GUEST POST FROM NICK STEPHENS

"Letting go"

This guest post is from a friend, Nick Francis Stephens, a good friend and chief cultural architect of a new kind of church called Mosaic Lancaster.

 

I was walking through a local park the other day enjoying the preseason temperature highs and I peered up into the still barren trees.  I swear, if they could utter a sound, it was as if you could hear them longing to be fully clothed again.  Just then I spotted one tree specifically.  

It stuck out not because it was bear but rather because it was scarcely dressed, only it wasn’t new foliage covering the naked limbs it was the leaves of the autumn passed.

I find it interesting that during the shifting winds of autumn none of us find it odd to watch the leaves drop. We recognize that it isn't unordinary as the upcoming winter approaches, yet during the spring months you have to agree, it's quite inappropriate.
 
I wonder how many of us find ourselves unable to embrace a new season, desperately clinging on to things of our past.  Perhaps we are clinging because of fear, or past hurt, just unable to let go. Even though we find ourselves paralyzed, embarrassed by our naked souls, we exert more energy trying to hold on to that which will never cover us or bring back our full glory.

Yet still others of us are actually held in the same dilemma out of the good things in our past.  We live day after day trying to re-create old memories, yet with an outcome that only leaves us more and more empty.

 Afraid that we will never find wholeness again, we refuse to adventure into a new season with an anticipation of wholeness and regeneration.

Don’t be afraid of a new season.  We all have to face winters in our life but if we are not willing to let the seasons pass, we are destined to live cold empty lives.  I know that you will be pleasantly encouraged to know a new season of life, joy and faith awaits you.  It’s ok to let go.  It’s really the only thing that we can do if we dare to live and love again.

ARE YOU A FRIEND OF GRACE?

 "You are salt of the earth ... You are the light of the world ..." - Matthew 5:12-16

Just in case you’re not on FACEBOOK I am sharing some new photos from Lynn Byers, our missionary in Haiti. Lynn is serving as a charge nurse in Adventiste Hospital in Port-au-Prince. She is living indeed as an authentic disciple on mission for Jesus. We pray regularly for this daughter of the church.
Many people admire Lynn, as well they should. We live in a constantly changing, difficult world. It is hard and harsh and unforgiving. It is no friend of grace.  Yet we who live by grace know that we need to be the friends of grace to hurting people all around us.
Have you spent time this Lenten season reflecting on your calling from God?  Last week at BURN we challenged the students to be salt and light. Salt is no good if it stays in the salt shaker.  You have to engage.  Light is at its best not in a room blazing with light but in a room where darkness predominates.  Even a small light will pierce the darkness.
Haddon Robinson once wrote an excellent book on the Sermon on the Mount called The Christian Salt and Light Company. From his reflections we see that being salt and light is a lifestyle that is intentional, strategic, and committed.  Lynn has chosen just such a lifestyle. Intentional she had worked to from a heart filled with compassion.  Strategically she has followed God’s prompting into a place of great darkness.  Her commitment has led her to set aside a solid, well-paying job at a hospital stateside, living in the tenuous and sometimes frustrating world of a third world hospital out post.  She speaks of it matter-of-factly and with passion.  And you can see the joy in her eyes.
So again, my challenge to each of us. Understanding that your call to take up your cross and follow Jesus may not take you out of the country. It may not place you in a place of poverty-compelled simplicity.  But if you are committed to intentionally following God’s leading, your work for Him will be strategic. It will be the place where someone’s deep need and God’s powerful transformation intersect and you will be the agent of eternal life change.

Don’t you deep down desire to be that friend of grace that you have experienced God’s grace to be?

TESTING

Reading: 2 Corinthians 13:5-7

I have spent a whole lot of my 60 years going to school.  12 years for elementary through high school. Four years of college. Three years of seminary. Another almost 7 working on my Doctor of Ministry.  That doesn't even count continuing education.

In the formal educational process students are constantly being evaluated. What are your learning? Is it right things about the truly important things? How much have you learned?  Have you really learned so it has become a part of you?

Generally that evaluation took the form of either tests or papers.  I'll let you on a little secret. When given the choice, I always chose papers.  Even when I was working from a tightly prescribed set of questions, I found that papers (although longer to complete than a test to take) were better learning experiences and better measures of whether I understood something.  Tests often were merely proof of the current state of my memory.  And the pressure for tests we generally unpleasant.

