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

 

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

Mayy 30, 2012

It’s been a long busy day.  Too pooped to write.

Peace

Jim

May 29, 2012

About 10 years ago I started to collect paperclips.  I’ve found them in some of the strangest places one could imagine – anywhere from parking lots to interstate bridges.

I finally stopped really looking for them because it dawned on me that I was looking down everywhere I went and people probably thought I was weirder than I actually am.  I kept them though, and they remind me of the differences in people (I’ll explain that sometime).

But I still find paperclips on occasion, they just seem to yell at me from the ground, or cast a twinkle of light that catches my eye.  And I can’t stand it until I reach down and pick it up.

Paperclips were the farthest thing from my mind yesterday as we went to the zoo with the grandkids.  But sure enough just as we started in the gate…

 

Years ago I wrote an essay about paperclips.  I liked it and one of the daughters liked it…but other than that I suppose folks didn’t have the same weird sense of humor that I must have.

Anyway, enough about paperclips, as we begin this time after Easter called “Ordinary Time,”  let our days be anything but ordinary.  Look for the out-of-the ordinary ways that give opportunities to live the excitement of following Jesus.

As followers of Christ we are called out of the ordinary to help bring about God’s kingdom on earth as it is in heaven…there’s nothing ordinary about that.

Peace

Jim

Back at it…

Today I decided to get back in shape.  About a year ago I quit walking/running largely because I’ve had this breathing problem.  The doctor says I have asthma and I suppose he’s right since the asthma medicine seems to take care of the problem.

But the last year I hardly remember feeling good, I haven’t slept well, I’ve had some other health problems, and I have generally felt lousy with intermittent times of feeling O.K.  Fishing has been about the only thing that has truly been enjoyable except church (church excites me, it’s fun.  The idea of church being fun might seem strange to some but if church stops being fun something needs to change.  But all of that is a story for another time) 

That said, I believe that God is interested in our mental/physical health and that God would rather us be able to enjoy this life that we live whether we’re fishing or serving him in some way.  Sooooo, I started walking again today trying to tone up the ole muscles so that I can run again and hopefully improve the general health. 

I briskly walked 2.6 miles and then stopped because my legs were tired.  (That was a little frustrating because I used to run 4 or 5 miles every day and not be tired… and I believe I could have walked to California and back).  But Rome wasn’t built in a day so I start back at the beginning.

Anyway, what is interesting is when I told my sweetie this afternoon in a James Brown sort of way: “I feel good.”  Her comment was that she hadn’t heard me say that for a long time.

Maybe my getting back in shape will give her more reasons to smile too.  And that would be good since part of my lot in life is making her smile. 

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 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 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

 

May 15, 2012

I spent twenty something years working supervision and engineering in the manufacturing industry.  During that time employees came and went.  Some of those employees, it seemed to me, if they left then the company would be left to suffer immeasurable consequences.  But their leaving left not a blip on the radar and somebody else either stepped up or was hired and production never missed a beat.

I learned that everybody is replaceable.  No one is so important that the fate (or the success) of a company rests on their shoulders.

But what is interesting is that of those who I thought were so important…those people did not share my thoughts.  In fact the ones who had the most to offer were the ones who never entertained the thought of their talents  being special.  They just did their job the best they could and were not driven by the praise of others.

The same seems to be true spiritually.  I’ve noticed over time that there seems to be a direct correlation between spiritual strength and a view of self that has diminished in importance.  (See Dwight Moody quote from yesterday).

Spiritually speaking, it seems that the more we learn about the things of God the more we understand how insignificant we are in the big scheme of things.  It also becomes necessary that we don’t measure ourselves with others who are like us or even close to like us.  When we measure our spiritual life with another person we sometimes shine…but when we measure ourselves with the words of Jesus…our light isn’t quite so bright.

Jesus said once that our best is only what is expected of us (Luke 17:10).  That doesn’t mean we’re not important, it simply means that our view of God needs to increase and our view of self might need to decrease.

Peace

Jim