Welcome to the JCPC Daily Reflections Blog. Reflections are daily devotionals authored by JCPC pastors, staff and members and provide insight, guidance and comfort to help you make it through each day. If you’d like to receive Reflections each day via email, provide your email address.
The professor ended his online class in one of two ways each time. He’d say, “See you next time” or “Have a good weekend.” Some students would respond with “Thank you. You too!” But one day a student responded, “I love you.” Surprised, he replied, “I love you too!” That evening the classmates agreed to create an “I love you chain” for the next class time in appreciation for their professor who had to teach to a screen on his computer, not in-person teaching as he preferred. A few days later when he finished teaching, the professor said, “See you next time,” and one by one the students replied, “I love you.” They continued this practice for months. The teacher said this created a strong bond with his students, and he now feels they’re “family.”
In 1 John 4:10–21, we, as part of God’s family, find several reasons to say “I love you” to Him: He sent His Son as a sacrifice for our sin (v. 10). He gave us His Spirit to live in us (vv. 13, 15). His love is always reliable (v. 16), and we never need to fear judgment (v. 17). He enables us to love Him and others “because he first loved us” (v. 19).
The next time you gather with God’s people, take time to share your reasons for loving Him. Making an “I love you” chain for God will bring Him praise and bring you closer together.
Prayer for Today
I’m grateful to know Your love and to be a part of Your family, Father. Show me ways to creatively express that love. Amen.
Trust in the Lord and do good; dwell in the land and enjoy safe pasture. Delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart. Commit your way to the Lord; trust in him and he will do this: He will make your righteousness shine like the dawn, the justice of your cause like the noonday sun. Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him. - Psalm 37:3-7a
As we start the new year, our church is faced with major changes! Change is unsettling. It doesn't matter who we are—old or young, rich or poor, married or single. Change can be exciting, but it also brings with it the unknown. Sometimes it's scary to look out into the great unknown. As we begin a new year, we don't know what to expect. That can be a little unnerving.
We don't have the ability to see the future. But we do know one thing for certain. As long as we remain close to our Father, His goodness and love will stay close to us. No matter where our circumstances may direct us, His love and goodness will follow us.
The hymn Be Thou My Vision speaks to us:
Be Thou my Vision, O Lord of my heart;
naught be all else to me, save that Thou art--
Thou my best thought, by day or by night,
waking or sleeping, thy presence my light.
Be Thou my Wisdom and Thou my true Word;
I ever with Thee and Thou with me, Lord;
Thou my great Father, I Thy true son,
Thou in me dwelling, and I with Thee one.
When we face changes, we don't always know what lies on the road ahead. But we don't always need to see into the distance. We only need to see the step ahead of us...then another step...then another step. When the path ahead is obscure, we can go to God's Word for guidance. His Word will light our way. It may not tell us exactly what's coming a month from now, a year from now, five years from now, but God's Word will act as a road map for the journey ahead. It will be the pathway at our feet.
When we rely on His Word and follow it consistently, we can trust His goodness. Even when the future is unclear, we can move ahead with confidence, knowing He will lead us to the best place for us, and His goodness and love will stay with us every step of the journey. Full speed ahead!
Prayer for Today
Lord, thank you for leading us in the right direction. Help us to follow You today and trust You for our future. The knowledge of your love and support gives us confidence to move into the future. Amen.
These words are familiar to many of us. We sing this wonderful hymn frequently here at Johns Creek Presbyterian Church. The text is from an 8th century anonymous Irish poem, translated into prose by Mary Byrne, and put into verse by Eleanor Hull in the early part of the 20th century. The tune, "Slane," a traditional Irish air, originally used with a secular text, was first paired with these sacred verses in the Irish Church Hymnal of 1919. In 101 More Hymn Stories, Kenneth Osbeck explains, "The tune is named for a hill, ten miles from Tara, in County Meath, where St. Patrick is said to have challenged King Loegaire and the Druid priests by lighting the Paschal fire on Easter eve."
In this hymn, many descriptive titles are ascribed to God: Vision, Lord, Best Thought, Wisdom, Word, Great Father, High King, Inheritance, Treasure, Sun, Ruler, and Heart. When we sing these verses, we are asking God from the very beginning to be our main focus, our leader, our strength, our protector, our sustainer. We are acknowledging God to be of highest importance in our lives, worthy of all of our praise, our strength, our efforts, our love. Does this sound familiar?
“Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?” Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” (Matthew 22:36-40 NIV)
Be thou my wisdom, and thou my true Word;
I ever with thee and thou with me, Lord;
Thou my soul's shelter, and thou my high tower;
Raise thou me heavenward, O Power of my power.
So when we sing these words together this Sunday, think about your relationship with God, and consider how much God loves you. Then consider how God wants you to love your neighbor. Then go and do it!
He said, “Listen to my words: “When there is a prophet among you, I, the LORD, reveal myself to them in visions, I speak to them in dreams.”
-Numbers 12:6
“I can’t.” It’s the first phrase our toddler figured out and all too common among kids and adults alike. We try to encourage him to either solve a small problem himself or ask if he needs help. We want him to be creative and either find his own solution or learn to ask for help. We don’t want him to become a child or adult who can’t imagine solutions or creative ways to do things. It’s been said that worry is a misuse of imagination. Our scriptures remind us not to worry or get frustrated and even our ordination vows encourage us to use our imaginations. In the midst of the pandemic, I’ve seen incredible creativity for things “we can’t” or shouldn’t do right now. And there’s beauty in that.
Today, as I was scrolling through Instagram, I found an inspirational video. A man could not attend his aunt’s funeral and instead sent a message of love in a way he imagined would convey his message. He scattered seeds in a shape on his field, and as his sheep ran to them, it revealed a heart when seen from above. How might we use our imaginations in a new year? Many of us are stuck only imagining doing things the way we always have. We are not allowing God to give us new visions of what can be and new versions of what could be possible. What could our gatherings, celebrations, memorials, milestones, and worship look like if we allowed the Spirit to move us like this sheep farmer?
This week, think about your favorite things on the horizon in 2022. Maybe it’s a vacation, a mission trip, a family event, or weekly worship. What variety and creativity have you seen in your lifetime? What new ways can you gather, celebrate, mourn, or praise God? Not once before had I seen a man scatter seeds for his flock to mourn the loss of a loved one. But I’ll never forget it, and rarely have I been so moved or inspired. What can we do this year together? Where will God lead us… if we allow ourselves to be so moved?
Prayer for Today
Lord, lead my heart by your spirit through my imagination and give me dreams of what may be. Amen.
Yesterday was another milestone event for me -- I turned sixty-five. I found myself thinking back over my almost 40 years preparing for and serving in ministry. While a student at Columbia Theological Seminary, I began as a part-time Youth Director at Calvary Presbyterian Church in Smyrna. After seminary, I served churches with names like Westminster, Covenant, Shallowford, Big Canoe, and now Johns Creek. There are a number of stories in the Bible that make reference to 40 years, which one pastor has said is Bible code for “a very long time.” Beginning in 1982 and finishing up in 2022 sometimes seems like a very long time, while other times it seems to have flown by. So, I have found myself reflecting on the places God has called me to serve and I am honored to have been used by God in that way.
I have also tried to be in the present and pay attention to what this transition is like as I am going through it, and not try to hurry past it. Roy Oswald said the ministers sometimes try to hurry through their last days, probably as a way to avoid the pain and the discomfort. He compares it to his childhood experience of having to run through thistles barefoot with his younger brother at the beach and their plan to simply go as fast as they could. So, I have intentionally tried to reflect on what I'm going through so that I can learn from it. Oswald even suggests that when we go through these kinds of transitions and endings, it is practice for how we will one day face death and dying. Maybe.
But I find myself also looking forward to the next season in my life. In one of her books, Barbara Brown Taylor says that when people are concerned about how they will be used by God, trying to discern what God may want them to do next in life, she says that we shouldn't worry about it because God will know what to do with us next. I am trusting that the same God who has walked beside me for 40 years will know what to do with me next. Psalm 121:8 reminds us that the Lord will guard our coming and our going now and forevermore. May God guard your comings and goings -- whatever they may be.
Prayer for Today
We are grateful, God, that you walk with us all the days of our lives. Help us to look back over where you have brought us with gratitude and grace. Help us to be present to what you are doing in our lives here and now. And help us to trust you with our future, whatever that may be. We pray this in the strong name of Jesus the Christ. Amen.
