Tag Archives: God

Devotional, Previous Post

REVISITED: Resisting Evil

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Read Ephesians 6:10-18

ALSO IN SCRIPTURE

“So humble yourselves before God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Come close to God, and God will come close to you. Wash your hands, you sinners; purify your hearts, for your loyalty is divided between God and the world.” (James 4:7-8, NLT)

tdy-121017-the-omen-1One of my favorite horror movies is the Omen, which stars Gregory Peck who plays an American Ambassador to Great Britain. Peck and his wife, played by Lee Remick, have a child; however, Peck’s character learns that the child died during labor and is offered a chance, by a priest, the child of a mother who died in labor in place of the couple’s dead child. “No one need know,” the priest assures, “You need a child, and that child needs parents.” Peck is convinced and brings in the baby, never telling his wife what happened.

Needless to say, that action was a HUGE mistake and, as the child grows, more and more weird and crazy things start happening. At the child’s 6th birthday party, the nanny hang’s herself after yelling, “It’s all for you, Damien! It’s all for you!” Eventually, after his wife has been seriously injured by their maniacal child, Peck’s character learns that the child he was given was actually the son of Satan; in other words, his child was the unholy incarnation of evil.

While many of us flock to the movies to watch “evil” play out in various ways, and while many of us acknowledge the existence of evil when we see it splashed across the new channels, most of us live our lives as if evil doesn’t exist. We wake up and carry out our days activities as if we aren’t affected by evil in the slightest. Worse yet, many of us think of evil as something alien to us…after all, we could never do any evil, right?

The truth is that we can do evil and are most definitely affected by the evil we do and the evil that is surrounding us.  John Wesley said that a life of faith is one that seeks to do no harm, “by avoiding evil of every kind” (United Methodist Book of Discipline 2012, 52).  As people of faith, we should be seeking to do no harm. How? By avoiding every kind of evil.

If you see someone in need and don’t help them. That is evil. In this case, you avoid evil by helping those in need. If you judge others, even the Hitlers and Stalins of the world, that is evil; rather, pray for such people and work to change yourself in a way that brings hope, healing and wholeness into this world. If you see injustice of any kind taking place, it is evil to do nothing about it. Be a person who stands up for what is right and seeks to do justice on this earth.

Evil takes many shapes and forms. It is not just murder and the grotesque things found in Hollywood horror movies; rather, it can be ever so sublte. Evil is anything that keeps you from living the way that God has called you to live. From murder to holding a grudge, we are called to do no harm by avoiding evil of every kind. And the only way to avoid evil, is to resist it, to counter act it, to take a stand with Christ and oppose evil with God’s love. May God strengthen you as you seek to live this out.

THOUGHT OF THE DAY

“The power of choosing good and evil is within the reach of all.” – Origen

PRAYER

Lord, I seek to not only avoid evil, but to resist evil. It is from you that I gain my strength and through you everything is possible. Amen.

Online Worship

May 28, 2023 – Newton UMC – Sunday Worship Livestream

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JOY Fellowship Worship Service in Holland Hall: 9:00 a.m.

Worship Service in Main Sancutary: 10:30 a.m.

Worship service streams live at 10:30 a.m. EST (-500 GMT)

Welcome to our live-streamed Sunday Worship Services for May 28, 2023. Today we learn that we are children of the SAME GOD and are FILLED with the SAME SPIRIT.

Please support us by giving online: https://tithe.ly/give?c=1377216 or https://paypal.me/newtonumc Or you can make and mail a check out to First UMC of Newton, 111 Ryerson Ave., Newton, NJ O7860

God bless you all for your generosity which is vital to our mission and ministry.

Online Worship

May 21, 2023 – Newton UMC – Sunday Worship Livestream

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JOY Fellowship Worship Service in Holland Hall: 9:00 a.m.

Worship Service in Main Sancutary: 10:30 a.m.

Worship service streams live at 10:30 a.m. EST (-500 GMT)

Welcome to our live-streamed Sunday Worship Services for May 21, 2023. Today we learn that as communities work through inevitable conflicts, prioritizing grace can lead us to become stronger and healthier in our relationships with God and one another.

Please support us by giving online: https://tithe.ly/give?c=1377216 or https://paypal.me/newtonumc Or you can make and mail a check out to First UMC of Newton, 111 Ryerson Ave., Newton, NJ O7860

God bless you all for your generosity which is vital to our mission and ministry.

Online Worship

May 14, 2023 – Newton UMC – Sunday Worship Livestream

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JOY Fellowship Worship Service in Holland Hall: 9:00 a.m.

