Trust the Tapestry Weaver
I woke up this morning with significant sciatic nerve pain.
I started to wonder if any of my PT exercises or stretches were contributing to the pain. 🤔
After a bit of AI research, I found that most of my morning stretches were causing the sciatic flare-up.
AI helped me discover some gentler stretches that target muscles rather than aggravate the sciatic nerve.
I've been utilizing AI a lot during the last year for research purposes. I've learned to trust but verify everything from health and recovery to the correct temperature to bake chicken thighs so they stay juicy (400° for 18-20 minutes, btw) to Bible verses on specific topics.
AI is helpful, but not infallible.
There are wrong and right ways to do everything, especially reading and studying the Bible.
Wrong Way: Think or pray about a certain issue. Grab your Bible. Flip through the pages. Randomly stop flipping pages and point to a verse. Believe God led you to this verse as guidance or an answer.
This is not "studying the Bible. It is using the Bible as a lazy fortune-telling mechanism.
Right Way: Pray for wisdom and understanding before you open your Bible. This puts you in a posture of welcoming and receiving God's guidance. Then open your Bible, but not randomly. Start using a structured study, perhaps even a Bible-in-a-Year format from a preacher or teacher you trust to be theologically correct. Or ask a more mature believer to recommend a study. Follow the study's daily reading suggestion.
After a few days, weeks or months, you will start to understand and digests the verses in a cohesive fashion. Uou will discover congruent threads on topics throughout God's Word. The more we study what has been, the more we understand the Scriptures in context with our own lives.
This consistency of Bible study often leads to how we glean God's guidance through His Word: it has sometimes been compared to a tapestry: God's weaving together the most intimate details of our lives (Psalm 139:1-2).
While we don't see the big picture yet and only glimpse the mess of the reverse thread-jumble, God already knows what the tapestry will look like through our submission, obedience and faith.
The Bible presents numerous interactions with individuals who had little to no prior knowledge of Him. These interactions resulted in profound life transformations.
These encounters often highlight the Lord's divine sovereignty and the power that personal revelation has had on redirecting human destiny:
OLD TESTAMENT
Moses and the Burning Bush (Exodus 3:4-6 NLT)
“When the Lord saw Moses coming to take a closer look, God called to him from the middle of the bush: 'Moses! Moses!' 'Here I am!' Moses replied. 'Do not come any closer,' the Lord warned. 'Take off your sandals, for you are standing on holy ground. I am the God of your father — the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.' When Moses heard this, he covered his face because he was afraid to look at God.”
Moses was living as a fugitive shepherd at this time after killing an Egyptian. God revealed His glory and sovereign character to Moses from the burning bush. Moses had no idea who was calling him or what was expected of him.
He used excuse after excuse why he was unsuitable for God's task. Yet this single encounter propelled him into the role of Israel's liberator that would be honored and remembered for centuries.
Gideon at the Winepress (Judges 6:11-14 NLT)
“Then the angel of the Lord came and sat beneath the great tree at Ophrah, which belonged to Joash of the clan of Abiezer. Gideon son of Joash was threshing wheat at the bottom of a winepress to hide the grain from the Midianites. The angel of the Lord appeared to him and said: 'Mighty hero, the Lord is with you!' 'Sir,' Gideon replied, 'if the Lord is with us, why has all this happened to us? And where are all the miracles our ancestors told us about? Didn’t they say, "The Lord brought us up out of Egypt"? But now the Lord has abandoned us and handed us over to the Midianites.' Then the Lord turned to him and said: 'Go with the strength you have, and rescue Israel from the Midianites. I am sending you!'”
Gideon's reply reveals how little he knew of this God who knew him. Yet within the same chapter, this cowering farmer was commissioned to lead an army of three hundred against thousands. Gideon's name became synonymous with divine deliverance.
NEW TESTAMENT
The Samaritan Woman at the Well (John 4:7,9-10, 39 NLT)
“Soon a Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said to her: 'Please give me a drink.” The woman was surprised, for Jews refuse to have anything to do with Samaritans. She said to Jesus: 'You are a Jew, and I am a Samaritan woman. Why are you asking me for a drink?' Jesus replied: 'If you only knew the gift God has for you and who you are speaking to, you would ask me, and I would give you living water.'......
“Many Samaritans from the village believed in Jesus because the woman had said, 'He told me everything I ever did!'”
This event happened early on in Jesus' ministry.
At first, she was stunned that this Jew would behave so socially-unacceptably towards her — a Samaritan woman — in broad daylight. After a while, she was convinced Jesus was the Messiah because of all this stranger knew about her. She told her whole village of the encounter and her entire village came to believe (John 4:39–42).
Mary Magdalene, Joanna and Susanna and their Evil Spirits/Diseases (Luke 8:1-3 NLT)
"Soon afterward Jesus began a tour of the nearby towns and villages, preaching and announcing the Good News about the Kingdom of God. He took his twelve disciples with him, along with some women who had been cured of evil spirits and diseases. Among them were Mary Magdalene, from whom he had cast out seven demons; Joanna, the wife of Chuza, Herod’s business manager; Susanna; and many others who were contributing from their own resources to support Jesus and his disciples.”
The Bible gives no account of the moment of these women's deliverances, but the fact that they followed Jesus faithfully from the beginning of his ministry to becoming some of the first witnesses of the resurrection indicates that their transformation was complete.
I believe that we are witnessing an epidemic of evil spirits in women's lives today. The "suicidal empathy" (as Gad Saad, author and behavioral scientist, calls it) and disappearance of maternal instincts and compassion is rampant among society.
