Κύριος Notes

Κύριος Notes

Adoration

The Heart Of Worship
When the music fades

And all is stripped away

And I simply come

Longing just to bring

Something that's of worth

That will bless your heart

I'll bring You more than a song

For a song in itself

Is not what You have required

You search much deeper within

Through the ways things appear

You're looking into my heart

I'm coming back to the heart of worship

And it's all about You

All about You, Jesus

I'm sorry Lord for the thing I've made it

When it's all about You It's all about You Jesus
Matt Redman

Scripture Reflection Luke 6

6 On another Sabbath Jesus was teaching in a Jewish meeting place, and a man with a crippled right hand was there. 7 Some Pharisees and teachers of the Law of Moses kept watching Jesus to see if he would heal the man. They did this because they wanted to accuse Jesus of doing something wrong. 8 Jesus knew what they were thinking. So he told the man to stand up where everyone could see him. And the man stood up. 9 Then Jesus asked, "On the Sabbath should we do good deeds or evil deeds? Should we save someone's life or destroy it?" 10 After he had looked around at everyone, he told the man, "Stretch out your hand." He did, and his bad hand became completely well. 11 The teachers and the Pharisees were furious and started saying to each other, "What can we do about Jesus?"

This is another place where You broke the Sabbath, Lord. What were you really trying to teach us by this interchange with a man with a crippled right hand and the religious leaders.

The fact that this man who was physically challenged was in the synagogue on Sabbath said something about his desire to seek after God. Those who were sick or had a limitation were seen as judged by God. It was assumed that they must have sinned to be in that condition. You could see his heart couldn’t you, Lord. You knew his desire to find all that You had for him.

I wonder if this man kept his hand hidden so it couldn’t be seen, and yet everyone knew. Everyone was watching Jesus is to see if he would heal on the Sabbath day.

No one was more aware of the trxture of the situation than this man, whose life had been impacted by a hand that did not work the way it was supposed to. Had this been something that he struggle with all his life? Was this an injury that occurred? What career options were closed to him? Who had avoided relationship with him because he was crippled? What did it cost him to have this disability? Was he angry at you for his loss? Yet here he was in the meeting place where people seeking after God would gather.

You knew the thoughts and the intentions of all the people who were present that day…you knew what the teachers were thinking…you saw the trap. More than that, you saw this man and his need, his desire to be whole. I am sure that you knew the journey that lead this man to this synagogue on this Sabbath.

Jesus, did the callousness of the crowd that day hurt your heart? What was the point of Sabbath? It was the day that had been set aside for worship and rest. The point had been incrusted with tradition and rules. Right here you began to show the real reason for Sabbath…it was to do the good that is available to do.

It is very interesting to me that these men who were looking to accuse you Lord, could not heal anytime…whether it was Sabbath or not. Yet they found fault with you for doing what they could not do. It is also interesting that this is one of those times where you never mentioned that this man’s sins were forgiven. Maybe this hurt that this unnamed man carried was there just so you could heal him. I wonder how many times a day he looked at that hand after this incident and remembered what you had done for him on that Sabbath day.

Lord, what is the application? Maybe…People are more important than making a point. No one should be a means to an end. Lord Jesus, remind me in this day that You are bigger than my ways of thinking about You. You have a plan even in those areas where I am crippled. The reason for my need is found in Your touch.

Κύριος Notes

Κύριος Notes

Adoration

HOLINESSHoliness Holiness
Is what I long for
Holiness is what I need
Holiness Holiness
Is what you want from me
Take my heart and form it
Take my mind transform it
Take my will conform it
To yours to yours oh Lord

Scripture Reflections Luke 6

1 One Sabbath when Jesus and his disciples were walking through some wheat fields, the disciples picked some wheat. They rubbed the husks off with their hands and started eating the grain. 2 Some Pharisees said, "Why are you picking grain on the Sabbath? You're not supposed to do that!" 3 Jesus answered, "You surely have read what David did when he and his followers were hungry. 4 He went into the house of God and took the sacred loaves of bread that only priests were supposed to eat. He not only ate some himself, but even gave some to his followers." 5 Jesus finished by saying, "The Son of Man is Lord over the Sabbath."
You are Lord…of all. That simple fact is a theme that resurfaces again and again. It is a theme in the gospels and it is a theme that continues to resurface in my life. It is foundational. It is the watershed issue of life. It can not be ignored. You were rabbi, and teacher to your disciples, and responsible for their actions. Their actions reflected on you. They were accused of harvesting…working on the Sabbath.

It is interesting that You were not eating grain. Who started to pick first? Was it Peter? Was it Andrew…did they try to sneak it…were they just too hungry to fast.

So what can I take away from this incident that begins the conflict with the religious elites of your day?

Where are the places in my life where you are not Lord? Where are the places in my life where my actions call into question your leadership?--- “Jesus don’t you see what he is doing…what kind of leader are you if he is one of yours and he is doing that?”

