Jesus

When the Son sets in our hearts

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“What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you? You desire but do not have, so you kill. You covet but you cannot get what you want, so you quarrel and fight. You do not have because you do not ask God.” James 4:1,2

“The heart is more deceitful than all else And is desperately sick; Who can understand it? “I, the Lord, search the heart, I test the mind, Even to give to each man according to his ways, according to the results of his deeds.” Jeremiah 17:9,10

For the first time this morning I was able to pray minus the sound of gunfire from the dove hunters out in the desert. It has disrupted my morning peace for two days now. My brother and I were both complaining about it on opening day which was September first. He’d gone out to his driveway with his mug of coffee as he usually does when he is home and was looking forward to listening to his doves cooing from the trees in his yard. Now he is worried about the wild turkeys they have all enjoyed watching come through in the evenings.

We both decided we would put out some wild feed to keep a few close.

The staccato sound of the guns made me think of what is going on half a world away, in Syria. They say around 2 million Syrian people are now refugees and around half of these are women and children. Unrest is the state of the world today.

All my life, I have sat in church hearing of a time when there will be “wars and rumors of wars.” It was just a Bible verse and a time somewhere in the future, but real war was never anything that touched me. It was never something that surprised me or factored into my life in any way at all. It was just a part of what I heard in church or on TV.

But how many people around the world today must live, pray and sleep to the sound of gunfire and shelling? Living and breathing with fear and the possible loss of their own life or the life of their children. Knowing that any moment, they will lose what little shelter they have, grabbing what little they own and heading across the border to somewhere else.

Our world is getting crazier every day. There is no doubt we are in the last days, but who knows how long these last days will stretch out?

There is only one thing that will ever stop war for good and the truth is, not one of us is willing to do what it takes to stop it. Until we each settle the war in our own hearts, war will never end. The war in our hearts will only end when we invite Jesus in.

And I am not talking about lip service but life change. There is a tired, old argument that people use over and over. In fact, I heard it again on the radio just Sunday morning. A talk show host said: “I hate religion because more wars have been caused by religion than anything else.” And while I can understand why they make that claim, it’s still as wrong as wrong can be.

Guns don’t kill people and religion doesn’t cause wars. All wars start as a result of the evil in the confines of the human heart, and just because something is done in God’s name, doesn’t mean God is in favor of it.

When someone is truly transformed by the love of Christ, it will show by how eager they are to strive for peace, not war.

I am talking about a relationship here, not a religion. That’s what makes Christianity different from any other on the face of the earth. And when He comes in and makes a home in our hearts, peace reigns. Note that I didn’t say perfection, I said peace.

War is caused by the selfish desire to get what we want when we want it. Nothing more. And when power and money are added in to the mix it just gets bigger because more is at stake. Sometimes war is unavoidable. When the end result means peace for the world, then I believe it is just.

Universally though, the hope of this world, more than ever, is Jesus. Jesus, only and ever Jesus.

You might wonder why then, does Jesus say this?

Do not think that I came to bring peace on the earth; I did not come to bring peace, but a sword.

In light of all the talk about peace, it doesn’t seem to make any sense, until you understand that while a relationship with Jesus most certainly brings peace to the individual heart and life, it doesn’t necessarily bring peace to the world. That’s because of one simple aspect of human nature.

We still want our way, not His way. When Jesus said that, it was with perfect understanding that He knows what we are made of.

When Jesus was born, King Herod was so threatened by the rumor of a new King, he had all Jewish babies living in Egypt two years and under slaughtered. And right before He was crucified, the religious leaders of the day were so threatened by Jesus popularity with the people, and by their loss of power, security and position, they had to put together a mock trial complete with false testimony in order to sentence Him to death.

And yet, He reaches for us still.

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son.

This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. John 3:16-19

I pray for our world today. I pray it finds Jesus. You might think that it looks pretty bleak and that there is really nothing we can do as an individual. But there is always something we can do. We can all shine the light of truth and love brightly, each in our own corner.

