Monthly Archives: January 2012

"As each has received a gift, employ it for one another as good stewards of God's varied grace…in order that in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ." 1 Peter 4:10-11.

This lovely passage distills three great biblical themes.

First, you are gifted. Everyone reading these words has a gift from God. You have received a gift. When the topic is "gifts of the Spirit" we usually either become too rigid and treat them like a spiritual MMPI, or we become too literal and assume that the New Testament writers covered every possible gift (we find at least three lists in the NT, and none agree on every particular).

The Spirit of God is the least predictable of the three persons of the Trinity. Theologians describe the Father's attributes, which we can enumerate at length. We can describe the Son's work in eternity and history (He created the universe, He was born, died, and raised). When it comes to the Holy Spirit we talk about His activities, and even Jesus left open the work of the Spirit. The Spirit is like the wind (John 3:8), and this very statement is a play on both the Greek and Hebrew words for Spirit (pneuma and ruach) that both mean spirit, wind, or breath. Thus the Spirit is active and "blowing through" the lives of believers in infinitely varied ways.

The main point is that each believer has a unique portion of God's grace or gifts, and these are from the Spirit. You might not be able to pin it down precisely, that is fine. Do not doubt the presence of your gifts and do not diminish their importance to other people. You are gifted.

Second, you are called. Peter seemed to be particularly impressed by this idea. He penned the well-known verse describing Christians as a Chosen Race, a Royal Priesthood, a Holy Nation, God's Own People. Each of these descriptions highlights our difference. I love the old KJV translation of the last phrase: a Peculiar People!

Without question God wants us to be different. Very simply I urge you to be a good Christian. This exhortation is neither trite nor simplistic. It highlights the fact that we are to do something with our faith. Just as the Spirit is defined by activity, so should we.

Some Christians are overly cautious about works, but we need no such reluctance. The Bible tells us of grace in order to keep us from being proud. But the Bible also urges us to engage in works to keep us from being lazy. Find a way to lift or share someone's burden. God called you to this task.

Finally, you live to glorify God. "Glory" is a slippery word, hard to pin down, and possessing a wide variety of nuances. It originally had the idea of opinion or reputation, and that is important to understanding one meaning of the word in the New Testament.

To glorify God does not simply mean to tell Him how great He is. It means to live in such a way that people see God in you. I speak reverently, but your good works are not merely a reflection of God's goodness, they are a manifestation of God's goodness and presence in you. As Jesus put it, people see your good works and give glory to God. Your good works reveal God's reputation or personality.

I am quite sure that our good works should have a certain lack of awareness. In other words, our good works must not be calculated to impress anyone (especially God). In the parable of the sheep and goats, Jesus said those who gave food, water, and comfort to the needy asked "when did we do these things for You?" That humility is what I mean. By all means we must avoid Bob Hope's humorous observation: "Sincerity is what matters. Once you can fake that, you've got it made."

A final encouragement: your gifts, and their use, are probably not grandiose. Don't be discouraged. The faithful mother who is able to get her children to bed at a decent hour, get them up in the morning and off to school fully clothed, and with lunch (or lunch money) is probably far nearer the kingdom of God than the most pious monk.

So be good, sincere, Christians, today and every day. That is how you bring glory to God.

Grace,

Dr. Terry Ellis

January 29, 2012

"Cast all your anxieties upon Him, for He cares for you." 1 Peter 5:7

Let me begin by saying that if none of the following three paragraphs connect with you, then you are perfectly fine, a good Christian, and 1 Peter 5:7 will be eternally accessible and meaningful. The verse stands nicely on its own. When you are anxious, God assures you that He will take to Himself your fears because of His great love for you. You can stop right here and be encouraged!

However, I have been thinking for a few days about the significance of the verb translated as "cast upon." It means simply to throw, and has a preposition as a prefix which tends to intensify the action in Greek. The meaning of the word directs us to aggressively throw away our cares to God, implying that we are really not sufficient to take care of them on our own.

Now comes the challenging part. The Greek verb tense is aorist (pronounced erist). The word aorist means without limit or undefined. If you look carefully at the word you see the alpha privative (a – meaning without) and the root (oris) from which we get the English word horizon. Literally the word describes a kind of action that is without a horizon, therefore, without limit or undefined. This is a very difficult syntactical point to understand, but the aorist tense does not have a time relationship (except in the indicative . . . don't worry about it). It means an action simply occurs. It is not limited to ongoing action (which would be present tense), or complete action (which would be perfect tense).

How does this grammar apply to this beautiful verse? Casting your cares upon God, is not simply an action that you perform each day. Casting your cares upon God is an expression of your union with God through Christ. Because of God's closeness and deep love, He shares with you the cares of your world. He knows and takes upon Himself those cares as you give them to Him.

