goodness and beauty are his…

Then the Lord will appear over them, and his arrow go forth like lightning; the Lord God will sound the trumpet and march forth in the whirlwinds of the south. The Lord of hosts will protect them, and they shall devour and tread down the slingers; they shall drink their blood like wine, and be full like a bowl, drenched like the corners of the altar. On that day the Lord their God will save them for they are the flock of his people; for like the jewels of a crown they shall shine on his land. For what goodness and beauty are his! Grain shall make the young men flourish, and new wine the young women.

Ask rain from the Lord in the season of the spring rain, from the Lord who makes the storm clouds, who gives showers of rain to you, the vegetation in the field to everyone. For the teraphim utter nonsense, and the diviners see lies; the dreamers tell false dreams, and give empty consolation. Therefore the people wander like sheep; they suffer for lack of a shepherd. (Zechariah 9:14-10:2)

What has the Lord done for you?

Or maybe a better question is what hasn’t the Lord done for you?

Yet even though He has given everything for us, and given us everything we have and need (not want but need), we still wander through life a s a people as a flock without a shepherd. But the Lord gives us rain for the field and the grain of the field to everyone! Everyone gets to eat the bounty of His good work.

We are the jewels of His crown and we will shine in His land forever. (And remember forever is a very long time!) We will be the shining jewels that He treasures for all time in the land He is going to inhabit with us. So always remember that you are His and you are treasured by him as a precious stone that could never be replaced.

He wants to be your shepherd and fulfill your needs in this life, just cling to Him and allow Him to be your shepherd.

Forever

Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth!
Serve the Lord with gladness!
Come into his presence with singing!
Know that the Lord, he is God!
It is he who made us, and we are his;
we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture.
Enter his gates with thanksgiving,
and his courts with praise!
Give thanks to him; bless his name!
For the Lord is good;
his steadfast love endures forever,
and his faithfulness to all generations. (Psalm 100:1-5 ESV)

Forever is a mighty long time!!!

We talk about things lasting for a long time and how long we have been suffering or dealing with things we don’t want to wish on our worst enemies.

But psalm 100 says that the Lord is good and his love endures forever! And not just his love but his steadfast love. Love that is not shaken by the troubles of this world or anything. God’s love for you will not be changed by anything that happens to you or anything you do. His love will always be there for you to see you through everything that will come your way.

So shout to the lord even in the dark valley because his steadfast love for you will endure forever!!!

5 Things Lutheran Camps Can Teach the Rest of the Church

Wonderful article on camps and how we can do what they do to help make our gatherings more responsive to the needs of the communities we are in…

geoff sinibaldo's avatarsinibaldo.wordpress.com

I love camp. I truly do. I spent five summers in the midst of college and seminary on summer staff at Crossways – Pine Lake Camp in Waupaca, WI, (under the tutelage of Penny Christensen [current Executive Director of Lutheran Outdoor Ministries in Ohio]) and a year in-between college and seminary on year round staff at Lutherdale Bible Camp in Elkhorn, WI. I haven’t worked at a camp in a dozen years now, yet every summer I crave that intentional Christian community. Last week my family spent two nights among friends at Camp Calumet in Freedom, NH. In August both of our kids will go for a session of youth camp at Crossways (where my wife and I spent those five summers, and got married in the chapel). For years we’ve gone to family camp with friends at Luther Crest in Alexandria, MN where one of those friends, Dave Holtz, is the…

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Know leisure…

Mark 6:30-34, 53-56 (NRSV)

Christ healing the multitudes

The apostles gathered around Jesus, and told him all that they had done and taught. He said to them, “Come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest a while.” For many were coming and going, and they had no leisure even to eat. And they went away in the boat to a deserted place by themselves. Now many saw them going and recognized them, and they hurried there on foot from all the towns and arrived ahead of them. As he went ashore, he saw a great crowd; and he had compassion for them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd; and he began to teach them many things. …

When they had crossed over, they came to land at Gennesaret and moored the boat. When they got out of the boat, people at once recognized him, and rushed about that whole region and began to bring the sick on mats to wherever they heard he was. And wherever he went, into villages or cities or farms, they laid the sick in the marketplaces, and begged him that they might touch even the fringe of his cloak; and all who touched it were healed.

