June 30: Whew!

Hey! It's day 30. How about that? We made it to the last day of the 30 day challenge. Hopefully, you thought about something new, or maybe you looked at something old in a new way.

Of course, faith is a journey, not a destination, so while this is the end of the challenge, it isn't the end of our faith journey. There are all kinds of opportunities to grow in your faith on Sunday mornings, in study groups at youth group or just chatting with friends.

You can go here and sign up for a daily email devotion. Brief, but gets you thinking. And this isn't the only service like that.

Be bold in your faith, whatever "bold" means for you.

June 29: God's Chisel

June 28: Guest Blogger

Mike and Jana would again like to thank Pastor Jef for taking
their ramblings and drawing them all together in some sort of cohesive post.

When conversation turns to mission, outreach, witness there is a growing understanding among Christians that the fields of harvest are right outside our door. We don’t have to go overseas (although there is great benefit in doing so) to share God’s love with persons who sit in darkness. We live right in the middle of one of the darkest places in the world. We just don’t acknowledge it because our material affluence distracts us from an intentional examination of our own spiritual luminosity or lack thereof (as individual believers and as the current edition of the body of Christ).

Being honest to the point of being brutal, some of us likely don’t have to step through the door of our church or our home to interact with someone who is missing the love of God in their lives. In fact, we can draw a lesson from Pogo the Possum as he observes on a walk through a section of garbage-filled swamp with Porky Pine, “We have met the enemy and he is us.” You and I can observe that “we have met someone who is not fully connected in God’s love…and s/he is us.” Indeed, are we not all sinners [who] fall short of the glory of God?

Understanding that we are sinners does not and should not prevent us from intentionally walking the path that draws us closer and closer to God and growing more Christ-like day by day. That is part of the beauty of being written into the salvation story – God hears our cries for forgiveness and grace flows; God looks at us and chooses to see us as whole and holy; God understands our fears and gives us comfort and courage and companions to help us move on and move up.

This process of spiritual maturation works best when we know God through a lens of history and theological interpretation (the Bible is a great resource for this) and we know God through personal interaction and contemplation (regular prayer/dialogue, meditation, conversations with others who are on the same path in life). After all, you can’t go door-to-door selling vacuum cleaners if you know nothing about them, can you? Likewise, you can’t be a vital faith witness for Jesus if you don’t know any more about Jesus than the friends you are talking to about how he provides direction for your life.

I leave you with a short slideshow titled, The Interview with God.

This meditation holds the hopes and prayers I have for each of you and for all humanity. Let God bless you today.

June 27: What a mess.

Where are the messes that you can help with?

June 26: Potential

"It's amazing what ordinary people can do if
they set out without preconceived notions."

-Charles F. Kettering

Ordinary people are extraordinary.

I've always thought extraordinary was a strange word. "Extra-ordinary." Shouldn't it mean plainer than plain rather than exceptional? Or maybe that's just me.

I don't know about all of you, but most days, I feel rather ordinary. Ordinary isn't a bad thing. I go through my day to day life, plugging away at work, at parenting, at the laundry, at all the average, everyday activities that are a part of my life. What happens to me, though, is I forget the extraordinary part. I forget about the gifts I have and I forget to use them in a way that glorifies God.

Jesus sought out the ordinary and prepared them to be extraordinary in ministry. He spent time directly in ministry of course, but he also spent huge amounts of time seeking out and training new people in ministry.

Come, follow me, Jesus said, and I will make you fishers of men.
Matthew 4:19

A challenge for today: What opportunities do you have to be extraordinary for God in your day to day life? How can you invest in the lives of others to encourage them to embrace their extraordinary-ness and ordinary-ness?

June 25: But I'm Just One Person

It's overwhelming.

Everywhere in the world there are problems. War, starvation, political unrest, torture, terrorism, gun violence, domestic abuse, the list goes on and on. It seems so insurmountable that it is easy to do nothing. After all, how could someone like you or me really make a difference in the face of all that?

Can you imagine how Jesus felt? As soon as he was known as the healer, he was surrounded with sickness, suffering and death on a daily basis. And, healing physical ailments was certainly not his main mission. In spite of these issues, he always showed compassion on those in need.

Think about the last time that you shut things out to manage the pain around you. If we take Jesus' example seriously, we know that we can't avoid the suffering in this world. We have to engage those who are hurting. The key is to be walking with Jesus so that you will know when he wants to use your voice and hands for helping and healing.

Here are two quotes to ponder:

"And if anyone gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones because he is my disciple, I tell you the truth, he will certainly not loose his reward." Matthew 10:42

"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has."

-- Margaret Mead

June 24: A Tax Collector Walks Into A Bar

The Bible mentions tax collectors many times especially in relation to Jesus in the New Testament. We might think, "big deal, Jesus ate with some short guy from the IRS who climbed a tree," or "so what, the first book of the New Testament is attributed to a guy who was familiar with the 1040 form." Well, it was a big deal. Tax collectors were generally hated in Jesus' day, and probably for good reason. In fact, here's a few jokes that people in Jesus' day may have told....

Israelite 1: I've got good news and bad news. A boat with 150 tax collectors on it sank in the Red Sea yesterday.
Israelite 2: Awesome, so what's the bad news?
Israelite 1: One of them survived.

Israelite 2: What's the difference between a tax collector and an onion?
Israelite 1: What's that?
Israelite 2: Nobody cries when you cut up a tax collector.

Israelite1: What's wrong with tax collector jokes?
Israelite 2: I dunno, what?
Israelite 2: Tax collectors don't think they're funny and no one else thinks they're jokes.

So, why the loathing for these folks? Well, to start with, nobody enjoys paying taxes, but there was a lot more to it. During Jesus' time, Rome occupied Jewish lands. The tax collectors were Jews collecting money for Rome from other Jews. The way they made a living was to add "a little extra" to what they were collecting, and many added more than a little. In other words, they were seen as dishonest traitors who cheated innocent countrymen in order to enrich a foreign nation (while lining their own pockets). To top all of this off, the tax collectors totally disregarded Old Testament teachings about money. In a society based on these teachings, this was a big deal as well.

Okay, so how does this apply to us? I'm guessing you don't know many tax collectors and that you don't despise the ones you do know. But, who is the first person that pops into your head when you think about people you don't like? Would you eat lunch with them? Do you pray for them? Do you love them? In Matthew 5:44, Jesus tells us "Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you."

Here is a challenge: Pick a person that you really don't like and pray for them every day for at least a week. Think of something nice you could do for them and then see if you have enough courage to actually do it.