Welcome fellow sojourners to The Saturday Newsletter! If you missed last week you can check it out here. This is the go-to Saturday morning read to encourage and refresh you for the journey ahead. Make sure to subscribe to our emails below to get it sent straight to your inbox.
This newsletter is for the sojourners. The ones weary on the dirt road. The thirsty in need of a drink from the wells of living water.
It makes me laugh as I write these newsletters because they are written in such weakness. I am writing out of my own longing for God’s Word to satisfy me.
I had this thought lately: God’s Word has to be enough.
If His Word isn’t enough, what will be? Money? Medicine? Science? A person? An opportunity?
Jesus makes it clear that it is faith that saves us. It is faith that has to lead us. There are moments of tangible confirmation of God’s Word, but most of the time it’s faith.
Jesus asks this question in Luke 18: “When the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?”
I wonder if this is all He is looking for. Not our discipline or our talents, but faith.
Jesus, lead us to your Word being our enough.
Enjoy this week’s newsletter.
Whether following You takes me to prison or the palace Find me faithful In both, find praise on my lips.
There is a real cost to knowing God. There is a real cost to discipleship.
It is easy to only have a shallow relationship with God where He loves you, He loves you, He loves you, He helps you, He comforts you, He favors you. But what do we do when He breaks you?
As I was reading about Joseph, the son of Jacob, I realized he went from the pit, to the palace, to the prison, to being in charge over the whole providence of Egypt. In every season God’s love and call did not waver over his life.
And Joseph’s master took him and put him into the prison, the place where the king’s prisoners were confined, and he was there in prison. But the LORD was with Joseph and showed him steadfast love and gave him favor in the sight of the keeper of the prison. (Gen. 39:20-21)
Even in prison, God’s love and favor surrounded him. Love is only matured through trials. Love is matured through testing.
I am convinced mature love is the most beautiful thing God created. Perhaps the greatest display of this love was the cross. We see the way Jesus trusted God although He had never felt more forsaken than on that wretched tree. My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? (Mt. 27:46)
Jesus had to believe by faith in His Father’s love. During the darkest hour, He had to know His Father was going to see Him through to the other side.
In the situations you are facing today— there is another side.
God’s steadfast love has never left us. Even in the pit, His love is there. When He takes us to palaces of promotion, His love is there. In prison, His love is there. When He entrusts us to govern over the providence, His love is there. It is never changing. It is unending.
May we find this love on the narrow way. May we know that our hard circumstances are not a reflection of wavering love. Trials are a furnace where mature love is forged. The greatest beauty ever known is on the other side.
GENESIS 3:6-7, 13-15 NKJV
So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree desirable to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate. She also gave to her husband with her, and he ate. Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves coverings…
And the Lord God said to the woman, “What is this you have done?”
The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.”
So the Lord God said to the serpent:
“Because you have done this,
You are cursed more than all cattle,
And more than every beast of the field;
On your belly you shall go,
And you shall eat dust
All the days of your life.
And I will put enmity
Between you and the woman,
And between your seed and her Seed;
He shall bruise your head,
And you shall bruise His heel.”
Between your seed and her Seed. The story begins with a seed. The Seed of Eve and the seed of Satan. Its first fulfillment was on the cross when Jesus came so low that He allowed Satan to wound His flesh. Although the Messiah would be bruised, Satan would be crushed.
The complete fulfillment of this prophecy is at the end of the age when Jesus takes victory over death (forever). He destroys the Antichrist’s armies as they gather around Jerusalem. He then binds Satan in prison for a thousand years, only to release him into the lake of fire afterward.1 This is the ultimate skull-crushing.
All of this is centered around the land God promised to Abraham from the very beginning. God’s plan of redemption was already in motion before Adam and Eve left the garden.
Jesus was the Word with God in the beginning. He is the Seed of the woman, born of a virgin, who crushes the serpent. He is the Word made flesh that meets John the Baptist in the wilderness. He is The Word of God that wages war on His enemies in Revelation 19. The story of 2 seeds is the story of Jesus.
