As we move into the season of fasting, I want to invite you to consider how we could be more FREE in Christ.  In Isaiah 58, the Lord admonishes us to fast with HIS desire at the core of our motives - with GREAT promises of breakthroughs and blessings!  It is an invitation for more than giving up chocolate or red meat; it is a holy appointment with the Great Physician to break apart strongholds of evil in our life! 
6 
“[Rather] is this not the fast which I choose,
To undo the bonds of wickedness,
To tear to pieces the ropes of the yoke,
To let the oppressed go free
And break apart every [enslaving] yoke?
7 
“Is it not to divide your bread with the hungry
And bring the homeless poor into the house;
When you see the naked, that you cover him,
And not to hide yourself from [the needs of] your own flesh and blood?
8 
“Then your light will break out like the dawn,
And your healing (restoration, new life) will quickly spring forth;
Your righteousness will go before you [leading you to peace and prosperity],
The glory of the Lord will be your rear guard.
9 
“Then you will call, and the Lord will answer;
You will cry for help, and He will say, ‘Here I am.’
If you take away from your midst the yoke [of oppression],
The finger pointed in scorn [toward the oppressed or the godly], and [every form of] wicked (sinful, unjust) speech,
10 
And if you offer yourself to [assist] the hungry
And satisfy the need of the afflicted,
Then your light will rise in darkness
And your gloom will become like midday.
11 
“And the Lord will continually guide you,
And satisfy your soul in scorched and dry places,
And give strength to your bones;
And you will be like a watered garden,
And like a spring of water whose waters do not fail.

Here is a simple work through of this section of verse as you consider how to approach your own time of fasting for the blessing and glory of the Lord:

1. What sin/ wickedness has a grip on you? Or put more gently, what do you RELY on for entertainment, physical indulgence, pass times, income, etc, that is not clearly OF THE LORD?
(ie: social media, shopping, inappropriate internet searches, drug/ alcohol/ tobacco dependence, compulsive eating, work addiction, superficiality, provocative or dark tv...etc.) This is your list of what to set aside and pray over for release from.  Affirm with your words, "the Lord has set me free from --- .  I am giving up --- for the glory of the Lord."   

2. How can you incorporate donating to the poor, hungry, homeless, and destitute into your time of fasting? Sharing your "bread" may be giving away resources including money, your extra goods, clothing, and supplies.  Allow the Lord to direct you towards radical generosity. 

3.  What does your own family need?  How can you attend to it in a new and deeper way during your fast?

4. How can you remove yourself from EVERYwhere you encounter or participate in "fingers pointed in scorn" and "every form of wicked speech."  This could be cable news, social media, politics, television shows, gossip, or even your usual social groups.  

This might seem like an extreme change from giving up a meal or a food group occasionally.  However, fasting is from God and for God to transform us! Let us not allow, "the traditions of man to make the Word of God to no effect (Mark 7:13)."  Participate in fasting the way God desires, and enjoy His supernatural benefits!  It is always worth far more than it costs us to move into obedience to the Lord!

I remember the day I began to pray in tongues.   I was at a conference with Darlene Zshech of Hillsong Worship teaching about worship and prayer.  The entire assembly of 10,000 people began praying in tongues together.  I did not.  I was not raised in a church environment that encouraged praying in tongues, and I had been quite content to dwell in the disdain expressed towards this sort of expressive “stuff”.  

But my life had shifted.  I had left my childhood religion for atheism… then I left atheism and agreed to and committed to a new life of Jesus-following.  And here I stood in an auditorium surrounded by one of the most beautiful sounds I have ever heard in my life.  It was like an Appalachian waterfall, full of mystery, joy, peace and energy unlike I had audibly heard… big and boisterous, soft and fluid… all at the same time.  It was Holy.  I was a witness to an other-worldly holiness.  I was receiving the outpouring voice of the Spirit.   I was glimpsing Heaven. My senses were shocked and overwhelmed; it took my breath away.

In a flash, I saw a vision of myself rejecting God’s invitation to travel forward in faith.  So I checked my ego and fear and opened my mouth and put air across my vocal chords with timidity and the tiniest (and biggest) trust I could muster.  For the last 15 years since, I have prayed in tongues privately and with others when appropriate / agreed upon in order to access this holy power and edify my self and others.

