A united hope ...

“May the God of all hope, fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in Him so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope.” (Romans 15:13, ESV)

  They had waited for centuries. They had endured battered and broken hopes in each generation.  In the famines that seemed like curses, occupations where tyrants smashed the notions of hope and where their own unrighteousness chased them away from daring to hope.  Yet deep in their hearts, they clung desperately in their faith somehow believing in the mighty God of the remembered past would come now in their time as a Messiah.

     They had waited for centuries. They had endured separation from the hope of a Messiah pushed aside because they were not a covenanted people.  They were reminded again and again, each and every time they wanted to worship the Living God as they stood excluded and isolated in their separated place apart from the others gathered to hear of the promised Messiah.

      When Jesus came as the Messiah to the Promised and Covenanted, He also came to all.  He came fulfilling all promises of hope by bringing hope to all people.  To the waiting … He brought rejoicing.  To the broken … He brought wholeness.  To the outcast … He brought inclusion.  To the separated … He brought unity. To the hopeless … He brought hope.  Jesus was hope fulfilled then and He is hope fulfilled now.

     There is a universal unity in the need for hope and Jesus Christ brings hope that unites the need and the fulfillment.  He was and is, and is to come … the Messiah for all and for all time.  All hope rests on Him and in Him.

“The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me  to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free,   to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” Then he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant and sat down. The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on him.  He began by saying to them, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.” 

(Luke 4:18-21, NIV)

Suggested Bible Reading ... Romans 15

A divergent path …

“Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth” (1 John 3:18, ESV).

  Most of the time my thoughts are reflective, as to our response to God living in us and our realizing that our days are in His hands thus changing us while at the same time compelling us to live for Him.  Today I take a divergent path in asking that we do something directly but maybe not locally. I know I have appealed to all of us to love more genuinely, seek out the hurting and the needy and remember God’s love and grace comes through us as live in the world around us.

      There is a need right now for each of us to speak up for the Christians around the world.  In many places Christians and churches are being targeted directly and believers are being severely persecuted and killed simply because they are Christians.  Of course we can and we should pray for these Christians and their families, but there are few other things that we can do as well.  I am listing some websites with information about the various situations around the world and what we can do to help our Christian Brothers and Sisters during this time.  Maybe we can give monetary support to those in need or we can write to those in prison or the families of those persecuted or maybe we simply need to bring attention to these heartbreaking stories by sharing them within our circles of friends, churches and families. We might even take time to encourage our government representatives to bring attention and solutions to these terrible situations.  It seems we should all do something.  We are called to more than speaking of love, we are called to deed and truth.  A very interesting article was posted today at the Daily Beast.  I would encourage each of us to take time to read it and to take time to look at some of the other websites so we can put the love of Christ into deed and truth in our lives.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/09/27/a-global-slaughter-of-christians-but-america-s-churches-stay-silent.html

Organizations   http://www.persecution.com/     http://www.opendoorsusa.org/      http://www.persecution.org/  http://barnabasfund.org/

On this day ... the day of salvation.

“On the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried out, saying, ‘If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink.  He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’” 

(John 7:37-38, NKJV)

  

  They had come together in days of feasting and celebration, reading and reciting  the Books of Deuteronomy and the Psalms.  Over and over for seven days the familiar stanzas, couplets and phrases touched the hearts of the people called by His Name.  These were the people who remembered the Almighty God. They remembered and recounted the wondrous and mighty deeds that He had done in saving and providing for them for generation to generation.  Still, they appealed for more of God.  The words of promise and salvation were repeated privately and as a people of promise through praises during the past days of the feast but on this day … the last day (Hoshana Rabbah),  the appeal was for the salvation of the Lord to come.  Prayers for salvation and provision were offered up appealing for restoration, redemption and God’s rain to fall as life to their land and to come as salvation upon their hearts.

    It was the water of life from the Creator of the heavens and the earth.  This was and is the water that falls from the heavens to nourish the earth and the water from the well of salvation that brings abundant joy to all souls. 

    On this day long ago and on this day (Hoshana Rabbah), salvation and living water did come.  Jesus stood up then as He stands up now and proclaims to any one that would thirst ... to come to Him and to the living water found only in Him.  He has poured out His life so that springs of living water could flow up in us and out of us as the Holy Spirit abides in us.  In the deepness of our souls we seek the living water of Jesus Christ.  He is the everlasting living water. Come to the Him and drink. Come again and drink for the source is everlasting.

 

“With joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation.  In that day you will say:

‘Give praise to the Lord, proclaim his name;  make known among the nations what he has done, and proclaim that his name is exalted.’” (Isaiah 12:3-4, NIV)

Suggested Bible Reading … Isaiah 12 & John 7

Thinking what you show, matters … when what matters to you, really matters.

