Prayer for Deliverance

Lord, let me know my end, and what is the measure of my days; let me know how fleeting my life is. You have made my days a few handbreadths, and my lifetime is as nothing in your sight. Surely everyone stands as a mere breath. Surely everyone goes about like a shadow. Surely for nothing they are in turmoil; they heap up, and do not know who will gather. (Psalm 39:4-6, NRSV)

Have you ever just wanted something to be over? Here David is writing a psalm of wisdom and forgiveness.

He is pondering life and his sin.

David is reflecting on how fleeting his life and all life is. We are nothing but a breath in the time of God, and we move around only as He gives us life.

Help me not to be a fleeting breath but help my life to make a difference God.

Use me to show your love in a world that needs to see you!

Hope in the Land

The heart is devious above all else; it is perverse— who can understand it? I the Lord test the mind and search the heart, to give to all according to their ways, according to the fruit of their doings. Like the partridge hatching what it did not lay, so are all who amass wealth unjustly; in mid-life it will leave them, and at their end they will prove to be fools. (Jeremiah 17:9-11, NRSV

The Lord will search our minds and our hearts to give us what we deserve according to our ways, according to the fruit of our doing.

The Lord knows the reason we do the things we do. Is it out of the love that the Lord has poured into our hearts, or for our own gain?

The heart desires what it wants, but we must know if it is for the Lord or our own selfish gain. The Lord will always know.

Live for others, as the Lord lives for you!

A Wasted Youth Brings Retribution

Rejoice, young man, while you are young, and let your heart cheer you in the days of your youth. Follow the inclination of your heart and the desire of your eyes, but know that for all these things God will bring you into judgment. Banish anxiety from your mind, and put away pain from your body; for youth and the dawn of life are vanity. (Ecclesiastes 11:9-10, NRSV)

Do whatever you like and follow after your heart and the desire of your eyes. Just know you will be judged for whatever you do.

So nothing is off limits, but that doesn’t mean that everything is uplifting…

Follow after God and He will show you the best way to live and give Him glory.

Rejoice while you are young, but follow God for all of your life.

God’s Principles of Judgment

Therefore you have no excuse, whoever you are, when you judge others; for in passing judgment on another you condemn yourself, because you, the judge, are doing the very same things. You say, “We know that God’s judgment on those who do such things is in accordance with truth.” Do you imagine, whoever you are, that when you judge those who do such things and yet do them yourself, you will escape the judgment of God? Or do you despise the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience? Do you not realize that God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance? But by your hard and impenitent heart you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath, when God’s righteous judgment will be revealed. For he will repay according to each one’s deeds: to those who by patiently doing good seek for glory and honor and immortality, he will give eternal life; while for those who are self-seeking and who obey not the truth but wickedness, there will be wrath and fury. There will be anguish and distress for everyone who does evil, the Jew first and also the Greek, but glory and honor and peace for everyone who does good, the Jew first and also the Greek. For God shows no partiality. All who have sinned apart from the law will also perish apart from the law, and all who have sinned under the law will be judged by the law. For it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous in God’s sight, but the doers of the law who will be justified. When Gentiles, who do not possess the law, do instinctively what the law requires, these, though not having the law, are a law to themselves. They show that what the law requires is written on their hearts, to which their own conscience also bears witness; and their conflicting thoughts will accuse or perhaps excuse them on the day when, according to my gospel, God, through Jesus Christ, will judge the secret thoughts of all. (Romans 2:1-16, NRSV)

The bible doesn’t say that we shouldn’t judge others. It says do not judge unless you want to be judged by the same judgment. And usually as our passage today says when we judge someone we too are guilty of that same thing.  In fact, when we point our finger at someone, we are usually pointing 3 fingers back at ourselves.

You see God forgave us and wants us to forgive others. Not tell them they are wicked and evil and going to be eternally separated from God, but that God loves us and them and when we confess our wrongs God forgives us.

So do you judge others, and do you realize you are also judging yourself?

