Prevented!

Posted on January 15, 2008 by Henry Neufeld

6They went through the Phrygian and the Galatian region, because the Holy Spirit prevented them from speaking the word in Asia. 7When they came up to Mysia, they attempted to enter Bythinia, but the Holy Spirit wouldn’t let them. — Acts 16:6-7

This morning I had the privilege of spending some time with my two granddaughters, my cat, and my dog. The cat doesn’t come into this, but the dog does, so we might as well have the complete census!

At one point during the morning I took the girls outside, and I let the dog come along with us. Now Barnabas is not entirely reliable outside. He’ll head for the horizon if you give him a chance. So I watched him very closely. For a period of time he played around in the yard, but then he decided he wanted to head on up the driveway. I positioned myself between him and the driveway, and watched from there.

Now there is plenty of yard for him to play in. But he sat down in front of me waiting for me to move. Then he jumped up and tried to run around to the right. When that didn’t work he watched me for a few minutes again. Then he jumped up and tried to run around to the left.

In all the time we were there he didn’t give up. He wasn’t interested in any other piece of the outdoors but that driveway. He went back into the house a frustrated little dog. He probably thought I had totally ruined all of his fun for the day.

As I watched him I started to think of our spiritual lives, and after a bit I thought of our everyday lives and our ministries. How many times have I behaved like Barnabas, running up against the thing that God is preventing me from doing, and refusing to look at any other options, because I just know that the only joy in the universe lies behind the locked door or the blocked path?

Paul was in such a situation. He wanted to go preach the gospel in Asia. Preaching the gospel is a good thing, isn’t it? The province of Asia needed to hear the gospel, didn’t they? So why is the Holy Ghost preventing Paul and his companions from going there?

But Paul didn’t keep pushing it. He decided to try Mysia, but that didn’t work either. As we continue to read the story, Paul was called to bring the gospel across into Europe.

We have a choice when doors are shut and paths are blocked. We can be like my dog Barnabas and figure the way to true joy has been denied to us. Or we can keep looking for the door that God has opened.

Who knows what God may have for you behind that other door!

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Kingdom Petition Cycle

Posted on January 14, 2008 by Henry Neufeld

1I put my hope in YHWH,
He paid attention to me and heard my cry.
2He drew me out of the desolate pit,
From the miry clay.
3He put my feet on a rock,
He made my footsteps sure.
4He put a new song in my mouth,
Praise to our God.
5Many saw it and were awed,
and put their trust in YHWH.
6Happy is the man,
Who finds his security in YHWH. — Psalm 40:1-6

Sometimes the simplest things strike us. I was reading this passage again today. I’ve been reading it each day for several days now, but it didn’t strike me until this morning. When it did, I went and read it in Hebrew, and there I found my notes with the same thoughts from July of 2002.

It’s really pretty simple, but it’s also profound. Look at what happens. The psalmist puts his hope in the Lord, he cries out, and the Lord hears him. That’s all verse 1. Verses 2 & 3 relates his salvation, how he experiences God’s action in his life. He’s removed from dire danger and made to feel secure.

Then he praises and gives testimony (verse 4). Indeed, praising the Lord is testimony. When we let it be known publicly that we have prayed and have been heard, that’s both praise and testimony.

When we testify, people see it, and they are changed as well (v. 5). That way more people are led to put their trust in the Lord, and therefore to cry out to him, be heard, be taken to a place of safety, and testify again, which takes us right back to the first verse.

Now notice how petitions, seemingly something I ask for myself, also builds up God’s kingdom. This is the simplicity of God’s rule of sowing and reaping for his kingdom. You plant the seed and it multiplies. The kingdom is like yeast in a loaf, and it grows and produces fruit.

Many, many times people tell me that they don’t know how to pray, to share their faith, or to give a testimony. But if you put your trust in the Lord, then prayer is simply letting him know your needs. Sharing your faith or your testimony is simply telling someone else what happened. And if you’re having trouble getting in the mood to praise, just remember what God did for you, and you’ll have something to praise him about.

