Tag: Scripture

Feeling the Cut

Posted on by Tim Mossholder

I’m just coming through a season I’d describe as “pruning”. I had been pursuing a particular objective — stretching my branches in a direction I assumed would be incredibly fruitful. But at the very moment I’d hoped this new growth might begin to bear fruit, it was cut off. Quickly. Painfully.

I wish I could say I immediately saw God’s purposes in all this. But the reality has been that I’ve needed both time to heal and the help of others to gain perspective.

During this season I’ve reflected on Jesus’ words, captured in the first part of John 15.

I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful. … No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me.

Jesus’ words have reminded me of several truths:

  • God is a gardener — so I shouldn’t be surprised when pruning happens!
  • Every branch will be cut — either because it’s fruitless or because it should be more fruitful.
  • I can’t produce fruit on my own — I must remain connected to Jesus.

The goal of my life is fruitfulness. I don’t want to be a dead branch. And I especially don’t want to be a leafy branch that looks healthy but doesn’t produce anything that’s truly life-giving.

That’s not just my goal — it’s Jesus’ purpose for my life as well. When you keep reading in John 15, Jesus states: “This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.”

There are questions, however, I must wrestle with while the pruning is taking place:

  • Can I trust Jesus to get me where I need to go?
  • Do I really believe he has a better perspective on my life than I do?
  • Will I stay connected to Jesus, even when his pruning blade is cutting in to my life plans?
  • Is my faith secure in him, even when I’m in pain?

But if the “wounds of a friend” can be considered faithful, how much more the wounds that come from the ever-loving, nail-scarred hands of the Gardener? His job isn’t to coddle me — it’s to cut back everything that’s not producing fruit.

While it’s true that all pruning is painful, pain isn’t an indicator of God’s absence or his anger. It might just be a pointed reminder that he’s at work, shaping me for greater fruitfulness.

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

NOTE: Not all pain is evidence of God’s work! Sometimes it’s a result of our own poor choices — and other times it’s a result of the sin of others spilling over onto us. But in his grace, God can redeem every situation, no matter the origin of the pain.

Good Gifts

Posted on by Tim Mossholder

I admit it. Sometime when I read the Bible, I skim over the parts that seem almost like “throwaways”. You know. The genealogies, greetings and the sort. They can seem like the obligatory copyright and table-of-contents before you get to the start of a story.

This was happening the other night as I started to read the book of Ephesians. The first couple verses read like, “Paul…blah, blah, blah…Ephesus…blah, blah, blah…grace and peace…blah, blah, blah.”

But after reading a bit further, my eyes flitted back to “grace and peace”. I read verse two over several times…

“Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.”

It was as if Paul was just handing out gifts to the readers of his letter — reaching in to a spiritual bag of presents, looking for what would be most needed and appreciated. I can almost hear Paul saying, “Here’s some grace for you. And some peace for you. These are from Dad. He thought you’d like them.”

Before Christ came, it was primarily angels and prophets who spoke such blessings. But after Jesus gave his Spirit to us, we are the ones who are charged with declaring grace and peace to the world around us.

Some of the most profound gifts I’ve ever received have been blessings from Christ, spoken by another. And these were not just words — they were animated by the Spirit of God himself to become life to me. They were just what I needed. “You are forgiven.” “You’re going to make it.” “I love you.”

This Christmas, maybe the greatest gifts we’ll pass out to others won’t be those wrapped with bows. They’ll be the ones spoken from the heart, prompted by God, to meet a need of the soul.

Is there someone in your life — a neighbor, a child, a parent, a co-worker, an enemy — who desperately needs to hear Christ’s heart for them? Will you speak it, write it, text it, sing it?

“The right word at the right time is like a custom-made piece of jewelry.” Proverbs 25:11 (MSG)

Spread hope this Christmas!

Do You Trust Me?

Posted on by Tim Mossholder

I’m reading a fantastic book, You Lost Me, by David Kinnaman. It deals with why young Christians are leaving church and rethinking faith. It’s well thought through, crisply written, and deals with issues of real importance.

When discussing how twenty-somethings view authority, Kinnaman made this observation:

“Everybody has an opinion, and it’s hard to know who is trustworthy.”

He was highlighting the fact that in an info-overloaded world, trust becomes the scale we use to weigh the worth of opinions. The greater we trust someone, the weightier their words.

Trust is what makes us believable. It is the foundation upon which we can build relationship and true community. Trust is worth the work it takes to build and retain.

So how can we become trustworthy people?

Scripture provides an interesting perspective on this. Paul, who wrote a great deal of the Bible, was writing to a group of Christ-followers who had been trying to prove their trustworthiness to God and others by following rules (the Law of Moses in particular). Paul was really pressing them to understand that rule-following isn’t what matters. In Galatians 5:14, he wrote, “For the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.'”

Then he goes on to break down what “loving your neighbor” would look like. In 5:22-23 he says, “The Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.”

Think about how each of these things would build trustworthiness — and how its absence would crush it.

  • Love — accepting others fully.
  • Joy — having real contentment even in difficult situations.
  • Peace — being a refuge in the midst of a storm.
  • Patience — refusing to rush to judgment.
  • Kindness — considering the plight of another and acting accordingly.
  • Goodness — doing what’s right rather than what’s easy or popular.
  • Faithfulness — being a person of my word.
  • Gentleness — being an emotionally safe friend for others.
  • Self-control — choosing to say “no” to relationship killing words, thoughts and actions.

