Hope Shared

Wednesday, November 15, 2023

How we thank God for you!  Because of you we have great joy as we enter God’s presence.  Night and day we pray earnestly for you, asking God to let us see you again to fill the gaps in your faith.  May God our Father and our Lord Jesus bring us to you very soon.  And may the Lord make your love for one another and for all people grow and overflow, just as our love for you overflows.  

1 Thessalonians 3:9-12

Sharing our great hope in Jesus Christ with others is the main thrust of what we commonly call The Great Commission.  This was the job description Jesus gave to his followers on the day he ascended back to his Father in Heaven:

Jesus came and told his disciples, “I have been given all authority in heaven and on earth.  Therefore, go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.  Teach these new disciples to obey all the commands I have given you.  And be sure of this: I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”  Matthew 28:18-20

The “work” is really a privilege and joy.  In his letter to the Thessalonian believers Paul outlined that work in four “pillars” that hold our witness together:

Rejoicing

Apostle Paul said he thanked God for his relationship with the church at Thessalonica, and his joy was great because of their faith growing stronger. 

When the genuine joy of knowing Christ courses through your veins, sharing that blessed hope of Christ does not have to be manufactured with a memorized speech, or pamphlets; it speaks volumes of winsomeness.

Praying

Paul’s prayer life was night and day for the presence of God to grow strong in those with whom he had shared God’s love.  When you’ve taken the bold and vulnerable step of sharing the love of Christ with others, they will not slip from your mind.  You are vested in what God will do with them in His kingdom.

Hanging-out

Because of the interest in filling-in the gaps of faith many new believers might experience, you want to be with them to nurture faith at whatever point they are challenged.  Hanging-out with believers increases faith; growing joy is the wonderful result of that fellowship.

Blessing

Paul wasn’t reproducing “Paul” in these people; he was seeing the mystery of Christ in you, the hope of glory[1] manifested in those who had accepted Christ by faith, and were living under His Lordship.  His fatherly blessing was an act of love and prophetic hope…he was passing-along the faith once delivered to the saints[2].

For You Today 

Throughout my life many saints have poured-in strength and help as I’ve lived and grown.  Jesus said:  to whom much is given, much will be required.[3]  This speaks of our responsibility to pass along the joy with our prayers, presence, and always being a blessing – never an adversary – to those who need to know Christ.

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

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There are about 2,600 devotional posts and 400 sermons in the Rocky Road library.

Today’s title Image from Pixabay.com  

Images without citation are in public domain or cited via weblinks.  

Unless noted, Scripture quoted from NLT^©  

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[1] Colossians 1:27

[2] Jude 1:3

[3] Luke 12:48

 

Monday, June 20, 2022

The message of the cross is foolish to those who are headed for destruction! But we who are being saved know it is the very power of God.  As the Scriptures say, “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise and discard the intelligence of the intelligent.”  So where does this leave the philosophers, the scholars, and the world’s brilliant debaters?  God has made the wisdom of this world look foolish.  Since God in his wisdom saw to it that the world would never know him through human wisdom, he has used our foolish preaching to save those who believe.  It is foolish to the Jews, who ask for signs from heaven.  And it is foolish to the Greeks, who seek human wisdom.  So when we preach that Christ was crucified, the Jews are offended and the Gentiles say it’s all nonsense.  But to those called by God to salvation, both Jews and Gentiles, Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God.  This foolish plan of God is wiser than the wisest of human plans, and God’s weakness is stronger than the greatest of human strength.  1 Corinthians 1:18-25

Dr. Luther Dorr, my preaching professor in seminary, used to like saying that preaching is foolish enough; it’s the preacher’s goal to not make it any more foolish than God intended. 

Perhaps Dr. Dorr hoped to save us from making the mistake of taking the “power of salvation” out of the preaching event.  Whatever Dr. Dorr’s thinking, the statement underlines this fact:  the powerful message of the Gospel, whether presented with words or deed, is central to God’s plan for our lives, and the best thing a preacher can do is present it, while trying not to get in the way.

