pastorjohnb

Thoughts and musings on faith and our mighty God!

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Willing and Obedient

Reading: Romans 4: 1-5 & 13-17

Today’s passage centers around the faith of Abraham.  He obediently followed God’s call and lead in his life multiple times.  For me, the ultimate test of Abraham’s faith came up on the mountain as God instructed him to sacrifice his son.  It was the only son born to a very aged Abraham and Sarah and God was leading him to offer up Isaac as a sacrifice.  Abraham’s actions demonstrated great faith and trust in God, not only in this case, but over and over again.  Because of this belief in and trust in God, “it was credited to him as righteousness”.

Paul is wrestling in today’s text with the concept of faith based upon belief and grace versus faith based upon the Law and works.  Paul argues that it is our faith that makes us righteous and he holds Abraham up as the example.  Paul argues that the Law, or following all the rules for us today, cannot make us right before God.  His logic is that we cannot possibly keep all of the Law all of the time, therefore, the Law can only ultimately bring condemnation.  Paul puts forth the idea that only when we live by faith are we made righteous because only then does grace come into play.  Only when our salvation rests solely upon God’s free gift of grace are we able to claim the promise of eternal life.

As we consider this example, we must ask ourselves: do we live a life of faith or do we try to live a life of following the rules?  In our day to day lives, do we seek God’s will and guidance or do we live a faith that entails checking off the boxes as we do this or that?  Abraham demonstrated a faith that I find hard to fathom.  Could I lead my son up the mountain knowing that God was calling me to offer him up as a sacrifice when we got to the top?  It is a faith often outside of my understanding.  Yet it is precisely the type of faith that we are called to.  It is a faith that allows God to work through us instead of us working for God.  There is a huge difference between God leading my life and me leading my life.

Lord, help me to be more open to your leading, to your guidance, to your ways.  Make me a willing and obedient servant,  work through me, great Jehovah!


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Be Holy

Reading: Leviticus 19: 1-2

It is tough to be holy, yet God calls us to be just that.  To be in the most intimate relationship possible, we must be as like God as we can be.  Holiness is one characteristic of God that seems hard to fully grasp, nevermind live out each day of our lives.  More often than not, we are not capable of being holy on our own.  By ourselves we simply are not capable of being holy all the time.  We can freely share our money and possessions with those we love, but we struggle with giving to the stranger.  We can love those who love us, but it is another story with ‘him’ or with ‘her’ – those we do not like even slightly.  On our own, our holiness only goes so far.  We know that God’s holiness has no end and no boundaries.  This is the holiness we are called to.

God knew from the beginning that we are not capable of always being holy.  God began with the law, a set of guidelines on how to live in relationship with God and with each other.  The Ten Commandments grew over time to be a huge list – but they were more do’s and don’ts than a way to be holy.  In time, God sent Jesus to show  humanity how to live a holy life.  Jesus gave us the example of what God’s love and holiness look like lived out every day.  But the example is not enough.  To help us in our daily walk with Jesus, God sends us the Holy Spirit – the constant presence that helps us to be holy, the constant presence that helps us care for the needy, to love the stranger, to offer mercy and forgiveness to all who wrong us.  With the power and presence of Holy Spirit, we begin to be holy as God is holy.

We cannot, however, simply rely on the Holy Spirit.  We too must play a role. We too must put in the work because it is hard to be holy.  We must commit to our own spiritual growth.  We must spend time in prayer and in the Word each day.  We must be in community to worship the Lord our God and to offer one another fellowship and encouragement.  We must daily confess our sins, repent, and seek His renewing touch.  It is through all of these means of grace that we can draw near to a God who is holy, becoming more like Him ourselves.


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God’s Ways

Reading: Psalm 119: 1-8

When we were little we learned our ABCs.  It was the first step in learning how to read.  Without knowing our letters, we could not decode words that were new to us as we learned to read.  Throughout life, much of what we learn, we read.  The ability to read and understand and learn is essential to doing well in life.  This skill is also important in our faith.  In our journey of faith, much of our growth comes in quiet moments reading and meditating on the Bible or a devotional or some other book relating to our faith.

