pastorjohnb

Thoughts and musings on faith and our mighty God!

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Love Well

Reading: 1st John 4: 7-21

Verse Twelve: “If we love each other, God lives in us and His love is made complete in us”.

How many times does the word ‘love’ appear in your Bible in our passage for today? In my NIV translation the word ‘love’ appears 26 times. It is certainly the theme of the passage!

As one reads this passage over a few times one gains the sense of the connectedness of the love between God and us and between each other. This idea of love being interwoven brings to mind Ecclesiastes 4: 9-12, where it speaks of how we support and encourage and help and strengthen one another. It concludes with these words in verse twelve, “a cord of three strands is not Quickly broken”. This passage common to wedding ceremonies implies that God’s love added to our love for one another gives great strength and durability to our relationships.

Love comes from God and is in God. If we know love, we know God. God’s love is shown in sending His Son as the atoning sacrifice for our sins. Since God loves us, we should love one another. Verse twelve in our passage today states, “If we love each other, God lives in us and His love is made complete in us”. There is a definite connection between the love of God and our love for one another.

Above all God is love. There is no better way to show the love of God that is in us than to love each other. May we love well today.


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Come Quickly

Reading: Psalm 70

Verse One: “Hasten, O Lord, to save me; O Lord, come quickly to help me”.

Today’s Psalm is like a little of other Psalms in their intent. This Psalm is one of many that cry out to God for help and protection and deliverance. Many of these Psalms speak of the trial and suffering that is leading the psalmist to open with these words: “Hasten, O Lord, to save me; O Lord, come quickly to help me”. The psalmist is in need of God’s presence and help. This prayer of David is beneficial to us for several reasons.

One reason is to remind us that all people everywhere have hardships in their lives from time to time, us included. It is simply part of life. In reading how a king so great as David could have troubles just like ours troubles somehow lessens ours or at least makes us feel not so alone the n our struggle.

A second reason is to give us a pattern of prayer that we can use ourselves. This prayer of David can become our prayer for God’s presence and help. In those moments when we feel like others are against us and we need God’s intervention and saving and deliverance, we can pray Psalm 70.

A third and perhaps most important reason is to remind us that it is not only okay to ask for help but that God desires it. When we turn to God for help, we are acknowledging our need for God. In doing so, we build up our relationship because we are being honest and vulnerable. At times we can have difficulty asking for help. It feels weak and runs counter to our rugged individualism mentality that is fueled by pride and ego. Yet if the great King David needed to ask for help, surely so can we. In doing so, we are also practicing humility.

Sometimes we can even ask for help from one another in a time of need. In this we are admitting our imperfections and our inability to do it on our own. This act of humility feels risky. But it admits our need for one another as well. It admits our need for community and friendship and belonging. There we also find great love and support.

When life rains on us, may we ever turn to God and to our brothers and sisters in Christ. In our weakness, they give strength. May we come quickly to those around us. May we ever have the courage to trust in God and in one another.


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Love at Work

Reading: Psalm 107: 17-22

Verses 19 and 20: “They cried to the Lord in their trouble… He sent forth the word and healed them; He rescued them from the grave”.

The psalmist recognizes the foolish behavior of some and identifies the consequences that came with poor choices. During our lives we have seen many people make poor decisions and we ourselves have made our share as well. After suffering because of their or our iniquities, there comes a point of admitting the error of our ways and turning to God for help. Verse 19 reads, “They cried to the Lord in their trouble”. It is a cry filled with both pain and hope. Pain because of the regret of ending up in such a place. Hope because we know that God is faithful and true.

Verse 20 bears this out: “He sent forth the word and healed them; He rescued them from the grave”. God responds to the cry for help and restores those in need. For the psalmist, the ‘word’ could come through the Spirit or it could come through the voice of the prophet. For the Christian, the word could also come from the Holy Spirit or it could come from the ‘Word’ – Jesus himself. The net result is the same: God brings healing and rescued from the grave. This could literally be the grave or it could represent being saving from eternal damnation.

