The Bible never says that doing things for ourselves is bad; it assumes that we need to do some things for ourselves. However, it does speak harshly against making ourselves the center of the universe, living only for ourselves. This self-centeredness is evil.
Saturday, July 30, 2011
Self-Care v. Self-Centeredness
From psychologist and Christian counselor Henry Cloud's book, Changes That Heal:
The Kindness Outreach Chronicles (Part 4)
Once again this morning, members of Saint Matthew hit the streets to give away bottles of cold water to motorists stopped at red lights. We handed out 140 bottles of water in about 40 minutes. (Last night, I simply happened to ice down seventy fewer bottles than I had for the first two outreaches.)*
As always, this outreach was a lot of fun!
Nine Saint Matthew folks participated and each seemed to have stories to tell this morning.
Sarah G. told about approaching a truck. The man driving it held up a can and said, "I'm good. I've got a Sprite." Sarah noticed that he had two dogs with him and asked, "But do your dogs need water?" The man accepted waters for them. Sarah added, "Now take one for yourself, too." He did.
"Will you accept a donation?" a woman asked after she and her passenger had been given waters. "No," was the emphatic answer, followed by an enthusiastic, "Thank you."
It is hard for people to believe that they're getting something for nothing. That's why kindness outreaches present great pictures of God's grace, a love we can't earn and don't deserve. Paul wrote: "God proves His love for us in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us" (Romans 5:8).
Pass it on!
*So far, we've had three Saturday morning outreaches, scrubbing last week's because of a heat emergency. We've given out 560 bottles of water in that time. (Or, as we like to put it, we've perpetrated 560 acts of kindness in Jesus' Name.)
As always, this outreach was a lot of fun!
Nine Saint Matthew folks participated and each seemed to have stories to tell this morning.
Sarah G. told about approaching a truck. The man driving it held up a can and said, "I'm good. I've got a Sprite." Sarah noticed that he had two dogs with him and asked, "But do your dogs need water?" The man accepted waters for them. Sarah added, "Now take one for yourself, too." He did.
"Will you accept a donation?" a woman asked after she and her passenger had been given waters. "No," was the emphatic answer, followed by an enthusiastic, "Thank you."
It is hard for people to believe that they're getting something for nothing. That's why kindness outreaches present great pictures of God's grace, a love we can't earn and don't deserve. Paul wrote: "God proves His love for us in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us" (Romans 5:8).
Pass it on!
*So far, we've had three Saturday morning outreaches, scrubbing last week's because of a heat emergency. We've given out 560 bottles of water in that time. (Or, as we like to put it, we've perpetrated 560 acts of kindness in Jesus' Name.)
Thursday, July 28, 2011
I Love This!
"The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, his mercies never come to an end; 23they are new every morning..." (Lamentations 3:22-23)
Go Ahead, Pray Those Non-Specific Prayers!
I don't talk back to my television very often. But I did this past Sunday afternoon.
I had just come home from worship and plopped down on our living room couch to do a few minutes of channel-surfing before having lunch. My clicking brought me to the program of a prominent preacher, usually good for a laugh. He was talking about prayer. I'm paraphrasing, but the basic gist of his message was this: "And you must make your prayers specific. God won't answer vague prayers. You say, 'God, give me more money.' How much? You say, 'Bless the preacher.' In what way." He went on to excoriate the limited faith of people who aren't specific in their directives--I mean, prayers--to God.
This is when I started to talk back to my TV set. You see, in worship this past Sunday, our second Bible lesson came from Romans 8 and included these lines:
Our prayers can be specific, of course. But the real measure of our faith is not the specificity of our prayers, as though visualizing a preferred end is a magical incantation that will force the hand of God. The real measure of our faith is our submissiveness to the God Who sent His Son to die and rise for us and has better plans for us than we can ask or imagine.
*In the Bible, the word "saint" refers to anyone who repents for sin and believes in the God ultimately revealed to all the world in Jesus Christ.
I had just come home from worship and plopped down on our living room couch to do a few minutes of channel-surfing before having lunch. My clicking brought me to the program of a prominent preacher, usually good for a laugh. He was talking about prayer. I'm paraphrasing, but the basic gist of his message was this: "And you must make your prayers specific. God won't answer vague prayers. You say, 'God, give me more money.' How much? You say, 'Bless the preacher.' In what way." He went on to excoriate the limited faith of people who aren't specific in their directives--I mean, prayers--to God.
This is when I started to talk back to my TV set. You see, in worship this past Sunday, our second Bible lesson came from Romans 8 and included these lines:
...the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words. And God, who searches the heart, knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints* according to the will of God. (Romans 8:26-27)The meaning of this passage is simple. Sometimes, we have no idea what to pray for. But as followers of Jesus, Who taught we Christians to pray, "Thy will be done," we don't need to have fine-tuned prayer petitions. We simply submit ourselves to God and trust His good will for us.
Our prayers can be specific, of course. But the real measure of our faith is not the specificity of our prayers, as though visualizing a preferred end is a magical incantation that will force the hand of God. The real measure of our faith is our submissiveness to the God Who sent His Son to die and rise for us and has better plans for us than we can ask or imagine.
*In the Bible, the word "saint" refers to anyone who repents for sin and believes in the God ultimately revealed to all the world in Jesus Christ.
Wednesday, July 27, 2011
Joe Nelms: Laughter and Prayer?
George Hamilton, a British writer of historical fiction, sent a question my way earlier today. Referring to Pastor Joe Nelms' pre-race prayer at a NASCAR event over the weekend, he asked, "Is it allowable to laugh so much during prayer?"
It's a good question.
Laughter is a good thing, of course. The Bible often tells people to rejoice, to enjoy God and the blessings God gives. Laughter goes with rejoicing.
The Bible also says that laughter and good humor are good for us. Proverbs 17:22 says that "a cheerful heart is good medicine."
And honestly, there are times when I pray that I laugh, whether at God's goodness or my own ridiculous, sometimes pompous, behavior.