MARK 4:1-9, 14-20
Again he began to teach beside the sea. And a very large crowd gathered about him, so that he got into a boat and sat in it on the sea, and the whole crowd was beside the sea on the land. And he was teaching them many things in parables, and in his teaching he said to them: “Listen! Behold, a sower went out to sow. And as he sowed, some seed fell along the path, and the birds came and devoured it. Other seed fell on rocky ground, where it did not have much soil, and immediately it sprang up, since it had no depth of soil. And when the sun rose, it was scorched, and since it had no root, it withered away. Other seed fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked it, and it yielded no grain. And other seeds fell into good soil and produced grain, growing up and increasing and yielding thirtyfold and sixtyfold and a hundredfold.” And he said, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear.” …
The sower sows the word. And these are the ones along the path, where the word is sown: when they hear, Satan immediately comes and takes away the word that is sown in them. And these are the ones sown on rocky ground: the ones who, when they hear the word, immediately receive it with joy. And they have no root in themselves, but endure for a while; then, when tribulation or persecution arises on account of the word, immediately they fall away. And others are the ones sown among thorns. They are those who hear the word, but the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches and the desires for other things enter in and choke the word, and it proves unfruitful. But those that were sown on the good soil are the ones who hear the word and accept it and bear fruit, thirtyfold and sixtyfold and a hundredfold.”
The sower sows the word. The Word of God is the seed. It is a small seed the world overlooks but contains the weight of eternity. The process of the Word growing inside of us is well despised by our flesh. It is war for this seed to take root and grow to maturity.
The kingdom of God comes in the container of a seed.
When we contend for this seed to grow, we are forced to make decisions we never had to make before. The rocks are exposed that are prohibiting depth in our walk with God. We watch as the birds come to peck and annoy. The glory of riches becomes all the more enticing. The sun adds heat to our lives and removes the comforts we once relied on.
All we see is every hindrance to this little seed growing.
Oh, how much easier it is to let the birds keep pecking. How difficult to uproot the things of this world.
We must fight through them. We must choose faith by believing this seed is worth it.
If that one seed lays hold of deep soil and nourishment from living water—how much fruit could it bear? Thirtyfold, sixtyfold, hundredfold. There is no limit on the fruit of eternity. It is unending beauty grown straight from God’s garden, costly and refined.
God is looking. He is not looking for the radically disciplined or talented, but for the one who sees the value of the seed. He is looking for the one who sees the treasure it contains. The treasure that is worth buying the whole field.
Holy Spirit, show us this worth. Show us that your kingdom is worth the fight. Show us it is worth our lives.
And now for the doodle of the week! Last week the drawing was from Luke 24:32 (but more like Luke 24:25-32). Go back to last week’s newsletter to see the doodle!
PSALM 1
Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers; but his delight is in the law of the LORD, and on his law he meditates day and night. He is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither. In all that he does, he prospers. The wicked are not so, but are like chaff that the wind drives away. Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous; for the LORD knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish.
He is like a tree planted by the streams. Every tree starts with a seed. The center of the Psalmist’s vision is to become like a tree. It is the entrance into all Psalms.
A tree is planted, rooted, and able to withstand the storms of this life. It is day and night meditation and obedience to the Word of God that separates the way of the wicked from the way of the righteous. We choose the way we walk. It is by the counsel we listen to and the company we keep.
If all we do is cultivate our life vision through social media or what others around us are doing, we are feeding our flesh more than we are feeding our Spirit. There is a path that will perish with the wicked. It is fickle, ever-changing, and led by ambitions centered around us and the life we want to create.
The Psalmist discovered a secret early on.
There is greater satisfaction in fulfilling God’s desires than in pursuing our own.
Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths. Be not wise in your own eyes; fear the LORD, and turn away from evil. It will be healing to your flesh and refreshment to your bones. (Prov. 3:5-8)
We become the well that we drink from. We need vision for the tree. The tree that starts as a tiny seed.
A great book I have been enjoying is Sinai to Zion by Joel Richardson. This is not a light read for sure. It is more of a “season long” read. It expands on themes that were mentioned today, all culminating into the return of Jesus at the end of the age. I love particularly Joel’s emphasis on the betrothal and marriage that happened on Mount Sinai. I have never heard many teachings on that!
Send us any of your “Jesus” recommendations at intheupcoming@gmail.com. We would love to hear them!
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Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God. (Matt. 4:4)
See Revelation 19-20
I am grateful to receive this Word!
Resilient by John Eldredge is practical for replenishing our reserves.
So awesome Ava!!!