Tag: Lent 2018

Lent 2018 | Day #30: Service

As followers of Christ, we are the beneficiaries of Christ service to us.

Our service to our neighbor is one of the greatest testimonies of the Gospel’s power to transform. Service does not come easily to me, and I would imagine that is true for a lot of others. It’s not that I don’t want to serve. There are two big reasons I struggle in this area. First, I trend toward laziness. I like to just have my space. Second, I don’t feel qualified to do too many things.

For some others, the struggles may manifest themselves in different ways. But, since I know where the fight is for me I have to be more diligent it confronting these two tendencies. I have to push back against them because service is a vital component to the mission of the Church. And, I have to do my part in helping the Church extend her reach into the world and, more specifically, the community God has planted me.

We all must take the time and assess why we fail to serve as we should. As followers of Christ, we are the beneficiaries of Christ service to us. Jesus taught and exemplified a life of service. Everything he did was in service to God and to us. Jesus’s death on the cross was an act of service. We could not die for our own sin, so Jesus died for us.

This is the key to genuine Christian service, we do for others what they cannot do for themselves. And this is especially true when we have it within our power to do it.

I pray that we will seek to increase our sacrificial service in this season of Lent.

Lent 2018 | Day #29: Worship

We will always have a “soft spot” for the style of music that helped us to connect to God.

I have spent my entire life in the church. What I mean is that as the son of a pastor and now a pastor myself, I don’t know any other way of life than as a believer in Jesus. In my time being a part of the church and now working as a leader within the church I have been a part of many interesting conversations. One of the most provocative has always been around worship. I don’t know why, but I have my suspicions.

If I had to bet on why I would illustrate it this way. My parents are from Puerto Rico. They grew up speaking Spanish. So, even now, after over forty years living in the continental US, they still love to worship in their native language. Their first encounters with God were in one language, their heart language, and there is a natural affinity to worship in that language.

This is an analogy. We will always have a “soft spot” for the style of music that helped us to connect to God. Do people “hate” other styles? Not necessarily. But they do have a preference. What tends to polarize people is being told that their style is not good or that it needs to be eliminated from the catalog of a church’s worship. There is a problem when the conversation gets to this point, people retreat into their camps because they do not want to sacrifice their own connection with God. Because whether we know it or not, that is exactly what someone hears when they are told their preferred style is being eliminated. And no one should be asked to give this particular connection up.

The church should not address the subject of worship this way. The conversation cannot be about just music. Worship is so much more than the music! But, it gets reduced to just music for some reason.

I discovered this tendency in myself in one of the churches I served. We had a contemporary service and a traditional service. Even though I was in my late 20s/ early 30s I preferred the traditional service with its massive pipe organ. For some reason, I “felt” closer to God when I worshipped in that service. Could I worship in the other service? Yes, I could. What I am saying is that when we make sure to keep the focus of worship on God and not on the music (or anything else that happens in the service), we can work out some of these differences. We can be more gracious and understanding.

In the Christian tradition that I grew up in we do not typically observe Lent. But, now I do because I learned to appreciate what it is. I may not observe Lent perfectly, but I do my best to keep the spirit of the season in view. This is something we all should do more often.

Lent 2018 | Day #28: The Church

Surgery should not be performed with axes. We are so good at cutting off the arm when all we are trying to remove is a mole.

For as long as I can remember my father has been telling me, and whoever would listen, that he is a defender of the church. Many people have taken that to mean that he would defend all the mistakes that are made in the name of the church. This understanding of that phrase is wildly incorrect. The church is made of broken people who are being mended by the grace of God.

The idea that every Christian should be a defender of the church can be difficult for some. If we have suffered an injury at the hands of those we trusted or admired, we may have raw emotions about the subject. What I have come to realize and what I believe my father is saying (which I have confirmed with him over many conversations) is that he will never side with the critics of the Church. Are there mistakes that have to be rectified? Yes. Are there wounded souls that must be helped to heal? Yes. Does the church have to learn and do better in accomplishing her mission? Yes, absolutely.

