God With Us

Emmanuel, in Hebrew: עִמָּנוּאֵל meaning, "God with us".

The season of Advent is upon us and Cindy and I along with my mom and sister Denise, hit the ground running at Bethany Presbyterian Church in Grants Pass, Oregon. It was a wonderful service and the Advent Hymn “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel” set the pace early and its refrains tinged the service throughout with a sense of yearning. “Prepare ye the way of the Lord” set the tone and underpinned the message that we need to prepare, lest there be no real Christmas.

As I write this I have YouTube running through the hymn with vocal and instrumental artists’ seeming infinite variations; my personal yearning is sustained and the sense of preparation is being heightened.

I could simply pound out the words to the hymn, tell you to read it, ask you to pray it, hope you live it, and let it go at that but it would be the cheap and easy way out for a post, not that I’m above that sort of thing. However, I prefer to ruminate on the hymn and its central theme of advent for the coming of our Lord and have instead placed the words as a post script below.

During the season leading to Christmas Day we are busy with preparations for family gatherings and the exchange of gifts. We need to leave time for advent and the preparation for Emmanuel and give ourselves over to the yearning for Christ’s presence. Imagine if we were to combine our family celebration anticipation and preparation with our desire for Christ’s presence. Would His presence be with us? Yes - yes it would.

Let’s focus on the first verse of the hymn. It tells us that Israel, God’s people, are captive and in exile on earth. We don’t need to look very far to know that this is true. We should be mourning the fact that God’s Kingdom has not yet come on earth as it is in heaven. We mourn until the Son of God appears in His fullness. He will so appear and we see glimpses of Him in the actions of Heaven’s ambassadors, Christians out and about doing the King’s work. We are Him from time to time, even I am Him now and again.

O come Emmanuel, come again in me.

At the end of each verse we are told to rejoice because Emmanuel shall come to us. Paul exhorts us in Philippians 4:4 “Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice!” (NIV) Indeed, we must rejoice at each hint and every manifestation of Christ on earth while at the same time letting the yearning for His fullness run deep. We never cease preparing the way.

Prepare ye the way of the Lord. Rejoice! His Kingdom is near at hand. Revel in advent, strike a match and light the candle.

In His grip, jerry

For our edification:

O come, O come, Emmanuel

O come, O come, Emmanuel

And ransom captive Israel

That mourns in lonely exile here

Until the Son of God appear

Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel

Shall come to thee, O Israel.

O come, Thou Rod of Jesse, free

Thine own from Satan’s tyranny

From depths of Hell Thy people same

And give them victory o’er the grave

Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel

Shall come to thee, O Israel.

O come, Thou Day-Spring, come and cheer

Our spirits by Thine advent here

Disperse the gloomy clouds of night

And death’s dark shadows put to flight.

Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel

Shall come to thee, O Israel.

O come, Thou Key of David, come.

And open wide our heavenly home;

Make safe the way that leads on high,

And close the path to misery.

Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel

Shall come to thee, O Israel.

O Come, O come, Thou Lord of might,

Who to Thy tribes, on Sinai’s height,

In ancient times did’st give the Law,

In cloud, and majesty and awe.

Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel

Shall come to thee, O Israel

His Roadie

True to my leanings as a member of the all too short-lived Tangent group, I let my mind veer off the path a bit while holding on to a thread of the sermon as the good brother Lee preached about Saul’s conversion on the road to Damascus. While Lee talked about the conversion experienced and love and encouraged us to reconnect with our own I was struck by how much of the Lord’s work occurs on the road just like Saul’s conversion.

Acts 9:1-6  “¹Meanwhile Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest ² and asked him for letters to the synagogues at Damascus, so that if he found any who belonged to the Way, men or women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem. ³Now as he was going along and approaching Damascus, suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him. ⁴He fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to him, ‘Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?’ ⁵He asked, ‘Who are you, Lord?’ The reply came, ‘I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. ⁶But get up and enter the city, and you will be told what you are to do.’”

And there are the two men walking on the road to Emmaus (Luke 14:13-35). Two men on the move discussing the events of the crucifixion and reports of Christ’s body missing. Jesus appears and walks with them while their eyes were kept from recognizing him. Jesus heard their story riddled with unbelief and then explained the scriptures to them only to reveal himself in the breaking of the bread.

