Tag: spiritual growth

Spiritual Dementia (Deuteronomy 30:1-9)

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

Now, once all these things happen to you, the blessing and the curse that I’m setting before you, you must call them to mind as you sit among the various nations where the Lord your God has driven you; and you must return to the Lord your God, obeying his voice, in line with all that I’m commanding you right now—you and your children—with all your mind and with all your being. 

Then the Lord your God will restore you as you were before and will have compassion on you, gathering you up from all the peoples where the Lord your God scattered you. Even if he has driven you to the far end of heaven, the Lord your God will gather you up from there; he will take you back from there. 

The Lord your God will bring you home to the land that your ancestors possessed; you will possess it again. And he will do good things for you and multiply you—making you more numerous even than your ancestors!

Then the Lord your God will circumcise your hearts and the hearts of your descendants so that you love the Lord your God with all your mind and with all your being in order that you may live. 

The Lord your God will put all these curses on your enemies and on those who hate you and chase you. But you will change and obey the Lord’s voice and do all his commandments that I’m commanding you right now. 

The Lord your God will help you succeed in everything you do—in your own fertility, your livestock’s offspring, and your land’s produce—everything will be great! Because the Lord will once again enjoy doing good things for you just as he enjoyed doing them for your ancestors. (Common English Bible)

The mind is a vast, glorious, and (un)explored territory. Although there is much we know about it, there’s even more we don’t know about the human mind.

The mind can be both a blessing and a curse. Anyone with depression, anxiety, or other mental disorders and diseases can tell you that, especially family members who have loved ones with dementia.

Dementia is a general term for a decline in mental ability severe enough to interfere with daily life. Professionally, I visit patients with dementia nearly every day. Personally, I watched my own mother’s faculties slowly erode and decline in the last few years of her life. In her final months, my Mom rarely remembered my name, only knew me once in a while, and never recalled the conversation we had thirty seconds ago. It was difficult to watch, this woman who once cared for me, needing to be cared for.

The biblical book of Deuteronomy is the retelling of Israel’s story as they were about to enter the Promised Land. It’s a book completely dedicated to memory care. If the people were to forget who they are, they would not know what they’re supposed to be doing. The Israelites strayed from the blessings into the curses of God’s covenant life because their collective mind slowly slipped into spiritual dementia.

The mind’s need to remember is not a new issue; it’s endemic to the human condition. The constant refrain of the author of Deuteronomy is to recall and to remember where the people came from, where they are going, and why. 

Moses reiterated the covenant and the law for the people before they entered the land. It was a fresh re-hashing, nothing really new, of what God had already communicated to them. God’s people were to remember that they were once slaves in Egypt and that God had delivered to be a people for his name. They were not to forget that they had provoked the Lord in the desert – with the result of an entire generation of people being lost because they had neglected and forgotten what God told them.

Memory issues continue into the Gospels. Jesus miraculously fed a great crowd of people not once, but twice. The second time, he called his disciples to remember what had happened the first time in order to understand the second. 

In the New Testament Epistles, Paul kept reminding the Jews in the churches that they should remember the ancient covenant, and called the Gentiles to remember that they were once estranged from that very same covenant. Both Jew and Gentile together needed to collectively remember the death of Christ that united them into a new covenant community. Like them, we are to “Remember Jesus Christ, raised from the dead, descended from David.” (2 Timothy 2:8)

Like the ancient Israelites, Christians are to remember who they are and what they are about: blood-bought people of God, belonging to Christ, and given a mission to make disciples and participate with God in the redemption of all creation through remembering the poor, seeking justice, and being peacemakers in the church and the world. 

Think about where you have fallen from, and then turn back and do as you did at first. (Revelation 2:5, CEV)

There’s a difference between the disease of dementia and the church’s spiritual dementia. Folks inflicted with dementia will not recover but only worsen, whereas the church can recover its collective memory by listening again to the ancient Word of God and being constantly refreshed with the promises and covenant of God.

  • Why do you and the church exist? 
  • How do God’s words inform and influence your identity? 
  • Does the mission and practice of your church intentionally remember the risen and ascended Christ? 
  • Are disciples being formed around collective remembering of God’s covenant and promises? 
  • Are ministries, spiritual practices, and policies being established based on Christ and his commission, or on something else? 

