Divided

Monday, October 16, 2023

But you, my dear friends, must remember what the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ predicted.  They told you that in the last times there would be scoffers whose purpose in life is to satisfy their ungodly desires.  These people are the ones who are creating divisions among you. They follow their natural instincts because they do not have God’s Spirit in them.  But you, dear friends, must build each other up in your most holy faith, pray in the power of the Holy Spirit, and await the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ, who will bring you eternal life.  In this way, you will keep yourselves safe in God’s love.  Jude 17-21

Jude warns that divisions in the church would be a constant threat to the spiritual health of Christians because war-like conditions are brought about when selfish ambition takes over.  If you have followed Christ, and been part of the church, you understand; despite the smiles on Sunday, there are spiritually shell-shocked believers in every pew.  And, the truth is coming to the surface, no matter how much we learn about interpersonal relationships and personally-toxic behavior, and no matter how many sermons are delivered on unity and kindness, the division in humanity is growing deeper, breaking-up more homes, closing the doors of more churches, and spewing hatred into every seam of life’s fabric.  

According to Jude there are two characteristics that are present in a human being who causes division of any kind:

1.    Selfish ambition – people who honor their personal desires above any person or sense of morality.  They only care about themselves.

2.    Ichabod – the Hebrew word which describes the absence of God’s Spirit.

These two telltale signs are related and always bound in the heart of the ungodly.

Jude says the antidote, or immunization from this condition is to build each other up in [our] most holy faith.  This is the open door to patience in prayer, the willingness to let the lesser things of personal ambition fall by the wayside, in favor of progress in God’s Kingdom.  That, says Jude, is the only way to remain spiritually-safe, living-into God’s love.  So then, what does it mean to live-into God’s love?  Glad you asked.  I grew-up in the 1950’s-60’s.  It was the heyday of Billy Graham’s crusades.  The whole emphasis on church growth was personal salvation…the revivalist mode.  We cannot in good faith deny the need for that; it is the entry door to God’s house and family.  However, being born-again presents the picture of a new infant.  In matters of the Spirit that is good, and it can be disastrous.  It’s necessary and wonderful to be born, but to stay an infant means a lifetime of dependency.  Arrested growth is not desirable; it is a death sentence to God’s blessing of maturing in your relationship with Christ and others.  Infants have a milk diet, but not forever; they graduate to adult food…with good reason:

Like newborn babies, you must crave pure spiritual milk so that you will grow into a full experience of salvation….You are coming to Christ, who is the living cornerstone of God’s temple.  He was rejected by people, but he was chosen by God for great honor.  And you are living stones that God is building into his spiritual temple.  1 Peter 2:2-5

The grown-up baby stones, gathered, and strategically-placed together by the Master Builder, become stronger by the support and strength of communal effort.  A common slogan you’ll hear these days is Together We are Stronger.  That’s true in any sense, but it is critically-vital for the church, and God’s Kingdom.  Without denying-self and personal ambition, in favor of taking-up Calvary’s cross, the church will be as empty as more promises from Washington, D.C.

For You Today 

Discipleship – growing into a mature relationship with Christ and other believers, is what’s on the agenda today, and every moment until God calls us home.

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 courtesy of Pixabay.com Images without citation are in public domain or cited via weblinks.  

Unless noted, Scripture quoted from NLT^©   

Body Parts

Tuesday, June 6, 2023

Then the Lord God formed the man from the dust of the ground. He breathed the breath of life into the man’s nostrils, and the man became a living person.  

Genesis 2:7

An adult human body consists of slightly more than 200 bones and 78 organs.  Five of the organs are considered vital to life, heart, lungs, liver, kidney, and brain.  Now, those are the rudiments of biology, the basics of structure and function.  However, life is not all biology, just the physical mechanism of the species; there are also the metaphysical (abstract) body parts, without which we could not exist.  There is spirit and soul to go with those body parts, and let us not back-shelf what gave life in the first place, God breathing His own breath into Adam’s assembled body parts.  Then, and only then, did he become a living soul.

God made humankind.  God also revealed to Apostle Paul the analogy that, as a human body functions in concert with all the bones, organs, and resident breath of God, so the human race, with all its different and unique parts, is to function inter-dependently, working together for the good of the body. 

Applying that principle to the “body” of Christ (the church), God’s intention is that the differences that form us into groups, male/female, nationalities, social strata, religious sects, etc, fade into the background.  As in Adam, Spirit supercedes flesh.  As a species, we have light years more in common than that which divides us.

The human body has many parts, but the many parts make up one whole body.  So it is with the body of Christ.  Some of us are Jews, some are Gentiles, some are slaves, and some are free.  But we have all been baptized into one body by one Spirit, and we all share the same Spirit.  

