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Category: 2 Corinthians (Page 2 of 12)

Trust the Lord with the Future

April 28, 2021 / / 0 Comments

“On him we have set our hope that he will continue to deliver us.” ~2 Corinthians 1:10

God’s promise in Jesus Christ is that everything is going to be made right. All will be well. Jesus came here to fix everything in your life that’s broken and to make right everything in your world that has gone wrong. Through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, all things are being redeemed and restored so we can live together forever in his holy presence.

So if things are not well with you today, it just means it’s not over yet. It’s not done. This is Good News! God is still at work in you and through you!

The Spirit says God will bring to completion that good thing he has started in you. The one who calls you is faithful and he will do it. In fact, I would say it’s already done!

Our Lord never calls us to do anything he hasn’t already done or go anywhere he hasn’t already been. He told the Israelites, The Lord himself goes before you! He’ll wipe out all your enemies before you even get there! Your future is being secured because God is going first!

When the people came out of Egypt, it was God who went before them in the fiery pillar. It was God who took care of his people along the journey. The Lord prepares the path through the journey and he secures the conditions on the other side.

That’s why Jesus came: to take care of your eternal future. He died on the cross to give you his righteousness, his holiness, and his redemption. The sin that separates you from God, he has taken it all away. Jesus was condemned so you would be acquitted. Jesus was found guilty so you could be forgiven. He died in your place and then three days later God’s Spirit raised him from the grave to prove that everything Jesus says is true and everything he does is right.

The Bible calls Jesus the pioneer, the trailblazer of the faith. He went to death and back and conquered all of it for you already – he’s already done it! The way through for you has already been worked out. He has delivered you, he is delivering you, and he will continue to deliver you into his glory on that last day!

Peace,

Allan

Pay Attention to the Present

April 20, 2021 / / 0 Comments

The main thing with the pandemic has been, and still is, the uncertainty. We don’t know anything. For more than a year now we have collectively felt like we’re on the brink of… what? We don’t know! Something significant, we think. We feel like it’s big and it’s going to leave a mark. But there’s still so much – even today – uncertainty.

Should I get the shot? How long will my immunity last? What is my city going to look like on the other side of this? What kind of church are we going to have? What about the variants? What about the economy? How much longer do we need to wear masks? Are we going to go through this every winter? Was the whole thing blown out of proportion? Or should we have done even more? We don’t know! And the stress of the uncertainty is unsettling.

“This happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God.” ~2 Corinthians 1:9

Many times I’ve asked people who are going through a major life thing, “What is God doing with this right now?” You’re putting your mom in a nursing home, you’re pregnant with twins, you’ve been diagnosed with cancer – your life as you know it is changing. What do you think God is doing?

This is what I hear: “I haven’t thought about it.”

You haven’t thought about it? Well, for pity’s sake, you need to start thinking about it!

God has not abandoned you. He’s not on vacation somewhere and can’t see you right now. The Lord is near. He’s in this with you. Pay attention to what he’s doing. Don’t go through a major thing in your life and not be transformed by him. Be aware. Be on the lookout.

When something really great happens to you, think about how God is shaping you in that. You know that every good and perfect gift comes from him. You know the earth is the Lord’s and everything in it belongs to him. So you’re just the manager of this gift from God. How is he wanting you to manage it? Pay attention.

When something really awful happens to you, think about how God is forming you in that. You that God is working in all things for your good. You know his strength is made perfect in your weakness. So this is an opportunity for growth and witness. How is God wanting you to mature? How is he wanting you to testify? Pay attention.

During a crisis or a major transition, we can get locked in on the wrong things. We can ask the wrong questions. That’s what Jesus is addressing in the middle of the Sermon on the Mount. What will I eat and drink? What will I wear? What if I get sick? How do we make up the money we’ve lost? What are we never going to get back? All of that is legitimate. Those are fair questions and real things we’re all dealing with. But Jesus brings our attention to a godly focus when he says:

“Seek first his Kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.” ~Matthew 6:33

No matter your present circumstances, you’ve got to be awake to God’s Kingdom and God’s will and his work in those circumstances because if you’re not, you’re going to be eaten up with anxiety. If you’re not viewing your present situation in light of God’s love for you and his power and will to work all things together for your good and the good of his everlasting Kingdom, you’re going to be paralyzed with worry and fear.

If we care about what kind of people we’re going to be on the other side of this pandemic, we have to care deeply about the kind of people we’re becoming every single day DURING the pandemic. We’re not going to be faithful Kingdom-seekers on this side of it if we’re not paying attention to what God is doing in our lives right now.

The question is not “What?” What if this happens? What if that happens?

The question is not “How?” How am I going to do this? How is this going to work out?

The question is “Who?” Who’s making it happen? Who’s working it out?

