"Gaining Soul;" Sermon for Sunday August 31st, 2014 by Nicole Collins

I don’t know how many people listen to K-Love and perhaps too much?  I have it on nearly 24/7 on the car radio. Today’s Gospel text had me starting to play Toby Mac’s hit—“Lose My Soul,” in connection to Jesus’ lesson to Peter and the other disciples about taking up their crosses and following Him.

Jesus’ illumines the true cost of discipleship telling his disciples: “²⁴...“If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. ²⁵For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it. ²⁶For what will it profit them if they gain the whole world but forfeit their life?”

“No pain, no gain,” is once again an element of that uncomfortable challenge to “walkin’ the talk, keepin’ it real—INSIDE and OUT!”  I’m not necessarily a fan of rap music which Toby Mac’s Christian music is borderline to being...  But that’s the whole point, being on the fringe, borderline and in some senses unpopular is—the True heart of the Gospel’s knowledge to impart to our ever growing spiritual identity through and for Christ.

You have to love some of those cable specials on the “History” channel; they’ll have everything from the history of saddle shoes to moderately insightful “educational” series on “the real origin of the Gospels” or “Who really is Jesus? And so on.

Last night’s special was around “the Lost Gospels” aka the Gnostic Gospels.  Hearing the narrators, specialists, scientists, historians and so on deduce the Christian movement purely through the lens of secular history was really rather interesting!

Could in fact the Gnostic Gospels be truly a part of a splintered faction of Christians who didn’t have enough “clout” or “political advantage” to have their Gospels win out over Constantine’s institutional-oriented canon?  The history channel ignores the heretical, theological challenges of the whole of what Gnosticism threatened, but it did make you think.

Could Jesus been purely speaking to burgeon our hearts to develop a “special” knowledge to the Kingdom of God?  Some 1,500 years later Martin Luther and the Lutheran movement defined the priesthood of all believers through seeing the patterns of Grace and conversion knowledge in St. Paul’s writings. In short, Luther heard and experienced or re-experienced St. Paul’s conversion-fed knowledge being his great treatise on GRACE. GRACE is an all caps, “Hollywood” sized-sign reality for those who have acknowledged their conversion experience. The Living Word of God illumines the Truth of the Gospel being that we are all called, we all experience in some form or another a conversion moment (coming to faith—which in my case was profound) and we are all commissioned. 

Taking on the challenge of living into our faith has consequences.  It is hard work, it can be filled to the brim with rejection...  Rejection coming from the world however, NOT ever from God!  The punishing parent of the Old Testament challenges the last part of the sentence but so does Jesus’ perspective in the New Testament truly challenging us as well.  There is no circumventing around the cross.  This was not only true of course for Jesus, but if we really own up to our reality as children of Grace, priests within the priesthood of all believers, disciples—witnesses—our lives are to be lived fully accountable to living GRACE. This is a heart+ head to the hands and feet function of the disciple’s body.  As community it is to be a shared force, “Body” in the world but not of the world.

Speaking of being a witness—standing up and being stretched spiritually into living your convictions in Christ Jesus; how much have really we been exposed to about ISIS’ systemic “Convert or Die” crucifixions of men, women and children in Syria?  Syria of all irony, was the central hub of the book of Acts beginning journey...

We have not seen on the news or heard much at all about the rows of Syrian Christians lining the streets crucified, holding firm their faith that they just cannot let go of...  Do you hear some of the Gospel as well as (if you know Toby Mac,) the song—“Lose My Soul?” Is the once, “Christian nation,” turning an indifferent eye to the reality of “faith” still existing in the world?  These people didn’t want to become martyrs persay but just the mere fact that they could not circumvent their faith is an amazing truth that has been concealed out of power and control by the media and government.

Let’s hear some of those verses from the Toby Mac song in light of our own challenges of living into our faith: “Father God, I am clay in your hands, Help me to stay that way through all life's demands. 'Cause they chip and they nag and they pull at me, And every little thing I make up my mind to be... America has no more stars, now we call them idols, You sit idle, While we teach prosperity, The first thing to prosper should be inside of me. But Christ came in range, we said yes now we changed, Not the same, even though I made a fall, Since I got that call, no more Saul, now I'm Paul. How do I sense the tide that's rising? De-sensitizing me from living in light of eternity, How do I sense the tide that's rising? It's hypnotizing me from living in light of eternity, (Lord what we gon do, We're relying on you, all eyes are on you Lord, all eyes are on you, all eyes are on you Jesus.) I don't want to gain the whole world, and lose my soul, Don't wanna walk away, let me hear the people say.”

