not looking back

In the account of Lot being taken, indeed rescued out from Sodom we read that Lot’s wife looked back, and became a pillar of salt. What God meant to do for Lot and his family was more than just to remove them from an ungodly town which he was about to destroy. He also meant to do a work of removing ungodliness from them. Lot’s wife, not to mention Lot himself, had evidently become so enamored with “the world” as experienced in their lives in Sodom, that while she was leaving it physically, her heart was still there. God had warned them not to look back. That must have at least been symbolic of God’s will for them to look elsewhere in receiving from him a new vision of life.

Jesus referred to this happening in his call to discipleship, or true following of him in this world. When we look back we aren’t following. Some ways of looking back are obvious and plainly sinful. But other ways may be more subtle, at least to us. We justify them for this and that reason. But when we do so, we are no longer following Jesus. We can’t have both. We are at least greatly hindered if not stopped in our tracks altogether. Jesus made it plain that it is indeed one or the other.

As touched on already, this is indeed a matter of the heart. We need our hearts changed. But we don’t excuse ourselves as to what we actually do with our bodies. Our hearts are indeed impacted by what we do or don’t do. If following Jesus means I can’t do something that some other brother or sister in Jesus with good conscience can do, then so be it. They may be able to do what we can’t, since they may not have the same issues in their lives as we have. At any rate we can only live our own lives.

Moving forward in Jesus means no less than an altered vision. May the Lord himself be our vision in the coming year, more and more. For God’s glory and for the world Jesus came to save.

becoming more like Jesus

As trite as it may sound since we’ve heard it often enough at least in Christian circles, we in Jesus are meant to become more and more like him in this life. We know that in the life to come, we will indeed be like him when we see him as he is.  Which itself is called a purifying hope, by means of which we purify ourselves in this life.

To become more like Jesus is way beyond us, of course. We may have biblical concepts related to that down to some extent, but the application and outworking of them in our lives is really dependent on God to actually make this reality happen, through the Spirit.

Yet at the same time we are involved.

Therefore, my loved ones, just as you always obey me, not just when I am present but now even more while I am away, carry out your own salvation with fear and trembling. God is the one who enables you both to want and to actually live out his good purposes.

Philippians 2 (Common English Bible)

It seems like most of the time it is a trajectory upwards by faith, with its day to day challenges. But there are times when it seems like we have to take on more than we can bear. Like Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane, who not only asked the disciples to watch and pray for him, but also for themselves. We have to come to terms with the new trial, and entrust ourselves into God’s hands. He is remaking us into no less than the image of his Son.

This is not only an individual endeavor, but a joint endeavor with others in Jesus. To become like Jesus is to learn to live well in community. It is “in Jesus” that we so learn to live, and “in Jesus” means not only in him, but with everyone else who is in him. Only then, as we so learn to live together, are we really beginning to live as his Body in the world. Only in that way do we grow up to be like him in God’s love, together.

when push comes to shove

Often our thoughts, or where we think we are in regard to life are soon tested. And we soon find out that when push comes to shove, we really are not where we think we are, or that we still have a way to go to get there.

Is there something wrong with this thinking? After all, we know that we’re ever in complete need of God’s grace to us in Jesus. And the further along we are in the Christian life, the more aware we are that this is so. But even the idea that there is progress in getting further along in the Christian life is itself an admission that there are levels of spiritual growth. The Bible is not lacking both in precept and story to make this clear.

One such passage I was noting in a new translation of scripture last evening:

Only let’s live in a way that is consistent with whatever level we have reached.

Philippians 3 (Common English Bible)

This does require effort on our part, and carries with it the idea of holding our ground. Of course we will fail. Without excusing it, failure is a part of life in the here and now. We simply then need to confess our sins, and God will forgive and cleanse us to the end that we will grow and do better, and by and by even leave that particular sin behind. Remember Moses who seems to have left his anger behind when he became the meekest man in all the earth. But also remember that far along into his life in God he lost his temper again, and actually disobeyed God, not being careful to carry out God’s orders. So we’re never above sin in this life, so that we ever need to be on our guard. But on guard more by heading toward the goal in Jesus, and not so much taken up with what we’re leaving behind.

all is a gift

The longer I live the more I see all of life as a gift from God. When I say all of life, I mean all that is good. But even in the bad, including my own contributions to that, God is at work for good, for which we can be thankful.

In the end it’s all about God’s good work in Jesus and the blessing that brings. That is what we want to live in, and through God and his grace carry with us so that others might be caught up in it. The legacy we hope to leave when we’re gone.

And that is how I want to live going into the new year. Receiving each day and each part of every day as a gift from God. To be shared with others. And also to receive from others of what God gives them.

That means that life ends up a matter of always receiving from God in God’s grace. We don’t imagine that we have all we need, but we’re to keep receiving, so that we can keep giving. Blessed in Jesus to be a blessing to others. By our lives, which may include some words, in season. And by the work (and play) God gives us to do.

