Are you practicing?

School books with apple on desk

It is that time of year that parents rejoice and some youth don’t like. It is back to school.

As if learning is something we only do from Kindergarten through college graduation! If that were only true, the only time we stop learning is when we are dead! And even then I bet we will learn something in the great wonderful eternity we get to spend with God.

So back to school and back to learning new things, deepening our faith and growing closer to God.

The council has been reading a book called Frog’s Without Legs Can’t Hear, Nurturing Disciples in Home and Congregation this year. It starts by asking, “Are we forming faith?”

And that is a great question to ask.

In the last chapter we read as a council there was a story about a woman who was in a coffee shop wearing a cross and the young person waiting on her told her he liked her cross, and then asked her if she was practicing?

And that is a great question.

You see faith is something we are given by God, but is something we are constantly learning about and forming and growing into. And faith is something more than just a belief. It is something that needs to be practiced.

St. Francis of Assisi is attributed with saying, but didn’t actually say, but really meant something to the effect, “Preach the Gospel at all times, and when necessary use words.” You see our lives should be lived in such a way that the good news of Jesus just flows out of everything we do.

So is your life forming faith?

And are you practicing?

What is unclean…

Then he called the crowd again and said to them, “Listen to me, all of you, and understand: there is nothing outside a person that by going in can defile, but the things that come out are what defile.” When he had left the crowd and entered the house, his disciples asked him about the parable. He said to them, “Then do you also fail to understand? Do you not see that whatever goes into a person from outside cannot defile, since it enters, not the heart but the stomach, and goes out into the sewer?” (Thus he declared all foods clean.) And he said, “It is what comes out of a person that defiles. For it is from within, from the human heart, that evil intentions come: fornication, theft, murder, adultery, avarice, wickedness, deceit, licentiousness, envy, slander, pride, folly. All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person.” (Mark 7:14-23, NRSV)

The picture intrigued me.

Mostly because the food the three a the bottom are eating looks like bacon, and I love bacon…

But this is an interesting verse. First the lesson is Mark 7:14-23. Yet does your Bible have a vers 16? It is a scriptural gloss from chapter 4 possibly and so is not present now in our translations.

But even more interesting to me is the (Thus he declared all foods clean.) Did He really?

He, being Jesus, said that what you eat goes through your body and then goes out as waste. He didn’t say all food was clean. Because it is not food that makes one unclean anyhow.

All forms of evil resides inside of each and every one of us. We have the capacity to be evil, and look out only for ourselves.

But that is where love comes in. We need not worry about what goes in us, but what comes out of us. That should be love.

What makes you unclean is already in you. If you can only follow after the examples of Jesus and follow where He is leading, then what makes you clean will be in you aswell, and that is then what will come out.

Where is your heart?

150830 Where is your heartNow when the Pharisees and some of the scribes who had come from Jerusalem gathered around him, they noticed that some of his disciples were eating with defiled hands, that is, without washing them. (For the Pharisees, and all the Jews, do not eat unless they thoroughly wash their hands, thus observing the tradition of the elders; and they do not eat anything from the market unless they wash it; and there are also many other traditions that they observe, the washing of cups, pots, and bronze kettles.) So the Pharisees and the scribes asked him, “Why do your disciples not live according to the tradition of the elders, but eat with defiled hands?” He said to them, “Isaiah prophesied rightly about you hypocrites, as it is written, ‘This people honors me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching human precepts as doctrines.’ You abandon the commandment of God and hold to human tradition.” Then he called the crowd again and said to them, “Listen to me, all of you, and understand: there is nothing outside a person that by going in can defile, but the things that come out are what defile.” For it is from within, from the human heart, that evil intentions come: fornication, theft, murder, adultery, avarice, wickedness, deceit, licentiousness, envy, slander, pride, folly. All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person.” (Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23, NRSV)

Have you ever done something because you knew someone else would be watching and you wanted to make sure they saw what you did?

We do things all the time so others will see us. We want others to see that we do good things, so they think we are good people.

It is like giving lip service. Lip service is where we say good things about people or do things for them in front of them, but then behind their backs we do all sorts of mean and nasty things, or say what we really think about them which is far from being nice.

Which is what Jesus says about the pharisees here. They give lip service to God, as if we can ever go behind God’s back!

But they say things and do things in public so that people will see them and think they are following God, when their hearts are only looking for the notoriety, or the lifting up of being such a good follower. Their hearts are far from God.

And how many of us are there?

Why do you come to worship?

Why do you put money in the offering?

Why do we do the things we do for God?

Is it because we love Him and are moved by Him, or this is the right thing to do to impress the right people?

Only you can answer these questions for yourselves, but know that God knows your motives.

