Remember?

Posted on April 15, 2020 | Leave a comment

This is the day that the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it. [Psalm 118:24 ESV]

Remember that chorus?  I needed to sing it out loud in my own living room this morning.  I needed it’s reminder!  I needed to re-read this quote from a sermon by C.S. Lewis in 1942 and be reminded that in Jesus own plan it’s more than OK to rejoice; it’s critical for “this” day.  I think you may need all those things too.

“If you asked twenty good men today what they thought the highest of the virtues, nineteen of them would reply, Unselfishness. But if you asked almost any of the great Christians of old he would have replied, Love. You see what has happened? A negative term has been substituted for a positive, and this is of more than philological importance. The negative ideal of Unselfishness carries with it the suggestion not primarily of securing good things for others, but of going without them ourselves, as if our abstinence and not their happiness was the important point. 

I do not think this is the Christian virtue of Love. The New Testament has lots to say about self-denial, but not about self-denial as an end in itself. We are told to deny ourselves and to take up our crosses in order that we may follow Christ; and nearly every description of what we shall ultimately find if we do so contains an appeal to desire. 

If there lurks in most modern minds the notion that to desire our own good and earnestly to hope for the enjoyment of it is a bad thing, I submit that this notion has crept in from Kant and the Stoics and is no part of the Christian faith. Indeed, if we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak.  We are far too easily pleased.” [C.S. Lewis – Weight of Glory]

I am the door. If anyone enters by me, he will be saved and will go in and out and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.  I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. John 10:9-11 [ESV]

THIS is the day….REMEMBER?

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Posted in John, New Testament, Old Testament, Psalms

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Resurrection Day!

Posted on April 12, 2020 | Leave a comment


It’s resurrection day!  I’m remembering this very special week in Jesus’s life thru the filter of coronavirus today.  Holy Week this year began very differently than most of us would have expected.   Coronavirus moved us from participation to isolation and gave us a conscious awareness of the reality of our need to be safe.

Our senses have been bombarded all week with grim truths that describe the endless march of a viral enemy beyond our control.  But there is another truth that has become the glimmer of “good” hope during this week.  It’s hope that reaches beyond the stress of physical distancing, fears for our safety, illness, ventilators, and death…into the future.  

The hope of the future of humanity has been revealed through the conscious, sacrificial and persistent service of ordinary people despite personal risk to themselves.  That hope is a reality because of this truth; God has intentionally intervened in the hearts of those ordinary people to equip them to surpass even the best of human motives.  

 Those              ordinary
 people have shown us a Holy
love that saves, in real time,
to make God’s divine
purpose known
to all of
us

In the year of our Lord 2020
Jesus Christ lives to be a part of our future and our hope.
“He is not here; he has risen, just as he said.”
[Matthew 28:6 NIV]

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Posted in Easter, Matthew, Sunday

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Comfort

Posted on April 8, 2020 | Leave a comment

John 10:10 The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.  [NIV]

This is the middle of the week between Palm Sunday and Easter for us.  The memory of that first “Palm” Sunday crowd raising their Hosannas for the Messiah of their own imagination along with this quote from John Piper is my reminder for today.  “Many of Jesus’s followers [in AD33] thought Jesus came to rescue and reign now. They anticipated a physical and political freedom from the oppressive Roman rule. For them, the Christ was the key to their immediate, this-world issues.” [Your Sorrow will Turn to Joy]  

Re-read that quote from Piper and replace “Roman rule” with coronavirus. As believers in Christ we are confronted today with the same challenge of that long ago crowd – choosing imagination or reality.  We can’t imagine how Jesus will rescue us from the deadly coronavirus but we can find comfort in the reality of His own words “I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.”  Choosing to let Jesus’s Word be the reality of comfort for us is better than letting our imagination for this-world confront us in the midst of this coronavirus week between Palm Sunday and Easter [2020].

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Posted in John, New Testament, Wednesday

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Palm Sunday 2020

Posted on April 5, 2020 | Leave a comment

Matthew 21:8 A very large crowd spread their cloaks on the road, while others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road. 9 The crowds that went ahead of him and those that followed shouted, “Hosanna to the Son of David!”  “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!”  “Hosanna in the highest heaven!” [NIV]

>§§§>

Today is Palm Sunday.  I know many of us will have the opportunity to hear the message of Christ provided by our Pastor’s via the internet. That’s a blessing.  We are living in a new reality where dependence on community worship is restricted.  We won’t be surrounded by a crowd of like minded people gathering together to remember this day as the moment of triumph when Jesus begins His final journey to the day of our salvation.  We won’t be hearing other voices raised with our own as we shout Hosanna!  There are no waving palm branches to prompt our memory of the past.  