But, here's where I think humor in prayer goes wrong: When it calls more attention to the pray-er or to the manner of expression than it does to God. When performance becomes central, prayer ceases.
This is where I personally feel that Pastor Nelms may have gone "off the track," so to speak.
In Matthew 6:5-14, Jesus teaches about prayer. He warns us against praying for show. Pastor Nelms may have unintentionally created a show that caused people to yuck it up rather than to talk with God.
And talking with God, with faith and humble dependence on God, is what prayer, whether private or public, is about.
It's a good question.
Laughter is a good thing, of course. The Bible often tells people to rejoice, to enjoy God and the blessings God gives. Laughter goes with rejoicing.
The Bible also says that laughter and good humor are good for us. Proverbs 17:22 says that "a cheerful heart is good medicine."
And honestly, there are times when I pray that I laugh, whether at God's goodness or my own ridiculous, sometimes pompous, behavior.
But, here's where I think humor in prayer goes wrong: When it calls more attention to the pray-er or to the manner of expression than it does to God. When performance becomes central, prayer ceases.
This is where I personally feel that Pastor Nelms may have gone "off the track," so to speak.
In Matthew 6:5-14, Jesus teaches about prayer. He warns us against praying for show. Pastor Nelms may have unintentionally created a show that caused people to yuck it up rather than to talk with God.
And talking with God, with faith and humble dependence on God, is what prayer, whether private or public, is about.
Tuesday, July 26, 2011
How Do You Spell "Buggedy, Boogedy, Boogedy"?
I've never heard of Pastor Joe Nelms. But he went viral with this prayer on Saturday.
Monday, July 25, 2011
Sunday, July 24, 2011
The Kingdom of Heaven is Here, Now!
[This was shared during worship with the people of Saint Matthew Lutheran Church in Logan, Ohio, earlier today.]
Matthew 13:31-33, 44-52
There was a Coast Guard station in the community on Lake Michigan where I did my seminary internship. One day, the commander of the station stopped by the church office and we chatted. He was excited because in a matter of weeks, he would be retiring. “Are you staying here or moving elsewhere?” I asked. “I would never live here or anywhere in the North,” he told me. He went on: “If you drew a line across the continental United States, you’d have to say that everything North is a moral cesspool, a mission field where God can’t be found.”
Apparently not interested in being a missionary to we heathen Northerners, he was intent on heading south, where he was convinced, all the Christians lived.
The five parables Jesus tells in today’s Gospel lesson are a warning to anyone who thinks they’ve figured out who’s right with God and who isn’t, who’s decent and who’s not, where God is and where He can't be found.
To understand these parables, you have to go to the last verse of our lesson, where Jesus says, “Therefore every scribe who has been trained for the kingdom of heaven is like the master of a household who brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old.”
The parables in this lesson are all designed to show us that, whatever people may think—be they opponents of Christianity or, like that Coast Guard captain, snobby, self-righteous Christians--the kingdom of heaven is active and growing in places where many people can’t (or won’t) see it.
In these parables, Jesus, the master of His household—the Church—brings out of His treasure old images, familiar things and places, to show us the new things God is up to…even in the lives of people the world might dismiss or ignore.
Jesus here affirms the power of ordinary lives like yours and mine in which Jesus and His kingdom are present and growing.
In the first parable in our lesson, in verses 31 and 32, Jesus says that the kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed that grows into “the greatest of shrubs and becomes a tree” in which birds make their nests.
The people of Jesus’ day were familiar with mustard plants. They saw them as useless weeds, as welcome in their fields as crabgrass or poison ivy are in our lawns today.
On top of that, every one of Jesus’ original listeners would have known that a mustard plant can never grow into a tree.
Most people would have scratched their heads at Jesus comparing a weed to the kingdom of heaven. But for believers in Jesus, the image brings inspiration.
In the days after Jesus told this parable, He was arrested and executed. His followers scattered for fear that they would be killed for their allegiance to Jesus. The unbelieving world—Jew and non-Jew alike—believed that in crucifying Jesus, the weed of faith in Him as the Savior of the world had been destroyed, that there was no need to repent and believe in Jesus or to acknowledge Him as God. Life could follow its same old path of sin, death, and dog-eat-dog ethics.
But believers know better!
They know that Jesus changed everything when He conquered death on the first Easter. They know that the kingdom has come to all who believe.
They know—we know—that Jesus is in the process, day by day, of transforming us from weeds, sure to be rounded up, into mighty Redwoods rooted in Christ’s love, grace, and power.
As we pray, worship, receive forgiveness for our sins and the Lord’s Supper, and serve in Jesus’ Name, we grow together in Christ’s family, the Church, in ways we sometimes can’t even see ourselves. God is at work in our lives and we know it, even though we can't always articulate it.
We’re like the backwoods Christian I’ve mentioned before who said, “I ain’t what I wanna be and I ain’t what I’m gonna be. But through Jesus, thank God, I ain’t what I was!”
In verse 33, Jesus says the kingdom of heaven is like yeast a woman mixed in with three measures of flour until all was leavened.
In those days, leaven was seen as a symbol of moral corruption which like leaven mixed in with flour, could infect families, communities, and nations.
Adding further scandal to Jesus' parable was the fact that the person adding the yeast of God's kingdom was a woman. In the patriarchal societies of Jesus' day, men were seen as pure and women as impure.
Yet, here was Jesus saying that God’s kingdom is like leaven mixed into flour by a woman!
Jesus was saying that even in the midst of what we may think is rotten or small or worthless or inconsequential, His kingdom can be present.
In my life—and I’m not kidding when I say this—I have never been able to see a thing through a microscope. Not in junior or senior high school nor during college nor at any time since. But I take it on faith that there is an almost infinite variety of life in this world too small to be detected by the naked eye (or by a clueless preacher looking through a microscope). The kingdom of heaven is like those tiny life forms: alive even when the world doesn’t see it, or is too incompetent to see it, or doesn’t want to see it!