Jesus said give so your left hand doesn’t know what your right hand is doing. Because it is about loving an awesome God and being led to do His will, not for our own gain, but so that His kingdom is built.

So don’t do anything because it will be seen by others and you will get the glory. Do all things so that God is given the glory!

my refuge

When my soul was embittered,
when I was pricked in heart,
I was stupid and ignorant;
I was like a brute beast toward you.
Nevertheless I am continually with you;
you hold my right hand.
You guide me with your counsel,
and afterward you will receive me with honor.
Whom have I in heaven but you?
And there is nothing on earth that I desire other than you.
My flesh and my heart may fail,
but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.
Indeed, those who are far from you will perish;
you put an end to those who are false to you.
But for me it is good to be near God;
I have made the Lord GOD my refuge,
to tell of all your works.
(Psalm 73:21-28, NRSV)

I love this picture.

God holding us in the palm of His hand.

It is our place of refuge.

And from this place we can shout to the tops of the mountains all the wonderful works God has done!

don’t lose

But recall those earlier days when, after you had been enlightened, you endured a hard struggle with sufferings, sometimes being publicly exposed to abuse and persecution, and sometimes being partners with those so treated. For you had compassion for those who were in prison, and you cheerfully accepted the plundering of your possessions, knowing that you yourselves possessed something better and more lasting. Do not, therefore, abandon that confidence of yours; it brings a great reward. For you need endurance, so that when you have done the will of God, you may receive what was promised. For yet “in a very little while, the one who is coming will come and will not delay; but my righteous one will live by faith. My soul takes no pleasure in anyone who shrinks back.” But we are not among those who shrink back and so are lost, but among those who have faith and so are saved. (Hebrews 10:32-39, NRSV)

“knowing that you yourselves possessed something better and more lasting”

We all know that even if everything here is taken from us, we still possess something better and longer lasting that anything here.

We can not lose faith.

We can not lose trust.

We can not lose our belief or hope in God!

No matter what happens this will see us through.

So don’t lose the faith, and know you have something better and longer lasting than anything we could get here.

who is with us…

Children, it is the last hour! As you have heard that antichrist is coming, so now many antichrists have come. From this we know that it is the last hour. They went out from us, but they did not belong to us; for if they had belonged to us, they would have remained with us. But by going out they made it plain that none of them belongs to us. But you have been anointed by the Holy One, and all of you have knowledge. I write to you, not because you do not know the truth, but because you know it, and you know that no lie comes from the truth. Who is the liar but the one who denies that Jesus is the Christ? This is the antichrist, the one who denies the Father and the Son. No one who denies the Son has the Father; everyone who confesses the Son has the Father also. Let what you heard from the beginning abide in you. If what you heard from the beginning abides in you, then you will abide in the Son and in the Father. And this is what he has promised us, eternal life. (1 John 2:18-25, NRSV)

Our job while we are here is to share the love of God with everyone. Some will seem to get it, but according to 1 John they won’t.

They will walk away because they are full of the devil. If you deny Jesus or the Father you can not be a part of the body.

But how do we deny God, Jesus, or the Father?

Out right saying they don’t exist is denying, but is denying not following where they lead?

Is denying not doing what God is leading you to do, when it doesn’t fit your idea of what following God is?

So who is with God, and who is denying God may not be clear, only to God.

So love everyone, even when it seems they might be walking away from God.

Only God truly knows their heart!

follow

As they were going along the road, someone said to him, “I will follow you wherever you go.” And Jesus said to him, “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.” To another he said, “Follow me.” But he said, “Lord, first let me go and bury my father.” But Jesus said to him, “Let the dead bury their own dead; but as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God.” Another said, “I will follow you, Lord; but let me first say farewell to those at my home.” Jesus said to him, “No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.”  (Luke 9:57-62, NRSV)

I will follow wherever you go!

We are so quick to jump on the band wagon and put our loyalties in God. And don’t get me wrong, I think we all should. We should all trust in God and follow where He leads.

The problem is things get in the way of that.

Let me go and bury my father.

Let me go say farewell to my household.

Let me first take of this.

We all get distracted when we need to be focused on Jesus.

Because you see God’s plan is not our plan. We want it our way, which is fine if the church were Burger King, but it is God’s house and so we must follow where He is leading us!

what must I do

Then someone came to him and said, “Teacher, what good deed must I do to have eternal life?”  And he said to him, “Why do you ask me about what is good? There is only one who is good. If you wish to enter into life, keep the commandments.”  He said to him, “Which ones?” And Jesus said, “You shall not murder; You shall not commit adultery; You shall not steal; You shall not bear false witness; Honor your father and mother; also, You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”  The young man said to him, “I have kept all these; what do I still lack?” Jesus said to him, “If you wish to be perfect, go, sell your possessions, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.” When the young man heard this word, he went away grieving, for he had many possessions. (Matthew 19:16-22, NRSV)

This is a great interchange between Jesus and what could be any of us…

The person asks, “What good deed must I do to have eternal life?”

