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April 20, 2020

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Bible Stories, Faith & Hope, Fear & Doubt, God's Grace & Love, God's Plan, God's Promises, God's Word: The Bible, Trusting God

PROMISES MADE AND PROMISES KEPT

God is not a man, so he does not lie. He is not human, so he does not change his mind. Has he ever spoken and failed to act? Has he ever promised and not carried it through? [Numbers 23:19 (NLT)]

New England asterWith just 31,164 verses in the entire Bible, a Canadian schoolteacher named Everett R. Storms questioned claims that it held around 30,000 promises. During his 27th reading of the Bible in 1956, the inquisitive Mr. Storms compiled a list of all Scripture’s promises. Given that the books of prophecy are filled with promises (Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel have over 1,000 each) and the psalms are steeped in promises, no wonder it took 18 months to complete this massive task! When finished, Storms had recorded 8,810 promises: 7,487 of which were made by God to man and 290 by man to God. Other promises were made by one man to another, by God the Father to God the Son, by angels to people, by man to an angel, by an evil spirit, and by Satan (all nine of which were lies).

While we’d like to lay claim to all 7,487 promises made by God to man, we must be cautious. Many of those promises were made to a specific person or in a specific situation. Although God’s promise to Noah that floodwaters would never again kill all life and destroy the earth is a promise for all of mankind, His promises to Abraham of fame, land, a son, and countless descendants were specific to him. God has not failed us if, unlike Abraham, we are without fame, property or children.

Moreover, many of God’s promises have conditions that test our obedience, require our trust, or act as a warning and those promises can’t be claimed without meeting the conditions. God promises us the desires of our heart in Psalm 37 with the conditions that we delight ourselves in Him and His character, commit everything we do to Him, and trust in Him. [37:4-5] When the Apostle James writes of the blessings and “crown of life” promised by God, the conditions include perseverance through trials by those who love Him. [1:5] In Romans, we find God’s promise of the free gift of eternal life, but it includes a warning that the “wages of sin” are death! [6:23] Unlike a legal document, God’s promises aren’t concealed or hidden in legalese; if there are conditions, they are spelled out clearly and any consequences are well defined.

What of those 290 promises made by man to God? After God promised His blessings to Israel if they obeyed Him and kept His covenant, they responded: “We will do everything the Lord has commanded.” [Exodus 19:8] Sadly, their well-intentioned promise was repeatedly broken. As flawed mortals, we continue to be unable to live up to our promises to God. Fortunately, because He is a God of grace and true to His Word, we can live our lives depending upon His promises to us.

I can’t name the 7,487 promises God made to man. Nevertheless, during Lent, I compiled a far shorter list of verses with God’s promises to serve as an anchor of my faith. I know that He promises to give us wisdom if we ask, to provide a way out of temptation, and to finish the good work He began in us. He promises that our belief in Jesus gives us eternal life, that our salvation is secure, and that nothing can separate us from His love. God promises that He can turn every circumstance around for our long-range good, that He’ll never leave or forsake us, and that He will return! Without a doubt, what God promises will come true!

So God has given both his promise and his oath. These two things are unchangeable because it is impossible for God to lie. Therefore, we who have fled to him for refuge can have great confidence as we hold to the hope that lies before us. [Hebrews 6:18 (NLT)]

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April 17, 2020

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Church & Worship, Knowing Him, Sharing Our Faith, Thanks & Praise, Today: Make it Count

THE OPEN DOOR

There is no longer Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male and female. For you are all one in Christ Jesus. [Galatians 3:28 (NLT)]

weggis - switzerland - mudslide chapel

When this pandemic first began, many thought of it as a Chinese virus. We now realize it’s not a Chinese, Italian, or even a New York thing; it’s affecting everyone everywhere, if not directly then indirectly. Lockdowns, quarantines, social distancing, face masks, make-shift hospitals and morgues, silent streets, shortages, closed churches, along with shuttered stores, schools and businesses and the financial fallout from those closures: these have altered the lives people across the globe. COVID-19 is no respecter of borders; as of yesterday, the number of confirmed cases was more than two million in at least 177 different countries.

