Tag Archives: God’s Love

Satisfied

Lent
March 18, 2019

Scripture Reading: Isaiah 55:1-9

Ho, everyone who thirsts,
   come to the waters;
and you that have no money,
   come, buy and eat!
Come, buy wine and milk
   without money and without price.
Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread,
   and your labor for that which does not satisfy?
Listen carefully to me, and eat what is good,
   and delight yourselves in rich food. –Isaiah 55:1-2

Water is necessary to sustain life. So how do we buy water when we have no money? Bread equals food also important for life.  Why do we spend our money for things that do not satisfy us?

I have a love hate relationship with food. A skinny, sickly child, I loved to eat all the wonderful food that is readily available on a farm but inherited a digestive system that did not always cooperate. Fast forward to adulthood and I suddenly found myself grossly overweight resulting in the need to totally revamp my eating habits. I find at times I hunger for something I cannot identify but searching in all the wrong places for that just right food does not satisfy and can hurt.

I do not think Isaiah is talking about food or water or even meeting the needs of those who cannot afford either. He is challenging us to rise above searching for a God substitute when God loves us as deeply as we can possibly be loved If we welcome God into our lives, God can and will satisfy the deepest hungers of our souls. There is no price for God’s love but our willingness to share our love with him.

Prayer: Lord, forgive me when I opt for lesser gods instead of responding to your wondrous love. Amen.

All scriptures are quoted from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicized Edition, copyright 1989, 1995, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights are reserved.

Lover of Justice

Jesus’ Ministry
February 27, 2019

Scripture Reading: Psalm 99

The Lord is king; let the peoples tremble!
   He sits enthroned upon the cherubim; let the earth quake!
The Lord is great in Zion;
   he is exalted over all the peoples.
Let them praise your great and awesome name.
   Holy is he!
Mighty King, lover of justice,
   you have established equity;
you have executed justice
   and righteousness in Jacob.
Extol the Lord our God;
   worship at his footstool.
   Holy is he! –Psalm 99:1-5

We worship God, a lover of justice. I have a negative, visceral reaction to acts of exclusion even when I catch myself, at the least, thinking about excluding others. I hate the ebb and flow of various in-crowds who grab power over groups and organizations setting their course of action as the course of action whether it is right or wrong or the best of many choices. Of course, such weighing is based on my own judgement of right vs wrong or what is best for all. We are all guilty of the practice of exclusion, decision making based on power, and projecting our vision onto others. In those wonderful moments of holy clarity, I realize that we worship a God who excludes no one, is all powerful, and defines justice as holistic oneness where all have enough. Easy to say, God’s justice is very difficult to live and yet this all-powerful God seems to think we are capable of being just.

Jesus lived justly. God incarnate came to live among us demonstrating God’s way of loving that is the key to justice. He welcomed all, fed the hungry, healed the sick, and taught the ways of God. He suffered death on a cross in his quest to help us understands those ways of God because he was such a threat to those who were assuming power outside the will of God.

God’s love once again proved more powerful than any human concocted force. The Resurrection was God’s great gift to all who long for justice in an unjust world. God’s love cannot be contained.

Prayer: Lord forgive us when we fall into the traps of injustice. Guide our journey as we strive to create a world ruled by your love. Amen.

All scriptures are quoted from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicized Edition, copyright 1989, 1995, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights are reserved.

Modeling Christ not Culture

Jesus’ Ministry
January 13, 2019

Scripture Reading: Luke 3:15-17, 21-22

Now when all the people were baptized, and when Jesus also had been baptized and was praying, the heaven was opened, and the Holy Spirit descended upon him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven, ‘You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.’ –Luke 3:21-22

In the scripture above everyone present had accepted the teachings of John the Baptist and had chosen to be baptized including Jesus. The event described as the Holy Spirit descending denotes Jesus as one with something important to say, listen to him. We are all called to take the role of saying Jesus Christ has something important to say, Listen to him.

Our lives often speak louder than our words that means we must work to be in sync with Christ in all that we do.  It requires us to develop true empathy for people whose lives differ markedly from ours and not to assume that our way of life and being is the best or only way of being like Christ. We are called to be like Christ; not try to make others adopt our cultural values.

