Search Results

Mark 11:12-14, 20-24 It would be my opinion that every Christian living today has prayed to God for something and never received it. Yes? Has that happened to you? It has to me. With all of the “ask and you shall receive” teachings in scripture, what do you suppose is the reason for this? Why do you suppose more of our prayers are not granted by our heavenly Father? At times it seems that the door to the throne room is either closed, or the divine ear is listening to something else (perhaps the cries of the hungry or those in prison for their faith). Too often, I think, we “write off” our unanswered prayers as not being the will of God (1 John 5:14), and certainly that could be the case. However, our reading suggests to me one very strong reason why prayer is not answered by the Almighty. The fig tree incident is an “enacted” parable, an opportunity Jesus used to teach a lesson to the disciples. The leaves signaled the possibility of fruit, but there was not even an early fig. In context, the tree is Israel who had become fruitless although exhibiting many outward signs of being a fruitful vine. The leaders of Israel had failed. The tree is cursed. When Peter remarks about the withered tree the next day, Jesus’ succinct response is : “Have faith in God.” Israel had ceased having faith in God and had gone off after “other gods,” in particular Rome, to maintain their existence as a political entity. They trusted in themselves and as a result, they were fruitless. Jesus impresses upon His disciples that faith in God is paramount to accomplishing anything in the kingdom and asking God to bring it about is a must. But asking isn’t enough; one must ask and not doubt and believe that you’ve already received your request! Too many of us search for the “right words” to say in our prayers or simply repeat the same phrases. Prayer isn’t about right words but about faith in God, about believing that He will deliver! Doubt must be crushed with unwavering belief in God. Not just words, but faith. Pray believing. “Have faith in God.”

Job 37: 1-13 It snowed today. It’s winter, and we can expect that here where we live, but the reactions to the snow are always varied. Some see snow as a nuisance, even a curse. They have to shovel the walk, clean off the SUV and drive more slowly. Some are even petrified to drive in the snow. If the schools close, then there is a scramble to find someone to be with the kids: grandma, Aunt Trixie, who? Other folks love snow. They enjoy the beauty of it, its rather peaceful presence on the ground bringing a certain muffling of the sounds of both man and machine. For the kids, the more snow the better! Snow men, snow forts, snow ball battles, snow angels, football in the snow - no school! And what’s better than after an afternoon spent snowballing and being soaked to the skin than to curl up in a warm blanket with a cup of hot cocoa? Whether you’re a snow lover or someone who just sees it as another annoyance of life, we all tend to forget that snow comes from the hand of God. Yes, I’m well aware of the laws of meteorology and such things as high and low pressure systems, fronts, winds, humidity levels, the heating of the sun, etc. God has set these things in motion to function in certain ways in His creation, but I am not one to believe that God is “hands off” in what happens on His planet Earth. We can read through our text and nod at the figurative language in which God “thunders with His voice” and how “From the breath of God ice is made.” We don’t take such phrases literally, nor are we meant to. However, we need to pay careful attention to v 13. Here is conveyed the idea that God is very much involved with His creation and uses it to accomplish His purposes. It could be for correction (i.e. discipline) that He sends a storm or causes a drought. He might be showing His mercy in sending much needed rain. It could just be normal maintenance. In any case, God did it! It snowed today. I choose to believe that God sent a blessing. What do you think?

Luke 15:8-10 It was her future livelihood. She had been putting it aside for many years. Able to make clothes and mend, she had scratched out a living for herself since her husband had died. When the Lord had blessed her work, she had put some silver coins away for the time when she could no longer sew. Even now she was feeling the creep of time on her hands and back as she sat and worked. The needle did not run as swiftly now as it had even a couple of years ago. She had been blessed again, recently, and today had taken her copper pieces and exchanged them for another silver coin. She had retrieved the bag with her savings from its hiding place and now dumped the nine silver coins on the table. There was a certain reassurance in seeing and handling the money. This one more coin would make ten, a goodly number. Ten had a ring of completeness. She began counting the coins into the bag ...eight, nine... She must have miscounted. Dumping all the coins on the table, she counted again. Nine. Thinking she had dropped one she took a quick look on the floor around the table. No coin. She counted again. Still only nine. What to do? She had to find the coin. She had labored many hours, days for it. It was precious. Crucial for her future! She knew it must be in the house. She lit the lamp. Very methodically she begins. First in this corner. Then moving along the wall to the adjacent corner. Moving the little stand. Moving the pitchers. Around the room. Moving the table. Her two chairs. Sweeping, sweeping. Peering into corners, cracks, crevices. On her hands and knees. Then more sweeping. At last a glint in the earthen floor. Could it be?! On her hands and knees again. Scraping away the dirt. There it was! Found! What a relief! Praise the Lord! She hurries to the door. “Anna! Miriam! Come quickly! You’ll never guess what just happened! ...” A lost coin is found - a woman rejoices! A sinner repents - angels rejoice! So should we. So should we.

