Day Thirty-One: 1 Corinthians 1-4

One of the things about the human condition is that we are very preoccupied with other people’s opinion of us.  We are constantly wondering what people think about us - even people that we don’t know that well.  

It is easy to take this to an extreme and to become obsessed with people’s approval.

On the other hand, we can react to this propensity by going the other way and saying, “I don’t care what people think about me; as long as I love myself I’m o.k.”

And that is the mindset of a sociopath: an unwillingness to be accountable to anyone outside of yourself.  Lots of criminals don’t care about what society thinks about them.  They do what they want to do, and no one can tell them any different.

So what is the solution?  How do we keep from being enslaved to people’s approval on one side and enslaved to our self-loving, others-ignoring tendencies on the other.  

Paul says that the solution is to live as one who will be examined by God:

“As for me, it matters very little how I might be evaluated by you or any human authority.  I don’t even trust my own judgment on this point.  My conscience is clear but that doesn’t prove I’m right.  It is the Lord himself who will examine me and decide.” (4.3-4)

At the end of the day, you don’t answer to the people you are so afraid of.  And you are not vindicated as faithful simply by loving and accepting yourself.  

You answer to the Lord Jesus, who died so that you would belong to him and live for him.  What people say about you, or what you say about yourself, loses significance in the face of the one who will ultimately examine your life.

May we be faithful to him.

Lord, help me not to shape my life according to others’ opinions, or my own sense of being right.  Help me to shape my life as one who lives first and foremost for you.  Amen.

Day Thirty: Colossians 3-4, Philemon

If the primary response that Paul calls for in Philippians is joy, the primary response he calls for in Colossians is thankfulness.  We see this all over the book:

“May you be filled with joy, always thanking the Father.” (1.12)

“Then your faith will grow strong in the truth you were taught, and you will overflow with thankfulness.” (2.7)

“And let the peace that comes from Christ rule in your hearts... And always be thankful.” (3.15)

“And whatever you do or say, do it as a representative of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks through him to God the Father.” (3.17)

“Devote yourselves to prayer with an alert mind and a thankful heart.” (4.2)

Here’s a reality: selfishness is natural, thankfulness is a choice.  And it is a choice that must be made again and again.  It is an attitude, a mode of the heart that has to be cultivated.  No one has to teach a kid to be selfish.  What they have to be taught is to be thankful.  Not merely to say thank you, but to truly be thankful.

The gospel tells us that we are more deeply flawed than we could possibly imagine.  And yet, in Christ we are loved more deeply than we could possibly dream.

If you think God owes you something, then you will live with a sense of entitlement.  But if you see the gospel and the fact that all God owes you is judgment, and then you see that instead of judgment you receive mercy, you will live with a sense of thankfulness.

Where is your focus?  Is it on the stuff you aren’t, the stuff that you don’t have?  If you compare yourself to other people, there will always be people with more, and you will always feel empty and incomplete.  

But if you realize that you deserve nothing, you will approach your life with a grateful joy, a holy greed to take the years that are given to you and to spend them well.  

Think of the life that you have been entrusted with.  You don’t have to be here.  You are.  It is a gift that you are here.  Be thankful, and live well.

Lord, destroy the power of entitlement in my life.  Enable me to live with deep thankfulness, no matter what is going on.  Amen.

Day Twenty Nine: Colossians 1-2

In Colossians 2, Paul tells the Colossians that their past relationship with God is not enough.  It must continue into everyday life here and now:

“And now, just as you accepted Christ Jesus as your Lord, you must continue to follow him.  Let your roots grow down into him, and let your lives be built on him,  Then your faith will grow strong in the truth you were taught, and you will overflow with thankfulness.” (2.6-7)

“You must continue.” In other words, it is not okay to stay where you are.  

Paul’s bottom line assumption is this:  What God has done for us should continue to move us.  Stagnation, inactivity, motionlessness, deadness, laziness are not options for Christians.  If we have really gotten the gospel, it will move us.  Non-response is not an option.  

So consider for a moment: what is that next step for you?  What is that decision or that barrier that you are stuck on that is keeping you locked in the same place, just sitting, stagnating, and not moving?

Do not merely sit and let life pass you by.  God has done great things for us.  It’s time to move forward.  

Lord, help me to move forward.  I don’t want to stay where I am.  Let my roots grow down into you, and let my life be built on you.  Amen.

