pastorjohnb

Thoughts and musings on faith and our mighty God!

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The Catch

Reading: Luke 5: 1-7

Verse 4: “Put out into deep water, and let down your nets for a catch”.

Our passage begins with the words, “One day…”. The words sound so casual, so happenstance. Jesus is there by that lake that day because that is the day and place that He is going to call His first disciples. Jesus could have been many places that day. As Jesus is teaching the crowds build. He steps into a boat. There were two boats. Jesus steps into Simon Peter’s boat and asks Simon Peter to put out a bit. The boat was empty, just like the second boat. In putting out, Peter had to join Jesus in the boat.

Jesus finishes teaching and asks Simon Peter, “Put out into deep water, and let down your nets for a catch”. He asks His captive audience to do something that is probably the last thing on his mind. Peter does call Jesus “Master”, showing some recognition of who Jesus is said to be. But Peter is tired and just wants to go home. Yet Peter chooses to honor the request that Jesus has made of him.

In the request, Jesus has told Peter what is going to happen. Jesus says, “for a catch”. He knows how many fish will swim into Peter’s nets. Jesus is not in that boat with that man by happenstance. He is about to do a miracle that will change a man’s life forever. It is something that we see Jesus do often in His ministry. But often the role is reversed. The blind man calls out to Jesus for sight. The lepers cry out to Jesus to be healed and made clean. The friends bring the lame man to Jesus. Today Jesus is the seeker. Today Jesus is the one calling out.

Some of us have perhaps sought Jesus – in the midst of a devastating loss we turned to Him. Or in the depth of a life-threatening illness, we cried out to Jesus. But most of us were like Peter, aware of who Jesus was, heard a few of the stories. But just going through life. And then suddenly Jesus is there and He climbs in our boat. Almost unexpectedly we meet Jesus up close and personal. We did not see it coming, but we cannot deny the relationship that has suddenly burst to life.

The miracle that Jesus offers is amazing. It is not just a catch – a few fish for lunch. It is not just a good catch – enough to sell and earn some wages. The catch is enormous. It was so big that Peter needed help containing it. It is like when Jesus catches us – we are filled with Him to overflowing and we just want others to know of this Jesus that called us to new life. We want to share this amazing thing that has happened in our lives. Can you remember that day, that season?

Connect to the day that you were the catch. Recall the emotion. Recapture the energy and the passion. Then go out and tell the story of how Jesus caught you over and over.

Prayer: Lord, rekindle that fire within me today. May I again be so filled with you that you overflow. May I tell the story of your love and power in my life today and every day. Amen.


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Creation Care

Reading: Psalm 29

Verse 11: “The Lord gives strength to His people; the Lord blesses His people with peace”.

In our Psalm today we see God’s action in the heavens and on the earth. God remains present in all of creation – not just in us. Both the universe and the earth are alive with birth and death. Stars are no more and new ones are created. The same is true here – plants, animals, fish, birds, insects, and human beings are no more and new ones are created. The hand of God is present in each death, in all new life, and at every point in between. This is as true of the grass of the field as it is of our very dearest loved one. God’s hand touches all of creation.

When we think of our interconnection with all of creation in this sense, then our understanding of stewardship is a bit different. We see the image of God in our fellow humanity; therefore we strive to treat them well and with kindness and love. If we saw all of creation – all of it – as being touched and held by the hand of God and therefore as sacred, then our treatment of the earth and all that is upon and in the earth would be better. More thought and care would go into how we care for and interact with the land, plants, animals, water, fish, birds…

Verse 10 reminds us that God “sits enthroned over the flood”. We can extend this idea – God sits enthroned over all of creation. Over you and me and over all the earth. In verse 11 we read, “The Lord gives strength to His people; the Lord blesses His people with peace”. In turn may we give strength and blessing to all that we share and inhabit the earth with – our brothers and sisters as well as all of creation.

Prayer: Father God, help me to care well for all I meet – for the stranger on the street, for the cat by the curb, for my friends and family, for the earth upon which I walk. Amen.


