MATTHEW 7:21-23

“Not everyone who calls out to me, ‘Lord! Lord!’ will enter the Kingdom of Heaven. Only those who actually do the will of my Father in heaven will enter. On judgment day many will say to me, ‘Lord! Lord! We prophesied in your name and cast out demons in your name and performed many miracles in your name.’ But I will reply, ‘I never knew you. Get away from me, you who break God’s laws.’

Solid miss

I was teaching a class to future pastors and had given a final assignment of preaching a sermon on a text from one of four different New Testament books. One student shared the NT text they were using as their Scripture and then proceeded to preach a message based completely out of the book of Genesis. The sermon content itself was good, the delivery was fine, and the message was true, it just did not line up with the text or the assignment. The student gave a good sermon, but received a bad grade because they did not follow the directions and preach from the assigned text.

It seems as if Jesus is telling us to be sure we know what the assignment is before we go off and begin serving. Service that is good, solid and even beneficial to others may not be God’s will for my life. God may call me to something different. Before I can serve I need to know what God’s will is. Skipping this vital step makes me an independent contractor, instead of a servant of Christ.

Lord, show me your will for my life today that I may live in obedience to what you want me to do. I do not want to do anything that is not centered in your will. - Dan Jones

Living toward the high standard

Jesus is serious about me making what he teaches the defining factor in my life; very serious. He’s gracious and patient, kind and open to receive anyone who comes to him. And he’s very clear about his purpose for all this – bringing every person into the experience of the Father’s will.

The location of this warning makes it clear that Jesus intends his teaching, especially in this sermon, to be the expression of God’s laws that we follow. Trouble is, his teaching sets an extremely high standard for obedience. So high, in fact, that I am always falling short of it.

If Jesus were a critical perfectionist I’d be sunk. There is no way I’ll enter the Kingdom of Heaven. The way Jesus handled his slow-to-get-it disciples and those sinners who came to him gives me hope. Still he doesn’t pussyfoot around his demand that following him will radically alter everything about me.

I think understanding the contrast between doing religious things and experiencing a changed life is the key to Jesus’ words. Prophesying, casting out demons, and miracles don’t impress him like they impress us. Measuring my experience of God by religious activity, no matter how good and no matter how many others think me spiritual, will only distract me from Jesus’ true intention for me.

Commitment to things like a pure heart, resolving anger, clean thoughts, forgiveness, loving enemies and the like; this sets me on the path toward the Kingdom of Heaven.

Final Judge, grant me your powerful grace to live fully open to you and what you want to make of me. – Mike Leamon

MATTHEW 7:15-20

“Beware of false prophets who come disguised as harmless sheep but are really vicious wolves. You can identify them by their fruit, that is, by the way they act. Can you pick grapes from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? A good tree produces good fruit, and a bad tree produces bad fruit. A good tree can’t produce bad fruit, and a bad tree can’t produce good fruit. So every tree that does not produce good fruit is chopped down and thrown into the fire. Yes, just as you can identify a tree by its fruit, so you can identify people by their actions.

Make me fruity!

Of course Jesus’ words are true. It’s a common sense reminder. But what kinds of actions does he consider good fruit? Since Jesus insists we don’t want to listen to those who do not produce this fruit then we better know what we’re looking for.

Confusion over who we should listen to demonstrates the importance of accurately identifying actions that reflect a “true prophet” – a trustworthy person who builds up rather than destroys. Church leaders have informed me that I was dangerous to their children because I would not preach that drinking a beer was sin. Others have dismissed my spiritual trustworthiness because I view “R” rated movies, read Dan Brown and JK Rowling books, or even not renewed the contract for a church staff member. If these are not actions, or lack of actions, that define good fruit, what are? What should people look for in me or I in them, in order to determine whether or not either of us are dangerous to the other?

The narrow gate verses begin Jesus’ conclusion to his Sermon on the Mount. Using three word pictures, gate, tree, and foundation, Jesus hammers home the point that he and his words are the only truth by which to live. What he taught that day on the Galilean hillside is the good fruit.

The upside down logic of the Beatitudes, the audacious claim that Jesus fulfills the entire Old Testament and then has the right to change things with words like “you’ve heard it said…but I say… ,” loving enemies and growing to perfection in that love – amazing fruit impossible to grow unless Jesus is Lord of my life. Amazing fruit that, should it be growing in any life, renders that person someone worth listening to.

