Author: Tim Ehrhardt

I'm just a common ordinary pastor, chaplain, father, grandfather, and dog owner who loves the smell of a genuine leather Bible and the aroma of its message. I'm on a quest to track down the best Bibles, how to best read and use them, and to discover the encouragement inside.

The Word Is Life and Light (John 1:1-9)

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Christian Spirituality Blog, Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year ALeave a comment

In the beginning was the Word
    and the Word was with God
    and the Word was God.
The Word was with God in the beginning.
Everything came into being through the Word,
    and without the Word
    nothing came into being.
What came into being
    through the Word was life,
    and the life was the light for all people.

The light shines in the darkness,
    and the darkness doesn’t extinguish the light.

A man named John was sent from God. He came as a witness to testify concerning the light, so that through him everyone would believe in the light. He himself wasn’t the light, but his mission was to testify concerning the light.

The true light that shines on all people
    was coming into the world. (Common English Bible)

Jesus lives here. And that’s because he chose to – so that we might have an abundant life out in the bright sunshine of grace.

The Word has always been and always will be. The Word decided to show up on this earth in an unexpected way, to bring light, illumination, and awareness to a dark world and the shadowy places of our hearts.

Frankly, my friends, Jesus abides with your every dream about life and happiness, hope and fulfillment, purpose and direction, emotional healing and wholeness. Christ is for you, to experience a thriving and flourishing daily life. And what’s more:

To live the Christian life, to center your entire life totally and completely around the person and work of Jesus Christ, is an act of rebellion against all that is dark, unjust, and broken in this world.

Jonathan Edwards, one of the greatest intellects in American history, was a pastor, theologian, and scholar. He insisted that the hope of humanity lies with turning to and dwelling with Jesus:

“Conversion to Jesus Christ is a great and glorious work of God’s power, at once changing the heart, and infusing life into the dead soul…. Jesus Christ is the highest good of the reasonable creature. The enjoyment of him is our proper focus; and is the only happiness with which our souls can be satisfied.”

Jonathan Edwards

St. Augustine lived centuries ago. A big chunk of his life was apart from Christianity. He knew what it felt like to be without Jesus. Yet, after his conversion, life with Jesus was so compelling for Augustine, that his vigorous intellect and spiritual devotion were put to work, leaving an enormous footprint that can be found even today, in both the church and the academy.

Reflecting upon his life, and all he had experienced and accomplished, Augustine uttered this simple prayer to God:

“You have made us for yourself, Lord Jesus, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you.”

St. Augustine

Arguably, Christianity’s greatest convert was the Apostle Paul. Once a vehement opponent to Christ and Christ’s followers, Paul had a dramatic encounter that left him completely undone. He gave his life to Jesus and became Christianity’s most influential missionary. Here is a smattering of his thoughts on Jesus:

Though he [Christ] was in the form of God,
        he did not consider being equal with God something to exploit.
But he emptied himself
        by taking the form of a slave
        and by becoming like human beings.
When he found himself in the form of a human,
        he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death,
        even death on a cross. (Philippians 2:6-8, CEB)

His glorious power will make you patient and strong enough to endure anything, and you will be truly happy… For God has rescued us from the dark power of Satan and brought us into the kingdom of his dear Son, who forgives our sins and sets us free. (Colossians 1:11, 13, CEV)

Nothing is as wonderful as knowing Christ Jesus my Lord… God accepted me simply because of my faith in Christ. (Philippians 3:8-9, CEV)

We find ourselves standing where we always hoped we might stand—out in the wide open spaces of God’s grace and glory, standing tall and shouting our praise… Christ arrives right on time to make this happen. He didn’t, and doesn’t, wait for us to get ready. He presented himself for this sacrificial death when we were far too weak and rebellious to do anything to get ourselves ready. (Romans 5:2, 6, MSG)

Jesus is the One who fills our hearts with love, delivers our wayward souls from emptiness, and sets our feet on the solid rock of faith and hope in God. The love of God is found in Jesus. And Jesus so closely identifies with us, that we enjoy God’s peace and healing in our lives. Not just personal transformation, but systemic change in institutions and corporations, families and neighborhoods, is possible in Christ. 