Have you ever felt like there was no time for you to rest? Like the work was never going to end and even when you saw the end, that is when some one or something pops up that needs you to do another task…

That is exactly where Jesus and the disciples are in our reading today. For many were coming and going, and they had no leisure even to eat. They had no time to eat or rest. So when your work is overwhelming Jesus knows your pain…

Yet when we are ready to give up, Jesus keeps going. Now you might say that there is a difference between my office work and what Jesus did. Maybe…

You were given a gift to use for the betterment of the body of Christ, so doing what you do is what Jesus did. Jesus came to show us a better way to follow what God had asked the people to do yo be in a relationship with him…

So do what you do so the world will change! And know that your leisure will come!

Complain to the Lord…

Jeremiah 12:1-13 ESV

Righteous are you, O Lord,
when I complain to you;
yet I would plead my case before you.
Why does the way of the wicked prosper?
Why do all who are treacherous thrive?
You plant them, and they take root;
they grow and produce fruit;
you are near in their mouth
and far from their heart.
But you, O Lord, know me;
you see me, and test my heart toward you.
Pull them out like sheep for the slaughter,
and set them apart for the day of slaughter.
How long will the land mourn
and the grass of every field wither?
For the evil of those who dwell in it
the beasts and the birds are swept away,
because they said, “He will not see our latter end.”
“If you have raced with men on foot, and they have wearied you,
how will you compete with horses?
And if in a safe land you are so trusting,
what will you do in the thicket of the Jordan?
For even your brothers and the house of your father,
even they have dealt treacherously with you;
they are in full cry after you;
do not believe them,
though they speak friendly words to you.”
“I have forsaken my house;
I have abandoned my heritage;
I have given the beloved of my soul
into the hands of her enemies.
My heritage has become to me
like a lion in the forest;
she has lifted up her voice against me;
therefore I hate her.
Is my heritage to me like a hyena’s lair?
Are the birds of prey against her all around?
Go, assemble all the wild beasts;
bring them to devour.
Many shepherds have destroyed my vineyard;
they have trampled down my portion;
they have made my pleasant portion
a desolate wilderness.
They have made it a desolation;
desolate, it mourns to me.
The whole land is made desolate,
but no man lays it to heart.
Upon all the bare heights in the desert
destroyers have come,
for the sword of the Lord devours
from one end of the land to the other;
no flesh has peace.
They have sown wheat and have reaped thorns;
they have tired themselves out but profit nothing.
They shall be ashamed of their harvests
because of the fierce anger of the Lord.”

Complain to the lord surely not! Who would have the gale to complain to the lord?

But haven’t we all complained to the lord? Haven’t we all belly ached about or plot in life? Haven’t we all complained about the circumstances we are living in?

God is ready to listen to you to you complain about your life and give him a hard time. He is big enough to take your anger and hard feelings. God is ready to listen to you talk about the injustice you see in the world and the injustice you see in your life.

But be ready. God’s reply to you asking about why there is injustice and where he is he will probably respond where are you? God wants you to be the change in the world…

Seek God

Acts 17:22-31 ESV

So Paul, standing in the midst of the Areopagus, said: “Men of Athens, I perceive that in every way you are very religious. For as I passed along and observed the objects of your worship, I found also an altar with this inscription, ‘To the unknown god.’ What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you. The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything. And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, that they should seek God, in the hope that they might feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us, for “‘In him we live and move and have our being’; as even some of your own poets have said, “‘For we are indeed his offspring.’ Being then God’s offspring, we ought not to think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of man. The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent, because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed; and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.”

Seek God in the hope that you might feel your way toward him and find him.

Paul spoke to the Greeks about the unknown God that was talked about in idols around Athens. The Greeks worshiped the creator of the universe yet did not know who he is…

Now part of me has problems with this because I believe I am saved because of grace and I can not seek God to obtain my salvation. Yet that does not mean we can not seek God to grow closer to him. We can hope that he will find us and draw us closer to him. We can seek him in our life to draw closer to him.

We are his offspring and he seeks us and we will be drawn into him if we seek him.

That is something we are assured of and cab hope in

Wonders of life and death and living like Jesus…

Well today is the second day of Citizens with the Saints the 2012 Evangelical Lutheran Church in America’s youth gathering.

It has been an interesting two days…

Just before leaving our hotel yesterday to walk to the Lutherdome a brother and sister from our group got the news that their grandfather passed away. We started the night with death and separation. It was not the way either me nor the rest of the group wanted to start our night.

