confession

Aug

2024

Reexamining our trust in the Lord

A meditation concerning Psalm 34

by David Sellnow

Martin Luther said we treasure the Psalms because they lay bare the hearts and souls of the psalm writers—and our hearts along with them: “The human heart is like a ship on a stormy sea driven about by winds blowing from every corner of the earth. … These tempests of the heart” caused the psalm writers to wrestle with their faith. Their words induce us to examine the inner recesses of our own souls too.

Psalm 34 is a powerful example of reexamination of one’s own life and soul, of the need to trust in God rather than ourselves. David wrote Psalm 34 when looking back at a difficult time in his life—a time when he relied on his own ideas and cleverness rather than truly trusting the Lord.

The heading in the Hebrew Scriptures atop Psalm 34 says: A psalm “of David, when he feigned madness before Abimelech, so that he drove him out, and he went away.” Let’s explore that context to better understand the lessons David learned and, later, expressed in this psalm.

You remember that David, while still a pre-teen, had been chosen by the Lord and anointed by the Prophet Samuel to be Israel’s future king (1 Samuel 16). While still a teenager, David began to serve when needed as a court musician for the reigning king, Saul, who was troubled by an evil spirit. Whenever the evil spirit came upon Saul, David would come and play his lyre, “and Saul would be relieved and feel better, and the evil spirit would depart from him” (1 Samuel 16:23). Meanwhile, David continued to serve his own family, shepherding their sheep. During that time, David was sent by his father to see how his older brothers were doing at the battlefront of a standoff between the armies of Israel and the Philistines. David stepped into the foreground on that occasion, trusting implicitly in the Lord’s integrity and strength. He went out with just a slingshot and defeated the Philistines’ gigantic hero, Goliath, in a duel to the death. Following that, jealousy grew in King Saul’s heart against David. One day while David was playing music, Saul hurled a spear at him, trying to kill him, but David twice eluded the hurled weapons (1 Samuel 18:10,11). Saul then banished David from his presence, but sent him off as a main commander in Israel’s army (1 Samuel 18:13). Saul hoped David would die in battle. “Let the Philistines deal with him,” as he later said (1 Samuel 18:17). But David continued to have success. So. Saul brought David back to the palace and offered him the hand of one of his daughters in marriage. He offered his daughter Michal, who loved David, thinking to himself, “Let me give her to him so that she may be a snare for him”, distracting David’s focus so that the hand of the Philistines might prevail against him (1 Samuel 18:21). But the more Saul realized that the Lord was with David and that his daughter Michal loved David, the more Saul’s jealousy and fury grew. “So Saul was David’s enemy from that time forward” (1 Samuel 18:29). Again “Saul sought to pin David to the wall with a spear, but David eluded Saul and the spear landed in the wall (1 Samuel 19:10). David fled for his life, and Saul began actively making more concerted efforts to have David killed (cf. 1 Samuel 19:11 – 20:33).

That was when David, fearful of Saul, fled to Gath, the hometown of Goliath, the Philistine champion whom David had slain some years earlier. The city of Gath was also the seat of power for the Philistine king known as Achish or Abimelech, the very king who was at war with Saul and the kingdom of Israel. David had led armies in battle against the Philistines. He even was carrying the sword of Goliath with him when he went to Gath (1 Samuel 20:8-9). Did David think he could hide out in enemy territory and Saul wouldn’t come looking there? If he was hiding, that didn’t work. David was recognized, seized, and held under arrest (cf. Psalm 56, heading). Or maybe David was thinking, “The enemy of my enemy is my friend,” hoping the Philistines would protect him against Saul if he came over to their side. But David’s attempts to rescue himself went awry quickly. The officers of King Achish asked, “Isn’t David a king back in his own country? Don’t the Israelites dance and sing, ‘Saul has killed a thousand enemies; David has killed ten thousand’?” (1 Kings 21:11 CEV) David then became very much afraid of King Achish and his men. “So he changed his behavior before them; he pretended to be mad when in their presence. He scratched marks on the doors of the gate, and let his spittle run down his beard. Achish said to his servants, ‘You see the man is mad; why then have you brought him to me? Do I lack madmen, that you have brought this fellow to act like a madman in my presence” (1 Samuel 21:13-15)? The Philistines drove David out of their lands, back into Israelite territory. And Saul kept pursuing David, seeking to kill him.