Teacher about good fruit and the Power behind its production, I submit my life to you again today. Make my tree – my life – good. What you teach in this sermon will be the truth that gives shape to my life this Thanksgiving week. May my words and deeds give life rather than take it. - Mike Leamon

MATTHEW 7:13-14
“You can enter God’s Kingdom only through the narrow gate. The highway to hell is broad, and its gate is wide for the many who choose that way. But the gateway to life is very narrow and the road is difficult, and only a few ever find it.

My journey into God’s amazing love
As a boy I bought the implicit teaching of those around me that only people who experienced our brand of Christianity would populate heaven. Jesus words today were one of our proof-texts. Then I began to realize that the gateway to eternal life was narrow because it was one man wide, not one Christian tradition wide. Jesus saw himself as the way, truth, and life through whom everyone must go in order to arrive at the Father’s House (John 14). Anyone who lived “Jesus is Lord”, however imperfectly or in ways disagreeable with my tradition, was a fellow traveler on this narrow road.

Then I began to notice the wide, wide love of Jesus. His words, “If I be lifted up, I will draw everyone to myself” began to sink in. The verse my narrow minded Vacation Bible School leaders led me to memorize, “For God so loved the world” had sown a seed that began to crack the rigid shell of “ours is the only way” thinking.

About the same time I fell in love with the words and rhythm of a hymn that reflected the lavishness of God’s love and his clearly expressed will that “no one should perish but have eternal life”. “Could we with ink the ocean fill, and were the skies of parchment made, were every stalk on earth a quill, and every man a scribe by trade, to write the love of God above, would drain the ocean dry. Nor could the scroll contain the whole, though stretched from sky to sky.”

So if this is the width and breadth of God’s love, and if his will for the salvation of all humanity compels him to offer himself in sacrifice on a cross, how could Jesus teach that few ever make it? Or does he?

I don’t think Jesus meant that only a few will come to the grand party God has planned while countless more writhe in hell. As he begins to wrap up the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus insists that following him and his teaching leads to life. His is the hard way, one that often provokes harassment and persecution because it is so different from the wisdom and ways of the world’s cultures. Few people, including many who sit in church each week, ever pay the price of traveling that difficult road. Most simply don’t get it. This doesn’t mean that they never will.

Like the thief on the cross next to Jesus, dieing breaths often clear the clutter off the broad path to expose the small gate and the narrow path. Even though barely a step or two may be left to walk, in his deep and broad love, Jesus imparts faith and accepts repentance. “Today you will be with me in Paradise!”

Father, I accept your call to difficult discipleship today. I will not travel the broad path through life, leaving moral and spiritual pain and death in my wake. Help me to faithfully call others to this narrow path, and warn them of the dangers of the broad path, but without ever becoming so graceless and miserly that I give up on your love for them. - Mike Leamon

Highway to Hell, or Stairway to Heaven

In 1970 Led Zeppelin released the famous song “Stairway to Heaven”. The song describes the pursuit of eternal security and peace through reason and meditation. Everyone finds their own path towards this nirvana if they try hard enough, with each road melding into one stairway to heaven.

Nine years late, the rock band AC/DC introduced the song Highway to Hell that made it to #17 on the charts and has been classified as one of the 500 songs that shaped Rock and Roll. The song describes life in the fast lane with “no more stop signs, or speed limits.” A freeway to the bottom with a destination of “the promised land: Hell.”

Both songs are accurate commentaries on the human struggle to find meaning beyond life. No matter how hard we try, we cannot create eternity. Our attempts produce stairways to nothingness and highways to emptiness. Only through the narrow gate [accepting Jesus as Lord] can we find meaning in and beyond this life. The narrow gate is easy to miss, the road is difficult and few follow its path. The road of self-determination is broad.

Karl Barth, the great neo-orthodox theologian quoted a song when asked what the greatest truth of the Bible he had discovered was. He said, “Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so.”

Jesus, I thank you for loving me and providing me with the way to heaven. Thank you for reminding me it is not through human intuition or struggle that I can find satisfaction and hope, but in resting in your salvation. - Dan Jones

MATTHEW 7:12

“Do to others whatever you would like them to do to you. This is the essence of all that is taught in the law and the prophets.

A hidden truth wrapped in an obvious sentence

Perhaps no other command seems so obvious, so simple and straightforward as this one. This fundamental law of reciprocity finds expression in virtually every religion. One Wikipedia writer reports neuroscience research that suggests this “fair play” rule is hard wired into our brains.

I think, however, that the Golden Rule isn’t so straightforward as a casual reading might suggest. George Bernard Shaw captured this reality in his criticism, "Do not do unto others as you would expect they should do unto you. Their tastes may not be the same." He’s right, of course. For example, I’d love for you to take me out to a restaurant and a movie of my liking, not yours. And you might torture someone else by taking them to any movie!

