Tonight's Weeknight Bible Study of the Gospel of Matthew, Chapter 3

Motivation

[This was the message for this evening's Ash Wednesday worship with the people and friends of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]

Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21
Tonight’s gospel lesson is Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21. Here, Jesus tells us things like, “Be careful not to practice your righteousness in front of others to be seen by them…” (Matthew 6:1). 

And, “So when you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets...But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret.” (Matthew 6:2-4) And, “when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others...But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen…” (Matthew 6:5-6). 

And “[w]hen you fast, do not look somber as the hypocrites do...But when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face, so that it will not be obvious to others that you are fasting…” (Matthew 6:16-18)

Now, if we read Jesus’ words superficially, we might think that He’s contradicting something He said to His followers--including you and me--just one chapter earlier. There, Jesus says, “...let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.” (Matthew 5:16) In this verse, Jesus is telling us to live our faith in Him and our love for Him out loud, “let-everyone-see-the-good-we-do-in-His-name” loud. 

Yet, in tonight’s lesson, He tells us to: give to help the poor, just don’t announce it to the world; live with a right respect for the God Who saves us by grace through faith in Jesus, just don’t call attention to your righteousness; pray for everyone, just don’t call attention to your praying; fast, just don’t let anyone see what you’re sacrificing. 

So, which is it: Live your faith loudly in the public square or refuse to call attention to your own faithfulness?

The answer, friends, is both. 

We are to live out our faith in Jesus out loud for all the world to see. As Jesus says elsewhere, “Whoever acknowledges me before others, I will also acknowledge before my Father in heaven.” (Matthew 10:32) 

That means living our gratitude to God for saving us from sin and death by the faith in the crucified and risen Jesus Christ that His Holy Spirit and His Word have created within us. 

It means trusting in Christ to love God completely, to love our neighbors as we love ourselves, to love each other in the Church with the same devotion Christ showed for us on the cross, to live each day in the light of Jesus’ resurrection promise. 

And it will mean giving to the poor, praying for others--including our enemies, fasting from--that is avoiding--those things that can get in the way of our relationship with Jesus, and telling others about the good news--the gospel--of new and everlasting life for all who follow Jesus.

But we also are not to live out our faith to call attention to ourselves. When I’m out to dinner and I pray over my meal--and I realize that at the Famous Restaurant in Centerville last night, sitting there in my clerical collar, I forgot to pray--but when I do pray over my meal in a public place, I’m to do it not for any audience around me, but for an audience of One: the God I know in Jesus. When I fast, I'm not to do it so that I can create an impression on others. When I give to the poor, I'm not to do it with an eye to how good it makes me look to the world, only to honor the God Who gives me everything I have.

It all boils down to motivation. 

Do we do the things that Jesus commands--things like love God, love neighbor, make disciples, worship with God’s people every week--to point to Jesus or to point to ourselves? 

Do we do the things that Jesus commends--things like praying, giving to the poor, fasting--to give Jesus control over our lives or just to control what others think of us? 

Listen: You can get the whole world convinced that you are the most wonderful, devoted, loving, faithful follower of Jesus by doing the kinds of play-acting Jesus condemns in tonight’s lesson. You can be known for your generosity, your beautiful-sounding prayers, your notorious fasting from the pleasures of the world. But if your motive in all these and other religious acts is anything other than honoring the God Who saves you through Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection, God is not impressed. 

In fact, God will condemn us for using Him to build up our reputations at Christ’s expense. Hebrews 4:13 reminds us, “Nothing in all creation is hidden from God’s sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give account.” 

You cannot fool God! That’s why our motivation is so important.

Let’s be honest though. 

None of us acts from purely pristine or holy motives. My sinful nature reminds me that when I pray in a restaurant, others may see me doing it. As long as I live on this earth, the old Adam in me will try to mess up everything. 

Compelled by Jesus’ grace love and empowered by the Holy Spirit, I’ll do something for another person without a thought of how it may look to others...until later, I think, “That’s a really good thing I did.” 

