A New Diet

Have you ever gone on a diet? Most people have at least attempted to diet. I am one of those people. Recently, I decided that I needed to cut back on my carbohydrates. Carbohydrates are certainly not bad for one to eat, but I found that I needed to watch what I ate in order to obtain the goal in mind.

The author of Hebrews reminds me of my adventures with dieting when he wrote: “The former regulation is set aside because it was weak and useless (for the law made nothing perfect), and a better hope is introduced, by which we draw near to God” (Hebrews 7:18-19, NIV). I am sure that the author was not referring to my non-dieting days when he says the “former regulation.” However before the dieting days of the people of Jesus’ time, the people were at their worst. They did not have a real, personal relationship with God. Yet, Jesus provided a way for people to meet their goal by showing them how to draw near to God.

By a change in my habits, I was able to work at my goal and feel hopeful for the future. This Scripture is not referring to the Old Testament being bad, just set aside the rules and regulations which were made complete in Jesus’ sacrifice. Jesus exemplified the way to draw near to God.

What might you need to set aside for a while to introduce a better hope and draw near to God like Jesus did?

Radically Testifying to Grace???

Acts 20:24 (NIV) – “However, I consider my life worth nothing to me, if only I may finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me-the task of testifying to the gospel of God’s grace.”

Just before this verse, the Apostle Paul makes the statement that he is going to Jerusalem, and because the Holy Spirit has warned him, he recognizes that prison and other hardships are waiting for him. I’m not going to lie here…If I knew something bad was going to happen to me in a place, I would DEFINITELY avoid that place!!! I would be the modern-day Jonah. The person who would hide away from God as long as I possibly could until God had a big fish swallow me and practically force me to realize that I needed to do His will! Yep, that’s me! However, the Apostle Paul has come to realize that His will is all that matters!

God has given the Apostle Paul the task of “testifying to the gospel of God’s grace.” What might this mean? Well, it’s pretty much telling the story of how God can give us something we can’t achieve by ourselves.

This weekend, my church taught on grace. After one of the services, I had someone come up to me and ask, “So, what’s grace?” This person was completely serious, and I honestly couldn’t explain to this person what it was. In Acts, Paul emphasizes that he isn’t called to “define” grace, but to witness, or testify, to “experiencing” grace.

Now, I realize that we don’t sit around and debate theological topics, like many of the cities that the Apostle Paul visited. Nevertheless, we MUST be the people to break through the social norms to get the Gospel of Jesus out into the world…The Gospel of Grace…How God has saved us from death and damnation when we couldn’t save ourselves. Jesus never said, “Go to the ends of the world…until a few generations pass, or until you get tired of being real disciples of mine.” Ladies and gentlemen, this is not a RADICAL idea?! It is one of the most basic parts of being a Christian.

Though I struggle with the thought of facing hardships down the line, the Gospel must be testified in all of our cities. People die (probably) daily in other countries for their beliefs in Jesus Christ, not because they hide them away and hope that someone else will take care of telling the world, but because they are a true witness to the Grace of God. Do you hide away your beliefs? Do you live ‘em out? Would you be willing to face hardship if God asked you to merely walk across the room to witness to someone who might reject you? The Apostle Paul realized that this mission meant more than life. What about you?! What do you live for?

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© Copyright 2010, Samantha Fomera

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Cling to Your Work

This is a sermon that I gave (with God's help) to the Christian church. The manuscript is as follows. Whether this is actually what I said is debatable! :)

CLING TO YOUR WORK ~

Good morning! My name is Samantha for those of you who don’t know me. I am currently a student getting a degree in communications after graduating from High School. And, it is an honor to come back and share with you this morning on this glorious Labor Day weekend. Speaking of which, did you know that the first labor day was 128 years ago as of TODAY?! The first one was started by a company in New York. The initial name of it was “Working Men’s Holiday.” (Yeah, back then, not many women worked outside the home.) I absolutely loved that it was called a holiday. But, since it was to honor all of those working people, I thought we would talk a little bit about work today. Now, for those of you who are unemployed, I think you begin to feel like you are employed by God by the end! So, we are going to Mark 12:28-34.

READ Mark 12:28-34.

The first time I read this passage, I was amazed! I have to do what?! In simpler terms, I have to love God with everything I have, and love people as I love myself. Actually, this passage is simplifying our lives as Christians by quite a bit. The OT contains all the rules and regulations (like for sacrifices) that the Jews followed closely. In fact, some Orthodox Jews still follow many of these rules and regulations…But, at that time, some of the leaders were getting so caught up in the rules. They even created rules about following the rules! The scribe who asked this question already knew the answer…and Jesus answered it correctly. “Yes, the sacrifices are important, but it’s more about love. It’s about loving God and loving people with all that we are.”

