Author: pastor.gerooney@gmail.com

No one dreams of aging to the point you mirror a serious resemblance to Santa Claus, but when this happens, the good guys embrace it and invest in a red suit with all the accessories. It’s one of life’s delightful surprises, to realize the mystery of Saint Nicolas and his legendary deeds of benevolence, have fallen upon you and suddenly you attain super hero status. As for me, I’m the lucky girl that gets to snuggle up to a jolly ole elf all year long.

Bringing St. Nick to life each Yuletide was great fun. Just another adventure for one who loves people and seeks to bring them joy. The glamour lasted until an innocent child climbed onto ‘Santa’s’ knee and asked him to make her mommy and daddy love each other again.

While Santa, (aka Keith) had the advantage of disguise, this child did not.  Keith knew well the story behind the request and was very aware that unless two people gave their hearts to Jesus and allowed Him to redeem and restore, there was no hope for this young family to live in unity ever again.

Children intuitively know something intimate happens to bring them into being and when those two people who once shared great passion, then marveled at ten tiny toes, can no longer stand the sight of each other, it disturbs and interrupts their world profoundly. Being an ambassador to childhood’s wonder and hope brought both Keith and I to a place of helplessness, but also a determination to live better in love and allow the power of God’s grace and mercy to become the hallmark of all our relationships.

Several years earlier our own child, upon being encouraged to pray about a similar concern, announced that she was finished with God because He didn’t answer her plea.  She had been  taught that He could do anything He wanted, so He must be as fake as the Easter Bunny! She had the evidence to prove it.  Fortunately, she matured and came to understand free will and the complications of inter-personal relationships, but I will never forget her broken heart over the pain of a friend’s divided home.

I understand disappointment and deceit, pain and sorrow, and the utter depths of despair.  I also know the transformation of forgiveness, redemption and restoration.  Man’s fallen state brings ruin, but Jesus’ blood makes makes ALL things new.

If you believe the next best gadget will pacify a child and cover a multitude of personal failures,  you are mistaken.  Children want to be loved and to witness love generously and extravagantly extended to others.  Righteous behavior, holiness of heart, commitment and determination are the best gifts under the Christmas Tree. Santa can’t provide this, only mom and dad can.

Love is patient and kind. It protects, trusts, hopes, perseveres and rejoices in truth. It is not proud or self-seeking, it does not boast, dishonor, anger easily or delight in evil. Love NEVER fails.  Prophecies will cease, tongues will be stilled, knowledge will pass away, but love will remain. 

I Corinthians 13:4-8 paraphrased.

Love matters a lot.  Don’t say if you don’t mean it and if you say it, commit to it forever!

Love,

Gretchen

“Go away! What do you want with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are – the Holy One Of God!” Luke 4:34

The Bible doesn’t say much said about demon possession before and after Jesus walked on earth, but many instances are mentioned while He was in the flesh.  Satan engaged head on with God for authority and dominion over our souls.

There will come a day when those who say they do not believe, see truth for themselves and bow to their knees also. They will recognize that which satan acknowledged, Jesus is the Holy Son of God. 

With authority, Jesus cast satan and his minions out and emancipated their victim.  The winner between good and evil has been declared! Game over!  Still, man has free will, therefore, satan has the capacity to harm and traumatize. Our choice determines our destiny, not fate or equal forces fighting for eternity.  One word, JESUS, nullifies the devil’s work.  There is life changing power on the tip of your tongue, so speak up!

Love

Gretchen

Then the Jews began to argue sharply among themselves, “How can this man give us His flesh to eat?” John 6:52 

Jesus fed five thousand people with five small barley loaves and two small fishes. After this long day of ministering, Jesus sent his disciples across the Sea of Galilee to ready for the next day’s work. Later Jesus walked out on the water to join them. Some people followed Jesus for the free food and miracles, you know, dinner and a show, but Jesus begins to teach that He is the Bread of Life.  He had so much more to give than earthly comfort. 

The people that were listening to Jesus knew the ancient story of manna from Heaven for the Hebrew children. In verse 49 it says, “Your forefathers ate the manna in the desert, yet they died.” And in  verse 35 Jesus said, “I am the bread of life, He who comes to me will never go hungry or thirsty.”   Jesus is expressing His connection to Heaven, the ancient covenant people and the covenant making process in which a meal is shared and the identities of the covenant partners become one.

Some Jews there were deliberately being obtuse. They knew Jesus was not being literal, but chose exaggerated drama hoping of obscure the truth and excuse their continued hunger for earthly power and personal agenda that oppressed others. Jesus came to give us everything we need to live eternally. We must choose to fill ourselves with Him and take His identity as our own. This is true communion, taking the flesh and blood of His body into our own.

