Michelle Lesley

Good Friday Freebies

April 22, 2011May 2, 2011 Michelle Lesley

I’m into couponing. Not pathological couponing like some of the people you see on TV, but enough to do well by my family’s budget. So on Facebook, I belong to a lot of couponing pages that tell me where the deals are. They also alert me to free samples and give-aways at various businesses.

Today is Earth Day. My coupon blogs are letting me know that I could go to this store and get a free re-useable grocery tote. I could take my favorite LSU coffee cup into that cafe and get a free cup of coffee. I love getting freebies.

But nowhere in my Newsfeed have I seen anybody giving away any freebies for Good Friday, which also happens to be today.

Well. That’s about to change.

In honor of Good Friday, I want to tell you about the most amazing freebie you could ever hope to score– it’ll cost you nothing.

You can find it at the foot of the cross.

It’s forgiveness…
                              grace…
                                          love…
                                                    joy…
                                                            peace…
                                                                         adoption…
                                                                                           life.

And it’s all free. Paid for with the infinitely invaluable blood of the spotless Lamb of God, Jesus.

But it’s going to cost you everything.

How? If those things have already been paid for, how could there be a cost?

Because you can’t have everything. When you get married, you have to turn your back on the single life. If you decide to become a star athlete, you give up your right to live as a couch potato.

And when you come to Jesus for a new life, the old one has to go. All of it. Everything.

Make it a truly Good Friday. Come to Jesus. Turn your back on your way of doing things, your sin, what you want, and reach out and accept the gift of cleansing and forgiveness and life He’s offering you.

You’ll never get a better offer.

Church, Faith, Sin

Jesus Wept

April 18, 2011April 9, 2025 Michelle Lesley

It was hardly a day for tears.

It was a day that should have been the high point of His ministry.

As soon as He was approaching, near the descent of the Mount of Olives, the whole crowd of the disciples began to praise God joyfully with a loud voice for all the miracles which they had seen, shouting: “BLESSED IS THE KING WHO COMES IN THE NAME OF THE LORD; Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!”
Luke 19:37-38

After three years of hard work and harder prayer, miracles, and countless hours of teaching, the people were finally getting it. They recognized that Jesus was the Messiah. His people were giving Him the praise He was due.

Or were they?

When He approached Jerusalem, He saw the city and wept over it,
Luke 19:41

What’s this? This isn’t part of the Palm Sunday pageant. In every Bible, commentary, and Sunday School lesson, this scene is called “The Triumphal Entry”. Why is Jesus over there crying? What’s that He’s saying?

If you had known in this day, even you, the things which make for peace! But now they have been hidden from your eyes. “For the days will come upon you when your enemies will throw up a barricade against you, and surround you and hem you in on every side, and they will level you to the ground and your children within you, and they will not leave in you one stone upon another, because you did not recognize the time of your visitation.
Luke 19:42-44

Once again, Jesus sees through the outer display of behavior and lays the heart of the people bare.

They’re praising Him because He multiplied bread and fish.

Because He healed diseases.

Because they think their Messiah has come to set them free from Roman oppression.

They don’t get it after all. And that’s why He’s weeping.

They don’t get that Jesus didn’t come to give us stuff. They don’t get that the bondage of sin is far worse than enslavement to Rome. They don’t get that taking up a cross and following Jesus will get them something far sweeter and deeper and more satisfying than all the miracles and riches and healings in the world. It will get them Jesus. And that’s what He wants to give them.

And as I watch my Savior’s heart break over His people so many years ago, I wonder– is He still weeping today?

Every Sunday, we, Jesus’ people, offer Him loud Hosannas. We lift our palms in celebration of His goodness and blessings. We sing out His praise. We kneel before Him.

But is He weeping?

Does He see through our outward behavior to a heart that just wants worldly trinkets from Him? Does He see a church that draws near to Him with its lips but whose heart is far from Him? A stiff-necked people who deign to physically bow the knee but not crucify the will?

Are we the new Jerusalem?

Faith, Gratitude, Prayer

Welfare Check

March 30, 2011September 3, 2024 Michelle Lesley

“Why can’t You just give me this so I don’t have to ask anymore?”

I know. It sounds like a pretty spiritually immature thing to pray. But to be honest, I was weary of taking this ongoing problem to the Lord every time it reared its ugly head. Why couldn’t He just fix it permanently so I didn’t have to deal with it anymore?

Because I don’t like dealing with problems. They make me uncomfortable. I don’t like being uncomfortable. I’d rather God would just make the problems go away and then everything would be blue skies and rainbows for me all the time. Just the way I like it.