Now, I don’t know about you, but that last part (the loving people part) gives me a sense of WORK. It doesn’t sound easy…I love my big red dictionary…Webster defines work as physical or mental effort exerted to do or make something; purposeful activity; labor; toil...Again, toil? Effort?

When was the last time you played with a child? Last night, I went over to a friend’s place. Her niece played with me the ENTIRE time I was there. She is three years old, and certainly has the energy of being three! We went on a walk and played an interesting game of soccer where she sat at the top of a slide and rolled the ball down the slide, and then I would ROLL the ball BACK UP the slide. Talk about work…plus, I had a tree that I kept hitting my head on….Sometimes, I didn’t get the ball to roll all the way back up the slide…I am obviously not skilled with rolling the ball back up the slide. Without the skills to do a job, it makes the job VERY difficult.

The amazing thing is that God gives us each a gift…a skill, or passion. Something to cling to in order to love Him and others more fully. We aren’t going to go there as a congregations, but Romans 12:4-8 lists about seven that you could have, but there are so many! Think about it, what are you passionate about? What do you attach yourself to? Where do you put your time and energy?

I live off-campus now, and as I moved in, I started to find random things that I needed that I never noticed its magical appearance at home. One of those things is cling wrap. Yes, I actually brought my cheap version. We all know how cling wrap works. Usually, you take it off the roll in order to cover something…usually a dish. (Or, if you are like my friend, you wrap the new bride and groom’s car…) Either way, I feel like people are sometimes like cling wrap. Let’s see, there are the people that stick to themselves…they don’t really reach out. Sometimes, they are perceived as being selfish and this can cause loneliness. Usually, when cling wrap starts sticking to itself, it becomes a big ball and gets thrown in the trash. And then there is the cling wrap that sticks to everything except for what it’s supposed to stick to. It sticks to the counter, or the other dish, or your arm. I think we as people can do this too. We turn to possessions, or money, or the strive for success…good grades…business in everything except for what God wants for us. So, the question in regards to humans as cling wrap is…do we effectively cling to the right thing? What exactly are we supposed to cling to?

The mission. Hold on tight to the mission with whatever skills God has given us. At the end of December, the numbers were tallied by a research group called the George Barna Group. They had taken a snapshot of America of where we are at spiritually. I’m not sharing the entire snapshot with you today, but here are the numbers…11% of people have no idea what sin is. Sin being missing the mark…anything that separates us from God is a sin. So, one in ten people you run into have no idea what sin is. Here’s the number that really freaks me out, 39% of people have some concern of sin but they don’t know what to do with it. They know there is something more to life than making money and watching TV…but they don’t know what it is. They don’t know Jesus…FOUR out of 10 people you see as you walk down the street or go to the grocery store know that there is something wrong with their lives but don’t know how to fix it. Furthermore, there are the people who are stuck in the church involvement circle…about 26%. They get up on Sundays, and they come to church, but certainly don’t take it out into their everyday lives. They are going through the motions, and can sometimes be stuck just as much as those who have never stepped in a church. There is less than 1% of people that this group can classify as people who truly love God and love others…We are meant to be different than the world. People…that is our mission. There are people who need to know Jesus. They need to know of His love and majesty. They need to know that there is something more to live for than sex, drugs, and money. They need to know of the break that comes…

Jesus gave us the job in the Great Commission to go to the ends of the world to…(repeat Matthew 28 in "slang")

Just so you know, there is no cheap person, unlike my cheap saran wrap…Each one of us is valuable for Christ to have died on that cross just for you. SO…Cling to the mission, and work at it with all that you are and use those special skills that God has given you to further His kingdom here on earth!

Transformed

This is for the Pray. Study. Grow. Devotional Material that comes out every week at Schweitzer UMC. So, here's the devotion that I submitted in the midst of the NT 90 series.

Acts 9-11

Reread Acts 9:19b-22. I distinctly remember what my mother said to me the first time I came home from college: “What happened to you?!” I had changed drastically in that first month of college that my personality was hard to recognize as the child she had always known. Now, I made my own decisions and lived “in the real world.” Just as that transformation happened when I left for college, a transformation happened when I became a Christian. My values shifted, my decisions were altered, and I received the gift of the Holy Spirit. I am positive that people from school and community events asked themselves…“What happened to her?!” There was evidence of a transformation.

In today’s reading, Saul puzzled the Jews by “proving that Jesus was the Messiah” (Acts 9:22). Saul used to be one who persecuted Jesus’ followers. He even approved of the stoning of Stephen in chapter seven! Obviously, there was a HUGE transformation that happened in Saul’s life because of Jesus.

