Optional or Vital?

 

Monday, January 31, 2022

Let us hold tightly without wavering to the hope we affirm, for God can be trusted to keep his promise.  Let us think of ways to motivate one another to acts of love and good works.  And let us not neglect our meeting together, as some people do, but encourage one another, especially now that the day of his return is drawing near.  Hebrews 10:23-25

I came across a quote attributed to C.S. Lewis the other day about genuine faith:

The oft stated, I don’t need to go to church to be a Christian, will spasm and die out when the threat of persecution comes.  If one can’t commit themselves to the most basic task of the Christian faith when it costs them very little, it is a fanciful dream to believe they will pay the ultimate price when the stakes are highest.[1]

The writer of Hebrews seemed to think the church gathering was vital for several critical issues:

1.    Shoring-up faith that could waver.  Another quote…one I heard drop from the lips of Evangelist Vance Havner when I was attending New Orleans Seminary, was:  Faith that was fickle at the first will fizzle at the finish.  That was a homestyle version of Hebrews.  The basis in fact is that we are prone to wander, we humans.  We need our faith strengthened.

2.    Motivating us in the right direction.  I’ve heard motivational speakers all my life.  Most of them do well, and are helpful; many are less so.  But the motivational forces that have always served to make me a better man are those of personal testimony, whose lives I saw up close over time.  Jerry was a businessman, Ossie, a laborer, and Marshal was a steelworker.  These men helped form me by their character.  I met them all in church.

3.    Encouraging – putting faith’s wheels on the rocky road of this life.  In days like these, with challenges political, societal, personal, medical, and every other way imaginable, it takes faith just to get out of bed in the morning. 

I could and would say so much more about the virtues and benefits of church if we had a couple of months this morning.  Let it suffice here:  it’s VITAL!  And the only evidence I need is what Jesus said: 

So now I am giving you a new commandment: Love each other.  Just as I have loved you, you should love each other.  John 13:34

For You Today

So, here I am, Monday-Morning-Quarterbacking…but I will press the question, nonetheless:

Did you go yesterday?  And if you did, was it habit, or because it was as vital as your next breath?

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day!  

[1] Title and Other Images:  Pixabay.com   Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation^©   

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[1] Quote attributed to C.S. Lewis (source uncertain, but it sounds like him, and fits his thinking)

Life Signs

 

Friday, January 28, 2022

There was a man named Nicodemus, a Jewish religious leader who was a Pharisee.  After dark one evening, he came to speak with Jesus.  “Rabbi,” he said, “we all know that God has sent you to teach us.  Your miraculous signs are evidence that God is with you.”  Jesus replied, “I tell you the truth, unless you are born again, you cannot see the Kingdom of God.”  “What do you mean?” exclaimed Nicodemus.  “How can an old man go back into his mother’s womb and be born again?”  Jesus replied, “I assure you, no one can enter the Kingdom of God without being born of water and the Spirit.  Humans can reproduce only human life, but the Holy Spirit gives birth to spiritual life.  So don’t be surprised when I say, ‘You must be born again.’  John 3:1-7

This is the entry driveway to the place I’ve been spending my lunch times, three days a week, for the past 5 months.  Cardio-rehabilitation is the introduction to changing a sedentary lifestyle to one of cardiovascular health.  In short, I’ve been reintroducing my ticker to the busy-ness of behaving itself. 

This view is what you see when you exit the building.  

It’s a one-way zone, you don’t want to get that mixed up.  It is much like life in this world; you come into this world, and you progress in one direction to the exit sign!  No do-overs!

Now that, as Nicodemus said to Jesus, is common sense.  How can an old man re-enter the womb and go through the process again?  Nic’s question poses a reductio ad absurdum,[1] Latin for reasoning a foolish explanation which explains the opposite of common sense.  In the natural world old men don’t get born a second time; with the flesh, this is impossible.  

