That special

Read > Luke 18:9-14

Those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted (v. 14).

My mother is one of the most quotable people I know. Her quips usually make us laugh while poking us with a bit of truth. For example, when one of us spouts off about a minor achievement or takes on a me-first attitude, my mum is sure to say (with a smile), “You’re not that special.”

Jesus had a similar message for a group of listeners “who had great confidence in their own righteousness” (v. 9). He told them about a Pharisee who barged into God’s presence with this so-called prayer: “I thank You, God, that I am not a sinner like everyone else… I’m certainly not like that tax collector!” (v. 11).

Picking on the tax collector and bragging about his goodness backfired on the religious leader because Jesus said, “Those who exalt themselves will be humbled” (v. 14).

I don’t know about you, but I don’t want God to look at me and think, Hmm … she needs to be humbled today. I’m so thankful that Jesus also said, “those who humble themselves will be exalted” (v. 14).

The tax collector in Jesus’ story knew how to humble himself. Beating his chest in sorrow, his prayer went like this: “O God, be merciful to me, for I am a sinner” (v. 13). Christ noted that this man was the one who returned home forgiven by God.

It’s no mistake that Jesus used the context of prayer to contrast humility with pride. When we pray like the Pharisee, our self-importance prevents us from connecting with God. The Bible says, “God does not answer [people] because of their pride” (Job 35:12).

The good news is that humility opens God’s ears to our prayers. Those tearful, chest-beating encounters with God over our sin matter deeply to Him. But our brokenness is essential. As we bow low before Him, He can lift us up and assure us, “You are that special.” – Jennifer Benson Schuldt

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God opposes the proud but favours the humble. So humble yourselves under the mighty power of God, and at the right time He will lift you up (1 Peter 5:5-6).

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Why is criticizing others to exalt ourselves detrimental? How does humility acknowledge our brokenness before God?

review

·         It’s easy to overlook the older brother in the parable of the prodigal son (Luke 15:11-32). How might it be possible for religion to distract us from Christ? What hope is there for people who have placed religion before real trust and belief in God?

·         Reflecting on 15:11-16:15, how can the way God welcomes us into His kingdom shape the way we treat other people? What resources can you use to show someone the lavish welcome of the gospel?

·         What lessons can you glean from the parable of the persistent widow? (18:1-8). How are you practicing persistence in prayer? What aspect of God’s character can help you be more faithful in prayer?

·         The story of the lepers (17:11-19) demonstrates that it’s possible to receive God’s grace and yet not be thankful for it. Think back and thank God for all the different ways He’s been gracious to you, from the big to the small.

·         What has been the most challenging thing you’ve faced recently as you have tried to live for Christ? What has been the most encouraging thing?

Items for Prayer

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April 2011

Do one, get one free

Read > Matthew 22:34-40

“You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind.” This is the first and greatest commandment. A second is equally important: “Love your neighbour as yourself” (vv. 37-39).

Rate yourself on a scale of 1 to 10: How well do you love God? How well do you love others? Which number is lower?

Many Christians find it harder to love God than to love others because of two concerns: First, it’s difficult to talk to someone we can’t see. Second, we often seem too busy to read our Bible and pray. Who among us can’t sympathize with the mother who confessed that her days are so full of feeding, cleaning, and wiping that she finds little time to stop and sit in the presence of God?

And yet, I wonder if our questions present a false choice. Jesus said that loving God and loving neighbours are two inseparable sides of the same command (Matthew 22:37-39). John wrote that loving others is precisely how we love God, for “if we don’t love people we can see, how can we love God, whom we cannot see?” (1 John 4:20). And Paul argued that loving others is our most important job, for “the whole law can be summed up in this one command: ‘Love your neighbour as yourself’” (Galatians 5:14). Rather than to set loving God against loving others, Scripture declares that we love God by loving others.

