Monthly Archives: May 2020

Look for Blessings, May 23, 2020

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Thanks for joining me today for “A Little Walk with God.” I’m your host Richard Agee.
As this podcast comes out, we celebrate Memorial Day in the United States. A time to remember servicemen and women who have fallen in service to our country. But the day has become more of an extra day for sales in retail stores and the day that marks the opening of parks and recreation facilities than a day of remembrance.
Perhaps this year will be a little. Most of the country still suffers under severe economic strain, so we don’t have a lot of money to spend, no matter how good the sales might be. Some parks and facilities could open, but remain closed due to the constraints placed on them. Beaches opened in most places, but many remain empty for fear of viral spread.
This year is different in many ways. Doors stay shut. Everyone remains at double-arms length. Masks are not just a fashion statement, but protection against an unseen enemy.
Perhaps we can take time this Memorial Day to think about those who put themselves in harm’s way to protect us. As we continue to struggle through these uncertain days with the Corona-SARS-2 virus wreaking havoc around the world, thousands stand in the gap for us trying to make sense of the disease and stop the flood of sick and dying.
Memorial Day has always been about the Armed Forces in the past. Still, I don’t think it would be out of line to remember the first responders and medical professionals that work tirelessly to keep us as healthy as possible under these incredible conditions as well. Having served in the Army Medical Department, many of my friends and acquaintances still serve in those most dangerous areas, putting their lives at risk for us. Many of those professionals not only suffered the effects of the disease, but as you know, some succumbed to its effects and passed away. They, too, died for their fellow man, just as soldiers and sailors, airmen and marines.
Peter wrote to early Christians suffering under the hands of persecutors. In his letter, he encourages them to rejoice. He wrote:

Dear friends, don’t be surprised about the fiery trials that have come among you to test you. These are not strange happenings. Instead, rejoice as you share Christ’s suffering. You share his suffering now so that you may also have overwhelming joy when his glory is revealed. If you are mocked because of Christ’s name, you are blessed, for the Spirit of glory—indeed, the Spirit of God—rests on you.
And later.
Therefore, humble yourselves under God’s power so that he may raise you up in the last day. Throw all your anxiety onto him, because he cares about you. Be clearheaded. Keep alert. Your accuser, the devil, is on the prowl like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. Resist him, standing firm in the faith. Do so in the knowledge that your fellow believers are enduring the same suffering throughout the world. After you have suffered for a little while, the God of all grace, the one who called you into his eternal glory in Christ Jesus, will himself restore, empower, strengthen, and establish you. To him be power forever and always. Amen. 1 Peter 4:12-14; 5:6-11 CE

I think the longer we endure this pandemic, the more anxious people become. It’s natural. We want it to be over. We want to believe science can create a pill or vaccine or something that will take this thing away. Aren’t we smart enough with all our genomic studies, our ability to conquer space, our ability to clone a sheep – aren’t we able to defeat this simple virus?
The answer is…maybe. Scientists are working to change a seven to ten-year approval process into a twelve to eighteen-month process. That skips a lot of policies and procedures the government put in place over the years for our protection. I know it sounds like a lot of bureaucracy and a waste of money. Through the years, those precautions saved a lot of lives, though. So we might get a vaccine in a few more months, but I won’t hold my breath.
I think I will listen to Peter’s encouragement. This suffering isn’t from God. He isn’t punishing the world for its evil. We punish ourselves. God is in the business of rescuing us from our sins. He sent his Son for just that purpose. The suffering we endure comes because Adam and Eve introduced disobedience and corruption into the cosmos and disrupted its perfect order. We contribute to that chaos and destruction with every passing generation.
But remember Peter’s words? “… don’t be surprised about the fiery trials that have come among you to test you. These are not strange happenings. 13 Instead, rejoice as you share Christ’s suffering. You share his suffering now so that you may also have overwhelming joy when his glory is revealed. … you are blessed, for the Spirit of glory—indeed, the Spirit of God—rests on you.”
We may not feel very blessed going through the pandemic separated from our friends and those we cherish. We might long for yesterday when we could go about freely and do as we pleased. We might shake our fist at God, asking why this tragedy sweeps around the world affecting so many of his children.
To your questions and complaints, you might hear his still, small voice in the whisper of the wind, “Rejoice as you share in your suffering now, so that you may have overwhelming joy when my Son’s glory is revealed. You are blessed, for my Spirit rests on you.”
In these uncertain times, recognize the blessings that surround you. God holds all of this in his hands and gives us hope even in the face of what may appear hopeless circumstances. Trust him, and as Paul exhorts us, “Rejoice in all things.” It’s not always easy, but in everything, we can find blessings from God. He loves us and has our best in mind, even when we can’t see it.
You can find me at richardagee.com. I also invite you to join us at San Antonio First Church of the Nazarene on West Avenue in San Antonio to hear more Bible-based teaching. You can find out more about my church at SAF.church. Thanks for listening. If you enjoyed it, tell a friend. If you didn’t, send me an email and let me know how better to reach out to those around you. Until next week, may God richly bless you as you venture into His story each day.

