Tag: sin

Listen! (Psalm 81)

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

Shout for joy to God our defender;
    sing praise to the God of Jacob!
Start the music and beat the tambourines;
    play pleasant music on the harps and the lyres.
Blow the trumpet for the festival,
    when the moon is new and when the moon is full.
This is the law in Israel,
    an order from the God of Jacob.
He gave it to the people of Israel
    when he attacked the land of Egypt.

I hear an unknown voice saying,
“I took the burdens off your backs;
    I let you put down your loads of bricks.
When you were in trouble, you called to me, and I saved you.
    From my hiding place in the storm, I answered you.
    I put you to the test at the springs of Meribah.
Listen, my people, to my warning;
    Israel, how I wish you would listen to me!
You must never worship another god.
I am the Lord your God,
    who brought you out of Egypt.
Open your mouth, and I will feed you.

“But my people would not listen to me;
    Israel would not obey me.
So I let them go their stubborn ways
    and do whatever they wanted.
How I wish my people would listen to me;
    how I wish they would obey me!
I would quickly defeat their enemies
    and conquer all their foes.
Those who hate me would bow in fear before me;
    their punishment would last forever.
But I would feed you with the finest wheat
    and satisfy you with wild honey.” (Good News Translation)

I have a wife and three daughters. They talk – a lot! When my girls were small, it was hard to get their attention long enough for them to hear anything I was saying. So I oftentimes cupped my hands to their little faces so they couldn’t look around and get distracted. Then, I would speak, with them looking me straight in the eye.

It’s hard to listen. And listening seems to be a lost art and a skill we no longer care to develop. Maybe that’s because we’re obsessed with hearing ourselves talk. There’s so much chatter about so many things that we rarely even remember much of what we said; and a lot of those words get uttered before we even think. 

What’s more, when other people talk, most of it seems like a bunch of gibberish, due to our lack of focused attention. Perhaps we need an adult version of the hand-cupping we do with kids.

We really need the wisdom to know when to speak and when to be quiet. Whenever being quiet is required, it’s for the purpose of listening. And whenever words and noise are needed, it’s to praise God with our mouths and our musical instruments.

In this day and age, folks get so worked up to express their opinions, and say what they want to say, that the virtue of listening is not at all valued. However, God puts a premium on taking the stance of listening. 

The more you talk, the more likely you are to sin. If you are wise, you will keep quiet. (Proverbs 10:19, GNT)

Another reason listening is not well-practiced is that we esteem being busy and constant activity, to such a degree, that taking the time for silence long enough to listen is not of value to us. But if God’s people are going to hear the voice of the Lord, we must be still and silent, long enough to listen to what’s being said to us.

And yet another reason we eschew listening is that we are uncomfortable with silence, and seek to fill any quiet space with noise so as to not have to deal with what is really going on inside of us. Since God often speaks within the stillness and quietness of things, we’ll never hear, because our inner dialogue is drowning the words we need to listen to. (1 Kings 19:11-12)

I have a friend (I’ll call him Elmer) who spent eighteen hours in complete silence, without any talking whatsoever, in order to listen to God. You might think that Elmer is a monkish sort of introvert who likes that sort of thing. However, he’s actually an extrovert who lives in the inner city and comes from a large family. 

Elmer simply came to the point of understanding that he was so busy moving from one thing to another, and constantly talking, to the point that he was drowning-out the voice of the Lord. Here’s what Elmer said about his time of silence: 

“Those eighteen hours of silence were the loudest hours I have ever experienced. My mind was so noisy and so filled with stuff that it nearly drove me nuts. But after many hours passed, as the noise started to fade away, I could begin to hear the still small voice of God.” 

Elmer discovered that he was a person who kept pushing and projecting his agenda onto God. His lack of listening led to an inability to obey. After Elmer’s experience, he determined to start including times of solitude and silence into his everyday life, even if for only ten minutes, so he could listen to what God wants rather than tell God what to do.

The Lord came and stood there, and called as he had before, “Samuel! Samuel!” Samuel answered, “Speak; your servant is listening.” (1 Samuel 3:10, GNT)

Any fool can babble on about their gripes and opinions. In Holy Scripture, however, human speech is generally viewed as being overrated. Instead, silence and solitude, listening and learning, are the virtues practiced by Jesus; the kingdom of God cannot operate without them.