Your Father. The Almighty Creator of Heaven and Earth who loves you and who is right there with you in the middle of your situation.

When life happens – when a pandemic changes everything – you can wring your hands and say, “I don’t know!” Or you can lift your hands and say, “God knows! I’m not going to rely on myself in this, I’m relying on God!”

Peace,

Allan

Gain Perspective from the Past

April 19, 2021 / / 0 Comments

It feels like we’re coming out of the pandemic. Slowly. Thankfully. In fits and starts. And I know your life has been impacted over the past twelve months. Some of us lost money and jobs, some of us lost senior years and graduations, some of us lost loved ones and buried them without funerals. Vacations were postponed, holidays were canceled. What was going well for you before the pandemic was probably disrupted and stressed. What wasn’t so great before the coronavirus probably got worse. We’ve all been affected differently by this thing, but we have ALL been affected.

As we begin the slow transition to whatever the future holds, we need to reflect on where we’ve been and where we are. We can’t really turn the page on something new, something post-pandemic, until we’ve taken a hard, honest look at what’s happened DURING the pandemic.

I would suggest using 2 Corinthians 1:9-10 as a backdrop for your prayers and reflections.

“This happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead. He has delivered us from such a deadly peril, and he is delivering us. On him we have set our hope that he will continue to deliver us.”

Scripture gives us the proper perspective on difficulties and tough times. The Apostle Paul says these kinds of trials are to teach us not to rely on ourselves but on God. Placing you in a desert like this is how God shapes you. When you’re in a desert, you can’t survive without God’s intervention. If God doesn’t provide water, you die. If he doesn’t give you bread, you die. If God doesn’t provide shade or rescue, it’s over. You rely completely on God when you’re putting one foot in front of the other in a barren desert.

And that’s exactly where God shapes you. God trains you in the desert. He draws you closer and causes you to depend on him more.

Before the Israelites entered the Promised Land, they spent 40 years in the desert. God gave them manna and quail from heaven and water from a rock. And it changed them into the people he wanted them to be.

David spent time in the desert running for his life, hiding in caves, barely staying half-a-step ahead of the enemies who wanted him dead. God protected him and provided for him in the oasis at En Gedi. And it changed him into the greatest king Israel’s ever known.

Elijah complained while he was in the desert. He spent his time griping to God. He couldn’t understand why the Lord would allow bad things to happen to him when he had been so good. But God sent an angel with food to Elijah and the Lord spoke to Elijah in a still, quiet voice. And it shaped him into God’s greatest prophet.

Our Lord Jesus was baptized and preparing to launch his salvation mission to the world when God’s Holy Spirit drove him into the desert. No food, no water; tempted and tortured by the devil for 40 days. Protected and provided for by God. That’s where the Father equipped him to do what God needed him to do.

I know this has been your experience, too. When your dad died. When you lost your job. God formed you during that time. You started reading the Bible more during the tough time and God spoke to you.

When you moved to a new town or when your last kid moved out of the house, God put the exact right people into your life and he changed you.

After the funeral, you immersed yourself in that service project, you started doing more for others. And God shaped you.

When you were in that horrible financial mess, when your marriage was threatened, when your child was diagnosed, you started spending more time in prayer, just you and God, and he convinced you of some things you never would have heard otherwise.

Gain perspective from the past. God has delivered you, he is delivering you, and he will continue to deliver you.

Peace,

Allan

Helpful in His Spirit

December 16, 2020 / / 0 Comments

“For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all people. It teaches us to say ‘No’ to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in this present age, while we wait for the blessed hope — the glorious appearing of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all wickedness and to purify for himself a people that are his very own, eager to do what is good.” ~Titus 2:11-14

While we wait for the coming of Christ, we are to help others in the name and the manner of the One who came here to help us. During this Advent Season, we notice in the birth of Jesus that our God does not separate himself from the pain of the world. God through Christ enters the pain of others. He takes your pain into himself, he becomes your sin for you and takes it to the cross where he annihilates it forever. He dwells with us today in the middle of our suffering by his Holy Spirit. God has come to help his people. And as a people belonging to God, we join him in helping others. We are helpful in his spirit, in his name and manner, eager to do what is good.

We look to Jesus and we do God’s work for others the way he does it. In humility. No arrogance. No lording it over anybody. No beating anybody over the head with a stick. Or a Bible. Or a doctrine or tradition. Humility and service and love.

Look at the first coming of Jesus. God’s way is to join people where they are, level with them in their contexts, serve their needs, honor their humanity, become one with them, become one of them, even to the point of risking terrible loss. God could have very easily come to this earth to dominate us, to force us, to overpower us, and push us to where he wants us to go, even for our own good. But he didn’t. He came to us in humility and grace. To help.

