Archive for February, 2010
Turning Over The Tables
Sunday, February 28th, 2010 | Lent Meditations | No Comments
This morning at Christ Community’s worship services, we will be focusing on the following passge. Would you read it and mediate on it?
Jesus entered the temple area and drove out all who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves. “It is written,” he said to them, ” ‘My house will be called a house of prayer,’ but you are making it a ‘den of robbers.’”
The blind and the lame came to him at the temple, and he healed them. But when the chief priests and the teachers of the law saw the wonderful things he did and the children shouting in the temple area, “Hosanna to the Son of David,” they were indignant.
“Do you hear what these children are saying?” they asked him.
“Yes,” replied Jesus, “have you never read,
“‘From the lips of children and infants
you have ordained praise’?”
-Matthew 21:12-16
Isn’t it sad that the chief priests, who were the religious leaders of Jesus’ day, were indignant and unaccepting of what God was doing in their midst, yet the little children praised Jesus wholeheartedly? The chief priests were more interested in keeping their places of power in the status quo than in embracing what God was doing around them.
As you go to worship this morning, ask God to speak to you and give you an open heart. How does He want to change your priorities? Who is He asking you to show love to this week? What tables does He want to turn over in your heart? We have the choice to be like the chief priests or the children in this story—clinging to control and the status quo, or joyfully embracing what God wants to do. Which will you choose?
What God Is Doing
Saturday, February 27th, 2010 | Lent Meditations | No Comments
The assumption of spirituality is that always God is doing something before I know it. So the task is not to get God to do something I think needs to be done, but to become aware of what God is doing so that I can respond to it and participate and take delight in it.
-Eugene Peterson
What is God doing around you and in you? It probably will not be what you expect, or where you expect it. He has a history of using unusual people to do out-of-the-ordinary things in out-of-the-way places. From opening a donkey’s mouth to speak His words to allowing the King of the universe to be born in a stable and grow up in a backwoods town (“What good thing ever came out of Nazareth?” they said), God delights in surprising us—and involving us.
Ephesians 2:10 says, “For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” You were created by God with a job to do. God is doing things all around if only we would pay attention. One of the greatest joys we can ever experience as human beings is to be unexpectedly caught up in one of God’s beautiful, messy, extraordinary schemes through which He rescues someone or something we thought utterly irredeemable. Are you watching for Him?
God, please help me to see with Your eyes and love with Your heart. Give me an opportunity to be involved in what You are doing, and please give me the courage to join in when I see You working. In Jesus name, Amen.
Grasping vs. Giving
Friday, February 26th, 2010 | Lent Meditations | No Comments
5Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus:
6Who, being in very nature God,
did not consider equality with God something to be grasped,
7but made himself nothing,
taking the very nature of a servant,
being made in human likeness.
8And being found in appearance as a man,
he humbled himself
and became obedient to death—
even death on a cross!
9Therefore God exalted him to the highest place
and gave him the name that is above every name,
10that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,
in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
11and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father.
-Philippians 2:5-11
Jesus is the ultimate example of humility. The verses above show, displayed in Jesus’ life, the pattern of humility > submission to God’s plan > God lifting us up that we talked about earlier this week in the meditation on 1 Peter 5:6.
Henri Nouwen calls this “The Descending Way”. He writes, “The love of God has become visible in Jesus… in the descending way. That is the great mystery of the Incarnation. God has descended to us human beings to become a human being with us; and once among us, descended to the total dereliction of one condemned to death. It isn’t easy really to feel and understand from the inside this descending way of Jesus. Every fiber of our being rebels against it.”
And every fiber does rebel! Often we are so consumed by the desire to grasp on to our rights—what we believe we deserve and are entitled to—that we miss out on this process of humility and exaltation. Yet the Bible says that Jesus, who was “in very nature God,” did not consider his “equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing”. The One who actually deserved everything emptied himself out for us, giving instead of grasping. This is the Descending Way.
Father God, thank you for the gift of Jesus. Please give me the courage and faith to join Jesus on the descending way, giving generously instead of grasping, trusting You to fill me up so that I can be poured out. In Jesus name, Amen.
Kindness & Confession
Thursday, February 25th, 2010 | Lent Meditations | No Comments
The LORD is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love. He will not always accuse, nor will he harbor his anger forever; he does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities. For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his love for those who fear him; as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us. -Psalm 103:8-12
If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. -1 John 1:9
Yesterday’s reading was about the incomparable way God loves us. That is our true identity: God’s beloved! Romans 2:4 says that God’s kindness leads us to repentance—not his anger, or our fear of his retribution, or our feelings of guilt. As we begin to understand the extent of God’s love and the depth of his kindness to us, the way we see the world begins to change. Our allegiances change. Our direction changes.
