"Perspective Resurrective;" Sermon for Easter Sunday by Nicole Collins

The Victory of Christ Crucified Is Given to You in the Preaching of His Resurrection.  This beginning line from the LCMS commentary is very much true to those who BELIEVE.  We, like Mary Magdalene have come to revisit that tomb where the stone was rolled away and confront the Lord on our own faith journeys to experience: HE HAS RISEN INDEED, ALLELUIA!

Thousands upon thousands of people were crucified during the era of the Roman occupation of most of the Middle East.  They lined the streets like billboard signs of death and oppression...  The silenced voices of many prophets, rabbis and perhaps innocent rebels hammered to wood dripping the cold reality of violence upon the place of the skull—Golgotha. 

What stands out for us however is Jesus—why?  Because he resurrected from the dead, indeed, ALLELUIA! Defeated sin, death and the devil—victory upon the cross saving us all, once and for all!  So as St. Paul says in today’s epistle, we must follow ourselves in belief in the midst here and now: “¹So if you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. ²Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth, ³for you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. ⁴When Christ who is your life is revealed, then you also will be revealed with him in glory.”

When Christ who is our life is revealed, we will be revealed—right?  The other day I was watching a show talking about the catacombs underneath the entire city of Paris.  These catacombs are not only 180 miles of labyrinth-like paths going deep underground but in the center lies a tragedy of over 6 million human bones dumped from dozens of 18^th century graveyards unearthed because the city was expanding & the grounds were needed... No names exist anymore and millions of voices silenced under Paris metro proper...

There are some groups who have challenged the heart of the Christian faith saying Jesus may have not resurrected at all.  He was just the “rejected prophet” who died in vain but their tenet of fading faith “believes” his message just merely lives on...  The reality is: the Resurrection makes, completes the core of why we are, whose we are and the reality of GRACE!  For if we allow ourselves to fade away and see Christ Jesus as merely bones, we would suffer the consequences much like Paris did in the 19^th century, when whole sections of the city crumbled away to dust collapsing to the reality of thousands upon thousands of the dead unearthed below... DEATH

The city of Paris had to come to grips with their sin of indifference towards the reality of life and death and rebuild.  This was a physical reality but in seeing this story as a metaphor to the reality of Christ Jesus resurrection... when have we been revealed to realize that we have not set our eyes upon the cross yet alone the reality of things above...  We need to hear deeply the Psalmist voice in our hearts: “⁸It is better to take refuge in the Lord than to put confidence in mortals.”

However we idolatrize ourselves and the comfort of the intellect above God and towards the earth... For what lies beneath is well-hidden out of sight and out of mind as we allow the allusion permeate from the godless that God is dead—only a social justice prophet, temporal, non-creedal and had a nice moral story to share... The Good News isn’t just Jesus’ 3 years of ministry here on earth BUT that he DIED and ROSE and ascended as we will hear about soon.

Coming out from the dead to the voice and sounds of faith—Mary Magdalene’s tears; for while others hid away in a secluded house... Mary’s faith in Jesus had her coming to the tomb not just to see and prepare him but she was compelled to through faith.  Jesus completed the moment for her in simply saying her name along with some instruction: ““Mary!” She turned and said to him in Hebrew, “Rabbouni!” (which means Teacher). ¹⁷Jesus said to her, “Do not hold on to me, because I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to my brothers and say to them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’” ¹⁸Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, “I have seen the Lord”; and she told them that he had said these things to her.”

Those of great faith have this real for them too.  Yes, it is true for our prayers daily arise as conversation to the Lord. The voice within us guided by the Holy Spirit IS the reality of the resurrection alive and well within us!  That IS the reality of being Christian!  It is other worldly, it is setting the mind on things from above... for the fruits of the Spirit come naturally built by faith through GRACE.

The reality of GRACE is the resurrection of Christ Jesus, the son of God, Our Crucified Lord! The human journey has us sojourn much like Jonah in the whale as even the early Christian Ossuaries are marked with the symbol...  “Then Jonah prayed to the Lord his God from the belly of the fish, ²saying, “I called to the Lord out of my distress, and he answered me; out of the belly of Sheol I cried, and you heard my voice. ³You cast me into the deep, into the heart of the seas, and the flood surrounded me; all your waves and your billows passed over me. ⁴Then I said, ‘I am driven away from your sight; how shall I look again upon your holy temple?’ ⁵The waters closed in over me; the deep surrounded me; weeds were wrapped around my head ⁶at the roots of the mountains. I went down to the land whose bars closed upon me forever; yet you brought up my life from the Pit, O Lord my God. ⁷As my life was ebbing away, I remembered the Lord; and my prayer came to you, into your holy temple.”