Psalm 119 is written using the ABCs.  It is an acrostic.  Each line of the first stanza begins with aleph,the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet.  Each line of the second stanza begins with beth, the second letter.  This pattern continues throughout the longest chapter in the Bible.  Unfortunately, we lose this unique feature in the translation.  Yet the idea and thought behind it remain a great tool to learn God’s Word.  The author was writing in an acrostic format to help the original readers remember better.  In this Psalm, the focus was on God’s ways or on the Law.  The pattern employed would help the readers to recall the Law, a very important part of life for all Jews.

At youth events where we have groups together for the first time, we often play the name game.  It is played in a circle and we go around and around saying “John jackalope” and “Lisa lizard” and so on until we all know each other’s names.  This is the concept in the Psalm.  Learning is so often a pattern or something that captures your attention so you can retain it better.

Verse two reads, “Blessed are they who keep His statutes and seek Him with all their hearts”.  I fully believe this is true.  But to keep God’s statutes and to seek Him fully, we must first know God.  To know God, we turn to the words we find in the Bible.  We begin by knowing the words of scripture.  There are many ways to come to know the words.  For some, it is writing out a verse to come back to over and over; for others it is reading the same few verses for a few days in a row, taking time to really consider their meaning.  One way does not fit everyone.  We each need to find our ‘best’ way to learn God’s ways and then use that ‘tool’ daily to grow in our understanding of God and to deepen our faith.  May we each take time daily to be in the Word and to learn His ways, so that we may be blessed as we follow God’s ways.


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Come, Follow Me

Reading: Matthew 4: 18-22

What has been the scariest step of faith you have ever taken?  When have you stepped out boldly for your faith?  For me it was leaving a job I had known and loved for 23 years to follow God’s call.  I would love to say I was as spontaneous and trusting as those first disciples, but that is far from the truth.  It was a long and slow process that involved lots of prayer and many conversations with family and trusted friends.  But it was a process through which God worked in amazing and powerful ways.

For Andrew and Peter, and then for James and John, the bold step of faith that they took amazes me.  They are sitting there at work, doing the only job they have ever known, when a stranger walks up and says, “Come, follow me”.  Certainly they did not have a clue what this really meant nor how the course of their lives would change forever.  There is no way they could have foreseen the journey they were about to begin the moment they left their nets and followed Jesus.

The same is true for each one of us that has chosen to follow Jesus.  Most are like me, answering a gradual call.  Others answer His call in a flash as Jesus breaks suddenly into their lives, like He did with these simple fishermen.  We all enter into our relationship with Jesus and begin our journey of faith, not ever really knowing where He will take us physically or spiritually, but usually eager to see where that is.

If we faithfully follow, Jesus will lead and guide.  He will also provide us those moments, like He did with the first disciples, when He says, “Come, follow me”.  These are not forever or career-changing moments, but temporary side trips.  They are the come, share a meal with this homeless man moments.  They are come, mentor this new Christian as they begin their journey of faith moments.  Whether big or small, safe or risky, these moments are part of our journey of faith and our responses demonstrate our obedience to Jesus as Lord.  Lord, grant me a willing spirit and a courageous heart today when You call.


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God’s Love

Reading: Hebrews 1: 1-12

Tomorrow we celebrate the birth of Jesus.  In this one act, God shows us how much we are loved.  We are shown the depth of God’s love in a number of ways.  We are told that heaven is a place where there is no pain, no tears, no hurt, no evil.  “Paradise” is a word associated with God’s dwelling place.  That God would leave heaven and choose to live amongst us here is one way the birth reveals the depth of God’s love for us.  God’s choice to put on flesh and walk amongst us sinners reveals a love that is hard to understand.

Verse three states, “The Son is the radiance of God’s glory”.  As our Emmanuel, God with us, Jesus reveals the compassionate heart that beats in heaven.  Rather than be the Lord or King that He could have been, Jesus instead chose the role of humble servant.  With a wave of His hand or a whisper of His voice Jesus could have wiped out all evil and injustice.  With a thought He could have removed the Romans.  Instead Jesus became like you and me, demonstrating God’s love through simple acts of mercy, friendship, compassion, and love – in ways you and I can follow and practice.  He became like us so we could be like Him.  Oh how He loves us!