I listened to a management lecture once during which the leader insisted he’d one-upped Jesus. His Platinum Rule went something like this. Find out what the other person would like and treat them that way.

Seems to me that this man, and Shaw, and perhaps most of us, haven’t stop to think through the Golden Rule. Taking time to discover who I am, what makes me tick, what makes me feel loved and valued, that is exactly what I most desire from others. Am I mistaken to think that is exactly what everyone would want? Beneath all the specific and surface acts or words is the underlying desire to be treated as a unique and significant person.

Trouble is, I don’t want to take the time and invest the effort to listen to others, to become a student of what makes different people tick, and to offer those deeds and words that resonate with who they are. I’m too busy living my life and dealing with my stresses and issues to have the energy, or honestly, the desire, to invest in others this way. It’s much easier, faster, and less involved, to offer some act that I, myself, would enjoy or find meaning in giving, and consider this Golden Rule fulfilled.

So I need to hear Shaw’s criticism. It reminds me of how fundamentally selfish I am.

Father, as I interact with the people around me each day, help me to develop skills of listening and observation, so that I better give to them those deeds and words that truly nourish their value and personhood. - Mike Leamon

Fools Gold

Living according to the golden rule gets old real fast if that is all we have to motivate us. I have done good to people repeatedly and all I have received in return is an expectation to keep giving. After a while you feel like a cheap dish rag, used and worn out.

It seems like most everybody is in favor of the golden rule. We even see it in public schools. However, trying to live the golden rule for the sake of the golden rule never lasts very long. We need, I need, something deeper.

I think Jesus recognized this as well. The Golden rule is not left hanging in limbo; it is tied directly to the law and the prophets. The Golden rule is the essence of the law and the prophets, but it is not enough on its own. The law and the prophets all pointed in two directions: vertical and horizontal. The Golden rule describes how our horizontal relationships should be characterized, but left unattached to the vertical relationship a horizontal relationship will never be complete.

Jesus is not saying, life is all about doing good to others and that is it. No, Jesus places this rule of thumb in the midst of two vertical relationship guides: gaining our strength and purpose from God (ask, seek, knock) and discovering the pathway of relationship to God (enter through the narrow gate). The Golden rule is fools gold if we think we can live it out on our strength. We cannot do it. But in the power of God we can actually do to others as we would have them do to us, instead of doing to them what we think they deserve.

God of all power and grace, I need your grace and power in my life to enable me to love others as I desire to be loved. Help me not to react defensively, but in forgiveness and love when others take advantage of me or abuse me. Help me understand how you have acted towards me and to pass on your great love. - Dan Jones

MATTHEW 7:7-11

"Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened.

"Which of you, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him! So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets.

Just ask

I do not like to ask for things. Perhaps that is why I struggle with a Christmas list every year. I really do not need anything. Karen and I are frugal with our money and we can buy what we need. The things I would like to have (tools etc.) I am a little particular about. I would rather wait and get a good quality tool than three cheap ones that break after one or two uses. I love to give things to other people, but struggle to ask for things in my own life.

This tendency to live “self-sufficient” meanders into my spiritual life as well. I too often find myself thinking if I would just work a little bit harder or longer I would be able to make things happen in the church. I don’t need to ask, I can do it myself. For this reason, I suffer at times with despair (depression?) when things do not go as well as I want them to. In my weakness, I realize if I had only asked, God would have provided.

Spiritual growth cannot be manufactured. Church growth, program growth, or financial growth can be, but spiritual growth is always a gift from God. It is humbling to ask God, but that is God’s desire for my life. Ask, seek, knock and then experience the open doors of blessing.

God, help me to understand my limitations not as failures, but as a gift that opens the way for you to enter into my life. Change my attitude from self-sufficiency to reliance on you. – Dan Jones

No “Do Not Knock Days”

I’m living in a parsonage right next to the church I pastor for only the second time in my 27 years of pastoring. This means I am re-learning what it means not to have much of a private life and very little personal space, except squirreled away inside and behind curtains. It’s kind of claustrophobic. Like the last church I pastored that plunked me down in the middle of public space, a few people (not many, thank God) have little conception of a pastor’s day off. Just yesterday I thought of reversing this passage and turning it into a day-off sign for my kitchen door.

Knock, and I probably won’t answer. Seek, and you’re trespassing. Ask tomorrow, and I’ll gladly make an appointment.

I am glad God doesn’t need to separate from his creation in order to be whole and healthy like I need to separate from my work, which is people from beginning to end. He’s available night and day without getting grouchy or offering muddled or tired thoughts. He doesn’t reach the end of the rope like I do. So there’s never a sign on his kitchen door begging to be left alone for a personal Sabbath experience.

