Help Comes From The Lord

When evil comes to us we must look to the Lord for help..

Psalm 121:1-2 KJV

Betrayal

"Rise up, let us go; lo, he that betrayeth me is at hand.

And immediately, while he yet spake, cometh Judas, one of the twelve, and with him a great multitude with swords and staves, from the chief priests and the scribes and the elders.

And he that betrayed him had given them a token, saying, Whomsoever I shall kiss, that same is he; take him, and lead him away safely.

And as soon as he was come, he goeth straightway to him, and saith, Master, master; and kissed him.

And they laid their hands on him, and took him."

                                                                                   (Mark 14:42-46 KJV)

It was time to wake up and face reality. Jesus' betrayer was at hand and he wanted those who were with him to actually be with him when he faced his betrayer. Jesus did not run and hide from his betrayer. He did not hide from those who would take him to his death. He faced them. He went willingly to his death for the sake of the world.

In the Gospels Matthew, Mark, and Luke we hear Jesus warn us that he would be put to death and that those who would be his disciples; those who would receive eternal life in the presence of God, must also be willing to follow him even to death.

"And he began to teach them, that the Son of man must suffer many things, and be rejected of the elders, and of the chief priests, and scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again.

And he spake that saying openly. And Peter took him, and began to rebuke him.

But when he had turned about and looked on his disciples, he rebuked Peter, saying, Get thee behind me, Satan: for thou savourest not the things that be of God, but the things that be of men.

And when he had called the people unto him with his disciples also, he said unto them, Whosoever will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.

For whosoever will save his life shall lose it; but whosoever shall lose his life for my sake and the gospel's, the same shall save it." 

                                                                                   (Mark 8:31-35)

Do not fear what man might do to you. Face the betrayers. Face those who would  befriend you and kiss you on the cheek in order to betray you. Rather, trust that the Lord will work all things for the good of those who believe and trust in him.

God's Peace - Pr. J.

Heal The Land

If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land. (2 Chron 7:14 KJV)

IF... What is God talking about.... IF? 

I often hear thing like if God is so good why did he allow such and such to happen. The reality is that we do have choices to make. God will not force His will on anyone. He allows us a certain freedom to do what we will rather than His will. If we choose to destroy the land; if we choose to destroy one another, should we blame God because we made those choices?

Yet, God does hear those who would turn from their destructive ways to follow in His way. He hears. He answers. He will forgive our sins. He will heal all that is broken due to our sinful ways. 

May God help us to see the way in which He would have us go. May God give us the strength and the courage to follow in that way.

God's Peace - Pr. J.

He Came For The Lost

For the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost. (Luke 19:10)

Jesus was confronted about going to that tax collector Zacchaeus' house for dinner. How could he associate with such a sinner! 

The reality is that Jesus came to save all sinners; all who were lost in sin. Tax collectors and prostitutes,  were not outside of God's plan for salvation. No one is outside of God's plan for salvation. Everyone is welcome to be in a relationship with Jesus. 

How often do we look past or through those who we deem to be greater sinners than ourselves? Do we stop to talk to them or do we pretend that they are not there and keep on going? Are the only people that we count as worthy those who think like us; act like us; live like us? Are we there for the disenfranchised of the world as Jesus was and is there for the disenfranchised?

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. (John 3:16)

God's Peace - Pr. J.

The Pupose

Praise the Lord.
Praise the Lord, my soul.
I will praise the Lord all my life;
    I will sing praise to my God as long as I live.

Do not put your trust in princes,
    in human beings, who cannot save.
When their spirit departs, they return to the ground;
    on that very day their plans come to nothing.
Blessed are those whose help is the God of Jacob,

    whose hope is in the Lord their God.
He is the Maker of heaven and earth,

    the sea, and everything in them—
    he remains faithful forever.
He upholds the cause of the oppressed
    and gives food to the hungry.
The Lord sets prisoners free,
    the Lord gives sight to the blind,

    the Lord lifts up those who are bowed down,
    the Lord loves the righteous.
The Lord watches over the foreigner
    and sustains the fatherless and the widow,
    but he frustrates the ways of the wicked.
The Lord reigns forever,

    your God, O Zion, for all generations.

