prayer crooks

When Jesus entered the temple, he threw out those who were selling things there. He said to them, “It’s written, My house will be a house of prayer, but you have made it a hideout for crooks.” Jesus was teaching daily in the temple. The chief priests, the legal experts, and the foremost leaders among the people were seeking to kill him. However, they couldn’t find a way to do it because all the people were enthralled with what they heard. (Luke 19:45-48, CEB)

So which is the church? A house of prayer or a hideout for crooks?

I recently read something about how it is easier for the institution of the denomination to remove leaders from the list of active pastors than to actually have proceedings to see if they need to be removed. It is easier to do this and less of a financial burden on the institution. Because it is more about the money than it is about people actually being cared for or getting a deeper connection with God. You see the institution of religion is sinful. We all are sinful.

We need to keep our institutions running and viable, but most of the time when we do that goes against what God has called us to do.

So which are we, houses of prayer or hideouts for crooks?

Loving People. Loving God.

Where is…

“The tent of testimony was with our ancestors in the wilderness. Moses built it just as he had been instructed by the one who spoke to him and according to the pattern he had seen. In time, when they had received the tent, our ancestors carried it with them when, under Joshua’s leadership, they took possession of the land from the nations whom God expelled. This tent remained in the land until the time of David. God approved of David, who asked that he might provide a dwelling place for the God of Jacob. But it was Solomon who actually built a house for God. However, the Most High doesn’t live in houses built by human hands. As the prophet says, Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool. ‘What kind of house will you build for me,’ says the Lord, ‘or where is my resting place? Didn’t I make all these things with my own hand?’ “You stubborn people! In your thoughts and hearing, you are like those who have had no part in God’s covenant! You continuously set yourself against the Holy Spirit, just like your ancestors did. Was there a single prophet your ancestors didn’t harass? They even killed those who predicted the coming of the righteous one, and you’ve betrayed and murdered him! You received the Law given by angels, but you haven’t kept it.” (Acts 7:44-53, CEB)

Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool.

So where is Heaven?

And Where is the house of God?

God traveled with the gathered in a tent, not a building ordained with riches but a mobile tent. And actually the word in John that talks about the Word coming to dwell literally means tented. Jesus tented with us.

But back to the original question, where is heaven?

If we look at just this passage and the one it quotes, heaven is above the earth because the earth is the footstool while heaven is the throne. But Revelation says that heaven and earth will be wiped away and a new heaven and earth will be created and God will descend to be with God’s people. So the way I read that is that heaven is here.

The point of this is we shouldn’t get too hung up on where and how things will work. God has that all figured out and it will work. We just need to have faith, trust and love now.

Loving People. Loving God.

confesses

Dear friends, don’t believe every spirit. Test the spirits to see if they are from God because many false prophets have gone into the world. This is how you know if a spirit comes from God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come as a human is from God, and every spirit that doesn’t confess Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you have heard is coming and is now already in the world. You are from God, little children, and you have defeated these people because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world. They are from the world. So they speak from the world’s point of view and the world listens to them. We are from God. The person who knows God listens to us. Whoever is not from God doesn’t listen to us. This is how we recognize the Spirit of truth and the spirit of error. (1 John 4:1-6, CEB)

Ok, this seems to be straightforward, if they confess that Jesus came from God then they are true, but if they don’t confess Jesus is from God then they are false.

But people confess Jesus is from God and say LGBTQIA+ are damned and others confess Jesus is from God and say all of God’s people are included, including those on the LGBTQIA+ spectrum. So who is actually true and who is false? They can not both be right.

You see this verse was written to a community in a time when it was straightforward. Jesus was either from God or not and that was the determination of true and false prophet, but now the waters have muddied and there needs to be another test.

What is that test?

Love. I believe the test is love. If you read and speak of a way to love all of creation and help the world see the love they have available then you are a true prophet. If you read and speak of ways that keep people out, then that is not love.

Love God and Love Neighbor. Period. And that test tells true or false.

Loving People. Loving God.

old religion

“I came to cast fire upon the earth. How I wish that it was already ablaze! I have a baptism I must experience. How I am distressed until it’s completed! Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I tell you, I have come instead to bring division. From now on, a household of five will be divided—three against two and two against three. Father will square off against son and son against father; mother against daughter and daughter against mother; and mother-in-law against daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law.” Jesus also said to the crowds, “When you see a cloud forming in the west, you immediately say, ‘It’s going to rain.’ And indeed it does. And when a south wind blows, you say, ‘A heat wave is coming.’ And it does. Hypocrites! You know how to interpret conditions on earth and in the sky. How is it that you don’t know how to interpret the present time? (Luke 12:49-56, CEB)

What does Jesus mean he came to cast fire upon the earth and he wishes it was already ablaze? Is this the fire of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost? Did that actually help?

