Woodlawn CC

Woodlawn CC

Wednesday, August 31, 2016

August 28th, 2016: Of Healing and Humility


In this past week's scripture verses, we are dealing with another controversial healing (while on his way to a meal), the seating arrangement at a meal, as well as who not to invite and who to invite when throwing a banquet.  One of the things that many have noticed about the Gospel of Luke is that Jesus seems so often to be going to a meal, eating with a group of people, leaving a meal, or telling a parable or story about a meal.  It's no wonder that communal meals are such an important part of the Christian experience.


Let's look at the verses for this past week's sermon:
Luke 14:1-14New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)


Jesus Heals the Man with Dropsy

14 On one occasion when Jesus[a] was going to the house of a leader of the Pharisees to eat a meal on the sabbath, they were watching him closely. 2 Just then, in front of him, there was a man who had dropsy. 3 And Jesus asked the lawyers and Pharisees, “Is it lawful to cure people on the sabbath, or not?” 4 But they were silent. So Jesus[b] took him and healed him, and sent him away. 5 Then he said to them, “If one of you has a child[c] or an ox that has fallen into a well, will you not immediately pull it out on a sabbath day?” 6 And they could not reply to this.

Humility and Hospitality

7 When he noticed how the guests chose the places of honor, he told them a parable. 8 “When you are invited by someone to a wedding banquet, do not sit down at the place of honor, in case someone more distinguished than you has been invited by your host; 9 and the host who invited both of you may come and say to you, ‘Give this person your place,’ and then in disgrace you would start to take the lowest place. 10 But when you are invited, go and sit down at the lowest place, so that when your host comes, he may say to you, ‘Friend, move up higher’; then you will be honored in the presence of all who sit at the table with you. 11 For all who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.”

12 He said also to the one who had invited him, “When you give a luncheon or a dinner, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors, in case they may invite you in return, and you would be repaid. 13 But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind. 14 And you will be blessed because they cannot repay you, for you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.”


Footnotes:


a) Luke 14:1 Gk he

b) Luke 14:4 Gk he
c) Luke 14:5 Other ancient authorities read a donkey



Here we have a story where Jesus is on his way to the home of a Pharisee who has invited him to a meal.  This incident in scripture follows very nearly the story of the 'unbinding' of the bent woman that was the subject of the sermon on August 21st.  We are tempted to believe that it's the same Sabbath day but the scripture prevents us from making that determination by saying "On one occasion...", this could be the same date or it might be earlier or later, it appears to be a remembrance of a story relayed to the author and we can't make a judgment on its place in real time.  Whereas we can't make a distinction on when it occurred in actual time we can contemplate as to why the author chose to share it with us in this place in his Gospel.


In the previous week's sermon, I discussed how the bent-over woman's healing was described in the greek with a word that means not to heal, but rather to unbind or untie.  I went on to discuss the alternate tradition about the Sabbath day which has to do with the Exodus and the Hebrew people's release from slavery and bondage to Egypt.  To me, this line of thinking marries up to the story of the bent over woman much more seamlessly than the tradition of taking a day of rest on the sabbath.  Remember the woman had suffered from her condition for eighteen years and it did not seem to be considered imminently fatal.  Her healing seems to me anyway, to be more of a remembrance or a symbolic reenactment of this release of the Hebrew people from bondage.  As I stated in the sermon, healing her could almost be looked upon as a form of worship to God.




Now, let's look at this part of the scripture for the current sermon .  This time, we have a man that is healed, interestingly enough Luke seems to try and equally balance out his stories between the sexes.  Often if you read a story about a man it will be followed by a story about a woman.  Luke it seems was a bit ahead of his time as far as gender equality is concerned.  Here in this story, the man cured by Christ is inflicted with 'dropsy' which is what we would call 'edema' today (notice that again the man doesn't request a healing just like the man with the withered hand and the bent woman, Jesus instigates the healing).  Edema can be a serious health risk and isn't something you want to let progress unrestrained, it can be fatal.  So here Jesus is working on a different meaning to the Sabbath, here it has to do with the traditional 'day of rest' scenario.  Here Jesus is criticizing the placing of the sabbath day over and above the good of the people, as he says in Mark Chapter 2:27 Then he said to them, “The sabbath was made for humankind, and not humankind for the sabbath.



