The full life!

Hey family,
This past Sunday we have been talking about the full life, the life that BRIMS OVER with good days!  And I wanted to remind us on this midweek day to continue to have right expectations as we walk towards our full life closer and closer each day (or farther and farther) depending on your choice.

What is freedom?
Have you noticed that some days you “fall” and you feel so guilty?
Or so bad that the rest of your day is to be in a mood opposite of rejoicing?
You think “this sucks.”
I was there yesterday.
If we all live by God’s grace, why do we still try to earn His approval by obeying Him?
We will never be perfect at obeying God.
Expect that.
Also, Jesus obeyed God perfectly on our behalf (for us), so that we wouldn’t have to.

Now where does that leave us in our imperfection?  Where does that leave us in our relationship to Jesus.  Is He someone you love and trust knowing that He obeyed perfectly for you?

The question might arise:
“What should we say then? Should we continue in sin so that grace may multiply?”
- Roman 6:1

“Absolutely not!
How can we who died to sin still live in it?”
- Romans 6:2

It sucks because we know sin sucks!  Sin makes us greedy, unloving, fearful, and leads to all kinds of actions and thoughts that dishonor the God we profess to love!  It makes us feel divided and numb.  So why would we want to just keep on living in sin if there was a way out?  And not just a way out, but a way free-way out? (Get it? Hehe)

It leaves us in freedom to choose what sort of life we will pursue....FREELY WITH JESUS.

But of course there are some facts about the choices we decide to make.

It’s like a kid wanting to bake a delicious cake.  But instead of the required ingredients they want to use mud, sticks, and pebbles...because that’s all they have and it’s all they really know.  It’s familiar materials to them that they have played with and even enjoyed before.

So when Jesus comes along and says “let me help you make a delicious cake with materials you may not have or are not familiar with” the child might question Him.  Because Jesus is showing the child a new thing.

Let’s say the child decides to give it a shot.  But because his hands are small and stubby whenever he tries to crack the egg, the shells crumble into the bowl. Or whenever he tries to measure a cup of flour it spills on the ground.  The child is so frustrated!  “I can’t do it!”
This inability to do what Jesus says in order to make the cake makes the child feel hopeless, inadequate and quite frustrated with the whole ordeal.  This child doesn’t like feeling like a failure, but this child also wants delicious cake!

If we ended it there, does this story mean that if the child then uses his original plan of mud, sticks, and pebbles he will get the delicious cake he wanted?  Obviously not.

But to continue the story, we know that Jesus does not leave the child to “get it right” on his own.  Instead Jesus, who has baked this delicious cake before knows exactly how to make it—and not just how to make it but He makes it PERFECTLY delicious.  Then, what He does is He guides the child to learn how to grip the egg, how to measure and transfer the flour, and how to make this perfectly delicious cake for the child to enjoy with Jesus!  There are countless spills along the way, many bags of flour end up on the floor, and the batter is far from looking ready, BUT the child and Jesus are having a ball!  The child also notices little improvements here and there that bring him hope that he’s well on his way to being able to make his delicious cake!  So long as every slip up doesn’t bother him, but rather is used to show him where he could improve he is having a ball!  Because the child is making a delicious cake with Jesus who, every time the child’s cake fails, gives him a bite of His own.  So the child knows and realizes “Yes!  That is the kind of cake I want to be able to make too!”

However, it will take time because Jesus wants to teach the child to know how to make the cake not just make it for him.  So that, at some point the joy that Jesus has in being so familiar and confident with how to make the cake will also belong to the child.  The point of being perfect at it.  The child thought that the joy of being familiar with mud, sticks and pebbles was awesome...but Jesus knows it is limited—soooo limited!

Because the law shows us the way to a better life (it was written to make us perfect—like Jesus who fulfills it perfectly!). Jesus chose to live by the Law, the Psalmist David always saw the Law as so perfect and good, and if I can now have the Law (though it takes a process of living into it with the newfound help of God’s Spirit in me...then I choose the law!  Not because I can achieve it on my own, but because Jesus achieved it (ultimately) for me, and because it is good and His Spirit is helping me be like Jesus!  The law leads to our new life!  But we don’t get it by being good at it off the bat, we get it by following the leading of the Holy Spirit like the child having a ball baking the perfectly delicious cake!  The only rain on our parade is when our pride fails to recognize that our inability is part of the process.

