Slogans, Sermons, and The Celebration

Celebrations

Christian obligation in work should not be restricted to just spending the hours. This implies doing a job with technical and professional efficiency and, most of all, with love of God.

Yesterday, my birthday presents were delivered a bit early.  Actually, they came just in time for the Superbowl ( my second favourite part of tomorrow!)

The present included two items, a hat and a sign for my office.

The first is a new cap, with what I thought was my favourite slogan for sports and ministry.  "Do Your Job" which is actually a vital consideration in football, at the military (as the centurion noted) or in our relationship with God and the ministry which is created by God in our lives.

We merely should walk with Him and do as He leads.  Which takes faith, the dependence on God that provides the will and ability (Ephesians 2:13 (KJV)) to do what pleases Him!   Do Your Job, do it trusting in God.  Do Your Job, loving God

Another slogan now hands on my office door, a couple feet from me.  No Days Off!  Perhaps surprisingly, this slogan had not been revealed through the entire march to last year's Superbowl victory, but afterwards, during the victory parade.  What was the secret to the victory?  The coaches and players lived football, they lived the game, in season and out of season.  They lived based on the standard of their slogans... and did their job, whatever it required.

Can you imagine if the church did this?  If it made the sacrifices to walk with God each day?  If it dwelt in His presence, relied on His mercy, recognized His love and peace satisfies our lives?  If we ceased treated being Christian was a part-time gig, and wished to live in His love, not just part-time (as if to hit the minimum requirements to gain heaven) nor even full-time ( meeting what we think is our duty) but every day treasured our time with Him, and rejoiced in the love that is our, in and through Jesus?  That is really what our "job" is, everything else, worship, loving for others, caring for others, these things are just the impact of walking with Him.

Plus there is the motto I haven't got anything on, one which I could not find out relevant within the Kingdon of God.  The latest slogan, 'Not Done Yet"

However, I knew that where that slogan is actually in the church.  It happens the moment sermon ends, and for a number of us, this is actually the very high point of our church time together.

This is not even close.

For the sermon is merely enlightening God's plan in our lives.   Still, we're not near to being done at that point.  The finest time in the church comes when we approach the rail with each other, as we bow as a group, acknowledging the presence and invitation of God, and people who can kneel, and as a community of His people, share in the Eucharist as one.

As I preach, my hunger for the sacrament grows, and I pray it grows in my people.  To be accepted at the dining room table, completely righteous in the eyes of God, entirely washed by Him and made able to celebrate.  Even as we realize we are not done yet, as we take a knee, the Lord's Supper is the start of the celebration of Jesus finishing His work in us,  For He has done all it takes to make us His own.  And the Eucharist is His thanks to the Father, and our thanks to Him, for it is finished.

He Has done and is doing, His job.
He takes no days off...
And Then He is not actually done yet and maybe, while he brings in the very last prodigal home.

For the time being, allow us to walk with, work with and celebrate the love of God.  AMEN!



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Credit:  Escriva, Josemaria. The Forge (Kindle Locations 2578-2581). Scepter Publishers. Kindle Edition.

Prayer Requests

Today's Prayer Requests

AJ | Please intercede for me, I'm going through satanic manipulation due to lack of self control especially in the area of immorality. I've been praying constantly against it, but the more I pray, the more I engage into it. Please intercede for me, I'm getting fade up. Thanks

G.James Babu | Greetings. Pray for my salvation. I want to get heaven through lord Jesus.also pray for my family

Moshi Chang | Pls Pray to God w/ me for him to grant me complete healing & recovery this month Feb 2018 from this sickness/disease of auto immune that I suffer daily. To give me back my normal life & strengthen my body & soul.

