Tag: James

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A Thanksgiving

Scripture: James 3.17
But the wisdom that comes from heaven is first of all pure; then peace-loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere.

This week is Thanksgiving week in the United States. As we focus on giving thanks, we will look at ancient and modern poetry and prayers, offering praise and thankfulness to our God. — John

Reflection: A Thanksgiving
By John Henry Newman (1801-1890)

Lord, in this dust Thy sovereign voice
First quicken’d love divine;
I am all Thine—Thy care and choice,
My very praise is Thine.

I praise Thee, while Thy providence
In childhood frail I trace,
For blessings given, ere dawning sense
Could seek of scan Thy grace;

Yet, Lord, in memory’s fondest place
I shrine those seasons sad
When, looking up, I saw Thy face
In kind austereness clad

And such Thy tender force be still,
When self would swerve or stray,
Shaping to truth the froward will
Along Thy narrow way.

Deny me wealth, fear, far remove
The love of power or name;
Hope thrives in straits, in weakness love,
And faith in the world’s shame.

The Call to Prayer
Come and listen, all you who fear God, and I will tell you what he has done for me. — Psalm 66.14

– From The Divine Hours: Prayers for Autumn and Wintertime by Phyllis Tickle.

Full prayer available online and in print.

Today’s Readings
1 Chronicles 16 (Listen – 5:21)
James 3 (Listen – 2:38)

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Te Deum Laudamus

Scripture: James 2.13b
Mercy triumphs over judgment.

This week is Thanksgiving week in the United States. As we focus on giving thanks, we will look at ancient and modern poetry and prayers, offering praise and thankfulness to our God. — John

Reflection: Te Deum Laudamus
By Nicetas of Remesiana (5th Century)
Translated by John Dryden (1631–1700)

Thee, Sovereign God, our grateful accents praise;
We own Thee Lord, and bless Thy wondrous ways;
To Thee, eternal Father, earth’s whole frame,
With loudest trumpets sounds immortal fame.

Lord God of Hosts! For Thee the heavenly powers
With sounding anthems fill the vaulted towers.
Thy Cherubim thrice, Holy, Holy, Holy, cry;
Thrice, Holy, all the Seraphim reply,
And thrice returning echoes endless songs supply.

Both heaven and earth Thy majesty display;
They owe their beauty to Thy glorious ray.
Thy praises fill the loud Apostles’ choir;
The train of prophets in the song conspire.

Legions of martyrs in the chorus shine,
And vocal blood with vocal music join.
By these Thy church, inspired by heavenly art,
Around the world maintains a second part;
And turns her sweetest notes, O God, to Thee,
The Father of unbounded majesty;
The Son adored co-partner of thy seat,
And equal everlasting Paraclete.

Thou King of Glory, Christ of the More-High,
Thou co-eternal filial Deity;
Thou who to save the world’s impending doom
Vouchsaf’st to dwell within a Virgin’s womb.

Old tyrant death disarmed, before Thee flew
The bolts of heaven, and back the foldings drew,
To give access, and make Thy faithful way,
From God’s right hand Thy filial beams display.

Thou art to judge the living and the dead;
Then spare those souls for whom Thy veins have bled.
O take us up among Thy blessed above,
To share with them Thy everlasting love.

Preserve, O Lord, Thy people and enhance
Thy blessing on Thine own inheritance.
Forever raise their hearts, and rule their ways
Each day we bless Thee and proclaim Thy praise;
No age shall fail to celebrate thy name,
No hour neglect Thy everlasting fame.

Preserve our souls, O Lord, this day from ill;
Have mercy, Lord, have mercy still;
As we have hoped, do Thou reward our pain;
We’ve hoped in Thee—let not our hope be vain.

The Refrain
Blessed be the Lord! For he has shown me the wonders of his love in a besieged city. — Psalm 31.21

– From The Divine Hours: Prayers for Autumn and Wintertime by Phyllis Tickle.

Full prayer available online and in print.

