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I Don’t Think That Word Means What You Think It Means!
Devotional Thoughts for the Day:
16 God is wonderful and glorious. I pray that his Spirit will make you become strong followers 17 and that Christ will live in your hearts because of your faith. Stand firm and be deeply rooted in his love. 18 I pray that you and all of God’s people will understand what is called wide or long or high or deep. 19 I want you to know all about Christ’s love, although it is too wonderful to be measured. Then your lives will be filled with all that God is. Ephesians 3:16-19 (CEV)
How sweet amidst all the uncertainties of life, to know that “the foundation of the Lord standeth sure,” and to have God’s own promise, “My covenant will I not break, nor alter the thing that is gone out of my lips.” Like dying David, I will sing of this, even though my house be not so with God as my heart desireth.
“God loves you”—isn’t that the most well-worn of clichés? It’s just standard filler for the laziest, most obvious and repetitive homilies. Smile. Yawn. Everybody knows that by now, at least everybody who has ever been in a church or read a Bible.
No. Exactly the opposite. It is not familiar. It is shattering. It changes everything. And most Christians do not realize it.
If hearing God is love doesn’t cause you to step back in shock, and in awe, then perhaps you don’t know who He is, or you don’t understand what love means.
That claim of Peter Kreeft is pretty shocking, and the more I think about it, the more certain I am that he is right.
I wish I knew why we don’t understand that God is love, and that He loves you and me.
The more I think about it, that would be my one desire in life, to be able to make people understand this word “love’ and how it binds God’s heart and soul to ours, how it should become our reason for existence.
For it is how we live, and why we live… …
Think about it.
Not I mean it – for a few minutes.
It should shatter us, it should make us weep, it should make us question why, knowing the depth our sin, and how much we, as Spurgeon wrote, don’t have our house with God as much as we desire.
Yet He still loves us.
We need to explore that, savor that, let it rock us to the very foundations of our lives.
It should shock us, this desire of God to care for us, to be devoted to us, to know us so well, to love us.
Take time each day to think that through, each morning, and evening, and every moment in between that you have a moment.
God is love…and that Love is directed to you. AMEN!
C. H. Spurgeon, Morning and Evening: Daily Readings (London: Passmore & Alabaster, 1896).
Peter Kreeft, The God Who Loves You (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2004), 11.
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.
The Relationships of Christmas Present – an Advent sermon
The Relationships of Christmas Present
Genesis 45:-18a
† I.H.S. †
May the grace of God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ be so revealed in your life, so that broken relationships you deal with today are healed.
A quick review of the past
Last week, we looked at relationships of Christmas past, and we walked in the footsteps of Judah and his brothers. We saw the desire, and the inability to make up for the sins we’ve committed against others.
We had to see the only hope to deal with the guilt, the shame, the separation was to put it into God’s hands.
So now we come to the Relationships of Christmas Present…
In this moment!
Instead of walking in Judah’s footsteps, we have to exchange them for Joseph’s and deal with the pain of relationships in the present, those relationships that will not be celebrated at Christmas, because sin has again divided us.
Not our sin this time… “theirs!”
You know who I am talking about, every one of us has someone who, if they walked in the room right now, we would not want to interact with them. We may not be angry at them, we may not be burying our resentment, or at least we tell ourselves this. But the pain is there. The heartache, and the discomfort when they walk in the room.
Joseph’s attitude:
If only we could see them, as Joseph saw his brothers, if only we could weep at the division between us, if only we could ask them to “please come closer,” and urge them as he did, “don’t be upset, and don’t be angry with yourselves for hurting me this way,”
If only our grief caused by their sin was able to be dealt with in that way!
If only… we could love more than we hurt…
if only… the relationship meant more to us… than our pain.
My God, there are days where I wish I had the strength of Joseph’s faith…
But I do not…and if I read scripture right, neither do any of you.
The Key To Healing Relationships of Christmas Present
There is only one way to be able to generate that much strength, that much desire to see things “made right” in the relationship with us, that someone shattered. It is walking in Joseph’s steps and seeing what God has done, not in their life, but in ours.
That is where Joseph looks and sees God at work in His life. He sees God at work, as He promised to be, making everything work for good for those who love Him, those He’s called to be His own people.
It isn’t so much that we make the decision to love them, that we will ourselves to give up the pain and the hurt, that we willingly just give Jesus the resentment and pain.
It fades away, in the light of His glory, it fades away as we see the manger, and realize He is with us, it fades away.. as we see the cross, and realize He lived and died and rose again… because He loves us.
and there, in that moment, we find ourselves, empowered and driven by the Holy Spirit, going to those who’ve sinned against us, with tears in our eyes, saying,
It is I, your brother, don’t be afraid, don’t be upset with yourselves, God is at work here…
And then be amazed, for the peace of God which passes all understanding envelops you all, and guards your heart and soul and mind. AMEN!
