I have heard some folks preach a gospel that seems to imply that if a person would only accept Christ as their Savior all their troubles will be gone and life will be like a never-ending  trip to an awesome amusement park on a sunny day when your pockets are overflowing with money. That is not the case. Following Christ is a wonderful journey, and He is good and He blesses and He comforts and He carries our burdens and He leads and guides and loves. But He never promised that this life would be without obstacles and trials, He never said there would be no sorrow, nor pain.

      Perhaps that is why there are disillusioned people out there wondering why Christianity didn't work for them. I have been a Christian now for over 26 years and I have had my share of trials and troubles. Many of them were self inflicted and due to a lack of wisdom and obedience on my part, and many of them were through no fault of mine at all, they just happened. Life is like that. In this world you WILL have troubles, you can guarantee it, after all it was our Lord who said those words. “I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” Those are the words of Jesus to His disciples.

     In this world we WILL have trouble, but in JESUS there is PEACE because He has overcome the world. I can only speak to my own experience, but for me I often get overwhelmed with things, with my troubles and the troubles of others. I get discouraged, I get sad. But when I examine myself I can easily see why this is. If you recall the story of Jesus as He walked across the stormy waters of the Sea of Galilee, you will remember that as the disciples in the boat saw Him coming they were afraid, and then He spoke to them, saying "Take courage! It is I"  and Peter yelled out "Lord if it is You bid me come to You on the water!", and Jesus said "Come", and Peter did just that. He stepped right out of that boat and he walked on the water. But he made a mistake, He took his eyes off of Jesus and he put them on the water and the waves and when he did that he began to sink.

  Life is like that, if we as Christians keep our eyes on Jesus, if we seek after Him with all our hearts, if we pray, study and commune with Him and as the troubles come into our lives, be they ours or someone we care about, we will have peace, we will be effective and we will get through the trial and in the getting through it we will bring glory to God and good to ourselves and others. It is when we take our eyes off Christ and put them on the troubles that we begin to sink. When I do this I can feel myself sinking, I begin to despair, I get really sad, the weight of the things going on around me become impossible to bear, to even tolerate, and I want nothing more than to run into a dark room and hide my head under a pillow to turn off the constant suffering I see all around. But when I place my eyes fully on my Lord, I am strengthened, I have joy and hope, even in the middle of painful circumstances, and when I keep my eyes on Him, I am able to be used of Him to help others. My calling is mercy, that is what He has called me to do, I am to care for others, to pray for them, to help them in a variety of different ways, all in His Name, in His strength and for His glory. Your calling might be different from mine as we all have different gifts and therefore how you feel when your eyes come off Jesus might be different than how I feel, but regardless the principal is the same.

  Keep you eyes on Jesus and everything will be okay. It might be hard, you might have to walk in some difficult places, but if you keep your eyes on Him you will always be standing on a firm and solid foundation and you will not sink. It will not all be sunshine and roses in this world. There will be many days when being a Christian hurts. If it doesn't hurt then you might want to consider carefully whether or not you are truly following Christ. As a Christian you will be misunderstood, you will probably be ridiculed on occasion, you will be burdened and pressed with the needs of others, God will ask you to do things that seem very difficult to do, things that stretch you out of your comfort zone,  but through it all, if you keep your eyes on Him, and follow Him,  you will  have the joy of knowing Him, the pleasure and comfort of His company and His care, the knowledge that He is using it all, every last bit of it, for His glory and for your good and/or the good of others. 

  Following Christ is not easy, He told us very clearly that it wouldn't be easy. But He is faithful in His promises of a peace that passes understanding, joy that is evident even in hard times and a hope that does not diminish when circumstances are not as you wish they were. There is no greater pursuit in this life than following Jesus, there is no better way to spend your life than in His service.

   Following Jesus does not remove you from the troubles and trials of this world, but it does give you the sure and present assurance of His presence with you as you walk through those troubles and trials and His strength and power to get through them in a manner that brings glory to Christ and that shouts out the message of the gospel to a world that is hurting and broken, because that is what Christianity is, it is walking through the troubles and trials and sorrows of this world with Jesus as your Lord and Shepherd showing forth the gospel of His good news of forgiveness and redemption and reconciliation to a lost and broken world.

