RISK

Friday, July 28, 2023

And why should we ourselves risk our lives hour by hour?  For I swear, dear brothers and sisters, that I face death daily.  

1 Corinthians 15:30-31a

Apostle Paul faced risks many of us would avoid like the plague.  He did it so others might know of God’s Good News, the salvation message of Christ.  Author Leo Buscaglia wrote about risk:

To laugh is to risk appearing a fool,

To weep is to risk appearing sentimental.

To reach out to another is to risk involvement,

To expose feelings is to risk exposing your true self.

To place your ideas and dreams before a crowd is to risk their loss.

To love is to risk not being loved in return,

To live is to risk dying,

To hope is to risk despair,

To try is to risk failure.

But risks must be taken because the greatest hazard in life is to risk nothing.  The person who risks nothing, does nothing, has nothing, is nothing.  He may avoid suffering and sorrow, but he cannot learn, feel, change, grow or live.  Chained by his servitude he is a slave who has forfeited all freedom.  Only a person who risks is free.[1]

People take all kinds of risks in life.  There are risks abounding at the casinos in Las Vegas, mountains and valleys to be explored, and (as my daughter did on her 40^th birthday) planes to be jumped-out-of with nothing but a few pounds of silk and string to slow-down your fall. 

Those fun and exciting adrenaline-rush risks are at one end of the spectrum of reasons why one would risk life and limb.  At the other end of the risk-spectrum are more noble and substantive explanations why reasonable people put themselves in harm’s way. 

·       Firefighters run to the fire, while everyone else is running from the fire. 

·       Soldiers strap-on up to 120 pounds of Kevlar flak jacket, munitions, helmet and weapon when they face the risk of enemy fire. 

·       Line repair for the electricity that powers your toaster is done by risk-takers, 30-feet off the ground, daring 13,800 volts of power to behave itself. 

·       The list is endless.

The thin line of risk walked by Apostle Paul was life or death at the hands of those steeped in the kind of power human ego uses to oppress that which threatens their power.  Before he met Jesus, Paul was one of those people.  When he met Jesus his life was turned from oppressing the followers of Jesus, to fugitive-on-the-run to preach Christ’s love and hope.  Those who pursued Paul had him falsely accused of sedition, imprisoned, and eventually executed…martyred. 

Paul was (and is) a study in how to daily abandon self, and lay it all down for the Kingdom of God…or as Jesus put it:  take up your cross daily, and follow me.[2]  That is hardly suicidal…rather it is the invitation to let go of the old life of death, and be introduced to the Grand New Life which only Christ can give. 

For You Today 

In 1945, Pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote from a Nazi prison, just before facing Adolph Hitler’s hangman:  When Christ calls a man, he bids him ‘Come and die’.  That may seem a bit on the risky side…but it’s guaranteed by the blood of the only Son of the Creator and King of the Universe.

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

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There are about 2,600 devotional posts and 400 sermons in the Rocky Road Devotions library.  

 

Title Image:  via Pixabay.com   Images without citation are in public domain.   Unless noted, Scripture quoted from NLT^©  

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[1] Leo Buscaglia, Living Loving and Learning, Souvenir Press Ltd, 1983, English Literature & Linguistics

[2] See Matthew 16:24 and Mark 8:34

Passing the Baton

Monday, January 9, 2023

When I think of all this, I fall to my knees and pray to the Father, the Creator of everything in heaven and on earth.  I pray that from his glorious, unlimited resources he will empower you with inner strength through his Spirit.  Then Christ will make his home in your hearts as you trust in him.  Your roots will grow down into God’s love and keep you strong.  And may you have the power to understand, as all God’s people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep his love is.  May you experience the love of Christ, though it is too great to understand fully.  Then you will be made complete with all the fullness of life and power that comes from God.  Ephesians 3:14-19

Paul is writing final letters to his dear friends.  His days as a prisoner were coming to an end, and it was not to be a parole; Paul was under a sentence of death.  One of the purposes of the letter was to absolve from any guilt this  group of believers in Ephesus whom he loved deeply, and doing so, to draw them more deeply into Christ’s love.  Paul’s singular charge from God was to spread the Gospel to the Gentiles.  He had developed a reptutation as a heretic among the Jews, a traitor for saying God’s love was for everyone.[1]  The Jewish leaders pulled every string they could to silence the apostle.

