Comments on: AfterWORD – Together We Must Know

By: Reed Mueller » AfterWORD - What is Pleasing Praise?

Reed Mueller » AfterWORD - What is Pleasing Praise? — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 00:28:41 +0000

[...] And remember, the cool thing about fruit is that it contains seeds that one day grow into something else. When the fruit of our lips is rotten – when we break down those around us, ourselves, or God – we plant a future crop of sadness. Yet, when the fruit of our lips is sweet – when we love others and acknowledge the Lord through words – we plant a future crop of joy. The seeds for tomorrow are planted from the fruit of our lips today. When that fruit builds others up, seeds are planted for better relationships tomorrow. And when that fruit acknowledges that he is Lord, an eternity of tomorrows are given to you as a gift (see Romans 10:9 and this note). [...]

By: Reed

Reed — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 16:18:02 +0000

Rodomercy – thanks for your thoughts and your encouragement as they are both great influences in my life.

Your words about the foolishness of the cross hit me anew today. How foolish it must have been for the earliest of Christians to profess Jesus Christ as Lord. The ending of his story (in the minds of Paul’s non-Christian contemporaries) spoke very loudly against the possibility that he was Lord. And yet, he was and is and always will be.

God has a “peculiar mark of majesty” (I’ll give you 50 cents if you can identify where that quoted phrase comes from… Hint: It was something I just listened to.) Anyway, the cross is THE peculiar mark of both God’s majesty and his power.

By: rodomercy

rodomercy — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 00:39:01 +0000

Praise the Lord!
Great word. Amen.
I am not eloquent. I do not write well.
But I know the Word and I know the Lord.
Jesus lived out humility. He lived out boldness, true masculinity, gentleness, confidence, compassion, joy; altogether, all the time.
He knew how to humble himself before the Word (logos) of God, even though He was THE (living)WORD. We must learn to humble ourselves before the WORD and the logos; trusting in them rather than our intellect or wisdom or strength of personality. That is the measure of a man; that is the measure of a disciple; that is the measure of a leader. To humble ourselves before our GOD. As Paul says, to look foolish as we proclaim the weakness of the cross; the very POWER of God.
That was in my humble opinion a very powerful sermon. It was the essence of the WORD, spoken with humility and boldness. Jesus was lifted up and honored, God was glorified. He will draw men and women unto Himself, and that is the point and purpose of preaching.
Amen.

By: Columbia Ridge Community Church » These Things We Must Know

Columbia Ridge Community Church » These Things We Must Know — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 00:28:33 +0000

[...] Things We Must Know [45:24m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download See Pastor Reed’s blog entry on this message. Subscribe to our message podcast. Find more messages by Reed [...]

By: Reed

Reed — Sun, 06 Jan 2008 22:57:31 +0000

Couldn't agree with you more, Michael, both on your thoughts about the purpose/hope for the blog as well as the topic at hand. I appreciate your thoughts the confession and its relevance to our life today. To say "Jesus Christ is Lord" is to exclude so many other's from that possibility, to hold him as the one to follow in life as the key to both praxis and the hope for peace, and finally to hold him as the one to trust for eternal life. That latter piece was the additional spin on the Greek concept while the former two were not. For the Greeks, mere continuance of the soul in some form was the hope, not life in all its fullness, which is a Hebrew idea and which is what Jesus Christ as proclaimed offers both here and forever. Back on the concept of Jesus versus other "Lords", I ran across this quote yesterday and as it finds some relevance to the topic at hand I'll pass it along:

Though sympathizing with the revolutionaries' analysis of what was wrong with society and in fact being mistaken for a revolutionary himself by the political authorities of his day, nevertheless Jesus did not advocate a new political regime to be established by force through evolutionary action. He called for the love of our enemies, not their destruction; ...for readiness to suffer instead of using force; for forgiveness instead of hate and revenge. One might even say [that] Jesus was more revolutionary than the revolutionaries, or revolutionary in a very different way. The revolution he had in mind was a radical change of heart on the part of mankind, involving conversion away from selfishness and toward the willing service of God and of people in general. Clark H. Pinnock (b.1937), Reason Enough [1980] Source: CQOD

By: Michael Thelander

Michael Thelander — Sun, 06 Jan 2008 17:21:39 +0000

I very much like the recap and the ability to reflect again on your message around the confession of “Jesus is Lord.” I like the idea that this blog will give us all the ability to reflect and engage with a message beyond the times slotted for it during the weekend.

In addition to what you spoke about last weekend and added here, I wanted to add a few thoughts on what this confession means to me personally. They’re similar, I think, to thoughts that the original users of this confession would have had. While they come from the confession “Jesus is Lord” they focus on the implication “If Jesus IS Lord, then what or who IS NOT Lord?”

In the days of Paul and the early church this implication was pointed directly at the divine Caesar Augustus and his empire. In the Aeneid it says of him, “This, this is he, whom you so often heard promised to you, Augustus Caesar, son of a God, who shall again set up the Golden Age amid the fields where Saturn reigned.” This was the “party line” of the Roman Empire and it was repeated and inscribed everywhere.

To the early Christians the confession “Jesus is Lord” refuted all of this, and suggested that peace and grace (Paul’s favorite blessing in his letters) did not come from the military victories of an emperor, but from the quiet lonely victory of Lord’s son on a human cross. If Jesus is Lord through his selfless and salvific acts, then Augustus is not – cannot be — Lord.

In our own day when we say “Jesus is Lord” we’re making a similar proclamation against the “Lords” of this world:

If Jesus is Lord, wealth is not Lord.

If Jesus is Lord, fashion and being “in style” are not Lord.

If Jesus is Lord, the icons of our culture – music and celebrities and authors — are clearly not Lord.

If Jesus is Lord, conventional politics are not Lord

If Jesus is Lord, I am not Lord. (Nobody really thinks they are, but advertising tells us we should be and ought to be and deserve to be, through messages like “Have it your way” and “Just do it.”)

This view of the confession urges us to keep asking, “Why is my Lord above the Lords of this world? In which Lord do I believe and trust, and who will I choose to serve?”