Jesus quieted the jury
My testimony Part 1:
One of the last stanzas in the carol “O Little Town of Bethlehem” asks this of the Lord:
“O holy Child of Bethlehem,
Descend to us, we pray;
Cast out our sin and enter in,
Be born in us today.” (Phillips Brookes, 1868)
This birth is exactly what happened within me in 1974, four days after Christmas. I want to take a few days to share with you my personal journey to both the manger and the cross. Perhaps my story is somewhat non-traditional; however, as this same carol declares:
“No ear may hear His coming,
But in this world of sin,
Where meek souls will receive Him still,
The dear Christ enters in.”
I was raised in a “Christian” family; we were Presbyterian, but the church we attended in the sixties focused more on issues of social relevance than it did the state of our souls. As far as I could tell, everyone went to Heaven if they were good; Hell was likely a really bad state of mind; and the devil was either an allegorical representation of evil or a red-pajama’d fairy tale, believed in only by the weak-minded.
My mom had been raised by a staunch southern Baptist. She and her sisters married intellectual men and shunned the more “primitive” demonstration of Christianity. Whereas Mom and Dad held to the ritual of denominational Protestantism, my aunts and their spouses ran as far away from religion as they could. Grandma was the “black sheep” of the family; we visited her only because we had to; we put up with her praying over the meals only because we had to; we tolerated her “are you saved?” inquiries only because that was part of the whole package of who she was—and the rules said we had to go see her.
I didn’t mind Grandma, though; I secretly admired her persistence in the face of eye-rolling, dismissive behavior, and condescending comments.
At home, however, with Mom and Dad, religion—especially talk of relationship with God (and even worse, with Jesus)—was taboo. If you wanted to see over-the-top discomfort, just drop the J-bomb. Talk of Jesus was fine at church—where it was safe—but you didn’t bring Him into the conversation at home unless you wanted to be branded a religious fanatic like Grandma.
One snowy night late in January of 1972 after a high school basketball game, my date and I planned to go to a party. He took a detour to a park where he showed me two joints that he wanted to share with me. I was game, but told him that they would likely have no effect on me—I’d smoked pot eleven times before without any noticeable results. (Have I ever mentioned that one of my quirks is an OCD tendency to count things?) He assured me that these were different—they were laced with opium.
When we got back to his car after puffing them down to nothing, I said to him, “I told you these would have no effect…” And then my words echoed back at me, again and again.
As he drove to the party, I was in a virtual echo-chamber. I could see nothing but flashes and sparkles. He commented to me as he was driving, “That tree just turned into a pine cone.”
Unconcerned about having a hallucinating chauffeur driving me around the streets of our town, I replied, “Give my regards to its mother.” I was too busy in my echo-chamber to give much thought to safety.
And then a series of hallucinations happened that resulted in a type of “line in the sand” between the Lord and me. First, as I looked out of the big windshield on that dark January night, I saw my mom’s loving face filling a brilliant blue sky. I became terribly convicted, realizing that I was breaking massive rules, potentially hurting her very deeply. Then her face was gone, and I saw the dark expanse of the starry heavens and thought, “God can see me!” so I ducked below the dashboard in an attempt to hide from the Almighty.
What happened next forever changed the way I viewed Jesus. Immediately I was at my trial on Judgment Day (not a popular topic in the particular mainline denominational church I attended). I was about to be sentenced to Hell by a raging jury; they shouted at me with faces filled with fury, pounding their fists. I stood with my head hung down knowing I deserved no mercy. And then Jesus approached. He was robed in white with a gold cord around His waist and radiated a golden liquid love. He first turned to the jury, raised both hands and then lowered them in a gesture of silence. Begrudgingly, the jury quieted as the Lord turned to me.
I will never forget the love I saw in His face as He gazed into my eyes while speaking to the jury. “This is My own dear daughter whom I love very much. She wants to be with Me. I think she will.”
With that, the hallucination/vision faded. I was back in the car, in a vehicle driven by someone who had just smoked the same stuff I had—and I was very aware of the dangerous position I was in. But a deep sense of peace and God’s protection came over me as I said to myself, “I’ll be a Christian someday.”
© 2015, Dorothy Frick, and updated 2017.
