My quiet spiritual retreat is coming to a close. I have packed and cleaned the house and just now have been rereading my posts from this week. Today I head back to see my kids - and I am actually even excited to see them again.
Today is also my 39th Birthday. 1 more year before half of my life is over. I never could imagine myself this old. And each time I look in the mirror I am horrified by the lines that are forming there. I wanted so much more from my walk with the Lord by now. I guess I am hard-headed and hard to teach. By the time 40 rolled around I wanted to be trim and fit, and lose all this weight permanently. I wanted to learn to love to exercise. Ha! I do still have a year left!!!
That verse from Proverbs 31 comes to mind ... 'she laughs with no fear of the future'.
I am not what I wish I was. Perhaps I am chasing after the right things with the wrong motives. Nothing on my list is bad - in fact many are good things ... but what do I want them for? I think it is all to make ME more happy. Except none of them will make me happy - except more Jesus - because Jesus is worth knowing and worshipping - not for what I can get from Him - but because knowing Him is LIFE.
I have been fighting the new things that The Lord has brought into my life. My new church, new people, new place, homeschooling ... thinking these things can never bring me what I think I want. But who ever thought death, and being emptied would be easy ... or sought after.... I say I want my flesh to die - but I want it quick and painless. It simply does not work that way.
because I can't end without a Murray quote ... this was good!
“That God may be all in all,” I must not only allow Him to take His place, but secondly, I must accept His will in everything. I must accept His will in every providence. Whether it be a Judas that betrays, or whether it be a Pilate in his indifference, who gives me up to the enemy; whatever the trouble, or temptation, or vexation, or worry, that comes, I must see God in it, and accept it as God’s will to me. Trouble of any sort that comes to me is God’s will for me. It is not God’s will that men should do the wrong, but it is God’s will that they should be in circumstances of trial. There is never a trial that comes to us but it is God’s will for us, and if we learn to see God in it, then we bid it welcome.
BID IT WELCOME... welcoming trials seems like a whole other plane of existence than where I live. But if I want to be refined ... then that is what must happen ... and considering it ALL JOY as it says in James will finally put me in the place I desire to be .... Psalm 27
The Lord is my light and my salvation—
so why should I be afraid?
The Lord is my fortress, protecting me from danger,
so why should I tremble?
2 When evil people come to devour me,
when my enemies and foes attack me,
they will stumble and fall.
3 Though a mighty army surrounds me,
my heart will not be afraid.
Even if I am attacked,
I will remain confident.
4 The one thing I ask of the Lord—
the thing I seek most—
is to live in the house of the Lord all the days of my life,
delighting in the Lord’s perfections
and meditating in his Temple.
5 For he will conceal me there when troubles come;
he will hide me in his sanctuary.
He will place me out of reach on a high rock.
6 Then I will hold my head high
above my enemies who surround me.
At his sanctuary I will offer sacrifices with shouts of joy,
singing and praising the Lord with music.
David knew the Lord would be there - and that somehow - even if it was bad - He would still be able to worship and delight in the Lord. That is what I want more than anything ... not that trials are gone from my life but that worship and JOY are present in them!!!
I don't see that in me yet ... but I am praying that in the next 40 years of my life I get there.
Friday, January 17, 2014
Thursday, January 16, 2014
apocalypse of happiness
My husband and I watched a horrible movie the other night. It was free on Netflix - which should have been my first clue... It was called The Road. Viggo Mortensen from Lord of the Rings was in it ... it was a post apocalyptic movie, which in general is something that I kinda like. However, this was awful, very little redemptive quality to this one. Viggo and his wife had a baby post apocalypse and the whole movie is watching Viggo take care of the boy of 8 or 9 and move him away from one horror after another - like cannibalism, starvation, death, and disease. 5 minutes in I knew I hated it ... but then I really needed/wanted to know what was going to happen by then too. I should have let that curiosity die. Instead, all through the movie I ended up plotting how I would commit suicide if I were them. I came up with at least 10 different methods and added one more when I saw how the mom (Charlize Theron) did it.
So then my dreams last night ... literally all night ... again and again... were all the different ways I could help these people if I were stuck with them in post apocalypse hell. I find it interesting that my sub-conscious goes straight to 'fix it' mode when left to itself at night, especially when during the movie all I was working on were suicide plans.
What is the purpose of this little movie tirade? I am not entirely sure... but I can't get it off my mind. My need to fix - to set things right. What is that? Is it good, bad or indifferent? Because these dreams will keep coming until my memories of the movie finally fade... so now it has made me curious.
Not all fixing can be bad or we would all end up living in ramshackle huts with horrible plumbing and no electricity. There is a place for wanting to make improvements to life ... to make life roll more smoothly. I think part of it is a craving for the perfection from which we came - that is why we push it so far. But if we keep pushing, it leads to perfectionism - right? And that is no good - no good at all.
'Fixing it' in the apocalypse nightmare means that I wanted to make everyone happy and healthy. I was handing out food (from where it came I do not know - it was a dream after all), and helping the sick, and organizing housing etc... whatever I could do to make people happy or a little more comfortable. I needed it to be better not just for them - but for ME! because I was uncomfortable and their status was making ME unhappy.
Am I really so obsessed with being happy? To the extent that in my dreams I am trying to make imaginary people happy - so that I can be happy? And, usually I don't even choose to watch this type of movie because it makes me sad and depressed - I choose easy escapism every time.
More from Andrew Murray "Have we been Christians so many years, and realized so little what we are? I am a vessel set apart, cleansed, emptied, consecrated; just standing, waiting every moment for God, in Christ, by the Holy Spirit, to work out in me as much of the holiness and the life of His Son AS PLEASES HIM."
What pleases HIM should be what pleases me - what makes me happy. I don't think my flesh wants to align it's will with Jesus - even a little in this area. My flesh wants comfort and American happiness like crazy - so much so, that I dream up solutions to a movie's mess just to make ME feel better.
Eph 1:9
God has now revealed to us his mysterious plan regarding Christ, a plan to fulfill his own good pleasure.
Phil 2:13
For God is working in you, giving you the desire and the power to do what pleases him.
Heb 13:21
may he equip you with all you need
for doing his will.
May he produce in you,
through the power of Jesus Christ,
every good thing that is pleasing to him.
All glory to him forever and ever! Amen.