The problem is that many of the critics of the church are not seeking reformation or redemption. They are seeking to undermine work of the church or destroy the foundations upon which she is built. An even bigger problem is that you cannot fix what you are constantly criticizing. If all you ever see are the flaws; if all you ever talk about are the dents and dings; if your tendency is to tear down how can you possibly build up?

Yes, I am generalizing. And yes, I am speaking in broad strokes. The reason I am doing it this way is because it is easy to hide our negativity toward the Church under the thin mask of “constructive criticism.” When we take the poor choices or vile misdeeds of a few and extrapolate that the entire Church is at fault, we are participants in a wild injustice against the Church. Surgery should not be performed with axes. We are so good at cutting off the arm when all we are trying to remove is a mole.

As we move through the Season of Lent I am thankful that God has preserved the Church in spite of the many failures of her members. There are many things that we as the people of God could do better. What we can’t do better to come up with a better means for spreading the Gospel of Jesus. The Church is that instrument in the hand of God. Our failure in effectiveness is not a failure of God’s purpose or design of the Church!

Lent 2018 | Day #27: Kindness

When personalities clash, kindness can be in short supply.

Over the years, I have encountered a wide range of people. Some I have gotten along with fabulously. Others… not so much. I think it is okay that you don’t get along with everyone. Personalities and life histories will play a role in every relationship. But, regardless of how well we get along with someone, there is something we should do with everyone. We should treat them with kindness.

I have always seen kindness as the expression of grace to others. This is not something that comes naturally to me! But, I have learned to be kinder with others. It has taken some time. I will not lie, it has not been easy. Not because I have a difficult time being kind, but because some people are hard to be kind to. When personalities clash, kindness can be in short supply.

We are on Day 27 of this journey through Lent. For some, when they give something up for the season, it can have some negative effects. I remember a friend giving up caffeine cold turkey one year. No soft drinks or coffee or anything caffeinated. At about this time in that year’s Lent my friend was cranky and irritable. When we get to this stage being kind is more difficult.

I want to take a moment and explore why. Why does it get difficult to be kind when we are under pressure? My conclusion was that when we are under pressure we are focusing on our own problems. We have a hard time seeing the needs of our neighbors because our own needs have obstructed our view of them. What I realized is that kindness is a form of grace. And just like grace, kindness is a sacrificial act.

I would like to encourage you that whether in the season of Lent or in some other season, we should seek to be kind. Remember that kindness is an act of grace and that for we all have people that we will find it harder to be kind to. So, don’t be surprised. Prepare to be kind before you have to be kind.

Lent 2018 | Day #26: Forgiveness

Forgiveness is one of the most difficult choices we make.

There are only to people we have to forgive in this life. The first is the other person and the second is ourselves. Who that other person changes from time to time. The reasons we have to forgive them also varies, but in the end, we know that we should forgive them.

But there is also another person we have to forgive. And for many of us, if not most of us, this person we have a harder time forgiving. I think the biggest reason is that we never escape being with them. It doesn’t matter where we go, we are always there. And if we have done something wrong or foolish we replay that decision or event over and over again.

I will say it as simply as possible: Forgiveness is one of the most difficult choices we make. And it is a choice. It is a choice to find a way to not punish the other person for a wrong they have committed against us and it is a choice not to continue punishing ourselves. We have to learn to forgive. We have too, or we will be buried under the weight of our anger and shame.

The problem we have is learning how to do it. How do we forgive? If we are not believers in God, if we are not followers of Jesus, we have no teacher suitable to the task. Only God knows how to forgive an enemy. Look at these remarkable words the apostle Paul wrote to the Roman church.

8but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. 9Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. 10For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. 11More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation. (Romans 5:8-11 ESV, emphasis added)

While we were yet sinners—distant from God—and while we were God’s enemies—fighting against God—God showed his grace and love and reconciled us to himself through the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross.

