pastorjohnb

Thoughts and musings on faith and our mighty God!

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Share His Love

Reading: Isaiah 40: 25-26

Verse 25: “Lift your eyes to the heavens: who created all these?”

When we look to the stars in heaven we begin to get a glimpse of God’s creativity and power. We can see stars so numerous that we cannot even begin to count them. With the aid of telescopes we have discovered that there are hundreds and hundreds of stars for each one we can see with the naked eye. The sheer number is hard to begin to understand. Our passage tells us that God “calls them each by name”. If God knows each by name and knows if one of them is missing, then God cares for His created order in an extraordinary way.

Then we bring our gaze a little lower, down to the earth. Here too we see the magnificent creative power of God as we consider the vast variety of plants and animals and sea creatures and so on. Each is created for a specific purpose and place in God’s world. Just like the stars, God knows them all. The care with which God created and ordered the world reveals not only power and might but it also reveals a deep love for His creation.

If we lift our gaze to the mirror, we see the crown jewel of God’s creation. You, I, and every person that has lived, is alive, and will ever live are created in God’s image. We are each uniquely and wonderfully made. We each have a spark of the divine in us that ever calls us to our creator God. This connection to God is what allows us see beauty and value and worth in creation and in each other. It is what calls us to care for creation and to love on another.

Our care and love are imperfect. Compared to God’s love and care, ours is limited and sometimes self-serving. Sometimes we love self far more than anything else. But God did not create us to be perfect. He created us to pursue perfection. In this pursuit, our model is Jesus Christ, God in the flesh. Jesus showed us what God’s love looked like lived out. This day, may we delve into Jesus’ love and go forth to share that love with our family, friends, and neighbors. It is a love that can change hearts and can change lives. May we share it well today.


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Love

Reading: Psalm 139: 13-18

Verse 13: “You created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb”.

God is a vast God.  God created the world and all living creatures.  God continues to be active and present each day.  God’s love is unending, God’s mercy always overflows, and God’s forgiveness pours forth from the throne unceasingly.  As vast as God is, though, God is also intimately connected to each of us as well.  Verse thirteen speaks of how God has been connected to each of us since our beginning: “You created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb”.  God personally formed each of us.  Personally.  God really loves and values each and every one of us as!

In the beginning of time God spoke a word and created.  God set stars among the sky that are so numerous that we cannot count them.  Yet God knows each one by name.  This is amazing power and might.  But is was all done at once.  God spoke and it was.  That’s power.  For you and me and for each of the billions and billions of people who have lived and who are now alive, God knit us together.  We are each formed by hand, so to speak.  We are “fearfully and wonderfully made”, true, but we are also individually made.  Each of us is a unique creation of God’s mighty hand.  I think that is more amazing than any part of the creation story.

Even though we are formed by God’s hands, at times we separate ourselves from God.  We choose to sin or we may even deny our relationship with God.  We are imperfect and human.  God is not.  Into our sin, God sends grace and mercy and forgiveness.  God says, “I love you still”.  In those times of separation or denial, God continues to seek us out, to call out to us, to love us.  God could just create another person and hope for better results, but does not.  We are each the most important creation there is.  That’s how big God’s love is.

While I am thankful for this love, I know that it cannot stop there.  It is a love that must be shared with others.  This day, O Lord, may I be your love to another.  May it be so for all of us.  Amen.


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Imperfectly in Perfect

Reading: Psalm 19

Verses 7 and 12: The Law of the Lord is perfect… forgive my hidden faults.

Our Psalm for today begins by recognizing how the natural world shines forth God.  When one looks to the sky at night, one gains a sense of the vastness and power of God.  As the sun moves across the sky, we can sense God’s perfect plan at work.  The earth was placed at exactly the right distance from the sun – much closer or further and we could not have life on our planet.  The sun is described as a bridegroom bringing light and heat to all.  This is much like the Son who brings light and love to all.

In verse seven, the psalmist begins comparing God’s beautiful and perfect creation to God’s Law.  He writes, “the Law of the Lord is perfect”, trustworthy, right, and radiant.  The psslmists says the Law revives the soul, makes wise the simple, gives joy to the heart and light to the eyes.  These ordinances of God are “sure” and “righteous” and are “sweeter than honey”.  Reading all these descriptives the Law is much like the perfection and beauty of nature.  It is a wonderful thing to keep and a great place to be.  Verse eleven summarizes this: “By them is your servant warned, in keeping them there is great reward”.  All who walk daily with the Lord know this is true.

Even though we live in the beauty and wonder of God’s creation and even though we know the law and have Jesus’ example, there are times when we choose to walk outside of God’s law and love.  There are times we sin.  In verse twelve we read, “forgive my hidden faults”.  The next verse seeks protection from “willful sins”.  Within the perfection of creation and beside God’s perfect law reside us humans.  Just as the psalmist does, so too must we recognize our absolute need for God’s grace and forgiveness.  Out of His perfect love God brought us Jesus Christ, so that through His perfect love we could be redeemed.  Each day may we choose to stand upon our Rock, seeking God as we dwell imperfectly in His perfect love.


