pastorjohnb

Thoughts and musings on faith and our mighty God!

Tag Archives: righteous


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Faith and Trust

Reading: Habakkuk 2: 1-4

Habakkuk has cried out to God.  Now he takes his place on the wall and awaits God’s response.  He has said his piece and waits.  Habakkuk demonstrates great faith.  He will wait upon God.  He is also showing us how to be hopeful in the face of injustice or persecution.  This can be very hard on our own but very possible with God.  Lastly, Habakkuk expects a response from God.  It is as if he is saying, “I’m going to stand over here God.  Come answer me when you are ready”.

God’s answer is not really an answer to Habakkuk’s question.  In essence, God’s answer to “How long?” is: “until I am ready”.  In God’s answer we sense a definite awareness of what Habakkuk was praying about – the injustice and the violence.  But God also says to be patient.  God speaks of an appointed time that will not prove false.  God indicates that Habakkuk is to wait as the answer lingers.  Our passage ends by God stating, “the righteous will live by his faith”.  It echoes what was revealed to Paul, “my grace is sufficient for you”.  God is saying, “be patient, be obedient, be steadfast – I have this”.

In our lives, we too may often ask “How long”?  God’s response is the same to us: trust me, be patient, have faith, be obedient, live righteously, be steadfast.  We know that God is sovereign.  We know that God is omnipotent and omnipresent.  God has it all in the ‘palm of his hand’.  May we, like Habakkuk, faithfully live into God’s plan, even when it requires patience and, above all, faith and trust.


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Healing and Wholeness

Reading: Lamentations 1: 1-6

The title of the book from which we read says a lot about the content.  There is much to be sad about.  The words chosen convey this: deserted, desolate, distress, weep, grieve, slave, exile, sins.  It is indeed a dark time in Israel’s history.  It is made even darker because of the reason they are lamenting.  It is not because of a cruel twist of fate or because of a random act of history.  It is because of a long period of sinning against God.

There are times in our lives when we find the need to lament.  These are times when many tears are shed.  The sadness seems deeper when we have had a hand in bringing on the season of lament.  Because of our own poor choices or bad decisions, we find ourselves in the wilderness.  We can look back and see how our own actions have led us to where we are.

The years the Israelites shed were at first tears of sadness.  They looked at their new situation and cried and mourned.  They longed for what was.  This is often our first reaction as well.  But we cannot stop here.  Just as the Israelites realized the error of their ways and repented and came back to God, so too must we learn from our poor choices and bad decisions.  Our tears of regret must lead us to change, to become more than we have become, to repent, and to begin walking as God calls us to walk as disciples of Jesus Christ.

As the Israelites cried tears of repentance, God began to work in their hearts and began to restore them to a righteous relationship once again.  God desires to do the same with each of us each time we go astray, each time we fail, each time we hurt.  We too must repent and turn back to God.  Then God will dry our tears and lead our hearts to turn back to our faith.  There we will find healing and wholeness and love.  There we will be made righteous and holy once again.  May we humbly and earnestly seek the Lord our God.


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The Good Fight

Reading: 1 Timothy 6: 11-19

A good life can be defined at least two ways.  For one, a good life is security, routine or order, a sense of success or accomplishment.  To have a safe home, ample food and clothing, a steady job that brings satisfaction, and good relationships with family and friends – to many this is the good life.  For others, for those who know God, a good life entails all of this and more.  For the believer, a good life is also a life lived for God, sharing God’s love and compassion with others.

In our passage, Paul is encouraging Timothy to be content in life and not to chase after the ever elusive”more”.  Paul encourages Timothy to pursue the things of God: righteousness, godliness, faith, love, gentleness, and endurance.  Paul knows Timothy will need all of these things.  Some will help Timothy to continue to grow in his faith while these same characteristics and the others will help him to share his faith with others.  A good life not only includes a relationship with God but also with the community of believers and with the stranger one meets.  Paul reminds Timothy to “fight the good fight of the faith”.  He goes on to tell Timothy to take hold of the confession of Jesus as Lord and Savior and to fully live this out in his own life.  Paul calls on Timothy to live faithfully, to shine the light of Jesus with all he meets as he proclaims the good news and as he personally pursues God.

We too can take these words of encouragement to heart.  We too can choose to claim our relationship with our Lord and Savior, with Jesus Christ.  And we too can fight the good fight of the faith, loving God and loving others with all that we are.  It is in doing these things that we take hold of eternal life – the life really worth living.  This day and every day may we fight the good fight of the faith, bringing honor and glory to God in all we do.


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Truly Blessed

Reading: Psalm 14

The psalmist paints a grim image of society.  It speaks of fools who say there is no God and of people who are corrupt.  The writer says all have turned away from God.  We hear of evildoers frustrating the poor and of the masses being overwhelmed with dread.  It is bleak indeed.

