When You Are Lonely And Afraid: The Verse Behind The Christian T-Shirt- Bible Emergency Numbers

Of all our Christian T-shirts, the Bible Emergency Numbers is easily the most popular. You can see why. It lists 25 important Bible verses for 25 different situation you might face. Each verse can help guide you through a tough time, remind you to be faithful, or give you the lift you need to get through the day. In this post, we’ll dive into the first of those Bible emergency numbers to help you understand how that particular passage can help. Today we’re looking at the book of the Bible that it suggests for the situation, “When you are lonely and afraid.”

The Lord Is My Shepherd

The Bible Emergency Numbers Christian T-shirt points us to Psalm 23, perhaps the most famous Psalm of all. The psalm uses a shepherd metaphor to describe God’s relationship with his people. God is the shepherd, and we are the sheep.

God As The Shepherd

The Bible uses this metaphor throughout the Old and New Testaments, most commonly with God being the shepherd and the people being his sheep. Let’s take a look at some of those passages:

The Psalms repeatedly call God the shepherd of his people:

Psalm 80:1 “Give ear, O Shepherd of Israel, you who lead Joseph like a flock.”

Psalm 28:9 “The Lord is the strength of his people; he is the saving refuge of his anointed. Oh, save your people and bless your heritage! Be their shepherd and carry them forever.”

The prophets also use the metaphor when he describes how God will gather his people together, especially after they are taken to Babylon. God, the shepherd will fight their enemies and save their people:

Isaiah 40:11 “He will tend his flock like a shepherd; he will gather the lambs in his arms; he will carry them in his bosom, and gently lead those that are with young.”

Ezekiel 34:11-12 “Behold, I, I myself will search for my sheep and will seek them out. As a shepherd seeks out his flock when he is among his sheep that have been scattered, so will I seek out my sheep, and I will rescue them from all places where they have been scattered on a day of clouds and thick darkness.”

Throughout the Old Testament, the Bible describes God as the shepherd of his people. They are a flock that needs protection and provisions, so God defends them and leads them to green pasture and still water.

Leaders As Shepherds

Even more frequently, however, the Bible uses the word, “shepherd,” to describe Israel’s human leaders. This wasn’t just a biblical image, either. Rulers throughout the ancient Near East described themselves as the shepherd of their people, and they regularly include a shepherd’s staff in their ceremonial. In this photo, (by Kaveh CC BY-SA 2.5) you can see that the Pharaoh holds a shepherd’s crook.

Psalm 78 describes how God chose King David to be a shepherd over God’s people. David is the positive example from the Old Testament, who should set the pattern for all the leaders to follow:

He chose David his servant
   and took him from the sheepfolds;
from following the nursing ewes he brought him
   to shepherd Jacob his people,
   Israel his inheritance.
With upright heart he shepherded them
   and guided them with his skillful hand.

But the shepherds did not lead their people well. Jeremiah spends a great deal of their time calling out the shepherds of Israel as bad shepherds:

Jeremiah 10:21 “For the shepherds are stupid and do not inquire of the Lord; therefore they have not prospered, and all their flock is scattered.”

Jeremiah 23:1-4 “Woe to the shepherds who destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture!” declares the Lord. Therefore thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, concerning the shepherds who care for my people: “You have scattered my flock and have driven them away, and you have not attended to them. Behold, I will attend to you for your evil deeds, declares the Lord. Then I will gather the remnant of my flock out of all the countries where I have driven them, and I will bring them back to their fold, and they shall be fruitful and multiply. I will set shepherds over them who will care for them, and they shall fear no more, nor be dismayed, neither shall any be missing, declares the Lord.

Ezekiel, too, describes the bad shepherds. He uses all of chapter 34 to condemn the shepherds who used God’s flock for their own enrichment rather than protecting them.

Ezekiel 34:2-3 Ah, shepherds of Israel who have been feeding yourselves! Should not shepherds feed the sheep? You eat the fat, you clothe yourselves with the wool, you slaughter the fat ones, but you do not feed the sheep.

But God will also raise up a new, good shepherd to lead his people:

Ezekiel 24:23-24 And I will set up over them one shepherd, my servant David, and he shall feed them: he shall feed them and be their shepherd. And I, the Lord, will be their God, and my servant David shall be prince among them. I am the Lord; I have spoken.

In the Old Testament, then, God is the ultimate shepherd, who guided Israel as a shepherd guides his sheep. He gave them everything they needed, food, safety, guidance, and comfort.

God also set up shepherds among his people to do the same. The best example was King David. Though he had a few missteps, David served God’s people as a good shepherd. He did just as God wanted. The shepherds that followed him, however, did not. The shepherds used the sheep to enrich themselves rather than providing for them.

When those shepherds failed, God promised to raise up a new shepherd who would take care of the people in righteousness, doing everything a shepherd is supposed to do.

