The Challenge of Jesus

 As we have been reading (slowly) through Mark's account of Jesus' life, we have seen Jesus doing many things that show He is from God. For the most part, these unbelievable things have been mostly accepted. We haven't heard many negative reactions to Jesus up to this point.

As we get into chapter 6, though, that begins to change. Jesus goes back to Nazareth, where He was raised, and the people there doubt Him. After all, they had seen Him grow up. Who does this guy think he is? Isn't he the carpenter's son? And they didn't believe Him. These people that had known Him all His life didn't see how God was at work in His Son growing up right among them.

Then Jesus sends out His apostles, giving them some of His authority over illness and the spirits of this world. With all these things happening, Jesus was getting noticed, even by the rulers. Herod thought Jesus was John the Baptist come back to life, and then we get a quick aside as to how John met his end. Herod started to see something ominous in Jesus, and it didn't exactly make him want to get closer to Jesus.

Following that, we then get one of the more popular stories of Jesus' life, the feeding of the five thousand men (likely plus women and children) with a mere five loaves of bread and two fish. However Jesus brought this miraculous feeding about, it was definitely a reminder of how God had fed the Israelites with bread and meat (manna and quail) while they were in the wilderness. Jesus provides yet another connection back to what He was doing with and through His people even back then.

Then Jesus walks on water while the disciples are battling the wind in their boat, and people come flocking to Jesus to be healed once He reached the other side of the sea. Even in this, the disciples are unsure of what they see as they see Jesus walking toward them on the sea. They are being kept from recognizing all that God is doing while wrapped up in human flesh.

In this chapter, we see some of the challenge of Jesus. Jesus is hard to believe. How can someone who was born and grew up be doing these great signs from God? Is He someone that has lived before, a powerful man of God that has been raised as a sign to God's people? How can He feed so many people with so few resources, and why didn't Mark or the other writers of Jesus' story explain how those loaves and fish kept on coming? Why did people not believe, even when they had seen Him do the same thing for others?

The challenge of Jesus is no less for us now. Sure, we might think that if Jesus were walking around us, we might believe more readily. But given the sheer number of people we encounter in His stories who struggle with the challenge of Jesus when they witnessed these things, why do we think we would be different? I would dare suggest that this is why God has to be the one who creates faith, because we humans simply have a hard time believing anything that we cannot prove. Jesus was challenging then, and is no less challenging now, and that is why we cling to God's gift of belief and faith.

A day in the Life

 Moving into Mark 5, we have the opportunity to narrow in on just a couple of stories from Jesus' life that stand out. This is one of the features we see with the accounts of Jesus' life. They aren't autobiographies. They don't contain a lot of rich details that you might get if you were to read a modern day autobiography. In fact, that they only cover about three years generally is somewhat remarkable. Modern day biographies look at significant events in the life of the person begin portrayed, and really seem to dive into them. But to do this, they take pages and pages to describe everything.

So when we come to the accounts of Jesus' life, the details may seem somewhat lacking. But that is where we remember the reason behind these accounts. They are not to give blow by blow accounts of everything Jesus did. In fact, when John wrote his account, he makes a note that if he were to describe everything that Jesus did, it would fill several books. John wrote so that people would read and believe in Jesus as the Christ, the Son of God, and would therefore have life in his name. And that really gets to the point of the stories.

So when you read Mark 5, and you see the account of the demon possessed man, as well as the two women Jesus heals, it's great to see how remarkable these miracles are. We often will want to see God do something similar in our lives. We read the miracles of the Bible and wonder why God doesn't do these things more often. After all, wouldn't people believe if they saw something unexplained? Yet, the biblical account also reveals a bit about what people believe after they see a miracle.

Many of Jesus' miracles were explained away with things like, He has a demon. Shoot, in the case of raising Lazarus, the leaders even tried to put Lazarus back to death because they didn't want to believe the miracle. The people coming out of Egypt saw God's mighty hand at work, and about a month later, doubted that God would take care of them. In all of these instances, we see that the miracles actually created more of an obstacle to faith than serving as a faith-building event.

Jesus would even say that his resurrection would be something that would not be believed. And yet, through the Spirit's work, there are those who hear the stories and believe that God can do such things, and did such things. These stories of miracles aren't to inspire us to greater faith so that God can do miracles around us. Rather, it's to inspire us to believe Jesus to be who he says he is. And then, by that believing, we have life.

May you be led to a greater belief that Jesus is the one who gives you life as you read today!

The Stories of Jesus

 A story grabs our attention. When that story has the power of God behind it, just imagine what it can do. As we continue reading through Mark, today we come across a chapter where Jesus turns into a storyteller. He shares a few short stories, stories with a great deal of meaning behind them. 

Jesus is no ordinary storyteller. When he tells a story, he is trying to make a major point about a person and their relationship with God. Jesus wants his hearers, and us as later readers, to know about God's attitude toward his creation and how he created them to live. We get a small flavor of that with the stories we encounter today.

As you read through the story of the sower today, it may seem a little different. After all, most of us aren't farmers. Even if we have some background with farming, the setting of the story is so different. Instead of sacks of seed to fling to the ground, we now pour bags of seed into plows designed to plant seeds with precision. There is no room for wasted seed, which would just be a waste of money.