So, that’s a bit of a story, isn’t it? That’s the context when the heading atop Psalm 34 in your Bible says: A psalm of David, when he feigned madness before Abimelech (also known as Achish), so that Achish drove David out, and he went away. At some point later in his life, David wrote two psalms (Psalm 56 and Psalm 34), with headings showing he was thinking about those days when he was on the run and ran to Gath. Looking back on his life, David recognized he had tried to save himself by his own ingenuity, resorting to desperate means, often failing to maintain his integrity as a man of God. In Psalm 56, written after the fact, David prayed to God: “When I am afraid, I put my trust in you. … This I know, that God is for me … the Lord, whose word I praise. … In God I trust; I am not afraid. What can a mere mortal do to me?” (Psalm 56:3,4,9,11). That’s the lesson David learned, the faith he confessed in retrospect. At the time, however, David was caught up in all sorts of fear and uncertainty and did not trust God would get him through it. Mere mortals like Saul and the Philistines scared him plenty. He tried to scheme his way out of trouble—to the point of slobbering on himself and acting as if he had lost all mental faculties. The great future king of Israel, the anointed of the Lord, acting as though his only hope was to pretend he was hopeless and witless, a nobody that was of no use to the Philistines or Israel.

We’ve seen it before in the lives of other great persons of faith—losing track of God’s promises, losing trust in God’s promises, and resorting to their own solutions to their dilemmas in life. Consider Abram and Sarai. They had been promised they would have a child in their old age. But what the Lord promised seemed too slow in happening, seemed not to be happening. So, they decided Abram should sleep with Sarai’s handmaiden, Hagar, and have a son with her. That was not what God intended. Or consider Moses. Born to an Israelite slave, Moses was raised in the Egyptian palace as a grandson of a pharaoh. When he grew up, Moses initially took it upon himself to do something about Egyptian abuse of Israelite slaves. One day, Moses “went out to his people and saw their forced labor. He saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his kinsfolk. He looked this way and that, and seeing no one, he killed the Egyptian and hid his body in the sand” (Exodus 20:11-12). But what he did became known. Moses had to flee Egypt and was gone for forty years.

Too often in life, all of us as God’s people forget to trust God. We neglect to keep his steadfastness and truth in mind. We resort to our own solutions. We scratch and claw and act without integrity. We fail to believe if we follow the ways of God, if we wait on God, that we will be safe, we will be secure, we will stay alive.

David learned from what he went through. He had been flailing away trying to protect himself. But running in the wrong direction and engaging in lies and deceptions only made his situation worse, not better. Coming out of those experiences, David recognized that the Lord his God had protected him and rescued him, despite himself. The Lord had been with him through every day of trouble, and remained with him by grace even when David had made a bigger mess of things. That’s when David penned the words of Psalm 34, saying:

Magnify the Lord with me, and let us exalt his name together. …
Those who seek the Lord lack no good thing. …
Which of you desires life, and covets many days to enjoy good?
Keep your tongue from evil, and your lips from speaking deceit.
Depart from evil, and do good; seek peace, and pursue it. …
The Lord is near to the brokenhearted, and will save those whose spirits are crushed.
Many are the troubles of the righteous, but the Lord rescues them from them all. …
The Lord redeems the life of his servants;
none of those who take refuge in him will be condemned.
(Psalm 34:2,3,10,12-14,17-20,22)

God help us to learn the same lesson David did. As the apostle Paul urged us: Let us be careful how we live, not as unwise people but as wise, making the most of the time we have. Yes, often the days in this life are evil and troubles surround us, but we seek to understand what the will of the Lord is. We want to sing and make music to the Lord in our hearts always—no matter the circumstances of life in which we find ourselves. We give thanks to God the Father at all times and for everything in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. (Cf. Ephesians 5:15-20.) No matter what happens in this life, we maintain our trust in Jesus Christ, the living bread that came down from heaven. Partaking in the life that is in Christ, we know we will live forever. (Cf. John 6:51.) As another worship hymn from the Psalms says:

With the Lord on my side I do not fear.
What can mortals do to me?
It is better to take refuge in the Lord
than to put confidence in mortals.
It is better to take refuge in the Lord
than to put confidence in princes.
O give thanks to the Lord, for he is good,
for his steadfast love endures forever.
(Psalm 118:7-9, 29).

So, let us “revere the Lord, and serve him in sincerity and in faithfulness” (Joshua 24:14). Far be it from us that we should forsake the Lord to serve other gods or come up with our own schemes and strategies for getting through life or escaping harm. For when we look back on our lives, it has been the Lord who has stayed with us through thick and thin (cf. Joshua 24:16-18). Even in those moments when we did stupid things, acted like we maybe had lost our minds, or fell into dreadful sins, God still did not abandon us. Think of David later in his life as king, when he forgot what he expressed in this psalm. He let power go to his head and let lust overtake his will. He engaged in adultery and murder and a cover-up. Yet again, God did not abandon him, but sent the prophet Nathan to confront David in his sin and call him back to the Lord’s mercy and back to faith. (Cf. 2 Samuel 11 & 12.)

This life is full of challenges to our faith and decency and all that is good. As the apostle Paul said, “Our struggle is not against enemies of blood and flesh” (Ephesians 6:1200. We are up against “the evil rulers of the unseen world … and huge numbers of wicked spirits in the spirit world” (Ephesians 6:12 TLB). So, we need to arm ourselves not with the tools or devices of this world, not even with the mighty sword of a Goliath (which ultimately did David no good). We take up the whole armor of God—the sword of the Spirit, the shield of faith, the breastplate of righteousness, the helmet of salvation—so that we may be able to withstand evil. We stand firm when we stand in the righteousness God has given us in Christ and cling always to the words that Jesus has spoken to us—words that are spirit and life (John 6:63). There’s really nowhere else we can run for safety, nowhere else we can go to have hope and peace and goodness in our lives, no one else who can hold onto us for eternity.

May we daily say, as Jesus’ disciples said, “Lord, to whom can we go? You have the words of eternal life” (John 6:68).

Scripture quotations, except where otherwise indicated, are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Jun

2023

Thoughts for Trinity Sunday

“Trust in Yahweh with all your heart, and don’t lean on your own understanding” (Proverbs 3:5, World English Bible).

We trust in a God who goes beyond understanding

by David Sellnow

Image by jette55 from Pixabay

There is an ancient Christian creed that says, “We worship one God in three persons, and three persons in one God,” that “the Father is eternal, the Son eternal, the Holy Spirit eternal. Yet they are not three eternals, but one eternal Lord God” (The Athanasian Creed). Can you explain that? That makes no sense humanly speaking, mathematically or logically. Yet we declare it to be true.

The conundrum of the Trinity is just one of the many secrets of God. Consider Jesus Christ himself. Jesus is Son of God and Son of Man. In Christ all the fullness of God is present in a human body, the Bible says (cf. Colossians, 2:9). Can you explain how that is possible, that God became human and lived among us? Incredible, isn’t it? Yet it is also true.

Consider the wonders God has done. Out of nothing, God made everything. He called the universe into being. Can you scientifically account for the intricacies of the created order? The most brilliant scientific minds continue to search and study such questions. God’s word asserts that his divine hand is behind it all. To quote a psalmist: “Heaven is declaring God’s glory; the sky is proclaiming his handiwork. … His lightning lights up the world … and all nations have seen his glory” (Psalm 19:1; Psalm 97:4,6, Common English Bible).

