Then the LORD God said, "It is not good for the man to be alone; I will make him a helper suitable for him." Genesis 2:18 (NASB)Whoever isolates himself seeks his own desire; he breaks out against all sound judgment. Proverbs 18:1 (ESV)For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body— Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and all were made to drink of one Spirit. … The eye cannot say to the hand, “I have no need of you,” nor again the head to the feet, “I have no need of you.” 1 Corinthians 12:13, 21 (ESV)Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful. And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near. Hebrews 10:23-25 (ESV)Do you live in spiritual community? If you are a Christian you should show up, go to church, be with other believers, you can’t have any sort of community if you do not show up. Showing up regularly should be a foundational habit; you should not even have to think about it, it should be “normal” for every believer.Spiritual community is more than going to service, it is a way of life, the interaction does not stop when you leave the church service. In spiritual community, in a real church family, you develop a closer circle of brothers and sisters. Men and women with whom you pray, are honest, and seek to encourage each other to grow in Christ and do God’s will.You can go to church and still isolate yourself. You can go to church and participate in nothing but small talk and superficiality. You can go to church not at all participate in the opportunity of, “Iron sharpens iron, and one man sharpens another” Proverbs 27:17 (ESV). You can go to church and interact with other believers and be nothing but a fountain of negativity, carnality, and worldliness. You can go to church and be alone.Do you have brothers and sisters (it is both right and good foe Christians to think of each other as family) who really know you, who challenge you, with whom pray outside of church gatherings? Do you have brothers and sisters in your life with whom you not only talk about personal issues of life but about kingdom of God issues, the knowing and doing of God’s will? Fellowship where the word of God becomes conversation, where the leading and impressions of the Holy Spirit are shared, and where you are encouraged to dream kingdom dreams and give you all for Christ and his Gospel? Are you surrounding yourself with people who seek and practice that kind of fellowship?The wise Christian does show up, faithfully, rain or shine, but the wise Christian never settles for just showing up.To God be all glory, Pastor Hans
Letting Go
Take a look at your hands and ask yourself, “How good am I of letting go.” Now pick up two things, one with your left hand and one with your right. Keep holding those two items as you go to the kitchen to make yourself a cup of tea or coffee. (Email me with the outcome of this exercise, dergermanshepherd@gmail.com).We hold onto things with more than just our hands, our minds and hearts know to grasp and not let go every bit as our hands, maybe even better. It doesn’t really matter what we use to hold on to something, as long as we hold on to one thing it limits us, or completely prevents us, from grasping or doing something else.My brother, who was a pain specialist, once told me that after a while our nerves will hold onto pain even if the source of the pain is removed. Have you ever had to pry your fingers off something you had hold onto for a long time? Letting go can be very hard, even painful, especially if we have held onto something for a very long time, if what we have held onto was very heavy, if what we have held onto is very important to us. I don’t want to hold onto things that will damage me, that will deform me, that will cause pain long after something is past, that will prevent me from laying hold of better things.“⌊My goal⌋ is to know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death, assuming that I will somehow reach the resurrection from among the dead. Not that I have already reached ⌊the goal⌋ or am already fully mature, but I make every effort to take hold of it because I also have been taken hold of by Christ Jesus. Brothers, I do not consider myself to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and reaching forward to what is ahead, I pursue as my goal the prize promised by God’s heavenly call in Christ Jesus” Philippians 3:10-14 (HCSB).Real maturity and Christlikeness are impossible without knowing what to let go and what to hold onto. I hear the Apostle Paul saying, “I let go of everything that would prevent me grasping everything God, through Christ, has for me. So I have to learn to be good at letting go.”How good are you at letting go? What do need to let go? What “worries, wounds, wrongs, weaknesses, and wishes” (Eric Rees) do you need to let go?Before you finish this p-note can I encourage you to get a Bible, find Philippians and read both chapter 2 and 3 (or maybe all of it), then sit down, look at your hands again, and then have a conversation with God about what he would have let go of.To God be all glory, Pastor Hans
Build Something Beautiful
