pastorjohnb

Thoughts and musings on faith and our mighty God!

Tag Archives: trust


by Leave a comment

Big Plan

Reading: Genesis 21: 8-21

Verse 12: It is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned.

God’s big plan is at work.  Sometimes it is hard to see the big plan from our own limited vantage point.  From our small view sometimes we cannot see very far.  In today’s passage, God knows the big plan.  He says to Abraham, “It is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned”.  This is the big plan.  The nation of Israel will come through Isaac – his child with wife Sarah.  It fulfills the promise made long ago.  The covenant involves divine guidance and blessing.

The big picture even influences the writers of Genesis.  Notice that in our passage the name ‘Ishmael’ is not used.  The writers instead use ‘son’ and ‘boy’.  Maybe the story is less personal that way.  Yet when we look at Abraham, we see that this is very personal.  It is his son Ishmael that must be cast out.  It is his first born son that he must send out into the desert.  Even though it is part of God’s big plan, this is a hard thing that Abraham is being asked to do.  He is stuck in his small view.

As Abraham teeters in the balance, God gives him some reassurance.  In a way, God is saying, ‘truth’ me’.  Abraham has had lots of experience trusting God when he could not see the big plan, so he trusts once again in God and follows obediently.  At times we find ourselves in a situation similar to Abraham’s.  The things that we need to ‘send out’ are often sins or other things that we can see we need to let go.  Once in a while, though, we find ourselves in a spot like Abraham, having to make the “more right” choice.  We have to let go of something we kind of love to remain obedient to God’s big plan for our lives.  In these moments, may we recall God’s faithfulness in our lives and trust in Him to be faithful once again.


by Leave a comment

Hope

Reading: Roman 5: 1-5

Verse Five: God has poured out His love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit.

Chapter Five opens with Paul’s declaration that we can claim peace with God through Jesus Christ because we are made right through our faith.  It is a bold statement but one we live into every day as Christians.  Our faith in Jesus Christ brings us into God’s grace, the unmerited gift of forgiveness that washes away our sins so that we can stand before God holy and pure.  It is an amazing love that makes us righteous day after day after day, sin after sin after sin.  It is a love without limit.  It is indeed the hope of the glory of God which leads Paul to rejoice.  May we rejoice as well!

In verse three Paul shifts directions but not end results.  Not only do we enjoy a peace with God that leads us to rejoice, but Paul also encourages us to rejoice in our sufferings as well.  Being made right through God’s grace allows us to have hope in our future.  For Paul, he saw this same hope as the end result of our suffering.  For Paul, suffering was a necessary part of our Christian journey.  As Saul the Pharisee he certainly had inflicted much suffering on Christians and as Paul the Apostle he definitely endured his share of suffering and persecution.

For Paul, he rejoiced in the sufferings because he knew it would lead to a deepening of his faith.  Paul had learned that in suffering righteously one learns perseverance.  When we lean into God and endure with the power and hope that Jesus Christ offers, then through the power of the Holy Spirit we can persevere.  As we trust in God and live within His presence, that develops our Christian character.  Our hope in God’s glory grows as we experience the power and strength of God carrying us through our trials.  We begin to see these earthly troubles as bumps along the way to experiencing God’s eternal glory.  This in turns leads to an ever growing hope.  It is a hope that is everlasting.  It is the hope that will not disappoint or fade.  It is the hope that thieves cannot steal and moths cannot destroy.  It is the hope we come to know beyond the shadow of a doubt because we come to fully know that “God has poured out His love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit”.

As Christians we face each new day with God’s love deep in our hearts.  May we walk in faith and hope this day and every day, trusting in the God who loves us beyond all measure.


by Leave a comment

Go Out

Reading: Acts 2: 1-21

Verses 17 and 21: I will pour out my Spirit… And everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.

Come, stand in the disciples’ shoes for a few minutes.  You have gone from grief and despair to joy and courage in quick order.  Jesus has breathed the Holy Spirit into you and you are told once again to go out into the world to proclaim the good news of Jesus Christ.  You are being asked to trust your life to this Holy Spirit that you just met for the first time.  And then Pentecost comes and you experience the power of the Holy Spirit as God pours it out on all the believers gathered there that day.  It would have been like seeing Jesus perform His first miracle.  Back then you thought something like, ‘Now we’ve got something here’!  The scene of all the believers being filled with the Holy Spirit and speaking in a wide variety of languages reveals to you the power of this Holy Spirit.

