Americans and Our Stuff

"Possession is nine-tenths of the problem" (Dr. Winston O'Boogie, aka John Lennon)

I agree with my son who, when linking to this piece from becoming minimalist over on Facebook, said that the greatest threat to Americans, spiritually and in every other way, is our materialism.

In 21 Surprising Statistics That Reveal How Much Stuff We Actually Own, Joshua Becker catalogs some bracing facts, some that really might surprise or even shock you.

A sampling:

1. There are 300,000 items in the average American home (LA Times). [I worked for an inventory service when I was in college, counting by hand, items in grocery, discount, drug, and hardware stores from Columbus to Portsmouth, Lancaster to Nelsonville. It was tedious. But I have a feeling that counting items with the same techniques we used before the advent of bar codes and scanners would be more daunting in my own condo than counting the merchandise in those stores was.]

5. The United States has upward of 50,000 storage facilities, more than five times the number of Starbucks. Currently, there is 7.3 square feet of self storage space for every man, woman and child in the nation. Thus, it is physically possible that every American could stand—all at the same time—under the total canopy of self storage roofing (SSA). [I find myself chuckling almost every time I see the signs for self-storage facilities, imagining people walking into the units to store themselves overnight.]

7. 3.1% of the world’s children live in America, but they own 40% of the toys consumed globally (UCLA). [No mention is made here of how many children spend hours playing with the boxes in which their toys have been packaged.]

15. Americans donate 1.9% of their income to charitable causes (NCCS/IRS). While 6 billion people worldwide live on less than $13,000/year (National Geographic). [We ignore Jesus' words, I think, to our own eternal peril: "From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked" (Luke 12:48).]

19. Over the course of our lifetime, we will spend a total of 3,680 hours or 153 days searching for misplaced items.The research found we lose up to nine items every day—or 198,743 in a lifetime. Phones, keys, sunglasses, and paperwork top the list (The Daily Mail). [I threw this one in because I so identify with it. It's frustrating, but it really is one indicator of having too much stuff, I suppose.]

Becker writes:

The numbers paint a jarring picture of excessive consumption and unnecessary accumulation. Fortunately, the solution is not difficult. The invitation to own less is an invitation to freedom, intentionality, and passion.* And it can be discovered at your nearest drop-off center.

I think that he's right. In the past few years, I've been flushing lots of my possessions, taking some to places like Goodwill, Volunteers of America, and Salvation Army, while taking books and some recordings to Half Price Books, more for the privilege of divestiture than for money, because Half Price doesn't hand out a lot of that. I've also enjoyed giving a lot of my classic vinyl records from the 60s, 70s, and 80s, to my kids.

Possessions and all that goes with them can hold us down. My seminary professor and mentor, Pastor Bruce Schein, used to tell us to never have so much or be so rooted in a place that we weren't ready to move on a day's notice. Schein was warning us, in part, against identifying our lives too much by our stuff, houses, neighborhoods, and such.

This wasn't just advice of practical expedience for future pastors. For all of us, being so tied to what we own that we're not able to respond to what God may be calling us to do at any given time can destroy our eternal souls.

Jesus once told a man, "Follow Me." The man evidently was drawn to Jesus, but said in reply: "Lord, first let me go and bury my father” (Luke 9:59-60). What's interesting about this exchange is that we don't know if the man's father was dead, or even sick, yet. The man was tied to a place, to a way of life, maybe to his stuff, and so, asked if he could hold off following Jesus for a while.

The man was looking for the right time. But the right time to follow Jesus is now, no matter how inconvenient or hard as it can be to do so.

I do often wonder these days whether the times I've left one place to go to another was really done at the prompting of the Holy Spirit. (I'm serving the fourth church I've pastored in thirty-two years.)A recent unexpected encounter at the Cincinnati airport with members of the second church I served has only added to questioning my motives for moving to the next church.

For all my uncertainty on that score though, I am sure that the unwillingness to move when Jesus says, "Follow" is wrong and often prompted mostly by both our natural difficulty with change and our revulsion at the prospect of moving our stuff.** Sometimes, we have reason to wonder, I think, if we own our stuff or if our stuff owns us.

And that is precisely the issue Jesus confronts the disciples (both first- and twenty-first century varieties) with when He says: "...it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God" (Matthew 19:24).

There's nothing inherently wrong with wealth. Nothing intrinsically evil about stuff.

But they both present a strong challenge to our souls in that they can become the means by which we identify ourselves and the definition we put on what it means to live.

Possessions allow us to insulate ourselves from the realities that most people in the world for most of history have had to deal with, to, in a sense, become gods unto ourselves. All of our stuff makes it harder for the truth about human sin (our sin), our need of God, and our accountability to God and to our neighbor, to penetrate our minds, consciences, and wills.

Jesus once told a rich man who earnestly sought Jesus out that in order to be free--in order to grasp the outstretched hand of God that offers to change us from God's enemies to God's friends for eternity--he needed to sell all his possessions, give to the poor, and follow Jesus.

Had Jesus been approached by a poor man, He likely wouldn't have given the same prescription. To be sure, Jesus still would have told the poor man to follow Him, whether that meant hitting the road or following Jesus right where he already lived. But, it's likely that the poor man would have other things of which his soul and his life would need divesting in order to allow him to take hold of Jesus.

But, as a member of the US middle class, I do stew about the power of stuff over my life and I stew about the power of materialism over our culture.

Materialism is a belief system, a religion that worships a false idol whose only desire is to appeal to our human egos and love of creature comforts.

As such, it drives a wedge between the God/Man Jesus Who came to save us from our sins--from our desire to "be like God" which materialism represents--and us, between life with God and us, between authenticity and us, and between eternity and us.

I think it's time for me to repent (again) of my materialism, to follow Jesus, and to clean out my closet for a trip to the local thrift store.

*I notice, with satisfaction, that Becker uses the Oxford comma.

**I wrote a song about the challenge of living with the possibility of God calling us away from places where we've grown comfortable and happy, especially with the friends we've made. It starts out:

Feeling fine
Drinking wine
Spending time with my friends
Love exchanged
Evil tamed
I thought it would never end
But when you're talking with the Holy Spirit
He may give you a call and you'd better hear it
Following Jesus is a Jenga game
He's going to tear down your bricks
You won't be the same

(c) 2016, Mark Daniels

[Blogger Mark Daniels is the pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church, Centerville, Ohio.]

The Tracks of My Tears by Smokey Robinson and the Miracles

Here's a really old one. But it's a beautiful piece. I love Robinson's voice.



"I'm just a clown, ooo-yeah, since you put me down
"My smile is my make-up I wear since my break-up with you"

Angst, baby, angst.

Let go of sins...no matter how accustomed you've grown to them

Jesus went to Galilee preaching the Message of God: “Time’s up! God’s kingdom is here. Change your life and believe the Message.” (Mark 1:14-15, The Message)

If you [God] kept a record of our sins,
    who could escape being condemned?  
But you forgive us,
    so that we should stand in awe of you. (Psalm 130:3-4) (Good News Translation)

God's promise is clear: Whoever calls on the Lord, now revealed definitively not just to Jews but to all people everywhere through Jesus Christ, will be saved (Joel 2:32; Acts 2:21; Romans 10:13).

Let Christ conquer your sins, your errors in judgment, the hurt you've caused others and yourself, the ways you've failed to love God and others. Let Christ conquer you!

Apologize to those you've hurt. Make right what you can. (See here.) But do it all in the freedom of one who has given unconditional surrender to Christ and lives in the freedom of being God's child now and in eternity.

Today, turn from sin and turn to Christ, entrusting your life to Him.

Then do it again tomorrow.

And the next day.

For the rest of your earthly life.

You'll make mistakes. But, as you keep turning from sin and turn to Christ, your mistakes...your sins, won't master you.

