pastorjohnb

Thoughts and musings on faith and our mighty God!

Tag Archives: forgiveness


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Love Lived Out

Reading: Matthew 24: 36-44

No one knows the day or the hour when Jesus will return.  There will be no mistaking it when He returns.  Our passage today speaks about one being taken and one being left behind.  The rapture will be the first unmistakable sign.  With all this in mind, Jesus urges us to always be ready.  If we are ever seeking to live a life worthy of Jesus’ example, we will always be ready for the moment He returns.

Salvation is something we do not lose once we declare that Jesus is Lord and Savior of our life.  Once we receive Jesus into our heart, we are saved.  This status does not change.  But for many people, they have not chosen to accept Jesus as Lord.  For some, it is an intentional choice.  They are still choosing self even though they fully understand what Jesus offers.  They are not willing to surrender.  For others, they do not know who Jesus is or how Jesus can work in their lives or maybe how to begin a relationship with Jesus.  In all of these scenarios, all are lost and need to enter a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.

One of our primary roles as followers of Jesus is to share the good news with the world.  We do this in our daily lives.  It is both our words and our actions.  In our words are love, compassion, mercy, grace, understanding, forgiveness…  In our actions we are a servant to all, humbly doing for others.  Another role we play is prayer warrior.  Just as Jesus and the Holy Spirit are interceding for each of us, we too are called to pray for one another.  Sometimes our prayers are general – asking God to help our church reach out or helping us see opportunities that God places before us.  Some prayers are more specific – for a certain person or situation, for God to work in a loved one’s heart, for someone we know is sensing God’s hand at work in their life.

Each and every day may we be God’s love lived out – in our actions, in our words, in our prayers.  May we be love to the world.


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The Journey On

Reading: Colossians 1: 15-20

Jesus, Paul declares, is the “firstborn of all creation”.  Since the beginning of time, Jesus has been the creator and the purpose for all that has been created.  He is therefore supreme over all.  Yet counter to all of this, Jesus is also the one who humbled Himself to death on a cross, becoming the “firstborn from among the dead”.  In doing so, Jesus became the way to true and eternal life.  Only through His blood can we be made righteous.

Jesus rule and example were so countercultural.  Jesus loved instead of conquered.  Jesus healed instead of killed.  Jesus forgave instead of holding grudges.  Jesus sacrificed instead of taking advantage.  Jesus offered compassion instead of judgment.  In all these ways, Jesus gave us an example we can each follow.  Love, compassion, mercy, forgiveness, understanding, servant.  Jesus’ power comes from His heart, not from His brain or His brawn.  We are each born with the spark of the divine in our hearts.  We can thus all live a life that follows the ways of Jesus.  We were created in His image, intended to follow after Jesus as His disciples.

Next Sunday begins a new year in the church calendar as Advent begins.  Like the end of the calendar year, may it be a time when we pause and take stock of our journey of faith.  John Wesley called this life of faith a “journey towards perfection”.  It is a place we never reach, yet one we should always be arriving towards.  Jesus was the perfect example of God’s love lived out.  This week may we look at our journeys of faith – at both our times moving forward and at our times of failure.  May we each commit to a year of growth in our faith, seeking to ever become more and more like Jesus Christ, the one true King, the one and only Way.  May it be so.


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Worthy

Reading: Colossians 1: 10-14

Jesus desires for all people to enter His kingdom.  Jesus showed this by engaging everyone He met so that He could share the good news of love with them all.  The kingdom of Jesus offers freedom from the chains of sin.  Once we confess Jesus as Lord, we are not free of sin.  We are freed from sin as we find forgiveness and redemption in Jesus.  As humans we will always be prone to sin.  But because of Jesus that us not the end of our story.  We can be made new and find peace each time we confess and repent of our sin.

The forgiveness of sin us a free gift.  There is nothing we can do or say to remove the guilt and shame of our sins on our own.  All the power to do this rests in Jesus alone.  Once we claim Jesus as Lord, the free gift is ours.  It is a gift without limit.  That is how great Jesus’ love is – forgiveness and redemption are ours in limitless supply.  What a great love.  What a gift.

The response to the gift and the love is what Paul is writing about in Colossians 1: “that you may live a life worthy of the Lord”.  Our response to what Jesus has offered and done for us is to try and live like Jesus.  This is the never-ending journey of faith, to grow to be more and more like Jesus.  Living like Jesus involves bearing fruit for the kingdom.  Our primary way we bear fruit is by loving others as Jesus first loved us.  It is living lives if love, compassion, grace, mercy, forgiveness.  It is being a servant to all.

We are equipped to live a life worthy of Jesus through the practices of our faith.  We read the Bible and meditate on the Word to grow in our understanding of and connection to God.  We pray often to be known by and to know God more.  We worship to bring our praise and thanksgiving to God.  When we fill ourselves with the things of God, then we are also able to pour His love out into the lives of others.  This is a life worthy of Christ.


