daily scriptures first thoughts sept 19 2007

Morning: Psalm 15:1-5
1 Kings 22:1-28
1 Corinthians 2:1-13
Matthew 4:18-25
Evening: Psalm 48:1-14

Good old Paul. A fellow-preacher he was. I would have liked to hear him preach. I know his message was sound - but I often wonder about the delivery. Did he mumble, punctuating his phrases with "uh"...? Did he have an irritating, squeaky voice? Did he wander around or stay put? Did he use a manuscript, or preach off the top of his head? Did he get the butterflies every time he preached? Seems like he wasn't that great of a preacher, to hear him tell it. He was a smart guy, loved God, yet Paul says abut his ministry of the gospel, ³And I came to you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling...without lofty words or wisdom.

Even with all that training. Even with preaching classes I imagine, and homiletics courses. Even though he was top in his class, aced his ordinations exams, was well-known by all the religious big wigs...he preached the gospel in weakness, with fear and trembling.

I relate. Whenever the doors were open I was at church. I made lots of money telling people things - selling stuff, running a business, marrying well. I did well at Princeton seminary, and was affirmed in my pastoral instincts and worship. I'm not the smartest in the pack, but I have always held my own.

But every time I read, prepare and preach the word, I am overwhelmed how much I do not completely understand. I am compelled to seek deeper truth than I can muster on my own. Then, during the reading and then preparation, and yes, in the preaching moment, I am stunned by the power of the Holy Spirit, Who comes though me. I realize Paul is absolutely right when he says:

Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit that is from God, so that we may understand the gifts bestowed on us by God. ¹³And we speak of these things in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual things to those who are spiritual.

How humbling it is to remember that like Paul, we do not preach ourselves, but Christ crucified. For me, it means setting aside a claim or position that would assure me of my power and influence, and with fear and trembling, preach what God has given me through His Spirit. I am definitely learning the difference between my wisdom, the world's wisdom, the institution's wisdom and the Spirit's wisdom. Sometimes they are in synche; many times they are not. And often I'm caught in the middle of "the wisdom of this age," and God's eternal Wisdom, "secret and hidden."

Thanks to God His Spirit is in me to preach it - greater than he who is in the world. And out of my mumbling mouth, from the depths of God's Spirit in me, comes His truth, in spite of my weaknesses and ignorance, and even misspoken words. May all of us who preach and teach the word of God be able to say:

My speech and my proclamation were not with plausible words of wisdom, but with a demonstration of the Spirit and of power, ⁵so that your faith might rest not on human wisdom but on the power of God.

And may all who hear the word, come to see the hidden and secret, eternal wisdom of God.

daily scriptures first thoughts september 14 2007

Morning: Psalm 51:1-12
1 Kings 18:20-40
Philippians 3:1-16
Matthew 3:1-12
Evening: Psalm 142:1-7

I am grateful that God gives us a new day, and a perspective of time. To look back and remember. To live in the present. To hope for the future. If I were stuck in only one dimension of time, I would despair, or at the very least be like a hamster on a wheel. As it is, God has created us with a past, a present and future - God has created us for eternity, and has always been with us. The peace I have about all this is that this eternity is with Jesus, who redeemed me and made things in all time, right with God. My past is cleansed, my present is purposeful, and my future is assured to be with God forever. Life doesn't get much better than that. The psalmist prays in Psalm 51:

⁸Let me hear joy and gladness; let the bones that you have crushed rejoice. ⁹Hide your face from my sins, and blot out all my iniquities. ¹⁰Create in me a clean heart, O God, and put a new and right spirit within me.

And so God has.

Still, we live "in the flesh" in the "not yet." Memories of the old me living within the new me, bring sadness and regret, and humility. Paul revisited his past in his letter to the Philippians, and also in I Timothy:

If anyone else has reason to be confident in the flesh, I have more: ⁵circumcised on the eighth day, a member of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew born of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; ⁶as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless. ⁷Yet whatever gains I had, these I have come to regard as loss because of Christ.

He is more remorseful in his rehearsal of his past in I Timothy, calling himself, formerly a blasphemer, a persecutor, and a man of violence. But he tells us in everything, we stand pardoned in our new humanity, sins forgotten, ready to meet the day as a servant of Christ, awaiting our future reunion with our redeemer.

O Happy Days! Yesterday, today, and tomorrow. Thanks be to God.