Uncategorized – IntentionallyMonika

April 13, 2020

Colossians 1:18 – 20 The Message Translation

He was supreme in the beginning and—leading the resurrection parade—he is supreme in the end. From beginning to end he’s there, towering far above everything, everyone. So spacious is he, so roomy, that everything of God finds its proper place in him without crowding. Not only that, but all the broken and dislocated pieces of the universe—people and things, animals and atoms—get properly fixed and fit together in vibrant harmonies, all because of his death, his blood that poured down from the cross.

My purpose is in Jesus. Every part of me is fixed and found in Jesus. I am who I am, by default of Jesus. Jesus fixed me to become the God intended being and entity God wanted for me from the beginning of the world, from the beginning of time. Jesus was supreme in the beginning – It was always about Jesus. He reigned from the beginning. leading the resurrection parade—he is supreme in the end. – After leaving heaven to live here on earth, as a man, he led the resurrection parade. He was supreme in the beginning and he was supreme in the end as he took to the cross to die for the sins of the whole world. God is so vast, so big, so wide that every single person can find their place in Him and HE is never overcrowded. There’s never not enough room for anybody. I can’t help but think of a crowded car, when everyone is trying to go somewhere. “Scoot” over one might say “let me in”… Or watching a movie during family night. Everybody wants to sit on the couch, “Make room for me” … But in God, there is never not enough room. He is so vast, so big, so wide, that even with the billions of people who have been born on the earth, we never have to say “Scoot over, let me in”. There is no overcrowding, the space never ends. I am never un-fixable, I am never too late, I am never not enough. The scripture says Everything in God finds its proper place in him without crowding. EVERYTHING in GOD, everything in God, is everything on Earth for we are all of God. He created us all. He made us all. He created it all. EVERYTHING in God finds (present tense) can always find, will always find, it’s proper place in HIM without overcrowding. I can always find my purpose, my earth bound intent, my reason for living, my purpose of living in God. No matter where I am in life, there is always room for me. There is always purpose for me. There is always an intent for me being here on this earth. I am never too old, too young, too big, too fat, too ugly, too far gone, too criminal, too mean, too bad, too anything for the matchless love of God. For the immeasurable God because He always has room for me. No matter what.

The ending part of the scripture says “Not only that, but all the broken and dislocated pieces of the universe—people and things, animals and atoms—get properly fixed and fit together in vibrant harmonies, all because of his death, his blood that poured down from the cross.”

Not only does God always accept us in, Not only does He always have room for us, no matter what condition we are in, He accepts us and properly fixes us. All the broken and dislocated pieces of the universe. With all our flaws from being born into a fallen world. All of our incompletes are property fixed and fit together in vibrant harmony. He takes what looks like a mess and puts it together like a perfect puzzle. Have you ever looked at the outside of a puzzle box and saw the count size of the pieces, 25, 100, 500, 1000, 10,000. When I see the count of pieces, I am often in awe that someone would take the time to put together a 10,000 piece puzzle. I am a person who loves putting together puzzles but I tend to stay in the 500 and under rage because I feel like anything above that is too much. No matter how many pieces there are to us, as I believe it is well more than 10,000, God is never in awe of our pieces. He never shies away from putting us together the right way.

The way he intended. When I look at puzzle boxes, the picture is so clear and beautiful on the outside of the box. In fact, the picture is not seen as a 1000 piece puzzle, the picture is seen as one picture. That’s just how God is. He takes the broken pieces of us, no matter how many or how distorted they are, and He puts them together in a way that the only thing that shows is a beautiful picture. He fixes us in vibrant harmony. He fixes us by giving us true life in peace. All because of Jesus’ death, his blood poured down from the cross, took away all of our brokenness. It took away all the jagged edges of every puzzle piece so that the only thing visible is a beautiful picture of how God intended for us to be from the beginning. We have broken pieces and flaws, we all were born into a fallen world. There is no human ability, no human help that can take ALL of your brokenness, including the hidden brokenness, and turn them into a beautiful picture. You can’t self-help your way into a beautiful picture. You can’t “pull yourself” up from 100% of your brokenness. Only God can and he does it through the BLOOD OF JESUS. Jesus died for our sins, He died for us. He died so that our brokenness (sin) can be complete in Him. There’s always enough room at the cross. The place where the Blood of Jesus pools covering your brokenness, covering your sin, making your brokenness a beautiful masterpiece just as God intended. No matter where you are in life, no matter what you do in life, there is always enough room for you. The Blood of Jesus is always enough. It fixes our broken and dislocated pieces and brings them into vibrant harmony. It fixes us to that the jagged edges of our brokenness is blurred together into a perfect picture. The Blood brings us to perfect peace. My purpose, my best self, my masterpiece self is in Jesus. By HIM all things are made perfect and that includes me. Just as I am, He makes be beautiful just by coming to Him. Nothing more nothing less, just coming to Him is all I need to do.