Worship Service in Main Sancutary: 10:30 a.m.

Worship service streams live at 10:30 a.m. EST (-500 GMT)

Welcome to our live-streamed Sunday Worship Services for May 14, 2023. Today we learn that as communities work through inevitable conflicts, prioritizing grace can lead us to become stronger and healthier in our relationships with God and one another.

Please support us by giving online: https://tithe.ly/give?c=1377216 or https://paypal.me/newtonumc Or you can make and mail a check out to First UMC of Newton, 111 Ryerson Ave., Newton, NJ O7860

God bless you all for your generosity which is vital to our mission and ministry.

Devotional, Previous Post

REVISITED: The Task at Hand

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Read Acts 20:20-24

ALSO IN SCRIPTURE

“Not that I have already obtained this or have already reached the goal; but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own.” (Philippians 3:12)

1600x1200-11587-nosferatu-wallpaper-hd

I have been a life-long fan of the classic horror films. Lon Chaney, Sr.’s “The Phantom of the Opera,” F.W. Murnau’s “Faust”, Lon Chaney, Jr.’s “The Wolfman”, Henry Hull’s “The Werewolf of London”, Bela Legosi’s “Dracula”, Boris Karloff’s “Frankenstein” and “The Mummy”. My all-time favorite horror film from the Silent Film era, is F.W. Murnau’s “Nosferatu: eine Symphonie des Grauens” (translated as “Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror). The film is a German Expressionist film about a vampire coming to Germany to prey on its citizens and it was loosely based on Bram Stoker’s “Dracula”.

What makes me love this film is its use of lighting and shadow to pull off eerie special effects, the makeup work that was done to Max Schreck who plays the infamous “Count Orlok”, as well as Schreck’s amazing character acting. When watching the film, it is impossible to see Schreck’s Orlok as a “human being.” His rat-like features, pointy ears, sunken eyes, long tallon-like fingers, gaunt and lanky stature, and pale skin really make this character appear to be the monster that he is. Looking at him would make anyone’s skin crawl. Murnau created a film that is timeless and never feels dated, even though it is in black & white and has no audio aside from the music that has been added to it.

Back in 2011, I embarked on a project to rescore “Nosferatu.” There have been many attempts to rescore it, each trying to “update” the music in a way that makes it feel fresh and new; however, I have found every attempt (for the most part) to fall short of the film. None of the soundtracks seemed, in my opinion, to do justice to this film. So I figured I would rescore it, not trying to “update” the score with bells and whistles but, rather, trying to keep it simple and foreboding. I wanted a score that would give one the sense that evil was coming, and the urgency to rid the world of it.

As with all “great” ideas, it sounded much easier than it turned out to be. It is now July of 2014, and I have yet to finish the score. Life came in the way and I became preoccupied in other things. Inevitably, I let the rescoring of “Nosferatu” take a back seat to the “busy-ness” of life. Just recently, I decided to pick the project back up and to work on it whenever I have to the chance too. The more I work on it, the closer I get to completing it, the more and more fulfilled I feel. To be honest, whenever I start something without completing it, I feel incomplete.

While I have been using a “hobby” of mine as an illustration, how much more true is it that we feel incomplete when we don’t finish what Christ has called us, the church, to do. We are all called to be agents of God’s Kingdom of Heaven, of God’s hope, healing and wholeness, and we are all called to do different tasks in order to continue to usher in that Kingdom, on earth as it is in heaven. Yet, often times we get “burned out”, or the “busy-ness” of life gets in our way and we begin to fall away from the task that we’ve all been called to.

In the process, we find ourselves feeling incomplete. We often find ourselves lost, literally, in things that fill our time, but not our souls. Christ is calling us to reprioritize and to recommit our lives to the purpose that God has laid out for us. Let us not be a people that only starts projects, but never sees them through to completion; rather, let us be a people that completes that task at hand. Let us keep fighting the good fight and continuing on in the race. Let us remove the distractions of purposeless “busy-ness” and remember what it is that we’ve been called to do. Once we are realigned with our purpose, we shall feel fulfilled!

THOUGHT OF THE DAY
Efforts and courage are not enough without purpose and direction.” – John F. Kennedy

PRAYER
Lord, remind me of my purpose and spark a passion in me to see it through to completion. Amen.

Devotional

We Have Been Served

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Read John 15:12-17

ALSO IN SCRIPTURE
“Even though I am a free man with no master, I have become a slave to all people to bring many to Christ” (1 Corinthians 9:19 NLT).

