Today’s passage and meditation form a timely and much needed reminder, namely that our work as Christians is never finished, either in spreading and propagating the Gospel, or in living it. Both of these require diligence and our constant attention.

Yesterday we talked about being found in Christ. However, there is something of a problem with this: we don’t quite fit. We have a few rough corners that get in the way, and a few bits and pieces--these may be something as obvious as sin, or as ordinary and unnoticeable as few bad habits or faulty attitudes or not so nice personal agendas--that don’t quite jive with the character of Christ.

So, what does God do? He does a bit of pruning, a bit of refining--what today’s passage and meditation call disciplining. And, of course, as you might well guess, this isn’t always pleasant--or welcome either. But, it is done in love and for our own sake, and it is most necessary.

The ancient mystics often talked about ‘being found in Christ’ and such similar things, but, if you are like me, you dismissed them as hopelessly impractical and totally removed from our real world, our everyday world. And yet, we find this similar thing all through the New Testament, repeatedly suggested as the only way to live the Christian life.

Now, I have steered away from such talk because, for me, it conjured ideas from eastern religions where the believer is taken up or subsumed in the Almighty, becoming one with that deity, but also losing their identity and personality. But that is not the way with us and Christ. Indeed, just the opposite. In Christ, we become more completely ourselves, more the persons that God made us to be, more free to be that person because God’s life and power now lives in and through us.

And so, for me, in that vein, living in Christ, ‘being found in Christ’, becomes wonderfully attractive. What do you think?

Psalm 78 enjoins those who know and follow the Lord to tell their story, their story of what God has done for them, to their children and children’s children. and is this not key to how our faith will continue to spread and be preserved through the generations. Years ago a certain Christian educator posed the question, ‘will our children have faith?’ It is a good question, and one that will probably be given the answer ‘no’ unless we decide to share our story with others. And so, it is essential that we both remember what God has done and share that with others around us.

Here, in today’s account of Jesus’ calling of His first disciples, we have something truly remarkable--and if you are at all like me--also quite challenging, and even, to a certain extent, a bit frightening. Here are four disciples who decide to leave everything to follow Jesus, and who do so, after daring to trust Jesus in something that they ‘thought’ they knew backwards and forwards. In other words, they were willing to let Jesus take them out of their comfort zones. Does that sound challenging, even scary? It certainly does for me. But then, who are we following but the very one who has conquered the very worst that life can throw at us, even death itself--and who did so, simply out of His love for us! So it means that we have a Saviour who is quite capable, and certainly worthy of our trust.

I don’t know about you, but the whole idea of accountability is one that has often engendered feelings of uneasiness, and sometimes, even feelings of fear. Writing exams, for instance, in high school or university, were never pleasant times for me, as they were bound to show up where I had not studied enough. And likewise, the yearly performance reviews that I ‘endured’ as a social worker filled me with dread, as there were always areas where I had fallen short, and my examiners were not always known to be that sympathetic to one’s failings, no matter what the reason.

We are also called to be accountable to God, but fortunately, in Him we have a much more sympathetic ear, for He knows perfectly well what it is like for us. Today’s meditation touches on that issue of accountability, in particular in the areas of the gifts that God has so graciously given us. It asks whether we have made use of those gifts, and if so, whether we have used them to the glory of God and the increase of His kingdom--and not for some personal ends or goal or glory. It is something well worth looking at.

Today’s passage and meditation really ‘set me on my ears’ so to speak. I am certainly interested in seeing revival happen in Lloydminster, and indeed, throughout Canada and elsewhere. And, I would certainly like to see our churches renewed and revitalized. So, the incident that happened on that epic Pentecost day so many years ago certainly piques my attention. Was it simply the preaching, or the circumstances? Or was it the Holy Spirit? Remember that the assembled Christians had prayed for days and days--for ten days at least-- for the coming of the Spirit, as they awaited His arrival (the ascension happened 40 days after Easter and Pentecost 50 days, and they tarried in prayer during the interval--see Acts 1:14). So my question for myself initially, and for everyone else as well, is this? Am I willing (are we willing) to devote ourselves to prayer as they did? I’m afraid that far too often I am rather reluctant to do so, and find plenty of other things to occupy my time and attention. Just something to ponder.

