Author: Bryan Richardson

Bryan Richardson is the Associate Pastor for Counseling and Pastoral Ministries at FBCSA.

Door

Re:Verse reading–Revelation 7 (day three)

“After this I beheld, and, lo, a great multitude, which no man could number, of all nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues, stood before the throne.”  Man’s exclusivity is unremarkable: Who among us hasn’t quietly delighted in someone’s outsider status?  God’s inclusivity is the newsworthy item here: “Whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely.”  But the wideness in God’s mercy is not unaffected by our door-closing habits. So he takes to task those of us who set up barriers that invite men to become “twice as much of a son of hell” as we would be.  Are you, then, a road-blocker or a path-clearer? How many in that innumerable multitude will stand there despite your efforts?

Persist

Re:Verse reading–Revelation 6 (day three)

“They called to the mountains and the rocks, “Fall on us and hide us from the face of him who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb!”  Sound familiar?  We’ve heard this before–in Genesis.  Those who want to keep on thinking about the universe in the same way will always attempt to hide themselves from God. The underside of a rock or the interior of a cave now becomes preferred real estate. The intimacy of the echo chamber holds greater appeal than the intimacy of the confessional.  Which place do you seek?

There

Re:Verse reading–Revelation 4:1-7, 5:1-14 (day three)

“There before me was a throne in heaven with someone sitting on it.”  “There is no there there,” Gertrude Stein famously said after visiting her childhood home and discovering it was no more.  Such a phrase taps into the common human anxiety that what should be permanent actually decays or fades away or perhaps didn’t really ever exist in the way you thought it did.  When a man contemplates God, that old anxiety again surfaces: What if God does not exist?  What if I have nowhere to go?  What if there is no there there?  In our sin-dimmed thinking, we have forgotten God, and we have lost the way to find him.  Into that twilight, John speaks a word of revelation: Someone occupies the place of sovereignty.  How will you live when you understand that God reigns?

Ear

Re:Verse reading–Revelation 2:1-11; 3:1-6, 14-21 (day three) 

“He who has an ear, let him hear.”  Hearing is hard, so we often use our ears for purposes other than that.  We use our ears as early warning systems: We hear a voice we don’t want to encounter, so we walk the other way.  We use our ears as filters: We don’t give attention to difficult or complicated communication.  We use our ears as instruments of revision: We let them convince us we heard what we wanted to hear.  And that’s really why we find something like Revelation difficult.  It’s not the weird imagery; it’s the repurposed ears.  But the Lord says if we’ll do the hard work of listening, we’ll hear what we need to hear in order to live.

Lord

Re:Verse reading–Revelation 1 (day three)

“In his right hand he held seven stars.”  The degenerating analytical ability of the sin-compromised human mind has offered two hypotheticals: The universe is devoid of a good person at its center, or, we cannot know whether there is a good person at the universe’s center.  Various forms of despair arise from these two postulates, and so we’ve got the world that we’ve got.  Only when you live from the reality that “in him all things hold together” will your life–and communities and civilizations built on that revelation–take on the resilience that resists decay.  How can you start living in such a way?  You can trust Christ in the stuff of life: You won’t die if you forgive; your boss is not the arbiter of your future; and so on.  You are at God’s mercy, not the universe’s.

Speak

Re:Verse reading–Acts 4:1-22 (day three)

“We cannot help speaking about what we have seen and heard.”  When Jesus would instruct people to say nothing about the healing they received from him, he did so because he knew how such things could be misunderstood, or how the healed persons could be exploited.  He taught them to speak with words that would illuminate, not manipulate.  The disciples learned this lesson well.  There is not a hint of ambition in their words or deeds.  The truly courageous and transformative social movements in history—those that have spoken truth to power and have freed the captive—have been spiritual in nature.  They have arisen as people bend to the mission of God among us to expose and set right and to announce forgiveness and grace.  May our words come from that same place.

Work

Re:Verse reading–1 Corinthians 15:50-58  (day three)

“Your labor in the Lord is not in vain.”

This is the meaning of resurrection for all who count on Christ. Death does not destroy you, nor the things you set your hand to do.  Do you take that view of your work?  There are activities, of course, that you can do which result in nothing that will last.  What a waste of your God-given power to do work of eternal value.  Now that you need not fear that death will bring an end to you or to your work, what projects will you begin?

Future

Re: Verse reading–Luke 22:31-34, 54-62 (day three)

“When you have turned back, strengthen your brothers.”  What if there were a day in the future when you think more clearly than you think now, when you are less timid than you are right now, more confident, and less dependent on circumstances?  Have you given up on that day?  The Lord looks at your life in terms of the good you’re capable of, not in terms of the bad you’re capable of.  It’s the Lord who says, “Go out and preach the gospel and heal.”  It’s the Lord who says, “You give them something to eat.”  It’s the Lord who says, “Do not worry about what you will say, for you will say the right words at the right time.”  Jesus has not given up on that day.  Stick with his vision for your life, not yours.

Edit

Re:Verse reading–Matthew 26:36-46 (day three) 

“He took Peter and the two sons of Zebedee along with him.”  Who do you take into your darkest, weakest, most horrifying moments?  Our Lord knew it was unwise to keep others from seeing him shaken to the core.  How much of your life are you editing before others can view it?

Lilies

Re:Verse reading–Luke 12:22-34 (day three)

“Consider the lilies.”  Considering, mulling something over, or––more to the point––meditating, just seems a little…weird.  But so what?  So is the entire Christ life when compared with the world’s way of living.  Meditation means holding something before the mind in such a way that it overwhelms all other thoughts for a time.  In this way, we will come to know and believe the things that Jesus teaches.  Meditation will seem difficult to most of us.  But let’s understand something.  We already practice the harmful mirror image of mediation.  It’s called worry.  Worrying, too, is holding something before the mind so that it overwhelms all other thoughts.  Jesus tells us to use these skills to meditate instead of to worry.  When we do, when we consider the lilies, then we will know that we are in his care.