January 8, 2013

                        "Then he asked them,  'But who do you say I am?'  Simon Peter
                         answered, 'you are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.'"        
                                                        Matthew 16:15-16 (NLT)
      

                Jesus got to the point.   “Who do you say that I am?”

               On the game show Family Feud, hosted by Steve Harvey, contestants are asked to guess how 100 people responded to various survey questions. On a 2012 episode, a contestant had to provide the top answers to the following survey question: "When someone mentions 'the King,' to whom might he or she be referring?" Here were the four top answers:

               81 people said "Elvis Presley"

               7 people said "God or Jesus"

               3 people said "Martin Luther King, Jr."

               2 people said "The Burger King"

               I often think that our childhood Christian Education, Christmas manger scenes, pageants, and children’s sermons get in the way of our really coming to know and follow the One in Whom all things hold together.     I know that it has taken me years to grasp and then dare to believe that Jesus is right now  the Lord of Universe.   I’ve had to work through my doubts, reductionistic teachings, the skepticism of others, and all the ways that we human beings devise ways to hold the reality of who Jesus is at arm’s length.

               Jesus asks each of us, “who do you say that I am?”   Can you honestly answer that Jesus is the currently reigning King of the Universe?    The very first statement of faith found in the New Testament is “Jesus is Lord”, which means “currently reigning King of the Universe”  The first believers believed exactly that and it was that faith that changed the western world forever.

                                                     Additional Covenant Partner Opportunities

            *Learn what the "Good News" is and how to explain it clearly and succinctly
                                              Life Cafe Wednesdays 7:00-8:30.  January 9, 16, 23, 30
            *A Beautiful Mess      A musical evening of fellowship following the journey of a
                                              lost child back home.  January 12, 7:00pm

       

January 7, 2013

"When Jesus came to the region of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, 'Who do people say that the Son of Man is?'  'Well,' they replied,  'some say John the Baptist, some say Elijah, and others say Jeremiah or one of the other prophets.'"
                                                       Matthew 16:13-14 (NLT)

           Jesus approached his question indirectly.  He first asked his disciples how he was being perceived by others.  I like this approach because I know that this approach allows me to react more thoughtfully and less self protectively when I am eased into a life altering realization.
           People around us have all kinds of ideas about Jesus.  Most think he was at least a really good person with some pretty good advice on living.  One astrophysicist, in his book
The 100, listed Jesus third in his top 100 most world changing people of all time (right after Mohammed and Sir Isaac Newton).  On the other hand a recent Gallop poll noted that the fastest growing religious group in America is the "nones".  One of every five Americans claims no religious affiliation.  It's closer to 1 of 3 among the "millennials."  This would seem to indicated that Jesus is losing influence in America.
           What do those in your circle of acquaintances think about Jesus?  Do they view him as a good man, God's representative on earth, or the one who created all that exists, sustains all of life, and the one for whom and in whom everything is made, destined and finds its purpose (see Colossians 1:15-20)?

"Lord, help me to see first in myself any reductionist thinking about Jesus.  Help me to see the sheer size of Jesus, his comprehensiveness.  Help me to grasp how all of life was made by him and for him.......so that I may carry this awe within me as I engage the world around me.   Amen."

                                                     Additional Covenant Partner Opportunities

              *Learn what the "Good News" is and how to explain it clearly and succinctly
                                                     Life Cafe Wednesdays 7:00-8:30.  January 9, 16, 23, 30

              *A Beautiful Mess        A musical evening of fellowship following the journey of a
                                                     lost child back home.  January 12, 7:00pm

January 4, 2013
                                                                           

                                                                           
  "You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit--fruit that
       will last. Then the Father will give you whatever you ask in my name. ¹⁷ This is my
                              command: Love each other."       John 15:16-17 (NIV)

Christians often tell of "having accepted Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior" referring to a time when they made the decision to become a Christian.  Although God does give us the freedom to choose, it is just as true that followers of Jesus were chosen by Him.  "I chose you", said Jesus.

This fact does something to me.  I feel both humbled and empowered at the same time.  It means that God, who I assume knows what he's doing, has not just adopted me into his family, but he's chosen me to partner with him in some way that will further his kingdom on earth.  I am chosen to be a fruit bearer!  What a thought.

Give this a great deal of thought today:  You have been chosen by God to partner with Jesus in bearing fruit that will last.

"Lord, as I contemplate this, help me to see how you want me to bear fruit in each of the roles I play in my life, with Your help.    Amen."

            Additional Covenant Partner Opportunities

            *Learn what the "Good News" is and how to explain it clearly and succinctly
                                              Life Cafe Wednesdays 7:00-8:30.  January 9, 16, 23, 30

            *A Beautiful Mess        A musical evening of fellowship following the journey of a
                        lost child back home.  January 12, 7:00pm

January 3, 2013

"As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. ¹⁰ If you obey my
commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father's commands and remain in his love. ¹¹ I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. ¹² My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. ¹³ Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends. ¹⁴ You are my friends if you do what I command. ¹⁵ I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master's business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you."
John 15:9-15 (NIV)

Right in the middle of Jesus telling his disciples to make a commitment to him ("remain", "obey", "bear fruit",  "love",  "do what I command"), Jesus speaks of completing their joy.  He said that if they "obey" and "remain", they will experience joy.

