Category: PASSION Reflections

Church Is Cancelled – Now What?

On By BrianIn Church Life, Family/Single Life, Heart

The winter storm closed most of the churches in our area this morning.  So how should we respond when we hear that church is cancelled?  Let me give you six suggestions.

1. Disappointment.  We should be excited about the opportunity to gather with God’s people in God’s presence each week for worship, discipleship, and fellowship.   Naturally there will be a sense of disappointment when that opportunity is taken away.  If there is not that sense of disappointment, we must ask ourselves why.  Have our hearts grown dull?  Have we lost interest in fellowship with God and his people?  Lost the hunger to worship and grow?  Certainly we might be thankful that we do not have to brave the winter mess, but to actually be excited about having no church and lacking a sense of disappointment says much about our hearts.  Our hearts should reflect the Psalmist’s heart who wrote in Psalm 42:1-2:  As a deer pants for flowing streams, so pants my soul for you, O God.  My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.  When shall I come and appear before God?  If this is not our response, we must examine our hearts.

2. Trust.  God is sovereign; he is in control.  Our lives are in his hands.  If his plan is to send a winter storm so that we can’t meet together as a church, then that is his business.  We may be disappointed, but we should also trust that God knows what he is doing.  Be still, and know that I am God (Psalm 46:10).

3. Rest.  This Christmas season is hectic.  Today was supposed to bring not only morning services but a Christmas party and Christmas caroling.  Now suddenly everything has been called off.  Perhaps in the midst of all of our busyness, God knew we just needed a break, a chance to stop and rest.  So perhaps perhaps part of our response is to take the opportunity God has given and rest from the all the hustle and bustle.  Rest was part of the Sabbath principle anyway, wasn’t it?

4. Family Worship.  We may not be able to meet as a church, but we can certainly still meet as a family to praise God and study God’s Word.  Whether there is one or two or four or twenty or any number in between in your family, you can gather to worship.  Sing some songs of praise from a hymnal or chorus book or with a praise CD.  Discuss a passage of Scripture together or listen to a sermon on the radio or internet or from a CD.  Gathering as a church to worship is important, but if you can’t, gather to worship as a family.

5. Personal Time with the Lord.  You have been given the gift of a whole day.  In addition to worshipping as a family, why not spend some personal time with the Lord in prayer and His Word.  Perhaps read part of a book that will challenge you to grow in the Lord or encourage you to look to God in your trials.  Don’t waste the day – invest it for your walk with the Lord.

6. Family Time.  Enjoy time together as a family.  Talk.  Laugh.  Play a game.  Do something together.  Again, don’t waste the day – invest it for your family.

Drifting Heart

On By BrianIn Heart, Revival3 Comments

As I was preparing for my last class on the Great Awakening, I came across 25 evidences of a drifting heart in need of revival.  These are slightly adapted from Richard Owen Roberts’s book, Revival.  For further elaboration of each point, I recommend you pick up his book, but in the mean time these 25 points should be enough for some serious reflection:

25 Evidences of a Drifting Heart

Adapted from Richard Owen Roberts in his book Revival

 1.When prayer ceases to be a vital part of our lives.

2.When the quest for biblical truth ceases and we are content with knowledge we have already acquired.

3.When the biblical knowledge we have is treated as fact and not applied inwardly to the heart.

4.When thoughts about eternal things cease to be regular and gripping.

5.When the worship services of the church lose their delights.

6.When pointed spiritual discussions are an embarrassment to us.

7.When sports, recreation and entertainment become a necessity to us, more important than the things of God.

8.When we can indulge in the sins of the body and mind without an uproar from our consciences.

9.When aspirations for Christian holiness cease to be dominant in our lives.

10.When the acquisition of money and goods becomes dominant in our thinking.

11.When you can sing the songs of the church without your heart.

12.When you can hear the Lord’s name taken in vain and spiritual things mocked without indignation and action.

13.When you can watch degrading movies and TV and read the same.

14.When division and breeches in the peace of the church are of no concern to you.

15. When you able to use the slightest excuses to keep yourself from spiritual duty and opportunity.

16.When you become content with your lack of spiritual power and no longer even seek God’s power.

17.When you easily pardon your sin and sloth saying the Lord understands.

18.When there is no music in your soul and no song in your heart but only silence for God.

19.When you adjust happily to the world’s lifestyle.

20.When injustice and human misery exist around you and you do little or nothing in response.

21.When your church has fallen into a spiritual slide and you are content with it.

