Forgive

 

Jesus can be blunt. Jesus can seem mean. Jesus can give some really tough and brutal commands.

How am I supposed to forgive that low life neighbor of mine after all they have done to me. They lie, cheat, steal and gossip all the time about me. That neighbor slanders me and ruins my reputation. 

Forgive? No way! I want to eliminate them, kill them, be done with all they have to say. I want to hurt my neighbor in so many and various ways. How else am I to respond? I want to hurt him individually, up close and ruin my neighbor.

Lord, Jesus, you want me to forgive? No way! I'm just going to act like I forgive. I'm going to get all churchy and be all pleasant in some fake forgiveness that looks good to the public and my friends at church. Yep! That'll do it. And I'll look good too!

Then I hear Jesus tell me to forgive and forgive and forgive, over and over and over. If my neighbor asks forgiveness just keep on forgiving. I hear Jesus tell me that's what I'm commanded to do.

Jesus tells me all that churchy forgiveness crap I'm doing is just causing problems for someone seeking to follow him. My fake forgiveness is leading them astray. My churchy sin is a snare, a trap to the new disciple. I set a trap that will snap on myself. So now I need forgiveness myself for my own deceptive behavior. 

How, Lord, am I to do this forgiveness thing sincerely?

I look to you, Lord Jesus... upon the cross... you show no anger as you bleed and die... yet I see you furious when the weak are deceived, when the poor go hungry, when the old are abandoned. You seek the lost, bind up the injured and strengthen the weak, but the sleek and the strong are destroyed. 

You are humble on the cross when you forgave the world and died for sin... yet you are angry when I don't forgive... truly forgive.

Lord... I need faith in this forgiveness of neighbor thing. I'm just as sinful as my neighbor, I know. Help me forgive. Give me your true humble faith.

But what is faith? Best I can figure... faith is casting that tree or even a mountain out into the sea of an unknown future with the hope that life is given. I mean really... how's that tree going to have life in the middle of the sea. And what use is that tall mountain in the sea. I don't know. But, I'll need the faith that the unknown future will take care of all the questions I may ever have. 

Lord, I need this kind of faith when I forgive my neighbor over and over and over again. I need this faith that my forgiveness is real. I need this faith based in your humility and making me humble. 

Help me to forgive like you forgave me and all the world. I know that I'm responsible for my evil and my failure to forgive my neighbor. I don't seek any reward for forgiving. It's what you expect and I'm only doing what you command. 

Lord, forgive my sin as I forgive those who sin against me.

In the unknown future of your love and grace... I forgive.

You're tough command is tough love as well. Tough, eternal, everlasting, love. I'll forgive and forgive and forgive and forgive forever, because I know what you did for me on that cross. You took care of it and made my future in you bright. I know I'm cast into that sea of everlasting life with you. I don't really care how it turns out, because it's with you and I love you.

Thanks for being blunt and brutal and sometimes mean to me. It's just what I needed.

Thanks be to God.... today... tomorrow... and forever!

Heaven and Hell

 

What's on my mind? --- Dives and Lazarus.

Dives, a rich man and Lazarus, a poor beggar.

Opposites... Heaven and Hell...

Opposites with a great big chasm between them.

I think of hikes in the Smokies. I think of looking out over form the top of one mountain to the top of another mountain. I think of the amount of effort it would take to get from the peak on which I stand to the peak on which perhaps someone else is standing and looking my way.

I confess that, in this life there have been times that I have created a chasm between myself and someone else. Even someone I love and care for... yes I can and do create chasms.

I confess that I create chasms between myself and someone that I should show compassion and love. I could feed them. I could listen. I could care. I could love... but I insulate myself from the need they have and create a chasm.

I create a chasm between myself and God when I fall into my own selfishness and believe that I don't need God. I can save myself. I can do better than this life all on my own.