“Trust me, I’m a doctor” doesn’t cut it anymore. And it doesn’t work for politicians, teachers, bloggers or religious leaders either. Perhaps that’s why people so highly value the opinions of their friends. They’re the ones who have actually earned some trust.

Let’s live as friends — and in an era where opinions abound, let the fruit of our lives prove that we can be trusted regarding things that truly matter.

(Photo credit: Benjamin Earwicker)

Disqualified…

Posted on by Tim Mossholder

What could disqualify someone from ministry leadership? Permanently?

Maybe a better question would be: are there people so broken that they can not be restored?

My hope — and I believe God’s heart — is that no matter what the offense, restoration is not only possible, but should be the ultimate goal. But things get tricky and sticky when it comes to how we do “church life”, and often people are permanently sidelined after failure. Why is this the case?

  • There’s hard work involved. Restoration is often a messy, lengthy process, and leaders dread wading into these challenging waters.
  • Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice…and so on. We are fearful that people will be repeat offenders, and we don’t want the backwash of their continued failure to splash polluted water on to our “clean” reputations.
  • We just don’t want to be associated with the brokenness of others. If I embrace you, offense and all, people may assume that I tolerate your sin (gasp!) and this would be a negative reflection on me (double gasp!).
  • The church often reflects a shame-based culture. When someone blows it, there must be something inherently wrong with them (as if there isn’t something inherently wrong with me). We label those people as failures, as shameful examples of what “not to be”.

A friend has experienced something like this over the past year. A qualified and skilled ministry leader, he went through a dark season, during which he made a bad decision that snowballed a bit before he “woke up” and put an end to it. I had the privilege of walking with him during that time and since. I was so proud of him for going back to each person involved and making it right, choosing to swallow his pride and walk in repentance. The whole episode lasted no longer than two weeks, and he came out of it stronger and more humble than before.

But over a year later, my friend’s pastor won’t even consider him for a ministry role. There’s just no place for him. He’s disqualified. Worse yet, there’s no pathway of restoration being made available to him. In his pastor’s mind, he’s permanently disqualified.

Can’t we just admit that we’re all broken people in need of grace? We all need the hope of restoration. And discarding those who fail is plain stupid (oops…did I just say that?!).

Part of the problem of maintaining a shame-based, rather than a grace-based culture is that people will go to great lengths to hide their issues. Oh, they still have them. They just fear the permanent shame they believe will be brought about by exposure. My fear of marginalization usually exceeds my desire to walk in honesty.

Are there times when someone’s habitual failure should sideline them for a season? Yes, I believe so. Leaders have the responsibility to protect the community — both the one who is currently weak as well as those who could be negatively impacted by his or her failings. But even then, restoration should be the goal of a season on the sidelines.

I’ve recently been reminded of the need for a grace-based church culture in a profound book, Love, Acceptance and Forgiveness. I’m not sure how this book, authored by pastor Jerry Cook, had escaped my reading for so long. But I’m really glad I picked it up…and I’ve bought and passed out dozens of other copies. Pick up your own copy and get ready to live differently. There is a world of broken people who are waiting for us.

(Photo credit: Ramzi Hashisho)

A Clogged Soul…

Posted on by Tim Mossholder

This past week I had to spend a considerable part of an evening unclogging my kitchen sink. Joy. There’s not much I like more than squeezing my hand into a stanky, dark hole filled with sludge and sharp blades.

And what clogs my garbage disposal anyway? It seems there’s some mystical combination of melon rinds and veggie skins that do the trick every time — but we keep shoving them in nonetheless. You’d think we’d learn!

But when the disposal is clogged, at least I get immediate feedback. The sink backs up and would overflow if not attended to.

When my soul gets clogged, the feedback is not always so immediate. Or maybe I’m just not as attuned to it. And yet it happens — my inner life slows to a crawl, my responsiveness to God becomes resistant, my relationships become a drudgery, and joy is absent.

While there are hundreds of potential soul-clogging behaviors, attitudes or beliefs, the ones that I seem to struggle with most frequently, the ones that most often obstruct the flow of my inner life are the misperceptions I hold about God.

My misperceptions about God clog my soul.

This thought emerged in a dialog with a friend as we discussed the reality that not all theology is helpful. In fact, some of what we come to believe about God can be a harmful hindrance to the life He called us to live.

Jesus was the one who stated, “I came so they can have real and eternal life, more and better life than they ever dreamed of.” It’s his full intent: that the flow of our lives would be uninhibited and clog-free.

Are there some common misperceptions about God that end up clogging the life from our souls? Probably. Here’s a few that show up with some frequency:

  1. God isn’t good.
  2. God really doesn’t like/accept/love me.
  3. The junk of my life disqualifies me for relationship with God.

If only there was a soul-Drano that would help address these misperceptions.

Actually, there is. Scripture is the most potent clog-clearing, life-restoring, soul-freeing, spirit-resource that God has provided.

2 Timothy 3:16 says that…”All Scripture is inspired by God and is useful to teach us what is true and to make us realize what is wrong in our lives. It corrects us when we are wrong and teaches us to do what is right.”

And like Drano, we don’t have to wait for a full clog before we get God’s Word into us. By regularly drinking in God’s Word, our soul is kept clog-free.

What Scriptures have meant the most to you about the three misperceptions mentioned above?