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Something Far Better

Reading: John 6: 24-35

Verse 35: “I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty”.

For the audience in today’s passage, there is a recent past and a distant past. Just the day before Jesus fed them. He took five loaves and two fish and fed thousands. And there were twelve baskets full of leftovers. He had satisfied their physical hunger in an amazing way. Remember their response? They wanted to force Jesus to be their earthly king.

In the handful of hours since the miracle, the people have connected their recent experience with an event from their people’s distant past. When the people were starving out in the desert, just a month and a half after leaving Egypt, they grumbled against Moses. God responded by saying, “I will rain down bread from heaven for you”. For the rest of their forty years in the desert, each person received food from God. So the crowd now returns to Jesus, looking for food for a second day.

Jesus’ response to the people coming for food was this: “Do not work for food that spoils”. In other words, don’t be so concerned with earthly sustenance. It is not that Jesus wants them to starve, it is that Jesus has something far better to offer. To receive this eternal food, Jesus tells them that they must “believe in the one God has sent”. The people respond to Jesus’ claim with a request for another miracle. Prove it Jesus.

Jesus again claims to be the bread that God has sent down from heaven. Their response is to ask for this bread that gives life to the world. Jesus says,”I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty”. Come to Jesus, believe in Jesus, and you will be satisfied with food for your souls and water for your spiritual thirst. In this way, Jesus offers something far better than daily meals. It is far better to receive eternal food that sustains us for eternity. Jesus continues to offer this far better option. The offer is still on the table. For those who have come to Jesus and accepted His Lordship, we rejoice and partake daily. For those yet to bow before the King, take the offer and find life. Believe in Jesus Christ and be filled. Believe in Jesus Christ and find true life.


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Live in Love

Reading: 1st John 4: 13-21

Verse Sixteen: “God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God and God in Him”.

In today’s passage there are a lot of references to “in”. The passage begins with “live in Him” and “He in us”, illustrating the connection we have between us and God. This connection is made through the presence of the Holy Spirit in us. Once we acknowledge Jesus as Savior, then this “in” relationship is established, allowing us to “know and rely on the love God has for us”.

This relationship is based upon love and the connection that being in love brings. In verse sixteen we read, “God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God and God in Him”. It does not say ‘dabbles in love’ or ‘occasionally strays’ into love. Living in love connects us to God. The more time and energy we invest in love, the more that “love is made complete”. As we approach this completion, we also gain confidence in our eternity. John writes, “perfect love drives out fear”. Our love of God and God’s love in us assures us of our everlasting relationship with God.

To live in love requires a constant attention. This relationship is built and grows only through attention. Like all relationships, it will wither and fade if we neglect it. We must take the time to invest in our relationship with God. Verse nineteen does say, “we love because He first loved us”. It is also true that God will continue to love us no matter what because “God is love”. But the development of a relationship and the reciprocation of love requires our intent and our commitment. It is not enough to say that God first loved us. We must also return that love. In doing so we will be filled with love and as we begin to live in love, that love will naturally flow out to our brothers and sisters as well.

We build our love for God by spending time with God. In can be through time in prayer and reading and studying His Word in the quiet of the morning or in the stillness of the night. It can be time spent in joyful worship at church or in peaceful and still reflection beside flowing waters or in the beauty of the forest path. It can be in a conversation with God during the commute to school or work or in the few moments we steal away waiting in line at the store or in traffic. There are many ways to connect to God to build our love. May we each find many today.


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Breaking Chains

Reading: 1st Peter 3: 18-22

Verse 18: “For Christ died for our sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God”.

Noah was saved because of his righteousness. Because of this, he was chosen by God to survive the great flood. Out of the flood came God’s covenant to never again destroy the earth by water. Instead, God will have mankind’s best interests at heart. And then, at just the right time, God sent Jesus into the world. Instead of the rains, God sent love.

Christ came for two main purposes. The first was to show us what God’s love looks like when lived out to perfection. Before He died, Jesus made it abundantly clear that all Christians are to do the same – to live God’s love out into the world. The second and main reason Jesus came was to save mankind. Through the purchase of His blood, Jesus made atonement for our sins. Peter sums it up this way in our reading today: “For Christ died for our sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God”. For us, the unrighteous, Christ died to bring us to God.

