Praying the Names of God July 13, 2016

From Praying the Names of Jesus Week Twenty-Four, Day Four

The Name
Like most of us, Jesus' disciples were sometimes caught up with a sense of their own self-importance, at times even arguing with each other about which of them was greatest. Jesus startled them by reversing the natural order in which it is the weak who serve the strong. He assured them, instead, that he came not in order to control and dominate but in order to serve.

Though prophets, judges, and kings were called servants of God in the Bible, Jesus is the greatest of all God's servants, the Man of Sorrows who laid down his life in obedience to his Father. He is the Servant who through his suffering has saved us. When you pray to Jesus as Servant or as the Man of Sorrows, you are praying to the Lord who has loved you in the most passionate way possible, allowing himself to be nailed to a cross in order that you might have life and have it to the full.

Key Scripture
He was despised and rejected, a man of sorrows, acquainted with bitterest grief. Isaiah 53:3, NLT

The Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve. Matthew20:28

***

Praying the Name

When he had finished washing their feet, he put on his clothes and returned to his place. "Do you understand what I have done for you?" he asked them. "You call me ‘Teacher' and ‘Lord,' and rightly so, for that is what I am. Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another's feet. I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you. I tell you the truth, no servant is greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him. Now that you know these things, you will be blessed if you do them." John 13:12 - 17

Reflect On: John 13:12-17.

Praise God: For sending his Son to show us how to live.

Offer Thanks: For the humble, practical ways others have served you.

Confess: Your sorrow at the opportunities you have missed to serve others.

Ask God: To give you the heart of a servant.

Do you ever question your purpose in life? As a zealous young Christian I used to wonder what I could do to make the most impact. What single thing, what career or ministry, would enable me to make the greatest contribution to the kingdom of God? That question, full of youthful ambition, recycled itself in my mind off and on for many years. Finally an answer occurred to me that took me completely by surprise. It was simple, unspectacular, but true. It didn't involve giving up all my worldly possessions. Nor did it mean moving to the inner city to help the poor, good as that might be. In fact, it required no drastic change in terms of what I was already doing.

I began to realize that the secret to fulfilling God's purpose for my life resided not so much in what I did as in how I did it. It didn't matter whether God gave me a large role or a tiny one; I could still have impact if I could learn to do one thing — to love people in whatever circumstance I found myself. Why? Because love lasts. Because love never fails. Because love does not envy, and it never boasts. It is neither proud nor rude. Love is not easily angered, and it keeps no record of wrongs. Love always protects, always trusts, always hopes. Love never gives up. God is love. Love, in fact, is the hardest, most powerful thing in the world. Whether driving a child to school, leading a church, cleaning a bathroom, heading up a multinational corporation, or washing feet, love is the secret to making a lasting impact.

To be truthful, I would have found it easier to move to a Third World country to live among the poor than to try and make God's love present within my family, my neighborhood, and my church. Even now, after years of knowing the Lord, I am aware of the meagerness of my efforts, of how tainted they are by selfishness. Speaking of how difficult it can be at times to love others, Mother Teresa once remarked, "I have found the paradox that if I love until it hurts, then there is no hurt but only more love." This remarkable woman knew the power of loving in simple, practical ways:

Some of my sisters work in Australia. On a reservation, among the Aborigines, there was an elderly man. I can assure you that you have never seen a situation as difficult as that poor old man's. He was completely ignored by everyone. His home was disordered and dirty.

I told him, "Please, let me clean your house, wash your clothes, and make your bed." He answered, "I'm okay like this. Let it be." I said again, "You will be still better if you allow me to do it."

He finally agreed. So I was able to clean his house and wash his clothes. I discovered a beautiful lamp, covered with dust. Only Godknows how many years had passed since he last lit it.

I said to him, "Don't you light your lamp? Don't you ever use it?"

He answered, "No. No one comes to see me. I have no need to light it. Who would I light it for?"

I asked, "Would you light it every night if the sisters came?"

He replied, "Of course."

From that day on the sisters committed themselves to visiting him every evening. We cleaned the lamp, and the sisters would light it every evening.

Two years passed. I had completely forgotten that man. He sent this message: "Tell my friend that the light she lit in my life continues to shine still."

I thought it was a very small thing. We often neglect small things.

Ask for the grace today to be mindful of the things that seem too small to capture your attention. Ask God to help you slow down and recognize the opportunities he is giving you right now to make a lasting impact in this world through the power of his love. 

For more from Ann Spangler, visit her blogspot on Christianity.com. Be sure to check out Ann's newest book,Wicked Women of the Bible.