I just recently watched a new film about Dracula, entitled Renfield. Well, just by the title alone you can tell that this film is really about Renfield, but Dracula features big in it because Renfield is Dracula’s familiar, or human slave, who can walk around in the daylight taking care of business for the count while he sleeps in his coffin. While definitely a gory film, it is mostly a dark comedy that explores the toxic, abusive relationship between Renfield and his master.

Prior to seeing this film, which stars Nicholas Cage as the age-old vampire and Nicholas Hoult as his eponymous servant, I had watched the trailers for the movie. In them, it shows the basic plot of the film, some funny parts, and some of the gory action that one will see if they choose to watch the film. The theme of the trailer, however, I found did not exactly match up to the movie. In the trailer, these words appear: “Don’t serve. Learn to live”.

That surprised me actually. Don’t serve? That seems to be rather bad advice. Service is an important part of being human. We serve our families, we serve people at our jobs. We serve our spouses and/or significant others and hopefully that is a two-way street. We, as Christians, are called to serve Christ and, if the trailer itself had the final say, it would seem as if the producers are drawing a comparison between Dracula and Christ or any other “master”.

Then I watched the film and I found that the message was not anti-service at all; rather, it was asking the question, Whom do you serve? The film does not state implicitly or explicitly that service ought to be avoided in order to truly live. Thank God for that too, because how could one truly live if they never, ever served anyone. That would be a very selfish life indeed, not true life.

True life is meant to be lived in love and love requires service. If we love those around us, we will serve them and, conversely, if they love us they will serve us too. So, the question is not whether one can truly live life if they are serving others, it is a matter of whom one is serving and the dynamic of that service. In the film Renfield, the eponymous character is serving an age-old vampire that lives in the shadows and feeds off of people as a murderous parasite. Renfield himself is there to serve his master’s needs and, as long as the needs get met, the old vamp is happy.

With that said, it is very much a one-sided relationship. If Renfield does not do exactly what his master wants, his master makes him pay…big time. He derides him, puts him down, makes him feel guilty for his failure to be a “good little servant”, and he kills anyone Renfield tries to have a relationship with. Dracula is your typical manipulative, bullish, abuser. The relationship between Dracula and Refield is not of mutual partners attending to and fulfilling each other’s needs, rather, it is that of a servant who must always keep serving to the master’s delight. That master never gives anything back, never cares for his servant, and certainly never gives in.

That, my friends, is not a healthy relationship and it is certainly not emblamatic of the kind of servanthood Jesus calls us to. Yes, Jesus is our Lord and we are his servants/disciples; however, our Lord also called us friends, which means we are NOT forced to serve like Renfield was; rather, the dynamic here is much different. Jesus gave us eternal life, free of charge. There is nothing we can do to earn eternal life. That is a gift given to us for free. Faith in Christ equals realizing and accepting that free gift. That is all that is required…our acceptance.

In Christ, we then serve as his disciples. Why? Because we are HIS friends and we desire to share the Good News of Christ’s salvation with people. More than that, we take on Jesus’ heart, we start to make note of the needs around us, and we try to fill those needs so that even “the least of these” are being shown love and inclusion. In other words, we serve because we have grown in Christ’s love. We serve because Jesus Christ, our Lord, first loved and served us. We have been served, therefore, we should serve others. Let us always be reminded of this as we joyfully join together in service of our Lord. Let us start serving and learn to TRULY live.

THOUGHT OF THE DAY
“It is one of the most beautiful compensations of life that no man can sincerely try to help another without helping himself. Serve and thou shall be served.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

PRAYER
Lord, thank you for all that you have done to serve me in Spirit, in Truth, and through the lives of those who have been a source of help to me. Lead me to serve others openly and willingly, thereby serving you and your Kingdom. Amen.

Online Worship

May 7, 2023 – Newton UMC – Sunday Worship Livestream

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JOY Fellowship Worship Service in Holland Hall: 9:00 a.m.

Worship Service in Main Sancutary: 10:30 a.m.

Worship service streams live at 10:30 a.m. EST (-500 GMT)

Welcome to our live-streamed Sunday Worship Services for May 7, 2023. Today we learn that the risen Christ moves us from a place of judgement to a place of connection, so that we can work together for the sake of God’s kingdom.

Please support us by giving online: https://tithe.ly/give?c=1377216 or https://paypal.me/newtonumc Or you can make and mail a check out to First UMC of Newton, 111 Ryerson Ave., Newton, NJ O7860

God bless you all for your generosity which is vital to our mission and ministry.