Repentance is this shift: It is a 180 degree change in direction. When I repent, I stop going my way and start going God’s way. Confession is one step in this process of repentence. It is the act in which we honestly name what we have done, and we agree with God that we are deeply wrong and in need of His mercy and grace.
Most merciful God, I confess that I have sinned against you in thought, word, and deed, by what I have done, and by what I have left undone. My sins are too heavy to carry, too real to hide, and too deep to undo. Forgive what my lips tremble to name, what my heart can no longer bear. I have not loved you with my whole heart; I have not loved my neighbor as myself. I am truly sorry and I humbly repent, for the sake of your Son Jesus Christ, have mercy on me and forgive me; that I may delight in your will, and walk in your ways, to the glory of your Name. Amen.
-from The Book of Common Prayer
The Extraordinary & Unstoppable Love of God
Wednesday, February 24th, 2010 | Lent Meditations | No Comments
You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. -Romans 5:7-8
We love because he first loved us. -1 John 4:19
…God’s kindness leads you toward repentance -Romans 2:4
How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! -1 John 3:1
…I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. -Ephesians 3:17-19
For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. -Romans 8:38-39
There is no possible way to overstate the vastness of God’s love for us. We don’t have words to describe it, minds capable of grasping it, or any experience comparable to it. God’s love cannot be out-hated, out-sinned, or out-eviled. The love of God is so utterly unstoppable that after death, hell, and Satan himself threw the worst they had at it, Love rose victorious on the other side. You cannot escape it, ignore it, or thwart it.
God does not love us abstractly, as a group. He loves you, personally, where you sit, in this very moment. He knew you and hand-selected you before the bones of the world were spoken into existence (Eph 1:4), he knit you together before you were born (Ps 139), and he has engraved you on the palms of His hands (Is 49:16).
What a place of confidence, peace, and power! This is our place in the world—we are beloved by God.
Come Near To God
Tuesday, February 23rd, 2010 | Lent Meditations | No Comments
6But he gives us more grace. That is why Scripture says:
“God opposes the proud
but gives grace to the humble.”
7Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. 8Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. 9Grieve, mourn and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom. 10Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up.
-James 4:6-10 (NIV)
Yesterday we talked about how during Lent we intentionally humble ourselves before God in preparation for the joy of Easter—the way up is down. (If you missed yesterday’s reading, you can still read it here.)
God promises that when we come near to Him, He will come near to us. We don’t have to guess what it means to “come near to God” or how we go about it. The next verse makes it clear: We draw near to God by repenting and purifying our hearts. Before we can laugh with joy, we have to mourn. Before we can be lifted up, we must humbly bow down.
What does God want to purify from your heart? Take a few minutes right now to be still, ask Him, and listen. Wait on God, and He will show you.
Lord, High and Holy, Meek and Lowly,
[...]
Let me learn by paradox
that the way down is the way up,
that to be low is to be high,
that the broken heart is the healed heart,
that the contrite spirit is the rejoicing spirit,
that the repenting soul is the victorious soul,
that to have nothing is to possess all,
that to bear the cross is to wear the crown,
that to give is to receive,
that the valley is the place of vision.
-from The Valley of Vision, a book of Puritan prayers
The Way Up Is Down
Monday, February 22nd, 2010 | Lent Meditations | No Comments
Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time.
-1 Peter 5:6 (NIV)
Have you ever wondered what the word ‘Lent’ means? It comes from the Old English word lencten, springtime. A closely-related Old English word is lengan, from which we get our word ‘lengthen’. The days are getting longer; spring is just around the corner; the frozen earth of winter is about to warm and thaw. But Lent is really about a deeper kind of thaw: the warming of our frozen hearts. It is meant to be a time of preparation for celebrating the resurrection of Jesus. Lent is a time of sharing, even in some small way, in Christ’s sufferings so that we may also experience the power of His resurrection (Philippians 3:10-11).
The way up is down. We must humble ourselves before we are in a position to be lifted up by God and experience joy in the free, overflowing life to be found in Jesus.
Would you pray this prayer in preparation for the journey?
The Lenten season begins. It is a time to be with you, Lord, in a special way, a time to pray, to fast, and thus to follow you on your way to Jerusalem, to Golgotha, and to the final victory over death.
I am still so divided. I truly want to follow you, but I also want to follow my own desires and lend an ear to the voices that speak about prestige, success, pleasure, power, and influence. Help me to become deaf to these voices and more attentive to your voice, which calls me to choose the narrow road to life.
I know that Lent is going to be a very hard time for me. The choice for your way has to be made every moment of my life. I have to choose thoughts that are your thoughts, words that are your words, and actions that are your actions. There are not times or places without choices. And I know how deeply I resist choosing you.
Please, Lord, be with me at every moment and in every place. Give me the strength and the courage to live this season faithfully, so that, when Easter comes, I will be able to taste with joy the new life that you have prepared for me. Amen.
(prayer from Henri Nouwen, Show Me The Way)
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