And just as the crowd begins to question what is happening here, Peter stands up to address the crowd.  You’re one of the eleven so you stand up too.  But as Peter speaks you find that he isn’t just talking to the crowd that day – he’s talking right to you.  Through the power of the Holy Spirit at work in him, Peter quotes from the prophet Joel.  You recognize the words, “I will pour out my Spirit…”.  You know that Joel was speaking of you.  You experienced Jesus pouring out the Spirit upon you as He breathed it into you.  You will prophesy and dream dreams and have visions.  You will see and feel God at work as the Holy Spirit leads and guides you.  But most of all you find a peace that passes understanding in the last line from Joel: “And everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved”.  That’s you.  No matter what comes in this earthly life, the power of the Holy Spirit resides in you and your salvation is secure.  You are ready to go out and bring the gospel to the ends of the earth.

Now, come back to June 3, 2017.  The great commission remains in effect.  God still reigns.  The Holy Spirit dwells within you.  Go out and bring the gospel to the world!


by Leave a comment

Lead and Guide and Protec

Reading: John 20: 19-23

Verse 22: …He breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit”.

The disciples have been taught about the Holy Spirit.  Now, today in our passage, they receive the Holy Spirit themselves as Jesus breathed it into them.  Just as God breathes human life into each of us at birth, here Jesus breathes new life into His followers.  The disciples transition from living with Jesus to having Him live IN them in the person of the Holy Spirit.  This gift of constant presence within comes with the charge to go out into the world to continue Jesus’ work.  To do so, the disciples must first overcome their own fears and doubts and, second, must trust fully in the Spirit.

Jesus does little more than give them the basic charge.  He says, “I am sending you” and then ‘He breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit”‘.  Although the scope and range of the assignment is huge and vast, it does not come with detailed instructions or a handbook or a manual.  Any of this would have led to a trust in human things instead of the power of the Holy Spirit to lead and guide and protect.  And after all, the disciples have spent three solid years receiving on-the-job training from the Master.  From the results of their work going forward, we can see that they did indeed go out and preach the good news of Jesus Christ.

We too bear the same charge and we too have the presence of the same Spirit with us as we go forth.  And we have the Bible.  Within His word we can read and review and study how Jesus and His followers lived out their love of God in the world.  We can glean out how to pray and how to fully trust in God’s care and provision.  Through the witness and testimony we find in the Word we can come to see and understand the power of the Holy Spirit and can then trust in the Holy Spirit to lead and guide and protect us as well.  Filled with this knowledge and trust, may we also go out to share the good news of Jesus Christ.


by Leave a comment

Ask

Reading: John 14: 1-14

Verse One: Do not let your heart’s be troubled.  Trust in God; trust also in me.

Faith is a journey.  At times we feel our faith is strong and is mature.  We feel like we are well-connected to Jesus.  Our daily walk includes time in the Word and time in prayer.  Part of our week always includes worship and maybe even a small group time.  We clearly see how Jesus is “the way, the truth, and the life”.  We have a quiet assurance that Jesus is leading our lives and we hold onto His promise of “a room prepared for us”.

And then we don’t.  Something happens.  Someone says or does something.  Satan exposes a crack and suddenly there is a chasm between us and our faith, between us and Jesus.  Satan uses lies, doubts, fears, anxiety, and much more to make us question our faith and to question Jesus.  Our mind becomes filled with questions like “Why?” and “How?”.  Soon that faith and assurance seems like a distant memory.  It can happen so fast.  We’ve all been there.

Passages like today’s speak into moments like these.  When we still our hearts and minds and really read Jesus’ words, our feet return to the path of our faith journey.  We hear Jesus’ voice saying, “Do not let your hearts be troubled.  Trust in God; trust also in me”.  Jesus has us.  He is there for us in the midst of our trial or suffering and He will be there again and again and again.  In His voice, we hear again that the room is prepared for us.  No one can cancel our reservation.

