Remembering

Posted by Jim Thornber on November 23, 2012
Posted in: Christian Spirituality, Poetry, Religion. Tagged: , , , , , . Leave a comment

As the holiday season brings most things except the remembrance of the Holy Days they used to be, I wrote a poem to put things in perspective. Enjoy.

 

REMEMBERING

The carefree days of childhood

gone now except in foggy memory

reminds me of family’s faith

in simple

togetherness.

No store-bought gifts

replace the joy of love or

the laughter of grace,

all wrapped together in the

multi-colored paper of

Advent and

topped with a bow called

Presence.

Not forgotten so

never forgetting the way

Love made a Way

Home,

the season itself is a

gift of remembering;

and in that thankful remembering,

a way of life.

Humiliated by Service

Posted by Jim Thornber on November 18, 2012
Posted in: Christian Spirituality, Religion, Scripture. Tagged: , , , , , , , . 5 Comments

During supper . . . Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands . . . rose from supper . . . and began to wash the disciples’ feet and to wipe them with the towel that was wrapped around him. – John 13:2-5 (ESV)

 

I have to confess that I’m not a very good servant. Yes, I pastor a church and yes, I’ve been a more-or-less follower of Jesus for almost forty years now, but I still struggle to be an effective servant. I still complain sometimes when I have to go the extra mile, especially when it comes to doing a job someone else is supposed to do.

What started me thinking in this direction is this passage from John. I’m teaching a Bible study on John and after many months, we finally made it to chapter thirteen. And, as has happened many times before, I’m rereading a very familiar passage, a passage I’ve preached on more than once, when something jumps out and grabs hold of my pride, something I didn’t see before.

Foot washing was a very menial task. People went around barefoot or in sandals, and their feet naturally got muddy and dusty. Guests’ feet were usually washed on arrival at the host’s home by a servant, because people didn’t sit at a table to eat but reclined on the floor. This put their feet at the same level with their head. It was a menial job to say the least, but it was also a necessary job.

However none of the disciples, upon arriving at the place Jesus arranged to have the Passover Feast, was willing to stoop to the lowly job of washing the feet of their companions. They may have been hanging out with each other for three years, but no one was going to volunteer to serve the others.

Finally Jesus, in the middle of the meal, gets up and washes their feet. I get the picture that He’s waited as long as He could for one of the boys to understand the true nature of servanthood, and when they don’t, Jesus takes the opportunity to teach them.

How humiliating! Here we have all the personally chosen disciples of Jesus, all too proud to wash each others feet, now having their feet washed by their teacher and soon to be Savior. How would you feel if Jesus did something for you that you were too proud to do for someone else? Continue Reading

Praying the Lord’s Name in Vain

Posted by Jim Thornber on November 11, 2012
Posted in: Christian Spirituality, Religion. Tagged: , , , , , , , . 3 Comments

Ex. 20:7—“You must not misuse the name of the LORD your God. The LORD will not let you go unpunished if you misuse his name” (NLT).

Just for the fun of it, I’ve been reading the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Old Covenant. I’ve been in Exodus the past few days, zooming right along and having a good time, right up until I got to Ex. 20:7, the third of the Ten Commandments. This one stopped me in my tracks. Like many of us, I’ve memorized this verse from the King James Version, which says, “Thou shalt not take the name of the LORD thy God in vain.” This commandment extends the idea of the second commandment, for just as God forbids us to show disrespect to Him by making a god out of something that is not God, it is also a disgrace to use His Name without a legitimate or valid reason.

Until now, I’ve mostly thought of taking the Lord’s name in vain as cursing. When I was barely a teenager, I’d often get frustrated and say, “Jeee-sus Chrii-st,” as if it was His fault I wasn’t getting my way. My dad heard me say that once and he shot me a look that has stayed with me for 35 years, and I’ve (mostly) succeeded in not saying it again.

