Lead Me, Lord

Thursday, September 7, 2023

Teach me your decrees, O Lord; I will keep them to the end.  Give me understanding and I will obey your instructions; I will put them into practice with all my heart.  Make me walk along the path of your commands, for that is where my happiness is found.  Give me an eagerness for your laws rather than a love for money!  Turn my eyes from worthless things, and give me life through your word.  Reassure me of your promise, made to those who fear you.  Help me abandon my shameful ways; for your regulations are good.  I long to obey your commandments!  Renew my life with your goodness.  Psalm 119:33-40

There are moments that capture a parent’s heart, more than anything the world has to offer.  Fame, wealth, and anything else in life, fades to background emptiness when your child reaches-out pudgy little hands to be loved.  Two of our three children are in their 50’s now (and the last one is knocking on that door), yet I still cannot look at them without remembering such times.  They will always be the precious bundle delivered to our home by a trusting Heavenly Father.

The Psalmist’s prayer is like that of a child, holding out a hand to the parent.  The prayer begins with:  teach me your decrees (commandments, what I should do), and ends with:  renew my life with your goodness.  These are like bookends, the details of what, how, when, and where are in the middle.  It all suggests rather strongly that leaning your life’s energy on a commitment to God’s ways, in the end leads to a life blessed with God’s best.  The prelude is my commitment to God’s way; the postlude, a life showered with the blessing of God’s favor.  It’s a step of faith to place all your eggs in one basket, trusting a God you can’t see.  That is the point.  Just as my children couldn’t possibly know all the love I had in my heart for them, they still reached up their hands to be led, taught, and loved.

It's an easy thing to point to these words of the Psalmist and proclaim – THIS…this is what you need to do with your life.  It’s a lot more difficult to explain that to a person raised in this modern world of cautiousness, suspicion, and doubting.  Our children are taught to not talk with strangers, disbelieve every word that proceeds out of the mouths of politicians, and to read the fine print to discover how they’re being lied-to.  Many people are off-the-deep-end with conspiracy theories.  Truth be told, there are enough valid reasons to be cautious:  Ponzi schemes, serial-killers, clergy sex-traffickers, dirty cops, and presidents on trial.  Overall there is a preponderance of reasons not to trust.  And then someone comes along to say…trust God…he won’t let you down.  And the poor kid whose head is spinning from the behavior he sees in adults says, sure…no thanks!

It is no wonder that in the realm of human beings searching for something or someone trustworthy, so many humans grow up looking for more reasons to debunk God, than trust Him.  Many people consider themselves spiritual, but give a quick thumbs-down on the church.  They’d rather trust in their own idea of human existence, and the impersonality of scientific explanations, than some antiquated religion.  Now, that’s the bad news.  (Really, Russell?  I’m glad that wasn’t the good stuff!)  That makes two of us. 

The Good News is still what that antiquated religion proclaims…God is truth, God is love, God loved all of us in Jesus Christ, and waits in the wings to forgive every mistake, sin, or horrible thing you’ve ever done.  Period!  I cannot give you 100 scientific proofs of it all, and even if I could, there’s always a guy with an angle to cast doubt on it all (just ask Eve).  But I can offer you the personal experience of one who decided to take the leap of faith, trust the Heavenly Father I’ve never seen, and find He’s trustworthy – above all!

For You Today 

Somewhere there’s a kid longing for “real” – don’t disappoint him.  Show him Jesus!

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 library. 

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

Living As People of Light

Thursday, August 31, 2023

Imitate God, therefore, in everything you do, because you are his dear children.  Live a life filled with love, following the example of Christ.  He loved us and offered himself as a sacrifice for us, a pleasing aroma to God.  Let there be no sexual immorality, impurity, or greed among you. Such sins have no place among God’s people.  Obscene stories, foolish talk, and coarse jokes—these are not for you.  Instead, let there be thankfulness to God. You can be sure that no immoral, impure, or greedy person will inherit the Kingdom of Christ and of God.  For a greedy person is an idolater, worshiping the things of this world.  Don’t be fooled by those who try to excuse these sins, for the anger of God will fall on all who disobey him.  Don’t participate in the things these people do.  For once you were full of darkness, but now you have light from the Lord.  So live as people of light!  For this light within you produces only what is good and right and true.  Ephesians 5:1-9

Apostle Paul begins this part of his letter to the believers at Ephesus with:

·       what to do (imitating God),

·       with the middle part telling us how to do it (thankfulness to God instead of self-centered obscenity),

·       and he ends it by pointing to:  what that will make of us (people of light, shining as good, right, and true.

Considering the culture in which we find ourselves in the 21^st Century, this passage would be a great one to memorize.  We live in a “coarse” society.  The word means rough, uneven, or raw.  That means we live in a hard place to navigate.  Waters like that produce sunken ships, and tragedy. 