The pomp and circumstance of public celebrations has been temporarily swept aside but Coronavirus can’t deprive you of your Hosannas, “help” or “save, I pray!”  Today we are the ones who must prepare the way for Jesus to enter into the midst of our exile.  “Hosanna to the Son of David!”  “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!” Blessed is he who comes to complete His identity in you right there in your own home and offers you the opportunity to complete your identity in Him through a different kind of personal experience.  Today Palm Sunday worship is up to you.

“Hosanna in the highest heaven!”

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Posted in Matthew, New Testament, Palm Sunday

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God Knows!

Posted on April 1, 2020 | Leave a comment

Jeremiah 29:10 For thus says the Lord: After seventy years are completed at Babylon, I will visit you and perform My good word toward you, and cause you to return to this place. 11 For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope. 12 Then you will call upon Me and go and pray to Me, and I will listen to you. [NKJV]

>§§§>

I’m still concentrating on Jeremiah 29: 10-12 and the Spurgeon sermon from 1887.  I found a meaningful difference in the New King James Version’s translation of a phrase from verse 10: “I will perform my good word toward you.”  The Bible is more than history, wisdom and recorded answers to allow us to learn how to live according to the expectations of God.  It’s His “good Word“ written to reveal His intent to intervene and perform it in the life of His leading characters [you and I] as we navigate through the emotional and unexpected circumstances of life.  We are a performance oriented culture, well-trained over most of our years to figure things out but today our unexpected circumstance is a deadly virus.   Coronavirus is now daily confronting our ability to figure out what we do know and what we don’t know. 

God knows!  That is the one thing Spurgeon has reminded me over and over as I’ve read his sermon. “When Moses came out of Egypt, he had no plan as to the march of Israel. He knew that he had to lead the children of Israel to the promised land, but that was all. He probably hoped to take them by the shortest cut to Palestine at once…Brother, you do not know what is to be done, but the Lord knows for you. O, body of Christ, let your head think for you! O, servant of Christ, let your Master think for you. “I know,” says God “the thoughts that I think toward you.” AND “I will visit you and perform My good Word toward you…”

∞ Look back and thank God…Look forward and trust God ∞

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Posted in Jeremiah, Old Testament, Wednesday

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Still in Babylon

Posted on March 29, 2020 | Leave a comment

Jeremiah 29:10 This is what the Lord says: “When seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will come to you and fulfill my good promise to bring you back to this place. 11 For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. 12 Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. [NIV]

>§§§>

The exile continues.  The comfort of Jeremiah 29:11 is meant to remind us of the Lords vision for our future.  That’s a treasure but in the re-reading of those familiar words over and over while continuing to ponder the sermon from Spurgeon an eye-opening expansion of my own vision has happened and this is a priceless gift.  There’s more to that beautiful promise of verse 11.  I am so thankful we have the enduring Word, work and wisdom of God given through Jesus, the Holy Spirit AND the writings of His people that can open our eyes in the midst of this contemporary pandemic. There IS a Jeremiah 29:10 and a 29:12 too.  “I will come to you and fulfill my good promise…you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you.

In Gods wisdom His vision covers the past, present and the future.  That is the priceless part we need to cling to as God uses Jeremiah to inform our vision to match His own.  “As to our present pain and grief, God saw not these things exclusively, but He saw the future joy and usefulness which will come of them. He regards not only the tearing up of the soil with the plow, but the clothing of that soil with the golden harvest.” [Spurgeon]. 

∞ Look back and thank God…Look forward and trust God ∞

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Posted in Jeremiah, Old Testament, Sunday

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Plans

Posted on March 25, 2020 | Leave a comment

Jeremiah 29:11 For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.

>§§§>

I found the sermon on Jeremiah 29 by C.H. Spurgeon last week [http://www.spurgeongems.org/sermon/chs1965.pdf]. I feel like I stumbled onto something very special.  It was delivered in 1887 but it’s wisdom has stood the test of time.  It’s long and I keep rereading it because it has more ideas than I can absorb in one reading.  “These people in captivity were likely to fear that their God had forgotten them; hence the Lord repeats His words in this place, and speaks of thoughts and thinking three times.”  Plans, plans, plans.

Plans are the tricky part for humans because we trust what we know and we just don’t know it all. So here we are in this time of Coronavirus faced with the conflict of who’s plans to believe and what actions to take.  Consider this second truth from Spurgeon “Unbelief misinterprets the ways of God; hasty judgment jumps at wrong conclusions about them, but the Lord knows His own thoughts.  We are doubtful where we ought to be sure, and we are sure where we have no ground for certainty, thus we are always in the wrong.”  

