Friday, December 27, 2013

Sin and Misery


Friday 12/27/2013 5:38 AM
I was born into a Christian home.  The church I attended was part of the Christian Reformed Church of North America denomination.  Every Sunday we attended a morning and evening worship service and Sunday school after the morning worship service.  During Sunday school the younger children learned Bible stories.  Once you got to middle school age we learned the Heidelberg Catechism, a document originally written in 1563 as a teaching tool and meant to provide unity among believers.  The Heidelberg Catechism was divided into fifty-two parts, called Lord’s Days, and was also used by pastors as a guide for preaching.  It was a way to assure that a pastor covered the full message of the Bible each year.  Each Lord’s Day consisted of questions and answers that were based upon the Bible.  As a catechumen I was required to memorize the questions and answers by rote.  When one came of age and wanted to profess their faith in God before the church, one would meet with the elders and they would ask questions from the Heidelberg Catechism that had to be answered adequately.
Forty-five years later I can still remember some of those questions and answers.

Q & A 1
Q.   What is your only comfort 
in life and in death?

A.    That I am not my own, 
but belong—
       body and soul,
in life and in death—
       to my faithful Savior, Jesus Christ.
       He has fully paid for all my sins with his precious blood, and has set me free from the tyranny of the devil. 
He also watches over me in such a way
that not a hair can fall from my head
without the will of my Father in heaven; in fact, all things must work together for my salvation.
      Because I belong to him, Christ, by his Holy Spirit, assures me of eternal life and makes me wholeheartedly willing and ready from now on to live for him.

Q & A 2
Q.   What must you know to live and die in the joy of this comfort?

A.    Three things: first, how great my sin and misery are; 
second, how I am set free from all my sins and misery; 
third, how I am to thank God for such deliverance.

Today my assigned scripture includes 1 Timothy 1:12-15.  Paul writes, “I thank Christ Jesus our Lord, who has given me strength, that he considered me trustworthy, appointing me to his service.  Even though I was once a blasphemer and a persecutor and a violent man, I was shown mercy because I acted in ignorance and unbelief.  The grace of our Lord was poured out on me abundantly, along with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus.  Here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners – of whom I am the worst.”  Paul was familiar with the content of Q & A 2 of the Heidelberg Catechism even though it had not yet been written.  Paul had led the charge against the early church, consenting to the stoning of Stephen and arresting followers of the Way for prosecution and death.  He even traveled to Damascus to arrest believers before being halted by God on the way there.  Paul knew the depth of his sin, he recognized that the grace of God in Christ Jesus had set him free from that sin, and he lived his life in gratitude before God because of it.
Sometimes I wonder if being raised in a Christian home and attending a Christian church my entire life is a disadvantage.  Paul recognized his need for God’s grace because he knew he was a blasphemer, a persecutor and a violent man.  I have a tendency to minimize the depth of sin in my own life.  When I compare my life to someone like Paul it is tempting to think I am better than he is.  After all, I don’t go around killing people.  I am not violent.  I don’t use drugs.  I don’t beat my wife.  I don’t defraud others, and so on.  If I do not know how great my own sin and misery is it is hard to recognize that I have a need for God’s grace and mercy and I am less likely to live a life of gratitude.  I am more likely to feel entitled to God’s grace because of my stellar character; God owes me some gratitude for being such a great role model for others.
I think I am not alone in this regard.  We in the broader Christian community tend to be judgmental.  We point out the sin in other people’s lives but fail to recognize the sin in our own.  This results in Christians being rightly characterized as hypocritical.  After Paul confesses to being the worst of sinners he continues with these words, “But for that very reason I was shown mercy so that in me, the worst of sinners, Christ Jesus might display his immense patience as an example for those who would believe in him and receive eternal life.”  If the Christian community knew how great their sin was we would be more humble and we, too, would display the patience of Christ to those who do not yet believe.

