Bible, Bible Study, Worship

Glorious Unique

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There are two epistles in the Bible that are most misunderstood: Romans and Hebrews.  I am doing a methodical study of Romans but I took a detour and opened my Bible to Hebrews this morning.  Hebrews 3:1.  “Therefore, holy brothers and sisters, who share in the heavenly calling, fix your thoughts on Jesus, who we acknowledge as our apostle and high priest.”  (NIV).

Fix your thoughts, consider, gaze upon, study view upon view, intensely stare until it becomes the only thing you see.  To open your eyes wide and do not squint at the blazing true Son.  Do not fear the burning of your eyes.  Be blind to all else.  Jesus is the perfect last sight.  Do not be afraid of being lost in the vision.

As Isaiah stood in the temple he was struck by a vision of God.  All else became blurred and shadow.  So we are to stop what we are doing focus only on the apparition of Jesus. Stare, focus until nothing else is as important.  Remember he is not just an historical figure.  He is the infinite Jehovah.  He was not just one person’s concept that bloomed into a religion.  Jesus our teacher and our priest.

It is only in a focus on Jesus do we really see our own predicament. Our vision, our fixation on Jesus reveals our place.  It is not a “What would Jesus do?” moment.  It is not a walk as he walked time.  It is not a comparative religion time.  Doing it the Jesus way is not the goal of our vision our fixation.  Our reason for gawking is a step to the Spirit of Christ.  Works are easy.  Doing things like Jesus is not as easy but doable. The problem is that we can do it all and not catch the vision of Jesus.  “If any man has not the Spirit of Christ – he is none of His”.  The motive, the reason for the fixation is to find not what to do but what to be.

Oh that we were more like that perfect vision.  Oh that because of that enraptured gaze we become more like the perfect character of Jesus.  If we could only grasp the heavenly demeanor, the sweet anger against sin, the heart that grasped a child, the mind that conceived a path for the sinner to find something more than self.

Today we look through a glass that is sometimes smoked over.  But for a glimpse of the divine knowing full well there is a day coming, when the full vision will be ours to behold.  We will behold the perfect. We will see more than an image in our minds but the Glorious Unique. No longer will we need to be exhorted to fix our minds.  It will be our minds.

Bible Study, Preaching, Theology

Compare and contrast of Sin

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Good or Bad.  Right or Wrong.  Fun or Boring.  Easy or Difficult.  Beautiful or Ugly.  Every day, we’re surrounded by judgments, whether on the television or in our own minds.  Our culture is strongly attached to categorizing and comparing.

Yet we’re also told that it’s not politically or even spiritually correct to judge.  Accept difference, see similarity, no one is better or worse than anyone else.  Some kid’s baseball games no longer keep score for fear of being the “losers.”  I am not bald; I am just hair-challenged”.

In a Bible study the other day I was totally distracted by the concept of compare and contrast of two disciples of Jesus.  One is proclaimed as the founder of the church named Peter and the other Judas who is most remembered as the betrayer of Jesus.  One is held in high esteem and the other has become catch phrase for deceit and disloyalty.

So what was the difference?  What is the judgement Christianity has made through the eons?  I think we have to get down to motives or the mindsets of the two characters in question.

Peter betrayed Jesus purely out of fear.  Three times he denied Jesus.  We all know the story.  There is but one conclusion to Peter’s motives.  He was fearful of being put on trial himself just for being associated with Jesus.  Now fear as a motive can be a good thing.  It keeps us from driving into walls and drinking unknown liquids.  The problem is that is a very selfish motive.  Self-preservation is a natural desire.  The issue comes up that Peter knew it was going to happen.  Jesus had told him just the night before in response of Peter’s claim he would have Jesus’s back no matter what.

OK, how about Judas?  What was his motive?  What caused Judas to approach the religious leaders of Judah?  It could not be about the money.  I would not turn anyone in to the religious hierarch for a few pieces of silver.  He was the treasurer for the twelve.  He could have just taken the purse and run off at any time.  There must be more to the equation.

Judas was the only disciple from Judah.  All the others were from Galilee. The only one that had lived his life in a society that was saturated with religion and the devout.  His life was filled with temple and biblical festivals.  He was familiar with the roles and jobs of the priests.  The Temple was the center of his life.  He saw the Priestly system as a vital part of society.

I can really see Judas being the only one trying to bridge the gap.  When Jesus went to Jerusalem, he condemned the very ones Judas had held in the highest esteem.  Judas naturally tried to stand in the gap between the radical Galilee preacher and the establishment.  When Jesus started to talk about the great confrontation with religion it was just too much for Judas.

