David Redd - Thank You - Finishing Well

David Redd, our Brother in Christ, FoodBasket Ministry Leader, Church Board Member, and friend, graduated to heaven two Sunday’s ago. I remember the first time I met David. His wife and sons had started coming to church and I stopped by to introduce myself. He greeted me with the skepticism a preacher often gets when showing up on someone’s doorstep, polite, uncomfortable, and ready for me to leave. He certainly was not going to come to church although Christ and His church were part of David’s past.

A little further down the road of life things were not going well in David’s family and finally fell apart, and guess what, he started coming back to church. Sporadically at first, but slowly he showed up more and more. I prayed with him many times and encouraged him to become involved, and involved he became. He started helping in the FoodBasket Ministry, became a dependable member of that team, and when it needed a new leader he stopped by my office and asked me if he could take a shot at it. That’s like a pastor’s dream, people knocking at the door to ask for deeper involvement, offering themselves for greater responsibilities.

From the time of that knock on my office door to the day David went home to be Jesus, Dave poured himself into the Foodbasket, so much so that I had to tell him to slow down a bit more than once. Under his leadership the FoodBasket expanded to serving hundreds of people twice a month. He was continually on the hunt for more resources, which become a small problem because you have to put all of those stores somewhere. I finally had to tell him that he couldn’t have any more freezers. All the while God blessed him with a tremendous team of dedicated people he loved.

I wondered where David’s FoodBasket passion came from and found out that at one time in his life he was homeless, he knew from personal experience what it meant that someone cared enough to help anyone in need. He also wanted his retirement years to count for something, to be filled with Kingdom work, give testimony to Christ and God’s goodness.

He liked to stop by my office after a distribution day or after bring in a big load of food and share how God provided over and over again, how God answered specific prayers for food supplies, how hordes of people showed up and somehow there was food for all of them. That’s what happens in ministry, you get to see God at work. After hearing him sharing these blessings we would usually pray for both his team and the people the FoodBasket serves, that they would come to know Christ, understand the Gospel, be saved from their sins and God’s judgment, that they would come to believe in Christ, let Him into their lives and experience the saving grace of God and the life-changing power of the Holy Spirit and of the Word of God (the Bible), become part of Jesus’ Church, grow spiritually, and become dedicated servants.

Except for a few snapshots David shared with me, most of the chapters of his entire life I am not familiar with. I do know it wasn’t perfect, had great ups and downs, regrets, hardships, and long stretches where God and Christ did not figure much. What I do know about is his Don Pedro life, the finishing lap of his life. Of a man returning to God and serving Jesus, the church, and our community. Of a man leaving no doubt about where he stood with God, his love for Christ, serving to the end.

Finishing well is a big thing in God’s mind. The Bible is replete with encouragement and warning when it comes to finishing well, to be faithful and dedicated Christ right down to the last step, the final breath. David did that and blessed us as a church and our whole community in doing so. Thank you! David.

David, our brother in Christ, friend, and fellow servant, “His (your) master said to him (you), ‘Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master’” Matthew 25:21 (ESV, parenthesis mine).

To God be all glory.
Pastor Hans

Life's Three Most Important Books

By this time next week (as of this writing it is Thursday, October 28) the 2020 presidential election will be in the books, thankfully and hopefully.

When you get to the end of The Book, God’s Book, the Bible, you come to the two most important books regarding each one of us, “And I saw a great white throne and the one sitting on it. The earth and sky fled from his presence, but they found no place to hide. I saw the dead, both great and small, standing before God’s throne. And the books were opened, including the Book of Life. And the dead were judged according to what they had done, as recorded in the books. The sea gave up its dead, and death and the grave gave up their dead. And all were judged according to their deeds. Then death and the grave were thrown into the lake of fire. This lake of fire is the second death” Revelation 20:11-14 (NLT2).

“The books,” are the complete, uncensored, record of each one of our lives. All we did and didn’t do that we should have done can be found in each one of our books. Every action, every thought, every word, every decision, every intent, and every motive, it’s all there in each one of our books. Every single sin of both commission and omission impartially recorded. No room to wiggle, dodge, point fingers, and make excuses. Nothing but full exposure, the naked truth about each one of us.

“The books” will clearly and incontrovertibly evidence what God’s Book, the Bible, has testified for thousands of years, namely, that we are sinners, each one of us, “ For everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God’s glorious standard” Romans 3:23 (NLT2); 

“Who can say, ‘I have kept my heart pure; I am clean and without sin?’” Proverbs 20:9 (NIV);

“If we claim that we've never sinned, we out-and-out contradict God—make a liar out of him. A claim like that only shows off our ignorance of God” 1 John 1:10 (MSG). It is what is in each one of our books that will condemn us, not God the righteous judge.

Did you notice that no one escapes the final judgement of God, everyone who ever lived will be summoned and will appear. Secondly, no one survives God judgment on what is found in our books, our own full record. Each one of us will be found guilty, suffer the “second death,” eternal damnation in the “lake of fire,” or in plain English, go to hell. - Except.

Except, if your name is found in the “the book of life” the most important book of them all. It is also called “the Lamb’s book of life” (Revelation 13:8), “Lamb” being a synonym for Jesus Christ, and shorthand for sacrificial lamb. When the prophet John the Baptist’s saw Jesus, the first words out of his mouth were, "Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” John 1:29 (NIV). Jesus died for the whole world, including you and me, but as the “great white throne” passage above makes clear, our names are not automatically written in Jesus book of life. It is only when we believe in Him, when we call on His name to save us, that His righteousness is transferred  (imputed) to us, our sin debt is paid for by Him, we receive mercy instead of condemnation, and our names are written in “the book of life.  “If you confess with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.  For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved (from eternal judgment)” Romans 10:9-10 (NIV, parenthesis mine).

Like the 2020 election, eventuality your entire life will also be in the books, over and done. Until then the three most important books in your library are the Bible, the book of your life, and Jesus book of life. Built the one in the middle around the other two, and hell can’t have you and heaven will welcome you.

To God be all glory.

Love you, Pastor Hans

I once was ..., but now ...

I actually had hair at one time. I used to be able to eat an extra-large pizza all by myself. I could run a mile in under 5 ½ minutes a long time ago. I would split wood all day for months on end with a 10-pound splitting maul. I used to drive cars without air conditioning. I did drink five large milkshakes in a row back in college. I was the kid with such a bad reputation at school that when my youngest brother went there five years later teachers fretted, ‘Oh No! Another Frei!”

I am sure, you too have your own list of what you once were and did (Why not send me a sampling – dergermanshepherd@gmail.com), but your present reality is much different. John Newton, the vile slave trader turned preacher, captured the “I once …, but now …” with these famous words:
“Amazing grace! How sweet the sound / That saved a wretch like me! / I once was lost, but now am found / Was blind, but now I see.” This of course is the scenario God is waiting for, Christ died for, and the church exists for each one of us.