It's really crazy to my flesh that my life would now need to be about pleasing Someone other than myself. That creating my own happiness can no longer be my goal - subconscious or out in the daylight of my life. That everything I do needs to be empty of flesh and full of Jesus and for His GOOD pleasure... and that THIS will actually be what makes me happy - or rather - filled up with JOY.
God kill my need to make myself happy.
So then my dreams last night ... literally all night ... again and again... were all the different ways I could help these people if I were stuck with them in post apocalypse hell. I find it interesting that my sub-conscious goes straight to 'fix it' mode when left to itself at night, especially when during the movie all I was working on were suicide plans.
What is the purpose of this little movie tirade? I am not entirely sure... but I can't get it off my mind. My need to fix - to set things right. What is that? Is it good, bad or indifferent? Because these dreams will keep coming until my memories of the movie finally fade... so now it has made me curious.
Not all fixing can be bad or we would all end up living in ramshackle huts with horrible plumbing and no electricity. There is a place for wanting to make improvements to life ... to make life roll more smoothly. I think part of it is a craving for the perfection from which we came - that is why we push it so far. But if we keep pushing, it leads to perfectionism - right? And that is no good - no good at all.
'Fixing it' in the apocalypse nightmare means that I wanted to make everyone happy and healthy. I was handing out food (from where it came I do not know - it was a dream after all), and helping the sick, and organizing housing etc... whatever I could do to make people happy or a little more comfortable. I needed it to be better not just for them - but for ME! because I was uncomfortable and their status was making ME unhappy.
Am I really so obsessed with being happy? To the extent that in my dreams I am trying to make imaginary people happy - so that I can be happy? And, usually I don't even choose to watch this type of movie because it makes me sad and depressed - I choose easy escapism every time.
More from Andrew Murray "Have we been Christians so many years, and realized so little what we are? I am a vessel set apart, cleansed, emptied, consecrated; just standing, waiting every moment for God, in Christ, by the Holy Spirit, to work out in me as much of the holiness and the life of His Son AS PLEASES HIM."
What pleases HIM should be what pleases me - what makes me happy. I don't think my flesh wants to align it's will with Jesus - even a little in this area. My flesh wants comfort and American happiness like crazy - so much so, that I dream up solutions to a movie's mess just to make ME feel better.
Eph 1:9
God has now revealed to us his mysterious plan regarding Christ, a plan to fulfill his own good pleasure.
Phil 2:13
For God is working in you, giving you the desire and the power to do what pleases him.
Heb 13:21
may he equip you with all you need
for doing his will.
May he produce in you,
through the power of Jesus Christ,
every good thing that is pleasing to him.
All glory to him forever and ever! Amen.
It's really crazy to my flesh that my life would now need to be about pleasing Someone other than myself. That creating my own happiness can no longer be my goal - subconscious or out in the daylight of my life. That everything I do needs to be empty of flesh and full of Jesus and for His GOOD pleasure... and that THIS will actually be what makes me happy - or rather - filled up with JOY.
God kill my need to make myself happy.
foolishness
It seems to me my basic problem is ... lack of worship.
Isn't this always the problem with us creatures ... our eyes have drifted off the Creator and gotten focused on self - again.
I feel like I have tried ... but at each turn ... felt like I have hit wall after wall. Reading scripture felt like reading radio instructions for the second time. Prayer felt like such a labor - unbelievably hard to concentrate, it felt like I was ramming the ceiling with my shoulder again and again. I was hearing nothing from the Lord except in messages from friends... and even they felt dull - hard to reach and comprehend... yet encouraging that God is near and present - even if I could not hear Him directly. My whole 6th sense of being able to feel the Lord near and know His desires in prayer, word, and movement have been entirely shut off... except a few very small and brief inklings in times of corporate worship.
With all that taken away - it seemed insurmountable to focus in on the Lord for even a second. Yet that should be my job ... to press in even more... clamoring for any small crack in that CRAZY big wall. Because how can I even think I can manage without Him for even a second. I can't - it's proven.
I just don't know how to make it a job ... when I am so focused on figuring out a new life, wondering where I fit in, and how the heck I am supposed to teach my kids anything everyday, and how am I NOT supposed to eat my way to 300 pounds. So much newness has left me in a fog of vague depression with one wave after another overwhelming me.
It's seems like a big task to leave to me, Lord. That's why my desperate prayer everyday was - PLEASE COME, COME AND HELP ME, PLEASE BE HERE, JESUS!!!!
I know you have not left .... but it sure has felt that way. I know you still love me like crazy ... but knowing that and feeling that are two different things.
What do I do now ... as the fog feels like it is finally - beginning - to lift?
I need to worship again and again and again and again.... It always comes back to that doesn't it?
Romans 1:21 Yes, they knew God, but they wouldn’t worship him as God or even give him thanks. And they began to think up foolish ideas of what God was like. As a result, their minds became dark and confused.
Dark and confused - foolishness - that's what happens when when stop worshipping and giving thanks.
I do know this. I really do.
Really the first step back has to be repentance ... so here goes.
Father I have strayed! I got stuck in my own filth - so focused on myself and how I felt. So stuck in my own hurting and daily struggles with moving, fitting in, homeschooling, and life stuff - that I just didn't know how to cope. Forgive me! My sin is so overwhelming, Lord, I feel like it's so big, and much of the time I get stuck gawking at it - likes its an accident by the side of the highway. When I should be looking at you ... reflecting on your greatness and how you just TOWER over my sin - it is nothing compared to You and your perfection!!! Lord, I am desperate to move away from this stupidity!! But I need you to light a fire in me - under me. I don't even know what to pray for - where to look - what to read or how to praise rightly ... show me please - show me how to praise YOU the way you deserve! Lord break my heart with Your beauty. Help your promises stick in my brain. And let thanks flow out of me. Jesus, come, I truly am desperate for You.
Isn't this always the problem with us creatures ... our eyes have drifted off the Creator and gotten focused on self - again.
I feel like I have tried ... but at each turn ... felt like I have hit wall after wall. Reading scripture felt like reading radio instructions for the second time. Prayer felt like such a labor - unbelievably hard to concentrate, it felt like I was ramming the ceiling with my shoulder again and again. I was hearing nothing from the Lord except in messages from friends... and even they felt dull - hard to reach and comprehend... yet encouraging that God is near and present - even if I could not hear Him directly. My whole 6th sense of being able to feel the Lord near and know His desires in prayer, word, and movement have been entirely shut off... except a few very small and brief inklings in times of corporate worship.