To this day when I teach I lean towards papers rather than tests for my students.

People don't like tests, but tests are a necessary part of life - and ironically, of our spiritual life. Paul writes to the Corinthians:

Examine yourselves to see whether you are in the faith; test yourselves. Do you not realize that Christ Jesus is in you—unless, of course, you fail the test? 6 And I trust that you will discover that we have not failed the test. 7 Now we pray to God that you will not do anything wrong. Not that people will see that we have stood the test but that you will do what is right even though we may seem to have failed."

Lent is a time of self-testing. Of examining our lives up against the call and the Cross of Jesus Christ.  When we accepted his gift of salvation, we also committed to living the transformed life he makes possible.

Living in faith is the bottom line of new life in Christ. Take some time and examine yourself.  Can people see Jesus in me?

           

LIFT HIGH THE CROSS - MEDIATIONS FOR LENT 2011

The season of Lent begins tomorrow with the observance of Ash Wednesday. Since the fourth century Christians have used the 40 days before Easter (excluding Sundays) to fast and pray, read God's Word and reflect, examine their lives in light of the work of Jesus Christ on the Cross. Self-examination and confession ... repentance and renewal ... rededication to live as Christ's authentic disciples ... lives worthy of the price of the Cross.

This Lenten season I will be sharing periodic devotions on the theme LIFT HIGH THE CROSS. Let us lift high the Cross - the historic reality of Christ's actual death for our sins and let His resurrection Spirit teach us what we need to know about ourselves.

Lift High The Cross Hymn

Refrain

Lift high the cross, the love of Christ proclaim,

Till all the world adore His sacred Name.

Led on their way by this triumphant sign,

The hosts of God in conquering ranks combine.

Refrain

Each newborn servant of the Crucified

Bears on the brow the seal of Him Who died.

Refrain

O Lord, once lifted on the glorious tree,

As Thou hast promised, draw the world to Thee.

Refrain

So shall our song of triumph ever be:

Praise to the Crucified for victory.

Refrain

THE HOPE THAT DOES NOT DISAPPOINT US

Reading: 1 Peter 1:3,13

Phillies fans are ecstatic, at least the one fan in my Early Morning Bible Study. Cliff Lee is back in Philadelphia. The Yankee fans are bummed, including the two in my Bible study. The other two uncommitted were nonplussed. I am a Tigers fan who had no expectation of landing Lee. I am just grateful that he is no longer with the Rangers. We'll have to get to World Series to need to worry about Cliff Lee's ridiculously low ERA. (Side note: The Tigers did rough him up for 2 runs in yesterday's spring training contest.)

It is amazing how in the sports world a single player can be identified with tremendous hope. Persons who want to see victory or World Series rings or Super Bowl trophies or World Cups need hope in order to function. Unfortunately it doesn't always turn out that way. (Think Donovan McNabb and Washington Redskins or Brett Farve and New York Jets).

Sports fans(atics) are not the only people who require hope to function. Consider these quotes:

~ To keep a lamp burning, we have to keep putting oil in it. ~Mother Theresa

~ Beware how you take away hope from any human being. ~Oliver Wendall Holmes

~ He who loses money, loses much; He who loses a friend, loses much more; He who loses faith, loses all. ~Eleanor Roosevelt

~ Hope begins in the dark, the stubborn hope that if you just show up and try to do the right thing, the dawn will come. You wait and watch and work: you don't give up. ~ Annie Lamont

~ Hope is necessary in every condition. The miseries of poverty, sickness and captivity would, without this comfort, be insupportable. ~Samuel Johnson

~ To eat bread without hope is still slowly to starve to death. ~Pearl S. Buck

The Christian faith is all about hope. From its roots in the Old Testament come these words: "The faithful love of the Lord never ends! His mercies never cease. Great is his faithfulness; his mercies begin afresh each morning. I say to myself, “The Lord is my inheritance; therefore, I will hope in him!” - Lamentations 3:19-24

From the New Testament these: "In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead .. Therefore, prepare your minds for action; be self-controlled; set your hope fully on the grace to be given you when Jesus Christ is revealed." - 1 Peter 1:3,13

A Christian lives in hope. Not because they want to win but because their lives have been transformed. A Christian believes that despite any short-coming, past failures, ever present sin - that their lives can be new, holy and whole, and eternal because Jesus Christ came into the world and delivered them from sin's penalties and powers by His death on the Cross. And that hope is firmly embedded when he walked out of the Tomb.