He continues and concludes in a rap that is more like prayer: “Lord forgive us when we get consumed by the things of this world, That fight for our love, and our passion, As our eyes are open wide and on you. Grant us the privilege of your world view, And may your kingdom be, what wakes us up, and lays us down.”

When Jesus told Peter—²³... “Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; for you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.” He was challenging him to work on what his priorities should be—living a life dedicated, woven and consecrated in Grace—loving neighbor beyond measure and fighting only the spiritual battle within—guarding the turf of your heart against Satan.

In the History channel special last night, the historians said that Constantine had his newly formed team of bishops go out and essentially persecute Gnostic Christians and destroy all gnostic materials in order to unite his empire and create a state religion.... Little did he know that faithful monks and scattered gnostic Christians hid many manuscripts in clay vessels that they would bury deeply in the earth or literally take with them in their tombs so that they would survive.

Who’s to say concretely that perspectives of the “true” Gospel of Christ Jesus were distorted or “off the mark” in either party?  This is a very human tendency to divide... For both sides could and have gone into “the twilight zone,” of not only missing the mark but destroying the heart “Knowledge” Jesus was truly trying to teach us to develop and LIVE for the Kingdom of God!

Living into the reality of GRACE is making every day spiritually led by the “church” in your heart and by the fellowship experienced from the physical church as an empowering discipleship training ground, abroad.  I don’t want to gain the whole world—I want to be a Pastor in it, out of devoted love and commitment to Christ Jesus and live to give compassion, peace, mercy, kindness and brotherly love to neighbor!

AMEN

A video link to the Toby Mac song—“Lose My Soul.”

http://youtu.be/ZZef1vFIM_s

Sunday August 31^st, 2014; 12^th Sunday after Pentecost; Lect. 22; Year A; SOLA Lectionary; Nicole Collins

Psalm 26; Jeremiah 15:15-21; Romans 12:9-21 & Matthew 16:21-28

You tube sermon link: http://youtu.be/F8yMi5kAzas

"Spiritual Stones;" Sermon for Sunday August 24th, 2014 by Nicole Collins

Gardening reveals the mystery of God’s Gospel at work in this world.  It does it by the sheer contradiction of the initial reality of the seed.  The seed itself as we know is as hard as a “rock” on the outside but once watered (baptized) it grows roots into the surrounding landscape and forms a sprouting plant up out of the ground, facing upward towards the heavens and taking in the “light” of the sun (SON!)

Not all seeds germinate rightly however... They can partially develop, but perhaps be choked by the weeds (temptations of the world) to never grow past a certain point. Or they can become overly focused on their own physical development but neglect or intellectually ignore the spiritual roots the True Church that Our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ is hoping we would tap into.

Transferring out of the “School of Athens for Jesus,” in that missionally numbered year of 2012; I had my first class at my new school be “Church Planting Boot Camp.” It was a summer intensive that literally began one week after my last class at my former seminary. What was wonderful about this class was that it was a lot about gardening, a lot about leadership and most importantly about our spiritual development and role as leaders in the “physical” church of Christ. 

The physical and spiritual is something we humans have a limited capacity for understanding yet alone developing into the reality of God’s Will within the lifestyle of Grace.  Some have cherry-picked the Gospel of Jesus so much so, to have created an anchoring dogma of foundations or stones... But isn’t the Gospel to always be transforming and ever shaping our lives?

What they don’t realize in their intellectual zeal to rationalize the reality of “church” in the world is that they have placed themselves and the Gospel in bondage to the physical stones of what comprises their understanding of church.  Being confessional and being evangelical are loaded words to trying to define the disciple’s understanding of the true role of church, however. We have made them into intellectual borders that polarize and divide more than encourage and join.