                                               (Psalm 146 NIV)

I woke up this morning wondering, again, what the purpose of life really is. We are born. We live. We die. Life, here on earth, is so short! And... there is so much pain and suffering here in this world. The truth is the pain and suffering is mostly brought on by our own desires to be more than we are. It is brought on by our desire to be our own gods. We have a tendency to thing that we can actually achieve something worthwhile. The reality is, without God, there is nothing. Our plans will come to nothing. But, God has a plan... He has a plan because He loves you. We can't always know what that plan is. But, we can trust that He has one. He created us for a reason. We may not know what the reason is; but, we can be sure that whatever it is, He will not be deviating from the reason or the plan.  He will be faithful to it and to us.

Those who trust in His plans and not our own, praise the LORD all the days of their lives. They will find peace in the midst of the most confounded times. Praise the LORD! Praising the Lord is enough purpose for any of us. Praise the LORD; sing His praises as long as you shall live!

 God's Peace - Pr. J

He Will Answer

"Very truly I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father.  And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it."  (John 14:12-14 NIV)

Be careful what you ask for in Jesus' name. You may not appreciate the answer to your prayers when the answer comes as much as you thought you might. God's will; after all, does not necessarily agree with our will. A friend of mine once told me that she was very sorry that she asked God for patience. He had answered her prayer and she was receiving this gift in a very hard way. She was learning it.

Jesus tells us that whatever we ask in his name, it will be given to us. We ask for all kinds of things and the reality is that the answer to some of those prayers is "no." Jesus did not say we could have anything our hearts desire. He said, "I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son." (vs 13)

Our prayers are not answered so that we can be glorified; rather, that our Father be glorified. Whatever we ask in Jesus' name that will glorify God will be answered in His way. We may not like the way in which He answers. His will; His ways are not necessarily our will; our ways.

God's Peace - Pr. J

The Fiery Furnace Before False Gods

  

   Nebuchadnezzar said to them, “Is it true, O Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, that you do not serve my gods and you do not worship the golden statue that I have set up? Now if you are ready when you hear the sound of the horn, pipe, lyre, trigon, harp, drum, and entire musical ensemble to fall down and worship the statue that I have made, well and good. But if you do not worship, you shall immediately be thrown into a furnace of blazing fire, and who is the god that will deliver you out of my hands?”
   Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego answered the king, “O Nebuchadnezzar, we have no need to present a defense to you in this matter. If our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the furnace of blazing fire and out of your hand, O king, let him deliver us. But if not, be it known to you, O king, that we will not serve your gods and we will not worship the golden statue that you have set up.” (Dan 3:14-18 NRSV)

Two of my favorite readings for Holy Saturday are the stories about the dry bones being raised and the story about Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego being thrown into a furnace because they refused to bow down to the gold idol that King Nebuchadnezzar had made. They chose to be thrown into the fiery furnace before they would bow down to a false god. They survived the fire. In the end, they were commended and promoted by Nebuchadnezzar for being willing to give up their lives rather than serve or worship any god except their own God. They refused to compromise their faith. They would not bow down to any other god than the one true God.

As pastors and leaders and servants of God's church here on earth, we have to be careful that we do not compromise our faith in God in order to please others. We cannot make for ourselves mini-gods. I call them mini because they are worthless. But, in reality when we choose something other than the truth; when other things become our objects of worship other than the one true God, we are attempting to replace god. We can try all we want. God will always still be God. We cannot change or compromise that truth. Just as He saved Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego from the fiery furnace, He is with all who love and worship Him through every fiery time.

It would be a very detrimental choice for us to choose to compromise the truth causing anyone, including ourselves, to bow down to man-made gods in order to try to save themselves.

I did a word search in the NIV, the NKJV, and the NRV. I could not find the word compromise anywhere. It did come up in The Message translation of the Bible in 2 Corinthians 6:14-18

Don’t become partners with those who reject God. How can you make a partnership out of right and wrong? That’s not partnership; that’s war. Is light best friends with dark? Does Christ go strolling with the Devil? Do trust and mistrust hold hands? Who would think of setting up pagan idols in God’s holy Temple? But that is exactly what we are, each of us a temple in whom God lives. God himself put it this way:

“I’ll live in them, move into them;
    I’ll be their God and they’ll be my people.
So leave the corruption and compromise;
    leave it for good,” says God.
“Don’t link up with those who will pollute you.
    I want you all for myself.
I’ll be a Father to you;
    you’ll be sons and daughters to me.”
The Word of the Master, God.  

