Testify

From Miletus he sent a message to Ephesus calling for the church’s elders to meet him. When they arrived, he said to them, “You know how I lived among you the whole time I was with you, beginning with the first day I arrived in the province of Asia. I served the Lord with great humility and with tears in the midst of trials that came upon me because of the Jews’ schemes. You know I held back nothing that would be helpful so that I could proclaim to you and teach you both publicly and privately in your homes. You know I have testified to both Jews and Greeks that they must change their hearts and lives as they turn to God and have faith in our Lord Jesus. Now, compelled by the Spirit, I’m going to Jerusalem. I don’t know what will happen to me there. What I do know is that the Holy Spirit testifies to me from city to city that prisons and troubles await me. But nothing, not even my life, is more important than my completing my mission. This is nothing other than the ministry I received from the Lord Jesus: to testify about the good news of God’s grace. “I know that none of you will see me again—you among whom I traveled and proclaimed the kingdom. Therefore, today I testify to you that I’m not responsible for anyone’s fate. I haven’t avoided proclaiming the entire plan of God to you. Watch yourselves and the whole flock, in which the Holy Spirit has placed you as supervisors, to shepherd God’s church, which he obtained with the death of his own Son. I know that, after my departure, savage wolves will come in among you and won’t spare the flock. Some of your own people will distort the word in order to lure followers after them. Stay alert! Remember that for three years I constantly and tearfully warned each one of you. I never stopped warning you! Now I entrust you to God and the message of his grace, which is able to build you up and give you an inheritance among all whom God has made holy. I haven’t craved anyone’s silver, gold, or clothing. You yourselves know that I have provided for my own needs and for those of my companions with my own hands. In everything I have shown you that, by working hard, we must help the weak. In this way we remember the Lord Jesus’ words: ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.’” After he said these things, he knelt down with all of them to pray. They cried uncontrollably as everyone embraced and kissed Paul. They were especially grieved by his statement that they would never see him again. Then they accompanied him to the ship. (Acts 20:17-38, CEB)

The plan for all of us is “to testify about the good news of God’s grace.”

We all need to watch out for anyone who tries to lead us astray from doing what we are called to be doing.

When we focus on what is right and in line with what we have been taught or think is the way God wants us to act or be and then enforce rules for others to follow to be like we think God wants them to be, we are not testifying about the good news of God’s grace. We are building walls to keep people out. When humans build walls, God is usually on their other side.

Testify about the good news of God’s grace!

Love like Jesus.

Build bigger tables and welcome everyone instead of being an enforcer of rules that you made up.

Loving People. Loving God.

support

Rely on your leaders and defer to them, because they watch over your whole being as people who are going to be held responsible for you. They need to be able to do this with pleasure and not with complaints about you, because that wouldn’t help you. Pray for us. We’re sure that we have a good conscience, and we want to do the right thing in every way. I’m particularly asking you to do this so that I can be returned to you quickly. May the God of peace, who brought back the great shepherd of the sheep, our Lord Jesus, from the dead by the blood of the eternal covenant, equip you with every good thing to do his will, by developing in us what pleases him through Jesus Christ. To him be the glory forever and always. Amen. I urge you, brothers and sisters, to put up with this message of encouragement, since I’ve only written a short letter to you! You should know that our brother Timothy has been set free. If he comes soon, we will travel together to see you. Greet your leaders and all of God’s holy people. The group from Italy greets you. May grace be with all of you. (Hebrews 13:17-25, CEB)

Rely on your leaders, for they are held responsible for you. Pastors and leaders of the church according to this are responsible for those they serve and will be held accountable for the people they shepherded. They need to serve willingly and not out of compulsion. And those who are led should rely on the leaders and lift them up.

We all need support and assistance. Leaders are humans who falter and fail. We need to pray for all and ask God to give them the power and strength to do and be who God made them to be.

Pray for us. Pray for all.

Loving People. Loving God.

come and rest

The apostles returned to Jesus and told him everything they had done and taught. Many people were coming and going, so there was no time to eat. He said to the apostles, “Come by yourselves to a secluded place and rest for a while.” They departed in a boat by themselves for a deserted place. Many people saw them leaving and recognized them, so they ran ahead from all the cities and arrived before them. When Jesus arrived and saw a large crowd, he had compassion on them because they were like sheep without a shepherd. Then he began to teach them many things. When Jesus and his disciples had crossed the lake, they landed at Gennesaret, anchored the boat, and came ashore. People immediately recognized Jesus and ran around that whole region bringing sick people on their mats to wherever they heard he was. Wherever he went—villages, cities, or farming communities—they would place the sick in the marketplaces and beg him to allow them to touch even the hem of his clothing. Everyone who touched him was healed. (Mark 6:30-34, 53-56, CEB)

Jesus was overwhelmed by the people around him, but he taught them and healed them. Showing compassion.