Next, the scripture takes a bit of a turn and discusses seating arrangements at a banquet and then who one should invite to a banquet.  The underlying message in the first segment has to do with genuine humility.  Genuine humility is often an elusive thing for once we've attained a certain level of self-perceived humility we can all too easily take pride in that accomplishment.  A truly humble individual does not talk about their humility they just simply live it.  It's another example of the role reversal that pops up so often in scripture... 'the first shall be last, and the last shall be first'.

In the later segment, Christ is trying to tell us that we need not focus on those in this world than can do things to benefit us but rather we need to focus on doing things for those that are in need. It's a very condemning bit of scripture for we all are guilty at times in our lives of seeking out relationships both in personal and business environments that somehow benefit us either financially or otherwise.  We are at our most basic level selfish beings and here Christ is encouraging that we model our lives after his, to live a life of service and giving.  It's a very difficult pill to swallow entirely, and I doubt few ever consume it in full.  There are exceptions of course and these exceptions are people that we should seek to model our lives upon, for these people have modeled their lives upon Christ.


One of the dangers of focusing entirely (as we so very often do) on the Deity of Christ is that we shift to the back of our minds his humanity.  We are left believing (and saying it over and over) that Christ was perfect in every way; but we forget that he lost his temper, that he made comments at times that were rude and insensitive, that he was even afraid and anxiety ridden at times.  He was fully human, and that means he had to be flawed, or else... he wouldn't be fully human.

Jesus was incarnated fully human so we would have a model to try and live our lives around.  I often have been guilty of saying that I can't be as good as Jesus was, and likely I can't (I've failed pretty horribly so far) but that does not mean I should give up trying.  It's a model we are all to try and achieve, it's not intended to be easy... not by a long stretch.  I've fallen far short of the mark in my 56 years to live up to his model, but I'm hoping to have a decade or 2 (maybe 3 or 4) to try and live up to that model.  We're all works in progress but the ideal life... the longed for Christian goal, is to live a Christ-like life.  Let us try and live that life of humility and grace from this day forward.

Be a blessing to someone today!

In His Joy & Grace,
Roy



Tuesday, August 23, 2016

Released From Bondage.


In this past Sunday's scripture we find Jesus in the middle of one of six Sabbath incidents in the Gospel of Luke and one of four (the third in number) healings that he conducts on the Sabbath.  This incident of healing takes place in a Synagogue just as the healing of the man with the withered hand does in Chapter Six; and just as in that healing, here Jesus is obviously confrontational to the scribes and leaders.  In neither case does the crippled individual ask or even indicate that they have come hoping for a healing.  It seems that they have merely come to worship their God, but Jesus has other things in mind.

Let's first read the healing of the man with the withered hand found at Luke 6:6-11:

Luke 6:6-11
6 On another sabbath he entered the synagogue and taught, and there was a man there whose right hand was withered. 7 The scribes and the Pharisees watched him to see whether he would cure on the sabbath, so that they might find an accusation against him. 8 Even though he knew what they were thinking, he said to the man who had the withered hand, “Come and stand here.” He got up and stood there. 9 Then Jesus said to them, “I ask you, is it lawful to do good or to do harm on the sabbath, to save life or to destroy it?” 10 After looking around at all of them, he said to him, “Stretch out your hand.” He did so, and his hand was restored. 11 But they were filled with fury and discussed with one another what they might do to Jesus.