I have found that joy is something which, when I seek it, eludes me.  I can't find it by seeking it out.  But when my focus is off of my own happiness and it is on Jesus and living for him and thereby living for others, then joy finds me.  When I give up my life for his sake and the sake of others I find my life. When I seek my own comfort, pleasure or joy lose them all.

When do I discover joy finding you?

                                            Additional Covenant Partner Opportunities

            *Learn what the "Good News" is and how to explain it clearly and succinctly
                                                   Life Cafe Wednesdays 7:00-8:30.  January 9, 16, 23, 30

            *A Beautiful Mess        A musical evening of fellowship following the journey of a
                                                   lost child back home.  January 12, 7:00pm

January 2, 2013

 

"I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful.³ You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. ⁴ Remain in me, and I will remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me"                    John 15:1-4 (NIV)

Shortly before he was executed, Jesus told his followers that his commitment to them was about far more than them.  He asked them not for the admiration that fans give, but for the commitment of their lives to him, even at the peril of their own death.  Without that commitment they would be cut off.  Their lives needed to be given to the task passing on that salvation which had been given to them, and that task required an absolute commitment to "remain" connected to Him.

Jesus asked his disciples to enter into the covenant he had made with them.  It was to be a two way street, where fans became followers and believers would become partners, partners covenanted with Jesus in his mission to seek and save the lost. 

Would you describe yourself as a "fan", or a "follower", or a "partner"?

"Forgive us Lord for cheering you on from stands and from the sideline.  Your grace saves and commissions at the same time.  Use my life in 2013 for the transformation of another person.  In Jesus' Name.    Amen."

 

                                        Additional Covenant Partner Opportunities

*Learn what the "Good News" is and how to explain it clearly and succinctly
                                      Life Cafe Wednesdays 7:00-8:30.  January 9, 16, 23, 30

*A Beautiful Mess          A musical evening of fellowship following the journey of a

                                      lost child back home.  January 12, 7:00pm

                                                     Friday, December 14, 2012

  

"The Kingdom of God is like . . . .
a mustard seed, which is the smallest seed you plant
in the ground.  Yet when planted, it grows and becomes
the largest of all garden plants, with such big branches that the
birds of the air can perch in its shade."
Mark 4:30-32

Jesus told a story about a tiny mustard seed growing into a huge tree.  If you were a first century
historian having watched the meteoric rise of the Roman Empire and then having watched this Nazarene named Jesus rounding up a few non militant followers, who would you have bet on as most likely to change the world?

God thought it best to reduce himself to the size of an uncultured peasant in order to redeem the universe.  God must think that "little" matters.  Not only that, He must think that "little" works . . . .

I recall this sentence from the book, The Shack,  "If anything matters, everything matters."  If I, with
only mustard sized faith, do anything, no matter how small, then God may grow it to become far more influential in building God's Kingdom than anything I could ever hope or imagine.  That's how God's Kingdom grows, from the bottom up, from the margins in, from the least to the largest, from small to big, from the acorn to the oak.

"If anything matters, everything matters."

"Lord, help me today and each day to pay attention to the simple details of the needs of those around me so that I don't miss taking the small action that you could use to 'move a mountain'.    Amen."

 

                                                        December 12, 2012

Again Jesus began to teach by the lake. . . . .
"This is what the kingdom of God is like.  A man scatters seed on the ground. 
Night and day, whether he sleeps or gets up, the seed sprouts and grows, though
he does not know how. All by itself the soil produces grain -- first the stalk, then the head, then the full kernel in the head.  As soon as the grain is ripe, he puts the sickle to it, because the harvest has come." Mark 4:26-29

Christians Believe that Jesus is the Only Hope that the World Has.
Why is that?

Monday's blog recalled Jesus' teaching that underlying all of the world's problems is the sin which dwells within you and me.  Planet earth houses 7 billion people each of whom views the rest of the world as revolving around him or her.  We are self-centered creatures and that leads to conflict, war, death, divorce, poverty, and environmental destruction.   We are all about ourselves rather than God.  Therefore the one hope for our world lies in the possibility of changed hearts, hearts into which God plants His kind of life so that we are motivated to serve Him rather than ourselves.

It's as if God plants a seed of Himself into each believer and causes that seed of Himself to grow, something like His having planted a seed into Mary and from within her the new life of Jesus grew.  Therein is the hope of the world, the possibility of such a thing taking place in lives all over the planet.

Your part and mine is to allow ourselves to be the fertile soil in which that life can grow.  How?  We can worship, connect regularly with other believers, practice the disciplines of prayer and Bible reading, and choose to live beyond ourselves, as "circle four" believers.

"Lord, it is astonishing that you came to earth to bring us back to you and that you continue to live with us.  Help us Lord to keep our soil fertile so that you may increase and we may decrease.    Amen."