Blessed

Monday, February 27, 2023

God, for whom and through whom everything was made, chose to bring many children into glory.  And it was only right that he should make Jesus, through his suffering, a perfect leader, fit to bring them into their salvation.  So now Jesus and the ones he makes holy have the same Father.  That is why Jesus is not ashamed to call them his brothers and sisters.  For he said to God, “I will proclaim your name to my brothers and sisters.  I will praise you among your assembled people.”  He also said, “I will put my trust in him,” that is, “I and the children God has given me.”  Hebrews 2:10-13

There are many internal and external needs we humans must have to survive.  Internally, our organs and blood supply must do their thing, pumping, moving, cooperating with all things bio-physiological.  Externally, we need air, water, and food (some of us would have listed coffee as a necessity…but I digress). 

Those are the basics; then there’s safety from our environment, both in the natural realm (earthquakes, floods, wild animals...), and the most dangerous of all, other human beings.  From Cain’s relationship to his brother, Abel, down to today’s Wild West, East, North, and South, human anger is a killer of extraordinary proportions. 

God, says the writer to the Hebrews, is the creator of everything, and it all was made for Him, as well.  Created beings, like you, like me, were not only made by God, we were made for God.  That does not imply we were like dolls purchased at the store, meant to be played with, then put away for another day.  It strongly informs us that we were made for relationship (fellowship) with God.  Stated categorically:  God desired us!  He wants us.  He would (and did) die for us!

The writer of Hebrews[1] tells us that Jesus, the Son of God, Who died for us, is not ashamed to call us brothers and sisters[2].  Paul also tells us that it goes beyond a simple unashamed status…we are loved so greatly God adopted all who trust in Christ, and has deemed us His heirs:

And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ;                 Romans 8:17a

Now, savor that lovely thought, the security of Heaven’s favor for those who believe in Christ, and have entrusted past, present, and future to His care.  But let’s also remember we are now fully-engaged in Lent…40 days of somber preparation for the brutality of Jesus being scourged with a whip made of iron tips and broken glass shards, mocked by crowds and religious leaders, and enduring the sin-taking pain of death on the cross. 

That’s quite a juxtaposition…contemplating familial love and adoptive grace, at the price of unimaginable suffering and blood.  Yet, that is exactly how Jesus asked us to always remember this cherished family relationship…the bread of His body, and the cup of His blood…those grace-filled symbols of the cost of His love, and God’s adoption.  We are truly blessed.

For You Today 

In your Lenten moments it is important to remember Jesus’ suffering and death for us…how else would we treasure so precious a gift?  But keep in mind that suffering is never to be repeated…the adoption has been made final.  So rejoice in it, loved and blessed one…Your adopted Father said so!

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: 

When the Candle Dies  and  A Little Lower Than the Angels      

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^©  

---

[1] Many theologians consider the writer to be Apostle Paul

[2] I will proclaim your name to my brothers and sisters.  I will praise you among your assembled people.  Psalm 22:22

Sorrow Leaves When Joy is Born

 

Wednesday, May 19, 2021

“In a little while you won’t see me anymore.  But a little while after that, you will see me again.”  Some of the disciples asked each other, “What does he mean when he says, ‘In a little while you won’t see me, but then you will see me,’ and ‘I am going to the Father’?  And what does he mean by ‘a little while’?  We don’t understand.”  Jesus realized they wanted to ask him about it, so he said, “Are you asking yourselves what I meant?  I said in a little while you won’t see me, but a little while after that you will see me again.  I tell you the truth, you will weep and mourn over what is going to happen to me, but the world will rejoice.  You will grieve, but your grief will suddenly turn to wonderful joy.  It will be like a woman suffering the pains of labor.  When her child is born, her anguish gives way to joy because she has brought a new baby into the world.  So you have sorrow now, but I will see you again; then you will rejoice, and no one can rob you of that joy.  John 16: 16-22

I have never given birth to a child (not exactly a newsflash there), but I’ve been there when it happened.  We’ve shared previously on Rocky Road[1] how I missed the birth of our first two children, because Dads weren’t allowed in the delivery room back then.  But I was there for the third, and pain giving way to overwhelming joy is unmistakable!

Jesus’ described the pain as “anguish”, and he called new life “joy”.  And it’s because of the nurturing gene surging through every part of the mother’s body.  Call it hormones and chemistry if you will, but the desire to procreate and preserve is hard-wired into the process by the Master Creator. 

I watched a video on Youtube recently of The Cat Who Adopts Baby Ducklings.  It was bizarre to see a feline accepting orphaned baby ducks as part of her new litter.  Cats normally don’t become caretakers for birds, they eat birds!  But this Momma cat had just given birth, and couldn’t help herself.  Even months later the bond between mother feline and grown ducks displayed what God built-in to His creation – we are born to hold life up…even when it goes against our nature to self-preserve and promote.  There is too much joy beyond the anguish to resist!

