Royalty Realm – Sticky Fingers

Have you recently dipped your fingers in a pot of honey and swiped a big swath of sticky sweetness? Unless you’re a bear, my guess is probably ‘not lately.’ Here in the Royalty Realm, however, sticky fingers are a precious commodity…

In Psalm 119, tucked away like bee’s candy in a hive, is a verse in that beautiful, long poem worth savoring with the psalmist:

“How sweet are Your words to my taste! Yes, sweeter than honey to my mouth!” Psalm 119:103 NASB

Do you love God’s words like that?

This is not a ‘gauntlet thrown down’ question; true love deepens over time. On the other hand, if your answer was along the lines of “um, ah…could you repeat the question?” you may need to spend more time in the honey pot getting your fingers sticky.

Jesus, the very Word himself, was prophesied of back in Isaiah’s time, long before He was a jot or tittle in Mary’s eye. It was said of him in Isaiah 7:15 -

“He will be eating curds and honey when he knows enough to reject the wrong and choose the right…”

This prophetic word tells us that Jesus, who was fully God, was indeed fully human as well. He lived through infancy, childhood, and youth – the same stages of development His Father ordained for us human creatures. I love how Abba Father planned ahead for us by giving us His Son as the firstborn among many brothers and sisters … Romans 8:29

As a young child Jesus grew by eating butter and honey. As a model for us of life’s stages, in His youth He came to a place and time where He knew enough to reject the wrong and choose the right. And He did, so that we may also be able to reject the wrong and embrace the right.

And so, we have now encroached on a bit of a sticky wicket…

On the honey side of the wicket, the Word encourages our hearts that “Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has ascended into heaven, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to the faith we profess. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are–yet he did not sin.” Hebrews 4:14-15

On the other honey side of the wicket (which is where the dilemma rests) Jesus, the very Word of God also tells us, “Whoever has my commands and keeps them is the one who loves me. The one who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love them and show myself to them.” John 14:21

Without a developing love for the Truth God speaks every time He opens His mouth (remember, the Word is ‘alive and active; sharper than any double-edged sword’ Hebrews 4:12), we attempt to live in the Royalty Realm having the commands while not necessarily feeling called upon to keep them. It doesn’t work. Not if we proclaim that we love Christ, the Son of the Living God. Even with love for the Truth, Jesus didn’t make it easy. What He made it was a choice “to reject the wrong and choose the right…”

It’s rather like approaching a beehive…you can’t have honey without the bees. Neither does the Word of God become sweeter than honey to us without having experienced its sometimes sharp ‘alive activity’ in our lives that brings us to spiritual health and vitality.

One of the best mirrors God has provided for taking a good look at ourselves is smeared with honey. When we take in His written Word as one does when enjoying a nourishing, delicious, good for you meal, we can exclaim with the psalmist that indeed, His words are sweet to our taste, even sweeter than honey to our mouth! That nourishing meal becomes fuel by which to live and move and have our being in the Royalty Realm; the ‘keeping’ part of having His commands.

Neither do we dine alone or for our own consumption only, for as Wikipedia online says of ‘Honey bees’:

Honey is the complex substance made when the nectar and sweet deposits from plants and trees are gathered, modified and stored in the honeycomb by honey bees as a food source for the colony. All living species (of Apis) have had their honey gathered by indigenous peoples for consumption… {emphasis mine}

When we make a godly habit of living with sticky fingers in the honey pot of God’s Word, we are nourished and nourish others.

“How good and pleasant it is when God’s people live together in unity!” {ie. stuck with honey – nb} Psalm 133:1

Learning to live sticky and Gracefully Free!

©2012 Nancy C. Bentz – Author’s permission granted to forward this devotional piece in its entirety, including this copyright line.  Comments and subscriptions to this blog are welcome.

“Wellspring” Second Anniversary & Birthday Edition

Hard to believe a full year has passed and both “Wellspring of Life” and Rielyn Jolene are two years old!

What a year this has been! Wayne and I and our married children have lived in “Transition City” these past twelve months. And right under our noses (though 2,400 miles is too far away for being ‘under our noses’) our granddaughter was transitioning from babyhood to toddler month by month.

Look at her now! She’s grown so much and as her mom likes to say, is “sweet and sassy!” She’s as loveable as they come and smart as a cookie, too. Not much gets past her! And I love her long curls…

I published my first blog post the evening of Rielyn’s birth in 2010 and dedicated the “Wellspring of Life” blog to her. It is only appropriate for this writing grandma to mark the occasion with a special edition of “Wellspring” and Year 1 and 2 photos of this precious little “wellspring” of joy. She is a happy girl!