Scriptures marked CEB are taken from the COMMON ENGLISH BIBLE (CEB): Scriptures taken from the COMMON ENGLISH BIBLE copyright© 2011, 2012. Used by permission.

Discover God, May 18, 2020

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Today’s Podcast

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Thanks for joining me today for “A Little Walk with God.” I’m your host Richard Agee.

I don’t know about you, but I’m getting a little tired of the pandemic news. I don’t think it’s so much the news about the pandemic as it is the debate about who is at fault for the predicament we’re in economically and physically. Here we sit with unemployment at its highest since the Great Depression. That’s understandable with everyone locked in their homes. It’s hard to employ workers when businesses have no income because no one can come to their place of business to purchase goods and services.

So we try to help, and in so doing, put our economy in another tailspin by doubling our national debt with programs that I’m not sure help much. Bailouts that were supposed to provide small businesses funds for wages ran out of money within minutes. A $1,200 check to most adults barely covers groceries for a month these days—and then what? Democrats blame Republicans for delays. Republicans blame Democrats for delays. Neither party seems to recognize the real culprit in all of this drama is a new virus to which no one is immune. So it really doesn’t matter what either party says or does, we were in trouble from the start. Every decision was a bad decision. Pandemics are like that.

We lifted Germany and Singapore as the best models of how to avoid the spread of the virus. The spread appears to have been delayed at best. Their numbers have drastically increased in the last few weeks. So, I’m not sure anyone could do anything about what has happened. At best, we could flatten the curve as governors, and country leaders tried to do in various ways, some more successfully than others perhaps, but none have beat the bug.

The question I’ve been asking myself through these bad news stories is, what good can we find in this pandemic? One important thing I’ve discovered, our priorities changed quickly. Not many ask, “When will I see my football team play again?” Or complain about the dress code at school. Suddenly, those invisible people in factories and hospitals like the janitorial staff become heroes keeping us safe. Teachers and healthcare workers become more important in the eyes of the public than the multimillion-dollar movie stars and sports figures. We find out the researcher behind the microscope is much more important to us than the newscaster in front of the camera.

In the past, we made gods of the wrong people and the wrong things. In this country, wealth, fame, position, power, became gods to us. We worshipped these without saying so. These became the most valued things in our lives. The pandemic is the great equalizer for all of us, though. Wealth doesn’t keep you safe. Nor does fame or position or power. When the virus decides to strike, it will invade and destroy whomever it chooses.

Paul visited Athens in his missionary journeys and found the same problem there. The Athenians had more visible representations of their gods, but our worship of things other than the true and living God is no different than theirs. Here is what Paul had to say, recorded for us in the Book of Acts:

So Paul took his stand in the open space at the Areopagus and laid it out for them. “It is plain to see that you Athenians take your religion seriously. When I arrived here the other day, I was fascinated with all the shrines I came across. And then I found one inscribed, to the god nobody knows. I’m here to introduce you to this God so you can worship intelligently, know who you’re dealing with.

