Mimu's Message.com

from Dec 29, 2002:

I’m sick. I have a vicious cold that has me on the couch for the second day now. Due to headache and general discomfort, it is somewhat difficult to sit here and write, much less think, so I’ve decided to do Mimu’s Message a little differently this week. God has often been called “the great physician.” He heals both our physical ills and our spiritual ones (our sins). So I’ve decided to list a few healings—physical ones—that Jesus performed while he was here on earth. Enjoy!

- Matthew 8:2-4 Jesus heals a man with leprosy
- Matthew 8:5-13 Jesus heals a centurion servant without even going to his house
- Matthew 8:20-22 A woman with internal bleeding is healed by touching Jesus’s cloak
- Mark 2:3-12 Jesus heals a paralyzed man
- Mark 3:3-5 Jesus heals a man’s “leprous” hand… and on the Sabbath! (that was a no-no, according to the Pharisees)
- Luke 4:38-39 Jesus heals Peter’s mother-in-law
- Luke 13:10-14 Jesus heals a crippled woman… on the Sabbath again.
- John 5:2-9 Jesus heals a lame man
- John 9:1-8 Jesus heals a blind man

I hope these passages are an encouragement to you of Jesus’s power and love. I’m headed back to the couch, I’ll see you later!

God Bless!
~Mimu

Lauren D. // 3:35 PM

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from Dec 22, 2002:

Alright, Let’s get down to business here.

You may have noticed that my messages over the last few weeks have been… repetitive. My point has been “Jesus loves you,” and it’s true, he does love you; but that’s not the only thing that I want to say in Mimu’s Message. So now I’m taking a step forward, a step out of the “comfort zone.” I don’t like to use a cliché here, but if I don’t get a little deeper, then I won’t have done what I’ve set out to do.

So here goes. Now, I’ll be honest with you, I really don’t know how to write this week’s message. It isn’t warm and fuzzy, but here’s the deal: even once we are Christians, we are still neck-deep in the mire of our humanity. We will never get everything right. We will sin until we end our lives on Earth. People just can’t be good. Romans 3:23 says so. True, God will always forgive us, but our sin will always be there to drag us down. The thought can really be sickening… Paul felt it, and he talks about it in Romans 7:14-25. Here’s a highlight from verse 15:

“For what I want to do [the right thing] I do not do, but what I hate to do [sin] I do.”

We often fall prey to our sinful nature and it’s terrible. That’s the only thing I really know I should say here. I think the important thing is just to realize that we are broken and then do something about it. Although within ourselves we are powerless, defective creatures; we are not hopeless. The only way out of the pit we are in is with help from God. He is always willing to rescue us, even though we fall a million times and still turn away from his help. We can’t be perfect. The sin, the depravity, lingers within us always, but we don’t have to sink endlessly into it. If we depend on God every moment, pray to him with devotion that he may keep us from falling, He will not fail us. Our God knows no failure. This reliance upon God is difficult. It’s somewhat of a paradox: we need God to rescue us from our sin but our sin prevents us from reaching out to him sometimes.

I’ll openly admit I have zero expertise in this area. I try to be self-sufficient ad usually let myself down. Besides the threat of losing, there is the simple fact that resisting God is foolish and sinful. It may seem hypocritical of me to preach something that I don’t practice well, but I’m saying this for all our benefits. I need to hear this as much as, and probably more than, all of you do… believe it or not, writing this teaches me a lot. Plus, we are all in this together.

Now, I realize this is NOT the part 2 of last week’s Mimu’s Message. It has very little to do with last week’s subject at all. The thing is, I started writing this and it just went in a different direction. Maybe I’ll finish that one up later… hard to say.

Anyway, God Bless!

I hope you take something from this—not because I said it—but because it’s from the word of God.

~Mimu

Lauren D. // 3:09 PM

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from Dec 15, 2002:

You see them every Sunday at 11:00 am.
Maybe you catch them Sunday nights at discipleship, too.
You can hang out with them at the All-Nighter or the Christmas party.
Who are they?
Maybe they are just casual acquaintances.
Maybe you just don’t know them very well.
Maybe they’re your best friends.
Maybe they’re just “those weird kids from church.”
If you’re new, they might be complete strangers.
But I’ll tell you who they really are: they’re family.

I hate to state the obvious, but it’s true that they (most of them anyway) are not your flesh-and-blood relatives; but they are still part of your family… your spiritual family. No, we aren’t talking about your yoga and meditation group; your spiritual family is those who belong to God’s family because they are Christians. Jesus started the whole “family” thing in Matthew 12:49-50, “Pointing to his disciples, he said, ‘Here are my mother and my brothers. For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.’”