And it happens to preachers too. In the weeks before virtually every Sunday for the past thirty-five-plus years, Ann can tell you, I have agonized over what God wanted me to say in my sermons. Deep inside, I know that I have nothing to say. I offer up desperate, pleading prayers to God to help me discern what I should tell you about His Word for that week. God has always been faithful; He has always given me what I should say, even when I get in God's way while I preach. I always thank God for giving me a sermon. But it takes just one person to tell me, "Good sermon," and I'm thinking to myself, "Wow! I really am good."

So, our motives for doing the things God calls us to do always get clouded by our sinful selves.

But just because the devil, the world, and our sinful selves constantly remind us that our motives aren’t totally pure doesn’t mean that we should refrain from living our faith in Jesus for all the world to see.

Don’t be afraid to live your faith out loud! 

Don’t be afraid tonight to stop at a store or somewhere else with the ashy cross still on your forehead. 

The apostle Peter tells Christians, “...in your hearts revere Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have.” (1 Peter 3:15)

As we begin Lent on this Ash Wednesday, 2020, I’d like to ask you to consider doing the following things, not as works to earn God's favor, but as ways to open your heart and life to Jesus working and living within you. 

• 1. Ask Jesus to help you follow Him more closely. 
• 2. Ask Jesus to help you live for Him more devotedly and openly.
• 3. Ask Jesus to keep your motives for your acts of devotion focused on Him and not on yourself, to grow closer to Him and not to impress others. 
• 4. Ask Jesus for forgiveness and help when you see your motives turn selfish. 
• 5. As you repent and put yourself in Jesus’ hands, know that you belong to God, not because of anything you do, but totally because of what Jesus Christ did for you on the cross. 
• 6. Ask God to daily remind you that, by grace through faith in Christ, You belong to the God Whose opinion of you is infinitely and eternally more important than what anyone else may think of you! (Even more important than what you think of you.)

At the end of our lesson for tonight, Jesus says, “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” (Matthew 6:19-21) 

In this Lenten season, may God plant within each of us a deepened desire to honor Him Who, in Jesus Christ, has given us everlasting life with God, a treasure greater than anything--including the good opinions of others--that this dying universe could ever give us. 

May we repent and trust in Jesus in response to the Word and the Sacraments and may we learn to trust Jesus always. Amen

[I'm the pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]

Turn and Live

[This message was shared with the people and friends of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio during worship yesterday, the Second Sunday of Advent.]

Matthew 3:1-12
Once, in the days before cell phones, GPSes, or even Mapquest and Google Maps, I missed the biggest part of a farewell party--thrown for Ann and me--after driving past (and continuing to drive past) the house where it was happening. The party came at the end of my pastoral internship in Michigan.

Ann had gone separately because I needed to make a run to Traverse City before going to the farewell. By the time I finally made it, the whole thing was nearly over. All because I hadn’t asked for directions...and because once I was lost, I didn’t turn back when I should have. When we go wrong, the most sensible thing is to turn around. But I didn't do the sensible thing.

For a long time, as I was going wrong that day on the backroads of Benzie County, Michigan, I was too proud to turn back, too proud to admit that I was going wrong, too proud to find a payphone and call someone who could help me, too proud to confess that maybe Ann had been right about my need of her written directions offered earlier in the day.

Have you ever gone wrong in life, set out in the wrong direction and gotten lost? 

I’m not just talking about the places you drive but also being wrong about

• the things you’ve thought, 
• the decisions you’ve made, 
• the relationships you’ve harmed, 
• the untruths you’ve told, 
• the walls you’ve built between God and yourself? 

It’s so easy to lose our sense of direction and end up doing the wrong thing, the hurtful thing, the destructive thing, isn’t it? 

That’s because we’re born with our moral compasses that are askew. 

We actually like to sin. 

We like to play God and travel the lost roads that go away from God. 

We’re so messed up that we sin even when we don’t want to. The apostle Paul talks about this in Romans 7: "I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing." (Romans 7:19)

Like King David, we can confess, “Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me.” (Psalm 51:5)

In today’s gospel lesson, on this Second Sunday of Advent, we meet John the Baptizer, we meet John the Baptizer, whose message is as much for us today--when we look either to the return of Jesus to this world or the day when, just beyond our deaths, we meet Jesus face to face--as it was when John spoke them to prepare His fellow Jews to meet Jesus in the flesh for the first time. 