Devotional, Previous Post

REVISITED: The Labyrinth

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Read Mark 4:1-9

ALSO IN SCRIPTURE
“But blessed are your eyes, for they see, and your ears, for they hear.” (Matthew 13:16)

The Labyrinth

Today was just one of those days. You know, it was a Sunday afternoon, the sun was out and shining, the breeze was gentle and refreshing, and the temperature was perfect. It was one of those days that, despite having a terrible sinus infection, I just could not be inside. So, I decided to take a contemplative stroll through the labyrinth in my backyard. Yes, you read that right, I have a labyrinth in my backyard and I love it!

As I was walking around, though, I started to notice that it had become quite unkempt as things were finally springing to life after a cold, long and harsh winter. So, I got inspired to start moving the rocks, pulling weeds, leveling the dirt and mulch, and placing the rocks back in place. It felt so refreshing, spiritual and serene doing that simple, yet physical work. I felt very attuned with God as I worked at caring for and tending to the labyrinth.

As I was pulling the rocks away, I noticed the some of the grass and weeds surrounding them were very easy to pull out. It took no effort at all. As it turned out, the roots were growing in only a an inch or two of dirt that had collected in between the rock. Once I removed the rocks, I could easily get rid of them.

As I was weeding my way around the labyrinth, a parable of Jesus’s came to mind. The parable where Jesus talks about the seed that get sowed in rocks, in weedy areas, in shallow soil and the seeds that are sown in the good soil. He was saying that if the seeds are sown right, the plants that grows will grow hardily and not easily be removed. This was a metaphor for faith that Jesus was using to instruct his disciples, and those listening, on the importance of being rooted deeply in one’s faith and not just having a surface faith rooted in shallow soil or, worse yet, having a dead faith that never rooted at all because the seeds were tossed on rock and/or hard soil and eaten by birds.

But sometimes, like the weeds in the labyrinth, our faith seems to be rooted deep; however, that depth is no more than an illusion. Sometimes we discover that our faith is actually shallow and only appears to be deeply rooted because those roots and shallow soil are being secured by the boulders around us. Once those boulders are removed, our faith gets tested and shown to be nothing more than weeds that are easily plucked and thrown into the wind.

But there is good news here…there is indeed hope. As painful it is for us to remove the boulders weighing us down, once they are removed and once those shallow rooted weeds are plucked, we begin to clear a path that twists around like a labyrinth that leads us to the good soil. It is there that we begin to realize where our seeds of faith need to be sown. It is there that we begin to cultivate a holy and sacred garden, at the heart of God’s temple!

Christ is calling you to remove the boulders in your life! Christ is calling you to pluck the weeds that are hindering your path. God is calling you to journey further in the labyrinth, plucking and pulling out the shallow rooted weeds until you get to the center, until you get to the place of deep, good soil. Christ is sowing the seeds of God’s love…of God’s hope, healing and wholeness…of God’s Kingdom in your heart. Allow God to nurture and cultivate that divine garden and let the love of God spring forth from you like the well spring of life! God is recreating Eden within you and calling you join him in the Garden! I’ll see you there!

THOUGHT OF THE DAY
“Pursue some path, however narrow and crooked, in which you can walk with love and reverence.” – Henry David Thoreau

PRAYER
Lord, help me weed my way to the good soil, so that my faith may grow into a luscious, sacred and holy garden. Amen.

Devotional

Fighting Forward

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Read Lamentations 3:27-36

ALSO IN SCRIPTURE
“You have heard the law that says the punishment must match the injury: ‘An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I say, do not resist an evil person! If someone slaps you on the right cheek, offer the other cheek also. If you are sued in court and your shirt is taken from you, give your coat, too” (Matthew 5:38-40 NLT).

Sam Obisanya was having a bad day, and extremely bad day. For those of you who are unfamiliar with Sam, he is one of the footballers on the fictional English Premier Football team, AFC Richmond, on the Apple TV+ original show, Ted Lasso. This show has become one of my favorite shows and is now on it’s third season. I highly recommend it, though not for children as it does have language and mature themes throughout. Also, while I am not spoiling the whole episode, I will be discussing one scene in it, so if you are watching the show and haven’t seen Episode 7 of Season 3, I would recommend watching it first so as not to spoil this moment for you.

Back to Sam Obisanya. He is a soccer player from Nigeria and comes from a family that is very socially conscious. Why? Because in Nigeria people feel the weight of colonialism and the footprint of the West on them. As such, Sam is not afraid to speak out on social issues in order to do what he believes is right. Enter into the story fictional U.K. Home Security Minister, Brinda Barot. She is standing front and center on the television telling migrant refugees in a boat that they should go home and that she won’t permit them in England. Or at least that’s the gist of it.

