Luke 5:16 (NIV84) — 16 But Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed.

Withdrew.  Lonely.  I am musing on this today.  Withdrawing away from traffic, jobs, people, phones, computers, tablets, kids, spouse isn't that easy around here.  It isn't like most of us have the woods in our backyard.  Can I find a place to withdraw from noise?  How about the noise in my head?  This is going to take some practice.  If you had a place,  would you go there?  Does quiet bother you?  Lonely is alone, as in nobody is around to interrupt you.  Where is this place?  All I know is I have to find it.  You have to find it.  For yourself.  For the people around you.  For your relationship with God.  Find a place where you won't be distracted or interrupted.  Then the conversation can be two way and your heart will be encouraged.  

Luke 2:25–27 (NIV84) Now there was a man in Jerusalem called Simeon, who was righteous and devout. He was waiting for the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit was upon him. It had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not die before he had seen the Lord’s Christ.  Moved by the Spirit, he went into the temple courts.

So let's look at this for a second.  The was a guy, Simeon.  He acted like a guy who was sold out to God, because he was.  He was waiting for Israel to be lifted up, saved from Rome, released from domination, maybe even awaiting the Messiah.  Yea, a Messiah.  This Simeon guy had be told by God's Spirit that he would see what he longed for, or who he longed for.  He wouldn't die until something happened or began to happen so Israel could be free.  Did you get that?  God told Him about things.  Then he felt this impression, this sensing that he should go to the temple that day.  That must not have been weird to him, sensing or being impressed by the Spirit, because in the Greek it simply says he "went in the Spirit" to the temple. 

I get the idea that this guy knew God.  He knew how to "hear" or "sense" the Spirit of God.  He "flowed" or "walked" with the Spirit.  It's like this is how he lived his life.  He is seemingly insignificant as a Bible character, but maybe not.  Maybe like Jabez, he deserves a small book written about him.  He heard the assurance of God regarding what he would see before he died and he went to the temple on the exact day at the exact hour that he was supposed to in order to fulfill the assurance or promise he had already received.  Are you getting this?  Now apply it to your life.

We all want to hear God and we all want individual promises.  Simeon was not an aberration.  God does that all the time.  He also leads us to places too.  However we have to spend the time to listen, in order to hear the promise, and we have to actually go where the Spirit is leading us.  It is going to challenge your busy schedule.  It's going to stretch your faith.  It probably will be inconvenient at times.  It will take devotion.  And then, pure joy will happen.  

Can we be satisfied with our place in life?  Is it tough to watch others multiply and prosper, live in nice houses or get a bonus and not get one yourself?  You work hard for "B's" and they easily get "A's".  You want more children and they multiply like rabbits.  Or do you ever wonder why some don't have as much as you?

Mark 10:40 (NIV84) but to sit at my right or left is not for me to grant. These places belong to those for whom they have been prepared.”

What if God has prepared something for us.  A place.  A situation in life that we can be remarkable in, yet no matter how much remarkable we are we won't be featured on the Nightly News, Shark Tank, in the Wall Street or in Entertainment Weekly.  Few are.  When I read this I couldn't help but thinking, what has been prepared for me?  Why do I sometimes want something different?  I want to watch the Superbowl, in person!  I want the place of importance.  I want..., you get what I am saying.  God prepares a place for us and that is where we will fit and "flow".  It is what we are made for.  Why covet someone else's spouse, riches, position?  It's a trap. Find yours.   

It is also a trap to think that your lowly place is what God has prepared.  We must be careful not to interpret where we are experientially with where God has placed us.  Sometimes I think, instead of aspiring, we settle.  We may not sit at His right or left, but we have a seat at His table and we have settle for the porch. 

It sure makes you want to be close to Him and to listen to Him so He can tell you where your place is.  Continuing to listen is important too because God often promotes you.  You were in that place but He is moving you on to another place.  Stay close my friends.  Don't settle.  Don't wish you were something you aren't.  Go on a prayer walk and get directions to your prepared place.  

Mark 7:5–6 (NIV84) -- So the Pharisees and teachers of the law asked Jesus, “Why don’t your disciples live according to the tradition of the elders instead of eating their food with ‘unclean’ hands?”  He replied, “Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you hypocrites; as it is written: “ ‘These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.

What traditions do we do and think that we are close to God because we did them?  What traditions do we perform out of habit without engaging?  Every once in a while I will catch myself singing powerful worship songs without engaging my heart!  Have you ever done that?  Then it hits me, I am just singing words with a melody, focus and engage Terry. 