Christ will master them for you.

You'll be learning to live in Christ and you'll know the truth of God's Word: "Anyone who is joined to Christ is a new being; the old is gone, the new has come" (2 Corinthians 5:17).

Yay, God!

[Blogger Mark Daniels is the pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church, Centerville, Ohio.]

Food for though from Rushdie

Novelist Sir Salman Rushdie, you'll remember, was the subject of a fatwa, essentially a death sentence, by the Ayatollah Khomeini, supreme leader of Iran, for a novel many Muslims deemed critical of Islam.

(Thanks to Depraved Wretch, over on Facebook, for sharing this.)

Is this the optimal road trip across the Lower 48?

Highly geeky article. I'm not sure that I would identify a lot of these places as the landmarks of their states.

You can also optimize a trip in Europe, the author says.

It's neat, clear, and helpful

I was taught to use the Oxford comma. So, I have that bias. But I also think it gives clarity to a sentence containing lists.

Apparently, I'm not the only one. There's even going to be a debate about the Oxford comma this coming Friday.

Inheritance from a Father's Heart

Galatians 3:23-4:7
Several days ago, an article in The New York Times reported that Romans, chapter 1, in the New Testament of the Bible, calls for the execution of gays. Of course, this isn’t true.

I got upset. I even thought about writing a blog post or an email to The Times.

But as I reflected, I realized that reporting like this stems less from an anti-Christian bias in the media than from a larger society that is incurious about God, believes all religion is murderous, and thinks that all religions believe essentially the same things.

I told myself not to bellyache, because when I do that, I’m not doing what Jesus commissioned all believers to do: make disciples.

Our call as Jesus’ disciples isn’t to score debating points or vent our grievances.

Our call is to present the Gospel--the good news--of new life for all who turn from sin and believe in Jesus.

We’re to use our lives to help people to understand that Romans 1 does not call for the murder of gays; that all religions are not the same; and that while some people have perverted Christian faith through the years, it is not the same as Buddhism, Hinduism, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Mormonism, Islam, the daily horoscope, or other religious systems.

Christian faith is about Jesus and Jesus, true God and true human, is different from anyone else who has ever walked on this earth.

Besides, we all have to remember that there are many who call themselves Christians just as ignorant of what it means to follow Jesus Christ as the most committed atheists. And I recognize that I myself can be ignorant and incurious about my faith in Jesus.

Let’s be clear though: Christian faith isn’t about what you know; it’s about who you know, the God revealed to all the world in the crucified and risen Jesus.

Knowing Jesus Christ is the defining passion of people committed to being His disciples.

Philippians 3:10-11 expresses this: “I want to know Christ—yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, attaining to the resurrection from the dead.”

As we get to know Jesus better and follow Him more closely, the Holy Spirit works faith in us and God changes us. We start to see things as Jesus sees them, see people as Jesus sees people, and share Jesus’ goal of saving our neighbors from sin, death, and hell, just as Jesus is saving us from these things.

Our lives begin to testify to the fact that God doesn’t want us to kill gays or anybody else.

The God we know in Jesus wants us to proclaim the same life-giving message of repentance for sin and faith in Christ that has saved us by grace through faith in Christ.

No flinching on calling sin sin.

No withholding of the good news that Jesus died and rose to make sinners into saints.

No good works required, just surrender to Jesus.

The good works and the changed lives won’t come from our trying to be good people, but from God transforming believers from bad people willing to be changed into Jesus people. Only Christianity proclaims this truth.

It’s a truth of which we need to be constantly reminded. Paul found that as early as 49 AD, first-generation Christians needed the same reminding.

Today is the fourth part of our series on the New Testament book of Galatians, Freedom in Christ.

Remember that shortly after Paul founded the churches in Galatia and the Holy Spirit had won Gentiles--non- Jews--to faith in the crucified and risen Jesus, some people we today call Judaizers came to them and said that Good Friday and Easter Sunday were wonderful, but that if they really wanted to be saved, they had to fulfill all the Old Testament dietary, ritual, sacrificial, and civil laws that Jesus said He already fulfilled when He died on the cross.

But this raises the question, what to do with all of those Old Testament laws? Were they all wrong? Paul tackles these questions in our second lesson, Galatians 3:23-4:7.

Please take a look at the start of the lesson. Paul begins with a history of the human race before the coming of Jesus: “Before the coming of this faith, we were held in custody under the law, locked up until the faith that was to come would be revealed. So the law was our guardian until Christ came that we might be justified by faith. Now that this faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian.”

Before it was possible to believe in the crucified and risen Jesus, Paul is saying, the whole human race was held in check by God’s law. Even people who had never heard of God’s law, which the Bible says, is written on every human heart [Romans 2:15].

C.S. Lewis explains this well in Mere Christianity where he says that while some cultures may say that you should only have one wife and others says you can have many, the moral code of no culture says that you can have your neighbor’s wife. And while different cultures may have different ideas of what constitutes murder, no culture says that murder is OK. Who taught us that these were the right values? No one needs to be taught God’s law; though we can’t keep it, we know it from birth.

And this law, Paul says, had an important role before Jesus came into this world. He says that before Jesus, the law was our guardian. That word, in the original Greek, is paidagogos, or pedagogue, a word that more literally means leader of a child.

In the first-century Roman world, a pedagogue was a household slave whose job it was to oversee the life and upbringing of wealthy men’s children. The pedagogue was there to keep the heirs safe and out of trouble, to preserve and prepare them for adulthood and their inheritance.

That, Paul says, was like the function of God’s law written on every heart and given to Israel through Moses.

The law paints a picture of what the kingdom of God would be like for all who turned from sin and had faith in Jesus. It would be a kingdom without idolatry, murder, lying, adultery, sexual promiscuity, or false witness, a kingdom of selflessness and love.

Once we trust in Jesus, we no longer need a pedagogue. We’re grown-ups who have claimed our inheritance in Jesus. By faith in Christ, we live in the kingdom of God.

No more anticipation; just participation!

When our children were growing up, we often prayed with them. Today, they pray for themselves, not because mom and dad expect it of them, but because as grown-ups, they believe in Jesus for themselves. We taught them about Jesus and, in a sense, we made them pray, worship, go to Catechism. We were God’s pedagogues. We were the Law. But then our children reached a point when they asked themselves, “Do I want life with Jesus?” By faith, they grasped the inheritance of life with Jesus that we pointed them to when we made them pray, worship, and go to Catechism.

So, Paul is saying, following Jesus isn’t about adding another item to your to-do list. It’s about taking your rightful inheritance through faith in Christ.

So, Paul says in Galatians 3:26-29: “...in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.”

Paul goes on to write: “What I am saying is that as long as an heir is underage, he is no different from a slave, although he owns the whole estate. The heir is subject to guardians and trustees [the pedagogues] until the time set by his father. So also, when we were underage, we were in slavery under the elemental spiritual forces of the world. But when the set time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those under the law, that we might receive adoption to sonship. Because you are his sons [Paul deliberately uses this term because in the ancient world, only sons of the rich inherited the estate of the father. Through faith in Jesus, everyone who believes in Jesus--Jew, Gentile, slave, free, male, female--hold the position of sons, inheritors of life with God. Paul then says:], God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, ‘Abba, Father.’ So you are no longer a slave, but God’s child; and since you are his child, God has made you also an heir.”

These are important words. They show that after Jesus, everything has changed!

In only a handful of verses in the Old Testament, God is called Father.

In popular Jewish culture, God was never called Father; it was deemed far too intimate a term for the Creator of the universe and the Giver of the Law.

But when Jesus taught His disciples, including you and me, how to pray, He taught us to refer to God as our Father.

