First Sunday After Christmas, 2007

In the dark night of her soul, homeless Judah receives a word of promise and hope. Her captivity has ended, a new day has dawned and a new name is given to her. She will no longer be referred to as "Forsaken" and "Desolate." Now she will go by the name, "My delight is in her." Her Land will be called, "Married." Once again God will rejoice over her (Isaiah 62:4-5). So great will be the turn-around that God's people will now be referred to as a crown of beauty in the hand of the Lord, and a royal diadem in the hand of…God (Is. 62:3).

What a transformation. What a God. From disconnection and disenfranchisement to the place of community and home and future, all because of the grace of God. To this Isaiah simply says one thing, "For Zion's sake I will not keep silent, and for Jerusalem's sake I will not keep quiet" (Is. 62:1). It was too powerful, too wonderful, too dramatic, and too awesome to remain quiet. It had to be shared.

We still share it today. What happened in the life of Judah is available for every person. God has spoken and the future can be different than the past. Old can be replaced with new. Deadness can be replaced by life. What once defined our lives no longer has to be that which defines our lives. "Desolate" and "forsaken" no longer must be our names. God is present to be in our lives so meaningfully that we become a crown of beauty and a royal diadem.

The new life was to be so wonderful for Judah that Isaiah said, "God will rejoice over you" (Is. 62:5). What an image, God rejoicing over His people. In a way, though, it makes sense. Being shaped and formed in the image of the God of all grace brings a people to that place where God is free to do what He longs to do in the lives of His creation; Bless them with honest and authentic blessing.

Live in God and have a grace-covered rest of your life.

Fourth Sunday of Advent

In Matthew’s Gospel the birth of the Son of God into human history isn’t told. The closest we come to a telling of the story is Joseph’s dream about what was happening to Mary, and that only takes eight verses, or about 200 words. The genealogy of Jesus’ family tree at least gets 17 verses, and you’ve got to really know your history to appreciate those 17 verses. My goodness, Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg address took 278 words, and historians tell us it was far too short a speech for the importance of the occasion.

I’m not sure what all this means but I do find it intriguing that an event so important to the human situation is more referred to than told. Apparently, we don’t need the details of the birth of Jesus. What we need is what those details reveal. And, what they reveal is that this baby is no one less than “Immanuel, which translated means, “’God with us’” (Matt. 1:23). This fact takes a few more verses and a whole lot of words to explain its meaning. It fact it takes four Gospels, a historical telling of the story of the first church, several letters and a prophetic revelation to give us understanding about what it means for God to be with us.

I am thinking that what we really do need to absorb into our lives in Advent is the meaning of the birth of Christ event and not the event itself. After all, if God really is with us this is huge. I mean, this is really huge.

I remember the day of my children’s birth. It is burned into my memory. However, time moves on and kids grow up and life unfolds. You can’t spend too much time on the birth experience because there is a whole lot of living to do after that event.

The day of Jesus’ birth means something to us only because of the years following His birth where He really did reveal that, in deed, God is with us. Now, that is a cause for outrageous celebration.

Third Sunday of Advent 2007

Sometimes I feel like getting my self on a mountaintop and proclaiming to the top of my voice, "Behold the wonder that is God." Mountaintop or not, however, we followers of the Christ ought to find ways in our living and in our being to proclaim the wonders of God.

Think about it. God, Creator and Sustainer of the universe, comes up close and personal so much so that to capture it all Isaiah the prophet turned to metaphor and hyperbole to speak of what it means when God is present. In his telling of the story he uses phrases like, "the wilderness and the desert will be glad, and the desert will rejoice and blossom (Isaiah 35:1). He speaks this way to describe the difference God will make even in dry and barren places of life. There will be rejoicing and glory and streams of fresh flowing water in the desert. It will be a time when everything is stamped with grace and the glory of God will be seen and experienced everywhere.

In those days people will see "the majesty of our God," (Is. 35:2), and the good word to "the exhausted, the feeble and the anxious" will be, "Take courage, fear not" (Is. 35:3-4). The healing power of God will be present and the influence of God's love will spring up like pools of fresh water in the blistering heat of the desert.

A highway of the holiness of God will makes its way through the barren places and those who say YES to God will be invited to walk on that highway, and the blessings on that journey will be so great that Isaiah says the people, "will come with joyful shouting to Zion, with everlasting joy upon their heads" (Is. 35:10). People who walk on that highway, Isaiah says, "will find gladness and joy, and sorrow and sighing will flee away" (Is. 35:10).

God has invited us to join up and be with Him. He is the difference out there in the heat of the day. It is His presence that makes all things new. The desert is still the desert but the desert is not God. God is God, and He is present to touch our lives and to draw us to Himself that in Him we might live.

Come to God, Isaiah says, "and "He will save you" (Is. 35:4). He will save you from anything that keeps you from hearing and receiving His take-courage-and-fear-not word.

Second Sunday of Advent 2007

We live in a violent world. It’s hard to ignore the daily news of man’s inhumanity to man that seems rooted in every culture, every neighborhood, every city and every nook and cranny. Where there is a way evil will raise its ugly head and somebody, many times the innocent, will suffer the consequences. There is no safe place anymore, but there ought to be.

The one safe place ought to be in the community of those who have come within the embrace of God. The Church is that people who have come to God’s holy mountain in order to be shaped and formed by His life. Therefore, the Church is that people who are led by God’s Messiah, and they are led in paths of peace. People of God’s Church live and move and have their being in Jesus, and in Jesus the remarkable and unfathomable occurs.

To illustrate just how remarkable and unfathomable the prophet Isaiah turned to story and imagery. He speaks utter nonsense when he speaks of the wolf and the lamb dwelling together and of the leopard and young goat lying down together and of the calf and young lion being together and the cow and the bear grazing together (Isaiah 11:6-7). What Isaiah is saying is that the incompatible are at peace with one another.

The Church must be that place where the incompatible find a home. It must be that place where swords are hammered into plowshares and where spears are hammered into pruning hooks (Is. 2:4). It must be that place and that people where war is studied no more and where peace reigns. It must be that place where nations and peoples no longer lift up swords against each other.

Impossible? Sure sounds like it. Yet, in Christ all things are possible. So, we proclaim God’s “little boy” (Is. 11:6). We bow our lives to Him and we submit to His Lordship, and those who have really done these things stand amazed at what God can do.

First Sunday of Advent 2007

Would-be presidents are roaming the country these days, with the cameras rolling of course, telling us how they will resolve world conflict. Forgive me if I don’t get too excited about it all. I’ve just been through too many presidential campaigns to take anybody too seriously.

I do take the son of Amoz seriously, however, partially because of his brutal honesty and partially because of his forthright passion to let the truth fall where it falls. Isaiah had very little tolerance for teeing up and spin doctoring ideas. When he came on the scene he told the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth because he felt truth was more essential than loyalty to his nation. Actually, he felt that truth telling was essential to being loyal to his nation.

Through Isaiah God lays out His peace plan. It is a simple plan but in its simplicity it gets complicated. Why? Because God Himself is the peace plan, and lots of folks just don’t want to have much to do with the God of the Bible. Still the peace for which our planet longs, most of the planet any way, comes to us not in declarations and treaties and promises of governments but in the very life of God Himself.

He invites us to go up to His mountain and there learn His ways so that we may walk in His paths (Isaiah 2:3). He says that if we will do so there will be no need for nation to lift up sword against nation and that, in fact, “never again will they learn war” (Is. 2:4).

I would sure love to live to see that day. However, until that day the invitation is extended, “Come and let us walk in the light of the Lord” (Is. 2:5).

This is what the Church should be doing, walking in the light of the Lord and modeling the peace that comes in that walk.” I’m not sure how well we do it, but the peace for which we long should begin at the altar of God and at the table of Jesus.

The Book of Common Prayer’s Gospel reading for November 25, 2007 is Luke 23:35-43. It’s a great text but, for me, it just doesn’t seem to fit for this Sunday, does it? Last Sunday maybe, but not today, Christ the King Sunday. On this day don’t you think we should be focusing on king stuff and not cross stuff. Yet, there we find the King, in all His capitol K glory, hanging on a cross being killed by His own creation.

Jesus is a different kind of king, however, so maybe He would be pleased for this text to be the text of the day. He was so absent of arrogance and so filled with humility and so loving and forgiving, maybe that is what we most need to see about Him on this last Sunday of Christian year.

Besides that, wouldn’t you know it, even in His dying moments He isn’t isolated but is so present as to bring the grace of God into the life of a man dying beside Him. In a few moments He will die saying, “Father, into Your hands I commit My Spirit” (Luke 23:46). Before this, however, He prays “Father, into your hands I commit the spirit of this man beside me. His actions and decisions over the years have brought Him to this cross, Father, but today I’ve told him that he will be with me in Paradise. So, I give him to you, Father. Take him home.”

In the midst of all the sneering and mocking and abuse Jesus finds it in His heart to touch one more human being before He goes back to heaven. You know what? I think this unnamed criminal made it to paradise that day, not because of who he was but because of who Jesus is.

What a great story. What a wonderful moment in time. What a momentous act of forgiveness. More than these, though, what a Savior. What a KING.

