So Maybe You Were A Jerk During The Election

Good afternoon folks. I want to thank you. I want to thank you each for the times you have chosen to overlook offenses throughout the past year, it has been to your honor and I am proud of you. Thank you the times you've avoided arguments over disputable matters (Rom 14:1), and have chosen not to judge your neighbor for his or her misdeeds, foul words, and misplaced votes. You have let your light shine (Matt 5:14).

You have also failed. You've been self-congratulatory (Rom 12:3). You've lost your temper (Eph 4:26). You've complained (Phil 2:14), served yourselves (Phil 2:3) and spoken thoughtlessly. You have judged your neighbors (Luke 6:37) and hated your enemies (Matt 5:44). Your limited goodness does not negate your misdeeds.

I'm right there with ya.  We're sinners living in a fallen world.  We mess up a lot, and our God is not amazed or surprised to that we fail and his love is so much greater than our failings.  Throughout our proud and pathetic moments God has remained and will remain good; his never fails (Ex 15:13). God goes to bat for us (1 John 2:1) and continues to guide our steps (Pro 16:9), answer our prayers (Jer 33:3) and cover over our sins. We've been busy for the past while, and life is about to get busy again. Take this comparatively calm moment to think clearly about how you've acted in the days leading up to yesterday's vote, and to understand beyond any shadow of doubt that in spite of anything you've said or done that here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners--of whom I am the worst (1 Tim 1:15).  Etch that saying in your heart and I'm confident you'll have a better chance of not being a jerk in 2016.

Earth's Mightiest Heroes

If you have ever had a hero, you have probably been disappointed by that hero.  History is full of admirable and brave people who sadly also committed abominable and embarrassing sins.  If you care to research them you can discover dark sins in the lives of history’s most noble figures that would make you cringe.  It has been popular, especially recently, to discuss and review these failings, which I think is excellent.  It is good to have an accurate picture of history because this gives us an accurate picture of ourselves, but it has also become popular to pass judgment on these figures and to discredit their good work because of their bad work.  This tendency needs to end.  When speaking of history, we speak of humans; all humans except one have sinned (Romans 3:23).

            As a child I was taught fanciful stories about Columbus, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, Martin Luther, Teddy Roosevelt, and Dr. King.  Latter, one by one, I learned that each of these larger-than-life titans had committed crimes against their neighbors.  Each one embarrassed their country, their cause, or their God.  I was crushed.  We long for incorruptible role models, but the fact remains that there is only one incorruptible.

            In scripture too the wisest and bravest failed.  The greatest kings and the wisest prophets lied, lost hope, committed murder, and sinned sexually.  It turns out: God can use anybody, and he often uses the weak so that he will get credit for the victories he gives them.

Fantasy Team of WWI Heroes By: Frederick Humbert

Challenge:

            Usually when we talk about the failings of the patriarchs we are challenged to remember and believe that God can use us in spite of what we’ve done.  Of course he can; however, I want to shift the focus from ourselves to our neighbors.  Please take a moment to remember someone whose behavior you despise; they may be a gossip, a tyrant, or a home wrecker.  Whatever you think of them, God looks at them and loves them exactly as he loves you.  Your sins, my sins, and their sins are all equally damnable, and Jesus Christ is equally willing and able to forgive each of us. 

Pray The Lord’s Prayer today, and as you reach, "Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors." take the opportunity today to forgive your enemies just as Christ forgave us when we were still his enemies.  God can use them as easily as he can use us.  We are all in his hand: equally unworthy and yet equally loved.

RE: Psalm 41 A Terminal Illness

What is sin like? Christianity has an abundance of symbolic words for sin: a wayward path, a stain, darkness. Most seem to explain why only Christ can remove our sin, and I think Psalm 41:3&4 can make a vital contribution to our medley of metaphor. The Psalmist called to God for merciful healing, because of his sin. His sin was referred to as an illness which needed healing.

