Category: Sister Judy (Page 267 of 271)

Devotions from Gray Moon’s book Apprenticeship with Jesus

Sometimes life gives us lots of painful shocks and we try to deaden the pain.  The painkillers may take the form of certain patterns of behavior—like perfectionism, overachievement, approval seeking, avoidance, people pleasing, co-dependence, always being in control etc.  Regardless of the form, these God-substitutes are idols . 

But the way through the rough spots  resembles the steps of AA: confession of my addiction to self-sufficiency, admission of my helplessness to live a meaningful life on my own terms, and a request to return to living life by God’s side who always welcome us back to his embrace.

We may also go through the dryness of the “dark night of the soul” when we feel separated from God and we can’t figure out what is going on or what we are doing wrong. But HE has moved us farther down the road and during this dark night we are to seek Him and go to Him again. When we do we realize we aren’t the same person. We have moved and we are now closer to home. 
But what does it matter if our rough spot is due to us moving toward idols or God moving us on the path to greater maturity, our job is the same. We say, Here I am, Lord, helpless without you.”

Devotions for 10-29   from Gary Moon’s book Apprenticeship with Jesus

Joshua Kang said, “Abraham had to empty his heart….And when he did so he made room for God’s abundant blessing. He became a friend of God through surrender.”

The ways of the kingdom of God are often at odds with those of the world.  If we are going to be like Jesus, we’re often going to look different in an oddly loving, peaceful, joyful way.
Jesus was in the business of getting people to be odd. He didn’t want his followers to fit into the world but to be at home in the kingdom.

To the extent that we become empty of self, He is revealed through us.
May we ask Him  what we may need to put on the altar so that we can be emptied in order to be filled with Him.

Devotions from Gary Moon’s book Apprenticeship with Jesus

Jesus chose to invest his life in “lowbows” and “discards in the eyes of the world. Think of unlearned fisherman Peter, or the despised tax collector, Matthew etc.
Have you ever thought that you are not good enough and that He might pick someone else but not you?! 

 We cannot earn His love and acceptance but be open to receive His love and a willingness to be His apprentice.
Becoming His apprentice requires more than being with Jesus. It requires us to allow Him to live His life through us.  And that requires a personal cross, a place where all pretence of self-sufficiency must die.

The author suggests spending some time writing down every reason you can think of for being unworthy to be in His apprenticeship program. Just be honest. Then ask Him if he’s sure you are fit for the program. Listen carefully to His response.  I think I know what it will be!!

Devotions based on Gary Moon’s book, Apprenticeship with Jesus

Lily Tomlin said,”Why is it that when we speak to God we are said to be praying but when God speaks to us we are said to be schizophrenic.”

Many people ask if it is possible to live so close to God that you can hear His voice. People are meant to live in an ongoing conversation with God speaking and being spoken to. God created us for intimate friendship with Himself.

“We best hear God through knowing Him-the process of being mutually indwelt, one within the other-in a passionate relationship in which conversation is but one facet.”
We best hear Him when we are orchestrating each day in such a way that we are constantly abiding in His presence.

We are meant for deep communion with Him.
The goal is not hearing God but the enjoyment of a perpetual and transforming friendship.

You may want to ask Him today, “What would you like for us to do together?”

Devotions from Gary Moon’s book, Apprenticeship with God

“There is a sense in which the secret to Jesus’ ministry is hidden in the lonely places where He goes to pray—often before dawn.” Henri Nouwen

In that lonely place, Jesus finds the courage to follow God’s will and not his own; to speak God’s words and not his own; to do God’s work and not his own.

Without a lonely place in our lives we are in danger. “Somewhere we know that without silence words lose their meaning, that without listening, speaking no longer heals, that without distance closeness cannot cure. Somewhere we know that without a lonely place (solitude) our actions quickly become empty gestures.” 

There is a balance between silence and words, distance and closeness, withdrawal and involvement etc.

 We may find the “real me” is often hidden behind noise and chatter, and it is good to retreat from the noise of words.

 When we become quiet enough, we may find out our life is not a possession to be defended, but a gift to be shared.

It is in silence that the door opens to communion with God.

Often in the silence we most clearly hear the whispers of God’s love and experience most deeply a sense of being His beloved.

