Kingdom Living Series - Part 7 PROSPER

 

But you are to be perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect.  Matthew 5:48
Those who listen to instruction will prosper;
    those who trust the Lord will be joyful.  Proverbs 16:20

If you’re old enough to remember the days of Vietnam and when McDonalds first put up the Golden Arches, you are also probably old enough to remember Julie Andrews’ song “Practically Perfect” in the movie “Mary Poppins”.   Mary Poppins was the nanny who was “prac-tic-ally perfect in every way”. 

About the same time as Mary Poppins entered the scene, Mac Davis introduced us to his version:

O Lord, it’s hard to be humble,

When you’re perfect in every way

I just can’t wait to look in the mirror,

‘Cause I get better looking each day

Now, those were fun things, Mary Poppins, and an arrogant cowboy…priceless!  But Jesus laid out a tougher plan; He said we should be perfect.  What’s a believer to do with that?

The founder of Methodism, John Wesley, believed^[1] it was possible for followers of Jesus to achieve spiritual perfection – to the point of not sinning by being unloving.  Indeed, he held that God expected it.  Wesley believed the pursuit of Christian perfection in love should shape our lives here on earth.

To become “perfect,” one would have to get rid of a whole shopping-list of bad things.  The problem is that we love those things because we have a base nature that tends to get worse, not better. 

When I was a kid, I used to come in from a hard day of playing in the dirt and Mom would have the bath ready.  I'd go sit on the edge of the bathtub, wet the end of the washcloth, and clean a little spot right in the middle of my forehead.  I could then announce with a clear conscience that I'd washed; Mom would say, get real!

Reality says that if you are not 100% perfectly-clean you are still dirty.  In a spiritual sense, you are not clean, simply by quitting one or two bad habits and going to church.  That is reformation; speaking of which, we are right at the 503^rd anniversary of The Reformation started by Martin Luther.  This was rearranging church life and thought to get it right.  It didn’t.  Every denomination, church, and believer in the body of Christ hasn’t gotten it perfect….ever!

If you get rid of all the bad habits, go to church all the time, go on visitation, sing in the choir, and give all your money…well, that is incredible reformation.  And it still isn't perfection! 

In fact, that's not even what God requires, or what He wants!  God doesn’t really want your reformation; God requires a transformation!  And only the grace of God can do that!

Now, there are a lot of different ideas of exactly what Jesus meant by telling us to “be perfect” or morally healthy.  It takes a lot of thought to get our minds around this one.  We know ourselves, and we know how hard it is just to stay on a diet, or quit smoking, or quit cussing.  But to do it all – to  actually be perfect before God….that is a monumental concept. 

John Wesley’s sermon on Christian Perfection (going on in this life to perfection in love) is over 20 pages long (be thankful this one is only 4!).

So, where do you start?  How is it possible to be perfect in love?  How do you do that?  How do you change?  The answer is, YOU don't!  Christ does it in you! 

In John’s first epistle the Apostle gives us the starting place for Christian perfection: 

If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.^[2] 

The word “purify” (or “cleanse”) is much different than the washcloth plan I tried to pass off as having cleaned Russell.  Beloved, when Jesus cleans you, not even your mother can find a dirty spot!

Now, if this is the starting point, where is the finish line?  How can we (as Wesley asked Methodists two centuries ago)…how can we “go on to perfection in love”? 

I believe with all my heart that the answer to that question is two-fold: 

1.   RECOGNIZE AND ACCEPT THE FACT THAT YOU CANNOT DO IT  

Only God can create in you the kind of moral character that “perfection” suggests.  Everywhere in Scripture we are told to follow-after Jesus and his righteousness (see Matthew 6:33).  But it is not following-after-to-catch righteousness that we are urged to do; rather it is in the following-after we will find ourselves transformed^[3] by the righteousness of Jesus Christ! 

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

2.   Commit to the truth that the longer you give yourself to Christ’s will, without reservation, totally abandoned to His leading, the more you will become like Him, and less like your old self.

Committing to this truth means you will find yourself loving others even if they don’t love you back.

It has been said that the Christian life is a marathon, not a sprint.  It was never truer of something than this one issue. 

Elizabeth and I got married on February 12, 1967….and a lot of changes have taken place…yes, sir!  Hanging out with her for the past nearly 54  years has changed the little boy who tried to convince mama with a “little-dab’l-do-ya” washcloth.  Now there are no socks dropped on the floor (mostly), crumbs routinely left on the table , or messy garage (occasionally).  And do you know what?  I now like it that way! 

