It was an honor to serve the Lord in this manner while also being afforded the privilege of ministering to that legislative body.  It was pleasure also to become acquainted with Rep. Roegner who serves as the representative for the district in which I live and serve.  She is an ardent advocate of continuing the practice of opening these sessions with prayer.  You may view a recording of this session by going to this link and then clicking on the session for April 30.  The following is the prayer I prayed that morning.

Lord God in Heaven,

May Your name be glorified because of Your faithful love, and because of Your truth.  May Your name be held in honor and be esteemed above all, for You are God above all, and we are your servants.

We confess, Lord God, that we are prone to love ourselves, to be wise in our own eyes, to lean on our own understanding instead of trusting in You, and asking from You that which we need.  Forgive us.

Thank You for these Your ministers who serve the citizens if this great state.  Thank You for their willingness to bear the heavy responsibilities of governance.  On behalf of them, we draw near to Your sovereign throne of grace, that we may receive Your mercy and Your grace to help us in our need.

You, Lord God, have ordained government to be Your servant for the good of its citizens. God, grant them wisdom to know the good they must do as they serve in this distinguished legislature.

You have said, “If anyone lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him.”  Lord, we want wisdom; we ask for that wisdom which is from above, a wisdom that is pure, peaceful, gentle, reasonable, impartial, sincere, and brings with it all the good fruits that ripen in this wisdom.

As these, Your servants, minister today in the business before them, help them to see what they do not see and understand what they may not now understand; enable them to wisely test everything, so that they may hold fast what is good.  Grant them success in all their endeavors to improve civil conduct, to suppress that which is vile and profane, and to support religion and the promotion of virtue.  Heal the divisions, and repair the breaches.  Grant, we pray, the safe and righteous continuation of our state government.  Let Your gracious blessing attend to that which they do, that peace, and truth, and righteousness may be established in our days and secured for our future generations.  Guard us from the pursuit of short-sighted victories that yield long-term consequences of greater hardship.

May You, Lord God, help us to order our affairs with discretion and to behave wisely; may these who serve give attention to the way that is blameless, and walk with integrity of heart as individuals, and together as a governing body.

As they minister before You, may they faithfully fulfill the responsibilities to which they were elected by the people and to which they were ordained by You.

Thank You.  This prayer I offer to You, Lord God, in the name of and upon the merits of Jesus Christ.  Amen.

Rep. Roegner repeatedly asked me to pray for those who serve in the state legislature.  Perhaps after you read this post you might want to pause and pray for your own state and national leaders “to rule well so we can be quietly about our business of living simply, in humble contemplation” (1 Timothy 2:2-3, The Message).

Reblogged from Ponderings from the Parsonage:

My personal answer is that is came from trying to get some service for my phone and internet. My land-line phone wasn’t working today and neither was my internet for a while. I found that out when I tried to log on to our provider’s site and update some information. I couldn’t log in. Then I tried to call, but my call got cut off. So I pulled out my cell phone and dialed my way through the menu but never talked with anyone personally. Just when I was getting close to being able to talk to an actual person I was told that I would incur a service charge if I did talk with a real, live person. I hung up because that sounded ridiculous. Determined that I had to figure out what was wrong, I called again and forged my way through the labyrinth of menu options and finally got a live, human voice who told me it was not a billing problem because my bill was current.  She transferred me to technical support and I once again got a live voice, not from around here, but from somewhere out there. They knew me only by my account number and name on their computer screen. Their personal touch was to call me “Mr. Mark” in a dialect I had difficulty understanding. This person wasn’t able to fix my problem but gave me a phone number to call since my problem seemed to be a local connection issue. I called that number and got the same recorded voice and menu I had gone to previously. I was back at the beginning. So, I tried again to trace my way through the menu maze pushing button after button and option after option, running upstairs in between button-pushing to check on our other phone as instructed by the impersonal voice, and dutifully entering each number I was asked for. I am pretty sure that when everything was said and done I ended up making an appointment for a service technician later today. I think I know what time. I have no idea if I’m going to be charged for a service call. A service ticket has been produced somewhere out there for a nameless technician, and now I guess I’ll wait and see if anyone shows up. I think they are but I never actually talked with anyone to confirm it.  Talk about frustrating. Talk about feeling powerless.  Talk about wanting to drop this provider and go look for another one. I made the passing comment to my wife, “It’s stuff like this that makes post-moderns.”