What was Peter thinking before the infamous cherry-picked understanding of the foundation of “the church?”  He was changing—Christ Jesus was changing his heart through His Living, transforming Word!  “¹⁵Jesus said to them, “But who do you say that I am?” ¹⁶Simon Peter answered, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” ¹⁷And Jesus answered him, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father in heaven.”

That seed of faith finally had its hardened shell broken baptismally by Jesus Living Word!  Go be fruitful and multiply!  There’s another cherry-picked concept that we have turned into a physical reality over and above a spiritual priority of discipleship. We’ve done everything but form the physical church into miniature “Elk clubs,” social, exclusive and self-oriented for “discerning Christians,” as more or less chaplains to the worldly culture than being and becoming pastors for Christ Jesus and His Living, Spiritual Gospel!

We have placed ourselves in bondage to the seed—for it offers itself as a fortress of solid, doctrinal, impermeable and unchangeable “false” stability.  But if we were to see it from a perhaps disturbing metaphor of the Chrysalis versus the stone; We would hear and sense the terror of the need of the butterfly to transform and break free, stifled and encased against walls that have become stone!

Let’s now imagine the Gospel and its reality of discipleship as that encased butterfly—bondage in paradox, bondage in spiritual depravity...  In short, the only way to “walk the talk, keepin’ it real” as they say, is to be completely transformed in heart and mind to the will of God and establish those spiritual roots and foundation of the Gospel within these places—the heart, the mind.

That’s hard work; we don’t wanna really go there—to be fed and led is the True reality of what gathering together in fellowship as the “Body,” is supposed to be—become! It’s not about stones, it’s not even about us!  It’s about Jesus, it’s about empowering, encouraging and enlightening others to spread and live the Good News through their lives lived into the lifestyle of Grace.

As we know, living into the lifestyle of Grace is living into our baptism daily as reflection, confession, repentance and renewal—this is the reality of being Christian—living into our cost of discipleship. We are a society or culture, however, that loves its slogans though, “No Pain, No Gain.”  We’re more than fine with adhering, disciplining ourselves to this when it’s all about us~ Every gym concerned with helping the body has this sign up in some “shape or form.”  However if you dared to put this up in a church, I’m sure a lot of people would be fleeing in droves out the door, out of the reality of the “Sunday-frame of mind” and back into their shell—world of their “priorities and concerns.”

What have we really been given keys to? Can all we really see this as are keys to a physical building, a pile of intellectual and institutional rules and books? Doesn’t Jesus Gospel mean much more than this?  Are not our lives to mean much more than we have “man-made” them to be—become?  Being a freely responsible disciple of Christ is the keys to a Pandora’s box of blessings, challenges, darkness and light.

They are the keys to a “car” that is seemingly impossible to drive... would this make the perfect metaphor for our challenge in leading and feeding the Gospel of Jesus as the “church” in the world?  Perhaps this is how Peter may have felt like in his confession of faith to Jesus...  Here he was a simple, “blue-collar” fisherman being challenged to be an active, fully accountable servant to Christ Jesus Gospel!

St. Paul says it like it is in this week’s snippet from his letter to the Romans: “²Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God—what is good and acceptable and perfect.” He further goes on to say that we need to operate from a good humility and a great sense of fellowship (Koinonia) : “³For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of yourself more highly than you ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned. ⁴For as in one body we have many members, and not all the members have the same function, ⁵so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually we are members one of another.”

Ah, what amazing Words from St. Paul... easier said than done; am I right? Let’s think about that butterfly again.  It begins as a caterpillar or basically a burrowing type of earth-worm that looks up, finds a tree branch to cling to and physically and most literally begins to turn itself inside out to spin a cocoon or Chrysalis (shell) to soon further develop into the butterfly to then burst free from the Chrysalis shell and take off!

Maybe for Peter, this spiritual transformation/ metamorphosis happens more thoroughly or completely when he has the infamous dream of the “kosher sheet” floating down to him from heaven. For if we recall, Jesus appears to him and says to “kill and eat,” for what he says to do is right...  This dream basically helped Peter to break away from the legalistic view of building and developing discipleship—spreading the Good News.  In order for Peter to lead and feed others, he had to break away from those things that tied his faith down, that made his faith in action exclusionary and “man-made.”

