pastorjohnb

Thoughts and musings on faith and our mighty God!

Tag Archives: understanding


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Praying for Our Leaders

Reading: Psalm 72: 1-7 and 10-14

A good king in Israel would rule with justice and righteousness.  A good king would protect the people and provide for their needs.  A good king was sensitive to the needs and concerns of the poor and needy, giving them voice and meeting their basic needs.  A good king ruled according to God’s will.  The people prayed daily for the King, asking God to bless their reign with justice and righteousness.  Life was simply better when a good king reigned.

Today we do not have kings but have presidents, prime ministers, chancellors, senators, representatives, judges, governors, legislators, mayors, councilmen, and councilwomen.  The titles have changed by the roles should not.  As whatever level one serves, it should still be with righteousness and justice.  All should serve for the good of the people and the prosperity of the nation, state, city, or community.  It should not be a self-serving role.  Our role should not change either.  Our role is still to pray daily for all of our leaders.

As the people of God, we should pray each day for our leaders, at all levels, whether or not we align with their political leanings.  Each day we should pray for our leaders to govern with righteousness and justice, with compassion and understanding.  Each day we should pray for our leaders to be sensitive to the needs of the poor and the outcasts, for those without voice.  Each day we should pray that our leaders would lead according to God’s will.  And each day we should pray for our leaders to know and walk with Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior.

May we be faithful in our daily prayers for our leaders so that God’s blessings and justice and righteousness may touch the land.  May we ever lift up our leaders so that God’s glory may shine through them.


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God’s Kingdom

Reading: Isaiah 11: 6-10

The vision Isaiah lays out is hard to wrap our minds around.  We can picture a wolf with a lamb or a lion eating straw.  But to imagine this and all the other images Isaiah presents as the daily reality for all of the animals of the world really stretches our minds.  When Isaiah writes, “They will neither harm nor destroy on all my Holy mountain”, he means everyone and everything – man, animals, plants, nature…

We imagine heaven a number of ways.  Some see a beautiful city with streets paved with gold.  Some see us floating up in the sky, lounging on the clouds.  Some imagine a giant mansion with endless rooms in it.  But even more than what heaven will look like, we ‘know’ what it will be like.  We will constantly be in the light and live of God.  There will be no tears, no pain, no hurt, no hunger, no injustice, no oppression, no sin.

Jesus said, “This, then, is how you should pray… your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven” (Matthew 6: 9-10).  These familiar words from the Lord’s Prayer tie into the vision in Isaiah 11.  When Jesus taught the disciples this prayer, He included the idea of God’s kingdom coming here.  God’s will for the earth is peace, love, understanding, reconciliation, mercy.  God’s kingdom vision for the earth is the same as the vision for heaven.

So, what would our world look like if we put an end to all the harm and destroying?  What would life be like for all people if there was no violence, no abuse, no injustice, no oppression?  What would the world look like if there were no famine or drought or pestilence?  We, as God’s people, are kingdom builders.  What are you going to do today to help bring God’s kingdom to all the people you will encounter this day and to all the places you will be this day?


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The Journey On

Reading: Colossians 1: 15-20

Jesus, Paul declares, is the “firstborn of all creation”.  Since the beginning of time, Jesus has been the creator and the purpose for all that has been created.  He is therefore supreme over all.  Yet counter to all of this, Jesus is also the one who humbled Himself to death on a cross, becoming the “firstborn from among the dead”.  In doing so, Jesus became the way to true and eternal life.  Only through His blood can we be made righteous.

Jesus rule and example were so countercultural.  Jesus loved instead of conquered.  Jesus healed instead of killed.  Jesus forgave instead of holding grudges.  Jesus sacrificed instead of taking advantage.  Jesus offered compassion instead of judgment.  In all these ways, Jesus gave us an example we can each follow.  Love, compassion, mercy, forgiveness, understanding, servant.  Jesus’ power comes from His heart, not from His brain or His brawn.  We are each born with the spark of the divine in our hearts.  We can thus all live a life that follows the ways of Jesus.  We were created in His image, intended to follow after Jesus as His disciples.

Next Sunday begins a new year in the church calendar as Advent begins.  Like the end of the calendar year, may it be a time when we pause and take stock of our journey of faith.  John Wesley called this life of faith a “journey towards perfection”.  It is a place we never reach, yet one we should always be arriving towards.  Jesus was the perfect example of God’s love lived out.  This week may we look at our journeys of faith – at both our times moving forward and at our times of failure.  May we each commit to a year of growth in our faith, seeking to ever become more and more like Jesus Christ, the one true King, the one and only Way.  May it be so.


