[Mcgregorpage] McGregorPage 579, Pentecost 21, 10/21/07

[rmcgregoralbq at aol.com]

Pentecost 21 – October 21, 2007


Jeremiah 31:27-34
Psalm 19:1-14
2 Timothy 3:14 4:5
Luke 18:1 8

Hang On For Dear Life

"...proclaim the message; be persistent whether the time is favorable 
or unfavorable..."
(2 Timothy 4:2) "And will not God grant justice to his chosen ones who 
cry to him day and night?"  (Luke 18:7)  Hang on; help is coming.  Life 
has it periods in which this is the best self-counsel.  Our lives are 
so radically contingent, this is always good counsel.  In an emergency 
we may grab for anything, but for hanging on, only God will do:  "My 
help comes from the LORD, who made heaven and earth."  (Psalm 121:2)

There is a tenacity of heart and mind that goes into faith.  In the 
face of apparent proofs for despair, we make a decision to believe in 
God.  “I have more understanding than all my teachers, for your decrees 
are my meditation,” says the Psalmist. (Psalm 119:91) A believer should 
take this verse with him/her into the classroom of the secular 
university.

Through the pain of adversity we insist that God reigns.  In the dark 
night of divorce -- a separating from all we hold dear -- comes the 
choice to hang on to God, the only one we have left.  I grieve for the 
person who has to endure not only his/her divorce but also the 
rejection of the church because of it. If ever a person need’s help 
holding on to God, it is then. For those the church rejects, however, 
there is still Christ. The last option becomes the best; the stone that 
was rejected has become the head of the corner.  Did we have to lose 
everything to discover the only important thing?

Philosophy has driven God off the university campus.  Astronomy has 
driven God out of the sky.  Democracy has driven God from the town 
square.   We think we can still find God in how we feel, but feeling is 
no more reliable a sense than sight.  How did the people of Jerusalem 
feel just before it fell to the army of Nebuchadnezzar?  How did Paul 
feel writing from prison?  How did Timothy feel preaching a Gospel that 
was foolishness to the Greeks and blasphemy to the Jews?  How did 
Mother Teresa feel facing the miserable dying people of Calcutta? Faith 
is not grounded on feeling any more than on sight or sound.  Faith is 
the hanging on to God.  Faith is the hanging on to the message of God.  
Faith is the hanging on to the promise of the sunrise which is in God 
and no other.  Nowhere is that sunrise more beautifully spoken than in 
Jeremiah 31:31f, “The days are surely coming, says the LORD, when I 
will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of 
Judah…”

Faith is holding on to God until you are defined by God.  Faith is the 
hanging on to God for dear life that makes life dear.


May these thoughts strengthen you.

An Open Letter to Fellow Pastors
>From Roland McGregor, United Methodist Pastor
(an e-mail service)

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  --Copyright 2007, Roland McGregor, all rights reserved—
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