In 1886, the first Lutheran missionaries went to Papua New Guinea. Over the next thirteen years, numbers of missionaries, each sharing Christ by words and deeds were sent to work in different parts of Papua. But it wasn’t until 1899, thirteen years after the first Lutheran missionaries arrived, that the first two Papua New Guineans were baptized.
Some looking at what seemed thirteen years of futility on the part of those missionaries might conclude that nothing had been going on, that the missionaries were lazy or unpersuasive or ineffective, that God had been absent.
But it would be wrong to sneer, because in those first thirteen years God was at work, mixing the leaven of his kingdom into the flour of Papua New Guinea’s life. And that would be true even if the Lutheran Church there didn’t today include 900,000 believers in Jesus Christ!
The next two verses of our Gospel lesson—44 and 45—underscore just how precious the kingdom of heaven is for those who see it.
It’s like treasure found by someone in a field, Jesus says. He’s so excited to have the treasure that he sells everything he has in order to buy the field.
The kingdom of heaven is also like fine pearls found by a merchant. He too, will sell everything he has to buy the pearl.
You and I know that citizenship in the kingdom of heaven is a free gift from God. It can’t be bought. Jesus died as the perfect sacrifice for our sins so that all who repent and believer in Him will gain a share in what He won when He rose from the dead, eternity with God.
But we can’t grasp Jesus’ offer of forgiveness and new life for those who repent and believe in Him if with the rest of our lives, we’re trusting in other things to see us through.
You know, it's been my observation that most of the things people value in life can be compared to illegal drugs. We might trust in real estate or ice cream, antiques or computers, music or books (my weaknesses), cars or clothes, sex or power, our families or human potential, prestige or money.
There’s nothing wrong with any of those things. But when we start to depend on them to measure our own worth and value as human beings, we’re in trouble.
We develop needs for them, the way an addict needs heroine.
We give up everything to taste, touch, or keep our obsessions of choice.
They give us a buzz that’s here today and gone tomorrow.
And then these things—none of which can give us life—leave us dead.
Jesus is the only obsession that can give us forgiveness, life, purpose, or joy.
Jesus says that His kingdom is so great that, if we’re wise, we’ll be willing to part with all the temporary pleasures of this dying world in order to grab His offer of eternity.
People will think we’re crazy for putting our whole lives at the disposal of Jesus, to bet our whole eternity on Him.
They’re right! “We are fools for Christ,” the apostle Paul once boasted of his ministry team and himself.
The men in Jesus' parables who gave up everything for the treasures they found would have been seen by Jesus' first listeners as foolish. Financial advisors today tell us how foolish it is to forgo diversified investment portfolios by betting everything on one single investment.
But believers in Christ know it’s foolish to invest one’s whole life in anything but a relationship with the Lord of heaven and earth! At another point in Jesus' ministry when many were beginning to desert Him, Jesus turned to the twelve apostles and asked if they wanted to leave, too. Peter, still figuring things out about Jesus and in the same fog I confess myself to be in many times, said that wasn't an option. "Lord, to whom can we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and know that You are the holy One of God." If we want a life with God here in the challenges of life and a life with God beyond the grave, investing our lives in Jesus is the only choice that makes sense!
One of the best questions we Christians can ask ourselves from time to time is this: “What really foolish thing have I done for Jesus Christ lately?” “What tangible thing that the world values—that we value—are we willing to lay aside in order to grasp more tightly and dependently on Jesus?”
Ask those questions and you might end up doing something really foolish—and find yourself enveloped by the joy of God’s kingdom!
Drawing from another old familiar scene from daily life, Jesus tells a fifth parable. It reminds me of the parable of the wheat and the tares we looked at last Sunday.
The kingdom of heaven, Jesus says, is like a net thrown into the sea. Fish of every kind were caught. But once on shore, the fishermen sorted the good catch from the bad, putting the good in a basket, throwing out the bad.
Just so, Jesus says, God will one day deputize His angels to separate the righteous, those made clean by Christ and their faith in Christ, from the evil. The latter will be thrown into the furnace of fire--hell, Jesus says, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth—eternal regret for having spurned the new life that comes to those who repent and believe in Jesus. You can bet that Jesus’ first listeners would never again look at old fishing nets in the same way.
For all who confess Jesus as God and Savior, the implications of this last parable should be clear. Jesus calls and commands His Church to be “fishers of people” or, "fishers of men." We’re to push out into our daily lives and strive to bring all into the gracious embrace of Jesus, to invite them to be with us in worship to hear the call to repentance and the good news of new life for all who surrender all to follow Jesus.
Jesus has welcomed us into the kingdom of heaven and now sends us out to bring more to Him, one person, one friend, one family member, one classmate, or one co-worker at a time.
It’s not glamorous. It’s not flashy. It won’t grab headlines.
The world may not notice it, may even disdain it.
They won’t see how God’s kingdom is, right now, right here, making old things new in and through people like us.
But this is how the kingdom of heaven comes to us all: through parents and family members and friends who care enough to share the most precious thing anyone could ever own, citizenship in the kingdom of heaven.
And, long after all the new things we human beings have devised have died and been forgotten, the kingdom of heaven and all who follow Jesus will be ever alive, ever rejoicing, ever new!
In the meantime, allow yourself every day, to live as a citizen of God's kingdom and celebrate the fact that Jesus’ kingdom has come to you, that by His grace, you belong to Him now and forever! Amen
Matthew 13:31-33, 44-52
There was a Coast Guard station in the community on Lake Michigan where I did my seminary internship. One day, the commander of the station stopped by the church office and we chatted. He was excited because in a matter of weeks, he would be retiring. “Are you staying here or moving elsewhere?” I asked. “I would never live here or anywhere in the North,” he told me. He went on: “If you drew a line across the continental United States, you’d have to say that everything North is a moral cesspool, a mission field where God can’t be found.”
Apparently not interested in being a missionary to we heathen Northerners, he was intent on heading south, where he was convinced, all the Christians lived.