The late comedian, George Burns, is quoted as saying, “The secret of a good sermon is having a good beginning and a good ending.  And having them as close together as possible.”

A quick check of John Wesley’s sermons from the late 18^th century reveals that he wrote sermons that were, typically, 5500 words in length.  Those sermons took a good bit more than an hour to preach.  Today’s attention-deprived minds prefer shorter; MUCH shorter.  My average sermon is about 4 typed pages, or 1500 words (less than 1/3 of Wesley’s), taking 20-30 minutes to preach.  Even this is long-ish by some standards.

It gives one pause…

If the foolish/powerful/very long messages of the 18^th century propelled the Wesleyan movement in America, spreading scriptural holiness across the land like a grassfire, what is the Scriptural A.D.D. 10 minute sermon-ette doing to our culture?

Many churches today are being led to embrace the thinking of 21st century culture, rather than pointing the world’s culture to Christ.  Considering Scripture obsolete and the so-called wisdom of the modern mind superior to what God gave as holy, it is no surprise to see the dumbing-down of faith to believe whatever is shiney and new, rather than, as Jude wrote:  the faith once-delivered to the saints.

For You Today

The choice between foolish wisdom and popular culture’s empty choices is always on the table.  If you’ve tried the latter and found it to be a dry well, perhaps it’s time to find living water in the foolishness of the Gospel.

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

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

Much of this devotion is updated from a post previously published (July 11, 2013)  See HERE

Years Ago - This Year

 

Thursday, July 16, 2020

Isaiah 44:1-5

“But now, listen to me, Jacob my servant, Israel my chosen one.  The Lord who made you and helps you says:  Do not be afraid, O Jacob, my servant, O dear Israel, my chosen one.  For I will pour out water to quench your thirst and to irrigate your parched fields.  And I will pour out my Spirit on your descendants, and my blessing on your children.  They will thrive like watered grass, like willows on a riverbank.  Some will proudly claim, ‘I belong to the Lord.’  Others will say, ‘I am a descendant of Jacob.’  Some will write the Lord’s name on their hands and will take the name of Israel as their own.”

Seven years ago my bride and I were blessed to purchase the first brand new car we’d had in 30 years.  I’d forgotten what that new car smell was like!  Our daughter gave us a set of white fuzzy dice as a funny reminder of the 1950’s fashion statement.  Back then, anybody who was cool had fuzzy dice hanging from the rearview mirror.  Back then, we watched Andy, Barney, Aunt Bea, and Opie on TV; today, we hang our facemasks on the car mirror

The words of Father God through the prophet Isaiah are like soothing balm on sunburn-scorched skin.  It proves one thing, even God’s people are in need of reassurance.  It’s not that we have lost faith today (as opposed to yesterday’s strong connection), but, rather, today the circumstances have changed, and an assault on our faith questions that connection.  It’s normal to run to your parent in times of crisis, or when you’ve been in a struggle.  We see that over and over in the Psalms, David wants to reach out and feel the embrace of his Heavenly Father.  Job, a man of intense faith and Godliness, constantly asks for clarification on the why of his troubles.  Jonah, the “disobedient prophet” tries to hide from his detestable calling from God of bringing the message of blessing to the despised Ninevites. 

When we look around, perhaps especially today, and see anger, protests, division, and hatred, it is more than mildly discomforting; it’s scary!  And we need God’s comforting voice telling us He is with us, and it will be alright.

As a pastor, just one of many thousands of pastors, I am always concerned about how the church is doing, and if we’re doing enough to pass along the faith to the next generation, who will take the reins and help steer the wagon for the generation that comes after theirs.  I don’t think you can be a pastor without that concern.