As Christians we confess that Jesus the Christ died and through rising defeated sin and death and the devil. YES! All three not just the first and the second but the third also... We like Jonah can say we were rescued from the pit, unearthed, unburied to live into a completely New Life—the lifestyle of GRACE given to transform to be/become the hands and feet of Christ—truly ALIVE joined to Him in Faith through GRACE!

The world is the whale in many ways—can be our internment, certain death, imprisonment for eternity OR we can allow our faith to grow—transform and shape our lives to the reality of the Cross and its true reality of a resurrected, Crucified Lord!  Say deeply: CHRIST JESUS HAS RISEN, INDEED, ALLELUIA!  Hear it, live it for the future of the church as Martin Luther would say stands upon it!

“This one and firm rock, which we call the doctrine of justification,” insisted Luther, “is the chief article of the whole Christian doctrine, which comprehends the understanding of all godliness.” “…if this article stands, the Church stands; if it falls, the Church falls.” We confess that justification by grace alone through faith alone in Christ's righteousness alone is the gospel, the core of the Christian faith around which all other Christian doctrines are centered and based.”  Without the resurrection, without the Cross we would be nothing, expecting nothing and return to the earth as nothing but bones and dust...

Our daily path of discipleship is remembering our Baptismal call to hear anew the songs of the Psalmist: “¹⁷I shall not die, but I shall live, and recount the deeds of the Lord. ²⁴This is the day that the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it. ²⁹O give thanks to the Lord, for he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever!”  To hear these verses and all the Good News to empower us, renew us and rebuild—become a people who will survive the sword, death and empty promises of the Evil One to truly know GRACE in the wilderness of the world which surrounds us.

AMEN

Resurrection of Our Lord Easter Day; Year A; April 20^th, 2014; SOLA Lectionary         

 Nicole Collins

Psalm 118; Jeremiah 31:16; Colossians 3:1-4; John20:1-18 or Matthew 28:1-10

"A Grand Entry; " Sermon for Palm Sunday, Sunday of the Passion By Nicole Collins

“Master, Master! You are the Hope of Israel!  You are our prophet and Savior!” These are the voices to rise to a dust stirring volume as Jesus slowly enters into the city of his eventual death; Jerusalem.  Alongside the path way of his grand entry in the city are the Roman billboards of death, the rows upon rows of racks of timber, ready to hoist a procession of crucifixions to remind the people their potential fate if they speak or witness against authority...  As many people know my favorite film about the life of Jesus is the Franco Zefferelli 1977 Jesus of Nazareth, which synthesizes the totality of the Gospels into a 382 minute artistic statement of our faith.

Speaking of synthesizing,  today has become (unfortunately to a degree...) a day where we are to encapsulate and reflect on the totality of the Passion of Christ Jesus and the magnitude of Christus Victor—Christ to (soon) defeat sin, death and the devil upon the cross for our salvation.  Going back to the Roman “billiboards” of death and oppression lining the way of light and life entering...  The irony is profound.  The irony is profound and needs to be heard, prayed, felt, cried and anticipated...

The only lectionary still holding to keeping Palm Sunday’s texts is the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod.  But like with all we do as we are all called to proclaim the Word, reveal the Truth and GRACE of the Gospel of Christ Jesus; the Holy Spirit put these texts in my heart to reflect upon here.

Just the other day, I was overjoyed to experience a topic I was deprived of in my former seminary of study, MOST ironically... which would be the Holy Spirit and Spiritual regeneration, formation—coming into Union with Christ.  The prof in my Sys Theo class said it has been a lost subject hidden away in our “doctrinal comfort zone” from broaching, truly looking deeply into what St. Paul had to teach us from his conversion-built, knowledge and union with, in and through Christ.

