Category: Jesus

Thrilling Guest Thursday: Jeanie Kelley

Behold, I stand at the door and knock; 
if anyone hears My voice and opens the door,
I will come in to him and will dine with him, and he with Me.
(Revelation 3:20 NASB)




Join me today, as my friend, Jeanie Kelley shares the hard questions she hopes to ask Jesus when she meets Him in person. 

Have you ever heard of the question raised at a dinner party? If you could sit down with anyone in history, dead or alive, who would it be and why? Someone you could pick their brain. Some may say Elvis or someone like Caesar. Now for me, the one person I would love to sit down and fellowship or have a meal with would be Jesus Christ. He would definitely be the one I would be grateful to talk to.


The reason would be, for me, I would ask what has happened to my dad when he passed away. I know he went peacefully, but is he in Heaven? I would love to tell Jesus to tell Dad hi for me and that I miss him so much. This would be the first question I would have.

Click here to find out what other questions Jeanie would like to ask Jesus.

Jeanie’s blog post made me think, wouldn’t it be interesting to have a dinner party to share Jesus with others. Something to think about. 

Who would you invite?



Posted on by kelrohlf 1

Connect: To Place or Establish in a Relationship

[Jesus] said to them,
 “Come with me by yourselves 
to a quiet place and get some rest.” 
(Mark 6:31 NIV)
Jesus invites us into the quiet. He wants us to come away with him in the midst of our busy days. The day that Jesus beckoned his disciples, Mark recalls that so many people were coming and going that the disciples and Jesus had no time to eat. 

Jesus knew what his disciples needed. And He knows what we need. He wants to connect with us. He longs to offer us the rest we so desperately need, both physically and spiritually.

If you have been following Jesus for very long or have been around church people, you have heard of “having a quiet time.” Today, I want to explore and answer the question of why? Why are we encouraged to have a quiet time? Why does it matter?

The first point that Pam Farrel makes in her book, 30 Ways to Wake Up Your Quiet Time, is that Jesus himself valued quiet time. She wonders aloud about the motivation of this sacred time we call quiet. She poses this question: “Why is it the right thing to do?” 

She looks to Jesus’ life and notes three outcomes of Jesus’ time with the Father. (There are more, I’m sure, but these three are a place to start.) 

Times that Jesus spent in God’s presence were instructional, relational and powerful.

Here are some insights, Scripture references and questions to ponder from the book:

Instructional: 
Jesus knew the Scriptures. Once around age twelve, his parents found him listening and asking questions with the teachers at the temple. (Luke 2:41-47) 

“time in the Word is like our physical skeleton, it is the framework on which our whole life is built.”

Relational:
Jesus listened to the Father. Before his ministry began, he spent forty days in the wilderness. “To discipline his heart to hear the voice of the Father. That’s why he knew how to handle Satan’s temptations.” (Luke 4:1-13)

“Like Jesus we need to communicate with the Father continually…”

Powerful:
Jesus’ power to raise Lazarus from the dead and to provide food for the crowds happen in conjunction with praying to the Father. (John 11:41-43, Mark 6:30-44, )

“Jesus wanted a connection. Before all the big moments of his earthly life, he connected to the Father.”

Ponder the following questions, 
during a quiet moment today:

What motivates you to spend time with God? Why have you been having a quiet time?


(Italics are either paraphrased summaries or direct quotes from Pam Farrel’s book, 30 Ways to Wake Up Your Quiet Time.)

©Pam Farrel from 30 Ways to Wake Up Your Quiet Time (IVP). For more devotional books by Pam http://www.Love-wise.com


Posted on by kelrohlf 10

Radical: Very Basic and Important

Your attitude should be the same that Christ Jesus had.
Though he was God, he did not demand 
and cling to his rights as God. 
He made himself nothing; he took the humble position 
of a slave and appeared in human form. 
(Philippians 2:5-7 NLT)



To live an incarnational life is to live a missional life. 

The words radical and missional are current adjectives to describe Christian discipleship. As always, I find it difficult to take words at face value. I am compelled to find richer meaning to common catch phrases.

In my inbox today, Kevin Scott at Sustainable Christianity referred to this post: Subterranean Life:Re-Imagining Radical. The author, Dan White, Jr. digs deep to the roots of radical. Literally, he mentions that the word radical, comes from the Latin word, radix, which means root. His post made me want to shout: Yes! Someone else gets it! Living out the gospel right where we are rooted makes so much sense. Read his post and you’ll get it, too.

Speaking of doing radical things, I have started a online study called Prayers for a Woman’s Soul, hosted by Julie K. Gillies. We are praying for ourselves. It’s a very basic and important practice that I neglect often. Last week, we asked God to show us any negative mindset that may be hindering our growth and relationship with God and others. This week we are tackling the topic of attitude. Yikes! 

