A Thought

“God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through Him.”  John 3:17

It is one thing to acknowledge that Jesus existed, which even secular historians can do with little effort; it is quite another to understand what Messiah stands for and how this Covenant works.  Simply calling on the name of Jesus for salvation but doing nothing toward discipleship (that is, living within the terms of the Covenant and the Covenant community) leaves a huge gap in what can become for us a wholesome and truly fulfilling life – AND a strong community to withstand the trials of the day.  It is not merely a matter of making a choice between heaven and hell; it is about being all we are called to be in this life – the life we are called to live until the Last Day.

It is important to remember that Jesus said, “Those who endure to the end will be saved” (Matthew 10:22).  Warning His disciples about the persecutions that would surely come, it simply makes sense that we desperately need the support structure of community.  We need the support of one another if we are to endure this Journey, and we need to be reminded constantly of the Reward that awaits those “who endure to the end”.

There was only one “Lone Ranger”, and even he needed a “Tonto” – AND – he was fictional!  We need the community of faith so that we may continue to grow in faith.  Others need it, too; they are simply waiting on your invitation.

Blessings,

Michael

Love Is Selfless

Acts 3:1-10

Matthew 12:9-14

Jesus is drawing a clear line of distinction between what we think we are obligated to do, and what we are truly privileged to do.  He may even be trying to define for us the difference between what we might be tempted to call "work", and what simple daily living requires of us.  As it pertains to the Sabbath and acceptable practices of the day, there are earnest efforts to keep the faithful from running in too many different directions because according to what is written, the Lord claimed the Sabbath as His very own.  The Sabbath is when the faithful are called to put aside their differences and come together for the Lord.  Jesus does not challenge this, but He does challenge what Sabbath had become to the Lord's people: a burden rather than the gift it truly is.

Worship of the Lord, presenting ourselves to the Lord, giving of ourselves to the Lord in our time, our prayers, hymns of praise, and offerings, and giving freely of ourselves to our fellow Christians in worship and Bible study are all part of the package.  Jesus never excuses us from our duty to gather for worship of the Holy God (indeed why would the Son of God "excuse" us from worship?) - but - He is re-energizing the better component of the Sabbath in what a privilege it is for us to gather together in worship.  But when we allow such a Holy Day to become so burdensome or a gathering so self-oriented, we are attempting to change the terms of the Covenant.  The Covenant is no longer about the Lord; the Covenant is no longer even mutual.  It is only about "what's in it for me".  This is commonly referred to as "hedonism".

The same thing can be said of the marriage covenant when things begin to break down, when the shine is no longer on the apple, when the daily grind of reality begins to replace the "honeymoon"; you know, when we stop locking the bathroom door and remove that last vestige of "mystery"!  We stop worrying so much about our spouses and begin to think more about ourselves and what makes us happy.  We are more worried about what our golf buddies or other sports tournament partners and parents think of us than what our spouses or our God think of us.  What we DO NOT often appreciate or recognize in this dynamic shift is that the deterioration of the relationship at this point has already begun.  If this "break-down" is not confronted and respected for its destructive potential, disaster is never far behind.

In his 1943 “Wedding Sermon from a Prison Cell”, Dietrich Bonheoffer offered these words of encouragement to the young couple for whom he wrote the address: “It is a sign of social disintegration when the wife’s service [to her husband] is felt to be degrading or beneath her dignity [as a person], and when the husband who is faithful to his wife is looked on as a weakling or even a fool.”   Sad to say, I think that ship has long sailed.

The same must be said of the relationship between the faithful who constitute the Church (which is the Bride) and Christ (who is the Bridegroom).  There is a level of disintegration evident in such a break-down when we are more concerned about what society thinks of us than what our Lord thinks of us.  That is, being more concerned with being “socially correct” than in being “righteous”.  The Covenant is thus in jeopardy.

"If you want to change the world, don't just give - invest." Heifer International

Challenge #3 in the Love Dare© takes us yet one more step away from self and more directly toward our God, our spouses and, yes, our community.  Let us be frank.  Every small town church has had its challenges in the past as many churches have, and the community is fully aware of these challenges mostly by way of gossip.  Whether the gossip (then AND now) is entirely true or not, that relationship between the church and the community has been damaged, so it is incumbent upon the church - the believing Body of Christ - to take decisive, deliberate steps to restore that relationship. 