The early church was known as ‘the Way’, the term used by Saul as he hunted believers for persecution. Jesus himself spawned the term when he said, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” (John 14:6) Is Christ telling us that he is less an institution than a way of life? I believe so and that we are called to a life full of action and motion.

The Ethiopian Eunuch was sitting in his chariot reading the prophet Isaiah. The Spirit had Philip join the chariot and engage the man in discussion about whom the scriptures were written. As they went along they came upon some water and the man asked to be baptized and Philip did so. Soon the Ethiopian was on his way rejoicing as Philip had been spirited away. (Acts 8:26-40) The man was hungry and on the move and the Lord met him on the way.

And, for my motorcycle friends, I take this chariot story as an endorsement of two-wheeled travel and that we can expect good things to happen as we travel along.

I have found the principle of being met on the move to be true for me. Rarely have I received clear direction while sitting like a lump waiting for something to inspire me. Moving in the right direction or even down the wrong trail, it has always been easier for me to be met while in motion. The overriding theme of my experience during Mission Arizona weeks has been that God would meet me on the way. My quiet times are mostly truncated due to the need to keep the mission team moving along from fellowship to quiet time to work and back again. The Spirit has always been faithful to meet me in some way, through some person or other, during the course of the week as time and work moved along. I am eternally thankful for that.

For clarification, let’s not confuse quieting one’s mind and life to wait on the Lord with inaction. While our bodies may be still our spirits are moving toward God. For me, it is one of the most strenuous of the spiritual disciplines and difficult to master in my busy life. Waiting on the Lord is a most necessary action.

While considering a title for this post ‘roadie’ came to mind but I rejected it at first as not quite being right. Then I gave the term some more thought about what it means, what it describes. In one of its many definitions my Urban Dictionary describes it thusly, “A roadie is an individual who travels to gigs with a band and assists with setup and organization.” I am okay with this and I like the idea of being Jesus’ roadie, hitting the road with him, setting things up for him to shine and be heard, carrying a loaf of bread for him to feed the multitudes. And so, as long as I’m on the road and on the move, at least spiritually, I’m happy and sure that I’ll be met.

There are a few things I picked up for myself considering these accounts. If I’m cruising along the road, down the trail, physically or metaphorically, I need to be aware that Jesus could come along side me like the brothers walking to Emmaus. If I’m hungry and struggling with God’s Word, he will provide a teacher as he did for the Ethiopian. And, even if I’m headed somewhere to do the wrong thing though I believe it to be a godly errand, Christ will reveal himself to me and tell me what I must do.

Let’s hit the road folks, be in motion, hungry for the Word, and available for course changes as indicated.

In His grip, jerry

At The End of Every Prayer

Matthew 24: 3-8 “³As Jesus was sitting on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to him privately. “Tell us,” they said, “when will this happen, and what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?”

⁴Jesus answered: “Watch out that no one deceives you. ⁵For many will come in my name, claiming, ‘I am the Messiah,’ and will deceive many. ⁶You will hear of wars and rumors of wars, but see to it that you are not alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come. ⁷Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in various places. ⁸All these are the beginning of birth pains."

We should not be surprised. The Lord told us it would be like this. Police gunned down in the streets while protecting a peaceful demonstration, black men gunned down by police who reacted with their baser instincts rather than their training, hate crimes that cannot be numbered, ISIS and everywhere in the Middle East, Africa, South America, and anywhere hate makes its incursion and the weak are prayed upon.

How do we pray? What proceeds our ‘Amen’?

All around us our friends and family fall ill, our children succumb to drugs and alcohol, and people violate the weak. Our parents are aging, we are aging, and our days are spent trying to find our car keys just to keep going. We worry for our children and their children and how a world that is overrun by people consuming resources at unsustainable rates can support them in any reasonable state.

How do we pray? What proceeds our ‘Amen’?

Our times of respite from the woes of the world are short and interrupted. We seek peace for ourselves and the world and the moments of calm can only beat a hesitant staccato without rhythm. We wait, we pray. We work, we rest. All around us our neighbors attempt to hold life together as they can manage.

How do we pray? The Apostle Paul gives us a window, a hint of how to proceed in Romans 8: 26 & 27. And so we must take his lead and be earnest in our prayers for our loved ones, our neighbors, and our world. Let ourselves groan.

“²⁶In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans. ²⁷And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for God’s people in accordance with the will of God.”

