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Category Archives: Daily Devotions
Burned Off
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The Best Retirement Plan Ever
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Burned Off
1 Peter 1:6-7 “In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, 7 so that the tested genuineness of your faith– more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire– may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.”
No pain, no gain! That’s what they tell me. And, when I was a coach, that’s what I told them, my runners I mean. It’s trite, but very true. If you want to succeed in the heat of the race, you need to have trained, put in the time, pushed through the pain, burned off the excess.
The same principle applies to boiling water. If you found yourself in the wilderness without any safe water to drink, you would boil the water to burn off and kill the impurities. The same is true of gold.
That’s the image that Peter uses in talking about the Christian’s trials in this life. You can’t purify gold without melting it down and burning away the impurities. So the Christian’s faith, to be perfected, must be tested by fire. God does this for the goal of bringing us to that last day safe and sound so that our faith might result in praise and honor and glory (that would be his praise and honor and glory since He is the one who did all the work) on the last day.
Peter encourages us that in the midst of trials we need not despair, we should not give up, we should not complain as if God were being unkind to us. Rather, with our eyes fixed on Jesus our Living Hope and the resurrection on the last day, we can rejoice for by sending us trials, by turning up the heat God is refining your faith, he is burning away the impurities, burning away the self reliance, burning away the love of the world, burning away everything except pure, simple, faith in Him in His cross, in His suffering, in His forgiveness. So rejoice! It won’t be long! And after all, no pain, no gain!
In Christ
Pastor Ude
The Best Retirement Plan Ever
1 Peter 1:4-5 “1 Peter 1:4 to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you who by God’s power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.”
“Now is the time!” “Don’t put it off!” “Invest in your future.” So go the calls to start saving, to start planning for the future, for retirement, for those “golden years.” I’d say it’s pretty good advice. And yet even the best retirement plan, even the most careful, the wisest investments are no sure thing. The stock market can crash. The home you invested in could burn to the ground. Some say you should invest in Gold, that it’s the surest thing. I’m reminded of Ron Swanson who invested heavily in gold and buried it. But even gold can fail you. For one thing it can be stolen!
We long to have certainty, to have something we can rely on and yet everything about this life is perishable, defiled and fading. And those “golden years”? Even if you have all the money you could want to enjoy them, it won’t be too long before your body fades and perishes.
The only true Gold standard for your future is what Peter refers to here. The inheritance which is yours through Christ. It is guaranteed to you through His Death and Resurrection. No stock market crash can change that. It is given to you through faith which is God’s work in you. A faith which is guarded for you by Christ himself so that none can come and steal it away. This inheritance is the resurrection to eternal glory. Those truly will be the golden years. An unending retirement. Unfading glory in the presence of Christ Himself. He is your living hope. He is the gold standard.
In Christ
Pastor Ude
A Living Hope
A Living Hope
1 Peter 1:3, ” 1:3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.”
Emily Dickinson wrote, “Hope is the thing with feathers That perches in the soul, And sings the tune without the words, And never stops at all, And sweetest in the gale is heard; And sore must be the storm That could abash the little bird That kept so many warm.”
While there is real beauty in her words, she is not writing about the same thing that Peter writes about. What he speaks of is something much sweeter. Miss Dickinson is speaking about human hope, it’s something God created us with, a certain perseverance and joy in trials looking forward to a time when things will be better. It’s that thought “Maybe things won’t always be like this.”
Peter is speaking about Jesus. He is the one who arose. He sings the song of salvation. He never stops because He died and rose and never dies again. His voice which speaks “Peace!” Is the sweetest song on earth and it continues on even the sorest storm and even in the greatest gale. Nothing can stop it. For it isn’t a “maybe things will be better” it’s “I know that my redeemer lives.” It’s “He lives and grants me daily breath, He lives and I shall conquer death.” It’s the certainty “shall I grieve or could the head, rise and leave his members dead?” It’s proof, a sure knowing, an unbreakable, undimmable, unstoppable hope which lives on forever because He lives. We have been born again to this hope. We have been connected to it in Baptism. Christ beats eternal in the Christian breast.
In Christ
Pastor Ude
Elect Exiles
1 Peter 1:1-2, “Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, To those who are elect exiles of the Dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, 2 according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, in the sanctification of the Spirit, for obedience to Jesus Christ and for sprinkling with his blood: May grace and peace be multiplied to you.”
If you have ever been exiled, it probably made you feel rather the opposite of elected. The other day I was at the park with my daughters. There was a group of older children there and one of them, a boy, was upset because the others had said he was out of their “club” because he had refused to swear. He had not been chosen, he had been exiled.
