Lent, Day 10: JUST BE REAL

Luke 7:1-10

In today’s reading we find a Roman soldier who had heard about Jesus’ power to heal.  He was a Centurion which means that he was in charge of 100 soldiers.  We don’t know too much about him, but we do know he had a servant in his home whom he highly regarded.  The servant was very sick and about to die.  When he heard about Jesus he thought maybe, just maybe, Jesus could help the servant.  To find out, he sent some Jewish elder friends to ask if Jesus might come to his house and save the life of his servant.

His friends tried to convince Jesus to come because they believed the Centurion was “worthy,” explaining how he loved the nation and even helped build the local synagogue.  Jesus accepted their invitation and headed off to the Centurion’s home.  Before He got there, however, the Centurion sent another group of his friends, to say to Jesus, “Lord, do not trouble Yourself further, for I am not worthy for You to come under my roof; for this reason I did not even consider myself worthy to come to You, but just say the word, and my servant will be healed” (vs. 6).  When Jesus heard these words, “He marveled at him” and turned to the crowd and said, “I say to you, not even in Israel have I found such great faith” (vs. 9).  

That’s a breathtaking story isn’t it.  A Roman reaching out to Jesus through some Jewish friends; Jesus coming to the Roman Centurion’s home but being told, upon arrival, that this Roman man had had a change of heart and didn’t feel like he was worthy for Jesus to come into his home.  Instead, he trusted the powerful word of Jesus to work its work regardless of Jesus’ physical location in the matter.  Then, Jesus, using a Roman Centurion, turned to say to a group of Jews that this man’s faith was greater than any faith He had seen in Israel.  That’s just all mixed up, isn’t it?

This event reminds me that God isn’t looking for Jews or Gentiles but for both.  Nationality is never the issue with God.  God looks on the human heart, and sees the true mind and spirit of a person.  As someone once said, all the ground is level at the foot of the cross.  Jesus is looking for people to be open to God, and receptive to what God is doing in the world.  

This leads me to look inward and ask what is the true state of my heart.  Do I think I have special access to God because of my background and upbringing?  Jesus tells us not to think this way.  Jesus calls us to faith, and to a humbling of ourselves so that God can work the works of grace in us.  I’m pretty sure we should stop trying to impress God.  He knows us through and through.  Instead, maybe we should just get real before God, confess our unworthiness, and then let God be God in us.  

Lent calls us to get real and stay real before God.

Lent, Day 9: THE GOD OF EVERYONE

Romans 3:21-31

The Law never made anybody do legal things.  The heart is what it is, and wants what it wants.  The Law must somehow be written into human hearts, into our motives and passions and aspirations.  We can be forced to obey the law, with the threat of legal action if we don’t.  Yet, until the law is in our hearts we will fight it and resist it and maybe have disdain for it.  We can keep the law so that our outer life seems to reflect it, but inwardly be fuming.  At the same time, we might love the law, but know inwardly we are not living up to its standard.  At the end of the day, law is a heart matter.

This is where faith comes in.  God wants to get black words on white paper into our heart so that the safety and freedom provided by the law will be at work in us.  Jesus is God’s Word to us here.  The truth is, “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (vs. 23).  We all have a heart problem that black words on white paper can’t erase.  We need a Savior; and we have One.  We need an Advocate who can work the works of God into us so that the grace and mercy of God can find a home in us.  

Jesus is the wonderful Savior of God.  He comes to us all, Jew and Gentile alike, and wraps the arms of God around us, and hold us to the very heart of God.  He does not write us off but includes us in, on the breathtaking and stunning love of God.  God calls us to faith in Christ Jesus whereby we are called into abundant life.  

In his book, The Ragamuffin Gospel, Brennan Manning writes, “My deepest awareness of myself is that I am deeply loved by Jesus Christ and I have done nothing to earn it or deserve it.” Another thing Manning says is, “We should be astonished at the goodness of God, stunned that He should bother to call us by name, our mouths wide open at His love, bewildered that at this very moment we are standing on holy ground.”

Do you see the love and grace and mercy of God as Brennan Manning sees them?  How would you describe God’s love and grace and mercy?  In light of Romans 3:23, how would you put into words the overwhelming realization that instead of judging us beyond belief, God reaches out to us and calls home, into the place of forgiveness and justification, the place we can call home.

In our reading today, may God help us see His heart on all matters and be open to all the magnificent things He has for His people.  Have you ever sung these words?