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Holy

Reading: Leviticus 19: 1-2

Today’s verses contain quite a challenge.  God calls us to be holy.  What does it mean to be ‘holy’?  Does it require us to be loving all the time, to never sin, to always be a servant to others?  Is this a 24-7 thing?  When taken from the ‘why’ part of these verses – “because I, the Lord your God, am holy” – it would appear impossible for us.  Yes, God is holy.  Yes, God is without sin.  Yes, God is love.  It is just who and what God is.  And so God tells us to be holy too.

The call to be holy is akin to a parent saying a child, ‘now be good’, as they head out the door to school or to some event.  Yes, the parent wants their child to be good, but this is not always the case, even though most children head off intending to be good as they leave the house.  This too is our struggle.  Even though one awakens every morning and seeks God’s guidance and direction in the day ahead, at times we falter and sin.  This is a limitation of our humanity.  But the grace of God is greater than our weakness!

John Wesley called our walk of faith the “journey towards perfection”.  That is what we are on.  No, I am not perfect.  No, I am not always holy.  But is that my goal?  Yes!  We are ever called to push on “towards the goal” of attaining life in Christ in heaven.  To do so, to accomplish this task, we are being transformed day by day.  It is a slow but steady process.  The transforming work is done by God alone, but others play a role.

For our part, we must seek God daily and invest in growing closer to God, to being holy.  We read and meditate on the Word, we pray and we worship.  W choose to engage with other Christians for support, encouragement, and accountability.  The gift of the Holy Spirit also plays an important role.  God created each of us and knows each of us intimately.  Therefore, God knows our reality.  Into our limitations, God breathes the Holy Spirit.  The Spirit constantly prays for us, continually works to keep us aligned with God, convicts us when necessary, always working to draw us closer to God, closer to holiness.  Yes, we are imperfect, but thank God for His unending love and patience, for the presence of the Holy Spirit, and for ever drawing us closer and closer to being holy.


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Living Water

Reading: Jeremiah 2: 4-13

Where do you get your sense of worth?  Where is it from that you draw confidence, peace, and contentment?  Where do you turn in time of trial, stress, or temptation?  The answers to these questions will reveal much about your faith and your relationship with God.

Jeremiah is writing to a people who have turned away from God.  The people have strayed from God and have turned to worthless idols.  They have defiled the land with altars to foreign gods.  They have put their trust in “broken cisterns” – in their own power and might.  In this sense they have made themselves gods.

Like the people of Jeremiah’s day, we also turn to idols.  We look to our bank accounts and retirement investments for reassurance that all is well in life.  Instead of building altars to foreign gods, we park shiny new toys in our driveways and garages.  In these we see our own worth.  We see our name on the door of our office with its fancy title and think we are content.  But when a storm rolls in we turn to alcohol or drugs to dull the pain or to TV or the internet to numb the mind.  Too often God is a last resort, a desperate prayer when we have exhausted all other options.

Soon enough the shiny becomes dull, the title just isn’t what it once was, and the ways to cope don’t seem to be working anymore.  We feel lost and stuck at the same time.  All the while the Holy Spirit has been present, trying to turn us outward instead of inward, to look to the only way, truth, and life instead of everywhere else.  Even in our most self-centered moments, God does not give up, does not stop loving us, does not stop reaching out.  It is a live beyond our understanding.

At some point we all come to sense that our peace, contentment, and joy cannot come from the things of this world.  They are all temporary.  At some point we all get to this place.  It is a place of silence, of being alone.  It is a place where all else is stripped away.  It is where we meet God.  Maybe it is ‘again’ for some, maybe it is the first time for others.  It is here, in this place of solitude, that the living water seeps in through all the cracks in our brokenness.  It is here that we begin to find peace, contentment, and joy.  But our cracks remain.  We are imperfect creations.  We will lose our focus and fall back to the things of this world.  We will stray from God and our souls will become dry.  But our God is never done with us.  This living water is always seeking to seep back in, to fill us up.  Always.  It is a love beyond our understanding.

This day and every day, may we enter the silence, draw near to God, and confess our sins.  This day and every day, may we invite God in so that the living water will fill us up.


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Patience That Never Ends

Moses come down the mountain with God’s Holy Law as found in the Ten Commandments.  His face is literally radiant from His time with the Almighty.  Trip number one was interrupted by the people encamped at the foot of the mountain when they decided to make and worship a golden idol.  They did so while they could see God’s glory just outside of camp.  It is amazing that His presence could be so close yet they turn to a false god.