Now let's consider healing of the woman in Luke 13:10-17:

Luke 13: 10-17

10 Now he was teaching in one of the synagogues on the sabbath. 11 And just then there appeared a woman with a spirit that had crippled her for eighteen years. She was bent over and was quite unable to stand up straight. 12 When Jesus saw her, he called her over and said, “Woman, you are set free from your ailment.” 13 When he laid his hands on her, immediately she stood up straight and began praising God. 14 But the leader of the synagogue, indignant because Jesus had cured on the sabbath, kept saying to the crowd, “There are six days on which work ought to be done; come on those days and be cured, and not on the sabbath day.” 15 But the Lord answered him and said, “You hypocrites! Does not each of you on the sabbath untie his ox or his donkey from the manger, and lead it away to give it water? 16 And ought not this woman, a daughter of Abraham whom Satan bound for eighteen long years, be set free from this bondage on the sabbath day?” 17 When he said this, all his opponents were put to shame; and the entire crowd was rejoicing at all the wonderful things that he was doing.



One of the really interesting things about these verses is how weak initially Jesus' counter argument seems to be.  The Synagogue leader is certainly correct, there are six days when you can come for healing, you don't need to do so on the Sabbath day.  Jesus' argument about taking an animal for water is extremely flawed in that of course, the animal needs water daily, but this woman (and the man in Chapter 6 as well) has suffered this condition for years, there is no hurry and Jesus could have clearly waited for nightfall to do any healing.

Rather than re-address this and the other points that I made in the sermon here in text, I'll rather guide you all to the video of the sermon.  There was no manuscript or notes for the sermon, it was all ad lib.  It's not a particularly long sermon at only 13 minutes of length.



It's a bit of a hectic week and I will be out of hand on Thursday this week as I will be getting the last of the things from the house in Omaha that day.  We are taking a group of people from Woodlawn to the 'Regional All Congregational Gathering' in Newton on Saturday so my days off this week have been adjusted accordingly.




I need to run for now so I'll just close with this prayer believed to have been written by St. Francis of Assisi:

Be a blessing to someone today.

In His Grace and Love,
Roy



Peace Prayer - attributed to Saint Francis of Assisi

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.
Where there is hatred, let me sow love.
Where there is injury, pardon;
Where there is discord, union;
Where there is doubt, faith;
Where there is error, truth;
Where there is despair, hope;
Where there is darkness, light;
Where there is sadness, joy.

O, Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console:
To be understood, as to understand;
To be loved, as to love:
For it is in giving that we receive,
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
And it is in dying that we are born to
eternal life.
Amen.




Wednesday, August 17, 2016

Patience, it's a matter of faith.... Sermon given August 14th, 2016

Photo by Christian Begeman
Prairie Sanctuaries
https://www.facebook.com/prairiesanctuaries/?pnref=story

On Sunday, August 7th, the sermon was over 'Faith'; in that sermon, I chose to hit especially upon the concept of 'obedience' and 'living out' your faith.  As the book of James relays, faith without works is dead.  I read that as stating that a true faith in God precludes the ability to be inactive in His creation.  An 'obedient' faith does not allow one to sit idly by.

This past week, I decided to disconnect with the Lectionary verses and instead to pursue the concept of faith a bit further and in a different direction.  The sermon this past Sunday was focused upon 'Patience'.  Faith often necessitates us being patient while God prepares the way for us.  The scripture verses which I have chosen for today are Colossians 1:1-14.

Colossians 1:1-14New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)

1 Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and Timothy our brother,

2 To the saints and faithful brothers and sisters[a] in Christ in Colossae:

Grace to you and peace from God our Father.

3 In our prayers for you, we always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, 4 for we have heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love that you have for all the saints, 5 because of the hope laid up for you in heaven. You have heard of this hope before in the word of the truth, the gospel 6 that has come to you. Just as it is bearing fruit and growing in the whole world, so it has been bearing fruit among yourselves from the day you heard it and truly comprehended the grace of God. 7 This you learned from Epaphras, our beloved fellow-servant.[b] He is a faithful minister of Christ on your[c] behalf, 8 and he has made known to us your love in the Spirit.

