More moon thoughts

In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth, the moon and the stars.  Genesis 1:1
We walk by faith not by sight.  2 Corinthians 5:7

Charles Duke is one of the 24 who walked on the moon.  He was the capcom for the Apollo 11 first moon landing and walk.  He was born in Charlotte and grown up in Lancaster, SC attending Lancaster High for awhile.  Later he graduated from the Naval Academy and MIT. 
    Wikipedia says this about Duke: Since 1978, Duke has been a committed born-again Christian. He wrote in his book that his temper, ego, single-minded devotion to work, and greed had ruined his relationship with his wife and his children, and his marriage teetered on the verge of divorce in the late 1960s and early 1970s.^[8] Duke and his wife, who became a Christian before him, both credit religion with making their lives much happier. Duke also stated that his marriage and relationship with his children became considerably better soon after finding religion.^[9] He is active in prison ministry.^[10] 
   Duke says about his walk on the moon, "I used to think that going to the moon would be my greatest achievement.  But my walk with Jesus is more memorable because it is an everyday affair."
    Many of the astronauts had Christian faith.  Buzz Aldrin had communion before he stepped foot on the moon.  One crew of Apollo 8 read from Genesis 1:1 on Christmas Eve - "In the beginning God made the heavens and the earth."  Madeline Murray O'Hare, the famous atheist, threatened to sue NASA for allowing them to say that. 
    Some of the atheist cosmonauts of the U.S.S.R. noted that they did not find God in the heavens.  They were reminded that we walk by faith and not by sight.  The astronauts noted His presence: "If I go up the heavens- even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast."  (Ps. 139).
   When Apollo 13 was in trouble, President Nixon asked all the nation to pray for them.  The whole world did from the Vatican to the Wailing Wall.  It was a unique moment when the world was united in prayer.  Nixon had a day of thanksgiving afterwards. 

Prayer: Lord, when I see the moon tonight, remind me of your presence, your great power and tremendous love.  Let me not take for granted my own smallness but also your own greatness. 

Thoughts on the 50th anniversary of the Moonlanding

The heavens are telling the glory of God; the earth proclaims the work of His hands.  (Psalm 19:1)

I watched in honor of the fiftieth anniversary of the flight to the moon (July 20, 1969) a documentary "For All Mankind" with the astronaut's film footage and commentary.  I believe it was Neil Armstrong talking when the astronaut said, "In space I felt like an alien, but on the moon I felt at home even though the earth was a long ways away.  But I realized we were there by the grace of God.  I felt something other than what we could visually sense.  A spiritual presence was there.  Perhaps it was because so many people on the earth were focusing their attention on us- maybe sending signals to us somehow.  I sensed maybe like the first people on the earth- they were all alone but had a special communication.  We felt an unseen love.  We were not alone." 
    Buzz Aldrin was an elder at Webster Presbyterian church outside Houston.   He told his pastor that he wanted to convey that this event was more than electronics, computers, and rockets.  The pastor later told Guideposts magazine that "One of the principal symbols is that God reveals Himself in the common elements of everyday life." Aldrich poured grapejuice (with just enough gravity on the moon) into a chalice from his church.  He laid the elements out on a small table.  He asked the world listening in to take a few moments of silence and "to give thanks in his own individual way."  Then he read John 15:5 (one of my favorite verses): "I am the vine, you are the branches.  Whoever remains in me, and I in him, will bear much fruit, for you can do nothing without me."  Aldrich partook after reading the verse and he said he felt a strong unity with his church back home and the church around the world. 
     Aldrich was a missionary of sorts.  He brought his faith with him to the moon.  Wherever we go, we need to do the same.  He did his work well and He was not embarrassed (despite pressure from Madeline Murray Ohaire) to speak a good word about the One who made the moon, the earth, and the heavens. 

Prayer: Lord, wherever I am may I remember you and your love for me.

[Part taken from "Nine things you should know About the Communion Service on the Moon" by Joe Carter on the GospelCoalition.com website. ]

Love is More

1If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a ringing gong or a clanging cymbal. 2If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have absolute faith so as to move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3If I give all I possess to the poor and exult in the surrender of my body,a but have not love, I gain nothing.