It is not about being all things to all people or giving everyone their heart's desires – which is just not possible OR practical.  It’s not about trying to be “popular”, and it is not about allowing the church to be "used" and then tossed aside once used up.  It is entirely about acting within the integrity of the Holy Covenant to be precisely what the Lord has called this church forth to be and not what society or any individual wants the Church to be.  This is exactly how the Love Dare© pertains to the Church as a Body in her relationship to the Lord because we are NOT a “community organization”; we are the Body of Christ! 

Week 1 had to do with what we must "not do"; that is, "patiently endure" reality, stay quiet if we cannot say something nice, and don't respond impulsively.  Week 2 challenged us to "do", to offer an "unexpected gesture" of kindness not only toward our holy God and our spouses but toward others in our community to prove there is indeed life on this planet and especially in the Church.  Now Week 3 takes a more aggressive step and challenges more from us than merely "doing" a nice thing ... like at least CLOSING the bathroom door!  Week 3 requires that we "give" something.

Within the community of faith, St. Paul encourages the Romans to "give preference to one another" (12:10).  Week 3, then, asks us to look at what we might "give" to ourselves (that new fly reel or CD), and challenges us to "give" instead (not in addition to!) that same material consideration to another.  The Love Dare©, as I've pointed out, is specifically geared toward strengthening and, when necessary, restoring married relationships; but I think we can consider that in real life - especially for those of us who do not have spouses – none among the faithful can be excused from this certain challenge.  And "challenge" it is because we have been enculturated and indoctrinated to "go for it" as it pertains to our own desires and what makes us happy.  Even some segments within the Church universal have been guilty of actually helping the faithful blur the line of distinction between divine "blessing" and mindless "consumerism".  And this is what challenges us to move outside of our normal thought processes and helps us to deliberately learn to be more Christ-like in all our relationships.

It is also important to remember that in "giving" to our God, our spouses, and our community, we must be mindful of what is actually ours to give.  The "gift" must come from within - NOT from what is left over.  I'll grant you not many among us have much in the line of "left-overs" as it pertains to our resources, but this is also the point of what it means to give from within.  A genuine gift given from within requires sacrifice; that is, we do without to ensure that others have.  This, I think, is what St. Paul intended when he challenged the Romans to "give preference to one another".  To "give preference" means that we would see to the needs of others before we would mindlessly feed our own desires.  This type of giving, of course, is perfected in and by Christ Himself who preferred that "this cup be taken from Me" but seemed to understand that what was required of Him demanded that He put "self" aside for something much greater.

Within this entire context, we must remember the Bible and the Love Dare© both emphasize "covenant".  With the Lord it is the Eternal Covenant, the terms of which have been spelled out by our God and Father.  With our spouses it is the marriage covenant the terms of which, incidentally, are also spelled out in the Bible and within the Eternal Covenant.  We are protecting and defending those covenants because we understand each supports the other.

Still, we cannot always be sure that what we give will be appreciated for what it is.  It could be that we have been "doing" and "giving" for so long BUT with an ulterior motive that those who would receive our gift might suspect less-than-holy purposes.  But we are also reminded that "doing" and "giving" has nothing to do with what the other persons may or may not do.  Rather the "doing" and the "giving" are our efforts to correct and reform ourselves, getting back to doing what we really should have been doing all along but somehow lost our way.

There is only one "Way" to the Holy Father, and that "Way" is Christ our Lord; but we must remember, too, that even Jesus referred to the "Way" as bigger than even Himself.  It is the Covenant.  It is always the Covenant - with the Lord, the covenant we entered into with the Holy Church when we took our membership vows, and the covenant we entered into with our spouses before the Lord.  The common denominator in all these Promises is the Lord - because the Lord is the foundation.  The Lord is Life itself.  So let us choose to live and live well.  For our Lord ... and for one another.

A Thought

“Teach me, O Lord, the way of Your statutes, and I shall keep it to the end.  Give me understanding, and I shall keep Your law; indeed, I shall observe it with my whole heart.”  Psalm 119:33-34

The entire psalm is one that speaks praise of the Law, the Lord’s statutes and ordinances.  New Testament theology seems to focus on the “curse” of the law and what Christians don’t “have to” do rather than acknowledge the abundant blessings derived from total and unquestioned obedience to the Lord and His instruction.

I wonder if the psalmist cherry-picked which laws he deemed important enough to observe and which laws were just being “legalistic”?