Now apply that to Jesus’ disciples in the upper room when he told them the passion was about to begin, and the pain would be unbearable for them.  But, like the passing of labor that gives way to the newborn baby, pain would transform into great joy!

Jesus had told Nicodemus if he ever wanted to see the Kingdom of God he would have to be born again[2].  That reference has lasted two millennia because of the joy untold millions have experienced in the passing of sorrow’s pain, when a sinner’s confession transports him into the joyful presence of love unbounded.  Words are totally inadequate at this point.  Simply look at the faces of a newborn child with the one who gave him free room and board for nine months.  Sorrow leaves when joy is born!

For You Today

Jesus said that no one would be able to rob his disciples of the joy he had planned for them.  He meant it – and it happened – and he meant it for us too!

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

---

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

---

[1] See:  Fearfully and Wonderfully Made

[2] See John 3

 

The Double-Edged Sword of Adoption

 

Friday, May 29, 2020

Romans 8:14-17

For all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God.  So you have not received a spirit that makes you fearful slaves.  Instead, you received God’s Spirit when he adopted you as his own children.  Now we call him, “Abba, Father.”  For his Spirit joins with our spirit to affirm that we are God’s children.  And since we are his children, we are his heirs.  In fact, together with Christ we are heirs of God’s glory.  But if we are to share his glory, we must also share his suffering.

I learned many years ago that, when it comes to parenting, there is nothing stronger than adoption.  A natural birth carries with it parental rights and responsibilities, for both the parent and (eventually) the child.  This is also true in adoption.  However, as we have seen the move to allow children the right to emancipate from parents, and the rights of parents to disown children, there is a marked and different finality to adoption that makes it nearly impossible for adoptive parents to disassociate themselves from the child they received. 

This concept is immeasurably magnified in the spiritual realm.  When God adopts you as His own, it is enternal and unbreakable.  And it is on a much deeper level than legality.  God’s own Spirit takes up residence within his adopted family to knit together the divine and human.  God’s word declares this to be true, and reminds us it takes a sharp sword to slice that thinly, the distance between what separates us from God as simply His created beings, loaded with free will…dangerously so…and the life that has been surrendered to the adoptive process, as accepted in the beloved family of Jesus Christ.  Yet, that is exactly what God’s Word promises:

For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. Hebrews 4:12 ^(KJV)

And, as we are on the matter of God’s adoptive ways, and the issue of God as parent of us all creative-wise, and God as parent adoption-wise, shall we not also consider the twoedged sword of privilege and responsibility sharpness-wise?

The privileges are well-known, God’s promises for today, and eternal life to boot.  But the responsibilities are just as well known, and just on the other side of the sharp blade.  To be a child, accepted, never disowned, and beloved, is a rare gift, and to be greatly treasured.  To honor that gift is the other side of the sharp sword, namely, responsibility.  For those who take lightly that for which God has shed His own blood, is to tread in dangerous paths.  Yet, today we see so much of that. 

      ·       Commitment has become as vile a word as change

      ·       Discipleship sinks into channel surfing on a Sunday to satisfy itchy ears

      ·       Tithe is a word relegated to all other antiquated, outdated ideas

      ·       …and the list continues, ad nauseum.

And so, a word to those who have truly been adopted.  Accept the Father like He accepted you.  And the best way to demonstrate that is with a life that is lived in honor of the name you claim.

Let’s Pray Together

Lord, we can think of nothing more offensive to the gift you have given of your holy child, Jesus’ death and resurrection, than for those of us who claim to be His followers to live like the world teaches.  Help us keep pushing on to perfecting our living in love, and so honor You in all we do.

For You Today

Here’s a new tattoo for those hands – Will what I do with these honor God?

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road today.  Have a blessed day!

Go to VIDEO

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

For another post on Romans 8:14 see A Little More Light and for “Adoption” as a theme see Nearly Abandoned

Foretaste of Future Glory

[1]

Monday, December 10, 2018

For we know that all creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time.  And we believers also groan, even though we have the Holy Spirit within us as a foretaste of future glory, for we long for our bodies to be released from sin and suffering.  We, too, wait with eager hope for the day when God will give us our full rights as his adopted children, including the new bodies he has promised us.  We were given this hope when we were saved.  (If we already have something, we don’t need to hope for it.  But if we look forward to something we don’t yet have, we must wait patiently and confidently.)  Romans 8:22-25(NLT)

It’s common to hear young-ish people joke about the old folks’ home.  At my age that’s hardly a joke – I live there!  My bride and I are in the eighth-decade of life; even the dogs that live with us are approaching 100 in doggie years.  There is a lot of groaning in such places, particularly in the early morning!

In Paul’s pulling-back the curtain on that future glory of heaven, that blessed place of perfect relationship with our Creator and Savior, he points to groaning, that which accompanies the pain of giving birth.  And the Apostle says it is this pain that every part of God’s creation experiences. 