We, too, have that transformation happen within our lives as we continue with Jesus. People should begin to ask, “What happened to him/her?” Our values should look different than what the world values. Our time should be spent in different ways than how the world spends their time. But we should not forget about the world, for they are the ones we must tell about the change within us!

How have you been transformed by having the love of Jesus in your life?

Stained

Read: Psalm 51

Grape juice. I honestly hate it right now. I was “carefully” removing the communion elements to get rid of them when IT happened. (In other words – I was going around getting people to eat the rest of the bread and juice since they were concentrated and I could not throw them away) THEN, someone called my name, and grape juice splashed all over my new green shirt and khaki pants. Let’s just say, I was NOT a happy person. The grape juice had spilt all over my left pants leg which were initially a light tan and made the juice had made my flip flop all sticky. Soon, my pants were sticking to my leg. (This happened early in the clean up procedure, so I had to live with it for AT LEAST another hour!) Meanwhile, my pants were slowly going through the process of being stained! I began to be concerned only with how my pants were doing. I was aggravated, frustrated, and all of those other words that deal with those emotions that are not pleasant!!!

You too may be stained. You may feel like something happened and it has ruined your life forever! Your thoughts and emotions may be controlled by this stain like mine were with my stained pants. You just can’t seem to shake it from your life. It may or may not have been your fault. (I certainly could blame whoever called my name!) And that hour of my life was probably the longest hour of clean-up that I have ever experienced!!! You may feel like your stain is going to be there forever!!!

Long story made short, my pants are stained. I did not get to them quickly with the right materials. However, your life with your stains doesn’t have to be like that for forever!!! If you allow Jesus to come into your life…FULLY…then He can wash your life to be free of sin. You don’t have to have those nasty stains anymore. All you have to do is accept His offer. Once you do, know that all of your stains are gone! He sincerely washes you white as snow in regards to your slate of sins! No more nasty grape juice on you!!!

This song tells all: Jesus Paid It All - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tmuxxc00AHo

Thriving Tradition

2 Thessalonians 2:13-17 (NIV) and Revelation 3:1-3 (Out of the Message translation)

Again, for those of you who don’t know me, my name is Samantha Fomera. I grew up in this church, and I still love coming back to see all of you! As I have been preparing this morning’s message, I kept coming back to this idea of what’s traditional. I guess you could say that I go to one of those “hip” churches now. It’s the United Methodist church that has really loud music, lots of people, including kids, and five services! Most people don’t consider it a very “traditional” church. This made me wonder what exactly the word traditional means. Because I have a quality education, I know that traditional stems from the word tradition. And because I love my giant dictionary of over 1500 pages, I looked it up! So, here’s what I came up with...Tradition is a long-established custom or practice that has the effect of an unwritten law. So I had a general idea that I was going to talk about tradition when I came to speak to you…wasn’t really sure about much else. Because I like being fancy, when Pastor Paul asked me what I wanted to name the sermon, I said the first adjective that popped into my mind that began with the letter “t.” That happened to be the word “Thriving.” This idea of “thriving tradition” stuck with me the past couple of weeks as I’ve been thinking and praying…Now, I never know what God might send my way when I say yes to teaching a group of people…But, I didn’t think He was going to send me a bunch of numbers…turns out, that’s exactly what He sent!

Within my campus ministry, I have a group of college students that meet every week to grow together and in our relationship with God…And recently, we have been talking about what seems to be this post-Christian culture. A culture that doesn’t put God into everything they do…but a culture that separates not just Christianity, but religion as a whole, and puts it into their box…it’s a thing to do on Sunday mornings. So, in this post-Christian culture, a group called the Barna Group did a research study that I found to be really interesting. They asked a large group of outsiders, people who don’t call themselves Christians, ages 16-29, to rate a set of phrases as they pertained to present day Christianity. Some of these statistics may come as a surprise, others may not. Here’s what they found…

87% of these outsiders said that Christians are judgmental.

85% said that Christians are hypocritical – saying one thing, and doing another.

And here are the ones that I really cringed at as I was thinking of thriving tradition…

72% said that we are out of touch with reality,

68% said that we are boring, and

78% said that we are OLD-FASHIONED!

Obviously, outsiders do not see present-day Christianity as thriving. And, I gotta say, that even as a young person in the church…that scares me. Not many pastors preach on Revelation, but I’m going to bring it in this morning…Here are the words from Revelation 3, verses one through three, and verse six out of the Message translation…

“Write this to Sardis, to the Angel of the church. The One holding the Seven Spirits of God in one hand, a firm grip on the Seven Starts with the other, speaks:

‘I see right through your work. You have a reputation for vigor and zest, but you’re dead, stone dead. Up on your feet! Take a deep breath! Maybe there’s life in you yet. But I wouldn’t know it by looking at your busywork; nothing of God’s work has been completed. Your condition is desperate. Think of the gift you once had in your hands, the Message you heard with your ears – grasp it again and turn back to God. If you pull the covers back over your head and sleep on, oblivious to God, I’ll return when you least expect it, break into your life like a thief in the night.”