The five parables Jesus tells in today’s Gospel lesson are a warning to anyone who thinks they’ve figured out who’s right with God and who isn’t, who’s decent and who’s not, where God is and where He can't be found.
To understand these parables, you have to go to the last verse of our lesson, where Jesus says, “Therefore every scribe who has been trained for the kingdom of heaven is like the master of a household who brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old.”
The parables in this lesson are all designed to show us that, whatever people may think—be they opponents of Christianity or, like that Coast Guard captain, snobby, self-righteous Christians--the kingdom of heaven is active and growing in places where many people can’t (or won’t) see it.
In these parables, Jesus, the master of His household—the Church—brings out of His treasure old images, familiar things and places, to show us the new things God is up to…even in the lives of people the world might dismiss or ignore.
Jesus here affirms the power of ordinary lives like yours and mine in which Jesus and His kingdom are present and growing.
In the first parable in our lesson, in verses 31 and 32, Jesus says that the kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed that grows into “the greatest of shrubs and becomes a tree” in which birds make their nests.
The people of Jesus’ day were familiar with mustard plants. They saw them as useless weeds, as welcome in their fields as crabgrass or poison ivy are in our lawns today.
On top of that, every one of Jesus’ original listeners would have known that a mustard plant can never grow into a tree.
Most people would have scratched their heads at Jesus comparing a weed to the kingdom of heaven. But for believers in Jesus, the image brings inspiration.
In the days after Jesus told this parable, He was arrested and executed. His followers scattered for fear that they would be killed for their allegiance to Jesus. The unbelieving world—Jew and non-Jew alike—believed that in crucifying Jesus, the weed of faith in Him as the Savior of the world had been destroyed, that there was no need to repent and believe in Jesus or to acknowledge Him as God. Life could follow its same old path of sin, death, and dog-eat-dog ethics.
But believers know better!
They know that Jesus changed everything when He conquered death on the first Easter. They know that the kingdom has come to all who believe.
They know—we know—that Jesus is in the process, day by day, of transforming us from weeds, sure to be rounded up, into mighty Redwoods rooted in Christ’s love, grace, and power.
As we pray, worship, receive forgiveness for our sins and the Lord’s Supper, and serve in Jesus’ Name, we grow together in Christ’s family, the Church, in ways we sometimes can’t even see ourselves. God is at work in our lives and we know it, even though we can't always articulate it.
We’re like the backwoods Christian I’ve mentioned before who said, “I ain’t what I wanna be and I ain’t what I’m gonna be. But through Jesus, thank God, I ain’t what I was!”
In verse 33, Jesus says the kingdom of heaven is like yeast a woman mixed in with three measures of flour until all was leavened.
In those days, leaven was seen as a symbol of moral corruption which like leaven mixed in with flour, could infect families, communities, and nations.
Adding further scandal to Jesus' parable was the fact that the person adding the yeast of God's kingdom was a woman. In the patriarchal societies of Jesus' day, men were seen as pure and women as impure.
Yet, here was Jesus saying that God’s kingdom is like leaven mixed into flour by a woman!
Jesus was saying that even in the midst of what we may think is rotten or small or worthless or inconsequential, His kingdom can be present.
In my life—and I’m not kidding when I say this—I have never been able to see a thing through a microscope. Not in junior or senior high school nor during college nor at any time since. But I take it on faith that there is an almost infinite variety of life in this world too small to be detected by the naked eye (or by a clueless preacher looking through a microscope). The kingdom of heaven is like those tiny life forms: alive even when the world doesn’t see it, or is too incompetent to see it, or doesn’t want to see it!
In 1886, the first Lutheran missionaries went to Papua New Guinea. Over the next thirteen years, numbers of missionaries, each sharing Christ by words and deeds were sent to work in different parts of Papua. But it wasn’t until 1899, thirteen years after the first Lutheran missionaries arrived, that the first two Papua New Guineans were baptized.
Some looking at what seemed thirteen years of futility on the part of those missionaries might conclude that nothing had been going on, that the missionaries were lazy or unpersuasive or ineffective, that God had been absent.
But it would be wrong to sneer, because in those first thirteen years God was at work, mixing the leaven of his kingdom into the flour of Papua New Guinea’s life. And that would be true even if the Lutheran Church there didn’t today include 900,000 believers in Jesus Christ!
The next two verses of our Gospel lesson—44 and 45—underscore just how precious the kingdom of heaven is for those who see it.
It’s like treasure found by someone in a field, Jesus says. He’s so excited to have the treasure that he sells everything he has in order to buy the field.
The kingdom of heaven is also like fine pearls found by a merchant. He too, will sell everything he has to buy the pearl.
You and I know that citizenship in the kingdom of heaven is a free gift from God. It can’t be bought. Jesus died as the perfect sacrifice for our sins so that all who repent and believer in Him will gain a share in what He won when He rose from the dead, eternity with God.
But we can’t grasp Jesus’ offer of forgiveness and new life for those who repent and believe in Him if with the rest of our lives, we’re trusting in other things to see us through.
You know, it's been my observation that most of the things people value in life can be compared to illegal drugs. We might trust in real estate or ice cream, antiques or computers, music or books (my weaknesses), cars or clothes, sex or power, our families or human potential, prestige or money.
There’s nothing wrong with any of those things. But when we start to depend on them to measure our own worth and value as human beings, we’re in trouble.
We develop needs for them, the way an addict needs heroine.
We give up everything to taste, touch, or keep our obsessions of choice.
They give us a buzz that’s here today and gone tomorrow.
And then these things—none of which can give us life—leave us dead.
Jesus is the only obsession that can give us forgiveness, life, purpose, or joy.
Jesus says that His kingdom is so great that, if we’re wise, we’ll be willing to part with all the temporary pleasures of this dying world in order to grab His offer of eternity.
People will think we’re crazy for putting our whole lives at the disposal of Jesus, to bet our whole eternity on Him.
They’re right! “We are fools for Christ,” the apostle Paul once boasted of his ministry team and himself.