Now some may argue that God punishes sin with disease, but personally I think it's foolhardy to blame an illness or calamity on God unless God has explicitly taken credit for the injury. Certain Christian figureheads like to talk about why God sends disease and disaster, and it embarrasses me every time. In scripture God did strike some people with punishing sickness, but others just got sick. Some were healed, and some were not. The only time we can tell which afflictions were punishments from God and which were not is when the Bible clearly delineates. Since the Bible does not say that God punishes such-and-such a sin with such-and-such an illness I'd just as soon take the Bible as is and not add anything to it. In any case the only illness of eternal importance is the illness of sin, and that is not a punishment; sin is self-inflicted.

Photo By: Beverly & Pack

Sin is our fault, and we are fully responsible for our own; at least, we were. Jesus, as you remember, did an awful lot of healing. He still heals, and most importantly he still heals that worst illness: sin. This is why the Psalmist called for mercy. We can call for mercy as well, with perfect confidence that Jesus Christ is the great physician who comes not to the healthy but to the sick. (Mark 2:17)

Jesus Came To Call . . . You?

He went out again beside the sea, and all the crowd was coming to him, and he was teaching them. And as he passed by, he saw Levi the son of Alphaeus sitting at the tax booth, and he said to him, “Follow me.” And he rose and followed him. And as he reclined at table in his house, many tax collectors and sinners were reclining with Jesus and his disciples, for there were many who followed him. And the scribes of the Pharisees, when they saw that he was eating with sinners and tax collectors, said to his disciples, “Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners?” And when Jesus heard it, he said to them, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.”

-Mark 2:13-17

Every culture likes to pick a couple sins to treat as different from other sins. In Jesus day “righteous” pharisees despised tax collectors, who were known to extort money. These same “righteous” Pharisees were known to steal money set aside to care for their aging parents. It seems absurd to treat one kind of stealing as different than another, but we still do this today. We treat one lust as different from another lust and one addiction as worse than another addiction. Jesus is not impressed with which sinners we decide to judge.

Challenge: Are you righteous or are you a sinner? Ask God to show you where you've judged others and ask forgiveness for doing so. May you always show others the same love and mercy you've been called to receive.

Jesus Heals A Man Born Blind

Read John 9:1-12

Have you ever looked your day in the face and asked yourself, “Why me?” Whatever it was that seemed like too much at the time, it probably doesn't compare to going through life blind. We all ask, “why me,” and Jesus, in front of everyone, asked why a man why he was born blind. This must have been embarrassing for the blind fellow, because it was widely believed that disabled people were disabled because of their sin. This blind guy wakes up each morning to go out begging, and if he asks, “why me” people will gladly tell him that he is blind because God is punishing him. Jesus thinks this way of viewing the world is absurd. Jesus knows we all have sinned and all deserve punishment, it's why he came, God isn't giving out diseases to certain people he hates as punishments; that just doesn't make sense. A blind man is blind for the same reason that another man can see, and that reason is the same reason that our world exists: to glorify God.

Challenge: Think about of something about yourself you aren't too proud of. Maybe you're slow, clumsy, or have weird teeth, but whatever it is I want you to praise God that you are exactly as you are. You are this way, at this time, in this place so that the work of God might be displayed in your life.

Parable Of A Lost Sheep - 3rd Tuesday In Lent

“What do you think? If a man owns a hundred sheep, and one of them wanders away, will he not leave the ninety-nine on the hills and go to look for the one that wandered off?  And if he finds it, truly I tell you, he is happier about that one sheep than about the ninety-nine that did not wander off.  In the same way your Father in heaven is not willing that any of these little ones should perish.”

-Matthew 18:12-14

    Imagine a scrappy young man with a black eye and scraped knees.  Imagine that this disinherited youth has felt the pangs of hunger, the shame of poverty, and knows what it is to have others look down their noses at him.  He knows what it is like to be hit by someone who hits just to feel strong.  This sort of young man, a person acquainted with abuse and suffering will sometimes gain an incredible drive to protect the weak.  Having known much pain, he will strive with all his being to save his loved ones from the pain he has known.
    This is what our savior is like.  The Anointed One, through whom all things were made, has an unparalleled relentless hero streak that is beyond human reckoning.  He is not interested in making a mere show of mercy, but is actually willing that none should perish.