Take a look at what John says near the beginning of the lesson, Matthew 3:1-12: “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.” (v.2) 

“Turn around,” John is saying. “You’re going in the wrong direction. Turn back toward the promised Savior and King because He’s bringing His Kingdom soon and you want to be ready!” 

Are you ready to meet Jesus? 

He died on a cross and rose from His tomb and is now ascended into heaven. He is Lord of heaven and earth. So, you will meet Him someday. Are you ready for that?

We may say, “Sure, I’m ready. I try to do the right thing.” God’s Word says, “all our righteous acts are like filthy rags.” (Isaiah 64:6) 

We may say, “I’m better than most people,” hoping that Jesus will judge us on a curve. But God’s Word says, “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” (Romans 3:23) 

We may say, “God is gracious and loving. I don’t have anything to fear.” But in God’s Word, Jesus, God in the flesh, says, “Whoever acknowledges me before others, I will also acknowledge before my Father in heaven. But whoever disowns me before others, I will disown before my Father in heaven.” (Matthew 10:32-33) 

We may say, “I’m a member of Living Water Lutheran Church.” But Jesus says that He will let the wheat and the weeds live side-by-side in His Church until the day of His return. If mere membership in the club were all that it took to be part of God’s Kingdom, John the Baptizer wouldn’t have told his fellow Jews, the Sadducees and Pharisees, “I tell you that out of these stones God can raise up children for Abraham” (Matthew 3:9). There’s nothing that we can do to make ourselves ready to meet Jesus.

But there is good news! Even within the harsh words of John the Baptist in our lesson today. 

After warning that the coming Messiah Jesus had ax in hand to take down all those whose lives don’t bear the fruit of repentance--the fruit of habitual turning back to God--John says (starting at verse 11): “I baptize you with water for repentance. But after me comes one who is more powerful than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor, gathering his wheat into the barn and burning up the chaff with unquenchable fire.”

Did you hear the good news--the gospel--there? 

John is saying, “Look, my baptism here on the Jordan River is nothing but you saying that you’re turning to God.” 

That’s great, of course. But if our being right with God depends on our good intentions, we still end up a long way from God. 

• I intend to work out every day but don’t always. 
• I intend to get enough sleep at night but often don’t. 
• I intend to write the great American novel but I haven’t yet. 

John’s baptism of repentance was meant to prepare his fellow Jews for Jesus’ Baptism--God’s Baptism--that brings us forgiveness and new life with God. 

It’s this Baptism, Jesus’ Baptism, that changes us, that brings God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit into our lives, that daily goes to work to kill off our old sinful selves, and that calls the ever-new, ever-righteous child of God to repent--to turn back--to Jesus. 

It’s this Baptism that helps us to hear God’s call to us to turn to Jesus whenever we get lost and to trust that He has done everything (and is still doing everything) needed to make us right with God--to make us righteous, to trust that He will lead us in the right direction.

John’s imagery is interesting. He says that Jesus will institute a Baptism in “the Holy Spirit and fire.” Later, he says that those who turn from God will burn in “unquenchable fire.” 

Fire is judgment. 

The Holy Spirit is the One Who brings life into being. 

Holy Baptism as instituted by Jesus first brings judgment on we who are born in sin, then gives new life from the Holy Spirit. 

Our call from the moment we’re baptized is to keep turning to Christ, whatever our circumstances, even when we’re lost or afraid or conscious of our sin or overwhelmed. 

We who have been baptized with the Holy Spirit and fire know that as we turn to Christ, our old selves are being drowned or burned away to make way for the new person God is retrofitting us to be, today and for all eternity. 

In Jesus’ Baptism, we die with Jesus and we are raised to be with Him. Saint Paul puts it like this: “We were therefore buried with [Jesus] through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.” (Romans 6:4)

You and I have a penchant for going in the wrong direction. But the life-giving Word of God, the gospel of Jesus, has entered into our lives in Holy Baptism and comes to us again and again in the Word proclaimed and read and heard, and in the body and blood of Jesus given in Holy Communion to turn us back to Him and to the life that only He can give. 

