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Filed under: Discipleship | Tagged: one another | Leave a comment »
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Filed under: Discipleship | Tagged: one another | Leave a comment »
A little more than thirty years ago, I endured a series of events that traumatized me. I was angry at God, so angry that I didn’t want to talk to him. However, I did want to hear what he had to say. I hoped that his words would bring reason for my pain, would restore order to replace the chaos. I did not pray for months, but I read the Bible every day, craving to hear what God had to say that would make life make sense. I said that I did not pray, but if prayer is a conversation, perhaps I just was not talking and giving God a chance to make his case. In the end, I prayed fully again. I still grieved, but now I understood better what Paul meant when he said that God told him, “…My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Corinthians 12:9). An endangered psalmist prayed concerning the threats posed by his enemies. He knew that he had nearly died and that the danger persisted. He called out to God, but Psalm 119:89-96 reveals that he also listened. In a recent post, I said that when we pray, we celebrate, we advocate, we lament, and we listen. In this prayer, the psalmist celebrates God’s faithfulness and the reliability of his enduring message. He advocates for his own salvation, while he laments the threat that his enemies pose to him. He also listens. He hears what God is telling him in his divine instructions, his laws. He prays,
This past week, I participated in a Zoom call where participants discussed losses that we had endured, and how lament had played a role both in our grieving and in our healing. When I mentioned the time when I didn’t want to talk to God, others responded that they too had had a time like that. If you too, because of trauma, loss, or illness, do not want to talk to God, perhaps you still can listen. When I could not pray, God spoke to me, as he had to the psalmist before, through his written revelation. I read how biblical heroes had suffered, but survived because they trusted that God would provide. I heard about God’s love through the care that two churches lavished on me, first in Maryland, and then in Tennessee. They walked with me in my suffering and helped me regain my trust in God by being patient enough with me to let me serve how I could while I slowly healed. If I had not listened to God’s message, I likely would have perished in my affliction. Like the psalmist, I pondered God’s word and sought out his answers to what I was experiencing. Like him, I remembered that I belonged to God and I sought out his way. I rediscovered his love in the accounts of his faithfulness with his people, but also in the life and teaching of Jesus, whom the books of John and Hebrews respectively say is the “word of God” and the one through whom God speaks to us now (John 1:1-14; Hebrews 1:1-4). I encourage you to concentrate on hearing God if praying to him just seems impossible right now. Take time to read his word for twenty minutes or more each day. Spend time with people who love God and who love you. Reflect on what you hear in what you read. Perhaps soon you too will talk to God again as you pray, grateful for feeling whole again. • Quotes from the Bible are from the New International Version. |
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Filed under: Community, Discipleship | Tagged: Community, David Jeremiah, Music, one another | Leave a comment »
Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God.
2 Corinthians 1:3-4
These two little verses actually come from the greeting Paul is bringing to the Corinthian church at the beginning of the letter he is sending them. Back in those days, this kind of a flattering and, if I may say so, flowery greeting was customary. Today we might say that it checks a box in the stylebook of that day for a proper letter, and as readers we might just tear through the greeting to get to the meat of the letter. Yet, if we were to simply zip through these verses to get to the good part, we would be doing ourselves a great disservice.
Please, take a minute and read through them again, more slowly this time.
Wow!
Paul is giving praise to the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort. Don’t we all need compassion and comfort at times? I think we all do, even if we don’t like to talk about such things. He continues with this little gem: who comforts us in all our troubles. Do you have any troubles that God cannot bring comfort to help you through? Do you have anything troubling you right now as you read this? If so, the God of all comfort is there with you… pretty amazing if you think about it.
