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A student survey conducted at one of our local schools determined that young people see the church as being full of old people and pews. And they think that the pews have to go. There’s some good news in that survey, they didn’t say the old people should go, only the pews.
Think for a moment: How does their perception match reality?
We might immediately begin to defend the pews. They've been good enough for generations. They keep us awake. They haven’t killed anyone.
Or we might be offended that they’ve labelled us as old. We might argue that we’re not nearly as old as our grandparents were at the same age.
We might want to join James and John to ask Jesus whether we should call down fire from heaven and destroy them.
But before we get too defensive, these young people are crying out for the church to recognise and value them. They don’t think the church cares about them, they don’t think we care. They think the church is only interested in the people who’re already involved, which to them means old people.
I wonder whether they’re any different to those of any age who aren’t connected to our churches. Would the whole ‘unchurched’ and 'previously-churched’ community agree that we don’t care. Would they contend that we’re only interested in ourselves.
If we’re so busy polishing and defending our pews then they have to go. If there’s anything in our church that uses up our time at the expense of living our lives for Jesus then it has to go.
Even more urgently we have to go. Not leave the church, the community of God’s people, but go with the good news that because God loves and cares for every single person in this world so do we.
“As you go”, Jesus says, “make disciples of all nations.” Jesus cares about this because he has ‘skin-in-the-game’. He died for each and every one we encounter as we go about our lives.
How do we, as individuals and a church, need to change so that no one in our community will feel that we don’t care about them?
Inner peace
by Charles Bertelsmeier
Click here to download your printable verse to carry with you today.
I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world (John 16:33).
Read John 16:25–33
Jesus promises his disciples peace while at the same time telling them that they will experience ‘trouble’ in this world. How do we resolve this dichotomy? We generally see trouble and peace as opposites; however, Jesus seems to be saying that we can experience his peace even amid troubling times.
One thing we need to become clear about is that being a child of a loving Heavenly Father does not protect us from facing troubling issues. We can still experience medical and health issues; we can be involved in accidents that cause injuries that take a long time to heal and possibly leave us with lingering limitations. We can face financial issues, lose our jobs or experience challenging workplace situations. We may be affected by droughts, bushfires, floods, earthquakes and landslides. We may fall foul of the law, even possibly when we believe we were not at fault. It may financially cost us or even lead to imprisonment. We may fall out with a friend, and our marriage may fail. All these things happen to people committing their lives to God’s care. I know, because I have experienced many of them, some in a minor way and a few more intensely.
When we face these events in our lives, we can spend a lot of time trying to think up answers about how to deal with these ‘challenges’ to the peace in our lives. They can keep us awake at night and rob us of sleep. They can make us tense and hard to live with as we concentrate on solving our problems, leading to relationship issues. We can lose focus as we concentrate on finding solutions and fail to carry out our responsibilities to family, friends and employers, leading to further negative consequences. I have experienced all these too.
Jesus’ answer is, ‘But take heart! I have overcome the world.’ To start with, God is in complete control of his universe, including all the minutiae of our lives. Then, Jesus has assured us that he will be with us always, to the end of time (Matthew 28:20). Whatever God allows to happen in our lives, he uses to grow us in maturity in our relationship with him. So, he promises to be right alongside us as he guides us in working out his solutions to our problems, and he does this through his Holy Spirit living in us. So instead of being busy trying to think up solutions, he wants us to stop, rest in his presence and talk to him about our problems, all the time listening to the guidance he wants to give us.
We also have his word to us in the Bible, so he invites us to spend time reading our Bibles during our rest. Sometimes, the guidance will be during our time of rest. At other times, the guidance will come as we get up and follow where he is leading. As we follow him, we will grow in trusting his commitment to us and in knowing his peace.
Heavenly Father, thank you for being in complete control of everything and for your commitment to growing me in my relationship with you. Thank you for the peace this brings me. Amen.
Charles is a retired engineer who has worked on telecommunications projects for the air force, army and navy. He lives in a retirement village in the outer north-western suburbs of Sydney with his wife, Diane. Together, they have four children and eight grandchildren, all of whom they love spending time with. Charles keeps busy caring for their pot plants and a community vegetable garden, researching his family history and volunteering in the community and at LifeWay Lutheran Church.
Praying in Jesus’ name
by Charles Bertelsmeier
Click here to download your printable verse to carry with you today.
Very truly I tell you, my Father will give you whatever you ask in my name. Ask and you will receive, and your joy will be complete (John 16:23b,24b).
Read John 16:16–24
Jesus had been trying to get his disciples ready for his impending death and eventual departure from this earth. He had already given them the promise of Holy Spirit coming to them to replace himself. Now he was explaining to them that the grief that they would feel following his death would be replaced with everlasting joy, even after he leaves them.