“The Lord says: ‘These people come near to me with their mouth and honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. Their worship of me is based on merely human rules they have been taught.’” (Isaiah 29:13, NIV)

  They just could not grasp the simple truth of a heart given to God was all that God wanted from His children in worship and righteous living.  The Pharisees and the Scribes could not get close to God by their endless rituals because their hearts were from Him.  Their casual disregard for the essence of God’s heart as they obsessed over their dedication to multitude of rules did not bring them closer to God but left far away from Him.  Their zealous concentration on thinking what they exhibited was righteousness blinded them to the magnitude of their failure to be righteous in their deeds. 

    We can be just like them.  We can be zealous in our thinking, believing what we show to others about being religious matters, forgetting that God must matter above all else for Him to really show in what we do.  For what is on the outside of a cup might in appearances look clean and appealing but what is on the inside is of substance and significance.  Our religious fervor and piety doesn’t matter if God is not the substance and significance of what matters to us.  Worry about what is inside of you and the outside will take care of itself.

“When He had called all the multitude to Himself, He said to them, ‘Hear Me, everyone, and understand: There is nothing that enters a man from outside which can defile him; but the things which come out of him, those are the things that defile a man. If anyone has ears to hear, let him hear!’” (Mark &:14-16, NKJV)

Suggested Bible Reading ... Mark 7

Standing … sure and secure in a shaking world.

“Whoever does these things will never be shaken.”  (Psalm 15:5B, NIV)

  Too often we feel shaky living in a shaking world.  We are anxious about the unstableness of our culture, societal changes and violent upheavals amongst us and in our world.  We try so hard to balance the aspects of our faith in our daily living as morality changes oftentimes quickly and unpredictably  around us.

      Sometimes we drift away from the truth in our lives. Sometimes we spend so much time concerned and focused on the awful and the terrible happenings around us that we forget to do good. Sometimes we let hurt and pain done to us cause us to inflict hurt and pain on others. Sometimes we do evil unto others. Sometimes we use our tongues to scar those around us with vindictive words. Sometimes we are not generous and we do not keep our word. The list is long when we do not hold to our faith and our character becomes shaky in the un-connectedness of our living with our faith. We are saved by grace of our Lord by which we rejoice but walking in grace by righteous living should be marked by our character traits which proclaim the security and solidness of the faith we trust in and the deeds we do.  Anything less and we find ourselves as shaky as the world we live in.

     To have peace instead of anxiety, we need to trust in the peace that passes understanding instead of the systems of the world. To feel secure in the grace and love given to us … we cannot but extend grace and forgiveness instead of retribution and revenge to those that hurt us. To not be controlled by evil done to us we must choose to not return evil unto our enemies. To honor the word of our promises, we must make our word truthful and sure. To be full of the love of God, we must remember the poor and be sincere in our generosity.

     God welcomes the humble, the honest and the righteous as He graciously forgives our failures and sins but to stand … sure and secure in a shaking world, we must trust in Him fully as we obey Him in our living.  It is in that forgiven, secured relationship through Jesus Christ that we desire and do the things that will not allow us to shaken or moved in a very shaky world.

     Meditate on these words of the Psalmist  with a humble heart.  Bring your failures before the Lord to receive forgiveness and ask for His Spirit to empower you to trust Him enough to live your days doing what He asks.  When we do those things we will stand … sure and secure in a shaking world.

“Lord, who may dwell in your sacred tent?

    Who may live on your holy mountain?

2 The one whose walk is blameless,

    who does what is righteous,

    who speaks the truth from their heart;

3 whose tongue utters no slander,

    who does no wrong to a neighbor,

    and casts no slur on others;

4 who despises a vile person

    but honors those who fear the Lord;

who keeps an oath even when it hurts,

    and does not change their mind;

5 who lends money to the poor without interest;

    who does not accept a bribe against the innocent.

Whoever does these things

    will never be shaken.”  (Psalm 15, NIV)

What do you gain?

“What good will it be for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul? Or what can anyone give in exchange for their soul?”  (Matthew 16:26, NIV)

  We often think of the thought of “forfeiting our soul” or “losing our life” as the damning result of seeking only and at all costs, the gaining of the world. This was definitely was the focus Jesus intended to give as in the context as He speaks of judgment, glory and death but there is more. Just before, Peter is cautioned about seeing things from a “human point of view.”  It is possible to gain the world and lose your life and soul.  Jesus is telling us that simple fact. 