Peter connects this gift from Christ to the waters of our baptism. In our baptism, the waters symbolically wash away our sins and our old life. In baptism, Peter also says we receive the “pledge of good conscience”. In simpler terms, this means that we are led to act and live righteous lives as we walk out our faith as a new creation in Christ. It is the Holy Spirit in us, which marks us as a child of God in our baptism, that leads us to walk out our faith, sharing God’s love with a world in need.

Peter refers to Christ, being made alive by the Spirit, going and preaching to “spirits in prison”. He went to hell to save some lost souls. This too is one way that we can live out God’s love. We can go to the lost and the broken and share the good news of Jesus Christ. We can lead them to the waters of baptism so that they too can be made clean and can receive the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, walking ever more as a beloved child of God.

As Christ’s light and love lived out in the world, may we be led by the Spirit to help the least and the lost break the chains of sin and death, freeing them to live a life in Christ. May it be so today and every day. Amen!


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Word

Reading: Isaiah 55: 6-13

Verse 11: My Word that goes out from my mouth, it will not return empty…

Our passage today opens with a great invitation: “Seek the Lord while He may be found; call on Him while He is near”.  This is an open-ended invitation, but the writer goes on to encourage even the wicked to seek the Lord ‘for He will freely pardon’.  The invitation to be in God’s presence is open to all.  It remains so today.

Then, in verse eight, God reminds us of the difference between us and God.  God says, “My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways”.  The word God uses to define the difference is “higher” – as in too big or too expansive for us to fully understand.  We love and worship a huge God.  Yet God loves little us.  That is an amazing love.

The passage then shifts to nature.  God speaks of the rain and snow that doesn’t simply fall from the sky and return to the sky.  It falls for a purpose.  It waters the earth.  In doing so the rain and snow bring forth new life and seed for the sower.  Water is an essential for all life.  Life cannot exist or continue without water.

The the Lord says that His Word is like the water.  It does not return empty to God but “will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it”.  It is like water in that it nourishes our souls and brings life to us.  And life water to all life, God’s Word is essential to our spiritual life.  We must drink deeply and God will accomplish whatever He wants through us.

The end of Isaiah 55 speaks of the new life we find when we drink of God’s Word.  Verse 12 says, “you will go out in joy and be led forth in peace”.  When we dwell in the Word of God we do go out into life full of joy and resting in His peace.  As we dwell in the Lord’s Word, may we allow it to settle deep down in us to achieve and accomplish God’s purposes in our life.


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A Cup of Water

Reading: Matthew 10: 40-42

Verse 42: And if anyone gives even a cup of water to one of these little ones because he is a disciple…

After reading today’s passage, I think about how we sometimes wrestle with who we serve.  In Jesus’ words we hear that if we receive Him, we receive God – the one who sent Jesus.  But if we only see Him as a prophet or teacher or just some good guy, then that is all we receive too.  Then the last line shifts as Jesus speaks of offering a cup of cold water to another.  When we extend the love of Christ to others, we are told that we will not lose our reward – eternal life will remain ours.

The closing verse today reads, “And if anyone gives even a cup of water to one of these little ones because he is a disciple…”. Today I am on a bus headed home from southern Texas.  Our six teams of high school youth and the adults with them served six families in need.  Each family was a victim of a natural disaster and did not receive government assistance for a variety of reasons.  All were immigrant families so language was a barrier.  All are barely getting by.  Three teams put new roofs that these families could not afford in a thousand years.  One team hung, finished, and painted new drywall.  One team ran new wire then hung and mudded new drywall.  The sixth team did a myriad of projects.  It was offering a cup of cold water to these families in southern Texas.  The materials and labor were certainly a huge blessing to each family.