Thoughts: Hebrew  writing and scripture often has a dual meaning- often making use of verbal irony (saying kind of the opposite of what you mean to make a point).  So in our passage love is more than speaking (tongues or even flattery).  Yet love certainly involves speaking- saying "I love you" is not all there is to love, but it is an important part of love.  
    So also is faith/speaking forth the truth (prophecy).  Love involves belief and trust.  We must believe in someone to truly love them.  If we truly believe in someone, we begin to love them. 
    Love also means giving (all I possess to the poor, surrendering my body in martyrdom).  Love without sacrifice is cheap.  But love is not simply sacrifice.  So the person who works all the time for their family but never spends time in love- may think they are loving them but they are falling short.  Yet, if you love someone- you may lay your life down for them.  Jesus said this- "Greater love has no one than this- that they lay down their lives for their friends." 

Prayer: Lord, let me see love is not just speaking, belief or giving- yet it involves all three.  Help me to understand love better, and understanding, give me grace to practice love more sincerely.  

Hope in Membership

"For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body so it is with Christ.  For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body- Jews or Greeks, slaves of free-- and all were made to drink of the one Spirit.  For the body does not consist of one member but many....if the foot should say to the, "Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body," that would not make it any less a part of the body.  (1 Corinthians 12:12-15)

Thoughts: In our non-committal age we doubt everyone, every group, every authority, every truth, thinking that it is better and safer for us to be the arbiter of reality.  But it is actually safer and healthier for us to be able trust those we love and love us and commit to them.  To be unable to trust makes us doubt not only everyone else- but ourselves.  To love someone freely would mean to trust them without hesitation- it means to fall back on them knowing they will catch you.  Many of our divisions are caused by human pride, human divisiveness, and an inability to trust. 
    Paul calls us to remember the power of belonging.  We are members of one body.  We are not isolated parts- but put together in God's providence to do something for Him.  Because we are different does not mean we are divided or not in fact members of the true body of Christ.  Calvin talked about the invisible church and the visible one.  The visible one is made of those who say they are believers and take part.  The invisible church are the ones who are truly a part of the body of Christ.  They do not believe for show, or to avoid consequences, or to network for business only.  To be sure, no one has absolutely pure motives when they join the church, nor do they fully know what they are getting into and what lies ahead. 
    There was a time when the church kicked people out quickly in an effort to keep the body of Christ pure, undefiled and with a good reputation among outsiders.  Today, we have a hard time letting anyone go who does not come or take part.   We do not want to offend them needlessly, and there is always hope that they will come back.  We are, after all saved by grace.  If we say we are not a member (as our passage says) that does not mean we indeed cease to be a member.  Only God can truly remove or place someone in the real Book of Life.  On the other hand we can abuse our membership and shame our body by not only not functioning together with the other parts, but even becoming spiritually gangrenous.  If we try to cut ourselves off from the other parts of the body by not attending, not praying, not giving, not caring, then it pulls the whole body down.   The balance in membership is to encourage those who are missing to come back (James 5:19,20). 

Prayer: Lord, help me to respect my membership and remember my baptism in you.  Keep me from being offended, and help me to humbly come back when I am pulled away from your people- the church.  Let me be renewed in my faith and find hope in my commitment to you and your people.

Memorial Day tribute

"Greater love has no one than this- that they lay down their life for their friends."  (John 15:13)

