Month: March 2017

When in high school I belonged to our school temperance association.  For a reason beyond my understanding, the faculty sponsors took us to a night court in Baltimore.  I had never seen anything like that.  They must have emptied the drunk tank just as we arrived.  The courtroom was awful.  I can still remember the smell of cheap booze, vomit and men and women who had not bathed in who knows how long.  One by one in an assembly line they appeared before the judge, pleaded guilty to whatever charge, and were sentenced to time served and shuffled out the back door.  Next, they brought in the “ladies of the night” and once again one by one they plead guilty and I remember they were each fined $50.00 and shuffled out the back door.  For a teenage boy raised in a middle class home that made sure I got to church each weekend, this was another planet.
 
I hadn’t thought of this in years until this evening when I was reading one of my favorite books, The Desire of Ages – a life of Christ.   I read the following paragraph and this all came flooding back.  “Our Redeemer has opened the way so that the most sinful, the most needy, the most oppressed and despised, may find access to the Father.  All may have a home in the mansions which Jesus has gone to prepare.”
 
As I read the above paragraph, I suddenly realized my pharisaic attitude of feeling superior to those poor souls thrust me into their group.  Thankfully Jesus will forgive me.  Even snobs can be redeemed.  “Wherefore he is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him, seeing he ever lives to make intercession for them.”  Hebrews 7:25

In II Corinthians 3:6 Paul wrote, “He has made us competent as ministers of a new covenant—not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.”  I have watched good people struggle in a diminished state of despair over their inability to perfectly keep God’s law.  When they are honest with themselves they know deep down they don’t measure up.  Trying to keep the letter of the law kills.  The alternative is to be filled with the Spirit and understand the law in terms of love, true justice and safety from harm.  Keeping the spirit of the law brings life and joy because God gave us minds to discern how a loving person will react in any situation.  With the power of the Spirit that we CAN do!
 
Once grasped we can begin to understand Ecclesiastics 3. “There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens: a time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to uproot, a time to kill and a time to heal, . . . a time to love and a time to hate, a time for war and a time for peace.”
 
Last week in Afghanistan, terrorists donned doctor’s garb, entered a hospital, went floor by floor, room by room slaughtering. Some people have given up the right to life.  The letter of the law would restrict justice.  The spirit of the law would allow loving, thinking, compassionate people to do the right thing to those animals. 
 
A life in Christ is a life of comprehension of what the law is and that true obedience is responding to the spirit and not the letter.

We are having a wonderful winter storm.  The wind is blowing the snow against the windows and making groaning sounds in the trees.   We knew it was coming.  For days the weather people were telling us almost to the minute when it would arrive.  So yesterday afternoon the supermarkets were packed with people stocking up on milk and bread.  One interviewed lady said she stood in the checkout lane for over 40 minutes.  I don’t understand.  First of all, the storm will be gone tomorrow and the roads will be plowed.  Are cupboards so bare people can’t live until tomorrow morning?  When they shop do they only get enough for one day?  Secondly, they have known about this for five days.
 
I’m reminded of Noah’s ark.  No one but Noah and his immediate family were saved.  But people had 120 years to show up.  Instead they pounded on the door when it started to rain.   In Matthew 24 Jesus speaks of a time of trouble climaxing in His second coming.  If the human pattern continues that means millions of people will try at the last moment to get ready.  When we consider how important this is, why do we wait?  Maybe we want to see more of the signs spoken of by Jesus.  But considering our hearts can stop at any second we might not be around to see the signs of the end.  We might not make it to the end of today. 
 
This is a bit frightening and the last thing I want to do is to scare someone into accepting Jesus.   It is so much better to come to Him by responding to His wooing call of love.  But the truth is He loves us so much He will take us for any reason.  Scary or not He wants us.

When my older son was three we parked by a meter.  I reached into my pocket for a dime but inadvertently dropped it and watched it fall into a storm drain.  It wasn’t very deep and I could see the dime. I thought I could pick up the drain cover and lower my son in to pick up my shiny dime. But it looked very dirty and who knew what else was down there.  There was no way I would lower my son into a sewer for any amount of money.
 
