Bible

White Stones

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / Leave a comment

“Whoever has ears, let them hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To the one who is victorious, I will give some of the hidden manna. I will also give that person a white stone with a new name written on it, known only to the one who receives it” (Revelation 2:17, NIV).

I learned something interesting recently. When the Romans were building their roads, sometimes they used small white stones known as either tiger eyes or cat’s eyes in between the larger stones. The purpose was for those smaller white stones to reflect the moonlight at night to help people see where they were walking at night.

I don’t ever want to be guilty of reading too much into any biblical text or seeing something that isn’t there, but I wonder if there’s a connection. If the white stones were guideposts along the road, then someone with a white stone would be able to help others find their way to God.

I remember that Jesus told us that we were the light of the world and a city on a hill that can’t be hidden. When we live out of the overflow of God’s provision and in accordance to His will, we reflect God to those around us and help those who are lost find their bearings and their way.

Just as the moon doesn’t generate its own light but only reflects the light of the sun, so we don’t in our own strength or wisdom lead people but only so far as the image and light of God is reflected in us and through us. That only comes through surrender and obedience.

When the people of God truly live out their calling, they don’t point people to themselves or to their impressive churches or activities but to the awesome power of God who meets us where we are but doesn’t leave us that way.

Fix Your Eyes

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / Leave a comment

“Fix your eyes on the rising Morning Star. Don’t be disappointed at anything or over elate, either. Live every day as if the Son of Man were at your door, and gear your thinking to the fleeting moment. Just how can it be redeemed? Walk as if the next step would carry you across the threshold of Heaven. Pray. That saint who advances on his knees never retreats.”

Those were words quoted by Jim Elliott to his 15-year old sister Jane. These words still ring true in this day and age, long after Jim was martyred for his faith by the people he was trying to reach for Christ.

These words seem like a real Christianity as opposed to the emasculated form of niceness that passes for faith these days. If you read the words of the saints of old, you realize just how far the bar has fallen for the American churches.

But ultimately it’s not about us now versus us then. It has always been about fixing our eyes on Jesus, the Morning Star and the Author and Finisher of our faith. That’s always been the true litmus test of faith — following Jesus and obeying His words, no matter what.

May that be true of those of us who claim the name of Christians.

Why Church?

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / Leave a comment

Church is not about worship. I mean that anybody can worship at anytime in any place. You can worship God by yourself.

What church is about is worshipping corporately. It’s about gathering together in community because we are better together than we are apart. We are stronger together than we are apart. The old saying is true that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

I believe that in Acts 2 when the Holy Spirit came upon the early believers, He empowered and indwelled the collective church. That means that where two or more or gathered, Jesus is there and there is power — more power than if we each prayed or worshipped or read the Bible separately.

I also still believe that it’s more about being the church rather than going to church. Church isn’t a place or a time or an event that we participate in but it is us. We together are the church who meet together regularly because we need each other and we need God most of all.

The Bible never gives a reason for any of us to neglect the assembling together of believers. At least, I can’t find any good reason. When we isolate ourselves from the body, we open ourselves to falling into temptation and wrong beliefs. We are more easily prone to wander away from the Church and the truth.

I love the old joke that if you ever find the perfect church, don’t go there because you will mess it up. There are no perfect churches because there are no perfect people. There is only a perfect God who meets us where we are and leads us daily closer to being more like Jesus.

Broken Crayons

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / Leave a comment

Have you heard the saying that broken crayons still color? It’s true.

It’s also true that God uses broken people to bring out the colors in the world. Those, and not the perfectly whole people, are the ones God favors to work in and to work through.

God uses wounded healers because He is a wounded healer. He still bears the scars from His wounds by which we were healed.

Those marks on His hands and feet are to remind us that we weren’t healed and saved to bask in our deliverance, but to turn around and help others find healing. We have been reconciled through shed blood in order to facilitate a ministry of reconciliation based on the Prince of Peace.