I have worked with people living in poverty most of my adult life, but I had to laugh when I took the Bridges out of Poverty* tests designed to help people understand their knowledge of what it is like to live in poverty, be middle class, or be upper class. I was so middle class it was funny. Before we can help people in poverty we need to know more about their world. Something we probably do not think about is the need to understand the unique nature of upper class thinking and for them to understand the middle class and those in poverty.  About half of the members of Congress are millionaires.  They must make the effort to understand the differing needs of all people.

Prayer: Lord, open our hearts to understanding the differing perspectives of all our brothers and sisters in Christ. Amen.

https://www.ahaprocess.com/solutions/community/

All scriptures are quoted from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicized Edition, copyright 1989, 1995, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights are reserved.

Music Soothes the Soul

Christmas 
December 29, 2018

Scripture Reading: Colossians 3:12-17

Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly; teach and admonish one another in all wisdom; and with gratitude in your hearts sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs to God. And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.
–Colossians 3:16-17

I love music. Went to sleep more nights than not to my dad playing his guitar and singing country blues. Grew up on dozens of wonderful choruses that still pop into my mind reminding me that Jesus Loves Me and we are to love All the Little Children of the World. I also loved the hymns, some no longer considered theologically correct, but they are still fun to sing. Some have tried to clean up the language or leave out offensive verses. The hymns that survive the test of time guide me through life. Spent my teen years with the Beatles and Simon and Garfunkel.  Love musical theater and have surprised myself with how much I enjoy hip-hop. I cannot tell you when I first discovered classical music, but it was love at first hearing.

Recently, I realized I have drifted away from music. My radio station in the car is tuned to NPR and I like that too, but one of my new year’s goals is to put music back into my life. I remember David’s playing soothed King Saul’s soul. My news reports need to be well balanced with music to soothe my soul. As I write this Vivaldi’s Four Seasons: Spring is playing in the background.

Prayer: Thank you God for the gift of music to place a dash of your love in every note heard. Amen.

All scriptures are quoted from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicized Edition, copyright 1989, 1995, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights are reserved.

Prophets


Advent
December 12, 2018

Scripture Reading: Zephaniah 3:14-20

The Lord, your God, is in your midst,
   a warrior who gives victory;
he will rejoice over you with gladness,
   he will renew you in his love;
he will exult over you with loud singing
  as on a day of festival.
I will remove disaster from you,
   so that you will not bear reproach for it.
I will deal with all your oppressors at that time.
And I will save the lame
and gather the outcast,
and I will change their shame into praise
   and renown in all the earth.  –Zephaniah 3:17-19

I am reading Frederick Douglas by David W. Blight. A segment of his book relates Douglas’ youthful faith development. How the prophets of his day and time continually reinforced his growing faith in God even during slavery, family breakup, and uncertainty. The pre-exilic, exilic and post-exilic prophets offered similar encouragement, food for thought, alternative perceptions for the people of their time that remain relevant for us today.

We live in a world, not unlike the pre-exilic times where some abound in great riches and others starve. The pictures of the emaciated children of Yemen juxtaposed against the wealth of Saudi Arabia comes to mind. We in the USA seem to be searching for a savior who can guarantee that we can have our cake and eat it too and care little about what is happening to other children of God. We indeed must be renewed in God’s love, if we are ever to find our way out of the chaos we are creating for ourselves.

In Advent, we have the luxury of hindsight as we read the words of Israel’s prophets for we know how the stories ended. The question is do we have the courage to see ourselves in similar circumstances and take the necessary measure of renewing ourselves in God’s love to prevent our repeating their mistakes?

Prayer: Lord, grant us insight into our behaviors that are detrimental to our living your love among and with all your children. Amen.

All scriptures are quoted from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicized Edition, copyright 1989, 1995, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights are reserved.

Tender Mercies

Advent
December 6, 2018

Scripture Reading: Luke 1:68-79

By the tender mercy of our God,
   the dawn from on high will break upon us,
to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death,
   to guide our feet into the way of peace.’ Luke 1:78-79

Translating one language to another is never perfect. The Greek word* translated as “tender” in the above scripture is a complicated word that refers to emotions that come from the inward parts of the body. Heartfelt might express it well or a gut feeling gets at the gist of the word. I am a fan, though of the word “tender” because it helps, we English speakers understand it is more feeling than thinking. The all-knowing God feels love for us. Felt enough love for us that he came to us in human form when we were lost in darkness to show us the way to peace.