Here’s another aspect or layer to the paradox of realizing the true church of Jesus Christ in the world but not of it.  We do want a place to gather ...a place of true fellowship... but why has it not opened that spiritual door enough to truly scatter? Bible study, prayer, action are the components of fellowship as the physical, corporate church. We, however, have not tapped into this enough or avoided too frequently living into, growing with the calling and commissioning of Jesus to each and every one of us into the priesthood of all believers.

Instead of nurturing those in formation, more often than not as the corporate “church;” we have become intellectual and existential specialists, who are competitive, controlling and placing each other into the bondage of the world—our agendas, priorities, indifference...  However, we are carving and encasing ourselves into impermeable stones.  Stones that will never grow, never change, never move—they are dead.

AMEN

August 24^th, 2014; 11^thSunday After Pentecost; Lect. 21; Year A; SOLA Lectionary

Nicole Collins

Psalm 138; Isaiah 51:1-6; Romans 11:33-12:8; Matthew 16:13-20

"Re-establishing Priorities;" Sermon for August 17th, 2014 by Nicole A. M. Collins

16 years ago, the album and the song Vertical Man was released by Ringo Starr.  Only a handful of people know the personal trivia that only 20 years earlier, 1978, I became a Beatles’ fan at 10 year old!  Now nearly 36 years later, still a fan and even more intrigued with how God provides imaginative illustrations to grasp at our discipleship journeys! For the lyrics even in this title track illumine the heart of our struggle as spiritually developing disciples in today’s texts: “When the world is coming down on you and your back’s against the wall—change the glass that you’ve been looking through...  If you feel like you’ve had enough—let it go...”

Being or developing the vertical aspect of our cross-shaped journey with Christ is our faithful union—relationship to Christ Jesus as our main source of being led and fed to thus go out and preach and teach the Gospel (the horizontal).  You can’t have a cross-shaped ministry or mentality if you are focused only on the vertical aspect of expressing/ living faith.  It’s not only, not about you (healthy humility) but it is truly, truthfully living into Jesus’ greatest commandment:  Love the Lord Your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength as well as Love neighbor as you would love yourself.

Paul’s letter this week to the Romans speaks to his own struggles with living faithfully into a cross-shaped ministry and mentality: “¹I ask, then, has God rejected his people? By no means! I myself am an Israelite, a descendant of Abraham, a member of the tribe of Benjamin. ²God has not rejected his people whom he foreknew. ¹³Now I am speaking to you Gentiles. Inasmuch then as I am an apostle to the Gentiles, I glorify my ministry ¹⁴in order to make my own people jealous, and thus save some of them. ¹⁵For if their rejection is the reconciliation of the world, what will their acceptance be but life from the dead! ²⁸As regards the gospel they are enemies of God for your sake; but as regards election they are beloved, for the sake of their ancestors; ²⁹for the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable. ³⁰Just as you were once disobedient to God but have now received mercy because of their disobedience, ³¹so they have now been disobedient in order that, by the mercy shown to you, they too may now receive mercy. ³²For God has imprisoned all in disobedience so that he may be merciful to all.”

“²⁹For the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable:” Loving neighbor through our faith has taken many expressions—it is the aspect of living into the horizontal—the hands and feet as a loving and gracious response to a loving a gracious God!  For when we are challenged to let it go... we are called to let God (in) to help our hearts persevere and prioritize our thoughts, words and actions. When the world is seemingly coming down around you... now’s the time more than ever to not only let go and let God but be constructive and connected not only to the Lord but to your neighbor!

The Gospel lesson today has Jesus seemingly sounding strange or even perhaps unintentionally sounding mean at first to the Canaanite woman’s seeking and request of him. Jesus’ play on words, however illumine his compassion and mercy to all.  We must remember to never “cherry-pick” the Gospel... and remember as well, that Jesus has always meant to example to us the concept of no-partiality being an example of compassion and mercy as the answer to living the lifestyle of Grace in response to his greatest commandment to Love Him and Neighbor.