With all that taken away - it seemed insurmountable to focus in on the Lord for even a second. Yet that should be my job ... to press in even more... clamoring for any small crack in that CRAZY big wall. Because how can I even think I can manage without Him for even a second. I can't - it's proven.
I just don't know how to make it a job ... when I am so focused on figuring out a new life, wondering where I fit in, and how the heck I am supposed to teach my kids anything everyday, and how am I NOT supposed to eat my way to 300 pounds. So much newness has left me in a fog of vague depression with one wave after another overwhelming me.
It's seems like a big task to leave to me, Lord. That's why my desperate prayer everyday was - PLEASE COME, COME AND HELP ME, PLEASE BE HERE, JESUS!!!!
I know you have not left .... but it sure has felt that way. I know you still love me like crazy ... but knowing that and feeling that are two different things.
What do I do now ... as the fog feels like it is finally - beginning - to lift?
I need to worship again and again and again and again.... It always comes back to that doesn't it?
Romans 1:21 Yes, they knew God, but they wouldn’t worship him as God or even give him thanks. And they began to think up foolish ideas of what God was like. As a result, their minds became dark and confused.
Dark and confused - foolishness - that's what happens when when stop worshipping and giving thanks.
I do know this. I really do.
Really the first step back has to be repentance ... so here goes.
Father I have strayed! I got stuck in my own filth - so focused on myself and how I felt. So stuck in my own hurting and daily struggles with moving, fitting in, homeschooling, and life stuff - that I just didn't know how to cope. Forgive me! My sin is so overwhelming, Lord, I feel like it's so big, and much of the time I get stuck gawking at it - likes its an accident by the side of the highway. When I should be looking at you ... reflecting on your greatness and how you just TOWER over my sin - it is nothing compared to You and your perfection!!! Lord, I am desperate to move away from this stupidity!! But I need you to light a fire in me - under me. I don't even know what to pray for - where to look - what to read or how to praise rightly ... show me please - show me how to praise YOU the way you deserve! Lord break my heart with Your beauty. Help your promises stick in my brain. And let thanks flow out of me. Jesus, come, I truly am desperate for You.
Wednesday, January 15, 2014
reality
How can I possibly view myself on the outside? The outside of Christ and His body ... when this is described of me....
Col 1: 27b
And this is the secret: Christ lives in you. This gives you assurance of sharing his glory.
Col 1: 29b
depending on Christ’s mighty power that works within me.
Col 2: 2b-3
I want them to have complete confidence that they understand God’s mysterious plan, which is Christ himself. In him lie hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.
Col 2: 6-7
And now, just as you accepted Christ Jesus as your Lord, you must continue to follow him. Let your roots grow down into him, and let your lives be built on him. Then your faith will grow strong in the truth you were taught, and you will overflow with thankfulness.
Col 2: 9-10
For in Christ lives all the fullness of God in a human body. So you also are complete through your union with Christ, who is the head over every ruler and authority.
Col 2: 12b
And with him you were raised to new life because you trusted the mighty power of God,
Col 2: 13b
Then God made you alive with Christ, for he forgave all our sins.
Col 2: 17b
And Christ himself is that reality.
Col 2: 20a
You have died with Christ, and he has set you free from the spiritual powers of this world.
Col 3: 1b
set your sights on the realities of heaven, where Christ sits in the place of honor at God’s right hand.
Col 3: 3b-4
and your real life is hidden with Christ in God. And when Christ, who is your life, is revealed to the whole world, you will share in all his glory.
In Him, complete in my union with Christ, alive with Christ, died with Christ, my real life hidden with Christ in God....
CHRIST IS MY LIFE. Jesus is reality - my reality.
When it says that Christ sits in the place of honor at God's right hand ... then does it not follow that I am there - hidden within Christ - in that place of honor with Him - what?!!!
Why then do I feel left on the outside? Why do I feel like I have to beg the Holy Spirit to come and pour out the fruit of the Spirit in my life? I feel like I am asking for the right things ... but am I asking with the wrong ... motive??? I am not really sure??
My self-life still seems too big. There is still so much of me - looking in at me - wondering what I have screwed up now - wondering how I can fix everything. If I can just find that thing ... then I get what? What is it that I am looking to get? Lord, what is it?
I think maybe - I am looking just to be happy. I want to be less dismal, I want to smile more, to laugh with my kids, be excited by small things, be abandoned with my husband, be kind, to feel content - REGULARLY - for that to be my regular way... and it's simply NOT me.
Am I still just so dissatisfied with myself - who I was created to be in my flesh - that I think the Spirit will come and wipe it all out in one fell swoop? Do I find nothing redemptive in this original creation - that I am expecting the Spirit to come take it away and replace it in an instant? And when He doesn't - I am just constantly disappointed in myself - and in HIM? Hmmm.... I am still not sure.
Col 1: 27b
And this is the secret: Christ lives in you. This gives you assurance of sharing his glory.
Col 1: 29b
depending on Christ’s mighty power that works within me.
Col 2: 2b-3
I want them to have complete confidence that they understand God’s mysterious plan, which is Christ himself. In him lie hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.
Col 2: 6-7
And now, just as you accepted Christ Jesus as your Lord, you must continue to follow him. Let your roots grow down into him, and let your lives be built on him. Then your faith will grow strong in the truth you were taught, and you will overflow with thankfulness.
Col 2: 9-10
For in Christ lives all the fullness of God in a human body. So you also are complete through your union with Christ, who is the head over every ruler and authority.
Col 2: 12b
And with him you were raised to new life because you trusted the mighty power of God,
Col 2: 13b
Then God made you alive with Christ, for he forgave all our sins.
Col 2: 17b
And Christ himself is that reality.
Col 2: 20a
You have died with Christ, and he has set you free from the spiritual powers of this world.
Col 3: 1b
set your sights on the realities of heaven, where Christ sits in the place of honor at God’s right hand.
Col 3: 3b-4
and your real life is hidden with Christ in God. And when Christ, who is your life, is revealed to the whole world, you will share in all his glory.
In Him, complete in my union with Christ, alive with Christ, died with Christ, my real life hidden with Christ in God....
CHRIST IS MY LIFE. Jesus is reality - my reality.
When it says that Christ sits in the place of honor at God's right hand ... then does it not follow that I am there - hidden within Christ - in that place of honor with Him - what?!!!