Right where we are. And pray.

Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective. James 5:16

To the Atheist Pinner

Confession

I awoke this morning with a prayer on my lips. Not so much a prayer than a bunch of whispers strung together in the dark. It all started yesterday with the story about the man who was taking a morning jog in the town where his girlfriend lived. Three teenage youths were sitting on a porch and one of them said, “Hey there’s our target.” And then pulled out a gun and shot Christopher Lane in the back. All because, “They were bored.”

This kind of thing is happening more and more. All these events prompt us to ask just what kind of world are we living in? What makes three teenaged youths feel like life is so bleak that they have to manufacture a murder for excitement? What brought them to such hopelessness? I see it in their eyes in the mug shots. It is so easy to hate them, their insolence. But I want to know what got them there?

There were other questions that I spoke into the half-light this morning as well. Questions like why is my own church closing down to put in new carpet and a coffee shop when I know for a fact that children are going to school hungry a few short miles away. I am having a hard time reconciling that. I am still praying about that one.

Another thought came through…….and this one was loud and clear. What am I doing with my days? How will they measure up when I am standing before God and He asks why I didn’t give a reason for the hope within me?

Then on Pinterest I ran across a pin that said “Pinned to Atheism” below it, and I had to follow the thread. Nothing I saw surprised me much, and saddened me more than anything. There was one comparing prayer to something I can’t even name here, with a picture. And there were all the references to our Old Testament God who is portrayed as a cruel old man in the sky who takes pleasure in striking people dead.

If I could talk with you, this is what I would tell you. I can identify with some of what you posted, I really can. That is, I could if I didn’t know God the way I do. And honestly, sometimes I think if we had done a better job at loving in the church it would take the sting out of your hate.

But then again, Jesus loved perfectly and they killed Him for it.

And I understand your difficulty in seeing how a loving God could ask Abraham to kill his only son. If I didn’t know the context and the whole story, and if I hadn’t personally experienced the depth and breadth and love of God for myself.

You see, Abraham had a faith and grasp of the love of God that we can scarcely understand. And Abraham had a promise in his pocket. A promise that he would be the father of a great nation. He knew that could never happen if Issac died. He also knew that God loved Issac even more than Abraham did. He trusted God with what he loved most in the world.

And God will never ask anyone to love more than He already has.

You ask, “What kind of God would do that?”

The kind of God who would love so much He would lose what He loved most to get back a people who were willfully turned against Him.

The kind of God who didn’t hesitate to volunteer Himself up for a terrible death for a people who for the most part were uncaring and disinterested.

I wish you knew Him. I wish the church did a better job at loving so you wouldn’t have so many easy targets. I did notice that none of your boards targeted Jesus. It is tough to find fault with someone who spent their entire time on earth going about doing good. If we all did a better job at following His example, I have a feeling it would diffuse some of the anger I saw on your boards.

I did notice that one of them said something like, “I don’t need a God to tell me right from wrong, I have a conscience.”

But where did that come from? Why do we instinctively know that some things are just plain wrong and nobody argues about it. We know things like murder and stealing are wrong. C.S Lewis did a masterful job at explaining that one.

As I rounded the corner on my morning walk, I saw the fingers of light come down out of the sky and I thought about the source of that light as the strains of “You Never Let Go” came through my iPod. I felt something that I feel every single day when I see that and I never ever take it for granted. The thought dropped in like a pin: “We love because He first loved us.”

I can’t imagine not knowing the source of that light. I can’t imagine how hopeless it would be to believe in nothing bigger than your own thoughts, nothing bigger than yourself and what your eyes can see around you.

I want so much for you to know my God. And if you were here I would tell you about all the things I have seen and heard and felt that cannot be explained any other way but Supernaturally. I would tell you of lives changed in the twinkling of an eye. I would tell you of the healing I received and how I will never forget it, and I would tell you how He came to me one cold and foggy December day and touched me with a love that I can never quite put into words.