22.When the spiritual condition of the world around you is not apparent to you, you just adjust to it.

23.When you are willing to cheat your employer.

24.When you find yourself rich in grace and mercy and marvel at your own godliness.

25.When your tears are dried up and the cold, hard facts of your spiritual condition can not unleash them.

Blind Blind Blind

On By BrianIn Church Life

In Charles Dicken’s David Copperfield, David becomes friends with Agnes.  David sees their friendship as a brother and sister type relationship.  Agnes has other thoughts, but keeps quiet.  Meanwhile, David’s aunt sees Agnes as a perfect match for David even while he pursues and eventually marries another girl.  From time to time, his aunt watching her nephew is prone to say: “Blind, blind, blind.”

Blind, blind, blind.  We are all more blind than we like to think – especially as it relates to our sin.  Like David’s aunt, others may see what is incredibly clear to everyone but us.  That is one reason we need the church.  We need others to help us see our blind spots, to see the sins that we are blind to.  Even as we read the Scriptures, our blindness can keep us from seeing obvious applications to our own lives.  This is another reason we need the church – especially the preaching.  The pastor may bring applications from the Word that we would have never made, even though they may be the applications we most need.  Above all, we need to join the Psalmist in crying out to God – “Search me, O God, and know my heart!  Try me and know my thoughts!  And see if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.”  We need to seek God’s help to reveal the sins we are blind to – but again he may do it through the ministry of the church.

John Newton writes in his hymn, Amazing Grace, “I once was blind, but now I see.”  Yes, now we see, but not yet perfectly.  We still need each other and our Lord to help us see the depths of our sin.

May You Be Strengthened

On By BrianIn Habit of Prayer

May you be strengthened with all power, according to his glorious might, for all endurance and patience with joy, giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light.  – Colossians 1:11-12 (ESV)

I came across these verses about a month ago, and it has become my prayer for many people I know who are facing trials and struggles.  I believe it might be a helpful model for you too in your prayers for the hurting and weary – maybe even yourself.

Strength – Our strength is small.  And so we pray that God would strengthen us with his power and might each day as we walk through our trials. 

Endurance – Sometimes it is easy to give up, to despair.   And so we pray that God would give us strength to endure, to press on, to persevere, to hold onto him.

Patience – Sometimes it is easy to become impatient with trials that continue on and on, with the things that slow us down or hold us back.  It is easy to get frustrated.  Ando so we pray that God would give us strength to be patient in the midst of our trials. 

Joy and thanksgiving – It can be incredibly hard to be joyful and thankful in the midst of trials.  But Paul points us beyond our circumstances to a glorious truth that will never change.  The Father has granted us salvation.  This is reason to rejoice and give thanks.  And so we pray that God would give us strength to remember our great salvation, and find joy and gratitude in it always.

Inheritance – Life can be hard now, but a glorious day is coming when there will be no more trials, no more tears, no more sickness, no more pain.  We will dwell with our Lord forever.  And so we pray that God would give us strength to remember our glorious hope.

Father, there are so many who are hurting and weary, ourselves included.  Strengthen us with your mighty power so that we may endure with patience, joyfully give thanks for your great salvation, and cling to our glorious hope.  Amen. 

Two Ways To Live

On By BrianIn Book of Luke, Heart

In the Sermon on the Plain in Luke 6, Jesus gives us two ways to live. 

One way is to live for self.  We can chase after riches, fullness, laughter, and popularity.  We can live to gain for ourselves, as though the world revolved around self.  This is our tendency even from our youngest years – consider the toddler throwing a tantrum because he doesn’t get what he wants.  To those who live this way, Jesus says:  “Woe to you.”

But Jesus calls us to another way of life.  He calls us to deny ourselves, take up our cross, and follow him.  Instead of living for self, we should live for Christ.  We should be willing to give up all the world chases after and become poor, hungry, weeping, hated, rejected, and ridiculed for the sake of Christ.  When we live for Christ instead of ourselves, Jesus says:  “Blessed are you.”  But that is not all.  Jesus then goes on to tell us to live for others – even those who hate us, ridicule us, and reject us.  He tells us to love our enemies.  We are to do good, bless, pray for, and be merciful to others.  Rather than judge and condemn others, we should forgive and give generously.  Live for Christ and others.  Love God and people.  Live with a passion for God and compassion for people.

