Missed Opportunities

From Great Expectations

Pip, dear old chap, life is made of ever so many partings welded together, as I may say, and one man's a blacksmith, and one's a whitesmith, and one's a goldsmith, and one's a coppersmith. Divisions among such must come, and must be met as they come. If there's been any fault at all to-day, it's mine. You and me is not two figures to be together in London; nor yet any wheres else but what is private, and beknown, and understood among friends. It ain't that I am proud, but that I want to be right, as you shall never see me no more in these clothes I'm wrong in these clothes. I'm wrong out of the forge, the kitchen, or off th' marshes. You won't find so much fault in me if you think of me in my forge-dress, with my hammer in my hand, or even my pipe. You won't find half so much fault in me if, supposing as you should ever wish to see me, you come and put your head in at the forge-window and see Joe the blacksmith there at the old anvil, in the old burned apron, at the old work, as he used to be when he first carried you about. I'm awful dull, but I hope I've beat out something night the rights of this at last. And so God bless you, dear old Pip; old chap, God bless you!

I had not been mistaken in my fancy that there was a simple dignity in him. The fashion of his dress could no more come in its way when he spoke these words that it could come in its way in heaven. He touched me gently on the forehead and went out. As soon as I could recover myself sufficiently I ran out after him and looked for him in the neighboring streets; but he was gone.

Becoming Entirely His

Not only must our relationship to God be right, but the outward expression of that relationship must also be right. Ultimately, God will allow nothing to escape; every detail of our lives us under His scrutiny. He never tires of bringing us back to that point until we learn the lesson, because His purpose it to produce the finished product.

His wonderful work in us makes us know that overall we are right with Him. Whatever it may be, God will point it out with persistence until we become entirely His.[1]

But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.

James 1:4

Becoming Entirely His - Have you ever felt like you have been traveling your life in circles, a certain sense of Déjà vu? Well, according to the passage above, maybe you have been doing exactly that. You see, God will not give up on you. In school, you may have been able to get away with the phrase, “I can’t. I’m not smart enough.” He will not accept anything less than your very best, and He will keep bringing you back to the classroom until you do your homework the way He knows you can.

The very fact that God would “send you around again” shows how much He loves you. He is not willing to leave you incomplete to face the tests life has to offer. He will not send you into the battle only partly equipped or prepared. He will indeed continue His work in you until it is fully accomplished. It stands to reason that this work will be completed at a much earlier date, and we will enjoy the benefits of it for a longer portion of our life, if we will but yield to it and allow His Spirit access to ever corner and closet of our lives!

Pastor Craig

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[1] One-Minute Meditations

The Cookie Lady

My guess is that few if any of you read about the passing of June Curry on July 16^th. She lived in Afton, Virginia, and on a summer day in 1976 she noticed a group of bicycles outside her home. When she went out to offer them some water and a few of her homemade cookies she was just being herself. She had no idea that her house was on Bike Route (BR)1, just a few miles from mile marker #1 on  the new TransAmerica Trail. Nor did she know that these cyclists were among the very first to use this route to cycle from the Atlantic ocean all the way to the Pacific Ocean.

In the last 46 years of her life she became known by all coast-to-coast cyclists as The Cookie Lady. She purchased a building adjacent to her home and converted it into the “Bike House.” She stocked it with free water and an endless supply of her homemade cookies.

The Bike House became the destination for cyclists coming from the west coast and the jumping off place for cyclists beginning on the east coast. During her 46 years at the Bike House she became one of the most well-known advocates for cycling even though she never cycled a mile of the trail herself. She hosted tens of thousands of cyclists, baked more than a hundred-thousand cookies, and turned the Bike House into the National Trail Museum.

Water, cookies, and kindness. So simple. Jesus asked us to provide a cup of water given in his name (Mark 9:41). June Curry simply added cookies. An act of kindness became a vision of purpose that touched an untold number of lives.

Some missionaries are called to travel to the ends of the earth. Others are called to carry a glass of water to the sidewalk right outside their own front door. Each one is a valuable part of the ministry of the kingdom of God. Each one meets the need of an individual. Each one touches the heart, even as they help the body.

While I am a huge advocate of mission trips, First Presbyterian has been to Reynosa, MX, New Orleans, LA, and Joplin, MO in the last 10 years, we must never pass up the opportunity to minister right on our doorstep. There are times God calls us to go to the farthest parts of the globe. Then, there are those marvelous moments, if we will seize them, when God brings the farthest parts of the globe to knock on our own front door!

