Weekly Choir Devotions - We're Preachin' to the Choir!

February 17, 2011

2011-02-19T08:51:00.000-08:00

"For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his love for those who fear him; as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us." (Psalm 103:11-12)

Pitchers and catchers have reported to Spring Training, and before we know it the competitive 2011 version of America's Greatest Pastime will be underway. I would imagine that it's safe to say that most of us know the basic rules of baseball, but I will be the first to admit that I have no clue how to score a game and also probably couldn't be considered an expert at analyzing any of baseball's detailed statistics. One statistic that I do know is important however, when judging a player's worth in the game of baseball, is batting average. How many times out of a thousand does a player get a hit? Hitting "1000," would be perfection. Today in the Bigs, if you hit in the "300's," (or 300 times out of a thousand you get on base) then you are considered an All-Star batter. From this baseball jargon comes the sarcastic slang phrase, "I'm sure batting a thousand today..." Which really means that I'm failing at everything I'm attempting today and I'm just striking out at everything I swing at today.

After looking at the Old Testament Lesson and the Epistle Lesson and the Gospel Lesson for this upcoming Sunday (Epiphany 7), I got the sense that these passages were heavy on Law and light on Gospel. Finally in the Psalm of the Day, Psalm 103, I found the gorgeous glorious guarantee of the Gospel in the verses we are considering above.

The Old Testament Lesson tells us to, "Be holy because I, the LORD your God, am holy." (Leviticus 19:2). After looking in the mirror it's not hard to see that our own holiness doesn't even compare to the holiness of the LORD our God - it's a swing and a miss for all of us. The Epistle Lesson speaks to the fact that our bodies are temples of the Holy spirit. (1 Corinthians 3:16-17) After looking in the mirror we might remember all the times we used, or rather misused or bodies as though they were our own - this too is a swing and a miss for us. The Gospel Lesson speaks to the fact that we should be loving not only our neighbors and those who treat us well, but also our enemies and those who don't treat us well. After taking an honest look in the mirror we might see ourselves doing things to both our enemies and our neighbors that couldn't be considered anything other than hateful - another swing and a miss. The Gospel Lesson closes with the command to, "Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect." (Matthew 5:48) and we don't even need to look in the mirror to know that we're swinging hard and missing hard on this one. When we used these passages as a mirror to see how we look, and compare that to how we should look, we will quickly realize that when it comes to what God demands of us in these passages that sarcastically speaking, "we're sure batting a thousand!" The apostle Paul realized this very same thing: "I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. What a wretched man I am!

Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God—through Jesus Christ our Lord!" (Romans 7:18,24,25) Because of His immeasurable love, God didn't leave us on our own to keep swinging and to keep striking out. He put in a pinch-hitter, His only Son Jesus, who actually could, and actually did literally "bat a thousand," - as he lived a perfect life for us, in our place. And then because He died on the cross and rose victorious from the grave, we are now the winners. Jesus took all our transgressions and knocked them not only out of the infield, not only out of the playing field, not only out of the park, but knocked them to infinity and beyond! Our transgressions are removed, forgiven and forgotten. When God looks at the "Jumbotron" for the replay of our at-bat, He doesn't see all of our swings and misses. “I, even I, am he who blots out your transgressions, for my own sake, and remembers your sins no more. (Isaiah 43:25) Jesus gives us a new uniform, as he clothes us in robes of righteousness, so that when God looks at the replay He sees us in our new uniforms ,totally right with Him, literally "batting a thousand." "I delight greatly in the LORD; my soul rejoices in my God. For he has clothed me with garments of salvation and arrayed me in a robe of righteousness.." (Isaiah 61:10)

The more we look into the mirror of God's Law, the more we will see and realize how often we whiff - how often we swing and miss. The Law forces us to easily realize that when it comes to obeying God's commands that we are sarcastically speaking: "really batting a thousand." (this of course doesn't mean that we shouldn't keep swinging - God gives us the strength to hit some pitches and conquer temptations- which is a topic for another devotion)... But the more we look at the perfect play of God's Gospel, the more we will see and realize how awesome it is that the only person who could literally "bat a thousand" when it comes to following God's commands - Jesus - has hit perfectly. And through the gift of faith in Jesus, His perfect record is ours. Thanks be to God that in His immeasurable mercy and grace for us, He put in the pinch-hitter Jesus, who has knocked our transgressions so far out of the park and away from us, that they are now even out of God's sight.

February 10, 2011

2011-02-12T20:34:00.000-08:00

"However, as it is written: “No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him” but God has revealed it to us by his Spirit." (1 Corinthians 2:9-10)

High school sweethearts celebrating their 30th anniversary might say to one another - "I just can't imagine my life without you."

A friend talking to a friend about another friend who was just diagnosed with a debilitating terminal illness might say - "I just can't imagine what they're going through."

A Green Bay Packer's fan talking to another Green Bay Packer's fan about Aaron Rodgers winning his first Super Bowl might say - "I just can't imagine what it would feel like to be Number 12 right now."

Usually when we say that we can't imagine something, what we are really saying is that it would be difficult to imagine, or to relate to, or to visualize, or to conceptualize. It would be difficult to imagine - but not impossible. What is absolutely impossible to imagine or to conceive on our own is the message of the Gospel and the meaning of the Gospel - "what God has prepared for those who love Him." It's more than just hard to relate to, because there is nothing to relate it to. There's nothing that our minds have thought of, there's nothing that our eyes have seen, there's nothing that our ears have heard, that can do justice as a decent comparison with the love and actions of our Savior God. The Gospel message is absolutely foreign to the senses of someone who hasn't been affected by the Spirit. To the unbeliever, the love God has is Foreign to the point of being totally incomprehensible. What God has prepared for those who love Him is alien to those who don't love Him. Without the help of the Spirit, we literally just can't imagine what God has prepared for us.

We humans lost true comprehension of God way back in Eden when sin created a great barrier between God and man. Because of sin, Adam and Eve's offspring would by nature know of God, but by nature wouldn't love God. Isn't it interesting that part of the lure that the devil used to get Eve to take the forbidden bite had to do with the desire for increased knowledge? Remember what snake told Eve? “For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” (Genesis 3:5) The devil told lies of diametric proportions. When Adam and Eve followed the devil, their knowledge base wasn't increased - they didn't suddenly know what God knows . One thing they did know and realize was that God is powerful - which is one reason why they hid. Our limited natural knowledge of God can imagine that God is powerful, but nothing in nature, or in our own nature that is sinful, can tell us about the Good News - nothing in nature can tell us about what God has prepared for those who love Him. "For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse. For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened." (Romans 1:20-21) Adam and Eve's foolish and futile sin tainted minds and ears and eyes couldn't have seen or heard or thought up a plan to find their way again. God had to enter and intervene and reveal to them His plan, or in other words: what He had prepared for them - which was the substitute Christ, the second Adam. The same is true of the inability of our ears, eyes and minds to - on our own - hear, see, or picture what God has prepared for us.

"From hearts depraved, to evil prone, flow thoughts and deeds of sin alone;
God's image lost, the darkened soul, nor seeks nor finds its heav'nly goal.

But Christ, the second Adam, came to beat our sin and woe and shame,
to be our life, or light, our way, our only hope, our only stay." (CW 378:3,4)

Christ is our only life, our only light, our only way, our only hope, our only stay. But the only way we can find our life, light, way, hope and stay is if God the Father reveals Him to us through His Spirit. Without the Spirit we can't imagine that Jesus can do or be anything for us. All this Luther so succinctly summarized when he wrote, "I believe that I cannot by my own thinking or choosing believe in Jesus Christ, my Lord, or come to him. But the Holy Spirit has called me by the gospel" (Third Article, Small Catechism).

"It was grace in Christ that called me, taught my darkened heart and mind,
else the world had yet enthralled me, to your heav'nly glories blind.
Now I worship none above you; for your grace alone I thirst,
knowing well that if I love you, You, O Father loved me first." (CW 380:2)

We once were Spiritually blind but now because of the Spirit's love and revelation, we see. We once were Spiritually deaf, but now because of the Spirit's love and revelation, we now are able to hear and receive the wonderful message of the Gospel. We once were Spiritually dumb, but now because of the Spirit's love and revelation, our minds have been renewed and we now know what God has prepared for us who love Him. Through faith we arrive at the point where we can't help but say, "I just can't imagine life without Him!"

And about others who are still Spiritually blind, deaf and dumb, we might wonder and we might say, "I just can't imagine how they're going through life without Him." "I just can't imagine living without knowing the cure for the terminal illness of sin." "I just can't imagine life without true comfort". "I just can't imagine life without true hope." God wants everyone to have the unimaginable knowledge of what is true - the knowledge of truth. "God our Savior wants all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth." (1 Timothy 2:4) We might be tempted to ask ourselves, "if God wants all men to be saved, then why doesn't he just put the Spirit in the drinking water, or put the Spirit in the air that we all breathe, so that all men will come to the knowledge and be saved?" If we find ourselves asking this question, let's remember what the Spirit through the prophet Isaiah has revealed to us about our ideas as compared to God's ideas: “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the LORD. “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts." (Isaiah 55:8-9) All we can know is what the Spirit has revealed to us, and what has been revealed is that there is a gap between humans who don't yet know God's love, and the saving effect of the love and mercy and grace that God has for them. What we also know is that we, who have come to the knowledge of the truth, are to be the gap fillers who bridge that gap - as we direct the lost to the Word and the Spirit, who works through the Word, to reveal what God has in store for those who love Him. Let's be the bridges. And then let's pray like the Apostle Paul, "that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give [them] the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that [they] may know him better." (Ephesians 1:17)

Before the Spirit opens our eyes and ears and minds, we literally can't imagine what God has in store for us. But praise be to God that He has revealed it to us by His Spirit! And now we just can't imagine what life would be without Him! And we also just can't imagine what life is like for those who are without Him. And so out of love for others, and motivated by and patterned in the love He had for us, we tell others who still just can't imagine. We direct them to the Word and to the Spirit who works through the Word. We act as the bridge over the gap between the unimaginable and the unbelievably amazing, which God has prepared for those who love Him!

January 27, 2011

2011-01-29T17:17:00.000-08:00

"... the LORD has a case against his people; he is lodging a charge against Israel. “My people, what have I done to you? How have I burdened you? Answer me. I brought you up out of Egypt and redeemed you from the land of slavery. I sent Moses to lead you, also Aaron and Miriam. My people, remember what Balak king of Moab plotted and what Balaam son of Beor answered. Remember your journey from Shittim to Gilgal, that you may know the righteous acts of the LORD.”

(Israel's response):

"With what shall I come before the LORD and bow down before the exalted God? Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves a year old? Will the LORD be pleased with thousands of rams, with ten thousand rivers of olive oil? Shall I offer my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? " (Micah 6:2-7 NIV2010)

You see it play out in the movies, possibly because it's true to life: The young, wealthy, spoiled character, who was given - by his affluent father - everything that money can buy (including trouble), is now in trouble with the law. And the character doesn't pretend that he didn't do what he is accused of doing - in fact everyone knows he did it. Maybe he's sorry he got caught, but for sure he's not sorry that he did it. He just wants to cut to the chase with the judge to find out how much it's going to cost this time to get himself out of trouble - how much of his father's money is he going to have to cough up to pay the fine or to pay the penalty for whatever he did.

If you think about it, the Israelites were kind of like this spoiled character. God blessed them tremendously. In fact everything they had, including their freedom, their land, their cattle, was given to them by their most affluent Father - God. And yet they found a way to use what they had been blessed with to get into trouble and to do anything and everything but what God, their Father, wanted them to do. And when confronted with their sins, the Israelites, like the character in the movie, wouldn't be sorry - at least not truly sorry or penitent. According to Micah's insight into the Israelite's spirit and thought process, all the Israelites wanted to do was to figure out what kind of sacrifice they could offer up to appease God. What's it going to cost this time: a calf, a thousand rams or a thousand rivers of oil, or maybe if that wasn't enough - their first born?

How about us? Can we draw any similarities between the attitude and actions of the Israelites, or the attitude and actions of the character from the movies, and our own actions and attitudes? Have we not also been ridiculously blessed by God? Even in the midst of a serious economic recession, we are still living in a land of virtual milk and honey, and most importantly a land where we are still free to worship the true God. Not to mention how we have all been ridiculously blessed Spiritually speaking. We all have the sure hope that we will one day be brought from the wilderness of this world - from our own personal Shittims, to Gilgal, to the Promise Land of heaven. This is how God has treated us, and yet don't we sometimes choose to use what God has blessed us with to serve interests that conflict with God's law and will? If we are honest in our self-examination, we will realize that we are like the character in the movie and like the Israelites, in that we have been blessed, but in many cases have gone prodigal with the blessings by sinning.

But this is where the similarity ends though, right? There's no way that we, living in New Testament times, would ever attempt to appease God with our own sacrifices. We know we're forgiven by faith alone and by grace alone. We know that it's only through Christ's sacrifice that we are forgiven... When we've felt guilty for something we did or didn't do, rather than fall on our knees and ask for mercy, have we ever stayed standing? Have we ever had the devil plant the idea in our minds that we should actually try to do something to try and butter God up - as though we can somehow get ourselves back in God's good graces - as though we can somehow earn God's favor and get Him to want to continue to have mercy on us? God is good and merciful and continuously gracious towards us all on His own. This held true even when we were His enemies -keep in mind, "while we were still sinners, Christ died for us." (Romans 5:8) When we realize we have gotten caught up in breaking God's law and going against His will, the temptation can be to look to try and do something to appease, but all God wants is our hearts. We humans tend to look for outward action, but "the LORD does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart.” (1 Samuel 16:7) When we part ways with God's will, in order to return, God doesn't want us to do anything, He has done it all already by sacrificing His son Jesus for us. What God wants is our hearts. He wants our contrite hearts. "You do not delight in sacrifice, or I would bring it; you do not take pleasure in burnt offerings. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise." (Psalm 51:16,17)

The great American Lutheran hymnist Jaroslav J. Vajda realized the condition of man's heart and captured the spirit of true contrition as he suggests who to turn to in order to have our heart disease healed. Vajda reworked Martin Luther's great hymn of true penitence, "From Depths of Woe I Cry to You." Vajda titled his hymn, "In Hopelessness and Near Despair," here's verse 2:

"I see my heart's condition now, my heart's diverse affections.
Why do I love the things you loathe; I'm torn in two directions:
Now prodigal, now Pharisee. O God, be merciful to me;
Who else but you can help me?" (CWS 738:2)

When we, like the Israelites (and the character in the movies), go prodigal with what God has blessed us with by sinning, let's avoid trying to turn to ourselves for the solution. We have nothing to bring to the redemption table. Rather than doing something, let's keep in mind that Jesus has already done it all. Let's do nothing except dropping to our knees to ask for mercy and continued grace, recognizing that Jesus has already made the complete sacrifice for us - once for all: "First he said, “Sacrifices and offerings, burnt offerings and sin offerings you did not desire, nor were you pleased with them” (although the law required them to be made). Then he said, “Here I am, I have come to do your will.” He sets aside the first to establish the second. And by that will, we have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. (Hebrews 10:8-10) Jesus has made the sacrifice for all our transgressions, all God desires is that our heart, through contrition and faith, trusts in Jesus and the sacrifice He made for us. Let's humbly pray with the Psalmist David: "Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. Do not cast me from your presence or take your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me." (Psalm 51:10-12). Once our hearts are pure again, then our heartfelt natural response will be to want to do something to express our thanks to God for Jesus - God's Sacrifice that trumps all other sacrifices. The LORD is pleased with this post-redemption action of thanks and praise.

Thank you Jesus for being the perfect sacrifice. Thank you for the sacrifice you made for us prodigals. Amen!

January 20, 2011

2011-01-22T11:42:00.000-08:00

“Come, follow me,” Jesus said, “and I will send you out to fish for people.” (Matthew 4:19 NIV 2010)

Have you ever seen a bumper sticker on the bumper of a car that you were following, that had lettering in extremely small font - so small that you would only be able to read it if you were right on the tail of the car you were following? I have seen a number of these, and often the phrase you will find, if you are able to make it out, turns out to be something vulgar in nature. But once I saw one of these stickers that I could actually appreciate - it posed the question (again in very small font only visible from short distances) "Are you following Jesus this closely?" It's a question worth asking ourselves. Can we truthfully say that we are "tailgating Jesus?" Or have we allowed other "cars" like self-centeredness, or the world and its pleasures, or some other kind of car to get in between our car and Jesus bumper? Of course if it were up to us and our own driving skills, we would have lost Jesus' lead, be down the wrong road, and crashed in no time... I am by no means a follower of pop-culture, but the refrain of a pop song made famous by Carrie Underwood happened to pop into my head, and while including it seemed a little silly, it also seemed to be a fitting plea for us reckless drivers: "Jesus take the wheel, take it from my hands, 'cause I can't do this on my own. I'm letting go so give me one more chance to save me from this road I'm on. Jesus, take the wheel." Even as we accept the invitation to follow Jesus, we must realize that we absolutely need Jesus to take the wheel, to guide us, and to draw us ever closer to Him so that we are able to follow.

"Draw us to thee; oh grant that we may walk the road to heaven!
Direct our way lest we should stray and from thy paths be driven." (CW 170:3)

When we are drawn to Jesus, when we are tailgating Jesus, one thing that we will be following is His example. When we follow Jesus closely we will quickly see that compassion and love for people dominates His attitude and actions. Doesn't it seem like we are almost to the point that if the people of this world aren't loving themselves, then they aren't loving at all? Jesus Himself warned, "Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold." (Matthew 24:12) If we find ourselves following the world at all, it is likely that our love, if it doesn't grow cold, will for sure grow colder. But when we follow Jesus we will see that in all Jesus' healings and in all His dealings, His feelings of love and compassion predominated.

"Come follow me," the Savior spoke, "All in my way abiding,
deny yourselves; the world forsake; Obey my call and guiding.
Oh, bear the cross, what e'er betide; take my example for your guide." (CW 453:1)

In following Jesus, we will find out that what the Psalmist wrote is true - "The LORD is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and rich in love" (Psalm 145:8) When we follow Jesus we would do well to pray that He would Kindle in us the fire of His love, that we may imitate Him and show warmth and love and compassion towards others whose love is growing cold. "Be imitators of God, therefore, as dearly loved children and live a life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. " (Ephesians 5:1-2) When we imitate Jesus and follow Jesus and His example closely, our own sense and level of love and compassion for our neighbors will be heightened. And how can we show our love for our neighbor more, or be more compassionate towards our neighbors, than by being concerned with their Spiritual needs? And so when we follow Jesus' example and follow Jesus' command, we will find ourselves being busy making disciples - fishing for men. Our fishing can follow Jesus' example by starting out by being genuinely compassionate towards people and their problems, showing genuine care and concern, and providing help when possible. But then above all else, nothing is more compassionate or shows more love towards our neighbor than getting them hooked on God - than getting their own car following, and then closely following, and eventually even tailgating Jesus.

"Are you following Jesus this closely?" When we follow Jesus our Savior closely - or more accurately when He in mercy steers us closer to Him - we will be comforted by the tremendous amount of love and compassion that He showers upon us and everyone He comes in contact with. The more time we spend following Jesus, and the closer we follow Jesus, the more we will be prone then to follow His example of compassion and love, and then direct that compassion and love towards others around us. "If you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any fellowship with the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and purpose. Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others. Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus (Philippians 2:1-5) Ultimately the best way to follow Jesus' example of looking to the interest of others and loving and showing concern for others, is to fish them - to share Jesus and His love with them, and get them hooked on Jesus, so that they will want to follow Jesus closely too.

January 13, 2011

2011-01-15T09:25:00.000-08:00

"Listen to me, you islands; hear this, you distant nations... [God] says: “It is too small a thing for you [Jesus] to be my servant to restore the tribes of Jacob and bring back those of Israel I have kept. I will also make you a light for the Gentiles, that you may bring my salvation to the ends of the earth.” (Isaiah 49:1,6)

Under the premise, "nothing is impossible with God" (Luke 1:37), imagine for a minute what it would be like if God would interfere with the laws of nature as we know them. Imagine if God were to make it so that the food that was eaten, by anyone in the world who didn't have a certain people's blood running through their veins, Haitian blood for example, that the food would no longer nourish their bodies. Imagine if God were to make it so that the water that was drunk, by anyone in the world who didn't have Haitian blood running through their veins, would no longer hydrate their bodies. Imagine if God were to make it so that the sun would no longer bring heat or light to anyone who didn't have Haitian blood running through their veins. What you would be imagining, would be the majority of the people of the world dark and dead and destroyed.

As dismal as this imaginary painted picture may be, how much more dismal it is ,that Spiritually speaking, the majority of the world is actually currently Spiritually hungry, thirsty, dark, dying and on the road to destruction. "For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it." (Matthew 7:13) BUT, this is the case NOT because they have the wrong blood flowing through their veins. And while God may use the laws of nature as we know them to pull the plug and turn out the lights, causing certain nations to rise and fall according to His will and purpose, Spiritually speaking, God doesn't leave any people of any nation of the world to starve to death in darkness. The Apostle Peter recognized this, "Then Peter began to speak: “I now realize how true it is that God does not show favoritism but accepts men from every nation who fear him and do what is right." (Acts 10:34-35) The Apostle Paul puts it this way in his letter to the Romans, "For there is no difference between Jew and Gentile—the same Lord is Lord of all and richly blesses all who call on him, for, “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved." (Romans 10:12-13)

Sin doesn't show favoritism either however. Sin affects and infects all people from all nations. There is no person, no matter what nation they belong to or what kind of blood is running through their veins, who was born Spiritually full or Spiritually alive. "We have already made the charge that Jews and Gentiles alike are all under sin. As it is written: “There is no one righteous, not even one; there is no one who understands, no one who seeks God. All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one.” (Romans 3:9-12) The Good News, strike that, the Great News is that God made Jesus a light, not only for those who have Israelite blood, the blood of Jacob, running through their veins, but also to ALL who are alike under sin, even those from the distant nations and even to the ends of the earth. Through faith all people, no matter what kind of blood is running through their veins, are redeemed, are justified, and are right with God. "This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. (Romans 3:22-24)

Because the Servant Jesus brought salvation to the ends of the earth, no one of any nation has to remain Spiritually hungry or Spiritually thirsty or Spiritually dead: "Then Jesus declared, “I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty. Just as the living Father sent me and I live because of the Father, so the one who feeds on me will live because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven. Your forefathers ate manna and died, but he who feeds on this bread will live forever.” (John 6:35, 57-58) Because the Servant Jesus brought salvation to the ends of the earth, no one of any nation has to remain Spiritually thirsty or Spiritually dead: "Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” (John 4:13-14) In the Beatitudes we learn, "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled." (Matthew 5:6) In John's Revelation we see those from all nations who through faith will indeed be filled forever: “These are they who have come out of the great tribulation; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. Therefore, “they are before the throne of God and serve him day and night in his temple; and he who sits on the throne will spread his tent over them. Never again will they hunger; never again will they thirst." (Revelation 7:14-16) Because the Servant Jesus, the Son, brought the light of salvation to the ends of the earth, no one of any nation has to remain in Spiritual darkness or has to remain Spiritually dead, "When Jesus spoke again to the people, he said, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.” (John 8:12)

Because the Servant Jesus brought the light of salvation to the ends of the earth, no one of any nation has to remain Spiritually hungry, Spiritually thirsty, in Spiritual darkness or Spiritually dying; but they will, unless they call on Jesus' name and become one of His disciples. "Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them?" (Romans 10:13-14) People of any and every nation who are still starving and are still parched and are still in the darkness - people who are Spiritually dying, need to hear that Jesus has brought salvation and relief to the ends of the earth - so they can believe - so they can be saved. "God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation." (2 Corinthians 5:19) We who know the message, have the privilege and responsibility of sharing the message, as we do what Jesus has told us to do, to "go and make disciples of all nations" (Matthew 28:19)

If you cannot speak like angels,
If you cannot preach like Paul,
You can tell the love of Jesus,
You can say He died for all.
Take the task He gives you gladly;
Let His work your pleasure be;
Answer quickly when He calleth,
“Here am I, send me, send me.” (CW 573:2,4)

Through Jesus the light of the world, God has brought His salvation to the ends of the earth. As beneficiaries of that salvation, our response will be to gladly take that message of love and relief, that message that Jesus has saved ALL, to those of every nation who are still Spiritually starving to death. A good place to start is with the people who we encounter everyday in our little end of the earth. Let's gladly take the message of salvation to the ends of the earth!

January 6, 2011

2011-01-08T17:31:00.000-08:00

"As soon as Jesus was baptized, he went up out of the water. At that moment heaven was opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and lighting on him. And a voice from heaven said, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.” (Matthew 3:16-17)

Maybe this phrase has almost fallen out of use completely, but occasionally I still hear a waitress or a barkeep ask, "what's your pleasure?" Spiritually speaking, if we carefully considered it, our answer to the question "what's your pleasure?" would be the old safe Sunday School default answer to any religious question - "Jesus." And boy would we be right! Offer anything in the world and put it next to Jesus and you can "Take the world, but give me Jesus." Jesus, the one whom God is well pleased with, is also our pleasure. Jesus is our greatest and purest pleasure.

"Hence, all earthly treasure! Jesus is my pleasure; Jesus is my choice.
Hence, all empty glory! Naught to me thy story, told with tempting voice.
Pain or loss or shame or cross, shall not from my Savior move me, since he deigns to love me." (CW 349:4)

The very reason Jesus is our purest pleasure, is because the only reason God the Father can be well pleased with us, is because of Jesus and what Jesus did for us. When we have faith in what Jesus has done for us, we are pleasing to God, but "without faith it is impossible to please God." (Hebrews 11:6) Without Jesus we have nothing to have faith in. With Jesus and through faith in Jesus - who accomplished well the will and purpose of God the Father, which was to make us holy - we are pleasing in the Father's sight. What God's will was, and what God was pleased with was the sacrifice that Jesus made for us all. "[Jesus] said, “Sacrifices and offerings, burnt offerings and sin offerings you [God the Father] did not desire, nor were you pleased with them” (although the law required them to be made). Then [Jesus] said, “Here I am, I have come to do your will.” And by that will, we have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. (Hebrews 10:8-10)

God the Father was pleased that Jesus would accomplish His will, His good pleasure, which was to make us holy through Jesus Christ's sacrifice. "And he made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ," (Ephesians 1:9) God the Father was also well pleased with Jesus and His execution of His will and execution of His plan for our salvation. Right before Jesus began his public ministry leg of winning for us Salvation, the Father expressed His vote of confidence in Jesus to carry out the plan - at Jesus' baptism: "And a voice from heaven said, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.” Right before Jesus began his Passion leg of winning for us Salvation the Father again expressed His vote of confidence in Jesus to carry out the plan - at the Transfiguration: While [Peter] was still speaking [to Jesus], a bright cloud enveloped them, and a voice from the cloud said, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased. Listen to him!” (Matthew 17:5) Because God was well pleased with Jesus' substitutionary life and because God was well pleased with Jesus sacrificial death, we are now pleasing to God. And because we are now pleasing to God, we are well pleased with Jesus and the work He did for us. Jesus is our greatest pleasure.

