Follow Him Today - In Your Imperfection

A Devotional by Margot Cioccio

Decided to follow Jesus... and took a step of faith.

John 15:1-8
 ¹ “I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. ² He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful. ³ You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. ⁴ Remain in me, and I will remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me.
   ⁵ “I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. ⁶ If anyone does not remain in me, he is like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned. ⁷ If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be given you. ⁸ This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.
 


Perhaps it is because I am a day ahead on this post. Which is nice but there is something about the pressure of having to get something out that helps me bring these posts to birth. I find myself looking at the blank composition box and wondering which of the thoughts in my head is the thought that I should write about today. I have taken care of the dogs, read my bible and practiced my piano. I find myself now in front of my computer for a brief span of time before I leave for a day of lessons and teaching.

I was reading today about the dedication of Solomens temple and how God allowed him to build what David had seen and desired to build for the Lord. God had told David no,  as much as I love you, your hands are too bloody to build a temple. (My paraphrase of course). David was a man after God's own heart. Yet he failed at a number of things. His family was terribly dysfunctional with numerous wives and children vying for positon, favor and attention. There was the whole Bathsheba incident and David's plot to do away with her husband when she becomes pregnant due to their affair.   In the cover up a man is murdered - (well sent into the fiercest part of the battle at David's order.) He can't get himself out of a loop concerning his son Absalom, and his betrayal to the point of nearly forsaking those who were loyal to him. David strikes me as a pretty bi-polar kind of guy you read his great highs and see the amazing things he accomplished and then you see the dreadful low places reflected in some of the Psalms. He gets in trouble for trying to number the people and that causes many to die in a plague. He does not have how to worship God completely figured out. He tries to have the arc of the covenant moved on a cart but the oxen slip and a guy gets killed for trying to steady the arc.   Thankfully his story has not been white washed and we do see that he is an imperfect guy who God says is a man after God's heart.  David in all his imperfections loved the Lord. He was quick to repent when he would come to the realization that he had sinned. He was humble enough to admit his failures. He always turned back to God. He begins his journey with God as a shepherd boy and God takes him step by step to become the most loved and remembered king of Israel.

He was different then Saul his predecessor who was jealous, vengeful, quick to take matters into his own hands, quick to forsake God and look to the occult. David was there to witness the change in Saul from walking under Gods anointing to become a tormented man. David was able to play music that would bring relief to Saul. Saul became so paranoid and he could see Gods favor that had once rested on him now resting on David. He tried for years to kill David. David spent years in the wilderness with his band of rough guys running from Saul. He had many opportunities that he could have killed Saul and perhaps sped up his rise to power. He was a guy of integrity and he was not going to be responsible for the death of the king. So although he knew he had been chosen and anointed by God to be the next king, he waited for God to lift him into God's plans and purposes for his life.

Why Saul does not ever really see the error of his ways and repent when a small change of heart in God's direction could have made him a man after God's heart. It was not one big thing that lost him the kingdom. It was over and over his own decision to turn to his own devices rather than to look to God.
He was chosen for his great height and good looks. He looked like a king. David on the other hand is described as ruddy and red. His own family thinks so little of him that when Samuel comes to the house to have all the sons of the family come before him, they leave David out with the sheep.
Samuel gets to the end of the line and has to ask are there any more and the family kind of hems and haws and says well uhhh.... theres David.

We want to sterilize and clean up the stories. Look what we've done to the Christmas story we have make giving birth to a baby in a barn so squeeky clean that we take the marvel of the reality of it right out of the story.  We take our cleaned up versions an put the people involved on these noble lofty pedestals and then we make excuses for our selves to not ever being able to live up to their standards.
We tell our self, those people were some how special. They were regular Janes and Joes, just like you and I. Just like us every day they had choices, sometimes they made good choices sometimes bad.

Every day we must make the choice to pick up our cross, to die to our old carnal nature and follow Jesus. Like David, when we make a mess of things, we need to repent and turn back to God.  Sometimes we get the notion in our heads that we will wait till we are better before embarking on following the call of Jesus for our lives. We think if I just was a better person, who reads the bible and prays more, gets to church more often, remembers not to cuss, never yells at the kids or kicks the dog in frustration. Some day I will follow that dream God put in my heart, but not now because I don't measure up to some self imposed code of perfection. Jesus accepts you right where you are. He wants to know you and walk with you today. Unless you begin a journey you will not ever reach the desired destination. God calls us to do and be things that are far beyond our ability on our own to ever accomplish. Its starts with this little step of faith, and then another. After a while we are able to take bigger steps because we have built up a history with the Lord of his faithfulness in previous littler steps. While the present step of faith will always stretch us a little further, things that were once a big deal are done with ease.

