Focus on others

Therefore, if you were raised with Christ, look for the things that are above where Christ is sitting at God’s right side. Think about the things above and not things on earth. You died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is your life, is revealed, then you also will be revealed with him in glory. So put to death the parts of your life that belong to the earth, such as sexual immorality, moral corruption, lust, evil desire, and greed (which is idolatry). The wrath of God is coming upon disobedient people because of these things. You used to live this way, when you were alive to these things. But now set aside these things, such as anger, rage, malice, slander, and obscene language. Don’t lie to each other. Take off the old human nature with its practices and put on the new nature, which is renewed in knowledge by conforming to the image of the one who created it. In this image there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcised nor uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave nor free, but Christ is all things and in all people. (Colossians 3:1-11, CEB)

The things we are to put to death are the things that make us focus on ourselves.

When we focus on our needs and not the needs of those around us we lose focus of God.

Look to the needs of others.

Love Like Jesus.

Loving People. Loving God.

We are worthless…

So what are we saying? Are we better off? Not at all. We have already stated the charge: both Jews and Greeks are all under the power of sin. As it is written, There is no righteous person, not even one. There is no one who understands. There is no one who looks for God. They all turned away. They have become worthless together. There is no one who shows kindness. There is not even one. Their throat is a grave that has been opened. They are deceitful with their tongues, and the poison of vipers is under their lips. Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness. Their feet are quick to shed blood; destruction and misery are in their ways; and they don’t know the way of peace. There is no fear of God in their view of the world. Now we know that whatever the Law says, it speaks to those who are under the Law, in order to shut every mouth and make it so the whole world has to answer to God. It follows that no human being will be treated as righteous in his presence by doing what the Law says, because the knowledge of sin comes through the Law. (Romans 3:9-20, CEB)

Paul says here that all of us fall short.

And as I typed the title for this I recall a conversation with a student who was with me for a resource fair at Texas A&M. We have stickers that say You Matter. This student took the stickers and said we need to get rid of these because they lie. The student was joking but we all look at ourselves as if we are worthless. And Paul here is reinforcing that. But Paul also says that we are all under the power of sin and because of that we are worthless. We turn in on ourselves and think only about us and what is best for us.

In Christ though we are made new and not worthless but priceless.

We all fall short, but that doesn’t matter.

You are not worthless.

God sees you as priceless.

Love like God.

Loving People. Loving God.

Know your place…

Jesus and his disciples went into the villages near Caesarea Philippi. On the way he asked his disciples, “Who do people say that I am?” They told him, “Some say John the Baptist, others Elijah, and still others one of the prophets.” He asked them, “And what about you? Who do you say that I am?” Peter answered, “You are the Christ.” Jesus ordered them not to tell anyone about him. Then Jesus began to teach his disciples: “The Human One must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, chief priests, and the legal experts, and be killed, and then, after three days, rise from the dead.” He said this plainly. But Peter took hold of Jesus and, scolding him, began to correct him. Jesus turned and looked at his disciples, then sternly corrected Peter: “Get behind me, Satan. You are not thinking God’s thoughts but human thoughts.” After calling the crowd together with his disciples, Jesus said to them, “All who want to come after me must say no to themselves, take up their cross, and follow me. All who want to save their lives will lose them. But all who lose their lives because of me and because of the good news will save them. Why would people gain the whole world but lose their lives? What will people give in exchange for their lives? Whoever is ashamed of me and my words in this unfaithful and sinful generation, the Human One will be ashamed of that person when he comes in the Father’s glory with the holy angels.” (Mark 8:27-38, CEB)

We are supposed to be behind Jesus. If we see his face, we are in the wrong place.

The words here Jesus says to Peter are the same words Jesus uses to call the disciples to follow him. Get behind me, is translated earlier as follow me. We are not buddies with Jesus, but modeling our life after his and following where he leads us.

We need to give up control and do what God called us to do.

Love like Jesus.

