Lost In Transition

“And as he sat upon the mount of Olives, the disciples came unto him privately, saying, Tell us, when shall these things be? and what [shall be] the sign of thy coming, and of the end of the world?” (Mt 24:3 AV)

I find it a bit odd that the same disciples who could not grasp the coming death of Christ and who fled at Calvary and who went back to fishing after Calvary would be asking for signs of His coming.  If one is asking for signs of His coming, that infers he has to be going.  He is present with them.  Why ask of His coming unless He has to go first?  Sometimes, we believe things in the back of our minds that have not made it to our hearts.  We know it is true, but we have a hard time coming to terms with it.  Jesus repeatedly warned His disciples that He had to suffer and die, but that He would rise again.  It wasn’t for ignorance they had a hard time accepting the death of Christ.  They knew it.  And that is why they phrase the question above as they did.

We had the privilege to minister to a unique family.  The parents of this family came from separate but very abusive backgrounds.  There was history of the two wherein both were abused by authority figures in their younger years.  When they accepted Christ, one of the two struggled with the unconditional love of God.  He never had an example of unconditional love in his entire life.  He knew, in his head, that God is not man.  He knew, in his head, that what was impossible with the people in his early life is possible with God.  Yet, he had a hard time accepting that a God could love unconditionally.  This forced him to see unfortunate circumstances of life and history as a manifestation of God’s conditional love.  If God loved unconditionally, then bad things wouldn’t happen.  He could not see God’s unconditional love in balance with man’s ability of self-determination.  God does not force His will on individual men.  At least where choices are concerned.  He does with consequences of those choices.  But not choices themselves.  Anyway, this fella, since he could not understand unconditional love, would not allow God to love him.  We had a time with him.  But he finally allowed what he knew to be true in his head to reach his heart.

There are things we struggle with.  God’s plan for us or our own usefulness to God’s plan.  We struggle with faith.  We wonder of God really will take care of us.  We wonder if the LORD can really do as we hope.  We wonder if our life is not in vain.  Many thoughts come into our heads.  But deep down inside, the LORD has given us that which we need.  We just have to let it get from our head to our heart.

Jesus Had Compassion

“So Jesus had compassion [on them], and touched their eyes: and immediately their eyes received sight, and they followed him.” (Mt 20:34 AV)

The compassions of the LORD, they fail not!  There is not deep theological application here.  No rebuke. To profound truth.  Simple compassion.  Compassion of the LORD.  These two men were blind.  Blind for a very long time.  They cried out for the mercy of God and the LORD heard their cries.  He asks what it is they need.  There only response was that they might receive their sight.  The LORD had compassion.  That is the message.  The LORD had compassion.

It was the summer of 1981.  I had just finished my junior year of high school.  My father got a new job and we moved 90 minutes away from all my friends.  Going to a new High School was actually the easy part.  It was at that school, free from the reputation of our family in my home town (all good, by the way) that I was no longer the dweeb that others picked on.  I was able to wear more adult cloths to school and not get mocked.  Athletes respected me because I help them pass Physics.  I may not have been the most popular, but I was no longer disrespected.  However, there were no real close friends.  All my childhood friends lived too far away.  With graduation looming on the horizon, I had no plan.  No hope for the future.  Lonely and without any purpose of life, I toyed with the idea of suicide.  But, God knew what he was doing.  He had to get me alone so that all the noise of life did not distract me for the reality of my lost soul!  I had to be confronted with my most pressing need – salvation in Christ.  With the ministry of a faithful soul-winner, the LORD heard my cries of loneliness, purposelessness, and sinfulness.  On March 28, 1982, Jesus had compassion on me and saved my soul!  The result was I followed Him!

When someone shows compassion on us, we usually try to pursue some sort of relationship with him or her.  Depending on the measure of compassion, our relationship may be deeper or not.  Christ gave His life for me!  He died in my place!  He gave me a purpose.  He filled the void of loneliness!  He resolved my guilt!  He did it all.  The least that I can do is follow Him!