Paul says that when we are able to approach God in this way, seeing Him as our Dad (a rough translation of the Aramaic word for father, abba, that Jesus uses in the Lord’s Prayer), the Holy Spirit bears witness that we no longer live under the constraints of God’s Law, His guardian, but are heirs set free from sin, death, and darkness.

When I was growing up, my father, though he only stood about 5'-8" tall, seemed like a giant to me. I was also a little frightened of him. When mom told me to do something, I might slack off. But when dad gave me an order, I hopped to. And though today, I think I might be able to take him, when he wants me to do something, I still hop to. But my motivation is different now. Back then, as a child, I obeyed my father because he was the law. Today though, as a grown-up, I obey his wishes because I'm grateful for all that he has done for me, for loving me.

A similar transformation in our relationship with our heavenly Father happens after we come to believe in Jesus Christ. Now, when we obey God’s Law, it isn’t to keep the guardian off our backs; it’s to express love and thanksgiving to the Father Who, through Jesus, has made us free to live as God’s grown and grateful children.

Nothing has changed in God’s Law. But it operates differently in our lives, as a guide to those who want to show love to God for Jesus.

Years ago, one of my sisters and I were talking on the phone. She was upset. A relative had told her that because she wasn’t tithing, giving the first 10% of her income to the work of Christ's Church in the world, she was going to hell. “What do you say?” she wondered.

"Think of John 3:16," I told her. "Jesus doesn’t say that God so loved the world that He gave His only Son so that all who believe in Him and tithe will be saved." It says that God so loved the world that all who believe in Him will be saved.

To be sure, God’s Law will call the person saved by God’s grace in Christ to tithe. And also to love God and love neighbor, to be kind to those hated by others, to keep sexual intimacy within the bounds of marriage between a man and woman, to make disciples, to refrain from covetousness and stealing, and to keep God’s other commands.

Gratitude for grace will incite us to desire the things God desires.

But we aren’t called to be God’s enforcers in the world.

And we certainly can’t perform our way into His forgiving grace.

All we can do is repent and trust in Jesus, which really just means to surrender to grace, to trust Jesus with our past, present, and future. That’s where freedom happens.

So, believers in Jesus, live in that freedom!
[This was shared with the people and guests of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio, during worship earlier today.]

[Blogger Mark Daniels is the pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church, Centerville, Ohio.]

The Other Side of Me by Michael W. Smith

Catchafire (Whoopsi-Daisy) by TobyMac

Every Breaking Wave by U2

A Certain Softness by Paul McCartney

Call Me Back Again by Paul McCartney and Wings

Between You and Me by DCTalk

This came up on the shuffle during a recent drive. A great tune!



"I've been wrestling with my conscience
"And I found myself to blame
"If there's to be any resolution
"I've got to peel my pride away"

After the Orlando killings, may we please weep together?

As a Lutheran Christian, I want to affirm this call by a Baptist Christian, Russell Moore, to all Christian congregations in the United States.

Our task as congregations or the Church at large is not to offer specific policy prescriptions in the face of another shooting tragedy, another instance of radical Islamic-based terrorism, though each of us as Christians committed to the Lord's call to be good citizens, may have our own individual opinions.

Above all, our tasks as Church boil down to a few:

• to pray, 
• to weep with the grieving,
• to proclaim the truth about God revealed in Jesus Christ and the whole Bible which witnesses to Jesus, and
• to make disciples for Jesus Christ.

The following paragraphs from the linked article are gold.

"Let’s call our congregations to pray together. Let’s realize that, in this case, our gay and lesbian neighbors are likely quite scared. Who wouldn’t be? Demonstrate the sacrificial love of Jesus to them. We don’t have to agree on the meaning of marriage and sexuality to love one another and to see the murderous sin of terrorism. Let’s also pray for our leaders who have challenging decisions to make in the midst of crisis. Let’s mobilize our congregations and others to give blood for the victims. Let’s call for governing authorities to do their primary duty of keeping its people safe from evildoers.

"And let’s bear patiently with those who jump the gun, in arguing about the politics on social media. For many of them, the jump to talk about gun control or Islam or military preparedness or any other issue isn’t so much about pontificating as it is about frustration. They, like all of us, want this horror to end, and they want to do something—even if that’s just expressing themselves on Twitter.

"As the Body of Christ, though, we can love and serve and weep and mourn. And we can remind ourselves and our neighbors that this is not the way it is supposed to be. We mourn, but we mourn in the hope of a kingdom where blood is not shed and where bullets never fly."

Read the whole thing.

[Thanks to Philip Daniels and Jeff Schultz for sharing a link to this important article over on Facebook.]

Jesus, the Only Path to Freedom

Galatians 2:15-21, 3:10-24
Imagine for a moment that you’re driving to a big meeting in another state. You rent a car and are running ahead of schedule, breezing down the Interstate when, suddenly, traffic slows to a creep. You check Wayzer and it tells you that the freeway will have you creeping for a little while, but that in less than a mile, you should have smooth sailing. Suddenly though, everything stops.

As I say, you’re ahead of schedule. But you don’t like waiting! You remember that about three-tenths of a mile ahead, there’s an off-ramp, that can lead you on a back way to your destination. It will take longer than you’d planned. But you’ll be moving. You hate how out of control you feel when waiting in traffic jams.

You tear down the road on the berm and get to the exit ramp. You feel like you’re in charge of your trip again!

But as you speed down the two-lane country road, you look back to see that a hoist has moved the cause of the traffic jam out of the way and traffic on the Interstate is flowing again. “That’s okay,” you think to yourself...until you get about twenty miles down the road and see a sign: “One Lane Traffic Next 30 Miles.” And at the end of that stretch: “Detour, 5 Miles Ahead.” Your decision makes you over an hour late for your meeting.*

Our second lesson, Galatians 2:15-21, 3:10-14, has been described as “dense” by one New Testament scholar. I feel a bit dense when I read it!

But if we read it carefully, we see that God is telling us through the apostle Paul, who wrote these words back in about 49 AD, to not be impatient with God’s way of saving us through Christ, to not try to take control of our own lives after Christ has set us free to live--really live--in the freedom of God’s kingdom.

A brief reminder: Paul had founded the churches in Galatia. It had come as good news to this mostly non-Jewish (or Gentile) congregation that Jesus Christ saves from sin, death, and pointless existence all who turn from sin and trust that by the victory over death Jesus won when He died on the cross in our places, we have life with God and purpose that extends even beyond death! (It's good news for us, too, no matter how immune we may have become to it, the best news you'll hear this week or in your life!)

But shortly after Paul left, a group of people scholars call Judaizers came along and said, as I mentioned a few weeks ago, “What Jesus did on the cross and from the empty tomb is very cool. But if you really want to be saved for eternity, you need to obey Jewish ritual law.”

In other words, they were telling these new Christians that they really weren’t saved by God’s grace through their faith in Christ. That they needed to be good Jews in order to be saved.

The Judaizers were telling the Galatians that it didn’t matter if the apostles had taught them that Jesus was, in His own words, “the way and the truth and the life” and that no one comes to God except through faith in Him, they had a way that Jews had been using for centuries that, the Judaizers were sure, would make them righteous apart from Jesus.

They totally disregarded the power of the death of Jesus, morally perfect God in the flesh, taking our punishment for sin so that, after God the Father raised Jesus, He could give all who turn from sin and believe in Jesus His righteousness, His freedom from sin, death, and futility!

Paul must have felt a bit like I did on the rainy day after Ann and I had laid down zoyzsia grass in our lawn in Cincinnati and looked out to see a neighborhood kid rapidly pulling out clump after clump of the soggy sod and throwing it at a friend in fun. The freeing good news that Paul brought to the Galatians directly from Jesus Christ was being uprooted by preachers who thought that they knew better. The faith and future growth in faith of these newly minted Christians was being threatened by the allure of an off-ramp to hell.

