Category Archives: PAUSE: Make space for God

How does the Lord want me to serve others?

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This is it – the last topic in our seven week “PAUSE: Make space for God” series.

When we serve others, we are serving the Lord: “Then the righteous will answer Him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry and feed You, or thirsty and give You drink?  When did we see You a stranger and take You in, or naked and clothe You?  Or when did we see You sick, or in prison, and come to You?’  And the King will answer and say to them, ‘Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these My brethren, you did it to Me.’” (Matt. 25)

When we think about serving others, we usually focus on people’s physical needs.  “Service trips” often include things like volunteering at a soup kitchen, building homes for the homeless, or picking up trash.  These are all good ways to serve others.  However, in ancient times people cared more about how they could serve others on a spiritual level.  They wanted to serve a person’s soul and not just their body.  In fact, in ancient times people understood the groups of people mentioned in the passage above in a spiritual way:

  • Hungry = Those who desire goodness
  • Thirsty = Those who desire truth
  • Sojourner = Those who are willing to be instructed
  • Naked = Those who acknowledge that they have no good and truth from themselves
  • Sick= Those who acknowledge they are in evil
  • Prisoners = Those who acknowledge they are in falsities

There is a lot that could be said about serving people on a spiritual level.  Here are two things to consider:

  1. In some ways serving someone on a spiritual level requires more wisdom and prudence than serving someone on a merely natural level.  Figuring out that someone needs to be physically fed or needs help building a new home is pretty easy.  However, understanding that a person has a “hungering” heart and mind is a lot harder.  I can feed a hungry body by simply handing over a loaf of bread.  How do I feed a hungry soul?
  2. I’ve been very struck this week by the idea that to serve someone on a spiritual level I need to genuinely get to know them.  We live in a society where people tend to live very isolated lives.  We pack our days with so many things that we forget to make time for those human relationships that matter so much in life.  Yet how can I give a spiritual drink to someone when I haven’t even asked them what kind of drink they want?  How can I heal my brother when I haven’t taken the time to find out what is ailing him?  We’re very good at making small talk with each other.  But who in your life do you know well enough and on a deep enough level that you could serve them spiritually?

So I guess that when I ask myself “How does the Lord want me to serve others,” I realize that I need to start by making more time for people in my life.  Only then can the Lord open my eyes and help me to see those who may be spiritually hurting and need my help.  Serving others is not something I can do if I keep the people around me at arms length.  I can’t serve others in the way the Lord wants me to by writing a check or hammering some shingles down on a house.  I think that the Lord wants me to do these things, but He also wants me to genuinely open my heart to people and get to know them.  Only then can I fully serve my neighbor and allow them to serve me in return.

Those who are spiritually hungry, thirsty, sojourning, naked, sick, and in prison are all around us.  Will we take the time to see them,  come to them, and serve them?

How Do I Follow the Lord?

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This is the topic for week #6 of our seven week series called - PAUSE: Make space for God.

One thing I love about the New Church is that its teachings don’t require that we completely reject natural and worldly things.  We simply need to keep them in their proper place – below spiritual and heavenly things.  Is there anything wrong with enjoying good food, taking nice vacations, wanting to look pretty, or enjoying any of the other pleasures of a life in this world?  No!  As long as you prioritize and don’t make these things MORE important than spiritual things.  This is a great way to understand what it means to follow the Lord.  Yes, there are certain evils that we must completely reject from our life.  But a large part of following the Lord doesn’t so much involve rejecting things, but rather reorganizing them.

The service on this topic was based on the story of the Lord walking on the sea (Matt. 14).  The image of the Lord walking on the sea and then inviting Peter to do the same, is a wonderful representation of how the Lord wants to help us all reorganize our lives.  The sea represents not just the hells but all of the more worldly thoughts and affections that the Lord Himself subjugated or put below the more spiritual and eternal realities of His heavenly kingdom.  Peter being invited to “Come” out onto the water with Him is a symbol of the Lord’s invitation to help us do the same.  Following the Lord is all about hearing this call to put the “sea” of our own evils and worldly concerns “beneath our feet”.  Here’s a link to the sermon if you want to follow this idea more: http://www.newchurchaudio.org/event/20263.html