VERA BANKSTON-JONES |  FATHER GOD, Hold and guide my steps!.......SELAH

vijay aggarwal | Plz pray for money in abundance for a comfortable life

Thu Thuy | please pray urgent to bind spirits od Phuong , Trong , Dung  and Van Anh , destroy  satan steal , kill and destroy and all attacks to me . n the name of Jesus   please destroy the witchcraft  Phuong , Dung , Van Anh used to  gain the money for them .  Plese pray to bless  everyone in Viet Phap hospital . God bless you

James O Ayodele | (1)God should release every of my hanging blessings to me (My Green card)before this month end(2)God should give me victory over debts and God should teach me his own way to serve him till eternity and help me to make heaven ijn amen

jennifer carrion | my husband has been gone for a 1 week and ill want is him to come home we have been married for 1 year i dont want our marriage to end we married in the lords house



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High Cost of Love

Cost of Love

The joyful love that satisfies the soul with happiness will depend on suffering. There is absolutely no love with no renunciation.

44 And he turned to the woman, and said unto Simon, Seest thou this woman? I entered into thine house, thou gavest me no water for my feet: but she hath washed my feet with tears, and wiped them with the hairs of her head. 45 Thou gavest me no kiss: but this woman since the time I came in hath not ceased to kiss my feet. 46 My head with oil thou didst not anoint: but this woman hath anointed my feet with ointment. 47 Wherefore I say unto thee, Her sins, which are many, are forgiven; for she loved much: but to whom little is forgiven, the same loveth little. 48 And he said unto her, Thy sins are forgiven. 49 And they that sat at meat with him began to say within themselves, Who is this that forgiveth sins also? 50 And he said to the woman, Thy faith hath saved thee; go in peace.   -Luke 7:44-50 (KJV)

There was a song when I was growing up called "Love Stinks" and though it was talking more about infatuation, there is some truth to the idea.

For love is a commitment, knowing that commitment usually entails us to go without, to make sacrifices, to lay all we are on the line, in order to genuinely take care of the one we love.

Parents know this very well, as they will go without to provide for their children,  From little things like watching television shows their kids like, and not watching the ones they want to because they are inappropriate for their child's ears and eyes.   Teachers who give up time to plan, or to think of how to reach "that" student understand this as well. 

It is a puzzle, a contradiction, that waiting or refusing your happiness in the interests of the one you love can bring about much more joy, greater happiness.

The woman in the gospel reading found this out. She did something very costly, anointing Jesus feet with oils that cost her much, oils she most likely bought to treat herself well, to help her ignore the discomfort of life, after having suffered the embarrassment of submitting to others desires.

However, in the wonder of God's mercy, she sacrificed the benefit of her labours to take care of Jesus with love, to absolutely adore the Man who didn't push her away.  Perhaps she was one of several people invited to Zaccheus' house, one of many sinners Jesus was accused of drinking and eating with by the Pharisees. She tried to pay back that love, with the most expensive thing she knew of, by using an action of love that demonstrated how much she reverend the man that didn't want sex from her, and still spoke with her and interacted with her.

The suffering that loves costs is high, and often it stinks.  However when it comes to loving God, what it really demands, though pleasurable, or rewarding, is really what stops us from finding joy.  We go without having pleasure, without having gain, to get ourselves free.

Just at the prostitute seen herself free of sin, and humiliation, and sense of guilt.   Instead, she knew love, and that she was welcomed in the presence of God. She gave up what was costly and pleasurable and found a joy so much greater, and happiness that comes from being accepted and loved.

knowing this, realizing it in our heart, gives us the motivation, the ability to desire to give up what we need to give up.  Not because we have to, but for the joy set before us, the same joy that drove Jesus to endure the cross, for us.

Lord, help us to embrace you, receiving your love.  And as our love and adoration "costs" us, help us to realize the joy that comes from knowing that love.  AMEN!




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Credit: Escriva, Josemaria. The Forge (Kindle Locations 2743-2745). Scepter Publishers. Kindle Edition.

Our Life in the Christ

Revealed in our Church’s liturgy, music, artwork...