It used to bother me that I didn’t have a better awareness of prophecies about the future. I just never could get the time frames down and the flow charts together or an exact understanding of what all those weird looking creatures in Biblical visions and dreams were all about. I felt like a failure that I couldn’t, with a sense of confident assurance, tell people exactly and precisely what was barreling down the pike toward them. Then one day I started reading the Bible a bit more closely.

Did you know Jesus Himself didn’t even know when He was coming back for His Church? In Mark 13:32 He said, “Of that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but the Father alone.” As if that isn’t enough, just prior to His giving the gift of the Holy Spirit to His Church He said, “It is not for you to know times or epochs which the Father has fixed by His own authority” (Acts. 1:7). Sounds like dates and timetables and charts weren’t on His agenda.

What was on Jesus’ agenda was the fact that He was coming back, that the world was moving toward a day of judgment, and that as those days approached His people were to know that those days would “lead to an opportunity for your testimony” (Luke 21:13). In that light Jesus said two important things: (1) “See to it that you are not misled” (Luke 21:8), and (2) “By your endurance you will gain your lives” (Luke 21:19).

Instead of His people being preoccupied with “times and epochs” Jesus called them to know that they would “receive power when the Holy Spirit” had come upon them, and that in that remarkable power they would be His witnesses ”to the remotest part of the earth” (Acts 1:7-8).

Spirit-filled power. Now that’s something worth sinking your teeth into.

W.C. Fields was not known for having a heart for the Bible, but one day he was caught reading the Bible, and he was asked why. His response was, “I’m looking for loopholes.”

Mr. Fields seems to have many friends all around the world who are doing the same thing-- looking for loopholes. One’s worldview drives this kind of looking-for-loopholds thinking. Some folk’s philosophy of life is so settled for them that anything not embraced by their belief system is challenged. Particularly, when it comes to Jesus it seems that some people will do just about whatever they need to do to trip Him up or trap Him so that they can win the “Gotcha” game.

In Luke chapter 20 we are told that the Sadducees didn’t believe in resurrection so, of course, they had issues with Jesus who profoundly believed in resurrection. In order to stump Him and make Him look bad, I suppose, they came up with an outrageous story about a woman whose husbands kept dying. In that culture it was the responsibility of a brother to take care of a widow when her husband died. This woman started going through husbands like you wouldn’t believe -- seven of them; and the Sadducees wanted to know whose wife of the seven brothers she would be in heaven.

Jesus said they had missed the whole point. In heaven it’s not about marrying. It’s about being in the presence of God who changes an old order of things for a brand new sinless order. Besides that, Jesus said, God isn’t the God of the dead. That’s a “gotcha” question. God is the God of the living. This sounds like there may be a lot of stuff you and I need to work out long before we see who's marrying who in heaven, or what it means to be like an angel.

We really do need to stick with the real questions; questions that matter for all eternity. Do you believe in resurrection? If you do it wouldn’t be a bad idea to prepare for it. What we believe about resurrection is a pretty serious deal. Playing “Gotcha” games with God probably isn’t the best use of our time.

Long ago there was a hated Jewish tax collector by the name of Zaccheus, who was small in stature but still had a way about him that enabled him to do his job so well that he was rich. He worked for Rome and made his money off the backs of his fellow Jews who very much disliked him. In fact, his job, a long with every tax collector working for Rome had gained him the title, "Sinner." Needless to say, in a very real way he was a man without a country.

I suppose we all have our stories don’t' we? Through choices we've made, attitudes we've held, poor decisions that have disconnected us from family and friends, we find ourselves making it, but not really. We're okay but not really. Everything's fine, but not really.

Then Jesus came to town one day and Zaccheus wanted a look at the show. The only problem is that Jesus isn't much into show and before he knew what hit him, Jesus had invited himself to Zaccheus' house.

Exactly what happened over the next few moments is unclear. We just know that something profound and life changing took place in this tax collector. Suddenly he was making great promises and incredibly generous statements about how he was going to change his ways. He was going to give up to half his possessions to the poor and to those he had defrauded he was going to return to them four times as much as he had taken from them.

Apparently his response wasn't just words and empty promises. At least Jesus believed him and said, "Today salvation has come to this house, because he, too, is a son of Abraham" (Luke 19:9).

This one man who was lost found God and it changed his life. I wonder if there are others like him around us. We really need to bring Jesus to them because Jesus said that He came "to seek and to save that which was lost" (Luke 19:10).

He found you one day and me, too. I wonder if there’s anybody else in our town like us who also needs to be found by God?

Jesus had some words to say to people whose religion had gone to their heads but not their hearts. Head religion is a dangerous enemy to those who long to know God. It builds false security and creates illusions of holiness, when holiness is, in fact, far, far away.

In Luke 18:9-14 Jesus tells the story of a man whose Head was filled with religion but whose heart didn't know God. In this condition the man lived out his self-righteous charade, so full of himself that he actually "viewed others with contempt." So arrogant in his religious charade was he that he actually thanked God he wasn't like those other low-life people; you know the kind, "swindlers, unjust, adulterers, and tax-collectors." Apparently he was so busy fasting and tithing and self-exalting that "other people" were a nuisance to him, folks he didn't much want to be around.

As the man prayed at the altar of God one day, a certain tax collector, also wanting to pray but not feeling worthy enough to come inside the temple, just stood "some distance away" and said, "God, be merciful to me, the sinner" (Luke 18:13).

Of the two men who prayed that day only one was heard by God and it wasn't the one who thought of himself as being so very holy. Of the man who stood at a distance Jesus said he went home justified. Of the other man Jesus said (and may I have some literary license?) "Go home. You're wasting my time and yours."

Then Jesus said, "Everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but he who humbles himself will be exalted" (Luke 18:14). I think that's another way of saying, "Get real. Never forget from whence you come. Don't be religious. Instead, fall in love with God and live a life of love and forgiveness. Receive others the way God has received you."

Southern California fires

Hello, everybody,

A member of our church shared with me that her daughter and grandchildren have been evacuated from their home in San Diego County, along with thousands of others. I've watched the NEWS along with you and can't even begin to get my mind around all the devastation and suffering that is happening this week here in Southern California. In this matter, I am calling our church to prayer.

Some of you have friends who are impacted by the some 13 fires burning in Southern California today. It has been a devastating week, and for thousands of people this week is just the beginning of a long journey of recovery. I want to ask you to be available to help -- in prayer, in moral support, in financial assistance, in whatever way you can.

When the fires go out, and they will, the road to rebuilding and recovery will go on for months and months, if not years.

This is a time for persistent, tenacious, and ongoing prayer, and for persistent, tenacious and ongoing availability to serve others in whatever way we are able to do so.

Thanks for being there.

Pastor Rick Savage

It is a perplexing world in which we live – uncertain and bewildering. Life motivated one driver to put on his automobile bumper a sticker announcing to everyone behind it, ‘Life is hard and then you die.” Prophets of doom and gloom are everywhere.

Jesus, on the other hand, gathered His people around Him one day and told them a story. He told them this story “to show that at all times they ought to pray and not to lose heart” (Luke 18:1-8). Consequently we will not be putting on the church marquee the words of the bumper sticker theologian. Instead we invite everybody to gather around Jesus, listen to his story, and not become bitter, hard and cynical.

Life is hard, by the way, but Jesus calls us not to lose heart. Jesus calls us to the Father before whom we are invited to pour out our woes, or stories, and our lives. We are invited to the Father where Jesus says we will be heard and received.

Life is hard. Some things are just about unbearably hard. Some things rip at the heart and devastate the emotions. There are some things over which we simply must come before God and “cry to Him day and night.” And, the word of Jesus in these matters is that to those who do cry out to God day and night, He will bring about justice.

God does have a question, however. Jesus says, “When the Son of Man comes, will He find faith on the earth” (Luke 18:8)? Can we keep looking unto God when life keeps barreling down on us? When the times are hard and the temptation to cynicism is great what will we conclude, that Life is hard and then you die, or that life is hard but God is still God? Shall we give up or shall we give everything up to God? Jesus says, pray and don’t lose heart.

I’m with Him on this. Shall we pray together?

In a short, concise, and to the point story Luke tells us about Jesus and ten leprous men (Luke 17:11-19). The men had cried out to Jesus for mercy and it was mercy He gave them, mercy in the form of physical healing. Then He sent them off to church so that the priests could see that they were healed. If the priests were satisfied then a process could be started that would allow these ostracized men to enter again into the community and get their lives back.

One of the men put his trip to the priests on hold, turned around and came back to Jesus to thank Him for the act of mercy that had been extended to him. Luke says the man was “glorifying God with a loud voice, and he fell on his face at [Jesus] feet, giving thanks to Him” (vs. 15-16). Jesus had asked none of the ten to do this and none of the ten did, except this one man who had two issues going against him – he was a leper and he was a Samaritan.

Jewish folks and Samaritan folks didn’t get along too well and I’m not sure that just any priest would have received this Samaritan. We’ll leave that to the speculators. What we do know is that this Samaritan man came back to this Jewish man, fell on his face before Him and gave thanks.

Jesus was impressed. He knew this man was a “foreigner” (vs. 18), and He knew this man’s issues. Maybe that’s why He was impressed, that instead of an act of narcissism, this one lone Samaritan-foreigner forgot about himself for a moment and fell on his face before this One who had made such a profound impact on his life.