Why then do I feel left on the outside? Why do I feel like I have to beg the Holy Spirit to come and pour out the fruit of the Spirit in my life? I feel like I am asking for the right things ... but am I asking with the wrong ... motive??? I am not really sure??
My self-life still seems too big. There is still so much of me - looking in at me - wondering what I have screwed up now - wondering how I can fix everything. If I can just find that thing ... then I get what? What is it that I am looking to get? Lord, what is it?
I think maybe - I am looking just to be happy. I want to be less dismal, I want to smile more, to laugh with my kids, be excited by small things, be abandoned with my husband, be kind, to feel content - REGULARLY - for that to be my regular way... and it's simply NOT me.
Am I still just so dissatisfied with myself - who I was created to be in my flesh - that I think the Spirit will come and wipe it all out in one fell swoop? Do I find nothing redemptive in this original creation - that I am expecting the Spirit to come take it away and replace it in an instant? And when He doesn't - I am just constantly disappointed in myself - and in HIM? Hmmm.... I am still not sure.
Tuesday, January 14, 2014
cocoon
Christ is the head and we are His body.
We the church ... are His body.
His hands, His feet.
We suffer like He does, but we are glorified with Him.
He died for our sin - we are dead to our sin.
He was buried... His life ended so that a new one could be born - we are buried - our old life gone - a new one to be born.
He rose again - we are raised to new life - alive IN Jesus - new.
If my life is IN Jesus - why does so much of my life feel like it is outside of His life?
If my life is all new - why does it feel old and tired?
I must be doing something wrong?
The last 6 months I have been buried in the dirt ... dirt filling my heart, mind and ears ... I couldn't sense the Lord's presence at all. Is that how Jesus felt on the cross, and in the ground? How is it possible for God do that to a part of himself? How does it feel to be Jesus - abandoned to death? One who is so intimately intertwined in the Godhead to then be disconnected - ripped away and put in the ground?
It's a cocoon. The ground is a cocoon for Jesus - and a cocoon for us. The place where death and new life intersect.
Andrew Murray - The Master's Indwelling ... "The sentence of death is on everything that is of nature. But are we willing to accept it, do we cherish it? and are we not rather trying to escape the sentence or to forget it? We do not believe fully that the sentence of death is on us. Whatever is of nature must die. Ask God to make you willing to believe with your heart that to die with Christ is the only way to live in Him. You ask, “But must it then be dying every day?” Yes, beloved; Jesus lived every day in the prospect of the cross, and we, in the power of His victorious life, being made conformable to His death, must rejoice every day in going down with Him into death.
Take an illustration. Take an oak of some hundred years’ growth. How was that oak born? In a grave. The acorn was planted in the ground, a grave was made for it that the acorn might die. It died and disappeared; it cast roots downward, and it cast shoots upward, and now that tree has been standing a hundred years. Where is it standing? In its grave; all the time in the very grave where the acorn died; it has stood there stretching its roots deeper and deeper into that earth in which its grave was made, and yet, all the time, though it stood in the very grave where it had died, it has been growing higher, and stronger, and broader, and more beautiful. And all the fruit it ever bore, and all the foliage that adorned it year by year, it owed to that grave in which its roots are cast and kept. Even so Christ owes everything to His death and His grave. And we, too, owe everything to that grave of Jesus. Oh! let us live every day rooted in the death of Jesus. Be not afraid, but say: “To my own will I will die; to human wisdom, and human strength, and to the world I will die; for it is in the grave of my Lord that His life has its beginning, and its strength and its glory.”"
I know I have quoted this above from Andrew Murray before. To me it is so so so very powerful. That visual of the acorn's death that a mighty oak might be born and grown in that very grave. In fact that is the very purpose of the acorn ... it was never meant to stay as it was, but be transformed into something greater. So then why do we try so very hard to hold onto our acorn life - when the transformation of the grave is available to us?
Simple fear. The grave hurts. Death is scary. Fear of not knowing, fear of pain, fear of being buried, not being 'us' any longer. Even Jesus was afraid ... afraid of the pain ahead - the separation from the Father. Fear is natural ... but our faith has to be big enough - like Jesus' - to say NOT MY WILL BUT YOURS BE DONE.
I can't say I am enjoying this time in the cocoon. The grave is ugly and far too quiet - too still - too empty. But it's not those things that I am seeking to get to - I am seeking the transformation - the Resurrection!!! So the cocoon IS necessary.
Jesus when He was born into the next life was even more glorious than the first because His mission was accomplished! He rescued us - His beloved church, His beloved body, His creation. He is now sitting at the right hand of the Father in glorious beauty, able to intercede for His people - sending out the Spirit to empower and make His bride more beautiful.
I get that I am on a journey - that will only be completed in Heaven. I will never be finished here on planet Earth ... I am just getting closer and closer each day to when time and eternity meet and I can be totally free. That day will happen when I am truly in the grave, and free of all the crap in my life. But until that happens - I want my life here to be spent well, filled with as much of Christ as I can possibly get. Whether it be glorious or full of the grave.
Romans 8:17 And since we are his children, we are his heirs. In fact, together with Christ we are heirs of God’s glory. But if we are to share his glory, we must also share his suffering.
More Murray - "Some one says: “I do indeed desire to live the life of perfect trust; I desire to let Christ live it in me; I am longing to come to such an apprehension of Christ as shall give me the certainty that Christ will forever abide in me; I want to come to the full assurance that Christ, my Joshua, will keep me in the land of victory.” What is needful for that? My answer is: “Take care that you do not take a false Christ, an imaginary Christ, a half Christ.” And what is the full Christ? The full Christ is the man who said, “I give up everything to the death that God may be glorified. I have not a thought; I have not a wish; I would not live a moment except for the glory of God.”
.... All of Jesus - the true Jesus - is the suffering AND the glorious victory.
Even more Murray, "And the one thought that ought to be in the heart of every believer is this: “I am in the death with Christ; absolutely, unchangeably given up to wait upon God, that God may work out His purpose and glory in me from moment to moment.” Few attain the victory and the enjoyment and the full experience at once...Death is a solemn thing, an awful thing. In the Garden it cost Christ great agony to die that death; and no wonder it is not easy to us. But we willingly consent when we have learned the secret; in death alone the life of God will come; in death there is blessedness unspeakable."
So now how do I begin to answer the question ... if I am IN Christ - why does so much of my life feel outside of His life? And, if He has given me a new life - than why does mine feel so old and tired?