10 And Moses commanded them, saying, At the end of every seven years, in the solemnity of the year of release, in the feast of tabernacles, 11 When all Israel is come to appear before the Lord thy God in the place which he shall choose, thou shalt read this law before all Israel in their hearing. 12 Gather the people together, men and women, and children, and thy stranger that is within thy gates, that they may hear, and that they may learn, and fear the Lord your God, and observe to do all the words of this law: 13 And that their children, which have not known anything, may hear, and learn to fear the Lord your God, as long as ye live in the land whither ye go over Jordan to possess it. -Deuteronomy 31:10-13

Christ has died. 
Christ has risen
Christ will come again
We were dead in our sins
Now we're buried with Him
We have risen in Christ
We are given new life
And Christ will bring us home
Making us his own
Christ has died
Christ has risen
Christ will come again!

The Christian images, as we find them in the catacombs, simply take up and develop the canon of images already established by the synagogue, while giving it a new modality of presence. The individual events are now ordered toward the Christian sacraments and to Christ himself. Noah’s ark and the crossing of the Red Sea now point to Baptism. The sacrifice of Isaac and the meal of the three angels with Abraham speak of Christ’s Sacrifice and the Eucharist. Shining through the rescue of the three young men from the fiery furnace and of Daniel from the lions’ den we see Christ’s Resurrection and our own. Still more than in the synagogue, the point of the images is not to tell a story about something in the past, but to incorporate the events of history into the sacrament. In past history, Christ with his sacraments is on his way through the ages. We are taken into the events. The events themselves transcend the passing of time and become present in our midst through the sacramental action of the Church.

The centering of all history in Christ is both the liturgical transmission of that history and the expression of a new experience of time, in which past, present, and future make contact because they have been inserted into the presence of the risen Lord. As we have seen already and now find confirmed anew, liturgical presence contains eschatological hope within it. All sacred images are, without exception, in certain sense images of the Resurrection, history read in the light of the Resurrection, and for that very reason, they are images of hope, giving us the assurance of the world to come, of the final coming of Christ.

324 Looking at his mercy, faith comforts and consoles us. Our opponents teach wrongly when they praise merits in such a way as to add nothing about this faith that takes hold of mercy

The readings this morning were just crammed full of thoughts that I needed to hear.  I could have doubled the amount I quoted, and foregone writing.  Except that I need to, for as I've said before, my devotions have to be thought through, meditated upon, and brought together in my writing.  It used to be called spiritual journaling, and someone once suggested I put it out there to be shared.

Today, it seemed like a lot of my readings were set up to talk about living within the story.  About faith is a life of dependence on God, living in harmony with Him, rather than a statement of what theological statements we hold to be true.

We see that in the words from the Lutheran confessions, as we take hold of mercy. That is faith, this incredible love of God that is revealed to us, that floods our lives so that we can hold onto it.  For faith is an engagement with God with not our mind at first, but our heart and soul.

Pope Benedict in the longest quote talks about this in the imagery in the early church and the synagogue, when visuals made our sacramental life part of the narrative poured out in visual representation.  And all of that representation is reflected in the resurrection, the very summit of our being made one with Christ.  For we are united to Him in His death, in order that we can rise to our new life with Him.

That is the reason for the reading of the entire community of Israel, over 2 million people, plus the foreigners that make their home among them.  (Note that part about the aliens!) They were to know the covenant so that they could be in awe of God's love and provision for them!  Even more than that, this awe was lived out before Him. In other words, not just in His are of vision, but right before Him, in His presence.

As I was reading all of this, I thought of my friend's version of the liturgical hymn, the Memorial Acclamation.  Chris is not only an incredible musician and professor of worship but has a great understanding of sacramental covenant theology.   So when he recomposed this ancient part of Christian worship, he not only told Christ's story, but he made clear what was inferred.  That we share in that death, and in that resurrection, and in Christ's coming again.  What has become veiled and vaguely visible, Chris revealed in a glorious way. ( You can hear a rock version of it at the link!)

