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Lord, I Believe You Will Do the Impossible… Help me trust you will!
Devotional Thought of the Day:
15 Simply proclaim the Lord Christ holy in your hearts, and always have your answer ready for people who ask you the reason for the hope that you have. 1 Peter 3:15 (NJB)
23 “What do you mean, ‘If I can’?” Jesus asked. “Anything is possible if a person believes.” 24 The father instantly cried out, “I do believe, but help me overcome my unbelief!” Mark 9:23-24 (NLT)
929 Don’t forget that we will be more convincing the more convinced we are. (1)
I’ve had a task to do, that I am not looking forward to handling. Simply put, there are things we are called to do as believers that are impossible.
This is one of those.
The temptation is to really on our own wisdom, our own strength. To force the issue, to pretend we are God, that all things can be fixed, with the “if only” caveat. That caveat justifies failure, it allows us to walk away without having to admit the failure. It allows us to walk away without feeling disappointment.
That caveat is the seed of our defeat, just like a prenuptial agreement is a danger sign in a marriage, because it leaves open the room for failure, and nearly guarantees it will happen. It puts the success or failure somewhere besides making us responsible for it, and therefore leaves out the one crucial ingredient for success. The one ingredient? Oh, you want to know what it is?
Jesus makes it known in the 2nd quote above. If you believe, if you trust in God, if you know His heart well enough to base your life on it, even risk your life on it.
To which the man cries out a Kyrie Eleison – Lord have mercy – help me when I cannot trust.
Depend on Him. That sounds simple, but it isn’t. We have to know His desire, we have to understand the effort God will put into keeping his promises. We have to realize the depth of His love. We have to know it – deeply in order to trust in it, even as this man had to trust that Jesus could heal his son.
It isn’t easy – but we can pray, we can communicate our need for something to booster our faith, we can admit we need His help – even to trust.
But when we do, patience comes naturally, peace flows, the impossible seems be have cracks of God’s probability shine through. We realize we can wait for it to happen, we realize that God will make all things work for good, we realize the power of mercy and forgiveness.
And we trust in His presence to make all the difference, and it does.
For He has promised – and He is faithful.
Escriva, Josemaria (2011-01-31). Furrow (Kindle Locations 3775-3776). Scepter Publishers. Kindle Edition.
Finally,… Pray
Baptism of Christ. Jesus is baptized in the Jordan River by John. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
today at Concordia, just minutes before this sermon, a little girl was baptised, claimed by God to be His daughter. Read about what happens in baptism in Ezekiel 36:25 and follwoing and in 1 Tim 3:2-8. This is truly a miracle, one of the greatest we experience!
Finally… Pray!
2 Thessalonians 3:1-5
† In Jesus Name †
As we receive the grace, that mercy and peace of God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ, may Jesus lead our hearts into the full understanding and expression of the love of God, and may we, in Christ patiently endure!
How much will life change in Her life?
I want you for a moment to dream of the future.
A time 60-80 years from now, as Cayleen is sitting in the front row of this church, watching her granddaughter or even great-granddaughter being baptized. The church might have different music then, our new music becoming the old, archaic stuff that her generation longs to hear occasionally.
Maybe there will not be cars in the parking lot, but those little family jets that we saw on the Jetson’s.. Cell phones? Texting? Tablets? I can’t even begin to imagine what life will be like for them. I just think about how much it has changed since my son was baptized 6 years ago.
Except for one thing.
She will still need to know God’s love. There will still be the challenges of life that we will have to endure, for while many things in life changes, life itself will not change as much for her as it did this morning.
Which is why Paul not only asks us to pray, but then offers a blessing for the church in Thessalonica, as He asks God to lead our hearts into a full understanding and expression of the love of God, and the patient endurance that is found in Christ.
Come to think of it, if you can’t remember what to pray for her and indeed for all the baptized, that’s a pretty good prayer to remember!