The men in Jesus' parables who gave up everything for the treasures they found would have been seen by Jesus' first listeners as foolish. Financial advisors today tell us how foolish it is to forgo diversified investment portfolios by betting everything on one single investment.
But believers in Christ know it’s foolish to invest one’s whole life in anything but a relationship with the Lord of heaven and earth! At another point in Jesus' ministry when many were beginning to desert Him, Jesus turned to the twelve apostles and asked if they wanted to leave, too. Peter, still figuring things out about Jesus and in the same fog I confess myself to be in many times, said that wasn't an option. "Lord, to whom can we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and know that You are the holy One of God." If we want a life with God here in the challenges of life and a life with God beyond the grave, investing our lives in Jesus is the only choice that makes sense!
One of the best questions we Christians can ask ourselves from time to time is this: “What really foolish thing have I done for Jesus Christ lately?” “What tangible thing that the world values—that we value—are we willing to lay aside in order to grasp more tightly and dependently on Jesus?”
Ask those questions and you might end up doing something really foolish—and find yourself enveloped by the joy of God’s kingdom!
Drawing from another old familiar scene from daily life, Jesus tells a fifth parable. It reminds me of the parable of the wheat and the tares we looked at last Sunday.
The kingdom of heaven, Jesus says, is like a net thrown into the sea. Fish of every kind were caught. But once on shore, the fishermen sorted the good catch from the bad, putting the good in a basket, throwing out the bad.
Just so, Jesus says, God will one day deputize His angels to separate the righteous, those made clean by Christ and their faith in Christ, from the evil. The latter will be thrown into the furnace of fire--hell, Jesus says, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth—eternal regret for having spurned the new life that comes to those who repent and believe in Jesus. You can bet that Jesus’ first listeners would never again look at old fishing nets in the same way.
For all who confess Jesus as God and Savior, the implications of this last parable should be clear. Jesus calls and commands His Church to be “fishers of people” or, "fishers of men." We’re to push out into our daily lives and strive to bring all into the gracious embrace of Jesus, to invite them to be with us in worship to hear the call to repentance and the good news of new life for all who surrender all to follow Jesus.
Jesus has welcomed us into the kingdom of heaven and now sends us out to bring more to Him, one person, one friend, one family member, one classmate, or one co-worker at a time.
It’s not glamorous. It’s not flashy. It won’t grab headlines.
The world may not notice it, may even disdain it.
They won’t see how God’s kingdom is, right now, right here, making old things new in and through people like us.
But this is how the kingdom of heaven comes to us all: through parents and family members and friends who care enough to share the most precious thing anyone could ever own, citizenship in the kingdom of heaven.
And, long after all the new things we human beings have devised have died and been forgotten, the kingdom of heaven and all who follow Jesus will be ever alive, ever rejoicing, ever new!
In the meantime, allow yourself every day, to live as a citizen of God's kingdom and celebrate the fact that Jesus’ kingdom has come to you, that by His grace, you belong to Him now and forever! Amen
Friday, July 22, 2011
Thursday, July 21, 2011
Growing Into Forgiveness
Matt Anderson talks about his road to forgiving someone who hurt him deeply:
And so I am beginning to feel that forgiveness isn’t an event, an accomplishment one can check off their to-do list and move on from. That’s what I wanted, and was expecting. I wanted a moment I could look back on and say, “Now I have Forgiven!” But my heart is fickle and easily injured, its pride frequently bruised, and in these moments the old hurts come flooding back, replacing any sense of growth with the same old pain, and making a fool of me and my “moment” of forgiveness.Read the whole thing.
If forgiveness isn’t an event or decision after all, but is instead much more like many other emotional or spiritual states in its maturation, then growth means living more often in the good, the virtuous, the loving, the kind—ultimately, the Godly—parts of who you are, and that moments of anger, hatred, cruelty, selfishness, or self-pity occur less often and pass more quickly.
How Do You Tell False Prophets from True Ones?
"Beware of false prophets." Jesus says this in Matthew 7:15.
But what's the difference between a real prophet, a person who speaks God's Word truthfully, and a false prophet?
One major difference is seen in an incident we recently considered at Saint Matthew Lutheran Church. (We're reading the Bible together in a year's time.)
The incident, recounted in 1 Kings, chapter 22, and retold in 2 Chronicles 18, revolves around the preparations of two kings for battle: Ahab, a thoroughly evil guy, of Israel (or Samaria), and a decent king named Jehoshaphat. They had formed an alliance and were getting ready to go into battle with the King of Aram.
Before taking to the field though, Jehoshaphat suggested that they should consult with God on the matter. So, Ahab got a group of four-hundred "prophets" together and asked them to give God's direction about their plans. "Go to it!" the four hundred replied enthusiastically.
But Jehoshaphat must have thought their answer was too glib. "Is there no other prophet of the LORD here of whom we may inquire?" he asked Ahab.
There was one other prophet, Ahab said. His name was Micaiah. "But I hate him, for he never prophesies anything favorable about me, but only disaster," Ahab revealed. Jehoshaphat, the more pious of the two, told his counterpart, "Let the king not say such a thing!"
So, Ahab relented. Micaiah was called to come speak with the two kings, both sitting on thrones. He was warned by one of Ahab's underlings that if he knew what was good for him, he'd tell Ahab what he wanted to hear, that God would give him success if he went into battle.
Initially, his voice dripping with sarcasm, that was exactly the "prophecy" Micaiah gave. Perturbed by his manner, Ahab pressed Micaiah to come clean. Micaiah told the king that he, Jehoshaphat, and their armies would lose the battle. For his honesty, Ahab had Micaiah imprisoned and put on reduced rations.
Of course, Ahab and Jehoshaphat went into battle (a decision Jehoshaphat regretted) and it turned out as disastrously as Micaiah said that it would. Ahab died from wounds he suffered in spite of precautions he took to avoid being identified by the enemy.
There are several ways to know when someone claiming to speak for God really is speaking for God.
