Category: Year A

Luke 3:1-18

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year ALeave a comment
            John the Baptist wasn’t exactly a social conformist.  He lived, acted, and said things that were anything but mainstream thinking.  But John wasn’t out to win friends and please people.  His message was sharp and straightforward:  “You bunch of snakes!  Who warned you to run from the coming judgment?  Do something to show that you really have given up your sins….  An ax is ready to cut the trees down at their roots.  Any tree that doesn’t produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into a fire.”  John was the first-century version of the guy with a placard on the street corner yelling for everyone to repent.  He probably would have been relegated to the category of loony tunes had he not had an actual and substantial following of people who believed his message of repentance.
 
            The reason the masses did not dismiss John as some creepy clown is that he offered them something better than just being stuck in old destructive patterns of dumb decisions, unhealthy relationships, and bad habits.  John points us away from himself and squarely on Jesus.  Christ is the one who can and will unstick us from our downward spirals of complacency, mediocrity, and sinful behavior.
 
            To repent and believe the gospel of Jesus Christ allows us to bear good fruit.  Being with the Lord, rooted and established in him, allows us to spring from the ground like a fresh new shoot growing into something beautiful.  Dwelling in the presence of Jesus brings healthy patterns of life. 
 
            Jesus came once, and will come again.  We need to get ready for that day.  There are roads that need straightening; fires that need to be lit in order to burn away brush; dead trees need to be cut down; and, there are people who need to repent because the kingdom of God is near. 
 

 

            Lord Jesus, you are the rightful King of all creation.  I confess those sinful things I have done, and the good things I have left undone.  Your mercy is from everlasting to everlasting.  Help me to so hear your Word that new life and hope springs within me and produces love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, and self-control.  Amen.

2 Peter 3:1-10

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year ALeave a comment
            The Lord Jesus will return.  He is coming.  A Second Advent shall occur.  Yes, I know we Christians have been babbling on about Christ’s Second Coming for centuries.  It’s been two-thousand years since the incarnation, and here we are still talking about Jesus’ return.  No, followers of Christ are not deluded or unusually weird (well, maybe a little weird).  God is not on vacation.  He isn’t aloof or unconcerned.  He exists, and he is up to something.  “The Lord isn’t slow about keeping his promises, as some people think he is.  In fact, God is patient, because he wants everyone to turn from sin and no one to be lost.”  Like a watching and concerned parent, God is waiting for all kinds of people to turn from empty wayward lives and return to him.  Yes, God has not yet returned because he is waiting for us to return.
 
            What some people often interpret as not caring is simply a cold misinterpretation of reality.  God cares.  God is infinitely patient.  God carefully and adroitly graces individuals with repentance full of faith that leads to a new life of peace, joy, and righteousness.  If we can admit that our perspective on things is typically puny and very limited, then we can begin to entertain a larger notion that God doesn’t operate like we do and his timetable is quite different than ours.
 
            There is no better time than now to participate with God by praying that your prodigal son or daughter, your wayward friend, and your clueless neighbor will come to know Jesus in this Advent season.  If God is waiting for folks to repent and believe the good news of forgiveness and new life in Christ, then he is also waiting for us to have some focused, sustained, and passionate prayer for those in need of Jesus.  May the angels in heaven rejoice on Christmas Day that salvation has come to your world.
 

 

            Saving Lord, your grace and compassion know no bounds.  Let the finished work of Jesus be applied to the homes of my friends, neighbors, and relatives so that they can know the incredible joy of new life through the incarnation, cross, and resurrection of Christ.  Amen.

Matthew 12:33-37

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year ALeave a comment
            This is what Jesus said:  “Your words show what is in your hearts.  Good people bring good things out of their hearts, but evil people bring evil things out of their hearts.”  Our speech is the outward demonstration of what is really within the heart.  There really isn’t any room to believe that a constant stream of gossip, backbiting, slander, and negative comments is anything but coming from a heart of evil.  A person who speaks such words is not a loving, gracious, merciful person.  But the person who continually encourages, uplifts, and seeks to be positive reflects a deep heart of love for others.
 
            Therefore, simply altering our speech around certain persons is not the point and does no good.  That kind of behavior only breeds hypocrisy and is two-faced, a la the Pharisees.  Instead, the place to aim is the heart from where the speech arises.  And the only way to truly renovate a heart is to sub-contract the project to Jesus.
 
            The people we typically hang-out with the most are the people that most influence our attitudes and our speech.  So, if we spend copious amounts of time with Jesus it is inevitable that our hearts will become more like his and, thus, our words will be in alignment with the words and ways of Christ.  For, it is God who replaces a hard heart of stone with a soft heart of flesh.  Be rooted in Christ and the fruit of the tree will demonstrate it.
 

 

            Sovereign God, you hear every careless word spoken and see each harmful conversation as it takes place.  Our guilt is very great!  Forgive my egregious sin against you through the things I have said, and the things I have left unsaid.  Please let the benevolent and generous Christ rule my heart through the power of your Holy Spirit.  Amen.

Romans 15:14-21

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year ALeave a comment
            Paul was an apostle, that is, a person commissioned by God and sent to the Gentiles – people other than the Jews.  Through Peter, and then Paul, the good news of Jesus spread to persons that were beforehand considered unreachable.  Paul saw himself as having no limits as to who could hear and respond to the gospel of forgiveness in Jesus Christ.  He understood himself as standing between heaven and hell, interceding and pleading on behalf of people who need their lives changed through Christ.
 
            It is quite possible that there are persons in our sphere of influence in which we think that they would never respond to the message of Christ’s redemption.  In this holiday season of the year, in which we remember God’s loving gift in the humility of God becoming man, it is far too easy to lose sight that at that Christmas party, family gathering, and interaction with that person in the long shopping line, there are those who need Jesus – and we will never know if God is wooing them to himself unless we share life with them.
 
            Perhaps we need to see ourselves as Paul did – standing in the gap and always trying to find ways to proclaim the gospel to people who require deliverance from empty ways of life.  That cousin or uncle, that co-worker or friend, and that neighbor or new acquaintance, can be forgotten by us as to their ultimate and most real need to discover faith.  We, my friends, are the conduit that God has ordained to bring his life-giving message to people all around us – people for whom we might have already written off as unreachable.
 

 

            We praise you, O God, for the ministry and success of your servant, the Apostle Paul, through whom we who are Gentiles owe our own faith and calling.  Grant us a vision like his, the conviction and commitment to pursue it, and the grace which confirms and prospers it.  Amen.