Category Archives: Poiema
Blog posts here were inspired or include quotes from St. Josemaria Escriva.
I can’t do this! (God says, “Here, I will hold your beer”)
Devotional Thought of the Day:
12 My dear friends, you always obeyed when I was with you. Now that I am away, you should obey even more. So work with fear and trembling to discover what it really means to be saved. 13 God is working in you to make you willing and able to obey him. 14 Do everything without grumbling or arguing. 15 Then you will be the pure and innocent children of God. You live among people who are crooked and evil, but you must not do anything that they can say is wrong. Try to shine as lights among the people of this world, 16 as you hold firmly to the message that gives life. Philippians 2:12-16 (CEV)
That false humility is laziness. Such a “humbleness” leads you to give up rights that really are duties.
I could come up with 1000 parables about this, the Marine Recruit who doesn’t think he can climb the wall, the student who doesn’t think they can handle algebra, the new employee who is convinced they can’t do the job on their own, the pastor who…
O wait, I can’t make this too personal.
I can’t direct it towards me, after all, I am nobody.
( I say this, despite reading Exodus for the last couple of weeks… )
St. Josemaria’s words cut me deeply, as I think of all the things I claim I can’t do. After all, I have a load of ready-made excuses. Genetic ones, you know, the kind I don’t want pity for, but heck, I will take a lesser burden if you want to help a poor guy out. And then there is this lack and that lack. And then there is the fact that I am a sinner. I obviously cannot do this. A man has got to know his limitations, at least what the theologian Clint Eastwood said. And I know mine, and I am not capable. I know this.
In fact, I don’t know that.
But is my focus on my inability a sign of laziness? If not, what if I am just afraid of what God might require?
Either is a possibility if I am honest.
For what I forget when I do my self-evaluation is the work God is doing in my life, and in yours. God has saved us, and we need to realize that means we are changing. That we can listen to God and hear His vision, what He wants us to do, whom to forgive, whom to love, who to reach out to, in sharing that love.
He gives us even, the desire and the ability to do what pleases Him, what He has created us to do, what He has called us to do, what the Holy Spirit has equipped us to do.
Maybe it is time to stop procrastinating, stop finding excuses, and simply let God lead us, as He builds His Church.
Lord God, Heavenly Father, remind us that You are the potter, that even as Jesus obeyed and went to the cross we can bear our crosses with the joy You have set before us, knowing that You will be with us all the way! Thank you Lord for not giving up, but calling us and working in us, giving us the desire and ability to be Your faithful children. AMEN!
Escriva, Josemaria. The Way . Scepter Publishers. Kindle Edition.
Luther, what are you talking about? Don’t seek heaven? HUH???
Photo by Wouter de Jong on Pexels.com
Devotional Thought for our Day:
8 I also want them to build a special place where I can live among my people. Ex. 25:8
19 Don’t stay far away, LORD! My strength comes from you, so hurry and help! Psalm 22:19 CEV
Our life should not be directed toward our own advantage, not even to our salvation or any blessing, whether temporal or eternal, unless all of this ultimately leads to God’s honor and praise.
The fact that God permits physical and even moral evil is a mystery that God illuminates by his Son Jesus Christ who died and rose to vanquish evil. Faith gives us the certainty that God would not permit an evil if he did not cause a good to come from that very evil, by ways that we shall fully know only in eternal life.
579 Faith. It’s a pity to see how frequently many Christians have it on their lips and yet how sparingly they put it into their actions. You would think it a virtue to be preached only, and not one to be practiced.
As I was doing my devotional reading this morning, I first came across the reading from Luther, and I was stung by the idea that my life shouldn’t be focused on the advantage I have for how I will spend eternity.
After all, isn’t that why we are Christians so that we don’t end up in hell?
Isn’t that reward what we are after?
And then I came up against the question of evil, and the answer that I know to be true, but it does not, in any means, satisfy my questions. Nice job explaining the theology, but where is the comfort I need, when dealing with this broken world?
St. Josemaria brings the lesson home for me, as he reminds me that faith in God is not supposed to be just preached, but something that only exists when practiced. I can talk all I want about depending on God, about believing He is there, about trusting in His provision and protection, but I have to do so, if my words are going to be anything. If I don’t actually believe, if I don’t put my trust in God and what He has promised, all the theological discourses mean nothing.
