Tag: grace

Pastoral Care (Ezekiel 34:17-23)

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

“Now then, my flock, I, the Sovereign Lord, tell you that I will judge each of you and separate the good from the bad, the sheep from the goats. Some of you are not satisfied with eating the best grass; you even trample down what you don’t eat! You drink the clear water and muddy what you don’t drink! My other sheep have to eat the grass you trample down and drink the water you muddy.

“So now, I, the Sovereign Lord, tell you that I will judge between you strong sheep and the weak sheep. You pushed the sick ones aside and butted them away from the flock. But I will rescue my sheep and not let them be mistreated any more. I will judge each of my sheep and separate the good from the bad. I will give them a king like my servant David to be their one shepherd, and he will take care of them. (Good News Translation)

“Only through love can we obtain communion with God.”

Albert Schweitzer

I have a zero tolerance for bullying. And, I believe, this is a conviction which must be shared together with everyone. If not, we will continue to see spiritual abuse in the news, so-called Christians and churches throwing their weight around, and a world enveloped in the darkness of mean-spirited persons who only care about themselves and getting their way.

It is most necessary that spiritual folk let compassionate pastoral care have its way in the world.

Pastoral care, for me, is rooted in the compassion of Jesus Christ. It is my connection and relationship with this living Savior, Teacher, Healer, and Lord which enables me to extend genuine care to others. 

I believe that it is the grace and mercy of God in Christ through the enablement of the Holy Spirit which brings comfort, hope, and encouragement to people in need. My philosophy of pastoral care addresses three significant factors, in this order:

  1. Being in a safe environment is paramount. Building trust and connection is important. The caring relationship needs confidence so that the pastor can compassionately encourage and help the person to pursue being in a secure place – whether that is a physical moving away or out, or finding a safe and sacred place within one’s own soul from which healing and holistic health can begin. Bullying can be physical, verbal, emotional, mental, or personal in talking abusively to oneself; and it must be stood up to and stopped.
  2. Grieving is necessary. Mourning and lamenting a significant change or loss must occur to learn to thrive and flourish again in a new situation. This requires being open about one’s feelings, communing freely with God, and being vulnerable with a pastor, therapist, church group, or some other secure human connection. It is common to get “stuck” in grief and believe our situation can never change. But it can, so we must not remain there. 
  3. Reconnecting with the world is vital. Bullying and belligerent people can take a lot out of us and from us. Therefore, we need to find joy in the simple pleasures of life again; to reach out and relate to others who have gone through similar experiences; and, to regain ordinary rhythms and routines of life are all crucial to being alive. The compassionate pastor gently assists, encourages, exhorts, and walks with others toward relating well with the world once again.

Recovery is not an event, and not even a process; it is a way of life. 

All of us are vulnerable to the brokenness of this fallen world. We must learn to navigate troubled times with someone who cares, and not by ourselves. 

We all struggle to live out our faith commitments in a complex web of various family, work, social, and neighborhood relationships.

“If I were to wish for anything, I should not wish for wealth and power, but for the passionate sense of the potential, for the eye which, ever young and ardent, sees the possible. Pleasure disappoints, possibility never. And what wine is so sparkling, what so fragrant, what so intoxicating as possibility!”

Søren Kierkegaard

I am passionate about a biblical understanding of living in the world for its betterment and blessing as a pastoral minister. The following is a kind of manifesto of what I feel called to be and to do….

With God as my help, and with the Old and New Testaments of the Bible as my guide for grateful living, I seek with all my heart, soul, mind, and strength:

