GOD’S GRACE

Isaiah 1:18

"Come now, let us reason together,"

says the Lord.

"Though your sins are like scarlet,

they shall be as white as snow;

though they are red as crimson,

they shall be like wool.

                 When I got up this morning it was snowing. According to the national weather service we could expect up to 4” of snow today. I very much enjoy it when it snows. A good snowfall can transform our world. It covers the ground with a soft blanket of white, which covers all that lies beneath. Anyone who lives in a place that gets snow, understands that after a while the snow gets dirty. It loses its luster and becomes dull. A new snowfall brightens things back up. It refreshes the world.

                As I was thinking of the snow this morning, it reminded me of God’s grace. Isaiah recorded God’s promise to those who look to Him. “Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be white as snow.” God’s grace is like new fallen snow. As we go through life, sin dirties our landscape. What was pure becomes soiled and dull. But God’s grace covers our sin. He renews us on a daily basis. Each day becomes a fresh start. As the book of Lamentations informs us, Because of the Lord's great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. (Lamentations 3:22-23)

                A new snowfall is a gift that lifts my spirits. The world is brighter and cleaner after a new snowfall. A beautiful blanket of snow on the lawn actually makes winter more tolerable. I am invigorated by a good snowstorm. I don’t even mind cleaning the driveway, (although I do get a little nervous when I have to drive in snow). For me, the worst kind of winter is the one that is brown and bare, with no snow.

                God’s grace brightens up our lives. It gives us new energy to face the challenges of life. It invigorates our spirits. It embraces us in the blanket of God’s love.

                The thing about a new snowfall is that it doesn’t last. Eventually the fresh snow will become crusty and dull again. In due time, it will melt, revealing all that has been concealed under it.

                God’s grace, on the other hand, never diminishes. We can fail to recognize God’s grace, which makes it look like it has gone, but in reality, it is still there. What makes it seem like the grace of God has melted is our taking it for granted. When we presume upon God’s grace, we sully it.

                Every time there is a significant snowfall, we are warned to be careful when we drive. Yet often people presume upon their abilities to handle the snow, and end up in a ditch. When we presume upon God’s grace we can end up in the ditch. It seems that there were some in Paul’s day that thought that they could take God’s grace for granted. They continued in their sinful lifestyle, assuming that God’s grace would cover over their sin. But Paul warned them, and us, that that was a dangerous course of action.

    What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? By no means! We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? (Romans 6:1-2)

                God’s grace is truly amazing. There are no limits to God’s grace. But there are limits to our experiencing God’s grace. We can block God’s grace in our lives by not taking it seriously.

                The snow is falling harder now. The blanket of white continues to grow. The grace of God continues to fall as well. When we place our faith in Jesus Christ, we can be assured that God’s grace will transform our lives. Throughout our lives there will be times when we fail to recognize God’s grace. But we can be sure that, if we turn to Him, God’s grace will cover all of our sin.

Romans 8:1

Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus,

2 Corinthians 13:14

    May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.

 

IS GOD’S WILL ALWAYS UNCOMFORTABLE?

 Psalm 37:4

Delight yourself in the Lord

and he will give you the desires of your heart.

                 As I was doing my devotions this morning, I came across a reading that brought back some old memories from when I was a young boy. Growing up in church, I had developed the distinct impression that to follow Christ a person had to abandon the things you enjoyed and was good at and do things that you did not enjoy and were not good at. This was called sacrifice and was lauded as the path to spiritual maturity. Consequently, I refused to acknowledge the things I was good at. Somehow, I thought that was pride and pride was a sin. I am not sure where this idea came from, but it was reinforced by things like the reading I mentioned. Here is an excerpt from that reading.

                “St. Ambrose and St. Augustine did not want to be overworked and worried bishops. Nothing was farther from their intention. St. Cuthbert wanted the solitude and freedom of his heritage on the Farne; but he did not often get there. St. Francis Xavier’s preference was for an orderly life close to his beloved master, St. Ignatius. At a few hours’ notice he was sent out to be the Apostle of the Indies and never returned to Europe again. Henry Martyn, the fragile and exquisite scholar, was compelled to sacrifice the intellectual life to which he was so perfectly fitted for the missionary life to which he felt decisively called. In all these, a power beyond themselves decided the direction of life.” (Evelyn Underhill)

                Upon reading this, one could get the distinct impression that God’s will is to ignore a person’s natural talents and desires and to lead people into avenues of service for which they are unsuited. Instead of sounding like a loving father, that sounds like a twisted control freak who likes to make others uncomfortable.