Sometimes we observe this cycle of sin, suffering, conviction, repentance, crying out, healing/rescue and sometimes we experience it ourselves. In both cases, we are privy to seeing God’s hand at work over and over. Because of this we come to know God as steadfast and faithful. We come to know God’s love and mercy as unending and as a blessing for all. And we come to the place where we know God will never let us go. From here we begin to understand the depth of God’s love. It is a beautiful and wonderful thing. It is a love that we are called to share with others. May it be so today.


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A Willingness

Reading: 1st Thessalonians 2: 1-8

Verse Two: With the help of God we dared to tell you His gospel in spite of strong opposition.

Having faith can be difficult.  What is happening to the Thessalonians happens to believers today.  Their faith is wavering, the voices of the world are clamoring, Jesus has not returned yet.  In the midst of all that life can bring, it can be easy to have our faith waver.  Those voices of the world and the temptations of Satan can put us hard to the test.  As we look around at the world and perhaps even at our own lives, we can long for Jesus to return to redeem all things.

The culture of Paul’s world and the culture of Thessalonica is much like ours today.  The Christians are a minority within a culture and society that worships many false idols and chases after many earthly pleasures.  It can be a dangerous place to preach the gospel.  It was in Paul’s day too.  Fresh off a testing and trying experience in Philippi, Paul declares, “With the help of God we dared to tell you His gospel in spite of strong opposition”.  Not one to be deterred, Paul fondly recalls sharing the gospel in Thessalonica.  At times we too must dare to share  the gospel.  For Paul, it was well-received and a strong church emerged.  This letter comes some time after the initial visit and Paul is writing to encourage and to teach this new group of believers.

Paul states a couple of different ways that God is the center of it all.  He speaks as a man approved by God and tested by God.  He speaks with God as his witness, never seeking praise or approval from men.  As we seek to engage the least and the lost of our communities, we too must begin here.  God must be at the core and we must lead out as God guides and directs, keeping our focus on God alone.  Paul says that he was “like a mother caring for her little children”.  This is the second imperative we get from today’s Word.  We must genuinely love those we share the gospel with.  This means a willingness to fully commit, to humbly serve, to offer all we can to help another grow closer to Jesus Christ.  May our focus be on God and on loving others as He first loved us; God will take care of the rest.


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If…

Reading: Psalm 124

Verses 6 and 8: Praise be to the Lord… Our help is in the name of the Lord.

The psalmist wrestles with an interesting thought today that is good for us to wrestle with from time to time.  The idea is “if…”. In the Psalm, he is considering the plight of the nation of Israel ‘if’ the Lord was not with them.  The writer realizes that without the Lord they would have been ‘swallowed’, ‘engulfed’, and ‘swept away’.  On its own, Israel would have long ago disappeared from the earth and would have existed only in history books just like thousands of other tribes.  But God was with them. “Praise be to the Lord”.

When I look back and consider my life, I too have many ‘if’ scenarios.  There are times where the hand of the Lord guided me to safety or kept harm from me.  There are times when the Lord our God has shown me the path to take or the decision to make and good and blessing have resulted.  Many times I have sinned and repented and found forgiveness and have been made new and whole again.  It is a good thing to ponder the ‘if…’ – where would I be now without God’s guidance, protection, direction, and forgiveness?  These thoughts lead me to where the psalmist went: praise be to the Lord!

God is always active and involved in our world and in our lives.  God remains our protector, our defender, our conscious, our guide, our redeemer, our hope, and our love.  For the Lord our God we say thanks be to God.  “Our help us in the name of the Lord”.  Amen and amen!


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Suffering

Reading: 1 Peter 4:12-14 and 5:6-11

Verse Nine: Resist him [Satan], standing firm in the faith.