So, this Pharisee with the long, gray beard, and easily recognizable robes, who knows (and perhaps loves) a good debate, wants Jesus to explain what he’s teaching.  And Jesus obliges the supposedly spiritually-wise leader of God’s people in a way that he never expected.  Reduced to the smallest common denominator, Jesus tells his questioner that each of us comes into this life one way, physically, and we know it's a one-way street where, someday, we encounter the exit sign.  That’s not new news; but Jesus turns the page and compares it to the otherworldly truth about eternal life in the Spirit. 

Jesus tells Nicodemus that the kingdom he should really be concerned about is not to be found within the four walls of Solomon’s temple, but the Kingdom where the breath of God blows – a place that has no place you can see, but will last forever.  It’s different than the physical realities one can experience.  In this kingdom you don’t go back to be born-over in flesh, but you can be born-again of the Spirit of God.  It’s the Kingdom of God, the place, and source of eternal life.

For You Today

One-way signs, meant to direct the flow of traffic, are common everywhere.  They’re important because they help us avoid collisions that can be disastrous.  There’s one of those signs at the entrance to the human heart; that’s where Jesus is standing, knocking, and speaking those “one-way” words:  You MUST be born-again![2]

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day!  

[1] Title and Other Images:  Pixabay.com   Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation^©   

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[1] the form of argument that attempts to establish a claim by showing that the opposite scenario would lead to absurdity or contradiction.  See Wikipedia.com

[2] See Matthew 7:8 and Revelation 3:20

Of Penicillin and Fruit

 

Thursday, January 27, 2022

God has given each of you a gift from his great variety of spiritual gifts.  Use them well to serve one another.  Do you have the gift of speaking?  Then speak as though God himself were speaking through you.  Do you have the gift of helping others?  Do it with all the strength and energy that God supplies.  Then everything you do will bring glory to God through Jesus Christ.  All glory and power to him forever and ever!  Amen.  1 Peter 4:10-11

Everything God created is a gift in some distinct way.  “Special” is a word that is usually reserved for something that is a cut-above the expected.  And anything God gives falls in that cut-above category.  That includes you, me, and everyone else in creation.  It is my belief that each of us is born with spiritual possibilities which God has given, and we are to develop, in accord with whatever God places in our pathway. 

The first of these gifts is love.  As we begin cooperating with God’s plans and promises, we first accept His offer of salvation, or, as John Wesley often reminded the troops, rescue from the wrath to come.  Past that, we are to put our spiritual gifts to work serving the One who loved and saved us.  As we do this there is a progression of working in God’s vineyard with differing gifts of prophesying (preaching), faith, healing, discernment, and the fruit which the Holy Spirit brings to the body of Christ:  love, joy, peace, gentleness, patience, and more.[1]

But what happens if we fail to cooperate with the gifts, and the spiritual fruit God expects?  Just like with the analogy Peter and Paul use of spiritual gifts producing spiritual fruit, unengaged gifts make for spiritual fruit mold.  Mold is like spiritual gifts unused…the fruit possibilities dry-up on the vine and become mold.

I met a man early in ministry when I served as pastor in North Central Florida.  He was serving on the grounds committee of the church.  The first time I met Henry[2] was at the back door of the parsonage in which our family would live the following years.  In the conversation I found he’d been a pastor…for a few months.  He was now earning a living with his carpenter skills.  I inquired why he was not pastoring any more.  His reply was just three words:  Couldn’t live it!  To his credit, I will say that Henry didn’t just walk away from the church, he found ways to serve God, even though the gifts and calling of pastoral ministry were there.  I never learned the details of “couldn’t live it” but over the years I knew him, it was sadly-clear something had happened to interrupt the development of fruit-production, as his spiritual gifts were left like unused tools on a workbench.

Apostle Peter’s admonishment to us in today’s Scripture lesson is to use them well to serve one another.  We are to use our spiritual gifts to produce fruit in the life of the body of Christ…and be a blessing to the entire world. 

