Third times the charm.  Thanks so much for your patience and sorry for the many attempts it took to get it done today, but here it is.

Be blessed!

Well, I’m on uncharted ground.  I delivered the whole lesson a second time only for the recording to falter midway through again.  I’m at a loss.  The only idea I have now that I think I could figure out is to do it live through Facebook.  So if you are ready to come to Sunday school now, join me on Facebook.  Otherwise, I will post a link to it here shortly!

While my fence heard the lesson I delivered this evening, sadly you will not.  Though the lawnmower right beside me didn’t stop it from happening, the inexplicable technical glitch did.  While deterred for the night, I will go back to the battle in the morning!

I intend to attempt to do it all again early Sunday morning…on my own as my kids weren’t in for sunrise services 🙂 Hopefully I’ll be back again before most of you even see this post!

We turn our gaze for a spell toward Him who not only died and rose again, but who reigns in eternal majesty.

Sorry I went a bit long on this one, hopefully it will be worth it to you.  Again the cutting wouldn’t work so you have a bit extra on beginning and end…

Happy Easter!  He is Risen, He is Risen Indeed!

In this final lesson of the People of the Passion, we look through the eyes of Peter at a path we all and often tread.  May we each find ourselves blinded by the glories of the dawn of this Resurrection Sunday!

My kids forgot to trim the first and last so you get a few seconds of …extra 🙂

We look again through the eyes of people who experienced the first Passion week in hopes of seeing ourselves in their lives and encounters and finding ourselves also at His feet.

I’m trusting this was the word that God had me to deliver and that it will bear fruit.  I say this because it certainly appeared as though the enemy wasn’t liking it being heard.  I believe you can hear me well enough but there are plenty of distracting noises that might attempt to draw you away.  May God be glorified and you be blessed.

As we approach Easter Sunday, let us take the opportunity afforded us in these forced but quiet moments and attempt to glean all the awe and wonder of this Passion Week!

Over the next three days it is my hope to look at various aspects of the story of Easter through the lens of the biblical figures who played a role in them.  I hope you’ll find the following video is an appropriate beginning to a truly meaningful encounter with our Risen Savior!

I return this week to a somewhat lesser known Biblical figure with whom we might well relate in seasons of unrest and fear.

Thank you all so much for the feedback from last weeks lesson and hopefully any issues raised have been remedied.  If you find other impediments to your viewing and hearing, please let me know!

It would be advantageous to read 2 Chronicles chapter 20 before beginning the lesson and be sure to have your Bible on hand.

We are travelers here.

We are not meant to call this home, get settled in our comfortable lives, rest in the realm of the known.  Hard to do when you’re home bound.  Hard not to do when you don’t have a clue what tomorrow will look like.

Every once in a while God will splash a little cold water and ‘hmmm-hmmm’– that little nod that is meant to remind us to keep moving in the right direction.  In this season, God is calling many of us to do things that push us beyond comfort and familiarity.  Things that feel like cold water against the contented face of human stupor.  Here is mine.

Today I begin a bit of something new.  While I love to write, we all know I am inconsistent at best.  These times call for something more from me anyway.  The need of the day is that you watch a lesson rather than read one.

So here goes.

This is the first of what may be a handful or a bevy of lessons…in keeping with the spirit of the lesson itself, I do not know and am content that I do not now need to.

Let me know if there are glitches I can work on before another lesson is filmed.  I know the volume is rather low, hopefully you can hear it if you ‘jack it up real good.’

Prior to watching the video, it would be advantageous for you to read the scriptural context – Judges 13.  Enjoy and let me know of any needed adjustments.

There has always been a nagging question in one of my favorite chapters of Scripture.  I’ve always said the 19’s are just so good.  Revelation 19 gives us a vision of God the Son.  I Kings 19 reveals God the Holy Spirit.  And then there’s Exodus.  Exodus 19 gives us a glimpse of God the Father.

But within Exodus 19 there is an exchange that has never made sense to me.  Until last week.

And the Lord said to Moses, “Go to the people and consecrate them today and tomorrow…Put limits for the people around the mountain and tell them, ‘Be careful that you do not approach the mountain or touch the foot of it.'”   

The Lord descended to the top of Mount Sinai and called Moses to the top of the mountain.  So Moses went up and the Lord said to him, “Go down and warn the people so they do not force their way through to see the Lord and many of them perish….”  Moses said to the Lord, “The people cannot come up Mount Sinai, because you yourself warned us, ‘Put limits around the mountain and set it apart as holy.'”     Exodus 19:10-12, 20-23

Our God has a short memory only for our sin, not for commands He gave ten minutes earlier.  The conversation between Moses and God is inexplicable to me.  Why does God repeat Himself?  And what He repeats is something that proved to not need to be said even once.  The people were terrified.  They didn’t try to come toward the mountain, they tried to get away.  They ended up pleading with Moses to be their go-between as they feared the Lord too much to be so near to Him.  And yet God, in all his might and wisdom, had Moses climb up and down that mountain to tell them not to come rushing toward Him?

Last Sunday our chapel choir sang the song Only God.  It was breathtaking.  As I listened to the words of awe and adoration I began to see with sad clarity why God’s concern was blatantly evidenced and why it had previously been so hard for me to understand.

As the choir sang, I was given an inkling of how truly amazing our God is, how awe-inspiring and majestic.  There is a draw in each of us toward that which is beautiful and alluring.  In that reverential moment, He was the most beautiful and alluring thing I’d ever witnessed.  He was irresistible.

It’s like a kid and candy or a jewel thief and a diamond store.  Some things so attract us that we simply cannot stay away, like the forbidden love of a teenager or the draw of the perfect car, house, or necklace…we just have to have it and will work our hands to the bone to get it.

God is it.  He is the One thing that we would give everything to have. He’s the pearl of infinite price, the prize worth striving after.  If we ever see Him in all His fullness, allow ourselves as we have been allowed to come into His throne room and gaze upon His glory, He will become that one thing we would do anything to have.  

God knows that this is true.  Thus the boundaries on Mount Sinai.  He knew that if the Hebrews really saw Him for what He is, they would take off running to His Presence and not care what it cost or where it left them!  He knew that if even one of them quieted their anxious and temporal minds, they would see the majesty of what was before them and abandon all logic, control, and self-restraint to be nearer the One who showed up in such glory!

That’s the God we serve.  One who is alluring and beautiful, powerful and enticing, majestic and all-encompassing, able to enthrall us to the exclusion of any other desire, longing, or need.

There is, however, the sad part.  No one did.  No one ran up to the mountain.  No one gazed in desire and delight at the mighty One before them.  

That same God is still on His throne. Which way am I running today? All boundaries have been removed.  Access has been eternally granted.  And the greatest prize, the most amazing spectacle I might ever witness sits enthroned between the cherubim awaiting the audience that takes the time to gaze upon His great glory.