1 Corinthians 12:12-13

In the Gospel accounts we find Jesus under attack by (supposedly) spiritually-wise religious teachers.  They accused him of being satanically-inspired, because Jesus had healed a demon-possessed man.  Jesus, ever the master of logic, as well as truth, told them their diagnosis was ridiculous…Satan casting-out Satan?

A kingdom divided by civil war will collapse.  Similarly, a family splintered by feuding will fall apart.  Mark 3:24-25

For You Today 

Our human bodies were created to have bones which support and protect the inner body parts, and those inner parts strengthen the bones.  All of that structure was formed to cooperate with the breath of God inside our spirit and soul.  We were created for better than feuding and dividing into camps. 

The smallest bone in the human body has a great responsibility to the rest of the body’s health…the stapes bone, which is commonly called the stirrup.  Located in the inner ear, the stapes bone is the link which connects sound waves to the auditory nerve.  In short, without this bone’s function our brain is cut-off from sound.  Without that little bone’s service, our communication with others is drowned in a sea of silence.

So, here is a word to hear; gird-up your stapes bone and let it sink-in:

So now I am giving you a new commandment: Love each other. Just as I have loved you, you should love each other. Your love for one another will prove to the world that you are my disciples.”  John 13:34-35

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:   Out of the Dust  and  Trans-Creation

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

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

Lord? Savior? King? Just Who Are You?

Thursday, February 9, 2023

On the last day, the climax of the festival, Jesus stood and shouted to the crowds, “Anyone who is thirsty may come to me!  Anyone who believes in me may come and drink!  For the Scriptures declare, ‘Rivers of living water will flow from his heart.’”  (When he said “living water,” he was speaking of the Spirit, who would be given to everyone believing in him.  But the Spirit had not yet been given, because Jesus had not yet entered into his glory.)  When the crowds heard him say this, some of them declared, “Surely this man is the Prophet we’ve been expecting.”  Others said, “He is the Messiah.”  Still others said, “But he can’t be!  Will the Messiah come from Galilee?  For the Scriptures clearly state that the Messiah will be born of the royal line of David, in Bethlehem, the village where King David was born.”  So the crowd was divided about him.  Some even wanted him arrested, but no one laid a hand on him.  John 7:37-43

Jesus’ teaching in the temple was not clouded.  The people who heard him could not have mistaken what he meant when he offered “living water” – it was Messiah-talk.  But they got divided over Jesus’ pedigree…and thus it goes, day after day, century upon century.

It’s hard for someone like me to look critically on those who had questions in their hearts about just who (or what) Jesus was going to be in their lives.  After all, I’m a logic-driven male child; I live to divide my own thoughts.  I like to think things through until the box is all well-defined; then I want to seal it and preserve what I’ve discovered forever!  (Why do you think I write a blog?)

There are those who live on the other side of the brain; they intuitively feel and sense their way through stuff in a manner totally-alien to my brain.  The difference between us is much like the difference between a foot-soldier with a rifle who thinks:  ready-aim-fire, versus a technician getting ready to shoot a guided missile who is trained to ready-fire-aim.  That tech guy launches the missile, then steers it all the way to the target.

Whether you’re a cautious-stepper or a freestyle-leaper, Jesus has always caused division.  Life’s journey and the Kingdom of God have always had (and needed) both. 

For You Today  

My word today is to the cautious.  Like me, you tend to want to know it all before you do anything.  If you question Jesus like a prosecuting attorney, with the purpose of removing every last doubt before taking the leap of faith with him, you’ll find it’s still a leap of faith at the end.

Point from one who has been there – take the leap – he’s ready to catch you.

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

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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: 

What Do You Think?  and  Rivers of Living Water 

This is an updated version of “Division in the Crowd published on Rocky Road Devotions May 8, 2013

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^©   

Stare Decisis

 

Tuesday, July 5, 2022

“Don’t imagine that I came to bring peace to the earth!  I came not to bring peace, but a sword.  ‘I have come to set a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law.  Your enemies will be right in your own household!’  Matthew 10:34-36

In a 213-page document,[1] handed down from the  Supreme Court of the U.S. on June 24^th, the 1973 decision of Roe vs. Wade (favoring a Constitutional right to abortion), was overturned, returning the issue, and the power to determine such rights, back to the individual states.  One of the main factors upon which the case was decided was stare decisis.  The Latin term is defined as a doctrine or policy of following rules or principles laid down in previous judicial decisions....  Stare Decisis appears 84 times in the court’s ruling syllabus.  Something which is that central to the thinking to the court’s 5-4 decision begs our attention 

It would seem, from even a casual observance of news reports, that the entire country (and by extension, the world) is as divided as it was in World War II.  In no way do I wish to add to that divide.  However, if I understand what was presented to the court, stare decisis, upon which rested the defense’s argument to sustain Roe vs. Wade as law of the land, was ruled as inappropriate, not having been sufficiently established. 

