Day 40 : Jesus Creed Grace

For many years I thought the “heroes” of the Bible were the most upstanding, honest, trustworthy people of their time. I never thought people like Mary, John and Peter (as well as Moses and Jonah and David) were perfect, just real close to it or why would God have selected them in the first place?

During the past 40 days reading and sharing with others “Living the Jesus Creed”, Mark 12:29-31 has been reinforced for me in various and enlightening ways. But McKnight left the “coup de grace” (pun intended) for Day 40 when he speaks of grace.

We know we are to love God and love others and in church or in small groups of Christian friends, that’s a relatively easy thing to do. How tough that becomes for the remaining 165, or so, hours of the week! (though I am usually ok when I am asleep so that helps).

As Jesus told his followers what they did wrong, he always followed up with grace and forgiveness that offered hope and allowed perseverance.

None of us have earned God’s grace. None of us deserve it. But he gives it to us anyway because he loves us.

Some days that is easier to remember than others. So when we fall short of loving God and loving others as we should, thru the blood of Jesus Christ, we have      the opportunities to try, try again.

As the song says, “It’s all about grace. God’s grace”.

Grace and peace,

Don Meckley

Today’s chapter, #37, is titled “Love Serves”.

In the evening, have you ever looked back on the day and asked yourself, “Who did I serve today? Who served me? Can I learn from their example?” Makes us think about how we serve each other in often small ways. On the day I wrote this, I visited a friend who needed company. And I came to him with a problem I was facing that I knew he could advise me. So often, serving means a smile and a caring ear – being present in each other’s lives. Being present means being flexible with my daily agenda so I can focus on serving someone or being receptive to the spirit in them that is serving me. Jesus teaches us that we were created to serve, not be served. Yes, we should not expect or demand service, or expect service in return, but following the golden rule, we should also be open to God’s love given to us through others.

Serve is a verb — an action that discerns others needs and meets those needs. One can serve as a leader, serve behind the scenes, and also serve others who serve. This week, a team of MUMC members traveled to a poor, mountainous part of West Virginia, over 6 hours away. Such a concerted group action requires leaders and skilled builders, and people who will work hard to follow them. People who didn’t go on this trip served the servers, by buying subs and having breakfast with Santa. I used to be jealous of people who serve. Now, I instead ask, “How can I serve the servers?” or, “How is my own heart leading me to serve?”

Milt Tipperman

We are called to live and love with all that we are.  This includes finances.  We have been given wonderful gifts and the vast majority of us (in the US especially) have extra.  We are to give support to those things we deep to be of the utmost importance.  With this we are to be poeple that support the ministry of the church with our financial gifts.  Where we place our money shows a lot about what we value and lift up as important.  If someone were to look at your finances where would they say your priorities lay.

Day 35 : The Greatest of These is Love
March 23, 2010 by Mike McKee

“We live the love of the Jesus Creed by faith and with hope.”

Perseverance : continuing in a course of action in spite of difficulty or lack of success. – Webster’s Dictionary

This is the one word that keeps coming back to me as I read the 40 Days of Living the Jesus Creed – perseverance. Putting the Jesus Creed to work in everyday life can be a big challenge on a “good day.” So when we hit those bumps in the road and encounter difficult people the real challenge is to persevere and keep going. Where this really comes into play is in the areas of faith, hope, and trust. As the author says on Day 35, “we are called to press forward in light of God’s promise and in the teeth sometimes of the odds coming against us.” This much easier to write about than actually carry with us on a daily basis. So I encourage you to add the word “PERSEVERE” to your daily devotions and prayers as we keep the focus on loving God and others through faith, hope, and trust. God Bless,

Mike M.

Day 34 blog – The End of Gifts – Bill Bennett

I have read and heard read many times from Paul’s stirring verses from 1 Corinthians 13 in which he begins by listing the various gifts of the Spirit (wisdom, knowledge, faith, healing, miracles, prophecy, etc.) and concludes by stressing the primary importance of love when he states that “the greatest of these is love”.    And until today, I thought that Paul was simply ranking a long list of important gifts for the purpose of making clear that love was the most important of all of these, as in “first among equals”.   But what today’s reading from “Living the Jesus Creed” helped me to understand is that love is much, much more important than all of these gifts because: (1) love is the reason and the goal for which all the other the other gifts exist, and (2) love is the only gift of the Spirit that has lasting and lasting and eternal significance.  And as I reflected on these points, I began to see that all other gifts that I had thought of as being of such importance, in and of themselves, were only given to us for the purpose of enabling the primary gift of love, and that once they had done so they would end.   And furthermore, I began to see that it is only through our loving relationships with God and with others that we truly experience eternal life in this world, and it is only through our loving relationships with God and with others that will continue to experience eternal life after this life ends into eternity.  I certainly have a much deeper appreciation of the importance of love now than I did before today’s reading.

Day 32!

I sometimes find myself struggling to have an optimistic love for God. Im so optimistic when everything is going my way, the sun is shining, I get a good grade on a test, and everything seems to be going wonderfully. Days like that are so easy to be optimistic about God’s love. But it’s the days when things aren’t going so great, or exactly as I planned them to go that being optimistic isn’t so easy.

It’s hard to give God control of your life, and trust that this person you can’t see or talk face-to-face with, will make everything alright. It amazes me to hear the stories of people in the Bible like Moses who suffered forty years in the wilderness, all along the way trusting, loving, and believeing God will take care of everything. Many people, myself included, probably wouldn’t be able to suffer for that long, and still be optimistic about God’s love for us, and his plan. But, it is so important to know that God’s plan for each and every one of us is so beautiful, and we can not take the control from Him.
When God’s path for us doesn’t always match up with how we plan it to be, and we so badly want to take the helm and be in control, we must remind ourselves that loving God with all our heart, mind and soul means placing our trust and love in Him and being completley optimistic about his path for our lives!

have a great day!
- Carlee Lammers

Day 30: LOVE IS…

Ask anyone you know to define what love is and you’re apt to get a lot of revealing, very personal answers along with the generic versions we all know.