The Jewish Christians Peter was writing too would have understood this quite well. They had been scattered abroad to other countries that were not their home. They lived, as Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob did – as sojourners and wanderers in foreign lands. Peter uses that here to remind them of the fact that ultimately wherever they live on this earth, they are strangers here. For Christians might be in the world, but must not be of it. And no matter where we live, we are sojourners for heaven is our home. We are exiles. Exiles from the world because we are not like them, are not of them, and do not belong with them. That is not really because they have exiled us though, it is because we have been chosen and called out from among them by God. That is what the word “elect” means, that God has chosen you out of the world and called you out from them. This is what the Church is. The greek word “ἐκλεκτοῖς” (translated here as “elect”) has the same root as the word used of the Church. And so the Church has always been. We are at one and the same time, called away from the world, to be with God. We are called in the foreknowledge of the Father who decided in His own grace and good pleasure that He wanted us. We are called for sanctification by the Spirit to live differently than the world lives. We are called to obey Jesus Christ, to believe in Him and follow Him until death. We are called out to have our sins washed away in His blood.
And so we are different. And that might seem at times to be lonely. We might long in our sinfulness to be more like the world. But remember you are not just exiles, you are elect exiles! You are not different because the world has exiled you but because God has called you out from the world, to something much better. You are chosen. Remember it. Live it. Amen. In Christ Pastor Ude
You Are What You Worship
Isaiah 44:1-22 – https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Isaiah+44%3A1-22&version=ESV
“You are what you eat” is a trite and yet rather true phrase. If you eat too many carrots, your skin really will turn orange. If you eat nothing but fast food, you’ll probably have a fast life (and I don’t mean that you’ll just drive a fast car). What you consume has a major impact on you. It shapes you.
The same is true of the God you worship. Isaiah points out here the foolishness of false gods, particularly the practice of worshiping idols. He says to the idolator, “Umm…you literally just made that yourself. It is deaf, dumb, blind, and dead.” As the psalmist said “all who worship them become like them.” And that is true of every false religion. Those who worship the god that Mohammed made up will become like him – nothing. Their lives will be useless. All their laws and “good works” as non-existent as their man-made god. Those who worship money will become like it: cruel, untrustworthy, treacherous and vain. Those who worship themselves will be like a dog chasing it’s tail.
But those who worship the true God? Those who believe in Jesus Christ Son of God and savior of the world? They become like Him. For He has chosen them. They become Sons of God in Baptism. Their sins are forgiven, blotted out at the cross (V. 22) and they are declared holy and righteous just as He is. His Spirit is given to them (V. 3) and unites them with the Eternal Trinity. He sanctifies them and leads them to be transformed into the image of the Son. And when He comes again, they beholding His fully glory will be transformed to be just like Him, for they will see Him as He is. All who thus hope in Him purify themselves just as He is pure! You are what you worship. Worship Christ.
In Christ
Pastor Ude
Salty Talk
Colossians 4:6, “Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer each person.”
Usually the phrase “salty” as applied to how a person talks is not really a good thing. The way a sailor might talk, for instance, would be known as “salty.” Paul has something different in mind here. Salt makes everything taste better doesn’t it? I hope I never have to cut back on salt for blood pressure reasons cause man would meat, eggs, pasta, cereal (wait, not cereal), soup all taste so much blander. Salt is the spice of life! Most of the time, I find myself sprinkling a little salt on a dish before I even taste it!
Grace is the salt of a Christian’s speaking. Here the translators used the english adjective “Gracious” but really in the greek it’s a noun “grace.” Paul is telling us that grace is our go to word. It’s what we should be steering every conversation towards, it is what should be on the tip of our tongue, ready like a salt shaker to sprinkle on every conversation we have. We should speak because of God’s grace toward us, about God’s grace toward us, and in a way which is consistent with God’s grace to us. Then we will know how to answer anyone we could ever meet. Because in the end, grace is what everyone needs. It is the grace of Christ Jesus who shed his blood for us which is the salt that preserves and gives flavor to our lives. His forgiveness is the salt which makes everything better. And the doctor will never advise you to cut it out!
In Christ
Pastor Ude
Redeeming the Time
Colossians 4:5 “Walk in wisdom toward outsiders, making the best use of the time.”
In the season of Epiphany we remember that Jesus is the light of the world. And the light once said “Work while it is day. Night is coming when no one can work.” We often hear people encourage us to “seize the day” to live life while you can. Paul encourages us to “redeem” or “make the best use of” the time. And by that he means ‘Walk in wisdom towards outsiders.” That would be the wisdom we heard of in the sermon from 1 Cor. 1:18-31 yesterday – the Wisdom of the Cross. It is foolishness to those perishing but the power of God to those who believe. It is that which redeems us. And it is that which can redeem those who are outside the Church of Christ. It is that which can bring them in. Live then in wisdom towards them. Looking for opportunities to redeem the time by telling others how Christ has redeemed the world!
In Christ
Pastor Ude