Summer Question: Why go to church?

If going to church doesn’t save you – why do we attend?

My son likes to play football. It is a lot of hard work, practice several hours a day, eating right, getting lots of sleep, working out the bumps and bruises, and practice, practice, practice. When it’s time for a game, he is all hyped up and ready to go. Church is like that. After all we do and all the experiences God has given us in our lives, all the joys of finding grace in some of the strangest places, how can you not be all hyped up and ready to go? It’s like getting suited up for the big game and deciding not to play. Your question also hints that church may not be all it should be. It seldom is. There were times in my youth when I thought church was boring, and I was right. There are times in my life now when it still strikes me the same way. But church is a community; it is the vehicle that brings Christ into the lives of many and the vehicle through which many find a safe and comfortable place to respond to the love God has shown them in a meaningful way. Church is never a wonderfully meaningful place for everyone all the time. Most of the time we are here because others need us to be a part of their God-response experience. One could respond that church is not meaningful for you right now and therefore you need not attend, for which I would respond that perhaps you need church more than ever to help you get a handle on the issue of self-centeredness or having a big head. Or you could see yourself as a part of a worshiping community, in which you are all dressed and ready for the game because the others gathered cannot imagine being there without you and you cannot not being here for them. You do not have to go to church to be saved, but knowing Christ has given you this gift of life, where else would you want to be. I hear all the time from some that they can worship God in a boat fishing as well as in church. They are right in what they say. The only trouble is that before too long they are worshiping an Irish lord rather than the risen Lord. (an Irish lord is an ugly Alaskan fish with a big head and no body, and it is so disappointing to pull one in when you are after halibut)

Summer Question: How does heaven work?

How does heaven work because if you are in heaven and your brother Jim is burning in hell, how could you be happy? Do we just have no feelings or pity in Heaven?

The truth is that we don’t know how heaven works. In the Pastors Blog (http://www.coslc.ws/ and click on Pastors Blog) I dealt with some of the “the kingdom of heaven is like” statements and you can check those for comments. All we can know of heaven and of God is what has been revealed to us. Jesus is the full revelation of God for humanity and therefore to answer that question we need to look at the teachings of Jesus. Jesus was full of compassion, he reached out to the sick and suffering, to the poor and needy, and brought them hope. Jesus went to the cross and in our confession we confess that Jesus even went to hell and broke the bonds of death for us. The image of what God is like and therefore, the image of what heaven is like that is brought to us from Jesus is one of compassion, love and salvation by grace. Perhaps Robin Williams in the movie “What Dreams May Come” had a handle on a piece of it in the suggestion that hell is a self-imposed situation. Hell is that place you are at when you can’t believe in a God of grace. Common rhetoric presents just the situation you suggest in your question with the image of St. Peter at the gate looking in the book to see if you are there and if not, then bam down to the hot place. Jesus presents images of a father waiting for the prodigal son to return and then rejoicing. Revelation can be read as hell being a place for the devil and his angles only or as a place where all those opposed to God’s rule are banned to. It may be that in the end, they are the same. If you can picture Jesus as having no pity and no feelings then perhaps there is room for the view that heaven is like that also, for me, Jesus is full of love and grace, and that is how I picture heaven. Pastor Scott Fuller shared this with me and I would add it to what I had just written. It may take eons, but maybe someday we may witness Jesus down in hell whispering to Adolph Hitler, Adolph, I love you. We can’t predict how long it will take for Adolph to respond, but until then, heaven is still not quite complete.

Forgiving and forgiven

Saturday July 9th, John 20: Again Jesus said, "Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, I am sending you." And with that he breathed on them and said, "Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive anyone his sins, they are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven." OK, so now it’s our turn. We are sent into the world to bring the message and the reality of forgiveness. If we forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven. If we do not forgive them, they are not forgiven. I think the ones who suffer from not being forgiven are those not forgiving. Ultimately, the ones who suffer the most from exclusion are those doing the excluding. Welcome to the family of God.