The concepts of discipleship, no-partiality and compassion/ mercy have unfortunately been “cherry-picked” over to the point of becoming deconstructive, destructive and dissolved into no more than intellectual idolatry... An idolatry that indentures and imprisons others to our sin; indifference... What do I mean by this?  What is this saying?  Well, there have been a lot of things going on in the world these days...  Some of my reformed brothers and sisters would see these times to be not only in transition but seemingly of “tribulation” or “apocalyptic.”  They are merely noticing how we are advancing as a society not into a lifestyle of grace but one of the world unto the self and everything BUT neighbor.  As a Lutheran person, we are merely in the beginnings of a graceless wilderness.  It is not one without hope, but one that is requiring perseverance and obedience above and beyond civility... 

As Christians some 2,000 plus years later, we should by now know that there is an unpopular aspect to following Jesus...  We have to take up our cross to truly and wholly follow His example to be both salt and light in this world which is currently losing the battle against sin, death and Satan.  Speaking of losing the battle... at the moment anyway, we’re not used to it, here in America, the thought of genuine persecution...  We’ve been ridiculously over-tolerant, if anything, to the atheists and other self-concerned groups who sue us for prayer, decimate our loved ones graves and tell us what we can do or say in expressing our faith!  On the other side of the battlegrounds, we have genuine murders, crucifixions, rapes and plundering going on in the “name” and commandment of god.

Across the seas, far stretches of land and dessert, we have several other groups of humans crying out for our help.  It’s not all a call to the sword and call for added death and destruction...  I am seeing it as a call to the Lord to SAVE FAITH! We however are disobedient to the face of the truth of things taking place...  It has become with some “intellectualism,” a selfish battle for grand-standing and partisan politics!  So much has taken place within the last few months... that the media doesn’t even know what to prioritize or share with its viewers anymore.

Evil abounds on many levels these days, ranging from one incident being the probable racially-motivated shooting of a teenager in small suburban America firing up violent protests to another—ISIS crucifying Christians in Syria and Iraq alongside raping and murdering Christian women and children. Neither should take away priority from one another... but to my chagrin, I have sadly been a witness to conversations that do everything BUT address the tragedy, disobedience to loving God and neighbor!

Many of these conversations betray how unwilling we are to be not only non-judgmental, but intellectually indifferent through the guise of “works righteousness” ideology to reaching out to truthfully, spiritually “conquer” evil in the world!  If God’s mercy truly reigned in our hearts as a guiding force to shape our lives to be gracious and loving to neighbor... there wouldn’t be idolatry, intolerance and hate.  But growing as a disciple requires us to spiritually re-establish God’s priorities above and always beyond our own.  We all fall short of the glory of God as it is the reality of being both saint and sinner in perpetual discernment to LIVE for and through Christ as Love to Him and neighbor.

The world as we know it is a sphere that can and will change.  It has many dimensions but truly only two relationships that we are bound to under grace: “³⁶“Teacher, (the lawyer of the Sadducees and Pharisees ask to test Jesus...) which commandment in the law is the greatest?” ³⁷Jesus said to him, “’You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ ³⁸This is the greatest and first commandment. ³⁹And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ ⁴⁰On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”

Through Christ we have a new kind of righteousness, a new law that we need to be held accountable to in order to re-establish God’s priorities for our lives.  Being and becoming a disciple that authentically lives into the lifestyle of Grace is taking on the challenge to persevere through a cross-shaped faith.  It is not a call to intolerance or martyrdom but a call that is irrevocable; to be and become instruments of God’s love, compassion, mercy, peace and presence in the world—grace in action.

AMEN

Sunday August 17^th, 2014; 10^th Sunday after Pentecost; Year A; SOLA Lectionary Nicole Collins

Psalm 67; Isaiah 56:1, 6-8; Romans 11:1-2, 13-15, 28-32; Matthew 15:21-28

A set of SOAP's around Romans 6:12-23 by Nicole Collins

A S.O.A.P. Series around St. Paul’s passage to the Romans; Romans 6:12-23 By Nicole Collins