In the passage we also see that we are not alone in our meandering and lack of understanding.  Even the disciples don’t always remain steadfast and they don’t always get it.  Thomas and Philip voice the questions we have at times.  They ask Jesus to show them the way and to show them the Father.  Jesus is patient and loving in doing so.  We too seek Jesus’ guidance and direction often to know the way to go or to discern even the next step.  At other times we seek to encounter Jesus, to feel His power in our lives.  All of these things are things Jesus wants to do.  It is His promise: “I will do whatever you ask in my name”.  What do you need Jesus to do today?


by Leave a comment

Trust

Reading: Psalm 31: 1-5 and 15-16

Verses 1 and 2: In you, O Lord, I have taken refuge… be my rock of refuge, a strong fortress to save me.

Today’s Psalm 31 verses really represent the best of King David, “a man after God’s own heart”.  It demonstrates for each of us the relationship we all should strive for with God.  It speaks of refuge, strength, redemption, and deliverance.  In the verses not in our reading, the Psalm recalls some of the trials and sufferings of David’s life.  It is good to balance out the verses we read with a reminder that even the great King David hadn’t his struggles as well.  As we too face trials, temptations, and struggles it is good to know that we are not alone.  To acknowledge this makes the verses for today all that much more relevant to each of us.

At times, life does seem to storm about us.  The Psalm opens with David taking refuge in God.  There is a trust in this action that we should emulate as well.  Seeking refuge in God signals our admission of our inability to handle it or solve it on our own.  It admits our absolute need for God.  David goes on to extend the place of refuge to be a place of leadership and guidance.  Once David feels the safety and protection of God’s refuge, then he begins to seek the next steps.  David asks God to lead and guide him.  He does not say, “The storm has calmed” and then step back out on his own.  David’s example maintains the trust in God and the dependence on God.  We would do well to follow his example.

The last two verses of our reading reiterate these points.  David writes, “my times are in your hands” and asks for God’s face to shine upon him.  He also seeks saving through God’s unfailing love.  All we have and are rests in God’s hands as well.  May we trust into this reality as we spend our days.  When we trust and love God with all of our being, His face shines upon us too and we will certainly walk each day in the light of His love.  Amen!


by Leave a comment

Bear Witness

Reading: Acts 7: 55-60

Verse 55: Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, looked up to heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God.

Stephen is certainly one filled with the Holy Spirit.  He has taught and performed miracles.  He stood in the Sanhedrin and successfully defended and explained the faith he professes.  He is so filled with the Holy Spirit that he even condemns the most powerful body of Jewish leaders for their role in the death of Christ.  This so outrages them that they are furious and gnash their teeth.  What happens next is today’s reading.

Stephen is a man who will stand up for his faith and belief in God no matter what.  He is a man who will speak the truth, even if it offends others a bit.  He is a man living life fully under the control of the Holy Spirit.  He is a man who trusts his very life to God’s plans and purposes.  All I can say is, “Wow”.  To look in the mirror and to see a slight reflection of who Stephen was would give me pause.

Who do you know that lives like Stephen?  Is there someone in your life that lives fully trusting God and fully obedient to God’s will?  These men and women are few and far between.  Most Christians, myself included, dabble with this type of faith.  We may step outside our routine or our comfort zones every once in a while to make an impact for God.  We may show a depth of faith that at times pleases God.

Just as they are preparing to drag him out to stone him, Stephen “full of the Holy Spirit, looked up to heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God”.  God blesses him with this vision and the one to come next.  It strengthens Stephen.  It reassures him.  It affirms what he has spent his last years preaching and doing.  As they stone him, he calls for Jesus to receive his spirit and prays for those killing him.  He dies just as he lived – bearing witness to his God to the very end.  In doing so, Stephen continues to bring much glory to God.  May we go and do likewise today.


by Leave a comment

Fruitful Practices

Reading: Acts 2: 42-47

Verse 42: They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread, and to prayer.

The early church practiced some things that made it a strong and vibrant church.  These practices helped those in the community of faith to grow stronger in their own faith and they also attracted others into the community.  They first devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching.  In this the people got to know Jesus more and more.  They deepened their understanding of Christ and His call upon their lives.  We continue this practice to this day.  We gather in our places of worship to hear the Word proclaimed.  We also study our Bibles and read devotionals and books to deepen our personal relationship with Christ.

The early church also devoted themselves to fellowship.  They spent lots of time together discussing their faith and sharing their lives with one another.  It was a way to build relationships with each other and to support and encourage each other.  It was also a way to talk about their faith – both the challenges and what God was doing in their lives.  We continue these practices today as we gather after worship, as we meet together for coffee or lunch, as we come together in small groups to study and serve God.