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.
What if We Are Not the One, but One of the Ninety Nine?
The Good Shepherd, carrying His own.
Devotional Thought of the Day:
Let me ask you this. What would you do if you had a hundred sheep and one of them wandered off? Wouldn’t you leave the ninety-nine on the hillside and go look for the one that had wandered away? 13 I am sure that finding it would make you happier than having the ninety-nine that never wandered off. 14 That’s how it is with your Father in heaven. He doesn’t want any of these little ones to be lost. Mt.18:12-14 CEV
16 Don’t be a gossip, but never hesitate to speak up in court, especially if your testimony can save someone’s life. 17 Don’t hold grudges. On the other hand, it’s wrong not to correct someone who needs correcting. Lev. 19:16-17 CEV
The Holy Spirit, however, permits us to censure sin, and prescribes the way in which we are to do it. It must be done by rebuking our brother to his face, not by railing behind his back. This course is manly, brotherly, Christlike, and under God’s blessing will be useful. Does the flesh shrink from it? Then we must lay the greater stress upon our conscience, and keep ourselves to the work, lest by suffering sin upon our friend we become ourselves partakers of it. Hundreds have been saved from gross sins by the timely, wise, affectionate warnings of faithful ministers and brethren.
For most of us, the statement about leaving the 99 is comforting, for most of us know we wander off too frequently.
Put a different face on the 99, and we might have a different reaction.
If it is a person that antagonizes us, we might say good riddance, and let them go.
It is someone who has hurt us, we may pretend we do not notice.
If they are a politician or someone who expresses themselves politically is a way we oppose, we might even pack their bags and give them a map with the fastest way out of town, and try to inflame them enough that they burn bridges behind them.
We should not take those attitudes, but they seem natural to us, and many would cheer us on if we allowed them to wander off. After all, we didn’t push them away or force them out. We just let them go, off to get what they deserve. (not to mention what we deserve.)
The answer to this sin is not found in forcing our will to do what we don’t want to do. We might be able to subject our will once or twice, and yet, somewhere down deep, resentment will only grow, not just toward the one who offended us, but towards God and those who would encourage reconciliation.
So how do we do the impossible, how do we pray that Jesus is able to rescue this one stray? Or even more impossible, how do we come to desire that we assist in some small way?
I don’t think it is by focusing on them, or the pain they have caused.
I think it can only be by looking to Jesus, to seeing Him at work in our own lives, bringing about the healing that we need, forgiving the sin we’ve committed, removing the guilt and shame, and indeed the fear of death that comes from knowing we will be judged. To experience the love of God that makes our life new, and free from the power of sin. In awe of that, with the joy that only knowing we have passed from death to life can bring, is reconciliation with others possible.
For free, and full of joy, we see them out of the corner of our eye, and in awe of Christ’s work, we invite them to share in it. We then find great joy walking with Jesus after the one, because as they share the in the wonder of Christ’s healing them, we see again His healing us, it is made more complete.
Another part of us is healed, when they are cleansed and healed by Christ.
Then the joy of seeing Christ at work becomes greater, as it is shared.
Heavenly Father, help us to see and wonder about the incredible things Christ is doing in our lives. Help us to know He is with us, and as we gaze upon the cross, help us to rejoice as the Spirit brings healing to all our relationships. AMEN@
C. H. Spurgeon, Morning and Evening: Daily Readings (London: Passmore & Alabaster, 1896).
They Didn’t Know, but He Did!
They Didn’t Know,
But He did
Luke 23:27-43
† In Jesus Name †
May the grace and mercy of God our Father and our Lord, Jesus Christ help you to know that you will be with Him in paradise.
They Didn’t Know – 1 Cor. 2:8
I have a confession to make.
When it comes to politics, I am slightly… okay… mostly… apathetic!
I like to blame it on scripture, you know, passages like Psalm 146,
3 Don’t put your confidence in powerful people; there is no help for you there. Psalm 146:3 (NLT2)
Or Psalm 118
8 It is better to take refuge in
the LORD than to trust in people. 9 It is better to take refuge in the LORD than to trust in princes. Psalm 118:8-9 (NLT2)
I mean –I can justify my apathy there, can’t I?
But if I am honest, it is because I have known a few politicians in my life,
and I don’t understand them, or a system where what is popular is better than what
is right by God’s standard.