Putting the future on hold just to give thanks. That’s the kind of guy I would like to know. That’s the kind of guy I want to be.

“Mustard seed” talk from the lips of Jesus is intriguing to me (see Luke 17:5-10). He seems to be obsessed with the littleness of the mustard seed and yet also moved with the possibilities of power and potential within that small seed. What Jesus has to say about faith he says in the context of this very small seed, a seed so small that one might be deceived into thinking that nothing large or great could come of it. But they would be wrong.

“Faith like a mustard seed” (vs. 6) has power in it no one can fully explain. We think if we had more faith or greater faith things would be different and we could do great things for God. Jesus says that (and please forgive me for being some what simplistic) little faith operating within the reality of God so changes the dynamics of any given situation, or people, that what has been thought of as impossible is now seen in a different light so much so that it is like speaking to a great “mulberry tree” and commanding it to “be uprooted and be planted in the sea” (vs. vs. 6).

Now, I don’t want to burst anybody’s bubble but I need to tell you that you probably ought not to go out commanding mulberry trees to uproot and go into the sea. First of all they wouldn’t budge and secondly, most of them are fine right where they are, thank you very much. So, what in the world is Jesus driving at?

Maybe Jesus is telling His people to quit acting like God is dead and start living like He is very much alive. Maybe Jesus is telling us that life in the kingdom is not defined by life in this world but that life in the kingdom is defined by the life of God. In God maybe little is much. Maybe small is enough. Maybe my life in the hands of God is a life that has God-size potential and possibility.

May God is God after all. Maybe after everything is said and done there is still God. Maybe we can be what God has called us to be. Wouldn’t that be a wonderful thing?

Of all the things it means to be a disciple of Jesus Christ it seems that receiving persons as persons is very high on the list. We live in a much divided world, an us-verses-them world. We have the rich and the poor, my tribe and your tribe, my color and your color, my ways and your ways – and never the twain shall meet. And, Jesus says NO to all this.

Jesus tells us the story of a very rich man whose wealth allowed him to do just about whatever he wanted to do, and He tells the story of a very poor man, a man so poor that he didn’t have health care, and lived out his days “covered with sores, and longing to be fed with the crumbs which were falling from the rich man’s tables” (Luke 16:20).

The rich man had no place for God in his life and the poor man had much room in his heart for God. Then they both died, and Jesus tells us the rich man was totally unprepared for the day of this death and was greatly tormented, but that the poor man was taken up to be with God and found great comfort in the presence of God (Luke 17:25).

I’m not sure at all that this story is about wealth and poverty. I think it is about living truly human lives, living in the mind and spirit of the One who created us. I believe it is about living without walls and in a community where everybody is somebody simply because they are God’s creation, and not because of what they can or can’t bring to the community.

After it was too late the wealthy man had a spiritual epiphany. Too bad he didn’t have it when out of his abundance he could have made a difference in the life of another human being. Maybe that’s why Jesus told the story, to remind us that we still have time -- We still have time to bring the grace of God into our world.

September 21, 2007

I can’t get away from something Phineas F. Bresee said almost a hundred years ago: “Our church is a missionary church that knows no difference between home and foreign fields--- in these days all fields are near.”[1]

“These days” for us is the beginning of the third millennium after Christ and we are, indeed, in the midst of a mission field. Bill Sullivan once said, “We have seen America go from over 200 years of a basically Christian culture to a non-Christian culture that rejects the foundational principles of Christianity.”[2] Add to that, if you would, the words of Kennon Callahan: “The day of the churched culture is gone, the day of the mission field has come; the day of the institutional church is past, the day of the mission outpost has arrived; the day of the professional minister is over, the day of the missional pastor is here.”[3]

Suddenly we are confronted with realities that, in the human outlook, are overwhelming, and we are brought face to face with the fact that the work of Jesus in this world is of a spiritual nature that cannot be accomplished separate from Him.

Our greatest need is leaders, who, living in the power of the Holy Spirit and under the anointing of God, will look at our mission field through the eyes of Missionary passion, enter into the arena, pray until God is freely shaping and forming their lives, and then seek to seize the day for Christ.

If not now, when? If not us, who? [4]
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[1] Robert Scott, Next Door and Down the Freeway (Beacon Hill: Kansas City, 2001), 94
[2] Ibid., 11
[3] Ibid., 11 – 12
[4] Taken out of context, from President Ronald Reagan's Second inaugural address, Jan. 21, 1985

Can you love someone so fully and passionately that every other relationship pales in comparison to the one whose love has captivated your life? This is what Jesus asks of us. He calls us to love Him so fully that love for those who mean the most to us in this world (father, mother, wife, children, brothers, sisters, even our own lives) pales in comparison.

So it is Jesus warns us to “calculate the cost” of what it means to follow Him, to be His disciple (Luke 14:28). In fact, he says, “Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after Me cannot be My disciple” (Luke 14:27). As if that isn’t enough He continues, “None of you can be My disciple who does not give up all his own possessions” (Luke 14:33).

No warm fuzzy feelings here. We’re talking about commitment. We’re talking about laying down our lives. We’re talking about climbing up on the altar and giving Jesus everything thing we have -- our time, our talents, and our treasures. We’re talking about not holding back but about giving everything to God. We’re talking about being sold out to God, hook, line and sinker. Total commitment.

Still want to follow Jesus? Think about it. “Calculate the cost” because, make no mistake about it, it will cost you. Do you love your father? Love Jesus more. Do you love your mother? Love Jesus more? Do you love your wife, your husband? Love Jesus more. Do you love your brothers and sisters? Love Jesus more. Do you love yourself? Love Jesus more.

Ready to sign on the dotted line? Good! Sign it in blood, then take up your cross and follow Jesus into the greatest life you could ever possibly image.

Jesus does it all backwards, doesn't He? In the natural order of things people seek appreciation, honor, respect. We want thank yous and well dones, and atta boys. Recognition is important and acknowledgment means everything.

Then Jesus comes along and throws everything into disarray, challenging just about every system that has ever been important to people. He turns self-exaltation on its ear and exalts humility over pride. He calls us to take our place at the back of the line and to find fellowship with "the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind" (Luke 14:13).

Somebody once said that all the ground is level at the foot of the cross. It's true. In a way that boggles the imagination God receives us all. There are no haves or have-nots in the kingdom of God, just folks who needed and received the grace of God. No pushing and shoving allowed. Not one-up-man-ship accepted. Better-than-thou thinking has no place, and everybody is somebody because Jesus is Lord.

The community of Jesus should be that one place where true equality is practiced and where persons as persons are received and treated with the dignity that being created in the image of God demands. In this community we must not push and shove on each other as we make our way to the top. Instead, we ought to be navigating our way to the back of the line, knowing that there we will meet Jesus.

It is not in the place of honor we find Christ. It is in the place of service, the place where Jesus puts us, that we are able most meaningfully to fellowship with the One who died that we may live. If they want us up front, they will call us. And, don't wait around the phone waiting for the call. Just, show up for Jesus today, and let your light shine. He will take care of everything else.

On the way to Jerusalem to suffer and die Jesus fielded a question. An onlooker asked Him, “Lord, are there just a few who are being saved” (Luke 13:22)? Typical of Jesus He didn’t give a direct answer. Instead, He answered the larger question at hand, and challenged his listeners to look inward and find out where they stood in relation to “being saved.”

The issue is not how many or how few are “being saved,” but where does each of us stand in relation to the One who saves. How many or how few is beyond the scope of our authority. Only God can save. Therefore, Jesus poignantly speaks to the human heart when He says, “Strive to enter through the narrow door; for many, I tell you, will seek to enter and will not be able” (Luke 13:25).

His call to strive catches us off guard a bit, doesn’t it? After all isn’t grace free? Isn’t mercy free? What does strive have to do with what is free? It is an intriguing thought isn’t it but, perhaps, Jesus is calling us not to be so overly preoccupied with what is or isn’t happening in the lives of others and, instead, is calling us to “work out…our salvation with fear and trembling” (Phil. 2:12).

Maybe it is when we are so mesmerized by the Lord God ourselves and so enthralled by His life that the head count doesn’t really matter, that we are most in tune with the One who saves. The issue before us is to truly live before God, not in vocabulary and religious expression, but really, truly, live in the very life of God.

We might be surprised when we get to heaven to see who is there and who is not. After all, Jesus said, “Some are last who will be first and some are first who will be last” (Luke 13:30). I’m not sure what this means but it takes me back to His call to strive. This Christian life is serious business.

Jesus comes to us as the Prince of peace but He comes to us knowing His ways are not embraced by everyone. So, this One who is of peace also has a way about Him of bringing division (Luke 12:51). There is something about Jesus that leads people either to love Him or hate Him. There doesn't seem to be much of a middle ground. To some He is "foolishness" and "a stumbling block," and to some He is "the power of God and the wisdom of God" (I Cor. 1:18, 23-24).

This seems troubling on the surface -- the One of Peace bringing division. I suppose Truth has a way of dividing people. Particularly when one brings into the world the very life of God, it can get very dangerous. Holiness does not abide well with unholiness. Holiness and unholiness are worlds in conflict so much so that when the perfect one came among us the only thing we knew to do with Him was to crucify Him. That's how unholiness handles holiness. Kill it.

