Category: Year A

Freedom from Sin (Romans 6:12-23)

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

Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires. Do not offer any part of yourself to sin as an instrument of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer every part of yourself to him as an instrument of righteousness. For sin shall no longer be your master because you are not under the law, but under grace.

What then? Shall we sin because we are not under the law but under grace? By no means! Don’t you know that when you offer yourselves to someone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one you obey—whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness? But thanks be to God that, though you used to be slaves to sin, you have come to obey from your heart the pattern of teaching that has now claimed your allegiance. You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness.

I am using an example from everyday life because of your human limitations. Just as you used to offer yourselves as slaves to impurity and to ever-increasing wickedness, so now offer yourselves as slaves to righteousness leading to holiness. When you were slaves to sin, you were free from the control of righteousness. What benefit did you reap at that time from the things you are now ashamed of? Those things result in death! But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. (New International Version)

The word “sin” is mentioned 10 times in these 12 verses of Scripture. It’s an important word, and so, we need to understand something of it. Discerning the concept of sin in the Bible is crucial to our spiritual growth and development as believers in Jesus. A better grasp of sin’s nature and power will help us to better understand and appreciate God’s grace and how to live the Christian life.

Sin Is Everywhere

We see the evidence of living in a broken world every day. Disaster, disease, and death are realities we all must deal with. The presence and power of sin is everywhere – in our hearts, our world, our institutions, and our families. It’s on television, the internet, social media, and moves in-and-out of smartphones. If it takes one to know one, we are all experts on being sinners.

Definitions of Sin

From the Bible’s vantage, sin is things we do (1 John 3:4) as well as things we leave undone (James 4:17). Sin is both actively breaking of God’s commands, and passively avoiding them. 

Christians throughout the ages have generally understood that the Ten Commandments (Exodus 20:1-17) and Christ’s law of love (Luke 10:27) constitute a brief summary of God’s holy and moral instruction for humanity.  These laws are based in the character of God as a holy and loving Being.

Sin, then, may be defined as anything in a person, group of people, an institution or a system, which does not express, or is contrary to, the basic character of God. In short, sin is a pervasive force which exists everywhere, defined in the following acrostics:

Sinful actionsSinful thoughtsSinful inaction
StressStupidSpiritual
InducedInwardInsidious
NarcissismNoodlingNarcolepsy

Sin Is Contrary to God’s Character      

All sin, whether active or passive, is self-centered and lacks self-awareness. Sin exists wherever a person, group, or organization thinks more about itself than of God and God’s love and justice. Sinful attitudes bring consequences such as:

  • Obsession with lust (1 John 8:34; Galatians 5:16) Lust is the stance of having to possess something, instead of appreciating it without ownership.
  • Broken relationships (Romans 3:23; Galatians 5:17) Wanting something without any concern for it’s cost leaves a trail of broken relationships with God and others.
  • Bondage to Satan (1 Timothy 3:6-7; 2 Timothy 2:26) Obtaining the object of our lust brings slavery, not freedom
  • Spiritual death (Romans 6:23; 8:6) Death is separation from God and estrangement from others
  • Hardening of the heart (Hebrews 3:13) A hard heart happens by stubbornly holding on to what we want, irrespective of what God wants
  • Deception (1 Corinthians 3:18; James 1:22, 26) To be deceived is to believe that other people, even God, are the problem whenever things go sideways

This may all sound like a total Debbie-Downer. Actually, it’s total depravity. Being depraved does not mean we are never capable of doing good; it means that sin has profoundly touched everything in our lives, without exception.

Sin Is Not the Last Word

Paradoxically, experiencing true joy and comfort comes through knowing how great our sin is. We live above sin by being set free from it by the grace of God in Jesus Christ. To be redeemed from sin, a provision is needed. In Christianity, sin has been dealt with once and for all through the person and work of Jesus. Christ is our representative, taking our place and delivering us from sin (Galatians 4:4-5; Ephesians 2:5-6; Colossians 2:9-15; Hebrews 2:17-18; 1 John 2:1).

Jesus Christ is our ultimate substitute (Romans 5:8)…

Which resulted in our redemption (Galatians 5:13)…

Leading to a satisfaction of all justice (Romans 3:25)…

Bringing reconciliation with God (Romans 5:10)… 

And putting sin to death, making us complete in Christ (Colossians 2:10).      

