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.

Luke 5:17-26

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year CLeave a comment
            Jesus came to this earth to forgive sin and transform sinners.  Today’s Gospel story has a paralyzed man brought to Jesus in an unorthodox way.  His two friends carried the man on a mat, but could not get close enough to Jesus to be noticed.  This was not about to stop the two friends.  They just took him to the roof, created a hole in it, and lowered the man right in front of Jesus!  Our Lord was impressed with their faith, healed the man, and said “My friend, your sins are forgiven.”
 
            There is a very important observation about this story that we need to notice:  the man was healed because of the faith of his friends.  Yes, that’s right.  Read the story again.  It was the faith of the two men in bringing their friend to Jesus that led to the healing and transformation.
 
            If this does not inspire, impel, and inform you to pray diligently by bringing your friends to Jesus in prayer I’m not sure what would move you.  Sometimes great miracles are not brought about by a lone person praying for his/her personal change but by believing people who do not give up in bringing their friend to Jesus.  Think of one person right now for whom God has laid him/her on your heart.  Pray today and every day until there is a breakthrough.  In the metaphorical sense, create a hole in the roof and place your friend in front of Jesus and watch what kind of healing and renovation of life he can affect.
 

 

            Healing God, I thank you for doing your good work of forgiving sins and transforming sinners in Jesus’ name.  I pray you will deliver my grandson from the scourge of epilepsy and give him a new life full of spiritual power through Jesus.  Amen.

God in the Present-Tense

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Exploring Church Ministry BlogLeave a comment
“Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past.  See, I am doing a new thing!  Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?  I am making a way in the desert and streams in the wasteland.”  –Isaiah 43:19
 
 
 
 
            It is easy for people to get stuck in the past.  One of the problems the Israelites had was that they did not know how to grieve well.  They kept looking back to a golden age when they came out of Egypt and entered the Promised Land.  And when things began to break down in Israel and in Judah, they kept looking back instead of dealing with God in the present.  Rather than lamenting their losses, they just wished things were different.  When any church or any believer refuses to do the biblical work of grieving a significant loss or change, then the ghosts of the past roam everywhere.
 
No one can effectively move on into the future unless they confront the stark reality that things have changed and can never be the same again.
 
            They can, in fact, be even better, but that will not happen apart from doing the hard work of identifying our denial of the way things presently are, dealing with our anger, stopping the bargaining with God, defeating the depression, and coming out the other end accepting the new reality.  The Israelites were in exile.  It was not their new normal.  It was their present station of history.  God was ready to take them back to Jerusalem, but they were stuck in depression.  Jerusalem would never be the same city again, and they had to resolve to accept it.  But acceptance is not cheap; it takes a difficult journey to get to that point.
 
The healthy way to view the past is to see ancient miracles like the exodus be re-enacted in fresh ways for the present. 
 
When churches and Christians no longer experience God in creative, new, and fresh ways in the present, they are limited by their memories of what God once did back there in the past.  If we keep talking about the same things in the same ways, telling the same stories, we portray a God to others who is not present to us in the here and now.  It is time we talk about the God we know today.  If we only live off past experiences with God, we will be unable to connect with God today.  We need to tell present-tense stories of God.  When God is sealed in the past he becomes just an interesting person to be theologically studied and learned about, like any character from history.  But today God is alive!  Now, in the present, God wants to do a new thing!
 
            God is most definitely changeless is his character and attributes.  But that does not mean God is not into change and doing new things.  In fact, God’s work is to effect transformation in the lives of people who need redemption and new life. 
 
What kind of picture about God are we painting for people? 
 
That God is boring, lifeless, careless, or uninteresting?  The proof that something is alive is that it grows, develops, changes, and matures.  The new plants in our gardens and fields are undergoing astonishing growth and development.  What they are like now is quite different than what they will look like in August and even different than October.
 
            To simply state the matter:  new, different, creative, exciting things need to happen in the church today in the present.  As long as those things do not happen in the church, people will believe that God is dead or just does not care, that is, if he exists at all.  Because God is alive and works in the present, Christ’s church is to be alive with spiritual momentum, biblical drive, and Christian proactive love.
 
If we are continually underwhelmed by church, we will not be overwhelmed by God. 
 