                When I was in high school, I took a mission trip to Haiti. It was on that trip that I felt the call of God on my heart to go into full-time ministry. On that trip I met a couple who felt that God’s highest calling for every Christian was to be a foreign missionary. He was a dentist and they worked together at a mission hospital. The one thing that this dentist hated more than anything else was pulling teeth. Yet, the majority of what he did, day in and day out, was pull teeth. That couple lasted one term; returning home with a feeling of failure. Was it really God’s will that he should spend his time doing the very thing he hated the most?

                When I was a boy, I too had the feeling that the highest calling for a Christian is to be a foreign missionary. With that thought firmly planted in my mind, I set my life’s course to that end. From that trip to Haiti until my first year in seminary, I diligently pursued my goal to be a missionary. Then God stepped in and changed the course of my life. He showed me, in a dramatic way, that I did not have the skills needed to be the missionary that I thought He wanted me to be. Instead, He began to show me that He had given me certain desires and talents, which I had subdued, that He wanted to use for His glory. Once I was willing to embrace the talents that God had endowed me with, I began to see how God had been directing me all along.

                The Christian life definitely requires that we sacrifice some of our wishes and desires. Jesus said that we had to deny ourselves, take up our cross daily, and follow Him. He also called us to seek first the kingdom of God. But neither of those commands tell us to negate the way that God made us. God has given each of us certain gifts, talents, and abilities that He wants to use for His Kingdom and His glory. When these are properly viewed as tools in God’s hands and not ends in themselves, they become powerful motivators for action.

                David said that if we will delight ourselves in the Lord, He will give us the desires of our heart. When we align our heart with the heart of God, our desires become sign posts to God’s leading and directing. God's will is not that we would all abandon our current lives and become foreign missionaries. As Paul says in 1 Corinthians 12:17-18, If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be? If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be? But in fact God has arranged the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be.

                God does not call all of us to leave what we know and go to some far-flung place to spend our life in service there. No, God has placed each of us where He wants us to serve. He has given us talents and even desires that He wants us to use right where we are. There will be sacrifice along the way, that is for sure. But there will also be the delight of doing the things we were created to do.

                God is not asking us to give up everything that makes us happy and comfortable to live lives in uncomfortable situations. What He is asking of us is that we submit all of our talents, gifts, and desires to Him for His use. To use our talents for God’s glory is an amazing experience of joy and delight, even if there is some sacrifice along the way. Who has God created you to be? Be that person to the fullest of your ability.

Colossians 3:17

And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.

 

NO COOKIE CUTTER PEOPLE

 Psalm 139:14

I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;

your works are wonderful,

I know that full well.

                 I have been rereading Dr. Richard Swenson’s book More Than Meets the Eye. The book is a celebration of God’s creativity. In the opening chapters, Dr. Swenson focuses on the wonders of the human body. One of the things that has grabbed my attention is the uniformity and uniqueness that is masterfully combined in every human being.

                In many ways, every human being is the same. We share the same general bodily configuration. Our bodies are organized in a uniform way. The systems within our bodies all operate under the same set of rules. We all process food into usable energy in the same way. We all gather information from our environment in the same way. The blood that courses through our veins is interchangeable between human beings. Even the major organs of the body, given the right circumstances, are exchangeable. When we look at human beings as a whole, we see that we are all alike. Human beings in the norm are incredibly uniform.

                But when we begin to look closer at individual human beings, we quickly discover that we are amazingly diverse. Isn’t it amazing that we have the ability to pick out a specific person from within a large crowd? Although there are many similarities between people, there are also specific differences that make each person unique.

                From the outside we see this in the form of the main features that make up each person. We all have eyes, but our eye color varies. We all have hair, at least at the beginning of life, but our hair color varies. We all have ears and noses, but all ears and noses are not the same shape or size. Our hands and feet, although uniform in one way, are different in size and shape. Even our overall body shape varies from person to person. We gather all of these things into general categories, but that does not negate the vast array of differences.

                When we look more closely, we discover that there are things about each of us that are uniquely us. We are all aware that our finger prints are unique. We have discovered that the retina of our eyes is even more unique. Even our footprints is unique as well.