More Faith To Believe a Lie

“At that time Herod the tetrarch heard of the fame of Jesus, And said unto his servants, This is John the Baptist; he is risen from the dead; and therefore mighty works do shew forth themselves in him.” (Mt 14:1-2 AV)

It takes more faith to believe a lie than it does to believe the truth.  Herod was more willing to believe that someone whom he had beheaded rose from the dead with his head intact than to believe Jesus was the Messiah.  No doubt, he had more faith to believe a head reattached itself and John rose from the dead than Jesus, who would rise from this dead without losing his head would be the son of God.  It takes much more faith to believe a lie than it does the truth!

The world calls us crazy for believing the truth of the word of God.  But who has more faith?  I believe the world was created in six days, only thousands of years ago.  God, according to His word, created all things with preconditioned age.  He created Adam and Eve as fully functional adults.  When a human foot print is found inside of a dinosaur foot print, it was so because they co-existed.  Yet, rebellious man believes they were formed, separated by millions of years, in some miraculous way.  Tremendously inconsistent if one think that lays of sediment containing the fossil record was laid down over millions of years, having a human footprint inside of a dinosaur footprint would be impossible! Design demands a designer.  The origin of information.  The missing link.  The list goes on and on.  The origin of acceptable morals conflicts with the survival of the fittest.  It takes much more faith to believe God does not exist than to accept Him as Spirit, who exists, yet cannot be seen.

How many truths do we reject that would take less faith to believe than the lie we cling to?  The Bible is full of paradoxes.  Like the one we saw yesterday.  The book of Proverbs is full of them.  To have internal riches, one should make himself externally poor.  To gain true love, one must give it away freely.  To gain heaven, one must give up trying to gain it himself and accept it as a free gift.  Without faith, it is impossible to please Him!  But some of us exercise more faith in rebellion against God than exercising faith in obedience to him!

Rest, Not Leisure

“Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls.” (Mt 11:29 AV)

At first, this seems to be a paradox.  How can an ox have rest of soul when yoked to another while plowing a field?  Wouldn’t he be must more restful if he was in the pasture, grazing at his content?  Maybe.  For the ox is a mere animal.  He has no soul.  But you and I are different.  We need that yoke in order to enjoy a rest of the soul.  We need the burden upon our necks in order to know that God is who He claims to be.  That yoke is the very thing that gives the rest of soul which we seek.

The yoke represents restrain and purpose.  The yoke restrains the liberty of the ox and keeps him headed in the direction of the master.  The labor he does is the very thing that will save his life.  He plows that the fields might be sown and harvested.  That harvest, in turn, is what feeds the ox.  If the ox was free to wander, he may starve to death.   But the practice of domestication offers him a safe haven of refuge and plenty of food to eat.  This yoke is also a yoke of purpose.  No other domesticated animal can plow like a team of oxen.  Horses can plow, but they often plow alone.  They are not team players when it comes to plowing.  They also must fight the urge to bolt.  Oxen, on the other hand, are created for plowing.  That yoke is unique to their purpose.

Rest does not come from having a leisurely life.  Rest for the soul does not come by catering to the flesh.  Rest for the soul comes when we accept and utilize our yoke.  We find our purpose and stay within the confines of God’s plan.  Then we can have that precious rest of the soul for which we deeply crave.

Preaching By A 25 Watt Bulb Doesn't Work

“The people which sat in darkness saw great light; and to them which sat in the region and shadow of death light is sprung up. From that time Jesus began to preach, and to say, Repent: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” (Mt 4:16-17 AV)

Unless there is light beforehand, preaching the gospel message is ineffective.  Before the LORD preached on the gospel, He went to a part of His nation that sat in great spiritual darkness.  The distinction between the darkness they were in and His light to them through ministry and holiness was the foundation of His preaching.  Too many today diminish holiness and separation as prerequisites for preaching and then wonder why not many come to Christ.  There must be a distinction in order for the gospel to be relevant.

Have you ever noticed when a product is sold, there is usually a comparison of before and after?  A few years back, I went to a state fair.  I was having pretty serious shoulder problems then, and someone at a both was selling this special formula of ointment that was supposed to work better than anything else on the market.  I volunteered to be a guinea pig.  The sales lady rubbed down one shoulder with plain baby oil.  The other really bad shoulder she rubbed down with her product.  It was a contrastingly remarkable difference.  I could tell immediately what she was selling was far better than what I had been using.  But she couldn’t sell what she had unless she made a comparison against what was available.  This is why our light matters just as much, if not more, than the message of the gospel!