You are Lord …you are the one who sets the agenda even if the agenda makes me uncomfortable. What could have been, if these leaders had been able to see and embrace your ministry? The road to the cross started with this interaction with the rich and powerful surrounding the issue of Sabbath observance. The miraculous could not make up for the fact that in their eyes you were a Sabbath breaker.

The interaction with You over this pivotal issue in their view of the world limited their ability to accept you. What are the pivot points in my life where you must be Lord of all or you are not Lord at all? My impact for you is limited by my acceptance of your Lordship in my life. Nothing else…I can have an impact but it is a dependant and corollary impact.

Lord Jesus forgive me for those places in the last week where my actions brought into question Your leadership. In this day that stretches out before me, Lord lead and guide in it. Help me to be what you would have me to be. Let me be a reflection of You. Shine Jesus Shine in my life.

Κύριος Notes

Κύριος Notes

Adoration

In the morning
How many mornings have we started together?
It is in these still few moments that we connect again.
The Holy has come to meet the meandering yet again.
You are focusing and leading me to areas of new growth.
Lord, speak during this time.

Scripture Reflections: Luke 5

36He told them this parable: "No one tears a patch from a new garment and sews it on an old one. If he does, he will have torn the new garment, and the patch from the new will not match the old. 37And no one pours new wine into old wineskins. If he does, the new wine will burst the skins, the wine will run out and the wineskins will be ruined. 38No, new wine must be poured into new wineskins. 39And no one after drinking old wine wants the new, for he says, 'The old is better.' "

Why it is Lord that I always want to put your work in my life into safe, comfortable, well used containers? Why is it that I am more interested in patching up that old instead doing what needs to be done and starting out new.

Your message does not fit into the old and the comfortable. It does not allow me to just go on with business as usual. You call me to fundamental change. You have no interest in a rehabilitation of the old me. That would be familiar and fit right in with the mantra of today…self help, self actualization and being all that I can be.

You know the truth about me…Rehabilitation would not rattle my safe world one least little bit. But instead you have set out to transform me. That is much more intimating…and you are firmly aimed at something that I have only a limited view of. Will I recognize myself when you are done with me?

Please don’t let me become a caricature of a follower of the Holy. A nightmare that haunts me is that I will become a polyester leisure suit wearing manikin that speaks but only in trite, cliche drivel…a new language born…Christian-ese. I am sure that is not what you are aiming at. Appearance is something that is not even close to what you are concerned with…Your aim is true, you aim at the heart.

In fact the transformational process is aimed at changing the essence of who I am. Just like there is a difference between wine and grape juice. During the fermentation process there is a change in chemical make up of grape juice. You want to see change in my life that takes place on that same very basic level.

Your work in my life is aimed at a change that forever alters thoughts, feelings, perception and priorities. You want to change goals into missions, you want to change my thoughts into a ongoing dialogue with you, you want to show me the way that my world impacts your feelings and can touch mine. You want your perceptions of the world to become my present reality, and you want to see your priorities lived out in all of my today’s.

No I guess I don’t have to worry about leisure suits…and no facial hair…

For that process to take place there needs to be room to grow…room to expand…room to allow the process to take place. If that change is put in the old and the familiar it will only result in loss.

Lord work in my life, continue that process that you began years ago. Help me to allow you as much room as you need for this change to continue. Work Holy Spirit.

Κύριος Notes

Κύριος Notes

Adoration

Jesus, lover of my soul
Jesus, I will never let you go
You've taken me from the miry clay
Set my feet upon the rock and now I know
I love you, I need you, though my world may fall
I'll never let you go
My Savior, my closest friend
I will worship you until the very end.

Scripture Reflections: Luke 5

29Then Levi held a great banquet for Jesus at his house, and a large crowd of tax collectors and others were eating with them. 30But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law who belonged to their sect complained to his disciples, "Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and 'sinners'

31Jesus answered them, "It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. 32I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance."

NPR reported yesterday the Quiverfull Movement the latest movement of conservative Christians is to encourage people who are Christians to have large families. The fear is that radical Islamic nations are reproducing at an alarming rate and Chrisitans will be out-numbered in the very near future. A very well intentioned grandmother came on who had only seven children and said what a waste it was that she didn’t have more children. It is over our own children that we have the most ability to impact for the gospel.

The report chilled me and made me think. I wonder what Jesus would think. I wonder about the missing generation that is not attending my church. Not to pick a fight with my fellow Christian brothers and sisters but Jesus did not come for the righteous to have more babies but for the sinners to come to repentance. The point is not how many babies another faith is having…the point is that we believe that Jesus is the way the truth and the life, that radical Islamic nations need Jesus just as much as our children and our grandchildren need Jesus. In reflecting on our recent past, we have not had the greatest track record in reaching either of those two groups for Jesus. God help us.

Don’t misunderstand me I love large families but what a twisted view the national media must have of the people that are called Christian.

As I think about this news report one more time, Jesus would not be worried about any of it. Jesus would just call us in our generation to be like him. To sit with the rowdies, the sinners and the disenfranchised at the lunch table and to show them what it really means to love God and to live like him in the middle of a crooked and perverse generation.