Judas thought if he could just bring the two parties together into on final confrontation both the Priestly class and Jesus would reconcile and he would be seen as the peacemaker.  But when it all went sour, when the priests started talking about death and crucifixion, when they brought in the Roman’s into the discussion, when they started to whip Jesus; Judas realized the reconciliation would never happen.  When the ones he had tried to bring together with his Rabbi betrayed, Judas could not take it.  His good motive was dashed by the results.  So Judas, now rejected by both his society and his teacher, could not combine his world of the past and the world of the present, he went out and killed himself.

Was Peter’s motive, what was in his heart, the silent just call of his heart to do better was just stuffed down and he betrayed Jesus.  Judas with a good motive and the best of intentions could not handle the impact of his actions.  Peter’s denial hurt no one, Judas betrayal set in motion the death of Jesus and his ultimate suicide.

Which of these two committed the greater sin?

Neither.  Sin is Sin.  The difference was that Peter found a place to be forgiven, Judas did not.  And so we make a judgement that Judas was bad and Peter was good.

Sin is sin, bad things happen to everyone.  Bad things like disappointment, betrayal, physical problems, rejection of love, broken relationships, all happen to everyone.  Bad things happen to good people.  Bad things happen to bad people.  Bad is not sin.  Bad can lead to sin.  And what can be concluded from this comparison of Judas and Peter is that sin can lead to bad.

What do you think?

Life, Psycolog

Just breathe

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Life is a continuous series of changing circumstances. Our thoughts help us make sense of this ever-changing landscape and they help guide us from one event to another along this path to future “now’s.” As things change around us, we constantly try to understand the why.  It is this constant asking that brings uncertainty and frustration.  Sometimes all we need is to take a big breath and see the future and its associated change as a possibility for growth. Change happens with or without your input; but you can create in ourselves a joy in the prospect of new growth.

Theology

Humanity of God

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Many struggle with the concept of the humanity of God.  Or for that matter the Godliness of man.  What is the significance of Jesus as the perfect man and the perfect God at the same time.  Is it all that important?  Is it necessary for me, as a Christian, to believe this dual congruence?

If Jesus was just a very holy man, a great teacher or rabbi, just a great pious person or a holy man with a charismatic character it is enough?   I have found sources that see Jesus as a not single unified being but a physical entity that had a divine consciousness.  But on further study that philosophy has too many pitfalls.  And while you are at it contrary to the Bible.

In my simple mind there are two truths on this subject:
1.  The mark of humanity is birth (Jesus was born of a woman)
2.  The mark of divinity is resurrection (the empty tomb of Jesus)

So why did God become man?  Why did Jesus become God with us?
Why did Jesus become like us?  Why did Jesus become God for us?

It is all about feelings.  Not empathy.  I have never given birth.  I will never know the pain or the changes a mother goes through.  But for that matter I really don’t want to know. I don’t want to experience child birth.  But without being a woman how will I ever understand?

Only a human could sympathize with our weaknesses and temptations. In His humanity, Jesus was subjected to all the same kinds of trials that we are, and He is, therefore, able to sympathize with us and to aid us. He was tempted; He was persecuted; He was poor; He was despised; He suffered physical pain; and He endured the sorrows of a lingering and most cruel death. Only a human being could experience these things, and only a human being could fully understand them through experience.

God’s deity limits His intimacy. God is omniscient up to a point of experience.  Science has examined it all, but not one can know what it is like to be me.

What do you think?

Life, Personal, Sermon Illustration

Ship on the Horizon

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Growing up with a father that always seemed greater than life was not always easy. He worked all the time.  If he wasn’t at Ordside Garage, he would be working on some other car for a neighbor or friend.  It was a rare treat to spend time with my dad alone.  One special Sunday I was invited to an adventure. We were to go to the Monterey wharf to see one of the last three mast sailing ships still working the coast of California.  I could not have been more than 9 or 10. We toured the ship just me and my dad.

It was amazing.  Tall masts with furled sails.  The hull was made of iron but the rest was all wood and rope. We toured through each berth and saw the cook in the galley. It was a wondrous time.  The smells and the sights were so much better because I was sharing with my dad.

But the tide was going out and we had to disembark.  So we watched as the brightly uniformed crew of that grand old ship pull all the lines in and set its grand white sails and moved into that arching blue bay.
It was going to San Francisco, its next point of call. That ship was an object of beauty and strength. We stood there until the white sails became nothing more than a speck of white cloud just where the sea and sky came down to mingle with one another. Then someone in the crowd said, “Look, she’s gone”!

That day is often brought to memory.  My sometimes over shadowing Father, the perfect blue sky, and  while sails as they seemed to fall off the edge of the world. But it also brings to mind that exclamation from the crowd, “Look, she’s gone”.  But we must ask, “Gone where?” Gone from my sight, that is all. That grand ship with its large mast and hull was not any less strong or able to cut the waves. That ship was diminished size only because of my perspective.  That ship is “gone” because I can not see it any more.