I have to realize the truth of Exodus 25, that God wants a place to dwell with us, that He wants to have a part (a major part) in our lives, both now and eternally. That is why I don’t seek heaven for my sake, heaven’s promise is worthless except for one thing, we will be with God. That is faith, that is depending, not just on the promises of no more tears and no more sorrow, but that He will be ours, and we His. That is what He glories in, that is what is His mission, that is why all that was created, was created.
It works in the reading from Psalm 29, in the midst of the pain, David doesn’t seek relief, he seeks the presence of God. For knowing God is here, endurance is no longer the question, nor is the suffering. Evil, with all of its ability to crush us, and sin’s power to torment, and the questions both raise, fall aside when we are exploring the breadth and width, the depth and height of God’s love, revealed in Christ Jesus.
Heaven? Angels, and streets of God? Earth? Troubles and tribulations?
Does either matter, is either noticeable when we are dancing with God?
I think this is what the greatest of the faithful have realized. Not their own might or own strength did they endure. They simply knew He was with them.
Lord, help us to realize You are with us… and help us to desire You more than anything else… AMEN!
Martin Luther, Luther’s Works, Vol. 42: Devotional Writings I, ed. Jaroslav Jan Pelikan, Hilton C. Oswald, and Helmut T. Lehmann, vol. 42 (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1999), 36.
Catholic Church, Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2nd Ed. (Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 1997), 84.
Escriva, Josemaria. The Way . Scepter Publishers. Kindle Edition.
All things possible for those who believe…. believe what exactly?
Devotional Thought for the Day:
24 The servant who had been given one thousand coins then came in and said, “Sir, I know that you are hard to get along with. You harvest what you don’t plant and gather crops where you haven’t scattered seed. 25 I was frightened and went out and hid your money in the ground. Here is every single coin!”
26 The master of the servant told him, “You are lazy and good-for-nothing! You know that I harvest what I don’t plant and gather crops where I haven’t scattered seed. 27 You could have at least put my money in the bank, so that I could have earned interest on it.”
28 Then the master said, “Now your money will be taken away and given to the servant with ten thousand coins! †29 Everyone who has something will be given more, and they will have more than enough. But everything will be taken from those who don’t have anything. 30 You are a worthless servant, and you will be thrown out into the dark where people will cry and grit their teeth in pain.” Mt 25:24-30 CEV
Omnia possibilia sunt credenti—“All things are possible for him who believes.” The words are Christ’s. How is it that you don’t say to him with the Apostles: Adauge nobis fidem!—“Increase my faith!”
St Josemaria quotes Jesus, all things are possible, and before we consider the rest of the context our mind is spinning with the possibilities. A home, good friends, a job that is fulfilling, a cure for cancer. Okay, perhaps a moment thinking about winning the lottery or moving to Tahiti (or in my case Ossipee, N.H.) I would want to believe that most of us would use our superpowers for good, and for the good of others, those whom we care about.
But if we take these words of Jesus, and apply them in his parable of the three servants, I wonder how we stand. Are we using what God has entrusted with, specifically in regards to all things being possible, for the greatest possible miracles? Are we depending on His promise to do what people say can’t be done?
And what is that, exactly? What would have the greatest return, given what God has invested in us?
Most of us don’t have God giving us 10,000 or even 1000 gold pieces to create more revenue by investing wisely. But what God gives us to invest is Himself, His love, His mercy, His comfort, the revelation that we dwell in His presence.
How will we use these things, how will we invest them, knowing that all things are possible?
Will we simply sit back, content in our own redemption? We we live a life that is safe, that doesn’t risk what we have? Or will we take a risk, will we try and reach out to those who need to know the mercy and love we have been given? Do we play it safe with the mysteries of God, or do we invest it, knowing that God will amaze us as He redeems and reconciles and heals people?
Wouldn’t the greatest return on investment be the relationship that seemed the least likely to be reconciled? Isn’t that the message of the cross – the worst of wretches (you and I ) given a new life… and the promise of being with Jesus… forever!