I asked my fellow “retreaters” at our Ladies’ Spring Retreat this past weekend at Shepherd’s Spring to help me write today’s blog and in addition to those usual responses of …patient …kind…unconditional …never having to say you’re sorry (wait wasn’t that from a movie a long time ago…Ali McGraw, Ryan O’Neil…you remember…but I digress!) I received the following that I’d like to share with the rest of you.

Love is caring for people who are not so nice or lovable.

Love is supporting someone, even when it’s not easy.

Love is seeing the work of God in each person.

Love is…inviting and supportive, forgiving and gives purpose to our lives.

Love is …open/honest and constant communication.

Love is…sometimes happy, sometimes painful, always wonderful.

Love is serving someone, giving of yourself, and sacrificing your wants and desires to help someone else.

Love is a day full of being with those who make you happy.

Love is doing what you never thought you would – to make the one you love happy.

Love is trying to reflect God’s love into those around us and those we meet in our daily lives.

Love is a life journey and dance with self, enemies, friends, partners, and children. It is acceptance and it is fair.

Love is listening, supporting and caring.

Love doesn’t keep score.

Love is a glimpse of heaven.

Bottom line… and what we’re all reading and learning about through our 40 days with the Jesus Creed is this …Love is Jesus.
Love is God.
Love is the greatest gift of all.

But it’s not great unless we share it with others…even those who, as someone said, are the most unlovable characters you’d ever wish to meet.

Now it’s your turn…if you’re reading this, how about posting your answer to the Love is… question.

We’d love to read your answers!

Blessings,
Lisa Coles

The Gift distributing kind of love. I don;t know how many times I have read, reflected on and taught about the spiritual gifts that Paul writes about. Yet, I have been struck by the way that Scot calls us to see the way that God calls us to be distributors of grace.
I feel like Paul would have been someone who would have brought out that good china no matter who was coming over for dinner. He really understood that there is no gift to small or action that is insignificant when it comes to bringing about the Kingdom of God to the world that needs to be able to encounter the Good News in a real way.
Toward the end of the 12th chapter of 1 Corinthians Paul talks about the way that we all have a plan a a vision and that we can work for the greater good and that God has a very good path for us. He calls us to use our gifts for God’s glory and not our own. God’s way will blow away any idea of what is best for ourselves while showing God’s grace to those we encounter. So break out the china for everyday guests and touch some lives as you live out the gift of distributing grace to those you encounter today.

Today’s reading is about how the love of the Jesus Creed crosses boundaries and a wonderful example of this happened just today.

This morning I had gone off to a class at the gym and my husband Chris headed out for a cup of coffee at Starbucks with his newspaper. We were to meet up for our Journey Group at church.

At the shop on Rte 40 he was headed for one of the big leather chairs with his coffee, when he saw a man dozing in a wheelchair at one of the tables. It was an old friend he’d gone to high school with 30+ years back. This man was often edgy and in trouble throughout his life and over the years they’d lost touch. However, about four years ago, Chris heard through some other friends that this man had been painting a house, had fallen off a very tall ladder, and was now paralyzed from the waist down without insurance. He had alienated his family years before. These old school friends then banded together to throw occasional fundraisers on his behalf, but the man didn’t make it easy. He was often volatile, in constant pain, and lashed out at all of them and at the medical staff. So this morning Chris saw him and hesitated to say hello. Chris thought, ‘No one would ever know if I just sat here for a few minutes, had my coffee, and slipped out; I don’t really want to get into another go round with this guy right now.’ But Chris touched him on the shoulder and said good morning anyway…and lo and behold, the man was cheerful! He’d started taking some college courses and had launched a small business he could manage. He asked Chris all about his life and was very pleasant; they shared some good memories of their school days.

So this is how Jesus breaks our boundaries. He is a gentleman, he doesn’t force us. But he will nudge our hearts to go beyond our boundary, to slip out of the tyrannical grasp of Self. If we have the willingness to obey we can be surprised by joy in the simplest places.

Linda Pütz

Blog entry for Day 27 – Resourceful Love – Bill Bennett
The “scriptural focus” for today is taken from the First Letter of Peter, which according to the letter itself, was sent by the apostle Peter from Rome to Christians in five Roman provinces of Asia Minor, and which according to scholars of the letter, was written sometime between 70 and 90 C.E. at a time when Christianity had become widespread in Asia Mind. I find it quite fascinating and inspiring to reflect on what Peter had to say in verse 5 of chapter 3 to those first Christians (“Finally, all of you, have unity of spirit, sympathy, love for one another, a tender heart, and a humble mind”) in light of all that he must have experienced while walking and talking with Jesus – not only during Jesus time on earth but also and after Jesus’ resurrection as he encountered Peter in the Spirit. Given the fundamental importance of love of God and others in the Jesus Creed, Peter’s focus on the importance of love for one another among those early Christians is a powerful witness to the lasting effect of Jesus’ teachings on Peter’s life, both as a rule for living and as a means for demonstrating the depth of our love of God. The fact that the same Peter, who had rejected Jesus and denied him three times while he was alive, was still able to attest to the power of his teachings some 40-60 years later, lends powerful credence to my hope that I too can live the Jesus Creed by being inspired and empowered by the same Spirit of Christ as was Peter.

Bill