Can you believe it?  We made it through the whole Bible!  Our first Word Wednesday was over a year ago.  Boy, has my life changed since then.  How about yours?  Here is hoping that you grew closer to God as we read our way through the Bible together.  I’ve loved your comments and your emails.  This has been a growth experience for sure.  I’m still deciding what to do next, so check back next Wednesday for the plan.  Are you ready?  Here we are in Revelations, and the vision of Jesus that literally thrills me every time I read it:

Revelation 19: 11-16 (NIV)– I saw heaven standing open and there before me was a white horse, whose rider is called Faithful and True. With justice he judges and makes war. His eyes are like blazing fire, and on his head are many crowns. He has a name written on him that no one knows but he himself. He is dressed in a robe dipped in blood, and his name is the Word of God. The armies of heaven were following him, riding on white horses and dressed in fine linen, white and clean. Out of his mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations. “He will rule them with an iron scepter.” He treads the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God Almighty. On his robe and on his thigh he has this name written:

King of Kings and Lord of Lords.

Have you ever needed a hero?  Here He is.  Oh, my friends, one of these days…  One of these days this is exactly how we will see Him.  He will arrive and, boy, will it be the most amazing, most incredible, most awesome thing we have ever seen.  Is it any wonder that every knee shall bow and every tongue shall confess that He is Lord?  How can we not when He shows up in triumph like this?

Don’t you just love it?  There is so much here to absolutely gush over.  One of the names of my Jesus is Faithful and True.  Think on the meaning of that one for a few minutes.  He is justice.  He is victory.  He is salvation.  He is things that only He knows.  He is, ultimately and above all, King of Kings and Lord of Lords.  Our mighty Savior returning in triumph.  I can’t wait to see that!

Can you tell?  This is one of those times I resort to babbling because I’m at such a loss for words.  There is so much more in my heart when it comes to Jesus than my words could ever explain.  If I thought seeing my husband step off the plane from Afghanistan was incredible, I can’t fathom what it will be like to see my Savior step out of the sky!

It all boils down to Jesus.  The whole Bible points to Him, to God’s love in sending Him.  Please.  If you don’t know Him, be willing to meet Him.  He’s come more than halfway for you, and one of these days He is going to crack open that sky and make the most triumphant return ever imagined.  Read those verses again.  Don’t you want to be a part of that?  I do.  And I can’t wait!

-JB

Howdy, Friends!  It is a particularly joyful day in my little corner of the world.  Christmas break starts today!  That means I take a break from teaching kiddos and shift my concentration to revising a novel.  Hm.  On second thought, maybe “break” is too strong a word?  But before we get to that, let’s take a look at the book of Jude, shall we?  It’s a short little book packed with a lot (as most of our Bible books are).  Take a quick peek and share in the comments what strikes you out of Jude’s words, then come back next week when we talk about Revelations.  I can’t wait!  One of my favorite images of Christ is on those pages!

Jude 22-23a (NIV)–Be merciful to those in doubt; snatch others from the fire and save them…

I got my toes stomped last week in III John.  I got my toes stomped again this week.  Oh my word.  It is so easy to sit in front of the TV and pass judgment.  It is so easy to walk by others in the mall or on the street and look down on them.  It is even quite easy, at times, to sit in our own churches and think not-so-pretty thoughts about the person across the room.  Be honest.  It happens to all of us.

The thing is…  we can’t be that way, especially to those who don’t know Christ.  Our job is not to sit and stare down our noses, shake our heads and complain about those who “just don’t get it.”  How often do we show mercy?  Not only to the ones who are lost, but to the ones among us who have lost their way?

This verse struck me today because I realized I had been looking down on someone without even realizing it.  It is so easy to pass judgment when someone fails.  Oh, we can couch it as concern or any number of things, but the fact is, judgment is judgment.  And I, for one, need to stop.  Stop judging what the man on the street corner will do with any money I hand him.  Stop judging the guy flying down the highway at 100 miles per hour.  Stop judging the actress who can’t seem to stay married longer than three hours.  Stop judging.  Period.  Is anyone else feeling it?

So, it wasn’t a Christmas kind of post.  I apologize for that.  But I’m feeling the weight of conviction.  I’m guessing I might not be the only one.  Lord, help us to see and love as you see and love.

-JB

Christmas is in SIX DAYS!  Can’t you feel it in the air?  I think one of my favorite “commercial” parts of Christmas is seeing this on TV every year. It gives me chills absolutely every time. Christmas “from a little child.” Love, love, love it!

