With Ears Like That...

Tuesday, February 21, 2023

The Lord says, “I will guide you along the best pathway for your life.  I will advise you and watch over you.  Do not be like a senseless horse or mule that needs a bit and bridle to keep it under control.”  Psalm 32:8-9

God made us different from the rest of sentient beings (fish, animals, and plants). God gave humans consciousness (awareness) of meaning and the importance of intrapersonal connection.  More than merely an affiliation with our own species, God gave us an innate sense of the purpose and worth of each other’s existence, as well as the sacredness of all creation.  And on top of that gift God placed a requirement that we use all that awareness better than a stubborn mule. 

We humans are a particularly strange lot, especially in our lack of intelligent choices.  One would imagine humans possessing sensory understanding, or (if you wish) ears like a mule , humanity might pay better attention to our Creator’s instructions.  That is so strange, considering God has given us a promise (as the Psalmist clearly stated) of guidance to the pathway of a better life.  And it has been so from the opening gun.  Adam and Eve were told not to dine on one particular tree…that lasted a half-second.  Cain and Abel were told what to bring for a worship offering.  Cain completely ignored God’s instructions, got angry with jealousy, and killed his brother for spite.  If you’ve ever had the responsibility of a parent, to make important choices for your child, you know first-hand what that child will do when you say clearly, authoritatively, and lovingly:  Child, don’t go near that road.  In the next heartbeat he or she will be dancing on the pavement!

We have ears to listen and, generally, turn them to a deaf side.

Occasionally, however, there is a revival of God’s Spirit, like the one currently in progress at Asbury University.  

By many social media accounts and news outlets, it isn’t a wild jumping-over-the-pews, shouting goofiness.  Rather, its calm sitting in His presence, praying for each other, boldly trusting that waiting before God for His next word is more important than classes, jobs, spreadsheets, schedules, or anything else in which we dabble-away our time.  It is joy without giddy foolishness.  It’s healing of the spirit, building of the spirit, and connection with God’s family.  It is, frankly, koinonia, the common Greek word used in the New Testament to describe how the real church acts when they truly listen to God’s voice.  It is the combined atmosphere of community, communion, sharing, and deeply-held intimacy.[1]  This is the spiritual garden where God’s Holy Spirit produces excellent fruit of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control[2].

For You Today 

The spiritual fruit of revival begins in the church, when God’s people, who have surrendered Lordship to Jesus Christ, promising to walk in the Spirit, nail their sinful desires to the cross, and invite the transforming power Jesus offers, to change their deaf ears to deeply-listening ears.  And with ears like that…there’s no telling what good Christ will produce in your life!

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: 

Oh! What Joy  and  The Problem With Pharisees      

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^©  

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[1] For more understanding read κοινωνία in Wikimedia.com

[2] See Galatians 5:22-25

Trending NOW

 

Wednesday, May 11, 2022

Once again the people picked up stones to kill him.  Jesus said, “At my Father’s direction I have done many good works.  For which one are you going to stone me?”  They replied, “We’re stoning you not for any good work, but for blasphemy!  You, a mere man, claim to be God.”  Jesus replied, “It is written in your own Scriptures that God said to certain leaders of the people, ‘I say, you are gods!’  And you know that the Scriptures cannot be altered.  So  if those people who received God’s message were called ‘gods,’ why do you call it blasphemy when I say, ‘I am the Son of God’?  After all, the Father set me apart and sent me into the world.  Don’t believe me unless I carry out my Father’s work.  But if I do his work, believe in the evidence of the miraculous works I have done, even if you don’t believe me.  Then you will know and understand that the Father is in me, and I am in the Father.”  Once again they tried to arrest him, but he got away and left them.  He went beyond the Jordan River near the place where John was first baptizing and stayed there awhile.  And many followed him.  “John didn’t perform miraculous signs,” they remarked to one another, “but everything he said about this man has come true.”  And many who were there believed in Jesus.  John 10:31-42

Trending is an amazing phenomenon.  Something happens in today’s world and the bandwagon gets overloaded in a hurry.  The trending of people getting ready to stone someone is as old as the fourth chapter of Genesis, when Cain picked up a big rock to teach his brother, Abel a lesson.  That didn’t end well, and it still doesn’t.

Not all stoning, however, is done with a rock.  What’s been trending since I was barely into my teens is the stoning of God’s church, and faith in the church’s Founder, Jesus.  Now, there are many “reasons” (and some would say “excuses”) for this falling away from Christian orthodoxy, which places faith firmly in Holy Scripture, bedrock of which is the Gospel.  But the primary cause for this increase in faith-downward-trending isn’t any different than when people picked up the stones that day in Jerusalem’s Temple to silence the upstart son of a carpenter.  When something is said that rocks the comfort boat, the occupants are going to toss it overboard.

