Devotional: His Love Remains

For the mountains may move and the hills disappear, but even then my faithful love for you will remain. My covenant of blessing will never be broken,” says the LORD, who has mercy on you.

Isaiah 54:10 NLT

From bible.com

I have never been one to like change. I like comfort and ease of mind, not upheaval and uncertainty. But I am aware that things have to change and that things are changing all the time. Even the face of the earth is changing every day. Tectonic plates move, earthquakes tear scars into the land, mountains erode while hills become mountains. Only one thing never changes, God.

Though everything around is may come crumbling down. The mountains turn to dust and the rivers dry up, God is still there. His love has remained the same and he continues to pour his blessings on his people.

We should give up the comfort and ease of mind in our lives and place it all on God. With the assurance of God we can face the upheavals and uncertainties. We can face whatever the world throws at us and all of our weaknesses will show the world how great our Lord is. In our present sufferings, God is shown the strongest of all. God is our comfort and ease of mind. His love remains.



Lord send me your comfort today as I go out into an uncertain world. Remind me of your promises and your love every time I doubt. If the world were to end today, I take peace in knowing You.

Devtional: De-frag

Your word is a lamp for my feet and a light on my path.

Psalms 119:105 HCSB

I was sitting in church one day and my dad, who I have mentioned before is the pastor, said something that got me thinking. What he said I have no clue any more, but it made me laugh at the thought that came to me.

From bible.com

For anyone who has used windows in the past, you know how terrible it's behind the scenes filing and storing system is. It saves bits and pieces all over the place and eventually make it so that things slow down and run bad. So bad that Windows actually added a program to keep things straight, Disk De-fragmentation. That is a big word to write. But what it does is takes the fragmented files, however they came about, like deletion and overwriting, and moves them into a place where the disk can get to the files faster. It basically makes windows faster by putting them in a better order. New systems no longer need to do this and its even better if you use an SSD.

This got me thinking a little. In life, when you are broken and worn down, when you feel like everything is crumbling and you are lost in your walk through life, God works as Life De-fragmentation. No matter how bad it is, God can get you back on track, but its a much better track than what you were on before. When God aligns your life, as opposed to you try to align it yourself, things work better. We need to let God rearrange us daily so that we avoid becoming fragmented 

Lord, keep me from fragmenting in my walk with you. Help me to be a light to draw others to you today.

Devotional: Faith

Now faith is the reality of what is hoped for, the proof of what is not seen.

Hebrews 11:1 HCSB

Faith is something all gamers should have, and usually in abundance. We often follow games across their series, like Halo and Call of Duty, or we are often followers of a publisher, or developer, like Nintendo and Square Enix. We approach a game from its respective source with an assurance of a great game.

From bible.com

It is true though, not all games will deliver and meet the high expectations that we put around them. However, there is one who has never let you down, never broke a promise, and can meet any expectations you have. God, through salvation in Jesus, has given us the greatest expansion there ever could be and we are invited to be there, free of charge at it’s release.

The second coming is drawing closer, but still we know not the time nor the day, month, or even year that it will come, but nevertheless, it will come. Like so many other developers, It comes when it is done.

Today ponder one question, Will you be prepared on launch day?

Devotional: Treasure

I have treasured your word in my heart so that I may not sin against you.
Psalms 119:11 CSB

From bible.com

I have an old bible that I had received as a young teenager that keep in a cubby on my desk. In this old bible I have a card. It is a condolences card I got from the vet when my first cat had died. The card meant a lot to me, I loved that cat. Every now and then I look at it and remember my cat, her name was Thomasina. I keep this card so that I can use it to trigger those memories of her and keep my love for her a little longer in my heart.

Deep in our hearts is where we store things that we never want to forget. The things that mean the most to us. The psalmist wrote that he kept God's word in his heart, he treasured it, he didn't want to forget. God's word is the most important treasure there ever could be. It is a treasure of life, love and peace. In Christianity we know that God's Word is Jesus. And nothing more than Him deserves a place hidden in our hearts. If we keep Jesus there, remembering often, we can keep His love in our hearts longer. We can learn to keep it there, center of our hearts, and when we do, it will begin to overflow into the world. If we let so much overflow, there can be no denying God's love for the whole world.

"We can only be said to be alive in those moments when our hearts are conscious of our treasures.”
— Thornton Wilder

Devotional: Darkness

The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

John 1:5 NIV

Have you ever been outside at night in the country, it had just rained, the ground is still wet and the sky is still thickly covered in clouds? Everything is dark. It seems that no light can escape the darkness. The darkness feels heavy and oppressive. You are straining to see anything in front of you as you walk. Then suddenly way off in the distance you see a single small light cutting through the night. You aren't able to tell how far away it is yet, but you can see it and you begin to walk toward it. It is a beacon in the darkness and no amount of darkness could every put it out. Even this far away your pupils are drinking in the light as small traces of it are bounced off the leaves and the grass. 

