Who is like you? (5/31/2020)

Hope this note find you well.  These weeks of isolation are slowly transitioning. This week Robyn and I ate in a restaurant. Imagine that!  Today people (with masks) will be worshipping in the sanctuary. Pray for protection.

This morning we have been asked to reflect on:

Exodus 15:11

“Who is like you, O LORD, among the gods?

Who is like you, majestic in holiness,

awesome in glorious deeds, doing wonders?

We do not serve an unknown God. He makes Himself known. So much so a sinner is without excuse. 

Romans 1:19-20

For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.

If a sinner has no excuse, then neither do the redeemed. There is no reason for us not to rejoice. The work of His hands is all around us. Look for it. The work of Hands is the history of our lives. Pause a moment and recall. 

Pause a moment and wonder. 

Before and after (5/24/2020)

We are living in a very different time.  We are starting say the phrase “before COVID”. It is becoming the new “BC”.

Today we are asked to meditate on:

Hebrews 8:1-2

Now the point in what we are saying is this: we have such a high priest, one who is seated at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in heaven, a minister in the holy places, in the true tent that the Lord set up, not man.

To do so let’s pause a moment and recall what it was like before Christ. When Job’ssteadfastness was without having seen Emanuel.

Job 9:33

“There is no arbiter between us, who might lay his hand on us both.”

He had only one choice.  That to throw himself on God’s purpose.  Read his answer to God:

Job 42:1-6

Then Job answered the Lord and said:

“I know that you can do all things,

    and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted.

 . . .  

therefore I despise myself,

    and repent in dust and ashes.”

We too must throw ourselves on God’s purpose, but we do so having seen what prophets longed for:

Psalm 68:17-19

You ascended on high,

leading a host of captives in your train

and receiving gifts among men,

even among the rebellious, that the LORD God may dwell there.

Rejoice indeed that we live “AD”.

In the midst (5/17/2020)

Today we are asked to meditate on a verse that is from the middle poem of the lament over the destruction of Jerusalem.  The lament reaches such a level of despair in this chapter that for the first 17 verses the author does not speak the name the Lord before concluding:

Lamentations 3:18

so I say, “My endurance has perished;

    so has my hope from the Lord.”

Then in the midst of this, at this depth, the author remembers that that is not true.  That, in fact, the opposite is true and we read:

Lamentations 3:22-23

The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases;

    his mercies never come to an end;

they are new every morning;

    great is your faithfulness.

Now imagine that new morning having reached the shore with Jesus.  Pray for Keven as he brings that to us.

Also pray for a great leader of the faith, that may be about to reach that shore -- Ravi Zacharias.

The Law and the Heart (5/10/2020)

Today we are asked to meditate on:

Jeremiah 31:33

For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people.

Personally I would have put it in a more visible place.  But no, the law (the tablets) was placed in a box (the Ark of the Covenant) and put into the deepest part of a tent (the Tabernacle).  But from that place came a pillar of smoke (visible by day) and of fire (visible by night) that lead them through the wilderness and into the Promised Land.

Sounds like today, right?

Instead of having an external law, God has place the Law is the deepest part of our being (the heard), so that we may use it as our guide through the wilderness we call life.  

James, he put it this way:

James 4:17

So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin.

We don't look into scripture for the specific "do"s and "don't"s of the day, instead we are given just one law, again from James, called "the Royal law" (James 2:8), which he echoed from the Sermon on the Mount, where he heard Christ say:

Mark 12:29-31

Jesus answered, “The most important is, ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.”

And that in turn was echoed from the passage that Derek will open for us today Deuteronomy 6:4–9.  

You may notice that Jesus said it slightly differently.  He added "your mind".  For the Greeks in the audience, I suspect that He wanted them to hear the same idea that was given to Israel -- that no part of them should be excluded from the governance of this Law.

Would we have gone? (5/03/2020)

This morning we read the only words necessary to convince Simon and Andrew to follow Jesus:

Mark 1:17

And Jesus said to them, “Follow me, and I will make you become fishers of men.”

Would we have gone?  

Simon, whom Jesus renames Peter left family and occupation to go after the souls of mankind.  For three years he was able to watch Christ touch with love those who were lost.  It was not an easy three years.  Peter followed the whole way.

Matthew 26:58

And Peter was following him at a distance, as far as the courtyard of the high priest, and going inside he sat with the guards to see the end.

But at the end he failed. His denial of Christ separated himself from his Master. 

Today we have the opportunity to witness Peter’s final lesson and his restoration to service. And yes, it ends with:

John 21:19b

And after saying this he said to him, “Follow me.”

Will you?