"Loosed" for the Lord's Purposes

Originally posted March 31, 2007

"...and He said to them, "Go into the village opposite you; and as soon as you have entered it you will find a colt tied, on which no one has sat. Loose it and bring it. And if anyone says to you, 'Why are you doing this?' say, 'The Lord has need of it.' and immediately he will send it here." Mark 11:2-3

I love this passage, especially as I came across it this week approaching Palm Sunday. The "colt" Christ is speaking of in the above passage is the donkey colt that He would be riding as He entered Jerusalem in His "triumphal entry." There are so many lessons to be learned from this pivotal moment. But, I keep coming back to the colt.

I have been carrying a bundle of notecards in my purse for the past few months. Some have scriptures on them, which I'm trying to memorize. Some have Greek words on them, from my (very) Elementary Greek curriculum that I'm slowly working through. One of the notecards that I regularly review has the word, "luo" written on it, in my best attempt at Greek script. The word "luo," as I have memorized, is Greek for "I loose." In the Greek scriptures I have memorized, this hasn't been a word. I haven't used it in any translations or sentences yet, but faithfully I have memorized this word. Luo. Got it.

Today as I read the above passage I "got it" on a little deeper level! The colt had to be "loosed," for "the Lord has need of it." Whoever owned the colt was not told exactly what the Lord would do with it, only that He the Lord needed it. What needed to be "loosed" was so that the Lord might use it for His glory. That particular colt carried our Lord to a chorus of "Hosannas," acknowledging Who He was. It's the same word used in the New Testament to describe when Lazarus needed to be "loosed" from his grave clothes after his resurrection. It's also the word used to describe the woman who was "loosed" from the evil spirits who had plagued her for over eighteen years. In these instances, involved being "loosed from" as well as being "loosed to."

What do I need to "loose" so that the person of Christ might be better displayed in my life? What do I need to be "loosed" - set free- from? The One who calls me, Who will use it for His glory, is the One who will do the enable the "loosing." Praise His name!

"Hosanna!

'Blessed is He who comes in the name

of the Lord!'

Blessed is the kingdom of our father David

That comes in the name of the Lord!

Hosanna in the highest!"
Mark 11:9-10

Was It A Morning Like This?

Was it a morning like this
When the Son still hid from Jerusalem?
And Mary rose from her bed
To tend the Lord She thought was dead

What is a morning like this,
When Mary walked down from Jerusalem?
And two angels stood at the tomb,
Bearers of news she would hear soon..

Did the grass sing?
Did the earth rejoice
To feel You again?
Over and over like a
Trumpet underground,
Did the earth seem to pound:
"He is risen"

Over and over
in a never ending round
"He is risen,

Alleluia, Alleluia!"

Was it an morning like this,
When Peter and John from Jerusalem?
And as they raced for the tomb,
Beneath their feet was there a tune?

Was it a morning like this,
When my Lord looked out
On Jerusalem?
He is risen,

Alleluia, Alleluia!

From Morning Like This by Sandi Patty

Mine, Mine Was The Transgression

O sacred Head, now wounded, with grief and shame weighed down,
Now scornfully surrounded with thorns, Thine only crown;
O sacred Head, what glory, what bliss till now was Thine!
Yet, though despised and gory, I joy to call Thee mine.

What Thou, my Lord, hast suffered, was all for sinners' gain;
Mine, mine was the transgression, but Thine the deadly pain.
Lo, here I fall, my Savior! 'Tis I deserve Thy place;
Look on me with Thy favor, vouchsafe to me Thy grace.

Men mock and taunt and jeer Thee, Thou noble countenance,
Though mighty worlds shall fear Thee and flee before Thy glance.
How art thou pale with anguish, with sore abuse and scorn!
How doth Thy visage languish that once was bright as morn!


What language shall I borrow to thank Thee, dearest friend,
For this Thy dying sorrow, Thy pity without end?
O make me Thine forever, and should I fainting be,
Lord, let me never, never outlive my love to Thee.

He Made Purification of Sins

"In eternity we're going to sing on and on and on and it will be never-ending joy, ever-deepening joy. On a dark night like this Maundy Thursday we want to remember how it is that we got such a promise, sinners like us..."

I encourage you to go here to read the rest of the article.