I got up in the night to take some medicine I had forgotten to take before I went to bed last night and was amazed at how much light was in my kitchen. Little electronic clocks brightly lit the areas around my stove, microwave, and coffee pot plus the streetlight shone through a window. I did not even need to turn on a light to find the capsules and get a glass of water. I grew up on a farm far away from city lights and before every appliance shone forth. The darkness of night in such a rural setting when there is little moon and few stars is more like the darkness Luke references, the kind of darkness where one cannot see his or her hand a few inches from his or her face.

It is scary to find ourselves in such darkness, but I sense Luke is talking as much about emotional darkness as he is describing the physical world about us. Emotional darkness is living without hope, with no faith to guide us, and a sense that we are not loved. We experience these feeling as individuals and as people living in oppression of all kinds. I once heard a speaker say the difference between being poor and living in poverty is those living in poverty are living without hope of ever getting out of it. Amazing as it may seem, I think people who have adequate incomes by the world’s standards may be living in the same hopelessness as they are oppressed by greed when it becomes the primary driver in their lives.

God came to dwell among us to lift all of us out of the oppressions of the world and light our way to a full and abundant life in faith, hope, and love.

Prayer: Thank you Lord for your tender mercies poured forth on us by your son our savior, Jesus the Christ. Amen.

*https://biblehub.com/greek/4698.htm

All scriptures are quoted from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicized Edition, copyright 1989, 1995, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights are reserved.

How Do We Love?

Living in the Spirit
November 30, 2018

Scripture Reading: 1 Thessalonians 3:9-13

Now may our God and Father himself and our Lord Jesus direct our way to you. And may the Lord make you increase and abound in love for one another and for all, just as we abound in love for you. And may he so strengthen your hearts in holiness that you may be blameless before our God and Father at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all his saints. –1 Thessalonians 3:11-13

 

How Do I Love Thee? (Sonnet 43)

By Elizabeth Barrett Browning

 How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of being and ideal grace.
I love thee to the level of every day’s
Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.
I love thee freely, as men strive for right.
I love thee purely, as they turn from praise.
I love thee with the passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood’s faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints. I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life; and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.

How do we love one another? Browning’s poem never uses the word joy, but it seems to be laced through every phrase she wrote. Loving results in joy, in bad times and in good, when another’s mere presence nurtures our souls. The Greeks describe three types of love, sibling love, erotic love, and Godly love. All are a part of God’s great plan for us. We sometimes forget that love is a verb, an action word. Love requires us to invest part of ourselves in the wellbeing of others. I think joy results when Godly love intersects with all relationships. Godly love is particularly fundamental when we welcome the strangers in our midst.

Prayer: Lord, empower us to love as Jesus loved. Amen.

All scriptures are quoted from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicized Edition, copyright 1989, 1995, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights are reserved.

Ruling Justly

Living in the Spirit
November 19, 2018

Scripture Reading: 2 Samuel 23:1-7

The spirit of the Lord speaks through me,
   his word is upon my tongue.
The God of Israel has spoken,
   the Rock of Israel has said to me:
One who rules over people justly,
   ruling in the fear of God,
is like the light of morning,
   like the sun rising on a cloudless morning,
   gleaming from the rain on the grassy land. –2 Samuel 23:2-4

These words are the bases of one of my favorite anthems, The Last Words of David*, and I cannot read them without the music playing in my head accompanying the words. The scripture is so meaningful to me because justice becomes more the center of my existence as I grow older and hopefully wiser.

The word justice tends to be claimed by the secular view related to government. Faith groups tend to lean more toward the word righteousness. Perhaps that is a good thing, even though they mean the same thing. Good because it forces people of faith to consider what God’s righteousness has to do with defining our citizenship responsibilities. People of the USA may think we have a corner on the separation of church and state but people living in societies with all types of governments must intentionally consider how to live their faith wherever they find themselves.

In some situations. I fear we use scripture to justify uncomplimentary realities. Weighing justice as we read the Bible is the challenge of discerning God among the human understandings of God in history through the filters of our lives. I trust that when we intentionally drop our guard as we study, God’s righteousness will shine through when we seek it through the clear lenses of God’s love.

How can we read throughout the Bible the words welcome the stranger and reject refugees? How can we answer the call to feed the hungry and not work for all to earn a living wage? How can we read Galatians 3:28, There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus and openly discriminate against people different from us?

Prayer: Lord, enable us to rule over people justly in the fear of God. Amen.

*The Last Words of David by Randall Thompson – E.C. Schirmer Music Co., learn more at https://www.jwpepper.com/The-Last-Words-of-David/341016.item#/submit

All scriptures are quoted from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicized Edition, copyright 1989, 1995, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights are reserved.