I would tell you of the breadth, length, height and depth of God’s love. A love I know to be real.

And how He loves you so, even if you don’t believe in Him.

When you’re nursing a hurt

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You’re walking around in your day minding your own business. Maybe it’s even a good day and you have had some things happen that can only be described as a “God touching you on the shoulder” moment. Something happened that you just know was God arranged.

Basking in the glow of that light you can almost still feel warming your shoulders,  you are blindsided by something you never saw coming. Oh how it hurts, I know, I have been there. I have asked the questions right along with you:

Why me, why this, why now? And in the silence, the hurt you find yourself in the middle of searches for a safe place to go.

It feels like you have been through enough already. Didn’t all those tears you cried in the dark of night, didn’t those add up to something? David’s couch swam with tears too, even he wasn’t exempt, but somehow that doesn’t make right now any better.

When the wound is raw, it is tempting to ignore that good thing that happened in the wake of the pain that threatens to swallow it up. You’re not sure whether to sit in a corner and lick your wounds, or pour it out to anyone who will listen. And though it’s tempting to dump out hurtful words to the one who hurt you, don’t do it.

Because wounding them doesn’t take your own away, it only multiplies your own pain.

But don’t you hear me God?  I’m your child. The injustice of it all. It wasn’t fair, it wasn’t right, but it happened. And now?

There is something you need to do. You need to let Him be your justice. He can’t work on anyone else’s heart unless you release yours. You be amazed what happens once you do this. Our God is so big and generous that He not only wants to heal you, He wants to heal that other person too.

And when the Bible says that He binds up the brokenhearted? Friend, that is for right now, not some vague time in the hereafter, it is here…..now…….as well as after.

Who doesn’t have pain? Who doesn’t have sorrow. This is a universal fact. What follows that there can only be a universal answer:

It’s found in the person of Jesus. He is the only one who can actually do something about it. In fact, He already did. That dead old thing was wadded up, crumpled in a ball and tossed into the fire long ago.

This is what we can know as believers. He can meet that ache right this moment by the power of the Holy Spirit who is your comforter. Right now……He can reach in and put His hand into your heart where it stings the most. Don’t doubt that He sees you.

He sees your every effort to focus on the positive, to keep moving forward even when it hurts. And He will reward it.

He had to do that once, you know.  And with you in mind, He did it.

He could never forget you. You are in His thoughts day and night.

And there’s nothing that happens to you or to me that’s too big for Him to handle. That is the hope I hold out to you today. The world needs love, but more than love it needs hope.

Never need an appointment to meet with Jesus

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What do you do when you find yourself at a crossroads? You go to the cross.

It’s so tempting to try to figure everything out with our minds, but what about when you feel you can’t trust your mind? Try as we might, there are times when we can’t take it apart and put it all back together in any kind of order. And when the heart and emotions get involved we might as well throw anything rational out the window.

When the heart gets involved, thought and logic whirl around inside your head and beat the sides of your brain like a tennis shoe in a spin dryer until nothing is clear.

When I entered prayer this past Tuesday, I took no hope of feeling better, no expectation of much of anything.  It was simply all I knew how to do. There are times you enter prayer that way.

I got a call from Mom on Monday evening. My Dad was on his way to the ER for irregular heartbeat. My Mom sounded okay, but I could hear the panic undertow in her voice. She said he hadn’t felt good for a couple of days. They ran some tests and released him, and he was back in his own bed by 2:30 Tuesday morning.

I thought of that old Lewis Grizzard line: “Elvis is dead and I don’t feel so good myself.” Now, my Mom, my Dad and my brother are all on medication for heart issues. And I don’t feel so good myself. Actually, I feel fine, but the stress of all this might kill me.

I want to swoop down and fix it all for them. I want to go take over and do what they can’t.