What proceeds our ‘Amen’? The Lord Jesus himself taught us to pray and first instructed us to ask for the Kingdom to come. We ask for our basic needs, we ask for forgiveness, we cry out for God’s Kingdom on earth as it is in heaven. Jesus tells us to knock and keep knocking, ask and keep asking.

(photo via GraphicStock subscription)

There is only one complete answer to the afflictions rampant in these days. Jesus must come again, first in our hearts, then as the lightening is seen from the east to the west, He must come in power and glory.

And so to that end I will add to my prayers before the ‘Amen’, ‘Maranatha, come Lord, come quickly’.

In His grip, jerry

They Walk Among Us

Ephesians 4: 11-13:  ¹¹So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, ¹²to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up ¹³until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.

In our desperate need for political correctness we use different terms and titles and churches who adopt the New Testament terminology for ministries are looked upon as cults, sects, and wacko offshoots. Nevertheless, apostles are at work in the earth.

Men and women moving in an apostolic ministry are possessed of a keen revelation of Jesus Christ, a risen savior, Lord of Lords, God. They have a deep sense of their calling and freely give in to the compulsion to serve; they know the specific calling upon their lives just as Paul knew he was called as apostle to the gentiles and Peter knew he was an apostle to the Jews (Gal. 2: 7-10). Apostles preach the message, ‘The kingdom of heaven is near’ (Matthew 10: 7-8) and they give witness to Jesus’ resurrection and the many ways they’ve seen it in action (Acts 1:22). From their ministry arise pastors, prophets, teachers, evangelists, and churches equipped to stand as witness to the ministry and the enduring kingdom of heaven.

Often times those who participate in the apostolic ministry are drawn to the mission field just as Paul had been. From Paul’s vagabond ministry we have letters to churches and pastors and spiritual sons. Those letters continue to teach, instruct, and equip pastoral and teaching ministries and will do so until Christ’s coming again. The same can be said of today’s apostles.

I have had the occasion to hike in the high country with some of these modern day apostolic ministers. I’ve watched others as they raised families while they were here in the states formalizing their deep understanding of the Gospel within seminary classrooms and libraries. I am blessed to have seen them for their calling and thereby honored to pray for a bountiful harvest from their labors in the field.

Ephesians 2: 19-22: ¹⁹Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with God’s people and also members of his household, ²⁰built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. ²¹In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. ²²And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit.

Others of the foundational ministries are active in our congregations teaching, evangelizing, and pastoring and go without ordination by the governing bodies of the churches in which they serve. Their ordination comes from elsewhere. It’s not the title that is important, it is the ministry that is paramount. Today’s foundational ministers would most likely agree and continue on making disciples.

In His grip, jerry

The Loft

Artwork via Graphicstock.com subscription

Luke 22 7-13 (ESV) ⁷Then came the day of Unleavened Bread, on which the Passover lamb had to be sacrificed. ⁸So Jesus sent Peter and John, saying, “Go and prepare the Passover for us, that we may eat it.” ⁹They said to him, “Where will you have us prepare it?” ¹⁰He said to them, ‘Behold, when you have entered the city, a man carrying a jar of water will meet you. Follow him into the house that he enters ¹¹and tell the master of the house, ‘The Teacher says to you, Where is the guest room, where I may eat the Passover with my disciples?’ ¹²And he will show you a large upper room furnished; prepare it there.’ ¹³And they went and found it just as he had told them, and they prepared the Passover.

I confess that I’ve romanticized the ‘upper room’. It probably stems from my recreational reading, and that mostly from the Sci-fi and Fantasy genres. I’ve pictured the upper room as a banquet room above a tavern associated with an inn. Tolkien filled his with hobbits, dwarves, and wizards; Eddings filled his with a sorcerer and his cadre of adventurers.  I have pictured Jesus with his disciples tramping through the common room of an inn, a tavern, to the backstairs and up to a banquet hall there to celebrate the Passover meal, wash the disciples’ feet, and challenge Judas to do what he must.

Quiet upper rooms and the solitude they offer amidst the hubbub of life have always attracted me, it may have something to do with growing up in an upstairs bedroom where I could get away from things whenever I needed to. I am writing this in our office having closed the door and shut the blinds and I feel that I’ve separated myself from our three-dog pack and the awakening household. It feels right, as though I have been successful at making this a sanctuary for a brief time.