What must not be seen in this is a false understanding that Jesus legitimizes violence in the name of God. He simply does not. He is calling people into the very life of God, a life of Christlikeness. True, discipleship to a view other than the dominant view may invoke violence on the part of the one who is not comfortable with what Jesus is doing. However, the division must never come from within the heart of the follower of Jesus.

If the life of Jesus in His followers is, indeed, repulsive to those who don't believe in Jesus, so be it. However, in the end, His followers are still spokespersons for the kingdom of God, and the kingdom of God is about mercy, forgiveness and love. We simply do not have time for violence because violence does not accomplish the will of God.

The Bible says, "the kingdom of God is…righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit" (Rom. 14:17). As Jesus-indwelled people this is who we are, this is how we live. Let violence come from somewhere else.

“Treasure” is an interesting word. According to whom you read it could mean anything from money to wealth to affluence to assets to capital, or to possessions,” to list just a few definitions. I think words like values and priorities should be on the list, too.” Whatever the most correct definition might be, however, Jesus says our heart will be where our treasure is.

He says this in the context of passionately calling us to make God the one treasure before whom all other treasures bow. He asks us to truly believe that because the Father has been pleased to give us the kingdom (Luke 12:32) we, in turn, choose to live and move and have our being in the things of the Father. He is calling us to build our lives on the eternal, with the promise that do so is to build our lives on that which cannot be taken from us.

If our hearts will be where our treasure is then it really matters, doesn’t it, where our treasure is? What do we value? Our hearts will be there, and where our hearts are our lives will follow. For what or whom do we live? Each of us has an answer, and the answer is profoundly important to us.

As disciples of Jesus Christ may each of us set apart Christ as Lord of our lives (I Pet. 3:15). There are too many moths and too much rust, and too many thieves in the world to stake our lives on fortunes that have value only in terms of this-world value systems. There is more to life than meets the eye, and Jesus enables us to see that which is more.

Let us take what have been given to us and place it under the authority of the One who is the Giver of “every good and perfect gift” (James 1:16). Let’s give God our time, our talents and our treasures and then trust His faithfulness for both this world and the world to come.

August 5, 2007

Talk about a low blow. A certain man had finally made it to the top. He had more money than you could believe, and he was on top of the world. Then, wouldn't you know it, he up and died. Wealthy beyond belief and dead as a door nail. Bummer.

Jesus tells us this story in the context of a request made of Him that He felt was a question coming from greed. To the request He said, "Be on your guard against all kinds of greed," He said; "a man's life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions" (Luke 12:15). And, once again, in telling a story Jesus gets us to thinking.

The man in Jesus story was engaged in three conversations, though he only knew about two of them. He was engaged in a conversation with his wealth that led him to tear down his barns and build bigger ones. He was engaged in a conversation with himself in which he concluded that he truly was fortunate to be so wealthy, so fortunate that it was time for him to "take life easy; eat, drink and be merry" (vs.19). Then he was engaged in a conversation with God, a conversation that had been put on hold in the midst of coming to the place in life where he could eat, drink and be merry. In the end the only conversation that really mattered was the one that had been put on hold.

Jesus' story leads us to see that when things of this life trump eternal things, we enter into very dangerous territory. When things of this life interfere with our conversation with God and distract us from living examined lives, we are on a collision course with outcomes for which we are totally unprepared, outcomes like dying and death.

Jesus says we are fools if we don't work into our self-talk and our plans the fact that we are going to die. We don't need to be overly preoccupied with it but we need to face it, and plan for it. Our stuff is temporary; our lives are forever.

Prayer is an intriguing gift of God to His people. It’s intriguing because as finite and imperfect beings we never know exactly and precisely how to pray. We are limited in knowledge and insight so all we can do is pray as we best know how, leaving the answering of prayer to God.

At the same time, Jesus does give us insight into how to pray. Better yet, He gives us insight into the God to whom we pray. Jesus tells us to come to Him as Father (Luke 11:2). We pour out our hearts to our Father whose name is “hallowed” and, we say to Him, “Your kingdom come.” (vs. 2).

What better way to pray than to ask the One who loves us and the One whom we love, for His kingdom to come and to be realized in this world. We may not be insightful enough to fully grasp a correct way to pray but the Father whose name is hallowed in our midst and whose will is “good, pleasing and perfect” (Romans 12:2) can be trusted fully and without hesitation.

Jesus calls us to trust the Father. Trust Him for each day’s provision (vs. 3). Trust Him to embrace us in forgiveness as we embrace others in forgiveness (4). Trust Him never to lead us into temptation (4). He is the Father. He can be trusted.

When you are in need or represent someone who is, pray, and don’t stop. Ask the Father. Seek for the Father’s intervention. Knock at the Father’s door in the sense of desperation. The Father will draw near, and bring to pass His “good, pleasing, and perfect” will.

Don’t trust your instincts or what you think the answer to your prayers ought to look like. Instead, trust the Father whose heart is compassionately open to His people.

It was in the heat of the day and the nomad, Abraham, was setting at the entrance to his tent, probably trying to beat the heat. For unannounced reasons he looked up and saw three men standing nearby. The Bible says to us the Lord was in those three men, and Abraham knew it. How he knew it, we don't know, but he knew he was in the midst of a divine appointment of some kind. Extending great hospitality to the strangers, and making sure their needs were met, Abraham listened.

The men asked him where his wife was. Abraham told them and then heard a message that would change his life. In the personhood of these three men, "the Lord said, 'I will surely return to you about this time next year, and Sarah your wife will have a son'" (Genesis 18:10).

Sarah overheard the conversation and laughed out loud when she heard about the year she was to have. Abraham was old and Sarah was well past childbearing age. Some things just evoke laughter when you hear them, I suppose.

We know the story. Some nine months later Sarah gave birth to the promised son. Isaac took his place in the unfolding plan of God, and the stage was set for God's remarkable grace.

Don't try to explain it scientifically; you'll come up short. Just receive it as an act of God who speaks creatively into history, and works in ways that leave the human intellect awed and amazed. The question is asked by the Lord to Abraham, "Is anything too hard for the Lord" (Vs. 14). The birth of Isaac gives us the answer.

As the people of God in Christ it wouldn't be a bad devotional action to ask our selves once in a while, "Is anything too hard for God?" The answer will always be NO. Still, there is a lot of Sarah in us, isn't there. And, sometimes it's hard to believe that with God all things are possible.

Believe it, though, because God is in the midst.

Jesus asked an expert in Jewish law how he read the law concerning how to “inherit eternal life” (Luke 10: 25). The answer given was pleasing to Jesus: “love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and love your neighbor as yourself self” (Luke 10:27).

The expert wasn’t satisfied with Jesus approval, however, and, “wanting to justify himself,” (whatever that means), (vs.29), asked Jesus to explain to him exactly who qualifies as being a neighbor. Here Jesus gives what has come to be the well-known parable of the Good Samaritan.

A man is robbed, severely injured, and abandoned along a roadside. A priest and a Levite happen by and upon seeing the suffering man choose to move to the other side of the road and not make him a part of their life. Then a Samaritan, (an unappreciated and hated fellow from the other side of the tracks) happens by. And, wouldn’t you know it, he stops, extends mercy, tends to the suffering man’s needs, takes him to a motel, cleans him up, and pays the manager of the motel enough money to cover a couple of days expenses, with the promise that upon his return he would also pay for any other expenses incurred by the victim.

Then the parable takes a twist. Jesus asked, “Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers” (vs. 36)? His point wasn’t that the victim was the neighbor in need of help. The victim simply gave opportunity to reveal what a good neighbor is like. The neighbor is the Samaritan “who had mercy” on the victim. To this Jesus said, “Go and do likewise” (vs. 37).

What do followers of Jesus look like? Jesus says they look like this Samaritan fellow who when he could have moved to the other side of the road, also, chose, instead, to extend mercy. “Go,” Jesus said, “and do likewise.”

Apparently Pope Benedict disagrees with Vatican II and doesn’t view Protestants as “separated brethren.” His reasons may be many but the new announced one is that we do not recognize the primacy of the Pope. In fact, the rift from the Roman side takes it further and finds it very difficult even to acknowledge non-Roman Catholics as being the Church. The wording from the Vatican says something to this effect, "Despite the fact that this teaching has created no little distress ... it is nevertheless difficult to see how the title of 'Church' could possibly be attributed to them.”

In reality, and with a certain degree of respect for the bishop of Rome, the sitting pope’s opinions haven’t really affected me one way or the other. He is entitled to disregard the heritage out which I come and summarily dismiss the Faith of Christ to which I hold; that’s his issues, not mind. I certainly don’t feel “wounded,” as the document says, and even though he thinks my little church is not a full church of Jesus Christ, the God we meet each week in worship begs to disagree.

The pope believes that Roman “Catholicism provides the only true path to salvation.” Already many Roman Catholics are seeking to defuse this errant thinking. As Rev. Vincent Cushing, president of Washington Theological Union from 1975- 1999 says, "From a careful reading of the documents of Vatican II, it is clear that the Roman Catholic Church wished to affirm the ecclesial reality of the Protestant churches.”