Scripture || Observation|| Application|| Prayer

Romans 6:12-23

¹²Therefore, do not let sin exercise dominion in your mortal bodies, to make you obey their passions. ¹³No longer present your members to sin as instruments of wickedness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and present your members to God as instruments of righteousness. ¹⁴For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace. ¹⁵What then? Should we sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means! ¹⁶Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness? ¹⁷But thanks be to God that you, having once been slaves of sin, have become obedient from the heart to the form of teaching to which you were entrusted, ¹⁸and that you, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness. ¹⁹I am speaking in human terms because of your natural limitations. For just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and to greater and greater iniquity, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness for sanctification. ²⁰When you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. ²¹So what advantage did you then get from the things of which you now are ashamed? The end of those things is death. ²²But now that you have been freed from sin and enslaved to God, the advantage you get is sanctification. The end is eternal life. ²³For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

For  Sunday June 15^th, 2014

Today’s Verses Scripture: ¹²Therefore, do not let sin exercise dominion in your mortal bodies, to make you obey their passions

Observation: Sin is a destructive, deconstructing force to be reckoned with, not fallen prey to its seductions.

Application: Obedience is a spiritual discipline and spiritual battlefield we must daily face if we are to keep Christ’s dominion over our lives.  This is accomplished through willingly being accountable for all you Do & say as a ‘body’ within the Body of Christ. 

Prayer:  Gracious & Loving God,

We are your children created to be and become truly children of Grace

Help our hearts to be aligned to yours in discipline, obedience

May we never let the Evil One’s temptations lure us into idolatries and self-absorbed passions

Help us to know spiritually, your ultimate dominion over our lives

May your Grace reign in our hearts intentional living, compassionate giving

True Consideration and love for our neighbors as your disciples

May we never not be grateful for your reign and encouragement in our lives

In Your Most Precious Name We Pray—

AMEN

For  Tuesday June 17^th, 2014

Today’s Verses Scripture: ¹³No longer present your members to sin as instruments of wickedness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and present your members to God as instruments of righteousness.

Observation: We are often instrumental in creating destruction through sin and for sin. Only when we truly spiritually face our Old Nature with humility and repentance to God do we grow to become God’s instruments for righteousness through our New Nature given to us as New life.

Application: A Graceless wilderness is the reality of Hell created here and now.  Sin is its greatest asset and builder.  Living faithfully into humble obedience to God—hearing His voice deeply, in our most vulnerable place and acting upon this through Grace—is our daily task of discipleship. Walking the talk takes heart knowledge strengthened by the New Nature. Heart knowledge plus the head creates the lifestyle of Grace. 

Prayer:  Gracious & Loving God,

More often than not, we allow ourselves to become graceless and self-concerned. 

This tears down rather than builds your Kingdom of light in the world.

We become purveyors of darkness adding to Satan’s victory—

Death of purpose, death of will and most importantly, death of the Spirit of Life

The Spirit of Life is what we are hungering and thirsting for

Whether or not the Evil One has tempted us away from realizing this profound truth

We appeal to You O Lord for a tenacious faith

One that only builds the Kingdom of heaven as grace upon grace

In union with you as children of Grace.

AMEN

For  Friday June 20^th, 2014

Today’s Verses Scripture: ¹⁴For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.

Observation: This verse alone defines the freedom granted from grace; it is an entirely different kind of freedom—one that is spiritual.

Application: Grace Alone through Faith Alone equals freedom from the bondage of all that the Evil One’s empty promises have laid at our feet.  These are stumbling blocks of many aspects of sin and wickedness.  We need the Law to be that accusing and accountable mirror to help lift us out of sin and realize the magnitude, power of living into and operating from a lifestyle of Grace.  Knowing GRACE deeply is living grace deeply and outwardly by intentionally and prayerfully loving God and neighbor!

Prayer:  Gracious & Loving God,

When we even say the Words gracious and loving

Our hearts should be striving to align prayerfully and deeply

In how we must grow as your disciples into the reality, lifestyle of Grace

To be able and accountable to Go and make disciples across this weary and broken world

Help our neighbor to see how Your Word is indeed Living

It is indeed New Life to transform us spiritually

To Be/ become the children of Grace you need us to be for Your Name’s Sake

AMEN

For  Sunday June 22^nd, 2014

Today’s Verses Scripture: ¹⁵What then? Should we sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means! ¹⁶Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness?

Observation: We are to discipline our lives upon costly Grace; which is being and becoming fully intentional in our servanthood to the Lord and our neighbor.