The call of Christ to be His disciple requires nothing short of an all-out effort. Jesus lays before prospective followers His expectations: “If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me.” Following Jesus requires a denying of self. Let’s not misunderstand this. This is not about fasting or giving up the comforts of home to be a camp counselor for a week or to go on a short-term mission trip. This is about saying “No” to one’s self and enthroning Jesus as the King of your life. This is the discarding of your will and replacing it with His will. This is full submission. Only when a person denies himself the right to direct his own life and gives that authority to Jesus is he ready for the next step of discipleship which is the taking up of his cross. Many have mistakenly believed that the cross here is a reference to suffering the troubles of life, but such an interpretation ignores the context. Jesus is discussing discipleship. Not only must self be denied, but self must die! The cross was an instrument of torture, but its primary purpose was for execution! So, how can I die and still follow Jesus? If I’m dead, how can I possibly be of any use to the Lord? The apostle Paul explains this well for us (Galatians 2:19-20). Paul saw himself as being crucified with Christ. He died with Jesus on His cross, and now Christ lived in him. It was no longer his life that was being lived, but Christ was living through him. Paul had denied himself and submitted his life to the lordship of Jesus. How did this happen? Again, we look to Paul (Romans 6:3-11). After Paul came to have faith in Christ, he obeyed the gospel as directed. He was buried in baptismal waters with Christ into His death and raised out of those waters as a new creation with the Spirit of God living in him. He now belonged to Christ. He had died with Christ, yet he lived. He was a living dead man. He was dead to sin, law and the world, but alive in Christ. Amazing!

Romans 2:14-16 If there is a God, one would expect to find evidence for His existence infused into the world. His fingerprints would be everywhere on creation. This is precisely what we find. From the irreducible complexity of various micro-organisms, to the many finely tuned parameters which make Earth a habitable planet; from the orderly functioning of the natural world to the beauty and genius of the design of numerous human and animal systems - the hand of God is everywhere. Of course, those given to atheistic naturalism seek to explain such things by various theories associated with the pure chance mutations of natural selection as posited by Darwin. However, God has not simply left His mark on those aspects of the world which can be seen and measured, but also on things which we experience internally. Let’s consider morality. The evolutionist position is “survival of the fittest.” The biggest, strongest, most cunning gets the meat, the watering hole and the high ground. The weak lose out, suffer and ultimately die off. But such a view of things does not square with what we “know” internally. Whether atheist or believer, we all have some commonly held views on what is right and what is wrong. Consider: Is it ever right to kidnap children and press them into sexual slavery? Is it ever right to indiscriminately begin machine gunning people in a crowded mall? Is it ever right to beat a two-year-old to death for crying? Is it ever right to torture someone just to watch them suffer? Was it right for Hitler to try to exterminate the Jewish people? There are some things which we just “know” innately that are wrong. From where does this come? Paul writes of the Gentiles who did not have the law: “...they show the work of the Law written in their hearts, their conscience bearing witness...” God’s hand is everywhere in His creation. God’s fingerprint is on you!

Ephesians 1:18-20, 3:20-21 In this age of technology we have all come to appreciate the power of batteries. One reason we are able to have the cool devices we have today is because of the development of batteries, in particular their capability of having more power and being able to hold a charge much longer. Cell phones, lap tops, tablets, remote controls for all sorts of things, high-tech flashlights, keyless entry to cars - even some cars themselves! Battery power is everywhere. Recently, we had a little episode with our TV remote. It quit functioning; wouldn’t do anything at all. So we changed the batteries - still nothing. Thought we’d have to get another one. Finally (with some help from our daughter), we tried some other batteries. It worked! Turns out that the first replacement batteries we put in had been used and didn’t have enough power left. Lesson learned. So how does this have anything to do with us as Christians? Well, we need “power” to live the life of faith, and that power must come from other than ourselves. Being weak through the flesh (Mark 14:38), we need something to empower us to have changed hearts and to live the righteous life. Otherwise we will fail miserably living lives of ritual service while still loving the things of the world. This power comes from God and is the same divine power whereby Christ was raised from the dead. If we stop to consider, the Christian life is filled with divine (supernatural) power. The cleansing of sins by Christ in baptism is an act of divine power. Prayer to God is an act of faith which has an element of the supernatural since we pray to a God who is spirit and whom we have never seen. The gift of the Holy Spirit is a divine event. His working in us to bear His fruit is a powerful act of God the Spirit. The power of God working in the Christian is everywhere. Knowing that it is God’s power working in us to accomplish His will should give us hope, courage and firm resolve to engage in this fight against the evil powers and carry the gospel to the lost.