You promised to pray…
Full understanding and expression of God’s love
That means His mercy, and His granting repentance
I pray that you remember to keep the commitment you made this morning to God, as you keep Cayleen in your prayers. Do not just make this something you said, as you were caught up in the moment. Pray for her, and for those around you, for we all need prayer. Even apostles, even pastors, even grandparents.
Sometimes we do not know how to pray, or what to pray, and I think that is where a passage like this comes in so handy. Two simple things to pray for, to know and express God’s love, and to endure. There will probably be some points where you need to pray for Dan and Kristen for that as well – like when Cayleen is 2, or when she’s that sweet age that starts just after the 12th year and 364th day of her life.
Seriously, pray for her, and for all believers in Christ, and for everyone you know.
Pray that they would follow Jesus, as He leads their hearts into a fuller understanding of the depth of God’s love for them. A love that does not just write us off the first time we sin but he continues to call to us, to urge us to repent, and to sin no more. The love of God that desires to fix the parts of our lives that are broken, to heal the wounds that our hearts and souls have encountered.
For to fully understand God’s love is to realize we do not have to hide our sins, we do not have to pretend they aren’t sins. Rather, we are to go to God and confess those sins, to ask Him to fix them. That takes faith, and confidence, and knowing God’s love and faithfulness so well, that we run to Him whenever we are struggling, whenever we are broken, whenever we break life.
Patient endurance?
Christ must lead us there!
That is how we endure as well, realizing that Jesus has united us to His death, and to His resurrection. That iss the promise of baptism, that unity to Christ. It is the hope He’s given us of sharing in His glory (col. 1:26-29 talks of that)
When we realize that our destiny is secure, that this life, as long as it may seem some days is going to become eternity in God’s presence, it helps us incredibly to endure. We can stand firm, knowing God’s promise that all things will work for good for us, because we love the God who called us and made us His.
It’s in knowing what Christ endured for us, that leads us to endure in His presence. For that too is a blessing given to Cayleen and all who believe and are baptized. God promises in Matthew 28 that He will never leave us, even until the end of the ages.
That’s why Paul says Jesus must lead us in knowing and expressing God’s love and into that ability to endure. It isn’t based in our own inner strength, even as Christians. Maturity for a believer doesn’t happen after we go through puberty and our voices change.
It happens when we know God’s love, when we know the promises of love given this day. When we realize how Jesus is always faithful, how He is always guarding our hearts, our minds, our souls. How He leads us as the 23rd Psalm says besides still waters and restores our soul. (which means it needed restoration)
That’s what Jesus does, that is what our Lord is tasked with, saving us from sin and the power of satan and death, and restoring us to life, quickening it us. That’s why a believer doesn’t live in terror of God, but in awe of Him, knowing His love, and being able to express that knowing (not knowledge of but knowing) through their voices in praise and through their lives.
But pray also for the mission and for those needing rescue
So pray for Cayleen, pray for those people around you! Make this your prayer for them; that they would be lead by Christ into the full understanding and expression of His love, and that they would, in Christ, endure!
Paul asks us also to pray for the mission, that this message of God’s love be honored, that it is heard and responded to with praise, wherever it goes. And to pray for those who have to deal with what the translation says are wicked and evil people – those who can’t comprehend God’s love, who don’t feel comfortable dealing with His mercy and those who are guilty, and need to deal with it. God dealt with them by the way, as we hear all of Paul’s guards in jail came to know God’s love and were granted repentance.
So finally my friends, pray, give into God’s care those you love – and those you struggle with. Let Him take the anxieties, the worries and challenges from you, freeing you to love them without distraction, to care for them as He would, to point them to Him when you don’t know what to do.
Having does so, knowing God’s love more fully, you will find yourself expressing it, in a place of peace beyond all comprehension. It is there where you are kept, guarded, your heart and mind protected by Jesus himself. AMEN?