“Anyone who listens to my teaching and follows it is wise, like a person who builds a house on solid rock” Matthew 7:24 (NLT).My brothers and I put in some serious Lego playing time. We each had our own color, this way there was no confusion over whose Legos where whose. This required some serious negotiations when you ran out of pieces you needed. It’s the pits when a brother is in a strong negotiating position. It was even worse when negotiations broke down and war was declared, this meant all pieces previously acquired had to be returned, along with threats and curses, which meant having to disassemble whatever had been build, leaving us all sitting on the floor with piles of Lego rubble. My memories are filled with building awesome things together and Legos flying, returning them on the heels of failed negotiations was never accompanied by civility and kindness.When it comes to life I wish I had all the right pieces in all the right colors to build something beautiful that is not exposed to the claims, needs, or treachery of others. But even though life doesn’t hand us all the right pieces, we do build, each one of us, we are all building something. It was really irritating when one of my brothers build something and then let it just sit there for days, tying up pieces I needed. That’s how clandestine raiding started, or the challenge of taking pieces of something without disturbing the outside look of it so it would not be obvious. Life can be nasty.Legos don’t smell, but a lot of what life hands you stinks. Lego’s are designed to neatly interlock, life just hands you pieces, many of them broken, sharp, even awful. How are you supposed to build anything worthwhile with that? Legos don’t move on their own, the pieces of my life are constantly moving in ways I have no control over. Legos are expensive, so is life, in more than one way, it is astounding how much some things cost us.The Bible, God’s written word, doesn’t say a word about Legos, but it says all kinds of things about life and about building. It makes a difference what you build your life on, what you build with, how you acquire your materials, what you do with the broken and the stink, whose plans you follow, how you deal with the moving parts, and how you deal with the things that can bring it all down.The Corinthian church was a mess because they were acting like a bunch of Frei boys playing Legos. They had forgotten that they were supposed to build something beautiful, that in Christ and by the grace of God they were enabled to build something that glorifies God and blesses others. So the Apostle Paul gave them an earful, “For no one can lay any foundation other than the one we already have—Jesus Christ. Anyone who builds on that foundation may use a variety of materials—gold, silver, jewels, wood, hay, or straw. But on the judgment day, fire will reveal what kind of work each builder has done. The fire will show if a person’s work has any value. If the work survives, that builder will receive a reward. But if the work is burned up, the builder will suffer great loss. The builder will be saved, but like someone barely escaping through a wall of flames” 1 Corinthians 3:11-15 (NLT).Have you made Christ your foundation? What are you building on it? Can what you build withstand the storms of life and the judgment of God? Does what you do with the pieces of your life glorify God and bless others?To God be all glory. Love you, Pastor Hans
Letting Go
Letting GoLying, cheating, dishonesty, deception, jealousy, malice, bitterness, revenge, anger, gossiping, evil, hate, greed, grief, ingratitude, entitlement, bad habits, stinginess, pessimism, lousy attitudes, laziness, immorality, godlessness, cynicism, gluttony, hedonism, bragging, arrogance, brutality, violence, unkindness, wasting, selfishness, carelessness, not caring, all forms of abuse, stealing, covetousness, ignorance, all sins, self-serving, hurtful speech, malingering, unforgiveness, drunkenness, addictions, disrespect, purposelessness, excuses, judgmentalism, destructive behaviors, betrayal, not taking responsibility, not being responsible, pride, ….You hold onto any of the above you will end up twisted, or torn, or fake, or disliked, or hated, or distrusted, or broken, or …. Think about it, how much hurt is wrapped up in the list you just read? How much pain, despair, and darkness? Why in the world do we hang on to things on that list? Why do we have such a difficult time letting go of what is so obviously wrong, to what is no good, to what does not contribute to make us or our world better?It is not for lack of trying, most of us have moments when we want to change for the better. Have you ever walked away after watching an inspiring movie, or after finishing an inspiring book, maybe even after hearing an inspiring sermon, and felt like you too could do something heroic, you too could rise above your hurts, your chains, your limitations. But then there comes the next morning and you awake to your daily grind, to your unchanged self, to the realization that this stuff is a whole lot easier in movies, books, and sermons than it is everyday life. How quickly euphoria, moments of tender conscience, flickers of hope fade. “I should,” “I want to,” does not easily translate into “I did.” Especially when it comes to addressing the things we should let go of and the root of why we have such a hard time letting go of what is sinful, destructive, and painful, and