#iGrowchallenge: Giving Up and Adding Things During Lent

Lent is a time to prepare for Easter. It is a necessary prelude. The death and resurrection of Christ are true whether or not we prepare for Easter. However, without our hearts and lives being ready, we may not experience the depth and power of Christ's death and resurrection. As we as a congregation begin the journey of Lent this year, consider committing yourselves to disciplines for conversion from sin and death to love and life in Jesus Christ. Traditionally fasting and giving up something were part of the Lenten Discipline, but you can also consider adding a practice that could help you focus on Christ. Below are some suggestions on commitments to discipline and growth that you could take up for the next six weeks

Inward and Personal Disciplines::
Think about a habit that has kept you from being whom God is calling you to be. Consciously give up that habit for Lent.

Spend 15 minutes in silent prayer every day.

 Read a book for spiritual growth during Lent.

Keep a journal of prayer concerns, questions, and reading.

Focus on thanksgiving in prayer, rather than on asking.

Find a way to go to bed earlier or sleep in so you get enough rest.

 Take a ‘fast’ from complaining, bitterness, grudges, and pessimism for Lent.

 Go to the Good Friday service as an act of love and waiting with Jesus.

Forgive someone who has hurt you. Pray for them daily during Lent.

Take a prayer retreat for a morning, a day, or a weekend at some time 
during Lent.

Turn off your phone or device on your commute.

 Other promptings? 


Outward and Social Disciplines
Make a commitment to “fast” from cruel or careless comments about others.

Take on some loving task that serves your family, friends, church, or community.

 Write a letter of affirmation once a week to a person who has touched your  life.

Go to coffee or dinner with someone you want to know better on a regular basis through Lent.

Begin to recycle waste from your home and workplace weekly.

Share your faith with a non-Christian colleague or friend.

Say "NO" to something that is a waste of money, energy, and time.

Pray to God to help you resist racial prejudice and to give you courage in 
opposing it.

Decide to become a member of the church and speak to a pastor or lay 
leader.

 Rebuke the spirit of criticism and focus on being more positive and patient 
with others.

Start a Lenten small group with a few others. Meet for an hour or two 
weekly to study scripture and pray for each other.  

 Pray for somebody. As you’re walking the streets, driving the highways, 
sitting in your cubicle at work, or going to a movie, pick out a person who appears to be in need, and pray for that person. Be mindful of the words of Philo of Alexandria, who said, “Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a great battle.”

Read Matthew 25: 31-46 “For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink...in prison and you visited me....” There are plenty of opportunities available in our community and through our church to put this teaching into practice. Choose an act of service you can perform throughout Lent.

Make a list of all the excesses in your life. Think about which ones you could do without and put it into action during Lent.

Other promptings?

#iGrowchallenge: Judge Not.....

I am reading a few verses ahead of the #igrowchallenge reading guide, so I read tomorrows reading in Matthew just a few minutes ago. I was particularly struck by Matthew 7:1-2: "Do not judge, so you that you may not be judged. For with the judgement you make you will be judged and with the measure you give will be the measure you get."

I just read that passage after praying for someone I have really judged recently.  My prayers went something like ‘change their heart, God' and ‘would you touch them with your spirit?’ ‘Would you make them realize their error and turn them to the right?'  

And then I read this passage and realized that I was judging this person even in my prayers. I was assuming this person wasn't growing in relationship with Christ and that their faith was just empty religion and tradition.  And I discounted everything this person had to say and every opinion they had because I assumed that they just 'didn't get it'.....so everything they said was invalid. 

Do I want to be judged like that by other people? NO. 
Do I want others to hold those opinions of me? NO WAY. 
Do I want God to have that opinion of me? DEFINITELY NOT! 

Yet I still hold those kinds of opinions about others. I think I need to go back and revise my prayers for this person, including a prayer of confession.

In Bible study on Friday we read Hebrews 4:12 and I am feeling an example of this passage right now:  “indeed the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing until it divides sou from spirit, joints from marrow; is able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart."

How has the word been 'piercing' your life lately?

