pastorjohnb

Thoughts and musings on faith and our mighty God!

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Forever and Ever

Reading: Psalm 48

Verse 1: “Great is the Lord, and most worthy of our praise”.

Photo credit: Giuseppe Famiani

Psalm 48 speaks of God’s presence in Jerusalem, in the city of David. For the psalmist the city of God is beautiful and will stand forever atop Mount Zion. God is present in the city itself – in the citadels that protect her from foreign kings and in her temple, the place the people “meditate on your unfailing love”. For the Israelites, Jerusalem will be God’s home forever and ever. Zion will always stand as the fortress of God.

It was another time and place when the Psalm was written. It was a time when people from all around would move inside the city walls in times of danger. It was a place of constant threats from the outside. A great fortified city was of importance to the many kingdoms of the world. For Israel, though, God was at the center of their power. God defended them, kept their walls secure. Within those towers and ramparts the psalmist felt safe and secure, trusting in God’s presence.

In your world today, where do you feel safe and secure? For many of us, our home is one place of refuge and rest. It is a place we feel protected, a place we can trust. For many, God’s presence is felt in the sacred spaces – sanctuaries, chapels, cathedrals. There we feel safe, secure, loved. Yet God is not limited to these structures either. So, in your world, where else do you sense God’s presence? For me, I sense God’s presence out in the wilderness, where his glory is often on full display. There I sense God’s greatness and am drawn into praise. Wherever we encounter God, may we join the psalmist in declaring, “This God is our God forever and ever”. Thanks be to God!

Prayer: Living God, you are present in so many ways. Your strength and care and protection surround me. In you I am loved. Be with me always, O Lord. Amen.


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Pleasing Him

Reading: 2nd Corinthians 5: 6-15

Verse 9: “So we make it our goal to please him, whether we are at home in the body or away from it”.

As we continue today in 2nd Corinthians today and tomorrow we see and feel Paul’s longing for heaven in tension with his call to faithfully minister where God has placed him. Over the course of the past few weeks we have read of the trials and sufferings of Paul and the early church – hard pressed, persecuted, struck down. One can understand why Paul longs to finish his race.

In verses six through ten Paul speaks of living by faith (and not by sight) and of pleasing God on our journey of faith. If Paul or we lived by sight, the trials, persecutions, and sufferings would have ended our journey with Christ long ago. If the hardships of life fueled our spiritual journey we would have run out of gas long ago, leaving faith by the roadside. Making the choice to live by faith allows us to see beyond the trials of this life and on into the hope that we find in Christ Jesus. As faith guides Paul and us to see beyond this life, we can live with confidence and assurance as we seek to please God by bringing him the glory in all we say and do.

In these five verses Paul also speaks much of being “in the body”. Paul is using this phrase in both a literal and figurative sense. In the literal sense Paul is speaking of being in our human bodies as opposed to being with Jesus in heaven. I believe that this second option would be Paul’s preference if it were solely up to him. The figurative body that Paul speaks of is the body of Christ – the church. For those in the Corinthian church and for many in the church today, it is easier, preferred, more comfortable to please God within the walls of the church. But when Paul writes, “So we make it our goal to please him, whether we are at home in the body or away from it”, he is saying that we should live the same way in the world too. Our faith should not be limited to our church circles but should be evident in all areas of our life. When we stand before the “judgment seat” all of our life will be on display, not just the hour or two we spent at church most weeks. Therefore may we live all of our moments striving to bring God the glory, building up the kingdom of God in all places.

Prayer: Lord God, while I look forward to heaven, I do not long for it quite yet. I pray that you continue to use me as you will for many years. Day by day guide me to please you in all I do and say and think. Amen.


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God on Display

Reading: John 9: 1-23

Verse 11: So I went and washed, and then I could see.

Today’s story makes us think.  It is a story that wrestles with the ‘why’ questions.  Why does the world work the way it does?  Why does God?  God created us with intelligence and curiosity.  We want to know how and why things work.  We want to understand things.  Life and death and what happens in between have long been mysteries that mankind has sought to explain, understand, …  Yes, we certainly know much more than we did even twenty years ago.  Yet there is still much we cannot explain or understand or begin to answer the ‘why’ questions that we have.

The cycle often repeated in the Old Testament is: following God, becoming disobedient, receiving punishment, returning to God.  So when the people considered why someone was born blind or deaf or why someone had leprosy, the natural conclusion was that it must have been punishment for something.  It was a short leap from stories such as Miriam’s disease for disobedience to applying this logic to all cases of affliction.  What caused this affliction?  Sin!  So when the man was born blind, all assumed someone in the family had sinned and this man’s blindness was the eventual consequence.

Today we know that this is not the case.  But we are still often left with the ‘why’ questions.  Why did he die so young?  Why did my spouse leave me?  Why did my position have to be the job that was eliminated?  All of these types of questions can eventually lead to the bigger one: why did God…?  It is a difficult question.  It is a question that may not be answered for years.  It is a question that is sometimes never answered.

God created our world and set it in motion.  God created the weather systems, for example.  The system was designed and set into motion.  We experience hot and cold, snow and rain, sun and clouds.  No one would argue that God individually and personally forms each of the zillions of rain drops that fall each day.  Our world operated much the same way.  Our bodies grow and they decay.  We get colds and the flu.  We lose our site or our hearing.  We get cancer and Alzheimer’s.  People make decisions that affect others – sometimes for the good, sometimes for the bad.  The lightning strikes and causes a forest fire.  Much we cannot explain.

But in and through it all, God seeks to be present.  In and through it all we can trust God, we can cling to Him, we can walk with Him.  We know that God will give us just what we need for the day or situation at hand.

The blind man needed to see.  He believed what Jesus said and he received what he needed.  Through him, the glory of God was displayed.  No, he didn’t really know ‘why’ Jesus touched him and he couldn’t explain ‘why’ he could now see, but He did and  he could.  When we trust, when we have faith, when we are faithful, God is true.  Then God will be displayed in our lives as well.  May it be so.