The text we looked at deeply in class was Philippians 2:5-11.  This interestingly enough is already one of my favorite scriptures as well as again, speaking of irony... one of the few pleasant memories I had to take away from my former seminary of study.  The pleasant memory there was that in 2010, I took the scriptures by heart class which was treated more or less like the “fun” little elective you could take if you wanted...  The scripture I chose to memorize and perform was Philippians 2:1-18.  I exegeted, chewed and ingested that scripture which left a living/ life-giving impression upon me and my formation into ministry!

Now studying it again coincidentally in both my Bible class and “4^th” Systematic Theology class..., ... I saw and experienced St. Paul as the first pastor to head and shepherd the mission of planting churches, empowering his interns (Timothy) and associate pastors (Epaphroditus and many others) with his genuinely experienced union with Christ Jesus.  I could nearly see/experience how Christ shaped him spiritually!  This IS what it is all about.

The Truth is however, we WEREN’T there among the crowds stirring up the dust throwing down our cloaks, throwing down our palm branches nearly screeching out Hosanna! Or the lines I started this sermon out with that were from the Jesus of Nazareth film snippet: “Master, Master! You are the Hope of Israel!  You are our prophet and Savior!”  We WEREN’T there!  We WEREN’T there either when they crucified our Lord...  Many weren’t there either on many a Good Friday to see how the confrontation and the reality of the Cross break the irony between tears and Joy, life and death.  For now, we have had to dive right off the diving board into the Passion to be able to grasp out to our own flocks the magnitude of the Cross upon the world!

Is it a disservice? That’s not to be the focus here, JESUS is.  In the midst of a hundred years or so of Roman Tyranny, St. Paul pens the 1^st creed: “^11b... Jesus is Lord to the glory of God the Father;” and he is right—every tongue should confess who profess to believe deeply—spiritually, that Jesus Christ, Son of David, Son of God is indeed their Lord.  It doesn’t however nor can it... fit all on a “Sunday-frame-of-faith” around OUR lives...  The first and most real church is the one no one likes to talk about much—the Soul or the heart in Biblical theology terms.

They don’t like to talk about it even in seminaries for the reference volume I wrote my paper around the other day about an existential reflection on discipleship, from Paul Tillich’s series on Systematic Theology was not required at all in the Systematic Theology classes I took at my former school of “pastoral formation...”  The truth is that we DON’T perhaps want to be there when they crucified Our Lord yet alone experience it deeply in that internal private and personal church—the soul.

Everyone should however, listen deeply—spiritually to the living Word of God whether it comes from Isaiah, Matthew or Paul’s lips and pen.  Witness is a Pandora’s box of meaning for even 2,000 something years later, the faithful still DO gather... and it DOES go beyond the steeple-and-the-people “mind” set of the world.  The power of the Gospel is seen tucked away in the newspapers, Syrian Orthodox Christians fleeing their homes and Muslim fundamentalists actively persecuting, plundering and putting to death a multitude several thousands of miles away across an ocean... “Out of sight, Out of Mind, and perhaps out of heart...” 

We WEREN’T there to hear the cries of Isaiah’s suffering servant: “⁶I gave my back to those who struck me, and my cheeks to those who pulled out the beard; I did not hide my face from insult and spitting. ⁷The Lord God helps me; therefore I have not been disgraced; therefore I have set my face like flint, and I know that I shall not be put to shame; ⁸he who vindicates me is near.”

St. Paul’s plea in today’s text is one built by his very own personal relationship, experience and spiritual formation with Christ.  How lucky it would be to HAVE BEEN there to hear this letter read.  The first pastor yet in prison again, sending a messenger with a Papyrus to perform and read aloud these wonderful Words of formation: “⁵Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, ⁶who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, ⁷but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, ⁸he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death— even death on a cross. ⁹Therefore God also highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name, ¹⁰so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, ¹¹and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”

This is only the second plea Paul has made in the whole of chapter two of Philippians for he even began this letter stretching our hearts in tension to hear, feel, believe tears of sorrow and tears of Joy. “If then there is any encouragement in Christ, any consolation from love, any sharing in the Spirit, any compassion and sympathy, ²make my joy complete: be of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. ³Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves. ⁴Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others.” These are St. Paul’s pastoral Words teaching, empowering and building us up to the Gospel, Christ’s example of profound humility and our existential reality—We WEREN’T there but We CAN be there through the Spirit’s formation in our lives!

