Our theme for Lent in 2008 is “The Way of Jesus … The Way of the Cross.” A Guide has been prepared as a resource to go along with the challenge of fasting and praying during this 2008 Lent Season. The Guide is available for download as a PDF or Word document. The document helps you understand the meaning of Lent, how to fast and provides a daily Bible reading guide.
Sometimes a verse or passage from the Bible is so important to us that we might choose to memorize it. There are many verses that are so important to me that I have memorized them so they are always with me to help guide me. They have had a lifelong impact on me. Here’s a way to memorize a verse:
- Read the verse several times and meditate on it.
- You might want to write or print it out on a card to carry with you. Some folks put it as the screen saver or wall paper on their computer screen. I know some who tape them to the bathroom mirror.
- Learn the verse reference with the first phrase (that way you’ll also be memorizing where it is from). Repeat this several times.
- Then add the next phrase(s) and repeat.
- When you get to the final phrase, be sure to add the verse reference again at the end.
- Work on saying the verse(s) audibly whenever possible.
- Review is the key. Review the verse several times a day over the next week or more. If you review the verse for 21 days straight, you are virtually assured of having the verse memorized.
Since ancient times, Christian meditation has been rooted in the Bible. Don’t think of meditation as a guru in the lotus position. God in his Word actually commands us to meditate. We find meditation referred to in the Bible 58 times. The very first Psalm opens with and encourages us to meditate (Psalm 1:1-3 - NIV)
Blessed is the man
who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked
or stand in the way of sinners
or sit in the seat of mockers.
But his delight is in the law of the Lord,
and on his law he meditates day and night.
He is like a tree planted by streams of water,
which yields its fruit in season
and whose leaf does not wither.
Whatever he does prospers.
In the Old Testament there are two primary Hebrew words for meditation: Haga (pronounced - haw•gaw) which means to utter, groan, meditate, review or ponder; and Sihach (pronounced - say•akh) which means to muse, rehearse in one’s mind, or contemplate.
In Christian meditation, we seek to fill our thoughts with truths about God. We meditate by focusing on the Word of God, as the psalmist said: “But his delight is in the law of the LORD, and on his law he meditates day and night” (Psalms 1:2 - NIV). Rather than emptying ourselves as in Eastern style meditation, we fill our minds with hope and encouragement from the promises that God has given us in His Word or on good things that God has done for us. Or we may simply just think on the wonder and awe of God. In the meditation we often reflect on the ways God wants us to obey or apply his teaching to our lives.
Here are some ideas on how to meditate:
• When reading or studying, select a verse or even a phrase from a verse that captures your attention.
• Keep thinking about it all through your day - while you are walking, driving or waiting. Make special time to reflect on the passage.
• Use your own creativity. Picture the meaning or story in your mind. Draw pictures.
• Consider the idea, promise or command from as many angles as you can.
The “Book of the Month” idea is a guide for individuals or life groups to read and apply insights from God through a different book of the Bible each month. So in just over 5 years, you could read every book of the Bible and not be overwhelmed with the task.
Click the link below to access the Word document:
Book of the Month.doc
Often confession brings up ideas of going to a confessional to be heard by a priest. Confession is also often thought of as asking for forgiveness. While it is biblical to confess our sins to one another (James 5:16) and it is normal to ask forgiveness in our confession (1 Jn. 1:9); confession is much more.
Confession is possible because of grace. God loves to forgive and he has ALREADY forgiven those who follow Jesus (Rom. 8:1). Confession is our awareness of not just our specific sins, but our perpetual brokenness. Both public and private confession requires truth, authenticity, vulnerability and above all, humility. These are vital to following Jesus well and confession invites us to experience these.
Ancient Christian leaders instructed those following Jesus to include three aspects in confession:
1. Examine your heart. Good confession is born out of honest self-awareness. Good confession is very specific and avoids confessing just a general sense of sin.
2. Experience sorrow for your sin and brokenness. This is deeper than just “feeling bad” about our sin, it is an experience of the soul that is truly in anguish over the stubbornness of our wrong doing. Sorrow is the experience of deep regret and comes as we take confession seriously.
