pastorjohnb

Thoughts and musings on faith and our mighty God!

Tag Archives: Jesus


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To Save the Lost

Reading: Luke 19: 1-5

Zacchaeus was a man  who probably had few friends.  We are told he was wealthy.  So he was probably ‘good’ at his job as the chief tax collector.  He became wealthy by extorting extra taxes from the people to line his own pockets.  He also likely collected a slice of what those working under him collected as well.  So Zacchaeus was not very well liked.  There is a reason he went alone to get a peek at this Jesus.

Just prior to today’s reading, in Luke 18 we find the story of Jesus’ encounter with the rich ruler.  He comes to Jesus seeking  to know how to inherit eternal life.  In their initial conversation he tells Jesus he has kept all the commandments since he was a boy.  In both of these things, he is an opposite to Zacchaeus.  But he is unable to do what Jesus asks of him: sell all he has and then come follow Jesus.  This man went away very sad; he was unable to part with his great wealth.

Zacchaeus finds a place in a tree because he is short and really just wants to be able to see Jesus as He passes by.  He is curious.  Zacchaeus does not go out that day to have his life changed.  He is content with his wealth.  Yet Jesus picks him out of all those in the crowd that day.  He calls Zacchaeus down and invites Himself into his home.  While there Zacchaeus is changed.  He admits his sins and joyfully pledges to make restitution to all he has wronged.  Jesus responds by saying that salvation has come to Zacchaeus’ house this day.  In what almost seems like an afterthought, Jesus says, “For the Son of Man came to seek and save the lost”.  It is an answer to the crowd’s judgment of Jesus going to a sinner’s home and also a declaration for us.

In choosing Zacchaeus, Jesus is saying He will come to anyone.  After all, He came to you and to me.  Jesus wants to come into people’s lives today with the same intentbthat He came into Zacchaeus’: to save the lost.  Who will you introduce to Jesus today?


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Living Right

Reading: Psalm 119: 137-144

The psalmist declares that God’s righteousness lasts forever.  Because of this, all of God’s laws and ways are also righteous.  Since God’s laws and ways are always righteous, we should ever seek to understand and live out God’s statutes and precepts.  If we do so, then we draw near to loving them as the psalmist does.  Even in times of trouble and distress, the writer declares that God’s commands bring delight.

To this understanding from the Old Testament, we can apply our understanding of Jesus.  Jesus was the fuller revelation of God as He lived in the flesh.  Jesus allows us to see what it looks like to live out God’s laws and ways.  Even though Jesus was in the flesh, He was still divine and lived a life without sin.  In the life of Jesus, in the things He taught, and in how He lived, we have the example of what it means to live fully in God’s righteousness.  Jesus defined and lived out the essence of all of God’s laws and precepts that we find in the Old Testament.  He did so by loving God with all He was and by loving others as God loves them.  Jesus saw all as beloved children of God and treated each accordingly.

Jesus exemplified verse 142: “Your righteousness is everlasting and your law is true”.  God does not change.  God’s love never ends.  God’s ways are true.  Within these truths we seek to live as Jesus lived.  Living out our faith us living right.  Living out the love that Jesus pours into us is living right.  Living out the truth of God so that God’s word spreads to those around us and so God’s love and light grows is living right.  Whether filled with joy because of God’s blessings or struggling through a trial, these truths do not change.  No matter what life may bring, God’s love and God’s ways remain true.  May we always follow Jesus’ example, seeking to be God’s love and truth lived out.


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On Our Hearts

Reading: Jeremiah 31: 27-34

In my limited mind, understanding the depth of God’s love can be hard to fathom.  Because of my own struggles to forgive at times, it can be hard to comprehend God’s willingness to forgive my sins over and over and over… In my life, in my own experiences with how easy it can be to withhold love, it is hard to fully wrap my head around the fact that God always loves me, no matter what I’ve done or said.

The passage from Jeremiah marks a shift in God’s relationship with the people.  In the past, the Law has been God’s primary tool for faithfulness and obedience.  With the Law there were consequences and rewards.  With the Law there were times when separation and punishment were used to realign the people’s minds with God’s ways.  Over time the Law grew and grew to try and cover every possibility of sin.  But it also became so cumbersome that it was impossible to keep all of the Law.  Failure was all but guaranteed.  So God offered a new way.

