Alive Together With Christ

2 And you were dead in the trespasses and sins 2 in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience—3 among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. 4 But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, 5 even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—6 and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, 7 so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. 8 For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, 9 not a result of works, so that no one may boast. 10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.

This is what characterizes followers of Christ.

A New Commandment

31 When he had gone out, Jesus said, “Now is the Son of Man glorified, and God is glorified in him. 32 If God is glorified in him, God will also glorify him in himself, and glorify him at once. 33 Little children,yet a little while I am with you. You will seek me, and just as I said to the Jews, so now I also say to you, ‘Where I am going you cannot come.’ 34 A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. 35 By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” (John 13:31-35, ESV)

Today is Maundy Thursday, traditionally the day of the Last Supper. It’s called “Maundy” because the word maundy means commandment, signifying when Jesus gave us the “new” commandment to love one another as he loves us. This is not pink hearts and valentines folks. This is the total giving of ourselves for the other, even those who despise us. This is what characterizes followers of Christ.

The world tells you many lies about who you are…

“First of all, you have to keep unmasking the world about you for what it is: manipulative, controlling, power-hungry, and, in the long run, destructive. The world tells you many lies about who you are, and you simply have to be realistic enough to remind yourself of this. Every time you feel hurt, offended, or rejected, you have to dare to say to yourself: 'These feelings, strong as they may be, are not telling me the truth about myself. The truth, even though I cannot feel it right now, is that I am the chosen child of God, precious in God's eyes, called the Beloved from all eternity, and held safe in an everlasting belief.” ― Henri J.M. Nouwen, Life of the Beloved: Spiritual Living in a Secular World

If it were only common sense, it was not worthwhile for Him to say it…

The danger with us is that we want to water down the things that Jesus says and make them mean something in accordance with common sense; if it were only common sense, it was not worthwhile for Him to say it. The things Jesus says about prayer are supernatural revelations. – Oswald Chambers, from My Utmost for His Highest

A prayer for Palm Sunday

Eternal and ever blessed God, you sent your son Jesus into the world to be an example for us. Help us to ever walk in his steps. Help us to walk in his humility, So that we too may be among our fellow men and women as those who serve. In his forgiveness, so that we may forgive, and hope to be forgiven. Help us to walk in his courage, so that nothing may ever deflect us from the way we ought to take; in his endurance, so that nothing may daunt our discourage us until we reach our goal; in his loyalty, so that nothing may ever seduce our hearts from our devotion to him. Help us to share the life that our Lord once lived on earth that we may also share the life he lives in his risen power. Grant that we may always do the will of our Father in heaven. Grant us to take up whatever cross is laid upon us and gallantly and gladly to carry it. Grant that we may share in his cross so that we may share in his crown; as we share his death, so we may also share his life. And so grant that having suffered with him we may also reign with him. This we ask for love’s sake. Amen – From A Barclay Prayer Book

“We pray for the big things and forget to give thanks for the ordinary…

“In the Christian community thankfulness is just what it is anywhere else in the Christian life. Only he who gives thanks for little things receives the big things. We prevent God from giving us the great spiritual gifts He has in store for us, because we do not give thanks for daily gifts. We think we dare not be satisfied with the small measure of spiritual knowledge, experience, and love that has been given to us, and that we must constantly be looking forward eagerly for the highest good. Then we deplore the fact that we lack the deep certainty, the strong faith, and the rich experience that God has given to others, and we consider this lament to be pious. We pray for the big things and forget to give thanks for the ordinary, small (and yet really not small) gifts. How can God entrust great things to one who will not thankfully receive from Him the little things? If we do not give thanks daily for the Christian fellowship in which we have been placed, even where there is no great experience, no discoverable riches, but much weakness, small faith, and difficulty; if on the contrary, we only keep complaining to God that everything is so paltry and petty, so far from what we expected, then we hinder God from letting our fellowship grow according to the measure and riches which are there for us all in Jesus Christ.” ― Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together: The Classic Exploration of Faith in Community

Hurt is not to be accepted as normal

Compassion constitutes a radical form of criticism, for it announces that the hurt is to be taken seriously, that the hurt is not to be accepted as normal and natural but is an abnormal and unacceptable condition for humanness. ― Walter Brueggemann