Jesus, The Good Shepherd

All of this comes together in Jesus. Jesus is the true shepherd that God will set over his people in Ezekiel 34. He is the shepherd who is the heir of King David, the best example of a shepherd king in the Old Testament. He is God, himself, who comes to shepherd the people, to comfort them and gather them together.

Jesus himself says that in John 10:

I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. He who is a hired hand and not a shepherd, who does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and flees, and the wolf snatches them and scatters them. He flees because he is a hired hand and cares nothing for the sheep. I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the Father; and I lay down my life for the sheep. And I have other sheep that are not of this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd.

Jesus d a shepherd over Israel is supposed to fulfill, but he goes one step further. He lays down his life to protect the sheep. We know what he means. Jesus laid down his life on the cross so he could save us from the wolf, that is Satan. He dies to protect us, and he provides eternal life for us.

Psalm 23

All of this leads us back to Psalm 23, the perfect psalm for someone who is lonely or afraid.

The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.
   He makes me lie down in green pastures.
He leads me beside still waters.
   He restores my soul.
He leads me in paths of righteousness
   for his name's sake.

David writes that God does everything that a shepherd is supposed to do. He provides food and water, so we have what we need to survive. He guides us along the paths of righteousness so we do not get lost in evil or vice.

When we are feeling lonely or afraid, it can seem like there is no one with us. Will someone be there to help us? Will we get what we need? Of course! Even when it seems like no one is with you, we know that God is. He will protect. He will provide. Even after we die, he will be with us to guide us to eternal life.

Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
   I will fear no evil,
for you are with me;
   your rod and your staff,
   they comfort me.

This next passage is for those who are afraid. God protects us through the most difficult and dangerous times. David writes, “Your rod and your staff, they comfort me.”

A few years ago, I heard a sermon by a pastor originally from Africa. He described how shepherds in his corner of Africa continue to protect their people. The rod, he said, was for the lions. He held it up for us. It was a club, about three feet long, and the club end came to a point. It was designed so it could split the skin of an attacking lion.

The staff, however, was for the sheep. It was a thin reed with a hook. Shepherds used it to direct the sheep away from danger. If a sheep started to wander off, the staff would gently guide it back. It could even hook around the sheep’s neck to pull the sheep in an emergency.

When we are afraid of danger, whether physical or spiritual, God’s rod is there to protect us. He uses it to destroy our true enemies, Satan and Death. Like the rod splits the nose of the Lion, Jesus destroyed their power when he rose from the dead, giving us eternal life.

God’s staff, then, is how he directs us away from that danger. He leads us along the right path, directing us one way or another. Sometimes it might not feel good, as a swat from a staff might, but God uses it to move us closer to him so we can be safe.

You prepare a table before me
   in the presence of my enemies;
you anoint my head with oil;
   my cup overflows.
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me
   all the days of my life,
and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

In these verse, David moves away from the shepherd metaphor, and he applies it to our lives. God’s protection means that we are safe, even in the midst of our enemies. He has chosen us, anointed us with baptism, and he promises to protect us all the days of our life and even beyond death.

When we are lonely or afraid, Psalm 23 reminds us that God is with us as a shepherd. We, the sheep, cannot navigate life safely without him. He protects us, guides us, and provides all that we need for this life and the next. God is our true shepherd.

Blessed Are The Poor In Spirit

“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”

The Beatitudes, from the sermon on the mount, are some of the most popular passages in the New Testament. Not only do they introduce the whole sermon on the mount, perhaps Jesus’ most famous sermon, but they also have deep meaning in themselves. Each sentence applies deeply to our lives, offering wisdom and grace for every Christian. If you want to learn more about the beatitudes in general, check out the introduction.

The title, The Beatitudes, is the first word of the Latin translation of this passage. “Beatitude” comes from the Latin word that means, “Blessed.” They truly do bring us blessing when we study them. This series will look at the blessings that Jesus gives us through the beatitudes. We will also look at some illustrations, symbols from stained glass windows, to help guide our exploration.

Blessed

To understand this beatitude, we need to know what each phrase means. We use the word, “blessing,” to refer to just about anything that’s good. Parents call their children a blessing, at least most of the time. When a friend is healed, we call it a blessing.

When Jesus uses the word, however, he talks about salvation. Blessing is eternal life, which Jesus gives them by his death and resurrection. Matthew 11:2-6 describes Jesus’ mission, “the blind receive their sight and the lame walk, lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised up, and the poor have good news preached to them. And blessed is the one who is not offended by me.”

It’s a fulfillment of what Isaiah predicted in chapter 61:

The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me,
   because the Lord has anointed me
to bring good news to the poor;
   he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,
to proclaim liberty to the captives,
   and the opening of the prison to those who are bound;

The blessing that Jesus brings, then, is a fulfillment of God’s promises in all of scripture. When Jesus brings blessing, he brings all of God’s kingdom.

