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What a Friend

By |2024-09-26T02:33:07-04:00September 26th, 2024|

As favorite backyard neighbors, my mother and Mrs. Sanchez grew also into friendly rivals. The two competed every Monday to first hang their freshly washed laundry on their outdoor clotheslines. “She beat me again!” my mother would say. But the next week, Mama might be first—both enjoying their friendly weekly contest. Over ten years of sharing a backyard alley, the two also shared each other’s wisdom, stories, and hope.

The Bible speaks with great warmth about the virtue of such a friendship. “A friend loves at all times,” Solomon observed (Proverbs 17:17). He also noted, “The pleasantness of a friend springs from their heartfelt advice” (27:9).

Our great Friend is surely Jesus. Urging loving friendship from His disciples, He taught them, “Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends” (John 15:13). The very next day, He would do just that on the cross. He also told them, “I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you” (v. 15). Then He said, “This my command: Love each other” (v. 17).

With such words, Jesus “is elevating His listeners,” as philosopher Nicholas Wolterstorff said, from lowly humans to companions and confidants. In Christ, we learn to befriend others. What a Friend to teach us such love!

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No Longer a Foreigner

By |2024-09-23T02:33:24-04:00September 23rd, 2024|

“You don’t belong here.” Those words crushed an eight-year-old girl’s heart, and the pain stayed with her. Her family had emigrated from a refugee camp in a war-torn country to a new country, and her immigration card had the word “alien” stamped on it. She felt like she didn’t belong.

As an adult, although she put her faith in Jesus, she still felt alienated—stung by the feeling that she was an unwelcome outsider. While reading her Bible, she discovered the promises of Ephesians 2. In verse 12, she saw that old, troubling word alien. “You were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world” (nkjv). But as she kept reading she saw how Christ’s sacrifice had changed her status. She got to verse 19, which told her, “You are no longer” a foreigner or alien. She was a “fellow citizen” with God’s people. Realizing that she was a citizen of heaven, she was overjoyed. Never again would she be an outsider. God had taken her in and accepted her.

Because of our sin, we’re alienated from God. But we don’t have to stay that way. Jesus brought peace to all who were “far away” (v. 17), making all who trust Him fellow citizens of His eternal kingdom—united as the body of Christ.

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Grafted into God’s Family

By |2024-09-17T02:33:20-04:00September 17th, 2024|

During a visit with my father to his beloved Ecuador a few years ago, we visited the family farm where he grew up. I noticed a group of strange trees. My dad explained that when he was feeling mischievous as a boy, he would take a discarded branch from one fruit tree, make slits in a different kind of fruit tree, and tie the loose branch to the trunk like he saw the grownups do. His pranks went unnoticed until those trees started bearing different fruit than expected.

As my dad described the process of engrafting, I got a picture of what it means for us to be grafted into God’s family. I know my late father is in heaven because he was grafted into God’s family through faith in Jesus.

 We can have the assurance of eventually being in heaven as well. The apostle Paul explained to the believers in Rome that God made a way for gentiles, or non-Jews, to be reconciled with Himself. “You, though a wild olive shoot, have been grafted in among the others and now share in the nourishing sap from the olive root” (Romans 11:17). When we put our faith in Christ, we’re grafted in with Him and become part of God’s family. “If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit” (John 15:5).

Similar to engrafted trees, when we place our trust in Christ, we become a new creation and can bear much fruit.

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Look More like Jesus

By |2024-08-27T02:33:12-04:00August 27th, 2024|

God designed the great gray owl as a master of camouflage. Its silver-gray feathers have a collective pattern of coloring which allows it to blend into the bark when perched in trees. When the owls want to remain unseen, they hide in plain sight, blending into their environment with the help of their feathery camouflage.

God’s people are often too much like the great gray owl. We can easily blend into the world and remain unrecognized as believers in Christ, intentionally or unintentionally. Jesus prayed for His disciples—those the Father gave Him “out of the world” who “obeyed” His word (John 17:6). God the Son asked God the Father to protect and empower them to live in holiness and persevering joy after He left them (vv. 7-13). He said, “My prayer is not that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one” (v. 15). Jesus knew His disciples needed to be made holy and set apart, so they could live out the purpose He’d sent them to fulfill (vv. 16-19).

The Holy Spirit can help us turn from the temptation to become masters of camouflage that blend into the world. When we submit to Him daily, we can look more like Jesus. As we live in unity and love, He’ll draw others to Christ in all His glory.