I think we misunderstand Jesus when we use his words to hint that simple asking isn’t enough. He doesn’t intend to suggest that we need to build intensity in order for him to hear us and respond. He doesn’t mean that we have to keep after him because his busy schedule creates forgetfulness. I think Jesus ask-seek-know trilogy is simply a visual way of saying “I’m always available.” This isn’t a formula for effective prayer – just an invitation to share hearts, hurts, and hopes.

Neither is this an invitation to use God as servant to our wants, plans, and self-defined needs. God gives good gifts, not everything I ask for or when I ask for it. Sometimes, perhaps often, that wouldn’t be good at all. If we understood that God gives us that which is good according to his understanding, then perhaps we would give in less to the demands of needy people around us who expect us to give them what they want if we were truly good. After all, Jesus calls us to give good gifts just like the Father does.

Father, I am so glad you never need time off from me. I do, but you don’t! Help me to trust your goodness when I come asking. Thanks for welcoming me into your heart when I knock and making it easy for me to find you when I seek. - Mike Leamon

MATTHEW 7:1-6
"Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.

"Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, 'Let me take the speck out of your eye,' when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye.

"Do not give dogs what is sacred; do not throw your pearls to pigs. If you do, they may trample them under their feet, and then turn and tear you to pieces.

Just call me “Plankeye”
It’s so much easier to pick out and point out other’s faults and sins than to confess my own. And I find it rather easy to confess my own! Thing is, I consider many of the sins in others to be more dangerous to God’s Kingdom cause than my own sin.

Take judgmentalism for example. So many “spiritual folk” hammer people for peripheral “sins” or things that aren’t really sins at all (poor judgment maybe, but not sin) while they themselves display attitudinal sins like Rudolph’s red nose! Jesus hammered these rigid, judgmental kind of people.

Problem with me following Jesus’ example is that I’m not sinless like he was. I tend to hold grudges against people like this. Worse, I don’t have the same mental clarity as Jesus did, so (I hate to admit this!) what I see as dangerous and harmful judgmentalism, may, in fact, be a prophetic call to repentance and holiness.

While Jesus was fully human, I think the spiritual clarity he possessed as a fully divine person enabled him to respond with perfect appropriateness to people rather than out of any unhealthy or unresolved issues from his past. I hope the more I take on Jesus’ character that I too will have increasing clarity. But I strongly suspect that my childhood experience with judgmental Christians colors my response today. Growing up deeply imbedded in the church exposed me to plenty of perfectionism, criticism, and judgmentalism.

So, as much as it pains me, I have to listen to Jesus myself, rather than think of others when I listen to him talk about planks in “you own eye”. He’s talking about me. As debilitating as judgmentalism is, my sin is always the plank, and others sins, even the sin of judgmentalism, is always the speck.

Gracious God, you see me completely and know the ways I bring harm to your creation through my own sinfulness. Grant me the increasing ability to inspire others to leave all kinds of sins behind by leaving behind my own. - Mike Leamon

Logging
Logging is one of the most dangerous jobs on the planet. There are a myriad of potential hazards lurking for the worker who cuts corners or tries to rush. We burned wood to heat our home when I was on the farm which meant we cut a lot of wood.

Grandpa and I were team workers when it came to wood-cutting. He would be in the woods, cutting and trimming the logs and I would drive the tractor, hauling the logs out of the woods to where we could cut them up more easily. One day Grandpa was trimming an ash top and a limb snapped unexpectantly and cut Grandpa’s leg. We had to run Grandpa to the hospital where he received multiple stitches.

Jesus uses an absurd analogy to teach a simple truth. No one has ever had a “log” in their eye, but we have all had a speck of sawdust or dirt in our eyes. Jesus turns the tables on us and tells us we all have logs in our eyes that need to be taken care of.

Taking care of the log in my eye means I need to let the professional logger come and do His work. Logging is never free of pain. There is cutting and skidding and at times collateral damage. Logs often affect other areas of my life that I did not think were involved. Following the removal of my log, I am in a position of humble love and empathy for those with logs and splinters in their eyes.

Master logger, I come to you with a sharp awareness of the logs in my life that need to be removed. Come in with your logging tools and work in my life removing all that stands in the way of your will. Clear out everything that is not of you in my life. - Dan Jones

MATTHEW 6:25-34
“That is why I tell you not to worry about everyday life—whether you have enough food and drink, or enough clothes to wear. Isn’t life more than food, and your body more than clothing? Look at the birds. They don’t plant or harvest or store food in barns, for your heavenly Father feeds them. And aren’t you far more valuable to him than they are? Can all your worries add a single moment to your life? “

And why worry about your clothing? Look at the lilies of the field and how they grow. They don’t work or make their clothing, yet Solomon in all his glory was not dressed as beautifully as they are. And if God cares so wonderfully for wildflowers that are here today and thrown into the fire tomorrow, he will certainly care for you. Why do you have so little faith?

