When you see “lifetime guarantee” on a product, do you wonder whose lifetime- the consumer, the product, or the producer? The lifetime of any of these could be today, ten or twenty years from now.
We have a lifetime guarantee from God. John 3:16 says it all. But for additional assurance, God gives us a whole treasure chest of gems: “I am with you always;” “You are mine and no one can pluck you out of my hands;” “Be faithful until death and I will give you the crown of life;” “And you also are among those who are called to belong to Jesus Christ.” I am sure you can recall other Bible verses that are special gems in your store of treasures.
Our lifetime guarantee gives us an extended warranty- for eternity. Our awesome God has provided this warranty for us and it is FREE. Thank God each day for your salvation through Jesus Christ. Read Romans 14:8 and I John 3:18-20, and remember: God loves YOU unconditionally.
I often describe my vocational calling of pastor as a “joyous burden”. I meant JOY!ous burden, Joy being the congregation I serve. It is not work or a job, but a privilege to be a servant/leader. When it comes to prayer, it can be burdensome most of the time, like a task to be performed. We often find it difficult to find the “right” words, forgetting that all prayer is pleasing and acceptable to God. All that is required is a right Spirit of prayer. That Spirit, as a starting point, will intercede for us.
Do you find prayer to be emotional?
Deep, honest prayer may find you weeping, pounding your fists, even laughing out loud. It is a struggle, especially when confessing sin. I suggest seeing God in Jesus, our constant companion, guide, and friend. As the Truest Friend, he will always want what is best for you. He is both pilot and navigator, with “GPS” – “God’s Positioning System”. When Jesus “takes the wheel”, we find peace. It comes through the work of trusting implicitly in His holy will. Be persistent in this, my friends in Christ! You won’t experience results if you are casual and lackadaisical about your faith and attentiveness to God. It should be as natural as breathing. Too often I mince words, “soft-pedal” what God truly requires. The Ten Commandments are both requirement and gift. Obedience is necessary so that we may reap the fruits of the Spirit. The greatest act of obeying is to love. It is the active verb of the two most important commands.
Believe in the power of prayer. If we as Christians emulate this, if our nation turns wholesale to God in prayer for His holy will, the tide will turn. We will worship and serve God out of sheer love, not because it is politically beneficial or gets people to conform. As you pray without ceasing, feel His unconditional love refresh you anew.
Translated that means Best Friends Forever. I had one when I was in grade school. We did everything together. We walked to school; we went to Brownies and Girl Scouts; we went shopping locally and by bus to the nearest city; we went to camp in the summer. We shared everything and I was certain it would last forever. But we went to different colleges, married and moved to different states, and drifted apart. Oh, how I missed that friendship.
In college I had the opportunity to form new BFF’s. Living together gave us more opportunities to share with each other. When we separated after graduation, it was painful. But letters and occasional visits maintained the friendship. Then first one, then the other, died. I felt so alone.
Who are your best friends? Have you always known them? Could you share everything and know they would understand?
Joseph Scriven, author of a favorite hymn, knew what it was like to lose the relationships he counted on. The night before his wedding, his fiancée drowned. Later he moved, fell in love again, and got engaged. In 1855 his new fiancée died of an illness before they ever walked down the aisle. Such tragedy.
“That year, he wrote the hymn ‘What a Friend We Have in Jesus.’ Interestingly he wrote it not to comfort himself, but his mother.” * Even encumbered with such loneliness, he knew Jesus was his refuge. Jesus would always listen, even when others were not available.
“What a Friend we have in Jesus, all our sins and griefs to bear! What a privilege to carry everything to God in prayer! O what peace we often forfeit, O what needless pain we bear, All because we do not carry everything to God in Prayer.”**
Jesus is there for us. He is our very best friend. He wants to hear from us. He wants to hear everything that’s in our hearts. Now that’s the best BFF we could ever have. Hope you enjoy this rendition of the hymn by the Vagle Brothers.
Judy
*“How Sweet the Sound, page 106,” Laura L. Smith, Our Daily Bread Publishing, 2020
**What a Friend We Have in Jesus, Joseph M. Scriven, 1855
1 Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth. 2 Worship the Lord with gladness; come into his presence with singing.
3 Know that the Lord is God. It is he that made us, and we are his;[a] we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture.
4 Enter his gates with thanksgiving, and his courts with praise. Give thanks to him, bless his name.
5 For the Lord is good; his steadfast love endures forever, and his faithfulness to all generations.
I found in The Message version of the Bible (Peterson), verse 4 of the 100th Psalm and I just resonated with that translation. Psalm 100:4 “Enter with the password: “Thank you!”Make yourselves at home, talking praise. Thank him. Worship him.”