“This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.” God the Father knew what had to be done to save us, and God the Son did well what had to be done to save us. And with this God was well pleased. "What's our pleasure?" Our answer will agree with the words of the hymnist - "what pleases God, that pleases me!" Jesus is God's pleasure, and because God is also well pleased with us who have faith in Jesus, Jesus is our pleasure too!

"God knows what must be done to save me;
His love for me will never cease.
Upon His hands He did engrave me,
With purest gold of loving grace.
His will supreme must ever be;
What pleases God, that pleases me." (CW 414:2)

December 30, 2010

2010-12-31T16:03:00.000-08:00

"I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better." (Ephesians 1:17)

It was Thomas Edison who once said, "we don't know one millionth of one percent about anything." Even someone who has devoted their entire life to studying something, and who is considered the premier expert in their field, probably really doesn't have command of all the idiosyncrasies surrounding their area of expertise. As complex as anything in this world is, that "anything" is still just the creation. How much more complex and deep is the creator of the creation! "Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable his judgments, and his paths beyond tracing out! “Who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been his counselor?” “Who has ever given to God, that God should repay them?” For from him and through him and for him are all things." (Romans 11:33-36) It's obvious that if we humans can't even get a tip of the iceberg grasp on anything in the creation, that we will certainly never be able to wrap our minds around the complexity of the creator of the creation. But the good news is that the Holy Spirit uses the Good News and the Word of God to reveal no less than than all the wisdom and knowledge necessary for our eternal survival. Remember what we are told in the closing words of John's Gospel? "Jesus did many other miraculous signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book. But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name." (John 20:30-31) We have the written words that we may have life in His name. We have the "...Holy Scriptures, which are able to make [us] wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus." (2 Timothy 3:15)

Without the Holy Spirit however, the Holy Scriptures themselves would be nonsense to us - the Scriptures would be but foolishness that requires discernment that's beyond our comprehension. Luther had it right in his explanation to the 3rd Article of the Creed, "I believe that I cannot by my own thinking or choosing believe in Jesus Christ, my Lord, or come to him. But the Holy Spirit has called me by the gospel, enlightened me with his gifts, sanctified and kept me in the true faith." Or think of what the Apostle Paul wrote, "No one can say, “Jesus is Lord,” except by the Holy Spirit." (1 Corinthians 12:3) Without the Spirit, we would have no understanding or be able to conceive or percieve the message of the wisdom of God. (here comes a big chunk of Scripture - avoid the temptation to skim over it - allow the Spirit to use these words, "so that you may know him better") "We do, however, speak a message of wisdom among the mature, but not the wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are coming to nothing. No, we speak of God’s secret wisdom, a wisdom that has been hidden and that God destined for our glory before time began. None of the rulers of this age understood it, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. However, as it is written: “No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him” but God has revealed it to us by his Spirit. The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God. For who among men knows the thoughts of a man except the man’s spirit within him? In the same way no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. We have not received the spirit of the world but the Spirit who is from God, that we may understand what God has freely given us. This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, expressing spiritual truths in spiritual words. The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned." (1 Corinthians 2: 6-15) Thanks be to the Holy Spirit who has opened our eyes and minds, and who has revealed to us just what we need to understand about the out of this world wisdom of God!

Yes, none of us now know even a fraction of one millionth of one percent of the wisdom of God, but because of the work of the Spirit and through faith, all of us know one hundred percent of what we need to know to be prepared to share in the inheritance waiting for we who are God's holy people. Knowing enough however, shouldn't hinder our hunger for learning more, because the better we get to know Him and the more we grow in the knowledge of Him, the stronger our faith will become. While we are in the flesh and while we are in the world and while the devil is doing his best to find a way to devour us, our faith needs to be as strong as possible so that we may endure, moving forward day by day towards the perfection of fully knowing God, which we will experience when we begin to enjoy our inheritence in heaven. May God "fill [us]with the knowledge of his will through all the wisdom and understanding that the Spirit gives, so that [we] may live a life worthy of the Lord and please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God, being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might so that [we] may have great endurance and patience, and giving joyful thanks to the Father, who has qualified [us] to share in the inheritance of his holy people in the kingdom of light."(Colossians 1:9-14) My prayer for you (and for myself) for the new year is that God would continue to "give [us] the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that [we] may know Him better!"

O Holy Spirit, thanks and praise
in this new year we render,
For you have led our eyes to see
Your truth in all its splendor
And thus enkindled from above
within our hearts true faith and love
And other Christian virtues. (CW 72:3)

December 23, 2010

2010-12-23T07:56:00.000-08:00

Because of all the special services that will take place on December 24th, it's likely that the Scripture that we are going to consider here won't be heard in many, or even any of your churches. Nevertheless, this Lesson happens to serve as our Epistle Lesson for Christmas Eve.

"For the grace of God has appeared that offers salvation to all people. It teaches us to say “No” to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age, while we wait for the blessed hope—the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all wickedness and to purify for himself a people that are his very own, eager to do what is good." (Titus 2:11-14) (NIV 2010)

Maybe it's just the practicality in me, but the first thing that I do after I crack open and identify a Christmas gift that I am receiving, is to try and determine how I am going to use it, or what I am going to do with it. As mentioned a few devotions ago, just because it's cliche' doesn't make it in any less true - the greatest (Christmas) gift this world has ever seen is the gift God gave us - His Son Jesus Christ. "The gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord." (Romans 6:23) This Christmas, as we crack open God's Word and identify and ponder the Good Message of the Christmas story - that God loved us enough to give us what was most precious to Him - His Son, let's ask ourselves, now what? Let's determine how we are going to respond to receiving the greatest gift and what we are going to do with the greatest gift.

"For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God" (Ephesians 2:8) We have been purified and and redeemed and consequently by grace, and through faith, we have been given the gift of salvation. Now that we have our ticket to Salvation punched, we should be good to live and to do and to follow the world in doing what pleases ourselves - right? After all, after we sin, can't we just whip out our "salvation gift card" and use it to pay for those sins? As though we are going to somehow make God greater - as though the more we give in to worldly passions and ungodly living, the more merciful God will be and the more His grace will increase. "What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? By no means! We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means! (Romans 6:1-2, 15) God didn't give us the blood of His Son to purify us, so that we can be free to dirty things up to whatever degree we please. No, God gave us the gift of Jesus, "to redeem us from all wickedness and to purify for himself a people that are his very own, eager to do what is good."

When we begin to identify and realize the magnitude of the gift that we have been given - when we begin to fully contemplate the fact that God gave us this gift, we will begin to realize that God did everything He did, as Luther put it in his explanation to the Second Article, "that I should be his own, and live under him in his kingdom, and serve him in everlasting righteousness, innocence and blessedness." God gave us the gift so that we can be set apart as His own children - living lives in the world, but not being of the world. Our natural response to this gift will be to "just say no" to sin and to be "eager to do what is good." When we crack open the gift of God's Son, we will naturally want to find a way to say thanks. When we live "self controlled, upright and godly lives," in accordance with God's commands, we are expressing thanks, "This is love for God to obey His commands," (I John 5:3) and we can say thanks for the greatest gift ever, by living our life for Him - as He wants us to live.

And I have brought to thee down from my home above,
Salvation full and free, my pardon and my love.
Great gifts I brought for thee; come bring thy gifts to me.

Oh, let thy life be spent, thy years for me be giv'n,
as I for thee was sent to bear thee home to heav'n.
I gave my life for thee; come, give thy life to me. (CW 454: 5,6)

Our first natural response to receiving the Good News and the greatest gift, is to live as redeemed and purified people of God. What are we going to do with the gift? We are naturally going to be eager to do what is good. This message is made abundantly clear in this Epistle Lesson from Titus. But there's another response that's a little more hidden, but no less important. "For the grace of God has appeared that offers salvation to all people." The gift isn't offered to just a few select people - it's offered to all. "God our Savior, wants all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth," (I Timothy 2:4) or think of John 3:16, “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life." (John 3:16) This gift is for all, but it only can be received through faith. "Consequently, faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word of Christ." (Romans 10:17) The world needs the word of Christ. The world needs to hear the message. We have the message. Let's tell the world the message! In our society the idea of "re-gifting" carries with it a negative connotation. You re-gift when you receive something that you don't know what to do with - so you give it to someone else. We have received the gift of eternal life from our God and naturally we will want to re-gift it, but not because we have no use for it ourselves, rather because it's use in our lives is a necessity and we know that it's use in the lives of others is necessary for their salvation too. There's plenty of God's gift to go around - there's enough gift for all men in the whole world - let's get re-gifting. "But the gift is not like the trespass. For if the many died by the trespass of the one man, how much more did God’s grace and the gift that came by the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, overflow to the many!" (Romans 5:15) One of our natural responses to the gift of God - the Savior born in Bethlehem - is to re-gift the gift. To spread the Good News. To share the fact that God has offered salvation to all people.

We have received the greatest gift ever. This Christmas as we once again consider the fact that the gift of salvation in Christ Jesus our Lord is God's gift to us, we should consider how we will respond to receiving the gift. The gift of becoming one of God's redeemed and purified people, motivates us and causes us to naturally respond by being eager to do what is good. The gift also motivates us and causes us to naturally respond by not keeping quiet about the gift we have received. The gift that we have received can also be received by all people. Let's share and re-gift the Good News - the greatest Christmas gift ever - to all people starting with the "all people" that God has placed in our lives. These responses will please God and are our small way of simply saying thanks to God for the greatest gift ever - the gift of Jesus. "Thanks be to God for his indescribable gift!" (2 Corinthians 9:15)

December 16, 2010

2010-12-18T08:26:00.000-08:00

"All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet: “The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel”—which means, “God with us.” (Matthew 1:22-23)

"Oh, rejoice, all Christians loudly, for our joys have now begun; wondrous things our God has done. Tell abroad his goodness proudly, who our race has honored so, that He lives with us below, Joy, oh joy beyond all gladness, Christ has done away with sadness! Hence all sorrow and repining, for the Sun of grace is shining!" (CW 45:1)

We as Christians do have reason to be rejoicing loudly. The wondrous things that God has done and the very essence of Christmas is that Christ came from heaven above, to earth, to join the human race. And this is exactly what needed to be done in order to redeem us humans and do away with our sadness. This Good News is our joy, which causes us to rejoice. And as we are rejoicing during this crazed time of year, with (as the Advent prayer writer in Christian Worship puts it) the "stress of deadlines and the frenzy of commercialism," we might appear to be acting strange to the watching world. When someone in the watching world catches us rejoicing loudly - maybe we are humming or whistling a Christmas hymn, or maybe we are just smiling obnoxiously - when someone catches us rejoicing loudly, they just might ask us, "what's with you?" Our joy as Christians has nothing to do with what's with us, but has everything to do with who's with us.

God has been with His people throughout the ages. We think of how God was always with the children of Israel in the pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night. "Neither the pillar of cloud by day nor the pillar of fire by night left its place in front of the people." (Exodus 13:22) We think of how God was with the people of the Psalm writer's day, "The LORD Almighty is with us; the God of Jacob is our fortress" (Psalm 46:7) We think of how God will continue to be with His people, as Jesus promised before he physically left the world, "And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” (Matthew 28:20) These are comforting thoughts to us as Christians, to know that God is with us always - that God is omnipresent. But what about all those dark times when we give in to one or all of the temptations and lies of the unholy trinity - the devil, the world, our sinful flesh? At those times are we comforted by the fact that God is with us always? During our dark times the thought that God is with us and sees not only our dark actions, but also our dark thoughts and hearts could cause us to be discomforted and could cause us to repine, to be sorrowful, to be sad.

But what we haven't fully considered in this devotion yet is that Jesus also came to be with us in a different sense as He came to join the human race. Why did Jesus take on human flesh? Paul in his first letter to Timothy includes the incarnation as one of the great mysteries of God, "Beyond all question, the mystery of godliness is great: He (God) appeared in a body, (in the flesh) was vindicated by the Spirit, was seen by angels, was preached among the nations, was believed on in the world, was taken up in glory." (1 Timothy 3:16) Why God loved us enough to send His only Son cannot be fully understood and will remain somewhat of a mystery to us humans. Perhaps the best explanation is the simplest one - "God is love." (1 John 4:16) What we do know is that because our God operates with justice, He needed to take on flesh and blood. "God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood. He did this to demonstrate his justice, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished— he did it to demonstrate his justice at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus." (Romans 3:25-26) C. S. Lewis explains why God became man as he once put it this way: "The Son of God became a man that men might become sons of God." "God made him who had no sin to be sin (or a sacrifice for sin) for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. (2 Corinthians 5:21) God needed to come to be with us and to take on flesh and blood so that He could sacrifice blood to atone for the sins of the world. "The blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin." (1 John 1:7)

And because Jesus, our Immanuel, carried out the plan of Salvation that rescued us from the darkness - a plan which required Him to be born and take on flesh and blood, to live a perfect life in the flesh as our substitute, and to sacrifice His blood that washed away our sins - we now want nothing more than to have Jesus, the shining Sun of grace, to be with us and to stay with us. I'm reminded of the text to a beautiful work sung by choirs around the world - Egil Hovland's Stay With Us. "Stay with us, Lord Jesus. It soon is evening and night is falling. Jesus Christ, the world's true light, shines where the darkness cannot overcome it. Let your light pierce the darkness and fill the Church with its glory." (Luke 24:29) and (John 8:12).

Because Jesus, our Immanuel, not only came to live with and be with us, but because He also came to live for us and die for us and redeem us, we want nothing more than to have our Lord be with us as our light, and stay with us until it's time for Him to take us home so that we can be with Him forever. "Joy oh joy beyond all gladness, Christ has done away with sadness." We don't have to wait to begin rejoicing until we reach our heavenly home where we will be completely void of all sadness. No, because of our hope, and through faith in our Immanuel, our joys have now begun! And if we should get caught rejoicing loudly, and if we are asked, "what's with you?" let's take that as our cue to respond by explaining that it's not what's with us, but it's who's with us. We rejoice because of our Immanuel who came to become one of us and live and die for us. We rejoice because of our Immanuel who is not only with us, but who, through faith, also can be with those to whom we tell His goodness proudly. We rejoice because of our Immanuel who will be coming again to take us to be with Him forever. We rejoice in Jesus, our Immanuel! Amen. Thank you Immanuel for coming into this world as our redeemer, stay with us now and come again Lord Jesus to take us to be with you forever! Amen

December 9, 2010

2010-12-11T09:00:00.000-08:00

"When John heard in prison what Christ was doing, he sent his disciples to ask him, “Are you the one who was to come, or should we expect someone else?” Jesus replied, “Go back and report to John what you hear and see: The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is preached to the poor." (Matthew 11:2-5)

I imagine that most of us are familiar with, and remember the PBS children's television program, hosted by Levar Burton, called "Reading Rainbow." But do you recall how the show always ended? The program ended with a children's book report segment which was kicked off by Burton's signature phrase: "But you don't have to take my word for it."

We're not told why John sent his disciples to Jesus to question whether or not Jesus was the promised Messiah. Some think that John himself was doubting whether Jesus really was the promised Messiah. John was in prison and probably had been there from some time. Maybe he just couldn't help but think and question, after he heard about all the miracles that Christ was doing, why Jesus wasn't helping him. Don't we ourselves follow that line of thinking from time to time? When we're stuck in a really tough situation, do we ever find ourselves questioning where is God and why isn't He helping us (as we think He should be)? Maybe doubt is why John sent his disciples to pose the question to Jesus, but let's not forget the crystal clear confession of faith that John provided when he first saw Jesus in the desert. "The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, “Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world! This is the one I meant when I said, ‘A man who comes after me has surpassed me because he was before me.’ I myself did not know him, but the reason I came baptizing with water was that he might be revealed to Israel.” (John 1:29-31) John certainly wasn't doubting in the wilderness, but perhaps the mental anguish caused by time spent in prison was wearing him down. Perhaps John was doubting.

Or, maybe John was sending his disciples to Jesus, not for his own good, but for their own good. Martin Luther liked this theory, he weighed in by writing, "It is certain that John proposes the question for the sake of his disciples; for they did not yet deem Christ to be He whom they should believe Him to be. And John had not come to draw disciples and the people to himself, but to prepare the way for Christ and bring all men to Christ, making them subject to Him." (Luther 11:75) It's as though John was saying, this is Jesus, the promised One, "but you don't have to take my word for it." Go see and go ask for yourselves. A good teacher knows that having their students go through the process of figuring out the answer, rather than just feeding them the answer, is most beneficial for the student.

We aren't able to go be eyewitnesses of Jesus. We walk by faith and not by sight, but in our walk of faith, we have something that John the Baptist's disciples didn't fully have. "From infancy [we] have known the holy Scriptures, (including prophecies and some fulfillment of those prophecies) which are able to make [us] wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus." (2 Timothy 3:15) It's likely that all of us have had "John the Baptists" in our lives. We have had people who pointed us to Christ - people like Christian parents, Christian Day School teachers, Sunday School teachers, Pastors. Do we just take the word of the "John the Baptists" in our lives, or do we go to the Word and examine what we are being fed to make sure it is good food? I am reminded of a group whose personal "John the Baptist" was the Apostle Paul - remember the Bereans? "Now the Bereans were of more noble character than the Thessalonians, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true." (Acts 17:11) How's that for not just taking Paul's word for it? When Levar Burton said, "but you don't have to take my word for it," a book review of a good children's book followed. When we, like the Bereans, realize that we don't have to (and shouldn't) take anyone's word for it either, a "Good Book" review should follow.

A residual effect of reviewing and examining the Scriptures everyday, is coming to a better understanding of what our purpose is in this world. I am blessed to be often reminded that our purpose as Christians is to be ambassadors for Christ, and it's not a question of whether or not we want the job, it's a question of how well we are going to do the job. "And [God] has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us." (2 Corinthians 5:20) Before Jesus made his first entrance into ministry in the world, God made his appeal through one of His ambassadors named John the Baptist. Right now during this time before Jesus makes his second and final entrance into the world, God is making his appeal through us. We are ambassadors of the message of reconciliation. We are "John the Baptists" to those around us, as we show others why they need Jesus Christ and then point them in the direction of Jesus Christ - just as John the Baptist did for his disciples even while he was in prison. And the more well versed in the verses of Scripture we become, the more we are equipped by the Holy Spirit to be able to point people in the right direction so we are able to say, "but you don't have to take my word for it," take a look at this passage or story which will help you with what you are struggling with. The more well-versed we are in the verses of Scripture the better ambassadors we become.

John the Baptist's disciples didn't have to take his word for it because they were able to go to the Word made flesh (John 1:14). We, like the Bereans, don't have to take anyone's word for it either because we can take everything and filter it through the Word of God to examine whether or not it is in line with God and His will. When we, like the Bereans, examine the Scriptures every day and receive the message with great eagerness, we become better equipped ambassadors of Christ. To those, who through us God is making His appeal, we can say,"the blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is preached to the poor." We can say that because of sin we are all spiritually blind, lame, diseased, deaf, dead and poor. But because Jesus took care of our sins and the sins of the world, our eyes have been opened, we are healed from the disease of sin, we hear the Good News, we will live eternally, and we are now Spiritually rich. And then we can say "but you don't have to take my word for it," rather take to the Word of God where the Spirit still speaks to us and strengthens our faith and makes us more and more sure that Jesus is the one who was spoken of by the prophets - Jesus is the long expected Savior - our Savior!

December 2, 2010

2010-12-04T09:26:00.000-08:00

"And do not think you can say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’ I tell you that out of these stones God can raise up children for Abraham." (Matthew 3:9)

The son of a prominent community figure asks the local authority who has pulled them over on suspicion of drunk driving: "Don't you know whose son I am?" As though whose son he was would be the ticket to avoiding a ticket and the way to get out of trouble. We don't have such a quote in our Gospel Lesson for this Sunday, maybe this is because John the baptizer gets ahead of the Pharisees and Sadducees who joined him in the desert by providing them with the warning - "And do not think you can say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father." The Pharisees may have thought that whose sons they were - the fact that Abraham's blood was running through their veins - caused them to be exempt from needing to truly repent. As though whose sons they were, and consequently who they were and the "good life" that they lived, would be the ticket to their salvation and their ticket to favor with God. In the Gospel of John we learn that the one and only ticket to God the Father is through the Father's one and only Son Jesus who said, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." (John 14:6)

We, who are gentiles, aren't sons of Abraham like the Pharisees and the Sadducees were, but ALL of us are sons of mankind's first father - Adam. God created our first father, Adam, from dust- "the LORD God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being." (Genesis 2:7) When Adam and Eve sinned, God could have just given up on mankind. God could have started over, and this time instead of using dust, He could have used stones as his creation medium to create new living beings. Wouldn't that have been an easier plan?

But God didn't take an easy route. He didn't give up on mankind. It was His pleasure and His will to save sinners and bring them, not just into Abraham's family, but to bring all who believe into His family. Instead of using stones to start over and create children, He sacrificed and gave His one and only Son, and sent Him into the world so that through repentance and through faith in that Son, we have the privilege of being God's adopted sons. Just because the phrase is cliche' doesn't mean that it's not true or that it's not worth pondering and appreciating - God the Father giving the world His only Son was, and always will be, the greatest Christmas gift ever. God lavished us with the greatest gift ever - through the gift of Jesus Christ we are the Father's adopted sons! "In love he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will— to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves." (Ephesians 1:5-7) God the Father lavished us with love and lavished us with the gift of His Son Jesus, the One He loves. The One who lived the perfect life that the Father expected, that we could not, in our place! The One who died to pay for all the times when we did not live life perfectly and according to the Father's will. Because of what Jesus did for us, we are the loving Father's adopted children! "How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!" (I John 3:1)

If we ever have a day when our spirits are down, a day where it just seems like the worldly people among us - the "sons of the world" - are getting all the breaks, while we as Christians suffer all the setbacks - we should remember that the world and its cheap thrills will soon pass away, but the Alpha and the Omega and what He offers is eternal. The people of the world are "sons of the world," but we are "sons of the Alpha and Omega." We can say to ourselves, "We have God as our Father!" We can encourage fellow Christians by reminding them with the question: "Don't you know (or aren't you considering) whose sons we are?"

Whose sons we are makes all the difference for us now, and for the world to come. While John the baptist was preparing the way for Jesus' first entrance into the world, we are in a state of preparing to celebrate Jesus' first entrance into the world, even as we are concurrently also in a state of preparing for Jesus' next and final entrance into the world - when Jesus will be the judge of all. "For we will all stand before God’s judgment seat. It is written: ‘As surely as I live,’ says the Lord, ‘every knee will bow before me; every tongue will confess to God.’ So then, each of us will give an account of himself to God." (Romans 14:10-12)

While it probably would be somewhat disrespectful to phrase it in this way, when we approach the judgment seat, we will be able to say to Jesus, when He asks for our account, "Don't you know whose son I am?" The only reason we will be saved from being sent to be burned up in the unquenchable fire is because of whose son we are. "You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ." (Galatians 3:26-27) When, in faith, we clothe ourselves with Christ, our Savior and Brother, we clothe ourselves with everything that He merited for us and we will have a perfect record to present on Judgment Day. We can say (with joy) to ourselves that, "We have God as our Father!" How incredible is that?

November 25, 2010

2010-11-27T17:48:00.000-08:00

"Keep watch, because you do not know on what day your Lord will come. But understand this: If the owner of the house had known at what time of night the thief was coming, he would have kept watch and would not have let his house be broken into. So you also must be ready, because the Son of Man will come at an hour when you do not expect him." (Matthew 24:42-44)

How many of us this Thanksgiving weekend can say that we are fully prepared to celebrate Christmas? Even the "anti-crastinators" among us, who may have completed their gift shopping, probably haven't wrapped all of those gifts yet. Or consider your church choir who may have all of their Christmas pieces selected, but who likely don't have any of the numbers solidly rehearsed or polished. And who of us can say that we have taken the time to properly ponder the wonder and great mystery of all the events that led up to that first Christmas - when Jesus "became flesh and made his dwelling among us." (John 1:14)? It stands to reason that none of us are properly prepared for Christmas yet - and that's fine, because we know we have another month to take care of all of our Christmas preparations. We know that in exactly one month, we will be celebrating the time when our Lord first came into this world. What we do not know is the day when our Lord will return, "you do not know on what day your Lord will come." Because we do not know, and in order to avoid being surprised, we must be "ever ready" for that day - which could even be today yet!

How can we be ever ready? Jesus tells us here to "keep watch." Does this mean we should be signing up for time slots, so that at all times one of us can be watching and looking up into the sky to see if we can spot Jesus' feet coming down out of the clouds? I suppose if that's what it takes to get us to think about His return on a daily basis, then it wouldn't hurt. But I would like to bring to light some other suggestions that may be a little more practical. Often when we hear about keeping watch, we hear it coupled with something else - we hear keeping watch coupled with prayer.

Teach us in watchfulness and prayer
To wait for your appointed hour,
And fit us by your grace to share
The triumphs of your conqu'ring pow'r. (CW 9:5)

Another example of this coupling would be what Jesus told His disciples to do in Gethsemane - “Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation." (Matthew 26:41)

Maybe we don't need to make a habit out of going out and watching and looking up into the sky everyday, but maybe we should make a habit of praying about being prepared for Christ's return. One way to make such a prayer a habit could be to marry it to something that is already a ritual for us in our daily lives - like brushing our teeth or taking our pills. Every time, out of habit, that we do one of these rituals, we could also pray about being properly prepared for the day of the Son of Man's return. Here's a simple prayer that we could use as a framework for our personal "ever ready" prayer: "Dear Jesus, today could be the day that You return, please help keep that thought in my mind throughout the day. Please guard my heart and mind from anything that could cause me to be unprepared for, or surprised by, Your return. Amen."

So, one way we can "keep watch," is through prayer. The pastor and hymn writer, Paul Gerhardt, provides another suggestion for how we can be "ever ready" and unsurprised by the day of our Lord's return - should it happen in our lifetime.

