Somewhere Out There

Somewhere Out There

(Mark 4:26-32 and 1:38)

This sermon is an integration of the lectionary with stories, primarily from Bishop Schnase, from the Annual Conference of the Missouri UMC. We as a Conference are indebted to the wisdom and leadership of Bishop Schnase and are obligated to pass it on with thanks.

A. Introduction
1. After Easter season, after Pentecost, the church enters a new liturgical season sometimes called by different names. It can be simply, the season after Pentecost and it runs all the way to Advent, about December 1st. The Roman Catholic church and others call it Ordinary time. But it doesn’t mean ordinary. It is derived from the word “ordinal” which means numbered. The Methodist church uniquely calls this period after Pentecost Kingdomtide although the dates are not uniformly agreed with. Whether ordinary time or kingdomtide, the color of the season is green, representing growth, growth in the church, growth in the kingdom. And appropriately, the readings in the Gospel of Mark are Jesus’ parables of the kingdom and growth. You might say stories with a backdrop of green.

2. Some of our previous Sunday’s activities have detracted from our readings in Mark so I’d like to review how Mark got us to Chapter 4. Mark is called the “immediate” Gospel. Things happen quickly and the word immediate or immediately are used 40 times in 16 short chapters.

a. Chapter 1 is a series of rapid fire topics and scenes: v 1 tells us of the good news: “In the beginning, the good news of Jesus Christ, Son of God.” (Mk 1:1) By verse 11, Jesus is baptized. In verse 13 he is tempted. By verse 15 he begins his ministry: “The time is fulfilled, the kingdom of God is at hand, repent and believe the good news.” (Mk 1:15)
b. Still in chapter 1 he calls the first of his disciples, Peter and Andrew, James and John. He teaches in the synagogue, like one with authority. The scripture notes, “not like the scribes.” Jesus is authority.
c. He casts out spirits. Jesus has authority over the spirit world.
d. Jesus heals Peter’s mother-in-law. Jesus has authority over spirits, and he has authority over the flesh.
e. The whole city gathers at the door of the house with their sick and their lame and those who are possessed by demons. Jesus heals them. Jesus casts out their demons. Jesus has authority.

3. Then Jesus prayed. It says, still in chapter 1, “In the morning, while it was still dark, he got up and went out and prayed.” (Mk 1:35) The greatest man who ever walked, Jesus who was part of the Godhead, Jesus who was divine, in fact God, derived his strength, his power, from relationship with the Father and the Holy Spirit through prayer. That is good news for us. Jesus went out to a deserted place and there he prayed. We too can pray, we too can derive our strength from prayer.

4. When the disciples found him saying, “Everyone is searching for you,” almost as though he had clarified his mission with God through prayer, he says to them, “Let us go to the neighboring towns, so that I may proclaim the message there also; for that is what I came to do.” (Mk 1:38) “Let us go to.. for that is what I came to do.” Go to, to proclaim the good news. The NIV says, “let us go somewhere.” Somewhere out there. “Let us go somewhere out there to the neighboring villages. Jesus was a ‘go to’ guy, a ‘somewhere out there’ kind of guy. “For that is what I came to do.”

a. And somewhere out there, he healed the lepers and the paralytics; he forgave sins. He proclaimed himself Lord of the Sabbath. He cast out demons. He declared power over Satan himself and began in Chapter 4 to tell the parables of the kingdom.

b. At the beginning of chapter 4, he tells the parable of the sower. He might have begun it by saying, “Somewhere out there, a sower went out to sow.”

c. You know the story, the seeds represent the word of God. Some fall on the path, the birds, Satan, comes and takes them away before they can take root. Some fall on rocky soil and they spring up but they have little root and when persecution arises, they whither and fall away. Some fall among the thorns and the cares of life choke them out.

d. But some, some, somewhere out there, some of the seeds fall on good soil and they hear the word, they respond to Jesus and bear fruit, thirty, sixty, a hundred fold.

5. Jesus, somewhere out there proclaiming the good news of the kingdom of God and telling the disciples of the fruit of the good news. And in today’s short parables, telling them that it would grow with great mystery like seed that germinates, we know not how, that sprouts, we know not how, that grows, we know not how, then puts out fruit and creates a harvest, we know not how. He tells us the harvest is the product of going to, of casting seed somewhere out there. God can do mysterious, miraculous things, but he needs someone to go to, to go to somewhere out there.