  • To foster, support, and realize spiritual healing in the world
  • To cultivate the human spirit and do the work of soul-craft deliberately, carefully, and patiently
  • To consult and collaborate with others who share a spiritual vision for blessing the world
  • To engage in spiritual practices which strengthen faith, enlarge a compassionate heart, and expand the soul’s capacity for growth
  • To walk in the way of Jesus through engrafting silence, solitude, fasting, giving, and prayer into regular and habitual rhythms of life
  • To wed integration of learning with an alignment of head, heart, and gut.
  • To embrace suffering and adversity as sacred Teachers of the soul
  • To continually pursue self-awareness and utilize that awareness for the common good of all persons
  • To liberally use the spiritual tools of faith, hope, and love; and, to sharpen those implements with great care
  • To weep with those who weep
  • To keep vigilant presence with the dying
  • To extend mercy, respect, and hospitality to those considered by society as the least, the last, and the lost
  • To eradicate loneliness in all its forms
  • To extend basic human dignity and divine grace to all with mental illness, cognitive disorders, soul-sucking addictions, and suicidal ideation
  • To embody the Beatitudes of Jesus and live by Christ’s Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7)
  • To embrace humble service as demonstrated and taught by Jesus in his Upper Room Discourse (John 13-17)
  • To picture a world without poverty, racism, patriarchy, gender bigotry, verbal and physical violence, religious wars, and emotional immaturity
  • To imagine a future with an abundance of the Fruit of the Spirit, clean water, creativity, beauty, and equity of resources
  • To promote an egalitarian spirit and social justice, especially for those without power and/or privilege in the world
  • To see the image of God in persons very different from me
  • To grieve and lament my unwanted changes and losses
  • To express daily affirmations of faith
  • To exercise gratitude in all circumstances
  • To live in a healthy rhythm of receiving and giving
  • To encourage the telling and listening of stories
  • To champion women everywhere and alleviate all barriers to their voice in the world
  • To reform and keep reforming
  • To choose vulnerability and courage in life and leadership
  • To perpetuate, in both word and deed, the ancient Scriptures and ecumenical Creeds, paying attention to the worldwide church’s contribution to scriptural understanding
  • To use Holy Scripture for the encouragement of others and the strengthening of faith, and not as a weapon to damage others and create divisions
  • To observe the Christian Year and conform to its liturgical rhythms.
  • To die well, with no regrets and with a legacy of faith

Care For the Flock (Ezekiel 34:1-16)

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

The Lord God said:

Ezekiel, son of man, Israel’s leaders are like shepherds taking care of my sheep, the people of Israel. But I want you to condemn these leaders and tell them:

I, the Lord God, say you shepherds of Israel are doomed! You take care of yourselves while ignoring my sheep. You drink their milk and use their wool to make your clothes. Then you butcher the best ones for food. But you don’t take care of the flock! You have never protected the weak ones or healed the sick ones or bandaged those that get hurt. You let them wander off and never look for those that get lost. You are cruel and mean to my sheep. They strayed in every direction, and because there was no shepherd to watch them, they were attacked and eaten by wild animals. So my sheep were scattered across the earth. They roamed on hills and mountains, without anyone even bothering to look for them.

Now listen to what I, the living Lord God, am saying to you shepherds. My sheep have been attacked and eaten by wild animals because you refused to watch them. You never went looking for the lost ones, and you fed yourselves without feeding my sheep. So I, the Lord, will punish you! I will rescue my sheep from you and never let you be their shepherd again or butcher them for food. I, the Lord, have spoken.

The Lord God then said:

I will look for my sheep and take care of them myself, just as a shepherd looks for lost sheep. My sheep have been lost since that dark and miserable day when they were scattered throughout the nations. But I will rescue them and bring them back from the foreign nations where they now live. I will be their shepherd and will let them graze on Israel’s mountains and in the valleys and fertile fields. They will be safe as they feed on grassy meadows and green hills. I promise to take care of them and keep them safe, to look for those that are lost and bring back the ones that wander off, to bandage those that are hurt and protect the ones that are weak. I will also slaughter those that are fat and strong because I always do right. (Contemporary English Version)

We have a pastoral duty to care for one another. Individuals need not have the title of “Pastor” in order to function as pastoral people who seek the welfare of the flock. A part of our responsibility (and privilege) is to know the flock well enough in discerning when there are some lost ones out there. Whenever that happens, we care about them enough to go after them.

If we either ignore the flock, fail to care for it, or seek to fleece them for our own benefit, we will have to contend with a God who has no tolerance for unnecessarily putting the sheep at risk. And we are to be attentive to the ones who have strayed and are lost.

Caring about the lost, enough to go after them, has always been, unfortunately, a scandalous activity for Christians who do it. In the Gospels, the religious leaders had a big problem with how Jesus was spending his time (Luke 15:1-3). From their perspective, Christ was guilty by association. Many of the people Jesus pursued and hung-out with were unsavory characters; there was really no doubt about their bad character. 

But we must come back to why Christ made the decisions he did: Jesus did not come to earth to make already righteous people feel good about being around him; he came to rescue sinners and restore them to God. 

Jesus never wavered from this fundamental mission. With everything he said and did, Jesus, the Good Shepherd, communicated that lost people matter to God – and that practice eventually got him killed.

Early in my Christian life, I adopted a practice, on most Friday nights, of going to a certain bar known for its less than virtuous clientele. I typically ordered a bowl of chili gumbo, and simply sat and talked with fellow students. I learned a lot about people – their hopes, fears, and spiritual inclinations. 