To live for Jesus is an act of subversion against all that is evil, dark, and unjust. Imagine a world where love rules, not hate; where creativity and faith abound, and are not squelched; and, hope, not hurt, fuels progress into a bright future. It is a world where the light of Jesus brings life.

“I am the light for the world! Follow me, and you won’t be walking in the dark. You will have the light that gives life.”

Jesus (John 8:12, CEV)

The God who said, “Out of darkness the light shall shine!” is the same God who made his light shine in our hearts, to bring us the knowledge of God’s glory shining in the face of Christ. (2 Corinthians 4:6, GNT)

I am grateful that God so loved the world, loved me and loved you, that he gave his one and only Son – the Sun of Righteousness for our benefit so that we might have life.

Praise God from whom all blessings flow
Praise Him, all creatures here below
Praise Him above, ye heavenly host
Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Amen.

Obedience is Better than Sacrifice (1 Samuel 15:22-31)

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Christian Spirituality Blog, Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year ALeave a comment

“Tell me,” Samuel said. “Does the Lord really want sacrifices and offerings? No! He doesn’t want your sacrifices. He wants you to obey him. Rebelling against God or disobeying him because you are proud is just as bad as worshiping idols or asking them for advice. You refused to do what God told you, so God has decided that you can no longer be king.”

“I have sinned,” Saul admitted. “I disobeyed both you and the Lord. I was afraid of the army, and I listened to them instead. Please forgive me and come back with me so I can worship the Lord.”

“No!” Samuel replied, “You disobeyed the Lord, and I won’t go back with you. Now the Lord has said that you can’t be king of Israel any longer.”

As Samuel turned to go, Saul grabbed the edge of Samuel’s robe. It tore! Samuel said, “The Lord has torn the kingdom of Israel away from you today, and he will give it to someone who is better than you. Besides, the eternal God of Israel isn’t a human being. He doesn’t tell lies or change his mind.”

Saul said, “I did sin, but please honor me in front of the leaders of the army and the people of Israel. Come back with me, so I can worship the Lord your God.”

Samuel followed Saul back, and Saul worshiped the Lord. (Contemporary English Version)

God had given Saul explicit instructions on how to handle a group of people called the Amalekites (the first nation to attack the Jewish people after the Exodus from Egypt, and viewed as the archetypal enemy of the Jews). Saul obeyed only some of the instructions, but not all of them.

King Saul rationalized his behavior as worship. But God would have none of it. The Lord rejected Saul as king. God wants no monkey business when it comes to obedience. (1 Samuel 15:1-21)

Whenever I come across biblical characters like Saul, I find myself trying to distance from them. Yet, oftentimes, when I take the time to sit a bit with the Scriptures, I realize I can have some of the same propensities as their behavior. In today’s Old Testament lesson, I am like Saul whenever:

  • I say I will do something and then get busy and not do it. I sometimes rationalize my lack of follow through by explaining what good things I was doing with my time instead.
  • I justify a purchase of something I do not really need, but want, with the excuse that I am generous with my money.
  • I slander another person, even though its forbidden by God, with the knucklehead notion that I am protecting and helping others from that person’s evil ways.
  • I keep quiet in the face of a bad situation when I should be speaking up. I dismiss the lack of engagement and involvement with needing to save my energy for people who want it….

I could keep going with this little exercise, but I’m too convicted to keep thinking about it anymore. So, before we get too uppity about saying we are not like Saul and would never be like him, perhaps we ought to sit with the story for a while, being mindful and aware of any unacknowledged disobedience.

Rationalization is the way of sinners.  Repentance is the path of saints.  Which road will you choose today?