Day Twenty-Eight: Philippians 1-4

In Philippians 2.17, Paul writes, “I will rejoice even if I lose my life, pouring it out like a liquid offering to God, just like your faithful service is an offering to God.”

Servants often find themselves dry and empty.  Many times this is because they have given much and received little.  In some ways, this is expected.  The heart of a servant, after all, is not measured by how much he receives, but by how much he gives.  

But God’s design has never been to have two or three servants who constantly empty themselves while everyone else becomes bloated and full.  This has too often been the case.  The few have been exhausted and emptied, spread thin trying to fill the many.

As long as we allow this to continue, we are rebelling against God.  This is not how God has commanded his body to live together.  His intention is that all the members of the body are constantly pouring themselves out into each other, so that everyone serves, and no one is ever empty. 

But for this to happen, everyone must become a drink offering.

Every day you choose whether to keep life-giving water for yourself, or whether to pour it out for those who are empty.  

Are you a drink offering?

Lord, forgive me for keeping the gifts that you’ve given me to myself.  Help me to pour out my life today like a drink offering.

Day Twenty-Seven: Ephesians 4-6

The final three chapters of Ephesians are organized around five specific ways that we are called to live.

Live worthily: “I beg you to lead a life worthy of your calling, for you have been called by God.” (4.1)

Live distinctly: “Live no longer as the Gentiles do... their minds are full of darkness; they wander far from the life God gives because they have closed their minds and hardened their hearts against him.” (4.17-18)

Live lovingly: “Live a life full of love, following the example of Christ.” (5.2)

Live righteously: “For once you were full of darkness, but now you have light from the Lord.  So live as people of light!” (5.8)

Live wisely: “So be careful how you live. Don’t live like fools, but like those who are wise.” (5.15)

In other words, in view of the vision of God you’ve had in Ephesians 1-3, live a life that is...

Worthy. Distinct. Loving. Righteous. Wise.  

I guess we should get busy, shouldn’t we?

Lord, the life you call me to is clear.  Give me strength to live a life that is consistent with what you’ve done for me.  Amen.

Day Twenty-Six: Ephesians 1-3

I love the way that Paul prays for the Ephesians in 1.18: “I pray that you hearts will be flooded with light so that you can understand the confident hope he has given to those he called...”

Most of the time, we walk around in the dark.  

Leonardo da Vinci once said that the average person “looks without seeing, listens without hearing, touches without feeling, eats without tasting, inhales without an awareness of odor of fragrance, and talks without thinking.”  

Isn’t it amazing that you can be alive without really living?  That you can live as if you don’t have a soul?  Amazing and scary.

But it doesn’t have to be that way!  God gave you a soul, and with your soul the capacity to know him.  Our hearts are darkened, but when the gospel is preached, when Jesus is presented, it is like God says to our souls, “let there be light!”  

The light in our hearts gets brighter the more we look at God.  As we behold him, as we see his beauty and his love, our souls get bigger, our vision clearer.  And suddenly we begin to see him and his hand in more and more places.  And in moments of grace, we begin to see him everywhere.

I pray that your hearts will be flooded with light.

Lord, I pray that my heart will be flooded with light.  May I see you and your work everywhere I look.  Amen. 

Day Twenty-Five: Romans 14-16

Unity does not mean uniformity.  In other words, Christians can agree on the essentials but disagree on so many of the less clear doctrines and grey areas of Christian behavior.  How do we navigate this?  Romans 14-15 is one of the most helpful passages in thinking about this.

Paul boils it down to a principle: the action itself is not so important as for whom it is done.  In other words, who is it all for?  Is it for you?  Your reputation?  To gain standing for yourself, to make your life easier?  To keep people from thinking you are weird?  Is it really all about you?

You see, a Christian is called to do all things out of love for Christ.  This automatically rules out certain things.  You can’t gossip or look at porn out of love for Christ. But when it comes to grey areas, we may come to different conclusions - but out of the same motivation.  Paul writes:

“Those who eat any kind of food do so to honor the Lord, since they give thanks to GOd before eating.  And those who refuse to eat certain foods also want to please the Lord and give thanks to God.  For we don’t live for ourselves or die for ourselves.  If we live, it’s to honor the Lord.  If we die, it’s to honor the Lord.  So whether we live or die, we belong to the Lord.” (14.6-8)

In other words, you belong first and foremost to Christ.  You don’t answer to those people, you answer to him.  You will one day stand before his judgment seat to give a personal account.  So live as one who stands before him today.  Do everything to honor him, do even small things out of love for him.