Sometimes it seems there is no one to stand up for you, no one ready and willing to help you. You’re left on your own, alone, until you’ve had enough, and you rise up for yourself to fend for yourself, to assert yourself, to not be treated this way any more, to refuse to be a nameless number, to get some attention. It’s time to assert self.

Welcome to the world of post-modernism.

By the way, asserting self, in the long run, won’t work unless you’ve got a big mouth, a lot of money or a big army (the need for which will depend on the size of the problem)! I have none of the above. Honestly, I don’t need any of the above because I know that there is a God who is real, who is bigger than me, smarter than any bureaucracy, more powerful than any army, and who, for reasons known only to him, actually cares about me!

Him or me? As I see it, He is probably all that keeps me from plunging into the lostness of myself in this post-modern age!

The resurrection of Jesus Christ is the greatest moment in history. Out of curiosity I did an unscientific survey using Google to see what others deemed to be the most important events in history. As you might expect the answers were all over the place including world-wars, inventions, and revolutions.  Several mentioned Jesus’ birth and death.  I didn’t find any that specified His resurrection.  Many believe that the life of Jesus Christ was world-impacting. But the life of Jesus alone isn’t the most important moment in history. His resurrection is.

By his resurrection Jesus proved that he was who he claimed to be – God.  If He didn’t rise from the dead, then he isn’t God because if he didn’t rise from the dead he either had an over-inflated view of himself and his ability or he outright lied about what he could do. God doesn’t overstate his case and he certainly does not lie. If Jesus said he would rise from the dead but didn’t then he is morally inferior to God and thus not God.

If he didn’t rise from the dead then Death was greater than Jesus.  Nothing and no one is greater than God.  If Death is stronger than Jesus, then Jesus isn’t God.

If Jesus isn’t God, then he isn’t the world’s Messiah-Redeemer. He may have been a good man who brought hope to his people and set an example for the world. But death is universal and if it got him and held him, then it still reigns as our ultimate finality.  If Jesus isn’t the world’s Messiah-Redeemer, then we’re still waiting for him or her or it to come.  We’re still looking.  We’re still trying to figure out how this messed-up world can be fixed, perhaps even wondering if it can be fixed.

But Jesus did rise from the dead.  The world’s Redeemer-Messiah has come.

For three days his beaten, bloodied, pierced corpse lay in a cold, dark tomb.  No signs of life.  No breath.  No heartbeat. No movement.  Just an icy-cold body lying in icy-cold silence.

But suddenly the closed eyes of Jesus opened.  His body that was one moment a lifeless icy-cold corpse got up, pulsating with life.  Leaving the grave clothes behind he came out of the tomb.  He presented himself to those who knew him best (hundreds of eyewitness according to 1 Corinthians 15:5-8).  Jesus was alive.  Having gone head-to-head with Death he came out on top.  He swallowed up Death in victory.

Since the resurrection of Jesus has made possible man’s reconciliation to his Creator now and forever, and since his resurrection brought the guarantee of everlasting life, and since his resurrection opened the way on the other side of the grave to heaven, there can be nothing more important in history. The resurrection of Jesus means the hope of Christians does not rest in the legacy of a dead man’s teachings but in their spiritual participation in his actual resurrection.

When the eyes of Jesus that were closed in death awakened in life, that was the greatest moment in history.

We joke that New Year’s resolutions are made to be broken.  I guess we joke about it because the only other alternative is to  feel guilty about resolutions not kept and who needs that?  I’m sure that many of these resolutions are sincerely made.  The beginning of a new year seems a natural time to make these new-beginnings resolutions, as if the movement of the second-hand from 11:59:59 PM, December 31 to 12:00:00 AM, January 1 resets life for the next twelve months.  It’s a chance to try again with fingers crossed, hoping that this time it will all work out.

Why do we keep doing it – making resolutions we don’t keep?  Why do we act as if January 1 is a reset button?  I think part of it is that we have a keen sense that we haven’t become everything we want to be or are meant to be.  We know there are still areas of our lives that need improvement physically, relationally, financially, vocationally, and spiritually.  We know we can do better and be better and at the beginning of a new year we seem to want it enough to make resolutions to do something about it.  Additionally, I think we sense there is something more to be experienced in or accomplished through our lives.  We know it’s not time to retire from life.