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Living Water

Reading: Jeremiah 2: 4-13

Where do you get your sense of worth?  Where is it from that you draw confidence, peace, and contentment?  Where do you turn in time of trial, stress, or temptation?  The answers to these questions will reveal much about your faith and your relationship with God.

Jeremiah is writing to a people who have turned away from God.  The people have strayed from God and have turned to worthless idols.  They have defiled the land with altars to foreign gods.  They have put their trust in “broken cisterns” – in their own power and might.  In this sense they have made themselves gods.

Like the people of Jeremiah’s day, we also turn to idols.  We look to our bank accounts and retirement investments for reassurance that all is well in life.  Instead of building altars to foreign gods, we park shiny new toys in our driveways and garages.  In these we see our own worth.  We see our name on the door of our office with its fancy title and think we are content.  But when a storm rolls in we turn to alcohol or drugs to dull the pain or to TV or the internet to numb the mind.  Too often God is a last resort, a desperate prayer when we have exhausted all other options.

Soon enough the shiny becomes dull, the title just isn’t what it once was, and the ways to cope don’t seem to be working anymore.  We feel lost and stuck at the same time.  All the while the Holy Spirit has been present, trying to turn us outward instead of inward, to look to the only way, truth, and life instead of everywhere else.  Even in our most self-centered moments, God does not give up, does not stop loving us, does not stop reaching out.  It is a live beyond our understanding.

At some point we all come to sense that our peace, contentment, and joy cannot come from the things of this world.  They are all temporary.  At some point we all get to this place.  It is a place of silence, of being alone.  It is a place where all else is stripped away.  It is where we meet God.  Maybe it is ‘again’ for some, maybe it is the first time for others.  It is here, in this place of solitude, that the living water seeps in through all the cracks in our brokenness.  It is here that we begin to find peace, contentment, and joy.  But our cracks remain.  We are imperfect creations.  We will lose our focus and fall back to the things of this world.  We will stray from God and our souls will become dry.  But our God is never done with us.  This living water is always seeking to seep back in, to fill us up.  Always.  It is a love beyond our understanding.

This day and every day, may we enter the silence, draw near to God, and confess our sins.  This day and every day, may we invite God in so that the living water will fill us up.


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New Jerusalem

Reading: Revelation 21: 10 & 22-27

In our community, and perhaps in yours, there is a large diversity of places of worship.  There are not only a variety of Christian denominations but other faiths as well.  In a smaller community the diversity is probably less and in a larger city the diversity is probably greater.  Diversity implies a positive.  Diversity adds variety.  Diversity can also bring out our differences and can create divides.  Yet we must remember that our call is to go out and make new disciples of all nations.  When we do this, we must do this in love.

Today’s passage speaks of a time when all will worship God alone.  When the new Jerusalem comes down, it will be heaven here on earth.  There will be no places of worship because all everywhere will worship God alone.  His glory will light up the city all the time; there will be no night.  In God there is no darkness.  The city’s gates will never be closed.  The text says that nothing impure will enter the city.  All in the new Jerusalem will be holy as He is holy.

One of my favorite parts of confirmation every year is our trip to a large city.  We visit a mosque, a synagogue, and an Orthodox Church.  At each house of worship we meet with the leader who shares about their faith and answers any questions we have.  Each visit builds our understanding of others who are not like us in our beliefs.  It also offers us an opportunity to talk to about why we believe what we believe.  It is a great experience that enriches my life and my faith every year.  After each stop I pray for God’s word in Christ to one day be revealed to them. Knowing God’s plan for eternity, may we pray for all not on a journey towards the new Jerusalem to join us on our walk as God calls all of us heavenward.


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Christ’s Love

Reading: John 13: 31-35

“As I have loved you, so you must love one another”.  For Jesus, these were not just words.  He lived them out each and every day with the disciples and the stranger alike.  The love Jesus exhibited was not passive; it sought out engagement and connection.  His love was not just for those that loved Him; it was also for those who opposed and persecuted Him and even for those who betrayed and crucified Him.  Jesus’ love was not given out with the expectation of something in return or with a thought of self-promotion; it was given freely, without any strings attached and with absolutely no consideration of self.

How this seems so against human nature!  In our day and age of ” just do it” and living for pleasure in this moment, Jesus’ love is radical and unexpected.  When we share His love with one who is in need, a common question is ‘Why?’. Another is ‘what do you want from me?’. Both are typical of people living in only the world’s culture and not ever experiencing the love of Christ.  When one explains that we are seeking to love others as Jesus first loved us, it is the beginning of understanding or at least questioning.  It is perhaps the beginning of a journey towards Christ.

