“Dear friends, I urge you, as foreigners and exiles, to abstain from sinful desires, which wage war against your soul. Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us.” -1 Peter 2:11-12

It’s opening day for baseball season and my Facebook and Twitter feed are all a buzz with people cheering on their perspective teams. The season only finished 5 months ago yet a lot of people were ready and anxious for it to start again. I think about these players that have committed their lives to the game of baseball and wonder how many hours they have put in over the course of their career. If you totaled it all up I’m sure that you would find out that they have spent years playing this game they love, or at least are good at. You also think about all of the injuries and, while more prevalent in football, someone’s season or career can be over in an instant. Even if they make it an entire career, what happens when they are too old to play at a competitive level? A lot of players don’t know what to do because they get caught in this idea of baseball or other sports. They forget that these are just temporary things. There comes a time when they either won’t matter anymore or we won’t care about them anymore. Unfortunately we can say the same about a lot of other things in our lives.

We seem to get caught up in the temporary things really easily. Our favorite sports team, the new “in” fashion, the latest video games, and the list goes on. We all have our own temporary pitfalls if you will. What makes them so attractive? How important are those things in the long run? Thankfully scripture reminds us of something more permanent. We are reminded in 1 Peter that we are to act as strangers or aliens on this planet we call earth because it is not our permanent home. It is only a temporary place for us to be until Christ comes to take us home eternally with Him. The other thing scripture reminds us of is that we have been forgiven for our “temporary” lapses in judgment called sins. Christ has permanently erased them from the record book so that we can have that home with Him forever. Our names have been added to the book of life with the most permanent ink we could ever think of. Christ’s blood. Our temporary covered by His permanent.  

“Don’t make a permanent decision for a temporary emotion.” -Unknown

“I know your works: you are neither cold nor hot. Would that you were either cold or hot! So, because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth.”

–Revelations 3:15-16

This is the first winter that I have spent outside of Minnesota or Nebraska in the last 15 years and it has proven itself to be an interesting endeavor. I have never seen weather jump around in temperature so much so frequently. We will go from having a week where we hardly get above freezing and then we will have a span of three days where it will hover right around 70 degrees. It then will drop back to the thirties for a few days and then head back to the fifties. Even some of the people who have lived here in Missouri have said that this is the most inconsistent winter that they have had in many years. I am so used to it being warm until winter, and then cold until it is supposed to warm up for spring and summer that my body doesn’t know what to do with all of this change in temperature. I sure wish it would just pick so I my body could stay adjusted.

In the passage for today it talks about being hot, cold, and lukewarm. Some take that literally and say John was talking about the “hot” baths and medicinal cleanings you would get that were healing and the “cold” as the refreshing drinks of water travelers would get when they rested. This makes sense because who wants to take baths in or drink semi-warm water. I can’t say I do. Instead add our faith to the conversation and what that faith produces. If we change the water analogy to faith, we get “hot” faith that is healing and encouraging when we need it. When times are down we can remember the grace and forgiveness that God has given to us freely, which builds us up to continue to do His works. If we have “cold” faith we get a refreshing reminder that we can’t do anything good without the work of the Holy Spirit encouraging us to do so. But if we have lukewarm faith it may come across as stagnant or unappealing, not showing people the true nature of our Heavenly Father. Thankfully our Heavenly Father is a forgiving God who has already taken our lukewarm times into account. He noticed that all people would fall into the trap of being lukewarm at some point or another and sent Christ to take care of that on the Cross. Christ has paid for our lukewarmness making us “hot and cold” people once again! I love being hot and cold!

Question for Reflection: Are you in a lukewarm slump? What has God already done for that?

“To love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength is all-consuming and all-encompassing. It is no lukewarm endeavor.” -Ezra Taft Benson

“In the course of time Cain brought to the Lord an offering of the fruit of the ground, and Abel also brought of the firstborn of his flock and of their fat portions. And the Lord had regard for Abel and his offering, but for Cain and his offering he had no regard. So Cain was very angry, and his face fell. The Lord said to Cain, “Why are you angry, and why has your face fallen? If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door. Its desire is for you, but you must rule over it.” –Genesis 4:3-7

Happy St. Patty’s day to all. If you aren’t wearing green I dub thee pinched! Today is not a day known for its calmness especially if you are Irish. You generally hear about all of the parties that are going on, we see all of the green that people are wearing, and sometimes we hear about the tragedy that comes along with those things. We hear about all of the people who got pulled over, the amount of drivers who made poor decisions about their drinking, and we hear about many youth who made poor choices and get in trouble for that as well. But you never hear about those people who have a nice dinner, have a couple of drinks, and head home to be ready for the next day’s work. Crazy right? So many people in our world get so caught up in the crazy chaos of life that they get sucked in. They worry more about which celebrities are having problems or what party they may be going to tomorrow night. Their relationship with God or going to church are put second or maybe not even put anywhere.

            Cain and Abel are a perfect example of that. They both bring an offering before God which was customary of that time, but Cain’s was whatever he could gather and Abel’s was the first fruits of his flock. Cain gave the leftovers and God didn’t pay attention to his offering whereas Abel gave the best of what he had to God and God noticed. What happens next? Cain gets angry and the next thing we know is that he has killed his brother Abel. Cain gives into his anger and all we see is chaos. We are just like the story of Cain and Abel. We forget to put God first and let ourselves get wrapped up in the chaos of this world. When we remember that God is the one who has given us all things and provides for our needs our world calms down a little bit. Maybe not on the outside but we have a calmness about us inside. Let’s call that calmness peace. That peace that comes from knowing God gave His first fruits (Jesus) as a sacrifice for us paying for all of our chaos for eternity! Kiss chaos goodbye!

Question for Reflection: How does the story of Cain and Abel show discipline and chaos?