O Lord, how shall I meet you, how welcome you aright?
Your people long to greet you, My Hope, my heart's Delight.
O Jesus, let your Word be a lamp to light my way,
To show me how to please you, to guide me ev'ry day. (CW 19:1)

God's Word serves as a guide that keeps us on the path of proper preparedness - a path that also draws us closer to Him. As the Word brings us ever closer to Jesus day by day, we are also ever closer to being with Jesus as every day passes. As the final stanza of Amazing Grace puts it, "When we've been there ten thousand years, bright shining as the sun, We've no less days to sing God's praise than when we'd first begun." (CW 379:4). As each day passes we have no less days to sing God's praise, but we do have less days until we are taken to the place where we will be singing His praises eternally. The Apostle Paul's letter to the Romans contains a passage, which also happens to be a part of our Epistle Lesson for this Sunday, that speaks to the fact that every day we're a little bit closer to our day of salvation- "And do this, understanding the present time: The hour has already come for you to wake up from your slumber, because our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed." (Romans 13:11)

Whether the Son of Man returns in our lifetime and brings the world's time of Grace to a close, or whether our own personal time of Grace comes to a close before Judgment Day, the fact of the matter is our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed. It might even be nearer than we currently anticipate. We know that we have another month to prepare for the celebration of Christ first coming into this world, we don't know how long we have to prepare for Christ's return. Because of what we we are preparing to celebrate in a month - because God was willing to send His Son, our Savior, into this world as our ransom, we can be ready for the day when God will send His Son, our Judge, into the world again. As we keep watch, our prayer is that we will be ever ready, and as we keep watch and when we dig into God's Word, we find a guide and a path that will bring us closer to Jesus. In order to avoid being caught by surprise and unprepared, during this Advent season, as we make all our various preparations to celebrate our Lord's first entrance into this world a month from now, let's also keep watch and make paramount our preparations for that unknown day when the Son of Man will make His final entrance into this world - which could even happen before 12/25/2010!

November 18, 2010

2010-11-20T10:30:00.000-08:00

"The people stood watching, and the rulers even sneered at him. They said, “He saved others; let him save himself if he is God’s Messiah, the Chosen One.” The soldiers also came up and mocked him. They offered him wine vinegar and said, “If you are the king of the Jews, save yourself.” There was a written notice above him, which read: THIS IS THE KING OF THE JEWS." (Luke 23:35-38)

Picture for a moment a police officer on his beat, walking down the street. On one side of the street you have a law abiding citizen who sees that police officer, and feels a little extra safe and a little bit more at ease. One the other side of the street you have a law breaking citizen who sees that same police officer, and feels a little more apprehensive and a little more anxious. Same exact police officer - two different perspectives. Paul in his first letter to the church of God in Corinth provides two perspectives of Christ and His cross from their respective "sides of the street." "The message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God." (1 Corinthians 1:18) In our Gospel Lesson for this Sunday, Luke gives us the perspective of Jesus the King of the Jews, from the side of the street that sees the cross of Christ and the message of the cross of Christ as foolishness - something to joke about. Let's also consider the perspective from the other side of the street that through faith we are on - the side of the street that views the cross of Christ as the power of God and our only hope of Salvation, our only hope of admittance into the King's Kingdom.

From the side of the street with the foolish perspective, the rulers looked and mockingly doubted the fact that Jesus was the true Son of God, they used the word "if" - "if he is God’s Messiah, the Chosen One.” When we survey the wondrous cross, from the other side of the street, through the eyes of faith we see a King who we know is the Son of God - no ifs ands or buts. Remember what God the Father in the voice from heaven said at Jesus' baptism? "And a voice from heaven said, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.” (Matthew 3:17)

From the side of the street with the foolish perspective, the soldiers looked and mockingly doubted the fact that Jesus was a king. “If you are the king of the Jews, save yourself.” They saw a "wanna-be" king who was all talk. How would this Jesus ever have a chance to rule when He would soon be dead? If Jesus was going to have an opportunity to rule, He would have to save Himself and come down from the cross. The soldiers failed to realize or understand what Jesus had told Pilate, "Jesus said, “My kingdom is not of this world. If it were, my servants would fight to prevent my arrest by the Jewish leaders. But now my kingdom is from another place.” (John 18:36) When we survey the wondrous cross, from the other side of the street, through the eyes of faith, we see a King who without question had the power to come down from the cross, but who instead chose to endure. Out of undeserved love, by sacrificing Himself, Jesus gave to all who have faith in Him the opportunity to be able to live under Him in His Kingdom that is from another place.

Remember what the angel told Mary when she first learned that she would be the mother of the Savior? Among other things, the angel told her precisely what the rulers and the soldiers mockingly questioned about Jesus - whether Jesus was God's Son and whether He would reign as a King. The angel said, "You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to call him Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over Jacob’s descendants forever; his kingdom will never end.” (Luke 1:31-33) The sign hanging over Jesus' head, that was put up by those on the side of the street with the foolish perspective, read, "THIS IS THE KING OF THE JEWS." And while it was meant to sarcastically mock what appeared to be a pathetic reign, it actually couldn't have been more true. Jesus is the one who was long expected by David and Jacob and Abraham and their descendants. I am reminded of a verse of a children's Sunday school song, "Father Abraham had many sons, many sons had father Abraham, I am one of them and so are you, so let's all praise the LORD!" We probably don't have any of Abraham's blood running through our veins, but Spiritually speaking, we are son's of Abraham, we are "Jacob's descendants," and we are subjects in the King of the Jews' Kingdom. Jesus is our King too. Praise be to the LORD that because we are adopted subjects in His everlasting Kingdom, that we are able now to properly view His cross from the right "side of the street."

But if we are evaluating honestly, don't we sometimes find ourselves straying over to the other side of the street? Don't we sometimes have a little ruler, or a little soldier in us? One way we have a little ruler or a little soldier in us, is whenever we question why Jesus our King isn't exercising His authority over earthly issues as we think He should be. We have a little ruler or a little soldier in us whenever we start out our prayers (even if the thought is understood) with: "if you are really God, then you should be..."

Thankfully, God's Messiah - the Chosen One - stayed on the cross and made the final ransom installment for the debt that was created by all those times when we stray to the other side of the street. Because of Jesus' sacrifice, we aren't banished from His Kingdom. "The Son of Man did not come to be served," (as a ruling earthly king might be served) "but [He came] to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” (Matthew 20:28) Jesus played the role of servant during his first stint on this earth, but Jesus will return, and next time the King will come in all His glory to take us, who through faith and because of what He did for us on the cross, to live as subjects in His Kingdom that's outta' this world and that will never end! Amen! Come King Jesus and take us to your Kingdom. Amen!

November 11, 2010

2010-11-12T20:46:00.000-08:00

“Behold, I will create new heavens and a new earth. The former things will not be remembered, nor will they come to mind. But be glad and rejoice forever in what I will create, for I will create Jerusalem to be a delight and its people a joy. I will rejoice over Jerusalem and take delight in my people; the sound of weeping and of crying will be heard in it no more." (Isaiah 65:17-19)

Have you ever heard someone wax nostalgic, by recalling only the best of times, as they talked about the "good old days?" The last people who would have been able to think back and talk about the "good old days" and actually have had something legitimately and purely good to talk about, would have been our first parents Adam and Eve. They experienced Eden. They experienced life before sin tainted the creation that was very good - "God saw all that he had made, and it was very good" (Genesis 1:31) And things were very good until sin complicated and frustrated the order that God established. Sin created a new order that is laced with weeping and crying and groaning. Paul said in his letter to the Romans "that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time." (Romans 8:22)

But God's plans were, and still are, to eventually put an end to the groaning for good, by creating new. Near the end of John's vision of the new creation that we have recorded for us in Revelation, we find a passage that quotes a line from the passage we are considering from Isaiah, "Then [John] saw “a new heaven and a new earth,” for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away" (Revelation 21:1) The order, or how this world currently operates, will pass away. "There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away. He who was seated on the throne said, “I am making everything new!” (Revelation 21:4-5) Everything about the way things operate now on this earth will be no more. What a change God's new creation will be for us. "Change" and "new" are words that might make us Lutherans feel somewhat uncomfortable. I am reminded of a joke, (Question) "How many Lutherans does it take to "change" a light bulb? (Answer) ... Lutherans ... change something? nah..." We should thank God that we have been blessed with such a great heritage and we should thank God that we have been blessed with such enlightened forefathers so that our practices, and most importantly our theology, doesn't need reform. "If it aint broke, don't fix it," they say, but sometimes our motivation to avoid trying something new is strictly because we are intimidated by our fear of the unknown. Fear of the unknown can be a strong emotion associated with thinking about life after our physical bodies die. Those who are unbelievers are really in the dark about the unknowns associated with the afterlife, but even we who believe and are students and searchers of the Scriptures, even we don't have a crystal clear picture of what God's new creation will look like or be like. But we can be comforted, and our fears of the unknown can be silenced by what the Holy Spirit tells us in these verses through the prophet. We have nothing to worry about, in fact we can "be glad and rejoice forever in what God will create."

Eventually someone who is talking about the "good old days," if they talk long enough will likely stumble into recalling days where situations affected by sin caused them to suffer and maybe even cry. We can take comfort in the fact that when our struggles on this earth come to an end and we begin our new life in the new creation, that nothing about "the old days," from our sin-tainted life on this earth will be remembered. We will be in a place where not only "the sound of weeping and of crying will be heard in it no more," but we also will be in a place where we won't even hear the sounds of weeping or crying in our minds or in our memories, because these sounds - which are a result of sin and sin's consequences - "will not be remembered, nor will they come to mind."

Yes, we have a new creation to look forward to, and while we aren't given all the details, we don't need to suffer from the fear of the unknown, because God has promised that His new creation will be a place of joy for us. Thankfully, when we reach this new place of joy, we won't remember anything about any of the days we spent here on this earth - days that were tainted with sin and the mess that sin creates. When we reach the new creation, we won't be talking about what are actually the "not so good old days" from here on this earth, we will be too busy experiencing the joys and delights of the "best new days," spent in the new creation. And not only will we be taking joy and delight, but God will also be rejoicing and taking delight in us and with us! "[God] will rejoice over Jerusalem and take delight in [His] people." How awesome will that be? Amen - come Lord Jesus and take us to Your new creation! Amen!

November 4, 2010

2010-11-05T05:52:00.000-07:00

"Jesus entered Jericho and was passing through. A man was there by the name of Zacchaeus; he was a chief tax collector and was wealthy. He wanted to see who Jesus was, but being a short man he could not, because of the crowd. So he ran ahead and climbed a sycamore-fig tree to see him, since Jesus was coming that way. When Jesus reached the spot, he looked up and said to him, "Zacchaeus, come down immediately. I must stay at your house today." So he came down at once and welcomed him gladly. (Luke 19:1-6)

A few years ago on a Friday afternoon, my family and I were on our way to the Wisconsin Dells for the weekend. Heavy flooding caused portions of I-90 westbound between Madison and the Dells to be shut down. All cars were diverted to the smaller 2-lane State Highway 51 causing it to become overburdened with bumper-to-bumper traffic. One of the cities that Highway 51 runs through is the city of Portage, Wisconsin. The road through Portage was so crowded that when at one intersection, even when the traffic light turned green, we couldn't go - simply because there was nowhere to go! The only reason we we had to contend with the major traffic jam - the only reason we were even in Portage, was because we needed to go through it to get to the Dells. In this Gospel Lesson we find Jesus entering Jericho, and His whole purpose for entering Jericho was because He needed to go through it to get to Jerusalem, "Jesus entered Jericho and was passing through." And in attempting to pass through, Jesus ran into a traffic jam of His own - there was quite the crowd surrounding Jesus as he traveled the road through Jericho. It's possible that many of those people who were adding to the human traffic jam were people of Jericho who had just witnessed Jesus give the blind man his sight outside the city gates, people who were following Jesus to see what He was going to do next. What Jesus was planning on doing next was making His way through town to the other side - again His purpose in entering Jericho was to pass through. But Jesus' purpose in entering this world superseded and took precedence over his purpose for entering Jericho. At the end of this account, a few verses later, Jesus explains what His whole purpose in entering this world was, He tells Zacchaeus: "For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.” (Luke 19:10) This primary purpose took Jesus' focus off the crowded course and to the lost Zacchaeus.

On our daily paths through life, whenever one of "the lost" looks our way (as Zacchaeus was looking Jesus' way), we have an opportunity to show Jesus to them, to "let [our] light shine before [them.]" (Matthew 5:16) But do we sometimes fail to shine or fail to even pay any attention to the lost at all, because our path is so crowded with all the activities and responsibilities that consume our day? The holidays that are fast approaching only seem to add to to the congestion and worsen our daily activity traffic jam. When I was driving in that bumper-to-bumper traffic jam in Portage, I put the blinders on and focused on the bumper of the car ahead of me. Do we ever find ourselves putting on the the blinders to focus on the activity that's ahead of us in our bumper-to-bumper daily schedule? We should pray that God would take our blinders off so that we might not only gain peripheral vision, but that we would scope out the opportunities we have to share Jesus with the watching world. "The Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost," - the saving part Jesus took care of - what's left for us is to emulate the seeking part, and we have the perfect template when we use Jesus as our pattern. We should pray that we become more and more like Jesus so that our true purpose in this world - to seek the lost and make disciples of the lost - always takes precedence over all the other bumper-to-bumper activities that so often crowd our path.

October 28, 2010

2010-10-29T13:43:00.000-07:00

"And now, O Israel, what does the LORD your God ask of you but to fear the LORD your God, to walk in all his ways, to love him, to serve the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and to observe the LORD's commands and decrees that I am giving you today for your own good? To the LORD your God belong the heavens, even the highest heavens, the earth and everything in it. Yet the LORD set his affection on your forefathers and loved them, and he chose you, their descendants, above all the nations, as it is today." (Deuteronomy 10: 12-15)

Have you ever enjoyed a dish at a potluck so much that you just had to learn how to make it? Maybe the particular dish happened to be quite complex - too hard to try and figure out on your own, so you just had to have the recipe. Who do you go to for the recipe? To the one who created the dish of course. We have in our Old Testament Lesson God, who is the One who created and preserves, and to whom belongs "the heavens, even the highest heavens, the earth and everything in it," asking His chosen followers to follow His recipe for life here on this earth.

And His recipe is a good one - one that "[He gives us] today for [our] own good!" The hymn writer nailed it: "What God ordains is always good; His will is just and holy, as he directs my life for me, I follow meek and lowly. My God indeed in ev'ry need knows well how he will shield me, to him I will yield me." (CW 429:1)

How can we not yield ourselves to Him by following this good recipe? How can we not fear, love and serve God with all our soul? How can we not walk in His ways and observe all of His commands and decrees? The recipe is good, but if we're honest, we will confess that we often have a hard time getting the recipe to turn out because we have a contaminated tool to work with - our sinful nature. "I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing." (Romans 7:18-19) Our sinful nature contaminates the whole dish. What will we do? On the day of judgment, God will ask us to present the results of our recipe "For we will all stand before God's judgment seat. It is written: 'As surely as I live,' says the Lord, 'every knee will bow before me; every tongue will confess to God.' So then, each of us will give an account of himself to God." (Romans 14:10-12) For us sinners this is a recipe for disaster - all we will have is a ruined dish to present to the Judge. "What God does in his law demand and none to him can render brings wrath and woe on ev'ry hand for man, the vile offender. Our flesh has not those pure desires the spirit of the law requires, and lost is our condition." (CW 390:2)

Yet, we who are saved - we who the LORD has "set His affection on" - we who the LORD has loved and chosen - we have someone who followed the good recipe for us - and He followed it to a T. Through faith we will have the perfect dish to present to the Judge on that day of judgment, not because we followed the recipe ourselves, but only because Jesus followed the recipe for us and gave us the perfect dish to present.

Praise be to God - by grace and through faith we're good to go! So now what? Should we just ignore what the LORD our God asks of us? "What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means!" (Romans 6:15) "What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? By no means!" (Romans 6:1-2) As we celebrate the anniversary of the Reformation this upcoming Sunday and the "sola fides" are flying, let's keep in mind what James says about "fide" without action, "What good is it, my brothers, if a man claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save him? ...faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead." (James 2: 14 & 17) Sola fide doesn't mean that we can show up for church on Sunday morning, check in with God and be reminded of His grace, and then checkout for the rest of the week because we convince ourselves that "we don't have to do anything." When we do nothing, our faith is dead. When we fear, love and serve God with all our soul and when we walk in His ways and observe all of His commands - then our faith is alive as we follow His recipe for our lives. Our motivation to follow the recipe is not to try and make the perfect dish, hoping that God will think it's good enough (cooks and bakers - imagine the kind of pressure associated with following a recipe if your eternal destiny was dependent on how your recipe turned out!) No, we follow the recipe because He has asked us to, and because when we consider everything He has done for us - the fact that God sent His Son Jesus to follow the recipe perfectly and to pay the penalty for all the times that we botched the recipe - we will be glad and we will want to do what He asks us to do. This is how we show love to God - by following his good recipe. "This is love for God: to obey his commands. And his commands are not burdensome" (1 John 5:3)

October 21, 2010

2010-10-23T09:22:00.000-07:00

"Then Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up. He said: "In a certain town there was a judge who neither feared God nor cared about men. And there was a widow in that town who kept coming to him with the plea, 'Grant me justice against my adversary.' For some time he refused. But finally he said to himself, 'Even though I don't fear God or care about men, yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will see that she gets justice, so that she won't eventually wear me out with her coming!'" And the Lord said, "Listen to what the unjust judge says. And will not God bring about justice for his chosen ones, who cry out to him day and night? Will he keep putting them off? I tell you, he will see that they get justice, and quickly. However, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?" (Luke 18: 1-8)

Have you ever heard someone say, "it's not what you know, but who you know that counts?" If you have, then you probably were listening to someone who "got in" to something, not because of their accomplishments or what they knew, but strictly because of who they knew. This phrase is usually married to a positive outcome. Not so in Jesus' parable where He tells us that the "who she knew" - the who the widow knew, was "a judge who neither feared God nor cared about men," and that he was an "unjust judge." We aren't even told "what" the widow knew. We don't know if she had a good case or not, all we know is that she just kept striking out because of the "who" that she was dealing with.

We as Christians could say that "it's what we know about who we know that counts." The writer to the Hebrews offers the following advice about prayer, "Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need." (Hebrews 4:16) We know that the One "who we know," our just God, loved us enough to justify us and help us with our greatest need. Unlike the unjust judge, God "cared about men" and while He extends mercy, offers grace, and has love for men that is undeserved, He doesn't simply forget about the times when we have given in to our adversaries and ended up sinning. He doesn't simply forget about the punishment the sinner deserves. He doesn't say, "oh that's OK, you sinned but I'll just look the other way." No, He is a just God. When Jesus prayed at Gethsemane, "My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will," (Matthew 26:42), The Father's answer was no, you have to go through with this. Because I am a just God, you have to drink the cup and pay for the sins of the world so that the world may be redeemed. We know that "who we know" is a God who demands justice, but who also has justified us.

And because the One "who we know" loved us enough to justify us, when we go to him in prayer, we can be sure that every single time he will see that he answers our prayers according to his justice and according to our needs that He knows even better than we do. In fact, we are told that the One "who we know" has his eyes and ears on those who have been justified and made right, "For the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous and his ears are attentive to their prayer." (I Peter 3:12) There are numerous passages in Scripture that urge the righteous to "always pray," but the one that is most concise is found in I Thessalonians, where we find the command: "pray continually" (I Thessalonians 5:17). Our continual prayers aren't offered up simply in hopes that we might wear down the One "who we know," so that he will eventually answer us. No, our God's eyes and ears are zeroed in on us waiting for our prayers. He won't put us off, but every time we come to Him he will answer and graciously give us everything according to our needs. "He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? (Romans 8:32)

In the parable, the widow's plea was for justice against her adversaries. Our adversaries in faith are the devil, the world and our sinful flesh. Jesus wants us to "always pray and not give up," in our battle against these adversaries. For the Christian, "it's what we know about who we know that counts," but in the end what also counts is "who knows us." Remember what Jesus said earlier in the Gospel of Luke about what He will say to those who on the day of judgment who claim that they know Him, but who really didn't have faith? He will say, "I don't know you or where you come from. Away from me, all you evildoers!" (Luke 13:27) Jesus echoes His message from Luke 13, that when the Son of Man comes, only a few will be saved - He echoes that with the question that he tacks on to the end of this parable, "when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?" Through constant prayer to the One who has made us right, and to the One who not only invites, but commands us to pray to Him, we are able to "not give up."

Because of what we know about who we know, and through faith, who also knows us - if the Son of Man returned tonight the answer to His question would be yes - at least in our case. What we know about who we know is that our God is a God of justice who demands justification. We also know that the One who we know, sent His son so that each of us would be justified. When we have faith in this, then the One who we know will also know us. Our "always prayers," to the God who always hears our prayers, should include pleas for justice from our adversaries - the devil, the world and our sinful flesh - that we may be on the winning side in our battles with them here on earth, and that in the end, because of what Jesus has won for us, that we will also win the war against them. So that "when the Son of Man comes, [he will] find faith on the earth," let Him find faith in action in our hearts and expressed on our lips in prayer.

October 14, 2010

2010-10-16T07:59:00.000-07:00

"Here is a trustworthy saying: If we died with him, we will also live with him; if we endure, we will also reign with him." (2 Timothy 2: 11-12)

I've had my fair share of job interviews over the course of the past 10 years. And I don't know that I have ever been asked it in an actual interview, but one of the questions that inevitably shows up on all the "employment expert's" job interview question lists is this: "Where do you see yourself in 5 years?" The answer I have always had prepared had something to do with seeing myself in a position where I was continually challenged while having the opportunity to grow and learn, blah, blah, blah. The answer that co-existed in my head with the rehearsed answer is that I'm going to be in the exact place doing the exact thing that best serves my God's ultimate purposes. "[God] determined the times set for [men] and the exact places where they should live." "For in him we live and move and have our being." (Acts 17:26 and 28). While we all have plans and ideas, we don't really know exactly where we are going to be or exactly what we are going to be doing 5 years from now. "Many are the plans in a man's heart, but it is the LORD's purpose that prevails." (Proverbs 19:21) An easier question to answer - a question that is answered in the verses from our Epistle Lesson for this Sunday that we are looking at is this: "where do you see yourself in a hundred and five years from now?" The Psalmist tells us that, "the length of our days is seventy years— or eighty, if we have the strength," (Psalm 90:10), and then what? When our strength is up and we take our final breath - then the infinite possibilities that we had in our temporal future, suddenly are drastically limited to only two possibilities for our eternal future. We either spend our eternity in heaven living with and reigning with God, or we spend our eternity in hell wishing we were in heaven living with and reigning with the only true God - period. Because we "died with him," and because by the grace of God and because of His mercy - our faith "endures," in a hundred and five years from now, we can can be sure that we will "live with him" and "we will also reign with him."

Paul explains what he means by "dying with Him" in the book of Romans - and it has to do with baptism, "don't you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were therefore buried with him 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. If we have been united with him like this in his death, we will certainly also be united with him in his resurrection. Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him." (Romans 6:3-5, 8) We "died with him" when we were baptized which united us with Jesus and His death. Everything that Jesus won by his death is now ours - including the opportunity to live with Him forever!

But, just because we were baptized into life doesn't mean that we can't lose our opportunity for "life with Him" for eternity. The concept of "once saved, always saved" is one of the devil's lies. It stands to reason that it is likely that at one time Judas Iscariot had faith and was being saved, and yet just because he was once saved, in the end it appears his faith didn't endure, and he was lost to an eternity of "life without parole," and "life without Jesus." Judas let his sinful nature get the best of him. Our own sinful nature isn't completely dead until we shed it completely when we physically die. When we are baptized into Jesus' death, we would do well to remember to daily drown our Old Adam, because it will try to daily emerge and take over. Paul tells us in Galatians what to do with our sinful nature - we are to crucify it. "Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the sinful nature with its passions and desires." (Galatians 5:24) We need to endure by daily tapping into the power of Jesus and His power to daily drown and to daily crucify our sinful nature before it gets out of control. Thankfully, God allows us to daily start out fresh. "Because of the LORD's great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. (Lamentations 3:22-23) We would also do well to daily pray like the Psalmist, "Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me." (Psalm 51:10) God, in His mercy answers David's prayer for every Christian every day with the ultimate result Jesus promised: "he who stands firm to the end will be saved." (Mark 13:13b) When we stand firm and endure and are steadfast, we will not only be saved, but we will also reign with Him. The Holy Spirit through the pen of John writes, "Be faithful, even to the point of death, and I will give you the crown of life." (Revelations 2:10) When we are enduring, being faithful, and standing firm we "we will also reign with him."

Where do you see yourself five years from now? We probably all have an idea of where we think we might be, but none of us knows for sure. We have more than just an idea and we can be absolutely sure and certain where we will be a hundred and five years from now. Because of what our Savior has done for us and what our Preserver continues to do for us on a daily basis which allows us to endure - we can count on living and reigning with God a hundred and five years from now right on through eternity. "If we died with him, we will also live with him; if we endure, we will also reign with him" May the "ifs" in the "trustworthy saying" turn into "becauses" for all of us. Amen!

October 7, 2010

2010-10-08T10:16:00.000-07:00

"For God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power, of love and of self-discipline." (2 Timothy 1:7)

What does a spirit of timidity look like? When it comes to living our faith, a spirit of timidity usually doesn't look like anything - and that's the problem. I imagine you have probably noticed that in these "Choir Devotions," that the "Word of God" is always bold - the Bible passages are always in bold print. This is done to attract special attention to them because the words of the inspired writers of the Word of God are more than just words: "our gospel came to you not simply with words, but also with power, with the Holy Spirit and with deep conviction." (I Thessalonians 1:5) The opposite of timidity is boldness. When it comes to matters of living our faith, when we act on the spirit of boldness that God has given us, then we ourselves are bolded, so that when others look at us we attract special attention, not to ourselves, but through ourselves to our God and to his power and to his love that he has revealed to us in his Word.

If we're honest with ourselves, we will confess that sometimes sin causes us to have more of a spirit of timidity than a spirit of boldness when it comes to wearing and sharing our faith? It's easy to be bold on Sunday morning when we are with fellow believers, but what about on Monday morning when we are with those who we might feel embarrassed to boldly share our faith with, because we are worried about what they might say to us, or we are worried about what they might say behind our backs later on? Or what about Tuesday morning when we are with those who think that faith is outright foolishness? "For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God." (I Corinthians 1:18) The message of the cross doesn't make sense to the unbeliever, and the Christian who displays a Spirit of timidity doesn't help with the unbeliever's perception of a foolish, senseless gospel. There's nothing that confuses the watching world more than when one of us fails to be bold in our faith - when we just blend in with all the other characters and act as though we have no reason to be bold. The Christian author Brennan Manning put it this way, "The single greatest cause of atheism in the world today is Christians, who acknowledge Jesus with their lips, then walk out the door, and deny Him by their lifestyle. That is what an unbelieving world simply finds unbelievable.” This quote might not be entirely true, but it does give us something to think about. A spirit of timidity in a Christian doesn't leave those around them simply unaffected by the positive- it actually affects them and infects them with more of the negative.

So, how can we shed our timidity and boost our spirit of boldness? By digging into that very same message that the unbeliever thinks is foolish, because for us it's the power of God - it's the power that inspires and equips us with a "spirit of power." Later on in 2 Timothy, Paul writes, "All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work." (2 Timothy 3:16-17) When we are strengthened by the power of the Word, we are equipped for every good work and we can shed our timidity and say with boldness, "I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes" (Romans 1:16) Now that's the spirit!