“So don’t worry about these things, saying, ‘What will we eat? What will we drink? What will we wear?’ These things dominate the thoughts of unbelievers, but your heavenly Father already knows all your needs. Seek the Kingdom of God above all else, and live righteously, and he will give you everything you need.

“So don’t worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring its own worries. Today’s trouble is enough for today.

Starlings and sparrows

I grew up on the farm and there were always starlings and sparrows flying around. They would nest in the side of the barn, eat the grain out of the grain bin and make a mess of things. So I hunted them. I tried to shoot them out of the trees, snag them in traps or board up their nesting places. Yet these birds kept multiplying and coming back, seemingly unworried about my attempts to get rid of them.

I am not proud of some of the things I did to these creations of God. Today I look back and marvel at how God took care of these creatures despite my direct assault on them. I do not know what takes place in the mind of birds, but I do know they were consistently taken care by God, often through my labors, even though I did not like them.

How ironic, that God calls us to live like the birds. Jesus does not point to the eagle or hawk, he points to the sparrow and starlings; lowly birds. It is even more ironic, that God often provides for us through the very people who would do us harm given the opportunity. But God in his mercy, (and I think humor), provides for us through the least expected ways. Worry? Why bother? Seek first the Kingdom of God and God will supply all your needs. He may even supply them through your enemies.

Lord of all creation, of birds, and flowers, and farmers, I confess I have not always treated your creation with the right attitude or care. Help me to take a lesson from the birds today about trusting in you. Show your power in my life by providing for my needs, and that, even through those who would oppose me. - Dan Jones

Crossing bridges when I get there
Dealing with the issues immediately in front of me gets complicated by the issues I anticipate in the future. What about the long term implications of this decision I’m about to make? And what if the economy turns around, or I lose my job, or my wife gets cancer? What if my children respond badly or everything blows up in my face? The list of “what ifs” can get longer than Santa’s list of naughty children. Then I become paralyzed, stressed, confused, even angry with God.

Anticipating the future is always dicey business – for me, not for my Father.

How should I deal with the issues life on this planet throws my way today? It’s useless to tell me not to worry without offering an alternative. Worry loves to swoop in when my mind isn’t focused on a better alternative!

Jesus offers the positive focus of God’s rule. Rather than asking “what if” seeking the kingdom asks “what’s right”. How would Father deal with this issue? WWJD if he were me facing this need, this choice, this painful issue? Rather than engaging in the fruitless act of figuring out all the “what ifs” Jesus would have me do what is right today and trust the flowing ripples and falling chips to him.

Doing my best to reflect my Father’s will in each decision, of course, depends on how great an emphasis I place I knowing my Father and understanding his heart and mind. My best will be a pitiful effort if I ignore God in life’s routine. On the other hand, if the pursuit of God becomes a core value and passion, I can be confident that my best effort to reflect the Father’s mind and heart will not fail.

A focus on righteousness today frees me to cross future bridges when I get there.

Father, I will live with a greater awareness of you today. I will pursue your heart and mind as they are revealed on the pages of the Bible. I will listen to your Spirit’s whispered convictions and corrections. By your grace, I’ll leave tomorrow’s bridges until tomorrow. - Mike Leamon

MATTHEW 6:19-24
“Don’t store up treasures here on earth, where moths eat them and rust destroys them, and where thieves break in and steal. Store your treasures in heaven, where moths and rust cannot destroy, and thieves do not break in and steal. Wherever your treasure is, there the desires of your heart will also be.

“Your eye is a lamp that provides light for your body. When your eye is good, your whole body is filled with light. But when your eye is bad, your whole body is filled with darkness. And if the light you think you have is actually darkness, how deep that darkness is!

“No one can serve two masters. For you will hate one and love the other; you will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.

Working on Self Awareness
The evil eye darts about the land just as it did in Tolkien’s fantasy trilogy “Lord of the Ring”. Only in reality that eye often belongs to me. And I struggle to cut it out.

The struggle really is about finding the line between enjoying God’s good creation – and that of humans who express his image by creating wonderful things out of that creation – and making those good things my treasure. I look at my sports car, the two-seater that I use for all my pastoral work, and I treasure it. I love driving that thing. It’s turned hospital visiting into a delight!

