Happy Easter!

This weekend we celebrate the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior. Looking back at the event on which hangs the destiny of every person who will ever live causes us to look forward to a time when Jesus will reign as King of Kings and Lord of Lords. Nevertheless, right now we live in the "abide 'til He comes" time. The story below dramatizes the way in which some early Christians chose to spend their "abiding time." I hope you enjoy it.

The Interruption
as retold by Lynnda Ell

Rhoda sighed. Maybe now she could sit down for longer than two minutes. The Seder meal had been long over and preparations for breaking the morning fast completed. This time of year, during the Passover celebrations, everyone had more work than usual. However, this year, the execution of James bar Zebedee and the arrest of Peter also had everyone on edge. She slid down the wall by the door at the back of the dimly lit room. Rhoda hoped that she would not fall asleep as she closed her eyes and joined the group in prayer.

Rhoda's whole body jerked when the pounding on the outer door began. She staggered to her feet and scooped up the nearest oil lamp. Stumbling across the courtyard, her heart skittered in her chest as she wondered who would come to Mary and John Mark's house in the middle of the night.

"Who's there?" Rhoda called out through the stout door.

"Open up, girl."

Rhoda stepped back at the sound of the voice she recognized as the apostle Peter's. Without unbarring the door, she whirled around and ran back to the prayer meeting.

"Peter's at the door!" she exclaimed over the sound of several people praying aloud.

"Sshh!"

"Quiet."

"You're out of your mind," hissed one young man, shaking his head.

His friend nudged him with his elbow. "It must be his angel."

Rhoda ignored them as she gingerly stepped through the crush of people, making her way to Mary and John Mark.

"Please come. I know it's Peter."

Motioning with her hands for Rhoda to speak softly, Mary said, "Yes, yes, we will come."

Once clear of the room, they could hear the pounding on the door. John Mark quickly removed the bar and opened the latch.

"Peter!" Mary exclaimed. "Come in, come in."

"Not so loud," Peter whispered. "I want to hide before sunrise, so I won't stay."

Quickly Peter told them how an angel had come to his cell, awakened him, removed his chains, told him to dress and then escorted him out of the prison, down the street and finally disappeared.

Peter grabbed the locks of hair on both sides of his head. "I thought I was dreaming. The angel lit up the night as brightly as day, but the guards didn't see us walking right passed them. They even ignored the iron gate that opened itself."

Peter glanced over his shoulder and then turned around. "Tell James bar Joseph and the rest of the brothers what happened." He disappeared into the night.

Rhoda followed Mary and John Mark back into the prayer meeting. She no longer felt the least bit sleepy. She knew that they would pray the rest of the night for Peter's safety and she was ready to do her part. Tomorrow, the soldiers would tear the town apart looking for him. Rhoda trusted that the God who got Peter out of prison would hide him as well. Nevertheless, right now, it was time to pray.

Fire Drills and Famine

As he sat on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to him privately, saying, "Tell us, when will these things be, and what will be the sign of your coming and of the close of the age?" And Jesus answered them, "See that no one leads you astray. For many will come in my name, saying, 'I am the Christ,' and they will lead many astray. 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. For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and there will be famines and earthquakes in various places.
All these are but the beginning of the birth pains.
(Matt 24:3-8 ESV)

Don't the disciples of Jesus sound just like us? We want to know what will happen in the future, especially the future time when Jesus will return. The best-selling success of the Left Behind series of books and the fascination with Nostradamus give evidence that many people seek to know the future.

However, Jesus responds, not with the time of His return, but with events leading up to it. He mentions four specific signs: false messiahs, wars/rumors of wars, earthquakes, and famines. He calls them the beginning of birth pangs and a look at history demonstrates that every generation since Christ's ascension to heaven experienced these events. Watching the evening news for a few minutes demonstrates that our generation is no exception.

More importantly, Jesus' response contains two commands about the ways we are to respond to these events. First command: listen to godly advisors. Bad advice can lead us out of God's purpose for our lives. Not everyone who says, "The sky is falling! Follow me, I can save you," knows what they are talking about. Without comparing what we hear to what God says in the Bible, praying about the issue, and talking to other godly people, we can be led astray.

Spending too much time watching the TV news networks makes the second command almost impossible to obey; Jesus tells us not to be frightened. Rather than "Don't worry. Be happy," advice, the command gives us an opportunity to prepare as God directs. (Fear and worry can drown out God's voice.)

When we know the possibility exists for an event to occur, we can prepare. Fire is one of the most common catastrophic events. For that reason, people hold fire drills in schools, offices, and homes. Knowing how to respond in case of fire reduces both the risk and the fear.

Famine is also a common catastrophe. We see pictures of the effects of famine in foreign countries often. Even in the United States where food is plentiful, Feeding America estimates that one in four children struggle with hunger.