If then there IS any encouragement in Christ—help us Lord to move beyond a Sunday frame of mind, help us to move beyond and outside of ourselves...

If then there IS any encouragement in Christ—help us to see the signs and billboards of death and oppression: the ones “out of sight and out of mind,” and the ones we allow Satan to put before us so we CAN be there to deeply, spiritually KNOW our Crucified Lord and Savior—Jesus Christ.

If then there IS any encouragement in Christ—we must be intentionally accountable in our obedience to live Cross-Shaped lives for the sake of others... Emptying ourselves but filling ourselves truthfully, realistically with Christ Jesus.

The Palms upon the dust stirred path can just be dried out and return to dust... or they can be woven together

Frond upon frond as the soul—the heart is woven with Christ—eternal, ever-living, ever-giving...

AMEN

Palm Sunday; Sunday of the Passion; April 13^th, 2014; Year A; SOLA Lectionary     

 Nicole Collins

Psalm 31:9-16 (RCL); Isaiah 50:4-9; Philippians 2:5-11; (WELS:) Zechariah 9:9; & Matthew 21:1-11

An Existential Reflection On Discipleship By Nicole Collins

Father Thomas Moore says it best in my view, an existential Christian realization of the soul and its journey:  “Spirituality doesn’t grow like a flower; rather, it comes into being like a temple or an illuminated manuscript, through hard work, imagination and skill.”

The anthropological reality of Christian humanity is an acceptance of the totality of being both physically (material/ sarx [flesh]) real and spiritually (non-material) real (non-reductive physicalism).  To my understanding and genuine belief to even begin to realize union with Christ and move into a regenerative state of being—the lifestyle of GRACE; the path of the disciple takes is into an existential awareness (deep personal interrelatedness) and confirmation of the soul as real. 

Theologian Paul Tillich speaks about the manifestation of the spiritual presence in the spirit of man as a dimension of life that unites the power of being with the meaning of being; it is both empirical and transcendent. “The human spirit as a dimension of life is ambiguous, as all life is, whereas the Divine Spirit creates unambiguous life. The multi-dimensional unity of life has functioned to preclude dualistic and supranaturalistic doctrines of man in himself and his relation to God.”

I have come to synthesize this perspective to mean that the “soul” is thus the existential spiritual vessel to be shaped, rebuilt, renewed and influenced by the divine Spirit of God.  Scientific explanation of the conscience merely explains the magnificence of creation for the Spirit continues, is infinite and is not to be reduced but share phenomenological space being the empirical reality of the flesh and finite world.

Spiritual formation (full development or Teleioi) seen from an existential lens into the Body of Christ is an individual as well as corporate effort to realize spiritual identity and empirical identity in both senses of the World in light of discipleship. 

We must remember what Jesus says in John 17:14-21

“¹⁴I have given them your word, and the world has hated them because they do not belong to the world, just as I do not belong to the world. ¹⁵I am not asking you to take them out of the world, but I ask you to protect them from the evil one. ¹⁶They do not belong to the world, just as I do not belong to the world.

¹⁷Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth. ¹⁸As you have sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world. ¹⁹And for their sakes I sanctify myself, so that they also may be sanctified in truth.

²⁰”I ask not only on behalf of these, but also on behalf of those who will believe in me through their word, ²¹that they may all be one. As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me.”

John, the Gospel writer, has Jesus needing to both educate his disciples about their humanity and the Holy Spirit but also to have them begin to understand their spiritual formation task at hand.  Jesus, the Messiah, Lord, the Word and Son of God needed his disciples to engage in existentially realizing their missional role (as future servant leaders)as beginning to be spiritually developed through faith and love in the soul and then physically as the fruits of faith in the world.

Martin Luther would have understood this in terms of realizing the “two kingdoms” or “two governments” doctrine as well as relating to forensic justification. “God has ordained the two governments: the spiritual, which by the Holy Spirit under Christ makes Christians and pious people; and the secular, which restrains the unchristian and wicked so that they are obliged to keep the peace outwardly… The laws of worldly government extend no farther than to life and property and what is external upon earth. For over the soul God can and will let no one rule but himself. Therefore, where temporal power presumes to prescribe laws for the soul, it encroaches upon God's government and only misleads and destroys souls. We desire to make this so clear that everyone shall grasp it, and that the princes and bishops may see what fools they are when they seek to coerce the people with their laws and commandments into believing one thing or another.”

