GPS!

My wife and I enjoy traveling.  Of course everything seems to be different these days, but, when we have the opportunity, we love to take a good old fashioned road trip.  There was a time when this would not have been possible without first finding the map, figuring out how to unfold it and then tracing the route with a finger making intelligent comments like..."Maybe we should have stayed on the blue road." The Good Old days!!

But now instead of squinting at a map we listen to the voice coming out of the dashboard or one of our phones as our gps or waze app always (almost!)takes us right where we want to go.  

Well, that is progress...And I will now take a bit of a detour but will get back to the gps shortly....

One question that often is asked by those who are curious about God or by those who may be interested in following Him is "what is God's will for my life?"  "what does God want me to do?"  You know that is a good questions.  There is nothing more important in this life than being connected to the God who created and loves you.  

But how do we know what He wants from us?  The good news is that God lets us know.

We find these words in the book of  Romans, "Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect." (Romans 12:2 The New Living Bible).  

Think about what that is saying.  The world tells you to live a certain way...to adopt a certain set of values, priorities and morals.  God says in effect "I have a better way to live...do things My way instead."  Jesus once said that God's way of living can be summed up in this way..."love God and love people."  (Matthew 22:36-40).   In other words,honestly care for those who mistreat you, practice grace and forgiveness,  resist the urge to worship material goods, consider the welfare of others rather than yourself.  In these ways, we come to resemble Jesus Himself who came "not to be served but to serve and to give His life as a ransom for many."  (Mark 10:45)

That is a tall order and a lifelong process.  We take it one step at a time as God lives within us.  And that brings us back to the gps and God's will for our lives.  That verse tells us that we learn about God's will as we let Him transform us....as we do things His way.

Now God can do what He wants and it is a mistake to assume that He does things the same way all that time but I think God generally reveals his plan for our lives sort of like a gps giving one direction at a time.  "Turn left in 1.5 miles."  After we make that turn, we receive the next instruction.  (this involves a level of trust that we probably would not grant to a gps....I tell the gps where I want to go and then trust it to take me there....I strive to trust God to not only give directions but also decide where I am going...fortunately He can be trusted to know what is best).  

So the lesson for us....we will come to understand God's will for our lives and we will go where He wants us to go as we are obedient.  Listen to His directions, live His way, one step at a time.  Do the things we know He wants us to do even as we wait for the next direction. (fortunately He is willing to recalculate when needed).  He is a better guide than the best gps!   

It's Hard to Hear with all the Shouting

   So I am the Pastor at New Holland United Methodist Church and also at Honey Brook United Methodist Church.   While we are meeting again for Sunday worship at both services, quite a few of the members of our church families are reluctant to attend (understandably) so we are also attempting to have more of on online ministry. (our worship services and Vacation Bible School are all available at the church Facebook pages).  I hope and pray that somebody finds this humble blog to be helpful too as we wonder in the wilderness.

    I was watching the news the other day (I tend to go back and forth between CNN and Fox news...that way, I know what everyone does not like)...someone was saying that the problem is that the national news organizations are not reporting the "good news" regarding the Covid-19 situation in our country.  Now I am not trying to start an argument here...I imagine we all have our own ideas about how "good" the news actually is but that got me thinking...how do even know when something is "good news?"  

   Well the gist, the whole point, of the Bible...God's Word to us....is that it is "Good news."  God has real good news for us.  In fact, it is incredibly amazing good news.  Goes something like this......

-God knows you.  This might not sound like much but think about it.  How many people are alive today?  I do not know but in the billions right.  How many people have lived prior to today?  Again, plenty.  How many will live at some point in the future?  The number keeps increasing.  And God knows each of us by name!  In fact, God knows everything about us...all that we have ever done or said or thought.  All of our dreams and fears.  Our triumphs and failures.  Our secrets and our hiding places.

-Maybe that does not sound so good yet...sounds like God is some type of cosmic stalker.  Well there is more.  God knows you and He Loves You!  In fact, we could say in spite of the fact that He knows everything about you..God still loves you.  I watched a tv show...the guy is going on a first date and he is nervous about it and his friends are giving him advice on how he should act in order to convince the girl to like him.  Maybe he did like him but he was hoping she would like him like him.  He asks his friends, "should I just be myself?"  Of course they all say, "NO!!!  That is the worst thing you could do"  It was meant to be funny and it did make me laugh but back to the good news...with God, we already ARE ourselves even if we try not to be but guess what.  he still loves us. 

-In fact, God loves us so much, He reaches out to us so that we can have a relationship with Him, hoping that we will respond.  

Here's the thing though.  God generally does not shout.  Now and again, the Bible tells us about times when God "thundered" to get everyone's attention and we also read about a time that is coming when God will be impossible to ignore but generally He speaks softly.  He calls us but then waits for our response.  It is easy for the voice of God, or the call of God or even the love of God to be drowned out by all of the noise and distraction of our lives and the world around us.

I'll be posting again but for now the prayer is simple....listen for the One who knows you better and loves you more than any other.  Do not settle for less 

 

DO NOT FRET

                                                                                                       

One way that we have been maintaining our Fellowship as the Body of Christ is a weekly zoom prayer meeting.  The focus of our time together is prayer (which kind of makes sense since it is a prayer meeting) but we usually spend a few minutes looking at a prayer found in the Bible or another Bible passage.

 

One week we discussed the first 7 verses from Psalm 37..

Do not fret because of those who are evil
    or be envious of those who do wrong;
² for like the grass they will soon wither,
    like green plants they will soon die away.

³ Trust in the Lord and do good;
    dwell in the land and enjoy safe pasture.
⁴ Take delight in the Lord,
    and he will give you the desires of your heart.

⁵ Commit your way to the Lord;
    trust in him and he will do this:
⁶ He will make your righteous reward shine like the dawn,
    your vindication like the noonday sun.

⁷ Be still before the Lord
    and wait patiently for him;
do not fret when people succeed in their ways,
    when they carry out their wicked schemes.

 

The introduction to some of the Psalms tell us what was happening when they were written.  While Psalm 37 does not do this, we do learn that it was written by David.  Now, David lived over 4000 years ago but it sounds like he experienced some of the same things that we see today (that is no surprise, while technology advances, the effects of sin pretty much stay the same).

I imagine many of us can still relate to these words.  It can certainly seem frustrating when we see those who are evil appearing to avoid any consequences and in fact even succeed and prosper when they carry out schemes and activities that are evil in the eyes of the Lord.

What is the correct way to respond?  Well, “trust in the Lord and do good!”  “Commit your way to the Lord!”  “Take delight in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart” (this might very well mean that He first CHANGES  the desires of your heart…but He will make sure you have what you need at any rate).  Remember that being a follower of Jesus means that we are in it for the long haul!

And while it sometimes appears that those who ignore God do so without suffering consequences, judgment is certainly coming…”like the grass they will soon wither”…we should “be still before the Lord and wait patiently for Him”

The tricky thing there is that we are always to be shining His light, sharing the Good news of His love and grace in the hopes that folks will respond and accept His offer of salvation.  In other words, we look forward to a time when there will be no more sin or evil but we sure hope that folks will choose to join us to share that blessed time.

As we agreed at the zoom meeting that day, this is certainly something that we can not do on our own.  We need to pray about it.…that we may not lose heart even if it seems like ungodliness is making advances, that we keep our eyes and our faith on the Lord, that we will allow Him to control the desires of our hearts and that we reach and share His good news of redemption and new life even as we look forward to a time and place when there will be no evil and no suffering,

In the meantime, I hope everyone is able to stay safe as we go through our days.

Blessings to all,

Pastor Ray.