Holy Week

This is the palm tree I planted on my patio yesterday, in anticipation of Palm Sunday today. It has been a wonderful day! I hope you are having a blessed Palm Sunday and anticipating Holy Week as well. We started this morning with breakfast as a family- coffee cake and fruit, with a lit candle on the table, which simply helps us remember that this is a special time. We attend church as a family on Saturday nights, so after breakfast my daughter and I were able to scoot over to Africa church and then go out to lunch together.

This morning we read about the Triumphal Entry in Mark's and Luke's gospels, noting especially how Luke's gospel details how Christ wept over Jerusalem... He was not exactly upbeat or giddy as He rode the donkey colt into the city to the chorus of "Hosanna!" He knew some who praised Him were not true disciples and in just a matter of days would be crying, "Crucify Him!"

Here are a few things we will be doing this week to observe Holy Week in our home... There are some simple (but powerful) readings developed by Noel Piper that we will be doing this week found here. These are in her book Treasuring God in Our Traditions, which is available to read online here. (I just love the Pipers! They make so many of their materials available for free. It's amazing!) We are going to hopefully make the "Easter Mountain" which is explained here in chapter 9 of the book.

During Christmas we read the first half of John Piper's Seeing and Savoring Jesus Christ. I purposely stopped in the middle so we could finish it in the days leading up to Easter. It is available to read online here. I highly recommend it to read for yourself, or aloud to your older children. There is also a supplemental Bible reading plan to accompany the book, available here, that we will make use of as well. It's so helpful!

Friday night we will enjoy a time of fellowship with our Family Bible Fellowship (Sunday school class which we attend as a family) at our annual Passover Seder meal. If you don't have a group who does this or know of one you can attend, this site has some great recipes and explains it very thoroughly. Attending a Seder meal has always added meaning to our family's observance of Good Friday.

I would love to know some of the ways you make Holy Week a set-apart time for your family, and I'm always looking for new things to incorporate into our family's celebrations, so if you have some ideas or links, please let me know!

Have a blessed week!

Victory!

Hell was in an uproar because it was done away with.

It was in an uproar because it is mocked.

It was in an uproar, for it is destroyed.

It is in an uproar, for it is annihilated.

It is in an uproar, for it is now made captive.

Hell took a body, and discovered God.

It took earth, and encountered Heaven.

It took what it saw, and was overcome by what it did not see.

O death, where is thy sting?

O Hades, where is thy victory?

Christ is Risen, and you, o death, are annihilated!

Christ is Risen, and the evil ones are cast down!

Christ is Risen, and the angels rejoice!

Christ is Risen, and life is liberated!

Christ is Risen, and the tomb is emptied of its dead;for Christ having risen from the dead,is become the first-fruits of those who have fallen asleep.

To Him be Glory and Power forever and ever. Amen!

John Chrysostom (349-407)

Entire sermon found here.

A Gift for You...

What do you usually do after you have picked out the perfect gift for someone? Do you simply thrust it at them right out of the shopping bag, with the price tags flying and the receipt still stuck to it? As tempting as that is (because it’s just so hard to wait!) we usually take care to choose just how we’re going to present it. We may choose just the right gift bag or wrapping paper because part of the gift is in the presentation...

...You can read the rest of my Easter post entitled "Unwrapping the Gift" here. I'd love to see you at the cafe!

The Joy of the Gospel

If you haven't yet read this post of Chris's at Come to the Table, head on over! I'll be here when you get back...
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Wasn't that good? Hopefully you clicked on the wonderful resource she has linked from Cornerstone Bible Fellowship. In case you didn't, here it is again. It is an excellent booklet written by their pastor, Milton Vincent, about "preaching the gospel to yourself" each day. I read through it yesterday and it ministered to me so much. I know I'll be using this resource again and again, and reading it to my children. It's an incredible blessing that this is available free of charge. What an appropriate time, Holy Week, to direct our focus right back to the cross and to resolve not to look away!

I know in my own life, I have regarded the "gospel message" as something separate from other concepts I am studying in the Bible. Certainly I needed to hear the gospel message before salvation, and I have needed the gospel when sharing with others or on mission trips, but daily thinking about the gospel wasn't something I did very often. Last summer I read Living the Cross Centered Life: Keeping the Gospel the Main Thing by C.J. Mahaney. It really changed my perspective on the role the gospel message plays in my daily life as a Christian. The gospel is everything! The cross is where it all began for me! Why did I ever leave that place?

