pastorjohnb

Thoughts and musings on faith and our mighty God!

Tag Archives: hope


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Realize and Recognize

Readings: Psalms 47 and 97

Both Psalms exclaim, “God reigns”!  In one we see the physical ways in which we can offer our praise: singing, clapping, shouting, and with instruments.  In the second, we see many ways we can experience or observe this exclamation: clouds, melting mountains, consuming fires, and images of heaven.  In these two Psalms, we see God’s grandeur, we see His glory.

At a concert last night we sang songs of praise to our God and to Jesus.  We also clapped and shouted; the band’s sang and played a variety of instruments to lead our praise and worship.  The Word was also proclaimed and the message of salvation was loud and clear.  Perhaps many of us also experienced something similar in church yesterday morning!  One leaves gatherings such as worhsip or a concert with energy, enthusiasm, and the Spirit of the Lord upon them.  We go forth with an exalted sense of who God is.  We go forth filled with joy, hope, love, and a sense of now being closer to God.

Often this reframed sense of our relationship to and with God causes us to see the world and people around us in a different way.  We exit an experience that drew us closer to God more able to see Him in our world – in nature and in people.  We also can recognize Him in people more quickly and more clearly.  When we choose to draw closer to God we are also choosing to be more like Him.  That joy, love, and hope that we now know better more easily flows from us to others in our lives.  Each time we allow ourselves to connect to, to share, to be a part of His activity in our worlds, the more we come to realize and recognize His presence the next time.  May we ever continue to seek, share, and grow in our relationship with our God!


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Oh What Love

Readings: Psalm 31: 14-15, Psalm 118:1, Isaiah 50:7, and Philippians 2:9

Today we celebrate both Palm Sunday and Passion Sunday.  With palms we celebrate Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem.  It is an event filled with joy yet tinged with sadness as well.  This happy parade marks the beginning of Holy Week.  The events of this week will contain a good deal of despair but in the end hope is triumphant.  The passion of Jesus for humanity reveals the depth of His love for us.

Today’s Psalm readings remind us of the truth and steadfastness of God.  In Psalm 31 we are reminded to trust God because He WILL deliver us.  Yes, there will be trials, but He will see us through them.  Psalm 118 reminds us of the why: because God is good and because His love endures forever.  When we choose to fully trust our lives to God, we discover that He will deliver us each and every time because of the depth of His love for us.

That depth of love allowed His own Son to be tried, tortured, and crucified because God knew that death would not have the last word.  God knew that the grave could not contain His Son.  God knew that love is stronger than death.  So sin was  heaped upon Jesus on that cross.  He bore them all as the perfect sacrifice.  Oh what depth of love the Father has for you and me!  Oh what love.


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Salvation

Reading: Psalm 118: 14

Salvation, as it was often used in the Old Testament, has a slightly different connotation than how it is primarily used in the New Testament.  Whereas in general Christians see salvation as a personal and eternal matter, to the average Jew of the time salvation was more communal and concerned life in the present time and place.

In the Psalm there is a sense of tragedy and despair that God has rescued them from.  During this time the psalmist felt trapped, limited.  It was as if the world has closed in tight and it was hard to breathe.  It is a feeling we all can surely relate to.  For the psalmist, God’s act of salvation rescued them from despair and restored their hope in this life.  Part of this rescue is the liberation from that which constricted or oppressed them so that they can again have the abundant life that God intends for us all to live.  For the Hebrew community, salvation was something that could happen over and over and over again.

As Christians, we also see God’s presence and interaction with us as a regular, daily event.  We also view God as active and engaged in our daily lives.  We see God as present with us as individuals as well as with our faith communities and world.  God listens to our praise, our cries, our thanksgivings, and our pleas.  He responds to our needs and rescues us from trials so that we can live a life that is abundant and joyful, filled with His many blessings.

In both the Old Testament and in the New Testament, salvation has a saving character to it.  In the Old Testament it mostly had to do with God’s hand at work in their world, saving people from their struggles.  For us as New Testament people, we still see God at work doing this, but we also see salvation as the work that saves us from sin, death, and their consequences.  For both of these aspects of God’s salvation, I am thankful.  Praise be to God!


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Listening and Talking

Reading: Isaiah 50: 4-9a

God gifts us with many good things.  Two of them are our tongue and our ears.  Over time we too can become like Isaiah, having an “instructed tongue”.  We do this by developing a close relationship with God so that His Word is deep within us.  This is accomplished by faithful Bible reading and study, by a consistent and committed prayer life, and by an active and engaged worship life.  As we immerse ourselves in the things of God, we come to have an instructed tongue.  While I do believe in the old saying that God gave us two ears and one tongue so that we can listen twice as much as we talk, I am also convinced that there is great power in our words.