It is the same way with hanging out with Christ – there will be changes…you will be going-on to having your ability to love increase towards perfection as you learn to submit to His leadership. 

That’s what the Apostle Paul found out.  He first met Jesus on the road to Damascus.  He followed Jesus for the next 30 or more years, still learning.  But one thing he’d learned and found to be unequivocally-true, and the most important thing about Christian perfection:  when you hang out with Jesus you learn to love what Jesus loves, and, keeping your eyes on Jesus, the rest somehow fades away…

It’s much like Helen Lemmel’s hymn, Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus:

…and the things of earth will grow strangely dim,                                                                                     in the light of his glory and grace.[4]

So…you want Christian perfection?  Say it with Paul:

I want to know Christ…this one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus.  Philippians 3:10a, 13b-14 ^(NRSV)

Father help us to let go of this world’s ways so we can prosper in the ways of Your blessed Kingdom. 

For the glory, honor, and praise to which You alone are worthy, o Lord, we pray in the Name of the Son, cooperating with the Spirit, to honor and exalt the Majesty of the Father. 

Let it be so in each of our lives…Amen!

 

Title Image:  Pixabay.com  Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation  Matthew 10:24-39©

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[1] John Wesley, sermon #40 “Christian Perfection”:  http://new.gbgm-umc.org/umhistory/wesley/sermons/40/

[2] 1 John 1:9

[3] Romans 12:1,2

[4] Lemmel, Helen, Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus, The United Methodist Hymnal (1922 Nashville, UMC Publishing House) No. 349

 

For All the Saints

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Friday, All Saints Day, November 1, 2019

(All Hallows Tide)

Earlier, during the first year of King Belshazzar’s reign in Babylon, Daniel had a dream and saw visions as he lay in his bed.  He wrote down the dream, and this is what he saw.  In my vision that night, I, Daniel, saw a great storm churning the surface of a great sea, with strong winds blowing from every direction.  Then four huge beasts came up out of the water, each different from the others. 

I, Daniel, was troubled by all I had seen, and my visions terrified me.  So I approached one of those standing beside the throne and asked him what it all meant.  He explained it to me like this:  “These four huge beasts represent four kingdoms that will arise from the earth.  But in the end, the holy people of the Most High will be given the kingdom, and they will rule forever and ever.”  Daniel 7:1-3, 15-18

Daniel may have been troubled by the vision of a great storm churning life’s seas, but God’s reality gave him comfort of the eternity of glory that overcomes this life’s uncertainties!

In Disney’s The Lion King, Mufasa, the father lion and current king explains life’s meaning to his young son, Prince Simba, how the gazelle eat the grass and live until the lion catches (and eats) them.  In turn, the lion grows old and dies, and the bodies return to the ground to become grass for the gazelle to eat.  It is, says Mufasa, the circle of life!
Now that is neatly tied-up philosophy, but terribly empty theology.  That “circle-cycle” may be true of the substance of which our physical bodies consist, but its focus is on the material, not the depth of meaning of the totality of God’s creation.  We are not simply bodies; we are souls that inhabit bodies!

On his eightieth birthday, John Quincy Adams was walking slowly along a Boston street. A friend asked him “How is John Quincy Adams today?”  The former president replied graciously, “Thank you, John Quincy Adams is well, sir, quite well, I thank you.  But the house in which he lives at present is becoming dilapidated.  It is tottering upon the foundations.  Time and the seasons have nearly destroyed it.  Its roof is pretty well worn out, its walls are shattered, and it trembles with every wind.  The old tenement is becoming almost uninhabitable, and I think John Quincy Adams will have to move out of it soon; but he himself is quite well, sir, quite well.”^[2]

The body in which the soul of John Quincy Adams lived was crumbling, probably aching from early morning through each day, and through each night.  It was evidence of the temporary nature of our current pilgrimage.  However, the spirit of President Adams was preparing, as he said, to live a quite well transition from that run-down tenement to a home not built with hands; John Quincy Adams was preparing to join the saints of all time and eternity. 

It is in that reality we celebrate today.  For all the saints who have trusted in Christ for their past, present, and eternity, we live not in a mindless, endless circle of life that begins and ends with grass, eaten, only to be eaten again and again; we live a life of growing into that magnificent image of Jesus Christ, with whom the Church Triumphant now rests.

For You Today

Let’s begin the day with a prayer of remembrance and hope:

Father, we give You thanks for all the saints in Your care; we understand by Your holy promises that they are more than quite well; they thrive in overwhelming glory and are surrounded by your loving embrace.