#iGrowchallenge: The Self Defeat Of Evil

Reading from Tim and Kathy Keller's devotional on the Psalms: "The Songs of Jesus". This morning the reading is Psalm 7:12-17 about those who commit evil. V14: "whoever is pregnant with evil conceives trouble and gives birth to disillusionment."

Tim and Kathy comment: "Because we live in a broken world, much injustice will go unpunished until the final day of judgement. However, most of the time, God's justice works itself out within the fabric of history. Evil carries within itself the seeds of its own destruction. Not only is it a bore-leading to dissatisfaction and emptiness (v14)-but it recoils on itself. You fall into the it you have dug for others. Haters are hated, deceivers are deceived, gossips are gossiped about. Remember this until you are not intimidated, discouraged, or tempted by the wrongdoing you see around you."

Such a good message, especially for me this morning after reading the news of horror and hatred in the middle east, racism closer to home, and acts of wickedness in our city (just read about 5 teens that raped an 18 year old in a park in Brooklyn). But evil eats itself.  And ultimately evil and wickedness will be defeated. So we can stand up for grace and Gods goodness. We can be a force of good in the world, though there is not guarantee that evil will not touch us as well. Good message for me this morning!

#iGrowchallenge: Beloved

I was reflecting on Wednesdays reading in Matthew about Christ's baptism and the connection with Paul's insistence about how we are "In Christ". 

Throughout the book of Ephesians and throughout Paul's letters Paul insists that if we are redeemed then we are 'In Christ', which means what is true of Christ is true of us. Because we are saved by Jesus Christ and as Paul wrote 'hidden in Christ' then we have all the blessings that Christ has.  So when the Holy Spirit descends and God pronounces on Jesus 'this is my beloved with who I am well pleased" we can also know God speaks those same words to us. 

Because of Christ we are beloved--- greatly loved by God. And in Christ God is even well pleased. We have a hard time thinking God is pleased with us. Usually in our sin we think the opposite. But what a wonder to think that God is well pleased with his creation. He created you and he doesn't make junk. Though tainted masterpieces we are still masterpieces and God is well pleased by his creation. 

And God is well pleased by his redemption. He is well pleased by the work of salvation in Jesus Christ. He is well pleased by grace and agape love. And those are ours through Jesus Christ. So rejoice in the fact that even though you sin and you stray you are beloved! 

#iGrowchallenge: A quote on prayer

A read this in my morning devotional. I am supplementing our readings and our prayer time with a prayer manual called "The Divine Hours, Prayers For Autumn and Wintertime" by Phyllis Tickle.  In the evening "Compline" (Night Prayer) service this quote was shared:

"There is no greater proof in the world of our spiritual danger than the reluctance which most people always have and all people sometimes have to pray; so weary of their length, so glad when they are done, so clever to excuse and neglect their opportunity.

Yet Prayer is nothing but desiring God to give us the greatest and best things we can have and that can make us happy. It is a work so easy, so honorable, and to so great a purpose, that (except in the Incarnation of His Son) God has never given us a greater argument of His willingness to have us saved and our unwillingness to accept it, of His goodness and our gracelessness, of His infinite condescension and our folly, than by rewarding so easy a duty with such great blessings."

-Jeremy Taylor

#iGrowchallenge: Bear Fruit That Leads to Repentance and What is the Fire Jesus is Speaking of?

Thoughts about John the Baptizer....John the Baptizer tells the crowd in Matthew 3 to “bear fruit in keeping with repentance.” The fruit that comes from repentance is humility, and true forgiveness, burdens lifted, and a sense of grace in your life.  

John prepared the way of Jesus by calling people to ‘repent’ or to change their minds about Jesus, to believe in the Son of God, and to change their actions, to turn from their sin, and idolatry, and their fruitless pursuit of other things to bring true peace, and hope, and value and security.   Seems that as we draw near to God this is also a good message daily for us so that we might receive again the Lord Jesus Christ and the Grace that he so freely gives us. 

