pastorjohnb

Thoughts and musings on faith and our mighty God!

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Servant

Reading: Isaiah 49: 1-4

We are each chosen by God to be God’s servant.  We are each identified before birth: “before I was born the Lord called me”.  The Lord has followed that call with preparation.  God has planted His Word within us as we have grown and matured in our faith.  God has prepared us for service by making us a ‘polished arrow’.  God has equipped us with the Word so that our mouth is like a ‘sharpened sword’.  All of this so that we may live into verse four: “You are my servant… in whom I will display my splendor”.

Chosen by God, created for a purpose, equipped to fulfill that purpose.  Yes, this is what it says in Isaiah and throughout the Bible.  Yes, it can be hard to live into our call to serve God.  But it is what God desires for us, what God has planned for us.  So what is it that keeps us from living into what God created us to be?  I believe there are two culprits: us and Satan.

We doubt.  We worry.  We think ourselves not up to the task.  We think our faith or knowledge too limited to serve God.  We think our time has not yet come.  We remember past failures.  We fear rejection or criticism.  Then Satan partners with us and whispers lies into our minds.  Man, that is too much for you.  Woman, you could never do that.  Son, what if they ask you this question?  Daughter, remember the last time you tried to share your faith?  Satan, the great deceiver, fears that we will believe and cling to the truths and promises we find in the Word.  The devil fears that we will trust in God and will call upon God for all we need.  Satan knows the truth: nothing is impossible with God.

To our doubt and worry, God promises: I will be with you.  To our poor self-confidence, God promises: I will never leave or foresake you.  To our lack of felt knowledge, God promises: I will send the Holy Spirit to remind you of all things.  To our past failures, God promises: I have plans to prosper you.

Today’s passage ends with, “my reward is with God”.  This day may we trust fully into the promises of God, looking forward to the promise of life eternal.  This day may we may we embrace our role as servant of the most high God, knowing that God is with us, living our lives to bring glory to God.


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Healing, Light, Justice

Reading: Isaiah 42: 1-9

As the new year lays out before us, it beckons us to look forward.  This time of year also causes us to look back, to consider the year that has just ended.  It is often a time of evaluation, of setting goals or realigning our priorities, and of taking stock of our lives.  All of these are good and healthy things to do.  When we take time to reflect on our lives, we live much more beyond ourselves and past the daily grind of life.

Today’s passage speaks of this idea of a life bigger than our own little worlds.  The opening verse begins by declaring, “Here is my servant… my chosen one in whom I delight”.  God speaks this of you and of me.  We each are so much more than this collection of cells.  We are God’s children, chosen by God to live a life of service to God.  This spiritual life calls us beyond ourselves and the day to day of life.  As God’s chosen ones, we are called to others.  The rest of verse one reads, “I will put my Spirit upon him and he will bring justice to the nations”.  As God’s chosen ones we are gifted with the Holy Spirit.  This gift helps us to live into God’s calling.  To me, this means truly living out the second commandment that Jesus gave: love neighbor.  There are, of course, many ways we can love our neighbors – bringing justice is just one of them.

After reminding us the He will take hold of our hand, will keep us, and will make us a covenant and a light for the Gentiles, God goes on to get specific about how we are to bring justice and to love our neighbors.  As a covenant to and a light for the people, God calls us to open eyes that are blind, to free captives from prison, and to release those in “dungeons of darkness”.  I believe this call is both spiritual and physical.  God wants us each to be a part of the healing of the world.  He wants us to help people through the power of Jesus’ name.  It may be physically restoring someone’s vision or helping someone learn how to make different choices so that they do not end up back in prison.  It may be opening their eyes to the Word of God so that they are freed from the chains and darkness of sin.  And for many, it is both physical and spiritual healing that God desires us, His chosen ones, to bring to the broken of our world.

As we each reflect back on our past year and look forward to the year ahead, may part of our time be spent considering how each of us can specifically bring healing and light and justice to those living in a broken world.


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God’s Love

Reading: Hebrews 1: 1-12

Tomorrow we celebrate the birth of Jesus.  In this one act, God shows us how much we are loved.  We are shown the depth of God’s love in a number of ways.  We are told that heaven is a place where there is no pain, no tears, no hurt, no evil.  “Paradise” is a word associated with God’s dwelling place.  That God would leave heaven and choose to live amongst us here is one way the birth reveals the depth of God’s love for us.  God’s choice to put on flesh and walk amongst us sinners reveals a love that is hard to understand.

Verse three states, “The Son is the radiance of God’s glory”.  As our Emmanuel, God with us, Jesus reveals the compassionate heart that beats in heaven.  Rather than be the Lord or King that He could have been, Jesus instead chose the role of humble servant.  With a wave of His hand or a whisper of His voice Jesus could have wiped out all evil and injustice.  With a thought He could have removed the Romans.  Instead Jesus became like you and me, demonstrating God’s love through simple acts of mercy, friendship, compassion, and love – in ways you and I can follow and practice.  He became like us so we could be like Him.  Oh how He loves us!