From what I gathered from the commentaries and books I have read, Sardis was a church that is like sooo many churches today. They get busy doing lots of things, or even just a few, and they forget why they are doing it. This church in Sardis had forgotten to keep the main thing of the Gospel of Jesus Christ as being number one in their priorities. They forgot about the ultimate tradition that Jesus put in place, to go out and make disciples of all nations.

Ya know, I really don’t like automatic toilets…I’ve always been scared of them. Unfortunately, they are all over campus…especially the over-reactive ones. They are the toilets who go off before you do anything, while you are takin’ care of business, and after you are done! It’s not like they do anything other than flush! They just sit there! People are like automatic toilets too! They do the same thing over and over. Sometimes, they do the same thing over when it isn’t even needed! Now, that’s great if it’s an awesome tradition, right?! Then why do outsiders consider us boring, out of touch with reality, and old-fashioned!? My guess is that we aren’t thriving at our traditions, the traditions of the church. We may even be stuck in the same rut that we have been in for quite some time, like an automatic toilet.

Along with the definition of a tradition, I also found the definition for traditionalism. Traditionalism is the EXCESSIVE ATTACHMENT to a tradition. So, it’s an easy cure…we just have to make sure our traditions are good and thriving! Since we are into the dictionary, to thrive is to be prospering, growing, successful, and effective.

So, what are some traditions worth being excessively attached to? At my church, we have what are called LifeGroups. LifeGroups are small groups specifically designed to work like the early church did, kind of like house churches. They are based off of Acts 2:42 “They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.” They gathered together to eat, talk about life including Jesus, and pray. It was effective in the early church, and it has been effective in my church too. LifeGroup has become a thriving tradition that I hold onto as I meet with my group every other Monday night. Traditions of fellowship, prayer, study, and missions are all very important to becoming closer to God. Traditions are meant to bring us closer to God, rather than to keep things the way they have always been!

What are some traditions you can practice to bring you closer to God? How about the mission…the mission to make disciples...To teach others about the Word of God? Or maybe it’s to help with our tradition of vacation bible school? Perhaps you can become addicted to reading the bible…Or to prayer. Maybe, you can start a tradition for yourself of doing more mission work…or planning a retreat for women, men, or youth or starting a LifeGroup, or similar small group to go through life together and study Scripture and pray. Once you find your niche – what tradition you really love, go at it, and allow it to be molded for God’s purposes…for His work.

I know I didn’t talk much about our 2 Thessalonians Scripture, but here’s where it ties in…God will strengthen us through the process. Verse 16 out of the message: “May Jesus Himself and God our Father, who reached out in love and surprised you with gifs of unending help and confidence, put a fresh heart in you, invigorate your work, enliven your speech.” A fresh heart definitely doesn’t sound dead to me!

This week, I have been house- and dog-sitting for a couple at my church. They told me that I only had to take care of the dogs…that the fish, rabbits, bearded dragon lizard, and the house plants would be fine until they returned. But sure enough…a day or two into it, one of the plants started lookin’ pretty droopy! Now, I do not have a green thumb what-so-ever. I tried to grow strawberries once, and I failed miserably. So, I had a choice…I could remind myself that it isn’t my responsibility to take care of that plant to make it grow, or I can see if the one thing I know how to do will help…that is, give it a drink of water. That simple act of giving the plant a drink of water helped that plant to perk up in no time. I did what I could to help it…and God make it grow!

God can do the same thing with our churches and the same thing with our spiritual lives if we let Him. We are partners with God to help others know the changing power of God’s love. We are partners with God to help those in need, including houseplants. We are partners with God for becoming coffee that slowly changes into yummy goodness, rather than over-reactive toilets that sit and do the same thing over and over again. We are partners with God who are to carry out traditions that thrive…always keeping the main mission in mind. To make disciples of Jesus Christ. And to do it until the end.

I encourage you to find a thriving tradition, one that you can become excessively attached to for the kingdom of God, and stand firm. Allow God to change your life, so that you can be a blessing to others.

Let’s pray…

“God, I ask that you would come into our lives today…and show us exactly what tradition we need to hold on tight to. God, allow us to give up any traditions that may be like an over-reactive toilet to us. And show us what new tradition you might have us create. Be in our traditions and help them thrive. For it is in Your name we pray…Amen.”