Although sin destroys everything it touches and leaves terrible consequences in its wake, sin does not have the last word: grace does.

Words for Sin

There are 33 different words for “sin” in the original Greek language of the New Testament. Only one of them is used in the verses from Romans: ἁμαρτία (“HA-mar-tee-ah”) literally means “to miss the mark,” or to “fall short.” (Romans 5:12-21; 1 John 1:8-10; 2 Corinthians 5:21)

The concept of missing the mark gets to the heart of why persons, groups, institutions, and systems fall short of God’s standard. We fail to see who we truly are and what God has truly done for us in Christ. And so, sin deceives us into believing that our needs can be met outside of God.

Metaphors for Sin

  • Obstacle. Sin obstructs a truly good and beautiful life. It’s like a blockade that prevents us from entering the kingdom of God; or like large hurdles we have to jump to move forward. Sin is like a bear on our back which slows us down to a crawl.

Let us rid ourselves of everything that gets in the way, and of the sin which holds on to us so tightly, and let us run with determination the race that lies before us. (Hebrews 12:1, GNT)

  • Addiction. The word “sin” is an attempt to meet a legitimate need in an illegitimate way. Sin is an energy which we become fixated on in order to meet our needs for love and acceptance. If unchecked, the sinful method for meeting the need becomes the need itself.

We are tempted by our own desires that drag us off and trap us. Our desires make us sin, and when sin is finished with us, it leaves us dead. (James 1:14-15, CEV)

“Seek what you are seeking – but don’t seek it where you are seeking it!”

St. Augustine
  • Marketing scam. Sin is misleading. It’s a scam or a branding which looks good but the product is all wrong. Sin is a deception, and it leads us to deceive others in order to make ourselves look better than we really are.

When you give to the poor, don’t blow a loud horn. That’s what show-offs do in the synagogues and on the street corners because they are always looking for praise. I can assure you that they already have their reward. (Matthew 6:2, CEV)

Overcoming Sin

Victory over sin and the dark force of this world comes through faith. Believe that you have been set free from sin.

For everyone born of God overcomes the world. This is the victory that has overcome the world, even our faith. Who is it that overcomes the world? Only the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God. (1 John 5:4-5, NIV)

We need our ultimate faith to rest in God, and not in anyone or anything else. The Scripture says:

Trust in the Lord with all your heart,
    and do not rely on your own insight.
In all your ways acknowledge him,
    and he will make straight your paths. (Proverbs 3:5-6, NRSV)

Eternal God, in whom we live and move and have our being, whose face is hidden from us by our sins, and whose mercy we forget in the blindness of our hearts: cleanse us from all our offenses, and deliver us from proud thoughts and vain desires, that with reverent and humble hearts we may draw near to you, confessing our faults, confiding in your grace, and finding in you our refuge and strength; through Jesus Christ your Son. Amen.

A Person’s a Person, No Matter How Small (Luke 17:1-4)

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

Jesus said to his disciples:

There will always be something that causes people to sin. But anyone who causes them to sin is in for trouble. A person who causes even one of my little followers to sin would be better off thrown into the ocean with a heavy stone tied around their neck. So be careful what you do.

Correct any followers of mine who sin, and forgive the ones who say they are sorry. Even if one of them mistreats you seven times in one day and says, “I am sorry,” you should still forgive that person. (Contemporary English Version)

In the children’s book by Dr. Seuss, Horton Hears a Who! Horton the elephant famously said, “A person’s a person no matter how small.” All the people around Horton were completely unconcerned for the residents of Who Ville living on a clover.

They were uninterested because the Who’s were invisible to them. Dr. Seuss chose to make Horton an elephant, a large creature able to hear with big ears and be attentive to the small.

Bigness and a large heart comes from becoming small and noticing little ones.

“Little ones” are people no one sees or notices. But Jesus sees them. They matter to him. And so they ought to matter to us, too. People need to be seen and heard by us – because they are visible to Jesus, and heard by him.

Christ often mingled with little people – children, women who had no rights, social misfits like lepers, the chronically ill, religious outsiders, tax collectors, and prostitutes. Our world is filled with similar people – angry adolescents, unwanted babies, forgotten old people, the mentally ill, moral failures, immigrants and refugees, and, if we have eyes to see and big ears to hear, lots of underprivileged people who reside on the dark underbelly of society.

They are around us, even if they are invisible to us.

