Monthly Archives: February 2015

"Pray constantly." 1 Thessalonians 5:17

Seriously? Most of you reading this meager offering are probably doing well to read this meager offering. Your prayers may have been hastily muttered over breakfast or in the car on the way to work, but I don't want to get too autobiographical.

Without question I have room in my spiritual devotions for improvement. During this Lenten season I would do well to put aside all the scurrying little urgent things and give more reflective time to the important things. If it's important we need to set aside time for it, and I feel better when I pray and read as I should. A little more Mary, a little less Martha is a good prescription for most of us busy Christians.

But to pray constantly? Even Paul didn't do that. He didn't spend every minute of the day on his knees praying. No saint does that. It's physically impossible. Unless we understand prayer as something more than the specific time of folded hands, bowed head, and closed eyes.

Prayer is that, but it is much more, and that is the key to understanding this puzzling little verse.

Praying constantly assumes a highly personal connection with God. The fact is we all have that, but often live as though it were not true. God knows you. Everything. The good and the bad. God has an infinite love for you and literally dwells within you. We seldom give this truth sufficient room in our thinking.

Let's try. Here's what you are: a bearer of God's very image. As a Christian, Christ is in you, and you are in Christ! God abides in you and you abide in God. Paul wrote "You are hidden with Christ in God. When Christ is revealed—and He is your life—you too will be revealed in all your glory within Him" (Col. 3:3-4). When you pray the Spirit of God intercedes for you with sighs too deep for words (Rom. 8:26).

Don't think of praying as sending out words across time and space to the distant throne room of God. True praying is a matter of the spirit and the Spirit. Prayer is a mingling of your spirit with God's Spirit.

Kierkegaard said, "Most people really believe that the Christian commandments (for example, to love one's neighbor as oneself) are intentionally a little too severe—like putting the clock ahead half an hour to make sure of not being late in the morning." We are liable to take "pray constantly" like that, a well-intentioned hyperbole. But don't! God is so incredibly personal that praying constantly is simply a matter of awareness.

I must never neglect a "specific time of folded hands, bowed head, and closed eyes." Dedicated times and even posture are important parts of prayer life. But to pray constantly I need to remember that I live and breathe every moment in the gracious presence of God! That awareness, where every thought and motive is lived-out in communion with God, enables me to pray constantly.

Grace,

Dr. Terry Ellis
February 22, 2015

"Do not grumble, brethren, against one another, that you may not be judged; behold the Judge is standing at the doors." James 5:9

Words. What's the big deal? The deal is very big. According to a recent Pew Center report, the American teenager (13-17) sends an average of 3,339 text messages per month. Let that sink in for a moment . . . . yes, that's more than 100 per day. And that's just the average. Some teens have told me they hit 10,000!! Of course they said that while texting. Is there a carpel tunnel equivalent for thumbs?

Moving to another area of illustration: cell phones. Misplacing a cell-phone is now like misplacing a limb. Concern quickly transforms into alarm. I have to have it! What if someone calls? What if a teenager wants to send me 20 text messages in the next two minutes? What am I supposed to do without my cell phone? The answer is relatively simple: the same thing I did for the first 40 years of my life without a cell phone. Still, I need the cell phone.

The exchange of words is multiplying. Skyping, instant messaging, facebooking, facetiming (yes those are verbs), etc. are part of the verbal explosion. The only exception to this trend among the general population is in the area of sermons. Some people prefer sermons to be twitter-length.

This ever-expanding explosion leads me this week to consider what the Bible teaches us about words. The short answer is quite a lot. James connects the control of the tongue with genuine religion (1:26), ranking it with visiting orphans and widows and staying away from sin in general. In fact, he focuses on words/tongue several times in his brief letter; extensively in 3:3-12, and again in chapters 4 and 5.

James drew on a deep tradition of wisdom literature addressing speech. A few years ago I categorized every Proverb (marriage, money, relationships, etc.). By far the most extensive list concerned words. It ran onto a fourth page, 12 point, double spaced between each proverb.

The Hebrew concept of speech and words helps us understand the reason for this extensive focus. The Hebrew word for "word" is dabar, and a word was something like a unit of energy. A spoken word had a result. Something happened when you spoke. Thus, God did not wave His hands to create the universe. He spoke, and there was light. In this same way we are to understand the Hebrew concept of pronouncing a blessing, naming children, making a covenant. A word was spoken and something happened, something was created, and it could not be taken back. John's gospel reflected this powerful concept by referring to Jesus as The Word (1:1, 14).

Now back to this week's verse. It focuses on the negative speech: grumbling. The Greek word can mean groaning. At its root the word means to constrict (we get the English word stent from it) and that is where we derive the negative connotation. Complaining speech constricts relationships. It presses and magnifies contentious situations.

If I were to focus solely on gossip, then most of you would devote your reflection to trying to determine whether or not your gossip is truly gossip (it probably is). The more general word, grumbling, subsumes all negative speech; complaining, criticizing, judging, even cursing (I have some friends who appear to curse as a sign of sophistication and authenticity). We need to reclaim a higher regard for words. We need to be more Hebrew. Without question, your words, even the private ones, contribute to the spiritual environment around you. In regard to speaking of others, following the general rule of only speaking of another person as if they were present will prevent misunderstanding, misrepresentation, and embellishment. James reminded us that "the Judge" is listening!

Of course, the flip side of this truth is very good news. You can also bless, encourage, and contribute to making a situation better by good speech. I love to see my children "glow" when I praise or encourage them. I have seen this effect in an entire congregation during a sermon. You can do the same thing through kind, gracious, encouraging, and true words. Try it and see what happens in your workplace, your relationships, and your home. Gracious speech surely is one of the treasures you can store up in heaven.