And helping others is not something we do to get salvation, it is our salvation. We are being saved, we are being taught and shaped; it’s a long process. We do keep our eyes on that final glorious destination, but never at the expense of the journey. You know, Jesus talked all the  time about the Kingdom of Heaven, but all his teachings had to do with living right here, right now, in the present age, with people.

“You know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich.” ~ 2 Corinthians 8:9

Jesus says whenever you feed someone who’s hungry, you’re feeding me; whenever you give a drink to a thirsty person, you’re giving that drink to me; whenever you invite in a refugee or clothe the needy or visit somebody in prison, you’re helping me. That’s not just a metaphor. That doesn’t mean, “Oh, Jesus’ heart is with those kinds of people.” It means Jesus is those kinds of people!

When God came to earth and put on our flesh and blood, he chose to become homeless. He decided to identify with the jobless, the poor and needy, the hungry. That’s our Lord. And when you decide to follow Jesus, when you pray for God’s Spirit to transform you more into his holy image, you’re deciding to help the people without power, the people without beauty, the people without money and wealth. That’s how you help in his spirit.

The same grace of God that has appeared to all people in Christ Jesus and saves us is the same grace of God that trains us how to live in the present age while we wait for his second appearing. His gracious help for us turns into our help for others.

Peace,

Allan

What Will Happen

June 17, 2020 / / 0 Comments

The middle of Romans 8 tells us where we are right now: the world is in pain. All of creation is groaning right up to the present time. Because of sin. Because of fallen human nature and the broken world.

This passage also tells us what we’re called to do: the Church shares the world’s pain. We ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly. We know how things are supposed to be and they’re not. Not yet. So we share the pain of the people around us.

And this important passage tells us very clearly what will happen when God’s people get involved and share the pain of his world: God’s Spirit works through that pain to glory.

“Our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us… The Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express. And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with God’s will. And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose… Those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified.”  ~Romans 8:18-30

All of creation is groaning. We ourselves are groaning. And God’s Holy Spirit — seeing all this, watching all this, experiencing all this with his creation and with his people — is groaning with groans that words cannot express. God’s Spirit lives and works in the pain.

He who searches our hearts — that’s God. He knows what’s inside our hearts. And I know God comes across things in our hearts we’d like to stay hidden. But God’s looking for the sound of his Spirit’s groaning. When we are sharing the world’s pain, when we’ve decided to embrace the world’s pain, and sit with it, live with it, groan with it, we realize we don’t have any answers. We don’t know what to do. We don’t even know what to pray for. And that’s when God’s Spirit is most obviously at work.

God the Creator, our Father, is always in constant communication with his Spirit who lives in the hearts of his people. God totally understands what the Spirit inside us is saying, even when we don’t. Our God hears and answers the prayers of our hearts, even when they don’t feel like prayers. Even when it just feels like heartache or hopelessness or inadequacy. When the pains and groanings of the world weigh heavy on your heart, you become one with the loving, groaning, and redeeming working relationship and conversation between the Father and the Holy Spirit.

It’s a mystery, for sure. I don’t understand it. But the Bible says God works through that for glory. For our glory. And ultimately for his.

The apostle Paul can’t find the words. He can’t describe the difference between where we are right now and the glory that’s coming. Everything he might say falls short, so he doesn’t even try. It’s not worth comparing! He has called us  and justified us and glorified us! We know that in all things — even in the sharing of pain, maybe especially in the sharing of pain! — God works for our good! For ultimate glory!

“We share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory!” ~Romans 8:17

The devil means this mess we’re in right now for evil; God our Father is working in it and through it for glory! By the death and resurrection of his Son and by the power of his Holy Spirit, it’s going to be so good! As Christians, we don’t shake our heads and wring our hands and say, “Look what’s happening in the world.” We say, “Look who came into the world!”

All of God’s plans for the restoration of the world, all of God’s promises for glory for us and all of creation, all of what God wants to bring about for our good, is all “yes” in Christ Jesus. It’s not sometimes “yes” and sometimes “no”…

“For no matter how many promises God has made, they are ‘Yes’ in Christ. And so through him the ‘Amen’ is spoken by us to the glory of God. Now it is God who makes both us and you stand firm in Christ. He anointed us, set his seal of ownership on us, and put his Spirit in our hearts as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come.” ~ 2 Corinthians 1:20-22

Sin’s dominion is being broken. Our bondage to corruption and decay is coming to an end. And the Church speaks the “Amen!” We say it. We believe it. And we live it. The Holy Spirit guarantees the glory that’s coming because of Jesus. So, when the politicians say “No,” God says “Yes” in Christ. When the culture says “No,” God says “Yes” in Christ. When your friends say “No,” when the peer pressure says “No,” when your favorite website says “No,” when your family says “No,” God says “Yes” in Christ. When your gut says “No,” when all the experts say “No,” when your own brothers and sisters in Christ say “No,” God says “Yes” in Christ every time. Every time.