Love of Christ so freely given,  

Grace of God beyond degree; 

Mercy higher than the heavens,  

Deeper than the deepest sea. 

All that thrills my soul is Jesus;  

He is more than life to me; 

And the fairest of ten thousand,  

In my blessed Lord I see                      

                    (Thoro Harris, 1931)

Lent, Day 8: THE CARETAKER

Psalm 121

I love to be out in nature, and I cherish every moment of experiencing the natural world around me.  It is beautiful and breathtaking, sobering and energizing, humbling and uplifting, all at the same time.  Yet, there is one thing nature is not.  It is not the saving and redeeming and restoring force of God’s love and mercy.  I may look to the mountains, and be captivated by the wonder it all, but “My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven earth” (vs. 2).  

Psalm 121 helps us get it right.  It helps us see that there is only one God in the universe, and that God is our keeper, the shade on our right hand, and the protector from all evil.  He is the Sovereign “LORD” who is our “guard” in all our involvements in life, the good, the bad, and the ugly (see vs. 5, 7, 8). So, in essence, the Psalmist says I will look at the mountains but I won’t turn to them for the truth that sets free.  I will not turn to anyone or anything, other than the LORD.

We live in complicated, partisan, and opinionated times, don’t we.  I suppose it has always been this way but, be that as it may, we are definitely in these times now.  Navigating the world is a challenge in which, if we are not careful, we can lose ourselves, get caught up in the emotional clutter that goes with the turf these days, and find ourselves lost in the clutter.  It is not a friendly world.  It is a divided world, and the lies are so entrenched that it is difficult to see our way through to truth.

In it all, we have a helper, “the LORD, who made heaven and earth” (vs. 1).  Our helper doesn’t take us out of the world.  In fact, He sets us right down in the midst of the world that we may life a life above the fray, even while we are in it, and reveal the wonder and majesty and glory of God.

In the Lenten season we see Jesus right down in the midst of the fray.  For forty days and nights He fasted in the wilderness, and at the end of this time, the enemy showed up in an effort to take Him down.  He sought to lure Jesus away from the heart of the Father.  He failed; and the enemy will fail with us, too, if we will not look to the mountains but to the Maker of the mountains, to God, the One who positions Himself between the blazing heat of the sun and us, and abides there, creating a place for us in the shadow of His Amazing grace (see vs. 5, and Psalm 91:1).

It might be good to slow down in this journey to Good Friday and Easter, and realize that God is with us.  The world is what it is.  However, God is who God is, too.  And our hope and safety and joy is not in the temporary things of the world, but in the everlasting love of the Father.  Remember, “The LORD will guard your going out and your coming in from this time forth and forever” (Psalm 121:8).

Lent, Day 7: OUTRAGEOUS LOVE

Matthew 18:10-14

Our heavenly Father’s love is extravagant and outrageous.  Not one of us can fully understand it, because it just doesn’t make sense in a world where love and respect must be earned and merited.  On top of that, people of faith are pretty much overlooked and underappreciated.  Jesus knew it well and referred to them as “little ones” (vs. 10).  The world doesn’t turn to the “little ones” much.  It seeks the best of the best, and the leader of leaders, and the master of masters.

In God’s economy everything gets turned upside down, or maybe right-side up.  The love of the Father goes beyond rhyme or reason to embrace His “little ones.”  Jesus explained this in terms of a shepherd in charge of 100 sheep.  Suddenly, he recognizes that one of the sheep is missing. So, the shepherd leaves the 99 and goes in desperate search for that one sheep.

It doesn’t make sense does it?  Why leave the 99 in search of the one?  I can’t answer the question fully.  I only know that when someone you love is missing, it captivates your imagination and you do all in your power to bring that missing one home.  Logic fails.  Reasoning fails.  There are no acceptable losses.  Love wins.  I think the song writer had it right when he wrote, 

I stand amazed in the presence   of Jesus the Nazarene,   And wonder how He could love me,   a sinner condemned, unclean.

How marvelous! How wonderful!   and my song shall ever be:  How marvelous! How wonderful!   is my Savior’s love for me!  (Charles H. Gabriel, 1905)

When you know that you are the one wandering sheep, and that God goes on a desperate search for you, you stand amazed. You just have to.  It is mindboggling, astonishing, and bewildering.  It is, as John Newton wrote, “Amazing Grace.”