This letter was a last testament of his love for his Ephesian family.  And in this text Paul’s prayer for them is for spiritual insight, that God would reveal the scope of God’s love to them, developing in that body of believers the kind of fullness of the Christian life they would need to carry-on the work Paul had begun with them.  The apostle was passing the baton to the next generation!

Mentors do that.  There are many people who influence your life, folks who reveal important things.  But, truth be told, there are fewer mentors, people who go out of their way to befriend, teach, counsel, and inspire.  This is passing the Good News baton to the next generation. 

Being a mentor, a passer of the baton, means several things are in place: 

First, some valuable learning must have taken hold in your life, if you’re going to pass along truth.  If you don’t have a baton to pass on, your leg of the race is worthless.  And before you just give up because you judge your ministry…that’s not up to you…that’s God’s prerogative.   

Second, there must be a longing beyond your reach.  As effective a missionary as Paul was, his most lasting dynamic was his willingness to leave it all on the field for someone else to pick up.

Third, you must be willing to let go of the reins.  Let’s face it…nobody drives like anybody else.  If you won’t trust God to work in the life of someone who looks up to you as mentor, you didn’t have a ministry, you had an agenda.

Most of us will not have to face the executioner’s axe, like Paul did, to realize the time of passing the baton was at hand.  Letting go to trust God’s hand is the supreme act of faith. 

For You Today  

To move into being a mentor for the next generation takes some experience, much vision, and a heart that is willing to reach the finish line.  Let’s give Paul the last word on that today:

I focus on this one thing:  Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead, I press on to reach the end of the race and receive the heavenly prize for which God, through Christ Jesus, is calling us.  Philippians 3:13b-14

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: 

Understanding the Danger of Peanut Butter  and  Measuring the Love of God

Images:  Title Wikimedia Commons - public domain   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] See Galatians 3:28

The Spiritual Gift of Agitation

[i][ii]

Monday, May 6, 2019

Afterward he ate some food and regained his strength.  Saul stayed with the believers in Damascus for a few days.  And immediately he began preaching about Jesus in the synagogues, saying, “He is indeed the Son of God!”  All who heard him were amazed.  “Isn’t this the same man who caused such devastation among Jesus’ followers in Jerusalem?” they asked.  “And didn’t he come here to arrest them and take them in chains to the leading priests?”  Saul’s preaching became more and more powerful, and the Jews in Damascus couldn’t refute his proofs that Jesus was indeed the Messiah.  After a while some of the Jews plotted together to kill him.  They were watching for him day and night at the city gate so they could murder him, but Saul was told about their plot.  So during the night, some of the other believers lowered him in a large basket through an opening in the city wall.  When Saul arrived in Jerusalem, he tried to meet with the believers, but they were all afraid of him.  They did not believe he had truly become a believer!  Then Barnabas brought him to the apostles and told them how Saul had seen the Lord on the way to Damascus and how the Lord had spoken to Saul.  He also told them that Saul had preached boldly in the name of Jesus in Damascus.  So Saul stayed with the apostles and went all around Jerusalem with them, preaching boldly in the name of the Lord.  He debated with some Greek-speaking Jews, but they tried to murder him.  When the believers heard about this, they took him down to Caesarea and sent him away to Tarsus, his hometown.  The church then had peace throughout Judea, Galilee, and Samaria, and it became stronger as the believers lived in the fear of the Lord.  And with the encouragement of the Holy Spirit, it also grew in numbers.  Acts 9:19-31

Wherever Apostle Paul went he started a riot or a revival; these words still ring in my ear since I first heard them forty years ago from a friend in ministry.  It seems every time Paul opened his mouth (or his pen) what came forth was the spiritual gift of agitation.  By that I mean Paul was prone to get right to the bone of truth, no matter what was in the way.  If you had a soft exterior, he’d cut through that flesh like a surgeon.  If you were of the hard-shell variety Paul would leave your pride in pieces on the floor.