Too often we think praise and worship is about the sound system, the musical instruments, and gifted musicians who help us sing songs that others have written. All that’s good. But what is more important is the testimony and praise that comes out of experience.

Jesus said, “A sower went out to sow . . .” (Mark 4:3)

You be the sower!

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Thank God for Other People

Posted on January 10, 2008 by Henry Neufeld

Note:  This is actually Friday morning’s devotional.  I accidentally punched “Publish” early. You can save it for tomorrow morning!

4I thank my God for you all the time, because of God’s grace that has been given to you in Christ Jesus. 5In every way you have been enriched in him, with every message and knowledge, 6as the testimony of Christ has become established among you, 7so that you don’t lack any spiritual gift, as you wait for the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ. — 1 Corinthians 1:4-6

“I just thank God for you!”

I’ve heard that statement a few times, some of them even in reference to me, more of them in reference to Jody. It’s an easy thing to say, really, though we probably don’t say it often enough. Paul, in his letters, generally has a thanksgiving at the beginning of the letter. In this case, Paul is writing to the Corinthians, and he is going to write some hard things, but he begins by thanking God for them. (He does skip that in Galatians, where he is so distraught at what’s happening, he just jumps right into the body of his letter.

I wonder what it would do to our relationships with one another if we not only thanked God for one another, but told other people more often that we are thankful to God for them. A soft answer turns away wrath, so perhaps a positive thank you makes things easier to take. We should practice thanking God for one another, and practice accepting that thanks graciously.

And there’s the point of this entire section—grace. Paul is thankful for the Corinthians because of what God’s grace is doing among them. He’s thankful for the functioning of God’s grace. If you are conscious of God when you thank someone, you will find it easier to speak that thanks to them. After all, it’s more like you are giving a testimony to God’s grace! If you find it hard to accept thanks from other people, you might need to do the same thing: Be conscious of God in your life. If you’re embarrassed at receiving thanks, be constantly aware that you would get nowhere without God.

Finally, both thanks as gifts are all about the kingdom. What you are doing is building the kingdom as you wait to meet Jesus again.

I thank God always for each reader of this devotional list, because I know the grace that God has given to you in Christ Jesus. He has made you spiritually rich, with every message and knowledge. The testimony of Jesus has been established among you. You don’t lack any spiritual gift. You’re ready for the mission God has given you as you wait for Jesus to appear.

Maranatha!

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Careful with Flickering Lights

Posted on January 10, 2008 by Henry Neufeld

1Here is my servant, the one I uphold.
My chosen one, in whom I deeply delight.
I have put my spirit on him,
so he can bring justice to the nations.
2He will not cry out,
He will not raise his voice,
His voice is not heard in the street.
3He doesn’t break a crushed reed,
He doesn’t snuff the faltering candlelight.
He presents justice faithfully. — Isaiah 42:1-3

Over the last couple of days I’ve talked about being chosen for a mission, to spread God’s love everywhere. Then I talked about hanging around with Jesus no matter where he goes, and remembering that his path went through the cross and the grave.

Now let’s look at being God’s servant. There are debates amongst scholars as whether this applies to Israel, to a remnant of Israel, or to Jesus. I’m going to answer that question—yes! It does all that and more. It applies also to the body of Christ, his church, and to the way we deal with other people in the world.

We are God’s witnesses. In Isaiah 43:10 God says this to Israel. We will be witnesses to what God has done, whether that witness is good or bad. When we take the name “Christian” what we do reflects on Jesus Christ.

I recall listening to the testimony of a young man who was my student. As he told about the moment he came to know Jesus Christ and accept him as savior and Lord he choked up. He was speaking before his church that day, and he came to me afterward to apologize. He thought he shouldn’t get so emotional. I said to him, “Look where you were, where you were going, and consider where you’re going now. Don’t you think it’s OK to get emotional about a thing like that?”