God didn't choose us and give us faith for us to be timid in living and sharing that faith. God equips us with all the necessary tools and inspiration to live our faith boldly. When we operate with the spirit of boldness that God has given us, and that lives within us, then we ourselves will be bold among the other characters - bold and attracting attention. We will stand out and what makes us tick will stand out. Our prayer should be that those watching see through us to the God that motivates our very spirit, so that He will be bolded.

May His spirit live within me,
As I seek the lost to win,
And may they forget the channel,
Seeing only Him. (CW:467 )

September 30, 2010

2010-10-01T20:58:00.000-07:00

"Woe to you who are complacent in Zion, and to you who feel secure on Mount Samaria, you notable men of the foremost nation, to whom the people of Israel come! You put off the evil day and bring near a reign of terror. You lie on beds inlaid with ivory and lounge on your couches. You dine on choice lambs and fattened calves. You strum away on your harps like David and improvise on musical instruments. You drink wine by the bowlful and use the finest lotions, but you do not grieve over the ruin of Joseph. Therefore you will be among the first to go into exile; your feasting and lounging will end." (Amos 6:1, 3-7)

Joseph P. Kennedy fathered not only the 35th President of the United States of America, but he also fathered the phrase, "when the going gets tough, the tough get going." When the going gets tough for a Christian however, they don't need to get tough, they just need to get going to the Lord. The Lord told the apostle Paul that "[God's] power is made perfect in weakness," and that "[God's] grace is sufficient for [him]," (2 Corinthians 12:9). It often takes a tough situation to revitalize the spiritual life of a Christian - to get them to remember the words from the song Jesus Loves Me, "[we are] weak but He is strong."

But what about when the going gets easy, then what happens?

Whenever we dig into a warning by one of the Old Testament prophets and attempt to apply it to our lives today, we must remember exactly who the prophet's audience was. Amos's audience here, the nation of Israel, was a nation of the world, but they were also God's chosen nation - his chosen people of the Old Testament. Today, in New Testament times, there is not a single world nation that makes up God's chosen people, rather those from every nation who belong to God are part of the New Testament nation of God's chosen people. "But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. (I Peter 2:9) We who are a part of the "holy nation" that live here in America in the 21st century also happen to be living in a world nation where the going has gotten easy. The Israelites that Amos was warning here had an easy going existence and yet if we were to look back to the way that people in America lived, say a generation or two before our current generation, we would likely find a lifestyle that was even more easy going than that of the Israelites of Amos's time. Now compare how we as Americans live today with how those from a generation past lived - those who had to walk five miles to school, in a foot of snow, uphill both ways. Lifestyles are only getting more and more cushy and comfy - the going is easy indeed. The warning here from Amos is that when the going gets easy, we who are a "people belonging to God" shouldn't allow the luxuries of the easy-going lifestyle to consume us.

"Woe to you who are complacent in Zion" The definition of complacent is: "contented to a fault; self-satisfied and unconcerned." When the going gets easy, are the comforts of the luxuries in our lives causing us to become content to a fault - content to the point where our luxuries are getting in the way of being concerned with God's commands? "You lie on beds inlaid with ivory and lounge on your couches," We as Americans lie on "sleep-number" beds and lounge around on wrap-around sectionals - we even have "easy" chairs. Do we ever find that we are so content lounging around on our couches that we become unconcerned with making the effort to attend a Bible study? "You dine on choice lambs and fattened calves." We as Americans have buffet restaurants where there are not only 6 or 7 ore more different meat choices, but also what seems like hundreds of different side dishes. Do we ever find that it's the third time this week that we are eating out at a restaurant and it has been forever since we have thought about the needs of those around us who are hungry and truly needy in other ways? "You strum away on your harps like David and improvise on musical instruments." We as Americans have ipods and video games and home entertainment systems. Do we ever find that we have a hard time finding time to get into God's Word and at the same time we have 3 or 4 television programs every night that we are hooked on, that we just can't miss? "You drink wine by the bowlful and use the finest lotions." We as Americans have wine racks filled with wine bottles and stores in shopping malls dedicated exclusively to fine lotions. Do we ever find ourselves clouding our minds with alcohol when we could be spending that time either meditating on or sharing God's Word? Do we ever spend more money in a month on "health and beauty aids" and trips to the salon than we set aside for the Lord's work? Jesus tells us to "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself. All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments." (Matthew 22:37-40) Are we so concerned with pleasing ourselves with the luxuries in our easy-going lifestyle that we are content to a fault - oblivious to the point where our contentedness is at the expense of loving others and loving God?

"Go to Calneh and look at it; go from there to great Hamath, and then go down to Gath in Philistia. Are they better off than your two kingdoms? Is their land larger than yours?" Things change, and cities and nations that had it easy one day, suddenly have it easy no more. Some think the day is coming soon - someday people will likely be talking about the "once great nation of America." When the going gets easy, remember that this can change. The obvious example would be Job. Job had it all one day and then God took it all away from him, but whether the going got tough or the going got easy, Job's focus was not on himself, but on the glory of the LORD. Job had it right when he said, "The LORD gave and the LORD has taken away; may the name of the LORD be praised." (Job 1:21) Paul also experienced both sides of that coin, he writes, "I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want." (Phillipans 4:12) The secret of being content, especially when the going gets easy, doesn't lie in what we have or don't have, but in who we have and who has us. We have a Savior - Jesus Christ and we are his. This is the Christian's true source of contentment, "But godliness with contentment is great gain." (I Timothy 6:6)

When the going gets easy, it's easy to let the "easy" get the best of us. There's not a whole lot of Gospel in this passage form Amos - he gets to that later in his book, (take time to read through Amos and you will find a few choice Gospel morsels), but we know the rest of the story. The prophet's predictions were right - Israel was exiled, but there was a remnant who returned, and from that remnant came our Savior who left the luxuries of heaven - luxuries that would make our luxuries look third rate - to take care of all the times when we put ourselves and our own selfish desires ahead of loving others and ahead of loving God himself. God loved us enough to create a plan of Salvation and Jesus loved us enough to follow the plan. What more motivation do we need to listen carefully to the warning of Amos and to follow the advice Paul offered his letter to the Corinthians? "So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God" (I Corinthians 10:12)

September 23, 2010

2010-09-24T12:54:00.000-07:00

"I urge, then, first of all, that requests, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for everyone" (I Timothy 2:1)

How many people do you encounter everyday? I suppose it depends on the day, but being a part of the society we all live in, you will likely encounter hundreds of people everyday. You probably won't say anything to most of them, and you may not even know most of their names, but living in this corner of the world means living in and amongst people. Even when you don't leave your home, people and their stories come to your doorstep in the form of a newspaper, people are beamed into your living rooms through your television sets, people are put in front of you on your desktop when you surf the internet or check your email. Now, another question: How many people do you pray for everyday?

The NIV heading over the second chapter of Paul's first inspired letter of encouragement to his friend Timothy states: "Instructions on Worship." Certainly we can apply this passage to our worship practices - and our synod does. Christian Worship contains "Prayers of the Church" that include prayers not only for our church, but also for everyone else in our nation and the world. But, we can also take a look at this passage on a personal level and consider just who everyone is that we are urged to personally pray for. If you're anything like me, then if you pray for yourself, your close-family, and maybe for someone who has asked you to pray for them - if you get all these prayers in before you doze off or before you are interrupted by something else - then (sadly) you might consider it to be a good prayer day. But you would have a hard time categorizing this kind of prayer day as a day you prayed for "everyone." Everyone is kind of an overwhelming term. Only God knows the exact number, but there are nearly 7 billion people living in the world today - so there are 7 billion individuals included in everyone! To make it more manageable, maybe we should start with the "everyones" who we come in contact with on our daily paths.

We are encouraged in Thessalonians to "pray continually" (I Thessalonians 5:17) Consider praying continually by praying your way through your day - by praying for those you encounter. If you turn on the radio in the morning - pray for the radio personalities. If you read about someone in the morning newspaper - pray for them - pray for the writer of the article too! If you see your next door neighbor on your way to work - pray for them. If you see a jogger or a dog-walker - pray for them. If you see a crossing guard escorting kids across the street - pray for them. If you are in line with someone at the grocery store - pray for them - pray for the checker or the bagger too! Pray for your co-workers. Pray for the people you talk with on the telephone - even if they are telemarketers! If you are stopped at a red stoplight and there is a family in a vehicle in front of you - pray for them. If you are in a waiting room - pray for the others who are waiting. If you are watching a television program - pray for the actors or the reality show host. These people that you encounter everyday can be your personal "everyones" who we are urged to pray for. "I urge, then, first of all, that requests, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for everyone" (I Timothy 2:1)

Now that we have identified and targeted who our "everyones" will be, our next question might be - what should we say in our prayers for them? There are a countless worthwhile things to pray for on behalf of others, but if we want to prioritize, then our prayers will be focused on their greatest dilemma (whether they know it or not) - the fact that they are a part of all the nations who will be gathered on the Last Day and they will either be put on Jesus' right or Jesus' left - and without faith in Jesus they will be in trouble. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left. (Matthew 25:32-33) When we encounter one of our "everyones," we are not able to tell if they are on a path that will lead to Jesus' right or Jesus' left - we are not able to know if their heart is a heart that trusts God, or not. Only God can look at and judge their hearts - we are only able to look at their outward appearance. "Man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart." (I Samuel 16:7) So as we construct our prayer for those we encounter, we have to take into account the only 2 kinds of people there are in the world - those whose hearts trust in the LORD and those whose hearts do not trust in the LORD. Maybe we can use a variation of the following prayer as we encounter and pray for our "everyones." This prayer suggestion comes with the following caveat - I am in no way a prayer expert, so this is in no way an expert prayer suggestion. Not to worry, God the Holy Spirit will take our imperfect prayers and step in to help. "In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express." (Romans 8:26).

A prayer suggestion for the "everyones" that we encounter:

Dear God, you want all men to be saved. If this is a person who is being saved, then strengthen and preserve their faith. If this is a person who is still lost, then please put them in a situation where they will run into your Word, that the Holy Spirit might plant saving faith in their hearts. Amen.

Could all the effort put into praying for the "everyones" we encounter really be worth it, or are we just wasting our time? In James we learn that "The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective." (James 5:16) There is a little plaque (I think it's a plaque - it might just be a little card) that sits by the entrance to the office at my church that always catches my eye on the way in - it reads, "prayer changes things." Wouldn't it be awesome when we are in heaven one day to meet one of the "everyones" in our life, and to realize that our prayer for them changed things for them - that one of our prayers put a detour in their path - a detour that ran them right into the Word and to the Holy Spirit and the saving faith that he creates? Let's take the time and make the effort to follow Paul's urging and begin praying for everyone by starting with the "everyones" we encounter on our daily paths.

September 16, 2010

2010-09-18T09:19:00.000-07:00

"I tell you, there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents." (Luke 15:10)

If you have any "German Lutheran reserve" in you - like I do - then you may not be prone to expressing emotion and you may not do a whole lot of outward rejoicing. According to my trusty dictionary, the definition of rejoicing is, "the expression of joy or gladness." If we had to come up with an example of the last time that we actually really outwardly rejoiced about something worldly-related, I imagine we might have to go back to some major milestone in our life. Maybe it was the news from the doctor that the cancer is now in remission, maybe it was a new job opportunity after a long spell of unemployment or "un-happy" employment, - - - or maybe it was the day when our child or grandchild or niece or nephew was born. If you have ever been in a labor and delivery room when the newborn takes in their very first breath and lets out their very first cry, then you will know what a sweet sound that is. That cry signals to those in the room that the baby is alive and breathing - and that cry is usually followed by outward rejoicing by the others in the room. There is a "birth sound" that trumps this sound in terms of sweetness. Jesus once told the Pharisee Nicodemus that, "no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again" (John 3:3). Jesus also said, "Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit." (John 3:6) When the Holy Spirit first breathes life into a soul, and that person is "born again," the angels in heaven rejoice and cry out in excitement. "I tell you, there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents." (Luke 15:10) What a sweet sound that must be!

"One sinner" needs to not only repent, but also be found. "One sinner" can repent until they are blue in the face, and even if it was possible for them to never commit another sin again, they would still be lost because they couldn't pay for the sin they had already committed. Jesus had a solution for this predicament. "Jesus went into Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God. "The time has come," he said. "The kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe the good news!" (Mark 1:14-15) Jesus tells us to repent AND believe the good news - the good news is that Jesus "came to seek and to save what was lost." (Luke 19:10) Jesus came "to give his life as a ransom for many." (Matthew 20:28) Jesus' whole purpose in coming to this earth was to redeem. When just one sinner repents and believes this is great cause for rejoicing as Jesus' purpose is being accomplished. In a sermon that I just heard this past Sunday, I was reminded that we as Christians who are "fighting the good fight," are not an "Army of One" - we don't have to battle alone - we have our fellow Christians as allies. But in a way we are an army under one. Because through one, sin entered the world and we all became lost; and through "the One" sin was taken away and we were found. "For if, by the trespass of the one man, death reigned through that one man, how much more will those who receive God's abundant provision of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ." (Romans 5:17) When even one sinner, who was lost, repents and is found by "the One" - Jesus Christ - then "there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God."

Because "the One" has given you the gift of righteousness, when you were found and when you first believed, the angels in the presence of God rejoiced for you - personally! If we reach heaven before the Last Day, we will be able to hear that sweet sound, and even join the angels in the rejoicing over sinners who repent. But we don't have to, and we shouldn't, wait until we get to heaven to join the angels in rejoicing. The Psalms are filled with encouragement to rejoice NOW - the verse from the book of Psalms regarding rejoicing that is probably most often quoted is from Psalm 118 - "This is the day the LORD has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it." (Psalm 118:24) Paul tells us (and then he tells us again) to, "Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice!" (Philippians 4:4) For us who have that "German Lutheran reserve" in us, when it comes to rejoicing, we should consider getting past that. We shouldn't just rejoice to ourselves - we need to rejoice out loud. We need to rejoice loud enough so that those who are still lost recognize us and ask us what we are so glad about. And then when recognized and interrogated, we must, "always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have," (I Peter 3:15) so that one of the lost who hears your rejoicing and hears your answer as to why you are rejoicing, might be birthed by the Spirit, be found, repent and believe. Let's pray for the motivation to rejoice out loud - let's keep the angels busy rejoicing over sinners who repent.

September 9, 2010

2010-09-10T10:20:00.000-07:00

"Large crowds were traveling with Jesus, and turning to them he said: "If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters—yes, even his own life—he cannot be my disciple." (Luke 14:25-26)

I'm not sure if the jingle is still in use today, but back in 1982, a nationwide advertising and publicity campaign was launched by the Isaly Klondike Company with the tag, "What would you do for a Klondike bar?" If you have seen or heard the commercial, then the tune is probably stuck in your head right now - and I apologize for that. I am personally not a huge fan of ice cream treats - they don't really do much for me - so my answer to the question has always been - not much - I wouldn't do very much for a Klondike bar. In our Gospel Lesson for this upcoming Sunday, Jesus spells out what we need to do - to what lengths we need to go - if we are to be considered one of his disciples. The question we need to ask ourselves is, "what would you do to be a disciple of Jesus?" The understood thought that comes before the Klondike bar question is (considering how good they are and what they do for you) "what would you do for a Klondike Bar?" The understood thought that comes before the disciple of Jesus question is (considering how good he is and what he has done for you) "what would you be willing to do to be a disciple of Jesus?"

I don't know about you, but for me there is one word that Jesus uses in these couple of verses that rings in my ears - the "H" word. Many families that I know, don't even allow the word "hate" to be in their family member's vocabulary. And here we have Jesus telling us that we need to hate what most people value most in life - even more than their precious "stuff" - we need to hate the relationships with those who are closest to us. And then Jesus throws in the one thing that often trumps the value we place on "stuff," and even sadly often trumps the value we place on our relationships with others - as he includes "me, myself and I," in the list of things that must be hated in order to become a disciple of Jesus. Of course we aren't supposed to go around literally hating everyone and ourselves - there are countless other passages from Scripture that instruct us to love one another, which would contradict the hate modus operandi. But we are to love God so much more than we love even our closest loved ones, that relatively speaking, how we love our loved ones is actually closer to hate than it is to love. Jesus tells us we are to 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments." (Matthew 22:36-40) The second command is like the first, but it is far inferior to the first and greatest command. In Luther's "what does this mean" to the "first and greatest commandment" - we are told "we should fear, love and trust in God above all things." the "all things" includes even our closest relationships. "What would you do to be a disciple of Jesus?" Would you love him so much more than you love everything and everyone else that is most precious in your life, that relatively speaking, it appears that everything and everyone else is hated by you?

Before we answer the question, let's consider what Jesus has done for us. As much as our closest loved ones care about us and would do anything for us - there is still one thing that they cannot do for us - they cannot make our relationship with God right. Only Jesus could do that. After sin created a barrier between God and man, Jesus was faced with the question: "what would you do to redeem these fallen people?" Jesus responded in the most extreme way - his actions matched his extreme love for us. Jesus left the perfection of heaven to come into this imperfect sinful world to become like one of us. And then after 33 years of wrestling and resisting every sinful temptation that he faced, as he lived a perfect life in our place, Jesus even was willing to die for us - and his death was NOT of natural causes - it was a gory painful death being crucified on a cross. Jesus' actions clearly answer the question regarding what he would do for us. "[Jesus], being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death— even death on a cross!" (Philippians 2: 6-8) Jesus did all this for us, so that we could have a right relationship with God.

What would you do for a Klondike bar? My answer is - not much. What would you do to be a disciple of Jesus? Considering what he has done for us - we should love him so much that it appears we hate everything else that's important to us. Jesus deserves more than the love that's leftover after we love everyone else - he deserves the first fruits of our love. He deserves it, and he demands it, if we want to be one of his disciples. When we consider and survey what Jesus has done for us, this shouldn't be a difficult command to follow - we will want to love him most. Unfortunately, the good we want to do we often do not do, but the Good News is that Jesus' obedient life and sacrificial death on the cross paid for our sins of omission too - like the times when we fail to love him most. Out of thanks for paying for all our sins, including the times when we fail to love Jesus to the extreme, we will want to do our best to give him what he wants from us, which is our all when it comes to love. "Were the whole realm of nature mine, that were a tribute far too small; Love so amazing, so divine, demands my soul, my life, my all." CW 125:4

September 2, 2010

2010-09-03T09:05:00.000-07:00

Remember your leaders, who spoke the word of God to you. Consider the outcome of their way of life and imitate their faith. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever." (Hebrews 13:7-8)

If we were somehow able to travel back in time to when our grandparents (or even our parents) were the age we are now, so that we could take a look at their way of life, we would notice a lot about their way of life that is different from our way of life today. If we were somehow able to travel forward in time to when our grandchildren (or even our children) will be the age that we are now, so that we could take a look at their way of life, we would likely notice a lot about their way of life in the future that is different from our way of life today. Much has changed and much will change. It was the Greek philosopher Heraclitus who came up with the idea that, "Nothing endures but change." Sometimes we translate his quote as, "the only constant in life is change." The Christian recognizes that there is an exception to this rule. The Christian realizes that there is one constant in life that does not change. That constant is Jesus Christ. "Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever." Everything about Jesus Christ is constant, and Jesus is our constant because he constantly loves us - as he has loved our leaders from the past and will love the next generations. And Jesus is constantly with us - as he was with our leaders from the past and how he will be with the next generations.

One other thing has not changed - the most common denominator between people of all ages is the sinful nature that we all inherit from our most distant relatives, Adam & Eve. The good news is that the universal Good News that takes care of that sin also has not changed and will not change. What Jesus means to people and what he does for them has not changed and will not change. "Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever." A fitting slogan for Jesus could be: Jesus Christ - continuing to meet people's greatest need exactly the same way since 3,000 B.C. (or whenever Adam and Eve took the forbidden bites).

School is back in session. For those of us who have children, or grandchildren, or nieces/nephews in Christian Day School or Sunday School, isn't it comforting to know that the Jesus they are learning about is the same Jesus that loves us and that is with us - that very same Jesus who was with and loved those leaders who came before us? Jesus' love for the sinner doesn't weaken over time - he loves us just as much now, as he did when out of love he stayed on the cross to make the final installment in the paying off of the debt of sin. "For the LORD is good and his love endures forever; his faithfulness continues through all generations." (Psalm 100:5) Jesus is with us "today" just as much us as he will be with those from the next generation tomorrow and "forever," and Jesus isn't with us "today" any less than he was with those who came before us "yesterday." Jesus promised to his disciples of "yesterday" that he would continue to be with them. That same promise applies to us "today," and will continue to apply for believers like us, right up until the end of time. "And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age." (Matthew 28:20)

When we "consider the outcome of [the] way of life [of our] leaders, who spoke the word of God to [us,]" we will realize that there really only are two outcomes - heaven or hell. If these leaders remained "faithful, even to the point of death, [and God gave them] the crown of life," (Revelation 2:10), then their way of life - their way to eternal life - is worth considering and imitating. When we consider their way of life, we realize that they are now in heaven for the very same reason that we can be sure that we will one day be in heaven - the unchanging Jesus. One way we can imitate the faith of those "who spoke the word of God to [us]", is to speak the word of God to others - to become leaders who speak the word of God to others. School is indeed back in session, but that doesn't mean we should leave all the teaching up to the teachers. We, as parents, grandparents and aunts/uncles should be speaking the word of God to the next generation. The definition of heritage is: "Something that is passed down from preceding generations." Unfortunately one thing that we all inherit and are passed down from the preceding generation is a sinful nature "Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me." (Psalm 51:5) But, following the pattern of the leaders who spoke the word of God to us, we are also able to pass down from our generation to the next the truth about sin and the truth about our unchanging Savior - we can, and should, "[speak] the word of God to [them]. God's word, and its central theme of Jesus, is our great heritage and we, like those from the generation past who spoke the word of God to us, have the privilege of speaking the word of God to the next generation. The heritage of God's Word and it's central character Jesus doesn't get old - it's always perfectly contemporary with every generation, because who Jesus is and what he means to us remains the same as who he was and what he meant to those who came before us, and who Jesus is and what he means to the believer will continue to remain exactly the same throughout all future generations.

"God's Word is our great heritage and shall be ours forever;
to spread its light from age to age shall be our chief endeavor.
Through life it guides our way; in death it is our stay.
Lord, grant while worlds endure, we keep its teachings pure,
throughout all generations." CW 293

August 26, 2010

2010-08-27T08:35:00.000-07:00

You're being chased. You're drowning. You're trapped. You're being injured. You miss a plane. This list includes, at least according to one survey, the top 5 most common nightmare themes. The picture that Jesus paints with his words in our Gospel lesson for this upcoming Sunday trumps all of these nightmare scenarios, but the truth is, this picture is more than just a potential nightmare scenario. This picture will sadly one day be reality for the majority of people living on this earth - for all those who don't find the narrow door that leads to the inside of the house.

"Make every effort to enter through the narrow door, because many, I tell you, will try to enter and will not be able to. Once the owner of the house gets up and closes the door, you will stand outside knocking and pleading, 'Sir, open the door for us.' "But he will answer, 'I don't know you or where you come from.' "Then you will say, 'We ate and drank with you, and you taught in our streets.' "But he will reply, 'I don't know you or where you come from. Away from me, all you evildoers!" (Luke 13:24-27)

In my opinion, this passage contains one of the most bone-chilling concepts in all of Scripture - to be on the outside looking in, with no hope of the door ever opening again because "once the owner of the house gets up and closes the door," it will be too late. We will obviously want to avoid this scenario at all costs - as though our life depended on it - because our eternal life does depend on it! We will want to "make every effort." But even if we made EVERY effort, we, as humans, on our own merit, still couldn't make it through the narrow door. There is only one way into the house. "Jesus [said] "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." (John 14:6) In order to get into the house where the Father is, we have to first realize that we actually deserve to be one of those in the crowd clawing at the door on the outside - we have to repent for everything that we have done or haven't done that should put us in that crowd, and then we need to turn to Jesus, where we will find entrance. I am the gate; whoever enters through me will be saved (John 10:9)

So how do we get "through" Jesus? Will it be enough to simply know him? The people clawing and scratching at the door in Jesus' story knew Jesus, and yet Jesus told them that he didn't know them. The familiar John 3:16 tells us, "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life." (John 3:16) Notice it does NOT say, that whoever simply "knows" Jesus will have eternal life. No, it says that we must "believe" in him - we must have faith in him - we must put all our trust and confidence in him. The only way to believe and have faith is through exposure to God's Word. "Faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word of Christ." (Romans 10:17) The less we are reading and hearing or at least thinking about the Word, the less we are believing in Jesus and the more we are just knowing of Jesus. Those who only know of Jesus won't be remembered, "But he will answer, 'I don't know you or where you come from." We would do well to get into God's word for a dose of faith strengthening and then pray like the thief on the cross who said "Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom." (Luke 23:42)

You know our enemy the devil takes a look at this same passage, and what he sees is a "dream come true." His number one focus is to get more and more people into that crowd that stands outside the house after it is too late. And there's no doubt about it, the devil is working extra hard on each and every one of us reading this devotion right now - he's working to pry us away from the Word - because he knows the power of the Word - the power to create, sustain and strengthen faith in Jesus - our narrow door into heaven. Let's "make every effort to enter through the narrow door," by making every effort to ward off the attacks of the devil. Let's make every effort to get deeper into the Word. Let's "take up the shield of faith, with which [we] can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one." (Ephesians 6:16)

Yes, the nightmare scenario we find here in Luke 13 will sadly become a nightmare reality for so many. But for us, only through faith in Jesus - faith that comes from hearing the Word - we can have confidence that we will be one of the few that will escape this nightmare scenario. We will someday have the privilege of entering through Jesus, that narrow door, into the mansions of heaven.

August 19, 2010

2010-08-20T09:39:00.000-07:00

...let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, ... Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured such opposition from sinful men, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart." (Hebrews 12: 1-3)

Imagine for a minute that you were assigned the task of climbing to the top of a stadium light pole to "fix" or replace one of the burnt-out bulbs. Your supervisor, who assigned you the task, and who has made the climb before, offers one piece of advice before they show you to the pole - "whatever you do, don't look down!" The Holy Spirit, through the pen of the writer to the Hebrews, offers similar advice as he advises us to "fix our eyes on Jesus," who is sitting up "at the right hand of the throne of God." Whatever we do, we shouldn't look down! Because when we take our eyes off Jesus and look down, sin can draw us in, and sin can hinder and sin can easily entangle - sin can cause us to lose our balance.