That's what sets this sower apart, and likely part of what would cause the hearers to remember this story. This sower is like some young child having fun with a sack of seeds, tossing seed practically everywhere except for where it is supposed to go. There is seed in the road, seed in the weeds, and seed in the rocks. Oh, some did get to the field, but that's almost by chance, it seems. This sower would not be the one you would hire to plant your field, make no mistake about it.

And yet, Jesus is making a rather unusual comparison. The sower is the person who spreads God's Word. It's Jesus. It's God, letting people know about him. It's Jesus' disciples, telling others about him. That's where this story gets really strange. The intent isn't necessarily to be strategic in where that seed gets cast. It's that the seed goes everywhere. Sometimes that seed will end up in places where it is quickly taken away. Those who hear won't like it and will leave. Sometimes that seed will seem to take root, but will be short-lived. We are to nurture that new life as long as God gives us opportunity, but it is up to God to determine what happens with it. Some of that message of good news will be well-received, but will end up being choked out as people work through all the other matters of this world. Our hope is that we can help weed through it with them. Yet other seed lands and takes great root, and that's when we rejoice in God's growth and harvest.

That's the thing with Jesus' stories. He tells them with purpose, to explain God and His design. He tells us about ourselves, sometimes as God's children and other times as those who are wandering away. He encourages us to live out life as God's people. So may these stories draw you closer to Jesus, just as he wants. 

And suddenly, there they were

 Hello again everyone. As we venture through the reading of Mark, I am going to continue to put these together. But by way of letting you know what to expect, on Sundays we will take a break from reading. I encourage you to find a local place to go and worship and hear God's Word spoken to you. That act also keeps you engaged with God's story.

As we work into chapter 3 today, one thing you will notice is that people have already started to notice Jesus. The action keeps moving fast, and it seems as though Jesus' words and actions are going highly noticed. Already there are plots against Him, watching to see what He does, and planning what to do with this disrupter of their nice comfortable system of religion. That's one of the things with Jesus, though. He gets people out of their comfort zones, and that includes you and I. 

This is also the first time we see Jesus starting to get an intentional group of people around Him that He will work with in preparation for sharing His work with the world. Even as He gathers these men, though, we see that everything Jesus is doing starts to disrupt even His family. They don't like what He is doing. They think He is out of His mind. And truthfully, when we see some of the things that Jesus does, or listen to some of the things He teaches, they truly do seem crazy. Love your enemies and try to work for their good? Really? Choose one follower who sympathizes with the Roman occupation, and another who actively worked to get rid of the Romans? That doesn't seem wise. 

And then Jesus changes the meaning of things. Even as His mother and brothers try to get Him to come home and mind His own business, He states that all who do God's will are His brothers and sisters and mothers. And that is the thing we experience with Jesus. He challenges our human, flawed way of thinking. He changes our reality. 

As you read through Mark, one thing you should experience is a good deal of unsettledness. Jesus is going to challenge how you think and act. And that is to be expected. Since He is the one true God, He knows how we were created to operate. So He is going to point out how God's design and expectations are different from our own. He points these out so that we see what He designed us to be, but also to realize how much we need what He came to bring. We need someone to restore us to God and to His original design. That's what Jesus came to do. 

So as we read, we will be confronted. It may be painful to think through some of what we read. However, the good news always resounds. Jesus came to restore our relationship with God and to make us new. That's why His death and resurrection become so key for us. We can't become perfect according to God's design, so we need Him restoring us. And so we read to make our feeble attempts in that direction, while giving thanks that He has completely restored us. 

Well, that escalated fast

 If you are joining me on this journey to read through Mark's account of Jesus' life over the next couple of weeks, you might have finished chapter one by now. Good work!

As we move into chapter 2, you might notice something. Early on, it seems like the action is happening rather rapidly. One thing you probably came across a few times was the word "immediately." It's like, Jesus is here, and then immediately, he is there, and then this next thing happened immediately. It's fast action, hard hitting, and moving rapidly from one scene to the next. No waiting around, this is an action packed story.

That's one of the interesting things about Mark's account, and so it's worth tossing in a couple of interesting tidbits about him. First, who was Mark? He isn't found anywhere in the other accounts of Jesus' life. He may very well be the Mark that is written about in Acts, but the truth is, the Bible doesn't tell us who Mark is.

Yet, he obviously got to know the story of Jesus somehow. And we do have some basis for determining who he is. After John died around the year 90 in the first century, we have a few people who were second or third generation Christians who were writing about how the stories of Jesus had come together. One of them looked into Mark and made a note that he was someone who followed Peter around as he went telling others about Jesus. He wrote that Mark wrote down the accounts of Jesus that Peter was telling, and put them into order. So in a way, as we read through Mark's account, we're kind of getting Peter's view of how things happened with Jesus.

Along with being the shortest of the stories of Jesus in the Bible, many believe Mark is the first one who wrote an account of Jesus. While we may never know the full truth of that, there are some things that may seem to indicate that. You noticed that we come across John the Baptist early on in chapter 1, and it almost seems as though you should know who John is. He isn't introduced. He's just there, on the scene, and then, BAM, Jesus is on the scene. You'd tend to write a story like that when people are familiar with the main characters. So it may very well be that Mark wrote the first account of Jesus.

As we get into chapter 2, we'll see some more fast action, and sides being taken already when it comes to Jesus. More on that with the next post, though!