9 For this reason, since the day we heard it, we have not ceased praying for you and asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of God’s[d] will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, 10 so that you may lead lives worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him, as you bear fruit in every good work and as you grow in the knowledge of God. 11 May you be made strong with all the strength that comes from his glorious power, and may you be prepared to endure everything with patience, while joyfully 12 giving thanks to the Father, who has enabled[e] you[f] to share in the inheritance of the saints in the light. 13 He has rescued us from the power of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of his beloved Son, 14 in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.[g]

Footnotes:

a) Colossians 1:2 Gk brothers
b) Colossians 1:7 Gk slave
c) Colossians 1:7 Other ancient authorities read our
d) Colossians 1:9 Gk his
e) Colossians 1:12 Other ancient authorities read called
f) Colossians 1:12 Other ancient authorities read us
g) Colossians 1:14 Other ancient authorities add through his blood

Let's highlight verses 11 & 12:
11 May you be made strong with all the strength that comes from his glorious power, and may you be prepared to endure everything with patience, while joyfully 12 giving thanks to the Father, who has enabled[e] you[f] to share in the inheritance of the saints in the light.

"Endure everything with patience", it's not like God is giving us an easy task to pursue here.  My personal experience in life has never been that 'patience' was ever the long suite of human beings, or at least of most human beings.  There are those few out there who are certainly counted among the Saints, who seem unrattled by the world and can keep going right along while waiting, waiting and waiting.  

Before we go any further, let's determine just what the word 'Patience' means in the English language.
If we look up the word 'Patience' we read the following:
pa·tience
noun
1. the capacity to accept or tolerate delay, trouble, or suffering without getting angry or upset.
"you can find bargains if you have the patience to sift through the dross"

synonyms: forbearance, tolerance, restraint, self-restraint, stoicism; calmness, composure, equanimity, imperturbability, understanding, indulgence

"she tried everyone's patience"

perseverance, persistence, endurance, tenacity, assiduity, application, staying power, doggedness, determination, resolve, resolution, resoluteness
"a task requiring patience"




There are actually several Greek words which are translated into English as 'Patience'.  The two most generally used are:
Makrothumia which is clarified as patience in respect to persons, while Hupomone (endurance) is putting up with things or circumstances. The Greek word that we find here in Colossians is the word 'makrothumia'.  Strongs Greek Concordance lists makrothumia as a noun and relays that it is the feminine form. The definition is stated as; patience, forbearance, longsuffering. Strong's goes on to state the following: Makrothumia embraces steadfastness and staying power. If in English we had an adjective 'long-tempered' as a counterpart to 'short-tempered,' then makrothymia could be called the quality of being 'long-tempered'. . . . which is a quality of God.

The Greek Lexicon relays; Makrothymia (mak-roth-oo-mee’-ah) n. Longanimity – Calmness in the face of suffering and adversity, that is, (objectively) forbearance or (subjectively) fortitude: longsuffering, patience; good-natured tolerance of delay or incompetence.

Makrothumia is especially related to love, hupomone is especially related to hope.  We endure circumstances because we always retain hope.  The distinction between hupomone and makrothumia can best be seen in their opposites.  The opposite of Makrothumia is wrath or revenge, and the opposite of Hupomone is cowardice or despondency. 

The one thing we should not about both makrothumia and hupomone is that neither in their definitions says anything about being idle.  Patience isn't about sitting still and doing nothing, patience is about persevering and working continually even though we should by all rights become discouraged and stop entirely.

Let's look at the famous missionary Adoniram Judson.  Judson was one of the first Christian missionaries to go to Burma and the only one to remain more than a short period of time.  At the time of his arrival, there was not one known Christian convert in Burma.  It took six years before one person was baptized as a Christian.  After twelve years of hard work, he saw eighteen converts.  By the time of his death at 62 years of age, and after 38 years in Burma, he had established 100 churches with 8,000 Burmese converts.

How many of us could honestly say that we would continue working when after a year we had seen no results... how about three years... what about six years?  I can certainly attest that it would be exceedingly difficult to keep up the faith for six long years with no results to show for one's efforts.  Of course during these six years Judson wasn't just sitting still and doing nothing, rather he was busy learning Burmese, translating scripture into Burmese, and creating a Burmese dictionary.  All of the while that Judson was preaching to apparently no effect, he was working to set the stage for his later success.  Patience means following the direction that God has placed us upon whether we feel discouraged or not.

Be patient, God can and will work through you in good time, just don't sit idle... keep doing the work that He has set you to.