Setting aside the celebrations, or protestations of those who are overjoyed, or those outraged by the decision, the takeaway with which we must live, is the division we have created.

If there is anything I’ve learned about stare decisis, it is as old as eternity.  God, the Father revealed himself to Moses at the burning bush as, I AM…the statement of eternal existance, covering what was, what is, and what will be.  This is the same as the declaration of Jesus:

“I am the Alpha and the Omega—the beginning and the end,” says the Lord God.  “I am the one who is, who always was, and who is still to come—the Almighty One.”  Revelation 1:8

Jesus attested to the fact that He, and everything He brought from the Father in Heaven to teach us, would be the dividing line separating even the closest of families.  The issue of life still in the womb is a strong example of that.

The principle of stare decisis demands going back to the earliest precedent.  As such, 1973’s Roe vs. Wade ruling is a decidedly modern idea.  God, who is eternal, and therefore predates even the so-called primordial ooze, is the one who gave us Exodus 20:13…do no murder.

God is also the one upon whom we received what our forefathers wrote in the Constitution we so revere, the guarantee of liberty to individuals to choose their course.  The stare dicisis of that posit demands we understand we are free, but the precedent insists we must also not infringe upon the freedom of another at any stage of this life’s journey, including the womb. 

For You Today

The 9 justices of our country’s Supreme Court took 213 pages to explain why Roe vs. Wade was wrongly-decided 50 years ago.  In two pages I find it hard to find fault with admitting a mistake.

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

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There are about 2,000 devotional posts on Rocky Road Devotions. 

To dig deeper into this topic or Scripture text:  Subway Sermon and Shattered Beyond All Hope of Repair

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

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[1] Read the full document here

Living By Faith (our only choice)

  

                                                                                                                                Title and Other images courtesy of Pixabay.com

In the early days of the church, leaders like Peter and Paul were busy finding out who they would be, and what they would preach and teach.  There were problems.  One preacher brought the issue to light this way:

“Paul said to Peter, ‘You are a Jew, but you used to live like the Gentiles, with no barriers between you and other Christians.  Now you want the Gentiles to live like Jews, doing what you did not even do yourself!’”^[1]

Paul raised a ruckus with Peter because they both were Jews.  Paul had settled the issue based on freedom in Christ – there was no difference between Jew and Gentile – everyone was the same in Jesus’ kingdom.  On the other hand, Peter was doing what was expedient…when no one was looking he was eating pork barbeque with the Gentiles.  When the Jewish brethren from Jerusalem showed up, he ducked-out the back door, lest he be seen eating with the unclean. 

Paul had the intestinal fortitude to stand up to the big fisherman; he got in Peter’s face and bellowed, “Shame on ya’, big fellow!”  Paul could do that because when it came to pedigree, he had it all.  Paul was Jewish born, an educated man with powerful connections in high places.  Peter was a nobody – just a stinky fisherman who could probably barely read.  He had a lousy track record; he followed Jesus, or denied he knew him, depending on the circumstances.  Paul told Peter he was being a hypocrite.  It stung, but it was the truth!

Separation, arguments, prejudice, unfairness – what a tangled existence we human beings create for each other. 

When it comes to things that separate or divide people, the list is long:

1.       Race – that’s always a big one these days.

2.       Lifestyle – there are messy people, clean people, fast and slow people; there are skinny people and generously piled “high and wide” people (don’t look at me that way!)

3.       Language – Can we all say:  Press one to continue in English?

4.       Region – I am one of the few “Yankee” preachers to ever have an ordination certificate signed by Jefferson Davis!

5.       Age – the young person complains the adults have it made, while the aged shake their heads in disdain over the way youth is wasted on the young.

6.       Economics – the poor and rich seldom rub elbows.

7.       Religion – Our creeds have created more kinds of separation and distrust than 9/11 and the same-sex debate in the Methodist tribe combined.

8.       Health – those in poor health are pitied and despised by those watching healthcare costs rising and parking spots close to the mall entrance shrinking.  The health-challenged are envious of those able to jog!

9.       Gender – there is a whole war going on to determine who’s got the power….I will say no more, lest I get no lunch this afternoon.

Separation…you stay over there, don’t get in my space!  Anger, contention, strife, games-playing, backbiting.  This is the stuff of which legalism is made.  This is what Jesus came to forgive…and what he expects us to forsake.

The Only Choice for Genuine Followers of Jesus is to Live by Faith

While the list of things that separate us is quite long, there is only a very short list of that which unites people.  There are these few:  family, friendship, and love.  That’s it…just those. 

I tried to think of anything else that will truly unite people, and, other than accepting one another in this human family with genuine friendship and love, there is nothing. 