     Yet the loss is not off in time somewhere … it is also here as we live.  We lose our life and our soul as we live because we live for the gain that we seek and the gain is not eternal or everlasting. It is an illusion, false, tormented and unfulfilled existence and end in contrast to our created and redeemed purpose in following Christ.  We all can follow after something as we live and many times it is not the everlasting but the sensual, material and endless other attractions to the mind, eyes and emotions.  If the ultimate and total heart goal becomes these others gains, we will lose our lives and our souls.

    A certain sadness prevails upon us when we witness someone desperately in pursuit of something only to lose their very soul.  We can see this tragic harshness of ultimate loss in our friends, family and even in our culture as as they chase after the pursuits of fame, wealth, societal rank and success finding them to be illusions leaving a deadly wake of brokenness, disaster and failure. 

    Jesus knew the loss of our purpose, peace and identity in true fellowship with God was the greatest loss possible and although we may gain the world … we would not have life here or in eternity. We would have lost our souls.  To exchange anything that will not last for the grace of God in Christ which is everlasting will always be the ultimate and greatest loss in this world and in eternity. 

“Oh, that you had listened to my commands! Then you would have had peace flowing like a gentle river and righteousness rolling over you like waves in the sea.” (Isaiah 48:18, NLT)    

  Suggested Bible Reading ... Matthew 16 & Isaiah 48                                                                                                                                                                                                         

"Our Father" ... a diminished recognition and neglected reality as the words become common.

“Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name.”  (Matthew 6:9, KJV)

  The prayer is short but profound.  It is well known and spoken repeatedly. The opening stanza is often speedily rattled off as if it is some sort of an informal introduction or an obligatory phrase instead of the mighty recognition it is in reality.  The words “Our Father” sometimes even become a casual name for the prayer that the Lord gave us as a model.  That we as created beings have an Eternal Father who redeems and loves us should humble us in ultimate respect and liberate us in joyous worship.

     The powerful significance of having a Father in heaven is immensely fortunate and indescribable for us as flawed sinners because His grace is immeasurably abundant upon us as His children.   For “Our Father” is not a father beyond approach, nor is a father unmoved by His children. He is not a father who forgets our needs, nor is He a father who is unforgiving.  He is not a father who turns away, nor is He a father who is too busy.  He is not a father who withholds, nor is He a father who rejects us when we fail.  He has never been a father who falters when things are difficult, nor is He a father who grows weary in generous or appropriate provision.  He is not a father casual in his love, nor is a father unwilling to sacrifice.

     To utter the words “Our Father” is not to speak of our Father in heaven but to come into presence of the Almighty God as His child.  To say “Our Father” is recognize the reality of having a Father in heaven.  Our Father is a father who always welcomes the contrite and humble, forgiving every single sin and cleansing them in completer mercy. Our Father is moved by needs and never turns away for an instant. Our Father is always available and gives more than we can ever imagine. Our Father never becomes weary or faint to in coming to us in love. Our Father is unfathomable in His passion for us as He has sacrifices His only Son to reconcile and redeem us forever.

    All other fathers may fail us but “Our Father” cannot fail.  He never has failed and He never will fail.  Let us all slow down when we say “Our Father” and be ever thankful our Father in heaven is “Our Father.”

“Surely you are still our Father! Even if Abraham and Jacob would disown us, LORD, you would still be our Father. You are our Redeemer from ages past.” (Isaiah 63:16, NLT)

Suggested Bible Reading … Matthew 6 & Isaiah 63

A little envy goes a long way.

“But as for me, my feet had almost slipped;  I had nearly lost my foothold. For I envied the arrogant when I saw the prosperity of the wicked.” (Psalm 73:2-3, NIV)

  There are raw materials though minuscule in quantity have power that is momentous.  There are simple little words or phrases that can cut deep into friendships and relationships.  There are emotions though small in initial thought can overpower all goodness leading to obsessions and sinful or destructive behaviors.

     Such is envy, though small, it is powerful.  A little envy goes a long way.  A little envy can immobilize wise and thoughtful actions.  A little envy can consume our normal personal functioning with obsessive patterns that lead to anger and frustration.  A little envy can take balanced priorities in our life and tilt us towards seeking after fame, money, activities with an abandoned foolish dedication.  A little envy can be a wedge in friendships and relationships.  A little envy can make us something we are not.  It can make us beastly, bitter and incredibly obsessed.  A little envy goes a very long way.

     Envy needs to be set aside when we sense it in our lives, realizing the true nature of its consuming power and the destructive results it will bring if unchecked.  Instead we need to rest in God’s counsel and destiny seeking after His ways.  The truth … of all our days being His will counter envy and its power to turn us away from following our Lord and His plans for our lives.  