I’ve even got
one more passage that talks about people in power, one that nails their lack of
knowledge clear. Paul tells the church in Corinth this,
7 No,
the wisdom we speak of is the mystery of God—his plan that was previously
hidden, even though he made it for our ultimate glory before the world began. 8 But the rulers of this world have not
understood it; if they had, they would not have crucified our glorious Lord. 1
Corinthians 2:7-8 (NLT2)
Jesus
saw this as well, as he looked out on those who were crucifying them and said, “Father,
forgive them, for they don’t know what they are doing.”
They didn’t know what they were doing as they crucified Jesus, and what they
really did not understand was that they were doing exactly what they needed him
to do/
Hear that again, in their ignorance they did exactly what God wanted them to do, what He needed them to do.
They crucified Jesus.
He did
When Jesus forgives them, he does so with full knowledge. Not just the experience of the crucial pain of the cross, but the full knowledge of why He was hanging there. To be able to say “you are forgiven”. To be able to say to us, as we realize the depth of our sin, rise, go in peace, your sins are forgiven, sin no more…. Only to be ready to tell that to us again the next time.
Presently I am reading Luther’s little pamphlet on meditating upon the cross. It is powerful, not just in the depth of walking us through the depths of our sin, but helping us realize the love of God that causes Jesus to volunteer to bear that pain. He chose it, knowing over and over from where the Triune God inspired the Old Testament, that He had to suffer and die!
Time and time he told the apostles it had to come about, that He had to die for them, that He had to die for us.
They didn’t see it coming, the leaders didn’t, the people didn’t, and Jesus died, which would have never happened if they truly understood and lived their lives knowing He was the Son of God..
And
the thief realized it…
Only one man that day, dealing with the pain of his own sin, realized what
Jesus being the Messiah meant. The man being crucified next him.
Hear this man’s words again,
Jesus, remember me when you come into your Kingdom.”
Do
you realize how crazy this is to say?
How insane/
They are hanging there, on the cross, both about to die! To die!
Hey Jesus, when this is over, can I be part of what you’ve got coming
next? Please? I mean, really Jesus, and as he leans to
speak to Jesus, the pain once again robs him of all His strength.
please..?
Can you imagine the
joy that comes from hearing Jesus response?
I am not sure if he even heard the word, day….. or maybe the word paradise.
He heard what was in between though, “YOU will be with ME”
“You will be with me”
That is why Jesus came to the cross, to be able to say those words to that
sinner. To that man who spent his life
doing what He shouldn’t do, and not doing what he should do. The kings and leaders who crucified him
didn’t know this was Jesus’ intent.
Neither did all the people who cried “Crucify Him” and mocked him.
By the prompting of the Holy Spirit, this man knew… and he heard the sweetest
words.
Words that every sinner can hear.
Including you and I.
Jesus says, “you will be with ME!”
And as we hear that, all else fades away.
The sin, the shame, the grief, the pain. The doubts, the anguish…. It all faded
away faster than this man’s life was, for he hear Jesus’s words…
We need to hear that, even as we struggle with out own brokenness and
apathy. We need to realize that all
things – – including Jesus dying for our sins, works out for good, so even the
ignorance of kings and leaders can, as well.
“You will be with ME!”
You will be with ME!
We indeed are with Him!! AMEN!
Let us pray….
Great Expectations for the Church in America
Devotional Thought of the Day:
9 As Jesus was leaving, he saw a tax collectorq named Matthew sitting at the place for paying taxes. Jesus said to him, “Come with me.” Matthew got up and went with him.
†10 Later, Jesus and his disciples were having dinner at Matthew’s house.r Many tax collectors and other sinners were also there. 11 Some Pharisees asked Jesus’ disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and other sinners?”
12 Jesus heard them and answered, “Healthy people don’t need a doctor, but sick people do. †13 Go and learn what the Scriptures mean when they say, ‘Instead of offering sacrifices to me, I want you to be merciful to others.’ I didn’t come to invite good people to be my followers. I came to invite sinners.” Matt. 9:9-13 CEV
Faith never prospers so well as when all things are against her: tempests are her trainers, and lightnings are her illuminators. When a calm reigns on the sea, spread the sails as you will, the ship moves not to its harbour; for on a slumbering ocean the keel sleeps too.
In the readings for the course I am in, I am finding great hope for the church, even the church in the United States and Europe. The times are similar to the times when great revivals broke out in our past, when people began to worship God, abandoning all else.
The statisticians and consultants will tell you different, but their projections of based on recent trends, and on philosophies that place the future of the church in the hands of the pastors, and those who train and equip them. If it is up to us, this indeed may be the post Christian and post church era. THinking about it more, no not maybe – it is.
But what is our downfall, can be turned into the very thing that will bring revival to our land. For when we fail, maybe some will call us back to what brings revival.