B. Body
1. The Annual Conference began with music by a group from Church of the Shepherd in St. Charles. The worship leader, a young man named Brandon Salter, told his story. He had grown up in a broken abusive home, no father by six, no mother by 12, on his own by 16. By his early 20s he’d landed in a number of night spots in the St. Charles area playing his guitar, entertaining the crowds. Over a number of months a pastor by the name of Bob Farr would come in and ask if he’d like to lead worship at his church. The last thing he wanted to do. He had not grown up in the church. He knew little about the church, but Bob persisted. Finally, when he was 26 he accepted the job. And at the age of 28 he gave his life to Christ. Today, he’s been married with two wonderful children and here he was leading worship at Annual Conference with 1500 United Methodists. Mysterious. Like the mustard seed cast upon the ground, scattered somewhere out there.
a. God at work in the sowing
b. God at work in the growing
c. God at work in the nesting
d. God at work in the harvesting.

2. Jesus saying, “Let us go to the neighboring towns and villages to proclaim the good news there, for that is what I came to do.” Going to, scattering seed, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom of God, and Bob Farr, the voice of Jesus today, bearing fruit in the life of Brandon Salter, somewhere out there.
a. Bob Farr wasn’t alone. God was at work too, preparing the soil, going before us, what we Methodists call prevenient grace, that grace that nudges us before we even know it. It happened with Brandon Salter, it happens with others too.
b. On Sunday morning, 8 young pastors told how they talked about their faith with others. One, Terry Cook, was older, had come to Christ in his late 30s and was now in his 40s, working as a pastor in a rural setting. He said that two incidents, early in his ministry led him to understand that God was always working mysteriously ahead of him, preparing the soil.
c. Soon after he was appointed to a church, he was called by one of his parishioners and told that they needed to go pray with a man that had just gotten out of the hospital. He was not a church member, but had just had a large tumor removed from his abdomen and he was in need of prayer. They went. He and his driver sat for sometime in the driveway praying before they knocked at the door. The man came to the door clutching a pillow over the area of the surgery. He was known to be an alcoholic that had obviously led a hard life. They went in. As they sat down, Terry felt compelled to ask the man “Do you have a relationship with Jesus Christ?” The man burst into tears. He told them that when he was preparing to leave the hospital, the chaplain had come by and told him to get ready, that within two days two men would come by and one of them would ask him if he had a relationship with Jesus Christ. Grace, God at work in the sowing, God at work in the growing.
d. The second Terry Cook story was similar. He had been appointed to a rural church and soon thereafter was driving down a country road and saw a couple sitting on their porch. He pulled in to introduce himself and asked, “I just thought I’d ask if you have a home church?” They replied, “We were just talking about that when you drove up.” Grace, God at work in the sowing, God at work in the growing. God at work, nudging the birds to make nests in the branches.
e. God going before us. “The kingdom of God is as if someone would scatter seed on the ground, and would sleep and rise night and day, and the seed would sprout and grow, he does not know how.” Somewhere out there someone. Terry Cook came along, the ‘go to’ guy, the ‘go to’ instrument of Jesus Christ, nurturing the growth and preparing for the harvest.

