We Walk Because He Walked First

Monday, June 12, 2023

We love each other because he loved us first.  1 John 4:19

For many years in American culture, love has been portrayed as a feeling that overcomes you.  It includes weak knees, unexplainable loss of appetite, head-in-the-clouds, and that goofy look on your face.  That is not really love, but rather it is romance, a kind of lust-driven drunkenness. 

Love is also not doing things for other people because you have the means and they don’t.  That is simply what many nice people do out of compassion, at best.  A lesser motive is that we fear being like the poor folks; our generosity is to appease whatever gods control the distribution of stuff.  Christian love is doing what other people need most, simply because truth and integrity demand it.

Football great Bubba Smith has sworn off booze. Not drinking it, but selling it. Bubba never did drink, but he sold tons of beer by making cute television ads. Not anymore.  Bubba kicked the habit….Here's how it happened (in his own words):

I went back to Michigan State for the homecoming parade last year, I was the grand marshal and I was riding in the backseat of this car.  The people were yelling, but they weren't saying, 'Go, State, go!'  One side of the street was yelling, Tastes great' and the other side was yelling Less filling.  Everyone in the stands is drunk.  It was like I was contributing to alcohol, and I don't drink.  It made me realize I was doing something I didn't want to do.  I was with my brother, Tody, who is my agent.  I told him, Tody, I'll never do another Lite beer commercial.  I loved doing the commercials, but I didn't like the effect it was having on a lot of little people.  

Everything that makes a believer act unselfishly, truthfully, and compassionately is motivated by the Master’s love.  We love because he first loved us: 

He could hear the crowds screaming "crucify, crucify".  He could hear the hatred in their voices.  These were his chosen people.  He loved them, and they were going to crucify him.  He was beaten, bleeding and weakened; his heart was broken, but still He walked.  He could see the crowd as he came from the palace.  He knew each of the faces so well.  He had created them.  He knew every smile, laugh, and shed tear, but now they were contorted with rage and anger...his heart broke; But still He walked.  Was he scared?  You and I would have been, so his humanness would have mandated that he was.  He felt alone.  His disciples had left, denied, and even betrayed him.  He searched the crowd for a loving face and he saw very few.  Then he turned his eyes to the only one that mattered, and he knew that he would never be alone.  He looked back at the crowd, at the people who were spitting at him, throwing rocks at him, and mocking him, and he knew that because of him, they would never be alone.    So for them, He walked.  The sounds of the hammer striking the spikes echoed through the crowd. The sounds of his cries echoed even louder; the cheers of the crowd, as his hands and feet were nailed to the cross intensified with each blow.  Loudest of all was the still small voice inside his heart that whispered I am with you, my son.  And God's heart broke.  He had let his son walk.

Jesus could have asked God to end his suffering, but instead he asked God to forgive.  Not to forgive him, but to forgive the ones who were persecuting him.  As he hung on that cross, dying an unimaginable death, he looked out and saw, not only the faces in the crowd, but also, the face of every person yet to be, and his heart filled with love.  As his body was dying, his heart was alive; alive with the limitless, unconditional love he feels for each of us.  ^{(author unknown)}

For You Today 

When I forget how much My God loves me, I remember his walk.  When I wonder if I can be forgiven, I remember his walk.  When I need to be reminded of how to live like Christ, I think of his walk.  And to show him how much I love him, I wake up each morning, turn my eyes to him, and I walk.

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

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There are about 2,500 devotional posts and 400 sermons in the Rocky Road Devotions library.  To dig deeper explore some of these:   Condemned in the Shadows  and  Table Talk                                          

Title Image:  Pixabay.com   Images without citation are in public domain.

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

Too Late

 

Wednesday, February 9, 2022

“So tell them, ‘This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says:  May all your jars be filled with wine.’  And they will reply, ‘Of course!  Jars are made to be filled with wine!’  “Then tell them, ‘No, this is what the Lord means:  I will fill everyone in this land with drunkenness—from the king sitting on David’s throne to the priests and the prophets, right down to the common people of Jerusalem.  I will smash them against each other, even parents against children, says the Lord.  I will not let my pity or mercy or compassion keep me from destroying them.’”  Listen and pay attention!  Do not be arrogant, for the Lord has spoken.  Give glory to the Lord your God before it is too late.  Acknowledge him before he brings darkness upon you, causing you to stumble and fall on the darkening mountains.  For then, when you look for light, you will find only terrible darkness and gloom.  And if you still refuse to listen, I will weep alone because of your pride.  My eyes will overflow with tears, because the Lord’s flock will be led away into exile.  Say to the king and his mother, “Come down from your thrones and sit in the dust, for your glorious crowns will soon be snatched from your heads.”  The towns of the Negev will close their gates, and no one will be able to open them.  The people of Judah will be taken away as captives.  All will be carried into exile.  Jeremiah 13:12-19

Jeremiah, ever the weeping prophet, received a “not-so-veiled” threat to lay at Israel’s feet:  from the throne room to the common rooms, drunk with the power of personal choice, the hangover of exile for God’s people was coming. 

