Lent – a journey of a lifetime

It is interesting to me, we put so much thought and time into what we are doing for Lent before Ash Wednesday.  We think about what to give up or should we do something extra, a new discipline, to help us grow closer to God…

How many of us though are still doing it?  I have found that I came up with something, and it really became 2nd nature.  I did not tell anyone what I was going to give up or take on, and it is between me and God, and I have not given it a second thought since then.  It really has just been integrated into my daily activities.  And it is wonderful how it is a discipline and not a worry, or a concern that I am constantly beating myself up for.

“We are justified not by what we have done, but by faith through the only one Lord, Jesus Christ.” This is so true, and is a quote from a song by great friend and wonderful lover of the Lord.  You can listen to the song here Whole and Holy. It is by Todd Zielinski pastor of Well of Hope Lutheran Church in Charlotte, NC.

It says not by what we have done…  So the thing we gave up, or taken on is not that which leads us to heaven, it is that which strengthens our relationship with our Heavenly Father.  Not by what we have done, but because of Faith.  Because of Jesus’ faith to lead us and to go to the tree, to die for you and me.  The cross is the place where we look, but our faith takes us home.

Live in this season and draw closer to God, knowing it is the faith you were given by Jesus that brings you to that relationship, and continue drawing closer until at last we are with him!

S.O.P.

What is the S.O.P.?

Standard Operating Procedures. What are they for us?  What is the standard that all of life is to hing upon and work from?

Well that depends on your focus and where you come from.  It could depend on your upbringing, or your training as a child/young adult. Where are you from geographically, mentally, spiritually.

Ahh Spiritually what is our S.O.P.?  if it is a spirituality from the Lord, the God of the Hebrews, then the S.O.P. is Love!

Love the Lord your God with all your heart, your soul and your mind, and Love your neighbor as yourself.  Love everyone.

This is not an easy thing to do, which is why we have to depend on God.  We see what this love is in 1 Corinthians 13. “Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful;  it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth.  It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.”

Can you be patient when some one is constantly aggravating you about something?  Can you not be irritable or resentful when someone cuts you off in traffic and tells you you are #1? And these are easy tests of having Love as the S.O.P….

The world needs people that profess this kind of love and live by it, and through it.  The world needs people who love and forgive the people that have wronged them in any way. The world needs us, to shine the love of Christ and be his hands and feet for all humanity.

S.O.P. = Love!

What is the Problem?

Ask my daughters, this is one of my favorite phrases!  We always want to know what is wrong so we can fix it.  If we know what the problem is than we can figure out a way to make the problem go away.

This is really the way we work in society now.  If something is out of place, than it is a problem and we have to fix it. But is something that is out of place, makes us uncomfortable or moves us in a direction we had not thought about really a problem, or is it God trying to do something in our lives?

So often we rush in and try to find the problem so we can get the quick fix and get on with our happy lives, but maybe, God is pushing us in a new and exciting way and the quick fix, just stops God from moving us…

Why is the tension so hard to live with.  It’s like Jesus asleep at the back of the boat.  If Jesus is willing to sleep through the storm, I guarantee the storm is not going to cause damage.  He is able to relax completely and sleep…  The tension will not kill us neither will the storm…

So let go of the quick fix and live in the tension of the moment and see where God takes us…

Free From God

Is there a place one can go to be free from God?

One of my devotions for today is titled A Vacuum of Absence. It spoke about creation and how creation was started by God’s word, but this is not the end of God’s involvement.  God spoke the world into being, but God continues to hold everything in balance.

How is it that at the core of an atom protons all come together, while like particles repel each other?  The only explanation I need and we can give is God.  God holds the world in balance and keeps things running smoothly.

Some will agree with me and others will say I am a religious nut, and say God does not exist.  But what would happen if God were not here?  What would life be like if God was not holding us in the balance and keeping all creation smoothly moving?

I have not seen it but I hear The Book of Eli portrays this very thing.  In this movie, the world has been destroyed and there exists only 1 copy of the Bible.  One man looks for it to return it to the people.  One man looks for it to us its power to hold down people. The person who told me about the movie said, “it is a look at what the world would be like without God, and it is scary.”

Hell is a separation from God, according to some.  Yet Jesus went to Hell (or the dead) and was there.  And where did Hell come from?  Was it part of creation, and if so then God created it?  And if God created it how can God not be in it?  Yes it is true that God could/can create something and then devoid himself of it, or leave it.  Is Hell our creation of the complete rejection of God reacting in our lives?