The Writings for the New Church give a good visual of this.  They say that following the Lord and allowing Him to regenerate you can be compared to helping a person stand upright on their feet.  A person’s feet are very important and useful, but only if they stay where they are meant to be – below the rest of the body.  The natural world along with its concerns is also very important and useful, but only if it stays where it is meant to be – below what is spiritual and eternal.  Unfortunately we all start off life like an upside-down person – our head (spiritual concerns) is below and our feet (natural concerns) are sticking straight up and flailing around in the air.  Follow the Lord and He will literally help to turn your life around!  He’ll help you get your feet firmly planted on the ground where they’re meant to be and the rest of your body centered ABOVE that.  Once your body is properly aligned – Feet below legs, below hips, below chest, below head, and all with the Lord at the top – then you can walk and go anywhere you want.  Here are two great passages from the Writings for the New Church about how if you’re not following the Lord, from heaven you appear to be standing on your head:

Speaking of those who have made worldly things more important than heavenly ones: “Viewed from heaven, they look to us like play-actors who turn their bodies upside down, support themselves on their elbows and thus move about. Or they look like animals that lie upside down on their backs, raise their feet in the air, and, digging their heads into the ground, from that position look up at the sky.” (Swedenborg – Conjugial Love 79)

WARNING: If you find yourself standing upside down in the life after death, you’ll know you’re in a bad place!: “All appear erect – both those in heaven and those in hell – with their heads in the air and their feet on the ground. Yet in themselves, and in the eyes of the angels, the body-positions in heaven are different from those in hell. Those who are in heaven appear with their heads pointing up towards the Lord who is the Sun there and so the common centre from which every station and position is derived. But those who are in hell appear in the eyes of angels with their heads downwards and their feet upwards, and so with an upside down body-position and also a bent one. For that which to those in heaven is above is to those in hell below, and that which to those in heaven is below is to those in hell above.” (Swedenborg – Heavenly Secrets 3641)

So on a spiritual level, which way around are you?  Head up and feet down….or feet up and head down?

What Does The Lord Want From Me?

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Week #5 of our “PAUSE: Make space for God” series is on the question, What does the Lord want from Me?  Another big question that could be answered in a variety of different ways.  I’ve chosen to focus on the idea of consistency.

Our culture tends to judge people based on single events or choices that we make.  In February of 2008 nobody cared that the New England Patriots had a near perfect season, because they lost the Super Bowl.  In the business world, it doesn’t matter if you generally do a really good job if you end up losing a multi-million dollar contract because on one specific day you choked.  People say or do one thing that makes us angry and we hold onto it for years.

Even in the world of religion people can put far to much emphasis on a single act.  There are those who talk about the moment they chose to turn their life over to Christ; or the moment that they were saved.  Really?  Can God save you in a moment?  Then why did He bother making life in this world so long?  Sometimes we feel too righteous based on one good deed that we did – or on the other hand we feel too bad and self deprecating based on a single mistake.

WE tend to put a lot of emphasis on single moments of time, but the Lord looks at things very differently.  He never judges us based on a single decision or event;  but rather on the consistent growth and development of our spiritual character.  One good passage you can use to reflect on this comes from the book of Micah: “He has shown you, O man, what is good; and what does the LORD require of you but to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God.” (Micah 6:8)  Does the Lord care if you happen to act justly or mercifully in one moment of time if during the rest of your life you act dishonestly and treat your neighbor badly?  Does He care if you come to church on a Sunday morning and say your prayers before bed, if during the rest of the week you forget about Him?  Consistency!   The Lord cares what we do each moment, but only when those moments are a reflection of a much bigger journey and consistent spiritual character that is the basis for all of life’s moments – big and small alike.

I’m having trouble puting the practicality of this idea into words, but something about this ideas seems very profound to me.  It seems like it has the potensial of really changing the way we approach life and each other.  In the life after death the Lord is not going to care if I or you lived one moment spectacularly.  That’s not what He wants from us.  He will care about whether in all the moments – both small and great - I did my best to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with my God.  You can listen to a sermon on this topic by going to: http://www.newchurchaudio.org/event/20233.html

Any thoughts on why this matters and how different life would be if, like the Lord, we were more concerned with the process and the consistent spiritual character of ourselves and our fellow human beings?  What makes us care so much about the one off events, successes and failures; rather than the journey as a whole?

How Does the Lord Work In My Life?

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Another big question for week #4 of our “PAUSE: Make space for God” series!  For this topic I’ve chosen to focus on the words “cooperation” and “respond”.