I first felt that concern as young man, seeing firsthand the results of the God is Dead movement, where the prevailing thought was that God, if ever such a being really existed, must now be dead, and we are on our own in this universe.  Among ministers and the faithful was a deep concern that the church could not survive such an onslaught of unbelief.  The wave of people leaving the church, particularly young people, the so-called future of the church, was astounding.  However, throughout the last half-century, the church has not only endured, it has matured, and changed, and adapted, and ministered, and grown.  In short, the church is still the church, God’s church, His witness, His special creation, and loved family.

Let’s Pray Together:

Father, we’re no different than Israel in Isaiah’s day.  We need Your comfort and blessing.  Abba, in Your mercy…

For You Today

The church, throughout the centuries has seen culture change, rearrange, come unglued, reassembled, knocked to its knees, and get up again.  The church has been there every step of the way because God said so. 

The church you knew in your youth isn’t gone, but today it doesn’t look like you remember it, or like you think it should look.  Rather, it looks like what God is moving it to be.  Our best hope of being faithful to God’s purpose and design is to continually fast, pray, and cooperate with God by serving others.  That is the one constant and calling of those who claim the faith, once delivered to the saints[1]. 

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road today.  Have a blessed day!

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Title Image:  Pixabay.com  Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation©

For another post on this text:  God's Election

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[1] Jude 1:3

Fruit of the Spirit - Part 2 - FAITHFULNESS

[1]

Wednesday, May 22, 2019

But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives:  love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.  There is no law against these things!                 Galatians 5:22-23

Bob Smith.  Not exactly a name that jumps out at you.  Unless, of course, you’re a student at Moorehouse College in Atlanta last Sunday during commencement exercises, and you’re about to graduate when the speaker, Robert F. Smith, the world’s richest African American, with a net worth of over 5-billion (which is way-more than Oprah Winfrey, by the way), declares he is going to pay off your student loans – as well as all the other 400 graduates…a gift of about $40-million[2]…and give you a chance to start your working career debt-free!  Can you hear me now?  Hi; I’m Bob Smith, and I just laid some fruit of the Spirit on you.

Now, before you accuse me of laying some Joel Osteen on you, let me say that whether you have 5 billion in the bank, or owe that much in debt, money, per se, has nothing to do with it.  Bob Smith’s act was faithfulness, the gift of doing for someone else, what you can, with what you have, where you are; that’s what means everything.

People do the same kind of thing Smith did in places like McDonald’s, buying an extra lunch combo to hand to the homeless guy who hangs-out just down the street from a fast food pace.  Or randomly paying at the drive-through for the car behind you.  You never know when that $8.00 meal will rescue a soul, because that guy in the car behind who is broke and desperate, because everything he cared about in life had just vanished, and this was going to be his last meal before he just gave up and jumped off the cliff.

Faithfulness (to the faith once delivered to the saints[3]) is a matter of using that with which God has empowered you, to bless and strengthen someone else. 

If you’re somebody who belongs to Jesus, and you’re good at something, chances are that is where this spiritual fruit will show up.  That talent, or gift, or ability, isn’t the fruit…it’s what you do with it.  Bob Smith is a smart guy, who figured out a long time ago how to make money…lots of it.  That isn’t spiritual fruit; knowing what to do next and doing it…that’s where the new wine is made from the best fruit that is just waiting to be harvested! 

The old expression about a detective finding the bad guy is follow the money.  Here’s one about finding the faithful guy:  follow the faithfulness.

For You Today

For the rest of this series on the 9-fold fruit of the Spirit we’re going to let Scripture finish our devotional thought, because it is our encouragement and challenge to work this field of producing Kingdom fruit:

The seeds of good deeds become a tree of life;  Proverbs 11:30a

If your gift is to encourage others, be encouraging.  If it is giving, give generously.  If God has given you leadership ability, take the responsibility seriously.  And if you have a gift for showing kindness to others, do it gladly.  Romans 12:8

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

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[1] Title Image: Pixabay.com  
             Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture quotations are from The New Living Translation©

[2] Who’s Robert F. Smith, the billionaire paying off Morehouse College students’ loans?

[3] Jude 1:3

Hope - Despair

[1]

Monday, July 30, 2018

For we live by believing and not by seeing.   