But that is exactly what God did with His Son.  He lowered Him into this sewer of sin not with a chance He would be harmed, but with the sure knowledge the rats would attack and kill Him.  There is no way He would have done that for any amount of silver or gold.  God owns all the silver and gold in the universe.  He did it for something far more precious – YOU.  You, the apple of His eye, are worth every pain, every lash of the whip, each nail, each thorn, each slap and each mocking insult. 
 
I cannot begin to think I am worth that.  Sorry, but I cannot think you are worth that.  But God’s love is so vast and so broad and so much deeper than I can imagine.  If He tells me I am worth it.  If He tells me you are worth it.  I will take Him at His word and believe His promise that He will return to take us to our eternal home.  When we first enter His throne room and see the splendid glory of Jesus we will thrill to think He left that for earth and the cross.   How can it be?  It doesn’t make sense.  But then love rarely does. 

The current world record for the fastest time running and winning a marathon is 2 hours and 2 minutes and 57 seconds.  The four men who last broke the marathon record were wearing Adidas shoes. However, Nike has just unveiled a new shoe designed to aid runners in breaking the two hour barrier. The question has arisen, “Will these new shoes give a runner an unfair advantage?” 
 
I certainly wouldn’t know, but I know I love having an advantage when facing any challenge.  Diligently studying before a major exam is definitely an advantage over a casual student.  Having a GPS in one’s pocket when in a forest is surely an advantage over someone wandering in circles.  Here is my favorite. “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me.”  Galatians 2:20.
 
When we are determined to be more Christ-like, when we are struggling with a major temptation, when we long for victory over self, when we want to show God how grateful we are for the gift of salvation, when we want to be a better person and aren’t doing so well, – then it’s time to take advantage of the advantage offered us.  Real victory happens when Jesus lives in us.  The victory that follows isn’t because we are so determined, disciplined and stoic; it’s because we have an advantage.  Is it an unfair advantage?  Not in the least.  Jesus earned the right to live within us by His sacrifice on the cross. He waits for an invitation.  He said, “I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in.”  Revelation 3:20.  Now that’s what I call having a wonderful advantage.

When my older son was very small he loved collecting stamps.  He, literally, spent hours sorting and resorting by changing categories. My wife’s father also had a significant collection, especially concentrating on the stamps of the Caribbean and Central America. One year for Christmas he gave them to my son.  It was a huge box with thousands of stamps. My son never played with his stamps again.  It was no longer the fruit of his efforts it was the fruit of his grandfather’s.
 
When we are small we often say to our parents, “Let me.”  We want to do it.  There is little joy in someone doing it for us.  We love to master something and then say, “Daddy, watch me.”  Perhaps this is part of the reason most religions of the world are focused on works.  And Christianity, the only religion not relying on works, is often polluted by manmade rules of don’t eat this or drink that.  We are instructed to make some manner of atonement to show our sorrow for our sins.
 
Paul addressed this to the church of Colossi. It was obvious someone was perverting the pure Gospel Paul had taught and so Paul wrote, “Therefore do not let anyone judge you by what you eat or drink, or with regard to a religious festival, a New Moon celebration or a Sabbath day. These are a shadow of the things that were to come; the reality, however, is found in Christ.”
 
Contrary to our desire to do it ourselves, salvation is not a do it yourself project.  It is the one thing, the most valuable thing, we cannot do ourselves.  We must acknowledge our inability and let Jesus do it for us.

Robert Frost’s famous poem The Road Not Taken ends with the classic lines, “Two roads diverged in a wood, and I took the one less traveled by and that has made all the difference.”  I cannot tell how many times through the years I have heard people reference this passage to themselves.  I have never heard anyone say they took the road most traveled.  We love ourselves and think we are very unique from all others. And while that is true in a limited sense but the larger truth is we are all alike.  If this were not true there could not be medical science.  We need to be like each other so doctors can diagnose our problems because we have symptoms that digress from the norm.  Without norms it would be impossible to help the ill.
 
The same is true psychologically.  Without norms we couldn’t know when and how someone was maladjusted and what to do to help them.  It is an extremely rare person who does not automatically use Freud’s ego-defense mechanisms.  But it seems that our love for ourselves deceives us into thinking we are outliers several standard deviations above the norm.  We are the protagonist of our life story and therefore we think we took the road less traveled.  It blinds us to the reality of the millions of others crowding the same road as we. Yes – it is true each of us is a unique one of a kind being and the irony is that very uniqueness is what makes us the same as others.
 