If you remember nothing else from this message, remember this: Turn to Him as He calls you and live in His Kingdom, today and eternally. Amen

[I'm the pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]

Restoring Those Who Cause Grief

For my morning quiet time with God today, I considered 2 Corinthians, chapter 2. There, the apostle Paul refers to someone in the Corinthian churches who had brought grief to the Christians in that area by saying harmful things about Paul himself.

But after the churches had admonished and dealt with the Christian who had done this, Paul said this to the Corinthian Christians:

"...you ought to forgive and comfort him, so that he will not be overwhelmed by excessive sorrow. I urge you, therefore, to reaffirm your love for him." (2 Corinthians 2:7-8)

There's a difference between sisters and brothers in Christ exercising church discipline, holding each other accountable to their mutual community in Christ on the one hand, and judging others unworthy of the grace in Christ which we claim by faith despite our sinful natures, on the other hand. The former is appropriate and loving. The latter is sinful.

If we Christians use the faults and sinful actions of others as a pretext to withhold the forgiveness that Christ wants to give to those who are repentant and who believe in Him, we put ourselves in places higher than God Himself. We judge God to be too soft on sin. We judge ourselves to be holier than God. Not a good idea!

We are as Christians to speak the truth to each other in love (Ephesians 4:15), but always with the idea of bringing restoration between Christ and the person who has caused us (or Christ or the Church) grief. As Jesus famously puts it:

"I tell you that...there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent." (Luke 15:7)

And, by the way, there ARE righteous people in this world, people made righteous by grace through faith in the only righteous One, God incarnate, Jesus.

But there are also NO human beings without the need of repentance and forgiveness. That includes those made righteous by God's grace through their trust in Jesus. Christians are simultaneously saints and sinners, in daily need of repentance and renewal in Christ's power, until the day of Jesus' return when He will make all things right.

Today, every time a sinner repents, that is, turns from their sin and turns to Christ for forgiveness, restoration, and life, there's a party in heaven.

Paul is saying that when that happens, the Church needs to join Jesus in forgiving and have a party too!

If you're a Christian:

(1) Ask God: Who in the Church might you need to lovingly confront--with the aim of reconciliation and restoration--today? (Jesus gives the guidelines for how Christians, who should always be mutually accountable to Christ's community, the Church, are to do this in Matthew 18:15-20.)*

(2) Ask God: Who do you need to release from the grudge you've been holding onto? (Jesus teaches us to pray, "Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us."

(3) Remember that when we (or others) honestly own our sins before God through Jesus Christ, we are forgiven and heaven throws a party.**

*Jesus always speaks of Christian faith as a group activity. The Bible knows of no way that a person can be a Christian apart from the Church. 

**Now there's nothing in any of this to suggest that after we've forgiven people who have hurt us, we should have the same relationship with them that we had before. Years ago, I had to tell a woman caught in the snares of alcoholism and self-destructive behaviors, that, for the foreseaable future, she couldn't lead one of the ministries of the church I was then serving. A spouse or child of a repentant abuser is not expected to re-enter into the same kind of relationship they had with the abuser before confrontation and restoration take place. A school should not place someone once guilty of pedophilia alone with kids. Here, I think that Jesus' words to the devil after the devil had tempted Jesus to jump from the pinnacle of the temple in Jerusalem because God promises in Psalm 91 to faithfully uphold His people should they fall, are appropriate; Jesus told the devil that believers are not to tempt (or test) God. In other words, God doesn't call us to take absurd measures to test our faith. 

[I'm the pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]

The Peace That Brings Conflict

Mark 10:34-42
This morning, I want to focus on just the first six verses from today's gospel lesson, Matthew 10:34-39.

That’s because Jesus’ words for us here are jarring. They’re not the kinds of words you’ll see quoted on a Hallmark card.

“I haven’t come to bring peace, but a sword. Happy birthday.”

“Anyone who loves family more than Me isn’t worthy of Me. Happy Father’s Day.”

“Take up your cross. Get well soon.”

“Lose your life to find it. Will you be my Valentine?”

But if we find Jesus’ words today jarring, know that the first disciples, on hearing them undoubtedly stood gape-mouthed at the Lord.

You see, as Jesus speaks the words in our lesson, the disciples were already coming to believe that He is the Messiah. And the Messiah, according to prophecy, would come to bring peace.