But through all of this, there still needs to be rest. Jesus told the disciples, “Come by yourselves to a secluded place and rest for a while.”

We need to take time and rest. Know this is holy.

Show compassion and take time to rest.

Loving People. Loving God.

be quiet

As Jesus came to Jericho, a certain blind man was sitting beside the road begging. When the man heard the crowd passing by, he asked what was happening. They told him, “Jesus the Nazarene is passing by.” The blind man shouted, “Jesus, Son of David, show me mercy.” Those leading the procession scolded him, telling him to be quiet, but he shouted even louder, “Son of David, show me mercy.” Jesus stopped and called for the man to be brought to him. When he was present Jesus asked, “What do you want me to do for you?” He said, “Lord, I want to see.” Jesus said to him, “Receive your sight! Your faith has healed you.” At once he was able to see, and he began to follow Jesus, praising God. When all the people saw it, they praised God too. (Luke 18:35-43, CEB)

People in power do not like it when things aren’t going the way they want them to.

They need to maintain the process and keep a tight grip on things. And when the boat is rocked in any way they react.

Here we see them telling this man to be quiet because he wants to get Jesus’ attention, and when they shush him, he gets louder. And when he comes to Jesus he tells Jesus he wants to see, and he receives his sight.

Did that cause an issue with the parade? it paused it for a moment, but was it really a disruption? I mean a man who could not see now can see and the procession continued. 15 seconds for a complete difference in a life.

Maybe the distractions are the things we should look for.

How can we completely change a person’s life?

Loving People. Loving God.

unknown

While Paul waited for them in Athens, he was deeply distressed to find that the city was flooded with idols. He began to interact with the Jews and Gentile God-worshippers in the synagogue. He also addressed whoever happened to be in the marketplace each day. Certain Epicurean and Stoic philosophers engaged him in discussion too. Some said, “What an amateur! What’s he trying to say?” Others remarked, “He seems to be a proclaimer of foreign gods.” (They said this because he was preaching the good news about Jesus and the resurrection.) They took him into custody and brought him to the council on Mars Hill. “What is this new teaching? Can we learn what you are talking about? You’ve told us some strange things and we want to know what they mean.” (They said this because all Athenians as well as the foreigners who live in Athens used to spend their time doing nothing but talking about or listening to the newest thing.) Paul stood up in the middle of the council on Mars Hill and said, “People of Athens, I see that you are very religious in every way. As I was walking through town and carefully observing your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: ‘To an unknown God.’ What you worship as unknown, I now proclaim to you. God, who made the world and everything in it, is Lord of heaven and earth. He doesn’t live in temples made with human hands. Nor is God served by human hands, as though he needed something, since he is the one who gives life, breath, and everything else. From one person God created every human nation to live on the whole earth, having determined their appointed times and the boundaries of their lands. God made the nations so they would seek him, perhaps even reach out to him and find him. In fact, God isn’t far away from any of us. In God we live, move, and exist. As some of your own poets said, ‘We are his offspring.’ “Therefore, as God’s offspring, we have no need to imagine that the divine being is like a gold, silver, or stone image made by human skill and thought. God overlooks ignorance of these things in times past, but now directs everyone everywhere to change their hearts and lives. This is because God has set a day when he intends to judge the world justly by a man he has appointed. God has given proof of this to everyone by raising him from the dead.” (Acts 17:16-31, CEB)

To an unknown God…

There are many around us who claim God is not real or doesn’t exist. That everything fell into place by the big bang or chance. And the way those who believe in God act I can see why people don’t want to see God.

But as Paul says to the people of Athens, God is not unknown or unknowable. God created everything and put into motion the things that made this world and all that is in it. in spite of the followers of God that do not understand science and how things are and default to a book written to tell a story of our creation to a people that did not know what we know. And now must say that that is fact or else everything else in the book can be questioned too. My thought is, let it be questioned. God is big enough for that, and God is bigger than that. A story written for people that have no concept of what we known now should not be stated as fact.

My internship supervisor taught me, that science tells us how the world was created and the Bible tells us who created. They are not at odds with each other. One says who, and one says how.

I believe in God as the creator of everything because there is no way all of this happened by chance. There are too many intricate details that make it to be far beyond chance for me.

So I love the ones who disagree, as God taught me.

Love. It covers the differences.

