Journeying with Jesus
by Charles Bertelsmeier
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While he was blessing them, he left them and was taken up into heaven. Then they worshipped him and returned to Jerusalem with great joy (Luke 24:51,52).
Read Luke 24:44–53
I find it interesting to contemplate the rollercoaster emotional ride the closest followers of Jesus had been experiencing. First, there was the excitement and adventure when they had first answered the call to follow Jesus. Then there were the challenges to their long‑held beliefs about what the promised Messiah would be, and even questions about whether Jesus was actually the promised Messiah. Then, after being with him for those three years, Jesus started talking about his impending death/execution. There would have been much unsettling confusion. Would the three years following Jesus have been a waste of their time if they had to go back to their old jobs after he left/died? And their future and security came tumbling down when Jesus was arrested, condemned and crucified.
They were afraid that they would be next, so they went into hiding from the authorities. But then there was the joy when Jesus came back from the dead and the 40 days with him as he clarified for the disciples what his ministry was all about.
However, when he left them again at his return to heaven, I would have thought that his followers would again descend into a time of grieving at his departure. But no. They went to the temple each day full of joy and celebration. Remember that they had not yet received the empowering of Holy Spirit – this was still 10 days away at Pentecost. But they had been transformed. Their fear of the authorities was gone, and they had the confidence that God was in complete control and that he was implementing a plan. They would play a part in God’s ongoing plan, even though they were unaware of many details. Any thoughts of returning to the lives they had before meeting Jesus were now completely expunged from their minds.
When a loved one who knows Jesus personally dies, we, of course, grieve their departure. But in a similar way to the followers of Jesus celebrating his return to heaven, we can celebrate that our loved one has also gone to join Jesus in heaven. And as his followers got on with their lives with the assurance that God had a plan and a future for them, so we too can, still in our grief, have confidence that our loving Heavenly Father will be with us through Holy Spirit in us. His presence helps us focus on God’s ongoing plans for our lives after our loved one is taken from us.
Loving Heavenly Father, thank you for your promise to be with us always, through all the experiences of life you take us through. Please take away our fear of the future, because we know it is all part of your loving plan for us. Amen.
Charles is a retired engineer who has worked on telecommunications projects for the air force, army and navy. He lives in a retirement village in the outer north-western suburbs of Sydney with his wife, Diane. Together, they have four children and eight grandchildren, all of whom they love spending time with. Charles keeps busy caring for their pot plants and a community vegetable garden, researching his family history and volunteering in the community and at LifeWay Lutheran Church.
Inner peace
by Charles Bertelsmeier
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I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world (John 16:33).
Read John 16:25–33
Jesus promises his disciples peace while at the same time telling them that they will experience ‘trouble’ in this world. How do we resolve this dichotomy? We generally see trouble and peace as opposites; however, Jesus seems to be saying that we can experience his peace even amid troubling times.
One thing we need to become clear about is that being a child of a loving Heavenly Father does not protect us from facing troubling issues. We can still experience medical and health issues; we can be involved in accidents that cause injuries that take a long time to heal and possibly leave us with lingering limitations. We can face financial issues, lose our jobs or experience challenging workplace situations. We may be affected by droughts, bushfires, floods, earthquakes and landslides. We may fall foul of the law, even possibly when we believe we were not at fault. It may financially cost us or even lead to imprisonment. We may fall out with a friend, and our marriage may fail. All these things happen to people committing their lives to God’s care. I know, because I have experienced many of them, some in a minor way and a few more intensely.
When we face these events in our lives, we can spend a lot of time trying to think up answers about how to deal with these ‘challenges’ to the peace in our lives. They can keep us awake at night and rob us of sleep. They can make us tense and hard to live with as we concentrate on solving our problems, leading to relationship issues. We can lose focus as we concentrate on finding solutions and fail to carry out our responsibilities to family, friends and employers, leading to further negative consequences. I have experienced all these too.
Jesus’ answer is, ‘But take heart! I have overcome the world.’ To start with, God is in complete control of his universe, including all the minutiae of our lives. Then, Jesus has assured us that he will be with us always, to the end of time (Matthew 28:20). Whatever God allows to happen in our lives, he uses to grow us in maturity in our relationship with him. So, he promises to be right alongside us as he guides us in working out his solutions to our problems, and he does this through his Holy Spirit living in us. So instead of being busy trying to think up solutions, he wants us to stop, rest in his presence and talk to him about our problems, all the time listening to the guidance he wants to give us.
