Love Overcomes Daily Devotion 2/13/16

Words of Love

2…during the high-priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the wilderness. 3 He went into all the country around the Jordan, preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.

Luke 3: 2-3 NIV

Overcoming the Barrier

Yesterday we looked at the possibility that someone could have such a low opinion of their spiritual life that he or she might not even set out on a Lenten journey. They shrug and declare that they just aren’t “spiritual” enough to follow Jesus from the Judean wilderness to Jerusalem and, thus, just aren’t fit for the journey. My prayer is that you were convinced to reconsider that position based upon the reality that much of Jesus’ own preparation was simply growing up like most people do, balancing a life of work, play, and worship. Today, I want to slide over to the other end of continuum and consider how we might think that because of our family church tradition, our own current participation in church, our general goodness as a person, or other contributing factors that we feel like we have no need for the journey. That particular barrier to the deeper life can be hard to see. Think of it as an ‘I’m okay – you’re okay” spirituality. Enter John the Baptist. He may have been Jesus’ warm-up act, but John the Baptist was serious and his routine was intense. In this season of political waffling and flip-flopping John the Baptist’s unequivocal call to repentance stands in sharp relief. And his main audience was the people of Israel, the regular churchgoers, the folks with the righteousness of God practically in their DNA. And the bull’s-eye of that target audience were the leaders of the faithful. (Don’t think that doesn’t weight heavily on this preacher.) He called them a “brood of vipers,” which in that religious culture was worse than calling a Vol fan a Gator or an Alabama fan a War Eagle. He accused them of leaning on their Jewish lineage as their ticket to righteousness yet living as though they never heard of the God of their ancestors. His message was to repent of their sins and get ready to follow Jesus.

That’s the message I hear in my own spirit. I am under no illusion that just because I’m a preacher means wherever I wander is automatically following Jesus. I am painfully aware of my stumbling journey and misguided side trips. In fact, as I have settled into my new role at the church I have a heightened awareness of my need to follow Jesus more closely. That’s one of reasons I’m writing these devotions, which I am approaching as a spiritual discipline. I am praying that if I even begin to think in terms of having some sort of privileged spiritual position because of a seminary degree or a title from the United Methodist Church John the Baptist’s words will ring loudly in my already ringing ears. I need Jesus, every minute, every day. I can’t make it without him and neither can you, But, thanks be to God, we don’t have to. Now, let’s hit the trail.

Prayer

Dear God of mercy, thank you for your patient attitude toward me and please correct me when I start to think I’ve got this. In Jesus’ name, amen.

Love Overcomes Daily Devotion

Words of Love

And Jesus grew in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man. Luke 2:52 NIV

Overcoming the Barrier

As we continue these first steps on our devotional journey through the season of Lent I’m remembering a conversation with a young dad at one of the churches I have been blessed to serve. He was in a Bible study I was leading and the topic on that particular evening was Paul’s description of spiritual gifts and, more largely, living in the Spirit. When the class was over he came up to me looking something between dejected and defeated and sighed, “I guess I’m not very spiritual. I mostly just work and take care of my family.” We spent the next half-hour or so reflecting on all the work he did around the church, how he quietly modeled his faith to his boys, and other hallmarks of a godly life that seemed hidden behind a tragically misguided perception of what it means to be “spiritual.” I reminded him that our spirituality is a manifestation of the Holy Spirit that is utterly unique with each person. The Spirit works through our personalities and experiences to produce fruit for the kingdom and God controls the metrics that determine how we’re doing, not us, and certainly not anyone else.

I love the passage above because in one verse it sums up Jesus’ life for the 18 or so years that preceded his three-and-a-half years of ministry. The verses prior to this one indicate that Jesus and his family regularly attended church. Granted, it was an activity of which he couldn’t seem to get enough, but that’s all we know about the spiritual life of Jesus and his family for 18 years. And your point is, preacher? Simple: Jesus prepared for his journey of preaching, teaching, healing, and saving humankind from sin and death by simply growing up with his family and participating in their traditions. He worked, he played, and he worshipped like most of the other Jewish boys and girls in his community. How “spiritual” does that sound? How similar is that to our lives right now? How easy could that be to begin? We work, we play, we worship. Granted, he seemed to take the worship part very seriously and undoubtedly made the most of his opportunities to study the Scriptures. But we can do that, too. Don’t let some preconceived notion that you’re not “spiritual” become a barrier to growing in wisdom and stature during your journey. Our life with Christ is not a competition; it’s an expedition. And while we all may have the same ultimate destination, our routes will vary. Our journey may take us through some breathtaking landscape, or we may spend most of our time close to home. Regardless, God will use whatever path we’re on to lead us near to his heart. It took Jesus 18 years. What’s your hurry?

