Divinely Appointed

"Then he turned to his disciples and said privately, 'Blessed are the eyes that see what you see. 24 For I tell you that many prophets and kings wanted to see what you see but did not see it, and to hear what you hear but did not hear it.'” Luke 10:23-24



I remember how hard I tried to upgrade my seat on a business trip to Honolulu, but could not. I prayed and called the airline and did everything I could… but my seat was fixed. Then, I sat down on the plane and a gal in her young 20s was there… eager to talk. As the trip went on, it turned out she was a Christian who had been in rebellion for the past several years and was on her way back to Honolulu to break up with her live-in, controlling, and abusive boyfriend. She had been home for Christmas and as the flight went on, she was afraid of what she would face. We talked…. we prayed…. and, well, I won’t know exactly what the Lord said through me to her, but I do know our travels were His plan.



It’s not uncommon for those of us who belong to Jesus to find ourselves in many situations that are ‘so coincidental’ that we later realize they were divinely appointed.



I hope you are starting to realize that about ministry. Are you seeing just glimpses of how the Lord may be using you or others in your group to speak truth, encouragement, conviction or support into each others’ lives. Divinely appointed!


This verse reminds me of how privileged we are to see things others don’t see… to share in an understanding that is divine… and just how privileged we are to enjoy fellowship with the Lord, who is the Living Word and His people…. And that is is so precious that prophets and kings (David? Solomon?) used to long for what we have…. but could not attain it.



The enemy wants to clutter our life, minimize our ministry and lie about God’s word and fellowship so that we lose our perspective of how precious a gift we have been given. This week, I am in refreshed in the greatness of His gifts to us and all He is doing in and through our groups… and the lessons we learn on Tuesday through our dedicated leader and teacher, Lina. Coincidence? No. Divinely Appointed!



Lord, I lift up my sisters in Christ to you… I pray we all are made aware in a new way of the preciousness of the fellowship we have in you… Refresh us in your word. Give us the flush of a newlywed bride as we adore you and treasure your love for us.. and those in our groups.

The Ultimate Accomplishment - Magnified Through You

Thank You God for Tuesday.

Monday was back-to-work for me. We are budgeting for next year’s expenses, including plans for professional development. I was researching grad schools and laughing to myself that I’m still planning what I want to be when I ‘grow up’… yes, trying to plan what I can do so I can someday retire from full time work and have a flexible enough schedule that I can pay bills, serve the Lord and help with grand kids. And, I may need a Masters for that!? I guess that is what needs to be done to remain marketable in an educated, competitive work force.

Our society is so accomplished and accomplishment oriented. My mom had a Masters degree. She got it when I was in High School. But when I was working again, she discouraged me from getting one, because of the toll it took. Now, that she is gone, her degree sits with other accomplishments from her life… in a special place in my basement.

I was reading Hebrews 9 yesterday and struck in a fresh way about the ULTIMATE ACCOMPLISHMENT of all time….when Jesus, as High Priest, ‘entered the Most Holy Place once for all BY HIS OWN BLOOD and obtained eternal redemption’ for mankind and ushered in a new covenant.

I’m sure there will be replays of this most sacred moment when we get to heaven….when Jesus entered the Most Holy Place for the very first time by his own blood. I have to wonder if that was when the temple curtain was torn from the top down? I’ll bet as we watch the ‘replay’ all heaven, earth and even creatures under the earth will break out in spontaneous worship and adoration of Jesus as we look on with an eternal grasp of its significance.

The part I love most about Christ’s Ultimate Accomplishment is that it wasn’t done to exalt himself or to showcase how great He was… instead it was accomplished through great sacrifice and suffering….with a motive of doing something very significant for a whole lot of somebody’s who were hopeless and helpless… and we were among them.

I also love the fact that Christ’s Ultimate Accomplishment brought new work… new life… and new meaning to our otherwise insignificant lives.

So I wanted to encourage you today, as you face another day, in a busy, Christmas season, to keep your focus and purpose stayed on Jesus. Love with His love and abide in His Strength and Humility... and as you do, take heart that the work you do for Him and the sacrifices you make for others... are all part of the His Ultimate Accomplishment that is being magnified through your life…. And by His grace, it will last!

Editor's note: I apologize that I have not been posting some of my work this year. I recently had a few friends ask about it.. so I'll try to round some of it up and post it. Watch facebook and twitter (suetomson)... and I'll get this updated before the year's end. Hope you are blessed.