We give thanks for every saint that has nurtured us in the faith, drawing us closer to your side, leading us to be of Kingdom purpose and usefulness.  Having been sown in death, they have risen in glory, and we praise Your name that we shall follow.

For we know that when this earthly tent we live in is taken down (that is, when we die and leave this earthly body), we will have a house in heaven, an eternal body made for us by God himself and not by human hands.  2 Corinthians 5:1

In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, Amen. 

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[1] Title Image: (background) Wikimedia.com ("For All the Saints" Logo – Rev. Laura Auten)  

Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation©

[2] Holland Davis

In God's Hand

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Thursday, November 1, 2018

When Mary arrived and saw Jesus, she fell at his feet and said, “Lord, if only you had been here, my brother would not have died.”  When Jesus saw her weeping and saw the other people wailing with her, a deep anger welled up within him, and he was deeply troubled.  “Where have you put him?” he asked them.  They told him, “Lord, come and see.”  Then Jesus wept.  The people who were standing nearby said, “See how much he loved him!”  But some said, “This man healed a blind man.  Couldn’t he have kept Lazarus from dying?”  Jesus was still angry as he arrived at the tomb, a cave with a stone rolled across its entrance.  “Roll the stone aside,” Jesus told them. But Martha, the dead man’s sister, protested, “Lord, he has been dead for four days. The smell will be terrible.”  Jesus responded, “Didn’t I tell you that you would see God’s glory if you believe?”  So they rolled the stone aside.  Then Jesus looked up to heaven and said, “Father, thank you for hearing me.  You always hear me, but I said it out loud for the sake of all these people standing here, so that they will believe you sent me.”  Then Jesus shouted, “Lazarus, come out!”  And the dead man came out, his hands and feet bound in graveclothes, his face wrapped in a headcloth.  Jesus told them, “Unwrap him and let him go!”  John 11:32-44(NLT)

But the souls of the righteous are in the hand of God, and no torment will ever touch them.  In the eyes of the foolish they seemed to have died, and their departure was thought to be an affliction, and their going from us to be their destruction; but they are at peace.  For though in the sight of men they were punished, their hope is full of immortality.  Wisdom of Solomon 3:1-4(Apocrypha)

Jesus’ first command after the dead man, Lazarus, walked out of the grave was to get the shroud unwrapped.  Nowhere do any of the Gospel writers record that Jesus commanded them to draw a bath to get rid of death’s smell.  Like the three Hebrews, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, walking around in Nebuchadnezzar’s fiery furnace, who came out alive without a burn, or even the smell of smoke on them, Lazarus walked out of what should have been a cesspool (by all natural reasoning).  

The next time we hear Lazarus' name ^{(John 12)} he’s sitting with Jesus at the dinner table.  This should make the point that not even the smell – the memory – or even the thought of death can survive the life-giving power of the hand of God!

It is this life-giving promise that makes All-Saints Day such a comfort.  If you have ever been near a decomposing body, you understand there is a natural/physical reality to death … and it isn’t pretty.  But that is the contrast that makes Solomon’s wisdom so appropriate today.  This wise king of Israel says those who have passed into the hand of God only seemed to have died, when the truth is they are safe in the hand of God, and, as the hymn-writer has it, near to the heart of God.

For You Today

You don’t just think about your loved ones who have passed from this earthly existence on All-Saints Day; if you’re like me, there’s not a day that goes by that doesn’t include joy and sadness over not being able to see Mom and Dad, or bury my face in Grandma Carrie’s apron.  But, thanks be to God, I know where they are, and that’s not only good enough for now … it is sealed by the life-giving hand of God for eternity because of the resurrection of Jesus!

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

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[1] Title Image: Courtesy of Pixabay.com

November is a Remembering Kind of Month

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Today’s devotion is a recent offering by Rev. Laura Auten, reprinted from The Vital Web, a ministry of The Uwharrie District of The United Methodist Church

Thursday, November 3, 2016

November is a remembering month for me.  My mother's birthday is in November.  My paternal grandmother's birthday was in November and sometimes fell on Thanksgiving Day.  My father died on the Tuesday before Thanksgiving in 2006 -I remember the day and the hour.  November begins with the bittersweet joy of All Saints' Day and ends with festive days full of gratitude and Advent preparation.  November begins with the remembrance of those who have gone before us and concludes with a glorious celebration of Christ the King who leads the way for all of us -yesterday, today and tomorrow.

