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Published: 21 April 2016

I have had a lot of guilty feelings. I know my emotions are not in charge so feeling guilty does not mean I am guilty but feeling guilty still feels crummy. Some of you were blessed with a personality and upbringing that will make this blog impossible for you to understand so you can stop reading now and be thankful. Some of us feel guilty about “waste.” Let me be clear, I don’t do whatever I do simply because I feel guilty. That’s a depressing way to live that often leads to resentment and bitterness. That said, I have often struggled with feelings of guilt over my use of time and money. There is so much to be done. There are so many needs. There is poverty in the world. Some people don’t have fresh drinking water. There are books to read, people to love, yards to rake, prayers to pray, sermons to be written, neighbors who need Christ, children that need mentors, missionaries that need money…this list goes on and on and on. In spite of all these “needs” I plop down to watch an episode of NCIS, I eat food at a restaurant instead of making a sandwich, I go fishing or go for a walk and sometimes I take way too long in the shower. I realized a few years ago that some people “just go for a drive” instead of “driving to some place.” At first it seemed like a waste of money and time to just “go for a drive.” “To what end,” I would think. The Protestant work ethic went awry when it married the Industrial Revolution. Add a depression era hangover to a Type-A personality and there is serious need for therapy in there somewhere! “Make hay while the sun shines.” “Get the most bang for your buck.” Maybe a healthy dose of theology would help us. In fact, the more I study the life and teachings of Jesus, the more peace I have. He said, “Come to Me and find rest for your souls.” He said, “See all that need? Pray for God to raise up more workers.” He said that our giving multiplies in ways that only a supernatural kingdom can make possible. He said that we work while it is day and rest when it is night. He said that His Father is always working and we work with Him NOT for Him. In our text for Sunday we’ll learn about what is truly wasteful and what is actually worship. It’s odd how one can look like the other. Mary (sister of Lazarus) poured the most expensive perfume I’ve ever heard of over the head and feet of Jesus. Judas thought this was a despicable waste of money and the rest of the disciples joined his murmuring. We can learn a lot from Jesus’ response to this utilitarian thinking. Apparently there is such a thing as time and money well wasted. May God grant us wisdom to know the difference, a heart to discern His ways and bit more contentment rather than more guilt.

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Published: 15 April 2016

Our text for Sunday will make you thankful for the sufficiency of Jesus’ salvific work on our behalf.  It appears, if you read the text too quickly, that getting into Heaven requires feeding the hungry, giving drinks to the thirsty, housing strangers, clothing the naked, visiting the sick and visiting those in prison.  It doesn’t say how many people one would have to feed or clothe so that makes it a little scary.  What if one more shirt off your back was required and you missed Heaven by one shirt? Ouch!   What if you did all of the above but never visited a prisoner?  What if you visited the wrong prisoner just to check it off your list and it didn’t count?  What if you were hungry and you ate the sandwich you were supposed to give to somebody else?  Would you go to hell with a full stomach? Is that what is really going on here?  If we are going to get this right, we’ll need to think about all that Jesus said and not just what He said at the end of the Olivet Discourse (Matthew 25).  If we believe that the rest of the Bible is inspired, we should also consider what the apostle’s commentary on Jesus’ teaching had to say.  The truth is, we’ll never get to Heaven by feeding people and giving them shirts.  AND, we won’t be in Heaven if we don’t.  Huh?  We’ll see upon closer inspection of the text that the good works of the righteous were preceded by something else.  We’ll see that their deeds were evidence of that something else and not the cause for their admission to eternal life.   We’ll see that the condemned were not condemned because they did not do certain things but rather that the absence of good deeds was evidence that something else was missing.  Some of these texts are a bit frightening—with good reason.  We are all going to live in one of two places forever and we have this short life to make up our minds about where that will be.  If we get a bit startled into reality, it will be for our eternal good.  There’s more to say about all this but as I said at the beginning, it is the work of Jesus that secures salvation for those who believe.  Salvation is for the glory of God and we’ll have nothing to boast about in the last days except Christ the Savior and the way He paid the penalty for our sins.  “I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord!”