The Pope believes that Protestants churches (I suppose we need to find a word other than church; maybe the bishop of Rome can speak for God on this matter, also) are “merely ecclesial communities” and that we don’t have “the means of salvation” within the Faith of Christ to which we hold.

As a Protestant minister I really thought Rome was bigger than this. I guess I was wrong. At any rate, I’m told the bishop is headed out for vacation this week. That’s a good thing, I think.

It is a wonderful life to live for God, especially when one lives it in God’s way. We live in a world where “the harvest is plentiful,” open and ripe for meaning and hope. And, in that world we live by faith. We live for God in the faith of Jesus and leave results to God. Some people will receive the Good News and some won’t. That decision is not ours to make. Ours is to live and move and have our being in the God who has saved us and made us whole. Ours is to live faithfully for the God of Good News.

The promise of Jesus is that He will use His Church to “overcome all the power of the enemy” (Luke 10:19). As His Church lives faithfully Satan “will fall like lightning” (Luke 10:18). Nothing will hold back the Gospel and Jesus will build His Church.

As powerful as this reality is, Jesus says it is not the reality in which we should rejoice. It is wonderful to be used of God; it is marvelous to be used of God. Yet Jesus says, “Do not rejoice that the spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven” (Luke 10:20).

What a remarkable thought to think, that God has embraced us into His forever family and that our lives are covered by an amazing grace that brings to us the gift of Abundant and eternal life.

As we live graced by the Life of God we live with purpose and focus. We live with meaning and hope. We are not lost in a sea of doubt. We live in the certainty of Jesus. We live in love, acceptance and forgiveness. We live in the reality of Good News.

What a great way to live.

Disciples James and John, angry when a certain Samaritan village denied Jesus access, sought His permission to “call fire down from heaven to destroy them” (Luke 9:54). Jesus rebuked them for their thoughts and moved on “to another village” (vs. 55).

Sadly, James and John represent too many Christians who can’t seem to bring themselves to love their enemies and who seek, instead, to call fire down from heaven to destroy them. When are we going to learn to let God be God and knock off the nonsense of treating like dirt those who don’t think the way we think or believe the way we believe? This is a serious question and one to which we do well to pay attention.

When will we learn that our business here is to live Christ-formed lives, extending to others the very life of God? Ours isn’t to disenfranchise those who want nothing to do with Jesus; ours is to love them. Fred Pratt Green has this line in his hymn, When the Church of Jesus: “May our prayers, Lord, make us ten times more aware that the world we banish is our Christian care.” In another verse he writes, “Lord, reprove, inspire us by the way you give; teach us risen Savior, how true Christians live.”

Sure, there might be villages that don’t “welcome” Jesus and when it happens maybe we’ll have to move on “to another village.” Calling down fire on the place, however, seems a little extreme don’t you think? In fact, isn’t this one of our complaints about so called radial Muslims who maim, destroy and kill in the name of their understanding of God?

Before we call down fire from heaven maybe we ought to call down the Holy Spirit to baptize our own hearts with fire. Now, that would be a sight to behold.

In a time of prayer with His disciples Jesus asked them a question, “Who do the people say that I am” (Luke 9:18). Several answers were given but then Jesus got very personal. He said to His men, “Who do you say that I am” (Luke 9:18). Peter forwards an answer but the question was for the group. Indeed, any group gathered around Jesus must be engaged with this question.

Many times in North America Scripture is so individualized we overlook the fact that Jesus has called us to be His people. It is to His people that certain questions must be asked. Persons as persons must give answers but not as Lone Ranger Christians. His Church must continually hear the question, “Who do you say that I am?”

It is His Church who must continually be challenged to save its life by losing it (Luke 9:24). It is His Church, shaped and formed by His cross, that must come after Jesus in a spirit of self-denial and take of the cross (Luke 9:23).

It is His Church that is called to see through the present order and into an order where profit is not measured by what one has but by what one has released into the hands of God for the sake of others (Luke 9:25).

It is His Church that must lived unashamedly for Jesus in the present order of things, expectantly waiting for that day when Jesus “comes in His glory, and the glory of the Father and of the holy angels” (Luke 9:26).

Let us not be preoccupied with any thing that might preoccupy us. Instead, let’s open up our hearts to the Lord of the universe, and live for Him.

If Jesus would whisper into our ears some day in worship, “Who do you say that I am?” what would our answer be?

Jesus was always disappointing some religious person somewhere because of the way He received and embraced folks who were not religious. Some of the religious folks around Him just couldn't grasp that grace and mercy embrace and receive lost and broken people, not make them more lost and broken by rejecting them.

There always seems to be tension with many religious people in that, apparently fragile, matter of being in but not of the world. Maybe it's too difficult a balance to hold to for some. Or, maybe, the craving for personal piety is so strong that the threat of possible contamination trumps everything. It sure makes witnessing rough, though, when one is unable to be meaningfully IN the world because if you can't be IN then there's no way you can be WITH, and if you can't ever be WITH how is anybody other than the saved going to know how wonderful Jesus is?

Come to think about it, if our faith is so fragile that we can't be with unbelievers without fear of possible contamination, than the truthfulness of our faith might just be called into question. If we have faith in a Lord who loved to be among sinners and to eat with them and to fellowship with them, and to invite them in to the kingdom, and the expression of that faith prohibits our doing the same kinds of things, then we are not really of Jesus, are we?

Do you know anybody who does not love Jesus? Love them. Embrace them. Fellowship with them. Pray for them. Build a relationship with them. Receive them.

It's okay to love people. Jesus sure does. After all, He reached out to you one day and received you into His Family. What a great day for you that turned out to be.

How much more could one take? She was already a widow and the mother of only one child, a son. Now he, too, had died. Now she was alone. Now grief raged through her very soul. In the casket lay her boy. No! In the casket lay her very life. The future was in that casket. Hope was in that casket. Joy was in that casket.

In the midst of the procession to the graveyard Jesus happened by. He saw the casket, He saw the crowd, He saw the widow. Something moved Him deeply, so deeply that He did what no one in that culture would ever do on purpose. He reached out and touched the casket, making him ceremonially unclean. Then He spoke to the dead, "Young man, I say to you, get up" (Luke 7:14, NIV). Suddenly a funeral became a resurrection and Jesus gave this young man back to his mother.

Don't think for a moment that in this life Jesus always gives the dead back to the living. He simply doesn't. Yet, He does seem always to find a way to embrace death with the life of God. He is not beyond bringing the life of God into brokenness, grief and pain. Time after time Jesus has found a way to so touch situations and people that they
are, "filled with awe" (Luke 7:16).

What impresses you more, the fact that Jesus can work miracles or that Jesus' compassion toward people is such that His heart goes out to them (Luke 7:13)? Can you embrace a God who can draw near the hurting and involved Himself in their lives?

We are the people of Jesus and we are called to be like Him. So, let's be on the lookout for those who hurt. Let's seek to be aware of conditions and situations that tear at the very fiber of life.

Let's dare to let our hearts go out to others. May Jesus come near our world in us.

Jesus speaks of God in three ways. First, He sees God as the Father who sent Him; Secondly, He sees Himself as God; Thirdly, He sees the Holy Spirit as God (John 16:5, 10:30, 16:7-11). The God who is one speaks into the human situation in a triune way: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

It is very difficult, if not impossible, to clearly read Scripture without embracing this Sovereign mystery. It is at the heart of our faith. Our very first Article of Faith reads, “We believe in one eternally existent, infinite God, Sovereign of the universe; that He only is God, creative and administrate, holy in nature, attributes, and purpose; that He, as God, is Triune in essential beings, revealed as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.”

Granted, it is theological language but it is not meant for the halls of academia. It is a reality that embraces our lives everyday. God is as up-close-and-personal as is the air we breathe. God is the Creator, the Savior and the Sustainer of all that is.

What belongs to the Father belongs to the Son and it is the Spirit who makes it known in our lives. Through the Spirit God is everywhere. He is here and half-a-world away at the same moment. That Jesus is Lord here and everywhere else at the same moment and in the same way is made possible by the awesome work of the Holy Spirit. At any given moment, anywhere in the world, the power that raised Jesus Christ from the dead is making the reality of God known.

Let the Holy Spirit embrace you and fill you today. He is Jesus’ gift to you.

I’ve stayed home all day as a plumber has wrestled with 80 year old pipe, clogged almost beyond belief, in a valiant effort to get us hot water once again. When that happens I will be satisfied but Vonnie, my wife, will be thrilled, happy, elated, overjoyed, excited, ecstatic, and, quite possibly, euphoric.

I’ve been thinking about clogs this morning – those little things that block the living of life. Most times clogs are little things that over time interconnect in such away that the arena in which they are located gets very messy and stops healthy living dead in its tracks.

I think of how clogged the world is today. Violence is everywhere, even in the beautiful city in which I live. Broken relationships that seem to be irreparable abound everywhere. Racism, unnecessary poverty, political demonizing and name-calling – the list goes on and on.

Can the clogs be unclogged? That is the question of the hour. I think we may need a good plumber or two, and it may take a while; but healthy living is not beyond the human experience. That things can change and that the future can be different than the past are remarkable thoughts to think.