Maybe the Christians of the Quiverfull Movement could adopt the street kids of Warez, Mexico that the drug cartels are using to kill their enemies and who are ending up dead. I am wondering if that might be more in line with what Jesus would have us do. He came for the sinners, people just like you and I…people that were rejected, ignored, abandoned and over looked not just the children that are from Christian families.

Who are the people that I am missing that Jesus came to die for? Who are the people who I need to be spending my life reaching out to? Who are the overlooked that are right in front of me that I am missing?

Κύριος Notes

Κύριος Notes

Adoration

Oh great light of the world
Fill up my soul
I’ll never mend here
So come make me whole
Oh great light of the world
Come to im-part
The light of your grace
To fill up my heart
(Bebo Norman)

Scripture Reflection

27After this, Jesus went out and saw a tax collector by the name of Levi sitting at his tax booth. "Follow me," Jesus said to him, 28and Levi got up, left everything and followed him.

Sitting at his accounting table I am sure the good Jewish boy turned Roman tax collector would have never expected a Rabbi to want him for a student. It must have been a real surprise when Levi saw Jesus even talk to him let alone choose him to be his student.

I wonder if Levi ever recovered from this example of amazing grace. Levi experienced something radical when it came to grace. He knew that he was not good enough and yet Jesus saw him, and wanted him to follow. Jesus finds us where we are. Not where we would like to be, or where we should be, but where we are…in the middle of our life choices that even we can not always understand or explain. When Jesus saw and found Levi suddenly all of the choices that just seemed so important up to that time made no difference. Jesus had called him to be his student…his disciple. Career, stability in his life, an income, being able to party with his friends, all seemed like yesterday news.

Where have you surprised me with your amazing grace, Lord? Where are the places where I know without a doubt that you have called me, Lord?It is by the power of that invitation that the words “follow me” become a mission. I am sure that Levi remembered this interaction, a life time later. It was on the power of that invitation that his life changed for good.

Lord Jesus, make your call a mission in my life, remind me of it in this day that will be filled with distractions and noise. Remind me of your call.

Κύριος Notes

Κύριος Notes
3/23/2009

Adoration

Set My Spirit Free

Set my spirit free that I might worship Thee.

Set my spirit free that I might praise Thy name.

Let all bondage go and let deliverance flow.

Set my spirit free to worship Thee.

Scripture Reflections: Luke 5

21The Pharisees and the teachers of the law began thinking to themselves, "Who is this fellow who speaks blasphemy? Who can forgive sins but God alone?"

They got the question exactly right didn’t they Lord. They saw what your healing implied. They saw the issues that it raised. They seemed to fixate on the process and not the power that was displayed.

The forgiving of this man’s sins was a part of the process of his healing. Without forgiveness his need was not addressed at it source.

Why is it that I want to experience your power but also want to control the process? I want just like these men for you to work in ways and at times that fit my way of thinking. I want to control process.

22Jesus knew what they were thinking and asked, "Why are you thinking these things in your hearts? 23Which is easier: to say, 'Your sins are forgiven,' or to say, 'Get up and walk'? 24But that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins...." He said to the paralyzed man, "I tell you, get up, take your mat and go home."

Lord you know our questions and you meet them. You demonstrated Your power to heal this man, but also You address the questions that were not even fully formed on the lips of these men who were the religious leaders of their day.

Help me with my questions today.

Kurios Notes

Κύριος Notes
3/21/2009
Saratoga Springs, NY

Adoration

I will Rise
Jesus has overcome

And the grave is overwhelmed

The victory is won

He is risen from the dead

And I will rise when He calls my name

No more sorrow, no more pain

I will rise on eagles' wings

Before my God fall on my knees

And I will rise,

I will rise
Chris Tomlin

Scripture Reflection: Luke 5

17One day as he was teaching, Pharisees and teachers of the law, who had come from every village of Galilee and from Judea and Jerusalem, were sitting there. And the power of the Lord was present for him to heal the sick. 18Some men came carrying a paralytic on a mat and tried to take him into the house to lay him before Jesus. 19When they could not find a way to do this because of the crowd, they went up on the roof and lowered him on his mat through the tiles into the middle of the crowd, right in front of Jesus. 20When Jesus saw their faith, he said, "Friend, your sins are forgiven."

I am thinking about finding my way to You Lord...everyone has had to make that journey. Friends or family are almost always involved. This man was carried to You on the stretcher of his sickness.

So many times I find myself in need and at Your feet. I have been brought there by people who may or may not know the reason for my need.

I am so thankful for loving, concerned friends that brought me to Your feet Jesus...through the roof and down to your feet. Just not paying attention to the looks of the crowd and the dust and dirt they were throwing along the way. Praise Jesus...help me to be that kind of friend to others I meet.

When we find our way to Jesus there is first the need for forgiveness. The miracles of Jesus are interesting. There are times when there is forgiveness given, and times when there is just healing. It would seem to imply to me that this young man was on that stretcher for a reason. His sin one way or the other had gotten him in the place where he could not move without the help of friends.

There is also the need for acceptance and healing.

Where are the places where I need healing today Lord? Lord--See, Forgive, and heal.