Even the most liberal Liberal has heard a story or two about the welfare system that made him raise an eyebrow. As a radical, right-wing, uptight, Bible-thumping, evangelical Conservative, I’ll admit I’ve groused about the problems with the system a time or two. I think one of the things that tends to bother most people about some of the stories we hear is the sense of entitlement a few (certainly not all) welfare recipients can develop. It’s as though they are owed a nice lifestyle without having to lift a finger. They take what they receive for granted, and whatever they are given is never enough. They always want more. Nicer. Better. No gratitude, just gimme.

Hmmm…
That hits uncomfortably close to home.

You see, I’m living in God’s welfare system.

When was the last time I had to ask God for air to breathe? Or to make my heart beat? Or for clean water to drink, bathe, and do laundry in? Or food for my table?

When was the last time I even thought about the fact that I can think clearly enough to thank Him that I don’t have a psychiatric disorder or a brain injury? How often do I get down on my knees and praise God that I can get back up again? I can walk. I can talk. I can see. I can hear.

God has blessed my family with six beautiful, healthy children, four of whom I was able to conceive, carry, and bear, relatively complication free.

I have a wonderful, godly husband and great father to my children who isn’t a drug addict or a gambling addict, or an alcoholic, or a workaholic, or unfaithful or abusive to me. We live in a nice house, on a nice street, in a nice safe neighborhood.

God has blessed me with an extended family as well as a church family who both love me in spite of my numerous faults. He’s even given me the humbling honor of being able to serve Him in ministry.

But I always want more. Nicer. Better. No gratitude, just gimme.

Paul said in 2 Corinthians 12:7-9 that God gave him a thorn in the flesh to keep him from exalting himself. Frequently our focus in that passage is on speculating as to what, exactly, the “thorn” was. We fail to notice in the next verse that that thorn kept Paul coming back to the Lord, crying out to Him again and again. And that’s right where Paul needed to be.

Sometimes that’s one of the purposes of our problems. God has blessed us with so many things we can forget we need Him. Until there’s a problem. And that problem can drive us back to crying out to Him in dependence in a way that no blessing ever could.

So maybe it’s time for a little welfare check:

1. Have you thanked God lately –really thanked Him- for all the blessings we tend to take for granted – food, clothing, freedom, a vehicle, etc.? Do you live as though God owes you these things?

2. In what ways do problems tend to drive you towards, or away from, God?

3. What does your prayer life look like when everything is going well in your life? When problems arise? How can you apply Philippians 4:6 in your prayer life?

Entertainment, Marriage, Movies

“No Greater Love”– Movie Review

March 21, 2011May 2, 2011 Michelle Lesley

I stumbled across this movie at my local library a few days ago, and, boy am I glad I did.

Jeff and Heather were the “lucky ones”. Best friends from childhood, high school sweethearts, and married by 22, they were inseperable soul mates.

After the birth of her first and only child, Heather Baker (Danielle Bisutti) fell into a deep depression. Hopelessly lost, she did the unthinkable– she abandoned her husband and her infant son –and vanished. Jeff Baker (Anthony Tyler Quinn) was forced to raise their son Ethan as a single father.

Ten years after his wife’s disapperance, Jeff is finally ready to move on and is on the verge of marrying his new girlfriend. His world, however, is dramatically rocked when Heather shockingly reappears in the most unusual place.
(From the “No Greater Love” web site.)

If you liked the movie Fireproof, you’ll almost certainly like No Greater Love. The acting is much better, and so is the production quality. Of course, that’s to be expected when a movie is made by a professional studio hiring professional actors rather than by a church using mostly church members as actors. (That’s certainly not a dig at Sherwood Baptist Church. They did a fantastic and admirable job with both Fireproof and Facing the Giants –both of which you should see, if you haven’t already –it’s just that professional studios and production companies have the resources and budget to put together a more polished product.)

The storyline of No Greater Love is unique and endearing, but believable. The only thing I found to be a bit of a stretch was, well, how do I say this without giving too much away? Let’s just put it like this: It can take a long time and a lot of difficult, painful emotional work for the most Godly among Christians to forgive someone who has wounded them unfathomably. Generally speaking, one would expect that, for a similarly wounded unsaved person, forgiveness would probably come much more slowly and with even greater difficulty. But I suppose there are exceptions to the rule.

Theologically, this movie is right on target. Director, Brad Silverman, says in his commentary on the movie that his goal was to be as theologically correct as possible, and I think he nailed it. To be honest, one of the reasons I picked up this movie was to see if there were any false doctrine or theology in it, so I was on the lookout for Biblical error. None to be found as far as I could tell.

Does No Greater Love overtly share the Gospel, spelling it out step by step? No. That’s your job and mine, not the job of a movie. I think, primarily, this is an entertaining movie which reinforces Biblical truth that Christian viewers (should) already know. But it would also be a great movie to share with unsaved friends as a conversation starter for sharing the Gospel in detail.

For more information on No Greater Love, visit the web site and “like” the Facebook page.

No Greater Love is available for purchase at:
Lionsgate Studios
ChristianBook.com
Amazon.com