Two ways to live.  We can live for self or we can live for Christ and others.  Jesus closes his sermon with four applications:

First, choose your teachers carefully.  Those blind to the truth follow those blind to the truth, and they both fall into a pit.  But if you are in Christ, you are no longer blind, so don’t follow those who are.  When we are fully trained we will be like our teacher.  If we make the lies of our culture our teacher, we will be like our culture – we will live for self.  If we make Christ our teacher, we will be like Christ, willing to give of ourselves for others.  So who are we listening to?  What does our favorite music, movies, books, magazines, and websites teach us?  What do our closest friends teach us?  To live for self or for Christ?  Have we chosen our teachers carefully?  Do we need to make some changes? 

Of course, our culture is everywhere, and we cannot help but hear the lies, but we can minimize our exposure.  And when we do hear the lies, we can reject them rather than let them shape us.  We must continually ask ourselves the question as we traverse this world:  “Is this true?”  And we must saturate ourselves with the truth of God’s Word so we can know the truth and see the lies. 

Second, Jesus calls us to apply the truth to ourselves first.  We may agree with Jesus that we should live for him instead of ourselves, but we have this tendency too often to apply the truth to someone else.  We think: “He really needs to hear this message.  I hope so-and-so is listening.  I should send this post to her….”  Though we may have a plank in our own eyes, we want to take the speck out of another’s eyes.  Jesus calls us to look to ourselves first, to apply the message to our own lives.

Third, we need to focus on the heart.  The tree determines the fruit.  Our heart determines our words and actions.  It would be easy to hear Jesus’ message to love others, and attempt to tinker with our words and actions.  But Jesus says we need to go deeper, we need to address our hearts. 

We are all born with hearts bent toward sin, bent toward self.  So our first need is to get a new heart bent toward God.  We need to be born again.  We need Christ to come into our lives and change us if we have any hope of living for Christ and others. 

Assuming we have received Jesus as our Savior and have received a new heart, we must guard our hearts.  Our new heart believes the best thing is to live for Jesus.  It desires to live for Jesus.  With that believe and desire, we will live for Jesus.  But we have been living for self for a long time.  And our culture calls us constantly to live for ourselves.  And so we must guard our hearts from the lies of the culture we once believed.  We must guard our hearts from the sinful desires of our culture we once desired.  When we don’t, lies mix with truth, sinful desires mix with desires for Christ, and we sin.  That is why we still sin.  Sometimes we believe the lies, desire what the lies promise, and live out the lie.  What we believe is what we will desire, and what we desire is what we will do.  Our heart leads to our words and actions.

And so we must also examine our hearts.  We need God’s Word to discern the thoughts and intents of our hearts (Hebrews 4:12) to reveal the lies and sinful desires.  We need to pray with the Psalmist:  “Search me, O God, and know my heart (Psalm 139).  We can’t just tinker with our words and actions.  We must examine our hearts.

Finally, we must live the truth.  We shouldn’t claim Jesus is our Lord if we don’t obey him.  We can’t simply listen to the truth, we must live it out.  If we do, we are like the man who builds on a firm foundation, whose house stands.  If we don’t, we are like a man who builds without a foundation, and great is the ruin.

Jesus calls us to stop living for ourselves, and to start living for Christ and others.  If we are to do that, we must choose our teachers carefully.  We must apply this truth to ourselves first.  We must focus on the heart – we need a new heart, we must guard our heart, and we must examine our heart.  We must live out the truth. 

So how do you need to respond to Jesus’ message?  As you respond and live for Christ and others, you will hear our Lord say to you: “Blessed are you!”

Make Space for God

On By BrianIn Book of Luke

In Luke 10:38-42, we have seen the danger of being distracted like Martha, and the priority of listening like Mary.  But how can we apply this to our lives today?  We must make space for God.  We must make time to sit and listen to Jesus.  We need to make space each day to spend time with God.  We need to make space each week to gather with God’s people to spend time together with God.  Let me share three pointers that I am learning when it comes to making space for God:

First, we have to address our busyness, our distractions.  Some things may need to go in order to make space for God each day, and each week.  Each of us needs to evaluate our lives from time to time to see if we have become too busy, to consider ways to simplify, to make sure we are making space for God.

Second, we need to make enough space for God.  Hurry kills relationship; it kills listening.  If you spend five minutes racing through a passage of Scripture and throwing up a quick prayer and wonder why you have a distant relationship with God and get little out of your time with God, then the answer is found one word: hurry.  Let me say it again: hurry kills relationship; it kills listening.  We need to make enough space to spend time to listen to God by meditating on his Word.  To meditate is to ponder, consider, think about.  It means reading and thinking until you get a good idea of what God is saying, and how it relates to you, and how you need to respond.  We need to make enough space to meditate and respond in prayer without constantly checking the clock, without rushing, without hurry.  And we need to make enough space on Sundays that we can meditate along with the pastor during the sermon without constantly checking our watches hoping the pastor will hurry.

