Mary's Song and God's Glory

Friday, December 23, 2022

Mary responded, “Oh, how my soul praises the Lord.  How my spirit rejoices in God my Savior!  For he took notice of his lowly servant girl, and from now on all generations will call me blessed.  For the Mighty One is holy, and he has done great things for me.  He shows mercy from generation to generation to all who fear him.  His mighty arm has done tremendous things!  He has scattered the proud and haughty ones.  He has brought down princes from their thrones and exalted the humble.  He has filled the hungry with good things and sent the rich away with empty hands.  He has helped his servant Israel and remembered to be merciful.  For he made this promise to our ancestors, to Abraham and his children forever.”  Luke 1:46-55

There is something of an idyllic impression which persists about Mary, the teen virgin;  she is untouched, and therefore “perfect”.  That is not supported in Scripture.  In fact, Scripture goes to great lengths to debunk that notion.  Old Testament prophet, Isaiah pointed to the universality of human sin:

We are all infected and impure with sin.  When we display our righteous deeds, they are nothing but filthy rags.  Like autumn leaves, we wither and fall, and our sins sweep us away like the wind.  Isaiah 64:6

New Testament apostle Paul reaffirmed total human depravity:

As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one:  For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God; Romans 3:10, 23

If all that falls short of convincing, even Jesus said it plainly:

“Only God is truly good.  Mark 10:18

What is untainted in Mary’s case is not sinlessness of the vessel, but the immaculateness of conception…the fact that Jesus had no earthly father.  Mary was simply the host chosen by God to participate in God’s plan.  It was a miracle that she became pregnant, sidestepping the order of things in the natural, or biological sense.  But there was no circumventing the spiritual order of things; Mary was a human, born of a lengthy line of sinners, stretching back to Adam.  It’s often made note of Mary’s (and therefore Jesus’) family heritage, which included harlots (Rahab), and conspirators in murder (King David).  For God to choose Mary, it was the love of God for all humanity, laying aside the prerogatives of deity, choosing mercy and forgiveness to offer holiness to undeserving humankind.  It was nothing less, or more, than grace

It is no wonder Mary sang a song of blessing; even as a human, especially another sinful human like you or me, she could see she wasn’t worthy, except for the gracious love of God wrapping holy arms around her life.  She was overwhelmed by kindness and joy.

For You Today  

We have an immediate identity with Mary.  She wasn’t naïve enough to imagine she was beginning a road-trip paved with rose petals and sunshine; her position was dangerous and swimming upstream all the way.  Her “blessedness” (which we only see from this side of the story) is that she would be overshadowed by the glory it would bring to God. 

Mary’s story, God’s glory, our choice to follow.  True disciples of Jesus Christ can never be bored with hum-drum lives; it’s a path like no other.

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

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There are about 2,000 devotional posts and 400 sermons in the Rocky Road Devotions library.  To dig deeper on today’s topic, explore some of these: 

   Highly Favored   and   Mary's Song; Our Song

Images:  Title Annunciazione by DaVinci via Wikimedia Commons   Images without citation are either personal property of the author, or in public domain.

Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation^©   

There Comes a Time...

Thursday, December 22, 2022

Then the angel said to me, “Everything you have heard and seen is trustworthy and true.  The Lord God, who inspires his prophets, has sent his angel to tell his servants what will happen soon.”  Revelation 22:6-7

All faith is birthed from the perch of unbelief.  What that perch seems to an observer, hatred, fear, ignorance, or arrogance, makes little difference; it remains the absence of faith, which is unbelief.

When our oldest grandchild was six, she had a grand time swimming in our pool.  She could not, however, bring herself to plunge into the water.  It was always a baby steps kind of process…toes first, then ankles, shins, and so-on.  The head never got more than half-wet.  Most of my time in the water on those lazy, hot Florida afternoons was spent encouraging her to take a leap into my arms from the pool deck.  There were plenty of false starts.  Five steps back to gain speed, begin the run, and….scrrreeeech to a halt, just short of the pool’s edge. 