Faith.
This is the time when our faith, that wonderful gift of depending on God for everything in life becomes reality. When in the despair of the storm, we reach out to the Lord who is with us, and He leaves us in awe, as the storm obeys His commands.
It is when we realize that Matthew, that we can join Jesus on His mission to heal the hearts and minds and souls of people, (and when we realize that includes our hearts and minds and souls) that movement in the church happens. When we grieve over our sins, and are comforted by the power of the Holy Spirit, who draws us into God’s presence.
This is what Matthew’s gospel is talking about, when it says that Christ came to invite sinners to be His followers. As the Holy Spirit draws them to Jesus, the church will stop its slumbering, it will stop its decline.
Not because of great preaching, but simply revealing Christ. Not because of powerful praise bands or stunning choirs, but because we simply begin to experience the grace of God, poured out on us, and knowing the relief, the joy, the power of God’s work, we invite other sinners to join Him, depending on Him, and letting all else, including sin, drop to the side.
We are at a point in the church’s life in America where we will realize that our perfect liturgies, our dynamic programs, our logic and theology, our programs won’t grow the church, nor stop it from dying.. The only thing that can is the Holy Spirit, healing sinners by drawing them to Christ Jesus. And those sinners depending on Him. ANd that includes you and I.
Heavenly Father, stir us sinners by the power of the Holy Spirit, to respond to Your invitation follow Jesus, to walk with Him. Help us to welcome the Spirit’s healing our hearts, souls and minds, and not just ours, but those in our community. We pray this in Jesus name! AMEN!
C. H. Spurgeon, Morning and Evening: Daily Readings (London: Passmore & Alabaster, 1896).
Sometimes it is so good, you have to share
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)
Salvation may be described as the blind receiving sight, the deaf receiving hearing, the dead receiving life; but we have not only received these blessings, we have received CHRIST JESUS himself. It is true that he gave us life from the dead. He gave us pardon of sin; he gave us imputed righteousness. These are all precious things, but we are not content with them; we have received Christ himself. The Son of God has been poured into us, and we have received him…..
The scripture passage above was one I included in a blog a few days ago. It is something I am dealing with, something I, to be honest, am struggling with, as I observe some disconcerting things in the Church, and as I observe some stress and pain, and as I see people who are immune to seeing that stress and pain.
I know that desperation, and the fire burning in the guy. (Jeremiah knew it too – check out Jeremiah 20:7)
There is a tendency to fight or flee. TO argue till they see our side, until they follow our holy rules and acknowledge our superior wisdom, or to take the ball, our ball, and walk away. We don’t see a third option, and to be honest, we often do not want to see that option.
Because it means we lose, that our agenda is set aside, that we have to humble ourselves and work with our adversaries, not only do we have to work with them, we have to listen to them… and instead of winning or losing, instead of compromising, we have to seek God together.
Tony Campolo used to tell the story of walking from a parking structure in Philadelphia to a big meeting, some major players were going to donate a large sum of money to back some mission efforts he was developing. Important stuff, millions of dollars on the line. He was late, and as he walked down the street, he noticed a homeless guy walking toward him. He did what most of us would do, he tried not to make eye-contact with him. After all, he was in a hurry, to do something incredible for God!
Every once in a while he would look up – and the guy had zeroed in on him. I think he used the word, “crap” or perhaps something stronger. He realized he only had a $20 in his pocket, and didn’t want to waste it. The guy approached, Tony got anxious, nercous, tried to think of something to say.
“mister, I want to give you something”
“HUH????”
“Here, you need this, as he tries to hand Tony the cup in his hand”
Tony accepts it, he can feel the heat through the cup. Then he looks and it is a steaming cup of Dunkin Donuts coffee. He’s like “how much do I owe you”
The guy explains, “Nothing Mister, someone gave me enough for two cups this morning, and mine was so good, I had to give the other to someone else. You looked so stressed out, I had to give it to you. Haven’t you had something so good that you needed to share it with someone else?
I’ve heard Tony tell that story, of that horrible cold, wet Philadelphia day probably 5 or 6 times. Each time he does it with a tear in his eye, as he remembers the swirling feelings of guilt and joy.
Back to my original point.
Paul describes us too well,
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)
Here is the cup of coffee we need to savor,
Look back u to the words of Spurgeon in purple.
Go ahead…
no really – and if you did ,,, think about it again. really work through it.
Now that is your cup of coffee, and you and your adversary, you and the person in the church who is causing you pain, the one you think you struggle with, that is inconvenient, needs to know this.
Now go and share you cup of coffee…
C. H. Spurgeon, Morning and Evening: Daily Readings (London: Passmore & Alabaster, 1896).
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.
