Clever Free Methodist

  The last Lectionary reading for 2022 is very appropriate for ending the year and anticipating the new months ahead. The two passages are from John 1, and 1 John 2. They are a contrast of thoughts to me.   The main focus comes from John 1:6-9 , “A man named John was sent from God. He came for testimony, to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him. He was not the light, but came to testify to the light. The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world.”   May we all make the sacrifice to invest more of ourselves into our faith and relationship with Jesus to ensure we powerfully illumine His Light into the darkness of this world. We need to be like John who testified to the light so that all might believe. The world needs to hear about the redeeming love of God. The world needs to see God through us.   As believers, we cannot “just exist” and go about our lives day after day with “self” as our main objective. There are so many people who still need

  We must go back into the middle of the first century (AD) to learn of St. Nicholas of Myra (modern-day Turkey). His “claim to fame” was that he was noted for his extreme generosity to the poor. In most cases, he would secretly provide for people in need. Either way, his kindness and passion for the disenfranchised earned his reputation.   Here we are, several centuries later, and with the help of Thomas Nast’s iconic painting of “Santa Claus” in 1881, with some help from the Coca-Cola bottling company, we have our “jolly fat Santa” immortalized in our imaginations today. Given all the historical evidence of the “real” Saint Nicholas and all the stories and legends of the “mythological” Santa Claus, he has to be, without a doubt, one of the most recognizable icons of the Christmas season.   Instead of thinking of Santa Claus as some blasphemous or sacrilegious replacement for the Christmas story of the baby Jesus, I honestly feel we can use the known characteristics of Santa to

  There is an obvious lesson written throughout the Scriptures when referring to God, by name. Reverence. Respect. Honor. We should handle the use of any attribute of God with the utmost sincerity and holiness. Psalm 34:3 , “Oh, magnify the Lord with me, and let us exalt His name together.” Showing the highest degree of respect to God applies to our recognition of who He is in both word and deed. This is why, before I learned this lesson I am sharing with you, I would cringe in disgust when people would “abbreviate” the holiday “Christmas” by taking out the name of “Christ” and replacing it with a big-fat-ugly “X!” It would never fail, at some point, to get a card, letter or email with the inevitable greeting, “Merry X-Mas!”   Either way, I always thought it grossly disrespectful to “x-out” the name of “Christ” from the word “Christmas.” However, as I have become a pastor and have studied the Biblical languages, I have come to discover that there is something quite liberating b

Anxiety. That word, alone, probably triggers a myriad of past experiences or even thoughts about current events and things we’re facing. The definition of anxiety is, “a feeling of worry, nervousness, or unease, typically about an imminent event or something with an uncertain outcome.”   I find it interesting that Jesus addresses anxiety in two distinct ways to caution us from letting anxiety paralyze us into ineffectiveness or to spiritually give up. Luke 21:34 , Jesus said, “Beware that your hearts do not become drowsy from … the anxieties of daily life….” Jesus is saying to trust in God and to keep our priorities in the right order.   Jesus connects two very different things in this passage: drowsiness and anxieties . Generally, anxiety would seem to be associated with insomnia rather than drowsiness. Cares and worries tend to keep us awake rather than lull us to sleep. We need to be very careful not to slip into drowsiness and laziness that says, “God will provide; I don’t nee

You are the Church. I am the Church. We are the Church together. That may sound familiar as many of us have sang these words in the song “We Are the Church” by Richard Avery and Don Marsh. The first verse is very powerful: “The church is not a building, the church is not a steeple, the church is not a resting place, the church is a people.” The Church is not an organization, but an organism. It is living. It is people. I like what the Free Methodist Church says about the church in its “Book of Discipline”  on page one: “It is clear from Scripture that the church is of God and for people. It is His creation. Christ is its head. The church is the people of God chosen for a purposeful partnership in accomplishing the will of God on earth.” This concept of the church makes it more understandable why Paul was so passionate in his letter to the Corinthians. 1 Corinthians 3:9, 16 , we see to powerful statements of Paul: “For we are God's fellow workers. You are God's field, God

I don’t think anyone who has faced being ridiculed or slandered has found it to be a pleasant experience. An attack on our worth or enduring a heated or unkind statement meant to hurt our feelings can be painful and crushing.   Dignity! That is a very important word. It is important because everyone has it within their possession and it is a gift to be honored and guarded, but not thrown away. Dignity is defined as “the state or quality of being worthy of honor or respect.” This is a quality that should be found within all Christians as they see all others as equal in worth and value in the sight of God.   God created us in His image which makes us all equal in worth and value. When we evaluate ourselves, we know we are not greater or less than any other person. We can be assured of being unconditionally loved by God. Psalm 139:13-14 , “For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb.   I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works ar

The Methodist denomination holds to the teachings of John Wesley and the grace of Sanctification. As followers of Christ, we should be growing, improving, and maturing in our faith, example, and reflection of Jesus.  The Free Methodist Church says, on Sanctification , in the Book of Discipline (Paragraph 119), “As believers surrender to God in faith and die to self through full consecration, the Holy Spirit fills them with love and purifies them from sin. This sanctifying relationship with God remedies the divided mind, redirects the heart to God, and empowers believers to please and serve God in their daily lives.”   That speaks of an ongoing battle between our natural tendencies to “please self” or to become more holy to “please God.” Galatians 5:24 , “Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified their flesh with its passions and desires.” By “the flesh,” the Bible refers to our fallen human nature.  When battling the “flesh” it must be remembered that both heart and mind n

