Summertime

It has been a little while since my last post.  I am really looking forward to the summertime.  I am so thankful for seasons.

In the church all of us have our busy seasons.  As a preaching pastor my busy season is September through May.  With a week break after Christmas to gear up for a great winter.  Then the summer comes and though we still do some fun activities it is nice to slow down and breathe for 3 months.  But, by the time late August comes I am ready to get back into the groove and go all out again.

I enjoy ministry and the church very much.  Yet, I find that I need restoration and my family needs to see me most nights with them for a season rather than dragging them with me or leaving them behind.  I think that God desires rest into even the most profound schedule.  We all need it and will be better off if we take it!

Backward Blessing

I am preaching this week from Luke chapter 6:17-28.  It is Luke’s version of the b-attitudes. . .blessed are you when _________ . . . Matthew spiritualizes these things, but Luke keeps them as Physical.  For instance in the first one Luke says “blessed are the poor” Matthew adds “In spirit”.  Both of course are true in their own unique way.

In a world where many Christians think God is all about making the “american dream” a reality, Christ’s words are almost completely lost.  In fact, if you were to recount your blessings in life I am guessing your list of blessings would be on Jesus’ list of  WOES!!  Me too!  It is crazy how backward we can get life.  For some reason we are pulled away from God’s dreams for us into our cultures dreams.  And we wonder why so many of us are dissatisfied.  Only one in 3 Americans say they are “happy”.  Yet, in Mexico (a third world country) where I just returned from a mission trip greater than 2 out of 3 say they are happy.  Maybe there is more to these words than we realize.

A few things to think about:

Is it things or relationships that bring greatest joy? – In marriage, most couples look back to the time before they had the house and the two cars as the time when they were the happiest. . .

Is it better to be well liked and blend in or to stand up for truth?  – Though it may feel good in the short term to not rock the boat, at some point you will look back on your life and judge it based on the good you did amidst the challenges you faced.

Is it better to embrace challenge and suffering now or to pretend like earth is as good as it gets?  – most of us try to make earth into heaven and wonder why we struggle to find hope amidst all the challenges we face.

The second most joyful Sunday of the year!!

So everyone knows that Easter is the hi-light of the year.  The day we celebrate the risen savior and his conquering death and bringing new life to all of God’s people is a very powerful day.  We live in hope amidst all our challenges and struggles because of Christ’s work.

Yet it is interesting that just the week before when Jesus entered Jerusalem the people were rejoicing and celebrating for a different reason.  They were celebrating that the conquering king had finally come, the one who would save them and restore the kingdom of David and Israel had arrived and was coming to take the throne.

The people didn’t have a clue just how powerful this king was for nearly all of His ministry.  Even His disciples struggled to put it together.  But, in this one moment they got it and all of them gave him the welcome as a powerful king.  It stands in such contrast to the rest of our stories in the gospel accounts, Jesus is orchestrating and celebrating this moment with them.

Yet, he knows that his kingdom is not of this world (physically) yet.  He knows he is going to Jerusalem to die and give his life a randsom for the very people that will be screaming crucify him in just four short days.  Yet, he goes and he accepts their praise and in fact says if they didn’t praise the rocks would cry out! 

As you prepare for Easter, this week should be one to recognize that the king has come.  He has unique plans for you and I and is going to continue to work and do amazing things in this world an in us.  His kingdom has come and is yet to come fully.  If the king of the world is on your side, who can stand against you?

food for thought.

Further Down the Healing Path

As we look at the next healing story in Luke’s gospel (5:17-27)we see a man who was crippled from birth aided by some great brothers.  The crowds were so large that they found a way to get there friend into the healing presence of our Lord!  We can learn a lot from just this small thing.  In life we need each other, especially when we are in pain and agony.  God puts others into our lives so that we will come into Jesus presence and receive healing and renewal.

All of us have wounds, hurts and need God’s healing touch.   Here is a definition of a wound I used last Sunday along with a definition of what I think God intends for us in healing:

Wound – An ongoing pain that pulls us away from experiencing the beauty, joy, goodness and love of God and isolates us from deep relationships with others. 

Healing –God’s process of restoring us to our original beauty and back to enjoying His presence in worship together.

 

In this story Jesus doesn’t respond by rewarding their faith initially with healing, but instead he rewards them by announcing forgiveness.  This blew everyone’s mind, I guess in their mind it was one thing to go around healing all these people, but it was quite another to declare forgiveness of sins.  I am not exactly sure why that is to be honest.  I mean I get it “God alone can forgive sins” but I also wonder, who do they think was doing all the miracles, the carpenter?   Jesus even said it was easier to say he was forgiven than to heal. . .