The Holy Spirit is not defined by praying in tongues - oh no.  To indicate such a thing is nothing less than blasphemy.  The Holy Spirit is the FULLNESS of the incarnation of the Father AND the Son, right HERE and NOW in this ever-fleeting and present moment.  As Jesus prepared the Disciples to be left behind his holy journey through death and into eternity, He reassured them of a presence he was sending that would NEVER leave them alone.  An Ever-Present Counselor was to come - so holy, so worthy of reverence was this Companion, that Jesus warned to never dare deride the Spirit or speak against it.  God in the HERE and NOW must be revered and honored for the present and supernatural work of guiding us messy human beings forward into holiness.

From the beginning, God’s holiness existed outside of the flow of time, creating and resting, largely unseen and unapproachable because we chose at the Fall to seek our own divinity - to be like God rather than walk WITH God...  Except for the wild prophets and Holy ones who were able to transcend the human experience of their day to access God in His holiness by rejecting their own claim of being it.  But they were few and special, prophets and a couple kings, written and venerated for generations as humanity stumbled through its existence violating every commitment to God’s Way.  Then Emmanuel! Jesus enters, God is incarnate, walking side by side with the ones who were alive during his 33 year life on earth.  From manger to grave, He taught them, healed them, ministered to them and railed against their unholy, unbelieving habits.  Then He submitted to the cross, was laid in the tomb, and 3 days later blew the lid off of the bindings of mortality itself, redeeming forever the Fall into Glory.  

With life and death rearranged, the Holy Spirit, the ever-present Counselor began His reign on earth.  Not one thing that has occurred to further the Gospel of Jesus has happened outside of the reign and realm of the Holy Spirit.  Every prayer, every healing, every tear wiped, every hopeful word spoken, every Biblical word studied, is the act of the Holy Spirit.  Every person cultivated through trial and grace into surrender to Jesus is the work of the Holy Spirit.  You and I have never chosen a single good thing that was not teased forth from us by the Holy Spirit’s guidance, nudges, orchestration of circumstance, and ever-present leadership.  And how many times when we choose a lesser or even horrid choice, do we feel that presence within cautioning, warning, beseeching us to reconsider?  Truth, goodness, kindness, selflessness, and servanthood are all us bearing witness to the presence of the invisible Holy God Here and Now.

Humans like to think we are the top of the pyramid. We grip tightly to false narratives of normalcy, achievement, health and even holiness itself, patting ourselves on the back when we get a little bit more of anything.  Yet we are not even aware enough to recognize the baseness of the elements we elevate. We love flesh, good-feeling chemistry, evidence of wealth, things the Good Word describes as not just vapid, but vaporous.  (We have even tried to insist certain versions of English throughout the history of that one, very recent language are more worthy than others to carry the message of Christ!)  

How silly we are.  We can no more contain God within our words and acquisitions than we can capture the roaring force of creation itself in a bottle. The human mind is created in the image of the Holy God… an echo of His nature, yet we insist reality is the inversion!  No wonder, no mystery, no circumventing of natural law is outside the purview of God; we certainly can NOT claim the same within our humanity. The capacity of our minds and hearts and spirits is limited only by what God already orchestrated as we were knitted together within our mother’s wombs. Yet the Holy Spirit flows through us, eliminating these limitations and invading the world through our willingness to submit and offer.  There is no element of nature that God can not recreate, heal, and speak life into HERE and NOW.  We are simply the participating (and limiting) hosts of His Holy Power.

So briefly - back to praying in tongues. I have leaned into the Holy Spirit with the heart of an artist and the mind of a Jesus follower - who admittedly trained up in the sciences. I accept the exceptional and mysterious and still ask and investigate the mystery. So here is my take on praying in tongues:

Praying in tongues is an example of how human capacity limits the divinely unlimited God.  Language is one of the hardest filters the activity of the human brain must pass through.   Neurologically, speech is a complex process of distilling ideas into known and quantified bundles of words, sound, and expressions.  Anyone who struggles with writing, speaking, public speaking, articulating their ideas KNOWS this personally.  But what if you simply bypassed the entire paradigm?  Could you not express yourself honestly and concisely in groans too deep for words?  As a parent of a non-verbal child, I assure you, the essentials of the human experience come through with a rawness words minimize and limit!  

And the truth is the ideas we articulate are often far different than what the hearer hears and internalizes! The relationship of interpreter to speaker is complex, social, and fraught with mis-understanding.  Imagine landing on the shore of a new country in which your eloquence meant nothing because no one could receive or understand your speech?  