If we take our eyes off of Jesus, we can lose our balance when we look around at others and start becoming like them. The devil uses our straying eyes as a way to get into our head. Humans, by nature, are adaptable, and so we start adapting to what we see. Sin becomes something that we don't treat like sin, but more like a "different lifestyle" that we should just coexist with. The more time our eyes spend off of Jesus, looking down at others around us, the more we start following the lifestyles of the world. We may not even clearly recognize it, and before we know it, we end up entangled in sin - we end up losing our balance. "So, if you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don't fall!" (I Corinthians 10:12)

If we take our eyes off of Jesus, we can lose our balance when we look around at others and start comparing ourselves to them. The devil uses our straying eyes to plant the idea in our mind that when it comes to sin and righteousness, we are going to somehow be graded on a curve. Our eyes look at others and we say to ourselves, "at least I'm not as bad as so and so." This kind of thinking hinders and needs to be thrown off. There is no grading on a curve - it's pass or fail, and the test is to compare ourselves not to our neighbor, but to compare ourselves to the One who "sat down at the right hand of the throne of God."

When we stop looking down, and when we fix our eyes on Jesus and compare ourselves to him, we sadly see and realize how much we have assimilated to the world's ways and how much we have lost our balance and have "fallen" short of the glory of the one sitting at the right hand of the throne of God. We see that we are part of the "all" who "have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." (Romans 3:23) We see how hard the devil is working to knock us off the light pole and when we take our eyes off of Jesus, we sadly realize how often the devil gets us to lose our balance.

But, when we fix our eyes on Jesus we also see that he loved us enough to take care of all of our sin and the situation that sin put us in. We don't need to "grow weary and lose heart," because we also see our Savior Jesus who climbed the light pole that extended from the depths of hell all the way up to the Throne of God, and he made his climb while carrying the load of the sins of the whole world on his back. The Jesus that we fix our eyes on endured, completed the work he did for us, and perfected our faith! Let's pray for the resolve to keep our eyes fixed on Jesus, because when we do, we accurately see how much we come up short, but we also see how much Jesus has come up big for us. "Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith!"

August 12, 2010

2010-08-12T18:11:00.000-07:00

"Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. This is what the ancients were commended for." (Hebrews 11:1-2)

I'm pretty sure that none of you reading this devotion right now are blind (if you were blind and reading this, then that would be quite a feat)... The closest to blind that any of us get is at night - in the darkness. And I don't know about you (I might just be strange), but when I'm walking around my home in the middle of the night I don't turn on a light. I know how many steps I can go before I walk into one of the walls. Even though I don't see the walls, I am certain of where they will be, as I am able to walk by faith and not by sight. Here's where the analogy falls flat on its face. I know where I am able to walk in the dark, even when I cannot see, because in the daylight I have seen. Jesus' disciple Thomas had to see to be certain too. Remember what Jesus said after Thomas saw and believed? Jesus said, "Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed." (John 20:29)

Humans are by nature skeptical - they want proof - they want to know why. Using human standards to attempt to prove that what we hope for will come true is NOT faith. Using human standards to attempt to prove that what we have not seen actually is, or actually was, is NOT faith. The "heroes of faith" mentioned in Hebrews 11 didn't wait for evidence that doing what God wanted them to do would be best for them - they didn't wait until they could "see" the reason why - no, through faith they resolved (as NIKE would put it) to "Just Do It." Faith stands apart from human reason, apart from human logic, apart from human science (that demands evidence). In fact faith contradicts reason. According to my trusty dictionary, the definition of foolishness is" "lacking or exhibiting a lack of good sense or judgment." According to human nature, faith is foolish. "For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing..." (1 Corinthians 1:18a) Saving faith in Jesus Christ has nothing to do with anything we, as humans, do or think - it's not from us at all - it's simply an undeserved gift from God. "For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God." (Ephesians 2:8)

But, just because we are "certain of what we do not see," doesn't mean that we don't see anything. It doesn't mean that we are left in this world to stumble around blindly as I would stumble around if I was making my way in the dark, in the middle of the night, in a home that I wasn't familiar with. Jesus promised that the Holy Spirit (who delivers the great gift of faith, by working to create and strengthen faith) will be with us to guide us. Jesus said, "But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you." (John 14:26) The Holy Spirit uses the Scriptures as his tool to work faith which causes us to be "sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see." (Hebrews 11:1) "Faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word of Christ." (Romans 10:17) We have the Scriptures that were "written that [we] may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing [we] may have life in his name." (John 20:31) Unbelievers in this world, who are Spiritually blind, stumble around without direction in the darkness of sin, they don't see any real hope for the future. We, who have been given the gift of faith, have direction. We are "sure of what we hope for," and while we hope, we see the path that God wants us to take while in this world when we dig into His word. "[God's] word is a lamp to [our] feet and a light for [our] path." (Psalm 119:105) Apart from our own human reasoning, we have the gift of faith - the gift of being "certain of what we do not see," and yet we aren't in any way left to stumble around blindly in the dark, because we have God's Word which creates and strengthens faith, provides a guide, and sufficiently shows us no less than exactly what we need to see.

August 5, 2010

2010-08-07T06:18:00.000-07:00

"So I hated life, because the work that is done under the sun was grievous to me. All of it is meaningless, a chasing after the wind. I hated all the things I had toiled for under the sun, because I must leave them to the one who comes after me. And who knows whether he will be a wise man or a fool? Yet he will have control over all the work into which I have poured my effort and skill under the sun. This too is meaningless. So my heart began to despair over all my toilsome labor under the sun. For a man may do his work with wisdom, knowledge and skill, and then he must leave all he owns to someone who has not worked for it. This too is meaningless and a great misfortune. What does a man get for all the toil and anxious striving with which he labors under the sun? All his days his work is pain and grief; even at night his mind does not rest. This too is meaningless. A man can do nothing better than to eat and drink and find satisfaction in his work. This too, I see, is from the hand of God, for without him, who can eat or find enjoyment? To the man who pleases him, God gives wisdom, knowledge and happiness, but to the sinner he gives the task of gathering and storing up wealth to hand it over to the one who pleases God. This too is meaningless, a chasing after the wind." (Ecclesiastes 2:17-26)

Even if you're not a fan of 80's music, you've probably heard the refrain from the 80's rock band Loverboy's most famous work - "Everybody's Workin' for the Weekend." While this may be true, the older and older people get, the more we might find that they are also "workin' for retirement." More and more time is spent thinking about long range financial planning and 401k's, and if you're following the advice of the financial planners, more and more of your paycheck is going into some kind of retirement fund or funds or other investments. Of course, some of you reading this are already retired, some are getting closer, and I imagine some of you who are around my age might be wondering if retirement will even still be around 40 years from now! One thing is for sure, having the opportunity to enjoy retirement is no guarantee. A couple of weeks ago, Michael R. Bailey, a police officer who served in Chicago was shot and killed while patrolling the Mayor of Chicago's home. The officer was less than a month away from retirement. The "10 o'clock news anchor" mentioned the fact that the officer, in anticipation of retirement, had just purchased his first brand-new car, which he never got to enjoy. This Officer, "[did] his work with wisdom, knowledge and skill, and then he [had to] leave all he own[ed] to someone who has not worked for it."

Jesus advises us in Matthew 6 that we shouldn't really bother storing up the earthly fruits of our earthly labor, they're probably just going to rot or go sour anyway. "Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust 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) The moment after we take our final breath and we retire from this earth, how many vacations we took, or how many bank accounts we had, or how much earthly treasurer we accumulated will all be irrelevant - "meaningless" as Solomon would put it. It would be careless stewardship to not plan at all for retirement - but it would be much more than simply careless to make anything but planning for our final retirement in heaven, anything but our number one priority.

Paul, in our Second Lesson for this upcoming Sunday from Colossians, directs us to exactly what we should be making our priority - what we should be focusing our minds on, "Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things." (Colossians 3:2) When we retire from this earth, we have a retirement waiting for us above. This retirement is absolutely guaranteed. This retirement will be in a place where we don't have to worry about thieves breaking in and stealing, or rust or moths destroying or any other annoyance or tragedy that we currently have to deal with in this sinful world. This retirement won't last just a few years or a few decades, this retirement will last for eternity. This retirement will NOT be a reward given to us because of any toiling or striving or anything "good" we have done. No, this retirement package is strictly a gift - "the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord." (Romans 6:23b) Jesus is the one that toiled and endured and lived a perfect life in this world for us. Jesus' death on the cross paid in full all of our retirement dues. Jesus is the one who gave us the peace of mind of knowing exactly where we are going to spend our eternal retirement - in heaven with him. When we keep all of this in mind, we have the peace of knowing that all the meaningless wind chasing of this world is only short-lived, and soon we will be enjoying our final retirement in the mansions of heaven. When we set our minds on this, then even while we are in the midst of all the meaningless wind chasing, the "peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard [our] hearts and [our] minds in Christ Jesus."

July 29, 2010

2010-07-29T06:36:00.000-07:00

You may, or may not, have noticed that you didn't receive a "choir devotion" this last week. That's because there wasn't one. Well, there was one, it just never made its way from my "chicken-scratch" notes to my computer to your computer. For a number of reasons my computer access was limited last week, but the predominant reason was the fact that I was with my family on two different "getaways." During these trips we traveled over a thousand miles of Illinois and Wisconsin roadway and we probably saw over a thousand different billboards along the side of the road. One particular series of billboards caught my eye. Maybe you have seen them too. Here are some examples:

- a picture of Michael J. Fox - the word optimism - the phrase "Determined to outfox Parkinson's" - followed by the phrase: "Pass It On"

- a picture of Fred Rogers - the word friendship - the phrase "Won't you be my neighbor?" - followed by the phrase: "Pass It On"

- a picture of Ben Franklin - the word ingenuity - the phrase "Go fly a kite" - followed by the phrase: "Pass It On"

- a picture of Shrek - the words believe in yourself - the phrase "Ogre achiever" - followed by the phrase: "Pass It On"

You get the picture (and the words and phrases too).

Our Old Testament lesson for this upcoming Sunday is the account of Abraham "looking not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others," (Philippians 2:4), as he was having a conversation with God regarding the immediate future for the wicked cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. Abraham prayed and then he prayed again and then he prayed again and then he prayed again and then he prayed again and then he prayed again. If you count - that's six separate times he prayed about the same thing. "Then Abraham spoke up again..." (Genesis 18:27a) You could call that kind of praying persistent.

By now your eyes may have found the picture below of the familiar figure from American history - another Abraham - Abraham Lincoln. I saw the billboard pictured below on the drive home this past Sunday. Abraham Lincoln failed a number of different times that he ran for various state and federal offices, but by being persistent, he ended up changing the course of America forever. We would have to tweak the billboard a little bit, (and I suppose we would have a problem in finding a picture of the Abraham from Genesis) but Abraham, and his prayer style that we find in Genesis 18, could be the "poster boy" for persistent prayer - persistent prayer that changed the course of Sodom and Gomorrah history forever - at least for Lot.

Instead of "Failed, failed, failed," our Abraham billboard would have the phrase, "succeeded, succeeded, succeeded." When God answers our prayers by giving us what we ask for, it is of course appropriate to appreciate the blessing and praise and thank him for it, but then do we just settle? Have you ever tried to push the envelope with prayer and ask for even more? After all, we have a God who wants to graciously give us ALL things that work out for our good! (Romans 8:32 and Romans 8:28) In our Gospel Lesson for this upcoming Sunday is the familiar passage, "Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you." (Luke 11:9) I was told once that something is lost in the NIV translation of this passage, it really could read, "keep on asking... keep on seeking... keep on knocking..." Abraham in his prayer doesn't settle - he "keeps on" as he is persistent in his prayers and lets God decide how far the envelope can be pushed. Something that Abraham clearly kept in mind is that our God is Omnipotent and he can take what we ask for and do more than we can even imagine with our requests. Paul told the Ephesian Christians in his letter to them that, "[Our God] is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine." (Ephesians 3:20a) Let's remember to pray with persistence, knowing that when we keep on asking and when it's God's will, we will receive more than we can even imagine. Then we can share that value of a persistent prayer life with others who are watching us. Let's pray with the persistence of Abraham and then "Pass It On."

July 15, 2010

2010-07-17T06:38:00.000-07:00

"And we pray this in order that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and may please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God, being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience, and joyfully giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in the kingdom of light. For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins." (Colossians 1:10-14)

Tis' the season for summer camps - including sports camps. Lebron James, who is considered to be one of the greatest basketball players in the business today, will be holding a 5-day basketball camp for teenagers in a couple of weeks in San Diego, CA, called "King's Academy" - at a cost of over $3,500 per camper! For most of us that's probably almost a month's wages - proving that learning from one of the greats can be costly. The apostle Paul was one of the greatest apostles of his day. If Paul were to hold a camp, Colossians 1:10-14 could be used as a camp mission statement and goal outline for an apostle Paul camp. Instead of calling Paul's camp "Kings Academy," we'll call his camp: "Kingdom Academy." Through the power of the Holy Scriptures, we have the amazing opportunity to attend "Kingdom Academy" free of charge!

Lebron's camp might be calculated to target a specific weakness of his campers, such as rebounding or ball handling. It's likely that Paul's words to the Colossians here were written to address specific issues with his campers of his day- the church in Colosse. But because Paul isn't the only mentor at camp - because our very God the Holy Spirit is also a coach at "Kingdom Academy," we can be sure that this camp is as applicable for us today as it was for the Colossians. This chunk of Scripture too, "is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness." (2 Timothy 3:16). So we too can benefit from time spent camping in "Kingdom Academy." Let's take a few minutes of our summer now to join our fellow campers of of the Kingdom in listening to the guidance of the Holy Spirit through the Apostle Paul.

Because God the Father carried out his worldwide rescue mission through the work of his son Jesus, the Colossian campers were in the camp of the redeemed - the camp of the kingdom of light - and so are we. The mission statement for the redeemed campers of "Kingdom Academy" is to learn how to "live a life worthy of the Lord and please him in every way." Paul goes on to provide 3 examples of how we can accomplish this.

1. "bearing fruit in every good work."

2. "growing in the knowledge of God."

3. "being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might."

Imagine that you are given a small potted fruit tree and your goal is to get it to produce a bunch of fruit. If you were to take the tree and find the darkest confines of your basement and if you were to decide to only bring it out for one hour once a week to give it light and water, then how much fruit would you expect to be find growing on your tree? How strong would your tree be? Would your tree be growing at all? Would your tree still be alive? Many "Christians" get their only dose of Spiritual water and light for one short hour on Sunday morning and then during the other 167 hours in the week, their faith is left out to dry in the dark basement - in the dominion of darkness. Paul's 3 examples of how we can please the Lord are very much intertwined and they all have to do with faith and faith strengthening. The more we grow in the knowledge of God, the more our faith itself will grow and the more our faith will show and bear fruit in what we do. The more we grow in the knowledge of God, the more we will be strengthened with all power according to his glorious might, and we will come to realize more and more that, "[we] can do everything through him who gives [us] strength." (Philippians 4:13). We get more light and water to our fruit bearing faith tree when we grow in the knowledge of God by digging into his Word. "Faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word of Christ." (Romans 10:17)

But why would we want to do any of this? Why would we want to waste our precious free time on camping at "Kingdom Academy" or why would we want to waste our precious time on taking other opportunities to grow in faith? Because of what He has already done for us. The Gospel message and what it means for us motivates us to want to learn more about our God who loves us so much. The more we learn about how much God loves us, the more we will want to show love to God by obeying his commands. We will to want to "live a life worthy of the Lord and please him in every way." Paul spells out exactly what God has done for those in the Kingdom, as he spells out that Gospel message very beautifully for us right here in these verses from Colossians: "the Father, has qualified [us] to share in the inheritance of the saints in the kingdom of light. For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins."

As campers we remember that our current living arrangements are only temporary, and our permanent residence -our inheritance as saints - awaits us in the eternal kingdom of heaven. In the mean time, while we camp, as part of the strengthening process as we grow in the knowledge of God, He gives us, "great endurance and patience." Then we are able to, and will want to join the Psalmist in exclaiming: "I wait for the LORD, my soul waits, and in his word I put my hope. I wait for your salvation, O LORD, and I follow your commands." (Psalm 130:5 and Psalm 119:166)

Taking ALL of this into consideration, we will certainly want to "joyfully [give] thanks to the Father," which brings us full circle back to the camp mission statement - to "live a life worthy of the Lord and please him in every way."

At the end of camp, Lebron James will likely advise his campers in "King's Academy" to take home what they have learned and practice it. Paul would have likely advised the campers of "Kingdom Academy" that: "Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me—put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you." (Philippians 4:9) May we all put into practice what we have learned today from the Holy Spirit through the words of the great Apostle Paul as we strive more and more each day to "live a life worthy of the Lord and please him in every way."

July 8, 2010

2010-07-08T10:19:00.000-07:00

"May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world. Neither circumcision nor uncircumcision means anything; what counts is a new creation." (Galatians 6:14-15)

Have you ever watched the ABC television program called "Extreme Makeover Home Edition?" I have caught snippets of a few episodes and from what I have gathered, the producers of the show find a family who they feel needs or deserves, because of some family calamity, to have their home completely made over, or in some cases totally demolished, and rebuilt fantastically new. How ridiculous would it be if a family on this show would start boasting as though they personally had something to do with them ending up with a home rebuilt new? Really, the one and only reason the family ends up with a fantastic new home in the end is because the television program producers give them one.

Because of the sinful world we live in, there are more than a few families that could be added to the list of families who could benefit from the help of the "Extreme Makeover." Because of sin itself, each and every member of each and every family that has ever lived in this world is on the list of those who certainly don't deserve, but absolutely need the most extreme -extreme makeover. All have sinned and everyone is on the list of people who need to have their "old Adam" torn down and demolished to make room for the "new creation" - the new creation that is able to exist only because of the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.

When we realize that the only way to have this new creation built within us is through our Lord Jesus Christ; when we realize that it's NOT a "do it yourself project;" when we realize that it's not a "do it with help project;" when we realize that it's not even a "help the doer project;" then we will realize that we have nothing to boast about and we will realize that our only hope is to, "trust in the LORD with all [our] heart and lean not on [our] own understanding." (Proverbs 3:5) When we trust in the LORD with all our heart and boast only in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, we are then "in Christ, and "if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!" (2 Corinthians 5:17)

Those who have a new creation within them - those who have faith, will one day experience yet another extreme makeover. They will one day leave the tears of this world and enter the fantastically new world of heaven to dwell with God forever. "Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away." (Revelation 21:3-4) And the one and only reason any of us will one day end up with a fantastic new home in the mansions of heaven, and not in the hell that we deserve, is because the Creator and Producer of the entire universe gives us our new home in heaven - we have nothing to boast about. "For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast." (Ephesians 2:8-9) No one can boast, unless they are boasting in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ which has given us the most extreme makeover ever.

July 1, 2010

2010-07-01T07:50:00.000-07:00

Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit. (Galatians 5:25)

I am a tall guy - 6 feet 4 1/2 inches to be exact. So when I take a walk with one of my daughters, you could say that it is a "tall order" for them to attempt to keep up with me - to keep in step with me. What we find here in Galatians 5 is a very tall- "tall order" - to "keep in step with the Spirit." David tells us in one of his songs of praise that, "As for God, his way is perfect..." (2 Samuel 22:31) Jesus told his disciples to, "Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect." (Matthew 5:48) None of us is actually capable of keeping up with the perfection of the Spirit's pace, "for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God," (Romans 3:23) - all have gotten out of step with the Spirit. All of us get tripped up and stumble around - "we all stumble in many ways." (James 3:2a).

We have all stumbled and strayed from the perfect step that was demanded. Thankfully our salvation is not up to us or our own footwork. Thankfully, we have a Savior who walked the road for us, in perfect step. We have a Savior who ended up with holes in his feet, not because he took the scenic path and his sandals wore out, but because his steps on this earth led him to a cross where nails were driven through his feet - where he paid for all the times we stumbled - for all the times we were out of step and turned to walk in our own way. "We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all." (Isaiah 53:6) Jesus tackled the tallest "tall order" ever - to rescue each and every one of the lost sheep - to buy back each and every lost soul in the entire world.

Speaking of the world, the world has its own step patterns. When we are keeping in step with the Spirit and walking in obedience to God's commands, we will be walking in the opposite direction of those who follow the step pattern of the world. Paul instructs us in Romans, "Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world." (Romans 12:2a) It's a "tall order" to try and walk through a crowd in the opposite direction of everyone else in that crowd - in fact it's tiring. But just as I never leave one of my daughters in the dust when they are tiring from trying to keep in step with me, so God our Father doesn't leave any of his children in the dust. We are promised that, "those who hope in the LORD will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint. (Isaiah 40:31)

Knowing that it's not up to our own footwork, we should be able to walk around however we want, right? Yes, BUT, don't we want to say thanks and show our love to the one who has taken the pressure off of our feet? "And this is love: that we walk in obedience to his commands." (2 John 1:6) We have the freedom to walk around however we want. But because God has conquered the tallest of "tall orders" in his work of redeeming us who have stumbled in many ways, so that we will one day be able to step into heaven - and because God continues to care for us as he gives us the strength to continue taking life in this world one step at a time, let's show our love to our God. "Let's keep in step with the Spirit."

June 24, 2010

2010-06-24T09:23:00.000-07:00

Once when Jesus was praying in private and his disciples were with him, he asked them, "Who do the crowds say I am?" They replied, "Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, that one of the prophets of long ago has come back to life." "But what about you?" he asked. "Who do you say I am?" Peter answered, "The Christ of God." (Luke 9:18-20)

"Who do the crowds say I am?" If we were to answer Jesus' question today, we would probably have a tough time finding anyone in any crowd who would say that they feel Jesus is/was John the Baptist or Elijah. But if we would consider the crowds to be those outside our own circle or outside our little bubble - we would likely hear a number of different answers that don't mention anything about Jesus being the world's one and only Savior - "The Christ of God."

At the time that Jesus posed this question, if you wanted to know something about someone you would have to do your information gathering face to face - either face to face with the person you wanted to know something about, or face to face with someone who knew that person. Contrast that with our day and age - now labeled the "information age," where with a handful of simple strokes of the keyboard, you can bring up an immeasurable amount of information on anything and almost anyone you want, including Jesus. Typing Jesus into Google produces 206 million results - if you were to spend 30 seconds examining each page it would take you just short of 196 years to finish looking at each page! Unfortunately, the old evil foe also uses the technology of today to twist, distort, and water down the truth in an attempt to lead the crowds of today away from the understanding of who Jesus is. Satan not only uses the internet, but he also uses other technology such as television and the movies. When was the last time you saw a television program or a movie accurately portray "The Christ of God?" So, who do the crowds of today say Jesus is?

"Jesus, he's that guy who probably wants nothing to do with me - I'm a hopeless case - I already know I'm going to hell anyway." "[God our Savior] wants all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth." (1 Timothy 2:4) "Here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners..." (1 Timothy 1:15)

"Jesus, he's that guy with the perma-smile - like that Walmart smiley face. I have faith in Jesus my buddy who doesn't really care how I live. No matter what I do or don't do he'll bring me into heaven." "If we deliberately keep on sinning after we have received the knowledge of the truth, no sacrifice for sins is left, but only a fearful expectation of judgment and of raging fire that will consume the enemies of God." (Hebrews 10:26-27)

"Jesus, he's that guy who lived a long time ago, he's long gone. Anyway, our world today is completely different, nothing he did would even be relevant today. He's not around anymore, he wouldn't understand." "All men are like grass, and all their glory is like the flowers of the field; the grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of the Lord stands forever." (1 Peter 1:24-25) "Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever." (Hebrews 13:8) "And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age." (Matthew 28:20)

We have looked at a just a few examples of who the crowds of today say Jesus is, "But what about [us]?" "Who do [we] say [Jesus] [is]?"

We say: "Jesus, he's that guy who's not only a guy, but also God." Jesus is the "Beautiful Savior...[who is] Son of God and Son of Man." (CW 369:1) Jesus is that "Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!" (John 1:29) Our faith is strengthened when we learn more about who Jesus really is. To find out more about who Jesus is, we don't need to ask the crowds or even google it on our computers, we have the "holy Scriptures, which are able to make [us] wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus." (2 Timothy 3:15) - the holy Scriptures like the passages used above that contrast the crowd's ideas of Jesus - the holy Scriptures that tell us who Jesus was and is and what he has done and what he continues to do - for us. We find a sampling of examples of who Jesus is in the hymn "How Sweet the Name of Jesus Sounds," "O Jesus, Shepherd, Guardian, Friend, my Prophet, Priest and King, my Lord, my Life, my Way, my End, accept the praise [we] bring." (CW 358:5)

Sadly, to many in most of the crowds out there, the name Jesus doesn't mean much. In contrast - "How sweet the name of Jesus sounds in a believer's ear!" (CW358:1) Let's get out there and share the sweet name of Jesus by "[Going] and [making] disciples of all [different crowds]..." (Matthew 28:19), that others in the crowd might learn more about the sweet name of Jesus - that they may also "Taste and see [and hear] that the LORD is good" (Psalm 34:8) - that they may hear the name of Jesus and say it is good!

June 17, 2010

2010-06-18T12:45:00.000-07:00

"I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing!" (Galatians 2:21)

There's no such thing as a free lunch. If you've spent any time at all in the "School of Hard Knocks," then you'll know this to be a very true statement. Nothing is free without some kind of string attached. There's always a little tiny asterisk hiding out at the end of the offer for the free lunch. The asterisk is explained in fine print which tells you something like you actually have to buy one to get one free. Maybe this is why when we talk about the "grace of God," and how it's "so rich, so wide, so high, so free," (CW 392:4) we might get tripped up a little on the "so free" part.

We might be tempted into thinking that we are somehow able to "pick up the pieces." Isaiah prophesied that "Though [our] sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool." (Isaiah 1:18) Because of Christ's work and Christ's death, God changes our clothes. He takes off our scarlet dirty sin laden threads and clothes us with garments that are as perfectly clean and as white as snow. After we sport our white woolen wear, the temptation might be to think that it is somehow up to us to work a stain-stick when we trip up and get a little sin-stain. We may convince ourselves and our consciences that Jesus did the hard part and took care of our sins of the big-ticket variety, but the little blunders can somehow be washed away or forgotten by God if we just counteract them with our own "good deeds." The wages of even the smallest of blunders deserves death, but because of the grace of God and through faith are we saved (from eternal death), and this has nothing to do with us or anything we do - it's a free gift - the gift of God which is eternal life. (Romans 6:23 & Ephesians 2:8) Paul states this is no uncertain terms in his letter to the Romans, "no one will be declared righteous in [God's] sight by observing the law." (Romans 3:20)

Conversely, we might be tempted into thinking that God's work is to simply "pick up the pieces." There is a church near my home on North 76th Street that I travel past on a daily basis. The church has a sign that is very visible from the heavily-traveled street which generally displays a clever message. The message currently reads, "Do your best. Let God do the rest." Perhaps there is a proper way to understand this phrase, but as I understand it, this message cheapens Christ's justification and his sacrifice and his work. God doesn't simply pick up the pieces. God doesn't just fill in the cracks or the gaps. Because our best as humans is anything but the best when compared to what God expects of us - Jesus said, "Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect." (Matthew 5:48) - Jesus took it upon himself to take care of each and every case of imperfection, he took care of each and every sin in the whole world that was ever and will ever be committed (John 1:29b). When Jesus on the cross uttered the beautiful word "tetelesthai," when he said, "It is finished." (John 19:30), he wasn't just simply saying that his part was finished. Jesus was saying that it was finished - period. It was finished completely. The price for our sins, and all the sins of the world that will have been committed when judgment day comes, was paid in full - completely. Maybe the words on the church sign could be re-arranged to read, "God did the best (the action is in the past and complete) so that we will have eternal rest."

