pastorjohnb

Thoughts and musings on faith and our mighty God!

Tag Archives: Jesus


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Soil, Seed, or Sower?

Reading: Matthew 13: 18-23

Verse 23: Good soil is the man who hears the word and understands it.

In our passage, Jesus explains the parable of the sower.  He is providing ‘ears’ so we can ‘hear the word and understand it’.  It is not really just an agricultural lesson!  Application comes in seeing how or where we fit in the story.  So… soil, seed, or sower?

We most easily see ourselves as the soil and hopefully as the good soil.  As followers of Jesus Christ we all want to be receptive to and to understand His Word.  Most of the time we are good soil.  But not always.  Don’t tell me your mind hasn’t wandered during the message or during your quiet time!  The concerns of life and the distractions of the world make us all thorny soil sometimes.  At other times we can be rocky soil – where we receive the Word but allow something else to quickly crowd it out.  Sometimes we are hard as the path – allowing our anger or heartache to be a wall between us and God.

Next we see ourselves, at times, as the sower.  I think we all want to be seen as Christians in our day to day lives.  We want to be the light and love of Jesus out there in the world.  We want to be “the only Bible some people will ever read”.  At times our actions also require words.  We stop and share a prayer and some words of encouragement with a co-worker or friend we know is struggling or hurting.  We offer words of hope and trust with the meal w bring to our neighbor in a time of crisis.  We are prepared to tell of the good news of Jesus Christ when someone asks about the peace and joy that we have in our life.

We are seeds in this sense too – our witness is what plants the seeds of faith in others.  Living as a Christian, we should constantly be dropping off seeds in people’s lives, seeds that the Holy Spirit can bring to life.  By action, word, and deed our faith is seeds being planted in other people’s hearts and minds.

Soil, seed, or sower?  All three!  May we ever be willing servants of our Lord and Savior – hearing, sharing, and planting each day.


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Ears to Hear

Reading: Matthew 13: 1-9

Verses 3 and 9: A farmer went out to sow his seed… He who has ears, let him hear.

The parable of the sower is very familiar.  Most folks who have been Christians very long have read it as they’ve read their Bibles or have heard it discussed in a sermon or small group study.  But what about those who heard it sitting by the lake, directly from Jesus?  For many of them there, the answer is the same as it would be for someone encountering the parable for the first time today.  It is about what Jesus began with: “A farmer went out to sow his seed”.  On this level it kinda makes sense.  Poor soil yields a poor crop and good soil yields a good crop.  But the middle soils and the widely varying yields?

Jesus concludes with, “He who has ears, let him hear”.  The people who are really listening and searching for meaning in the words of Jesus will be able to hear what He is trying to tell them.  Others will only hear His words and walk away shrugging their shoulders.  I think this is one reason Jesus spoke in parables.  It applies today as well.  For those seeking meaning for their faith and application for their lives, there is much to learn from the parables.  But we too must have ears to hear.  A second reason I think Jesus spoke in parables is because they connect earthly things that all people can understand and relate to with heavenly things that require a little more time and effort on our part to fully grasp and then live into.

Sometimes when we read or hear a parable, we too may scratch our heads a bit.  But let us not leave it there.  Go to a commentary or some other resource.  Discuss it with a friend or your pastor or with your small group.  Pray for discernment and guidance.  Every word that Jesus spoke has relevance and meaning for our walk of faith.  Let the one who has ears hear Jesus’ message today.


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Life in the Spirit

Reading: Romans 8: 1-11

Verse Two: Through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death.

Paul opens our passage today with a strong statement: “There is now no condemnation for those who are in Jesus Christ”.  This is a central theme of the gospel message.  Jesus took on the sin of the world and triumphed over it as He rose from the grave and ascended to heaven.  Through the sacrifice of His body and blood we are forgiven and made righteous.  We no longer have to live with sin and guilt and shame.  Through Jesus’ loving act on the cross we are freed from all of this.  In grace we are made new and restored to righteousness.  Paul writes of this in verse two: “Through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death”.  We are set free as well!

For most of the passage, Paul focuses on sin versus righteousness.  Paul argues that the sinful man focuses on the desires of the flesh and is self-centered and is hostile to God.  The sinful man leads a life that ends in death.  Paul contrasts this with the man who lives led by the Spirit.  The Spirit led man focuses on the desires of God and is Good-centered and tries to please God.  The Spirit led man lives a life of peace that leads to eternal life.  The key to which life one leads is determined by whether or not Jesus is in one’s life.  Paul argues that if Christ is in us, then we will lead a life that is led by the Spirit.