Saved by God's faith

Friday July 8th, Romans 12: Can we boast, then, that we have done anything to be accepted by God? No, because our acquittal is not based on our good deeds. It is based on our faith. So we are made right with God through faith and not by obeying the law. Many want to take that faith and turn it into another work. If only that person had enough faith they would have………. The faith we are made right by is God’s faith. So what do we have to do? The answer is simply, not reject it. Even if it were a matter of responding in faith, it would be something we do and therefore something some do better than others. The result is that God would no longer be in charge, we would be back to the original sin of the garden of wanting to be like God. We are saved and made right in God’s eyes because of the faith of God through Christ. Anything else is just trying to play God, which often is what we need forgiveness for most.

1st & 2nd use of the law only

Thursday July 7th, Romans 12: For all have sinned; all fall short of God's glorious standard. Yet now God in his gracious kindness declares us not guilty. He has done this through Christ Jesus, who has freed us by taking away our sins. We want to rank sins, this one is worse than that one etc. When we do that we all tend to see the other persons sin as greater than ours, that is how we know we are ahead. God doesn’t work that way. In Matthew 5 Jesus radicalizes the law for those who think we should live under the law. He does this so they can see that what they are doing is just game playing. There are two uses of the law for Luther. One is to provide for a functional society where people can worship. The other is to convict people of their sins and to drive them to the acceptance of grace. Grace for themselves and grace for others. Rationalizing the law is a way of avoiding it, and ultimately the grace it brings us to.

Christ died for all, or we are all doomed

Wednesday July 6th, Romans 12: For no one can ever be made right in God's sight by doing what his law commands. For the more we know God's law, the clearer it becomes that we aren't obeying it. For all our bad choices as the children of God, we live in the midst of forgiveness. We are loved by God and therefore saved by God. We are forgiven because God loves us and called to live out our lives as forgiven people, which we do not do so well and therefore need continual forgiveness. God forgives others the same way we are forgiven. There is no one beyond the forgiveness of Christ. We are not the ones in charge of who Christ forgives anymore than one child in a family getting to choose whether the other children get to eat or not. How about those who have not heard, Christ died for them also. How about those who have heard and still follow other non-Christian religions, Christ died for them also. Forgiveness is a gift. If it were anything else, we would all be doomed.

Sophies Choice

Tuesday July 5th, Romans 3: Well then, are we Jews better than others? No, not at all, for we have already shown that all people, whether Jews or Gentiles, are under the power of sin. As the Scriptures say, “No one is good--not even one. In the eyes of God we are all the children of God. The movie "Sophie's Choice" follows the life of a woman who in the concentration camps of WWII Germany had 10 seconds to choose which of her two children was to live and which one was to die. The rest of her life is spent trying to deal with making that choice. Could you choose? What criteria would you use? As we celebrate our nations birthday, how are we doing on being a reflection of the kingdom of God? Do we treat each other as brothers and sisters in Christ? Do our actions as a nation result in a "Sophie's Choice" for God?

Blessed to be a blessing

Monday July 4th, Genesis 12: I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. The blessing to Abraham was that all the world would be blessed through him. That all the world thing was hard to swallow so his children on through the generations decided to narrow that focus. Most of us are still trying to narrow that focus. It seems to work for us, we have wars and famine, we can stand by while genocide is happening. We live in a nation where the top 1% of the population owns 38.1% of the wealth and the bottom 40% of the population owns 0.2% of the wealth (distribution of wealth 1998 www.levy.org/docs/wrkpap/papers/300.htm) How does that fit into the concept that we are all the children of God? How does that fit into the command to love your neighbor as yourself? How does that fit into the concept that we are all brothers and sister in Christ?