As a Christian I am hopeful about the present and energized about the future. Reality is a hard pill to swallow sometimes, and I refuse to be naïve about clogs. However, We’re not Stepford wives and we do have power to choose. Whether or not people choose wisely may be in question but that they are free to choose isn’t.

How do we unclog the obstructions and barriers? The answer to that question may lead in a thousand directions for solutions, but one thing is certain. The unclogging begins with admitting to the clog. Maybe that’s the rub. Admitting might just be too much to handle.

I sure hope not.

Jesus told His questioning and unsettled disciples, "I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor to be with you forever -- the Spirit of truth…he lives in you and will be in you" (John 14:15-17). On the day of Pentecost that promise was fulfilled and the world hasn't been the same since; or, at least, the people of God haven't been the same since.

The life of Holy Spirit in the heart of a human being is a marvelous wonder to behold. The Spirit makes strong the weak, makes bold the fearful, makes clean the impure, and make faithful the unfaithful. This wondrous Spirit of truth moves into the open and hidden places in the life of believers, and baptizes them in the very life of God. Where the Holy Spirit is free to do His divine work all the possibilities of God are present.

It is in the life of the Spirit that Jesus makes His home in the life of His followers. Before His death Jesus said, "I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you" (John 14:18). In the Holy Spirit the Savior lives in His Church. We are not alone, orphaned, or disenfranchised. Jesus has come to us and Jesus is Lord.

In the Spirit the Church of Jesus is enabled to live truthfully and faithfully. In the faithfulness of Jesus we are free to ask the Father anything we need in order to be what He has called us to be, and He will give it (John 14:13-14).

Live this day in the power and presence of the Holy Spirit and God will draw near to you. He will live in you and make His home in you. He will re-narrate the story of your life and work the wondrous work of God in you.

Jesus gave great comfort to His disciples when He said to them, “I go to prepare a place for you” (John 14:2). This promise has been at the heart of the Christian faith for twenty centuries now, and it has been the source of great hope as the Church continually looks forward to what lies ahead.

Because His Church would live in light of what He had done and with the promise that something wonderful yet remains, Jesus prayed. At the heart of His prayer Jesus said to the Father, “I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one” (John 17:22).

The Church does not wait passively for the return of Christ. Rather, it seeks to live faithfully to Jesus’ prayer that those who are of Christ “may be one.” Why is this important to Jesus? He answers the question, “May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them, even as you have loved me” John 17: 23). To let the world know; that’s why unity in a world that tends to disunity is so very important.

Perhaps the way local congregations best represent their God to the world is through the unity they embrace in the midst of the diversity they experience.

Being a community of faith in Jesus Christ means that we are a community in which the prayer of Jesus is being answered. We may be different in language, culture and even convictions, but we are one in Christ. This is our calling, our passion, and our pursuit.

Christians believe God is a relational God, that He is One God who manifests Himself in three unique personalities -- Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. This mystery, referred to as trinity or tri-unity, has at its very core the sense of community. This being said it is no surprise that when God incarnated Himself into the human situation, He did so in a self-revealing Messiah who continually calls people into community -- community with God and with each other.

So it was Jesus said, "If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching. My Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him" (John 14:23). Did you catch it? "We will come to him and make our home with him." And exactly how does God do this? Jesus says He and the Father do it through "the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name" (John 14:25).

Jesus says the Holy Spirit is a "Counselor" who continually leads God's people into a community of truth where Jesus is at the center of everything. This is the Father's will and it is that for which Jesus Himself died.

The Church is a community of the Counselor who continually woos the community into everything Jesus. The Good news in this is that wherever Jesus is allowed, through faith, to be Himself the peace of a sovereign God is in that place and in that people.

Prayer: O God. Show us how to be the Counselor-enabled community of Jesus that allows You to make us into all you would have us be, extending the fellowship of Your community into our world. In Jesus Name we pray; Amen."

When Judas had left the gathering Jesus said to His eleven men, "I will be with you only a little longer." (John 13:33). Its true, He was going to leave them but He was not going to leave them alone. He was going to go and prepare a place for them, with the promise that He would come back for them" (See John 14:2-3).

In the mean time He promised them "another Counselor … the Spirit of truth" (John 14:17). Of this "Spirit of truth" Jesus said that He would be with them and in them (John 14:17). Life, for them, wasn't going to skip a beat. In the Holy Spirit Jesus was going to be with them in ways their minds, at the moment, could not possibly comprehend.

And of all the things the Spirit of truth was going to help them do, the most important was to "love one another" (John 13:34). The Spirit was going to work the works of Almighty God within them and through them, and at the heart of all He was going to do He was going to enable them to love one another.

How important is the love of God in the life of a follower of Jesus Christ? Jesus said, "Love one another…By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another" (John 13:34-35). By this! By what? What is the this to which Jesus refers? Simple and to the point: LOVE ONE ANOTHER. That's the this (pardon my English).

How are Christians to be in the world? Jesus says they are to be there as a people who love one another. Our witness is weak if it is not lived out in a community of the love God. Our testimony is flimsy if it is not lived out in a community of the love of God.

The love of God in the community of God ought to be the most outstanding feature of a faith that claims Jesus as Lord. May it be so. God help us; may it be so.

The Bible says the Holy Spirit is "able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine" (Eph. 3:20, NIV). This is a very hopeful statement for the Church these days and it constantly reminds us that God is present in ways our minds and imaginations cannot fully grasp. Every moment we are presented with infinite possibilities as we live embraced by the power of God.

This is crucial because we certainly have our challenges, challenges rooted in contemporary issues such as the complexity all around us of multiple cultures, materialism, hedonism, conflicting ideologies, post-modern thinking, post-Christian thinking, spiritual warfare contending for the lives of people created for God, how to be church, how to do church, how to worship, how not to worship, how to reach lost and broken people, how to share the love of God through the means of compassionate ministries, to name just a few.

As we face our times a question is pressing down on us. Are we willing to “re-narrate” ourselves; that is, are we willing to do whatever is necessary to tell our story, the story of Jesus, in such a way that people will be drawn to Christ, even if it takes us out of our comfort zone?

Oliver Windell Holmes once said, "I find that the great thing is not so much where we stand as in what direction we are moving. To reach the port of heaven we must sail, sometimes with the wind and sometimes against it but we must sail and not drift, nor lie at anchor."

Using this metaphor, regardless of the circumstances in which we find ourselves we must sail with focused attention to wherever it is our faithfulness to God takes us.

We are the church of God so let's set our sails to the winds of the Spirit, and let Jesus captain this boat.

April 22, 2007

Have you ever wondered what a resurrected Lord has for breakfast? Does fish come to mind? I didn't think so. Yet, the third time Jesus revealed Himself to the disciples after the resurrection was at a breakfast to which He called them (See John 21:1-14). The disciples were fishing and weren’t catching anything and Jesus told them they were fishing on the wrong side of the boat. They switched sides and, wouldn't you know it, they caught 153 large fish (I wonder why they counted them) Anyway, not too bad for a carpenter, huh?

When it was over they came to shore to find that Jesus had started a charcoal fire and was preparing a fish breakfast. He invited them to place a few of their fish onto the fire, and soon breakfast was served, complete with bread; it was like communion on the beach.

Don’t you just love it that Jesus said to His men, "Come and have breakfast." I believe Jesus is always saying something like this to His people. On Sundays He says to us, "Come and have Sunday lunch with me. We'll have bread and wine. We'll sing and fellowship and read the Word of God. We'll pray and pass the peace to each other. It will be a great lunch. See you Sunday." On Mondays He says, "Meet me on your break, and we'll have coffee together. We'll encourage each other and remind each other of how good the Father is."

Being a resurrected Lord means that Jesus can meet us any place, at any time, under any circumstance. And, when we get there He'll probably invite us to have fish and bread, or maybe a cup and bread. These days He is calling me to Thursday lunch where three other men and I share sack lunches, our lives and prayer.

I have discovered that His life embraces all of life for me. Is that not wonderful? The living Lord draws near and invites us to eat with him (See Revelation 3:20). That's pretty special don't you think?

Easter evening found ten of the disciples behind closed doors for fear of those who did not believe in Jesus. However, their world was rocked and changed forever when Jesus suddenly appeared to them in that locked room. His first words to them were, “Peace be with you” (John 20:19).

Peace had not been with them since Friday evening when their hopes lay dead in a borrowed tomb. Suddenly everything changes. Jesus comes among them and speaks the word of renewal, the word of life, the word of hope -- PEACE. Interestingly enough, John tells us that Jesus didn’t just say it once but twice. “Peace be with you” (John 20:21).

I don’t know why He said it twice but I like to think that they were so shocked at seeing Him alive after the atrocities of Friday, that they didn’t hear Him the first time. I have no idea really. I just know He said it twice on that occasion and that seven days later when the eleven disciples were present in another gathering, He said it again, “Peace be with you” (John 20:26).

It was a common greeting so in a way we ought not to take it more seriously than we should. His presence, however, wasn’t so common. It was very shocking, incredible, as a matter of fact. So, if we just take it as a normal greeting, that makes it even more special; especially if one takes into consideration that the one giving the greeting is supposed to be dead. After all, they saw Him die.

The resurrection simply changes everything. It changes hearts. It changes goals. It changes life-focus. It brings peace into places where once there was despair and confusion and shattered dreams.