May God grant us the strength and courage to worship no other gods no matter if it is friend or foe who would have us bow down to anyone or anything other than Him.

God's Peace - Pr. J

Too Much Striving After Things

Eccl 1:1-3 NIV
“Meaningless! Meaningless!” 
    says the Teacher.
“Utterly meaningless!
    Everything is meaningless.”

What do people gain from all their labors
    at which they toil under the sun?

When my husband I first began our married life together, almost forty-six years ago, we began it in a small and simple apartment. Our first home was in a renovated officer's barracks at Sterling Homes, Oceanside, CA. We both worked hard. He was in the Marine Corps. I followed him around finding jobs as I could at every new location. There were times when I worked two jobs. I went to college as I was able and raised our sons, mostly alone, as he was deployed most the time. We use to joke that he had more sea time than most sailors. Our family grew and so did our homes. But, now as we have grown older, the desire to have big and luxurious has been replaced with the need to own only what we have the physical ability and energy to care for ourselves, with a little help from family and friends. We have gone down to small and simple once again.

There are times when I wonder how much time, effort, and money was wasted on striving after things that were utterly meaningless. I no longer can remember how many cars we've owned and definitely can't remember how many living rooms sets we have saved for and purchased. I remember only the first one which I retrieved from a dumpster and reupholstered myself. It takes way more effort to remember that meaningless trivia than I want to expend. It takes me a bit of time to even count how many homes we have lived in or even owned. There are times when I definitely grieve the time, effort, and money lost to so many things that were utterly meaningless in the big picture of eternal life. But, that grieving too is meaningless. What has been done cannot be undone. It is only possible to move forward.

We have to work to sustain our lives and our families. That is a reality. But, we also need to be able to find time to live life; to enjoy the very basic and precious things that God has given to us. There are more important things in life than amassing huge amounts of things. Relationships with family and friends; our relationship with God who created and then through Christ recreated us in him are much more valuable than anything that money can buy. In Christ we can have a new beginning. We can begin to truly live life.

Jesus said, "For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also." (Matt 6:21)  When we finally come to the place where we can say that the treasures we seek are in the Kingdom of God and not in this world, our relationships with God and with one another will be what brings us joy and peace. These things are some of the best treasures that might be had in this world for they come not from this world; but, originate in the Kingdom of God. These things, I have found, are quite elusive when we are busy striving after things..

Help others to know the treasures of joy and peace. Share the Good News that we have been reconciled to God, in His Kingdom, through the blood of Jesus Christ, our Saviour and Lord.

God's Peace - Pr. J

Thieves Cannot Sneak Into The Kingdom Of God; There Is Only One Way In

"I am the gate; whoever enters through me will be saved. They will come in and go out, and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full." John 10:9-10

There is a reason for walls. It is to keep one safe from many things that would harm us. Walls protect us from most storms; from beasts of prey; and from those who would steal from us or do us other injuries. We need walls; but, we also need gates or doors to enter in and depart when the time is appropriate. It would be very nice if we did not need them. If we could all live in peace with one another. But, that is not the reality. Thieves will find a way to go over the walls and through locked doors.

But, there is a door that is always open for anyone who desires to enter. For anyone who would knock the door will be opened. Jesus is that door. He is the gate to eternal life where there is peace and safety for all.

Even the thief can enter through this gate; if only he would. The problem is that the thief would prefer to enter in a way other than the way that he or she has been invited. However, those who would attempt to find another entry into the Kingdom, they will not be successful. There is only one way into the Kingdom of God. Jesus is the way. He is the gate through which we must enter the Kingdom of God. He is the way, and the truth, and the life. No one enters except through him. Anyone who desires is welcome to enter into the Kingdom where there will be safety and peace for all.

Thank you Lord, for opening the gate to eternal life. Help us to enter and live life in your Kingdom.

God's Peace - Pr. J