One way is to see whether what they say dovetails with the character and will of God as revealed in God's Word, the Bible.
Another is if they are delivering promises so good that only God could deliver on them (like resurrection for all who turn from sin and believe in Jesus Christ).
But, in the story of Micaiah, Ahab, Jehoshaphat, and the four hundred "prophets," we see another way of telling the difference between true prophets from God and false prophets.
False prophets will always tell you what you want to hear. If you're a person with a lot of money, false prophets tell you that God prefers the prosperous and that those without money are deficient in their faith. If the prevailing winds of culture say that sexual intimacy outside of marriage between a man and a woman is OK, false prophets will tell you that God agrees. If you're a king or president who wants to go into battle, false prophets will tell you that your cause is just, no matter what the Bible teaches about doing justice, loving kindness, or walking humbly with God and that real power doesn't reside in superior arms, larger armies, or fatter war appropriations, but in the God Who, over the long haul, fights for those who humbly trust in Him.
True prophets risk everything to tell you what you might not want to hear, what would be safer for them not to say, in order to help you live in sync with God, the only One Who can give you life, eternity, or purpose.
True prophets are willing to be proven wrong. They don't care the side on which the bread is buttered. Micaiah told Ahab after he'd given a prophecy the king found distasteful, "If you return in peace, the LORD has not spoken by me" (1 Kings 22:28).
False prophets play to human egos.
True prophets make themselves accountable to God and let the chips fall where they may.
That's why they're so rare.
[You might want to check out 1 Kings 22 and 2 Chronicles 18.]
But what's the difference between a real prophet, a person who speaks God's Word truthfully, and a false prophet?
One major difference is seen in an incident we recently considered at Saint Matthew Lutheran Church. (We're reading the Bible together in a year's time.)
The incident, recounted in 1 Kings, chapter 22, and retold in 2 Chronicles 18, revolves around the preparations of two kings for battle: Ahab, a thoroughly evil guy, of Israel (or Samaria), and a decent king named Jehoshaphat. They had formed an alliance and were getting ready to go into battle with the King of Aram.
Before taking to the field though, Jehoshaphat suggested that they should consult with God on the matter. So, Ahab got a group of four-hundred "prophets" together and asked them to give God's direction about their plans. "Go to it!" the four hundred replied enthusiastically.
But Jehoshaphat must have thought their answer was too glib. "Is there no other prophet of the LORD here of whom we may inquire?" he asked Ahab.
There was one other prophet, Ahab said. His name was Micaiah. "But I hate him, for he never prophesies anything favorable about me, but only disaster," Ahab revealed. Jehoshaphat, the more pious of the two, told his counterpart, "Let the king not say such a thing!"
So, Ahab relented. Micaiah was called to come speak with the two kings, both sitting on thrones. He was warned by one of Ahab's underlings that if he knew what was good for him, he'd tell Ahab what he wanted to hear, that God would give him success if he went into battle.
Initially, his voice dripping with sarcasm, that was exactly the "prophecy" Micaiah gave. Perturbed by his manner, Ahab pressed Micaiah to come clean. Micaiah told the king that he, Jehoshaphat, and their armies would lose the battle. For his honesty, Ahab had Micaiah imprisoned and put on reduced rations.
Of course, Ahab and Jehoshaphat went into battle (a decision Jehoshaphat regretted) and it turned out as disastrously as Micaiah said that it would. Ahab died from wounds he suffered in spite of precautions he took to avoid being identified by the enemy.
There are several ways to know when someone claiming to speak for God really is speaking for God.
One way is to see whether what they say dovetails with the character and will of God as revealed in God's Word, the Bible.
Another is if they are delivering promises so good that only God could deliver on them (like resurrection for all who turn from sin and believe in Jesus Christ).
But, in the story of Micaiah, Ahab, Jehoshaphat, and the four hundred "prophets," we see another way of telling the difference between true prophets from God and false prophets.
False prophets will always tell you what you want to hear. If you're a person with a lot of money, false prophets tell you that God prefers the prosperous and that those without money are deficient in their faith. If the prevailing winds of culture say that sexual intimacy outside of marriage between a man and a woman is OK, false prophets will tell you that God agrees. If you're a king or president who wants to go into battle, false prophets will tell you that your cause is just, no matter what the Bible teaches about doing justice, loving kindness, or walking humbly with God and that real power doesn't reside in superior arms, larger armies, or fatter war appropriations, but in the God Who, over the long haul, fights for those who humbly trust in Him.
True prophets risk everything to tell you what you might not want to hear, what would be safer for them not to say, in order to help you live in sync with God, the only One Who can give you life, eternity, or purpose.
True prophets are willing to be proven wrong. They don't care the side on which the bread is buttered. Micaiah told Ahab after he'd given a prophecy the king found distasteful, "If you return in peace, the LORD has not spoken by me" (1 Kings 22:28).
False prophets play to human egos.
True prophets make themselves accountable to God and let the chips fall where they may.
That's why they're so rare.
[You might want to check out 1 Kings 22 and 2 Chronicles 18.]
Suffering Turns Some Away from God
But, Philip Yancey observes what in my thirty-five years as a Christian and in my twenty-seven years as a pastor I have also seen: suffering turns other people to God.
The God we meet in Jesus Christ isn't a good luck charm. Bad things happen to faithful people. Death comes to us all.
Being a Christian is a relationship with a Person Who has "been there, done that" when it comes to human suffering. He suffers with us.
And by His resurrection, we know that in the lives of all who trust in Him, suffering and death will not have the last laughs.
Whether our lives are at ease or we are in pain, we need a relationship with Christ.
Suffering makes no sense. Jesus Christ does!
The God we meet in Jesus Christ isn't a good luck charm. Bad things happen to faithful people. Death comes to us all.
Being a Christian is a relationship with a Person Who has "been there, done that" when it comes to human suffering. He suffers with us.
And by His resurrection, we know that in the lives of all who trust in Him, suffering and death will not have the last laughs.