A grass-roots opinion seems to be growing that the United States may face a famine in the near future. A military officer recommends to an executive that he store food for his family. A financial advisor emails a similar suggestion to his clients. A neighbor receives a large order from Emergency Essentials. A relative begins gardening and storing the harvest.

Should you be alarmed? No, go back to the first command and listen to God. Determine what preparations – if any – God wants you to take. Then obey God. (That takes the risk out of anything!) Relieve your fear by taking to heart the prophet Habakkuk's words when he saw a famine looming over Israel. He said, "Though the fig tree should not blossom, nor fruit be on the vines, the produce of the olive fail and the fields yield no food, the flock be cut off from the fold and there be no herd in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the Lord; I will take joy in the God of my salvation." (Habakkuk 3:17-18, ESV) Deciding to trust God before a catastrophe occurs is the best antidote for any fear.

Whether we are faced with war, earthquake or famine, we can trust God and rejoice in His love. After all, nothing can separate us from God's love.

The Necklace Treasure

As I've tried to explain in The Treasures series, I have strong opinions on the matter of God's emotions. I think that it is impossible to overstate how intensely God expresses His love for His people.

As I complete this series, I want to draw your attention to the ESV translation of Zephaniah 3:17: "The Lord your God is in your midst, a mighty one who will save; he will rejoice over you with gladness; he will quiet you by his love; he will exult over you with loud singing." (I added the italics.) Part of the note in the ESV Study Bible on Zephaniah 3:17 contains these thoughts: "This verse remarkably adds that God himself will rejoice over you with gladness, indicating that when God's people seek him and follow him, and rejoice in him and trust him, then God personally delights in them. This is not an aloof, emotionless contentment, but it bursts forth in joyful divine celebration: he will exult over you with loud singing."

I can hardly imagine it. God wants to sing His love song over me. Just the thought of it leaves me breathless with amazement.

No wonder we have an empty hole in our hearts before we find Jesus as our Lord and Savior. He created us to experience His pure, intense love expressed as His delight in our actions as we seek and follow Him and as love songs from His ravished heart as we rejoice in Him and trust in Him – and Him alone – to lead us. We can know nothing of that until we have repented of our sins and accepted His sacrifice on our behalf.

If you are like me, the first question that pops up in your mind is, "Why don't Christians experience these all the time?"

In order to give some of the answer to this question, I want to look at Song of Solomon 4:9 again. It says, "You have ravished my heart, My sister, My spouse; you have ravished My heart with one look of your eyes, with one link of your necklace." (NKJV) (I added the italics.)

The Bible is full of symbols. For me, this necklace symbolizes my obedience to God. Let me show you how I got there.

The neck can represent a person's will. The term "stiff necked" speaks of a resistant will, someone who will not submit. Isaiah 48:4 speaks of this: "…I know that you are obstinate, and your neck is an iron sinew…" (ESV) When someone bows in submission to a king, the most vulnerable part of the body is exposed – the back of the neck.

So, for me, this necklace represents the activity of my will. When I willingly, eagerly, and lovingly obey God's guidance, I add a link to this spiritual necklace. Sometimes the link is fashioned in the heat of heartache, other times in the sparkle of joy, but always in the absolute trust that my Master knows best. In order to experience the reality of God's love and delight, we must know God's ways and obey His will.

In my jewelry box, I have a necklace made of small oval links. In the center of each link is a tiny precious or semi-precious stone: sapphire, ruby, topaz, emerald, citrine and others. When I waver in my willingness to obey God in all things, I look at that necklace and remind myself that God and I are creating a spiritual necklace much more beautiful than the one I have now. Each link of that necklace is a remembrance of a time when I ravished the heart of God with my loving obedience. I hope to wear that priceless necklace on my wedding day, at the wedding feast of The Lamb of God. I want it to be a sparkling witness to the glory of my Lord.

Now you know the treasures of my heart and the way I experience them: God's powerfully passionate love for me, His delight in me as I turn away from sinful ways, my desire to ravish God's heart as I keep my life focused on Him, the protection I have from the Holy Spirit, and the necklace I'm designing with my joyful, loving obedience. My prayer is that you will find these treasures as valuable as I have. I pray that God would always fill your heart with the joy and peace that comes from loving Him, the source of all treasure.

Treasure #4: Secure in His Love

Have you tired of gazing at my treasures: God's pure, encompassing love, His delight in my fumbling attempts to be like Him, His ravished heart when I look only to Him? These treasures make my dark days brighter and my bright days indescribably lovely. You have undoubtedly turned them into your treasures, too, so let me share another one with you.

My fourth treasure: The Holy Spirit is jealously guarding me.