When it’s hard for me to open a jar, I feel bad because if it is hard for me, how much harder for my Mom? It’s little things like that I think of. I toss and turn in the night and wonder when the next call will come. First, Dad’s eyes and now his heart. I realize I am going through a kind of grief. A grief of knowing someday they really won’t be here.

So Tuesday morning I really needed my prayer time. I even lit three candles instead of one. I needed Father Son and Holy Ghost all hands on deck prayer.

And kneeling there by my chair in the silence, I felt the weight of importance in each and every moment we have here on earth. This life is but a breath, a vapor. A little while and then we are gone……

Eternity stretches before us like a shimmering cord that reaches to Heaven and it’s tethered to the cross. I know if I cling to Jesus, somehow I can always find my way back home. I just have to trust Him with this little speck of time that is my life.

No matter what the heartache. No matter how bleak the future might have looked 30 minutes ago, I now find that a few moments at the foot of a blood soaked cross, a light switch has been thrown. All of a sudden, just for this moment my future is as bright as the noonday sun. And that one moment is enough.

And oh what relief it is to find at times when the soul has been swept bare and black as night that Jesus has not left, that He’s there holding out a candle to light my way.

I long for the times before vandals, when the churches were open and the light was always on and the pastor or priest was always “In.” I long for the little country parish when the minister made house calls and offered a cup of tea. When you could just show up without an appointment.

I may not have Father Tim, but I have Jesus.

And He is always “In”

The bridge between Heaven and earth

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The sky splashed a brilliant pink and KBAQ was playing a Bach concerto as I rolled to a stop between the white lines in the parking lot at 5:30. The scene in the sky turned my thoughts toward Heaven and I thought of the conversation my Mom and I had when I was back home just recently.

We were scanning the obits, and she was lamenting the latest passing of one of her friends. That got us to talking about people who have passed on, and her Dad, my Grandpa. I told her that he is one of the first people I want to meet in Heaven. Besides Jesus.

He held me in his arms and called me his blond angel in German. I wonder if he was thinking of his little Annie who was only about four when she died. He had left the shotgun out and a foster child who was staying with them shot her dead. He ran away after that and they never found him, though they searched. My Grandmother had to watch her little girl die and my Grandpa had to live with that guilt all his life.

I love him, though I never knew him. He went to see Annie when he was in his sixties after a battle with stomach cancer. Shortly before he died, he said the only thing he wanted to do one more time was see Yosemite. Each year he drove the family there, he watching everything but the road and my Grandmother, terrified of going over the cliff would promptly put herself to sleep in the passenger seat.

My Mom says that when she and my Aunt reached their teens they were secretly mortified because they knew as soon as they set up camp he would be over introducing himself and Jesus to the neighbors. He had no problem sharing His faith. He wanted others to know the reason for his hope and the joy of the Savior.

I wish I could be more like him.

Shortly before my sister-in-law died, also of cancer, she said she saw my Grandfather and that they talked of roses. He told her he liked white ones. I don’t doubt what she said. I believe people close to death see many different things on that fringe of eternity.

This being a blog centered around Christian belief and thought, I guess from time to time I feel a need to explain in a simple way what we actually believe and why for those who may not know.

The thing that makes the Christian faith different from any other religion on earth is that we have a living Savior. It’s God reaching down to us, not us reaching up to Him. It’s Him making the first move.

“But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” Romans 5:8

God gives us a future and a hope. We never have to worry about death as long as we know Jesus. He only asks us to do one thing, to acknowledge that we can’t save ourselves. That whatever we’ve done on our own is not good enough. God expects perfection, and the only perfect person who ever lived was Jesus.

With three little words, the doorway to Heaven was blown open:

“It is finished.”

Everyone has to die once, then face the consequences. Christ’s death was also a one-time event, but it was a sacrifice that took care of sins forever. And so, when he next appears, the outcome for those eager to greet him is, precisely, salvation. Hebrews 9:27,28 The Message

I don’t know about you, but I am not doing this life again. I am going to meet my Grandpa.

Those who mourn…….

