Tag: transformation

Mark 2:18-22 – Structuring for Mission

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

Now John’s disciples and the Pharisees were fasting. Some people came and asked Jesus, “How is it that John’s disciples and the disciples of the Pharisees are fasting, but yours are not?”

Jesus answered, “How can the guests of the bridegroom fast while he is with them? They cannot, so long as they have him with them. But the time will come when the bridegroom will be taken from them, and on that day they will fast.

“No one sews a patch of unshrunk cloth on an old garment. Otherwise, the new piece will pull away from the old, making the tear worse. And no one pours new wine into old wineskins. Otherwise, the wine will burst the skins, and both the wine and the wineskins will be ruined. No, they pour new wine into new wineskins.” (NIV)

The late newspaper columnist, Abigail Van Buren, better known as “Dear Abby,” made famous the phrase, “The church is a hospital for sinners, not a museum of saints.” We occasionally need words like Dear Abby’s to remind, reorient, and reframe our call in this world and our charge for the church. Christ’s Church does not exist on this earth primarily for the healthy Christian’s benefit, any more than a hospital exists for the welfare of doctors or insurance companies.

The Church exists to extend the mission of Jesus through proclamation of the good news of God’s kingdom in both word and deed. Jesus came to restore lost sinners, redeem wayward sons and daughters, renew bodies and souls, and reform calcified religion with grace and truth.

Physical, spiritual, and emotional sickness is ubiquitous throughout the world and even the church. Many people are just not healthy. Some are sick because of destructive coping strategies; some are brokenhearted and dispirited; others are plain sick and tired of being sick and tired. Jesus is the source of healing and change and he invites us to admit our needs and come to him. Conversely, others are healthy, spiritually alive, and well. For those folks, now is the time to roll up our sleeves and participate fully in the mission of Jesus for the church and the world.

Jesus came to this earth to set up a new structure that could embrace his mission. Christ used the occasion of John the Baptist’s disciples asking him about fasting to communicate that his mission of reaching people through mercy and forgiveness will need a significant structural change. 

Jesus was letting his followers know that after he leaves this earth, things will need to change for the mission to continue. For example, when my wife and I raised our girls, our family dynamic was a certain way because we had them in the house. But when the empty nest phase of our lives finally came, I can tell you there was plenty of fasting that went on in our home. We live differently now, just the two of us. Our daily life structures have changed significantly.

The two illustrations Jesus used, of cloth and of wineskins, emphasize that old and new wineskins are incompatible – old and new pieces of cloth do not go together. I frame it this way with my own metaphor: You don’t put a new collar on a dead dog.

The incarnation of Christ was neither about perpetuating the status quo, nor to make a few cosmetic changes and minor adjustments to what was already going on. Instead, Christ came to fulfill the old and do something new so that it could accommodate his mission on this earth.

The perspective from the New Testament book of Hebrews is that the entire sacrificial system and ritual laws of the Old Testament were:

“…superficial regulations that are only about food, drink, and various ritual ways to wash with water. They are regulations that have been imposed until the time of the new order.” (Hebrews 9:10, CEB)

“Because Christ offered himself to God, he is able to bring a new promise from God. Through his death he paid the price to set people free from the sins they committed under the first promise. He did this so that those who are called can be guaranteed an inheritance that will last forever.” (Hebrews 9:15, GW)

First, Christ said, “You did not want animal sacrifices or sin offerings or burnt offerings or other offerings for sin, nor were you pleased with them” (though they are required by the law of Moses). Then he said, “Look, I have come to do your will.” He cancels the first covenant in order to put the second into effect. (Hebrews 10:8-9, NLT)

“When it says new, it makes the first obsolete. And if something is old and outdated, it’s close to disappearing.” (Hebrews 8:13, CEB)

The following three activities are necessary for Christians if the mission of Jesus is to occur:

  1. Develop intimacy with Jesus. Engaging in the spiritual disciplines of prayer, giving, fasting, reading, and meditating on Holy Scripture puts us in a position to know Christ better and affords the ability to know and respond to what is important to Jesus.
  2. Establish relationships with one another. That is, relations which avoid shallow interactions and instead help each other to spiritually grow, thrive, and flourish by holding one another accountable for the mission of Jesus.
  3. Build new relationships with those on the rim of society. People on the outside of power structures and lacking any leverage toward advancing their own needs could use some connections. Our world and our communities are filled with sick, underprivileged, hurting, lonely, oppressed, forgotten, and unhealthy persons. They don’t need slight alterations to their lives but the kind of radical change that comes from the strong meat-and-potatoes of God’s gospel of grace working through a wild bunch of sold-out-to-Jesus Christians. 