God tells us that he will one day resurrect our bodies from the grave. Dead tissue will come back to life. Scattered ashes and decomposed bones will rise up again as the same people who once lived in these bodies. Is that something you can devise and do at home? If we understood how resurrection could happen, surely somebody would be building a life-reviving business right now. But we don’t rationally comprehend such things. The miracles and mysteries of God are beyond what we can humanly conceive or do. It’s like Elihu told Job in days of old: “Surely, God is great. … My heart trembles and leaps out of its place” (Job 36:26, 37:1).

We believe in a God who goes beyond understanding. That is good–because where our understanding is limited, God is unlimited. His ways are higher than our ways (Isaiah 55:9). Even the revered King Solomon, who was renowned throughout the world for his wisdom, readily admitted his inadequacy before God. It is Solomon who tells us: “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not rely on your own insight” (Proverbs 3:5). Solomon’s own life story exemplified how following his own instincts became a meaningless “chasing after the wind” (Ecclesiastes 2:11). He learned that apart from God, no one could enjoy life or have what they need (Ecclesiastes 2:25).

When we ponder God’s triune nature, we may offer analogies like water, ice, and steam (the same substance in three different forms). However, none of our illustrations do justice to the greatness of God’s being. I once tried my own illustration for a children’s sermon. I asked three of the youngsters in church to come forward, and I said I was going to combine them into one person. Then I put my arms around all three of them in a bear hug and squeezed and squeezed. They laughed, but of course, they could not all be one in essence together. Yet God tells us that he is Father, Son, and Spirit, each distinct, and yet all three unified as one together in the divine Being.

If we try to put God into a framework that fits our way of thinking, then as the author J.B. Phillips said, we’ve made God too small. As Phillips wrote, the immensely broad sweep of the Creator’s activity, the astonishing complexity of his mind’s processes (which science labors to uncover), the vast sea of what we see as God’s handiwork–all this is only a small portion of who God is. We have only a glimpse of his awesomeness in the small corner of the universe in which we human beings live and move and have our being.

We accept the greatness of God and all his miraculous doings on faith. Faith confesses that we live and move and have our being in God (Acts 17:28), though we can’t see him. “Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen” (Hebrews 11:1). We have not seen God, nor can we comprehend everything about him, yet we believe and trust in him with all our hearts.

And God is worthy of being trusted. He is the LORD, Yahweh or Jehovah, whose name means “He is.” He just is, always the same, always existing, always the Lord. From everlasting to everlasting, he is God (Psalm 90:2). The number of his years is past finding out (Job 36:26). He fills heaven and earth (Jeremiah 23:24). He rides on the wings of the wind (Psalm 104:2,3). He is beyond our reach and exalted in power (Job 37:23). He does great things beyond our grasp (Job 37:5). His greatness no one can fathom (Psalm 145:3).

I could go on and on with more quotes from Scripture. The Lord is amazing in every way. An English translation of the ancient creed I mentioned before said it with style: “The Father incomprehensible, the Son incomprehensible, and the Holy Spirit incomprehensible; and yet not three incomprehensibles, but one incomprehensible.” God is incomprehensible–infinite, uncreated, eternal, almighty. He is the Lord. Therefore, we trust in him–and our trust is not misplaced.

Solomon’s proverb pictures the contrast between trusting in God vs. relying on one’s own brainpower with an intriguing choice of Hebrew words. In English, we read, “Trust in Yahweh with all your heart, and don’t lean on your own understanding” (Proverbs 3:5 WEB). The idea in the Hebrew word “SHa’aN,” (שָׁעַן) means to lean on something like you’d lean on a cane or walking stick. It holds you up, but barely. It’s a crutch that lets you limp along. On the other hand, for the Hebrew expression describing “trust in” the Lord, Solomon used another word: BaTaKH ( בְּטַ֣ח). It means to feel safe and fully confident, to have an unshakeable sense of security. To picture this, think of a young child finding security in her father’s or mother’s arms. Envision a sick or injured toddler, who is unable to understand the hurt. Still, she feels safe in her parent’s embrace. She will fall asleep there, calm and reassured. That’s what trusting God is like. And God is our Father. He is in control and can cure all ills. He is a very real help and refuge to us at all times, able to remove our fears (cf. Psalm 46). What a blessing to be held up and carried in his everlasting arms (cf. Deuteronomy 33:27)! We need not wobble along with only our own intelligence or ability to prop us up.