Jesus says that family will be against family because some will follow Jesus and some will follow religion.

We can see how the weather will be but we can not see how society is and how God needs us to be. Are we really ablaze with the Holy Spirit or are we stuck in our old religion?

Loving People. Loving God.

The reader should understand this

“When you see the disgusting and destructive thing that Daniel talked about standing in the holy place (the reader should understand this), then those in Judea must escape to the mountains. Those on the roof shouldn’t come down to grab things from their houses. Those in the field shouldn’t come back to grab their clothes. How terrible it will be at that time for women who are pregnant and for women who are nursing their children. Pray that it doesn’t happen in winter or on the Sabbath day. There will be great suffering such as the world has never before seen and will never again see. If that time weren’t shortened, nobody would be rescued. But for the sake of the ones whom God chose, that time will be cut short. “Then if somebody says to you, ‘Look, here’s the Christ,’ or ‘He’s over here,’ don’t believe it. False christs and false prophets will appear, and they will offer great signs and wonders in order to deceive, if possible, even those whom God has chosen. Look, I’ve told you ahead of time. So if they say to you, ‘Look, he’s in the desert,’ don’t go out. And if they say, ‘Look, he’s in the rooms deep inside the house,’ don’t believe it. Just as the lightning flashes from the east to the west, so it will be with the coming of the Human One. (Matthew 24:15-27, CEB)

I love that parenthetical part, the reader should understand this.

Should being the key word there. The reference is to scripture, and if the person reading this has knowledge of Daniel they will have an understanding of what the writer of Matthew means. But isn’t that really the case in all of scripture? If you have an understanding of the Hebrew Scripture, the New Testament is easier to understand. But we also need an understanding of the context of the day to really understand the scriptures. So much is wrapped up in the passages we just read and quote and use to keep people in check.

The Bible was written to help us understand how much God loves us and how we should love the world God created. Does the reader understand this?

Loving People. Loving God.

Hold fast

But remember the earlier days, after you saw the light. You stood your ground while you were suffering from an enormous amount of pressure. Sometimes you were exposed to insults and abuse in public. Other times you became partners with those who were treated that way. You even showed sympathy toward people in prison and accepted the confiscation of your possessions with joy, since you knew that you had better and lasting possessions. So don’t throw away your confidence—it brings a great reward. You need to endure so that you can receive the promises after you do God’s will. In a little while longer, the one who is coming will come and won’t delay; but my righteous one will live by faith, and my whole being won’t be pleased with anyone who shrinks back. But we aren’t the sort of people who timidly draw back and end up being destroyed. We’re the sort of people who have faith so that our whole beings are preserved. (Hebrews 10:32-39, CEB)

Do not let the passing of time take you from holding fast to what you have known and know to be true.

Follow God and be prepared to give up everything for the love God has given you to share with the world. Know our timing is not God’s timing and all will happen when God needs/wants it to.

Do not lose heart, but hold fast and love the world.

Loving People. Loving God.

Sin

If we make the decision to sin after we receive the knowledge of the truth, there isn’t a sacrifice for sins left any longer. There’s only a scary expectation of judgment and of a burning fire that’s going to devour God’s opponents. When someone rejected the Law from Moses, they were put to death without mercy on the basis of the testimony of two or three witnesses. How much worse punishment do you think is deserved by the person who walks all over God’s Son, who acts as if the blood of the covenant that made us holy is just ordinary blood, and who insults the Spirit of grace? We know the one who said, Judgment is mine; I will pay people back. And he also said, The Lord will judge his people. It’s scary to fall into the hands of the living God! (Hebrews 10:26-31, CEB)

This passage is interesting. It shows us that God is scary. I mean the last line is, “It’s scary to fall into the hands of the living God!”

But honestly who would choose to not be in the presence of God once you were? Well actually that is a silly question because all of us would say not me, but we all do choose to not be there when we put our own desires above those of God.

If we choose our own desires, or fulfill our wishes and get what we want, that is sin and we have made a decision to remove ourselves from the presence of God.