We could spend hours on how Paul responds. We only have minutes. So, let’s take a look at just three points in this lesson from 30,000-feet, diving into a verse here and there.

The first thing Paul says that no one is made right with God (or made righteous) by keeping God’s law or by being a good person.

How often do we hear at funeral visitations, for example, “He has to be with God because he was such a good person”?

That’s wrong way thinking!

As Paul writes in Galatians 3:10-11 of our lesson: “...all who rely on the works of the law are under a curse, as it is written: ‘Cursed is everyone who does not continue to do everything written in the Book of the Law.’ [That’s Deuteronomy 27:26 that Paul quotes there. Then he says, quoting Habakkuk 2:4;] Clearly no one who relies on the law is justified before God, because ‘the righteous will live by faith.’”

For centuries, Paul’s fellow Jews and, earlier, Paul himself, had thought that by doing good works, they were setting themselves free for life with God. And the fact is that there was nothing wrong with the law God gave His people through Moses. There was nothing wrong with the Jews' often ritualized obedience of those laws. As we stand on this side of Jesus, we no longer need the ritual/sacrificial law, but there's still nothing wrong with God's moral law--stated succinctly in the Ten Commandments.

The problem was that many of Paul's fellow Jews obeyed God's laws to the letter not because they were grateful for God's grace, but because they thought that by being good, God would be obligated to take them into His kingdom.

The truth was that by relying on their good works, they were really enslaving themselves to a system that ranked their worthiness in the eyes of God on their performance and they were moving away from God. They thought that they were in control.

Faith accepts that we aren’t in control and that, left to our own devices, we completely go the wrong way.

The second thing I want to surface from these words in Galatians is that we can only be made righteous by faith in the perfect Savior Jesus Who died in our place on the cross.

God’s law can’t save me.

But when I look at its demand that I love God totally, love my neighbor with the same passion with which I love myself, that I worship only God, that I not steal, gossip, covet, commit adultery, or use God’s name in vain, even when I only do these things within the imagination of my mind, I realize that I am a sinner in need of a Savior.

Christ makes right with God those who see their own sin and that Christ is the only way out of the eternal death my sin has earned us.

Paul writes in Galatians 2:19-20: “...through the law I died to the law so that I might live for God. I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”

The third and final thing I want to emphasize is this: Watch out for the plausible sounding detour.

In our little scenario at the beginning, taking the delay-ridden back way seemed like the right thing. It made you feel good, made you feel that you were in charge. But it didn’t work out so well.

This is a lesson for us when it comes to life with God. If we think that we can rely on our goodness to save us from sin and death, to give our lives meaning and purpose, we are tragically and fatally mistaken!

“There is a way that appears to be right, but in the end it leads to death,” the Proverbs tell us more than once.

When, from the perspective of our sin-tinged reasoning, we think that we can make ourselves good enough to get by with God, we are definitely taking a wrong turn.

Think of it: The fact of the matter is that God only accepts people who are totally, completely, purely morally perfect into His kingdom. And God doesn’t grade on a curve. People who think that God will hear their prayers or use them in fulfilling ways because they’re nice guys are disappointed.

We would be in heap of trouble, eternally lost to God, eternally condemned in our sins, if it weren’t for one important fact. Paul puts it this way in Romans 5:6: “...at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly.”

When we trust in Jesus Christ and follow Him through this life, God makes us right with Himself. Jesus is the right road to follow.

At the end of our lesson, Paul summarizes this truth. Galatians 3:13-14: “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written: ‘Cursed is everyone who is hung on a pole.’ [That’s Deuteronomy 21:23. Then:] He redeemed us in order that the blessing given to Abraham might come to the Gentiles through Christ Jesus, so that by faith we might receive the promise of the Spirit.”

The true heirs of Abraham and Sarah aren’t people who do good works, because all our good works done to impress God or other people are worthless.

The true heirs of Abraham and Sarah, the true children of God, are those who know that it’s only through faith in Christ that our lives are set on the right path, today and always.

*This little "thought experiment" was inspired by a personal story recounted by N.T. Wright in his commentary on Galatians. He used the story to make an entirely different point about the section of this lesson from Galatians 2. I love Wright!

[Blogger Mark Daniels is the pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church, Centerville, Ohio.]

Set free

See here.

Tuscany

toscana pic.twitter.com/yy8tWaXeGO

— ILoveItaly (@I__Love__Italy) June 12, 2016

How to Grow Up Big and Strong by Rich Mullins

This powerful indictment of the human impulse to vanquish and dominate others appeared on the late Rich Mullins' 1993 classic, A Liturgy, a Legacy, and a Ragamuffin Band.

It's hard to imagine such a courageous and overtly Christian critique of humanity's penchant for making wars, whether in neighborhoods, households, or among nations, being recorded by too many Christian recording artists today. Too often today's Christian contemporary artists bleed the reality out of their tunes, removing the Gospel's scandalous call for total surrender to and simple trust in Christ.

The Gospel--the good news of new and everlasting life for all who believe in Jesus with their whole lives--frees us from the lie of self-sufficiency that the devil has been telling us to take us away from a relationship with God, and so to eternally kill us off, since back in the Garden of Eden.

And it puts the lie to all notions that living like the Rock's or Vin Diesel's onscreen personas is anything other than a big, fat lie ending in death, eternal separation from God and others.

The kingdom of God brought to all who dare to surrender to Jesus belongs only to those with childlike trust in Christ. In it, the least in this world become the greatest and the greatest in this world are the least.

To be big and strong in Christ's kingdom, here now as much as in eternity, is to gain the strength given only to those honest enough to know that without Christ, we can't do any good thing, but that with Christ, we can do all things: from poverty to wealth and back to poverty again, from lowliness to fame and back to lowliness.

Wars may sometimes be necessary to protect others from the aggressive who think that preying on others make them "big and strong." (World War II comes to mind.)

But most human conflicts, at least at the interpersonal level anyway, would disappear if we would realize that God in human flesh, who led a sinless, perfect life, dying for a sinner like me, means I've got nothing to prove by being big and strong. Christ already proved our worth when He died on the cross you and I should have taken.

Still, we teach our kids to look out for number one, forgetting to tell them that Christ has done and is doing all the looking out we'll ever need if we'll just surrender.

Enjoy this amazing song, which sounds like it could have been recorded yesterday.

(In fact, I would love to hear people like Peter Furler, Steve Taylor, Lecrae, Andy Mineo, and U2 cover it today!)

[Blogger Mark Daniels is the pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church, Centerville, Ohio.]



Here are the lyrics, as provided by GooglePlayer:

Strong man strangle universe
He drown the stars
Blinded by the mission of a thousand wars
He fit and dominant
Not wonder why
He heed the battle cry

Strong man is survivor
He live to pound
Little wooden crosses in the bloody ground
He fit and dominant
He stand a chance
He not bound to circumstance

And the world keep on turning
And the sun keep on burning
And the children keep learning
How to grow up big and strong
How to grow up big and strong

Strong man take no prisoner
Favor no plea
He leave no gold in teeth of enemy
He fit and dominant
He rise above
He not have the word that mean love

And the world keep on turning
And the sun keep on burning
And the children keep learning
How to grow up big and strong
How to grow up big and strong

Strong man beat the plowshare
He forges sword
He take the flower and he curse the thorn
He crush the serpent
He bite the fruit
His hand is absolute

And the world keep on turning
And the sun keep on burning
And the children keep learning
How to grow up big and strong
How to grow up big and strong
How to grow up big and strong
How to grow up big and strong
How to grow up big and strong

Lutherans and making the sign of the cross

In The Small Catechism, Martin Luther suggested that Lutherans make the sign of the cross both in the mornings and the evenings when we pray.

Doing so helps us to invoke the names of the triune God of all creation--Father, Son, and Holy Spirit--over our waking and our sleeping.