But we made our way to the Lutherdome and was met with a wonderful worship experience. We had several people speak to us about justice and welcoming us to New Orleans. We were told we were gumbo- a wonderful mixture of who we are and the spice we bring to make the beautiful creation of the church. Then Nadia Bolz-Weber took the stage and spoke to us about being welcomed in the body of Christ. How she disliked Christians and the church and didn’t think she would ever be welcomed as a drunk and a drug addict. Who did things that were wrong and was not good. She wondered how she could be so good yet so evil at the same time. She said that the mythical creator that tells us we are lived by the grace of God and accepted as we are is not a unicorn but Lutherans and that is why she is one. She told us that God would use not only the gifts he gave us but the failures we think keep us from him.

Then this morning we went to practice justice. We were to he cleaning up lots in the lower 9th ward the worst hit part of New Orleans.  There was a minor set back though as the dumpsters were not there for our projects. While we waited we walked around the neighborhood hearing stories of heart break and sheer will and determination as the people of this community hung to the hope that they would be able to return home. Then about 45 minutes before we were suppose to be done the dumpsters arrived and we were able to clear some debris from lots. It was wonderful to have people honk as they passed to thank us, and to have people tell us how much the appreciated our being here and helping.

Then we went back to the dome and heard stories of Discipleship. What it means to be a disciple and how we can live as disciples. It was a wonderful night of stories of missionaries and how they were called and that we all are called to go and be God in our neighborhoods and communities. The night tonight ended with a moving talk from Shane Claiborne telling us about his life experiences and how we can make the church be what Jesus meant it to be. He ended his talk by telling us a story of the donkey that carried Jesus into Jerusalem and how the donkey might have thought all the hype was for him, but it was for Jesus and we are just like the donkey. “We are all the asses that get to carry Jesus in.”

More to come…

God can use you…

Colossians 1:15-23 (NRSV)

God reconciles all things through Christ

He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation; for in him all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers -all things have been created through him and for him. He himself is before all things, and in him all things hold together. He is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that he might come to have first place in everything. For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross.

And you who were once estranged and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, he has now reconciled in his fleshly body through death, so as to present you holy and blameless and irreproachable before him -provided that you continue securely established and steadfast in the faith, without shifting from the hope promised by the gospel that you heard, which has been proclaimed to every creature under heaven. I, Paul, became a servant of this gospel.

In this text Paul tells us that we are all reconciled to God through Christ. Do you believe this?

You have done things which draw you from God. You have done things which van never be forgiven. At least that is how I feel…

Last night at the 2012 Evangelical Lutheran Church in America’s Youth Gathering Nadia Bolz-Weber spoke about being a drunk and using drugs. She spoke about how she usually dated criminals those who did things that would lend them in jail. She was a person who did not believe in what the Christian church believed. And yet today she is a pastor in the ELCA. Because God does redeem all things. And God will redeem you.

Let God use the gifts He has given you and the failures you think keeps you from Him.

God loves you! And will use you. All of you that which you think is good and the things you think keep you from Him.

How do you judge…

Luke 7:31-35 ESV

“To what then shall I compare the people of this generation, and what are they like?  They are like children sitting in the marketplace and calling to one another,
“‘We played the flute for you, and you did not dance; we sang a dirge, and you did not weep.’  For John the Baptist has come eating no bread and drinking no wine, and you say, ‘He has a demon.’  The Son of Man has come eating and drinking, and you say, ‘Look at him! A glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!’  Yet wisdom is justified by all her children.”

How many of us have seen someone doing something and you automatically assume they are one way, or you know what kind of person they are? Is that judging? We see people and their actions and we think we know them or their whole demeanor by simply seeing one aspect of the life, or seeing them do one thing that could be completely out of character for them. I did this yesterday as I was walking the streets of New Orleans. The group I was with saw a trio of people doing something we did not think they should be. We actually could not verify they were doing this but I still judged them. But this is not what we are called to be or do.

Jesus tells us in Luke that John the Baptist didn’t drink wine or eat bread and people said he had a demon and Jesus drank and ate and he was a glutton. So maybe we are not a good judge of character…

So who have you judged lately that you really don’t know the situation of their life?

Let’s learn about others lives and live in relationships with them before we assume who they are and why they do what they do.