Then something amazing happens Jesus tells the man to get up take his mat and walk.  We don’t know when the man was healed, but I honestly think it was when his sins were forgiven.  Recently I have become convinced that one of God’s primary vehicles for healing is forgiveness.  He longs to heal our hearts and restore us to himself in worship and to others in relationship, but we have barriers up.  Through His Spirit He helps us break down those barriers.  The two main barriers we put up are our own sin which we must learn to confess and turn away from and forgiveness which we do not grant others.  As we hold onto our “debts” and our “debtors” we will find it a struggle to come into God’s presence freely and joyfully as He intended.  It would be wise to spend time each day “clearing our accounts”. 

In the grand scheme of the gospel we know that our debts have been paid for in full by Christ on the cross and at that He invites us to live “debt free”.  Yet, the way that we are able to see the fruit of this freedom is through confession of our sin and asking for restoration and forgiveness through His Spirit.  Our redeemer will turn none away, He wants us to lose these burdens.

Especially during these economic times we are all reminded of how much our “debts” control us.  Even if we do not think about them on a daily basis, the mortgage, car payments and credit card bills weigh on us over time, so that we are not free to live as we have been called, Generously.  I think there is a direct parallel in our spiritual bank account as well.  Wouldn’t love to have Bill Gates pay our debts, so that we can live generously and free?

Reaching for Beauty, joy, goodness and love. . .

 

What if God really was beautiful, joyful, good and loving?  What if the gospel was true and that everything that separates me from receiving that love has been removed by His initiative and love for me in sacrificing His Son Jesus?

It seems to me that all pain and suffering is a result of us being removed from the completeness of God’s beauty, joy, love and goodness.  I do not believe that God is the author of pain and suffering, but I cannot see any other possibility than it being His chief tool for helping us come to the end of ourselves.  As we celebrate Ash Wednesday today we are reminded that we are in a world full of evil.  Sin in us and sin in the world and the evil one himself wars against us being pulled into the beauty, joy, love and goodness of God.

I have found myself many times thrust into the depths of sin in me and others.  I often feel empty and in need of God’s stream of life, but instead walk by the fountain and eat a handful of sand.  I often am “frustrated” (the Christian word for angry) with people and circumstances.  I see so few people who live in God’s beauty, joy, love and goodness that I wonder if it is all real.  I see so much sin and selfishness and especially so many closed hearts that I am overwhelmed.  So many of us are only willing to go as far as we have with God, because the next step would require relinquishing an illusion of control over God.   I have seen myself use God’s word as a substitute for God’s presence and found the end result to be a boring, dutiful relationship with a boss who cares little beyond me getting the job done to His satisfaction.

Today as I meditate on healing I am one who is in need of God’s healing touch.  Evil has had it’s way with me and pulled me away from beauty, joy, love and goodness.  I have allowed hurt and pride to reign in, where there once was deep love there is now self-protection and where there once was initiative to embrace others there is hiding and avoidance. 

So, I am a soul that is in need of healing.  I wonder as I think about the leper what it must have been like to see the first symptoms take hold in his life.  When one by one his friends had withdrawn their relationships with him and when he was finally put away from the people.  His journey like mine and everyone else I know was filled with many moments of pain, betrayal and deep loss.  Yet, in this moment he recognizes there is hope for him.  Though he may have given up hoping years before in this moment he reaches out to be touched by the only one who has ever cured his disease.  Even in his question it is obvious that he knows Jesus is the answer to His need, but He does not know how Jesus will respond.  This is where I find my soul today.  What about you?

 

Suffering a part of life?!?!

The next three weeks I am going to be preaching on three passages that deal with healing from Luke 5.  I have grabbed three separate books that wrestle with the issue of healing and restoration.  One of which is the fiction book the shack and one is The Healing Path by Dan Allendar and one is Healing is a Choice by Stephen Artiburn.  Each is so unique and different in how they see healing and yet they do seem to have a number of things in common as well.

For this first reflection on healing I am drawn to the idea of suffering.  No one needs to be healed who is healthy and doing great.  It is those who recognize their need for healing that may find help.  One of the current movements in the faith says that suffering is never God’s intention for us as humans.  I find that hard to believe in light of James 1 (rejoice in your trials) and Romans 5 (rejoice in your sufferings.)  I believe that life is full of suffering and pain.  But, how we deal with that suffering and pain will not only define our present but will form the foundation for our future.  