I learned even more about God. I saw the terrible brokenness of many people’s hearts, and saw that the heart of God was pained in longing to restore such persons to a place of spiritual abundance, peace, and joy.

One Friday night, in the middle of winter, as I was walking back from the bar with a friend at about midnight, we encountered a guy so drunk that he could not walk straight. He wasn’t wearing any pants, nor did he have a coat. In below freezing temperatures, he was in only a shirt and underwear. 

All the people who passed by him laughed and kept walking. But we stopped. It took several minutes to get some semblance of a story out of him about what happened, where he came from, and where he lived. The poor guy couldn’t remember losing his pants, which had his wallet and keys. 

He lived far enough away that there was no way he would have ever made it home. It’s quite probable that without someone helping him he would have passed out somewhere and died. We got him home, found a way to get into his place, and tucked him in his bed.

The next day I went and checked on him. Even though he had a bad hangover, we still had a good conversation about what happened and why I helped him. We ended up meeting several times together and talked a great deal about God, guilt, grace, Jesus, and salvation. 

Meanwhile, however, not everyone was happy about my practice. Some of the people in my church were not pleased with me spending time in a bar with “sinners.” They told me things like, “Bad company corrupts good character” and “it doesn’t look good.” I merely matter-of-factly responded, “I like the way I’m reaching out to lost people better than the way you’re not.”

We are in danger of becoming encrusted with so much insulation from lost people, and their very real hurts, that we do not know God’s heart for them. 

Jesus, better than any of us could ever imagine, knows how awful and horrific sin really is. That’s because he suffered by taking on the shameful baggage of every person who ever lived. Since Jesus understands how awful guilt and shame is, it’s God who goes uncorked with joy and celebration when just one lost sheep is restored to the flock.

Grace lies at the center of God’s heart – a scandalous grace that defies all earthly sense. God’s deepest desire, greatest yearning, and most passionate dream is that lost people return home. (Luke 15:11-32) 

In light of the reality that God’s heart burns for lost people, we as churches, faith communities, Christian ministries, and believers everywhere really need to: 

  • Put away all petty concerns and realize there are lost people, far from the flock, at risk and dying apart from God
  • Put all worries about the future in biblical perspective – because there are people with no hope and no God all around us
  • Put aside all pre-occupations with optics and marketing, numbers and money; and instead have a holy obsession with people knowing Jesus Christ, and him crucified, risen, and coming again 

We are to make it our aim in this life to pray for, long for, look for, run after, and pursue lost people and restore them to life.

For what does it profit a person to gain the world but lose their life because they was too pre-occupied with everything but caring for the flock? And what does it profit a church to have buildings, budgets, and butts in the pew, but never see a lost soul come to Jesus?

Spiritual Growth (1 Peter 2:1-3)

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

Therefore, rid yourselves of all malice and all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and slander of every kind. Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation, now that you have tasted that the Lord is good. (New International Version)

Spiritual growth is of vital importance.

God made humanity in the divine image and likeness – which means we were created as spiritual persons. We must therefore recognize that the area of our greatest value, potential, fruitfulness, and life fulfillment will be in the realm of the spiritual. 

If we deny our spirituality, whether in thought or in practice, we will inevitably become confused and set ourselves up for failure. That’s because our basic nature is one of being spiritual persons. Our spiritual growth is important; and God has made the provision for us to experience this growth.

For spiritual growth to occur, we will need to do away with everything that prevents that growth from happening. All evil and wickedness, hypocrisy and envy, slander and gossip, must be jettisoned as inconsistent with our spiritual selves and our new birth as believers in Jesus.

Just as babies need milk for growth, Christians need to ingest the apostolic teaching given to them as indispensable to their growth toward salvation. In the words of the psalmist, Christians have found the Lord Jesus as good to the taste.

Taste and see how good the Lord is!
    The one who takes refuge in him is truly happy! (Psalm 34:8, CEB)

Spiritual growth is both a necessity and a command; it’s neither optional nor something to work on if we have some discretionary time. God has made every provision for our spiritual growth; the Lord has not left us alone.

You, therefore, beloved, since you are forewarned, beware that you are not carried away with the error of the lawless and lose your own stability. But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be the glory both now and to the day of eternity. Amen. (2 Peter 3:17-18, NRSV)

Grace refers to all the privileges of being a redeemed person. Knowledge denotes all the benefits of God’s revelation to us. This is our sustenance in order to spiritually grow as Christians.

