Most people who desire financial blessings have neither the discipline nor the wisdom to receive it. They should not then get mad at God for not blessing them, when God over and over again reveals that he is not a foolish steward of his own creation.
We need to grow up, before we can expect to be trusted with God’s property and resources.
If you like making resolutions, and it works for you, then go for it. I’ve just realized that it’s not for me.
Last night a few members of my church family gathered together to ring in the New Year. As several shared testimonies of God’s grace and goodness, I made up my mind about one thing I was NOT going to be doing this year. I am not going to be making any resolutions. Instead of resolutions, I want to make commitments.
I know that this may not seem like a big difference. But I think there are three reasons that there is, and I hope to at least argue for them even if you may not agree.
First, making a commitment does not put me on an artificial timetable. This has always been one of the reasons I hated making resolutions. I always felt so much pressure it left me feeling uninspired. However, for me, a commitment is more about pattern change. I want to change the way I do certain things. There are goals and tasks that need doing, but I need to find ways of doing them that don’t leave me frustrated. Frustration is the first step toward abandoning anything we want to do in our lives.
Second, making commitments forces me to evaluate what is truly important to me. There are a few things I have been thinking about for this year. Some of them are personal that I want to do. Others are related to my family and how I lead them. I will be sharing more over the course of the year as I work on these commitments.
Third, as a Christian, the language of commitment is more consistent with what I believe it means to express my faith in the world. The language of covenant and of faithfulness in our labors is closer to making commitments than resolutions. With this as a guiding principle, I felt that continuing to make resolutions was no longer how I wanted approach the start of this year.
If you like making resolutions, and it works for you, then go for it. I’ve just realized that it’s not for me. So, I’m not going to do it. And I already feel better about the start of the year!
I found this referenced in a short letter from a minister to the Archbishop of Canterbury regarding how to come to a resolution to an ongoing issue in the Church of England. I was able to find the full book online. It is an interesting take on how Paul addressed the many and varied issues for which he was asked about for counsel.
This is a lesson we can all learn as well.
“Paul’s dialectical mind, instead of stopping short at the surface of these particular questions and losing itself in the details of a finely drawn casuistry, always ascends from facts to principles, and thus sheds a fuller light on all the difficulties presented to it by the way. After he has carried the mind of his readers up to the serene heights of Christian thought, he sweeps down from this elevation with irresistible force; and each solution that he suggests is simply a new application of the permanent and general principles of the Gospel.” (Auguste Sabatier, The Apostle Paul, (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1903), 161-162.)
I heard this song today. It has the same feel that if the hymns I grew up singing. It is theology put to music.
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#faithis2019
The Thursday of Holy week represents the day Jesus and his disciples celebrated the first communion of the Church. During the meal, Jesus took the Passover and infused it with a new meaning pointing to the new covenant he was establishing.
The bread pointed to the body of Christ. Beaten and bruised, but not broken. The bread was shared among all those present reminded them that they are one with Christ in life and in death.
The wine would be a reminder that the forgiveness of sins required the shedding of blood. But, Glory to God, the last drop of blood shed for sin was that of the Son of God. No believer will have to die for sins. We may die for the spreading of the Gospel, but this would be an act of obedience and not a sacrifice for salvation.
The beauty of celebrating the Lord’s Supper is that we have a continual reminder that the Gospel is true and that Jesus is who promised us he is.
A group from our church gathered to watch the movie Risen. It tells a fictional story, that honors a very likely scenario. However, there is are some compelling moments in the movie. One that stands out the conversation between the protagonist, the tribune Clavius, and one of the tomb guards. I made a note regarding this scene: How would I have made sense of this confrontation between my experience and my worldview?
The time is drawing closer. The crucifixion is steadily approaching. The disciples may have had some inkling that this week in Jerusalem would be different. But, the Gospels tell us they were not at all prepared. They were not truly ready to confront the weight of what it meant to be the leaders of the Church. Only time would prove it. And now, history has shown that they were up to the task.
It is only Tuesday. The seriousness of what will take place has not yet taken hold. The normal ebb and flow of life continues.
We don’t know much of what Jesus and the disciples were doing in that final week. What I would guess, is that this was a time of preparation. Jesus understood that his time and ministry on earth were drawing to a close. I am not sure the disciples did at all.
What makes the first few days of Holy Week so difficult is that we don’t know much at all. And so we wait. Preparing for what is to come. Looking back across the centuries we know what happened. But, that does not eliminate the suspense. It does not diminish the anticipation.
Resurrection Sunday is a few days away. But for now, we wait. We prepare for what is to come.
I want to follow up on my thought from yesterday on the power of having a steady obedience. The concept I wanted to pick up on is the idea of service. As Christians, service should not be a foreign concept to us. It should be something we engage in as often as possible.
Let me begin by saying, we may not always want to serve. I don’t want to pretend that service is something that comes naturally to everyone one. It doesn’t. This reality of human nature does not change that we all should find ways of serving. Our service can be in or through the church; it can be through some community involvement; or even through some creative project. The point is we should find a way to pour ourselves into serving others according to our gifts and abilities.
How we serve will be as varied as the individual. The challenge is to not ourselves to get into some sort of comparison game. That can be very distracting, and if done in an unhealthy way can become destructive. We must all learn to be satisfied with doing our best. Not in trying to live up to someone else’s best.