Read more: https://lifeprojectblog.com/2022/05/02/strength-to-comfort-2/
Filed under: Community, Discipleship | Tagged: comfort, encouragement, Merritt, one another | Leave a comment »
There is a group of people that throughout history Christians have had great difficulty loving. We Christians have shunned them, demonised them, jailed them, and have even put them to death. In our day common notions of decency do not keep us from being on the attack, in books and over the internet, through social media, in blogs, podcasts, and in chat forums. What is that one group? It is the group Jesus speaks about in John 13:34,35:
The group we Christians have the hardest time loving? Other Christians. We have a long history of not treating Christians who think differently from us well. We have hated, feared, mistreated, maligned, and tried to destroy one another. LOVING ONE ANOTHER IS SUPER-IMPORTANT!Jesus gave the disciples a kind of “pep talk” at the Last Supper. Jesus had spent three years with his disciples and was now preparing them to be a Jesus following community without him, at least without him in the way they had become accustomed to. First thing out of the gate? Love each other! WHY IS LOVING ONE ANOTHER SO IMPORTANT?If we can’t love one another, then how can we expect people to take seriously our good news message of love? Jesus said love for each other would prove that the disciples really were his followers. It is interesting that though Jesus taught and modelled love for all people, including those on the fringes of society, and even including one’s enemies, it is love for one another that is evidence of being a Jesus follower. A watching world will not be impressed by our lack of love for each other. We Christians can do all kinds of loving things in the world and for the world, but when we don’t love one another, our message that God’s love changes everything, is lost. WHAT DOES LOVING ONE ANOTHER LOOK LIKE IN OUR DAY?There is the idea that if you love someone you will rescue them from their wrong thinking. Loving one another therefore means fixing other Christians, pointing out their errors. There are two problems with this. First, Christians are not cars that can simply be fixed. They are people, with history, experiences, and reasons why they think the way they do. Second, the Bible is not like the Haynes repair manual I have for my motorcycle, with step-by-step instructions and photographs to make everything as clear as possible. The Bible is brilliant, but convoluted. The Bible is sometimes hard to understand, and it is sometimes easy to misunderstand. There is a better path forward than trying to fix one another. LOVING ONE ANOTHER MEANS HAVING CONVERSATIONS WITH ONE ANOTHER.Conversation means talking with and to one another rafter than talking about one another. In our day there is so much talking about one another in books, on social media, podcasts, blogs, and perhaps worst of all, online comments. Conversation means listening as well as speaking. Listening is an important part of love. We each have our blind spots that others may be able to speak to. We each believe things and hold to things that may cause harm if we are not aware. Blind spots are nasty that way. Conversation means seeking truth together. Author Soong-Chan Rah has written an article about the difference between truth possessed and truth pursued. Truth possessed can be summed up as “I know the truth and everyone should listen to me.” Truth pursued can be summed up as “there is such a thing as truth and let’s work together on finding it.” LOVING ONE ANOTHER MEANS LEARNING THE SKILL OF DISAGREEING WITH ONE ANOTHER WITHOUT DISMISSING OR DEMONISING ONE ANOTHER.It means learning to disagree with others while honouring them for doing their best to honour God. Those who think differently than we do may never have been exposed to reasons to think otherwise. They might be doing the best they can. Maybe the blind spot is ours and we are the ones who need to rethink things. Humble people are listeners. LOVING ONE ANOTHER MEANS TAKING A POSTURE OF GENTLENESS TOWARD ONE ANOTHER.Gentleness might be the most neglected fruit of the Spirit in our day. If everyone around the world learned gentleness, wars would cease, and wars would cease to begin. Imagine too, if people would be gentle with themselves. Therapists may find they have more free time. We can not, of course, make that happen, but we can model gentleness in our own lives, in the life of our our own church family, and in our own family of churches. You may think differently about many issues and theological ideas than I do. I will be gentle with you. Will you be gentle with me? BUT ISN’T DIVERSITY OF THINKING AMONG CHRISTIANS A PROBLEM? DON’T WE NEED TO GET EVERYONE ON THE SAME PAGE?I have heard it said that we have a diversity problem in our day in the convention of churches within which I serve. It has been said that our tent is too big as a Baptist Convention. I don’t think we have a diversity problem. We have a diversity opportunity. We have the opportunity to demonstrate to a polarised world, how to live in a polarised world. It is through loving one another. It is through conversation, speaking and listening, talking with and to rather than about, disagreeing without dismissing or demonising, and through being gentle. When we allow our differences to become reasons for erecting walls and starting wars we are reflecting the world’s ways, not the way of Jesus. We Christians have had a hard time loving one another. Jesus said we must do it. So let’s do it. |
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