2-28-2014

Good Morning to All,

    Joel 2:13; “and rend your hearts and not your garments.”  Return to the Lord your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love; and he relents over disaster.”

     I was reading an article the other day about the cost of forgiveness.  The author was telling how people would go about buying their forgiveness, from husbands that brought home flowers to wives that baked pies or favorite meals; the author made a claim that forgiveness was earned or at least paid for.

    We often hear that.  A person wrongs another and then has to pay, sometimes for a long time, for their forgiveness.  We often call this the price of forgiveness.  It is a common thought, totally wrong, but common.  Buying forgiveness is not possible because forgiveness is given and not bought.  If you buy something, you have earned it because you have enough to pay for it. 

    There are many people who believe that they can buy forgiveness so they have no need to change their ways.  As long as they can pay someone enough to continue what they are doing, they feel no need to change.  Sort of like the little boy who told his mother he was going to hit his sister.  His mother told him he would lose his allowance if he did.  The little boy looked his mother and said, “It’s worth it!”

    In many ways, the Israelites thought along this path.  A few more offerings, a few more sacrifices, a few more hollow prayers offered and they were “forgiven”.  It seemed simple enough except that it is not accurate.  Forgiveness from God is given to us, freely but with the desire by God that we change our ways.  God wants us to change from the sinful actions because sinful actions still cause pain, suffering and harm.  Think of a person who pollutes the environment, pays a fine for doing so and then continues to pollute.  The damage remains and continues to grow.

    The person who attacks another, whether physical or emotional, inflicts pain both on the victim and upon himself.  God has repeatedly told this to us.  The pain is shared by both so the healing requires both to work.  So the offending party needs to repent to “rend his heart” as our verse says.  We need to tear our heart, remove the desire to sin and to repent of our sins; that is to turn away from sin and turn to God.

    God calls to us with his words of forgiveness and his words of love.  He calls to us to come to him and to live in his kingdom.  He calls to us to reconcile with our brothers and sisters as one family unto him.  God is calling, are you listening?

Father of grace, you forgive us so that we may be empowered to forgive others.  We see and experience your mercy and you lead us to show mercy to those around us.  Give us the strength to rend our hearts and turn to you in true faith.  In Jesus’ precious name we pray, amen.

God’s Peace,

Pastor Bret   

2-27-2014

   Good Morning to All,

       Ephesians 6:16; “In all circumstances take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one”

     At one of our Bible studies at our church we are looking at Ephesians 6 and the armor of God.  This is an image that some of us cannot quite grasp but Paul and the first readers of this letter would have understood it right away.  Paul describes a Roman soldier like one that the citizens would have seen every day.  They would have been in full uniform with the breastplate, the helmet, the sword and shield.  Paul took this visual and applied it to the life of faith that he wanted the readers of this letter to be aware of. 

     We sometimes struggle with these images because we don’t see that we are in a war.  Yet the truth is that we, as believers, are on the front line.  If we think about it, the unbeliever is already caught by the devil, those who have died are no longer in the battle so the only ones whom the devil will attack are believers, you and me.  It is only the believer who has attacks of guilt and conscience.  We are the ones whom the devil targets to shoot those flaming arrows of temptation.  So we need to be ready for the attack that comes at us every day.

    Paul uses faith as our shield.  Faith is the desire to trust in God’s promise.  Faith clings to the hope that God gives to us.  By having faith we are able to resist the devil and his temptations.  Faith helps us to resist the devil’s whispers which cause us to have doubts.  The shield is a very apt description.  In Paul’s time, the shield would have been covered in leather.  Just before the battle the shield would have been soaked in water in order to extinguish the flaming arrows shot at them.  That is how Paul wants us to see our faith, as a shield that takes the hits of the arrows fired at us.

    But there is one major thing we need to remember; we need to hold the shield up and in place to protect us from the arrows.  Having the shield at our side or, even worse, having it in the closet by the door.  A soldier that doesn’t have his shield up and in the ready position is very vulnerable to attacks from the enemy.  So too we must always have our faith ready to absorb the attacks of the devil.  It is faith that allows us to stand up to the arrows that the devil fires at us so we must keep our faith up and in the ready position. 

    In order to do this we need to keep our faith strong.  We do this through prayer, devotional time, proper use of the sacraments and in praise and worship of God.  These are the tools that God gives to us to keep us strong and ready to do battle.  The devil will attack; he will fire at us every chance he gets but God’s grace will defend us and through the faith that God gives us we will prevail.

Father as we do battle with the devil we need you to guard and defend us.  Give us the strength to trust in you.  Give us the faith to extinguish the arrows of the devil.  Be with those who are being fired upon at this time.  Protect them with your Holy Spirit.  In Jesus’ precious name we pray, amen.

God’s Peace,

Pastor Bret    

2-26-2014

   Good Morning to All,

     Psalm 37:7; “Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him; fret not yourself over the one who prospers in his way, over the man who carries out evil devices!”

      Everyone who has ever played sports in some form of organized fashion, whether high school or college or city league or even church league remembers that one player.  That one player who was always on the “cheaper” or “dirty” side of the game.  He would cheat at the game and get away with it.  He was always pulling something that was shady or outside of the rules.  He would push you in the back in a basketball game or punch you in a football game.  He made the game a lot less fun than normal.  He made the game a task or a chore rather than a challenge.

    The one universal truth about this type of player is that he rarely, if ever, gets caught.  He will push the other player and then that second adage about sports comes into play, “the second guy gets caught.”  It is as frustrating thing to experience when the bad guy seems to win and the good guy seems to come up short. 

    There are times when we think this is true in our faith life as well.  Why does it seem that some of the unbelievers have all the success while believers seem to struggle to have anything at all?  It seems somewhat unfair; it should be the other way; at least we think.

    First and foremost, we need to remember that as Christians we measure success differently than the world does.  The world measures by “stuff”, possessions and other tangible things.  We see success as faith, loving relationships, reconciled families, people coming to faith, suffering healed; in other words we see success in terms of human condition.  We see success in terms of relationships that get healed, both between man and God and man to man.  These are successes.

    So we look at the world and we wait, we wait for God.  We wait for God to do the wonderful thing that he has promised.  We wait for God to put an end to pain, to suffering, to injustice, to death.  This will occur when Christ returns and creation is restored and we are made perfect at his arrival.  We wait, in joyful anticipation of God intervening and ending death.  We wait with the total assurance that God will do as he has promised to do.  God has promised us salvation, hope for life eternal with him in everlasting glory.  We look forward to this coming but until it does we wait for God.

    So as we wait, we take the opportunity to serve God and give him praise and thanks by serving others, by bringing God’s grace to them.  We measure our success, not by gold or silver, but by the love of God shared throughout our midst.

Gracious and loving Father, through you we have salvation and we have hope.  So we wait for you to finish our redemption and bring it to completion.  We wait for your glorious return.  Be with those who are tempted by the world’s measure of success and are missing out on your great love and peace.  Guard and protect them from the devil’s arrows.  In Jesus’ precious name we pray, amen

God’s Peace,

Pastor Bret