As a practical matter, you can limit the weight of burdens by resisting the nearly universal tendency to "engage in the hypotheticals." Burdens are real enough without endless speculation as to how they might become heavier. What I mean is we think "If this problem is not solved in such and such a way, then a whole new problem will come along. And if that problem arises then this one, etc." For example, we tend to do this with our children. We worry that telling a fib at age 2, no doubt means the child will become a full-fledged sociopath by 18! That's probably not going to happen.

Life is too vexing as it is to engage in hypotheticals. You have heard it said that 99% of the things you worry about never happen? Most of the 99% are hypotheticals. You're making a mountain out of a molehill. Do not give too much power to your problem, or more weight to your burden.

As a final practical matter, you do need to consciously take your cares and place them upon God's altar. Additionally, you need to resist the urge to take them back upon yourself on the way out! But even more deeply, a true disciple learns the discipline of allowing God to take and keep these cares as a part of his or her union with Christ. Christ shares in our suffering just as we share in His. So casting your cares upon Him is more than just a part of your morning prayers. It is a part of the deeply mysterious and moving relationship you have with God who cares for you.

Grace,

Dr. Terry Ellis

January 23, 2012

"Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat their produce." Jeremiah 29:5

The people Jeremiah preached to were in exile in Babylon, a dark and difficult time. Jeremiah's message was not one of sunny hope, but sober challenge. He said, "Build houses and plant gardens."

The people must have wondered, "What does he mean build houses and plant gardens? You only do that if you are going to be in one place for a long time. I can't stay here! I want things the way they used to be! What's the point of building houses and planting gardens here in this God-forsaken place?"

God's response? Building houses and planting gardens is exactly the point because they would have to stay in that place. There would be no returning home. They would never be able to forget that painful chapter, and they would never "get over it." The disaster did not have a quick fix. Instead they faced a permanent break.

Do you understand their challenge? We all have a mental picture of how life should be. It's a romantic picture, a Norman Rockwell type picture. We are blessed much of the time to have many scenes like that. But then someone or something comes along with a large black marker and scrawls all over the picture. It will never be the same. Life has tumbled in. What then? Do you "get over it?" Probably not. There is a better way.

My Dad was a pilot for the Air Force. He accumulated more than 14,000 hours in the air during a very exciting time in aviation history. He earned his wings near the end of WW II, and flew during the transition from props to jets. Dad had 11,000 hours in props, 3000 in jets. He claimed he could fly anything, and accumulated most of his hours instructing pilots for the Air Force. I grew up with great stories of Dad's exploits. He was heroic in my eyes.

My mother, of course, did not have quite the same heroic stature, but Mom lovingly brought to us exactly what we needed. She was bright and positive and pretty. Her greatest ambition was to be a mother who took care of the house and was home when her children got off the school bus. It was Norman Rockwell.

In 1962, when he was about 39, Dad began having some numbness and fatigue. After a series of tests, the doctors were uncertain of the cause. Maybe a brain tumor. Though they didn't know precisely, they knew enough to order Dad not to fly. Later they diagnosed him with MS. He was grounded. He couldn't fly. He couldn't even run. Eventually, he couldn't work at all. In a span of a couple of years Dad went from being a hot-shot pilot to being forcibly retired. Mom went from doing the only thing she had ever wanted to do, to going to work full time as a teller in a savings and loan.

I don't really remember much about those years. I was about four and can only recall staying with someone while Mom went with Dad to the doctors and hospitals. I knew something was wrong. In subsequent years I can remember Dad would have occasional spells when the disease would nearly paralyze him, and we didn't know if he would ever get up.

He always did, a little slower than before he went down. He could drive and take Mom to work. He struggled with stairs and tired easily, but we had a good life growing up. We had an unspoken motto during those years, one that I could articulate later in life, and only now realize its importance.

Mom said it when Dad had to enter a nursing home in the 1990's. I asked "How are you doing Mom?" "We'll make it," she said. "Bill and I talked about it, and we said again we just have to adjust and go on. That's all there is to it."

Adjust and go on. All my growing up we made adjustments and went on. That's what God was saying to the people in exile when He told them to build houses and plant gardens. You will never return to the Norman Rockwell painting. You must adjust and go on.

God promised daily bread. He will give you what you need for today. He will not ask you to face more than you can endure, and He does not want you to endure it alone. He is with you. He also doesn't ask that you "get over" some tragedy or difficulty. That's impossible. You never get over some problems, and God doesn't expect you to. You do have the choice of adjusting and moving on.

I don't believe in insurmountable problems. I do acknowledge that some problems abide for as long as I live. What I really believe in is a God who gives strength and wisdom to adjust and go on. He offers the same resource to you. Adjust and go on.

Grace,

Dr. Terry Ellis

January 16, 2012

"By His great mercy we have been born anew to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and to an inheritance which is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you." 1 Peter. 1:3-4

Remember when we got three channels, and they were all in black and white? With all the technology and instantly available real-time information today, it's inconceivable to present generations that we grew up in such deprivation. I recalled those fuzzy, rabbit-ear days recently when explaining to my son how I used to watch Kentucky basketball games.