The news (whether biased, or straight-up) screams loudly that Paul was talking about days like we now experience.  Prolonged times like this produce children who have little respect for authority.  And that is largely because they see very little worthy of admiration.  Sometimes it becomes obvious that children who are obnoxious and selfish are (at least) just acting out their natural inclination to rebel against what is not worthy of following. 

One of my friends was very fond of this saying about parenting techniques:  Your children’s learning will be more caught than taught.  You may be familiar with that if you have raised, or are raising kids; you can talk to them till you’re blue-in-the-face, but what they really learn is what they see in your actions. 

So the Apostle was getting at what we all need to learn…telling your children what to do isn’t the same as showing them how you do it.  It hardly needs saying, but do as I say…not as I do is the kind of hypocrisy children can sniff-out in a New York minute…and the smell of it ain’t pretty!  The year I turned 30 I was smoking 3 packs of cigarettes a day.  Public service announcements were just starting to ramp-up then, about how dangerous tobacco was for your health.  I quit that year because I noticed my five-year-old son walking around with a pencil in his hand, imitating Daddy’s habit.

Imitating God (as Paul states it) isn’t about playing God.  Rather, it’s about becoming like Jesus, unselfish, willing to sacrifice for the good of others.  This is the textbook definition of Agape’, God’s covenant love…doing the best for others unconditionally.  Without that we cannot live in the light, shining as goodness and truth; we remain in darkness.

For You Today 

So, whether this means you need to work on cleaning-up some habits, changing some attitudes, or whatever, remember that there are little eyes watching you, learning from you; lead them well.

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 library. 

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

Unless noted, Scripture quoted from NLT^©   

To Conceive; Or Not to Conceive…a conundrum in an overly sexualized culture

Monday, July 17, 2023

You guided my conception and formed me in the womb.  Job 10:10

You made all the delicate, inner parts of my body and knit me together in my mother’s womb.  Psalm 139:13

Just as you cannot understand the path of the wind or the mystery of a tiny baby growing in its mother’s womb, so you cannot understand the activity of God, who does all things.  Ecclesiastes 11:5

“I knew you before I formed you in your mother’s womb.  Jeremiah 1:5

The recent decision of the Supreme Court of the United States’ to overturn Roe v. Wade, and the ensuing public debate over abortion, once again stir the division between left-wing and right-wing political factions.  At the risk of further polarizing, I offer something of a contribution, not from a denominationally-mandated/politically-connected viewpoint…simply an interface of God’s Word with commitment to truth-telling, meant for the hard decisions of everyday life. We live in that kind of world; pragmatism confronts our surrender to Holy Scripture, and we must respond.

The debate (ongoing in history, and greatly inflamed on January 2, 1973, when Roe v. Wade – the decision to “legalize” abortion was passed)…this debate has widened the chasm between left and right, politically, and largely ignored the underlying divide that is the preceding cause of abortion, which could have been avoided, to wit:  We don’t follow God’s Word…and we end up in this mess, blaming each other, with the greatest harm being done to the unborn.

Note:  much of this message is excerpted from an article published October 8, 2021 in Perspective Magazine, a production of Good News  (Hereafter referred to as GN)

“There seems to be broad consensus that what exists within the womb is alive.  After all, it is growing and developing and even has a detectable heartbeat by the sixth week of pregnancy.

Some would say that a fetus is simply part of a woman’s body.  Having an abortion for some is the moral equivalent of removing a tumor or having plastic surgery.

Against this view is the fact that a fetus has different DNA than its mother.  If the fetus were simply part of the woman’s body, it would have the same identical DNA as the mother.  But of course the fetus has both the mother’s and father’s DNA, combined in a new and unique way, so it has a distinct life from that of the mother….Ultrasound technology shows us that a fetus has a life and existence of its own.  When it comes to the baby in the womb, the mother is dealing with a separate new life, which takes the question into a different moral category.

As reported by Emma Green in The Atlantic, activist Ashley McGuire recounts her own experience of pregnancy.  ‘When you’re seeing a baby sucking its thumb at 18 weeks, smiling, clapping,’ it becomes ‘harder to square the idea that that 20-week-old, that unborn baby or fetus, is discardable.’”^(GN)

That is some (not nearly all) of the context of the debate, which, if conducted honestly, always includes three things:  science, faith, and emotional response.  What follows is a longer amalgam of the cause of why this debate (in my view) should be ended, and can be ended:

“This is where our overly sexualized culture does women a disservice.  Wpomen are often expected to engage in sexual relations without any form of commitment by the man, yet women are the ones who bear the consequences in terms of pregnacy.  This is fundamentally unjust.  But the answer is not to do away with the consequences by ending the pregnancy.  Rather the answer is to return to God’s plan for how we experience our sexual relationships.