Suffering is the overarching theme in today’s passage.  Peter opens by reminding us that we may suffer for our faith.  He says, “do not be surprised” and encourages us to “rejoice that you participate in the sufferings of Christ”.  To really suffer for our faith is foreign to us, isn’t it?  To rejoice because we are suffering for our faith seems even more foreign!  Yet over the course of our faith journey, most of us can look back and see times when holding fast to our faith led to some decisions and choices that had a ‘cost’ and came with some suffering.  Maybe it was a relationship that you had to let go or a work decision that kept your integrity but cost a promotion or a windfall in your bank account.  This is the type of suffering that most Christians we know suffer.  But the reality is that there is much pain and suffering just beyond the doors of our beautiful churches and just down the street from our nice neighborhoods.

Every community, big or small, has its share of suffering.  When Jesus said that we would always have the poor with us, He knew we would.  We find suffering clustered here and there.  In my town it is called “housing” and in all communities there is a similar neighborhood.  The housing conditions are poor, people go without heat and/or electricity for stretches, and food is sometimes scarce.  In larger communities there are also homeless shelters, safe houses, and halfway houses.  In big communities there are the “projects” and in some huge cities whole communities are built out of cardboard and scrap metal and there is no running water or electricity.  Go to this place in your community and you will see that there is pain and suffering, there is hurt, and there is a loss of hope.

Our call as Christians is clear: go.  Go!  Go and do what you can when you can.  Alone you and I cannot end the suffering…  But we can alleviate some and lessen some.  We can bring food and clothing and whatever else material is needed.  We can bring food and sometimes clean water.  We can fix a leaky roof, a broken window, or a creaky set of steps.  We can sit and hear someone’s story and offer some words of hope.  We can also work to address some of the root causes and systematic forces that cause the pain and suffering.  This can be through education, through voicing opposition to the systems that work against those in poverty, and through fighting things like prejudice and stereotyping and judging.  This day and every day may we “Resist him [Satan], standing firm in the faith”.  Evil comes in many forms.  Today may we resist all forms if evil and suffering as we seek to bring the hope and love of Christ to a world in need.


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Two Spaces

Reading: Romans 1: 1-7

Advent is a time of waiting.  As we wait, who do we wait as?  We wait as disciples, as brothers and sisters in Christ, as servants of the most high God.  Yes, in our waiting, we wait longingly to celebrate the birth of the Christ child.  But we do not wait idly.  In the days ahead we must actively live out our faith, seeking to help others to be drawn bear to the coming Savior.

As believers we live and wait in two spaces.  In these days of Advent we wait expectantly for the celebration of the birth.  We celebrate because in the birth, God takes on flesh and walks among us.  Emmanuel, God with us, lived among us and set for us the example which we are to follow.  When we look at Jesus’ life here on earth, we see what it looks like to live God and to love neighbor.  In Advent we actively seek to live out our faith, drawing others to Christ.  As Paul wrote, “We receive grace and apostleship to call people from among the Gentiles to the obedience that comes from faith”.  We live to make new disciples.  In doing so we are good in the world, light and hope in dark places, help and care to the needy, and love to the hurting.

As believers we also live in another space because we also know the end of the story.  Yes, Jesus came and lived among us to show us how to live.  And, yes, because of this Jesus can better intercede for us before the Father.  He has experienced life so He can relate to our struggles.  But ultimately Jesus came to die so that could have new life, life without sin, life with God.  We also live in this sacred space, in this eternal space.  It is a space filled with hope and grace and mercy and love.

As we live out our witness to Christ’s love in the here and now may we also share the good news of the promise of life eternal, the ‘prize’ for which we journey.


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Share the Story

Reading: Psalm 146: 5-10

We love a good story.  Good stories make us feel better, they help us to remember significant and important events in our history and in our lives.  A good story can teach us much as well.  And a good story is one that is told over and over again.  The audience is just as excited to hear a good story as they were when they first heard it.

Psalm 146 is a good story, maybe even a great story.  This Psalm would have been as well known as “Amazing Grace” is today.  The Israelites would have sung this story over and over again – they would have known it by heart.  It would have been sung in worship, as one made dinner or plowed the field, as one walked along the road.  It would have been taught to children when they were very young.  It would have been sung or at least been on the minds of many as they neared drawing their last breath.