We also have his word to us in the Bible, so he invites us to spend time reading our Bibles during our rest. Sometimes, the guidance will be during our time of rest. At other times, the guidance will come as we get up and follow where he is leading. As we follow him, we will grow in trusting his commitment to us and in knowing his peace.
Heavenly Father, thank you for being in complete control of everything and for your commitment to growing me in my relationship with you. Thank you for the peace this brings me. Amen.
Charles is a retired engineer who has worked on telecommunications projects for the air force, army and navy. He lives in a retirement village in the outer north-western suburbs of Sydney with his wife, Diane. Together, they have four children and eight grandchildren, all of whom they love spending time with. Charles keeps busy caring for their pot plants and a community vegetable garden, researching his family history and volunteering in the community and at LifeWay Lutheran Church.
Praying in Jesus’ name
by Charles Bertelsmeier
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Very truly I tell you, my Father will give you whatever you ask in my name. Ask and you will receive, and your joy will be complete (John 16:23b,24b).
Read John 16:16–24
Jesus had been trying to get his disciples ready for his impending death and eventual departure from this earth. He had already given them the promise of Holy Spirit coming to them to replace himself. Now he was explaining to them that the grief that they would feel following his death would be replaced with everlasting joy, even after he leaves them.
With Jesus no longer physically present with the disciples, they are to have a new relationship with God. They now have direct access to their Heavenly Father and the guiding and powerful presence of Holy Spirit living in them.
We often end our prayers with a phrase such as, ‘We ask all these things in Jesus’ name.’ In today’s Bible verses, Jesus promises that whatever we ask our Heavenly Father for in his name, we will receive it. It almost sounds like a bit of magic. We just have to add this phrase to the end of our prayers, and God will give us what we ask for.
So let us have a deeper look at what it means to ask or pray in Jesus’ name. Firstly, we can only call God our Heavenly Father because of what Jesus did through his perfect life, sacrificial death and resurrection, which opened the way for us to be adopted into the Heavenly Family as God’s children. When we pray in Jesus’ name, we acknowledge that it is only through what Jesus has done for us that we can come to God.
We also pray, asking for those things that Jesus would ask his Father for. Sometimes, when we are overwhelmed by the importance of someone, we may ask an intermediary to take our requests to them. Of course, the intermediary would only take up our request if it aligned with their own ethos. This is similar to our prayers. We don’t have to pray to Jesus to ask our Heavenly Father on our behalf, but can go directly to our Heavenly Father, asking for those things that Jesus would be happy to ask his Father for on our behalf.
And it is also an acknowledgement that we have surrendered our wills and our lives to the Heavenly Family so that God can achieve his will and purpose in us. We don’t go to God with our Santa Claus list but seek his help and guidance in how he wants to use us to bring his gifts to the people he places in our path each day.
Of course, as a loving Father, God cares about all the things that affect our daily lives and wants us to talk to him about them. But he also wants us to hand them over to him to manage as we get on with doing the things he has planned for us.
Notice how Jesus ended our verse for today: ‘and your joy will be complete.’ He promises us his joy as we let him guide us in living according to his will for us.
Heavenly Father, thank you for all that Jesus achieved for us to become your children and live as members of your family. I surrender my life into your hands for you to live your purpose in me. Amen.
Charles is a retired engineer who has worked on telecommunications projects for the air force, army and navy. He lives in a retirement village in the outer north-western suburbs of Sydney with his wife, Diane. Together, they have four children and eight grandchildren, all of whom they love spending time with. Charles keeps busy caring for their pot plants and a community vegetable garden, researching his family history and volunteering in the community and at LifeWay Lutheran Church.
Selective blindness
by Charles Bertelsmeier
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If I had not done among them the works no one else did, they would not be guilty of sin. As it is, they have seen, and yet they have hated both me and my Father (John 15:24).
Read John 15:18–27
Have you ever watched an illusionist and wondered how they did their tricks? Speaking generally, what the illusionist does is divert your attention to some activity they want you to concentrate on while doing some trickery with their other hand or by their assistant. Because you can only visually concentrate on one thing at a time, you don’t notice the slight activity off to the side. Another aspect of our psychology is that as we switch our visual attention from one object to another some distance away, we don’t see any details of anything between the two objects. Illusionists rely on this, too.