“This means that, no matter how you feel, if you are a follower of Jesus you are never truly stuck. The Spirit is doing a million things in your heart and with your life, and while the theme song of your spiritual life may seem more like “Another One Bites the Dust” than “We Are the Champions,” you are indeed growing.

So we see that the Spirit is committed to making us more like Jesus. And in doing so, the Spirit is committed to making us more like the people we were designed to be.
The Holy Spirit is making us more like Jesus and at the same time more like our true selves.”
- Jared C. Wilson, the Imperfect Disciple

When we are our true selves, that is the full life, brimming over my loves!  We get there not by ourselves, but with Jesus, so have a ball with Him today!

Jmegrey

Christianity is easier

Rebuilding a blessed life. 

BRIMMING WITH LIFE! 

delighting in life

1. Shocking truth
2. Hard way vs easy way RE-DEFINED 
3. Pride is what makes Christianity hard 
4. Life is hard, but it doesn’t have to be harder
5. What to expect according to the Bible when we pursue this kind of good life 
6. Worldly happiness vs God’s blessed life 
7. Where do I begin? 

“The easiest thing in the world is to be a Christian. 

What is hard is to be a sinner. 

If God is real, if He is good, and He really does love be us then that means He made us to experience our best lives under His conditions.  Therefore...

Being a Christian is what we were created for. 

The life of faith has the support of an entire creation and the resources of a magnificent redemption.

“FOR THE EARTH IS THE LORD'S, AND ALL IT CONTAINS.”

• 1 Cor 10:26

Hard way vs easy way:  re-DEFINED 

In the course of Christian discipleship we discover that 

• without Christ we were doing it the hard way 
• and that with Christ we are doing it the easy way. 

It is not Christians who have it hard, but non-Christians.

If God is in control and He gives us the way for how to enjoy life, who will most benefit from really enjoying life?  

Either God is right in what He says about a life brimming over with delight or everyone can is capable of coming up with their own equally or more better life making God wrong.  There cannot be both.  You cannot say God’s way is right and then also say but people can find the good life apart from God.  You either believe He is God and gives us the ONLY WAY (John 14:6), or you believe He’s not God and we can be our own gods to give ourselves the good life.  

Which way makes more sense? 

That God who made you and all the world knows how it operates at optimal joy (and gives us the manual), or that you or anyone else is smart enough to know how best to live their lives having created neither their life nor having control of what will happen throughout it or after death, tell me which makes more sense?

—-

What makes Christianity hard is PRIDE. 

It’s sheer pride that says:  I can create my own ideal life.  

Sure you can.  But if you profess to believe that God is real, then your ideal life will end up not so ideal.  

We are made from dust...we are specks....but Pride wants to turn dust into gods because it loves to elevate itself above others, even above God.  It likes to think it can come up with its own way of doing life.  To be in control.  

But if we believe God is real, then being a Christian who obeys and follows God is the easiest and best way to live. 

We don’t foolishly try to be above God, but we get all that God gives us: and if He gave us His one and only Son...what good thing would He possibly withhold from us?  

—-

Life is hard, but it doesn’t have to be harder:

Jesus said it: 

“For My yoke is easy and My burden is light." 

-Matthew 11:30

David, who in so many ways embodied the intensities and joys of faith, was “richer in blessing than any other Israelite”—a long series of blessings, not without sorrow to be sure, but always brimming with life.

“I have told you these things so that in Me you may have peace. You will have suffering in this world. Be courageous! I have conquered the world." 

• John 16:33

Life without Jesus is simply life without hope.  

Have you ever met a hopeless person? 

We call them Debbie downers or perpetually depressed, and in the worst cases: suicidal. 

But when we have our hope in the assured victory of our final destination, it makes going through all the ups and downs a little less traumatic.  We can endure the worst of things so long as we know the end will be okay.  Sure we might feel pain for a while, sorrow, or experience losses, but if we know that in the end all things will come together for our good then even the trials become easier.  

On the flip side, there is no such thing as a life without troubles.  