Loving People. Loving God.

Who and what?

When Jesus entered the temple, the chief priests and elders of the people came to him as he was teaching. They asked, “What kind of authority do you have for doing these things? Who gave you this authority?” Jesus replied, “I have a question for you. If you tell me the answer, I’ll tell you what kind of authority I have to do these things. Where did John get his authority to baptize? Did he get it from heaven or from humans?” They argued among themselves, “If we say ‘from heaven,’ he’ll say to us, ‘Then why didn’t you believe him?’ But we can’t say ‘from humans’ because we’re afraid of the crowd, since everyone thinks John was a prophet.” Then they replied, “We don’t know.” Jesus also said to them, “Neither will I tell you what kind of authority I have to do these things. “What do you think? A man had two sons. Now he came to the first and said, ‘Son, go and work in the vineyard today.’ “‘No, I don’t want to,’ he replied. But later he changed his mind and went. “The father said the same thing to the other son, who replied, ‘Yes, sir.’ But he didn’t go. “Which one of these two did his father’s will?” They said, “The first one.” Jesus said to them, “I assure you that tax collectors and prostitutes are entering God’s kingdom ahead of you. For John came to you on the righteous road, and you didn’t believe him. But tax collectors and prostitutes believed him. Yet even after you saw this, you didn’t change your hearts and lives and you didn’t believe him. (Matthew 21:23-32, CEB)

This is an interesting pairing.

First Jesus answers a question with a question and then he tells a parable to ask a question.

Which son did what the father asked. Well actually neither.

The first one told his father no which is actually against the commandments. The second son said yes and didn’t go. The first one only went because he felt guilty. We should not do things out of guilt.

We need to not worry about what others will say to what we know is the truth either.

Speak the truth at all times. Show love in everything you do.

Love like Jesus.

Loving People. Loving God.

Dead faith?

In the same way, faith is dead when it doesn’t result in faithful activity. Someone might claim, “You have faith and I have action.” But how can I see your faith apart from your actions? Instead, I’ll show you my faith by putting it into practice in faithful action. It’s good that you believe that God is one. Ha! Even the demons believe this, and they tremble with fear. Are you so slow? Do you need to be shown that faith without actions has no value at all? What about Abraham, our father? Wasn’t he shown to be righteous through his actions when he offered his son Isaac on the altar? See, his faith was at work along with his actions. In fact, his faith was made complete by his faithful actions. So the scripture was fulfilled that says, Abraham believed God, and God regarded him as righteous. What is more, Abraham was called God’s friend. So you see that a person is shown to be righteous through faithful actions and not through faith alone. In the same way, wasn’t Rahab the prostitute shown to be righteous when she received the messengers as her guests and then sent them on by another road? As the lifeless body is dead, so faith without actions is dead. (James 2:17-26, CEB)

We can say we have faith but if we act like we don’t then do we really have faith?

The same goes for loving people. We can say we love people, but if we show them we don’t then do we really love people?

Faith without works really isn’t faith. God loves us and wants us to love others, we show that through how we act to the world.

Show your faith.

Love the world like God loves you.

Loving People. Loving God.

By faith

By faith Abraham offered Isaac when he was tested. The one who received the promises was offering his only son. He had been told concerning him, Your legitimate descendants will come from Isaac. He figured that God could even raise him from the dead. So in a way he did receive him back from the dead. By faith Isaac also blessed Jacob and Esau concerning their future. By faith Jacob blessed each of Joseph’s sons as he was dying and bowed in worship over the head of his staff. By faith Joseph recalled the exodus of the Israelites at the end of his life, and gave instructions about burying his bones. (Hebrews 11:17-22, CEB)

Abraham was promised by God that his descendants would number more than the stars or the sand on the beach. But he waited until he was 100 to have a son from his wife, and then was asked by God to sacrifice the boy. What would you have done?

Would you have been like Abraham and followed through or would you have questioned the whole thing? I think maybe even Abraham was a little concerned at the point of leaving to go up the mountain. But he went.