As I read this Psalm, I was reminded of the doom and gloom prophets of our day.  One does not have to wait too long into a conversation about politics or the economy to hear something along the lines of: “our country is going to heck in a hand basket”.  If the conversation turns to young adults or teenagers, there is similar doom and gloom spoken.  In both cases, it makes me pause.  I think one of two things: “Do you live in the same place I live?” or, “Boy do you need to spend some time at Youth group” in response to the bleak thoughts.

Yes indeed, it can be all too easy to become self-focused and to lose site of God.  Yes indeed, it can be easy to fall into temptation and sin.  Yes indeed, it can be easy to allow busyness to steal our attention and to then ignore the marginalized of our society.  But our God is greater than all of this and will overcome any sin, apathy, or misstep on our part.

For most of us, life us truly blessed.  We live a life of comfort, of peace, of belonging, of freedom.  Our faith calls us to help all people live this life.  It is a life founded and centered in a relationship with God.  As we live in this place, connected to God, we are led to be other-centered, righteous, and compassionate.  There is much good in the world.  May we bring a little more of it with us today.


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Lived Out through Us

Reading: Psalm 146

God is steadfast and true.  God loves the righteous.  God seeks to lift up those who are bowed down.  His desire is to bring relief to their suffering and to put an end to the oppression and injustices they face.  How does our God of compassion and love lift up the bowed down?  He sends the righteous, those who have received His favor and blessing, to minister in His name.  He sends you and me.

It is God alone who can restore a person’s soul and who can make a new creation from within.  It is God who sends the righteous faithful to engage the bowed down, oppressed, and suffering.  It is God who has given us each gifts and talents and blessings to share with others to lift them up, to help them in their struggles.  We can be there to offer much, but it is God alone who can transform their lives and hearts.

God desires to use us in many ways.  We are each uniquely gifted and blessed as the body of Christ so that we can corporately minister to a wide variety of situations and needs.  Some are the feet of Christ who enter into brokenness to lift shame and guilt so that hope can begin to enter in.  Some of us are the hands of Christ, entering in and offering a hand up so that one can begin to be above water again.  Some of us are His eyes, restoring value and worth to someone who thought they had none.  Some of us are God’s voice, speaking out against injustice and oppression, seeking to make things right.  Some of us are His ears, listening to the stories that need heard and retold so that others may find or experience positive change in their lives.

God loves all of His children equally.  Some do not even know that they are a child of God.  This day may we collectively be His feet, hands, eyes, voice, and ears so that all may begin to experience His love, lived out through our witness, example, and presence.


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Whenever Necessary

Reading: Psalm 32

Like the psalmist, sometimes we hold onto our sin.  We make a conscious choice not to come before God.  Sometimes this is because even though we know our sin, we hold onto it because we are not ready to repent or because we know that the temptation or the sin is still greater than our will or faith.  Sometimes we do not recognize our sin.  As our faith matures, the concept of what we see as sin also develops.  We come to realize more and more how far short we fall as we come to know and understand God more and more.

When we hold onto our sin, there are ramifications.  Not confessing our sin can weigh upon us emotionally and spiritually and can run us down physically.  Unconfessed sin is a barrier between God and us and inhibits a true relationship with God.  Our heart must be right with God before we can come to Him in prayer and worship.  If we try to do so with sin upon us, it is false prayer or worship.  Just as God could not look upon Jesus on the cross as He bore our sins, God cannot be in our presence if we are not righteous.  To be righteous we must be made clean.

The reality is that God already knows our sins.  The Lord of heaven is also the Lord of the earth.  There is nothing that escapes Him.  We may try to convince ourselves that God doe snot know our sins, but we are only fooling ourselves.  When we humble ourselves, come before God, and pour out our sins, we are blessed by His grace, mercy, and love.  Not only that.  God also removes the guilt and shame of our sins.

When we are in a right relationship with God, He blesses and instructs and loves us.  When we are in a right relationship with God, we wonder why we would ever lived any other way.  When sin is upon us, may we go to God often – whenever necessary – so that we may live all of our days in His presence and in the light of His love.


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Pray

‘The prayers of a righteous person are powerful and effective.’  Elijah prayed and held the rain off for three and a half years. Then he prayed and it rained right then.  Mordecai and Esther prayed for the deliverance of the Jews from Haman’s plot and they were saved.  The people cried out to God in the desert and manna fell from heaven.  Since these example of prayer were lifted up and answered, people have continued to pray and God has continued to answer.

For each of us, part of our divine appointment is to pray for one another.  We are to confess our sins and struggles to one another and then to lift each other up in prayer.  We are to share our burdens with one another so that we can share the load and also pray for one another.  We are to share our joys and good news as well so that we can lift up prayers of praise and thanksgiving to the giver of all good things.