Are The Poor In Spirit

Next comes “the poor in spirit.” It means, “spiritually poor.” They’re not filled with spiritual riches. They don’t have an extensive spiritual resume. They are the weakest, the saddest, the most broken.

The Spiritual Resume

Paul talks about what it took to be spiritually rich among the Jews in Philippians 3. He writes, “If anyone else thinks he has reason for confidence in the flesh, I have more: circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless.”

Paul has an impressive spiritual resume. He was born to the chosen people of Israel of the tribe of Benjamin, meaning that he can trace his lineage back to Benjamin, son of Jacob. His parents followed Moses’ command to circumcise their children on the eighth day after birth. Ever since then, he did his best to follow God’s law, offering sacrifices for sin and obeying the commandments. He even went so far as to persecute Jews who turned from following Moses to following Jesus. The scribes, the pharisees, and all the religious leaders would have had the same resume.

Sometimes we also point to our own spiritual resume. Occasionally, people will talk about it with their pastor, usually when they want him to do something. It goes something like this: My parents were founding members of this church, and I have been here my whole life. I volunteer in the board of outreach, and I give to the church. That’s why you should (fill in the blank). I know pastors for whom the pastoral office goes back generation, and they can name all the men who were pastors in their family. That’s a powerful spiritual resume.

Our Spiritual Resume Means Nothing

But a powerful spiritual resume means nothing. Paul reflects on his spiritual resume again in Philippians 3, “But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.”

His resume, and ours, is worth nothing, because it means nothing to God. God doesn’t care how many people were pastors in our family history. He doesn’t care whether you have a Ph. D. in theology. He doesn’t care whether you give 99.99 percent of your income. It’s all worth nothing.

Sin is the only thing on our resume. The crimson stain of sin blots out any accomplishes we might have. It floods over our spiritual ink, and stains the paper. Every thought, even the most noble ones, are tainted, so nothing we have can be pure.

That means we’re all spiritually poor, even if we don’t know it. That was the problem with Paul before he became a Christian. He didn’t know he was spiritually poor. He only thought he was strong, strong enough to stand before God on his obedience to the law.

The Kingdom of God

Jesus says that the spiritually poor receive the Kingdom of God. Unfortunately, the normal translation doesn’t help us understand what St. Matthew is writing. A better translation would be something like, “the reign of heaven.”

Kingdom typically refers to a place. Normal kingdoms have rulers and borders, but the Kingdom of God is different. The Kingdom of God is more like God’s kingly activity in the world. He forms a kingdom of people rather than places, and he does it through Jesus Christ. God breaks into the world to bring salvation to his people and judgement against his enemies.

They had heard the prophets talk about the kingdom of God. Isaiah writes:

“Oh that you would rend the heavens and come down,
   that the mountains might quake at your presence—
as when fire kindles brushwood
   and the fire causes water to boil—
to make your name known to your adversaries,
   and that the nations might tremble at your presence!”

The prophets were waiting for God to come down from heaven to save them and to destroy their enemies.

How Does He Bring The Reign of God?

Jesus brings the reign of God to his people by his death and resurrection. The stained glass window that goes with this beatitude shows a shepherd’s staff and an altar for burning an offering. Jesus’ death is the sacrifice that covers up our terrible spiritual resume and turns in his own holiness instead.

The Old Testament uses sacrifice in the same way throughout the life of Israel. When God gathered his people into his kingdom, he knew that they would be spiritually poor. He set up the sacrificial system so their spiritual poverty wouldn’t matter. It would be covered with the purity that sacrifice brought. But those sacrifices were imperfect. They needed to happen over and over again.

Jesus’ sacrifice, however, is eternal. His death on the cross is the eternal sacrifice that takes away the sin of the world. That sacrifice gives the reign of God to the spiritually poor.

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of God. Jesus gives salvation and eternal life, to people who are spiritually poor. When they are broken by their sin and call on God for help, Christ gives it to them.

Nearly every country has a holiday or a season where we give thanks. Americans celebrate it on the fourth Thursday of November every year. The holiday harkens back to some of the first European settlers on North America, and how they gave thanks for surviving what became a deadly trip for many.

Thanksgiving has become a day for gathering with family and friends around a feast– usually turkey, mashed potatoes, and the like– to recall the good things we have. Like every family holiday, it’s not always fun. Family gatherings can be contentious when people are resentful. They can be mournful when we’ve recently lost loved ones. Sometimes, that crazy uncle just gets drunk and ruins the fun.

Sometimes, people just don’t have much for which they feel like giving thanks. Families break up. People live in poverty. Children get sick or even die. What is Thanksgiving when life is terrible?

Giving Thanks At All Times

It is difficult for us to give thanks at all times, even in bad times. But that’s what Christians should do. St. Paul writes, in Phillipians 4, “Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.”

