Mr. Fix It…

Do you know someone who can fix anything? If it breaks you call them and they come and fix it.  Like an uncle who would fix everything from plumbing to bats/gloves to bikes and garbage disposals…

A friend told me a story about a man who was the fix it person. The family would put things aside to wait for him to come through and he takes care of all the things that are broken. He could fix anything. Then the fix it man passed away, and they left him out so that God could come and fix him. You see that is what God does, He fixes us. He takes what is broken and turns it into something new. Hosea 6 tells us how God will raise us up to live before Him. God is our Mr. Fix It. He will make our lives new and make us new creations…

Allow God to fix you, to see what you can be.

Praise the Lord!

We all have reasons to not praise the Lord. We do not have to think to hard or to long to come up with reasons to just get mad and angry at everything. It is not hard for us to find reasons to sink into deep depression…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N4-iLnDi21k&feature=youtube_gdata_player

This is a video for Francesca Battistelli’s This is the Stuff. It is a song about how we get caught up in the little stuff of everyday life. We lose our keys and phones and life takes over and we seem to forget how much we are blessed by God through all of the stuff we go. Everything is a reason to give God praise. Praise Him with every moment every thing of your life.

Psalm 150:6 says let everything that has breath praise the Lord. So even in the t moment of your life praise God. Because He is working through everything of your life…

What love…

What love is this that we should be called children?

Now tonight if you ask my eldest 2 daughters if they feel blessed tonight to be my children, they would probably say no. We had a run in over burning a comb in a candle. They wanted to see what would happen to the plastic comb in the flame. I got very upset with them and sent them to their rooms. I asked them what they would have done if the comb would have caught fire and burned their hand and then they drop it on the carpet and the house catch on fire? Now they went to their rooms thinking that I as concerned about losing the stuff in the house. Truth is I’m more concerned about my babies getting hurt. I’m more worried about losing my girls which I can’t replace then the stuff in the house that is just stuff and can be replaced.

I do not do everything right as a father. But God as our heavenly father is always there to show us love hen we mess up. And yes I’m sure He gets upset with us. But unlike us He doesn’t send us to our rooms not understanding what we did or what was wrong, right? We always understand everything that happens where God is concerned right? I don’t always understand what is happening at every moment. What I do know is that God loves me and watches over me regardless of the stupid things I do.

1 John 3 tells us we are children of God, and we are secure in that. As long as we don’t sin…

Wait a minute! I sin every day! Matin Luther told us that we are simultaneously Saint and Sinner. We are claimed by God as His children, and also a sinner separated from God. We are saved and held in God’s hand while we are turning our back on Him and living in darkness.

We are claimed by God and His children and this does not change. The promises of God are clear that once God’s child you will be watched over.

Live in the promise that you are God’s child.

Servant or Lord…

Do you think you deserve to be served? Have you obtained a level where you deserve to have people do things for you?

How much money does it take for a person to deserve servants? How big must a person be to have people do things for them?

People work long and hard to obtain a status so they can lord over people. People work long and hard to get the money to get servants. People work to obtain the status of being in charge. But does money and status make one person better than another? Does status and money make a person able to lord anything over anyone else?

Jesus tells us here that even the disciples that have walked with Jesus have no more status and need to serve. Jesus as our Lord and Master does not lord over us but serves us and He calls us to serve to. Not to lord our status or money over anyone but to make ourselves as servants and lower than all so that we might show Jesus’ love to all.

Why do we read the Bible?

I just finished a book called Reading the Bible For All The Wrong Reasons. It was an interesting book on why we read the Bible and how many of us use the Bible for abuse rather than to build each other up.

By abuse we use the Bible to support those things we already believe. We proof text to find the nugget of information to support our thoughts. Even if we have to take that nugget out of context. We have long held beliefs of Biblical authority and of the text being inspired by God and being with out error. The Bible contradicts itself way to many times though according to the author for this to hold water. How can an all knowing and powerful God give us His divinely inspired work that contradicts itself? Why would He do this?

Plus the Bible has been used to hold down women, homosexuals and many others. There is the backing in the Bible to support interracial marriage being wrong. We chose to uphold something’s while ignoring or writing off others. The Bible says not to sow different types of seeds in the same field, or to wear garments of mixed fibers or to eat pork or shrimp or especially bacon wrapped shrimp… (personally I think not eating Bacon wrapped Shrimp should be a sin!)

Why do we think we can say the Bible says it and therefore we have to do it. And allow that to hold true for somethings and not for others.

The Bible is suppose to be a boon that brings us closer to God. The Bible is a book that grabs us and pulls us in, not a boom we grab and hold up against someone to measure how good they are.

So why do you read through Bible? Is it to be grab and filled with the Spirit to be brought closer to God? Or is it to prove what you think you already know and to bring you up and others down?

Trust in the Lord

In what do you trust? Do you trust in wealth? Do you trust in the amount of money you make and how much you have saved for the future? Is this security? When the dollar keeps falling and banks can close or be robbed?

Do you trust in the security of your job? Is there such a thing as job security? Any one can lose their job at anytime and be replaced. None of us our irreplaceable.

Is there absolutely security in anything? Can we trust in anything? Yes we can. God who is faithful and just. He will follow through on the promises He has given us. We see that in the Bible. How He has given His promise and He has followed through on that promise. Time and time again He is faithful.

We can trust in Him and not waiver in that because He is faithful and just, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.

So put your trust in the Lord and I promise you will not be let down.

What have you read

Today’s gospel lesson has the Sadducees trying to trap Jesus. You see they do not believe in the resurrection of the dead so asking if a man dies and leaves a childless wife then she marries the dead man’s brother and on and on until the all die, so whose wife is she in the resurrection? You see they do not believe we are resurrected. So why trap Jesus?