Home games were seldom on tv, but they were recorded and replayed the same night at 11:30 (channel 27). If school was out the next day, I would stay up and watch the game after listening to it earlier in the evening. I confess freely that am a nutty Kentucky basketball fan, entirely too wrapped up in their record. I used to cry if they lost, and that was just a couple of weeks ago against Indiana. Anyway, when I was a kid it was much worse. If the game was close, I couldn't listen.

But if we won that close game, I would stay up and watch it with full confidence, completely unafraid, because I knew how the game would turn out.

Peter's topic in the passage for this week's GraceWaves is salvation. He wrote with great passion about the salvation we enjoy as followers of Christ. Having "been born anew" refers to the past initial confession of faith. The "living hope" refers to the present, ongoing experience of salvation. The "inheritance" refers to the future when salvation is fully realized, and our transformation through grace is complete.

This passage is a good illustration of the NT theology of salvation. Literally, in the wording of the gospels and letters, we were saved, are being saved, and will be saved. We are God's children now, but it does not yet appear what we shall be (1 Jn. 3:2). This gentle tension between "already and not yet" defines us as God's sons and daughters.

The problem for most of us arises when we let present fears or frustrations blind us to the future certainty. Your salvation was initiated by God's grace and "activated" by your faith in Christ. It is a gift you have received through faith. What Peter was highlighting was the tremendous certainty we should live with. Your salvation enables a grace-filled trust and confidence in God that helps you to face the inevitable uncertainties of today and tomorrow.

Now what does a taped Kentucky basketball game have to do with a passage from 1 Peter? When I watched that reply I was watching a game I knew we had already won. As a Christian you are running a race you have already won. You know how this all turns out! Your inheritance is certain. You are the child of the King.

Confidence in your eternal future should create confidence during your uncertain present. The new year holds untold challenges and blessings, but we always seem to fixate on the challenges. Don't let any fear persuade you that God is silent or His providence ineffective. He has not overlooked you or left you out of His eternal purpose.

A line from "Perfect Day" (my daughter will understand) sums up this week's message very well: "you're running a race that you've already won, and getting there can be half the fun."

Grace,

Dr. Terry Ellis

January 8, 2012

"And I am sure that He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ." Philippians 1:6

This wonderful verse assures us that God continually works in our lives. Like a diamond in the rough, God chips away and polishes everything that prevents us from shining for Him. Paul's confidence should be our confidence. I know that God is working in my life. You should be confident too.

But someone understandably will ask, "why is it taking so long?" Cannot God simply make us whole now? Wouldn't we cause a lot fewer problems to others and ourselves if God would simply go ahead and complete His work? These are not petulant questions. They come from a genuine desire to be what God wants us to be. Now. Why doesn't it happen now?

To complicate matters, change is often the subject of prayer. The reasoning is something like, "I realize this part of me needs change. I know God wants to eliminate this habit. I have prayed about it, yet it remains a thorny problem. Why?" The apparent slowness of God's work in bringing us to completion is one of the most frustrating aspects of the Christian's life and faith.

A part of the answer, and I stress that it is only a part, is that our freedom to choose and our willingness to choose is shaped, and sometimes compromised, by countless variables. The way I was raised by my parents influences my decisions today. My habits of mind are well established and influence me. The school I went to influences me. My relationships today influence me. The recent books or articles I have read influence me.

In other words my "freedom," while real, is not in a vacuum. It is subject to a thousand different influences, personal, social, biological, etc. This freedom is more complex and perhaps not quite as free as I thought it was!

Add to this the fact that prayer itself is very social in nature. For example, I might pray for a person to break a bad habit. While everyone would agree that such an outcome would be good, God will not contravene the countless variables that influence all the people that have a role in making that request a reality. The request is not made, or granted, in a vacuum.

All this makes God's providence appear irritatingly slow. It leads some people to doubt, and leads others to dismiss God's action altogether. We return to the age-old question, "why doesn't God fix me, and why doesn't He fix me now?" The whole problem focuses on the turbulent waters where God's providence meets the free will He granted me and the often poor ways I, and others, have used that gift.

The Christian's response is to trust that God is indeed at work. We know that He is good and loving, not neglectful. We also have to trust that only God is qualified to extricate His will from all the thorny hindrances erected by self-will. This process is slow, out of necessity. God's commitment to giving and respecting our free will often results in our frustration. But we cannot blame God. He is not the problem. He remains, always, the solution.

Life is not a cheap novel with an obvious plot and easily anticipated conclusion. God's answers are sometimes unpredictable (as in 40 years of wilderness wanderings) or even unacceptable to some people (a suffering messiah, for example), but God will answer.

"All now mysterious shall be bright at last." I know that to be true. So do you. In the interim, continue to pray, continue to serve and give yourself to Christ. Above all, continue to trust God who alone is qualified and trustworthy to bring you to completion.

Grace,

Dr. Terry Ellis

January 3, 2012