Pastor Craig

Unhindered

The teachings of Jesus are all out of proportion when compared to our natural way of looking at things, and they come to us initially with astonishing discomfort. We gradually have to conform our walk and conversation to the precepts of Jesus Christ as the Holy Spirit applies them to our circumstances. The Sermon on the Mount is not a set of rules and regulations – it is a picture of the life we will live when the Holy Spirit is having His unhindered way with us.

                        One-Minute Meditations

Yes, I’m afraid it’s true. We are not born with a heart for Jesus Christ. We are born with a heart only for ourselves. We want what we want, and we want it when we want it.

We tend to compare our benevolent actions to what is acceptable or expected from our community. God uses a different standard. We tend to give or serve to alleviate a sense of guilt. Christ just calls us to give and serve, sometimes out of love, other times just because, and yet other times with no discernible reason other than it is what He calls us to do.

The call of Christ comes upon us at the most inconvenient times and in the most inconvenient places. We are in a rush and a person who needs a meal seems to come out of nowhere. We are headed home after a busy day and someone, maybe even a close friend, is in need of our ears to hear, our shoulder to rest upon, and our arms to hold them.

If we find ourselves comfortable in the Christian walk we may need to listen more closely to some of God’s more challenging passages from His Word.  We tend to pass off Jesus’ command to the rich young ruler to “Go, sell everything you have, give it all to the poor, and come and follow Me” as intended for that young man alone. We fail to hear the call of Christ that we should live more simply, that we are the ones who should set aside much of what we have in order that we might give to others. Instead, we wait for our fun to be exhausted and end up giving what is left of our time, strength, and goods.

It is a fearsome thing to tell God that he can have “His unhindered way with us!”

Pastor Craig

Is the Gospel Worth It?

Is the Gospel Worth It? Martin Luther is credited with saying “The Gospel cannot be preached without offence and tumult.”[1]

Isn’t the person of Jesus Christ supposed to be the very essence of peace, compassion, forgiveness, and charity? Why then this talk of offence and tumult?

First, it is not the purpose of the preacher or the Christian bearing witness to the person of Jesus Christ at work in their life to cause division or strife. However, any person seeking to proclaim Christ can proclaim no other Christ than the one revealed to us through Scripture.

It is not the disciple who brings strife. Neither is it the Gospel that causes division. It is the presence of the sin of pride, that prince of all other sins, which prompts the one confronted and convicted of their own transgression to hold on to those same transgressions rather than to kneel before the cross of Christ in repentance and plead for mercy.

We reject the righteousness of Christ, which convicts us of sin, which leads us to the cross, which justifies us before our Heavenly Father, which sets us back in a proper relation with our God and Creator. Instead, we claim to be more enlightened, to have a new revelation which nullifies the claim of the Gospel on our life and allows us to set aside that call to righteousness and holiness commanded by the Old and New Testaments. In doing this, we become more tightly bound to our sinful selves and enslaved to a dead end theology with no hope of being made anew!

Thanks be to God for the graciousness of our Heavenly Father, who continually holds before our eyes the person of Christ, calling us to abandon those unfulfilling ways and rest in His forgiveness and peace. We only first need to recognize the emptiness of our efforts and trade our path to destruction for a path of life and peace.

Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters; and you who have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost. Why do you spend money on what is not bread, and your labor on what does not satisfy? Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good, and your soul will delight in the richest of fare![2]

Pastor Craig

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[1] Selections from the Table Talk of Martin Luther

[2] Isaiah 55:1,2

Stirred up

Let us consider one another to stir up love and good works, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together.   (Hebrews 10:24-25)

“We are all capable of being spiritually lazy saints. We want to stay off the rough rods of life and our primary objective is to secure a peaceful retreat from the world. To live a distant, withdrawn, and secluded life is diametrically opposed to spirituality as Jesus Christ taught it.

All we want to hear about is a spiritual retirement from the world. Yet Jesus Christ never encourages the idea of retirement - He says, "Go and tell My brethren.”[1]

While our Savior is no taskmaster, neither is He without expectations. In the same way that Christ called His disciples to a time away from the crowds, bustle, and stress of ministry, so He called them back to ministry and sent them out to continue what had already begun.

Sometimes the difficult process of discernment for the Christian is knowing when Christ calls to push ahead, and when He calls us to rest, recharge, and relax. There are certainly times when we feel our energy has been spent, our reserves are dried up, and nothing is left to finish the task at hand. It is in those times that Christ does indeed call us away to a quiet place and bids us, “rest.”