   Jesus is worth everything, absolutely everything this world has to offer. As the apostle Paul said, " Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ." 

Keep your eyes on Jesus and off the waves and everything will turn out okay, and remember, this life here is just a tiny piece of an enormous tapestry. 

   Today was launch day, the very first public service of Mosaic Church Albuquerque. And what a glorious day it was! 

  The sunrise on launch day was spectacular, as I was getting ready this morning I looked out my back patio and marveled at how beams of light were shooting down out of the clouds. As I drove to church this morning alone, since my husband had left earlier to help with the setup, I noticed a large amount of balloons in the air, looking out over the city of Albuquerque it was almost like a Balloon Fiesta day. I thought it delightful that so many balloons were joining in on our "launch" day with such a beautiful display of colors.

  I and others have prayed and prayed and prayed some more for this day, for the service, the pastor, his family, the music guys, the setup and tear down guys, the greeting team, the pastoral care team and for everyone involved in launching this new church as well as all those who will be drawn to her doors. As Launch Day dawned this morning  I was excited and optimistic but trying to keep my hopes reasonable, after all this was only day 1 in the life of this brand new church.

  I should have known better, after all how many times in the past has God not only met my expectations but totally exceeded them? I have long since lost count. Today was no different. The sanctuary was filled with people!

  The music was uplifting and what a marvelous thing to hear all those voices singing His praise together as one! I felt such a love for all of these beautiful people that God in His good grace had drawn to this place, this new church. Many of them I knew from the launch team but there were a whole lot that I did not know, but I loved them. Looking across at that sea of faces, it truly was a beautiful mosaic of souls. My heart also filled with love for our great God and His incredible blessings!

 Pastor Adam preached a powerful message, from the gospel of Mark, Chapter 1, verses 14-20, the beginning of what promises to be an exciting and powerful series called The Way of Paradox: Following the Right-Side Up King in an Upside Down World. He spoke of how following Christ demands our all but also changes us completely. The gospel was proclaimed and I am excited to begin this series and eagerly looking forward to the next message.

  We had our first communion together and that too was a beautiful ceremony of grace, watching the various faces as they came up to take the elements was a great blessing. I felt the Lord's love for His people as each one came up to take the bread and the cup.

 The last song was beautiful as we sang a doxology together, but was sad, because I really didn't want to leave. We could easily have went straight in to next weeks service and I would have been fine. Sort of like Peter up on that hill with Jesus, he wanted to just throw up some tents and just stay right there, to bask in the glory of it all. But like Peter we are called to come down off the hill and walk out our faith right here in the world. I can honestly say that after this beautiful and uplifting service I feel well equipped to do just that.

  God has brought a lot of beautiful souls to Mosaic, the ones I have thus far come to know are already dear to me, and I look forward to getting to know everyone. God is making something awesome in bringing all of these people to this place to gather together and worship Him and proclaim Him to our city. What a great start to this wonderful collection of the broken coming together to form something beautiful!

 What an exciting time!

 At the foot of the snow capped mountain,

 By the river along the Bosque

 At a school turned into Sanctuary

 The broken pieces come,

 Some are worn

 Some have sharp edges

 A multitude of colored souls

 Each unique

 Each beautiful to the Creator

 They come together in His hand

 Laid out in rows

 Voices lifted together

 In praise to the King

 A beautiful mosaic

 Broken made beautiful.

 

I sit and watch the tears

slide slowly down her cheek,

Tears I have cried so many times,

I see them,

I feel them

as if they were mine,

For they are mine.

A mothers tears,

a mothers burden,

A heavy one,

pressing down hard,

Prayers expressed on bended knee,

Burdens pressing down,

They sap the strength,

They rip the very fabric of the soul,

Prayers expressed through tears that fall,

A mothers tears.

I see your tears,

They are mine.

Lets shed them together.