Let’s continually work through answers to those questions so that we are not cursed but blessed, and continually built up in the faith.

May the Lord bless you and keep you.
May the Lord show you his kindness
    and have mercy on you.
May the Lord watch over you
    and give you peace. Amen.

Let Go and Give (Isaiah 58:1-12)

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

“Shout it aloud, do not hold back.
    Raise your voice like a trumpet.
Declare to my people their rebellion
    and to the descendants of Jacob their sins.
For day after day they seek me out;
    they seem eager to know my ways,
as if they were a nation that does what is right
    and has not forsaken the commands of its God.
They ask me for just decisions
    and seem eager for God to come near them.
‘Why have we fasted,’ they say,
    ‘and you have not seen it?
Why have we humbled ourselves,
    and you have not noticed?’

“Yet on the day of your fasting, you do as you please
    and exploit all your workers.
Your fasting ends in quarreling and strife,
    and in striking each other with wicked fists.
You cannot fast as you do today
    and expect your voice to be heard on high.
Is this the kind of fast I have chosen,
    only a day for people to humble themselves?
Is it only for bowing one’s head like a reed
    and for lying in sackcloth and ashes?
Is that what you call a fast,
    a day acceptable to the Lord?

“Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen:
to loose the chains of injustice
    and untie the cords of the yoke,
to set the oppressed free
    and break every yoke?
Is it not to share your food with the hungry
    and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter—
when you see the naked, to clothe them,
    and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?
Then your light will break forth like the dawn,
    and your healing will quickly appear;
then your righteousness will go before you,
    and the glory of the Lord will be your rear guard.
Then you will call, and the Lord will answer;
    you will cry for help, and he will say: Here am I.

“If you do away with the yoke of oppression,
    with the pointing finger and malicious talk,
and if you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry
    and satisfy the needs of the oppressed,
then your light will rise in the darkness,
    and your night will become like the noonday.
The Lord will guide you always;
    he will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land
    and will strengthen your frame.
You will be like a well-watered garden,
    like a spring whose waters never fail.
Your people will rebuild the ancient ruins
    and will raise up the age-old foundations;
you will be called Repairer of Broken Walls,
    Restorer of Streets with Dwellings. (New International Version)

Let Go of the Hypocrisy and Get Real

Isaiah’s prophecy came to a community in conflict. The root of the issue was a hypocritical gap between the people’s conduct and their worship. They wondered why God had not noticed their pious fasting – why their actions before the Lord had gone unseen. Isaiah made it clear that their practice of fasting and their rituals of worship were ineffective because it was all self-serving instead of serving others.

Let Go of the Food and Get Generous

True fasting does not abstain from food just to get noticed (by God and/or others) but has the aim of a generous spirit and a giving heart. Both abstinence and generosity are necessary in the practice of fasting. 

Fasting is a much neglected spiritual practice today, so we need to make sense of the reason to do without food for a set amount of time. Fasting ought to put us in touch with our vulnerability; it should remind us of our mortality and our frailties. That’s why fasting is so often associated with the upcoming season of Lent.

Through fasting we remember that if we are not fed, we will die. Standing before God hungry, we realize that we are dependent creatures in desperate need of the Lord. By fasting, we discern that we are poor, and called to be rich in a way the world does not understand.

We are empty, called to be filled with the fullness of God. We are physically hungry, called to taste the goodness that can be ours in Christ, as we get in touch with a hunger for God.

Fasting, however, does not end with abstinence from food; and it is not merely a private individual thing. The spiritual discipline of fasting is meant to open our eyes and our hearts to the truly needy among us and in the world.  We are to be open to both the spiritual needs of people, and their very real material needs.

“When you see people freezing outside in the frigidity of unbelief, without the warmth of faith, impoverished and homeless, lead them home to the church and clothe them with the work of incorruption, so that, wrapped in the mantle of Christ, they will not remain in the grave.”

St. Jerome (347-430, C.E.)

Isaiah also addresses the very real daily tangible needs of people for the basic necessities of life. The message is this: Fasting is to personally abstain from food in order to provide food for another. 