This is the biblical example and demonstration of forgiveness. In Jesus, God punishes sin and removes the reason for God to punish our sin. The penalty for my sin, that rightly belongs to me and that I should pay, has been credited to God and in exchange, I receive Christ’s righteousness and God’s reconciling mercy.

The price of forgiveness is sacrificial love. If we want to forgive we have to stop trying to keep this old life alive. We have to be born again and allow God to remove all of the stuff that we keep holding onto. Dead people don’t need anything. But, too many of us are still holding onto a life God has been trying to bury. And so, we can’t move on. We can’t move forward.

My prayer is that during this season of Lent you can begin the process of letting go of your old life. Let God build a new life for you. A better one. One that is able to be truly marked by forgiveness.

Lent 2018 | Day #25: Sacrament

The purpose of a sacrament is not to explain. The purpose of a sacrament is to engage and connect the believer with God.

I grew up in within the Baptist theological tradition of the Christian faith. Through circumstances orchestrated by God, I spent some time within the Wesleyan tradition. This is the theological stream that resulted from the ministry and teaching of John Wesley. There are a few differences between these two traditions, too many to outline. I also don’t want to do an injustice to either by trying to summarize them inadequately here. So, I would like to identify one idea that has become increasingly valuable to me on my Christian Journey. That idea is that of Sacrament.

I would like to share some of my ideas and meditations on this word. This is not going to be a rigid distillation of what Wesleyan’s believe on the subject of sacraments. It is my interpretation and application of the concept.

The word sacrament is found in Christian traditions that have a view of God’s activity that is, in my opinion, “closer to us.” What I mean by this is that for those who have a sacramental view of the world they hold to the idea that God is very active in their lives and in the world. God is near to us. And he is at work in and around the activities of our lives.

Most of us are familiar with at least two sacraments—baptism and The Lord’s Supper. Some traditions have more, as many as seven. But virtually every Christian tradition celebrates or performs these two. One of the lessons I took away from my time within the Wesleyan stream was that a sacrament was a “sacred moment,” a moment when God would inject himself in a special way into what we, as his people, were doing. To use the Lord’s Supper as an example, I learned that in celebrating the meal God was “doing something” in and through these ordinary elements of bread and juice. It was a mystery how and what that something that was happening took place, but as people of faith, we believed that God instituted this meal and therefore promised to bless the faithful repetition and participation of it.

I don’t mean for this to be difficult, but I know it can be. Even for someone like me, someone who has to know how something works in order to be happy, I can appreciate the difficulty in understanding what God is doing when we engage in this event. What I will say is that while I can’t fully explain what God is doing, I know after years of practicing this sacrament, I know that God is doing something. Once I learned that God wants to meet with us in these sacred moments, when I accepted that God desired to draw near to us, when this shift took place, something changed inside of me. I became more aware of God’s presence in my life.

The purpose of a sacrament is not to explain. The purpose of a sacrament is to engage and connect the believer with God. And when we approach the sacraments with this posture, that connection can take place. It’s not a guarantee, but the chances go up considerably. While I still consider myself to be a Baptist, I have become far more sacramental that I was before.

Lent is a good time to look at how we see God’s presence and activity in our lives. Do we want more of God or are we satisfied with what we have? I hope you want more!

Lent 2018 | Day #24: Character

Your character is the result of a process. It is not something that happens overnight. It takes time and careful consideration.

Your character is the result of a process. It is not something that happens overnight. It takes time and careful consideration. This process requires the chipping away of anything that should not be there.

The best illustration I can think of is that of a sculptor. A sculptor must examine the stone before he begins to fashion a statue. If the artist does not study the marble and strikes the chisel in the wrong place or with too much force a small crack becomes a fissure and could ruin the entire stature before the project has even begun.

We all have to work on our character. The problem for many of us I that we try to work on it too fast. We think that if we can get rid of all the bad stuff right now, then we will get to where we want to be faster. But, the error in thinking this way is that we risk causing damage to our own souls. Just because something needs to change doesn’t mean it can change today. If we don’t know how to change it we will hurt ourselves and those around us when something comes flying off!

