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.

Philippians 1:12-18

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year CLeave a comment
            It was President Ronald Reagan who said, “There is no limit to the amount of good you can do if you don’t care who gets the credit.”  The ability to have a disinterest in attention and freedom from selfishness comes from a place of humility and strength – the strength to know oneself well and be secure in that knowledge, as well as the humility to care more about the cause than self.
 
            The Apostle Paul had so learned humility from his Lord, and was so thoroughly convinced of the gospel’s centrality that he did not care who got the credit when it came to proclaiming Jesus.  “Some indeed preach Christ from envy and rivalry, but others from good will….  The former proclaim Christ out of selfish ambition, not sincerely but thinking to afflict me in my imprisonment.  What then? Only that in every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is proclaimed, and in that I rejoice.”
 
            The burning, driving, constant, and passionate pursuit of Paul was the advance of the gospel.  He wanted the entire world to know Jesus Christ crucified, risen from death, ascended and coming again.  And Paul would do anything and drain himself of every drop of self-centeredness in order to champion that great cause of seeing people repent and believe the gospel.
 
            Is your heart enamored with Jesus?  Is it hot with the desire to see the gospel of grace transform the world?  Do you lay awake at night wondering how to introduce Jesus to others?  Is the great cause of your life to find ways of meeting the world’s deep need with the deep love of Christ?  Attention and recognition are overrated.  Instead, give up your life and you will find it.
 

 

            Gracious God, thank you for the example of your servant Paul.  I rejoice in what you did in and through his life.  I am available for your purposes.  Use me in the advance of your gospel of grace so that I might more fully participate in your grand forgiveness mission.  Amen.

Luke 11:29-32

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year CLeave a comment
            Just when we think we might have a handle on Jesus as the meek and gentle Savior we get a picture of Jesus behaving badly.  When the crowds begin increasing we might expect Jesus to be pleased.  After all, we can have more being reached; wider influence; greater impact; good for business.  But Jesus isn’t down for all the people following him around.  He opens his mouth and says to them, “This generation is an evil generation.”  Jesus went on to chide the people who were looking for a cool miracle and a neat sign of his power and authority.  Nope.  Instead, Jesus lets them know that they have ample opportunity to accept him but are not moving in that direction.
 
            Sometimes we so desperately want to make Jesus cool and acceptable so that others will follow him.  If only Jesus will heal this person, we reason, lots of people will believe.  If only Jesus will compassionately and powerfully perform a great miracle, we think, the world will take notice and put their trust in God.  But Jesus simply points people back to characters of the Old Testament.  If people won’t take notice of what they already have, they are not going to be swayed with a shiny new sign.
 
            Jesus defies stereotypes.  And he ought to, because he is King.  This is why we need a steady daily stream of God’s Word to help ground us into the ways of Jesus.  The more we allow the Scriptures to shape our spirituality, the more our lives will be formed into the likeness of Jesus.  It is a process.  It is often slow.  There are not a lot of bells and whistles to it.  On most days, there is not a lot of drama – just the pedantic plodding of a faithful believer trying to make sense of living the Christian life.  And those are the people I think Jesus most likes to hang-out with.
 

 

            Astounding God, you sometimes shake us out our pre-conceived notions about you and invite us to see Jesus from a different viewpoint.  Help me to see Jesus so that I might more fully embrace him and walk in his ways in the strength of the Spirit.  Amen.

Longing for Justice and Righteousness

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Exploring Church Ministry BlogLeave a comment
 
 
Some words make us squeamish.  Justice often gets a bad rap by some in the church, as if it were some code word for “liberal.”  Righteousness seems more like the “right” word, but gets thrown around like an old familiar blanket, as if we already know all that stuff.  So, what’s the big deal about justice and righteousness?  Other than being very biblical terms which get used a lot in Scripture, being just and right is what the Messiah is all about (Jeremiah 33:14-16).
 
            Justice and righteousness are most often paired together in the Old Testament.  They are really two sides of the same coin.  We often think of justice in punitive terms of giving lawbreakers what they deserve.  But biblical justice has much more to do with giving someone what they need and deserve in order to live and thrive as human beings.  To act justly means to provide things like clean drinking water, a safe environment, fair and equitable business practices, food to eat, a place to sleep, etc.  Righteousness is the relational element to justice.  To be righteous means to have right relationships, to connect with people, to move toward them and provide them with all the relational things that people need like respect, dignity, friendship, hospitality, fellowship, etc.
 
