A New Name

 

Friday, January 29, 2021
“Anyone with ears to hear must listen to the Spirit and understand what he is saying to the churches.  To everyone who is victorious I will give some of the manna that has been hidden away in heaven.  And I will give to each one a white stone, and on the stone will be engraved a new name that no one understands except the one who receives it.”  Revelation 2:17

There are a lot of opinions as to what the new name means.  Whether it is symbolic or literal, it carries deep meaning.  It may be a literal, lingual name, a name which sounds different.  Abram became Abraham.  Saul became the beloved apostle Paul. 

However, I believe that it is more.  I believe the “white stone” is that certain something Jesus places deep down inside us when we are saved.  In ancient times friends sometimes gave each other gifts of small white marble, cut to fit a hand, engraved with words of kindness.  It was something to stimulate the memory of kindness associated with a meaningful relationship.  This is the kind of quiet understanding God’s salvation brings, an assurance, knowing that Jesus is Lord, and you are His.  It is the newness of relationship that you cannot really explain, touch, smell, or know apart from a personal relationship with Jesus.  It is based on more than victorious actions; it is based on every good possibility God already knows about you.  John Wesley described it as his heart being strangely warmed.  

In the days when John wrote Revelation, if a child fell ill and the situation worsened to the point of fearing for life and the doctors could not help, the father would stand over his child and give him a new name.  It wouldn't be just any name, but one of a great and valiant warrior.  It would be the name of a respected and strong individual, one whose name carried authority.  The child would become a new person in that name, and the disease must capitulate.  This is overcoming, allowing Jesus to take complete control of your life at the cross, with His blood, with His love, with His power.  The disease of sin no longer has control.  When you surrender to that power daily, there is nothing the world can do; you are an overcomer in Christ. 

For You Today

If you are a child of God in any true sense of the word, it is because you have been stood-over and a white stone of a new name has been placed within your being.  The blood of Christ, spilled at Calvary’s cross, has been applied to your life. 

And you have accepted that new name, and you bear it gladly. 

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day!

GO TO VIDEO

[1] Title Image: Courtesy of Pixabay.com   Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation^©

For another post on Revelation 2 see Getting to the Heart of the Matter   

 

Pondering God's Goodness

 

Thursday, January 28, 2021

Praise the Lord!  I will thank the Lord with all my heart as I meet with his godly people.  How amazing are the deeds of the Lord!  All who delight in him should ponder them.  Everything he does reveals his glory and majesty.  His righteousness never fails.  He causes us to remember his wonderful works.  How gracious and merciful is our Lord!  He gives food to those who fear him; he always remembers his covenant.  He has shown his great power to his people by giving them the lands of other nations.  All he does is just and good, and all his commandments are trustworthy.  They are forever true, to be obeyed faithfully and with integrity.  He has paid a full ransom for his people.  He has guaranteed his covenant with them forever.  What a holy, awe-inspiring name he has!  Fear of the Lord is the foundation of true wisdom.  All who obey his commandments will grow in wisdom.  Praise him forever!   Psalm 111:1-10

Have you experienced buying a new car (or, for us common folk, new-to-you car, a.k.a. ‘used’ jalopy)…and you’d hardly ever noticed that model on the road, and now that’s all you see?  This seems to happen with Bible study too.  I’ve just started preaching a series from the New Testament book of James on growing to maturity in your life as a disciple.  Now everything I read in Scripture seems to jump off the page about maturing in Christ. 

That’s what “pondering” will do; it gets you thinking deeply, seeing more clearly, and considering the weight of what you held previously, and what it might be like to either change or not.  To keep the car metaphor going, it’s more than a cursory test drive, it’s leasing the vehicle for a few years to see if you will keep it.  You drive it day in and out, long trips cross country, daily to work, leisurely cruises on back country roads, and navigating the potholes and traffic snarls in the city.  You see how your life changes with this model.

Discipleship, learning to be Jesus’ co-laborer and servant, is like that; you want to serve better this year than last, so you keep digging, every day, deeper, longer, wider, and praying for understanding and courage to apply what He shows you.

Pondering God’s creation and all His works of mercy and justice are a lifetime project.  The Psalmist looks around this way and, everywhere there is mercy, goodness, provision for our needs.  The glory of our Lord and His righteous, trustworthy judgment are so overwhelming, the Psalmist breaks into spontaneous praise, a doxology of encouragement to people everywhere to ponder it all and praise Him forever.