Therefore, we must take up the shield of faith with which to extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one who wants to keep us trapped in either a cycle of constant chatter without listening, or continual silence without acting upon what we hear from God. 

We must be quiet for the purpose of listening to God. Then, when we hear the Lord speak, we must act in faith to say and do what we are called to.

God of silence and of all sound, help me to listen! Enable me to be patient and wait for your still small voice calling me. Give me attentive ears that can separate the noise from the sounds that are you. Today help me to hear you anew so that I may obey with wisdom and obedience. Amen.

Learn to Live Well (Micah 7:18-20)

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Christian Spirituality Blog, Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year ALeave a comment
The Prophet Micah exhorting the Israelites to repent by Gustave Doré (1832-1883)

Who is a God like you, pardoning iniquity
    and passing over the transgression
    of the remnant of his possession?
He does not retain his anger forever
    because he delights in showing steadfast love.
He will again have compassion upon us;
    he will tread our iniquities under foot.
You will cast all our sins
    into the depths of the sea.
You will show faithfulness to Jacob
    and steadfast love to Abraham,
as you have sworn to our ancestors
    from the days of old. (New Revised Standard Version)

In a world obsessed with constant and rapid change, it is refreshing to know that there is a God whose essential character, attributes, and way of being in the world never changes.

The Lord is a God who is faithful, always keeping divine promises to people. God is pleased to show steadfast love and kindness through extending forgiveness. And because the Lord values pardoning human transgressions, God always looks sin square in the eye – not ever sugarcoating iniquities – and puts it down like a rabid animal.

In the prophet Micah’s day, the social and communal sins of the people were legion, leading to a great deal of injustice. Wealthy landowners creatively and unjustly seized property in order to feed their continual greed for more; false prophets went about preaching a positive future of peace, even though the poor became poorer through no fault of their own; and the nation’s leaders abused their power by fleecing the people of what little they had to begin with.

In short, dishonest business practices, dressed up by leadership as the path to prosperity, stirred up the just and right indignation of God. An assurance of pardon comes, yet only after there is confession of sin.

In this present contemporary era, we have our own legion of social sins which must be identified, confronted, confessed, expiated, and replaced with virtues that foster life and happiness.

Today’s way of doing business – whether in the corporate world and even in many faith communities – is to embrace an unholy ethic of more, faster, and better.

“Wait,” you may push back, “that doesn’t sound to me like anything bad.” And I would respond by saying that this is evidence of how far into our sin we have become, that we cannot distinguish our unjust practices from legitimate just practices.

Behind many contemporary business “ethics” are compulsions to beat the competition at all cost, obsessions with more money, and a lust for power and control. These are not practices helping people to live well.

More

In ancient Egypt, Pharaoh’s massive industrial complex was built on more – more pyramids and buildings, more wealth, more power and influence. Behind the “more” is usually old-fashioned greed. We want more market share, more numbers, more options and opportunities, more control.

Yet, what if the people doing the “more” are already tired, weary, and have given what they can? Like the Israelite slaves in Egypt, making more bricks translated to more wealth. And if it takes a literal whip to make them do more, then so be it.

Many modern workers put up with the “more” mantra only because they need their jobs and fear losing them if they don’t keep a ridiculously high level of production. And if anybody complains about it, they immediately get labeled (by the people in power) as not being grateful.

Faster

I once worked a job where a manager would occasionally and literally stand over my shoulder and time me with a stopwatch… sheesh… and I worked another job in which there was a quota for every day; we had to keep pace because production was king.

You don’t need to be in a factory for the clock to be the taskmaster. I don’t know of anyone who is hounded by a boss about time to experience contentment, peace, and rest. Speeding up to meet a quota or deadline only promises to create the necessity for more change, done faster.

None of this makes for a good life; and I would argue that it doesn’t make for good business either. It only produces empty and vacuous people who sacrifice themselves on the altar of work.

We are finite creatures with finite time and resources. We are not inanimate machines without a soul.