exchange it for what is godly, good, and blessing.Why has humanity throughout all of its history hung on to the list on top of this pastor’s note? Why do you and hang on to items on that list when it is anything but in our best interest? The answer is not merely physiological or psychological, it is above all spiritual, theological. Unfortunately in the minds of many the spiritual/theological has been reduced to the subjective, the experiential, and the sociological. This has the effect of spiritual/theological having no real significance in regard to truth, to what is real. Well, what is real is that humanity, including you and me, is sinful at its core, “all have sinned” (Romans 3:23) is the clear revelation and verdict of word of God. We do not necessarily like that, but we cannot escape the truth. Nor do we like the truth that we cannot escape our sinfulness, our depravity on our own, we are “by nature children of wrath” (Ephesians 2:3), meaning our very nature makes us objects of God’s judgment. The good news is that when the Apostle Paul writes to the Ephesian believers he does not write “you are” but rather “you were by nature children of wrath.”A sinner will hold on to all the wrong things. A sinner will be held onto by all the wrong things. We do not possess the righteousness and the power to change that, to let go of all we need to let go, for that we need the grace of God in Christ. If we are serious about letting go we have address the root so the grace of God can freely work in our lives, to save us from God’s wrath and to change us for God’s works. The grace of God is sufficient to both save and change a sinner, it is absolutely essential if we are serious about letting go.All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature objects of wrath. But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy,made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions--it is by grace you have been saved. And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith--and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God-- not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. Ephesians 2:3-10 (NIV)To God be all glory, love you, Pastor Hans
A Complaint Examination - When Spiritual Liberation Stalls
Then they set out from Mount Hor by the way of the Red Sea, to go around the land of Edom; and the people became impatient because of the journey. The people spoke against God and Moses, "Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water, and we loathe this miserable food." Numbers 21:4-5 (NASB)The new car smell was long gone and there was nothing fundamentally wrong with the car, it was in good shape, dependable, and most importantly - it was paid for. But he couldn’t count those blessings, all he could see was the miles on the odometer, the stains on the seats, the few scratches here and there, and all that it was missing compared to a new car. So finally he even convinced his wife with all his car negativity, surely a new car would bring relief and happiness. In fact it brought more stress, the payments and increased costs stretched the budget to the “constant worry” level. It didn’t take long for the negativity to return.“What were you thinking? Why did I ever go along with that? I loved the old car!” the wife accused.“Oh now it’s all my fault! I seem to remember you signing the papers too!” he snarled back, before storming out.The liberation of the ancient Israelites had slowed to an agonizing taxing crawl. They found themselves on another detour, this time a long march around the kingdom of Edom, which wouldn’t allow them to use the Kings Highway. It didn’t take long for their inclination towards pessimism to resurface. In their grumbling against and accusation of God and Moses they did what negative, complaining pessimist do – twist the facts.The facts were they had not died, they had not starved, nor had they run out of water. There was fresh food every morning and God had just supplied enough water from a rock for every person and all of their livestock. The truth was that they were on this detour because of their own dumb and faithless choices. They already would have been where God wanted them to be if they had trusted God more than their fears, if they had surrendered to God instead of their constant negativity, foolishness, and sinful ways.Lying to themselves was not enough. The clincher was their utter ungratefulness, “We loathe, despise, detest this miserable food.” What should have been a daily source of thanksgiving and praise was turned into a spoiled complaint and self-indictment. There was nothing wrong with the food, nor with God and Moses, their faithfulness, their goodness, and their patience was impeccable.Too many stall out with God, in following Jesus Christ. Not because there is anything wrong with God and Christ or because preachers are telling lies and mislead, but because somewhere along the journey of spiritual liberation in Christ there is a failure of faith followed by a twisting of the facts expressed in negativity and thanklessness. The Christian life, a life with God, is not just a quick moment of faith resulting in liberation from sin; it is also a lifelong devotion to faith on the journey. “So do not throw away this confident trust in the Lord. Remember the great reward it brings you! Patient endurance is what you need now, so that you will continue to do God’s will. Then you will receive all that he has promised. ‘For in just a little while, the Coming One will come and not delay. And my righteous ones will live by faith. But I will take no pleasure in anyone who turns away.’ But we are not like those who turn away from God to their own destruction. We are the faithful ones, whose souls will be saved” Hebrews 10:35-39 (NLT). This is what the generation Moses led out of Egypt never learned. May you and I learn and be different.To God be all glory, love you, Pastor Hans
