Completely Confident.

During this past Sunday's sermon, Pastor Sam shared with us a key strategy for resisting the culture of ingratitude: we are to have complete confidence in the will of God. He can be counted on to save, heal, deliver, teach, guide, and sustain His people.

We know of God's character: God is good to us.
We know of God's competence: God knows what is best for us.
We know of God's commitment: God cares for us.

And, these attributes of God are not contingent upon our personal circumstances. Our pastor shared the powerful example of Jeremiah 29, where we see God's awesome promise to ancient Israel even as they are being carried into exile: I know the plans I have for you! I will prosper you! I will give you a hope and a future! Call on Me, pray to Me, and I will listen to you!

Will you be grateful to God even in the face of great loss?
Will you lie down in Christ's security when your stomach is empty?
Will you express the joy of the Holy Spirit in difficult times?

Lord, help us to demonstrate complete confidence in You.

Oh, The Plans He Has For You!

"For I know the plans I have for you," declares the Lord, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart." (Jeremiah 29:11-13)

I pray that your service of worship to the LORD will not be routine nor perfunctory, but that it will be an authentic expression of adoration and supplication to our great God.

May you find Him today. And may you experience awesome joy as He reveals His plans to you.

"Easy Life" As Oxymoron.

"Do not let the prophets and diviners among you deceive you. Do not listen to the dreams you encourage them to have." (Jeremiah 29:8, italics mine)

During Moses's leadership tenure, there was a point when the people of Israel decided to choose their own captain and attempt to return to Egypt (see Numbers 14). The message behind their action was this: Moses, if you don't do what we want, we'll just appoint someone else to lead us. They were intent on living life counter to God's plan, and as a result died in the wilderness. While they lived they still wore the label that said "people of God", but they lacked His presence and power.

Pastor Sam once shared that the church is made weak from the inside out. It is "our own" people who tire of God's discipline, tire of spiritual formation through wilderness experiences, and devise their own definition of success (which tends towards avoidance of pain and enjoyment of excess). They say they are Christian. But the word of Christ is not heeded. They fail to work the works of the Lord.

Pain hurts, and it helps. When the church suffers, it grows stronger. When the church welcomes compromised teaching as a pathway to ease, it falls away and loses its spiritual covering. The book of Acts, the Pauline epistles, and the book of Revelation bear this out.

There are churches that have completely rewritten their by-laws and doctrinal statements in an effort to increase membership, ordinands, and revenue. Guess what? They're correct. The pews will be full. Remember Moses sending out the twelve spies? Ten spies said the task of entering Canaan was too hard to accomplish, and they should instead return to the "comforts" of Egypt. Hundreds of thousands of Israelites bought into the lie.

So here we are. A hymn, a perfunctory prayer, a chorus, make announcements, take up the offering, hear a nice solo, give the preacher a few minutes to comment on The Economist, say hi to a few people, and we're done. Easy life.

And the giants in Canaan continue, unhindered. For decades.

I am asking that you pray concerning your own role in this life-play. Are you a Jeremiah? A Moses? A Caleb or Joshua? Or have you settled in with the masses, conspiring to hire and extol those who were not sent by God but have promised you an easy road?

"Nobody told me that the road would be easy;
I don't believe He brought me this far to leave me." (Curtis Burrell)

Ora Et Labora, Part Two.

While perusing articles on philanthropy I came across this message by John Wesley. I hope it will be an encouragement to you as you pray about your own role in giving to to work of the Lord.

http://www.philanthropyroundtable.org/topic/excellence_in_philanthropy/gain_save_give

Empty Wallet. Full Heart.

On our refrigerator there is a magnet with Jeremiah 29:11 written on it. It is my least favorite magnet. Well, let me rephrase that: I don’t like the magnet.

That little magnet is not just a reminder of the goodness of God. It’s a reminder that, whether through my own disobedience or through the frailty of mankind, I experience seasons during which God allows me to be beaten down by awful circumstances. And though the exile may not be seventy years long (as was the case in Jeremiah’s day), I still feel the pain.

And in the midst of the pain, God shows up and says, “I know the plans I have for you.”