Consider the evidence; from the first we hear about Paul he is heartily joining-in the religious leader’s decision to stone Stephen.[iii]  Then a meeting with Jesus on the Road to Damascus leaves Paul blind, turned 180° towards eternal truth, eyes re-opened, and preaching that truth from Damascus to Jerusalem with his life on the line.  And every time he preaches there is a riot or revival (oftentimes both) as a response to the truth that Jesus Christ is Lord.

The chief piece of evidence that Paul’s ministry was one of agitation, driven by the Spirit of God, is how every time Paul preached people wanted him dead.  (I’ve felt like that a few times!).  Added to that is the reality expressed by Luke in this text that once Paul was hurried out of town, the church experienced peace, but were left with an insatiable desire to press forward for the sake of Christ’s kingdom.  In short, great things happened!

Now there is a difference between just stirring-it-up, an agitating self-important troublemaker, and someone cooperating with God’s Spirit to unsettle those who are comfortable in their unbelief.  There’s an old saying that describes the task of any preacher:  we are to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable. 

Paul was a master of both.

For You Today

If you’re comfortable in your routine it may be time to have a little talk with Paul…that is, only if you don’t mind a little truth shaking your comfort zone to the bone!

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

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[i] Title Image:   Public domain (via Wikimedia Commons

[ii] Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture quotations are from The New Living Translation©

[iii] See Acts 6

Taking One for the Team

[1]

Thursday, August 9, 2018

We who are strong must be considerate of those who are sensitive about things like this.  We must not just please ourselves.  We should help others do what is right and build them up in the Lord.  For even Christ didn’t live to please himself.  As the Scriptures say, “The insults of those who insult you, O God, have fallen on me.”  Such things were written in the Scriptures long ago to teach us.  And the Scriptures give us hope and encouragement as we wait patiently for God’s promises to be fulfilled.  May God, who gives this patience and encouragement, help you live in complete harmony with each other, as is fitting for followers of Christ Jesus.  Then all of you can join together with one voice, giving praise and glory to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.  Romans 15:1-6 ^(NLT)

Paul believed in taking one for the team.  The first time I heard this expression was in high school.  Our football coach was showing us a film of Tommy Gandly taking one for the team.  Tommy wasn’t the biggest guy on the team, but he had football sense; he knew how to get the job done.  Coach Weitz focused on that quality by showing one play from the video of last Saturday’s game over and over.  The play was Tommy playing defense; the other team came at Tommy’s side with what looked like a wall of red…huge guys running at top speed, ready to knock any resistance out of the universe.  Tommy knew he couldn’t make the tackle, but just as the “wall” reached him, he dropped low, like a snow plow and took out three of the biggest guys.  They went down like bowling pins, and that cleared the way for our team’s players to tackle the ball carrier!  Tommy gave up the glory of making a tackle to others.  But, without laying himself out for the team, they might have bulldozed through us for a touchdown.  His sacrifice made the team’s success a possibility.

I talked with Coach Weitz a few years ago before he passed and told him how that one scene has stayed in my mind all these decades.  It indelibly printed a picture for me of how unselfish sacrifice can mean the difference between winning and losing.

It’s that way in football, and it’s that way in life.  Church, business, family, school, community relationships all depend on getting the job done.  And sometimes that means you lay yourself down for the good of others.

That’s quite a bit different from the kind of entitlement mentality that seems to pervade our culture these days.  Somehow Jack Kennedy’s famous speech on Inauguration Day 1961 makes a good sound bite, but fades quickly when it comes to rubber touching the road.  Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country has morphed to the lower level of get out of my way, give me this, and that, and bring it now!

In Paul’s letter to the Roman believers he reminded them that caring for others is the stark difference between selfishness and Christlikeness.  It is only in putting the needs of others above the preferences we may hold that we find the true character of Jesus present.