Application: Living truthfully into being a part of the priesthood of all believers means obedience through humility and a willingness to strive for commitment to the Will of God as the central goal of being a disciple of Christ. Being aware of the magnitude of Grace as both most costly and beckoning our hearts to transform is the first step to servant leadership for the sake and glory of the Gospel.

Prayer:  Gracious & Loving God,

Help our hearts to live into our vocation given to us through Your Grace

As your disciples, may we be shaped, changed, renewed into that priesthood of all believers

We must grow to embrace our part, if Your Holy Gospel is to continue to make disciples across the globe

Continue to humble us under the beauty and power of Your GRACE

May this humility bear Spiritual fruit that allows Your Holy Spirit to

Enlighten, Empower, Encourage and Embrace others through us

For Your Gospel’s sake

In Your Most Precious Name we Pray deeply—

AMEN

For  Monday June 23^rd, 2014

Today’s Verses Scripture: ¹⁷But thanks be to God that you, having once been slaves of sin, have become obedient from the heart to the form of teaching to which you were entrusted, ¹⁸and that you, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness.

Observation: Being entrusted to grow and go with a heart knowledge of the Gospel shapes and fits us to be effective servant leaders aligned to godly righteousness and truth.

Application: Realizing where your priorities are on your discipleship journey is key to knowing and growing into that New freedom that Jesus offers us all through Grace.  Everything contrary to our human nature especially when truthfully living and breathing humility to be a compassionate minister on behalf of the Gospel is empowered servanthood.  It’s righteous fruits are naturally produced from a faith truly realized deeply in the heart then connected to the mind for action in the world.

Prayer:  Heavenly Father,

Continue to stretch and shape our hearts to align to Your Righteousness and Truth

May we faithfully be and become the children of Grace you need us to be for Your Kingdom’s sake

May we be and become beacons of light and compassion

On behalf of our neighbor and out of love and devotion to you

May we continue to realize Your Holy Spirit’s work in our lives

May this humble us to be empowered leaders entrusted with Your Gospel

All this we ask you in Your most Holy and Precious Name—

AMEN

For  Tuesday July 1^st, 2014

Today’s Verses Scripture: ¹⁹I am speaking in human terms because of your natural limitations. For just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and to greater and greater iniquity, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness for sanctification.

Observation: Being and becoming a willing servant to Christ and His plan of righteousness IS both walking the talk and growing in holiness—deepening your union to Christ Jesus, who is the center of your life.

Application: Working past our limitations is a tall order but one that must be adhered to as it is the cost of discipleship.  Living selflessly and obediently into Christ call and commission to you is what builds the foundation for the Kingdom of God here and now.  The spiritual fruit of your life lived out of love and as children of Grace for God and neighbor are the bricks... Christ, the cornerstone!

Prayer:  Gracious and Loving God,

We know our limitations but choose often not to be accountable to them

Help us to transform our limitations into the spiritual bricks and mortar

You need for us to be obedient leaders to build

May our lives come to bear that spiritual fruit

May our lives grow in holiness as our hearts align in knowledge to Your Will, Truth and Gospel

In Your Most Holy and Blessed Name we pray—

AMEN

For  Friday July 4^th, 2014

Today’s Verses Scripture: ²⁰When you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness.

Observation: Going on impulse—“if it feels right do it;” is not the kind of freedom that leads to righteousness more than a dead end.

Application: We are in the 3^rd or 4^th generation of “if it feels right just do it,” frame of mind.  This is devoid of transformation—consciously changing for the better and from accountability...  It is the path to nihilism since it is entirely self-contained and devoid of contemplating Grace and gracious behavior.

Prayer:  Gracious and Loving God,

It is human nature to live impulsively...

The Evil One makes it appear as freedom but it is death and bondage

As well as it is free from true righteousness

It is lawlessness, idolatry and nihilistic—devoid of purpose and fruit

It burgeons the fruit of a graceless wilderness

Where happiness is an allusion, temporal at best and self-containing

If we, who profess Jesus to be Our Lord and savior are to ever grow and go with the Gospel

As Children of GRACE—we must die to sin and it’s empty promises

Seek righteousness that is found in the spiritual fruits born out of a transformed heart

Dedicated and commissioned by God to Love Him and neighbor.

