Praying to wait for the goodness

Psalm 27

This is the tail end of the Psalm we looked at the day before yesterday (remember? “this one thing I ask… to dwell in the house of the Lord”). David is dealing realistically with the down side of life, because even as a “man after God’s own heart” he had a lot of awful days Things often don’t go as we planned and part of faith is coping with frequent disappointment. The Bible was written over a span of more than 2000 years and if you count up the bad days vs. the good days of that period, the bad overwhelmingly outnumber the good. For every one day of parting the Red Sea or feeding the 5000, there are thousands of days of tragedy, warfare and oppression. David is saying that by force of a faithful will we need to trust in “the goodness of the LORD”, human evidence to the contrary notwithstanding. When you hit bottom, repeat after David: “Be strong… Take heart…. Wait for the Lord”, because eventually you’ll see the goodness. Believe it; trust it; live it today.

Praying to seek and find

Jesus tells dozens of parables about the kingdom.  In reverence for the name of God, in was customary in his day to substitute “heaven” for “God” but all the parables try to communicate the same thing:  the nature and politics and economics and psychology of the realm where God is actually king.  Here Jesus puts together two shorties to describe a compelling aspect of the kingdom: it’s hidden.  What a remarkable thing, that the activity of the sovereign Lord of the universe would be buried, under wraps, invisible.  Why would that be?  I don’t know.  The short answer could be: God is God and can do it how ever God wants.  As a kid I absolutely loved the idea of buried treasure.  My wife Lori loves the idea of the perfect outfit hidden among thousands of hangers in a thrift store for $2.  Jesus says the kingdom of heaven is like that.   The activity and operation and fulfillment of everything you know about God is taking place all around you, but it takes careful, faithful seeking to see it.  The two folks in the parables sold everything; we need to sell everything we’ve learned about how the world works and buy into the rule of God completely.  Happy hunting today.

~by Steve Moore

Day 51, February 20

Praying for the one thing

Psalm 27

Praying for the fullness of God

Ephesians 3

¹⁷And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, ¹⁸ may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, ¹⁹ and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.

I am drawn again and again to the prayer of Paul for the Ephesians, and these particular lines within it. It’s interesting to think about a life that is “rooted and established in love.” The idea of drawing our nourishment and setting our foundation on love is fascinating: that love can both be like water and bedrock in our lives. It begs the question: what am I currently rooted and established in? The next phrase is also compelling: he prays they will have the power to grasp the extent of Christ’s love. Could it be that abundant evidence of God’s love for me, my family and the planet is all around me but that I simply lack the aptitude and the mental capacity to take it in? Yup. “Love surpasses knowledge” so this grasping of Christ love must be some sort of supra-understanding that we get by praying for it and receiving it when God provides. And when we do grasp it, we get filled up with the fullness of God. Wow. He prays that we will be rooted, have power, grasp and be filled… the whole package in a paragraph and a prayer.

Lord I want your fullness in my life. I chose love as my root and foundation. I seek the supra-understanding to take in the extent of your love. Thank you beyond words or emotions that your love can actually fill me to the brim because of what Christ has done. Amen.

~by Steve Moore

Praying to love one another

John 13

  ³⁴ “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. ³⁵ By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”

Jesus’ words could not have mattered more the moment he said them. John is looking back over his long life to remember that amazing meal where Jesus washes their feet, gives them the world’s first communion and utters the closing thoughts of his ministry to them before he’s off to arrest, torture and death of his physical body. It’s a personal and a community identity he is creating: they are to become the ‘one-another-lovers’ by treating each other the way he did each one. How did Jesus love them? Honestly. Adventurously. Progressively. Inquisitively. Therapeutically. Hopefully. Surprisingly. Sacrificially. Continuously. He loved them with every great adverb in the book. We are commanded here to aspire to Jesus’ kind of love: what every human being was designed to need most and what every human being is somehow capable of giving, with God’s help. These words matter more today than any other words ever spoken. You follow Jesus by following his example of love for all the others in your life today.

Lord sometimes I think you have impossibly high expectations for me, like I could actually love like you did? But you know what I’m capable of far better than I. I am going to focus on how you love me and reflect that to all my ‘one anothers’ today and find out how true this can be. Amen.

~by Steve Moore

Praying to remember being a child

Matthew 18

¹ At that time the disciples came to Jesus and asked, “Who, then, is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?”  ² He called a little child to him, and placed the child among them. ³ And he said: “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. ⁴ Therefore, whoever takes the lowly position of this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. ⁵ And whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me… “

The more I study the life the Jesus, the more captivated I become with Jesus the communicator. We know his message was absolutely memorable and powerful because we’re still talking about it 2000 years later. A fun experience is to read the Gospels sliding a piece of paper down the text, covering up what comes next. When I ask myself ‘How will Jesus answer this question — or deal with this situation?’ I am wrong about 99% of the time (and the other 1% I cheat). It tells you something about Jesus that he was always available for questions… and still is. I ‘m sure the disciples were looking for an answer about greatness that involved something brilliant or heroic. But Jesus put a kid in the middle and said: here is greatness. And just as they were beginning to process that radical paradigm shift, he offers them another: treat every kid you meet like it’s Jesus. If you’ve been reading along you know I spend Thursdays with Baby Oscar, my grandson. For me, greatness in the Kingdom is being like Oscar: amazed at every new thing that comes his way. I hope you can remember what it was like to be a kid, because Jesus says it’s the key to heaven.