In our world so filled with sin and evil, being this example of Christ’s love is so important.  For many, the self-pleasing and instant gratification type of love is all that they know.  It is essential that as followers of Jesus Christ, we abundantly offer self-giving and eternity impacting love.  It is a love that draws others into itself.  This day may we seek ways to offer Christ’s love to our world so in need.


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The Same Love

Reading: Luke 15: 1-3 and 11b-32

Today’s parable is sometimes read as about being lost.  All people experience times when we would consider ourselves to be ‘lost’.  Maybe our time was short, like at college, or maybe it was a longer season in life.  Maybe we had an extended period in life when we lived a life we really do not want to recall.

The younger son in this parable certainly fits this description.  After a period of wild living he comes to place of remorse and returns home.  He know his choices have been wrong and he acknowledges that he has sinned again God and against his earthly father.  Both offer compassion, understanding, forgiveness, and accept him back without any conditions or stipulations.  They treat him like he has never been gone.  That is what is so amazing about grace.  It is a great example and reminder for us.  No matter what we have done and no matter what we have become, God eagerly awaits our return so that we can be reconciled to Him.

The older brother is certainly lost as well.  He may have never physically left the estate, but he seems lost to his father’s love as well.  He reminds me of one who comes to church out of a sense of obligation, just going through the motions and never really connecting to God or anybody.  There but always wanting to be someplace else.  The older son is showing up every day for work because he is supposed to, not because he loves the job or the boss.  We see this manifest itself in his reaction to how his brother is received back home.  Forgiveness is difficult in his hardened heart.  But it is possible.

The father demonstrates the same love for both sons – the physically lost and the spiritually lost.  He runs to both and offers love, compassion, understanding, forgiveness, and acceptance.  No matter what we have done and no matter how lost we are, God offers all of His children the same.


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Growing

In our relationship with Jesus Christ we can be doing one of three things: we can grow to be more like Him, we can stay where we are, or we can become less like Him.  In Revelation 3:16 Jesus warns us that if we are lukewarm, He will ‘vomit’ us out.  Another word for lukewarm would be stagnant and no one wants to be stagnant.  The path of becoming less like Jesus is the path of sin and that only leads to death and destruction.  Paul instead urges us to seek to grow from “one degree of glory to another” as we strive to grow in our faith.

As Moses’ face reflected God’s glory, our lives should also reflect God’s glory that is within us.  The love that Jesus has for us is the love that we should reflect to others.  He challenges us to love others as He first loved us.  As we grow in our faith and in the depth of our understanding of Jesus, we come to know more and more how deep and vast and wide His love is for us.  As we grow in this way, we are in essence moving from one degree of glory to the next as our lives come to reflect His love more and more to those around us.

This transformation that is occurring in us should be noticeable to those in our lives.  If we are growing in our faith, others should see this.  The love and compassion we exhibit should slowly grow.  The care and understanding we offer should slowly become greater and greater.  The depth of mercy and forgiveness we extend should be ever-increasing.  In all aspects of our lives we should be seeking to become more and more like Christ.  This day may we strive to grow a little more in our faith, growing so that we may know Jesus more, reflecting His glory in increasing measure.

Scripture reference: 2 Corinthians 3:17 to 4:2


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Mysteries of God

In the vision shared in Isaiah 6 we find ourselves in the presence of God.  The imagery here is hard to wrap our minds around.  There are winged creatures, the foundations tremble at their voice, and the hem of God’s robe is so immense that it fills the space.

Although it is impossible to understand all of God, it is a good thing that God is so big and powerful that we cannot fully understand Him.  A god small enough for our human minds to fully comprehend would be a small god.  So like Isaiah’s inability to fully describe the vision God placed before him, we too struggle to completely describe God.  This is part of God’s mystery.

In pondering the vastness of God, we too see how limited we are.  We see clearly that we are human, prone to sin and failure on occasion.  As His creatures we are also prone to love, to forgive, to care for one another.  In following the example set by Christ, we come to know the Father a bit better, to understand God a little more.

There are, however, things we will never know.  There are questions that will never be answered.  There will always be aspects of God that we do not understand fully.  One of these great mysteries is His grace.  I do not understand how God can forgive my sins over and over and over but I am surely very grateful that His love is that big.  Living with this blessing of God is also a mystery beyond words.  All I can say is thanks be to God!

Scripture reference: Isaiah 6: 1-7