That what we were is no longer be who we are, that through God’s grace in Christ each one of us will be brought from death to life, from sin and futility to holiness and good works, “Once you were dead because of your disobedience and your many sins. You used to live in sin, just like the rest of the world, obeying the devil—the commander of the powers in the unseen world. He is the spirit at work in the hearts of those who refuse to obey God. All of us used to live that way, following the passionate desires and inclinations of our sinful nature. By our very nature we were subject to God’s anger, just like everyone else. But God is so rich in mercy, and he loved us so much, that even though we were dead because of our sins, he gave us life when he raised Christ from the dead. (It is only by God’s grace that you have been saved!) For he raised us from the dead along with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms because we are united with Christ Jesus. So God can point to us in all future ages as examples of the incredible wealth of his grace and kindness toward us, as shown in all he has done for us who are united with Christ Jesus.God saved you by his grace when you believed. And you can’t take credit for this; it is a gift from God. Salvation is not a reward for the good things we have done, so none of us can boast about it. For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago” Ephesians 2:1-10 (NLT2).

Salvation also means transformation, the church word for that is sanctification, which means being set apart for holy use. Who and what we were is no longer who we are. We are, with God’s help, continually changing for the better, becoming more and more like Jesus. I understand this with my head, but it sure is easy to act like who I once was rather than in congruence with who I now am in Christ. I am always just one decision, one careless word, one rash response away from acting like the old sinner rather than the new person I am in Christ.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, we have no business acting and sounding like who we once were, being identified by the sinful behaviors and attitudes of our old life. We are not called to the old nor to go backward, but we should be a living illustration of what Rufus McDaniel wrote, “What a wonderful change in my life has been wrought Since Jesus came into my heart!”

To God be all glory. Love you, Pastor Hans    

Hardened Ground

This is what the LORD Almighty says: 'Administer true justice; show mercy and compassion to one another. Do not oppress the widow or the fatherless, the alien or the poor. In your hearts do not think evil of each other.'  But they refused to pay attention; stubbornly they turned their backs and stopped up their ears. They made their hearts as hard as flint and would not listen to the law or to the words that the LORD Almighty had sent by his Spirit through the earlier prophets. So the LORD Almighty was very angry. Zechariah 7:9-12 (NIV)

Tremble, O earth, at the presence of the Lord, at the presence of the God of Jacob, who turned the rock into a pool, the hard rock into springs of water. Psalm 114:7-8 (NIV)

Digging in Don Pedro in the Summer is neither fun nor smart because the scorching heat makes the ground rock hard and punishes the digger. How do I know? Plenty of personal experience. Some holes and trenches I had to soak overnight to make progress a few inches at a time. Bill Haas, a retired heavy equipment operator had literally spent his entire working life digging. I imagine, with a D-8 bulldozer he didn’t spend much time watering the ground before moving it. Moving Bill, however, was quite another thing. He literally went and got a shotgun the first time I went to his home to introduce myself to him and invite him and his sweet wife to church. He told me to stick my religion bs where the sun doesn’t shine and to get my #@&%* behind off his porch permanently.

I wonder what God is up to currently, do you? On both the large scale and in me personally. What is he trying to dig up? What does He keep pouring water on to soften it up? What has hardened but needs to be dug up? What wrong attitudes, opinions, and ways of doing things have grown so hard that even a D-8 can’t move them. Bill’s wife called me as the ambulance was rushing him to the hospital, asking me to please pray for him, “Preacher, he’s had a bad stroke,’ she said before hanging up to follow the ambulance. Knowing that he wouldn’t have his shotgun, and because the hospital wasn’t his porch, I went there as well, to sit with and pray with his wife as the doctors did their best to save his life and minimize the damage.

Bill lived and recovered with only minor damage. Yes, he was shocked to see the preacher standing at the foot of his bed. He couldn’t talk then, but you could see it in his eyes. God had softened Bill’s hard ground, had used that stroke like a D-8 to move what seemed immovable, had laid bare what Bill had covered under thick layers of life-hardened dirt. He eventually called on Christ to forgive him, to save his sinful soul, to change his heart, to give him eternal life.  For the rest of his days, he was a different man.

So, what is God trying to change in you, in our country? What hardened things is He pouring “water” on to soften it up? What difficult things is He allowing into your life to move what needs to be moved, to change your attitude, opinions, ways of doing things, and how you deal with people and God.

To God be all glory. Love you, Pastor Hans

Time to Clear the Log Jam

It is always easier to point at the speck in another person’s eye than dealing with the log in your own, "Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's/sister’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, 'Let me take the speck out of your eye,' when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's/sister’s eye” Matthew 7:1-5 (NIV, italics mine).

While fighting for “liberty and justice for all” (a noble and right cause) we don’t get to address one wrong only to justify another. We don’t get to stand up against vilifying one group of people only to turn around and to vilify another group. We don’t get to preach love for one another and turn around and okay hating police officers. Specks give us fuzzy vision, but logs render us blind. Jesus tells us to remember that we don’t get to fight injustice and be unjust ourselves, we don’t get to fight abuse of power by abusing power, we don’t get require of others what we do not require of ourselves, we don’t get to fight for equality under the law while being lawless ourselves, we don’t get hold others responsible while being irresponsible ourselves, we don’t get to blame others and not deal with our own logs.

The log-eyed have it right now, on the political right and left, on the liberal and conservative end. You can’t say that black lives matter, or that we need to treat immigrants like Jesus would, without an immediate backlash, being denounced, dismissed as liberal, and even being hated. You can’t stand up for policemen/women and law enforcement officers, the vast majority doing a very difficult job with integrity, without an immediate backlash, being accused of just not getting it, dismissed as being uniformed, and even being hated. You can’t stand up for Colin Kaepernick and his right to kneel without being accused of being unpatriotic, and you can’t stand up for Biblical/traditional marriage without being denounced as homophobic or a hater. The sad reality of this is that the very thing both sides passionately clamor for, liberty and justice, is being lost.

I believe Jesus is weeping as He is looking down like He did over the Jerusalem of his day (Luke 19:41). They were coming to John the Baptist in droves, hungry for national change, hoping God was going to something big (Luke 3:1-14). John tore into them, their hypocrisy of wanting change without changing themselves, for trying to act pious while abusing power. He told them God would cut down the logs (them) and hold them responsible.

“What do we need to do?” they wanted to know.

“Take personal responsibility and use your extra not to hoard but to help, be part of creating equity! To improve people’s lives," he told them. “Don’t abuse your public office and the power it gives you to twist the rules and exploit it for personal gain,” he fired back at the tax collectors. “Don’t abuse your badge, don’t abuse the power that comes with your uniform, don’t pervert justice,” he spelled it out for the soldiers (the police in their day).

He was confronting them all because just like today, log-eyedness was ruling the day, creating the narratives, fostering endless finger-pointing, justifying lawlessness, flaunting hypocritical piety (both religious and political), excusing personal responsibility, and twisting or ignoring what is right before God. So, what about them logs, that blind our eyes, darken our minds, justify our wrongs, shape our actions?

A great place to start dealing with them is Jesus’ longest recorded sermon, called the Sermon on the Mount, found in Matthew 5-7 (Its shorter parallel is found in Luke 6:20-49). I think it tells us a lot about what God dreams of regarding our personal lives, culture, and society. In the end, Jesus makes it plain that merely hearing/reading and trying to understand, though necessary, are is not enough. We must catch the vision of it, the hope of it, the necessity of it, the rightness of it, and then radically live it.

To God be all glory.

