Easter Wednesday

What are you doing to prepare your heart for Easter Sunday?

There are lots of ways:

(1.) Grab a small passage of Scripture and dive into it:

Luke 23
44 It was now about the sixth hour, and there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour, 45 while the sun's light failed. And the curtain of the temple was torn in two. 46 Then Jesus, calling out with a loud voice, said, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit!” And having said this he breathed his last. 47 Now when the centurion saw what had taken place, he praised God, saying, “Certainly this man was innocent!” 48 And all the crowds that had assembled for this spectacle, when they saw what had taken place, returned home beating their breasts. 49 And all his acquaintances and the women who had followed him from Galilee stood at a distance watching these things.


(2.) Listen to the multitude of cross centered messages out there from:

C. J. Mahaney http://www.sovereigngracestore.com/ProductInfo.aspx?productid=A1240-00-51

Mark Driscoll http://www.marshillchurch.org/media/christ-on-the-cross

Mike Bullmore http://www.crosswayonline.org/sermons?filter_teacher=1&filter_series=0&filter_topic=0&filter_messagetype=0


And so many more: John Piper, Mark Dever, Al Mohler...

(3.) Slow down, get quiet, and be grateful

Although it may not always be obvious to us there seems to be one distinct moment when God begins a new story in each of our lives. He writes words on our hearts that long to be spoken and strained to be lived out. Then with His own great hand He begins to write the script. Experience by experience through seemingly ordinary days, He supernaturally orders our lives. Only when we look back and reflect on what appeared to have been ordinary events of life does it become clear what a miracle the Lord has performed.

Jan Beazly~The Strength of Mercy

I want to live like that everyday. It is living by faith that God will not waste even the shortest momement or the smallest service. Life without God is ordinary. Life with God can't be.

Isaiah 6

I read that well know passage in Isaiah 6:

And the foundations of the thresholds shook at the voice of him who called, and the house was filled with smoke. And I said: “Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!”(vs 4,5)

And I wonder why I do not tremble. Why, when I think of the holy God, do I not shudder?It can only be my cold heart. It is so cold, that when faced with the holiness and justified wrath of God - I neither tremble or repent.

Lord, help me to grasp the truth in your word. Help me understand your holiness and my fallenness. And finally, let me run to the cross for protection.

In but not of...

Feeling very much a part of earth right now, and I hear the clock ticking...

I have a lot of work to do, but I hear the clock ticking. It is coming from the family room where my son is watching tv, or in the kitchen where he is eating or it is coming from his room where he is listening to music. Every day between now and Thursday, it will get louder and louder..

I hear the clock ticking as Martha prepares to go to serve her mom who is headed for surgery. I will miss her greatly, and I am concerned about how her mom will do thru during and after the procedure.

I had dinner with my parents. My mom has had a difficult time. Their apartment sounded line the clock-works at the top of Big Ben. During our 30-minute visit, she dozed off three times. No strength, no stamina.

Tick, tick, tick...

But isn't God so kind as to give me so much to love?

The incarnation is not just an event; it also established an agenda, a set of plans to accomplish a goal. God's agenda is for the church to be an incarnational community or earth, so that our very presence would reveal his grace and truth-laden glory.
-- Paul David Tripp, Instruments in the Redeemer's Hands

What is my agenda? Do I have my own agenda, or am I folding my heart and soul into the agenda that God has for his church. Am I holding myself out or am I throwing by lot in with God?

And if I am not, why? Do I have a better idea? Is my own agenda more important? What am I protecting?