Prayer

God of real life, please invade my everyday things and create holy things so that in everything I see you and path you have in mind for me. In Jesus’ name, amen.

Love Overcomes Daily Devotion 2/11/16

Words of Love

“Even now,” declares the Lord, “return to me with all your heart, with fasting and weeping and mourning.” Joel 2:12 NIV

Overcoming the Barrier

Joel was one of the 12 Minor Prophets, not that he was under 21, but that his body of work was brief. He prophesied to Judah, the Southern Kingdom of Israel, most likely after the exile while the people were struggling with their identity and their strained relationship with God. In the first chapter he speaks of the utter destruction resulting from a nasty swarm of locusts and a grinding drought. But with today’s verse from chapter two a glimmer of grace pierces the darkness of disappointment and despair. One of the keys to pointing their broken hearts back to God is fasting. But why, why fast? The idea of fasting, which usually implies the self-denial of food, may have started in Leviticus when people were told to deny themselves on the Day of Atonement. Later in the Old Testament we begin to find passages that speak of fasting, usually in connection with repentance for disobedience.

But the question remains, why? Life involves a number of cycles or rhythms that shape our days and direct our paths. Sleeping, working, playing, resting, and eating are common rhythms that move us through our lives. When one of these rhythms is interrupted, it has the potential to impact the others. Anyone who has endured sleepless nights only to have to keep up their regular schedule will shout, Amen! Eating is a powerful rhythm that, when interrupted by sickness or the latest diet, causes collateral damage to the other life rhythms. More to the point, interrupting our rhythm of eating can impact destructive rhythms such as cycles of anger, despair, or addiction by alerting our conscience to a painful rhythm we have learned to ignore. Fasting shakes our inner foundations and can dislodge barriers that may be blocking our path to wholeness. It’s interesting to note that 16 verses later Joel speaks for the Lord and says, “And afterward, I will pour out my Spirit on all people…” Peter quoted this on the day of Pentecost to describe the coming Kingdom. (see Acts 2:17) When the barriers are brought down we make a path for God’s Spirit to roam in our spirit running out the locusts that ravage our souls and ushering in transformation.

What about you and me? While biblical fasting usually implies food, perhaps there is another life rhythm that could be interrupted to bring clarity and allowing God to run off some locusts and pour out some Living Water. Could we dare fast from technology? Is there some black hole that is swallowing up precious time that could be given up? Should we consider an anger fast? Mike Slaughter of Ginghamsburg UMC suggests a 40-day fast from being jerk. How would that impact the way we think and talk about others? What if everyone committed to that? One thing’s for sure, we would have to suspend the presidential campaigns for Lent.

Prayer

Come Holy Spirit; alert me to things I have grown used to that are conspiring to block your live-giving breath. Shake my foundations so that barriers will fall and love with flow. In Jesus’ name, amen.

Love Overcomes - Daily Devotion 2/10/16

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Lent begins today and so does our daily devotional journey. My plan is for each daily devotion to encourage deeper exploration of the topic in the preceding Sunday’s sermon. However, this doesn’t mean that if you missed the sermon or aren’t a part of our worshiping community you can’t participate. While the devotions will have a connection to the sermon material, they will stand on their own merit. That said, you can go to concordumc.com and click resources to watch the sermon if would like. My prayer is that God will use these brief daily reflections as a way to connect us to Jesus’ journey to the cross and deepen our relationship with him and more fully experience the depths of his love and the power Love has to overcome the barriers in all of us that can block the fullness of God’s love. Now, onto today’s devotion.

Love Speaks

By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return.” Genesis 3:19 NIV

Overcoming the Barrier

Today is Ash Wednesday, which is observed as the beginning of the season of Lent in Christian churches of various creeds and denominations around the world. In most churches ashes will be applied in the sign of the cross on worshipers’ foreheads. The idea of applying ashes as a sign of grief and repentance dates back to the Old Testament when the Hebrew people would wear uncomfortable sackcloth garments and place ashes on their heads as a sign of their inner discomfort produced by their disobedience. For Christians, the 40-day (excluding Sundays) period known as Lent began in the 4^th Century as a time of fasting and prayer. The application of ashes became common by the 10^th Century. Today, the tradition continues as fronds the kids waved during the previous year’s Palm Sunday observance are burned to produce the ashes for Ash Wednesday.