Every aspect of our ministry, from the music to the artwork and images, to the words we speak and lessons and liturgy are geared to help us make this transition.  We are not just people reading about history, we aren't just witnesses to the story, we are the characters in the story, living and interacting in great awe with God.  Just as people have done since Adam and Eve walked through the garden.  Our people may not realize this, so we need, like Israel, to teach them more and more.  They need to know it, they need to experience His love. as do we, as do our communities.

May the Lord make this happen, opening our eyes more and more to His love!

AMEN!



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SOURCE
Ratzinger, Joseph. The Spirit of the Liturgy. Trans. John Saward. San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2000. Print.

Tappert, Theodore G., ed. The Book of Concord the Confessions of the Evangelical Lutheran Church. Philadelphia: Mühlenberg Press, 1959. Print.

The Memorial Acclimation by Rev. Dr. Christopher Gillette

The Struggle….of Brokenness

The Interior Struggle

The Pantheon is a former Roman temple, now a church, in Rome, Italy

12 Not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect: but I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus.13 Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before,14 I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. Philippians 3:12-14

735- The interior struggle doesn’t take us away from our temporal business-it makes us finish it off better!
Brokenness; It is real, I encounter it each day in my own life, and I try to shepherd others through it daily as well.

The Pantheon, a place once dedicated to worship of idols but reborn to host the worship of God. May our lives tell a similar story as we realize what God does to us in baptism!

Brokenness

It sucks.  And we aren’t the first generation to deal with it.  It goes all the way back to two people who weren’t broken but became broken.

The breaks may be physical, or social, psychological.  They may seem to others to be tiny fractures, for others life is simply shattered.  Some of our breaks we hide… not easily, and some we try to hide from, distracting ourselves, trying to find ways to numb the pain.

Some of our brokenness may be dealt with, for that is what doctor’s, counsellors, and mediators are there to do.  Other types of brokenness have to be endured, and that too sucks.  To deal with something broken for 40 or 50 or 70 years.  Never knowing how bad the brokenness and pain will be the next day.  We never know when we will be completely overcome by it.

As a pastor, I know this all too well, in too many areas I’ve tried to endure it.  Physical, emotional, social, and outcast. Been there, done that. Have the scars and the memories that still hurt.

I wish I could heal it all, I know sometimes it happens, as God’s mercy overwhelms us and the person’s shattered life is made whole.  I don’t understand why this one, and not that.  I only know the healing we all have access to, the brokenness that for everyone there is healing, that there is being made whole, as we are made holy.

Spiritual healing

The healing that comes from realizing God’s love.  The healing that comes from the cleansing and restoration that forgiveness is.  Our heart and soul freed of the burdens of guilt and shame.  The healing that comes from encountering the love of Christ, pure, faithful, incredible, without measure.

A love so graphically pictured in the cross, and in our baptism.  A love that invites us to share in Christ’s brokenness in communion, that our brokenness we would realize He shares in as well.  And in our promised resurrection united with Him, the brokenness fades into the past. Freed of it, spiritually now, but when Christ returns… completely as we dwell with him in Heaven forever.

This is our God, who loves us, who cares… who heals.

Find your rest in Him, and your endurance is guaranteed. This is what Paul tells us about, the struggle to hold onto Christ, realizing He is holding on to us. A struggle that as we are healed spiritually has an incredible impact on our lives, on our work, on the art that comes out of our lives.  Remind others of this as well, for that is what it means to be the church.   A place where people find healing in Christ while helping others heal.  AMEN!



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Click here to join our Global non-denominational online community and engage in bible discussions, ask questions, studies, prayer support, engage in the civil debate of Christian doctrines from the scriptures and friendly fellowship.

Source
Escriva, Josemaria. The Forge (Kindle Locations 2662-2664). Scepter Publishers. Kindle Edition.