Lent reminds us that God comes near, right now, into the midst of the very real world in which you and I live, and dwells here with us.  He is watching over the sheep of His pasture.  He knows when one of us is missing or hurting or lost.  He doesn’t wish one of us to perish but to be at home in His forever family.

Father,

“Oh, to grace how great a debtor daily I’m constrained to be; Let that grace now like a fetter bind my wandering heart to Thee”

                        (Robert Robinson, 1758).

Lent, Day 6: ONE WHO REALLY GETS US

Hebrews 4:14-5:10

There are people everywhere longing for someone to understand them, to accept them, and to be their friend.  Today, loneliness is a reality for countless numbers of people.  In February 2019, “Psychology Today” printed a story under the title, “Loneliness: A New Epidemic in the USA.”  Written by, Dr. Frank John Ninivaggi, M.D., F.A.P.A., an Associate Attending physician at the Yale-New Haven Hospital, an Assistant Clinical Professor of Child Psychiatry at the Yale University School of Medicine Child Study Center in New Haven, Connecticut and the Psychiatric Director of the Devereux-Glenholme School in Washington, Connecticut, the article points out that “The newest epidemic in America now affects up to 47% of adults.  Of 20,000 U.S. adults ages 18 and older surveyed, half report feeling alone (40%) or left out (47%). One in four (27%) feel they are not understood. Two in five (43%) feel relations are not meaningful and they feel isolated (43%). Generation Z (those born after about 1995) was found to be the loneliest generation. 

You and I may not have known the numbers released in the article, but we already knew about the widespread reality called, loneliness.  You may be one listed somewhere in the above statistics.  

Into this reality Jesus comes to bring mercy and grace.  In Him we have someone who really gets us.  He understands our story and comes to us as a great high priest who brings compassion and empathy into us, and speaks the loving companionship of God to us.  He invites us into a community of people who have their own stories of life, and in whom God is living and helping them rewrite their story.

So it is that Hebrews calls us to “draw near with confidence to the throne of grace” (Heb. 4:16).  God is not here to write us off but to open us up to marvelous wonders of amazing grace.  He is not outside somewhere telling us to get better but, rather, within us, to wrap His arms around us and draw us into wonderful, abundant, and eternal life.  

What is your story?  Will you dare open it up to God in fresh new ways and allow Jesus to bring truth and love and healing and renewal into you?  Give Him your story, whatever it is.  Loneliness.  Disenfranchisement.  Frustration.  Sin.  Anger.  

Are you tired of chasing pretty rainbows?  

Are you tired of spinning round and round?  

Wrap up all the shattered dreams of your life;

Give them all…Give them all to Jesus.  

Shattered dreams, wounded hearts, broken toys. 

Give them all…Give them all to Jesus,  

And he will turn your sorrows into joy.

(Bob Benson, Sr., Phil Johnson, 1975, Dimension Music)

Lent, Day 5: GETTING AND STAYING HONEST

Psalm 32

Undealt with sin is a killer.  So, David begins the heartfelt poem of Psalm 32 with these words, “How blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered! How bless is the man to whom the Lord does not impute iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no deceit” (vs. 1-2).  Inner honesty and the intentional owning of one’s life, is perhaps the most freeing acts a human being can make.  To hide and cover up and make excuses, destroys the human heart, and takes away the joy of life.

David prayed, “I acknowledged my sin to You, and my iniquity I did not hide; I said, ‘I will confess my transgressions to the LORD;’ and you forgave the guilt of my sin” (vs. 5).  Until David did this courageous thing he said, “my body wasted away through my groaning all day long” (vs. 3).  Sin just isn’t worth it.  Inner dishonesty just isn’t worth it.  Hiding from truth just isn’t worth it.  

The joy of sins confessed and the forgiveness that comes with it led King David to say,  to those who would read his poem, “I will instruct you and teach you in the way which you should go; I will counsel you with my eye upon you” (vs 8).  The Message paraphrase of this verse reads, “Let me give you some good advice; I’m looking you in the eye and giving it to you straight.”  I suppose once you’ve experience the freedom that comes in getting real with God and yourself, you just have to share it and not hold back.  “I’m giving it to you straight,” said David.  