Lord, thank you that the qualification for being one of your people is not smarts or athleticism or finances, but something every human can do because they did it already: be a child. So here’s a question, Jesus: what did you really like about me as a kid? Amen

~by Steve Moore

Praying to proclaim the name

Acts 9

This chapter of Acts — written by our friend from the Gospels, Dr. Luke — deals with the immediate aftermath of Saul-who-became-Paul’s encounter with Jesus on the road to Damascus. Saul began that trip rounding up believers to put them in jail and ended that trip destined to round up millions of believers in Jesus to serve and spread the Gospel. After Saul/Paul is struck blind, Jesus appears to this fellow Ananias, who is to be his first teacher and encourager in his new life for working for the Lord rather than against him. What Jesus does is give Ananias Paul’s new job description. A couple points of encouragement we can take from this. First Jesus identifies Paul as “my chosen instrument” — something Ananias disputes, and who could blame him? Saul was the last guy Ananias wanted to be around. But we need to be ready for God’s choice to be the opposite of what we think. Second, the Lord simply says Paul’s job is to “proclaim my name.” There is no talk of debating, convincing or converting here. His job is to share the name of Jesus all over the Mediterranean world, which he does, including to kings all the way up to Nero, the Emperor himself. This is our job too: not to debate or convince or convert, but the carry the powerful, world-changing name of Jesus to our world. Today.

Lord help me embrace the possibility that I am your chosen instrument for my corner of the world. Help me understand what it means to proclaim your name in the way I speak and work and act, and then do it. Amen

~by Steve Moore

Praying serve and shine

Matthew 5

It is always a good day to be reminded of who Jesus says we really are. These words were expressed to Jesus’ closest followers early on in his ministry, in his little leadership seminar called the Sermon on the Mount. Dietrich Bonhoeffer awakened a sleeping generation of German believers by telling them that Jesus in these words was not mouthing interesting abstractions, but telling them how he actually expected them to live! One of the great questions in life is “Who am I?” and this is Jesus’ answer. You are the drab looking but essential element that flavors and preserves the planet. You are also the glorious and mysterious light that illumines the earth. I can guess the thoughts of these first hearers: “You can’t possibly means us… can you?” Yes, he means us. What an unearned honor and even more so: what an unsought responsibility. Jesus does expect us to live like this in part because we would never dream of trying to do so without his abundant help and close companionship. As you try to look at yourself this way, look at your day this way: ‘I have the opportunity to serve like salt and shine like light today.’ Go out there and be drab and glorious for the Lord.

Lord please help these words I have heard a million times strike me as radical as they really are. Help me envision myself as your Plan A for my corner of the planet today, and realize there is no Plan B. Amen.

~by Steve Moore

Praying for God’s kind of love

I Corinthians 13

The Gospel of John says “the Word became flesh” — and that word is love. Throughout human history God has been trying to teach this planet what love means, without much success. Like any very valuable item, love is often counterfeited, so we have a lot of competition for the real are bound with an implicit “and”, not an “or”. Love is the union of all these attitudes toward another. It might be worth evaluating which of these best describes your love and which you suck at . And then make a concerted effort to make your best better and your worst much less deficient. I could talk about each one of these, which would take until lunch time, but I think it’s amazing that the first quality of love in Paul’s list is “patience”. It takes patience to listen, to refrain from ‘fixing’, to allow the other to grow, to genuinely appreciate someone for who they are. God went to great lengths to bring the word “love” to our planet and to you. Nothing matters more and nothing is more challenging to do fully. It’s God’s gift to you. Will you receive it?

Lord impress upon my heart the importance and the real meaning of love as you meant it. Thank you for bringing love to this planet as the antidote to ego and isolation and conflict. Teach me to love today and help me reflect your love to my neighbors over the next 16 hours. Amen.

~ by Steve Moore

Praying to work

The Bible documents were written in such a different world and for me it is proof of their authenticity as the Word of God that they survive the cultural change and remain absolutely relevant to us. I’ve pulled out this passage from Paul’s letter to Colossae to get us headed into the work week in the right frame of mind. Slaves were almost a majority of the Roman Empire, so they were the “average worker.” It’s a social upheaval that slaves were included in the churches Paul was creating all over — we know this because of paragraphs like this addressed to them. In our own form of indentured servitude to our mortgages, student loans, taxes and other forms of debt, we need to heed Paul’s direction. He is saying: we don’t get to slack off because these are just “earthly masters.” We are really working for our hidden boss: the God of the universe. That God does not want us to waste a minute of our lives, but to live each minute to the fullest, and that includes the millions of minutes at work. Paul says we will be rewarded for the diligent, enthusiastic way we did the most boring, tedious, meaningless drudgery of our jobs. You don’t work for a company or a school or a government. Today you go to work for Jesus.

Lord I thank you that you are sovereign over every bit of my life. You have high expectation and want to show me how faith works in places that are far from faithful. I will punch the ‘disciple of Jesus clock’ and serve you with this entire day. Amen