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If Faith=knowing Him, not just about Him…then Worship is…
Lord’s prayer in Coptic language (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Devotional THought of the day:
7 “When you pray, do not use a lot of meaningless words, as the pagans do, who think that their gods will hear them because their prayers are long. 8 Do not be like them. Your Father already knows what you need before you ask him. 9 This, then, is how you should pray: ‘Our Father in heaven: May your holy name be honored; 10 may your Kingdom come; may your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. 11 Give us today the food we need. 12 Forgive us the wrongs we have done, as we forgive the wrongs that others have done to us. 13 Do not bring us to hard testing, but keep us safe from the Evil One. For Yours is the Kingdom, and the Power and the Glory, Forever and Ever, AMEN! Matthew 6:13 (TEV)
It’s necessary to be convinced that God is always near us. Too often we live as though our Lord were somewhere far off—where the stars shine. We fail to realize that he is also by our side—always. For he is a loving Father. He loves each one of us more than all the mothers in the world can love their children, helping us and inspiring us, blessing … and forgiving. How often we’ve erased the frowns from our parents’ brows, telling them after some prank, “I won’t do it again!” Maybe that same day we fall again…. And our father, with feigned harshness in his voice and a serious face, reproves us, while at the same time his heart is softened because he knows our weakness: “Poor boy,” he thinks, “How hard he tries to behave well!” We have to be completely convinced, realizing it to the full, that our Lord, who is close to us and in Heaven, is a Father, and very much our Father. (1)
At the end of the Lord’s Prayer, there is what is called a Doxology, a time of praise and worship. Some translations leave it out – citing that it doesn’t appear in some manuscripts. Some do, taking the opposite approach that it appears in most. I don’t bother with those explanations… all that much.
It belongs there… IMHO… for it is the reaction of what happens when someone can let God be God, when they realize He is by their side, as St Josemaria says, ALWAYS. When we realize how loving He is, how merciful, how close to us, and our Father.
There are a few acronymns that would replace this prayer, this outline of prayer. ACTS is one, ITCP is another. They have been used for a while, but I think they rely too much on our intellect and strength. THey have us start where we should end – with adoration, with hearing how we are to live. They don’t start with the relationship, the prodigal finding himself in the Father’s arms, the mom begging Jesus to heal her daughter, Peter… downcast and distraught, realizing his betrayal.
I think we need to start where Jesus taught us to. To pour out to God our despair, our brokenness, trusting that He is our Father, and as we pour out that brokenness, as He lifts the anxiety, the guilt, the pain from our hearts, as He assures us of our protection and His love. It is then, as He lifts us up, as He calms us, as He reminds us of His love and peace… and His presence…
Then praise, and oh the praise.
I’ve often said we confuse the word translated as “believe/faith” with the gathering and storing of knowledge of God. It isn’t. It is trusting Him, finding ourselves in a relationship where we can depend,on God, and growing to the point where we turn to Him first, rather than trying to do this all on our own. Praise and Worship isn’t about what we do – it is the reaction to what He has done. It isn’t about being perfect enough in our performance, it is, having abandoned ourselves, living in Him, delighting in His presence, realizing we have been revived and healed and restored by Him, and living the life He has given us.
We have been delivered into God’s presence, and He has told us, He is our Father – the incredible picture that St Josemaria paints of the our Father, the one who patiently works with us, correcting us, encouraging and empowering us, who simply wants to walk by our side through life. Prayer is that conversation, that walk – that dance, as we together with God – enjoy His glory, enjoy His creation, and find ourselves led in this incredible dance of joy….
May you realize this day…how close you are to Our Father…
(1)Escriva, Josemaria (2010-11-02). The Way (Kindle Locations 706-713). Scepter Publishers. Kindle Edition.
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English: The Lord Jesus Christ in the image of Good Shepherd. Early Christian trsdition of symbolism. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Devotional/Discussion of the Day..