For You Today

You are breathing!  And that is all the sign you need that God gave you spiritual gifts to be used in cultivating spiritual fruit, that which God uses to bless His creation.  If your fruit is a little moldy because you’ve been neglecting time in the vineyard, it isn’t too late to get busy.  You do know that God can take mold and make healing penicillin.  So, what will you do with the time you have left? 

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day!  

[1] Title and Other Images:  Pixabay.com   Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation^©   

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[1] Study these passages for a deeper understanding:  Romans 12, Galatians 5:16-25, 1 Corinthians 12

[2] OK…so he wasn’t really named Henry…but he’s a real person, and so was the conversation.

Perfect Orbit

 

Wednesday, January 26, 2022

Your eternal word, O Lord, stands firm in heaven.  Your faithfulness extends to every generation, as enduring as the earth you created.  Your regulations remain true to this day, for everything serves your plans.  Psalm 119:89-91

NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, launched and deployed this month, has a mission:  …the Webb mission will explore every phase of cosmic history – from within our solar system to the most distant observable galaxies in the early universe.[1]  The mirror which sits atop the rest of the orbiting craft is 21-feet in diameter, and coated with gold.  (This could explain some of the costs of government budget we hear about!) 

The panels of the mirror were folded-up and stuffed inside a rocket that was deployed earlier this month.  When it got to this point in its million-mile planned journey, the folks at mission control pressed the right buttons on the remote control, and the thing unfolded.  I suppose, if it didn’t, they’d have spent a zillion bucks to send a repairman.  That’s roughly what my plumber gets.

According to NASA’s plans, the telescope will map out the universe, that which can be known, and give scientists more understanding of how it expanded, evolved, and became what we can see, along with what will become of us.[2]  

To do all this the telescope’s mirror/receiver will travel a million miles towards the sun to enter a “perfect” orbit, circling another piece of NASA hardware, Lagrange 2, which is itself circling the sun.  You can see the animation of the orbit HERE.

The so-called “perfect” orbit is achieved in Lagrange Points, special locations in planetary systems where gravitational and rotational forces cancel out.  It’s something like having a gyro balance your iPhone’s camera, giving a clear, stable video.  I suppose if you’re going to take pictures of the universe’s 62-bazillion light year sized expanse, you need a good camera.

On the other hand, if you see the value of a stable orbit trajectory and don’t have the 9.7-billion-dollar startup cost, you could spend $12.99 at the Cokesbury store and get a copy of God’s Word.  According to what David, the Psalmist wrote, what you will find in every little nook and cranny of the universe, both seen and unseen, is the evidence of God’s faithfulness.  A “perfect” orbit is where God’s will and man’s compliance places humans and all creation in harmony with God and humankind. 

As you listen/read here today, don’t let the abrupt switch from a science observation to theological musing, turn you off.  I’m not against science.  Quite the contrary; it fascinates me.  It seems the more scientific discovery is reported, the more theology and reality come into focus.  Faith is best understood when His Creation unfolds like the James Webb telescope.

For You Today

To understand just how magnificent creation is, you must keep your eyes, ears, and heart opened to God’s ways, which is found in God’s Word, and through prayer.  That reaches far beyond what NASA has planned for Webb’s spacecraft.

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day!  

[1] Title and Other Images:  NASA on Youtube.com   Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation^©   

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[1] NASA

[2] This is my takeaway after reading several of NASA’s website pieces

 

A Painful Message

 

Tuesday, January 25, 2022

I am not sorry that I sent that severe letter to you, though I was sorry at first, for I know it was painful to you for a little while.  Now I am glad I sent it, not because it hurt you, but because the pain caused you to repent and change your ways.  It was the kind of sorrow God wants his people to have, so you were not harmed by us in any way.  For the kind of sorrow God wants us to experience leads us away from sin and results in salvation.  There’s no regret for that kind of sorrow.  But worldly sorrow, which lacks repentance, results in spiritual death.  Just see what this godly sorrow produced in you!  Such earnestness, such concern to clear yourselves, such indignation, such alarm, such longing to see me, such zeal, and such a readiness to punish wrong.  You showed that you have done everything necessary to make things right.  My purpose, then, was not to write about who did the wrong or who was wronged. I wrote to you so that in the sight of God you could see for yourselves how loyal you are to us.  2 Corinthians 7:8-12