Don't Mix with Love
Some things don’t mix well, fire and gasoline , coffee and pickle juice, ants and a kitchen, war and peace, lies and a clear conscience, wisdom and foolishness, love and fear, “There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love” 1 John 4:18 (NIV). That’s why violence, abuse, uncontrolled anger, alcohol and drugs, cheating, lying, deceit, manipulation, selfishness, bitterness, and foolishness do not mix with romance, marriage, family, community, and a life with God.When you are constantly in fear of the other shoe dropping, when you are constantly walking on eggshells, when you are always ducking outwardly and inwardly, when you are in constant dread of embarrassment, when words no longer hold water, when it all can blow up any second, when things are constantly out of control, when you are way past the first time, when the not normal becomes normal, when trust is a foreign word, when deceit not surprising, when disappointment is expected, when addiction and abuse have moved in, then you will find imperfect, twisted, perverted, and sick love.Love is meant to beautiful, without fear, free of constant worry of it turning ugly. In the scripture quoted above the New King James Version uses the word “torment” instead of the “punishment.” Real love does not feel like torment, does not live in dread of torment, does not dish out torment. In fact where real love is growing, where real love is pursued fears are growing smaller and fewer, and torment is never a fit description.Our problem is that so many of us are all too familiar with the tormented, sick, twisted, manipulative, and hurtful ways masquerading as love. The sad thing is that we are prone to settle for and repeat that which we know. It is easy to be in and get caught up in this web of love gone wrong, sometimes of no fault of our own, sometimes because of our own decisions, often because of both.The good news is that God did not have the Apostles John and Paul (1 Corinthians 13:4-8) write about love in terms of mere definition or diagnosis. No, God had them write of what is possible, not just of what should or shouldn’t be, but of what can be. What may not be possible on our own is possible with God, “What is impossible for people is possible with God” Luke 18:27 (NLT). It is possible to walk with God and escape cycles and chains of the past. It is possible to walk with God and get out of darkness. It is possible to walk with God and learn from him how to love. It is possible to walk with God and grow in our capacity to love. It is possible!When it comes to loving perfectly I am far from what I want to be, but God has been helping me to grow, especially when it comes to love. I am committed to real love because I don’t like the alternatives, because it is and feels right, and because God “renews my life; He leads me along the right paths for His name’s sake” Psalm 23:3 (HCSB).This Valentines weekend, if nothing else, make a start, be broken and repent of your wrongs, especially in regard to love and those you should love. Address that which is broken and twisted, pour out the full measure of your fears, and then take the loving hand of God to learn love without fear.To God be all glory. Love you, Pastor Hans
With Liberty and Justice for All
If you fail under pressure, your strength is too small. Rescue those who are unjustly sentenced to die; save them as they stagger to their death. Don’t excuse yourself by saying, “Look, we didn’t know.” For God understands all hearts, and he sees you. He who guards your soul knows you knew. He will repay all people as their actions deserve. Proverbs 24:10-12 (NLT)70 years ago, on January 27, Auschwitz, the Nazi concentration and extermination camp was liberated. 1.1 million people were murdered there, not because they had been convicted of some crime deserving death but because they did not fit Nazi ideology, and most of them because they were Jews. In order to pull of mass murder on that scale the Nazi leadership had brainwash, intimidate , and silence most all of Germany. Think about it, how else do you slaughter millions of human beings without any large scale opposition? How do you keep it out of the media? How do you manage to keep an entire country from crying out against it? It really is an old play book, cooked up in hell a long time ago.You have to have great slogans, “ARBEIT MACHT FREI” (work liberates) hung at the entrance of concentration camps. A little hard work never has harmed anybody, has it? “For God and country.” “Allahu Akbar” (God is the greatest). “A woman’s right to choose.” What fool would challenge God and patriotism? Who can deny that God is the greatest? Who