Perhaps one day Rielyn will be a young woman holding her grandmother’s published works in her hands. Or, those works may be a homemade print job, three-hole punched and inserted in plastic sleeves in a binder. Either way, I pray that the writing I do in these young years of her life will in later years always point her to Jesus, encourage her heart, and inspire her to live the beautiful story of God’s great love in all the pages and chapters of her life. My heart desires that no less for big brother Cohen, too…our first grandchild, our grandson. They are God’s beloveds and His beloved gifts to our families and generations.

So with contentment and gratitude for another year of blessing, I wish you again a “Happy second anniversary of “Wellspring of Life,” Jesus!” Let the river flow and keep flowing. And I ask that wherever the water reaches You will be pleased to bring forth a great harvest, including my entire household.

A Scribe for His glory,

Nancy Charlene (aka Grandma Nanc!)

Gracefully Free

©2012 Nancy C. Bentz – Author’s permission granted to forward this devotional piece in its entirety, including this copyright line.  Comments and subscriptions to this blog are welcome.

Royalty Realm – Real Simple

Life doesn’t get much simpler than living, moving, and having your being in the kingdom of Heaven, aka the Royalty Realm. It’s the constant monitoring of self-imposed or others-imposed expectations that wears you down to a sputter and drains the joy right out of your oil pan.

Take Jesus for example…

While Jesus lived His life on earth, huge crowds began to follow Him. He was no dummy. Jesus knew there were ones who only wanted what He could give them in the moment. Others were surely curiosity seekers gathering more fodder for making fun of Him around the dinner table that evening. Still others lived in panic, for themselves or someone they loved. Subsequently, it was fear that drove them to Him. And yet others had a penchant for creating distractions and stirring up a chaotic atmosphere.

Sadly, the multitudes did not believe that Jesus was stronger than their need. Instead, their need – whatever form it took – was like an addiction that required the next hit. Their need was stronger than Strength itself. The simplicity of following Him because of Who he was eluded them.

Scripture tells us that Jesus looked upon the people and had compassion for them. It was not that His heart was not moved for these ones ‘like sheep without a shepherd.’ But in Matthew 5, it was not the multitudes that He addressed with this particular teaching. The Message opens that chapter with an interesting depiction:

When Jesus saw his ministry drawing huge crowds, he climbed a hillside. Those who were apprenticed to him, the committed, climbed with him. Arriving at a quiet place, he sat down and taught his climbing companions.

He made time and created space to teach His committed ones the ways of the Kingdom. As they gathered around Him, He shared the protocols of blessing. Unlike anything they had ever heard or witnessed, His teachings were distilled down to ultimate simplicity. They covered the simple basics on which everything else in life hinged: Love God. Love others.

Even today, such simplicity in following God is largely dismissed or rationalized away. “Life is much more complicated. You simply cannot reduce life to four words.”

But Jesus did. Furthermore, He called it like He saw it with these committed apprentices of the Kingdom:

“In a word, what I’m saying is, ‘Grow up’. You’re kingdom subjects. Now live like it. Live out your God-created identity. Live generously and graciously toward others, the way God lives toward you.” Matthew 5:48 MSG

Sounds rather like He was (and still is) talking to His committed ones like a father speaks to his children.

No wonder He said that unless we become like little children we will not enter the Kingdom of heaven. (Matthew 18:3 AMP) Trusting, lowly, loving, forgiving…does that describe you?  Or does it strike you as just too simple?

The Christ-following child who is a committed climber will find they must refute that growing up is just one option of multiple choices.

Both the heart of a child and the character of a mature man (or woman) go hand in hand. It’s the paradox of the protocol of the Royalty Realm.

Jesus said it best…

You, therefore, must be perfect [growing into complete maturity of godliness in mind and character, having reached the proper height of virtue and integrity], as your heavenly Father is perfect. Matthew 5:48 AMP

We were born to grow and grow up. It really is that simple.

Gracefully Free

©2012 Nancy C. Bentz – Author’s permission granted to forward this devotional piece in its entirety, including this copyright line.  Comments and subscriptions to this blog are welcome.