Let’s unpack this more, Biblically:

In St. Paul’s letter to the Philippians, chapter two in particular highlights both a profound Christological statement of Christ’s incarnational reality and humility but also a concrete sketch of the Divine and the human—empirically and spiritually.  The cost of discipleship is being/ becoming in union with Christ—a discipline built by faith which is nurtured by the Holy Spirit and bears the spiritual fruits of Grace.

Philippians 2:5-13

“⁵Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, ⁶who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, ⁷but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, ⁸he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death— even death on a cross. ⁹Therefore God also highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name, ¹⁰so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, ¹¹and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

¹²Therefore, my beloved, just as you have always obeyed me, not only in my presence, but much more now in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; ¹³for it is God who is at work in you, enabling you both to will and to work for his good pleasure.”

This pericope begins with Paul existentially instructing them to BE in union with Christ in thought/conscience/spirit.  Paul goes further in retelling the Gospel story of salvation as Christ’s incarnational reality of being fully human and fully divine but choosing obedience to deny the self as an existential suppression/death of ego in favor of humility into being/becoming Grace for us all.  Our worship is but a gracious response born of the Spirit being justification by grace through faith. Faith and love are existentially exampled in our regenerative spiritual selves.  As St. Paul concludes in verse thirteen—it is God’s Holy Spirit that guides us towards intentional selflessness—to love both God and neighbor through our soul.  The soul is the tabernacle of the Holy Spirit.  The Holy Spirit works with our spiritual selves to battle through our human, worldly tendencies (spiritual formation) to live into being/ becoming the New Creation empirically (and spiritually!).

Coming back to Luther’s understanding of this in light of forensic justification is as Gerhard Forde says: “Faith born of the imputation of total righteousness will see the truth of the human condition, the reality and totality of human sin as well as sanctification realized through this faith.”  I believe that the only way we can understand as well as operate from a “non-reductive physicalism or dualistic” understanding of being not only of the flesh and of the spirit as well as being both saint and sinner (realization of the fall) is through Justification.

Living into the lifestyle of Grace is my term for existentially realizing both faith and life through justification.  In order for us to develop the grounding of the soul’s metaphysical or transcendent identity in union with Christ, we must realize the consequences of where we are (earth), who we are (human) and whose we are (children of God).  These consequences are bound to both Law and Gospel as well as the existential laws of being and becoming in creation.  Thomas Moore incorporates this in saying that the sacrifice of the self—that is, the making sacred of the personality—naturally leads to a life sensitive to all that is not the self.  He sees personality in a sense as being the soul and this existential and faith shaped awareness as ethics or the fruit of Grace.

In conclusion, understanding humanity in a theological, anthropological context takes digging deep into an existential realization of the identity and function of the soul and the body in unity and in union with Christ.

Bibliography:

·         McReynolds, Paul R.; “Word Study Greek/English New Testament;” Tyndale Publishers Carol Stream, Illinois 1999 BS1965.5

·         Forde, Gerhard O.; “A More Radical Gospel; Essays on Eschatology, Authority, Atonement and Ecumenism;” Lutheran Quarterly Books series; Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co. Grand Rapid/Cambridge 2004 BX8065.3.F67

·         Tillich, Paul; “Systemic Theology Volume III; Life and the Spirit, History and the Kingdom of God;” University of Chicago Press Chicago, Illinois 1963 ISBN: 0-226-80339-2

·         Moore, Thomas; “The Soul’s Religion; Cultivating a Profoundly Spiritual Way of Life;” Harper Collins Publishers NYNY 2002 BL624.M66445

The Series of S.O.A.P.s around Romans 5:1-8 By Nicole Collins

A S.O.A.P. Series around St. Paul’s passage to the Romans; Romans 5:1-8 By Nicole Collins

Scripture || Observation|| Application|| Prayer

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For  Monday March 17^th, 2014

Romans 5:1-8

¹Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, ²through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand; and we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God. ³And not only that, but we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, ⁴and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, ⁵and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.

