Category: devotional

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A Thought for July 4

Galatians 5:1
For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.

I can’t help but look ahead to readings from next given that today is July 4th, as the USA is celebrating its Independence Day. We think back to the founding of this country and think about the cherished idea of freedom.

But there is more to freedom than asserting independence from another nation. Freedom is more than the ability to do whatever we want.

True freedom is given to us by the liberating work of Jesus Christ to free us from slavery to sin and has freed us for a life lived for God. That is what our freedom really is.

On a day such as today, we give thanks that we live in a country that affords us the chance to worship our God, who has done all that we needed to be freed from the burdens of sin and who calls us to embrace such freedom.

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Jesus Loves the Little Children

Even though we’re reminded in Scripture not to hold some spiritual gifts and ministries in higher esteem than others, since we are all part of the same body in need of the unique callings and work of all its parts, we can at times fall into that trap. One area that can be tempting is in regards to the gift of teaching. You may find yourself thinking that the higher up the educational ladder you are, the more spiritually accomplished you are. If I can teach wise, elder members of a congregation that is more impressive than “just” teaching some little kids. You’ve really got to be real spiritual to do the former, and the latter is just glorified child care, right?

But listen to these words of Jesus from Mark 9:33-37:

And they came to Capernaum. And when he was in the house he asked them, “What were you discussing on the way?” But they kept silent, for on the way they had argued with one another about who was the greatest. And he sat down and called the twelve. And he said to them, “If anyone would be first, he must be last of all and servant of all.” And he took a child and put him in the midst of them, and taking him in his arms, he said to them, “Whoever receives one such child in my name receives me, and whoever receives me, receives not me but him who sent me.”

The disciples are wrapped up in who is the greatest. Maybe it is a discussion about who is the most spiritually mature. Jesus’ response is to take a child into his arms, and challenge these bickering disciples to do a great work–to receive a child in his name.

That’s not a work that is leftover for those who can’t do something else. He says this to his twelve disciples, future leaders of the early church. Working with and for children is a great, high calling. It is a wonderful witness that within the church children are valued so much. They are not a nuisance nor are they a distraction of the real work of the church. Receiving a child in the name of Jesus is part of what we are called to do.

We have been gifted by God in different ways, so don’t let the differences lead you into ranking these works or associating some with differing levels of spiritual maturity. All of God’s gifts are needed and valuable to him.

So today I give a special thanks to all who work with children. Know you do a special work of Christ in sharing his love with those little ones.

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The Incredibility of the Resurrection

In Mark 12 the Sadducees confront Jesus with questions about resurrection. They create a complicated hypothetical involving seven brothers, no children, and a wife who had been passed along once these brothers die in succession. They ask Jesus whose wife will this woman be? It is a bizarre question, and it is being asked by Sadducees who in fact deny the truth of the resurrection. They either want to trap Jesus or make resurrection out to be a ridiculous belief.

But Jesus replies saying that they really don’t know what they’re talking about. They know neither the Scriptures nor the power of God. These deniers of the resurrection do not understand the resurrection at all.

This got me thinking back to an article I read a couple years ago. Christians do not deny the resurrection, we affirm it. But do we understand it any better than the Sadducees? Do we think about what happens after we die? Do we think about the resurrection of the dead? A bodily resurrection like that of Jesus?

Resurrection is a key belief in Christianity, and it is right there in the creeds that we recite. But do we get our understanding from God and his word or from pop-culture and its movies and books?

This article, which I originally read in a Newsweek, waiting at the doctor’s office, can be found here (Daily Beast). It looks at that tension that people have in which they believe in an afterlife, but have trouble with a bodily resurrection. But, as the article ends, “Resurrection may be unbelievable, but belief in a traditional heaven requires it.”

As the title says, the resurrection is incredible. You can read it two ways. The accounts of the resurrection of Jesus are not credible nor is the belief that our fate is the same. Or you read it as saying the fact that Jesus was raised from the dead, signifying the death of death for all who believe in him, is simply a wonderful truth and cause for great hope.