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New Hope

Reading: Isaiah 65: 17-25

In Isaiah’s words we hear of a future with hope.  For those he lived amongst, they needed to hear words of hope.  At times in our lives, we too need to be reminded of the hope that rests in our faith.  The Israelites had plenty of trials and despair during the fall of Jerusalem and their time of exile.  Isaiah has plenty to say about this.  Life will also bring us times when we feel like we are being crushed and when we feel like we are living out in the wilderness.  In these times, Isaiah’s words speak to us as well.

In our world we certainly have death and hunger and injustice and violence and many other things that bring pain and heartache.  Perhaps you are in the midst of this pain right now.  Into this pain and heartache, God reminds us that all of these things are passing away.  God does not promise to take away the trials and sufferings that are a part of this life.  God instead tells us of the coming of a new heaven and earth.  God tells of the time that draws ever nearer when there will be no more pain or tears or hurt.  God gives us the ultimate hope in life eternal, a life that awaits all who call on God as our only hope.

Our passage today begins with “Behold”.  It is a word full of hope and promise.  Another story begins with this word: “Behold, the Lamb of God”.  This too is a story full of hope and promise.  And this is the story of hope and promise in the here and now.  In Jesus, we find one who walks with us in the midst of all life brings, one who will carry us if that is what we need.  In Jesus, we find comfort and strength in our time of need.  In Jesus, we find the compassion and love to offer comfort to others in their time of need.  In Jesus we also find the grace and forgiveness we need to make us new again when it was we who brought the pain and separation upon ourselves.  Jesus us our present hope that enables us to live towards and into the promise of a new heaven and earth.  May we hold tightly to Jesus Christ as we live with hope filled anticipation for our eternal future that is sure to come.  It is God’s promise.


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One Step

Reading: Luke 19: 6-10

Once again Jesus reaches to an outcast.  Once again Jesus looks past what is a barrier to others and lives one in need.  Zacchaeus certainly was not in need financially because he was a rich man.  Zacchaeus was in need of love and acceptance.  Because of his job, Zacchaeus probably spent life largely alone, without any real friends.  When Jesus calls out to Zacchaeus, many in the crowd grumbled with disapproval.  Zacchaeus’ ill-gotten wealth has drawn much dislike for the crowd.

At times we too act in certain ways and do certain things that cause others to dislike us or to remain at a distance from us.  Sometimes we can be like Zacchaeus, mistreating others for our own gain or purposes.  Sometimes we can fall into sins of other types, causing others to look down on us or to treat us like an outcast.  Sometimes we act in ways that cause people to think, ‘Jesus, don’t go near that one today’ or to think that Jesus could never call out to us.

Yet He does.  No matter what, Jesus always calls out to us.  He continues to call us out of our trees and into relationship with Him.  No matter our sin, Jesus continues to seek us when we are lost.  Like Zacchaeus, we are always just a simple confession away from a righteous relationship with Jesus Christ.  Like Zacchaeus, we are always just one step away from forgiveness and new life in Christ.  For this we say, thanks be to God.


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Right Relationship

Reading: Jeremiah 31: 31-34

God promises a new covenant.  God promises a covenant in which God’s ways will be on our minds and written on our hearts.  The faith will become something personal.  It will become something we live.  In stead of going to worship to simply get our fill or to be tuned up, our faith will be instilled within us all of the time.  It will be a faith based upon God’s love.  It will be a faith that does not carry the guilt and shame that many of the Israelites have been hauling around for years and years.

Verse 34 promises that God will forgive our sins and remember them no more.  Instead of bearing the shame of one parent’s or grandparent’s sins or fearing how your sins will forever taint your children’s or grandchildren’s lives, one will be able to be freed from one’s own sins and their consequences.  Through the new covenant, made real in Jesus Christ, faith will become personal and be between just God and you.  What a new covenant!

While the idea of our sins being our sins alone and the idea that God will remember our sins no more is wonderful news, it is also scary.  A distant, lived out through others faith is much easier in many ways.  Having God’s ways in our minds and on our hearts ups the ante.  When God is constantly with us doesn’t that increase the expectations?  If God is always near, doesn’t  that mean we always live and act as God would act?

These things are indeed the goal.  Of course, being human and far less than God, we are not perfect.  But when God forgives and remembers our sins no more, we are made new and are right back on track.  To receive this forgiveness, all we need to do is repent and ask.  Through our personal relationship with Jesus, His blood makes us new again.  Then we return instantly to a right relationship with God, loving God and neighbor as we are called to, bringing glory to the name of Jesus.


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Tell the Story

Reading: Luke 17: 11-19

Ten lepers cry out to Jesus, “Jesus, Master, have pity on us”!  Ten lepers are healed as they head off to show themselves to the priests.  Ten lepers believed that Jesus could heal them.  Ten lepers went to the priests to be deemed “clean” so that they could re-enter the society they had been banned from.  What a joy they must have felt to hug family members, to see friends again, to be able to go to the temple!

We too have cried out, “Jesus, Master, have pity on us”!  We cry out to Jesus for mercy, forgiveness, healing, relief from situations and circumstances.  We too cry out in hopes that Jesus will indeed grant us mercy, pour out forgiveness, bring us healing, …  We want to experience Jesus’ power in our lives.  Many times we do experience Jesus’ touch or restoration or intervention.