As a reply, Jesus challenged their willingness to send him packing from the church (also not a new occurrence…preachers are very familiar with the exit trending of both members, under their own power of choice, and the preachers themselves by committee vote).  But the bottom line of Jesus’ challenge is common sense.  If what he DID matched what He SAID, and what the Scripture RECORDED as God’s Word and way, why the disbelief?  You’ve heard it before:  If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck….  This passage has a world arriving at the conclusion that, evidence aside, we’d rather have the comfort level of making our independent choices, than the uncertainty of following a God of infinite power, Who disturbs our comfortable nest. 

For You Today

It may be easier (for many people) to follow Jesus in theory, rather than to stand with Jesus once the flinging of the rocks commences.  Then, it’s a whole lot easier to just go with what’s trending.  But there’s coming a trend to end all trends…that moment when you face the one who faced the crowds with rocks in their hands that day in Jerusalem.  He’s going to say one of two things in that moment:

1.    Well done, thou good and faithful servant

2.    Depart from me, I never knew you.

The right choice, or the wrong rock is in your hand!

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

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

Life Interrupted

 

Friday, June 11, 2021

It was by faith that Abel brought a more acceptable offering to God than Cain did.  Abel’s offering gave evidence that he was a righteous man, and God showed his approval of his gifts.  Although Abel is long dead, he still speaks to us by his example of faith.  It was by faith that Enoch was taken up to heaven without dying—“he disappeared, because God took him.”  For before he was taken up, he was known as a person who pleased God.  And it is impossible to please God without faith.  Anyone who wants to come to him must believe that God exists and that he rewards those who sincerely seek him.  It was by faith that Noah built a large boat to save his family from the flood.  He obeyed God, who warned him about things that had never happened before.  By his faith Noah condemned the rest of the world, and he received the righteousness that comes by faith.  Hebrews 11:4-7

Three men, Abel, Enoch, and Noah – all men of faith in God, and one other piece of common experience – having their lives abruptly interrupted.  Enoch had, perhaps, the most pleasant experience of the three.  A friend and teacher of mine in seminary, Dr. Charles Graham, was the first I heard say it, Enoch walked with God (he was really good friends with the Lord).  And one day, after walking a good while, God said to him, Enoch, today we’ve walked so far together that we’re closer to my home than yours; why don’t you just come on home with me?  Going to Heaven while you skip the funeral home stuff has a certain appeal!

A little more disconcerting was Noah’s boat excursion.  Having God shut the door on everything Noah and family had ever known, while the thunder and lightning roared, and the earth broke up to push floods, well, THAT was no easy ride!

Perhaps the toughest life-interruption on the list belongs to Abel, who was the second child born to humanity.  According to this account in Scripture, Abel was a righteous man, meaning everything he did in life was intended to please God. 

Most funerals you’ve ever attended sound like they were for Abel.  The preacher talks about just how wonderful the person was in that casket.  But Genesis tells us Abel’s earthly walk through this life was interrupted in the most violent and unjust of ways.  His older brother, Cain, the firstborn child to Adam and Eve, got jealous over his younger brother’s righteousness and killed him with a rock.  Abel never got that wonderful funeral with all the aunts and uncles, and community of friends; his brother just hid his broken, bloodied body in the dust.

There is something quite at-odds with conventional “Christian” logic here.  All three of these men never got the testimonial retirement dinner and gold watch.  Abel’s death was a betrayal of a brother who murdered him.  Noah’s validation party only had his wife and kids…everybody else was dead.  And Enoch, well, he just disappeared one day, leaving everyone to wonder, and the news cycles reporting goofy stuff about him running off to the South of France with his secretary, or some other excuse…anything but righteousness.  Most so-called Christian thinking says that just isn’t right; they were good men, faithful to the Lord’s work…and WHAM…life interrupted…ended without fanfare or thanks.

Fast-forward a few millennia and check out the Book of Hebrews.  Because of their faith, God was pleased.  Whatever the news cycles read on the last day of Noah’s, Abel’s, or Enoch’s lives, God was pleased with them. 

For You Today

Gold watches and a framed commendation certificate to hang  on your den wall aside, what is it about your life that needs to be said on the day you breathe your last?  For any of us, isn’t it, God was pleased?