Loving People. Loving God.

oneness

The Son is the image of the invisible God,
        the one who is first over all creation,
Because all things were created by him:
        both in the heavens and on the earth,
        the things that are visible and the things that are invisible.
            Whether they are thrones or powers,
            or rulers or authorities,
        all things were created through him and for him.
He existed before all things,
        and all things are held together in him.
He is the head of the body, the church,
who is the beginning,
        the one who is firstborn from among the dead
        so that he might occupy the first place in everything.
Because all the fullness of God was pleased to live in him,
        and he reconciled all things to himself through him—
        whether things on earth or in the heavens.
            He brought peace through the blood of his cross.

Once you were alienated from God and you were enemies with him in your minds, which was shown by your evil actions. But now he has reconciled you by his physical body through death, to present you before God as a people who are holy, faultless, and without blame. But you need to remain well established and rooted in faith and not shift away from the hope given in the good news that you heard. This message has been preached throughout all creation under heaven. And I, Paul, became a servant of this good news. (Colossians 1:15-23, CEB)

Jesus is God.

Jesus was before time.

Jesus was a part of creation.

Jesus made a way for us to have a relationship with God.

Jesus taught us how to live and love beyond boundaries set by religion.

Jesus made us one with God.

Share that oneness with the world.

Loving People. Loving God.

See what?

“To what will I compare the people of this generation?” Jesus asked. “What are they like? They are like children sitting in the marketplace calling out to each other, ‘We played the flute for you and you didn’t dance. We sang a funeral song and you didn’t cry.’ John the Baptist came neither eating bread nor drinking wine, and you say, ‘He has a demon.’ Yet the Human One came eating and drinking, and you say, ‘Look, a glutton and a drunk, a friend of tax collectors and sinners.’ But wisdom is proved to be right by all her descendants.” (Luke 7:31-35, CEB)

People are quick to follow after someone who tells them what they already want to believe, or have always believed. We are not quick to change our understanding. As a people we hold to what we know or have learned and when we are told something different we will not understand it or fight to not have it be true.

John had a demon because he was different. Jesus was a glutton and a drunk because he associated with people the power people stayed away from.

Love shows us a different way. Do not be conformed to this world, but transform yourselves by renewing your minds and following after God. Paul wrote that wise line in Romans. Do not conform, be transformed by God and show love in everything you do.

Loving People. Loving God.

always with us

The next morning some Jewish leaders formulated a plot and solemnly promised that they wouldn’t eat or drink until they had killed Paul. More than forty people were involved in the conspiracy. They went to the chief priests and elders and said, “We have solemnly promised to eat nothing until we have killed Paul. You and the council must explain to the commander that you need Paul brought down to you. Pretend that you want to examine his case more closely. We’re prepared to kill him before he arrives.” Paul’s sister had a son who heard about the ambush and he came to the military headquarters and reported it to Paul. Paul called for one of the centurions and said, “Take this young man to the commander because he has something to report to him.” He took him to the commander and said, “The prisoner Paul asked me to bring this young man to you. He has something to tell you.” The commander took him by the hand and withdrew to a place where they could speak privately. He asked, “What do you have to report to me?” He replied, “The Jewish leaders have conspired to ask that you bring Paul down to the council tomorrow. They will pretend that they want to investigate his case more closely. Don’t fall for it! More than forty of them are waiting to ambush him. They have solemnly promised not to eat or drink until they have killed him. They are ready now, awaiting your consent.” The commander dismissed the young man, ordering him, “Don’t tell anyone that you brought this to my attention.” The commander called two centurions and said, “Prepare two hundred soldiers, seventy horsemen, and two hundred spearmen to leave for Caesarea at nine o’clock tonight. Have horses ready for Paul to ride, so they may take him safely to Governor Felix.” He wrote the following letter: Claudius Lysias, to the most honorable Governor Felix: Greetings. This man was seized by the Jews and was almost killed by them. I was nearby with a unit of soldiers, and I rescued him when I discovered that he was a Roman citizen. I wanted to find out why they were accusing him, so I brought him to their council. I discovered that they were accusing him about questions related to their Law. I found no charge deserving of death or imprisonment. When I was informed of a conspiracy against his life, I sent him to you at once and ordered his accusers to bring their case against him before you. Following their orders, the soldiers took Paul during the night and brought him to Antipatris. The following day they let the horsemen continue on with Paul while they returned to the military headquarters in Jerusalem. The horsemen entered Caesarea, delivered the letter to the governor, and brought Paul before him. After he read the letter, he asked Paul about his home province. When he learned that he was from Cilicia, the governor said, “I will hear your case when your accusers arrive.” Then he ordered that Paul be kept in custody in Herod’s palace. (Acts 23:12-35, CEB)

People plotted against Paul, but God was with him.