Do you have time for a story?

 In North America and the United States, we live in a very interesting time right now. We are coming out of a time period where many "knew" the basics of the Christian faith. They honored things like Sundays, and there may even have been a bit of a guilty conscience about not being regular at a church. However, those days are gone. Even Christians have a challenging time thinking about being regular at church, and we live among many who don't even know much about Jesus or about why we worship on Sunday. To them, it's just another day of the weekend.

That means that the story of God's work in this world is reaching a place where it is relatively unknown. People may know names like Moses, David, Jesus and Paul, but know relatively little about what the Bible says about them. Forget the parts where the inspired biblical authors describe faith and life, the story itself is not well-known.

Because we live in that context, it can make it challenging to carve out time to be reading God's story. Daily Bible time gets swallowed by the many opportunities for events and life that are ever-present around us. One of the great challenges for a Christian who wants to know more about God's story is simply finding the time to read it.

The past couple of days, I have introduced some short bible readings to help get us into a habit of reading. For the following posts, I propose that we start making some time for the story itself. It should take less than ten minutes a day to follow through with what I am suggesting, and I hope that it proves helpful.

We will start reading through the account of Jesus' life recorded by Mark. I am going to propose that we read a chapter a day. That way we aren't bogged down with too much, but as we work through it, we'll be continuous enough to get the flow of the story. As we walk through it, I'll also attempt to interject some facts about Mark and the story of Jesus that he tells. That way we not only get the story, but we get to know a little about what is behind the story.

I hope you'll join me on this journey. For just over the next two weeks, we'll follow Jesus on an interesting journey. You may even find that you have questions, and I encourage you to find some way to keep a record of them. If you are able, I'd love for you to pass them along to me. After all, the best stories are the ones we share and talk about.

So today, let's start with Mark 1. I'll even plan to keep this up over the weekend, so keep tuned in for those as well. 

The Story: Rome wasn't built in a day

 At one point when I was studying to become a pastor, the professor gave an assignment for the class to read through one whole gospel in one sitting prior to the next class. At the time, I was working the overnight switchboard, from 12:00 PM to 5:00 AM. That nice quiet time provided an opportunity to read through my assignment undisturbed. Sure, my eyes may have wanted to disturb that desire, but in the end, I did get through the whole reading assignment before my shift ended and I headed to my room for an hour of sleep before the next round of classes.

What I remember is that it took me, a fast reader, almost two full hours to just sit there and read Mark's gospel account of Jesus. Now, I will admit that I wasn't just reading through it quickly to say that I had. I was actually trying to track what all was happening, and then my mind would touch on some theological point that was made, and I had to get myself back on track. But I do remember that it took far longer than I thought it should.

Why do I share this with you? Well, for a couple of reasons. First, it is an acknowledgement that reading through God's story takes some dedication. Even the shorter sections of God's story may take a lot of time to actually sit and read through. And that's just to read, much less to work to understand what all is going on. So if you have ever tried to take on the challenge of reading through God's story, you likely know that it isn't exactly fast reading to get through it all.

A second reason I share this with you is to give you a bit of hope when it comes to reading God's story. Sure, it's great to read it all together and get a sense of the flow of things. The thing is, though, the Bible is written to inspire faith in God, and especially His work in Jesus. It isn't meant to convey a neat historical account, but rather to demonstrate that God truly does work in history. God did things that took place at a particular time. It is good for us to know how that story flows, but the real point of reading is to believe in what God has done and how He will continue to hold true to His promises.

So yesterday I challenged you to read through Psalm 100. That one is not very long. Today's challenge will be for a bit longer of a section, though still in the Psalms. It's Psalm 78. This Psalm is a summary of some of the time around Moses and God freeing His people from Egypt. Yes, it should take a little bit longer than the few verses of Psalm 100, but in some respects, we have to start seeing what we can handle as we engage God's story. So today will take perhaps 5-10 minutes, depending on how fast you read. It helps you get into the story a bit more. 

The reality is, no one will be able to read the whole account of God's story in one sitting. Just as Rome wasn't built in a day, you simply cannot read the Bible in one sitting, or just a few hours. It will take dedicated effort. And our small steps now are to help us develop the habits toward that effort. 

Learning God's Story

 As people, we dearly love stories. We like to read stories. We like to watch stories unfold on the small screen (TV) and the big screen (movies). There is just something about a story that captures our attention, draws us into a different place and time, and keeps us focused until the end.

God's story is much the same way, only on a much larger scale. It is a story that has a lot of drama in it, more than a few comedic places, and tension that grips us and keeps us on the edge of our seats. That story also explains a lot about why our world is the way that it is, and how we are best designed to live in this world and among other people.

One of the biggest challenges that we face is finding time to engage God and His story. At a conference I sat in on last fall, one remark that was made was that people almost need a step to take place before they start to read God's story in the Bible. That first step is to learn how to set aside the time to actually be able to read the story. And when we think about our busy schedules and everything that life throws at us, having a guide to help us learn how to even set apart that time is a necessity.

Over the next few weeks, I am going to work with this blog to help us think about ways to set aside a little bit of time to engage God and His story. I'm also going to be suggesting some easy entrance points to reading God's story and learning it. It will be a journey, and just like a journey, it will likely have its unexpected stops and detours along the way. That's okay. Be gracious to yourself if you are following along and find that the road is closed, or that you need to take a quick pitstop. 