Acknowledging that there is nothing typical about church during this pandemic, we didn’t air a typical church service on Palm Sunday. Instead, we chose to host a global celebration of our global Savior and offered messages and music from Britain, Ireland, Scotland, India, South Africa, South Korea, China, and Cuba, along with words and music from across the U.S. As I watched an Englishwoman recite a poem about prayer, witnessed a couple raise their voices in praise from a rooftop in a strangely silent Havana, joined a family as they sang from their living room in India, and shed a tear while a South Korean violinist played Ave Maria in an empty room, I realized how much this pandemic has brought us together across the world.

As beautiful and inspiring as were Palm Sunday’s musical offerings, I was touched most by the words of a man in China who thanked our church for its free App. His words reminded me that Jesus can be as contagious as COVID and that faith, hope and love can cross borders as easy as a virus. Coronavirus reminds us that, rather than an isolated community, we are part of a global community. We are not one church or one denomination; we are not Protestant, Roman Catholic, or Orthodox. We are one Church—the global Christian Church—and we follow one Savior—Jesus Christ!

While unable to attend church, we can continue being the Church and our congregation is larger than we think! My church has fewer than 70 people but in their first 24-hours, our Palm Sunday service was seen by over 5,700 people and our Easter one by over 7,800 (with over 80% of those views out of the U.S.!) Just as borders can’t stop COVID-19, they can’t stop Jesus. Let us thank God that today’s technology allows us to reach much further than we ever thought possible.

Alexander Graham Bell said, “When one door closes, another opens.” The rest of his quotation is, ”But we often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door that we do not see the one which has opened for us.” Lament over the closed doors to our churches must not blind us to the digital door that has opened. Imagine the possibilities if, instead of being a single church or denomination, we acted as one family and all of Christ’s followers reached out virtually to join hands with the rest of the world. We serve a global Savior; indeed, in Christ there is no east or west!

In Christ there is no east or west, In him no south or north,
But one great fam’ly bound by love Throughout the whole wide earth.
In him shall true hearts ev’rywhere Their high communion find;
His service is the golden cord Close binding humankind.
In Christ now meet both east and west, In him meet south and north,
All Christly souls are one in him Throughout the whole wide earth.
[John Oxenham (1908)]

Make every effort to keep yourselves united in the Spirit, binding yourselves together with peace. For there is one body and one Spirit, just as you have been called to one glorious hope for the future. There is one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all, in all, and living through all. [Ephesians 4:3-6 (NLT)]

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April 16, 2020

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Attitudes & Behavior, Challenges & Difficulty, Faith & Hope, Family, Friends & Fellowship, Joy, Patience & Perseverance, Today: Make it Count

CATALOG OF JOY

Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth! Serve the Lord with gladness! Come into his presence with singing! Know that the Lord, he is God! It is he who made us, and we are his; we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture. [Psalm 100:1-2 (ESV)]

The surest mark of a Christian is not faith, or even love, but joy.[ Samuel M. Shoemaker]

great blue heronWhen we retired, we joked that our pill boxes were the only way we knew the day of the week. Now that we’re sheltering in place, that is more true than funny. For young and old alike, the days are blending one into the other with the only difference between yesterday and today being the news (which just seems to gets worse).

While COVID-19 is an enemy lurking at our door, chances are another enemy has already entered our lives: common garden variety depression—what I call the glums and gloomies. As the days wear on, it’s harder to see the bright side of life. Built for community, we now live in a world where kisses are weapons and we show our love by staying away from one another! Instead of hoarding toilet paper and bleach wipes, we wish we’d stockpiled hugs. We’d happily trade a bottle of hand sanitizer just to cuddle with a grand for a minute or shake a friend’s hand.

