Author: george gaffga

I am a retired Presbyterian pastor living in Colorado. My wife, Gigi and I are married 49 years. As an ordinary guy my life has been graced by God in many ways. We have three grown children and five grandchildren. I am trying to live with Christ day to day and though I sometimes fail miserably I am not giving up because God hasn't given up on me. I lead worship at a nearby Life Care Center and I assist at Eagle Bend Community Church where I occasionally preach and lead Bible Studies. I play some guitar, write music and have written a couple of devotional books that were best sellers in my local church. So journey with me and let's see what this life with Jesus is all about and why Grace Matters.

A New Sheriff in Town

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Matthew 5:6 ‘Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness for they shall be satisfied fully.’

Back in 1968 the Rev. Martin Luther King spoke these words about the Kingdom of God and justice: It’s all right to talk about “long white robes over yonder,” in all of its symbolism. But ultimately people want some suits and dresses and shoes to wear down here. It’s all right to talk about “streets flowing with milk and honey,” but God has commanded us to be concerned about the slums down here, and his children who can’t eat three square meals a day. It’s all right to talk about the new Jerusalem, but one day, God’s preachers must talk about the New York, the new Atlanta, the new Philadelphia, the new Los Angeles, the new Memphis, Tennessee. This is what we have to do. (from the Mountain Top speech)

Righteousness and Justice is not only for getting saved and getting into heaven. It is for now and for here. Of course Christ is our righteousness but he is also our Lord for our day-to-day life. People in Jesus’ day were looking for a Messiah to bring justice to their land. Jesus says that it happens in the Kingdom of God. Jesus made it very clear to his followers that they were to love each other in deeds done out of mercy. They were to be concerned for their neighbor, which basically meant anyone in need. They were to care for the sick, the hungry, the homeless and the imprisoned and well, really, anyone. So those who want to see things get right will indeed meet a friend in Jesus and Kingdom life will include right living, right believing, and right doing.

I often like to say that with Jesus’ entry into the world, ‘a new sheriff has come to town.’

Comfort from the King

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Imagine for a moment that Jesus is speaking to a group of people on a hillside.  He is offering them the Kingdom of God. He is the presence of the Kingdom of God and he is making his life, God’s life, available to anyone who wants to place his or her confidence in him. He is not challenging them to be a certain kind of character. He is addressing their character as they are and saying that in God’s Kingdom they are welcomed and they are blessed, favored as it were, by God.  He has already addressed those who are poor and now as he looks around he issues an invitation to another group of people who well may include those who are impoverished in spirit or material goods. Here’s what he says:

Blessed are those who mourn for they shall be comforted. These are the people who hurt. Some of them may think they deserved their lot. They hurt for themselves and perhaps for others. Their pain is deep and they see no relief. It may be thought that blessings come in the form of wellness and being pain-free but Jesus says that those who place their confidence in him, again the embodiment of the Kingdom of God, will experience the comfort of the Kingdom of God. Like the Psalmist they will say, ‘your love is better than life’(Psalm 63). And the comfort that these mourners will experience may come as a surprise to them in some form that brings happiness to their souls.

Jesus knows full well that the Kingdom has been mainly shut to such people as he addresses but he welcomes them, blesses them and will eventually call some of them to follow him. This is indeed the good news that was issued to shepherds, to Mary and to many who were waiting for the Messiah of God’s Kingdom. Let us, particularly we who hurt right now see our place in the embrace of God’s comfort.

Class is in session

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I would like to begin working with the Sermon on the Mount as one of the best expressions of what it means to live in the Kingdom of God. Matthew has written these teachings of Jesus in a wonderfully compact form for those who would be students of Jesus. At the end of the Sermon we find the words of Jesus that the strong and enduring people of this life will be those who hear and keep these words (Matthew 7:24-29).

The teaching begins with the Beatitudes in Matthew 5. There are countless interpretations of what these blessings mean. The one thing I will say is that I don’t think they are challenges to BE a certain way as much as a pronouncement of Jesus to those who are already in a certain condition. Jesus is making the Kingdom available to all those folks sitting in the crowd, some wanting to follow and perhaps some who are curious and maybe a few ‘detectives’ trying to figure out what to do with this Jesus.