Pastor Art gave us a wonderful example of an honest prayer response in such cases: “God, You ambushed me! Why did You send me here?” And so it is. God, who sees and knows everything, who never gives us more than we can bear (First Corinthians 10:13), puts us into some really tight situations from time to time. And He expects us to still worship Him in spirit and in truth.

But God, seventy years?

My little Jeremiah 29:11 magnet is a reality check. Yes, God loves everybody. Yes, God does all things well. Yes, God saves and delivers. But this same God, out of His love, also brings afflictions, losses, and sufferings. He does so with the promise that He will prosper us. Our futures are filled with hope.

And what shall we do? Job said it well: “Shall we accept good from the hand of the LORD and not evil?” (Job 2:10) And the Scripture tells us that this statement is evidence that Job did not sin.

So, perhaps we should remember that a life of submission to Jesus is not all about ease and surfeit. Some of us have been suffering for seven months and it kind of feels like seventy years. Some, like Job, have buried children and lost properties. Yet we hold on to the hope: God is with us. And we Christians smile not because of what we have, but because of who God is.

So I keep the magnet. And I am encouraged.

"I love You, Lord, and I lift my voice to worship You; o my soul, rejoice!" (Laurie Klein)

Ora Et Labora.

“Build houses and settle down; plant gardens and eat what they produce.” (Jeremiah 29:5)

During Sunday’s sermon Pastor Art said, “God can draw straight with crooked lines.” In this experience of exile, when we feel like everything is thrown out of sync and we are mourning the loss of the familiar, God calls us to continue walking on the straight path of obedience and submission to His will.

For some of us, the honest truth is that we don’t want to settle down in Babylon. Why does God call us to establish residency in the land we hate? Why does He tell us to sweat and labor and till the cursed ground?

But there’s more than sweat involved: in tandem with the work, the people of God were called to pray for the land in which they had been exiled. “Pray to the LORD (for the prosperity of the city), because if it prospers, you too will prosper.” (Jeremiah 29:7). Perhaps the hard work is a way of putting ‘hands and feet’ to the prayers, a tangible way of saying to God and to the world, “Yes, I am fully invested in God’s project. Though He has exiled me, I will honor Him by being a good neighbor in this strange community. Though my heart longs for Jerusalem, I will be a productive, praying resident in Babylon.”

Exile still hurts. And the building of houses and the cultivating of gardens, whether actual or metaphor, aren’t overnight processes. They take time. Effort. Planning. Patience. But the day will come when we can enjoy the home, enjoy the food, enjoy the beauty that emerges out of the pain of being exiled.

In the meantime, work and pray.

Three-Word Warning.

During Sunday's sermon, Pastor Art reiterated that it was the LORD who carried His people into exile. The people were removed from Jerusalem, their beloved homeland, and planted in a strange place.

Pastor Art shared that we, in this twenty-first century, may also experience the discomfort and uncertainty of exile. We may have left the towns in which we grew up. We may have had to leave jobs or churches or loved ones. Things change. People change. Life happens and we find ourselves standing in the middle of an environment where we don't know the lingua franca.

What can we do?

Well, our guest pastor gave us a loving, serious warning: Don't look back.

And while his point about not looking back was reinforced by his references to Jeremiah 29 and Proverbs 3:5-6, I'd like to take the liberty of bringing another Bible verse into the mix.

Jesus tells a true story about the end of the age and the tendency of man to desire the familiar even when the familiar is destined for destruction. And in the middle of His talk, He says, "Remember Lot's wife." (Luke 17:32)

He didn't say, "Remember Noah's neighbors" even though they'd been mentioned earlier in Luke 17. Perhaps that's because Noah's neighbors didn't have the privilege of Lot's family. Lot had two destroying angels come into his home, announce the impending destruction, and lead the family by the hand into a safe place. What grace was extended!

But for Lot's wife, the safe place did not hold as much attraction as the unsafe place. She longed for the familiar, and her strange death has made her become a byword and example of how dangerous it is to covet the thing that God has condemned.

Are you in Babylon? Then be in Babylon. Don't look back.

Art-istic.