These are just two reasons we celebrate the love of God revealed in the birth.  But in knowing the end, we are also amazed at the birth.  How hard it would be to bring a child into this world knowing that they would die a horrific and unjust death.  What an amazing love that God would send Jesus knowing that the cross loomed.  As a parent we would do all we could for our child to avoid that death.  God did all He could to insure that Jesus would go to the cross.  It is a love I cannot fathom.  Yet for this love, I say thanks be to God.


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True Life

Reading: Psalm 119: 97-104

What voice is your guide?  What voice directs your decisions and informs your choices?  These are hard questions to answer honestly.  These are questions whose answers might shift from time to time – or often.  Oh to be like the psalmist in today’s passage and to only listen to God!

There are many voices that compete for our attention and our allegiance.  Primary among them is our own voice.  The voice of self is powerful.  How will it affect me and what’s in it for me are two of the loudest voices of self that I wrestle with.  Other voices out there do not help.  Society’s voices tell us to ‘just do it’ and ‘watch out for #1’.  We hear whispers from Satan that bring doubt and fear, jealousy and want, just to name a couple of the great Temper’s common lies.

In our Psalm we see the better choice.  In God’s words we find that one voice that matters.  In God’s Word we find the words that are not only ‘sweeter than honey’ but the words that lead to peace and contentment in this life and hope in the life to come.  The psalmist writes of meditating on God’s ways ‘all day Long’s and that is what it takes to keep focused on God in our day and age.  For us today it goes back to the famous slogan and bracelets: WWJD.  If we lived with this question as our constant filter and guide, we would indeed be following Jesus and living as faithful disciples.

The voices are many.  Ultimate truth is found in the Word of God.  Read His Word.  Study the Bible.  Come to know the Lord our God and find life that is really true life, life lived as a follower of Jesus Christ.


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Bloom

Reading: Jeremiah 29: 1 and 4-7

The Babylonians destroyed Jerusalem and hauled off the leaders and gifted people to Babylon as slaves.  Many Israelites were the victims of this forced relocation.  They found themselves slaves in a strange new place, surrounded by a culture much different from their own.  Instead of instructing them to keep isolated, to long to return to Jerusalem, or to rebel, God instead instructs them to settle in, to build homes, to marry off their children.  The message is that this is not temporary.  To further indicate this God instructs them to begin praying for the Babylonians to prosper.

We too can find ourselves in a strange or foreign place.  Sometimes this is physical.  Our parent or spouse receives a new job or is transferred and we find ourselves in a new place amongst many new faces.  It can be when we head off to college or to our first ‘real job’ and we come to realize we are alone in a new world.  Sometimes our new surroundings are emotional.  We come home to find out a divorce looms and life is suddenly altered.  We receive the phone call that a loved one has passed and life is forever different.  Or one day, in the middle of a normal day, we realize that we are lost in life or are just drifting along and we long for an anchor, for a purpose.  And, of course, all of these physical and emotional changes affect our spiritual life too.

God instructed the Israelites to become part of their new surroundings.  God wanted them to grow, to multiply, to prosper in this new place.  When all else was stripped away, all the Israelites had to rely on was God.  God was the one constant for the people.  In the midst of our own times of exile, God calls out to us as well.  When all else seems new or foreign, God is still the same.  Like the Israelites, our instructions are the same: trust in God alone, cling to God alone, and bloom where God has planted us.  May we trust in God’s plans and may we obediently follow God’s will as we follow wherever God leads.


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Freedom

Reading: Luke 8: 26-39

Jesus frees the man from his demons but at a large cost to the community.  The man possessed by demons had lived outside of town for many years.  Everyone knew he was out there in the caves and they were okay with this arrangement.  Sometimes it is nice when trouble is far away.  For the man, he had lived for many years with a legion of demons inside him.  To be restored to wholeness must have been amazing for him.   No wonder he asked if he too could follow Jesus.