Other times, I’ve heard people vainly use His name to express surprise or disappointment, or even fill in the gaps in prayer. This last one I find especially irritating. When I’m speaking to someone, I don’t find it necessary to use their name seventeen times in a sentence, so why would I repeatedly use God’s name when I’m praying in public? For instance, how many times have you heard a prayer like this: “Dear God, we come to you Father God and ask you God that you Father God would hear our prayers, Father God, for God you are a God who heals, Father God, and God…” That type of prayer DRIVES ME NUTS! First, God already knows you’re talking to Him, so you don’t have to try to get His attention by droning His name on and on. Second, I see no legitimate or valid reason to repeat God’s name because one has nothing better to say. Continue Reading

God Left Me Alone?

Posted by Jim Thornber on November 4, 2012
Posted in: Christian Spirituality, Church, Religion. Tagged: , , , , , , , . 2 Comments

“God withdrew from Hezekiah in order to test him and to see what was really in his heart.”

— 2 Chronicles 32:3

           I know this is hard to believe, but sometimes I’ve felt very alone in the world.

Shocking, isn’t it? Here I am, a pastor of a church and a man whose been going to church for 37 years. I’m a self-proclaimed normal and sane person who believes I can actually talk with God and, at times, believes God even talks back.

Yet, sometimes I’ve felt there was no one listening, that God was not in the room much less in the universe, and I was the only real person in the world with feelings, hurts, disappointments, desires, lusts, dreams, failures, successes and more questions than answers.

Then I read about King Hezekiah, and I began to understand that I’m not the first person who ever felt he was alone in the world. And this was after Hezekiah had a great encounter with the miracle-making God. It went like this.

One day Hezekiah wakes up from a nap and isn’t feeling well. His buddy Isaiah, a local prophet, tells him to get his affairs in order for he was going to die. King Hezzy cries out to God and God sends Isaiah back to the King with good news: he is going to live!

When you read the story in 2 Kings 20, you see God promised He would heal Hezekiah of a life-threatening disease and proved it by making the shadow go back ten steps on the stairway. This is very heady stuff.

Word of this miraculous series of events draws international attention and foreign ambassadors come to pay their respects and see how the king is doing. Now God, knowing Hezekiah had a tendency to become proud (2 Chron. 32:25), decided to test the king. He withdraws His presence to see if he’s going to tell the ambassadors about God’s goodness and lovingkindness, or if Hezekiah is going to show them all his accomplishments as a king. Hezekiah failed the test by showing his visitors everything in his storehouses (2 Kings 20:13).

This is where I pause, because I completely understand Hezekiah. Continue Reading

Eleven Days to Rest

Posted by Jim Thornber on October 28, 2012
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“Normally it takes only eleven days to travel from Mount Sinai to Kadesh-barnea, going by way of Mount Seir.” — Deuteronomy 1:2

I was reading Deuteronomy the other day, and I had trouble getting past verse 2 of the book before my mind started to wander off in a different direction. (Maybe it is just me, but sometimes my mind has a mind of its own.) Verse 2 says, “Normally it takes only eleven days to travel from Mount Sinai to Kadesh-barnea” (NLT).

In other words, a simple journey that should have taken about two weeks took thirty-eight years (they had already stayed two years at Mt. Sinai – Numbers 1:1). It made me wonder how many times I’ve over-stayed my welcome in one place because I murmured, complained and doubted God’s word. I’d hate to count.

Kadesh-barnea should have been a place of blessing. It was the place God directed Moses to lead the people so that they would have direct access into the Promised Land, but due to a rebellious spirit, it became a place of cursing. Although Kadesh means “Holy” or “consecrated,” a brief study of this place shows it was anything but a holy place to the rebellious children of Israel.

As a concession to the people who doubted that God knew what He was doing (Deut. 1:19-22), Moses allowed twelve men to go into the Promised Land as scouts. A majority of these men reported seeing large, walled cities and a people who descended from giants. What they saw with their eyes then suffocated their faith, and the people claimed that the LORD hated them and brought them here to be slaughtered (Deut. 1:25). (Perhaps this is where too much information can hinder our faith in God?)