And we are to crave it with the same kind of intensity that a newly born baby will seek for food. As babies, my girls were barracudas when it came to feeding time. They went at breast-feeding with so much gusto that my poor wife was often left in downright pain afterwards. 

That same kind of desire for feeding must be present with us as believers in Christ’s church. When we obey the command of the Apostle Peter and make it a priority in our life, we will grow.

One of the problems with spiritual growth is that there is a disease-like force operating in our lives – a destructive tendency toward lethargy and passivity toward spiritual things. 

It’s ironic that people who confess Jesus as Lord can be so attentive about trivial things, and yet, at the same time, be so unconcerned about giving focus to feeding on the Word of God. We cannot go on living like this and expect to be successful in the Christian life.

To grow spiritually requires speaking the truth in love, instead of using our words for tearing-down others. Loving exhortation and encouragement causes us to grow up into the people Christ wants us to be. (Ephesians 4:15)

We are to have an aggressive application of the truth, in both speech and action, that impacts our daily faith walk with Jesus. The way we grow spiritually, both personally and corporately, is through practicing the truth of Holy Scripture. Our priorities, goals, and values need to reflect a solid commitment to fulfill scriptural truth in daily life. Have we:

  • Come before God and confessed the things we have done and left undone when it comes to God’s revealed will?
  • Humbled ourselves before one another in the church and asked for prayer?
  • Read the Bible on the subject of spiritual growth and followed its teachings so we can know the joy and love God has for us?
  • Been lethargic and passive about our spiritual selves?

The Holy Spirit has been gifted to us for our spiritual growth so that we might be brought into close fellowship with the Lord Jesus. 

By obeying the Scripture in this area of practicing biblical truth, we will begin to experience spiritual growth and the joy of the Lord. 

However, if we allow ourselves to remain lethargic and apathetic concerning spirituality, we will never become our true selves. We must choose to make a biblical response both to God and to one another when it comes to our personal and collective growth as spiritual persons. 

This is not a matter of personal willpower because spiritual growth is much more than our own effort. We must face our spiritual condition and seek both God’s help and the help of God’s community of the redeemed, the church. 

Only then will spiritual growth become a reality.

Good and blessed God, we keep asking that we may be filled with the knowledge of God’s will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so that we may live worthy lives, fully pleasing to you, as we bear fruit in every good work and grow in the grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus. 

May you make us strong with all the strength that comes from your glorious power, so that we may have endurance and patience, joyfully giving thanks to you who has enabled us to share in the inheritance of the saints in the light, through Christ our Savior, in the power of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

It’s About Love (1 Peter 1:17-23)

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Christian Spirituality Blog, Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year ALeave a comment
Statue of Christ the Redeemer, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Since you call on a Father who judges each person’s work impartially, live out your time as foreigners here in reverent fear. For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your ancestors, but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect. He was chosen before the creation of the world, but was revealed in these last times for your sake. Through him you believe in God, who raised him from the dead and glorified him, and so your faith and hope are in God.

Now that you have purified yourselves by obeying the truth so that you have sincere love for each other, love one another deeply, from the heart. For you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and enduring word of God. (New International Version)

Love makes the world go round. The cycle of life brings an end to all things. Yet, the permanence of love has always existed, and will never cease to exist. (1 Corinthians 13:8-13)

Biblical godly love comes not because we first loved God, but because God first loved us and gave his Son, Jesus Christ, as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. (1 John 4:7-12)

So, the Christian’s faith and hope are completely grounded in the person and finished work of Jesus. People are so valuable to God that we were purchased from the slavery auction block with the costliest price ever: the precious blood of Jesus. 

To know this love of God in Christ, to be thoroughly captured and enraptured by it, results in a profound and deep love for others. And I’m not only referring to a nice touchy-feely love, but also a steadfast love which is committed to love regardless of what another person says or does.

Love is wonderful. But that doesn’t mean it’s easy. Being on the receiving end of love is a beautiful thing. Giving love, however, can sometimes get dicey.

Although we Christians really do believe that everything in life and ministry centers around the grace and love of God in Christ, our boots-on-the-ground loving sometimes seems compromised and conditional. That’s because it’s easy to love those who love us back. Yet, what if our love is not reciprocated or requited?

This situation brings us face-to-face with our own selves. The painful reality is that we all discover that our love is sometimes, maybe oftentimes, dependent on an assurance that we will be loved in return.

Mutual love is a beautiful thing, but what happens when only one of the persons is able to give love?

What do we do when grace is our only option, when we must choose to love, knowing that love won’t have a response?   