Challenge:  Reflect on your rebellions against our merciful God.  Know that God does not remember those rebellions.  You are covered in Christ's blood, and there is no second death awaiting you.  Jesus Christ has sought you out and found you.  God rejoices over you.

RE: A Call To Conscience Chapter Three– Give Us The Ballot

“Our aim must never be to defeat or humiliate the white man. We must not become victimized with a philosophy of black supremacy. God is not interested merely in freeing black men and brown men and yellow men, but God is interested in freeing the whole human race. (Yes, All right) We must work with determination to create a society (Yes), not where black men are superior and other men are inferior and vice versa, but a society in which all men will live together as brothers (Yes) and respect the dignity and worth of human personality. (Yes)”

–­Give Us The Ballot, 1957 Martin Luther King Jr.

Each time I read from King’s speeches I am startled by the boldness with which he proclaims the gospel of Jesus Christ, the coming Kingdom of Heaven, and Jesus’ command to love and forgive our enemies without condition.  I’m convinced that the heart and action that King advocates isn’t possible to achieve by human striving alone.  Our striving to live as wise and righteous people is as filthy rags to God (Isaiah 64:6); instead we must be clothed in Jesus’ righteousness and filled with the Spirit of God himself.  Only when our actions are the overflow of  Jesus in us do we have any hope of acting in a way that will benefit our neighbors or bring glory to God (Romans 8:5).

Worst Sinner Ever - 1st Monday in Lent

“The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost.” -1 Timothy 1:15

I don't know about you, but I don't feel like I'm the worst of sinners. I mean there are some pretty bad dudes out there. There are people who steal, kill, and lie but Paul says we should each consider ourselves the worst of all sinners. The truth is if we start thinking we're better than other people then we miss out on understanding the vastness of God's love.

In Luke 7 Jesus is anointed by a “sinful” woman. He tells onlookers that she loves so much because she's been forgiven so much. He even goes so far as to say that whoever is forgiven little only loves little (Luke 7:47). Considering that, it's pretty good news that we are each the worst of sinners.

Challenge:
Consider your sin for a moment. Make no excuses. Allow yourself to feel the weight of them.

Now consider that the creator of the universe died to wash you clean of these sins. You are clean and those sins are no longer a part of you. Allow yourself to feel the lightness, relief and freedom of that comes with forgiveness.

Love much.

RE: Psalm 24

This psalm has changed my life. God has used it to confront me with the reality of my forgiveness. “If the son sets you free you will be free indeed” (John 8:36). God is done counting my sin against me; he has atoned for my failures (John 19:29). If your hope is in Christ than the same is true for you. There is nothing that can separate you from the love of God (Romans 8:38-39). You can stand on his holy hill because you have clean hands and a pure heart; Jesus has given them to you.

I Love Romans!

Romans is so very much my most favoritest book in the Bible because it is about me. I fall into guilt and shame when I consider the good person God created me to be and then consider the creature that I actually am. I'm not alone in this shame. Romans starts off by talking about how people, like me and like you, choose evil instead of good. We choose selfishness instead of charity; we steal, kill, lie, and hate senselessly and constantly. These behaviors hold their own punishments and, for a time, God lets people destroy themselves.

Romans starts with that darkest picture of human villainy so that it is as unsurprising as it is heartbreaking when it goes on to say that we cannot fulfill the righteousness that God requires.

The Son rises on Chapter 8. After Paul has a tantrum of self-loathing frustration in chapter 7 which concludes with a cry of despair at his own inability to act righteously or wisely; it turns out God knew our condition and decided that since we couldn't get holy then he would make us holy.

This gives a full picture of a holy God giving everything he is to salvage unholy humans. Which is a mind-trip in and of itself but he goes on to say that since God died for us when we were impossibly lost, now that we are redeemed we're not on some sort of probation; we didn't use up our last chance. God's infinite love is still there for us, the only difference is that it is now there for us: “his sons and daughters” instead of us: “his rebelling enemies” leaving us to guess and gasp at the question:

If The God of the universe loves so intensely that he died for his enemies, then what will he do for his sons?