Straightened Out!

Luke 13:10-13
On a Sabbath Jesus was teaching in one of the synagogues, and a woman was there who had been crippled by a spirit for eighteen years. She was bent over and could not straighten up at all. When Jesus saw her, he called her forward and said to her, "Woman, you are set free from your infirmity." Then he put his hands on her, and immediately she straightened up and praised God.

After teaching about repentance and warning people not to jump to conclusions about their own righteousness, Jesus comes in contact with a woman that is crippled. For eighteen ears she had suffered. For eighteen years she had endured the stares. For eighteen years she had been handicapped. But then she experiences the Savior. He straightens her up. Notice that he did not straighten her out.

That's what many of us want to do – we want to straighten people out. We love to tell them to get their act together. We shrug our shoulders and wonder why they are the way they are. Maybe we ought to be about helping them get straightened up and not out. Spend our time addresses their needs and not our expectations.

That is what Jesus did and maybe we would be better servants if we did the same. When that happens, maybe people will be more willing to praise God.

A New Hope

I have not written in a while. I don’t really know why. I have been consumed in a study and preaching from the book of Amos. I have learned a lot and hope that the congregation I serve has too.

Today we know that we have a new president. I hear words that this is a wonderful display of how much better we get along because just forty years ago our nation went through the wars of racial injustice. I am thankful that we are not judging people by the color of their skin – at least on the surface.

There is hope for a renewed hope in the economy and the end of the war. I pray that our new president can lead our country in that direction. People need jobs and no one wants to fight a war – justified or otherwise.

But Amos reminds me that when a nation trusts in itself, economically, militarily, philosophically, or otherwise, then God will not bless that nation. Israel thought that her blessings economically and materially showed that God approved of her standing. Amos told them and us that this is not always the case.God does not bless a nation because of what it writes on its money, the words of its pledge, or what it carves on its buildings. God blesses a nation because of its righteousness.

That is what America needs to do. We don't need to trust in a new president or a new economic direction, or just getting out of a costly and controversial war. We need to be righteous. That is what God challenges his church to do and each one of us. That is my prayer for America.