Photo by...Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash
In my first year of high school, Australia converted to decimal currency and Simon and Garfunkel released the song, “I am a rock”. While everyone in Australia was working together to adjust to the new currency the song spoke of going it alone. “I am a rock. I am an island.”
It’s a sad song about being hurt and withdrawing into isolation in order to avoid any more pain.
We’ve had some experiences of isolation this year and depending on our nature we’ve either enjoyed or hated those times.
Our God is into community. God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit exist in a divine community of love and because we’re made in the image of God we’re also made for community.
The Christian faith in particular and life in general aren’t meant to be solo adventures. Even those with an introverted nature need others. We all need community.
Paul describes the community in terms of a body with many different and varied parts in Romans 12 and 1 Corinthians 12. The different parts of the body need each other and when they work together the body functions properly.
The beauty of this image and situation is found in the love and support we give and receive in the community. There are times when we desperately need the support of a loving community and there are times when we provide the support to members of the community.
This ‘strange’ year has highlighted the need for community. We need to care for each other and look out for each other.
It’s great to know God is always doing his best for us. It’s also clear our sisters and brothers are gifts from God. God often helps us through the community. God bless you with all the help you need and with all the strength you need to help others.
‘Of kings and emperors’
by Sal Huckel
Click here to download your printable verse to carry with you today.
No one is like you, Lord; you are great, and your name is mighty in power (Jeremiah 10:6).
Read Jeremiah 10:6–16
This week, my family and I visited the ‘ROME: Empire, Power, People’ exhibition at the Melbourne Museum. My children are better educated than I was at their age, so they explained to me the significance of the statues and buildings erected in honour of emperors. Apparently, there were two ways to cement your legacy as an emperor:
- Win a war and add a province to the Empire.
- Construct a public building – a palace or a temple with your name on it (preferably both).
Bad news, emperors! ‘No one is like you, Lord; you are great and your name is mighty in power … Among all the wise leaders of the nations and in all their kingdoms, there is no one like you’ (Jeremiah 10:6,7).
As if that’s not enough: ‘They are all senseless and foolish; they are taught by worthless wooden idols.’
However we feel about the ‘King’s Speech 2.0’ (as we hear and maybe even cheer for King Charles’ recent rhetoric in the USA), we know that our great and almighty God made the earth by his power! One cannot add to these words, so let’s read them together (Jeremiah 10:12,13):
But God made the earth by his power;
he founded the world by his wisdom
and stretched out the heavens by his understanding.
When he thunders, the waters in the heavens roar;
he makes clouds rise from the ends of the earth.
He sends lightning with the rain
and brings out the wind from his storehouses.
Friends! This is our God!
We pray the final verse of the hymn ‘The day thou gavest, Lord, is ended’ by John Ellerton (1870):
‘So be it, Lord; thy throne shall never like earth’s proud empires, pass away. Thy kingdom stands, and grows forever till all thy creatures own thy sway.’ Lord, thank you for adding me to the people of your inheritance (verse 16). My great and almighty God through Jesus Christ our Lord, Amen.
Sal is the wife of Matthew, pastor at Moorabbin–Dandenong Lutheran Church and assistant bishop of the LCA Vic–Tas District. They are blessed with six children who all love and serve the Lord in their different walks of life, from high school to post-grad. Sal is currently studying a master’s degree in counselling practice. She loves writing, speaking and walking to the beach at any opportunity.
Talk with the walk, and walk the talk
by Sal Huckel
Click here to download your printable verse to carry with you today.
These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. Impress them on your children (Deuteronomy 6:6,7a).
Read Deuteronomy 6:4–15
Discipleship is a 24/7 job, and we spend a few hours of that time each week at church. As parents, we need to realise that we have a big responsibility to raise our children in the faith – promises we indeed make at their baptisms.
Today’s reading gives us a lovely picture of what it means to raise our children in the faith. Nothing fancy: just living our lives, as a family, talking about the Lord, teaching our children his ways as we sit at home, walk along the road, as we lie down, as we get up … as we go to the shops, drive them to basketball, and if we can throw in a few Colin Buchanan concerts along the way we can add some craziness and fun into the mix.