I was talking to one of my 10 year old guitar students about adding some free expression to the end of another song. To in a sense, come up with his own chorus. He sat there completely stuck. I would show him examples and make up song idea after another. I told him I don't care if your song is about praising God for gummy worms just begin to let out the thoughts of your heart. I tried to tell him I was not always able to easily express the thoughts in my heart but now it is very easy. We talked about how if you want to be good at base ball you gotta play the game. You have to exercise, develop and practice using the things God has given you. 

I have to work and work to play the piano. I can do many things now that I could not do before. I will be able to do things in the future that are not even remotely possible now.  Back 3 or 4 years ago I had to decide to begin the journey to learn to play the piano. I've had to, along the way decided to stick with it even though it has taken longer and been much harder than I ever imagined.  We celebrate little victories along the way. Even on weeks when my practice time is very little as long as I don't give up and quilt I am still in motion on that journey.  Little by little, day by day I am changing and growing and one day I will arrive at my destination.   It is true of spiritual things as well. If you want to know the bible more, you begin by reading it and then you dig in and study this or that part. When I first came to Jesus, I knew nothing. I had come from a half agnostic and half occult family. I did not know the stories that every child from Sunday school knows. I did not know how to rightly divide the word and how to apply it to various situations. I did not know how to walk by faith, or how to pray. I was clueless but I began a journey with the Lord and along the way he has helped me clean up a lot of stuff, and he has taken me through great amounts of deliverance and healing in the process of becoming free in Him.  I made a decision to follow him day by day in my imperfections. I have come to realize that there is always more to work on and more to know of him. We reach milestones along the way and we can look back and remember when something that is easy to do now was once hard. We can look ahead and know that what is hard now will someday be easy.
Don't wait till you've got it all together to follow and walk with Jesus walk with him today in all of your imperfections, with all of your flaws and failures. If he has put a dream in your heart find some way to move towards it even if it seems totally impossible at this point. Keep your eyes on Jesus and he will lead you from here to there but every journey begins with a step of faith and then another and another.

Will you take the next step of faith to follow Him?

Prayer
Dear Lord, Help us to overcome our doubts, our fears, the guilt of past failures. What ever holds us back from pursuing you, help us to begin. Help us look at what we can do today and to do that with you trusting you will show us the next step when the time is right. Help us to choose today to follow you and not continue to believe the lie that we will one day get it together and then follow you. Lord we choose today to believe and follow you. Today is the day of Salvation. Today if we hear your voice or feel you nudging us help us to take that step of faith into the unknown of your plans and purposes.  

Removing Obstacles & Road Blocks

A Devotional by Margot Cioccio

Found this photo on-line - yikes thats quite a road block!

Isaiah 57:14-15 (NIV1984)

And it will be said:

“Build up, build up, 

prepare the road! 

Remove the obstacles 

out of the way of my people.” 

For this is what the high and lofty One says—

he who lives forever, whose name is holy:

“I live in a high and holy place,

but also with him who 

is contrite and lowly in spirit,

to revive the spirit of the lowly

and to revive the heart of the contrite.

I was trying to think about this verse today in terms of preparing a road to knowing and following Jesus. What are the obstacles or the things where people get stuck and how might we help to remove them. I probably won't think of everything maybe some of you will post in comments things that have been obstacles for you and how you overcame them.  I love Revelation 12:11 "Our brothers conquered him by the blood of the lamb and by the word of their testimony, for they did not cling to their lives even in the face of death." Perhaps you will share in comments below this post a bit of your testimony of how you have overcome in some area of your life.

Complacency
I think complacency is a big issue - some people look at faith in Christ as spiritual insurance. They said the sinners prayer, the attend church when its convenient. Its like the guy who finds the woman he wants to marry and puts lots of effort into winning her, he marries her and pretty much checks finding a wife off his to do list. Then wonders years later why his marriage is falling apart.  I think we have a mixed up notion that we can have relationships with people and have no interaction with them. Kind of like all those facebook friends that send you a friend request and then never talk to you. Marriage, friendships and even walking with Christ are things that are about being done together.  For relationships to grow there must be time spent together.
Complacency is described in the dictionary as self-satisfaction especially when accompanied by unawareness of actual dangers or deficiencies. These folks are happy to watch from the sidelines and let others live and work while they watch, or sleep on the sidelines. With all our computers and tv's and other boxes we think we are participate just by watching. Stop watching reality shows and really live. 