To get us started, I want to suggest one thing. Let's start off with something simple. Something that is not too long to read, and that we can find engaging with our attention. I suggest that we start with Psalm 100. It's only a few verses long, and so doesn't take a lot of time to read through. Small steps are good to take as we get the journey going.

So for our first step, I'm simply going to suggest that you read Psalm 100 at some point today. Bookmark it, as we will come back to it as we get this journey underway. And if you find that God gives you a few extra minutes, read on ahead to the next Psalm. But for us as we take our first steps together, let's start small and work our way up. Then, let's check in tomorrow to see what our next step might be together. 

God and His Story

 At Lord of Life, where God has placed me at present to serve His people, we have been working through a curriculum called "The Story." This breaks down the biblical story into 30+ chapters, with a primary look at the lives of God's people in chronological order. It helps the reader to get a grasp of how God's story with His people unfolds. It does not seek to get into all the deep theological points, but rather presents the overview of His interactions with His people and their interactions with each other and the world around them.

Over the years, I have come to realize that there are many people who are faithful followers of Jesus, but perhaps miss how His life fits in with the overall story of God's people. We hear often of the different people of the Bible, but without putting them into their place in history, it can be challenging to place them, or to know who came first or who came later. This also has an impact when we hear God speaking to His people, such as through the prophets. Part of what makes their words impactful is the situation into which they spoke. That might mean that, at one part of history, God would have one message for His people, but at a different point in history, they might be doing something different, and so God spoke in an appropriate way for their current circumstances.

Understanding this history can help us get a growing perspective on just how patient and caring God is for His people. When you consider that, in a couple of different instances, God waited for hundreds of years to take action, it shows how long He is willing to wait, to give people a chance to change, to return to Him, and to remember what it means to be His people. A word from the old King James version sums this up nicely: long-suffering. God is willing to wait, far longer than you and I, to see His people change their hearts and minds.

That's why we look at the history of God's people. We also end up seeing ourselves reflected in their lives, even though they lived long ago and far away. We'll cover that in a future post. Until then, I hope you enjoy or make an effort to get to know God's story as it happened and learn from Him.

Christians and Wisdom

A common occurrence at the new year is for people to think about things that they want to change as the new year is ushered in. Some call them resolutions, others call them goals, but the point of them is that there is a desire to change something for the better in our life. We want to do these things for a variety of motivations, but the desire to improve is there.

There is wisdom in this desire to improve one's life and circumstances and situation. In fact, God speaks really highly of wisdom. In Proverbs 9, we have an image painted for us. It is of a lady named Wisdom, who cries out to the people who walk by her. She wants to be found by them. She calls for those listening to leave their simple ways and to walk in the path of insight and wisdom.

God created this world to operate in specific ways. He designed us human beings to live in certain ways when it comes to our interactions with each other. The wisdom that God gives, the wisdom that cries out to be found and embraced, is the wisdom of seeing God's design for life and then working to live according to that design. So when we see God laying out His commandments, we see God's wisdom at work. For example, when God says "You shall not steal," we see the wisdom of what God intends. We tend to get along better with each other when we aren't taking things that belong to others. God designed us to live in relationship with each other according to wisdom.

As you consider God's wisdom, where is God calling you to grow in greater wisdom? Is it in a specific relationship you have? Is it in handling some of what God has given you (such as your finances or possessions)? Is it in simply trying to learn more about how God designed you to live with others? Wisdom recognizes these areas where we can grow, and then adopts a way to address them. So my prayer is that you may grow in seeing and seeking God's wisdom in this new year.  

Relationship Dynamics

 This past Sunday at Lord of Life, we focused on adopting a lifestyle of submission to the good of others. We see this dynamic at work in the relationship between Jesus and the Church, where mutual submission for the good of the other is at the heart of all that each does for the other. This then extends into the relationships we have with each other, as Paul points out in the last part of Ephesians 5 and the first part of chapter 6.

Today I would like to focus a lot on the last part of this brief selection, specifically Ephesians 6:5-9. Now, the wording that you likely find in there is sure to raise a few eyebrows in our day and age. After all, we simply do not talk that way, and it makes us think back to a part of American history that is not viewed in a positive light. While that may be the case, what Paul is talking about here is the dynamic of the worker and the person over the worker. For the sake of clarity, I will simply use employer and employee, though there are many nuances to this relationship.

What would it look like if your employer were submitting to your good in order to make your work environment the best it could possibly be for you and others? I encourage you to think about that for a moment before proceeding on. Even write it out on paper. (Here is where you pause to do that!) You have ideas for what would make a vibrant workplace, don't you? You have things that would make going to work something that you look forward to on a day by day basis. It would be great if your employer did that for you, right?

So, suppose you took that picture and went up to your employer and demanded such a work environment. How would those in charge react to such a demand? While there might be some value that they would take from the picture you paint, the fact that you are demanding might cause them to raise their walls of defense. They might look instead to show you why they do the things that they do now, rather than looking at the picture you are painting. In general, demanding that things be done the way you envision likely will not lead to ready adoption.