If we want to, we can put Christian symbols around our house, buy lovely prints from the Christian bookstore and set out ‘who we are’ and ‘whose we are’ as a family. In fact, for years now, as I drive the kids to their sports games, or their casual work, or give them massively tight goodbye hugs and wave them off to university at the airport, I say, ‘Remember who you are, and whose you are.’ They know what that means because we’ve discipled them and taught them.
Who are you walking along the road of life with right now? If you’re not walking anywhere these days, who is in the same room as you? Who’s brought you your cup of tea or your medicine? You are a precious and valued team member to whom the Lord entrusts his kingdom work, wherever you are and whatever you’re doing. Remember who you are and whose you are! Love the Lord your God with all your strength, and he will work through you.
Lord, thank you for the teaching I have received in my life to now. Thank you for those who have discipled and taught me the faith. Please show me whom I, too, can disciple, teach and encourage. Lord, I also pray for our pastors. May they be upheld by those in their congregations, sharing the load and using their gifts, all for the glory of God. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
Sal is the wife of Matthew, pastor at Moorabbin–Dandenong Lutheran Church and assistant bishop of the LCA Vic–Tas District. They are blessed with six children who all love and serve the Lord in their different walks of life, from high school to post-grad. Sal is currently studying a master’s degree in counselling practice. She loves writing, speaking and walking to the beach at any opportunity.
God’s masterpiece
by Mark Lieschke
Click here to download your printable verse to carry with you today.
What is mankind that you are mindful of them, human beings that you care for them? You have made them a little lower than the angels and crowned them with glory and honour (Psalm 8:4,5).
Read Psalm 8
God the Father, the great artist, once created a masterpiece. This world was crafted by him – and it was perfect. But the masterpiece was wrecked. Instead of it being what it was intended to be, it became a place of brokenness, tragedy, greed, abuse, crime, terror, war, pain and distress of every imaginable kind.
But the Father didn’t give up on what he loved. He knew what seemed beyond repair could be restored, so he put a plan in place to restore this world and us to its original glory.
That plan was put into effect by Jesus. Jesus came, and by his death and resurrection made it possible for people’s lives and this world to be transformed and restored.
It cost him his life, but he was prepared to pay that price so that God’s original plan for his people and his creation might be a reality once again. That plan is an ongoing one. It won’t be completed until Jesus comes to this world again.
We’re a special, precious part of God’s masterpiece. We’re the crowning glory of God’s creation.
We’re part of a creation that has been torn apart, and we have to live with the consequences of that. But through the painstaking and sacrificial work of the master artist’s only son, we’re privileged to be a part of a restoration process that’s continuing today.
We’ve been called and chosen by God to be part of a team, with him and with each other, that’s working to bring peace and harmony here, and so give people a glimpse, a taste of what they can enjoy in heaven.
Despite our sin, failures, mess-ups, frustrations, fears, doubts and disillusionments, God still comes to us in Jesus to assure us that we are a treasure to him. And that one day we will live with him in the fully restored, magnificent, new creation in heaven.
Lord God and Father, we are filled with awe and wonder at your magnificent creation and your boundless love for humanity. Your name is majestic in all the earth, and your glory is displayed in the heavens above. Thank you for revealing yourself to us and for inviting us into relationship with you. May our lives reflect your glory and your goodness to the world around us. Amen.
Mark Lieschke is a retired pastor living on the Sunshine Coast in Queensland and is a member of Immanuel Lutheran Church Buderim. He served in parishes in Adelaide SA, Palmerston North and Marton in New Zealand and Wagga Wagga NSW (school and congregation), before being elected as bishop of the LCANZ’s New South Wales District. He and his wife, Meredith, have four children (two of whom live in Canada) and two grandchildren. Mark enjoys spending time with family and friends, travelling, walking on the beach and resting.