Some of us experience deep pain and others of us seem to suffer little.  Yet there is something strange that I have discovered in my journey.  I tend to be strongly attracted to the soul that has found redemption and healing through much pain.  I find myself seldom attracted to souls that avoid pain or who are overwhelmed by their pain and depressed, but there is something about a healed soul that uniquely bears the marks of the redeemer.  They have a deep faith, an often amazing hope and a love for others that is “painfully” obvious.

In Dan Allendar’s book he describes a fourfold journey that we must go on to embrace God and find His healing path for our lives.

1)      We must open the rather than cynically shutting down – This is the first step and frankly the one that holds nearly all of us back from experiencing God’s healing.  Whether it is pride, fear or something else we really struggle to open up and be healed.

2)      We must wait with anticipation rather than killing hope – Our natural tendency is to want God’s healing right away.  I believe God will heal us, but He will only do it in His timing, He wants us to approach Him expectantly, but also submit to His timing.   So, rather than let our hearts give up and kill hope we are to continue to believe that God can take away our pain and replace it with love.

3)      Encircling the other instead of standing alone – All of us deeply desire to be loved and embraced, not only by others, but also by God.  Over time we may experience so much pain and suffering that we have forgotten our longing to be embraced and to embrace another.  We have withdrawn and busied ourselves so that we will not miss what we desperately need.   “Encircling another calls us to both receive and to give through an interplay of honor, passion and respect.”

4)      Letting Go – The last step of the embrace is to let go.  Even with God we must let go for seasons and times so that we may embrace others.  Once we have found a deep connection and a sense of fulfillment we never want to leave, but we may always return.  God will take us to new places, with new ways to embrace us and new people for us to embrace.  It is like a Waltz where God leads and we follow.  The ultimate goal of healing is waltzing with God!

Fishers of Men

For our last entry this week we are going to look at the call of Jesus on Peter’s life.  Jesus simply says “follow me and I will make you fishers of men.”  And Peter parks his boat and strides after him.

I have read a number of thoughts on this passage and all of them seem to suggest rightly that one shouldn’t overanalyze this analogy, for after fish are caught they are killed and then gutted, fried and then eaten.  Though there may be a parallel process that we go through as we come to Jesus and learn to deny ourselves and pick up our cross and follow him.  The analogy loses a little bit of its luster in that there is definitely no joy for the one who is caught.  So, I believe it is safe to assume that Jesus didn’t want us to take this analogy too far.

This comes in the context of Peter hearing Jesus’ teaching on the word of God and of him seeing Jesus’ style of fishing.  Just throw the net overboard and I will fill up the boat.  Peter would have rightly understood that Jesus was calling Him to lead others into His boat.  Men and women are a lot like fish that are floating around and in this moment Peter has seen the fish all pulled together and I am sure he wondered how God  would use Him and where Jesus would take the people He helped Peter catch.   I imagine Peter would have rightly thought, well if Jesus can fill the boat with Fish I am sure He can fill His kingdom with men (and women).

Peter is drawn to this “higher calling”.  Peter’s life will be one that God uses to completely change and impact others.  Peter is going to get a chance to make a huge mark in the world by leading others into Jesus’ presence.   In my experience there is nothing more satisfactory in life than seeing God use me or others to change a persons destiny forever.  Most of us go through some sort of a mid-life “adjustment” where we begin to ponder the impact our life will have on others. 

In closing, if you are a Christian you are a leader.  God is going to put people into your life whom you can influence for His name.   He may put thousands of people under your leadership or maybe just one.  But, all of us have people in our lives whom God desires to be “caught” by His good news.  And the best part is the one who filled Peter’s boat has given us power to do our job as well! 

Matthew 28:18-20  (read this passage full of our call and Jesus’ promises)

Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”

 

A life God uses

Yesterday we talked about Jesus and His teaching from Luke 5.  We saw that the people were so drawn to Jesus’ teaching that He needed to borrow a boat and teach from there so that everyone could hear His message.  Today we are going to talk about the owners of that boat, Peter, James and John.

The story reads that Peter had spent the night and morning fishing and they were cleaning their nets and Jesus needed a boat so He just climbed in and asked the owner, Peter to push out and started teaching the people.  You have to wonder how long Jesus had been watching Peter and His companions or how much prayer had gone into the selecting of this boat for this time.  Peter had a front row seat to Jesus teaching about the kingdom and the word of God.  I personally think our Lord chose Peter before this began and used this incident to “force” Peter to hear His message and teaching. 

Then when the time is over Peter must have been persuaded because Jesus asked Him to throw out his net for fish.  And Peter responds by calling Jesus “master”.  He also grumbles and in a moment of honesty states something to the effect of “there is nothing out here to be had, I am tired and my men are tired, but because you tell us to I will.”  And you are probably familiar with the rest of the story, Peter’s net not only fills up, but he calls out James and John and their nets fill up as well.  The Lord FILLED their boats so full it says they were sinking.