Thursday, December 26, 2013

Dry Ice Fog


Thursday 12/26/2013 7:23 AM
The other day we received a package for my daughter from Omaha Steaks.  It was packed in dry ice and I removed the meat from its Styrofoam container, put it in our freezer and discarded the dry ice in my front flowerbed.  The sublimation of the frozen carbon dioxide created a fog that sunk to the low spots in the flowerbed, a microclimate that interacted with the warmer air above.
The invocation in my devotional material this week is a prayer taken from The Pursuit of God, by A. W. Tozer.  It begins with these words, “Rise, O Lord, into your proper place of honor, above my ambitions, above my likes and dislikes, above my family, my health and even my life itself.  Let me decrease that you may increase, let me sink that you may rise above.”  I spent a lot of time over the past few days celebrating Christmas with my family that lives nearby.  I love my children, their spouses and my grandchildren very much.  We celebrated with good food and by reminiscing about days past, remembering God’s goodness to us.  This year’s Christmas celebration has been punctuated by sickness.  The stomach flu has been passed around from grandchild to grandchild and this morning brings news of Emily succumbing to the flu and round two of the flu for Trey.
The prayer above is a good reminder of two things.  My relationship with God and my love for him needs to supersede my love for my family and for my health.  In addition, if I sink like the fog in my flowerbed and allow God to rise, then any interaction I have with the world will be through God.  My harshness and cold-heartedness will be tempered by the love of God.  If that happens regularly it will be sublime for everyone involved.

Tuesday, December 24, 2013

Cultivating Gratitude


Tuesday 12/24/2013 6:58 AM
A couple of weeks ago I had a routine physical and, as a part of the physical, they did a blood test.  Last week I received the results of the test and discovered that my cholesterol level was low and that I was at a decreased risk of heart disease.  Needless to say, I was happy with the results and I attributed it to my habit of regular exercise.
This morning during my run I thought about it again.  Suddenly the theme of my devotions for the week came to mind, gratitude.  I thought about the thirty-six years that I have been running regularly and I realized that I don’t often thank God for that.  I pride myself in having the discipline to run but I seldom thank God for giving me the desire and the ability to do so.
One sentence from Prayer and the Common Life, by Georgia Harkness, convicted me this morning.  “It is a mark of religious insensitiveness that instead of grateful recognition of unworthiness to receive the gifts of God, there is so often acceptance without gratitude or contrition but with complaint when things go wrong.”  My call to prayer today is a good reminder for each day.  “We are admonished to thank God for all things.  St. James even says to be thankful for the trials and temptations.  A grateful spirit is not readily found, but must be cultivated.  Remember that every good thing comes from the Father.”  It's time to get out my hoe and do some cultivating.

Sunday, December 22, 2013

Dependence


Sunday 12/22/2013 6:56 AM
Jesus said that we need the faith of a child to enter the kingdom of heaven.  I have always thought of this as a strong belief that what God says is true.  The example I usually use is that of my son, Andy.  Within a three-month period my grandmother, a thirty-year-old neighbor and a forty-year-old neighbor all died.  The neighbors’ deaths were very unexpected.  Andy was probably about three at the time and he asked where the neighbors had gone.  I explained that they were in heaven with God.  That night during his nighttime prayer he said, “Dear God, have fun with great grandma Hugen, Pete and Mike.”  I said it; he believed it.  Case closed.  There were no questions, no trying to figure out the whys and the wherefores, just simple faith.
Today I read an excerpt from The Sacred Journey, by Frederick Buechner, in which he describes saving faith and its transforming power.  He suggests a different quality that is required, which is also a quality of children, that of being dependent upon others.  Buechner writes, “But when it comes to putting broken lives back together – when it comes, in religious terms, to the saving of souls – the human best tends to be at odds with the holy best.  To do for yourself the best that you have it in you to do – to grit your teeth and clench your fists in order to survive the world at its harshest and worst – is, by that very act, to be unable to let something be done for you and in you that is more wonderful still.  The trouble with steeling yourself against the harshness of reality is that the same steel that secures your life against being destroyed secures your life also against being opened up and transformed by the holy power that life itself comes from.  You can survive on your own.  You can grow strong on your own.  You can even prevail on your own.  But you cannot become human on your own.”
I have acquaintances that have been disappointed by others.  Some have parents who abandoned them.  Others are raising children alone because their boyfriend abandoned them after they became pregnant.  For a variety of reasons they are convinced that they can rely solely upon themselves and they are resistant to anyone who tries to help or offer advice.  Most of those acquaintances are gritting their teeth and are working hard to do what needs to be done but they have little joy in their lives.  They live in isolation from others, afraid to build relationship for fear of additional rejection.
God has made us to live in relationship with him and in relationship with one another.  We cannot live our lives to the fullest if we live in isolation.  It is difficult to admit that we need to depend upon others and upon God but, if we are to thrive as humans, we need to live in community.  As Buechner says, you can survive, you can grow strong, you can prevail, on your own but you cannot be truly human.