While my bedroom furniture was a wedding gift over 28 years ago, and I haven’t drooled at or even desire to by a brand new set (I’m so spiritual!), I’m not sure I haven’t crossed the treasuring earthly things line anyway. I love that bed! We have one of those pillowy tops over the mattress. My pillow is, well, abundantly pillowy. After a long day, or a short day, I treasure my bed.

I am very happy to have the money to afford several luxuries. Now, Bill Gates wouldn’t consider what I own luxuries, and maybe most of you wouldn’t either, but 90% of the world’s 6 billion people would. More important, I would feel bad if my financial situation demanded that I give up what I have come to treasure.

Does Jesus consider me a servant of money because I own these things, more, because I very much want to own and enjoy them? Has my heart become tethered to earthy and temporary realities, and by implication less tethered to heaven, because I would feel bad if my income forced me to eliminate cable TV, to own only my mini-van with its 178 thousand miles, or to never be able to eat out?

I think not. But I cannot confidently (or glibly?) declare I know not. The line between enjoying the earth that is “the Lord’s, and the fullness thereof” and possessing an eye primarily for the things of earth such that money becomes my master is awfully thin and sometimes nearly invisible.

Lord of my Life, you do not want me to become a paranoid or guilt-ridden Christian always worried if I cross lines. By the same token, I know you want me to be self-aware and alert enough to detect when my tricky heart (Jeremiah 17:9) slips from enjoying the earth and its fullness to so treasuring it that having the money to by more of it is in danger of becoming my master. Help me to be this self-aware. - Mike Leamon

Plato’s cave

The Greek philosopher Plato described life through the allegory of a cave. Picture a group of people sitting in a cave with their backs to the entrance. The sun is shining through the mouth of the cave casting shadows on the back wall of the cave of everything passing by the cave. The people in the cave have been there so long they have accepted the shadows as reality. They no longer realize what they see is not the real thing. They accept the shadows as reality and refuse to believe there could be anything better than what they perceive as reality.

Plato’s point was that all we perceive through our senses about life is really a shadow of the real thing. (The conversation becomes very ethereal and existential quickly.) If we think about life in terms of Plato’s allegory of the cave and Jesus’ word about our perception of light we realize how deceptive human wisdom can be.

Millions of people in this world think they have discovered the real meaning of life in many things other than Jesus. They pursue this “meaning” with all they have and are, thinking they are pursuing the ultimate purpose of life. In the end they are hopelessly lost when they discover what they thought was light was really darkness. Jesus wants us to know He is the light of the world. He is the only one who can give us a right perspective on life that leads to fullness of life, instead of living among the shadows on the cave wall.

Father of light, guide my life with the light of life. Help me to avoid the tempting shadows that are tying to imitate the real light of the world. I desire to walk in the light each day and to no longer live in the cave. - Dan Jones

MATTHEW 6:16-18

“And when you fast, don’t make it obvious, as the hypocrites do, for they try to look miserable and disheveled so people will admire them for their fasting. I tell you the truth, that is the only reward they will ever get. But when you fast, comb your hair and wash your face. Then no one will notice that you are fasting, except your Father, who knows what you do in private. And your Father, who sees everything, will reward you.

Motivation monitor

I wonder how much of what happens in the life of the church is actually done for God and not other people. I will never know, and it really is not my place to investigate this in others, but I do need to examine my own motives. I confess, last Sunday we had a visitor who is someone I look up to. He and his family stopped in unexpectedly and I immediately found myself thinking about the quality of the sermon, the songs we were singing and what this man would think about them. I wanted to impress him.

My next thought was the voice of the Holy Spirit convicting me of pride. I had to bow in prayer, and asked my wife to pray with/for me, in repentance for my selfish attitude and that God would help me not to “see” this man while I was preaching, but that I would preach for God’s glory. God worked in my life in that service and this man disappeared from my thoughts while I was sharing from God’s Word.

Jesus is a heart doctor not a fashion guru. He wants to hook up the heart monitor to help us check our motives in service. Serving to please the pastor, board, to fill empty spots, or because we always have, is not the right motivation. Service to God must be exactly that: service to God. Our motivational vector must always point towards God. Only then will our service yield eternal rewards.

Holy heart surgeon I continue to need your touch in my life. I confess my tendency to avert my eyes from you to others. Help me to stay focused on you in every area of my life so that you will receive the glory in all I do. Thank you for your grace and strength this past Sunday. You are great! - Dan Jones

Fasting? Pooh!

I hate fasting. I love food too much.