All things for him. There is so much freedom in living this way. 

Lord, so often I live for myself.  Help me remember that my life - every decision, every action - it is all for you.  Amen.

Day Twenty-Four: Romans 12-13

One of the things that I love about the gospel is how it is a wrecking ball to human pride.  Our hearts gravitate towards self-absorption; our culture fuels our narcissism.  The gospel comes along to shatter both. 

If you know that you are accepted by God, not because of what you have done but based on the sheer mercy of God, it destroys any sense of pride or entitlement in your heart.  If you know that Jesus had to bleed and die to keep you out of hell, it is difficult to boast about your accomplishments.

And so it is natural as Paul explains what a gospel-centered life looks like, it is natural that he would say simple things to remind us about the incompatibility of pride with Christian faith.

“I give you this warning: Don’t think you are any better than you really are.” (12.3)

“Don’t be too proud to enjoy the company of ordinary people.  And don’t think you know it all!” (12.16)

I heard someone say yesterday that if he could give counsel to people in their 20s he would say, “you are not as smart as you think you are.  But you have more potential than you could dream.”

How can these two go together?  How can I have so much potential if it doesn’t come from my intelligence and skill?  The answer is that it comes from somewhere else.  It comes from my capacity to humble myself and learn from others.  It comes from my capacity to get out of the way and let God be God.  

We are not as smart as we think we are.  We are more flawed than we could imagine.  But we are more loved than we could dream.  

This humbles and inspires.  It breaks down and builds up.  This is the gospel at work in our lives.

Lord, please destroy the pride in my heart.  Help me to be open, teachable, humble and ready for your words and work in my life today.  Amen.

Day Twenty-Three: Romans 8-11

This will be a longer post, probably 3 times as long as usual.  I was tempted merely to share something from Romans 8, which is easily one of the most moving chapters in the entire Bible.  But since Romans 9 is in today’s reading, I want to model what it’s like for me to interact with a difficult text.  If you didn’t struggle with it, feel free to skim or skip the reading.  But I wanted to give a resource to those, who like me, don’t understand.

The basic argument of Romans 9-11 is that God has not been unfaithful to his covenant people Israel.  He develops this with several arguments: 

First, people merely descended from Abraham are not necessarily and automatically part of God’s covenant people: “for not all who are born into the nation of Israel are truly members of God’s people.” (9.6) There is a pattern of God choosing some, out of sheer mercy, to be his people.  To his people he has always been faithful. This is the argument of Romans 9.

Second, it is not God who has been unfaithful, it is Israel.  They have been religious but have failed to accept God’s way. If they would have responded in faith, then they would have been saved: “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”  This is the argument of Romans 10.

Third, God has temporarily allowed Israel to be hardened in order to bring people from every tribe, tongue and nation into God’s people.  This is a grand expansion of the people of God.  In fact, Paul seems to anticipate a mass conversion of Jewish people before the end: “Some of the people of Israel have hard hearts, but this will last only until the full number of Gentiles come to Christ.” This is the argument of Romans 11.

The heart of our difficulty with this section is that in Romans 9, Paul says this: “God chooses to show mercy to some, and he chooses to harden the hearts of others so they refuse to listen” (9.18).  He then anticipates the objection, “Why does God blame people for not responding?  Haven’t they simply done what he makes them do?”  (9.19)

The frustrating thing is that he doesn’t really answer the question that he has raised.  He simply says, “Who are you, a mere human being, to argue with God?  Should the thing that was created say to the one who created it, ‘Why have you made me like this?’” (9.20)  In other words, God is God, you’re not.  He is free to take and make and break us as he chooses.  

It is not unjust for God to damn everyone.  It is his right as Creator.  He doesn’t have to give anyone an explanation or an opportunity to be saved.  He doesn’t owe us anything. He is God.  This should make us tremble more than we do.

And yet, the reason why I struggle with this text is not because it doesn’t fit my conception of justice, but that it doesn’t fit my conception of God’s goodness.  Somehow it doesn’t seem to fit the pattern I see in Genesis 1-2 and Revelation 21-22.  It doesn’t seem to fit the supreme act of self-definition that I see by Jesus Christ on the cross.  It simply doesn’t fit.  And so I struggle.  I talk to God. I tell him, I don’t understand.