Eight centuries earlier the prophet Isaiah, under inspiration from God’s Holy Spirit, had said of the Messiah: “For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.” (Isaiah 9:6)

At Jesus’ birth, angels sang, “Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests.” (Luke 2:14)

Yet, look again at what the disciples hear the Prince of peace say to them in today’s lesson: “Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to turn ‘a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law—a man’s enemies will be the members of his own household.’” (Matthew 10:34-36)

So, what is it, Jesus? Did You come to bring peace or conflict?

The answer is both.

It’s important to remember what the Bible means when it talks about peace. Peace, from God’s point of view, involves more than the absence of conflict.

In God’s eyes, peace is complete, unfettered harmony between God and those who trust in Him. It also means peace between those who trust in Him and their neighbors, their world.

This is the peace that comes to all who turn from their sin and surrender their lives to Jesus Christ. It’s called shalom in the Hebrew of the Old Testament, eirene in the Greek of the New Testament.

The peace that Jesus brings makes it possible for us to look ourselves in the mirror and to see, not just an imperfect sinner deserving of death, but a child of God redeemed and made eternally new by Jesus Christ.

The peace of Jesus makes it possible for us to look at God not only as the perfect Judge, but as the loving Father Who sent His Son to die and rise for us, Who sends His Spirit to live in us, guide us, and make us over into His image.

The peace of Jesus makes it possible for us to look on our neighbors as people for whom Jesus also died and rose, people who need to know and experience the good news of new and everlasting life that Jesus brings, people whom Jesus calls us to serve as if they were Jesus Himself.

In bringing the possibility of such peace in all of these ways to each and every human being though, Jesus inevitably creates conflict.

If we get serious about following Jesus, conflict will come. Jesus came to bring us peace with God, with ourselves, and with others. But not everyone wants what Jesus has come to bring. Not everyone wants to surrender to Jesus. Even those who believe in Jesus find that the hardest prayer He teaches us to pray is, “Thy will be done.” We have all inherited from Adam and Eve a desire to "be like God" and it's foreign to all of us to want to surrender ourselves even to the One Who makes and redeems us.

So, it’s in Jesus’ call to follow and surrender that conflict begins. That’s where Jesus, in the words He cites from the Old Testament book of Micah, pits “man against father, daughter against mother,” family member against family member.

Jesus is not just the great giver of peace, He’s also the great divider of human beings and of human history.

Years ago, the movie Chariots of Fire told the story of an Olympic athlete getting into the very kind of conflict that Jesus brings to those who follow Him. Eric Liddell was a young Scotsman who had trained for a track event. But he learned that his event was scheduled for a Sunday and, as a devout Christian, who would later be a missionary to China, he did not believe that he should run on the sabbath. The United Kingdom’s Olympic elite were appalled. “In my day,” one of them, a former Olympian himself, tells Liddell heatedly, “we knew who took first place between God and King.”

For the Christian, of course, no matter how patriotic, God must always take first place. The God we know in Jesus Christ must take first place over country, over family, over career, over friends, over self. And when Christians dare to make the God revealed in Jesus their highest priority, there will inevitably be conflict. Jesus is preparing us for that with His words to us today.

And Jesus isn’t done bracing us for following Him while we live in this fallen world. He goes on: “Anyone who loves their father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves their son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.” (Matthew 10:37)

When you follow Jesus, conflict may happen even in the intimacy of family. I was talking with a worried father a few years ago. The father was a Christian; but his faith was basically confined to Sunday mornings. His son had acquired a deep faith in Jesus while in college. The young man had started sharing his faith in Christ and, despite being on a great trajectory with his new career, decided to take two years off in order to go to a Third World country to do evangelism and mission work. His father was appalled! He was sure that his son could never pick up the thread of his rising career after a two-year absence in some far-off country. “I keep trying to make my son consider,” he told me, “how this is possibly going to help him.”

It was hard for me to help this man understand that, while not all of us are called to spend two years following Christ into a Third World country, his son was doing the right thing. The father viewed the son’s prospective missionary trip as a betrayal: All that money spent on the son’s education was going to waste. But for his son, it was clear: He loved his father, but he loved his Lord even more.