Peter then understands what has happened.  Jesus has provided in a way that only one who has power over the sea and the fish could do.  Immediately Peter’s eyes are open and His first response is a good and right response.  He bows before His Lord (Peter uses the word Kurios) and confesses His sinfulness.  He lets Jesus know that there is a huge difference between the two of them and he realizes it.  Peter sees Himself as the servant and Jesus as his Lord..

It took two distinct things for this to happen for Peter.  One, Jesus revealed Himself to Peter and asked Him to take a step of faith and trust that Jesus would take care of the details.  Jesus could have had the fish just jump into the boat and Peter wouldn’t have had to do anything.  But, Jesus didn’t do that.  He wanted Peter to participate and to use Peter’s obedience.  Two, Peter did what Jesus called him to do, even though he wasn’t sure about it.  If Peter hadn’t responded He wouldn’t have seen a result.

I think this is the way God works in our lives as well.  Jesus often calls us to small steps and doesn’t tell us how things will turn out, only that He will take care of the details.  In my life I have learned that I am not responsible for filling up the boat, all I can do is put out the net.  As we do these things we will see God’s power in our lives and it will lead us to be humbled and available to be used by God.

 

Jesus, the greatest teacher ever?!!?

Today we begin to look at Luke 5. In this story Jesus is teaching the people. And as Jesus is teaching more and more people keep gathering because they are drawn to it and to Him. The story says that more people kept coming until He was surrounded. So He met some men with a boat and they allowed Him to jump in it to teach the people.
As we begin the study, I wanted to take just a moment to reflect on the teaching of Jesus. We don’t learn a lot from the Bible about what drew people to Jesus. Not once does it say Jesus was funny, nor does it say that Jesus was entertaining. As we read through His sermons they seem to be very simple but never simplistic. The one common theme seems to be that when Jesus spoke people responded with “awe” and “amazement”. We are told in other places that He spoke with authority. We also know that His primary message was the word of God and specifically the kingdom of God.
I wonder if we have the same desire in our souls to listen to the teaching of Jesus. I wonder as we sit in our comfy chairs, if perhaps He is calling us to take a walk spiritually with him around the Sea of Galilee to find renewal in His presence and to be filled with awe and amazement by His words. Every word that comes out of His mouth is the word of God and it simultaneously is perfectly good and right and wise. Do we hunger for His teaching and the teaching He told his Apostles to pass down to us?
In my experience the answer to this question for the believer is always a resounding YES! I do not know of any believer who doesn’t find the teachings in the scriptures to be a source of life, encouragement and great challenge. But, I do know many who are not seeking nourishment from the word, it is a daily battle.
FOOD for thought. . .

Remembering He is the Lord!

In our culture we have been taught that everyone is equal, by that we often mean the same. Today people go to extraordinary efforts to make sure that our children don’t stand out from others. We don’t keep score in sporting events. We have dress codes that hide our personalities and beauty, while at the same time protecting people from being judged by the amount of money they have or the clothes they can afford.

One of the commonly embraced beliefs and ideals is that “you can do anything you put your mind to.” And honestly there is some truth to that. People can overcome all kinds of obstacles in life and too often we put ourselves in prisons that God never intended for us to stay; prisons where we believe that we aren’t good enough to do certain things. The ideals would teach us that if we would put in some positive thoughts and some hard work we can find a way to accomplish anything.

But, I honestly have come to realize that each of us are made different and have different gifts to different degrees. And our goal in life doesn’t have to be to overcome our weaknesses to achieve what we want. Perhaps our goal in life should be to discover the gifts God has given to us and use them for His glory. At the risk of being vulnerable and at the same time seeming proud, I know God has given me gifts for teaching and for leadership. I have tried to use those gifts in whatever capacity He would open up and allow me. At the same time I will be the first to tell you that there are FAR MORE GIFTED teachers than myself and FAR MORE GIFTED leaders than myself. But, I do my part, even if it be a smaller part for God’s kingdom, for God’s glory.

One of the most difficult things to embrace is that Jesus is far greater than we are. The more we discover who he is the more we will discover that His character, His Power and His Love are far greater than ours. I have found this to be a stumbling block for many coming into the faith. Because there is so little respect for authority in our culture, people struggle to revere Christ and embrace Him as in charge. I see so many Christians today (me included) who often embrace our own “wisdom” for God’s truth. As we do this Christ truth will have a difficult time penetrating our souls.