Month: October 2015

Matthew 20:29-34

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year BLeave a comment
            God is into asking questions.  He asks questions all throughout Scripture.  For example, early on in Genesis when Adam and Eve fell into disobedience God showed up and asked, “Where are you?”  Here is a very simple observation:  God already knew the answer to his own question.  He doesn’t ask questions because he needs information, but asks questions for our benefit.  God wanted Adam to come forward and admit where he was – living in disobedience.
 
            Today’s New Testament lesson is just plain good stuff.  Jesus is walking along with a big crowd following him, and he passes by two blind men.  They cried out to Jesus to have mercy on them.  The crowd, like some uptight parishioner in a church worship service, shushes the men for being too loud.  But the men will have none of it.  They shout even louder to Jesus.  It’s a beautiful thing.  Then Jesus asks a question: “What do you want me to do for you?”  It doesn’t take God to know what the men wanted.  Everybody knew what the men were after.  But Jesus asks the question to the men anyway.  Here’s the deal:  God wants us to admit where we are and what we want him to do for us.  The act of using our words to admit and confess our situation is important to God.
 
            Only after the men tell Jesus they want their eyes opened did Jesus do for them what they wanted.  So, what do you want Jesus to do for you?  God is looking for you and I to do more than ask for a generic blessing; he wants us to tell him exactly what we want from him – to admit our need and the place we are at in life.  Only when we humble ourselves before God in such a way can we really expect him to do the miraculous.
 

 

            Mighty God, let my eyes be opened so that I can see the wonders of your Holy Word.  Teach me your ways so that I can see to follow Jesus in everything.  Amen.

Psalm 28

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year BLeave a comment
            In today’s psalm, David cries out for help and for God to hear his prayers.  Later, David exclaims:  “Blessed be the LORD!  For he has heard the voice of my please for mercy.  The LORD is my strength and my shield; in him my heart trusts, and I am helped; my heart exults, and with my song I give thanks to him.”
 
            We are not told, however, of any kind of answer to prayer or of some miraculous deliverance.  David did not convey what kind of circumstance was going on.  As I pondered this psalm and its lack of life-detail, I wondered about David’s situation with several questions:  Could it be that David gave God praise just for being heard by him?  Was David cured in some way, or was he healed from the need to be healed?  Was there even any deliverance that occurred?  Did David come to praise God in spite of a lack of deliverance?  Was David’s joy in his relationship with God conditional, or unconditional?
 
            If we are blatantly honest with ourselves, we need to admit that far too often we have a particular outcome in mind for God to do with us.  Our hopes and expectations are usually tethered to God doing something very specific so that, if it does not come to pass (or not come to fruition quickly!) we become discouraged and disillusioned.  So, here is another set of questions I am asking myself:  If my adverse circumstances do not change, can I praise God anyway?  Can I, like David, take joy in simply being heard?  Can I find gratitude in all situations?  Do I only express thanks and praise to God when things are going my way?  Am I open to whatever God wants to do in my life, even if it is not what I would choose?  Do I feel that I am above having to put up with the wickedness of this world?  Am I expecting heaven on earth, or am I willing to suffer as a believer in Jesus?  The answers to those questions will determine the trajectory of our Christian experience.
 

 

            I praise you, O God, in the good and the bad, the easy and the difficult, the failures and the victories.  You are Lord over all things.  You are my strength and shield in every circumstance.  I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.  Amen.

Isaiah 59:9-19

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year BLeave a comment
            Living in America, one would never know that the U.S. presidential election comes a year from now.  The debates, candidate commercials and endorsements have already been in full swing.  Needless to say, it is going to be a long year in 2016.  Isaiah the prophet may have spoken over two millennia ago, but his words smack just as relevant today when he said “truth has stumbled in the public square.”
 
            Politics, today as in Isaiah’s day, has become less about the concern for the common good and promoting the welfare of citizens and more about winning elections and possessing power.  A party spirit rules the day, where Republicans and Democrats are more polarized than ever with less and less ability to truly listen to one another in order to advance genuine justice, ethical righteousness, and social peace among the nation and the world.
 
            We, as citizens, must all eschew getting sucked into the vortex of acrimonious speech and hate-filled rhetoric.  Christians, especially those who desire to live and love like Jesus, need to be at the forefront of forsaking the hypocrisy of saying one thing and doing another; of envying power in order to satisfy personal agendas; and, of believing that malicious talk is justified if it accomplishes my wants and needs.  In other words we are not to keep looking for everyone else to repent and change, but are to practice repentance ourselves.  If what we speak in the public square is selfish and deceitful, we have no further to look than within when it comes to turning from evil.  A slow, careful, and serious reading of the prophet Isaiah is quite necessary.  If it does not lead to repentance, we only have God’s displeasure to anticipate.
 