Let Go of the Ego and Get to Praying & Repenting

Just as abstinence from and provision for food are two sides of the same coin, so fasting and prayer are, as well. We are to stop eating in order to take that time to pray and to give. Letting go of a meal puts the food that would have been eaten into the pantry for the needy. Fasting from lunch at our jobs can be done, not just to get more work accomplished, but so that we might share both our food and our friendship with those in need.

The prophecy of Isaiah has intimate connections between worship, fasting, justice, and reconciliation. They are meant to be a seamless whole, indivisible, enjoying a close bond that makes for powerful and effective ministry. All of this enables us to get back in touch with the real meaning of repentance:

  • To repair a broken relationship with God or with another person
  • To grieve over the reality of a certain situation
  • To devote oneself to service
  • To experience new life and spiritual growth

Isaiah wanted people to repent of both their individual sins and their social sins. Truth be told, we must all deal openly and honestly with our own complicity in the sins of our world, our nation, our church, and our families. The worship that God desires is inescapably corporate as well as compellingly personal. To ensure that all people around us flourish as human beings is both an obligation and a necessity to our collective fulfillment as God’s people.

The result of true fasting is a repentance that produces the fruit of renewal and restoration. Fasting connects us to God, and then leads us to repair and rebuild what has been broken and torn down. 

Let Go of Your “Precious” and Get Committed to God and Others

We fast to practice repentance, attach ourselves to God, and become more generous toward others. In the Lord of the Rings movies, Smeagol was much too attached to the power of the ring; it was his “precious,” and he was willing to do anything not to lose it or let it go.

Yet, we must all decide that we are going to let that precious thing go, at least for a time, whatever it may be. Each year at this time, before Ash Wednesday and the season of Lent, I decide in what ways I will practice fasting. In past years, I have abstained from buying certain things or watching TV. This year, however, I am going to do what fasting really is: abstaining from food for a set time. 

For most of the history of the church, Christians were expected to observe regular fasts on Wednesdays and Fridays, every week, year round.  When the season of Lent came, the church was united in their commitment to use the forty days as a time of introspection, confession, and fasting in order to prepare for the miracle of forgiveness on Good Friday and its life-giving power on Easter. It was understood to be a time of confronting sin, purging bad desires, yearning for forgiveness, and developing godly habits of living.   

For me, I think the least I can do is fast two meals a week – one on Wednesday and one on Friday (if not the whole days) to not only be in solidarity with the faithful that have gone before us, but in order to let the season of Lent do what it is intended to do.

I encourage you to consider implementing some sort of regular fast through Lent, if for no other reason, to fulfill the spirit and intent of Isaiah’s message to us so that we all connect deeply with Christ in purposeful Christian living.

Merciful God and Father, we have erred and strayed from your ways like lost sheep. We have followed too much the devices and desires of our own hearts. We have offended against Your holy laws. We have left undone those things which we ought to have done; and we have done those things which we ought not to have done – leaving us bereft of good. O Lord, have mercy upon us and restore us according to your grace, through Jesus Christ our Savior and Lord. Amen.

Spiritual Renewal (Isaiah 30:19-26)

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

People of Zion, who live in Jerusalem, you will weep no more. How gracious he will be when you cry for help! As soon as he hears, he will answer you. Although the Lord gives you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction, your teachers will be hidden no more; with your own eyes you will see them. Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying, “This is the way; walk in it.” Then you will desecrate your idols overlaid with silver and your images covered with gold; you will throw them away like a menstrual cloth and say to them, “Away with you!”

He will also send you rain for the seed you sow in the ground, and the food that comes from the land will be rich and plentiful. In that day your cattle will graze in broad meadows. The oxen and donkeys that work the soil will eat fodder and mash, spread out with fork and shovel. In the day of great slaughter, when the towers fall, streams of water will flow on every high mountain and every lofty hill. The moon will shine like the sun, and the sunlight will be seven times brighter, like the light of seven full days, when the Lord binds up the bruises of his people and heals the wounds he inflicted. (New International Version)

Better days are ahead.

In this time of year, there are many people who simply don’t have to think twice about purchasing and giving gifts for Christmas. They have blessings, both material and spiritual. And they can always identify other persons who are in much more need than them. Some of them may even believe that those in need are in that position because of unwise individual choices. 