Douglas MacArthur told West Point cadets, May 1962: “The soldier, above all other men, is required to practice the greatest act of religious training-sacrifice.  In battle and in the face of danger and death, he discloses those Divine attributes which his Maker gave when He created man in His own image … No physical courage and no brute instinct can take the place of Divine help which alone can sustain him."
     On Memorial Day we remember those who gave their lives for their country.  The Church especially appreciates the freedoms we have here:  freedom to worship, freedom of speech, and freedom to assemble.  There is rarely a nation like ours where we have such freedoms without government encroachment.  Such freedoms are to be guarded and preserved.  In many ways our nation's founding was forged in the religious persecution of the old world.  So the Pilgrim's came to Plymouth Rock from England where they were seen as traitors for not conforming to the state church of England.  As such, Pilgrims were subject to imprisonment and torture.  They left in 1620.  When they had survived plague, winter and starvation they gave thanks to their Native American helpers (like Squanto) who taught them to grow crops and fish.  The Puritans also left England in the 1630s to escape religious persecution and form their own churches freely in the new land.  French Huguenots came to New York and South Carolina.  Some settled Port Royal (South Carolina) in 1562, the first Protestant fort in North America.  Pennsylvania and Rhode Island had freedom of religion as a huge part of their founding (under the influence of Rogers and Penn).  Even Maryland began as a place of religious relief for Roman Catholics.  Lord Baltimore, the catholic lord, sought to found the colony as a place of refuge for Catholics where they could practice their faith.  Many Scotch Irish Presbyterians were looking for a place where they could practice their faith.  Baptists and Quakers would add to their number.  While we were not founded as a Christian nation, Christian elements influenced our founding.  The Mayflower Compact was a forerunner to our Constitution.  Rev. Dr. John Witherspoon was both the only clergyman and only college president to sign the Declaration of Independence, Articles of Confederation and the Constitution.  In our day of secularism, we downplay this part of history or think it is important.  We miss and downplay the powerful motivation of religion and serving an eternal cause.   
     The freedom they conceived was not freedom from religion, but freedom to worship as you choose.   We dishonor their persecution and trials by choosing not to worship at all.  Worship gives meaning to freedom, and freedom gives the ability to worship. 
    So today we remember those who sacrificed their freedom of life to give us freedom- not to do as we please, but to live honorably, valuing truth, hope, purpose, and freedom.  We are also grateful for the tremendous sacrifices of their families they left behind.  They follow in the footsteps of the One, Jesus Christ, who gave His life for a higher cause.  He is the one who said, "Greater love has no one than this- than to lay down their lives for their friends." 

Lord, thank you for the freedom we enjoy here.  Thank you for those who sacrificed to preserve our freedom.  May we use our freedom wisely- in ways that please you, our Maker. 

Debt Cancelled!

Forgive us. our debts... as we forgive our debtors

Thoughts: This weekend billionaire philanthropist Robert Smith gave 400 graduates of Morehouse College Georgia a surprise.  He gave 400 students the gift of a free education- paying off their student loans.  It is estimated that the payment is $14 million.  He asked only that it be paid forward.  Such generosity is to be recognized and hopefully it inspires us to emulate this. 
      Perhaps we also need to recognize the debt that Jesus Christ has cancelled for us.  It is more than the greatest billionaire could cancel for us.  He paid with it out of love with His infinitely valuable life.  God came down for us to erase our guilt, our debt owed to Him. 
      Jesus teaches us to pray "forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors."  It is as if each sin we commit adds to our debt-load that we owe to God.  It is impossible to pay back.  But God came to pay it back Himself.  Then He asks that we pay it forward- "as we forgive our debtors." 

Prayer: Lord, forgive us our debts- and give us grace to pay it forward by forgiving our debtors. 

Love the Lord

36“Teacher, which commandment is the greatest in the Law?”

37Jesus declared, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’d 38This is the first and greatest commandment. 39And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’e 40All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” (Matthew 22)

Thoughts: Today is Armed Services Day.  People in the armed services are some of the most patriotic Americans that there are.  why is this?  In some ways they are taught that in military families and in their training.  But  those who serve are willing to give their lives for their country.  When you love your country, you are willing to give for it. 
    We are called by Jesus to love the Lord our God.  Not just a little- with our lips.  Jesus hated those who faked their love for God- or only loved God for show.  Christians believe that we would not be alive it were not for God.  He made us and sustains us and even redeems us for eternity.  Christians also believe that this life is not all there is- so we can give up stuff here knowing that we have eternal life.  A soldier must be all in.  A Christian needs to be all in for our King as well. 
     If Christians do not love God- but only kind of believe Him, the faith will die inside them and in their world.  But the world changes when Christians love the Lord.  

Prayer: Let your love draw love from me.  Let me love you with all I am.