                If we dig deeper, we discover that we don’t all learn in the same way. We perceive our world in ways that are unique to us. Again, we have been able to gather these characteristics into general categories, yet when we put the pieces together, we come up with a unique individual. Similarity does not equate with uniformity. As David said in Psalm 139, we are fearfully and wonderfully made.

                When God looks upon this earth that He created, He does not see the mass of humanity. Instead, He sees each individual. He knows each of us intimately, even down to the number of hairs on our head. He knows not only our outward actions, but our thoughts as well. He is completely aware of our struggles, temptations, and challenges. David expressed this reality in the opening lines of Psalm 139.

Psalm 139:1-4

O Lord, you have searched me

and you know me.

You know when I sit and when I rise;

you perceive my thoughts from afar.

You discern my going out and my lying down;

you are familiar with all my ways.

Before a word is on my tongue

you know it completely, O Lord.

                We are living in a world that constantly wants to negate the uniqueness of each person. Instead of celebrating just how unique we are, we are told that we are all the same. We are pressured to conform to a standard image of what a human being should be. It is no wonder that people rebel, withdraw, and implode. God created every person in His image, yet He created every person as a unique individual. And one day we will each stand before God and give an account of what we did with this unique life.

                The most exciting and important thing about our uniqueness is that it allows us to be known individually. We are not just another human being; we are a specific human being. We can be known by others, but most importantly we can be known by God. When Jesus looks upon us, He does not identify us by our genus and species. He calls us by name.

John 10:2-3

The man who enters by the gate is the shepherd of his sheep. The watchman opens the gate for him, and the sheep listen to his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out.

 

John 10:14

"I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me--

 

 

 

 

CHANGING OUR PERSPECTIVE

 Psalm 103:1-2

Of David.

Praise the Lord, O my soul;

all my inmost being, praise his holy name.

Praise the Lord, O my soul,

and forget not all his benefits—

                Our day began with a couple of pretty normal, routine activities. We got in the car and drove to Menards and Aldi. At Menards I bought wood to build some night stands for my grandchildren. Then at Aldi we filled our cart with food for the week. There was nothing special about either event. When I got home and was carrying the groceries to the house, I was struck by the reality of what an enormous blessing I was experiencing. The blessing of having access to the things I need and want.

                Recently we watched a video series called The Human Planet. It is a fascinating look at how human beings have adapted to every climate and environment on the earth. Every episode began with the statement, there is only one creature on earth who has adapted to every environment on earth; it is us. Each episode showed how people all over the world have mastered their circumstances to thrive in often very challenging situations. I was struck by how many people around the world have to fight every day just to put food on the table. For many of them there isn’t even a table to put the food on.

                I tell you all of this to bring us back to the reality that we are amazingly blessed. I don’t have to go out hunting every day to provide food for my family. I simply go to the grocery store and buy what I want. We don’t have to be content with the bare essentials, we can enjoy whatever we want in abundance. The problem is that we don’t realize just how blessed we are. We take the grocery store for granted and complain when they don’t have the thing we are looking for.

                One of the major traps of living in an affluent society is that our expectations rise and our satisfaction declines. We have more and are less content. We focus our attention on what we don’t have and lose sight of all that we do have. If we have a roof over our head, warm clothes to wear and food to eat we are blessed. There are many in our world who would love to have we what see as the bare minimum.

                There has been much complaining and discontent lately. Some of this has been brought on by the pandemic. Some of this has been brought on by the political and social unrest that has swept our country. It is time to shift our perspective. As Paul says in Philippians 4:8, Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable--if anything is excellent or praiseworthy--think about such things.

                King David calls us to praise the Lord and to not forget all of His benefits. So think with me for just a minute about all that we can praise God for.

- We have grocery stores that provide a wide variety of food from all over the world for our enjoyment.

- We have homes that are heated and can keep us warm and dry.

- We have closets full of more clothes than we need that cover us during all seasons.

- We have doctors, nurses, clinics, and hospitals that can care for us when we are sick.

- We have a new vaccine to counter the ravages of Covid-19.

- We have cars to transport us where we want to go and roads to get us there.

- We have the time to indulge in hobbies that bring us joy and satisfaction.

- We have access to nature in the form of parks and forests.

- We have the ability to communicate with family and friends even when they are hundreds of miles away.