Troubles in life will happen to both Christians and mom-Christians.  The only difference is that for Christians even the troubles are blessings in disguise since they are only bringing us to our assured victory in Christ.  Whereas the troubles of non-believers leads to their worst fears: death.  

—-

Biblical expectations for a life brimming over:

Blessing leads to sharing life with others

Why does the Bible always teach us so many ways to love others and serve? 

Blessing has inherent in it the power to increase. 

Abundance is to have A LOT. 

“Life consists in the constant meeting of souls, which must share their contents with each other. The blessed gives to the others, because they just have so much overflow . . The characteristic of blessing is to multiply.” 

God will bless the one who desires this overflow, because that is the aim of being blessed.  It is not meant to isolate but to increase through sharing. 

—————————

Worldly happiness vs Blessed life 

We must develop better and deeper concepts of happiness than those held by the world, which makes a happy life to consist in “ease, honours, and great wealth.” 

Too much of the world’s happiness depends on taking from one to satisfy another. 

To increase my standard of living, people in another part of the world must lower theirs. 

The worldwide crisis of hunger that we face today is a result of that method of pursuing happiness.

“In all things I have shown you that by working hard in this way we must help the weak and remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how he himself said, ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.’”

Acts 20:35

Live the brimming-over life of awe and wonder not the lie that to have ease, wealth or whatever will somehow lead to your happiness.  It only leads to your emptiness and disappointment.  For who’s joy has ever lasted in having something they got...(honors, money, ease) those joys expire quickly the moment it is gotten.  It’s the thrill of the chase, but the grasp of a mirage. 

Because of the ambiguities of the world we live in and the defects in our own wills, we will not do any of this perfectly and without fault. But that isn’t the point.

The way is plain—walk in it.

It’s just common sense. 

People who are forever breaking the rules, trying other roads, attempting to create their own system of values and truth from scratch, spend most of their time calling up someone to get them out of trouble and help repair the damage, and then ask the silly question: “What went wrong?”

“If you go against the grain of the Universe, you get splinters.” 

Example: 

All my home appliances or things that I now own, of which I can most enjoy if I take care of them.  

• washer maintenance 
• Dryer maintenance
• Once a month cleaning my new dyson vacuum filter 
• Once a year calling the filter guy for clea, drinkable water
• Every six month calling costco to come change my water filter on the fridge
• Hanging the toothbrush head every 3 months to avoid too much bacteria build up. 
• Doing monthly accounting for how much we have saved up for what we can or cannot afford. 
• Deep Cleaning the toilets and bath tub every month to avoid mildew and mold. 

I have a list because I can’t remember all these or the last time i did each one so I know when I need to do it again!  But although it is “work” to do, it is work that leads to the enjoyment of what is mine!  On the flip side, if I don’t follow the manual guidelines, and then ask what went wrong...it’s silly.  I didn’t follow the guidelines! That’s what went wrong.  If I don’t follow them I’ll get hat they warn will happen, damages, mold, breakage, misuse, and trouble.  

Where do I begin? 

Dismantled —> but Rebuilt 

Pain—> but satisfaction 

Tough ——> but blessed 

The world works the other way around. 

Ease and comfort come first and then destructions happens.

Easy way leads to the painful consequences

*The road we travel is the well-traveled road of discipleship. 

• It is not a way of boredom or despair or confusion. It is not a miserable groping but a way of blessing that endures all those things in God’s perfect timing.  We just have to get rid of Pride and let God be God.  

Quotes and notes taken from “a long obedience in the same direction” by Eugene Peterson.

Jmegrey 

1. 
   

Be still when Instagram calls!

Hey family, 

I’ve been in a transition mode since we moved out of our apt and into my parents room until our condo’s construction work is done...and in this time I’ve been trying to “be still.”  I go through some hours feeling guilty that my husband wakes up at 5am to go to work while I get to sleep in, or lazy that I’m really not doing much that appears productive, or afraid that boredom will lead me to idol activities or instant gratification, so to preoccupy my mind I’ve been reading a lot, sleeping, and journaling.  And it has reminded me why I love God so much.  He is in the moments we realize we do nothing (even if sometimes we can fool ourselves into thinking we do something by filling our schedules as I often do) but when I have a moment like this, where I’m not “obligated to do something” I see how all along my only obligation was to be with God and enjoy Him.  To be still and know that He is God.  