God designed sexual relationships to be experienced within the context of marriage, which represents a commitment by the man to care and provide for his wife and any offspring that might be conceived.  Without that commitment, women and children are left unprotected and not provided for.  An irresponsible man simply expects the woman to have an abortion to eliminate the consequences of his irresponsibility.

Biblical theology teaches that men and women should reserve sex until marriage.  This protects the woman from being taken advantage of, and it prevents the vast majority of potential abortions by reserving pregnacy and childbirth to the safety of marriage, where bothe the woman and her child are provided for.  The CDC reports that 85 percent of abortions are obtained by unmarried women.

This approach to sexuality is counter-cultural.  Jesus and the apostles consistently invite us to live by a different set of values and assumptions than our culture does.  Such an approach also avoids the emotional pain, emptiness, and even the physical consequences of promiscuity.  It is the healthiest way to live.” ^(GN)

The Call to Live the Life Which God Intends for our Blessing

“Biblically, life is a gift of God.  God creates life and expects us to be good stewards of the life we are given.  While the mother and father play a crucial role in bringing new life into the world, ultimately, God is the one who forms life in the womb ^{(Psalm 139:13-16).}  Children are a gift from God ^{(Psalm 127:3).}  His purpose for our life dates back before our birth ^{(Jeremiah 1:5).}  God loves and values unborn children.

The issues around abortion are painful ones to wrestle with, and there are no easy answers.  We can prayerfully consider how God would want to use the challenging circumstances in which we find ourselves for our good, the good of others, and his glory.  We do not want to close the door on the possibility of miraculously answered prayer.

At the same time, women with undesired pregnancies provide an opportunity for the body of Christ to come around them with love and support that would make that pregnancy manageable.  We ought to be the hands and feet of Jesus in serving women and their unborn children with love and acceptance.  Often, that support needs to continue past the birth and through the baby’s childhood, particularly for single mothers and women in poverty.  The church’s pro-life ethic is not just during pregnancy, but extends through all of life.” ^(GN)

For You Today 

The debate and level of emotions run deeper and much broader than these few pages of thoughts, primarily from the faith-centered pro-life position.  But these few things seem to be the most important issues upon which Christians cannot afford to abandon:

1.    We have a mandate to protect life at any stage, invitro, or ex….and that includes the mother, Christian believer, or not.

2.    Part of protecting and caring is found in listening…to simply trumpet pro-life platitudes won’t cut it for a single mom at three in the morning, when she’s only had two hours of sleep, the bills are unpaid, and her full-time job, with two other part-time things won’t even cover childcare and rent.

For our final word today, let’s listen to Albanian-born Mother Teresa as she accepted the 1979 Nobel Peace Prize for her work with children worldwide:

Abortion has become the greatest destroyer of peace, because it destroys two lives, the life of the child and the conscience of the mother.[1]

P.S.:  This has come closer to a full-size sermon, rather than a five-minute devotional, but the issue is too important.  (I’ve also not preached in the two weeks since I retired….so thanks for listening.  I’m tempted to ask if any church needs a supply preacher next week…but I wouldn’t do that ).

I do eagerly encourage you to read the Good News Article in its entirety…it is kind, well-presented, and a Scripture-based call to the church to embrace God’s will for His body to be like Jesus who came that we might have life, and that more abundantly.[2]

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

Go to VIDEO (read by author)

There are about 2,500 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] From GN as reported in the Los Angeles Times

[2] John 10:10

 

The Many Faces of DIVERSITY

 

Thursday, April 27, 2023

Dear friends, I warn you as “temporary residents and foreigners” to keep away from worldly desires that wage war against your very souls.  Be careful to live properly among your unbelieving neighbors.  Then even if they accuse you of doing wrong, they will see your honorable behavior, and they will give honor to God when he judges the world.  1 Peter 2:11-12

Diversity is one of those words which, when properly used, can lend itself to a holy perspective.  When used to settle an argument from a narrow, agenda-driven perspective, it leads to a divisive, and often violent end.  A preacher, for instance, could get fired just for bringing-up the subject.

There is, without question, a pervasive sense of diversity in every nook and cranny of God’s creation.  All plants share some relationship, yet even in tribes of elm trees, no two are the same.  In human beings there is a connection that sentient life shares, including the diversity of personality, shade of skin color, textures, abilities, and reactions to what they experience.  Consider the fingerprint, are they all not unique?  Yet, in their alikeness they match only one of the beings God created among billions.  We are each unique, and each alike, according to God’s creative choices.