Although the infinite God of heaven and earth has many wonderful plans for us, He cannot bring those plans to fruition without our cooperation and response: “Every person on his part ought to draw near to God; and as far as man does draw near, God on His part enters into him.” (Swedenborg – True Christian Religion 126)

One of the reasons that I love this idea is because it puts the ball squarely in our court.  The Lord is doing everything that He can and everything that He needs to do in order to lead us forward in our lives.  The only question is, are we willing to cooperate with Him?  Many times we will make excuses for why we can’t move forward, resolve a problem, or shun a certain evil.  And yet, every moment of every day the Lord is giving us everything that we need to make changes and to move forward….IF we choose to.  I was reflecting the other day on the fact that a huge part of faith is recognizing that you need to cooperating with the Lord AND that He is providing you with everything you need in order to do this.  “Give us this day our daily bread,” we say in the Lord’s prayer.  Do I really believe that the Lord is providing me right now, in this moment, with EVERYTHING that I need to move forward?  Imagine how different my life would be and the things I could accomplish if I really did believed this!: “Truly, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, ‘Be taken up and thrown into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that what he says will come to pass, it will be done for him.” (Mark 11:23)

One of the great stories in the New Testament to reflect on when it comes to our need to cooperate with the Lord and believe that He gives us what we need to move foward, is the story of the sick man and the pool of Bethesda (John 5).  Occasionally an angel would come and stir the waters of this pool.  The first person to get into the waters after they had been stirred would be healed of their sickness.  One man had been sitting by this pool for thirty-eight years!  He couldn’t walk, and every time the waters were stirred someone else got in before him.  When the Lord found him by this pool He didn’t seem to have much sympathy for the predicament the sick man was in.  The Lord simply asked the sick man, “Do you want to be made well?” And then told him to, “Arise, take up your cot and walk.”  This is a great story because it encourages us all to reflect on why we may not be allowing the Lord to “heal” us of our many spiritual ailments.  What habits have we gotten into and what excuses are we making for not getting into that pool and for not taking up our cot and walking?  I’d encourage you to listen to the sermon I gave on this story last Sunday.  It asks what I find to be a very interesting question – Why might you NOT be allowing the Lord to heal you?  http://www.newchurchaudio.org/event/20223.html

So knowing that the Lord is always doing His part, perhaps a good question to ask yourself this week is, what do I need to do to better cooperate with the Lord?  Do I really believe that the Lord has given me every tool I need to move forward?  If you get a chance, I would be very interested to hear your thoughts about ways and reasons why we don’t always cooperate with the Lord.  When what the Lord is offering us is so wonderful, why do we end up just sitting by the pool of Bethesda for 38 years, instead of getting up and walking?

Who is Jesus, and how does He relate to my life?

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From a doctrinal perspective I understand who Jesus is and how He relates to my life.  It’s actually quite simple.  ”Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and bear a Son, and they shall call His name Immanuel, which is translated, God with us.” (Matt. 1:23)  “I am the way the truth and the life.  No one comes to the Father except through Me.  If you had known Me, you would have known My Father also; and from now on you know Him and have seen Him…He who has seen Me has seen the Father.” (John 14)  Jesus Christ is God with us.  God Himself – the Jehovah of the Old Testament – chose to be born into this world as Jesus Christ.  Why?  In part so that He could become more visible to us:

“The one God who is invisible came into the world and assumed a Human, not only that He might redeem people, but also that He might become visible, that thereby conjunction with people might become possible.” (Swedenborg – True Christian Religion 486)

Intellectaully I get this.  And I would love to hear any thoughts or questions that people have about how God became more visible by taking on a Human in this world.  You can listen to a sermon I gave recently on this that at least introduces the topic – http://www.newchurchaudio.org/event/20205.html

But what’s puzzling me at this point is how we actually experience the visible God in our day to day life?  I know that God became more visible by choosing to be born into this world, but I don’t always feel that the one God of heaven and earth is visibly present in my own life.  Do you?  So the question I would like to pose is this: How do you experience the presence of the visible God (the Lord Jesus Christ) in your life?

To get the conversation going I’ll start with one thought.  I think that if we want to experience God as being more visible in our lives we need to approach Him in His Word.  The Writings for the New Church talk a lot about how important it is to approach the Lord in His Word.  It’s in His Word that we can learn about the life He lived and think more clearly about His Divine qualities.  So if I want to see and feel the presence of a visible God in my life I cannot just gaze up at a star filled sky.  Instead I need to focus my time, mind, heart, and attention on His Word.  There’s something about His Word and reading it daily that is vital to seeing God as visible in my life.

What else?  Why is it so important to you that we have a visible God and how do you experience Him visibly in your life?

Why Did God Create Me?

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Week two of our seven week series, PAUSE: Make space for God; and this week’s topic is, Why did God create me?  First of all, how am I meant to answer this in a blog?  Aren’t blogs meant to be short? : )  Perhaps to get us on the right path we can start with the slightly simpler question, Why did God create anybody?

