Grow Group Lesson 2

We have heard about Jesus’ washing His disciples feet before.  We’ve even heard how it’s an encouragement and exhortation to us to serve others humbly, just as He did.  With that in mind, let’s take a look at WHY he served, HOW he served, and WHO he served.

In her book, The Uncommon Woman, Susie Larson gives her thoughts on the moments leading up to the washing of the feet:

"As the dinner hour approached in the upper room, I imagine the disciples glancing around, looking for the slave who would clean their feet in preparation for the feast.  Normally, if no slave was available to do the foot washing, it was customary for one of the guests to volunteer.  Since there was no one who seemed ready to subject himself to the task, I wonder if they considered pulling a young servant from the street to do the duty.  Perhaps they were murmuring among themselves, wondering out loud how long they would have to wait until dinner was served."

WHY He served:

Read John 13:1-3.  Verse 3 starts off with, "Jesus, knowing….." This is important.  Jesus KNEW who He was.   He KNEW what He had.  He KNEW that He had come from God.  The movie Lord of the Rings has the famous quote, “When you know who you are, you know what to do.”  There is something about being identified with Christ, and knowing who we are that frees us from the urge of trying to prove ourselves, and being exalted in the eyes of man.  When your identity is not resting on man’s perception of your performance in your ministry, job, service, etc., but you find your identity resting in Christ, you’ll find freedom. You’ll grab hold of truth.  And sometimes, you’ll actually do whatever is that you do better.

HOW He served:

Now take a look at John 13:4-5.  Susie Larson again gives some thoughts:

"Imagine the jolt they experienced as Jesus got up, tied the servant's towel around His waist, and reached for the basin.  Picture them swallowing hard as they awkwardly scooted back to give Him room.  As Jesus' hands were dirtied from the filth on their feet, their hearts must have melted and any potential pride had to have been swallowed up and replaced by utter humility."

It’s been said before, washing another person’s feet takes true humility.  It is the lowest, most awkward service one could give to another.  I won’t dwell on this question too much, but it is worth asking.  Is there a service or action that God is calling you to do, that you refuse to do, because you feel that you’re “above” that kind of work?  The Creator of the universe washed the feet of some pretty average human beings; we should never feel like we’re “above” ANY kind of work He has called us to.

WHO he served.

Larson continues, "Even while Jesus was washing their feet, He knew in His heart that every one of them would abandon Him at some time that very night." Think about it, He knew that they would all leave Him high and dry in the most agonizing moment of His earthly life!

"Judas abandoned and betrayed Jesus...  Jesus knew that these were the feet of the man who would set in motion the most excruciating, agonizing hours of His life.  Still, He served.  Still, He washed, He rubbed, and He lovingly held the feet of the guilty in His hands.'

Have you ever been/felt betrayed? How did you respond?

Now think of this. Have you ever betrayed Jesus? Left Him? Turned your back on Him?  Have you ever followed man instead of God, “Just this one time?”  How did He respond to you?

Read Jesus' admonition to us in John 13:15 after He washed the disciples feet.  When you think of that person who’s betrayed you, remember that you have most probably at one point or another done the same to God if not worse.  In light of God's wonderful love and response to us in the midst of failure, we are called to respond to our betrayer the way Jesus has responded to us.

"With all my heart I believe that it's not only possible to rise up out of the pain of betrayal and rejection, it's our call, our privilege, and our responsibility as ones who have been redeemed." (Susie Larson)

We will all at some point, if not already, face rejection and or betrayal.  Here are some steps that Larson encourages us to take when going through the "valley of rejection":

Step One: Regularly remind yourself who you are and whose you are in Christ, according to the Word of God (loved, called, accepted, chosen, cherished, and forgiven)!

Step Two:  Pray for your accusers.

Step Three: Forgive your accusers.  This will be like a "hot potato exercise."  You will forgive them today-maybe twenty times-then you'll show up tomorrow to forgive them nineteen times. Eventually the potato will stay up in the air, and you will be free to leave the outcome to the Lord.

