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Tag: faith

  • Mission 2 – Vision of your end

    Mission 2 – Vision of your end

    Is your mission a path to a vision for your life?

    Is it a vision of your own only? Will you accomplish what you alone have planned?

    What if something goes wrong and your mission becomes impossible. What then?

    A righteous man lived a long and blessed life, yet near the end of his path of years calamity struck.

    Job 10: KJV

    My soul is weary of my life;

    I will leave my complaint upon myself;

    I will speak in the bitterness of my soul.

    Is that you, old man (or woman), who has given up on your mission? Perhaps your years are young, yet your soul longs for the eternity for which it was created.

    In a moment of despair you appeal to a God who seems far from you. In a time of defeat, a timeline of diminishing life, you remember the words familiar from the passing of failing flesh and bones before you.

    Job 10: 

    8 Thine hands have made me and fashioned me together round about;

      yet thou dost destroy me.

    9 Remember, I beseech thee, that thou hast made me as the clay;

      and wilt thou bring me into dust again?

    Oh God! Their days have finished. At the graveside our loved one is lowered into the ground. The dirt is handled and tossed upon the depths which will hold their beloved bones and flesh.

    From clay you were formed

    To dust you will return;

    Ashes to ashes

    Dust to dust.

    Is your mission in life only making the most out of your path to the grave?

    What is missing when your days are done? What of your mission then?

    Every mission involves someone other than your self.

    Job’s mission and the path of a righteous man did not reach the vision he had for his family. Yet his own end was not a life lived in vain.

    Why?

    Who else matters in the life of a righteous man (or woman)?

    GOD – the Person of God.

    Job’s conversations and prayers were with the Person of God.

    In the end, at the graveside of your loved ones and as your loved ones will stand at your graveside: the LORD GOD matters.

    The LORD gives life. The LORD takes away life. Blessed be the LORD.

    To be continued…

     

  • Reflections in Windows of Time

    Reflections in Windows of Time

    Looking back, running away from God is nothing new. We who would be so critical of Peter denying Jesus three times have now looked back to others faithful to God with moments of doubt.

    Note: Our Lenten reflection continues from where ‘Running from God‘ left off – an introduction to examining a history of relationships between God and believers.

    Moses, God’s chosen Prince, Prophet, Law Giver, Chief Justice, Administrator of the day-to-day lives of the rescued Hebrew nation: even Moses had had it!! – with these rebellious chosen people. Moses was ready to give up on the whole exodus thing more than once during their forty years stranded in the wilderness.

    Elijah, God’s great Prophet who stood against the evil King, with his foreign Queen – Elijah, a true Prophet of God who mocked the false prophets, who mocked the false idols – Elijah, God’s Prophet who both predicted and demonstrated the immeasurable Power of the One Almighty Creator of the heavens and the earth!! as the LORD Jehovah came into the place of his witness – Elijah turned from the victory of God and ran in fear for his own life.

    Christ Jesus never shrunk back from the fearful inevitable providential call of the Lamb of God to become the Living Perfect Sacrifice for our sins.

    Not only Peter turned away from what seemed like defeat for God – defeat for righteousness – defeat for the witnesses of God’s true word and God’s true will.

    You and I turn from God as well, in our everyday lives.

    Look through the many windows of time. What do you see?

    Are the reflections of our unrighteousness not evident in every millennium, in every century, in every generation?

    Look though the reflection of time: at Jerusalem; at Israel and Judah; look at the Hebrew people before they had a King, before they conquered a land; look before Judges and Generals, reflect before Moses and Abraham: what do we see through the reflections of the windows of time?

    We see God’s patience, God’s mercy and God’s love.

    IF YOU were God or if I was God, WE would have done it differently, wouldn’t we?

    None of this rebellion stuff! None of this disobedience allowed! And the SIN… why.. we would wipe it right out EVERY time, just like in the days of Noah and just like when God destroyed the evil men and the evil women in Sodom and in Gomorrah.

    I do not think you or I could be a merciful God (not even in our best moments).

    No work of any good man or any good woman is sufficient to the Holiness of God.

    The Bible only gives us glimpses into the windows of time at just part of the lives of a few righteous imperfect examples of God. Yet these good men and these good women had their moments of failing – every one of them.