As I write this, I can feel some people getting a bit defensive, or wondering whether this is an attempt to motivate you to share your faith, to reach out to your adversaries, using guilt or fear.
Oddly enough, it was that fear and guilt that paralyzed the worthless servant.
The other servants, well they knew a different master, the Master who entrusted to them His treasure so that they could invest it. It is the heart of the very gospel to realize the love of God which would love us, and empower us to share that love with those who are broken. They trusted the Master, more than they trusted themselves, and if He believed in them, He would care for them, and make it work
So who will you invest God’s treasure in today, knowing the return is not up to but rather guaranteed by scripture…..
Lord, increase our faith… in You! And help us invest Your treasure in others! AMEN!
Escriva, Josemaria. The Way . Scepter Publishers. Kindle Edition.
Please! Stop Trying to Be Holy!
Devotional Thoughts for the Day
Then Jesus told them, “Give the Emperor what belongs to him and give God what belongs to God.” CEV Matthew 22:21
See, now you understand the meaning of the term “to hallow” and “holy.” It is nothing else than withdrawing something from misuse and dedicating it to its proper godly use, just as a church is dedicated and appointed solely to the service of God. In like manner we must be hallowed in our whole life, leaving nothing but the name of God to dwell in us, in other words, nothing but kindness, truth, justice, etc. Hence the name of God is hallowed or profaned not only with our lips but also with our soul and all the members of our body.
Second, God’s name is defiled by robbing and thieving. Although wise men will at once understand what I mean, it will be too subtle for the simpleminded, since we are here referring to the arrogant ones who regard themselves as righteous and holy and do not feel that they are profaning the name of God as those in the aforementioned group do. While they dub themselves righteous and holy and truthful, they freely and fearlessly pilfer and purloin God’s name
551 Flee from routine as from the devil himself. The great means to avoid falling into that abyss, the grave of true piety, is the constant presence of God.
As I read the words Luther wrote nearly 500 years ago, I knew I had to write on the first paragraph, and what holiness/perfection truly is. I’ve mentioned this before, but it cannot be spoken about enough. We hear, “44 I am the LORD your God, and you must dedicate yourselves to me and be holy, just as I am holy. (Leviticus 11:44 (CEV)) and we get to work, trying our damndest to become what we think holy means, or when we fail, working equally hard to maintain the illusion of holiness.
It is the latter action that leads us to be convicted of robbery, trying to steal what is not ours. We profane God’s name, Luther writes, when we pretend to be something we are not when we put up the charade that we are perfect, that we are righteous, that we are holy. For not only do we not understand holiness, but we also take the responsibility that is God’s alone when we declare we are. What a scam the devil has laid upon us, to get us to think that we determine whether or not we are righteous, and others are not! Falling for it, we try to determine what is good and what is evil, unaware of our own spiritual blindness.
Holiness is as simple as what Luther notes, taking something misused and redirecting it towards its purpose. Whether it is God’s name, no longer used to swear, condemn or falsely justify ourselves and others, or whether it is our lives, created in His image in order to spend time with Him. This is the truth that St. Josemaria talks of, in regards to being pious and holy, the key is simple. Being constantly in the presence of God. Finding out that we are int he presence of a loving, merciful, gentle God who will gently (and firmly) heal our brokenness.
Stop trying to be righteous, stop putting on an act that presents you as holy and perfect. Instead, spend time talking to God, letting Him do the work that only He can do. Look to Him, focus on His love, spending as much time aware of His presence as you can.
Holiness will be taken care of, He promises.
Martin Luther, Luther’s Works, Vol. 42: Devotional Writings I, ed. Jaroslav Jan Pelikan, Hilton C. Oswald, and Helmut T. Lehmann, vol. 42 (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1999), 29.
Escriva, Josemaria. The Way . Scepter Publishers. Kindle Edition.