Abraham trusted God’s promises.

Do we?

Do you trust the promises of God enough to let go and let God have control?

Love like Jesus.

Loving People. Loving God.

Small Faith

When they came to the crowd, a man met Jesus. He knelt before him, saying, “Lord, show mercy to my son. He is epileptic and suffers terribly, for he often falls into the fire or the water. I brought him to your disciples, but they couldn’t heal him.” Jesus answered, “You faithless and crooked generation, how long will I be with you? How long will I put up with you? Bring the boy here to me.” Then Jesus spoke harshly to the demon. And it came out of the child, who was healed from that time on. Then the disciples came to Jesus in private and said, “Why couldn’t we throw the demon out?” “Because you have little faith,” he said. “I assure you that if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you could say to this mountain, ‘Go from here to there,’ and it will go. There will be nothing that you can’t do.” (Matthew 17:14-21, CEB)

I have gone back and forth on this verse.

Jesus answered the man after the disciples couldn’t cast out the demon by saying, “You faithless and crooked generation, how long will I be with you? How long will I put up with you?” Was this about all people or the disciples being faithless? Because later Jesus tells the disciples, “I assure you that if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you could say to this mountain, ‘Go from here to there,’ and it will go. There will be nothing that you can’t do.” Which we usually hear as they don’t have enough faith. But is that what Jesus is saying?

If you had the faith the size of a mustard seed, which is a very little bit you could move mountains, but do we really need to move mountains by telling them to move? Plus that would be a little strange to see mountains moving all the time because I know if I could make mountains move, I would be doing it.

The faith we have is enough to do what we need to do.

Don’t look for more. Trust and believe God is always with you.

Loving People. Loving God.

struggle

Think about the one who endured such opposition from sinners so that you won’t be discouraged and you won’t give up. In your struggle against sin, you haven’t resisted yet to the point of shedding blood, and you have forgotten the encouragement that addresses you as sons and daughters: My child, don’t make light of the Lord’s discipline or give up when you are corrected by him, because the Lord disciplines whomever he loves, and he punishes every son or daughter whom he accepts. Bear hardship for the sake of discipline. God is treating you like sons and daughters! What child isn’t disciplined by his or her father? But if you don’t experience discipline, which happens to all children, then you are illegitimate and not real sons and daughters. What’s more, we had human parents who disciplined us, and we respected them for it. How much more should we submit to the Father of spirits and live? Our human parents disciplined us for a little while, as it seemed best to them, but God does it for our benefit so that we can share his holiness. No discipline is fun while it lasts, but it seems painful at the time. Later, however, it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness for those who have been trained by it. So strengthen your drooping hands and weak knees! Make straight paths for your feet so that if any part is lame, it will be healed rather than injured more seriously. (Hebrews 12:3-13, CEB)

We all struggle in life. Humans are selfish and we look out for ourselves. That means we all must be diligent in following after Jesus and loving like he does.

Think about the one who endured such opposition. Jesus came to show us how to live and love and those in power felt threatened and worked against love. We all want to maintain our status quo because change is scary. But when we let go of the status quo and live into the fear of the unknown, we will see it was better than what we had.

None of us want to give up comfort or status. But our status or our comfort is not the place God wants us.

Move with God and let go.

Love like Jesus.

Loving People. Loving God.

faith’s pioneer and perfecter

By faith they crossed the Red Sea as if they were on dry land, but when the Egyptians tried it, they were drowned.

By faith Jericho’s walls fell after the people marched around them for seven days.

By faith Rahab the prostitute wasn’t killed with the disobedient because she welcomed the spies in peace. What more can I say? I would run out of time if I told you about Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, David, Samuel, and the prophets. 