This is the experience of God with humanity.  God, the Ever-Present Counselor is always speaking - yet who can and will fully interpret the Holy One?  Who is listening and feeling and able to filter to the “sounds” of God’s own never-ceasing voice into such a petty thing as an earthly language or human understanding?  

Speaking in tongues submits to God’s use of the creation of sound waves into, through and over His creation.  And then once those sound waves leave the vocal chords of the prayer, the interpreter of spoken tongues enters that same holy sound space. The sound bypass the hearer’s rational diagnosis of language patterns, again submitting to God’s use of ears and Spirit to interpret.  It is the Holy Spirit using the speaker to communicate with the Holy Spirit through the interpreter! Without the encumbrances of the human language filters within the brain, both humans must release self power, and submit to know they only serve as a host to part of the communication that is not OF THEM. It is holy and mystery.  It is communication entirely orchestrated by God yet breathed by our own breath.  

And when alone, prayer in tongues is a holy communication of deep self yielding both speaking and hearing/ interpreting. No prayer word is ever wasted but is full of power!  Each sound already offered by the Holy Spirit, when I pray in tongues I receive the blessing of being prayed over by God Himself.  And I can testify to my own experience - no English word holds the emotional and spiritual power of the briefest utterance of my time in prayers in tongues.  Because it is the Lord speaking through my body, mind, and spirit to the Lord.  And it is POWER.

People often ask, is it an actual language?  Well you would have to be quite a student of human lingual expression to know the answer to that!  If it was needed by God to clearly speak to those with other languages, as it was after the outpouring of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost in Acts, I have no doubt God could and would and has done many times.  I have uses the same sounds and “words” since the very first moment I prayed at that conference - and I hear other people who pray in tongues with a distinctive “dialect”.  I assume that means something.  No, I haven’t a clue WHICH human language it might be - and frankly that is hardly the point because both the creation of sound, and receiving of the sound is entirely dwelling in the moment with the Holy Spirit… so who knows what the natural / atheistic world would see and hear?  Possibly nothing at all.  But isn’t that the way this entire experience of faith works?  Even that with great power appears as folly to those who will not partake of the goodness.

Praying in tongues is nothing to fear, rather a great gift of time and presence and power by, with, and in the Holy Spirit. 

-M4

Love Laid Down
Music by Green River Ordinance

Video Clips compiled from the Gospel of John by the Visual Bible

Sometimes I wonder if Peter was really lying when he said, “No, I don’t know him.”

Maybe that was the first time he was telling the truth. After all of those bold confessions and enthusiastic promises of faithfulness... after he had just proved his loyalty with sword and blood...after watching Jesus, the one he was SURE would save Israel with power and might, surrendering himself to betrayal and injustice...maybe Peter was tired of lying to himself.

Maybe he confessed that he had never really known Who Jesus was; he had never understood enough to truly follow.

Maybe, gathered around that fire, speaking those words of indignation and defense before the cock crowed, he finally admitted how lost and broken and defeated he actually was.

And maybe that was the Good Confession that finally allowed him to be Found. And led Home.

-April McClure Stewart M.Div.

In the O.T. prophets, there is a section where God states his grievance. It is sort like an ancient equivalent to a modern lawsuit. The two big problems we face are our inability to be faithful, often expressed as a hostility (iniquity) towards God, and our need to be forgiven of the sin debt we carry due of our unfaithfulness. So God takes it on himself to pay our sin debt, putting us at peace with him, and he gives us the means to be faithful by pouring out the Holy Spirit. The big ideas this week are the forgiveness of sins made available by the cross of Christ, and there is the practical aspect of the resurrection: the power of the resurrection available through the Holy Spirit. On one hand you have a passage like Isaiah 53:1-6, speaking of a suffering servant who will make atonement for the people, and on the other hand, you have the New Covenant passages:

Ezekiel 36:26: "I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will remove your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh."

Jeremiah 31:33-34: “'This is the covenant I will make with the people of Israel after that time,' declares the Lord. 'I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people. ... No longer will they teach their neighbor, or say to one another, ‘Know the Lord,’ because they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest,' declares the Lord. 'For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more.'"