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

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

God's Promise to the Wicked

 

Tuesday, May 25, 2021

Let all sinners vanish from the face of the earth; let the wicked disappear forever.  Let all that I am praise the Lord.  Praise the Lord!  Psalm 104:35

God’s promises are never dropped or discarded.  The will of God towards evil and good is always preserved and immutable.  This unchanging character of Almighty God is expressed through His Word.  Isaiah’s prophecy explains:

“My thoughts are nothing like your thoughts,” says the Lord.  “And my ways are far beyond anything you could imagine.  For just as the heavens are higher than the earth, so my ways are higher than your ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts.  “The rain and snow come down from the heavens and stay on the ground to water the earth.  They cause the grain to grow, producing seed for the farmer and bread for the hungry.  It is the same with my word.  I send it out, and it always produces fruit.  It will accomplish all I want it to, and it will prosper everywhere I send it.  Isaiah 55:8-11

The Psalmist’s prayer, that sinners (those who reject the will of God) will vanish completely from the earth, is validated in heaven by John’s end-time revelation that God will make all things new.  Wickedness, in its evil intention towards God and everything God rules (which is everything), will disappear, never to return.

And the one sitting on the throne said, “Look, I am making everything new!” Revelation 21:5a

John writes about “new” and that usually means (to we of the 21^st century), the new car, or new house, or new relationship; we think new-ly created.  But there are also new times and ways.  God’s promises are of change.

In the final judgment scene we read that all evil persons, spirits, and even the memory of them will be wiped from the earth and cosmos as God wipes away every tear, and banishes sorrow and pain.  It is the new day promise of God.[1]

In that final judgment of God every sin ever committed against God’s holiness and person there are unimaginable horrors for those who have rejected the loving offer of God to be forgiven.  The very thought pains us to imagine people we love and care for, and even those whom we’ve never met, suffering for eternity.  Indeed, for those who think clearly, imagine that punishment pronounced on your own life. 

It is, as Cain said when God put the mark of “sinner” on the one who murdered his own brother, Abel, it’s too much; I can’t bear it.[2]

For You Today

The promise of God to those who reject God’s offer of forgiveness for sin, is they will bear the mark of Cain throughout eternity.  In Alaska the distance between places years ago was long and marked by wilderness and seclusion.  At the start of one long stretch of “highway” (a single, unpaved cut path), was a sign that stated:

This is God’s sign for the future…which is much longer than Alaska’s highways.

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

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

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[1] See Isaiah 25:8 and Revelation 21:4

[2] Genesis 4:13

Violence in the Land

 

Tuesday, June 2, 2020

The Lord examines both the righteous and the wicked.  He hates those who love violence.  Psalm 11:5

The death of George Floyd while in the custody of policeman Derek Chauvin ignited a countrywide firestorm of protests, some erupting into rioting, looting, and injury.  The flood of blaming from both sides of another polarizing event is deafening!  Some law enforcement camps are circling the wagons.  Outraged citizens are calling for heads to roll.  Politicians are pandering, news-cycle junkies and pundits are both working the talking points to death.  Meanwhile, the now-fired former police officer is sitting in a maximum security cell, charged with 3^rd degree murder, and manslaughter, with a first-appearance to answer the charges scheduled next week.   

It is entirely understandable that a community backlash would/should follow such an horrific end to a man’s life.  Moral legal action is demanded to sort out not only what happened, but to seek justice when a law enforcement official (with 3 backup officers on the scene) chooses to exert force, apparently sufficient to kill, particularly when the apprehended man is secured and begging for mercy.  Society that quietly looks the other way from such brutality is hideously inhumane.

From a personal viewpoint, I cannot get my mind to move past the thought that, for George Floyd and Derek Chauvin, this was a family matter; they were brothers.   That statement alone is liable to get me a dozen or more are you crazy responses, so let me explain.  Scripture tells us we come from a common ancestor, named Eve.  Even for the less Biblically-based among us, current science proclaims her name was Lucy, or L.U.C.A., (Last Universal Common Ancestor).[1]  That ultimately means George Floyd and Derek Chauvin are of the same family, which makes them both part of the same race, human!  This was a family matter…even if neither of them knew it!

It’s important to note that the very first murder recorded in Scripture is perpetrated by the first human to be born on earth (God had put Cain’s parents together by hand; they never saw the inside of a neo-natal unit).  Cain and Abel were instructed what kind of offering to bring to give thanks to God for their lives.  Abel listened and was obedient, Cain didn’t and wasn’t[2].  When God called him on his poor choice, Cain got ticked, and since he knew he couldn’t wrestle with God and come out on top, he took his anger out on his brother with a rock to the head.  And brothers have been using rocks, clubs, guns, spears, swords and smart bombs to carry on the family tradition ever since!  That is bad enough; but, enter the rioters and looters.  In a kind of Cain profile some are just drawn by the lure of the mob.  Somehow it is a safe place to take revenge for injustice.  And people do love a safe place from which to proclaim (self) righteously their anger.  And, if being anonymous in a mob, you can get away with smashing a store window, you might as well take that 72” smart TV home too.  We have a word to describe that…cowardice!