I remember I person saying to me, “well, that is not the way we did it at my old church.”  Inside I answered, “so?”  Why do we do what we do?  Why do you read the Bible for your devotion time?  Are we just reading or are we engaged?  It is the heart that God wants.  We have such opportunity to connect with God, but I fear that many of us do more “service” than “relating”.  We all can get caught in that trap.  Duty.  It is not like duty is wrong.  It is the “why” or the “where is the duty coming from”, that is the important issue.  Why do I fix a kitchen screen?  Duty or love?  I tell you it is love!  Why do we pray?  Duty of love?  I pray to relate to God.  To tell Him what I need, what I feel and think and how much I need Him.  I pray to have a conversation with God so He can tell me what He wants to say.  Just yesterday on a prayer walk He spoke to me something so simple, yet it will change my life in a small way.  It was wonderful.  I would have missed that if prayer was on my checklist because it was a tradition. 

Traditions can be nice, but anything that takes the place of relationship, love and full heart engagement is a fraud.  We aren’t made for that.  We are made for full hearted love.  

I can’t read this story without marveling.  I just can’t get over it and I so want to be like Jesus.  I mean, there is a lot to aspire to in our lives, but having such a sense of peace that the seeming impending doom has zero effect on you would be a pretty awesome character trait.

Mark 4:37–38 (NIV84) —  A furious squall came up, and the waves broke over the boat, so that it was nearly swamped.  Jesus was in the stern, sleeping on a cushion. The disciples woke him and said to him, “Teacher, don’t you care if we drown?”

Did you get the part where I would probably be sea sick?  Did you get the part where Jesus would have surely been sprayed if not outright splashed by the waves?  This wasn’t the Queen Mary.  It was a small fishing boat.  Yet he slept.  That is such an amazing peace.  Jesus had such peace that when most feared for their lives, it had no influence on Him.  Incredible!

So how about you?  How’s your peace level?  How is it when people offend you or circumstances come about that bring you to a financial shortfall?  How about when you are cut off in traffic or get a poor health checkup?  Where do you go?  Jesus is asking us:

Mark 4:40 (NIV84) —  He said to his disciples, “Why are you so afraid? Do you still have no faith?”

I think we should answer this honestly and go from there.  Our problem is we don’t want to answer this honestly we just want to grunt more faith out or confess positively or deny our fear.  The starting place of faith is getting a revelation of “why” we are afraid.  We have a belief system and thinking that needs to be corrected.  I don’t know about you but I want to get to the place of sleeping through the storm.  Ah…, does that mean I have to endure more storms? Not really.  The storms, they come.  

This is the most heart-wrenching day in the life of Jesus.  He is about to endure the most physically trying day, but today His heart breaks.  Amidst the group of men He poured his life into is a betrayer.  Judas gets offended enough at a lavish gift from a women who pours perfume on Jesus, that he is pushed over the edge and does the unthinkable.  Jesus is arrested and all his disciples, every one of them run away to save themselves.  This is coming right after the Passover meal and Jesus explaining again the New Covenant and His great love for them and all of Israel.  He is falsely  accused with charges that are ridiculous and then it comes, the condemnation from the leaders who have hated all that He has stood for.  He resolutely has faced this heartbreak because He knows they need forgiveness.

Matthew 26:28  (NIV84)  This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.

They all needed it and we all need it - forgiveness.  When you think about what was done to Jesus, the anguish and the torture, and you think about how forgiveness came to us, it is mind boggling.  We prefer at times for forgiveness to come through acts of reparation.  If you want my forgiveness, then shape up and don't do that again.  Jesus stated it clearly, my sacrifice, my blood, my death brings forgiveness to all.  The question for all of us is, will you accept it?

We still want to create something to "do" in order to attain this forgiveness.  Billions have been made by people who come up with some cleaver way to get rid of your guilt.  They use some kind of reasoning or what I would call, "Jedi mind tricks".  It's a reprogramming.  Preachers have ladened the masses with guilt and fear.  Here is God's reprogramming, put your life "in Christ" and accept that you are forgiven.  It is deeper than that, but it is that simple.  God's heart is to forgive you - once for all.  

One of the themes of Jesus' life and of my life is the heart.  The heart, the core of us, who we really are, is at the center of something Jesus says.

Matthew 15:7–9 (NIV84) You hypocrites! Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you:  “ ‘These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. They worship me in vain; their teachings are but rules taught by men.’”

Evidently God doesn't care about honor and veneration that comes from the lips.  In fact Jesus is equating vain worship with a heart that is disengaged.  Vain worship is no worship.  It is a "result-less" expression of allegiance to God.  Without your heart engaged you are not allegiant!  