I don't really think I have given myself over to death ... I am fighting the cocoon... I haven't surrendered to the dirt. I feel old and tired and outside because giving up so much feels too hard. But this death - my death - is not too much to give - if LIFE is what I get in return.
Submit flesh - let go - just die. I want life.
We the church ... are His body.
His hands, His feet.
We suffer like He does, but we are glorified with Him.
He died for our sin - we are dead to our sin.
He was buried... His life ended so that a new one could be born - we are buried - our old life gone - a new one to be born.
He rose again - we are raised to new life - alive IN Jesus - new.
If my life is IN Jesus - why does so much of my life feel like it is outside of His life?
If my life is all new - why does it feel old and tired?
I must be doing something wrong?
The last 6 months I have been buried in the dirt ... dirt filling my heart, mind and ears ... I couldn't sense the Lord's presence at all. Is that how Jesus felt on the cross, and in the ground? How is it possible for God do that to a part of himself? How does it feel to be Jesus - abandoned to death? One who is so intimately intertwined in the Godhead to then be disconnected - ripped away and put in the ground?
It's a cocoon. The ground is a cocoon for Jesus - and a cocoon for us. The place where death and new life intersect.
Andrew Murray - The Master's Indwelling ... "The sentence of death is on everything that is of nature. But are we willing to accept it, do we cherish it? and are we not rather trying to escape the sentence or to forget it? We do not believe fully that the sentence of death is on us. Whatever is of nature must die. Ask God to make you willing to believe with your heart that to die with Christ is the only way to live in Him. You ask, “But must it then be dying every day?” Yes, beloved; Jesus lived every day in the prospect of the cross, and we, in the power of His victorious life, being made conformable to His death, must rejoice every day in going down with Him into death.
Take an illustration. Take an oak of some hundred years’ growth. How was that oak born? In a grave. The acorn was planted in the ground, a grave was made for it that the acorn might die. It died and disappeared; it cast roots downward, and it cast shoots upward, and now that tree has been standing a hundred years. Where is it standing? In its grave; all the time in the very grave where the acorn died; it has stood there stretching its roots deeper and deeper into that earth in which its grave was made, and yet, all the time, though it stood in the very grave where it had died, it has been growing higher, and stronger, and broader, and more beautiful. And all the fruit it ever bore, and all the foliage that adorned it year by year, it owed to that grave in which its roots are cast and kept. Even so Christ owes everything to His death and His grave. And we, too, owe everything to that grave of Jesus. Oh! let us live every day rooted in the death of Jesus. Be not afraid, but say: “To my own will I will die; to human wisdom, and human strength, and to the world I will die; for it is in the grave of my Lord that His life has its beginning, and its strength and its glory.”"
I know I have quoted this above from Andrew Murray before. To me it is so so so very powerful. That visual of the acorn's death that a mighty oak might be born and grown in that very grave. In fact that is the very purpose of the acorn ... it was never meant to stay as it was, but be transformed into something greater. So then why do we try so very hard to hold onto our acorn life - when the transformation of the grave is available to us?
Simple fear. The grave hurts. Death is scary. Fear of not knowing, fear of pain, fear of being buried, not being 'us' any longer. Even Jesus was afraid ... afraid of the pain ahead - the separation from the Father. Fear is natural ... but our faith has to be big enough - like Jesus' - to say NOT MY WILL BUT YOURS BE DONE.
I can't say I am enjoying this time in the cocoon. The grave is ugly and far too quiet - too still - too empty. But it's not those things that I am seeking to get to - I am seeking the transformation - the Resurrection!!! So the cocoon IS necessary.
Jesus when He was born into the next life was even more glorious than the first because His mission was accomplished! He rescued us - His beloved church, His beloved body, His creation. He is now sitting at the right hand of the Father in glorious beauty, able to intercede for His people - sending out the Spirit to empower and make His bride more beautiful.
I get that I am on a journey - that will only be completed in Heaven. I will never be finished here on planet Earth ... I am just getting closer and closer each day to when time and eternity meet and I can be totally free. That day will happen when I am truly in the grave, and free of all the crap in my life. But until that happens - I want my life here to be spent well, filled with as much of Christ as I can possibly get. Whether it be glorious or full of the grave.
Romans 8:17 And since we are his children, we are his heirs. In fact, together with Christ we are heirs of God’s glory. But if we are to share his glory, we must also share his suffering.
More Murray - "Some one says: “I do indeed desire to live the life of perfect trust; I desire to let Christ live it in me; I am longing to come to such an apprehension of Christ as shall give me the certainty that Christ will forever abide in me; I want to come to the full assurance that Christ, my Joshua, will keep me in the land of victory.” What is needful for that? My answer is: “Take care that you do not take a false Christ, an imaginary Christ, a half Christ.” And what is the full Christ? The full Christ is the man who said, “I give up everything to the death that God may be glorified. I have not a thought; I have not a wish; I would not live a moment except for the glory of God.”
.... All of Jesus - the true Jesus - is the suffering AND the glorious victory.
Even more Murray, "And the one thought that ought to be in the heart of every believer is this: “I am in the death with Christ; absolutely, unchangeably given up to wait upon God, that God may work out His purpose and glory in me from moment to moment.” Few attain the victory and the enjoyment and the full experience at once...Death is a solemn thing, an awful thing. In the Garden it cost Christ great agony to die that death; and no wonder it is not easy to us. But we willingly consent when we have learned the secret; in death alone the life of God will come; in death there is blessedness unspeakable."
So now how do I begin to answer the question ... if I am IN Christ - why does so much of my life feel outside of His life? And, if He has given me a new life - than why does mine feel so old and tired?
I don't really think I have given myself over to death ... I am fighting the cocoon... I haven't surrendered to the dirt. I feel old and tired and outside because giving up so much feels too hard. But this death - my death - is not too much to give - if LIFE is what I get in return.
Submit flesh - let go - just die. I want life.
Col 1:9-14
I am on a spiritual retreat with my husband this week. It's quiet, childless, and at the beach. I really couldn't ask for more ...
except I desperately want Jesus to speak,
I want to feel Him,
hear Him,
I want Him to open me up and fill me with His fullness!!!
I am reading Colossians and I don't think I am asking too much - or for something contrary to His will when I read these verses from chapter 1- these are Paul's prayers for the church of Colosse ...
