Passing Over

By Heather Allen –

Spring is coming. Trees are already budding as we experience an unseasonably warm winter. Passover is approaching and with it my anticipation of celebrating God’s divine protection. A few years ago my family was invited to celebrate our first Passover Seder. The experience was rich as we recalled how Moses and Aaron were called to be spokesman, plagues came on a stubborn ruler, and then thousands of years later Christ became the Passover lamb.

After the Seder, I began studying the Passover and other feasts in scripture. A beautiful painting took form as I traced God’s preservation of His people throughout history.

Several Passover truths stood out as I studied. Under King Josiah & Hezekiah, Israel celebrated the Passover, renewing their covenant to follow God’s law and repenting for their sin. While under Persian rule the Jewish people were handed a death sentence also known as Haman’s edict. This edict would have come as they prepared for Passover. And just as God spared His people in Egypt, he again spared them in Persia. Both times they were integrated into another culture. As deliverance came, perhaps the realization that they were a separate people followed. There was a covenant in place. And then Christ’s death fell on Passover, His last breath coming as the Passover lamb would have been slaughtered – A man should have taken much longer to die, but Christ gave up His spirit at that exact hour.

There is a pattern I am noticing the more I study the Jewish feasts, a divine calendar. These dates were not merely historical dates with significance for the Jewish people; they are significant today. I believe we will continue to see prophecy linked with these dates. God still distinguishes between His own and those who are not. This is a covenant relationship. Do I believe we may see God pass over us again on Passover? Perhaps. Blood on our doorposts will not separate us. Rather Christ’s shed blood covers our sin.

An identity shift should take place as we embrace the reality that we are His people. We belong to the God who called forth water from a rock. He will be enough for us in any circumstance. He is a covenant God, faithful to all generations.

“Go, my people, enter your rooms and shut the doors behind you; hide yourselves for a little while until His wrath has passed by. See the LORD is coming out of His dwelling to punish the people of the earth for their sins” (Isaiah 26:20-21 NIV).

(The cross reference on this is the first Passover is Exodus 12:23)

Shine

By Heather Allen –

I thought being a teenager was painful. I disliked the sense of awkward vulnerability that accompanied those years. I disliked being subjected to the sheer foolishness that is public high school. And I disliked feeling torn between the numb robotic actions expected of me, so I could fit the status quo, and the desire to flip expectations upside down.

So I tell my teenager the things I wish I had understood way back then, in the olden days. I tell her not to worry who likes her, that this is the time to develop into the woman God wants her to be.The answers to her identity questions are found in scripture. I tell her loneliness is a large part of the human experience. But that it can serve a big purpose if we allow it to. It can drive us away from trying to please others and straight toward God. And when we embrace His love, flaky acceptance we experience elsewhere tastes like saccharine. Once you have tasted and seen that the Lord is good there is no substitute.

At every age we need to know God’s word is true when it says we ourselves become a well-watered garden when we focus on meeting the needs of the needy instead of our own. When we pour out, God pours in. And when we strive to fill ourselves we are emptier than before. There is no shortage of alternatives we can cram our lives with and when we do the heart grows heavier and the spirit more afflicted.

I recently heard a man I admire say salvation is not just for Heaven but Earth also. Our freedom from sin and death are for the here and now. The more I wrestle with my sin nature, the more relieved I am that God can and will clean it up. And with precision better than a surgeon His words separate the bone and marrow. I lie down peacefully, gazing up at Him through a starry sky and wonder why I ever choose anything but His presence and an obedient life. Does it make me an old soul to say all else is meaningless, “a chasing after the wind”? (Ecc. 1:14 NIV)

I grew up doing all the right things and being in all the right places. I even went on a spiritual renewal retreat, when it meant not going out with a boy I liked. I remember thinking that living right was something we did, muscling our way through life. That to shine and be a light was mostly self-driven. But when I was broken beyond human repair, God began to speak through me. He began to heal and clean me. I eagerly participated, desiring to be whole and new. I still climb up on the surgeon’s table and hand Him any tool He asks for. I hand Him my confession, my desires, my fears, and my heartache. He cuts out the disease of sin, cleans the festering wound, and stitches the cut that I tried to cover with a band-aid. He did it yesterday, and He’ll be back tomorrow. When I call Him in the middle of the night He is there.

Why trade Him for anything else? He is the only long-term satisfaction in life because He is life.
“In Him was life and the life was the light of men” (John 1:4 KJV).

Watches of the Night

By Heather Allen –

As long as I can remember there has been a yearning within to know God. There are many things material and immaterial that people place hope in. I have read about the mythological beliefs of the Greeks and Romans. They share something with every other culture, gods fashioned in human likeness. But as much as mankind desires to promote self-worship, there is a craving for something so much larger than self. There in the bitterness when sin runs its destructive course is the looming questions; is there nothing more?

This past month was filled with restless nights. During these dark watches I was in agony over sin. I have never experienced anything like it before. I have been studying the gospels and have been struck anew at God’s imperative love. We have no hope without a covering for our sin. Yet as I twisted and turned my way through repentance for myself, family, and our nation, what stuck was a new understanding of what it meant for Christ to become sin.

“God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Corinthians 5:21 NIV).

As I lay there grieving I could not imagine the terrible load Christ carried on the cross. The only relief on those nights has come from the Lord; I cannot imagine my distress if He turned his face from me.

He is mercy. I longed to understand what was happening to me on these sleepless nights. I have heard friends talk about intercessory prayer but I have never before felt this type of weight or grief over our nation. A close friend called and unknowingly began to describe the same scenario. She described waking at the same times and crying in repentance to the Lord. Unexpected joy surged through me as she shared what God has been teaching her through this. And as I re-read the account of Jesus’ last night in Gethsemane I was soul struck at His instructions to watch and pray.