“The God who made the world and everything in it, this Master of sky and land, doesn’t live in custom-made shrines or need the human race to run errands for him, as if he couldn’t take care of himself. He makes the creatures; the creatures don’t make him. Starting from scratch, he made the entire human race and made the earth hospitable, with plenty of time and space for living so we could seek after God, and not just grope around in the dark but actually find him. He doesn’t play hide-and-seek with us. He’s not remote; he’s near. We live and move in him, can’t get away from him! One of your poets said it well: ‘We’re the God-created.’ Well, if we are the God-created, it doesn’t make a lot of sense to think we could hire a sculptor to chisel a god out of stone for us, does it?

“God overlooks it as long as you don’t know any better—but that time is past. The unknown is now known, and he’s calling for a radical life-change. He has set a day when the entire human race will be judged and everything set right. And he has already appointed the judge, confirming him before everyone by raising him from the dead.” (Acts 17:22-31 TM)

Perhaps in this pandemic, we can take some time to reflect on what is most important in our lives. Before we get back into the mad rush of life and everything opens up to a new normal, maybe we can take inventory of our before COVID life and ask ourselves, on what did I focus my attention? To what did I give my allegiance? What was most important to me if someone watched how I spent my time and my money? Could others see that I genuinely worshipped the God of all creation? Did my behavior show that He is more important to me than everything else in my life?

It’s not too late to figure out God is calling each of us to a radical life change. He wants to renew an intimate relationship with His highest creation. Jesus introduced Him as “Abba,” a close, personal term for father, like Daddy. But He also reminds us that Abba is the creator of all things, the Almighty, the Master of the Universe.

While we are enclosed in our homes, blocked from the rat race that consumed us before COVID, maybe it’s time to look for God. He doesn’t play hide-and-seek, but He is God and desires us to come to Him understanding who He is—God. When we find Him, when we worship Him, He brings to our hearts an indescribable joy and peace even in the middle of events such as these. Will He remove us from the pandemic? Probably not. We suffer alongside the rest of humanity, but we live with hope, and that’s the difference.

What is your god? Better yet, Who is your God? Discover Him while you have some time on your hands.

You can find me at richardagee.com. I also invite you to join us at San Antonio First Church of the Nazarene on West Avenue in San Antonio to hear more Bible-based teaching. You can find out more about my church at SAF.church. Thanks for listening. If you enjoyed it, tell a friend. If you didn’t, send me an email and let me know how better to reach out to those around you. Until next week, may God richly bless you as you venture into His story each day.

Scriptures marked TM are taken from the THE MESSAGE: THE BIBLE IN CONTEMPORARY ENGLISH (TM): Scripture taken from THE MESSAGE: THE BIBLE IN CONTEMPORARY ENGLISH, copyright©1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002. Used by permission of NavPress Publishing Group

You are His Temple, May 11, 2020

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Today’s Podcast

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Thanks for joining me today for “A Little Walk with God.” I’m your host Richard Agee.

We find it easy to think God doesn’t care when we see the devastation man and nature creates around us. Particularly in these times, when we huddle in our homes, afraid of each other. Afraid our neighbor will spread the virus to us. We live in fear today. What happened? In a few short months, we gave up the outdoors. We gave seeing each other. We gave up our extended families. We even gave up our ability to mourn.

I’m not sure God’s desire for us to love each other as He loves us looks favorably on what we have done to ourselves in these last several months. Certainly, we need to take precautions against this new disease about which we seem to know very little. But do we let fear stop our relationships? Do we allow anxiety to be the overwhelming emotion in our lives?

I think it is time we allow God’s rich legacy of peace to take over in our lives and our communities. As His children, we can offer something the rest of the world cannot. We can embrace life with an assurance of hope that a better day is coming. This short time of suffering is not the end, but the beginning of life. No matter what we might face now, it is so insignificant in the face of what we will enjoy with Christ for eternity if we accept Him as the Master of our lives.

