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Follow After Me – a series on Christian life in the 21st c.

Then Jesus told his disciples, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.

– Matthew 16:24

Who do you follow?

It seems in this 21st century that following Jesus is NOT the thing to do. Worshiping GOD seems to be a thing of the past. Tolerance for other religions (even those with no tolerance for our beliefs) seems to be an inviolable standard for a post-modern morality without standards. Christianity is on the outs.

Those living in a European Union of atheist existence no longer challenge the communist for their opposition to God, but for their competition to our greed. Suppressed peoples of Africa, Asia and the Middle East are ignored for their needs, yet exploited for their resources.

In the United States, a nation founded after a great awakening to the glory of God and hope in Jesus Christ, freedom of speech has digressed into irresponsible sound bites. And in a post-Christian U.S., religion in our former nation under God, has fallen into a frenzy of preservation of a lost way of life. We are no longer a safe haven for the tired, the poor and huddled masses. Even the language of future leaders would gamble on a ban of immigrants.

Who in this world would you follow?

A strong dictator with guns and oil and young men who will die for him? A billionaire who would buy the Presidency of a powerful nation? A robed Arab prince who beheads Christians? Perhaps an autocratic zealous religious leader of a long-gone false and violent prophet? Who would you trust with your life and your family?

Who would you follow today? Who would you trust with your present and your future, even sins of your past and hope for your eternity?

Jesus Christ,

a Savior for every century, a Redeemer for every sinner

You probably don’t live in Israel. You are not likely the owner of a fishing fleet or dishonest tax collector. I know you don’t imagine that a dozen poor men, a few hundred common and poor Jews and women with no stake in a Roman district on the Mediterranean 21 centuries ago have anything in common with you.

In fact, if you believe in God; in fact, if you believe in Christ Jesus; in fact, if you live in this day as a follower of the Way of Jesus you don’t have much in common with those who compete with you in the workplace and challenge you in your everyday 21st century life.

You may only be looking for some answers to a life that matters – your life, even the souls of those you love. Where do you look? Who do you trust?

Who would you learn from? Whose example would you follow? After all, you and I are sinners – failed sinners in a fallen world which digresses quickly toward the destruction of all we value.

Why Jesus? Why do the words of the Gospel, the Good News of the Messiah of God coming to mankind, resonate with us?

Read the story of Jesus of Nazareth, the Son of Man of 21 centuries ago, who IS raised from the dead and rules over powers and principalities we cannot understand and you will see that He is the only man in history who IS exactly who He says He IS.

Jesus Christ IS God Incarnate!

He came to mankind in love for the cost of our sins. He came to save us from death and punishment. He will come again in judgment of those who have hated God and their fellow man. Jesus came to the world to establish His Kingdom in love. The LORD GOD, who has called for us to follow after Him in word and in deed, will celebrate the glory of His creation for all eternity in the fellowship of those who love and worship Him.

Challenges of a 21st c. Christian life

This NEW series will address our challenges of living as followers of Jesus Christ in a world of selfishness and obeying God in a world corrupted by godlessness. At any time in these last times, following Jesus in the footsteps of love through the darkness of days seems difficult at best.

The Name of Jesus and glory of God are maligned by the headlines of hateful souls and agendas of prideful sinners.

Yet read the Bible: understand the Law of God, praise the glory of the LORD, hear the writing on the walls, experience the hope of the Gospel, embrace the letters of love and heed the revelation of God’s will. Know the beginning and the end. See that the LORD has come to you and to me, because we are sinners in need of a Savior.

I pray that the encouragement of this series might help you to see yourself as a fellow sinner who would like to flee this world, yet by our witness to the light of eternal hope we choose to listen to the Son of Man, Christ Jesus, who calls out to each of us:

“Follow after me.”

To be continued…

NEXT: Hope for the Guilty

January 14, 2016
a Gift You Cannot Touch & a God You Can Embrace

What are your expectations for Christmas? What are your memories of gifts and special moments past seasons? What gift have you given? What gifts will you receive?

We hope anew for each Christmas to bring light into the darkness of our disappointments, discouragement of days past, present and future.

Cortland Roller Rink c.1955

What was it like when you were a child? What special gift remains in your memory in great detail, what special moment of Christmas yet warms your heart with love and joy?

Or perhaps your warmest memories are from a special moment of a gift you gave to your own child, hugs of a Pooh Bear or love overflowing through a well-planned shared moment of opening a Christmas gift.

So many of us rely on and turn back to our memories of Christmas. I remember Christmas pageants and little angels elbowing each other, as well as well-rehearsed Christmas carols bringing a chuckle of joy over an unplanned solo or lyric not just quite right.