God’s Plea for Justice

Hear what the Lord says: Rise, plead your case before the mountains, and let the hills hear your voice. Hear, you mountains, the controversy of the Lord, and you enduring foundations of the earth; for the Lord has a controversy with his people, and he will contend with Israel. “O my people, what have I done to you? In what have I wearied you? Answer me! For I brought you up from the land of Egypt, and redeemed you from the house of slavery; and I sent before you Moses, Aaron, and Miriam. O my people, remember now what King Balak of Moab devised, what Balaam son of Beor answered him, and what happened from Shittim to Gilgal, that you may know the saving acts of the Lord.” “With what shall I come before the Lord, and bow myself before God on high? Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves a year old? Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, with ten thousands of rivers of oil? Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?” He has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God? (Micah 6:1-8, NRSV)

What does God want from His people?

Burnt offerings?

Right words?

God wants us to do justice, love kindness and to follow where He leads.

Make sure everyone has justice, love all and walk with God, pretty simple, yet the hardest things you will ever do.

Stewardship and Generosity

Someone in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the family inheritance with me.” But he said to him, “Friend, who set me to be a judge or arbitrator over you?” And he said to them, “Take care! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of possessions.” Then he told them a parable: “The land of a rich man produced abundantly. And he thought to himself, ‘What should I do, for I have no place to store my crops?’ Then he said, ‘I will do this: I will pull down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I will say to my soul, ‘Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.’ But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life is being demanded of you. And the things you have prepared, whose will they be?’ So it is with those who store up treasures for themselves but are not rich toward God.” He said to his disciples, “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat, or about your body, what you will wear. For life is more than food, and the body more than clothing. Consider the ravens: they neither sow nor reap, they have neither storehouse nor barn, and yet God feeds them. Of how much more value are you than the birds! And can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life? If then you are not able to do so small a thing as that, why do you worry about the rest? Consider the lilies, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin; yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, how much more will he clothe you—you of little faith! And do not keep striving for what you are to eat and what you are to drink, and do not keep worrying. For it is the nations of the world that strive after all these things, and your Father knows that you need them. Instead, strive for his kingdom, and these things will be given to you as well. “Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom. Sell your possessions, and give alms. Make purses for yourselves that do not wear out, an unfailing treasure in heaven, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. (Luke 12:13-34, NRSV)

Do not be afraid…

Why would someone who had a full barn want to tear that barn down and put up a new one?

Why would someone ask for what is “rightfully” theirs?

It is because of fear.

We are worried and afraid that we are not going to have enough, or we are not going to be enough. Fear motivates us to think about the unholy trinity, me, myself, and I. It keeps us focused on ourselves and what we are not good enough at or how ugly we are or why we will never be good enough. Or it has us focus on what we don’t have and makes us worry about giving away what we do have because then we won’t have enough.

Fear is a liar that locks us in our place and steals our happiness away from us.

God has a plan, let go and allow God to work in and through your life.

 

Change

It is September and time to get back into the routine of how things are during school. Routine?!?!?!

I’m sitting at my desk thinking about how we now have new staff members and things are not routine. Things are not happening the way they always have and that is not bad it is just different.

But isn’t it funny how we look for Fall to be that time when the hustle and bustle of Summer gives way to routine, and how nerve racking it can be to not have that routine.

We are joined this Fall by Patrick Kieper as our Youth & Family Minister and so things will be different. Patrick will bring new and exciting ideas for our youth and all of the congregation. His passion for ministry will hopefully ignite all of our lives and help us to grow deeper in our faith! But with this will come some different ways of seeing and doing things.

We are also joined in the office by Julie Cavil our new Office Manager. She brings a passion for helping others and using her talents to help us all be in the know and keep St. John’s moving forward. She will be a wonderful asset to our team. She will bring a new way of looking at and doing things.

All of this change might rock the boat a little, but I am reminded of the sign that hangs in my office, Change isn’t just something you get from a vending machine.

Change isn’t good or bad, it is just different. If we focus on where God is leading us, that is what it is about. Growing as disciples and following God where He leads us.

So get ready for the unroutine routine of Fall and settle in to deepen your faith!

