Glass Panes That Separate

transparent barriers to communication

Tag: God

  • foreign

    “Why have I found favor in your sight that you should take notice of me, since I am a foreigner?” (Ruth 2:10)

    I was reading Ruth 2 this morning when this verse jumped out and hit me in the face. Taken by itself, it very easily could be (and ought to be) us talking to God. The Bible calls us sojourners in a foreign land as Christians, thus as sinners we were living in our native land, foreigners to God’s Kingdom. But Paul says that “while we were yet in sin, Christ died for us”. Jesus paid the price for our sin while we were still foreigners. We found favor in His sight, and we had done nothing to earn it. Indeed, even after we accept His free gift of salvation, there is nothing we can do to EARN the gift we have been given. It is a gift, and gifts are not earned, they are freely given. The ultimate gift, from God himself, is not different. In fact, it is quite the opposite from what we might expect. Not only is it impossible for us, as fallen humanity, to earn His gift, but we do not even deserve the gift that Christ Jesus gave us. We often give things to our children when they do something special, when they “deserve” the gift, but the gift of God is a foreign gift to a foreign people.

    Why have we found favor in His sight? What makes us so incredibly special? That He would give, not just a trinket, but the most valuable object imaginable, His very own Son, is beyond incredible. He favors us, He cherishes us, He loves us unconditionally, because He created us for that very purpose. God created humanity to have relationship with Him, and while sin has made us foreigners, He has not forgotten that for which we were made. He remembers that we were made to live as children of God. And so He calls us to come back and be made right again. Come!

  • writhing

    There’s a song called The Earth is Yours by Gungor and it’s had me thinking quite a bit lately of a verse I’ve always heard used as motivation for worshiping God. It’s in Luke 19, verse 40 and says, “if they keep quiet, the stones will cry out.” Most have probably heard the story. Jesus is riding into town on the colt of a donkey. People are throwing their cloaks and palm branches down before Him. The disciples break into song. And the religious leaders still don’t get it. The creator of the universe is riding into their town, and they miss it completely. They say, “Jesus, rebuke your followers!” Verse 40 is His response to them. If His disciples hadn’t praised Him, creation would.
    It was not a question of when and if creation would praise Him though. As the above song so aptly mentions, when the trees twist in the wind, and when the ocean is writhing in a storm, it shows the awesome power of God. The whole of creation is shouting His praises as loudly as they can. So the question isn’t when or if creation will praise Him. It’s a question of when His followers will. When will we put down our pettiness and do as John 4:23 bids us? When will we worship Him in spirit and in truth? When will we remember that worship isn’t and can’t be about us? It isn’t about our likes or dislikes. It isn’t about our preference for contemporary or traditional music. It isn’t about what gives us goosebumps. It isn’t about us. All those things can help us get in the spirit of worship, but they have little to do with our heart. The heart is our own choice. Will we do our best to out-praise the mountains, oceans and trees? Will we praise Him from our heart? We must choose whether we are going to just sing words on a screen, or whether we are going to forget about everything that bogs us down, and worship our creator with everything we are. That’s what it means to worship Him in truth.

  • Jesusmas 2009

    It’s really easy to forget what Christmas is all about, so the title is an extra reminder. We had a great Christmas, and while I got some really nice gifts, my dad had one of those moments again. He said, “we need to be thankful for friends and family, that’s what’s really important, not all the material stuff.” Don’t know if I can really expand on that too much, but I just want to take a moment to mention some of the ‘important’ things I’m thankful for before I post some pictures of all the presents and such. I’m thankful for my wife, and my parents, and my sister, and my cousins (all of them, even Afton…). I’m thankful for the little girl that’s on the way, and I’m thankful for my friends, at work, at church, and anywhere else. And I’m thankful for Scooter, Roo, and Oliver.

  • review

    A couple of my cousins posted their Christmas letters on their blogs, so I figured I’d follow suit, sort of. I actually put together a little photo collage that we sent out this year, but in case you didn’t get one (sorry), here it is:

    Christmas Collage 2009

    For more details, you can of course read back through my blog posts for the year. The side project I started, God Impact, is going quite well also. I’ve only missed one day (except for yesterday, when I forgot to hit the publish button).

    We’ve also had a lot of exciting things happening at our church, and there’s a little info over at www.glendiveag.org.

  • journey

    Sometimes my devotional life just plain stinks. Sometimes it isn’t too bad, and every once in a while, it reaches fantastic. More often than not, though, I skim through a chapter of the Bible each morning, eat my breakfast, and go to work without ever giving what I’ve read a second thought. Today, that changes, and I’m giving the world the opportunity to keep me accountable to this. I’m starting a spin off of my website called God Impact.

    Here’s the plan: Every day, starting at the beginning (Genesis 1:1), I’ll read a small portion of the Bible. I find that if I try to read too much, I forget what I read at the beginning, or I rush through it, and don’t get anything out of what I’ve read.

    Here’s the interesting part (hopefully). I’ll post what I’ve read, and then follow that up with some sort of commentary/insight into the passage. I’m not promising anything profound, but I’ll leave that up to God. If you like what I’ve written, or if it encourages you in any way, feel free to subscribe via the RSS feed. You can even leave comments on what you took away from the passage if you like.

    For those of you on Facebook, Multiply, LiveJournal, or Blogger, I don’t intend to cross-post any of this to those sites, sorry. If you want to read it, you’ll have to visit http://godimpact.shanebishop.net. Of course, that all may change, but that’s the plan for now.