Gideons and the Gospel

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / Leave a comment

I had a random flashback of a memory from me as a child sitting in a church pew with a Gideons Bible in my grubby little hands. I was decked out in my Sunday best, which for an 8-year old means my most uncomfortable clothes. I still recall the look and feel of that Gideons Bible. To this day, I still remember how in the front pages of the Bible in bold letters was John 3:16 translated into all the known languages.

That little memory apparently has stuck with me through a lot of transitions and changes in my life. I think now I understand more of what it means than I did then.

It means that God so loved the world. Not just the people who think and act like me. Not only the people with my skin color and language and ethnicity.

God so loved all the nations and ethnic groups in all the world with all their various languages and dialects that He gave His one and only Son, so that whoever from anywhere in the world, no matter how dark or light their skin, who believes in Him should not perish but have full and abundantly everlasting life.

That included 8-year old me with the grubby little hands sitting in that church pew way back when. That includes anyone and everyone ever born into this world. No one is exempt from this saving grace. No one gets left out.

The only prerequisite is faith. Whosoever believes in Him, to use the old King James word, will not perish.

That’s still good news to me 38 years later, with all the knowledge and life lessons I’ve obtained through the years. That simple verse keeps coming back to me, reminding me that I never outgrow my love of and need for the gospel that saved me back in the day.

Camping Out in the Gospels

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / Leave a comment

After several years of reading through the Bible in different translations, I decided to swerve off the well-trodden path and do something a little different. I’m reading through the Gospels in 2018.

I’m using the NIV Harmony of the Gospels, which instead of presenting each Gospel separately, puts parallel passages side by side and puts the story in narrative order. For example, the birth narrative starts with Luke’s introduction, John’s description of Jesus as the eternal Word of God, the genealogies of Jesus, the story of Zechariah and Elizabeth and the conception of John the Baptist, and so forth.

I’m looking forward to rediscovering Jesus, free of all the political baggage that has been placed on Him from both the right and the left, conservatives and liberals alike. I have a feeling that Jesus said something at some point that both sides would deem offensive.

I want to fully embrace Jesus as both 100% man and 100% God (and not 50-50). I want to know Emmanuel, God with us. My plan is to read through the Gospels as many times as I can this year and let Scripture speak for itself.

If you’re interested in the book I’m using, you can pick up a copy here:

https://www.amazon.com/NIV-Harmony-Gospels-Robert-Thomas/dp/0060635231/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1516593638&sr=8-1&keywords=the+niv+harmony+of+the+gospels

 

 

Longing for the Word

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / 1 Comment

“Christians are persons who no longer seek their salvation, their deliverance, their justification in themselves, but in Jesus Christ alone. They know that God’s Word in Jesus Christ pronounces them guilty, even when they feel nothing of their own guilt, and that God’s Word in Jesus Christ pronounces them free and righteous even when they feel nothing of their own righteousness…

Because they daily hunger and thirst for righteousness, they long for the redeeming Word again and again. It can only come from the outside. In themselves they are destitute and dead. Help must come from the outside; and it has come and comes daily and anew in the Word of Jesus Christ, bringing us redemption, righteousness, innocence, and blessedness. But God put this Word into the mouth of human beings so that it may be passed on to others. When people are deeply affected by the Word, they tell it to other people. God has willed that we should seek and find God’s living Word in the testimony of other Christians, in the mouths of human beings. Therefore, Christians need other Christians who speak God’s Word to them. They need them again and again when they become uncertain and disheartened” (Dietrich Bonhoeffer).

One question: when last did you long for the word of God? When did you last hunger and thirst for Scripture?

These are questions not meant to guilt you into picking up your Bible, but to gauge where you and I are spiritually. I know for me if the Bible is the last thought in my mind when I have some down time, it means that I am in a spiritually vulnerable place.

May God grant each of us a desire for His word that outweighs all other appetites, even physical ones, so that we can search the pages of His word and find Him there.

Amen.

 

My Read Thru the Bible in 2017 Update

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / Leave a comment

My quest to read through the Bible in 2017 finds me in the book of Joshua. So far, I see that God has established a people who are in the process of becoming a nation while claiming the promised land.