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Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted…….Jesus

Last night the wind howled wildly. I was thinking of the 19 firefighters who lost their lives yesterday and praying for their families as I debated whether to go outside and take down the flag, which I could hear whipping furiously. You could smell the dust from inside the house. It was the same kind of wind that trapped those firefighters and made it an impossible situation. They were known as the Granite Mountain Hotshots. One of the news articles said of them: “There were tough as nails, but being nice was key requirement.” So today, we mourn. We miss them, even though we didn’t even know them.

Yesterday I was volunteering and I missed the sermon, but I saw that many who came out were wiping tears. Pastor Kevin has been preaching on the Beatitudes for this series. He talked of how difficult it was when he lost his best friend to suicide. How he tried to help but it wasn’t enough in the end. We don’t have to look far to find grief and sadness and loss. But, thankfully, we also don’t have to look too far to find joy, and life, and laughter. In fact, each day carries a measure of both, but one overpowers the other.

Jesus came to an earth in mourning. The Bible says, even nature is in a state of mourning:

“We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time.” Romans 8:22

Isaiah, many centuries before Jesus birth, describes him this way: “He was despised and rejected by mankind, a man of suffering, and familiar with pain. Like one from whom people hide their faces he was despised, and we held him in low esteem.” Isaiah 53:3

When tragedy and sadness strike, we search for answers. We search for causes as if explaining it away will make the grief easier to carry. We want to say something, anything to make them feel better. Sometimes though, things just happen, and there are no words. All we can do is hold our arms out to them. Cry with them. Mourn with them. And know that on the other side of mourning, is hope.

Always hope.

I won’t hold out any empty platitudes or easy answers today, but I will hold out Jesus. Lots of people have died, and lots of people have felt the weight of grief, but He is the only One who not only went through it, He had the power to conquer it for all time, for us.  I can attest to the fact that the only way we can successfully pass through that dark tunnel of grief, and death is with Him by our side. I know, I’ve been there.

So today, I pray for these heartbroken families. They are in a deep valley and right now they feel they will never get out. But someday, they will wake up and not feel quite so devastated. Because that’s what we do. We go on. That’s how we honor those who have gone before. And until then, we hold out our love, with tear-stained faces that will one day be alight with joy once again.

I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. For the creation waits in eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed. For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope thatthe creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God.

We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption to sonship, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what they already have?But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently. Romans 8: 18-25

Photo credit:David Kadlubowski / The Arizona Republic via AP

A moment in the grass

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When do we lose it? I thought this as I lay back in the grass, with not a little trepidation beforehand. We were all in my brother’s backyard and it was three-way catch sitting on the ground. All at once, Lauryn lay flat on the ground and insisted we do the same. It was part of the game. Of course Grandpa did it right away. Squeamish Aunt Lori was more hesitant. I was thinking about the big pile of dog doo I had cleaned up back there the day before.

She patted the ground and smiled. Insisting again that I join in the game. And I did. How could I resist that smile? Laying there in that grass, I actually thought I heard it say something. I heard the grass talk. It has a voice if you listen, and kids hear that stuff. As adults we are too far off the ground to hear it, in more ways than one. Laying in that grass, with birdsong and her laughter in the background, I thought. “This is a moment I will always remember.”

Slices of life,  of time. Some of them indelible in our minds, others pass by without notice. Sometimes the biggest things are learned in the smallest actions.

It’s time to remember how it was to see a hill and immediately roll down it. It’s time to run through sprinklers. It’s time to be excited about life. That’s one of the best ways I know to let others know you know the author of Life. Some say we will know Christians by their love, and that certainly should be one of the first things people notice. I say another is:

They will know us by our joy.  

It is a by-product of knowing Jesus. And no matter what happens in life, no matter what is going on. Joy should be your backdrop. Absurd joy in absurd moments. It always takes me by surprise when it happens to me, but it really shouldn’t.

