Thought For the Day

 God is God and we are not....

"Our preferences do not determine what's true."

                                                    Carl Sagan

Living in a People-Pleasing World

 "Always be a first-rate version of yourself, instead of a second-rate version of somebody else."

                                                                                                                  Judy Garland

For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.

                                                                                                                  Ephesians 2:10

Grace and Peace

 There are difficult and challenging times for most of us.  In addition to the spiritual stresses that come with living in a world of unbelief and increasingly loud calls for tolerance and the disregard of universal truth in any form, people in all categories face physical, relational, and economic challenges.  Grace and peace are rare commodities, indeed.

 

But these circumstances are not new.  Believers in the early church lived in a world hostile to Christianity and characterized by disease and death, cruelty, and poverty.  And yet the Apostle Peter, in his second epistle, strikes a decidedly positive note:

            Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and Jesus

            our Lord; seeing that His divine power has granted to us everything

            pertaining to life and godliness, through the true knowledge of Him

            who called us by His own glory and excellence.  For by these He has 

            granted to us His precious and magnificent promises, so that by them

            you may become packagers of the divine nature....(II Peter 1:2-4a)

 

Peter is, of course, no stranger to struggle and hardship.  The Gospels recount the calling and training of a very immature Peter to be the Apostle who establishes Christ’s church on earth after Jesus’s ascension and return to heaven.  Life was hard for those early apostles and disciples.  And a few verses later in Peter’s second epistle, he acknowledges that his own death is imminent.  

 

But Peter.  Just as Peter’s Master defied convention and expectation (But Jesus), so does Peter.  Despite the challenges of the times, Peter declares with confidence that grace and peace can be experienced—and multiplied!—as we cling to Christ and the knowledge of Him.  As we persevere in faith, we can experience the grace and peace of Christ not as we escape challenge but even in the midst of it.  And in doing so, we encounter the opportunity to partake in the nature of Christ Himself.

 

This statement takes my breath away.  A life of faith is not about gritting our teeth and white-knuckling it into heaven.  It is about living in the knowledge that while we will have tribulation, our Lord, Savior, and Master has overcome the world.  (John 16:33).  We can look for “our great High Priest who has passed through the heavens…. For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but One who has been tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin.”  We can find the core of our being in Him and know His grace and peace in the midst of trouble and sorrow.  This truth does not minimize or deny suffering: our suffering is so significant to God that Jesus came to redeem it.  But to borrow a phrase from the Apostle Paul, how much more will Jesus’s glorious grace and peace cover us as we suffer and experience sorrow.

 

May we take Peter’s exhortation to heart and look for the grace and peace of our Lord and encourage others with the knowledge of Christ as well.

 

The Joy of Christ

 Even as we head with great enthusiasm into Spring and Summer, I think it would be profitable to take a look back at the Easter holiday that we just celebrated.  Christmas and Easter are the historical bookends of the Christian faith, and it is vital that we live in their truths even as we go about our lives post-holiday.

 

Easter is a glorious celebration, but it absolutely depends upon Good Friday: If Jesus doesn’t die, He can’t be resurrected.  And Good Friday gives us plenty to think about.  Jesus—the Creator and Lover of the universe—is subjected to the most humiliating treatment and the most agonizing death.  Astonishingly, we mark it with Good Friday.  Not Bad Friday; nor Black Friday.  And it is good, very good, as far as we are concerned.  Jesus’s submission to this treatment and death pays our sin debt; that, along with His resurrection, opens for us a path to heaven to live in the company of the Holy Trinity for eternity.

 

But more astonishing still is that Jesus considered that long-ago Friday good.  The author of Hebrews teaches us that Jesus endured the cross for the joy set before Him.  Our Lord and Savior wanted restored relationship with us so much that He paid for that joy with His dignity and His life.  And while Jesus’s death and resurrection have glorious eternal consequences, the events of Easter weekend are relevant to us in the moments of our lives in the here and now as we walk toward heaven.

 

Jesus challenged His disciples with these words: Then Jesus said to His disciples, “If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me.”  (Matthew 16:24).  If we apply Jesus’s future modeling to this passage, then we have some serious issues to consider.