But it is them who get trapped. Jesus tells them they do not know God or the scriptures, we read the Bible all the time, but do we actually understand what we read? Or do we read to support what we already believe? Or do we only comprehend or retain what we read that supports what we believe?

So what have you read? Did you actually let the Bible live in you and breath through you, or did you look for what you needed? The Bible is the living breathing word of God and we need to let it breath in and through us to fill us, not use it as a place to get the answers we seek…

The Lions Den

Daniel 6 tells us about Daniel’s trip into the lions den.

Daniel was not liked by those who wanted his place. People around him were envious of him and his position with the king, so they moved in to get rid of him. They were caught up in the things of the world. They wanted the prestige and the power that came with the right hand man position of the king. They were willing to do anything to get that position. They did not know God. But sometimes in our day there are people who know God but are so hung up in getting their worldly due they will twist what God has said to ift them and tar others down.

We can live in the lions den, and we can put others in the lions den. Sometimes we lose sight of what God has called us to do and we get caught up in the beauty and riches this world offers us.
We need to stay focused on God. We need to trust in thee promises that we are told and know that God will follow through and be there for us. Just as He was to Daniel.

So do not get hung up on those around you making life a little harder, and throwing the road blocks out there. Remain focused on God and what He has called you to do. Also remain focused on what God has called you to do, so that you are not the one throwing others in the lions den.

Love or hate…

So what does it mean to love another believer? How do we love someone we do not agree with?

You see not all believers agree. And this is really nothing new, we see disagreements in Acts. The early church has issues with each other and who could be a christian, and wether you needed to be circumcised before you can be a follower of Christ…

Today we disagree over age of baptism, age of communion, frequency of communion. We disagree about what the Bible says about alot of topics. Some we stick hard to what the Bible says while some we let slide what the Bible says. For instance according to the Hebrew scriptures we are not to eat shrimp or bacon, but I love bacon and shrimp and especially bacon wrapped shrimp. So we are not that keen on keeping these things not allowed by the Bible, but homosexuality is right out because the Bible says it is wrong….

How can we love a brother/sister in Christ if we hate who they are? The sin committed is not the person is what some will say. We can hate the sin and love the sinner. But what if the sin being committed have no choice to do what they do? How do you hate the sin and love the sinner when they are linked and can not be separated?

1 John 2:3-11 tells us if we say we are light but hate our brother we are not light but darkness, and are leading people astray. We can no come down on someone for who they are or what they do and follow after Christ. Even Jesus Himself said that He did not come to judge, but to love. People would be judged by wether they followed what He taught or not, but He did not come to judge, He came to give us an example.

So live like Jesus and love everyone and show them how much God loves them.

Doubting who?

Today is low Sunday in the church, or the lowest attended Sunday in worship…

Why? I heard an excellent message this morning in worship that touched on this. Pastor Amy Danchik this morning said people come to worship on Christmas and Easter because they know they are going to hear the good news of Jesus and how we all are accepted and we all can have grace, and we all can get mercy, and everything is wonderful because of Jesus. But then on this Sunday, the Sunday that somewhere along the way got named Doubting Thomas Sunday we will hear that we are not good enough and our sin is over whelming and  we just aren’t good enough. She continued that none of us are ever good enough and if it was contingent on us having it all together before we came to church the building would be empty including the pulpit! It was a powerful message of the understanding of who we are and why Jesus came to earth. It was the “necessity of the incarnation” she said and told us that we all are loved by God just the way we are.

There were many things in Pastor Amy’s message that resonated with me. And she made me feel loved by God and acceptable to be used in mission with Him in the world.

You see today has been dubbed Doubting Thomas Sunday which is sad.  First of all doubting does not appear in the original language of John 20:19-31. And this dubious name has setup doubting to be the opposite of faith and that is simply not true.

Plus a close look at the text shows us that Thomas asked for no more than the disciples themselves got. Jesus appeared to them in the locked room and said “Peace be with you” and what happened? The disciples looked at Him in awe and were dumb founded, or they gasped, or they looked on in unbelief, or what? Obviously Jesus knew something was up, because the next thing John writes is and He showed them His hands and His side, and then they rejoiced. The disciples didn’t believe it until they saw what Thomas asked to see! And we say that  Thomas was doubting! The disciples saw Jesus standing among them in a room where the door was locked and they do not know who it is?

Plus there is the issue of the wording….

The NRSV has Jesus saying to Thomas ‘Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe.’ Do not doubt but believe! This is not what the original Greek says.  Now it is true that one could possibly rend this statement this way. I personally believe though that this causes undue stress on doubt and sets all of us up for making ourselves crazy over doubting too much. The actual sentence is  καὶ μὴ γίνου ἄπιστος ἀλλὰ πιστός  The word there that is translated doubt is apistos which is the opposite of pistos.  The sentence in a strict translation is ‘and not become you unbelieving but believing’, or ‘and not become you unfaithful but faithful’, or ‘and not become you untrusting but trusting’. It is not doubt vs belief. Doubt is not the opposite of belief. Doubt in my mind makes my belief, my faith, my trust stronger. Doubt allows me to question and seek our answers to my faith issues, problems are solved by the doubt that arises, and I am drawn closer to God in my doubt.

Thomas asked for nothing more than the disciples got, and we all want, so who needs to be questioned, or called out. And notice, Jesus did not reprimand Thomas, He gave him what he sought. And told him to trust, have faith, and believe.

So don’t get caught up in your doubt. Have it push you closer to Jesus, and trust, have faith and believe!