Read MoreFor Thy pleasure [Updated 2017]
Christmas Series table of contents
Merry Christmas!! I am presenting my Christmas Series again this year. If you want, go to the categories menu and click on the “Christmas” link on the right and look around.
Or, if you prefer, here is a table of my Christmas Series blogs to look through.
- The Most Wonderful Time of the Year https://www.firstofallpray.com/?p=7668
- O Holy Night https://www.firstofallpray.com/?p=7674
- The Forerunner https://www.firstofallpray.com/?p=7676
- According to Your Word https://www.firstofallpray.com/?p=7678
- Joseph https://www.firstofallpray.com/?p=7680
- Emmanuel https://www.firstofallpray.com/?p=7683
- The government https://www.firstofallpray.com/?p=7686
- Bethlehem https://www.firstofallpray.com/?p=7689
- O Little Town of Bethlehem https://www.firstofallpray.com/?p=7695
- No room https://www.firstofallpray.com/?p=7697
- Shepherds https://www.firstofallpray.com/?p=7699
- Interview with the magi, part 1 https://www.firstofallpray.com/?p=7702
- Interview with the magi, part 2 https://www.firstofallpray.com/?p=7704
- Interview with the magi, part 3 https://www.firstofallpray.com/?p=7706
- Heaven greets earth https://www.firstofallpray.com/?p=7708
- For Thy pleasure https://www.firstofallpray.com/?p=8114
- Faithful, joyful, and triumphant https://www.firstofallpray.com/?p=8107
- Christmas Eve https://www.firstofallpray.com/?p=7713
- I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day https://www.firstofallpray.com/?p=7715
May God bless you and keep you safe and sound throughout this holy season, and may you bring honor to Him in your life every day.
Warmly,
Dorothy
Read MoreFour life-changing insights from Luke 11
Jesus is the most profound, well-grounded Human in the history of the planet, and Luke 11 is chock-full of His wisdom. The fifty-four verses in this chapter reveal a universe of Truth; here’s a sampling:
Insight # 1: Developing a deeply personal, intimate prayer life isn’t as tough as you think.
…Lord, teach us to pray…Luke 11:1b
The disciples had a ringside seat to the compassion-packed power and wisdom of the Master. Wherever He went, amazing things followed; whenever He was absent, they knew He was off praying. As a result, it wasn’t surprising when they asked, “Lord, teach us to pray like You do.”
His answer was simple but powerful; the expected in-depth dissertation never came. Instead He shared a short set of priorities for them to pray about, and with this, the well-known Lord’s Prayer was launched. He told them:
- Honor God as your Father and treat Him and His name as holy (vs. 1).
- Ask for God’s will and kingdom to be established in your life and in the world around you (vs 2).
- Ask Him to provide your daily needs (vs. 3).
- Acknowledge your need for forgiveness in the specific areas where you’ve fallen short (vs. 4).
- Purposely forgive others who have wronged you in the same way you’ve asked God to forgive you (vs.4).
- Request that He lead you away from the things that tempt you (vs. 4).
Realize this: Jesus never expected His disciples to rattle off this little prayer, line by line, day after day, clocking in and clocking out. The Lord didn’t present this targeted outline to be used as a magic spell, mantra, or fix-it elixir. Instead, He provided these simple prayer points as springboards by which anybody could launch into prayerful intimacy with God, just by talking to Him about these things. And in this way, He opened the door for His disciples to get as personal as they possibly could with their Father.
The Lord invites you, too, to use the “bullet points” from the Lord’s Prayer to enter into deeply personal, very specific communications with Him. His door is always open; His welcome mat will never be pulled out from under you. And as you enter in, know that you’re praying just the way He prescribed.
Insight #2: Persistence pays off.
…because of his persistence he will…give him as much as he needs. Luke 11:8b
I’ll bet you’ve heard someone say, “I don’t want to bother God about that.” Maybe you’ve said it yourself, hoping the Lord would appreciate your humility. So you back away from praying about those needs you’ve hoped forever that God would take care of, and you tell yourself that you can get by without. And all the while you feel more and more distant from the One you long to know.
But then Jesus goes and tells a parable that flips your “don’t-bother-God” humility on its head!