With Christ, there is forgiveness

Sunday July 3rd, Psalm 130: If you, O LORD, kept a record of sins who could stand? But with you there is forgiveness; For those out there who want to point out what others are doing wrong in the eyes of God, this is the obvious statement that is ignored. When it comes to living right and getting into the kingdom, no one makes it. That doesn’t mean that no one makes it to the kingdom of Heaven, just that they don’t make it on their own. Salvation is a gift, it is grace, it is love worked out on God’s terms. For those of you who are old enough to remember the Smothers Brothers show, remember when Tommy Smothers would say to his brother, “Mom always liked you best”? Many within the Christian community want to say, “God always liked me best.” The truth is God loves you because your are, not because of what you do or where you were born or what religion you are or what your sexual orientation is or what nationality you are or….or….or….

Welcome to the net

Saturday July 2nd, Matthew 13: Once again, the kingdom of heaven is like a net that was let down into the lake and caught all kinds of fish. When it was full, the fishermen pulled it up on the shore. This is not rod and reel fishing with a lure or bait, this is scoop them up net fishing that pulls in all species. They are not all like us, they do not all speak the same, think the same, worship the same or even go under the name “Christian”. God does not call for uniformity, just check out God’s creation and you can see that, God calls for love. Loving God with all your heart, soul and mind, and loving your neighbor as yourself. Welcome to the net.

Sell it all

Friday July 1st , Matthew 13: The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy went and sold all he had and bought that field. The joy of finding everything you ever wanted in life. What would you do? Would you put everything on the line to get it? Would you give everything you have for it? That is what the kingdom of God is like. Most of us want to have our cake and eat it too (odd saying isn’t it?) The truth is that we can have more in life than just the Kingdom as long as we put the kingdom first. Otherwise, all we have is a bunch of stuff and a nagging thought that there is more we need.

Out of control comfort

Thursday June 30th, Matthew 13: The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, which a man took and planted in his field. Though it is the smallest of all your seeds, yet when it grows, it is the largest of garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and perch in its branches." This seems odd to me. When I was a kid, one of my jobs was to go into the grain fields and pull mustard plants and they were not all that large. (I know you just read June 29ths post, what can I say?!) All that aside, what Jesus seems to be referring to is some plant that becomes out of our control and provides comfort. Mustard plants not withstanding, that seems like a good image of the Kingdom of Heaven. We are not in control, it provides comfort for all sorts of people, and it is larger than any of us can imagine.

Hold off on the weed picking

Wednesday June 29th, Matthew 13: The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field. But while everyone was sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and went away……."The servants asked him, 'Do you want us to go and pull them up?'" 'No,' he answered, 'because while you are pulling the weeds, you may root up the wheat with them. Let both grow together until the harvest. The kingdom of heaven is like…….. Even here we are faced with the desire to be in control and pull up those things we want to call weeds. The kingdom of heaven is like a place where all those who someone wants to classify as weeds and all those who someone wants to classify as good plants get to grow up together. In the end, it is not us, but God who is in charge. The same God who brings you salvation by grace. That’s tough for some people to take.

It was Zoro's idea

Tuesday June 28th, Revelation 20: They marched across the breadth of the earth and surrounded the camp of God's people, the city he loves. But fire came down from heaven and devoured them. And the devil, who deceived them, was thrown into the lake of burning sulfur, where the beast and the false prophet had been thrown. It is tempting to carry in the image that all the evil people in the world will end up in the lake of fire. Tempting, but not true. It is also a problem as that goes back to that first temptation in the garden about wanting to be in control and playing god. First the lake of fire was a development in the concept of hell which goes from not being mentioned in the Old Testament to being fully developed into a 7 level system of heaven and hell some time later. Dante in “The Inferno” and Mills in “Paradise Lost” seem to have more to do with our modern idea of hell than does scripture. Most of the concepts of hell, including the burning lake of fire in Revelation, come from an earlier religion called Zoroastrianism which developed in what is now central Iran. As for the message in Revelation, it is something like this. God is in charge, don’t mess, Get it!!!! All else is window dressing.