Fear of Getting Hurt: 
I think lots of people try to live behind walls of their own making they they have tried various relationships and gotten hurt. They have taken the Paul Simon option of being a rock or an island that is alone but does not get hurt or feel any pain. Pain is a good thing it lets you know you have felt something. I won't be too hard on you because I have been an expert at building walls around my heart and not letting people in. I suppose for some if they could attend a virtual church where they pick the music, and the message, and the people around them it would be ok. Life, church, relationships are messy. Following Christ is more than just me and Jesus. It's me and Jesus and the rest of his family. 
He calls us to be living stones in a spiritual house. He calls us to lay down our lives for one another. 
I'll take an order of church but hold the people.  Kingdom life is lived together. Iron sharpens iron. 
I can't take the splinter out of your eye till I remove the plank from my own. 
You are right you are likely to get hurt, people will disappoint you. Just about the time you think you can count on someone they are gone. We were not created for lives of lonely isolation we were created to live in community with others. 

Family or Relational Pressure: Unbelieving family can be a road block. They may view you as shallow or foolish. What will your friends and co-workers think if they found out. Some may not want to have anything to do with you in the future. In some parts of the world one can be cast out of the family structure and even risk death for choosing Christ. In America we have it pretty easy in that respect.  

The Cost of Following Jesus: Luke 9: 57-62 

As they were walking along the road, a man said to him, “I will follow you wherever you go.” Jesus replied, “Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.”   Objection: Security - Having to walk by faith and not by sight

He said to another man, “Follow me.” But the man replied, “Lord, first let me go and bury my father.”  Jesus said to him, “Let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and proclaim the kingdom of God.”   Objection: Family duty or responsibility 

Still another said, “I will follow you, Lord; but first let me go back and say good-by to my family.”
Jesus replied, “No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God.” Objection: Desire for a last time with the old life


Performing for Gods approval:
Thinking that you must clean up your act enough for God to accept you. We are created to do good works but our good works do not gain us salvation in Christ. We can not do enough to pay the debt that we owe to Christ for paying for our sins. The good works that we do should be motivated by gratitude not in a vain attempt to atone for our own sins. He accepts you just as you are in this moment, with all your faults, and failures. The thief on the cross next to Jesus, never had a chance to walk a church isle, or get baptized, or do any good works. He believed Jesus was God and Jesus told him that he would see him in paradise. You don't have to wait for your dying breath to accept Jesus you could walk with him from this point forward. Julian of Norwich is healed on her death bed and she says she wanted to live so she could know Christ more.


Pride or Social Status: We get the stories of the rich young ruler Luke 18:18-23  and Nicodemus in John 3  Our quest for money and things or our desire for prestige and power can be major stumbling blocks that keep us from having a faith that is deeper than lip service. Maybe its your job, it is important to work.  Work and that paycheck should not become the center of your existence. It should not define who you are. Who you are is defined by Jesus. It is not your job that provides for you - Jesus is your provider.



Here's some good news from Isaiah 57:  
¹⁵ For this is what the high and lofty One says—
   he who lives forever, whose name is holy:
“I live in a high and holy place,
   but also with him who is contrite and lowly in spirit,
to revive the spirit of the lowly
   and to revive the heart of the contrite.

Some synonyms for contrite: apologetic, regretful, remorseful, repentant,  sorry

Its amazing that God who is high, lofty and holy is willing to be with those who are sorry for the choices they have made, and realize their need for Him in their life. It says he wants to revive the spirit of the lowly and the heart of the contrite.  Maybe thats you today. Call out to Jesus - let him into those dark places. 

Why are some Christians shallow and stuck, often making the same bad decisions over and over again, they don't seem to progress or grow? Why does it seem that the Christian life does not work for them?
Could it be because the came to a road block and decided that going any further was too hard?
Maybe that shallow, stuck, bad decision making person its you. You keep hitting that same old brick wall again and again. You can't walk with Jesus in your own strength or because of how good or together you might one day hope to be. He accepts you today. He extends his hand to you and says come, follow me. Yeah I know you are a mess, but your my mess and I love you. I want to help you, look I have clean clothes for you and let me show you a better way to live. I understand and know you better than you know yourself. Mostly just come and spend time with me, lets do this life journey together, I have everything you need. You just need to decide to leave the past behind come with me. 