I suppose I don’t begrudge Tolkien for making Orcs and Balrogs and Wargs that are predestined for destruction, created mainly as foils, darkness to make the contrast with light all the brighter.  But it is very different when the Orcs may be your friends, classmates, or family members.  In the end, you want to believe that they reject God because they hardened their own hearts, not because they were hardened by God.

There are a few alternative interpretations.  For example, maybe Paul is specifically talking about Israel in Romans 9, and how God chooses to harden them, which we will learn in Romans 11 is temporary.  In other words, this was a special occurrence in the case of Israel (and Pharaoh in 9.17).  God doesn’t usually harden people’s hearts, but he does reserve the right to harden some when it serves his larger redemptive purposes.  Hardening Pharaoh’s heart led to the salvation of his people in Exodus; hardening Israel’s hearts led to the salvation of many, many Gentiles.  This interpretation helps me a little, simply because it better fits my schema.  It is not airtight. 

At the end of the day, this passage which I struggle to understand does not set aside other clear commands and statements of Scripture.  

It is not given to us so that we would despair of not being chosen. Scripture clearly calls us to entrust our souls to Christ, if we do, we are God’s children (Romans 8.15-17).  

It is not given to us so that we will not share our faith, because “God knows who’s going to be saved anyway.”  That is a disobedient response.  (Romans 10.9-15)

In other words, cling to the clear things you understand and continue to struggle and trust with what you don’t.  For me, this is what I wrote in my journal today: “I’ve been trying to find a way not to believe in predestination, but Romans 9 won’t let me.  So I give in, admit that God is God, that he is good, and though this is beyond my understanding, I submit to it.”

Lord, when your ways and plans seem hidden to me, I run to the cross, where you are clearly revealed.  I cling to the picture of you revealed in Jesus Christ.  I trust you with what I don’t understand. Amen.

Day Twenty-Two: Romans 5-7

I think one of Paul’s most powerful word pictures is his illustration of how sin is slavery.  This resonates with us on a whole new level because we long to be free.  

You see, in our society, we want to be free, and we think that freedom is freedom to do what is right in my own eyes, to live the way I want to live, free from any restriction on my individual choice.  Freedom is freedom to belong to myself.  Freedom means having no lord or master.  But Scripture shows you over and over again that this definition is impossible.  You are either a slave to God, or you are a slave to something else, but you are never your own.  There is no in between.  

As Bob Dylan put it, “You’re gonna have to serve somebody.”

Paul writes: “Don’t you realize that you become the slave of whatever you choose to obey?” (6.16) 

Everyone serves somebody or something. You have the choice whom you will serve, but you’re gonna have to serve somebody.  This is a choice that each person must face: whom will you serve? 

Christ is the only lord and master who comes to set you free from your slavery to fear, to shame, to the approval of people.  Jesus is the only lord and master, the only king who comes not to be served but to serve.  Jesus is the only king who dies for his servants. He is the king who we long for.  Two thousand years ago he came for us: he lived, suffered, died and rose again to win our hearts once and for all. 

Lord, so often I sell myself back into slavery to lesser masters.  Set my heart free again today by your grace.  Amen.

Day Twenty-One: Romans 1-4

It has been awhile since I’ve read Romans straight through, and it’s my first time reading it in this version (NLT).  So it took me by surprise when what I would have thought of as familiar truth brought un-looked for tears to my eyes. 

What was it?  The beautiful simplicity of the gospel?

“ Yet God, with undeserved kindness, declares we are righteous.  He did this through Jesus Christ when he freed us from the penalty for our sins.” (2.27) 

Or maybe it was the exclusion of boasting? 

“Can we boast then, that we have done anything to be accepted by God? No, because our acquittal is not based on obeying the law. It is based on faith.” (3.27)

The description of a God who is the source of inexhaustible hope? “Abraham believed God who brings the dead back to life and who creates new things out of nothing.” (4.17)

Undeserved kindness.  No reason to boast. A God who makes new things out of nothing.  Words like these bring tears of joy. 

There is so much in the Bible that I don’t understand.  But I am glad that God makes some things so simple, so clear, and so compelling.

Lord God, please continue to amaze and surprise me with the profound simplicity of the Good News that frees me, humbles me and causes me to hope.  Amen.