Love you, Pastor Hans

Waiting – Don’t Waste It, Part 3, Waiting and Working

“Therefore, stay awake, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming. But know this, that if the master of the house had known in what part of the night the thief was coming, he would have stayed awake and would not have let his house be broken into. Therefore you also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect. Who then is the faithful and wise servant, whom his master has set over his household, to give them their food at the proper time? Blessed is that servant whom his master will find so doing when he comes. Truly, I say to you, he will set him over all his possessions. But if that wicked servant says to himself, ‘My master is delayed,’ and begins to beat his fellow servants and eats and drinks with drunkards, the master of that servant will come on a day when he does not expect him and at an hour he does not know and will cut him in pieces and put him with the hypocrites. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth” Matthew 24:42-51 (ESV).

Waiting, watching, working – did notice these three in the scripture above? All three are part of the Christian life. We are waiting for many things. Toping the list is the return of Christ, but we also wait for redemption, for restoration, for deliverance not just for own self but for all of creation (Romans 8:18-25). We wait for prayers to be answered, for directions, for the mortal to be swallowed up by immortality (1 Corinthians 15:50-58), for fully applied justice (Revelation 6:9-11), and so much more.

The major challenge in our waiting is to be continually watchful, staying awake, being alert. The longer the wait the easier it becomes to relax on our assigned responsibilities, to get sidetracked by our own interests, to fall into a short-sighted way of doing life, to lose both a Jesus and God’s kingdom focus.The disciples wanted a timeline, a date around which to manage their lives. They wanted to know, “How long?” Jesus told them that they need to focus on a different question, “How well?”

The length of the wait is not near as important as what we do and who we are while we wait. Jesus stressed faithfulness, wisdom, and the blessing of doing what God assigns to us, not just occasionally or when we feel like it, but day after day, no matter how long the master has us waiting. Christian waiting should always be marked by faithfulness, wisdom, a dogged day by day perseverance, and a heart and mindset which finds its greatest joy in doing what God wants us to be doing (see Matthew 25:14-46). It is hard not to notice how politically incorrect Jesus’ answer is, “Master, “servant/slave,” “cut him in pieces,” (that last one will really fly in children’s Sunday School).

Whatever our sentiment, you can’t miss how serious Jesus wanted his disciples to take this. They wanted to know how long before they got to lay their hands on glory, reward, and liberation, Jesus told them to daily focus on God’s will, God’s assignments (no matter how tedious, taxing, and thankless), and the blessing of carrying them out faithfully. Jesus called doing anything else and doing anything less “hypocrisy.” You can’t read a passage like the one at the beginning of this pastor’s note and not ask yourself some serious questions and after answering them you might have to make serious adjustments.

So, take some time right now, reread the scripture above, write down the questions, then write your answers, and finish with writing down the concrete changes you have to make for you to be that, “Blessed … servant whom his/her master will find so doing when he comes.” 

To God be all glory. Love you and miss you, Pastor Hans 

(What concrete responsibilities has God assigned to me? How faithful am I with those responsibilities? How seriously do I take them? How excellent do I carry them out? What gives me the most joy? When do I feel most blessed? What do my answers to the last two questions reveal about me? My focus on Christ and his kingdom? Have I relaxed? Become sleepy/ Derelict with my God-assignments? How do I get back on track? What practical changes do I need to make? …)   

Changed Plans - Changing Plans

Susie and I were supposed to have gone camping this past week, but like everyone else living in these COVID-19 days, we had a change of plans. Of course, having to change plans is nothing new, but to have so many people’s plans change all at the same time is new to most of us. Career plans, business plans, wedding plans, retirement plans, educational plans, vacation plans, graduations plans, financial plans, … all of them affected and in serious upheaval.

How good are you when it comes to having to change your plans, adapting to new realities? Flexible and positive, grumpy and complaining? A having-to-change-your-plans kind of crisis certainly does reveal who we are and what we are made of. Few of us like to be forced into changing plans, the only time we really like changing plans is when it is our own idea, when we’re the ones cooking up the changes.

50 days after Easter, on Pentecost, the Bible tells us about two groups, the followers of Jesus and the Jewish leaders. The disciples of Jesus were changed by the fact of the resurrection of Jesus from the dead and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on them. The Jewish leaders thought they had brought everything back under control, everything running according to their plans, until, those Holy Spirit-filled believers started preaching.

“’The sun will become dark, and the moon will turn blood red before that great and glorious day of the LORD arrives. But everyone who calls on the name of the LORD will be saved.’ People of Israel, listen! God publicly endorsed Jesus the Nazarene by doing powerful miracles, wonders, and signs through him, as you well know. But God knew what would happen, and his prearranged plan was carried out when Jesus was betrayed. With the help of lawless Gentiles, you nailed him to a cross and killed him. But God released him from the horrors of death and raised him back to life, for death could not keep him in its grip'” Acts 2:20-24 (NLT2), Peter declared.

Did you notice the clash of plans? God’s plan or the Jesus plan and the Jewish leaders’ plan?God’s plan – a long-range, eternal, good for all plan

• To save people from judgment

• To offer Jesus’ life for our sins

• To defeat the grip of death (death for is the ultimate plan changer)

The Jewish leaders’ plan – a short-sighted, evil, what’s-good-for me plan

• To have no change

• To get back to and maintain the old

• To kill the plan of God

The question becomes, which side of God’s plan will you be on? Will you oppose it, or will you accept the changes needed to accept it? Will you brush the center of God’s plan, Jesus Christ, to the side, or will you organize everything in your life around Him?

God is neither silent nor inactive in our current crisis, He has put us in the vise of change not just try to get out and back, but to examine our plans and make both temporary and life-long changes that put Jesus, God’s plans, God’s purposes and will in the very center. We are collectively yearning to get back to “normal,” and we pray it will be sooner than later, but I can’t help but think that God would love for us to emerge from this chaos changed for the better.

Listen to what God delivered to the exiled to Babylon Jews in the days of the prophet Jeremiah, “This is what the LORD says: ‘You will be in Babylon for seventy years. But then I will come and do for you all the good things I have promised, and I will bring you home again.  For I know the plans I have for you,’ says the LORD. ‘They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope.  In those days when you pray, I will listen. If you look for me wholeheartedly, you will find me. I will be found by you,’ says the LORD. ‘I will end your captivity and restore your fortunes. I will gather you out of the nations where I sent you and will bring you home again to your own land’” Jeremiah 29:10-14 (NLT2).

God did not just want them to return and get back to the same-old same-old, He wanted them to came back better, changed, completely in tune with Him. May this be true of us.

To God be all glory.
Love you, Pastor Hans   

Love Your Neighbor! You Owe It

I say, “Obama,” you think _____________.
I say, “Trump,” you think _____________.
Chances are high, depending on your political persuasion, you’ve badmouthed one or the other, that you love one and despise the other, that you have respect for one while feeling at liberty to disrespect the other.

I say, “Taxes,” you think ____________.
I say, “You owe,” you think ____________.
Chances are high you have an opinion on taxes, and, living in the United States, chances are equally high that you are very familiar with owing, with indebtedness.

Romans 13:1-10 concerns itself with Christians living in the larger society, within the constructs of government, their surrounding culture, the country they live in. God, through the Apostle Paul, reminds us to  “Pay to all what is owed to them: taxes to whom taxes are owed, revenue to whom revenue is owed, respect to whom respect is owed, honor to whom honor is owed” Romans 13:7 (ESV).