But we must maintain a focus on our own lives. We need to recognize the maladies of our hearts. The state of our lives is as important, and is just as real and needy, as someone else’s life who is in more humble circumstances. 

There are specific conditions in our lives that leave us in bondage and in need of restoration, renewal, and revitalization, just like all kinds of other people. 

Being a vital part of a local church does not automatically immune one from having serious needs. And having a good steady income doesn’t inoculate one from need or privation.

We must not suppress those realities and needs, but instead, name the conditions which are packed away in a closet of our heart deep inside us – such things as the love of possessions and money; broken relationships; old grudges; hidden addictions; domestic violence; denial of depression; secret affairs; cutting; fear; anger; greed; hatred; and much more. 

Outward smiles and small talk conversations may hide the truth from others, but they do nothing to hide from a God for whom everything is laid bare.

The good news is not just something for someone else who has “obvious” needs; the gospel must touch our lives and bring us freedom.

Only then can we pass on the good news to the legion of social ills that make our world sick. There are people all around us who need spiritual, emotional, and material help. Yet, we will not have eyes to see them, or have hearts to help, if we are stuffing our own burdens so deep within that we are blind to others.

Far too many Christians, especially the church-going kind, have become expert emotional stuffers and deniers of need. 

We may believe “those other people” need ministries of justice and help. But the truth is: Many of us are one paycheck, one prodigal kid, one mental health diagnosis, one serious illness, one drink, one affair, or one bad decision away from being one of “those people” – the people we typically identify as in need – the ones that bad things happen to – the ones we do not want next door to us.

We may not yet be vulnerable enough to admit our situation; and so, we keep practicing the denial of our spiritual poverty. 

What to do? Turn from the things that have caused us to be in poverty and be prisoners (not just secretly!) and hope in the Lord’s restorative grace. God takes all sorts of seemingly impossible situations of destruction and death, creating fresh new growth in the form of a little green sprout. 

God will rebuild our ruined souls; restore the places of our lives that have been devastated; and renew the places that have not seen renewal for generations. 

It begins with you and me allowing the justice of God to work within us, not just others. 

If we want comfort, we need to mourn. If we desire joy, then there needs to be some lamenting of a dire situation. If we hope for an oak of righteousness, there must be a confession of despair. For there to be a resurrection, there has to be a death.

What is your real situation and the true realities of your life that need to be named? 

Where will you go to address those needs and truths? 

Will you keep stuffing them, or will you become able to voice your inner personal needs? 

How might you be vulnerable enough to allow others to minister grace to your needy soul?

Let us have a vision of Jesus coming into our lives and replacing a tattered hat of grief with a crown of beauty. 

Let us picture the Lord placing on us a garment of praise to replace our stinky clothes of grumbling. 

Let us allow our lives to display the grace of God in Christ because we have been profoundly touched by the justice of God. 

Let us herald the coming of the Christ child as the hope of us all.

Soli Deo Gloria

What’s the Point of All This Suffering? (2 Thessalonians 1:3-12)

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

We ought always to thank God for you, brothers and sisters, and rightly so, because your faith is growing more and more, and the love all of you have for one another is increasing. Therefore, among God’s churches we boast about your perseverance and faith in all the persecutions and trials you are enduring.

All this is evidence that God’s judgment is right, and as a result you will be counted worthy of the kingdom of God, for which you are suffering. God is just: He will pay back trouble to those who trouble you and give relief to you who are troubled, and to us as well. This will happen when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven in blazing fire with his powerful angels. He will punish those who do not know God and do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. They will be punished with everlasting destruction and shut out from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might on the day he comes to be glorified in his holy people and to be marveled at among all those who have believed. This includes you because you believed our testimony to you.

With this in mind, we constantly pray for you, that our God may make you worthy of his calling, and that by his power he may bring to fruition your every desire for goodness and your every deed prompted by faith. We pray this so that the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in you, and you in him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ. (New International Version)

There are 66 books in the Bible. Every one of them, without exception, addresses human suffering. What’s the point of all this suffering? Isn’t salvation supposed to deliver me from all that mess? Why should I even read this dumb blog post?