These are just two reasons we celebrate the love of God revealed in the birth.  But in knowing the end, we are also amazed at the birth.  How hard it would be to bring a child into this world knowing that they would die a horrific and unjust death.  What an amazing love that God would send Jesus knowing that the cross loomed.  As a parent we would do all we could for our child to avoid that death.  God did all He could to insure that Jesus would go to the cross.  It is a love I cannot fathom.  Yet for this love, I say thanks be to God.


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Love Lived Out

Reading: Matthew 24: 36-44

No one knows the day or the hour when Jesus will return.  There will be no mistaking it when He returns.  Our passage today speaks about one being taken and one being left behind.  The rapture will be the first unmistakable sign.  With all this in mind, Jesus urges us to always be ready.  If we are ever seeking to live a life worthy of Jesus’ example, we will always be ready for the moment He returns.

Salvation is something we do not lose once we declare that Jesus is Lord and Savior of our life.  Once we receive Jesus into our heart, we are saved.  This status does not change.  But for many people, they have not chosen to accept Jesus as Lord.  For some, it is an intentional choice.  They are still choosing self even though they fully understand what Jesus offers.  They are not willing to surrender.  For others, they do not know who Jesus is or how Jesus can work in their lives or maybe how to begin a relationship with Jesus.  In all of these scenarios, all are lost and need to enter a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.

One of our primary roles as followers of Jesus is to share the good news with the world.  We do this in our daily lives.  It is both our words and our actions.  In our words are love, compassion, mercy, grace, understanding, forgiveness…  In our actions we are a servant to all, humbly doing for others.  Another role we play is prayer warrior.  Just as Jesus and the Holy Spirit are interceding for each of us, we too are called to pray for one another.  Sometimes our prayers are general – asking God to help our church reach out or helping us see opportunities that God places before us.  Some prayers are more specific – for a certain person or situation, for God to work in a loved one’s heart, for someone we know is sensing God’s hand at work in their life.

Each and every day may we be God’s love lived out – in our actions, in our words, in our prayers.  May we be love to the world.


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Simple Servant

Reading: 2 Timothy 4: 6-8

As Paul looks back over a lifetime, he is pleased with how he finished.  He knows he had his moments.  We all do.  Paul grew up like all other Jewish boys – learning the Torah and practicing the family trade.  He worked hard at learning the Law and rose to become a Pharisee.  Then this Jesus fellow came along and started to cause a stir.  Paul stuck to his traditional faith and soon Jesus was crucified and buried.  But the newfound “Way”, as it was known, continued to grow and spread.  Paul, known then as Saul, took up the mantel and led the charge to stamp out this fledgling religion.  But then one day, on his way to Damascus to round up some followers of the Way, Paul himself met Jesus.  Paul encountered the risen Christ and Paul became a new creation.  From then on he worked tirelessly to teach the good news of Jesus Christ to any and all who would listen.

Paul has “fought the fight, finished the race, kept the faith”.  Paul is pleased with how he has spent the last years of his life.  There is no regret, no second thoughts.  Paul has been a great champion of sharing Jesus with others.  He has done all he could do for a Savior that changed his life forever.  Paul now sees his life as being poured out like a thank offering, a gift made to God for the change that Jesus Christ has wrought in his life.  Having given fully of himself, Paul is content with his life of service offered to the Christ he loves.

Paul exemplifies the simple servant that Jesus calls us all to be.  It is the life that Jesus first modeled as well.  When we offer ourselves out of a love for God and a love for neighbor, we too are fighting the good fight.  When we step into the opportunities that God gives us, we too are keeping the faith.  Each day, as we strive to fall more in love with God and to grow deeper in our faith, we too are finishing the race as faithful disciples.  May we bring glory and honor to God in all we do.


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Attitude 

Reading: Luke 17: 5-10

As Christians, our role is to love God and to love neighbor.  It is what we are called to do.  In loving, we are also often called to do for or to serve God and neighbor.  We usually do so willingly and obediently, so we understand Jesus’ teaching that doing so is simply our duty as Christians.  In serving our Master and Lord we should not expect extra thanks or special recognition.

Every once in a while we notice something at home or work or church that needs done.  It may not be our “job” but w notice it needs done, so we do it.  Some of the time, when we serve with good intentions, God blesses us.  For example, a couple of weeks ago I noticed that some of the windows at the church needed cleaned.  As I was getting ready to clean windows that evening, a man wandered up to the parsonage looking for an odd job to do.  I invited him to join me and our time together was wonderful.  We accomplished a hard task and we began a new friendship.  Such a blessing!

But sometimes we notice a job that needs done and we go about it grudgingly.  As we work, we run through the list of people whose job this really is or should be.  We may even become upset with them for not doing their job as we slave away to do what should have already been done.  Grudgingly, work, slave.  In this mindset, boy do we need an attitude adjustment!

Lord, when we are working grudgingly, change our hearts so we are willingly serving, being a faithful servant instead of an overworked slave.  Lord Jesus, help us to love and serve generously, following the example you set for us.  Thank you.