Christians are supposed to give the same kind of love that God shows to us in Christ – which means we need to decide that grace is going to be our lifestyle. It comes down to this: It simply doesn’t matter what condition the other person is in. It doesn’t matter what another is going to say, or not say. Nothing on the other party’s side matters. It…just… doesn’t… matter.

What really matters is our own loving another person deeply from the heart, regardless and in spite of everything else. That, my friends, is real Christian love.         

Since we are redeemed people; have acknowledged the truth of Christ’s redemptive events of crucifixion and resurrection; are recipients of God’s great love to us in Jesus; we must choose to live our lives full of grace and love, no matter what. 

As God’s redeemed people, purchased by the precious blood of Christ, our default response to others is to be this: We will love one another unconditionally.

Unfortunately, over time, many Christians slowly become disconnected from this fountain of grace and love. It is likely that, at some past point, they were deeply touched by a gracious encounter with Jesus Christ. They found peace, love, and joy. Minds were swept up in the awe and wonder of God. Hearts were deeply moved for a few hours, days, or weeks. 

But then, there was a return to the routine grind of daily existence. Gradually, the demands of life took over. Jesus began to be treated like an old friend from another town whom we dearly loved in years past, but have just lost track of. 

Of course, it was unintentional. We simply allowed circumstances to drift us apart. We became preoccupied with something else. Now, we find ourselves with a low level of irritation, frustrated with others and unable to love as we ought. We become what the late author Brennan Manning called “Christian agnostics,” that is, people who do not deny Jesus, but just ignore him.

If your days are trivial and/or hectic…

If the clock determines what you do…

If you are numb to the news and headlines around you…

If you are all jangled and jittered by life’s circumstances…

If phones and computers and gadgets rule your day…

If there is little room for responding to humanity humanely…

If you have settled into a comfortable piety and a well-fed virtue…

If you have grown complacent and lead a practical life…

Then you need to be touched again by the grace and love of God in Christ by treating Jesus as if he were your very best friend as well as the awesome Son of God. 

We are all still here walking on this earth because none of our failures and lack of faith have proved terminal; we are here today because of grace and love. 

The forgiveness of God is a liberation from guilt and regret. It is an extreme amnesty. Through looking in the mirror, and seeing personal sinfulness, we amazingly end up encountering the merciful love of the redeeming God. 

The grace of God says to us, “Hush, child, I don’t need to know where you’ve been or what you’ve been up to; just let me love you.” 

When we have experienced that kind of love, we are then finally able to love one another deeply from the heart. It’s a new life of love, the kind that comes from God – an unconditional love that’s permanent and will never go away.

Therefore, as Christians loved by Christ and belonging to God, we make the following affirmations of love:

  • We will love, no matter whether we are loved in return.
  • We will take the initiative to love, not just waiting for others to love first.
  • We will love, even when we are imperfect and feel unworthy to do so.
  • We will give love with the love we received from Jesus.
  • We will love with a gracious, sacrificial, vulnerable, and desperate kind of love. 

Many years ago, I spent some time with someone in a hospital waiting room after her brother had been severely burned in a farm accident. In that place, we were all strangers. Yet, there was a loving vulnerability to our being together. I sat watching and waiting with anguished people, listening to their urgent questions: Will my husband make it? Will my child walk again, even if she survives? How do you live without your companion of thirty years? 

Burn unit and intensive care unit waiting rooms are places. And the people who wait are different. They can’t do enough for each other. No one is rude. The distinctions of race and class melt away. Each person pulls for everyone else. Vanity and pretense vanish. No one is embarrassed about crying or asking tough questions. In that moment their whole world is focused on the doctor’s next report. If only it will show improvement.

Everyone intuitively knows that loving someone else is what life is all about. By God’s amazing grace we will all learn to live like that without having to learn it the hard way in a place of intense anxiety and suffering.

Christ’s resurrection is not some flash-in-a-pan – it has staying power – it is real and permanent. Christ is the Christian’s hope of living a new life of gracious unconditional love. 

Jesus actually expects more failure from you than you expect from yourself. And he gives grace. So, all of our failures to love as we ought can be laid before Jesus because there is grace that covers it all – a deep love that forgives, redeems, and makes new.

God of goodness and grace, we your people are aware of our human frailties and foibles, and yet are overwhelmed by your love for us. We give you praise that there is no human experience we might walk through where your love cannot reach us. If we climb the highest mountain you are there, and if we find ourselves in the darkest valley, you are there. Continually teach us to love you and others, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.