pastorjohnb

Thoughts and musings on faith and our mighty God!

Tag Archives: judgment


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Places, Spaces, and Faces

Sometimes it is hard to get out of our boxes.  In many ways we settle into routines and ways of doing things.  Too often we allow stereotypes to determine how we see situations and people we encounter.  Our past experiences can also cloud our expectations for the here and now and for the future.  As creatures of habit with good memories I think we often miss out on God’s presence and work in our world.

When Jesus visited his hometown to preach and offer signs of His glory, He encountered this.  As the people realized who He was – just a carpenter’s son who they saw grow up an ordinary boy and young man – their amazement turned to doubt.  The teachings and miraculous signs did not continue in this environment.  The people allowed their experience and expectations to get in the way of experiencing God.

I wonder how much I miss out on because I am so tightly packed into my little box.  How many opportunities do I miss to share God with others and to experience God through others each day?  How often do I allow my judgments and low expectations to become roadblocks to being present in meaningful ways?  Yet rarely is anything in my day ever more important than moments experiencing God’s presence.  But I do not always reflect this with my thoughts, actions, and words.

May I learn to better live a simple faith and to walk on a slower path.  May I learn to live fully in each moment and person God places before me.  May my faith, heart, and eyes be like that of a child – eager to find love and joy in all the places, spaces, and faces I encounter today.

Scripture reference: Mark 6: 1-13


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Standing on the Rock

Throughout the Bible we find God using the unlikely or the outcast or the rejected.  From shepherds to elderly women, from the child sold into slavery to the child left to float down the river, from the prostitute to the wandering prophet, God used them all.  From the lawyer to the waitress, from the rancher to the teacher, from the oil field worker to the stay-at-home mom, God wants to use them all.

When we look at Jesus and the men he chose to be his disciples, we see the same concept – a widely ranging group of men.  Some simple fishermen, one a despised tax collector.  When we look at who Jesus ministered to, we see that concept expanded.  Jesus ministered to all who came to him.  Jesus met each person with no pretense and no hint of judgment.  He met people where they were, loved them and accepted them.  Then Jesus most often found a way to move them along in their faith.

The church in general, and many of us as Christians, would do well to better follow Jesus’ example of who to love and minister to.  All were His neighbor and all are our neighbor as well.  To think or even say that some people do not ‘fit’ in because of race, ethnicity, class, education, and so on is in error.  To think or say that someone is too big a ‘sinner’ to be welcome is so far away from right that you can’t event see ‘right’ from there.  The church was and is built for the lost and the broken.  It is who Jesus loved and who we need to love.

“The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone” (Psalm 118).  Many years ago the Pharisees missed Jesus standing right there in front of them.  Today the church and sometimes we as Christian miss Jesus standing right in the midst of our lives.  May we learn to see Jesus and to be like Jesus.  May the stench of judgment and the sting or rejection fall away like rain.  May the love of Christ and the heart seeking to serve rise up like the morning sun, bringing light, love, and hope to all that it casts its rays upon.  May we come to stand on our cornerstone, our rock – Jesus Christ.