God opted for a new covenant based upon a personal heart relationship with each of us.  Instead of a mountain of Laws, God instead offered mountains of love and grace and mercy.  Instead if the unending stream of sacrifices, God instead offered up, once and for all, the perfect sacrifice of Jesus.  It is through Jesus and the power of the Holy Spirit that we can enter into a personal heart relationship with God.  It is in this personal relationship that God’s ways are written upon our heart.  It is through this relationship that our lives begin to reflect God’s love and grace and mercy.  Verse 33 states, “I will be their God and they will be my people”.  Thanks be to God that we are claimed as God’s children, loved and forgiven, so that we too may offer God’s gift to our broken world.  Thanks be to God!


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Teach and Share. Repeat.

Reading: 2Timothy 3:14 to 4:5

Timothy has been richly blessed in his life.  His family has encouraged and taught him on his early faith journey.  They planted and nurtured the seeds of faith that God watered and made grow.  Paul steps into Timothy’s life to continue to teach and correct and encourage him as he grows in his faith.  Timothy is now at a point where he is ready to preach the Word, to use his faith to help others on their journey of faith.  Timothy’s faith has grown to the point that he feels God’s call upon his life.

We too have walked (or are walking) a similar path.  Our faith is meant to be lived out in community.  It began that we with Jesus and a small group of followers.  Jesus taught them the faith so that they too could one day share the good news with others.  After they had been with Jesus for a sufficient time, He sent them out to proclaim the kingdom of God and to heal.  The disciples went out and shared their growing faith with others.  Their own faith grew and they returned to Jesus to learn some more.

After Jesus’ death and resurrection, the disciples continued to learn and grow from each other and by the power of the Holy Spirit.  We, as current disciples, are called to the same life.  Be in the community, be in small groups to encourage, support, and learn together.  Go out into the world to teach and Share our faith.  Return for more encouraging, supporting, and learning.  Head back out into the world to teach and Share.  Repeat often.  May we learn to follow Jesus’ example, modeled by Paul as well.


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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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Pour

Reading: 2 Timothy 3: 14-17

No one wakes up one day and finds themselves to be a fully developed, totally mature Christian.  Our walk of faith is a long journey, one that only ends when we stand before Jesus in eternity.  Who we are today as a believer is not who we will be in a year or in a decade.  Even though we never get “there”, we are all on a ‘journey towards perfection ‘, as John Wesley liked to say.

No one journeys alone.  In our passage today, Paul speaks of Timothy knowing the Scriptures since infancy.  Earlier in 2nd Timothy Paul speaks of Timothy’s grandmother Lois and mother Eunice living out and teaching their faith to him.  Then Paul joins this “great cloud of witness” as he too pours into and mentors Timothy.  To this crowd Paul also adds the Scriptures.  In the Word of God there is much instruction and guidance too.

Over the course of our faith lives we find people who poured into us.  These persons could be a pastor, a boss, a spouse, a friend, a colleague.  People of faith in our lives have taught, mentored, encouraged, corrected, guided, and loved on us as they shared their faith with us so that ours would grow.  For each we are grateful and thankful and always indebted.

As we grow in our faith, at some point, we too become teachers, mentors, guides.  We see the spark of God light up in a new believer and the Holy Spirit leads us to walk alongside this person.  Like Paul, we pour into our friend new to the faith.  Like all those who poured into us, we in turn pour into others.  We too become part of that great cloud of witness.  We are blessed to be part of the family of God.  This pattern of discipleship began with Jesus, when He gathered 12 around Him and began to pour into them.  May we go and do likewise.


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To All in Need

Reading: Luke 17: 11-19

Our story begins today with Jesus travelling along the border between Samaria and Galilee.  There is long-standing tension between the peoples of these two regions.  We see this tension revealed in several stories in the New Testament.  Some on both sides of this tension would travel many miles out of the way simply to avoid crossing the other’s territory.

Ten lepers called out to Jesus.  Ten call out in faith.  Jesus sees ten children of God calling out in faith to be healed.  Jesus brings healing to all ten.  He saw ten lepers.  Jesus did not see one Samaritan and nine Jews.  He saw ten lepers in need of healing.

Healing comes to all ten.  Jesus sees only the condition that has kept them isolated from society.  Jesus does not see ethnicity or age or gender or any other differentiating characteristic.  He only sees their faith that has led them to call out for healing.  Their faith is what Jesus responds to.

Through this story, Jesus is calling us to love in the same way.  He is calling us to love all people.  All people are God’s children, all need God’s love.  Jesus is calling us to look past ethnicity and age and gender and religion and socio-economic status and … “Love one another as I have first loved you”.  Fully, completely, without filter or limit or hesitation.

