June 3, 2012

We often chuckle under our breath at Nicodemus in John chapter three.  Nicodemus went to Jesus at night and basically told Jesus:

“Jesus, we don’t understand you.  We recognize that something is different about you but we just don’t understand.”

Jesus began to explain things to Nicodemus and then he told him:

“You are Israel’s teacher and you don’t understand these things?”

We wonder how Nicodemus could not understand Jesus especially since he knew the Scripture and what Scripture said the Messiah would do when he came.  Jesus was doing this stuff (Matthew 11:4).

Reality is we often don’t understand the same as Nicodemus. 

We know what Jesus said, what he taught, the examples he gave…but we sometimes just don’t understand.  How can we see good when there is so much bad?  How can I help when I am only one?  How can we have peace when there is so much unrest?

And I can picture Jesus asking us:

“You are a Christian and you do not understand these things?”

Jesus wants us to look to him to find all of those answers.

The problem for most of us is that we allow the noise of the world to take our attention away from Jesus.  Like Nicodemus, we keep looking for something when all the while the something is living and operating in our presence.

Peace

Jim

 

June 1, 2012

In her little book ‘Jesus Calling’ Sarah Young writes:

“The Peace that I give you transcends your intellect.  When most of your mental energy goes into efforts to figure things out, you are unable to receive this glorious gift.  I look into your mind and see thoughts spinning round and round: going nowhere, accomplishing nothing.  All the while, My Peace hovers over you, searching for a place to land. 

Be still in My Presence, inviting me to control your thoughts…This is the most effective way to receive My Peace.”

Many of us search for Peace in various ways, it seems that usually we search by trying to work out the details of our life.  Many a person has declared that “As soon as I get my life in order I’ll spend some time with Jesus.”  And they go from problem to problem never seeming to get to the point of letting Jesus take control…and bring Peace.

Peace

Jim

 

May 31, 2012

I’m thinking about how Christianity ought to change our perspective.  What I mean by that is that we should be able to see some good in our world, there ought to be a peace that allows a view of the world that lets us know that the bad of the world is under God’s watchful eye.

And before we say anything about how God ought to fix stuff if everything is under his watchful eye…maybe God is trying to fix stuff, but Christian history shows that God usually fixes stuff through those people who set out to follow and be obedient to him, people whose perspective allows them to see the movement of God in our life and in the world around us.  For whatever reason stuff usually stays broken until a fix-it person rises to the occasion.

Most of us generally look like the Maytag repair man…

…instead of a person of God spreading the Fruit of the Spirit…Love, Joy, Peace, Patience, Kindness, Goodness, Faithfulness, Gentleness, and Self-control.

Peace

Jim

May 26, 2012

My Bible reading this morning came from 1 John 4.  It was the passage where John used the word Love over and over again.

⁷ Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. ⁸ Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.⁹ This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him.¹⁰ This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved usand sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.¹¹ Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. ¹² No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.

¹³ This is how we know that we live in him and he in us: He has given us of his Spirit.

Love and God’s Spirit seem to go hand in hand. That’s a neat thought at Pentecost.

Peace

Jim

May 24, 2012

Today in United Methodist history is Aldersgate day.  It was this day in 1738 in London, on Aldersgate Street (listening to the preface to Martin Luther’s commentary to the Romans – really dry stuff, I’ve read it) that founder John Wesley had a ‘heart warming’ experience that left him with knowledge of his salvation ‘by the grace of God’.  Wesley was not the same person after that day.

But Wesley’s story tells me that we are continually in the process of becoming the person that God wants us to be.

That means that we don’t finally one day realize our potential and then we can sit on the pinnacle of victory…rather it means that we face a never ending struggle to become more Like Christ.

The minute we stop trying to achieve perfection we begin the decent toward mediocrity.  We are called to live above mediocrity.

Peace

Jim

May 23, 2012

For Christians Pentecost is a very important event, or remembrance, in the life of the church.  Something as important as ‘God with us’ should rate fairly high on our scale of importance.

Read the story in Acts chapter two.

Peace and fire

Jim

May 22, 2012

Thinking Pentecost this morning.

Imagine the disciples knowing that Jesus had something in mind but not knowing what that might be.  They spent this week doing pretty much the same as last week…thinking about how long it had been since Jesus told them to stay in the city until they received the power he alluded to.

As the disciples waited, the thoughts of resurrection day kept getting farther behind them.  The newness of their knowledge of the living Jesus hadn’t worn off yet but some of the excitement had faded a bit.  Not knowing exactly what to do, Peter suggested they do something.  Replace Judas.