Are there any structural things we need to let go so that mission and care can happen in this world? How might the structure of our prayers change if we were to focus on what is important to Christ’s mission? In what ways will we work toward a structurally just and right society which champions the common good of all persons?

Gracious God of all creation, create generations of people transformed into wholehearted lovers of God, encountered by the living Christ, and empowered by the Holy Spirit. Contend with those who oppress others and multiply the good and the beautiful in us all. Bring the fullness of your benevolent rule and reign to this world. May we exist for the purpose of enjoying God, loving others, and joining Jesus in the restoration of all things. Amen.

James 4:4-10 – The Jilted Lover

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

You adulterous people, don’t you know that friendship with the world means enmity against God? Therefore, anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God. Or do you think Scripture says without reason that he jealously longs for the spirit he has caused to dwell in us? But he gives us more grace. That is why Scripture says:

“God opposes the proud
    but shows favor to the humble.”

Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Grieve, mourn, and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up. (NIV)

Apparently, the Apostle James was not trying to win friends. But he was trying to influence people, specifically those who are proud. So, please understand from the outset that James was going tough after haughty persons because it takes a hammer to break a hard heart. And so, his approach ought only to be emulated in the unique context of handling persons stuck in their own destructive hubris. Nevertheless, there is much instruction in these verses to help us all.

Throughout the Bible, a marriage metaphor is used to liken the relationship of God to the people much like a lover. God’s covenant relationship is at the heart of understanding the whole of Scripture. Whenever people stray from divine promises, God is offended and hurt. 

Yes, God feels pain. God is an emotional Being, which is why we have emotions as God’s image-bearers. One way to view the Bible is that it is a book about God, the jilted lover. The Lord set affection and love upon people, yet many people have spurned their lover’s advance. And this situation pains God. 

When Adam and Eve, decided to find satisfaction outside of God, the Lord was hurt. When people went on to have children and raise them, they did so largely apart from the God who loved them. People strayed so far from God that it caused pain:

The Lord saw that the human beings on the earth were very wicked and that everything they thought about was evil. He was sorry he had made human beings on the earth, and his heart was filled with pain. (Genesis 6:5-6, NCV).

Yet, God was gracious. The Lord took a group of Noah’s descendants, Abraham’s family, and set a covenant affection on them. God hoped to restore the world to right relationship through the Israelites. However, they too, came to set their affections on others. So, nearly half of the Old Testament is devoted to communicating the Lord’s hurt and disappointment. 

Like a jilted lover, God longed for Israel to remain faithful. The prophecy of Hosea is a case in point. Hosea had an unfaithful wife, Gomer, and their relationship mirrored the relationship between God and Israel. Just as Hosea did not give up on his wife, even though she was brazenly unfaithful, so God looked at Israel as a spouse and could not bear to give her up.

Israel spurned their lover’s grace and kindness and actively sought other lovers, causing God anger and agony. Through the prophet Ezekiel, God recounted the history of unfaithfulness:

“At every crossroad you built your platform and degraded your beauty by spreading your legs to all comers. And so, you encouraged even more promiscuity. You prostituted yourself with the Egyptians, your neighbors with the large sexual organs, and as you added to your seductions, you provoked me to anger…. Still not satisfied, you prostituted yourself to the Assyrians, but they were not enough for you either. So, you prostituted yourself with the Babylonians, the land of traders, but again you were not satisfied. How sick was your heart that you could do all these things, the deeds of a hardened prostitute?… You are like an adulterous wife: you take in strangers instead of your husband. Ordinary prostitutes are given gifts, but you gave your gifts to all your lovers. From every direction you even bribed them to come to you for your sexual favors. As a prostitute, you were more perverse than other women. No one approached you for sexual favors, but you yourself gave gifts instead of receiving them.” (Ezekiel 16:25-34, CEB)

Despite Israel’s unfaithfulness, God extended grace to the beloved spouse:

“I am taking you back!
I rejected you for a while,
but with love and tenderness
    I will embrace you again.
For a while, I turned away
    in furious anger.
Now I will have mercy
    and love you forever!
I, your protector and Lord,
    make this promise.” (Isaiah 54:6-8, CEV)

The Old Testament ends with God still longing for return:

The Lord proclaims: “I care passionately about Zion; I burn with passion for her.” (Zechariah 8:2, CEB)

All this theological awareness was in the heart of James when he wrote his letter to the hard-hearted. He knew they were flirting with the world and wanted them to stop and return to the God who longed to show them grace, if they only would but humble themselves.