For You Today

If you need a witness statement to support that idea, try this one:

He went on a little farther and bowed with his face to the ground, praying, “My Father! If it is possible, let this cup of suffering be taken away from me. Yet I want your will to be done, not mine.  Matthew 26:39^(NLT)

If going to the cross wasn’t taking one for the team, such a concept doesn’t exist!

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

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[1] Title Image:  Courtesy of Sarah Walsh, Hauppauge High School Homecoming

Paul's Legacy

[1]

Tuesday, July 24, 2018

But when we landed at Miletus, he sent a message to the elders of the church at Ephesus, asking them to come and meet him.  When they arrived he declared, “You know that from the day I set foot in the province of Asia until now I have done the Lord’s work humbly and with many tears.  I have endured the trials that came to me from the plots of the Jews.  I never shrank back from telling you what you needed to hear, either publicly or in your homes.  I have had one message for Jews and Greeks alike—the necessity of repenting from sin and turning to God, and of having faith in our Lord Jesus.  “And now I am bound by the Spirit to go to Jerusalem.  I don’t know what awaits me, except that the Holy Spirit tells me in city after city that jail and suffering lie ahead.  But my life is worth nothing to me unless I use it for finishing the work assigned me by the Lord Jesus—the work of telling others the Good News about the wonderful grace of God.  “And now I know that none of you to whom I have preached the Kingdom will ever see me again.  I declare today that I have been faithful.  If anyone suffers eternal death, it’s not my fault, for I didn’t shrink from declaring all that God wants you to know.  “So guard yourselves and God’s people. Feed and shepherd God’s flock—his church, purchased with his own blood—over which the Holy Spirit has appointed you as leaders.  I know that false teachers, like vicious wolves, will come in among you after I leave, not sparing the flock.  Even some men from your own group will rise up and distort the truth in order to draw a following.  Watch out!  Remember the three years I was with you—my constant watch and care over you night and day, and my many tears for you.  “And now I entrust you to God and the message of his grace that is able to build you up and give you an inheritance with all those he has set apart for himself.  

Acts 20:17-32^(NLT)

Final, or parting words are memorable only when the life and words match-up.  Nathan Hale was a patriot who declared:  I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country.  The first deacon of the church, Stephen’s last words were of forgiveness for those who were stoning him:  As they stoned him, Stephen prayed, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.” He fell to his knees, shouting, “Lord, don’t charge them with this sin!” And with that, he died.  Acts 7:59-60^(NLT)

While this passage does not record the final words of Paul’s life, they are his parting words to the Christians at Miletus, and all the Asian continent before heading off to Jerusalem.  This was the pathway that would ultimately lead to Paul’s execution – but also his greatest impact for the Kingdom of God.

In this address are:

·      Paul recalling his work in that area to bring the Gospel, overcoming hardship and opposition

·      The call of God’s Spirit to endure even worse as he presses on to Jerusalem

·      An assurance that this was a one-way-ticket; the Apostle would never see them again, and…

·      Paul’s clear heart; his legacy included telling them everything he knew about God and Christ, along with a warning to guard against any enemy that would steal that teaching, or their faith.

All the way to the end – finishing the course – that is what this apostle, a man sent by God to do the work of God, did.  And, in this beginning of the earthly end for Paul, his concern is that whatever legacy he left, it would include first and foremost, the souls of those God entrusted to his pastoral care.

Frankly, a preacher who does not feel this burning inside for those to whom she or he preaches, and those to whom God has sent him or her, is no preacher of the Gospel of Jesus.  To be called of God is to despise one’s own life for the sake of another’s.  It is what Jesus did on the cross; it is that to which Jesus calls his disciples:

Then Jesus said to his disciples, “If any of you wants to be my follower, you must give up your own way, take up your cross, and follow me.  Matthew 16:24^(NLT)

For You Today

Daily, piece by piece, you are stitching-together the legacy you will leave some day.  Whatever “words” you say at the end will not change what you do today. 

For a genuine disciple of Jesus Christ, the marching order today is as unchanging as the course of the sun, moon, and stars; pick up the cross and follow.