 

            Just God, you have every right to judge the world.  Yet, instead of destroying the earth, you sent your Son to redeem lost humanity back to yourself.  May I, along with every creature you have made, come to our senses and speak truth with grace so that there is again righteousness throughout the land.  Amen.

Jesus Is Enough

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Exploring Church Ministry BlogLeave a comment
 
 
Jesus is our great high priest.  His priesthood, his intercessory ministry, is permanent.  He is the once-for-all sacrifice for sins.  Jesus lives forever.  He saves completely.  Jesus meets our need.  He has been made perfect forever (Hebrews 7:23-28).  Say any of those statements in the typical church and hardly an eyebrow would get raised – they almost seem ho-hum.  Our blank affect testifies that we have lost a great deal of the original force and extreme impact of Christianity.
 
In the first century, it was a radical idea to have one sacrifice to end all sacrifices.  Every ancient person understood that sacrifices were only temporary; you had to keep offering them over and over again.  Christianity, however, asked the world to have a new understanding of sacrifice.  No longer would there be any sacrifice – no grain sacrifice; no offerings of first-fruits; no animal sacrifices; no sacrifices, period.  There was no longer any need for them because Jesus is the once-for-all sacrifice to end all sacrifices.  This was such a crazy and ridiculous notion for so many people that they mocked Christians for it.  Both Jews and pagans could barely wrap their minds around such a liberal progressive idea.  It would be like saying to us today that there is no longer any need for money because somebody just became the underwriter for everything everybody does.
 
            Yet, we in the modern church sometimes go back to the old kind of sacrificial system, not by physically offering animal sacrifices, but treating Christ’s once-for-all finished work as if it were just too good to be true.  We reason that we need to do something to help save ourselves.  However, Jesus has not just saved us partially, but fully.  Our church attendance can subtly be looked upon as a sacrifice to appease God, as if he needed to be soothed into not becoming angry at us.  Our giving can become some non-bloody sacrifice that is meant to satisfy God’s furrowed brow against us.  Our service can degenerate into a sacrifice to assuage our guilty conscience.  In all these kinds of instances, it is going back to an old sacrificial system that is obsolete.
 
            The biblical and theological truth is that Jesus has thoroughly saved us from our sin, and, so, has cleansed us from all guilt, including a guilty conscience.  Jesus meets our need and has completely satisfied God’s wrath against sin.  Jesus is our mediator and intercedes for us as we come to God’s throne of grace.  That means we do not need to try and get God’s attention with performing spiritual cartwheels or some incredible sacrifice that will somehow obligate him to take notice.  The truth is that there is never a time in which we lack attention from God.
 
            Since we have been justified by faith in Jesus, we need not worry anymore about being good enough.  Since Jesus is perfect, his work is made complete in us.  This constant anxiety of feeling like we don’t measure-up does not come from God.  Jesus is sufficient and has taken our place so that we can live in the freedom and joy of a complete deliverance from sin, death, and hell.  There is no longer any necessary sacrifice to make!
 
            “Well,” you might say, “if everybody in the church believed that then nobody would ever do anything.”  No, it is just the opposite.  When we feel like we don’t measure up, we do less, not more.  A low level discouragement sets in and we do nothing because we intuitively know it will never be enough.  We do just enough to squeak by, never quite knowing if it is doing anything.  We consider giving up because Christianity doesn’t work for us.  But when we grasp the New Covenant of Christ’s sacrifice to end all sacrifices, and are overwhelmed by grace, then everything we do in the Christian life is a simple desire to say “thank you” with our life and our lips.  It is a joyous offering ourselves, body, soul, and spirit.  It is the grace, and not the wrath, of God that teaches us to say “no” to ungodliness and worldly passions and to live upright and godly lives (Titus 2:11-12).
 

 

            On this upcoming Reformation Sunday we celebrate the glorious reality that we are justified by faith in Jesus Christ alone and not by our own accomplishments, pedigree, or effort.   Trusting in our heritage, relying on our family’s faith, or believing our hard work gives us a leg-up toward heaven will only end in despair.  But if we trust in Christ’s perfect sacrifice then a whole new world of mercy and grace opens before us.  Soli Deo Gloria!