Love,

Gretchen

Then should not this woman, a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan has kept bound for eighteen long years, be set free on the Sabbath day from what bound her? Luke 13:16

I encourage you to read verses 10-17.  It was the sabbath (Saturday, as celebrating resurrection had not begun,) and Jesus was teaching in the synagogue.  A crippled woman came to Him and He immediately healed her.  The synagogue pharisee was enraged!  Why? Because someone sick was made well? Because Satan’s grasp was broken? Because a great victory had been won? No! Because He felt robbed of his authority. It seems miracles were only allowed on his schedule and by his power!  Pretty sad. 

Jesus’ response calls attention to two things.  First, the work of the Kingdom is not work but joyful, loving service. It’s a matter of heart, not sweat.  Second, people matter a lot! If you take better care of your oxen than you do your neighbor, well……………   OH! And don’t forget the flip side, God doesn’t like it when you’re neglected or abused either, so rest easy, He is loving you big!

Jesus came to set His children free from whatever ills bind them. It is not His labor, inconvenience or disgust. It is His loving choice and even more important than making stars explode gazillions of light years away, just so we have something new to wonder about every once in a while. You are very loved, so be sure to pass it around.

Love,

Gretchen

What we have received is not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may understand what God has freely given us. I Corinthians 2:12

Corinth was not far from Athens, the center of Greek philosophy. There was an atmosphere of philosophic hierarchy parading about and it infiltrated the early church.  Paul, a scholar himself, was not impressed with man’s opinions or theologies. Truth and wisdom is from God alone, the author of all that is. 

God took dust and made man, but until He breathed His breath into him, man did not live. God put a piece of Himself, His life and spirit into each one of us. The world lays claim to all that we are, instinct, environment, evolution, but we are made in the image of our loving Creator. The things that define us most deeply, our character and sou,l are His. Satan cannot claim what God has done.

Sin marred man’s image and Satan would have us bound by shame all of our lives, but as Paul teaches a church overwhelmed by everyone’s personalities and strong dynamics, it is God’s Spirit alone that is truth, love, grace, mercy and victory. Dwell in His Spirit, it is peace.

Love,

Gretchen

If we are faithless, He remains faithful, for He cannot disown Himself. 2 Timothy 2:13

These words are lyrics from a hymn Paul quoted, in his letter, written while he was in Rome, under arrest awaiting martyrdom. The monster Nero burned Rome so he could build a bigger better city to his glory.  The populous suspected him, so to divert suspicious, he blamed the Christians. These new believers were mostly poor or slaves, lacking in influence and prestige. They were a perfect, marginalized people, for the scapegoat of a wicked authority.  Paul was their leader. Kill him, stop the movement. Thus, Paul writes his beloved friend, pleading with him to remain faithful no matter the circumstance and reminds Timothy that he is at peace and God is faithful.

Imagine Paul sitting alone, damp, hungry, sore from beating, knowing death is near, singing a song that is stuck in his head…….I am faithless, but God is faithful. He will not let me go.

Our worries, struggles, and state of mind do not define who God is or what He can do. Release your perspective, your shame, your grasp on the small things you comprehend.  Allow God to fill you with peace that passes understanding  because you are His and He will not fail you.

Have a Lovely Midweek,

Gretchen

Six of the towns you give to the Levites will be cities of refuge, to which a person who has killed someone may flee.  In addition, give them forty-two other towns.” Numbers 35:6

Taking 3,000,000 people out of slavery in Egypt, across the Sinai Peninsula and to the edge of the Promised Land took many, many miracles and obedience to God’s sovereign authority. By miracle and God’s leading, Moses organized the Hebrew children into twelve tribes.  Each clan would receive a portion of land to settle, but the tribe of Levi was charged with leading worship, caring for the Ark of the Covenant and maintaining the tabernacle. They would not be settlers but priests caring for the spiritual health of the new nation.

The Levites would needed a place to live, so Moses instructed the other eleven tribes to set aside cities with land plots to herd and farm.  Six of these cites were to be havens of refuge, a place for those who have made egregious mistakes to go and live in peace, away from the danger and retribution of the offended. In these cities, only God’s judgment mattered.

If you read the entire passage of Numbers chapter 35, you see that God makes a complete separation between malicious murder and a careless act that leads to the accidental death of another. God knows the heart of man. He does not tolerate selfish disregard for human life or hatred, but gives help to those in life’s most horrendous messes.