The agony of being out of control and of having to wait

God is our refuge and our strength . . . Psalm 46:1

The Path of Waiting

Passion is a kind of waiting - waiting for what other people are going to do. Jesus went to Jerusalem to announce the good news to the people of that city. And Jesus knew that he was going to put a choice before them: Will you be my disciple, or will you be my executioner? There is no middle ground here. Jesus went to Jerusalem to put people in a situation where they had to say "Yes" or "No". That is the great drama of Jesus' passion: he had to wait for their response. What would they do? Betray him or follow him?
In a way, his agony is not simply the agony of approaching death. It is also the agony of being out of control and of having to wait. It is the agony of a God who depends on us to decide how to live out the divine presence among us. It is the agony of the God who, in a very mysterious way, allows us to decide how God will be God. Here we glimpse the mystery of God's incarnation. God became human not only to act among us but also to be the recipient of our responses.

. . . And that is the mystery of Jesus' love. Jesus in his passion is the one who waits for our response. Precisely in that waiting the intensity of his love and God's is revealed to us.

Excerpt from Henri Nouwen's Finding My Way Home: Pathways to Life and the Spirit, © Henri J.M. Nouwen. Published by The Crossroad Publishing Company. Used with kind permission of the publisher. Scripture quotation from New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989, 1993 National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America.

http://bit.ly/bitly_meditationPalmSunday

www.henrinouwen.org

The world we all want is coming

“We modern people think of miracles as the suspension of the natural order, but Jesus meant them to be the restoration of the natural order. The Bible tells us that God did not originally make the world to have disease, hunger, and death in it. Jesus has come to redeem where it is wrong and heal the world where it is broken. His miracles are not just proofs that he has power but also wonderful foretastes of what he is going to do with that power. Jesus' miracles are not just a challenge to our minds, but a promise to our hearts, that the world we all want is coming.”
― Timothy Keller, The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism

For a compassionate person nothing human is alien

“Through compassion it is possible to recognize that the craving for love that people feel resides also in our own hearts, that the cruelty the world knows all too well is also rooted in our own impulses. Through compassion we also sense our hope for forgiveness in our friends' eyes and our hatred in their bitter mouths. When they kill, we know that we could have done it; when they give life, we know that we can do the same. For a compassionate person nothing human is alien: no joy and no sorrow, no way of living and no way of dying.” ― Henri J.M. Nouwen, The Wounded Healer

“The time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine…”

For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths. (2 Timothy 4:3-4).

Have the Shepherds Gone Astray?

[11] And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, [12] to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, [13] until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, [14] so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes. [15] Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, [16] from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love. (Ephesians 4:11-16 ESV)

'I believe in God, just not organized religion'

“We need to stop giving people excuses not to believe in God. You've probably heard the expression 'I believe in God, just not organized religion'. I don't think people would say that if the church truly lived like we are called to live. ― Francis Chan

Am I Holy?

22 Daily Questions to Help

These 22 questions were asked daily by John Wesley’s and George Whitefield’s Holy Club in their private devotions over 200 years ago. In light of trusting in Christ’s life, death, and resurrection alone to forgive us our sins and reconcile us to God, and in light of Him having declared us righteous, these questions are helpful for examining our personal holiness:

1. Am I consciously or unconsciously creating the impression than I am better than I really am? In other words, am I a hypocrite?

2. Am I honest in all my acts and words, or do I exaggerate?

3. Do I confidentially pass on to another what I was told to me in confidence?

4. Can I be trusted?

5. Am I a slave to dress, friends, work or habits?

6. Am I self-conscious, self-pitying, or self-justifying?

7. Did the Bible live in me today?

8. Do I give it time to speak to me every day?

9. Am I enjoying prayer?

10. When did I last speak to someone else of my faith?

11. Do I pray about the money I spend?

12. Do I get to bed on time and get up on time?

13. Do I disobey God in anything?

14. Do I insist upon doing something about which my conscience is uneasy?

15. Am I defeated in any part of my life?

16. Am I jealous impure, critical, irritable, touchy or distrusting?

17. How do I spend my spare time?

18. Am I proud?

19. Do I thank God that I am not as other people, especially as the Pharisees who despised the publican?

20. Is there anyone I fear, dislike, disown, criticize, hold a resentment toward or disregard? I If so, what am I doing about it?