Jesus envisioned a community that sees, honors, and protects little people. Truth be told, we are all little people before God, and the Lord notices us. So, we are to have enough humility to see the little people around us.

The way to become great in the kingdom of God is to descend, not ascend, into greatness. The chief enemy of any community is a desire to be prominent, to be the Big Cheese – it’s called “pride” and it will separate us from God if we hold onto it. Which is why we must do all we can to radically cut it out of our lives.

We are to welcome people – not because they are great, wise, rich, powerful, good-looking, and look like you and me. Rather, we are to welcome others because they are noticed by Jesus. Like Horton the elephant, Christ the Lord hears the cry from the place of smallness and is determined to do something about it.

The proud person who seeks prominence is always looking for greener pastures and impressing others. The proud connect with people who will help advance them up the ladder of success. Through that process of advancement, the proud do not care who they step on along the way.

Christians, however, are to give the small, insignificant people of society the time of day, treat them as important, and advocate for their needs. 

The Apostle Peter learned the hard way about paying attention to those different from himself. He experientially learned the saying, “love covers over a multitude of sins.” (1 Peter 4:9) This means that basic love for another prevents them from committing the sins they would have if they were unloved.

If we do not love, it would be better for us to be killed in a tragic millstone death. Jesus does not want people acting like leeches, just sucking the life out of others to get what they want.

So, what do we do about it? How shall we then live?

A person’s a person no matter how small. We need humility, to lower our sights and our bodies to see little people. We can truly see a two-year-old toddler whenever we lower ourselves to view them as equal and important. The way to see another requires slowing down, observing, and stooping or sitting to look them in the eye and give them the dignity of attention they deserve.

The danger of reading a post like this is the thought that all this stuff is really for someone else. After all, I don’t want to hurt anyone or see anybody deprived, right? Yet, the fact remains that we do no one any good when we neglect getting on the floor.

When we assume blessing for ourselves without the intent of giving it to others, we have come under the judgment of Christ. Perhaps we fear forgiveness – either accepting an apology from another or offering one to someone we have wronged. Out of sight, out of mind, is the approach of the one who causes others to stumble and make them fall.

Christ’s admonition is to watch ourselves, to be vigilant of both overt and covert sins against the unseen and forgotten amongst us. The pyramid below concerning racism is just one example of many other forms of causing others to stumble and fall:

Even though I write this warning, dear friends, I am confident of better things in your case—the things that have to do with salvation, deliverance, and liberation for all persons.God is not unjust; he will not forget your work and the love you have shown him as you have helped others and continue to help them.

Continue to show this same diligence so that what you hope for may be fully realized; and, imitate those who through faith and patience are doing good work. May the Lord be with you.

For those deprived of their human needs and their human rights: Just God, may they may be given the dignity by others which you confer on all his people.

For all who are forgotten and unseen, especially the poor, the sick, and the aged: All-seeing God, may you move us to love them as the image of Christ.

For all who are lonely or afraid, for teenagers on the street, the elderly in nursing homes, prisoners with no one to visit them, and all whom the world has forgotten: Lord Christ, may you lead us to them.

For those who suffer mental illness or disorder: Attentive God, may we cherish the gifts you have given them, and in their lives hear the voice of your love.

For each human life: Creator God, may we value every person as you do.
We pray in the name of Jesus Christ, our Savior. Amen.

It’s All About Faith, Grace, and Love (Galatians 5:7-12)

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

You were running superbly! Who cut in on you, deflecting you from the true course of obedience? This detour doesn’t come from the One who called you into the race in the first place. And please don’t toss this off as insignificant. It only takes a minute amount of yeast, you know, to permeate an entire loaf of bread. Deep down, the Master has given me confidence that you will not defect. But the one who is upsetting you, whoever he is, will bear the divine judgment.

As for the rumor that I continue to preach the ways of circumcision (as I did in those pre-Damascus Road days), that is absurd. Why would I still be persecuted, then? If I were preaching that old message, no one would be offended if I mentioned the Cross now and then—it would be so watered-down it wouldn’t matter one way or the other. Why don’t these agitators, obsessive as they are about circumcision, go all the way and castrate themselves! (The Message)

It’s a beautiful thing when someone comes to faith, connects with their spiritual self, and discovers a deep truth about their need and how to meet it. It’s like starting a whole new life of wonder and freedom.