Sometimes it's not a chasm. Sometimes I erect walls and push the other person back and ignore their need to the point that I don't even want to see the pain and torture that the other person is enduring. I erect a wall, so that I don't have to meet that person and confront the need.

Like Dives during his life on this earth, I become so absorbed into myself that I can't see. I can't see the need of my neighbor, I can't see the hunger, the pain, the suffering. I can't see because all I see is myself!

Lord, forgive me! Forgive me as I remember my sin. Forgive me as I pray and confess before you and all people my sin.

On this earth and in this time, all Lazarus wanted was a piece of bread, a crumb from a table. Lazarus plead to Dives for a little attention to his needs. And then...

As Dives was after this life... he plead to Lazarus for a drop of water. But the chasm was in place. One mountain to another. A chasm too deep for help. It was all too late now...

So what do I make of this? I know, here and now, that God comes to me through the Word, through the Water of my baptism, through the Bread and the Wine and the presence of Jesus. It's all here and now. God crossed that great chasm of my sin and his love for me with the life, suffering, death and resurrection of Jesus, God's son and God in flesh. Why? To save me from my sin that created the chasm to begin with because God loves me.

God loves you as well. God crosses the chasm in the here and now that we may all come to believe in the here and now. 

We are free to live in the here and now with compassion for one another. To care for one another, to feed one another, to listen to one another, to break the wall down and welcome one another and live for God and one another, crossing chasms and breaking down walls while we are still in the here and now. Why wait? God has set us free to love, here and today.

Every day is a time to love God, serve God and to love and serve one another.

Don't wait! Don't wait! Please, don't wait!

Thanks be to God!

Face the Facts

 Let's face facts. I cannot be my own savior. 

Am I casual about my soul? Do I really mean it when I profess Christianity? Do I really go at it like it's life or death? 

I tend to work harder at earthly goals than I do on my discipleship of Jesus. I talk more about ham radio, morse code, football,  this and that and the other than I do about following Jesus. Does my life with Jesus show up in daily conversation and daily living? Can people tell that I follow Jesus?

Do I plan my earthly future more than I plan for a heavenly future with God? Do I consider home to be with God or do I consider home to be with family here on earth?

Am I child of earth or heaven? Do I claim being a child of God? Even on Monday?

Do I immerse myself in this world and let heaven go by the way?

Let's face facts. I need forgiveness and salvation from God.

But God has made me a steward. I may be a steward of a pig sty, but non the less God has made me a steward. I'm not the owner. God is the owner of my life. I'm only the steward of what God has already given me.

And every day I must think back and account for my use of the gifts of what God has given me. I'm a steward with wonderful gifts given straight from God. How great is that?

I handle this world's gifts as a steward, as a caretaker and I deal directly with the God who made me and loves me to death so to speak.

I am free to live my life as a steward in the light and the sight of eternity. God frees me to live not for this world but in this world with my sights set on eternity with God. Eternity now and forever. Eternity here and there.

You see, little things matter. In the eyes of God, greatness is not size. Greatness is like intensity. Greatness is to work as a disciple of Jesus, full steam ahead with all the passion I can gather.

The cross was a small thing in comparison to the greatness of the act of love that Jesus took upon it. Jesus was intense in the gift of grace to all people.

When I think of earthly wealth it pales in comparison to what Jesus did for all people upon that teeny tiny cross. 

Wealth is in Jesus righteousness... not any earthly endeavor of my own.

But there is a choice here and now. I can't walk both east and west. I need to choose. Am I following Jesus or myself?

Will I choose to develop my life here in this earthly home? Or will I choose something else?

I choose Jesus. I choose to live with the ONE God.

In this choice, may I work as hard to follow Jesus as his disciple as I would work to save my own skin in this world. The Dishonest Manager account in Luke 16 reminds me of the passion that can be taken to save skin in this earthly place. That guy was out to make a way for himself when his life was about to change drastically. He went about saving his own skin with great passion! He was intense. Read the account for yourself... Luke 16:1-15.

