Showing Mercy

Here are a couple of verses that have been bugging my conscience lately – to the point of prompting me to change.  Two are from historic Jewish prophets and one is from Jesus Christ quoting one of these prophets.

“He has shown all you people what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.”  Micah 6:8

“For I desire mercy, not sacrifice, and acknowledgment of God rather than burnt offerings.” Hosea 6:6

“But go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”  (Jesus being quoted in Matthew 9:13)

Here’s the stinging question I’ve been grappling with these past days:

How or when am I showing people outside faith in Christ the same kind of mercy God has shown me through his Son?

And here’s why I think God won’t let me simply dismiss it:

If I could do this more, then God’s invisible but very real presence in this world would be evidenced here in real time.  People not yet in relationship with him may be inspired by my self sacrificing example.  So that answers the “who and why”.

Hopefully, I can quickly move on to the “what, when, and how”.  You have any ideas?

Eternal Life – More Than Just Living Forever?

What is eternal life?  Does it mean we just never die – or that we get to live forever?  Is eternal life simply non-ending existence?  The Bible’s obviously not just referring to physical existence because we all die physically.  Is it just getting to have our consciousness last forever?  According to Jesus, eternal life is associated with a specific relationship in conjunction with everlasting consciousness.

“Now this is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.”  John 17:3

If we understand eternal life to mean “getting to experience relationship with God and with Jesus Christ”, then eternal life is something we can be engaging in here and now.  We don’t have to wait for the “after life” to experience eternal life.  We can pursue closeness with God and Jesus Christ here and now and the quality of that relationship will carry over with us when our time in this physical world is ended.

These are the questions I’m left with:

• What things am I regularly practicing that improve the quality of my relationship with Jesus Christ?
• Can I name 3 things I consistently do that make my relationship with Christ better?
• What 3 things are you doing?

And here’s the really tough one:

• How do we measure if what we’re doing is working?  Hint:  Ask yourself, “Is anyone copying my practices to grow their own relationship with Christ?”

Hmm – I might need to make some adjustments to what I’m doing as a Jesus follower! How about you?

The Unwilling Seed

My Selfish Life.  It’s hard for me to think of many activities I engage in that aren’t somehow serving my own interests or personal agenda.  My life, like so many other peoples’ lives, is made up for the most part of personal pursuits designed to make me happy, comfortable, or at a minimum to reduce discomfort.   The reality of this defect in all of us hit me especially hard when I read what Jesus was saying about life in John 12.

“Very truly I tell you, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds.  Those who love their life will lose it, while those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life.  Whoever serves me must follow me; and where I am, my servant also will be. My Father will honor the one who serves me.”  John 12:24-26

The Dead and Buried Seed.  Jesus taught that following him included adopting his view of how he sees his life, and what he does with that life based on how he sees it.  He saw his life as a seed, and as far more valuable dead and buried than alive on the stock – still attached to this world.  In this teaching, Jesus was not calling all of his followers to rush off to their physical deaths.  However, he was calling them to see their lives as a dead seed, which only has real value once it’s planted.

The Dead and Un-buried  Seed.   For most of us, our lives are made up of expending effort, in order to make money to buy things and then spend time enjoying the things we got.  If we let the spending of our time and our money be driven only by self-pleasing pursuits, then the “seed” of our lives while maybe dying on the stock, remains un-planted, and will never bear all of the potential life it was capable of.

Keeping Life from Others?  What are the time or money things that are keeping the “seed” of our lives from being planted to bring life to others?   I am going to ask God to help me identify and change things in the way I am living that are interfering with the planting of my life’s seed.  Jesus didn’t take the comfortable way of doing life because he knew it wouldn’t bring eternal life to others.  If we’re really his followers, why should we think any differently?  What do you think?

illogical

Over the years I have had friends, relatives, and co-workers tell me they didn’t believe Jesus was who he claimed to be, God.  They held he was a good guy, good teacher, self-sacrificing, but not God.  When I would ask them about his claims of being God they would tell me that the people of Jesus’ day “misunderstood” what Jesus was saying about himself.

Old School Star Trek.  Okay, for those of us old enough to remember the original Mr. Spock, here’s something that even he would find “illogical”.  Now Spock wasn’t a Christian or a non-Christian; he was a Vulcan – so you can come at this from whatever perspective you’d like and Jesus’ behavior still doesn’t make sense.

I Kill You.  There are multiple stories recorded in the New Testament about the religious elite trying to stone Jesus because he claimed to be God.  Here’s one incident from the Apostle John’s writings:

Again the Jews picked up stones to stone him, but Jesus said to them, “I have shown you many good works from the Father.  For which of these do you stone me?”  ”We are not stoning you for any good work,” they replied, “but for blasphemy, because you, a mere man, claim to be God.”  John 10:31-33

What would YOU do?  If a mob surrounding you is threatening to stone you to death because they “misunderstood” something you said, wouldn’t you make absolutely 100% for sure certain that the “misunderstanding” was cleared up so everybody could be dropping their stones and going home leaving your body not looking like a hail damaged car wreck?

