Category: Year A

Psalm 124

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year ALeave a comment
 
           “Our help is in the name of the Lord who made heaven and earth.”  These are the words for which I begin nearly every worship service in church.  It is a call to worship the God who is above all and sees all – and can do something about all the adversity and trouble we face in the world.  When confronted with a new day, our attention must be arrested and directed in the positive way of acknowledging God. 
 
            Our ultimate help is in the Lord.  Our fears about the future, our insecurities of what will happen, and our anxieties about all of the upcoming stuff we must face can be transformed with the biblical perspective of acknowledging our need for God.  The Lord is our most prescient support.  That meeting you have been dreading; that conversation you have been avoiding; or, that deadline that has been looming over your head; these and all situations can only find their proper perspective in light of the God who helps.
 
            I am a big believer in making daily affirmations of faith in God.  That is, affirming the truth about God, even if I don’t feel like it, each and every day so that some solid robust theology is not only at the forefront of my mind, but that the attributes of God also sink firmly into my heart.  For faith does not simply come as a result of signing off on a checklist of beliefs.  Rather, faith arises as a response to the recognition that God is good – all the time – and that he helps those who look to him.
 

 

            Creator God, you are the One who provides everything I need for life and godliness.  I need your help today and everyday so that I can confidently do your will.  I stand in confidence because I serve the Lord Jesus, who is benevolent and always does what is right and just.  Amen.

Romans 6:1-11

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year ALeave a comment
 
 
            It is perhaps ironic that this New Testament lesson falls on Cyber-Monday.  After all, the impulse to shop runs high in a great many Americans.  But shopping can quite easily move from necessity to compulsion.  Before you know it, we can be consuming without much restraint.  On-line shopping, especially, is just so darn easy and can trigger the brain just as much as any addiction.  There is often a very thin line between justified shopping and sinful rationalization of consumption.  So, how do we say “no” in the face of competing choices?  Whatever besetting sin is in our lives, how do we put it aside and rid ourselves of it? 
 
            One of the practical ways of approaching this answer is to read Romans 6 not from a generic standpoint, but make it very personal.  In other words, it could be quite helpful to make all of the pronouns personal and name the specific sin when sin is mentioned.  For example, it would look something like this:
 
“What shall I say, then?  Shall I go on shopping so that grace may increase?  By no means!  I died to shopping; how can I live in it any longer?  Or don’t I know that I am baptized into Christ Jesus and, so, am baptized into his death?  I am therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, I, too, may live a new life.”
 
            You can put your own besetting sin and struggling addiction into the text:  “If I have been united with him like this in his death, I will certainly also be united with him in his resurrection.  For I know that my old self was crucified with him so that shopping/gossiping/lying/overeating/alcoholism/legalism, etc. might be done away with, that I should no longer be a slave to shopping – because I have died and have been freed from the compulsive and obsessive need to shop.”
 
            I think you get the idea.  We are to count ourselves dead to all the addictions, compulsions, and activities that we use to replace the finished work of Christ.  Instead, we are to reckon ourselves alive to God in Christ.  The struggle against sin comes down to each and every day making an affirmation of faith that we belong to God through Jesus – and not to some other master.  Yes, the daily work of spiritually affirming our identity might seem mundane, but it is quite necessary to achieving practical victory.
 

 

            Holy God, you have made it possible for us to be forgiven and free in Jesus Christ.  I choose today to serve you and you alone in my quest avail myself of the provision you have given me to live above sin.  Amen.

1 Thessalonians 4:1-18

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year ALeave a comment
            I ate a lot of food yesterday on Thanksgiving Day.  I watched a lot of football.  I slept.  I spent time with family.  And it was all good.  It was, in fact, holy work.  Sometimes we may get this misguided notion that purity and holiness only has to do with activities that take place in a church building, or special works like serving at a homeless shelter.  But in these verses from Thessalonians, as well as the whole of Scripture, there is really no secular/sacred dichotomy.
 
God has not called us to impurity, but in holiness in all of life in every activity we do. We have not been designed by our Creator to live in any old way we want, but we have been set apart and called by God to walk along the road of purity and peace.  The way in which we use our minds, wills, emotions, and bodies are of much interest and great concern to God Almighty.  In other words, God cares about food and whether I eat to his glory and give thanks; or, whether I have no interest in those that are hungry but just stuff as much turkey as I can in my distended stomach.  God cares about whether I take time for rest and Sabbath and whether I just isolate myself in mindless TV watching for hours.  God cares about the content of my conversations with my family and friends – whether my words are encouraging and building-up others, or whether they are slanderous, gossipy, and just not helpful.
 
Everything in all creation belongs to God – including me and everything I do.  God cares about all of life’s activities and leisure time.  Whether tying our shoes or teaching a Sunday School class, it is all to be done with a sense of holiness and connection to the God that makes it all possible.  Jesus will return someday.  So let us engage in all kinds of good works, whether little or large, with the time and talents God has graciously given us. 
Lord God, I belong to you – set apart and sanctified so that I may always walk in holiness and please you in everything I do.  Help my life today to reflect the purity you have given me through your Son, the Lord Jesus.  May he be glorified through me now and always.  Amen.

John 5:19-40

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year ALeave a comment
            Christ the King Sunday is a time in which the church observes and recognizes the exaltation and glorification of God the Son as authority over every dominion.  Following the emphasis of that Sunday, these verses in John’s Gospel provide the words from Jesus as to the basis for such power.  Jesus is God.  God the Father works through God the Son.  The works that Jesus did bear testimony to the cosmic reality that Jesus is Lord of all.  Jesus lets us in on his relationship to the Father, and to his actual position and power.
 
            In the face of such biblical evidence as to the greatness and majesty of the Lord Jesus, the only valid and appropriate response is sheer submission to Christ’s authority.  Just as Jesus listened to the Father and obeyed the Father’s will, so we need to listen to Jesus and carry out his will.  Just as Jesus enjoyed his relationship with the Father, so we are to bask in our wonderful relationship with Jesus.  Since Jesus submitted to death on a cross and rose from the dead through God’s power, we now have access to that power by God’s grace through faith in Christ.
 
            We need not bend to any other master other than King Jesus, the rightful ruler of the universe.  Let us put away all others “gods” in which we depend upon for solace and help.  Jesus is a leader who guides us with grace into God’s will for us.
            King Jesus, I submit my life to you alone.  You are the object and desire of my heart.  Use me to work your divine will on this earth, to your own glory and honor.  Amen.