4 Minute Devotions: World AIDS Day - Past Mistakes

Today is World AIDS Day, a day of supporting those who suffer from HIV and a time to seek a cure. It’s also a day when the Christian Church needs to repent of our unpleasant and uncaring past.

Revelation 14:19 The angel swung his sickle on the earth, gathered its grapes and threw them into the great winepress of God's wrath.

In the early eighties, when we first diagnosed HIV/AIDS, a majority of evangelical church leaders preached that this was the result of God’s wrath being unleashed upon the homosexual community. Pastors gleefully berated the gay community and scornfully sentenced homosexuals to a slow, agonizing, and isolated death. Instead of recognizing the disease as an opportunity to show Christian compassion, churches delighted in demonizing, leperizing, and shunning a whole community of people who needed love, comfort, and acceptance.

The consequences of the mistakes that the church made way back then are still with us today. Because we allowed false prophets of hate to take over our pulpits, we lost all credibility. A whole generation has grown up since those hellish days, and now the church is faced with its own terminal condition, brought about by our reckless rhetoric and inhumane attacks on those who were defenseless, destitute and dying.

Perhaps we will never regain the trust of society because of our persecution of those whose lifestyles were different from ours. I guess it all depends upon whether we are willing to listen to our critics, or if we only want to hear what we say about ourselves.

Today is World AIDS Day and many people of different faiths, including Christians, are praying for the victims of this disease. If every Christian Church was to see this as a day of repentance for our past abuses, and act upon it by supporting those who suffer though AIDS around the world, then just maybe our planet would be able to see Jesus. At the moment, most people cannot see Christ because of the Christians that get in His way. For once, myself included, we need to step back and let the true Christ emerge – the Savior of the Dying, the Healer of the Nations, and the Loving Lord of all the Earth.

Prayer: Lord Jesus, forgive us for allowing our pride and prejudices, our self-righteousness and severe spirituality to hinder Your work amongst the lost and unloved, the diseased and dying. Help us to see every person as a child of God in need of hope, love, and care. Keep us from demonizing those whom we do not fully know or understand. In Your Holy Name, we pray for the complete healing of AIDS throughout the entire world. Amen.

All Clergy Should Undergo HIV Tests, Says UN Adviser

CHURCH LEADERS should con­sider being tested for HIV to help banish the stigma attached to testing, an expert at UNAIDS (the Joint United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS) has said in advance of World AIDS Day next Monday.

A Lambeth Palace spokeswoman, responding on Wednesday, said that African bishops had already had themselves tested as an example to others, and that the Archbishop of Canterbury believed that church leaders should take a lead in educat­ing people about the issues.

In part of a statement expected on Monday, Dr Williams will say: “Recognizing that people living with HIV is us not them, whether its leaders and congregations, congrega­tions and ‘outsiders’, it’s us. It’s all of our business . . . church leaders and church congregations taking responsi­­bilities for educating the wider public.”

Sally Smith, the Geneva-based UNAIDS partnership adviser who called for the testing, said: “This is an important way for religious and community leaders to break down the stigma often associated with HIV and testing.”

Everyone should know their HIV status, to make informed health decisions, she said in an interview published in full on the Church Times website today.

Read the rest of the story here…

4 Minute Devotionals: Living with Lions

Nature can be a terrifying and destructive force. Our faith is in God, who is above nature. When we seek Him, God enables us to find what we need. A devotional about he lions of Serengeti and my daughter's upcoming mission trip to Tanzania.

Podcast version here

Psalm 34:10 The lions may grow weak and hungry, but those who seek the LORD lack no good thing.

I was watching a nature program on the Discovery channel the other night. It was about a super pride of lions in the Serengeti Park of East Africa. The savagery of these big cats is awesome and their strength is absolutely amazing. When I watched them pull down their prey and feast on the corpses, it made me shudder and revere the lions at the same time. I was quite thankful to be viewing them in the comfort of my home and not somewhere on the great plains of Africa.

