3-27-2017

Good Morning All,

             Romans 4:3; “What does Scripture say? “Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness.”

    I read a story on the internet yesterday (so we know it is true!) about a retired lady who had been receiving her monthly retirement check.  She had worked for this company all of her life.  She retired at the age of 62.  She is now almost 90.  She has been receiving these retirement checks for almost 30 years each month depositing the money that she and the company had paid in.  The other day she got a letter from the retirement fund management company.  They had miscalculated her payments and had been overpaying her the whole time.  With interest calculated in, they felt she owed them $620,000.  They were waiting for her prompt payment.

    The fund management credited more money to her account than they should have.  Now they expected it back.  God credits to your account all that Jesus did and counts it as your righteousness.  Just think if you place of employment or your retirement fund was to deposit a large sum of money everyday something like $25 million every morning at 6:00 am; every day of the week, every week of the year, every year of your life.  What would you do with this?  You would never owe anyone anything and you would run out of things to buy and never have to pay it back.

    This is how much God credits to your account through the righteousness of Christ.  It is a sum that you cannot exceed in one day.  Now some of you may think you have.  You may think that you have exceeded your allotted amount but you have not and cannot.  The devil will try to tell you that your “grace account” is overdrawn that you are in debt to a level that you can never repay.  Yet God continues to put into this account every day, grace upon grace; to a level you cannot comprehend.

   God does this out of love for you.  He does this so you can be his redeemed child.  There are so many ways that God shows you his love.  He does this with his creative act as he creates the world; he does it with his redemptive act of his death; he does it with his re-creative act as he restores us to his kingdom and he does it with the regenerative act of his holy meal as he nourishes us.  This he does in order to sustain us through the trials and struggles of this life.  This he does so that we can live confident of our future; confident in the hope that he gives to us.  We are able to face the tasks of today and the challenges of tomorrow because our account is full, never overdrawn.  God, in his mercy, sustains us with his righteousness that he wraps around us with his love.  You can take that to the bank!!

Father in heaven, your mercies are new to us each day.  We give you thanks for the grace that you pour out upon us.  We know no other hope than you.  Be with those who struggle and are in fear.  Be with those who see their struggle as beyond their tolerance.  Give them your comfort and your hope.  In Jesus’ precious name we pray, amen.

God’s Peace,

Pastor Bret

3-26-2017

 Good Morning All,

             Luke 8:17; “For nothing is hidden that will not be made manifest, nor is anything secret that will not be known and come to light.”

     I was reading an article the other day about the world economies and how the Chinese economy was starting to slow and wane.  The author of this article wrote that he expected India to advance up to the top of the fast growing economies.  I remember when India was the place with all the starving children.  If you didn’t eat all your peas or carrots, you were reminded that there were starving kids in India.  I remember watching a news show where they showed all these starving people while hundreds, if not thousands, of cattle just roamed around.  They were starving and all that meat was just standing there looking at them. 

    In India cattle were, and still are, considered sacred.  Since many believe in re-incarnation, they view eating a Hereford like eating a Henry.  I don’t think I would make it there.  But it was so ironic, these starving people refused to give up on their sacred cows and many starved while the cattle walked on by.

    Sometimes we have sacred cows in our life.  We have those things which we will not give up even though it would be better if we did.  Sometimes we have those sins that we just don’t want to let go off.  Maybe we are jealous of our neighbor, just a little envious.  We know that God wants us to love our neighbor and be truly happy that God has blessed him.  But we don’t want to give up that sacred cow.  We will be double good somewhere else and we’ll keep this little sin hidden away so we can bring it back at the right time.  Maybe we have a co-worker who we would like to see brought down a peg or two; it would serve them right.  Maybe a sibling or a sibling-in-law needs a comeuppance.  We know that God wants us to love one another.  We know it in our mind but we keep that sacred cow hidden in our heart; refusing to give it up.  We think it tastes better especially when someone else, a different neighbor or co-worker shares our feeling about the first person.  All we need is someone to feed our sacred cow and it will get real fat in a hurry.

    Our own personal prejudices are about as sacred as they get.  There are certain people we like and certain ones who we do not.  Rather than ask God to help us overcome these sins; we hold on to these hidden sacred cows.  We’ll let God into other parts of our lives but not into this part.  Yet when we do this, we lock God away from us in all of our life and soon we no longer feel the comfort of the Savior.  When we keep those sinful sacred cows, we deny our own forgiveness; we say that there are some things in life that it is OK to not forgive. 

     So we need to go to the Father and ask for His help and guidance in losing those sacred cows.  They are only blocking us from enjoying all of the love and grace that God wants us to have.  God’s gentle mercies call us; listen to his call.

 Gracious and eternal Father, your mercies are new every day.  Help us to eliminate all those sacred cows in our lives that cause a separation with you; that stand in our way of your grace.  Help us especially to eliminate all those sacred cows which we do not even know we have.  Bring them out of the darkness into the light that we may see our sin and confess and release them.  Continue to mold and shape us Father.  In Jesus’ precious name we pray, amen.