Today’s Readings
1 Chronicles 15 (Listen – 4:48)
James 2 (Listen – 3:32)

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Finishing Well

Scripture: Hebrews 12.1b-2
And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

Reflection: Finishing Well
By Jon Polk

In 1968, John Stephen Akhwari, a long-distance runner, was one of four athletes sent from the East African nation of Tanzania to the Olympic Games in Mexico City.

Unaccustomed to the high altitude, Akhwari began to cramp up during the marathon event. He was also involved in a collision with other runners and dislocated his right knee. Encouraged to drop out, he instead received medical treatment and continued on with the race.

Over an hour after the winning time, Akhwari finally entered the stadium, where only a handful of spectators remained. Struggling to put one foot in front of the other, he limped across the finish line, coming in dead last among the 57 who completed the race (18 others had quit along the way).

When interviewed afterwards, Akhwari was asked why he persevered through such a painful experience. He replied, “My country did not send me 5,000 miles to start the race. They sent me 5,000 miles to finish the race.”

Athletic imagery is a common New Testament analogy for the Christian life. For a faith focused on the ideals of selflessness and sacrifice, it seems odd that biblical writers draw parallels with sports events focused on individual winners. A closer look at a few of these passages, however, reveals that there is more at stake in our spiritual life than winning.

In 1 Corinthians 9, Paul emphasizes an athlete’s need for training and rigorous discipline. In Philippians 3, Paul talks about pressing on, or persevering, toward the goal. Reflecting back on his own life in 2 Timothy 4, Paul does not mention winning, but states that he is one of many who has finished the race.

The author of Hebrews also discusses training through strengthening of arms and knees, stresses running the race with perseverance, and encourages us to follow the example of Jesus who finished the task God set before him and now sits at God’s right hand, the ultimate finish line.

Our spiritual goal is not to win (as if we could somehow “win” the Christian life), but to finish the race set before us and to finish well because we’ve trained properly and persevered through difficulties and trials.

To do this, we must keep our eyes on the example of Jesus, who ran the race before us and endured great suffering on our behalf so that we might follow him on a lifelong journey of putting one foot in front of the other along the path of faith.

I want to thank Jon Polk for this wonderful step by step, two week, race through Hebrews he has taken us on. Hebrews is dense and each chapter could be a marathon of study. Solus Christus; Fully Human, Fully Saved; A Cautionary Tale of Unbelief; A High Priest Like No Other; No Spiritual Fast Food; New And Improved; Divine Will And Testament; Compelled Toward Community; Faith of the Flawed; and now the aptly named, Finishing Well, have been a joy for me to read and to bring to you.

There will be more where that came from. For now, we prepare for Thanksgiving week by closing with the prayer from Hebrews 13: Now may the God of peace, who through the blood of the eternal covenant brought back from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great Shepherd of the sheep, equip you with everything good for doing his will, and may he work in us what is pleasing to him, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen.

The Call to Prayer
Come now and see the works of God, how wonderful he is in his doings toward all people. — Psalm 66.4

– From The Divine Hours: Prayers for Autumn and Wintertime by Phyllis Tickle.

Full prayer available online and in print.

Today’s Readings
1 Chronicles 9-10 (Listen – 7:48)
Hebrews 12 (Listen – 4:36)

This Weekend’s Readings
1 Chronicles 11-12 (Listen – 11:59) Hebrews 13 (Listen – 3:31)
1 Chronicles 13-14 (Listen – 4:13) James 1 (Listen – 3:26)

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Terrorism and The Gospel :: Weekend Reading List

“Religious extremism cannot be fully addressed by acting as if man can live from bread alone,” writes Thomas K. Johnson, “without addressing the deeper human needs that lead to extremism, and these needs include the search for meaning.” Johnson, a Religious Freedom Ambassador to the Vatican, draws from Viktor Frankl’s views on Christianity, suffering, and meaning to address the modern terrorism crisis. He explains:

Frankl, who was an Austrian Jew trained as a psychiatrist, noticed… that those prisoners who found meaning in life often survived the Holocaust under conditions that should have killed them, while those who lost any meaning usually died. Meaning was a source of life.

