Stop Doubting, Start Believing

 Exodus 3:11

“But Moses said to God, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?”

Moses was a reluctant servant.  God had chosen him for a job for which he thought he was unqualified.  God insisted that Moses could do the job.  Moses argued that he could not.  

Moses was wrong.  God was right.

Moses, the insignificant keeper of sheep, the slow, ineloquent speaker, fugitive of the law, and brother of Aaron, was God’s perfect choice.  He freed almost a million Israelites from slavery in Egypt, he led all of them into a wilderness where one person could barely survive and gave them water and food every day.  How?  God was with Moses every step of the way.

Stop doubting.  Start believing.  God is with us.

May the love of Christ be with you

Rev. Eric Lanier

Children of God

 John 1:12-13

“12 Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God— 13 children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.”

A child of God is a person who is born into the faith; a person who belongs to the family of God.  God, through His Holy Spirit, creates in every child of faith a new creation, a person who lives and acts in faith.

All people of faith are children of God.  Our actions and our words should honor God and attest to the fact that we are God’s children.  As God’s children, we are led by the Holy Spirit in an ever deepening relationship with God. 

Because of our faith and love, we live lives of service, using the gifts God has given us to show others the way to God.  

We are children of God.  Let us honor God in our words and deeds.

May the love of Christ be with you

Rev. Eric Lanier

Living Water

John 7:37-39

“37 On the last and greatest day of the festival, Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink. 38 Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them.” 39 By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive. Up to that time the Spirit had not been given, since Jesus had not yet been glorified.”

When we are thirsty we want to quench our thirst.  I have heard that a severe thirst burns within the person like fire and it is all they can think about until their thirst is quenched.  People who thirst for Christ are like that.  Nothing will satisfy their thirst except Christ.  

Christ satisfies our thirst once we believe.  He satisfies our burning thirst with living water; rivers of water flowing within us.  And the living water is the Holy Spirit.  

Once we come to faith, we receive the Holy Spirit who dwells within us and begins the work of sanctification; the lifelong process of creating within us a new creation, shaped and molded by the master potter in the image of Christ.  

So Lord, let the rivers flow, let the blind see, let the crippled walk.  Let the lepers be healed.  Let the Holy Spirit dwell within us.  Let the potter turn His wheel.

May the love of Christ be with you

Rev. Eric Lanier

Living in Faith

Galatians 2: 19b-20

“I have been crucified with Christ; 20 and it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”

What does it mean to live in faith?  It means that we live a crucified life, in which the crucified Christ lives in us through our faith.  

Through our faith, we become a reflection of the Christ who was crucified and we are no longer the people we were prior to our salvation.  As such, we give freely of ourselves for the salvation of others.  

Our lives become a living sacrifice.  

May the love of Christ be with you

Rev. Eric Lanier

Building One Another Up

Romans 14:15-21

“15 If your brother or sister is being injured by what you eat, you are no longer walking in love. Do not let what you eat cause the ruin of one for whom Christ died. 16 So do not let your good be spoken of as evil. 17 For the kingdom of God is not food and drink but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. 18 The one who thus serves Christ is acceptable to God and has human approval. 19 Let us then pursue what makes for peace and for mutual upbuilding. 20 Do not, for the sake of food, destroy the work of God. Everything is indeed clean, but it is wrong for you to make others fall by what you eat; 21 it is good not to eat meat or drink wine or do anything that makes your brother or sister stumble.”

Some people in the Roman church thought it was spiritually harmless to eat all foods, even those foods that some people thought were unclean.  Paul thought it was harmless too.  He wrote that nothing a person ate or drank could affect their relationship with God.  After all, a person’s faith was not dependent on what a person ate or drank.   

But, there were those in the church whose faith was immature and could easily be damaged or sidetracked, so he advised those who were eating those foods not to eat them, if by eating them they were to cause another member to stumble in their faith; or if by eating them they were to cause controversy or unrest in the congregation.  Paul wrote that they should focus on building up the congregation, not dividing it.

This is good advice for any church.  Let us look out for one another and build one another up in the faith.

May the love of Christ be with you

Rev. Eric Lanier (Retired)

Pleasing God

Galatians 1: 10

“Am I now seeking human approval, or God’s approval? Or am I trying to please people? If I were still pleasing people, I would not be a servant of Christ.”

Each and every day, we all have to answer the question, “Who is it that I am trying to please?”  We all want to answer, “It is God..”  But, most of the time the answer is that we please ourselves or other people.

How do we please God?  We please God by living each day in faith.  This means that we live a life marked by love.  If our lives are marked by love then we will put the needs of others before our needs.  We will live a life of servanthood in which we offer God’s mercy, grace and forgiveness in the course of our day.

If we live a life of faith, there will be no need to seek human approval for the way we have lived, because all of our actions and all of our words have been for the honor of God.  

May the love of Christ be with you

Rev. Eric Lanier (Retired)

You who pass Judgment

Romans 2:1

“You, therefore, have no excuse, you who pass judgment on someone else, for at whatever point you judge another, you are condemning yourself, because you who pass judgment do the same things.”

Have you ever gotten angry at someone who cut you off in traffic?  Now, have you ever cut someone off in traffic?  Oh, yes, I know, the circumstances were totally different for you than the person who did it to you.  That’s your judgment and you are sticking to it.

But, you say, isn’t everyone entitled to an opinion?  Yes, they are.  But, in exercising your right to have an opinion, you should recognize that you are saying it is ok for people to exercise their right to disagree with you and that they are not stupid or an idiot for doing so.

We judge others when we condemn them in anger; when we want revenge or retribution; when we want to see them suffer.  We judge others when we take an attitude of pride or one-up-manship, when we think “I never would have done that”.  We judge others when we don’t seek to understand why they acted in a certain way.  We judge others when our attitude towards another person’s action is not Christ-like. We judge others when we think their opinions make them stupid or idiotic. 

When we stray from a motivation of love towards others, then we are judging them.  And when we judge others, writes Paul, we are really condemning ourselves….because, we have done or thought the same or similar things.

May the love of Christ be with you

Rev. Eric Lanier (Retired)