Sam believed that he could at least appeal to her “better angels” through a tweet mildly and lovingly callinger her to have a little more compassion to people in need. Well, as is almost always the case with politicians on Twitter, she shot back and tweeted: “Footballers should leave the politics to us and just shut up and dribble.” This quote is actually a real quote from a host on an American conservative news channel who said that people like LeBron James and others should stay out of politics and “shut up and dribble.” So Ted Lasso is pulling from real-life situations, which is what makes this show so relevant and important.

Again, back to Sam. As these things often do on social media, the tweets escalated back and forth. That’s where the tragedy occurs. This is what makes Sam’s day so bad. He went at night, after his football game, to the Nigerian Restaurant he opened up to share Nigerian cuisine with the U.K. and give the British Nigerians a little taste of home. He named the restaurant, Ola’s, after is father. When got to the door, Sam found it smashed in. The restaurant inside completely destroyed, with the words, “Shut up and dribble”, spray painted across one of the walls. Sam was shattered.

The next day, as he was gearing up to practice, he had an angry outburst because he feels unwelcome in the U.K. and he knows people like Brinda Barot want to ship him and other immigrants right back to where they came from. His team members were confused because they didn’t at first know about his restaurant, but they all were there to listen and comfort him. Also, at the same time, his dad showed up for his planned visit to see his son, watch him play, and eat a meal at Ola’s, which obviously was no longer going to be able to happen.

His father gave him a big hug and sat down with him. Sam was sharing with him that he didn’t think he was going to reopen the restaurant just to see it destroyed again. His father countered him and told him he NEEDED to reopen it, not just for himself, but for his staff and for other Nigerian immigrants who would like a taste of home. Then his father told him this, “If you really want to piss them off, forgive them. No big deal. Just forgive them, like it’s no big deal. Don’t fight back Sam, fight forward.”

Now, I won’t share what happens from there; however, those words really stuck with me and they reminded me of the same thing Jesus taught his disciples in Matthew 5:38-40 NLT), “If someone slaps you on the right cheek, offer the other cheek also. If you are sued in court and your shirt is taken from you, give your coat, too”. Believe it or not, Jesus was talking not about fighting back, but fighting forward. This takes forgiveness and fortitude and faith, but it is the only way in which we end the cycle of destruction that we humans are so hellbent on carrying out against each other.

Turning the other cheek and giving people more than they want to sue from you is not giving up or taking the cowards way out. It is not a sign of weakness, either. It is quite the opposite. Walter Wink, in his book Engaging the Powers: Discernment and Resistance in a World of Domination, interprets the passage as a way to be subversive to the power structures of the time. In ancient Judea, one asserted their authority and dominance by backhand striking a person on their right cheek with their right hand. If that person then turned their left cheek to be struck, the person with the higher social status had a problem. The left hand couldn’t be used to strike because it was used for unclean purposes; however, if one open-palm slapped someone on the opposite cheek, it would be seen as a challenge to a fight placing the other person at equal status.

Jesus, in calling people to turn the other cheek, was directing them to FIGHT FORWARD, publicly calling out the injustice by turning the other cheek rather than fighting back in retaliation. The same thing is true regarding giving one’s shirt too when one is being sued for their coat. Going over and above publicly displays that what is being done is an injustice.

Friends, we are called to fighting forward, not fighting back. It is so easy to get up in arms when we feel threatened or attacked; however, that does nothing to change the world. Let us be a people who follow Christ’s way, not the world’s, so that we can be public displays of justice, peace, and love as well as agents of hope, healing, and wholeness. This is the Christian way.

THOUGHT OF THE DAY
“Sweet mercy is nobility’s true badge.” – William Shakespeare

PRAYER
Lord, help me to have the strength and courage to fight forward and forgive. Amen.

Online Worship

April 30, 2023 – Newton UMC – Sunday Worship Livestream

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JOY Fellowship Worship Service in Holland Hall: 9:00 a.m.

Worship Service in Main Sancutary: 10:30 a.m.

Worship service streams live at 10:30 a.m. EST (-500 GMT)

Welcome to our live-streamed Sunday Worship Services for April 30. Today we learn that the love and forgiveness of God is what enables us to rise above our mistakes and become more faithful disciples.

Please support us by giving online: https://tithe.ly/give?c=1377216 or https://paypal.me/newtonumc Or you can make and mail a check out to First UMC of Newton, 111 Ryerson Ave., Newton, NJ O7860

God bless you all for your generosity which is vital to our mission and ministry.