3. Monday morning at 8:00 was the Bishop’s teaching session, always a highlight. And before we finished the morning with the fixing of appointments for another year, we heard a sermon by Emanuel Cleaver, one of the top 10 preachers in America, and he showed us why. Wonderful, but it was the Bishop’s teaching hour that I want to share with you.
a. He began by telling us that our system of evangelism, the way we now scatter seed is broken. Our system of opening the church doors and waiting for people to come no longer works. It was a product of post WWII where returning men and women flocked to churches that had been established in the late 19th and early 20th century, the heyday of the Methodist movement, the time we were the shouting Methodists and the evangelists. That system of opening the doors and waiting no longer works.
b. Bishop Schnase remarked that evangelism takes place at the margins, not in the center of our groups, not in the middle of our churches, but at the margins.
Bob Farr had told us a year ago that we always needed to be out there where the people are developing relationships that allow us to make invitations.Bishop Schnase describes this as the margins. He said that we are all in danger of keeping company with people just like us. That it would be especially easy for him to talk to, to associate with only people of faith, with only Methodists for that matter, especially in the job of Bishop. And especially when the Bishop describes himself as an extreme introvert, not a Bob Farr who feels compelled to talk with just about anybody, Bob Farr, an extreme extrovert, the Bishop is just the opposite. Kind of explains why when Bishop Schnase and I meet, there is an exchange of smiles and not much more. Two introverts passing in the hallway don’t have a lot of conversation between them. So how does he stay at the margins during his travels, his major occupation, a traveling man? How does the conversation take place? Bishop Schnase relayed a couple of stories:
c. He often ends up at rental car agencies. The young man filling out the paperwork asked his occupation. Now the Bishop says he never tells anyone he meets he’s a Bishop. Never. If he does, the first reaction is, “Oh, I didn’t know the Methodists had bishops.” The second is, “And what does a bishop do?” He doesn’t want to have to get into a 20 minute conversation trying to justify his existence, so he says, “I work for the United Methodist Church.” In this case the young man said, “I used to go to the United Methodist Church.” After the paperwork was finished, the Bishop asked, “Just out of curiosity, do you still go to church?” “No, my fiancé is a different denomination and we just haven’t settled that yet.” I can hear a pause, then “What kind of music do you like?” “There are a couple of Methodist churches in the area that I might recommend. I think you might be pleasantly surprised.”About that time a man emerged from the back, the young man’s supervisor. Upon seeing Bishop Schnase, he said, “You’re the bishop!” Startled, the mask removed, Bishop Schnase said, “Yes, but how did you know?” “You came and preached at our church earlier in the year.” He went on to recount all of his involvement in and dedication to the church. The bishop then noted, “Did you know that Jim over here used to go to the Methodist Church?” The answer of course was no. They had worked together for three years. Three years. And matters of faith had never arisen. They had never spoken at the margins. Yet, the conversation between the Bishop and the young man had begun by simply saying, “I’m a United Methodist.”
d. The second Bishop story of ministry at the margins: On one of his trips the Bishop got stuck (remember he’s an introvert), got stuck going to a fancy reception at a big hotel. Not his cup of tea. Pastors and their wives from the area were all there. The Bishop was standing outside the circle, kinda’ with his back against the wall when he noticed one of the servers with a tray of hors devoirs doing about the same. Not conducive to long term job growth.Bishop Schnase went over to take a sample. He figured the man to be about 40 and one who had taken the long way around to get there. The server said, “What kind of gathering is this?” In his smooth way, Bishop Schnase said, “What do you think?” “Insurance?” He wanted to reply, “So to speak, long term insurance,” but told him it was a gathering of United Methodist pastors and their wives.” “Oh, I grew up in the Methodist church.” “How did that go for you?” “In trouble all the time.” “Which church?” He replied, said his mother might still be a member there. He hadn’t gone for a long time. “Your pastor is here, part of this group, would you like to meet? But before that, would you like to guess which one it might be?” “That one?” as he pointed to a retired pastor there with a walker. Gives you an indication of how he recalled or thought of the church. “No, no, let me introduce you.” When he introduced him to her, an attractive 35 year old, she caught on instantly to what was going on and wrapped him in delightful conversation.
e. Points? Bishop Schnase would like to be able to say that both these stories had great outcomes. He doesn’t know. But somewhere out there God has prepared a person for conversation, not even an invasive conversation, but one that may begin, “I go to church, church is important to me, church makes a difference in my life.” It would be nice if the conversation might end, “Won’t you join me this Sunday?”

C. Close.
1. Bishop Schnase closed his learning period by asking how we have gone from being the “go to” Methodists, to becoming the “wait for” Methodists? Remember Jesus said, “Let us go to, go to the neighboring towns and villages.” Not “Let’s wait for.” Where did we lose the “go to” instinct that grew the church in the 18th and 19th centuries, that made us known as the evangelists?

2. When the Bishop moved from Texas, one of the things he researched was how Methodism got started in Missouri. It was those Illinois people. Those Illinois people who even before Missouri was officially a territory of the United States, even when the French had declared it illegal to hold protestant services here, came anyway, even when threatened with arrest. They came in boats across the river, the wide river, the deep river, the flowing river, the dangerous river. They held services in the evening and returned back to Illinois before daylight. As soon as the Purchase was complete, they established a Methodist church here as early as 1804. How did we lose our “go to” instinct?

3. Jesus said, “Let us go to the neighboring towns, so that I may proclaim the good news there also, for that is what I came to do.” And he tells us stories of the kingdom, stories of growth, stories with a backdrop of green. Stories of grace.

4. Somewhere out there, there is a person who has been nudged by grace, waiting for someone to go to them and join in a conversation. One which might end, “I go to church, church is important to me, church makes a difference in my life. Won’t you join me this Sunday?”