I wonder what God thinks of it all.  I don’t know and won’t claim I do.  But since God is timeless existing in an eternal present, I’m inclined to believe that the annual transition from New Year’s Eve to New Year’s Day is irrelevant to Him. I can’t help but think that with God our annual resolution-making must be sort of like a 6-year old promising every morning to be a better boy or girl that day but to no avail by bedtime.

Do we just give up then?  Of course not.  It is true that there is more for us to know, to experience, and to become; we haven’t arrived.  It’s also true that we have some personal responsibility for our progress in the journey of life that requires our resolve.  But the answer isn’t a new beginning every January 1 that proves to be another false start.  Changed lives do not come through man-made resolutions but by divine regeneration.  I’m not saying people don’t experience change apart from God.  I am saying that the change that most needs to happen won’t happen apart from the regenerating power of God.  And that change is unleashed through the cross of Jesus Christ.  Real change comes through the death and resurrection of Jesus.  If you want to see change in your life this year, perhaps you should revisit again the wonder of what Jesus has already done through the sacrificial death of his own Son and his resurrection to new life.

In his book The Cross-Centered Life: Keeping the Gospel the Main Thing, C.J. Mahaney writes:

If there’s anything in life that we should be passionate about, it’s the gospel. And I don’t mean passionate only about sharing it with others. I mean passionate in thinking about it, dwelling on it, rejoicing in it, allowing it to color the way we look at the world. Only one thing can be of first importance to each of us. And only the gospel ought to be.

That’s how change happens.  It’s not so much through new resolutions as it is a return to what’s already been done.  The truth is there is only one time in a person’s life when a reset button is pushed and that is the day a person trusts in Christ for salvation for when that happens, that person becomes a new creation in Christ Jesus (1 Cor. 15:57).  That is a real new beginning, a real new start in a real new life.  More than making wishes that we conceal as New Year’s resolutions, what we need is the life-giving and life-changing power of Jesus flowing through us by His grace.  More of that is what I need.  More of that is what I want.  To that end and for that purpose and in that power let the resolutions begin!

I invite your feedback on making resolutions for the New Year.

Whose woods are these I think I know.
His house is in the village though.
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound’s the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

It’s been a good year.  It’s been a challenging year.  There is so much yet to be done in my family, friendships, and church, not to mention the people and the opportunities lying ahead of me that I know nothing of at this point in time.  One of the many things I enjoy about the holiday season is the opportunity to eventually slow down and reflect on what is and what has been.  But I don’t pause for long because a new year awaits.  As I look ahead I do so with anticipation, and with the keen realization that I have “promises to keep, and miles to go before I sleep.”

Christmas is an imminent threat, a a code red alert.  The secured perimeter of this old world has been penetrated by an outsider who has entered with the intent of overthrowing the existing powers.

No wonder Herod did what he did in Matthew 2:1-18.  When he heard about the presence of this intruder (Mt. 2:1-2) he set a plan in motion (Mt. 2: 3-8) with the intent of eliminating the threat altogether (Mt. 2:13).  When the wise men didn’t come through on their end of the deal (Mt. 2:12), Herod modified his plan accordingly (Mt. 2:16), resulting in the “Slaughter of the Innocents.”  In defiance of the fact that this was the Child to be born upon whose shoulders the never-ending government would rest, Herod proceeded to move against what the zeal of the Lord was performing, and he failed, leaving behind nothing but futile mayhem, murder, and mourning.

As awful as that was, frankly, Herod did what the natural instinct of any of us is when we feel threatened: protect what is ours.  A newborn “King of the Jews” was most certainly a threat to the existing king of the Jews.  Of course, the twist to this story is that the existing power, namely Herod, was evil, and the intruder, the newborn Jesus Christ, was good.  Christmas is a threat to evil.

Herod’s emotions, thoughts, and actions graphically illustrate Psalm 2, along with the response of the Lord God of heaven (from The Message):

Why the big noise, nations?
Why the mean plots, peoples?
Earth-leaders push for position,
Demagogues and delegates meet for summit talks,
The God-deniers, the Messiah-defiers:
“Let’s get free of God!
Cast loose from Messiah!”