9 So we have not stopped praying for you since we first heard about you.
We ask God to give you complete knowledge of his will and to give you spiritual wisdom and understanding.
10 Then the way you live will always honor and please the Lord, and your lives will produce every kind of good fruit.
All the while, you will grow as you learn to know God better and better.
11 We also pray that you will be strengthened with all his glorious power so you will have all the endurance and patience you need.
May you be filled with joy,
12 always thanking the Father.
He has enabled you to share in the inheritance that belongs to his people, who live in the light. 13 For he has rescued us from the kingdom of darkness and transferred us into the Kingdom of his dear Son, 14 who purchased our freedom and forgave our sins.
This is crazy good stuff ... I am praying THIS prayer ... after all - it's scripture - so God HAS to answer it right?
except I desperately want Jesus to speak,
I want to feel Him,
hear Him,
I want Him to open me up and fill me with His fullness!!!
I am reading Colossians and I don't think I am asking too much - or for something contrary to His will when I read these verses from chapter 1- these are Paul's prayers for the church of Colosse ...
9 So we have not stopped praying for you since we first heard about you.
We ask God to give you complete knowledge of his will and to give you spiritual wisdom and understanding.
10 Then the way you live will always honor and please the Lord, and your lives will produce every kind of good fruit.
All the while, you will grow as you learn to know God better and better.
11 We also pray that you will be strengthened with all his glorious power so you will have all the endurance and patience you need.
May you be filled with joy,
12 always thanking the Father.
He has enabled you to share in the inheritance that belongs to his people, who live in the light. 13 For he has rescued us from the kingdom of darkness and transferred us into the Kingdom of his dear Son, 14 who purchased our freedom and forgave our sins.
This is crazy good stuff ... I am praying THIS prayer ... after all - it's scripture - so God HAS to answer it right?
Wednesday, January 8, 2014
good friends - good reminders
The Lord keeps sending me messages through other people. I keep reading them knowing He is saying something but I still feel too dull to fully comprehend. My emotions are flat and hard to define. It's like they are walled up within me somewhere but I can't get to them.
BUT I sense that Resurrection from this grave is coming ...
here are a couple of things that friends have sent to me in the stream of reminders...
and another friend sent me this - from C.S. Lewis' Screw Tape Letters:
My Dear Wormwood,
So you have great hopes that the patient's religious phase is dying away, have you? I always thought the Training College had gone to pieces since they put old Slubgob at the head of it, and now I am sure! Has no one ever told you about the law of undulation?
Humans are amphibians - half spirit and half animal. (The Enemy's determination to produce such a revolting hybrid was one of the things that determined Our Father to withdraw his support from Him.) As spirits they belong to the eternal world, but as animals they inhabit time. This means that while their spirit can be directed to an eternal object, their bodies, passions and imaginations are in continual change, for to be in time means to change. Their nearest approach to constancy, therefore, is undulation - the repeated return to a level from which they repeatedly fall back, a series of troughs and peaks. If you had watched your patient carefully you wouldve seen this undulation in every part of his life - his interests in his work, his affection for his friends, his physical appetites, all go up and down. ...
To decide what the best use of it is, you must ask what the Enemy wants to make of it, and then do the opposite. Now it may surprise you to learn that in His efforts to get permanent possession of a soul, He relies on the troughs even more than on the peaks, some of His special favorites have gone through longer and deeper troughs that anyone else. The reason is this. To us a human is primarily food, our aim is the absorption of its will into ours, the increase of our own area of selfhood at its expense. But the obedience which the Enemy demands of men is quite a different thing. One must face the fact that all the talk about His love for men, and His service being perfect freedom, is not (as one would gladly believe) mere propaganda, but an appalling truth. He really does want to fill the universe with a lot of loathsome little replicas of Himself - creatures whose life, on its miniature scale, will be qualitatively like His own, not because He has absorbed them but because their wills freely conform to His. We want cattle who can finally become food. He wants servants who can finally become sons. We want to suck in, He wants to give out. We are empty and would be filled, He is full and flows over. Our war aim is a world in which Our Father Below has drawn all other beings into himself: the Enemy wants a world full of beings united to Him but still distinct.
And that is where the troughs come in. You must have often wondered why the Enemy does not make more use of His power to be sensibly present to human souls in any degree He chooses and at any moment. But you now see the the Irresistible and the Indisputable are the two weapons which the very nature of His scheme forbids Him to use. Merely to override a human will (as His felt presence in any but the faintest and most mitigated degree would certainly do) would be for Him useless. He cannot ravish, He can only woo. For His ignoble idea is to eat the cake and have it; the creatures are to be one with Him, but yet themselves, merely to cancel them, or assimilate them, will not serve. He is prepared to do a little overwhelming at the beginning. He will set them off with communications of His presence which, though faint, seem great to them, with emotional sweetness, and easy conquest over temptation. But He never allows this state of affairs to last long. Sooner or later He withdraws, if not in fact, at least from their conscious experience, all those supports and incentives. He leaves the creature to stand up on its own legs - to carry out from the will alone duties which have lost all relish. It is during such trough periods, much more than during the peak periods, that He is growing into the sort of creature He wants it to be. Hence the prayers offered in the state of dryness are those which please Him best. We can drag our patients along by continual tempting, because we design them only for the table, and the more their will is interfered with the better. He cannot "tempt" to virtue as we do to vice. He wants them to learn to walk and must therefore take away His hand; and if only the will to walk is really there He is pleased even with their stumbles. Do not be deceived Wormwood. Our cause is never more in danger than when the human, no longer desiring, but still intending, to do our Enemy's will, looks round upon the universe from which every trace of Him seems to have vanished, and asks why he has been forsaken, and still obeys.
BUT I sense that Resurrection from this grave is coming ...
here are a couple of things that friends have sent to me in the stream of reminders...
from a friend's dreams:
I wanted to let you know that you've been on my heart and in my dreams twice this week. I'm awake for the second time recently with a distinct impression to pray for you and today with two images that I can't get out of my mind and I think are for you- a phonograph (you in the recent past proclaiming what the spirit told you) and a phonogram (you now, waiting to have new messages recorded onto you from the spirit) and these are sitting by the tide- steady, unchanging, and faithful to its schedule of highs and lows, just like our walks in faith. I don't know why these images and I don't know anything more than that they're yours, as are my prayers.
and another friend sent me this - from C.S. Lewis' Screw Tape Letters:
My Dear Wormwood,
So you have great hopes that the patient's religious phase is dying away, have you? I always thought the Training College had gone to pieces since they put old Slubgob at the head of it, and now I am sure! Has no one ever told you about the law of undulation?
