5-3-2018

Good Morning All,

John 13:34; “I’m giving you a new commandment: Love each other in the same way that I have loved you”

    Many years ago there was a pop song that had the chorus line “If you can’t be with the one you love, honey; love the one you’re with.”  This line pretty much sums up the world’s view of love.  This view is based entirely on the selfish concept of “me, me, only me”.  It gives a much distorted view of love.  A common view of love is the one that states “I’ll love you as long as you love me and are nice to me and as long as you make me feel good.”  This way of looking at love also distorted the view of God’s law and covenant.

    During the time that Jesus ministered here on earth, the Pharisees and the Scribes had completely distorted the correct way to read God’s law that was given to Moses.  The Pharisees made the law very condemning and harsh.  They used the law to punish and attack the people.  They used it as a cruel rod of oppression.  They used the law to beat the people into submission and gave them no comfort, no peace and no hope.

    This was the way religion worked at this time.  It was about rules, really picky rules, and it was about being judged or judging someone else.  This was one of the reasons that Jesus’ message resonated with the common, everyday people at this time and not with the religious elite.  The message of Jesus offered hope.  Instead of condemning; he offered forgiveness.  He told his disciples that faith, true faith is very different from what the Pharisees taught.  True faith was shown with love.  This is what Jesus meant when he called it a “new commandment;” it was new to the way they were used to.  It was new to them but not to Jesus or God.

    This doesn’t mean that we forget the law.  The law serves as a guide to our life.  When we approach someone who is in sin, it is not so much telling them that they are wrong.  It is telling them that what they are doing is hurtful to themselves and hurtful to their relationship with God.  When Jesus told the woman who was caught in adultery to “go and sin no more;” this was as much about the harm she was doing to herself, her family, and all the others involved.  The pain that she felt was pretty much self-inflicted.  This is common today.

    We are often our own worst enemy.  We hold onto hate or grudges; we think that fulfilling selfish desires makes us happy and it never does.  The person who loves money never has enough and worries about it constantly.  The person who loves himself only thinks of himself and is usually lonely most of the time.  The person who expects others to make him happy rarely is because our source of happiness is not outside of us but comes from our inner peace which we have with and from God.  Our only source of true joy is love; the kind of love that is the expression of our faith in Jesus.

Father of all love, too often we fall short of your glory and on doing so we fail to love as you love us.  Strengthen us with your grace and move us by your mercy to reach out and to show your love to those around us.  In Jesus’ precious name we pray, amen

God’s Peace,

Pastor Bret

5-2-2018

 Good Morning All,

           Ecclesiastes 4: 9-10; “Two people are better than one because together they have a good reward for their hard work.  If one falls, the other can help his friend get up. But how tragic it is for the one who is all alone when he falls. There is no one to help him get up”

     Do you remember the song by Bill Withers called “Lean on Me?”  It came out in the early 19070’s.  It was a song that spoke of a person needing someone to lean on; someone to help you with the burdens of life.  This was one of many songs of that style.  Simon and Garfunkel had “Bridge over Troubled Waters”, the Hollies sang “He ain’t heavy, he’s my Brother.”  All singing the same thought; we need other people.

     When God created man in His image, man was designed to do three things.  First, man was to live in God’s Presence and worship and praise God and to be God’s helper here on earth.  Second, man was to take care of God’s creation.  The third thing man was designed to do was to be a companion with his fellow man. 

     Of course sin destroyed all of these.  Man no longer lived in God’s Presence rather man sought out his own selfish desires and destroyed whatever stood in his way whether it was another man or part of creation.  It is no accident that the next story after Adam and Eve sin that we read about Cain killing Abel.  Sin destroyed man’s relationship with man as well.

      Yet Jesus came to the world to restore it and to reconcile it back to God. We, as redeemed children of God, are restored to God’s kingdom and reign; just not completely.  We live in the time of “now but not yet.” We are now fully children of God; just not yet fully glorified.  Until that time we are here, waiting for the full restoration, we are to bring the Gospel of Jesus- the total forgiveness of sins- to the whole world.