He tells the Philippians to offer their requests, i.e. the things they want God to change, with thanksgivings. When they asked God to protect their families from the Romans who wanted to kill them, they were also supposed to give thanks. When they prayed that their children might be healed, they also had to give thanks.

Christians Can Always Be Thankful

God always gives us something for which we can give thanks. He gave us Jesus, who died and rose from the dead for us. Jesus, who is with us through joy and sorrow. Jesus, who forgives us when we sin and comforts us when we mourn. Because of Jesus, we have God’s grace that leads to eternal life. This is God’s true, most precious gift, a promise that whatever happens in this life, we will rise to a perfect life when Jesus returns.

That’s why Paul can remain content in all circumstances. He continues in Philippians 4, “I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content.” He knows that Jesus is truly all we need, and our present circumstances are always temporary. Good will come and go. Evil will come and go. But Jesus remains forever.

Giving Thanks For Everything

But even that way of looking at life divides the gifts that God gives us into things for which we should be thankful and things for which we should not. If all life is a gift from God, shouldn’t we be thankful for everything we get, the good and the bad. If all history is moving toward uniting heaven and earth in Christ, shouldn’t we give thanks for every moment that moves toward that end?

Henri Nouwen was a Dutch Catholic priest, who taught at a University for two decades before moving to Ontario, Canada, to with with adults with intellectual disabilities. A prominent theologian, his words often move people to a deeper desire for spirituality . He once wrote this about gratitude:

To be grateful for the good things that happen in our lives is easy, but to be grateful for all of our lives the good as well as the bad, the moments of joy as well as the moments of sorrow, the successes as well as the failures, the rewards as well as the rejections that requires hard spiritual work. Still, we are only grateful people when we can say thank you to all that has brought us to the present moment. As long as we keep dividing our lives between events and people we would like to remember and those we would rather forget, we cannot claim the fullness of our beings as a gift of God to be grateful for. Let's not be afraid to look at everything that has brought us to where we are now and trust that we will soon see in it the guiding hand of a loving God.

All of life is a gift from God. Everything we have comes from him, both what we call good and what we call bad. God sends rain that waters crops, and he also sends rain that floods cities. He gives us fire to warm our houses, but he also sends wildfires that burn homes to the ground. He is there when a police officer protects the innocent and when a thug steals a purse. How can we give thanks for the bad as well as the good?

Evil Is Still Evil. Good Is Still Good.

Some people try to answer this question by calling everything good. If God does it, then it must be good. Here’s how it might go. Say a little girl gets stabbed. That’s a terrible thing. But the knife helps the doctors find cancer early so it’s treatable. Then the stabbing must be good, right? Since all things work for the good, bad things lead to even greater good.

But that is just a way to rationalize away the bad that happens. We want to push away the idea that God might actually bring about suffering. When a girl gets stabbed, it’s bad, even if it leads to finding and treating a dangerous cancer. When bad things happen, they are still bad.

Giving Thanks For The Bad

Nouwen suggests that we should thank God for bad things that happen to us. Life is a gift, and everything encompassed in that gift is a gift, even when it’s awful.

As he says, “that requires hard spiritual work.” It’s hard spiritual work to remember that sickness, though bad, is still a part of God’s gift of life. It’s hard spiritual work to remember that our good God provides difficult times as part of his gift of life. Nothing happens to us as a mistake. It’s all from him.

How do we do that? How do we develop that spiritual muscle? It begins with Jesus, of course. We know that God is good, because he sent us Jesus.

Jesus, himself, offered thanks in the middle of suffering. When he died on the cross, he cried out with a loud voice, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” While that might not look like a thanksgiving, it is. Jesus was quoting Psalm 22. When someone quotes a portion of a passage, he wants us to keep the whole thing in mind.

Psalm 22 vacillates between complaint and calling on God’s goodness. It begins, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me, from the words of my groaning?” Then it quickly changes to trust in God. “Yet you are holy, enthroned on the praises of Israel. In you our fathers trusted; they trusted, and you delivered them.”

This tension is the heart of giving thanks for everything God sends us. God is good, and he brings about things that hurt us. So, we trust him. He is in charge, and he gives us what we need. Then, we can give thanks even for that which hurts us.

The Difference Between All Saints Day and All Souls Day

Christian holidays help us to remember important things in our history. We remember the lives of great men and women who have gone before us. There are holidays to remember different stories in the life of Christ, to help us understand the mission of the church, to remind us of great Christians, and to remember important days in Christian history.

Two such holidays happen in the beginning of November. All Saints Day and All Souls Day are on November 1st and November 2nd respectively. They both remind us of a host of Christians past, but they each have a difference emphasis. In many churches, we combine the two themes into one day, but it means we lose a little of each one in the process. Let’s look at the history and practice of both days to see how what role they were intended to play in our Christian lives.

The History of All Saints and All Souls

Christian holidays never spring fully formed from the mind of some Christian leader. They often begin as a local or regional celebration which grows and changes as Christians celebrate it more and more. This is true for both of these days.