God Nurtures

Living in the Spirit
August 5, 2018

Scripture Reading: John 6:24-35

Jesus answered them, ‘This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.’ So they said to him, ‘What sign are you going to give us then, so that we may see it and believe you? What work are you performing? Our ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written, “He gave them bread from heaven to eat.” ’ Then Jesus said to them, ‘Very truly, I tell you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven, but it is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is that which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.’ They said to him, ‘Sir, give us this bread always.’

 Jesus said to them, ‘I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty. –John 6:29-35

Nourished, we all long to be fully nourished. There is a difference between being nourished and eating. There is a difference in being nourished and having hunger sated. Empty calories over stimulate the feeling of hunger until we eat more empty calories. I think this is true of physical hunger. Is it also true of spiritual hunger? What are the empty calories we consume to feed our spiritual hunger like the corn syrup; trans fats; and artificial, colors, flavors, and sweeteners we crave? My guess is it is different for each of us just like food cravings are. I do not have a sweet tooth but give me salt and oil and I am in trouble. We each need to identify the things that prevent our souls from being well nourished and lay them before God to seek a better way.

I do have some understanding of what the true bread of spiritual life is. God’s abiding love and presence as conveyed through Jesus Christ nurtures each of us and feeds our spirit, even more, when it flows through us to others.

Guide me oh thou Great Jehovah, pilgrim through this barren land.
I am weak but thou are Mighty. Bread of Heaven , Bread of Heaven
feed me till I want no more.
Bread of Heaven , Bread of Heaven feed me till I want no more.
Bread of Heaven , Bread of Heaven feed me till I want no more.*

Prayer: Bread of Life, feed me with your love until I want no more. Amen.

*First verse of Guide Me Oh Thou Great Jehovah by William Williams see at https://library.timelesstruths.org/music/Guide_Me_O_Thou_Great_Jehovah/

All scriptures are quoted from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicized Edition, copyright 1989, 1995, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights are reserved.

Abundant Life

Living in the Spirit
July 7, 2018

Scripture Reading: Mark 6:1-13

He left that place and came to his hometown, and his disciples followed him. On the sabbath he began to teach in the synagogue, and many who heard him were astounded. They said, ‘Where did this man get all this? What is this wisdom that has been given to him? What deeds of power are being done by his hands! Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary and brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon, and are not his sisters here with us?’ And they took offense at him. Then Jesus said to them, ‘Prophets are not without honor, except in their hometown, and among their own kin, and in their own house.’ And he could do no deed of power there, except that he laid his hands on a few sick people and cured them. And he was amazed at their unbelief. Then he went about among the villages teaching. –Mark 6:1-6

People do not want to hear the reality they do not want to happen and thus we tend to discount the messenger speaking the reality. This was not only true of Jesus but the prophets that went before him and the prophets that followed him who met the same fate. We see it in the ones living near raging fires who refuse to evacuate to safety holding on to the slender hope that they will not be caught in the inferno, often placing at risk the people who may ultimately force them to leave or remove their dead bodies from the ashes. We see it in the people who hold tightly to their out-of-control greed who think they can make just one more million despite the damage it does to themselves and others. It is as if we never read the Hebrew Bible, never were able to look back and see that the prophets were right. Never had the story of Joseph read to us as children telling the Pharaoh of Egypt that seven years of famine were coming and thus they should prepare for it.

One of the influences that cause humans to ignore truth is we do not take the time to see how we fit in the bigger picture of God’s divine plan. The story of creation is full of the statement God created and it was good. Because we were created out of an abundance of love that was present at the beginning and is still with us today, God wants the very best for each of God’s children. Jesus puts it this way in Luke 11:11 Is there anyone among you who, if your child asks for a fish, will give a snake instead of a fish?  If God loves us so much, surely it is worth our time and effort to seek God’s guidance for what protects our best interest and follow it as closely as possible.

Prayer: O Love, that wilt not let me go,
I rest my weary soul in Thee;
I give Thee back the life I owe,
That in Thine ocean depths its flow
May richer, fuller be*. Amen.

*First verse of the hymn O Love, That Wilt Not Let Me Go by George Matheson. See at https://www.hymnal.net/en/hymn/h/432

All scriptures are quoted from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicized Edition, copyright 1989, 1995, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights are reserved.