There is such a sense of direction and life to this Psalm; it continually points you to always look under the Christmas tree for the next surprise.  There is covenant, commandment, and merciful substitution of atonement laying all around as a field of wildflowers just waiting to be adored and to adorn our ways.  And the more you gather with others, like-minded to search the unfathomable riches of Christ Jesus[1] you cannot help but lift up holy hands and be transported to the very throne room, a foreshadowing of transformation into the image of Christ.

To put it on the lower shelf – He changes you, and it’s all good!

For You Today

Maturing in Jesus Christ is not just memorizing Scripture verses and keeping a long list of the bad stuff you won’t do, and the good stuff you’ll work at…it’s pondering and discovering the depth of blessing that is God’s will for your life.  It’s humbling, because we know we don’t deserve a bit of it; but what joy to know it’s true!

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day!

GO TO VIDEO

[1] Title Image: Courtesy of Pixabay.com   Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation^©

For other posts on Psalm 111 see Faith Maturing and When God is Your Whole World      

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[1] See Job 9:10

 

Faith Moving Towards Perfection - TELIOS Series #1

This letter is from James, a slave of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ.  I am writing to the “twelve tribes”—Jewish believers scattered abroad.  Greetings!  Dear brothers and sisters, when troubles of any kind come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy.  For you know that when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow.  So let it grow, for when your endurance is fully developed, you will be perfect and complete, needing nothing.  James 1:1-4

Spiritual maturity comes in a lot of different packages.  Rick Warren, author of The Purpose-Driven Life, is pastor of Saddleback Community Church in California.  It is one of the largest churches in the Southern Baptist Convention, with around 22,000 attending multiple weekend services[1]. 

Fewer than half of their membership comes from people transferring from other churches.  They lead lost persons to Christ and baptize over 50% of new attendees.  In a new initiative the church is planting more churches in 12 strategic cities around the world to continue reaching the world for Jesus Christ.

But large attendance is not the only thing for which Saddleback is known.  That church is also a pacesetting example of high expectation.  Members are expected to do more than attend; they are expected to grow as disciples and use their spiritual gifts in service.  That is stated in the covenant new members sign when they join that fellowship. 

So, what does the pastor of a vibrant, growing, discipling and church-starting church have to say about growing to maturity as believers?  This: 

“The truth is that it takes a variety of experiences with God to produce true spiritual maturity.  In addition to Bible study it takes worship experiences, ministry experiences, fellowship experiences, and evangelism experiences.  In other words, spiritual growth occurs by participating in all five purposes of the church.”[2]

Where did Rick Warren get such an idea?  The Bible!  Largely from the Book of Acts.

This morning I want to take Pastor Warren’s statement, and passages from Acts, from which he draws the five purposes of the church, and invest our time looking at the process of becoming a mature disciple of Jesus Christ.  This is what John Wesley called going on to perfection.  The Biblical word telios is translated as “perfection” and it means to be functional, mature, useful for that which it was created.

Incidentally, I want you to know [up front] that I agree with Rick Warren about these five purposes for all members of the church.  I also want you to know I have a goal for this message.  That goal is your heart.  The goal is to have God’s Word and purposes clearly capture our hearts this morning so that we will turn to following Him more closely than ever.  The goal is for us to become “purpose-driven” people for Christ.

Study with me the five purposes of the church – five experiences that can make us mature, strong, telios disciples, able to serve our Master.

   1. Worship Experiences

Worship was exciting for the first church, especially the first service they had.  Three thousand got saved and baptized that day!  There was a sense of awe and reverence that gripped the whole group.  I’ll bet they just couldn’t wait to get to church each Sunday.  In fact, I know they didn’t wait til Sunday; Scripture tells us they had church every day. 

I must admit that going to church service every day may sound a bit “over-the-top”.  On the other hand, that constant exposure to the Word of God and worship made the church so strong and vital then.  They were so full of Jesus that people were getting saved every day.  We could use a little of that “over-the-top”, couldn’t we?

I’ve been a pastor a long time, and I’ve encouraged a multitude of folks to get regular about worshipping.  But I’ve also been told a similar multitude of times, Preacher, you don’t have to go to church to worship.  Now, I would say that that is true; I am also certain that if you say you believe that, you really need to say the whole sentence, which is: 

You don’t have to go to church to worship, but if you don’t you probably won’t.