Another component of this process to consider is this: should we even be the ones doing the chiseling. Pride can become an obstacle here. We may not want others to see what is going on in our lives, so we hide and trying to “fix” ourselves. Or, we actually think we have the wisdom and knowledge required to achieve the goal of transformation. After years of walking with Jesus and of working in ministry I have come to one conclusion that I feel confident in. I don’t know how to change myself. I need others to graciously correct, but more importantly, I need God to mercifully remove those characteristics that need to go.

A few years ago, a youth ministry friend shared the video below. It was a remarkable dramatization of how God wants to work, how he needs to work in our lives. But, it also shows how and why we find it so difficult trusting God to do it “right.” After you watch the video take some time and reflect on how God would use this season of Lent to begin the process of chipping away everything that does not reflect him.

Lent 2018 | Day #23: Compassion

In almost every instance the best way to describe how Jesus looks at people in difficult circumstances is compassion.

One of the more interesting aspects of Jesus’s ministry is how his interactions with the downtrodden are described. In almost every instance the best way to describe how Jesus looks at people in difficult circumstances is compassion.

When I think about Jesus’s love for those who are hurting, I realize that I still struggle to see past what I see to the person God loves. And while I have seen a change in this area, I know that it is an area of life where I am still growing.

So, how do we work on this? How do we get to the place where we see others with the kind of compassion Jesus shows? For me, it begins with admitting and acknowledging that I am one of those recipients. I am one of those poor souls that needed Jesus’s compassion.

It is so easy to forget that our sin needed to be forgiven. That our wounds need to be healed. That our prejudices need to be corrected and replaced. We all must never forget the “I” that needed Jesus.

I needed him. And, I continue to need him every day. The challenge of seeking to reflect Jesus’s compassion is to realize it will cost us. It will cost our pride, our fears, our insecurities, everything we think we need, God will ask for.

Lent is can be a fruitful time, but it should also be a challenge. We should not finish the season of Lent and realized that we have not been forced to confront some area of our lives in Jesus. I want to be more compassionate. I want to see and look at people with the love and tenderness Jesus had. And, in order to do that, I have to remember that I am also a beneficiary of that compassion from Jesus.

Lent 2018 | Day #22: Hope

In order to see the power of hope, we have to remember that it is against the backdrop of the dark spots in life that it shines brightest.

There are few realities in the human experience that are necessary. Some are physical: food, water, shelter. But others are metaphysical. They are not made up of atoms but are realities of the mind and soul. Without these non-physical realities will be robbed of vital spiritual nourishment.

Today I want to look at the necessity of hope. Hope is the fuel that keeps us going when the world is in shambles. It is the optimism that the darkness of the night will fade with the rising sun. Hope is the inclination to believe that tomorrow will be better than today. This is hope. It sustains and protects us from the morass of human weakness.

We all know, instinctively, that the world is broken. That the human family has some very disturbed and wicked members. That injustice is the tool of the wicked. You may not be the victim of this expression of sin, the fount from which all evil springs, but we all have been witnesses to how bad we can be.

In order to see the power of hope, we have to remember that it is against the backdrop of the dark spots in life that it shines brightest. I really like what J. I. Packer said about Christmas. It helps us to see a little better God’s point of view on this life we live on this speck of dust hurtling through the cosmos.

The Christmas message is that there is hope for a ruined humanity–hope of pardon, hope of peace with God, hope of glory–because at the Father’s will Jesus became poor, and was born in a stable so that thirty years later He might hang on a cross. – J.I. Packer

In Jesus there is hope, but it is not a hope that is blind. It is anchored to a promise of what God is able to do. We can hope, and that hope will abide forever because God sustains it by his power and grace. This is why hope works. When we place our hope in God we are not taxing our limited human abilities. We are placing our trust in God’s capabilities. This is the hope of the Gospel. Christ has died. Christ has risen. Christ will come again! Glory, Hallelujah!

Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me? Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my salvation. Psalm 42:5

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