⁶For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. ⁷Indeed, rarely will anyone die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person someone might actually dare to die. ⁸But God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us.

Today’s Verses Scripture: ¹Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ

Observation: Realizing the reality of GRACE which is the fruit of the faith journey aligns one with Jesus Christ and blesses one with shalom.

Application: Realizing the reality of GRACE on one’s faith journey takes intentional discipline to be led by the Holy Spirit to live into the lifestyle of GRACE.  This is accomplished through prayer, Bible study, fellowship—the recipe for individual spiritual formation.

Prayer:  Heavenly Father, help us to grow to be ready to go in your name

Empowered by your Word, fueled by your Love and guided by your Holy Spirit

May we realize much more than your GRACE but bear forth Your Will and Precepts

The reality of the Kingdom of God—

In Your Most Precious Name we Pray,

AMEN

For Monday March 24^th, 2014

Today’s Verses Scripture: ²through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand; and we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God.

Observation: Freedom from the bondage of sin takes total awareness from the heart outward to enable us to become empowered and intentional witnesses for the Glory of God.

Application: Being and becoming takes spiritual discipline fueled by the love revealed in the Grace poured out upon us through the Cross of Christ.  It is a cross-shaped motivation that we seek to thrive as witnesses for the Gospel.

Prayer:  Gracious and Loving God,

We stand in the presence of the reality of GRACE when our hearts focus upon your Cross.

Help us to continue to build that solid foundation from the heart on outward—Where we stand.

May we continue to discipline and disciple one another to become, BE the bold witnesses you need for us to be

Help strengthen us to persevere, stay encourage to truly battle Satan’s stumbling blocks to our sharing your Word and rebuilding the world according to your will and precepts.

In Your Most Precious Name We Pray—

AMEN

For Wednesday March 26^th, 2014

Today’s Verses Scripture: ³And not only that, but we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance,

Observation: Taking pride or ‘glorying’ in persevering persecution, distress and affliction is the cost of discipleship and its endurance is built upon a sound foundation of faith.

Application: In order for us to truly become fully developed which was for Jesus lesson to impart to us is spiritual formation into the New creation—New life—in, with and through Him; We must be willing to be intentionally accountable to standing firm for the Love of Jesus & Neighbor.

Prayer:  Heavenly Father,

May your Holy Spirit continue to empower our wearied and challenged selves

Especially in the face of evil, with its trials, oppression and stumbling blocks

Help us to break away from our comfort zones of self-preservation to become truly self-sacrificial

Help us to break Satan’s bind upon the world & our imprisonment to his empty promises.

Help us to know when we must continue to stand firm

For it is by your GRACE you give us New Life

AMEN

For Monday March 31^st, 2014

Today’s Verses Scripture: ⁴and endurance produces character, and character produces hope,

Observation: Perseverance, steadfastness, patience in waiting can be suffering turned into blessing.  It cannot only be a blessing spiritually for developing a strong foundation of faith but also of the self.

Application: An important aspect of our faith journey is fighting our existential tendency to operate from the ego as well as fear and not trust enough in God to help you to REMAIN in hope, live into optimistic thinking and allow those tears of uncertainty and insecurity baptize you towards growing away from the chrysalis of the Old Nature and putting truthfully, spiritually and wholly—the New Nature planted within you by Christ Jesus.

Prayer:  Gracious and Most Loving God,

You are there, even when we feel weak and uncertain

You are there, even when we want to shrink away into our self-concerns

By facing our stumbling blocks head on is how we grow

We grow when we allow those wings to break through the Chrysalis cocoon

We grow even more when we stretch beyond ourselves fearlessly, to love our neighbor

And continue to grow when we allow ourselves to be strengthened by your Love and GRACE

To venture to love ourselves as your children subject to your will and precepts

In your most Holy and Precious Name, We pray—

AMEN

For  Tuesday April 1^st, 2014

Today’s Verses Scripture: ⁵and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.

Observation: Hope and Love are two the beautiful gifts we are given by God to rebuild and align our hearts to God’s Will and Precepts. It is His Holy Spirit that is both our great comforter and our encouragement.