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A Prophet Not Accepted in His Hometown

In Mark 6 Jesus returns to his hometown, Nazareth, teaching in the synagogue, but while some people were astonished, others were more reluctant to accept not only Jesus’ teachings but the man himself. They wonder where he got this teaching, since they didn’t see this in Nazareth. They wonder how this Jesus could perform such mighty works and say, “Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary and brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon?”

They know Jesus, but they know him before he had began his ministry and revealed himself as the Christ. The people of Nazareth know Jesus the carpenter, not the Messiah. And because they think they already know him they’ve made their conclusions. Jesus can’t change their assumptions about who he is.

How often do our preconceived notions or past experiences limit our ability to accept something or someone new? If we knew someone years ago and they were a bit of a terror, when they appear reformed do we believe they have changed? Or can we not get beyond our previous conclusions and think it must be a facade? In a similar way, if we know someone as an upstanding citizen and all around “good person,” do we refuse to believe that they could have made some grave mistake? Does the past again inform us more than the facts, and have us say, “Oh, no… they’d never do that. They’re a good person. I don’t believe it.”

We are quick to come to conclusions, even without all the information. Nazareth thought they knew Jesus, but they didn’t know the whole story. They wouldn’t accept that even though he was a carpenter, even though he was a man, that he was also fully God. We should not be so rash to close off ourselves from the continued working of God in and through people. We should not be so prideful as to think we already know the full picture. Like with Jesus going back to his hometown showing himself to be more than they expected, we should know that God is full of surprises and is quick to go beyond our expectations.

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Kicking Off Quarter Two, Week One

Year in the Bible, the BIG story so far

Today we had a lunch after church to celebrate the end of our first quarter of Year in the Bible. Looking back it is a great amount of reading that has been finished and so many of the big stories of the Bible have been covered. You’ve really accomplished a lot in just a few months.

Noah Ark – One of the many well-known stories of quarter one.

We’ve gone from creation to God’s people readying themselves to enter the promised land. In between God has shown himself to be faithful and true, strong and mighty, full of grace and mercy, as well a God of judgment who does not tolerate sin. God has chosen a people for himself, beginning with Abraham, and has provided all that was needed. But God’s provision and sufficiency ironically never seem like enough and Israel always turns away. God meets this faithlessness with his grace. There is judgment, like 40 years of wandering, but God never ceases being a God for us.

God is never revealed more clearly as for us than in Jesus Christ, of whom we read about in the New Testament. We read John and Luke who present to the reader the gospel, and that is the story of Jesus Christ. God is for us and has stopped at nothing to make us his own, and this means that God came to earth in Jesus Christ and took our sin upon himself, dying the death that we deserve, so that we can be reconciled. Now we a sinful people can be with a holy God.

In response to such an amazing, world-changing event, the lives of the disciples of Christ can never be the same. In the book of Acts we see the way in which the church exists in light of the death and resurrection of Christ, as empowered by his Spirit.

Now in quarter two we take up both of these strands and follow the story further along. The promised land, which has been held out before Israel, is finally occupied in the book of Joshua. We’ll then see Israel move from prophets and judges to a nation that wants and gets a king for itself, just like all the other nations. This summer quarter will also give us a chance to read all of the minor prophets who speak against the nation, calling for its people to return to God and to his ways.

The church that finds its footing in the Roman empire is still in need of help and encouragement and we’ll read many letters that were circulated to do just that. These are the letters of Paul and Peter, who sought to build up the people and strengthen the small group of believers who would one day rise up from under the oppression of a hostile culture to be a force for the kingdom of God.

That’s what we’ll have to look forward to this summer quarter of Year in the Bible, starting this week. Hope you can stay with it. I’ll be praying for you and for your time spent with God in his word.

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A Great Mystery of the Faith

Acts 22 recounts a message delivered by Paul. He had been before the tribune asking for permission, and receiving it proceeds to speak to fellow Jews.

The crowd appears to listen intently, all the more because Paul speaks in Hebrew. He tells of his stirring conversion, meeting with Christ on the road to Damascus. He then was taken in by Ananias, received back his sight, and was given the call to be a witness. Paul repented and was baptized.