Pay attention today to the plans for dealing with Coronavirus, take every action based on their limited wisdom and act in an abundance of caution on the knowledge of men you don’t know AND then put your trust and hope in the plans of the God you do…”plans to give you hope and a future.”

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Posted in Jeremiah, New Testament, Wednesday

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Self-Isolation

Posted on March 22, 2020 | Leave a comment

Jeremiah 29:11 For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare [peace] and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope. 12 Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will hear you.

>§§§>

“I don’t know.”  That’s probably the most consistent thought in many of our minds these days.  We must act on the advice of experts but we are dealing with unknown risk levels.  No matter how much information we consume about mitigating the danger of our exposure to Corona virus it’s not enough to ease our minds completely when the time comes for one of those essential trips out of the safety of the exile of self-isolation.  Jeremiah reminds us God has a plan and Corona virus is not the only danger of our exile.

“A people in such a position as the Jews in Babylon were in danger in two ways: either to be buoyed up with false hopes, and so to fall into foolish expectations; or, to fall into despair, and have no hope at all, and so become a sullen and degraded people, who would be unfit for restoration, and unable to play the part which God ordained for them in the history of mankind.” (Spurgeon 1887).

God knows the plan even if I haven’t a clue what it is.  Exile from the familiarity of daily life has given me a new awareness I need to be equipped to play the part God has set for my restoration.  He’s given me expert advice about the one part of my future and hope I am in charge of.  I can do this one thing to be prepared even in the exile of self-isolation!   “…Call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will hear you.” 

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Posted in Jeremiah, Old Testament, Sunday

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Life-Saving

Posted on March 18, 2020 | Leave a comment

Colossians 4:5 Be wise in the way you act toward outsiders; make the most of every opportunity. 6 Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.

>§§§>

Could there be a more timely message for all of us today?  Harsh and divisive language and behavior have invaded our culture to the point it’s expected, if not accepted.  Recognizing the wisdom of opportunity, words and behavior matter now more than ever.  Most of us are embarrassingly aware there is a distance between our willingness to share the Gospel truth freely and how we live our daily lives.  There’s a reason for that.  It’s reminiscent of the dynamic that happened way-back-when in the Garden of Eden when a clever snake successfully confused those first two messengers by questioning the clarity of God’s truth.  

We are the messengers today and unfortunately we’ve taken a bite out of that apple of deceit.  We are reluctant to “make the most of every opportunity” because that same clever deceit has left us believing consideration and tolerance are in conflict with the broad outreach of the life-saving Gospel: that wisdom and conversation can be “full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.”  

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Posted in Colossians, New Testament, Wednesday

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Guaranteed Replacement Plan

Posted on March 15, 2020 | Leave a comment

17:1 Ahithophel said to Absalom, “I would choose twelve thousand men and set out tonight in pursuit of David. 2 I would attack him while he is weary and weak. I would strike him with terror, and then all the people with him will flee. I would strike down only the king 3 and bring all the people back to you. The death of the man you seek will mean the return of all; all the people will be unharmed.” 4 This plan seemed good to Absalom and to all the elders of Israel.

18:5 The king commanded Joab, Abishai and Ittai, “Be gentle with the young man Absalom for my sake.” And all the troops heard the king giving orders concerning Absalom to each of the commanders.

18:32 The king asked the Cushite, “Is the young man Absalom safe?” The Cushite replied, “May the enemies of my lord the king and all who rise up to harm you be like that young man.” 33 The king was shaken. He went up to the room over the gateway and wept. As he went, he said: “O my son Absalom! My son, my son Absalom! If only I had died instead of you—O Absalom, my son, my son!”

>§§§>

These two chapters of 2 Samuel paint a pretty clear picture of exactly what broken hearts look like.  Absalom’s heart trouble is obvious from verse 4 – ”This plan seemed good to Absalmon.”  His heart is “broken” by deceit and willingness to destroy the one person that stands between him and his selfish desire.  David’s heart is broken by recognizing the familiarity of those sins in the heart of his own son, and remembering Nathan’s painful forecast of it’s effect. [2 Samuel 12:7-12] Sin’s natural consequence is its ability to replicate itself from heart to heart, but God offers a guaranteed replacement plan for hearts that are broken:

FYI: Ezekiel 36:2 This is what the Sovereign Lord says:…26 And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. [ESV]

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Posted in 2 Samuel, Old Testament, Sunday

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