It also helps us to remember the covenant God made with us at our baptism. This is a huge comfort to me as when, Luther says elsewhere, the devil makes me doubt that Christ really has covered my sins. Under those circumstances, I can shout to my doubts and that old liar, the devil, as Luther did, "But I am baptized!" This reminds me to trust in the God Who sent Jesus to keep claiming me as His own as I turn from sin and entrust my life to Jesus! No matter how I feel at any given moment, I can trust that the Lord Jesus to Whom I cling for life is working for my good and is good for His promise of eternal life for all who believe in Him!

I like this little step-by-step illustration of how to make the sign of the cross from a blog called Pastoral Meanderings. (I love how 1940s the illustrations are! It reminds me of some of the pictures that were in The Boy Scout Handbook back when I was in Scouts.)

There are a surprising number of variations on how Christians cross themselves, though. So, if you don't do it exactly as it's illustrated here, it's no biggie. And your salvation won't go out the window if you don't cross yourself, of course. But, for the reasons listed above, it can be meaningful.

After making the sign of the cross, I always touch my heart three times, again "in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit," expressing my love for God, doing so after I receive Christ's body and blood in Holy Communion. (Or, on those rare occasions when I'm blessed to be in the congregation worshiping as someone else leads the service.)

What, exactly, is marriage for? And why be married?

Genesis 2:18-24
In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.

Marriage is a covenant involving three parties: God, a man, and a woman.

Covenant is a word we don’t use very often these days, but from the standpoint of Scripture, it’s a word that means a relationship backed by commitments. In marriage, those commitments come from God and from the man and the woman.

Like the covenant that God makes with us in Holy Baptism, when He adopts us as His children and pledges to never give up on us, the commitment made by God to those who marry in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, is ironclad.

The promise that God made through Moses to His covenant people in Deuteronomy 31:6, is the promise that He makes to you today, Ben and Jill, as you enter a marriage covenant with God today: “Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or terrified...for the Lord your God goes with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you.”

The problem, of course, is that while God is always reliable, we human beings can be less than that.

We sometimes fudge on our commitments.

Or become less than diligent in keeping them.

Or we take each other for granted.

Or we look for escape hatches.

Or one partner tries to be "in charge."

Or we turn our marriages into boxing matches.

Because of the humanity of the men and women in marriage covenants, many people, including Christians, have given up on marriage altogether.

Why did God create marriage?

And why should you enter your own marriage, Ben and Jill, with anticipation?

A clue in answering those questions, I think, can be found in Genesis 2:18-24. There, we’re told about how God created the first woman and the first marriage. Verse 18 says: “Then the Lord God said, ‘It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.’”

We were made for relationships and for intimate relationships.

The Bible says that we were made in the image of a triune God, one God in three persons, Who for all eternity has lived in a relationship of intimacy and mutual self-sacrifice, of mutual care.

God knows that thinking, feeling beings need relationships with other thinking, feeling beings.

That’s why God made us: So that His overabundant love could give us life and so that we could know and be known by God.

But God also knows that we aren’t spirits. We’re flesh and blood. It helps us to remember that God is there and that God loves us, that God forgives the repentant, that God gives new life to those who die to themselves--taking up their crosses and pouring themselves out for others, when God brings us other human beings to love and be loved in a relationship of enduring commitment, a covenant with another human being who is both like us and different at the same time.

God made marriage to be a foretaste of the pure and eternal relationship we will enjoy with Him and with all who repent and believe in Jesus Christ beyond the gates of death. In that sense, good, Christian marriages can be a kind of preview of coming attractions!

We can see all of this in the last part of Genesis 2:18. God says of Adam: “I will make him a helper fit for him.” Some people look at that noun, helper, and think that it means assistant. But the word in the original Hebrew means not only someone who helps, but also one who brings succor, comfort, encouragement, who builds another up, who nurtures.

And the word translated as fit for means corresponding to.

Husband and wife, these two people made in God’s image, are designed then to fit hand in glove and encourage, comfort, and nurture one another as they seek to be all that two people who seek to follow Jesus Christ can be.

Wife and husband are meant to use their gifts, talents, and abilities to lovingly help and challenge each other to grow as confident, humble disciples of Jesus Christ.*

No wonder that, if I dare to mention him here in this Presbyterian sanctuary, Martin Luther called every family built on this covenant involving God, a woman, and a man, “a little church.”

Jill and Ben, I have been so impressed by the two of you as we have met together and talked about your marriage covenant. (Though I confess, I don't quite get the whole Justin Bieber thing.)

As you enter into that covenant today, I pray that you will seek the power of God’s Holy Spirit every day to be exactly what Christ is calling you to do on this day: helpers fit for each other, partners made in the image of God, committed to being and helping one another to give glory to the One Who gave You life and the One Who gives you new and everlasting life through Jesus Christ.

Pray for and with each other.

Be there for each other.

Lift each other up.

Offer one another constructive criticism.

Honor God.

Share Christ with each other and with the world.

And keep following Christ!

God bless you both!

[Blogger Mark Daniels is the pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church, Centerville, Ohio.]

[This was shared during the joyously Christian wedding of Ben and Jill at First Presbyterian Church in Lancaster, Ohio, earlier today.]

*It's heartbreaking to see how many supposedly Christian marriages are marred by partners who are discouraging, belittling, or bullying toward their spouses. Men and women are equally prone to such behaviors, the ultimate reason being our inborn human desire to "be like God," pursued without regard to the will of God.

It only takes one such spouse breaking the marriage covenant's commitment to mutual servanthood, forgiveness, love, and accountability to to undermine a marriage.

Repentance and renewal from God through Jesus Christ, the acknowledgement of one's own faults and need for forgiveness from God and from one's spouse is the fundamental daily step, along with the habits of life mentioned near the end of this message, to keep the marriage covenant alive.

A marriage in which spouses pray together in humility and authenticity is fundamental for maintaining the covenant relationship among its three partners--God, a woman, and a man--alive.

Say I Won't by Lecrae, featuring Andy Mineo

Another one I can't get out of my mind.

Magnet and Steel by Walter Egan

I hadn't listened to music all day long, when this evening, out of the blue, this song from the 70s came to mind.

I never owned the record and don't remember liking it all that much. It's sort of cornball and, lyricially, is based on one flimsy little metaphor.

But listening to it a couple of times this evening, I've concluded that I sorta like it: The song of a guy who realizes that he's beginning to fall in love with and, to his surprise, trust a particular woman.

Ever a fan of harmonies, I also like the background vocals.

The simple guitar solo in the middle is Beatley, as in the instrumental version of This Boy featured in Ringo's walkabout scene in A Hard Day's Night.

Magnet and Steel was produced by Lindsay Buckingham, of Fleetwood Mac fame. Stevie Nicks, also of Fleetwood Mac, is on the background vocals.

Fun

Dedicated to Woof.

“@tinastullracing: “@alawine: "A #bike rack every #wine lover should own!" pic.twitter.com/JqaHzyRxVQ #picoftheday” MT Upcycling or sidewinding?

— Jan M Davies (@JanMDavies) January 8, 2015

The God Who Wants to Give More...If We'll Let Him

I try to start my days in quiet time with God, using the stop, look, listen, respond format taught to me by my Navigators coach, Bill Mowry. I explain this way of spending time with God and listening to His Word here.

On one recent morning, I spent time hearing what God had to tell me in Ephesians 2:6-10. Below, nearly verbatim, is what I journaled on the passage. I hope that it helps you as much as it helped me. On this particular morning, I felt drawn to use the English Standard Version (ESV) translation of the Bible.

Look: God raised up all who trust in Jesus and "seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus." (Ephesians 2:6-7)

This blows me away! God showed us grace and kindness in Christ, we're told, so that He can show us more of His grace and kindness, given in Christ, "in the coming ages."