I think in terms of how the book of Revelation opens with this awesome greeting: "from Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness, the firstborn from the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth. To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood, and has made us to be a kingdom and priests to serve his God and Father—to him be glory and power forever and ever! Amen" (Revelation 1:5-6). There is a process here: God desired a kingdom of priests, but first, the sin problem must be taken care of before he could "make" such a kingdom. Or in the view from the book of Hebrews, if the blood of bulls and goats cleanse outwardly, "how much more, then, will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself unblemished to God, cleanse our consciences from acts that lead to death, so that we may serve the living God" (Hebrews 9:14). Forgiveness, cleansing, freedom, and Holy Spirit empowered servitude.

We've all heard someone say, "if I'd go into a church, I'd burst into flames." Talk about an unclean conscience that keeps a person from approaching God. But that whole notion is a little flawed. Remember how Stephen warned not to build temples by human hands and expect God to dwell there (Acts 7:48)? God desires not to be shut up in some building, protecting it as sacred space. Instead, God desires to be present among his people, who gather in buildings in order to carry God's presence into the world. It's as God said to Moses, "Do not come any closer ... Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground" (Exodus 3:5). Moses certainly hadn't just wandered into a church or temple. Why is he on holy ground? It is the presence of God that makes things holy - sacred.

Yeah, so you might walk into a church as a 'notorious sinner' and have your heart set on fire by the same power that raised Jesus from the dead. You might in some way become sacred space, but first, you must take off your sandals and approach God with reverence. This is our responsibility as people on the worship team, leading people into worship, urging them to take their sandals off. Indeed we are in sacred space: God is present among his people.

-Adam Stark

Song for reflection:
Miracle by Mosaic MSC

What if it is all true?

What if there is no darkness that can persist?

What if there is no sin that can define us?

What if there is hope that is bigger than our minds can grasp?

What if death is REALLY not real?

Could it be true? That the things that define this petty mortal life, this vaporous existence in the flesh become a thing of transient beauty?  Pain reveals the transcendence. And, oh, did He suffer also.

Jesus... He slowed down the Message that God had been waiting for us to receive ... until it was revealed word by word, touch by touch, breath by breath, one heartbeat at a time.  What patience!  What humility!

Until His breath ceased.

But the promise was bigger than a heartbeat.  The promise was breathed by the Breath that was not bound by lung and muscle.  It patiently waited those three days in darkness.  Could we yet receive?  Could we yet believe?

And then soaring through light and sound, the ground and universe thundered!  The stone could not contain Him in the fullness of His glory!  Physics, biology, geology joined in the chorus of Heaven, "Worthy is the Lamb!  Holy Holy Holy is HE!"

And His holiness, His WHOLEness awaits our agreement!  Would we truly LIVE?  Would we finally understand?  Would we finally agree?

We are not mere mortals, though temporarily bound in this world of mineral, protein, and fat!  We are not organisms trapped in this flow of time, past and present, though currently swimming along in it!  We exist BEYOND.  And in the moments when we open our eyes to see Love shine, its gentle light illuminates a beauty beyond anything our minds can grasp!

And this, friends, is life!  This is the fullness, the big-ness, that we speak of each week.  It is ever new.  It is ever present.  It is ever revealing Himself, patiently, as we slowly agree and lay down our feeble idols and whims at the feet of the Holy One and take another step onto the Way.

Will you open your eyes and mind and heart to see Jesus? 

Will you celebrate with an ounce of the joy this triumphant Savior deserves? 

Will you share Him with those around you who are desperately sucking air and groping through the darkness of petty superficiality?

I hope so.  Because friends, this is gonna be GOOD.

-M4
PneuProject

It can feel terrible to be exposed.  We grow up learning to cultivate a public image that diverges from our private reality.  We learn what is and is not socially acceptable in order to survive and thrive.
However, Jesus teaches a new way of living.  Truth is eternally paired with grace. Fully.
Exposing our truth - the gritty, ugly, rancid, animalistic humanity within - and embracing God's love in spite and around all those degraded moments IS freedom.
The habit of confession, even only to God, is our starting point to grab a hold of the forgiveness and love only Jesus offers.  Nowhere else in the world is transparency met with such kindness!  And as we wipe the sullen mess off our soul, we find God's light shining brighter and brighter, illuminating our thoughts, even our instincts.
We can only extricate ourselves from our baseness through re-learning living in Christ's grace.  We can only walk forward in grace and love if we also lean into truth - even to the point of buckling under the weight, beating our chests, and crying out in our unworthiness.
The alternative is a life only part lived, hiding... a broken and un-filled life. Have courage and choose truth.
Luke 18
9-12 He told his next story to some who were complacently pleased with themselves over their moral performance and looked down their noses at the common people: “Two men went up to the Temple to pray, one a Pharisee, the other a tax man. The Pharisee posed and prayed like this: ‘Oh, God, I thank you that I am not like other people—robbers, crooks, adulterers, or, heaven forbid, like this tax man. I fast twice a week and tithe on all my income.’