Lord hear our prayers,

Lord behold our tears,

Lord carry our burdens,

Lord grant us strength,

Lord heal our wounded souls,

Not for us Oh Lord,

But for our children we pray,

You who remember

the tears of a mother,

as she looked upon You,

Torn and bleeding,

Beautiful precious son,

Murdered on a bloody tree.

You spoke to the disciple,

Son behold your mother.

You see us,

You love us,

You hear us,

Our tears carefully collected,

In Your bottle.

We lay our children down,

at Your feet,

Because we believe,

Lord we believe.

Artwork by astarvinartist entitled A Mother's Tears

Poem by Donna Griego

 

Save Now!

 

  I was chatting with a friend this morning, someone who like me loves someone with PTSD. Our conversation led me to think about how often I have desired for the Lord to save now, to not wait, to not tarry even one more minute, how often we all do this, we who follow Christ.

  We may be fully and completely convinced of His sure ability to save, we may have complete faith in Him, and yet we desperately want Him to come RIGHT NOW, to remove this pain RIGHT NOW, to save RIGHT NOW! It is terribly difficult to walk through pain and sorrow, to watch the ones you love so very much suffer. It is, and remains the most awful thing I have ever felt. I would rather suffer my personal sorrows one hundred thousand times over; than to watch the ones I love most suffer theirs.

  As my friend and I chatted, I begin to think about the day the Lord rode into Jerusalem on a young donkey.  The crowds were so exuberant. They had seen Him heal the sick, seen the blind given sight, seen the lame get up and walk, seen the demon possessed set free, and even seen the dead walk out of their tombs! The people were convinced, they needed no more proof. This was their long awaited Messiah! The kingdom of God was at hand! Their King was entering the gates of the city, seated on a donkey, as so many kings before Him had ridden in. Hosanna! Hosanna! Save now!

  I thought about those people, the ones who had stood at the gates, waving their palm branches and throwing down their cloaks and crying “Hosanna! Blessed is He that comes in the name of the Lord!” Hosanna! The word means “save now” or “Please save! I believe they were convinced that He was the One and they were convinced that things were going to change now! Their King had come…….,Yet  how devastated they must have been and how utterly confused when the very next day, they watched Him stumble through the streets carrying a cross, His back beaten bloody, Him so weak that another had to be pulled from the crowd to carry His cross…….save now! Save now! Seems such a foolish cry at this point, for He does not even attempt to save Himself.

 And yet all this had to come to pass, it had to go down in the bloody and tragic way that it did. He had to die in order to pay the price for sin, and He had to die in order to rise alive, and defeat death. But at the time, they certainly couldn’t see it. How downcast and afraid they must have been. How disappointed.

 And yet, if we look back upon that day, as we do today, and we see the majesty of it all, how God did so very much more than what they asked Him to do on that day so long ago, when the King of glory rode into Jerusalem on the back of a young donkey. They wanted an earthly king, they wanted an end to the Roman oppression, they wanted their bodies healed, their bellies to be full, but He was busy bringing eternal life to His people, He was busy crushing the head of the serpent and buying passage to glory for a multitude of souls. He was busy with the work of defeating sin and death once and for all. They just couldn’t see it.

 

  I too have tasted their disappointment. I have cried out with all that is within me, SAVE NOW! I was convinced without a shred of doubt that He was able to save, that He was my only hope, my faith in Him was sure……but He tarried. He did not come on my timetable, He did not save immediately. I too was devastated.  I too cried out for the pain to stop, for the healing to come, and I too wept at the foot of the cross thinking that all that I so longed for, was not coming.

  And yet as I look back, over some six years of the most intense struggles of my life, I see His hand at work. I see how He was doing so much more than what I had asked and longed for. He was saving, and He was building, and He was working. He still is! While I pleaded for the salvation of my loved ones, for their pain to stop, for their healing to come, He was bringing about a change in me, and a change in them, and the salvation and restoration of many, and He was using all that pain, all that hurt, to reach others, and to change lives.