We who are saved by grace through faith in Christ, have an eternity of grace and favor yet to experience, not because of our good works (Ephesians 2:9)--so bragging is out--but because of our grace-showering God!

What is there left for us to do--if we don't have to work to prove ourselves and can't brag about our status as children of God, which is God's gift to us for trusting God's grace and kindness in forgiving and making us new through Christ?

Just this: To walk in the new life and the good works that Christ has created for us to do. He even has those all planned out. All we do is "walk in them" by following Him. (Ephesians 2:9-10)

Listen: This is what I sensed God telling me, individually.

"No more performance stuff, Mark! Your performances always come up shy when you depend on yourself.

"And no more taking My grace for granted. You always veer off into sin and away from Me when you do that. Focus on Me. I saved you. I'm saving you. You can't do one thing to make yourself save-able, salvageable. You're only save-worthy by the mercies of My grace given to those who turn from sin and trust in My Son Jesus.

"Put down your dukes. Repent--truly repent--for your sins. Let Me love you. Let Me direct you. Follow Me and I will shower you with grace and kindness. And you'll know that grace and kindness whatever the world may think of you, no matter how fat or slim your wallet may be, no matter how healthy or unhealthy you get to be. And if you keep following Me, you'll know that grace and kindness in greater and greater measure in eternally."

Wow!

Respond: What can I say, Lord, except today, help me to dare to follow You. In Jesus' name I pray. Amen

[Blogger Mark Daniels is the pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church, Centerville, Ohio.]

From Centerville's Memorial Day Ceremonies Last Monday

These two photos were sent to me by the city of Centerville. I was honored to deliver the Invocation during the city's 2016 Memorial Day ceremonies. The event was a meaningful way to remember those who have fallen while in the military service of the United States.

The invocation prayer I offered is here.

[Blogger Mark Daniels is the pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church, Centerville, Ohio.]

God's Plan for Churches and Pastors

Ephesians 4:11-15
It’s often said, rightly I think, that we learn more from our failures than we do from our successes.

Today, with Philip and Amy, and with you, the people of Saint Peter Lutheran Church, I want to share with you what I have learned from what may be the biggest failure of my nearly 32 years of pastoral ministry.

It’s a failure I have really only lately begun to see clearly, even though it should have been obvious to me and I should have addressed it a long time ago.

I can only ask God to forgive me for my past blindness and pray that you, Philip, and you, the people Saint Peter, will be spared having to fail yourselves to learn this lesson.

It’s a lesson which, if we will only be open to it, God gives to us repeatedly in His Word.

Let me bore you with a little background. Ann, Philip, and I went to our first parish in northwest Ohio when Phil was one day shy of his third birthday. I was nearly thirty-one, a newly certified and minted pastor and raring to go.

Within two months, our second child, Sarah, was born. At the time of Sarah's birth, our church had eleven people in hospitals scattered in an arc from Fort Wayne, Indiana up into Ann Arbor, Michigan. For people who aren’t from Texas, that’s a lot of territory. I visited all eleven people three times in five days!

But I was bound to prove myself. I wouldn’t have articulated it in this way, but I was going to be Super Pastor. Preacher on the spot. I was everywhere, doing everything. I decided that I would do the church’s ministry.

You know, a pastor can get a lot of compliments when they do everything. And I was getting them.

But within a few months, as I was visiting the parishioner of another congregation whose pastor asked me to drop by for a visit and prayer, I became ill and was rushed from the cardiac care unit where I was visiting, and sent to the hospital ER.

It turned out to be a stress reaction. My body was revolting against my ego.

Now, I don’t tell that story to prompt Phil to avoid stress or to advise the congregation to take it easy on my son. Doctors tell us that a certain amount of stress is good for us. They call it eustress and it prompts us to do our best, using all of the gifts God has given to us to God’s glory.

What I am saying is that my stress reaction was caused in large part by the fact that I was so bent on being Super Pastor that I neglected fulfilling the actual call God had given to me as a pastor, a minister of Word and Sacrament.

That was my failure. And it’s one that, to greater and lesser degrees, I have replicated more than a few times through the years.

What makes it such an epic fail is that by playing at Super Pastor, I was denying the whole congregation the opportunity to do the things that Christ might have been calling them to do. I thought I was doing the work of God. But really, I was so insecure about being a pastor, that I pulled out all the stops to prove myself to people, not to glorify God.

Now, we all know about do-nothing pastors. They think that justification by grace through faith in Christ is God’s license to sit around and do nothing. They practice a cheap grace and reason that since God loves them, they can do and not do whatever they please.

As I’ve told you many times, Philip, anyone who has been called to be a leader gains credibility as a leader as they make deposits of service, love, work, and faithfulness. The call to pastoral leadership is from Christ. Whether God makes our call to serve a congregation all that’s intended to be depends on whether we earn credibility from our deposits of service, love, work, and faithfulness, into the life of the community and the congregation we serve.

My mistake as a new pastor is that I was flailingly busy without thinking about what my true call from God was. I was missing the mark and the people I led, impressed though they may have been, were not being led as God intended for me to lead them.

Philip, don’t make this mistake.

Saint Peter, don’t let Philip drift into this mistake.

If you want this congregation to be all that God intends for it to be and if you want the partnership between congregation and pastor into which Philip is officially installed today to be what God wants, you must clearly understand your calls as pastor and congregation.

Our lesson from Ephesians 4:11-15 helps us to see what our calls as pastors and congregations are.

Please look at verse 11: “And he [that is, Christ Himself] gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds [the word in the original Greek here is ποιμένας and we translate it as pastors]...”

Christ has established this office of pastor. Christ has made you a pastor of His Church, Philip. Christ has given you a pastor, people of Saint Peter. For those who think that Christ is long ago and far away, the calling of a pastor who personally trusts in Christ and views the Bible as the living Word of God by a congregation that has the same beliefs, is proof that Christ is very alive and at work!

And He will keep being at work in their life and work as congregation and pastor if they understand what Christ has called them to do. Take a look at verse 12, please: “[Christ gave pastors] to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ…”

Your mission as pastor of Saint Peter Lutheran Church, Philip, is to equip the people to be the Church.

That means empowering them, living alongside of them, teaching them, training them, and inspiring them to do the ministry.

It doesn’t mean that you’re to be the minister.

It means, to paraphrase the Augsburg Confession, that basic statement of Lutheran Christian belief, rightly teaching, preaching, and living the Gospel, the Word of God, and rightly administering the sacraments, Holy Baptism and Holy Communion.

The Church doesn’t need Super Pastors.

Christ doesn’t call anyone to be a Super Pastor.

Christ has called you, Philip, to work as a servant leader, teacher, preacher, comforter of the bereaved and the sick, and trainer so that the whole congregation can do ministry.

A strong tenet of Lutheran belief revolves around the priesthood of all believers explained in 1 Peter 2:9. Speaking to all Christians--laypeople and pastors, Peter says: “...you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.”

The whole Church--laypeople and pastors--is called to tell the world about and to live out its faith in Jesus.

And your call, Philip, isn’t to do the ministries that God has called and empowered the people of your congregation to do, but to equip them, first by being a model, to do those ministries.

Our lesson from Ephesians then tells us what the goal of this equipping is.

Verse 13: “until we all [congregations and pastors] attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes. Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ…”

Do you all remember the sense of accomplishment, maybe relief, you felt the first time you rode a bike without training wheels or tied your shoes?

Or graduated from the sixth grade, then high school, maybe college, even grad school?

Or on your first day of a paid, honest-to-goodness W2-worthy job?

Or when you got a raise or promotion?

Beyond the money or the compliments that come from meeting such milestones, there is a deep-down sense of fulfillment that comes from them all. They make us feel like we’re growing up, like we're moving forward.