It’s why Paul and Silas were able to sing in jail.  And why David could write a song of praise even when he was running for his life.

Join me today, won’t you? Do something kid-like. And encourage someone else to do the same.

1 Peter 1:8-9 Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls.

I dreamed a dream

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I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t go fill in one more blank on my sermon notes. I couldn’t listen to one more sermon. Not this Sunday. I felt full to the brim of being edified, pumped up, praised up. I thought……what if. What if I devoted that hour to going out and asking God who He wanted me to help that day. Who he wanted me to pray for.

What if I gave Him full permission, power, control. What if I gave Him his authority, his Lordship. His rightful place in my life. I wonder how different my walk with Him would look?

I dreamed of  what would happen if I stopped doing church and took the church out to the world. I dreamed of thousands of people spilling out onto the streets.  Churches set up in parks feeding the homeless, and places where the lost and lonely gather.

I dreamed a dream of empty pews.

And then I dreamed of people streaming back into church with new purpose. Remembering why they were there. I dreamed that churches would look more like hospitals and a place where you could always feel welcomed, loved, accepted.

I remembered how Jesus sent them out two by two. I imagine how excited they all must have been, buoyed up by a fresh dose of Holy Spirit power, looking forward to doing and seeing wondrous things, miracles.  I wondered at Jesus’ timing when after he got done instructing them He added this dire footnote:

“I am sending you out like sheep among wolves. Therefore be as shrewd as snakes and as innocent as doves. Be on your guard; you will be handed over to the local councils and be flogged in the synagogues. On my account you will be brought before governors and kings as witnesses to them and to the Gentiles. But when they arrest you, do not worry about what to say or how to say it. At that time you will be given what to say, for it will not be you speaking, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you.”

“Wow, Lord…..I can’t wait to go now!” Jesus can be a little scary. And honestly? A bit of a wet blanket at times. But He’s also never boring. Following Jesus is anything but boring. And follow is just what He asks of us. No matter where that road leads.

There’s a time for everything in its season, and sometimes you need to go to church and be built back up after the world has used you for its punching bag, I know,  I’ve been there. There is a time for being mended, and I have had holes in my heart mended in church more times than I can count. But then I get comfortable. I get complacent. And I sense Jesus tapping me on the shoulder and saying, “Now that I have mended you, go mend someone else.”

Sometimes the best way to stay afloat yourself is by helping someone else.

I think if the gospels and Jesus are not just a little disturbing then I wonder if you have really grasped the full message. If Jesus is not just a little unsettling then I wonder if I really know what he requires of me. Follow Me. Follow me even though you are afraid of where I might take you. 

That is scary for a clinging to the side of the pool person like me.

But Jesus is a God of His word. He said He’d never leave me and I believe Him. And in a way, I am thankful for my fear for it keeps me close to Him.

I dreamed a dream. But I think it may happen.

I have been reading about what it really means to follow Jesus in the book Follow Me by David Platt. I highly recommend it. Not very comfortable reading but sometimes we need that.

It all comes down to Jesus

The Peace of God

It all comes down to Jesus.

When we got home from visiting Elaine’s Mom yesterday, I called my own Mom. It was her voice I was hearing when I thought, “It all comes down to Jesus.”

It’s not easy to go there. To visit the places where they check in but they don’t check out, except through death. It’s easy to put thoughts of mortality on the back burner when you are feeling good, doing something you love to do but as soon as you walk through those doors, it all comes front and center.

I call care homes the great equalizers. We may not all end up there, but we are all heading that direction. Justin Bieber will be there someday and so will Tom Cruise. Hard to imagine, unless you see it often. When you see people whose minds have slipped away you think, “There but for the grace of God go any of us.”

Yesterday, the whole time we were there, one lady carried her bedding from door to door, trying to get out, to go home. We were there for an hour and she never stopped. And at night, the staff said, it gets even worse.