Christ didn't die for nothing. Christ didn't die for just something. Christ didn't die for just someone. Christ died for all the sins of the whole world which includes yours and mine. Through his perfect life and innocent death he completely took care of our justification. Christ didn't die for nothing because "nothing in my hand I bring, simply to thy cross I cling" (CW 389:3) Absolutely nothing we can do, but only everything that Jesus in grace has already done for us, can restore us into a peaceful relationship with God. And when we are at peace with God, we are promised to be blessed with more than a just a "free lunch," we are privileged to be invited to the most lavish banquet of all in heaven. "Blessed are those who are invited to the wedding supper of the Lamb!" (Revelation 19:9) Christ didn't die for nothing. We are invited to this feast because of nothing that we have done, but because of everything that Christ, who left nothing undone, has done for us.

June 10, 2010

2010-06-09T18:49:00.000-07:00

The Psalm of the Day for this upcoming Sunday is Psalm 30. We will take a look at a few select verses:

"I will exalt you, O LORD, for you ... brought me up from the grave; you spared me from going down into the pit. You turned my wailing into dancing; you removed my sackcloth and clothed me with joy, that my heart may sing to you and not be silent. O LORD my God, I will give you thanks forever." (Psalm 30: 1, 2b, 12)

Have you ever heard someone say, "well that's the pits?" My mother used to say it, and while I knew what she meant, I never really knew what it meant. I never knew what the origin of the phrase was. So, I decided to do some digging - not in an effort to try and dig an actual pit - but to try and dig up the origin of "the pits."

Some people call Milwaukee - "Mil-Town." Some people call Pittsburgh - "the Pitts." But that's not where the phrase "the pits" came from. If you were to ask a car racing fan what "the pits" are, they would probably tell you that it's short for "pit-stop." But that's not where the phrase "the pits" came from. If you were to ask a fruit aficionado what "the pits" are, their mind might turn to what they pull out of their cherries and peaches. But that's not where the phrase "the pits" came from. If you were to ask an orchestral musician what "the pits" are, they may respond by telling you that it's where they do their work when they are playing a musical or award show. But that's not where the phrase "the pits" came from.

The origin of "the pits" is actually a little more disgusting than all the previous stabs at the origin. It's hard to nail down an exact date, but many believe that the slang expression first came into use in the 1950's, and the expression is used for the very worst, the most degraded and depressing example of something. “Pits” in this sense is actually simply short for “armpits” - one of the stinky regions of the human body. It's a metaphor for anything that really really stinks.

Living in this sinful world, we often find ourselves in situations we could classify as "the pits." Sometimes we find ourselves in "the pits" of life - sometimes we find ourselves stinky, because we are sweating over a sin that we committed - we are sweating over a "pitfall" that we failed to avoid. Sin disturbs our peaceful relationship with God and leaves us uneasy and clammy. When we recognize that we are stinky like "the pits," when we recognize our sin and ask for his forgiveness, the LORD comes to us and says, "don't sweat it." "I have brought you up from the grave that you deserve to be in. I have spared you from the pit of hell." Because of the sinful world that we live in, unless Jesus returns in our lifetime, we will all eventually find ourselves in a pit that's about six feet deep. Maybe you have had a "near death" experience and were spared from going down into this pit. The writer of Psalm 30, David, experienced a number of times in his life where he narrowly escaped death and was spared from having to go down into this pit, but even David eventually found himself in the pit and in the grave. Pits like this will only hold their contents until the day that Jesus returns. The pit of hell will hold its contents forever. We say to our Savior: "O LORD my God, I will give you thanks forever," that you have spared us from ever having to go into the pit of hell - the pit that we deserve to be in because of the stink of our sins.

Sometimes we find ourselves in "the pits" of life through no fault of our own. If you get sprayed by a skunk, you end up stinky because you were in the wrong place at the wrong time. We get sprayed by a skunk when we have to deal with an untimely death in the family. We get sprayed by a skunk when we lose our job. We get sprayed by a skunk when we find ourselves plagued with an unpreventable illness or handicap. It may seem sometimes like we are in the wrong place at the wrong time, but actually we are in the exact right place at the exact right time, as we are exactly where God planned for us to be. "I know the plans I have for you", declares the Lord." (Jeremiah 29:11a). Remember when Joseph's brothers threw him into an actual pit? (Genesis 37) They later pulled him out of that pit, only to put him in another situation that we would call "the pits" when they sold him into slavery. While it may have felt like "the pits" at the time, Joseph realized that it was all a part of God's plans. When he was later reunited with his brothers, he told them, "You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done" (Genesis 50:20) God uses every situation that we may categorize as "the pits" for his greater good and he also uses those situations for our own greater good, to refine us and bring us closer to him. "...though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed." (I Peter 1:6b-7)

Even if we have to spend the rest of our lives in this world dealing with "the pits" of worldly situations, we can find comfort in the fact that the time we spend on this earth isn't even a visible speck on the time line of eternity, and our eternity, our future will NOT be spent in "the pits." Paul in Galatians tells us that the Fruits of the Spirit are: "love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control." (Galatians 5:22-23a) The 2nd in the list of these "pit less" fruits of the Spirit is joy. Because we have been rescued, our mourning clothes have been replaced. We are now clothed with joy and even in the midst of "the pits" of this life, we can dance. Jesus tells us that "[He has] come that [we] may have life, and have it to the full." (John 10:10b)

Yes, there are plenty things in this world that will leave us thinking, "well that's the pits." Whenever we find ourselves thinking that, let's take a "pit-stop" and dig into Psalm 30, so that we can follow up that thought by remembering the comforting thoughts that we find not only in Psalm 30, but also throughout Scripture. The comforting knowledge that we will never ever experience "the pits" of all pits - we will never know hell because the LORD has come to our rescue. Because of what we have to look forward to, we simply can't be silent. Our hearts sing for joy as we exalt and give thanks to the one who has rescued us from having to dwell on "the pits" of this world by rescuing us and sparing us from "the pits" of all pits. Keeping all this in mind, we can't help but join the Psalmist in exclaiming, "I will exalt you, O LORD ... I will give you thanks forever."

June 3, 2010

2010-06-02T13:03:00.000-07:00

Our Gospel Lesson for this upcoming Sunday comes from the Book of Luke, where we find Jesus in Capernaum. A Centurion who had built the city synagogue was looking "not only to [his] own interests, but also to the interests of others," (Philippians 2:4) His servant was sick, and because the Centurion was probably a gentile, he thought to send some Jewish elders from town to meet Jesus and ask for his help in healing his ailing servant. The elders found Jesus and tried to convince Jesus that this Centurion deserved his help. Jesus agreed to come, but before he made it, the Centurion had sent friends to Jesus to tell him not to come into his house for he wasn't worthy of such a visit. Through his messenger friends, the Centurion expressed unwaivering confidence that Jesus had the power to heal the servant. "But say the word, and my servant will be healed." (Luke 7:7b). When Jesus heard this, he was amazed at him, and turning to the crowd following him, he said, "I tell you, I have not found such great faith even in Israel." Then the men who had been sent returned to the house and found the servant well. (Luke 7:9-10)

If you were to 'google' the phrase "greatest _______ ever," and you filled in the blank with terms such as: football player, actor, song, apple pie recipe, you would likely come up with conflicting results. Coming up with the greatest anything is a subjective process, the answer you get depends largely on who you ask. In our Gospel lesson for this upcoming Sunday, we find Jesus telling the crowd that he had found the person with the "greatest faith ever," or at least the greatest faith he had encountered up to that point in his earthly ministry. In Hebrews we are told that Jesus is, "the author and perfecter of our faith." (Hebrews 12:2a). The very author and perfecter of our faith would be the "greatest authority ever" on great faith. Jesus would know it when he saw it.

In this case, Jesus not only recognized great faith, he was amazed by it. In a couple chapters before our Lesson for this Sunday picks up, we find the story about how a paralyzed man was lowered down through the roof of a building to be healed by Jesus, and we are told how the crowd reacted after the healing, "Everyone was amazed and gave praise to God..." (Luke 5:26a) In our Lesson for this Sunday, we have the same elements and sentiments, just in a different order: God (the Son) was telling everyone that he was amazed and he gave praise to this Centurion for his faith. The one who had been amazing crowds was now amazed by one in the crowd! Amazing!

What made the Centurion's faith so great? How can we emulate this faith that even amazed Jesus?

So much of what happens in this world is cause and effect - it's based on formulas. If you do this, then this will happen. It's difficult to know exactly what the intent of the Jewish elders was when they pleaded earnestly to convince Jesus that the Centurion was deserving of Jesus attention - arguing that he was one of the 'good guys' who built their synagogue. But one thing we can be sure of is that too many people today follow the foe's fraudulent formula: if I try hard to be a good person, then God will love me and then I will deserve to go to heaven when I die. The Centurion realized that he was in fact unworthy and he recognized that it's not because of anything that he did or didn't do that would cause Jesus to love him. The "greatest formula ever" - the only formula that will matter as we take our final breath - one of the most familiar passages in all of Scripture can be found in John 3:16 "...whoever believes in him will not perish, but have eternal life." A person with great faith doesn't focus on themselves and their own performance, or lack thereof. Rather, great faith realizes that we need to (back to Hebrews 12 again), "fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith," (Hebrews 12:2a)

When, in great faith, we fix our eyes on Jesus, we find a God whose words and will have the "greatest power ever." A God whose words are powerful enough to create something out of nothing: "And God said, "Let there be light," and there was light." (Genesis 1:3) A God who has the power to destroy all life in the entire world: "...I will wipe from the face of the earth every living creature I have made." (Genesis 7:4) A God whose mighty hand has the power to change the direction of even the most stubborn powerful wordly figure "Then the LORD said to Moses, "Now you will see what I will do to Pharaoh: Because of my mighty hand he will let them go; because of my mighty hand he will drive them out of his country." (Exodus 6:1) A God who while on this earth in human form revealed his power through miracles. A God whose power calmed the sea with his words (Luke 8:24b) A God whose power fed five thousand out of 5 loaves and 2 fish (Luke 9:10-17) A God who displayed the "greatest power ever" by overcoming all the most powerful evil powers of this world, death and the powerful devil - a God who will be the last power standing. "I know that my Redeemer lives, and that in the end he will stand upon the earth. "(Job 19:25) Through faith, the Centurion recognized and tapped into the great power of God. "But say the word, and my servant will be healed." (Luke 7:7b)

We have a God who loved us with the "greatest love ever," and solved our "greatest problem ever" - (the effects of sin and the barrier sin creates). "He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?" (Romans 8:32) How comforting it is to know that it's not up to us human beings and our merit to earn God's love and favor - it's only up to the will of the being with the "greatest power ever" - the one who took care of our "greatest need ever." When we bring our requests to him in faith, and when they are his will - we will be given according to our needs - needs that our powerful God knows even better than we do. Knowing and believing this with all our hearts is the kind of great faith that even the "greatest authority ever" on faith is amazed by!

May 27, 2010

2010-05-25T12:15:00.000-07:00

Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us. (Romans 5: 1,2 & 5)

What do you hope for? Do you hope for a relaxing summer? Do you hope that it doesn't rain this upcoming Memorial Day weekend? Do you hope that this devotion doesn't drone on and on? In general when we hope for something, we want it to happen and think it might happen, but there is still a chance that we will be disappointed, as there is still a chance that it actually won't happen (especially in the case of hoping that this devotion won't drone on and on)!

In Colossians we are promised, "When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory." (Colossians 3:4) On the world's last day, our bodies and souls together will be taken to paradise to experience and share in the glory of the one and only Triune God. Those who "hope in the glory of God" (verse 2)- those who hope for sharing God's glory in heaven, will never be disappointed. God has, and continues to "[pour] our his love into our hearts," and mixed in with this love are all of his promises. When we hope to have a relaxing summer, there's no one promising or guaranteeing that we will have one. When we hope it doesn't rain this weekend, there's no one promising that it won't (even if the weatherman has no chance of rain in the forecast it's not a guarantee- especially in Wisconsin - hey, we could even get snow)! But when we hope in the Lord, when we rejoice and hope in the glory of God, it's a different kind of hope. We have a new definition of hope when we hope in the Lord, because our one and only hope - our Triune God ALWAYS keeps his "very great and precious promises." (2 Peter 1:4) Joshua in his farewell speech had it nailed, "You know with all your heart and soul that not one of all the good promises the LORD your God gave you has failed. Every promise has been fulfilled; not one has failed." (Joshua 23:14) Joshua doesn't stutter one bit - there's not even a sliver of doubt in his proclamation. And unlike us who live in the A.D., Joshua lived and died and hoped well before the greatest promise God ever made was fulfilled.

The only reason Joshua had this hope and the only reason we have this hope - this hope that is like no other, is because of the work of our Triune God. Because God the Father loved us enough to design a plan to justify us through faith - because he gave his one and only son, we now have been given peace with him and we can hope and be sure that one day we will have eternal life where we will share in his glory. "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life." (John 3:16) Because God the Son followed his father's plan and paid the price for our justification, we can hope and be sure we will one day share in his glory. "My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus' blood and righteousness." (CW#382). Because God the Holy Spirit has poured out his love and worked faith in our hearts, we can hope and be absolutely sure and certain that we will one day share in his glory. "Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see." (Hebrews 11:1)

Proverbs tells us, "the evil man has no future hope," (Proverbs 24:20a) The future for those who are without God is hopeless. Because of the work that our Triune God has done to justify us and because of the love that our Triune God has poured into our hearts, we are not only not hopeless, but we are also more than simply hopeful. We are full of hope, and this is a different kind of hope than the kind of hope that we normally deal with. This kind of hope that we are filled with, doesn't leave us questioning what the outcome will be. Rather, this kind of hope allows us to positively look forward to the certain realization that we will one day be spending our days in heaven, sharing in the glory of our Triune God. Unlike so many of the things we hope for in this world, this kind of hope will never disappoint. Blessed are they who hope, who hope in the LORD!

Dear Triune God, our one and only hope who has given us a different kind of hope that does not disappoint,

You tell us, "...[Your] eyes are on those who fear [you], on those whose hope is in [your] unfailing love, to deliver them from death and keep them alive in famine. We wait in hope for [you]; [You are] our help and our shield. In [you] our hearts rejoice, for we trust in [your] holy name. May your unfailing love rest upon us, O LORD, even as we put our hope in you." (Psalm 33:18-22)

Amen!

May 20, 2010

2010-05-18T08:56:00.000-07:00

"When the Counselor comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who goes out from the Father, he will testify about me. And you also must testify, for you have been with me from the beginning. (John 15: 26,27)

When I was in grade school, we would eat our 'lunch box lunches' at our desks. Some days, while we dug into whatever our mothers happened to fill our boxes with, we played a game. I think we called it the telephone game. The kid sitting in the front row would think of a sentence, they would then whisper it in the ear of the person behind them. The process would be repeated until the whispering made its way through a couple rows of desks, or about 7 or 8 kids. The final person to hear the message would recite it out loud. The message usually ended up not even close to the original, which for some reason was highly entertaining for a bunch of grade schoolers.

Imagine if we were to play the telephone game, but instead of playing it with 7 or 8 people, we would play it with 100 people. Instead of finishing up the game in a minute or two, imagine stretching the game out for 2000+ years. Instead of using just one short message, we would use all the stories contained in the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Then, to make it really interesting, each time we whisper the message into the next person's ear - we would translate it into another language! The professional definition of a generation is approximately 20 years, so since the day that Jesus ascended into heaven, there have been roughly 100 generations and 2000 years. Linguists estimate that there are actually over 5,000 different languages spoken in the world today and there are about 200 different languages that have at least a million native speakers. How close to the original message would the end result be if left in the hands, or more accurately the mouths and the ears, of humans alone? The result would probably not be good, and if the outcome was not good then it for sure would be nothing to laugh about.

This past Sunday I was reminded in a sermon that I heard from the pulpit, that now that Jesus has ascended - 'we are the plan.' Before he went up into heaven, Jesus told his disciples to "...go and make disciples of all nations..." (Matthew 28:19a) Hanging out in front of the command to go, is the silent and understood pronoun 'you.' The 'you' were those first disciples, those eyewitnesses, who were the one and only people who were to testify about Jesus. Now we, who are Jesus' present day disciples, are the one and only people who are to testify about Jesus. But thankfully for us, when Jesus went up into heaven, he didn't leave us to ourselves to play the telephone game with the precious gospel. Jesus sent the Counselor. The Spirit has given and preserved the gift of the Word, and this is good for us because his words "are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name" (John 20:31) Jesus sent the Spirit of truth to make sure the truth of the life giving Gospel was preserved from generation 1 through generation 100 and beyond!

Because of the Holy Spirit, we can be sure that the Word is more than just words, in I Thessalonians we find "...our gospel came to you not simply with words, but also with power, with the Holy Spirit and with deep conviction." (I Thessalonians 1:5) Sure, those gospel writers who were with Jesus could have penned fairly accurate accounts of what they witnessed. But on their own, how would they have known what was important enough to make the cut in the editing process? In the final words from the gospel of John we are told that, "Jesus did many other things as well. If every one of them were written down, I suppose that even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written." (John 21:5) Thankfully Jesus sent the Spirit of truth to counsel the gospel writers on the content and to to breath life (2 Timothy 3:16a) and truth into the words.

We have the Spirit's testimony today - we have the Bible. And yet we often either take the power of the Bible for granted, or we simply don't take it at all. You have heard the cliche' about Bibles gathering dust, have you ever heard of a TV remote control gathering dust? How often do we reach for a TV remote control, or a video game controller, or a computer mouse each day? Compare that with how often we reach for a Bible. As we celebrate Pentecost this upcoming Sunday, we should send up a prayer thanking the Spirit for his work in his gift of the Bible - we would also do well to send up a prayer asking for help to better appreciate, respect and utilize the Word.

Living in 2010, we are NOT eyewitnesses of Jesus' life on this earth, but because of the way the Counselor works and because of the gift of the Word, we are also not 100 times or 2000 years removed from Jesus and the truth. In I Corinthians we learn: "We have not received the spirit of the world but the Spirit who is from God, that we may understand what God has freely given us. (I Corinthians 2:12) Only because of the work of the Spirit do we understand what God has freely given us. And for those of us who do understand - we "also must testify," (verse 27) so that those who don't understand might, with the help of the Spirit, come to an understanding. Praise be to God the Holy Spirit, that Spirit of truth, that we are able to testify -that we are able to 'whisper into the ear' of the person next to us who has not yet heard, the pure ungarbled Gospel in perfect truth!

Dear Jesus,

Thanks for sending the Spirit of truth to those 1st century Christians who were responsible for putting on paper all that we know about your life - especially the part about you coming into this world to live a perfect life in our place and paying for our sins by your death on the cross. Help us to appreciate more and more the awesome gift we have in the pages of Scripture. Thanks to the Holy Spirit we are able to crack open the pages of the Bible anytime we want and be comforted by your promises. We have heard the Spirit testify and now we, along with the help of the Spirit, are the ones who need to testify so that others also may come to know your love. Send the Counselor to us today, to motivate us to get out there and get testifying! Amen!

May 13, 2010

2010-05-12T08:38:00.000-07:00

Our Second Lesson for this upcoming Sunday comes from the final verses of the final book of the Bible. We'll look at two select verses:

"The Spirit and the bride say, "Come!" And let him who hears say, "Come!" Whoever is thirsty, let him come; and whoever wishes, let him take the free gift of the water of life. He who testifies to these things says, "Yes, I am coming soon." Amen. Come, Lord Jesus." (Revelation 22: 17 & 20)

If you were to ask a dog trainer: what is the single most important thing a young puppy should know? The answer you will likely hear is a one word answer - 'come.' A puppy needs to be able to respond appropriately when they hear their master calling 'come.' Someday it just might save their life. So it is with us, as the single most important thing in the world for us humans is to hear the Holy Spirit when he calls, 'come;' because someday it will save our life - our eternal life.

We have heard the Spirit's invitation to come and now we are to invite those who haven't yet heard the invitation to come - those who are still thirsty. Those who haven't heard the Spirit's invitation are thirsty and dehydrated to the point of fainting under the elements of sin. They are thirsty and they can't seem to find anything to quench their thirst. They reach for various beverages mixed by themselves, the devil or the world, but all leave them thirstier. What they are really thirsty for is forgiveness and peace. That forgiveness and peace is found in "the free gift of the water of life." (verse 17). Because Jesus 'drank the cup' (Matthew 26:42) and paid for it, our drink from the water of life is free. This water of life quenches our thirst for good by offering a refreshing new perspective on life in this world, and then it ultimately gives us the gift of eternal life!

CW#336 "Come unto Me, Ye Weary" puts it nicely.

(verse 3)
"Come unto me, ye fainting, And I will give you life."
O cheering voice of Jesus, Which comes to aid our strife!
The foe is stern and eager; The fight is fierce and long;
But thou has made us mighty And stronger than the strong.

The fight is fierce and long. While we live in this "post-ascension age" and wait for Jesus to return, we will likely have our share of strife, but Jesus hasn't turned his back on us. Heaven is not in a 'dead spot,' we can call Jesus up anytime we want - Jesus also invites us to come: "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest." (Matthew 11:28) When we go to him with our earthly problems, Jesus will listen to our prayers and if it his will, he will ease those burdens. But even more important than rest from our earthly issues, is the rest from the burden of sin - eternal rest that Jesus guarantees for all who come to him.

CW#336 "Come unto Me, Ye Weary" (verse 1)
"Come unto me, ye weary, And I will give your rest."
O blessed voice of Jesus, Which comes to hearts oppressed!
It tells of benediction, Of pardon, grace and peace,
Of joy that has no ending, Of love that cannot cease.

I am ashamed to admit that on more than one occasion when I have been busy working on something and one of my daughters has called for me from the other room, I have responded by calling back, "I'm coming." And then I proceed to not only finish up what I am working on, but sometimes I even selfishly start more work before I actually go to them. When we call, "Amen. Come, Lord Jesus," and Jesus answers in his Word, "I am coming soon," (verse 20) it's NOT because he is selfishly working on something and is too busy to deal with us. Jesus doesn't throw out that phrase as a stall tactic. Everything Jesus is doing right now in heaven, he is doing for us - things like interceding for us, answering our prayers and preparing our room in heaven. When the time comes on God's calendar (Acts 1:7), when the preparations are complete, Jesus tells us, "I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am." (John 14:3b) There's nothing more awesome for us to look forward to, than to be with Jesus forever - the joy that has no ending, and so we can't help but saying and praying "Amen. Come, Lord Jesus." (verse 20)

"Come unto Me, Ye Weary" doesn't have a verse 5, so I tried my hand at one, using these verses from Revelation as the basis:

Now we say come Lord Jesus! And while we wait for You,
We share Your love with others, That others may come too.
The Holy Spirit's calling, Eternal life is free.
We hear Him, come Lord Jesus, That we may go with Thee. Amen!

Because God the Holy Spirit has called us to come and because God the Son has come into this world to pay our way, to quench our thirst and to give us the free gift of life; we are now right with God the Father, and we are now ready to come and spend eternity singing praises at the throne of our Triune God. In the meantime we should be calling the thirsty to come and hear the Spirit's invitation to come, and in the meantime if we get weary we can come to Jesus and he will give us rest. But for those who have heard the Spirit's call to come, Jesus' return can't come soon enough! Amen. Come, Lord Jesus. Amen!

May 6, 2010

2010-05-06T04:56:00.000-07:00

Our First Lesson for this upcoming Sunday comes from Acts 14, where we find the Apostles Paul and Barnabas in Lystra, speaking to the people. Paul looked directly at a man in the crowd whose feet were crippled from birth - the man had never walked. Paul saw that this man had faith to be healed and he told the guy to stand up. The man miraculously jumped up and began to walk. When the crowds saw this, they thought that their Greek gods had come down to them in human form, they thought that Paul and Barnabas were Zeus and Hermes in human form. The people in the crowds responded by wanting to sacrifice to them. When Paul and Barnabas realized what the people were doing and who the people thought they were, they were not happy and rushed in to clear things up. Here's what Paul said to them: "Men, why are you doing this? We too are only men, human like you. We are bringing you good news, telling you to turn from these worthless things to the living God, who made heaven and earth and sea and everything in them." (Acts 14:15)

Have you ever heard the theory that who you are is really just a product of every person you have met in your life and every situation you have encountered? This is one of the arguments that the psychologists use when they are trying to argue the nurture side of the 'nature vs. nurture' argument. The other side of the coin is the nature side of the argument which says that you are who you are because of what you inherited from your parents. It shouldn't be surprising that when the people of Lystra saw Paul perform a miracle that they immediately thought he was one of their gods. After all, they had 2 out of 2 strikes against them. By nature they were sinful and in opposition of the one true God, and by nurture their society taught them to put their trust in a false god - in the Greek gods.

Like the people in Lystra, many people living in our country today have the same 2 strikes against them. By nature we are all sinful. Psalm 51:5 tells us "Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me." By nurture many, who aren't "religious," follow a false god that is maybe more subtle than the Greek gods, but will leave them no less damned. Our country has an environment and a culture that teaches and champions putting yourself in the #1 position. What kind of power can you gain for yourself? How much money can you gain for yourself? What have you done for yourself today? When you boil it down, many unbelievers in our country are really making themselves their god, which is without question a clear violation of the First Commandment.

The outcome will not be good for those who follow their own nature and for those who follow the world's nurturing. The outcome will not be good for those who don't exclusively follow the living God. In Deuteronomy we are told to "Fear the LORD your God, serve him only and take your oaths in his name. Do not follow other gods, the gods of the peoples around you; for the LORD your God, who is among you, is a jealous God and his anger will burn against you, and he will destroy you from the face of the land." (Deuteronomy 6: 13-5). Maybe the unbeliever won't be destroyed now, but the day is coming when - as Paul tells us "...we will all stand before God's judgment seat. It is written: " 'As surely as I live,' says the Lord, 'every knee will bow before me; and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.' (Romans 14:10b-11 & Philippians 2:11)

Back to our story... Paul is telling the crowd at Lystra who was about to sacrifice to him - stop! Barnabas and I have the same nature as you. We too are only human. We too are sinful. But, here's how we are different - we have the good news, and now we are trying to bring that good news to you. "Turn from these worthless things to the living God" Paul was telling them, as he put it in his letter to the Romans, " Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed..." (Romans 12:2a) Don't follow the nurturing of your world any longer- be transformed by the good news.

