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BEING GOOD NEWS: An Advent Devotion for Dec 14 (Published by FPU Biblical Seminary)

December 14, 2011 in Devotional Contemplation with 2 Comments

Being Good News

“The spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me… he has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed.” -Isaiah 61:1

Read Isaiah 61:1-4, 8-11

Two years ago I attended a Bible study primarily composed of homeless folks in a downtown coffee shop. My hope was to learn from these dear people and to place myself in a position to create friendships. During a time of sharing I listened as a single father (with his two children) talked about how God had come through for them by mysteriously providing a home when he was convinced they’d be on the streets. The short back-story is that he had recently received custody of his two boys, 3 and 10, rescuing them from a mother addicted to drugs. Now, he needed a refrigerator and food.

Touched, I offered him my college dorm fridge; but when others heard about the situation, resources came together beyond anticipation. One person offered a full- size refrigerator. Another had the idea to purchase Christmas gifts for the kids. Yet another decided to buy gift cards to a grocery store. That night we pulled in with a van-load of hundreds of dollars in gifts, groceries and the fridge. The father, completely overwhelmed, wept aloud with tears of gratitude for us and for the God we serve! That day began a friendship with a father who wanted the best for his kids but simply needed some Good News. Continue Reading…

Don’t Let the Sun Go Down While You’re Still… P.O.’d! (Get Out Your “Damn It Doll”)

September 19, 2011 in Devotional Contemplation, Kingdom of God, Nonviolence, Sermon on the Mount, Spirituality with 2 Comments

Credit: D Sharon Pruitt | Wikimedia Commons

 

This past weekend, I had a moment where I got P.O.’d.  If you’re human, you can probably relate.  It was over something that wasn’t even a big deal, yet my blood started boiling and I felt like hitting a wall.  But then I realized that such an action would let anger win.  So I sat in my devotional chair and started the process of “cooling off.”  Jesus says:

21 “You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, ‘You shall not murder, and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment.’ 22 But I tell you that anyone who is angry with a brother or sister will be subject to judgment.

Jesus takes an external commandment and makes it an internal reality.

It would be easy to look at this portion of the Sermon on the Mount and decide that Jesus is here, giving us a new Law.  Kind of like he’s saying: “Back in the day it was wrong to murder somebody, but now it’s even wrong to be P.O.’d.”  Then, add to this the warning about being subject to judgment (in this life and potentially in the next) and what we have is a scary commandment.  A new Law.

I want to suggest that Jesus doesn’t give us any kind of Law.  He digs down to the deepest part of us, the inward realities that shape our external behavior. His invitation is to become the transformed kind of person that doesn’t even come close to the point of being so angry that our natural reaction is to act in violence.  Murder, for Jesus, is the result of knowing a Law but not becoming more fully human by the power of the Spirit and thus, failing to keep our anger in check. Continue Reading…

I’m Done With Living Like a Christian

July 25, 2011 in Devotional Contemplation, Faith Journey, Kingdom of God, Missional, Spirituality with 56 Comments

Something happened last week.  I went on a retreat with an amazing spiritual director / teacher named Jan Johnson.  By the end of our time together I realized that I’m done with living like a Christian.

  • I’m done serving the poor.
  • I’m done going the extra mile.
  • I’m done being a husband who strives to love his wife as Christ loves the church.
  • I’m done visiting the sick.
  • I’m done opening up my life to Christian community.
  • I’m done loving my neighbor.
  • I’m done living with integrity.
  • I’m done loving my enemies.
  • I’m done giving finances to global causes.
  • I’m done opposing violence. Continue Reading…

Biggness, Smallness, and the Image of God – Reflections on God as Creator, part 3

August 26, 2010 in Devotional Contemplation, Evolution with 2 Comments

Now, lets think about the life of Jesus.  How does he have to say about us in our smallness?  There is one episode in the Gospel of Luke that gives us something to ponder about our role as image-bearers.  Luke 20.20 starts the story:

20 Keeping a close watch on him, they sent spies, who pretended to be sincere. They hoped to catch Jesus in something he said so that they might hand him over to the power and authority of the governor. 21 So the spies questioned him: “Teacher, we know that you speak and teach what is right, and that you do not show partiality but teach the way of God in accordance with the truth. 22 Is it right for us to pay taxes to Caesar or not?”

23 He saw through their duplicity and said to them, 24 “Show me a denarius. Whose image and inscription are on it?”
“Caesar’s,” they replied.

25 He said to them, “Then give back to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s.”

26 They were unable to trap him in what he had said there in public. And astonished by his answer, they became silent.  Luke 20.20-26

What does it mean to give back to God what is God’s?  Well, if Caesar’s image is on a coin… so what…he can have it!  God’s image is on you!

If you want to know how to live in a world where there are governments and systems that are corrupt.  Don’t worry about things that bear Caesar’s image.  Continue Reading…

Biggness, Smallness, and the Image of God – Reflections on God as Creator, part 2

August 24, 2010 in Devotional Contemplation, Evolution, N. T. Wright, Walter Brueggemann with 0 Comments

Lets read the climatic part of this creation poem* (Genesis 1) that as we said earlier is picked up by Psalm 8:

26 Then God said, “Let us make human beings in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.” 27 So God created human beings in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.  Genesis 1.26-27

God’s creation project is not complete without human beings in the world to bear his image.  We often talk about being created in the image of God, but what exactly are we talking about?  The Jewish tradition that New Testament writers seem to have used as a backdrop was that God’s image had to do with humans reflecting His glory in care of the Garden of Eden.[1] Think of an angled mirror.  Imagine that God’s love is light and that humans are mirrors designed to reflect that light into the creation project.

Or think of a king in the ancient world when this ancient text was written.  An emperor lived in the capitol city of his empire and therefore could not be present in all of the conquered territories.  So he would have statues or (images) made of himself so that people under his rule would be able to say: “that’s what our king is like.”  Walter Brueggemann Continue Reading…

Biggness, Smallness, and the Image of God – Reflections on God as Creator, part 1

August 23, 2010 in Devotional Contemplation, Evolution with 11 Comments

When we consider how incredibly vast the universe really is, we become confronted by two realities simultaneously: our smallness, and God’s bigness.  In comparison to the size of everything that God has caused into existence (my life, my story…your life, your story) is very, very small.  On the flip-side, if we consider that the size of our gigantic universe is merely microscopic compared to the size of the Creator of it all, we soon realize that God is very, very big.  One of the writers in the book of Psalms wrestled with this dichotomy in the following way:

3 When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, 4 what are mere mortals that you are mindful of them, human beings that you care for them? 5 You have made them a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned them with glory and honor. 6 You made them rulers over the works of your hands; you put everything under their feet: 7 all flocks and herds, and the animals of the wild, 8 the birds in the sky, and the fish in the sea, all that swim the paths of the seas. 9 Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!  Psalm 8.3-9

What is the passage essentially saying?  That both the small things and the big things demonstrate the majestic nature of God!  From our perspective in our smallness, it makes sense that God has larger more important things to think about in this universe that you or me.  But from God’s perspective he thinks the world of you!  Of course he loves the whole creation project, which fills us with awe and wonder.  Of course he is the one who holds it all together.  But within all of his activity throughout the endless reaches of outer space; he longs to know you and interact with you.  This mystery ought to make your head hurt.  Continue Reading…

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