My wonder is, is there any where we are free from the presence of God?  In our minds, in our creation we separate our selves in our Hell, but is God not with us?

We need to shout it from the mountain tops that God created all of us, and we all our good!  We need to be revealing the beauty of God’s presence in every time and every place.

Step out of the boat…

I know a lot of people who are faithful people.  A lot of people who have faith in God to be there and protect them.  Even if you do not have faith in God, you have faith in someone, a spouse, a parent, a friend.  There is probably someone in your life you know you can trust and count on to be there for you no matter what.  For me that is Jesus. Along with some others, but the main focus of my faith and trust is in Jesus, my Lord and my God.

Today though in my devotion I was convicted in my faith.  It was  sermon excerpt by Daniel T. Niles that did it. The sermon was titled Four Kinds of People. It was based on the scripture of the seed sower from Mark 4:1-20.  He also spoke about Jesus calling Peter to him on the water, out of the boat.  This is where the faith conviction comes.  Peter saw his Lord and said, “call me out to you!” and Jesus said, “Come.” So Peter stepped out of the boat. Now Peter has 2 choices once he is out of the boat, one is to look at and focus on Jesus, and the other is to sink like a rock.  Nothing else matters, those are the choices. Now in the boat you have 3 choices: to stay safely seated in the boat, look at and focus on Jesus, or wreck the boat.  You do not have to place all of your faith and trust on Jesus, you put some of it in the boat!  So to truly know your faith you have to step out of the boat. John Ortberg wrote a book on this, If You Want to Walk on Water, You’ve Got to Get Out of the Boat. If you want to walk on water you have to take the faith you placed in the boat and transfer it to Jesus.  As long as Peter focused on Jesus he walked on water, and as long as we focus on Jesus we will walk on water.

Place your faith and trust in Him alone. And walk across the see.  So come on Jesus is calling you, “Step out of the boat!”

Ear to hear – Eye to see

I wonder as we begin this second week of Lent about our repenting and turning towards the Lord.  We live in these 40 days the way we think God has called us to live.  We sacrifice and give up chocolate or pop, but is that really what God has called us to?  These 40 days are the model, but should be lived all year long.  It is not for us to self sacrifice only for 40 days, but 365.25 days a year (got Leap Year in that way!).  There are no excuses, we are called to live sacrificially everyday, every hour of our lives.

The closing prayer on my devotional was very profound for me today.  So here it is a prayer by Howard Thurman (1900-1981) taken from For All the Saints A Prayer book for and by the Church pages 871 and 872:

Give me the listening ear. I seek this day the ear that will not shrink from the world that corrects and admonishes –  the word that holds up before me the image of myself that causes me to pause and reconsider – the word that challenges me to deeper consecration and higher resolve – the word that lays bare needs that make my own days uneasy, that seizes upon every good decent impulse of my nature, channeling it into paths of healing and in lives of others.

Give me the listening ear. I seek this day the disciplined mind, the disciplined heart, the disciplined life that makes my ear the focus of attention through which I may become mindful of expressions of life foreign to my own. I seek the stimulation that lifts me out of old ruts and established habits which keep me conscious of myself, my needs, my personal interests.

Give me this day – the eye that is willing to see the meaning of the ordinary, the familiar, the commonplace – the eye that is willing to see my own faults for what they are – the eye that is willing to see the likable thought was correct – the strength in what I had labeled as weakness. Give me the eye that is willing to see that Thou hast not left Thyself without a witness in every living thing. Thus to walk with reverence and sensitiveness through all the days of my life.

Give me the listening ear

The eye that is willing to see.

Amen.

What’s your addiction?

What is it that consumes your attention?  What is it that consumes your resources?  What is it that consumes your life?

Many of us think of addictions as bad things.  Addictions are things we need to detox from, they are habits to break. Which is true for most addictions, but…

Did you know Joshua was addicted to God? In Exodus 33:11 we see Moses and Joshua in the tent of meeting with God.  Moses spoke with God and then would leave, but Joshua would stay.  Joshua was so enamored with God he could not leave the tent.  His addiction was not fulfilled.  God was his Holy addiction, and one that Joshua would not have to worry about detoxing from!

God does not want to be a recreational activity in our lives, but he wants to be our addiction, that thing that consumes our very souls, lives, resources, everything that is us.  Allow God’s presence to so capture you that you find yourself unable to leave his presence.