Day Twenty: Galatians 4-6

It’s funny: Paul can wax eloquent about some of the deepest and most complicated subjects, and then at other times he has a gift for such simplicity.  We see this marvelous simplicity in Galatians 5 when he sums up the entire law in one command:

“Love your neighbor as yourself.” (5.15)

This is Paul’s point in the latter half of Galatians.  We are free from the law and from the power of sin.  But we are not to use that freedom selfishly, wastefully, but to serve one another.  This is the supreme mark of a heart that has been set free by the gospel.  How  well do you love others?

Paul says when we follow our own selfish natures, we begin to have all kinds of relational problems: “hostility, quarreling, jealously, outbursts of anger, selfish ambition, dissension, division” (5.20).  

But when we keep in step with God’s Spirit, the Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control” (5.22-23).  Once again, most of these are relational characteristics.  Because a person who truly gets the gospel isn’t just changed in isolation.  The way they think about and relate to people changes as well.

If you belong to Christ, you are free today.  How are you using your freedom?  

Use your freedom to serve others in love. Selfishness is the worst slavery.

 Only in self-giving does the heart truly remain free.

Lord, please transform the way I relate to other people.  Help me to use my freedom to serve and build up the people around me.  Amen.

Day Nineteen: Galatians 1-3

If you read any of Paul’s letters, almost all of them begin with a greeting and then with Paul thanking God for the believers that he is writing to.  Not so in Galatians.  After his introduction, he launches into the heart of things: “I am shocked that you are turning away so soon from God... you are following a different way that pretends to be the Good News but is not the Good News at all.” (1.6-7) 

Ever made a commitment to God, only to find that within a week, you are turning away from everything that you promised?  You want to ask yourself the question that Paul asked the Galatians: “who has cast an evil spell on you?” (3.1)

That’s an accurate analogy, isn’t it?  It’s sometimes like while we sleep, someone is weaving a spell over us.  We wake up and it’s like all the passion and clarity that we had before is gone.  We forget the Good News and go back to our default mode of trying to save ourselves and control our own lives. 

As the hymn says, we are “prone to wander, Lord I feel it, prone to leave the God I love”.

So what do we need?  We need a more powerful magic, a more powerful spell to set us free from the enchantment.  And so in this letter, Paul gives them the straight truth, 100 proof gospel.

This is why we need to keep going deeper into the gospel.  This is why we have to keep on fighting to believe, clinging relentlessly to faith in Christ alone.  Only the gospel can set us free from the chains that we keep snapping on our ankles.

Lord, today I need to be reminded of things that I have forgotten while I slept.  Refresh my soul, renew my amazement at grace.  Amen.

Day Eighteen: James 3-5

I think if I had to summarize James’ letter in one phrase, it would be this: “what you do matters.”  Throughout the treatise, he keeps saying things like, “don’t just listen to the word, but do what it says” (1.22), or “Faith by itself isn’t enough. Unless it produces good deeds, it is dead and useless” (2.17).  Or “If you are wise and understand God’s ways, prove it by living an honorable life” (3.13). Or most convicting of all, “Remember, it is sin to know what you ought to do and then not to do it” (4.17).

In particular, in chapter 3, James lets us know that what we do with our words matters.  He points out the irony of coming to church on Sunday and praising God with your words and then turning around and using that same tongue to curse the people around you - through gossip, sarcasm or deceit. 

In James’ view, how we treat people is a direct indication of where we are in relationship with God.  

It’s like he is saying, I don’t care how much you go to church.  I don’t care how much you pray.  I don’t care how much you read the Bible.  I don’t care how much you know. 

If you treat people like trash, you don’t have a relationship with God.  

If you regularly use your words to deceive and destroy, then your faith may be something you use to prop up your self-esteem and make you feel better about yourself.  But in James’ analysis, it is “earthly, unspiritual and demonic” (3.15).  It’s not legit.

Watch your words.  They reflect your heart.  What do they say about your relationship with God?

Lord, may my words reflect a heart that is truly being changed by you.  Give me grace-filled speech, words that build up rather tan tear down.  Amen.

Day Seventeen: James 1-2

People always talk about how James is one of their favorite books of the Bible because it is so straightforward and practical.  I think this is true, though sometimes the things that James says are easier said than done.  Today in particular, what stuck out to me was the idea that every action, and before that every desire that we entertain and indulge, leads us in a particular direction.