Now, consider this. What if you demonstrate that you are looking to do good for your employer? Not that you cross boundaries of work and home, or overwork yourself, but that you simply show that you dedicate yourself to your work and to the good of your employer as you should. If you prove to be an employee who is looking out for the good of your employer, you are likely to gain an audience when you have suggestions. Rather than demanding, you can show them the benefit of the changes they could make to encourage people such as yourself to work in similar fashion. 

Looking to the good of others is a lifestyle that mimics what God did for you in Jesus. That applies to your work environment as well. Whether you are employee or employer, God would have you work for the good of your work environment, but even more, especially for your coworkers and their good. God has redeemed you for such an outlook, and believe it or not, such an approach is likely going to stand out in your workplace. Don't be surprised when it is viewed both with suspicion (people wondering what you're trying to gain for yourself) and with disdain (at people who just don't like seeing others doing what they are unwilling to do). After all, Jesus simply did what the Father had sent Him to do, and it resulted in your redemption and salvation. It might not amount to the same in your workplace, but you just never know what doors might be opened when you look to the good of others there.

So what is appropriate?

 "Let there be no filthiness nor foolish talk nor crude joking, which are out of place, but instead let there be thanksgiving." Ephesians 5:4

I love the phrase Paul includes in here, "which are out of place." As he considered what it meant to be one of God's people, he knew that God has set apart His people for a different way of life. God had redeemed them and given them new purpose. Being re-created in Jesus, they would have the design for which God had created them as their new walk.

One of the realities of those who are God's people is that we are set apart. We are HOLY, and that word bears a bit of explanation. In its bare meaning, the word holy means to be set apart. If you have a recipe for mashed potatoes that you only use at Thanksgiving, that recipe is holy. It is set apart. And such is the same for God's people. We are purchased by God through Jesus, made new through His sacrifice and resurrection, and are now set apart. We are holy people.

Being holy, being set apart, means that there are simply things that God has set us apart to do, and things that God has set us apart that we will not do. There are things that are simply out of place for us to engage in. In the verse above, Paul lists out filthiness (more than just being dirty, but rather having a mindset that looks to degrade the dignity of being God's special creation), foolish talk and crude joking. These are just not appropriate for God's people.

I'm going to jump on a soapbox for a moment that may challenge a few of you reading. It is inappropriate for God's people to speak sarcastically. Sarcasm is always hurtful. We might think that we are only joking, or that we shouldn't be taken so seriously, but the very nature of a sarcastic remark is to hurt, to damage. It is condescending to others. It doesn't look to build them up, which is what God designed our speech to do. Being fluent in sarcasm may very well be an indicator that we have some spiritual soul-searching to do when it comes to our attitudes toward others.

That's why we ask ourselves a simple question. As God's set-apart people, is what I am about to say appropriate? Is this what God has set me apart to do, or to say? If you cannot reasonably come up with an answer in the positive, then it likely means that it is inappropriate. My hope and prayer is that God guards our thoughts and our tongues from the inappropriate, and instead tunes them to thanksgiving and building up.

Walking as One

 As we consider the first half of chapter four in Paul's letter to the Ephesians, we start to realize that there is a lot of content in the first 16 verses. At Lord of Life, we covered a few things, mostly dealing with maturity and our growth into Jesus as the head, but the reality is, we barely touched some of the other parts of this meaty chapter. So today we're going to dive in to a bit of this that we didn't touch earlier.

As Paul concludes his opening thought in chapter four, we have this statement. "...eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit--just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call--one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all." As you read this statement, a particular word likely stands out: one.

Paul makes a great emphasis here on unity and being one. As Christians, we are brought into one body through the work of the one Lord, our Lord Jesus. As God claims His people, His one Spirit resides in those who are His people. This claiming finds its origin in baptism, which is a connection to the one primary baptism, that of Jesus, and now we are connected to Jesus through that one baptism (read the first part of Romans 6 to get a good idea of how this happens). 

In that same way, we aren't brought into the one body because of a bunch of different beliefs, but because we put our hope and trust in one thing, God the Father, His Son Jesus, who is our Lord, and the one Spirit that the Father and Son give to His people. We are joined in the one body because we have a common belief that Jesus has done what is needed to restore us to God and to give us the hope and promise of being made new. 

Paul points this out because there are a lot of things out there that try to tell us that the specifics of what you believe don't matter, that you simply have to believe in something, and that all roads lead to the same place. It was no different in Ephesus some 2,000 years ago, and it's the reality we find ourselves in today. If you try to say that there is one Lord, one Savior, and one hope, at best you might be looked at as naive or misguided. There is a strong push to simply coexist with others, not to be specific, but to speak generically about beliefs. 

Yet, that has never been God's design. He points to Himself as the one true God, the only one who actually exists. (As an aside, the name of God that He spoke to Moses and that is indicated by the word LORD in the Old Testament is actually the root of the verb, to be. In other words, God's name is "The One who actually is." Pretty cool, eh?) All others are human creations, intended to submit to our will and design, rather than have a claim on our lives. 

As Christians, that one faith in one Lord through one baptism stands out. It makes us different, and that means that we will find ourselves standing out from others because of it. As difficult as we may find that to be at times, we still have the hope and comfort of the one God who has rescued us through His one Son, that we share a common life with Him that will never end. 