Here, in today’s Scripture and meditation, is a situation that most, if not all of us, know all too well, that is, the reality of temptation. What is absolutely great is that we have a friend, indeed, an ally, in our battle with them, namely Jesus. He has been through all of this before us, and probably in ways that were far more trying and far more excruciating. Just think of the temptation He faced, when on the verge of being arrested, He could have avoided the Cross by calling upon legions of angels to help Him (see Matthew 26:53). I must say that even the worst of our temptations pale in relation to this one. And so, we have an advocate and helper like no other, one that is readily available to help us whenever needed.

In today’s psalm, Psalm 16, David claims to have put God above all else in his life, follow and obey Him completely, and have him as his chief object and goal of his life. But, of course, David, for all his good intentions, failed to carry that out, just as do all of us. Sadly, David, like all of us, stumbled and fell--and yet, was forgiven.

Of all the humans that have ever lived on earth, only Jesus was absolutely faithful to God, absolutely obedient, and absolutely unswerving in His trust in God. For that reason, He alone is fit to be our Saviour, advocate and guide, and absolutely alone in being the adequate solution for our sins. And, of course, His death and subsequent resurrection prove Him to be God’s chosen one--and God’s designated meditator. So, no wonder we are to choose Jesus above all else.

Of course, we all fail to do this. The good news, however, is that we can always choose otherwise, and come back to God, come back to our allegiance and trust in Jesus Christ. And surely, in all this, we have a wondrous example in Jesus who, armed with the very same resources as are available to each of us, was consistently faithful to God.

Usually we think of John the Baptist--and the whole notion of getting things ready for Jesus--immediately in the run-up to Christmas, or perhaps, occasionally, in the weeks leading up to Easter. So, with both of those celebrations clearly in the past, why are we picking up on this theme once again? It is because it is always appropriate to make sure that our lives are ready for Jesus, and that our lives and actions coordinate with what He wants for our world and wants to do in our world. And to be sure, if you are of the same opinion as I am, our world desperately needs Him to act--and not just our world, but our society, our communities, our churches and ourselves as well. So, anything we can do to help Him the better. After all, do we not pray, “Thy kingdom come; thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven”. May we, each of us, be part of the movement that assists that in taking place.

Someone once said that the Gospel, and particularly the Scriptures, are God’s love letter to His people. And, accordingly, it is a letter that we all need to read, to read repeatedly, and to take to heart. That is, because we are all too prone to listen to other messages, that messages that come from our society and from other people that we are ‘not good enough’, or that we need to buy this or that, or do something--or, in this age of political correctness, not say or do certain things. We need to remind ourselves that we are loved regardless of any of these things, loved unconditionally by God.

Someone once said that the Gospel, and particularly the Scriptures, are God’s love letter to His people. And, accordingly, it is a letter that we all need to read, to read repeatedly, and to take to heart. That is, because we are all too prone to listen to other messages, that messages that come from our society and from other people that we are ‘not good enough’, or that we need to buy this or that, or do something--or, in this age of political correctness, not say or do certain things. We need to remind ourselves that we are loved regardless of any of these things, loved unconditionally by God.

Sadly, and unfortunately, we often fall into two traps when it comes to prayer. Either we figure that the need, the request, is too small to ‘bother’ God with it, and so we don’t take it to God. Or, we figure that it is ‘too big’, too immense--like world hunger or world peace or global warming--for God to ‘handle’, and so, once again, we don’t go to God with it.

That said, we also can have some qualms or misconceptions with regards to prayer, which is what today’s meditation is all about. Hopefully, then, what I have said will be of help or inspiration to you.

Someone--I think it was a bishop--once said, ‘You may be the only Jesus Christ that some people will ever meet.’ By that, he wasn’t meaning that any of us was ‘literally’ Jesus, but that we, by our words and actions, were living out His life, embodying Jesus, to a waiting and watching and needy world. I don’t know about you, but I found that thought to be rather challenging. Repeatedly, I have had to ask myself, ‘Do my attitudes, my words, my actions really show forth Jesus? Or, do they show forth something else, something much less than the Good News I’m supposed to be proclaiming? Anyway, there’s something to think about.