Week 1

Our journey in 2017 is to let go of our identification with the old identity and replace it with what the Father says is true about us. And I don’t necessarily mean that in the general group sense. Is it easier to say ‘we are children of God’ than ‘I am the daughter of God?’ Is it easier to identify with ‘ I am a mom’ than ‘I am one with Christ?’ Yet we are going to learn through God’s word that the latter statements are more true than the former ones. But you cannot experience who you are until you ‘see’ who you are.

Roman 12:1-2. Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of Godʼs mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship.
Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what Godʼs will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.

What is the pattern of the world that we conform to? The pattern teaches us to make gods of our possessions, people, and socioeconomic structures. We make gods of our spouses, our children, our careers. What about our government, the constitution, the American dream? We worship our rights, our entitlements and our stuff, trying to serve two masters as we fight for these.  The pattern of the world tells us to walk in fear, focus on ourselves, eye for an eye.  It isn’t interested in our liberation because our freedom means it’s death.

But Romans 8:29 says we are destined to be conformed into the image of Christ. So we must transform our minds in order to grasp the truth and be free of these patterns. We understand truth, not with our brains but with our heart. It is said that the longest journey is from our head to our heart.

As we transform, we will really know God’s perfect will and walk in it. But this will require our surrendering of wrong mindsets and the power of the Holy Spirit.

I hope you will join me on this journey to know Christ and the power of his resurrection. To see the kingdom of heaven on earth. In order for me to do this I will have to disconnect from the world’s pattern in my mind. To know Christ I will have to renew my mind. Only then will I break this conformity and will prove what God’s will is. His will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

May we commit this year to renewing our minds and believing only the Words of God, and Jesus, the son of the Living God.

** I penciled the picture based on the 18 inch Journey and used Staedler pens to outline.

The journey of 2016 challenges are chronicled here.

Before this years closes…As I reflected on Advent, and the year in general, I thought of all the ways Jesus comes to us now. I thought I should close the year with one more Advent scripture, not about how He came, or comes, but His future return. The return of the King from the Revelation of John chapter 22.

“Look, I am coming soon! My reward is with me, and I will give to each person according to what they have done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End…I am the Root and the Offspring of David, and the bright Morning Star.”
He who testifies to these things says, “Yes, I am coming soon.”
Amen. 
Come, Lord Jesus. 
The grace of the Lord Jesus be with Godʼs people. 
Amen.
Revelation 22:12-13, 16, 20-21 NIV

The Alpha and Omega…As I prayed and meditated on this, a question came to mind. Did Jesus really say Alpha and Omega? Why would he? Being A Hebrew speaking to other Hebrews, would that mean anything to them besides first and last, beginning and end?

What if he really said the Aleph and Tav? The first and last letters of the Hebrew aleph-bet.

Seeking always leads to finding, and I found a lot, more than I can explain here and enough to make me believe he must have said just that.

Jewish tradition holds the words of YHVH as sacred, every letter is God-breathed and has meaning. The first letter of their alphabet is ‘aleph.’ It means Lord, master, strength. The last letter of their alphabet is ‘tav.’ It means signature or mark. Jesus was proclaiming His lordship and declaring His finished work.

I began the year seeking and had painted a map on Hebrews 11 to portray the journey to finding. On that map I placed an X to mark the spot I was destined to find. I just found out that the letter ‘tav’ in the paleo Hebrew script looks like an X! So it’s true that X marks the spot!

As we enter into 2017, let us reflect on our beginnings and endings in our journaling adventures and may we continually grow closer to the Lord as we spread His love this year.

For Week 52 I am reading Luke 2 carefully. Really taking it in. You see, I read it aloud most days from mid November until mid December when the Christmas tours end at work. A person can become so familiar with that story that it loses its wonder.

So I hope to try and capture that awe again before the day we call Christmas. Imagining that one magical evening when all of heaven announced the birth of God with us, Jesus, the Light and Word made flesh for us.

God Bless you all and have a Awesome Christmas!

Week 51 Advent

We dwell in Him And He dwells in us. He planned it long ago, and executed His plan through the blood of Christ, Immanuel: God with us, co-existing with us. 
And now Christ dwells richly in us, the hope of Glory in us. We are a Dwelling Place for a Dwelling God. 

That story begins in this realm around 2000 years ago in a stable in the city of David. That’s pretty powerful stuff to think about. (See Week 7 nothingbutamist.com)

Isaiah 7:14
Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign: Listen carefully, the virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and she will call his name Immanuel (God with us).