My son Geoff was leaving a store when he saw an abandoned walking frame (a mobility aid) on the ground. I hope there isn’t a person back there who needs help, he thought. He glanced behind the building and found a homeless man unconscious on the pavement.
Geoff roused him and asked if he was okay. “I’m trying to drink myself to death,” he responded. “My tent broke in a storm, and I lost everything. I don’t want to live.”
Geoff called a Christian rehabilitation ministry, and while they waited for help, he ran home briefly and brought the man his own camping tent. “What’s your name?” Geoff asked. “Geoffrey,” the homeless man answered, “with a G.” Geoff hadn’t mentioned his own name or its uncommon spelling. “Dad,” he told me later, “that could have been me.”
Geoff once struggled with substance abuse himself, and he helped the man because of the kindness he’d received from God. Isaiah the prophet used these words to anticipate God’s mercy to us in Jesus: “We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all” (Isaiah 53:6).
Christ, our Savior, didn’t leave us lost, alone, and hopeless in despair. He chose to identify with us and lift us in love, so that we may be set free to live anew in Him. There’s no greater gift.
Prayer for Today
Thank You, Jesus, for coming to rescue me. Help me to join in Your search-and-rescue mission and to share Your love with someone who needs You today. Amen.
For I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord. They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope. -Jeremiah 29:11
Instead, let the Spirit renew your thoughts and attitudes. Put on your new nature, created to be like God-truly righteous and holy. -Ephesians 4:23-24
This scripture from Jeremiah is often used on graduation cards, but I think it is also very appropriate for the beginning of a new year. As we make our new year’s resolutions maybe we need to think about God’s plans for us. I have made the same two resolutions for many years – and have been only minimally successful at either.
This January is the beginning of a year full of significant changes for our church. The Interim Pastor Nominating Committee is beginning the process of finding an interim pastor. The Education team is putting together data to find the right person(s) to lead our Christian education. And we’re all trying to deal with how best to recover from a pandemic that has/is changing our lives and the way we “do” church. Perhaps we all need to consider Paul’s words in Ephesians 4:23-24 to let the Spirit renew our thoughts and attitudes and to look for God’s plan in our personal and church life.
Prayer for Today
Loving Father, please be with us and guide us as we move forward in the new year. Help us to discern your plans for us as we move forward. Amen.
Your love, Lord, reaches to the heavens, your faithfulness to the skies. Your righteousness is like the highest mountains, your justice like the great deep. You, Lord, preserve both people and animals.
-Psalm 36:5-6
This passage, taken from the lectionary reading for this week, is fitting as we approach Martin Luther King Jr. Day. In his famous “I Have a Dream” speech, he references a passage from the book of Amos:
But let justice roll on like a river, righteousness like a never-failing stream. (Amos 5:24)
How wonderful it is to know that we are surrounded by God’s love! But we are called to not only accept God’s love but to also outwardly show love to others as we act as “reflections” of God’s all-encompassing love. That means showing love even to those people who make our blood boil and to those who we don’t want to have anything to do with.
God is also faithful and we are surrounded by God’s faithfulness from birth. How has God been faithful to you? How has God seen you through hard times? We must always be aware that people of different races are likely going through struggles that we cannot see and have never experienced. As Christians, we need to be “reflections” of God’s faithfulness by helping others in their struggles, even if we do not understand or have not experienced this struggle ourselves.
God’s righteousness is the standard for our morality. In Romans 8:31, Paul explains that, “If God is for us, who can be against us?”. And we know that Christ came not to condemn the world, but to save the world (John 3:17). So if God is “for” the whole world, how can we be “against” anyone? As Christians, we are called to “reflect” this righteousness back on earth, working to heal racial divisions and create new pathways for reconciliation. There is still work to be done and we as Christians should be leading the charge for unity.
And finally justice. God is just and fair, but the society we live in is fundamentally neither just nor fair, though we strive for that. How can you “reflect” God’s deep justice in your life? Our world has treated minorities with injustice for far too long. How can you stand up for God’s justice today in your life?