But then, someone else comes along and questions the life-giving and life-improving project. And, in their estimation, grace needs a bit of help, and love isn’t quite enough. This someone throws doubt on the nature of faith. Then, like a naïve computer user caught in a phishing email scam, they’re caught in a worldwide web of deceit, half-truths, and false teaching.

The Apostle Paul was both sad about and frustrated with the Galatian Church for giving into the scam without even having the spiritual sense to know that they had been duped.

I have found throughout my Christian life that folks with a past in which they did not live by grace, but only looked out for themselves, have a temptation to embrace strict rules from legalistic teachers after they come to faith in Christ. They know what it feels like to not have Jesus in their lives, so they sometimes go beyond Scripture and become open to imposing standards on themselves, and then others, in order to keep on the straight and narrow.

If, and when, that happens, the Apostle Paul has something to say about it. Embracing certain practices to obtain or maintain a right standing with God and others means absolutely nothing. There’s no spiritual value in it. And, in fact, it’s even destructive.

For the Galatian Church who bought the snake oil of strict outward rule-keeping, Paul had strict words. Here is how one version of the New Testament puts it:

“You people who are trying to be made righteous by the Law have been estranged from Christ. You have fallen away from grace! We eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness through the Spirit by faith. Being circumcised or not being circumcised doesn’t matter in Christ Jesus, but faith working through love does matter.” (Galatians 5:4-6, CEB)

Any Christian tradition or individual believer which ignores God’s grace in favor of controlling one’s own faith through certain rules is no Christianity, at all. Paul will have nothing to do with it.

The Apostle’s position was clear and pointed. We are called to freedom, and we are to use that freedom to serve others through love. Freedom is not something where we do whatever we want without regard to others. That is selfishness, not freedom.

Freedom is a gift of grace. It is given to us so that we will live freely into who we are meant to be as humanity. That means there are to be no obstacles of extra-biblical or unbiblical rules impeding us in realizing our full potential as Christians saved by grace through faith.

The possibilities of grace through faith include full unhindered expressions of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control for the benefit of ourselves and the entire community of the redeemed.

Grace is the currency of God’s kingdom, flowing freely through love. God has your back – not because you have a superior form of righteousness – but because grace has already given us everything we need for life and godliness in this present evil age. (2 Peter 1:3-4)

God’s amazing grace forgives, and never runs out. God’s love endures and never withdraws. When we grab hold of this essential and beautiful truth about God with spiritual gusto, then the only rule we want to keep is to love one another.

Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for whoever loves others has fulfilled the law.

Romans 13:8, NIV

Outward displays of righteousness and piety for all to see how spiritual we are is like a dog returning to it’s vomit. Once we get the bad stuff out of our spiritual stomach, it makes no sense whatsoever to turn around and gobble it up again. If grace is what’s needed for deliverance, then grace is good enough to sustain us throughout the entirety of the Christian life.

For when we are in union with Christ Jesus, neither circumcision nor the lack of it makes any difference at all; what matters is faith that works through love. (Galatians 5:6, GNT)

Are there any practices, rules, beliefs, or doctrines you impose on yourself which are burdensome to you, or others?  Why do you do them?  Do you expect others to keep them?  What would change if you threw grace and love into the mix?

May the grace of the Lord Jesus, the love of God the Father, and the encouragement of the Holy Spirit be with you, now and forever. Amen.

How Long, O Lord? (Psalm 13)

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Christian Spirituality Blog, Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year ALeave a comment
No Immediate Relief, by Melani Pyke

How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever?
    How long will you hide your face from me?
How long must I bear pain in my soul
    and have sorrow in my heart all day long?
How long shall my enemy be exalted over me?

Consider and answer me, O Lord my God!
    Give light to my eyes, or I will sleep the sleep of death,
and my enemy will say, “I have prevailed”;
    my foes will rejoice because I am shaken.

But I trusted in your steadfast love;
    my heart shall rejoice in your salvation.
I will sing to the Lord
    because he has dealt bountifully with me. (New Revised Standard Version)

Faith is more than the mind’s affirmation of theological beliefs. Faith is also visceral, an expression from deep in the gut about what is going on around us. For faith to be truly faith, it needs to hold the whole person, not merely the brain.

Today’s psalm is the reaction of a person of faith to God when the world as they knew it was crumbling and broken. This is a psalm of lament which moves and deepens the faith of the worshiper. When the world around us changes and all seems horribly awry, we understandably become disoriented – we lose our normal bearings and feel confused and lost.