Making ourselves our #1 priority is worthless. Making the living triune God (Father Son & Holy Spirit) anything BUT our #1 priority is worthless. If all the other gods (small g) that we can have are worthless - as worthless as Monopoly money, then the Living God is priceless - more priceless than all the wealth in this world. In fact - our Living God created the world, which includes all the wealth in the world.

Recently the company that I work for was sold. Unfortunately many of my co-workers are now my 'former co-workers,' as entire departments and the jobs that go with them have been moved to an office in Plano, Texas. So far my department is staying put, and with it my job, but a couple of the guys I work with were talking about what they might do if we are eventually shown the door. They brought me into the conversation and asked me what I would do. To attempt to lighten the mood, this is how I responded: "Oh, I'm actually independently wealthy. I just do this for fun." We all chuckled. But you know what? In a way, we as Christians are independently wealthy. Our wealth is independent of how much stuff we have accumulated or how nice our stuff is. Our wealth is independent of how many zeros are behind the numbers in our bank accounts. Our wealth is independent of any worldly situation we find ourselves in. Our wealth is independent of any other standard of wealth that the world has - which in the end are all worthless. Our wealth is in the good news that Paul and Barnabas were trying to share with those in Lystra.

The Psalm writer David tells us in Psalm 144: "Deliver me and rescue me from the hands of foreigners whose mouths are full of lies, whose right hands are deceitful. Then our sons in their youth will be like well-nurtured plants, and our daughters will be like pillars carved to adorn a palace." (Psalm 144: 11-12) This is the good news that Paul and Barnabas were attempting to share, this is the good news that we will want to share. God did send his son Jesus to deliver and rescue us from the nurturing of the world with all its lies and deceit, so that we can now be His children who are like "well-nurtured plants," growing in the Lord. We are by nature poor sinful creatures, but praise be to God that we are now also independently wealthy, as we are now being nurtured by the living God!

Dear God,

Help remind us that putting anything but you in our #1 position is worthless. Help us to turn from all that is worthless to you who are priceless. Please continue to nurture us, so that when we stand before the final judgment seat we can be declared innocent because of what Jesus has done for us. We really are independently wealthy! Give us an extra dose of ambition to get out there, like the apostles Paul and Barnabas, and share the wealth! Amen!

April 29, 2010

2010-04-28T09:57:00.000-07:00

John 13:33-35 "My children, I will be with you only a little longer. You will look for me, and just as I told the Jews, so I tell you now: Where I am going, you cannot come. "A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another."

You see it in the movies and on TV, probably because it's true to life. A teacher needs to leave their classroom, for whatever reason, and when they leave, their normally well-behaved students get out of hand. What's the saying? When the cat's away, the mice will play. Jesus' students, his disciples, had been following their Teacher around for quite some time, and now Jesus was telling them that He would soon be leaving them - well physically anyway. Later Jesus told his disciples, "And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age." (Matthew 28:20b) Jesus would still be with them, He just wouldn't be physically right in front of their faces. So it is with us today - Jesus is with us always, just not physically right in front of our face.

Jesus decided to get proactive, to keep the mice from playing. Paul tells us in Galatians that, "The entire law is summed up in a single command: "Love your neighbor as yourself." (Galatians 5:14) Instead of coming up with a whole book of rules, instead of coming up with a whole collection of 'when I'm gone, if this happens - then do this,' Jesus kept it simple and told His disciples to: "Love one another."

But here, Jesus doesn't just tell His disciples to love their neighbors as themselves. His direction is much stronger. Jesus told them, "As I have loved you, so you must love one another." I remember for a while when I was a kid , I would get really creative when it came to coming up with a big number. For example, someone would ask me how many stars I saw in the sky, and I would come up with - 'a katrillion kajillion.' On a scale of 1 to 10 - with 10 being the most a person could possibly love, Jesus' love weighs in at 'a badillion katrillion kajillion.' Jesus is saying - love one another to the max. There is no love that trumps Jesus' love, and this is how He wants his disciples to love one another.

The words from our Lesson from this Sunday, from John, are re-worked in the book of First John, "We love because he first loved us. If anyone says, "I love God," yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen. And he has given us this command: Whoever loves God must also love his brother." (I John 4:19-21). Jesus loved us first and provided the example of how we are to love one another. Crack open the Gospels and get reading to get more of the details and a better grasp on how Jesus loved us - to get more of the details and a better grasp on exactly how we are to love on another.

So how are we doing? Are we loving one another just as Jesus has loved us? Jesus gave us a thermometer with which we can take our 'love-temperature.' Jesus tells us that if we are loving as He has loved us, then all men will recognize this outstanding love. "...that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven." (Matthew 5:16b) Do we as a church body stick out when it comes to loving others? Do we as individuals stick out when it comes to loving others? Or do we find ourselves blending in and following the world's format of loving me, myself and I the most, at the expense of loving one another? The command itself is simple. Making it happen isn't always as simple.

Thankfully, Jesus took care of the times when we fail to love to the max, by loving us to the max anyway. The Teacher who left His classroom will return one more time on the last day to take His students to be with Him forever. The students have the privilege of going with their Teacher, not because of how well they carried out His command to love one another as He loved them, but they have the privilege of going with their Teacher because of how well He loved them. Because He loved them enough to leave the comforts of heaven to live a perfect life in their place - Because He loved them enough to even die for them - Because of all that their Teacher has done for them, the students will want to show thanks to their teacher by following his command to love. First John tells us: "This is love for God: to obey his commands." (I John 5:3a).

There was another time when Jesus physically left his disciples - in the Garden of Gethsemane - when he instructed them to "Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation." (Mark 14:38) When the cats away, the mice should pray - they should watch and pray. We should pray, for among other things, the understanding, the strength and the ambition to follow Jesus' command to love one another to the 'kajillionth' degree, which is how much He has loved us. Let's pray now.

Dear Jesus,

You want us to love others as you have loved us. It's hard for us to really comprehend how much you have loved us. Expand our understanding of your love for us so that we may be filled with an extra dose of ambition to follow your example in loving one another. Amen.

April 22, 2010

2010-04-20T08:19:00.000-07:00

John 10:27 & 28 "My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one can snatch them out of my hand."

Have you ever looked at one of those how-to books that's part of a series - "The Complete Idiot's Guide To..." - to just about anything you can think of? For a while I think they were even in the grocery store checkout aisle. I was curious to know how many of these books are floating around out there, so I checked it out on amazon.com, and my search produced 2,684 book results! I didn't take the time to go through each and every results page, but taking a random sampling, it appears that each of the 2,684 results represent a separate title. On the first page were titles like: "Complete Idiot's Guide to Chemistry" - "Complete Idiot's Guide to Music Theory" - "Complete Idiot's Guide to Learning Italian" - "Complete Idiot's Guide to Geocaching" -"Complete Idiot's Guide to Computer Basics." You get the point, there's a 'Complete Idiot's Guide' to just about anything.

John 10:27 & 28 could serve as the outline to the 'Complete Idiot's Guide to Jesus' Sheep.' In a way we are complete idiots, we are as dumb as sheep who would be completely lost without their Good Shepherd. But, we were also created in His image and are now the adopted children of the very Creator and Preserver of the universe, so I think we should switch the title of our book up a little bit. Instead of calling it the 'Complete Idiot's Guide,' let's call our book: 'The Complete Wise Man's Guide to Jesus' Sheep.'

"My sheep listen to my voice" Chapter 1 is titled: "Jesus' Sheep Listen to His Voice," and it explains how if you want to be one of Jesus' sheep you must listen to Jesus' voice. Jesus' sheep must go to where Jesus speaks to them. Present day sheep of Jesus can hear Jesus' voice in the Word and Sacraments. Jesus' sheep gather and commune in fellowship with other sheep in the fold. In Holy Communion they hear the voice of Jesus and hear the words of a Good Shepherd comforting His flock. Jesus' sheep also hear Jesus' voice in the Words of Scripture. It's safe to say that if you were to read 'The Complete Idiot's Guide to Chemistry,' that you wouldn't be able to call yourself an expert in Chemistry. These books are designed to just give the most basic information, and they don't even scratch the surface of the information available on the topic. So it is with our 'Complete Wise Man's Guide to Jesus' Sheep' based on John 10:27 and 28, which contains only the very basics regarding Jesus' sheep. If you were to find a book that was the resource on Chemistry, you might call that book the 'Bible of Chemistry.' We have the "Bible of Jesus' sheep," - we have the Bible and are able to hear Jesus' voice whenever we want to. We have the Bible that tells us all about the Good Shepherd and how His sheep should respond to what the Good Shepherd has done for them. 2nd Timothy tells us that the Holy Scriptures "...are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus." (2 Timothy 3:15). This verse fits nicely in the first chapter of our "Complete Wise Man's Guide to Jesus' sheep."

"I know them" Chapter 2 is titled: "Jesus' Sheep are Known by Jesus," and goes on to explain that Jesus knows even more than just his sheep's names. Jesus knows more about each and every one of us His sheep than they even know about themselves. Maybe it gets easier for some of us guys when we get older and have less and less to count, but I wouldn't even know how to begin counting the hairs on my head. In the book of Matthew we learn, "even the very hairs of your head are all numbered." (Matthew 10:30) Jesus even knows how many hairs are on the head of His sheep, which is evidence that in the eyes of the Good Shepherd, each sheep is more than just a number to Him. Jesus doesn't just 'count sheep,' He knows His sheep.

"and they follow me" Chapter 3 is titled, "Jesus' Sheep Follow Him," and goes on to explain that Jesus' words to His sheep don't fall on deaf ears. No, Jesus' sheep hear Jesus' words and then they take action - they follow Him. Jesus' sheep will follow their Shepherd wherever He leads them, because they have found Him to be consistently trustworthy. The Shepherd knows the best path for His sheep because He has traveled it before. Jesus' sheep will follow the Good Shepherd wherever He leads them, even if it means they head in a direction that they wouldn't have chosen for themselves. If we were to 'Good Shepherdize' Romans 8:28, we would get, 'And we know that in all things [the Good Shepherd] works for the good of [His sheep], who have been called according to his purpose.' Jesus' sheep know this and because they know it, they follow their Good Shepherd, wherever He may lead them.

"I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish" Chapter 4 is titled, "Jesus' Sheep Receive the Gift of Life," and goes on to explain how Jesus gives His sheep the greatest gift ever - eternal life. This gift that Jesus gives to his sheep wasn't a cheap gift. The Good Shepherd had to leave his position and actually became like His sheep. John the Baptizer said this when he saw the the Good Shepherd in 'lamb form,' "Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world! (John 1:29). Jesus the Lamb, lived the perfect lamb life. And then just like the lamb that was sacrificed at the Passover in Egypt so that the angel of death would pass over the bloody wooden door frames, Jesus the lamb was sacrificed on the wooden tree so that the angel of death would pass over Jesus' sheep when they fall asleep. Because of this gift, Jesus' sheep will never perish, they will simply fall asleep. And when they wake up, they will be at home and safe in the perfect pasture of paradise.

"no one can snatch them out of my hand" Chapter 5, the final chapter, is titled, "Jesus' Sheep are Already Safe in the Fold of their Shepherd," and goes on to explain how Jesus' guards and protects His sheep. I only know this because the guys in my office listen to sports-talk radio from 8:00 in the morning until quitting time, but in Las Vegas where it is legal to bet on sports games, the odds-makers offer a certain kind of bet for one-on-one competitions where you can take one athlete or take the field. This is common in golf where you can, for example, take either Phil Mickelson to win or you can take the field (which consists of all the other golfers in the field) to win. A betting man might say to the odds-maker, 'take the field, I'll take Phil.' Jesus' sheep, in the words of the hymn-writer, will always say: 'Take the world (the rest of the field), but give me Jesus.' (CW#355) The world will do its best to snatch the sheep out of the Good Shepherd's hand, but Jesus' sheep remain confident, because in the end they know they are safe in the hands of their Good Shepherd. This is more than just a safe bet, this is more than the safest bet, this is an absolute guarantee.

'The Complete Wise Man's Guide to Jesus' Sheep,' ends with a couple of verses from a hymn that many of Jesus' sheep learn when they are still little lambs (CW#432 v.1,3).

I am Jesus’ little lamb,
Ever glad at heart I am;
For my Shepherd gently guides me,
Knows my need, and well provides me,
Loves me every day the same,
Even calls me by my name.

Who so happy as I am,
Even now the Shepherd’s lamb?
And when my short life is ended,
By His angel host attended,
He shall fold me to His breast,
There within His arms to rest.

Because of what the Good Shepherd has done for His sheep, our book - even though it is a non-fiction, can end with - 'and all of Jesus' sheep lived happily ever after.'

Dear Jesus,

We are unbelievably blessed to be considered your sheep. We thank you for all that you had to do and all that you had to endure in order to be able to bring us into your fold. Help us to live more and more like the way you want your sheep to live, Keep us safe from all harm on this earth, and when the time is right - take us home to rest in your arms.

Amen.

April 15, 2010

2010-04-14T09:12:00.000-07:00

When I was a kid, I had a really cheap toy remote control car. I mean the really-really cheap kind. The kind that had a 3 foot cord connecting the controler with the car, which actually made it a non-remote control car... This particular car was so cheap that there were only 2 directions it could go - you could race the car straight forward or straight backward. So it is with us in the human race. Each one of us is either going forward toward Heaven, or we are going backwards towards hell. On my controller there was an up arrow and a down arrow. Every single person roaming around on this earth right now has an invisible arrow that can only be seen by God, they either have an up arrow on their heart indicating that they are heading forward to Heaven; or they have an invisible down arrow on their heart indicating that they are, sadly, headed down to hell. There's no sideways arrow - you're either a believer or an unbeliever.

When our First Lesson for this upcoming Sunday picks up, we find Saul's invisible arrow probably pointing down. "Meanwhile, Saul was still breathing out murderous threats against the Lord's disciples." (Acts 9:1) Saul was headed for Damascus going one direction, when, "...suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him." (Acts 9:3b) Saul still headed in the same direction on the map towards Damascus, but he was going in a different direction. His direction towards eternity was drastically changed - Saul did a 180° turn around.

Actually, Saul didn't do a 180° - a 180° was done to him. If you were in charge of nominating someone from your congregation to do some mission work on the streets of West Allis - maybe a door-to-door mission project - I am guessing that someone who was an accomplice to murder probably wouldn't make your list. If Saul didn't cast the first stone, or if Saul didn't actually throw any of the stones that hit Stephen in the head - killing Stephen, (this account is recorded a few chapters earlier in Acts) then for sure Saul was there helping out, giving his approval. Under Roman Law, Saul was an accomplice to murder. And this is the guy whom God chooses to become the greatest missionary of his time - probably the greatest missionary ever - a converted criminal! It's true what Isaiah tells us - that God's thoughts are not our thoughts, neither are our ways His ways. (Isaiah 55:8) Later in his letter to the Ephesians, Saul, later called Paul, clues us in as to possibly why God chose him. (This was my Confirmation passage.) "For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast." (Ephesians 2:8-9) The change of direction that Jesus gave to Saul on the road to Damascus didn't happen because of anything Saul did or didnt do- it was simply a gift - it was evidence of amazing grace. It was nothing Saul could boast about.

Saul's direction was changed when his head was hit with a flash of light that was brighter than the sun; as the Son of God appeared to him and changed his heart and changed the direction of the invisible arrow over his heart 180°. For many of us our 180° turn around may have come when our heads were hit with the cleansing Word and water of baptism, when we were baptized as babies. Sometimes it's hard for us to imagine that a cute cuddly baby who hasn't been changed by the Word, could actually be like Saul - that a cute cuddly baby could be an enemy of Jesus. In First Samuel we learn that, "Man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart." (I Samuel 16:7) We see only a cute cuddly baby, but the Lord sees in a baby - who hasn't been changed by the Word - a heart that is sick with sin, a heart with an invisible down arrow over it. We inherit a lot of good things from our parents, but faith is not one of them. We also inherit some bad things from our parents including a sinful nature. The Psalmist tells us, " Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me." (Psalm 51:5) Before we were changed by the Word, our hearts were just as nasty as Saul's 'pre road to Damascus heart.'

Our Lesson for this upcoming Sunday ends in verse 19 of Acts 9. In verse 20 - the very next verse we read, "At once he began to preach in the synagogues that Jesus is the Son of God." (Acts 9:20) Saul's immediate response to the gift of faith that he was given, was to share the Good News with others. Our hearts with the invisible up arrows should also feel compelled to share the Good News. In a way you could say that Saul was a converted criminal. Do you know that we have a para-synodical WELS organization called Wisconsin Lutheran Institutional Ministries (WLIM), that is ministering and working towards bringng the good news to the criminal and to others who are institutionalized? These unbelievers who are institutionalized are going in the same direction that Paul was going before he got on that road to Damascus, they're going in the same direction that we were going before we were changed by the Word. Read the rest of Acts and the many different letters that Paul penned to learn potentially what, by the Grace of God, a converted criminal can do in God's Kingdom. If we are unable to support institutional ministries with financial gifts, then we can certainly afford to support them with prayers. Wouldn't it be awesome if we could someday join the angels in heaven in rejoicing over the fact that the invisible arrow over the heart of one of these institutionalized people did a 180° and was now pointing up towards heaven?

Dear God,

Help remind us that before we were changed by the Word, we were by nature infected with the sickness of sin, and we too were your enemies. Thank you so very much for turning us around 180° - for giving us the gift of Jesus - the gift of good news - the gift of hope. We want to share that hope with those who still have an invisible down arrow over their heart. We pray tonight that you would bless the work of 'Institutional Ministries,' as they share the Good News with people who are just like Saul before he hit the road to Damascus and was hit with Jesus, people who are just like us before we were changed by the Word.

In Your Son's name we pray,

Amen.

April 8, 2010

2010-04-08T09:47:00.000-07:00

Acts 5:27-29: Having brought the apostles, they made them appear before the Sanhedrin to be questioned by the high priest. "We gave you strict orders not to teach in this name," he said. "Yet you have filled Jerusalem with your teaching and are determined to make us guilty of this man's blood." Peter and the other apostles replied: "We must obey God rather than men!

'We must obey God rather than men!' This became a part of the apostles' mission statement. This mission statement didn't serve as some goal on paper that would just be nice to achieve. No, the apostles, these missionaries, actually executed this mission statement. And because they did, nearly all 12 of them were executed for it, as they died martyr's deaths. We will be remembering more about the Acts of the Apostles and how they carried out this mission statement as this passage from Acts not only serves as our First Lesson for this upcoming Sunday, but it is also a first in a series of Lessons that will be read on Sundays from the book of Acts.

In the strictest sense, not many of us have probably been in a position where we have had to choose between obeying authorities or obeying God. Many of us have been blessed with Christian parents, Christian teachers, Christian elders, and have lived in a society where there is still a decent separation between Church and State. In this era of 'change,' we would do well to pray that we would be able to continue to have the opportunity to simultaneously obey both God and our civil authorities.

This isn't to say however that we aren't going to find ourselves in plenty of situations, where we will have to choose between God and man. In fact, on a daily basis we are faced with the choice between obeying God and obeying man - between obeying God and obeying the conventional wisdom of man which is also known as the 2nd component of our trinity of enemies: the devil, the world and our sinful flesh. Sadly we often find ourselves deciding to obey man at the expense of obeying God.

Rewind, from the time of the Apostles back to the Old Testament, all the way back to Daniel, to one of the classic Old Testament examples of obeying God rather than men. Daniel 6: 11-13: "(the administrators and satraps) found Daniel praying and asking God for help. So they went to the king and spoke to him about his royal decree: "Did you not publish a decree that during the next thirty days anyone who prays to any god or man except to you, O king, would be thrown into the lions' den?" The king answered, "The decree stands—in accordance with the laws of the Medes and Persians, which cannot be repealed." Then they said to the king, "Daniel, who is one of the exiles from Judah, pays no attention to you, O king, or to the decree you put in writing. He still prays three times a day." Daniel, like Peter and the Apostles, obeyed God rather than men!

There is no fine print with exceptions or caveats attached to obeying God rather than men. We are not to obey God rather than men, except when... (fill in the blank). Even when it means we might be fed to salivating carnivores. Daniel knew this. And because he not only knew it, but he also carried it out, he was forced into the den filled with lions. Remember what the king did when he sentenced Daniel to the lion's den: Daniel 6:17: "A stone was brought and placed over the mouth of the den, and the king sealed it with his own signet ring and with the rings of his nobles, so that Daniel's situation might not be changed." Fast forward, not quite as far forward as our Lesson for this Sunday - there's another stone that was placed over an entrance. A stone that was protected by armed guards so that the 'situation might not be changed.' But thanks to God and His miraculous touch, in both scenarios the situation was in fact changed. Daniel in the first story and our Savior Jesus in the second, were both spared from having this spot behind the stone seal be their final destination! In the first scene Daniel's life was spared. In the second scene our eternal lives are spared. Because Jesus lives, we too will live eternally!

The empty tomb and what it represents gives us all the reason to thank and praise God by obeying God rather than men. To say thanks to the one who throughout His life as our substitute, always obeyed God rather than men. To say thanks to the one who died on the cross for us, to pay for the times when we failed to obey God rather than men. To say thanks to the one who like Daniel, spent time behind a rolled stone which wasn't His final resting place. When we take time to ponder what men have done for us, and compare that with what God has done for us - we must agree with Daniel and with Peter and the Apostles, we must add to our own personal mission statements, and we must say for ourselves: 'We must obey God rather than men!' Even more than just saying and agreeing to it - we, like Daniel and Peter and the Apostles, must do it! 'We must obey God rather than men!'

Easter 2010

2010-03-29T13:10:00.000-07:00

Luke 24: 4b-8

"...suddenly two men in clothes that gleamed like lightning stood beside them. In their fright the women bowed down with their faces to the ground, but the men said to them, "Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here; he has risen! Remember how he told you, while he was still with you in Galilee: The Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men, be crucified and on the third day be raised again.' "Then they remembered his words."

When I was growing up, my grandpa used to have a sign hanging up near his workshop. It read, "When all is said and done, usually more is said than done." Isn't that the truth? In contrast and in the case of our risen Savior Jesus: 'When all is said and done: 'what is said is done,' and 'all is done.'

And in some cases even, 'more was done than said.' Mark 15:29-32, "Those who passed by hurled insults at him, shaking their heads and saying, "So! You who are going to destroy the temple and build it in three days, come down from the cross and save yourself!" In the same way the chief priests and the teachers of the law mocked him among themselves. "He saved others," they said, "but he can't save himself! Let this Christ, this King of Israel, come down now from the cross, that we may see and believe." Those crucified with him also heaped insults on him." There were plenty of things Jesus could have said in reply that wouldn't have caused Him to breach any of the Ten Commandments. But actions speak louder than words, and as Jesus showed us, quiet actions speak the loudest of all, as He quietly, humbly and deliberately carried out His part in the plan of our Salvation. This was also Jesus doing what the prophet Isaiah had said He would: Isaiah 53:7, "He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth; he was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth." In some cases with Jesus, 'more was done than said.'

This isn't to say that Jesus said nothing. In the Gospel of Luke there are a number of times when Jesus said to His disciples what He would be doing. Luke 18:31-33, "Jesus took the Twelve aside and told them, "We are going up to Jerusalem, and everything that is written by the prophets about the Son of Man will be fulfilled. He will be handed over to the Gentiles. They will mock him, insult him, spit on him, flog him and kill him. On the third day he will rise again." Because we, as Paul Harvey would put it, 'know the rest of the story;' the empty tomb that those women found is the beautiful evidence for us that Jesus did what He said to His disciples He was going to do, which is also what the prophets said that He was going to do. And after the angels, who were decked out in 'lightning gleam wear,' suddenly appeared and reminded them, the women at the empty tomb remembered these same words and realized in the case of Jesus, what is said is done.

When my sister was in college she papered one of her apartment walls and used it as a larger than life size canvass to create a fun list of things that she wanted to accomplish that summer. There were probably a hundred different things written on that wall. As she completed something on the list she would check it off. I don't remember if she was ever able to check everything off the list. We probably all have lists that contain items that remain unchecked. Not so with Jesus. His checklist that God the Father drew up, detailing what needed to be done to redeem the lost and condemned creatures, was fully checked off.

Live a perfect life as a substitute for those who lived everything but a perfect life (33 years) - check. In the process fulfill all the Old Testament prophecies - check. Be delivered into the hands of sinful men (Maundy Thursday) - check. Die on the cross to pay for the sins of ____________ (insert your name here), and for the sins of all the other people who ever were given a soul (Good Friday) - check. And now to the one that we will be remembering and celebrating this upcoming Sunday - to the one that the women at the tomb realized after remembering His words: On the third day be raised again (Easter Sunday) - check. When all was said and done, all was done!

Well, almost all. There's no question about it that the empty tomb tells us that all was completely done when it comes to Jesus Christ's work of redemption. But Jesus still has one more checklist to work on. Jesus revealed the items on this checklist to his disciples on Thursday of Holy Week. John 14:2-3, "In my Father's house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am." Prepare a place for those who believe in Him - check. Come back and take these believers to be with Him so that they also may be where He is - check. These items obviously aren't checked off yet. But because of the work of the Holy Spirit and through faith, we can be absolutely certain that if we were to check off these items with a permanent marker, that we won't be needing any white-out. Because when all is said and done with Jesus, what is said is done and all is done.

He is Risen! He is Risen and has done all that He said He would -His work of saving us is done -His work of preparing a place for us and taking us to that place will most certainly be done! He is Risen, indeed. Alleluia!

March 25, 2010

2010-03-22T11:19:00.000-07:00

This upcoming Sunday we will celebrate Palm Sunday. Our Gospel Lesson is from the pen of Luke and it is the historical account of Jesus riding into Jerusalem on the colt. Luke actually doesn't even mention anything about palms in his account, but when we read this same account through the eyes of John, we are told that the people who gathered along the road to see this King ride in, took palm branches with them (John 12:13). (By the way, you have a beautiful stained-glass window depicting this very scene - it's too dark to appreciate it tonight, but make sure you take a look and enjoy it on Sunday morning). The name that we give this Sunday before Easter that kicks off Holy Week is obviously named after those palm branches that the crowd laid down on the path.

Tonight though, we're going to focus on a different kind of palm. I read a piece of trivia somewhere that over 1/3 of what is written in the Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke and John) takes place in the 7 days of world history from Palm Sunday to Easter Sunday. This week is big, not only in its coverage in the Gospels, but also because this is the week that believers for thousands of years, all the way back to Adam and Eve, were waiting for! Because this is our final rehearsal before we celebrate and remember the events of Holy Week, let's take some time to review some of those events. Let's take some time to look at the 'Hands of Holy Week,' starting with the hands of Palm Sunday.

Picture the hands of the crowd gathered along the path to Jerusalem. Hands that removed cloaks and spread them on the ground to create what we today might call a 'red carpet.' (Luke 19:36) No one in the crowd realized that the path they were creating would lead this King, in less than a week's time, to where He would wage the greatest battle ever - and win, and triumph over sin, death and the devil.