What are the road blocks in your life that are keeping you from following Jesus with your whole mind, soul and body?

What are some ways you might be able to overcome those obstacles?


Prayer:
Dear Lord,
Help us to actually see the obstacles that are blocking our growth and progress towards knowing you more fully and deeply. What keeps us from abiding in you and following you by faith day by day. Help us see some of the ways we might begin to overcome those obstacles or road block in our life. Lord maybe we need to help others to clear their road blocks. Help us look around and see who we might encourage or share the journey with for a while.  Thank you Lord that while you are high and Holy God you are also with those who realize the depth of their need for you.  Lord help us to move in our relationship with you from it being a side thing to being vital like air or water to our body. Let us not put off till someday, the abiding relationship we could have with you today. I pray you will give us the courage to bust through that road block that is keeping us from going further with you.

No Turning Back

A Devotional by Margot Cioccio

Ephesians 5:18-20

¹⁸ Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery.
Instead, be filled with the Spirit. ¹⁹ Speak to one another
with psalms, hymns and spiritual songs. Sing and make
music in your heart to the Lord, ²⁰ always giving thanks
to God the Father for everything,
in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.

I am not feeling particularly great today. I caught some bug that is going around and have not felt well all week. I am thankful that I managed last Saturday to get a few posts written ahead for the week. Today I am running behind on getting this written and posted.

So heres the deal - I don't feel good. I would just assume curl up in a ball on the couch and ignore the world. Stop the world I need to get off. I could easily slide in to having my own personal pitty party. Poor me.... I feel lousy.... I have so much that needs to be done..... bla bla bla. I'm sure you have your own litany of woes.  I am choosing to resist that path and I am going to do what I can to allow the Holy Spirit into my day. The word says that when I am weak, then I am strong. 2 Corinthians 12:10
That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.  This verse follows Paul's pleading with the Lord to remove the thorn in his flesh. Some say it was an illness of some sort, others say he had a messenger of satin the buffeted him. Perhaps they are one in the same.  What ever it was it caused him to suffer enough to plead with the Lord to take it away from him.  I like to tell you that the Lord answered him and told him "Sure Paul, your a good guy, out preaching to the gentiles, and serving me with your whole heart. Sure consider it done my friend." But..... thats not the answer God gave him. Now you may be scratching your head along with me on this one. So here is Gods answer to Paul found in 2 Corinthians 12 . "⁹ And He said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore most gladly I will rather boast in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me." So today I have an opportunity to allow the power of Christ to rest upon me to some how make me strong in spite of my weakness. I can choose to be thankful even in hardships. I can choose to stand upon his word that tells me in Isaiah 53:5 But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed. " I have a choice even in stupid things like a head cold as to where I will put my focus. Will I focus on poor me? or will I resist that and align myself today with the word of God.
I admit I was leaning towards poor me, even about having to write this devotional. Now I'm kind of laughing because this thing keeps me on track. It makes me face head on the choice before me. It really isn't much of a choice when you think about it. I can choose to be physically and mentally miserable today or I can buck up and stand on the word, do what I can to take care of my body and put my mind on things above. I may not feel great physically but I don't have to give in to the idea that therefore I will also feel mentally miserable. 