Third, we need to protect our space with God.  In our daily time with God, we must not allow intrusions or distractions.  Pick a good time.  Find a quiet place.  Ignore the phone (is the person calling more important than the one you are already talking with?).  Don’t schedule other things during that time.  Yes, I know we must at times, and emergencies do come up, but these should be exceptions rather than the rule.  On Sundays too we need to protect our space with God.  Family and friends get-togethers really can wait until after church (and far enough after that you aren’t rushing – see point 2 above).  Do your best not to have to work.  Don’t allow others things to take priority.  Remember, our first priority is listening to Jesus.   Protect your space.

If we are going to listen to Jesus and not live distracted lives, we must make space for God.  That includes addressing our busyness, making enough space to meditate on God’s Word, and protecting our space.  How foolish for us to let other things take priority over God.  He is the priority.  Father, help us to make space for you….

Priority

On By BrianIn Book of Luke2 Comments

In Luke 1o:38-42, while Martha is distracted, Jesus says there is only one thing or few things necessary.  Mary has chosen it.  She is sitting at Jesus’ feet listening to him.  That is the one thing.  Sit and listen.  Stop all of the busyness and listen.  Be still and know that he is God.  Listen to him.  Hear him.  Enjoy time with God.  That is the one thing.  That is the priority.

Part of me rebels.  Sit and listen?  I don’t have time.  I have too much to do.  I can’t just sit and not accomplish anything.  I am so addicted to doing and accomplishing that I am tempted to think sitting and listening is a waste of time.  I need to be doing something! 

Another part of me tries to turn this listening into accomplishing.  I have to read so many verses.  I have to accomplish my devotional plan.  My focus moves from God to another accomplishment.  There is nothing wrong with a plan unless it takes over the focus.

Yet another part of me cries out to sit at his feet and listen like Mary did.  I want to know God like the Psalmist.  I want to thirst for God and find my satisfaction in him (Psalm 63).  I just want to sit and listen. 

Jesus says Mary has chosen the good portion.  That word – portion –  brings us back to Israel entering the Promised Land.  Each tribe was given a portion of the land as an inheritance.  Each tribe, except Levi.  God was Levi’s portion.  The Psalmists take off on this idea, seeking God as their portion.  The Lord is my chosen portion (Psalm 16:5).  God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever (Psalm 73:26).  The Lord is my portion (Psalm 119:57).  You are my refuge, my portion in the land of the living (Psalm 142:5).  I want Jesus to be my portion.  I want to sit and listen.

Does this mean that we check out of daily life and just sit and listen.  Emphatically no.  It means that listening to Jesus is our first priority.  Why?  Because listening is foundational to the rest of our lives. 

Jesus gives us the perfect pattern.  He often went away to spend time with his Father.  Then he would come back to serve.  Listen, then serve.  Spend time with God to gain wisdom and strength for the day, and then go forth into the day.  Listening is a priority because it helps us live life well for the Lord.

And yet, listening is a priority not just because it helps me live my day better.  Listening is a priority simply because of who I am listening to.  I need to listen to God simply because he is God.  He deserves my attention.  Listening to Jesus is the one thing necessary, the priority, simply because God is the priority.

Father, help us to listen….

Distracted

On By BrianIn Book of Luke2 Comments

Luke 10: 38-42 gives the account of Jesus stopping at Martha and Mary’s home.  Mary is sitting at Jesus’ feet listening.  Meanwhile Martha is distracted in her serving.  It is not the serving which is a problem, but being distracted.  Indeed the text tells us she is not only distracted, but she is distracted by much serving.  Jesus tells her she is anxious and troubled about many things.  Much.  Many.  Busy, busy, busy.  Go, go, go.  Lots to do.   Distracted.

How easily we allow our lives to be filled up with busyness, much, many.  Our lives become frantic, hectic, crazy.  We become impatient, cranky, irritable.  Like Martha we get upset when we see someone just sitting.  All this busyness hurts our relationship with God.  It hurts our relationship with people.  We don’t have time for either.  We are distracted.

I can get so distracted by service, by ministry, that I can fail to sit at the feet of Jesus and just listen.  What about you?  What distractes you so much that you fail to sit at the feet of Jesus and just listen?  Maybe it is ministry.  Maybe it is work.  Maybe it is family activities.  Maybe it is a hobby.  What distracts you from Jesus?