The disciples were sleepy. Jesus acknowledged their reality “the spirit is willing but the body is weak” (Matthew 25:41b NIV).

But He admonished them three times to keep watch. He told them to pray so they would not fall into temptation. Interestingly enough, the instructions are the same in Mark 13:33 “Take ye heed, watch and pray, for ye know not when the time is” (KJV). Only this passage in Mark is referring to the end of the age.

The night of Jesus’ arrest must have seemed the darkest of all nights. His disciples scattered, except Peter who was left to grieve, denying He was Jesus’ disciple. Jesus had told them what to expect. Yet I have to wonder what raced through their minds that horrific night, and when they woke to the grim reality that their Messiah was convicted despite perfection. The world would have seemed incalculably evil. Did they lose heart that Passover?

What seemed the darkest hour in history became the pinnacle moment of redemption. They did not understand like we do not understand. Because when we draw near to the end of the age and all seems depraved and lost it is then when we will look up and see our glorious redeemer drawing near. This hard fought battle will be done. Until that day watch and pray.

Thirty-three

By Heather Allen-

A few weeks ago our plumbing had a run of unfortunate events.

Early one morning I leaned in to the shower and realized it had not drained from the previous shower. I opened my mouth to groan but a verse came out instead. “Give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus” (1 Thessalonians 5:18 NIV). I  swallowed a mouthful of irritation and croaked my thanks for indoor plumbing.

The next morning I woke to find that our hot water heater was not working properly. Thanks for indoor plumbing I mumbled through blue lips. I have to admit I have become an expectant wimp. Where is the thanksgiving for the other days that start with a hot shower, full belly, and the best cup of coffee in town?

Christ left Heaven for Earth and He did not even have a place to lay His head. He was looked down upon. He was called a drunkard and a glutton. But He knew who He was and why He had come. As I work my way through the book of Matthew and consider Christ’s words, I find a priority list slightly different than my own. Christ said that He only does what the Father instructs Him to do. He said give up your life if you want to find it. He says follow me. And when the day came to lay His life down in obedience, He did so.  He is God and He chose to walk among us for thirty-three years, poor and rejected.

I don’t think modern Christianity lines up well with Jesus’ instructions. Because there is a lie we tell ourselves, and it goes something like this: I deserve this. I deserve a nice house, a nice car, to do what I want, to watch what I want, to respond how I want. I deserve to be treated with kind respect and even preference.

I think we tend toward what is permissible rather than what is beneficial. And I wonder what this attitude has cost. If I pursued holiness like I pursue my comfort zone I would be a different person.

I long to be different.

I yearn to imitate a God who does the unexpected and never tries to woo us with a good reputation. We would have been drawn by power, looks and wealth.

He was born in a stable. He did not have anything that would cause us to desire him. He knows humanities tendency to be drawn by outward appearance and lovingly preferred us by coming in humble fashion.

He showed us what was important by the way He lived, and it was not reputation building, it was humble obedience.

“Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death—even death on a cross!” Philippians 2:5-8 NIV).

Philippians 2 goes on to say that the result of Christ’s humility was exaltation, a name above every name, and every knee bowing before
Him.

He laid His life down freely and He says we should do the same. May He enable us, through His great strength, to give up our lives to follow Him.

Free

By Heather Allen –

Sometimes God’s words are a sweet, honey soothing balm. And other times, like tonight, they stick in my throat as I try to swallow them whole. I want a consecrated life but the dying process that leads me there, is truly killing me, my flesh at least.

My children have spent the day loved and are now tucked in blankets and prayer. I sit in the dim stillness of the midnight hour accompanied by a restless mind. I want to lay my head on the table and have a good cry, but the tears and the sleep are long in coming.

I have spent two weeks reading George Muller’s biography with my kids. And during these last two weeks there has been a financial decision my hubby and I have tried to make. Tried being the operative word. There seems to be an invisible fence hemming us in.  George Muller lived a fiscally amazing life, and he cared for thousands of orphans in the process. During his lifetime he had millions of dollars go through his hands. Yet he used the money for others, even when it was hard to buy food. The biography details how he read the Bible from cover to cover 300 times. And how he chose to be in need, giving away all excess, and waiting for God to fill the need. He was constant in prayer: asking, seeking and knocking.

I want to live like George Muller lived. He saw miracles every day. But tonight, with a mixture of frustration and fear I told God how hard it is to let go. The response back was “Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.” I grabbed my Bible and turned to this verse, not realizing it shows up in both the New and Old Testament.  And part of me, the part that is small and immature, wishes I had stuck with the Old Testament version. But I didn’t. I turned to Hebrews 13:5 also.

“Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said, “Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you” (NIV).

Here’s the thing, I really just wanted a pat on the back and some sympathy tonight. Being content with what I have doesn’t sound so good, and what I envision buying sounds great. Yet even as I write this I am reminded that what is seen is temporal.

“So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal” (2 Corinthians 4:18 NIV).

Somewhere along the way I befriended a lie. I often trust in resources and choose what is seen. If I ever have the courage to live like George Muller I think it will feel like miles of rope being cut off of me: freedom.

See I know God does not withhold good things from me, but I live like He might. I know He loves me as a daughter and is actively pruning my life, yet sometime I live like an orphan.  I know that any no ultimately gives way to a greater yes, yet I long for the yes.

In the midst of all this, He is the God who actively rescues me from trying to be my own salvation. He sets me free.

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