pastorjohnb

Thoughts and musings on faith and our mighty God!

Tag Archives: mercy


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God’s Will

Reading: Amos 7: 7-9

Visions are not something we are too accustomed to today.  But in the Old Testament and some in the New Testament, visions were one of God’s methods of communication with His people.  Visions often came through prophets in the Old Testament and through the apostles in the New Testament.  In today’s reading the prophet Amos is receiving a vision from God.  As was the case with many of the visions, here God is giving Amos the vision to try and get Israel back in alignment with God.  Visions, this one included, also often lay out the consequences of continuing to live outside of a right relationship with God.

In these verses God tells Amos that He will “set a plumb line among my people Israel”.  Plumb lines are used to keep a wall true or straight while you are building it.  It is a way to make sure all is right and correct.  Here God is using the metaphor as a means of judgment as He goes on to say, “I will spare them no longer” and then describes their downfall.

Today we might not receive many visions, but for a follower of Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit works much the same way.  The Holy Spirit speaks into our lives, prompting us to reach out here, to offer of ourselves there, not to do that or go there.  The still, small voice keeps us in alignment with God’s ways and purposes for our lives.  And much like a vision, the Spirit also warns us of the dangers of temptation and sin while also reminding us of the consequences of choosing to live outside of a right relationship with God.

Thousands of years later God’s desires for His people has not changed.  God desires for each of us “to act justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with our God” (Micah 6:8).  Each day, as we seek God’s will and purposes for our lives, may we seek these things as we live out our faith wherever God sends us.


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The Faith OF Christ

Reading: Galatians 2: 15-21

In the original Greek of today’s text, there was no word between ‘faith’ and ‘Jesus Christ’.  The structure of the original sentence would have implied a certain connection.  Through the study of this and with an understanding of the whole message of the Bible, the word inserted is almost always ‘of’.  As is: the faith of Christ.  In using ‘of’ it places the redemptive work of saving grace fully on Jesus, not on us.

While it is true that we often live as if faith ‘in’ Jesus is what matters, wrongly thinking that somehow our own actions will save us.  In using ‘faith in Christ’ we are trying to take a role in something that is solely the work of God.  It was Jesus’ faith alone that led Him to the cross and it is God alone who offers us grace – that unmerited, undeserved free gift of love.  Our role is simply to live into the faith of Jesus Christ in God that allowed Him to go to the cross.

Once we can accept this and begin to understand the faith of Christ in His saving act, then this initiates a response on our part.  Once we wrap our heads around this great gift, then we begin to live our life as a grateful response to this gift and to His love.  As one of my devotionals put it this morning, we begin to “embrace a cross-shaped faithfulness of our own”.  In embracing this we understand and begin to live out God’s desire and plan to make all things new and to restore all of creation, bringing healing to all brokenness.

We understand that we ourselves are made new as children of God.  We respond by inviting and bringing others into this right relationship with God.  We respond by seeking to bring healing and restoration to the brokenness of our world.  The faith OF Jesus Christ dwells in us and shines out into the world through our lives.  This is the gift a faithful follower of Jesus Christ offers back to a world in need.


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Unwanted Guest

Reading: Luke 7:36 – 8:3

The woman in today’s story is a bit of an unwanted guest.  She is well-known as a sinner, as one who is unclean.  Sins against God were also seen as social sins, so she is one who would have been shunned by any good Jew.  It is curious that she was even allowed in the house.

The Pharisee in the story is officially the host.  He has invited Jesus into his home for a meal.  However, as the story reveals, he is apparently not a very good host.  It was customary to do certain things to welcome a guest.  Most basic was the washing of the feet.  In the dry and dusty climate the cleansing of the feet was a needed and refreshing act of service.  It symbolized the acceptance of the guest.  By not washing Jesus’ feet, the Pharisee left a barrier up between them.