It’s a fundamental truth of life that we’re either growing or we’re dying; there’s no middle ground.

No responsible father keeps tying his kid’s shoe when the kid is thirty-five.

No good mom takes her daughter’s tests or fills in for her at work.

Super Parents like these would rob their kids of growth and fulfillment.

Just so, God wants us to grow in our faith into the fullness of Christ, living, in Luther’s phrase, as little Christs: people who love God and others passionately, people who can help others know Jesus as the way, the truth, and the life, and people who, by the power of the Holy Spirit, can help others know the Word of God and apply it.

Your call, Philip, isn’t to be the token Christian who does all of this.

Your call is to multiply the impact the crucified and risen Jesus can have on every life by equipping the people of Saint Peter and yourself to “grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ…”

If you focus on that, I promise that you’ll have more than enough work to do!

You’ll forgo having everyone think of you as Super Pastor. But you will sense God telling you, “Well done, good and faithful servant.”

And people of Saint Peter, if you will allow yourself to be equipped for the life of ministry to which every believer in Jesus is called, you will know the joy and the fulfillment of living in sync with God, of growing up and knowing more of His blessings, and, most importantly, knowing Jesus Christ Himself.

Saint Peter, Amy, and Philip, I pray God’s blessings as you take your journey of faith in Christ together.

[This was shared during the installation of Philip Daniels as pastor of Saint Peter Lutheran Church in Walburg, Texas.]

[Blogger Mark Daniels is the pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church, Centerville, Ohio.]

My Love by Paul McCartney and Wings

What an amazing voice he had. It got better with age, I think, peaking in about 1989, when he turned 47. This performance occurred in 1973.

The James Paul McCartney TV special from which this comes, was aired in support not only of Macca's James Bond theme song, Live and Let Die, but also of his LP, Red Rose Speedway.

The LP, which included My Love, was sort of meh, although McCartney's capacity for conjuring up infectious melodies was apparent. The album sold well, but was panned by critics.

The next year, 1974, he would release an album for the ages, Band on the Run.

My Love is a stunningly beautiful ballad, one of the first to feature a slow power rock guitar solo, one that is less inhibited on the LP than the one here.

This Never Happened Before by Paul McCartney

Only Our Hearts by Paul McCartney

Ignore the somewhat misquoted lyrics and just listen.

Only One by James Taylor

Eternal Life is a Relationship with Christ Now

"...the life associated with the kingdom of God [that Jesus died and rose to establish] is not just a benefit when you die. It exists now. The only definition of eternal life that Christ gave is relational, as described in John 17:3: 'Now this is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.' Eternal life involves discipleship here on Earth--knowing Christ and following Him." (Ron Barnett, Intentional Disciplemaking)

"Thy will be done" isn't an easy way of life.

But...

...it's part of growing up as a Christian. (I accept this...some of the time.)

Presser Questions of Cincy Zoo Director Seem All Wrong

Thane Maynard, the director of the Cincinnati Zoo, has been subjected to a grilling during a press conference dealing with the events at the zoo yesterday.

One cable network trailed a headline beneath Maynard, as they carried the event live: "Zoo Director Takes Questions on Decision to Take Life of Gorilla."

It feels like some in the media are in persecution mode with this story.

Maynard, who has hosted a radio spot called 'The 90 Second Naturalist' on public radio for years, has an obvious love for the animal world and has served as director of the Cincinnati Zoo, one of the best such institutions in the world, for a long time. The zoo has an impeccable record for keeping safe all those who come to see and learn about the animal world, as well as for giving proper care and respect to its animals.

But Maynard was peppered with endless questions that seemed to impugn the integrity and the record of both the zoo and himself. He endured it patiently, which, of course, he needed to do. Otherwise, he would be susceptible to charges of cover-up and obfuscation. It still seems like over-the-top treatment of a man and a zoo with well-earned reputations.

Some questions are needed, of course.

But the whole approach of the media to this story, as evidenced by the treatment given to Maynard, seems wrong to me. The necessity of taking the gorilla's life is obvious. The fact that this is an accident for which the zoo bears no blame is clear too. Maynard and the handlers at the zoo should be applauded for the decision they made to end the gorilla's life, not treated as suspects in a murder investigation.

Shouldn't that headline have been something more like: "Zoo Director Takes Questions on Decision to Save Child's Life"?

I think so.

[By the way, the web site of Cincinnati's channel 12, placed the story of Maynard's press conference under the headline: "WATCH: Full press conference on child falling into zoo's gorilla enclosure." That seems more like it.]

[Blogger Mark Daniels is the pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church, Centerville, Ohio.]

[UPDATE: A commenter on my thoughts over on Facebook opined that 90% of the world's problems could be attributable to the media. This was my response:

"I don't blame the media for 90% of the world's problems...I know many responsible journalists and I enjoy the good work of many journalists. In fact, by and large, I admire the media: They're how I get informed about what's going on in the world.

"But I do think that the media often reflects the values of our society. Many people blame the zoo for what happened yesterday and the herd mentality takes hold among people at press conferences competing to ask the most provocative question."]

Memorial Day Prayer

This is the prayer offered as an Invocation at the Memorial Day Services held at Stubbs Park in Centerville, Ohio, earlier today.

Father in heaven, on this day of remembrance, we offer thanks for those who have given their lives in military service to our country. You know how easily we forget the good done to us in our lives and how readily we trivialize days like Memorial Day. We get caught up with things like ball games, picnics, and holiday sales, and soon the true reason this day has been set aside is forgotten. Help us, God, to never forget, to always remember, that the promise of America has been secured by the sacrifices of people like those we memorialize today. Grant that, in remembrance of fallen heroes, we will live lives that bring You, that bring them, and that bring our country, honor. In Jesus’ name. Amen

[Blogger Mark Daniels is the pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church, Centerville, Ohio.]

Puerto Rico's Resurgent Food Industry

Here.

Don't be misled by The Guardian's headline. The term "born again" references agricultural resurgence in Puerto Rico.

When I was in San Juan last November, I had an amazing gluten-free (and organic) lunch at an open air market. The proprietor grew vegetables organically.

Are You Free?

Galatians 1:1-12
Freedom...Liberty.

These are words that get thrown around a lot on national holiday weekends like Memorial Day, when we honor those who have died in defense of our country. They get thrown around a lot during political campaigns too.

Ask the average American about the meaning of freedom or liberty and they might say something, “Freedom means doing or being whatever I want to do or be.”

But the Christian understanding is very different from the idea that freedom is doing whatever I want to do.

And the reason it's so different is this: If I am born in slavery to sin, then every action that comes from “doing whatever I want to do,” will be born not of any freedom I have, but from my slavery to sin.

Even my most altruistic actions can be tinged by thoughts like “I’m really a good person,” or “What’s in it for me?,” or “I scratch your back, you scratch mine.”

In other words, people who do whatever they want to do may not be free at all.

Don't believe me?

Ask the drug addict, or the alcoholic, or the person addicted to gambling, food, or pornography, when they're being honest, if they’re really free.

At a moment of weakeness and truth-telling, ask the person who steals, gossips, or commits adultery of their actions were born of a free will or if, instead, they're not born of a will that “is in bondage to sin” and cannot free itself.

I feel blessed and thankful to live in the United States of America. But even if I’m able to exercise every single freedom guaranteed by our system of government, I still won’t be free in the eyes of God or from the perspective of Christ. Even if I’m free to do anything I want to do, my actions will be dictated by sin.

And, as we all know, “the wages of sin is death” [Romans 6:23].

So, freedom doesn’t mean doing what we want. To we human beings, Proverbs 16:25 says, “there is a way that appears to be right, but in the end it leads to death.”

And freedom doesn’t mean doing what we feel like doing. The worst advice we can give someone is to follow their heart. “The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?” Jeremiah 17:9 reminds us.