The restoration of the man troubled the people of the town.  The huge financial loss from the pigs drowning would greatly affect the social order of the community.  The people without income from the pigs would now need to be cared for by the community.  This would be a large burden to bear.  The man who was healed would also need to fit back into the community.  Change is hard.

Jesus also offers us freedom.  He offers to free us from all that entangles our lives and that keeps us from relationship with God.  For some it is a sin that they have long lived with.  It has become comfortable.  For others is it something now seen as sin as one matures in their faith.  They too can be somewhat comfortable with this sin.  We rationalize this because change is hard and it requires work.  It requires a social reordering of our lives.  It means modifying our behavior and learning a new way to live.  But like the demon-possessed man reveals, freedom brings great reward.  May we trust into the freedom that Jesus Christ offers, knowing that He wants the most for us.  May we give to Him all that He wants to take.


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Follow

Reading: John 10: 22-30

The Jews in the temple ask Jesus a question I think we ask often.  We may not always ask it verbally but I think we certainly do with our decisions and actions.  They ask Jesus if he is the Messiah.  Is he the one coming to redeem Israel, to restore them to their rightful place amongst the great nations?  They are looking for Jesus to do something grand.

His response perplexes: “You do not believe because you do not belong to my sheep”.  Believe that you are the Messiah?  I’m sure they are thinking something along these lines: ‘Rid us of these Romans and make Israel great and then we will believe and then we will follow.  For now though, we’ll just do our own thing.  Yes it is nice that that guy can now walk and that that guy can see and that you fed all those people.  Really neat stuff (for them), but when will you really start leading, doing really important stuff (for us)?’

We are sometimes a lot like them.  Yes Jesus, I love you and believe in you and want to dedicate my life to you, but first I need to…  Yes Jesus, I will serve and follow you, but first would you…  We like Jesus, but too often on our terms and conditions.  Like the Jews in the temple that day, we expect or maybe even demand something grand from Jesus.  Then we will be all in.  Then…

And Jesus says to us: my sheep follow me.  It is not about what I can do for you.  It’s about what I do to you, about what I do in you.  The miracles, they just show that I am who I say I am: the Son of God, the Word made flesh.  Follow me, be my sheep, do what I did: love, serve, sacrifice, forgive.  The you will be my sheep.  Then you will know a peace that passes understanding.  Then you will begin to live eternal life.  Follow me.


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By Our Love

Reading: John 13: 1-17 and 31b-35

During the meal, Jesus gets up from the table and washes the disciples’ feet.  Here He is offering the basic cleaning.  In the culture of Jesus’ time there were three basic cleanings.  Sandals (or no shoes) were common and all roads… were dirt.  To cleanse the feet often was necessary.  The next level is referred to by Peter as he asks Jesus to wash his feet, hands, and head.  This would be the typical daily bath.  What we know as a bath, to fully immerse in water, was definitely not a daily practice for most and was often communal.

The lesson Jesus was teaching, however, did not really have to do with hygiene but rather with status and authority.  Jesus was Lord and Teacher to the disciples.  In their eyes, He was the one to be served.  But here Jesus reverses the normal order.  The most becomes the least as He stoops to wash their feet.  His closing line of this section – you too will be blessed – when we serve one another – applies to us as well.

Jesus goes on to reinforce the idea of humble service as an example of sacrificial love.  He issues a new command: as I have loved you, do you must love one another.  This command is given just after Jesus again speaks of His imminent death and resurrection.  Surely the disciples would hear these words echoing in their heads and connect them to the ultimate act of humble service that Jesus performed on the cross.

We are all called to follow His example, although for most of us it does not lead to death on a cross.  Our ‘death’ is to die to self, to the things of this world.  Jesus calls us to offer ourselves in sacrificial love to others.  To  love each other in the body of Christ, to love those who are hard to love, to love those who hurt us, to love those who cannot love us back, to love one and all – we are to love as Jesus first loved us.  Why? So they will know we are Christians by our love, by our love.