We recognize that God “dwells in unapproachable light” and “no one has ever seen or can see” him (1 Timothy 6:16). Yet while God is unapproachable, unimaginable, in so many ways, he does not wish to remain unknown to us or unseen by us. He wants us to be able to stand before his throne and see his face (Revelation 22:4), to know fully and see face-to-face the glory that is his (1 Corinthians 13:12). To that end, he provided a way for us to know him and come to him. While “no one has ever seen God, It is God the only Son, who is close to the Father’s heart, who has made him known” (John 1:18). That, ultimately, is the basis for our trust in the Lord. We trust in God not because it makes such good sense or we understand every detail about eternity. We trust in him because he’s shown us such great love and safeguards our souls.

Faith consists not in trying to hold ourselves up with the crutch of our own understanding, but relying fully on the strong rock who is God, trusting in the Savior God provided (Jesus), believing because the Spirit has convinced us all this is true. That’s all we really need to understand. We know Jesus, and Jesus is sufficient to meet all our needs (Hebrews 7:26). Jesus bridges the gap between us and God. The peace which God gives us goes beyond all understanding, and keeps our hearts and minds safe in Christ Jesus (Philippians 4:7). We rest assured when we are resting in God and his promises.

Let me add just one more thing as we conclude this meditation. Confessing that God goes beyond our understanding doesn’t mean we stop using our understanding—our minds and all the other good gifts with which God has blessed us. Trusting in the Lord doesn’t mean we go through life saying, “God knows what’s best for me, so I’ll wait for a sign from heaven”–about what job or career path to pursue, or what decisions to make. We use our minds and the skills God has given us. We take stock of ourselves, assess the gifts and abilities God has given us and the opportunities set before us, and we make decisions. Trusting in the Lord and not leaning on human understanding doesn’t mean that when we get sick, we’ll decline seeing a doctor and just say, “I’ll pray about this, because I know God can heal me.” We will pray, but most certainly also will make use of help and resources available to us in God’s created world. All the while, we know that even if modern medicine cannot cure us, not even death can separate us from the love of God in Jesus Christ our Lord (cf. Romans 8:38,39).

Photo by Jessica Lewis Creative: https://www.pexels.com/photo/black-mug-with-religious-text-from-holy-bible-4200823/

Our God has created us with much ability, much understanding, many resources and tools. We will use all those things to navigate our lives as best we can. But as people of faith, we also have this underlying confidence: A loving God who is far greater than us is always with us. When life hits us with challenges bigger than we can handle, when we can’t answer all the questions and dilemmas of our world, when death is on our doorstep or takes loved ones from us, when we are at our wit’s end … we still have our God, our heavenly Father, holding out his arms to fold us into his embrace. We still have our Brother, our Savior, Jesus, who gave his life for us and gives us life eternally with him. We still have our encourager, our Advocate (John 14:26), the Holy Spirit, who fills up our hearts and enables us to live with hope. Dear friends, fellow believers, we have peace of mind and peace of heart in knowing God. And the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit will be with you, always (cf. 2 Corinthians 13:7).

Apr

2022

An Easter message

Life is eternal in Jesus

If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied. But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have died (1 Corinthians 15:19,20).

