Virtual Bible Study: 1 John 5

Welcome to the this week's Virtual Bible Study!

First Step: Read the Text. (This doesn't take too long).

This Week’s Reading is 1 John 5. You can read it here.

Second Step: Lesson/Focus Text

And this is the testimony: God has given us eternal life and this life is in his Son. He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life. 1 John 5:11-12

Really living!

I am fascinated with science’s search for life on other worlds! Recently I read an article about a Mars probe that will be launched to seek out signs of microscopic life on Mars! The probe will land on the poles and begin to search for extremeaphils, little bacteria who enjoy living in the worst places! That’s not all. With the recent discovery of so many extra-solar planets, the chances of finding other life in the universe have gone up exponentially. In time we will discover countless worlds rich with water and oxygen. Personally I think deep down inside, that there is other life, even intelligent life, out there in God’s Great Universe! God is too great to have only created life here on earth!

Still one question has always troubled me. What is...life? What is the definition of life? Is it the ability to reproduce? A self-propelled movement of cells? Is it the intake of nutrients and the expelling of waste? Is that life? What makes a human being alive? Is it their heart beating or their brain working? Is it the ability to think, to talk, to act? Or is it just the ability to remain alive by themselves? Is that life? What does it mean to be truly alive?

That question is at the heart of so many debates storming our country today. From the definition of life before birth to the sad end of life at death. It is also question that John addresses in this last chapter of his first letter. John asks the question: What is life? And what makes us alive? Truly alive? Is life more than just the in and out breath? Is there more to life than a heart beating in our chest or the firing of neurons in our head?

John thinks there is more to life and that “more” is found in one place: Jesus Christ! Faith in Jesus separates those who are alive, truly alive, from those who aren’t. Faith in Jesus Christ brings life to the dead! Gives eternal life to mere mortals. Those who believe that Jesus is the Son of God have this life and those who don’t believe...don’t!

This might seem rather harsh to us 21st Century Christians. We look around at our neighbors and friends who don’t believe in Jesus and think: “But they’re living, right? They’re alive just like I am? They breathe and function and live their lives? They have friends and relatives, loved ones. They cry and love and live just like I do. What makes me so special?”

But are they really truly alive? Do they have eternal life? John would answer no because Christ Jesus is “the true God and eternal life.”(vs. 20) Those who reject Christ “make God out to be a liar because they have not believed the testimony God has given about his Son.”(vs. 10) Eternal life is found with Christ alone and it is only through Christ, with Christ, and in Christ that we are ever truly alive.

Imagine it like this. You, in Christ, are riding the ocean in a raft while others, who are without Christ, struggle to swim the current. You are safe. Nothing will harm you. While your neighbor without Christ isn’t so safe. The current is rough and it will take a miracle for them to survive. Even now sharks are swimming around them. Now, which one in this scenario is truly alive? Is it the one swimming to save themselves? Or the one safely aboard the raft? And what would be the loving, kind, and compassionate thing for the rafted one to do here? Let the poor people drown? Or encourage them and invite and bring them the aboard the raft where life, even eternal life, even, is?

One writer put it this way: “Existence is universal, but life is given by Christ.” We could look at it this way. In order to truly live...to live life as God would want us to live it...it must be in Christ. Our existence is meaningless without him. We need an infusion of John in our churches today. An reading of his letter reminding us where our life is hidden, who holds our lives in His hand, and what our mission in this life truly is. Amen.

Third Step: Questions to Ponder...

1. Think of a person in your life who is apart from Christ, who might now know Jesus Christ as Lord of their life. How might you approach that person and invite them on the raft? What words and actions would encourage them to believe in Jesus Christ and come to him?

2. Do you agree with John that life is found in Christ Jesus alone? Or not?

3. What benefits and life have you found personally believing in Jesus Christ?

Fourth Step: Email(if you like) your responses. You can just reply to this email or email it here.

Fifth Step: Close with prayer...

Almighty God, you sent Jesus to be our life and bring us into your eternal life. Give us courage to reach out to our neighbor with boldness and confidence, proclaiming the goodness of Christ who has brought us from death into his eternal life. Amen

Next week: A new book! The book of Amos! See you next week!

Devotional Study: 1 John 4

Welcome to the this week's Virtual Bible Study! This week we're discussing 1 John 2.
Let's get started!

First Step: Read the Text. (This doesn't take too long).