You see, Jesus told a tale about a persistent man who pounded relentlessly on his neighbor’s door at midnight. A visitor had unexpectedly arrived; the man was out of bread and needed to feed his guest. The neighbor had already gone to bed; climbing out from under his cozy blankets was the last thing he wanted to do—friend or no friend. Surely Jesus was about to rebuke such loud, demanding racket; how very impudent of this man to expect his friend to get out of bed merely to help him out of a self-inflicted jam! You can feel it—you just know what Jesus’ punchline will be: “And YOU? Don’t you DARE bother God about your petty little needs! Don’t you know He’s busy running the universe?”
But wait! Jesus didn’t condemn this man’s boldness; He commended it! “I tell you, even though he will not get up and give him anything because he is his friend, yet because of his persistence he will get up and give him as much as he needs” (Luke 11:8).
Could it be true? Is Jesus actually saying to YOU, “Don’t you dare NOT bother God about your needs! And while you’re at it, stick with it until you get your answer!”? Believe it; your bold persistence doesn’t bother Him—it blesses Him.
Insight # 3: The lit lamp and the clear eye.
The eye is the lamp of the body…watch out, then, that the light in you is not darkness. Luke 11:34a, 35
Paul once wrote, “…I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes…” (Romans 1:16).
Jesus said it this way, “No one, after lighting a lamp, puts it away in a cellar or under a basket, but on the lampstand, so that those who enter may see the light” (Luke 11:33). Why would anyone put a brilliantly glowing lamp in a cellar or under a basket? Could it be that they feel ashamed of the light?
Paul’s attitude toward the gospel was the opposite of shame; he embraced it as the power of God for salvation to everyone who believed. Jesus likewise highlighted what a normal, healthy attitude toward the Light looked like: Not hiding it; just letting it do its thing—SHINE.
Interestingly, right after Jesus taught about displaying—not hiding—the Light in your life, He said, “The eye is the lamp of your body; when your eye is clear, your whole body also is full of light; but when it is bad, your body also is full of darkness” (Luke 11:34).
I don’t know how many times I’ve read this section in Luke, but this time, I saw it differently. Could it be that Jesus linked our approach toward letting His light shine in our lives with the health of our vision? Could our perspective about the Light of Jesus—whether we hide it or let it shine—affect the clarity of our perception?
When you allow the Light to shine brightly in your life, do you safeguard your vision? By the same token, is your vision mucked up when you’re ashamed of the very Truth that once set you free?
If you are currently experiencing overwhelming darkness, confusion, or oppression, make tracks back to the Light of the world, soak up His rays, and allow His brightness to radiate boldly once again through you. His Light is unquenchable; the only one who can block it in your life is you.
Go ahead—pull that lamp back out from under the bed or basket where you’ve been hiding it. Bring it on up from the cellar and let its beautiful radiance once again be a beacon of Life to the world around you.
Then Jesus again spoke to them, saying, “I am the Light of the world; he who follows Me will not walk in the darkness, but will have the Light of life.” John 8:12
The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. John 1:5
Insight # 4: Cleanness—major on inner; minor on outer.
When the Pharisee saw it [that Jesus had sat down for lunch without washing up], he was surprised that He had not first ceremonially washed before the meal. Luke 11:38
Some of us seem to place top priority on how we appear to others, whether physically, socially, intellectually, or spiritually. We want to “get it right” on the outside no matter what might be happening on the inside. As long as we look good to others, that’s all that matters. Or is it?
Jesus, frustratingly so to the religious folks of His day, wasn’t too concerned at all about the externals. Oh, He nitpicked, but not about how people looked. He pointed His laser light on the inner workings of the heart—pride, ambition, kindness, and humility before God and man—motivations of the heart.
He said to them, “Now you Pharisees clean the outside of the cup and of the platter; but inside of you, you are full of robbery and wickedness” (Luke 11:39).
Imagine offering your friend a steaming cup of coffee or tea in an exquisite, sparkling cup. As they gratefully receive it and start to sip the contents, they notice crusty leftovers growing mold inside just below the lip of the cup. Then they notice something wiggling around, making figure eights in the brew. A critter surfaces and winks at them.
“What are you trying to do to me???? Are you crazy???” they yell as they toss your beautiful cup aside.