Unfortunately, as the story of Saul’s life unfolds, we discover that the encounter with Samuel becomes a typical pattern of behavior in which Saul:

  1. Disobeys or ignores God’s commands
  2. Rationalizes his bad behavior by putting a spiritual spin on it
  3. Is confronted with his sin
  4. “Repents” with crocodile tears
  5. Then goes back to his old ways of doing whatever the heck he wants

It seems that whenever Saul feels threatened, or anxious, or jealous, or stressed, he crumbles into a heap of fear and ends up making boneheaded decisions, hurting people, or becoming complicit in somebody else’s sin.

Don’t be like Saul.

Instead, get to the root of the trouble by addressing your own anxiety.

Focus on What Is Within Your Control

We cannot control other people. Many circumstances are also outside our control. However, we are always in control of ourselves. Learn good self-care, focus on helpful attitudes, and use the adversity before you to strengthen your faith.

The Serenity Prayer is a good reminder in those times when we feel out of control:

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,

The courage to change the things I can,

And the wisdom to know the difference.

Promote a Positive Mindset

Positive attitudes help us widen our perspective on things – and with a broader view of things comes more awareness of choices. Making spiritually and emotionally healthy choices for ourselves builds resilience and fortifies us for difficult situations down the road, without succumbing to old unhealthy coping mechanisms.

Be Humble

False humility looks a lot like what Saul did. But true humility isn’t about trying to save face or suck up to others. It’s about the willingness to ask for what you need and want without manipulation, to serve others without making sure everyone notices. Humility relates to, and empathizes with, others and doesn’t go out of the way to distance from folks on the lower end of society. And humility is always willing to accept the consequences of decisions and actions.

Rationalizing disobedience never ends well, especially with a God who holds everyone accountable for their words and behaviors. So, let’s all do ourselves a favor, and seek the good, the right, and the just with a spirit of meekness.

Holy God, you expect obedience to clear instructions. I am sorry for all those times I found creative ways to circumvent your teaching. Help me not to avoid your good commands, but to own them with vigor and vitality through Jesus Christ my Lord in the power of your Holy Spirit. Amen.

New Rules for a New Society (Ephesians 4:25-32)

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Christian Spirituality Blog, Daily Bible Reading Blog, Exploring Church Ministry Blog, Year ALeave a comment

We are part of the same body. Stop lying and start telling each other the truth. Don’t get so angry that you sin. Don’t go to bed angry and don’t give the devil a chance.

If you are a thief, quit stealing. Be honest and work hard, so you will have something to give to people in need.

Stop all your dirty talk. Say the right thing at the right time and help others by what you say.

Don’t make God’s Spirit sad. The Spirit makes you sure that someday you will be free from your sins.

Stop being bitter and angry and mad at others. Don’t yell at one another or curse each other or ever be rude. Instead, be kind and merciful, and forgive others, just as God forgave you because of Christ. (Contemporary English Version)

New life means being a part of a new society; and a new society means new rules to live by which benefit and uplift the entire community. Old destructive practices must be replaced with new encouraging and supportive ways of being together. Stop taking the broad easy road to destruction and start walking the hard path to life and contentment.

Stop Lying and Start Telling the Truth

Lying exists because people believe that being truthful and transparent is too traumatic. Many people don’t think that being open, honest, real, vulnerable, and genuine is worth the risk. They have believed the lie that they won’t be accepted, that they’ll lose face with others, or that people will just gossip about me if they really knew about me. So, we hide from others and avoid the truth.

In truth, we are responsible for one another – to make and keep promises to each other because that is what God does with us. Churches that love truth will make a safe place for the awkwardness of confession, forgiveness, and healing.

Truthful communities are places of hospitality where we are safe to be real. No one ought to ever suffer in silence, cry alone, or wonder whether others will forsake them. We belong to one another. Therefore, to have union with Christ is to have union with one another; you can’t have one without the other.

Stop Stealing and Start Giving

Theft comes in many forms, especially in our contemporary age. Embezzlement, shoplifting, fraud, plagiarism, and robbery are just a few examples of the ways in which we humans steal from one another.

