Please pray that for me!

 Paul, a prisoner for Christ Jesus, and Timothy our brother,

To Philemon our beloved fellow worker 2 and Apphia our sister and Archippus our fellow soldier, and the church in your house:

3 Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

4 I thank my God always when I remember you in my prayers, 5 because I hear of your love and of the faith that you have toward the Lord Jesus and for all the saints, 6 and I pray that the sharing of your faith may become effective for the full knowledge of every good thing that is in us for the sake of Christ. 7 For I have derived much joy and comfort from your love, my brother, because the hearts of the saints have been refreshed through you.  

(Paul's letter to Philemon) 

Paul's Prayers are inspiring!  He gives us ideas on how to pray for others, and even ourselves. What a list: grace, peace, love, faith and the ability to share it in an effect way, joy and the ability to be a refeshing influence on believers around us.  I'll pray that for you. Please pray that for me. 

More than Mere Courtesy...

12 When I send Artemas or Tychicus to you, do your best to come to me at Nicopolis, for I have decided to spend the winter there. 13 Do your best to speed Zenas the lawyer and Apollos on their way; see that they lack nothing. 14 And let our people learn to devote themselves to good works, so as to help cases of urgent need, and not be unfruitful. 5 All who are with me send greetings to you. Greet those who love us in the faith. Grace be with you all. (Titus 3)

Letters, no matter how personal, seem to develop "normal", traditional, standard form endings, such as "respectfully yours". What can set them apart, and keep them from becoming a mere formality is the additional details added to them, and the relationship behind them.  Think about what Paul is saying here: "I had to write these things to you, but I can't wait to see you in person. I am concerned about Zenas and Apollos, and other fellow believers in need. Everyone here greets everyone there. I am praying that God will give you the grace you need just like He is doing for us here."

These are words and thoughts of deep relationship in Christ.  There is mutual respect, and more.  May the words we write, and the words we speak, carry with them such love, grace and affection wrapped up in God's Grace. 

Let God Bring Out the Good

Remind them to be submissive to rulers and authorities, to be obedient, to be ready for every good work, 2 to speak evil of no one, to avoid quarreling, to be gentle, and to show perfect courtesy toward all people. 3 For we ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, led astray, slaves to various passions and pleasures, passing our days in malice and envy, hated by others and hating one another. 4 But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, 5 he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, 6 whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, 7 so that being justified by his grace we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life. 8 The saying is trustworthy, and I want you to insist on these things, so that those who have believed in God may be careful to devote themselves to good works. These things are excellent and profitable for people. 9 But avoid foolish controversies, genealogies, dissensions, and quarrels about the law, for they are unprofitable and worthless. 10 As for a person who stirs up division, after warning him once and then twice, have nothing more to do with him, 11 knowing that such a person is warped and sinful; he is self-condemned. (Titus 3)
The big word in this paragraph is "good." We know that, apart form Christ, we are not good, but God in His Goodness has laviously sent His Son, Who poured out His love for us, Who in turn poured His Holy Spirit into us. All of this goodness of God should then flow out of us.  Good works, Good words, Good attitudes.  God wants us to "be good" and "do good" not as a way of works righteousness, but because it reveals what He, by His grace, has poured into us.  As vessels, we also need to make sure we do not mix in any of the old, the bad, the verse 3, and 9 10 types of stuff, into our lives. They are not good, and therefore to not be a part of us.  May we humbly thank God for all this good, and let Him flow it through us for all to see, and to glorify our good, great God. 

Grace Training

11 For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, 12 training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age, 13 waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, 14 who gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works. 15 Declare these things; exhort and rebuke with all authority. Let no one disregard you. (Titus 2)

Grace: It's a word we use a lot around the church. Rightly understood, it makes all the difference in the world for our lives now and eternal.  We are saved by grace, santified by grace, serve by grace.  The same power of Christ which is able to save us from sin, death and hell is also able to help us become the people he intends us to be here and now, holy and patiently watching for His return.  Just as we must accept the Grace of God in Christ for our salvation, we have no excuse for not accepting His daily grace to say no to sin and yes to all He calls on us to do today.  May the grace of God guide and enable us today. 

Adorning Sound Doctrine.

But as for you, teach what accords with sound doctrine. 2 Older men are to be sober-minded, dignified, self-controlled, sound in faith, in love, and in steadfastness. 3 Older women likewise are to be reverent in behavior, not slanderers or slaves to much wine. They are to teach what is good, 4 and so train the young women to love their husbands and children, 5 to be self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind, and submissive to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be reviled. 6 Likewise, urge the younger men to be self-controlled. 7 Show yourself in all respects to be a model of good works, and in your teaching show integrity, dignity, 8 and sound speech that cannot be condemned, so that an opponent may be put to shame, having nothing evil to say about us. 9 Bondservants are to be submissive to their own masters in everything; they are to be well-pleasing, not argumentative, 10 not pilfering, but showing all good faith, so that in everything they may adorn the doctrine of God our Savior. (Titus 2)
Doctrine is more than something you teach or learn. It is something you wear. True, sound doctrine is life-changing and countercultural. It goes against the flow of this self-centered world in which we live.  Sound doctrine lives for others. It means that we live as examples, that the "older" men and women (in age and in the faith) live godly lives which can be caught as well as taught to younger generations. It means that young adults understand that today matters - that God has called us to self-control which is the result of Spirit-control, and that true love is about concerning ourselves with the needs of others, not our wants. As we begin this day, and go out into our week, may we wear the Gospel well. 