When we look at Jesus, we get a picture of God.  We see a Savior who walks on water, raises the dead, and amazes the crowds.  Christ’s unpredictability led many to have a new and more accurate picture of God.  Jesus came to reveal who God is, to give us a good picture of him (John 14:8-14).
 
            Through his life on earth, Jesus revealed to us a God who is compelling, powerful, relevant, passionate, unpredictable, exciting, personal and present to his people right now this very day by means of the Holy Spirit.  The church everywhere has been given the assignment to reveal God to the world.  So, whenever the church seems boring, irrelevant, powerless, lifeless, and stuck in the past, people conclude that God is all those things.  When the church becomes like a stagnant pond it portrays the wrong image of God to the world.  What the world needs, and we believers must have, are churches that allow the awesome God who is gracious and powerful to stand out and be present to us all. 
 
To be present to God is to be alive to the possibilities that God’s Spirit wants to effect in the present. 
 

 

May it be so, to the glory of Jesus our present and eternal King.

Psalm 5

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year CLeave a comment


             The God whom Christians serve is not a god who delights in evil.  In fact, God hates evil with a passion.  This is a good thing.  The Lord is most certainly the God of grace.  But mercy has no meaning unless there is sin.  God’s justice is an extension of his mercy.  In today’s psalm, the psalmist laments the evil of the world and finds solace in the righteousness of God.  In a world where rapists get a slap on the wrist, terrorists are found all around the globe, and politicians run amok with people’s approval, I am more than glad that God does not contend with evil and that I can find refuge in him from all the massive crud of the world.
             Notice the pervasiveness of evil:  “For there is no sincerity in their mouth; their heart is corrupt.  Their throat is an open grave; on their tongue are subtle lies.”  It is not a stretch to say that we have an egregious situation in the two leading political candidates in America; they could well be characterized by this description from the psalmist.  It is even more lamentable that far too many church members have mouth, heart, throat, and tongue issues that damage the Body of Christ.
             What to do about it?  Rely on the justice and mercy of God.  “Declare them guilty, God; make them fall by their own devices.  Drive them out for their many sins; for they have rebelled against you.”  Trust in not just a nice idea; committed belief in God is absolutely necessary for life, spiritual health, and peace in this fallen world.  We can all do our part by living a humble penitent life, attuned to the holy God who will not put up with evil forever.
             Just God, you know the hearts and tongues of every person on planet earth.  Holy God, either save them by grace or take them away so that righteousness might dwell in every corner of your creation.  Amen.

James 4:1-7

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year CLeave a comment
            “Do you know where your fights and arguments come from? They come from the selfish desires that war within you. 2 You want things, but you do not have them. So you are ready to kill and are jealous of other people, but you still cannot get what you want. So you argue and fight. You do not get what you want, because you do not ask God. 3 Or when you ask, you do not receive because the reason you ask is wrong. You want things so you can use them for your own pleasures.  4 So, you are not loyal to God! You should know that loving the world is the same as hating God. Anyone who wants to be a friend of the world becomes God’s enemy. 5 Do you think the Scripture means nothing that says, ‘The Spirit that God made to live in us wants us for himself alone’? 6 But God gives us even more grace, as the Scripture says,
‘God is against the proud,
but he gives grace to the humble.’ Proverbs 3:34
7 So give yourselves completely to God. Stand against the devil, and the devil will run from you” (NCV).
 
            There is a lot that can be unpacked here in these practical verses filled with dense meaning for our lives.  But a simple observation will suffice for today:  Prayer to God requires humility.
 
            The person who is captain of his own soul, moves and shakes the circumstances around him, controls and manipulates people, and who throws tantrums and verbally decapitates others to get his way sees himself as the way to get what he wants.  God only comes into the picture if he cannot seem to take for himself what he so desires.  Prayer is the last ditch attempt to control God.  And God will have none of it.
 
            All things must begin with prayer, be sustained by prayer, and end with prayer.  If we ask anything in the name of Jesus, it will be heard by God and answered by him.  God is God, and I am not.  Therefore, I must come to him with this understanding, with the humility to recognize that I desperately need him for everything.  Take some extended time today and meditate on these verses, letting prayers arise to God as a result.  For in the weakness of our surrender we find the strength of life.
 

 

            Holy God, you cannot abide with the ways of this fallen world.  Help me to connect with you on your terms in your way so that my faith might be active and effective in all I do for the sake of Jesus Christ.  Amen.