Defining freedom as doing what we want to do is a dead end that leads us away from God, away from life, away from eternity, away from true kinship with other people. It leads to destruction, the devil, and to hell.

But there’s another definition of freedom.

It’s real freedom.

It’s not the freedom to do what the sin that shackles us tells us to do.

It’s the freedom that belongs to those who are moving toward becoming the people that our Creator made us to be.

In the Old Testament, King David confesses to God: “...you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb...My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place...Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.” [Psalm 139:13-17]

The God Who made us can set us free to be all we were made to be because, as our Maker, He knows exactly all that we can be.

This is freedom.

I once heard the true story of a man who used the freedom that many American citizens enjoy. He leveraged his intelligence, training, contacts, and mental, emotional, and physical stamina to become hugely successful. He had a large business in Michigan. On the way to his success, he lost his wife, his kids, and his soul. He was throwing a business-related party at the building from which he ruled his empire. “When you look at all of this,” a guest said to him, “you must feel proud.” “Actually,” the man replied in a rare moment of honesty, “when I look at all of this, it makes me sick.”

Some people might say that that man had lived in complete freedom--no bosses, no accountability, nothing to tie him down. It’s pretty clear when you read God’s Word that that wouldn’t be God’s assessment. Nor, apparently was it the ultimate assessment of that successful man.

The New Testament book of Galatians, which we’ll be delving into over the next few weeks is all about the freedom God can give to us, the freedom to be all that we were made to be. Galatians calls this “freedom in Christ.”

And it’s as relevant today as it was when Saint Paul first wrote the book to Christians in Galatia in about 49 AD. Most experts think that Galatia was a region in part of what we today call Turkey. Paul had founded churches in this region on an earlier mission trip.

But the letter, meant to be circulated among the Christians who worshiped and studied God’s Word together in small house churches, was prompted by a problem in those churches. The issue was freedom.

Please turn to our second lesson for today, Galatians 1:1-12. Take a look at verse 1: “Paul, an apostle—sent not from men nor by a man, but by Jesus Christ and God the Father, who raised him from the dead—and all the brothers and sisters with me, To the churches in Galatia: Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, who gave himself for our sins to rescue us from the present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father, to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen.”

Paul begins the letter in a way common to those times. When you and I write an email to someone today, we might say, “Dear Joe” or “Joe.” But in Paul’s day, you’d start out a letter to Joe by telling Joe who was sending the letter first. The opening greetings of letters those days were more like the tags we attach to Christmas gifts today: “From: Paul; To: Joe.”

In this opening though, Paul also moves quickly to establish that he isn’t just another guy writing to them. Paul points that he’s an “apostle,” a word that literally means “sent one.” Paul asserts that he was sent not by just anyone. I was “sent not from men nor by a man, but by Jesus Christ and God the Father,” the latter of whom raised Jesus from the dead. By everything Paul writes in the simple opening words of this letter in five verses, he’s saying, “Look, Galatians, what you’re about to read isn’t from me, it’s from God! So, pay attention!”

Are you confident enough in your relationship with Jesus Christ to be able to talk to fellow Christians you love in that way?

Sometimes I am and sometimes I’m not.

But part of being free in Christ is being free to speak with others honestly and lovingly about the truth of God.

And, as followers of Jesus who accept the Bible as God's Word's, we possess the most important truth in the universe!

You’ve heard me quote Jesus’ words from John 14:6 before, but here they are again. Jesus says: “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”

If you had your Bibles with you and you were turned to John 14:6, I’d ask you to underline the word the in Jesus’ words: He is the way, the truth, and the life. And Jesus is the only way to a relationship with God the Father. “You can’t know God except through Me,” Jesus is telling us. “You can’t have the freedom for which you were made unless you follow Me.”

People need to know this truth!

People you know need to know this truth!

So, we should be as bold and loving in sharing it as Paul was. We shouldn't keep it to ourselves!

If people don’t know that Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life--not just as head knowledge, but as the announcement of the only way to life, they will be enslaved to sin and separated from God forever. 

Think of it: If by some happenstance, you came upon the cure for pancreatic cancer or AIDs, but thought, “I’d better not say anything. I don’t want to force a chance for new life on people,” you would be rightly regarded as monstrous.

If you have life and freedom from slavery through Christ to share with others, you have to share it. It would be monstrous to keep it to yourself, wouldn’t it?

We have begun the process of building a discipleship culture at Living Water. This is part of what Bishop John and our North American Lutheran Church are calling us to do, of course.

But, more importantly, Jesus calls us to be a congregation that makes disciples, not through programs, not through events, but through each us of sharing Christ’s truth boldly, lovingly, unapologetically, and relationally with the people in our lives, then inviting them to let us as individuals help them to know Jesus personally.

We need to ensure that every single disciple in Living Water who is willing to be used by God will be empowered by God’s Word to make other disciples, to speak the truth in love, to be accountable to other Christian sisters or brothers in our congregation, to live in the freedom that Jesus Christ died and rose to give us.

We need to stop worrying about what others say and just live in the freedom we have in Jesus Christ!

It was from this perspective of freedom that Paul wrote to the churches at Galatia.

Verse 6: “I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you to live in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel—which is really no gospel at all. Evidently some people are throwing you into confusion and are trying to pervert the gospel of Christ. But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let them be under God’s curse! As we have already said, so now I say again: If anybody is preaching to you a gospel other than what you accepted, let them be under God’s curse!”

Just as there is only one truth, God’s truth, and just as there’s only one way to life with God, Jesus, there’s also, Paul is saying, one Gospel.

Our word Gospel translates a word Paul and the other writers used in the New Testament Greek in which they wrote, euangelion. It means good news.

You all know the good news. It’s in John 3:16-18. Jesus gave the good news to a man named Nicodemus: “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son.”

We can turn down the offer of new and everlasting life--the freedom that comes with being a child of God--by refusing to surrender to or believe in Jesus. People enslaved to sin are intrinsically inclined to make that choice of refusing to believe in Jesus.

But the good news is that we can be set free from sin, death, and the self-focus that leads to hell when we take the offer of grace and freedom given to us by the crucified and risen Jesus. Jesus sets us free to live different lives, free lives, with Him for eternity, starting now, today.

In 49 AD, the churches in Galatia were turning their backs on Jesus and freedom from Him. A group of Jewish Christians had come to them and basically said, “What Jesus did on the cross and from the tomb is cool, but if you want life with God, you need to do all the ritual and sacrificial law. You have to get circumcised and be observant Jews if you want Jesus to save you.”

Ever since Adam and Eve bit into the forbidden fruit, human beings have tried to turn their relationship with God into a business transaction: If they were good enough...if they showed up for worship enough...if they plunked enough money in the offerings, they could bargain with God. God would have to hold up His end of the bargain and these outwardly religious people felt, like Americans, free to do whatever they wanted to do.

Jesus scorned the thinking of people like these. He scorns it still. People who buy into this kind of religious thinking were, He once said, like “whitewashed tombs,” righteous looking on the outside who felt free to shaft their parents, neighbors, the poor, and others [Matthew 23:27].

“Deal-making righteousness” (which is no righteousness at all) appeals to our human ego. It makes us feel like we're in control. It makes us feel free. But it really makes us slaves to the things of this world, things that are bound to die.

Paul was concerned that the Galatians were turning away from their freedom in Christ, back to the false freedom of religious bravado and pride, a false freedom that leads to death.

Paul tells them--and us, whenever the world’s idea of freedom tempts us to do things our way rather than Christ’s way--to settle in. He’s about to remind them (and us) of the true Gospel message, the message of true freedom that no human being invented, but comes to us only “through a revelation of Jesus Christ” [verse 12].

And it’s to Paul that we’ll be listening over the next several weeks so that we too, can know the freedom Jesus died and rose to give to those who follow Him. Amen