Though my analogy somewhat falls apart in the face of the scriptures and the commentary I read I still get the sense that Jesus and the disciples separated themselves from the city with all of its energy surrounding the Passover celebration as well as the Pharisee’s hunt for Jesus in their efforts to put an end to his revolution. Rather than pass through a raucous room full of weary travelers washing the dust of the road from their throats with tankards of ale, they walked through a man’s house to a room he kept to let out for such occasions as the Last Supper.

My interest in the upper room was piqued by taking the Lord’s Supper with a group called the Eucharist of the Beloved. I met 13 or 14 others in the loft at the Lucky Baldwins Pub in Pasadena. They were all strangers to me with the exception of Dave Cameron whom I’d met briefly and only once. The loft sits above the barroom with only a railing to separate us from the crowd, on this night some sports team celebrated the end of a season of competition. Flat screens adorn the walls of the pub and loft alike, thankfully the two in the loft were muted, a soccer game on one and a basketball game on the other, silent struggles for supremacy.

Dave and his wife Christy prepared a litany for the evening. As we ate a meal, just as I picture the disciples with Jesus for the Passover, we went through the litany filled with scripture and prayers given by various folks in the group that Dave called upon. The others of us gave corporate responses as directed.

As the decibel levels varied below us, Malia shared her story of stroke and miracle healing, of working through rehab some had told her was useless, and of the pastoral care she received from her husband, Dave and Christy, and others. She spoke of great strength that came to her through her weakness and a final victory over the cane with the prayers of Spirit-filled young men who prayed for her as she entered a venue for a revival.

I was uplifted by her story and the common bond we all felt as we continued through the Eucharist serving each other the cup and the bread of life. It was refreshing to be in a group from various church backgrounds, a sprinkling of Presbyterians, some from Christian Assembly, and others from places I didn’t have the opportunity to learn about – it mattered not, we were of one mind.

Dale Bruner spoke to us about the Beatitudes and I was struck by how some people can be speaker and scribe at one and the same time. As Dale spoke to us about God’s word and how it touches us he was also scribbling the Word on our hearts. God bless Dale as he retires from a teaching position at the First Presbyterian Church at Hollywood and continues on his walk with God in the writing of a commentary of the Gospel of John. I have a couple of nuggets from Dr. Dale’s talk and I hope to distill them to a meaningful post in the coming days.

We broke during our time together to go out into Old Town Pasadena in small groups to pray over the town and read from scripture with each other and to talk over our experience and what it meant to us to be in the world but not of it. The exercise stretched my comfort zone and I plan to do it again.

A couple of observations/recommendations based on my evening:

V  Find your upper room and visit it often, alone and with other believers

V  Seek out experiences apart from your home church, it freshens your outlook

V  Pray and recite scripture while you’re out and about, it keeps you connected to the Holy Spirit and salts the earth, even if you do it silently

V  Be poor in spirit, help others who are also poor find their inheritance

In His grip, jerry

Eucharist of the Beloved meets monthly. For more information on the group please follow this link:

http://bridgesus.org/bridge-leaders-form-communities-dave-camerons-eucharist-of-the-beloved-in-old-town-pasadena-part-3-of-4/

Blood On My Hands

/w permission from Graphicstock.com

Matthew 26:27 - 29 “²⁷Then he took a cup, and when he had given thanks, he gave it to them, saying, “Drink from it, all of you.²⁸This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins. ²⁹I tell you, I will not drink from this fruit of the vine from now on until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father’s kingdom.”

I had finished my part in the service of Communion having carried the bread to believers who could not walk to the front for one reason or another, they were; infirm, working the sound board, in the Bawl Room with little ones, or playing their instruments as background while the ambulatory amongst the congregation came forward to be served. Andy offered me the bread and I broke a piece off hearing his words, “the body of Christ, broken for you.” Greg followed up with the cup and the words, “the blood of Christ, shed for you.”

When I took the bread and dipped it in the cup to complete the intinction some dripped on my hand. I nearly froze as the analogy washed over me like the waterfall of a high mountain stream. I was shocked and saddened and incredibly thankful. I had blood on my hands, the blood of Christ.