My dad is no longer with us.  He has sailed over the horizon.  Is he gone?  I don’t think so.  He is just out of sight and never out of mind. In my golden years of retirement I often wonder how I will be remembered when I am “gone”.

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Life, Personal

Joseph Monson – My Dad

I posted this previously in a different media and I thought I might share it again.

Every time I open my hands and look at the grooves and line in my own hands, I see my father.  I have big hands: the hands of German English heritage. Just like my father’s hands, the digits are not well suited to playing the piano or sometimes even typing.  There are few images in my mind of my father which are stronger than the sight of his hands. My father’s hands were huge, but the most remarkable characteristic was the rough callousness of them.  My dad was a mechanic in the days before computers and smog control devices.  Being a mechanic meant you were tough, greasy, tolerant, and patient.
Those great big hands that would reach out to me to come and give him a hug seemed so coarse.  Years of working with hot engines, sharp tools, and caustic chemicals made them that way.  I remember dad when mom was in the hospital for a three day visit and trying to fix the kids something to eat, reaching out for a hot black iron frying pan from the electric stove top.  He had picked it up to take it to the table and he had gone five steps before he realized it was burning hot.  His hands were so desensitized to heat it took that long to set off the warning bells in his head.  With one giant throw, the pan and our dinner went into the sink splattering oil and our food all over the wall.
I guess the reason I remember my father’s hands so well is because as he suffered from the ravages of Alzheimer’s and the rest of his world shrank his hands were still the most remarkable thing to see. They bore the unmistakable signs of hard work.  Those thick, strong and rough hands did not shrunk with the rest of his body.  Those hands that had gripped steel, plunged thousands of times into gasoline and oil,  and pulled chains never seemed to change.  In his last days as his body could no longer keep up with demands of his shrinking world, his hands hung from his arms from still thick wrists that stretched any watch band he had ever known.  They were not the hands that should be idle in darkening days.  They shook and were increasingly awkward when he tried to wipe the drool off his  own proud chin.

Some day all will meet our ends in this world.  But today I will remember a grand man with big hands.

TWO GREAT HANDS

My Father was a man with two great hands,
The skin was rough as it could be.
Work was his life with its pulls and commands,
But he always made time for me.

Sleep and rest were not part of his clock,
There was always someone else in need.
Never did he stop, even when he could drop,
For there were many mouths at home to feed.

His bones were often tired and painfully uncured,
His hands often bandaged and red.
But a promise was a promise, and his bond was his word,
And everyone believed what he said.

He was my dad, and constant each day.
It amazed me how he could be ever so strong,
In his life, in his convictions and in his way.
In my eyes he would never do wrong.

Consistent in actions and strong were his words,
All were made better for walking with this man.
My hands are not as rough, or nearly as tough,
But my inheritance was his gentleness of his hand.

My Dad was a man with two working hands,
Until his life did stop with a beat.
Oh how I miss him, his hands and loving gentle soul,
But these hands I have will ever remind and keep.

Life, Ramblings

Why I Write

My purpose of writing is to clean out the cob webs of my life.  It is not enough to just be.  You have to pass something along. I have done much in my life but little to make waves.  What is strange is some would say I talk to much, others would say I am stoic and don’t talk much at all.  When I am quiet, I am told that I must be mad or angry.  When I am loud and verbose it is a attitude of passion not an attitude rejection of others ideas.
My writing is about my personal struggle, my personal grasping for happiness, my travail for my destination that almost pushed all else out of my journey.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not comparing myself to the great journalistic giants of history, but the more I study, the more I read, the more I understand, I find there are paths, rivulets of cohesive continuity in the chaos.  If I just take a moment to look carefully and stop for a moment, I learn.   I have realized that it is the journey not the destination.
Serendipity is finding something when looking for something else.  It is the discovery of joy along the way.  It is the “ah ha” moments we encounter as we stumble along our journey. Serendipity is not luck.  It is not finding a crisp 20 dollar bill along the road.  Serendipity is having your efforts produce more than you expect.  Serendipity still requires effort.  It still requires a pointing toward the destination, because if you don’ know where you are going, you have already arrived.
But Serendipity is looking for words to describe a grandchild, the sweet strength in the quiet of a son and in doing so discovering beauty of someone that makes you happy.  Understanding is found in the most unlikely places.  Serendipity is offering a kind word to a stranger just to get them to smile for a moment, and having them change their mind about suicide. Serendipity is walking the halls of a small hospital trying to do the right thing and be confronted with someone asking to be led to a new path.
Serendipity is writing a description of one person’s life and discovering your own.
Ministry, Preaching, Sermon Illustration

Knowing of God and Knowing God

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Hank, had just graduated from college ….with Landscaping contractor’s license.  He moved to a small rural town and opened a small office, bought a new pickup truck and waited for his first job.