Maybe someday we’ll have a vaccine for the coronavirus. Maybe. But not for the sin that has plunged God’s world into so much pain. Sin is not new. It’s not novel. There’s no shot, there’s no pill, there’s no medicine for this pain that has us and all creation groaning. The only prescription for the pain is the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The Gospel is the only cure.

Everything we do and say, everything people do and say about us or to us, every experience we will ever have, is all lovingly used by our God for our good. We don’t always understand it. We don’t always enjoy it. But we know our groanings are not in vain. They serve an eternal purpose that’s being worked out by the Creator of Heaven and Earth who groans right along with us to make it happen.

The pain and the groaning are real. But so is the glory. We’re not finished yet. God’s not done. He has a plan for us and for the whole world and it is glorious. He has established his risen Son on his eternal throne and the whole world which is groaning under the weight of our sin is going to be redeemed. This is our Father’s world and he will do whatever he sees fit. And he sees fit to appoint it and us to glory.

Peace,

Allan

Witness

August 6, 2019 / / 0 Comments

“The Church exists to set up in the world a new sign which is radically dissimilar to the world’s own manner and which contradicts it in a way which is full of promise.” ~Karl Barth

The best thing the Church offers the world is to show the world a way of life that can never be accomplished with social coercion or government power. We serve the world by showing it something that it is not. The world doesn’t know any other way to live but by might and threat and competition and violence.

It could use a witness to something else.

We are witnesses to a reality that transcends the limits of this world. The world can’t fix any of the things that really need fixing. What can the world do other than pass tougher laws and build bigger bombs? That’s it.

The Church provides a witness, a light to the world, an imaginative alternative. Loving your neighbor is very different from being a nice guy. The peace that passes all understanding is not even in the same universe as the peace that comes from having your mortgage paid off. Receiving the forgiveness of all our sins is not the same as rationalizing and justifying our failures. The Church is a separate, distinctive community, not to isolate or protect ourselves, but because we can best serve the world by being the Church.

We reject violence and retaliation to help the world see the way of peace. We refuse to threaten or control people to show the world the way of equality and respect. We break down social, racial, and denominational barriers to show the world the sinfulness of its divisions. We let go of our possessions with joy and gladness to expose the world’s idolatrous attachments to money.

“He died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves, but for him who died for them and was raised again.” ~2 Corinthians 5:15

We live for the risen and reigning Christ Jesus. His vision for the world is our vision for the world. His ways are our ways. What he says goes. As the Church, we see things the way they really are: Jesus is Lord. And when we say “Jesus is Lord,” we’re also saying “Caesar is not.” You can’t serve two masters. You’re either going to love one and hate the other or despise one and be devoted to the other.  We know you can’t have both. So there are moral consequences and political ramifications for a people who define reality as the last being first and the first being last. In our economy, the poor and hungry and sick are the most blessed. In our view, as soon as you try to save your life, you’ve lost it. We take the side of the powerless over the powerful because Jesus views people differently than Pilate does. We’re living for the new heavens and earth where the blind see, the deaf hear, and all the outcasts are coming to the feast!

And that kind of witness is not always practical and it’s not always safe. That kind of message might wreck somebody. It’s dangerous. It might turn something upside down. “Jesus is Lord” means we’re on a trip through the back of the wardrobe, we’re into a different world, a totally different reality that requires a completely different way to live.

The world needs to see and experience the Gospel vision in us. Who else is loving enemies and forgiving murderers and giving away possessions and saying “no” to violence and pre-marital sex and saying “yes” to suffering and sacrifice for the sake of others? The world needs to see that from us. How else will they even begin to imagine it?

We’re not asking the question:  Is what we’re doing effective or practical? Is what we’re teaching offensive? Are the things we’re advocating acceptable? No, our question is: Are the things we’re doing and teaching and advocating true to the fact that Jesus is Lord?

“Let God be true and everybody else a liar.” ~Romans 3:4

The New Testament refers to the Church as saints, the people of God, the temple of the Lord, the household of faith, and about 85 other really high and lofty descriptive words and phrases. That seems very generous on the Bible’s part. The truth is, we have good days and bad days in the Church. We have good decades and bad decades. Actually, the Church has good centuries and bad centuries. We know that. We don’t claim to be right about everything all the time. We’re not immune to sin. We don’t know it all and we don’t have everything figured out. But one of the many things that’s right about the Church is that, by the grace of God, we are a community of faith that exists and acts in Christ. We are the alternative society that sees the world and responds to it differently. And that Christian witness matters.

Peace,

Allan

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