One of the simplest observations we can make about this psalm, along with all psalms of lament, is that, whether the content is ethically pure or not, the words of the psalmist directed toward God reflect the pain and agony of people in the middle of world-shattering circumstances.

In such dire situations, there are no simplistic answers or easy diagnoses of problems. Complicated layers of grief exist, and mere cerebral responses will always fall short of adequately being in the present moment, sitting with emotions, and getting in touch with the gut.

I am leery of folks who quickly affirm trust in God when a terrible event has just occurred. Bypassing the gut and the heart cannot bring a whole person response to that event and will inevitably result in a cheap faith which cannot support the immensity of the situation.

Even worse, it leads to a bootstrap theology where people are expected to pull themselves up in a free-willpower way that is impossible to achieve. Sometimes failure of faith comes not because of a person’s weakness, but because the faith being espoused is not faith, at all.

Biblical faith expresses weakness, need, help, curiosity, and doubt with a healthy dose of emotional flavor and visceral reaction.

If we had just one psalm of lament as an example, that would be enough. Yet, in fact, we have dozens of them, with more sprinkled throughout the entirety of Holy Scripture. We even have a book of the Bible given completely to lamenting a loss, Lamentations, which is a deep reflection of the prophet Jeremiah’s grief.

So, let us now be honest with ourselves and each other. All of us, at one time or another, have given a cry of “How long, O Lord!”

There are times when our prayers seem unheard and unnoticed, as if they only bounce off the ceiling and fall flat. There are hard circumstances which continue to move along unabated with evil seeming to mock us. We long for divine intervention, we long for deliverance, we long for healing – and when it does not come our disappointment and frustration boils over into an unmitigated cry of wondering where God is in all the thick crud.

Whenever a person and/or a group of people are traumatized, not once but over-and-over again, how can we not cry aloud, “How long, O Lord!?”

When despair settles in the spirit, disappointment seeps in the soul, and depression becomes our daily bread, how can we not muster up the voice that yells, “How long, O Lord!?”

Wherever powerful people cause the lives of others to be downtrodden and despised, how can we not scream, “How long, O Lord!?”

When the covert actions of others demean and denigrate, leaving us with private pain which no one sees, how can we not bring forth the words, “How long, O Lord!?”

If you have never uttered this kind of wondering about God, then perhaps a profound disconnect with your own spirit exists. A full-orbed faith names the awful events and situations and sits with the feelings surrounding those events with God.

Psalm 13 is important because it gives us words when the bottom falls out of our lives and everything is upside-down.

This psalm helps us admit that life is not as well-ordered as a simple Sunday School faith may pretend. The psalm acknowledges that life is terribly messy, and the psalmist protests to heaven that this quagmire of injustice is plain unfair. What’s more, this psalm helps move the sufferer to a new place.

God is big enough to handle everything we throw at him — our pain, our anger, our questions, our doubts. Genuine biblical faith is comfortable challenging God. And God is there, listening, even if we cannot perceive it. Just because we might need to endure adversity does not mean there is something wrong with us, or God.

We likely will not get an answer to our “how long?” We will get something else: mercy. Mercy is compassion shown to another when it is within one’s power to punish. If we widen our horizon a bit, we will observe a God who cares:

“The Lord isn’t slow to keep his promise, as some think of slowness, but he is patient toward you, not wanting anyone to perish but all to change their hearts and lives.” (2 Peter 3:9, CEB)

The only thing better than the joy of personal salvation is the joy of many people’s deliverance and collective emancipation. Patience, perseverance, and endurance through hardship will require expressions of faith with words of affirmation along with words of agony. And the psalms help us with both.

Lord God Almighty, I pray for the forgotten and the unseen – the stranger, the outcast, the poor and homeless – may they be remembered and seen by you.

Merciful God, I pray for those who struggle with mental illness, anxiety, depression, and suicidal ideation – may there be resources to help, enough staff employed, and finances given, toward mental health services. May there be basic human kindness available for the hurting.

Compassionate God, I pray for those who wrestle with sorrow – may they know your comfort within the dark thoughts which currently seem to triumph.

Attentive Lord, I pray for the crestfallen and the ones considered fallen by those around them – may they receive your restoration and reconciling grace. Protect them from judgment and shield them with your mercy.

Lord of all creation, I trust in your steadfast love and rely upon your infinite grace. May our tears turn to songs of joy, to the glory of Jesus Christ. Amen.