In Paul’s first letter to the believers at Corinth, the tone was rebuking; he called them out on their gross sins and made it clear they were making him wonder if he’d made a mistake even considering them as believers.  It was a painful message.  Every preacher of the Gospel delivers a painful message, and more often than imagined.  Just ask any of the apostles.  Each of them suffered greatly because they didn’t hold back from declaring the truth.  Most were martyred, along with Old Testament prophets who declared thus saith the LORD.

In today’s passage, Paul is writing a follow-up letter to Corinth, a festival of joy over the report he’d just gotten about the response to his first letter.  True to character, Paul writes of how he sent the letter in sorrow, but, because of the Corinthian disciples’ repentance, and heaven’s approval, his sorrow over the pain his message brought, had turned into rejoicing and overwhelming happiness.

I met Alese Nixon in a nursing home in Asheboro, North Carolina.  She was the first visit I made to a church member as pastor at Bethany in 2005.  After introducing myself as the new pastor and chatting for a while, I began to inquire about her salvation – how she came to know Christ.  She talked of conviction as a young girl, decades before, and how she placed her faith in Jesus during a youth meeting.  I responded by saying how good it was to have that blessed assurance of God’s closeness and the assurance of Heaven.  She shot right back:  That’s right, young man, and if you want to go to Heaven too, you’d better change your ways! 

I conducted Alese’s funeral some months after that “pastoral visit” (and I’m not entirely certain exactly who was the pastor that day).  Her message about changing my ways stuck in my head, and has served this last decade-and-a-half to keep me from any kind of self-righteousness.  In my mind Alese is known as Paul’s second letter to the Corinthian church…painful, effective, and able to leap tall buildings when it comes to cutting past any clergy arrogance, right to the critical issue:  Nobody is above rebuke; we all need it from time to time.

For You Today

If you tend to bristle over someone pointing out a rusty spot in your spiritual armor, my prayer for you is that you’ll meet one of Alese’s people.  It’s not that I’m hoping for a little pain in your life…unless, of course, that means it’s the one thing that will bring restoration of your relationship with God and his family.

So, the next time your pastor, or that nursing home resident gets your hackles up, think of Alese, and Paul’s joy.  The sermon is meant to bring all of it.

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day!  

[1] Title and Other Images:  Pixabay.com   Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation^©    

 

Speaking in Tongues; Lesson from a Paralyzed Shih Tzu

 

Monday, January 24, 2022

On the day of Pentecost all the believers were meeting together in one place.  Suddenly, there was a sound from heaven like the roaring of a mighty windstorm, and it filled the house where they were sitting.  Then, what looked like flames or tongues of fire appeared and settled on each of them.  And everyone present was filled with the Holy Spirit and began speaking in other languages, as the Holy Spirit gave them this ability.  Acts 2:1-4

This is our resident human manager, Wellie.  You can understand Wellie’s language…if you’re listening.  His bark and stare are both loud and piercing.  His eyes stare a laser-hole right through you; it bellows and slashes-out messages: 

·       are you not wearing your hearing aids, Russell, boy…or are you just plain dumb?  I want to eat NOW…not 4 minutes from now. 

·       Hey, human…put me up on that chair…NOW.

·       I KNOW there are treats in your pocket…they belong to ME!

At times Wellie “says” things with those eyes which I don’t quite understand.  He gets a little louder at those times.  This past week I finally began to understand some of what Wellie has been trying to teach me.  When he wants something, he exhibits the most persistence I’ve ever seen.  He can be irritating to an impatient human, who would rather have quiet for his reading and study.  He’s not the “cuddly” sort of hound, unless he’s been fed (enough), and would sleep it off hanging upside-down in a windstorm at the North Pole.  Sometimes, when he’s calm, he’ll even let you pet him, or scratch his itch under the chin…just a little further up, and over to the left, please.  Sometimes an insistent bark is not about food; it’s a warning to get him to the outside business area before it’s too late. 