Be a blessing to someone today!

In His Grace,
Roy



2 Peter 3:8-9  New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)

8 But do not ignore this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like one day. 9 The Lord is not slow about his promise, as some think of slowness, but is patient with you, not wanting any to perish, but all to come to repentance.



Wednesday, August 10, 2016

Faith is the Key... Sunday August 7th 2016


This past Sunday, I did something I had not yet done here at Woodlawn Christian, I introduced my sermon with a song.  Precisely the song "People Get Ready" by Curtis Mayfield and the Impressions circa 1965.


People get ready
There' a train a-coming
You don't need no baggage
You just get on board

All you need is faith
To hear the diesels humming
Don't need no ticket
You just thank the Lord

People get ready
For the train to Jordan
Picking up passengers
From coast to coast

Faith is the key
Open the doors and board them
There's room for all
Among the loved the most

There ain't no room
For the hopeless sinner
Who would hurt all mankind just
To save his own

Have pity on those
Whose chances are thinner
Cause there's no hiding place
From the Kingdom's Throne

So people get ready
For the train a-coming
You don't need no baggage
You just get on board!

All you need is faith
To hear the diesels humming
You don't need no ticket
You just thank, you just thank the Lord

Yeah Ooh
Yeah Ooh

I'm getting ready
I'm getting ready
This time I'm ready
This time I'm ready




Faith, it's rather a small word... but, it's such a tremendous and difficult concept.  We know we are called to have faith over and over again in scripture, especially so in the New Testament.  The exact number of times the word "faith" is used in English Translations would depend upon which translation you are using, some render more words into our word faith than do others.  In the New Revised Standard Version (which is what we use for Pew Bibles here at Woodlawn Christian) we find 'faith' used 18 times in the Old Testament and 246 times in the New Testament, for a total of 264 recitations; that's a whole lot of usage, especially in the New Testament.  The word "faith" appears 247 times in the King James Version, 250 times in the New American Standard Version, and 270 times in the New International Version (so perhaps if you really want to have 'faith' you should read the NIV...).  And then you also have the words 'faithful' and 'faithfulness' which add roughly another 100 or more usages again depending upon the translation that you're using.

It seems this 'faith' stuff is of some significance especially to us as Christians, seeing as to how very often it is used in the New Testament.  But just what is faith? From christianbiblereference.org we learn the following:

Wherever we see the words "faith" or "believe" in the New Testament, they are usually a translation from the original Greek root word pistis. The noun form of the word, pistis, is usually translated as "faith" and the verb form, pisteuo, is translated as "believe."

The ordinary definitions of "faith" and "believe" imply intellectual agreement with an idea or accepting something as truth, but pistis means more than that. As used in the Bible, it also implies trust in and reliance on God or Christ, surrender of our wills to God or Christ, and conduct consistent with that surrender. All those elements are present in any mention of "faith" or "believe" in the New Testament, but from the context we can often see that some of the elements are emphasized.

Unfortunately, there are no words in the English language that capture the full meaning of the original pistis and pisteuo, so we are stuck with the often inadequate words "faith" and "believe."

In the New Testament, the words "faith" and "believe" often imply confidence, trust, reliance and humility with respect to God or Christ.

Of course, this brings to our attention once again how very difficult translating from one language to another truly is; especially, translating from Greek which is a much more nuanced language than English. There is often a varying degree of depth or 'flavor' if you will that gets lost to us when reading the Bible in English.

Today's scripture verses come to us from the book of 'Hebrews'.  Not too long ago we finished a study of the book of Hebrews during our Sunday Evening Group.  As all that attended those gatherings knows, I am of the belief that the book of Hebrews was written after the destruction of the Temple in the year 70 ad.  The Early Christians, who were still at that time Jewish followers of Christ were obviously at a true crisis of faith.  How do we worship God without the Temple, a very genuine problem...  of course the Hebrew people had been in this quandary before, but still not during the lifetimes of any of these individuals.  So, in no small way the entirety of the book of Hebrews is about the faith and the belief that we can worship and have a relationship with God without the Temple.  For we now have the faith and the belief in the New Temple, and that is, of course, Jesus who is the Christ.