Not A Pagan Holiday

Before we get to the true histories of these two days, we need to address a common misunderstanding about the two holidays. The Christian church did not choose November 1st to “baptize” a pagan holiday.

We explain these arguments in a previous article on this blog, so this article won’t go into the details. Here’s a quick summary. The November 1st celebrations did not come from the region where Samhain was supposedly celebrated. We don’t even have records that Samhain was truly celebrated the way modern pagans claim.

All Saints Day

According to Catholic Straight Answers, All Saints Day started just after the Roman Empire legalized Christianity in 313 AD. Both St. Ephram, died in 370 AD, and St. John Chrysostom, died in 407 AD, reference this kind of celebration in their preaching. Many churches began celebrating a common day for multiple saints. Following the persecution under Emperor Diocletian, there were hosts of martyrs that each church wanted to remember and to celebrate. There were, however, too many martyrs for each to have it’s own day. So, they used one common celebration to remember everyone they missed.

Different cities celebrated it on different days. Edessa once celebrated in on May 13th. Others celebrated it the week after Easter. Antioch remembered them on the first Sunday after Pentecost.

As the Christian church became more organized and unified in practice, they regularized holidays across the church. November 1st became the assigned day under Pope Gregory IV, who reigned from 827 AD to 824 AD, and we’ve celebrated it that way since.

The theme of All Saints Day, then, is not every Christian who ever died. Instead, we remember the witness of the martyrs. They held true to Christ even to the point of death. Their stories deserve to be remembered.

All Souls Day

The church began celebrating All Souls Day as a way to remember every Christian who has ever died. Just like All Saints Day, All Souls Day developed over time. At first, they celebrated it on different days. Some did it near the Easter season, while others celebrated it after the day of Pentecost. Between 998 AD and 1030 AD, St. Odilo of cluny ordered that all the monks in his monasteries celebrate it on November 2nd. Soon that commemoration spread to the whole church.

Image By Diego Delso, CC BY-SA 4.0

It started out of the Roman Catholic system of merit and purgatory. They believed that most Christians went to purgatory after they died. Supposedly, Christians needed to be purged before they could enter heaven. They also believed that our prayers and efforts could affect how long their souls remained there.

So, All Souls Day became a day to remember the dead and to offer up prayers and indulgences for them. Protestants, however, don’t believe in purgatory, since it denies the all-sufficient sacrifice of Jesus on the cross to forgive our sins. So, when Protestants celebrate All Souls Day, it becomes a day to remember all of the Christian dead, but especially our lost loved ones.

It’s also a day to remember the communion of the saints, which is the unity that the whole church has in Jesus Christ. Since the church is the body of Christ, and all Christians are in him, that means the church in heaven and the church on earth are all united in him. In Christ, we have communion with each other.

Why We Should Distinguish The Two

We can see how the two holidays could be conflated. First, protestants often state that all Christians are saints in Christ. Every Christian is holy by the grace won for us by Jesus on the cross. There is, then, no distinction between the most famous Christians and the rest of us.

Second, American churches don’t typically celebrate these holidays separately. If you have trouble getting people to come to worship on just one special day, you’re certainly not going to get them to come on two days in a row. So, they mash the two together into one celebration, usually on the Sunday before or after.

We should distinguish the two, because each day has a different theme. All Saints Day reminds us of the martyrs. We tell their stories to help us bravely remain true when we face persecution or rejection because of the faith. When we consider that many Christians died rather than deny the faith, it can spur us to remain brave when we might face social rejection for ours.

All Souls Day reminds us of the faithful departed. Christians need a way to remember the dead, especially the ones we still mourn. Many churches will read the names of their members who have died, giving thanks for the grace that God gave them in life. All Saints also gives us a day to remember the communion of the saints. We should celebrate the unity we have in Christ so we understand that there is no distinction. We are all one in him.

When Your Faith Needs Stirring: The Verse Behind The Christian T-Shirt- Bible Emergency Numbers

Of all the Christian T-shirts, the Bible Emergency Numbers is easily the most popular. You can see why. It lists 25 important Bible verses for 25 different situation you might face. Each verse can help guide you through a tough time, remind you to be faithful, or give you the lift you need to get through the day. In this post, we’ll dive into the first of those Bible emergency numbers to help you understand how that particular passage can help. Today we’re looking at the book of the Bible that it suggests for the situation, “When your faith needs stirring.”

When Your Faith Needs Stirring…

What does that mean? While most of the Bible Emergency Numbers give us a clear situation, this one gives us a metaphor. You could use stir in a couple ways. You could stir a soup or a can of paint. That’s all about mixing things. It takes unincorporated items and mixes them into one, evenly distributed whole.

Another way to use stir is for something to be in motion. Fall leaves can stir when the wind blows them along the ground. A cat can stir when it drowsily stretches on your bed. Water stirs when a fish flips its tail.