Sounds simple but it’s harder when you actually attempt to do it! Haha but then you actually do it and it’s sooo nice :) 

Soaking in His wisdom, His truth, His provision, His ways...so that when I do find myself back in a schedule it will not be any different.  

Because whether I’m at work, school, home, with mentees or mentors, at the DMV or serving at encounter, I am still doing nothing (in the sense that I can produce good things to happen in my life by working for it) and God is doing everything for me to be in His presence.  That is, wherever we are, God is calling us to be with Him and entrust our lives to His sovereignty because that is how we will walk in the good works He has prepared for us to walk in with the most blessed attitude. 

This part in the book I’m reading called “a long obedience in the same direction: discipleship in an instant society” renewed my mind to remain in the truth about myself, my life, and my God.  I had lunch with lily a while back and we were talking about how our social media generation is all about maximizing every moment, and this has caused us and our future children to be more fearful of a real life that isn’t always instagram-worthy.  

So it got me meditating on how I should expect a life in Christ to be like, and then how to teach that life to my youth kids and my daughter.  Such a life is certainly not always instagram-ready.  Many times following Christ has long seasons of minimal excitement and excess confusion, but it is built securely on an eternal destination.  A long obedience in the same direction reminds us that our lives are worth living by not chasing temporary snapshots with fake filters, but on the hope that Christ has shown us the only way back Home. 

Here it is: 

“Rescue me from the lies of advertisers who claim to know what I need and what I desire, from the lies of entertainers who promise a cheap way to joy, from the lies of politicians who pretend to instruct me in power and morality, from the lies of psychologists who offer to shape my behavior and my morals so that I will live long, happily and successfully, from the lies of religionists who “heal the wounds of this people lightly,” from the lies of moralists who pretend to promote me to the office of captain of my fate, from the lies of pastors who “get rid of God’s command so you won’t be inconvenienced in following the religious fashions!” (Mk 7: 8). Rescue me from the person who tells me of life and omits Christ, who is wise in the ways of the world and ignores the movement of the Spirit.

The lies are impeccably factual. They contain no errors. There are no distortions or falsified data. But they are lies all the same, because they claim to tell us who we are and omit everything about our origin in God and our destiny in God. They talk about the world without telling us that God made it. They tell us about our bodies without telling us that they are temples of the Holy Spirit. They instruct us in love without telling us about the God who loves us and gave himself for us.

The truth about me is that God made and loves me. The truth about those sitting beside me is that God made them and loves them, and each one is therefore my neighbor. The truth about the world is that God rules and provides for it. The truth about what is wrong with the world is that I and the neighbor sitting beside me have sinned in refusing to let God be for us, over us and in us. The truth about what is at the center of our lives and of our history is that Jesus Christ was crucified on the cross for our sins and raised from the tomb for our salvation and that we can participate in new life as we believe in him, accept his mercy, respond to his love, attend to his commands.

John Baillie wrote, “I am sure that the bit of the road that most requires to be illuminated is the point where it forks.” The psalmist’s God is a lightning flash illuminating just such a crossroads. Psalm 120 is the decision to take one way over against the other. 

It is the turning point marking the transition from a dreamy nostalgia for a better life to a rugged pilgrimage of discipleship in faith, from complaining about how bad things are to pursuing all things good. 

This decision is said and sung on every continent in every language. The decision has been realized in every sort of life in every century in the long history of humankind. The decision is quietly (and sometimes not so quietly) announced from thousands of Christian pulpits all over the world each Sunday morning. The decision is witnessed by millions in homes, factories, schools, businesses, offices and fields every day of every week. 

The people who make the decision and take delight in it are the people called Christians.”

 -Eugene Peterson

This is our pilgrimage until Jesus returns,

And our battle with the world is not against drugs, pornography, losing money, addictions or other people who mistreat us...but against the expectations in our hearts that either tell us to go this way or that way.  It is about who we are committed to be our truth.  If our truth is Jesus then we commit to denying ourselves to follow Him no matter what, but if our truth is to feel good then we will commit to following what we expect is good for us.  This is so hard, because anything that takes so much time before results is hard!  

But it’s easier than we think when we finally realize there is no other way haha.  