Do your responses above reflect the spirit and demeanor of the Romans 13 passage? Are your conversations, tweets, and posts in compliance with the word of God, or do they reflect the culture at large or the subgroup you affiliate with? Do you have an honor and respect debt?

Even after you’ve paid all your bills, paid off your mortgage, and are square on your taxes you owe, “Owe no one anything, except to love each other, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law” Romans 13:8 (ESV), not according to some law passed by the legislature, but according to God’s law, “For the commandments, ‘You shall not commit adultery, You shall not murder, You shall not steal, You shall not covet,” and any other commandment, are summed up in this word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law” Romans 13:1-10 (ESV).

Why do you and I owe love daily? Because we owe our very existence to God’s love and are daily recipients of his mercy and grace, "To you who are ready for the truth, I say this: Love your enemies. Let them bring out the best in you, not the worst. When someone gives you a hard time, respond with the energies of prayer for that person. If someone slaps you in the face, stand there and take it. If someone grabs your shirt, giftwrap your best coat and make a present of it. If someone takes unfair advantage of you, use the occasion to practice the servant life. No more tit-for-tat stuff. Live generously. Here is a simple rule of thumb for behavior: Ask yourself what you want people to do for you; then grab the initiative and do it for them! If you only love the lovable, do you expect a pat on the back? Run-of-the-mill sinners do that. If you only help those who help you, do you expect a medal? Garden-variety sinners do that. If you only give for what you hope to get out of it, do you think that's charity? The stingiest of pawnbrokers does that. I tell you, love your enemies. Help and give without expecting a return. You'll never—I promise—regret it. Live out this God-created identity the way our Father lives toward us, generously and graciously, even when we're at our worst. Our Father is kind; you be kind” Luke 6:27-36 (MSG).

God has a vision for this world we live in, the countries we love, the communities we live in, and the lives we live (Read the Ten Commandments - Exodus 20:1-17, and the Sermon on the Mount – Matthew 5-7).

And, he expects the followers of Jesus to live out that vision right now, not in some distant future. He wants us to embrace the highest law now, not when things are hunky-dory, but amid ugly politics, chaos, violence, injustice, opposition, stress, worry, and even evil. Heavenly Father forgive me when my standards do not reflect yours, when I excuse myself from the supreme law, when I declare myself indebted to no one, when my daily life is without heavenly vision. Please me the courage, the tenacity, and humility to pay all I owe, especially my love debt. Amen.

To God be all glory. Love you, Pastor Hans         

Leaking, Running Out - Fixing the Core Problems

Imagine you gave me a brand new, four-wheel drive, Toyota Tundra truck (feel free to actually do that), and the first thing I did was to punch a couple of holes in the fuel tank, and for good measure do the same to the radiator. What would you think about me? And, if I told, “It’s much better that way,” after you asked me what in the hesch I was doing, then what would you think? I know what I would think of you if the roles were reversed. I might even take you in right there and then to have your head examined!"My people have committed two sins: They have forsaken me, the spring of living water, and have dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold water” Jeremiah 2:13 (NIV), was God’s word to the people in Jeremiah’s day.How many water faucets are in your house? We have eight inside and seven outside. There are people all over the world who would love to have just one running water spigot putting out clean drinking water. What would you think Susie would tell me if I told her we will abandon using all those faucets and from now on will go down the hill on the backside of our property to get all of our water from the muddy waterhole down there? What are the chances of her agreeing with me that this was a vastly better way of getting water? “But Babe, we would be independent of the water company! No more monthly water bills! We’ll rely just rely on Mother Nature (As everyone knows, she is really dependable in Central California when it comes to water)!This is the problem of godlessness, deciding that you don’t need God, that you can be free of God and live. As long as we reject God and Christ, abandon God for philosophies, theologies, and ideologies of our own we leak, are condemned to our own foolishness, and quickly run out of life. It is amazing we can spot stupidity and absurdity so easily except when it comes to God, Christ, and spiritual reality, there we give ourselves a pass, are even proud of what is obviously ridiculous.So, how long are you going to drive with holes in the tank and radiator, constantly having to stop and refill, often finding yourself stranded, but stubbornly refusing to fix the obvious?How long will you insist on hauling and living on muddy water when living water could be flowing in your life? Jesus declared for anyone to hear, "If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him" John 7:37-39 (NIV).Today is a great day to fix the two core sins, evils, problems of your life, but you will need Jesus Christ for that. To God be all glory. Love you, Pastor Hans       

Pouring in - Pouring out

We were having the time of our lives playing in the sandbox. But it seems inevitable that playing hard will lead to some kind of accident, especially when you are surrounded by a fleet of Tonka heavy equipment and with shovels furiously digging. Sure enough, one of my grandsons lost control over the bulldozer he was operating bonked himself a good one. He cried and I yelled, “Stupid dozer!”Immediately he shifted gears, quit crying, walked over to me, looked me straight into the eyes, and with a most serious voice scolded me, “We don’t say that Opa!”“Say what?” I asked.“You know. It’s a bad word Opa!”“What word?” I wanted to know.“I’m not going to say it, but you know, OPA!”Indeed, I did know, and clearly, I was trying to corrupt my grandson. You have to be careful what you fill little hearts and minds with, because what you fill them with will be what comes out. This is not just true of little hearts and minds but yours and mine as well. Our mouths, our actions, our reactions are an indication of what fills us, “The things that come out of the mouth come from the heart, … For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander” Matthew 15:18-19 (NIV).It is easier to fill an empty cup than it is to fill one that is already full, that’s why wise parents from the get-go pay careful attention to what goes into their kids’ hearts and minds. A heart and mind that has been filled with bad words, habits, attitudes, ways of thinking and behaving can’t be filled with goodness and godliness until you first pour all that out. Before the Spirit of God can fill you and me with “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control,” we have to pour out what the Holy Spirit wants to replace, “Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified (poured out and continue to pour out) the sinful nature with its passions and desires,” because the reality of a holy and godly life is only possible by God’s Spirit and making room for all he desires to fill us with, “Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit” Galatians 5:22-25 (NIV).That pouring out, letting God have complete control of the filling and directing our hearts, minds, wills, plans, desires, attitudes, and habits, is difficult. In our sinfulness, we love to hang on to the sinful, selfish, spoiled, soiled, and same. And, in our perverseness others’ spilling over with what shouldn’t fill us makes us feel a little better. This, our brokenness and sinfulness, is why Christ came and is necessary, only he can help cleanse our hearts and minds and fill us with the Holy Spirit.“Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me” Psalm 51:10 (ESV)“God, make a fresh start in me, shape a Genesis week from the chaos of my life” Psalm 51:10 (MSG)             To God be all glory. Love you, Pastor Hans   