Whether we heap ashes on our heads or a pastor artfully draws a cross on our forehead, the idea is the same. The ashes create the outward sign of an inward struggle, a barrier to the deeper life to which God calls each of us which can only be overcome by the power of love. Not all of us will wear the mark of the cross from an Ash Wednesday service, today, but we all bear the mark of sin and are faced with barriers to the fullness of life God intends. Perhaps today is the day to take an honest look at the outer markings of our lives such as anxiety, insecurity, or the need to sooth an inner pain with material things. These and other surface symptoms may be manifestations of deeper damage that needs the tender touch of Jesus’ healing love. Just as the passage above may not sound like our idea of love, healing love may be as uncomfortable as sackcloth at first. But, as the barriers fall, Jesus’ love can comfort us like that favorite fleece jacket, warm, soft, familiar.

 which God calls each of us which can only be overcome by the power of love. Not all of us will wear the mark of the cross from an Ash Wednesday service, today, but we all bear the mark of sin and are faced with barriers to the fullness of life God intends. Perhaps today is the day to take an honest look at the outer markings of our lives such as anxiety, insecurity, or the need to soothe an inner pain with material things. These and other surface symptoms may be manifestations of deeper damage that needs the tender touch of Jesus' healing love. Just as the passage above may not sound like our idea of love, healing may be as uncomfortable as sackcloth at first. But, as the barriers fall, Jesus' love can comfort us like that favorite fleece jacket, warm, soft, familiar. 

Prayer

God of love, please give me the courage to take a hard look at the things I've become used to and surround myself with that are hiding barriers to a deeper life with you. In Jesus' name, amen. 

 

Coming Into Focus

I got new glasses yesterday and I love them/hate them. It’s only been a year since my prescription was updated, but the difference is profound. I had forgotten what it was like to see things clearly. I’d also forgotten what it was like go around feeling like you’re in a gigantic video game with bad graphics, thus the love/hate relationship. I have progressive lenses and they are wonderful, though the adjustment is tricky. When I first got them a few years back Lynn called me bobble-head because I was constantly moving my head up and down trying to find the correct focal point for various distances. The first prescription update wasn’t bad and I hardly noticed any change. But due to a couple of issues and a couple of birthdays the new prescription was a lot more powerful and these new glasses are rocking my world—literally. But, I can read interstate signs, again, and I can clearly read the down and distance graphics when I watch football on TV.  You don’t realize what you’re not seeing until everything suddenly come into focus.

As we reflect on the 14^th anniversary of the terrorist attack on America I’m thinking about the first Sunday after September 11^th. At that time we were only doing one contemporary service at 8:45 am in the gym, which seated around 275, though we had crammed in 300 folks a few times. There were 418 people in the 8:45 contemporary service that Sunday after 9/11. Folks were standing around the walls with others sitting on the floor. People wept openly as we displayed pictures of the tragedy on the screens and read verses from the Psalms and prayed for the families of those lost and for vision for our country as we sought a response to the violence. Likewise, churches across Knoxville and across the country were filled beyond capacity as folks feeling overwhelmed with helplessness wandered in for comfort and reassurance. It was encouraging and interesting to watch as un-churched, de-churched, and barely-churched folks had a moment where their need for something/Someone beyond themselves came into focus. While we expected higher-than-average attendance, we didn’t expect the scope of the response.

Then, when Sunday came, again, most of those visitors didn’t. Sadly, that was expected. The need for spiritual focus began to subside as the intensity of the anger and sadness prompted by the attacks eased. Moreover, the numbing replay of the attacks on the 24-hour news networks and the reality that there were people who hated Americans enough to commit such atrocities created a hardening of the heart in many folks. Life began to settle into a new normal and the awareness of a need for something transcendent blurred into the mundane patterns of daily living. I wonder about those folks, sometimes. Their need for God had been brought in to focus by a dramatic chain of events. I hope they found what their newly sharpened vision had allowed them to glimpse and they’re in church, somewhere.

While we are limited as to the influence we have with folks who aren’t in our church—beyond inviting them and being a good witness in the community, there is much we can do to help folks in our church avoid the spiritual blurring that daily living can induce. That’s why we are placing a renewed emphasis on discipleship though small group participation for fellowship and spiritual growth, mission, giving, and worship attendance. In much the same way that physical exercise allows us to enjoy more robust health and participate in life more fully, spiritual exercise, if you will, allows us to have a more robust relationship with God and more fully participate in his life in and among us. Plus, with a strong spiritual self we are prepared for whatever life brings. Then, when those difficult days come and our world is rocking on it’s axis, we don’t have to go wandering and wondering if there is a God who cares. We will know the assurance of his presence even before the first wave of trouble comes our way.

Not many of us can stop a terrorist attack. Each one of us can be ready for whatever may attack our sense of peace in a world that grows more difficult understand with each news cycle. Reach for God every day, in a prayer, in a devotion, in a song, or any other activity that helps us be mindful of his abiding presence. Don’t just come to church, BE the church. Grow, serve, give. Then, we’ll be ready to take on whatever comes and, just as important, we’ll be ready to reach out to someone else who may not yet know God but who knows you. Perhaps you can lead them through the transition from blurry to clarity and be there for that moment of amazing grace when God starts coming into focus.

God bless you and God bless America,

Larry