This wonderful all knowing God has a plan for your chaos.  He sent His only Son to be our city of refuge.  In this we find perfect knowledge and assessment of complete and unbiased truth. Give your broken heart and out of control life to Him.  He has a place for you and it is good.

Love,

Gretchen

Don’t Grow it Young

My childhood was lived in a much simpler time.  The world was smaller and people depended on certain societal standards to support them throughout the seasons of their life.  For instance, my siblings and I were often left in the car while our parents took care of business. This is unheard of today, but we were not the only children in vehicles at Piggly Wiggly. 

There was strict ‘stay in the car’ protocol, and every child knew it.  First, never, ever get out of the car! Second, if you break rule number one, someone had better be blue or bleeding! Third, be nice! Fourth, never, ever get out of the car!

Occasionally mom took us with her, but my brother and I thought it was great fun to put the brussels sprouts back when mom turned to reach for the carrots.  We were also prone to bicker and beg in her presence, but when we were alone in the car we knew we had to amuse ourselves constructively. We had crayons and coloring books, we played I-spy, found pirates in the clouds and challenged each other to greater cleverness with jokes and riddles.  Life was mostly good……….

One sunny day mom and dad had business to attend to in a bigger city further from home. They went into the store, taking my two younger sisters with them and leaving my older brother and I to wait in the car.  We were probably eight and nine years old.  Several parking spaces over was a pickup truck with a couple of adolescent boys also awaiting their adult’s return.  To entertain themselves, they took a shotgun from the gun rack in the back window and aimed it a my brother and me.  We began crying, the boys laughed and continued their pretend target practice.  Greg and I got down in the floorboard of the car, crawled to the opposite side, cracked open the door, climbed out and were sitting on the pavement terrified when mom and dad returned.  Dad left for a moment while mom calmed us down.  I believe those young men learned that pretending to shoot defenseless people was never an acceptable game to play. Dad was a giant of a man that day.

Several years later I was again sitting in the car when mom returned with her purchases. At the same time, a woman exited the store with a dirty, ill clothed toddler on her hip and gripping another small child by the hand. She held a cigarette in the corner of her mouth, keeping a stream of rough language spewing while jerking the children angrily. It made me sick and I said to mom, “I never want to grow up and be like that.” Mom quickly replied, “Then don’t grow it young.” In other words, you will be tomorrow, what you chose to be today.

Folly is bound up in the heart of a child, but the rod of discipline will drive it far away. Proverbs 22:15. 

(Note: A rod is not a device of punishment, but rather, the tool of a shepherd to guide and direct.)

Children become what they are allow to be. Today matters a lot, because something is taking root.  Love them enough to change them for the better.

With Deepest Love,

Gretchen

Jesus said to His disciples: “Things that cause people to stumble are bound to come, But woe to anyone through whom they come. Luke 17:1

The Bible, God’s Word, is very clear: If you believe Jesus is the resurrected Son of the One True God, know God is loving and Holy, and your sins are forgiven, then your behavior must show it.  Actions are the evidence of one’s true heart and a strong influence on those seeking answers, or struggling with temptation. The believer is called to be a light of hope guiding others through the storms of pain and sorrow and down the straight and narrow road of righteousness.

In this same passage of scripture Jesus commands that we forgive others, over and over and over. If we are to be Christ’s witness, then our testimony begins with forgiveness. The first step in a sinner’s new birth is forgiveness.  This abstract, illogical act is in complete and total contrast to this world and its agenda.  God is the source of justice and condemnation, but He is doing everything possible to bring about forgiveness and reconciliation, so this must start with His Body, the church and its people. Be forgiving, extend grace, strengthen and guide one another so that all may know the Love of Christ.

Love,

Gretchen

By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God’s command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible. Hebrews 11:3

There was nothing, and then there was something.

This is the beginning of the universe and linear time. Creation occurred at the Word of a God that always was and always will be. Was it a big bang that is still expanding, or just a beautiful wonder placed immediately by God’s hand? It doesn’t matter because, He alone is the maker of all things. There is beauty, order and wonder amid logic contrasted against the unexplainable, all wrapped up in the place we call home. Do not be threatened by one thing that is definable and another that is not. God did it, and that is enough. It’s not a weakness of intellect, but a strength of character to be certain that God can and did.

Hebrews twelve reads like a roll call for Faith’s Hall of Fame. While we struggle with the daily things that challenge our spiritual resolves, this epistle writer has given us the testimony and evidence of the reward awaiting the faithful, who know beyond doubt that God did do all things and still can and will.

Happy Friday,

Gretchen