Like Isaiah in today’s text, we too can give attention to God so that He can awaken our ears.  When we take the time and slow down and really listen, we can hear a lot.  When we are fully tuned into the one before us, we are able to hear much more than the words they are saying.  We are able to understand their needs below the surface level.  From this point of view our ” instructed tongue” can offer much to another in need.

God also desires to awaken our ears to the world out there.  He desires for us to be in the world to make a difference, to make the world a better place.  God desires for our ears to hear the cries of the needy, to hear the wails against injustice, and to hear the sighs of the suffering.  It is very necessary to hear those in need if we are going to respond.  We must be listening closely and understanding deeply if we are going to be able to bring the light, love, and hope of Jesus Christ to where God calls us.  When we hear and respond, we are  being His hands and feet.  When we do so, God will direct our instructed tongue to share His message and all else that He offers our brothers and sisters in need.


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True Hope

Reading: Psalm 126

The psalm begins with the memory of captivity and exile and moves into a time to sow and then to wait for the harvest.  The darkest hour seems to have passed and new life and hope seem just around the corner.  To wait for the harvest takes time and patience and trust but also comes with expectancy and hope.  One day new life will spring up, hope will continue to grow, and then a joyous harvest will be reaped.

This cycle of life can represent our faith journey as well.  As we begin to move past a time in the desert, we begin to see signs of hope as well.  Out of the trial we begin to see how we were refined or strengthened by the trial.  From the work that God was doing in us or in our lives, we begin to see new life take shape.  It sprouts and there is an excitement and hope and promise.  Over time it grows and comes to be something that gives hope and light and love to others.  We are bearing fruit and planting seeds in others that will one day sprout in the lives of others.  As we use the gifts and experiences we had have to walk alongside others in times of trial, we can help them begin to see the hope we find in Christ as we journey together.

It is within the work of resurrection on the cross that we have our true hope.  It is because of God’s love expressed through Jesus Christ that we have this true hope.  The true hope of eternal life is the source of our strength and trust in Him.  This true hope is what shines within us and also shines out to bring hope and light and love to those in darkness.  May we ever share the good news within us with a world so in need.


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Hope and Grace

Reading: Psalm 126: 1-4

God restores His people.  He brings them our of captivity and they can again dream.  He fills them with laughter and instills in them songs of joy.  Great joy fills the people as they realize all that God has done for them.

All of this joy and happiness is set against a long period of trial.  The people are finally returning to the land that God had promised them after a lengthy period in exile.  Their faith had sustained them in the long period of captivity and exile, but it was not a joyful time, not a time of happy laughter, not a time when they could dream of what could be.

There are times in our lives when we struggle, when joys seems far away, and when we cannot see hope on the horizon.  Like the people in captivity, we too must allow our faith to sustain us.  We may not be able to joyfully praise God, but we can continue to pray with a quiet confidence.  We can choose to lean on Him for strength we cannot seem to muster on our own but that we find when we rest in Him.

We must always hold onto hope.  We find hope inn His promises.  From the great song Amazing Grace, “The Lord has promised good to me, His word my hope secures.  He will my shield and portion be, as long as life endures.”  Like the Israelites, our journey out of captivity, out of our struggle, may be long.  But we too know that God loves us and seeks good for us.  In Him our hope rests secure.  May we rely on His amazing grace, a grace that is always present and a grace that always saves.


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Being Fruitful

Reading Luke 13: 1-9

The world is sometimes filled with tragedy and sorrow.  You do not have to watch the news too long to feel the urge to turn off the television.  In today’s passage the people come to Jesus with a story of death and tragedy and are seeking help to make sense of it.  Jesus instead bring sup another story of loss and sorrow.  He warns us that tragedy can strike us all and that we must therefore repent, lest we will perish.  Jesus is implying that death will come to us all; it is up to us how we choose to live our lives between now and then.  Will our lives lead us to perish to hell or to rise to eternal life?

Jesus goes on to tell the parable of the fig tree.  The owner comes for a third year and again finds no fruit on the tree.  He instructs the gardener to cut it down.  The gardener asks for one more year.  He will tend to it and water it and fertilize it in an effort to help the tree bear fruit.  In this parable we are the fig tree.  Year after year Jesus pours into us through the Word, in worship, in small groups, …  He yearns to see us bear fruit.  The Holy Spirit works on us also, pruning and fertilizing and guiding us along so that we are more able to bear fruit.