Johnson argues that European teens are statistically more likely to join extremist groups—even when compared to majority-Muslim nations like Indonesia—because their culture has lost meaning. Groups like ISIS give the appearance that they can replace European secularism with ultimate religious meaning through Islam and secondary civil meaning through the caliphate.

Religious extremism has always torn people apart. American’s don’t have to look far to find examples—former Westboro Baptist member Megan Phelps-Roper confessed that relational and emotional disintegration were among the primary reasons she left her father’s church:

Church members disdained human feelings as something that people worshipped instead of the Bible. They even had a sign: “GOD HATES YOUR FEELINGS.” They disregarded people’s feelings in order to break their idols.

The gospel—fully integrated into every sphere of life and faith—is the only sufficient answer to meaning. The Christian gospel provides not only a robust spiritual meaning, but a powerful civil meaning as well. Faith communities must work intentionally to draw these two meanings to the forefront of worship and discipleship—something Johnson doesn’t believe happens often enough:

Obviously, addressing the need for meaning is a central task of faith communities, but within faith communities, to the extent of my experience and observation, the emphasis naturally falls on ultimate meanings. Within Christian churches we talk constantly about the hope of eternal life, about grace and forgiveness, about faith in “the gospel.” Within churches we sometimes talk about how God’s grace should equip us to become salt and light within the civil communities.

Again on Easter I heard that there are rational reasons to believe in the resurrection of Jesus. But there is a difference in the relation between faith and reason, depending on whether we are talking about ultimate or secondary meanings. In the realm of ultimate meanings, I believe it is far better for all of us if we do not completely leave rationality behind. And in the realm of secondary meanings, when we are talking about ethical principles that should provide meaning to civil communities, it is simply foolish if we pretend to leave our respective faith identities behind.

Weekend Reading List

Today’s Reading
Isaiah 11-12 (Listen – 3:39)
James 5 (Listen – 3:01)

This Weekend’s Readings
Isaiah 13 (Listen – 3:11) 1 Peter 1 (Listen – 3:53)
Isaiah 14 (Listen – 5:04) 1 Peter 2 (Listen – 3:48)

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Pride and Procrastination :: Throwback Thursday

By Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758)

Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit”—yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. — James 4:13–14

We should have some affection to the enjoyments of this world; otherwise they would cease to be enjoyments. If we have no degree of rejoicing in them, we cannot be thankful for them. We may take delight in earthly friends and other earthly enjoyments. But by setting our hearts on these things—by fixing our minds on them so much that we cannot well enjoy ourselves without them—we show that we have our dependence on another day.

If men are proud of their worldly circumstances, it shows that they have a dependence on tomorrow; for no man would think it worth his while to vaunt himself in that which is to be depended on only for a day. Though a man has a great estate today, he will not be puffed up with it, unless he depends on having it tomorrow.

A person will not be proud of his fine clothes if he understands that he may be stripped by death and wrapped in a burial sheet tomorrow—to be carried to the grave, there to rot, and be covered and filled with worms.

When men envy others’ worldly enjoyments, their wealth, their worldly ease, or their titles and high places—their sensual pleasures, or any of their worldly circumstances—it shows that they set their hearts on the things of the world. So when they contend about worldly possessions and enjoyments, (as almost all the contentions that are in the world are about these things,) it shows that they have dependence on tomorrow.

Those who are secure in their sins are generally so because they boast themselves of tomorrow. They depend on future opportunity—they flatter themselves with hopes of living long in the world—they depend on the fulfillment of their good intentions as to what they will do at a more convenient season.

Would not your behavior be very different from what it is now if you every day lived and acted without any dependence on seeing one day more? God has concealed from us the day of our death, without doubt, partly for this end, that we might be excited to be always ready, and might live as those that are always waiting for the coming of their Lord.

*Abridged and language updated from Procrastination: The Sin And Folly of Depending on Future Time by Jonathan Edwards.

Today’s Reading
Isaiah 10:5-34 (Listen – 5:14)
James 4 (Listen – 2:25)