James writes: “Temptation comes from our own desires, which entice us and drag us away. These desires give birth to sinful actions.  And when sin is allowed to grow, it gives birth to death.” (1.14-15)

I like the way that the NLT translates that phrase, “when sin is allowed to grow.”  The imagery that I get is of a garden where weeds begin to grow.  If the weeds are not uprooted, then it will not be too long before the weeds choke the life out of the healthy plants.  I asked myself, where am I allowing sin to grow?  Where are there weeds of laziness, lust, pride, entitlement that I need to uproot before they give birth to death?

As I continued to read, I noticed that James defined pure religion this way: “caring for orphans and widows in their distress and refusing to let the world corrupt you” (1.27).  So there is something that you are resisting and something you are embracing.  You embrace a life of love, full of good deeds.  You refuse to let the world corrupt you.  Both responses take intentionality.   

I felt like God was telling me, each day you must kill the weeds of sin that are growing in your heart and fan your faith into flame by doing good.  

Kill the weeds.  Fan the flame.  

Lord, I cry out for you to purify my faith.  So many times the weeds of my sin seem like a jungle and my heart seems so cold.  Help me to be persistent at resisting the world and embracing those who are in need.  Amen.

Day Sixteen: 2 Thessalonians

The second letter to the Thessalonians has some verses that I imagine offend out modern sensibilities.  For example, this: “He will come with his mighty angels, in flaming fire, bringing judgment on those who don’t know God and on those who refuse to obey the Good News of our Lord Jesus.  They will be punished with eternal destruction, forever separated from the Lord and his glorious power.” (1.7-9)

Most of us cringe when we read passages about judgment and God’s wrath.  We think things like, is this really fair?  Isn’t it a bit harsh?  After wrestling with this passage today, here are some of my thoughts:

1) The people who are being addressed in this passage are not comfortable Americans, but suffering Thessalonians.  They are the ones being beaten, unjustly accused, losing their property and their homes and family members.  And they are asking the opposite question we are.  They are asking, “is there any justice in the world?  Will no one answer for the evil that is being done to us?”  Paul’s answer is, yes, there is a judgment coming.  God will settle accounts.  Take refuge in this. 

2) Whenever we talk about fairness, we should remember that the fair thing is that God lets us have what we want: to be separated from him, to do our own thing, to be our own God.  But this separation is called hell.  All get what they want in the end, they do not always like it. So our hope is not that God will be fair, but that he will be merciful.

3) We have good reason to believe that God is not only just, but also merciful in the way that he judges.  Judgment is not monolithic; God is the perfect judge, and all of his judgments will be right and in keeping with his total character. I truly believe that when we see how God judges the world, we will wholeheartedly affirm both his justice and his goodness.

4) God reserves the right to intervene in any way he chooses.  It’s his right as God.  For example, Paul is writing about the judgment of those persecuting Christians, a group he used to belong to.  Paul is proof that God intervenes, and the mercy of God in the gospel triumphs over the judgment that we deserve.

But if we know the gospel, the news of what Jesus has done for us, and we outrightly reject it, then we are cutting off the limb on which we sit.  There is no hope for a person who has chosen to separate themselves from hope and to embrace despair.

Lord have mercy on me, a sinner.  I entrust myself to you as the Perfect Judge and my Merciful Savior.  Amen.

Day Fifteen: 1 Thessalonians 4-5

When reading 1 Thessalonians 5, I noticed something that I haven’t seen before (probably because I am reading in a new version):

“Brothers and sisters, we urge you to warn those you are lazy.  Encourage those who are timid.  Take tender care of those who are weak.  Be patient with everyone.” (5.14)

In our culture, many young men and women wear their laziness as a badge.  Maybe technology facilitates this.  So much is available to us without having to get up from the computer or our phones.  And so we just sit passively while life goes on around us.  we know we are lazy, but it doesn’t bother us.  Sometimes we even brag about it.

Apparently, laziness is nothing new.  And yet, Paul tells the believers that they must “warn” those who are lazy.  This means that they are in danger of something.  Laziness, you see, is lethal. 

The book of Proverbs has all kinds of warnings for fools.  But it reserves its harshest language for the lazy, for sluggards.

Laziness is an offense to the God who has given you life, breath, a healthy body, and free time to use for his glory.  It is a choice to do nothing when you have been commanded to do something.  It is a choice to be passive when you have been commanded to take action.  

So if you exult in your laziness, be warned.  Even if you are ashamed of it, it is not enough merely to be ashamed.  Turn from the sin of laziness, before it destroys you.