Let's take a look at our Scripture verses for today:
Hebrews 11:1-16 New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)

11 Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. 2 Indeed, by faith our ancestors received approval. 3 By faith we understand that the worlds were prepared by the word of God, so that what is seen was made from things that are not visible.

4 By faith Abel offered to God a more acceptable sacrifice than Cain’s. Through this he received approval as righteous, God himself giving approval to his gifts; he died, but through his faith he still speaks. 5 By faith Enoch was taken so that he did not experience death; and “he was not found, because God had taken him.” For it was attested before he was taken away that “he had pleased God.” 6 And without faith it is impossible to please God, for whoever would approach him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him. 7 By faith Noah, warned by God about events as yet unseen, respected the warning and built an ark to save his household; by this he condemned the world and became an heir to the righteousness that is in accordance with faith.

8 By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to set out for a place that he was to receive as an inheritance; and he set out, not knowing where he was going. 9 By faith he stayed for a time in the land he had been promised, as in a foreign land, living in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with him of the same promise. 10 For he looked forward to the city that has foundations, whose architect and builder is God. 11 By faith he received power of procreation, even though he was too old—and Sarah herself was barren—because he considered him faithful who had promised. 12 Therefore from one person, and this one as good as dead, descendants were born, “as many as the stars of heaven and as the innumerable grains of sand by the seashore.”

13 All of these died in faith without having received the promises, but from a distance they saw and greeted them. They confessed that they were strangers and foreigners on the earth, 14 for people who speak in this way make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. 15 If they had been thinking of the land that they had left behind, they would have had opportunity to return. 16 But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God; indeed, he has prepared a city for them.


Let's take a closer look at those first three verses:
1 Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. 2 Indeed, by faith our ancestors received approval. 3 By faith we understand that the worlds were prepared by the word of God, so that what is seen was made from things that are not visible.

There is perhaps a bit of Greek Philosophy slipping in here with the idea of things being made from what is unseen.  Of course, neither the Greeks nor the writer of these verses could have had any idea about how accurate their words actually are.  The world is indeed made up of what is unseen, the entirety of this Creation around us is made up of atoms.  Atoms are of course invisible, and an atom consists of virtually nothing at all,  if a hydrogen atom were the size of the earth, the proton at its center would be about 600 feet across.  An atom is almost entirely empty space, the only thing that keeps my left hand from passing through my right hand is the negative charges of the electrons involved. Which also means you never really 'touch' anything, as the charges repel one another before they actually collide.  I will mention that atoms are actually made up of even smaller particles, but we won't go that deep into the physics of it all; for our use today atoms are small enough.

So all of Creation is created out of what we cannot see, should we be any more surprised that the remainder of our lives is made up of what we cannot see?  The future is out there and we're all moving through it, hopefully with faith in our Lord.  Faith, like an individual atom, is not something we can see, but those who have experienced the effect of faith and belief can attest that it is very, very real.



In Curtis Mayfield's song that we listened to at the beginning of this sermon we heard him referencing 'faith' as the ticket that gets us onto the train headed to Jordan... headed to the promised land. Just as in Mayfield's song faith is the ticket for Abraham's movement in our Scripture reading, to the promised land.  One of the interesting things about both illustrations are the reference to movement.  In the song we have a train, really the train of life that is carrying us from birth until death when we arrive at the pearly gates of Heaven.  In the Scripture Abraham is moving, though he isn't sure where to and he and his family are living in tents, they are nomads.  Moving is their way of life, moving in faith that that which is promised lies ahead... ahead somewhere as of yet unseen.  Just as the passengers on the train have not yet seen their final stop, neither has Abraham.

Faith, genuine faith it seems implies that there is movement, we can't truly profess 'faith' while cowering in a corner and hiding from life and the world around us.  Faith means stepping out, living the life that God directs you to live and living it faithfully.  Movement, action, engagement are all a part of genuine and obedient faith.