In the season of Lent, we are called to get real before God.  Honestly, we should get real with God everyday of our lives, but once in a while we just need to slow down, take our pulse and make sure that things between God and us, are okay.  It’s like that annual physical checkup.  It most likely will reveal that things are okay, and that you just need to keep doing what you’re doing to take care of yourself.  Occasionally, however, the doctor will tell you that the checkup is revealing something you need to do differently, in order to be in your best condition.  Sometimes it will start you on a journey that will call for a change in eating habits, or a call to lose a little weight, and maybe even point you in the direction of a necessary surgical procedure.  Checkups are a good thing.

Lent shows us that God is calling to us on behalf of His best will and interest for us.  To this, David says, “he who trusts in the Lord, lovingkindness shall surround him” (vs. 10).  God is for us.  He won’t force us, but He is for us.  So, David concludes, “Be glad in the Lord and rejoice, you righteous ones; and shout for joy, all you who are upright in heart” (vs. 11).

As you journey to Good Friday and Easter, remember God is for you.  He wants the best for you.  You have no better cheerleader than God.  Gratefully take His grace and live.

First Sunday in Lent: WHEN THE ENEMY IS ON YOUR CASE

Matthew 4:1-11

Our text today has Jesus heading out to the desert “to be tempted by the devil’ (vs. 1).  A part of that desert for Jesus was fasting for “forty days and forty nights” (vs. 2). Afterwards, when we expect it most, He became hungry, and with the hunger He faced a certain vulnerability.  It was here the devil showed up to strike a decisive blow to his enemy, God.  He struck, and he struck hard, but he wasn’t quite prepared for the way Jesus would respond to him.

Three times, the enemy stuck hard at Jesus.  In essence, the three temptations spoke to the issues of the need to be relevant, the need to be spectacular, and the need to be powerful.”  These three words, “relevant…spectacular…powerful” are words Henri Nouwen uses in his book titled, In the Name of Jesus, and they really envelop the story of our lives.  

How we want to be relevant.  When the enemy tempted Jesus it was for him to turn stones into bread.  This act would show the world how relevant He was, and how this act would be world changing, and establish Jesus as the talk of the town.  

How we want to be spectacular. Here, the enemy tempted Jesus to throw Himself down from the pinnacle of the temple, knowing that the Father would command His angels to come down and prevent a catastrophe.  This action would wow the world, and impress it with a mindboggling miracle.

How we want to be powerful.  Here the enemy tempted Jesus to compromise His relationship with the Father by worshiping the devil.  In exchange, the enemy said that he would give Jesus all the kingdoms of the world, along with all their glory.  This action would place the world at Jesus’ feet, and he would be ruler over all the planet.

Jesus did not buy into the promises of the enemy at all.  It was fake news, and Jesus tuned it all around on the enemy.  In essence, Jesus said that He didn’t come to be relevant, spectacular, or powerful.  He came to do the will of His Father, to live as one in the created order, to model the life of God, to suffer, to die, and to be raised up from the grave.  

Later, in His teachings Jesus said to His disciples, “follow Me” (Matthew 4:19).  He did not call them or us to be relevant, spectacular, or powerful.  He calls us to be faithful, to be humble, to turn our lives over to God, so that God can be God in our lives.  On Good Friday, Jesus will go the distance in refuting the false claims of the enemy.  On Easter, Jesus will reveal to the world that when God is allowed to be God, resurrection authority is let loose in people, and the deepest needs of the human heart are fully met.

Amen!

Lent, Day 4: BECOMING LIKE CHILDREN

Matthew 18:1-7

In today’s reading we come face to face with a foundational issue of faith.  Jesus calls His people to “become like children.”  That’s a hard thought for adults to think.  After all, we spent eighteen years trying to go out of being like a child. Now Jesus is calling us back.   What are we to make of this?  It might be more of a challenge than we think.

A child in the ancient world was a person without status or rights, and completely dependent on the generosity and guidance of others to care for him or her.  The first hearers of Jesus’ statement would know exactly what Jesus was saying.  When it comes to faith, we must be “converted,” and turn away from our self-dependency and self-sufficiency.  That’s a tough one for adults.  Yet, Jesus drives it into our hearts when he says, “unless…you become like children, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven.”

Then Jesus defines what he means.  He calls us to humility. He calls us to voluntarily let go our pride of self-sufficiency and independence, and to come within the embrace of God so that God might be the ultimate provider for our lives.  Maybe this is what Jesus meant when He taught us to pray, “Your kingdom come.  Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven” (Matthew 6:10).  