Back in 2007 there was a crew at our house in Thomasville.  They had been working for a few months putting two new rooms on the back of our house for Mom and Dad to come live there. 

They placed an 8’ x 25’ dumpster next to the house.  It was filled with scrap wood, shingles, discarded Pepsi bottles and sandwich wrappers.  Among the living inhabitants of that dumpster were untold millions of fly larvae, mice, and roaches (not to mention the odd family or two of black snakes.  Don’t tell Elizabeth I said that!)

If I had asked Mom and Dad if they preferred to live in the finished new rooms with heat and air conditioning, refrigerator, easy chairs, and Queen-size bed, or would they prefer to live with the flies and snakes in the dumpster, the only question would be, son, have you been drinking again?  Nobody in his right mind lives in a dumpster if there’s a new house waiting. 

Yet, when it comes to living in faith, accepting others, like Jesus did, and said we should too, we human beings sometimes choose to live in the dumpster of separation we create with our prejudices, rather than the new rooms of joy Jesus is building for us. 

We were born into the deficit of sin.  It separates us from God and each other.  Jesus came to break down the barriers that separate us, so that we can walk together.  He came to tow away the dumpster of separation.  He’s building a new house full of love and family.  There’s room enough for everyone!

Paul’s in-your-face to Peter pushes us to decide as well.  How do we live like Paul said – in Christ, with Christ living his life through our life?  It’s living together in love, in the faith family.  That’s what Jesus died-for, that we might have life. 

In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, Amen!  

Blessing/Commissioning:

·       Just like we can never be separated from the Love of God , go from this place determined never to be separated from your brother or sister in Christ, or cause others to be separated.

·       In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit

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[1] Wiersbe, Warren W., Wiersbes Expository Outlines on the New Testament, Quickverse Ed.

 

Resetting the Compass

 

Wednesday, January 20, 2021

Listen to what the Lord is saying:  “Stand up and state your case against me.  Let the mountains and hills be called to witness your complaints.  And now, O mountains, listen to the Lord’s complaint!  He has a case against his people.  He will bring charges against Israel.  “O my people, what have I done to you?  What have I done to make you tired of me?  Answer me!  For I brought you out of Egypt and redeemed you from slavery.  I sent Moses, Aaron, and Miriam to help you.  Don’t you remember, my people, how King Balak of Moab tried to have you cursed and how Balaam son of Beor blessed you instead?  And remember your journey from Acacia Grove to Gilgal, when I, the Lord, did everything I could to teach you about my faithfulness.”  What can we bring to the Lord?  Should we bring him burnt offerings?  Should we bow before God Most High with offerings of yearling calves?  Should we offer him thousands of rams and ten thousand rivers of olive oil?  Should we sacrifice our firstborn children to pay for our sins?  No, O people, the Lord has told you what is good, and this is what he requires of you:  to do what is right, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God.  Micah 6:8

The prophet speaks a word from Heaven’s courts to Israel, particularly Jerusalem, about their failure to honor the blessings they had received by God’s mercy and miraculous leading, from the time they left the bondage of being Pharaoh’s slaves in Egypt until they were given Canaan land as God’s promise of continued blessing.  At every step God had blessed and, in the end, Jerusalem fell into lip service instead of genuine worship.  They offered sacrifices of bulls and rams by the herd, but with their lives they ignored the weightier issue of living life in full dedication to God’s will.  Three hundred years prior, Israel’s chronicler recorded the nation’s responsibility for resetting their national compass:

Then if my people who are called by my name will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sins and restore their land.  2 Chronicles 7:14

Now, as a last ditch offer of mercy, the Lord reminds Israel of their covenant requirements through the prophet Micah.  It was time to reset the national compass.

Today is Inauguration Day for the presidency of our nation.  It is a quadrennial occurrence of a (supposedly) peaceful transfer of power from an outgoing administration’s chief to the next.  To this moment it has been anything but serene and reassuring.  It has been more than a rocky road; it has been a war zone, complete with storming the halls of government.

Inauguration speeches by a new leader traditionally carry hope for the future, and a call to unselfish patriotism, with humility towards one another.  It is my fervent wish that this transition of power, however uncertain to this point, will teach us the lesson we need to learn – God is not mocked…whatever we have been sowing, both nationally as a people, and personally in our lives…we will continue to reap.

Toward that end, let us remember that doing what is right, not party affiliation and power, but righteousness and justice, with humility before God and with each other, is our only hope of living-out what it is going to take to have our land healed of its divisiveness and anger.

There is no other way for any nation under God.

For You Today

If there is anger in your inner being it must be rooted-out; this is what children of God do. 

And the way to begin the “rooting” out of anger is to confess it in prayer, and then resolve to act towards all, as Abraham Lincoln spoke to a nation suffering the division of civil war:

With Malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds.

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

For other posts on this text see America // Israel and Do WHAT?