Can we talk?  Aside from spending time with my wife, golf is my major hobby (if you can call something you do twice a year a bone-fide hobby).  I will tell you these few things:

·       I cannot recall the last time I recited the Lord’s Prayer or the Shorter Westminster catechism before the first tee.  I have prayed – to make a good shot; at least to not embarrass myself in front of a good golfer – but mostly I am not worshipping!  I am thinking about back-swing, follow-through and putting. 

·       I have never thought of the Book of Discipline, or sung a hymn of praise to Jesus on the golf course. 

·       And it is certain the only offering I’ve ever given on the golf course was required – they called it “greens fees” – and they didn’t use it for missions!

Friend, you can use that “don’t have to go to church to worship” thing any time you want…just don’t do it with a straight face when you’re talking to God – He doesn’t buy it.  He knows it means, “I really don’t want to worship God, and I’m gonna talk my way out of it if I can.”  You can’t!         

I have shared with you that I was saved at a young age, and then turned my back on the Lord in my teens.  When I came back to Jesus in my late twenties, it was largely due to the efforts of my dear wife who was seeking God, and a dear, tenacious neighbor lady.  (Tenacious is a word you use when you learn to love someone who was formerly just “obnoxious”).  Bev is now with Jesus hearing “well done”!

This neighbor badgered me about church so often I finally said “yes” just to get her off my back.  That’s when it happened; one service led to another, and before I knew it, worship became an addiction.  I want you to know that when Jesus finally got my attention through that pushy next-door neighbor (bless her overbearing and loving heart), I could not get enough of worshipping the One who loved me enough to die for me.  Worship has made me a stronger disciple. 

It’s like filling the gas tank.  Some folks can go a long way in-between worship times; I can’t – not if I’m going to hear “Well-done thou good and faithful servant.”

   2. Fellowship Experiences

Breaking bread means dinner-on-the-grounds; it means sharing the Lord’s Supper.  It means both; but it means more. 

Breaking bread (in the sense of the church) means joining lives.  The members of that first church hung out at church, but they also cooperated daily in doing things that draw people together.

We live in a fallen world.  When Adam and Eve sinned, God came to them in the garden and had a hard time finding them.  They were hiding so they didn’t have to face His face.  Everybody here can identify with that…who wants to see a holy God when you’ve sinned? 

Unfortunately, God is not the only one from which we hide; we also hide from each other.  It is because we recoil from the idea of trusting others.  We know ourselves well – we know that we are not trustworthy because we know our sins.  Looking at others we see the same species; my brother is no more to be trusted than I.

It is a fallen world.  One preacher told his congregation about when he was just a boy one of his life’s goals was to make all four of his sisters cry at the same time.  Now, that is descriptive of the anti-fellowship rule of a fallen world. 

It is a fallen world. 

·       In that fallenness of our world we see on TV the likes of Jerry Springer, Survivor, American Idol and others, it’s all in-your-face screaming to come out on top, cut-throats, stab backs and claw your way to the prize. 

·       With Oprah and Dr. Phil you are urged to be sensitive and make “nice-nice” with everybody so we can all be sensitive and “nice-nice”. 

·       In corporate America it is lie, steal, and cheat, but get off with 5 months behind bars with 5 billion in the bank. 

·       Terrorists say:  “fly your plane into a government building and fulfill your destiny”.  That’s a fallen world.

Real fellowship is a matter of facing the “real fallen world” and knowing that your brother in Christ is not the enemy.  It means breaking the bread of life together so, arm-in-arm you can storm the gates of hell like Jesus said we should. 

3.  Discipleship Experiences

The Book of Acts tells us that the people devoted themselves to learning all about God.  They received the word and learned the doctrine.  My friends you can’t do that listening to a 30-minute sermon once a week.  If you are serious about following Jesus, there are some things that must change, IF the church is going to persevere:

·       Sixty years ago we had televisions the size of a sofa with a 6-inch screen.  These days technology has given us a 6-foot color screen in a cabinet so light you hang it on the wall.  Are we better off? 

·       Sixty years ago we watched Mayberry and then read our Bibles because late night TV ended at 9pm.  Today you can watch TV 24 hours a day while the Bible gathers dust in the closet.  Are we better disciples for the technology?

·       Sixty years ago we went to church on Sundays and Wednesdays.  We took two weeks’ vacation and that was the only time we missed our Sunday School class.  Did we not give out pins for perfect attendance?  Today everything else comes before Sunday School and Worship.

There just aren’t many disciples these days devoting themselves to the apostle’s doctrine and prayer!  I would suggest that may be one reason people follow Joel Osteen; his teaching is all about how to get stuff from God.  Disciples, on the other hand are trained in the Word of God to deny self and serve God.