Our prayers must also extend to those outside of our small group or church community.  We are to pray for victims of violence and social injustice both near and far.  When we read or hear of these things, pray for them.  We are to pray for the family who lost their home in a fire, for the parents who suddenly and unexpectantly lost a child, for the person struggling to feed their family, and for all others in need.  Our prayer for the ‘stranger’ can be just as effective and powerful as the prayer for our own family.

We ar called to pray.  And to pray and to pray and to pray.  Pray without ceasing.  Take everything to God in prayer.  The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective.  Pray.

Scripture reference: James 5: 13-20


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How Deep and Wide

As Christians, we have this idea in our minds that God rewards the righteous and punishes the wicked.  God blesses those who love Him.  He brings consequences to those who fail to walk in His ways.  We like to feel that we are on the righteous end of this continuum, but the reality is that we do at times sin and can tend towards the wrong end of the scale.

When our faith is strong and we are walking close to God in our daily lives, we sense His presence, we feel we are being fruitful in the world, and we feel His protection.  We feel centered and confident that we can handle what life brings our way.  God feels like a good friend.  Then we drift.  Or maybe we fall hard into sin in what feels like an instant.  We look up and feel like God is nowhere to be found.  The source of life feels like a distant memory.  Then we are like chaff, blown easily this way and then that way.  Yet there is hope.  There is always hope.

Jesus Christ is the living water, the way, the truth, and the life.  When we are lost, He gives direction.  When we are empty, He fills us up.  When we are confused, He pours wisdom into us.  When we sin, He offers grace and forgiveness.  As inconsistent and changing as we are, Christ is as rock-solid and unchanging.  As often as we stumble and fall, Jesus is there over and over and over again, extending us that grace and love that never ends.  How deep and wide is His love!  He calls us to walk in His ways, to be His disciples, and to love as He loves.  May we reflect His love today.

Scripture reference: Psalm 1


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God Is Better

Our culture has become adept at bending the truth.  We are good at telling people what we think they want to hear and at ‘working’ statistics to support our viewpoint.  It is easy to say this is who we are and then to go act in a different manner.  Larger society has become very gray.

It was no different in Jesus’ day.  The Pharisees came out to see Jesus and wanted to challenge Jesus and the disciples because they were eating with ‘unclean’ hands.  They had not undergone the ceremonial cleansing of their hands before they ate.  The word ‘ceremonial’ is a tip-off.  In the opening line of His response, Jesus calls them hypocrites and quotes from Isaiah about their lip service and fascination with the rules.  We hear “smack, smack, smack” but the Pharisees were wondering who Jesus was talking about.

Jesus goes on to teach that it is not what we put into ourselves that makes us unclean but it what comes from our thoughts and words that make us unclean.  We sin and become unclean when we have evil thoughts, when we utter lies and unkind words, when we engage in immoral behavior, and when we allow envy, greed, jealousy, and malice into our hearts.  When we work to be holy and to live a righteous life and to keep evil far away, then we are right with God and we are ‘clean’.

People today are pretty good at wading through the smoke screens and half-truths served up so commonly today.  And we must make no mistake about it – God is pretty good at it too.  We cannot fool God.  When we come before Him with sin in our lives – and sinful we are – we must confess, repent, and seek His strength for the battle.  In His great love we find mercy and grace.  He refines us and gives us strength.  Allow Him in, lean on Him a little more, hear His voice, and go forth in Christ, seeking a closer walk with God.

Scripture reference: Mark 7: 1-8, 14-15, and 21-23


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This Day, O Lord

In the world there are fools and wise people, evil doers and the righteous.  For the Christian, for me, it is a constant battle to live wisely and as a righteous person.  Both the internal and external challenges are plentiful each day.  It is only with His strength that one has a chance at being wise and righteous.

Unfortunately at times I can live foolishly and can be far from God.  In these times, what I think or say lacks more integrity.  I fall into self-indulgence and do not hold myself accountable.  I fail to remain close to God at all times.  But on these days and in these moments, if I am quick to respond to the Holy Spirit’s prompting, then I can find redemption and return to the path God intends for me.

Living wisely and seeking to be righteous is a plan that requires something more than I naturally have in me.  I must work at building up God’s presence in my life through the daily practices of prayer, stud, confession, meditation, and worship.  This connection to God allows me to reach out more quickly when temptation comes my way.  This connection sensitized me more to the Spirit’s convictions and promptings.

In living connected to and aligned with God, I more easily see the world and its needs as He does.  I come to know that God loves all people equally.  It is His will to come to those in need and to do all we can for them.  It is His will that His name be made known to the ends of the earth.  It is His will to live in a harmonious relationship with each of us.  This day, O Lord, may I live in step with You.  This day, O Lord, may I be your servant in all the places you put me today.

Scripture reference: Psalm 14