I am the reason he went to the cross. It’s my fault that the King of Kings stood before a corrupt court and suffered indignation, insults, and false accusations. He was beaten for me, stood in my place and took the whip. He trudged up the hill dragging the cross while his people rejected him, reviled him, and turned their backs on him. He did all of this on account of me, so that I could draw near to the Father without being destroyed, so that I might be able to be in communion with the great Jehovah. So that I might serve the King of Kings as He is meant to be served.

I didn’t dip the bread and take the communion to myself alone. The cup is filled by the pouring out “for many for the forgiveness of sins”. All who dipped that day with me and repented were forgiven, washed clean and were made able to stand in His presence. We all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23) and, thank God, we have the sacrifice made available to us always.

So come to the table to eat and drink. Busy? Infirm? Beckon the servers to bring the communion to you and partake because, “²⁶For whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes” (I Corinthians 11: 26).

In His grip, jerry

The Dark Roots of Entitlement

I need to preface this post, or my ramblings on entitlement, with a disclaimer of sorts. I’m an old telephone man, one who failed as a gym teacher, no less. So, if in reading this you find a nugget that weighs out as a truth that you can cash in, thank God. Also, this post was inspired by a Facebook question posed by Elisabeth Kennedy and the wonderful replies she has received by her considerable community. For them all, I thank God.

The question is, “What do you think creates entitlement – in a child, or a culture? And how does one work to change it once it has reared its ugly head?”

Entitlement as defined by Merriam-Webster is “- the condition of having a right to have, do, or get something or the feeling or belief that you deserve to be given something (such as special privileges)” Without defining ‘sense’ of entitlement, my friends have addressed the meaning in their second definition. My Urban Dictionary app, as it likes to, gets into more politically incorrect usages. However, the UD opens with a sentence that I found useful in my consideration on the topic. Sense of entitlement is “the idea that one has a right to be given something which others believe should be obtained through effort.”

I frequently feel better when I’ve mulled over the key definitions when I approach subjects of this nature. Now, to the question at hand I have to turn to Genesis 3 where mankind’s flawed nature is exploited by the serpent. We were born with the capacity to have a sense of entitlement and the serpent exploits that sense in us and uses many guises to do so because the serpent seeks to separate us from God. We are kept at arm’s length from our Lord as soon as we feel entitled to God’s presence in our lives and to any of the promises He offers. If we want His presence and believe we need it, yes. Believe we deserve it? Not so much.

That’s all well and good for spiritual things but how do we apply this to the practical life of raising kids or leading churches, countries, or cultures? Good grief! God has been wrestling with us forever on that and He doesn’t have to deal with entitlement within Himself. God freed his people and Moses dealt with the grumbling to the point of exasperation whereupon he struck the rock to shut them up. How many of us have capitulated to our children’s cries for something and shoved the coveted item into their hands while growling out, “Here! Now leave me alone.”? It is no easy task to instill a sense of appreciation and a capacity for being thankful for what we have when we ourselves struggle with the disorder.

We need to apply a firm but loving hand in the teachable moments with our children in order to foster a sense of appreciation for the things they have instead of a sense of disappointment for the things they want but don’t have. Likewise, when we are responsible for churches or segments of churches, countries, or cultures, we need to use a steady approach to instill the sense of thankfulness over entitlement. And in the end? We hand it back to God to bear fruit.

Used from my GraphicStock account. *

If anyone is entitled to anything, everything, it is Jesus. Paul tells us of Jesus’ heart in Philippians 2: 5-8 (NIV): “⁵In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus: ⁶Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; ⁷rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. ⁸And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death—even death on a cross!”

A sense of entitlement is the absence of humility. The Great Teacher explained things to that point in the beatitudes, two of his first three deal with humility and their rewards:

Matthew 5: 1-3 (NIV) “¹Now when he saw the crowds, he went up on a mountainside and sat down. His disciples came to him, ²and he began to teach them, saying: ³Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. ⁴Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. ⁵Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.”

So, we must realize that we are born with the capacity to have a sense of entitlement and then use teachable moments with those for whom we are responsible and demonstrate humility and thankfulness and expect the same in return. Pray for patience. Pray for humility. Pray for discernment, wisdom, and unflinching love. By all means, pray.

In His grip, jerry

*Regarding my graphic search in GraphicStock, I found nothing when using the terms entitlement. A photo of someone doing a selfie came up for selfishness. However, when I used ‘humility’ as my search term all of the graphics that came up had the cross, Jesus, or both and many of them referred to Good Friday within the text of the graphic.