Blessings,

Michael

A Thought

“[Jesus said], Let the little children come to Me, and do not forbid them; for of such is the kingdom of God.  Assuredly I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will by no means enter it.”  Mark 10:14, 15

Children have a special way about them.  Everything we want and everything we hope for is invested in our children (and not only our biological ones!).  As Jesus points out, the ideal – the very best of faith – is perfected in the praise of children because they have not been so tainted by the world that they learn to doubt and to suspect.  They simply believe.  They trust.  They are the very portrait of innocence.  I think this is why the sight and sound of a young one crying as if with a broken heart is what breaks the heart of even the hardest of men – because the beauty and perfection of that Divine image and innocence have been violated. 

This perfection of faith is the absolute standard in the Kingdom of Heaven and is the reason why Jesus obviously has a soft spot for the little ones.  We mistreat them or harm their innocence in any way, and we will stand before the Lord.  I don’t know that anything can save us at that point with that kind of stain because the One who will save us on the Last Day is the One who also said “it would be better if a millstone were tied to your neck and you were dropped into the depth of the sea”.

This is the reason why the Church must always pay attention to the community’s children.  If these little ones have need, the Church is on the hook; but we need not look to such a thing as a “threat” of judgment but rather as an opportunity to do something wonderful for the little ones and to fulfill that to which the Church is called.  It is a Divine Compliment that such an awesome task has been so entrusted to the Lord’s people.  It is the perfect portrait of the Body of Christ, the Church, to which the little children must never be forbidden to come and must never be withheld.

Blessings,

Michael

Love Dare #2: kindness

Galatians 5:22-26

Luke 6:27-36

"Kindness is love in action.  If patience is how love reacts in order to minimize a negative circumstance, kindness is how love acts to maximize a positive circumstance.  Patience avoids a problem; kindness creates a blessing.  One is preventive, the other is proactive."  excerpt from "Love Dare", Kendrick

If "kindness is love in action", we must understand "love" in its purest term as the sacrificial love expressed to all of humankind on the Cross.  It is not enough to simply refrain from doing harm and it is not enough to only offer a smile to everyone we meet, even though each of these are good starts just as “patience” is a good start.  It's all good stuff from Above in which we are reminded that being justified before the Lord goes far beyond simple acknowledgement or a "personal" relationship to be kept to oneself.

If it is hard to love those and do good for those who hate us, I think it may be even harder to accept Jesus' words in Luke's version of the "Sermon on the Mount": "[The Lord] is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked."  Our Lord is "kind" to those who do not even acknowledge His goodness?  Our holy God and Father is "kind" - not merely tolerant but "proactively" kind?? - to those who are "wicked"??  How can we see a gracious God who would bless those who do not even acknowledge His goodness just as He blesses those who are thankful for every morsel of blessing, however great or small?  It comes dangerously close to suggesting that being a disciple of Christ and trying to emulate His life is an exercise in futility if those who are "ungrateful" and "wicked" get the same divine consideration!

Yet they did.  And they do.  "Kindness" extended is the expression of grace personified in Christ, not only in His sacrifice on the Cross but also by the life He led.  He extended Himself even to those whom He knew would betray Him; we are reminded of this at the Last Supper as Jesus looked Judas in the eye, knew what was coming, had predicted Peter would deny knowing Him and others would cut and run, and STILL went through with it!  Why?  For the sake of the Lord's Covenant.  Not in the vain hope that "some" might choose to receive the gift of grace but for the sake of the Eternal Covenant.  Not only for the “faithful” but ALSO for the “ungrateful” and the “wicked”!  All for the sake of the Covenant - the ONLY thing that is eternal and unchangeable.

The book of Hosea is worth a re-read if we have forgotten that the Lord showed His fidelity time and again.  The prophet was commanded by the Lord to marry "an adulterous wife", a prostitute, so that the Lord could show His people in a real way what His love really looks like even in the face of infidelity.  Gomer, the prostitute, was given a home, gave birth to Hosea's children, and like Israel, she failed to see and appreciate the good she had at home - and so she left.  Like Israel, she departed from the Covenant.  "She said, 'I will go after my lovers, who give me my food and my water, my wool and my linen, my oil and my drink" (2:5).  Yet the Lord responded, "She will chase after her lovers but not catch them; she will look for them but not find them.  Then she will say, 'I will go back to my husband at first, for then I was better off than now" (2:7). 

In other words, she will seek that which seems to offer some sense of personal gratification and pleasure but in the end is just empty and meaningless – as Israel did.  She will earnestly seek, but she will never find "true love" because the world will only use her for its own purposes and then throw her back when she is used up.  Just as the world did to Israel then, and just as the world will do the Church today if the Church foolishly turns its back on the Lord and pursues the world and its lusts.  But due to the “kindness” of the Lord, "home" is never far away, again, for the sake of the Lord's Covenant and those who freely choose to abide by its terms.  And yes, dear friends, there are terms; unbendable, unchanging terms.