Let us so focus our lives on God and the love we have received that we see that following and fulfilling God’s will is the best thing for us and for all of the world.

Loving People. Loving God.

Integrity

Peter said, “Lord, are you telling this parable for us or for everyone?” The Lord replied, “Who are the faithful and wise managers whom the master will put in charge of his household servants, to give them their food at the proper time? Happy are the servants whom the master finds fulfilling their responsibilities when he comes. I assure you that the master will put them in charge of all his possessions. “But suppose that these servants should say to themselves, My master is taking his time about coming. And suppose they began to beat the servants, both men and women, and to eat, drink, and get drunk. The master of those servants would come on a day when they weren’t expecting him, at a time they couldn’t predict. The master will cut them into pieces and assign them a place with the unfaithful. That servant who knew his master’s will but didn’t prepare for it or act on it will be beaten severely. The one who didn’t know the master’s will but who did things deserving punishment will be beaten only a little. Much will be demanded from everyone who has been given much, and from the one who has been entrusted with much, even more will be asked. (Luke 12:41-48, CEB)

Integrity is one of my favorite words. I was told by a friend once that people seem to have issues with people of integrity because they always say what they mean and mean what they say and they are always the same no matter who they are with.

People are used to people being two-faced and saying one thing to one group and something else to another group. I have always found this tedious. Plus I can’t possibly remember everything I have said. So if I always tell the truth and live by integrity then I don’t need to remember what I told someone, because it is what I would tell everyone.

We should not live one way at church and another throughout the week.

God sees everything, and everything will be revealed.

Be a person of integrity.

Loving People. Loving God.

By faith

By faith Abraham offered Isaac when he was tested. The one who received the promises was offering his only son. He had been told concerning him, Your legitimate descendants will come from Isaac. He figured that God could even raise him from the dead. So in a way he did receive him back from the dead. By faith Isaac also blessed Jacob and Esau concerning their future. By faith Jacob blessed each of Joseph’s sons as he was dying and bowed in worship over the head of his staff. By faith Joseph recalled the exodus of the Israelites at the end of his life, and gave instructions about burying his bones. By faith Moses was hidden by his parents for three months when he was born, because they saw that the child was beautiful and they weren’t afraid of the king’s orders. By faith Moses refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter when he was grown up. He chose to be mistreated with God’s people instead of having the temporary pleasures of sin. He thought that the abuses he suffered for Christ were more valuable than the treasures of Egypt, since he was looking forward to the reward. By faith he left Egypt without being afraid of the king’s anger. He kept on going as if he could see what is invisible. By faith he kept the Passover and the sprinkling of blood, in order that the destroyer could not touch their firstborn children. (Hebrews 11:17-28, CEB)

When we read passages like this from the Bible and we see all of the great things that others have done, we wonder, or at least I wonder, have I really done anything by faith?

And the answer to that is yes, we have all done something by faith. We stepped out when we had no idea what would happen or how things would go trusting that the timing was right. God helped us trust that God was with us and even in the uncertainty the thing we were doing was the right thing at that moment.

So walk by faith and know that God is always with you and love the world.

Loving People. Loving God.

Faith

Faith is the reality of what we hope for, the proof of what we don’t see. The elders in the past were approved because they showed faith. By faith we understand that the universe has been created by a word from God so that the visible came into existence from the invisible. By faith Abel offered a better sacrifice to God than Cain, which showed that he was righteous, since God gave approval to him for his gift. Though he died, he’s still speaking through faith. By faith Enoch was taken up so that he didn’t see death, and he wasn’t found because God took him up. He was given approval for having pleased God before he was taken up. It’s impossible to please God without faith because the one who draws near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards people who try to find him. By faith Noah responded with godly fear when he was warned about events he hadn’t seen yet. He built an ark to deliver his household. With his faith, he criticized the world and became an heir of the righteousness that comes from faith. (Hebrews 11:1-7, CEB)

Faith is the reality of what we hope for, the proof of what we don’t see.

Do you believe the wind exists?

Have you ever seen the wind?

I have never seen the wind. I have seen the effects of the wind but I have never seen the wind. I have also never seen oxygen but I know it exists.

Sometimes we just need to trust that something is.
Sometimes we just need to believe that something is.
Sometimes we just need to have faith that something is.

In the Greek πιστος is the word for faith, and for trust, and for believe.

I have never seen the wind or God, but I have seen the effect of both, and that for me is enough to have faith that God and the wind are real.

Loving People. Loving God.