Step Four: Thank God for everything good in your life.  During times of rejection you are at great risk of losing perspective and neglecting those who haven't abandoned or betrayed you.

Step Five: Pray for someone who has it tougher than you do.  Write her a note or buy her a gift.  Don't lose sight of the fact that even in tough times, God has called you to be a flow-through account of His blessings.

Step Six: Get some exercise. Working your muscles and forcing your blood to circulate will do great things for your body and mind.  Pray while you exercise.

Step Seven: Get proper rest and then wake up tomorrow morning and begin again with One.

*Much of the material for this lesson has come from Susie Larson's book, The Uncommon Woman.

Grow Group Lesson 1

A few years ago, I did a short study on Leah, Jacob’s wife.  Leah is not someone in the Bible that we would like to be.  She was unloved.  No woman wants to be in that situation.  No woman wants to be unloved.  It is a deep, searing pain to feel unloved.  In the lesson I expounded on how she longed for her husband’s affection, and hoped to win it by having multiple children, even giving her maidservant to have more children for her.  Did her plan work?  Did Jacob love her more than Rachel because of all the children Leah gave him? No.  Man’s love is limited and conditional. Sometimes it is even superficial and fickle.

Now, clearly Leah did not have a say in her situation.  I doubt she wanted to be married to a man who loved another wife.  If anything, she was probably trying to make the best of the awful situation she was in by having a number of children.  “Maybe then he will love me.” she thought.  “Perhaps the children will fill this ache in my heart.”  Now here is where I think it gets interesting when you focus on it for a little bit.  You see God pursuing her with His love, and she in turn continues to pursue her husband’s love.  It’s like an open love triangle.  God, in His beautiful love, saw her situation, and opened her womb.  It seemed as if He was saying, “I see your pain.  I know your heart. I love you.”  Now as we see her name her children, we also get a real good look at what she was thinking.

Genesis 29:31 - Reuben - God has seen; now my husband will love me.

v. 33 - Simeon - God has heard.  No mention of husband here.

v. 34 - Levi - My husband will be attached to me!

v.35 - Judah - I will praise the Lord!

Just as a side note, Rachel has her husband’s love and she is not satisfied.  Unless you receive God’s love you will not be satisfied.

30:9-11 - Leah loses sight again and gets into the competition. - Gad - Good fortune - No mention of God or husband.  Now it seems she’s just focused on beating her sister.

Vs. 12-13 - Asher - Happy am I! Women have called me happy!  - Now it’s just all about her and what other women think of her.

Vs. 17-18 Issachar - God has given me my wages, because I gave my servant to my husband. - This is an interesting statement.  She seems a bit delusional at this point. It’s like she’s saying God rewarded her with another son for giving her servant to her husband.  It also seems to imply that she think God owed  her a son.

Vs. 19-20 Zebulun - God has blessed, now my husband will honor me.

She then stops bearing children.  Now if she hoped that eight sons would surely make her husband love her, she was sorely disappointed.

Genesis 33:1-2 Okay, first of all, what a coward!  This isn’t a “ladies first” kind of situation!  He’s basically saying, “Okay, if they attack us the servants will get killed first, then Leah and the children, then Rachel and the children and then last of all - me.”  Second, and more sobering for Leah, her plan didn’t work.  Her sister Rachel was still smack dab in between her and Jacob.  After all that battling, and all that bearing of children, and all that hoping and waiting, it didn’t make a difference.  He still loved Rachel more.

Michael W. Smith has a beautiful song called “Never been unloved.”  In the song he goes on saying how he’s been unfaithful, unworthy, undesirable, unwilling and so on.  He then shifts into saying that, “but because of You, and all that You’ve been through, I know that I have never been unloved.”