This week’s blogs are grown from the good sermon soil of our dear friend and district leader, Reverend Art Alexander. Pastor Art spoke to us from Jeremiah 29:11-14, a very familiar passage to some of us.

Pastor Art reminded us that the passage is given to us in the context of a people in exile, those exiled because of their repeated disobedience to God. Yet, though exiled, God gives them two things:

-a promise for eventual deliverance; and
-instructions on how to live while in exile.

In essence, God used Pastor Art to continue the message that we were given last week through Reverend Cole. And it is a message God has sent to us before. God is saying to us, unequivocally, that we as a church body are going to experience some uncomfortable situations.

My task this week is to remind you of some of the details from Pastor Art’s sermon. Today, we’ll start with just a recap of the Scripture. If you can, it would be more beneficial to read several chapters of Jeremiah (like chapters 26 through 29) or, if you have the time and discipline, to read the entire book of Jeremiah during this week (52 chapters). But this is what we read during the service:

'For I know what I have planned for you,' says the Lord. 'I have plans to prosper you, not to harm you. I have plans to give you a future filled with hope. When you call out to me and come to me in prayer, I will hear your prayers. When you seek me in prayer and worship, you will find me available to you. If you seek me with all your heart and soul, I will make myself available to you,' says the Lord. 'Then I will reverse your plight and will regather you from all the nations and all the places where I have exiled you,' says the Lord. 'I will bring you back to the place from which I exiled you.'

Pack your bags, baby. We’re going to Babylon.

Let The Work Go Forward: A Testimony On The Audacity Of God.

Audacity: Boldness, without regard for apparent restrictions.

During the second service, I went to the altar to pray. In the midst of the voices around me and the voice of Pastor Sam praying from the pulpit, the voice of God spoke clearly: "Build your business." Now, mind you, I'm an underemployed doctoral candidate carrying six-figure student loan debt. At the time I'm writing this (July 7) I have five dollars in my personal checking account. I have no prior business experience.

You know, God has said things throughout Scripture that seem audacious. He asked Noah to build an ark in a land that never knew rain. He told Abraham to leave his father's household, and Abraham left without a clue as to where he was going. I'm sure you could add several other examples of God's audacious commands.

Apparently, God doesn't have a problem with my student loan debt, my lack of savings, and my lack of experience in the business realm. He is seeing a bigger picture. And that, my friends, is the heart of the exilic experience. We have to hear and obey Him without regard to what we see. Or, to quote Scripture, we walk by faith and not by sight, so we make it our business to please God (see Second Corinthians 5). He is pleased when we joyfully do what He says.

• In the face of unfamiliar territory, become engaged in the community.
• With your hands full of strange seeds, dig up the foreign soil and do some planting.
• When God says "do not decrease", make it your business to increase.
• If God made the plan, then the plan must come through.

I'm a little slow, but I am learning to hear God and to obey Him by doing what He says.

What has God said to you? Keep Pastor Sam's summary of Jeremiah 29 close by: Relax in God's plan. Rest in God's promises. And, most importantly, remember God's principles.

See you next Tuesday, my friends.

Remember.

Well, it seems that not one week goes by without God graciously warning us of the consequences we will face if we are disobedient to His word. This past Sunday was no exception.

Pastor Sam, paraphrasing C.S. Lewis, said it well: in considering the image of Christ as the Lion of Judah who is also the Lamb of God, we would do well to remember that our Lord cannot be domesticated. He is God, and though His mercy is great His judgements are final. Ignoring His word leads to eternal death.

What Was The Problem In Jeremiah's Time?

• False prophets ignored God's word. In their desire to please the people, they insisted that Jeremiah was wrong and that he had not heard from the LORD, but was a madman deserving of removal from ministry.
• False prophets imparted their own word. They insisted that the Babylonian exile would be short-term, and in doing so they encouraged the people to not become engaged in the life and times of the community in which they lived.

You know, it seems we have the same problem in our time. Television and radio are full of men and women who are happy to sell lies to the people of God. Men and women who claim to love the LORD, but who are bound to their own self-interest, are sitting ducks for the lies of those who promise a life of ease and comfort in a context where God has clearly indicated that we should expect to live the life of an exile.