One lady is not that old at all, but she suffered a stroke, and her words come out all scattered, like if you took a complete sentence and scrambled up the words that’s how it would come out. Like, “You…..know…..she…..think……my…..son…..train…..second…..year. She always looks stylish and classy and she always smiles when she sees us and points to Elaine’s Mom. I wonder what she would tell us if she could only string those words together?

Another lady has Alzheimer’s and yet they say when she sits down at the organ she can play any hymn you can name. Still another asks me how many kids I have every time I go in there. I think maybe I will give her a different answer every time, or maybe just tell her I have ten.

Whenever I leave there, it seems the birds sound sweeter, the sky seems bluer, life becomes something I want to inhale deeply. When it all comes down to it, we will sell everything we have now and all we will have left will be Jesus. Or not.

I always remember my sister-in-law, who found out how real Jesus was before she passed away at 43 of ovarian cancer. At the end, one of the songs she wanted at her service was, “Just Give Me Jesus.” She learned that as long as she had Him, she had everything.

If you try to hang on to your life, you will lose it. But if you give up your life for my sake and for the sake of the Good News, you will save it. And what do you benefit if you gain the whole world but lose your own soul?Is anything worth more than your soul?

No Lord, not one, single solitary thing.

 

Good news for the common man

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Then Amaziah the priest of Bethel sent a message to Jeroboam king of Israel: “Amos is raising a conspiracy against you in the very heart of Israel. The land cannot bear all his words. For this is what Amos is saying:

“‘Jeroboam will die by the sword,
    and Israel will surely go into exile,
    away from their native land.’”

Then Amaziah said to Amos, “Get out, you seer! Go back to the land of Judah. Earn your bread there and do your prophesying there. Don’t prophesy anymore at Bethel, because this is the king’s sanctuary and the temple of the kingdom.”

Amos answered Amaziah, “I was neither a prophet nor the son of a prophet, but I was a shepherd, and I also took care of sycamore-fig trees. But the Lord took me from tending the flock and said to me, ‘Go, prophesy to my people Israel.’

Israel basically told Amos to get outta dodge. To go back where he came from and continue herding sheep and growing fig trees. They were bloated on their power, in love with their wealth and comforts,  and they were talking advantage of the poor and needy. That never sits very well with God.

At first Amos held the spotlight on Israel’s neighbors and that was all good with them. But when Amos started listing all their sins on the town marquee it got ugly. They wanted him out of there.

I like the fact that God roots for the underdogs of the world. It is easy to convince myself that I am one. But the lessons of the Israelites can be equally applied to me. And it stings. In reading these Chapters I need to ask myself the hard questions.

Am I getting complacent? Am I quick to point fingers of blame at someone else, when I need to be looking inwardly at myself? Am I getting lazy? Am I putting myself above others when I don’t reach out because it’s too uncomfortable?

Amos reminds me that though God loves the underdog, the common working class, he also loves the people drunk on their own self-importance who don’t think they need him at all. He loves them enough to warn them. 

I remember all the times in my life when he gave me second and third chances. I am bowled over by his compassion, by his mercy that never seems to run dry.

There are so many things in this life that scream for justice, and it seems to be getting worse. It’s so easy for me to jump up and down and scream, “Yeah God, get them, get them!” 

Get those people who are doing unspeakable things to children.

Get the those politicians in Washington who couldn’t care less about us hard-working folks, who have their pensions and their pockets stuffed with bribes.

Get the addicted mother who has 6 kids she doesn’t even care about running wild raising themselves, while she sits on the couch sucking on cigarettes as well as the system. (I know this to be true)

But God never told me to be concerned with them, but with my own heart.

I am thinking of a scene, that breakfast meeting on the beach where Jesus met the disciples after his resurrection.  Peter asked him a question concerning John. I love what Jesus says, and I can imagine him saying it with a measure of remonstration in his voice and love radiating out of his eyes at the same time.

Jesus answered, “If I want him to remain alive until I return, what is that to you? You must follow me.”

Yes, Lord. I get it. Point taken.