Paul is, of course, writing here of the big picture.  Either we are trying to live by the Spirit or we are trying to live by the flesh.  The deciding factor is professing Jesus as Lord of our life.  Once we make this decision it does not mean that we will never sin again.  It means that our focus is on living a righteous life that is pleasing to God.  Life in the Spirit means that the Holy Spirit will guide and lead and convict us, making our battle with sin more often victorious.  The good news is that when we do slip and sin, there is no condemnation because Christ had already defeated sin and death.  Instead of condemnation we are given mercy and grace and forgiveness.  Through Him eternal victory is in our grasp.  For this we say thanks be to God!


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The Joy of My Heart

Reading: Psalm 119: 105-112

Verse 105: Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light for my path.

The psalmist opens this section of the longest chapter in the Bible with these familiar words.  As one reads, “Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light for my path”, one can’t help but have the tune come to mind.  The truth that the psalmist writes remains as true today as it was the day he wrote it.  The depth of commitment we hear in the words of our passage is still the depth of commitment that God continues to look for today in each of us who profess Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior of our life.

The opening line speaks of God’s Word guiding us through life.  A popular acronym for Bible is “basic instructions before leaving earth”.  Spending time daily in the Word continues to be essential to faithful discipleship.  It is so important to spend time each day with our Bibles, meditating on God’s ways and learning more about what it means to follow Jesus.

The psalmist does not tout a blessed and perfect life once he made the choice to make his oath to follow God’s ‘righteous law’.  Instead he admits that his life continues to have suffering and the wicked continue to tempt him.  We too must acknowledge that life is not instantly a bed of roses once we choose to enter a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.  Life will still have it’s troubles.  There will still be times of pain and anguish and hardship.  But we do not face these alone.  Jesus walks with us through the troubles and trials, bringing us peace and comfort and strength.

Our passage today ends with “your statutes… are the joy of my heart”.  We find the same joy when we choose to allow Jesus’ ways to be our rule for life.  The Law of the Old Testament and the psalmist has been renewed and refreshed by Jesus and the new commandments.  We too must match the psalmist’s commitment to his faith – to live out each and every day as a follower of Jesus Christ – bringing honor and glory to God in all we do and say.  May it be so!


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Hope and Promise

Reading: Genesis 25: 19-34

Verses 22 and 23: The babies jostled each other within her… two nations are in your womb.

In our passage from Genesis 25, there is a lot going on.  Isaac gets married but Rebekah is barren.  Isaac prays about this and she becomes pregnant.  Turns out Rebekah is carrying twins, which fight a lot in the womb.  Two very distinct boys are born and each parent develops a favorite.  Verses 22 and 23 speak of this: “The babies jostled each other within her… two nations are in your womb”.  This would be an ongoing relationship for Jacob and Esau.  In the end, the younger ‘buys’ the older’s birth rite with a bowl of stew because the older was hungry.

In the early part of our passage, Isaac turns to God in prayer for the solution to a problem.  Isaac has experienced God’s faithfulness in his own past.  He himself was an answer to a similar prayer by his father.  Isaac also experienced God’s answer to a problem personally.  First, it was he who was laid on the altar to be a sacrifice to God.  But in response to Abraham’s faithfulness, God provided a different solution.  Second, in needing a wife for his son, Abraham trusted his servant, who also trusted God fully.  The solution to this was Rebekah.  So when Isaac goes to God, he expects God to work.  Like Isaac, we too have experiences with God working in our lives.  So, like Isaac, may we pray believing God will answer.

Between Esau and Jacob, the unlikely one comes to have the inheritance.  This is the opposite of how it should be.  As a general rule, the Israelite people would be upset with this story on principle.  But they love this story because clearly God is at work on behalf of His chosen people.  In it they see their story.  In many ways, this is a common story.  God often chooses the unlikely, the least, the outcast, the underdog.  Over much of their history the people of Israel have been the little guy, the weak nation, the underdog.  Even for the New Testament, Jesus came from the small town, from insignificant parents.  Paul was the greatest enemy of the new church yet came to be its greatest champion.  God chooses the unlikely, the unexpected, the unknown.