I’ve noticed two things– 1) These people seem to go out of their way to screw up and to disobey what God has decreed, even when they’ve learned from numerous experiences that God’s ways are always best. 2) God continues to be patient with His people, though not always letting the people’s rebellion slide.

At first glance, it’s easy to be come frustrated with the people of Israel. Why can’t they just do what God says the first time and save a lot of trouble and heartbreak?

The more I look at these people, the more I see myself mirrored back. Why is it that I have such a reluctance to do what I clearly know God is asking of me? Why do I have such a tendency toward disobedience and outright rebellion?

Maybe the real question is this– why is God so patient with me after all the times I’ve given Him no reason to? Why is God still pursuing a love relationship with me when all I seem to do is respond with anything but love?

God’s people continue to be an imperfect representation of God and His Kingdom. We’ve gotten it wrong far more than we’ve ever gotten it right. We’ve made it far more complicated than it needs to be to get to God as we’ve set up way too many obstacles between people and God.

Still, we’re a broken people trying to figure out what it means to follow and serve God individually as well as corporately. We’re a work in progress that thankfully remains in progress not because we deserve it but because God has promised to finish what He started in us.

Now back to those meddling Israelites.

 

The Church as a Refuge

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / Leave a comment

I’ve been thinking lately about the whole refugee crisis. I’ve also been putting some thought into what my pastor said about the church being a refuge. Who better than to show hope to refugees than people whom the Bible calls aliens and strangers in this world who await a coming Kingdom?

The body of believers should be a place where people can go to escape from the fallout from the lies that society tells people about finding inner peace and fulfillment through outward change.

It should be where people go to find God and find the hope of salvation offered in the person of Jesus Christ, not more condemnation for lifestyle choices. It should be where spiritual transformation happens and not mere behavior modification.

I noticed today that when Jesus talked to the woman at the well, He didn’t force her to change her lifestyle before He offered the living water to her. He didn’t make her go end her relationship with the man she was living with who was not her husband.

He simply offered her a gift that would change her life forever if she took it. After all, it’s the Gospel that changes people. It’s what changes peoples’ hearts, which in turn leads to changed lives.

The Church has been guilty of putting up barriers between people and the Gospel almost from the very beginning. The people who need Jesus and the Gospel most are often the ones who feel the least welcome inside our doors.

The Gospel is for everyone. Thus, the Church is for everyone.

 

Refugees

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / Leave a comment

One of the most disturbing trends is how quick people are to react on social media to news events without taking in all the facts. I completely agree with Denzel Washington’s statement that if you don’t read (and watch) the news, you’re uninformed, and if you do, then you’re misinformed.

That being said, I don’t have a position on the current refugee situation. I don’t know all the details and I don’t necessarily trust all the news reports and how much they decide to include or leave out.

I do know a few things that have been on my mind lately.

I do know that God has a special place in His heart for the poor, the orphan, and the widow. God blesses those who look after the least of these. It’s all over the Bible.

I also know that every refugee is someone’s daughter or son or brother or sister or mother or father. Every single one is a person that Jesus loves and for whom Jesus died.

I remember that the Bible says that one time I was an alien and a stranger to the promise of God’s kingdom, but now I who was far away have been brought near. I truly believe that no one should be denied hearing the gospel of Jesus because of where they were born or what ethnicity they are or what language they speak or the color of their skin.

I remember that God told His people that He desires mercy above sacrifice.

I know that refugees are human beings and not a statistic that we can shut off or deny. The Christlike response is never one of fear or alienation.

I see the Statue of Liberty and I see the part written about giving her the poor, the wretched, those longing to be free.

I’m sure that people on both sides of the issue have valid arguments. I just can’t get away from how the grace of God is not limited to certain races or nationalities or cultures or people groups. It’s for all. It’s for everywhere.

Take it however you want. I’m too tired at this point to make lucid applications at this point. Well, maybe one. If you were the least of these how would you want to be treated. Better yet, how did Jesus treat you when you were one of the least of these.

Then go and do the same.