For what kingdom do we live, ours or the Father’s?  I would suggest that for most of us, this might be a place of battle.  We want the Father’s will but we want our own will, too. We want to follow Jesus but becoming like a child; that’s a little much.

Lent is a good time to quiet our hearts before God, clear our minds, and admit that many times we want to be the one who calls the shots.  In fact, if we’re really honest, at times it is difficult to know how to follow Jesus.  When should we be like a child that can’t act unless the parent gives permission, or like an adult whose been around awhile and knows the ropes.  

Perhaps, Jesus is simply calling us to bring our lives under the umbrella of His redemption, and live under His Lordship.  God has given us gifts and talents and skills that are best utilized when one is within the embrace of God’s amazing grace.  Perhaps,  Jesus is calling us to bring all that we are and lay everything on the altar, and let everything we have and are, belong to God.  Maybe our prayer and our lives should reflect this wonderful prayer from John Wesley,

I am no longer my own, but yours. Put me to what you will, Rank me with whom you will;  Put me to doing, put me to suffering. Let me be employed by you, or laid aside by you, exalted by you or brought low by you. Let me be full, let me be empty. Let me have all things, let me have nothing. I freely and heartily yield all things to your pleasure and disposal…. Amen.

Lent, Day 3: LETTING GOD BE GOD

Psalm 51:10-19

King David’s prayer was that God would be God in his life. When he awoke to his un-Godlikeness, it was an awakening that drove him into the very heart of God, and caused him to hunger for more and more of God in his life.  He prayed, “Do not cast me away from Your presence and do not take your Holy Spirit from me” (vs. 11).  He meant it.  He came clean before God and wanted to stay clean before God.  He had tasted forgiveness, and he would never turn back.

As we journey to Good Friday and the Resurrection, may we, on the one hand, never forget from whence we come, and on the other hand, never forget the glorious taste of forgiveness.  For David it meant praying, “Create in me a clean heart…and renew a steadfast spirit within me” (vs. 10).  As A. W. Tozer prayed, “O God, I have tasted Thy goodness, and it has both satisfied me and made me thirsty for more.” 

Isn’t this the way of grace?  It satisfies and yet makes one hungry for more of God.  It satisfies so fully that a person wants to go as far with God as one can go.  Here is another song from my childhood.

Marvelous grace of our loving Lord, 

Grace that exceeds our sin and our guilt! 

Yonder on Calvary’s mount outpoured, 

There where the blood of the Lamb was spilt. 

Grace, grace, God’s grace, 

Grace that will pardon and cleanse within; 

Grace, grace, God’s grace, 

Grace that is greater than all our sin!  

                   Julia Harriette Johnston (1910)

With a grace and mercy that is difficult to comprehend, God reached out to me one day and flat-out changed my life.  I didn’t deserve it, I didn’t earn it, and it caught me totally off guard. He took my brokenness, sin, shame, fears, and nailed them to the cross.  That’s why I sing even at this late date in my life,

Marvelous grace of our loving Lord, 

Grace that exceeds my sin and my guilt! 

Yonder on Calvary’s mount outpoured, 

There where the blood of the Lamb was spilt.

David didn’t understand these things in his time, but in HIS time, God has made them known.  Please, please, take the grace, and let God be God in you.

Lent, Day 2: THE INNERMOST BEING

Psalm 51:1-9

It takes a person of character to admit weakness, failure, and shortcomings. We just don’t want to confess to anything that might show weakness.  Nevertheless, King David of Israel did just that.  He seem to know himself, and not to hide behind the visible.  So, he prayed, “Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin” (vs. 3).  He confessed, “I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me…I have sinned and done what is evil in your sight...” (vs. 3-4). He prayed, “Purify me…and I shall be clean; wash me and I shall be whiter than snow…” (vs. 7).

It is quite a sight, seeing a king admit to this kind of humanity and human weakness.  King David, wasn’t an ordinary king, however.  Yes, he had his weaknesses and shortcomings and failures but he would not hide behind some sort of veneer that would serve as a cover up for his broken interior life.  

Psalm 51 was a prayer David prayed after he was confronted about his sin with Bathsheba.  When confronted, he didn’t hide or spin it some way.  He owned it.  David told Nathan, the man who confronted him about his sin, “I have sinned against the Lord” (2 Samuel 12:13). At this point, David took to his knees, admitted to his sinful act and the condition of his heart.  He opened up his life to God and prayed, “Blot out all my iniquities” (vs. 9).  