Whether our lives are at ease or we are in pain, we need a relationship with Christ.
Suffering makes no sense. Jesus Christ does!
Wednesday, July 20, 2011
Monday, July 18, 2011
Does God Punish Parents Through the Suffering of Their Children? NO!
Does God cause the suffering or death of children because of the sins of their parents?
As we've been reading the Bible together in a year at Saint Matthew Lutheran Church, that awful question has been suggested by our reading of the experiences of David, Israel's greatest king, and Bathsheba (2 Samuel 11:1-12:17). While Bathsheba's husband was off in battle, David slept with Bathsheba. She became pregnant and to cover up his misdeed, David arranged for Bathsheba's husband, Uriah, to die at the front. Bathsheba married David and the newlyweds then awaited the birth of their child. Through the prophet Nathan though, God told David He was not pleased with things David and Bathsheba had done and that the child Bathsheba would soon birth would die as punishment for their sins.*
I can't begin to explain this strange incident. So, I won't try.
But I don't believe that God causes suffering or death to come to the children of people who sin.
If that were so, every child would suffer and die in their cribs.
That's because we're all sinners who, whether in our minds or in our actions, sinfully violate the will of God.
But I believe that we can turn to the Bible to help us wrestle with this question.
The Bible isn't a how-to manual filled with glib bullet points. Individual passages or chapters of Scripture aren't to be taken in isolation to explain the way God operates. When considering any question, we need to remember a principle set out by Martin Luther, the Reformer: "Let Scripture interpret Scripture."
The Bible is a library of sixty-six books inspired by God over thousands of years. The whole library must be considered when facing tough questions about God, life, and ourselves.
So, what does the whole library of Scripture tell us that might help us understand whether children suffer or die because of the sins of their parents?
One passage that might be brought up is Exodus 34:7. There, God told Moses that while He forgave repentant sinners, He would visit "the iniquity of the parents upon the children and the children's children to the third and fourth generation." But I don't think this passage is relevant to this discussion. The subject of the Exodus passage isn't whether God causes suffering or death to the children of sinners.
In it, God is simply saying that when parents persist in sin--such as failing to honor God as God, for example, or abusing their children verbally, physically, or psychologically--it has an impact on their kids and grandkids.
The words from Exodus are a call and a command to exercise what might be called "intergenerational ethics," recognizing that our sins can have a terrible impact on subsequent generations. Any counselor involved with family therapy will underscore the importance of this warning.
Another Biblical vignette that might merit consideration appears in Genesis 22. There, God tells Abraham to sacrifice his only son, Isaac. Then, just as Abraham is about to do this, God provides a ram to be sacrificed in Isaac's place. God directs Abraham, "Do not lay your hand on the boy or do anything to him; for now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me."
"What kind of a sicko God tells someone to kill his kid?" a good friend asked me years ago. That's a good question, especially if the passage is seen in isolation.
But in fact it was told to the people of ancient Israel to draw a contrast between Yahweh, their God, the God of the Bible, and the false idols worshiped by the surrounding culture. The false gods commanded the sacrifice of children. This was reprehensible to the God of Israel and He repeatedly forbade His people from engaging in such barbaric practices.
The lesson Abraham learned was that God will always provide a way to reconciliation and peace with God--Jesus later claims to be the way, the truth, and the life, the only means needed for reconciliation with God. God will never command the sacrifice of a child because of someone's sins, God was telling Abraham.
This truth is further underscored by a passage from the farewell discourse of ancient Israel's leader, Moses, in Deuteronomy. Through Moses, God says:
There are lots of questions I may want to ask God when, one day, I see Him face to face. But I'm persuaded from what I know of God through Christ and from the overwhelming evidence in the Bible that God doesn't bring calamity punish the sins of parents through the suffering or death of their kids.
That children suffer in a world weighed down by its alienation from God is a tragic reality. My heart aches for every parent who must watch their children suffer.
But, parents, if God has an issue with you and your sins, He'll deal with you. He won't punish your children.
*In 2 Samuel, the story of David and Bathsheba is seen as the beginning of a downward spiral in David's reign. But when the story of David's kingship is told again in 1 Chronicles, the writer shows no interest in this incident from David's personal life. For him, the moral deterioration of David's reign started when, in his official capacity, he ordered a census of his people. (More on this another time, maybe.)
**More on capital punishment another time, maybe. One sticky wicket at a time, please.
***"For the wages if sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord" (Romans 6:23). All sin and deserve death. But forgiveness and new life come to those who repent (that is, repudiate sin) and believe in (trust in) Christ. God only holds us accountable for our own sins, not those of others. And the power of sin to kill us is erased as a free gift for all who trust in Christ.
As we've been reading the Bible together in a year at Saint Matthew Lutheran Church, that awful question has been suggested by our reading of the experiences of David, Israel's greatest king, and Bathsheba (2 Samuel 11:1-12:17). While Bathsheba's husband was off in battle, David slept with Bathsheba. She became pregnant and to cover up his misdeed, David arranged for Bathsheba's husband, Uriah, to die at the front. Bathsheba married David and the newlyweds then awaited the birth of their child. Through the prophet Nathan though, God told David He was not pleased with things David and Bathsheba had done and that the child Bathsheba would soon birth would die as punishment for their sins.*
I can't begin to explain this strange incident. So, I won't try.
But I don't believe that God causes suffering or death to come to the children of people who sin.
If that were so, every child would suffer and die in their cribs.
That's because we're all sinners who, whether in our minds or in our actions, sinfully violate the will of God.
But I believe that we can turn to the Bible to help us wrestle with this question.
The Bible isn't a how-to manual filled with glib bullet points. Individual passages or chapters of Scripture aren't to be taken in isolation to explain the way God operates. When considering any question, we need to remember a principle set out by Martin Luther, the Reformer: "Let Scripture interpret Scripture."
The Bible is a library of sixty-six books inspired by God over thousands of years. The whole library must be considered when facing tough questions about God, life, and ourselves.