Now, if that is the foundational truth about God’s creation, which, by-the-way, He decided was good…very good…then what is all the “rub” about?  It’s not much of a well-kept secret, the tempest in our human teapot is a matter of human judging of other’s worth.  It is no small thing that we do judge others, considering God has reserved that to Himself.  ^{Read Matthew 7}

There is a difference between judging another person’s character or intent, and simply observing differences.  When making a judgment as to WHY someone has behaved as they do, we take upon ourselves the mantle of God; that job is already filled!  On the other hand it is, without exception, patently-inaccurate to declare that all diversity is in accord with God’s intention.  The mutation of human body tissue by cancer is hardly a welcome diversity.  The desire to participate in serial murder or sexual attacks cannot compare to enjoying a spring day on a walk through the park with birds calling-out the morning songs of life. 

Of course there are shades of gray, where good and evil tend to blend.  The current deification of diversity for the purpose of advancing one culture’s power over another culture which has controlled the power, is hardly what God had in mind for human unity.  This is the battle Apostle Peter calls the war of worldly desires against [our] very souls.  Calling-out sin for what it is merely speaks truth; cancelling the worth of other people’s lives in the process is reckless murder.  Has it ever been that two wrongs add up to being right?  It is a very thin line a would-be prophet crosses when pointing the finger at another.

For You Today 

While there is hardly room in all the books of all the libraries to outline a reconciliation of the obtuse natures of prejudice and cancel culture, for a believer/follower of Jesus Christ, we must try, must think about it, must address both in our own lives and walk with Christ.  To do less is to kiss goodbye any chance we have to (as Peter wrote) live properly with honorable behavior among today’s unbelieving culture.

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

Go to VIDEO (read by author)

There are about 2,500 devotional posts and 400 sermons in the Rocky Road Devotions library.  To dig deeper explore some of these:   Honorable Behavior - Part 1  and  Honorable Behavior - Part 2   

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

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

Age of Offense - Part 5

Wednesday, April 5, 2023

Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.  Proverbs 22:6

We are finishing our series today on parenting to change a culture falling-apart.  We’ve shared about the need for parental stepping-up when it comes to involvement, because of the violent nature of today’s world, as well as the process of how to go about that with wisdom, integrity, and developing interest.  It’s all about how violence trickles-down from adult actions to imprint young minds, and, to combat that effect on our children we must train them up. 

This morning we close with some thoughts about what happens when a parent effectively trains children with Solomon’s wisdom, pointed at getting to know God in Christ Jesus.  What does that look like?

The Proverb writer declares that if the Process is followed (training), and the Purpose is understood (the way he should go), then the Product will be that, when he is old he will not depart from it. 

What does that mean?  The word itself has many applications, but the key idea that seems to fit the context is:  The child will not leave unfinished business when it comes to the important matters of life.

Central among the vital issues of life stands relationship.  According to the Bible, a right relationship with God is first, both in chronology and importance.  In all other human relationships, marriage, friendship, parenting, or business, the kind of relationship we build will determine the kind of eternity we experience.  A child that is trained in the way (the purpose of God for his life), will not leave business unfinished. 

Does that mean every child will eventually accept God, and serve Him well?  No, but it stresses the parental responsibility to move in that direction, giving the child every opportunity to respond. 

For You Today 

It’s not just wise advice from Solomon, but a solemn charge we have as parents, given from God in Heaven to train them up.  And as, with every other promise of God, He will honor the one who takes it seriously.

Here is an excellent target to shoot at for building a home that will set great parameters for serious parenting, shared with me by our friend Maria:

• My home won’t be the place where kids gather to go against their parents rules and wishes. 
• My home won’t be the place where I turn a blind eye to underage drinking.
• My home won’t be the place to meet up with someone you shouldn’t be around.
• My home won’t be the place that encourages drama.                                
• However, my home will be the place to go when life is drowning them, a place of refuge and encouragement.                                  
• My home will be the place to go when they need wisdom.                 
• My home will be the place to go when they need to hear truth and be held accountable.
• My home will be the place to go to experience the love and goodness of God.
• My home will be the place to go to find peace and rest for their souls.        
• My home will be the place where they find forgiveness and grace.          
• My home will be a place where a kid can be a kid!                                      
• My home will be the place where both fun and holiness exist together.      
• My home will be a place of healing for their hurts.                                   
• My home will be a place where no one goes hungry.                                   
• My home will be a place where I will love them as my own.                             
• My home will be a place where parents can rest easy, knowing their kids are safe, taken care of, and in a healthy environment.  That will be my legacy.[1]

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

Go to VIDEO (read by author)

There are about 2,500 devotional posts and 400 sermons in the Rocky Road Devotions library.  To dig deeper explore some of these:  Happy Father’s Day – PART ONE and  PART TWO   and  PART THREE    

Title Image:  Pixabay.com  1 &  2    Images without citation are in public domain.

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

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[1] Facebook, reposting Hannah Underwood