100 Verse Challenge - Week 16

From dianalovestowrite:

Enter His gates with Thanksgiving and His courts with praise. Give thanks to Him and praise His name. For the Lord is good, and His love is eternal; His faithfulness endures through all generations. Psalm 100:4-5

God's Christmas gift to you--in two videos

Video: "On My Father's Side"


Mary, Did You Know? Arranged by bminority with clips from The Passion and Jesus Movie:

Grace under Siege 33: Day of Prayer and Fasting

     On November 19 our church leaders declared a Day of Prayer and Fasting for the next day. I was thrilled. Never mind that the reasons they gave for needing such a day were because of "accusations and criticisms against the pastoral staff and elder board of Grace." I wish they had urged everyone to ask God to tell us what the issues are, what His perspective is, and what He wants done about them.

     That's okay. They were having us direct our concerns and petitions to the right Person, who could sort them out and give us what we need as His church. They specifically asked the congregation to pray: 

     1) for God to protect his body (Ephesians 6:10-18)

     2) for health, unity and reconciliation in this church (I Cor. 1:10)

     3) for humility and the ability to live with differences (Romans 14:1-12)

     4) that we would love one another so that Christ might be made known (John 13:35)

     5) for our church leaders (Acts 14:23, I Thessalonians 5:25; 2 Thessalonians 3:1) 
     We could wholeheartedly pray for all these requests--but we felt something was lacking. Is unity apart from truth really a healthy, legitimately Biblical goal? Is that what the apostle Paul meant in I Corinthians 1:10? So we added a 6th request when we forwarded the letter to our correspondents:  

     6) for God to speak His truth to our hearts and for each of us to set aside prejudice and bias and humble ourselves to receive it (Psalm 119:160; John 16:13; Job 34:12; Psalm 25:10; Psalm 43:3; Psalm 86:11; John 4:24; John 8:31-32, John 14:6; John 17:17; John 18:37; Eph. 4:15, 25;  2 Tim. 2:25; I John 1:8; I John 3:18)

      Jerry and I totally devoted ourselves to the Lord all day, opening our home to others who wanted to join us in prayer. As we prayed, He not only put on our hearts to pray for each elder by name but to call them and tell them we were doing so, thanking them for declaring the Day of Prayer and Fasting. We told them we considered that an important first step toward unity and reconciliation. 

     We also asked them if there were requests related to their families or their own lives for which we could pray. Mostly we reached answering machines but 13 of the 30 men gave us requests (and three of those men called us back to do so). 

     Some thanked us (one followed up with another "thank you" by e-mail), one asked us how he could be praying for us, and one even told us, "Keep up the good work!"

     A few weeks later Pied Piper ended a sermon by suggesting people turn off their TVs and read their Bibles! There have been a number of cosmetic and seemingly hypocritical changes made that keep us leery of possible ulterior motives--but reading the Bible is a good thing and God will honor it. We may all be surprised by what the Holy Spirit accomplishes through our giving ourselves to prayer and the Scriptures.

Grace under Siege 32: Steel wool

     Jerry and I have only three signs of Christmas at our house. A couple of poinsettias from the market which I placed, still in their plastic pots, into the larger pots by our front door. A welcome mat with four faded, smiling gingerbread men angled across it. And the banner of a shepherd kneeling beneath a few twinkling stars. 
     I think putting those out took all of about five minutes, including shaking out the mat, watering the plants, and getting the kitchen chair for Jerry to stand on to thread the flag onto the flagstaff.

     That's all the time and energy we have had to spare. No cards, no cookies, no tree, no decorations, few gifts, no wrapping. We haven't had time to think much about Christmas.

     But I don't mind. We have had time to think about Christ. I keep seeing Him in His twofold role as shepherd and as lamb. Shepherd, defying anyone to harm us. Lamb, silently accepting the blame for our sins. Shepherd, striding home with us safely across His shoulders. Lamb, bleeding out His life for us.
     He keeps drawing me back to this motif. Lines from songs in a Christmas play flow into my innermost being like honey: "Shepherds bow before the Lamb." "The Lamb becomes our Shepherd King." 

     The Lord is my shepherd. When I wake in the night, I feel for those words and rub them between the fingers of my mind like a familiar spot worn threadbare on a favorite blankie. El Senor es mi pastor. Nada me faltara.
      The Lord is my pastor. I need that right now.

