pastorjohnb

Thoughts and musings on faith and our mighty God!

Tag Archives: self


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Call of Christ

Christ chose to come and live among us.  God incarnate made the choice to walk in a human body. In the form of Jesus, God stepped out of heaven and down among us.  The people who lived with Jesus and witnessed His life were blessed to be in His presence, as are we who read about Him 2,000 years later.

In today’s culture, we are impressed when a president of a big company spends time with the workers or when a celebrity athlete spends time in a school or hospital.  At times we too are called to step out of or normal circle and to spend time ministering to the poor, the widow, the orphan, the prisoner.  For some it is a similar step to what Jesus did, willingly offering self for other’s benefit.

Christ set the ultimate example of giving when He submitted to death for our benefit.  Jesus Christ became totally powerless in order to gain ultimate power over death.  He had to be weak and vulnerable in order to gain strength and glory.  We are not called, in general, to give our lives for another, but we are all asked: what can you offer?

Scripture reference: Ephesians 1: 20-23


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Called to the Same Standard

In Matthew 22 Jesus answers the Pharisees’ question about taxes by says to give to Caesar what is Caesar’s.  It is a concept we follow to this day.  Like it or not, we realize that paying taxes is a necessary thing to keep schools open, roads maintained, police and such on duty…

Jesus also says to give to God what is God’s.  Hmmm…  Isn’t everything God’s?  Technically speaking, if He created all of this, isn’t it all His?  And this leads to the questions of how do we give to God and how much do we give to God?  Do we go with the 10% tithe idea or do we give all of ourselves to God?  Hard questions.

In Jesus, we see the goal.  He gave his all for us.  In his daily life, Jesus loved all he encountered, meeting the right where they were at, offering them what he could.  We are called to the same standard.  Ultimately He took the cross and death for our sins.  What more could He give?  In the end, Jesus continued to meet us where we were at and offered what he could – himself.  To paraphrase John Wesley, may we too seek to do all the good we can for all those that we can in all of the times that we can.

Scripture reference: Matthew 22: 15-22


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God’s Extravagant Love

Do you believe that God loves you?  Do you believe it right down to the bottom of your heart?  He does love you.  God is passionate about us all.  In the book, The Shack, the God character had a saying that she said often – “I am especially fond of that one”.  It was said about everybody!  It is true too.

It is essential that we root our love in God’s divine love for us.  God’s love is pure, honest, and unending.  This is how we are called to love others and ourselves.  Jesus tells us that all of the commandments can be summed up in this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself”.  Jesus lived a life that exemplified this new command and we are called to follow His example.

When we truly live out and follow this simple commandment, we do not steal, cheat, covet, murder, …  Yet it extends far beyond this list of things not to do.  Because of this divine love within us, we seek to ‘do no harm’ and to ‘do all the good we can, any time we can’ (Reuben Job and John Wesley).  As we live into God’s love for us, we begin to share His love with those we meet and live with every day.  Through His extravagant love we begin to make a difference in our worlds.

Scripture reference: Romans 13: 8-10


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Da Nile and the Cross Beside It

So often our stumbling blocks are tha things of men.  It is too easy to let our life revolve around our position at work or how our bank account looks or what other people think of us.  In our humanity, it is pretty easy to be human!  But we can also stumble on heavenly things.  For example, at times we can allow doubt or fear to keep us from doing what God calls us to.

Jesus calls us to deny self and to take up our cross to follow Him.  There are two parts here.  First, we are called to deny self.  When we deny self we are putting all others above ourself and our needs, desires, interests, wants…  ALL others above self.  That is not just family, close friends, maybe a few people from the church.  It is also that coworker you really don’t like that much and that homeless lady you walk by on the way to your car.  But certainly when we deny self, we have more to offer to others.

The second part of this call is to take up our cross.  For Jesus, His cross led to the greatest gift ever and also to His physical death.  For us, our cross is both what we can offer to our broken world and a spiritual death to the things that keep us from fully following Jesus Christ.  For Jesus, His cross held all of our sins and He took it up and bore it for our salvation, the forgiveness of our sins.  On Jesus’ cross was love for mankind.  Love was truly the gift Jesus had to offer.  He denied self to love others fully.

It makes me wonder – what gift for mankind is on my cross or on your cross?  Maybe it is our gifts and talents that are on our crosses.  So when we deny self, it is what we have to offer to our fellow man.  If compassion is our gift, then when one denies self and takes up their cross, is it compassion that flows out?  If ones gift is teaching, then when one denies self and pours themselves into being a teacher, is it learning that pours out for others?

Scripture reference: Matthew 16: 21-28