A Reason To Worship… The Parable of the Full Trash Can
Photo by Lisa Fotios on Pexels.com
Devotional Thought of the Day:
10 For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago. Ephesians 2:10 (NLT2)
20 But you have learned nothing like that from Christ, if you have really heard his voice and understood the truth that he has taught you. No, what you learned was to fling off the dirty clothes of the old way of living, which were rotted through and through with lust’s illusions, and, with yourselves mentally and spiritually re-made, to put on the clean fresh clothes of the new life which was made by God’s design for righteousness and the holiness which is no illusion. Ephesians 4:20 (Phillips NT)
592 Don’t forget that you are just a trash can. So if by any chance the divine gardener should lay his hands on you, and scrub and clean you, and fill you with magnificent flowers, neither the scent nor the colors that beautify your ugliness should make you proud. Humble yourself: don’t you know that you are a trash can?
It seems counter-intuitive, that God relies on us ot do the work that builds His Kingdom, but that we should not take pride in a “job well-done.” We struggle against sin, we try to serve our neighbor, we give of our time talent and treasure, shouldn’t we get a pat on the back? Can’t we take pride in an effort that took our all and more?
To that St. Josemaria’s words seem like a cold, harsh shower. A trash can? Can’t we be considered a little nicer than that? Yes, what God pours into us (and what He removes from us) makes all the difference in our lives.
We need to think this through, we need to meditate on what God is doing and has done to our life. Not only how he cleans us up (justification – Eph. 2:8-9) but how he then plants in us something beautiful, and sweet-smelling. Even the things we think we’ve buried so deep and hidden get cleaned out and replaced with things that alive, growing, beautiful.
You see, that is what is at the core of worship. The awe that comes in realizing what God has done, how He has cleansed us, how He has empowered us, how He sends us into the communities to reflect His beauty and glory into a world that has become content with brokenness.
What an amazing thing God has done, in the life of each the Holy Spirit has brought home!!! What He has done is no illusion, it is the work of the Holy Spirit.
Escriva, Josemaria. The Way . Scepter Publishers. Kindle Edition.
“we”
Devotional Thought of the Day:
22 So let’s come near God with pure hearts and a confidence that comes from having faith. Let’s keep our hearts pure, our consciences free from evil, and our bodies washed with clean water. 23 We must hold tightly to the hope that we say is ours. After all, we can trust the one who made the agreement with us. 24 We should keep on encouraging each other to be thoughtful and to do helpful things. 25 Some people have gotten out of the habit of meeting for worship, but we must not do that. We should keep on encouraging each other, especially since you know that the day of the Lord’s coming is getting closer. Heb 10:25
544 The Communion of the Saints. How shall I explain it to you? You know what blood transfusions can do for the body? Well, that’s what the Communion of the Saints does for the soul.
There is a challenge today that the church needs to embrace.
One that describes us as the author of Hebrews does, in the third person plural. “Our,” “We”, “You” (the plural kind not singular.) these are words we need to restore to practice in the church.
Our faith is not an individualistic faith, it is always a corporate sharing of pain and sorrow, a sharing of joy and wonder at the grace of God.
That is why St Josemaria pictures it as an infusion of life as the Blood that is shared covers our sins as it brings life to us as a community, as a body, as the Body of Christ. For when a person is weak in their faith, the faith of the community lifts them up, comforting them and reminding them of the presence of God.
Without that infusion, life takes its toll, draining us of energy and the ability to depend on God. Without hearing others say the Lord is with you, without knowing that they are praying for you, we battle with the idea that the battle is ours, that we are alone. We need that input, we need the comfort and the encouragement we receive through the church, broken as she may appear.
“We” are the church, the people of God whom He ministers to through His word and the Sacraments. We need to be her…together.
Escriva, Josemaria. The Way . Scepter Publishers. Kindle Edition.
When A Christian’s Experience is More Important than Knowledge
Devotional Thought of the Day:
5 I trust your love, and I feel like celebrating because you rescued me. 6 You have been good to me, LORD, and I will sing about you.
Psalm 13:5-6 (CEV)
O children of God, seek after a vital experience of the Lord’s lovingkindness, and when you have it, speak positively of it; sing gratefully; shout triumphantly.
548 If you feel the Communion of the Saints—if you live it—you’ll gladly be a man of penance. And you will realize that penance is gaudium etsi laboriosum—“joy in spite of hardship,” and you will feel yourself “allied” to all the penitent souls that have been, that are, and that ever will be.