The Ultimate Accomplishment--Magnified in You

Monday was back-to-work for me. And, we are budgeting for next year’s expenses, including plans for professional development. I was researching grad schools and laughing to myself that I’m still planning what I want to be when I ‘grow up’… yes, trying to plan what I can do so I can someday retire from full time work and have a flexible enough schedule that I can pay bills, serve the Lord and help with grand kids. And, I may need a Masters for that!? I guess that is what needs to be done to remain marketable in an educated, competitive work force.



Our society is so accomplished and accomplishment oriented. My mom had a Masters degree. She got it when I was in High School. But when I was working again, she discouraged me from getting one, because of the toll it took. Now, that she is gone, her degree sits with other accomplishments from her life… in a special place in my basement.



I was reading Hebrews 9 yesterday and struck in a fresh way about the ULTIMATE ACCOMPLISHMENT of all time….when Jesus, as High Priest, ‘entered the Most Holy Place once for all BY HIS OWN BLOOD and obtained eternal redemption’ for mankind and ushered in a new covenant.



I’m sure there will be replays of this most sacred moment when we get to heaven….when Jesus entered the Most Holy Place for the very first time by his own blood. Was that when the temple curtain was torn from the top down? I’ll bet as we watch the ‘replay’ all heaven, earth and even creatures under the earth will break out in spontaneous worship and adoration of Jesus as we look on with an eternal grasp of its signficance.



The part I love most about Christ’s Ultimate Accomplishment is that it wasn’t done to exalt himself or to showcase how great He was… instead it was accomplished through great sacrifice and suffering….with a motive of doing something very significant for a whole lot of somebody’s who were hopeless and helpless… and we were among them.



I also love the fact that Christ’s Ultimate Accomplishment brought new work… new life… and new meaning to our otherwise insignificant lives.

Lord I Can't Do This

Christian Encouragement For Women's Small Group Leaders If you’re like me, you are looking at the women’s needs in your group, and thinking ‘there is just no way I can help these ladies… I just don’t have the (wisdom, sensitivity, experience, biblical knowledge, patience, love, spiritual gifts, time) to help them…. I only have these meager resources… and they have so much going on.” If so, then we are right where Jesus wants us to be… in fact, we are in good company (with the twelve disciples, chosen from the crowds by Jesus after a night in prayer.) Remember Jesus’ words to the disciples when they wanted to send the crowd into the local towns for food? (Matt 14:15-17) He said, "They do not need to go away. You give them something to eat." Their response was: "We have here only five loaves of bread and two fish." Well, we know what happened. Jesus had the disciples group the people, he gave thanks, and directed the disciples to serve them. In the end, the equivalent of a stadium of people were well fed, both physically and spiritually, and everyone knew it was Jesus, the Son of God, who had blessed them with a miracle. So let's not hesitate to access His power to minister to our ladies and expect His miracles among us by asking Him to fill our service. Prayer: Lord, there are so many needs…. and so many limitations. Thank you for calling us to share your work, but we can’t do this. You know we are weak…and we can’t see where our ladies really are, much less know what they need. Help us. No... more that help us, do the work among us. As we come to serve you this week, adjust the thoughts and attitudes of our hearts away from the flesh and the world…. Help us to value the things you value… and help us to care for the ones you are concerned for… Show us who needs our attention… a word of encouragement… your love. You are the God who leaves the flock to rescue the lost lamb… please Lord do that ministry among us... I pray for my sisters in Christ… help us all to take the time to talk to you today about our inability to serve apart from your strength… and give us a boost in our faith to expect your love and power among us. And, Jesus, please, oh please, do a work so wonderful and glorious in the hidden places of hearts that ‘they forget the channel and see only you!’ Yes, Lord, please do miracles among us to the praise of Your glorious Name. Amen.

He is Using You

The work the Lord Jesus Christ is doing among us is so incredibly glorious! I was reminded of that this morning from Isaiah 61. For some reason in familiarity, I had limited the significance of the passage in Luke 4 where Jesus read from the scroll of Isaiah and said it was fulfilled in their presence… until I saw that passage afresh… inflamed with the total glory of its original context in Isaiah 61 (God is so gracious)… and I just had to share… because this is the work HE continues to do through the church. Yes, even through your ministry. Just look at the work Christ does through His people:


Shares good news with the poor
Binds up the brokenhearted
Sets captives free
Releases prisoners from darkness
We proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor
He is using you to comfort those who mourn and are grieving
He is using you to impart beauty from lives that are sometimes in ashes
... to replace misery with gladness
From the ladies mouths he will replace mourning and despair with praise…
And we will all display his spendour. Yes, Christ’s work among us is so glorious.

Did he have us in mind when the words of Isaiah 61:5-6:

Aliens will shepherd your flocks; foreigners will work your fields and vineyards.
And you will be called priests of the LORD, you will be named ministers of our God.