In the end we all play Cain’s card – it’s somebody else’s fault.  After all, Cain learned it best from his and his brother’s parents.  When they sinned, God demanded an accounting; here’s how that played out:

Then the Lord God called to the man, “Where are you?”  He replied, “I heard you walking in the garden, so I hid.  I was afraid because I was naked.”  “Who told you that you were naked?” the Lord God asked.  “Have you eaten from the tree whose fruit I commanded you not to eat?”  The man replied, “It was the woman you gave me who gave me the fruit, and I ate it.”  Then the Lord God asked the woman, “What have you done?”  “The serpent deceived me,” she replied. “That’s why I ate it.”  Genesis 3:9-13

Deflect, blame someone else, hide, don’t show your face.  It’s the blame game.  Only, in the case of George Floyd, it wasn’t much of a game.

Let’s Pray Together:

Father, our hearts and souls are pierced once again at the madness of violence we have in our land.  There seems to be no end of anger and fingers pointing at each other; we play the blame game with amazing and continually increasing disastrous effects.  And then we go to church on Sunday to worship the goodness of the Prince of Peace.  You cannot be pleased with your children and our unfaithful, brutal ways.  May our hearts be pierced with your love; may it extend to our brothers.

For You Today

Brutality & revenge; when have two wrongs EVER made right?

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

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

For another post on Psalm 11:5 see The Examined Life and Collapsed Foundations

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[1] Meet LUCA, the Ancestor of All Living Things, New York Times article

[2] See Genesis 4

What Calls from Below

Friday, March 27, 2020

“Son of man, give the people of Israel this message:  You are saying, ‘Our sins are heavy upon us; we are wasting away!  How can we survive?’  As surely as I live, says the Sovereign Lord, I take no pleasure in the death of wicked people. I only want them to turn from their wicked ways so they can live.  Turn!  Turn from your wickedness, O people of Israel!  Why should you die?  

“Son of man, give your people this message:  The righteous behavior of righteous people will not save them if they turn to sin, nor will the wicked behavior of wicked people destroy them if they repent and turn from their sins.  When I tell righteous people that they will live, but then they sin, expecting their past righteousness to save them, then none of their righteous acts will be remembered.  I will destroy them for their sins.  And suppose I tell some wicked people that they will surely die, but then they turn from their sins and do what is just and right.  For instance, they might give back a debtor’s security, return what they have stolen, and obey my life-giving laws, no longer doing what is evil.  If they do this, then they will surely live and not die.  None of their past sins will be brought up again, for they have done what is just and right, and they will surely live.  Ezekiel 33:10-16

According to Scripture’s over-arching lessons there is no Switzerland-like neutral category when it comes to behavior; there is only good and evil.  Adam and Eve were created, then God said that was not just good, but very good!  God warned our great-great ancestors to stay away from the tree in the middle of the garden.  When they didn’t obey, God said it was bad (we’ve been finding out it was very bad ever since).  By the time their firstborn (Cain) killed his brother (Abel) it’s clear that what calls from below is the blood of our sins.

The prophet Ezekiel’s clear watchman message on the absence of a neutral position on sin is that, it matters what you do with what’s in front of you, much more so than what you did yesterday. 

Some of the conversations I’ve had with people since the onslaught of the newest plague, Covid-19, have turned to whether or not this is the beginning of the End-Time judgment of God.  Is the blood of past sins calling down the wrath of God on humankind?  There’s a case to be made for that; some would say a strong case!  After all, God does not wink at sin.  All the way through Scripture it is presented clearly that sin’s penalty is death.  From the very first warning of God to Adam and Eve, that, in the day they sinned their souls would experience death’s sting…through the cursing of the ground, decline of health and life’s longevity, and the displays of God’s willingness to save from sin, this has been the human story:  we sin, experience a little more hell until we repent; God forgives and covers the sin with His righteousness.  And we hardly learn the lesson.  It’s like the shampoo bottle instructions – lather, rinse, repeat. 

So, is Covid-19 God’s judgment gavel about to hit the bench?  Are we toast?  The answer is threefold, yes, no, and I really don’t know. 

Yes …is the sense that God always judges humankind’s sin.

No …is the sense that we humans were created in the image of God, but that image is dimmed so much by our wickedness, we hardly can understand the concept of God’s will and righteousness, much less know what God is up to.

I Really Don’t Know …is my final answer – God has reserved the timing of his judgment to himself.  As Jesus told his followers…no one but the Father knows that day

For You Today

Considering we cannot know, when judgment will come, or even if Covid-19 is part of it, it is much smarter to do what Ezekiel suggested…turn…turn!  The Bible word for turning is repent; to repent is to turn away from sin and turn to God.

Remember, Ezekiel said that God said your past wickedness can’t destroy you if you turn to Him.  So…are you waiting for a particular reason other than unbelief?

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

Go to VIDEO 

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

For another post on Ezekiel 33:  see The Lord's Consuming Fire