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

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[1] Title Image:  Courtesy of Pixabay.com

Through Many Dangers, Toils, and Snares

[1]

Monday, July 9, 2018

Again I say, don’t think that I am a fool to talk like this.  But even if you do, listen to me, as you would to a foolish person, while I also boast a little.  Such boasting is not from the Lord, but I am acting like a fool.  And since others boast about their human achievements, I will, too.  After all, you think you are so wise, but you enjoy putting up with fools!  You put up with it when someone enslaves you, takes everything you have, takes advantage of you, takes control of everything, and slaps you in the face. I’m ashamed to say that we’ve been too “weak” to do that!  But whatever they dare to boast about—I’m talking like a fool again—I dare to boast about it, too.  Are they Hebrews?  So am I.  Are they Israelites?  So am I.  Are they descendants of Abraham? So am I.  Are they servants of Christ?  I know I sound like a madman, but I have served him far more!  I have worked harder, been put in prison more often, been whipped times without number, and faced death again and again.  Five different times the Jewish leaders gave me thirty-nine lashes.  Three times I was beaten with rods.  Once I was stoned.  Three times I was shipwrecked.  Once I spent a whole night and a day adrift at sea.  I have traveled on many long journeys.  I have faced danger from rivers and from robbers.  I have faced danger from my own people, the Jews, as well as from the Gentiles.  I have faced danger in the cities, in the deserts, and on the seas.  And I have faced danger from men who claim to be believers but are not.  I have worked hard and long, enduring many sleepless nights.  I have been hungry and thirsty and have often gone without food.  I have shivered in the cold, without enough clothing to keep me warm.  Then, besides all this, I have the daily burden of my concern for all the churches.  Who is weak without my feeling that weakness?  Who is led astray, and I do not burn with anger?  If I must boast, I would rather boast about the things that show how weak I am.  God, the Father of our Lord Jesus, who is worthy of eternal praise, knows I am not lying.  When I was in Damascus, the governor under King Aretas kept guards at the city gates to catch me. I had to be lowered in a basket through a window in the city wall to escape from him.  2 Corinthians 11:16-33^(NLT)

Paul did not lead a boring life!  Shipwrecked, beaten, stoned, flogged, journeys, adrift, robbers, rebellions, cold, hungry, and sleepless nights.  On top of it all sometimes he had to slink out of town at night like a criminal because the authorities wanted him dead.  So, this is the bland, boring life of a missionary?

Paul did not think the suffering he did was exceptional, or too much, for the privilege he had of sharing the Gospel.  And the apostle also would not have even thought it right to list all that hardship if it wasn’t necessary to help put the Gospel in better perspective for the Corinthian church folk who were being led astray by some false prophets.  He needed to help them see the miraculous care God had taken to bring them the Gospel through Paul’s efforts, and God’s guiding hand.  And, to boot, how does the suffering Paul went through compare to Christ’s agony of taking on the sins of the whole world on Calvary’s cross? 

It is natural (is it not?) when you’ve had a long life, or career, to look back over the time and gain perspective on where you’ve been.  You note the high points, valleys, and the difficult struggles, along with grace-filled times you were carried along.  I have been doing a lot of that lately, ever since my 70^th birthday.  Crossing the border of threescore-and-ten carries a Biblical proportionate significance; God called that our average lifespan, and one must wonder how much longer you’ll beat the odds.  At the least, with much more time in your past than can be expected in your future, you begin to evaluate the course you’ve run. 

Mostly, I think, we remember Paul for his resilience, the apostle, beaten, bruised, bloodied, but never bowing-out.  Paul survived because, as I heard another preacher[2] say recently, God will never be done with the servant who is in the will of God, until, by the loving will of God it is time for that servant of God to go home to the loving arms of God.

Paul was not a boaster; his message here is perspective:  we come through (as John Newton wrote) many dangers, toils, and snares[3]…but it is grace that will see us home.

For You Today

If your life gets as exciting as Paul’s, remember God’s not done with you.  Life may get easier, or it may get tougher, but one day, it’s going to get completely right!

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

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[1] Title Image:  Courtesy of Pixabay.com

[2] Dr. David Jeremiah on a May 2018 broadcast of Turning Point

[3] Amazing Grace, v.3