With Jesus no longer physically present with the disciples, they are to have a new relationship with God. They now have direct access to their Heavenly Father and the guiding and powerful presence of Holy Spirit living in them.
We often end our prayers with a phrase such as, ‘We ask all these things in Jesus’ name.’ In today’s Bible verses, Jesus promises that whatever we ask our Heavenly Father for in his name, we will receive it. It almost sounds like a bit of magic. We just have to add this phrase to the end of our prayers, and God will give us what we ask for.
So let us have a deeper look at what it means to ask or pray in Jesus’ name. Firstly, we can only call God our Heavenly Father because of what Jesus did through his perfect life, sacrificial death and resurrection, which opened the way for us to be adopted into the Heavenly Family as God’s children. When we pray in Jesus’ name, we acknowledge that it is only through what Jesus has done for us that we can come to God.
We also pray, asking for those things that Jesus would ask his Father for. Sometimes, when we are overwhelmed by the importance of someone, we may ask an intermediary to take our requests to them. Of course, the intermediary would only take up our request if it aligned with their own ethos. This is similar to our prayers. We don’t have to pray to Jesus to ask our Heavenly Father on our behalf, but can go directly to our Heavenly Father, asking for those things that Jesus would be happy to ask his Father for on our behalf.
And it is also an acknowledgement that we have surrendered our wills and our lives to the Heavenly Family so that God can achieve his will and purpose in us. We don’t go to God with our Santa Claus list but seek his help and guidance in how he wants to use us to bring his gifts to the people he places in our path each day.
Of course, as a loving Father, God cares about all the things that affect our daily lives and wants us to talk to him about them. But he also wants us to hand them over to him to manage as we get on with doing the things he has planned for us.
Notice how Jesus ended our verse for today: ‘and your joy will be complete.’ He promises us his joy as we let him guide us in living according to his will for us.
Heavenly Father, thank you for all that Jesus achieved for us to become your children and live as members of your family. I surrender my life into your hands for you to live your purpose in me. Amen.
Charles is a retired engineer who has worked on telecommunications projects for the air force, army and navy. He lives in a retirement village in the outer north-western suburbs of Sydney with his wife, Diane. Together, they have four children and eight grandchildren, all of whom they love spending time with. Charles keeps busy caring for their pot plants and a community vegetable garden, researching his family history and volunteering in the community and at LifeWay Lutheran Church.
Selective blindness
by Charles Bertelsmeier
Click here to download your printable verse to carry with you today.
If I had not done among them the works no one else did, they would not be guilty of sin. As it is, they have seen, and yet they have hated both me and my Father (John 15:24).
Read John 15:18–27
Have you ever watched an illusionist and wondered how they did their tricks? Speaking generally, what the illusionist does is divert your attention to some activity they want you to concentrate on while doing some trickery with their other hand or by their assistant. Because you can only visually concentrate on one thing at a time, you don’t notice the slight activity off to the side. Another aspect of our psychology is that as we switch our visual attention from one object to another some distance away, we don’t see any details of anything between the two objects. Illusionists rely on this, too.
This is related to another truth about our psychology. To understand new information or ideas, we need to fit them into our current frames of reference. Let me give an example. Our current experience is that when we take five loaves of bread, break them into pieces and hand them out to feed people, there will not be enough to feed at least five thousand people, with 12 baskets of leftover scraps. So, when we hear about this happening, we try to fit it into this frame of reference. Which means we think that it didn’t happen as reported. There must have been some sleight of hand or other explanation.
Now, if your frame of reference includes a God who has unlimited power over nature, you don’t have a problem, because this example of the multiplying bread is just a miracle. This implies that the person who performed the miracle is either God himself or acting on God’s behalf.
On the other hand, if someone has embarrassed us and we are very angry with them, when they try to talk to us, we may be so absorbed with trying to justify our anger with anything further they say that we don’t hear the important information they are trying to share with us.
Jesus faced both these situations with the religious leaders of his day. The things Jesus said and did didn’t fit their frame of reference for a religious teacher, and their focus on capturing what he said to use against him prevented them from hearing the good news he wanted to share with them.
Now, we also need to be cautious of people trying to mislead us in our relationship with God, so we must check things against our other frame of reference, the Bible. And the best way to do this is to regularly and prayerfully read the Scriptures.
Heavenly Father, thank you for your word, both the written word in the Bible and the Living Word, Jesus. Please help us to be open to where you are leading us in our daily lives, and please protect us from being deceived by those who want to lead us away from you. Amen.
Charles is a retired engineer who has worked on telecommunications projects for the air force, army and navy. He lives in a retirement village in the outer north-western suburbs of Sydney with his wife, Diane. Together, they have four children and eight grandchildren, all of whom they love spending time with. Charles keeps busy caring for their pot plants and a community vegetable garden, researching his family history and volunteering in the community and at LifeWay Lutheran Church.