pastorjohnb

Thoughts and musings on faith and our mighty God!

Tag Archives: love


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All the Difference

When Jesus asks the disciples who people say He is, do you think He really wants to know?  Or is He just leading up to the second question?  I think He really wants to know who the disciples think He is.  I think this because it is the disciples who will change the world.  It is the ones who know him best that will have the greatest impact.

This begs the question of us: do we know Jesus?  Do we know him well enough that we could finish a sentence He started?  Does He know us well enough that He could do the same?  Jesus wants to go beyond prophet, priest, and king to be or best friend. He wants us to be absolutely in love with Him.

2000 years later, the same question is ours: “who do you say that I am”?  And 2000 years later, our role is the same as the original disciples was: to go out and change the world, to go out and build the kingdom here on earth.  How we respond to the question and how we act upon that answer will make all the difference in the world.

Scripture reference: Matthew 16: 13-20


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Live with His Heart

In your faith journey, have you crossed over from knowing about Jesus to knowing Jesus?  Do you know the stories and teachings or do you understand the implications they have upon your life?  No matter your answers to these two questions, we all need to know Jesus better.

Some of us are committed to “outward conventions” – we show up most Sundays, sing the songs, pray the prayers, put our offering in the plate.  Maybe a few of us add a Sunday school class, sing in the praise team or choir, maybe attend a Bible study during the week.  Yet there is more to knowing Jesus fully that hitting some check marks on a list of things a Christian does.  If the heart and time away from ‘church’ remains largely OUR time, then Jesus is largely absent from our life.

And then there is the list of ‘don’ts’.  But if how we look at this list is grounded in whether or not we think we will get caught, then we only know about Jesus.  We don’t know Jesus.

I know it is an old saying, but it is still true – WWJD?  If our heart starts to be connected to knowing Jesus, then what we do and don’t do starts to be filtered by the same question – what would Jesus do?  As we begin to see with His eyes, we start to live with His heart.

Scripture reference: Matthew 15: 10-20


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A Great Mystery of Faith

One of the things universal to mankind is our proclivity to sin.  In our daily lives, temptation is all around us.  We can do certain things that makes us less likely to sin, but Satan is always at work.  Even for those that do not have a belief in God, they too have an innate sense of right and wrong.  Sin is all around us and the world’s messages are ‘just go for it’ and do whatever feels good.  But these are not God’s messages.  His message is to be like Jesus.

One of the things that is offered universally by God is grace.  His mercy and the grace offered is available to all.  His prevenient grace rests upon each and every person.  His mercy is a free gift that cannot be earned.  It is a birthrite to be claimed by all through faith in Jesus Christ.  Once a child of God, His mercies, grace, and forgiveness flow freely.  Once a child, His grace works to sanctify us, to make us daily more like His son Jesus.

God’s grace is one of the great mysteries of faith.  God’s grace is present with us from the beginning.  Once we enter into relationship with Him, we are changed, born anew.  Although we are still bent towards sin, we are bought with Jesus’ blood and begin the daily battle to ‘sin no more’.  This is a battle that we sometimes ‘lose’ but, thanks be to God, His mercies are new every morning.  Each and every time we seek His forgiveness, His grace pours down like rain.  We are washed clean and made new.  Thank you Lord for this great mystery of faith!

Scripture reference: Romans 11: 29-32


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Natural Connection

Do people of faith always feel connected to God and to other Christians?  Do we always feel like we are part of the family?  At times I think we all feel disconnected from God and from our community of faith.  We are never truly disconnected, but at times we feel like it.

As life tosses us about we can wonder if God is present in the midst of the storm.  We do not see Jesus walking on the water towards us.  As emotions of sadness or loneliness sink in, we question if He is there.  We do not see His hand reaching out to pull us up out of the turmoil.  As we pass through difficult seasons in life, we sometimes look around but fail to recognize Him.  We do not see Jesus in the people God sends our way.  Yet we feel apart from God only in our own minds – God and His love are always present.

In these trials, how do we maintain contact with God and our community of faith?  It starts long before the storm, before the sad emotions, before the season.  If we spend time reading, praying, studying, we build up that “reserve” that will carry us through the trials.  The more we know God, the more natural that connection becomes.  If we spend time in fellowship and in caring groups within our faith community, then we are known and we know others in ways that will sustain us in the trials.  Just as we can learn to sense when another needs us to walk alongside them, others too will come to sense when we need that as well.  We train for the race so that we can run it with perseverance, with strength, and with God’s presence.

In Psalm 31, verse 3 we read: “You are my rock and my fortress; for Your name’s sake You lead me and guide me.”  When we know Him as rock and fortress, trials are so much easier to walk through.

Scripture reference: Romans 11:1-2a


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Within AND Without

Are you an ‘innie’ or an ‘outtie’?  Does your faith reside mostly inside of you, like a well-kept secret?  Or is your faith out there to be shared with all you encounter?  Each moment of our lives can either be a God moment or just a moment.  God is everywhere all of the time – try and find Him there!

Is your community of believers more of an innie or an outtie?  Is the community consumed with what’s going on inside the walls?Or does your church look outside to the world some of the time?  A healthy church does both.

Just as the church must focus both within and without, we too as a person of faith must look both within and without.  We each need time reading the Bible, praying, meditating, and fasting to grow in our faith.  As a community of believers we need fellowship and loving and caring relationships between the members of the body.