So let’s get started. And please be welcome to write back with a correction, insight or different interpretation.

Blessed are the poor, for theirs is the Kingdom of heaven (Kingdom of heaven and of God are synonymous). The favor, the mercy of God is with those who are destitute of most everything (see also Luke 6). Jesus has come to show them the time of God’s favor and to let them know that they belong to the Kingdom. This is a world turned upside down for most people think they are blessed when they have something. Think of folks who, when something good happens to them, say, ‘I am so blessed’. They think it a sign from God of their righteousness with him but Jesus makes it plain that the opposite is true. God looks upon the brokenhearted, the beggars, and the spiritually impoverished who would like to trust in God’s son. They will know they are in the Kingdom of God. They will sense it, live it, and grow in it. Of course if they gain possessions it does not necessarily mean they have lost the way to the kingdom but they must ever be aware that only by the grace of God do they live.

 

 

BEGGARS

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Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a Lutheran Pastor and Nazi resistor in Germany. Even back in 1933 he stood against Hitler. He ended up imprisoned and executed for his role in the assassination attempts against the Fuhrer but even in jail he ministered to so many. His writings survived through the kindness of guards and good friends.

Consider the following letter from Bonhoeffer written from his jail cell in 1943: I think we’re going to have an exceptionally good Christmas. The very fact that outward circumstance precludes our making provision for it will show whether we can be content with what is truly essential. I used to be very fond of thinking up and buying presents, but now that we have nothing to give, the gift God gave us in the birth of Christ will seem all the more glorious; the emptier our hands the better we understand what Luther meant by his dying words: ‘We’re beggars; it; it’s true.’ The poorer our quarters, the more clearly we perceive that our hearts should be Christ’s home on earth.

I suspect that for many of us the time will come in some fashion when we are beggars thereby emptied of ourselves and more open to God. I pray that for all of us in these days of Advent and Christmas we can honestly say that we have nothing to give and instead receive the grace, the love and mercy that God extends to us in his Son, Jesus. Be assured that those who are humble and broken will be the first to taste of the goodness of God in this life and in the life to come. Amen

I have just been watching THE BIBLE: the epic series produced through the history channel and it’s quite wonderful. Be on the lookout in February for the movie, THE SON OF GOD, which I understand, comes in part from this series.

THE KITCHEN SINK, A PARABLE.

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Well, the other day my brother and I decided to install a new kitchen sink and countertop in his home. We have lots of tools but little wisdom or skill about how to use them. A daunting task awaited. I however went on YouTube. So now have more information but still not much skill to do a good job.

Enter the Master.

So I stopped at my friend, Dan’s, house who just happened to have the day free. Now, Dan is a Master Carpenter, meticulous in detail, and a gentle spirit to work with. So Dan offered to come and help my brother and me. Inside my heart leapt. And thus began our day. What a joy to work with someone who knows what they are doing. We called Dan the ‘Master’ and we became the apprentices for the day, watching, listening, learning and even doing (under the watchful eye of the Master).  Out came the tools. Dan has all the tools and the knowledge and skill to use them all. A framing square, special saw for cutting laminate. Even a router to trim the laminate edges that meet. And Dan abides by the rule ‘measure three times and cut once’. I said he was meticulous. And then Dan handed some of the tools to us to use under his careful supervision. Dan didn’t say it but we knew he meant for us to watch him, listen to him and then put into practice what he said to do.

And the end of the day there was installed a beautiful new countertop and stainless steel sink. We were all much satisfied as was my sister-in-law when she came home.

That day was a parable. See, you and I are students of the Master trying to carve out, build, repair and otherwise complete our lives here on earth in the best fashion possible and what we do matters here and for eternity, which is a tad longer than that new sink will last.

Jesus is our Master in this process we call discipleship. He knows his stuff. He wrote the book. He is a loving and skilled teacher as well as Lord. If we listen to him and put his words into practice we will do very well indeed. We will become craftsmen in our own right. Happy craftsmen at that. But we must surrender to him in matters of life and eternal life, in relationships, in work and in personal quiet times of prayer. We must stop thinking that somehow we can do life by ourselves. We can’t. We were made for him, created to live and work with him. (I thought of moving in with Dan but his wife had other plans.)