All of the Apostle Paul’s epistles (a fancy way of saying “letters”) contain a perspective on suffering. And Paul’s reasoning and understanding of suffering goes like this:

  1. Jesus suffered. Throughout his earthly ministry, Christ endured opposition, trouble, and malevolence, especially in a cruel crucifixion and death. Yet, his suffering was the means of redeeming the world.
  2. Christians suffer. Throughout our earthly ministry, we will endure opposition, trouble, and malevolence; especially in a commitment to live the words and ways of Jesus. Yet, our suffering is the means of participating with Christ in redeeming the world.
  3. Suffering is mandatory. It is a significant means of spiritual growth for the Christian. And it is an important way of displaying Christianity’s virtues to a spiritually lost world.
  4. Misery is optional. There’s no solid biblical reason to become miserable or nihilistic with all the seemingly random suffering of the world. It’s hubris to think that my perspective on the subject of suffering and God is the right one.
  5. God is just. And Jesus is the rightful Judge of malevolent troublemakers.
  6. Christians, too, are to be just. Christians, however, are not the rightful judges; thus, there is to be neither executing of judgment on troublemakers nor any judgmentalism in Christ’s church.
  7. Suffering before glory. We are not above our Lord. Jesus rose from death, ascended to heaven, and is glorified. It had to happen that way. It has to happen that way for us, too. There must be suffering before there is glory.
  8. Suffering is temporary. Just like their Lord, Christians, too, shall rise from death, ascend to heaven, and participate in God’s glory. The suffering is for but a moment, but the glory is everlasting.

This reality of suffering and its purpose begs several questions of us. If this is all true (which it is) then:

  • Why do Christians spend so much of their spiritual energy praying and working toward avoiding suffering at any and all costs?
  • What does this tell us about ourselves?
  • Where do we feel the pull to resist change?
  • Will we allow suffering to be our teacher, or not?
  • How might our suffering bring justice and righteousness to a lost world?

Suffering is the mechanism by which spiritual growth is activated. If Christians never faced suffering, there would be no need for faith. That’s because faith is not static but active; it is meant to be regularly used, and if it is not, then belief atrophies and is worth nothing. Much like a muscle, faith needs daily exercise.

Furthermore, the Christian’s exercise of faith is not only for personal spiritual wellness but also for the benefit of others. To put the matter another way, Christians put blood, sweat, and tears into justice for the common good of everyone – thereby putting themselves in a position to be leveled with unjust vitriol. Whenever we challenge the power of another’s unjust actions, the inevitable consequence is fireworks in the form of catching some suffering.

This is why suffering for the right reasons is a sign of God’s grace in one’s life. We aren’t supposed to suffer because of our own stupidity and bad decisions; we are to suffer by our advocacy of the  powerless and the voiceless, thus redeeming time, energy, and resources for God’s kingdom. And it won’t be just a little bit of suffering; it will be a lot.

“If we are to enter God’s kingdom, we must pass through many troubles.”

Acts 14:22, CEB

We may get rather impatient with all this suffering. Yet, it’s also a sign and demonstration of God’s great patience – not wanting anyone to perish but all to enter eternal life. The least we can do is endure hardship for the sake of another’s life.

The Lord isn’t slow to do what he promised, as some people think. Rather, he is patient for your sake. He doesn’t want to destroy anyone but wants all people to have an opportunity to turn to him and change the way they think and act. (2 Peter 3:9, GW)

And if we persevere to the end, we will be vindicated; and malevolent troublemakers will have to contend with God. When we see the injustice of evil winning and good people suffering, it’s easy to get discouraged. But it won’t always be this way. Evil is temporary. Love is eternal.

There must be suffering. Yet, there will also be glory. Our trials and tribulations are but for a moment. But God’s favor lasts forever.

So then, earnest and heartfelt prayer is in order and always in season:

Great God of justice and righteousness, we pray that you will make us perfectly fitted for what you have called us to be. We ask that you fill our good ideas and acts of faith with divine energy so that it all amounts to something. May you cause our lives to honor the name of Jesus; and may we soon experience the day when Christ honors us. Your grace is sufficient for us – whether in good times or bad, through Jesus Christ our Lord in the power of the Holy Spirit. Amen.