    One of the most effective way of doing this is by helping other people.  Jesus frees us from the shackles of sin so we are free to begin to live our life the way God intended us to live.  We try and sometimes we fail but God’s grace gives us the power to get up and try again and again.  So we struggle on in life but we know that with God’s grace our struggle is a little easier if we face it with our family and friends at our side.  They are there to be God’s voice of comfort and re-assurance, they are God’s hands to hold us tight and they are God’s shoulders for us to cry on.  Sometimes we cry and sometimes we are the shoulders but we go through it together.  We are God’s redeemed children; we are the Church, the body of Christ called to do his work here on earth and given the grace to face each day.  In the end, we have heaven; but until that day we have God’s promise and we have each other.  So go ahead and lean on your brother or sister for tomorrow they will lean on you.   Through both, we receive our strength from Christ.

Dearest Lord Jesus, as we go through this life in a sinful world, we ask that you give us the strength to allow our brothers and sisters to lean on us as they receive the blessing of your comfort and peace.  Be with all our brothers and sisters who face incredible struggles in their lives and give them the certainty of their salvation and the comfort and love of their fellow Christians.  In your precious name we pray, amen

God’s Peace,

Pastor Bret        

5-1-2018

Good Morning All,

         Romans 8:26; “At the same time the Spirit also helps us in our weakness, because we don’t know how to pray for what we need. But the Spirit intercedes along with our groans that cannot be expressed in words.”

    Whenever you go to a gathering of Christians, do you ever marvel at how some people can seem to just stand up and pray for a longtime and seem to know what to say?  Their prayers just seem to flow with an endless sense of clarity and proper language.  Do you ever think, “I wish I could pray like that?”  You are most likely in the vast majority, like I am, where our prayers have more “umms” and “urrs” and really long awkward pauses.  Most of us struggle with prayer and not just public prayer but with our own private prayer as well.

     I don’t know how many times I have had someone tell me that they don’t know how to pray.  I kind of blame that on the Church.  We have many prayers which have been crafted and honed over many months to say what is “proper”.  Most of us don’t have months to think of a prayer.  If you get a phone call that someone you love has had an auto accident, you need a prayer right now.  So we struggle with our daily prayer life because we don’t know what or how to pray.  Unfortunately, the devil loves to whisper in your ear that you can’t really pray so why try?

    Yet God has given us a way to deal with our struggling prayers.  First, he invites us to pray, at all times and in all ways.  He gives us the Lord’s Prayer to use as an example or just to use as it is.  Finally, and most importantly we have Jesus praying for us (John17:20) and we have the Holy Spirit praying for us.  These three things alone should give us confidence to pray and yet we still struggle.

    So in order for us to have an easier time of praying, here are some ideas.  First, practice, practice, practice!!  We need to have a solid and continual prayer life.  Luther suggested that we set aside three times a day to pray.  He suggested when you get up, when you have lunch and when you go to bed.  The important part here is that you get in the habit of praying and not just waiting until you are in a stressful situation. 

     If you feel the need to, try reading some of the prayers that have been written by others.  Remember this is for you not God to be comfortable with your prayers.  God is already comfortable with your prayers; he knows your needs long before you pray them.  He calls us to prayer in order that he might give us healing and comfort.  He uses our prayers to give us relief from our pains.  He uses our prayers to help us celebrate our joys.  There is an old hymn that encourages us to “speak oft with the Lord”.  This is good advice.  Prayer is God’s gift to us; use it often.

Dearest Father, we don’t come to you in prayer as often as we should and for this we ask for your forgiveness.  Give us the wisdom to seek you out in our prayers so that we may receive your tender mercy.  Be with those who are in pain now and have nowhere to turn.  Use us to be your hands and your voice.  In Jesus’ precious name we pray, amen.

God’s Peace,

Pastor Bret