Light! I said Light!!!

Monday June 27th, Genesis 1: In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. And God said, "Let there be light," and there was light. OK evil one, let’s see you try that! The first mention of temptation was not from the devil at all, but from a talking serpent. The first temptation mentioned was also in Genesis, it was to be like God. We have been trying to do that ever since. The true essence of sin is to be like God and therefore slowly but surely come to the point where you don’t think you need God, or perhaps like the Gnostics, think that someday you too can be a god all your own on your own world. The next time you feel you don’t need God, try standing out in the middle of the yard, away from any switches, at night, and try saying “let there be light” and see if you can make it daytime. (I know that the middle of June in Alaska might seem like it should work, but you know what I mean). If you can do it, you don’t need God.

Go Home

Sunday June 26th, Psalm 19: The heavens are telling of the greatness of God and the great open spaces above show the work of God’s hands. Day to day they speak. And night to night they show much learning. There is no speaking and no words where their voice is not heard. When you think of Heaven and Hell and the devil, it is good to get your priorities straight. Look up to the heavens, look out to creation, look to the handiwork of God and get a hint of what God is all about. Is there a power of evil? I believe so. Experiences in my life tell me so. The experiences in my life also tell me that the powers of evil can live only where we let them live and can only destroy. The power of God can create and build and love and live. The next time you come in contact with the power of evil in a very real form, tell it to go to hell and leave you alone. In that case it is not swearing anymore than telling a stray dog to go home.

Dance with me Jesus

Saturday June 25th, Matthew 25: "Then the righteous will answer him, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?' "The King will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.' When we live life as a dance with God, we forget all the rules because there is only one rule; love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul and mind and your neighbor as yourself. All else is window dressing. When we are in that kind of dance with God, it all becomes such a part of who we are, we forget we are doing it. That’s when the real dance begins. Amen!!!!!

come you who are blessed

Friday June 24th, Matthew 25: Then the King will say to those on his right, 'Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.' God said, “let us create humanity in our own image.” Therefore, the way you treat others is the way you treat God. The list God has given us here is just the tip of the iceberg. How do you know it all? You forget the rules. You just treat others as you would treat God, with love. Everything else will fall into place.

not rocket science

Thursday June 23rd, 1 Thessalonians 4: Regarding life together and getting along with each other, you don't need me to tell you what to do. You're God-taught in these matters. Just love one another! Erik L used to use the phrase, “it’s not rocket science.” The same is true here. How do you get along with one another? Well that is simple and inside each of us. Some call them kindergarten rules. Here is a good list from "ALL I REALLY NEED TO KNOW I LEARNED IN KINDERGARTEN" by Robert Fulghum. See his web site at http://www.robertfulghum.com/ Share everything; Play fair; Don't hit people; Put things back where you found them; Clean up your own mess; Don't take things that aren't yours; Say you're sorry when you hurt somebody; Wash your hands before you eat; Flush; Warm cookies and cold milk are good for you; Live a balanced life - learn some and think some and draw and paint and sing and dance and play and work every day some; Take a nap every afternoon; When you go out in the world, watch out for traffic, hold hands and stick together; Be aware of wonder, Remember the little seed in the Styrofoam cup: the roots go down and the plant goes up and nobody really knows how or why, but we are all like that; Goldfish and hamsters and white mice and even the little seed in the Styrofoam cup - they all die. So do we; And then remember the Dick-and-Jane books and the first word you learned - the biggest word of all - LOOK.

hang on and enjoy

Wednesday June 22nd, 1 Thessalonians 4: God hasn't invited us into a disorderly, unkempt life but into something holy and beautiful--as beautiful on the inside as the outside. Most of us tend to work more on our religious outside rather than our religious inside. We put on a nice show, while on the inside we are in turmoil. God’s word tells us to stop faking it. It is not about being perfect, it is not about putting on a good show, it is not even about being a good dancer. It is about letting your clumsiness show and dancing anyway. This is not “Lord of the Dance” stage precision with everyone in step, it is a wild swirling rhythmic array of spirit lead joy. We all need to practice our dancing for a while before it becomes a part of us, but when it does, wow!!!! Hang on and enjoy life in the spirit.