Better

One of the manifestations of valuing speed and productivity is also expecting fewer mistakes – because imperfection slows the wheels of progress. This is where people begin to be treated like machines instead of humans. And they become expendable; if they don’t do better, they get replaced with someone else.

Furthermore, this push to do better is often why workers are told to keep their problems at home and not bring them to the job. This has had a terrible impact on individuals, their families, and their relationships.

Forced compartmentalization has the effect of breaking down integrity and creating disparities. People’s very normal struggles cannot be shared with anyone but a professional counselor, therapist, or pastor. Their feelings and emotions become privatized.

Giving someone a list of resources might make management feel better, but it does little to actually help a grieving person who is right under their nose. Depression sets in because the person’s experience and emotions have been implicitly invalidated, leaving them with a sense that they’re meaningless and are a burden on others.

More, faster, and better – continually pumped into society’s bloodstream – is only making the world anxious, depressed, and with no energy to keep being yourself, that is, if you even know who you are anymore after such a pace of work.

What If?

Instead of more, faster, better, what if we…

  1. Embrace an unforced rhythm of life which recognizes the values of slowness, simplicity, and satisfaction?

2. Ask people to be themselves, to live life at a pace that’s doable and enjoyable?

3. Expect workers and people everywhere are to rest and adopt Christ’s easy yoke?

4. Take up the mantle as God’s people to be a counter-cultural movement of relationships which emphasize grace, love, mercy, patience, peace, joy, and spiritual support?

5. Put our energies into the careful construction of souls, instead of draining the spirits of people through unrealistic expectations?

6. Sought to live a simple life, without the need for more?

7. Learn to be satisfied with what we already have?

8. Rid ourselves of financial language to communicate with one another? (e.g. “invest in eternity,” “be an asset, not a liability,” “pay your debt to society,” etc.)

For the Christian, transformation isn’t dependent upon praying more, reading more, giving more, or serving more. Spiritual growth isn’t realized overnight; it takes time, in fact, a lifetime. And change isn’t about trying to be better, since our identity is already firmly in Christ.

My friends, you and I are enough. Transformation of life is the result of becoming open and receiving the grace of God in Christ. If we want forgiveness, we must face the sin of our world in all of its deceit, degradation, and damage.

Let’s not find ourselves on the other end of God’s ire because of unsound practices which dehumanize others. But let us accept and adopt rhythms of life that are consistent with being human and caring for others. That’s what the prophet Micah was looking for.

May it be so, to the glory of God.

The Fall of Humanity (Genesis 2:15-17, 3:1-7)

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

The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. And the Lord God commanded the man, “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die….”

Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?”

The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’”

“You will not certainly die,” the serpent said to the woman. “For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves. (New International Version)

Lent is a 40-day season of preparation and repentance for Christians anticipating Good Friday’s cross of Christ and the victory over sin in Easter’s celebration of Christ’s resurrection. To understand why there is a need for repentance, let’s turn to where disobedience, shame, and guilt first entered the world.

Ever since humanity’s fall into sin, our human nature tends to look at the one thing we can’t do, instead of seeing all the range of possibilities that we can do.  The serpent (the devil) was successful in getting Adam and Eve to focus on that one tree they needed to avoid. In our fallen condition, just tell us what we can’t do and we’ll probably be sure to do it – rather than enjoy all the vast prospects we presently have and can actually do with God. 

What’s more, the devil subtly planted a terrible and untruthful idea in the heads of Adam and Eve – that God was somehow holding out on them and was not providing everything they really needed and wanted in life.

Sin may look attractive, and even initially taste good. Yet, disobedience has an awful aftertaste and damages our insides. Indeed, sin always over-promises and under-delivers.

Perhaps the greatest and deepest effect of sin is the shame of disobedience which causes us to hide from God, one another, and even ourselves. All this hiding causes spiritual blindness. We end up sleepwalking through hell, unaware of our awful spiritual plight. 

Because of this reality, we need deliverance; we need a Savior to intervene and save us from our ignorance and guilt. As mere dust, we need God’s Spirit to breathe new life into us so that we may again enjoy the Lord in Paradise.