But you blink with astonishment and say, “But that cup is gorgeous! It looks so clean and sparkling in your hand!”
This is, in reality, what we are doing when we place all our focus on how we appear to others—whether physically, socially, intellectually, or spiritually. We may be a beautiful, stylish, with-it looking vessel, but beneath the surface—where it really counts—we’ve let leftovers accumulate, growing mold and attracting critters. If this describes your situation right now, don’t be surprised if someone says, “No thank you” to your offered cup of tea.
Jesus declared, “You foolish ones, did not He who made the outside make the inside also? But give that which is within as charity, and then all things are clean for you” (Luke 11:40, 41).
When you pay more attention to the climate inside of you than you do to how others think you look, your outer appearance will reflect a pure heart sooner or later.
Then when you offer your cup of brew to someone, they will find its contents wonderfully refreshing and mold- and critter-free.
May you walk freely, simply, and boldly with your Friend, the Light of the world.
Dorothy
© 2017, Dorothy Frick
Read MoreConcerning Jesus’ directive “sell your cloak and buy a sword”
I wrote this today on Facebook:
Bear with me while I process something.
Two summers ago I awoke one morning in a vacation condo overlooking the beautiful Gulf of Mexico. But my heart was full of concern; I was puzzled. You see, I had just emerged that early Wednesday morning from a dream in which I was attending a Sunday morning service at my church. In the dream my pastor was teaching something that was totally unlike his personality or anything he’s ever said before from the pulpit.
He was teaching us that with times as they are, it would be appropriate for those of us who desired to do so to carry concealed weapons into the service.
He also asserted that if anyone bragged or displayed bravado or arrogance about it, he would immediately kick them out of the church, no questions asked.
I told one of the ladies (my friend Debbie K.) with whom I was vacationing about it first thing. We had no idea what God was saying although the message of the dream was in-your-face clear. It was June 17, 2015.
Imagine my shock and grief that evening when we learned that nine beautiful worshippers were gunned down in their church–the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church–during their Wednesday night Bible study.
And today, once again we are confronted by another slaughter in a Baptist church in Texas, where perhaps twenty or so dear ones have been killed. In addition, across the country, in a Fresno, California, Catholic church parking lot, two more were shot as church was letting out.
We can debate the gun issue; in fact, I’m POSITIVE it will come up. But the dream I had just 10 hours before that weasely young man murdered nine of my brothers and sisters at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church makes me wonder if the tables may have been turned if one or two of those saints had carried a weapon along with their Bible.
I recall one of the instructions that Jesus gave His disciples before He was arrested, brutally tortured, and crucified was different than anything He had ever preached before–and markedly unlike His personality.
He said, “…if you don’t have a sword, sell your cloak and buy one” (Luke 22:36).
I’ve thought about this often since my dream the morning of June 17, 2015. I’ve thought about my pastor’s stern dream-warning concerning the attitude that must attend such weapon-bearing. And I’ve sought God concerning Jesus’ goal in giving this uncharacteristic directive.
Despite the Lord’s sword-instruction, nowhere do we see any of the New Testament believers/preachers engaging in swordfights or spreading the Gospel by means of the sword. Nowhere do we see any of the believers even defending themselves by means of the sword.
Nonetheless, it’s inescapable: The Gospel of Luke records that Jesus directed His followers at the time to carry a sword.
Because His disciples obeyed Him in other matters, there is no reason to believe they disregarded the sword-directive. Jesus had commanded them to go into all the world and preach the gospel; to go into the byways and highways; to teach and preach wherever they went.
And Jesus, Who understood the future better than most people can make sense of the past, realized that His followers would be easy prey for bad actors all along the way. Therefore, in His foresight, wisdom, and great love, He made provision for them–“If you don’t have a sword, sell your cloak and buy one.”
And again, Jesus–Who is able read the minds and motives of men and women–knew this well: Most thugs are cowardly. If they see a sword slung around the shoulder of even the tiniest of His disciples, they would bide their time and find another–an unarmed victim–and leave the sword-bearer alone.
This is why I support the Second Amendment. I don’t like braggadocious attitudes about weapons; I DO like the idea that criminals will think twice before harming a man or a woman with a gun.
Thanks for reading.
Dorothy
© 2017, Dorothy Frick
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