God yearns, passionately, for us to find our needs met, and enjoyment found, in the loving divine embrace. Spiritual adultery hurts God deeply, like it would any jilted lover. God awaits with loving patience to show grace and compassion to wayward people. 

Only the stance and attitude of humility can receive grace. Pride and hubris prevent people from receiving God’s good gift. So, the Apostle James rattled-off ten quick staccato commands to remain connected in a love relationship with God.  We might frame these as resolutions to live by. 

  1. Submit to God.

Humble folk willingly place themselves under God’s authority because they are convinced God has their best interests at mind. One temptation when facing adversity is to entertain the belief that no one is going to look out for you except yourself. So, to avoid getting hurt too badly, we might become cynical, arrogant, and callous – self-protective strategies designed to keep the hurt away. This only creates hardness of heart. The alternative is faithful submission to God – knowing that God’s Spirit will protect and living with the conviction that nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ.

2. Resist the devil.

Satan is a bully. The way to deal with bullies is to stand up to them. We face down the temptation. Notice that James says we submit to God and resist the devil. We are not to be deceived into flipping it around by listening to Satan and avoiding submission to God.

3. Come near to God.

Like a loving parent, the Lord longingly looks out the window waiting for prodigals to return. Coming to God is the first thing we ought to do. When my daughter was young her bike was stolen. So, we sat down together in the backyard and came to God in prayer. I barely finished praying when a police cruiser pulled up in the alley behind our house. The policeman rolled down his window and said, “Hey, are you missing a bike?”  We hopped in and he took us to where someone had ditched the bike. It was a tremendous lesson that when we come to God, God comes to us. I realize life does not always work that way, yet we can be assured that God listens, hears, and will respond.

4. Wash our hands.

We cannot approach God with blood on our hands. We must come to God squarely facing our sin and disobedience.  We must deal with the wrong we have done without sweeping it under the rug. God wants us to admit our sin, receive grace, and deal with matters of restitution and reconciliation, without trying to save face when found out in a concern for “optics.”

5. Purify our hearts.

Whereas the previous resolution is mostly external, this one addresses the inner person, the heart. Not only do our actions need to be cleaned up through washing our hands, our attitudes must be purged of pollution. Our hearts cannot handle two masters. We are meant to be single-minded without mixed motives. There is an African proverb which says, “The man who tries to walk two roads will split his pants.” 

The next four resolutions describe important emotional responses to sin….

6. Grieve.

Trying to move on without grieving and lamenting is called denial. Grief is not only an event; it is a process which takes time. Grieving is biblical. Sharing our stories with each other, giving testimony to God’s grace, and expressing ourselves is important. A loving God knows there cannot be healing apart from grief and lament.

7. Mourn.

Blessed are those who mourn (Matthew 5:4). Mourning the emotional response to devastation of sin, and how much we need God.  It is to see sin in all its foulness and degradation. People who do not mourn are or become hard-hearted and need deep spiritual transformation. Jesus offers the remedy: By his wounds we are healed.

8. Wail.

We are to cry – more than cry – to wail.  Whereas mourning might be more private and personal, wailing has a much more public dimension to it. I believe the great tragedy in many modern churches is an inordinate focus on victory and triumphalism. The result: Far too many Christians cry alone. No one should ever have to cry by themselves. We must weep with those who weep. If there ever was an appropriate place for crying, it should be amongst fellow brothers and sisters in Christ.

9. Change.

We cannot turn the clock back to some bygone idyllic era. We are to grasp the type of change which occurs in living for Jesus Christ and above sin. In other words, no casual cavalier attitudes toward sin. I once had a conversation with a young woman about heaven and hell. When we began the discussion, she expressed a desire to be wherever the better party going on. By the time we finished our conversation she was grieving, mourning, and crying. I never knew what became of her – I even forget her name now. But once she got just a glimpse of the gravity of sin, it undid her.

10. Be humble.

Humility sums up all these resolutions. The paradox is that through grieving, mourning, and wailing we become joyful and satisfied; through suffering there is glory; becoming last is to become first; entering the narrow gate leads to the broad open space of God’s eternal life.

Gracious God, our sins are too heavy to carry, too real to hide, and too deep to undo. Forgive what our lips tremble to name, what our hearts can no longer bear, and what has become for us a consuming fire of judgment. Set us free from a past that we cannot change; open to us a future in which we can be changed; and grant us grace to grow more and more in your likeness and image, through Jesus Christ, the light of the world. Amen.