In the year of our Lord, 2015, Christmas seems so out of reach…

We have ordered even more of our gifts from those online warehouses. We have sent less Christmas cards, made less phone calls, cancelled caroling and planned less dinners with others (at least that’s how it seems here).

I have ordered gifts that may or may not arrive on time to loved ones I may or may not see. I have missed the touch of picking out personal gifts and handling them; wrapping them in a carefully chosen paper and seeing the look on their faces when my gift is opened. Rather, I hope these too many untouched gifts make it to far away places by Christmas.

I have my Charlie Brown Christmas this year and Rudolph…

We have so many lights and a big tree (but it isn’t real & I didn’t cut it down myself as I once did).

Oh, and we do have a Nativity scene on the mantle. (We all get a little distracted by Christmas, don’t we?)

Our church has already had a wonderful Christmas program. We invited guests; about half of them came. Carolers were going to come to our neighborhood this year from the Christian school, but that got rained out. (Less than half of the homes here even have Christmas lights.)

Christmas is named for Jesus Christ

Why, I suppose most would wonder? Why have Christmas? Why does a busy world like ours even need Jesus Christ?

Of course our neighbors, rebellious family and unbelieving friends certainly don’t want to hear about the Cross of Jesus Christ and Easter. (More than enough violence in the world we would rather avoid.) But Christmas, that’s a holiday we can sell. (People like the lights and gifts and all. Makes us all feel good and remember nice stuff, right?)

Just as Christmas has become a time of sending gifts we cannot touch, Christmas has also become a time of Jesus most of us cannot share.

May I gently remind you here that I have shared Christmas messages with friends, family & strangers every year AND that so few of you have responded positively by even registering on my web site?

I do it all for the sake of the gospel, that I may share with them in its blessings. – 1 Corinthians 9:23

Very few of us SHARE anything about Jesus with others or have any COMMENT on the Christian Social Witness of our brothers and sisters in Christ our Lord.

We live in very impersonal times. Others wear headphones attached to their devices so that they will not have to hear us. The world is engaged in buying gifts for our selfish pleasures more than sacrificing things for the joy of a few others. Christmas is just another buying season, and a big one at that.

Yet when we silence the music, turn off the virtual visual distraction of the games and news and entertainment; when we sit silently for once, peering into the opened gift of our beating heart, we find a void for the Gift of God better understood as the Baby Jesus in a manger, than a fearsome Father God at the Throne of Judgment.

Fear Not!

Fear not! Do you fear a Babe in a manger? Certainly not.

Our GOD is a loving, compassionate and forgiving God, though He IS HOLY.

Mankind feared the Presence of Almighty God, even more than a Father looking over you. Man fears any spirit, which we cannot see and do not understand, let alone the Spirit of the Living God when the LORD has made Himself know in time and place.

Therefore, even angels, who worship and obey Almighty God; angels as messengers sent to the sons of Adam; powerful angels all men fear begin their announcement of the Messiah with: Fear not.

Luke 2:

10 And the angel said to them, “Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. 11 For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. 12 And this will be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger.” 13 And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying,

14 “Glory to God in the highest,
and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!”

Is the LORD pleased with you this Christmas, in His year 2015?

You were made in the very image of God.

No man or woman can reflect the Perfect loving righteousness of the LORD. By our sin we openly rebel against our Heavenly Father, who has created all things. By the distraction of our misguided hopes and dreams of self-righteous accomplishment, we reject the Spirit of God and forget to number our days.

Even so, in His loving plan of redemption for those who will turn back to the LORD,

God sent His only Son to a Manger, that we might embrace HIM.

When Jesus’ beloved Disciple John once more beheld the Risen Christ in a Revelation of God’s plan, what were His first words of comfort?

Fear not,

I am the first and the last, and the living one.

I died, and behold I am alive forevermore,

and I have the keys of Death and Hades.

Revelation 1:17b-18

Perhaps you fear other men or circumstances. Maybe you fear your own death. You might even have reverence for God our Father and occasionally give Him a small portion of the glory God deserves.

Yet this Christmas, even by your confession, I adjure you to embrace Jesus as your Lord; embrace Christ Jesus just as you would lovingly hold a baby in a manger.

Merry Christmas, beloved.

Roger

December 24, 2015
The Burden of the Word of the Lord
The burden of the word of the LORD to Israel by Malachi.

מַשָּׂא דְבַר־יְהוָה אֶל־יִשְׂרָאֵל בְּיַד מַלְאָכִֽי׃

We have heard it before: a ‘burden,’ a weight laid upon the back of a mortal soul, an oracle from the LORD laid upon the tongue of a Prophet. Malachi was the last Prophet of Judah. Israel (Samaria) had already fallen. Defeat of the Jews and a silence of the LORD prevails until the voice in the wilderness of John the Baptist.