That got me to thinking about how, in all the nativity scenes you’ve ever seen, and children’s Christmas plays you’ve ever attended, there is never a labor room, no signs of water breaking, contractions that produce back-gripping spasms, or the messier side of giving birth.  We go straight from the donkey to a stable, followed by angelic choirs, shepherds and wise men bearing lavish gifts.  In true Hollywood fashion, it’s a Hallmark-perfect fade-out from a hurried ride to the hospital, and fading-in on the nursery, complete with washed newborns, wrapped in blankets, and fathers, looking like does in the headlights with their noses pressed up against the glass.  It’s ok to look; just don’t get too close, because up-close is where that messier side of life lives, and things get real; that’s where you can hear the groaning!  Paul calls this a foretaste of future glory. 

In that great old hymn, Blessed Assurance, Fanny Crosby seizes on Paul’s words.  She writes:  O what a foretaste of glory divine!  The theme continues with scenes of heirs to the throne, adoption into God’s family, fellowship with the King of Glory, finally returning to Paul’s messier side, that we are, for the time being, stuck here, watching and waiting, looking above. 

It’s hard to wait, and wait, and wait.  Just ask Hatchiko, the dog whose master always came home on the train.  Hatchiko would wait every day, and the master would arrive every evening.  Until one day he didn’t come home.  This true story traces the waiting life of a dog, who kept vigil at the station for nearly 10 years, waiting to see his master step off that afternoon train.  His name became synonymous with loyalty.  

God has promised to return to fulfill the promise of adoption – our welcome into His forever family.  With that adoption are the full rights and joys of heirs, with the incredible promise of a new body that doesn’t ache and groan, even in the mornings.

For You Today

Let’s let Fanny Crosby have the last word today:

…watching and waiting, looking above,

Filled with his goodness, lost in his love.

This is my story, this is my song,

Praising my Savior all the day long;

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

Go to VIDEO

---

[1] Title Image: Courtesy of Pixabay.com

Nearly Abandoned

[i]

Tuesday, December 27, 2016

Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has become a child of God.  1 John 5:1^(NLT)

Her mother was a migrant farm worker who was living in an old car.  Vicki was only two and her Mom had run out of money, food and options.  She walked into the Food Stamp office in Florida and was turned-down again because “her car” was not an address.  What she then said and did (according to the social worker) was reply, Fine; here, you feed her, and walked away.

That was how Vicki came to live with us as a foster child in 1978.  Within a short time Elizabeth and I both knew we would adopt this sweet, vibrant young lady into our family.  So we began the paperwork, inspections and more, making room in our hearts for yet another child.

God had other ideas; so did the State of Florida.  It seems the law on abandonment in that State don’t kick-in for a year.  So, just a few days short of 365, Vicki’s Mom returned and wanted her child back.  We were heartbroken, but the last we’d heard, Vicki and her Mom were doing well in Texas.

Forty years have not dimmed the imprint of that little one’s smile in our memories.  But she was  not our child.  The law said she belonged to someone else, and, as much as we were willing to open our hearts and home to adopt this little girl with the big smile, we had to give her back.

Nearly abandoned and loved, but not our child.

This is somewhat the essence of John’s sentence about becoming God’s child.  Often (incorrectly) someone – even a preacher – will say something like:  we’re ALL God’s children.  That may be true in one sense, that we are all born in the image of God, and we all experience the providence of God’s care, and there is the loving reach of God that would embrace us, much like (but better than) Elizabeth and I wanted to embrace Vicki as our own. 

But there is something which stands between that desire and reality.  That something is the law.  The law says we are born in sin, and because we all sin, the law condemns us.  John says we become God’s child by belief – faith in God that Jesus Christ is His son. 

Now that is not a very popular viewpoint, and there is pushback whenever you try to point out that some people are genuinely children of God by faith, and some are not.  Many people prefer that, like the Constitution says, we are all equal, we are all equally children of God.  But the Scripture isn’t the Constitution, and national pride has little to do with Scriptural truth.  So, what do you do with truth?  Jesus, Himself pointed out this very fact when the Pharisees argued that they were children of Abraham, making them God’s favored sons.  Here’s the hard truth Jesus declared to them:

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.  So when I tell the truth, you just naturally don’t believe me!  John 8:42-^45(NLT)

The line is drawn in the sand, if you choose to reject the Son, to not-love God’s only Son, Jesus Christ, you don’t have the Father, you’re not a child of God, no matter how much you want it to be otherwise.          

For You Today

Elizabeth and I wanted to welcome Vicki into our home, but she was the child of another.  That was a hard truth. 

A much more important question with a hard truth we must all face is: 

whose child are you?

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

Go to VIDEO

NOTES

[i] Title image: By Russell Brownworth