Philippians 3:4-14 – On Knowing Christ

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

Welcome, friends! It is a privilege to be with you on this World Communion Sunday. We gather around Jesus, our highest joy, as Christians unite in the surpassing value of knowing Christ. Click the video below and let us discover together the heartbeat of the Church everywhere…

Let us partake of Christ together in heartfelt worship.

I pray that the Lord Jesus Christ will bless you and be kind to you! May God bless you with his love, and may the Holy Spirit join all your hearts together. Amen.

Matthew 21:18-22 – Faith and Prayer

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

Jesus Cursing the Fig Tree
Jesus Cursing the Fig Tree by Ganosh Kelagina Beedu Shenay, 2016

Early in the morning, as Jesus was on his way back to the city, he was hungry. Seeing a fig tree by the road, he went up to it but found nothing on it except leaves. Then he said to it, “May you never bear fruit again!” Immediately the tree withered.

When the disciples saw this, they were amazed. “How did the fig tree wither so quickly?” they asked.

Jesus replied, “Truly I tell you, if you have faith and do not doubt, not only can you do what was done to the fig tree, but also you can say to this mountain, ‘Go, throw yourself into the sea,’ and it will be done. If you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer.” (NIV)

God wants us to pray! Prayer happens from a place of faith because to pray, one must believe that God is good and answers prayer. Conversely, prayerlessness is faithlessness.  A person of little faith prays only a little. A person full of faith cannot stop praying.

God’s world revolves more around promise than command – which means that Jesus merely exhorting the disciples to pray would fall flat; they needed a deep change of heart. God calls us all to transformation. Lasting change takes place at the roots of our lives. When there is a drought, pouring lots of water on our backyard trees at the first sign of withering leaves is too late. The tree may look fine on the outside, but on the inside, it is dying from lack of water. Real change comes from the inside-out.  It is the root of a person’s life, below the surface where others do not see, that needs change, and not merely the outward behavior.  Prayer must be directed to the root, to the heart of the issue.

In today’s Gospel story, Jesus was up early and going to Jerusalem. He was hungry and wanted some breakfast, so he approached a fig tree. Figs were known back in Christ’s day as the poor man’s food. Fig trees were everywhere. Approaching a certain fig tree, Jesus found one that looked fine, but no figs. He chose to use the tree as a teachable moment for his disciples. Christ cursed the tree and immediately the entire tree withered.  So, why did Jesus curse the tree?

Jesus cursed the fig tree because it looked good on the outside, but it was already dead on the inside. The tree had everything a tree needed: branches, leaves, and a trunk – except fruit.  The tree served as an illustration for the disciples of believing prayer. The tree looked fine, and had the promise of fruit, yet, none was found.  The point of the tree illustration is this: Jesus is looking for faith in his followers.

In the prophet Jeremiah’s day, the nation of Judah had enjoyed a long stretch of prosperity and good circumstances. By all outward appearances they were doing fine. Temple attendance was at its peak and everyone was offering their sacrifices. But something was wrong….

I will put an end to them,
declares the Lord;
there are no grapes on the vine,
no figs on the tree,
only withered leaves.
They have squandered what I have given them! (Jeremiah 8:13, CEB)

Although fine on the outside, the people of Judah trusted in themselves, their ability to produce a harvest, and their outward show of how many cattle and sheep they brought to the temple. But what God was looking for was fruit, not nice leaves. He was watching for offerings of believing prayer, born of a faith that is confident in the goodness of God. And the Lord is still looking for people’s faith in God alone – rather than in religiously outward forms of success.

Jesus wants his followers to understand and believe that our words and prayers can have the immediate effect of changing the world.  We can even speak to a mountain and it will have to move if we tell it to. We probably do not go around talking to mountains, but all of us go around talking to ourselves about mountain-like problems. The power that levels mountains is prayer that speaks confidence and boldness.  If you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer.

Doubt sometimes stands in the way of prayer – not doubt in ourselves because we do not answer our own prayers. The Apostle James said:

“If any of you needs wisdom, you should ask God for it. He is generous to everyone and will give you wisdom without criticizing you. But when you ask God, you must believe and not doubt. Anyone who doubts is like a wave in the sea, blown up and down by the wind. Such doubters are thinking two different things at the same time, and they cannot decide about anything they do. They should not think they will receive anything from the Lord.” (James 1:5-8, NCV)

Both James and his brother Jesus refer to an unshakable faith in the goodness of God. This is faith in the person of God, and not faith in faith itself. If we are honest, every one of us who has made a difficult prayer request, mustering-up all the faith we can, and then being disappointed when it did not happen, has been hurt. The unstable person vacillates when this happens, doubting whether God is good (playing the he-loves-me, he-loves-me-not game). The person of faith believes God answers prayers according to his will, and that if the prayer is not answered, God knows what he is doing and will answer it in his own good timing and purposes.