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Servant

Reading: Luke 17: 5-10

In the opening verses of Luke 17, Jesus has just instructed the disciples to keep from sinning, to not lead others into sinning, and to always offer forgiveness to those who sin against them.  Then Jesus adds a point of emphasis: forgive up to seven times in one day.  Seven represents eternity for His audience.  Jesus is saying to forgive over and over and over and over and…  The disciples response to this idea is the opening line of today’s passage: “Increase our faith!”. In other words, if you are asking this of us Jesus, you better bump up our faith.

To this request Jesus offers a parable.  The main character is a servant.  Jesus often parallels being a disciple with being a servant.  The servant-master relationship is obe that would have been very familiar and well-understood by His audience.  A servant’s job is to serve the master.  Of course the servant would come in from a long day’s work and still waiting upon the master until all their needs are met before retiring for the day.  It is what servants do.  They put their master’s needs ahead of their own.  The servant doesn’t hang around on the periphery waiting for a nice ‘thank you’ either.  It’s just their job.

Then Jesus extends the understanding and application of the parable to the disciples and to us.  He says this too is how a disciple conducts themselves.  As disciples we are called to be servants not only to our Master but to all people as well.  We are called to serve others, to sacrifice for others, to set aside our own interests and wants for the needs of others.  We are called to place others before self.  In living out the Gospel, we are to simply love and serve all as Jesus loved and served all.  Today and each day, may we pray for and strive to live out of a servant’s heart.


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The Circle

Reading: Hebrews 12: 18-24

Hebrews 12 offers a new perspective on God.  The God embodied in Jesus is the same God whose voice can thunder and who can be terrifying.  God is unchanging.  What changes or evolves is our understanding of God.  Stand at the window and watch and listen to the power in a magnificent thunderstorm.  Witness God’s voice booming!  Sit with a family that has just lost a loved one who they think was not saved, witness the unspoken questions and fear.  Consider the conviction we feel when we sin.  We quickly repent and seek forgiveness so that we are back in God’s love and away from the terrifying feeling of being outside of God’s love.

Through Jesus and the presence of the Holy Spirit we experience God differently.  God is now more personal, more easily accessed.  Jesus and the Holy Spirit function as more open conduits to heaven and God’s love.  In Jesus the man we saw the living God, first on earth and now in heaven.  Hebrews reminds us that Jesus is “the mediator of a new covenant” where grace and forgiveness comes through His blood sacrificed on the cross.  It is a free gift to us all.  It costs us nothing.  What a change in the previous relationship!  Jesus is also the mediator that stands between us and God and with the Holy Spirit intercedes for each of us.  This is what has changed, not God.

Faith and our response to it has also changed significantly.  Before Christ’s time on earth, faith in God was seen as an exclusive thing.  Either you were part of God’s chosen people, or you were not.  Jews were in, everyone else was out.  Faith led the Jews to care for one another, to live a life of obedience to God’s ways, and to worship God alone.  Jesus changed who was in the circle.  Through Jesus, all people are chosen people.  There are no limits or exclusions to the new covenant.  There is now no Jew or Gentile, no slave or free, …  We are to be Jesus’ hands and feet, loving all people with a servant’s heart.  We are to be Jesus’ voice, offering the good news to all peoples of all nations, ever working to expand the circle, ever seeking to build the kingdom here on earth.

What role shall we play today?  How will we each be a part of widening the circle, of helping another to step inside so they too can know God’s love?


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Go and Do Likewise

Reading: John 12: 1-11

Our Holy Week readings begin with Mary anointing Jesus’ feet with perfume.  It is something she bought and has kept for just this occasion.  Mary anoints His feet as a beginning step of preparation for His burial.  While this surface fact is true, we must look deeper as well because Mary is a study in faith, a great example to all who call on the name of Jesus.

This story is not our first or last encounter with Mary.  In Luke 10 we see Mary as obedient follower.  As sister Martha works to make all the preparations, Mary simply sits at Jesus’ feet, listening to Him.  Jesus indicates that Mary has chosen wisely.  Unspoken is the warning not to allow business to get in the way of following.  The lesson here from Mary is to place His Word as supreme in our lives.

We also encounter Mary in the story of the resurrection of her brother Lazarus.  In John 10 it was Mary who first sent for Jesus because her brother was sick.  As  news of Jesus approaching their town comes to the grieving home, Mary does not rush out to meet Jesus.  She waits until He calls for her.  Then she goes without delay and confesses her faith in Jesus’ power, even over death.  This is a confession we too must make if we are to surrender our lives to His will.

Lastly, the anointing.  There is of course the sacrifice of the expensive perfume.  But for many of us, like Mary we too can ‘afford’ to give of our resources.  But to go beyond is the challenge for many of us.  To allow the Spirit to lead and to be willing to see God’s vision of what lies just ahead can be difficult.  Here Mary does both.  She goes the extra step and uses her hair to wash His feet.  She allows the Spirit to lead her into this act of service.  In the next chapter we see Jesus washing the disciples’ feet.  He instructs them to follow His (and Mary’s) example, to be willing to serve one another.  Led by the same Spirit, may we be willing to go and do likewise.


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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.