It was at Kadesh that Korah’s rebellion took place (Num. 16) and over 250 people died. Miriam died and was buried at Kadesh (Num. 20:1), and it was here that Moses disobeyed the Lord by striking the rock he was directed to speak to (Numb. 20:8-11). Finally, it was not too long after God told the Israelites to move from Kadesh toward Canaan that Aaron died (Num. 20:23-29).

I believe there are many times when God withholds information because He knows we need to walk by faith, not by sight (2 Cor. 5:7). I know that my faith would have faltered had I known about every giant I was going to face in the places God sent me to live. This is why I am learning to be satisfied with knowing less and believing more.  Continue Reading

Which Way Is God?

Posted by Jim Thornber on October 21, 2012
Posted in: Christian Spirituality, Religion, Scripture. Tagged: , , , , , , . 2 Comments

“But if I go to the east, he is not there; if I go to the west, I dot not find him. When he is at work in the north, I do not see him; when he turns to the south, I catch no glimpse of him.” – Job 23:8-9

This passage in Job shows us there are times when, no matter which direction we go, we cannot find God or understand what He is doing. For some reason, there are times when He chooses to be elusive, evasive and evanescent. He answers to no one and refuses to ask permission to be Himself. Search for Him all you want, but if He chooses to hide Himself, there is no way to find Him.

At other times, no matter which way we go to get away from God, He is there (Ps. 139:7-10). Even in my darkest moments, I find God is with me, for darkness is as light to Him (Ps. 139: 12). Or, as Plato is quoted saying, “Light is the shadow of God.” God is everywhere, and there is no way to escape Him.

What challenges me is the fact that I cannot pin God down. If I try to flee from God, He pursues me. If I try to find Him, He remains hidden. Continue Reading

The Rainbow of Truth

Posted by Jim Thornber on October 7, 2012
Posted in: Christian Spirituality, Religion. Tagged: , , , , , , , . 2 Comments

For four years I was an Assemblies of God minister and a monk with the Brothers and Sisters of Charity at the Little Portion Hermitage. This is an excerpt from my book,Taking Off My Comfortable Clothes: Removing Religion to Find Relationship.

As an Assemblies of God minister who was also a monk in a Catholic-based monastic community, I had to do quite a bit of soul searching during my time at the Little Portion, reconciling what I have always believed and practiced with those things I was seeing practiced at the community. Our Christian principles were the same, but the practices of those principles were different. My conclusion, therefore, (and you may disagree – just be agreeable when you do so) was this: The Spirit of truth guides us into those truths that pertain to the principles of salvation. Everything else is icing on the religious cake.

At one time, I saw “truth” as if it were the period at the end of this sentence; complete, precise, and unalterably the same across the board. And naturally, my truth and the Spirit of truth were one and the same! However, after living at the Little Portion, I began to see truth more like a rainbow and less like a period. There were different colors and gradations to truth, especially when that “truth” did not have anything to do with our salvation.

Ecumenism is defined as a movement promoting union between religions, especially between Christian churches. Our unity as Christians is centered completely and solely upon Jesus and His place in our life. The purpose of the Spirit of truth is stated in John 16:14: “He will bring glory to me [Jesus] by taking from what is mine and making it known to you.” The mission of the Spirit of truth is stated in John 16:8: “When he comes, he will convict the world of guilt in regard to sin and righteousness and judgment.” By putting these verses together, we see that the Spirit of truth comes to convict us of our sin and point us to righteousness through the judgment of our sin (i.e., Calvary), and to glorify Jesus. Anything we do in the Church that does not fall into these areas is that which does not fall under the ministry of the Spirit of truth. Continue Reading

Committed to Success

Posted by Jim Thornber on September 30, 2012
Posted in: Christian Spirituality, Religion. Tagged: , , , , , , . 1 Comment

“Roll your works upon the Lord [commit and trust them wholly to Him; He will cause your thoughts to become agreeable to His will, and] so shall your plans be established and succeed” (Proverbs 16:3—Amplified).