Also a question from Matthew 3: John the Baptizer warns the crowds in 11-12: "I baptize you with the water of repentance, but he who is coming after me is mightier than I, who sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the water of repentance, but he who is coming after me is mightier than I, whose sandals that I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and gather in his wheat into his barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire." 

What does the word 'fire' mean here?  It most certainly refers to judgement. Fire was often the way farmers cleared their land for the upcoming harvest.... they would 'slash and burn' the old to prepare for the new. And that is how John is describing Jesus. He is the farmer and he is the judge. So ultimately all that is not ordained by him or under him will be consumed.  This is a foreshadowing of the last judgement but also a statement about who Jesus is in our world as well. There is no middle ground with Jesus. As an all consuming fire he either burns or he heals. 

John the Baptist also says that Jesus will baptize with Spirit and fire.....so when Christ comes into our lives he burns away the old and brings the new. He saves us and redeems us through his blood.  Though we still have sin in our lives and live under the reality of evil, death, and the devil, God in Jesus Christ has cleansed us and healed us even still.   Thanks be to God! 

#iGrowchallenge: Thoughts from Scripture Readings

Matthew 2:1-23

What strikes me as I read:

WISEMEN

-The wise men came to worship.  They were not Jews but through their own faith and understanding God led them to Jesus.

- They didn’t really know WHO they were worshipping. This was a huge leap of faith for them. They didn’t know what kind of king this might be or what kind of ruler. But they came anyway. May that be our faith as well….not knowing where God may lead or even how exactly God is working, we can still come in trust.  And even risk in trust.

-  The wise men “rejoiced exceedingly with great joy” (v10) when they saw the star that lead to Jesus. Their long journey was over and their risk rewarded. I am sure that there were many in their lives that saw them as crazy or saw their journey as ruinous to their careers or their social standing. But they felt compelled by the TRUTH of what they saw.  They were convinced by their calculations that a star was leading them to a new king in Jerusalem so they went to see him. And they were rewarded by a king that is much better and more expansive than they thought.

They took a huge leap of faith and that is the same kind of faith that we are called to have.  We are basing our faith and our lives on a book…..the Bible. On the testimony of people long passed who testified of this king who will take away the sins of the world. That is our star.  May we follow it to Jesus and have great joy!!

MASSACRE

As a father of a two year old this massacre just really hit me. How terrible! Just thinking of that happening to my son is something beyond horrifying, but families around the world deal with exactly that kind of thing today. They deal with those in power sacrificing their children to protect their interests, whether from ISIL, or Boko Haram, or other groups around the world that will sacrifice innocents for their cause.  Children are often the ones sacrificed and they are often the main casualties of humanities sin, greed, fear, avarice, etc…. Whether it is children drowning while fleeing war in Syria, or street kids living on scraps, to child soldiers and children sold into slavery, to children killed on our streets by police, and gang violence,  in our homes by neglect  and domestic abuse.  Children that are forgotten by our parents, and school systems, and forgotten in foster homes and in the system.  Lost children that we give up hope on.

And Christ was such a child.  Christ was born into this kind of environment.

Christ’s parents were refugees, fleeing violence in their homeland. Christ spend the first five years of his life a refugee and even after Herod’s death could not return home.  This gives us hope that when Jesus says “come to me all the little children and do not hinder them” he knows first hand what that means. And he also will judge those who harm children and deal with them like Herod.

JOSEPH

So often Joseph just fades into the background of the Biblical story but here we see that Joseph is the leader in protecting his family. He is the one receiving the angelic visions and he is the one actively responding and doing what was needed to protect his family. There are many reasons I am sure why Matthew shows that all the angelic visions were given to joseph and not Mary,…. And there were many. From the narrative it looks like Joseph was visited often by an Angel and that he responded quickly and decisively each time. No doubt. No questioning. No second guessing. He heard and responded.  So no matter why Matthew emphasized that Joesph received the visions I appreciate how this elevates Josephs role in the story. We get this picture of a man of faith who is convinced of his sons mission and committed to his family and his Lord.  He is really just as crucial a character as Mary, especially at this point in the story.

What stood out to you in your reading?