Now, let’s bring this point home – literally. Martin Luther once said that our No. 1 neighbour is our spouse (Ephesians 5:21-30). It’s easy to play nice with people we see only occasionally, but how kind are we to those we live with? If we’re generous and patient with family – those we have long ago stopped trying to impress – then we can be confident that we do love God. Every hug and every kissed forehead is noticed by our heavenly Father. For when we love His children, we love Him. – Mike Wittmer

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I tell you the truth, when you did it to one of the least of these My brothers and sisters, you were doing it to Me! (Matthew 25:40).

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If loving others is how we gauge our love for God, how much do you really love God? What can you do today to love those whom God has placed in your life?

April 2011

A helpless widow

Read > Luke 18:1-8

Jesus told His disciples a story to show that they should always pray and never give up (v. 1).

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote, “Perseverance is a great element of success. If you knock long enough and loud enough at the gate, you are sure to wake up somebody.” I don’t know if Longfellow had in mind the parable of the persistent widow (Luke 18), but I can certainly say that he is right on. In Singapore, where I live, 85 percentage of the population lives in close proximity in high-rise apartment blocks or flats. If you knock long enough and loud enough at a door, you are sure to wake up not just somebody – but everybody in the neighbourhood!

A judge for sale? That’s unthinkable and unacceptable! We abhor an unjust judge (Luke 18:6). For we expect a judge to have integrity, regard for justice, and compassion for people (2 Chronicles 19:6-7). But this judge “neither feared God nor cared about people” (Luke 18:2).

Widows were the epitome of the destitute and desperate of ancient Jewish society. Though the widow had a valid claim (v. 3), the judge refused to attend to her because she had not offered him a bribe. Too poor to pay, her only recourse was her persistence – until she drove the judge nuts (v. 5). Jesus wants us to learn a good lesson from a bad example (v. 6).

The parable consists of a “lesser to greater” argument (for example, Luke 12:24, 28). If a poor widow who goes to a court of law got what she deserved from an uncaring and unjust judge, how much more will God’s children who go to a throne of grace (Hebrews 4:16) receive good gifts from a heavenly Father (Matthew 7:11) who loves both justice and people! The question is not if God will answer prayer, for He most certainly will do so quickly. The question is will we be faithful in prayer, even in the unfair circumstances and harsh realities of life (Luke 18:8). – K. T. Sim

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·         Luke 11:5-12

·         Romans 12:12

·         Colossians 4:2

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What prayer of yours has remained unanswered for a long time? If God is eager to give us good gifts, why hasn’t God given you what you asked for?

Is it normal for a Christian to feel as stressed out as I do?