5. Now, go to it. Amen.

Staying In Love With God

Stay in Love with God

A. Introduction

1. “Grace, grace, God’s grace, grace that is greater than all our needs.” Methodism more than any other denomination, more than any other religion is steeped in grace. Grace, God’s unmerited favor that surrounds us, immerses us, moves us, saves us, changes us. Grace that is available for everyone. Jesus said, the rain falls on the just and the unjust alike. The world is immersed in grace for us to respond to or reject to accept or to set aside. We live in a world of grace. And we live in a world of choice. Grace; choice. Whether we know it or not. And whether we recognize it or not..
a. Grace nudges us toward God even before we know it. Wesley called it prevenient grace. A friend of mine says that it’s grace before it’s convenient. It might be best called nudging grace.
I talked to a friend of mine at minister’s school this week. She described a couple that was unchurched, the man had never been churched, the wife had grown up in the Catholic faith and hated it. As adults with children 2 and 4 they had a hole in their lives and they had no idea what it was. They tried filling it with other activities to no avail.
A friend suggested that they go to Margie’s church. The hole in their lives had been grace. Their friend who suggested they go to Margie’s church had been grace. The message they received in that little rural Methodist Church had been grace.
Grace, nudging grace. Margie knew their background. Margie was bowled over after one Sunday service when they stopped her and said they wanted to profess their faith in Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior. He wanted to be baptized. They both wanted to join the church. They were first nudged.
Then they were brought into a saving relationship with God. Grace brings us into that relationship with God, grace saves us, grace makes us just in the eyes of God. Using the words of the book of Romans, Wesley called this grace justifying grace. A printer’s term, it squares the print at the margins, just so it squares our relationship with God. Justifying Grace. Margie’s new parishioners, through their profession of faith, their belief in Jesus Christ, have been made just by grace in the eyes of God. Grace, God’s unmerited favor.
b. Nudged, saved, but grace does not leave us alone. Grace grows us, matures us, brings us closer to God, it sets us apart, sanctifies us for God’s purposes. Wesley called this grace sanctifying grace. Jesus said we are to become perfect as our heavenly Father is perfect. The Greek word here means maturity, wholeness. It is what Wesley meant when he said that we were to go on to perfection. Steeped in grace we would mature in our faith if not in this life time then in the instant we crossed over to heaven. But our objective ought to be that we immerse ourselves in sanctifying grace so that we become mature, whole, perfect in this life. There’s an ancient document of the faith that says that God sees us as we would be… that is perfect. That’s how God sees us. That’s what we should be striving to be. “Be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect.” Be mature in your faith as God sees you.
c. We all begin our Christian walk as infant Christians when we are born anew. Margie’s new parishioner had had no religious education at all. He may be a toddler in the faith now or a young boy. Grace will gradually move him on to a teen, then a young adult, onward toward perfection.
It is grace that changes us. We are nothing without grace.

B. Body

1. The past two weeks we have been studying Bishop Reuben Job’s small book, “Three Simple Rules: A Wesleyan Way of Living.” They are 1) Do no harm; 2) Do good; and today we tackle number 3) Stay in love with God.

2. When people came to Wesley and said, “How do we escape the wrath to come?” He said, “First, do no harm; then do good; and practice the ordinances of God.” Ordinance is a strange word, a city law, but also an authoritative command or order. It came to be known as those practices instituted by Christ, those things the early church came to understand that we were ordered to do, such as the Lord’s Supper. Christ called us to do those things that kept us in a relationship with God. Wesley called them means of grace. Those things that immersed us in God’s grace so that we could respond to him in love. Bishop Job tries to simplify all the words by saying to us “Stay in love with God.” We do that when we allow God to change us, to mold us, to form us in response to grace.

3. A wise woman by the name of Joan Chittister wrote in her book, “The Illuminated Life,” “All we have in life is life. Things—the cars, the houses, the educations, the jobs, the money—come and go, turn to dust between our fingers, change and disappear….the secret of life… is that it must be developed from the inside out.”

4. Last week we described the three rules this way. We as creatures created in the image of God are endowed with the intellectual awareness to choose how we are to react to the world around us. We can be proactive. We react in accordance with our principles and values. Regardless of what happens to us, we can choose to do no harm. We can choose to do good. The values that we act on in doing so are modeled after Jesus Christ and powered by the Holy Spirit. We learn those things when we immerse ourselves in grace. They become a part of us. They become a part of our maturity. They are a gift of God’s love for us through grace, and we respond to God’s love by doing no harm and doing good. We stay in love with God and are molded by grace from the inside out.