If having a testimony is was important to the Son of God, it should be even more important to us!  If holiness and a bright light was the foundation of the message for a perfect and sinless God, then for us as sinners it is even more important!  How we begin to think that we can live like the world, or half in the world, and be effective in trying to reach the world is beyond me!  Holiness must be a part of our message.  Our light is important!  We cannot preach by a dim flashlight!

No Parked Cars

“Great peace have they which love thy law: and nothing shall offend them.” (Ps 119:165 AV)

The word ‘…offend…’ here does not mean to take insult at.  It means to be stumbled.  A stumbling block.  There are two benefits here to loving the law of God.  The first is a peace.  A peace that can be had no other way.  Of knowing what is right and pursuing it.  When one fails, to make it right and get up and try again.  The other is a path of life free from stumbling blocks.  Nothing will trip you up.

I am reading a book in preparation of a series on addiction.  In the book, the writer says the only way to overcome addiction is to hate the consequences of sin more than one loves the pleasures of sin for a season.  As a young lad, I had my share of scraps and bumps.  Most could be avoided.  One such disaster I repeated a second time.  It appeared as though my sister Mary had a way of distracting my attention while we rode our bikes.  She might have planned it, I don’t know.  The first time, we were riding rather fast and she was engaging me in some conversation.  Because I was not looking, I ran right into the back of a parked car.  She had a hoot.  However, the second time was a little more serious.  This time, she challenged me to a race down Cherry street.  Cherry street was a downhill street.  The challenge was to get going as fast as one could then stop peddling at the top to see if we could make it all the way to the bottom without peddling again.  As we crested the hill, she again had my attention.  However, this time she yelled out a warning.  Too late, I hit that parked car so hard that I flipped off my bike almost over the entire car.  Needless to say, that was the last time I allowed my sister to distract me!   I hated the consequences of hitting parked cars more that the pleasure of competition!

We must love the law more than we hate the consequences of our actions.  This will free us from the offense of hitting a parked car.  To love the law is to avoid sin.  To love the law is to have peace with God!  To love the law is to know that we are right with God and we are free from a relentless enemy that seeks only our destruction!

God is Thrilled Too!

“Thus saith the LORD of hosts; If it be marvellous in the eyes of the remnant of this people in these days, should it also be marvellous in mine eyes? saith the LORD of hosts.” (Zec 8:6 AV)

It is so wonderful to know that what we find wonderful, the LORD does too.  Many commentators have a hard time with this verse because of the definition of the word marvelous.  One of the definitions means too difficult.  Which would suggest that what was done was too difficult for both the remnant and the LORD.  However, another definition means wonderful.  One thing that is wonderful for one set of people for a specific reason may be wonderful to another for a different reason.  But it is wonderful for both.

One of my favorite Christmas movies is A Christmas Story.  Ralphie wants a Red Ryder BB gun.  His mother is adamantly opposed.  His father seems disinterested.  One scene after another has to do with this little boy’s daydreams of either owning a Red Ryder BB gun, or the reasons for being told no.  Christmas morning arrives and Ralphie and his little brother tear into the gifts.  One after another and there is no BB gun.  All the gifts are opened.  There is a mess on the floor.  Ralphie’s little brother is asleep on the floor.  Mom is in the kitchen bring coffee to Dad.  In the quietness of midmorning, Dad asks Ralphie if he sees that one last un-opened gift.  Ralphie looks around and doesn’t see it.  Dad tells him to look behind the desk.  Ralphie pulls out this long and narrow gift.  Dad watches and Ralphie opens it.  Out comes the prized Red Ryder BB gun.  As Ralphie loads the BB’s, Dad has an expression on his face of absolute joy!  A wonderment at the reaction of his eldest son receiving the prized and coveted gift of a lifetime!  Ralphie never thought it would happen.  Dad knew, but when he saw how it brought unspeakable joy to his son, it was a wonder to behold!

I imagine this is how the LORD feels when He blesses His children.  No matter how small or big, it doesn’t matter!  If it is a wonder to us, it is a wonder to the LORD!  Maybe for a different reason, but it is still a wonder!  If it means the world to us, it means the world to the LORD!  Nothing is impossible for God.  To do those things is not difficult.  What He marvels at is the joy!  The sheer joy which His children can experience.