20/20 Spiritual Vision

I have worn glasses as long as I can remember.  I did wear contacts for a while, but I have given that up, and now just wear the glasses.  Without them I can not see everything clearly.  Images are fuzzy, and if I am not close enough to things I can not read them.  Some of you know what I am saying, and understand what this is all about.  Some of you have to be far away from things if you don’t have your glasses, but you still get the point.  Without my corrective lenses, my vision is not clear.

This is true of our spiritual vision as well. Ever had a fuzzy spiritual vision?  Where things just were not clear on how or what we should do?  Or been intimidated by a situation?  Where does our bravado come from?  Our inner being?  Does our tenacity come from ourselves, or some where else?

In 2 Chronicles 32 we see King Hezekiah ready to stand against the Assyrians.  The Assyrians were the power house of the day and no one stood against them.  However King Hezekiah knew he had a source of power much greater than anything the Assyrians could bring against him.  In 2 Chronicles 32:7 we see King Hezekiah saying, “Be strong and courageous, do not fear or be dismayed because of the King of Assyria nor because of all the horde that is with him; for the one with us is greater than the one with him.” (emphasis added).  Hezekiah knew that God would see him through anything, he had a clear vision of who God was and through God who he was to be.

So take hold of a 20/20 spiritual vision and hold tight to Hezekiah’s words: for the one with us is greater than the one with him.  God will provide, and meet your every need, cling to him and see the world and your self as he sees you!

Stumbling Block

Have you ever been walking down the road and tripped over something?

Paul in his first letter to the Corinthians says, “we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to the Jews and folly to the Gentiles,”

The cross of Christ is a stumbling block and folly.  Stumbling blocks are things that impede our progress or cause us to question what we believe or understand. Folly is a foolish act or idea.  It is something that just does not make sense.  How is Christ crucified a good thing?  Why is the day the “savior” died on the cross called Good Friday?  What is so good about the death of your teacher?  How is it that you are suppose to continue on if your teacher is dead?  It really does not make sense.  And the cross is not where the messiah is suppose to be enthroned.  The messiah was suppose to come and clean out the enemies of the Jews and bring about power and rule that would put the Jewish nation back where they belonged as the highest most chosen people, so Jesus coming to die in our place on the cross, the most humiliating death is not what is suppose to happen.

But what happens when you trip or stumble over something as you are walking?  I mean other than you falling wildly and look around to make sure no one is looking…

Paul continues in his letter to the Corinthians, “For consider you call, brethren; not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth;”  God calls those who have the gifts for ministry.  Usually knowledge leads us to question faith, power causes us not to want to submit, and nobility gives us a place of honor, which we do not want to humble ourselves from.  “But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise, God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong, God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are,”  God uses every resource to make known his love. He called the shepherds to be the first witnesses of the birth of the savior of the world.  He then sent the Gentiles from the East to come and pay homage to the King of the World.  Jesus chose as his disciples fishermen, a tax collector…  Men that were not the most dignified or looked up to people in society.  God uses us where we are when he needs us.

So when I stumble, I stop and look and try to figure out what caused me to trip…  The cross is that which we need to ponder and focus on this season as we walk with Jesus to that same cross.  Look at that which is the wisest and most profound thing to us who believe, but to those who don’t is one of the greatest hurdles to get over.  The cross is that place where our death was taken away, and our sin paid for.  Focus on this cross, and stumble no more!

Walk on Water

Now we all now it is not physically possible to walk on water.  It goes completely against the laws of Physics to walk on water.  If you do not know how to swim, and the water is deeper than your head, then you are going to sink.  Yet in the 14th chapter of the gospel according to St. Matthew we see 2 people walk on water.  Jesus is walking on the lake to the boat with the disciples.  The disciples are struck with fear and terror at the site of the ghost coming to them on the water.  Suddenly Peter realizes it is not a ghost but it is Jesus.  He goes from terror to courage in an instant because he saw past the physical world he knew so well as he was a fisherman.  He glimpsed the reality of the kingdom of God, and so he boldly proclaimed, “Master, if it’s really you, call me to come to you on the water.”  He knew he could not walk on the water on his own, but with Jesus he could do anything.

Do we believe this?  Do we think it is possible to walk on water if we only see Jesus as the reality of the kingdom of God?  Peter walked on water, for a moment lived in the reality of God.  He then focused on the world around him, and lost site of the kingdom, so he sank.  Are we so bold and courageous to call to Jesus to call us out of the boat?  Are we ready and willing to live in the kingdom of God, beyond the bounds of reality?  Jesus is waiting to say come.  Are you ready to step out if the boat?