Unfortunately, most people today will not agree with me. As in Jesus’ day, most will reject Him. They will call Him a charlatan, a fake, a seeker of fame. That same crowd will declare His followers delusional, gullible, ignorant. But the early followers of Christ held fast for one simple reason. Some five hundred of His disciples saw the physical, resurrected Jesus. Not a ghost or spirit or a delusion, but a physical body. Jesus spoke with them. He ate and walked and touched them. The crucified, once dead, Master overcame the grave and lived. We believe because of the conviction of their belief.

Then Jesus gave those same disciples a mission. The last time they saw Him, He told them to make more disciples and teach them what they knew. Bring them into their fellowship with the rite of baptism in the name of the Triune Godhead, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. More than that, Jesus taught His disciples in His last days before His death, that the Holy Spirit would not just come to live with them as He had, but would live in them.

What difference would that make for them? God longs to have an intimate fellowship with His highest creation, human beings. He made us in His image. He touched the earth to walk with Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden.

He touched the earth in the Holy of Holies, the sacred place in the tabernacle He instructed Moses to build for Him as a dwelling place and later in the Temple Solomon made as a place of worship for Israel. It was the spot God came to bring heaven and earth together with His presence.

Then God lived among us as flesh and blood in human form in His Son Jesus, the second person of the Triune Godhead. How is that possible? He is God, and it is beyond human understanding. If we could understand everything about God, he would not be God, just a super version human.

While He was here, Jesus said something incredible about that third person of the Godhead, though. He said the Holy Spirit would live in us. Think about that a moment—God in us.

God touched the earth again—in us. The Holy Spirit, God, lives on earth now, when we accept Him into our lives as the Master of our soul. When we decide to give ourselves to Him, He lives in us just as He lived in the Holy of Holies in the Temple in Jerusalem or the tabernacle as His people moved across the wilderness. We are His temple.

The Apostle Peter writes to the early church and puts the concept in these words:

Come to him, a living stone, though rejected by mortals yet chosen and precious in God’s sight, and like living stones, let yourselves be built into a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. For it stands in scripture: “See, I am laying in Zion a stone, a cornerstone chosen and precious; and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame.”

To you then who believe, he is precious; but for those who do not believe, “The stone that the builders rejected has become the very head of the corner,” and “A stone that makes them stumble, and a rock that makes them fall.” They stumble because they disobey the word, as they were destined to do. But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people, in order that you may proclaim the mighty acts of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. (1 Peter 2:4-10 NIV)

We are God’s temple when we believe in Jesus for salvation. And when he lives in us, it also makes us a priesthood—every one of us because we are His temple. Think about the responsibility of the caretakers for God’s dwelling place; sacrifices, prayers, intercession, care of the temple itself. If I am His temple individually and we are His temple collectively, we have responsibilities to keep ourselves and His church clean and holy, first of all. Then we have a responsibility to minister to those outside this living church; to make disciples and teach them. Jesus commanded us to love each other and love them. He said to make new disciples and teach them.

How do we do that? We love them into the Kingdom of God. And what better time to do that than now. During every pandemic that has swept the earth, God’s people ministered to those in need. It should be the same with this one. Be careful? Absolutely. Be fearful? Never.

As the psalmist wrote, “Death, where is your victory? Death, where is your sting?” When we know our destiny, the worst that can happen to us is we wake up with Jesus. Let God’s love shine through you as you live each day for Him.

Scriptures marked NIV are taken from the NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION (NIV): Scripture taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION ®. Copyright© 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™. Used by permission of Zondervan

Be the Body of Christ, May 4, 2020

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Today’s Podcast

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Thanks for joining me today for “A Little Walk with God.” I’m your host Richard Agee.

It’s hard to believe four months of the year are behind us. Days creep along when faced with the daily grind of the coronavirus restrictions. Or when fighting the disease on the frontlines of hospitals watching patients struggle for life. But here we are with a fourth of the year gone by. Life rushes by at an incredible pace. Before you know it, time is gone.