And we do indeed get emotional. God’s Spirit comes upon us and we get excited. Then we wonder why the person down the pew doesn’t get it. We’re at work and we wonder why our coworkers don’t get it. We can’t imagine why the heathen in distant lands don’t get it as soon as someone tells them. Sometimes we get angry. How can they be so stupid? So stubborn? That’s when we get into the business of breaking reeds and snuffing out flickering lights.

Let me relate this to my own experience. I recall having someone come to me with a new thought out of the Bible, something they had just discovered. When I first graduated, I was very quick to tell them precisely what I thought of their thought! If it was not technically accurate, I would point it out in detail. I didn’t do this because I wanted to step on them. I was just “telling them the truth!” They should be thankful. But then I would notice a disappointment. The light would go out of somebody’s eyes as I put out the flickering light of something they’ve heard.

I’ve tried to learn to “speak the truth in love.” Sometimes it’s appropriate to tell another person they are wrong in an interpretation, if it’s done gently and with grace. But there are other times when I ought to leave any needed correction to the Holy Spirit and to further study. If I don’t put out the flickering light, they will go back to the Bible with that same excitement looking for more light, and they may find out for themselves what was wrong—or I may.

But whether I correct or don’t, I have to be careful with the flickering light. You may have other areas where you’re called to share. Remember that even the love of Jesus can be shared in a way that’s attractive, or in a way that drives people away.

Take care of crushed reeds and flickering candles!

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Hanging Around Jesus

Posted on January 9, 2008 by Henry Neufeld

5For just as the sufferings of Christ overflow for us, so through Christ our comfort also overflows. 6If we are afflicted, it is for your comfort and salvation. 6If we are comforted, it is to provide you with comfort so that you can endure the same sufferings with patience. 7Our hope for you is firm, because we know that just as you share in suffering, so you also share in comfort. — 2 Corinthians 1:5-7

As I was considering writing about this verse, I asked myself if I have talked about suffering, hardship, and other “down” type stuff too much in these devotionals. Maybe I should be a bit more cheerful. But then I thought about how much talk there is about suffering through the Bible, and especially in talking about Jesus, and I decided to go ahead.

More important, however, than the amount of time the Bible spends in discussing suffering is this one fact: The Bible discusses suffering triumphantly. It’s always a matter of hope. In fact, Romans 6:1-11 touches on this whole issue and I think puts it in perspective. You should read the whole passage, but what it tells us is that we are buried with Christ in his death. But verse 8 gets right down to the point. If we die with Christ we are going to live with Christ as well. Wow!

Do you recall in school how certain children or young people were regarded as leaders, as people who were going places? What did many of the other students do? They would hang around that person. Well, you can think of being a Christian—a follower of Jesus—as the ultimate act of hanging around. We get so identified with Jesus that we go with him, right to the father’s side.

But at the same time we have to be willing to go with him wherever he goes. Sometimes that leader child or young person goes somewhere risky, and then the folks who want to hang around have a choice. Do you take the risk, or do you run away from the person you’ve been following? If you run away, something is lost.

And so it is with Jesus. We have to hang around him–”in him” is the Biblical phrase—all the time, for everything, good or bad. But the great news is that Jesus always comes out on top. He’s crucified, but he rises from the dead. Perhaps “you can’t keep a good man down” should be the motto of Christianity.

In our 2 Corinthians passage Paul is carrying this forward. We, as Christ’s body on earth, share in his sufferings, but we do it together. We learn how to comfort one another because we have gone through similar things.

We also learn to triumph together, because we are all hanging around—in Christ—and we’re all going where he’s going.

And that’s got to be good!

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God Loves Everybody

Posted on January 8, 2008 by Henry Neufeld

34Then Peter opened his mouth and said, “In truth I’m coming to understand that God doesn’t play favorites, 35but in every nationality the one who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him. 36He sent the message to the Israelites, proclaiming to them the good news of peace through Jesus Christ. It is over all that he [Jesus] is Lord. — Acts 10:34-36

Sometimes we need to be reminded of some very obvious things. It’s very easy in America, with our very personal view of Christianity and what it means to follow Christ, to forget that Jesus isn’t just our personal Lord, but that he is Lord of all.