Preaching the gospel to yourself every day, which Mahaney recommends as well, is an idea from Jerry Bridges' book The Discipline of Grace. The booklet from Cornerstone not only explains why to do it (in the same vein as Mahaney's book) but he writes out a prose version as well as a poetry version of the gospel message to read to yourself. Oh, how I loved lingering over it and praying through it yesterday on Palm Sunday. It was a wonderful way to focus my heart and worship this Holy Week. I highly encourage you to take a look at it and pray through it yourself, and see if you are blessed as well.

On this subject, I would like to share one thing I gleaned from Mahaney's book, something that was missing for me that is a byproduct of preaching the gospel to yourself everyday: Joy.

"And the inevitable result of preaching the gospel to yourself will be a pronounced joy, an infectious joy, a consistent joy. Like nothing else, the gospel creates joy; it's both the source and the object of our joy. The gospel alone allows us to obey the biblical directive to "serve the LORD with gladness." [Ps. 100:2] Joy is a command. You may be working hard and serving the Lord faithfully, but if you aren't serving with gladness, you aren't serving Him appropriately or representing Him accurately. Are you someone who's consistently joyful and continually aware that 'the joy of the LORD is your strength?' Or do you normally appear to others to be someone who's burdened, busy, and easily bothered?"

"... not representing Him accurately."

"Burdened, busy, and easily bothered."

Ouch! I'm afraid many days those words would describe me. And even if others aren't observing that in me, certainly my children are. Where is the joy that should be there? My joy is in the message of the gospel! There are many, many other aspects to infusing the gospel message into your heart each day (like developing a Romans 9 heart for the lost, as Chris mentioned) but this is one aspect that my heart has needed so much. True joy is in appropriating the gospel and its truth into my daily life and thoughts. That joy will undoubtedly well up and overflow onto those around me, drawing others to Him as well.

We have a wonderful opportunity to center our thoughts on the cross this week. My prayer is that we would, like a compass, realign ourselves with it and let that be our focal point each day. May we have cross-centered hearts this week and gospel-centered lives as we go forward. And may we find joy!

"Restore to me the joy of Your salvation And sustain me with a willing spirit." Psalm 51:12

Menu Plan Monday

"Oh taste and see that the LORD is good..." Ps. 34:8

This week around after dinner each night we will be incorporating some of Noel Piper's Holy Week ideas found here. We started it this weekend, and it is quite meaningful. I am looking forward to our special time together each night. The candles and readings are really helping us to focus our hearts as we approach Easter. I highly recommend it if you're not already using a Holy Week devotional. It's not too late to incorporate it into your family's table time or after-dinner time this week.

Here's what our family will be enjoying for dinner each night:

Monday: Baked Potato Soup, salad, garlic bread

Tuesday: Out to eat for my father-in-law's birthday (Happy birthday, "Big Luke!")

Wednesday: Chicken and dumplings, fried okra

Thursday: Left-overs

Friday: Passover Seder meal with our Family Bible Fellowship (Sunday school class)

Weekend: Easter dinner- ham, spinach salad, green beans, rolls, blueberry-banana pie

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Crock Pot Ham (originally from mamaliscious)

5 lb. bone in fully cooked ham
1/3 cup apple juice
1/4 cup brown sugar
1 Tbsp. honey
1 Tbsp. mustard
1/8 tsp. pepper

Place ham in 4-5 quart crockpot and pour apple juice over ham. Combine brown sugar, honey, mustard, and pepper in a small bowl and blend well. Spread over ham. Cover crockpot and cook on low for 6-8 hours. Slice and serve. 12 servings

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Spinach Salad

6 hard-boiled eggs, diced

8-10 slices of bacon , cooked and chopped

2 bags baby spinach, destemmed and washed

Dressing:

1/2 cup canola or vegetable oil

1/2 cup sugar

1/2 tsp. garlic salt

3/4 tsp. salt

1/4 cup vinegar

2 heaping tbsp. mayonnaise

Whip dressing until smooth (I do this in the blender). Toss just before serving.

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Blueberry Banana Pie

1 8 oz. cream cheese (softened)

1 8 oz. Cool Whip

3 bananas, sliced

1 cup sugar

1 can blueberry pie filling

2 graham cracker pie shells

Mix cream cheese and sugar until creamy. Add 1/2 of Cool Whip and blend well. Layer banana slices on bottom of pie crust, then put a layer of cream cheese mixture. Next, put a layer of Cool Whip. Refrigerate until top is set, then spoon blueberries on top.

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Visit Laura for more menu ideas, or to share your menu plan.

Have a blessed, set-apart week!