Without Love

I am working on a car, again, the a/c (air-conditioning) is out. The car is drivable but on 104 (40 Celsius) or hotter days, Susie might want to make it to work without having to take another shower.Our dishwasher rack is missing some prongs, but it is still washing dishes as well as it was when we bought it 25 years ago (Isn’t fun when God makes our things last?!).Walking around our property I continually find vulture feathers, and sometimes when those magnificent flying creatures zoom low over our heads you can see where some of those feathers are missing, obviously, this does not rob them of their ability to fly. Of course, it would be a lot different if a vulture lost all its feathers at once, it would ground them for sure. The dishwasher and Susie’s car would be worthless if their water pumps gave out, or some other vital part failed.It is no different with the Christian life, there are minor issues which might make things more uncomfortable, make things harder, or force you to make adjustments, and then there are major things that bring you to a screeching halt, keep you from soaring, and need immediate attention and repair. This is something the Corinthian Christians lost sight of; they were busy fixing the a/c when their engine had major problems. They argued and divided over minor things and forgot about the most important. As a result, they started looking and acting more and more ridiculous. Christians can employ the full Christian lingo and yet look like a vulture without feathers.The Apostle Paul told the Corinthians that if they got things right their Faith, Hope, and Love would be in top mechanical condition, be the main feathers of their plumage, would leave their dishes sparkling. And of these three, he said, Love was the most indispensable. Without it the individual believer and the Christian community/church is broken, without substance, going nowhere, accomplishing nothing.“If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing. Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends (fails)” 1 Corinthians 13:1-8 (ESV, parenthesis NASB).So, now that you have read the scripture above, I want to challenge you to do a little exercise with me. Think through this passage with the heading:If I don’t have love (the kind God wants you to have and practice)How does that affect your life, the life of your church, and the lives of those around you? Here are the first four things I wrote down:

• Without out love, I sound wrong, verse 1.
• Without love, I think wrong (“I am nothing”), verse 2.
• Without love, I go wrong (“I gain nothing”), verse 3.
• Without love, I am not as patient as I can and should be, verse 4.

And Now you finish it up:

• Without love,  __________________________________________________
• Without love,  __________________________________________________
• Without love,  __________________________________________________
• Keep going! ….

Now ask yourself, “Who is at the brunt end of my lack of love?” This might be an individual, several people, or entire group or groups of people.Finally, what is the first right loving action you need to initiate towards him, her, and/or them? ______________________________________________________ (It might include having to apologize and ask for forgiveness.)Maybe you’re not feeling it. Maybe you think someone else needs to make the first move. If you are waiting on those two to change you might be waiting a long, too long of a time to become the loving person Christ wants you to be. Start fixing the most important things today.To God be all glory. Love you, Pastor Hans    

Nevertheless, Not what I will, but what you will (part 2)

Nevertheless, not what I will, but what you will. Mark 14:36 (HCSB)We like it when things go according to our own way, plans, and desires, and when they don’t, we wish they would, complain, grow resentful, even bitter. Underlying this is the notion that the epitome of success is to have both the freedom and resources to do whatever we want to, to be able to grant our hearts desires free reign.Interestingly, James in his letter, is especially hard on exactly those who have the means, the power, and the freedom to plan and do as they wish, “Come now, you who say, ‘Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit’— yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say, ‘If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.’ As it is, you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil. So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin. James 4:13-17 (ESV). This kind of freedom, affluence, and opportunity is what we consider success and often call blessing, but it is also riddled with temptation:

• The temptation to hold onto a wrong perspective of life.
• The temptation to operate apart from, independently of God.
• The temptation to be unconcerned about God’s will.
• The temptation to be proud and arrogant, to overestimate ourselves.
• The temptation to give ourselves too much credit.
• The temptation to elevate doing our own thing over the right thing.

When we give in to these temptations, we forget that:

• Life is about more than making a profit.
• We do not control the future.
• The importance of God and the doing of his will.
• The very limited time we have to do what is right.
• That we are prone to do evil.
• Sin consists of both commission and omission.

The Apostle Paul cautioned the Galatian Christians, “It is absolutely clear that God has called you to a free life. Just make sure that you don't use this freedom as an excuse to do whatever you want to do and destroy your freedom. Rather, use your freedom to serve one another in love; that's how freedom grows. Galatians 5:13 (MSG)  Heavenly Father,Hallowed be your name. Your will be done. Forgive us when we are consumed with our own honor, our own plans, our own comfort, that which both profits and pleases us most. Forgive us when we concern ourselves with your honor and will last and not first, when we treat you like an insurance or an emergency call station. Help us to commit our work and plans to you, to rely on you to establish us, to anchor ourselves, our plans, and all we do in your purposes (Proverbs 16:3, 9:21). Strengthen us when we are conflicted between what we want and what we know your will is, to, in that moment, be able to deny ourselves and trust you fully. Because we know only your kingdom will endure, you alone hold all power, and only you are fully deserving of all glory. AmenLove you, Pastor Hans

Little Flat Tire Preaching

I needed to fix a slow air leak in a  riding mower front tire. Simple fix, really. You just put in an inner-tube. The guy at the tire shop where I bought an innertube informed me that they don’t like to work on those little wheels, “They are real little buggers,” he said.I thought, “How hard can it be? I’ve done plenty of bicycle and wheelbarrow tires. I’ll save the fifteen buck installation fee.”“Real little buggers,” was an understatement. “Gigantic pain in the posterior,” would’ve been much more accurate. I wrestled that little wheel like a greased pig and in the process managed to puncture the innertube six times. When I pumped it up it whistled like a pan flute, and, trying to fix the fix I ran out of patches.Before putting it all back together I watched some YouTube videos on how to fix “little bugger” mower wheels because clearly, I didn’t know how to do it right. It is amazing what you can learn on YouTube.I clearly needed some instruction before attempting to put things back together a second time (To be honest, I was tempted to take it back to the tire shop on my next trip to town and plunk down the fifteen bucks. But I couldn’t bear the thought of the tire shop guy looking at my new, six times patched tube and cracking up and call the rest of the shop crew over to “check out this clumsy fool!”) So, with my hurt pride, I got myself a YouTube education on wrestling these little butt-kicking wheels. Two Vise Grips and a long bolt and nut in the bench vise proved to be super helpful.Would you call me “a little dense,” or “downright stupid,” if after watching helpful YouTube videos I would have tried to get that tire back on the same way I did the first time?Would you think of me as “ridiculous” if instead of trying to follow the practical YouTube instructions I called everyone on the prayer-chain to have them join in praying for a miracle fix to my tire problem?Would you have a difficult time not rolling your eyes at me, thinking “Really!” if this weekend at church I would tell everybody how Satan is attacking me again, making my life miserable, how everything that possibly can go wrong is going wrong, and that few people have suffered this deeply and profoundly.Would you wonder if I had a brain if I would park a perfectly good running riding mower behind the shed and let it rot away because of flat a front tire I didn’t know how to fix myself?Maybe you chuckled once or twice reading this pastor’s note so far, but thirty-five years of pastoring, preaching, and teaching the Bible this is what I see all too often:

1. Christians ignoring the greatest life-instruction manual ever written, the Bible.
2. Christians overestimating their own wisdom, knowledge, skill, and strength.
3. Christians making a mess, leaking, dragging like flat tires.
4. Christians turning to God, the Bible, and godly counsel in times of crisis (YouTubing solutions), only to ignore them and go back to what didn’t work before.
5. Christians turning prayer into some kind of magic wand as a replacement for following sound biblical wisdom and instruction.
6. Christians rolling in continual self-pity and catharsis but unwilling to inform themselves and refusing to implement biblical ways and wisdom into their thinking, attitudes, habits, behavior, circumstances, and problems.
7. Christians dragging from Sunday to Sunday (or just dragging) leaking air through self-inflicted punctures only to park the whole tractor of a vibrant life in Christ in the scrap yard behind the barn with all the other old broken-down tractors, trucks, and implements.