15 But have reverence for Christ in your hearts, and honor him as Lord. Be ready at all times to answer anyone who asks you to explain the hope you have in you, 1 Peter 3:15 (TEV)
At the same time, Evangelical Catholicism recognizes that, in offering everyone the possibility of friendship with the Lord Jesus, it is offering the postmodern world something postmodernity badly needs: an encounter with the divine mercy. As the God of the Bible came into the ancient world as One who liberates humanity from the whims and fancies of the Olympian gods or the terrors of fearsome Moloch, the Gospel of Jesus Christ and friendship with him liberate postmodern humanity from its burden of guilt, born of a tacit (if often intuitive and inarticulate) understanding of the awfulness that humanity visited upon itself throughout the twentieth century. By whom can that burden of guilt be expiated? To whom can that wickedness be confessed, and from whom can forgiveness be received? In offering friendship with Jesus Christ, Evangelical Catholicism offers postmodern humanity a path to a more humane future, absolved of the guilt of the recent past. 12 And where is this friendship with Jesus to be found? According to the evangelical Catholic proposal, this friendship is found in the Church, in the Word of God recognized as such by the Church in the Bible, in the sacraments celebrated by the Church, in the works of charity and service, and in the fellowship of those who have been “born of water and the Spirit” [John 3.5]. Despite the sinfulness of its members and their failure to live fully the meaning of friendship with the Lord Jesus, the Church is always the privileged place of encounter with the living God, who continually forms his people into the community in which the full truth about humanity is grasped.
In the last few days, I have had to deal with an increasing number of people who have struggled to have hope, to find hope. There have been a large variety of reasons, with a multitude of causes. Some are young with everything going right, some are more my age – and partially wonder about what is right still, still others, older and wondering if their life has any meaning, and if it ever did. The weight they bear – each again different, seems crushing. So crushing is the weight upon them, so much so that I struggle with just watching their struggle. As I returned to my office, to complete my sermon, I have to write this – as much as for those around those who are struggling, as those who are.
You see – when someone is severely anxious, severely stressed, when they can’t find the answers – they don’t need to know about Jesus – they need, desperately need to know Him.
All of the sound bite apologetics sound nice, and they may even give assent to them After all – we’ve heard them before – we’ve seen them posted on FB, they’ve made the rounds. They may have read the books where the quotes we all love come from. and actually know the context of the quotes!
Whether they do or don’t, they need to know the God who is there with them – they need to connect to Who they feel disconnected to, or from whom they disconnected themselves. They need a tangible and real connection to divine mercy, to the love of God that keeps them, literally guards them. They need to know the reason we have hope – and that is far more than knowing about Christ – it is about knowing Him deep enough sure enough, that we don’t just hope in Him the way we hope the tax bill won’t be enormous – but we expect Him, we trust Him to keep everything He has promised. That our trust in Him, based in knowing even the beginning of the depth, height, breadth and width of His love, because we know HIm, brings comfort to our hearts.
Simple because we know – He is with us! He is our Shepherd, our caring and providing and merciful Master.
I love how the quote from Weigel’s book identifies the source of that hope – is to be found in the Body of Christ – in the community He established, where He reveals His presence through His word, where He pours out that DIvine mercy in the sacraments of baptism and the Lord’s Supper, and yes Confession and Absolution. (and I would include prayer – as the Apology of the Augsburg confession most assuredly tells us is sacramental)
You see, in word and sacrament ministry, we don’t just learn about Christ, we don’t just take notes on how God is promising to work, but we see HIm at work, we experience His grace, the miracle of the reconciliation that comes as God bring us to faith, as we begin to truly see what it is like to live – as we encounter His life, His mercy…
That Encounter – one which lasts all our lives, overwhelms any modern or post-modern theory. It crushes the idea that we are alone, that there is no meaning to life – no constant to hold on to, to base our lives upon.