As for music, we’re to decade four. I’m pushing forty. Hard to believe. I still feel about twenty. That’s a good thing since I chase after middle schoolers all day, I suppose. At any rate, I just about tripped over myself rushing to the store when I heard about this last Christmas CD. (It won’t surprise a one of you out there who knows anything at all about me…)

When it comes to worship, Third Day can just bring it, can’t they? If you’ve never seen them live, you’ve missed out on the biggest praise and worship session you may ever experience. It’s all about the glory going straight up to heaven, and there is some serious anointing that happens. That’s why I marked the days waiting for their Christmas CD to come out a few years ago, and it is my very favorite now. That’s the first one I cue up on the day after Thanksgiving. Even my daughter begs to hear their version of “Away in a Manger.”

This is the CD that brings me back to what it’s all about… Jesus coming to earth to make everything right. So Merry Christmas! Amen, and amen!

Hello, Wednesday! It is so hard to believe we have nearly made it to the end of the Bible. And I love God’s sense of humor. We’ll wrap up with Revelations on the last week in 2011. He’s cool like that, isn’t He? Let’s jump right into III John, shall we? Feel free to comment below!

III John 11 (NIV)–Dear friend, do not imitate what is evil but what is good.  Anyone who does what is good is from God.  Anyone who does what is evil has not seen God.

Let’s face it.  We live in a world that is inherently evil.  Most of the shows on TV, quite a bit of the music on the radio, the majority of the movies we see… Even the news at night is full of it.  And the more we soak up, the more desensitized we become.  What is wrong appears normal.  What is right appears totally dysfunctional.  We have come to a place in our culture where we truly are starting to call evil “good” and good “evil.”

It’s a battle, isn’t it?  Every day, it gets harder to stand up for right without being labeled “wrong.”  The problem really comes in when we start to question that right and wrong.  When we are more steeped in our entertainment than we are in our Word, doesn’t the water get a little bit cloudy?  We start to question ourselves and our motives, maybe even out God.  That’s when we get to that dangerous patch, where we start to maybe not imitate evil, but definitely to tolerate it.

I’ll be honest… I wish we’d all stand up and unite our voices.  The voices of the world are most definitely united.  Satan has made sure of that.  It’s the Christian voices that sound like a whisper here and a brief shout there.  Oh, that we would join together in a chorus of truth.  Am I the master at that?  No.  I wish I were.  It’s going to take a lot of boldness to be voices of truth.  The prayer for that boldness needs to start now…

-JB

I’ve looked forward to this day all week.  I’m starting to love talking about Christmas music!  (Wait.  I loved it before.  I just love it more now.  How’s that?)  It’s been fun to read the comments here and the emails about everyone’s favorite Christmas songs.  I’m learning some new ones!

In my twenties, I found Harry Connick, Jr.’s two Christmas CD’s.  Harry and I go way back to when I was in high school.  (His “20″ is still one of my favorite CDs.)  There’s just something about that jazzy crooning that works with Christmas music, so when he put out “When My Heart Finds Christmas,” I was over the moon.  “Harry for the Holidays” had to grow on me, but after a year or so, it was right up there with the tops.  Those albums remind me of the old Christmas songs, before they got jazzed up and laid down over a backbeat.  (Y’all know what I’m talking about.)

So for week three, how about a little Harry for your holidays?

-JB

Boy, am I happy to see Wednesday this week! I’ll tell ya… It’s just good to know that His Word is always there and that it’s so powerful. Even His name is powerful. I’m studying the names of Jesus for Advent, just like I do every year. And every year it’s something new and amazing! But that’s a blog for another time.

This week we take a look at the tiny book of II John. If you’ve wanted to join in the conversation, this is a great week for it, because you can read II John in under five minutes. Peek at those verses and see what speaks to you, then visit us in the comments!

II John 6b (NIV)–It has given me great joy to find some of your children walking in the truth, just as the Father commanded us.

This is one of those more personal applications.  I was a teacher for seven years before our daughter was born and I took some time off.  This year, I stepped back into the classroom again and, I have to say, I’m lovin’ it!

But here’s the thing about teaching in Christian school.  You see some kids rise… and some kids fall.  The advent of email and Facebook has allowed me to reconnect with some of my former students.  It always amazes me what they are doing now.  And it always amazes me how much they’ve changed.

See, I’ve had my heart broken a few times.  I taught kids ten or twelve years ago who seemed like they were anchored to the top of God’s mountain, whose faith I actually envied.  A few of them have fallen hard, and I’ve seen what the world can do to even the strongest of people.  That hurts in a way words can’t describe.   But I remember my own ups and downs, and there’s that knowledge that God is in them, they’ve been trained up right, and with prayer they’ll find their way home again.