Spirited dance rather than a dogged religious plod

Tuesday June 21st, 1 Thessalonians 4: One final word, friends. We ask you--urge is more like it--that you keep on doing what we told you to do to please God, not in a dogged religious plod, but in a living, spirited dance. The walk with God is more of a dance than drudgery. It is living in a relationship with the creator who created you out of love and for love. It is living in harmony with the creation from which you were created. It is living in concert with one another. When Christianity becomes drudgery, we may have lost the rhythm; we may be out of sync with the creator, creation and creature. The way to get back onto the dance floor is to spend time connecting with the creator through word and prayer. It is by letting the spirit of God flow through you into the world, and everyone in it. Soon you again will find your toe a tapping and your head a bopping and your feet a moving. Soon again you will feel the spirit.

It's time

Monday June 20th, Ecclesiastes 3: There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven: a time to be born and a time to die,….a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance. Life is not all joyful dancing, there are times for other things also, but there is a time for dancing joyfully. In the other times, life itself becomes a dance. Some scientists tell us that all matter is made up of tiny vibrating strings of energy. That means that you and I are also made up of tiny vibrating strings of energy. I don’t know about you, but to me that sounds like God wants us to get in sync with the rhythm and in harmony with the rest of God's creation.

dance with the joyful

Sunday June 19th, Jeremiah 31: The LORD appeared to us saying: "I have loved you with an everlasting love; I have drawn you with loving-kindness. I will build you up again and you will be rebuilt, O Virgin Israel. Again you will take up your tambourines and go out to dance with the joyful. There are times when I was young when I thought that being a Christian was hard work. There were times when our Sunday School teacher would burst into tears hearing that we went to a dance. Then we got a new pastor and I lightened up and discovered the joy of dancing with God. Sometimes we work so hard at being a good Christian we never get around to being a good Christian. Part of being a good Christian is to take up your tambourines, or whatever you might play, and go out and dance with the joyful. Live the life God has given you.

the Word became flesh

Saturday June 18th: The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth. For John, this is the birth story. Jesus is God who came to dwell among us and bring us the light of hope and truth. This is the God who came to lead us all to glory of heaven. When we get to the message of Jesus and the work of Jesus, we need to ask the question, “is the virgin birth important?” It’s a nice story and was important to the first century Jewish Christians, but is it foundational to us? For me, I confess it and I believe it, but if someday in heaven I find out it is not true, it would be no more traumatic than the day it hit me that my parents were not perfect, just loving, and also realized that I preferred it that way.

No Christmas for John

Friday June 17th: Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it. For John, Jesus is also the God of creation and before. For John, Jesus is the light that counters the darkness of this world. No swaddling clothes, no wise men, no camels or sheep or manger or virgin birth, just the God who always was and always will be. Jesus is that God on earth for us, the full revelation of what God wants us to know about God. For John, the birth was unimportant and perhaps even in the way of the message. It worked for John, but it makes for lousy Sunday School Christmas pageants.

In the beginning

Thursday June 16th: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Matthew wrote to the established Jewish culture and has the birth story and the three wise men from the East. Mark was the first Gospel written to the new Christians and doesn’t have a birth story but goes right to John the Baptist. Luke was written later and pulls in a well developed birth story including Mary’s visit to Elizabeth (John the Baptists mother) and the poetic rendition of what the coming messiah means in very revolutionary terms. John was writing to a different group. John was writing to the Gnostics whose focus was on preexistent spirits and the cosmic struggle between the forces of light and the forces of darkness. For John what was important was not Jesus birth, but the preexistence of Jesus from the very beginning of time. What is the important narrative today?