Inner Strength

 If you listen for it, you can hear a lot out there in our current society talking about inner strength. Phrases like "you got this" seem to abound. The message behind them is that you are stronger than you think you are. All you have to do is dig a little deeper and you'll find that you already have what you need inside of you. It's basically a message saying that you are your own master, and you don't need to rely on anyone else. You just have to focus, dig deeper, and find that strength and commitment within yourself.

That all sounds really good in our ears. After all, who doesn't want to think that we have everything we need, and we just have to look inside ourselves to find it. Then we don't have to depend on anyone else. We are sufficient for ourselves. Sure, we may need cheerleaders along the way to help us find it, and perhaps coaches or therapists to give us a little assistance. But we don't have to rely on them. We have all we need.

As you read through those two paragraphs, you'll notice that the attention and focus is on the self. So it sounds really strange to hear something like what Paul wrote to the Ephesians when he wrote, I bow my knees before the Father...that...he may grant you to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in your inner being (Ephesians 3:16-17). It sounds like we need God the Father to strengthen us with his Spirit. It sounds like we aren't the source of the strength or power. It comes from somewhere outside of us.

The reality is that Paul is hitting on something we'd rather not be the case. We simply do not have strength or inner power in ourselves. If that were the case, then why aren't we all super-disciplined people who are able to solve our problems easily? If it's inside of us, then why hasn't someone shown us the trick to unlocking all that power? Doing so would seem to eliminate a lot of the problems we see in this world.

But then, if you keep reading, you find it even stranger. What is the strength and inner power that Paul is asking that the Father would give? It's that you would know the love of God in Jesus. It's that you would be rooted in Jesus. Essentially Paul is saying that God gives us power and inner strength to be rooted in the love that God has for us in Jesus. God gives us power so that we will know how much God cares for us, and so that we will be firmly planted in God's grace toward us through Jesus, his life, death and resurrection for us.

That sounds like a strange way of looking at power and inner strength. It comes from outside of us, and it is utilized by God to grow us in knowing what we mean to God and what God has done for us in Jesus. And yet, that is where strength and power is found. When we know that we are God's, that God has made us His own in Jesus, we have the strength of knowing who we are. We have the inner power to know that God has a sacrificial care for us that He has shown in Jesus. 

God gives us the power and inner strength to know Him, to know Jesus, and to know what God has done to give us an identity and make us His own people. That identity is then a source of strength as we face the world in which we live. That gives us strength when hard times happen. It keeps us grounded in our identity in Jesus when good comes our way. When the unexpected comes up, we have the security and strength of knowing that we have our grounding in the God who knows all things and is working for our good in them all. That is inner strength worth having. 

Talking Stewardship

 ...assuming that you have heard of the stewardship of God's grace that was given to me for you... Ephesians 3:2

Many Christians may cringe when they hear the word Stewardship raised. It brings up thoughts of things such as a congregational treasurer (who would rather not be in the situation to begin with) standing in front of the assembly to show the numbers required for ministry and to ask for people to support the congregation through their gifts and offerings. A few typical bible texts get pulled out, we hear that God loves a cheerful giver, and everyone hopes that the talk is over fairly quickly.

That may be something of what you think when you hear the word stewardship. And if so, I am truly sorry for that. Today in reading and discussion I have already come across the word stewardship at least two or three times, and it has not been in the realm of the scenario described above. I was reading a book about being faithfully connected in the digital world, and the author wrote about the stewardship of being aware of sharing things like credit card and social security numbers, as well as stewardship of what you are considering as a purchase. In a conversation, a colleague and I were talking about the stewardship of overseeing ministry matters, seeing to it that things are done in a good order and being aware of our responsibilities to do so.

For Lord of Life, this past Sunday we heard the verse above from Paul's third chapter to the Ephesian Christians. Paul also speaks of stewardship, the stewardship of God's grace. Paul was given responsibility to see that God's grace was administered to the Ephesians. Such an administration, such a stewardship, was for the good of the Ephesians. It means that Paul was responsible for stewarding the good news of Jesus to the Ephesians, as well as helping them to see how to grow as a response to that grace from God in Jesus. Paul had stewardship of something marvelous.

One of my contentions for quite a few years has been that we too narrowly restrict stewardship talk to money and offerings. Our whole life as a Christian, including our possessions, our families, and even our mindsets, are to be seen as part of our stewardship. My words are part of my stewardship, and so I have a responsibility to use them wisely. My actions are part of my stewardship, and so I have a responsibility to be aware of my actions and how others see me. How I spend my time is part of my stewardship, and so how I allot my time is something to be aware of. 

The reality then comes to the forefront. Everything we have is something given to us by God. That calls for responsible stewardship. It's not just money, though money is part of what we are responsible for. Even how we share the good news of Jesus is part of our stewardship. God gives this stewardship to us because He wants us to be a part of His working in this world. This is truly something to be thankful for, even as we see that it calls for responsibility on our part. 

Knowing Wisdom from God

 ...so that through the church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places. Ephesians 3:10

I have a LOT of books on my bookshelves. In fact, since I recently moved I discovered that the number of bookshelves in my new office aren't actually enough to hold all the books I have in my possession. Sure, you could say I have too many books, but the thing I have discovered over the years is that there is a lot of godly wisdom out there in the world and, for me at least, books are a great way to find that wisdom and learn it.