“Too much” are probably the operative words here. In truth, I use food as a stress reliever; bad news not only for my girth but for my relationship with God. I moved from eastern Pennsylvania to western New York this summer. Food smoothed the transition.

Lest God think that food serves only as a source of stress relief, I really do appreciate the marvelous idea he thought up – make humans to need food to survive and add a blessed bonus, taste buds! Put sugar in the earth, and rhubarb and strawberry plants, and whalah(!) strawberry rhubarb pie. What a blessing. Cocoa plants and cows make possible gooey Baby Ruth candy bars surrounded in milk chocolate.

I love nibbling on Nabisco’s Cheese Nips! Thank God for wheat, salt, and cows; and of course trees that turn into boxes to hold these tasty morsels. Speaking if grain, my wife made deliciously moist zucchini bread at summer’s end - from fresh garden zucchini! Sadly, (happily for her) she ate the last piece the other day (L) while I stood by drooling.

I love food so much I, perhaps more than many others, maybe even more than the hypocrites of Jesus’ day, should follow the example of my spiritual forefather, John Wesley. He fasted weekly. Many other spiritual giants did the same thing. Sure, Jesus defended his disciples’ lack of fasting. But I don’t think he’d defend my love affair with food.

There are many good reasons to fast. For me, the top one is probably sorting out who (what) really is the love of my life. Who (what) is my ultimate source of comfort? Do I worship the Creator or his delicious creation? Getting these sorted out not only leads to better spiritual health, but my body just might pat me on the back too.

Father, I confess that my practice of what is right lags behind my knowledge of what’s right. Thank you for your patience and for your convicting word today. Help me move to the point where I eat to live rather than live to eat. If fasting helps keep my relationship with you primary and my relationship with food healthy, I’ll fast. And I won’t mope around in misery when I do it. - Mike Leamon

MATTHEW 6:14-15
“If you forgive those who sin against you, your heavenly Father will forgive you. But if you refuse to forgive others, your Father will not forgive your sins.

Always a failure in need of grace!
Forgiveness defines the heart of Christianity. Only my trust in God’s forgiveness opens the door to my participation in eternal life. Trusting his forgiveness means that I recognize I am not capable of earning the right to be his child. I can never be good enough to deserve him as Father and his home as my destiny. I am his always and only because he graciously forgave and still forgives me.

No matter how much love he pours into me and no matter how much that gracious gift of love transforms me into a whole and holy person, I remain entirely dependent on his daily forgiveness. Here is one of the great ironies of the Christian life. The holier I get the more I realize no one is holy except God. With Isaiah I cry out, “Woe is me!”

So how can I not forgive those who sin against me? Sure, the more God makes me holy – like himself – the more I too will become a master forgiver. But this isn’t the context of Jesus’ words. Instead Jesus insinuates that no matter how far I mature, I am always a failure in need of grace. How can I not forgive those who fail me when I fail God? How can I not be gracious to those who hurt and offend me, when God is gracious when I hurt and offend him?

Any lack of forgiveness in me demonstrates that I am not fully relying on his forgiveness, but on a combination of his grace and my own merits. Somehow I am not as desperate for his forgiveness as you are. So, from my slightly or significantly better position than yours, I won’t forgive you. You are less deserving than I.

I know this feeling. I get very angry and unforgiving of those who I perceive hurt the church and who hurt me as a pastor. Those jerks! Don’t they see what they are doing? They are so judgmental, so rigid and pharisaical, so arrogant, so stupid. By resisting forgiveness, my actions call out, “I’m not as much a jerk as these – my sins aren’t as bad as theirs! But alas, they are. And I am just as desperate for God’s grace as they are. Whether or not they see this reality doesn’t matter. Jesus has spoken and revealed this reality to me. Now I must choose.

Grand Forgiver, truth is, I struggle with the sinful attitude of superiority – that somehow I am less in need of your forgiveness than several others. I am sorry and repent again of this attitude. Grant this sinner the grace to forgive other sinners, even and especially the ones I perceive as possessing a holier than thou attitude; those whose sin is a mirror of my own. – Mike Leamon

Forgiven to forgive

Forgiveness to me is always an act of God. I cannot truly forgive from the heart without holding it over the person I forgave without the work of God. I experience God’s forgiveness and grace and then am asked to pass along that work of grace to others. I become a conduit of God’s forgiveness into the live of others.

In the Catholic tradition you go to the priest for absolution (forgiveness) of sins. The priest acts as a conduit of God’s forgiveness into the confessor’s life. I do not believe you have to go to a priest to receive forgiveness (we have direct access to God through Jesus Christ), but I do think God wants us to be “priests” to others. God asks us to be conduits of forgiveness for other people.