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Renaissance in Jesus

By |2024-03-24T02:33:13-04:00March 24th, 2024|

We know Leonardo da Vinci as the renaissance man. His intellectual prowess led to tremendous advances across multiple fields of study and the arts. Yet Leonardo journaled of “these miserable days of ours” and lamented that we die “without leaving behind any memory of ourselves in the mind of men.”

“While I thought I was learning how to live,” said Leonardo, “I was learning how to die.” In this, he was closer to the truth than he may have realized. Learning how to die is the way to life. After Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem (what we now celebrate as Palm Sunday, see John 12:12–19), He said, “Unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds” (John 12:24). He spoke this about His own death but expanded it to include us all: “Anyone who loves their life will lose it, while anyone who hates their life in this world will keep it for eternal life” (v. 25).

The apostle Paul wrote of being “buried” with Christ “through baptism into death.” In this, Paul anticipated our resurrected life. “Just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life,” he said (Romans 6:4). “If we have been united with him in a death like his, we will also certainly be united with him in a resurrection like this” (v. 5).

Through His death, Jesus offers us rebirth—the very meaning of renaissance. He has forged the way to eternal life with His Father.

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Sweet Sleep

By |2024-02-26T01:33:15-05:00February 26th, 2024|

Bad memories and accusing messages flooded Sal’s mind. Sleep eluded him as fear filled his heart and sweat covered his skin. It was the night before his baptism, and he couldn’t stop the onslaught of dark thoughts. Sal had received salvation in Jesus and knew that his sins had been forgiven, but the spiritual battle continued. It’s then that his wife took his hand and prayed for him. Moments later, peace replaced the fear in Sal’s heart. He got up and wrote the words he would share prior to being baptized—something he hadn’t been able to do. After that, he experienced sweet sleep.

King David also knew what a restless night felt like. Fleeing from his son Absalom who wanted to steal his throne (2 Samuel 15:1–17:29), he knew that “tens of thousands [assailed him] on every side” (Psalm 3:6). David moaned, “How many are my foes!” (v. 1). Though fear and doubt could have won out, he called out to God, his “shield” (v. 3). Later, he found that he could “lie down and sleep . . . because the Lord sustains [him]” (v. 5).

When fears and struggles grip our mind and rest is replaced by restlessness, hope is found as we pray to God. While we might not experience immediate sweet sleep as Sal and David did, in “peace [we can] lie down and . . . dwell in safety” (4:8). For God is with us and He’ll be our rest.

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Seeing by Faith

By |2023-11-25T01:33:03-05:00November 25th, 2023|

During my morning walk, the sun hit the waters of Lake Michigan at a perfect angle to produce a stunning view. I asked my friend to stop and wait for me as I positioned my camera to take a pic. Because of the position of the sun, I couldn’t see the image on my phone’s screen before I snapped the shot. But having done this before, I sensed it would be a great picture. I told me friend, “We can’t see it now, but pictures like this always come out good.”

Walking by faith through this life is often like taking that picture. You can’t always see the details on the screen, but that doesn’t mean the stunning picture isn’t there. You don’t always see God working, but you can trust that He’s there. As the writer of Hebrews penned, “Faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance in what we do not see” (11:1). By faith we place our confidence and assurance in God—especially when we can’t see or understand what He’s doing.

With faith, not seeing doesn’t prevent us from “taking the shot.” It just might make us pray more and seek God’s direction. We can also rely on knowing what has happened in the past as others have walked by faith (vv. 4–12) as well as through our own stories. What God has done before, He can do again.

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Knowing the Shepherd’s Voice

By |2023-11-08T01:33:06-05:00November 8th, 2023|

When I was a boy living on a ranch in Tennessee, I spent glorious afternoons roaming with my best friend. We’d hike into the woods, ride ponies, visit the rodeo arena, and venture into the barn to watch the cowboys work the horses. But whenever I heard my dad’s whistle—that clear sound slicing through the wind and all the other clatter—I’d immediately drop whatever I was doing and head home. The signal was unmistakable, and I knew I was being called by my father. Decades later, I’d still recognize that whistle.

Jesus told His disciples that He was the shepherd, and His followers were the sheep. “The sheep listen to [the shepherd’s] voice,” He said. “He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out” (John 10:3). In a time when numerous leaders and teachers sought to confuse Christ’s disciples by asserting their authority, He declared that His loving voice could still be heard clearly, more distinct than all the others. “His sheep follow [the shepherd], because they know his voice” (v. 4).

May we be careful as we listen for Jesus’ voice and avoid foolishly dismissing it, for the fundamental truth remains: The Shepherd speaks clearly, and His sheep hear His voice. Perhaps through a verse of Scripture, the words of a believing friend, or the nudge of the Spirit—Jesus speaks, and we do hear.

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