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Wednesday, April 4, 2012


This week, holy week, I've been trying read and meditate on scriptures that focus on Jesus's last week before his crucifixion. Today, something else caught my eye as I turned the pages of my Bible, but in every way it so perfectly relates to this week, Jesus's purpose in coming and dying, and to thoughts I've been sharing and discussing with friends lately.

Luke 14:25-33 are verses that are probably familiar to most of us. Let me try to share a bit of this, and some of Matthew Henry's commentary on these verses, along with some interesting points that Bob Burney made on these verses at a marriage conference I recently attended.


  Luke 14:26 If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father 
and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters,
 yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple.

 Matthew Henry states, "Christ's disciples must be willing to forsake that which was very dear, rather than forsake their interest in Christ. He is not sincere, he will not be constant and persevering unless he loves Christ better than anything in this world--even his own life.Man can look on houses and lands with contempt, but every good man loves his relatives; and yet if he becomes a disciple of Christ, he must comparatively hate them. Not that their persons must be in any degree hated, but our comfort and satisfaction in them must be lost and swallowed up in our love for Christ. When our duty to our parents comes into competition with our evident duty to Christ, we must give Christ the preference. Every man loves his own life, no man ever yet hated it; and we cannot be Christ's disciples if we do not love him better than our own lives." (than our SELF). 

Simply said: If you put anyone above me, you can not be my disciple. 

Luke 14:27 Whoever does not 
bear his own cross and come after me
cannot be my disciple.
Bob Burney commented on this and said that we as Christians often focus on this phrase "bear our cross" too much. We forget that crosses weren't meant to be carried around, they were made for crucifixion. Crosses are meant to die on, not carry around. We need to deny our selves, die to our selves daily (Luke 9:23) and follow Christ. 

Luke 14:33 So therefore, any one of you who does not 
renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple. 
Bob went on to say the obvious: A crucified (dead) person has no rights. 

Why can't I remember that with every breath? Die to myself. My SELF is so strong...and so selfish...it must be denied, crucified. When, I die to myself, just as Jesus did, I give up my rights and am able to truly love others as He loved me, and serve others as he served. It kind of goes in a circle:

Die to self:  love one another as Christ loved us:  serve others  (repeat)

Well, I don't know if that makes any sense. It made sense to me this morning when I was struggling with dying to myself and giving up my rights. When we die to ourselves and give up our rights, and truly let the Lord reign on the throne of our hearts, then we will begin to bear fruit. 
John 12:24 Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat 
falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone;
 but if it dies, it bears much fruit.

Here are some good verses to remind us about dying to ourselves. 

Here is an excellent sermon by John Piper on "As I Have Loved You, Love One Another". It fits right in with Holy Week readings too. (if you read this whole post and couldn't follow my train of thinking, then at least listen to this sermon, it will make it up to you)...really this is a good message that spurred me to dig into certain scriptures for myself as it shed light on things I had previously misunderstood. 

Tuesday, April 3, 2012

Resurrection Garden

Have you seen this idea for an "Easter Garden"?
Plant an Easter Garden!  Using potting soil, a tiny buried flower pot for the tomb, shade grass seed, and crosses we made from twigs.  Sprinkle grass seed generously on top of dirt, keep moistened using a spray water bottle.  Spritz it several times a day. Set it in a warm sunny location.  Sprouts in 7-10 days so plan ahead. On Good Friday, put a little lego Jesus inside and slide rock to seal tomb.  On Sunday the tomb is EMPTY! He is Risen! He is Risen indeed!
Plant an Easter Garden! Using potting soil, a tiny buried flower pot for the tomb, shade grass seed, and crosses we made from twigs. Sprinkle grass seed generously on top of dirt, keep moistened using a spray water bottle. Spritz it several times a day. Set it in a warm sunny location. Sprouts in 7-10 days so plan ahead. On Good Friday, put a little lego Jesus inside and slide rock to seal tomb. On Sunday the tomb is EMPTY! He is Risen! He is Risen indeed!

I kept seeing it all over Pinterest. Then, Ann Voskamp published a post about creating a Grace Garden. I really wanted to do this, but of course I waited until almost the last minute. :)  We were sort of having a rough day and we needed something to get us back on track, so I packed the kids into the van and we ran to Wal-Mart. The Lord helped me find some very inexpensive plants, a small terra cotta pot, a bag of potting soil for $.97. I couldn't figure out what to do for the pot. They didn't seem to have the right shape basket or pot or anything for what I wanted to do AND in the price range I needed to be in. So I decided to use one of the cocoa liners and put it in one of the plastic liners that you are supposed to set your pots in to catch the water that drains out of the bottom, both of these cost under a dollar! So, I think I maybe spent a total of $12.00 on this project. When we got home, the kids gathered up some stones. We still need to find a large one to cover the opening of the "tomb".

We plan to follow the ideas that Ann outlines and on Friday we will shape a caterpillar out of clay and wrap it in cloth. Then on Sunday only the cloth will be left behind and a butterfly (new life) will be in the garden.
The kids have this all figured out: I will get the cloth, Lucy is going to make the butterfly, Jude is going to shape the caterpillar, and Mayme is going to make the puppy (out of play dough)...don't ask me how the puppy relates, she just insisted. :) Tyson said the puppy will remind us how faithful Jesus is. Also, we have a stone hidden in the garden, and on Sunday we will reveal it. Lucy wrote the word "grace" on it and we will be reminded of God's grace in giving us new life.

Once we had our garden in place on the table, there was no way we could fit our candle wreath. Instead, I took one of the add on sections that holds 8 candles. This worked perfectly to represent the days Palm Sunday to Easter. We'll light a candle each day until Friday when everything went dark at noon as Jesus died on the cross. I don't know what to do about Saturday...I guess nothing, just wait and remember. Sunday we will light them again and celebrate the resurrection and grace and new life.

I'm really excited about this. I hope it becomes a new tradition in our home. A constant visual reminder during the most important week in our Christian faith.


 
 
 

My little "helper" with a banana bread crumb face. 

Just having some fun with some new editing options on Picasa. :)

Today, I made the three crosses out of some sticks in the yard.