As Christians, we are part of a huge family of believers. And (said in Godfather accent) Family’s gotta stick together, kapish? Really though, families look out for each other. They help when their brothers and sisters are hurting (unless of course, they caused the pain [not that that ever happens in my family…]), they comfort them in times of trouble, and they are ever-encouraging. What I’m getting at here is love. As a part of God’s family, you are loved not only by God, but by all of us here at Impact, all the believers at Northwest Chapel, and Jesus freaks around the world.

I hate to tag this on the end… but there’s a catch. The family is composed of people. People includes you and me. If we aren’t loving to the other people around us, and they do the same… there’s no love. So we are obligated to love (yeah it’s a real drag isn’t it?). We do it so that other can experience what we have I’ll talk more about this in PART TWO of this special-edition Mimu’s Message.

Until then, God bless, and remember: it’s all in the family.

Lauren D. // 8:51 PM

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from Dec 8, 2002:

Sometimes, life just sux. Things go wrong. Things get messy. Our “perfectly-laid-out” plans fall through. The people we depend on fail us; or even worse, they disappear. We fail in areas where we are normally strong; our knowledge is proven incorrect, and life as we know it…sux. There’s sometimes very little we can do.

However, with God, there is an upside to our troubles.

WITHOUT God, our ship is sinking. Without a lifeboat. And we’re going down with it.

Anyway, thanks for reading Mimu’s message this week…

Oh wait, I’ve probably got you a little curious about this supposed “upside” in the down times. It exists…really! First of all, if we have a relationship with God, He’s always going to be with us, good times OR bad. We can trust that He will carry us through our troubles. That may not make them go away, but with eternal comfort, the burden is lighter. Secondly, our troubles give us a chance to show what we are made of. James 1 has a whole lot to say on this subject. You should really check it out to get the info straight from God; but for the sake of time and space, I picked out one verse, James 1:12:

“Blessed is the man (or woman!) who perseveres under trial, because when he has stood the test, he will receive the crown of life that God has promised to those who love him.”

Isn’t that cool? If we try to fight through the hard stuff, we won’t go un-rewarded. So when life sux for you, trust in God and strive for that crown of life!

Lauren D. // 8:12 PM

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from Dec 1, 2002:

“Is—is he a man?” Lucy asked.
“Aslan a man!” said Mr. Beaver sternly. “Certainly not. I tell you he is the King of the wood and the son of the great Emperor-Beyond-The-Sea. Don’t you know who is the King of Beasts? Aslan is a lion—the lion, the great Lion.”
“Ooh!” said Susan, “I’d thought he was a man. Is he—quite safe? I shall feel rather nervous about meeting a lion.”
“That you will, dearie, and no mistake,” said Mrs. Beaver, “if there’s anyone who can appear before Aslan without their knees knocking, they’re either braver than most or else just silly.”
“Then he isn’t safe?” asked Lucy.
“Safe?” said Mr. Beaver. “Don’t you hear what Mrs. Beaver tells you? Who said anything about safe? ‘Course he isn’t safe. But he’s good.”

He’s good.

The above is an excerpt from C.S. Lewis’s famous allegorical children’s story The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe. Aslan, the great Lion, is symbolic for Jesus, the Son of God.
God, believe it or not, isn’t safe. God is bigger than the atomic bomb, more powerful than a million earthquakes; he once flooded the entire earth. He holds your existence, my existence—everything—in the palm of his hand. How easy it would be for Him to crush it. BUT—He is good. Fortunately—VERY fortunately—God loves us. He loves all people as his own kids, as it says in 1 John 3:1,

“How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we may be called children of God!”

He cares for us as sons and daughters. He doesn’t want to destroy us! He wants to share a relationship with us, not blast us to smithereens. He even promised to never flood the earth again (Genesis 8:21). Think about it, the most awesome force in the world, in the UNIVERSE, loves you.

You know, I can’t outdo Lewis, so I leave you with his words:
“ ’Course he’s not safe. But he’s good.”


Lauren D. // 1:15 PM

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From Nov 24, 2002:

As I was going though my after-school smoothie-making ritual today (it was orange-strawberry and very tasty) and thinking about how hungry I was, I jokingly quoted Deuteronomy 8:3 (you will probably recognize it from Matthew 4:4, when Jesus quoted it) to myself, “Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.” I laughed to myself a little, and then I realized that hey, if Jesus quoted it, it must be important. Jesus said this to counter Satan when the latter was trying to tempt him in the desert. Satan said, “Hey, you’re God, and you’re hungry… So make these here rocks into food. “ (That’s the Mimu translation anyway). Jesus said no. He put the importance not on basic survival, but on the true, important thing: God. He was in the desert to fast, and that’s what he would do.

