Praise God for Liberal Ideas in the Bible

I'm not sure how you can oppose affordable health care, helping the poor, providing economic and racial justice and equality, or immigration reform when you read this psalm. I know I have "liberal glasses on," but come on.

Psalm 146

1 Praise the Lord.

Praise the Lord, my soul.

2 I will praise the Lord all my life;
    I will sing praise to my God as long as I live.
3 Do not put your trust in princes,
    in human beings, who cannot save.
4 When their spirit departs, they return to the ground;
    on that very day their plans come to nothing.
5 Blessed are those whose help is the God of Jacob,
    whose hope is in the Lord their God.

6 He is the Maker of heaven and earth,
    the sea, and everything in them—
    he remains faithful forever.
7 He upholds the cause of the oppressed
    and gives food to the hungry.
The Lord sets prisoners free,
8     the Lord gives sight to the blind,
the Lord lifts up those who are bowed down,
    the Lord loves the righteous.
9 The Lord watches over the foreigner
    and sustains the fatherless and the widow,
    but he frustrates the ways of the wicked.

10 The Lord reigns forever,
    your God, O Zion, for all generations.

Praise the Lord.

ACTS; Adoring God for who He says He is

If you're like me, and it's easy to confuse Adoration with Thanksgiving, maybe it will help to think about God is like, not just what He's given us. A great way to review who God is and what about him is praiseworthy is to listen to what He says about Himself.

In the book of John, Jesus announces His Godhood by using His name, Yəhōwāh ("I am that I am") seven times. Seven times he says "I Am..." and then He gives us a powerful metaphor for who He is. Pray with me though these-

1. The Bread of Life (John 6:35)- Jesus You are our spiritual sustenance and nutrition. Like manna in the desert, God gives us His Word (the Bible) and His Word (Jesus).
2. The Light of the World (John 8:12)- Thy Word is a light unto my feet, Jesus , You enlighten and reveal God's character, His will and His ways. Your light exposes sin, corruption and imperfection, and  leads us into God's glory, love, and forgiveness.
3. The Gate (John 10:9)- Jesus, you protect us from thieves and wolves within the safety of Your corral.
4. The Good Shepherd (John 10:11)- Jesus, you lead us beside still waters, even in the valley of the shadow of death, we don't have to fear because You're with us and comfort us. When we're lost, You finds us.
5. The Resurrection and the Life (John 11:25-26)- just as You  raised Your friend Lazarus, You promise that we too will share in Your new and eternal life.
6. The Way, the Truth and the Life (John 14:6)- Lord, You don't want anyone to perish, You don't want anyone to be alone without You, all we have to do is accept the free gift of Your love and forgiveness.
7. The Vine (John 15:5)- Through You, Jesus, we are attached to God the Father. You and the Father live in us and through us and unite us. You graft us into Your family and prune us when we need it. You produce Your fruit in us.

ACTS: Adoration; What's God like?

Last week our congregation hosted a day of prayer. We had a prayer service (with litany) in the morning, followed by a prayer-walk, and then volunteers taking shifts during an all-day prayer vigil. The morning service was organized into four parts based on the acronym, A.C.T.S. which stands for Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving, and Supplication. ACTS has long been a simple pattern which people can use to help them begin to have a more meaningful prayer-life, in some cases to even begin to speak to God.

Throughout the course of the rest of the summer, I'd like to post a number of essays exploring these ACTS. Hopefully, together we can grow closer to God and deepen our relationships with Him.

For many Christians, Adoration is a toughie. Is adoration the same as praise? Sort of. What does it mean to adore God? Personally, I usually end up in Thanksgiving when I mean to be in Adoration.

What makes God adorable? What makes Him worthy of praise? A good place to start might be what He calls Himself and what Old Testament Judaism called Him. These names reveal His character, who He is and what He does. Consider some of the following:

• Adonai- "my Lord,"  or "my Master," that is, one to whom we bow, surrender, and obey
• HaShem- a less formal, more familial version of "Lord," who is with us
• Ehyeh-Asher-Ehyeh- "I will be," He is not just the god of now, but He will be the same today, tomorrow and forever (Hebrews 13:8)
• Elah-avahati, God of my fathers, (Daniel 2:23)
• Elah Elahin, God of gods (Daniel 2:47)
• Elah Yerushelem, God of Jerusalem (Ezra 7:19)
• Elah Yisrael, God of Israel (Ezra 5:1)
• Elah Shemaya, God of Heaven (Ezra 7:23)
• Elohim- "He who is the object of fear or reverence", or "He with whom one who is afraid takes refuge" the mighty one.
• Elyon- Supreme
• Roi- All seeing
• Shaddai- "God who is sufficient," our supplier
• Shalom- "the name of God is 'Peace'" (Judges 6:24)
• Shekhinah- the presence or manifestation of God which has descended to dwell among humanity.
• Yəhōwāh- He is who He is (emphasis on IS) the name God called Himself to Moses, the point being that He IS alive and here and now, not just the god of our dead forefathers.
• HaMakom- "The Omnipresent"
• Tzevaot- "the Lord of Hosts," king of the angels

So this is a great way to pray, to simply tell God who He is- meanwhile, you're reminding yourself who God is. As a matter of fact, this is an act of worship, invoking God, entering His presence. When we pray this way, we get perspective, we remember that God is God and we are not. Something we would do well to remember every day.