Personally and as a community of believers we need to also reach outside of our own personal space or the four walls of the church so that others can come to know this mighty and awesome God we love and that loves us.  Not everyone will enter a church to find faith.  Some find it in the experiences they have with us or with our church.  We must be both within and without.  It is not either/or.  It must be both!

Scripture reference: Psalm 133


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How Do You Repsond?

Many times in life we are present in a situation where we have been wronged.  In each case we can offer mercy and forgiveness or we can be self-righteous or maybe offer an ‘I-told-you-so’ type of response.  One response brings healing and another continues the hurt.  So… why does the wrong choice often seem so much easier?

I think at times God places us in situations to test and refine our faith.  Sometimes another needs to see what this love of Christ really looks like.  (Once in a while we are that person too!)  Sometimes it is to refine our faith in God.  Through prayer and the reading of the word, we come to the place where we are ready to offer forgiveness and reconciliation.  It is also through prayer that we can come to love our enemies.

What allows us to make that hard choice?  It is the relationship we form and develop with Jesus Christ.  Through times with Him in prayer and through reading the stories in the gospel, we come to see our call to love all above self more and more.  Through our journey to draw closer to Jesus, we too draw nearer to our fellow man.

Scripture reference: Genesis 45: 1-8


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Even in the Wilderness

After Jesus hears of the death of John the Baptist, He withdraws by boat to a solitary place.  But the people follow Him out into the wilderness.  They are seeking.  As they come to Him, Jesus is filled with compassion and heals many.  At the end of the day, out in the wilderness, some of the people find hope and love.

Out in the wilderness, as night begins to settle in, many are vulnerable.  They all have a basic need for food.  Once again (but after an interesting exchange with the disciples!), Jesus feels compassion for the people.  Again He responds out of love.  The people are seated and, from little, 5000 men plus the women and children all eat their fill.  In the wilderness the people encounter a loving God who meets their need not just with what satisfied but with abundance.

At times we to are in the wilderness.  In these times we often feel alone and vulnerable.  And Jesus comes to us too.  In His compassion and love we find healing and comfort for our souls.  In His presence our strength is renewed.  As He walks with us, our wilderness begins to fade.  We come to know that no matter where we are, His love and compassion will always help us through.  His mercies are new every morning and His love never fails!

Scripture reference: Matthew 14: 13-21


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Faithfulness and Love… and Patience

In Romans 9, Paul is in sorrow over the Israelites not seeing Jesus for who He was  – the Son of God, come to redeem the world.  It is a situation where he sees it, has the same background knowledge as them, and does not understand why they do not see it.  Have you ever been one either side of one of these situations in your life?  Maybe you were in the role of Paul and tried and tried to get someone to understand, but just couldn’t.

In this story it is God who is ultimately in this role.  The story also extends out past this current moment in the Bible.  And in this we see something amazing about God.  We can see God covenantal faithfulness and His steadfast love.  Despite all in the Old Testament and all that Jesus said and did, most of the Israelites do not come to understand who Jesus was and is.  Yet God continues to pursue the people of Israel even to this day!

Often I think it is the same with me.  After all of these years of walking with Christ, I still fall short.  At times my sin is that I think I am the one in charge.  Sometimes I take the credit.  Other times it is a thought or word that holds my sin.  But thank God for His faithfulness and love!  Sometimes I can’t imagine why He chooses to stick it out with me.  But He does.  Thank God for His patience too!

Scripture reference: Romans 9: 1-5


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Confidence Forward

Have you ever taken the time to look back over your life to see God’s fingerprints on it?  Do you see how He guided you to this job instead of that other one and how you were blessed there?  Or maybe there was a challenge there – see how it forced you to grow and mature?

Can you see all the other decisions and event sin your life were God is there too?  Maybe it is the college you went to, the  major you ended up with, the person you dated or married, or the places you lived.  Maybe it was the college you did not go to, the person you did not date, and so on.  Maybe it is in the birth or a child or in that heart-wrenching loss.  Maybe it is that divorce or breakup, in that firing, or in that addiction.  As you take time to look back over your life, can’t you see that God was in each and every one of these points of your life?

As we look back and see how God led, directed, and loved into our lives, we gain a confidence to move forward.  In this reflection we build a reserve to know that He will be there in our next difficulty, decision, or event.  We know God will continue to be a part of our lives because He loves us so.  “The Lord is good to all; He has compassion on all He has made.” (Psalm 145:9)

Scripture reference: Psalm 105: 1-11 and 45b


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Share Abundantly

If you were asked to sum up God in one word, what would it be?  Got it yet?  I’d venture to say that most of us would say ‘love’ but some might also say hings like mercy, forgiveness, or maybe creator.  To me, love is God’s main and dominant characteristic.  Out of His love, many other things flow.

Once we find that love of God in our lives, we realize we have a great gift.  When we come to know just how much He loves us, we are both very grateful and deeply humbled.  It changes our whole world.  We are grateful and humbled because we come to also realize that we are imperfect and sinful, yet God still loves us.  It amazes me that a gift given so freely can be so valuable.  But it is.

Once we come to fully know the gift of the love of God, then we want to always have it.  As we continue on our journey of faith, love become how we see all of life, how we treat our neighbor, how we seek to serve those in need, and how we seek to share the good news so that others may know this gift of love.  The gift is so great that it makes us want to share it.  May we share abundantly today!

Scripture reference: Matthew 13: 44-52