It struck me this summer that I am addicted to doing.  I can’t stop.  Even when I sit down to relax, I have to be doing something.  Maybe you can relate.  You can’t relax.  You feel guilty when you stop.  So you just keep going, doing, accomplishing.  You, like me, are distracted.

In all this busyness and distraction, Jesus says there is only one thing necessary.  Some manuscripts say few things are necessary.  Either way, one or few is a long way from much and many.  We will look at that one thing (that is over even a few things) in the next post.  But for now, consider if you are caught up in busyness, if you are so distracted that you fail to sit at the feet of Jesus and just listen.  Maybe like me you need to learn when to stop, how to say no, how to slow down.  Maybe you need to shed some non-essentials from your life.  We don’t have to live our lives distracted.

Love Your Neighbor

On By BrianIn Book of Luke3 Comments

The Bible teaches us to love our neighbor.  But who is our neighbor?  This is a question a religious expert asked Jesus in Luke 10, and Jesus responds by telling the parable of the Good Samaritan.  Most are probably familiar with this story.  A Jewish man is attacked by robbers and left half-dead on the side of the road.  Two religious leaders come along, and both keep right on going.  Finally Jesus introduces the Samaritan.  His Jewish listeners immediately assume he won’t help.  Jews and Samaritans hated each other.  But Jesus has the Samaritan stop, bind up the man’s wounds, bring him to an inn to recover, and pay for all the expenses.  The point is obvious:  Your neighbor includes those who oppose you, who hate you, who you want to hate.  Loving your neighbor means you love even your enemies.  And loving your neighbor means you help him when you see a need you can meet.

But let us go back to Jesus and his listeners.  The atmosphere is electric.  The listeners are bristling.  The Samaritan is the hero?  How dare Jesus make a Samaritan the hero!  Samaritans are half-breeds.  They don’t worship right.  There has been hatred and opposition between the two groups for year, and Jesus makes the Samaritan the hero?  Jesus is clearly not a good politician, because his popularity level drops significantly here. 

Why does Jesus tell the story this way?  He could have made it a Samaritan who is hurt and a Jew who saves the day.  His main point to love your enemies would have remained intact.  And he wouldn’t have offended his listeners.  Why does he make the Samaritan the hero?  Is he trying to get their attention?  Does he want to irritate them?  Let me suggest another possibility.

I think Jesus is trying to remind them that even their enemies are capable of doing good because they are made in the image of God.  We want to villianize our enemies.  We seek to demonize those who oppose us.  If we can paint them as evil, then we can treat them as evil.  But wait, they are still people made in God’s image capable of doing good.

Let’s retell the story for today.  Jesus is invited to a Tea Party.  He goes and begins to tell this story:  A man affliated with the Tea Party is driving down the road in his car emblazoned with Tea Party slogans.  His car stalls, and as he gets out to see what is wrong, he collapses.  A Tea Party leader comes along, sees the man on the side of the road, and zooms right on by.  A Tea Party organizer sees the man and zooms right on by.  Then a Democrat sees the man, stops, calls 911, calls the tow truck, and pays all the car and medical bills.  Imagine the atmosphere at the Tea Party if Jesus told such a story making the opposition the hero.  We want to villianize the opposition.  Jesus reminds us that they are people capable of doing good. 

In Israel today, Jesus would make the Samaritan a Muslim, a Palestinian.  To the Palestinians, Jesus would make an Israeli the hero.  At Terry Jones’ church, the hero would be a Koran-toting Muslim.   To the rioting Muslims, it might be Terry Jones. 

If he came to our churches, the Samaritan might be a gay activist, an abortionist, an atheist, a raunchy rock star, an immoral movie star, a full-of-himself sports star.  Whoever we want to villainize, demonize, treat with hatred and contempt would be the Samaritan when Jesus told the story to us.  We can disagree with people’s character, beliefs, politics, and activities, but they are still people made in the image of God.  They are our neighbors whom God has called us to love.

Daddy’s Home!

On By BrianIn Habit of Prayer

When I used to work for a Christian bookstore a few years ago, I would drive home from work and pull into the driveway.  At that point, the front door would burst open, and my two young children would come racing out, jumping up and down, crying “Daddy’s home, Daddy’s home!”  They were so excited that I was home and with them.

As God’s children we too can’t wait to be home with our Father.  And so we cry out, “Your kingdom come.”