We’ve had to learn a whole new set of dog language; Wellie’s back legs don’t work much, so his needs push us in different ways than having a pet who can fend for himself.  The language of an old, partially-paralyzed Shih Tzu has Biblical implications for the family of God.

The people that heard the disciples speaking in tongues that first Pentecost Day didn’t get what was being said, they simply figured the disciples were drunk.  Like humans trying to take care of a disabled Shih Tzu, they were missing something about what God had been saying to them for ages.  The message was this:

No matter the differences between you and the next guy, the fact that I love both of you, should tell you I want you to love each other, get along, and stop figuring-out ways to control each other; just do what’s best for the other guy!

Wellie’s been trying to get through to his dense caretaker for nearly 7 years now.  And while I’ve learned a lot about what he’s telling me, I realize, when it comes to speaking in Shih Tzu language, I’ve still got much to learn.  And that realization is 99% of the work of developing patience with the differences between us.

For You Today

In the human family, we have just as many communication-fails as when you try to understand Shih Tzu-ese.  But when you develop a little patience with each other, the joy of the journey comes back.

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day!  

[1] Title and Other Images: Russell Brownworth (own work)   Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation^©    

Getting On the Right Side of History

 

Friday, January 21, 2022

And so, dear brothers and sisters, I plead with you to give your bodies to God because of all he has done for you.  Let them be a living and holy sacrifice—the kind he will find acceptable.  This is truly the way to worship him.  Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think.  Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect.  Romans 12:1-2

In writing to the Roman believers, Paul echoed the heartbeat of Moses, the lawgiver whom God used to set Israel free.  Moses was a man who learned the hard way (and maybe that’s why I admire the “M” man so much), how to serve and love God. 

Moses wanted, above all, to be on the right side of history.  He had a sense of justice that got him in trouble with people all the time, but had the stamp of God’s favor on what he did.  Born a nobody to Israelite parents in captivity to Egypt, Moses was in danger of being snuffed-out before his first birthday.  So, his mother set him adrift in a floating basket near the place where the Pharaoh’s daughter bathed.  The plan worked, and Moses Nobody was adopted and raised to be in the Seat of Power Somebody. 

Later, true-to-form, Moses got in trouble trying to break-up a fight and bring justice, but he was banished from his “somebody” position to life on the back-side of the dessert.  He spent the next 40 years being a “nobody”. 

But God was preparing Moses to serve; history would see the man born to be a nobody in obscurity, raised to kingly aspirations of the great somebody kind, exiled to less-than-obscurity, tending sheep, like an insignificant nobody, who finally became the kind of somebody who was willing to be a nobody, and could truly be called the friend of God.  It all came about because of what Paul would later describe as a surrender to God’s will.  Moses turned his back on the world’s ways, and accepted whatever God would require of him, life, limb, or reputation…and use every ounce of whatever strength God placed in his hands to serve the will of his Master.

Coming back to Egypt was what Moses saw as the test, but the real test was months before, in private, when the nobody from the Midian Dessert, who was a former somebody of Pharaoh’s household, took off his shoes in front of a bush that burned without burning-up, and surrendered to the will of the God who was so big He wasn’t named by anyone.  He just told Moses, I AM.

Getting on the right side of history has never meant winding up with the most toys, biggest bank account, or having people think your short existence on this planet was great.  It has everything to do with Who will be ruling long after this world’s leaders, cultures, current affairs, and movements are long-forgotten. 

For You Today

Moses was driven to find God’s will for his life, and the man born a nobody, became history’s somebody, because he was willing to give every bit of who he was in his human body to open his life to God’s plan. 

If that sounds like a plan to get on the right side of history to you, but it doesn’t describe where you are, or have been yet, remember, the bush never burned-up.  He still speaks, and He still loves, and you are still wanted.

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day!  

[1] Title and Other Images:  Pixabay.com   Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation^©