But here’s the good news: we have the mind of Christ (1 Corinthians 2:16) and we can ask for our attitudes to be made new. (Ephesians 4:23)

Missional is a fairly new word to me, but the goal is to live intentionally in a way that demonstrates the grace and love of God to others. Jesus continues to be our best example because He took on human flesh. Who better to make God known to us than God’s own Son.

I sometimes resent the discipline that it takes to live a missional life, but when I read God’s word, He infuses me with hope and courage to pursue His ways.

The apostle Paul describes “missional” living this way: “So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life–your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life–and place it before God as an offering.” (Romans 12:1 The Message)

This directive takes the pressure off of me. It reminds me that when I am rooted in Christ’s love then my mind, my attitude and my will become pleasing in His sight.

I leave you with an article that opened my mind to why I resent or even resist discipline sometimes. Check out Artful Obedience by Margaret Manning.
How does the definition of radical 
change your perspective 
on missional living?


Posted on by kelrohlf 6

Need: A Lack of Something Requisite, Desirable or Useful

For the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.
(John 6:33 NIV)


When we get to this familiar request in the Lord’s prayer, we are halfway through the recitation. It is the most practical and basic of requests. Yet the surrounding thoughts feed through this request. 

We make our daily request based on the knowledge of God as our Father. We can depend on the promise of provision as it is His will to provide for us. And when He grants this request, we have everything we need to hallow His name and our lives. Once we have experienced His provision, we seek the deeper spiritual needs: asking for and offering forgiveness and requesting the way out of temptation.

The significance of this simple request becomes clearer, if you dig into the original language. When Jesus spoke, he used the local dialect–Aramaic. In Aramaic, this sentence translates roughly to this: “Give to us today, this very day, the bread of our need.”

Bread is a basic staple of most diets. To meditate on the bread of our need, takes me back to the Old Testament and then directly to Christ as the fulfillment of the promise. In Old Testament worship, they placed the Bread of Presence on the altar before God. During the wandering desert days of the Israelites, God sent down b read (manna) from heaven to meet their daily need for sustenance.

Jesus is our our daily bread. The bread of our ultimate need is salvation. Jesus satisfies this need completely. To know Jesus is to have everything requisite, desirable and useful, in order to relate with our Father in heaven.

During the sacrament of communion, we eat bread to recall Jesus’ broken body on the cross, broken on our behalf. A friend recently pointed out that the phrase, “Taste and see that the Lord is good,” takes on a richer meaning for her, whenever she partakes of communion. As I put together her insight and the daily “breadness” of Jesus, I rejoiced in the goodness of God. The rest of the verse (Psalm 34:8) states: “Blessed is the one who takes refuge in him.” I marveled at how these mixed metaphors of bread and refuge give me something more to chew on. 

To dwell within God’s presence is our daily benefit. So by all means, let’s ask “Give us this day our daily bread, our daily refuge, our daily need, our daily portion of goodness.” 


What comes to mind, when you pray, 
“Give us this day our daily bread”? 



Posted on by kelrohlf 2

Hallow: To Make Holy

. . . simply concentrate on being completely devoted to Christ in your hearts. Be ready at any time to give a quiet and reverent answer to any man who wants 
a reason for the hope you have within you. 
(1 Peter 3:15-16)


Jesus directs us to venerate the name of the Father. Yet, there is so much more here than an old-fashioned word that we often translate as honor. To make God’s name holy is synonymous with asking that His kingdom come. To acknowledge God’s holiness is to admit our need for heavenly intervention. 

For any human to make God holy would be an absurd request. Jesus knows this, and so He asks us to make God’s name holy, and again this borders on ludicrous, because God alone is holy. Amazingly, He offers us the privilege to represent His reputation.

His very name is part of our identity. Christians are Christ ones. Just as Jesus was sent into the world, we are sent into the world to “hallow” God’s name and character in order to live a life that reflects His holiness and draws others to glorify Him. (Matthew 5:16)

Hallowing God’s name is more than just praising Him with words and accolades, it is setting Him apart in our hearts as the one most worthy of honor and reverence. To revere God is more than just assent, it is actively responding and living out our faith. 

In the original language the impact of this word takes on a sense of action that I have often overlooked. I thought if I just proclaimed excellent things about God’s name and character, then I must be hallowing His name. However, a deeper look at the origins of the word, require more than proclamation. Our lives must emulate our words.

Mounce’s Expository Dictionary explains it this way: “This expression [hallowed be thy name] means not only to treat God and his name with reverence and honor but also to glorify him by obeying his commands.” The essence of “reverence” used in this phrase is “specifically setting apart Jesus in our lives as Lord and honoring him as such.”

Praying these familiar words take on new meaning, not just mere words to recite, but a call to obedience motivated by love for our holy and loving Father.
How are you “hallowing” God with your words and actions?

Posted on by kelrohlf 0