This Week’s Reading is 1 John 4. You can read it here.

Second Step: Lesson/Focus Text

Listen to our theme verse sung here.

Beloved let us love one another. For love is of God and anyone who loves is born of God and knows God. They that do not love, do not know God. For God is love. 1 John 4:7-8

Being a Care-Bearer

Twenty years or so ago, a line of stuffed bears came out with their own television show. The bears of all different colors, all had a white stomach, but each had a different symbol stitched on its belly. On tv they could be seen riding in cloud cars and staring down at people through star glasses. They were called...the Care Bears And their mission was to help people care. Their biggest enemies were the things that stopped people from caring for each other. In fact, the weather in their world changed based on how people cared for one another. When people were caring, their weather was great. When people stopped caring, dark clouds would fill their skies.

We might have grown past the Care Bears, but their message and mission remain with us today. We are told to care! To care about people and how they are doing. To care about what is happening in their lives. To be present for them in good times and in bad. To care!

But our mission doesn’t stop there. It’s not enough to just care mentally about other people. We are called to extend ourselves to them in physical ways too and show them what is in our hearts, what the Bible calls, compassion.

Most of us have heard of compassion but few of us practice it. Compassion is a composite word made up of com= together and passion = suffering In other words, to be compassionate is to suffer with someone else. To bear their suffering within our own selves. To be present for them physically, emotionally, and spiritually. To be there for people when they have no where else to turn to.

This can be a daunting task. It’s one thing to say that we love and care for our neighbor, it’s quite another to actually suffer with them. We’re use to saying we love our neighbor. That is the polite and politically correct thing to do after all. But to actually DO something for them? To share their suffering ? Most of us flinch away from that.

Why? Because it inconviences us! It barges in on us. It takes us away from our cabin in the woods or the camping trip we’ve planned and places us smack center in people’s lives! It moves us from centering ourselves on ourselves and our own agenda and pushes us into the lives of other people. It makes us care and hurt and love and suffer as our neighbors in Christ are suffering.

It might seem difficult...even impossible...but it’s what the Bible calls us to do. In fact, the Bible says that if we AREN’T really caring about them UNLESS we do so materially. John writes in the last chapter: “Dear children, let us not love with words and tongue but in action and truth.” (1 John 3:18).

Compassion is shown to us best in how God loves us. John repeats this over and over again in our chapter today.

1) This is how God showed his love for us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him.
2) This is love: not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be an atoning sacrifice for our sins.
3) We love because he first loved us.

We are called to show compassion to others even as Christ has shown compassion to us! And that is hard! It’s hard...but simple! It’s hard to break out of our own selfish shells and go next door with a bowl of fruit to show our neighbor some compassion! But it’s such a simple gesture. It’s hard to reach out to the sick and needy and even to those coming home from surgery, and offer up a meal to them! It’s hard...but so simple. It’s hard to send a card to someone suffering, or to pick up the phone and ask if everything is okay. It’s incredibly hard to sit with someone as they wait or help them with daily tasks and suffer with them...but it’s also so simple.

Compassion is hard...but simple. And it’s all around us! One woman who never even goes to church brought a couple bowls of food to another woman at the death of her sister! A couple families teamed up together to help another family move into town. Still another group of families helped an elderly woman put her roof on her home. A team of people help out the poor through a project they call Hope. And still others assist at a home for the mentally disabled.

What are you doing to show compassion to your friends? Your family? Your church community? Your co-workers? Your boss? What are you doing to extend yourself to suffer with them? Anything? How does your love take on physical form to serve the neighbor God has placed at your doorstep?

Third Step: Questions to Ponder...

1. List three things you have done to suffer with someone else this week? This month? Today?

2. What times in your life do you feel the love of God most strongly? Are you alone in these times? Or with other people?

3. Who has been Christ to you in your life? How have they suffered with you and bore your burdans?

Fourth Step: Email(if you like) your responses. You can just reply to this email or email it here.

Fifth Step: Close with prayer...
Compassionate God, you came down to suffer with us without us even asking. Help us reach out in love and compassion to our neighbors to suffer with them and bear their burdans, in Christ our Lord. Amen.

See you next week! :)

Devotional Study: 1 John 3

Welcome to the this week's Virtual Bible Study! This week we're discussing 1 John 2.
Let's get started!

First Step: Read the Text. (This doesn't take too long).

This Week’s Reading is 1 John 2. You can find it here.