But, one day, it finally happened.  Chelsea worked up her courage, threw caution to the wind, and jumped – a perfect cannonball…down to the depths below.  When she bobbed-up to the surface, she shook the water from her eyes and proclaimed like a town-crier:  WELL….THAT was an experience! 

Whether faith comes like an unexpected lightning-bolt, flashing into existence to obliterate all else in its path, or in increments like a hardly-observable changing of the tide, faith must take its first breath at some point.  There comes a time when unbelief becomes trust.  A line is crossed.  False starts become certain leaps.  That which was questioned becomes trusted, and faith is born a reality.

God instructed the beloved apostle John to end Scripture’s revelation with that assurance – what you’ve seen and heard is trustworthy. 

·       All the words of Moses, from Genesis to Deuteronomy,

·       and of the chroniclers of Israel, from the Judges to Kings,

·       and the poets of Psalms and Proverbs,

·       to the prophets of minor and major days,

·       as well as the Gospel and Epistle writers,

·       down to the very final invitation to take the leap of faith in the One who stands at the door, knocking…every bit of it is trustworthy and true. 

And every bit of it will change your life from agonizing unbelief to assurance unlimited.  It simply requires letting go of the perch.

For You Today  

If you’ve taken that leap of faith from the perch of unbelief, you know the strength of the Savior’s arms.  Like Chelsea’s first leap into the water, there were many more to come…with confidence growing each time. 

If you’ve never leaped beyond your belief, you’ve not experienced even the baby steps of the adventure God has planned for your life.  Many starts…many screeches to a halt, just short of getting wet.  What are you waiting for? 

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

Go to VIDEO (read by author)

There are about 2,000 devotional posts and 400 sermons in the Rocky Road Devotions library.  To dig deeper on today’s topic, explore some of these: 

   Distortion   and   The Importance of Jots and Tittles

Images:  Title Pixabay.com   Images without citation are either personal property of the author, or in public domain.

Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation^©   

Pondering a Hard Truth

Wednesday, December 21, 2022

Jacob loved Joseph more than any of his other children because Joseph had been born to him in his old age.  So one day Jacob had a special gift made for Joseph—a beautiful robe.  But his brothers hated Joseph because their father loved him more than the rest of them.  They couldn’t say a kind word to him.  One night Joseph had a dream, and when he told his brothers about it, they hated him more than ever.  “Listen to this dream,” he said.  “We were out in the field, tying up bundles of grain.  Suddenly my bundle stood up, and your bundles all gathered around and bowed low before mine!”  His brothers responded, “So you think you will be our king, do you?  Do you actually think you will reign over us?”  And they hated him all the more because of his dreams and the way he talked about them.  Soon Joseph had another dream, and again he told his brothers about it.  “Listen, I have had another dream,” he said.  “The sun, moon, and eleven stars bowed low before me!”  This time he told the dream to his father as well as to his brothers, but his father scolded him.  “What kind of dream is that?” he asked.  “Will your mother and I and your brothers actually come and bow to the ground before you?”  But while his brothers were jealous of Joseph, his father wondered what the dreams meant.  

Genesis 37:3-11

Truth is impartial to what we think of it; truth is simply (and most profoundly) its own reality.  One, plus one more, does not care if you think the answer is seven; it will always be as reality demands…two.  The difference between Jacob and his older sons was that Jacob entertained the possibility of truth told him by his youngest son, a truth which Joseph’s elder brothers refused to acknowledge.  This truth was what Joseph was given in a dream, concerning the future, when his older brother’s hatred of their youngest sibling would come full cycle.  Eventually the brothers, and even their father, would be dependent on Joseph’s forgiveness.

The story of Joseph’s jealous brothers selling their young sibling into slavery, and his subsequent rise to power in Egypt, followed by a famine, and his brothers being sent to find food, is a harbinger of God’s advent.  The birth of Christ, and the dream (even of Jesus’ disciples) of a political Messiah, sold for thirty pieces of silver to the cross, is the fulfillment of Joseph’s hard life with its ultimate victory, punctuated at last by his magnanimous forgiveness of the ones who persecuted him.  It is a resurrection truth, hard to entertain, but sweet to the reins when digested fully.