Week 50 Advent

Micah 5:2-5a
But you, BETHLEHEM Ephrathah, though you are small among the clans of Judah, out of you will come for me one who will be ruler over Israel, whose origins are from of old, from ancient times. Therefore Israel will be abandoned until the time when she who is in labor bears a son, and the rest of his brothers return to join the Israelites. He will stand and shepherd his flock in the strength of the Lord, in the majesty of the name of the Lord his God. And they will live securely, for then his greatness will reach to the ends of the earth And he will be our peace…

Luke 2:10-11, 14 KJV
…And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord…
Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.

Week 49 Advent

Isaiah 11:1-3, 10 
A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse; from his roots a Branch will bear fruit. The Spirit of the Lord will rest on him— the Spirit of wisdom and of understanding, the Spirit of counsel and of might, the Spirit of the knowledge and fear of the Lord — and he will delight in the fear of the Lord. He will not judge by what he sees with his eyes, or decide by what he hears with his ears…
In that day the Root of Jesse will stand as a banner for the peoples; the nations will rally to him, and his resting place will be glorious.

   Cut a tree down and what do you get? A leftover stump. A once glorious tree pruned to uselessness. But then God… In His good pleasure He takes dead things and resurrects them. Despite the ragged leftovers of David’s dynasty, He brings forth the Reconciler, Immanuel – God with us to restore mankind to God’s original plan. Image-bearing, creative, fruitful, fully alive, a dwelling place.
   Because of our faith in the Root of Jesse, we, while dead in our trespasses, were grafted into the Branch and became the Fruit it bears. He in us and we in Him.
Isaiah 11 is as much a prophecy of the coming Church as it is the coming Messiah. 

My story starts here.

Theme for December: Advent – the Coming

I can’t believe it, it is the Christmas season and I have actually completed 48 going on 49 Bible journaling pages based on my relationship with Jesus. He gave me each month’s theme a year ago and I have spent each month hearing and learning from Him through His word.
So I introduce December with a section of Ann Voskamp’s introduction to “The Greatest Gift.”  May we finish the last few journaling weeks stronger, closer and more in love with our God.

Big and glossy and loud and fast —that’s how this bent-up world turns. 

But God, when He comes —He shows up in this fetal ball. He who carved the edges of the cosmos curved Himself into a fetal ball in the dark, tethered Himself to the uterine wall of a virgin, and lets His cells divide, light splitting all white. 

He gave up the heavens that were not even large enough to contain Him and lets Himself be held in a hand. The mystery so large becomes the Baby so small, and infinite God becomes infant. The Giver becomes the Gift, this quiet offering.

This heart beating in the chest cavity of a held child, a thrumming heart beating hope, beating change, beating love, beating the singular song you’ve been waiting for —that the whole dizzy planet’s been spinning round waiting for. 

Waiting. 

Advent. 

It comes from the Latin. It means “coming.”
This, this, is the love story that’s been coming for you since the beginning. 

It is possible for you to miss it. To brush past it, to rush through it, to not see how it comes for you up over the edges of everything, quiet and unassuming and miraculous —how every page of the Word has been writing it, reaching for you, coming for you. And you could wake on Christmas only to grasp that you never took the whole of the Gift, the wide expanse of grace. 

So now we pause. Still. Ponder. Hush. Wait. 

Each day of Advent, He gives you the gift of time, so you have time to be still and wait.
Wait for the coming of the God in the manger who makes Himself bread for us near starved. For the Savior in swaddlings who makes Himself the robe of righteousness for us worn out. For Jesus, who makes precisely what none of us can but all of us want: Christmas. 

Sometimes the heart waiting for the Gift . . . is the art of the Gift. 

This waiting, your art —mark it. 

Mark Advent with a counting, a way of staying awake and not missing.
-Ann Voskamp, “The Greatest Gift: Unwrapping the Full Love Story of Christmas”

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Week 48 Remember 
Is 46:9-10
Remember carefully the former things which I did from ages past; 
For I am God, and there is no one else; 
I am God, and there is no one like Me, 
Declaring the end and the result from the beginning, 
And from ancient times the things which have not yet been done, 
Saying, 
    ‘My purpose will be established, And I will do all that pleases Me and fulfills My purpose’

I will remember all He has ever done, for me, for His people
And
I will remember He knows the future and hold all things in His good will.

* tip in made with tracing paper