Second Step: Lesson/Focus Text

“How great is the love the Father has lavished on us that we should be called children of God. And that is what we are!” 1 John 3:1

Listen to our theme verse sung here!(Just click on Audio)

Living as Children of God!

My children and I belong to a noble family. A family that extends far into the past, back to Ancient Prussia even! It’s a family whose relatives are scattered throughout the world. Uncles and aunts, brothers and sisters. Even we don’t know where they all are!

We belong to the family of Dohles and as a Dohle there are certain things that are true of us. For one, there are certain physical characteristics. Our Dohle family has a very prominent forehead and a certain eye shape that makes us all look kinda alike. In the emotional department, we all seem to have a temper. Maybe that comes from our rich German blood. Relationship-wise, we all have a strong sense of family. Our family means something and is important to us. We would rather hang out with our family than with all the friends in the world. And spiritually, we all have a strong faith in God and, whatever form that faith takes, that faith informs and strengthens our lives. We are Dohles and these things make us who we are.

We are also children of another family too. A family that includes people of every tribe and language throughout the world. A family known as the family of God! It’s amazing, when you think about it, how God has lavished us with his love that we are called his children! Think about what that means! If we are children then, like children are, we are heirs of God! And we share all that God has! We are the ones God enjoys hanging out with and playing with! We are the ones He takes pictures of and hangs on His walls in the Heavenly courts. We are the ones that God brags about and admires and loves and enjoys! We are God’s children... Wow!

And like children in any family, there are certain common family characteristics that you can see in all of us. Certain things that make us appear like God’s children. Maybe not physically so much, but definitely spiritually and emotionally. And these characteristics give us a glimpse to who is in God’s family and who isn’t.

These common characteristics God’s children all share are really quite simple. Those who are children of God “...believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and...love one another as he commanded us.”(vs. 23).

Look around you, St. John says. Wherever you see these two things happening, you’re seeing the children of God at work. When you sit in a soup kitchen or help out your neighbor. When you’re involved in a community action group or distribute clothing to the needy. Wherever you are among people loving and caring for each other, you’re around God’s children.

And this love is shown in very concrete ways too. It’s not about professing your love for your neighbor with your mouth or even liking him as a person. It’s what you do with your stuff that matters. “If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him. Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth.”(vs. 17-18). In other words: Our family resemblance is shown in what we do with what we have, how we love our needy neighbor and act toward others, and whether we reach out to those in need or ignore them and go about our day. That is how we show we are God’s children. Those are the marks of faith and the hallmarks of our adoption. That is what is means to be God’s children in the world.

May God open your eyes to the needy neighbors around you that the world may know the lavish love God has for you in calling you children of God!

Third Step: Questions to Ponder...1. What are distinguishing characteristics of your family? What makes you different than other people in other families?

2. “And this is his command: to believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and to love one another as he commanded us.” (vs. 23). Do you agree with John? Or not? Are these the distinguishing characteristics of children of God? Or are there others that he hasn’t listed here?

3. What concrete things in your community could you do to demonstrate the love of Christ in you? What neighbors are in need where you live?

Fourth Step: Email(if you like) your responses. You can just reply to this email or email it here.

Fifth Step: Close with prayer... Lavishing loving God, you have called me a child of God and claimed me as your own. Give me your Spirit that I may truly love others in word and deed through Christ Jesus my Lord. Amen.

See you next week! :)

Devotional Study: 1 John 2

Welcome to the this week's Virtual Bible Study! This week we're discussing 1 John 2.
Let's get started!

First Step: Read the Text. (This doesn't take too long).

This Week’s Reading is 1 John 2. You can find it here.

Second Step: Lesson/Focus Text

And now, dear children, continue in him so that when he appears we may be confident and unashamed before him at his coming. 1 John 2:28

Ready or not...

For the last month or so I have had a list tacked up on my wall. I call it my: “Before Surgery” list. It is all the things I want to finish before I have hernia surgery on June 7th. After that date I know I won’t be able to lift anything or push anything and, since there is a whole lot I need lifted and pushed before then, I made a list of everything I wanted to finish.

For the most part I have succeeded. I moved books and boxes a couple weeks ago. The patio got cleaned. The basement swept and cleaned. Other things, odds and ends, have been finished. And I’m ready... Ready as I’ll ever be at least... for my surgery tomorrow morning at 7am.