Prayer for Today
God of Love, Faithfulness, Righteousness, and Justice, open my eyes to the real struggles of those from different races and instill in me a desire to stand up for justice, even if the outcome doesn’t affect me. Shine your love, faithfulness, righteousness, and justice upon me and craft me into a “reflection” that helps to shine light on the great darkness in this world. Amen.
I ask not only on behalf of these, but also on behalf of those who believe in me through their word, that they may all be one. As you, father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. The glory that you have given me I have given them, so that they may be one, as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become completely one, so that the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.
-John 17:20-23
“[We believe] that this unity must become visible so that the world may believe that separation, enmity and hatred between people in groups is sin which Christ has already conquered, and accordingly that anything which threatens this unity may have no place in the church and must be resisted…”
Belhar Confession (from 10.3)
What a profound statement. As we prepare to install our new elders each January, we review the Presbyterian Book of Confessions, our guiding theological principlesand tradition. The newest one was adopted quite recently, though written in South Africa during apartheid. Not only was it the first to be adopted that was written outside of Europe, it said something new and very important. It went one step farther than previous confessions that named the sin of racism. It reminded us that the very separation we choose in being apart from those who are different is a sin. Even our own secular courts of law had long ago determined we couldn’t allow “separate but equal” because human nature never allowed for equal experiences of those separated and put apart. This was a theological affirmation that people cannot choose to divide themselves without sinning. That chosen separation of comfort was the sin of excluding part of the image of God. God said so in Scripture.
Our scripture and confessions affirm that ALL people are made in God’s image. To choose that separation is to say that part of God’s image, part of God’s people, the experiences, gifts, and contributions of God’s people are unworthy or unwanted. When we choose to always be separate in neighborhoods, celebrations, and worship, we choose distance, division, and sin. When we choose not to form relationships, to exclude people, and to ignore their history, experiences, and perspectives, we sin. Belhar named this. And so do we.
This Monday, we will as a nation and as a church, mark the day as Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Just as the marking of Christmas and Easter for believers, just as the marking of Memorial and Veterans Day for American citizens, we mark this day to remind us of the good done and the calling we have to honor the love and sacrifice of those who came before us. These days remind us of the saints God has given us to show the way. If you’ve not read the Belhar Confession, I would ask you to read it this weekend or on Monday. If you’ve not read his I have a Dream speech, I would ask you to read that. And if you’ve done both, or would like more, read something new from the Rev. Dr. King Jr. I recommend Letter from Birmingham Jail. And I recommend rereading the portions of Scripture referenced in Belhar. We are called as disciples to learn and grow. Let’s use the day in such a way.
Lord, we give thanks that you were and are a teacher and that you have always sent prophets, preachers, and teachers to lead the way and lend your light. Make me a good student and a better disciple in my learning and loving. Amen.
Be prepared. As anyone who has been a Boy Scout knows, that is the Boy Scout motto. I remember walking into the offices of CNN back when it was all housed in the Techwood buildings. Behind the receiving desk was a cartoon that said this: “Poor planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part.”
Today, we looked at the weather report for Sunday and it's predicting snow. For us on staff, particularly with worship services that are online and drive-in, this means we need to prepare. So, we are planning to record an online version of the worship service this week in case the snow and ice really do show up. We will keep you posted, but we will at least have an online worship service available this Sunday.
Being a Christian is consistent with being prepared. There are a number of Bible verses and parables that encourage preparation for things like the coming of Christ. Each day I begin my preparation with time to read from the Bible, reflect, meditate, and pray. I try to do that before I read the newspaper. It gives me a faith framework through which to view the events of the world. It is how I get prepared for the day. I don't know how you get prepared for the day, but I hope it includes some intentional time with God.
Finally, I want to remind you of our Congregational Meeting on Sunday, January 23, following the 11:00 a.m. worship service -- which should begin about noon. The purpose is for the congregation to vote on requesting our presbytery to dissolve the pastoral relationship with me so that I can retire. Again, we need a quorum of our members attending in order to do this, so please plan to attend, either in person or online. Here is the link you can use to register to attend online:
We thank you, God, for all the plans and preparations you have made to show your love by sending Jesus to save us and our world. Help us to be prepared each day to not only be open and aware of your love and grace in our lives, but to share it with those we encounter. In the strong name of Jesus the Christ we pray. Amen.