Having learned the 100th Psalm in Sunday School and even receiving a glow in the dark cross for reciting it, I found this new translation to be fit for our current times. A password? Yes, that’s part of our techie-times now. I was intrigued with “make yourself at home.” How awesome to realize the promise of a heavenly home with our Lord might be comfortable and “homey.” Praise, Thanksgiving, Worship. Those instructions are where we sometimes really fall short. God is so patient and loves us so unconditionally, practice praising Him (not just on Sunday morning). Thank Him, not just before a meal. Worship Him, not just when it is convenient. We, as Christians are so blessed. Love your God above all others! Make that joyful noise, we are His people!
I am sure you have all heard the song The Sun Will Come Out Tomorrow from the musical Annie. The song is sung by the character of Little Orphan Annie who has experienced a terrible life in an orphanage along with other orphans who also resided there. In spite of her circumstances, she still had hope that tomorrow would be better. As we all know, her life did improve. Although this is a fictional story, the message is nice and makes us feel hopeful for ourselves and those we care about.
That brings me to today and what we are facing with our next hurricane. As I sit in my office and look out the window, I wonder what Hurricane Helene will bring our way. I pray we will all be safe and no one sustains devastating loss and personal injuries, but as is the case with most of these catastrophic storms, that will not be the case. There is bound to be damage and heart ache for many people.
Almost always, when the storm is over and those who have experienced the destruction such storms can bring, will say they will be okay as long as they have their family. All the material things they have can be replaced and they will recover and move on.
As a child, I lived through a tornado that did a great deal of damage to the property on the farm where I was raised. Thankfully, we did not lose our home or any family members. We always had a designated area in our basement to go when the storms came up, so we were safe, but many of the outbuildings did not survive. As was the case with those folks I mentioned above, the storm passed and my family slowly rebuilt what they had lost.
The sun did come out again, the rains came and watered the crops and the world went on exactly as it had before. Through their faith in God’s unconditional love, my family believed there was hope for another day, week, month and year as God has promised us in Luke 1:78 – God’s love and kindness will shine upon us like the sun that rises in the sky.
The clouds are building as I finish this blog and the sky is getting darker, but I am certain God will provide for us and the sun will come out tomorrow. Thanks be to God!
You may find it hard to believe that my driving these days is being compared to that of a grandpa or grandma. I don’t even have any grandchildren!
It wasn’t always this way (ask my wife). As I’ve gotten older, I learned I get there in the same amount no matter how fast or slow I drive. I find taking the driving speed down a notch or two is very relaxing. The trip between Oxford and Ocala on the way to the early service is a good example of this. Even in rush hour, all the people in a hurry pass me by. I won’t say it is always a pleasure to drive, but I’m a lot less tense behind the wheel than in my younger years.
This is not meant to be a diatribe on driving. I wanted to write about someone who would have driven like a grandpa had automobiles existed.
Jesus didn’t rush. He took breaks. He took sabbaticals. He would get up early in the morning before the sun rose to pray. In John 11 we read about one of the most notable instances of his “no-hurry” approach. He received word from Mary and Martha that his dear friend Lazarus was sick. (John 11). Jesus waited two more days before heading to Judea where Lazarus was. By the time Jesus and his disciples arrive, Lazarus had been dead for FOUR DAYS. We all know the rest of the story, Jesus resurrects and restores Lazarus.
We know Jesus is the Son of God and time is no object. I’m certain Jesus’ point was that our perceived needs are not always going to resolve in the blink of an eye. Consider the fact Jesus took six days to deal with the Lazarus situation. Contrast this with Martha and Mary’s perspective.
On the flip-side, when Jesus had a deadline to meet, he met it. I’m sure if he were any less than the Son of God he would have looked for any and every excuse to dawdle on the way to the cross. He had people to reach. He had people to heal. I suspect his disciples could have used a little more training before he turned them loose. At the end of the day, he knew what he had to do and he did it. He trusted God the Father to take care of all the other details and loose ends.
So drive like a grandpa (or don’t – no judgment!) and remember one thing. No matter how slow or fast you move through life, you will never be beyond the reach of God’s unconditional love!
Every park in Chicago had a concrete water fountain, even the tiny Fellger Playlot where I could get a welcome drink on a hot summer day on my way to Grandma and Grandpa Szlavik’s home. It was just less than a mile to their apartment, but some days it felt like the Israelite’s 40-year journey through the wilderness.