Before I dive too deeply into our topic today, I want to make one important distinction, the difference between knowledge and wisdom. My working definition of the two words is that knowledge consists of the facts of what we see and observe. Wisdom is how we apply that knowledge to our life. As a quick example, I know how traffic lights work, with green and red and yellow lights. Wisdom teaches me to plan trips around making right hand turns more often than left.

God created this world according to His wisdom, and He planned it so that His wisdom would be found in the world. There are many matters of this world that fall under God's wisdom, more than we can ever know. And yet, there are also those elements of God's wisdom that either seem hidden, or that run counter to how things seem to work in the world.

Jesus is God's prime example of His wisdom that is hidden and that runs counter to the ways of the world. The fullness of God lives in Jesus, and yet that fullness was so hidden that God's own people handed Jesus over to be crucified. Jesus likewise shows us that God's way of working in this world tends to be the opposite of what might seem best. Those who want to lead best do so by making sure that they are taking really good care of those who work under them. The best way to receive love from another is to set aside your desire to be loved and instead to love that other person and serve them. The best way to be honored is to look to honor others and build them up, rather than trying to do things that simply impress others.

In our verse above, Paul states that God's wisdom is revealed through the church, through God's people in Jesus. It's not going to be obvious to people who do not know God's grace and God's design. That wisdom is also known and shown in a couple of different ways. First, it is known because we realize that wisdom ultimately comes from God and we seek to pattern our lives according to His wisdom. We love others even at the expense of ourselves. We look to do good even when others don't do good to us. We talk of others well even when they speak poorly of us.

God's wisdom is also known and shown because we are a people who find our identity in God's wisdom. God's wisdom was to forgive and renew, and so we know and show God's love because we are a people who acknowledge that we are not perfect. We ask for forgiveness because we are forgiven by God through Jesus. We care for others because God has cared for us in Jesus. We serve others because our God has served us, especially through the cross and resurrection of Jesus. We have a new identity, which was God's wisdom to grant to us, and in our lives, we find our identity in the God who has done this work for us.

God's wisdom shines as His word goes forth through His Church, and as His Church looks to be defined by His wisdom. Our prayer is that others see God's wisdom at work when they see the manner of our lives, and that they are then drawn to that wisdom which defies the way the rest of the world works. 

Building a Mystery

 Generally speaking, as people we like mysteries. We like something that challenges us to figure out who did "it". One of my favorite movies is an old one simply called "Clue", and it plays out much like the board game of the same name. In it, you try to figure out who did the crime and with which instrument.

When you read Ephesians 3:1-13, you come across the word mystery a few times. Now I will admit, figuring out what Paul means by some of the words he uses is not always the easiest of things. His sentences are not typically as grammatically correct so as to be easy to understand. However, in this case he makes it pretty clear what the mystery is. The mystery that had been hidden for ages past was that God intended for the Gentiles and the Jews to both receive His promise of entry into His kingdom that never ends. 

So that's it. Mystery solved, right? Well, not so fast, my friend. Yes, God's intent that all people would receive His inheritance is something that can be seen throughout the Old Testament. However, the means by which this would be accomplished was a bit more hidden. The sacrifice and resurrection of God's own Son, the Messiah, was spoken of, but was a bit more challenging to discern. At the same time, figuring out exactly who that would be also proved challenging, as pretty much everyone missed it when Jesus was born and then ministered. (Think of it, if people had really, really known that Jesus was the Son of God and Rule of all Things, would they really have crucified Him? They missed it, just as you and I likely would have missed it too.)

The other part of the mystery is figuring out what it looks like for Gentiles and Jews to both receive the inheritance that Jesus came to bring to light. Do Gentiles have to become Jews first? That was a question that the earliest Christians wrestled with. Another one that made its rounds while I was at the seminary studying to become a pastor was the question of just what exactly do you need to believe in order to receive the inheritance. Are there particular teachings that are "necessary" to believe? (To be honest, I'm not sure that any of us human beings know God's mind enough to be able to definitively say we know even the bare minimum, but that is a discussion for another day.)

So the mystery persists. How could the sacrifice of one individual on a cross outside Jerusalem some 2,000 years ago win an inheritance for all people of all time? It's still a mystery in many respects, and simply calls for us to say that God has spoken and told us what He did and how He did it in Jesus, and that is sufficient for us. 

Alienation and Separation

 Remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. Ephesians 2:12

As we think back on the past year plus, one thing that we see is what it means to be separated. COVID caused us to be separated from each other in drastic ways that were previously unfamiliar to us. We had to stand six feet or more apart from each other. We had to wear masks. For a vast majority of people, we were even told to work from home if at all possible. In other words, be separate from each other. 

That led to alienation. Think about just the past few months. As we have started to get back to a place where we can be in contact with each other, there has been a great deal of uncertainty. Mask or no mask? Do we shake hands and hug, or not? Can we sit beside someone at a table, or do we still keep distance? We still feel alienated, and in some respects, we need to learn how to interact again.

Paul paints an even greater alienation in the verse above. God had a people that He had chosen to be His people, and they were to be a blessing to all families on earth (see Genesis 12:3). However, they had not accomplished that task. Instead, walls of separation and hostility had been built up between them and the rest of the world, a division Paul highlights between the Jews and the Gentiles. Those on the outside were alienated from God's people and thus were separated from Christ.