The rest of Christ, the renewal of the Holy Spirit, prepares us once again to take up the work of the Kingdom. It is truly refreshing, as long as the time spent is spent submitting to the comforting peace of the Holy Spirit. If one is simply avoiding the task Christ has called them to take up, there will be no rest until that task is completed; their soul will find no peace in solitude, no comfort in quietness, no refreshment in sleep. Satisfaction, at least in this particular calling, will only come when the task is completed and the Spirit releases us from that particular urging. What is God calling you to complete?

Pastor Craig

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[1] One-Minute Mediations

Venture All!

We lose nothing by the Gospel, therefore we should venture thereupon all we have.[1]

 When I read the statement above it seems so obvious to me, so plain, simple, straightforward, and true. However, if that is indeed the case, why are we so hesitant? It seems that we should be more bold in our witness. Have we not been entrusted with the words that lead to eternal life? Have we stopped believing that, regardless of the question, when it comes to life’s difficult issues the answer is still, somehow, bound up in the person and work of Jesus Christ?

Yes, we may be rejected a hundred times for every one person who comes to know Christ in a whole and real way. Is that one “Yes” not worth the 99 “No’s”? Is our intact pride to be valued above another person’s soul? Are we that fragile that our Savior cannot restore our shattered self-esteem when we feel the rejection on a personal level?

There is a phrase, popular in some sections of Christianity these days. It is “living into our baptism.” When we were baptized, we made certain promises, or there were promises made for us. If we were baptized as an infant, we went through a confirmation class to join a local congregation. The purpose of this class is to allow us to confirm on our own behalf those promises originally made for us as a child.

The questions asked when a person joins the church include at least one question about involvement in the church and the desire to lead a life in obedience to Christ. How many of us have seriously thought about what full obedience to Jesus Christ actually means? In one sentence, it means recognizing that we are not our own boss anymore. We bend our will to the will of Jesus Christ. If ever we find the Scripture commanding one thing and our desires wanting something else, we set aside our desires and submit to the guidance of Scripture. It’s time to live like the Gospel is true!

Pastor Craig

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[1] Luther, Martin (2006-02-01). Selections from the Table Talk of Martin Luther (p. 67). Public Domain Books. Kindle Edition.

Consequences

The question has been raised as to what will be different, what are the consequences for First Presbyterian Church if we join the Fellowship of Presbyterians? Here is the fallout as I see it.

If we take this seriously, including the questions asked of us as a congregation below, we are no longer allowed to come and finish our God responsibility on Sunday morning. It won’t be enough to come and sit and the pew and pay attention. It won’t be enough to preach the sermon and consider the people fed and ministered to. It won’t be enough to serve on the session or teach a Sunday school class.
If we ask these questions of ourselves and not just the church, we will not be able to sit still. This does not mean that everyone will have to go to Joplin, New Orleans, or Reynosa. It does mean that each one seeks God’s place for him/her in the vision and ministry of FPC. It does mean that the session cannot just vote on the color of the carpet or approve a new AC unit or support a missionary or a mission trip. It means the session as a whole must develop a vision for FPC and guide that vision in its formation, activation, and implementation. It means the session must be intimately involved in the recruitment, equipping, training, and encouragement of the saints of God here in FPC. It is a vision that will not stop or end, for the kingdom of God does not stop or end.

We commit ourselves not just to the six tenets of the covenant. We also commit ourselves to transparent accountability with the questions below. I think it is the way the Scripture calls us to encourage one another. This will not be achieved by rules and punishments for failure. It will be achieved by leadership in effort and grace in weakness.

1.             How has the Holy Spirit been evident in your congregation in the past year; through conversions, growth in the fruit of the Spirit, or other transformational experiences that make disciples of Jesus Christ?

2.             How has your congregation extended itself beyond its bounds through the establishment of new communities of worship and discipleship, expanding the Kingdom of God?

3.             In what ways is your congregation seeking the welfare of the community to which you have been called; devoting itself to the poor, seeking justice, and living out the whole of the Great Commission?

4.             How are you encouraging people to allow God’s Word to shape their priorities and actions, and to nurture constant learning and the life of the mind?

5.             How are you helping children and others new to the Christian faith to discover Jesus and grow in their understanding and love of God’s Word?

6.             Describe the moral expression in your congregation – are you more like the world or more like participants in the values of the Kingdom of God?

7.             How is your congregation intentionally unleashing the ministries of women, men, and people of different ethnic groups who are experiencing God’s call?

8.             How is the idea of ministry as the joy and calling of every disciple evident in your congregation? How are you equipping people to represent Jesus more effectively in their respective professions?

9.             Illustrate the commitment of your congregation to global evangelism and discipleship, including examples of where you are engaging and with whom you are partnering.

10.          How does your congregation understand commitment to the larger church through our connectional relationships within the Body of Christ?

Pastor Craig