Be Blessed

~ Monika

April 4, 2020

As I began my day, I sat down and wanted to read my bible. “What shall I read”, I ask God. I turned to the verse of the day in my bible app and read it. Then my notes from this past Wednesday’s sermon at church came to mind. I grabbed my notebook and began to flip through the pages to find the notes from Wedneday. I came to the 2nd page of notes first and felt God say to me “Start here”. I hesistated for a second and flipped a page to find the beginning of my notes, “I’ll start at the beginning” I thought. It makes much more sense to start at the beginning I thought. But God nudged me again to flip the page and start where he wanted me to start, in the middle of my notes at the scripture reference Mark 4:16-17, after reading it, I was intrigued to start at the beginning for Chapter 4 so I could fully grasp what this reference scripture was all about. I am so glad I did because the revelation that God gave to me this morning was nothing short of wonderful.

Let’s start at the beginning:

Mark 4:1 Again Jesus began to teach by the lake. The crowd that gathered around him was so large that he got into a boat and sat in it out on the lake, while all the people were along the shore at the water’s edge.

Here we have a crowd gathering around Jesus to hear from Him. Jesus, seeing the crowd, gets into a boat and sat the boat on the lake and while the people sat on the shore began to teach them. Here are the thoughts and or questions that immediately formed in my head as I read this short snippet:

Jesus spoke to the large crowd, without a speaker, and they heard him.
Why did Jesus do that? Why did he go into a boat in the water and left the people on the shore?

I have read this part of this passage many times over and upon reading it, I always have the same questions and have always answered my questions the same, Jesus is just amazing and He can do whatever he needs to do whenever He needs to do it. But upon reading it again this morning, those same questions came to mind along with the question: Does water make sound louder? I did a quick search and found some very interesting information. Sound does in fact “sound” louder over water.

From Inspiring Science: When you make noise, sound waves travel away from you in every direction, making an expanding sphere. Since the air just above an open body of water is cooler than the air slightly higher up, the speed of sound is slightly lower above the water’s surface. The temperature gradient above the water translates into a gradient in how fast sound travels; sound waves further from the water will be faster than those below them. The difference in speed causes the expanding sphere of sound to change shape, flattening into a wall or even focusing the sound downwards. That’s why sound travels further over water: less is lost up into the air, meaning more of it ends up in your ears — or your neighbors.

Water amplifies sound and makes it louder. WOW! Jesus was certainly a smart man and an innovative one at that. He saw the large crowd and to accomodate all who wanted to hear Him, he intuitively solved the problem of everyone being able to hear him. About two years ago, this statement came to my mind, God is the God of innovation. When I heard it I was overcome with joy because as I began to think about all the things we humans have invented and all the wonderful and beautiful things nature produces, I undoubtely agreed within myself that God was indeed a God of innovation. He so graciously gives us the intelligence and creativity to create, invent and improve things year after year after year. We, humans, are not stagnant creatures, we have the ability to use our minds to move things along, progress things and come up with a zillion different ways to do a zillion different things. That thought alone arrested me, putting me in awe of just how great God truly is.

The statement “God is a God of innovation” came back to me once I learned that sound really does travel faster over water. Jesus was an innovator. He was a problem solver and He was quick about it. This thought began to arrest me even more and I just had to find a definition for innovation. This is what I found… Innovation is the creation, development and implementation of a new product, process or service, with the aim of improving efficiency, effectiveness or competitive advantage.

The scriptue says in Mark 4:1 – Again Jesus began to teach by the lake. – Here we see Jesus began teaching by the lake. —— In other words, He was by the lake or near the lake. He did not start teaching in the lake or in the boat. He was ashore like everyone else. Let’s keep reading the entire verse:

Mark 4:1 Again Jesus began to teach by the lake. The crowd that gathered around him was so large that he got into a boat and sat in it out on the lake, while all the people were along the shore at the water’s edge.

So as Jesus was teaching, like He had done before, people began to crowd around. While Jesus was teaching, a problem or hiccup began to appear. More people were listening, the crowd needed to hear. Jesus, while He was teaching, solved a problem while the problem was brewing. How innovative is that. Intuitively Jesus carried out this modern definition of innovation… He implemented something new aiming to improve efficiency and effectiveness. He immediatly solved his problem “Everyone needed to hear what he was saying” While we are out here living our lives, problems and hiccups will occur and just like Jesus we can expect God to give us direction and guidance to solve them, even at a moment’s notice. THAT revelation alone is one that brings to me to awe and gives me such encouragement and hope. There is no problem that is too big or too hard for God. Not even an unexpected one.

Wait, I ain’t done yet.