Praying the Names of God July 12, 2016

From Praying the Names of Jesus Week Twenty-Four, Day Three

The Name
Like most of us, Jesus' disciples were sometimes caught up with a sense of their own self-importance, at times even arguing with each other about which of them was greatest. Jesus startled them by reversing the natural order in which it is the weak who serve the strong. He assured them, instead, that he came not in order to control and dominate but in order to serve.

Though prophets, judges, and kings were called servants of God in the Bible, Jesus is the greatest of all God's servants, the Man of Sorrows who laid down his life in obedience to his Father. He is the Servant who through his suffering has saved us. When you pray to Jesus as Servant or as the Man of Sorrows, you are praying to the Lord who has loved you in the most passionate way possible, allowing himself to be nailed to a cross in order that you might have life and have it to the full.

Key Scripture
He was despised and rejected, a man of sorrows, acquainted with bitterest grief. Isaiah 53:3, NLT

The Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve. Matthew20:28

***

Praying the Name

Now before the festival of the Passover, Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart from this world and go to the Father. Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end. . . . During supper Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going toGod, got up from the table, took off his outer robe, and tied a towel around himself. Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples' feet and to wipe them with the towel that was tied around him. John 13:1 - 5, NRSV

Reflect On: John 13:1 - 5.

Praise God: For loving us to the end through his Son, Jesus Christ.

Offer Thanks: Because Jesus has cleansed you from the defiling power of sin.

Confess: Your unworthiness.

Ask God: To help you receive the gift of salvation with gladness.

Imagine that you are living in first-century Palestine. Though you are in the prime of life, you know that you will die within the next twentyfour hours. In fact, you have known this for some time. Despite your efforts to prepare your friends, they seem thickheaded, unable to grasp the situation. You know that your death will shatter them. They will flee from shadows that will overtake you, terrified lest they also be overtaken. In the hours and days that follow, each will be tempted to despair, thinking that your promises were nothing more than wellintentioned dreams.

Now, before it happens, you long to comfort them, assuring them that everything will be all right, but they aren't listening. Instead they are distracted by trivialities, arguing which of them is greatest. And they are doing this in the middle of the Passover feast, the last meal you will share with them prior to your death.

Something else is in your mind too, a kind of confidence that seems strange in light of your knowledge of coming events. You know both who you are and where you are going. You also know you are precisely where you should be in God's timetable. You are determined to move forward, knowing that nothing can happen without your consent. But before you walk headlong into darkness, you decide to make one more attempt to communicate with your slow-witted disciples. You choose to do this not with words they are too deaf to hear but by acting out a parable. So you get up from the table and remove your outer clothing. Wrapping a towel around your waist, you pour water into a basin. Then you stoop down and start wiping the grime from your friends' feet. It's what a slave would do. By now the bickering has stopped. Each man looks at you with bewildered eyes. You are certain that each of your  friends will remember this moment for the rest of their lives.

John's Gospel tells us not only that Jesus loved his disciples but that he loved them to the end. What he did for them the night before his death illustrates the extent of his love. But the meaning of that actedout parable eluded them at first. Later, in excited conversations, they would have begun to understand what Jesus was trying to tell them.

The night before he died, Jesus removed his outer garments. Wasn't he showing them a picture of what was about to happen, when the next day he would be stripped of his clothing before being nailed to a cross? And what about the water he had poured into the basin in order to cleanse them? Hadn't he also poured out his blood for them on the cross? Surely Jesus had acted the part of a slave by washing their feet. Wasn't he also executed as a slave? Crucifixion, they knew, was a punishment so cruel it was reserved for subjugated peoples and slaves. In the midst of his disciples' reflections, one of them would have recalled Jesus' words shortly before the Passover feast: "I lay down my life for the sheep. . . . No one takes it from me but I lay it down of my own accord" (John10:15, 18).

Jesus gave his life — not grudgingly, but gladly. He stripped himself of power so that a deeper power could be at work reversing the deadly effects of our sin. Today, when you think of Jesus as the Suffering Servant, think not so much of what you have done to cause his suffering but of what he has done to cause you joy. Dwell not on your own unworthiness but on his worthiness. Think about his willing sacrifice, his determination, and his love. Just as Jesus loved his disciples to the end, he will love you to the end. Praise him for saving you and changing you through his great, long-suffering love. 

For more from Ann Spangler, visit her blogspot on Christianity.com. Be sure to check out Ann's newest book,Wicked Women of the Bible.

Praying the Names of God July 11, 2016

From Praying the Names of Jesus Week Twenty-Four, Day Two

The Name
Like most of us, Jesus' disciples were sometimes caught up with a sense of their own self-importance, at times even arguing with each other about which of them was greatest. Jesus startled them by reversing the natural order in which it is the weak who serve the strong. He assured them, instead, that he came not in order to control and dominate but in order to serve.

