“Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies? Yet not one of them is forgotten by God. Indeed, the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Don’t be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows.” – Luke 12:6-7 (NIV)
When did you feel forgotten by God? How did it make you feel? Were you really forgotten? Since sparrows are important to God, how important are people? What does that mean about how we treat people?
In Matthew’s Gospel Jesus mentions that two sparrows are sold for a penny. Here he talks about five sparrows being sold for two pennies. Sparrows were the animals poor people could afford to buy for sacrifices. The rich people bought doves, and lambs, and other things that cost more, but the rich would never buy a sparrow. Sparrows were so insignificant that if four sparrows were bought a fifth was thrown in for free.
Jesus is saying that the sparrow that is thrown in, the left over sparrow, the sparrow not even worth half a penny matters to God. Then Jesus says, “Don’t be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows.”
This worth did not come from what we have made of ourselves. It did not arrive because we worked hard for it. Our worth comes from God because God loves us! Perhaps it is too simple to believe. We still try to come up with reasons why we can be considered important, or at least more important than others. We still take others for granted and fail to see the worth in them that God sees. We still dwell on our faults far more than our strengths.
Yes perhaps it is easier to believe in a God who requires us to make ourselves worthy, after all that is the way the world sees us. What would the church look like if it were a place where people rejoiced in others because God’s love makes them worthy? I do not know, but I am going to pray that I find out.
With hope and joy,
Garrett
Showing posts with label free. Show all posts
Showing posts with label free. Show all posts
Wednesday, February 8, 2012
Thursday, January 6, 2011
Our Christian Hope
He will swallow up death in victory; and the Lord GOD will wipe away tears from off all faces. – Isaiah 25:8 (KJV)
O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? – 1 Corinthians 15:55 (KJV)
What do these words mean to you? Do you live life free from the fear of death? Have you seen anyone who lived in such a way? What were they like? What does this say of Christian hope?
Tom Long told the following story in his sermon, “A Living Hope”:
In her beautiful book, “Intensive Care,” Mary Lou Weisman tells the moving and tragic story of the death of her fifteen-year-old son, Peter, from the terrible disease, muscular dystrophy. She tells about an astonishing thing that happened right at the moment of his death. Peter’s body was completely paralyzed in the final stages of his disease, and the delirium of death was taking over his mind in his last few minutes of his life. He was moaning, random and disconnected in his thoughts. His voice, wrote Mary Lou, “sounded so far away, so lost.” But then, suddenly, in a surprisingly clear voice, Peter spoke directly to Larry, his father.
“Daddy, what does ‘impudent’ mean?”
Bewildered and frightened, Larry and Mary Lou looked at each other. What could this strange question from their dying son possibly mean?
“Daddy, what does ‘impudent’ mean?”
Even though he had tears streaming from his eyes, Larry answered Peter matter-of-factly. “Impudent. Son, impudent means bold. It means shamelessly bold.”
Peter paused for a moment, death closing its grip on him, and then he said, “Then put me in an impudent position.”
And sure enough, just before their son died, Larry and Mary Lou, positioned Peter’s arms and legs in a posture of bold defiance, an “impudent position” in the face of death.
I suppose the question for us now is how might we live in an impudent position as we go about life? Our Christian hope in the defeat of death allows us look over a chaotic world while we exist in it and know that God is not done! The last word is not death, nor disease, nor war, nor troubles, nor persecutions, nor anything of the vast array of evil that wishes our depression and our defeat. The last word is the One we call the Alpha and Omega, the First and the Last, the One who defeated death itself. Therefore we can stand as a resurrection people and in an impudent position, ready to take on the trials of life with the hope of God!
With hope and joy,
Garrett
O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? – 1 Corinthians 15:55 (KJV)
What do these words mean to you? Do you live life free from the fear of death? Have you seen anyone who lived in such a way? What were they like? What does this say of Christian hope?
Tom Long told the following story in his sermon, “A Living Hope”:
In her beautiful book, “Intensive Care,” Mary Lou Weisman tells the moving and tragic story of the death of her fifteen-year-old son, Peter, from the terrible disease, muscular dystrophy. She tells about an astonishing thing that happened right at the moment of his death. Peter’s body was completely paralyzed in the final stages of his disease, and the delirium of death was taking over his mind in his last few minutes of his life. He was moaning, random and disconnected in his thoughts. His voice, wrote Mary Lou, “sounded so far away, so lost.” But then, suddenly, in a surprisingly clear voice, Peter spoke directly to Larry, his father.
“Daddy, what does ‘impudent’ mean?”
Bewildered and frightened, Larry and Mary Lou looked at each other. What could this strange question from their dying son possibly mean?
“Daddy, what does ‘impudent’ mean?”
Even though he had tears streaming from his eyes, Larry answered Peter matter-of-factly. “Impudent. Son, impudent means bold. It means shamelessly bold.”
Peter paused for a moment, death closing its grip on him, and then he said, “Then put me in an impudent position.”
And sure enough, just before their son died, Larry and Mary Lou, positioned Peter’s arms and legs in a posture of bold defiance, an “impudent position” in the face of death.
I suppose the question for us now is how might we live in an impudent position as we go about life? Our Christian hope in the defeat of death allows us look over a chaotic world while we exist in it and know that God is not done! The last word is not death, nor disease, nor war, nor troubles, nor persecutions, nor anything of the vast array of evil that wishes our depression and our defeat. The last word is the One we call the Alpha and Omega, the First and the Last, the One who defeated death itself. Therefore we can stand as a resurrection people and in an impudent position, ready to take on the trials of life with the hope of God!
With hope and joy,
Garrett
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