When taken together, these two elements of the story bring us hope and promise.  In times of honest and genuine prayer, we know that God can and will answer.  He is faithful and this brings us hope.  In terms of our lives as followers of Jesus Christ, we know that God can and will use anyone.  Even you and me.  This is God’s promise.  This day, may our prayers seeks to live into these two elements – hope and promise – as we love and serve the Lord today.


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Choose Jesus

Reading: Matthew 11: 25-30

Verse 29: Take my yoke upon you and learn from me… You will find rest for your souls.

Jesus invites all who are “weary and burdened” to come to Him.  In the time Jesus lived, many met these conditions.  The Romans who ruled the land extracted high taxes that was a great burden to many.  Their different gods and laws also placed a burden on the people.  Living in this kind of oppression made the people weary.  And for many, the Jewish Law added another layer.  It was burdensome and made people even more weary.  From Jesus’ perspective the Law was cumbersome and impossible to keep on one’s own.

Today many people feel weary and burdened.  The lifestyle people live brings these conditions upon them.  For some it is self-imposed and for others it is their reality.  Some in our society choose to be so busy and involved in so many things that they feel like they are always running on empty.  Others in our society feel weary and burdened because of their circumstances in life.  Some in this group work and work but feel like they never can get to a place of stability and peace.  The money never seems to cover all the bills and the choice must be made between food and electricity.  Others in this group are weary and burdened because of addictions or abusive behaviors and always feel trapped and hopeless.

Jesus called out to all the people of His day and continues to call out to us today who feel weary and burdened.  Jesus says, “Take my yoke upon you and learn from me… You will find rest for your souls”.  He invites us to walk a different path, to live a better way.  It begins by being yoked to Jesus.  This begins by professing Jesus as Lord and Savior of our lives and dedicating our life to following Him.  In doing so, we commit to learning from Jesus and the example He set.  One may wonder, why take on more?  Because Jesus will bring you rest.  He will help carry those burdens and troubles.  He will give strength and courage to face those sins and demons.  With Jesus’ yoke we find contentment and peace in our lives.  To all who are weary and burdened, choose Jesus, for “my yoke is easy and my burden is light”.  Choose Jesus.


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Follow

Reading: Matthew 11: 16-19

Verse 19: The Son of Man came eating and drinking… a friend of tax collectors and sinners.

John the Baptist and Jesus Christ were sent by God – one to proclaim the coming of the good news and the other to bring the good news.  Both men showed signs of God’s presence within them and were feared by the religious authorities for their connection to God.  As Jesus speaks today, He questions the current people’s ability to recognize what or who is before them.  In the end He says, “wisdom is proved right by her actions”.  Today we would maybe say “the proof is in the pudding”.  The question for us as followers of Jesus is: do we walk the walk?

In Jesus’ time, the tradition of becoming a Rabbi was a long and arduous process.  All young boys aspired to be a Rabbi.  The Rabbi was well respected and looked up to.  All young boys would study the Torah, memorizing each word of what we know as Genesis through Deuteronomy (180 pages in my Bible).  Those who showed exceptional promise would go on the further study.  Those who excelled here would ask to follow a Rabbi.  From this group a Rabbi would select three to five to follow him.  This small group would literally follow the Rabbi everywhere and would emulate all he did.  It was quite an involved process to get to train so that one day you might become the new Rabbi.  As others surpassed you, at whatever step, you would return home, most likely taking up the family business.

This was how one would become a religious authority.  It was how it was done.  John and Jesus simply responded to the call of God and went into ministry.  The authority that both men carried did gain respect from some, but not from all.  As our verses say, many called John ‘crazy’ or demon-possessed.  Jesus was looked down upon for the company He kept.  Verse 19 reads, “The Son of Man came eating and drinking… a friend of tax collectors and sinners”.  In the end both men served the God they loved.  Each man filled the exact role that God had planned for each.  John pointed to Jesus as the one to follow.  Jesus gave us the example to follow.  As we live out this day, may we clearly follow Jesus, looking to be His witness and His hands and feet in our world.


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Who Will Rescue?

Reading: Romans 7: 15-25

Verse 15: For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do.

Paul’s honest passage surely hits home.  The struggle with sin is one we all face on an almost daily basis.  Even as one matures in the faith and the daily walk of life seems to be going quite well, all of a sudden sin rears its ugly head and we wonder where that came from.  Paul also begins by expressing that he does not understand how this happens.  He writes, “For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do”.  As a disciple of Jesus Christ, we want to follow Him daily and to have our lives reflect His love to others.  This is what we want to do.  Yet we often fail to do this all of the time.  Instead we get caught up in ourselves and in the smallness of life and we find ourselves doing what we hate.