Survival is an integral part of life, right? We breathe, we eat and we sleep (sometimes). It’s a human thing. There’s even a show about it (Note: Mimu does NOT endorse the inferred show!), but survival alone is not enough. Many kids our age can feel it. That might be why they get into drugs, drinking, and other bad stuff. Sometimes these teenagers drown themselves in stuff that isn’t necessarily bad, like music, a sport, or a relationship, just to fill that hole they have inside. They know that survival isn’t all they need. Sadly, the things they try to cram into that hole inside won’t fit. There is only one thing that will complete us and bring us to an existence beyond survival, and that is a relationship with God. Jesus knew this, and so did the guy who wrote Deuteronomy (my mother informs me that it was Moses). Take a lesson from them. Simple survival alone is just for animals: you should LIVE.

Lauren D. // 7:14 PM

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From Nov 17, 2002:

I have been reading one of my favorite old books recently, The Princess Bride by William Goldman. You may be familiar with the 1987 movie of the same name, starring Cary Elwes and Robin Wright. The book came first; the book is better, although the movie is also a favorite of mine. While reading, I stumbled across a great quote:

“True love is the best thing in the world, except cough drops. Everybody knows that.”

It made me giggle. This is said by Miracle Max (played in the movie by Billy Crystal) speaking, as one might presume, about romantic love (a major theme of the story). However, that’s not the only kind of love. There is a bigger love, a truer love, it is a love that is—dare I say it—BETTER that cough drops!
This perfect love can only come from one place—God. You may have heard it a million times, but have you ever really stopped to consider how much God really loves you? Even if you have and continue to do so for the rest of your lifetime, you will never totally understand. I am not questioning your ability to think… but in Ephesians 3:19 it talks about “this love that surpasses knowledge.” Even if you cannot humanly comprehend it entirely, it is still so comforting to think that there is someone who has this awesome love for YOU, even while the whole world seems to be turning its back. Hope in this, it will help.

“…How wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ…”
-Ephesians 3:18

ps.
One last quote: “Jesus loves You!” –Seth Boyd

Lauren D. // 7:13 PM

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from Nov 10, 2002:

Ahh… it’s finally over. The mud has been flung, the chads have been punched (wait, is that one hanging? No wait… its pregnant!), and the votes have been counted. Election time is over. Our televisions are free of political propaganda (pity some of the commercial kind is still around). There aren’t any more recorded phone calls saying “Vote for So-and-so, he’s important enough to interrupt your dinner.” The paperboy is dancing in the street because without the lengthy election coverage his burden is lighter. No more big decisions about what is in control of us, right? Not so much.

As teenagers, we are not old enough to vote (except for those “special” people who are over eighteen). However, just because we can’t choose the big boys (and girls) in Dc doesn’t mean we don’t have a say in what’s ruling our lives. Joshua 24:15 says, “…Choose for yourselves this day who you will serve.” That’s right: You. Choose. Now. Who is going to be in charge of your life? When Joshua said this, he was speaking to the nation of Israel, asking them to choose whether they wanted to serve the Lord or serve the Amorite gods (because they were living in the land of the Amorites). I confess that I have no idea where these Amorite folks live and I don’t see many of you bowing down to little statues and such. However, we sometimes do take other gods into our lives: gods of wealth, popularity, even something we do (like a sport or club) or someone we know (like a boyfriend or girlfriend). If these things overtake our passion for the one true God, they become our gods. What is ruling you? Choose this day.

“…Choose for yourselves this day who you will serve… but for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.”
-Joshua 24:15

Lauren D. // 7:11 PM

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from Nov 3, 2002:

Boo! Did I scare you? Okay, well probably not. And now that you’re in high school, you probably aren’t scared of the dark, of the Boogey Man, or squirrels… well, maybe that last one is just me. Anyway, you are probably so brave you can watch “The Exorcist” and walk through a haunted house with the best of them (I can’t, but that’s another story). So you aren’t afraid of anything, right? I doubt it. I think, as we grow older, our fears just change. We fear rejection from our peers. We fear sitting alone at the lunch table and staying home, alone, every weekend. These fears can affect us in a big way, too. If we are scared of being rejected, we may shut our mouths tight and not tell others about our hope in life, Jesus. I’m scared; I’ll admit it. It’s a hard thing, but we have hope. Romans 8:15 says, “For you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you received the Spirit of Sonship(adoption). And by Him we cry ‘Abba, Father.’” That’s right, God did not give us over to be scared, but rather he is taking care of us as a loving father, our Abba. If we express our fears to him, He can give us strength to overcome the fears that we have. Just like how your parents could get that Boogey Man out of the closet when you were a kid, your Abba can chase away your fears about sharing your faith. Just ask Him.
Lauren D. // 1:10 PM

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