What do I mean by thinking Jesus is just our personal Lord? Let’s look at where Peter was when all this started. Peter was witness to the life of Jesus. He knew that Jesus had died and risen again. But for Peter, up to this moment, that was all about him and his own people. Jesus was Lord, yes, but he was Lord only over Jewish people. Peter could feel special.

Now this wasn’t really what Judaism taught. The Jewish teachers understood quite well that they had been chosen for a mission, to be God’s servants. But it’s very easy when you’re chosen, to also get the idea that you’re special, and then to go from there to the idea that everyone else is somehow inferior.

Sometimes we read the Bible and we think, “How could those Israelites have been so stupid!” But if we do that, we’re being quite arrogant. There are hundreds of churches right here in America who are living the lives of the special. They are not called to serve; they are called to be special and to maintain themselves. Most of you have probably met some of them.

Peter was kind of feeling that way about himself. He was pretty special, so God had to shake him up a bit. He had a mission for Peter, and hanging around and being special wasn’t how it was going to work. So he let Cornelius, a gentile, know where Peter was, and then he gave Peter a most unsettling vision. Finally, he placed his Holy Spirit on a room full of gentiles. Ouch Peter! That’s getting pulled right out of your comfort zone in a hurry.

So here he is in front of the gentiles, and he tells them what he’s learning right as he speaks. Jesus is not just my Lord, or the Lord of my small group. Jesus is Lord of all. That means that Jesus cares about everyone and wants to reach them.

And that’s a big difference. I’m confident that the readers of this list will find this old stuff. God loves everybody, and we have a mission to share God’s love.

But perhaps every so often we need to be reminded that God is not just our God, but he’s the other person’s God as well. Perhaps that other person doesn’t know, and you’ll have the opportunity to introduce them. What a privilege!

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Monday Morning Devotion (Showing Off Righteously)

Posted on January 7, 2008 by Henry Neufeld

13Who is wise and learned among you? Let him show his deeds by his good behavior using gentle wisdom. — James 3:13

Christians are sometimes afraid to let anyone know what they’re doing because they might appear proud or self-righteous. Even worse, they might be or become proud and self-righteous, and that wouldn’t be good!

And there is indeed a temptation to become proud when we do well. We want to show others what we’re doing. But then we consider what Jesus had to say about not letting our right hand know what our left hand is doing (Matthew 6:1-4). Keeping your good deeds quiet is one way to avoid spiritual pride. But pride can pursue you even there. You can be proud without anybody knowing it. “I did that good deed without letting anyone know, just like Jesus told me to,” you say to yourself. “I bet Fred would have announced it from the rooftops!” And there you go again, with pride and self-righteousness.

You see how it goes? You can also get paranoid. Some of us are very anxious to claim humility. It was hard for me to learn to just say “Thank you” when someone would compliment me after a sermon or a lesson taught in class. When they’d say good things about my sermon, my first inclination was to downplay it, or to point out some of the glaring weakness I’d noticed. I didn’t have to make those up. I’m usually very aware of some mistakes in every sermon.

But that can become a form of pride as well. I tell people my mistakes so that they won’t think I’m proud. Then I get to be proud of my humility.

And round and round it goes . . .

I didn’t choose to borrow the translation from our verse, but the Revised English Bible translates the end of James 3:13 as “modesty that comes of wisdom.” I get the picture of someone who doesn’t have to toot his own horn, but doesn’t feel compelled to stick his hand in the mouth of the trumpet that someone else is tooting for him. (If you’ve played a horn in a band, you’ll probably get that picture. Block the air off quickly enough and you can actually hurt someone.)

So now I’ve learned to just say thank you when someone gives that compliment, but it was a struggle. What God is calling for is gentle wisdom—not overestimating ourselves, but not putting ourselves down. One good way to do that is to let others do the talking. Notice that the demonstration of character is in good behavior. We live our lives before others gently, wisely, and we don’t make a show of it. At the same time we do show what God is doing in us and has done for us.

Done with the “modesty that comes of wisdom” this will let us show “Christ in us” to the world without appearing, or being, self-righteous.

