Richard Osgood has faithfully kept a New Year's resolution that he made in 1936. He resolved not to spend pennies but to save them. Today, he has $33,057.11, directly traceable to his penny savings. He believes that he might be the only person in history to keep a New Year's resolution for sixty years.
This gift helped to change Moltman's life. It didn't cure his cold, nor did it free him from incarceration. But this gift came from one who knew what it meant to be without the essentials of life. It was an act of grace and she had given it to a hated German prisoner. She became Christ for this young man and helped heal his loneliness, despair, and suffering.
The operative word is "if" … if then you were raised together with Christ …" If is one of the most daunting words in the English language. The implication is this: If you have been raised with Christ, what follows is for you; if not, nothing others say will make a difference. Ask yourself: Have I been raised with Christ?
I'll never forget a Presbytery meeting years ago. It included the examination of a candidate to become a Minister of Word and Sacrament. I knew the candidate to be a man of God with a heart for the Lord and a clear sense of God's claim on his life. I also knew he wasn't especially quick on his feet.
"I've never seen such a crowd in church," a woman exclaimed. Then she added, "Do you suppose it will make any difference?" The pastor asked, "What do you mean? Will what make any difference?" "Easter!" she shot back. Will Easter make any difference for all these people, or will life tomorrow be the same as it was yesterday?"
The exciting thing about this little church was the fact that they truly fit the description of this passage. They STOOD FIRM IN ONE SPIRIT; THEY STROVE SIDE BY SIDE; THEY HAD ONE MIND AND THEY WERE IN NO WAY BE INTIMIDATED BY OPPONENTS. They knew who they were and whose they were.
One of the great heresies of our day is Secular Humanism. Humanists believe that we have within us all that we need, that it's just a matter of thinking positively and developing your God-given potential. It suggests that we have within us such innate goodness and potential that we need not rely on any power greater than ourselves.
We struggle. We do not have all the answers. Like St. Paul, we need to acknowledge our own struggles. We are not called to know everything or be everything. It is enough to be who we are, the special child God created us to be. It is enough to believe and follow the Lord Jesus and to allow ourselves to be used to glorify God.
A cartoon shows a caricature of a well known painting of Adam and Eve fleeing from the garden driven by an overarching angel with a flaming sword in his hand, gates closing behind them. Adam is saying, "Eve, we are living in a time of transition." But transitions can be good and growing moments, a time when we learn and move on.
The Colossians thought they had to escape this world to be reconciled with God. This belief grew out of the Greek philosophy, which said that the material world and the spiritual world do not mix. Like oil and water, you can shake them up but they always separate again. Well, Paul wrote them a letter to straighten them out.