The truth of Joseph’s, and Jesus’ lives is hard to entertain.  Our world is always looking for easier shortcuts…computers that do better math than counting on our fingers…machines to do the heavy lifting…gene-splitting to make better human bodies, prettier, stronger, more able to cope with the harshness of life and our darker realities.  Somehow our notion of “truth” carries the lie that we are bound to create our own reality, sans God.  In some self-aggrandizing common consent, humanity has made God obsolete.  And that is the shroud they put on the face of a dead savior Friday afternoon.  It didn’t ring true Sunday morning.

For You Today  

Jacob wasn’t thrilled about Joseph’s second dream, because it meant a reversal of the order…the father bowing-down to the son.  But he left a little flap of wonder hanging for the wind of revelation to let in some light.

That is what Advent brings…revelation.  Let the wind blow today.

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

Go to VIDEO (read by author)

There are about 2,000 devotional posts and 400 sermons in the Rocky Road Devotions library.  To dig deeper on today’s topic, explore some of these: 

   Seven Deadly Sins - Part 3 - Envy   and   When Envy Grabs a Heart

Images:  Title Pixabay.com   Images without citation are either personal property of the author, or in public domain.

Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation^©   

When Power Makes You Nervous

Tuesday, December 20, 2022

When people do not accept divine guidance, they run wild.  But whoever obeys the law is joyful.  Proverbs 29:18

I must admit that I have never understood the obsession underlying power.  Personally, it has always made me quite nervous to be in the company of those who wield the kind of strength of presidents, governors, and other influential positions.  Those who lead bear a considerable weight of responsibility for the well-being of others.  It is an inherently-unselfish calling.  The fly in the ointment of the democratic system of choosing leaders who are perceived as strong-enough to do well, is that politics is a magnet for the best and worst of motives.

In an article[1] reflecting on the state of world affairs, published earlier this year by Princeton University professor, Jonathan Gold, calling for (at a minimum) mandatory psychological testing of candidates for public office, Gold trotted out the elephant in the rebel room, concerning the two most powerful leaders who should never have been elected by sane people:

At the extreme end of the scale are the symptoms associated with anti-social personality disorder (ASPD), which ought to be out of bounds for an elected official but read to the untrained like a character description of Donald Trump or Vladimir Putin.

This devotional blog is not a blatant political tool, rather a purveyor of Godly advice from the Scriptures.  What Solomon said about God’s guidance as the life-giving need for any nation, is precisely what leaders Putin and Trump ignore, in favor of ascribing all knowledge and power to their own imaginations.  It is often quoted that power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.  And if that is true, it removes (by definition) any hope of governance without corruption; the lone exemption is the one, true, living God. 

For You Today  

If your children and grandchildren are the hope of the next generation of leaders for this world, better teach them by example to be humble and honor God.  Otherwise those who live in those generations and beyond are going to be bound to the same human foolishness of the current times, thinking we have all the answers, yet having no vision at all.

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

Go to VIDEO (read by author)

There are about 2,000 devotional posts and 400 sermons in the Rocky Road Devotions library.  To dig deeper on today’s topic, explore some of these: 

   Stubborn to the Bitter End and Without Vision Nations Crumble

Images:  Title Article - Don't Hand Power to Dangerous People   Images without citation are either personal property of the author, or in public domain.

Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation^©  

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[1] Don’t hand power to dangerous people (even when they really want it) — a modest Buddhist proposal

When God Makes You Laugh

Monday, December 19, 2022

Then God said to Abraham, “Regarding Sarai, your wife—her name will no longer be Sarai.  From now on her name will be Sarah.  And I will bless her and give you a son from her!  Yes, I will bless her richly, and she will become the mother of many nations.  Kings of nations will be among her descendants.”  Then Abraham bowed down to the ground, but he laughed to himself in disbelief.  “How could I become a father at the age of 100?” he thought.  “And how can Sarah have a baby when she is ninety years old?”   Genesis 17:15-17

There are those times when God unveils a blessing that’s just too good.  Scripture records the kind of laughter Abraham experienced as unbelief.  That’s very different from being known as the father of the faithful.  But, in this case, it’s somewhat understandable.  Abraham’s heart had hungered so long for the reality of the promise God had made to him, yet he and Sarai had never been parents together.  They were well-past such things.  Now he was a hundred, and his bride was 90.  Was God unaware nursing homes aren’t equipped with maternity wards?  I can just see the smirk forming at the corners of Abram’s lips, picturing himself signing-up for Lamaze classes down at the VFW.  It seemed like a cruel joke to play on an old man.  For decades he’d hoped and been patient.  Now, when all that hope seemed a mere frustration, was God just messing with Abram’s mind? 

Rewinding the video to an earlier time, Abram had never smiled at the hard things before.  There was that moment when God said:  Pack your bags, Abe; bring Sarai and all your stuff…got something I want to show you.  Abraham looked at the horizon beckoning, and just took the first step…not much of a miracle. 

But  God asking him to believe in becoming a dad when he was already on Social Security…this was just too much a fantasy.  How could he NOT laugh?  Scripture tells us Sarai also laughed over that incredible idea, but 9 months later there was a cradle in their bedroom, and the fulfillment of God’s Word meant diapers, and a whole new way of thinking about this life of faith to which God had called them.  What a ride!

For You Today  

Have your prayers gone unanswered?  Are there some things you’ve hoped for that no other person on earth knows about, but have been almost daily in your prayers?  Does it seem too good to be true that God might be telling you to hang-in with Him a little bit longer…because His promises are certain? 

And what if it happened?  What would it be like to have God make you laugh…today?

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

Go to VIDEO (read by author)

There are about 2,000 devotional posts and 400 sermons in the Rocky Road Devotions library.  To dig deeper on today’s topic, explore some of these: 

   An Uncomfortable Answer from the Whirlwind and The School of Suffering and Unanswered Prayer

Images:  Title Pixabay.com   Images without citation are either personal property of the author, or in public domain.

Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation^©   

Yes...and No

Friday, December 16, 2022

Just say a simple, ‘Yes, I will,’ or ‘No, I won’t.’  Anything beyond this is from the evil one.  Matthew 5:37

Humpty Dumpty made his appearance as a riddle of the late 18^th century.  His presence has graced virtually every literary idea-push from Mother Goose fairy tales to edgy political satire.  Alice (of the Looking Glass in Wonderland) has a conversation with Dumpty, the talking egg:

"I don't know what you mean by 'glory,' " Alice said.

Humpty Dumpty smiled contemptuously. "Of course you don't—till I tell you.   I meant 'there's a nice knock-down argument for you!'"

"But 'glory' doesn't mean 'a nice knock-down argument'," Alice objected.

"When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less."

"The question is," said Alice, "whether you can make words mean so many different things."

"The question is," said Humpty Dumpty, "which is to be master—that's all."

Alice was too much puzzled to say anything, so after a minute Humpty Dumpty began again.  "They've a temper, some of them—particularly verbs, they're the proudest—adjectives you can do anything with, but not verbs—however, I can manage the whole lot!  

Impenetrability!  That's what I say!"

The riddle of The Dumpty is much too dark for children, and therein lies the point; we can be as imperceptible as we wish, skewing the meaning (and therefore the intent) of our words.  Jesus says that’s too dark and evil for a believer.  A simple yes or no is clear, unmistakable, and wholesome.  And that is rather the Godly point.  To be any different than Thou shalt not, or thou shalt, when it comes to what thou dost…crosses the boundaries of love.  And, for Christ, that is the utmost concern…because it is the benchmark of Godly character.  To deceive, even with a so-called child’s riddle, is to be Satan’s offspring.