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"    “In the midst of movement and chaos, keep stillness inside of you.” -Deepak Chopra

“No wisdom, no understanding, no counsel, can avail against the Lord. The horse is made ready for the day of battle, but the victory belongs to the Lord.” –Prov. 21:30-31

Here is a test for you. Take a little time and answer these questions to see how many of these things you actually know:

1.      What was the first animal ever created?

2.      How many wrinkles do you have on your skin?

3.      What is time?

4.      How many rubber bands can fit inside the space station?

5.      What is the total of all the stars ever created?

So this wasn’t really a very nice exercise. I don’t know about you but I can’t even begin to answer any of these questions. Even the one about the first animal every created because we can’t pinpoint the very first one. We could guess the category because of Genesis 1 noting it was a creature in the water or in the air but that’s about as specific as we can get. We live in a society that is all about knowledge and the access to knowledge. We like knowing things and feeling smart and we like being in on the gossip because it makes us feel important. But what is the value of that knowledge? Does it do us any good in the long run? So really it is sort of an exercise in futility then, right? Now I don’t mean that we should give up learning, school, or knowing anything because realistically that is a bad idea. Forgetting how to eat or breathe would be awful!

Think about this. God, knows all of the answers to all of the questions that have ever been asked and will ever be asked. God knows which animal He created first, he knows how many wrinkles each individual person has on their skin, God knows what time is, He knows how many of each type of rubber band ever created could fit in the space station, and He knows  how many stars He created. He knows everything, and I am glad I am not burdened with that because think of the expectations that go along with that!! Thankfully for us there are only 2 things that we need to know. The first is this: We are sinful human beings. That is pretty straight forward. We suck and screw up all the time. The second part is this: GOD HAS FORGIVEN ALL OF YOUR SINS AND WANTS YOU TO LIVE WITH HIM FOREVER!!!!! If you know anything please know that Christ paid for your screw ups and terribleness and has given you the best knowledge of all. You will have eternal and perfect life with Him. That’s all that I need to know.

Question for Reflection: What knowledge do you hold as most important in your life?

“The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.” -Socrates

“By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for you are dust and to dust you shall return.” –Genesis 3:19

It’s Ash Wednesday today, which is the start of the Lenten season of the church. Most people will probably will post or repost things about what Lent means and why we give things up (which I already have… Sorry), but I want to take a different approach. I like different. I’m different and like change, but that’s another story. What does it mean from dust you are to dust you shall return? I view this as one of the best Law/Gospel messages anyone could ever hear.

            Think about dust, or ashes. It is dirty and messy and gets all over everything right? Nobody can get away from dust because we are part of the reason it is there. Our dead skin cells and such. It even clogs things up and causes things not to work correctly. That is exactly like our sins. They are dirty and messy. They get all over everything and can screw things to the point they don’t work. Nobody can get away from them, it is just a matter of whether you believe they are sins or not. But then let’s think about dust again. When God created the world He made everything perfect. There was nothing wrong with it. He then took some of that perfect dust and made man. A little later God realized that there was no suitable partner for Adam, and created Eve from one of Adam’s ribs which originally was made from, you guessed it, perfect dust. Creation was perfect at that point. There was no sin or pain, war or destruction. It was perfect. And to that perfect dust we will return. Jesus will come again to claim the living and the dead. To remind us that we have been washed clean of our messy, dirty, sin infested lives and we were made perfect. Nothing keeping us from enjoy that perfect dust and perfect world any longer.

Question for Reflection: What does dust to dust mean to you?

“Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust; in sure and certain hope of the Resurrection into eternal life.” –Book of Common Prayer

“For certain people have crept in unnoticed who long ago were designated for this condemnation, ungodly people, who pervert the grace of our God into sensuality and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ.” –Jude 4

Have you ever read the book of Jude? For a while when I was younger I thought Jude was one of the longest books in the bible because I would see Jude 24-25 on a lesson and think we were talking about 2 whole chapters! Then I came to the realization that Jude was only 1 chapter and even then it was only 25 verses long. Anyway… If you haven’t read the book of Jude I encourage it. It is an interesting read. Jude smacks you with the law and it seems that you have no hope, and then he gives you the gospel (he is a good Lutheran!). As I was reading this morning, one thing stuck out to me. Usually we think about all of the evil that is going on in the world and how all of these outside forces or groups will be the ones to come in and cause us to fall away or stop believing in Christ. Jude however warns us otherwise. In verse 4 he says “For certain people have crept in unnoticed who long ago were designated for this condemnation….” It isn’t necessarily going to be those people outside the church that lead others away from Christ. It will also be those who have made it into leadership roles in the church that lead people away. That scares me. Think about it. There will be people in the church, pastors, DCEs, elders, teachers, members, you name it, who will be leading others away from the church. Yikes! I bring this to your attention because it worries me.

I was having a conversation the other day about people who give Christians a bad name and sometimes I think that I may be one of them. Not because I go around blatantly sinning or doing evil things but because I forget to show others how Christians really act. James talks about the sin of omission and the fact that we are being held accountable for those things that we don’t do as well as sins that we do. Sadly, I fall into those categories a lot, and so do you! We all sin and get caught up in those sins but there is something that sets us apart from other people. We know the saving and forgiving nature of our Father. We know that He is aware of all of our sins and yet He doesn’t condemn us for those. He still takes us in His arms, and tells us that He loves us no matter how much we screw up. Forgiveness is what sets us apart. Forgiveness is what carries us through our lives. Forgiveness is what will take us home!

Question for Reflection: What can you do to show others that Christianity isn't an exclusive and judgmental ideology of club? That it is really about people’s eternal welfare.

“False words are not only evil in themselves, but they infect the soul with evil.” -Socrates