WITH EVERYTHING

 

Not sure about the artist, these lyrics are a bit modified....see if you can get ahold of this reality today.  Remember You are the BLING.  The Light of the World!  Let the world see your light and glorify Father in Heaven!!!

With Everything : Hillsong

Name Above names

Lamb That was slain

Beautiful God

And King above Kings

God of all things

Beautiful God

And there is no other name

Like Jesus

We give you all of the praise

Oh Lord, Jesus

So let hope rise,
And darkness tremble
In Your holy light,
And every eye will see
Jesus, our God,
Great and mighty to be praised.

So let hope rise,
And darkness tremble
In Your holy light,
And every eye will see
Jesus, our God,
Great and mighty to be praised.

God of all days,
Glorious in all of Your ways.
Your majesty, the wonder and grace,
In the light of Your name.

So let hope rise,
And darkness tremble
In Your holy light,
And every eye will see
Jesus, our God,
Great and mighty to be praised.

With everything,
With everything,
We will shout for your glory.

With everything,
With everything,
We will shout forth your praise.

With everything,
With everything,
We will shout for your glory.

With everything,
With everything,
We will shout forth your praise

Our hearts they cry
Be glorified,
Be lifted high,
Above all names.
For You our King,
With everything,
We will shout forth your praise!

Good Friday:  Jesus took all the weight of our sin and carried it to the cross.  How awesome is that?  The struggle for life and yet the surrender to death.  Jesus once said that no one could take his life from him, but he had to lay it down, and that He did.  One revelation from the crucifixion is how Jesus died so quickly compared to most crucified people.  He had been beaten so badly, it is not much of a stretch to think that He did not even give up a fight when having his hands nailed to the tree.  The criminals hanging beside had to have their legs broken to expedite the dying process...  Jesus had already given up His Spirit.  The passion week falls silent now.  Saturday the people are dealing with betrayal, humanity, sin and need for restoration.  Many are totally undone with confusion. 

Sunday is coming.

Thursday: Passion Week

What a week.  Jesus now, knows that the time is at hand.  Anointed by Mary at Bethany, cleaned house in the Temple; confronted sadducees and pharisees; parabled the peoples on the kingdom of God, the end times and more; finally Jesus has a room prepared without a servant.  Not looking to His disciples, He takes the role of slave.  Washes feet in a basin.  Dries them.  Then instructs them to do likewise for each other and others.  Jesus calls in the New Covenant.  Celebrating Old Covenant with Passover, now Communion is birthed.  Through the new covenant, Jesus, the new passover lamb makes a way for our sins to be forgiven and He now leads us out of sin slavery for eternity.  Satan enters Judas and as night falls on Thursday, it will be Jesus and the "3", James, John and Peter all being warned to pray with him.  Why?  The temptation will be brutal to overcome.  All three yield to tiredness and then the betrayal kiss from Judas.  This night is special for the Passion Season.  It is a very very intimate moment.  Take time and reflect:  Who are you serving now?  Where are you taking a bowl and a towel?  Also, how is your prayer?  Much conflict comes and Jesus reminds us to WATCH and pray so that we can overcome temptation. 

Thank you Jesus for knowing the way and going the way.

Passion Week: Monday-Jesus Cleanses The Temple!

Passion Week.... a week not void of energy, emotion and life, continues into the next activities during Jesus preparation to liberate all humanity at the cross and then the crescendo of rising from the dead and ascending to the Father.  This week Jesus comes into a Passover packed Jerusalem.  Flooded with Jews from EVERYWHERE to do their religious acts of sacrifice and worship of the Lord that saved them from the death angel years prior.  The Lord "passed over" their very homes and allowing the death of every young boy child of the Egyptians, pushing the final button for the release of their slavery situation they had been in for hundreds of years.  The Jews were very familiar with this custom and religious activity.  And so we see Him step up into the temple area and do a very overwhelming act.  He turns over tables and runs out the money changers and yells that the house of God is to be a house of PRAYER and not a DEN OF THIEVES!!!

C. Baxter Kruger helps explain it in a way we can understand in a more American cultural form (God Is For Us): "About the time the main service is to begin (church), in walks a man.  He is young, and the great crowd recognizes Him as Jesus.  He walks up to the front and grabs the microphone.  We all assume He is about to teach.  But instead of teaching, Jesus rips the microphone from the pulpit, jerks the cable from the socket, and starts slinging it around like a whip, running people out of the church.  He turns over the communion table and knocks down the pulpit.  He shouts at the top of His lungs, 'Stop making My Father's house a house of dead ritual, bereft of true zeal and life!' 'What is this?...where is the real passion for My Father?"   Baxter goes on to write and too much for me to include but a snippet: "The Son steps into the stream of human existence where we have all failed to answer the call of God.  He steps into Adam's shoes, Israel's shoes, our shoes.  And He stands against he whole history of human sloth and indifference, weakness and frailty, obstinance and failure.  He shouts an almighty and intolerant No! against it.  He attacks and destroys it.  He cleans house.  But even more than this, Jesus Christ does not leave the house empty.  He not only takes away our failure, He replaces it with His own rightness for the Father.  He not only removes our false answer, He puts His real answer in its place.  He fills the temple with Himself and all that He is before His Father.  He puts our name on His answer.  He is our priest  int he temple ministering our response and answer to God."

 

PALM SUNDAY!

Jeremiah was excited to try out our new camera.  My phone just doesn't cut it like all the i-phones so I simply had to break down and get a.........camera.

Church yesterday was a blast.  We had our traditional palm branches, Myrtle Beach style.  I was praying that the 5 and unders would not poke eyes out and such. 

As always, this season is absolutely WOW.  The older I get, or the further I go along, the days are simply more significant to me.  I remember being a kid and thinking....when will this day, week, season BE OVER!!!  and more and more, I find myself holding each day and trying to get the fullness out of them more and more.  The season of Holy Week is pregnant with revelation, comfort, humility, humanity and Divinity.  I am baffled the more that I read all of the week activity that Jesus kicks off in this TRIUMPHAL ENTRY from Bethany on down to Jerusalem.  The songs we sang were "Hosanna, Hosanna"  (Save Us Now!).  The theme was joyful as we tried our best to somehow "recreate" the atmosphere that must have been on the street as children and adults alike spread their clothes on the road, along with branches at the Kings coronation.  Jesus on the never sat upon colt, got to hear all the cheers, and adulation, and as He rolls up to His city, He...... weeps over it. 

John MacArthur rightly breaks down the scene: "The timing of this lament may seem incongrous with the triumphal entry, but it reveals that Jesus knew the true superficiality of the peoples' hearts, and His mood was anything but giddy as He rode into the city.  The same crowd would soon cry for His death."

I made the point how often we as a church can be as superficial as the Jews at the time of the passion week.  Looking for Christ to be our Sanctified Santa Clause, the one we call like a genie in a bottle for our every whim, and desire.  But the Passion, is about so much more.  It is about Jesus coming and receiving the praise even KNOWING they would turn to howls for His own death.  That is what the Passion Week is all about.  I pray that this week, the reality of how Christ has pursued us into the bitter places in our lives will pierce our understanding so that we may begin to be transformed by His FINISHED work at the cross.  To which we walk together.....

Stuart