21. Do I grumble or complain constantly?

22. Is Christ real to me?

As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance, but as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, since it is written, “You shall be holy, for I am holy.” 1 Peter 1:14-16

[These questions were lifted shamelessly from www.aquilareport.com (3/17/13]

If we are to live unto God at any time or in any place, we are to live unto him at all times and in all places

If anyone could show that we not always act as in the divine presence, that we need not consider and use everything as the gift of God, and that we need not always live by reason – the same arguments would show that we need never act as in the presence of God nor need we make religion and reason the measure of any of our actions. If, therefore, we are to live unto God at any time or in any place, we are to live unto him at all times and in all places. If we are to use anything as the gift of God, we are to use everything as his gift. If we are to do anything by strict rules of reason, we are to do everything in the same manner.

They, therefore, who confine religion to times and places, and who think that it is being too strict and rigid to make religion give laws to all their actions and ways of living – they who think thus mistake the whole nature of religion. They may well be said to mistake the whole nature of wisdom who do not think it desirable to be always wise. He has not learned the nature of piety who thinks it too much to be pious in all his actions. – William Law

Love is the necessary consequence of faith

This autonomy of man, this attempt of the Ego to understand itself out of itself, is the lie concerning man which we call sin. The truth about man is that his ground is not in himself but in God -- that his essence is not in self sufficient reason but in the Word, in the challenge of God, in responsibility, not in self-sufficiency. The true being of man is realized when he bases himself upon God's Word. Faith is then not an impossibility or a salto mortale [mortal leap], but that which is truly natural; and the real salto mortale (a mortal leap indeed!) is just the assertion of autonomy, self-sufficiency, God-likeness. [It is] through this usurped independence [that] man separates himself from God, and at the same time isolates himself from his fellows. Individualism is the necessary consequence of rational autonomy, just as love is the necessary consequence of faith. – Emil Brunner

We are more than conquerors

‎"The surf that distresses the ordinary swimmer produces in the surf-rider the super joy of going clean through it. Apply that to our own circumstances; these very things—tribulation, distress, persecution—produce in us the super joy; they are not things to fight. We are more than conquerors through Him in all these things; not in spite of them, but in the midst of them." – Oswald Chambers, from My Utmost for His Highest

This seascape was drawn by Oswald Chambers during a time of spiritual turbulence.

Only the passion can finally penetrate the numbness

The ultimate criticism is not one of triumphant indignation but one of the passion and compassion that completely and irresistibly undermine the world of competence and competition. The contrast is stark and total: this passionate man set in the midst of numb Jerusalem. And only the passion can finally penetrate the numbness.  - Walter Brueggemann

Superficial souls

“A social order bent on producing wealth as an end in itself cannot avoid the creation of a people whose souls are superficial and whose daily life is captured by sentimentalities. They will ask questions like “why does a good God let bad things happen to good people ” such people cannot imagine that a people once existed who produced and sang the psalms. If we learn to say “God ” we will do so with the prayer “My God my God why have you forsaken me?” ― Stanley Hauerwas

Work without love is slavery

“I pray that you will understand the words of Jesus, “Love one another as I have loved you.” Ask yourself “How has he loved me? Do I really love others in the same way?” Unless this love is among us, we can kill ourselves with work and it will only be work, not love. Work without love is slavery.” ― Mother Teresa 

the true light is already shining

    … the darkness is passing away and the true light is already shining. Whoever says he is in the light and hates his brother is still in darkness. Whoever loves his brother abides in the light, and in him there is no cause for stumbling. But whoever hates his brother is in the darkness and walks in the darkness, and does not know where he is going, because the darkness has blinded his eyes. (1 John 2:8-11 ESV)

    For this is the message that you have heard from the beginning, that we should love one another. We should not be like Cain, who was of the evil one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his own deeds were evil and his brother's righteous. Do not be surprised, brothers, that the world hates you. We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brothers. Whoever does not love abides in death. Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him.
    By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers. (1 John 3:11-16 ESV)

    Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us.
    By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit. And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God. So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. (1 John 4:7-16 ESV)

Service and Prayer

Service and prayer can never be separated; they are related to each other as the Yin and Yang of the Japanese Circle.” – Henri Nouwen