Embezzlement is the theft of assets (money or property) by a person who has been trusted to keep those assets safe. Instead of embezzling funds, we are to steward those assets well, distributing them with care and a conscience – using them for the benefit of others, not simply ourselves.

Shoplifting involves stealing goods from retail establishments. Some people steal because they are in dire need. Many more steal because they can and want to. We must stop taking things we want, and learn to be satisfied with what we have. And we will only do this by using our own money to buy things for others who are in need.

Fraud is stealing that involves convincing the victim to surrender their money or property under false pretenses. This is nothing more than manipulating someone to get what you want. Work hard to defend the defenseless and ensure their justice, rather than commit a gross injustice against them.

Plagiarism is the practice of taking someone else’s work or ideas and passing them off as one’s own. It’s cheap. It’s easy. And don’t do it, period. Someone else worked very hard to create what you may nonchalantly use for your quick benefit. Take the pains to credit someone else’s work and document the sources you use.

Robbery is a theft that involves using violence, intimidation, or threats to obtain property. Put the threats, guns, and false confidence away. In it’s place, do whatever it takes to do things right, hold a job, and give something back to society.

Stop All the Unhelpful Talk and Start Encouraging

Corrupt or dirty talk is totally unnecessary. It’s unwholesome and benefits nobody. Rather, make it your aim to use your words for good by encouraging others.

Encouragement involves strongly urging someone to do something with an equal commitment to lovingly come alongside and help. This requires both verbal exhortations and tangible assistance. Encouragement is the glue which holds a people together. Without it, a society degenerates into watching-out-for-number-one, and destructive personal survival tactics which will say anything to get what one wants.

Stop the Bitterness and Start Forgiving

Forgiveness is choosing not to hold another’s persons offensive words or actions over their head. It is:

  • Specific to an event, action, or words.
  • A process: it takes time to truly forgive.
  • Something anybody can do, regardless of race, creed, religion, etc.
  • Hard.
  • Freeing.
  • Ongoing.
  • Gracious.

“To forgive is to set a prisoner free and discover that the prisoner was you.”

Lewis Smedes, Forgive and Forget: Healing the Hurts We Don’t Deserve

Bitterness, however, wants to hold onto a grudge and seeks to punish the one who has offended them. That’s the way of Satan, not God. Even if the person has set themselves up as your enemy, we have clear exhortations from Jesus to love our enemies and do good to them, not harm. (Matthew 5:43-48)

The world revolves on the axis of mercy, not judgment. The sooner we get in the groove of how things actually operate for us to live a good life, the better that our relationships and society will be.

Good and gracious God, we ask that you make our life journey safe as we choose integrity, not disintegration. Shed light on those who follow crooked paths. May their dishonesty be exposed so that corrections can be made before further damage occurs. Help our nations, neighborhoods, and faith communities choose a path of mercy and goodness, rather than the crooked way of lies, theft, vitriol, and grudge-bearing. May we see a new wave of integrity sweeping over our world, through Jesus Christ our Lord, by the power of your Holy Spirit. Amen.

Forsaken (Jeremiah 2:4-13)

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Christian Spirituality Blog, Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year ALeave a comment

Hear the word of the Lord, you descendants of Jacob,
    all you clans of Israel.

This is what the Lord says:

“What fault did your ancestors find in me,
    that they strayed so far from me?
They followed worthless idols
    and became worthless themselves.
They did not ask, ‘Where is the Lord,
    who brought us up out of Egypt
and led us through the barren wilderness,
    through a land of deserts and ravines,
a land of drought and utter darkness,
    a land where no one travels and no one lives?’
I brought you into a fertile land
    to eat its fruit and rich produce.
But you came and defiled my land
    and made my inheritance detestable.
The priests did not ask,
    ‘Where is the Lord?’
Those who deal with the law did not know me;
    the leaders rebelled against me.
The prophets prophesied by Baal,
    following worthless idols.