This is related to another truth about our psychology. To understand new information or ideas, we need to fit them into our current frames of reference. Let me give an example. Our current experience is that when we take five loaves of bread, break them into pieces and hand them out to feed people, there will not be enough to feed at least five thousand people, with 12 baskets of leftover scraps. So, when we hear about this happening, we try to fit it into this frame of reference. Which means we think that it didn’t happen as reported. There must have been some sleight of hand or other explanation.
Now, if your frame of reference includes a God who has unlimited power over nature, you don’t have a problem, because this example of the multiplying bread is just a miracle. This implies that the person who performed the miracle is either God himself or acting on God’s behalf.
On the other hand, if someone has embarrassed us and we are very angry with them, when they try to talk to us, we may be so absorbed with trying to justify our anger with anything further they say that we don’t hear the important information they are trying to share with us.
Jesus faced both these situations with the religious leaders of his day. The things Jesus said and did didn’t fit their frame of reference for a religious teacher, and their focus on capturing what he said to use against him prevented them from hearing the good news he wanted to share with them.
Now, we also need to be cautious of people trying to mislead us in our relationship with God, so we must check things against our other frame of reference, the Bible. And the best way to do this is to regularly and prayerfully read the Scriptures.
Heavenly Father, thank you for your word, both the written word in the Bible and the Living Word, Jesus. Please help us to be open to where you are leading us in our daily lives, and please protect us from being deceived by those who want to lead us away from you. Amen.
Charles is a retired engineer who has worked on telecommunications projects for the air force, army and navy. He lives in a retirement village in the outer north-western suburbs of Sydney with his wife, Diane. Together, they have four children and eight grandchildren, all of whom they love spending time with. Charles keeps busy caring for their pot plants and a community vegetable garden, researching his family history and volunteering in the community and at LifeWay Lutheran Church.
How well do you know Holy Spirit?
by Charles Bertelsmeier
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… the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you (John 14:17).
Read John 14:15–21
How well do you know Holy Spirit? Some have commented that Holy Spirit is the forgotten member of the Holy Trinity.
Now you might find it strange that I leave out the definite article ‘the’ in front of Holy Spirit. The strangeness may be because we have rarely heard it omitted, but I have noticed it more often recently.
So, I did some research, and a rule I found applicable is that the definite article is not used with proper nouns – that is, names of people and countries. So, if Holy Spirit is the proper name of the third person of the Holy Trinity, maybe we should not be putting a ‘the’ in front of the name. Beyond that comment, I wouldn’t argue with anyone about it.
For me, putting a ‘the’ in front of Holy Spirit tends to depersonalise him and could be part of the reason why some treat Holy Spirit as the least important member of the heavenly family.
If you have been baptised into the Christian faith, in the name of Father, Son and Holy Spirit, you received the gift of Holy Spirit into you as God’s presence with you. As he is one with the Father and Son, he is working in your life on their behalf, leading and guiding you towards being and becoming the person God is developing you into.
So, if Holy Spirit is living in you and being your guide and tutor, how aware are you of his presence? Are you actively listening to his guidance? Do you talk to him and seek his guidance? Do you treat him as a person or a vague spiritual force?
Your response may be that you talk to God and listen to God throughout your day, but not to Holy Spirit. Or the person you talk to and listen to may be your Heavenly Father or even his Son, Jesus. This is so ripe for a complicated theological discussion, but I don’t want to go there. The point I want to make is that Father, Son and Holy Spirit are the one God, and communicating with any of them individually is communicating with all three.
So, in a sense, it doesn’t matter which member of the Holy Trinity we have in our minds when we talk to God and listen to God. The important thing to remember is that God has decided to take up residence inside us through Holy Spirit, provided we accept his invitation. And he is committed to guiding and growing us the same way Jesus did with his disciples, guiding and growing them in their relationship with him.
Holy Spirit, are you really living in me and guiding me every day of my life? I apologise for ignoring you and your advice. I often like to think that I have the answers to all life throws at me. Thank you for not growing impatient with me and giving up on me. Thank you for still being there with me when I finally give up and ask for your help. Amen.
Charles is a retired engineer who has worked on telecommunications projects for the air force, army and navy. He lives in a retirement village in the outer north-western suburbs of Sydney with his wife, Diane. Together, they have four children and eight grandchildren, all of whom they love spending time with. Charles keeps busy caring for their pot plants and a community vegetable garden, researching his family history and volunteering in the community and at LifeWay Lutheran Church.