When God made us He said, “Let us make man in our image.”  Man was a distinctly new creature different from angels and other heavenly beings described in the book of Revelation.  We must accept the gift of eternal life so we can meet those others.  It will be an eternity of discovery.

It’s 7:00 PM and I haven’t eaten for several hours.  I’m working on getting my best suit to fit again.   The network evening news is finished and before I can find the remote I am under attack by Friendly’s restaurant.  Right there in front of me in glorious hi-definition color are three scrumptious slices of French toast layered in whipped cream.  Heaps of bright red strawberries dripping with vivid red syrup slowly dripping down the side of the toast are sensually placed in front of me.  Where is this company’s moral code?  Have they no sense of honor?  Can I not be safe in the sanctuary of my own home without being enticed beyond my mortal strength?  I am reacting like one of Pavlov’s dogs.
 
I will be the master of my own destiny.  The spirit is willing but the flesh is so weak.  Psalm 1:1 is playing itself out.  I am sitting in the seat of the hungry and I will not yield.   Not only will I not go to Friendly’s (only 2 miles away) I will not go to my fridge and stare inside. There is some fantastic left-over coleslaw and I shall not look.  Well, maybe just a taste.  And there it is – “Just a taste.”   One bite leads to a second bite and the game is over and I have lost. 
 
One would think my advanced years would have diminished my appetite.  Not so. I don’t want to be the master of self for that reason.  I want to with Paul, “offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship.”   But I can’t.  And so I return to the only solution possible – rely on the inner working of the Holy Spirit.  It’s the only way. 

Five hundred and one years ago Martin Luther, then a professor at Wittenberg, began to explain to his students Paul’s letter to the Romans.  It was Romans 1:17 that ignited Luther’s quest to reform Christianity, “For in the gospel the righteousness of God is revealed–a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: ‘The righteous will live by faith.’”  Luther’s commentary on Romans was the fruit of those lectures. 
 
He begins his introduction with the following challenge.  “This Epistle is really the chief part of the New Testament and the very purest Gospel, and is worthy not only that every Christian should know it word for word, by heart, but occupy himself with it every day, as the daily bread of the soul. It can never be read or pondered too much, and the more it is dealt with the more precious it becomes, and the better it tastes.”
 
At times I fear we are all a bit like Peter, who declared that Paul could be quite difficult to understand. See II Peter 3:16.  For those of us who are not as brilliant as Paul, we might want to begin by concentrating on some of the more familiar passages in Romans and then expand out from them.  The end of chapter 8 is a great passage. “No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
 
I know that is a very familiar text so that makes it a great place to start.  That’s good pedagogy.

I have to confess that sometimes David fills me with frustration.  I read Psalm 17 and wonder if this man lived in denial.  Please note.  “Hear me, LORD, my plea is just; listen to my cry.  Hear my prayer— it does not rise from deceitful lips. Let my vindication come from you; may your eyes see what is right.  Though you probe my heart, though you examine me at night and test me, you will find that I have planned no evil; my mouth has not transgressed. Though people tried to bribe me, I have kept myself from the ways of the violent through what your lips have commanded.  My steps have held to your paths; my feet have not stumbled.”

He must have had a selective memory.  What about the lies he told to Achish when he was robbing surrounding cities and killing everyone so they couldn’t tell on him?  See I Samuel 27.  In Psalm 51 he is repenting for the sin of having Uriah the Hittite, killed to cover up his affair with Uriah’s wife.  In his confession he says, “I know my wrong-doing, and my sin is always in front of me. I have sinned against You, and You only. I have done what is sinful in Your eyes.”  Really?  “You only.”  What about Uriah?  Didn’t he sin against him?

What was he thinking?  We cannot lie to God.  He knows everything about us.  Psalm 17 doesn’t say as much about David as it does about God.  God is gracious.  God is merciful.  God is wonderful to tolerate us.  If you are ever discouraged about your sinful past, just remember God’s care for David and I promise you, you are going to be taken care of.  God doesn’t play favorites.  You have it made.