Humans are amphibians - half spirit and half animal. (The Enemy's determination to produce such a revolting hybrid was one of the things that determined Our Father to withdraw his support from Him.) As spirits they belong to the eternal world, but as animals they inhabit time. This means that while their spirit can be directed to an eternal object, their bodies, passions and imaginations are in continual change, for to be in time means to change. Their nearest approach to constancy, therefore, is undulation - the repeated return to a level from which they repeatedly fall back, a series of troughs and peaks. If you had watched your patient carefully you wouldve seen this undulation in every part of his life - his interests in his work, his affection for his friends, his physical appetites, all go up and down. ...
To decide what the best use of it is, you must ask what the Enemy wants to make of it, and then do the opposite. Now it may surprise you to learn that in His efforts to get permanent possession of a soul, He relies on the troughs even more than on the peaks, some of His special favorites have gone through longer and deeper troughs that anyone else. The reason is this. To us a human is primarily food, our aim is the absorption of its will into ours, the increase of our own area of selfhood at its expense. But the obedience which the Enemy demands of men is quite a different thing. One must face the fact that all the talk about His love for men, and His service being perfect freedom, is not (as one would gladly believe) mere propaganda, but an appalling truth. He really does want to fill the universe with a lot of loathsome little replicas of Himself - creatures whose life, on its miniature scale, will be qualitatively like His own, not because He has absorbed them but because their wills freely conform to His. We want cattle who can finally become food. He wants servants who can finally become sons. We want to suck in, He wants to give out. We are empty and would be filled, He is full and flows over. Our war aim is a world in which Our Father Below has drawn all other beings into himself: the Enemy wants a world full of beings united to Him but still distinct.
And that is where the troughs come in. You must have often wondered why the Enemy does not make more use of His power to be sensibly present to human souls in any degree He chooses and at any moment. But you now see the the Irresistible and the Indisputable are the two weapons which the very nature of His scheme forbids Him to use. Merely to override a human will (as His felt presence in any but the faintest and most mitigated degree would certainly do) would be for Him useless. He cannot ravish, He can only woo. For His ignoble idea is to eat the cake and have it; the creatures are to be one with Him, but yet themselves, merely to cancel them, or assimilate them, will not serve. He is prepared to do a little overwhelming at the beginning. He will set them off with communications of His presence which, though faint, seem great to them, with emotional sweetness, and easy conquest over temptation. But He never allows this state of affairs to last long. Sooner or later He withdraws, if not in fact, at least from their conscious experience, all those supports and incentives. He leaves the creature to stand up on its own legs - to carry out from the will alone duties which have lost all relish. It is during such trough periods, much more than during the peak periods, that He is growing into the sort of creature He wants it to be. Hence the prayers offered in the state of dryness are those which please Him best. We can drag our patients along by continual tempting, because we design them only for the table, and the more their will is interfered with the better. He cannot "tempt" to virtue as we do to vice. He wants them to learn to walk and must therefore take away His hand; and if only the will to walk is really there He is pleased even with their stumbles. Do not be deceived Wormwood. Our cause is never more in danger than when the human, no longer desiring, but still intending, to do our Enemy's will, looks round upon the universe from which every trace of Him seems to have vanished, and asks why he has been forsaken, and still obeys.
'home'
I went 'home' for Christmas ... back north to be with my family. I was within a 2 hour drive from my former 'home'. It was so close but there was no way we could make the drive ... that was hard.
Being with my family felt as close to 'home' as I have been in a while ... it felt good to be myself and be understood - even if it was in that old way that we all fall into when we are with family. It was close, it was a distraction, it was nice for a while.
Then came the end of Christmas and New Years and we had to come back 'home' to Florida. The only thing I truly missed was my own bed. Nothing about coming 'home' felt like 'home'. Florida is just where all my stuff is, where my bed lives now... it doesn't feel like 'home'.
This makes my husband really nervous ... he began getting all flustered for me and started trying to frantically work through the process for us to buy a home here. He wanted to set up times for me to get together with people so I can make friends. He wants me to feel at 'home' here. I love him for wanting that for me, but as much as I want those things too - I know they will only come in time and cannot be rushed.
I know I can't rush the process ... but I really wouldn't mind fast forwarding a few months past this ache in my heart that is longing for 'home'. Oh how Adam and Eve must have ached for the Garden after the Fall! How their hearts and minds must have continually found themselves reaching out to the past to recapture what they once had... but they could never have it again - it would never be the same.
It wasn't just the Garden they missed though it was - intimacy. Because that is really what 'home' is. Intimacy with their place - the place they knew they belonged, that they knew the ins and out of, that they were designed for. Intimacy with one another - known perfectly - seen perfectly - felt perfectly - understood perfectly. And Intimacy with God - something so indescribable - so beyond our comprehension - true face to face fellowship.
I only had a taste of that in my last 'home'. The lack of it here in the in between makes me understand some of their ache. And it is hard to ache.
Being with my family felt as close to 'home' as I have been in a while ... it felt good to be myself and be understood - even if it was in that old way that we all fall into when we are with family. It was close, it was a distraction, it was nice for a while.
Then came the end of Christmas and New Years and we had to come back 'home' to Florida. The only thing I truly missed was my own bed. Nothing about coming 'home' felt like 'home'. Florida is just where all my stuff is, where my bed lives now... it doesn't feel like 'home'.
This makes my husband really nervous ... he began getting all flustered for me and started trying to frantically work through the process for us to buy a home here. He wanted to set up times for me to get together with people so I can make friends. He wants me to feel at 'home' here. I love him for wanting that for me, but as much as I want those things too - I know they will only come in time and cannot be rushed.
I know I can't rush the process ... but I really wouldn't mind fast forwarding a few months past this ache in my heart that is longing for 'home'. Oh how Adam and Eve must have ached for the Garden after the Fall! How their hearts and minds must have continually found themselves reaching out to the past to recapture what they once had... but they could never have it again - it would never be the same.
It wasn't just the Garden they missed though it was - intimacy. Because that is really what 'home' is. Intimacy with their place - the place they knew they belonged, that they knew the ins and out of, that they were designed for. Intimacy with one another - known perfectly - seen perfectly - felt perfectly - understood perfectly. And Intimacy with God - something so indescribable - so beyond our comprehension - true face to face fellowship.