Picture the hands of the Pharisees who who really wished they had enough hands to cover the mouths of those who shouted praises to the King. (Luke 19:39)

Picture the hands of Jesus - one hand feeling the fur of the donkey he rode on - one hand ushering the attention of the Pharisees to a stone that was on the path. The Pharisees told Jesus to get his disciples to quiet down and Jesus replied, Luke 19:40 "I tell you, if they keep quiet, the stones will cry out."

Picture the hand of Judas in that upper room on Thursday of Holy Week. His hand open, palm-up, ready to receive a piece of the broken bread. (Luke 22:19) And then hours, maybe only minutes later - both of his hands, palms-up and open, greedily ready to receive the sack of coins that he decided was most important to him. (Matthew 26:15)

Picture the hands of Jesus at the Mount of Olives- folded in prayer, hands dripping in sweat as his soul was overwhelmed with sorrow. (Luke 22:44)

Picture the hand of Jesus in the middle of His arrest, when any other human would have been thinking only of themselves and about the injustice. His hand performed one more miracle as His hand touched the ear of the servant of the High Priest, miraculously putting the ear back together. (Luke 22:51)

Picture the hands of Simon Peter in the courtyard. One minute he was rubbing his hands together by the fire to keep warm. The next minute he was waving his hands to visually communicate: 'No, I don't know Him." And then again "No, I don't know Him." And then a third time, "No, I don't know Him." (Luke 22:54-59)

Picture the hands of those guarding Jesus - hands that were slapping and striking the face of Jesus, which was just a part of their fun and games. (Luke 22:63)

Picture the hands of the Jews in Judge Pilate's audience as their hands turned into clenched fists which they threw in the air while chanting, "Crucify Him!" (Matthew 27:22)

Picture the hands of Pilate. He heard from his wife and agreed that something wasn't right about what was unfolding in front of him, but because he was most concerned about his status in the eyes of Rome, he decided to try to figuratively wash his hands of this situation - and so he also literally washed his hands in front of the crowd. (Matthew 27:19 and 24)

Picture the hands of Jesus, as far away from each other as possible, on the end of outstretched arms - hands nailed to the tree - hands dripping with blood from the nails driven through them. (John 19:18)

Picture the hands of the women carrying supplies and spices to Jesus' tomb, which they found to be empty because it wasn't able to hold our Savior who was raised just as He predicted. (Mark 16:1) This scene reminds me of my favorite Proverb - Proverbs 19:21: "Many are the plans in a man's heart, but it is the LORD's purpose that prevails." Those women had plans in their hearts as they headed to the tomb on that first Easter morning. Thankfully for them, and for us, their plans were foiled and God's purpose to save the world through His Son prevailed!

Picture the hands of Jesus when He appeared to His disciples once again - hands that now were marked with scars, hands that served as evidence that He accomplished what He came into this world to accomplish, hands that Thomas just had to see to believe. (John 20:27)

Tonight we have pictured a 'handful' of the events of Holy Week. During this week a number of prophecies made by Old Testament prophets were fulfilled, starting with Palm Sunday when the prophecy from our Old Testament Lesson for this upcoming Sunday which comes from the book of Zechariah was fulfilled. (Zechariah 9:9) The events of Holy Week didn't happen by accident, God was very much in control of the events. They happened exactly when and where and how He wanted them to. Think back to Palm Sunday when Jesus told the Pharisees if the crowd keeps quiet, the stones will cry out. In a way Jesus was saying that nothing the Pharisees could do would stop God from carrying out His plan. God could make stones cry out or do anything else that was needed to carry out His plan of Salvation. Or think of how Jesus responded to Pilate when Pilate told Jesus that he felt he had control of Jesus' fate, Jesus told Pilate: John 19:11, "You would have no power over me if it were not given to you from above." Or think of Jesus in Gethsemane when He was overwhelmed with the magnitude of what He was about to do, and He asked His Father God if there was any other way - Jesus also knew that it was God the Father's will that would be done. (Luke 22:42)

I can't help but thinking of a couple of different songs. One is a Sunday School Song - 'He's Got the Whole World in His Hands.' The other one is the refrain of a hymn from our Hymnal, CW#440, "And He will raise you up on eagle's wings, bear you on the breath of dawn, make you to shine like the sun, and hold you in the palm of His hand." Of all the palms we have pictured tonight, isn't this the most beautiful palm of all? How beautiful it is to be held in the palm of our God, who was in control of the events of Holy Week, who is still in control today, and who will one day take us from the palm of His hand into eternity - where we will sing praises to the King, somewhat similar to those the crowd sang to the King on that first Palm Sunday.

Dear God,

During this tough time, keep Graeme Aufdemberge and the whole Aufdemberge family in the palm of your hand. Remind us that Your ways are not our ways, and Your thoughts our not our thoughts. As hard as it is for us to understand, help us realize that this is part of your plan for the Aufdemberges. Thank you for keeping the events of Holy Week in the palm of your hand so that your plan of Salvation for us could be accomplished. Keep us all in the palm of your hand until you bring us to the safety of Heaven.

Because of what your Son did for us and in His name we pray,

Amen.

(Graeme Aufdemberge is the 11 year old son of Pastor Mark Aufdemberge who serves as the Pastor at Jordan. This past weekend the Aufdemberges were grilling out over a fire pit at the home of some extended family. The adults left the fire pit briefly to go inside to get the brats, the fire was going out, so Graeme and his cousin found a gas can in the shed. Graeme has 2nd degree burns on his face and side, has undergone surgery and has been recovering at Children's Hospital. Please keep Graeme and the Aufdemberges in your prayers.)

March 18, 2010

2010-03-16T10:00:00.001-07:00

I've obviously never given birth to a child, but I was there in the labor and delivery room for the hours and hours of labor that led up to the delivery of my two daughters. Those of you ladies who have given birth to children would probably agree with me that when the time finally comes and you give birth, you are delivering, but you are also being delivered. You're delivering into this world your son or daughter, but you're also being delivered, you're being saved, you're being set free, you're being liberated from the pains of labor.

Throughout the pages of Scriptures we find example after example of how our God likes to, in a number of different ways, provide deliverance. One example would be all of the different cities and nations that the LORD delivered into the hands of the Israelites as they were taking possession of the Promised Land. Our Old Testament lesson for this upcoming Sunday comes once again from the book of Isaiah, where we find Isaiah goes back into Old Testament history even further than the time of the Promised Land to the time when the Children of Israel were delivered from the yoke of the Egyptians - back to that mass exodus miracle that was staged at the Red Sea.

Isaiah 43:16-21 16 This is what the LORD says—he who made a way through the sea, a path through the mighty waters, 17 who drew out the chariots and horses, the army and reinforcements together, and they lay there, never to rise again, extinguished, snuffed out like a wick: 18 "Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. 19 See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the desert and streams in the wasteland. 20 The wild animals honor me, the jackals and the owls, because I provide water in the desert and streams in the wasteland, to give drink to my people, my chosen, 21 the people I formed for myself that they may proclaim my praise.

It's not that Isaiah didn't want his audience to remember how God had delivered the Israelites from slavery and from the Egyptians. In fact God commanded them to remember it by celebrating the Passover every year. But the point in these verses of Isaiah is that this deliverance from the Egyptians was just a foreshadowing. The Great Deliverance, the real deal when it comes to deliverance was yet to come - this deliverance was finally realized on the Cross of Calvary, and it was recognized on that first Easter morning. Remember from the Gospel of Luke where we are told that when the women got to the tomb on that first Easter Morning that they couldn't find Jesus' body. And they were greeted by 2 angels who told them to remember what Jesus had told them when He was with them in Galilee: Luke 24:7 'The Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men, be crucified and on the third day be raised again.' Because Jesus was delivered into the hands of those who would crucify Him, and because He was raised again, we are delivered from from sin, death and the devil.

Now let's go back all the way in Old Testament history. Let's go back to when our first parents, Adam and Eve, were first in trouble. They didn't 'seek God' - they didn't 'make a decision for Christ' - they didn't 'come to Jesus' - in fact they did they exact opposite - they retreated in silence and attempted to hide. When God 'found' them, He could have killed them right then and there. Romans 6:23 tells us that "...the wages of sin is death..." But God had mercy, He did tell Eve that she would experience the pain and agony of labor and delivery, but He also showed His grace and gave them the promise of a Savior. From that point on the whole focus of the entire world changed and that focus was now pointed ahead to the Cross. This gets back to the point of our lesson for this Sunday - Isaiah was telling the people to keep their eyes focused in the right direction, to keep their eyes looking ahead to the promised Savior.

God kept His promise to Adam and Eve -the promise to those who heard and read the words from Isaiah - the promise that He would send a Savior. God provided "water in the desert and streams in the wasteland." We can be confident that because of another promise, Jesus will someday come into this world one more time and get our bodies and souls together to go back with Him to Heaven. And just as at the end of the pain and labor of childbirth, you end up being filled with joy as you get to hold your little one in your arms for the first time; so when we are finally delivered from the sadness and pain of this earth and our eternity in paradise begins, we will also be overjoyed. Our God always keeps His promises. In this way too you could say that our God, always 'delivers.'

Dear God,

Thank you for allowing your one and only Son to be delivered into the hands of those that crucified Him on that tree. His delivery delivered us from sin and the eternity in hell that our sin's deserve. Please send Jesus again soon to make His final delivery, when He will deliver our bodies and souls to the doorstep of Heaven. Come Lord Jesus! Amen!

March 11, 2010

2010-03-09T11:57:00.000-08:00

(sung to the tune of Jack Noble White's 'The First Song if Isaiah' ) 'Surely it is God who saves me. I will trust in Him and not be afraid. For the LORD is my stronghold and my sure defense, and He will be my Savior.'

Do you recognize that song? I imagine you've sung it a few times over the years. In fact, if my memory serves me correctly: the first time I ever heard you sing, when I was playing trumpet for your hymn-service last year, you sang this song. It's Jack Noble White's 'First Song of Isaiah.' The lyrics are tightly based on our Old Testament Lesson for this upcoming Sunday which comes from the 12th Chapter of Isaiah. I'll read Isaiah 12 now, it's not very long:

1 In that day you will say: "I will praise you, O LORD. Although you were angry with me, your anger has turned away and you have comforted me. 2 Surely God is my salvation; I will trust and not be afraid. The LORD, the LORD, is my strength and my song; he has become my salvation." 3 With joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation. 4 In that day you will say: "Give thanks to the LORD, call on his name; make known among the nations what he has done, and proclaim that his name is exalted. 5 Sing to the LORD, for he has done glorious things; let this be known to all the world. 6 Shout aloud and sing for joy, people of Zion, for great is the Holy One of Israel among you."

Your unbelieving neighbors probably don't appreciate the words of this song from Isaiah as much as you or I do, in fact the words may even sound a little foolish to them. I Corinthians tells us that "the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing..." Your unbelieving neighbor, pumped full of the devil's lies, might even have a 'First Song' of their own: (also sung to the tune of Jack Noble White's 'The First Song of Isaiah') 'Surely I don't need God to save me. I will trust in myself and I'll be good. For I've done some good and I'm not that bad, so I don't really need a Savior.'

Imagine for a minute that you walked into a room, and on the back wall of the room hung 3 full-length mirrors. You approach the first mirror and have a look. You kind of like what you see, or at least you are able to convince yourself that you like what you see. You see someone who is pretty smart, after all, you weren't born yesterday. You see someone who really feels that they have control of their life, someone who's found a way to get a good balance, someone that has things figured out. You see someone who hasn't really done anything that bad, at least not recently; you're not perfect, but for sure you've done enough good to cancel out that bad. Overall, this mirror makes you look pretty good. This mirror reflects how many unbeliever see themselves. Sadly, the way that the unbeliever sees themselves in this mirror is NOT how the God of Justice sees them.

Next, you move over to the mirror in the middle. You take a look, but have to quickly turn your head away, because what you see is absolutely horrifying. You see yourself, but can barely even recognize yourself because of how filthy you look. Everything about what you see is absolutely disgusting. In Catechism class we learned that the Law has a 3-fold purpose, to curb, mirror and guide. This mirror follows that 2nd purpose as a mirror to S.O.S. us, to Show us Our Sins. This mirror shows us how filthy we really are. People affiliated with religions that are not Christian religions, see themselves in this mirror and they, like us, know they have to find a way to get themselves cleaned up. Sadly their method of cleansing will leave them dirty in the eyes of the 'Seperator' on that final day of separation between those who have been washed clean and those who remain filthy.

You have had enough of this 2nd mirror, and so you approach that third full-length mirror hanging from the wall. You have a look, and you really - really like what you see. What you see fills you, no, overflows you with joy. You see yourself all cleaned up and dressed in the whitest of robes. Because of what Jesus has done, what you are seeing in the mirror is exactly how God sees you - in perfect form. Later on in Isaiah (Isaiah 61) we find, "...my soul rejoices in my God. For he has clothed me with garments of salvation and arrayed me in a robe of righteousness..." Or in the first chapter of Isaiah where we find "...Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow..." This mirror gives us another S.O.S. - this mirror is the Gospel - it Shows us Our Savior - our Savior who has cleaned up all the filth we saw in that 2nd mirror.

With the Law and the Gospel in proper perspective, we can't help but join Isaiah in this song of praise. We can trust and give thanks and shout aloud and sing for joy and not be afraid. And for the sake of a neighbor, a friend, maybe even a family member - for all who still view this song from Isaiah as foolishness, we need to make sure we (in the paraphrase of Jack Noble White) 'Make His deeds known among the people,' so that they too might share in our joy.

We pray:

Dear God,

We can't thank you enough for giving us a proper understanding of Law and Gospel. Thank you for showing us how filthy we are and how much we need you, and thank you for taking care of all our filth - for taking care of our greatest need. Thank you for Jesus. Next time we sing this song from Isaiah, fill us with an extra measure of fervor as we sing for joy, and praise Your name! Cause us to share our joy with those who don't have that joy, with those who don't know You.

Amen.

March 4, 2010

2010-03-02T08:50:00.000-08:00

When we get to the part of the Passion History that unfolds the details of Judas betraying Jesus, do you ever find yourself thinking, 'how could Judas have done what he did?' I mean come on: The eyes of Judas saw leprous skin suddenly return to normal! The ears of Judas were filled with words that came from the very lips of Jesus! The tongue of Judas tasted the wine that was turned from water, his tongue tasted some of the bread and fish that fed the 5,000! The legs of Judas felt the boat return to normal when Jesus told the storm to quiet down. And who knows (or who 'nose')? Just to run the full gammut of the 5 senses - Judas may have even smelled Jesus' feet as they removed their sandals to rest after a long day of walking and talking! We don't know for sure that Judas was an eyewitness to all these miracles (also not saying that smelling Jesus' feet would have necessarily been miraculous), but the point is that Judas was about as close to Jesus as you can get, physically speaking, and in the end Judas ended up going with a sack of coins over Jesus.

The 2nd lesson for this upcoming Sunday comes from I Corinthians 10. I'll read verses 11-13: 11These things happened to them as examples and were written down as warnings for us, on whom the fulfillment of the ages has come. 12So, if you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don't fall! 13No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it." In the first part of chapter 10 we are reminded of how God was very hands-on in the life of the Children of Israel. You could say that the Israelites, like Judas, were spoiled spiritually. The eyes of the Israelites saw God's presence among them in a cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night. The ears of the Israelites heard the wailing after God inflicted the plagues on the Egyptians. The tongues of the Israelites tasted the miracle manna and quail. The feet of the Israelites felt the dry ground of the Red Sea as they crossed, walking through that hallway with water for walls. And yet the majority of the Children of Israel chose to follow idols instead of following God's commands!

How about us in the 20th and 21st century? Our eyes are able to search Scripture in its entirety, with all its cross references. Our foreheads feel the water of baptism as the Holy Spirit enters us. Our ears have been hearing the Word of God for years, for many of us, from when we were in diapers. Our tongues taste the bread and wine in communion together with the body and blood of Jesus. And yet the majority of our confirmands within a short time after making their confirmation vows end up living the life of an unbeliever.

"So, if you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don't fall!" As firm as the children of Israel should have been, as firm as Judas should have been, as firm as a new confirmand should be, as firm as we feel we are - all can fall! As it is stated in I Peter, "Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour." The 'someone' that the devil is looking for isn't the unbeliever - they are already devoured, and there's no sense in devouring something that's already devoured. No, the roaring lion is looking for somone like an Israelite, or someone like a Judas, or someone like you or like me.

Ecclesiastes tells us that, "there is nothing new under the sun." Satan doesn't use any new strategy - just variations on the same old. Borrowing a cliche' from sports, Our best defense, against the devil, is a good offense. Just like a professional athlete will spend countless hours studying the film of their opponent to get a good idea of how they operate, so we should be spending time studying the tactics of the devil. Thankfully we have all the 'film' we need in the pages of Scripture. "These things happened to them as examples and were written down as warnings for us..." Are we doing enough film study?

Even if we turn out to be 'All Star' or 'Hall of Fame' fighters against the devil, by ourselves we are no match for satan. But we have God's promise that He 'has our back,' here when it comes to temptation. "He will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear...He will also provide a way out..." Because God has promised to do this, we can boldly and confidently go to Him in prayer and ask that He carry out His promise regarding temptation in our lives. Let's do that now!

Dear God,

Remind us that no Christian is safe from the assaults of that prowling lion, the devil, in fact we should expect to be assaulted. We are able to learn what kinds of assaults the devil uses by getting into your Word, and we pray for the ambition to get into your Word and to get learning. You tell us that we are able to survive the assaults of Satan, not because of our own strength, but only because you are faithful. Help us to stand firm!

In Jesus name we pray,

Amen

February 25, 2010

2010-02-23T12:46:00.000-08:00

Philippians 3: 18b-20:

"...18b many live as enemies of the cross of Christ. 19Their destiny is destruction, their god is their stomach, and their glory is in their shame. Their mind is on earthly things. 20But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ..."

My family and I just returned from a little getaway to the Wisconsin Dells. My in-laws have a time share condo at the Dells and we joined them out there for Sunday and Monday night. One of the best aspects of a planned vacation or getaway are the weeks and days preceding the vacation when you can look forward with anticipation to getting away, especially during those days when 'daily grind,' grinds harder than usual, it's nice to have something to look forward to.

The 2nd lesson for this upcoming Sunday is from Philippians 3, a few passages before our lesson picks up, we learn from the pen of Paul that we are to, "13b strain(ing) toward what is ahead, 14 (I) press(ing) on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called (us) me heavenward in Christ Jesus." As Christians living here in this world, we have a getaway to look forward to that will get us away from more than the daily grind, it will get us away from sin and all the effects of sin - we have Heaven to look forward to. Imagine what it would be like if you were to page through your calendar for the next month, the next year, the next eternity and have absolutely nothing on the docket, absolutely nothing to look forward to! How depressing would that be, how hopeless would that feel? The unbeliever has nothing to look forward to, eternally speaking, and so it isn't hard to understand why they easily adopt a 'live for the day philosophy' - eat, drink and be merry. "their god is their stomach ... their mind is on earthly things."

I have a friend, Brian, who was a high school classmate of mine at Fox Valley Lutheran. Brian is currently serving our country and doing a tour of duty in Iraq. Brian has been keeping in touch from his tent using Facebook and email. Just as Brian isn't settling in for the long haul in Iraq, so we don't need to focus on settling in for the long haul here on this earth. Just as Brian wants nothing more and is looking forward to nothing more than coming home to his wife and to his daughter, so we should want for nothing more and look forward to nothing more than going Home to our Creator, to our Savior and to our Faith Giver. "Our citizenship is in heaven."

I can't help but think of the hymn - it's the last one in our 'Old' hymnal (TLH #660) - "I'm But a Stranger Here, Heav'n is my Home, earth is a desert drear, Heav'n is my home. Danger and sorrow stand, round me on every hand, Heav'n is my fatherland. Heav'n is my home."

Getting away for a few days to the Dells was fun and relaxing, but there's just something nice about getting home - 'Home Sweet Home' as they say. Won't it be sweet when Jesus completes His preparations and brings us home to Him forever?

Dear God,

Please help remind us that this world isn't the end for us - our time here is not even a speck on the timeline of eternity. Help us focus our minds and hearts not on earthly things, but help us store up for ourselves treasures in Heaven. When we're having a particularly tough day here on this earth, remind us that soon we will feel like strangers no more and soon enough we will be at Home, enjoying eternity with you.

In Jesus name we pray,

Amen.

February 18, 2010

2010-02-16T07:14:00.000-08:00

Imagine for a minute that you got sick. What would you do? Well, if you're anything like me, you would avoid going to the doctor at all costs. You think I would have learned my lesson by now that the issue usually only compounds and ends up being ten times worse than if I would have just gone to the doctor in the first place. Anyway, you are sick, what do you do? You do something to try and get better. Maybe it is going to the doctor, or maybe you try a home remedy. Whatever it is, you do something to try and get better.

The truth is, all of us our sick. We have a sickness, we have a terminal illness, and that sickness is sin. For the rest of our lives we will be plagued by it. The problem with this sickness is that sometimes it's hard for us to identify or recognize. Different symptoms of our sickness pop up at different times. Sometimes it's the symptom of hate, sometimes it's the symptom of greed, sometimes it's the symptom of lust, sometimes it's the symptom of pride, sometimes it's the symptom of selfishness. The other problem we have with this sickness of sin is that, as Pastor mentioned in his sermon this past Sunday, we gauge our health by comparing ourselves with our neighbor. We look at them and see that they have the 'heart disease of sin,' while we only have the sniffles - they're the sick ones - we think we're pretty healthy. Or maybe we even compare ourselves to someone in our own congregation, a fellow Christian. Look at all the things they have done - they are way sicker than I am - I'm actually pretty healthy -I'll be o.k. There's only one person we can compare ourselves to when we are gauging our health, and that's Jesus Christ. Jesus lived a perfect life and died a perfect death and the whole time he was here he lived a clean bill of health. When we compare our health with Jesus' health, it doesn't take long for us to realize how sick we really are.

So we realize we are sick and we realize we need to do something to get better. What do we do? All the home remedies in the world won't help our sickness. Lots of people try these home remedies, they buy into the 'self-help philosophy,' or the 'power of positive thinking.' They try these home remedies and they might seem to help mask the symptoms for a while, but they never really cure the sickness of sin. Jesus once said to his disciples, "It's not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick." We are those who are sick, if Jesus' is the Doctor, then we need Jesus. So we cry out with the Psalmist, 'Out of the depths I have called to you, O Lord, Lord hear my prayer.' And Jesus does hear our cry. He does heal us. Because he lived that perfect life and died that perfect death and lived it all with a perfectly clean bill of health, He will one day bring our terminal illness to an end. He will call us out of this world to live with Him, in perfect health, both physical and spiritual health.

Dear God,

All of us suffer from the sickness of sin - that terminal illness. And so we cry out for your healing help. We know you hear our cry and want to take care of our sickness. Someday please take us home to be with you where we will live lives of perfect health - free from the sickness of sin. In Jesus name we pray, Amen.

February 4, 2010

2010-02-09T14:57:00.000-08:00

Some of Jesus' disciples were fishers of fish. In the Gospel lesson for this upcoming Sunday, Jesus called all of his disciples to be fishers of men. And now here we are, 2000 years later, Jesus' present day disciples, and He calls us to be fishers of men.

The great thing about being a fisher of men is that you don't have to travel a great distance to some far off lake, there are lakes all around us. You can start by fishing men in your own home with those you share a roof with - there are men to fish in your own home. You can fish men when you are at the holiday dinner table with extended family and relatives. You can fish men in the workplace. You can fish men at the grocery store or at the library or other places you are at in your community.

A wise theologian from a couple of centuries ago, his name slips me now, once said, 'preach the Gospel at all times, if necessary use Words.' When we live the Fruits of the Spirit, when we live, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness and self-control, we are fishing men.

Dear Lord,

You want us to be fishers of men, so we come to you tonight and ask that you would help us be good fishers of men. Remind us that we don't need to be experts with a hook, line and sinker. All we need to do is cast out that line, or lower that net, and your Holy Spirit will take care of the rest. Fill us with and extra dose of ambition to get out there and get fishing!

Amen!

February 11, 2010

2010-02-09T14:45:00.000-08:00

So, here we are, February 11th, just a couple days away is... Valentine's Day - February 14th. I'll be the first to tell you that it's NOT my favorite holiday - not quite as bad as 'Sweetest Day,', but it's right up there. Apparently I'm not the norm when it comes to Americans. As I was watching the Super Bowl last Sunday, near the end, I noticed a commercial by Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart chose to spend their 2 1/2 million dollars for their 30 seconds on an ad that tried to get viewers to realize that Wal-Mart is a great place for guys to buy Valentine's Day gifts. Think of all the things that Wal-Mart could have focused on and they chose Valentine's Day. This got me thinking, and I did a little research. Last year, in the middle of this deep recession, Americans spent - get this - 14 billion dollars on Valentine's Day related items - flowers, cards, jewelry. If money talks, then Valentine's Day is a big deal, so I thought I would chose a devotion for tonight that was somewhat related to Valentine's Day.

To illustrate the point that Luther makes in our devotion for tonight - imagine that you had that 14 billion that Americans spend on Valentine's Day - that you were a billionaire 14 times over - and that you closed your eyes - opened a phone book and put your finger down on a name - then you handed over that 14 billion - which was every last penny you had - to that complete stranger whose name was underneath your finger. Or, crazier yet, you handed it over to your worst enemy - ridiculous! If we are using earthly terms, then there aren't enough riches in the world to illustrate or compare how much God sacrificed when He sent his one and only dear Son into this world to die for us. "While we were still sinners, Christ died for us." Think of it - we were God's arch-enemies - and He decides to sacrifice his only dear Son to redeem us - ridiculous by human standards - kind of hard to wrap our brains around. That's the kind of love that God has for us - undeserved love - grace.

So, this Valentine's Day, as we are giving and receiving Valentines or gifts, or whatever we do to show our love ones that we love them, let's take a little time to receive the Valentine that God sent us - His Word - where we find throughout the pages, story after story about God displaying that ridiculous love to people who didn't deserve it.

Sometimes I think we have become somewhat matter of fact when it comes to God's love. "Jesus loves me this I know" and we accept that as fact - and that is a good thing! But, sometimes it might do us good to step back and really think about how crazy amazing God's love and God's grace really is. When we begin to really think about this, our hearts will want to thank God for this love. How do we do this? By following the instructions detailed in God's Valentine - all those instructions can be summed up in a single command, "Love your neighbor as yourself." So we thank God for his love by reflecting some of that love to those around us.

Dear God,

You tell us that 'We love because You first loved us.' And boy oh boy, do You love us. You love us more than we can really comprehend or get our heads around. We want to show our thanks to you for your love and we know we can do this by following your commands. So we come to you tonight and ask that you would give us the strength and the wisdom to carry out your commands that are summed up in a single command to love one another.

In the name of Jesus - who You sent in love,

Amen