In Your Most Holy and Blessed Name we pray—

AMEN

For  Friday July 18^th, 2014

Today’s Verses Scripture: ²¹So what advantage did you then get from the things of which you now are ashamed? The end of those things is death.

Observation: What you thought were priorities towards a goal turned out to be focused outside of Jesus’ goal/ plan for your lives to pursue.  The fruitlessness of the endeavor proved to be nihilistic towards purpose.

Application: What may be seemingly setbacks in your life CENTERED in Christ are teaching moments.  They are teaching moments to shape, transform into the child of Grace, you were meant to become.

Prayer:  Gracious and Loving God,

You truly do realize that “Footprints” poem

Walking with us daily, carrying our anxieties and worries in your arms

You help to humble us, to calm and shape our hearts inwardly to be and become

The servant leaders you need to realize your plan for the World

Continue to strengthen and encourage us to be bold disciples with vision and purpose

Centered in you as the children of GRACE living the lifestyle of grace

You have intended for us all

In most Holy and Precious Name, we always—Pray:

AMEN

 For  Tuesday July 22^nd, 2014

Today’s Verses Scripture: ²²But now that you have been freed from sin and enslaved to God, the advantage you get is sanctification. The end is eternal life.

Observation: When Christ Jesus freed us from sin, death and the devil we were given the opportunity to grow in union spiritually with Him.  This deep, life-time nurtured, prayerful commitment to Christ bears the fruit of true holiness—lifestyle of grace which in turn becomes eternal.

Application: Becoming a willing and intentional servant to Jesus takes a great adjustment spiritually/ internally to grow into the lifestyle of Grace Jesus has set before us as savior and model.  Being accountable is not works righteousness, it is not cheap grace either!  As a Lutheran person, I am not afraid to BE and become accountable to the will and purposes of God.  I truly feel this is the reality of GRACE.  We are to be evangelical, catholic (universal) disciples of Christ Jesus who is the ruler of our hearts—our goal, destiny & life’s purpose!

Prayer:  Gracious and Loving God,

Being and becoming a willing and intentional servant is very hard for us

Help us to realize the magnitude of what GRACE means as your Victory

And our spiritual journey to righteousness—accountability as the fruits of Grace

Transformation spiritually is the only way we can realize who we are to BE

For Your Sake and out of Love for the neighbor

Your servant Martin Luther realized the beauty and profoundness of your Grace

By being and becoming empowered to be a voice

That would shape a major change in your church collectively

This was only realized first as we all must acknowledge—through the heart, first

It is here alongside the Holy Spirit’s guidance that we are nurtured to grow and go

With Your Holy Gospel.

In most Holy and Precious Name, we always—Pray:

AMEN

For  Tuesday August 12^th, 2014

Today’s Verses Scripture: ²³For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Observation: Sin always seems to be the easiest path for “quick answers, solutions...”  The long-term consequences will weigh down your heart with burden, grief and purposelessness.  We must look to Jesus as our example and fount of New Life.

Application: Obedience, accountability, owning up are not comfortable words for us to discipline ourselves to do...  But for the Love of Jesus and neighbor, we must realize the rewards or fruits of sin are an empty, meaningless burden upon our lives. We will spiritually die to vain, nihilistic treasures.... whereas we could humble ourselves become obedient and accountable to the Will and purposes of God to experience the beautiful lifestyle of Grace our Lord Jesus has granted to us.

Prayer:  Dear Lord Jesus,

May we turn away from the Evil One’s empty treasures of sin

For its reward is spiritual death, purposelessness and vanity

Help us to be disciplined—obedient and accountable within our discipleship journeys

May our lives fully live into the lifestyle of Grace you have given us

May we grow fully into the New Nature you have planted within our hearts to realize

May we never not be grateful for the priceless gift of Grace you have granted upon us

May every knee bend, every heart be turned to confess that you are indeed

Our sovereign Lord and King

AMEN

To view the rest of today’s S.O.A.P. or to subscribe to (almost daily) posts of S.O.A.P.S  

Please see the Facebook group for the Gathering North Spiritual Formation:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/613504585365283/