The response of God to these defiant worldly, all-mighty, all-important, self-glorifying, God-rejecting authorities is laughter; not the laughter of mere amusement, but that of mockery.  Here’s what the psalmist declares:

Heaven-throned God breaks out laughing.
At first he’s amused at their presumption;
Then he gets good and angry.
Furiously, he shuts them up:
“Don’t you know there’s a King in Zion? A coronation banquet
Is spread for him on the holy summit.”

Incredulous laughter.  The thought of any mere human authority challenging God is absurd.  Can you hear the laughter?  It doesn’t sound like the earth-shaking thunder at Mt. Sinai.  No, this time it sounds like the gurgles and cries of a baby.

Let me tell you what God said next.
He said, “You’re my son,
And today is your birthday.
What do you want? Name it:
Nations as a present? continents as a prize?
You can command them all to dance for you,
Or throw them out with tomorrow’s trash.”

What might seem like the humiliation of God was actually a taunt to the superpowers of this world.  They shake their money-filled, sword-wielding, army-commanding, middle-finger-extending fists at God, and He answers with a baby, and in doing so shows that “the weakness of God is stronger than men” (1 Cor. 1:25).  Look at that baby in the manger who can’t even talk.  Look at the shrouded, lifeless corpse lying in a tomb.  That’s the Savior of the world!  That’s the Sovereign of the universe.

While Herod didn’t know the name of this newborn baby whose birth in Bethlehem had been foretold, he was smart enough to realize that this “king of the Jews” was a threat to his power, his kingdom, and his glory.  This Child had intruded into his domain, breached his security and must be eliminated.  No outsider was going to take away his throne.

Christmas, the celebration of the first arrival of Jesus, is a shot across the bow of the ship piloted by this world’s authorities declaring, “Surrender or die!”  Jesus came the first time in mercy, offering forgiveness and everlasting life to all who will believe.  The days of this world’s empires, all of them including the American empire, are numbered.  When He returns, they’re done.  It won’t even be a contest.  All it will take is a word.

Christmas is a sober reminder that Jesus lays claim to this planet and everything in it – its land masses, its resources, and its people.  That includes every nation and every person in every nation.  Everything and everyone is His and He will take what is His.  The Father said it’s His.  He made it.  He redeemed it.  There is a second Advent and it is imminent.  What Jesus demands is repentance and faith.  A person can bow now in the trusting surrender of love and adoration or they’ll bow then in vanquished, doomed terror.

So, rebel-kings, use your heads;
Upstart-judges, learn your lesson:
Worship God in adoring embrace,
Celebrate in trembling awe. Kiss Messiah!
Your very lives are in danger, you know;
His anger is about to explode,
But if you make a run for God—you won’t regret it!

Christmas is a Code Red warning.  Think of that every time you see a blinking red light this season.  You’ve been warned.

To speak or not to speak, that is the question, and social media is driving us in the wrong direction on this one.  I don’t blame social media.  Through it I’ve reconnected with friends from the past and found a great venue for communication with extended family.  It’s just that social media has made it a lot easier for more people to unleash a relentless barrage of meaningless trivia and deadly missiles for public consumption and subsequent indigestion.  We live in a time when, strangely, people feel they must not allow any thought to go unspoken or any opinion to remain unexpressed, both of which are often expressed with illogic and rudeness.

There is “a time to keep silence, and a time to speak,” according to the preacher in Ecclesiastes 3:7.  I don’t believe it’s accidental that “silence” comes before “speak” especially in light of James’ admonition that everyone “be swift to hear, slow to speak” (James 1:19).  A lot more silence would certainly increase the likelihood that when we say something it would actually be worth hearing.

One of the threads woven into the tapestry of the Advent season is silence.  Wonder will do that to you – silence you.  Preparation of the heart and mind requires it.  Not surprisingly, retailers refuse to cooperate with it because they want the ear of shoppers.  Christmas music might be sweet, but it’s not silence.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer helps us understand the need for silence with these words from one of his Advent meditations:

“In being quiet there is a miraculous power of clarification, of purification, of bringing together what is important.  This is a purely profane [i.e. nonreligious] fact.  Silence before the word, however, leads to the right hearing and thus also to the right speaking of the word of God at the right time.  A lot that is unnecessary remains unsaid.”

If you want to indulge yourself in a special treat this Christmas, open God’s Word and try some silence.  You won’t be the only one to enjoy it.