Jesus of faith

Wednesday June 15: But when God, who set me apart from birth and called me by his grace, was pleased to reveal his Son in me so that I might preach him among the Gentiles, Paul’s mission was to reach out to those for whom the promise of a messiah was new news. They were not burdened by the expectations of what a messiah would be, how the messiah was born, and whom the messiah would save and how. Jesus did much to destroy several of the myths of what the messiah was to be for the Jewish people, and brought salvation to all on the cross. That Jesus, stripped of culture, crucified on a cross, resurrected again to bring the gift of forgiveness and life to all, that is our Jesus. That is our culture. That is the Jesus of faith.

Wham!!!!

Tuesday June 14th: I want you to know, brothers, that the gospel I preached is not something that man made up. I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it; rather, I received it by revelation from Jesus Christ. Paul was just walking down the road one day on his way to find, prosecute, and execute some more Christians when all of a sudden, wham!!!!! There he was confronted by the risen Christ. He never did see the birth, he never did know Jesus of the flesh, and he only knew the risen Christ. We might not have had the wham, but the risen Christ is all we know also. The rest we take by faith. All the questions about the birth of Jesus are secondary to the Jesus of faith. The virgin birth is a nice story, it fits the tradition, many including myself believe it to be true, some very prominent Biblical scholars have doubts, but in the vast scope of things, it is only window dressing. The Jesus for me is the Jesus who confronted Paul on the road. It is the Jesus of faith. What is central to your belief in Jesus?

Laughter

Monday June 13th: Sarah said, "God has brought me laughter, and everyone who hears about this will laugh with me." What do you do in the face of something so unexpected and something so wanted? Seems like there are two choices, you can cry or you can laugh. Sarah chose laughter, and even named the unexpected son, Isaac, which means laughter. Do we sometimes find ourselves laughing at the wonder of God. As you watch your children play, do you laugh? As you watch the ravens play, do you laugh? When you land that big fish, do you laugh? Luther used to say that laughter keeps the devil away; I think that may be because sometimes what we are laughing at, is the very presence of God. Look around and laugh a little today.

Miraculous births

Sunday June 12th: Now the LORD was gracious to Sarah as he had said, and the LORD did for Sarah what he had promised. Sarah became pregnant and bore a son to Abraham in his old age, at the very time God had promised him. There are miraculous births in the scriptures. They come when God is doing a new thing. Isaac was born as Abraham and Sarah was looking at nursing homes. John the Baptist’s mother was old and barren also. Both Leah and Rachael were barren and brought forth children after prayer. Hannah gave birth to Samuel in answer to prayer and dedicated him to the Lord’s service. These births come as a gift to humanity. They come at a time when humanity is in need of someone to lead them. The final birth gift is that of Jesus, who came to bring life to all of creation. The birth is the ultimate gift of God.

politics

President Bush in responding to an initiative on stem cell research said that he was opposed to spending fedreal dollors on the distruction of life. That is a good thought, but it does raise a few questions. What about the war in Iraq? The death penality? Lowered polution standards? And the 24000 children, created in the image of God who will die today due to lack of good food, water, health care and shelter? Check out www.thehungersite.com and at least give some food.

math

from the Galation Bible Study by Pastor Martin from Joy

Jesus + N (anything) does not = the Gospel

wouldn't be prudent

Saturday June 11th: Jesus began to explain to his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands of the elders, chief priests and teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life. Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. "Never, Lord!" he said. "This shall never happen to you!" Jesus turned and said to Peter, "Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of men." I put this text in here to remind us how quickly pragmatism can get in the way of the Spirit. Peter had Just confessed Jesus as the Christ. Jesus mentions Jerusalem and crosses and Peter thought he had a better idea. Peter was playing god. Jesus didn’t go for it. There a lot of really good ideas that are not of the spirit. There are a lot of really bad ideas that are. Praying for your enemies, caring for the poor, giving your money away, giving of yourself, going to Jerusalem when they want to kill you there, they are all bad ideas. They make no sense. The only thing that makes them work is that they are from God. You can only do them with the Spirit.