I should have an attitude of the 3 guys in the Firey Furnace in Daniel 3:1-3 My favorite part of the story is the choice that they declare out loud to the king.  Take a look at verses 16-18. " ¹⁶ Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-Nego answered and said to the king, “O Nebuchadnezzar, we have no need to answer you in this matter. ¹⁷ If that is the case, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and He will deliver us from your hand, O king. ¹⁸ But if not, let it be known to you, O king, that we do not serve your gods, nor will we worship the gold image which you have set up.”  They made up their mind before they knew how God would deliver them that no matter what even if they died in the fire that they were choosing to serve God.  Some times we need to make up our mind that we are going to choose Gods way no matter how a thing turns out.  Like Paul in our verse today God may leave you in something but supply you the grace to walk through it and to become stronger as a result.  We would like to put God in a box or make him like the geni in a bottle who gives us what we want. We serve a God who gives us what we need. He knows the desires of our heart but there is more to that verse from Psalm 37
³ Trust in the LORD, and do good; Dwell in the land, and feed on His faithfulness.
 ⁴ Delight yourself also in the LORD, And He shall give you the desires of your heart.
 ⁵ Commit your way to the LORD, Trust also in Him,  And He shall bring it to pass.
 ⁶ He shall bring forth your righteousness as the light, And your justice as the noonday.
The getting the desire of your heart thing goes along with trusting the Lord, doing good, feeding on and remembering his faithfulness, commiting your way to the Lord.   .... So we don't always get the quick fix, easy answers, some stuff God walks with us through day by day, layer by layer. There are not easy answers for some of the things that we face in our life.  We live in a fallen world, and we are affected by it, our sin, others sins, generational sins, the demonic. Uggh it can seem overwhelming.
My friend is wrestling with how to respond to a daughter who has decided to choose a lesbian lifestyle. I was asking if he would be up set if she was living with a guy before marriage. Its funny the sins we are willing to tollerate and have become desensistized to. Anytime we choose life on our own terms rather than Gods way it leads eventully to brokenness and pain. As christain's we are to love the sinner and hate the sin. All sex outside of marriage is sin no matter what our culture has nummbed us into believing on the matter. Its working very hard in shows like Bones and others to get us to swallow the idea that the sleeping aroud, or the homesexual or lesbian lifestyle is just another choice. I don't mean to step on toes but Gods way is a narrow way. We have to choose on a daily basis to pick up our cross and follow Him. God designed sex to be part of a covenant relationship between one man and one woman with God at the center.  God gives us free will to choose of our own accord to do things His way. He loves us in spite of our poor choices. He understands the many of us come from broken families and are broken in many ways ourselves before we even get to relationships with others. I don't have time to stand around pointing out the sins of others. I have enough of my own that I need to crucify. While I'm at it,  I am happy to share the journey with others who are endeavering to follow Christ. We all fall terribly short of God holy standards. Thankfully he has sent Jesus to pay the price for our sins. We will never be good enough to stand before a holy God on our own. So our salvation is found in Jesus not in our good works or our good life.  He wants us to repent of the sins in our life, and to choose His way. Having walked with him for nearly 30 years at this point. He does not always work on things in the order that I think he should. I have found that after 30 year of Him dealing with varous areas of sin in my life that there is always another level of purification and deeper levels of closet cleaning that He continues to do. Life on our terms leads to distruction, pain, torment, life on Gods terms leads to freedom in Christ. It does not gauantee an easy life. Look at the disciples, shipwrecked, beaten, in prisoned, most of them martyered for their faith in Christ. It does not sound like the life they chose was a pleasure cruse. They saw first hand people getting set free, healed, learning to live in the Kingdom with Kingdom principles that are very backwards from the cultures we live in.

We all have to choose will we put Jesus on the thrown of our our heart and allow him to be the King of our life or will you continue to keep "Self" on that thrown. I am not saying that it is easy to change. The chains that have each of us bound in the old dead life are quick to entangle us. It often feels like we take 2 steps forward and 1 step back. It sometimes feels we have so many layers of muck and brokenness that we won't ever get totally free. Jesus extends his hand to you. He wants to help you.
He wants to walk with you today and everyday. Will you look to him to help you with what you are facing today or will you choose the pity party today and another bath in the mud. 

As for me.. I have decided to follow Jesus - no turning back no matter what. I am remeinded of the verses to that song. The melody comes from India, the writer of the lyrics is unknown. At the top of the post I will embed a beautiful version of this song being preformed by Third Day. If you got this in your e-mail you may have to return to the actual post to hear it. Where ever you are today and what ever you are going through.  Today is the day to return to Jesus. Decide today to follow him today. It might be just an area of your life that you have yet to yield to him, or it may be you are making that decision for the first time, or perhaps you have gotten off track and need to return to Him. Don't put it off ... He is the way.  My prayer is simple today. I pray that you will have the courage to follow Him. 

1. I have decided to follow Jesus 

I have decided to follow Jesus;
I have decided to follow Jesus;
No turning back, no turning back.

2. Tho' none go with me, I still will follow,
Tho' none go with me I still will follow,
Tho' none go with me, I still will follow;
No turning back, no turning back.

3. My cross I'll carry, till I see Jesus;
My cross I'll carry till I see Jesus,
My cross I'll carry till I see Jesus;
No turning back, No turning back.

4. The world behind me, the cross before me,
The world behind me, the cross before me;
The world behind me, the cross before me;
No turning back, no turning back.