Maybe you have even indulged your inner-critic, a Job-like friend, telling you that you have a failure of faith, or not enough faith, and that is why your prayer was not answered. Yet, positive thinking is not the same as Christian faith.  It is neither a matter of being optimistic, nor of sending $19.95 to some hack preacher who promises to give you the secret of answered prayer, along with a free gold cross.

God’s will for our lives is sometimes, maybe even oftentimes, a mystery. However, we do know what God’s will is for a lot of things. For example, God is not willing that any should perish but all be brought to eternal life.  So, we can pray with confidence for a person’s deliverance from sin.  We can be bold about trusting in God’s promises – he will do what he says he will do.  Boldness is only as good as the truth it is based upon.

Imposing Mountain View and Lake Glacier National Park
Imposing Mountain View and Lake Glacier National Park. Many Glacier Area. Swiftcurrent Lake.

We have every right, based in our union with Jesus Christ and our redemption in him, to ask God confidently and boldly for the removal of mountains.  We have the authority in Christ to do so.  Therefore, we do not need to offer tepid, milquetoast, mumbling prayers with sighs and hunched shoulders (i.e. “Well, God, if it is your will, could you help me?”).

It is time for men to step out and give God some healthy hairy-chested prayers.  And, this is not the time for women to be worried about what the men do, or not do. Everyone is to be bold in prayer.

“God desires of us nothing more ardently than that we ask many and great things of him, and he is displeased if we do not confidently ask and entreat.” –Martin Luther

Jesus wants faithful and fruitful prayer. He still scans the horizon of our spiritual lives looking for believing prayer. Christ desires from those who follow him bold prayers which curse and wither fruitless and feckless places. When my children were small there was an adult store in our neighborhood. It disturbed my spirit. Each time I passed it I confidently prayed that the pornography and exploitation of women would dry up and cease in Jesus’ name, and that those who worked in that establishment would find more gainful and ethical employment. And that is exactly what happened.

Aggressive prayer against the enemy of our souls is needed, prayer that claims the authority which has been given us in Christ, prayer that is based in solid biblical truth and robust theology. So, let us pray in faith and confidence….

Heavenly Father, we praise you for the grace we possess through the Lord Jesus Christ.  We rejoice in Christ’s teaching and the victory you have provided for us to live above sin and failure.  We come before you in confession and to plead your mercy over our sins, the sins of other believers, and the sins of our world.  We confess the sin of prayerlessness, faithlessness, apathy, complacency, and indifference to those who are lost.  We also acknowledge before you the wickedness of our world through the evil machinations of injustice, oppression, and exploitation of others.

We praise your holy name, O God, that there is plenty of grace through the person and work of the Lord Jesus.  We plead the blood of the cross and the power of the resurrection against the sins and rebellion of people against you.  We pray and wait for you, Holy Spirit, to bring us all to new life in Jesus Christ. 

We recognize that Satan and the kingdom of darkness have plotted and laid strategies against new spiritual life, keeping your people from believing prayer.  So, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, we claim our place as children of God. We smash and pull down all the strongholds which Satan has erected against humanity – and pray that the power of Christ’s resurrection would hinder and frustrate the plans formed against us. 

We pull down demonic strongholds of prayerlessness and carelessness with the Word of God. We claim back for the Lord Jesus Christ the ground Satan is claiming as a means of hindering faith, hope, and love; and, we affirm that Satan’s plans were fully defeated through the cross and resurrection of Jesus. We pull down all of Satan’s plans to divert fresh faith when it comes. Blessed Holy Spirit, may you send a renewal to the hearts and souls of all people. May it bring a wondrous season of peace and joy.

We, your people, accept the role of standing in the gap for others in prayer.  You yourself, God, said that we, in Christ, are mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds.  So, we bring all the work of the Lord Jesus Christ to focus directly against the powers of darkness that blind people and keep them in bondage.  We pray the victory of Christ’s incarnation, crucifixion, resurrection, ascension, and glorification directly against all of Satan’s power in their lives.  We now bind all powers of darkness set to destroying them, and we unbind those demonic bonds and blinders from them in the mighty name of Jesus. 

By faith we claim humanity for fruitful lives of spiritual abundance, social justice, and sanctified relationships in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord, who defeated all powers and principalities of this world.  Amen.