Today is a day of gratitude and celebration! As a community, we have much to be thankful for: We’re celebrating 9 years together! Happy Anniversary Highlands Church. Our series on Spiritual Formation ends today as we focus on the spiritual practices of gratitude and celebration. Give thanks to God for God is good. God’s steadfast love for each of us endures forever. What a difference it would make if we could view our lives not as things we achieve, but rather gifts we receive.

It is good to give thanks to the Lord,

Give thanks to God for God is good. God’s steadfast love endures forever

Den Gracias a Dios porque Dios es bueno. El amor constante de Dios perdura para siempre

As human beings, we are conditioned to make ourselves comfortable. But it is in the process of remaining uncomfortable that we begin to learn humility – humility that leads us to set aside the privileges we have in this life in order to understand those who don’t share the same experiences. Humility leads us to life-giving expressions of justice and kindness – and it is this to which we are all called.

Think of yourselves the way Christ Jesus thought of himself. He had equal status with God but didn’t think so much of himself that he had to cling to the advantages of that status no matter what. Not at all. When the time came, he set aside the privileges of deity and took on the status of a slave, became human!Having become human, he stayed human. It was an incredibly humbling process. He didn’t claim special privileges. Instead, he lived a selfless, obedient life and then died a selfless, obedient death—and the worst kind of death at that—a crucifixion.

Because of that obedience, God lifted him high and honored him far beyond anyone or anything, ever, so that all created beings in heaven and on earth—even those long ago dead and buried—will bow in worship before this Jesus Christ, and call out in praise that he is the Master of all, to the glorious honor of God the Father.

If you’ve gotten anything at all out of following Christ, if his love has made any difference in your life, if being in a community of the Spirit means anything to you, if you have a heart, if you care— then do me a favor: Agree with each other, love each other, be deep-spirited friends. Don’t push your way to the front; don’t sweet-talk your way to the top. Put yourself aside, and help others get ahead. Don’t be obsessed with getting your own advantage. Forget yourselves long enough to lend a helping hand.

Opportunities to Engage in Conversations on Race & Privilege

(Free) Fall Film Series – Friday, Sept 7 @7:00pm – “Standing in the Gap”

Waking Up White: Finding Myself in the Story of Race with a Book Discussion Group forming this fall

Resource Library: in the lobby or on our website www.highlandschurchdenver.org

There is much important talk about having and maintaining healthy boundaries in our relationships today. But it is not a new concept. Jesus had extraordinarily healthy boundaries which is the only way it was possible for him to accomplish his God-given mission, have the world condemn and crucify him for his choices, and end his days saying, “It is finished!” (I completed what I set out to do!)

“I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me— 15 just as the Father knows me and I know the Father—and I lay down my life for the sheep.16 I have other sheep that are not of this sheep pen. I must bring them also. They too will listen to my voice, and there shall be one flock and one shepherd. 17 The reason my Father loves me is that I lay down my life—only to take it up again.18 No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again. This command I received from my Father.” 19 The Jews who heard these words were again divided. 20 Many of them said, “He is demon-possessed and raving mad. Why listen to him?”

Jesus loves us too much to leave us alone in our comfort and complacency while the work of the kingdom of God must go on through us since we are the only body he has left on earth

Christ’s love requires nothing of us but loving like Christ demands everything of us.

One who was there had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. 6 When Jesus saw him lying there and learned that he had been in this condition for a long time, he asked him, “Do you want to get well?” 7 “Sir,” the invalid replied, “I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred. While I am trying to get in, someone else goes down ahead of me.”8 Then Jesus said to him, “Get up! Pick up your mat and walk.” 9 At once the man was cured; he picked up his mat and walked.

Jesus looked at him and loved him. “One thing you lack,” he said. “Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.”

Our International Advocacy Team returned from Africa just days ago with reports of new friends, new perspectives, and new questions about God and the world. We visited Uganda and Rwanda to explore ways of coming alongside the people of East Africa in order to bring more justice, generosity, and love into the world. Together with our new friends we’re developing a plan to form sustainable, collaborative partnerships. As we discover our next steps, we’re aware that we have to let God-in-Christ jostle us into new ways of being, thinking, and serving. “We have this treasure in clay jars so that if may be made clear that this extraordinary power belongs to God and does not come from us.” It’s a new day for Highlands Church and Africa where gave us renewed determination to be difference makers.

God’s way of defeating evil is with more love, not more violence. Jesus showed us what it looks like, not to draw the sword but to love those whom evil would harm or push  to the edges. Jesus was our champion of the peaceful resistance movement against everything that diminishes all that God loves and blesses.