Though prophets, judges, and kings were called servants of God in the Bible, Jesus is the greatest of all God's servants, the Man of Sorrows who laid down his life in obedience to his Father. He is the Servant who through his suffering has saved us. When you pray to Jesus as Servant or as the Man of Sorrows, you are praying to the Lord who has loved you in the most passionate way possible, allowing himself to be nailed to a cross in order that you might have life and have it to the full.

Key Scripture
He was despised and rejected, a man of sorrows, acquainted with bitterest grief. Isaiah 53:3, NLT

The Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve. Matthew20:28

***

Praying the Name

See, my servant will prosper; he will be highly exalted. . . . My servant grew up in the Lord's presence like a tender green shoot, sprouting from a root in dry and sterile ground. There was nothing beautiful or majestic about his appearance, nothing to attract us to him. He was despised and rejected — a man of sorrows, acquainted with bitterest grief. We turned our backs on him and looked the other way when he went by. He was despised, and we did not care. Yet it was our weaknesses he carried; it was our sorrows that weighed him down. And we thought his troubles were a punishment from God for his own sins! But he was wounded and crushed for our sins. He was beaten that we might have peace. He was whipped, and we were healed! Isaiah 52:13; 53:2 - 5, NLT

Reflect On: Isaiah 52:13 - 53:12.

Praise God: For raising up his Son, Jesus.

Offer Thanks: For Christ's long-suffering love.

Confess: Any pride that keeps you from receiving the forgiveness Jesus offers.

Ask God: To help you look into the face of Christ on the cross.

I will never forget the profound silence that characterized the crowd as we streamed out of the theater after viewing The Passion of the Christ. For 126 minutes we had been painfully transfixed by Mel Gibson's graphic depiction of the last twelve hours of the life of Christ. It left us speechless. What words could we summon to defend ourselves? How could we explain the mitigating circumstances that made us not responsible for everything that had happened to Jesus? Words do not exist for such a task, and so we shuffled out in grim silence. It felt as though the wretchedness of the whole human race had been glaringly exposed. Our condition was far worse than I had imagined. How else to explain the magnitude ofGod's suffering?

John Calvin believed that human beings cannot attain true selfknowledge without first contemplating the face of God. He compared our distorted self-perception to an eye that has only been exposed to the color black. When that eye is exposed to a lighter color, even something with a brownish hue, it may mistake it for white because it doesn't have a clue about what white looks like. In other words, we are misshapen human beings surrounded by other misshapen human beings. Some of us may look good compared to others but we are still deeply flawed compared to God and to the kind of person he means us to become.

Jack Roeda, a pastor and professor of preaching at Calvin Theological Seminary, comments on John's Gospel, saying: John wants us to look on the face of Jesus until the conviction becomes rooted in our hearts that we are looking into the human face of the living God. Perhaps this face of God comes most into focus when it wears the crown of thorns. As Nicholas Wolterstorff writes, "It is said of God that no one can behold his face and live. I always thought this meant that no one can see his splendor and live. A friend said perhaps it meant that no one could see his sorrow and live. Or perhaps his sorrow is his splendor."

I think Wolterstorff is right. God's sorrow is his splendor. His goodness, standing as it does in contrast to our sinfulness, enables him to see with absolute clarity how far human beings have fallen. His sorrow is a gauge of his love, because it expresses what he was willing to endure, in the person of his Son, in order to heal our wretchedness. Jesus, the Man of Sorrows, reveals the splendor ofGod's face to us.

Dorothy Ranaghan writes about the difficulty of facing God when we know we have done wrong:

Averting the eyes because I am not worthy to look upon the face ofGod and live is one kind of response. But to run away internally or, worse, to cease praying for a period of time because I only want to see the Lord smiling at me is self-centered. The only corrective is to look upon the bloody, agonized face of Christ crucified and accept in those eyes of pain neither disgust nor approval, but only salvation and love beyond comprehension.

Jesus came to show us God's face. At times it is a face consumed by sorrow. Pray today for the grace to gaze on Jesus, seeing not only what he has suffered but why. Then praise him for his salvation and his love beyond comprehension. 

For more from Ann Spangler, visit her blogspot on Christianity.com. Be sure to check out Ann's newest book,Wicked Women of the Bible.

Fellowship Dinner at Full Gospel Christian Church July 9, 2016

Great food and great people! Love the songs, praising the Lord and the Word delivered by Pastor Kenny. We'd lost power the night before due to a bad storm that went through and it hadn't been restored. But this just goes to show that the Word will go on no matter what.