What do I have to do to get the gift, we all want to know, right!

And Jesus replies, “Don’t ask me about what is good, only God is good, keep the commandments.”

And here is where the conversation gets good.

The person replies, “which ones?” I need to know what I have to do and what I don’t have to do.

Which part of the Bible do I need to follow and what is up for interpretation!

Then when Jesus tells him the commandments to keep, the person replies, “I’ve kept all of those!”

Really?

You’ve never thought bad thoughts about any one…

You’ve never looked on another person lustfully…

You’ve never thought about or taken anything from someone else…

You’ve never said something about someone else that wasn’t the full truth…

You’ve always honored your mother and father and never said anything cross about them…

And you’ve loved everyone as you love yourself…

Well then ok, then you only lack this one thing.

Why is it so hard to love like Jesus? Because He loved (loves) everyone where they are and doesn’t need them to be perfect before He will love them.

Stop worrying about how to make Jesus happy and start looking at the needs of others, then Jesus will be happy!

fall away

When the people saw that Moses delayed to come down from the mountain, the people gathered around Aaron, and said to him, “Come, make gods for us, who shall go before us; as for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.” Aaron said to them, “Take off the gold rings that are on the ears of your wives, your sons, and your daughters, and bring them to me.” So all the people took off the gold rings from their ears, and brought them to Aaron. He took the gold from them, formed it in a mold, and cast an image of a calf; and they said, “These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!” When Aaron saw this, he built an altar before it; and Aaron made proclamation and said, “Tomorrow shall be a festival to the LORD.” They rose early the next day, and offered burnt offerings and brought sacrifices of well-being; and the people sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to revel. The LORD said to Moses, “Go down at once! Your people, whom you brought up out of the land of Egypt, have acted perversely; they have been quick to turn aside from the way that I commanded them; they have cast for themselves an image of a calf, and have worshiped it and sacrificed to it, and said, ‘These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!’” (Exodus 32:1-8, NRSV)

I love this passage for the shear engineering aspects of creating a golden calf out of gold in the desert. I mean what kind of tools did they have?

But more to the point of the passage for this week.

The people saw Moses go up the mountain to have time with God and when he didn’t return in the amount of time they saw fit, they gave up on him.

How easily we give up things we can not see, or do not fit our understanding.

We want everything to be our way, now. But that is not how it happens.

God works in strange and mysterious ways and on His own time-table.

So trust in God and don’t fall away, even if His timing is slower than you would like, His plan is perfect.

crosseyed

April 16Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them. Just as the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever eats me will live because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like that which your ancestors ate, and they died. But the one who eats this bread will live forever.” He said these things while he was teaching in the synagogue at Capernaum. When many of his disciples heard it, they said, “This teaching is difficult; who can accept it?” But Jesus, being aware that his disciples were complaining about it, said to them, “Does this offend you? Then what if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before? It is the spirit that gives life; the flesh is useless. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life. But among you there are some who do not believe.” For Jesus knew from the first who were the ones that did not believe, and who was the one that would betray him. And he said, “For this reason I have told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted by the Father.” Because of this many of his disciples turned back and no longer went about with him. So Jesus asked the twelve, “Do you also wish to go away?” Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom can we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and know that you are the Holy One of God.” (John 6:56-69, NRSV)

Have you ever wanted to walk away from your faith?

The people following Jesus here had for a while and now they hear what Jesus is saying and it is too hard for them.

Sometimes life has a way of slapping us upside the face and we want to retreat into a nice dark hole and keep everything away.

Trust me I know this I have been there. When it seems like everything is going against you. Every where you turn there is rejection. Every where you turn seems to be another door slammed in your face. It is hard to keep moving forward.

So why do we? I kept moving forward because of my faith. I kept the faith not because it was easy, or honestly because it felt like God was there with me, but because of the promises it gave me.

Even when I couldn’t feel God with me, He was! Mother Teresa helped so many people when she lived in what she termed “the dark night of the soul.” She did nto feel God close to her! Yet she continued to serve andhelp others see and experience God. Now I am not saying I am anything like Mother Teresa, far from it my friends, but we do not have to feel God near us in order for us to continue in the faith!

What makes the 12 any different from those who left?

Peter’s answer is the best one yet, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.” Even when it is hard, we know were to look!

Keep your eyes focused on Jesus. Be Cross Eyed, constantly focused on Jesus the author and perfector of our faith!

Know your focus!