Finally, all of you, be like-minded, be sympathetic, love one another, be compassionate and humble. 9 Do not repay evil with evil or insult with insult. On the contrary, repay evil with blessing, because to this you were called so that you may inherit a blessing.

“You have heard that it was said, ‘Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.’ 39 But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also.

It is one of the most famous parables Jesus ever told. The lawyer asked, “Who is my neighbor?” Jesus said every human being is your neighbor. The lawyer did not really want to hear Jesus’s reply. But here is an important question. Is it possible to love your neighbor if you cannot love yourself? That is a question that must be answered.

8 The men of Israel took captive from their fellow Israelites who were from Judah, two hundred thousand wives, sons and daughters. They also took a great deal of plunder, which they carried back to Samaria.

9 But a prophet of the Lord named Oded was there, and he went out to meet the army when it returned to Samaria. He said to them, “Because the Lord, the God of your ancestors, was angry with Judah, he gave them into your hand. But you have slaughtered them in a rage that reaches to heaven. 10 And now you intend to make the men and women of Judah and Jerusalem your slaves. But aren’t you also guilty of sins against the Lord your God? 11 Now listen to me! Send back your fellow Israelites you have taken as prisoners, for the Lord’s fierce anger rests on you.”

The Man Watching

…What is extraordinary and eternal

I mean the angel who appeared

Whoever was beaten by that angel

Winning does not tempt that man

“We’re not dealing with a god who needs to be shaken awake by heroic measures before he’ll pay attention to our interests … We’re dealing with somebody who’s totally on our side 
already and with whom we don’t have to negotiate a thing. He’s gone and negotiated the whole deal all by himself in Jesus …”

The Parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector

13 “But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’

14 “I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.”

Jesus told a story: when we feed hungry people, we’re actually feeding jesus. When we give water to a thirsty person, we’re satiating the thirst of Jesus. When we visit someone, anyone! in prison, we’re visiting Jesus. And so we will care for the least of these, as though they were actually Jesus. Vulnerable children, still separated from their families- these are among the least of the least in our world right now.

One of our spiritual practices is to be a place where justice and kindness kiss, where we know beyond all knowing that each individual person has immense worth simply because they were created by God.

Consider giving financially so that more children can be reunited with their families. We have ways you can help!

There is no longer Jew or [Gentile], there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.

There is no longer Jew or [Gentile], there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for we are all one in Christ Jesus.

“…when the Son of Man comes in glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit upon his glorious throne. All the nations will be gathered in the presence of Christ.”

Whenever you feed someone who’s hungry, you’re feeding Jesus.

Whenever you Whenever you give a drink of water to someone who is thirsty, you gave a drink of water to Jesus. Whenever you welcome a stranger into your home or into your world, you will have invited Jesus into your life. Whenever you provide clothing for someone who has been striped naked, you give clothing to Jesus. Whenever you care for a sick person, you care for Jesus. Whenever you visit someone in prison – whether that someone was convicted wrongfully or that someone is as guilty as dirt, you’re visiting Jesus.

I tell you the truth, Jesus said, when you did any of these loving, caring, serving things to one of the least of these my brothers and sisters, you were doing it to me!

I tell you the truth, when you refused to help the least of these my brothers and sisters, you were refusing to help me.

God is not hidden such that we must search and find God. God is within us; present to us and for us. God will never leave or forsake. This presence of God is not something we create or make happen; it is a reality to which we awaken and can experience regularly by “practicing the presence of God”, as the 17th century Carmelite monk, Brother Lawrence taught us from his job scrubbing pots in the kitchen of the monastery.

So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.Isaiah

Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or terrified because of them, for the Lord your God goes with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you.”  – Deuteronomy 31:6 (NIV)

And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.

The 7 Steps to a Successful Quiet Time!!!

1. PRAY

As an integral part of our Spiritual Formation, today we look at how our relationships form and transform us, and more specifically, we will be asking the question, “How can we better love and see the other as someone who bears the image of God?” In the Jewish tradition, the name YHWH bespeaks of our inability to fully comprehend and/or reduce God to our mere understandings, and if that’s the same image we inherently carry within us, how can we, then, see one another as ever-unfolding, wondrous mysteries that, Iike YHWH, cannot be fully grasped but, rather, simply experienced?

26Then God said, “Let us make humanity in our image to resemble us so that they may take charge of the fish of the sea, the birds in the sky, the livestock, all the earth, and all the crawling things on earth.”

“To think of ourselves as made in the image of YHWH – of I AM WHO I AM – is to remember that, what cannot be said and defined about us is ever more important than anything that can.”