So do watch your words. Take advantage of all the platforms you care to. Just remember that your words create. What are you creating with your words?

Grace,

Dr. Terry Ellis
February 15, 2015

"Share one another's burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ." Galatians 6:2

Some friends you don't hear from very often, but it doesn't make them any less your friend. John is one of those friends to me. We were in seminary together, I was a few years ahead of him. Both of us received our doctorates in Greek. His wife was the secretary to one of the professors for whom I worked as a teaching assistant. After graduation, I became a pastor. He went into teaching. Occasionally he would fill in for me at churches, and occasionally I would speak at the college where he taught.

He called me one day with a problem. His college had to make severe cutbacks due to a financial crunch. Though he was a highly respected teacher and won awards from faculty and students, he did not get a contract for the coming year. Two opportunities to teach had fallen through. Autumn loomed. He was calling everyone he knew asking for help in finding a church to pastor or another place to continue his teaching ministry.

What my friend had right then was a burden, a weight that he must carry for a while until new employment came his way. It did. He was too talented, and the needs too many. He found a place. But for a while he felt the heaviness of a burden of worry and fear.

Many times when I look out over a congregation I wonder what kinds of burdens people carry. Some are unemployed. Some are in a job they cannot stand, working for someone who has made life very difficult. Others struggle with a disease. Some have children who are in trouble. Some people labor in a difficult marriage. On and on.

When life throws a burden at you, you seldom have the option of refusing to carry it. But we have hope. Life takes nothing away from you that God will not restore in manifold ways. A Christian will lose some battles, but never the war. God has a solution for the burdens you bear.

One solution we find in Paul's counsel is to share our burdens with one another. I cannot express how valuable this principle has been to me. Just talking to someone helps. Somehow expressing fears and doubts lessens their strength. Our confidant may have no solution to offer, but God has so composed us that sharing a burden with another person lightens the load.

Of course, other times the person listening to us will have an insight. God almost always speaks to me through other people. I hear His voice through the voices of others. That doesn't diminish the vitality of my direct relationship with God. It merely underscores the importance of relationships and why God wants us to be one. Thus, we fulfill the law of Christ.

As I recall I offered no solutions or insightful words of wisdom to guide John. I was just a brother in Christ listening to and praying for another brother in Christ. I learned again what has been confirmed so often since: a burden shared is halved; a joy shared is doubled.

Grace,

Dr. Terry Ellis
February 8, 2015

"My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow Me." John 10:27

Today you have a choice, a remarkable, life changing eternity shaping choice to make. What voice will you listen to? What will guide you? What or who will have your highest devotion and deepest belief?

I love the play Our Town by Thornton Wilder. It illustrates the differences in the ways people live, the choices they make. The main point of the play is that most people do not live before they die. In fact, most people do not even realize that they were not really living, until they die.

The third act is by far the most interesting in the entire play. For the first two acts we have seen two young people growing up in a Rockwellian small town in New Hampshire. Emily and George fall in love in grade school and later marry. The third act opens with a funeral, as Emily has died giving birth. We get to see her and others who have died. We get to hear their views on life.

Emily wants to go back to that life and relive one day. She realizes how much she missed, and wants one last chance to live joyfully. She is granted that wish and returns to Grover's Corners on her 12th birthday, determined to really make the most of that one day, to really love her family, and her life. She tries. She tries hard, but it's no use. Everybody is in a rush. No one is taking the time to really appreciate life. They are all busy, concerned with the urgent, overlooking what is really important.

She decides to go back to her grave and her companions there. But first she wants to look one final time on her house, her town, and the life that she could have had. Ironically, she has realized in death what she missed in life. So she says goodbye to Grover's Corners. To sleeping and waking. To new ironed dresses. To the big butternut tree. To all the small blessings that can make life beautiful if we just remember to look. It is a sad and poignant scene. Then she pauses and asks aloud, "do any human beings ever realize life while they live it? Every, every minute?" Another character answers. "No. Saints and poets maybe. They do some."

She returns to the cemetery and takes her place among the dead. One of them is Simon Stimson, an organist and music director at the congregational church. He fought a drinking problem most of his life, and usually lost. Though in death most people begin to soften and to let go of bitterness, Simon is not there yet. He is still angry about life. When Emily relates to them about her frustrating experience on her birthday, Simon says, "That's what it was to be alive. To move about in a cloud of ignorance; to go up and down trampling on the feelings of those about you. To spend and waste time as though you had a million years. To be always at the mercy of one self-centered passion or another. Now you know—that's the happy existence you wanted to go back to. Ignorance and blindness."

To be honest, Simon is right. That's how most people live. But it does not have to be that way. The first and greatest gift God has granted is life. Though sin has marred life, twisted it, sentenced people to self-centered passions and living in ignorance and blindness, God has responded by sending His Son to restore life. He lives today so that you might have life and have it fully and abundantly.

And one of the greatest blessings of life in Christ is a growing ability to choose. You can choose to live one day at a time, and enjoy one moment at a time. You can choose not to be enslaved by the spirit-draining, self-centered passions that often become so familiar we don't even recognize them.

The greatest challenge you face every day is to listen to the right voice. A chorus calls you to a shallow life. Listen to those voices and you will skim along the surface, you will be frustrated and wonder why. You will die before you ever live.

But another Voice calls to you. It is not loud. It does not clamor. Often it is a whisper. But once you begin to hear it, the other voices lose their power. Then you have abundant life.

Grace,

Dr. Terry Ellis
February 1, 2015