Close the gate!



Happy eclipse week folks - yeah, that happened again - this time not so much in Oregon.

Speaking of Monday, I was walking to the church building and heard a racket - like metal scraping on the rock. Lo and behold, a landscaper with a truck and trailer was driving by rather quickly with the entire trailer tailgate down - scraping the asphalt.

Think fingernails on a chalkboard folks...yikes.

It reminded me of paying attention to details and not being in such a hurry that important things are missed. I was often the one on our family farm back in the day that forgot to close the barn door or latch the gate. That meant animals got out - almost every time.

This past Sunday's sermon was in the good shepherd passage of John 10 where the good shepherd takes care of the details for the sheep - protection, feeding and care, guarding against danger, and yes, making sure that gate is closed! In that, Jesus, the good shepherd, is our doorway to all the good, abundant life we're made for.

Our challenge is to remain available to what Jesus wants to do in our lives and to allow our relationships with one another to give life as well. It's that well-known idea of loving God and loving people.

“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.
-Matthew 22:37-39

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Going along with the crowd?

Image
Over the last several years I've found some helpful writings from the early church writings of the first few centuries of Christianity. Here is a quote I found interesting today (from www.commonprayer.net): Cyprian of Carthage, a third-century North African bishop, wrote, “The world is going mad in mutual extermination, and murder, considered as a crime when committed individually, becomes a virtue when it is committed by large numbers. It is the multiplication of the frenzy that assures impunity to the assassins.” It made me think of the old idea of peer pressure and going with the flow of culture rather than standing out and even swimming against the downstream flow of secular modernity.  Maybe Cyprian was correct in seeing how evil can become standard if enough people in a society or culture accept it? I guess it seems like the idea of strength in numbers and fitting in, etc. Jesus spoke of this danger during His ministry - specifically in the message on the mount He gave in Mat
Read more

My eye is not on the density of the fog but on the living God...

Image
Too good not to share this! “ I believe God, that it shall be even as it was told me .” (Acts 27:25.) I WENT to America some years ago with the captain of a steamer, who was a very devoted Christian. When off the coast of Newfoundland he said to me, “The last time I crossed here, five weeks ago, something happened which revolutionized the whole of my Christian life. We had George Mueller of Bristol on board. I had been on the bridge twenty-four hours and never left it. George Mueller came to me, and said, “Captain, I have come to tell you that I must be in Quebec Saturday afternoon.” “It is impossible,” I said. “Very well, if your ship cannot take me, God will find some other way. I have never broken an engagement for fifty-seven years. Let us go down into the chart-room and pray.” I looked at that man of God, and thought to myself, what lunatic asylum can that man have come from? I never heard of such a thing as this. “Mr. Mueller,” I said, “do you know how dense this fog is?” “No,” h
Read more

Freedom

Image
Freedom is a powerful word to me. In fact, when I think about the idea of freedom, I think of possibilities and potential. Freedom feels like release and growth and opportunity.  Jesus spoke about freedom being linked to knowing the truth. In his words to some of the first century Jewish leaders, He said,  “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” (John 8:31-32)  In the other New Testament writings, there are statements like: 2 Corinthians 3:17 Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. 1 Peter 2:16 Live as people who are free, not using your freedom as a cover-up for evil, but living as servants of God. And in Galatians, Paul, the writer, spoke of being free from the tyranny of trying to live out the law perfectly through faith in Jesus.  He wrote, Galatians 5:1 For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery. And, Ga
Read more