Fear and insecurity can deprive me of sleep at night and of joy in the morning, but God desires me to live my life secure in His love. He has gone to extremes to see that I am secure. James 4:5 says, "Or do you think it's without reason the Scripture says that the Spirit He has caused to live in us yearns jealously?" (Holman Christian Standard Bible)

Normally, jealousy would be considered a negative emotion. It usually indicates a lack of trust one person has of another person. However, in one relationship, jealousy can be appropriate: marriage. Suppose a man discovers that his wife is being romantically pursued by another man. This husband truly loves his wife and is committed to the relationship, so he does not ignore the situation and let this thief steal his wife's heart. He does everything in his power to keep his wife's love and to eliminate this thief permanently.

The New Testament speaks often of the church being the bride of Christ.

The best way to understand this relationship is to look at the Jewish practice of betrothal and marriage. The betrothal lasted for about a year, but was much more than our engagement is, today. The betrothal was as binding as the marriage. A betrothed woman could be executed for adultery if she became pregnant, because the marriage was not consummated during the betrothal. (This almost happened to Jesus' mother.) Traditionally, the woman received a gift from her husband at the betrothal.

From the perspective of betrothal and marriage, I have been betrothed to Jesus Christ and am now waiting for Him to come and claim me as His own bride. I have received the Holy Spirit as a type of betrothal gift. He is a seal that guarantees that I am Christ's, but He is also here to defend me from temptation and to rescue me from the world.

According to Rick Renner in Sparkling Gems for the Greek, one scholar expands James 4:5 to it's full meaning this way: "The Spirit takes it very personally when we share our lives with the world. He wants us so entirely for Himself that if the world tries to take us away, it infuriates Him. You need to know that in these cases, the Holy Spirit will not sit idly by and watch it happen. He'll do something to change the situation."

With the Holy Spirit completely committed to protecting me and to holding me safely in my betrothal to Jesus Christ, I have nothing to fear. I am secure in His love. Absolutely.

Treasure #3: Ravishing God’s Heart

I trust that, by now, you have meditated on how God's love for you is His infinite, all encompassing, enveloping love that can never be destroyed. I hope you have experienced the feeling of God delighting in you as you work in the power of the Holy Spirit to remove sinful actions and attitudes from your life. Now I want to share with you another special treasure.

My third treasure: I have the ability to ravish God's heart.

"What!" you say, "Does the Bible say that?"

Yes. In the beautiful love song called the Song of Solomon, chapter 4 verse 9 says, "You have ravished my heart, My sister, My spouse; you have ravished My heart with one look of your eyes, with one link of your necklace." (NKJV)

Ravish is not often used in today's vocabulary. In the few times that modern translations of the Bible include the word, it has the general sense of doing violence, humiliating, and oppressing another. Most often, it refers to a man forcing a woman to have intercourse.

In the eloquent declaration of His bride's affect on Him, the Bridegroom (Jesus) twice says that she "ravishes my heart." This is violence, all right, but not violence committed against another. It is the expression of such an overwhelmingly intensely loving emotion that all other emotions seem colorless by comparison.

A strongly intense emotion of the heart is seldom described in the Bible. Proverbs 5:19 gives one example. It states that a husband should be intoxicated with the love of his wife. A second example can be found in Luke 24:32, where the two disciples stated that their hearts burned within them while Jesus walked with them.

Two other examples include God in text. Genesis 6:5-6 show God looking at the continuous evil of man's life and the end of verse six states, "…and it grieved him to his heart." How the sinfulness of man pierced the heart of God!

The last example comes from Ephesians 5:25, where Paul commands husbands to love their wives. This love is not just the insipid love we associate with modern-day romance. Paul told the husbands to love their lives as much as Jesus loves the church.

How much does Jesus love the church? This overwhelmingly intense emotion caused Jesus to give up equality with God, to become a human being, to take on all the sins of the world and to die a shameful death on the cross. Here is a Heart that is waiting to be ravished.    

I, who have never ravished anyone's heart, am able to fill God's heart with overwhelming love. That is so amazing to me.

God tells us what causes His heart to be ravished. The verse says that I ravish His heart when I look at Him with my eyes. As the old hymn says,

            "Turn your eyes upon Jesus,
             Look full in His wonderful face,
             And the things of earth
              Will grow strangely dim,
             In the light of His glory and grace."

When I turn my eyes toward Jesus, He is already looking towards me, wanting me to see the love in His eyes. With one look from my eye, God's heart is filled with an overwhelmingly intensely loving emotion, His heart is ravished. How awesome is that?

Treasure #2: God’s Delight

Before you read about the next treasure, would you please review the first treasure? Has the knowledge that God sets your value in the amazing measure of His love penetrated your heart? Unless you are anchored in the richness of God's unsurpassed love, the rest of the treasures in my box will be as meaningless as the toy in a child's fast-food meal.

So, here is my second treasure: God delights in me, even though I am not perfect.