That is what is needed…. and that is what we bring to the picture – and what we desperately need to be reminded of, even as we do….
Lord, show us the mercy you have and have had on us!
(1) Weigel, George (2013-02-05). Evangelical Catholicism (p. 59). Basic Books. Kindle Edition.
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To be joyful is not to be against…
Discussion thought of the day:
I would have each of us, myself included, as how we define ourselves, who are we, and how do we stand in the midst of darkness.
I read this morning something which really gets to the heart of this:
“Your life, your work, should never be negative, nor anti anything. It is—it must be!—positive, optimistic, youthful, cheerful and peaceful.” (1)
To often I think we define ourselves and let others define us based on what we are against. A great example is in the present election. It is not that I am for Candidate X, it is that I am dead set against Candidate Y. It is not that I am for this, but I would never want that to happen. Another example is that if I narrowly define myself against abortion, and take an “anti-abortion” stance, I have truly missed out on what it means to be for life – and life abundant. It works in “religion” as well – I am neither anti-Muslim, anti-Sikh, anti-agnostic, anti-atheist (the latter two interesting double negatives!) but instead I find great hope in being claimed by Christ, and being freed of sin and satan and and the anxiety over death. And knowing that incredible blessing, it is that I want to share with others – for it does leave me “optimistic, youth, cheerful and peaceful” in the midst of an anxiety based world.
The depth of this idea is so freeing – if you have to be against things – create a list of all the things you have to be against, all the ways you have to defeat them, all the things you have to know. But if we are only looking for that which we are for, that to which we can entrust our soul, our life, everything we are, then we can say with the apostle Paul,
“2:1 And I, brethren, when I came to you, did not come with excellence of speech or of wisdom declaring to you the testimony of God. 2 For I determined not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified. 3 I was with you in weakness, in fear, and in much trembling. 4 And my speech and my preaching were not with persuasive words of human wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, 5 that your faith should not be in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.
1 Corinthians 2:1-5 (NKJV)
Heavenly Father, as we cry out for your mercy, may the Spirit help us to keep our eyes simply focused on Your Son, help us to live deeply simply trusting in Your love. Amen
(1)Escriva, Josemaria (2011-01-31). The Forge (Kindle Locations 575-576). Scepter Publishers. Kindle Edition.
Why do we seek the Sensational?
Discussion, devotional thought of the day:
As I look over the devotional blogs I have been writing, I am tending to see a pattern regarding the number of readers I get per each title.
Include comments about chick fil a – lots of hits. Best blog so far – the one about my dieing 20 years ago. (that many people interested in my death experience? Or that many people think I really am dead?) But if the topic is something like spiritual growth, or discipleship, or the dreaded “e” word, or knowing God’s presence… not so much.
I’ll admit – it’s a little frustrating. Then again, I am writing these blogs as much to help me – to get me to process these things, but I desire that they would be a blessing to others. So should I write on politics? ( I can tick everyone off that way!) Or make this “less” of a devotional/discussion blog?
More important I think – why do we click on that which titilates, that which is controversial, or sensational? Why are we willing to do that, and not look to the deeper things of our faith, the things which actually change our lives?
In Hebrews we find:
Hebrews 5:11-14 (NLT) There is much more we would like to say about this, but it is difficult to explain, especially since you are spiritually dull and don’t seem to listen. 12 You have been believers so long now that you ought to be teaching others. Instead, you need someone to teach you again the basic things about God’s word. You are like babies who need milk and cannot eat solid food. 13 For someone who lives on milk is still an infant and doesn’t know how to do what is right. 14 Solid food is for those who are mature, who through training have the skill to recognize the difference between right and wrong.
So its not a new problem – but how can we address it? How can I make this devotional blog something that uplifts and challenges you? Please let me know… pragmatically it makes more sense than if this is just a blog that no one reads except me… or a blog that simply adds to that which distracts us from God, and His love and adoring Him!
God Bless!