A place of abundance
by Linda Macqueen
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Praise be to God, who has not … withheld his love from me! (Psalm 66:20)
Read Psalm 66:8–20
This week’s devotion texts have been ping‑ponging us back and forth across the Scriptures, and I’ll admit, I’m feeling a little dizzy. We began with the disciples trembling in the upper room (John). Then we visited the exiled Judeans in their exhaustion (Isaiah), before joining the early church (Acts) as they tried to understand what it meant to follow a crucified and risen Messiah. We bounced off Paul’s encouragement to two young communities learning how to live faithfully within pagan cultures (2 Corinthians and Ephesians). Yesterday, we reflected on how the Old and New Testament covenants meet in our High Priest, Jesus (Hebrews).
How can all these threads possibly belong to one story?
Thankfully, the psalmists often know how to gather scattered strands together, and today’s Psalm 66 does not disappoint. This is a song rising from the far side of trouble. The hearers are not people unfamiliar with suffering. They have known oppression, bewilderment, fear and the long ache of waiting. Yet the psalm is not a lament – it is a testimony. Standing on the other side of trial and testing, they declare that God has brought them ‘to a place of abundance’.
Across all the readings this week, did you notice the same heartbeat? God’s steadfast love for his people, even when their path leads through fire and water. His protection covered them, whether or not they could feel it. His refining work, his preserving hand, his refusal to abandon those who call on him.
Psalm 66 does not offer easy answers, but it does offer a way of seeing: God’s love is not proven by the absence of struggle but by his faithful presence within it. Like the psalmist, Christians today pray in the dark silences; we cry out, we wrestle – and we discover that God has been listening and loving us all along, leading us steadily toward his abundance.
God of all seasons, as I face the world’s turmoil and my own, I cling to this anchor: you are not withholding your love from me. Your ear is open to my cry. Your presence is steady, holding me close. And you are leading me, even now, toward a place of abundance. Amen.
Linda Macqueen retired in September last year, having served 26 years as editor of The Lutheran and communications manager for the LCANZ. She has rapidly adapted to retirement, happily and energetically bringing her long-neglected home and garden back to life. She lives in the beautiful Adelaide Hills with her husband Mark.
Once and for all
by Linda Macqueen
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… he entered the Most Holy Place once for all by his own blood, thus obtaining eternal redemption (Hebrews 9:12a).
Read Hebrews 9:11–15
Today’s text stands at the centre of a long, careful argument (read all of chapter 9 if you have time): Christ is the High Priest who enters not an earthly sanctuary but the very presence of God, offering not the blood of animals but his own life. He has done something no earthly priest could ever do: he has opened the way into God’s presence once and for all. He has secured eternal redemption.
The original hearers – Jewish Christians – knew the staggering weight of this claim. They had grown up with the temple, the priests, the Day of Atonement, the panicked bleating and bellowing of animals aligned for slaughter, and the stomach-churning smell of blood. They also knew about the heavy curtain in the temple that marked the boundary between God’s holiness and human frailty.
For modern readers, the temple system isn’t part of our cultural memory. We don’t feel the awe of a priest stepping behind the curtain, or the solemnity of sacrifice. But we do know what it is to feel unworthy, distant or unsure of our status before God. We know the inner rituals we perform to try to make ourselves ‘clean enough’ or ‘good enough’ – and even then, sometimes, we are still not sure if it’s been enough.
Into our world, the writer of Hebrews still speaks with astonishing clarity: Christ has already crossed the distance. He has already carried the cost. He has already opened the way to God.
Matthew 27:51 gives us the image that makes this truth unforgettable: ‘The curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom.’ Not from bottom to top – as if we humans had clawed our way toward God – but from top to bottom, God’s own act of opening the way. The barrier rips apart, once and for all. Access is given, once and for all. The Holy of Holies is no longer a place of fear but a place of loving welcome.
We are safe with God. We are home.
Dear Jesus, my High Priest, thank you that your very own blood opened the way to the Father once and for all. Sometimes, I still feel as though I’m standing outside the curtain, trying to be worthy. Help me to step into the astonishing truth that my access to the Holy of Holies has already been given, and that I stand before my God, redeemed, once and for all. Amen.
Linda Macqueen retired in September last year, having served 26 years as editor of The Lutheran and communications manager for the LCANZ. She has rapidly adapted to retirement, happily and energetically bringing her long-neglected home and garden back to life. She lives in the beautiful Adelaide Hills with her husband Mark.
