ordinary

Taking Our Stand on Grace

Posted on

by Linda Rex

June 18, 2023, Proper 6 | After Pentecost—Earlier this week, I was talking with a friend about our mutual struggles and difficulties in life. Lately we both have had some real challenges which have reminded us of our need for our Lord’s compassionate love and grace in our everyday lives. During this season of ordinary days on the Christian calendar, all of us have an opportunity to take our stand on the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, fully embracing the gift of intimate relationship with our Father through Jesus in the Spirit. This enables us to weather in healthy ways the buffeting winds of suffering, conflict, and offense we experience day by day.

In the gospel passage for today, Matthew 9:35–10:8, Jesus gathered together twelve followers, gave them authority to heal diseases and cast out demons. And he sent them out to share the good news with the lost sheep of his people, to care for the sick and afflicted, while living an ordinary, everyday existence in their midst. The message he gave them to share was that “the kingdom of God is here.” What did Jesus mean when he said “the kingdom of God is here”?

In my youth I recall hearing many a sermon talking about the kingdom of God, but always in a future sense. I remember being told that a kingdom requires a king, and this would be Jesus Christ. I also heard that a kingdom requires an area for the king to rule, and this would be the earth, when Jesus returns in glory, and establishes his kingdom once and for all. I vaguely remember some hints about him reigning in our hearts, but that was well hidden under the emphasis on the coming kingdom of God when Jesus returns in glory.

In reality, we find the kingdom of God wherever God is, for our God as Father, Son, and Spirit reigns over all he has made. And his reign is a spiritual reality, even though we as human beings so often live in opposition to or in ignorance of it. When the incarnate Christ stood there in the presence of those people and said, “the kingdom of God is here,” he was speaking the truth. For those who stood in the presence of Jesus Christ were standing in the presence of God in human flesh, the One by whose word all things were created and were being sustained even in that moment. To say “the kingdom of God is here” is to say that in Jesus Christ, God is present and real, and has brought us into loving, gracious relationship with himself in spite of our rejection and crucifixion of him. The Son of God, the king Jesus, allowed nothing to come between us and God, but brought us home to the Father, and sent the Spirit for our salvation.

Even now, as the Spirit is present and at work in this world and in our lives, we are in the midst of the kingdom of God. We live in opposition to it, or we embrace it. We deny it or we acknowledge it. There are only two possible responses to the spiritual reality of the kingdom of God present in Jesus Christ by the Spirit—and it is important that we come to terms with our own personal response to this reality. And it is equally important that we share this good news with others.

That the kingdom of God is present and real is the message Jesus gave his followers to share with everyone they met. He told his followers to pray that God’s kingdom would come and God’s will would be done here on earth as it is in heaven. Today, as the Spirit lives in and through believers, we begin to see glimpses of the kingdom of heaven at work in this world, becoming a reality in our ordinary lives. We can ignore this, resist this, or participate in this reality. God gives us the freedom to experience the results of our choice.

When we look at all the difficulties and struggles in our everyday lives, it may be hard to believe that God’s kingdom is present and at work in this world. This is understandable. But, look at it this way. One day we will experience supreme joy because the kingdom of God has arrived in its fullness; all suffering and struggles will be over, and all tears wiped away. In the meantime, we experience a divine joy and peace in the midst of our suffering and struggles. Our ordinary existence becomes extraordinary when we recognize and live within the reality that this is not all there is—there is so much more going on that what is merely seen and touched.

What we need to realize is that we are held in the grace and love of God in Jesus Christ by the Spirit even now. We are never alone. We are not powerless any longer, but have been given the presence and power of God to overcome anything that threatens to destroy who we are as God’s beloved children. We are given the capacity to care for others, to fight evil and disease, and to minister to the lonely, forgotten, and excluded. The reason we take our stand in grace is because the kingdom of God is here, present in the person of Jesus Christ by his Spirit. We have nothing to fear, for in Christ, our relationship with our Father is secure, our place in his kingdom is assured, and our future will be full of everlasting joy. Hallelujah!

Heavenly Father, today we pause in humility, asking for the grace to see, acknowledge, and participate fully in your kingdom even now as your beloved children, to recognize and submit to Jesus as king of all, and to allow your Spirit full reign in our hearts and lives. Enable us to take our stand on the grace we have in your Son, as your Spirit floods our hearts with love, through Jesus our Lord. Amen.

1-2“Since then it is by faith that we are justified, let us grasp the fact that we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him we have confidently entered into this new relationship of grace, and here we take our stand, in happy certainty of the glorious things he has for us in the future. 3-5This doesn’t mean, of course, that we have only a hope of future joys—we can be full of joy here and now even in our trials and troubles. Taken in the right spirit these very things will give us patient endurance; this in turn will develop a mature character, and a character of this sort produces a steady hope, a hope that will never disappoint us. Already we have some experience of the love of God flooding through our hearts by the Holy Spirit given to us. 6-8And we can see that it was while we were powerless to help ourselves that Christ died for sinful men. In human experience it is a rare thing for one man to give his life for another, even if the latter be a good man, though there have been a few who have had the courage to do it. Yet the proof of God’s amazing love is this: that it was while we were sinners that Christ died for us.”     Romans 5:1–8 PHILLIPS

[Printable copy: https://lifeinthetrinity.blog/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/olittaking-our-stand-on-grace.pdf ]

[More devotionals may be found at https://lifeinthetrinity.blog ]

[Subscribe to Our Life in the Trinity YouTube channel at https://www.youtube.com/@ourlifeinthetrinity ]

[Would you like to participate in a Zoom scripture study? Email me at ourlifeinthetrinity@gmail.com ]

This entry was posted in Blog Site and tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , .

Offended by the Ordinary

Posted on

By Linda Rex

July 4, 2021, PROPER 9—We are currently going through “ordinary” days on the Christian calendar. During this particular time of year we reflect on the life and ministry of Christ and how God is at work in the ordinary things of our lives. We turn our attentions to the day-to-day experiences of God’s presence as we go about our jobs, caring for our loved ones and simply doing life.

When something is ordinary, we can take it for granted. When people get to know you well, they can easily dismiss anything you do as ordinary and unimportant. When we do the same things over and over every day, those things can lose our interest and attention. We can even begin to take for granted those we love when we get caught up in the routines and expectations and demands of our everyday life. Life in relationship can become ordinary and lose its attraction and appeal.

Unfortunately, this is also true of our relationship with Jesus. In the gospel reading for this Sunday, Mark 6:1–13, we find Jesus returning to his hometown. He went to synagogue on the Sabbath, as was his custom, and stood up to read. His reputation for miracles was impressive and his wisdom in explaining the scriptures was evident, but the people of his hometown couldn’t get past the ordinary. This was an ordinary man, a carpenter of questionable lineage, whose brothers and sisters and mother they knew well. How could he do the things he did?

Jesus was amazed at their inability to see beyond the ordinary. They were offended rather than amazed by the anointing of God which was evidently upon him. They could not reconcile his miracles and preaching with him being an ordinary man from an ordinary family in an ordinary town in Galilee. They were scandalized by the idea that he might be the Messiah, so could only attribute his gifts and signs to the evil one.

I wonder whether when such things happened Jesus was reminded of the ministry of Ezekiel. This prophet was told by God at the beginning of his ministry that he would speak the truth to God’s covenant people, but they would reject his message (Ez. 2:1–5). We can be inspired by God, empowered by God, but still be offensive to and rejected by those to whom we are sent. We can follow Christ, allow his Spirit to transform our lives, but still be considered profane and worthless by those who will not believe that God has redeemed and restored us.

We need to be careful not to fall prey to the lie that how well we live out the Christian life immediately determines peoples’ response to the message. Yes, our lives should reflect Christ—as image-bearers of the divine, we should be living expressions of God’s love and grace. But Christlike living does not guarantee us a welcome response. Nor is walking about with a façade of perfected holiness needed here. What is truly needed is a genuine expression of humble dependency upon God’s mercy and goodness, which reflects the reality of God at work within the ordinary.

The apostle Paul reminds us that God’s power is perfected in weakness (2 Cor. 12:2–10). God’s grace is sufficient in the midst of whatever we may be wrestling with. To touch other people’s lives effectively, we need to be genuine and real about the work God is doing in our own life. Being honest about our struggles, our failures and need for grace, and how God is redemptively at work in us, is a powerful witness to the gospel. Evidence of what God is doing by the Spirit is seen when we are pushed beyond our human ability and are struggling with issues we cannot handle, and God intervenes in unexpected ways.

What is ordinary becomes glorious when Christ is in it. We open ourselves up to the work of God’s Spirit and amazing things can happen. But if we are focused on the ordinary to the exclusion of the divine, we may find our outlook becomes much dimmer. We may not experience the real personal presence of God when we are focused merely on the everyday to the exclusion of our relationship with God through Christ in the Spirit.

Like the people in Jesus’ hometown, we can become so focused on the ordinary in situations and circumstances that we miss the reality that God is present and at work by his Spirit. We can become offended by evidence of Jesus’ power and grace because it doesn’t fit our preconceived ideas of what it should look like. We can be scandalized by the grace God shows to people we believe are worthy only of condemnation. We need to be careful not to get so in tune with the ordinary that we forget the miracle Jesus has done for each and every one of us, drawing us into his intimate relationship with the Father and enabling us to participate in it by the Spirit.

When God goes to work, things happen. Changes occur. Lives are transformed and healed. People who are spiritually asleep wake up. Those who have always been alone suddenly find they have to learn how to live happily in relationship. Those who are weak suddenly find the strength to do and say those things which in the past always seemed to escape them. Those who are hateful and resentful suddenly find they are compassionate and caring towards others.

What is our response? Do we mock these changes as mere flukes in our human experience? Are we offended that God might be doing something new or different which we don’t agree with? The ordinary days on the Christian calendar are a good time to evaluate how attentive we are to what God is doing in this world, in our lives and in the lives of those around us. Are we attending to, rejoicing in, and bearing witness to Jesus and his ministry by the Spirit in us, our community, and those around us? Or are we offended, scandalized by his goodness, mercy and love?

Thank you, Father, for never turning away from us, but rather embracing us in the midst of our rejection and rebellion and turning our face back to you, in and through Jesus and by your Spirit. Enable us to see clearly your presence and power at work in us and in this world, and to actively share this good news with those you have placed in our lives, in Jesus’ name. Amen.

“‘Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary, and brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon? Are not His sisters here with us?’ And they took offense at Him.”     Mark 6:3 NASB

“And He has said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.’ Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me. Therefore I am well content with weaknesses, with insults, with distresses, with persecutions, with difficulties, for Christ’s sake; for when I am weak, then I am strong.”     2 Cor. 12:2–10 NASB

This entry was posted in Blog Site and tagged , , , , , , , , , , , .