Royalty Realm – Christ Our Apparel, Part 2

Another BB collided as I started typing this blog post with the boxcar and railroad track intro. It never occurred to me until my fingers hit my laptop keyboard: my maternal grandfather was a railroad man right up until his death. I was only five months old when he died so I never knew my Grandfather Lowe. But I strongly suspect he knows all about me, heaven-side. I rather think the mention of boxcars caught his attention. Who knows but that he tugged the sleeve of God and said, “That’s my granddaughter writing for You! Can I sit in as railroad consultant?!”

Since we serve a God who invented the Generations, I personally think He gets a kick out of surprising us with one of those “to a thousand generations” blessings from time to time. This is one of those times for me as I consider how the Holy Spirit inspired the analogy of laying down refurbished, replaced, repaired, and re-Truthed tracks of understanding of His Word. The connection in the spirit with one intimately acquainted in his lifetime with railroad tracks blesses me. Even more, the connection of heritage with the grandfather I never knew. Do you think such things matter to God? I do. Oh, how I do. The weavings in His generational storylines of our lives is incredible. For God uses the things of the natural to bring forth the things of the Spirit. And sometimes he takes a grandfather and granddaughter on a Holy Spirit boxcar ride – together.

Now, let’s get back on track!

***

When last I signed off, there was one more item in the Apparel of Christ of Ephesians 6 that had not yet been highlighted: the sword of the Spirit. I have a story to tell but first…

• He is the sword of the Spirit because that sword is the Word of God, and Christ is the Word.

Hebrews 4:12 describes His scalpel-like sharpness this way: “For the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart.” (NASB)

You need only to read the Gospels to see narrated Christ’s life operating as the Word of God. One glance at someone and they knew He had read their mail. One spoken word of Truth and the jig was up. He was a walking scalpel of men’s hearts. But He had an all-consuming purpose: to injure only to draw out the poison killing men’s souls and then to bind up their wounds and heal them. (Hosea 6:1)

To put on Christ the sword (I love how the ‘word’ is embedded in the ‘sword’) is to be cloaked in the living, active Word of God whose suitability in any given situation is full and complete, through and through.

My husband is a biblical counselor. In counseling sessions he often invites the client to engage in listening prayer. It is remarkable how the Holy Spirit dialogues with you when you invite Him to!

A few years back he had a male client who shared the following amazing exchange taking place during one such invitation. I do believe it was a literal “eyes of his understanding being enlightened” (Ephesians 1:18) as he described the picture that played out in his mind’s eye…

The client was holding a rolled-up scroll in his hand. He described it as looking like ‘parchment.’ He didn’t think too much about it until he was told by the Holy Spirit, “Look again.” He looked again and this time he saw it had writing on it – the scripture Colossians 10:4-5:

⁴The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. ⁵We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.

“Well, that was nice but why am I holding a scroll?” he thought. Then the directive, “Try it out.” It turned into a sword in his hand, but not a sword as we know a sword. This one was alive! It could extend and retract, its extension reaching to the farthest galaxy. The client knew its reach because he tried it, while all this took place as Holy Spirit engaged him in this keen and very real spiritual object lesson.

More personal and close up, this sword of the Word of God had an exquisite edge that was sharp enough to trim his toenails.

That, my friends, is some sword of the Spirit; the Word of God; Christ Jesus the Word.

The other pieces of Christ our Apparel – the helmet, the shoes, the shield, the belt and the breastplate – are essential defensive pieces of armor. Christ’s attributes are vital in our life if we are to “overcome by the blood of the Lamb and the word of our testimony.” (Revelation 12:11) Otherwise, this world and the enemy will try to wear us out and take us down.

But the sword… it is the sword of the Spirit, the Word of God (Ephesians 6:17) that is the critical offensive weapon we must learn to grip and hold tightly to – being clothed with Christ the Word.

Sometimes we would rather steer a wide berth around something that is sharp enough to divide spirit and soul. Something that is well able to judge even the thoughts and intentions of our heart. Frankly, that scares us. But remind your heart and your mind, dear reader, that He came to give us life, so that which is death to our life must go.

Right down to our toenails…

Gracefully Free & Grandpa Lowe

©2012 Nancy C. Bentz – Author’s permission granted to forward this devotional piece in its entirety, including this copyright line.  Comments and subscriptions to this blog are welcome.

Royalty Realm – Christ Our Apparel

My husband and I have a running joke when one of us, in the course of conversation, declares, “I had an idea!” The other one’s funny bone gets tickled and usually pops off with the reply, “Ah! Two BBs in a boxcar collided!” Somehow it never gets old; it just sends us off into a good hearty laugh all over again, refreshing us in the moment.