The woman must have sensed something powerful in Jesus’ presence.  She stood silently behind Him and began to weep.  Grace and love must have been working on her heart.  As she cried, her tears wet Jesus’ feet.  Sensing Jesus’ welcome of her presence, she knelt and began wiping His wet feet with her hair, taking on the physical grime and dirt as she cleaned His feet.  In a final act of loving service, she anointed His feet with perfume.  The sin that so encompassed her life must have been falling away too.  His love was overcoming much.

As the Pharisee is mentally recoiling at this obvious sinner touching Jesus, Jesus confronts him.  He uses a simple story on debt forgiveness to illustrate why the woman cries so – she is joyful over the love and grace and mercy that Jesus is giving her.  God’s love is not limited to the saved, but is offered most generously to the sinner, the one most in need.  Much joy comes when one repents, turns from sin, and knows forgiveness.  Through extravagant love given and received, this woman was made whole again and new in Christ.  In our encounters with the lost, with the sinners, and with the unwanted guests, may we too offer the extravagant love of Jesus Christ.


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The Message

Reading: Galatians 1: 6-12

Paul opens his letter to the Galatians with some strong language and some hard words.  His words carry some emotion and urgency.  The church he founded there has begun to drift away from its origins and he does not like the change.  Paul taught them the gospel he received directly in a revelation from Jesus and it is important to him that the Galatians continue to hold dearly to the original message.  Paul knows that the message does not have to change much to really affect their faith.

All that Jesus taught and did in the Gospels can be boiled down to a few essentials.  First, love God completely.  Recognize Him as supreme, as Lord, as king of kings.  Second, love neighbor as Jesus first loved us.  His sacrifice on the cross let us know how much He loves us.  Now Jesus tells us to go and do the same: put others and their needs first no matter the cost to us.  Third, grace wins.  God’s love and His mercies never fail, making all who call on Him as Lord and Savior new creations every morning.  Our grateful response to this amazing love and mercy is to offer our lives daily in service to God.

Paul knew how essential the pure message of the gospel was.  He knew that our faith would lead to action.  He knew if the gospel message was changed or distorted, we would begin to follow our own way more than Jesus’ way.  Our belief really does lead to action.  When our belief is correctly rooted in the message of Jesus Christ, then our lives bear fruit according to this message.  May we cling tightly to the truth found in Jesus Christ, living daily as authentic witnesses to His light and love.


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Peace, Justification, Mercy

Reading: Romans 5: 1-2

Our faith brings peace with God, a status of being justified, and an outpouring of His grace.  Once we have accepted Jesus Christ as Lord of our life, we are made into a new creation within our new relationship with Him.  Through the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, which we celebrated yesterday on Pentecost, we are forever changed.

Instead of living with the fears and worries of the world, we now walk in God’s peace.  We walk here because we know that as a new creation we are a child of God.  We are now in His hands.  Our hope rests secure.

The Spirit of God works in us to justify us or to make us right before God.  Through the act of taking on all of our sins on the cross, Jesus paid the price for those sins.  Justice has been administered so we do not need to live under the weight of our sins.  Because of His blood that was shed, our sins are atoned for.  All we need to do to be justified before God is to repent and to confess our sins.  Then we again can walk in His ways.  We bear no punishment; the price has been paid.  Therefore, once we seek His forgiveness, we are again justified before God.

Through faith in Christ we go one step further: mercy.  Forgiveness says our sins are not held against us.  Mercy says they are forgotten.  This is a big step.  As humans we tend to forgive but not to forget.  But not so with God.  There is no giant Rolodex of our sins in heaven.  Once we repent and confess our sins to God, His mercy kicks in and for God our sins are no more.  This demonstrates the depth of His love for each of us.  Nothing we can do lessens His love for us.  For the peace He brings, for the justified relationship He offers, and for the mercy that makes us pure as new fallen snow, we simply say thanks be to God.


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Come!