Everyone experiences stress. It is a normal part of life, the result of living in a fallen world under the effect of sin’s curse.¹ Everyone—both Christians and unbelievers—faces problems and hardships that simply occur in their lives. Rude drivers, illness, gossiping acquaintances, pressures on the job, and many other circumstances of life at times make it hard to be calm and self-controlled.
Even though some look for a faith that bypasses stress, stress is actually an unavoidable accompaniment of both spiritual growth and regression. Although faith enables us to deal with the pressures of stress, it doesn’t eliminate them.
When we hold ourselves accountable to God’s standards, we sometimes find ourselves with more awareness of stress than if we were not a child of God. As members of God’s family we are led by the Holy Spirit to acknowledge past sins and failures and come to terms with ways in which we have hurt one another and dishonored God. The sins of unbelievers have consequences, of course, but the sins themselves are less likely to be the cause of serious regret or sorrow.  In the short term, life is simpler for people who aren’t aware of the depth of their depravity and in turn are able to rationalize their sins. (See If God is in control, why do morally unprincipled people prosper?) ²
Consider for instance a word picture, which at first does not seem to have anything to do with stress until we look at it more closely. In Ephesians 5:14 Apostle Paul refers to what may have been an early Christian hymn already in common use:
“Wake up, O sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.”
This quotation uses two striking images to describe the spiritual changes that occur in the transition from unbelief to faith in Christ. Unbelievers are like sleepers (“Wake up, O sleeper”) or the dead (“rise from the dead.”)
On waking, dreams and fantasies are quickly replaced with consciousness of a reality that is much more demanding. And rising from the dead? It is disturbing even to consider the kind of consciousness that might accompany the return of life to the decaying flesh of a corpse.
Just as warmth can’t dispel the numbness of frost-bitten hands without pain, Christians can’t expect spiritual growth without stress. Spiritual growth only occurs when we are ready to follow a Master who commands we radically reexamine the assumptions of our former life. Jesus said that all of his disciples must we willing to take up his cross and follow Him (Matthew 10:38), and Paul vividly described the reality of stress experienced in the course of Christian service:
“We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about the hardships we suffered in the province of Asia. We were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired even of life. Indeed, in our hearts we felt the sentence of death. But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead” (2 Corinthians 1:8-9).
 “I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death” (Philippians 3:10 ).
“Now I rejoice in what was suffered for you, and I fill up in my flesh what is still lacking in regard to Christ’s afflictions, for the sake of his body, which is the church” (Colossians 1:24).
So it isn’t abnormal for a Christian to feel stressed out. Far from it. But stress for Christians is accompanied with purpose and hope that reinforces and strengthens faith.
“Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us” (Romans 5:1-5).
“For just as the sufferings of Christ flow over into our lives, so also through Christ our comfort overflows. If we are distressed, it is for your comfort and salvation; if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which produces in you patient endurance of the same sufferings we suffer. And our hope for you is firm, because we know that just as you share in our sufferings, so also you share in our comfort” (2 Corinthians 1:5-7).

¹ “To Adam he said, ‘Because you listened to your wife and ate from the tree about which I commanded you, “You must not eat of it,” Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat of it all the days of your life. It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return’ ” (Genesis 3:17-19 NIV). Back To Article
² Although Christians have forgiveness for sin, genuine sorrow for personal sin and harm done to others is an unavoidable aspect of spiritual growth. Back To Article

Dan Vander Lugt

magic

Read > Psalm 19:1-6

The heavens proclaim the glory of God. The skies display His craftsmanship (v. 1).

We were engaged in a refreshingly serious conversation about the origin of things, deep stuff you won’t get to discuss with every teenager. (Him, not me. I’m, uh … older.) Shy, brilliant (again, him), he was searching for BIG answers to BIG questions. “I see two basic options,” he said thoughtfully. “Either it all started by random chance, or it was magic.”

“I wouldn’t use the word magic,” I hastily said.

He seemed perplexed. “Well, what would you call it? There’s nothing, and then” – he waved his hands skyward – “there’s everything!”

I worried about the connotations inherent in that dangerous word magic. Didn’t that evoke images of wizards and spells, of sleight of hand and illusion? Magic isn’t synonymous with miraculous. But my friend came from a background where God and worship were not values. He saw the cosmos with fresh eyes and used the word magic innocently, even worshipfully.

“The heavens proclaim the glory of God,” wrote the poet David. “The skies display His craftsmanship” (Psalm 19:1). Those who look at nature through eyes of faith will be filled with a sense of awe that compels the worship of the One who created it all from nothing. The onslaught of evidence is overwhelming, as David noted: “Day after day they continue to speak; night after night they make Him known” (v. 2).

And we can turn inward as well. Each of our cells contains information in the form of DNA. Nature can produce patterns, but coded information can come only from a higher intelligence.

The message from science, from my searching friend, and from the Bible is clear. Look up! Look around! Then worship the One who made you and who fills you with wonder. Creation declares the majesty – the magic! – of our Creator, “without a … word” (v. 3). – Tim Gustafson

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·         Genesis 1:1

·         John 1:1-5

·         1 John 1:1-4

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Why is it wise to define the terms in any serious discussion? What can you learn from those who are searching?