Only a return to God in repentance can cleanse us from this evil scourge.
Zacchaeus, the wealthy tax collector (Luke 19:3-10 NLT)
“[Zacchaeus] tried to get a look at Jesus, but he was too short to see over the crowd. So he ran ahead and climbed a sycamore-fig tree beside the road, for Jesus was going to pass that way. When Jesus came by, he looked up at Zacchaeus and called him by name: 'Zacchaeus!' he said. 'Quick, come down! I must be a guest in your home today.' Zacchaeus quickly climbed down and took Jesus to his house in great excitement and joy. But the people were displeased: 'He has gone to be the guest of a notorious sinner,' they grumbled. Meanwhile, Zacchaeus stood before the Lord and said: 'I will give half my wealth to the poor, Lord, and if I have cheated people on their taxes, I will give them back four times as much!' Jesus responded: 'Salvation has come to this home today, for this man has shown himself to be a true son of Abraham. For the Son of Man came to seek and save those who are lost.'”
This reminds me of a tweet I saw yesterday:
Jesus isn't looking for perfect leaders. He is looking for obedience. And God looks at our hearts, not necessarily our actions.
Oppressor Saul Becomes Apostle Paul (Acts 9:1-6 NLT)
“Meanwhile, Saul was uttering threats with every breath and was eager to kill the Lord’s followers. So he went to the high priest. He requested letters addressed to the synagogues in Damascus, asking for their cooperation in the arrest of any followers of the Way he found there. He wanted to bring them — both men and women — back to Jerusalem in chains. As he was approaching Damascus on this mission, a light from heaven suddenly shone down around him. He fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to him: 'Saul! Saul! Why are you persecuting me?' 'Who are you, lord?' Saul asked. And the voice replied: 'I am Jesus, the one you are persecuting! Now get up and go into the city, and you will be told what you must do.'”
A devout Pharisee, Saul was willing to destroy all those who threatened his precious religiosity. (Sounds familiar.)
But the Lord saw Saul's tapestry differently from Saul's own weaving. God called him out. Saul had an experience that left him speechless, sightless (temporarily) and ultimately transformed into the consummate evangelist and apostle Paul.
Many sinners today can claim a "Road to Damascus" moment in their lives — a testimony that goes from wretched sinner to humble, faithful servant — in the split second of one unexplainable moment. But for the rest of us, we slowly become that beautiful, God-woven tapestry.
These accounts demonstrate that God often initiates transformative encounters based on His knowledge of the individual, regardless of their previous awareness or spiritual status.
Our mission is first to learn to trust the Lord with His tapestry design. He is the artist.
We are simply the thread-bearers.
Mush
SHARING THE GOSPEL
by Calvary Chapel FTL
Word of Mouth, Word of Truth
By Lisa Supp
“For you have heard of my former conduct in Judaism, how I persecuted the church of God beyond measure and tried to destroy it. And I advanced in Judaism beyond many of my contemporaries in my own nation, being more exceedingly zealous for the traditions of my fathers. But when it pleased God, who separated me from my mother’s womb and called me through His grace, to reveal His Son in me, that I might preach Him among the Gentiles, I did not immediately confer with flesh and blood.”—Galatians 1:13-16 (NKJV)
Word travels fast. In an age of instant messaging, it’s often swifter than we’d like. But back in the first century AD, they relied on a different kind of messenger—word of mouth. And the apostle Paul had become the talk of the town.
Many knew him as Saul, a Pharisee and hater of Christians. In the past, he created havoc in the church, breathing murderous threats against the disciples of Christ (Acts 8:3, 9:1). But as he penned the letter to the Galatia churches, people had come to know him as Paul, a bondservant of Christ. Some may have heard of his conversion through word of mouth, but chances are his personal testimony was the instrument God used to show people the transformation He made in his life.
Paul’s testimony in the above Scripture outlines his call to apostleship, which begins with a confession of pride before ending on a humbler note. It’s an unexpected testimony because he describes how his intelligence, his “advancement,” along with his zeal, was a snare to his relationship with God and his understanding of Him. Paul placed traditions over relationship, his zeal was misaligned, and both proved destructive. Jesus Himself cautioned the Pharisees against this consuming mindset by asking them, “Why do you break the commandment of God for the sake of your tradition?” (Matthew 15:3 ESV).
“But when it pleased God . . .” Now we see where Paul’s life was revolutionized. And this is what he wants his readers to fully grasp. It was the Father’s doing, His preemptive plan that took Paul down the Damascus Road. It was God’s wisdom and the Spirit of Jesus living inside him that gave him his credentials for apostleship. He didn’t need anyone to confirm it, he simply allowed Jesus to reveal Himself to him and followed the steps God placed in his path.
We all have skeletons in our closet—those things people might bring into question when we identify as being a follower of Jesus. And that’s totally perfect! Why? Because it gives us the same opportunity Paul had to explain who Jesus is and what He has done in our lives. And maybe this age of instant messaging is a good thing because word does travel fast, so let’s make it a good word. Let’s go and tell about our testimony of God’s saving grace in our lives. Amen?
DIG: What did Paul want to convey to his readers in this section of Scripture?
DISCOVER: What were the destructive qualities Paul experienced before he knew Jesus?
DO: Is there any misaligned zeal or traditional belief systems that are getting in the way of God’s path for you? If so, ask God to step in and lead you.
PRAYER:
Dear Lord,
Forgive my frustration at the inability to share your Word in a timely manner this morning. Give us all the patience to step back from inconveniences, breathe You in, and recognize You and Your work in the delays. Let us live more fully in Your control and beautiful design. In Jesus' name, Amen.