As the grandson of an alcoholic, I am aware of the results of too much celebrating, and not enough common sense, or self-respect.  My mother’s childhood was spent moving from one rented apartment to the next.  My grandfather had a good job, but his habit consumed even the rent money.  He was not a physically-abusive person, but addiction to alcohol carries its own brand of abuse.  When my mother was asked where she lived growing up, she had lots of addresses from which to choose.  One of those addresses she never even saw.  She had been hit by a car while walking home from school, and spent over a month in the hospital.  The family was in the process of moving that week; they moved-in, but had to move-out a few weeks later.  Mom added a new address to the pile, even though she never saw the front-doorstep.

Jeremiah’s prophecy was about the consequences of drunkenness, but this hangover wasn’t really about wine filling every jar.  Rather it was the confusion of why the kingdom fell apart, and every citizen would be at odds with every other citizen, from the palaces to the playpens.  In a massive pandemic of arrogance, Israel assumed the role of bad-chilld, leaving the Father no other choice but the woodshed from the North.  Destruction was on its way like a juggernaut of grief and mourning.  The rent money was due, and it wasn’t there; it was too late.

For You Today

It is impossible for me to read any of the prophets and not make the mental leap from Jerusalem in Judea, to Washington D.C.  I pray every day for the leaders of our nation in that jungle of self-importance called “government”. 

That for which I pray is an awakening, and the resultant sweep of revival.  Because, without revival in the lives of leaders, and without it spreading to the board rooms, businesses, schools, and every main street, back street, and dirt street, our drunken stupor of anger and violence, with its accompanying wrecking of the homes across the land, will make us a ripe, low-hanging fruit for a trip to Babylon’s jail.  In the darkness of national disaster, we won’t even know what happened.

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

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

Lent, Beer and Other Festivities

[1]   

Friday, March 20, 2015

 Don’t drink only water. You ought to drink a little wine for the sake of your stomach because you are sick so often.  1 Timothy 5:23 (NLT)

Don’t be drunk with wine, because that will ruin your life. Instead, be filled with the Holy Spirit,  Ephesians 5:18 (NLT)

Paul urged his young protégé, Timothy to use a little wine to help with his stomach ailments.  Some have offered the opinion that being a pastor is an open invitation to ulcers and other gastric woes.  Largely this isn’t true about pastoral ministry, but the thought is understandable; in every area of life there are difficult people that make a hard job harder.

On the other side of the wine line, in his letter to the Ephesian church Paul warned against using too much of the stuff.  Certainly we can understand the problem associated with public (or private) drunkenness!  Paul didn’t forbid the use of alcohol; he did require moderation!

And speaking of “spirits” – here we are, dead in the middle of the holy Lenten season, and my morning news carried the story of Starkbierzeit, which, in German means “strong beer season”.  It is actually …the first of Germany’s spring beer festivals, and it focuses on drinks traditionally consumed during Lent.  The tradition was started by Paulaner monks in the 1600s, when fasting allowed the consumption of only liquids. They decided they could get nourishment through more potent beer.[2]

Isn’t that just grand?  Beer made these days has about twice the alcohol content of beer in the 1600’s, and I serve a church and denomination that honors abstinence from alcohol.  (It’s obvious Mr. Wesley didn’t agree with 17^th century monks on this one!)

Well, strong wine or beer, verses medication for the tummy, what’s a Parson to do?

I don’t really know…other than to suggest another of Paul’s statements:

Let your moderation be known unto all men. The Lord is at hand.  Philippians 4:5 (NLT)

And Solomon tells us why “moderation” is best:

Wine produces mockers; alcohol leads to brawls.  Those led astray by drink cannot be wise.  Proverbs 20:1 (KJV)

Who has anguish?  Who has sorrow?  Who is always fighting?  Who is always complaining?  Who has unnecessary bruises?  Who has bloodshot eyes?  It is the one who spends long hours in the taverns, trying out new drinks. Proverbs 23:29-30 (NLT)

And just for good measure, let’s throw in a little contemporary medical finding about the deceptiveness of alcohol.  You recall all those St. Bernard rescue dogs with the brandy casks dangling from their necks?  And did you ever hear any stories about ice fishermen drinking to keep warm?  Well, over in Sweden (a very cold place) medical research says this:

Alcohol is a dominant cause of death in urban hypothermia. Drinking alcohol gives a pleasant feeling of warmth….Longer exposure to colder environmental situations has, particularly with addition of strenuous exercise, revealed enhanced heat loss….[3]

So that first flush of alcohol going down warms you up, but only serves to hide the real effect it is going to have on your body – alcohol cools you down!  That sounds vaguely like what the writer of Hebrews said about all forms of sin…they are pleasurable for a season! ^{(Hebrews 11:25)}   And when the season is over…watch out!

For You Today

It’s hard to require total abstinence where alcohol is concerned.  But God has put common sense in our hearts and minds.

So, short answer:  read God’s Word; study and meditate on what is written and what speaks to your heart.  Balance that with the Church’s tradition, and what reasonable medical and scientific research has revealed.

And then act like a Christian who is concerned about his body (the Temple of God), his community (the people of planet earth) and his conscience; the integrity of a believer.

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[1] Title Image: Coyau / Wikimedia Commons, via Wikimedia Commons

[2] ©NYTimesNOW daily briefing March 19, 2015

[3] Article: Alcohol and cold Department of Surgery, Karolinska Hospital, Stockholm, Sweden. (read here)0