3. Determine to sin no more. Confession is also a statement or desire to end the sin and wrong doing. It is not a promise not to sin (Who can guarantee that?), but a stated desire not to sin.
Confession can be a private matter between the follower of Jesus and God. But confession should also be done with others. Choose those you can “reasonably” trust. If you hear a confession, respond in grace and commit yourself to sharing the confession to others.
We typically think of worship as a worship service and/or the activities of singing, praying, praising and taking communion. These may lead to worship, but worship is so much more than these activities. We can worship everyday in many ways. So we move beyond the forms of worship. While worship is something we do, it is so much more.
Worship is all about the Person to whom is worthy of honor. The act of worship is giving God worth and honor. It can come in an unplanned moment as we see an amazing Tucson sunset. It is to see God, sense God, experience God and give attention to God in whatever manner is most appropriate and/or natural in a given moment.
Worship is about who God is and what he has done or is doing. There is no end to the things that can direct our worship.
Worship can include praise, thanksgiving, gratitude, appreciation, adoration, awe, confession and even service. Sometimes we say or sing these things. Sometimes they occur in silence. Sometimes we do this with others and sometimes alone.
In the end, worship is our spirit connecting with the Spirit of God. You know you have worshiped when you have made an authentic connection with God.
Jesus often sought places of quiet and solitude. It was a regular practice of his.
- 40 days in the desert (Mt. 4:1-11)
- Before choosing the 12 (Lk. 6:12)
- On news of John the Baptist’s death (Mt. 14:13)
- After feeding the 5000 (Mt 14:23)
- After a day of crowds and activity (Mk. 1:35)
- After a mission of the 12 (Mk. 6:31)
- After healing a leper (Lk. 5:16) Note: it says he did this OFTEN
- The transfiguration (Mt. 17:1-9)
- The garden before his death (Mt. 26:36-46)
In the very beginning of Jesus’ ministry (Mk. 1:35), Jesus withdrew from the crowds and tons of activity. He was doing great things and helping a huge number of people. But he took off on his own. The result was that he was able to again listen to God who was directing him to move on to the next town. He avoided the temptation of being popular to the crowds in order to fulfill the mission of God.
The purpose of silence and solitude is not to be alone but to be alone with God. Some people call this “quiet time.” But modern quiet times seem to be too “busy” with activity. Silence and solitude is not a busy time. It allows us to listen to God and even to what our bodies and souls are telling us (if we slow down enough to listen). In silence and solitude we “shut up” so we can listen and “quiet” all the other noises and distractions so we can hear the “still small voice” of God who chooses not to shout at us over our loud and busy lives.
I have often found new direction, correction (I was going down the wrong path), encouragement (when I was wallowing in self-pity) and most of all re-connection with God in my times of silence and solitude. Most recently that happened during a short 25 minute “retreat” in my day sitting by the fountain at the church building! Here are some practical ways to practice (something we DO) silence and solitude:
- Take advantage of the everyday opportunities of “moments” of solitude like lunch time, a morning walk, quiet time in the morning, etc.
- Create a place in your home or apartment where you can “retreat” on a regular basis. I know of a guy who literally cleaned out a closet and put a chair in there to have a quiet place. I know others who made a special place in their back yard where they can retreat in silence and solitude.
- Find some places like a park, the church court yard, the Saguaro National Park (one of my favorite), etc.
- Plan a short retreat once or twice a year. Go to a hotel, go camping, go to a retreat center or B&B or find a place out of your normal routine. Don’t take a ton of things to do or read. Just take your Bible and some blank paper and get away and be quiet and listen and be alone with God. You’ll be amazed at what you hear from the One who deeply loves you.
- Take a half day retreat several times a year. You can stay in town, but just find a place of quiet where you won’t be interrupted.
- Be sure to turn off you cell phone during these times - including the vibrate mode. In the “old days” before cell phones we were out of touch for long periods and the world did not end.
