At church today, our pastor shared on the Parable of the Sower as part of the series on Church Without Walls (cWoW), the concept that church is not only about doing the traditional "spectator-sport" of going to church, sitting in pews, listening to good music, perhaps even singing along, and then listening to a good sermon.

Church is about being actively involved in living out your faith among a community of active participants who share the life of the Spirit and meeting the needs - physical, spiritual, social, emotional - of the wider community and drawing people to the loving Heavenly Father God.

One of the first steps of actively living out your faith is to first of all receive the Word and let it flourish in your life.

So, Pastor Dave shared some thoughts on the Parable of the Sower and then asked the congregation to interactively respond by offering their insights, reflections and sharing about what God is doing in their lives, and how the passage impacted them.

As I was reflecting on the passage, I was quite puzzled with the description of the types of soil. Jesus talked about the Kingdom of Heaven being like a farmer who went out to sow his seed. He says that the seed fell on different types of ground. Typically people talk about the four types of soil.

Some seed fell on the path where the ground was hard and there was no soil and the birds came and ate up the seed. The seed that fell among rocky ground, sprang up quickly but because the soil was shallow, when the sun came up the plants shrivelled up. Other seed fell among thorns which grew and choked up the plants so that they did not bear grain. And the seed that fell on good soil sprang up, grew and produced an abundant crop.

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The story of the encounter between Jesus, the Pharisees and the woman taken in the act of adultery in the eighth chapter of John contains powerful lessons for us today. Imagine being in the place of this woman, probably half-naked, baring your body and soul to the world, caught at the point of shame, misery and rejection. Condemned by society, outcast by community and condemned by the tribunal. There you are standing before the Holy One, in front of the world, alone, naked, and ashamed. Around you fingers are pointing, chins are waging, head are shaking. Sneered upon, pitied and despised.

In a powerful demonstration of unconditional love, the Christ shows the accusing religious mob what He is about. None of the accusers could do continue. They retreated one by one until it was just the woman standing there before the Savior.

“Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?”

Powerful words that touches the soul of the one who was tormented, outcast and defenseless only moments earlier. No longer is she accused. Isn’t this the experience of repentance?

Repentance is not solely a human response to God’s mercy and grace. It is a change in position from one under judgment, to one redeemed. It is a change to realize the full force of transformation love - for He has forgiven you and you no longer stand accused. Read the rest of this entry »

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My previous meditation was spurred by my own personal experience of agonizing through an incredibly tough problem I was facing. The breakthrough came for me via a Bible reading in church. While the sermon addressed another issue, the Scriptures read that day jumped out at me and it was as if God was singling me out and speaking to me directly.

The meditation on that passage of Scripture led to another meditation on a similar passage. In both passages, Jesus healed a lame (or as the Scriptures refer to him, paralytic) man. In this passage, the paralyzed man was brought to Jesus by his friends. As his friends came to the house where Jesus was preaching, they were blocked by a crowd of people and there was no way they could get through.

His friends were undaunted. They thought (and acted) outside the box, and broke down the barriers. They climbed to the top of the house and broke through the roof to lower the man down on a makeshift platform with his mat.

Jesus’ words to the man was surprising, especially to the religious leaders of the day: “Son, your sins are forgiven!” Read the rest of this entry »

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When God speaks to you it is quite unmistakable, although sometimes it can be terrifying and sometimes it can be confusing. I have one of these experiences just recently. While sitting in the pew listening to a sermon from John chapter 5, I heard the words read from the gospel, “Pick up your mat and walk!”

It was from the familiar story of the paralyzed man who had been in that helpless condition for almost an entire lifetime. He was lying by the pool of Bethesda which was known in those days to have healing qualities. When the “waters stirred” the first person who get down to the pool would have their ailment healed. John 5:4: for an angel of the Lord went down at certain seasons into the pool and stirred up the water; whoever then first, after the stirring up of the water, stepped in was made well from whatever disease with which he was afflicted. (NASB)

This man wanted desperately to get well. So he camped by the pool waiting for a chance to get into the pool first and experience its healing effects.

When Jesus saw him by the pool and learned of his condition, he asked him, “Do you want to get well?”

What kind of question is that? Read the rest of this entry »

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“Fearing God,” says Susan L. Prince, one of my commenters, “is a hard concept to grasp, and I can’t help but wonder if the Church, and it’s lack of practicing what it preaches, is what causes Christians to not properly fear.” Another commenter, The Artist, suggested that instead of fear, we might construe it as “an `overwhelming awe’ at `God’s Immensity’”. Both, I believe are expressing the difficulty that I have explored in previous posts on this topic.

In my first post in this series, I described the tension between the concept of “fear of the LORD” and “the perfect love” of God that drives out fear. In my next couple of posts, I began to unpack what Psalm 34 teaches about “fear of the LORD”. According to the Psalmist, fearing God is not just about Read the rest of this entry »

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In my previous post in this series, I explored what Psalm 34: 11-22 says are the practical outworking of fearing God. Surprisingly (or not) this is not merely an emotional response of shrinking away from the presence of God timorously, or a paralyzing forboding of judgment or punishment over our failure to meet the high standards of a holy, angry God.

There is fear, and there is fear…
As I pointed out earlier, having such kinds of fear seems to contradict Read the rest of this entry »

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In an earlier post, I questioned what “the fear of the LORD” really means in practice. Some of my commenters have offered answers. I think their stabs at the answer are in the right direction.

Like them, I believe our relationship with God is multi-faceted, and approaching God in an attitude of fear cannot be done in isolation from the posture of love, gratitude and boldness that the Scriptures also teach as necessary attitudes. I like my commenters say about adopting a rational and wholesome reverence and awe in our relationship to God.

Key to Understanding the Fear of God
Recently while meditating on the Psalms, I found further light from Psalm 34 on this subject. According to this passage, Read the rest of this entry »

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Most Christians relate Pentecost to the outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon the church. Often Pentecost is associated to spiritual gifts, spirituality, faith, inner and intra-personal development, personal holiness and the theological controversies about the Person and Work of the Holy Spirit. Or about the “t” word.

In this post, I would like to take another look at Pentecost from the perspective of a couple of my recent posts, which tied the Day of Pentecost with Jesus’ cursing of the fig tree and clearing of the Temple of the moneychangers and traders.

That God chose the Day of Pentecost to pour out His Spirit upon His church and that He did it in the manner as recorded in Acts 2 is significant. The celebration of the Feast of Pentecost drew many travelers from all over to Jerusalem, just as the Feast of the Passover had done when Jesus cleared the Temple of the moneychangers and traders.

The Feast of Pentecost was one of the central Feasts of Old Testament religion - that of the celebration of the giving of the Mosaic Law on Mount Sinai. Many Jews, both Diaspora Jews as well as foreigners who were converted to Judaism would make that pilgrimage to attend the festivities in Jerusalem. Read the rest of this entry »

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