The image of light runs throughout the Scriptures - both Old and New Testaments. So let's stay with it for a little bit. Our text is Matthew 5:14-16. If we are the light of the world, and Jesus said we are, why do we hide our light? One reason is we fear being rejected. We are afraid that we will say something to someone about Jesus, or even Christianity in general, and they will reject what we say and thereby reject us. Does this happen? Of course it does. As Christians we come from a long line of people who have been rejected. The Old Testament prophets were rejected in their day even though they were Jews speaking to Jews. Moving to the New Testament, John the Baptist was rejected. Jesus was rejected. Peter and the other disciples were rejected. Rejection did not stop them from letting their light shine, from doing what God told them to do, and saying what God told them to say. Which takes us back to verse 11 of Matthew 5: "Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me." To this we can add these verses from 1 John 4: "God is love. . . . There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear." So being rejected sometimes should not be unexpected for us. Knowing that we will be rejected sometimes helps to take the fear out of it. It will come in the normal course of events. But we won't be rejected every time, and people really need to hear the message of Jesus from us. Let's not hide our light. For Reflection: What is greater in me - the love of God or the fear of rejection? Let us pray. God, you are perfect love. I give you my fear of rejection. I trust that even when I am rejected you will take care of me. Help me to let my light shine today.
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Let's look at another prophet who didn't exactly make an excuse to God, but who recognized his deficiency before he answered a call from God. Isaiah has a vivid vision in which he sees the throne room of God Almighty with angels worshipping in full voice. The room shook and was filled with smoke. The magnificence of the vision terrorizes Isaiah, who cries out, "Woe to me! I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty" (Isaiah 6:1-5). One of the angels flies to Isaiah and touches a live coal to his lips as an act of atonement for his sin and remission of his guilt. Being cleansed, he is no longer a man of unclean lips. So when God asks, "Whom shall I send?" Isaiah is able to answer, "Send me" (Isaiah 6:6-8). Does Isaiah even know what he is volunteering for? Perhaps not. But by cleansing him God has equipped him to speak to a nation where justice is perverted, the poor are oppressed, idols are worshipped and the government looks to pagan nations for help rather than to God. But we see that just as God gave words to Moses and Jeremiah, God supplied words of prophecy to Isaiah. God does not call anyone without equipping them to do the job. For reflection: To what mission has God called me? How has God equipped me for that mission? Le us pray. Lord, we bow before your holiness and acknowledge that we too are a people of unclean lips. We see justice perverted and don't speak up. We see the poor oppressed and expect someone else to do something. We see our nation turn for help to anyone but you. Cleanse us of our sin, equip us with your words, and help us to proclaim your righteousness in the land. Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Let's return to the post of a few days ago about "Big Air". I'm still pondering the questions I posted for reflection: What is the new normal to which God is calling me? Where have I settled for less than God wants? What new moves does God want me to develop? Personally, I don't have any answers for those questions yet, but I feel like they are coming. I just need to be persistent in asking those questions of God and the answers will come. The scary thing about a new normal is that it means change. We always hope change is for the better, but sometimes it is not. Life changes bring a new normal: graduations, marriages, children, divorces, deaths, new jobs or no jobs. Storms can bring a new normal too, whether it's a tornado, hurricane, flood or drought. I believe, though, that we can trust that any new normal to which God calls us is ultimately for the better. For reflection: Let us continue to listen for the new normal to which God is calling us. Where does he want us to soar when we have only walked before? "Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?" (Isaiah 43:18-19) Let us pray. Jesus, to what new things are you calling me? I want your normal to be my normal. Snowboarding, free skiing and other events have been added to the Olympic games in recent years. These are sports that only developed recently. People invented these sports. They invented the equipment; they invented the moves. Someone did it first and then spread the word. Usually these innovators are young people who are willing to try anything. They don't have a fear of failure (or many times a fear of death). When they get to a certain age, they retire from the sport to get married, raise families and pursue other dreams. They settle down; live normal lives. I'm not sure as Christians that we should settle down and live normal lives. We should be the ones trying new things in the Spirit, finding new ways to achieve healing, working miracles to feed the hungry and house the homeless, even raising the dead. We should be the ones soaring above the earth in the Spirit, being transported supernaturally to other places, getting "big air". These are radical things in the Spirit today which for Christians should be the new normal. For reflection: What is the new normal to which God is calling me? Where have I settled for less than God wants? What new moves does God want me to develop? Let us pray. Jesus, in you all things are possible. I want to know you and the power of your resurrection. I don't want to settle for less than you have planned for me and will enable me to do. I want to keep pressing on toward that to which you have called me. With you I have no fear.(based on Matthew 19:26, Ephesians 3:10, 13-14 and 1 John 4:18). In the Kingdom of God on earth, we are all citizens of the same Kingdom. We all believe in and work for the same King. We all have the same purpose. We live for him. Until the fulfillment of that comes, Christians serve as ambassadors for the Kingdom of God. As with other ambassadors, wherever we are in residence, is the land of the Kingdom. When someone enters our home, they are entering the Kingdom. Wherever we go, we represent the King. In a real sense, the King and the Kingdom go with us. When we walk in a room, the King walks in the room because we are his designated representative. As St. Paul says, "We are therefore Christ's ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us" (2 Corinthians 5:20). Ambassadors have the full faith of the King behind them. For reflection: Do I carry the presence of the King and the Kingdom with me? Let us pray. King of all creation, I bow before you. I acknowledge your kingship. You only want the best for your creation. With the saints and angels in heaven, I praise you. Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Another aspect of the Kingdom of God on earth, brought up by the typhoon, is that there will be no more destructive storms. We can deduce this because we have the example of Jesus calming the storm on the Sea of Galilee (Mark 4:35-41). After Jesus simply speaks to the storm, "Quiet! Be still!", the wind dies and the waters are calm. Then he chastises the disciples for not having enough faith. They had not recognized that his miracle-working power extended to storms even though they had already seen him heal many people and cast out demons. As Jesus healed people, he taught them that "the Kingdom of God is near" so they should "repent and believe the good news" (Mark 1:15). This was a new kingdom, not like any other kingdom they had ever seen. Did they have the faith to believe it and to tell others about it and demonstrate how it was different? For reflection: Do I believe that the Kingdom of God on earth is near? That it is different? Do I have the faith to calm storms? If I banded together with other people, would I have the faith to stop typhoons? Let us pray. Jesus, I've never even prayed to stop a storm before. I've always just prayed for the people to endure and recover. Help me have the faith to believe and to act when there is a threat. Reflecting on the Lord's Prayer this week (Luke 11:2-4), it is difficult for many of us to imagine what it means to pray "your kingdom come" because we don't have a concept of what God's kingdom on earth might mean. We often think of God's kingdom on earth as "already, but not yet", present in some form but not complete. In fact, on many days when the reality around us gets us down, we think there is no presence of God's kingdom on earth at all. But St. Paul tells us that what we need is faith because "faith is the substance of things hoped for and the proof of what we do not see" (Hebrews 11:1). On those days when we don't see the kingdom of God around us, faith tells us it is there. It is there because Jesus has been here to inaugurate the Kingdom of God on earth and because our prayers - "your kingdom come" - continue to bring it about. In fact, "Faith draws the future into the present, so that it is no longer simply a “not yet”. The fact that this future exists changes the present; the present is touched by the future reality, and thus the things of the future spill over into those of the present and those of the present into those of the future" (Spe Salvi 7). By prayer, faith acts to bring the future about. For reflection: What future reality is my faith bringing about? Let us pray. Jesus, we join with you in prayer, "Father, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come." We have been discussing being both bold and persistent in prayer through the lens of a couple of short stories told by Jesus. But there is something to note in these stories - Jesus is talking about praying for what you need. In the story from Luke 18: 1-8, Jesus speaks of a widow who needs justice. Probably her very livelihood depended on it. The position of widows in Jesus' time was tenuous. Women were dependent upon fathers or husbands to take care of them. In the story from Luke 11:5-8, a man needs to set out food for unexpected visitors. In this instance, the need is not even for himself, it is for others. Hospitality was extremely important in Jewish culture. It was no doubt embarrassing for him to have to go to his neighbor in the middle of the night and admit that he did not even have bread for his visitors. How humiliating! For reflection: In my prayers, am I asking for my needs and the needs of others? If I have all I need, whose needs can I attend to? Let us pray. Jesus, I am knocking on your door. There are needs. There is another short story in Luke about being persistent and bold about asking for what you need. Jesus proposes the following scenario: "Suppose one of you has a friend, and he goes to him at midnight and says, 'Friend, lend me three loaves of bread, because a friend of mine on a journey has come to me, and I have nothing to set before him.' "Then the one inside answers, 'Don't bother me. The door is already locked, and my children are with me in bed. I can't get up and give you anything.' I tell you, though he will not get up and give him the bread because he is his friend, yet because of the man's boldness he will get up and give him as much as he needs" (Luke 11:5-8). For reflection: Put yourself in the picture. With which man do you identify - the one asking for the bread or the one being asked for bread? Are you outside asking for a favor, or inside not wanting to be bothered? Let us pray. Father, here I am knocking on your door. I hate to bother you again, but you said to be persistent and bold, so here I am. I need . . . . The first few stories of healings and miracles in the Acts of the Apostles are not just to show us that the healings and miracles continued. They are also to show us that the Gospel message is for everyone. Peter and the other disciples thought that the Messiah was only sent to the Jews. But Peter has a vision about unclean foods and goes to speak to a Roman officer, who receives the Holy Spirit and then is baptized. The Messiah is for Jews and Gentiles alike. Another point in these early stories is that the Gospel message was being spread far and wide even through the disciples had not traveled many miles from home. Philip witnessed to and baptized the Ethiopian, who took the message back to Ethiopia. Peter healed Aeneas and raised Tabitha in port towns, where travelers and sailors would hear about the healings and tell the stories wherever they went. Peter witnessed to the Roman centurion Cornelius, who had 100 men under him, and who could be re-posted elsewhere when needed. Paul had been sent home to Tarsus (another port town) to keep him from being killed by the Jews in Jerusalem. The initial disciples were simple men who did not have contact with the movers and shakers of the day. So God moved them where he wanted them so that the message would spread. Peter and Paul both realized that God wanted all to be saved and none to be lost. Peter said, "He (the Lord) is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance (2 Peter 3:9). Paul told Timothy that God our Savior "wants all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth" (1 Timothy 2:4). For reflection: God always knew about the "six degrees of separation". The person we talk to no doubt knows someone else God is wanting to reach. Who might need to hear of God's love today or tomorrow? Let us pray. Father, I haven't always been as diligent about your work as I should have been. Please forgive me and give me more opportunities to tell others about what you have done in my life. |
AliceI started this website and blog on May 1, 2012. I am a Catholic who has been in ministry for many years. I first developed what I would call a close relationship with Jesus in the early 1970s. Ever since then I have been praying with people for healing and other needs. It is because I have seen so many of these prayers answered that I am so bold as to offer to pray for you individually through this website and phone line. Archives
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