Detestable, Disobedient, Disqualified

15 To the pure, all things are pure, but to the defiled and unbelieving, nothing is pure; but both their minds and their consciences are defiled. 16 They profess to know God, but they deny him by their works. They are detestable, disobedient, unfit for any good work. (Titus 1)
Paul was giving Titus quite a challenge. He was to appoint elders from amoung a people known for impurities in their lives, their speech, and their theology. Purity matters. That is a fact when it comes to water, the ingredients in the supplements we take, and much more so in who we choose to listen to as our leaders.  In the paragraph before this one we saw that all followers of Christ are called to do their part in the body. But the first thing we must all do is commit ourselves to following after Christ; then we fit together with the other members.  This of course, does not demand that we all reach sinless perfection before we can serve God; it simply means we all must be committed to pure hearts, pure minds, and pure hands as we serve Him side by side. May we all have that attitude in our hearts: purity matters. Let's come clean before Him. 

Accepting Your Place

5 This is why I left you in Crete, so that you might put what remained into order, and appoint elders in every town as I directed you— 6 if anyone is above reproach, the husband of one wife, and his children are believers and not open to the charge of debauchery or insubordination. 7 For an overseer, as God's steward, must be above reproach. He must not be arrogant or quick-tempered or a drunkard or violent or greedy for gain, 8 but hospitable, a lover of good, self-controlled, upright, holy, and disciplined. 9 He must hold firm to the trustworthy word as taught, so that he may be able to give instruction in sound doctrine and also to rebuke those who contradict it. (Titus 1)
Titus is not as well known as Timothy, yet we find he played vital roles as an assistant to Paul in spreading the Gospel.  He was critical in helping Paul restore his relationship with the Corinthian church, and he was sent to Crete to build up and stablize that church body.  It appears it was not going to be an easy task. Cretans were not known for their great character, and it sounds like Titus would be "picking up the pieces" of what was last after some disaster.  Welcome to real church. The fact is God calls us all to do some part, our individual parts, in the task of building up the Body of Christ, and building is... work, labor, hard, and it takes time.  But the work really needs to be done and you, yes you, have some part in it. Be thankful. Be visionary. Be loving. Do your part out of love for Christ.

Grace and Peace... you're gonna need it!

To Titus, my true child in a common faith:

Grace and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Savior.

(Titus 1)

Paul told everyone he wrote to that he prayed for them. (The only reason we doubt that is because of how often we fail to pray for those we tell we will...) Often before that prayer he would give this blessing, this pre-prayer if you will: "I am asking God through Christ to give you Grace and Peace... because I know in your situation you're going to need it!" We all truly do. Grace: God's ability to do what we cannot: endure trials, make decisions, give when we think we have no more to give, be saved... and on we could go.  And Peace: that inner calm that we know all is well because God is, God cares, God can, God has, and God will.  "Children in the faith", children of God, trust in and cling to those truths. May we believe and receive His grace and peace in such a way today that at the end of the day we will say: "Look what God has done, just like He said He would." 

The Timeliness of God...

 1Paul, a servant of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ, for the sake of the faith of God's elect and their knowledge of the truth, which accords with godliness, 2 in hope of eternal life, which God, who never lies, promised before the ages began 3 and at the proper time manifested in his word through the preaching with which I have been entrusted by the command of God our Savior;

4 To Titus, my true child in a common faith:

Grace and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Savior.

(Titus 1)

"In His time, in His time..." It's more than a catchy chorus from the 70s... The timing of God is a doctrinal fact.  God knows what He is doing, and He wants us as His people to get a sense of His timing.  In his greeting to Titus, Paul presents this awareness of the timeliness of God when he talks about eternal life, things promised before the ages, and the proper time.  He was hoping that Titus would be convinced that God had him in the right time at the right place with the right mission, much like Esther, Joseph and others have been throughout Biblical history. God does not just "show up" haphazardly; neither do His people or the oppurtunities He gives us to see His hand at work: providing, protecting, preparing, and using us for His glory.  So often we are rushing through life so much ignoring Him that we miss how much His timing is always right.  We're the ones off-beat, out of step, and racing against time. 

The Breath of Life...

5 When no bush of the field was yet in the land and no small plant of the field had yet sprung up—for the Lord God had not caused it to rain on the land, and there was no man to work the ground, 6 and a mist was going up from the land and was watering the whole face of the ground— 7 then the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature. (Genesis 2)
God-Given Life.  It is more than a fact.  It should drive our perceptions and decisions about our lives and the lives of others.  Today is a sacred day - the celebration of human life - that God made us, with a plan in His heart and mind for us.  He made us and then made the garden for us. He had and He has big plans for us.  He values us.  May we value what He values. Live life today being thankful for life - yours, and those around you. May He give us a new appreciation today of life, and a joy to live it well. 