I grew up among a generation that was told not to focus on experiences, not to trust our feelings. to only focus on a logical, rational presentation of Christianity.
I’ve also seen the other extreme in my youth, where people chased after religious experiences, who wanted to feel the positive vibes that come when experiencing the supernatural, I think those excesses of the late 60’s and 70’s led to the pendulum swing of the 80’s and into the new millenium.
Both sides treat the other side with suspicion, both sides blame the other for the death or at least the hospice status of the church. ANd both try to convince me and others that their focus is the best and only hope, relying not on God for the growth of the church, but on man’s wisdom, and man’s ability to create the right… environment… that will bring about revival.
While I think both are wrong, and grow weary of both, I do think think that a sign of revival is an experience, Not one of great passion, not one of great signs and wonders.
Instead a humbling experience, one that touches the depth of our brokenness, and leaves us tired, exhausted, and in awe of what we’ve encountered… the grace of God.
That is what Spurgeon is talking about with the term loving kindness. cHesed in Hebrew, it is that experience of the merciful love of God that comes to us in our brokenness, in the depth our our sin, when we are with hope, and dries our tears and whispers to us that we are forgiven, that we are being healed, and restored.
That is what Escriva is talking about with the joy in the midst of hardship, the experience that causes us, in the future when we sin again, to pray for repentance and restoration with confidence,
It is the quiet celebration of the Psalmist, who though he believed there was no hope, found that hope in the middle of despair.
We aren’t talking about seeing a miracle that leaves everyone applauding like a Superbowl victory, (Well heaven parties like that) but one that leaves us like the feeling, having worked all night, to see the break of dawn…knowing that peace and rest is near… yet struggling to believe it.
We have to experience this healing, we can’t just “know” it happened once. We need to struggle with it, to ask, ‘could God have really loved me this much, and then be assured, by scripture and by the sacraments, yes, He does.
THis experience is contagious, it sweeps communities and nations, it changes individuals and countries, it changes the church, which welcomes sinners home with confidence, expecting to see the miracle again that reminds us of our miracle…. as we share in something that leaves us… awe doesn’t seem strong enough a word.
This experience can’t be manipulated, it is not subject to our feelings or our knowledge. It is the work of the Holy Spirit, drawing us, even dragging us to the foot of the cross, helping us see we belong there, nailed to the cross, sharing in Christ’s death, and wondering why we are even allowed near Him. And then coming to the realization that because we died with Him, we rise from the dead with Him.
That’s not head knowledge, that is life…and that life has to be lived….
Heavenly Father, help us to see the Holy Spirit’s work in our lives, drawing us to the cross, uniting us to His death and resurrection. Help us to see this, not as observers, but from actually experiencing the reality of the SPirit’s work. In Jesus name we pray, AMEN!
C. H. Spurgeon, Morning and Evening: Daily Readings (London: Passmore & Alabaster, 1896).
Escriva, Josemaria. The Way (Kindle Locations 1322-1325). Scepter Publishers. Kindle Edition.
The Cost of Being an “Institutional” Church Member
Devotional Thought of the Day
28 And that’s not the half of it, when you throw in the daily pressures and anxieties of all the churches. 29 When someone gets to the end of his rope, I feel the desperation in my bones. When someone is duped into sin, an angry fire burns in my gut. 2 Corinthians 11:28-29 (MSG)
519 Serviam!—“I will serve!” That cry is your determination to serve the Church of God faithfully, even at the cost of fortune, of honor and of life.
Were they to take our house
Goods honor child or spouse
Though life be wrenched away
They cannot win the day
The Kingdom’s ours forever
(From “A mighty Fortress is our God” by Martin Luther)
Yesterday, after a memorial service, one of the people there asked me how I can be there for people in times where the emotional pain is so evident, so dominating, so crushing. I shared one or two of my secrets, and the irony(?) that I have discovered, the more I can embrace their pain with them, the more I can laugh when they laugh and cry when they cry, the more that I see God at work, comforting them.
Funerals and weddings are not the hard part of ministry, nor are the other times when a pastor, priest or even a lay minister is able to make the presence of the Holy Spirit known to people. In those moments, the tears the grienf it is worth it.