Glen
Celebration of Discipline - The Path to Spiritual Growth
By Richard Foster
HarperCollins - 1988
The Spirit of the Disciplines - Understanding How God Changes Lives
By Dallas Willard
HarperCollins - 1990
Running on Empty: Contemplative Spirituality for Overachievers
By Fil Anderson
Random House, Inc - 2005
The PAPA Prayer: The Prayer You’ve Never Prayed
By Larry Crabb
Thomas Nelson - 2006
A Lenten guide has been prepared by the Africa Life group as a resource to go along with the challenge of fasting and praying during this 2007 Lent Season. The Guide is available for download as a PDF document.
Walter C. Kaiser Jr.
Peter H. Davids
F.F. Bruce
Manfred T. Brauch
InterVarsity Press
Downers Grove, Illinois
One-volume edition copyright 1996
Hard Sayings of Jesus
Many of those who listened to Jesus during his public ministry found some of his sayings “hard” and said so. Many of those who read his sayings today, or hear them read in church, also find them hard, but do not always think it fitting to say so.
Our Lord’s sayings were all of a piece with his actions and with his way of life in general. The fewer preconceptions we bring from outside to the reading of the Gospels, the more clearly shall we see him as he really was. It is all too easy to believe in a Jesus who is largely a construction of our own imagination—an inoffensive person whom no one would really trouble to crucify. But the Jesus whom we meet in the Gospels, far from being an inoffensive person, gave offense right and left. Even his loyal followers found him, at times, thoroughly disconcerting. He upset all established notions of religious propriety. He spoke of God in terms of intimacy which sounded like blasphemy. He seemed to enjoy the most questionable company. He set out with open eyes on a road which, in the view of “sensible” people, was bound to lead to disaster.
But in those who were not put off by him he created a passionate love and allegiance which death could not destroy. They knew that in him they had found the way of acceptance, peace of conscience, life that was life indeed. More than that: in him they came to know God himself in a new way; here was the life of God being lived out in a real human life and communicating itself through him to them. And there are many people today who meet Jesus, not in Galilee and Judaea but in the Gospel record, and become similarly aware of his powerful attractiveness, entering into the same experience as those who made a positive response to him when he was on earth.
One reason for the complaint that Jesus’ sayings were hard was that he made his hearers think. For some people, thinking is a difficult and uncomfortable exercise, especially when it involves the critical reappraisal of firmly held prejudices and convictions, or the challenging of the current consensus of opinion. Any utterance, therefore, which invites them to engage in this kind of thinking is a hard saying. Many of Jesus’ sayings were hard in this sense. They suggested that it would be good to reconsider things that every reasonable person accepted. In a world where the race was to the swift and the battle to the strong, where the prizes of life went to the pushers and the go-getters, it was preposterous to congratulate the unassertive types and tell them that they would inherit the earth or, better still, possess the kingdom of heaven. Perhaps the Beatitudes were, and are, the hardest of Jesus’ sayings.
For the Western world today the hardness of many of Jesus’ sayings is all the greater because we live in a different culture from that in which they were uttered and speak a different language from his. He appears to have spoken Aramaic for the most part, but with few exceptions his Aramaic words have not been preserved. His words have come down to us in a translation, and that translation—the Greek of the Gospels—has to be retranslated into our own language. But when the linguistic problems have been resolved as far as possible and we are confronted by his words in what is called a “dynamically equivalent” version—that is, a version which aims at producing the same effect in us as the original words produced in their first hearers—the removal of one sort of difficulty may result in the raising of another.
For to us there are two kinds of hard saying: there are some which are hard to understand, and there are some which are only too easy to understand. When sayings of Jesus which are hard in the former sense are explained in dynamically equivalent terms, then they are likely to become hard in the latter sense. Mark Twain spoke for many when he said that the things in the Bible that bothered him were not those that he did not understand but those that he did understand. This is particularly true of the sayings of Jesus. The better we understand them, the harder they are to take. (Perhaps, similarly, this is why some religious people show such hostility to modern versions of the Bible: these versions make the meaning plain, and the plain meaning is unacceptable.)