Years later, as recorded in John 8:31-32 Jesus would say to some Jewish folks who had come to believe in him, “If you continue in My word, then you are truly disciples of Mine; and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.”  Perhaps this is thrust of it all – knowing the truth by continuing in the living Word of God.  

None of us is perfect.  I certainly am not.  We have all sinned and fall short of the glory of God (see Romans 3:23).  That’s not the issue.  The issue is what we will do when the reality of sin is made known it us.  Will we deny the truth and run from it or will we own the truth, embrace it, and come to be free because of the grace that is found in the truth of God?

Once I was bound by sin’s galling fetters, 
Chained like a slave, I struggled in vain; 

But I received a glorious freedom, 
When Jesus broke my fetters in twain.

Glorious freedom, wonderful freedom, 
No more in chains of sin I repine!

Jesus the glorious Emancipator, 
Now and forever He shall be mine.

--  Haldor Lillenas, 1917

Glorious freedom.  May we daily seek the face of God in prayer that He will show us our true selves, and in this may we be reminded, time and time again, that Jesus is the Glorious Emancipator.

A Devotional For Ash Wednesday -- "REPAIRERS"

Isaiah 58:1-12

In a broken world, the people of God are not to be a part of the problem but, rather, the presence of God’s righteousness in the world.  When we are not the presence of God’s righteousness in the world, then we are not who we say we are.

Ancient Israel had all the trappings of spirituality, but they were far from the heart of God.  They had fallen so far that they used their religion as an excuse for justifying their disconnection from the realities of the people around and in their midst.  They had their worship but they virtually had no respect for people around them.  They even had their discipline of fasting but had no heart of the people around them.  God called their condition, “transgression…and…sins” (vs. 1).  They went through the motions of seeking God, but they had no “righteousness” (vs. 2).  In fact, God says, “They had forsaken the ordinances of their God” (vs. 2).  They asked God for His blessings on them, but did nothing indicating that God was their first love.

And, now I ask myself.  Is God my first love?  Am I a part of the problem in the world or perhaps one who lives as a “repairer of the breach” (vs. 12).  How seriously do I give myself to feed the hungry, to give shelter to the homeless, to clothe the naked, and “to loosen the bonds of wickedness, to undo the hands of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and “break every yoke” (vs. 6-7)?

Jesus said to His disciples then and now, “You are the salt of the earth…You are the light of the world” (Matt. 5:13-16).  When many people were walking away from Jesus, the apostle Peter said to Him, “You have words of eternal life. We have believed and have come to know that You are the Holy One of God” (John 6:68-69).  After Pentecost, Peter and the disciples picked up the call of Jesus, took it seriously, and changed a world.  

In 1762, Charles Wesley wrote a song a part of which has these words.  They have become a prayer for me.  

To serve the present age, 

My calling to fulfill: 

Oh, may it all my pow’rs engage 

To do my Master’s will!

Isn’t it true that faith is not something we simply hold dear?  Faith is something we do.  If we believe it, we will act on it.  If God is our first love, we will act on it.  We will live and conduct our very lives in that first love.  We will be a presence of God’s righteousness in the world.  We may not be perfect but until the day of our death we will seek to live for our God.

Go today, and seek to be a repairer.

GOD IN THE PRESENT TENSE

Introduction To This Lenten Devotional Series

Growing up in the San Joaquin valley of central California, I saw the hard and underappreciated work of the migrant worker.  It did not surprise me, when out of the shadows came a spokesman who sought to set things right.  His name was Cesar Chavez (1927-1993). Many of the people were poor migrant workers who had little or no voice in how they were treated. Chavez’s tireless efforts on their behalf improved working conditions for thousands. After his death, he became an icon for the Latino community.  To this day he is either loved or hated, depending upon your audience.  I always felt he simply wanted fair wages and working conditions.  To that end, when he prayed what came to be called the “Prayer of the farm workers’ struggle,” it resonated in my heart.  Here is that prayer.