Getting ready for my surgery reminds me of the chapter from 1 John that we have before us today. Today John is getting the congregation ready for Christ’s Second Coming. In a way this is his “Before Christ Comes” list. For the most part, the congregation has done well... Only...there’s a few things still left to be done.

The first is the cleansing of the congregation itself. This may seem odd to us considering the wide range of opinions we find in our own congregation. But in John’s congregation here, there are some there who are leading people astray. They are teaching things contrary to what the apostles have taught. Most are claiming that Jesus is not the Christ. These, John calls, the Anti-Christs.

Anti-Christ is something we usually hear in reference to the End of Time. Movies often will capitalize on the antichrist as the devil’s son or daughter out to destroy the faithful and bring about armageddon. But actually Antichrist has nothing to do with the end of the world. The word doesn’t even appear in the book of Revelation! It appears, instead, here in John’s first letter referring to those who deny Jesus as the Christ. Those people, John writes, are the antichrists because they are perpetuating a lie, namely that Jesus is not the Christ.

Top on John’s to-do list is this: Remain in Christ. John says it like this: “See that what you have heard from the beginning remains in you. If it does, you also will remain in the Son and in the Father. And this is what he promised us–even eternal life.”(vs. 24-25)

Remain in Christ. That’s how we get ready for the end of the world. Remain in Christ and in Christ’s teaching. Remain steadfast in faith. Despite the raging world around us. Despite the signs and wonders we see. Remain in Christ, steadfast in faith, and then, when he appears, we may remain confident and unashamed before him.
That I believe is very difficult. It’s easy to prepare for something you can plan for. My Before Surgery list was easy...because I knew when it was coming. I could gauge what I wanted to finish with how much time I had. I knew that if I put too much on that list, it would overwhelm me and I would finish none of it. But with the knowledge of that deadline, I could plan and arrange my schedule so that I finished everything on time.

But we have no deadline to fall back on. No knowledge of when Christ will return. He may return tomorrow... or next Tuesday...or he may return for us at our death...but when will that be and how...God only knows. And so we plan and organize our lives around a deadline that doesn’t exist with a to-do list that is simply: “Remain in Christ.” No wonder we get sidetracked so easily! No wonder we get busy with our own lives and our own schedules and forget about God. God’s deadline doesn’t even factor into all of it. If we knew that Christ would return for sure on December 21, 2012, we would know how to organize our lives. But we don’t.
And so we wait, trying to remain faithful to Him. Confessing to him that we cannot do it on our own. Realizing that we will fall asleep in the night and forget about him amid all our vacation planning and busyness, but realizing that we rest in God’s mercy both now and forever. Come Lord Jesus! Come quickly Lord Jesus and end this cycle of waiting! Amen!

Third Step: Questions to Ponder...
A: People make, what they call, a "Bucket List" sometimes, things you'd like to do before you die. What's on YOUR bucket list?
B: What are you putting off to tomorrow?? What have you procrastinated in your life?
C: If Jesus returned today for you, would you have any regrets? What would you have wished you had done? If you were given the next 24 hours to live, what would you do with your time?
D: How have you remained in Christ?

Fourth Step: Email(if you like) your responses. You can just reply to this email or email it here.

Fifth Step: Close with prayer... Lord Jesus, I know that at any time you may return to carry me home. Help me use the this one glorious, precious life to your glory. Keep me steadfast in your Word that I may endure to see your return. In your Holy Name I pray. Amen.

See you next week! :)

Devotional Study: 1 John 1

Welcome to the very first Virtual Bible Study! This week we're discussing 1 John 1.
Let's get started!

First Step: Read the Text. (This doesn't take too long).

This Week’s Reading is 1 John 1. You can find it here.

Second Step: Lesson/Focus Text

If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word has no place in our lives. 1 John 1:8-9