“Be strong and very courageous. Be careful to obey all the instructions the Bible gives you. Do not deviate from them, turning either to the right or to the left. Then you will be successful in everything you do. Study this Book of Instruction continually. Meditate on it day and night so you will be sure to obey everything written in it. Only then will you prosper and succeed in all you do. This is my command—be strong and courageous! Do not be afraid or discouraged. For the LORD your God is with you wherever you go.” Joshua 1:7-9 (adapted from NLT2)To God be all glory. Love you, Pastor HansP.S. For your tires I got the phone # of the tire shop.   

Mercy and Time

Mercy needs time. Being merciful requires, besides compassion and action, time. Those who need mercy today need both someone who will show mercy and time. All who are crying out for mercy around the world, the aliens, refugees, oppressed, mistreated, those deprived of justice, those who’ve made mistakes, and those who are repenting of wickedness and evil, are also hoping for time. Enough time for things to change, time for life to be better, time to have another chance to be better. The dilemma is that the very time those crying out for mercy need also gives evil, evildoers, corruption, and sin more time.

When it comes to mercy, Jesus left no doubt as to how he, God, wants us to function in time. He commands us to be merciful, expects us to be merciful, and blesses us when we are merciful, “Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful” Luke 6:36 (NIV); “Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy” Matthew 5:7 (NIV). He wants you and me to become answers to those crying for mercy. He wants us to be the men and women who understand and live James’ point, “Speak and act as those who will be judged by the law of freedom. For judgment is without mercy to the one who hasn’t shown mercy. Mercy triumphs over judgment” James 2:12-13 (HCSB).

It would be a grave mistake to conclude that since mercy triumphs over judgment that judgment has been rendered obsolete and is abolished. Mercy is not mercy if leads to a perversion of justice, the abolishment of judgment, “… it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment, so Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him” Hebrews 9:27-28 (ESV). The cross of Christ is both the most merciful and the most just act in all of history. It did not bypass the justice of God but rather satisfied it completely and doing so it enables the mercy of God to save even the worst sinner.

However, mercy does not buy evil, wickedness, and sin unlimited time. It does grant a sinner time to repent and in doing so give him or her a chance to do even more evil, but it will also not ignore the cries of those suffer that evil. The evil doers and merciless who died comfortably in their plush beds will not escape justice, “God has warned us that he'll hold us to account and make us pay. He was quite explicit: ‘Vengeance is mine, and I won't overlook a thing,’ and, ‘God will judge his people.’ Nobody's getting by with anything, believe me”Hebrews 10:30-31 (MSG); “… the day of the Lord (the day of God’s judgment, of Christ’s return) will come like a thief in the night. While people are saying, ‘Peace and safety,’ destruction will come on them suddenly, as labor pains on a pregnant woman, and they will not escape.  … “So then, let us not be like others, who are asleep, but let us be alert and self-controlled”1 Thessalonians 5:6 (NIV, parenthesis mine).

Today is a day of mercy, a great day to respond to God’s mercy, a terrific day to be merciful. Today is also a day God in his mercy has said to many, “Your time is up, time for judgment.” Only believing in and following Christ will prepare you for that day.

To God be all glory. Love you, Pastor Hans

Dilemmas of Being Merciful, Part 1 – Enabling Evil

But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return, and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, for he is kind to the ungrateful and the evil. Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful.Luke 6:35-36 (ESV)

Mercy does give second chances but it does not abolish judgment or pervert justice, nor does mercy ignore what is wise and prudent. If you are familiar with the Bible (God’s written revelation) you know that God pushed the reset button on the human race once. Before he flooded the earth in the days of Noah people lived incredibly long lives, but, “The LORD observed the extent of human wickedness on the earth, and he saw that everything they thought or imagined was consistently and totally evil… ‘I have decided to destroy all living creatures, for they have filled the earth with violence’” Genesis 6:5, 13 (NLT2). However, the judgment God announced to Noah did not come for many years, years which God gave to Noah and his family to construct an ark (ship) and to preach to everyone the impending judgment and how to escape it (2 Peter 2:5). God in his mercy gave time for people to hear the truth and to repent, he “patiently waited” (1 Peter 3:20), but he also stayed true his word. Then, after the flood, God limited the human life-span to around 70 to 120 years (Genesis 6:3, Psalm 90:10); and, history has proven that we are capable of doing plenty of evil and violence in that time frame. There is a line when mercy becomes merciless. Giving a wicked man or woman a chance to repent and change is mercy, allowing him or her to go on and on enables him or her and is anything but being merciful to the victims. In fact, there are many instances when 70 to 120 years seems far too long to us.

God has set a cutoff time for each one of us, “And just as it is appointed for people to die once—and after this, judgment” Hebrews 9:27 (HCSB). And, God has set a final cutoff point for all of humanity and evil (2 Peter 3:3-18, Revelation 20:7-15). In the meantime God is amazingly merciful and confusingly merciful, seemingly giving evil and violence far too long a leash, far too much opportunity, giving people too much time to do unspeakable wrong. But, O how glad and grateful I am for every chance, for every opportunity his mercy has afforded me.

How are you responding to the mercy of God giving you time and opportunity? Are you taking that time and opportunity to enable you in your selfishness, your sinfulness, and wickedness? Or, are you the time and opportunity God’s mercy gives you to repent, to do good, to honor God, and to be prepared for the judgment? Your clock is running.

To God be all glory. Love you, Pastor Hans

Be Merciful - The Merciful - Heinzi

Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful. Luke 6:36 (NIV)Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy. Matthew 5:7 (NIV)In order to be numbered among the merciful, you have to be merciful. But why should we want to be merciful in the first place? First of all, because God the Father and Jesus Christ are merciful, but also because we reap what we sow, and because a merciless world is a terrible world to live in and a merciless life is a terrible life to live.My earliest memory of being merciless is in Kindergarten on a warm early summer morning that had us wearing shorts. We, the other bullies and I, had mentally and socially challenged Heinzi cornered in the corner of the blind spot of the play yard. On one side of the corner was the wall of the building, the other side was a fence, and the entire corner was overgrown with tall sting nettles. Sting nettles are nasty plants with leaves that have poisonous barbs at the edges of their leaves that burn like bee stings and leave nasty welts. “I’m burning! I burning!” Heinzi cried as he tried to escape but was sent back tumbling into the nettles again and again. He finally just gave up and sat there weeping, unable to comprehend why? We wandered off, laughing, but inside I knew it was wrong, I felt wicked without knowing the word. I should’ve gone back to help Heinzi, but I didn’t, I lacked the courage. And, I wish it was my only memory of being merciless, but sadly and shamefully it isn’t.Heinzi never told on us, which is surprising because Heinzi told everything. Besides what was going on in our own consciences we suffered no consequences. It bothered me so much I left the bully club of five-year-olds and the picture of the incident still hangs on the main wall of my memory. Somehow, Heinzi and I became friends, which says more about him than it says about me. Somehow, this little boy whom we deemed inferior and weak met my mercilessness with mercy, with forgiveness, and a willingness to try again and be friends. It wasn’t until many years later that I figured out that whether he knew it or not he was being like “Our Father,” who told us through Christ, “But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return, and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, for he is kind to the ungrateful and the evil. Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful” Luke 6:35-36 (ESV). Somehow, when I think if this evil I was part of in the corner of the Kindergarten yard I think of Christ, who in dying agony, unspeakable injustice and cruelty, and with one of his last breaths looked down at mocking, jeering, merciless crowd and with compassion and mercy said, "Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing" Luke 23:34 (NIV).2019 needs more mercy not less, which means it needs more of us to be “merciful,” to act merciful like God the Father and Christ, like Heinzi weeping in the sting nettles.To God be all glory. Love you, Pastor Hans  