The first job that was offered him was to remove a stump in a farmer’s field.

Wanted to act as if he knew what he was doing when he met the farmer in the middle of the pasture and all the cows.  Dynamite was the logical choice.  After helping the farmer to move all the cows to another pasture, Hank pulled out the box of explosives.

Hank dug a small hole under the base of the very large tree just as was illustrated in his textbook he had read the night before. He knew he would have to pack it in with enough dirt to contain the blast.  He used a calculator to determine the length of the fuse.

The problem was how much to use… He had no idea….  He didn’t want the farmer to know he as an amateur so he simply guessed at the number of sticks of dynamite.  So hoping it would be enough to move the stump but not so much as to kill them all, he put in the charge with the fuse, tamped it in carefully, covered it with dirt.

The moment came with a look at the farmer and a nod he lit the fuse and ran for cover.

An eternity seemed to pass.  In the middle of faint mooing of cows in the distance and huddled down behind the farmer’s tractor, it happened.

It was a mighty blast

The stump not only moved but it was catapulted into the air fifty feet.  It did three complete revolutions and landed right in the middle of the cab of his new pickup.

In the calm that followed, in the deathly silence, the farmer turned to hank and said: “With a bit more practice you should be able land those thing in the truck bed every time.”

There is a great difference between hearing how something is done and actually doing it.

And so there is a great difference between hearing what God is like and Knowing God.

 

Church, Life, Ministry, Ramblings, Uncategorized

Passion

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Passion is what energizes life. It is the zing in our waking.  It is the empowerment to go one more time. It turns the impossible into possible. In fact, if you don’t have any passion in your life, your ministry, your church, or in your salvation, you will become boring, dull, routine, monotonous. What I am saying here is, if you don’t have passion in your life you are not living. You are existing. God made you to live a passionate life and to serve him and his people with vitality. Life with vibrancy, energy, and enthusiasm is not the exception, it is the expected norm. He wants you to have this in your life.  If you are not living on the edge of excitement you are probably just taking up space.

In John 10, Jesus said “My purpose is to give life in all its fullness.” God wants you to live a full life, a fulfilling life, which is the basis for a fulfilling your calling to be one of his followers. If that’s true, that’s the kind of life God meant for us to live. Life is meant to be enjoyed, not merely endured. Sadly, however, countless thousands of pastors, hundreds of thousands of Godly church members and ministry leaders are simply enduring, holding on for the ride and hoping to survive until death without blowing it too badly.

The apostle Paul said in 1 Corinthians 1:9, “God, who got you started in this spiritual adventure, shares with us the life of his Son and our Master Jesus. He will never give up on you. Never forget that.” God’s will for you is to live and lead in a spiritual adventure. The life that God plans for you is not a mundane boring life. It is an adventurous life. Helen Keller once said, “Life is either a daring adventure or it’s nothing.” I often think the same should be true of our spiritual walk – it’s a daring, bold adventure, or it’s nothing.

Brent Hobbs defines passion this way:
Passion is waking up in the morning wherever you are and bounding out of bed because you know there’s something out there that you love to do, that you believe in and that you’re good at. Something that’s bigger than you are and you can hardly wait to get at it again. It’s something you’d rather be doing more than anything else. You wouldn’t give it up for money because it means more to you than money.

Life, Theology, Worship

Lent

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Lent is a season in which the Church proclaims life is more than just getting by day to day. Lent is about renewal.  It is observed by self-denial. It is saying I can do without something that may well be set in concrete in our lives.  For some it is giving up sweets, for others it is giving up certain meals, for others it is not eating meat of any kind two or three days a week. Lent is a kind of short term “New Year’s Resolution.”

The word Lent means “Spring;” we use it now when we speak of the spring fast–the forty days before Easter Day–I mean forty days not including Sundays, for Sundays are never fast days.

Does the word “fast” frighten you? Does it mean something hard, something very distasteful, or perhaps something that does not concern you at all? If so, it is because you have not yet learnt for yourself (as I hope you will this Lent) its true meaning and happiness.

This is the invitation which our LORD sends to each one of us this Lent–listen to His Voice.  It is as if Jesus is speaking to us “Come ye yourselves (here mention your own name) apart into a desert place, and rest awhile.”

Lent is about realizing I’m on a journey I don’t really get, led by a God I can’t really grasp.  And the end of it all is God.

The Study of God and Life