A recurring theme in the story of the Exodus are the complaints of the Israelites about being thirsty. My favorite is Exodus 17:6 where Moses strikes a rock at the command of God and water gushes forth. That story is taken by Paul and given a Christian spiritual interpretation: “all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank from the spiritual rock that followed them, and the rock was Christ,” (1 Corinthians 10:4).
Do you find Paul’s interpretation surprising in that it declares that Christ was with the Israelites? You won’t find that in the book of Exodus, but it is an essential Christian belief. God is always the Holy Trinity so the Father, Son and Spirit must have been with the people of Israel even if they didn’t understand that. Furthermore, the stores of the Hebrew Scripture and interpreted as pre-figuring Christianity. So in the passage Paul connects the Exodus to both baptism and communion.
I like the idea that Christ gives us spiritual refreshment. There are days when life seems like a pointless wandering in the wilderness. Christ gives us the nourishment we need in our life’s journey. I couldn’t get by without the life-giving water that is Christ,
Read John 4:13-14 and remember: God loves YOU unconditionally.
Edith was 97 years old when she died. I knew her primarily at the communion rail, where when I would present her with the Blood of Christ, she would look me straight in the eye, give me a big smile and murmur “Amen” or sometimes “Thank you.” The smile was a radiant morning gift.
It was another gift to attend her memorial service, a true celebration of her life. The loving testimonies given by her son, her daughter-in-law, great nephew and friends and Pastor’s thoughtful sermon solidified my belief that Edith was a special person with a faith strong enough to overcome any obstacle and still come out with a smile and have a positive impact on others.
One might think that with this sunny disposition, Edith had had an easy life. Not so. Her father abandoned the family when she was just a small child. Her mother re-married and her new husband adopted her brother, but not her. At nine years old, she had to move from her home and go to live with an aunt, who thankfully was kind, loving and caring. However, that experience is very traumatic for a child.
I learned a lot about Edith at that service. Enough to make me regret not getting to know her better while she walked the earth and enough to affirm my belief that the practice of faith in our loving God is the most important action that I can take. Total dependence and surrender to God are the answers for all the events in my life.
I want to share Edith’s favorite poem with you. It is not theological in nature; but is more profound than you would expect from the title. The author is unknown.
Smiling Smiling is infectious, You catch it like the flu, When someone smiled at me today, I started smiling too.
I passed around the corner And someone saw me grin; And when he smiled I realized I’d passed it on to him.
I thought about the smile a lot And realized its worth; A single smile like mine, or yours, Could travel round the Earth.
So if you feel a smile begin, Don’t leave it undetected; Let’s start an epidemic quick And get the world infected.
Edith’s smile was infectious. I know that God is smiling on all of us because we are His children and He loves us unconditionally!
Several hundred years ago in England . . . . . the custom of the handshake began. It conveyed being unarmed. Indira Gandhi once said, “you can’t shake hands with a closed fist”.
Some ethnic or cultural differences are known. In Japan, you bow. The Chinese “pump”. Middle Eastern? Dead fish. Orthodox Jews and Kuwaitis? For men only. In Western societies, to not shake someone’s hand is rude and insulting. We could also be like the French or follow Scripture where is says, “greet one another with a holy kiss”. We are a congregation that shares the peace in worship, just before the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper. Its intention is not ‘hey, where are you going for brunch”? Or “how about those Yankees?” It is being reconciled in Christ and to one another with contrite, penitent heart if we have wronged or harmed our neighbor, our Christian brother or sister. During Covid – and even since – respect should be given to anyone who does not wish or feel comfortable with even a handshake.
When we receive the Eucharist, we are encouraged to place our hands, one on top of the other, thereby making a “cradle” for Christ. Hand sanitizers, even gloves, will never subvert our Lord’s radical hospitality. God does his work through our hands, sometimes with a firm handshake accompanied with a light touch on the forearm. Whatever gesture conveys the peace, love, grace, and unconditional love of God done with humility and authenticity is pleasing and acceptable in God’s sight.
Remember the little poem we learned in grade school., “30 days hath September, April, June and November.” Actually, that has come in handy many times throughout my life. In any event, today we complete the month of September. For us Floridians, that means we’re getting closer to cooler temperatures and refreshing breezes.
By far our most “refreshing breeze,” is the Holy Spirit. It’s a gentle breeze that fills us with joy and peace. No matter our current circumstances or discouragement, with the presence of the Holy Spirit we have hope. “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope.” Romans 15:13
Be refreshed; be filled with hope; be wrapped in the unconditional love of God.
Joy Lutheran Church Ocala, Florida 