Lord, so often I am lazy and passive.  Let me take warning and become a person who takes action for you and your kingdom.  Amen.

Day Fourteen: 1 Thessalonians 1-3

As a pastor, one of my favorite passages about ministry comes in today’s reading.  In 1 Thessalonians 2, Paul is reminding the people there about how he ministered to them while he was with them.  And he says:

“We were like a mother feeding and caring for her own children.  We loved you so much that we shared with you not only God’s Good News but our own lives, too.” (2.7-8)

A few verses later, he uses another metaphor:

“And you know that we treated each of you as a father treats his own children.  We pleaded with you, encouraged you, and urged you to live your lives in a way that God would consider worthy.  For he called you to share in his Kingdom and glory.” (2.11-12)

Like a mother; as a father.  I love this because it shows that true ministry involves both motherly nurture and fatherly correction.  You love and share yourself with someone, but you also strive to speak truth, to call them to move to a place that honors God more fully.  Indeed, this is how God loves us as well.  He loves us and meets us where we are, but he loves us too much to let us stay there.

As we follow God, some of us are more inclined to emphasize his love that accepts us where we are.  Others of us are inclined to focus on who he is calling us to become.  And we need both desperately.  

We need discipline that is grounded in God’s acceptance of us.

We need acceptance that isn’t cheap, but is grounded in his transformative discipline.

Truth and Grace.  Grace and Truth.

Lord, grace and truth come together perfectly in You.  Thank you for loving me where I am, but refusing to let me stay there.  Help me respond to you today. Amen.

Day Thirteen: Acts 25-28

One of the things that struck me repeatedly as I read the book of Acts (and Luke) was just how fickle people can be.  Public opinion turns so quickly.

The same people who welcome Jesus into Jerusalem with cries of “Hosanna!” are the ones crying “Crucify Him!” a few days later.

The same people who were ready to worship Paul and Barnabas and offer sacrifices to them in Lystra  are the ones who stone Paul and drag him out of town after a short time. (Acts 14)

The same people who are convinced that Paul is a murderer after seeing a poisonous snake attack him are the same people who decide that he must be a god.  (Acts 28)

The ruler Festus thought he was crazy: “Paul you are insane!” (26.24)

Keeping up with what people think about you is pretty exhausting, and it is pretty much outside of your control.  If you are primarily motivated by your reputation, then you will spend a lot of time, money and energy managing your image.  When you look at the world, you see that this is exactly what is being done.  People are spending all their time, money and energy trying to get other people to clap for them, to tell them that they are worthy and that they matter.

Not so for Paul.  He was motivated by something much more lasting and substantial than his image or reputation.  He was motivated by a passion for God.  His desire was to know God and to help others know him too.  While on trial, he says: “I pray to God that everyone here in this audience might become the same as I am.” (26.29)

May God answer his prayer for me.  I want to be like Paul.

Lord, set me free from my obsession with my image.  Help me to be more obsessed with you and making you known.  Amen.

Day Twelve: Acts 21-24

As Paul is arrested and put on trial in these chapters, I noticed that he keeps on talking about how he has tried to live with a “clear conscience”.  In other words, he has tried to be a person of integrity.

I remember reading somewhere that a person with integrity is a person with nothing to be afraid of, and nothing to hide.  You aren’t afraid of being revealed as a hypocrite because of some secret sin.  You are living transparently, living in the light.  

Where does the motivation come from to live this way?  This is what Paul says:

“I have the same hope that these men have, that God will raise both the righteous and the unrighteous.  Because of this, I always try to maintain a clear conscience before God and all people.” (24.15-16)

Paul wanted to have a clear conscience because he knew that one day he would stand before God to give an account of what he did with what was entrusted to him.  So, in light of that future judgment, he lived in the present as one who has to give an account.

So he lived before the Lord first, then lived for the Lord second.  The order is critical. 

To live before the Lord means that we consider each action in terms of the question, “would I be ashamed if he returned to find me doing this?” or “would I be ashamed if he returned to find me avoiding this thing that I should do?” 

A clear conscience means not doing the things that we know break his heart, and doing the things that we know he has called us to do - regardless of what people think.  Because we don’t answer to them.

I want to live with a clear conscience - don’t you?  

Lord, help me to consider the fact that one day I will give an account to you of how I have spent my life.  Let me live each day with a clear conscience.  Amen.