My wife, and now Matt Kleinhans, have taken to giving me tiny calendars with a different church sign for every day of the week. Some of them are corny, some of them are heretical, and every once in a while you find some encouragement.
Today’s comes from Friday, June 26:
Garden for God: Lettuce be kind and squash gossip.
Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart
be acceptable in your sight,
O Lord, my rock and my redeemer . -Psalm 19:14
Today for morning worship I read through Psalm 19, which ends with the above verse. There’s a lot going on in that psalm, so much so that my Hebrew professor in seminary made us memorize it - in the original Hebrew. But that last verse is the one that caught my attention this morning.
Throughout the day we use an average of 16,000 words (so suggests a recent study). How often, when you speak, do you consider what God thinks of what you’re saying? What interested me wasn’t that the tongue is difficult to control (though it is), but the idea that many of my words leave my lips without my even considering what God might think. If Jesus is our Lord, then we should be constantly considering His reaction to our words.
And even more significant is our thought life. If we speak 16,000 words a day, imagine how many more thoughts we must have. 100,000? A million? More? When you are thinking, as well as when you are speaking, you are called to remember that the only response that counts is God’s. Do you remember that even your thoughts are laid bare before God? Do you desire to please Him by the way you think, as well as the way you speak?
Yet what’s so heart-warming about this verse is that our motivation to constantly emphasize what God thinks is not the fear of punishment, or a lack of acceptance. We desire to please Him with our words and our thoughts because He is the Lord, our rock and redeemer. Because of what Christ has done to save us, because of the inheritance we now have in heaven, there’s really no other response than wanting your words and your thoughts to make Him smile. As your refuge and strength, as your Savior and Lord, as your Father and King, God is an eternal audience for our worship. And because of Christ’s death and resurrection, He is now eager to enjoy our lives of worship.
Studying for this Sunday’s sermon on 1 Thessalonians 1:1-10. Realizing that it was a little different for their church in ~50 A.D. than it is for ours in 2009. Today, a lot of us expect everything to go perfectly - all the lights are green, an abundance of available parking spaces, everyone being nice and courteous. When that’s the case, it’s a good day.
For the Thessalonians, it was a good day when no one stole their stuff or threatened their family.
It’s getting easier to see why they clung to the hope that Christ was coming back, and why many today are okay with Him taking His time.
Maybe there’s more to this social networking thing than certain graphics lead you to believe…
A guy named Zimmerman fights back:
For all the whining about the way Facebook degrades the concept of friendship, the first friendship tier at least of the vast majority of profile-keepers is made up of real, live friendships. Same with Twitter. Some such friendships may have gone dormant over time, while others are resorting to online interactions because the franticness of life is making it increasingly difficult for them to see one another face to face. That’s right: at least part of what motivates at least some people to seek one another out online is that they want to but, due to larger social forces, can’t sync up their schedules to look one another in the eye.
In addition, the fact that a Facebook profile or a Twitter feed functions as a sort of archive, an album of verbal snapshots, means that users can build on one another’s comments and links and status updates and everything else. I’ve been soliciting jokes to share at church every week on both Facebook and Twitter, and more often than not the initial solicitation generates wildly creative riffing on themes and ideas from people who wouldn’t otherwise get to play together. That’s not shameful; that’s delightful and immensely gratifying.
There’s more.
10:19 Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, 20 by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh, 21 and since we have a great priest over the house of God, 22 let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. 23 Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful.
“When sin is at your door, the first thing I don’t feel like doing is praying. It’s counter intuitive, we feel unworthy. The writer is telling us – it’s counter intuitive. Instead of running away when we feel defeated, when we have fallen into sin, Christ has paid the way through his blood that w can come with full assurance and boldness and confidence for God’s help – into the very throne room. Develop a sense that when you bow your head and pray, God is listening, individually giving attention to you. Because he is infinite, he can give infinite attention to the finite. And while we are all praying together, we have an individual audience with God—the privilege of what we have through Jesus. Go boldly to the throne of grace. Hold fast, because of that resource.”
“Do you understand that when you pray, whether you’re washing your car or brushing your teeth, you are ushered directly into the presence of God who gives you individualized attention? And that Jesus was fully human so he can sympathize? And you’re not just going to get an, ‘I understand, my son,’ but ‘as the son of God I have the power to help.’”
“Sinner, thou thinkest that because of thy sins and infirmities I cannot save thy soul, but behold my Son is by me, and upon him I look, and not thee, and will deal with thee according as I am please with him.”
-John Bunyan, Grace Abounding
Over at the Simple Dollar, a live-life-well-on-a-budget kind of site, they have articles on throwing a block party on the cheap, and also on throwing a dinner party on the cheap. While throwing a block party in Los Angeles would involve hundreds of people (vs. the 30 or so in the suburbs), throwing an “apartment complex” party can’t be that different. And getting your neighbors over for dinner is a no-brainer way to get to know them.
If you haven’t been trying to get to know your neighbors, these will help you repent and meet the people God’s put around you. And let me know if you throw one. I love free food.
I’ve been incredibly busy this week, which is why blogging has been slow. The busy-ness has stemmed from an intensive Greek class I’m taking, which starts at 6am in the valley. Waking up at 5 am has seriously affected my life. But the class has been awesome. It’s on the book of Hebrews, and I thought I’d share a few quotes from my professor. They really blessed me, hopefully they’ll bless you as well.
10 For it was fitting that he, for whom and by whom all things exist, in bringing many sons to glory, should make the founder of their salvation perfect through suffering.
17 Therefore he had to be made like his brothers in every respect, so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people. 18 For because he himself has suffered when tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted.
14 Since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. 15 For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. 16 Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need. -Hebrews 2:10, 2:17-18, 4:14-16
“When you are suffering, as these precious believers did, you are guaranteed his sympathy. When you fail, you are guaranteed his sympathy – not that he failed, but that he understands in his course of life failure in the sense that all around Him he saw it.”
“Listen to me – you come to the throne of grace and you’re guaranteed his full sympathy and he not only understands and fully sympathizes with your circumstance, in failure or in testing, he has the power as the Son of God to come to your aid – therefore hold fast.”
“When we go through things everyone thinks ‘this is unique, I have failed, Jesus doesn’t understand,’ or, ‘I’m under difficulty, God can’t possibly identify,’ and the answer is profoundly, ‘Oh, yes he can.’”
“Why would you want to go back to that old system, where there’s no power, no understanding, designed to show people they weren’t able? Don’t run away from what is absolutely the best intercessor, encourager, friend. Because God said I will put my savior through everything that you went through, apart from sin. And even if it is sin, Jesus saw enough of it that he understands.”