4.   Serving Experiences

Serving is sacrifice.  As with discipleship, serving God means you give up things of the world in favor of giving glory to God.

The Bible tells us that the early disciples were so caught-up in the love of Jesus that they went as far as selling-off personal property to make sure nobody went hungry.  Now, that doesn’t mean it is wrong for us to have personal property.  It simply points out that a heart that is right will sacrifice to meet needs if sacrifice is needed.

Serving is a form of leadership.  Jesus led his disciples into servant-living by taking a towel and basin to do the lowly job of washing dirty feet.  And He did it while they were debating over who was going to be the greatest in the Kingdom.

I want to say this with loving care, but there is a need for leaders who will put leading above personal pursuits of amusement, vacation and every opportunity that comes along to get out of serving.  It is much better to decline to serve than to say you will serve and then drop the ball. 

Jesus told a parable about a father telling his two sons there was work to be done in the field.  One son said, “No way – I’m not going”; but he re-thought and then went to work in the field.  The other son said, “Sure Dad, I’m your man”; he too reconsidered, and went to take a nap.  Which served the Father, lip-service, or life-service?

I wish you could have known Louise Blair.  Louise was in our church in Jacksonville, Florida.  She was near 80 when I met her.  She was our Women’s Missions director.  She was an absolute delight for any pastor.  Her one question was always, “Pastor, what can we do to help?”  At 80 she was still going out on outreach. 

One summer day we held a neighborhood block party with game booths, clothes for the poor, food, pony rides, popcorn, and a spacewalk.  Our daughter, Carrie, was dressed in a ball gown as Snow White, and each child got his or her picture taken with the princess. 

Do you know what Louise chose to do that Saturday morning?  Louise rented a clown outfit and manned the booth marked “Clowns for Christ”.  She handed out tracts and bubble gum until every last kid’s cheeks were bulging with Double-Bubble! 

Servants do that kind of thing!  God needs more servants – less spectators!

5.  Evangelism Experiences

This is one of those “easy-to-connect-the-dots” scenarios…Peter shared Christ with a whole crowd…and 3,000 responded; they were saved.  In turn, they went and shared that with others.  How simple is that?

We sometimes make it rather complicated but sharing the Gospel as it came to us is effective – after all, it worked that way at least in your case.  The problem is not with evangelism being too hard – it isn’t.  The problem is more with saints who won’t even give it a try.

My brother Thom has a sister-in-law, Anne.  Anne visited the church I was serving some years ago.  She is the opposite of a Yankee in North Carolina; Anne is from Tennessee.  She married a New Yorker and moved to his part of the country. 

Go figure! 

Anyway, Anne shared with me about her young Grandson, David:

David was sitting at the breakfast table this morning when he made a little noise and jerked backwards. He mashed something in the tablecloth and threw it on the floor.  John asked, "What happened?"

David answered, "There was a spider there. I killed it."

"Wow! You were so brave to kill it," I exclaimed.

True honesty came to the fore when David explained, "I’m only brave when the spider is little."

Friends let me sum this up by saying that when it comes to evangelism, serving, discipleship, fellowship, and worship, ALL the spiders are little!  Next to God, everything in this universe is little, and under His control. 

Do you want to move on to maturity in Christ?  Get serious about these five areas of experience; make them your life’s major commitments:

WORSHIP – FELLOWSHIP – DISCIPLESHIP – SERVING - EVANGELISM

Worried you can’t cut it?  Take a little advice from that great old preacher, Phillips Brooks, who helped many overcome their fear of serving well…

Do not pray for easy lives; pray to be stronger people!  Do not pray for tasks equal to your powers; pray for powers equal to your tasks.  

Let the church say, Amen!

Our Prayer

Father you know our hearts are captured and changed when our behavior begins to mirror what is in Your Word.  I ask Your blessing on each of us this day.  Grant us knowledge to know how to open our hearts to Your Spirit, so that Your Word will lodge deep there, and change us from inside-out. 

For the glory, honor, and praise to which You alone are worthy, o Lord, we pray in the Name of the Son, cooperating with the Spirit, to honor and exalt the Majesty of the Father.  Let it be so in each of our lives…Amen!  

Title Image:  via Pixabay.com W  Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation 

Watch Sermon Video

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[1] Wikipedia.com

[2] Rick Warren, Moving Members To Maturity, SBC Life, Nashville, Jun/Jul 2002, 10.