But the deeper blessing comes to the ones who extended the cup of cold water.  Being exposed to and becoming aware of the needs of others opens us up to so much more than we know in our sheltered worlds.  We learn to love others more and to value what we have less.  A simple question about what to do with a dollar we found in the parking lot on day one blossomed into $150 gift cards for five families and a new stove for the sixth.  It is indeed a deep blessing that we were changed ourselves as we chose to extend the love of Christ to others.  As Jesus said, now go and do likewise.


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Born Again

Reading: John 3: 1-15

Nicodemus understands our human birth.  All of us enter the world the same way.  Being born, we become part of the human race.  Jesus then speaks of another birth that must take place for one to “see the kingdom of God”.  Just as Jesus speaks of new birth at two levels, so too can we “see” at two levels.  The first is to see this world through God’s eyes, as the kingdom here on earth.  The second level is to see or experience eternal life.

Jesus begins His explanation of second birth with the water.  This is a concept that Nicodemus would be familiar with.  Maybe Nicodemus even ventured out into the wilderness to be baptized by John.  The baptism of repentance that John offered out in the desert was adapted by the early church to be more a baptism of belief.  New converts were baptized after a long period of preparation.  Over the centuries most churches have retained the belief that baptism marks one as a member of the family of God.  In baptizing our young, we as a church are marking them as a child of God and declaring our communal intent to raise them within the family of faith.  Thereafter the infant or young person is forever marked as a child of God, baptized in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

The second birth Jesus speaks of is being born of the Spirit.  At some point in a Christian’s journey, one chooses to declare Jesus as their Lord and Savior.  This decision results in the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, marking the point at which one is born of the Spirit.  Once the Spirit dwells in us, our lives are made new.  We are born again as a new creation.  Instead of seeing through our old eyes, seeing the things of this world, we now see through God’s eyes.  Instead of living for earthly things, we come to live for spiritual things and according to the will of God.  We see community instead of just our self.  We see others and their needs instead of just our own desires.  As the Holy Spirit works in us to help us see the kingdom of God here on earth, we begin to bear the fruit of the Spirit, becoming more loving, caring, giving, and forgiving.  We come to bear witness to Jesus Christ in the world.  We are transformed day by day through the power of the Holy Spirit in us.  Soon we begin to see the kingdom of God at work here on the earth as we allow the Holy Spirit to lead and guide our lives.  Being born of the water and the spirit, we seek to bring God glory and honor in all we do and say.  May this be our walk of faith this day and every day.


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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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Come!

Reading: Revelation 22: 12-14, 16-17, 20-21

Today’s reading comes from the last chapter of the last book of the Bible.  To me it is full of hope and promise; it is the ‘why’ to living as a faithful follower of Jesus Christ.  At the very beginning, in Genesis 1, there is the same sense of hope and promise as God creates the world and all that is in it.  God created in perfection, with each act being deemed ‘good’.  To me this not only speaks of God’s desire for His children to find joy, peace, contentment, and love in this life but also of His ultimate promise of what will once again be.  In this we find our hope.  In the closing words of the Bible, we are invited to return to and to participate in the return of Jesus, to enter the new paradise that will come with His return.

Jesus identifies Himself in today’s text as the beginning and the end. He was there at the start of creation and will be there again when all is restored and made new.  Sometimes though, we look at the blip of almost 30 years as Jesus’ only time here between the first and last of times.  But in reality He is always present here on earth.  Through the actions of the Holy Spirit and through the lives of His followers, Jesus is a constant presence here in our world.  The invitation to ‘Come!’ is one we as His disciples need to continue to call out to all who are thirsty and in need of the free gift that Jesus Christ offers.

This free gift that comes through faith in Jesus is the first step to living into the joy, peace, contentment, and love that God desires each of us to find.  Through the blood that He shed on the cross we can find grace and mercy to lay our sins and burdens down so that forgiveness washes them away and restores us to a right relationship with God.  This allows us each day to be clean and pure and Holy.  This allows us to face the temptations and struggles of life knowing that every day Jesus continues to say, ‘Come!’  As we live in this reality and hear this call every day, may we too call out to others, inviting them to ‘Come!’ and to know Jesus.