This prolonged isolation reminds me of a winter spent at our mountain home back in 1997. Having broken my knee the first day on the slopes, my mobility was severely limited. In spite of having hung up my skis for the season, I maintained good spirits until my husband and son departed for two weeks on business. Although they left me well stocked with food and a stack of library books, it was just me, my crutches, and the four walls for the duration and the glums and gloomies descended in full force. In one of those beautiful God-incidences, I happened upon an Oprah show about keeping a gratitude journal. Since my days were all the same, writing down five things for which I was grateful every day was a challenge at first. But, once I started, it got easier as I found joy in little everyday things: seeing a cardinal on the back deck, getting a phone call, reading a good book, or sipping cocoa by the fire on a snowy night! That gratitude journal was my life-line to sanity (and continues to be one today) because it moved my focus from me and my misery to God and His goodness.

When the glums and gloomies visited one of my friends fourteen years ago, she made a list of the things that gave her joy and ended up with about fifty things—none of which cost money. As with my gratitude journal, her entries weren’t deep spiritual thoughts: just simple things like hearing her little grand’s giggle, balancing her checkbook on the first try, or seeing her golf ball miss the water hazard. Although she’s made a few revisions and additions to the list through the years, she still pulls out her catalog of joy whenever she feels depression knocking at her door! I imagine she’s been looking at it a lot nowadays.

It’s easy to be grateful when life is good but, when life takes a downhill slide into discouragement or despair, gratitude doesn’t come naturally—certainly not easily. Nevertheless, it’s worth the effort. Even though the world has gone topsy turvy, we can be thankful because our sovereign God, a God who loves and cherishes us, is firmly in control. We can be thankful that, even though we are apart from one another, we are not alone; we are united in Christ with other believers. We can be thankful because we have the hope given to us by Jesus. We may not feel grateful for all that has occurred but we can be grateful by choosing to look beyond our circumstances. We don’t have to be thankful for this pandemic but we can practice being thankful in the midst of it.

Between the horror of this pandemic and the sameness of our days, we must be intentional about gratitude and joy and open our eyes to God’s many blessings. An attitude of gratitude, even in our trials, is what distinguishes us as Christians. What would you write in a gratitude journal today? What would be in your catalog of joy?

The Christian who walks with the Lord and keeps constant communion with Him will see many reason for rejoicing and thanksgiving all day long.[Warren Wiersbe]

Enter his gates with thanksgiving, and his courts with praise! Give thanks to him; bless his name! For the Lord is good; his steadfast love endures forever, and his faithfulness to all generations.  [Psalm 100:4-5 (NLT)]

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April 15, 2020

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Attitudes & Behavior, Fruit of the Spirit, Holy Spirit, Joy, Love & Works, Salvation: A New You, Sharing Our Faith

REFLECTING HIS LIGHT

You are the light of the world—like a city on a hilltop that cannot be hidden. No one lights a lamp and then puts it under a basket. Instead, a lamp is placed on a stand, where it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your good deeds shine out for all to see, so that everyone will praise your heavenly Father. [Matthew 5:14-16 (NLT)] 

super moonDid you happen to see the full moon last week? It was considered a super moon because it came within 90% of the moon’s closest approach to earth. Its nearness (221,772 miles) made it appear about 7% larger and much brighter than a typical full moon. When I saw its brilliance through the window, I stepped out on the lanai to view the glowing orb in the sky. Don’t be disappointed if you missed it, there will be another one, nearly as bright, on May 7!

Saying I saw the moon’s bright light is misleading—the moon itself has no light and doesn’t glow. It simply borrows its light from the sun and reflects it down to us as would a mirror. With the moon’s dark grey surface and bumpy landscape, it’s a poor mirror and only reflects between three and twelve percent of the sun’s light. Even that little bit, however, was enough to brightly light our lanai that night.

Even if the moon were perfectly white, it still wouldn’t appear as bright as the sun because the light would reflect off in all directions instead of straight back to us. Astronomer Roger Sinnott of Sky & Telescope theorizes that, in order to appear as bright as the sun, the moon would need a 2,160 mile-wide flat mirror to directly reflect the sun’s light back toward us on earth.