Peter thought back to the Psalms and thought about how David had seen all this coming years before now, even suggested what might take place.

“May another take his place of leadership.” (Psalm 109:8)

So Peter suggested that while they waited for whatever Jesus had in mind, they find someone to replace Judas.  And since it was important that the message of the Resurrected Jesus be told, the person to replace Judas must be one that had been with them from the start, someone who had witnessed all that Jesus did before he was killed, and then witnessed Jesus alive and well after the crucifixion.  So in their mind, they let God decide who that person would be.

So the eleven chose two men who met the criteria, Justus and Matthias.  The one to whom the lot fell would be the one God would choose.  Matthias was chosen.

Like the disciples, Easter is behind us and Pentecost is before us.  We know what the disciples did not know…that the power Jesus talked about changed them forever.

As we prepare to celebrate Pentecost, think about the changes that have taken place in our own lives since the power Jesus talked about came to rest on us.  A humbling thought for many of us.

Peace

Jim

May 20, 2012

Dwight Moody said:

 “You might as well ask a person to hear without ears, see without eyes, walk without feet, as to ask them to believe without giving them something to believe.”

What we believe speaks more loudly about our knowledge of God than what we don’t believe.  What we don’t believe doesn’t adequately speak to people about the Good News of Jesus therefore when people hear what we don’t believe, those non-beliefs are written off as having no value.  (Reference Moody’s quote above).

Spend some time thinking to yourself about what you do believe.  Hold those beliefs up and let the full force of Jesus’ love fire at them.  If questions arise maybe it would be good to look deeper to see if those beliefs in fact reflect Jesus.

This is a positive, Scriptural process of learning and growing in Christ not a put down to what we believe.  We have to know what we believe (not just what we don’t believe) if we are to influence other people with the Good News of Jesus.

Peace

Jim

May 17, 2012

Sorry for the long post but I got carried away. 

Any view of God’s love that doesn’t loom larger than our thinking is a false view of God.  What that means to me is that any view that doesn’t leave God room to have the final say; any view that leaves us declaring what God does, will do, or will not do without leaving room for God to act as he pleases might mean that we’ve grown taller (in our mind) than God.

We didn’t do that intentionally it’s just that over time after being bombarded with the louder voices of the day…sometimes we let those voices speak for us.  And sometimes those voices speak from agendas, sometimes they speak from prejudices, and sometimes they even speak from Scripture. 

If we are not in the habit of looking at the Scripture ourselves, we are left with the judgments and interpretations of others.

Very often our beliefs and our judgments come from our view of the Old Testament law (humans seem to like laws of black and white).  The result is sometimes a view of life that puts God off in the cosmic world somewhere, or tucked safely inside a temple where he won’t come out unless we need correcting.  When we think this way our view of love is tainted by a fear of punishment.

But…Jesus came as the fulfillment of the Old Testament law and prophets, and Jesus came not redefining but restating God’s ideas about love and obedience.  i.e. love God with all heart, mind, soul, strength, and love your neighbor after that.

If we look at the Old Testament as the love story of God and God’s people…and not a rulebook to keep us in line when we mess up, then it’s hard not to see the coming of Jesus as an ongoing part of the story where God is trying his level best to teach people what God’s love means in everyday life.  The result of getting a grasp on that thought is that there is nothing that can overshadow God. 

God is bigger than our ideas about him.  God is bigger than you and I.

Peace

Jim

May 16, 2012

Bold statement here:

“Our views of God, that is, our opinions and beliefs about God sometimes overshadow God.”

By that I mean sometimes we let our dogmas stand stronger than we allow God to stand.  I’m not sure why that is but I think it might have something to do with allowing our ideas and thoughts to be challenged.  If one of the ideas we’ve based our life on turns out to be a little off, what might that mean to the rest of our ideas?

In other words, what happens if we subject our beliefs to God’s scrutiny and we find that we were wrong?  What happens if God blasts away the foundation on which we built our beliefs and that foundation begins to crumble?

Some people think that if they got God wrong on one thing then everything else is questionable (I’ve heard statements along that line).  But what I’ve found over time is that subjecting our beliefs to God’s scrutiny is holding them up and allowing God to take aim at them with his love.  If God’s love crumbles the foundations those beliefs were built upon…so be it.

What I have found over time is that once God begins to increase we are very often humbled.  It is usually when I am humbled that I hear God say, “Remember love is the greatest commandment.”

Peace

Jim