I also watched the program because it was based in the Tanzanian part of the Serengeti. My youngest daughter Lauren will be going on mission there for thirteen weeks, starting on the 1st June. She’s already left the United States and is enjoying a week with her family and friends in Scotland. She’s also preparing herself physically, mentally, and spiritually for what I call her ‘African adventure’. I hope that she also gets to see some of the wildlife in Tanzania and maybe a few lions, but at a safe distance.

The Discovery program showed some of the lean times that the super pride endured. When prey was scarce, some of the younger cubs starved and the older lions grew very weak. It’s part of the process of living in the jungle, where the survival of the fittest is always the law of the land. It was distressing to watch some of the weaker cubs die, but it also made me thankful for the bounty of blessings that God has given to my family and me.

I guess that’s why I like this verse from Psalm 34. It reminds all of us about the forces of nature which cause hardship at times to wildlife, but it also describes our dependency upon God’s favor and blessings. He is above the powers of nature – which is the meaning of the word ‘supernatural’ – so when we truly seek Him, He enables us to meet our needs.

I hope and pray that when Lauren works with the orphaned children in Tanzania that her world view will change and her dependency upon God will be stronger than ever. And when she returns at the end of August, I look forward to learning new aspects of faith from her.

Prayer: Lord God, we thank You for the bounty of blessings in our lives, especially in these troubled times where thousands of others have lost everything due to the ravaging and terrifying power of Nature. With our resources, help us to share the blessings of what we have with those who have not. Teach us to depend upon the riches of Your grace, so that we, in turn, can give of our lives to those in most need. In Christ’s Holy Name, we pray. Amen.

Feedback Question: When have you experienced God’s bounty and then used it as a blessing to share with others?

John Stuart is the pastor of Erin Presbyterian Church in Knoxville, Tennessee. Send your feedback answers to him at pastor@erinpresbyterian.org.

Daily Devotions: The Road to Africa

My youngest daughter Lauren has just set up her own blog at www.theroadtoafrica.blogspot.com
She is planning to go on a special mission trip this summer to Tanzania in Africa. She’ll spend thirteen weeks working with children who have been orphaned through the AIDS epidemic that has swept through that region. It will be hard work and physically demanding. It will cost a lot of money, but Lauren believes that God is asking her to go, so she doesn’t want to disappoint or disobey Him.
Podcast version here

As a parent, I am both concerned and proud. It’s a major task and one that will almost certainly change her life. As a pastor, I am pleased that she is listening to God and I pray that He will both guide and protect her.

Psalm 22:27 All the ends of the earth will remember and turn to the LORD, and all the families of the nations will bow down before him.

Her willingness to do missionary work like this reminds me that Christ’s Church reaches all over the world. People in other places, nations, and continents have come to know the Lord and, as the psalmist wrote so long ago, “all the families of the earth bow down before Him.” I would love to be with Lauren as she worships with the Tanzanian people. I would love to experience their joy for the Lord in the midst of such trying and hard circumstances. I think if I did, it would also change my life forever. But this is Lauren’s calling, not mine.

One day in eternity, we are going to gather in heaven and we will see countless numbers of people of different races and cultures cheerfully and joyfully worshipping the Lord. I don’t know what I’ll feel at that point, but I expect that my heart will be bursting with a joy that can only be experienced in heaven. I guess John Newton best summed up the feeling:

“When we’ve been there ten thousand years, Bright shining as the sun,
We’ve no less days to sing God’s praise, Than when we’d first begun!”

Prayer: Lord Jesus, all around the world billions of people are praying to You today. They are expressing their concerns and joys, their hopes and fears, their dreams and problems. It is amazing to think that You hear each one and You love them all individually. Help us this day to meet and greet people everywhere as children of God and servants of Your Kingdom. In Your Holy Name, we pray. Amen.