The words of Psalm 146 can make one feel better.  These words help recall significant and important events.  The words teach much about faith and about God.  Hear again the words!  Blessed us he whose help, whose hope is in the Lord.  God is the maker of heaven and earth.  The Lord upholds the cause of the oppressed and frustrates the ways of the wicked.  The Lord our God gives good to the hungry, sets prisoners free, gives sight to the blind.  Our Father sustains the orphan and the widow.  The Lord reigns forever!

What a story Psalm 146 shares!  It is a good, good story.  May we share the story today and tomorrow and the day after that and…


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Good

Reading: Jeremiah 4: 11-12 and 22-26

As I read Jeremiah today, I wondered how similar the world today looks to God.  I wonder how much of the earth seems to be filled with people who do not know God and who are skilled at doing evil.  From God’s perspective, is the world still a good place?

If one reads the headlines of the world news feed, the stories of violence and evil certainly dominate the news.  But, in general, I believe they involve a very, very small percentage of the world.  For example, on a day when terrorists strike and kill scores of people, there are billions and billions of people not doing evil.  While evil in all forms must be and is addressed, those perpetrating violence and evil acts are still in the very small minority.

While most of the world’s seven billion plus people are not Christians or other God-believing people, I do believe the spark of God resides in all humanity.  In each human being is the inate sense of good and evil.  Some choose to do evil for a variety of reasons, but there is still that twinge of good in all but the rarest of people.  Because if this spark of the divine, most people seek to be a ‘good’ person.  Most people will not intentionally harm another person and will feel remorse when they do so.  Most people will try and treat their ‘neighbor’ well and will help another when presented with the opportunity.

Through the New Testament we understand our call as Christians to be to bring the good news to all people of all nations.  This is both a collective and individual charge.  Some are missionaries in far corners of the world.  Some are translating and providing Bibles to people all around the world.  But for most of us, the charge is right here in our own family, right here in our own neighbor, right here at our job or school.  Today, each of us will have opportunity to do good and to be the gospel lived out.  May we make the most of our opportunities today.


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Giving All

Reading: Luke 7: 11-17

In His encounter with the woman outside of Nain, Jesus extends deep compassion.  He sees the funeral procession nearing His group and identifies the woman as the mother of the son who has died.  The deep compassion Jesus feels leads Him to offer her some words of comfort, “Don’t cry”.  Perhaps He chooses these words because He already knows what is coming next.

At times we too have encounters where we can see quickly that one is suffering or is in grief or is somehow afflicted.  Compassion rises up in our hearts as words begin to form in our minds.  We want to offer comfort or relief.  We want to help their situation.  But sometimes we do not know how or maybe we are unsure of what the next step will be so we really do not offer all of the compassion we are capable of giving.  We hold back.  Our words are short and superficial.  Then there is no commitment or need for follow through.

It is unclear whether or not Jesus knew the woman’s situation.  Maybe all He saw was her grief and He was moved with a deep compassion.  Or maybe He knew her full situation.  In either case, Jesus offered all He could.  He followed up His words of comfort with action.  Jesus called to the dead son to get up and He breathed new life into him.

In our encounters with those in need, we sometimes hesitate at the action step.  We pause and ask ourselves what this step of action might cost us.  Maybe we wonder if we really even have anything to offer that will help.  The cost and whether or not we have something to offer are things we should not consider.  What we have to first offer in all situations is free and costs us nothing.  The love of Christ in us should always lead the way.  What comes next is also a gift from God.  All that we have to share is a gift from God.  Whether a physical blessing or a gift such as empathy or compassion, God blesses us so that we can bless others.  God expects us to love freely, to not hold back.  Jesus demands of us what He was willing to give Himself: all.  Jesus gave all of Himself for you and for me.   Let us do the same for Him.