Reading: Revelation 22: 12-14, 16-17, 20-21

Today’s reading comes from the last chapter of the last book of the Bible.  To me it is full of hope and promise; it is the ‘why’ to living as a faithful follower of Jesus Christ.  At the very beginning, in Genesis 1, there is the same sense of hope and promise as God creates the world and all that is in it.  God created in perfection, with each act being deemed ‘good’.  To me this not only speaks of God’s desire for His children to find joy, peace, contentment, and love in this life but also of His ultimate promise of what will once again be.  In this we find our hope.  In the closing words of the Bible, we are invited to return to and to participate in the return of Jesus, to enter the new paradise that will come with His return.

Jesus identifies Himself in today’s text as the beginning and the end. He was there at the start of creation and will be there again when all is restored and made new.  Sometimes though, we look at the blip of almost 30 years as Jesus’ only time here between the first and last of times.  But in reality He is always present here on earth.  Through the actions of the Holy Spirit and through the lives of His followers, Jesus is a constant presence here in our world.  The invitation to ‘Come!’ is one we as His disciples need to continue to call out to all who are thirsty and in need of the free gift that Jesus Christ offers.

This free gift that comes through faith in Jesus is the first step to living into the joy, peace, contentment, and love that God desires each of us to find.  Through the blood that He shed on the cross we can find grace and mercy to lay our sins and burdens down so that forgiveness washes them away and restores us to a right relationship with God.  This allows us each day to be clean and pure and Holy.  This allows us to face the temptations and struggles of life knowing that every day Jesus continues to say, ‘Come!’  As we live in this reality and hear this call every day, may we too call out to others, inviting them to ‘Come!’ and to know Jesus.


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Love with All

Reading: John 14: 23-24

When asked by the teacher of the Law what the greatest commandment was, Jesus responded with two and they both had to do with love.  The first was to love the Lord God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength.  This is a tall order.  In my mind the Word ‘all’ means 100% of the time with 100% of my being.  I can certainly love God a lot most of the time, but all?  The second was to love your neighbor as self but soon became love neighbor as I first loved you.  In the first form the love was a human love.  When Jesus added “as I first loved you”, it took it up a notch.  Jesus loved all people all of the time.  There is that ‘all’ word again.

In today’s passage, Jesus reveals one of the reasons we are to love God.  When we love God, we obey God.  If this is the choice we make and the path we try to walk daily, then the second command becomes easier.  Jesus promises that when we obey and follow Him out of love, then He will come and dwell in our hearts.  It is a much deeper connection to God when all we do is done out of that love that now dwells in our heart as the Spirit leads and guides us in living love out.  It is miles beyond trying to love God and neighbor because that’s what the Law or other parts of the Bible says we are supposed to do.

And in reality we struggle at times to love God with all that we are.  We drift, we doubt, things don’t go our way, we get too busy.  We also have a hard time loving that guy or a girl like that.  We are unique people and sometimes another’s uniqueness is hard for us to understand or to be around.  The goods news, though, is that when we fall short of ‘all’, it is not the end.  Not even close.  Part of “as I first loved you” is His never-ending promise of love.  It is a love that wipes away our failure and covers it with grace, mercy, and forgiveness.  Whether through prayer, time in the Word, in worship, or any other means that reconnects us to God, we can again walk in His love, feel His Spirit dwelling in our hearts, and again begin to walk seeking to love God with all that we are and to love others as He first and still loves us. 🙂


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The Way

Reading: John 20: 1-18

Jesus’ life and story are marked by a few events that are very significant to our faith.  First, the incarnate birth – born partly human to a mother and partly divine to a heavenly father.  Born of a virgin, without sin since birth.  His birth and the events surrounding it indicate to us that Jesus is a unique and special gift from God.

At the end of His life, Jesus experiences two other significant events.  The resurrection and ascension come close together.  Between His holy birth and divine death, Jesus teaches and heals for about three years, providing us an example of how to live and love both God and our fellow man.