True Deception

When do they learn it? When do they learn to lie? I’ve often wondered that as I watch my children grow up. The youngest I could see. She learned how to lie from her older brothers. And the middle one probably learned it from his older sibling. But where did William learn it? When did he figure out that NOT telling the truth would help him?? I don’t remember sitting him down and teaching him how to deceive. But he does it, still. Is it school? His friends? No... can’t say that it’s passed that way either. Especially since he started doing it before he had friends!
Maybe it stems back further than my children. Further back even than my wife and I, and our parents and our parents parents. Maybe it stems back to the beginning, when our great... grandparents, Adam and Eve, first encountered God in that garden and, when asked what they were doing, said... “Nothin...”. Maybe deception can be traced back there where Adam and Eve both told God(and themselves)... “I didn’t do anything wrong...”
Wherever it comes from, deception is with us today. Lying happens with everyone and to everyone. Even doctors get lied to! Lying happens, most times I think, when we are trying to protect ourselves. It happens as a defense mechanism, shielding us from the consequences of our actions. It happens to make us look better than we are, to spruce us up a bit, and provide a barrier between the person we ARE and the person we WISHED we were.
Still the worse deception, according to the Bible at least, isn’t our deception with work, or our friends and relatives. It’s not even trying to deceive God, no the worse way we are deceptive is with ourselves!
This chapter from 1 John states that quite plainly. “If we say we have no sin we deceive OURSELVES and the truth is not in us...” When we make ourselves look better than we are, when we claim we have no sin, or at least a good excuse for our sin, we deceive no one but ourselves. We tell OURSELVES, “Self... you’re just fine! You deserve to be selfish! You deserve this. Self...you’ve done nothing wrong! Everyone does that at one time or another. Self...you can take care of yourself! Eat, drink, and be merry!”
Of course the only one who is deceived is ourselves. God isn’t deceived! God knows sin where God sees it. And God sees sin in us. It doesn’t matter how much we cover it up or create excuses for it. Sin is still a sin. As they say in the South, “You can put makeup on a pig, but it’s still just a pig!”
That’s why confession is really so important! Confession helps us realize the truth FOR OURSELVES! Not for anyone else. Confessing our sin and our wrongdoing is a service we do, not for God or for our neighbor, but for ourselves. We tell the truth to ourselves. And when we do, when we realize that we cannot do it alone, that we have tripped over our feet more than we’ve danced. When we admit our wrongdoing and admit that we have no excuse for our behavior, then “God is faithful and just and will forgive our sin and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”
Confession is admitting: “Yes! I need you, God! I can’t do this on my own!” It’s saying: “I messed up...and I need forgiveness.” And it’s realizing that we cannot by our own reason or strength believe or come to Jesus Christ. It has to be God!
Confession is a wonderful thing to do for yourself. Consider it a soul make-over! A chance to wash off the old mask you’ve plastered on your face and to put on the new, eternal, everlasting face of Jesus Christ our Lord.

Third Step: Questions to Ponder...
A: The first step to overcoming any obsticle is overcoming denial. The problems we can admit we have are the ones we can fix. What problems are you denying in your own life?
B: Dr. Phil often says: "Those who have nothing to hide, hide nothing." What are you hiding from yourself? Does it help to know that God already knows you better than you know yourself and has already accepted and forgiven you?
C: What role does guilt play in all of this? Have you ever felt guilty for something inconsequential? Have you ever not felt guilty over something you really did wrong?

Fourth Step: Email(if you like) your responses. You can just reply to this email or email it here.

Fifth Step: Close with prayer... Lord Jesus, you have loved me in my sinfulness and have taken that darkness to the cross. Help me come to terms with who I am so that, in my heart of hearts, I may know whose I am as well: yours forever! In your most Holy Name I pray. Amen.

See you next week! :)

Interlude... Preparing for the Summer...

Dear Devotional Friends,

Summer is a season for projects. A season to finish things we’ve put off doing and going places we’ve put off going. It’s a relaxing season for me at least and provides an opportunity to do things that, through the rest of the year, are impossible given our busy schedules.

This summer I pondered a question. What could I do that would make this summer stand out, give me a sense of accomplishment, and enliven and deepen my faith? I pondered many things...until I came up with this.

This summer I’ll tackle books of the Bible I’ve never really read closely before!

I wanted to choose something simple...yet challenging. Something from both the Old Testament and the New and would together span the summer months.

Thus the Holy Spirit led me to choose these two books. John’s first letter in the New Testament(1 John) and the book of Amos. These books are featured in the lectionary we read in church, but are seldom preached on or pondered over. This would provide the frame to engage the summer in.

I invite you on this journey with me. A journey that will take us deeper into Scripture than we’ve been before. A journey Scripture led, where the words written so long ago will help us look differently at the world of today.

Before each week’s devotion, I will give you a link to the Bible chapter of the week. Follow the link. Read the material. Engage scripture. And see if it doesn’t open our eyes and help us see the world as God does.

So... are you ready to open God’s Book of Life??

Pastor Bill