But the challenge of being in the institutional church is when it seems not to be worth it. When you are in a meeting and people have hidden agendas. When people struggle with each other, and do not see the answer is struggling together.
When the brokenness of lives so blinds them to the healing that is found in Christ, the healing He does within the church, and through those He has called and given to the church.
When the church is forced to change its focus from the Jesus to dealing with the problems that are threatening to tear it apart. Such stuff happens in the institutional church, but it also happens in the house church, and in our families. As long as there is one sinner in the room, it will happen. And if you are there, or I am, there is a sinner there.
Yesterday, we ended the service by singing Luther’s “A Mighty Fortress”. Not as a triumphal anthem, but as a song of need, a song of despair, and yet hope as he finds that God has him (and the church) THe part of the verse quoted above struck me again, especially given the loss the people were experiencing endured. It is echoed in St Josemaria’s words.
We usually think of such threats as external, or they should be. The people who for one reason or another hate the church, or feel threatened by it. But sometimes they are internal, as people do fall into sin, as people do deal with stress and brokenness. Paul easily recognizes the stresses that can occur when people are brought together, are drawn together in to the presence of God.
So if we are going to face that within or without the institutional church, why bother to belong to one? Why bother to deal with the added stress, why deal with the extra pain, the extra betrayals, the extra anxieties and fears? Why would someone who struggles with social constructs and the complications they bring ever dare enter into this willinging, and serve the church?
Why bear the cost of the trauma, the pain, the disagreements, the dishonour?
Simple. The eyes of a widow that full of tears, reaches out for a hug and whispers, “Yes, I know God is with me.” The grief that is shared, but the hope of the resurrection to life together in the presence of God. Watching God at work, reconciling people together. The joy, the quiet simple joy that comes as the people of God find themselves celebrating their forgiveness and their adoption as God’s co-heirs at the altar of mercy and peace.
Everything endured is worth that….whether the injury is external to the church or internal.
Seeing God at work is that priceless, and seeing Him at work in and through me and the people I struggle alongside, (and sometimes with) is nothing compared to the glory and healing found in Christ. AMEN!
Escriva, Josemaria. The Way (Kindle Locations 1258-1259). Scepter Publishers. Kindle Edition.
To the Church: Stop trying to be experts in justification!
Devotional Thought of the Day:
If the LORD does not build the house, the work of the builders is useless; if the LORD does not protect the city, it is useless for the sentries to stand guard. Ps. 127:1 GNT
456 To criticize, to destroy, is not difficult; the clumsiest laborer knows how to drive his pick into the noble and finely-hewn stone of a cathedral. To construct—that is what requires the skill of a master.
It seems the church, mirroring the culture, has grown to use to using a pick or a sledge hammer to destroy each other, and the impact is that this destroys our churches.
All I had to do is look at Facebook or Twitter and I see people tearing at the heart and souls of others. It gets tiring, and to be honest I am often tempted to unfriend or unfollow those whose lives are so focused on destroying others.
But to deny this exists, to deny my friends and often my family (and myself) can engage in this type of destructive behaviour, doesn’t do anything about it. Neither often does direct confrontation, for most of us are experts in self-justification.
The problem is that justification is not a skill that we have. For true justification doesn’t tear down over there to build up over here. Justification is not relative, being more just/righteous than those people over there doesn’t mean we are just and righteous.
We need, desperately need to stop making justification or the determination of justification our job. (Even a pastor/priest can declare someone just by the command by declaring Christ’s words) We don’t have the right to sit in judgment over people, condemning them because they don’t meet our warped standard of what is righteous and just.
We do have the ability and the responsibility to urge them to be reconciled to God. We can tell them that He will declared them just and righteous. That He will forgive their sins and heal them of all brokenness living in this world can cause.
We have to remember it is God that justifies, that this is His role as God, His justification is the way He builds His church. He does the building, He does the justification, otherwise it is useless, and vain.
We can thank Him and praise Him for doing so! Meditate upon how great His declaring you just and righteous and how frequently you need this gift in your life. Praise Him, instead of justifying yourself at others expense, help them to know that they too are those God longs to justify, that God longs to reform them, and share with them Him glory.