When I accepted Jesus as the One who redeemed me from my slavery to sin, I became a member of His family and nothing – nothing! – will ever separate me from His powerfully passionate love. However, receiving God's love and knowing His delight are two different experiences.

Think about how you experience love and delight in your family. You love your family because they are family, but you delight in them for what they do. I have wonderful daughters and adorable grandchildren whom I will always love, but when they do things that display the values by which I live, I delight in them. The same is true with God. He loves me because I am in His family, but He delights in me when I obey Him.

Consider a time when He alerts me to something that I have been doing – say exaggerating the truth. When He shows me that exaggerating the truth is lying, I delight Him as I begin the process of removing that sin. Proverbs 12:22 states, "Lying lips are an abomination to the Lord, but those who act faithfully are his delight."

Now here is the most precious part of this treasure: God does not wait until I am completely free of this sin to delight in me. As soon as He sees the sincere change in my heart, He delights in me. I may battle that sinful habit for years, but God is delighting in me all the way, because He sees my heart. He knows that even if my sincere repentance, obedience and love for Him are flawed, they are real and He delights in them.

The Bible has two beautiful examples of this truth. The first example is from the Old Testament: In 2Chronicles 12, God sent word to the kingdom of Judah that He was abandoning them to the Egyptian army. King Rehoboam and the leaders, however, humbled themselves before God and God changed His mind. The Pulpit Commentary describes God's reaction this way: "So God delights to meet the first advances of returning penitents with such foretastes of mercy as will lure them on to desire its full fruition."

You are probably more familiar with the example from the New Testament. In Luke 15, the prodigal son repents of deserting his father and returns home. Here is what Luke 15:20 says about his return, "And he arose and came to his father. But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and felt compassion, and ran and embraced him and kissed him." The son had done or said nothing – just shown up – and the father delighted in him.

I love the idea of delighting God. When I feel discouraged or too weak to resist the sinful habit I am removing from my life, I take out this treasure and let God's delight give me the confidence to resist the temptation and to draw nearer to God so that I might experience more of His love and delight.

Now what do you think, treasure or trinket?

Treasure #1: God's Love

Most people welcome a special day to celebrate love in the middle of the coldest and most depressing part of winter, but not everyone. For some people, last Sunday, Valentine's Day, was another holiday that makes them feel alone and depressed.

I know just how true this is because I often felt that way when I was married. (If you want to learn why I say that, read my essay on Kim Hess' blog: Divorce Guru.) By the grace of God, I no longer battle those feelings. Now, I have a treasure box I open when I am tempted to believe nobody loves me and I am alone. I want to share my treasures with you. I want to show you why I have the confidence of a well-loved woman.

My first treasure: God the Father loves me just as He loves Jesus.
         Jesus loves me just as He loves God the Father.

That statement does not say God the Father loves me just as much as He loves Jesus. It does not say Jesus loves me just as much as He loves God the Father. This same
love that God the Father and Jesus give each other, they also each give to me!

Jesus explained this to the disciples in John 15:9, "As the Father loved Me, I also have loved you…" Jesus also prayed about this in John chapter 17. In verse 23 He said, "That the world may know that You… have loved them as You have loved Me." In verse 26, Jesus said that one of the reasons He declared God's name was so that "the love with which You loved Me may be in them." Think about that: God's love for me, in me.

Not "pie-in-the-sky" love, this love is for here, for now. The apostle Paul asks us this question in Romans chapter 8: "Who can separate us from the love of Christ? Can trouble or hardship or persecution or hunger or nakedness or danger or sword?"

He answers the question by saying, "No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future nor any power, neither height nor depth nor anything else in all creation can separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus, our Lord." Can any love be more powerful than that? That love is for me, for you!

For years, I wrestled with the concept that God loves me. Forget that He loves me with this all surpassing, all encompassing love. I just could not see how God could love me with even the weakest kind of love, something like a lukewarm affection. Who was I for God to love me?

I felt that way because I misunderstood God. I saw Him as emotionally cold, frozen in eternity, wearing a happy face when seen from one perspective and a disapproving face from another. If I thought of God as having emotions, I thought they were more distant, like what we experience when we hear about a stranger dying in a car accident instead of the powerful emotions that would be magnified had our child died in an accident.

With the help of the Holy Spirit, I realized eventually that what the Bible said was true. God's love for me is the same as the powerfully passionate love the Father, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit have for each other. Fully accepting God's love for me helped me to understand why Jesus dedicated Himself to die for me and why He continues to intercede for me in Heaven; I could see why the Holy Spirit is willing to live in my far-from-perfect heart. It is all because God loves me!

What a priceless treasure it is to know His love. If I begin to feel rejected or lonely, I take out this treasure and remember that God set my value in this amazing measure of His love and I cherish the knowledge that I am a well-loved woman.