Tag: spirituality

It Just Won’t Do… (Psalm 16)

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

Protect me, Lord God!
    I run to you for safety,
and I have said,
    “Only you are my Lord!
Every good thing I have
    is a gift from you.”

Your people are wonderful,
    and they make me happy,
but worshipers of other gods
    will have much sorrow.
I refuse to offer sacrifices
of blood to those gods
    or worship in their name.

You, Lord, are all I want!
You are my choice,
    and you keep me safe.
You make my life pleasant,
    and my future is bright.

I praise you, Lord,
    for being my guide.
Even in the darkest night,
    your teachings fill my mind.
I will always look to you,
as you stand beside me
    and protect me from fear.
With all my heart,
I will celebrate,
    and I can safely rest.

I am your chosen one.
You won’t leave me in the grave
    or let my body decay.
You have shown me
    the path to life,
and you make me glad
    by being near to me.
Sitting at your right side,
    I will always be joyful. (Contemporary English Version)

The psalmist is profoundly glad to be with God and God’s people – but not with worshipers of other gods.

We live in an age where there are many people who are glad about God – they have a deep sense of spirituality and rely upon prayer. But they are not at all glad about the church or any sort of organized religion. They want nothing to do with it.

Why? Because they’ve had a bad, even traumatic, experience with gathered worshipers. Their experience has been one of observing worshipers offer blood sacrifices to a god they aren’t familiar with.

Unfortunately, the spiritually wounded are walking among us, too numerous to count. And this is mostly why church attendance in the Western world has dropped precipitously. After all, nobody wants to be a part of something where a pastor or priest preys upon innocent people; where a congregation seeks more people just to get money for their building; or where the people justify hate toward others in the name of religion.

I don’t want that either. Namely, because I have seen and experienced those things myself within various faith communities. Persons who know me well have sometimes expressed, “Why do you keep pastoring churches? Why put yourself in that position again and again?” For me, it’s a simple, yet heartfelt answer. I typically respond with sincerity, “The church is a whore, but I still love her.”

For me, it won’t do to simply retreat into a privatized religion and forget about the church and God’s people; Christianity is communal, not just personal. I can no more forsake the family of God and my spiritual DNA any more than I could deny my family of origin and my biological DNA.

I’m not suggesting that any of us put up with bad behavior and folks acting like a stupid cow instead of a person. Instead, I am insisting that a well-rounded worship of God requires the individual to be intimately connected with a community of redeemed persons.

Holy Scripture knows nothing of a solitary independent believer who has no links to God’s people. And, I might add, it just won’t do to have a virtual social media presence but never actually interact with people in the flesh. That’s not old fashioned; it’s biblical wisdom.

At some point, we must trust God. If we put our life out there by driving on a highway every day; and if we take risks with investing money or starting something new; then it only makes spiritual sense that we also trust God to take care of us and protect us in dealing with not only the world, but also with the church and God’s people.

We might believe that joy comes from getting everything we want, or being alone and living as a hermit in the woods, or surrounding ourselves with animals instead of people; yet, we were created by God for community, and so, we shall only find joy in the context of community.

The path to death is littered with the remains of people who thought that separation from others (or particular persons) was the path to life. The forces of darkness still use the tactic of divide and conquer because it works. But if God’s people focus on what unites us, and we choose to lock arms in love, no matter what, we will learn that the hard path of life is worth it.

It won’t do, for church folk to belittle others who have run from organized religion; and conversely, it won’t do, for those far from the community, to play armchair quarterback and criticize everything the church does.

We really need to open our clenched fists of ensconced hermeneutical approaches, pet preachers, beloved programs, isolationist ways, heady cerebral thoughts, and petty pride, so that we can then hold hands with our sisters and brothers in humble trust and faith.

In this Christian season of Eastertide, we have the perspective of understanding that it takes a cross to have a resurrection, that there must be suffering before glory, and that sorrow always precedes joy. We now need to take the next step, by a willingness to put in the blood, sweat, and tears necessary for both a good relationship with God and a robustly helpful relationship with God’s people.

So, what will you choose? And what will you do?

God of all, we pray as one, that we may be one, just as the Lord Jesus prayed we may be one in him. Your son Jesus compels us to be reconciled to one another. May our spirits be joined to your Holy Spirit, so that we may witness to the visible unity of your Church. May we all recognize that we are truly one with you – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – and grow together in peace. We ask this in the name of Jesus our risen Lord. Amen.

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.

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.