That Is Illogical.  Here’s the “illogical” part and you tell me if you think the same way.  Jesus doesn’t make the slightest attempt to correct the crowd’s “misunderstanding” of his claim.  In fact he presses on and tells them that because he’s God, he’s all about the heavenly Father’s business.  And he said that if the people in the crowd had a relationship with the heavenly Father, they would have recognized Jesus as having come from God.

Whack Job?  Now when I’ve shared this line of reasoning with my non-Christian friends and family, they usually say something like, “Well, Jesus was confused or crazy or ‘touched’.”  Yet the very people listening to him in his day even determined that “…these aren’t the words of a crazy man…” (John 10:21)

My Conclusion – Your Conclusion?  So if Jesus wasn’t crazy, and didn’t correct “misunderstandings” about his claims to be God, I have to draw the conclusion he was who he claimed to be, God in the flesh.  It almost seems “illogical” to believe otherwise, what do you think?

Worried?

If we are resistant to the world’s marketing to get us to make non-lasting investments (see the last couple of posts), the enemy of our faith often uses another tactic to get us to make faith-less investments:  fear – anxiety driven decision making which commits us to wrong choices in life.  Good old worrying.

Worrying could be defined as concentrating on worst possible outcomes and feeling anxious as a result of what we’ve been thinking about.  Typically the worst possible outcomes don’t ever happen but we get locked onto them in our thinking and it puts our emotions and the decisions that follow  in a tizzy.

Christ taught that if we will focus our thoughts on the history of God’s proven track record to care for us, and on the many promises he has made to his children to supply their needs, it will help us not to worry.

“So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’…your heavenly Father knows that you need them.   But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.  Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself.  Each day has enough trouble of its own.”  Matthew 6:31-34

The caveat is this:  we have to choose what we will let our mind dwell on.  And if and when those worst possible outcomes happen, he is there with us then, too.

Of all the people who can relate to everything and anything we could possibly go through, Christ can relate to us the best.  He is ready to offer comfort, strength, and hope for a resolution to whatever our need is.  And his solution will reinforce our faith, and shine a spotlight on the invisible heavenly Father revealing his mysterious fingerprints all over our life situations.  What a God!

What has you worrying today?  Leave a comment with which of God’s promises helps you settle your worries – I know we could all use the encouragement!

What’s Got Your Attention Lately?

Jesus’ teaching in Matthew 6 on where to invest makes sense; it’s very logical for us Christian types.  But sandwiched right in the middle of his teaching on investing in eternity versus investing in what this world has to offer he says this:

“The eye is the lamp of the body.  If your eyes are healthy, your whole body will be full of light.  But if your eyes are unhealthy, your whole body will be full of darkness. “  Matthew 6:22-23

These statements Jesus made about our eyes seemed really out of place as I read them but then I got thinking about the context of what he was teaching and I noticed a principle he was explaining.

We are drawn to things that get our attention.  If we focus on something long enough in the material world, we usually end up wanting that thing.  That’s why billions of dollars are spent annually on marketing consumers.  Companies want us to buy their products and services but they have to get our attention to get us to notice them first.

The whole process of investing all of our energies and resources into what this world has to offer begins with what we are “eyeing” at the time.  Investing in the temporary begins with the choice to look at and focus on what this world is selling.  If we focus long enough on the stuff being marketed to us, we will become convinced we either need that thing or want and deserve that thing.

What’s got your attention lately?  Is your attention divided between this world and the next?  Jesus said we can’t chase both.  For me, when my attention is split between this world and the next, it really isn’t split at all – it’s actually focused on this world.

Friendly piece of advice:  Check what’s got your attention.  Stop looking at what you know won’t last.  Make the difficult adjustment(s) you need to make. You won’t regret catching yourself before you pour a lot of time, money, and energy into the wrong investment.

Where to Invest

Last time we talked about how counting on certain things in life to bring us peace of mind can really let us down and leave us in emotional upheaval.

Okay, fair enough.  So if a lot of the stuff we’re counting on in this world to give us peace of mind and a little comfort can wreak havoc with our emotional state of mind, and we’re tired of the emotional rollercoaster, where should we invest?

If our passions are directly connected to our life’s investments, where should you and I look to invest?

Jesus said, “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal.  But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal.”  Matthew 6:19-20

So here’s the big question you can leave a comment on:  What do you think Jesus means by “store up for yourselves treasures in heaven”?  You don’t have to get all “theological” (unless you want to be) – just leave a comment and share your thoughts.