Our fallen spiritual condition does not want to acknowledge our need for the sheer grace of God. Sewing some fig leaves together is symbolic of Adam and Eve’s new independence from God; from now on, they’re going to operate on their own.  The introduction of sin into the world causes people to look for ways to cope and deal with life apart from God.

We want to return to Paradise. We don’t want to hurt and struggle and be overburdened anymore. So, we devise all kinds of ideas and ways of doing that. And the Paradise we seek always seems to be “out there” somewhere, just out of our reach. 

In our fallen condition, we are plagued with the “if only” syndrome:

If only I had _____ (fill-in the blank) then I would be happy and be in Paradise.

If only I could meet the right person, then that special someone could meet my needs and complete me.

If only the people in my life were better, then everything would be okay and I could enjoy Paradise.

If only I had more money, a bigger house, another car, more power and influence.

If only other people would stop being jerks, care more, serve more, love more. If only my family would listen to me.

If only I could have my way, then there would surely be a restoration to Paradise.

The point to all the “if only” is that it twists us all up into believing that I’m either unlovable or that everyone else is the problem. If they would just change, then the world would be a better place. Or if only I was better, then I wouldn’t have so many problems.

The truth, however, is that we already have what we are so desperately looking for. And since we are unaware that God is with us, and wants to provide for us, we sew fig leaves together and look love in all the wrong places.

No man or woman is going to complete you because no person can fix what is broken in your heart. If you had your ideal relationship, perfect family, and dream job, you would still be empty. Why? Because you and I need a Savior to deliver us from our sin.

We all need deliverance from our disordered loves and misguided attempts to find Paradise in this life apart from God. The temptation after The Fall is to try and manufacture happiness outside of God through perfect relationships and ideal circumstances. 

What to do? Repent. Turn from the shame and guilt of disobedience and deal with the brokenness in our own lives. And that is what the season of Lent is all about.

Without God there are hidden feelings of mistrust, alienation, conditional love, selfishness, greed, and injustice. But with God there is forgiveness, grace, and unconditional love – the very kind of love that we need.

In this season of Lent, we must repent of our hiding and wishing for everything and everyone else to be different without any cost to myself. 

What do you need to repent of in this season? 

Who are the people that you look to do for you what only God can do? 

Have you forsaken your first love of Jesus Christ? 

How is the state of your relationship with God? Has it been stale, dull, and lacking passion, desire, and energy?  Has distance replaced intimacy between you and God? 

Do you avoid the spiritual disciplines of bible reading and prayer because you believe something else will satisfy the real needs of your heart? 

Are you keeping up appearances and hiding, while on the inside you have doubt, depression, and despair that things will never change? 

The prayers of this season are to be prayers of repentance:

Merciful God, we confess that we have hungered after things which do not satisfy.  We have doubted your ability to provide for us. Forgive our lack of faith. Restore in us such trust and love that we may again walk with you in Paradise. 

Loving God, we admit that we’ve given ground to Satan by believing his deception that we can find ultimate happiness in things other than you. So, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, we resist all of the devil’s strategies to hold us in spiritual blindness and darkness. 

Blessed Holy Spirit, we invite you to bring the fullness of your power to convict us and lead us into faith in Jesus. We humbly ask that you bring all the power of Christ’s crucifixion and resurrection directly against all forces of darkness seeking to destroy us. Set us free from all that blinds us and keeps us in bondage. 

Grant us, O God, the grace to be faithful and persistent in our walk with you.  Amen.

Who’s the Greatest? (Matthew 18:1-7)

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Christian Spirituality Blog, Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year ALeave a comment
Jesus Loves the Children by Sarah Hornsby

At that time the disciples came to Jesus and asked, “Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?”

Then he called a little child over to sit among the disciples, and said, “I assure you that if you don’t turn your lives around and become like this little child, you will definitely not enter the kingdom of heaven. Those who humble themselves like this little child will be the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. Whoever   one such child in my name welcomes me.

“As for whoever causes these little ones who believe in me to trip and fall into sin, it would be better for them to have a huge stone hung around their necks and be drowned in the bottom of the lake. How terrible it is for the world because of the things that cause people to trip and fall into sin! Such things have to happen, but how terrible it is for the person who causes those things to happen! (Common English Bible)

How would you answer the disciples’ question of who is the greatest in God’s kingdom?