Lotta, lottta love man

Friday June 10th: There are three things that will endure--faith, hope, and love--and the greatest of these is love. Faith is something we can conger up for ourselves. Hope is something we can conger up for ourselves. Loves focus is on the other. Love requires community. Many who claim the gift of the Spirit feel they need to manifest that gift by speaking on tongues. I just don’t see where the love is in that. I just don’t see how that points others to God. It does let one stand up front and get noticed. It may in some situations even be a gift of the spirit that leads one to God, but it is kind of shaky. I’m with Paul, of all the ways the gifts of the spirit can manifest itself, if it is without love, it’s probably just showing off. Remember the tree in the garden?

go for the gold

Thursday June 9th: And in any event, you should desire the most helpful gifts. First, however, let me tell you about something else that is better than any of them! Paul lists many gifts of the spirit and there are many misuses of them. After listing the things they all wanted to do because anyone who was anyone in this spiritual game did them, Paul tells them to listen up for what is really important. That is when he launches into the love song in chapter 13. Whatever you do, if you don’t do it out of love for another creature of God, you are just blowing smoke. All your gifts are little more than a good trick. Love wants to help the other, love wants to serve God, love wants to give of itself. Love is what happens when we let the spirit lead. Ego is what happens when we don’t. Forget the ego, go for the gold, go for love.

I need you

Wednesday June 8th: But God made our bodies with many parts, and he has put each part just where he wants it. What a strange thing a body would be if it had only one part! Yes, there are many parts, but only one body. The eye can never say to the hand, "I don't need you.” The head can't say to the feet, "I don't need you." I find it odd that we humans have to continue to remind ourselves that we are not God, but is seems like we do. We want to be in charge. We want to set the rules of what is right and wrong for someone else. We want to control the power. We want to do it our way. It’s two year old behavior for the most part disguised in a flurry take charge. Sometimes we realize that we can’t do it all or run it all or control it all. Sometimes we even find ourselves sitting in a heap in the middle of the floor in tears. That is when the Holy Spirit can come to us, often through the actions of others, and leads us to God who has been there all along.

we need to be needed

Tuesday June 7th: The human body has many parts, but the many parts make up only one body. So it is with the body of Christ. We are all in this together. We are all here to serve one another. Through Grace, the God and I thing is taken care of, now we need to live the you and I thing. God gave us gifts to serve one another. God gave us the gift of needing one another. Maybe that was the greatest gift. Look around you; have you ever thought that your deficiencies allow others to share their gifts? There are some things you can’t do well, that is the good news. Now you need others, and that is the good news. God is in there somewhere in the process, and that also is the good news.

more than cells

Monday June 6th: the LORD God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being. The Holy Spirit is the breath of life. It is the spark of God that brings about life in a lump of protoplast. Stem cells don’t breath. They are a wonder, they are a creation, they are a miracle, but they don’t breath. Maybe God has something else in mind for them, maybe not, but the debate is not closed on that one. You and I each breathe in our lifetime the same atoms that have been breathed by countless millions of others throughout history. Maybe even those same atoms breathed by Jesus when he cried out, “it is finished”. We are all connected to God and to one another through breath, through creation, through the spirit. One of our jobs is to recognize that and live it.

for the church

Sunday: A spiritual gift is given to each of us as a means of helping the entire church. One of the gifts of the spirit is that it is not just for your or for your glory, it is for the whole church. It is not just for COSLC or the church you belong to, it is for the whole church on earth, or your community, or your family or your nation, depending on the day and what is happening. It’s when it becomes a “look at what I can do” that it is not a gift at all, only some trick, perhaps even a trick of the evil one. The Holy Spirit points the community to God and in the process, gives you a nudge in that direction.