Rejoice and relax, God has got this justification business down, and his motivation to do so is most compelling, He does it because loves us.
(which is a lot better than doing it from fear)
Escriva, Josemaria. The Way (Kindle Locations 1115-1118). Scepter Publishers. Kindle Edition.
Worried about Churches Shrinking and Closing? Consider this threat.
Devotional Thought of the Day:
This is the message from the one who is the Amen—the faithful and true witness, the beginning* of God’s new creation: 15 “I know all the things you do, that you are neither hot nor cold. I wish that you were one or the other! 16 But since you are like lukewarm water, neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth! 17 You say, ‘I am rich. I have everything I want. I don’t need a thing!’ And you don’t realize that you are wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked. Rev. 3:14-17 NLT
437 If one of my fellow men had died to save me from death … God died. And I remain indifferent.
In the last week I have received over 25 emails, texts, or posts referring me to articles that provide hope for the church. Well not, really. They don’t provide hope, they provide an answer to their doomsday prediction – that the church in the next ten or twenty years will be even more in decline than it is today.
They may state we are in a post-Christian, or post Church age. They may say the “nones” are a sign of our ineffective ministry, they may claim society is getting more secular, and even hostile to the church. There are more and more reasons that people come up with for churches in decline. They then give advice to counter the threat, many even coming to the theory that we need to “save what we can”.
But those answers are, for the most part, systematic, programmatic, and structural. They make the vision of the church a response to the perceived threat. They make what drives the church an almost militant response to the outside world, and a militant response that seeks to regroup, even while it retreats.
And in the process forgets God, and remains indifferent to His role in His church, in His Kingdom. We have become like Laodicea, trying to work in our strength, and our riches, when most churches have so little in the bank. When we churches have less in attendance that they are supposed to have on their various boards and committees. We look at the threats so much, we don’t realize how needy we truly are.
If we realize our need, it is the panic button, it is the hiring of consultants, it is the blaming of the lack of support and guidance of our denomination or our brotherhood. We might even think it is the congregation’s leadership, or its pastor that is at fault.
When what we need to do, is realize that we will, in this life, always be in need. We will always struggle, whether our church is 35 or 700, or 22,000. Not because we are failures, not because we are sinners, but because we need and have someone who cares for us, who provides for us, who is with us.
The One we neglect to depend on, even as we sing His praises. The Lord who gives us life, who makes right what is wrong in our lives. We need ot look to HIm, to remember He is present, to remember His love for us. We have to remember and celebrate His death on the cross, to do all the above.
There is our primary answer to the church being in decline – to look to Jesus. The church in Laodicea was told this, in this way,
“Look! I stand at the door and knock. If you hear my voice and open the door, I will come in, and we will share a meal together as friends Rev. 3:20 NLT
These words weren’t written to unbelievers, they were written to the church, to the one Jesus says he wants to spit out, just a few verses before! These words echo Paul’s who says we are to plead with people, “Come Back to Christ!”
He has always been our hope, and the hope for the world! He has the answer to our brokenness, and the trauma in our society. He is the answer for our churches, and whom we aren’t to neglect, in our sermons, in our worship, and in our meetings and planning and vision casting. We need ot remember Him especially in our response to the dwindling numbers in our churches. What will fill them again is not our wisdom or strength, not our structure, or our regrouping what we have. What will fill them in the power of God, the power of God that raised Christ from the dead, and is at work in you, as you walk with Him, as you hear and respond to the Holy Spirit’s direction. As we lead His people to remember Him, as we share in communion, as we walk out with Him into His mission field that is in our lives.
You want to see the church thrive? Realize what God is doing right now, in your life, as He is present. Look around you, see the people that need that very same blessing, and pray for them. As the s Spirit leads, even tell them you are doing so, or ask them if you can pray for them right there, confident that God is there, hearing you both.
If we, the people who are the church, would realize we live in God’s presence, the church will not be empty for long.
The Lord is with you! AMEN!
Escriva, Josemaria. The Way (Kindle Locations 1074-1075). Scepter Publishers. Kindle Edition.