Sometimes it’s a “two BBs in a boxcar” moment for me when the Holy Spirit causes two scriptures of spiritual thought to collide and bam! The refreshing light bulb of holy illumination goes on. I enjoyed such a moment on Sunday morning as my inner man felt energized all over again when these two thoughts hit me:

I was reading the brief conclusion of a book I’d been enjoying over the past couple weeks. A phrase in the second to last sentence jumped off the page at me – “…Christ is the full armor of God.” That was one BB.

The second BB immediately jumped up and down in my mind, waving its hand for recognition…that well-memorized lead-in of Ephesians 6:11 “Put on the full armor of God…”

The spark that erupted from that collision is found in Romans 13:14 “Put on (clothe yourself) with the Lord Jesus Christ…”

Before you roll your believer’s eyes and moan, “Well, where have you been?,” I will grant you that sometimes I’m so far behind I think I’m first! However, I sensed something else was going off in my spirit Sunday morning. I had prayed for and written about fresh layers of scripture to be revealed this year in my blog post “The Fresh and the Familiar” (12/13/11). All I can say is that the familiar was refreshed again in a clearer and more dynamic way. And so I write…

As I began to ponder the thoughts taking shape, I recognized I’d been handed another Kingdom protocol: Christ, our apparel. Once put on, not taken off. Melded with Him, unable to separate where I end and He begins. That thought challenged me that my bearing in the royalty realm should continually reflect more of His image and less of my own.

Cerebrally, we know that. We nod our heads and shout “Amen!” in agreement to the good Word of God. But I have found that the gap between our head and our heart can resemble the Grand Canyon. That is, until the Holy Spirit – that precious, “tell it like it is” Spirit of Truth – turns on the Light in a once-shadowed area of our wellspring.

If we’re honest, how many times have we heard that daily we need to dress in God’s armor? If we forget to mentally, or even prayerfully with good intention, put on the helmet of salvation, buckle on the belt of truth, slip our feet into gospel of peace shoes, and pick up our sword on the way out the door, how much have we beat ourselves up for forgetting that part of our spiritual uniform when the day goes sour or we come home bruised?

Revelation moment: Christ is not a uniform to be put on (or forgotten) each morning and traded for pj’s at the end of the day. He is our very Life in whom we live and move and have our being when we have put Him on.

• He is our helmet. The mind of Christ wants to think and reason and find His expression through us. He wants His virtues and values to be our mind’s First Responder, not the Last Resort of Opinion.
• He is the belt of Truth, the guardian of our loins out of which His fruit is birthed in our lives. James 1:18 says, “He chose to give us birth through the word of truth, that we might be a kind of firstfruits of all he created.” He created then and He still creates in us today new birthing through the continual word of truth. Kind of like this blog post…
• He is our breastplate of righteousness; indeed, He is our righteousness. Being clothed with Christ means we have chosen to believe the great wardrobe exchange has taken place (Isaiah 64:6). When we truly believe what He says we are, Christ our Helmet kicks in and our ears begin to hear what we’re saying with a clarity we hadn’t known before. Pride sounds like the self-exaltation it is. Self-pity rings with the tone of the wound that has been plucked again. Fear of failure and the internal mocking voices are exposed in the Light of Christ’s mind. All these and more reveal where we remain stuck in believing that Christ has already accomplished victory for us even as He invites us to live more fully His image.
• He is our shield of faith. Paul declared in Galatians 2:20 that “…the life I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave Himself for me.” All He requires of us is a grain of faith like a mustard seed. Yet how often do we revert to listening to the voice of the Adversary instead of Christ our Helmet, named Faithful and True in Revelation 19:11.

I’m not finished fleshing this out. Instead, I feel a Christ Our Apparel, Part II coming on. Please stay tuned. In the meantime, I pray that Holy Spirit creates some “BBs in the boxcar” moments for you too. If He does, feel free to share a comment about His inspiration and insights opened up to you. No Holy Spirit “hobo” should ever find themselves rattling around in the boxcar alone!

I’ll be back as the Lord keeps laying down more track – refurbished, replaced, repaired, re-Truthed.

Gracefully Free

©2012 Nancy C. Bentz – Author’s permission granted to forward this devotional piece in its entirety, including this copyright line.  Comments and subscriptions to this blog are welcome.

Royalty Realm – Unconcealed

There is a state in the Royalty Realm where your heart as a believer can no longer remain concealed.