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Friday Morning Devotion (Too Important)

Posted on January 4, 2008 by Henry Neufeld

Note: I apologize for late posting. I got called away on a service call this morning.

13Then Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan River to John to get baptized by him. 14But John stopped him, and said, “I need to be baptized by you, yet you’re coming to me?” 15But Jesus answered, “Leave it for now, but this is appropriate to do the right thing completely. Then he let him. 16And when Jesus was baptized, as soon as he came up out of the water, the heavens were opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him. 17And there was a voice from heaven that said, “This is my much loved Son. I’m pleased with him.” — Matthew 3:13-17

All leaders are tempted from time to time by the “too important” syndrome. It might be the pastor who is too important to do some cleaning, or the teacher who is too important to take a beginning class. It may be the expert who is too important to read the latest safety warning. It might be the church member who is too important to go forward to the altar, lest he look like one of those sinners who need to repent.

Most of the time being “too important” only has minor effects. Somebody else will clean the church or teach the basic class. At other times things get more dangerous. The person who feels so righteous that he’s afraid to be seen praying in the front of a church may need to watch out for spiritual pride. A pilot who feels too important to follow a checklist would be a dangerous person indeed! Fortunately, every pilot I’ve ever encountered knows from experience that the checklist is critical.

So here’s Jesus, sinless, and a very important person if ever there was one, and he comes to John to be baptized. Now John has been preaching repentance, and then people get baptized. Their baptism symbolizes the change, the repentance, the new life on which they have embarked. So what’s Jesus doing getting baptized? John wanted to know. He held Jesus back. “No need for you to get wet, Jesus! You don’t need baptism. You don’t need to repent.”

But Jesus isn’t too important to get wet. He’s not too important to be dipped under the water by a rough, unsophisticated man named John.

Why did he do it?

Well, first, he did it because he is our example. We need to repent and be baptized, and so Jesus showed us the way. But there’s another point here. We also need to be examples to others. Some people may be just waiting for someone to lead the way. If you’re too important to go do something just so you can provide an example, is it possible you’ll hold someone else back?

Second, however, Jesus was and is our brother, and baptism isn’t just an individual thing in which I get forgiven. It’s about the church community, into which I’m born again as a new family member. Jesus wasn’t going to leave any chance that we would not recognize that he had lived as we are.

Let’s consider how we can be examples to others, and forget our own importance—such as it is!

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Thursday Morning Devotion (Forgiveness and Spiritual Safety)

Posted on January 3, 2008 by Henry Neufeld

9I wrote so that I could determine how you stood, whether you would be obedient in everything. 10But whoever you forgive, I will forgive as well. As one standing before Christ, I have forgiven that person, 11so that Satan will not get the better of us. We are not ignorant of his strategies. — 2 Corinthians 2:9-11

There are lots of reasons to forgive. One, of course, is to produce reconciliation and restore relationships. It is truly a time of joy when that happens. But often we cannot get full reconciliation. Sometimes one party or the other is not willing to take the steps necessary for forgiveness.

This is where things often get difficult. Should you forgive a person who is not sorry? What good is forgiveness for someone who hasn’t confessed, hasn’t sought reconciliation, and may not even hear of the forgiveness?

Paul forgives here, he says, so that we don’t give Satan opportunities. We know what Satan will do to take advantage of us, he tells us, so let’s not give him the opportunity. How is it that Satan gets an opportunity through unforgiveness?