So, for me, my real treasure is not earthly. My real treasure comes from my love for Jesus... here in this earth... but more so.... in paradise forever.

Sure... I'm still going to stumble along on this earth and pull some really boneheaded mistakes in the eyes of God. But my passion, my love and my following is as a disciple of Jesus.

But it will be OK. All because Jesus loves me enough to make me his steward here and now and forever with him.

So how about you?

For me? All thanks to God in Christ Jesus!

Lost

 

Boy oh boy! Is it ever so easy to get lost. As a sheep, I can eat those tufts of grass that lead me away from the pasture step by step, bite by bite, into a world of sin, temptation and evil. Bite by bite I go towards, greed, move a little further away towards gluttony, take a couple more bites and I'm off into sexual desires and satisfactions. Bite by bite, tuft of grass by tuft of grass, I wander away from my fellow sheep into a world of my own.

Sometimes I meet up with some other lost sheep and then along comes the Shepherd. The Shepherd comes along to sit with and eat right beside all of us lost sinners. He comes to us in the flesh and blood of Jesus, to sit by my side and the side of the sinners with me.

I didn't ask for Jesus to seek me or to even eat with me, Jesus just takes it upon himself to find me. Jesus is always following me as I nibble my way away from the flock. And once I think that I have found the way myself, the way to that perfect life, I realize that I have nibbled my way into a world of my own, that leads to NOTHING but me! Boy oh boy, am I ever lost now!

But Jesus sees me as precious for some reason. God looks on each one of us and tells us that earth's treasure isn't in the silver, gold or diamonds. Earth's treasure isn't in power or mighty kingdoms. Earth's treasure is each person that God has created.

For God gave it all. God turned it all upside down. God turned the earth, over and over to find one, to find each individual person... yet all people. God came to supper with us, he lived with us, he died for us, he rose again ahead of us and gave it all for us... for me... for you... for all. Each individual is precious to God and at the same time all people are loved by God.

And from God's finding me, finding you; I have joy and you have joy and God has joy. I say rejoice! God has found you and me!

The Law condemns me, It shows me how I deserve hell... yet the Law seen through the love and grace of the Gospel, leads me, guides me, and frees me to forget my sinful self in the knowledge that God has done everything that needs to be done, because God loves me enough to save me, and to find me, and to set me free to love him, and to love my neighbor. 

And to this... Thanks be to God!

Focus

 Jesus demands our focus, attention and close hearing to his word. I must give my undivided attention to Jesus even in the midst of the sinful, noisy, tempting world in which I live. Jesus demands my focus on him. And  that's a good thing. If I look away, I stray and am lost. If I focus on Jesus and listen I can hear his will and way in daily living. I will stray. I will look away. But Jesus daily calls me back. Daily Jesus grants me forgiveness and a new direction.

Jesus tells me to bear my cross. It seems funny that when he placed this demand, Jesus had yet to carry his own cross to that new hill of God. A New Testament Hill of Calvary where, like years before at Mount Sinai, God broke through to us, with the Law, but on this hill, Jesus breaks through to us with grace and love beyond anything I could do for myself or ever earn on my own.  

In Jesus day, they all knew what carrying the cross was about. It was a familiar and cruel sight to see. Yet, I suppose today we see just as many cruel sights of death and destruction as well. So, as I follow Jesus my sinful desires clash with this demand from Jesus to carry my cross and die to myself for the final joy of the gift of resurrection that only Jesus can give as a sign of his triumph for me. As I consider being a disciple of Jesus I must be serious in the act of carrying my cross out, I must see and count the cost that Jesus took upon himself for me.

It's important that I listen. I want to listen. I want to hear. I want to obey. I want to focus and listen and follow. For in the following lies not only death but life and joy in a resurrection free for me because of  the great cost Jesus paid in his, life, death and resurrection.

In joy I listen, pick up the cross, focus, and follow. How can I do anything else? It's a love given at a great cost. 

And it's all there for everyone to receive.