One came back to thank Jesus for His healing touch.  The one who came back was a Samaritan.  The one who most in Jesus’ audience would see as an outsider came back to fall at Jesus’ feet and to thank Him.  We too will encounter others who feel like outsiders, who feel unworthy of Jesus’ presence.  We too can reach out and offer hope and love and healing in the name of Jesus.  To all in need, may we offer Jesus Christ, the only one who can heal all.  To all in need, may we offer Jesus and His love.


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Attitude 

Reading: Luke 17: 5-10

As Christians, our role is to love God and to love neighbor.  It is what we are called to do.  In loving, we are also often called to do for or to serve God and neighbor.  We usually do so willingly and obediently, so we understand Jesus’ teaching that doing so is simply our duty as Christians.  In serving our Master and Lord we should not expect extra thanks or special recognition.

Every once in a while we notice something at home or work or church that needs done.  It may not be our “job” but w notice it needs done, so we do it.  Some of the time, when we serve with good intentions, God blesses us.  For example, a couple of weeks ago I noticed that some of the windows at the church needed cleaned.  As I was getting ready to clean windows that evening, a man wandered up to the parsonage looking for an odd job to do.  I invited him to join me and our time together was wonderful.  We accomplished a hard task and we began a new friendship.  Such a blessing!

But sometimes we notice a job that needs done and we go about it grudgingly.  As we work, we run through the list of people whose job this really is or should be.  We may even become upset with them for not doing their job as we slave away to do what should have already been done.  Grudgingly, work, slave.  In this mindset, boy do we need an attitude adjustment!

Lord, when we are working grudgingly, change our hearts so we are willingly serving, being a faithful servant instead of an overworked slave.  Lord Jesus, help us to love and serve generously, following the example you set for us.  Thank you.


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Tears of Joy

Reading: Psalm 137: 1-6

Psalm 137 is also a song of lament.  The Israelites held captive in Babylon are strangers in a foreign land.  They miss Jerusalem, their homes, the temple.  The culture and the ways of the Babylonians are strange and often run counter to the faith in God that the Israelites practice.  On top of all this, the Israelites must endure taunts and torment from the Babylonians.  The Israelites are asked to sing the songs of God – the God who loves and saves them.  How ironic the twist as they live in exile.

We look at the news and see the things going on around us and we too lament.  As followers of Jesus Christ we are often “strangers in a foreign land”.  We miss the good old days when everyone knew God, when the churches were full, and when the name of God drew only respect.  The culture and ways of the world are strange and often run counter to our faith and to God’s ways.  And on top of all this, the calls of hypocrites, elitists, and judgmental ring out from those who stand against God and the church.  We often feel and act small for a people who worship the God of all creation.

Our sadness and tears for our world are much like the years shed by the Israelites.  We shed tears of alienation and rejection.  We too are reminded of our reality that we are in this world but not of it.  Our home is in heaven.  We, however, also shed tears of sadness and empathy.  We see so many who do not know Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, and we are sad.  This great gift of salvation that we received from God is a gift for all people.  The sadness and empathy that wells up in us and knowing the gift of life that we have leads us out into the world to share Christ’s light and love.  As we bring Christ into the world, as we see others coming to know Christ, our tears will become tears of joy over another won for Christ.  We go forth knowing we serve and love a mighty God.  Thanks be to God.


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The Rich man, Lazarus, or…

Reading: Luke 16: 19-31

If asked which character we would like to be in today’s reading, there would be a long pause before we answered.  If we look at the end of the story, we all want to be Lazarus.  We would all choose heaven as our eternal destination.  But within the story, do we want to be poor beggars in this life?  When we are really honest, we’d prefer to be both the rich man and Lazarus – the rich man now and Lazarus later.

So we finally settle on being Lazarus?  Or do we settle on being the rich man?  Truth be told, when we look at the model of our faith, at Jesus, we see the middle ground.  Jesus certainly did not pursue wealth yet was definitely content with life.  He did not dress in expensive clothes or eat gourmet food.  But He was not starving and always had a place to live His head at night.  Jesus trusted fully in God alone.  He knew God’s love intimately and fully trusted that God would provide for His every need.

The rich man only truly saw Lazarus when he died.  He finally saw what Jesus sees all the time.  He saw them as they were.  In everyone Jesus saw and encountered, He sought to meet their need.  Sometimes even they did not know their own real need, so Jesus sometimes delved below the surface.  He got to know people that others avoided or shunned.  He entered into their lives and walked alongside them.  He did what the rich man never would have done.

The rich man, Lazarus, or Jesus?  Who do we strive to be more like?  It is an obvious answer but a hard path to walk.  May the power and presence of the Holy Spirit lead us on the path of Jesus, fully trusting in God, loving all of God’s children.