This is part of the walk by faith. To know that we’re ever dependent on God as well as interdependent on each other. I want to be more conscious of this, and grow in this in the new year. By God’s grace in Jesus so as to be more caught up and part of his good work in Jesus.

looking back

There is a way of looking back that is good.  We need to remember God’s hand in our lives in our past, as well as lessons hopefully learned. And noted growth over time which actually may take more than a year to plainly see. Moses’ sermon which is most of the book of Deuteronomy is a case in point of a helpful looking back, or review of the past. Jesus reminded his disciples of his past working. Of course we have the gospels’ account of Jesus through the memory of eye witness accounts, with the inspiration of the Spirit.

As we look back and review the past, we can give thanks to God for what we are able to discern of his good working in and through our lives. We also, especially over time, gain confidence that just as God has been with us in the past, over and over proving his promises in Jesus to be true in our lives, so we can expect the same in the present and future. In ways that will challenge us, and help us grow. But marked with God’s continued faithfulness.

We do well to work this practice into our own lives to help us in our faith (as I recall it helped George Muller, who was noted for being an exemplar of growing, strengthened faith), as well as to help our children, so that when they start on their own, they’ll have the advantage of seeing God’s hand through their years growing up, through us, their parents. I’m sorry to say I did not do nearly as well as I should have done on that score, though I’m thankful that by God’s grace I’ve grown considerably, so that I am trying to do that now. Though, alas, our daughter is now gone! Hopefully she and her boyfriend, along with our granddaughter will see it in and through us.

This week I hope to spend significant time recounting God’s faithfulness over the past year. Seeing how he has worked, with an anticipation of what the new year might bring. One thing we can be sure of. No matter what, God will be faithful to us through Jesus. We can hold that as sure and true. Not only for us, but for the world through Jesus.

 

 

Canticle of the Turning

I love this song. Good to sing ANY time of the year. Mary’s take from her song (Luke 1:46-55), “the Magnificant.” We sang it at Pike Mennonite Church I think one summer visit there, which has a small cemetery where Deb and I are to be buried.

From a post of a wonderful young New Testament/Bible theologian and professor.

N.T. Wright on Jesus’ continuing work through the Spirit and the Church

The wind and the fire and the brooding bird are given to enable the church to be the church—in other words, to enable God’s people to be God’s people. This has a surprising and dramatic effect. The Spirit is given so that we ordinary mortals can become, in a measure, what Jesus himself was: part of God’s future arriving in the present; a place where heaven and earth meet; the means of God’s kingdom going ahead. The Spirit is given, in fact, so that the church can share in the life and continuing work of Jesus himself, now that he has gone into God’s dimension–that is, heaven.

N.T. Wright, Simply Christian: Why Christianity Makes Sense, 124.

prayer for the first Sunday after Christmas

Almighty God, you have poured upon us the new light of your incarnate Word: Grant that this light, enkindled in our hearts, may shine forth in our lives; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

Book of Common Prayer

prayer for Christmas day

Almighty God, who has given us your one and only Son to take our nature upon him, and this day to be born of a pure Virgin, grant that we being regenerate, and made your children by adoption and grace, may daily be renewed by your Holy Spirit, through the same our Lord Jesus Christ who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, now and for ever. Amen.

Adapted from The First English Prayer Book, 106.

come to the manger

Jesus was born in a room where cattle was kept, and then placed in a manger, a feeding trough. Of course Mary and Joseph were there, and soon after some shepherds appeared to witness what the angelic host in the sky had proclaimed to them. There was likely no doubt to everyone present that this was indeed a most special birth.

And yet a part of the human condition, especially for some of us, is to doubt. Think of the shepherds that night. What a wonderful experience for them! But what might it have meant for each of them years later? We don’t know. I would surmise that at least a number of them came to a faith in Jesus, as well as a number of their progeny along with those to whom they shared what they had witnessed that night.

We live in an age of skepticism and doubt. Whether from modernism or postmodernism, or a confluence of them both, most all of us have felt and have surely been impacted by the influence of this age. Such influence would undermine, diminish and eventually dismantle faith. In all sorts of ways, mostly with assumptions which rule out the Christian faith.

There is only one answer, really. And for us who live in such an atmosphere. Come to the manger!

Go again and again to the accounts about Jesus in the gospels: Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. As well as what else is said in the New Testament. And then seeing all of that within the framework of the entire Bible, as indeed the Story of God.

The faith hinges on Jesus and nothing else! As son of God he was the Messiah, but in time it became evident to his followers that son of God in his case was unique in an ontological sense, meaning a sense of being. Jesus was indeed son of God even from eternity, the one and only Son whom God in his love sent for the world (John 3:16).

Of course the resurrection of Jesus becomes key. Paul says that if that did not happen, then our Christian faith is null and void. The eyewitness accounts at the end of each of the gospels ring with authenticity. And what has continued on over centuries has continuity with that early witness, as well as the early church in the account given in Acts.

But again we must keep coming back time and again to the one on whom our faith rests. God verifies himself and his word in Jesus. The one who came for us in love to fulfill Israel’s calling. So that all who believe in him might be taken up into God’s Story, to be a part of that witness of God’s love in Jesus for the world.