This is not a motivation idea for a Christian. It is a reality rooted in an actual historic event. And it is a hope that is further confirmed when we see Christ at the end of this life and this world. Long before Christ, a prophet named Isaiah declared: "but those who hope in the LORD will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint." - Isaiah 40:31

Genuine Christians are people who possess a living hope in their relationship with Christ and whose lives are shaped by that hope to bring hope to others.

(C) 2011 by Stephen L Dunn

This originally appeared as a post on LIFE MATTERS.  March 2, 2011

ULTIMATELY, FAITH WORKS

ULTIMATELY, FAITH … WORKS

 

Reading: James 2:18

Two kinds of Christians undermine the witness of the Body of Christ.  The first are people who believe that faith is defined by believing in a set of doctrinal propositions and focusing on that belief as their “ticket to heaven.”  A right set of beliefs is more important than actions that reflect those beliefs.

The second is the group of Christians who still embrace the world’s evaluative standard of “what’s in it for me?”  They are often looking for a method or program that will make them happy. And they want to find such a solution that costs them as little as possible.

“Now someone may argue, “Some people have faith; others have good deeds.” But I say, “How can you show me your faith if you don’t have good deeds? I will show you my faith by my good deeds.” – James 2:18, New Living Translation

Ultimately faith works. By that I don’t mean faith is simply effective for coping with living. I mean faith, if it is true faith, works.

The world is concerned with tangible benefits. But tangible almost always has to do with material things.  A place in my Father’s House in the future is a tangible thing, and rightly so. But if it makes me so heavenly minded that I stop worrying about those who are poor and oppressed on this planet, or those whose lives are a shambles on this side of eternity, then I have lost the true meaning of Jesus’ words, “I am my Father are one.”

If all faith is to me is a means to make life easier on this planet, then I will be loath to put those tangible benefits at risk to share my faith or to lay down my life for a friend.  I will never choose the way of sacrificial servanthood.

Ultimately faith works.  It takes what it believes and daily applies it to the utmost to do what Jesus came to earth to do and commissioned us to do until he returns.  Truth faith is neither a set of beliefs or a set of tools. True faith is a lifestyle that reflects what Jesus would have us to do.

(C) 2011 by Stephen L. Dunn

This was originally posted on one of my other blogs EYES WIDE OPEN on February 10, 2011

RISING PRICES

 

 

Photo from Laura Beth Meier

Reading: Luke 12:27-31

I almost filled the tank of Dianne's Saturn.  She has been driving very infrequently. The price, which had been rising for several weeks was $3.29 per gallon. Thursday is the day prices change in my area.  The optimist in me said, "Surely, it'll be down at least a nickel."  But I was busy talking to the man at the pump next to me who was filling his truck again. "I filled this yesterday for $75."  I was about to ask why again so soon when I realized my pump had reached the $36 tally, but her car was now full.

"Oh well," I shrugged.

Later that day I got my heating oil bill. The tank had been filled barely 40 days ago and this bill was for $445. The signs were growing ominous.

This morning (still not Thursday) the pump price at the Weiss on Stony Battery Road hit $3.45.  

Good thing I "forgot" and left the pump running on Saturday.

Ever feel like you have no control over your life.  As frugal as I true to be to save pennies, all those savings disappear with one jump at gas pump.  I fortunately still have two cars that get 35-38 miles per gallon. My heart goes out to the guy with the truck.  I can walk to work if necessary (as long as I don't have to go anywhere else) and the church pays my work mileage.  Yet I still have less control over my expenses than I earnestly to have. Fortunately the yogurt I have for lunch still only costs 50 cents and McDonalds sells me coffee for a buck. But the co-pay on my blood sugar medicine keeps going up.

It's hard not to feel like a yo-yo when it comes to finances.

In a world where rising prices, and Middle East upheaval, and high taxes (and now rising grocery prices), I am still reminded that my life is in God's hand and He has promised to see that my family and I are provided for.  I just need to be obedient to His will, a good steward of what I am provided with, and focused on my kingdom work.  He will not let us sink.

"Seek the Kingdom of God above all else, and he will give you everything you need." 

- Luke 12:31 NLT

(C) 2011 by Stephen L Dunn