Look on the heart…

How many of you have ever seen someone and automatically judged who they were and what they thought. Whether or not they were a Christian, simply by their outward appearance?

We know we are not suppose to do this, but we all do it. Everyone of us is guilty of this. Our reading for today is from 1 Samuel 16. Here Samuel is sent to anoint the son of Jesse to be king. And so Samuel goes and sees the eldest son and thinks this must be the one. God tells Samuel, ‘Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him; for the Lord does not see as mortals see; they look on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.’ God does not see as we see. He looks beyond the tattoos and the piercings. He looks past the sins of the past, the things that are worn on our sleeves, and what names us and tells society who we are. Interestingly one of the people I follow on Twitter said a few weeks ago that they were among the few who did not have a tattoo or piercing so they were rebelling against what society was accepting as normal. But what society sees as normal, the church has not accepted. And one could argue that as the church we are not to be like society. We are to be like God. Who does not judge people by their appearance, but by their heart. And if this is the case, why is it when David is finally brought in his description is “he was ruddy, and had beautiful eyes, and was handsome.” He had beautiful eyes, and was handsome… Now he was red in complexion. But he was handsome. Not really the person we were all envisioning when God tells us He looks on the heart. But that is where true beauty lies. You can be the most beautiful person in the world, but if you do not have love for neighbor in your heart, you will be ugly, and God sees what is truly in the heart.

It reminds me of the story of the old cowboy who came to worship at a local church one Sunday morning. He put on his best pair of jeans, and his finest flannel shirt and his best hat and brushed off his good boots and felt good going into worship. Members of the church stared at him the whole service, and as the pastor greeted the old cowboy at the back door the pastor told the cowboy, he should take some time and talk to God about how he should dress when he comes into the house of God. Well next week the old cowboy decided to go back to that place of worship, and he put on the same clothes he had worn the week before. He did laundry them of course. As he sat in the pew waiting for worship, the pastor came up to him and asked, I thought I asked you to talk to God about how you should dress when you come to worship here. The old cowboy looked at the pastor and answered him, I talked to God and he said he had never been to this church and so he did not know the dress code.

It is not about appearances. God sees through your motives. So love God and love neighbor and everything else will take care of it self.

Whose accord?

Today is Good Shepherd Sunday… We hear Psalm 23 and the section from John 10 that Jesus describes Himself as the Good Shepherd…

We know about shepherds, even those of us who have never been around shepherds, or possibly seen a flock of sheep. We hear a lot about shepherds in the Bible and Jesus talks about sheep and shepherds because this was common day knowledge. It was something everyone would have known about…

But that’s not what caught my attention today as I read this. We look at and hear this text every year. We hear that Jesus is the true shepherd because He lays down His life for His flock, and the other flock we do not know that He is bringing with Him. Others are hired hands (i.e. pastors and lay leaders) because we will all run and not lay down our lives. The other flock is people we do not know and probably people we wouldn’t want included if it was up to us. They are not like us, but Jesus is their shepherd and therefore we are part of their flock as much as they are a part of our flock…

But still that doesn’t get what I heard this morning. I was caught by verses 17 and 18 of John 10…

For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life in order to take it up again. No one takes* it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it up again. I have received this command from my Father.’

The Father loves Jesus because He lays down His life in order to take it up again… God loves Him because He is following the plan set forward. But it is not this, it is the next part… The one that talks about whose accord by which all of this is done. Jesus says that no one takes His life from Him, He freely gives it up and dies of His own accord. He alone has the power to lay it down and the power to take it up, as this was commanded by the Father. See this is interesting to me, because we spend a lot of time giving Judas a bad name because he betrayed Jesus.  He delivered Jesus to the enemy by treachery according to Merriam-Webster online. See all of the definitions here.  But is this really what happened? In order for Judas to betray Jesus, did not Judas have to have power over Jesus? We talk about Judas betraying Jesus and we hear this each week in the celebration of the Eucharist, “In the night in which He was betrayed…” I do not think this is the real meaning of what happened here.  Jesus told Judas to go and do what you must at the last supper, which was to go to the high priest and lead them to Jesus. Judas did not have the power, Jesus did. Jesus tells us here in John 10 that He lays down His life of His own accord, Pilot doesn’t take it from Him, Judas doesn’t take it from Him, Jesus has the power. That night in the garden, Judas does not betray Him (one definition for the Greek), Judas hands Him over (another definition of the Greek). Sure you might say this is semantics. But who’s accord is it? Who has the power? Jesus does and He is not betrayed, Judas performs the task of handing Him over so that the plan can be done…

In the night in which He was handed over, our Lord took bread and blessed it and gave it to His disciples and said take and eat this is my body that I lay down for you by my own accord.

