pastorjohnb

Thoughts and musings on faith and our mighty God!

Tag Archives: persecuted


by Leave a comment

Alert and Ready and at Work

Reading: Mark 12:35-13

Mark 13:36-37 – “Don’t let him show up when you weren’t expecting and find you sleeping. What I say to you, I say to all: Stay alert!”

We begin in the temple today as Jesus corrects the legal experts. The crowd delights in his teaching. He then condemns the religious leaders self-seeking ways: they wear long robes and say long prayers; they desire the best greetings and the best seats; and, they “cheat widows,” leaving them homeless. A sharp contrast to this arrogance comes in the next verses. A poor widow gives all that she has to live on. The rich give “out of their spare change.” This humble, faithful, trusting widow is the model.

As they leave the temple, one of the disciples points out the grandeur of the temple itself. Jesus predicts its demolition. Peter, James, John, and Andrew later ask him when this will happen… what will be the signs? Jesus warns them of deceivers. There will be wars, famines, and earthquakes. The disciples themselves will be handed over and persecuted (but the Holy Spirit will give them the words to say.) Then the war will culminate as the temple is defiled. People will flee to the mountains to escape the Romans. There will be great suffering.

Sometime after this suffering, the sun and moon will grow dark, the stars will fall, and the planets will shake. Then the “Human One” will come on the clouds in power and splendor. The angels will gather the “chosen people” from the corners of the earth. Jesus tells them that just as the fig tree’s new leaves tell them summer is near, so too will these signs tell the world that his return is near. Jesus tells them (and us), “Watch out! Stay alert!”

Jesus closes his teaching on the end times with a story. As an owner goes on a trip (perhaps back to heaven for a time?), he assigns tasks to his servants. For all disciples, the task will be to “go and make disciples of all nations.” Jesus closes with this warning: “Don’t let him show up when you weren’t expecting and find you sleeping. What I say to you, I say to all: Stay alert!” Jesus is coming soon. May we be found ready and alert, working on our task as we strive to live a daily life that seeks to make disciples for the transformation of the world.

Prayer: Lord God, please walk closely in Spirit with us. Attune us to the charge you give each of us. Defend us from our human tendency to make it all about us. Lead us to walk as humble servants, seeking to be witnesses of your love and power in this world. Amen.


by Leave a comment

The Fruit of a Long Walk

‭Psalm 69:13 – “God, in your great and faithful love, answer me with your certain salvation!”

We begin today with Psalm 69, a prayer for the persecuted. The psalmist has been hard-pressed for a long time. His or her enemies are “countless.” The psalmist’s passion for God has created this conflict with these enemies. This same faith leads to this prayer: “God, in your great and faithful love, answer me with your certain salvation!” In our times of need of rescue, this is a great prayer to pray. The psalmist also prays for the enemies downfall. This was not uncommon then, and if we’re honest, isn’t uncommon now. In the Old Testament, though, God was often violent against Israel’s enemies. To pray for that was very much in line with their understanding and experience with God.

Psalm 70 is also a prayer for deliverance – for immediate deliverance! Hurry, hurry, hurry God! Shame and humiliate my oppressors. Hurry God – I’m poor and needy. Help, deliver me. Psalm 71 continues the cry for deliverance. The perspective has shifted. The psalmist is now old. Time has brought a more steady trust in God. Depending on God “from birth” leads to hope and to the psalmist proclaiming God’s righteous acts. Life has brought the psalmist “many troubles and calamities,” yes, but because of their long relationship with God, the author can confidently state that God “will revive me once more.” This too is the fruit of our long walk with God.

Psalm 72 is a fitting close to the Psalms of David. It even ends with “The prayers of David, Jesse’s son, are ended.” This Psalm seeks God’s blessings on the king and on the poor and needy. This Psalm is a beautiful expression of the fact that God’s love, God’s care, God’s protection, God’s provision, God’s everything, reaches from the highest to the very lowest. May our love, care, protection, provision… do the same.

Prayer: Lord God, great is your love and faithfulness! Your love knows no limits and your faithfulness endures forever. You care for all of creation and you call us to do the same. As we receive your love, care, protection, provision… may we generously and abundantly offer these to one another – all one anothers. Doing so, we will build your kingdom here on earth. Amen.


by 2 Comments

Engaging

Reading: 2nd Corinthians 4: 7-12

Verse Ten: “… so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body”.

Today’s passage has this idea that we have something inside of us that we share with the world. In our perishable and finite bodies, these jars of clay, we have this “all-surpassing” power that assures us of the eternal and infinite promise of heaven. It is the source of this hope and promise that we share with the world.

Verse ten reads, “… so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body”. Our call is to be followers of Jesus. Figuratively, this means to walk as Jesus walked. As we look at how Jesus walked, we see that He often walked with the sick and the marginalized, with the sinner and the outcast, with the lonely and the spiritually hungry. Jesus engaged one and all as He walked in this world. It seems as if Jesus always had time for the one He found standing before Him. This is the picture of the man that we are called to follow.

This following is not easy. Paul writes of the challenges we will face – hard pressed but not crushed, perplexed but not in despair, persecuted but not abandoned, struck down but not destroyed. Yes, following Jesus and walking in the places and with the people that He walked with will be hard. I’ll add one more: hard but not impossible.

Paul also writes, “For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake”. When Jesus is alive in our hearts and in our lives, we do offer ourselves willingly to others. We are willing to die to self and to our own selfish desires, putting the needs of others ahead of our own. This verse finishes with these words: “so that His life may be revealed”. So that others may come to know Jesus Christ too. So that others may take hold of the hope and promise that we profess.

Where can you walk as Jesus walked today? Is there a jail or prison nearby to visit? Is there a care facility or hospital that you could stop by? Is there a place in your community that feeds people or hands out food? Is there a family in your neighborhood that could use a bag of groceries? Us there an elderly neighbor who needs their lawn mowed?

May we each find a way to walk as Jesus walked – engaging the one who is in need, offering ourselves to them.


by Leave a comment

All

Reading: Galatians 1: 11-24

Paul, as the most zealous persecutor of the early church, was probably the most unlikely to become one of the great apostles of the early church.  He was about as far as one could be from Jesus Christ.  His mission in life was to wipe this new faith off the face of the earth.  Yet God, in His amazing grace, claimed Paul to be one of His own.  God took the one who persecuted, imprisoned, and even murdered Christians and made him into an excellent witness for Jesus and the church.  Paul realizes this miraculous change in his life and it becomes his call to ministry.  If God could reclaim him, God could reclaim anyone.  Paul also sees in Jesus another example of one who would reclaim any and all.  In his own life and in the example of Jesus, Paul came to know a God who loved everyone and desperately wanted all to be a child of God.  This became Paul’s mission as an evangelist supreme.

It was primarily through Paul that the church came to really understand Jesus’ command to ‘make disciples of all nations and peoples’.  Jesus really meant all.  The grace that Paul experienced was a grace that all people everywhere were intended to experience as well.  Paul was so gripped by God and Christ’s presence in him that he sought to take the gospel to the ends of the earth, to all of the known world.

Paul’s life is an excellent example for us in two ways.  First, God will use anyone to spread the gospel.  If God chose and used Paul, all of us are fair game.  There is no one that God cannot use, no one that He does not want to use.  Second, Paul taught us that we need to share Christ with all people.  Through his own transformation, Paul knew the need for transformation in all people’s lives.  He sought to help all to come to know Christ so that they too could experience His transforming grace in their lives.  This day and every day may we, like Paul, live into God’s call on our lives to be both examples and witnesses to the transformation that God has made in us, so that all we know may come to experience the same in their lives.