     Isaiah 53, even more than John 3:16, has become for me the heart of the gospel we no longer hear from our pulpit. I nurse at the richness of its truths like an undernourished baby: 
    All of us, like sheep, have strayed away. We have left God's paths to follow our own. Yet the LORD laid on him the sins of us all. He was oppressed and treated harshly, yet he never said a word. He was led like a lamb to the slaughter. And as a sheep is silent before the shearers, he did not open his mouth.
     "All of us, like sheep--" "We are the sheep of His pasture--" Dirty, dumb, helpless things, gullible, easily spooked. Yet He became one of us, a shepherd in a sheep's body. I feel safe in His pasture.
    But His pasture is not always safe. The apostle Paul, summoning the elders of the church of Ephesus to him on his way to Jerusalem, knowing he would not see them again, told them, "I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole purpose of God. Be on guard for yourselves and for all the flock, among which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to shepherd the church of God which He purchased with His own blood.  
     "I know that after my departure savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock; and from among your own selves men will arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away the disciples after them. Therefore be on the alert. . . "Acts 20:29-31a

     The whole purpose of God. That's what's missing now.  
     I had not noticed before that in Paul's warning he not only foresaw that wolves would come in among the flock from the outside to savage it, but "from among your own selves men will arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away the disciples."
     That's when I am grateful again that the LORD is my pastor.
     A friend emailed us her prayer for our church, that the Lord Jesus Christ will "rescue the sheep, nurture the lambs." I too have been praying for spiritual protection for the members of our church. Recently, as Jerry and I were praying aloud, I saw a flock of sheep--and one of them was wearing armor. I broke off my prayer, laughing, and told Jerry.

     "Armored sheep," Jerry said thoughtfully. "Steel wool?"

Grace under Siege 31: Occupy Grace?

     I forgot that I intended to call Lou "Pied Piper." I guess it's a little late now.
     Lou just sent out a letter to "all elders, deacons, Adult Bible Fellowship teachers/elders and everyone who has a teaching role in our children's through college ministry to make a commitment" which he assures us "has also been approved by the Executive Board of Elders."
     Well, that sets our minds at rest. 
     Jerry and I are both deacons. We must each "joyfully covenant" to do six spiritual-sounding things, all for the purpose of "relating to the leadership of the church in such a way as to demonstrate trust and to submit to the leadership with a teachable spirit. . ."
     Hmm, trust and submit to the leadership. Didn't it used to be trust and obey--Jesus Christ?
     We must sign and return this document by January 12. If we "are not able and/or willing to sign this document," the letter goes on, we are to "indicate that as well and return the document."
     This is just one more way--besides stealing our mailing list, intimidating all of us with false accusations, rage, and threats of "severe church discipline" which they are now starting to carry out--they are trying to smoke out those unwilling to be under their absolute control and rubber-stamp their agenda to remove the church from its original foundation.
     Another way: Lou has asserted the right all our senior pastors have had--but none preceding him have acted on, as a matter of propriety--to access the financial records of our church. He can monitor who is still giving money to the church and who has reduced or stopped their giving. (He does not have access, as far as I know, to the names of the many who have written Grace out of their wills since he came.)
    In all these ways, the "leadership" is tightening its grip on us as they move toward absolute power and domination over our church.
     Let's see, this document would be like Barack Obama requiring all Americans to "pledge allegiance to the President of the United States and to the Congress--"
     I don't think so.

Grace under Siege 30: "Why do you stay?"

     Many friends ask us why we stay at this church. They say they would have walked a long time ago and they invite us to worship at their church(es). As one member of our denomination commented on my post, "Kangaroo court," "What is going on at YOUR church is an embarrassment to all members of the Brethren faith. . .
     "That your 'leaders' have seen fit to embark on this absurdly bizarre calling out of the faithful, when they themselves have removed themselves from the fellowship of Brethren believers by their complete disregard of the charter for their own church, is a farce, an embarrassment beyond description, and utterly dishonoring to Christ. Your church has become a joke.
     "I'm personally ashamed of your so-called  'leadership,' the compromising majority of your congregation that is putting up with this twaddle, and the perverted crapola that is passing for faith in your assembly. Rest assured: God will deal with all of those in your midst who bring disrepute to the Christ of the Scriptures. . .
     "I'm embarrassed and chagrined that I ever had any connection with the place. May God deal with the Laodiceans in your midst. Only His grace, as opposed to my personal wishes, will save such a 'leadership' from the thumping it deserves."
     Why do we stay? We stay because it's our church--and because God told us to. He has not released us to go elsewhere. Besides, if we bail, just like in a marriage, we'll have invested a lot of time, energy, agony, and prayer--but miss all the answers to prayer and the happy ending!

Grace under Siege 29: "--who are not members of our church!"

     At the public humiliation of Bear on Sunday, the executive elders--whom we could call more informally The Nine--made a raft of charges against him. Some of the charges were true. Bear did forward letters of accusations against the leadership written by people "who are not members of our church." 

     But it was not the whole truth. These people used to be members of our church. Most of them wrote that they left because they could no longer sit under deviant teaching and/or felt pressured out by the leadership.

     The whole truth would have included the reason why they are not members of our church. Even a former elder who was on the Pastoral Search Committee which recommended we hire Lou left the church some time ago, saying he regrets his role in that decision.