Devotions  from Gary Moon’s book Apprenticeship with God

Today’s devotion is on celebrating our differences.

“For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ…..Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it.”  St Paul

Maybe God gave us all individual differences to trick us into community life!  Precise rational thinkers benefit from the balance of those with sensitive hearts when it comes to important decisions. Neat freaks need messy folks or they might never enjoy eating a chocolate cone while wearing a white shirt. Messy people need neat freaks to help them get the chocolate out. You get the picture!
God seems to want us to need each other. Our individual differences are to be viewed as an occasion of celebration, not conquest.

Today why not ask God for His input of an important person in your life who may get on your nerves because of individual differences.
Then come up with 5 good things about this person’s traits that differ from your own. 
I know Al and I marveled after being with all our kids and grandkids this past month, of how very different each one is and so unique and special in their own way.  Isn’t it great how the Lord fashioned each of us as He wanted us to be?

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Devotions for 10-23 from Gary Moon’s book, Apprenticeship with Jesus

Richard Foster wrote, “Think of the millions of people who say, sincerely, that the Bible is the guide to life, but who still starve to death in the presence of its spiritual feast.”

The average person owns 9 Bibles and is looking for more. But have we really grasped the Bible teachings or do we just go to it for information to help us win a debate or answers to a specific problem?
Perhaps we need to approach the Bible more about letting it transform us and knowing more about “with-God” life.  “Indeed, the unity of the Bible is discovered in the development of life ’with-God’ as a reality on earth, centered in the person of Jesus.”

God wants to help us with our specific problems but even more He wants us to be a dwelling place of God.

May we resolve today to spend as many moment of this day in dialogue with Him.

Devotions from Gary Moon’s book, Apprenticeship with Jesus

Brian McLaren’s words touched me.
“What if, instead of reading the Bible, you let the Bible read you?…What would happen if we approached the text less aggressively but more energetically and passionately? I wonder what would happen if we honestly listened to the story and put ourselves under its spell…not using it to get all our questions about God answered but instead trusting God to use it to pose questions to us about us. What would happen if we trusted ourselves to it- the way a boy opens his heart to a girl, the way a patient trusts herself to an oncologist?”

Gary gave the example of a man who read the Bible from cover to cover 144 times but when he died he was known for being the meanest, angriest man you’d ever want to meet.  He never let the passages reach his inner self.
It is important to let the scriptures read us, instead of the other way around. Take time to read a portion of scripture slowly and meditatively and may we be changed.

Devotions from Gary Moon’s book, Apprenticeship with Jesus

Robert Duvall said we must accept weaknesses in good people or we have to tear pages out of the Bible.

Most members of the Holy Hall of Fame were broken.  Jacob was a deceiver, Moses a murderer, David and adulterer and a murderer etc.

We may be distracted from our present-moment experience with God by mistakes, regrets, and guilt from the past.
The author had a vivid picture of standing in a stream and being washed clean from the past, letting it go. It was like Jesus saying the future is all upstream as you let go of the past downstream.  As we live as an apprentice to Jesus, our primary activity is to be with Him in the river that is our life, accepting the relationship, enjoying the fellowship, and waiting with Him as the future flows into the present moment.

You might want to find a quiet place and picture yourself in the river by Jesus, envisioning you are being baptized.  Remind yourself that everything from the past is downstream and that the future is being brought to you. You do not need to swim upstream, as it will arrive in good time. He is with us to help us in each present moment that flows our way.

I.
.Devotions from Gary Moon’s book on Apprenticeship with Jesus for 10-20

Dallas Willard said, “In the purpose of God’s redemptive work communication advances into communion and communion into union.  When the progression is complete we can truly say, ‘It is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me’. ( Gal. 3:20)”

We were created for intimacy with God, to receive His love and lavish it on others.

Jesus knew the importance of living in love. He declared that living in love with God and others is of supreme importance.
When our lives are not lubricated with love, we eventually break down and become dysfunctional.

The NRSV version of John 17:3 says,  “And this is eternal life, that they may know ( a deeply intimate, interactive, and transforming friendship built upon abiding, living in the other) you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.”

Salvation is living in intimate union with God.

How might our day change today if we spent the next 24 hours abiding in God and living in the present with Him ?