 

Trials Stink!

 

Wednesday, January 27, 2021

“For I am persuaded that neither life nor death, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord” Romans 8:38-39

Note:  our guest columnist today is our beautiful daughter, Jennifer.  She and husband Ken have three children, two grandchildren, and a lock on my heart.  As a vibrant Christian with more than a little experience facing life’s difficult side, she writes from walking with God during the trials that inhabit the Rocky Road.

Trials stink. 

It is so hard to change mindset when being hurt, or struggling financially or emotionally or relationally. 

But, trials can be a purifying fire and a cleansing water.  Although we don’t want to get burned or drown, we do want to be refined and renewed through the Lord.  God uses trials for His purpose. 

If you are struggling through all the turmoil in our country right now and the depressing nature of social media and mainstream media, be encouraged - God is with you through all these things!  He is always there in our midst, working through things. Carry it in prayer, but do not carry the burden!  Stay out of God’s way and let Him do the heavy work.  If you feel crushed, fearful, strain in your relationships, or been through any kind of personal disaster, invite the Holy Spirit into these circumstances because only God can transform them!  Our suffering will seem like nothing compared to the glory of God worked in us.  And know that nothing can separate you from the ENDURING LOVE of God![1]

For You Today

Thank you, Jen, for a great reminder that we are not designed to do it all.  God’s way is for us to join Him in the next great adventure; our job is to listen, be ready, and always give thanks. 

Even though trials do stink, some suffering in this life, even great suffering, is for a short time compared to an eternity with our Lord and His family. 

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day!

GO TO VIDEO

[1] Title Image: Courtesy of Pixabay.com   Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation^©

For other posts on Romans 8:38-39 see Afraid to Die? and The Confident Hope of All Saints      

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[1] Jennifer Brownworth Klim, Facebook.com post, January 15, 2021

 

Enough

 

Tuesday, January 26, 2021

And they left Egypt and returned to their father, Jacob, in the land of Canaan.  “Joseph is still alive!” they told him.  “And he is governor of all the land of Egypt!”  Jacob was stunned at the news—he couldn’t believe it.  But when they repeated to Jacob everything Joseph had told them, and when he saw the wagons Joseph had sent to carry him, their father’s spirits revived.  Then Jacob exclaimed, “It must be true!  My son Joseph is alive!  I must go and see him before I die.”  So Jacob set out for Egypt with all his possessions.  And when he came to Beersheba, he offered sacrifices to the God of his father, Isaac.  During the night God spoke to him in a vision. “Jacob! Jacob!” he called.  “Here I am,” Jacob replied.  “I am God, the God of your father,” the voice said. “Do not be afraid to go down to Egypt, for there I will make your family into a great nation.  I will go with you down to Egypt, and I will bring you back again. You will die in Egypt, but Joseph will be with you to close your eyes.”     Genesis 45:25 – 46:4

If you do a pulse-check on most any of the days of Jacob’s life, you’ll find a calculating, selfish, wheeler-dealer.  Stuff like that always comes back to haunt you.  Jacob did not escape that.  After his ambitious conniving to steal his brother’s birthright and his father’s blessing, Jacob had to leave town in the middle of the night to avoid everyone’s anger.  It cost him twenty years estrangement in the school of hard knocks.  He lived with his uncle Laban, a much sharper knife in the drawer when it came to manipulation.  The PhD degree Jacob earned in his time spent with Laban was the futility of a lack of integrity.

Another inescapable casualty of Jacob’s manipulative lifestyle was how his children learned at their daddy’s knee how to live that way too.  The older sons were jealous of their father’s attention to the youngest, Joseph, and eventually hatched a plan to throw him in a pit and watch him die.  They eventually settled for selling him into slavery to a band of nomadic traders.  With Joseph out of sight, they led Jacob to believe he’d been eaten by wild animals.  For the next twenty years the old man lived in paralyzing grief, mourning for Joseph, the son of his old age.

Finally, a famine gripped the land and Jacob sent his brother-killing sons to seek food down in Egypt.  The sons wound up right in front of Joseph, their supposedly long-dead little brother, who had managed to survive and thrive; he was the second most powerful man in the world under Egypt’s pharaoh. 

Now, the whole point of this epic story of family-fail came next, as Joseph is reunited with his murderous brothers, forgives them, and sends them home to Jacob.  Once Jacob gets over the shock of Joseph still being alive, he knows he must see this long-lost son face-to-face before he dies.