5. Wesley suggested that we stay in love with God by doing the practices that Christ instituted during His life on earth. He called these practices means of grace. Means by which we immerse ourselves and recognize and respond to the love and grace of God in our lives. Today we might call them spiritual disciplines. By disciplines we mean those things that shape and form our habits.

6. Bishop Schnase would call this process, this practice “Intentional Faith Development.” He says, “Intentional Faith Development refers to the purposeful learning in community that helps the followers of Jesus mature in faith, such a Bible studies, Sunday school classes, short-term topical studies, and support groups that apply the faith to particular life challenges.” We’ve talked about the Five Practices before, and we’ll probably revisit them over and over, just as we must practice the piano or study. That’s why they’re called practices. Five Practices has become an important book. To let you know Bishop Schnase has hit the mark not just in Missouri, not just in the Methodist church, but in Christendom with his Five Practices of Fruitful Congregations. To give you an idea. When we were working on his website some 18 months ago, he said the publisher told him that such a book was successful if it 1500 copies. It had sold 2500 by then and was going into its fourth printing. They have since told him that selling 25,000 copies is the apex of this kind of publication. Let me tell you that your Bishop’s book has now sold over what? 75,000 copies! And it’s being translated into several languages. Five Practices was the focus of Congress of Evangelism in Nashville last week. The whole denomination and more are focusing on Five Practices to produce Fruitful Congregations. “Intentional Faith Development” is part of that. And “Intentional Faith Development” is the Spiritual discipline or disciplines by which we are formed. Again, Wesley called them means of grace. Grace is the operative word.

7. It makes sense that we are shaped and formed in response to grace. Here are Wesley’s means of grace:
a. Worship. We participate in the life of a worshipping community. We come together to worship God. When we gather, it is not about us, but about God. “Here I am to worship. Here I am to bow down. Here I am to say that you’re my God.” Jesus worshipped God and told us, “Worship the Lord your God, and Him only shall you serve.” Worship is not about us, but about submitting our will, our allegiance, our lives to the God that shapes us.
b. Scripture. Jesus was steeped in Scripture. It was part of his very make up. He responded to temptation with Scripture. He responded to questions with Scripture. He fulfilled the prophesies of Scripture. If we want to know him, if we want to follow him, if we want to be like him, we find him in Scripture. And Scripture finds us. As we read and study and meditate, we find that these ancient texts find us just where we are. They reveal God to us and they are God’s revelation for our lives. The words guide us and form us, give us values and principles by which we guide our lives. And we best study Scripture in a group, just as Jesus’ disciples learned from him in a group.
c. Prayer. “Our Father….” Jesus spent long hours in prayer, in spiritual communion with the heavenly Father. Prayer is communications, it is sharing our every concern with God, it is placing our burdens before him, it is giving thanks, have an attitude of gratitude; and just talking to Him about the things going on in our lives. Paul said we are to pray continuously. Jesus said we are to be persistent in our prayers. Prayer changes us. Communication, listening, talking to the Lord of the Universe forms us into the being what He intends us to be.
d. Community. Wesley called this Christian conferencing. Christianity is not a solitary faith. God called a people, Israel. Christ formed the Church. He began a community with 12 disciples who learned from him and learned from one another. After he ascended, he left his Church guided by the Holy Spirit who gathered, prayed, studied, learned from one another and held one another accountable. Community is a means of grace. Community forms us. Bishop Schnase emphasizes that there are certain things that you just cannot learn outside of community. You cannot learn grace by reading a book; you cannot learn to love in solitude; you cannot learn forgiveness outside of relationship; you cannot learn patience apart from others. We need community. Christianity is not a solitary faith. Wesley said, “There is no gospel without a social gospel.”
e. Acts of mercy, doing good. Jesus said to Peter, “Peter, do you love me?” He said, “Lord, you know I love you.” Jesus said, “Feed my sheep…feed my lambs…feed my sheep.” Jesus called us to love one another—“Love your neighbor as yourself.” Love is a verb. Active. Do good.
f. Finally, Jesus said, “Do this in remembrance of me.” Holy Communion is a means of grace. A means of physically remembering the mighty acts of God in Jesus Christ, and spiritually recognizing the presence of Christ here and now and as a force in our lives.

C. Close.

1. In communion we remember God’s mighty acts in history and recall that in the fullness of time he sent his Son into the world as grace, his unmerited favor, to save us from the burden of our sin. Something we cannot do for ourselves. We are saved only by the grace of God.

2. We know that on the night before he died for us he gave us a simple act and a simple command by which we are to remember him and experience him anew as oft as we will.