Dying to Live...

20 I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. (Galatians 2)
Sometimes those advertisements really do get you thinking. Like the one that compares retirement age (almost 67) to average life span (78). The looming question is: "Why work so long to enjoy only that final fraction of your life, when you are not at your peak?"  Our gut reaction is to "go for all the gusto you can get", live for the now, and unwittingly fall into a life of selfish squander.  But what if we die first? Then we don't have to worry about it, and we can really enjoy eternal life beginning now.  Dying to oneself. Trusting in Christ's righteousness to "get us in" when we get there.  Let's start living - really living - by letting Christ live out in us His good will.  Let Him "put to death" those things that keep us from experiencing the abundant life He provides and promises. May Christ be our all in all. 

The Second Day...

13 Then on the second day the heads of fathers’ households of all the people, the priests and the Levites were gathered to Ezra the scribe that they might gain insight into the words of the law. 14 They found written in the law how the Lord had commanded through Moses that the sons of Israel should live in booths during the feast of the seventh month. 15 So they proclaimed and circulated a proclamation in all their cities and in Jerusalem, saying, “Go out to the hills, and bring olive branches and wild olive branches, myrtle branches, palm branches and branches of other leafy trees, to make booths, as it is written.” 16 So the people went out and brought them and made booths for themselves, each on his roof, and in their courts and in the courts of the house of God, and in the square at the Water Gate and in the square at the Gate of Ephraim. (Nehemiah 8)
Welcome to the second day of the week. It is often overlooked as the second day, but often mistaken for the first day. It seems to get lost in series of seven days, like creation, or the days Israel marched around Jericho, or the days in feast weeks - becoming almost meaningless.  The first day of creation or the week have always been prominent, as has the third day - when Israel finally defeated rebellious Benjamin and Christ defeated the grave. But what about the second day??? It has its place. Today is the day we see if we have learned anything on the first day. As people go back to work (and usually back to school) on the second day, it is a time to apply what we learned yesterday, and to dig deeper into how to apply God's Word to our week. These people above came back for more. They were not satisfied with a weekly dose of truth, but followed up their worship celebration with ongoing devotion to God and His Word. The second day is the second first day of the week. Make the most of it. 

Where's the Happy?

19 So then we pursue the things which make for peace and the building up of one another. 20 Do not tear down the work of God for the sake of food. All things indeed are clean, but they are evil for the man who eats and gives offense. 21 It is good not to eat meat or to drink wine, or to do anything by which your brother stumbles. 22 The faith which you have, have as your own conviction before God. Happy is he who does not condemn himself in what he approves. 23 But he who doubts is condemned if he eats, because his eating is not from faith; and whatever is not from faith is sin. (Romans 14)
Here we are, the third Sunday of January, and I wake up singing in my mind: "We wish you a merry Christmas, and a Happy New Year." What is a happy new year? And what is happy? If you look up "happy" in the Bible, there is not a lot of happy to go around.  Interestingly, there is more in old translations, like the King James, and more references in the Old Testament in the New. (In the newer ESV there are eight in the OT and zero in the NT). The passage above is the only reference in the NT in the New American Standard Bible. To be sure, we have other words like "blessed" which mean truly happy, and joy, which appears much more and is a much richer, deeper term.  But not happy. But that's okay. As Paul is addressing the Romans about whether it is okay for them to eat meat and drink wine which was a part of pagan worship, the key issue is selfishness. When we live selfishly, there is not a whole lot of true happiness.  NOtice that we are to be pursuing those things that make for unity and edification - focusing our lives on not what makes us happy, but others. Happiness happens for us when we know we have done all we can to please God and minister to others. So beware of thinking this happy new year is all about you. That's not happy. 

Making Claims...

53 Are you greater than our father Abraham, who died? And the prophets died! Who do you make yourself out to be?” 54 Jesus answered, “If I glorify myself, my glory is nothing. It is my Father who glorifies me, of whom you say, ‘He is our God.’ 55 But you have not known him. I know him. If I were to say that I do not know him, I would be a liar like you, but I do know him and I keep his word. 56 Your father Abraham rejoiced that he would see my day. He saw it and was glad.” 57 So the Jews said to him, “You are not yet fifty years old, and have you seen Abraham?” 58 Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am.” 59 So they picked up stones to throw at him, but Jesus hid himself and went out of the temple. (John 8)
Claims. I've had enough of them for this week.  We have insurance claims, claims made by advertizing, and claims of politicians.  But this claim I like. I know it is true, and it makes a profound difference in my life - my eternal life. Jesus claimed to pre-exist Abraham, making himself more than a mere man. And He used wording which made it clear: He was claiming to be God. That is why He could speak with authority, perform miracles, and offer salvation. His claims were true, and beneficial to all who would listen, trust, and receive them.  His claims also make us who are His followers pause to examine any claims we make. Are they true, to be trusted? Are they consistent with what we do and who we are?  May our claims be like His.