Clues from Hebrews

Which one is it? The Book of Hebrews gives us a clue. The author of Hebrews wants to encourage his audience to be faithful Christians. He especially exhorts them to be faithful despite persecution. In Hebrews 10, we see hints of their situation.

“How much worse punishment, do you think, will be deserved by the one who has trampled underfoot the Son of God, and has profaned the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and has outraged the Spirit of grace?” Hebrews 10:29

There is temptation to leave behind Christ, to trample him underfoot, to profane the blood of the covenant. How? Hebrews tells us again:

“But recall the former days when, after you were enlightened, you endured a hard struggle with sufferings, sometimes being publicly exposed to reproach and affliction, and sometimes being partners with those so treated.” Hebrews 10:32-33

When we suffer for Christ, we are tempted to deny him, to turn our back on our savior to stay safe. The Hebrews, probably converts from Judaism, could have turned back to their old religion, and the Romans would have left them alone.  

Get Stirred Up

When we’re hurt for Jesus, we need to be stirred up to action, to get some backbone, to be encouraged in faith. Even the most faithful struggle when in pain, especially pain that can be so easily escaped. All we’d need to do is turn from Christ and join in with the world. We need our faith stirred up by Christ. Hebrews speaks to us to stir our faith into action in strength as he says in Hebrews 10:39, “But we are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those who have faith and preserve their souls.”

By Faith…

Hebrews 11 illustrates the power of faith in spite of persecution. The author tells stories we all know, of the patriarchs and heroes of the Old Testament.

• By faith Abel trusted God and offered a pleasing sacrifice.
• By faith Enoch was taken into heaven.
• By faith Noah built a boat before the rain started to fall.
• By faith Abraham…
• • left his home to follow wherever God would lead him and receive a great promise.
  • offered his son, the fulfillment of God’s promises, as a sacrifice.
• By faith, Sarah became pregnant with the promise of God, even though she was far too old to have a child.
• By faith, elderly Moses conquered the Egyptians with a staff, destroying Pharaoh's army and leading the people to the promised land.

None of these heroes did great things by their own strength or character. Noah was not the first meteorologist. He heard God’s voice and followed him. Abraham was not the first great explorer. He listened to God’s promised and believed. He wasn’t even righteous or wise. At the first sign of trouble, Abraham pretends that his wife is his sister and marries her off to someone else!

No. They trust that God would do what he says. Hebrews 11:1 says,  “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” Faith, itself a divine gift, believed that God would stick to his promises.

There Are Many More

The patriarchs weren’t the only ones who conquered by faith. There are many Christians who have suffered long ago and many who are suffering today. All Saints Day, November 1st, celebrates the many martyrs who died by for the faith through Roman persecution, Islamic conquest in the Middle East, Communist totalitarianism, and tyranny.

By faith, the apostles who faced torture and death by faith, and they received the eternal righteousness that God promises all who believe. By faith Ignatius walked gladly to the arena to be devoured by wild beasts, because he know that God would raise his broken body on the last day.

By faith, many of the Bishops at the council of Nicea had withstood torture during the persecution under Diocletian. Paul of Neo-Caesarea lost the use of his hands, and Paphutius of Egypt had his eye plucked out and his hamstring cut. The gift of faith kept them strong and will cause them to receive whole bodies when Christ returns.

By faith, Chinese Christians will withstand their communist government’s new approach to Christianity. China has a new policy for Christianity. They want to make it more “Chinese” or “Sinicisation.” They are going to include ideas from socialism and Confucianism in the Old Testament and rewrite commentaries on the New Testament to make Socialism seem divine.

They will be required to place pictures of Chairman Mao and Xi Jinping next to crosses. They will force Christians to sing communist songs and propaganda songs in worship.

Their Witness Is For You

We tell their stories, because they can help us stay strong when our hearts are weak. And they do get weak. We’d all love to think that we’re strong all the time. We’d like to think that we’re action heroes racing through our own incredible story. We fight the bad guys. We defeat the enemy. We stay strong through every problem.

But that’s not real, at least no more real than any movie is. There are no action heroes. None of us is always strong. There’s only one real hero, Jesus himself. Even when he wept over his friend, Lazarus’ death, Jesus stayed true. When his friends abandoned him, and his followers rejected him, Jesus was totally faithful. He was strong, even when he cried out to God at his last moments. He stayed true.

That’s why we need to hear the stories of people who have conquered in faith. They stayed true, not by their own power, but by his. They faced rejection, death, and pain, and Jesus kept them strong. Their stories point us to his power to conquer even death.

What does it mean for faith to need stirring? Faith needs to be stirred when it’s weak. Faith needs to be stirred when it doubts. Faith needs to be stirred when it all seems pointless. That’s why Hebrews points us to this great cloud of witnesses, the patriarchs, prophets, and all the rest. Their faithfulness, by Christ’s power, encourages us to be faithful in hm, too.