  1. Unforgiveness blinds us. When we have a grudge against someone we are blinded to many possibilities. We cannot work with that person properly. We cannot respect them. On the other hand, whenever we act with caution toward them, we cannot know if we are exercising prudence or being vindictive.
  2. Unforgiveness focuses us on the wrong thing. If we were to look at our lives and our relationships objectively, I’m certain we would discover that we spend a disproportionate amount of energy being annoyed at people who have offended us in some way. That takes up our time and attention and prevents us from doing good things and thinking about things. It may even prevent us from hearing from God because we are not spending our time listening.
  3. Unforgiveness is emotionally draining. Emotions are useful elements of our thinking. They’re involved in our worship. They’re involved in our family relationships. Emotions drive us forward. We can’t live like Star Trek’s Spock. I frequently found myself laughing at the amount of emotion involved in Spock’s activities on the show, while he makes the pretence that he relies solely on logic.
  4. Unforgiveness tends to grow over time. A small initial hurt colors later relationships with the same person, or with others who have relationships with that person, and soon we are resenting more people more of the time. It’s like a cancer in the soul.
  5. Unforgiveness separates us from friends, loved ones, and fellow-members of Christ’s body. Have you noticed how you can resent the good relationship of a friend to someone you haven’t forgiven? Unforgiveness is a fellowship destroyer.

What do all of these five points have in common? They all give room to Satan, who wants to divide the body, drain you emotionally, keep you from hearing from God, and slowly take over your life. If he comes to you with the temptation to instantly start hating everyone in your church family, you’d say no. But through a little opportunity like your offense at just one member of the body, he can get the same result.

But only if you let him. Ask God for the grace to forgive today!

Note: A post on Jody’s devotionals was included in this week’s Christian Carnival CXCVI.

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Wednesday Morning Devotion (On Being a Good Alien)

Posted on January 2, 2008 by Henry Neufeld

1Oh God, endow the king with your justice.
Give the crown prince your righteousness.
2Let him judge your people in the right way,
and provide justice to the oppressed.
3May the mountains give your people peace,
And the hills provide righteousness.
4May he judge the poor among your people,
and save the children of the poor,
and may he crush the oppressor. — Psalm 72:1-4

At Christmas time we celebrate the gift of Jesus, who came as a baby into our world to face the problems that each one of us has to face. In our modern calendar, we put New Years day right after Christmas, which kind of breaks up the meditation of the season. Christmas day was only a start. It was not the whole mission of Jesus. Throughout the year we will meditate on various aspects of the life of Jesus and what they mean to us.

This coming Sunday is Epiphany. That’s not a day we remember nearly as much as we do other days in the calendar. It celebrates the visit of the wise men to Bethlehem. That visit brings Jesus into contact with the world’s rulers for the first time. Herod expresses interest in this new king. He tries to make it sound positive, but in fact he is very worried about this “king” who is showing up in his territory and attracting the attention of foreign VIPs! You can read the whole story in Matthew 2:1-12.

And this illustrates the way we live in this world. We are aliens in one sense, and yet we have to live here. We’re permanent resident aliens—permanent until Jesus comes! And that can make life interesting. There are a number of dangers for resident aliens. You can fall afoul of the laws of the country where you are a resident and get into considerable trouble. You can represent your homeland badly by your words or behavior. You can be so isolated that nobody in your country of residence even knows you.

My parents were missionaries most of their lives. We had the potential, as a missionary family to do all of those things. We could be “ugly Americans” and hurt the image of the United States in the country where we lived. At the same time, we could hurt the image of our eternal country, and our eternal King by that behavior. We could live in isolation and never get to know the local people, and that wouldn’t help either. On the other hand we could “go native” and forget where we came from. For me as a teenager living in Guyana, talking and eating like my Guyanese friends was fun and generally harmless, though some things made me feel like an alien when I returned to the United States for school. But if we “go native” as Christians living in this world, that’s a much bigger problem.

In the portion of the prayer I quoted from Psalm 72, the people pray for their king, in this case, the king of Israel. But I think their prayer is quite appropriate for aliens living in this world. The prayer is that the king will do justice, will get his sense of justice from God, and will care for the poor and oppressed. As aliens here, we have the right to participate in the life of this world, and to make it better—and it’s right for us to do so.

Here in the United States we’re coming up on primary season. Tomorrow the first votes of the presidential election season will be cast. Let’s pray for the folks who will come to govern us that they will receive a sense of justice from God, that they will rule and judge justly and righteously, and that they will care for the poor and the oppressed.

And let’s work for what we pray for as well—in whatever way God leads us to work.

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