Your brain makes your lips form words, so your heart need not be engaged to say "I love you".  Which of us wants to marry a spouse who says they love us all the time, but their heart isn't in it?  We can tell when a person's heart is disengaged.  The heart is at the center of it all.  Jesus goes on to talk about the things that come from the heart that are evil later in this chapter.  The heart will produce who you really are even though you force your lips to say otherwise.  He was arguing with religious leaders about outward behavior rules being meaningless without the heart.  Your heart is who you are.  It's like the old saying, 'if you are a dog, you naturally will bark.  However no matter how much you bark, you won't become a dog." 

Engage your heart in all you do.  If need be, trade it in for a new one.  God promised to take our hard heart and give us a heart of flesh.  That is the New Covenant promise, a new heart!  With the new heart we can fearlessly be engaged loving our kids, loving our spouse, in our work, in attaining our goals and especially in worshipping God.  

Matthew 11:2–3 (NIV84) When John heard in prison what Christ was doing, he sent his disciples to ask him, “Are you the one who was to come, or should we expect someone else?”

The scene is not a good one.  John is in prison for doing good.  It doesn't look good for him.  He is rough and tumble, and says it like it is.  Now he is saying I doubt.  It may only be a little, but he is having a crisis of faith of sorts.  Hard times have come and things aren't working out like he thought.  So, in the place of torment he asks, "Are you really the Messiah?"  John saw heaven open, heard God speak, saw the Spirit descend on Jesus among many other things.  He experienced God in the miraculous.  Hard times have a way of erasing our memory don't they?  Now, because of what he is going through, he is having second thoughts or at least needs to have some confirmation that he is correct and his hard times aren't for not.

So how does Jesus respond to his cousin's second thoughts and doubts?  He backs him up!  Instead of a "yes, it's me," Jesus points to his life which is pretty incredible.  Then he out and out promotes John!  John was doubting and Jesus starts promoting!  This is so fantastic.  Do you get it?  Jesus' heart was not to hold John accountable, or to reprove him for weakness, it was to promote him. 

He hasn't changed.  When we are weak, when we doubt, when we struggle, Jesus promotes us.  He brags on us.  He calls us great.  Incredible!  Is that your Jesus?  Is that your Father in heaven?  Jesus said if you see Him it is like seeing the Father.  Is that your Father?  If not, then change your mind and get free.  

                                                                                                                                                              By Jeremy Holstrom
Matthew 10:1 (NASB)
“Jesus summoned His twelve disciples and gave them authority over unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to heal every kind of disease and every kind of sickness.”

As I was reading, I begin to think about what it meant to be given “authority”. God highlighted the word to me and when He does I like to read the definition. It always seems to give me insight into why He is pointing it out to me. 

Authority: (n)
1: the power to determine, adjudicate, or otherwise settle issues or disputes; jurisdiction; the right to control, command, or determine.

In this very simple definition my view of authority changes just as little bit! Look at the word “determine” Authority gives us the ability to determine the outcome of a situation! 

How Jesus disciples the 12 really rocked me as well. He does two things specifically in Matthew 10 that jump out at me.  In the very first verse Jesus gathers his disciples together and empowers them. In verse 7 Jesus gives, what to me is very practical & “color by numbers instruction” on how to use this authority He has just given them. 

Matthew 10:7-8 (NASB)
7 And as you go, preach, saying, ‘The kingdom of heaven is at hand.’ 8 Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons. Freely you received, freely give.

I would imagine the 12 felt pretty confident in what they needed to do after that! Jesus empowers and instructs - it’s a great perspective on discipleship

I want to disciple this way – leave people feeling confident and equipped to accomplish whatever is set before them! 

A central theme with Jesus so far is in and out.  It is the inside that counts.  Fasting, praying, giving, and much more are to be lead by the inside and not the willful resolution of the outside.  I think He knows something we do not know.  At least we didn't.  It is the heart that counts most.  Faith, mercy and serving God all stem from a heart that is decided and not from a disciplined lifestyle.  The heart is where the Kingdom is birthed.  It is the birthing by the Spirit of God that changes us and that happens on the..., inside.  

Matthew 7:1–2 (NIV84) “Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.

Krino- to judge others guilty and condemn them to punishment.  What, me?  The petty judgments of fashion, the moral judgments, the coveting heart judgments that say they don't deserve that, it is all inclusive.  With our words we most often punish.  We degrade effortlessly at times.  It's poison!  We are all guilty of drinking the poison!  It's like drinking alcohol and being drunk and having fun, until you vomit, until you are nauseous, until the headache won't go away.  Judgment is poison.  Jesus is giving us a good reason to avoid it and love instead.  Love unifies, judgment separates.  You can bite your tongue, or you can let the Spirit urge you to love and flow with that.  Although the tongue heals faster than any other body part, I would rather avoid the wound and flow with what God has put inside of me.  Love.