God wins.  The end.  It’s just foolishness to keep fighting for the wrong team.  

But we do it all day, until we stop to be still and know that He is God.  

“Before a man can do things there must be things he will not do.”

 -MENCIUS

I will not think or expect that I know what’s best for me if it goes against my joy and satisfaction in Christ.  

Happy February everyone! 

Jmegrey

Remember how you were once dead in your sins, but not anymore!

My husband and I both had horrible nightmares last night.  Both about how sexual sins ruin lives.

How the ruler of this world is using sexual temptation to draw people away from the presence God.

It reminded both of us that our own marriage is one built by God’s grace.
That we did nothing but receive the forgiveness of Christ and were shown the light to put Him at the center of our marriage, above our evil desires, which now provides us with a blessed marriage!
Both of us came from a life of sin, rich with evil desires for worldly things, both of us were once under the influence of the darkness that made us disobedient to Christ’s ways, and both of us were dead when Christ saved us!
However, we are both here now, alive and blessed, because of grace not because of anything we did.

The lives of those who are stuck in misery and destruction are no different than where Ben and I came from.

So everyday that we hear God’s voice is a reminder that while we were dead, Jesus plummeted to death to bring us up to new life! Let’s remember the grace we have today for the fact that we even know God!
He saved every one of us from our deadness, and everyday He speaks to our hearts, searches us, to lead us into the new life in Christ!  Thank God for pursuing us each day!

We are blessed because we are the recipients of great grace!

“And you were dead in your trespasses and sins in which you previously walked according to the ways of this world, according to the ruler who exercises authority over the lower heavens, the spirit now working in the disobedient. We too all previously lived among them in our fleshly desires, carrying out the inclinations of our flesh and thoughts, and we were by nature children under wrath as the others were also. But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love that He had for us, made us alive with the Messiah even though we were dead in trespasses. You are saved by grace!”
‭‭Ephesians‬ ‭2:1-5‬ ‭

As we have been saved by grace,
we now go on mission to seek and save more by that very same grace!
As we experience the good days and the bad, we now go to God in prayer for how to remain in His plan at all times to find our next steps and turns in the new life we have because of grace!
Our sufferings are no longer in vain because we have a reason to always rejoice in hope, for we were once utterly dead in our sins, but now have a way to life in every situation!

We have this great and mighty grace!
No longer do we turn from deadness to deadness, but we are being shaped and transformed from glory to glory!  Everyday is another day to rejoice that we have been brought up from the dead!
Live aware of Christ’s presence working in you today!
Jmegrey

For us Death is Life

Sometimes in marriage it can feel like you’ve married a stranger.  The person you held and loves feels suddenly distant and impersonal.  Who is this person?  They are themselves, in all their own nature as broken human beings—as all people are, including ourselves.  We, too, become strangers to our spouses and they may feel we are distant and not the person they once knew.  We are changing or we are discovering more about ourselves in living with each other.  All the demons come out, the shadows, the dark secrets, the fears, and worst of all the actions behind it all.  We say words in tones that are hurtful, silences that cause emotional pain, and our hearts grow cold and bitter.  We wish for the other reach out and embrace us, but when it doesn’t happen we grow even more afraid, more cold, and more distant.  We become strangers who can’t find a relationship because of our assumptions and fantasies unmet. How wretched are we if we expect to get what we want to be happy!  Who would be happy then?  For who could provide what one expects all the time?  

But thanks be to Christ who showed us the way.  That happiness is a formula and it is to lay one’s life down for the other.  To die to one’s fears, insecurities, expectations, and fantastical desires.  We die to be happy as Christ showed us in His death and resurrection.  Oh how awful death is!  But how marvelous the resurrection is!  Both are frightfully so beyond our ability to grasp, yet they are the two things before us that move us one way or another.  One toward life is death, the other towards death is life.  

Help me Lord to follow You. 

It feels easier now because I’ve already been so wretched as to kill and destroy my own loved ones by my actions.  But now, Your mercy is giving me at least an opportunity to show my gratitude by loving my husband well when he returns.  Make my heart more soft and melted!  Give me reason! Give me wisdom!  Give me mercy!  

Thank You.  

Jmegrey

Feelings are real, but they are not reliable.