Paul is commanded in a vision to flee from Jerusalem, because the people there will not accept his testimony. Paul knows that people remember the role he took in persecuting the church, even standing by approvingly as Stephen was marytred.

St Paul Preaching in Athens, Raphael – Preaching to the Gentiles.

The crowd was listening throughout all of Paul’s message, but in verse 22 it says that at his last line they raised their voice and called for him to be cast out. What could he have said that would cause them, after listening throughout his message so intently, to turn so quickly?

In verse 21 Paul says that God commanded him to, “Go, for I will send you far away to the Gentiles.’”

Paul’s opponents will tolerate his words up to the point that he claims God calls him to go to people unlike themselves. They appreciate that he is like them, that he is from a place like them, and that he speaks a language like them. They do not appreciate that he is ministering to “the other.” Their vision is so clouded and their understanding of God’s intent so narrow that they cannot hear the good news of Paul’s message.

God’s love for the gentiles is described as the core of a great mystery of our faith, revealed to us now. We now know how great is this new word that Paul speaks of in his letter to the church in Ephesus. I, a Gentile, for one am thankful for the ministry of Paul, as called by God, and need to follow suit to seek out not only others who are like me, but to bring the gospel to others.

For this reason I, Paul, a prisoner for Christ Jesus on behalf of you Gentiles— assuming that you have heard of the stewardship of God’s grace that was given to me for you, how the mystery was made known to me by revelation, as I have written briefly. When you read this, you can perceive my insight into the mystery of Christ, which was not made known to the sons of men in other generations as it has now been revealed to his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit. This mystery is that the Gentiles are fellow heirs, members of the same body, and partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel.

Ephesians 3:1-6

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Giving Others Room to Serve

Acts 18 was the topic of this week’s focus passage, which I usually don’t then mention again in a post, but I think it bears repeating. Or maybe you’ll hear this for the first time if you don’t use those Bible study guides. If you don’t, feel free to look into them now. You’ll find them under “This Week”, as they are to be a weekly study for one passage to focus in on from the many chapters we read. There you can find any past weeks, as well. They are one of the things we use during our Reading Groups, but they can work for small groups or individual study.

Getting back to Acts 18, it is similar many stories of Paul as he goes around, preaches the gospel, and people believe. But what I found of great interest here was what happens once Paul leaves. He spent a year with Priscilla and Aquila, who were tentmakers like Paul. They urge him to stay, but he does not, and in doing so he leaves them in a position to fill the void. Onto the scene comes Apollos, a man “fervent in Spirit” and who is teaching about Jesus. But as accurate as he is, he doesn’t have the full story.

If someone with great charisma and skill in speaking were to come into your town, but whose teachings were not quite right, would you be quick to insert yourself into the situation and correct the errors? It can be intimidating to challenge anyone else, especially if that person is persuasive and if you do not have any sort of specific qualifications or expertise.

But Priscila and Aquila do just this. They go to Apollos to more accurately instruct him about Jesus Christ. (Kudos to Apollos for humbly listening to such correction, too). It is a great testimony to their conviction and boldness in Christ.

It makes me wonder, though, if Paul had stayed, would they have done this same work? Would they have instead called Paul for help, or referred Apollos back to Paul? Maybe Paul would have beat them to the punch? We don’t know and can only speculate. But what we do know is that after Paul had spent his time equipping the saints and teaching the gospel, he left creating a void. Into that space these disciples of Christ step in to continue the work. His leaving created an opportunity for more believers to join in the ministry.

If we never leave room for others to work, when will they feel that call to join in the ministry? If we can’t let go, if we can’t trust others to be used by God, what does that say about our own reliance on God and belief that truly he is the one at work?

Paul knew his ministry wasn’t only to proclaim the gospel, but to pass it on, teaching it to others who would in turn pass it on again (2 Tim 2). His was a ministry of equipping others and of sharing the work of the gospel. We can learn this from Paul, and also learn boldness from Priscila and Aquila, and even learn humility from Apollos, as they create a great scene of laboring together for the glory of God.