“Therefore I bring charges against you again,”
declares the Lord.
    “And I will bring charges against your children’s children.
Cross over to the coasts of Cyprus and look,
    send to Kedar and observe closely;
    see if there has ever been anything like this:
Has a nation ever changed its gods?
    (Yet they are not gods at all.)
But my people have exchanged their glorious God
    for worthless idols.
Be appalled at this, you heavens,
    and shudder with great horror,”
declares the Lord.
“My people have committed two sins:
They have forsaken me,
    the spring of living water,
and have dug their own cisterns,
    broken cisterns that cannot hold water. (New International Version)

We are all wounded lovers. Keeping a steadfast commitment to someone who’s fickle, and sometimes spurns our love, is a universal feeling of deep hurt. And that is precisely how God felt about the ancient Israelites.

The feel of today’s Old Testament lesson is like being in a divorce court – God lamenting the distance which evolved between divinity and humanity. It happened because Israel went after other lovers, and practiced infidelity in their relationship with the Lord.

Since a person tends to take on the character of the god they follow, Israel had become a mess of a people. Because the gods they turned to were nothing but worthless idols. The Israelites became empty and vacuous, drained of all the robust spiritual character within their nation.

The object of love determines the quality of love.

To lose God is to lose our way of being in the world.

And the reason we lose God is that we stop telling our stories of grace, love, and forgiveness. New life, over time, becomes old hat. We end up forgetting where we came from, and so, discover that we don’t really know where we’re going.

We suffer from a severe case of spiritual amnesia.

God is who God is; I Am who I Am – and not as we may think God might be. The Lord is tied to justice and righteousness; and so, is concerned for both the individual and the community. Private life and public life each need to be characterized by integrity, service, and meeting one another’s needs.

Public institutions, corporate businesses, and even faith communities all collapse without the guiding compass of civic duty, social justice, and community service. Leaders everywhere have forgotten that power and authority is divinely given, not personally earned.

Whenever a people loses sight of their foundational stories and ethical points of reference, systemic evil arises to keep certain folks in power. And the rest of the people are coerced into serving those in authority. It’s a situation ripe for the judgment of God.

The Lord will take people to task for failing to remember who they are, where they came from, and thus, what they’re supposed to be doing.

Tragically, the Israelites swapped their God for other gods who are utterly unreliable and, frankly, not real. They lost touch with reality itself, not being able to distinguish between truth and error, and unable to discern what the good life actually is.

We must take God on God’s own terms. We are people created in the image of God, not people who create a god in the image they want. We can no more do that than a cake can claim self-existence apart from the baker.

Heaven and earth are witnesses to the folly of human forgetfulness – a lack of memory which forsakes commitment to the Divine. It’s the sort of madness that can result from a lack of sleep or water.

In such a condition, we need living water. We cannot conjure it up. There’s no way to be our own source of life, any more than a child can birth itself without any parents. Life must be given. Life is a gift.

The gift has been given. The real issue is whether we will receive it, open it, and use it.

There are many questions which cry out for us to answer:

  • Will the ego get in the way of living well?
  • Will a false sense of self delude us into believing we are the architects of our own reality?
  • Will we colonize others for what they can do for us, rather than seeking to uphold the common good of all persons?
  • What is our relationship to power and authority?
  • What are we doing with the influence we have?
  • What fault have you found with God?
  • When are we going to renew our vows to God?
  • Who are you?
  • What are you doing?
  • Where are you going?
  • Why are you here?
  • How, then, shall we live?

Sovereign God of all, I will try this day to live a simple, sincere and serene life, repelling every thought of discontent, anxiety, discouragement, impurity, and self-seeking; cultivating cheerfulness, magnanimity, charity, and the habit of holy silence; exercising economy in expenditure, generosity in giving, carefulness in conversation, diligence in appointed service, fidelity to every trust, and a childlike faith.

I will try to be faithful in those habits of prayer, work, study, physical exercise, eating, and sleep which I believe the Holy Spirit has shown me to be right. And as I cannot in my own strength do this, nor even with a hope of success attempt it, I look to you, O Lord God my Father, in Jesus my Savior, and ask for the gift of the Holy Spirit. Amen.