We are all 'moving' through our lives here in this world, we are all just as Abraham, nomads.  Nomads in this realm of existence, just visitors here to this place waiting to move forward into the very presence of our God.  All of us are as I said moving through our lives, each growing older day by day, each drawing nearer to the judgment day.  We as Abraham live here in these tents that we call bodies, temporary shelters in this world.

Each of us is here for a reason, whether or not we live up to that reason is entirely up to us and our relationship with, and our obedience to God.  It's not up to us to know the exact path we are to follow in this life, we are to be as Abraham. "By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to set out for a place that he was to receive as an inheritance; and he set out, not knowing where he was going."  Let us move forward, involved in God's Creation, obedient to His direction... filled with faith in His provisions.



Movement, involvement, obedience... these sound a bit like works.


James 2:14-26 New Revised Standard Version

14 What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if you say you have faith but do not have works? Can faith save you? 15 If a brother or sister is naked and lacks daily food, 16 and one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and eat your fill,” and yet you do not supply their bodily needs, what is the good of that? 17 So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead.

18 But someone will say, “You have faith and I have works.” Show me your faith apart from your works, and I by my works will show you my faith. 19 You believe that God is one; you do well. Even the demons believe—and shudder. 20 Do you want to be shown, you senseless person, that faith apart from works is barren? 21 Was not our ancestor Abraham justified by works when he offered his son Isaac on the altar? 22 You see that faith was active along with his works, and faith was brought to completion by the works. 23 Thus the scripture was fulfilled that says, “Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness,” and he was called the friend of God. 24 You see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone. 25 Likewise, was not Rahab the prostitute also justified by works when she welcomed the messengers and sent them out by another road? 26 For just as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is also dead.


Not long ago I was visiting with a young man about his faith and his spiritual relationship with God.  He told me that he believed in God and that he wanted to be a good role model to others and that was why he was so involved in his community.  He also told me that he didn't believe he needed to attend Church to be religious or a Christian, and thus he did not do so.  I pointed out to him that this was all very well and very good, but that if he truly had faith in God and he truly wanted to be a servant of God, he would want those people that are looking up to him as a role model to understand that he was also a believer and follower of Christ.  I used the example of my Grandfather Fletcher, I've talked about Grandpa before... Grandpa was known throughout the County back home as a very good man, a man that would do anything to help out anyone, but above all else, he was known to be a firm and devote believer in Christ.  Everyone knew he was not just simply a good person... he was a good Christian, a man who strove to live his life modeled after his Saviour.

A good way to let people know that you are a follower of Christ is to be known as someone who regularly attends Church.  If I hide my faith, my light, my belief in my Lord under a basket and do not let the world see it as a testimony and witness to God... then what good is my faith?  Now, I'm not saying to parade around and throw your religion in everyone's face because that can certainly backfire, but do not be ashamed to let people know that if you've done any good in this world that you do so under the authority and direction of God the Father.

As Curtis Mayfield says in his song "Faith is the key... you don't need a ticket... just get on board"  You certainly do not need a ticket to get on the train car named faith, but there is a cost.  The cost is obedience, and living a life in conformity to that belief, that faith...

Remember that definition of faith from christianbiblereference.org, part of which stated:
The ordinary definitions of "faith" and "believe" imply intellectual agreement with an idea or accepting something as truth, but pistis means more than that. As used in the Bible, it also implies trust in and reliance on God or Christ, surrender of our wills to God or Christ, and conduct consistent with that surrender.

Let us each surrender our wills to God, to trust and rely on God, and live a life of conduct consistent with that surrender and reliance.

The last thing I will leave you with today is the reminder that faith or belief is never a straight line.  Each of us has times when our faith is stronger, and then times when our faith or belief is weakened.  It is precisely because of this that we need each other as a community of believers to reassure, to witness to each other, to support and love one another.  Remember in those times of weakness, the exclamation of the father of the boy who Jesus is asked to heal in the 9th Chapter of the Gospel of Mark... "I believe, help me in my unbelief".  Lord, we all believe... help us each in our unbelief.


May God bless you and keep you and may you each...

Be a blessing to someone today!

Faithfully,
Roy