I Will Give You Rest (Exodus 33:7-23)

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

Now Moses used to take a tent and pitch it outside the camp some distance away, calling it the “tent of meeting.” Anyone inquiring of the Lord would go to the tent of meeting outside the camp. And whenever Moses went out to the tent, all the people rose and stood at the entrances to their tents, watching Moses until he entered the tent. As Moses went into the tent, the pillar of cloud would come down and stay at the entrance, while the Lord spoke with Moses. Whenever the people saw the pillar of cloud standing at the entrance to the tent, they all stood and worshiped, each at the entrance to their tent. The Lord would speak to Moses face to face, as one speaks to a friend. Then Moses would return to the camp, but his young aide Joshua son of Nun did not leave the tent.

Moses said to the Lord, “You have been telling me, ‘Lead these people,’ but you have not let me know whom you will send with me. You have said, ‘I know you by name and you have found favor with me.’ If you are pleased with me, teach me your ways so I may know you and continue to find favor with you. Remember that this nation is your people.”

The Lord replied, “My Presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.”

Then Moses said to him, “If your Presence does not go with us, do not send us up from here. How will anyone know that you are pleased with me and with your people unless you go with us? What else will distinguish me and your people from all the other people on the face of the earth?”

And the Lord said to Moses, “I will do the very thing you have asked, because I am pleased with you and I know you by name.”

Then Moses said, “Now show me your glory.”

And the Lord said, “I will cause all my goodness to pass in front of you, and I will proclaim my name, the Lord, in your presence. I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion. But” he said, “you cannot see my face, for no one may see me and live.”

Then the Lord said, “There is a place near me where you may stand on a rock. When my glory passes by, I will put you in a cleft in the rock and cover you with my hand until I have passed by. Then I will remove my hand and you will see my back; but my face must not be seen.” (New International Version)

Moses was perhaps the most humble person who ever lived on the earth (Numbers 12:3), which is why he and God had such an intimate friendship together. But Moses was also a workaholic who tended to carry the world on his shoulders. (Exodus 18:1-27)

Good old Moses, bless his heavy heart, kept finding himself in over his head with all sorts of people problems and conflicts. And so, Moses almost seems perpetually stressed. It reminds me of an old episode of the original “Bob Newhart Show” in which Bob, a psychologist, becomes exasperated and blurts out, “Why do these people always have to come to me with their stupid problems!”

The Lord, infinitely patient with people, simply let Moses know that all he really needed was the divine presence, to rest fully in God being with him.

This is precisely what we all need to be reminded of almost every day. God is with us. The Lord’s presence is continually alongside us. And sometimes, we must get away from it all for a while, so that we can rest and gain some fresh perspective on life and who’s really in charge of everything.

Consider just a few of the many verses in Holy Scripture which reinforce God’s call to rest:

Observe the day of rest as a holy day. This is what the Lord your God has commanded you. (Deuteronomy 5:12, GW)

Only in God do I find rest;
    my salvation comes from him.
Only God is my rock and my salvation—
    my stronghold!—I won’t be shaken anymore. (Psalm 62:1-2, CEB)

The promise to enter the place of rest is still good, and we must take care that none of you miss out. (Hebrews 4:1, CEV)

Jesus said, “Come to me, all of you who are tired from carrying heavy loads, and I will give you rest.” (Matthew 11:28, GNT)

Scriptural rest is neither discretionary nor a luxury; a biblical sabbath rest is a vital necessity. It’s both lovingly encouraged and divinely commanded. 

And it is not simply a vacation in which we fill up our time with sightseeing and/or doing a lot of activities so that we end up needing a vacation from our vacation. Instead, the invitation to rest is initiated, given, and ordained by God. 

One morning I set aside a four-hour block to get away, rest, and pray. I’ll be honest that I came into it with a personal agenda of what I wanted God to do. I had my list of prayer items and my thoughts of how I believed God should work. Silly me.

It did not take long into my forceful striving toward God, that I was on a misguided adventure in missing the point. Somehow, in my desire to see all kinds of prayer requests answered, I lost sight of God’s presence and resting in it, enjoying it.

In our daily work-a-day world we poke and prod, we push, cajole, and finagle to move forward and get our way on all kinds of things. To separate ourselves from our typical routine takes something of a withdrawal, and it isn’t easy. This is likely why so many folks are tired, cranky, and negative – because they find all kinds of reasons to not rest.

Compulsions for performance and perfection are bandits, stealing our rest. We want to do everything right – to pray right, talk right, be right and live right – instead of coming to God like a little child. To rest means to relinquish all our plans and agendas to God for a time and connect to the reality of God’s presence.

Spiritual and biblical rest only “works” when we realize we don’t have it all together – that we are helpless and need to pull away and experience God’s glory. 

Maybe this old fallen world continues in its many dysfunctions because God’s people have not yet learned the necessity of faithful rest and trusting in the very presence of God, who is full of glory, now and forevermore. Amen.