The key to understanding why God created anything, is to first understand that God is Love Itself.  If you believe this you can quite easily see why God created.  It is the very essence of love to want to have others outside of oneself to love.  If God did not create people, like you and me, His love would have no one to extend towards.  So the basic and very logical answer to this question is that because God is Love Itself, He created people (and you specifically) so that He would have someone to love.  How would you like being a loving person, and yet not having anybody to share your love with?

Now I’m going to throw you for a little loop and talk for a minute about aliens.  Yes, there is a connection.  If God is Love Itself and He is also infinite, it makes sense that He wouldn’t want to create one or two people to share His love with.  He would want to create many people: Hundreds, millions, trillions, quintillions…..how many would be enough for an infinite God of eternal love?

While acknowledging that this is by no means a scientific proof, this is one of the arguments used in the writings of Emanuel Swedenborg to logically say why there must be life on other planets.  The amazing vastness of the universe mirors the infinity of God and His infinite love.  Would a God that created such a vast universe really be content to populate only one small planet with people?  Love does not just want to create others outside of oneself; love also wants to be one with the people created and to make them blessed and happy.  As finite human beings we find ourselves loving many different people.  Can we even begin to imagine how many people God is capable of loving?

“People may believe that in the universe there are more earths than one, from this, that the starry heaven is so immense, and the stars therein are so innumerable, each of which in its place, or in its world, is a sun, and like our sun, in various magnitude. Whoever duly considers, concludes that so immense a whole must needs be a means to an end, which is the ultimate of creation, which end is the kingdom of heaven, wherein the Divine may dwell with angels and men; for the visible universe, or the heaven resplendent with stars so innumerable, which are so many suns, is only a means for the existence of earths, and of men upon them, of whom may be formed a heavenly kingdom. From these things a rational person must needs be led to conceive, that so immense a means, adapted to so great an end, was not constituted for a race of people and for a heaven thence derived from one earth only; for what would this be to the Divine, which is infinite, and to which thousands, yea, ten thousands of earths, all full of inhabitants, would be small and scarce anything.” (Swedenborg – Earths in the Universe 4)

Why did God create me?  I’ll have to think about that one a bit more.  But to start with, it’s quite inspiring to think about why God created anything in the first place and how vast and infinite a loving God’s creation must be.  Do you believe that there is life on other planets?

How does God speak to me?

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This Sunday we started a seven week series called “PAUSE: Make space for God”.  This week’s topic is, How does God speak to me?

One of the things I find most inspiring about this topic is the idea that God is ALWAYS speaking to us.  Most importantly He speaks to us through His Word; but He is also speaking to us through His creation, through family, through friends, and even through the various thoughts and inspirations that we have.  So if God is always speaking to me, why aren’t I hearing Him?

The story we used on Sunday to explore this topic was the parable of the sower (Matt. 13).  God (the Sower) is always pouring forth His loving Word upon us (the seeds).  However our mind (the earth) recieves His Word in a variety of different ways – some good and some bad.  The three bad types of earth represent three ways that we may be closing our minds off to God’s Word – not listening to Him.

Wayside: The wayside was so hard that no seed could even take root.  The birds of the air came and devoured the seed.  How might we be not allowing God to speak to us at all?  Perhaps we’re not making any time for Him.  Perhaps we are so “hard” headed that we aren’t willing to admit how much we need Him.  The birds of the air represent all of our false and preconcieved ideas that simply “devour” God’s truth if we’re not willing to soften our minds.

Rocky Earth:On this earth the seed grew rapidly, but because it had no deapth of earth or deep root, the sun eventually came out and scorched the plant, causing it to wither.  This represents times when we might initially recieve God’s Word with some joy.  However, as soon as we see that God asks us to change and make some sacrifices in our lives, our selfishness (the sun) burns up God’s Word and our faith withers.  If we’re unwilling to make some sacrifices in our lives and live according to God’s order (the 10 Commandments), then we won’t be able to fully hear Him speaking to us.

Thorns:This earth represents a person who’s life is filled with actual evils.  If we are not willing to recognize and acknowledge the specific evils we are caught up in, and shun them, then those evils will eventually choke God’s Word.  If your faith does not include a life where you are actively shunning evils as sins, you won’t be able to hear God’s voice.  I’ve always found in fasinating that our faith and our ability to hear God speaking to us, is directly tied in to wheather or not we are shunning evils as sins.

Good Ground: Those who hear the Word of God, understand it, and live according to it.

Which kind of ground are you like?  Can you be many different kinds of ground at the same time?  I would love to hear people’s thoughts or questions on this story and the general question of, How does God speak to us?

“It is a fixed and unchangeable law that the closer we move towards the Lord, the closer the Lord moves towards us.” (True Christian Religion 100)