They arranged a way to kill Paul, yet the plan was thwarted and Paul was able to live.

God works in and through circumstances and is always with us so we can be bearers of God’s love.

Know you are never alone and God is always with you.

Loving People. Loving God.

Mob mentality

When the seven days of purification were almost over, the Jews from the province of Asia saw Paul in the temple. Grabbing him, they threw the whole crowd into confusion by shouting, “Fellow Israelites! Help! This is the man who teaches everyone everywhere against our people, the Law, and this place. Not only that, he has even brought Greeks into the temple and defiled this holy place.” (They said this because they had seen Trophimus the Ephesian in the city with him earlier, and they assumed Paul had brought him into the temple.) The entire city was stirred up. The people came rushing, seized Paul, and dragged him out of the temple. Immediately the gates were closed. While they were trying to kill him, a report reached the commander of a company of soldiers that all Jerusalem was in a state of confusion. Without a moment’s hesitation, he took some soldiers and officers and ran down to the mob. When the mob saw the commander and his soldiers, they stopped beating Paul. When the commander arrived, he arrested Paul and ordered him to be bound with two chains. Only then did he begin to ask who Paul was and what he had done. Some in the crowd shouted one thing, others shouted something else. Because of the commotion, he couldn’t learn the truth, so he ordered that Paul be taken to the military headquarters. When Paul reached the steps, he had to be carried by the soldiers in order to protect him from the violence of the crowd. The mob that followed kept screaming, “Away with him!” As Paul was about to be taken into the military headquarters, he asked the commander, “May I speak with you?” He answered, “Do you know Greek? Aren’t you the Egyptian who started a revolt and led four thousand terrorists into the desert some time ago?” Paul replied, “I’m a Jew from Tarsus in Cilicia, a citizen of an important city. Please, let me speak to the people.” (Acts 21:27-39, CEB)

This crowd was doing what they wanted regardless of whether it was right or not until the law showed up.

Crowd mentality is what makes the crowd scream Hosanna to Jesus on Sunday and Crucify him on Thursday.

When we get in the crowd and follow what they are doing sometimes we will get drawn into a place we do not want to be doing things we do not want to do.

Even the Roman soldiers arrested Paul before they knew who he was or what he had done. The mentality of the crowd clouded their jobs.

Keep a clear head and follow Jesus, not the crowd.

Love like Jesus.

Loving People. Loving God.

follow who?

Herod the king heard about these things, because the name of Jesus had become well-known. Some were saying, “John the Baptist has been raised from the dead, and this is why miraculous powers are at work through him.” Others were saying, “He is Elijah.” Still others were saying, “He is a prophet like one of the ancient prophets.” But when Herod heard these rumors, he said, “John, whom I beheaded, has been raised to life.” He said this because Herod himself had arranged to have John arrested and put in prison because of Herodias, the wife of Herod’s brother Philip. Herod had married her, but John told Herod, “It’s against the law for you to marry your brother’s wife!” So Herodias had it in for John. She wanted to kill him, but she couldn’t. This was because Herod respected John. He regarded him as a righteous and holy person, so he protected him. John’s words greatly confused Herod, yet he enjoyed listening to him. Finally, the time was right. It was on one of Herod’s birthdays, when he had prepared a feast for his high-ranking officials and military officers and Galilee’s leading residents. Herod’s daughter Herodias came in and danced, thrilling Herod and his dinner guests. The king said to the young woman, “Ask me whatever you wish, and I will give it to you.” Then he swore to her, “Whatever you ask I will give to you, even as much as half of my kingdom.” She left the banquet hall and said to her mother, “What should I ask for?” “John the Baptist’s head,” Herodias replied. Hurrying back to the ruler, she made her request: “I want you to give me John the Baptist’s head on a plate, right this minute.” Although the king was upset, because of his solemn pledge and his guests, he didn’t want to refuse her. So he ordered a guard to bring John’s head. The guard went to the prison, cut off John’s head, brought his head on a plate, and gave it to the young woman, and she gave it to her mother. When John’s disciples heard what had happened, they came and took his dead body and laid it in a tomb. (Mark 6:14-29, CEB)

Herodias had it in for John because he was saying you can’t marry your brother’s wife. Which really why would you want to marry your brother’s wife? But Herodias didn’t like John and so when an opportunity came she got John killed.

Why? Because Herod listened to what his wife wanted rather than what he knew he should do.

When we follow society or the crowd, we sometimes miss the mark.

Stay true to yourself and where God is leading you. Do not conform to this world and follow out of pressure.

Follow where God is leading even when others don’t understand.

Loving People. Loving God.