From bible.com

In life, we find times when we are left in a figuratively total darkness. We have no idea where to go, what might be ahead of us and everything inside is saying either stay where you are or go back to where you know there is safety. It comes natural to us when we can't see whats next. But God is like that light way off in the distance. He is cutting through the darkness and nothing the darkness can do will dim His light in anyway. But we have to learn to focus on that tiny bit of light and let it lead us into whatever comes next. Let this single light guide our steps and our choices. When we get to the end off all of this, we will be safely home in the light. Where no darkness can touch us again. 

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.”
― Martin Luther King Jr.

Devotional: Endurance

We can rejoice, too, when we run into problems and trials, for we know that they help us develop endurance.
Romans 5:3 NLT

From bible.com

Life brings us many hard times that we will have to face. It also brings us many physical illnesses, like cancer and heart disease, and mental illnesses, like depression and heartache. Sometimes it seems like we are being run down day after day with new problems in our lives. Sometimes we don't even want to get back up after being down so long. But there is some good that can come of the troubles.

As Christians, we have Jesus who can pick us up and support us. With Jesus by our side, we can face these troubles and build up endurance. Like a runner who is working on endurance for a marathon, the more we go through the stronger we will be when the next hard time comes. And when it is all over, we will have a great prize in Jesus and being members of the Kingdom of Heaven.

I know it is hard to rejoice when things are hard and we can barely see the next wave before it is crashing over us, but despite the pain, we can rejoice in the Lord always. We can face anything the world will throw at us because we have God on our side.

Lord, though I hurt inside and things are trying to keep me down, I know I can rejoice in you. You will give me strength when I need it and comfort when the tears flow. I thank you God for the endurance to keep moving until I come home to you.

Devotional: Brevity

Teach us to realize the brevity of life, so that we may grow in wisdom.
Psalms 90:12

From bible.com

As someone who is getting closer to middle aged than his childhood, I have come to realize how fast life moves. One moment you are graduating and becoming and adult. You have a bright outlook on life and excited to move forward. The next you are comfortable in your job, doing the same thing day in and day out, and twenty years has past and you are still trying to figure out what you should be doing with your life. Life is short. Sure we have eighty to ninety years of it, but compared to the age of the earth that's nothing at all. Compared to God it is not even a blink.

When we take a moment to look at how short life is, we should also take a moment to realize we need to start living every day. Not letting day after day go to waste as time moves ever forward. When we accept that life is short and we will live in each moment of it, and live fully, we will step out and live a real life. A life filled with God and family. Again, life is short and we need to share Jesus with as many as we can because we never know how little time we might have left.

Lord, help me to live each moment for you, and live it to the fullest. Let no minute of my life be left to waste while there are still people who might not know you.

Masks

Man has the world gotten messed up lately and it doesn't seem like it will right itself anytime soon. I see people arguing for masks, no masks, keeping distance, staying close, let the old die, herd immunity, and all I really hear is it's all about themselves. I know this is an unpopular opinion, and I'm liable to get some hate here, but why can we not go from how you are bothered by something to how you can show how great God is and how he gives his grace to us during these hard times. 

I know I'm not perfect, or even very good at doing this. I too am angry about how we are being treated by our own government but I am more inclined to bite my tongue and just do it. No I am not weak minded or a coward willing to roll over when told. No, I just don't see how any of my freedoms have been infringed upon. I am still free to worship my God the same as before. 

Sure they say we can't go to a building, but I wanna ask this, when did the Church become a building? When did our worship of Jesus become bound to a lot of land with wood piled on it in a fancy shape. I could be wrong, but isn't the Church supposed to be the people of God? Each and everyone of us who call ourselves Christians? Why does it matter where you are worshiping when the important part is who you are worshiping? How is that face mask hurting your ability to worship God?

Matthew 22:21, Luke 20:25 and Mark 12:17 Jesus is quoted as saying 

"Give back to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s."

I know, trust me I know, this is talking about taxes, and whether we should pay them or not being followers of Jesus, but I think it can be taken further as well. We live in a country, this country has rules, it has taxes and it has a lot of people. There are things that happen every day to protect other people in this country. Sometimes it is a soldier giving his life that we can be free to express our opinions. This time it is someone asking you to wear a mask when you are out to help keep the spread of a virus down. The merits of a masking working or not can be debated for days, and both sides can find science to back it up, I don't care if it works or it doesn't, I am wearing the mask for safety. I am wearing the mask to be a comfort to those around me IF they are worried about it. If they are not worried then I am wearing my mask because I have a mask and masks are meant to be worn. If it doesn't work, what am I out? But what if it does work? Then isn't the possibility of the benefits worth the inconvenience if it doesn't?