God’s Peace,

Pastor Bret

3-25-2017

Good Morning All,

                   Isaiah 9:6; “For a child will be born to us, a son will be given to us; And the government will rest on His shoulders; And His name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace.”

    We have another grandbaby on the way and everyone is excited.  Mom, Dad, big brother and big sister, grandma and grandpa, the uncles and the aunts are dreaming of what that child will do or become.  Depending on their own personal likes, hobbies, or goals; we set big sights for our children.  Maybe he will be president or a Nobel Prize winner.  Maybe she will be the doctor to cure cancer or become Miss America.  Maybe he will win the Heisman Trophy or pitch the winning game in the World Series.  We all have dreams and goals for our children.  I doubt if they ever quite reached this level.

    As God was telling his prophets who was to come and save the nation of Israel, He laid out some incredible actions and achievements.  There are many reasons for this.  First, no mere human could ever accomplish these.  The government will be upon his shoulders, he will be called Mighty God; these demand more than what any human could ever imagine trying.  Yet it also requires that a man do it.  This is part of Jesus’ two natures.  He was both true God and true man.      

    Jesus had to be true God in order that his death would be sufficient to pay the debt of all our sins.  He had to be true man in order to suffer and die.  He was true man in order to live under the law, the same conditions which we live under.  As true man, Jesus lived the life of a common, ordinary man.  He didn’t receive preferential treatment; he wasn’t spared any of the struggles of everyday life.  He watched as the Romans abused his friends, his family and his religion.  He maybe even experienced some of this himself.  The weight of the whole world was on his shoulders. 

     As we live our life, as we muddle through the battles and the struggles of our life, it is easy to lose hope.  The devil loves it when we lose hope.  The more hopeless that state of mankind, the happier the devil is.  So Jesus came and beat the devil, beat the devil at his own game.  Jesus lived the life of every man of every common man and because he was true God as well; he defeated the devil.  He is Mighty God; He is Prince of Peace.  We have true peace with God.  We have true hope with God.

     The beauty of this is that God never stops coming to us with his peace and hope.  He comes over and over with his amazing grace.  He brings to us peace always drawing us back to him so that we can live in his holy peace. 

Dear Father, you graciously sent your Son to redeem us and to claim us back as your own.  We give you thanks for this blessed gift.  Keep us in your arms and dear care.  Hold us close to your heart.  In Jesus’ precious name we pray, amen.

God’s Peace,

Pastor Bret 

3-24-2017

Good Morning All,

                   Isaiah 64: 6a; “We’ve all become unclean, and all our righteous acts are like permanently stained rags.”

          “The opposite sides of the same coin;” I use this phrase fairly often.  I find that for most people, their greatest character strength is also one of the character weaknesses.  For example, someone who views themselves as a person who takes charge and makes decisions quickly may struggle when asked to follow directions or to serve in a subordinate role.  A person who likes to look at the “big picture” often struggles when trying to deal with the details of the situation.  The phrase “the opposite sides of the same coin” usually describes two truths that are more closely related than we may think.

     Our verse tells us that none of our “righteous acts” can ever impress God.  Nothing we do, no matter how many times you go to church services, no matter how many times you read the Bible, no matter how many prayers you have said, no matter how much money you have given to the church; none of these events impress God.  There is no number of homeless people that you have given food or shelter to that has God impressed by your actions.  The hours you spent in the food kitchen do not raise God’s perception of you.  The kindness you show to strangers, the honor and respect you show to your elders, the generosity that you show to people who can never repay you; none of these make God sit up and think, “There is a great person.”

    There are a lot of people who get depressed when they see this.  Deep down, we want God to be impressed when we tell him, “What a good boy am I.”  When we think that God doesn’t give us a little star by our name when we perform one of these actions, it can be kind of a letdown.  Yet the beauty here is that, more often than not, we live on the opposite side of the same coin.

    It is true that God doesn’t pat you on the back for the number of times you went to church; he also doesn’t hold it against you when you slept in because you stayed up too late the night before.  He doesn’t think more of you when you stop and help the homeless but he also doesn’t think less of you when you don’t stop.  We don’t gain God’s favor by being good but the much better news is that we don’t lose God’s favor when we fail to be good.  God’s grace is poured out upon us for one reason- God loves you. 

   So why bother doing good things if these things don’t impress God?  First and foremost, these good things for others are a wonderful response to God’s love.  Secondly, we never know when the Holy Spirit will use one of those times to move the heart of the person you helped.  Thirdly, God calls us to be the light to the world, to show them what God’s love looks like.  Think about how much God loves you then try and do that for your neighbor.

Father of all mercy, I am thankful that you do not hold my failures against me.  I thank you that your love depends on you and not on me.  Help me to respond to your love by showing love to my neighbor.  Help me to share your grace with those around me.  Lead me to those who are in most need of your loving and peaceful Spirit.  In the precious name of Jesus we pray, amen.

God’s Peace,

Pastor Bret