Show me the suffering of the most miserable; So I will know my people's plight. Free me to pray for others; For you are present in every person. Help me to take responsibility for my own life; So that I can be free at last.Give me honesty and patience; So that I can work with other workers. Bring forth song and celebration; So that the Spirit will be alive among us.Let the Spirit flourish and grow; So that we will never tire of the struggle. Let us remember those who have died for justice; For they have given us life. Help us love even those who hate us; So we can change the world.  Amen

The Christian’s season of Lent draws me back to this prayer, and the call of God to be a voice for the voiceless, and an advocate for the poor.  It draws me back to a season of introspection and self-examination, seeking to be open and receptive to the call of God for His people to reflect the mind and spirit of Jesus.  It calls me to pray another prayer as I seek the face of God, 

Investigate my life, O God,    find out everything about me; Cross-examine and test me,Cross-examine and test me,    get a clear picture of what I’m about; See for yourself whether I’ve done anything wrong—See for yourself whether I’ve done anything wrong—    then guide me on the road to eternal life.  (Psalm 139:23-24, MSG).

I am praying that as you and I journey through the Lenten season on our pilgrimage to Good Friday, and Easter Sunday morning, we shall let the Holy Spirit work His work in us.  May God cleanse away anything that is not of Christ in us, and may we be open to be led down the “road to eternal life.”

May God help us not to be shaped and molded by the culture around us, but shaped and molded by the very life of God who, in Jesus, “Emptied Himself of all but love, and bled for Adam’s helpless race” (Charles Wesley, 1738). 

AN UNSOLICITED TESTIMONY

They called it Super Bowl LIV (54), and the world stopped for a few hours and watched a football game.   The number 54 means more to me, though.  It was 54 years ago today that I preached my first sermon (February 6, 1966).  I was 17 years old, terrified, and didn’t know if I could go through with it.  The Holy Spirit helped me, though, and the congregation didn’t fall apart.  It turned out to be a very good Sunday.

February 6, 1966 was one of a few life transforming moments in my life.  It was this event that helped me realize that maybe the call I felt in my heart was really real.  It catapulted me forward to go to college and to learn all I could learn about life and Scripture and God.  I’m still learning even at this late date in my life.

I am not a multi-gifted man.  I am a very ordinary man, called into a mission I do not deserve.  Years ago, I read words that have been helpful to me.  The sage simply said, “God does not call the qualified. He qualifies the called.”  Over the years I have not felt qualified; just the opposite, in fact.  I’ve always felt that I was the least qualified person in any meeting of pastors I attended.  I still do, to this day.

I’m so glad, though, that years ago Jesus whispered into my ear, “Get over it. It’s not about you. I called you.  I will qualify you.  I will use you as I will. Trust me. I’ve got this.”  And what a ride it has been.

Today, I just want to thank my God for His love, for His faithfulness, and for His strength.  I believe the words of the Psalmist to be true, “He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will abide in the shadow of the Almighty” (Psalm 91:1). 

I don’t know how much time I have left, but I want to use it to the glory of God.  I’m sure you do, too.  I love the chorus of Steve Green’s song, “Find Us Faithful.”  He writes,

Oh may all who come behind us find us faithful

May the fire of our devotion light their way

May the footprints that we leave

Lead them to believe

And the lives we live inspire them to obey.

I love the words of Deuteronomy 31:6, Joshua 1:5, and Hebrews 13:5, where God says, “I will never desert you, nor will I ever forsake you…”. I say, “Amen.”

Forward still, fellow Believers.  Forward still.

SAYING YES TO GOD'S YES

Well into my seventies now, I am reminded of God’s wonderful grace to my life.  I am a very ordinary man filled with an extraordinary God, the Living God, who has come to all of us in the person of Jesus.

This last decade has been difficult for me, with two bouts of cancer, radiation (which has destroyed my salivary glands)  and chemo-therapy treatments, the removal of a large portion of the roof of my mouth, the removal of most of the teeth in my mouth (making it incredibly difficult to eat), arthritis in both shoulders and my lower back, and an aggressive development of peripheral neuropathy in both feet and legs.  Physically, I am a mess.

All of these issues have attacked my energy and stamina.  In it all, however, I have come face to face with the grace of God in the person of Jesus.  His strength is my strength, and I am filled with a peace that envelops me daily.

Now, don’t get me wrong.  I am not thrilled about my health status.  This is not what I am saying at all.  I am saying, however, that God’s grace in me is shaping how I take what has been given to me, and is allowing it all to be taken up within the embrace of grace.  The pain and discomfort are real, but they are taken not as an end but, rather, as an open door to what God is doing at this late date in my life. 

I am not abandoned.  I am not discarded.  I am not rejected.  I am received.  I am embraced.  I matter in God’s scheme of things.