We live with in the country and we are citizens of this country. We should obey the laws of the land and I would even say the "Orders" of the land unless it conflicts with Jesus. Just an FYI, wearing a face mask does not in anyway conflict with Jesus, his message, or God in anyway. To argue otherwise, ("I refuse to wear a mask because of my religion") is simply a lie and you fool only yourself.

I have a dream of a Church. A building and a people. I call it The Shelter. It was inspired by a Jars of Clay song of the same name. The chorus of the song is

"In the shelter of each other We will live
We will live (Never walk alone)
In the shelter of each other
We will live (Your arms are all around us)
We will live"

 

In this church all of the people are united with our differences set aside and we love each other deeper than the oceans. We love each other as if Jesus was all there ever was. When something bad happens, it is to the Shelter we look because we know, without judgement, we will be loved with all the love of God a human can muster. 

The reason I bring up this idea of a church is to point out love. That at the center of everything we do, everything we think, should be love, first and foremost. If love is the center of our choices, our arguments, our anti-establishment rhetoric, then that lower case love is now a capital case Love and the only true capital case Love there is is God. 

Which brings me back to the mask wearing. Despite whether you think the mask does anything or not, now that we have thought about keeping Love centered in all we do, where is the harm of the mask? Where is the oppression of the mask? With God as the complete center of our lives, with trying our hardest to show a literally sick and dying world the love of someone who is Love, our only course of action is to wear a mask to be comfort for those who need it, and if there is even a percentage of a chance that the mask can help from spreading it then it is our duty as Christians to wear it with Love.

Let us be a little peace in a time of trouble for a world who is so desperately seeking something. Let us be a shelter for the world, despite our differences, that we can come out of this stronger and more united as ever.

Blessed are the peacemakers,

for they will be called sons of God.

"If there is any peace
If there is any war
We must all believe
Our lives are not our own
We all belong

God has given us each other
And we will never walk alone"

The Shelter - Jars of Clay 

 

Sermon - Transfigured

Six days later, Jesus took with him Peter and James and his brother John and led them up a high mountain, by themselves. And he was transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became dazzling white. Suddenly there appeared to them Moses and Elijah, talking with him. Then Peter said to Jesus, "Lord, it is good for us to be here; if you wish, I will make three dwellings here, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah." While he was still speaking, suddenly a bright cloud overshadowed them, and from the cloud a voice said, "This is my Son, the Beloved; with him I am well pleased; listen to him!" When the disciples heard this, they fell to the ground and were overcome by fear. But Jesus came and touched them, saying, "Get up and do not be afraid." And when they looked up, they saw no one except Jesus himself alone. As they were coming down the mountain, Jesus ordered them, "Tell no one about the vision until after the Son of Man has been raised from the dead."

Matthew 17:1-9 

From Bible.com

When I sat down and started thinking about this sermon I wasn't thrilled about it. I mean what can be said about the transfiguration of Jesus that hasn't already been said. Why does my dad give me the hard ones, I am less experienced than my mother at this. He also tried to give me Christmas Sunday. Me, a guy who doesn't even like Christmas that much, having to do one of the more important days of the Christian year? Thankfully Mom took care of that with her "it's-not-a-play" play.

So, the transfiguration. We just read that Jesus went up the mountain and he became dazzling bright. He talked with Moses and Elijah. My first question, how did they know who the two were? Both had been dead for hundreds of years.

The Bible doesn't say, but maybe Jesus told them something might happen on the way up, or maybe they introduced themselves. "Hello I am Moses, I brought you the Law." "Greetings, I am Elijah, I walked with God and was no more." I doubt it was the last one, but regardless, they knew who they were.

They knew they were important people there. Jesus shining like the sun and two of the greats of the old testament talking. Peter knew how important this was. He speaks up, and we get our first lesson to look at in this passage. Peter said "I will make three dwellings here, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah." It was a great thought. But I don't think it had completely set in exactly who Jesus was to the disciples yet.

Just a week before they had heard him talking about his death. At that time he asked who they say he is and Peter gets it right, that Jesus is the Messiah and the son of God. So they knew he was the one sent from God to save his people. But offering to put up three dwellings shows that he didn't completely understand who the Messiah was. The Jews were looking for a messiah who would fight for them and free them from their earthly oppressors.