Jesus asks us, “Who do you love more, the things of this world or Me?” That father was conflicted; his son was at peace. When you follow where Jesus leads, despite the conflict roiling around you and sometimes inside you, you have a peace that passes all understanding.

Jesus goes on to say: “Whoever does not take up their cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Whoever finds their life will lose it, and whoever loses their life for my sake will find it.” (Matthew 10:38-39)

The first disciples would have had no understanding of Jesus at this point. They didn’t realize that Jesus would, on Good Friday, take up a cross and there, experience the death sentence that every one of us deserves for our sin, taking it for us so that we, by faith in Christ, be reconciled with God.

What Jesus is telling us is that, if we are to experience the new life that He has come to bring us now and in eternity, we must allow our old selves to be crucified.

Daily, we need to subject all those sins that we commit, either deliberately or reflexively, to crucifixion.

That means coming to God each day and asking Him to show us our sins so that He can rip them from our lives, even all those sins we like to commit, to be put on the shoulders of Jesus, Who died to consume them from existence forever.

Listen: Sin kills. All sin kills--from taking God’s name in vain to murder, from sexual intimacy outside a marriage of woman and man to gossip, from dishonoring our elders to coveting what our neighbor has, from making idols of our kids to even the pettiest of thievery.

And, if we are to live with the God Who sets sinners free to live as human beings were meant to live, we must daily submit all our sin to crucifixion.

And this is no abstraction. We are born in sin. Sin is such a part of us that it’s part of what composes our personalities, our habits, our ways of looking at the world. It must be crucified. Daily. Hourly. Through constant surrender to Christ.

Like the fog that clings to the ocean at the beach in the morning, it must be burned off by the light of God’s grace given in Christ.

It’s more violent, more painful than that.

Once, a melanoma, a malignant cancer, was found on my leg. It hadn’t grown much. But the cancer had become part of me. It had to be removed. So, one day, I went to the James Center at Ohio State, where a surgeon removed the cancer. It was no longer part of me.

It was a minor surgery; the scar is still there, but the sting lasted only a few days. Taking up our crosses, daily repenting, daily agreeing with God that the sins that have become part of me must go, is vastly more painful than that. And daily repentance for our sin will leave its scars on our psyches and our lives. That’s just the truth!

But as we take up our crosses each day, God goes to work to create our best selves. The sin selves die so that our God selves can live.

Jesus died and rose to make this soul surgery successful!

We often buy Hallmark cards to make people laugh or to comfort them. There's nothing wrong with that. But in describing what may come to us as His disciples, Jesus isn’t sending us a Hallmark.

Life with Christ is, of course, an incredible comfort. All who repent and trust in Christ have life with God that never ends. Christ stands by those who follow Him through this life and will usher us into a perfect eternity with God at the resurrection. That’s true comfort.

But along the way, the disciple will be constantly called to choose Christ over our own temporary comforts.

Christ over the world.

Christ over our family.

Christ over our status.

Christ over self.

Christ over our country.

That may cause us conflict with others, conflict even with ourselves, as we live from day to day. But all who dare to trust in Jesus, day in and day out, live with this comfort from Him: “...the one who stands firm to the end will be saved.” (Matthew 24:13) No Hallmark card can bring that kind of comfort. Only Jesus.

Keep following Him!

[Blogger Mark Daniels is pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio. This was the message prepared for worship today.]

New Year's Thoughts: For Anyone Who Does Wrong (Including Me)

From today's edition of Our Daily Bread:

God is still calling to people: “Where are you?” Many run away, trying to hide from Him or drown out the sound of His voice. Yet we cannot hide from God; He knows exactly where we are. Rather than hide in fear, we can respond in this way: “God, be merciful to me a sinner!” (Luke 18:13).

Read the whole thing.

I have a song containing these lines:

What I did was wrong
And there isn't any way I can make it seem that it was right
Which is why I try avoiding detection in Your light
It's a foolish game that I try to play
Running from You, when You see me anyway
What I did was wrong (1)

Thank God that the One Who sees all our wrong is willing to pardon us from the death sentence our wrong warrants us and takes the sentence on His own shoulders through Christ, setting free all who repent in Christ's Name and believe in Him as their God and Savior.

(1) © Mark Daniels [pretty impressive, huh?...I mean the copyright symbol, not the words of the song.]