In Matthew 5, Jesus tells us to let our lights shine so that people see our good deeds. Even if we shine as brightly as the full moon, like the moon, that light isn’t ours; it is God’s Holy Spirit within us and we’re not the ones who should get the credit. Let us never forget that our good deeds are done not to enhance our reputations but rather to glorify our Father in Heaven. It’s His light that is seen and not ours. When people experience our love, compassion, forgiveness, gentleness, joy, peace, patience, thoughtfulness, integrity, faithfulness, and self-control, they see God’s beautiful light.

As Christ’s followers, we are to let God’s glory reflect through us. We may not be able to light up a lanai like the moon but we can bring His light to the world around us. Moreover, even without an enormous flat mirror, I think we could do better than the moon’s paltry three to twelve percent when it comes to reflecting God’s glory in our lives!

Poor world! What a faint light it receives from most Christians! The lighthouse, if its light is not burning is a peril instead of a safeguard. [Matthew Henry]

Make sure that the light you think you have is not actually darkness. If you are filled with light, with no dark corners, then your whole life will be radiant, as though a floodlight were filling you with light.” [Luke 11:35-36 (NLT)]

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April 14, 2020

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Attitudes & Behavior, Bible Stories, Fruit of the Spirit, Holidays & Holy Days, Holy Spirit, Knowing Him, Obedience, Sharing Our Faith

CRUCIFIED WITH HIM

I have been crucified with the Anointed One—I am no longer alive—but the Anointed is living in me; and whatever life I have left in this failing body I live by the faithfulness of God’s Son, the One who loves me and gave His body on the cross for me. [Galatians 5:20 (VOICE)]

Our Lady Cathedral - Antwerp

The Apostle Paul wrote that he joined Christ in both death and resurrection. His old sinful life had been crucified with Christ and he now shared in Christ’s resurrected life. When Jesus came to live in him, Paul didn’t become a mindless automaton and their spiritual union didn’t cause the tent-maker to lose his uniqueness or personality. He was still Paul. By dying to sin and adding the characteristics of Christ to his heart and mind, however, the Apostle was a new and far better version of himself. He was still the same brilliant and well-educated man, skilled in making an argument or proving a point, who had set out for Damascus. But, by joining Christ in His resurrection, this single-minded Pharisee became entirely devoted to Jesus. Undeterred by persecution, he was faithful, patient, humble, courageous, filled with the Fruit of the Spirit, and passionate about passing along the gospel message. Indeed, Christ lived in him.

When Jesus met Paul on the road to Damascus, He changed Paul from a persecutor of Christians into a lover of Christ and His followers. While we probably didn’t experience a conversion as dramatic as Paul’s, when we accepted Christ, we also died to our old selves. Have we experienced that same spiritual death and resurrection described by the Apostle? Does Christ live in us or is He just an occasional guest, invited only on special occasions or when we feel like having company? Does He live in us or is He simply the cleaning service we call when there’s a mess we can’t clean by ourselves? Does He live in us or is He like a salesman who needs an appointment before calling? Does He live in us or is He just a kind-hearted acquaintance, welcome only when He has something we need or want?  Does He live in us or is He a renter whose lease will be terminated the moment we feel inconvenienced? If we say Christ lives in us, can anyone see Him there or do we hide Him behind a wall of self-righteousness? Are our words the words Christ would say? Are our actions His actions? Are our thoughts His thoughts? Can we honestly echo the Apostle Paul’s words?

Last Sunday, we celebrated the resurrection of Christ. Have we been resurrected with Him? Does He truly live in us? If not, then we haven’t yet been crucified with Him.