  The Bible can definitely capture a wide range of our emotions as we read. Sometimes, that emotion is more of a convicting “sting” that suddenly stops me to think much deeper. In fact, I had to literally stop reading and forego the rest of the passage to do study and research on the particular verse that struck me so powerfully. One such verse came from a daily devotional reading that referenced a particular Scripture verse. It was Revelation 3:2 , “Wake up, and strengthen what remains and is about to die, for I have not found your works complete in the sight of my God.” This strong message to the Church in Sardis got my attention.   After just a short study, I realized how this connected to other warnings to keep alert. Hebrews 3:12, “Be careful then, dear brothers and sisters. Make sure that your own hearts are not evil and unbelieving, turning you away from the living God.” Then also, the warning of 1 Corinthians 10:12 , “So, if you think you are standing firm, be careful that

  As a Free Methodists pastor, I not only teach, but preach about three distinct kinds of grace that we can experience in our life with God: prevenient grace, justifying grace and sanctifying grace.   We most certainly want to progress to the highest form of grace which is sanctifying grace of becoming holy as God is holy (1 Peter 1:15-16). Sanctifying grace is the ongoing work of the Holy Spirit that changes us so that our lives are increasingly conformed to the mind of Christ.   The founder of Methodism, John Wesley, referred to this lifelong process of sanctification as becoming "perfected in love" or “going on towards perfection.” We must surrender daily to the world and to “self” to become more holy and like Jesus.   Sanctifying grace draws us toward Christian perfection, which Wesley described as a heart "habitually filled with the love of God and neighbor" and as "having the mind of Christ and walking as he walked."   What that means to me, is t

There is a lizard that loves to change its colors depending upon the type of environment it finds itself. We all know those masters of camouflage as the chameleon. However, this trait is not as flattering or acceptable as a follower of Jesus Christ.   The Lord does not believe in the separation of faith from life, church from business, and even church from state (as we mistakenly understand it).Our faith is not something we tuck away in our closets after Church on Sunday and then go about our week ahead.   We are not to be Christians on Sunday then wake up secular humanists on Monday. We must not be one way at church and different at home or work. Also, we don’t leave our faith at home and behave wildly just because we’re on vacation where nobody knows us. The Lord does not believe in spiritual split personality disorder.   Trust me, God is all about perfection and not dismantling and destroying. God did not make us “bi-polar spiritual beings” to flip-flop back and forth between the wo

There were several denominations who emphasized the ministry and passion of John the Baptist this month. His account is detailed in the Book of Luke in Chapters One and Three . John is clearly a pivotal figure in the salvation history of God. Although most of his formative years were lived in obscurity in the desert, his public ministry ended nearly four hundred years of prophetic silence. John was truly that voice “crying in the wilderness” preparing the way for the coming Messiah.  John preached the Good News without compromising his convictions or calling. This means going beyond the gentle, non-offensive sermon topics, and addressing the truth of the Good News that teaches repentance, freedom, healing, and restoration through Jesus’ death and Resurrection. John was truly a transitional Biblical figure, forming the connecting link between the Old and New Testaments. He spans the generations with one foot firmly planted in the Old Testament and the other squarely placed in the

I have to admit that it can be mind-boggling when I learn something new that changes the dynamics toward understanding something I have been accustomed to knowing nearly all my life. Especially, if it involves “re-thinking” parts of a fairly adaptable “memorization” from the church such as Psalm 23, The Apostle’s Creed, and even the Lord’s Prayer.   One such encounter led our church into a full-hour discussion as our Sunday School lesson. It was part of the Lord’s Prayer found in Matthew 6:13 , “And do not lead us into temptation….” What, exactly, does it really mean to “not lead us into temptation?”   I found is that it does not literally mean “keep me from being tempted.” The key word here is “temptation” which means “ trial ” or “ proving .” It has a stronger, spiritual meaning than a mere whimsical approach such as “help me resist the temptation to eat another slice of cake!” It also puts to rest that God is “messing with us” to see if we “take the bait” and choose to sin.   James

  The Sunday sermon. Just that statement, alone, provokes many different thoughts and opinions. It isn’t easy. The Pastor’s challenge is how to be faithful to the Scripture without diluting the truth to conform to the pressures of social norms, or the latest philosophical fads of progressive thinking. Also, there is the battle of not succumbing to the world of entertainment by downplaying the holiness of Scripture by the over-use of humor, theatrics and boisterous antics in the pulpit. Where’s the balance? We don’t want to bore our people to sleep? We really don’t want people to mentally check out on us….do we? How do we maintain interest and connect with people on a deep spiritual realm so that they desire to listen, learn, and become dynamic members of the church who reflect the light of Christ?   The dynamic involved is keeping the message simple . However, simplicity does not mean hovering in the realms of shallowness. Simplicity is not a “free pass” for the pastor not to study