“If you fill up the heel of that shovel, the toe will take care of itself.” I’ll never forget those words spoken to me by one of the older workers on the crew. Of course, they were all older than me, a college student with a summer job on a pipeline construction crew. His message to me was that if I did the hard work then the easy work would take care of itself. Fill up the back end of that shovel, and the tip of it will be filled as well. In our Christian walk, we sometimes look for short cuts, easy ways, and try to make things look good without having them actually be good. Jesus rebuked the Pharisees for this approach to their obedience since they concentrated on the outward appearances of the law but inwardly were still full of wickedness. Jesus reminded them that God made both the inside and the outside of the person. So which is the hard work and which is the easy? Well, it’s easy to make a good showing, but it’s difficult to really change the inner person - the real you. I can get myself to the worship assembly but sit there wishing I were hooked into a big bass or home with my coffee and Sunday paper. When the preacher talks about sharing the gospel with someone, I mentally run through my list of well-worn excuses and wait for those comforting words: “...then we will be dismissed in prayer.” I might even lead a prayer in the assembly but never breathe a word to my heavenly Father the rest of the week. The old self with its passions, lusts and evil desires must be put off and the new self must be put on (Colossians 3:5-15). There is an inner renewal brought about by the Holy Spirit of God to pursue righteousness and love in the image of Christ. Sinful and selfish deeds must be replaced with those which show sincere compassion and kindness toward others. Christ now rules my heart - not me. “If you fill up the heel of that shovel, the toe will take care of itself.” If you let the Holy Spirit cleanse you on the inside, your outward actions will take care of themselves. Guaranteed! #Bible #exploration

Matthew 13:44 Well, it’s that time of year (the new year that is) for making resolutions. Many people make resolutions at the beginning of a new year in hopes of changing things which didn’t go so well in the previous one. Maybe you’re one of those folks. Resolutions often have to do with things like losing weight, exercising more, being a better spouse, saving more/spending less, taking more time for prayer and Bible study, quitting smoking, more involvement at church, etc. Almost always within a few weeks, these resolutions have been broken and/or completely forgotten. Rarely do we ever hear someone say in the middle of June: “I’m still sticking to my new year’s resolution to eat more vegetables!” Why do people fail with these resolutions? There are many answers to that question, but one answer would be most prevalent: We’re not convinced that our resolutions are worth it. Oh, we might say they are and think so, but the results speak for themselves. Our resolutions are not gigantic tasks such as building a regional airport in Belmont County or inventing a material which really works to fill pot holes. We’re talking about being wiser in our money management or spending more time in the scriptures. These things are not difficult! We are just not totally convinced about doing them. In our text, we have a man who was completely convinced about something he wanted. He discovered a treasure hidden in a field. To him that treasure was truly worth having. So much was it worth having that he hid it again (so no one else would find it) and went and sold everything he had and bought that field! He rejoiced over his find and over his being able to obtain it. What most people lack concerning their resolutions is the joy which this man had. We don’t see the joyful outcome of keeping our resolutions but only see them as hard work, drudgery and something we have to do differently. We don’t really believe the “treasure” is worth the investment. What is worth the investment to you? #lifesjourney #righteousness

James 2:14-26 James is quite adamant in his assessment of faith. It is no private matter simply between a person and God, but faith is to be seen publicly in the actions of the one who has faith. Faith is perfected when a person’s works fall into line with what he or she believes. A faith which does not manifest itself in a life of good deeds is ruled by James as being “dead” just as the body without the spirit is dead. So, what does a faith that is alive look like? Repentance is faith turning. Confessing Christ is faith acknowledging. Singing is faith praising. Resisting temptation is faith fighting. Praying is faith asking. Forgiving is faith remembering no more. Preaching is faith proclaiming. Teaching is faith instructing. Visiting is faith going. Giving is faith sacrificing. Keeping one’s word is faith honoring. Partaking of the Lord’s Supper is faith remembering. Offering encouragement is faith caring. Assembling with the saints is faith fellowshipping. Worshiping is faith reverencing. Enduring adversity is faith persevering. Studying the scriptures is faith learning. Confessing sin is faith admitting. Providing help is faith loving. Keeping Christ’s words is faith obeying. Being baptized is faith submitting. Grieving with hope is faith trusting. Walking in the Spirit is faith living. #God #nature

Philippians 2:3-4 We have entered the holiday season in which everyone searches for just the right gift to give to all those on their Christmas list. If we are true “givers,” we really want to find something which will bring joy, surprise and a sweet blessing to those for whom we buy gifts. It is often not an easy task. There is, however, another kind of giving in which we should be engaged year round. It is the kind of giving to which our Lord calls us and doesn’t necessarily involve anything material at all, although it may well include such at times. It is the giving of self with the interests of others in view. Consider these: Be the first one to smile and say “Hello!” Be sure to express your thanks every time someone gives you a gift or does something for you. Say “Good morning!” to your spouse. Say it with a kiss. When you feel the “crabbies” coming on, leave the room, say a prayer and get yourself under control. Nobody wants to be around a “crab.” Overlook those little things someone else does which “bug” you. Remember, they are just “bugs” not alligators. Give hugs. Lots of them. Clean up your mess. Don’t be so judgmental. Everybody gets it wrong now and then. Even you. Offer to help with something which isn’t usually yours to do. Give lots of compliments. Remember, whether it’s a dented fender, burnt dinner or lost money, the person is always more important than the thing. Always say “Good night” to your spouse. Say it with a kiss. Tell the truth. There are 1000s more.Such giving is a true joy year round. #faith #communityengagement