Therefore, if anyone is united with the Anointed One, that person is a new creation. The old life is gone—and see—a new life has begun! [2 Corinthians 5:17 (VOICE)]

Those of us who belong to the Anointed One have crucified our old lives and put to death the flesh and all the lusts and desires that plague us. Now since we have chosen to walk with the Spirit, let’s keep each step in perfect sync with God’s Spirit. This will happen when we set aside our self-interests and work together to create true community instead of a culture consumed by provocation, pride, and envy. [Galatians 5:24-26 (VOICE)]

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April 13, 2020

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Bible Stories, God's Grace & Love, God's Plan, Holidays & Holy Days, Miracles, Salvation: A New You

HE DIDN’T HAVE TO TAKE IT! – Easter Monday

When the devil had finished tempting Jesus, he left him until the next opportunity came. [Luke 4:13 (NLT)]

penitente morada Abiquiui NMWhen asked about the temptation of Christ, we probably think of Satan’s three temptations in the wilderness. Since the gospels don’t mention other specific temptations, it’s easy to think that Jesus, unlike the rest of us, was only tempted three times. “He left him until the next opportunity came,” wrote Luke and, while reading the four gospel accounts of the crucifixion during Holy Week, I know He had to have been sorely tempted that awful last day. Right up to the end, Satan must have been at His side, whispering into his ear and reminding Him that He didn’t have to take the abuse—after all, He was God!

Satan just was warming up with his temptations during Christ’s forty days in the wilderness. When Jesus prayed so hard He sweat blood in Gethsemane, that wasn’t because He was afraid to suffer and die. That was Jesus resisting Satan as the enemy made false promises, cast doubt on His mission, and tried to keep Him from the cross.

I can’t believe Satan went down without a fight and it was in the hours following Jesus’s arrest that he must have made a determined last ditch effort to thwart God’s plan of salvation. It may have been a man’s body suffering the unspeakable abuse that horrifying Friday but, inside the bruised and bloody flesh, it was God! He’d fed a multitude with a few scraps, turned water into wine, cast out demons, healed lepers, and stilled a storm. Jesus didn’t lose His power when He was arrested; He deliberately chose not to use it!

When Jesus was wrongly accused and false witnesses testified before the high court, when the people who’d hailed Him just a few days earlier called to crucify him, or when the crowd ridiculed Him as His tortured body hung on the cross, could the One capable of giving hearing to the deaf been tempted to strike them all mute? Jesus was there when an angel of the Lord killed 185,000 Assyrian soldiers outside of Jerusalem’s walls. As He was being spit on, slapped, beaten with fists, hit on the head with a reed stick, flogged with a lead-tipped whip, and mocked with a crown of sharp thorns, surely Satan invited Jesus to do something similar to His taunters and abusers. Could the One who gave sight to the blind have been tempted to take away the sight of the soldiers as they gambled for his robe or knelt in mock worship? As they nailed His hands to the cross, could the One who’d cast demons into swine been tempted to kill the men who were torturing Him? Jesus was God. He existed before time, space, matter and energy began and, up to His very last breath, the One who could walk on water could have freed Himself, stepped off that cross, healed his wounds, and destroyed every last one of the soldiers and onlookers with just a thought. But, He didn’t!

Perhaps it was my familiarity with the crucifixion story (and the fact that I know the good news that follows) but I don’t think I truly grasped the anguish of Christ until I read all four gospel accounts in one sitting. I knew He suffered a gruesome tortuous death but I didn’t see how tempting it would have been for Him not to do so! Perhaps resisting the temptation to quit and punish His abusers was even harder than enduring the pain of the cross.

How long would you hold your hand over a burning flame when all you had to do was pull it out of the fire? Would you do it for people who reviled and berated you? Jesus didn’t have to suffer and die for us; He chose to do so out of love. I, for one, can’t comprehend a love that great! Thank you, Jesus!

He personally carried our sins in his body on the cross so that we can be dead to sin and live for what is right. By his wounds you are healed. [1 Peter 2:24 (NLT)]

Now, most people would not be willing to die for an upright person, though someone might perhaps be willing to die for a person who is especially good. But God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners. [Romans 5:7-8 (NLT)]

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