To illustrate His fidelity to His people, the Lord commanded Hosea: "Go, love a woman who has a lover and is an adulteress.  Love her as the Lord loves the Israelites, though they turn to other gods ... "(3:1).  So just as surely as 1 John expresses that “God is love", we must surely see that the love which springs forth from the Lord is the same love expressed to the wicked as well as to the good; the same love expressed to the ungrateful as well as to the grateful.  If it were any less, it would not be "love" at all because such conditional affection offered only to those from whom we may expect something requires no heart at all, no real sacrifice.  It is only an "investment", a lust for what we expect to gain.

"'The mountains may depart and the hills be removed, but My steadfast love shall not depart from you, and My covenant of peace shall not be removed', says the Lord who has compassion on you" (Isaiah 54:10).  The prophet is reminded, as we are reminded, that the Lord's steadfast love is for the sake of something much greater than any individual, just as Peter was reminded that the Lord "shows no partiality" (Acts 10:34).  When we understand this, when we come to terms with this, we can more fully appreciate the Lord's "steadfast love" for those "in every nation"; even those who are “ungrateful” and those who are “wicked”.  

You and I are fickle.  More often than not, we are inclined to respond to that which appeals to us at any given moment.  Even though we are justified before the Lord by faith and baptized into His Covenant (not ours), we can still be easily distracted by things and persons who are sometimes "less than holy" pursuits and not worthy of our time and efforts – but we think they are … in the impulsive moment!  We are actually inclined to call these things "blessings"; not because they are but only because we want them!  These are the things we would pursue as relentlessly as Gomer pursued her own heart's desires and realized there was nothing there.  This is why such attention must be afforded the Lord's Covenant - because it is not a "moving" target that will only move when we get closer! 

"We ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, led astray, slaves to various passions and pleasures, passing our days in malice and envy, despicable, hating one another.  But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, He saved us - NOT because of any works of righteousness that we had done but according to His mercy ..." (Titus 3:3,4).  

It is this very "goodness and loving kindness" we are called, commanded, and commissioned to extend to others - not because they have or may do right things but because such "goodness and loving kindness" comes from something much more enduring than anything we can offer.  We offer fruit of the Covenant of the Lord because the Lord Himself is "kind to the ungrateful and the wicked".  Dare we choose to be or to do less than what was done for us ... in spite of our active "disobedience"?  When we looked more like "Gomer" than like Jesus?

"For this very reason, you must make every effort to support your faith with goodness, and goodness with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with endurance (patience!), and endurance with godliness, and godliness with mutual affection, and mutual affection with love.  For if these things are yours and are increasing among you, they keep you from being ineffective and unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ; for anyone who lacks these things is short-sighted and blind, and is forgetful of the cleansing of past sins" (2 Peter 1:5-9).

For the disciple there is nothing benign about following Christ.  We are challenged by these and many other biblical examples to rise above ourselves and our own desires and impulses.  We are transformed by the Living Spirit of the Risen Lord for His sake and for the sake of His Covenant - and not our own purposes or pursuits - because it is the Covenant sealed with His Blood.  It is then that we are called in such a spirit of "kindness" toward not only one another but perhaps especially toward those from whom we will expect and probably receive nothing.    At least, nothing in this life except perhaps the satisfaction that as we continue to grow in faith and love and as we continue to faithfully endure the challenges we face, that we can look to the Lord with confidence and say, "I think I get it." 

Last week was a challenge to exercise "patience" by saying nothing negative and by not responding in anger to those things which easily anger us.  This week we are challenged to move a step further.  Not only shall we refrain from fits of anger by displaying the same patience our Lord displays to us by His grace, but this week must be marked by "unexpected gestures" as simple acts of kindness. 

We must do this especially with our spouses and our children but not ONLY our spouses and children - because all good knowledge and social stability springs forth from a home filled with and informed by grace.  We must do this with every single person we come into contact with; those who are desperate for some sign - ANY SIGN - of compassion as well as for those who actually deserve a fat lip!  The fat lip is not ours to give, but patience, mercy, compassion, and loving kindness ARE those things we have been given in abundance – to not only HAVE a good life but to SHARE that good life in abundance.

It won't be easy, but True Love as personified in Christ will never be easy for us, just as it surely was not easy for Him - but always worth the effort for the sake of the Eternal Covenant!