This is such an important aspect of our faith, that to fail to forgive others, (be a conduit of God’s forgiveness and grace) is to stop the flow of God’s forgiveness into your own life. Perhaps our failure to forgive others is a demonstration of pride and self-righteousness. (They owe me, I did not do anything wrong, they need to realize how wrong they are and come repent to me.) Attitudes like this lead us away from repenting our sins to God and receiving his forgiveness.

God of forgiveness and grace I confess I am in need of your forgiveness. Help me to see how much I need you, and in return recognize my need to forgive others as an act of receiving your grace. I want to be an open conduit of grace and forgiveness today. - Dan Jones

MATTHEW 6:5-13

“When you pray, don’t be like the hypocrites who love to pray publicly on street corners and in the synagogues where everyone can see them. I tell you the truth, that is all the reward they will ever get. But when you pray, go away by yourself, shut the door behind you, and pray to your Father in private. Then your Father, who sees everything, will reward you.

“When you pray, don’t babble on and on as people of other religions do. They think their prayers are answered merely by repeating their words again and again. Don’t be like them, for your Father knows exactly what you need even before you ask him! Pray like this:

Our Father in heaven,
may your name be kept holy.
May your Kingdom come soon.
May your will be done on earth,
as it is in heaven.
Give us today the food we need,
and forgive us our sins,
as we have forgiven those who sin against us.
And don’t let us yield to temptation,
but rescue us from the evil one.

Cliff Note Prayer

When I was a boy we would stay at Grandma’s house when my mom and dad were out of town. Staying at Grandma’s was not all that exciting because they just lived down the road, so we saw my grandparents all the time. When you stayed with Grandma and Grandpa, you participated in devotions with them. My grandparents faithfully read from the daily bread for years. The devotion would not take all that long, but the prayer following the devotion was another story. If it was Grandpa’s turn to pray we were normally done in less than 15 minutes for the whole devotion. If it was Grandma’s turn to pray, the devotion took 20-30 minutes. Grandma was a long prayer.

There are some people in the church who can really pray. When they pray, it is poetic and beautiful. I wish I could pray this way sometimes. This is how grandma prayed. Her prayer was like a King James Version Psalm 119. Nothing and no one was left out either.

I appreciate my grandmother’s prayers still today. I know she prays for me and the church I pastor every day. I also know God answered grandpa’s prayers as readily as grandma’s prayers. If you have the gift to pray with poetic finesse do so. If you do not have that gift; no problem. God does not need flowery words. The Lord’s Prayer is short and to the point. Like Cliff Notes, it gets the job done with brevity and candor, yet with humility and submission. Pray from the heart, pray with honesty, pray with an open heart to God, and God will bless your prayer. Remember your prayer is directed to God not other people.

Lord Jesus, I pray this morning you will tune my prayers to sing your praise. Teach me to pray again today. - Dan Jones

Healing in its proper context

I like this prayer. It’s short, without any hint of long boisterous sessions that drag on for hours. It’s simple, focusing on a few essentials rather than a laundry list of wants or demands. Then again, it’s rather different from the way I’m used to praying.

I have a tendency to pray mostly for physical healings. In fact, sometimes I get louder and a bit repetitious when praying for a healing, almost as if God were deaf or a little slow. And I’m not the only one. Attending pastor’s prayer and fast retreats is like riding ocean waves of long prayer sessions that flow with loud and intense beseeching and ebb with quiet murmurings, only to swell again with the next need.

I’m taken aback by Jesus’ apparent lack of specific concern for physical wellbeing. He only guides us to pray for one day’s worth of food! And that’s it for physical needs. So much for asking big and believing large! When people want me to pray for them it is almost always about some physical issue. I’m seldom asked to pray for bigger picture issues like God’s rule, forgiveness of sin, or spiritual victories over the Tempter.

Could it be that these bigger picture issues are where most physical needs get addressed indirectly? Part of God’s kingdom rule on earth is a healthy and whole lifestyle – personally and in the culture – that will certainly lead to healthier bodies and adequate food. Forgiveness that opens the door to restoring broken relationships and inward peace plays a huge role in physical wholeness! Victories over temptation free us from destructive addictions and lead to moderation in all things – health.

So maybe Jesus was just as concerned about my physical wellbeing in this model prayer as he was in his own practice of healing people’s broken bodies. It’s just that he’s as concerned about preventing physical breakdown as he is in healing after the breakdown.

All wise God, forgive me for being too narrow in wanting healing without a total life change. Help me to realize that healing is a whole life issue of your rule, forgiveness, and victory over temptations. I’m going to pray more for those things. – Mike Leamon