“When my heart was grieved and my spirit embittered, I was senseless and ignorant;    I was a brute beast before you. Yet I am always with you; you hold me by my right hand. You guide me with your counsel, and afterward you will take me into glory. Whom have I in heaven but you?  And earth has nothing I desire besides you.  My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart  and my portion forever.” (Psalm 73:21-26, NIV)

Suggested Bible Reading ... Psalm 73

Pure Religion

“Jesus was going through all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every kind of disease and every kind of sickness. Seeing the people, He felt compassion for them, because they were distressed and dispirited like sheep without a shepherd.”  (Matthew 9:35-36, ESV)

  Voices are raised, rallies are held, causes are put forth and some people even get involved.  On the other side … tempers rise in response, counter rallies are held, alternative causes are proclaimed and a few others get involved.  “We need more guns.”  “No we need less guns.” “We need to stand strong.” “No, we need to compromise.”  “We need less taxes.”  “We need more services.”  On and on, we walk as a culture, like the thousands of cultures before us … sometimes stumbling, sometimes standing, sometimes thinking and arguing and sometimes finding actions and solutions.  It is part of the dynamic of life in societies and cultures.  Somehow we find a course.  Sometimes there is compromise and sometimes there is nothing but more quarreling.

    Sometimes Christians find themselves consumed with certain causes. There is nothing wrong with being passionate for causes but our living as He wants us to live must be more than causes.  Christians must remember, that there is things that God most values as pure religion.  It is not which political party you belong to nor is it the certain side of an argument that you  rally around.  Jesus lived out the love of God and He brought “Good News” to the poor and oppressed.  Jesus saw the world with the compassion of God’s love and lived out God’s grace in responding to those around Him.  Seeing with the compassion of Christ, gracefully loving and giving to all in need especially those who have little voice or position along with following God’s ways are the most pure virtues of Christian faith.  It is not the causes we support or the views we have on a particular subject that God sees as the purest reflection of His presence in your heart. The purest reflection of God’s presence in our lives is simply the love you give away as we follow Him with all our heart. It is this love in action which shines like a beacon that His heart of grace is in us.   

“Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world.” (James 1:27, ESV)

All our days ...

“Now after the death of Jehoiada the princes of Judah came and paid homage to the king. Then the king listened to them. And they abandoned the house of the Lord, the God of their fathers, and served the Asherim and the idols. And wrath came upon Judah and Jerusalem for this guilt of theirs.” (2 Chronicles 24:17-18 ESV)

  It sometimes happens.  It sometimes happens to those that start out with a deep faith but somewhere along their life pathways, they turn away from the Living God. The Living God that has loved them, sustained them and been their guiding light.  Even though they know of His mighty power in provision, they turn away from His ways and His blessing.

    Joash was King of Judah who did what was pleasing to God from a young age.  He had a deep respect for God and honored God with diligence and commitment. He listened to guidance of Jehoiada the High Priest and devoted his life to the restoration of the Temple.  Yet, at the end of his life, Joash turned away from God and allowed the worship of false gods and went so far as to allow the murder of Zechariah, Jehoiada’s son.  Joash is finally killed in revenge for all the evil in his life. It is a sad story of turning away from God and His ways.

     May we always remember the Living God and all that He has done for us.  May we remember His mighty works and His gracious blessing and provision in our lives.  May we serve Him all of our days.  May we always remember, whenever we turn away from God and His ways ... we will find nothing of life but only the emptiness of false gods, suffering from evil, sadness and death.   Our days are  hopeless without Him.  Thank God, for the Living Hope we have in Jesus Christ our Lord.

“Let not your heart envy sinners, but continue in the fear of the Lord all the day.

Surely there is a future, and your hope will not be cut off.” (Proverbs 23:17-18 ESV)

Suggested Bible Reading … 2 Chronicles 24

Ode to 9-11

Staggered and shattered, broken and battered, lost and lonely in the incredible death and destruction. It could not happen here nor could it happen to us, but evil came upon us.

Hands and hope, courage and comfort, effort and energy in the residue of utter despair and discouragement. It happened here and it happened to us, but good has restored us.

Remember those that died and remember those that gave beyond measure. Remember those that comforted and those that responded. Remember to be like them. Be willing to sacrifice and even die for others, be willing to cry and comfort one another and never, ever forget ... to pitch in with your heart and your hands to bring hope and restoration to your world.  It matters.

“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. For as we share abundantly in Christ's sufferings, so through Christ we share abundantly in comfort too.” (2 Corinthians 1:3-5 ESV).