Be aware today that Jesus is on the move and that His first words to you might just be, “Peace be with you.”

Jesus Lives That Death May Die
An Easter Message

Jesus' resurrection lies at the heart and foundation of all it means for Christians to be Christian. Without the resurrection of Jesus there is no message of Christ. All He was is defined by the quality of His life, death and resurrection. His death and thus His resurrection speak to the deepest needs of creation and to that unique situation called, human. A brief progression of thought might be might be helpful.

The Bible says "the wages of sin is death" and that "all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God" (Romans 6:23, 3:23). John 3:16 reminds us that "God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that who ever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life." Based upon this reality the apostle John wrote, "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness" (I John 1:9). This reality led the apostle Paul to write in 2 Corinthians 5:17, "If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come." Further, this led Paul to teach, "Sin shall not be your master, because you … under grace" (Romans 6:14). He went even further when he said, "If God is for us, who can be against us... We are more than conquerors through him who loved us" (Romans 8:31, 37)

The entire Jesus event, particularly the cross and resurrection, reveal just how much God is for us. "He is risen," is our mantra. It embraces all that we are. It defines who we are and how we do life. It brings the possibilities of God to us and shows us that Jesus really is God who "actually entered into and authentically participated in our creaturely realm."[1] The truth is "We have a great high priest who is…able to sympathize with our weaknesses" and who invites us to live out our lives at "the throne of grace" where “we receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need" (Hebrews 4:14-16).

It is a humbling and yet exhilarating thought to think that our lives are covered by the God we see revealed in Jesus. At minimum this means we are never without hope, that God's grace is sufficient. Take from us all that can be taken and there is still God in Jesus. Do to us what you will and there is still God in Jesus. Bless us, curse us, or snub us, Jesus is Lord not blessings or curses or snubbing. Kill us, and the last word isn't death but life, Eternal life in the One who is Lord, even over death.

In Jesus is life and His life is the light of God to us and in us (See John 1:4). To embrace Him is to take His hand, as it were, and to live both now and when this life is taken away from us.
There is no place we can go to hide from His grace. Isaac Watts reminds us in a hymn we sing at Christmas time,

No more let sin and sorrow grow…
He comes to make His blessings flow
Far as the curse is found.[2]

So it was that Eliza Hewitt wrote[3]

My faith has found a resting place,
not in device or creed;
I trust the ever-living One,
His wounds for me shall plead.

Enough for me that Jesus saves,
this ends my fear and doubt;
a sinful soul I come to Him,
He’ll never cast me out.

I need no other argument,
I need no other plea,
It is enough that Jesus died,
And that He died for me.

God has spoken in Jesus Christ, hasn't He? That's our message. It begins and ends right here.

It is interesting to note, too, that Easter doesn't take us out of life; it puts us right down in the middle of life. In Jesus we don't run away from the world into some fantasy place where weak people go (an accusation that is often made against people of faith). Instead, we run to the world with the greatest news ever to come into the human situation ~~ He has risen.

After Easter life is never lived without a risen Lord and Savior in it. He can be ignored. He can be denied. He can be shunned. But, He cannot be driven off. He cannot be made less that who He is. This is His world and He lives in it as the One who has risen from the dead.
For those who will allow Him, He makes all things new. For those who will receive His grace, the reality of sins forgiven becomes their reality. For those who will let Him be Lord, He comes to live within them, administering His grace at every level of life. He doesn't take us out of life; He cleans us up in it.

I totally love the poem by Maya Angelou that speaks of the human situation but also of God's activity in it. She writes[4]

When I say... "I am a Christian"
I'm not shouting "I'm clean livin".
I'm whispering "I was lost,
Now I'm found and forgiven."

When I say... "I am a Christian"
I don't speak of this with pride.
I'm confessing that I stumbleand
need Christ to be my guide.

When I say... "I am a Christian"
I'm not trying to be strong.
I'm professing that I'm weak
And need His strength to carry on.

When I say... "I am a Christian"
I'm not bragging of success.
I'm admitting I have failed
And need God to clean my mess.

When I say... "I am a Christian"
I'm not claiming to be perfect,
My flaws are far too visible
But, God believes I am worth it.

When I say... "I am a Christian"
I still feel the sting of pain.
I have my share of heartaches
So I call upon His name.

When I say... "I am a Christian"
I'm not holier than thou,
I'm just a simple sinner
Who received God's good grace, somehow!

On Easter an angel and Jesus, Himself, told the women who had come to the tomb to go and tell His disciples that He was alive. The Church has been doing that ever since. Somebody, somewhere, every minute of every day is telling somebody, somewhere, about Jesus and how He died but lives again. It's a story that resonates in the human heart. It is a message of life and hope. It stirs our imaginations to believe again that there is a future in this world and in the life to come.

I lost a good friend in death on Saturday morning, March 31, 2007. He was my friend, my colleague, a confidant. He was a pastor, a scholar, a leader, a shepherd. Today, somebody else is preaching in his place at New Life Church of the Nazarene in Lancaster, California. His name is Chuck and I will miss him until I go home to heaven and fellowship with him around the throne of God. And, that's the point that resonates in my very being today.

In the resurrection of Jesus Christ we are inundated with hope. Death spoke and we had no recourse but to listen; but for those of us who believe in Jesus death is not the final word. The life that is in Jesus is the final word.

At the of the last book in the Chronicles of Narnia called, The Last Battle, C. S. Lewis has Aslan, the lion, and a Jesus figure, speak to Peter, Edmund and Lucy. He says to them:

"There was a railway accident," said Aslan softly. "Your father and mother and all of you are — as you used to call it in the Shadowlands—dead. The term is over: the holidays have begun. The dream is ended: this is the morning."

And as He spoke He no longer looked to them like a lion; but the things that began to happen after that were so great and beautiful that I cannot write them. And for us this is the end of all the stories, and we can most truly say that they all lived happily ever after. But for them it was only the beginning of the real story. All their life in this world and all their adventures in Narnia had only been the cover and the title page: now at last they were beginning Chapter One of the Great Story which no one on earth has read: which goes on forever: in which every chapter is better than the one before."[5]

This is the hope we have because of Jesus ~~ hope for today and hope for tomorrow.

Because He lives we can face tomorrow triumphantly.

Because He lives we can face today in the power of the resurrected Lord.

Because He lives, we live.

Because He lives we too can say and know in our very being,

I need no other argument,
I need no other plea,
It is enough that Jesus died,
And that He died for me.

Prayer: Father, fill us with Jesus until our very lives are captivated by His life. Help us to be the people you have created and called us to be. Help us to embrace the life of Jesus that the life of God may embrace our lives. Help us to be a people of the resurrection. Help us to live and move and have our being in Jesus. Amen.

[1] Thomas Jay Oord and Michael Lodahl, Relational Holiness: Responding to the Call of Love, (Beacon Hill: Kansas City, 2005), 93
2 From the third verse of “Joy to the World,” by Isaac Watts, 1719
[3] "My Faith Has Found a Resting Place Word" by: Eliza E. Hewitt, in Songs of Joy and Gladness, 1891. Hymnals often show the author as Lidie H. Edmunds, Eliza’s pseudonym.
[4] Christians by Maya Angelou
[5] C. S. Lewis, The Last Battle, 228

Palm Sunday is a most perplexing day in the church year. It looks great what with all the praising and celebrating and affirming the Kingship of Jesus, but one doesn’t have to look too closely to see that, in fact, there is trouble in River City, or Jerusalem as the case may be.

It’s a paradoxical day, too. The average guy on the street apparently gets what the most learned of the Spiritual scholars couldn’t grasp. They saw that Jesus was the One who came to them “in the name of the Lord” (Luke 19:38). It looks like they knew their Scriptures too, because that’s a quote from their Psalms (118:26). And, in looking at Him they could affirm the truth, “Peace in heaven and glory in the highest” (Luke 19:38).

How deeply the truth ran in them we don’t know. We do know that five days later in Luke, many of them were calling for Jesus’ crucifixion. Maybe their vacillation was what led Jesus to weep over the city as he approached it (Luke 19:41). We don’t know; we just know that on this one day they got it right, so much so that Jesus said “If these become silent, the stones will cry out” (Luke 19:40).

Here’s my concern. From “praise Him” to “Crucify Him” in a period of a few days is scandalous information. I fear that it is far too easy to get caught up in crowd mentality and lose oneself in the swarm.

I can’t speak for anybody but myself but may God help me to know what I know, to believe what I believe, and to stand for Him on Palm Sunday or Good Friday. If I’m going to praise Him on Sunday then surely I will have enough gumption and drive to live for Him when the powers that be call for His demise.

After all, if He is Lord on Sunday then He is Lord everyday of the week and in whatever situation we find ourselves. If He is Lord on Sunday then we must pick up our cross and follow Him on Friday.

To the Jewish faith the Exodus out of Egypt and into the Promise Land is huge. It is the pivotal point of everything. God showed up in history in that event and worked His sovereign works in such a way that nobody could ever look back and say, “This is what we did.” No! The exodus was what God did.