2 Corinthians 5:7^(NLT)

I’ve still got the dog tags from my stint in the U.S. Army.  Every soldier wears these for identification in case you’re wounded or dead and need to be identified.  There is a line on the tag which is for religious information; mine read no preference.  After all, I was 19, and knew everything.  I was in ignorance…literally.  I identified as an agnostic, one who couldn’t be said to be an atheist, but rather chose to simply say nobody can actually know if there is a god or not.  The word’s etymology says it all.  In ancient Greek gnosis is knowledge; if you put an “a” in front it turns into a negative (a·gnosis), and it simply designates the opposite of knowledge.  An agnostic says you’re against knowing!  How appropriate for a 19-year-old know-it-all!

Scripture declares that our faith (everyone has at least a seed of faith) is what will produce hope (as opposed to despair).  Faith, nurtured and given a chance to grow, naturally moves towards He who IS hope, Jesus Christ, crucified, buried, resurrected on the third day, ascended to the Father in Heaven, and coming again to judge the quick and the dead.

Now, at 19, this slow learner wasn’t ready to understand that, or admit it.  It was “safer” (so I thought in my 19-year-old wisdom) to toddle off to Vietnam with agent orange, bullets and bombs, and anti-personnel mines everywhere you walk, with any faith-belief system placed on-hold. Because, in my chosen ignorance – agnosticism, knowledge that you KNOW you can’t know anyway…well, the reality is, I just didn’t want to think my parents might be right.  The government had issued me a flak jacket, helmet, and M-14 rifle; that seemed a whole lot more protection than a god I couldn’t see.  I had 19-year-old wisdom, after all, and anyone that wise understands, it’s all up to chance, and the strong are the ones who survive and get it done.

Fast forward a half-century.

I’m a lot older now…and just a little wiser than that kid getting on a plane for Vietnam.  What I discovered in the interim is two-fold:

1.      It is only by the grace of the God I put on-hold that I was not killed that year in my agnostic wisdom and woke-up in hell.

2.      Even if a person is struggling with faith in God, choosing to believe what you cannot seem to prove is smarter than just ignoring Him with a fancy-sounding name, like agnostic.

There are, after all, only two possibilities:

1.      There is no god…it’s all as Karl Marx phrased it, that religion is the opiate of the masses, just a pacifier to suck-on to get through life without going mad.

2.      There is God…and, as Creator and Sustainer of all life, He is personal and has a prior claim on our lives, so we’d better get our stuff together and honor Him.

But, even putting aside the agnostic’s chief rationale, that you really can’t know for sure that God exists, there is a firm footing to be gained in choosing to believe anyway.  That footing (believe it or not) is Karl Marx – the opiate, (drug, if you will) of faith does indeed produce hope.  And hope is a whole lot lovelier than despair to walk around with, even if there isn’t a God.

From one who has been on both sides of that equation – I choose hope; I choose faith in God. 

And, incidentally, when I chose to walk by faith, and not by my willful agnosticism, a wonderful thing happened; my faith grew into hope in the faith once-delivered to the saints.  And I understood agnosticism is just as empty-headed as it implies.  You can know He is real, and His love will keep you with assurance that you are His, and loved.

For You Today

By the way, did you know Karl Marx was right at this point:  without acting on our faith, trusting in the God we can’t see – life will not make any sense, and will lead you to despair, and the ultimate choice for the agnostic or atheist – opting out.  There is a long list[2] of well-known people living against-faith who have done that – Ernest Hemmingway, Robyn Williams, and Anthony Bourdain, just to name a few.  In the end their disposition is not much different than one of the most famous – Judas Iscariot.

So, here’s the advice on struggling with faith – do what John Wesley, founder of Methodism, was advised by Peter Boehler[3] a wise Moravian missionary.  Wesley was struggling to have faith; Boehler said:  Preach faith until you have faith. 

So, my friend, walk by faith until your need for sight disappears!