In the name of the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

A Thought

“[The Lord] shall say to them, ‘The gods that have not made the heavens and the earth shall perish from the earth and from under these heavens.’” Jeremiah 10:11

Earlier in the chapter is stated “a wooden idol is a worthless doctrine” (vs 8).  We can understand statues and other icons that seem to demand our primary focus and attention, but the inference that the “wooden idol” had already become a “doctrine” – that is, a practice of devotion – hits a little closer to home because even though we don’t have statues that demand our devotion, we can easily evaluate our workaday lives and see what does demand (and get!) our devotion; that which becomes our regular practice of devotion. 

In our society we have justified our materialism and lust for “stuff” as “blessings” or as “signs” from Above.  We have justified our consumerism without understanding that our devotion to the acquisition of such “stuff” has become our primary “doctrine”; that is, our practice that gets our full devotion and attention.  It is this improper focus and devotion that eventually brought Israel down because they ultimately became a nation with no God except those “gods” that could be acquired and owned to serve one’s own purposes.

Let us put away the idols that only serve to separate us from the Lord; the idols that “shall perish”.  Let us renew our commitment to the Lord and His Church, the Covenant that will not perish.  Let us renew our commitment to the knowledge of Christ our Lord who calls us “out” to share, not “in” to keep, acquire, and accumulate.

Blessings,

Michael

A Thought

"I think each village was meant to feel pity for its own sick and poor whom it can help and I doubt if it is the duty of any private person to fix his mind on ills which he cannot help. This may even become an escape from the works of charity we really can do to those we know. God may call any one of us to respond to some far away problem or support those who have been so called. But we are finite and he will not call us everywhere or to support every worthy cause. And real needs are not far from us.”               - C. S. Lewis

Each individual church can only do so much, just as each individual Christian can only do so much – but “do” we must.  Even as the real strength of an individual church must be assessed, it must be done within a context not of what is practical but what is reasonable within its mission which is stated by Mr. Lewis: “real needs are not far from us”.  There are missions and missionaries to support as best we can, but we cannot overlook our own neighborhoods from which the next missionary may come!  It is the small things that make big differences in the life of the local church.  It is not about “marketing” or “market shares”; it is about the Gospel.  It is about giving others what we ourselves truly need and have been given by the local church.

The Lord will show us where He wants us to go but only if we ask with a heart truly devoted to His mission.  “Whom shall I send” is the perpetual and eternal question from Above.  This is the earnest invitation to the Church to step up and be all we are called to be.

Blessings,

Michael

A Thought

“Jesus stands out among the great moral teachers of history, a Truth that Lee Strobel finally become convinced of.  Strobel graduated from Yale Law and worked fourteen years in journalism; at one time he was the legal affairs editor of the Chicago Tribune.  In 1979 his wife, Leslie, came home and shared that she had become a Christian.  As an atheist, Strobel was shocked and dismayed.  Yet he became intrigued by the change in his wife’s character.  He had to admit he never seriously studied the unusual claims about Jesus – that He had risen from the dead and that He claimed to be the Son of God.  Strobel believe it was all nonsense, a legend others had concocted about Jesus for various reasons.  So, employing his investigative competencies and experience, he decided it was time to check out the evidence for the claims of Christianity and what the Bible taught about Jesus Christ.  After a two-year extensive study, ‘by November 8, 1981, my legend thesis, to which I had doggedly clung for so many years, had been thoroughly dismantled … The atheism I had embraced for so long buckled under the weight of historical truth.’”  Excerpt from “Living into the Life of Jesus”, Klaus Issler

The mission of the United Methodist Church is to “make disciples of Christ for the transformation of the world”.  It is what we believe we, as a Church, have been called and commissioned and set apart for.  I don’t know if this man’s wife became a United Methodist, but it seems clear that her own transformation in faith was compelling enough to crack the hard shell of her husband’s atheism.  Her character alone was not, however, the deciding factor for Mr. Strobel; but it was her character that got his attention and led him to learn more, and this led him to Scripture and, ultimately, to Truth.

We cannot always know that our Christian character will compel others to such soul-searching or even faithful conclusions about our Lord, but we can be sure that the integrity of our witness will always bear fruit.  Like it or not, people are watching us especially if they know we are disciples of Christ.  It may seem they only are looking to find fault or to reveal our hypocrisy, but I am becoming more convinced the unbelieving world is looking for a reason to embrace our Lord.  And the only reason they may need could well come from your own witness or mine.

Be Christ today in someone’s life.  He matters.  His Church matters.  Our witness matters … to Him AND to them.

Blessings,

Michael