It's no fun to be alienated or separated. Ask the kid at school who is off by himself or herself. Or think about the person at your work that most people avoid. Alienation hurts. Separation is painful. When we think of separation in a family or marriage, there is usually a great deal of pain involved. Even more so when it comes to the God who created and redeemed all things.

Jesus took God's wrath at us building up sinful walls of separation and alienation. When Jesus' body was broken on the cross, so also were the walls that separate us from each other and alienate. Now Jesus is our peace, as Paul wrote two verses later. Jesus restored that which was never to be separated. Jesus brought back those who were never intended to be alienated. His death on the cross and resurrection to new life created a new oneness between those who were separate and alienated from each other.

As you think about those from whom you are separated and alienated, consider how those walls of division have been broken down by Jesus. Are there ways that you can work to bring those walls down, so that others may know the peace that is theirs in Jesus? What is the first step you will take in breaking down those walls? When will you do that? May God's Spirit give you wisdom and guidance as you look to share that new creation in Jesus with others. 

Run-on sentences

 Continuing our journey through Paul's letter to the Christians in Ephesus long ago, we venture into the latter part of what is numbered chapter one. In some of the research I have been doing for our look at this book, I came across a very interesting point. In Ephesians 1, we have the two longest sentences in the entire New Testament. The first one, verses 3-14, consists of over 200 words in Greek! Can you imagine writing a sentence with 200 words? The second longest is verses 15-23, with 169 words in Greek. That is just staggering to think about, or at least for someone like me. Of course, I am a bit of a grammar person and find such things as that fascinating.

What I also find fascinating is how focused Paul is on God and His work in Jesus. When you read through chapter one, you find Paul almost exclusively talking about what God has done, what Jesus has done, and for the Ephesian Christians to know God's work and how that is meant for them. After having Jesus personally confront him on the road to Damascus and re-orient his life to serve Jesus, Paul seems to devote everything to pointing to Jesus. He wants everyone to know the same thing that he came to see: Jesus can take even the most hardened of people against Him and turn them to Him in grace.

It's easy for us to think that Paul had it kind of nice. He got to see Jesus personally after His resurrection and ascension. "If only Jesus would appear to me, then I wouldn't doubt anymore. Then I would be more sure of how I live my life or do what God wants me to do." Such thoughts are easy to intrude, and I would suggest that we should look at such thoughts critically. When Jesus went out of His way to reveal Himself to someone, He usually had a task for them that required a great sacrifice from who they were and what they were previously doing. It also meant that they stopped looking to their own good, and instead looked to the good of others almost to extremes. Think about that for a moment next time you have one of those moments where you wish Jesus would just show Himself to you.

Still, that doesn't take away those momentary doubts that pop up from time to time. We still would like a bit more certainty about what we believe. After all, we believe a dead man came back to life and His death covered everything that is wrong with the world. That is a fairly unbelievable kind of thing, and in fact, it is unbelievable without God's Spirit inspiring faith within us. We only come to believe by God's grace. Humbling, right?

That calls for thankfulness on our part. I'm planning to do another blog post about thankfulness and prayer, and hope that it proves helpful as you read it. For now, though, I encourage you to take a few moments to calm yourself and talk to God, thanking Him that He has called you as His own child in Jesus. 

Kicking off Ephesians

 This summer, I am working on a series of messages on Paul's letter to the Ephesians. For this post, I want to focus on a few interesting items from the letter overall. Future posts will look a little more deeply at different parts of this letter, in an effort to help us grasp the different things that Paul was trying to communicate to the Ephesians about their faith in God and in the grace of God demonstrated in Jesus.

A common theme throughout this letter is how God brings all people who put their faith in Jesus into one body, with Jesus as the Head and the Church (the whole community of those who come to believe in Jesus and His sacrifice and resurrection for them) as Jesus' body. There is a significant unity and togetherness that he makes a big deal out of throughout this letter, and we would be wise to consider what that means for our lives together as Christians. If God is so concerned about our lives together in unity in Jesus, then perhaps that means we should open up our ears to hear what He has to say on it.

One interesting thing about the Ephesian Christians is that they seem to have been Gentiles, or non-Jewish people, primarily. The astonishing thing that Paul writes about is that the promise of God to them is just the same as it is to the Jewish people. At that time, that was an astounding thing to consider. But the grace of God in Jesus meant that God was making all people into one in Christ Jesus, with Jesus at the heart of that unity.

Since that is what God has done for all people, then that means that we have to consider the conduct of our lives. What we do, what we say, how we interact with others, all of these are impacted when we realize that we are included in Jesus' body along with all these other people. There is no place for some of our sinful tendencies, and even when we find ourselves engaging in those tendencies, we respond with grace and kindness and forgiveness, even as we are corrected.

Life together in the body means that we look to place the good of others in just as significant of a place as we do our own. Paul uses a word that we tend not to like a lot, the word submit. As Christians, our whole life is one of submitting to the good of others. Yes, we are still called to be responsible with our own lives, but we are to expand our outlook beyond our own selves, and see what we can do in grace for others.

Because that is such a challenge for us, God gives us significant defenses to equip us for living this kind of life. We are clothed in armor to protect us, and this armor is given by God. 

Since we will be looking over this all summer, we will be diving much deeper into these sections in future weeks. Hopefully this brief summary helps prepare the way for our journey together.