In reality we are the same.  Right in the middle of worship, have you ever had an unkind thought about the family coming in late or the song that was selected or the pastor’s message?  In the Holy presence of God one can go directly from saying the Lord’s Prayer to questioning or judging the words used in the morning prayer.  Even while in worship, our lips can bring praise but out hearts are far from God.

The same is often true for other times in our lives.  After a moving morning devotional time, we can get in the car and curse a fellow driver.  After spending a few minutes in awe praising God for the beautiful sunrise, we can turn and yell at our child for getting up a few minutes late.  How quickly we can praise God one moment and absolutely drive Him nuts the next.

And what is God’s response to all this and what does it reveal about God?  He sends Moses down the mountain one more time with the stone tablets.  He forgives us for the zillionth time.  Over and over and over He says, “Close, but… let’s try this again”.  I am so thankful that God’s patience never runs out.  How great is the Father’s love for us!  Imperfect as we are, He loves us anyway.  Thanks be to God!

Scripture reference: Exodus 34: 29-32


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Still Seeking Us

God does not expect perfection.  I just don’t think He ever expects us to get there in this lifetime.  Our God is a God of mystery – absolute and unconditional love for creatures who seem bent on sin and who must constantly be reminded of who we are in Him.  God will always love each of us with this amazing love.

Because of this love, God comes to meet us in all the ugliness of life.  He comes to us in our brokenness, in our failures, in our rebellion.  God does not seek out just the holiest of saints, but He seeks out each and every one of us.  That a God who is perfect in every way would seek to be in relationship with you and me is hard to comprehend.

Yet God meets us just right where we are.  His Spirit enters into our hearts and dwells within us.  In the constant battle with our inclination to temptation and sin, the Spirit never gives up, never tires of reminding us of God’s ways.  God sticks with us and continues to offer this divine presence, almost in spite of us.

It does require almost constant effort to keep us on track and on the path that God desires for our lives.  At times we take a great detour.  But it matters not – God is always there, waiting for an audience with us.  His patience must be almost as big as His love.  Each of us is capable of mirroring a glimpse of this great love and, like all good parents, God eagerly awaits those moments when His heart swells with pride and the angels cheer.  Soon enough though, we return to being just ourselves – human in all ways, imperfect in many.  Yet God still loves us.  God is still right there.  It is not about us in any way.  It is simply because of His great love.  For this, thanks be to God.

Scripture reference: 1 Kings 2:10-12 and 3: 3-14


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Imperfect Yet Loved

As imperfect people we are prone to sin.  Temptation is around us all day, from the leanings to think unkind thoughts all the way up to the more serious actions we may ponder.  In the mix, pride and rationalization toy with us and society tells us anything is okay, just go for it.  Yet an innate part in all of us also senses when we are about to do something wrong, whether to self or another, and it cautions us.

Even though we can admit to all of this, at times we are still reluctant to admit our sins, to bring our faults out into the light.  Often sin is also seen as a shortcoming or a weakness – things we are unlikely to admit to as well.

But perhaps the biggest thing that holds us back from admitting our sins is the idea that once we confess our sin before God, then it is out there and we are called to repent, to begin to battle that sin in our life, to turn away from it.

In Psalm 51, David writes, “Against you, you only, have I sinned.”  Our sins too are between us and God alone, for He alone can offer the mercy, forgiveness, and cleansing of our soul that we so need.  David goes on to ask God to “create a pure heart within” – something we all need as well.

We are imperfect.  We all sin.  Our God of steadfast love and unending mercy knows this.  When we come with a broken and contrite heart, His love washes over our sin and He renews our spirit.  In turn, may our lips sing His praises!

Scripture reference: Psalm 51: 1-17


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In Christ’s Way

God calls us to a life of holiness.  In living a life of holiness we are called to live with God’s love being our guiding light.  Although we are imperfect in our human form, we are called to emulate our perfect God.

In daily living we are called to build others up, to pray for all we encounter, to do good and to do no harm, to serve and to give to others.  Elements such as pride, greed, envy, and such are not welcome in our hearts.  Our covenant with God calls us to holiness.  And through this covenant we find God’s power being present to help us accomplish this calling.

Paul looked at holiness as a holistic or complete package.  It involves our body, mind, and soul living a life worthy of Jesus Christ. Our journey of faith should lead us closer and closer and closer to Christ.

God knows we are imperfect creatures.  As we prepare to celebrate Christ’s birth, we are also reminded that Jesus walked this earth too.  Although He was without sin, He felt all of the emotions and things we deal with and struggle with.  Jesus is on our side.  He intercedes for us.  God calls us to perfection, seeking to make saints out of our imperfection.  The road is narrow but His love never fails and His hand is always upon us, guiding and leading us to walk in Christ’s way.

Scripture reference: 1 Thessalonians 5: 16-24