            Justice and righteousness are always to go together.  Justice without righteousness is at best, impersonal, and, at worst, condescending.  Righteousness without justice is only a dead faith that wishes well but never delivers.  But together, justice and righteousness brings love, peace, harmony, well-being, and human flourishing because all the basic necessities of life, physical and relational, are met in abundance.  This is what is meant in the Old Testament when Israel is referred to as “a land of milk and honey.”
 
            The time of abundance is here for us in the person of Jesus Christ.  Yet, it is not here in its fullness.  We anticipate, wait, and hope for the Second Coming of our Savior and King.  While we exercise patience, we long for better days.  A true Advent spirit is a deep longing for justice and righteousness because King Jesus is just and right!
 
            What do you long for today?  I long for things which are broken to be made right.  I long for biblical justice.  I long for the day when my grandson will have no more seizures.  I long for the day when individuals and families will not have to fight cancer anymore.  I long for the day when there will be no more depression, mental illness, or dementia.  I long for the day when people will be completely free of addictions.  I long for the day when there will be no more sex trafficking, death from malnutrition, grinding poverty, corrupt governments, whole families and communities torn by the ravages of HIV and AIDS, refugees with no place to call home, and devastating natural disasters.
 
I long for righteousness.  I long for the day when women and girls all across the world will not be abused and become the victims of disordered power.  I long for the day when Israelis and Palestinians, Iranians and Iraqis, Japanese and Koreans, Russians and everybody else will no more hate each other.  I long for all believers everywhere to experience the exhilaration of new life in Christ.  I long for my community to repent and believe the gospel.  I long for men and women of God to embrace Jesus and forsake all other gods.
 
            I long for the kingdom of God to come in all its fullness, in all its freedom, joy, prosperity, peace, and happiness.  God’s kingdom will not be ushered in through continued worship of things and the constant practice of accumulating more and more.  God’s kingdom will not come through worshiping a particular nation or country.  God’s kingdom will not be ushered in because of self-effort, savvy marketing, and full schedules.  God’s kingdom is not the same as our personal agendas for life. 
 

 

The kingdom of God will come when God decides it is going to come because Jesus is Lord and no one or nothing else is king!  I want to be doing justice and righteousness when he arrives.  The church of Jesus is a gathering of people who are to be just and right in their thinking and practice.  Holding those two important words together is vital to every congregation.

Psalm 90

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year CLeave a comment
            Sometimes we might forget that the Bible is first and foremost a collection of books about God.  There are times when we get too focused on ourselves – our fears, inadequacies, weaknesses, failures – and lose sight of the hugeness of God.  This psalm is the kind that helps reorient our lives back toward the grand Sovereign of the universe.  There is a decidedly theistic worldview espoused and embedded in the psalm.  It is a cosmology dominated by the immensity and largeness of a God who is pictured as completely in control of his creation.
 
            Let’s face it:  our lives are this weird and complex concoction of fear and joy that can combust at any time.  We swing from high to low, and low to high.  If we are on an even keel it is only because we are currently in the middle of swaying to one extreme or the other.  Even introverts know this – it just happens to all take place inside their vast inner world instead of on the outside for all to see.
 
            So, every one of us needs the grand vision of God in this psalm to anchor us through all the vicissitudes of life.  “Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever you had formed the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God.”  The transcendent God, however, is not at all aloof from his creatures; he is also closely imminent.  “You have set our iniquities before you, our secret sins in the light of your presence.”  Nothing gets by God.  He always knows the score.
 
            Our appropriate response to such a God is this:  “So teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom.”  When we appropriate a biblical worldview, we learn to measure our days and live consistently moral lives with wholeness and integrity.  This is why a regular regimen of the psalms is important to us, so that we will have before us the nature and character of God.  As we do so, we cannot help but reflect his glory and contribute to human flourishing.
 

 

            Mighty God, satisfy me in the morning with your steadfast love so that I might rejoice and be glad all day, every day.  Let your favor be upon me, and establish the work of my hands for the glory of Jesus.  Amen.