Know that Jesus has the power, and allow him to be the power in your life as well.

rest awhile…

Do you feel like you have not done enough for the Lord? Like no matter what you do it is not enough? Do you feel empty and a need to be serving more? Are you tired of waiting to go and do, and just want to get out there and love and serve people for the Lord?

We all want to be doing. That is the way we are wired, and the way society has made us be. Everything is fast paced and we need it now. We need the stuff around us to be moving quickly and we almost have to be entertained all the time. The world out there is very fast paced, so fast that we have easy hot dogs and easy mac and cheese. As if it takes that long and is so hard to make hot dogs and mac and cheese…

Our gospel passage today is from Mark 6:30-34. The beginning of this gospel has the disciples telling Jesus all they had done. Jesus doesn’t reprimand them because they didn’t do enough. He listened to what they did and what they taught, and then He said, “Let us go away to a deserted place and rest.” He told them to get away. And now that you have served go and be with yourself and recharge.

Jesus did this Himself. He would disappear and go off by Himself to pray and spend time with God. Jesus tells His disciples and us that at times we need to not be serving others, but give ourselves some time with God. We have to do this, otherwise our relationship with the Father will diminish and we will not be able to serve as well as He needs us to.

So in this fast paced world where we want to show others the love Jesus has given us we also need to remember to rest awhile, we need to remember to get away and be alone with Jesus.

So take some time and rest, and be with Jesus.

Are you ready to go to jail.

Today’s reading is from Acts 4:1-4. In it Peter and John are arrested because they are talking about Jesus to the people around them. They are so moved by Jesus and who He is and what He has done for them that they can not be quiet about it. And so the religious leaders have them arrested.

Is that why we don’t talk about Jesus? Are we afraid we will be arrested? Is that why we don’t share the wonderful relationship we have with Him with our friends and those around us? We are afraid of being jailed and ridiculed by others or worse… are we afraid our sharing Jesus with others will mean He has less time for us or He will care less for us?

So why don’t we share Jesus? What are we really afraid of? We need to be bold and step out ready to go to prison or get laughed at because He loved you enough to hang on a cross for you, can you not share Him with your friends?

Shepherd

The Lord is my shepherd…

Many of us call the pastor of a congregation a shepherd. The pastor is the shepherd of the flock, the one who leads this group where they need to go. The pastor is the one who shows the good water to drink, the good grass to eat, the right time to start a new program, gives guidance for bible study…

But who shepherds the shepherd? Many pastor friends of mine say I am only one of the sheep like you. We all follow after the real shepherd Jesus. And the 23rd psalm is a wonderful description of what God through Jesus does for us if we will only follow His lead.

First of all He is our shepherd. He leads us beside still waters to drink. Sheep will not drink from moving water, actually sheep will drink nasty dirty still water than drink fresh moving water. Much like us who will quench our thirst on the muck this live gives us rather than seek the goodness God can give us. We need someone to help us see the bad and to lead us to the good. The 23rd psalm goes through many renditions of how dumb sheep are and how they will follow after each other creating ruts and not finding good pastures and dirty water. We need a person to lead us to the good things that God has provided. Jesus will lead us if we will let Him.

So look to Jesus and fix your eyes on Him. He is the author and perfector of our faith and He will shepherd you if you will let Him.

Snake handling…

Have you ever been bitten by a poisonous snake? Were you worried about dying?

Mark 16:18 says bitten by poisonous snake and drinking poison will not harm you. If you do do this then others can lay hands on you and you will be cured. Interesting. Now I have never seen this, yet I have never seen a lot of the things mentioned in the Bible. Like water into wine, raising people from the dead…

This section of Mark was probably not part of the original writing of Mark. This was more than likely an addition to Mark because someone or a group of people didn’t like the ending of the women running away in fear saying nothing.  So why did the person who added this had the idea of adding this part of snakes and poisons and that people would not be effected by this. I’m not sure how this linked to the ending of Mark. Why do we think we have to have all the answers and know exactly everything that could happen?

I wonder why we feel the need to think that a poisonous snake bite or drinking poison would not kill us or we could be cured by laying on of hands. Not that I question this happening. Yet why do we need to be sure of this? Is snake handling not testing God? And we are not to test God.

So handle snakes… but do not test God. Trust the promise that you are loved and follow Jesus being His disciple. Living your life with no fear but passionately living His love out loud.

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.