New clothes
by Linda Macqueen
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Put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness (Ephesians 4:24).
Read Ephesians 4:17–24
Paul’s words in today’s text (addressed to the Ephesians) replay the same melody we heard in yesterday’s text (addressed to the Corinthians). If anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation – and now Paul sketches what that new creation looks like in everyday life. He contrasts it with the old patterns of the Gentile world: darkened understanding, hardened hearts, restless desires that never satisfy. These aren’t merely moral failings; they are symptoms of life lived apart from the One who is Life.
But Paul does not say, ‘Try harder to be different.’ He says, ‘You learnt … Christ.’ You were taught to take off the old self and to put on the new – language that sounds remarkably like baptismal clothing. This is not self-improvement; it is participation in Christ’s own life. The new humanity is something God has already begun in us.
We don’t wake up each morning needing to earn God’s favour by being good. We wake up already claimed, already beloved, already joined to Christ. And because we belong to him, his life begins to reshape ours – often quietly, often gradually. It’s like a slow, steady ripening, a growing up day by day into maturity.
In Ephesians 4, Paul’s long list of examples of Christian living is not a checklist for righteousness but a description of what Christ’s life looks like when it takes root in ordinary people: truthfulness, gentleness, forgiveness, generosity and patience. These are not conditions for salvation; they are the fruit of it.
After dwelling on all this, I’m thinking about our neighbour Warren again, and his ‘What’s new?’ question every Thursday night. Maybe I should pay more attention to that question. Maybe I should ask myself that question every day of my new life in Christ. What’s new today, Linda? What did you and the Holy Spirit drown together yesterday so that something new, something that looks like Jesus, can take root and grow?
Dear Heavenly Father, take me again into the waters of my baptism. Let my old self be drowned. Let Christ clothe me again in my new life. Help me to stay alert to how your Holy Spirit is forming me into the very life of Jesus. Amen.
Linda Macqueen retired in September last year, having served 26 years as editor of The Lutheran and communications manager for the LCANZ. She has rapidly adapted to retirement, happily and energetically bringing her long-neglected home and garden back to life. She lives in the beautiful Adelaide Hills with her husband Mark.
What’s new?
by Linda Macqueen
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: the old has gone, the new is here! (2 Corinthians 5:17)
Read 2 Corinthians 5:16–21
- Every Thursday night, our neighbour Warren pops over for a coffee and a chat. Invariably, as he drops a Coles cake on the kitchen bench, he’ll ask, ‘What’s new?’ Rarely do my husband Mark and I have anything to offer. ‘Nothing much,’ we mutter. ‘Same old, same old.’ (Which, in truth, is exactly how we like it, now that we’ve retired.)
In today’s text, Paul is not asking the fledgling Christians in Corinth, ‘What’s new?’ He’s declaring, ‘You are new.’ For them, being a ‘new creation’ was a radical reorientation against the background noise of a pagan city. It meant stepping out of a world built on social status, rivalry and self‑promotion, and into a community where identity rested in Christ’s reconciling and all-embracing love. This was a seismic shift in thinking and living. This was a ‘born again’ sort of new.
By comparison, for lifelong Christians today, the drama of our ‘new creation’ can feel muted – boring, even. Some of us don’t have a compelling ‘coming to Christ’ testimony, or a life of two distinct chapters: before and after Jesus. Yet baptism tells us that our new creation is not measured by the intensity of our conversion story but by the daily rhythm of dying and rising with Christ. Martin Luther captured this beautifully: baptism is not only a past event but also a present, ongoing reality, binding us inseparably to Christ’s death and resurrection. Each day, the old self is drowned, and each day Christ raises us into his life.
Our ‘new creation’ experience probably looks more like a slow, faithful reshaping: a softening heart, a deeper compassion, a willingness to forgive, a readiness to serve without being noticed. But the source of this new creation is the same for us today as it was for the Corinthians. Christ’s love compels us, draws us, remakes us – again and again – until his life becomes our life.
Father God, you have declared that I am a new creation in Christ. I can’t argue with that, even though I don’t always feel new. Forgive me for dragging into my new life some things that belonged to my old life. Please drown these things and raise me up once again to live into the new creation you have made me. Amen.
Linda Macqueen retired in September last year, having served 26 years as editor of The Lutheran and communications manager for the LCANZ. She has rapidly adapted to retirement, happily and energetically bringing her long-neglected home and garden back to life. She lives in the beautiful Adelaide Hills with her husband Mark.