Category: Year C

Hebrews 12:3-17

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year CLeave a comment
            “So keep your mind on Jesus, who put up with many insults from sinners.  Then you won’t get discouraged and give up.”  The Hebrew Christians were in danger of losing their resolve and reneging on their commitment to Christ.  Their circumstances had been so adverse for so long that they just did not have any more fight in them to keep going.  They needed perseverance.
 
            The path to perseverance is through keeping our minds on Jesus.  Sometimes we might forget that Jesus did not have it easy on this earth.  He faced ridicule, insults, hardship, and was not born with a silver spoon in his mouth.  If that was the path for our Lord, then it is silly to think that, as Christ’s followers, we should avoid suffering and hardship. 
 
            Giving up happens when our minds are off Jesus.  Today we would say, “Get your head in the game!”  Regular Bible reading and persistence in prayer to God are not just nice ideas if we have time for them.  If we are going to maintain a commitment to Christianity, then these become must disciplines in our lives over all other disciplines we do on a daily basis.  Feelings of giving-up ought to clue us to the reality that it is time to retreat with God. 
 

 

            Jesus, you are the Suffering Servant who has gone before us and secured deliverance from sin, death, and hell.  In the scope of eternity, it is a small thing for me to live for you and face any kind of ridicule it might bring to me.  I only ask to be in solidarity with you in all things.  Amen.

Acts 7:44-53

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year CLeave a comment
            We are in the dog days of summer, just before school starting everywhere.  It is a good time to remind ourselves of where we are in the Christian Year, because this season also has its dog days in which we lose sight of what is important.  We have come through Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, Lent, and Easter, as well as Pentecost.  With the giving of the Spirit, we have entered Ordinary Time.  A healthy way of remembering this period in time is that, in this longest season of the Church Calendar, it is the ordinary vocation of every single Christian to grow in Christ and share the good news of Jesus with the world.
 
            But we forget.  We take our eyes off our calling.  Like the ancient Israelites for whom Stephen railed against in our New Testament lesson for today, we get stubborn and hard-headed.  We get lost in doing things our own way to the neglect of actually seeing what God wants.  And we end up doing damage to God’s people, God’s name, and God’s law.  We verbally decapitate God’s prophets who are calling us to holiness, and resist the Lord’s servants who are only trying to serve him.
 
            But we will only find ourselves fighting against God.  Every time we think we have piously figured things out, we will only discover that God is so much bigger than our puny thoughts and misguided practices.  What to do?  Let go of your illusion of power and privilege and submit afresh to the Lord for whom we must bow in all things.  If you can do that, then you are well on your way to seeing the only true God.
 

 

            Holy God, heaven is your throne and the earth your footstool.  You cannot be kept within any one church or any single place.  You are much too big for that!  Forgive me for my small thoughts of you.  I humble myself to you so that you can live in and through me for the sake of Jesus.  Amen.

1 John 4:1-6

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year CLeave a comment
            The Apostle John gave some spiritually sage advice to a group of his disciples who were being influenced by false believers:  “Dear friends, don’t believe everyone who claims to have the Spirit of God.  Test them all to find out if they really do come from God.”  Lots of people make claims, but the real muster of a Christian is in embracing an embodied spirituality that truly meets the holistic needs of others.
 
            For John, there was no room for the Platonic Greek dualism of body and spirit.  Jesus was a real man with a very real body.  To deny this was to deny the faith.  Ethereal musings about the insignificance of the body were flatly rejected by John.  The apostle was concerned that the supreme Christian ethic of love be practiced through attention to both body and soul.  This means words are not enough; actual demonstrations of love are needed in order to communicate Christ to others.
 
            I’ll be the first guy to insist on some deep theological reflection on the great spiritual, cultural, and social issues of our day.  But if it does not lead to the end of some very real tangible acts of love based on that reflection, then we have not yet been called God’s friend.  Correct doctrine will always lead to loving actions of faith.  We are to glorify God with both speech and service, and never just one without the other.
 

 

            Loving God, since you cared for us by sending your Son, the Lord Jesus, to this earth as a real human being, so let my very real body and soul glorify you with words and ways of love through the power of your Holy Spirit.  Amen.

Psalm 80:1-2, 8-19

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year CLeave a comment
            Of the 250,000 Protestant churches in America, 200,000 are either stagnant (with no growth) or declining. That is 80% of the churches in America and maybe the one you attend, if you attend at all.  4,000 churches close their doors every single year.  There is less than half of the number of churches today than there were only 100 years ago.  3,500 people leave the church every single day.
 
            These sobering statistics make today’s psalm even more prescient.  Although the psalm speaks of Israel, likened as a vine which is withering away, it sounds like the cry of many American churches.  They scratch their heads wondering why in the world they are dying.  They are perplexed by the precipitous decline of their congregations.  Like Israel, they keep looking to outside forces as the reason for their loss of members instead of looking inward to their own lack of fruitfulness. 
 
            At least the psalmist cries out to God:  “God All Powerful, please do something!… make us strong again!  Smile on us and save us!”  Far too many churches do not even think to cry out to God, but have bought into the magical thinking that some tweak of the worship service, some program alteration, or maybe a new pastor will solve their woes.  But God is not looking for superficial changes; He is looking for wholehearted repentance.  Until we begin with our own hearts within our own congregations, our lamentations will fall flat before the Lord.  Revival starts with you and me.
 

 

            Mighty God, you planted thousands of churches throughout this country and the world in order to bear fruit and produce abundance.  Yet, we are withering before you because of our own stubbornness and blindness.  Search my heart and know me, O Lord; see if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting for the sake of Jesus, my Savior.  Amen.