Application: Realizing the reality of the Holy Spirit in one’s life is fighting our human tendency to fear being alone.  It is also a fight against cynicism and idolatry which the Evil One placates around us to become stumbling blocks to knowing and faithfully living into the lifestyle of GRACE. For how can we really understand deeply, “gift from God” if we are centered in ourselves—our pain and insecurities.  It is when we look past ourselves to trust in God’s Holy Spirit grounding us and building that firm foundation we need to know and grow with, GRACE.

Prayer:  Heavenly Father,

Help us to fight away Satan’s efforts to make us self-concerned, exiled and despairing

May your Holy Spirit continue its reconstructive work upon our hearts

To build us up so that we may realize your love within us and through us as we reciprocate

A natural spiritual fruit grown by your GRACE actively working in our lives

May we never, not be grateful for everything you have freely given us

As your loving children, may we continue to grow in your heavenly light

In Your Most Precious Name etched upon our hearts, we pray—

AMEN

For  Thursday April 3^rd, 2014

Today’s Verses Scripture: ⁶For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly.

Observation: At the right time is the key aspect of this verse—are we truly prepared? For most likely we are still very much weak and “ungodly” in our further advancement in sin.

Application: The victory at the cross of Christ Jesus defeating sin, death and Satan at the cross as well as his Resurrection should never be put back into our memories more than treated as a present reality—Spiritually.  In another of St. Paul’s letters, he tells those whom he is pastoring to be actively dying to the Old Nature and Rising to the New—as an aspect of reflection, confession, repentance & renewal—our daily Baptismal walk.  The right time is always now for us to know deeply the power of Christ’s Resurrection upon our lives to be lived in GRACE.

Prayer:  Gracious & Loving God,

May we daily die to sin, its ungodly temptations and captivity it tries to place upon our lives.

May we daily rise into the lifestyle of GRACE as restored, renewed, resurrected people—

Obedient to your motivation and intentionally accountable to the cost of discipleship

Which is discipline to remember our Baptism—a life-time of reconciling our sins, loving you and neighbor through our “teleloi”(full spiritual development) of faith.

In your Most Precious Name, we pray—

AMEN

For Friday April 4^th, 2014

Today’s Verses Scripture: ⁷Indeed, rarely will anyone die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person someone might actually dare to die.

Observation: The thought of sacrifice on as high as a level as it is here is something to hope to strive for when living truthfully, into the lifestyle of GRACE.  It is out of a Beatific shaped heart that such love could make this possible.

Application: ‘Rarely,’ needs to be a word in our vocabulary that we rebel against with intentional, obedience and accountability.  Christ has been calling us into righteousness by living truthfully, into our faith.  Christ is calling for us to be spiritually transformed to become ‘perfected’ (fully developed) in our loving and gracious responses to a most loving and gracious God.  There is so little the Lord asks of us yet we would rather through our own stumbling block in the way—“rarely, might, dare, perhaps...”  How about DO!

Prayer:  Lord of GRACE,

Teach our hearts to fight “spinning our wheels...”

Teach us to be shaped and transformed by your Word to live truthfully into our Baptism

To be the true priesthood of all believers, fighting the good fight of faith

Let us be prophetic for your sake to spread the Gospel

May we be not afraid

In Your Most Precious Name, We Pray—

AMEN

For  Saturday April 5^th, 2014

Today’s Verses Scripture: ⁸But God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us.

Observation: The true victory of Christ work upon the cross is when we realize, are truthfully aware of God’s love as something both profound and truly humbling. Living into that realization is developing a humility that should help us put sin to death in our hearts and in our actions.

Application: We are a people always needing proof... Perhaps, however this proof seeking needs to be reflected upon, confessed and repented for we must not deny our sinful nature.  The Old Nature is fed by the empty promises of the Evil One to be laden in doubt and “proud.” The magnitude of God’s love is ubiquitous around us but we are blinded by the ways of the world.  We need to develop an inner humility that opens the eyes of the heart to the true power of God—the cross and resurrection of Christ Jesus.

Prayer:  Heavenly Father,

Guide our hearts to live cross-shaped lives

Help us to know deeply the power of your cross

The GRACE it imparts in our lives

Living into the lifestyle of GRACE demands inward obedience—true humility

Help us to strive to develop this spiritual fruit as we strive to love you more each day

Growing in our faith and service to you and neighbor.

In Your Most Precious Name, We Pray—

AMEN