The Beatitudes: The Introduction To The Sermon On The Mount

Some portions of Holy Scripture stand out from among the rest. While every word and sentence is holy, some resonate more than others. If anyone knows any Psalm, they probably know Psalm 23. The language and images of the psalm give us comfort in the worst times of our lives.

There’s a reason that every Christian wedding couple chooses to read 1 Corinthians 13. St. Paul’s lyrical, poetic description of Christ’s love at work in the church is more beautiful than others. Every Sunday School kid knows John 3:16, the gospel in a nutshell. It’s simple, easy, and it sums up the whole message of salvation in just one sentence.

Another such passage comes from Matthew 5:2-11, the beginning of the sermon on the mount. Jesus begins this sermon with some of his most famous poetry, the beatitudes. In this series, we’re going to explore each on of these sentences and see what Jesus’ words mean for us.

What’s A Beatitude?

Before we get to the first one, there’s an important question. What are the beatitudes? Let’s start with the title itself. Most of western Christianity used the Latin Bible, called the Vulgate, for centuries. In Latin, each of the beatitudes begins with the word beati, or blessed, which gives us the name.

But what are they? They’re a series of sayings, something like a proverb, which introduce and summarize the sermon on the mount. There’s a pattern to them. Here’s the first one, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” Each one goes like that, “Blessed are the ____________ for _____________.” The first blank is a type of person, and the second blank a blessing.

The blessing corresponds with the condition. So, the poor in spirit receive the riches of the kingdom of God. The people who mourn will receive comfort. The merciful will receive mercy.

The Message Of The Beatitudes

The beatitudes contain a consistent theme that echos much of the Old and New Testaments. God raises up the humble, but he casts down the proud. Consider the prayer that Hannah prayed after she became pregnant with Samuel. She says:

The bows of the mighty are broken,
   but the feeble bind on strength.
Those who were full have hired themselves out for bread,
   but those who were hungry have ceased to hunger.
The barren has borne seven,
   but she who has many children is forlorn.

And a little later, she says:

He raises up the poor from the dust;
   he lifts the needy from the ash heap
to make them sit with princes
   and inherit a seat of honor.

Or Psalm 147:6, “The Lord lifts up the humble; he casts the wicked to the ground.”

Mary’s song, called the Magnificat, from the Gospel of Luke mirror’s Hannah’s prayer:

he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts;
he has brought down the mighty from their thrones
   and exalted those of humble estate;
he has filled the hungry with good things,
   and the rich he has sent away empty

Each of the beatitudes has a similar message. God will raise up someone lowly, someone humbled. Each of these short, beautiful phrases shows us the gospel of Jesus Christ. He gives grace to the lowly. He gives comfort to the broken hearted. He gives hope to the hopeless.

A Window Into The Sermon On The Mount

When you read the sermon on the mount, it seems like Jesus is giving us a lot to say and do. He tells us that our anger is just like murder. He says that our lust is the same as adultery. He reminds us that it would be better to pluck out our eyes or cut off our hands than to go to Hell.

There’s more like it. Jesus keeps telling us God’s law. Over and over again, he shows us what good Christians are supposed to do. Love our enemies. Give without letting anyone know. Give up wealth so you can have treasure in heaven.

How do the beatitudes help us understand? It gives a gospel tint, a glimpse of grace, to each of the laws that Jesus explains to us. Each passage helps us understand how to live, but each passage also calls us to do something we can’t possibly do. Jesus’ law is extreme. It’s perfection. Cut off your hand. Pluck out your eye. Give up everything.

When we look at this standard, all we can realize is that we will never live up to it. We could never give everything we have for Jesus. Our sin keeps us back. No one can trust God so much that they’re never anxious, like Jesus tells us to in Matthew 6:25-34.

That means that each of us, when we look at ourselves honestly, each of us is lowly. We are poor in spirit. We mourn. We are meek. We hunger and thirst for righteousness, even though we can’t possibly live up to it. Each time Jesus tells us what we need to do, we only hear about our terrible, sinful heart.

God Lifts Up The Lowly

God lifts up the lowly, like those people who mourn over their sin. That’s what Hannah prayed about in the Old Testament. She rejoiced that God gave a barren woman the grace of a baby. Mary, too, rejoiced that God lifts up the lowly. He gave a virgin the most important baby in all of history, Jesus himself. Mary sang that God fills the hungry and lifts up the lowly.

We are all beggars. We are all lowly. Our sin makes us that way. The key to grace is recognizing it. When we repent, Jesus gives us grace. When we mourn over our sin, Jesus comforts us. When our thirst for righteousness drives us to despair, Jesus gives us hope.

That message should play in the background, like a catchy song, when you read the sermon on the mount. It should be the earworm that burrows deeper and deeper every time Jesus tells you something more extreme about God’s law. When Jesus’ words stab us in the heart, as they should if you’re honest, the beatitudes are there to heal the wound.  