Maintaining our hope in life can be extremely challenging. In my own circle of contacts, I have known a family (mother and two daughters) that died in a house fire. I’ve sat in the ICU waiting room with a soon-to-be widow, whose husband’s body was shutting down and whose kidneys were failing after a lifelong struggle with diabetes. I knew a young bride-to-be whose fiancé died in his sleep before they were married, for no apparent cause. I’m sure each of you has known families and individuals who have experienced heartache and struggle and loss; likely, you’ve experienced tests of faith in your own household. Life in this world has many days of joy, and many days of ordinary routine … but, all too often, also has so many problems and so much pain. It can be hard to hold onto hope in day-to-day affairs. Where is hope when your car gets stolen by thieves whose only purpose is to post reckless driving videos on social media? When the job you worked in for decades tells you they’re downsizing and you’re done? When your spouse or life partner walks away, abandons you? When your doctor tells you the prognosis is not good? When wars and pandemics can turn our world upside down in a matter of days? Well-meaning friends may try to console us, saying, “Whenever God closes a door, he opens a window.” But we want to shout back, “All I see are boarded-up windows everywhere. And if there is a window, it’s a hundred feet off the ground; if I try to go in that direction, I’ll fall and be crushed.” When the worst happens–when a life ends and we lose a loved one–we want to hope for a reunion one day in the next life. But we have our doubts about that too. It’s just so hard to believe.

Think of what it was like for Jesus’ friends and followers when he died. Even though they had witnessed the astonishing miracles he had done, his death had crushed their hopes. They’d seen him multiply a handful of food into enough to feed thousands. They’d seen him give sight to the blind and cure incurable diseases. They’d seen him bring dead persons back to life. He gave a dead girl back to her father alive (cf. Luke 8:49-56). He gave a dead son back to his widowed mother, turning a funeral procession into a celebration of life (cf. Luke 7:11-17). He restored his friend, Lazarus, to his sisters Mary and Martha, after Lazarus had been in the tomb already four days (cf. John 11). Jesus’ disciples had every reason to be confident in Jesus’ power over everything, including death. But their confidence was shattered when they saw Jesus arrested, tried, beaten, whipped, convicted as a criminal, crucified, dead, and buried. The disciples of Jesus were devastated. On Sunday morning, when women who had gone to the tomb reported that the stone was rolled away and the tomb was empty and they had seen angels who said Jesus was alive again, for Jesus’ apostles, “These words seemed an idle tale, and they did not believe them” (Luke 24:11). In the evening on that day, the disciples of Jesus were still not sure what to think. They met behind locked doors out of fear (cf. John 20:19). They feared the same sort of horrors that Jesus suffered awaited them from a hostile community. Jesus needed to appear to them personally, alive and well, before they were able to believe the good news of the resurrection–even though Jesus had told them in advance this is what would happen. The experience of Thomas, who was not with them when they saw Jesus, was essentially the same experience all the disciples had. Thomas said, “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in [the spear wound in] his side, I will not believe” (John 20:25). They all had been that way. The reality of the resurrection was so unbelievable, they needed to see to believe.

We struggle in that way too. We don’t visibly see the souls of our loved ones being welcomed into the arms of God in heaven. We haven’t personally witnessed anyone come back from the dead. We want to believe that decayed or cremated remains can be remade and reinvigorated by God, resurrected to life everlasting. But believing is so, so hard.

The message of Easter is the message that Jesus gave a week later when he appeared to his disciples again, this time with Thomas there too. Jesus said to Thomas, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe” (John 20:29). Those who have not yet seen and yet have come to believe–that’s us. It was hard for the friends and followers of Jesus–who knew him in person as a human being on this earth–to come to believe in him as the eternal Son of God and as the Lord who could come back even after he was brutalized, lifeless, and buried. But they saw Jesus, who “presented himself alive to them by many convincing proofs” (Acts 1:3), and the unbelievable became the rock-solid foundation of their faith. By the Spirit’s power to change hearts and minds, Jesus’ disciples’ faith in the resurrection became a witness to the world of the reality of Jesus’ power.

It is hard for us–as believers in Jesus today–to hold onto hope and faith in the face of the death of our loved ones, in the face of the struggles of our lives and the troubles of our world. But we rely on the word of the apostles who saw Jesus alive. Peter said, “We did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we had been eyewitnesses of his majesty” (2 Peter 1:16). And Peter assured us, “Although you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and rejoice with an indescribable and glorious joy, for you are receiving the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls (1 Peter 1:8-9). We have confidence in the testimony of those who were led by Jesus, who witnessed his death, and saw him alive again, and watched him ascend back into the sky (cf. Acts 1:6-11). Those first disciples of Jesus were threatened, persecuted, and even killed because they stood by their confession of his resurrection with confidence. That’s how sure they were. We have those sure promises of God, which the apostles and prophets have shared with us (cf. Ephesians 2:19-20). God guarantees his promises of life forever are true. God’s promises are our reason for hope when life becomes a struggle, when death overtakes persons that we love, when the events of our world are more chaos than calm.