doesn’t endorse the freedom to choose? Great slogans ease the conscience; mollify the urge to think for yourself. You want people to love the slogans regardless of the truth.You have to intimidate, sow fear to point that people are glad that what happens to others does not happen to them. You have to exploit what every kid learns on the school playground – to be afraid of being laughed at, being ostracized, to be called names, to be bullied, of being hurt. Terror works, fear is powerful. You have to be willing to belittle, shout down, embarrass, defame, lie, betray, hurt, and kill in the name of the cause. Sowing fear can’t worry about being clean, getting dirty, embracing violence, a “few” dispensable lives.You have to be good at stripping real people of their humanity. You want people to think that Jews are categorically bad, the infidels are bad, an unwanted unplanned baby is bad, as are liberals, conservatives, environmentalists, homosexuals and all of the LBGTQ crowd, fundamentalists, Christians, Muslims, atheists they are all bad. And it is okay to dislike bad, to hate bad. Getting rid of bad is not that bad of a thing, in fact it might even be good. The less bad people there are the better; you have to be completely out of touch to disagree with that. Bad also doesn’t deserve the same rights as good, does it? Bad and bad people are really more of an issue to be dealt with, personalizing only complicates things. It is much easier to deal with an issue like the issue of slavery, the issue of the Jews, the issue of abortion, the issue of the Middle East Conflict, the issue of Aids, of Ebola, hunger, injustice. Issues are far easier to deal with, they don’t stare you in the eye, issues don’t have beating hearts.On January 22, 1973 the US Supreme Court legalized abortion, since then 55,000,000 (55 million!) human beings have lost their lives through abortion in the United States alone. They have fallen victim to pills, solutions, suction machines, dismemberment, and the like. Where is the outrage, the disgust, the shame? There has not been one, not a single aborted child that was less than 100% human. There has not been one aborted child guilty or even accused of a crime. The reason they have been so easily and mercilessly killed is that they have been stripped of their humanity (How conditioned have we become to zygote, embryo, fetus as meaning something less than human). They have been called “mistakes,” “inconveniences,” “bad timing,” “accidents,” everything but what they really are – persons, human beings, living images of God. They have been deemed dispensable, we are better off without them than with them. They have been stripped of the most basic human rights and legal protection under the smoke screen of a woman’s right to choose. They have been made into issue to debate rather than people to love.O that there would be “liberty and justice for all.”To God be all glory, Pastor Hans
Impact
Impact, “… the LORD was with him …” Genesis 39:3 (NIV)Impact, we all have it. Our footprint might be small or large, hardly visible or impossible to ignore, but everyone has one. That little girl or boy still in her or his mother’s womb has one. When my son and daughter-in-law announced that she was pregnant I couldln't help but smile, “They have no idea how much that child will impact their lives,” I thought. And, o boy, how that baby has impacted their lives.So what is your impact? How do you impact those around you? Does your impact cause gladness or grief, blessing or bad, hope or hell? What is found on the trail of your impact? What will be your legacy? A story of evil, lies, corruption, violence, hatred, betrayal? A mixed bag? Or one that leaves no doubt in the mind of others that “God was with you?”It is true, “the Lord was with Joseph,” but it is also true that Joseph was with God. How do we know that? We know because of his statements, attitude, and actions. When Potiphar’s wife tried to seduce him Joseph’s refusal was based on two things: 1. His integrity, he wouldn’t betray his master’s trust (he was a slave), 2. His belief in God, he would not sin against God (Genesis 39:9). When Pharaoh summoned him to interpret dreams Joseph acknowledged God from the very outset (Genesis 41:16). Enslaved through the betrayal of his brothers, imprisoned on a false allegation of rape, forgotten promises by the kings cup bearer, it could have made Joseph bitter, cynical, negative, corrupt, or resigned. But he did not lose hope, kindness, caring, honesty, faith, nor the drive to be and do his best. No matter where he ended up those around him trusted him with responsibility, were able to depend on the quality of his work, didn’t have to worry about him when no one was looking. Invariably people benefited from having Joseph in their lives. They ended up being better off because of him. Things improved with Joseph around. There was no mistaking that “the Lord was with him,” his impact proved it.Joseph was 17 when his brothers sold him into slavery, after that he was a salve and a prisoner for 13 years, and he served under Pharaoh for decades. Time passed, his circumstances changed, responsibilities grew, but his impact stayed constant, his legacy is untarnished, “the Lord was with him.”To God be all glory. Love you, Pastor Hans