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

[2] 23 Lists (celebrities who have committed suicide)

[3] See Boehler on Wikipedia.com

It's the Circle of Life

[1]

Thursday, July 26, 2018

You learned about the Good News from Epaphras, our beloved co-worker.  He is Christ’s faithful servant, and he is helping us on your behalf.  He has told us about the love for others that the Holy Spirit has given you.  So we have not stopped praying for you since we first heard about you.  We ask God to give you complete knowledge of his will and to give you spiritual wisdom and understanding.  Then the way you live will always honor and please the Lord, and your lives will produce every kind of good fruit.  All the while, you will grow as you learn to know God better and better.  Colossians 1:7-10^(NLT)

In the Walt Disney animated movie Lion King[2] Mufasa is teaching his son, Prince Simba all about life.  One of the taglines is:  The greatest adventure of all is finding our place in the circle of life.[3]  Simba is told to respect the antelope.  Confused, Simba questions Mufasa:  Um, Dad, don’t we EAT the antelope?  Dad agrees, but then reminds his cub that lions also die and return to the ground to become the grass antelopes eat.  This is the circle of life. 

Mufasa’s wisdom aside (after all, there are holes in his metaphysics – just ask Rafiki, the baboon who plays the shaman clergy seer if there is more to it than blood, sinew and bones returning to the ground); well…aside from the Lion King’s life-circle lesson, there is a spiritual circle of life that Paul holds up for us in his letter to the Colossian believers.

Paul had done much work at Colossae, bringing pagans to Christ.  Epaphras, at Paul’s direction, had been dispatched to the region to help form the new church after Paul left.  Epaphras reported back to Paul that the believers there were growing in their love for God and service to people.  In responding Paul shared his joy at their growth, and how he was praying daily for their continued growth in understanding God’s Word, so they would bear even greater fruit for the kingdom. 

In so many ways this is the Christian, or spiritual circle of life.  The Gospel is shared, a seed is planted.  One comes alongside to nurture that seed of faith, as it grows into a fruitful Kingdom vine. 

It was that way for me (and probably you).  My parents loved Jesus and his church.  They passed this love along to me.  Even in my far country Prodigal son days, I could run far from God, but never out from under Mom and Dad’s prayers.  In due time the faith seedling survived the storm, began to grow on the bread of life, and began to bear fruit.

When your faith survives adolescence, and you begin to exhibit the signs of maturing, the circle of life ceases to be linear…just passed down from leader to follower; it commences bending in an arc to reach wider and deeper.  I’m not just a son, brother, cousin, and uncle…I am a father, grandfather, and…heaven help me…great-grandfather!  At my age I can’t help looking back; it’s been a lot of years since the faith once-delivered to the saints[4] was first told to me at my mother’s knee.  That faith was deepened in Sunday School every week.  It was sharpened in worship, tested in the world, and began to bear fruit as the Spirit worked within to change and grow a seedling into something fit for the Owner of the Vineyard to use.

This is the circle of true life.  It’s not the jungle, or the African plain, eating and being eaten; this is the surrender of the soul, dying to self, living in Christ.

In the movie, Simba the young lion king had ducked out on his responsibility to actually BE king.  Simba was rebuked by Rafiki (the baboon preacher).  Rafiki told Simba to think about the circle of life, then reminded him:  You have become less than you ARE!

That is a challenge to change…to look up and BE changed.

For You Today

We all need a Rafiki to remind us to be what God is calling us to be.  So, let’s have Paul’s benediction ring in our ears today:

We ask God to give you complete knowledge of his will and to give you spiritual wisdom and understanding.  Then the way you live will always honor and please the Lord, and your lives will produce every kind of good fruit.  All the while, you will grow as you learn to know God better and better.  Colossians 1:7-10^(NLT)

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

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[1] Title Image:  I, Hot Dog Wolf [GFDL, from Wikimedia Commons

[2] ©1994 Disney Productions

[3] Ibid. & IMDB

[4] Jude 1:3