 

Just as Jesus endured the cross for the joy set before Him, He invites us to view a life of faith as one of pursuing joy.  I am afraid that I, for one, too often settle for comfort, for peace, for happiness.  C.S. Lewis observes: “It would seem that our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.”  

 

So what does it look like to deny ourselves, take up our cross, and follow Jesus?  While most of us will not be asked to submit to execution for the kingdom of God, there are plenty of opportunities to practice the denial of self that enables us to follow Jesus and experience His joy.  Can we put aside our pride and apologize when we have done something hurtful, intentional or not?  Can we put our hurt in the Lord’s redemptive hands and forgive someone who has hurt us?  Can we offer kindness and patience to someone we really don’t like?  Can we put aside our plans when the Lord calls us to use our gifts in His service or move out of our comfort zone to minister to someone in need? 

 

It is important to be clear that choosing self-denial in random fashion will not generate the joy we are looking for.  It is the self-denial that we practice at His bidding that makes us able to follow Christ faithfully that brings His joy.  And the joy of Christ often comes at the cost of discomfort.  This concept is counterintuitive and difficult for us accept let alone welcome.  But if we remind ourselves that the willingness to be uncomfortable, and even to suffer, is a privilege that brings God glory and us the joy of heaven.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Life of Faith in Uncertain Times

 "Faith is taking the first step even when you don't see the whole staircase."

                                                                                Martin Luther King, Jr.

Biblical Financial Advice

 "Money's meant to be spread around.  The more happiness it helps create, the more it's worth.  It's worthless as old cut-up paper if it just lies in a bank and grows there without ever having been used to help a body."

                                                                                                          Elvis Presley

 

A Study in Contrasts

 We have recently welcomed the vernal (spring) equinox of 2022.  This marks the point in our year when the sun crosses the northern hemisphere, when in the journey of the earth around the sun, the northern hemisphere receives direct sunlight.  The spring equinox represents the transition from winter to spring, a most welcome contrast.  Although seasonal transitions and contrasts are not universal on our planet, I do believe that the contrast of seasons shows us something about the way the Creator likes to do things.

 

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth; morning and evening; dry places and wet places.  Even the quickest perusal of creation floods our senses with contrast: mighty oak trees and delicate lilies; hot springs and cold glaciers; blue jays and cardinals; deserts and rain forests; lions and lambs.  

 

In His Word, God uses contrast to illustrate His truths and highlight our choices.  Moses challenged the Israelites to choose life as he set before them the blessing and the curse (Deuteronomy 11:26), life and death (Deuteronomy 30:15).  King Solomon’s Proverbs are characterized by the contrast between the upright and the wicked, the wise and the foolish, the Godly and the godless.  When the Apostle John introduces Jesus in the beginning of his Gospel, he describes Jesus as the Light that shines in the darkness (John 1:5).  The Apostle Paul uses contrast to teach the young believers in the churches under his care: We are justified by faith, not by works (Romans 3:27); believers are dead to sin and alive to God (Romans 6); believers are to lay aside the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light (Romans 13:12); believers are to exhibit the fruits of the Spirit rather than manifest the deeds of the flesh (Galatians 5:19-23) and to lay aside falsehood and speak truth (Ephesians 4:25); believers are set their minds on things above and not on the things on the earth (Colossians 3:2); we are to remember that we are call to sanctification and not for the purpose of impurity (I Thessalonians 1:7).

 

As bond-servants of Christ and heirs to the kingdom of God, we have an opportunity in the here and now to be light in a dark world, to answer Christ’s call to be salt in a world that needs spiritual preservation.  And in doing so, God’s way of contrast is one of our potent strategies.  When we encounter anger, we can respond in peace; when we encounter impatience, we can offer patience; when we encounter discouragement and despair, we can offer the hope of the Gospel; when we encounter lies, we can communicate truth; when we encounter critical spirits and/or narrow minds, we can apply grace.  May the Holy Spirit guard and guide us as we offer ourselves to Him as He seeks to save the lost.