pastorjohnb

Thoughts and musings on faith and our mighty God!

Tag Archives: religion


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Led Back

Isaiah opens with some tough words.  The prophet’s job, after all, is to call Israel back to God.  In verse ten Isaiah calls the Israelites Sodom and Gomorrah.  These two cities were famous for their wild and sinful lifestyle, typified by sexual immorality and idol worship.  No good Israelite would ever go to these places!  So Isaiah opens by telling the people of Israel that they are now just as bad as two of the most evil-filled places ever.  It is definitely a way to get their attention.

Isaiah then goes on to reveal how they clothe who they really are on going through the religious motions.  The people of Israel are still offering sacrifices at the temple and are still reciting their daily prayers.  The people do offer sacrifices but return at once to their sins.  So God rejects their hollow prayers too because their “hands are covered in blood”.  The people’s insides are still full of sin and evil.  Their empty religion is trying to mask this.

Today, are we still living this way?  Do we sometimes act like the people of Sodom and Gomorrah?  Do we sometimes practice a fake or hollow religion?  Do we sometimes fall into sin?  I am afraid the answer to all of these questions is at times ‘yes’.

Sin is and always has been one of the realities of human life.  We are imperfect therefore we sin.  At times we go to church or a Bible study and our mind is consumed by something from work or from home.  We practice fake religion in these times.  We are there but we are not there.  Isaiah offers us a better option.

Isaiah calls us to seek justice, to encourage the oppressed, to defend the first fatherless, to plead the case of the widow.  He advises us to be a servant to others.  By doing the things God calls us to do we will be led back to God and to God’s ways.  This day may we seek to be in service to God, through loving the least and the lost, the poor and the oppressed.


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Open, Loving, Welcoming

Reading: Revelation 1: 4-8

At times our churches and faith can be private or exclusive is one is not already a member.  Sometimes we do this by using insider language or by expecting guests or seekers to know how we do things or to look and behave just like we do.  Although most churches genuinely work at and desire to be welcoming and inviting, sometimes we are not.  In the same way, most Christians know Jesus’ command to make disciples of all nations; we just do not live with this as our primary focus.  We inadvertently put up barriers or fences that in essence keep non-believers and the unchurched outside of our institutions.  On a personal level, we can judge or choose to keep separate from those we see as sinners and unsaved.

If we are truly living as a witness to the love of Christ, we will seek to be more inclusive and inviting and will work to be less judgmental and isolated.  Jesus’ radar was always on.  He was so sensitive to the needs He sensed in people.  Jesus did not allow social or cultural or any other norms to tell Him how to deal with someone.  He simply recognized what they needed and what He could offer and acted accordingly.  Jesus seemed to be friend to all as relationship was the basis of His ministry.  The forming of a relationship so often allowed Him to share Himself to meet their need.

Just as Jesus sought first and foremost to be welcoming and to quickly enter into relationships, so must we as His disciples and as His church.  People need Jesus, not our religion or our churches.  He is who or what we offer.  It is through faith and in the church that people come to know Jesus.  We all need to know His love and the saving grace offered by His blood.  To begin to know Jesus, one must experience Jesus in the love and witness of His followers.  This is what we have to offer.

As believers and followers of Jesus Christ, we are privileged to live in His love as we enjoy a personal relationship with the savior of the world.  This relationship is something we are called to share with others.  Our opportunity may come within the walls of the church; it may come out there in the world.  May we be as open, loving, and welcoming as Jesus was as we seek to live as His witness in and through our lives.


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Into a New Way

The Book of Hebrews seeks to connect the Jews living under the old covenant to the new covenant ushered in by Jesus Christ.  In today’s passage the author explains that the old way of animal sacrifices only cleans that outside of a person but that through the new sacrifice, through the blood of Jesus, we are cleansed on the inside.  We are reminded that we are cleansed so that we can serve the living God.

Throughout Hebrews is this idea of ‘living’.  We are exhorted to have a living faith that is guided by the Spirit and not bound by manmade rules and laws.  Living by the Spirit can feel dangerous and wide-open.  Living by religion can feel safe and known.  But too often ‘religion’ is typified by rigid practices, by entrenched traditions, and by requirements that feel a lot like laws.  Like sheep tightly confined to a pen, religion asks one to go through the motions, to check off the boxes.  Religion becomes little more that Sunday worship and an occassional prayer.

By contrast Hebrews call us out of our old ways of living by religion and into new way of living by faith.  Faith is guided by the Spirit.  The Spirit moves in unexpected and surprising and unknown ways.  For typically neat, in-the-box people, this is scary.  Religion with its known boundaries is safe.  Jesus did not call us to religion, but to faith.

When Jesus sais, “Come, follow me”, He did not say where or how or when.  He simply said, “Come.”  He knew that the Spirit would lead.  May we each step out, take ahold of the hand of the Holy Spirit, and see where Jesus takes us today.

Scripture reference: Hebrews 9: 11-14


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Head to Heart

Faith rests upon the bedrock of Christ crucified and risen.  It is only through His sacrifice that we are made right with God and only through His resurrection that we have the promise of eternal life.  We ourselves can do nothing to earn forgiveness or to earn our way into heaven.  It is only by His grace and with the power of the Holy Spirit that we walk daily as a child of God.

For many today, this seems foolishness and is very hard to accept.  Like the Jews and Greeks in today’s reading, people today still want amazing signs or miracles or they want to be able to reason out faith.  Many in Jesus’ day saw miracles but failed to believe.  Many today believe that Jesus exists but fails to follow Him.  They observe the rules and diligently check off the boxes.  They know the stories in the Bible.  They practice religion but do not have a living faith.

But until Jesus makes that journey from head to heart, religion is all one has.  Once Jesus starts to live in our hearts, our lives change radically.  Instead of thinking how nice it was that Jesus did all those wonderful things for people, we want to go and do in His name.  Once Jesus lives in our hearts, our faith grows hands and feet.  The Spirit comes to dwell within us and life is never the same.  It is then that we can see with Jesus’ eyes, love with His heart, and serve others in the saving name of Jesus Christ!

Scripture reference: 1 Corinthians 1: 18-25