And Jesus doesn’t just give us good advice and send us on our way. He promises to be with us, to go with us, to share his life, wisdom and love with us as we live his life in this world.

But it all takes practice. It takes discipline. And sometimes we fall on our faces and botch up the job but he picks us up and says, ‘Let’s try that one again.’

Think about your life, relationships, and your temperament. Think about serving God and then go to the Master, say, ‘ take my life and let it be consecrated to thee.’ (This is a wonderful hymn by Frances Havergal.)

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SUFFERING

Someone once said that suffering is getting what you don’t want and not getting what you do want. Suffering is loss. It comes in many forms and even as you read this I am sure you can think right now of something in your life or in the life of someone you love that qualifies under the heading of suffering. The origin in Latin has the sense of ‘bearing under the weight of something.’ Such burdens seem often unbearable. Grief is the body’s mechanism for distancing us from being absolutely crushed by the burden we experience.

According to Scripture suffering is sometimes permitted by God as we read in the Book of Job. Suffering is sometimes seen to be caused directly by God, as was the case with Pharaoh or with the disobedient people of Israel. But come the New Testament and we seein this new age a vision of God who is in the process of alleviating suffering through the coming of his Kingdom in the presence of Jesus, his Son.

Jesus doesn’t answer the question of suffering except to show its demise through miracles of healing that are signs of the coming of God’s Kingdom. The resurrection of Jesus demonstrates the end of death and evil ultimately.

Paul writes in Romans 8 that suffering comes into all the creation and that creation will one day be liberated and this liberation can be seen in the faith and hope of believers even now. And of course we all have the opportunity to alleviate some suffering. We are commanded through love to minister to one another and to the world. See Matthew 25.

And we come to understand that Jesus is the face of a good and gracious God. The Scriptures say, “God commanded light to shine in the dark.” Now God is shining in our hearts to let you know that his glory is seen in Jesus Christ. 2Cor. 4:6

This good work of God is displayed in Christ, his life, his teaching, death and resurrection and promised coming. We are invited to know and understand this work. We cannot thrive on emotions, which are fickle. We live on faith that is based upon knowledge. In 2Peter 3 we are encouraged to grow in grace and in knowledge.

Suffering is a reality. It hurts like hell. But the Kingdom of God life bathes this world in an overwhelming reality that Christ is even now conquering the evil that suffering might think to do in our lives.

We don’t need to go to the school of suffering. Most of us are in that school right now or have been or will be. But we do need to go to the school of Christ and learn Christ, learn his dealings with pain and suffering, learn his love and the goodness of his Father.

Gas In Your Tank

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Recall that Jesus said, ‘The truth will set you free.” Truth is not true because we believe it but because it is reality. And knowledge of truth is a great freedom giver. I heard Dallas Willard tell of the person who believes there is gas in their tank (when there is none) as they begin a long drive. He goes on to say that truth is what the person will run into down the road a ways. On the other hand if that person knows the reality of their tank being full of gas, they will know the truth and they will be set free from guessing or just believing or even hoping.

In the same way Jesus tells us that we should know the truth, John 8:31 To the Jews who had believed him, Jesus said, “If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. 32 Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”

Jesus on another occasion said that he was in fact ‘the truth’. Here he invites people to embrace what he says, telling them that to live in such a way will give them freedom to be alive in this world without worry or fear. There is a certainty to life in Christ. Not arrogance but a certainty to which he has invited us. That to live in him means we understand such things as love, forgiveness, going the extra mile, giving of our treasures and having no fear of what death might be able to do to us.

So fill your tank today and drive on. There’s a lot of life to experience.

 

Black Friday Alternative

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Well, now I am more than tired of hearing about Black Friday and the whole black week before. I even heard recently that a family had to change its Thanksgiving plans to accommodate shopping on Thursday. While I realize that some folks make their living by these sales days and Christmas I am thinking that when Jesus said ‘where your treasure is there is also your heart’ he wasn’t talking about Christmas shopping. It’s in Matthew 6 where he says that we should not lay up for ourselves treasures on earth but to invest in things that make a real difference in people’s lives. Invest in that which we think Jesus would invest in.

