LIBERTY FOR THE CAPTIVES - by Russ Fochler

Last Saturday, i shared about my favorite scripture: Isaiah 61:1-2.  Jesus stood up and read from this section of the scroll of  Isaiah in his hometown of Nazareth.  When he finished reading this passage, Jesus sat down and said “Today this Scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.”  (Luke 4:18-20) Jesus was expressing this claim: “That which the prophet Isaiah prophesied in this scripture is now set in place.  I am the One Isaiah wrote about.”  Such an extraordinary statement!  The Spirit of Yahweh at home in a human being!    On Saturday, I did not get to this part of the Luke 4 passage: “To proclaim liberty to the captives And recovery of sight to the blind, To set at liberty those who are oppressed;  Luke 4:18b NKJV The Hebrew word for liberty pronounced der-ore’ means: a flowing, free run, liberty.  This connects back to when God spoke to Moses about providing for the year of Jubilee: 8 ‘And you shall count seven sabbaths of years for yourself, seven times seven years; and the time of the seven sabbaths of years shall be to you forty-nine years. 9 Then you shall cause the trumpet of the Jubilee to sound on the tenth day of the seventh month; on the Day of Atonement you shall make the trumpet to sound throughout all your land. 10 And you shall consecrate the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty throughout all the land to all its inhabitants. It shall be a Jubilee for you; and each of you shall return to his possession, and each of you shall return to his family.   Leviticus 25:8-10 NKJV Hebrews who had sold themselves as indentured servants or slaves were set free at the beginning of the year of Jubilee.  And if land belonging to a family had been sold - it was returned to the family.  It was time of restoration and return for people and land!   Father God wants each of us - his children - to be free and have what we need to thrive.  To be free from physical enslavement, as well as emotional and mental enslavement - no longer controlled or imprisoned by fear and the lies of the enemy.  Jesus came to rescue us from Satan’s cruel, oppressive realm that runs on fear of punishment, lies, shame, guilt, and life-sapping ways to numb our pain.   I encourage you to watch or listen to the talk I gave last Saturday night.  Besides savoring the good news from Isaiah 61:1-2 and Luke 14:18, I asked Susan to help me read notes from an inner healing/deliverance session. I shared this to give you a glimpse of how Jesus heals our heart and sets us free.  Jesus is so good!  Click here for my talk, starting at about 1:36 And I invite you to join me this coming Saturday February 25th at 3 PM to Engage with Jesus, Father, and Holy Spirit to welcome more of the freedom and heart-healing they have for us.  Location: Parkway Fellowship in Dublin. With joyful gratitude, Russ Fochler

LOVING LIKE JESUS DOES - By Brent Lokker

Jesus gave us one new command: “I want you to love each other in the very same way that I love you.” (John 13:34)   This is not complicated, just impossible. Well, not exactly impossible since “with Christ, all things are possible,” which really gets to the crux and the answer of how we love others like Jesus does. The perfect love of Christ in and through us does it. The life of Christ in us is the true vine that sprouts branches of the very same substance which produces exquisite fruit—mostly love—just so long as we don’t wander from the only source of our life. This love is the fruit of the Tree of Life (Jesus) in the garden of Eden we were always meant to eat of as we enjoy deep intimate connection with our heavenly Father. The very same Father who “was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself and no longer counting anyone’s sins against them.” (2 Cor 5:19)   Is it possible to wander from this source of life? While nothing can separate us from the love of Christ, we can act in an independent way when we try to do life on our own terms (the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil) instead of enjoying our intimate connection. That independence is the work of our selfish ego, that we also call the flesh, trying to run the show. When our flesh tries to be the director of our own play, it gets U-G-L-Y! In case you weren’t aware, our flesh really likes to be right…as in all the time. And this means that someone else is necessarily wrong and our flesh wants the other person to know all about it. Other ways of saying ‘right vs. wrong’ is ‘who’s in and who’s out?’ or ‘who’s us and who’s not us?’   But in Christ, there’s only us! “There is no longer Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male or female. For you are all one in Christ Jesus.” (Galatians 3:28). When Jesus included all of us in his death and resurrection (Romans 6:10, 1 Corinthians 15:22), he ended all the ways our flesh wants to make ourself superior or to make another feel inferior in any way. This includes ethnicity, social class and even gender. Leveraging or putting others in their place is the world’s way and not the way of our Father’s kingdom.   In another passage, Paul makes a similar point: Where there was previously a hostility between Jews and Gentiles, Jesus made peace by creating in himself one new people from the two groups, reconciling both groups to God by means of his death on the cross, thus ending our hostility toward each other which was put to death. (Ephesians 2:14-16)   Did you see how this is something Jesus accomplished?   So, how do you love like Jesus? Instead of redoubling your efforts to try to love other people, you are invited to surrender to the person of Jesus within you and allow his love to change your heart first, flowing through you more and more unhindered. Then, you will have a sincere love for others with a love you didn’t even know you had! By surrendering to his Spirit and by agreeing that he already took your flesh/selfish ego to the cross, his life in you looks more and more like a very familiar description of love that we could accurately rephrase like this:   “Christ in me is patient and kind; Christ in me is not jealous or boastful;  Christ in me is not arrogant or rude. Christ in me does not insist on its own way; Christ in me is not irritable or resentful; Christ in me does not rejoice at wrong but rejoices in the right. Christ in me bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Christ in me never ends. His love for me and through me never fails!” 1 Cor 13:4-8 (based on RSV)   Take some time right now to entrust your heart to Jesus and surrender to his goodness in you. Invite Holy Spirit to lead you and to show you when your selfish ego/flesh tries to run the show. Now comes repentance: “I choose your Spirit to lead instead, Lord—your life in me—because I trust you to usher me into the freedom you promised!”