“We believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have died” (1 Thessalonians 4:14). That is our hope. That is our faith. That is what enables us to keep going from one day to the next, and what enables us to face even our last days with confidence. We have been given “a new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead” (1 Peter 1:3).

Lord, we believe; help us overcome our doubts (cf. Mark 9:23-24).

Prayer: Lord of heaven and earth, help us when we experience pain and loss in our lives here on earth. Help us to have a view that includes all of life—all the way to eternal life in heaven with you. Enable us to endure sadness and tragedies by clinging to the living hope that you have given us—the hope of an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade, kept in heaven for us (cf. 1 Peter 1:4). Trusting in Jesus’ resurrection, we pray. Amen.

Dec

2019

Confessing Christian faith

Originally published on the Electric Gospel on September 27, 2015.

In a theology course which included study of the ancient creeds of the church, I invited participants to write their own confessions of faith. I’d like to share one of those confessional writings, which stated truths of the faith in a clear and thoughtful way.

***************************

A Christian Creed

by Tim Walsh

I believe in God; God the almighty Father, God the perfect Son, and God the Holy Spirit. These three persons are all God, and God all three of these persons – not one God wearing different masks, nor three distinct Gods, but one triune God, whose nature no one can understand.

This triune God, present from eternity, created everything out of nothing, and the world he made was entirely perfect – in his own words, “very good.” But humanity, the crown of his creation, rebelled against him, ruining the world that God had given to us. From that time, we have been by nature sinful. By our nature we seek to serve only ourselves, and as the first man and woman did, we flee from God at his approach, fearing his holy judgment. And because of this we deserve nothing more than death, for our rejection and hatred of the one who gave us life.

But God was not willing to see us separated from him for eternity. And so in his infinite love, the Father sent his beloved Son into our world. The Son of God took on flesh and was born from a virgin, and was given the name Jesus. In him full God and full man coexisted – not by a mingling of the natures, nor by some supernatural possession, or by dividing him into two halves, but together, in a way no one can understand. This Jesus, who was called Christ, lived a perfect, holy life, and he was unjustly executed to pay for the sins of all mankind. On a Roman cross he suffered the punishment that belonged to you, and to me, and to every other person who has lived or ever will. Jesus – God himself – died on that cross, and in his death he paid the price for every sin ever committed. And he did not stay dead! On the third day, he rose from the dead, and after appearing to his followers, returned to heaven forty days later. And I believe that, just as Christ was raised from the dead, so too will I be raised on the last day.

I do not believe any of this by my own choice. Indeed, if believing were left to me, I would surely be damned, for I am a wretched, ungrateful sinner. But through no merit of my own, God chose me to be one of his beloved children. He brought me into his fold by the work of the Holy Spirit, who inspired faith in my heart through the preaching of the good news of Jesus and the washing of baptism. I could never and would never have chosen him, but he chose me.

I do not deserve any of the incredible gifts that have been showered upon me by God. Every day brings blessing after blessing, and all I can do is praise God for his grace. Likewise, when sorrow and troubles come my way, I cling to the knowledge that the gift of salvation – the greatest gift ever given – is mine. No hardship can overshadow the joy that I take from this.

As one of God’s children, my life is not my own. I belong to my Father in heaven. I want to dedicate my whole life to him, just as Christ dedicated his life to me. In everything I do, I seek his glory, not my own. My every action, every step, every breath, is an opportunity to proclaim his name and the good things he has done.

This is what I believe.

A meditation concerning Psalm 34

We trust in a God who goes beyond understanding

Life is eternal in Jesus

A Christian Creed

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