I often pushed those verses aside because of their reference to Christ’s second coming, but even Peter used them to reference the church. (1Pet2:9). Well, I hope you can join me… and the saints of the past and of the future in rejoicing over these verses…

10 I delight greatly in the LORD; my soul rejoices in my God.
For he has clothed me with garments of salvation and arrayed me in a robe of righteousness,
as a bridegroom adorns his head like a priest, and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels.

11 For as the soil makes the sprout come up and a garden causes seeds to grow,
so the Sovereign LORD will make righteousness and praise spring up before all nations.


Lord, please open our eyes as we consider afresh the work you are doing through us as you minister through us. Apart from you, we can do nothing. Help us to stand… having done all, to stand.

The Parable of the Scawny Tadpole

The Parable of the Tadpole

I heard a great message by John MacArthur last night.... talking about feeding on the Word. He was saying how inadequate it is to feed on God’s Word once a week and equated it with eating dinner once a week... He added that in order to grow, we need to take in food and we need to digest it and we need to use it.... In other words, we need to read the word, work it through our soul to the point that we speak it back to someone and then we need to let it be exercised out in our life.

Reminds me of a tadpole my kids won at a fair one year. We brought it home, put it in a bowl of water, but my daughter hardly fed it. We didn't have the heart to toss it, so she would remember - maybe once a week - and he kept hanging on. He never grew. Well... I have girls. Then, about a year later, we were visiting my brother's family in Wisconsin... and they mentioned they would adopt it.... so we said goodbye to the scrawny tadpole... and off he went to his new family in Kenosha.

We thought that chapter of our life was over... until one day I got a call from my sis-in-law telling me the tadpole kept her up all night. 'What? All he did was swim around like a goldfish," I thought. But... she made the mistake of feeding him. Hahaha. And, he grew! He became a frog.... and started to croak at night. HAHAHA! She apparently was pretty scared when his middle-of-the-night calls for friends penetrated the darkness of her home. I told her she should have never started feeding him.

No matter how many times we have read the Bible or how many Bible verses we have memorized, if we are not taking the Word in fresh...and digesting it (by working it through) and using it...by articulating and then living it.... WE WILL NOT GROW.

Here's another thought from the parable of the tadpole... it has to do with the Nature of his growth.

Think about the changes that tadpole went through once he started eating regularly. First he started to grow bigger. He grew arms and legs with feet, and his skin changed. He lost his swimmers.... AND.... the environment of his existence changed. He was alienated from the deep waters of his early years. Yes, he was still IN the pond, but he was not OF the pond. (so to speak).... And, he developed a voice that he never had before, so he could make a joyful noise. (He never had that before.)

When we feed on the Word and digest it, it becomes fuel for our body and is stored up in our soul. It changes our form. We grow patience that we never had before. We expand to the point that we can love someone…. or forgive someone who was unkind to us. We develop limbs to serve with gifts we never had before. Our eyes not only begin to recognize His Works, but we develop a depth of understanding to comprehend the breadth of His Wonders. Finally, we find a voice to articulate our Praise to Him. And, the more we grow, the more we are alienated from the world and the more we long to breathe the new fresh air of eternity. We are truly new creations. (2 Cor 5:17)…. aliens and strangers in the world (1 Peter 2:11).

Aren’t these wonderful reasons to want to eat His Word and grow? But I have one more motivating reason to consider…. When we assimilate the Word in our lives…. We are partaking of Jesus, the Living Word. John 1:1 says: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word Was God..." Jesus IS the Living Word! When we feed on the Word, digesting to the point that we are exercising it through our lives, we are assimilating Jesus… attaining to His fullness and “administering God’s grace in its various forms” (1 Pet 4:10)… Make no mistake about it… it is Jesus… the Living Word the Son of God…living through you. And, that is why we are the fragrance of Christ to those who have eyes to see Him, but the smell of death to those are perishing. (2 Cor 2:14-16)

Philippians 3:12 says, “Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me.”

Romans 8:11 says, “And, if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit, who lives in you.”

One last point… All of us are in the same boat when it comes to our struggle with sin. In fact, in the teaching I heard by John MacArthur about feeding on the Word, he said the older and more mature we get the more we see our flaws and how far we have to go. So, don’t be surprised by the sin you see… Give it the weight it deserves. We hate the sin. We grieve over it. We are ashamed of it…. But we are NOT hopeless. We rejoice in Jesus who is setting us free. Isn’t this what Paul said in Romans 7:18-25?

“I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it. So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God's law; but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God—through Jesus Christ our Lord!” Rom 7:17-25

Let’s embrace the opportunities to grow and attain to the fullness of Jesus.