While Jesus did raise people from the dead during His earthly ministry, He raised them back to mortal life.  In the resurrection of Jesus, it was God who raised Jesus to immortal or heavenly life.  Jesus’ resurrection is significant for both of these reasons.  Just as God alone initiated Jesus’ human birth, God alone brings Jesus back home to heaven.  God welcomes Jesus back to His eternal home as Jesus returns to the Father.

The ascension, or returning to God’s right hand, is the second significant event at the end of Jesus’ earthly life.  Jesus tells Mary, “I am returning to my Father and to your Father, to my God and your God.”  In this statement Jesus declares where He is going and also includes us in the relationship.  God is our Father and our God too.

As Jesus returns to His rightful place beside God, He returns changed.  He has lived on earth.  He has felt what we feel.  He returns to heaven and now intercedes for you and me.  He now stands between God and us.  The perfect lamb who was slain now offers mercy and forgiveness and grace.  He who was without sin now provides the way for us who struggle with sin the way to eternal life.  He ascended so that one day we too could ascend.  For this incomprehensible gift, we say  thanks be to God!

 


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Love

Reading: John 18:1 to 19:42

The Jewish religious authorities are wise.  They know their own laws inside out and use their own interpretation to build a case against Jesus.  It is a flimsy case at best, which Pilate sees right through.  They do not even state the laws Jesus ‘broke’ but instead remain vague.  Pilate is sharp enough to realize that Jesus has not really committed any crimes.  But he is also insecure and the Jewish leaders are well aware of this.  They understand the political game and have seen the consequences of being against Caesar.  So they play Jesus’ claim to be king against Pilate’s fear of Rome to force an execution.

Just as Caiaphas had earlier stated that it would be better for one man to die, Pilate maybe sees the current situation with Jesus this way too.  Better for one man to die rather than the Jews and possibly the whole city to be in an uproar, to draw attention from Rome.  Pilate’s guilt is easily set aside and Jesus helps by not defending Himself.  This is why He came; He will not interfere with God’s plans either.

On this day when we remember the trial and crucifixion, let us also remember the message of the cross.  Jesus, the perfect lamb, was willing to die for our sins.  Nothing says “I love you” more than this. God, through Jesus, is all about love, relationship, mercy, grace, forgiveness, and restoration.  This is the message we need to share with the world.

We must be careful to not be like the Jewish leaders, bending and picking and choosing the Law to meet our own needs.  The Bible is vast and contains a wide array of ideas.  We cannot pick out parts we like and ignore parts we do not like to manipulate others or to justify and rationalize ourselves.  It is a whole story – the story of God’s redeeming love.  It is a love letter from God to us all, inviting us into a deeply committed, loving relationship with Him.  This is good news to share.


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The Mind of Christ

Reading: Philippians 2: 5-11

Paul opens chapter two by encouraging us to be like-minded with Christ.  He reminds us of Christ’s love and compassion.  He reminds us to think of others more than ourselves.  On our best days we seek to live out these Christ-like qualities.  Then comes today’s reading.  The first half is like the hard days that will come just after the joyous entry coming on Palm Sunday.

Paul reminds us that Jesus gave up His place on high to come down to earth to live among us.  In doing so, He made himself nothing, becoming a servant to all.  Paul reminds us that Christ became obedient, even to the point of death on a cross for our benefit.  Paul calls us to have the mind of Christ.

Our culture instead raises up power, wealth, and status as the goals.  There are calls to attain these things almost without regard to the personal cost.  To those whose mind is set on these things, the concept of being a servant is distant.  The ideas of being humble and obedient are foreign.

God also calls us to lay aside our places on high – our places of privilege and power – in order to step into the lives of our fellow man.  He calls us to find ways to serve one another.  God calls us to be willing to sacrifice self for others.  Just like Jesus, we are called to a radical lifestyle, one built around love and compassion and mercy.

To take on the mind of Christ means we lift others up instead of trampling them on our way to the top.  To take on the mind of Christ means we stop and help another in need instead of staying on the road to excess.  To take on the mind of Christ means we yield up our will and become obedient to God’s will.  May we ever more seek to have the mind of Christ.