“Hearing that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, the Pharisees got together.  One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question:  ’Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?’  Jesus replied, ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.  This is the first and greatest commandment.  And the second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself.  All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

~Matthew 22:34-40

Take time to imagine what it would have been like to be an eye witness on this crime scene.  Here Jesus is, a man without sin, healing the sick, casting out demons, feeding the hungry, teaching the lost, and those who were more concerned about the law tried to trap Him.  They didn’t like how He showed up on the scene.  They wanted to expose Him as a fraud, so they continued to scheme behind the scenes.   When Jesus silenced the Sadducees, the Pharisees decided to take a shot at Him.  They even sent their very best to ask the question they thought would get Jesus into trouble.  vs. 35 says, “One of them (Pharisees), an expert in the law, tested him with this question…”  An expert, REALLY?  Sounds like someone is a little intimidated.  Thankfully Jesus was never afraid of a little question.  Yes, it was a crime to try and trap Jesus, as if He were someone to condemn.  But Jesus handled the question graciously.  He handled it with God’s Word.  Just as we ought to handle the questions that daily come to us from people who surround us.

The question: Which is the greatest commandment in the Law?

Jesus response, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.  This is the first and greatest commandment.  And the second is like it:  Love your neighbor as yourself.”

If you’re paying close attention, you will notice the crime scene has changed.  Jesus is not the center of the scene any longer.  The focus returns to the Pharisees.  Where is their love?  What is it that they are truly living for?  The laws will not get them into heaven.

Both commandments are hinged on one key phrase, “LOVE YOURSELF”.  This can be one of the most difficult things to do, as we look at ourselves and find all the flaws.  We let God know what we can’t do, when He’s looking at us and saying, “I know what you can do.  Are you willing?”

In the next couple of days, I will share some stories that Pastor Q from Grace Family Church shared last night at our High Dive class.  It’s time to go deep.  Time to live like the Stephen Curtis Chapman song “Dive” which says,

I’m diving in, I’m going deep in over
my head, I want to be
Cought in the rush, lost in the flow,
in over my head, I want to go
The river’s deep, the river’s wide,
the river’s water is alive
So sink or swim, I’m diving in

There is a supernatural power
In this might river’s flow
It can bring the dead to life
And it can fill an empty soul
And give a heart the only thing
Worth living and worth dying for, yeah
But we will never know the awesome power
Of the grace of God
Until we let ourselves get swept away
Into this holy flood
So if you’ll take my hand
We’ll close our eyes and count to three
And take the leap of faith
Come on let’s go

Are you ready to dive in?  Do you want the most out of God that you can get?  I’m so excited about who God is and lately I can’t get to sleep because I feel like a little girl giddy in love with the Lord.  It’s exciting to live in the presence of the Father.  Living deep in Him is a thousand times better than anything else this world can offer!

I’ve saved the best for last!  This is so exciting!  Are you ready?  Brace yourself!  I’ve studied the Word so much and really, truly enjoy every ounce of wisdom I can absorb from it.  But last night at High Dive I learned something new that totally, one hundred percent made me want to dance in the freedom of God.  There is JOY in His presence and I am basking in it after this new found wisdom!  Okay, okay I will share it with you!

Pastor Q shared with us the verse Matthew 5:48 which says,

“Be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect.”

He joked about how this is like the least amount of good news for most people, but this is when you don’t know the true context of the verse.  So here it is.

The word “perfect” in Greek is Telas which means complete.  Replace perfect with the word complete and you have a sentence that is so much more attainable.

“Be ‘complete’ as your heavenly Father is complete.”

God is calling us to a better life every day.  He wants us to come with our broken pieces, our fragments, the things that don’t make sense.  He will put it all together and make us into a beautiful piece of mosaic art which the light of His Son Jesus Christ can shine through.  Only through Jesus can we be truly COMPLETE! I pray you will embrace this opportunity to run to God and give Him the fragments of your life, so that He can make a beautiful mosaic artwork out of you!

Lord, You are completely amazing!  I’m in awe of the wonders You perform on a daily basis.  I praise You for this day and the Joy I have in knowing that my life is complete because I have You in it.  I’m so blessed because I wake up knowing I get to live my days for You.  I can’t imagine anything better than loving You each and every day.  Thank you for the wonderful privilege I have to be a child of God.

His Complete Mosaic Art,
Sarah

“God is God and I am not. I can only see a part of the picture He is painting. God is God and I am man. So I’ll never understand it all. For only God is God.”

I absolutely love this chorus from the song “God is God” by Stephen Curtis Chapman. There are quite a few things in my life that I have went through that I still to this day don’t understand (and I’m not going into details about it), and I blamed everyone including myself and asked why countless times. I was too upset about why I was having to go through these certain things to realize that everything happens for a reason and that it is ALL in God’s plan and will for my life. He knows what He is doing and He won’t allow anything to be thrown at me or anyone else that can’t be handled. Everything that happens in my life is coming together piece by piece to make a brilliant masterpiece that is entitled “God’s Will for My Life”. As the song says “I can only see a part of the picture He is painting.” I can only see what has happened and how He has brought me through each thing, and though I can not see how it all fits together to make the finished work quite yet. I know that without a shadow of a doubt that once He is finished, it is going to be wonderful creation and I am so excited to see it.

God is so great and often works in such unanticipated ways. I never saw it coming, but 2008 was the year of abandon:

• Abandoned a comfortable and stable youth pastorate to join a volunteer church planting effort and work nights in a hospital storeroom
• Abandoned a comfortable, safe suburban home to rent a room on the third floor of a hispanic family’s home in a dodgy neighborhood
• Abandoned a comfortable, late-model convertible to drive the ghetto-cruiser–a 96′ Civic hatchback with no power steering

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

This Stephen Curtis Chapman song has inspired me since my teen years:

The video below is the inspiration for the newest story I wrote a few days ago. I love this Christmas album by Stephen Curtis Chapman and this particular song, “All I Really Want for Christmas,” has just made me so contemplative this holiday season. I know a lot of people adopting/have adopted recently and one of the jobs we’ll be doing when we get to Peru is helping build a Children’s Home on campus. Brian and I know that someday, the Lord will have us adopt. Even though a newborn would be really neat, I really feel the Lord would have us take in a child who’s a little older, and give them the home and the love they’ve never had. So, since Thanksgiving (when my Christmas music began playing in earnest!), I’ve been thinking about this song and wondering how I could write a story to go along with it. I finally sat down on Friday night and came up with the one that’s listed under “My Writings.” It’s called “A Christmas Prayer”, but I’d be open to new suggestions for the title! Give it a read; let me know what you think. From here on out, I’m going to just post the new title of the story I post next to “My Writings” so you can be sure to know whenever I change it. Enjoy! Please let me know what you think!