In our contemporary culture truth, unvarnished and untarnished, is just as uncomplicated (and uncommon) as it’s always been.  From interpreting economic forecasts to explaining a new law’s intent and purpose, politicians have danced with truth as you would dance with molecules of Coronavirus, just as far from being pinned with your words as possible.  The shade of darkness of Sir Humpty’s word-penetrability is directly proportionate to what’s at stake for the dissembler.

The most telling illustration of this in my memory is from 1998, when the Grand Jury asked President Bill Clinton if there was any improper relationship between himself and staffer Monica Lewinsky.  The president’s Dumpty moment surfaced when he responded:  It depends on what the meaning of the word ‘is’ is.[1]

For You Today  

For anyone with a reasonably-sized vocabulary, it is always a temptation to hide-behind a word wall.  Jesus, ever the master at punching-through deceptive walls, is never taken unawares by any attempt to cover the truth.  Following Him means you will let your ‘yes’ and ‘no’ stand on nothing less, or more.

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

Go to VIDEO (read by author)

There are about 2,000 devotional posts and 400 sermons in the Rocky Road Devotions library.  To dig deeper on today’s topic, explore some of these: 

   Of State Dinners and Spies and Diverse - and Dying

Images:  Title Via Wikimedia Commons   Images without citation are either personal property of the author, or in public domain.

Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation^©  

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[1] Bill Clinton and the Meaning of “Is”

All God's Children?

Thursday, December 15, 2022

For you are all children of God through faith in Christ Jesus.  And all who have been united with Christ in baptism have put on Christ, like putting on new clothes.  Galatians 3:26-27

A mixed message is where two or more ideas which contradict each other are both deemed to be valid.  If I tell you my team won the game, even though the other team scored more points, that is a mixed message.  Some mixed messages have greater impact than others.  If I tell you there are about 80,000 spiders on the acre on which your house sits, it could be a relatively interesting bit of trivia.  If I tell you not to worry about those 80,000 arachnoids who can eat 10% of their body weight daily, and that means if you weigh around 175lbs, all the spiders could only eat about half of your arm while you sleep tonight…that might be a mildly-concerning mixed message. 

One of the deadliest mixed messages is to hear:  We’re all God’s children.  There is some truth in the statement.  God created humans, and in that sense, we are all His offspring in the biological meaning.  However, the confusion of spiritual and biological convergence can have eternal significance far-beyond whether spiders will be chewing on you tonight.

When the Pharisees were looking for a way to convict Jesus of some offense to get rid of him, they claimed their biological heritage as descendants of Abraham as evidence that they were children of God.  Jesus disagreed and said so, plainly, that they were children of hell:

Jesus told them, “If God were your Father, you would love me, because I have come to you from God.  I am not here on my own, but he sent me.  Why can’t you understand what I am saying?  It’s because you can’t even hear me!  For you are the children of your father the devil, and you love to do the evil things he does.  He was a murderer from the beginning.  He has always hated the truth, because there is no truth in him.  When he lies, it is consistent with his character; for he is a liar and the father of lies.  John 8:42-44

Jesus also told the Pharisees they would not enter God’s presence, despite their biological pedigree, unless they repented of sins and trusted in Him:

Jesus told him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.  No one can come to the Father except through me.  John 14:6

Apostle Paul picked up on this and restated it so that we would have no mixed message about what it means to be a child of God:

But you are not controlled by your sinful nature. You are controlled by the Spirit if you have the Spirit of God living in you. (And remember that those who do not have the Spirit of Christ living in them do not belong to him at all.)  Romans 8:9

So the antidote for the mixed spiritual message sent by the statement “we’re all children of God” is to rephrase:  You’re a child of God if Christ lives in you.

For You Today  

The companion question about being God’s child is always on the table for any of us:  Have you accepted Christ?

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

Go to VIDEO (read by author)

There are about 2,000 devotional posts and 400 sermons in the Rocky Road Devotions library.  To dig deeper on today’s topic, explore some of these: 

   Inclusive and Diverse - and Dying

Images:  Title Pixabay.com   Images without citation are either personal property of the author, or in public domain.

Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation^©