Through faith they conquered kingdoms, brought about justice, realized promises, shut the mouths of lions, put out raging fires, escaped from the edge of the sword, found strength in weakness, were mighty in war, and routed foreign armies. Women received back their dead by resurrection. Others were tortured and refused to be released so they could gain a better resurrection. But others experienced public shame by being taunted and whipped; they were even put in chains and in prison. They were stoned to death, they were cut in two, and they died by being murdered with swords. They went around wearing the skins of sheep and goats, needy, oppressed, and mistreated. The world didn’t deserve them. They wandered around in deserts, mountains, caves, and holes in the ground. All these people didn’t receive what was promised, though they were given approval for their faith. God provided something better for us so they wouldn’t be made perfect without us. So then, with endurance, let’s also run the race that is laid out in front of us, since we have such a great cloud of witnesses surrounding us. Let’s throw off any extra baggage, get rid of the sin that trips us up, and fix our eyes on Jesus, faith’s pioneer and perfecter. He endured the cross, ignoring the shame, for the sake of the joy that was laid out in front of him, and sat down at the right side of God’s throne. (Hebrews 11:29—12:2, CEB)

This is the end of the Faith hall of fame chapter, Hebrews 11. It names people who we see as pillars of the faith and what they did in trusting God.

It also includes the beginning of chapter 12 which names Jesus as the one to truly focus our lives on and follow when we want to live a life of love and being where and who God put us here to be.

Jesus is the pioneer and perfected of faith.

We should fix our eyes upon Jesus and know that following him will lead us to love like God loved us.

And that will show the world God.

Love like Jesus.

Loving People. Loving God.

What?

Jesus left that place and went into the region of Tyre. He didn’t want anyone to know that he had entered a house, but he couldn’t hide. In fact, a woman whose young daughter was possessed by an unclean spirit heard about him right away. She came and fell at his feet. The woman was Greek, Syrophoenician by birth. She begged Jesus to throw the demon out of her daughter. He responded, “The children have to be fed first. It isn’t right to take the children’s bread and toss it to the dogs.” But she answered, “Lord, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.” “Good answer!” he said. “Go on home. The demon has already left your daughter.” When she returned to her house, she found the child lying on the bed and the demon gone.

After leaving the region of Tyre, Jesus went through Sidon toward the Galilee Sea through the region of the Ten Cities. Some people brought to him a man who was deaf and could hardly speak, and they begged him to place his hand on the man for healing. Jesus took him away from the crowd by himself and put his fingers in the man’s ears. Then he spit and touched the man’s tongue. Looking into heaven, Jesus sighed deeply and said, “Ephphatha,” which means, “Open up.” At once, his ears opened, his twisted tongue was released, and he began to speak clearly. Jesus gave the people strict orders not to tell anyone. But the more he tried to silence them, the more eagerly they shared the news. People were overcome with wonder, saying, “He does everything well! He even makes the deaf to hear and gives speech to those who can’t speak.” (Mark 7:24-37, CEB)

Here is the same story from yesterday that we read in Matthew (Matthew 15:21-31) only now we get it in Mark. And here we get a second healing where in the story from Matthew Jesus goes about healing.

In both of these versions, the woman is unnamed and the daughter is unnamed. Also in Mark, the group that is seeking healing of the deaf man is unnamed, they are referred to as they, and the deaf man is also unnamed. The one being healed is not asking for the healing but someone else who cares for them is asking.

There is also another pointed difference in the Matthew and Mark story. In Matthew Jesus says, “You have great faith.” And that is why her daughter is healed. But here in Mark, the daughter is healed because the woman spoke up for herself and for her daughter. It is like she said, “Hey just a minute. Your God created me too, and I deserve whatever you think your people deserve. I am no different.”

How do we keep people who are God’s children from being a part?

And this text troubles me, just like the Matthew one. Jesus is just human, way too human here. And I wonder why this is included in the Bible, not once, but twice. It shows us that everyone is included. Period.

Cultural boundaries or learning mean nothing in the kindom of God.

Love like Jesus. Just don’t talk like him here.

Loving People. Loving God.