have been certain of the presence of an invisible God in my life, and the world. Call it predestination, or Karma or the gift of a awareness of the spiritual around me, as you wish. I think it is something similar, but different, I would call it discernment. Simply put, I believe that one of the peculiarities (or gifts) that my God created me with is a strong intuition of the unseen … I have not had the inner battles that many have had in coming to believe in Creator God, such as author, C. S. Lewis who said, “in the Trinity Term of 1929 I gave in, and admitted that God was God, and knelt and prayed: perhaps, that night, the most dejected and reluctant convert in all England.”

It is easy to know that I am a sinner and, as a mom, it is easy to know that we are born with the capacity to sin regularly, and fully. One only needs to spend one day with a toddler to know that we are programmed to not obey the word ‘no’. As an adult, I still struggle to obey the word ‘no’. I struggle to not treat others poorly, I struggle to tell the truth, I struggle to be genuine, to be reliable to be real. I sin and I need a Savior to redeem my sinful nature.

Why do I have faith in a man who was executed, who rose from the dead, and then was carried back up into the heavens? That is harder to answer, for how does one who holds faith so dearly, explain it to those who might not? It truly is a profound mystery. In the words of St. Thomas Aquinas, “to one who has faith, no explanation is necessary. To one without faith, no explanation is possible.”

So, why do I call myself a Christian?

I know that I am a flawed, unpredictable, unreliable, selfish, individual, and I cannot imagine following any other than One who is all that I am not, and who loves me to death, despite my state of undeserving. It is the grace that is available to me that is the rudder of this life, and there is no better navigator that I can find.

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Forgiven so that I can Forgive

Posted in GOD, life, WONDER, tagged Colossians 3, Delirious, Forgive, Forgiven so that I Can Forgive, Forgiveness, Majesty, Redemption, Words, Worship on January 10, 2012| 2 Comments »

I love words!

There is nothing that makes my heart skip a beat like hearing or reading or singing words that seem to grab my ears and yell “we are for your ears, listen!” If I was listening (who doesn’t hear what is yelled?) I would then spend the next minutes, hours and even days pondering them. Turning them inside out, to see if I am really getting all that they say, because I know they are for me and I don’t want to miss one syllable of their message.

I love it even more when those same loudly proclaimed words take me away to a different place in my mind, to a different place in my soul. Sometimes those words will even force me to make time for them.

This happened one day last year (don’t you love it when only a couple of weeks ago can be referred to as ‘last year’?). As I was singing along in church one Sunday we sang a song, and one line, “forgiven so that I could forgive” yelled at me, and it (and the rest of the song) been yelling almost daily since.

It is a song performed (and written) by the group Delirious. The lyrics could mirror the words of David in his Psalms. They recognize the ranking of the one who has sacrificed as higher than any other (to refer to one as his/her majesty is the highest position possible) on the earth. The lyrics speak of thanks, of grace, of love. It is a song of recognizing the redemption made available, and of receiving it in the humility of one who is redeemed.

For us to understand that we are forgiven is, I believe, a concept not easily or quickly learned. Maybe it is because we struggle to forgive others, and in our own struggle to forgive we do not comprehend the forgiveness that is offered to us? Maybe we can forgive others, but we do not forget the original offense? Maybe we have the order of learning forgiveness wrong?

Perhaps it is in being forgiven that we learn how to forgive. Perhaps we cannot fully forgive another, until we have received (and that offer is always there for us) the forgiveness that is foundational to understanding how to forgive others. And maybe, it is a lesson that we keep learning all of our days.

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Christmas Break Day 4

Posted in GOD, WONDER, tagged Books, Christmas Break, nature, Reading, Redemption, Stories on December 29, 2011| Leave a Comment »

It is Christmas Break and I am taking this week as a break from blogging (my family is doubtful that I can do it).

So, if you are looking for something to read from me this week, I would suggest one of my favorite blog posts:

The Theme of the Best Stories is Always

See you in the New Year!

Carole

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A Baby Unites People

Posted in christmas, WONDER, tagged A Baby Unites, Birth, Charles Wesley, Christ the Lord is Risen Today, christmas, Death, Easter, Redemption, Resurrection, Sacrifice on December 12, 2011| 2 Comments »

A baby …

God sent His son in the same form that we have all entered this world. Helpless, small, and easy to relate to by anyone, from any culture, anywhere around our world, in any time of history. I think God knew what He was doing, when He chose to send His son to us, as we have entered the world.

Songs like ‘Away in a Manger’, ‘Silent Night’, ‘The First Noel’, ‘Oh Holy Night’, ‘What Child is this’, and ‘Mary’s Boy Child’ (hum, memories of Boney M … maybe not this song), can be sung sincerely by those who believe in Jesus as their Messiah, as well as by people who simply feel they are singing a nice song about a historical figure.

A baby … unites people.

Recently I was thinking about the baby Jesus as I was singing a familiar Christmas carol to myself (to myself, because anyone in their right mind would never want to hear me sing out loud). The carol is “Christ the Lord is Born Today”, and the first verse goes like this:

“Christ the Lord is born today, Alleluia!
Sons of men and angels say, Alleluia!
Raise your joys and triumphs high, Alleluia!
Sing, ye heav’ns, and earth, reply, Alleluia!”

When I sought the rest of the lyrics, I realized that I had the lyrics wrong. The song is actually, “Christ the Lord is Risen Today.” I had gotten Christmas confused with Easter, I had gotten birth confused with death and resurrection.

But did I?

This tortured and bloodied man, was drawn into the blueprints before Mary was ‘with child.’ This picture, this messy, bloody, sickening picture, is why the baby was conceived and born. He, the baby we place (and, to be honest, we leave there, from Christmas, to Christmas, to Christmas) in the manger, was our sacrificial lamb, our redeemer. He, that baby in Mary’s arms, was to pay for the sins of the world, for the sins of me.

But, a bloodied man, dying on a cross … divides people.

God knew what He was doing, when He chose to bring the Messiah to us in the form of a baby. He knew that we could never fully grasp the way that we would be redeemed, saved. He knew what He was doing, and He still does.

One of my favorite artists of today, Ron DiCianni, created the painting to the right. To quote it’s description, “Heaven’s Loss dramatically depicts that while mankind was celebrating the birth of a King, the angels were weeping for they knew what man did not. They knew Jesus was not born for Christmas – He was born for Easter.”

Charles Wesley also understood the price paid for his own redemption, when he wrote this hymn nearly two hundred and fifty years ago. Maybe it is not so wrong to sing it as we celebrate the birth of the one who did the loving, redeeming sacrificial act, and not just at Easter.

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It wasn’t the Nails …

Posted in GOD, WONDER, tagged GOD, Good Friday, Life, Love, Redemption, Wonder on April 22, 2011| 2 Comments »

Good Friday

What an oxymoron!

Good Friday?

Good? Friday.

Good. Friday?

Good? Friday?

What is so … good, about Good Friday?

I will spend today contemplating a most horrific death, a most vile end of a life, a most traumatizing execution.

I will spend today, tears streaming down my face, imagining the horror of a mother watching her son tortured, and, finally, die, right in front of her.

I will spend today considering the whys and hows of a father … not just any father, but the only father with the means to stop this event, at any time (even before it began). And that he not only didn’t stop it … He purposed this very event, this very death, even before His son was conceived into human flesh.

His Son.

And then, I will spend today realizing that it wasn’t all about Him, the son.

It was, it IS, about ME, today.

It was, it IS, about YOU, today.

The Father, so loved me (so loved you), that He wanted to save us. But saving the innately guilty without cost is impossible! And the cost is always, blood. It is through the blood of His son, that we are saved, that we are redeemed.

“He is so rich in kindness and grace

that he purchased our freedom

with the blood of his Son

and forgave our sins.”

Ephesians 1:7

If I (you) accept this gift, this sacrificial gift, that He never forces upon me (you), then today is, in every way, not just Good Friday, but the best Friday, ever given.

Good Friday? Yes