As huge as the exodus was, however, Isaiah told the people in his day, “Do not call to mind the former things or ponder things of the past” (Is. 43:18). Isaiah asks the people to let go of the past, not because it wasn’t important anymore; it was important. It was just that God was going to do “Something new” in the world, so huge that even the exodus pales in comparison (Is. 43:19).

And what exactly was this “something new”? As God made a way when there was no way, so, too, He was going to make a way out of spiritual darkness and deserts and bring into the dry, barren places the fresh flowing river of God. It would flow “far as the curse was found,”[1] and deeper than our deepest sinful stain. It would bring life into death and new beginnings into dead ends.

As God provided the way out of Egypt and into the Promise Land so He would provide the way out of the bondage of sin and into the life of God. God made a promise and what He promised He has now done in the life of Jesus Christ. In Jesus the past has met the future and as a result our present moments are embraced by the grace of God. Indeed, God is up to something great and we, and everyone in our world, is invited to be a part of it.

This is why local churches in neighborhoods around the world exist. They are here to let the river of God flow through them into the lives of everyone within their sphere of influence.
[1] From the third verse of “Joy to the World,” by Isaac Watts, 1719

Once upon a time there were two brothers who had a prosperous father and so enjoyed the benefits of wealth. One day one of the sons expressed to his father that he was tired of his life and that he wanted what was his so that he could go to new places and explore the wonders of the world. It broke his father’s heart but he gave him his inheritance; and off he went to the wonders of wine, women and song, and soon he was caught up in a life where to eat, drink and be merry were routines of his days.

One day his money ran out and, ironically, so did all the friends he had made in the new world. Suddenly he was alone, broke and friendless. In time he began to yearn for the good old days of his home and finally, broken, embarrassed, sad and alone he made his way back home. To his surprise his father was waiting for him and threw him a "coming home" party the likes of which he could never have imagined.

At this point the sins of the second son surface. Anger surged in him. Resentment at the fact that his father had never thrown him a party burned in his very soul. After all, he had been the faithful son, the good son, the son who always did what he was told. How could his father give a party for his brother when his brother had hurt his father so badly? The father explained that everything he had was available to him, everything. He thought he had lost a son only to find him again. How could life go on without a party?

Once upon a time a father had two prodigal sons. One looked better than the other but, make no mistake about it, they were both prodigals. The one was an obvious sinner; the other not so obvious.

Moral of the story? "All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God…but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord" (Rom 3:23, 6:23). I think it is time for some parties around here.

Jesus gives great hope to us when He says in Luke 13:29, “And they will come from east and west and from north and south, and will recline at the table in the kingdom of God.” That’s why you and I are in the kingdom of God today. Jesus didn’t stay in Jerusalem. He has come all the way to North America, all the way to the South Western United States, to Southern California, and a town there called, Pasadena. When Jesus said they would come from the east and west and north and south, He meant it, didn’t He?

Once upon a time some folks asked Jesus, “Lord, are they just a few who are being saved?” (Luke 13:23), and He never really answered their question. He just said, “They will come from east and west and north and south.” It’s almost as if Jesus in his silence is saying, “a head count is not what we’re looking for. What we’re looking for is the ever-expanding table of the Lord where there’s always room for one more.”

It took the ever-expanding table of God about 2000 years to work its way to the place where I came to know there was room for me at the table. Where were you when the folks at the table made room for you? Maybe it really isn’t head-counting we need. Maybe we just need to always be on the lookout for that one more who will come from the east or west or north or south.

We can be sure of one thing – Jesus is certainly on the lookout. And, our faith tells us that He has called us to be alongside Him as He makes his appeal to citizens of the planet.

We’ve a story to tell and a life to live. Let’s tell the story clearly and live the life unambiguously.

February 25, 2007

Sometimes the will of God can take you into the wilderness. That’s how Jesus got there, anyway. The Bible says, “Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led around by the Spirit in the wilderness” (Luke 4:1). It was under the influence of the Holy Spirit Jesus ended up in that place where for forty days he faced the full assault of the devil.

In the season of Lent we are reminded that there are forces at work in the world that are unsympathetic to the ways of God revealed in the life of Jesus. That means they are also unsympathetic to those who embrace Jesus. And why wouldn’t they be? In the life of the Christian the enemy comes face to face with the life of the Spirit of God. So it is that Christians, too, can find themselves “led by the Spirit” into wilderness places.

Just like Jesus, those who live in His life, are enabled in the wilderness to experience the victory that Jesus Himself experienced when He met Satan head on, defeated him three times, and began that winding road to Calvary where He would defeat Satan once and for all, forever. In the wilderness we do not live in defeat. We are nourished by the life of Jesus.

This is why the Gospel is such Good News. To everyone who experiences the wilderness there is a Savior who experienced it, too, a Savior who conquered sin and death and lives as Lord in the world today. Wildernesses can be hot, humid and devastating but they are not Lord. Jesus is Lord. In the desert He brings a stream of life giving water.

So it is every local church is present to invite people to the living water, to that oasis of life where the grace of God flows and where people are renewed, re-energized and redeemed to everlasting life.

February 18, 2007

Sometimes its tough to love the people you already love but Jesus calls us to do more even than this. He says, (are you setting down?) "Love your enemies" (Luke 6:27). That just complicates everything, doesn't it! I mean, good grief, how much can He expect from us? We're only human.

Nobody said being a Christian was easy. It isn't; at least if you take Jesus seriously, it isn't easy. It will cost you everything. It will affect your finances, your possessions, your values, your decision-making, your relationships, and even your time management. It will even affect how you relate to people who believe differently than you, who think differently than you, and who embrace values and morals you would never embrace.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer said, "When Christ calls a man, He bids him come and die."[1] That about says it all. The old timers use to call it dying out to God, and putting everything on the altar, and consecrating all to God. Pick a phrase. They all work. What they all means is that people who take Jesus seriously and live as Christ-like followers, have let go their natural way of doing things and have come to embrace the ways and means of God. The apostle Paul said it this way, "I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live but Christ lives in me" (Gal. 2:20).

We will probably never love our enemies in our own strength but that's okay. We're not living for ourselves but for the Jesus who "emptied Himself of all but love and bled for Adams helpless race."[2] In Him all things become new, and "by His scourging we are healed" to live redeemed lives (see 2 Cor. 5:17 and Is. 53:5).
May God help us to be a place and a people of love in a world where everybody needs a place and a people of love.

[1] Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship
[2] Charles Wesley, "And Can It Be?"

February 11, 2007

I am intrigued with the title of a book I saw recently called, Wherever You Go, There You Are.[1] The book itself didn't seem that interesting to me but I love the title because it is absolutely true. There is no way for each of us to get away from our self. Wherever we go, there we are. 24/7, we are on the clock living out the seconds of our lives, doing what we choose to do, being who we are.

All of this is sobering especially when we are confronted by the word of Scripture that tells us "the heart is more deceitful than all else and is desperately sick; who can understand it? (Jeremiah 17:9). Human beings are on the clock 24/7 with questionable hearts. How is that for a dose of reality? We're stuck with deceitful and hard-to-understand hearts, and there's not much we can do about it.

Fortunately there is a healthy and realistic way out of the mess we are in. The Bible tells us, 'Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord and whose trust is the Lord" (Jer. 17:7). What a turn of events that is.

How does one get from "deceitful" and "desperately sick" to "blessed"? The Biblical answer to the question is for us to put our trust in the Lord, to build our lives on God and to trust His presence is our story. To do this says the prophet of God is to "be like a tree planted by the water, that extends its roots by a stream" (Jer. 17:8). This place is the place of refreshment and nourishment, the place where one is not driven by anxiety in the time of drought.
This is the place to which we invite people and where we live ourselves. It is the place of God, and everyone is welcomed there.

[1] Wherever You Go, There You Are: Mindfulness Meditation in Everyday Life by Jon Kabat-Zinn (Paperback)

February 4, 2007

It doesn’t sound too challenging to those of us in the 21st century but to fisherman of the first century who had fished all night and caught nothing, hearing a challenge to “Put out into the deep water, and let down your nets for a catch” (Luke 5:4), could have been a real challenge, especially when the one putting out the challenge was a carpenter, not a fisherman. Still, the fishermen listened to Jesus, did what He challenged them to do and, wouldn’t you know it, “They enclosed a great quantity of fish, and their nets began to break; so they signaled to their partners in the other boats for them to come and help them. And they came and filled the boats, so that they began to sink” (Luke 4:6-7).

What an interesting story, but it gets better. Peter, the fishless fisherman to whom Jesus had given the challenge, seeing what was unfolding before his very eyes, falls at Jesus’ feet and says to him, “Go away from me Lord, for I am a sinful man, O Lord!” (Luke 5:8). Isn’t that interesting? How do you get from what finally becomes a great day business to “I am a sinful man, O Lord”?

I suppose we would have to talk to Peter to get a sense of what He was really experiencing in that moment but Luke tells us the reason Peter did it was because, “amazement had seized him” (Luke 5:9). There was something about the moment and the Man that captivated Peter and, in a heartbeat, he moves beyond a-great-day-at-work to self-awareness that leads him to confession and a heightened sense of himself.

Moments and events like these are dangerous because they connect people with God. Moments and events like these are wonderful because they connect people with God.
God is at work in Jesus Christ, and we do well to listen to this Carpenter.