The LORD had spoken severely to disobedient sons and daughters through many Prophets. In fact, the argument of the burden of leading the LORD’s chosen goes all the way back to Moses.

Numbers 11:11

Moses said to the LORD, “Why have you dealt ill with your servant? And why have I not found favor in your sight, that you lay the burden of all this people on me?

Leading a people or a family steeped in our own righteousness is not an easy thing.

How quickly we forget what the LORD has done to redeem us, how He saves us from the slavery of our past.

Before the Lord came to us in a manger in Bethlehem in the Person of the Messiah, a great silence would follow the chastening of the Prophets.

Malachi wrote to the Jews of the Persian province of Judea about 500 years before the Christ. The burden of the LORD on Malachi is a heavy correction even of our own thinking.

Malachi 1:

2 “I have loved you,” says the Lord. But you say, “How have you loved us?”

Isn’t that our own question to God our Father? Are we not disrespectful in asking how God has loved us? We are impudent spoiled children to ask our Creator, “How have you loved us?”

The Priests’ Polluted Offerings
6 “A son honors his father, and a servant his master. If then I am a father, where is my honor? And if I am a master, where is my fear? says the Lord of hosts to you, O priests, who despise my name. But you say, ‘How have we despised your name?’

If Moses had been burdened by the leading of a rebellious people, surely these rebellious sons of Levi offered no purification for our sins before God our Father. Who could even imagine that the LORD would allow His Chosen People, the Jews, to be ruled by Egypt once more!?

10 Oh that there were one among you who would shut the doors, that you might not kindle fire on my altar in vain! I have no pleasure in you, says the Lord of hosts, and I will not accept an offering from your hand. 11 For from the rising of the sun to its setting my name will be great among the nations, and in every place incense will be offered to my name, and a pure offering. For my name will be great among the nations, says the Lord of hosts. 12 But you profane it…

14b For I am a great King, says the Lord of hosts, and my name will be feared among the nations.

Malachi 2:

Judah Profaned the Covenant
10 Have we not all one Father? Has not one God created us? Why then are we faithless to one another, profaning the covenant of our fathers? 11 Judah has been faithless, and abomination has been committed in Israel and in Jerusalem. For Judah has profaned the sanctuary of the Lord, which he loves…

The Messenger of the Lord
17 You have wearied the Lord with your words. But you say, “How have we wearied him?” By saying, “Everyone who does evil is good in the sight of the Lord, and he delights in them.” Or by asking, “Where is the God of justice?”

Malachi preaches repentance to the Jews, captured by Babylon and now ruled by Persia. The word of the LORD is a hard burden on the Prophet, in these days prior to re-building a Second Temple by Ezra and Nehemiah. Yet even the Second Temple would fall.

Judea of Persia:
- Alexander the Great will conquer Persia in 331 B.C.
- Alexander the Great will conquer Egypt a year earlier in 332 B.C.
Judea of the Macedonian Kingdom:
- Ptolemy I rules Judea
- Alexander the Great rules the world
- The Hebrew Bible is translated into Greek (Septuagint) in Egypt
Judea of the Ptolemaic Kingdom:
- The Ptolemy successors of Egypt rule Judea once more until 198 B.C.
- Political upheaval brought the Seleucids to power from 321 B.C. until 64 B.C.
- Ptolemy VIII (170-163 B.C.) and Cleopatra II (170-142 B.C.) vie for political power in Egypt
- The Maccabean revolt in Judea defeats the Seleucids (166-142 B.C.)
Judea of the Hasmoneans
- Judas Maccabeus begins the line of Hasmonean rule (166-160 B.C.)
- Pompey annexes Judea to Rome (63 B.c.)
Judea under Rome
- C. Octavius (later Augustus) was born on 23 September, 63 BC
- Herod the Great (37-4 B.C.) gains political power in Judea as an ally of Rome.
- Egypt, under Cleopatra VII, falls to Octavian (30 B.C.)
- Rome (27 B.C.- A.D. 395) rules much of the world under Octavian
- Judea is under the jurisdiction or Syria, part of the Roman Empire under Caesar Augustus.
- Herod, funded by Rome, builds strategic roads for his Roman administration and rules over Judea with ruthless political savvy.
The Prophet Malachi has foretold with accuracy these difficulty for the Jews in the time between the Temples and the coming of the Messiah.

Malachi 3: “Behold, I send my messenger, and he will prepare the way before me. And the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple; and the messenger of the covenant in whom you delight, behold, he is coming, says the Lord of hosts.

To be continued…

This post is part of a series in preparation for Christmas in the year of our Lord, 2015.
December 12, 2015