The man who had to place to lay his head would surely suggest we don’t need one more gadget when there are such acute needs of people in our world.
So I have informed our family that while we love them we are not exchanging gifts because my wife and I want to give generously to some opportunities that will make hopefully a difference in people’s lives for the better. I write this to all of you not to showplace our good deeds but rather to let what we do in our own little way encourage you all to do the same.
We are going to give some significant amounts to work in Haiti, especially a school that makes a difference in the lives of young children. And we are giving a gift in memory of a precious young woman named Lindsay who, in her early twenties, died this past year of ‘alveolar soft part sarcoma'(ASPS)  This is a cancer that is not as thoroughly researched as other cancers because it is so rare. But it ravages people’s lives and brings heavy grief to their families. I am hopeful that more awareness will bring more research and hope. Young Lindsay does not need to have died in vain if a cure is on the horizon. If you want to help find a cure for ASPS here are two good organizations you can give to: Lola’s Love and the Sarcoma Alliance

Saved? Yes, and not Yet.

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So I am thinking of an analogy to help with the idea of salvation and discipleship. Here it is. You have been arrested in a foreign country and deposited down a deep dry well to wait our you days. There is no escape, no way for you to claw or climb your way to the top of the well. And so you wait and pray that someone will come along and rescue you. Oh, some passerby sees you but leaves as others too come and regard your plight for in this foreign land there is no willingness to help this stranger, you.
Suddenly someone appears at the well  and calls down to find out if you are alive and ready to come out. You breathe a sigh and a thank you and soon you are on your way up the side of the well and over the top and safe in the arms of this stranger. Saved. Saved? Not quite. You are still in a foreign land. The rescue is a major step to freedom but not the last one. The stranger tells you to follow him, do what he says, place your confidence in him for the rest of the journey. One day at a time. ‘Every day’ he says, ‘there are new plans for reaching a place called home, but there is no need to know them until the day presents itself.’ Are you ready for this journey?
What does the analogy mean? Oh, I am sure you have guessed it by now. Being saved is a lot more than having your sins forgiven, being rescued from darkness. It is a life long journey with Jesus as the Master teacher. He was sent by God to not only rescue you and me but to lead us, guide us through the darkness of strange foreign territories to a land promised to all who will follow. The rescue is just the beginning.
There’s tomorrow and tomorrow and the next day and well, you get it. As each day unfolds there is a new opportunity, some would call challenge, to follow the Master. We are not ‘home’ yet but we are on the way and all the while, well, home has been implanted in us so we are never without hope.
So keep on keeping on, as they say.

Are You Conscious?

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Are You Conscious? There are two ways one may go through life, conscious or unconscious. The unconscious person is the one who lives by the world and by one’s own ego. This is the person who says they can see well and all the time they are really blind. This is the one who is in charge of his or her own life. This one is he or she whose ‘self’ is dependent on the relationship to the world either in accord or in reaction. This ‘self’ has no idea how to be ‘not of the world’ and thus whether he or she knows it is so much a part of the world even in the name of religion.

The conscious person is one who is blind but inwardly sees. Jesus once told the religious leaders that the reason they were truly blind was because they said they could see. They saw only what they wanted or were able to see. (see John 9:41) The conscious person is truly aware of their self that stands in opposition to the self that is Christ in them. The conscious person is not afraid of their ‘selves’. They know that to see is to look past that self into the Kingdom of God where the self is truly loved and nurtured by none other than the community of God which we term Father, Son and Holy Spirit. This is the conscious person who can truly love for their self is not at stake anymore. The person of Christ has been formed in them.

Perhaps this is why Jesus said to Nicodemus (John 3), ‘no one can see the Kingdom of God unless he or she is born again’. In order to be conscious and see clearly we must receive our birth from God. We are invited to new eyesight that is Kingdom seeing. The world around us is bathed in the Kingdom of God where righteousness and joy and peace and love reign supreme. But we keep slipping into unconsciousness, which takes less effort actually than being conscious. Being conscious requires discipline of the body and mind. Lazy people are unconscious. They have their routines and even religious observances to numb them to the Kingdom of God. The great thing about being conscious is that all we need do is seek it, want it and pursue it. Was Nicodemus willing? We think so by how the whole story ends.