- We live in communities, and not is isolation, even though we may feel that way right now.

                The list can go on and on, if we just take the time to stop and look at all of the blessings God has given to us. Your list will be different from my list, but it will be just as extensive. But above all of the material blessings that God has showered upon us, there is even a greater blessing that we often overlook. It is the blessing of His love and presence. The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth. (John 1:14) God has revealed Himself through His word and through The Word, Jesus. We do not have to live in spiritual ignorance. God has revealed the truth about life and our world and that truth is found in Jesus. When we grasp that truth, we are set free from chasing after the things we don’t have. Instead, we are empowered to see, appreciate, and celebrate all that God has given to us.  

                Gratitude is the key to a rich and fulfilling life. It opens our eyes to the blessings of God. It silences the discontent that the world feeds us every day. It challenges us to live joyful lives.

Matthew 6:25-34

    "Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?

    "And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? So do not worry, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?' For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.

 

A PSALM FOR TODAY

 

Psalm 146:1-5

Praise the Lord.

Praise the Lord, O 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 mortal men, who cannot save.

When their spirit departs, they return to the ground;

on that very day their plans come to nothing.

Blessed is he whose help is the God of Jacob,

whose hope is in the Lord his God,

                 As we begin a new year, we will be inaugurating a new President of the United States. For many people, this is a joyous occasion. For many others, this is a terrifying occasion. Those same emotions prevailed four years ago when Donald Trump was inaugurated as President, except the groups were reversed. We do not know what the real outcome will be from this current election, but you can be assured that many of the things that President Trump did on his own will be reversed by President Biden. That is the way partisan politics works.

                One of the traps that the Church has fallen into on more than one occasion is putting its hope in a particular political leader or political party. It happened centuries ago when Constantine embraced Christianity and made it the official religion of the Roman Empire. The political power of the Church increased and the spiritual influence of the Church decreased. Not that long ago, many Christians put their faith in the Moral Majority, led by some prominent Christian leaders. That influence was short lived and the strides that were made to legislate morality have pretty much been obliterated. Most recently, some Christians have put their hope in Donald Trump as the savior of our religious freedom. Things are not turning out they way they had hoped it would.

                As Christians, we have an obligation to be fully engaged in the political process. The Bible tells us to exercise our rights and responsibilities as good citizens. But our hope is not, and never has been, in politics. Our hope is in the Lord and in Him only. As the psalm says, the plans of people will all come to an end. Whoever is in power will have their say for a season, but when they are no longer in power, their plans will fade. The only plans that will ultimately succeed are the plans of God. As it says in Proverbs 19:21, Many are the plans in a man's heart, but it is the Lord's purpose that prevails.

                The Church has lost its voice within the public dialog in part because we have become known more for what we are against than what we are for. It is time for the Church to stop trying to be a political power in our world and return to being the people of God. It was the positive actions of the early church that attracted people and turned their world upside down. If we want to turn our world upside down, we need to get back to the basics of our faith; to love God with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength, and to love our neighbor as ourselves. There is no greater or more powerful cause.

                As we enter into a new political climate, the Bible has some timely advice for us. First, we need to leave the outcomes in God’s hands. Paul tells us exactly the stance we should take as we move forward.

Romans 12:17-21

Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everybody. If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. Do not take revenge, my friends, but leave room for God's wrath, for it is written: "It is mine to avenge; I will repay," says the Lord. On the contrary:

"If your enemy is hungry, feed him;

if he is thirsty, give him something to drink.

In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head."

Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

                When the people of Israel were sent off into exile by God, the prophet Jeremiah told them how they should respond to their circumstances. His words are appropriate for the Church today.

Jeremiah 29:4-7

This is what the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, says to all those I carried into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: "Build houses and settle down; plant gardens and eat what they produce. Marry and have sons and daughters; find wives for your sons and give your daughters in marriage, so that they too may have sons and daughters. Increase in number there; do not decrease. Also, seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the Lord for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper."

Jeremiah 29:11

For I know the plans I have for you," declares the Lord, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.

                 God has made it clear how we should face our uncertain future. We need to put of hope and trust fully in Him. He has also given us a sure-fire way to influence those who are in power. Earnestly take them before God in prayer.

1 Timothy 2:1-4

I urge, then, first of all, that requests, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for everyone-- for kings and all those in authority, that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness. This is good, and pleases God our Savior, who wants all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth.