Stumps

                                                        STUMPS

But as the terebinth and oak leave stumps when they are cut down, so the holy seed will be the stump in the land.

Isaiah 6:13

We have many old, graceful oaks around us, spreading their protective arms across the landscape, hiding us in their canopy.

When they are cut down or die, they leave large unsightly stumps.

Since oaks have a complicated and extensive root system, it is difficult to remove the stump. And so it remains as a constant reminder of the greatness of the tree that once stood in that place.

And defiant small branches begin to emerge from the stump, challenging us, reminding us that the root is not really dead -- that it will live on in spite of what happens to the tree it supported.

It only appears to be dead!

There are companies who will come out and remove the stump. And there are various ways we can bore holes into it and kill it.

I didn't want to spend the money for the first option, and wasn't industrious enough for the second.

So right there, in my garden, remained the knarred circle of wood with its constant stubborn sproutings of life. How could I disguise it?

All I could do was to keep cutting the sprouts back, level with the stump, and then, with flexible gardening design, just "landscape around" the ugly stump.

(Sometimes the best way to hide something is to spotlight it, call attention to it, and declare it a work of natural beauty!)

So I declared the stump a beautiful work and made it the focal point of the garden, gracing it with flowers and ferns, and even a tiny elf's bench.

Isaiah, the Old Testament prophet, speaks often about stumps.

In his prophecies, he relates God's message to Israel - that they will be removed from the land because of their waywardness and disobedience....but that God would leave a holy seed in the land.

It would be like a stump left from a great tree. A remnant, a reminder of the greatness of God would be left, and it would keep sprouting, small but stubborn shoots,  and God's eternal plan for His people would not be thwarted.

In Isaiah, chapter 10, he talks about how God will allow Assyria to destroy the trees in Israel:

     The splendor of his forests and fertile fields it will completely

     destroy...and the remaining trees of his forest will be so few that

     a child could write them down (verse 19).....

     See, the Lord, the LORD Almighty, will lop off the boughs

     with great power. The lofty trees will be felled, the tall ones

     will be brought low (verse 33)....

In chapter 11 Isaiah records:

     A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse, from His roots   

     a Branch will bear fruit.

     The Spirit of the LORD will rest on him -- the Spirit of wisdom

     and understanding....with righteousness will he judge...with
     justice will he give decisions...righteousness will be his belt and
     and faithfulness the sash around his waist.

This promise of the Redeemer, the Righteousness of God, would come from David's line -- King David the son of Jesse -- the royal lineage  that would appear to be erased when  Israel was conquered by foreign armies and the Jews taken into captivity. But the holy seed was still there, hidden in the stump of Israel.

The Redeemer Savior would be a sprout from the holy seed left in the stumps in Israel!


And in Jeremiah, chapter 34, we read:

  In those days and at that time I will make a righteous Branch

 sprout from David's line; he will do what is just and right in the land...

      This is the name by which he will be called:
      the LORD our Righteousness. 



We see Him again in Revelation, chapter 19, when the Rider on the White Horse is described:

     I saw heaven standing open and there before me

     was a white horse, whose rider is called Faithful

     and True. With justice he judges and makes war

     ....and his name is the Word of God...On his robe

     and on his thigh he has this name written:

         King of Kings and Lord of Lords.

That's our King - Ride on, King Jesus!

He Considers Our Heart

                                 He Considers Our Heart

I love the way God shows us little pictures of His loving character throughout Scripture. Here's one I am reading about today. It's recorded in 2 Chronicles 6.

King Solomon had just finished the great Temple in Jerusalem. At the dedication ceremony he says:

          My father David had it in his heart to build a Temple for the Name of                         the LORD, the God of Israel. But the LORD said to my father David,

          'You did well to have it in your heart to build a Temple for My Name.

          Nevertheless, you are not the one to build the Temple, but your son, your                  own flesh and blood, he is the one who will build the Temple for My Name.'

I love the way God gave us this picture.

We know David had a great passion to build the Temple. He carefully made the plans, gathered the gold and silver for the various ornaments, designed them, even designated the musical instruments to be used in worship, how the columns and halls were to be decorated, the design of the curtains, the colors to use and every other detail he could note.

Building the Temple was his highest goal, the ultimate act of his kingship. We have no record that he ever prayed about it - that he ever checked with God to see if his passion for building the Temple was within God's will.

He just followed his heart and pursued his dream of honoring the God he loved.

And God liked that. God didn't criticize him -- didn't say, "Why didn't you ask Me if you could build me a Temple -- I would have saved you all that time and trouble!  You were very foolish!"

God didn't ridicule him or humiliate him. (In fact we never see Jesus doing that with any of the people He came in contact with - never cruel or scornful -  He treated all with dignity and respect.)

God honored David's heart-felt intention! "You did well to have it in your heart," He said.

               I love that about our God - don't you? He considers our heart.

          

When Do We Celebrate Easter?

 

                      When do we celebrate Easter each year?

There is a specific process around which we celebrate Easter each year.

It's about the equinox - that day in March when the sun crosses the  celestial equator, and day and night are of approximately equal length. This happens twice each year - around March 23 and around September 22. In March days begin to get longer after the equinox and in September they begin to get shorter. 

(It was a Greek scholar who calculated the equinox. His name was Hipparchus, and published his findings about 127 BC.)

It was a decision reached at the Council of Nicaea in 325 AD when church leaders decided to unify the celebration day so that all Christians would be celebrating that great time together. So they chose to celebrate Easter Sunday on the first Sunday following the first full moon occurring on or after the spring equinox. The rest, as they say "is history!"

So that means the earliest Easter can be placed on the calendar is March 23. And that occurred on March 23, 2008, but will not occur again until 2160. The latest it can occur is April 25, which will happen in 2038.

So what determines "Ash Wednesday" and "Lent"?

Ash Wednesday, was originally officially known as Day of Ashes,  because of the practice of rubbing ashes on one's forehead in the sign of a cross. At  many times in church history these ashes came from the palm branches that were used by the  church the year before in the celebration of Palm Sunday - the reeds were burned, and the ashes kept to be used the following year on Ash Wednesday.

It was decided that for 40 days preceding Easter Christ's followers would observe a time of sacrifice, fasting and prayer, corresponding to Christ's 40 days in the wilderness when He was tempted by Satan.

During these days Christ's followers were to focus on the cross and resurrection. The 40 days would include Mondays - Saturdays only, since Sundays were already days of focus on the resurrection - each Sunday in the early church was a "resurrection Sunday."

So to determine the beginning of Lent, which starts with Ash Wednesday we count back from Easter 40 days, excluding Sundays, and we have we call Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent.

So Ash Wednesday is always on a Wednesday - there is no "Ash Tuesday"or "Ash Thursday."

No matter how we count the time, it is a good time to focus on what Jesus did at the cross when He paid the penalty for our sins and overcame death for all of us with His victorious resurrection!

US: Good Citizenship Awards - The Gold Medal

         Good Citizenship Awards - The Really Gold Medal 


Many of our colonial forefathers intended for us to pursue lives of virtue. What did they mean?

That was an easy question for Thomas Jefferson. His definition of a virtuous person was Psalm 15, which he referred to many times in his life, in public meetings and in personal correspondence. It was his basis for determining righteous behavior.

Samuel Adams and George Washington also referred to this short, simply written Psalm.

It is an easy Psalm to memorize, which undoubtedly Jefferson did.

Verse 1: LORD, who may dwell in your sanctuary? Who may live on your holy hill?

Verse 2: He whose walk is blameless
and who does what is righteous,
who speaks the truth from his heart.

Verse 3: and has no slander on his tongue,
who does his neighbor no wrong
and casts no slur on his fellowman,

Verse 4: who despises the vile man
but honors those who fear the LORD,
who keeps his oath
even when it hurts,

Verse 5: who lends his money without usury
and does not accept a bribe against the innocent.

He who does these things will never be shaken.


                        It's all so profoundly simple....

A virtuous person, a righteous person...

1. lives a blameless life. (That does not mean perfect. It means that the person does what is right, and when he does sin, he asks forgiveness, corrects the problem, if needed, and so keeps his slate clean.)
2. does what is righteous
3. speaks the truth
4. does not slander
5. does not do things that would hurt his neighbor
6. does not make his fellowman look bad
7. does not honor a wicked, evil person
8. does honor those who love God
9. keeps his oath, even when it is hard
10. lends his money willingly, without thought of profiting from another's misfortune
11. does not take a bribe to put an innocent person in peril.

This is the kind of man Thomas Jefferson aspired to be. And according to his neighbors and family and friends, he did a pretty good job of living this kind of life.

Jefferson, Adams, Washington, Franklin, and others of our founding fathers thought that these kinds of citizens would be able to preserve their hard-won liberty.

No government can continue good but under the control of the people; and...their minds informed by education what is right and what is wrong; to be encouraged in habits of virtue....

--Letter from Thomas Jefferson to John Adams, 1819.

In 1774 the Boston Port was closed by King George III and his parliament. This was punishment for the Boston Tea Party (December, 1773) and was meant to bring Boston to its knees.

Thomas Jefferson, meeting in the House of Burgesses in his home colony, Virginia, decided to declare a day of prayer, humiliation, and fasting, for June 1, 1774, "to implore Heaven to avert from us the evils of civil war [the colonists were not generally thinking of independence at that time], to inspire us in firmness in support of our rights, and to turn the hearts of the King and Parliament to moderation and justice..."

Jefferson noted that no such day had been proclaimed in Virginia since 1755 [that was the beginning of the French and Indian War in the colonies], "since which a new generation had grown up."

Additionally, Jefferson urged the clergy "to meet assemblies of the people on the 1st of June, to perform the ceremonies of the day and to address to them discourses suited to the occasion."

Two hundred years later, a Britisher, C. S. Lewis, a descendant of some of those men in King George III's Parliament, had this to say about virtue:

There is a difference between doing some particular just or temperate action and being a just or temperate man.

Someone who is not a good tennis player may now and then make a good shot.

What you mean by a good player is the man whose eye and muscles and nerves have been so trained by making innumerable good shots that they can now be relied on. They have a certain tone or quality which is there even when he is not playing, just as a mathematician's mind has a certain habit and outlook which is there even when he is not doing mathematics.

In the same way a man who perseveres in doing just actions gets in the end a certain quality of character. Now it is that quality rather than the particular actions which we mean when we talk of "virtue."

-----------------------
Watch your thoughts - they become your words
Watch your words - they become your actions
Watch your actions - they become your habits
Watch your habits - they become your character
Watch your character - it becomes who you really are

A Many-Splendored Thing

I have given them the glory that You gave Me, that they may be one as we are one: I in them and You in Me. May they be brought into complete unity to let the world know that You sent Me and have loved them even as You have loved Me. John 17:22-23

...You sent Me and have loved them even as You have loved Me.

I always stumble over this. I remember the first time I read these words and doubted that the translation was accurate. Or maybe I was reading the part of that prayer that applied to the disciples (John 17:6-19)....But no, it is in the part that applies to all believers (John 17:20-26). Even to me.

So maybe I should check another translation? OK...here goes.

King James: ...that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them as thou hast loved me.

New American Standard:...that the world may know that You sent Me, and loved them, even as You loved Me.

New International:...to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.

New Living: ...Then the world will know that you sent me and will understand that you love them as much as you love me.

New Century:...Then the world will know that you sent me and that you loved them just as much as you loved me.

Contemporary English:...They will know that you love my followers as much as you love me.

New King James:...that the world may know that You have sent Me, and have loved them as You loved Me.

Message:...that you've sent me and loved them in the same way you've loved me.

OK. They seem to all say about the same thing. But how can it be? How could God truly love us (even me) as much as He loves His Son? That is just not possible!
But does He lie? No.....

And then look at verse 24:...You loved me before the creation of the world

Well, I knew that part. That God loved His Son before time began, before there was anything else....but does it mean He has loved us (even me) since then -- forever -- also?
Even when He pictured my life, fast forwarded it to include all the awful, dirty, stinky things I would do...how I would reject Him, deny Him, disobey Him...He could see all that and still love me with His never-ending, unlimited love?

Here's some words from my old friend, C. S. Lewis...

A man can no more diminish God's glory by refusing to worship Him than a lunatic can put out the sun by scribbling the word 'darkness' on the walls of his cell.

But God wills our good, and our good is to love Him (with that responsive love proper to creatures) and to love Him we must know Him; and if we know Him we shall in fact fall on our faces.

If we do not, that only shows that what we are trying to love is not yet God--though it may be the nearest approximation to God which our thought and fantasy can attain.

Yet the call is not only to prostration and awe; it is to a reflection of the Divine life, a creaturely participation in the Divine attributes which is far beyond our present desires. We are bidden to 'put on Christ,' to become like God.


That is, whether we like it or not, God intends to give us what we need, not what we now think we want. Once more, we are embarrassed by the intolerable compliment, by too much love, not too little.

That's from The Problem of Pain.


Am I embarrassed that God loves me so much? Now that I think about it, I suppose I am. At least I say the words shyly, as if I am saying to someone, "I know this is hard to believe but...really... God truly loves me.....I know it doesn't seem possible, but He loves me as much as He loves His Son...I mean really..."

And then that person will look at me and think...."Wow, she's really gone off the edge...her elevator doesn't go to the top....she is a card or two short of a full deck...."

But nevertheless, our God, who cannot lie, tells us that He loves us, just as He loves His Son!

So, get hold of it! Move on! Count on it! Take it to the bank! Move on!

And again I say REJOICE!!!!!