The cross has taken my story and swept it up into the story of Jesus.  Jesus said, “Come to me.”  I come, I keep coming, and Jesus keeps giving me His rest.  I rest in His rest.  I have peace in His peace.  I have joy in His joy.  By His stripes I am healed, and in Him, regardless of the status of my body, I am whole.

May I take this a step or two further?  For the past decade life has thrown a lot of pain, frustrations and stress at me.  Yet, God has been greater than anything life has spoken into my life. 

The Bible convinces me that God’s Yes is greater than any no life might speak.  The Yes of God is a Sovereign, holy, and all-powerful Yes, rooted in His sacrificial self-giving in Jesus, a self-giving that required the power of God to raise Jesus from the dead.  God is not a reluctant tyrant demanding His pound of flesh but who, if we plead hard enough will relent and give grace.  God takes the initiative.  “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life” (John 3:16).  This is not reluctance.  This is grace; unmerited, lavished, and life transforming grace.  

It is a remarkable reality to live within the grace of God’s Sovereign Yes.  When Paul used this word Yes, he spoke of God’s heart behind the grace.  In Romans 8:31, Paul speaks of how God is for His people, and says, “If God is for us, who is against us?”  It is absolutely amazing to know that “God is for us.”  To know this is to change the trajectory of one’s life.  It simply changes everything.

The God who raised Jesus from the dead stands with His people.  When Jesus spoke of the Holy Spirit He spoke of how He comes alongside His people.  He comes into their story, not to condemn (see Rom. 8:1) but to embrace.  This is the way of God.  His word to us is Yes, an ultimate Yes, that, when received, stamps our lives with the resurrection of power of God to embrace our lives and to live in the victory provided by Jesus is His life, death, and resurrection.

Almost daily, I am tempted away from this way of being.  Pressures, health, decisions, complications, pain, life.  These all have a way about them of coming between the Savior and me.  I am so very grateful, however, that the Savior’s Yes in me is simply too strong to allow things to take me down.  St Paul’s question daily comes back to me, “Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?” (Romans 8:35).  Then He answers his own question with God’s overwhelming and Sovereign Yes in Jesus, 

In all these things we overwhelmingly conquer through Him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.  (Romans 8:37-39)

You and I are not made for defeat.  We are made for victory in the victory that is Jesus.  In John 16:33 Jesus says, “In the world you have tribulation, but take courage;  I have overcome the world.”  So, His word is “take courage.”  Take courage in his overcoming.  Take courage in His victory.  Take courage in His life.  

In Jesus God is saying one huge, dynamic, and Sovereign Yes, and this Yes is our Immanuel - God with us.  May God help you and me to take His lavished grace, and live within the embrace of God, “who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us” (Ephesians 3:20).

EPIPHANY

Epiphany is day on the Christian calendar when the Church celebrates the manifestation of the birth of Christ to the Gentiles as represented by the Magi (Matthew 2:1–12).  This day officially ends the Advent/Christmas season, and sets the church onto the road which leads to the cross and resurrection of Jesus.  

This is a huge day in the Church, so important that the apostle Paul saw himself as a preacher to the Gentiles.  Christianity would not remain in the Israel.  It would burst out of Jerusalem, into Judea, Samaria, and even to the very ends of the earth.  Jesus’ invitation was to “all who are weary and heaven-laden” (Matthew 11:28).  His promise was, “I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly” (John 10:10).

The invitation is for you and me to come within the embrace of God who is reaching out to us and inviting us into relationship with Him.  We are not alone.  God is with us.  Jesus is Lord.  The very life of God has come within history and invited us to live in His life.  

Our song is, 

Just as I am, without one plea 

but that Thy blood was shed for me, 

And that Thou bidd’st me come to Thee,  

O Lamb of God, I come! I come! 

-- Charlotte Elliott, 1834 

Jesus invites us into the very life of God.  In Him, our lives are covered by amazing grace, amazing love, and amazing mercy. 

I think about what all this means to me and I remember the words of the wonderful chorus by Gloria and Bill Gaither,

Something beautiful, something good;

All my confusion He understood. 

All I had to offer Him was brokenness and strife,

But He made something beautiful of my life.

I am a Gentile to whom God has reached out, with redemption in His heart, and redeemed.  Who would have thought it?  Who would have dreamed it?  Who could have imagined it?  

Join with me, take what God is offering, and live in the abundant life of Christ.