Leah’s situation was definitely sad, heartbreaking even.  But here is the truth of the matter. She was never unloved.  The God of the universe Who created her and everything around her loved her. Not only that, He didn’t wait for her to have a better attitude and come around to loving God first and foremost.  He loved her in the midst of her sorrow and blindness of heart.  He loved her in the midst of her futile love quest with her husband.  Through all this, He gave her multiple “I love you” gifts. Regardless of how she responded to His gift - good, bad, praising, selfish - He loved her.

Now what of all this?

Romans 5:8 says, “but God shows his love for us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”

The fact of the matter is that we’re sometimes just like Leah.  We pursue other futile loves.  We look to them to satisfy us and they just will not reciprocate or fulfill like we thought they would.  And in the midst of all our sin and blindness, God loves us.

Or sometimes we get it in our head that because of all the bad things we’ve done, God doesn’t love us anymore.  Or maybe if we do this service or that good thing for God He will love us more. The truth is, no matter what we do or have done or will do, God’s love for us will not change.  It’s worth mentioning again.  God’s love for us will not change.

The idea here is to know, and settle for yourself, and rest in the fact that YOU are loved by God. Unconditionally. Period.  The question is, will you receive it?  Will you be satisfied by it?  Will you know it?

What comes to your mind when you think of the fact that Christ died for you?  He endured pain for you.  He wanted to be with you.

There is a quote from the book Uncommon Woman by Susie Larson.

“To ‘know this love’ is to be so acquainted with Jesus’ affections for you that more than anything else in all the earth you identify yourself as someone who is loved.”

I’ve adopted a couple questions from Kim Walker’s testimony.  This is the woman from Jesus Culture that sings the song, “How He Loves Us.”  Ask Jesus these questions.  Wait for His answer.  Expect His answer.

How much do you love me?
What were You thinking when You created me?

Oh the beauty of knowing the love of God!

Silly Art!

A dear friend gave me a book called, "Discovering Great Artists: Hands-On Art for Children in the Styles of the Great Masters" about almost a year ago.  It's a great book with different art lessons. Each one has a * for the level of difficulty, and it goes from level one to three.

One of the lessons proved to be really fun for my boys and their work even made a nice addition to our kitchen wall.

Here's what we did. (Warning: It gets pretty messy.)

Materials:

six inch pieces of yarn (one for each paint color)

at least 4 paint colors in a bowl (add water if the paint is rather thick), using one bowl per color

large white paper or 4 pieces of paper taped together

cardboard to go under the paper

Set the cardboard on the floor.  Place the paper on top of the cardboard.  Use masking tape to stick the paper to the floor.  Have kids dip the string into the paint of their choice and then, standing up, have them drop the paint-soaked yarn on the paper. SPLAT! They can then remove the yarn from the paper and start again. 

If your children are like mine, this will go on until there is no more paint in any of the bowls.  Once it's dry, you can frame it and display their art!  

I made the mistake of not putting anything underneath the white paper.  Since the boys put gobs and gobs of paint on it, it saturated the paper and stuck to the floor.  Consequentially, as I was carefully trying to peel the paper off the floor, random parts of it ripped.  So I cut out different parts of the art work and placed them into small frames.  

Tada!

My little artists..... :)

Tartar sauce

So one day, we were having I think fish sticks or some other kind of breaded fish when I looked in the pantry and realized (dun dun dun......) - we were out of tartar sauce.  Cue the panic!  How do you eat fish sticks without tartar sauce?  Oh the horror! 


Anyway, I decided to see if the internet had anything to offer.  Sure enough, it had a recipe for homemade tartar sauce!!!!  Long story short, I made it with my own few tweaks and it turned out to be, in my opinion, much better than store bought tartar sauce.  Of course, it was fresh too!


Try it!  You just might like it.  We haven't bought tartar sauce from the store since then. :)  


Tartar sauce recipe:


1/2 cup mayonnaise
1 Tablespoon sweet pickle relish
1 Tablespoon minced onion
1 Tablespoon lemon/lime juice (if you have fresh limes, juice a half lime)
dried parsley to taste
lemon pepper to taste


Mix up all the ingredients and you're done!