If I were in charge of the liturgical calendar, I would make November a season unto itself.  We need a full thirty days to comprehend that we are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses whose faithfulness to Christ continues to light our way.  And we need more time for the remembering.  The older I get, the more time and breath I need to name the saints, to name my saints.  This remembering happens in our area of the world when leaves are falling all around us and nature is preparing for winter.  With nature's cue, what better time to ponder that even death cannot shatter love, that the grave will not bury our hope, our witness or our mission.  The Light of the saints will not be extinguished.  What Jesus makes possible for us in life and in death will lead us to a place of gratitude.  Sweeping our hearts with thankfulness seems an appropriate way to prepare for Advent.  November is preparation for the great preparation of Advent -making room in our lives for the One who makes all things possible, who is seated at the right hand of God Almighty and who is born anew in our world.  We need all of November to experience this!

This year, the presidential election throws a kink into my autumn liturgical sensibilities. This will be a November to remember!  Debates, red power ties, white power suits, polls and projections are on the main stage right now and we will surely thank God when November 8 arrives if for no other reason than the commercials, the political rhetoric and the automated phone calls will end.  I, for one, will be thankful.  Maybe we need November 1 to help us with November 8.  For sure, Christian saints teach us about the strengths and weaknesses of leadership, about the virtue of humility, about lessons learned from the past and about bright hopes for tomorrow.  And, Christ the King Sunday certainly puts Election Day in proper perspective about the gift of power and its rightful use.

This November I am going to start a new tradition.  The candle that I light on All Saints' Day, I will also light on particular days throughout the month to remember loved ones.  I will also light it on Thanksgiving and on Christ the King Sunday.  It will also be the Christ candle for my Advent wreath.  And this year, I will light this candle on November 8, Election Day.  I will pray for our world, our country and for our leaders.  I will pray for those who rejoice over the outcome of the election and for those who are disappointed with the results.  I will pray for the peace that passes all understanding for those who are powerless and for those who are power hungry. I will pray for those who wait, adventaciously, for good news of an election result, a ceasefire, a diagnosis or for any sign of grace and hope.  Can you light a candle, too? 

For You Today

Remembering and praying; let the Advent begin! 

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

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NOTES

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[i] Check out the Uwharrie District here

The Confident Hope of All Saints

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ALL SAINTS DAY, Tuesday, November 1, 2016

I have not stopped thanking God for you.  I pray for you constantly, asking God, the glorious Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, to give you spiritual wisdom and insight so that you might grow in your knowledge of God.  I pray that your hearts will be flooded with light so that you can understand the confident hope he has given to those he called—his holy people who are his rich and glorious inheritance.  Ephesians 1:16-18^(NLT)

People are at all stages of development.  Some mature more quickly than others, but the process of growing up is always upon us, always confronting us with the need to grow and change.  This includes spiritual maturity as well as physical.

The apostle Paul wanted this for his children in the faith, the believers at Ephesus.  He constantly prayed that the bud of faith would blossom fully into the reality flower of a confident hope in Christ Jesus.  Most pastors I’ve known have expressed something of this concerning the church they serve; there is a desire to see spiritual growth in the people of Christ, the light of understanding switched-on to a deeper knowledge of God and His ways which turns our attention to focus wholeheartedly on serving the King.

Part of that understanding is a deep appreciation for All Saints Day, a reminder that in eternity’s calendar there is no division of days, nights and years, nor is there any true separation of fellowship; all the saints are united in Christ all the time.  It is true that for now, because of our human frailty, stuck as we are in time and space, there is a gulf between the church here on earth and the church triumphant in glory. 

But that is merely due to our poor sight; our confident hope is in the promise of God we cannot see, that, as Paul wrote to the believers at Rome:

…I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love.  Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow—not even the powers of hell can separate us from God’s love.  No power in the sky above or in the earth below—indeed, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord.      Romans 8:38-39^(NLT)

The reality of our confident hope is that, since nothing can separate us from Jesus Christ, we are always, at all times, whether gathered or scattered to the four corners of the earth, whether in the flesh on planet earth or absent from this body and present with the Lord…we are, all the saints, always, and everywhere, we are one; we are the body of Christ, unseparated, fully joined.

All of my grandparents, my Mom and Dad, and their siblings have passed from this life.  But because of the guarantee of the certain hope of Jesus Christ, we are still together, and one day the saints will all be gathered at our Lord’s command, never again to suffer the loss of being separated; our sight will then be perfect!

As has been often said, this is not a hope-so kind of faith – this is a confident and sure hope; we have a promise from the Lord, grounded in the power of Easter’s resurrection.

For You Today

In what or whom do you place your trust, your hope?

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

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NOTES

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[i] Title Images: By BloodIce (Own work), via Wikimedia Commons