Then there are those… the ones who tested and tried and pushed and shoved and fought and steadfastly refused to accept Christ.  The ones who made me (and other teachers) shed tears and pound on heaven’s doors only to see them graduate with that same defiance.  Then… they show up on Facebook  and everything has changed.  Their hearts are so full and their lives are so changed…  You have to wonder if they’re the same kid or an identical twin with the same name.  I love those moments.  They literally thrill me.

The point, I guess, is this.  Never give up on the ones you love.  And never take them for granted either.  Even the strongest need prayer.  It’s easy to pray for the weak among us, but that’s why pastors fall, because they’re flock forgot to pray for them.  We are called to pray.

That’s what changes things.  And that’s what allows us to find our “children” walking in the truth.

-JB

Okay, y’all ready? This is so where my inner geek comes out to play.  Considering the fact that we are now talking about my teen-aged decade and I was a high-schooler in the early nineties, this particular Christmas music probably shouldn’t even be on my radar. But thanks to my dad and his love for music and the way he raised me, it certainly is.

Those of you who know me will surely call me a liar when you hear this one.  Then again, if you really know me, maybe not.

See, when I was a teenager, I loved Christmas.  I still do, but in a different way.  Back then, there was just something about it that appealed to the story writer in me.  Christmas was even more magical then than when I was a kid.  Why?  I don’t know.  But I was fifteen when my dad rescued a certain Christmas tape (yes, tape) from a bargain bin at Rose’s (the precursor to Walmart).  And ever since, Christmas isn’t the same without it. 

Yep. This week’s Christmas music is the 1966 album “For Christmas this Year” by the Lettermen. (How many of you under 50 even know who they are?) I’m not ashamed to say that this was my favorite Christmas album when I was a teenager (and yes, it topped NKOTB’s Christmas album. You may laugh now.) and it still rates in the top two. There is just something about it that is old-school Christmas: simple, harmonious, and totally easygoing. How can you not love that?

I bought their second Christmas album one year after we “tragically” lost the first one in pre-iTunes days (Ebay saved me! I couldn’t find “For Christmas this Year” on tape or CD, but I found it on VINYL!). Christmas CD #2 was not the same and has vanished who knows where. I’m thinking my love for this particular Christmas music is all about the memories. And they are some beautiful memories.

-JB

(Want more? Some kind person put five songs from “For Christmas this Year” on one youtube video. Wasn’t that amazing of them?)

It’s funny, what God can do when you don’t expect it.  Wednesday, I felt like God wanted me to set aside my lesson plans and have the kids dig deep inside of them when it came to writing.  Two things sort of “nagged” at me:  the song “Voice of Truth” and the idea that we all fear something or hide something that is deep within us, that maybe we don’t even realize is there.  Typically, when the kids are writing, I grade their homework or circulate among them.  But Wednesday, I didn’t circulate.  I told them what they wrote was private and could even be torn up at the end of class.  (It’s a testament to the amazingness of this group of kids that the bulk of them actually did what I asked and didn’t fool around.)  This time, God had me pull out the notebook I had just happened to tuck into my bag that morning and write along with them.  I had already been thinking about “Voice of Truth,” so that was where I began.

See, something’s been nagging at me for a while, something that has kept me from (as one of my students put it) “cracking the shell” and letting me get real with God.  It’s like I put up a wall.  And the more I sort of free wrote, the more a picture formed, until God poured this into my head out of nowhere:

It was like a sledgehammer. Yep, God freed me ten years ago from fear. I’m free. It can’t control me anymore… unless I give it permission to. And I’ve given it permission. No, it’s not the paralyzing panic that held me down for years, but a more insidious, creeping fear. It’s the fear of failing the ones I love, of failing God, of falling so far that I lose their love. There is that deep down, soul-hiding fear that I will mess up so badly that I’ll lose everything. Either people will leave, God will turn His back on me, or my boss will throw up her hands and fire me.

And then God comes along and says to me, “You’re not the only one.” That’s why I’m writing this. Because I’m not the only one. Someone else needs to know it. How do I know? Because Toby and Michael and Kevin sang this:

Father, please forgive me, for I cannot compose
The fear that lives within me
Or the rate at which it grows.
If struggle has a purpose
On the narrow road you’ve carved,
Why do I dread my trespasses will leave a deadly scar?
That was my heart sitting at my desk writing in that notebook. I’m willing to bet it’s someone else’s heart too. It’s time to beat back the devil’s lies and realize that God loves us bigger than all of our sins. It’s why He sent Jesus. It’s why we’re still here and the world is not yet melted into liquid fire. It’s why there’s such a thing as grace. How big of a liar is the devil to keep us from living in it?

Oh, Jesus. Let us hear it. Let us know it. Let us see it. Let us walk in your perfect, unconditional, unfailing-no-matter-what-we-do-to-fail love…

-JB