When we do experience Jesus responding to our cries, how do we respond?  Do we respond?  Are we so grateful that we are rid of that affliction or situation or circumstance that we leap back into living life?  Or are we so naive that we think it was something we did to change our plight?  Or are we simply ungrateful?

It is essential that we not only recognize that Jesus Christ has answered our cries, but that we also tell the story.  We must testify to God’s hand at work in our lives so that others can find hope in their lives.  We must add our story of healing or forgiveness or… to the bigger story of God at work in our world.  Others need to hear of how we experienced Jesus’ power in our lives.  Our testimony may be but a small part of God’s huge story, but someone needs to hear how God is at work in our life.  It may be many someones.  May we tell the story. 


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Chances

Reading: Jeremiah 4: 27-28

In the King James translation, verse 27 reads, “The whole land shall be desolate, yet I will not make a full end”.  After a long period of disobedience there will be mourning and weeping, but all is not lost.  The people will wake up from their season of living outside of God’s ways and will realize things are desolate.  Into this God whispers, “I’m not done with you yet”.

Just like the troop that wandered the desert for 40 years and just like the people of Israel who constantly cycled between chosen people of God and idol worshippers, we too wander off the path of discipleship now and then.  We all make choices at times that end us up in places of desolation where we find ourselves dry and broken spiritually.  Yet no matter what we’ve done, no matter what has led us off the path, God is still there, still ready to continue working on us, still saying, “I’m not done with you yet”.

God is certainly in the reclamation business.  God takes us as we are, just as Jesus took all who came to Him.  God is also the God of “second chances”.  Although for us it may be the 2,356th chance or the 41,843rd chance, for God it is always our second chance.  When we confess and repent of our sin, for God our sin is no more.  We have been made clean as new-fallen snow.  God’s grace is amazing.  Our sins are forgotten, so each time we stumble, to God it is our first failure.  God’s love is so pure and honest, the grace so great.

Thanks be to this God who loves us so.  Praise and glory to our God who loves us without limit!


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Priority

Reading: Luke 14: 25-27

Jesus wants to make sure those in the crowd understand that to follow Him is a commitment.  He is beginning to head to Jerusalem to face the cross; He wants all to know the level of allegiance that walking this road will require.  To continue to follow Jesus, each must pick up and carry their own cross.  Jesus wants His audience then and us now to fully know what is expected.

First and foremost we must lay all else aside.  Jesus and our relationship with Him must take precedence over all other relationships in our life.  Our relationship with Jesus needs to be above our relationships with our family, our friends, our teammates, our bosses, our coworkers, our job, our interests, our possessions.  In our lives, Jesus must rule over and above all else if we are to become His disciple.  Then all of our other relationships will be in their proper place.  All will be secondary to our relationship with Jesus but all will be better because of this dynamic.  We will be a better father, brother, husband, wife, worker… because our relationship with Jesus is our priority.

Making and keeping Jesus our priority is a challenge.  We live in a fast-paced world that places high demands and expectations on us.  We live in a world that has radically different expectations than Jesus has.  The world says to place self above all else.  Jesus says for self to get way at the back of the line.  The world says to accumulate as much as we can.  Jesus says to give as much away as we can.  The world says to just do it if it makes you feel good.  Jesus says to seek ways to make others’ lives better.

To walk with Jesus as His disciple is hard.  The path is difficult.  The choices and decisions are counter-cultural.  The relationship with Jesus takes supreme commitment.  But the life lived in Jesus is the life worth living.  It is a life filled with hope, love, mercy, grace, contentment, forgiveness, and peace.  May we all be strong in our walk with the Lord.


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Angels

Hebrews 13: 1-8 and 15-16

In Hebrews 13:2 we are reminded, “Do not forget to entertain strangers, for by doing so some people have entertained angels without knowing it”.  Do you think you have ever experienced this?  Could have someone God placed in your path been an angel instead of simply a stranger?  Maybe so.  These thoughts made me wonder why.  Why would God allow us to practice loving a stranger with an angel instead of with a real stranger?  Maybe we were not ready for a real stranger yet.

Or… maybe God is reminding us of the sacred value of all life.  Imagine if we treated all people we met as if they were an angel.  We would certainly be more humble and more willing to go the extra mile.  We would look on others as worthy and even as deserving of our time and attention.  It would be an experience in radical love.

Or maybe God is reminding us because so often God chooses the unlikely, the one we see as powerless, the stranger to teach us.  Sometimes people we tend to ignore or marginalize can teach us much.  If we are willing.  A lifelong hard core criminal who experienced salvation while incarcerated can teach us much about God’s amazing grace.  A person who struggled for years with addiction that found freedom through a relationship with Jesus Christ can teach us much about God’s redeeming love.  A person who endured years of unfair treatment and injustice yet persevered because of their faith can teach us much about trust and obedience.  These are but a few examples.  Those who have had powerful, lifechanging encounters with God have much to offer and teach.

Today, today may we see all people as if they were angels.  May we find the value in each person we meet.  May we see in all the gift of God that they each are.  And may we be willing and open to all that each has to offer to us.