As we continue to grow in our faith, we will bear fruit as we mature, just as the tree will.  As we touch the lives of others, bearing fruit and shining the light and love of Jesus, we will bring hope and comfort amidst the darkness and tragedies of this world.  It is through our witness and love that others will come to know Jesus, the only source of strength, healing, and understanding in the midst of pain and sorrow.  As we are fruitful and faithful witnesses, we are living for and pointing others toward the one and only way to true, eternal life: Jesus Christ.

 


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Trust and See

A bloom appears in the desert.  Hope rises up our of the midst of despair.  New life stirs as the dust of a tragedy settles.  In all things God works for the good of those who love Him.

God never promised us that life would always be happy and easy.  He did promise us that life would be blessed.  He promised us that His mercies and grace would be new every morning.  He promised that His love would endure.  It is with these promises that we can walk through our times of despair, trial, and tragedy.

As we grow in our faith, God builds us up to be able to go through bad things and to still stay connected to Him.  Jesus is for us that living water that keeps us connected to God.  In our passage for today, Paul speaks of commending themselves in every way – even in the trials, beatings, imprisonments, and hunger.  In these types of things our faith will allow us to rely on God’s grace as well.  Paul ends this section of scripture with these words: “having nothing, yet possessing everything”.  At times we feel totally lost, yet still have our faith and that is everything.

In the good and bad times we rely on God.  He alone has the love, strength, and grace to see us through. These qualities of God are always present but we most need them in times of trial.  Trust in Him and cling to faith – there we will see that God is good.  He is good because His steadfast love endures forever!

Scripture reference: 2 Corinthians 5:20 to 6:10


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His Love Never Fails

God’s love never fails. While it is true that tongues will become still and knowledge will pass away, God’s love will always remain.  Paul ends this chapter in his letter to the Corinthians with the reminder that faith, hope, and love remain with us, but that the greatest of these is love.  It is knowing how deep and wide God’s love is that allows us to hold onto our faith and to keep hope even in our hardest trials.

Since the moment we were formed, God’s love surrounds us.  His love continues to be with us daily, giving us comfort, strength, and protection.   We see His love surrounding many in the Bible.  A few examples are when He guided the people through the sea as He protected them from the Egyptians; when He kept David safe as Saul pursued him; when He comforted Jesus in the wilderness; and when He gave Stephen strength in his time of persecution and stoning.  And these are just a few examples.

Paul also writes of setting aside childish ways and becoming mature in our faith.  This is what we continually do on our journey of faith.  As we grow in our faith, we learn to trust in God a little longer, to hold onto our hope a little tighter, and to rely on His love a little more.  It is a process though.  We are never suddenly right where we want to be in a growth process.  It takes time.  We experience a setback here and there.  But we must keep going forward and striving to grow in faith, hope, and love.

God’s love never fails.  May we ever keep this locked in our hearts and written on our minds as we continue on this journey of faith.  Blessings!

Scripture reference: 1 Corinthians 13: 8-13


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In Prayer

When we go to God in prayer, we do so with no guarantees.  We bring to God the desires of our hearts and our hopes for friends, family, and the world.  Often we pray for a certain situation or for some conflict to be resolved.  But sometimes, when we are in a season of personal discontent, we do not know what to pray for.  We sense some imbalance or uneasiness in our lives, but we cannot quite put our finger on it.  So we pray for things like guidance, direction, wisdom, discernment.

Usually when we pray, we pray with a certain hoped for answer in mind.  We pray for someone who is sick and we hope for healing.  We pray for someone who needs work and we hope for a job.  We pray for someone who is in a struggling relationship and we hope for reconciliation.  Even when we are in a season of discontent, most of the time when we pray we do so with an idea of what we would like the answer to be.

Funny thing about prayer though – it is God who answers our prayer, not us.  His  vision for our life and our world is so much bigger than our limited view.  His vision and plan for us and our world is focused on an eternal ending.  We often struggle to see with this lens.  But sometimes we do see an answer to a prayer or we begin to understand how God is at work in the midst of it all.  This is a holy privilege.

At times our prayers are also affirming and uplifting.  Like God’s response to Jesus’ prayer after His baptism in today’s passage, at times we too sense God’s presence, love, and affirmation.  We can almost hear Him saying ‘well done’.  We sense a guiding hand or we are blessed with affirmations that encourage us to continue to walk the path that God has placed us on.  In prayer we connect to God and He connects to us.  May we pray often.

Scripture reference: Luke 3: 21-22