 

God’s Goodness

After I had given the deed of purchase to Baruch son of Neriah, I prayed to the Lord, saying: Ah Lord God! It is you who made the heavens and the earth by your great power and by your outstretched arm! Nothing is too hard for you. You show steadfast love to the thousandth generation, but repay the guilt of parents into the laps of their children after them, O great and mighty God whose name is the Lord of hosts, great in counsel and mighty in deed; whose eyes are open to all the ways of mortals, rewarding all according to their ways and according to the fruit of their doings. You showed signs and wonders in the land of Egypt, and to this day in Israel and among all humankind, and have made yourself a name that continues to this very day. You brought your people Israel out of the land of Egypt with signs and wonders, with a strong hand and outstretched arm, and with great terror; and you gave them this land, which you swore to their ancestors to give them, a land flowing with milk and honey; and they entered and took possession of it. But they did not obey your voice or follow your law; of all you commanded them to do, they did nothing. Therefore you have made all these disasters come upon them. See, the siege-ramps have been cast up against the city to take it, and the city, faced with sword, famine, and pestilence, has been given into the hands of the Chaldeans who are fighting against it. What you spoke has happened, as you yourself can see. Yet you, O Lord God, have said to me, “Buy the field for money and get witnesses” —though the city has been given into the hands of the Chaldeans. (Jeremiah 32:16-25, NRSV)

I did not think what you were calling me to do would actually work. I know I have thought that so many times.

But where is the focus?

The focus on what I thought would happen. What I thought was going to transpire.

The focus was on me.

I wasn’t focusing on God and what God knew was going to happen.

You see here the field was purchased, and through that, the love of God was made clear.

We get so hung up on what might or could or could not happen we miss the focus.

God is the focus, not us.

So focus on God and go where God is leading.

The Wicked and the Righteous

Why do you boast, O mighty one, of mischief done against the godly? All day long you are plotting destruction. Your tongue is like a sharp razor, you worker of treachery. You love evil more than good, and lying more than speaking the truth. You love all words that devour, O deceitful tongue. But God will break you down forever; he will snatch and tear you from your tent; he will uproot you from the land of the living. The righteous will see, and fear, and will laugh at the evildoer, saying, “See the one who would not take refuge in God, but trusted in abundant riches, and sought refuge in wealth!” But I am like a green olive tree in the house of God. I trust in the steadfast love of God forever and ever. I will thank you forever, because of what you have done. In the presence of the faithful I will proclaim your name, for it is good. (Psalm 52:1-9, NRSV)

Why do you boast?

Because of what you have?

Because of what you’ve done?

Because of who you are?

None of this is actually stuff we have done. All of it is a gift from God. God made you as you are to be a gift to the world. Live the love He gave you and show forth His tender mercy and compassion towards others.

What you have is what God has blessed you with. So use it for His glory not your own.

And what you’ve accomplished or done is what He has used you to do. Boast in God, not in yourself and give credit where credit is due.

The Community’s Generosity

Now the whole group of those who believed were of one heart and soul, and no one claimed private ownership of any possessions, but everything they owned was held in common. With great power the apostles gave their testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and great grace was upon them all. There was not a needy person among them, for as many as owned lands or houses sold them and brought the proceeds of what was sold. They laid it at the apostles’ feet, and it was distributed to each as any had need. There was a Levite, a native of Cyprus, Joseph, to whom the apostles gave the name Barnabas (which means “son of encouragement”). He sold a field that belonged to him, then brought the money, and laid it at the apostles’ feet. (Acts 4:32-37, NRSV)

Everything all of the believers had was held in common. And they distributed to anyone as they had need.

How many of us are ready to do that?

How many of us are willing to think about this?

The issue here is they didn’t own anything and saw everything they had as a blessing from God. This allowed everyone to sell all of their property and give all of the money to the disciples to use as it was needed.

Stuff is not bad. But when we give it too much value then it becomes an idol. We need to keep things in perspective, and the early church did that by selling everything and letting the apostles decide who needed what.

Are you ready for that?