Love This

"It does not take much to make us realize what fools we are, but the little it takes is long in coming." (Flannery O'Connor)

First and Last Pictures of Lincoln's Presidency and Thoughts on Worry

The first & last portrait photos of Lincoln as President: May 1860 & Feb 1865. pic.twitter.com/BmTmanTNPL
— ClassicPics (@History_Pics) November 20, 2014

The toll of his worry and care can clearly be observed by comparing these two pictures, one taken at the beginning of Abraham Lincoln's presidency, the other taken just two months before his assassination.

Worry and care do the same thing to all of us, which is why Jesus told us not to worry.

He undoubtedly told us this because to not worry is so foreign to human nature. We needed to be warned against it.

Worry is uniquely human. Creatures capable of anticipating the future, we use that capability in a way that expresses the fundamental sinful impulse of wanting to "be like God," to call the shots and control the future.

How many of the things that we want to control, are we able to control?

And more importantly, how many of those things should we control?

In the book, The Screwtape Letters, C.S. Lewis has his fictional senior tempter talk about different kinds of "time": the past, the present, the future, and eternity. (And how hell tries to leverage our confusion about these modes of "time" to destroy our having relationships with God.)

For we human beings, the past is done, something over which we have no control. We can repent for the sins of our past. But to spend time ruing that past, is a waste of energy for something that cannot be changed. If the devil cannot tempt us to new sin or away from repentance and God's forgiveness for past sins, he loves to weigh us down with shame or regret, not just for sins, but innocent actions of our past.

The future is as insusceptible to our control to the past. We can make plans. Some may even succeed. But we have no guarantees that they will be fulfilled or be fulfilled as we want. This world is imperfect. We are imperfect. Our plans are imperfect. And the follower of Jesus Christ, God in the flesh, is called to believe that God is in the final control of everything, despite our plans.

Both past and future are unreal. The past no longer exists. The future has yet to exist.

Yet, people often spend more time in these two unreal places, ruing and worrying, than they do in the two places that are real, where things can be changed.

Those two places are, first of all, the present, when we can decide what actions we will undertake, what thoughts we will think, what words we will say.

And the second is eternity, the place where God always dwells in what Lewis in another of his books, Mere Christianity, describes as "the eternal now." By His resurrection, Christ has secured a place for all who turn from sin and believe in Him, in that certain eternity.

Focusing on those two real places--the present and eternity--will mitigate our worry.

Focusing on what we can and should do in the present empowers us for living fully in the unfolding moments of our earthly lives.

Focusing on eternity assures us that even if we mess up, as we inevitably to, even when this world does its worst to us, those who trust in Christ, have a connection to a loving, sustaining God and to a perfect kingdom in which our tears will be dried and we will live in eternal certainty.

What Can We Do About Sexual Violence in the United States?

"On average, 24 people per minute are victims of rape, physical violence, or stalking by an intimate partner in the United States..." That's the chilling opening introduction to the Center for Disease Control (CDC) National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey (NISVS). When I heard this information last night on the news, I was shocked! I turned to my wife and said, "That is appalling!" See here.

This is a tragic element of life in our country. Is the phenomenon of sexual violence perpetrated by people with intimate access to others worse than in the past? Or are these incidents being more commonly reported?

I don't know the answers to those two questions. But I am certain that without the respect for each other as children of God fostered by a relationship with Christ, all legal and social remedies to sexual violence will be mere bandaids. (Even though, clearly, legal and social remedies must be applied!)

Please pray for people willing to share Jesus with those around them.

And don't be surprised that as you pray, God may incite you to action steps He may want you to take to help change the climate in our culture. 

In the meantime, if you know of any people victimized in ways shown in this new study, urge them to get help and to call the appropriate authorities.

By the way, this seems like a good point to mention that God created sexual intimacy to be a means by which a husband and wife may be bonded to each other, to enjoy one another's company, and, at times, to become parents. 

The misuse of our sexuality is a sin. 

Like all sin, it can be forgiven by the gracious God we know in Christ when in repentance and in faith in Christ, we seek forgiveness. 

But the misuse of human sexuality has reached epidemic proportions in our society. 

May God teach us to use all of His gifts as He intends them to be used.