Friends, we are exiles on the earth. We have built homes and our children are in schools and we are engaged in community, and we are going to be here for a while. Our true home is heaven, but we cannot lay down in our beds and beg God to take us out of this world. He has placed us here to represent Him in every area of life, and we are responsible to fulfill the calling He has placed upon us.

So, plant your gardens of political influence. Build your homes as study halls in which family and neighbors can experience a taste of heaven's protocol. Forgive freely and live in love and peace, so that those around you can see the difference Jesus makes. Show the world that Christians are in the game, not on the sidelines. And watch God work.

Rest.

"For I know the plans I have for you..." (Jeremiah 29:11)

It is truly a blessing to have a pastor who is not afraid to read Scripture. In hearing Pastor Sam read the entire chapter of Jeremiah 29, we were given a real sense of the context in which the famous Jeremiah 29:11 exists. It is not just a generic promise! It's a promise given to the exiled, to those who have been uprooted and re-planted in cities and situations they are unfamiliar with.

What Has God Said? Rest.

• We must first embrace God's plan, which involves moving us into new situations.
• We must also experience God's presence. Knowing that we are in His will gives us strength to say yes when He calls us to move from our comfort zones.
• And, we must express God's purpose. As Pastor Sam shared, there is nothing more powerful than the persons who know who they are in Christ, and who subsequently make life decisions based on that knowledge.

We'll close today with one more comment from Pastor Sam: if God made the plan, then the plan must come through! Isaiah 55:10-11 echoes in the distance: God's Word will not return to Him void, but will accomplish the purpose for which He sent it.

Tomorrow we'll reflect on the third "R": Remember.

Relax.

Friends,
Let's continue our reflections on Jeremiah 29.

Pastor Sam shared a wonderful alliterative means by which we can remember the main points found in Jeremiah 29. For today, tomorrow, and Friday, we'll look at each "R" and get ourselves reacquainted with the insights we learned on this past Sunday.

First Point: Relax.

God gave a specific directive to the exiled Jews, and their error was that they chose instead to embrace false prophets whose agendas seemed more palatable. How do we avoid destruction? By doing what God says.

What Did God Say Through Jeremiah?

• Buy property.
• Raise family.
• Embrace community.
• Influence policy.
• Pray for the city's prosperity.

In other words, relax. You live here, so live here. As we used to say in the 1980s, "Get a life!" Be involved in community, in church, in politics. If you have accepted Jesus Christ as your Savior then you are an Ambassador of the kingdom of heaven, and we need you to make your voice heard while you're here on earth.

Tomorrow we'll continue with the second "R".

Bronx Bethany, Get Ready For A Showdown.

Showdown: an event, especially a confrontation, that forces an issue to a conclusion. (American Heritage Dictionary)

Well, it's been two weeks, but the blogs are back! This week we'll park in Jeremiah 29. Pastor Sam wrapped up our Fourth of July weekend with a dynamite sermon, and I'll be sharing a few of his points (as well as lighting a few firecrackers of my own) over the next five days.

In card games, a "showdown" is when all players have to lay their cards on the table, face up, so that everyone reveals what they have been holding. In the book of Jeremiah, the prophet reveals the plan of God concerning the exile of Jews, who are carried by force from Palestine to Babylon. In contrast, a company of false prophets reveal their counterfeit prophecies, lying to the people and causing them to believe that their exile would only last for a short period of time.

Pastor Sam compared this scenario to the state of those persons who, in the face of God's relocating them to new places and situations, refuse to accept that it is God who placed them where they are, and it is they who must adjust to the modern version of "exilic" life.

Has God placed you in academia? In corporate America? In New York? In Russia? Remember the prophetic utterance of Jeremiah 29, where the LORD reiterates His role: "I sent them into exile". Not chance, not conspiracy, but the decision of one: the Eternal One, the Holy One, the Perfect One.

If the Perfect One has placed you where you are, don't waste your time longing or scheming to be somewhere else. Such a move by you could have deadly consequences!

Lord, in looking back, I see clearly that You are the One who has placed me where I am. Please help me to obey You by remaining, in a spirit of joy and peace, where You have placed me. I promise to flourish in the place You have planted me.