So, what does the whole library of Scripture tell us that might help us understand whether children suffer or die because of the sins of their parents?
One passage that might be brought up is Exodus 34:7. There, God told Moses that while He forgave repentant sinners, He would visit "the iniquity of the parents upon the children and the children's children to the third and fourth generation." But I don't think this passage is relevant to this discussion. The subject of the Exodus passage isn't whether God causes suffering or death to the children of sinners.
In it, God is simply saying that when parents persist in sin--such as failing to honor God as God, for example, or abusing their children verbally, physically, or psychologically--it has an impact on their kids and grandkids.
The words from Exodus are a call and a command to exercise what might be called "intergenerational ethics," recognizing that our sins can have a terrible impact on subsequent generations. Any counselor involved with family therapy will underscore the importance of this warning.
Another Biblical vignette that might merit consideration appears in Genesis 22. There, God tells Abraham to sacrifice his only son, Isaac. Then, just as Abraham is about to do this, God provides a ram to be sacrificed in Isaac's place. God directs Abraham, "Do not lay your hand on the boy or do anything to him; for now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me."
"What kind of a sicko God tells someone to kill his kid?" a good friend asked me years ago. That's a good question, especially if the passage is seen in isolation.
But in fact it was told to the people of ancient Israel to draw a contrast between Yahweh, their God, the God of the Bible, and the false idols worshiped by the surrounding culture. The false gods commanded the sacrifice of children. This was reprehensible to the God of Israel and He repeatedly forbade His people from engaging in such barbaric practices.
The lesson Abraham learned was that God will always provide a way to reconciliation and peace with God--Jesus later claims to be the way, the truth, and the life, the only means needed for reconciliation with God. God will never command the sacrifice of a child because of someone's sins, God was telling Abraham.
This truth is further underscored by a passage from the farewell discourse of ancient Israel's leader, Moses, in Deuteronomy. Through Moses, God says:
Parents shall not be put to death for their children, nor shall children be put to death for their parents; only for their own crimes may persons be put to death. (Deuteronomy 24:16)This command is reiterated frequently in Scripture:
[Speaking of Amaziah, a king of Judah] But he did not put to death the children of the murderers; according to what is written in the book of the law of Moses, where the Lord commanded, "The parents shall not be put to death for the children, or the children be put to death for the parents; but all shall be put to death for their own sins."** (2 Kings 14:6, also 2 Chronicles 25:4)The prophet Jeremiah upholds this same principle when he writes:
...all shall die for their own sins...(Jeremiah 31:30)Through another prophet, Ezekiel, God says:
"Know that all lives are mine; the life of the parent as well as the life of the child is mine; it is only the person who sins that shall die. (Ezekiel 18:4)
"The person who sins shall die. A child shall not suffer for the iniquity of the parent, nor a parent suffer for the iniquity of a child; the righteousness of the righteous shall be his own, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be his own." (Ezekiel 18:20)***But the question before us--whether children suffer or die as punishment for their parents' sins is answered definitively by God-in-the-flesh, Jesus. Check out this familiar incident from Jesus' ministry (italics and bold print are mine):
As he [Jesus] walked along, he saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked him, "Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?" Jesus answered, "Neither this man nor his parents sinned; he was born blind so that God's works might be revealed in him." (John 19:1-3)I don't believe that Jesus here means that God caused the man to be born blind, but that his blindness was an opportunity for the power of God to be revealed. Our weakness and need are always opportunities for God's grace to bring us strength and peace with God and ourselves. But more importantly for our question, you see, Jesus repudiates any notion that God causes the children of sinners to suffer because of their parents' sins.
There are lots of questions I may want to ask God when, one day, I see Him face to face. But I'm persuaded from what I know of God through Christ and from the overwhelming evidence in the Bible that God doesn't bring calamity punish the sins of parents through the suffering or death of their kids.
That children suffer in a world weighed down by its alienation from God is a tragic reality. My heart aches for every parent who must watch their children suffer.
But, parents, if God has an issue with you and your sins, He'll deal with you. He won't punish your children.
*In 2 Samuel, the story of David and Bathsheba is seen as the beginning of a downward spiral in David's reign. But when the story of David's kingship is told again in 1 Chronicles, the writer shows no interest in this incident from David's personal life. For him, the moral deterioration of David's reign started when, in his official capacity, he ordered a census of his people. (More on this another time, maybe.)
**More on capital punishment another time, maybe. One sticky wicket at a time, please.
***"For the wages if sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord" (Romans 6:23). All sin and deserve death. But forgiveness and new life come to those who repent (that is, repudiate sin) and believe in (trust in) Christ. God only holds us accountable for our own sins, not those of others. And the power of sin to kill us is erased as a free gift for all who trust in Christ.
Sunday, July 17, 2011
The Kindness Outreach Chronicles (Part 3)
These are pictures snapped by my wife Ann during the Saint Matthew Kindness Outreach of July 9. During the outreaches, when traffic lights at busy intersections turn read, we offer free bottled water to drivers and passengers of stopped vehicles. We share the love of God, no strings attached.
In a world in which we're taught "there's no such thing as a free lunch," it can be hard to convince people that we're actually giving away anything without charge. But these give-aways are a great picture of how grace works. Grace, God's undeserved favor, isn't earned. But God won't force it on you either. You have to be humble and needy enough to willingly receive it.
In the picture above, Dick and Joy hand out bottles of water and Jacob hurries to make sure that everyone in the car gets their free gifts.
Above: Jacob shares another bottle of water.
Above: The preacher in action.
In a world in which we're taught "there's no such thing as a free lunch," it can be hard to convince people that we're actually giving away anything without charge. But these give-aways are a great picture of how grace works. Grace, God's undeserved favor, isn't earned. But God won't force it on you either. You have to be humble and needy enough to willingly receive it.
In the picture above, Dick and Joy hand out bottles of water and Jacob hurries to make sure that everyone in the car gets their free gifts.
Above: Jacob shares another bottle of water.
Above: The preacher in action.
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