13 “Meanwhile the tax man, slumped in the shadows, his face in his hands, not daring to look up, said, ‘God, give mercy. Forgive me, a sinner.’”
14 Jesus commented, “This tax man, not the other, went home made right with God. If you walk around with your nose in the air, you’re going to end up flat on your face, but if you’re content to be simply yourself, you will become more than yourself.”

[Verse 1: Jonathan Ogden]
All that my heart desires I see in You my God
All that I’m longing for is found in You my God
Your love flows like a river to my soul
And You fill up my heart ‘til it overflows

[Verse 2: Jonathan Ogden]
You make me come alive, Your spirit lives in me
You bring the dead to life and cause the blind to see
(Jonathan Ogden & Nathan Stirling)
Your love flows like a river to my soul
And You fill up my heart til it overflows

[Bridge: Jonathan Ogden]
And so I bow
In humble adoration I surrender
Nothing else compares to knowing You God
Nothing else can ever take Your place
(Jonathan Ogden & Nathan Stirling)
So Lord I come
To give to You an offering of worship
Cause no one else is worthy of the glory
You alone deserve the highest praise

[Chorus 1: Jonathan Ogden]
Your love
Your love is never ending
Your grace
Your grace is everlasting
You fill me up to overflowing
Who can contain the depths of Your love?

[Chorus 2: Jonathan Ogden]
Your truth
Your truth is never failing
Your peace
Surpasses understanding
You fill me up to overflowing
Who can contain the depths of Your love, Lord?
Who can contain the depths of Your love, Lord?
Who can contain the depths of Your love, Lord?
Who can contain the depths of Your love, Lord?
Who can contain the depths of Your love, Lord?

Pastoral Postscript
by April McClure Stewart
The other day, it was hot and humid. It seemed like one of those summer days that would be, well...bothersome from morning to night with no breeze and mosquitos biting and the sun bearing down. I prepared to be in the air conditioning all day long.
But around dinner-time, something changed. A little breeze picked up and the humidity dropped as the sun began to move towards the horizon. The light turned golden and the temperature settled into a very comfortable upper-70s. The mosquitos became occupied elsewhere. In short, it was a perfect late summer night.
I have been having some issues with anxious feelings and worry lately. We found out a couple of weeks ago that the baby we are expecting is a little girl. We are happy and excited! And at the same time, knowing who this little one is means that we have a deeper love for her and a greater hope for her life. As those who have lost an infant late in pregnancy, it is hard to just rest in the positive feelings of love and hope. I find myself dwelling in the “what-if” and “maybe” and trying to prepare myself for whatever may come, even if that is hard...or terrible.
For some reason, this late-summer season has been ministering to me in my anxiety. A drive through the country reveals the fields ripening for harvest, the sumac turning red, and the sedges deepening with their dark rust-colored feathery plumes. The birds flit and float and the insects hum and the smell of warm earth and grass is everywhere. Peace enters my soul. Everything is so beautifully designed, so wonderfully fit together. The words of the psalmist come to mind, “When I look at...the work of your fingers...what are human beings that you are mindful of them, mortals that you care for them?” (Ps. 8).
And I think of Wendell Berry’s incredible poem, The Peace of Wild Things.
"When despair for the world grows in me and I wake in the night at the least sound,
in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things who do not tax their lives with forethought of grief.
I come into the presence of still water. And I feel above me the day-blind stars waiting with their light.
For a time I rest in the grace of the world, and am free."

Is it possible that God designed us to be ministered-to by “The Wild Things?” I think so.
Here, in this verdant, fertile, beauty-filled place that is the river valley of Illinois, I see the magnitude of God’s provision, the grace of a creation filled with goodness, and the turning of the seasons in an unending cycle of birth, life, death, and new creation. I see, if only for a moment, our temporal nature, and feel awe and gratitude that those I love are created by the same God who put together the scarlet, umber, and ochre of this late-summer season. We are put here in God’s care and kindness and I know, again- if only for a moment, that somehow, someday, eventually - all will be well.
And for a time, the Peace of The Wild Things enters me. I rest in the grace of the world God has made, and am free.
-April