Jesus answered the question by essentially stating that the least among us are the greatest. To be little is to be big. The kingdom hinges on being humble, gentle, meek, and lowly.

That definitely isn’t the way Western society looks at greatness – even the Western Church typically devalues the importance of such virtues and spiritual qualities.

In particular, many Americans takes pride in their can-do spirit. They seem always on the lookout for those who are assertive and can get things done efficiently and quickly. The tragedy of this is that, even though intentions may be noble, such a spirit often ends in causing others to stumble over their prideful beliefs of being hardworking and right.

Methinks Jesus and Horton the elephant would get along well together. In Dr. Seuss’s book, Horton Hears a Who, Horton exalted the littlest of persons whom others could neither see nor hear.

“A person’s a person no matter how small” said Horton to the people completely unconcerned for all the residents of Who Ville, living on a clover. They were unconcerned 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. Largeness of heart comes from being attentive to the smallest ones among us – so small that the big people are unaware of them.

People who no one sees or notices, nonetheless matter to Jesus; and so, they should matter to us, too. 

Jesus often mingled with the little people of his time – 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 poor people who reside on the dark underbelly of society. They are around us, even if we fail to see or hear them.

The way to become great in the kingdom of God is to descend, not ascend, into greatness. The main enemy of any community is a desire to be prominent – it’s called “pride” and it will give us a terrible end if we hold onto it.

The disciples’ question is dripping with a desire for position and prestige. It’s a question meant to posture themselves into prominence and power. They want to know how to climb the ladder in God’s kingdom and be the important people.

I admire Christ’s grace for not throwing up his hands and going off on these guys: “What!? You’ve been with me how long and you ask me a stupid question like that?  Where have you been?  Have you learned nothing from me?” 

But instead, Jesus calmly called a child to him and used them as an example of his answer: Unless you become like this little child you will have no future at all with God. The way to have what you want is through humility.

In Jesus’ day children had no status or rights. Ancient culture was not kid oriented and there was no such thing as a youth culture. Children were, for the most part, viewed as potential adults – weak, small, and unable to contribute much of anything until they grew up. 

Christ’s disciples are to become like children, to become lowly; they are to give up their status and a desire to be important. They can only be big if they become small.

There’s another thing about the smallness of children that we ought to notice: Kids see what adults don’t. Whereas adults make distinctions between people on the basis of race, class, ethnicity, and gender, children see children and will play with just about anyone.

Only by getting on the same level as little people can we ever welcome Jesus; a person who is attentive to the lowly is attentive to Jesus. 

We are not to welcome people because they are great, wise, rich, powerful, good-looking, and just like you and me – but because they are noticed by Jesus. Christ stands for those we may tend to overlook.

The proud person who seeks prominence is forever looking for greener pastures, to do things that will impress others and help them advance up the ladder of success. In such a frame of mind, the proud person pays no attention to who they step on along the way. 

Christians, however, are to be different – giving socially insignificant people the time of day and treating them as important – because they are important to Jesus.

Here’s how Christ’s argument unfolds to the disciples:

  • Humility. Those who become like little children enter God’s kingdom, because it is only accessed through humility.
  • Attention. Those who pay attention and receive these little ones receive Jesus.
  • Rejection. Those who reject these little ones reject Jesus, and by their lack of loving them cause them to sin. 
  • Consequences. Leeching the poor and needy, ignoring the insignificant around us, and devaluing the littlest ones is damnable behavior, according to Jesus.

A person’s a person no matter how small. 

We need humility, to lower our sights in order to see and hear little people. No one is to be overlooked or to fall through the cracks under Christ’s rule and reign.

Loving Lord Jesus, you gave honor to the least, the forgotten, the overlooked, and the misunderstood and misjudged. You came to give first place to the last, those left behind and undervalued. You seek to provide a warm welcome to the lost, to the abandoned and the destitute.

Help us to be your ears to listen to their cries; your voice to speak love and acceptance; your feet to walk beside those in need; and your hands to clothe, feed and shelter them. Lord, in your mercy, hear our prayer. Amen.