I only had a taste of that in my last 'home'. The lack of it here in the in between makes me understand some of their ache. And it is hard to ache.
capacity
It's the fourth Sunday in Advent ... the Love Sunday. Our pastor began his sermon bragging on his wife and talking about the early stages of their dating relationship ... it was cute but I kept waiting for the God part - for him to transition and tie everything together and bring it back to Jesus. He did ... and it was a great sermon. He tied the beginning stages of dating - that fluttery feeling of crazy excitement of seeing that one you have fallen for - back to us needing to love Jesus like that.
He quoted Revelation 2: 2-5
I know your works, your toil and your patient endurance, and how you cannot bear with those who are evil, but have tested those who call themselves apostles and are not, and found them to be false. I know you are enduring patiently and bearing up for my name's sake, and you have not grown weary. But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first. Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent, and do the works you did at first. If not, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place, unless you repent.
All the works they had done were good ... but their failing was that they did not love Jesus as they had once loved Him in the beginning. It's supposed to be that giddy enamored love - so full - so rich - so all consuming. And when it is not - the church at Ephesus got rebuked ... and in the midst of that sermon so did I.
How do you conjure up love in your heart when you feel like every emotion is so dull? The grave is quiet, the grave does not have feelings ... the grave strips, the grave is death. If this wonderment love is what I am being called back to - how do I get out of the grave? Has the grave even accomplished it's purpose in me yet? No ... I don't think it has... not fully yet.
What is it's purpose? Andrew Murray help me out again...
Children of God, we must go down deeper into the grave of Jesus. We must cultivate the sense of impotence, and dependence, and nothingness, until our souls walk before God every day in a deep and holy trembling. God keep us from being anything. God teach us to wait on Him, that He may work in us all He wrought in His Son, till Christ Jesus may live out His life in us! For this, may God help us!
Christ had a perfect life, given by God. The Father said: “Will you give up that life to me? Will you part with it at my command?” And He parted with it, but God gave it back to Him in a second life ten thousand times more glorious than that earthly life. So God will do to every one of us who willingly consents to part with his life. - The Master's Indwelling
IMPOTENCE, DEPENDENCE, NOTHINGNESS.
I have to say I feel all of these things daily. I wake up every morning barely even able to pray - just screaming out in my mind - JESUS!!! I need you! I can't do any of this without YOU! Please come, please come!
BUT... the deep and holy trembling has not yet come ... and I have been avoiding the waiting and instead have been drowning myself in TV to escape the war in my mind. The battle has been exhausting, frustrating, and long. And for the last 10 days I was in retreat.
I realized as my pastor was speaking today that the grave, and the stripping - the purge has been to expand my capacity.
The grave is for the dying of self ... and let me tell you I feel dead ... nothing in life feels joyful, fun, happy, exciting, comforting, or like home. All has been stripped... and I feel like my life is nothing like it once was ... and I don't even know what it is for now.... it just feels empty. And if I am empty then ... I am finally ready to be filled - right? That at least seems logical to me.
So the Lord has stripped - to stretch me - to make room - to clean me out ... to make me ready for something new - something bigger - something better that would not fit in me where I was before. I will now have the capacity to receive something beyond what I can think or imagine.
this verse came to mind as I was writing ... Matthew 9:17
Neither is new wine put into old wineskins. If it is, the skins burst and the wine is spilled and the skins are destroyed. But new wine is put into fresh wineskins, and so both are preserved.
capacity.
He quoted Revelation 2: 2-5
I know your works, your toil and your patient endurance, and how you cannot bear with those who are evil, but have tested those who call themselves apostles and are not, and found them to be false. I know you are enduring patiently and bearing up for my name's sake, and you have not grown weary. But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first. Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent, and do the works you did at first. If not, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place, unless you repent.
All the works they had done were good ... but their failing was that they did not love Jesus as they had once loved Him in the beginning. It's supposed to be that giddy enamored love - so full - so rich - so all consuming. And when it is not - the church at Ephesus got rebuked ... and in the midst of that sermon so did I.
How do you conjure up love in your heart when you feel like every emotion is so dull? The grave is quiet, the grave does not have feelings ... the grave strips, the grave is death. If this wonderment love is what I am being called back to - how do I get out of the grave? Has the grave even accomplished it's purpose in me yet? No ... I don't think it has... not fully yet.
What is it's purpose? Andrew Murray help me out again...
Children of God, we must go down deeper into the grave of Jesus. We must cultivate the sense of impotence, and dependence, and nothingness, until our souls walk before God every day in a deep and holy trembling. God keep us from being anything. God teach us to wait on Him, that He may work in us all He wrought in His Son, till Christ Jesus may live out His life in us! For this, may God help us!
Christ had a perfect life, given by God. The Father said: “Will you give up that life to me? Will you part with it at my command?” And He parted with it, but God gave it back to Him in a second life ten thousand times more glorious than that earthly life. So God will do to every one of us who willingly consents to part with his life. - The Master's Indwelling
IMPOTENCE, DEPENDENCE, NOTHINGNESS.
I have to say I feel all of these things daily. I wake up every morning barely even able to pray - just screaming out in my mind - JESUS!!! I need you! I can't do any of this without YOU! Please come, please come!
BUT... the deep and holy trembling has not yet come ... and I have been avoiding the waiting and instead have been drowning myself in TV to escape the war in my mind. The battle has been exhausting, frustrating, and long. And for the last 10 days I was in retreat.
I realized as my pastor was speaking today that the grave, and the stripping - the purge has been to expand my capacity.
The grave is for the dying of self ... and let me tell you I feel dead ... nothing in life feels joyful, fun, happy, exciting, comforting, or like home. All has been stripped... and I feel like my life is nothing like it once was ... and I don't even know what it is for now.... it just feels empty. And if I am empty then ... I am finally ready to be filled - right? That at least seems logical to me.
So the Lord has stripped - to stretch me - to make room - to clean me out ... to make me ready for something new - something bigger - something better that would not fit in me where I was before. I will now have the capacity to receive something beyond what I can think or imagine.
this verse came to mind as I was writing ... Matthew 9:17
Neither is new wine put into old wineskins. If it is, the skins burst and the wine is spilled and the skins are destroyed. But new wine is put into fresh wineskins, and so both are preserved.
capacity.
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