  Hard times will come. Sometimes I wish that the positive movement, the name it and claim it people were right, that just having enough faith will see you heaped with monetary blessing and worldly happiness and that there will never be a single day of pain, or sickness, or mental anguish. But they are wrong. Hard times will come. Trusting God is not easy when they do come. Watching someone you love dealing with a depth of pain almost beyond comprehension is not easy. Laying them down on the altar of God is not easy. Believing that He has it all in His hands and that He intends good for you and yours is not easy. The hard times HURT. Losing people hurts, seeing them make grievous mistakes hurts, making grievous mistakes yourself hurts, being utterly helpless while everything around you is crumbling into pieces hurts.

  But God is faithful. If you can just hold on to that, cling to it with everything in you, and pray like you never prayed before. You will see, like the people who shouted Hosanna, and saw their King crucified, their hopes crushed, and yet lived to see Him rise from the dead, and start His church, and they turned the world upside down, He will turn your world upside down too! He will be victorious in your life, He will and has heard your prayers, He hears your cries of SAVE NOW LORD, but He is working, He is working to do so much more than you could imagine.

  I eagerly await the end of our story, for we have not reached it yet, but I am excited to see what He will do. I see Him moving! I see His hand in so very many things, I have seen people, so many people, blessed by the things that have come out of our struggles, and I can only see a little bit of what He is doing, and He isn’t done yet. It’s gonna be awesome for He is an awesome God.

  So if its hard right now, if it feels like it’s never going to let up, if you, like me are watching things crumble and are helpless to stop it, pray, pray and believe, and in your unbelief ask Him to help you. Fall on your face before Him when you cannot go another step, and then get up and get out there and tell others about Him, share your struggles, share your triumphs, ask for prayer, and pray, pray, pray. The King is coming! He saves! He is faithful!

    One of the most popular shows of all time is the series The Walking Dead, which portrays the lives of a small group of people, thrown together by a terrible tragedy whereby the vast majority of the population have turned into zombies and where everyone carries the virus within them that upon physical death they too will become the walking dead.

   I often wonder why we are so drawn to shows like this, where the world civilizations crumble and a handful of people survive? I wonder if its because deep down humanity knows that we are all carrying the virus. We are the walking dead. The Bible tells us in many places that without Christ we are dead in our sins and trespasses. Christ is the Lifegiver, Christ is the Redeemer, Christ is the cure for our walking dead virus. There is no other cure. There are things that we do to alleviate our suffering, Band-Aids that we place upon the gaping wounds of our souls. They work for a time. We search for money, we search for love, we search for gratification, we search for medical assistance, for age defyers, for distractions...... we pursue the spiritual.....we pursue happiness.....we pursue pleasure.....we search and we search, grasping up our various Band-Aids and placing them on our patchwork souls......but in the end to no avail. We are dead and we are powerless to change that.

For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

For all have sinned and fall short of God's glory.

 During Jesus' time here on earth there was a young man who wanted to follow him, and the young man told the Lord "just let me bury my father and I will come and follow You." But Jesus said to him, "Follow Me, and allow the dead to bury their own dead." What did he mean by this?  He was referring to the people of the world, the people without Him. All who do not have Christ are dead.....the walking dead.

 Jesus Christ is the only source, the only hope of peace and life. There is no other. Everything else that we use to attempt to fill the empty spaces of our souls is superficial and non lasting. There is no pill to make us better, there is no purchase that satisfies, there is no person who fills the hole, no pleasure, no distraction.

 King Solomon stated perfectly the results of the life without Christ " I the Preacher have been king over Israel in Jerusalem. ¹And I applied my heart to seek and to search out by wisdom all that is done under heaven. It is an unhappy business that God has given to the children of man to be busy with.  I have seen everything that is done under the sun, and behold, all is vanity    and a striving after wind.

 I said in my heart, “I have acquired great wisdom, surpassing all who were over Jerusalem before me, and my heart has had great experience of wisdom and knowledge.” And I applied my heart to know wisdom and to know madness and folly. I perceived that this also is but a striving after wind.

 May you hear the voice of Jesus and come out of your tomb and live.