I don’t know about you, but not everything I’ve done has been a success. Even those things I’ve given over to God have not always met with the kind of success I’ve hoped for. Only after digging into Proverbs 16:3 did I begin to understand what God was up to.

I first memorized this Scripture from the NIV, which tells me to “commit” my plans to the Lord. But when I found the same word is translated “roll” in the Amplified, I began a study of the word. In the Hebrew, the word commit does mean roll, but it also means to move a stone by getting it out of the way, to roll in blood or to be dyed red.

This tells me that every plan I have must be in conjunction with the will of God, according to the price paid by the blood of Jesus, if my plans are going to succeed. This is why every selfish, vain, prideful plan I’ve had has failed. Even if I rolled my plans into the clothes of religious terminology (“I declare, in Jesus name, to take control over the devil’s schemes so the gates of hell will not prevail against it, for the glory of God! Amen!!”), the plan will fail if it is not a plan that glorifies God.

Furthermore, I’m still discovering I cannot commit something to God if I am not willing to let it go. It is impossible to roll a bowling ball down the lane if you refuse to let it go. Too often, I have been guilty of “committing” my plans to God, only to keep one hand on the plan and try to steer the direction it will take. Continue Reading

Transparency

Posted by Jim Thornber on September 23, 2012
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In the Parable of the Yeast (Matthew 13:33), Jesus tells us a little something about ourselves that we don’t always like to admit – we aren’t perfect. I know I’m not the only one bothered by that concept, but as a pastor I need to grasp onto this idea and allow myself to be transparent and vulnerable in that transparency, for those are key items in living a life of integrity.

 Madeleine L’Engle said, “When we were children, we used to think that when we were grown-up we would no longer be vulnerable. But to grow up is to accept vulnerability . . . . To be alive is to be vulnerable.” This really is the essence of walking in Christ-like leadership – transparency and vulnerability. Only when we lack integrity and character will we close our lives to the view of people, not allowing them to see us for who we really are.

I believe that for too many years some church leaders (my self included) have taught or implied that being “perfect in Christ” meant “without moral error” or “sinless.” In doing so, we have presented ourselves as perfect models of Christ and expected our people to live up to the same standard. This wasn’t based on anything that even remotely looked like reality, but it was the image of the church that we promoted all the same. Continue Reading

Would I Worship or Would I Whine?

Posted by Jim Thornber on September 16, 2012
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 “Jesus said to the woman, ‘I was sent only to help God’s lost sheep—the people of Israel.’ But she came and worshiped him, pleading again, ‘Lord, help me!’”­ Matthew 15:24-25

 

A few weeks ago a pastor in my town brought this passage to my attention. It is the story of Jesus leaving Galilee and going north into Tyre and Sidon, which was Gentile territory. A woman who lived there came to Him and pleaded for Jesus to heal her daughter, who was tormented by a demon. As a response to this request, Jesus remained silent.

Today, silence is a most hated concept. With iPods and the internet and radio and television blaring everywhere we go, we’ve learned to distrust the sound of silence. Silence is wrong. Silence means something is broke. Silence makes us wonder if we’re still alive if all we hear is our own breathing.

Add to that silence the fact the people hanging out with Jesus urge Him to send her away and you have an emotional breakdown in the making. But she doesn’t go away. She just stands there and waits for the Son of David to answer her request. And when Jesus does speak, it is not as the meek and mild Jesus we sing about in church.

“I was sent only to help God’s lost sheep—the people of Israel,” He says. Great. Not only is Jesus treating her with silence, now He says he wasn’t sent for her. Apparently, there are people whose needs are greater or better or more deserving than a mother with a child possessed by a demon.

At this point in the story, I’d be ready to tell the Son of David what He can do with His Messiah complex. I mean, if God is going to be that callused as to tell me that others are more deserving of His mercy and grace, then it’s time to find another god.

But what this woman does next just astounds me. Continue Reading