Little Big Things - Our Words

We were hiking Half Dome (a 17-mile adventure) on what turned out to be the hottest day of the year. Although we brought what seemed to be way to much water, and remember water is heavy, we were going through our supply way to fast. I was hoping our water would last us to the top and back down to a little spring that flowed into a basin about the size of a small sink, big enough to submerge our bottles and refill. When we got there others were already filling up and we had to wait our turn when a group of four come drugging through stepping right into the precious reservoir turning it into a muddy mess. Yes, no one was amused, and yes, everyone was ticked off and even more so when the rude spring stompers showed absolutely no remorse.

It doesn’t take much to pollute clean water, but it sure takes time and effort to clean it up. The EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) is dealing with thousands of toxic waste sites in need of expensive cleanup. They got to be toxic waste sites because someone carelessly dumped enough toxic stuff to contaminate everything there.

Our words, our tongues, our communications have the potential to be like precious fresh water, refreshing the hearer, encouraging and blessing the recipients. But they also have the potential to be toxic, be destructive, contaminating hearts and minds, often for a very long time. “The words of a whisperer are like delicious morsels; they go down into the inner parts of the body” Proverbs 18:8 (ESV). “With it (our tongue, mouth, communications) we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse people who are made in the likeness of God. From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. My brothers, these things ought not to be so. Does a spring pour forth from the same opening both fresh and salt water?”James 3:9-11 (ESV, parenthesis mine).

So, how is it with your mouth, the words that come from your lips or your fingertips? Are they careless, mean, destructive, negative, hurtful, rude, vile, incendiary, gossipy, toxic, sarcastic, prideful, bitter, malicious, rash, thoughtless, manipulative, untruthful, misinformed, meddling, aggressive, attacking, impolite and lacking in what they could be and should be? And how often do you justify your toxic tongue by claiming justified anger, superior information, better understanding, the wrong of others, your own pain and woundedness? As loose as we might play with our words and lips, as much as we might justify ourselves, God is crystal clear when it comes to our mouths, the way we should use our words. “But I tell you that men will have to give account on the day of judgment for every careless word they have spoken” Matthew 12:36 (NIV).

“Out of the same mouth come praise and cursing. My brothers, this should not be “ James 3:10 (NIV).

 “Reckless (rash, cutting) words pierce like a sword, but the tongue of the wise brings healing” Proverbs 12:18 (NIV, parenthesis mine).

“But now you must rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy (abusive, obscene) language from your lips. Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old self with its practices” Colossians 3:8-9 (NIV, parenthesis mine).Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen”Ephesians 4:29 (NIV).

How do we do it? Clean up our words? Detoxify all communications, turn our speaking lips and typing fingertips and even our silences into a source of blessing?

1. Stop the toxic flow. The stream of our words will stay muddy and polluted until we do. However, in order to turn it off we will have to travel upstream to our hearts and minds, all the way to where our words a generated and address our own pollution there. But while we make this journey we can stop the words before they come out. It is a wise thing to do. “When words are many, sin is not absent, but he who holds his tongue is wise” Proverbs 10:19 (NIV).
2. Filter what you let out. Careless words are also unfiltered words. Of course there are toxic words that run through a filter of a different kind. Before you speak, before you type, before you communicate, ask yourself, “Does this pass the love test, the kindness test, the truth test, the benefitting the hearer test, the pleasing God test?” “Is what is about to come out clean, edifying, and able to bless?” “A word spoken at the right time is like gold apples on a silver tray” Proverbs 25:11 (HCSB).
3. Drink pure water, listen to clean words. Words don’t just go out they also go in. Who do you give permission to plant their words into your hearing, into your mind and heart? Who gets to put their morsels (Proverbs 18:8) into your ears? It will have an effect on your filter (see above). It is difficult to clean up your words while allowing others to dump their toxic waste. “Do not be deceived: "Bad company corrupts good morals (and our words)” 1 Corinthians 15:33 (NASB).

If this pastor’s note has hit a nerve with you pray the following with me and then start implementing the three steps above, “Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart Be acceptable in Your sight, O LORD, my rock and my Redeemer” Psalm 19:14 (NASB)

             To God be all glory. Love you, Pastor Hans

Mercy - Lessons from rodents, ....

Springtime, wake up time for rodents, ants, spiders, wasps, mosquitoes, flies and bugs. I know, spring doesn’t officially begin until March 20^th, 9:15 am to be exact. But the above-mentioned critters don’t give a hoot about official anything, nor do they respect boundaries, comfort, property rights, or someone else’s hard work. They do pretty much whatever they want, wherever they want, and whenever they want.  They come by stealth, mass invasion, through the air, underground, at high noon, twilight, and under the cover of night. Relentless I tell you, destructive, unapologetic, and even dangerous.I want them gone, out of my yard, away from my home, gone. If you want them, if your heart has a soft-spot for them, you can have them, the whole lot. A spider on my bedroom ceiling is not going to get the chance to play cat burglar and lower its multi-eyed self down on my bed in the middle of the night; it is going to get “splat!” The ground squirrels, wood-rats, mice, gophers, moles, voles will not encounter kind mercy; they will be trapped, shot, and poisoned when possible. The wasp eying my steak in its shifty flight will be permanently uninvited. The ants trying to homestead around 10417 Blanchard Road will meet the full brunt of available extermination methods. Not a single mosquito, kissing bug, beg bug, or termite will be tolerated, be invited to take a little sip or take a small bite, nor be merely trapped and released. Flies will be met by swatters, fly-papers, scented traps, and available chemicals; they will never receive permission for fly or stopovers.Striking, isn’t it, how the first paragraph above could easily describe wicked men and women, mankind in unrestrained sinfulness, and how the second paragraph could easily portray the harsh and merciless measures and attitudes mankind has used against each other.  Is it right to hate wickedness, to yearn for and work toward a world without it? Absolutely, but we have to be careful not to act wicked our own self. Keeping critters and pests out of my house is different from stomping on them when I go on a hike. I can put up screens and seal cracks before getting out the swatter or setting deadly traps.Of course, there is also the matter of worth. There is no question that even the life of the ground squirrel living under our playhouse and undermining the old trees in my backyard is amazing, regardless of it shamelessly mocking me this morning. However, there is a difference between all men being created equal and in the image of God, and all life being created equal. The first is true the second is unsustainable. So who gets to assign worth? God does, and has, “Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?” Matthew 6:26 (NIV). I hope you notice that different worth does not mean God doesn’t care about all of his creation, in fact not a single sparrow falls from the sky apart from God or is forgotten by God (Matthew 20:29; Luke 12:6-7). Obviously, for God, there is no tension counting a person as more valuable than a bird. For us, however, there is great tension in managing God’s creation responsibly, daily living and survival, and our own sinfulness.I imagine that God is vastly more disturbed about the wickedness of mankind, one person treating another, valuing another like a rodent, like a pest than you and I are about actual rodents and pests. God could have responded to our wickedness without mercy but instead, he both reaffirmed our value and his great love for every man and every woman in the cross of Christ. Because of his great mercy and love he “is not slow in keeping his promise (of final judgment and justice on all wickedness), as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance” 2 Peter 3:9 (NIV, parenthesis mine). We, the church, followers of Christ, worshippers of the one living God should do no less, at home, in our communities, our countries, our politics, our policies, and our attitudes.To God be all glory. Love you, Pastor Hans     