During these days, I am trying to be a little more mindful of things going on around me. Couples walking around the block that didn’t have time to do so before. Kids riding bicycles that have laid idle in garages in the past. Friends and neighbors spending time talking across the yard to each other when before this crisis began, there seemed to be little time for any of these activities.

I’ve also tried to filter the news to which I pay attention. Most of the reports give us the number of sick and dead around the world or in our country. They tell us the worst-case scenarios we can expect with the disease and our economy in the months ahead. It’s all the same. Look for, here’s the dreaded word, “unprecedented” events in the coming months.

I’ve come to really dislike the word. We misuse it. It’s not true of this plague. Many alive today never experienced anything like it, but it certainly isn’t unprecedented. Ask anyone who survived the “Great Depression.” We are nowhere close to that stage in this country yet. If you could resurrect those who lived during the “Black Death” that swept through Europe in the middle ages, they would laugh at us. Between 25 and 50 percent of the population died then. Even the 1918 Spanish Flu took 25 million of us.

We cannot call this unprecedented. We can call it a pandemic. We can call it a disaster. We can call us unprepared. We can say a lot of things about it, but we should stop using the word unprecedented. It’s not.

What is also not unprecedented, but rare are the acts of kindness I’m beginning to see around us. Rather than hoarding, I’m starting to see neighbors making grocery runs for neighbors who are at higher risk of severe symptoms if they acquire the virus. I’m seeing those neighborly actions that were so common in the 1950s and 1960s. I’m seeing people talking to each other with real words instead of through mechanical devices. People are beginning to understand that the entertainment industry and sports world might not be the most essential segments of society. Maybe teachers and health professionals and first responders and janitors play a much more indispensable role than we have given them credit over the last few decades.

Maybe we can begin to charge our federal officeholders to become statemen instead of politicians in the future. We have watched enough of their party politics result in tremendous human suffering. It’s time we stop their petty scramble for reelection and keep the good of the people in mind.

But frankly, governments will never take care of people well. They never have. Rome created one of the best welfare systems for their Roman citizens. It eventually failed. The state couldn’t afford it, even with their world-wide conquests and burdensome taxation. So how were people cared for? The fringe was the concern of Jesus. He ministered to outcasts by the governments and religious organizations. So did those who followed his example after his resurrection. We read about them in the second letter Luke wrote to Theophilus concerning the acts of the early followers of Jesus. We call the letter the Book of Acts. Luke writes:

They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. Awe came upon everyone, because many wonders and signs were being done by the apostles. All who believed were together and had all things in common; they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need. Day by day, as they spent much time together in the temple, they broke bread at home and ate their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having the goodwill of all the people. And day by day, the Lord added to their number those who were being saved. (Acts 2:42-47 NIV)

More people became followers of this new way of life because they saw the joy and peace that radiated from those who ministered to them. They saw something different in these Christians. Even though the Romans and the Jewish leaders sought to destroy them, they didn’t fear death or suffering at the hands of these leaders. They exuded peace in the face of death that could not be explained by ordinary means. It was the presence of the living God in their lives that made the difference. And it was this same presence of God that caused them to joyfully share what little they had with others to ensure all had enough to survive the onslaught of the persecution they faced.

Generosity in the face of poverty. Gladness in the face of persecution. Hope where others thought there should only exist hopelessness in their situation. These are the traits of the early Christians that drew men and women into their fold, adding to the church day by day. Their demonstrated love brought people to them and the church, nothing more and nothing less.

So here we are in the middle of this pandemic. Some states and cities relaxed their shelter at home orders freeing us to move about with certain precautions. The pandemic isn’t over. We will have a second wave in the next few months. More will become sick, and many will die before we see the end of this disease.

As Christians, we have an opportunity to extend God’s love during this time. We can act like the Apostles in the early church and be mindful of the needs of those around us. We can praise God and have the goodwill of the people because of the genuine love we have for those around us demonstrated by our actions. Let’s be the living body of Christ that he intended us to be in this crucial time.