It pulses with desire to know and be known by the Lord. It longs to know the plans He has been thinking of regarding you; plans he has designed for your welfare and safety, with a prosperous and peaceable wellness that results in hope. That is His present in the present.

But your Father doesn’t stop there. He also has intentions about your future, to which He holds you by a cord of expectant hope. (Jeremiah 29:11KJV w/Strong’s notations)

This same One who saw you as a yet unformed body knitted you together with the thread of hope. He wove in His foreknowledge of who you would be through His precious thoughts and intentions toward you and for you. As the Psalmist cried out in wonderment, thoughts as grains of sand…too many to count! (Psalm 139:13-18)

Now there’s a brain cramp for you, so stop trying to figure it out in your head. It takes an unconcealed heart to lean and live into the unfolding revelation of who God designed you to be.

To live forward, your believing heart senses it must find and know God’s truth. The world’s “truth” doesn’t cut it anymore. It rings hollow. It feels shallow. It leaves you with an empty heart, always yearning for more.

Living forward is a receptive posture where the dreams of one’s heart are restored. Not just one’s own dreams, better known as “good ideas”. Rather, the timeless dreams seeded in you before you were born. Dreams fertilized by the Holy Spirit and watered by tears of longing and intercession that when fulfilled will impact the Kingdom and your own life in enduring ways.

However, the very act of restoration demands being done with concealing the rubble. Beauty rises from the ashes, but it is not raised up to sit on a foundation of those things that caused the ashes. Sin and shame, guilt and unforgiveness, envy and jealousy, resentment and rebellion, a haughty heart, are all things that must be unconcealed before the One who knows it all anyway. It is for your benefit and your return to a Jeremiah 29:11 expectant hope for your future that you bare your heart.

When you realize that hiding your heart from the Lord robs you of truly knowing His heart and therefore, your own, you have a choice to make: How will I respond to His wooing to live in Truth, to live unconcealed?

Jesus showed you how as He modeled living truthfully before the Father. He didn’t hide his heart. He lived from it expressions of joy, grief, playfulness, passion for justice, studiousness, close relationships, thoughtful caring and outreach to the outcast and downcast in spite of how others viewed Him. He didn’t perform for others. He sought daily guidance from his Father’s heart then proceeded to live out that heart.

What Jesus modeled in His human life remains a living model even now. In fact, how much more is it so in these days that will usher in His living Kingdom in the earth? How glaring is the dividing line between Heaven’s fact and the world’s fiction. Therefore,

I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better. I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in his holy people, and his incomparably great power for us who believe. (Ephesians 1:17-19a NIV)

Unconcealed hearts are rising all over like the dawn. May mine and yours be counted among them.

Gracefully Free

©2012 Nancy C. Bentz – Author’s permission granted to forward this devotional piece in its entirety, including this copyright line.  Comments and subscriptions to this blog are welcome.

Grace2

Today I am 55 years young! This is an especially meaningful birthday that I have dubbed my “Double Portion of Grace” year.

The number five in the Bible means grace. My name, Nancy, means grace. I am alive by God’s grace.

Earlier this week, I had the privilege of joining a group of nearly 50 women at a facilitator’s retreat in Lake Dallas, Texas. The Listen to My Life visual maps process was transforming for me several years ago when I was first introduced to it. The founders and leaders – fondly nicknamed “The Four” – of oneLifemaps held this second of what I hope will be many future retreats for facilitators whose hearts and creativity have been captured by this amazing life mapping process.

It was there in the space and time for a sacred retreat that God affirmed to me over and over His grace in my life. His grace truly is amazing.

The fact that I am so buoyant with joy and vitality these days after coming through the past long season of breast cancer and life transition does not make me feel I ‘deserve’ or have ‘earned’ any of this joy. It is purely proof that we serve a God who does not lie, whose promises are sure, and who grants us “joy in the morning” after the long, hard night.

My wish for this birthday, indeed, my entire “Double Portion of Grace” year is that many fall headlong into God’s wellspring of grace. If I have the privilege of helping push you over the edge, my heart will be filled up even more! His wellspring is one, inexhaustible vat of goodness and mercy. And Grace²!

How sweet the sound…the best birthday song I’ve ever heard,

Gracefully Free

For more information on “Listen to My Life”, visit www.OneLifeMaps.org

©2012 Nancy C. Bentz – Author’s permission granted to forward this devotional piece in its entirety, including this copyright line.  Comments and subscriptions to this blog are welcome.