Transforming Grace

Salvation without transformation is misinformation that results in damnation.If your house has termites how many of them do want to be gone, for how many do you pay the exterminator to get rid off? How much of the termite damage do you want your contractor to fix? I imagine your answers were, “All of the termites and all of the damage.”If you were to get sprayed by a skunk (and I have), how much of that foul smell does your spouse want you to wash off before coming to bed? I imagine your answer would be, “All of it, and make sure you put on a hefty dose of cologne.”How much of our sin, our depravity, our moral and spiritual rot and filth do you think God’s grace is trying to address? How deep do you think the grace of God is trying to sink into our hearts and lives? How much does God’s grace want to change in us and about us? The answers to these questions are, “All of it, to my very core, and more than I imagine.”The grace of God aims to be transforming. There is no way to drink from the cup of God’s grace and be unchanged. If you remain unchanged you haven’t swallowed. As James puts it, “Faith without works is dead” (James 2:17), meaning: you can’t believe in the love, grace, and mercy of God (salvation) and live unchanged.” If the love of Christ has touched us it compels us to love. If our sins are forgiven we should be forgiving. If we have received mercy it should make us merciful. If the joy of God and his salvation has filled us we should be joyful and positive. If the goodness of God is real it should cause us to desire to do good. If the peace of God keeps our hearts and minds we should pursue peace. If we have benefited from the patience of God we should be patient with others. If the selflessness, the obedience, the faithfulness, the kindness, and humility of Jesus has in any way worked in our favor then we ought to embrace the same.Somehow we are very comfortable with saving grace, who doesn’t want to go heaven? We love the everyday grace of God, the grace that makes the sun rise, the rains fall, puts bread on our tables, and gives us opportunities in life (Matthew 5:45). We don’t complain about delivering grace, healing grace, God-helping-me out grace, that would be foolish. But how quickly we begin to resist transforming grace, when God wants to replace more than a few roof shingles, when he starts scraping off old paint, lays bare the rot, starts messing with our values, our outlooks, our attitudes, the way we react and interact, and puts our motives, our pursuits, and lifestyles on the table.After following Jesus for almost forty years I still find surrendering to God’s transforming grace most challenging. I am amazed and ashamed how resistant I can be, how many self-deceptive excuses I can conjure up, how quickly I can deflect, and how disobedient I can be. I pray to be like the Apostle Paul, after having an opportunity to tell king Agrippa of his conversion, of the time when the saving grace of Christ met him, quickly added, "So … I did not prove disobedient to the heavenly vision” (Acts 26:19 NASB). What a statement of surrender to transforming grace.When it comes to transforming grace we face a triple threat:

• All of our old scripts, the defaults of our sinful self. O how good they are in pulling us back, helping us to revert, to revel in saving grace while resisting transforming grace.
• Declaring ourselves changed enough, holy enough. Resting on past progress and viewing ourselves in comparison to others has a way of making us resistant to present obedience.
• Thinking of grace only in passive terms, God saves me by his grace, God will change me by his grace, and finally God will glorify me his grace. That however is not the whole truth; God’s saving grace compels us to believe, to repent, to confess, God’s glorifying grace is preceded by perseverance, and God’s transforming grace requires our cooperation and obedience.

Read the first sentence again. None of us needs just a little bit of Jesus, a little bit grace, we need all of Christ and all of God’s grace, anything less is self-deception, will make us pull up short of God’s marvelous grace (Hebrews 12:15). On the flipside, there is nothing like being transformed by God’s grace, “We all … are looking as in a mirror at the glory of the Lord and are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory; this is from the Lord who is the Spirit” 2 Corinthians 3:18 (HCSB).To God be all glory,. Love you, Pastor Hans 

Easter - What You Need Most

I didn’t think I needed sunscreen, after all it was kind of hazy and we were not going to be outside for very long, but man did I get sunburned.For 45 years I didn’t think I need glasses, my older brothers did but not me. Then the food on my dinner plate was no longer in focus, and on my first visit to the optometrist I was told that I needed glasses.Somebody at NASA during the Gemini program thought it was a good idea to stick a roll of duct tape on board of the space capsules and so, although it never did get used, they carried a roll on every mission during the Apollo program as well. Until the Apollo 13 mission got into trouble and, you guessed it, the duct tape was a big part of what saved the crew. I wonder how often it was suggested to no longer bother carrying the extra weight of the duct tape, that it was no longer needed?The travel nurse made sure I had all my vaccinations in order before going on a trip to Africa, she told me to also pick up a prescription for a malaria preventative and Ciprofloxacin, an antibiotic. “Do I really need that?” I asked. "I highly recommend taking it with you,” she said. Boy, o boy, was I glad that I listened to her when I was hit by some kind of intestinal inferno.You, me, and my son need insulin if we want to live. When I get up in the morning I don’t think about insulin, my body takes care of all of my insulin calculations and needs. My son, a diabetic, thinks about insulin all of the time. He has to make sure he has insulin, syringes, needles, test strips, etc. on hand; he can’t afford to run out. He has to monitor, calculate, and administer continually. But the truth is we both need insulin if we want to live, however, our awareness of that need is vastly different.So just because we don’t think we need something, or because we thought we’d never need it, or because we seemingly have not needed it yet, or because we don’t have to think about something we need, does not mean we don’t need it.It is Easter, and Easter is about what we need most, “I passed on to you what was most important and what had also been passed on to me. Christ died for our sins, just as the Scriptures (the written Word of God) said. He was buried, and he was raised from the dead on the third day, just as the Scriptures said” 1 Corinthians 15:3-4 (NLT, parenthesis mine). There are three inescapable facts regarding you, me, and everyone else:

1. We are sinners (Romans 3:23)
2. We will die (Romans 6:23, Ezekiel 18:4).
3. We will have to face God’s judgment (Hebrews (9:27-28).

This is why we need Jesus Christ, to be forgiven of our sins, to not be defeated by death but instead receive eternal life, and to escape the judgment of God. There is no one else but the crucified, buried, and risen Jesus Christ, who can help you and me with these. “There is salvation in no one else! God has given no other name under heaven by which we must be saved” Acts 4:12 (NLT). Let me ask you, “How wise is it to ignore what God thinks you need most?”It is only “If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is by believing in your heart that you are made right with God, and it is by confessing with your mouth that you are saved” Romans 10:9-10 (NLT)To God be all glory. Love you, Pastor Hans