As he’s travelling to Egypt God spoke to Jacob in a vision assuring him that all will be well, and the promises of God would be carried out, and his son would be there to tenderly close the old man’s eyes in his final moments of life on this planet.  And, for Jacob, a man once steeped in trickery, thievery, deceit, and conspiracy, which had all (predictably) turned into a massive pile of internal strife and sorrow, now humbled by the effect of God’s mercy extended to such a one as Jacob the manipulator, imposter, despicable excuse for a human being, one word from God was…ENOUGH!

For You Today

No matter how much you may have made a mess of your opportunities in this life, or destroyed trust with family, friends, or even your own integrity, the promise of God is mercy to those who repent, humbling themselves before God, to seek His face[1].  Jacob did all that in a wrestling match with God one night near the Jabbok River.  He meant to get right with God, and, in mercy, God forgave Jacob and gave him a new name, Israel, the special, chosen, friend of God.

His story isn’t about airing the family’s dirty laundry; his story is all about letting you know this God you’ve been hunting forgives…and He’s only waiting for you to come calling.  And, when you do, you’ll see…like Jacob, it will be…ENOUGH!

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day!

GO TO VIDEO

[1] Title Image: Courtesy of Pixabay.com   Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation^©

For other posts on Jacob’s family problems see Dysfunction in the Desert and No Place Before God - Part 2      

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[1] 2 Chronicles 7:14

 

On the Right Side of History

 

Monday, January 25, 2021

The Lord had said to Abram, “Leave your native country, your relatives, and your father’s family, and go to the land that I will show you.  I will make you into a great nation.  I will bless you and make you famous, and you will be a blessing to others.  I will bless those who bless you and curse those who treat you with contempt.  All the families on earth will be blessed through you.”  Genesis 12:1-3

I’m old enough to have a history with experience.  My first vote in a presidential election was in 1968; in a total of 14 elections, I voted for the winner 8 times.  In Las Vegas, being right 57% of the time means you go home with full pockets.  But I’m not sure this applies; it’s just reporting the results like the newscasters.  “Winning” is so very temporary and having the most votes simply equates with popularity.

As each of those voting seasons came to an end, the “winning side” claimed a new era of peace, justice, and the American way, that the “other side” had been defeated, and now we can begin again to set things right.  And every time I heard one of those afterglow statements of victory, I always had an uneasiness about the certitude of the winner.  Depending on whether my vote had been for the victor, my feeling was either agreeably-uncertain, or disdainfully-uncertain.  I always had a sense of what-if, as in what-if-my-vote-was-on-the-wrong-side-of-history?

Now, before I lose you in thoughts of either gloating over winning, or sour-grapes for losing, this is about neither.  It has to do with choosing the right-side of history, which has nothing to do with which side may “win” or “lose”. 

Winston Churchill is often attributed for originating the phrase history is written by victors, however it is a phrase much older than World War II.  It is also suspect according to some:  One author has it that, [t]he more accurate quote would be, ‘History is temporarily twisted by people who’re going to profit from it in the short term.’[1] 

Whether it comes from the political right or left, I think this expediency motive may prove flawless.  It’s simply a matter of understanding that publicity matters when it comes to staying in power; when it comes to holding the high ground in public opinion, perception is its’ own reality.

Now, all of that is a matter of human relationships, political machinations, and intentions of those who would be the victor, not the vanquished.  The tides of popularity and so-called success are short-lived. 

So, what do we make of all this?  Is this just cynicism, or hyper-criticism?  Should we not participate in it at all…summarily trash everything?  Absolutely not!

So, what then?  What is the purpose in all of this?  Why even bring up the matter if there is no end to it? 

Well, I’m glad you asked.

Like the unknown cards in another’s hand, God stands behind the curtain of our ability to see.  And, as with Abraham, the Lord stands ready to bless or curse, depending on whether we intend to act with or against His will.  This is the nature of God in His complete Sovereignty.  Sovereign God is the ultimate winner in complete righteousness.  His will is immutable and irresistible.  And, therefore, it is God’s will which constructs, writes, and validates any “history”.

For You Today

If you want to be on the right side of history, it is a matter of surrendering one’s heart and life to God’s will. 

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day!

GO TO VIDEO

[1] Title Image: Courtesy of Pixabay.com   Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation^©

For other posts on Genesis 12 see Yield - Part 2 and Leaving and Arriving      

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[1] Shubham Jain in “History Is Written By Victors” Is A Foolish Phrase