Praise and criticism

" If my life is fruitless,
it doesn't matter who praises me.
And if my life is fruitful,
it does not matter who criticizes me."
~John Bunyan (1628-1888)

Bonnie Johnny even looks like a pirate, don't he? He wrote The Pilgrim's Progress, not bad for a limey! He was a Baptist who loathed Quakers (can't we all just get along?). But you have to appreciate his sentiment here. Consider the Fruit of the Spirit so as ya don't come down with the scurvey or ricketts mates. And be good trees would ye?

The Dance

"I would believe only in a god who could dance. And when I saw my devil I found him serious, thorough, profound, and solemn: it was the spirit of gravity-through him all things fall."

— Frederick Nietzsche

(Painting by Edvard Munch)

A lot of people think that Nietzsche was an atheist. Evangelical Christians are taught to despise him because he is the philosopher who said "God is dead," but a better translation may have been "God is dead and YOU killed Him!" He was not so much an enemy of the faith as he was an enemy of hypocritical hierarchiesfrightenedgladness and even abandon rather than be paralyzed by moralism and legalism. I don't know what was in Nietzsche's heart or what his relationship with God was or where his soul is now, but I am confident that his disgust and resentment was not with Christ, but with Christians, not with God, but with His church, because in this time of "Christian Conservatives" and the "Religious Right," I often feel a similar disappointment and disillusionment. and institutions. Re-read his quote, and then read the passage below from 2 Samuel in the Old Testament. One of the many problems that I find with the "established religious order" is their lack of joy and wonder. We dare not ever be irreverent. That's the same fear that congregants had when they came to Martin Luther, that they would make a mistake and sin and he told them to "Sin Boldly." What he meant was to serve and worship the Lord with

9 David was afraid of the LORD that day and said, "How can the ark of the LORD ever come to me?" 10 He was not willing to take the ark of the LORD to be with him in the City of David. Instead, he took it aside to the house of Obed-Edom the Gittite. 11 The ark of the LORD remained in the house of Obed-Edom the Gittite for three months, and the LORD blessed him and his entire household.

12 Now King David was told, "The LORD has blessed the household of Obed-Edom and everything he has, because of the ark of God." So David went down and brought up the ark of God from the house of Obed-Edom to the City of David with rejoicing. 13 When those who were carrying the ark of the LORD had taken six steps, he sacrificed a bull and a fattened calf. 14 David, wearing a linen ephod, danced before the LORD with all his might, 15 while he and the entire house of Israel brought up the ark of the LORD with shouts and the sound of trumpets.

16 As the ark of the LORD was entering the City of David, Michal daughter of Saul watched from a window. And when she saw King David leaping and dancing before the LORD, she despised him in her heart.

17 They brought the ark of the LORD and set it in its place inside the tent that David had pitched for it, and David sacrificed burnt offerings and fellowship offerings ^[f] before the LORD. 18 After he had finished sacrificing the burnt offerings and fellowship offerings, he blessed the people in the name of the LORD Almighty. 19 Then he gave a loaf of bread, a cake of dates and a cake of raisins to each person in the whole crowd of Israelites, both men and women. And all the people went to their homes.

20 When David returned home to bless his household, Michal daughter of Saul came out to meet him and said, "How the king of Israel has distinguished himself today, disrobing in the sight of the slave girls of his servants as any vulgar fellow would!"

21 David said to Michal, "It was before the LORD, who chose me rather than your father or anyone from his house when he appointed me ruler over the LORD's people Israel—I will celebrate before the LORD. 22 I will become even more undignified than this, and I will be humiliated in my own eyes. But by these slave girls you spoke of, I will be held in honor."

23 And Michal daughter of Saul had no children to the day of her death. (2 Samuel 6)

Dear God,

Teach us to love you as much as David and to find as much joy in You as he did.
Teach us to let go of our power struggles and even our dignity, so that rather than be embarasssed or iritated like Michal, we're willing to worship you with reckless abandon and passionate rapture like David did.

We love you Jesus,
Amen