Back to this sound over water business. So to answer my own questions, Jesus in fact used a speaker that day. He used the water. The water was His speaker. Does that not speak volumes to you. That is probably a whole article in itself. The water was used as a speaker. How many times does the scripture refer to the Word of God as Water and what does a speaker do, it amplifies sound, it makes the sound louder. What does God want to make loud in our lives, HIS WORD. Another topic for another back.

Back to the sound over water business again. Back to the scripture:

Mark 4:1-3 Again Jesus began to teach by the lake. The crowd that gathered around him was so large that he got into a boat and sat in it out on the lake, while all the people were along the shore at the water’s edge. 2 He taught them many things by parables, and in his teaching said: 3 “Listen!

So here we have Jesus speaking to a very large crowd and he began to teach them many things and in the middle of him speaking says “Listen”…. I don’t know what else Jesus taught that day but it seems He had something else to say and He wanted to perk the attention of His listeners to tune in more closely to hear what He had to say. It was as if He was saying “Listen, I want you to hear me loud and clear”. Whatever he was about to say next was important and He wanted to make sure they paid attention and understood what he was saying. In other words, pay attention to what I say next.

Mark 4:1 – 9 Again Jesus began to teach by the lake. The crowd that gathered around him was so large that he got into a boat and sat in it out on the lake, while all the people were along the shore at the water’s edge. 2 He taught them many things by parables, and in his teaching said: 3 “Listen! A farmer went out to sow his seed. 4 As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path, and the birds came and ate it up. 5 Some fell on rocky places, where it did not have much soil. It sprang up quickly, because the soil was shallow. 6 But when the sun came up, the plants were scorched, and they withered because they had no root. 7 Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up and choked the plants, so that they did not bear grain. 8 Still other seed fell on good soil. It came up, grew and produced a crop, some multiplying thirty, some sixty, some a hundred times.” 9 Then Jesus said, “Whoever has ears to hear, let them hear.”

This parable or teaching was centered around a farmer sowing seed and different outcomes a farmer can expect to receive after he sows a seed in different types of soil. Not only does the scripture often refer to the Word of God as water but it often refers to the Word of God as a seed. There are a few definitions of the word seed and various uses of the word seed. Most commonly though a seed is used as a unit of reproduction with the capablility of developing into another unit. So the Word of God is seed to us, giving us the capability of developing into another God like unit. We are all works in progress. No one person is better than the other. I believe what Jesus was saying with this scripture is that no matter what I am teaching you, no what the lesson is, we have to act as good soil so the seed of God’s word that God so graciously plants in our lives, can reproduce, in us, the God-like beings we were created to be. At the end of this passage Jesus says “Whoever has ears to hear let them hear”. In other words, Whoever is sitting in this crowd, whoever hears the words that I speak, listen to what I tell you. Let these words ring loudly across your ears so you can understand what I am trying to say. Hear me! Understand me! Understand this: The seed of God, the word of God, is meant to reproduce and it will do just that. It will do what seeds do and sprout. The effectiveness, quality of and strength of the resulting plants highly depends on the soil in which the seed was planted.

Let’s continue reading:

Mark 4:10- 20 – When he was alone, the Twelve and the others around him asked him about the parables. 11 He told them, “The secret of the kingdom of God has been given to you. But to those on the outside everything is said in parables 12 so that, “‘they may be ever seeing but never perceiving, and ever hearing but never understanding; otherwise they might turn and be forgiven!’[a]” 13 Then Jesus said to them, “Don’t you understand this parable? How then will you understand any parable? 14 The farmer sows the word. 15 Some people are like seed along the path, where the word is sown. As soon as they hear it, Satan comes and takes away the word that was sown in them. 16 Others, like seed sown on rocky places, hear the word and at once receive it with joy. 17 But since they have no root, they last only a short time. When trouble or persecution comes because of the word, they quickly fall away. 18 Still others, like seed sown among thorns, hear the word; 19 but the worries of this life, the deceitfulness of wealth and the desires for other things come in and choke the word, making it unfruitful. 20 Others, like seed sown on good soil, hear the word, accept it, and produce a crop—some thirty, some sixty, some a hundred times what was sown.”

The message on Wednesday was Enduring Persecution. In life, there is going to be trouble. There is going to be trials and hardships. Jesus endured them too, at the beginning of this passage, Jesus began teaching and a problem or hardship arose in the midst and intuitively He moved and solved his problem while it was brewing. The words that Jesus gave that day were important seeds for the people to hear. But Jesus ended his teachings with an important note, verse 9, whoever hears this word, let them hear it. Whoever hears the words I am speaking, whoever you are, fully hear it. Then in verse 20, allow the seed fall into good soil by hearing it and then accepting it so that it can produce a crop. Whoever hears the word of God, whoever is listening: hear the word and accept it so it can reproduce, in you, God’s ability to move and thrive through any hardship that arises in your life.

Be Blessed

~ Monika