This blog is going to study each of the beatitudes and show how that message applies to us. Each beatitude comes with a symbol that represents its message. So, stay with us as we occasionally return to these beatitudes and apply them to our lives.  

When God Seems Far Away: The Verse Behind The Christian T Shirt

We all face it. Sorrow. Pain. Grief. Depression. However it manifests for you, you’ve gone through it, too. We might pretend it’s not there. Christians are supposed to have joy at all times, right? We might hide it from other Christians, even from our pastors. But we can’t hide it from ourselves. Beneath the smiles, there’s just a broken heart.

When Christians are in this state, we can feel like God is far away. We believe that our emptiness reflects his absence. Does God hear our prayers for mercy? Does he hear our prayers at all? Does he care that we’re in pain? Even worse. Is he far away?

When God Seems Far Away

The Bible Emergency Numbers Christian T-Shirt gives us a passage from the book of Psalms to help us when God seems far away, Psalm 139. David wrote this Psalm as a way to plead with God for protection from his enemies, from the people who would do evil around him.

Oh that you would slay the wicked, O God!
   O men of blood, depart from me!
They speak against you with malicious intent;
   your enemies take your name in vain.
Do I not hate those who hate you, O Lord?
   And do I not loathe those who rise up against you?

Most of David’s life was pretty great, but he had his share of difficulties, as bad as any we face. When David went to fight the Philistines, King Saul became jealous and sent troops to kill him. When David slept with Bathsheba, God struck the resulting child with an illness, and the child died. Later, David’s son, Absalom led a rebellion against him. He forced David into hiding, and Absalom took the throne. David’s armies defeated Absalom’s and Absalom died. Despite the rebellion, David mourned the death of his son.

David’s must have written this Psalm in a time when he faced human enemies. Perhaps he was running from Saul. Perhaps he fled from Absalom. Maybe it was one of the many problems a king faces in his reign. Whatever the situation, he was not happy.

God Is Always Near

But David knew that God was always near, no matter how he felt about it. It’s true for us, too. God is always near. David tell us just that.

O Lord, you have searched me and known me!
You know when I sit down and when I rise up;
   you discern my thoughts from afar.
You search out my path and my lying down
   and are acquainted with all my ways.
Even before a word is on my tongue,
   behold, O Lord, you know it altogether.

David tells us that God is with us intimately. He doesn’t just look from afar, as if he is glancing down at us from heaven. God is in our hearts. He is in our thoughts. He knows our words even before we do. He is intimately connected to us, body and soul. That’s because God is everywhere, and he knows all things.

God promises Christians his special presence in ways that others do not have. He unites us with Christ. Romans 6 reminds us that baptism unites us with Christ’s death and resurrection. God could never be far away when Jesus Christ is in us.

Not only do we have Christ’s presence, God also gives us his Holy Spirit to dwell in us. In 1 Corinthians 6, Paul tells us that our bodies are temples for the Holy Spirit. In John 14, Jesus tells us that the Father will send the helper, the Holy Spirit. He dwells in us.

God Is Everywhere

But God isn’t just near us with his presence inside us. We also can’t escape him and his help.

Where shall I go from your Spirit?
   Or where shall I flee from your presence?
If I ascend to heaven, you are there!
   If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there!
If I take the wings of the morning
   and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea,
even there your hand shall lead me,
   and your right hand shall hold me.

David knows that God is in both the highest places and the lowest places. He is in heaven and he is in the grave. If David flew away toward the sun and the stars, God would be there. If he dove down into the depths of the sea in the darkest places, God would still be there.

That might be scary for us, if God just looked at our sins, at our darkness. But he doesn’t. Because of Jesus, we know that God loves us no matter what. When we dive into the deepest darkness of depression, God is there. When we fall into the worst shame and sin, God is there. When all we feel is the depth of sorrow, God is there.

God Is With Us In Jesus

That’s because he was there with Jesus. Jesus went into the depths of our pain. He felt sorrow when his friend, Lazarus, died. He felt betrayal when all his friends, his disciples, abandoned him. He felt humiliation when the people he came to save falsely accused him of terrible crimes. He felt pain when they tortured him on the cross. He even entered into the pit of death, into the deepest darkness anyone can know.

Because Jesus did all that, you know that God is with you. Because Jesus entered the pain of humanity, we know that he is with us in our pain. So, when God feels like he’s far away, he’s not. That’s just your pain talking. That’s the hurt, the darkness, the depression.

Listen instead to God’s promises. Hebrews 15 reminds us that God says this to us, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.” In Romans 8, St. Paul tells us that nothing can separate us from God’s love.

“Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword...No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

When God feels far away. He’s not. His promises are true no matter what you feel. No matter your pain, no matter your loneliness, no matter what you think, God is with you. He will never leave you.