Early followers of the Way often broke bread together.  The breaking of bread was partly meal, partly communion.  Only in the latter church would communion be separated out and come to resemble what we practice today.  The common meal together was like an old-fashioned pot luck.  All brought what they could to share with each other.  In this early setting, the church would also break bread to remember the gift of Jesus on the cross.  Many of us will do so today as well.

Lastly, the early followers prayed together regularly.  They would spend time together as a community in prayer.  They would know each other well from the times of worship and fellowship and meals.  So prayer time was intimately connected and very powerful.  We experience this at times in worship but most often experience it in our small groups that have developed a deeper level of care and trust.

“And daily the Lord added to their number those who were being saved”.  Through our practices of faith and because of our community of faith, may the Lord increase those who are being saved.


by Leave a comment

Daily Walk

Reading: 1 Peter 2: 19-25

Verse 21: Christ himself suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in His steps.

In 1st Peter, suffering is a common theme.  Perhaps this is because the faithful of Peter’s day did suffer for their faith.  Just as Jesus had suffered at the hands of the Jews and Romans, many of His followers also faced trial and persecution and even death.  Many of the more prominent witnesses gladly suffered for their faith and found joy in being like Jesus in their suffering.  Oddly, most of us Christians today avoid suffering of all kinds.

Peter’s response to suffering and his call to the early church and to us today is this: call upon the power of Christ to transcend our times of suffering.  Today, at times our faith will have a ‘cost’ be it time or money or some other resource.  To give up something or to sacrifice in one of these areas may hurt a little, but it is a far cry from Peter’s day.  Our suffering tends to be temporary and non-life-threatening.  Yet even in the midst of small trials we are to call upon the only one who can walk with us through the storms of life.  Even if it was just a bad day at work, Jesus still desires to be present and to bring us peace or comfort or contentment or whatever we need.

When we call on Jesus regularly in the small, day to day, events of life, then we get to know Him.  Jesus becomes a regular companion to us in all times of life.  It is through a consistent and daily walk with Christ that we come to truly know and trust His presence, strength, and love in all of our life.  This is the model Jesus set for us to follow.  His relationship with God the Father was a daily, consistent connection.  God was Jesus’ strength in the trial.  Always.  Peter wrote, “Christ himself suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in His steps.”  When Jesus is our foundation rock in this sense, nothing life can bring will shake our faith.  His love will transcend all of our fears, doubts, and anxieties – no matter how big or small.  This becomes how we journey through life.  In the this way we bear witness to the power of Jesus Christ in our lives and in the world.  It is through our witness and example that we too bring God all the glory and praise.


by Leave a comment

Steps

Reading: Psalm 23: 1-2

Verse 2: He makes me like down in green pastures… He restores my soul.

David opens the Psalm by declaring God to be his shepherd.  Because of this, David knows he shall not be in want.  Above all else, he has learned that God provides for him.  Whether dealing with a bear while tending sheep or facing a giant on the battle field or avoiding the insane king, God has provided for way more than David’s basic needs.  But God has provided for them as well, so David has a deep and abiding trust in God.  It is a trust that had grown with experience and practice.  It is one we can enjoy too if we are willing to “let go and let God”.  But it is sort of a two-edged sword you see.  If we never trust God enough to face our giants, then we never truly understand just how great our God can be.  Deep and abiding trust requires us to take another step.

David goes on in verse two to another way that God cares for him and us: rest.  God knew since the beginning how important it was for us to rest.  God himself rested on the seventh day and made Sabbath rest one of the ten commandments.  It is a practice that is deeply ingrained in the lives of Orthodox Jews to this day.  David writes, “He makes me like down in green pastures… He restores my soul”.  David is so in tune with God that he feels God leads him to a place of rest.  David’s place is out in nature, the place of his youth.  The green pastures and quiet waters are calling and David finds restoration for his soul in this place.  It is a place that God invites us to as well.  It is a space that requires deep and abiding trust as well.  It requires that we trust God enough to rest.  This means that we trust God can and will take care of tomorrow – with all of it’s requisite work and worries.  This is also a “let go and let God” practice.  It is also a means of trusting all that we have and all that we are into God’s hands.  To trust in this way also requires another step – another step towards God and away from the world.

This day may we step a little further in our trust in God, entering deeper into His love.