Paul attributes the cause of this struggle to the sin living within him.  He is aware of the desire to sin that lives in him and in all of us.  It is so because we are of the world.  All around us are reminders to gratify self instead of seeking to please God.  Satan is constantly at work within us, trying to bring us off the narrow path that leads to true life and onto the wide road that leads to death.  The evil one also tries to have a hand in preventing us from doing the good we desire to do.  He brings up doubts and fears and makes us question ourselves, making it sometimes hard to do the good we desire to do.

It would seem that all is lost.  It is not.  In verse 22 Paul writes, “For in my inner being I delight in God’s law”.  For all who profess Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, we too know the light and love that lives in our hearts.  It is the courage and strength to face each day and to do the good we desire to do.  It is also the peace that passes understanding that helps us past the storms and past the doubts and fears we face.  Paul closes by admitting that he is weak and wretched.  So are we.  But we are not alone.  Paul asks, “Who will rescue me”?  The same one who rescues us all.  The passage concludes with the answer to this question: Jesus Christ!  To He alone who can rescue, we join Paul in saying thanks be to God.


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Hope and Compassion

Reading: Genesis 24: 58-67

Verse 67: So she became his wife and he loved her and Isaac was comforted after his mother’s death.

Abraham’s act of fatherly love culminates in a successful wedding.  He has managed to do what all good parents try to do – bring joy to their children in times of sadness.  Isaac is in mourning over the loss of his mother Sarah.  Their relationship was especially close and her passing has created a large void in his life.  Abraham was simply trying to remove this pain from Isaac’s life.

When we find ourselves in a time of suffering and sadness, we too want to be surrounded by those we love.  We find comfort and compassion and, through our loved ones, our sorrows are alleviated.  We seek out those who will love on us and turn our thoughts to brighter and happier things.  This is the role Abraham plays for Isaac.  The last line in today’s passage reads, “So she became his wife and he loved her and Isaac was comforted after his mother’s death”.

As Rebekah responds to the call to go, her family sends her with a blessing.  These words – “may you increase to thousands and thousands” – remind us of God’s covenant with Abraham to have descendants as numerous as the sands on the seashore.  It is just one more showing of God’s hand orchestrating and blessing this whole situation.  It is evidence of God’s love for and concern for His people and their future.

God has the same love and concern for you and I and for our future.  Just as God compassionately cares for Abraham and Isaac and Rebekah, so too does He care for us.  All we need to do is enter into a relationship with God to know His love and care and compassion.  All we need to do to experience a future of promise is to accept Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior.  God’s love and compassion work to draw us in.  They call out to us.  May we, like Rebekah, step into God’s love and live into the hope and promise that God offers to all who call on His name.


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Faithful Servant

Reading: Genesis 24: 34-38

Verse 37: My master made me swear an oath…

Abraham’s servant has been tasked with a very important job.  He is to go back to Abraham’s homeland to find a wife for Isaac.  Abraham and Sarah were well beyond child-bearing years when Isaac was born and Sarah has died.  The precious gift of a child must be cared for.  The line must extend beyond Isaac and no Canaanite woman will do.  The wife for Isaac must come from Abraham’s own clan.  This will become a common practice as Israel becomes more defined as God’s chosen people and God directs them not to intermarry with the peoples around them lest they be led astray.

The servant begins today’s passage by explaining why he is there.  In the previous verses the servant has met Rebekah and has discerned that God’s hand is at work in leading him to this very person and to this very house.  After a prayer of thanksgiving, the servant proceeded to Laban’s home.  But the task is not done.  It is not time to relax.  The faithful servant puts off food until he has spoken with Laban.  He is faithful to the task his master Abraham gave him.

At times we too have tasks to carry out that involve God’s larger plan or our commitment to follow Jesus as Master.  We feel as this servant felt – there is something God has placed on our hearts that must be accomplished.  We must talk to this person about such and such or maybe we feel led to volunteer for or take on something at church or in the community.  For some, maybe they are wrestling with a call to ministry or with a call to serve God in some way.  Taking that first step can be so hard.  Being willing to listen to the voice of the Holy Spirit and to go where it leads requires a deep and abiding trust in God.

When we sense God’s hand at work in our lives may we be like this faithful servant, trusting fully in God, stepping out boldly in faith to accomplish or respond to whatever God places on our heart today.