3. We are going to experience Christ in our pews as the disciples did around the table as they passed the bread and cup serving one another. As you pass the bread, hold it out so the person next to you can break a small piece and then you say to them, “Remember Jesus.” Next, as you hold the cup for them and they dip a corner of the bread in the cup, say to them, “Stay in Love with Jesus.”

4. The table of the Lord is ready. It is not the table of Smith Chapel, or the United Methodist Church. It is not the table of any one denomination. It is the Lord’s Table and all are welcome. All that is required is a belief in and love of Jesus Christ, and a readiness to share in the bread and cup. You may choose not to do so, and that is no problem. If so simply take the loaf when it is offered and turn and offer it to the next person saying, “Remember Jesus.” And take the cup when it is offered and turn to the next person and say, “Stay in love with Jesus.” Or ask me to take the loaf and cup from you.
“Remember Jesus.”
“Stay in Love with Jesus.”
5. Prayer after Communion. “Lord, in this simple act of bread and wine, you call us to remember you, to know that you lived among us, that you gave your physical body for us in the greatest act of love that one can have for another and that you call us to love you, to stay in love with you by keeping your word. Strengthen us through this simple act of communion with you and with the whole Church that we may serve you and serve the world in the strength of your Spirit. In Christ’s name we pray. Amen.

(See Blog from 1/20/09 about the blessing from this communion service.)

Day 23. How We Grow

Day 23. How We Grow

CS Lewis poses the question, “Is being a Christian hard or easy?” He prefaces it by saying the whole of Christianity to become a real son of God. So is it hard or easy? Lewis says, “both.” That is not a cop out. What we do is hard, even exhausting say some. We need to say “Yes.” That’s hard. God does the impossible in making us into sons and daughters, children of God, brothers and sisters of Christ. That’s easy for God while impossible for us. God does what we cannot possibly do for ourselves and don't even deserve. That’s grace.

Rick Warren says that we need to decide, to commit, to be intentional if we are to grow. CS Lewis says, “Let’s pretend, let’s dress up as little Christs, let's put on the Christ, let’s pretend we’re a child of God.” And when we do a wonderful thing happens. When thoughts enter our mind that should not be there if we were really like Christ, we say “Stop!” Lewis says, you see what is happening, “Christ is right there beside you turning you into a creature like himself. He is turning your pretense into reality.”

All of this would be impossible if it were something we had to do. Our hard task at most is to allow it. A wise person said that the key to change is to be aware that we want to change. Should we set a goal of becoming perfect, we would utterly fail, we would say it’s impossible, why should I try? And we wouldn't. But if I were to take a piece of paper and write on it, “I’m going to allow Christ to change me today, if only a little bit, but knowing that you want to change all of me.” Put the paper in my pocket and read it several times during each day. Pray with each reading, “Change me today.”

Be aware. There will come a day when we can look back and say, “What ever happened to that old creature? Christ really has put a new one in its place.”

Becoming aware is hard. Changing is easy.

May you be blessed as you journey to becoming a new creature in Jesus Christ.

Rick

PS. John Wesley might take exception to my prayer for a little bit of change. He said (paraphrasing), “You have not become perfect because you have not asked. Before you die? Will that content you? No, pray, ask that it be done now, today, while it is today. Today is God’s time as well as tomorrow. Make haste, make haste!”

My prayer is that I am aware now, today, that God wants to change all of me. And that it’s His task.

Day 22. Created to Become Like Christ

Day 22. Created to Become Like Christ

“Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp, or what's a heaven for?”—Robert Browning

Placing ourselves in God’s hands without knowing His plan for us is a scary thing. Besides, we will lose control. Isn’t that the reason so few choose to allow the Holy Spirit to transform us?

Yet God has a plan for us completely beyond our comprehension, beyond our grasp. We are incapable of reaching it ourselves let alone understanding it. Listen to this incredulous thought: God has in mind that we will take on the character of Christ!

Not only that, God is clever enough to know that it is something that we cannot do for ourselves. It is God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, that transforms us. God before us, God beside us, God within us that keeps a vision in front of us, models life beside us, and nudges us from within us to choose what is good and noble and perfect. “Grace, grace, God’s grace. Grace that is greater than all our needs.”

We simply need to give up control. We can control our own destiny by saying "No." We can submit to God's destiny by saying "Yes." Submission, even when the plan is not clear to us, is called obedience.

When philosophers were wrestling with the question, “What is Christianity’s greatest contribution to religious thought?” CS Lewis, entering the room late, said, “That’s easy. It’s grace.”

Grace to you,

Rick