And setting up a dwelling for Moses and Elijah would have been a good thing for them to do. Moses was the Law Giver. He brought the Ten Commandments to the chosen people of God. It is by these laws that the Jews of the time hoped for heaven. And next to him stood Jesus. The man who fulfilled the laws. Every Law that was given to Moses by God, Jesus fulfilled. So on one side of the three we have the establishment of the law and the completion of the law.

Elijah was a well known prophet. One of the great major prophets and we have Jesus. Again we have God's fulfillment of the prophets and all of their prophecies. On this side we have Jesus and Elijah, the prophecies and promises given to the Jewish people and the answer and fulfillment of all of them.

It made sense that Peter would want to have three dwellings. But here was a fault, Peter put Jesus on the same level as Moses and Elijah. He recognized the importance of all who were there, but failed to see how much more important Jesus was.

Let's stop a moment and look at Jesus. "His face shown like the sun." For a short time, he went from his earthly body to full on Son of God body. This was the body of who he is now. The man sitting at the right and of God, Jesus in his Glorified body. Then God spoke to the disciples there. Out loud in audible words again emphasizing who Jesus was.

I want to take a moment to point something out about God. People so very often think of God as a bearded old man sitting in a puffy cloud filled heaven. But look at what Moses did when God spoke to him, look at what the disciples just did. They were overcome with fear and fell to the ground. If angles caused men to fear and tremble before them, and they are just the messengers, imagine how much more terrifying God must be. Revelation tells us "From the throne came flashes of lightning and the rumble of thunder." But we do not need to cower in fear, though I am sure we will, because Jesus has brought us, under his arm, into the family of the Creator.

But I digress, the story of the transfiguration is a turning point in Jesus' ministry and life. From here on out it was time to prepare everyone for the fulfillment to complete. For us it is the very start of Lent. Next week Lent begins and people all over the world will give something up.

Over the years I have heard people trying to put new spins on lent. I get it though, how many times can you hear the same story over and over without something new. Sometimes it's something like picking up something new for lent, like devoting the next month to praying. We give up things like chocolate, or meat or something like that. There is talk of changing ourselves over the next four weeks into a better person, or a better Christian. And I have a feeling that many of us fail in doing so. I know I do. I have failed so much I don't even bother to do anything for lent. But maybe I should. Maybe I should look at myself and make myself better over the next month. Spend a month surrounded by God and make myself a better Christian. Maybe you have an idea on what God wants you to work on for the next month.

I find it very fitting that we start off with the Transfiguration. Lent is a time of changing. For us in the northern Hemisphere, Winter is ending and we are heading into spring. The days are getting longer and people are getting friendlier after the unfriendliness of the Holiday season. For Jesus, his ministry changed and he prepared for an ending that none of us would want.

Even our church is changing. The church with a lowercase C is facing new change that could be a scary thing. I don't care what some might say, but no one really likes change. Sure some embrace it when it comes and others shrink away, but like Jesus being changed on that mountain, we can grow stronger and become better for it. Change allows us to look forward to a future with the knowledge that we can make it as long as God is the one leading us through the flames.

Through the sermon I have mentioned change and transfiguration. I am going to add one more word here and that is transform. Like bumblebee did in the video at the start, we are facing a time of transformation as well. Transfiguration and transformation are in a way, two different things but also linked together.

Both words are verbs, they do something. Transform means to "make a thorough or dramatic change in the form, appearance, or character of." This is what bumblebee does when he changes from a robot into a car. He transforms in form and appearance. This is also what the Methodist mission statement means when it says making disciples of Christ for the transformation of the world. By following Christ we work to change the appearance and the character of the world to be like Jesus. But before we can do that we need to be transformed by Jesus in our hearts to be more and more like him. This means loving insanely, caring more deeply and giving all we have for the people who do not yet have Jesus. Maybe Jesus is calling you to do one or more of these things this Lent?

Transfiguration though means to transform into something more beautiful or elevated. You see how those two are different yet related. To quote a blog I read: "While transformation simply signifies a drastic change, a transfiguration gives it direction - towards greatness, grandeur, majesty."

I think our goal this Lenten season should be to look at ourselves and each other, and to find ways we can transform our lives and those around us to bring an ever increasing number of people to Jesus. We need to step out of our doors and face the world. We can't transform anything by staying inside ourselves. We need to change who we are and be the people who God wants us to be. And with a transformation of our hearts by bring them closer to Jesus, through prayer, reading the bible and loving supernaturally, we can begin to see ourselves become transfigured by Jesus as he acts in our hearts for his people. Let's not just be transformed this Lenten season, but also transfigured in Jesus Christ.