Grasping God's GIGANTIC Love - by Clayton Jung

Eph 3:16-19 (NIV)  I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. In these verses, Paul offers a great prayer about God’s love filling our hearts. And once while reading this passage, an image came to mind about a big satellite antenna (like the one below).   Just like this antenna can pick up signals, I could picture my heart receiving more of God’s love. And here are some other insights God showed about this analogy: God’s love is gigantic and all around, just like the antenna picks up from all the vast expanse of invisible waves surrounding it. The adjectives “wide and long and high and deep” (v18) painted a picture of me being fully surrounded, and right in the middle, of His love. “HE may strengthen you with power through his Spirit” (v16): HE strengthens and HE fills my heart with more of His love. I used to think I have to strive and try making my heart tune more into God, like the antenna tuning into just the right frequency. However He showed it’s the other way around. It’s like God is at every frequency, and I mainly just have to turn the antenna “on” (i.e. open my heart to Him) and discover what His love is already saying to me! One meaning of “grasp” (v18) means “to understand”, and “to know” (v19) can mean “practically, through personal experience”. So God is the One who helps me to more fully understand & experience His love through my life’s highs and lows. Also, another meaning of “grasp” is “to desperately cling to”, and on Saturday, I shared a story of how He helped me see and feel His healing love during a desperate time in my life.  Besides the picture of this satellite antenna that helped me to receive God’s love in that tough time, He also used other means to speak to me, like: During a counseling session, I got a picture of sitting with Jesus on a garden bench that felt so real.  I could feel His love and comfort relieving some painful memories. Through worship songs. For instance, while singing “Take Courage”, particular lyrics felt deeply meaningful, like “He’s in the waiting…He's never failing” Whether you’re seeking a deeper understanding & experience of God’s love out of heartfelt desire or out of pain & desperation, I pray you’ll be able to  Pause and find a quiet time to open your heart to God Find hope that He’s all around you and already reaching out to you Receive His special message of love to help in any area of need in your life That special message could be a timely word of encouragement from a loved one, or a Bible verse or worship song whose meaning takes on sudden significance, or a mental image that speaks to your situation, or maybe you’ll discover a fresh, creative way God is encouraging you. May you find in better ways how God is helping you see and hear His encouragement today! This coming Saturday, February 11, 2023, at 3:00-4:30 PM, we'll meet before church to explore further about some different ways God might be speaking to you, helping you to understand & experience more of His gigantic love. With His Blessings, Clayton

TREAT STRANGERS AS SAINTS - by Karena Lout

Several years ago I was helping with a presentation about human trafficking at a high school in Oakland. A survivor who used to attend the school was sharing her very vulnerable story of being trafficked. As she was sharing, a group of guys started making fun of her, yelling obscenities and calling her horrible names. The Mama bear in me got really angry and all I could think about was how I would tell them how wrong they were after the presentation. But surprisingly, God began to soften my heart. Afterward, I approached the “ringleader” of the group and began to tell him, “You’re so much better than what you just did to that young woman. Maybe no one has ever told you this before, but I believe in you and I know one day you will see who you truly are.” Tears began to fill his eyes and he gave me a hug.   At times it can be easy to see what we don’t like, what we don’t agree with in those around us. Before you know it, we’ve built a case against them that we believe proves our opinions. If others agree with us, it helps justify our feelings. God recently began to show me the case He’s built for all mankind: We are created in His image and likeness, we are all His sons and daughters, every person on the earth is His treasure regardless of their mistakes and poor choices.   HONOR:  Accurately acknowledging someone’s God-given value.     Romans 12:13 (Mirror) “Purpose with resolve to treat strangers as saints; pursue and embrace them with fondness as friends on equal terms of fellowship. Make yourself useful in the most practical way possible.” Vs. 16 “Esteem everyone with the same respect; no one is more important than the other. Associate yourself with the lowly than with the lofty. Do not distance yourself from others in your own mind.”   There is no hierarchy in the kingdom. The more we see each person’s God-given value; that we are all equals, we will begin to see that we are all more alike than we are different. What became evident when I spoke to the young man who angered me at that high school is that I wouldn’t be able to speak into anyone’s life that I am too busy judging. My prayer is that Jesus would continue to show you how much value He has for you and that you would see it in all those around you.   With Love, Karena