    Jews and Christians and Muslims, who all believe in the ONE GOD, all tend to hold up story lines of convenience, while failing to acknowledge the sins and failings of our fathers of the faith.

    ALL men and ALL women of faith fail in the light of the example and teachings of Jesus Christ!

    The zealous and learned Jew and Pharisee, Saul of Tarsus, who we know as Paul, addresses God’s righteousness in Romans 3:

    “None is righteous, no, not one;
    11     no one understands;
        no one seeks for God.

    David, in a moment of weakness appeals to God:

    Psalm 143

    Hear my prayer, O LORD;
    give ear to my pleas for mercy!
    In your faithfulness answer me, in your righteousness!

    Enter not into judgment with your servant,
    for no one living is righteous before you.

    +

    We are too harsh! God is merciful.

    King David was not only God’s anointed King who united the Hebrew tribes into a United Israel; David, recall, was an adulterer and murderer.

    According to the Law of Moses, should not David have been executed for his sins?

    We see even through the broadcast windows of these evil days, merciless zealots of a false prophet executing judgment without mercy!

    God is patient; God is merciful. Our loving God, Father of our Lord Jesus Christ will save yet more enemies of the One True God. Was Saul of Tarsus not one of these?

    God seeks repentance in the hearts of all men and all women of every faith; that these will come to the love and grace of His mercy through Jesus Christ, Son of Sacrifice for the sins of the world.

    Look through the windows of time with eyes to see and ears to hear. God has given us the Holy Bible. NO other book is Holy!

    History reveals the hearts of men and women are only continually evil. Why should we worship any man or woman who is NOT God? Why would we kneel or bow down at their idols or lift up their ancestry or follow their teachings from man-made books?

    None is righteous, no not one. Yet God in His mercy reveals both His love for us and our own failings in the lives of the best of us.

    To be continued…

     

  • Running from God

    Running from God

    Are you running from God? I have.

    Do you run after Satan? I have.

    Do you walk with Jesus and then run away some other direction?

    I have. Even the most faithful followers of God and closest Disciples of Jesus have turned tail and run from the adversity we imagined is on the road ahead.

    The seeker-friendly easy-grace gospel would easily fill our mega-churches will non-believers, like the brother in Jesus’ parable who said he would do the will of his father, but then did not do it, as opposed to the brother (or sister, if you are) who says, “NO. I can NOT do that,” yet later repents to do the will of the Father.

    [If you are unfamiliar with this parable Jesus taught in Jerusalem during the events of Holy Week, read Matthew 21.]

    No doubt in this Lenten season of preparation of consideration of the Cross, you will remember later incidents during Holy Week of twelve apostles who ran and hid: an apostle and friend entrusted with the treasury of the whole group showing ‘faithfulness’ by complaint of the wasting of the oil of love and anointing poured forth generously on our Lord by a repentant woman. We all remember a bold proclamation that, “I will never deny you,” from a rock of leadership; the ironic tragedy of all of Jesus’ friends sleeping in Gethsemane and running away in helplessness from the authorities of the Law.

    We are too harsh on Peter and the others, as if we ourselves do not tend to run away every Monday (or even Sunday the minute the sermon finally finishes).

    God has always used reluctant, yet zealous believers. Take Saul of Tarsus (Paul), for instance.

    And who cannot recall a voyage of God’s Prophet, running in the direction away from Nineveh (in modern day Iraq) to a ship crossing the Mediterranean, before falling into the depths of helplessness in the belly of a fish at the bottom of the sea?

    Most of God’s Prophets suffered as God warned Israel and Judah of the destruction to come because of the evil done by the people with God’s Name.

    Is it appropriate witness of GOD for the people of His Name to always do evil?

    Is it right for a witness claiming the Name of Christ (a christian) to show unbelievers evil? Are we not commanded to bear fruit of Christ’s overflowing love, His unfailing faithfulness to the redeemed?

    “I will repay,” says the LORD.

    Therefore, do not fear. For what can a mere man (even an evil woman) bring upon you that does not pale by comparison to the wrath of the vengeance of the Living God?

    What terrible judgment must await the one who has dismissed the Blood of the Cross and run toward the pit of perdition.

    To be continued…