Looking Backward - Looking Forward

Wednesday, May 10, 2023

Jesus said to the people who believed in him, “You are truly my disciples if you remain faithful to my teachings.  And you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”  “But we are descendants of Abraham,” they said. “We have never been slaves to anyone.  What do you mean, ‘You will be set free’?”  Jesus replied, “I tell you the truth, everyone who sins is a slave of sin.  A slave is not a permanent member of the family, but a son is part of the family forever.  So if the Son sets you free, you are truly free.  Yes, I realize that you are descendants of Abraham.  And yet some of you are trying to kill me because there’s no room in your hearts for my message.  I am telling you what I saw when I was with my Father.  But you are following the advice of your father.”  

John 8:31-38

The obvious is sometimes missed in the prejudice.  The difference between what Jesus meant, and what the short-sighted people wanted to know, is that simple! 

·       They looked backward to Abraham, tracing their beginnings to a man; Jesus was pointing for them to look above earthly lineage, forward to the One who had created both Abraham, and everyone else. 

·       They saw things from a point in time, honoring another point in time; Jesus had held both time and eternity in His hands when He created it all. 

·       They were held captive by their backwards-look; He wanted them to be set free to a Kingdom-forward-look of Who was standing in front of them. 

·       They were looking-back, stuck in pride over their Abrahamic heritage; He wanted to free them to see an eternally blessed forever family.

There are two outcomes in this encounter with the people that were following Jesus.  There are those who could not see, because they had never had their eyes opened by living truth.  And there were those who would not see, because they held their eyes shut, despite having the living truth standing in front of them.  And that prejudice makes all the difference between traveling the road lesser taken, and remaining broken in the past.

How do you tell the difference?  Jesus said that some of them (the ones he was speaking to in that moment) were trying to kill him.  That meant the others were truly seeking the truth, not looking for a reason to stifle the truth.  Closing your eyes against the light does not extinguish what truly exists.  And that is the difference of humility, ready to confess ignorance, and receive forgiveness.  It’s how light enters the heart and you see the forever family Jesus came to create.

For You Today 

Whatever point you have reached in life, regarding a relationship with your Creator, the genuineness of salvation (God’s forgiveness of our sins) was/is dependent on confession of our inability to be forgiven, without the shed blood of Jesus Christ.  You do not begin that relationship with prejudice on the side of human strength; it is only available to those willing to surrender their will to God’s divine, unlimited strength!

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:   Words Chiseled in Stone  and  How Was Your Weekend?   

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

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

The Hiding Place

Tuesday, March 3, 2020

Oh, what joy for those whose disobedience is forgiven, whose sin is put out of sight!  Yes, what joy for those whose record the Lord has cleared of guilt, whose lives are lived in complete honesty!  When I refused to confess my sin, my body wasted away, and I groaned all day long.  Day and night your hand of discipline was heavy on me.  My strength evaporated like water in the summer heat.                     Interlude  

Finally, I confessed all my sins to you and stopped trying to hide my guilt.  I said to myself, “I will confess my rebellion to the Lord.”  And you forgave me! All my guilt is gone.           Interlude  

Therefore, let all the godly pray to you while there is still time, that they may not drown in the floodwaters of judgment.  For you are my hiding place; you protect me from trouble.  You surround me with songs of victory.       Interlude                                                                       Psalm 32:1-7[1]

The whole focus of the Lenten Season is confession and absolution.  The hinge pin on the door of forgiveness is a matter of willingness to confess our sins; without that, there is no hiding place for our sins. 

King David understood this fully.  As ruler over the most powerful nation on earth one would imagine David’s life was filled with parties, songs, and splendor; on the contrary, the king’s life was overrun with guilt and despair.  His vigor and appetite for life were evaporating like water in the summer heat.         

It is said that one of President Ronald Reagan’s favorite cartoons was the picture of a cowboy searching through a considerable pile of horse manure.  The caption has the cowboy thinking, there must be a pony in here somewhere.  To be sure, that places positive thinking on a whole new level of optimism.  But it is also a microcosm of a culture that seeks happiness anywhere, and in anything, but the source of all happiness and joy.  Life, as King David discovered, becomes a manure pile without hope of a pony when lived apart from a right relationship with God. 

The movie The Hiding Place chronicled the heroic effort of Corrie ten Boom and her family hiding Jews in the wall of their home in Germany during WWII.  This was a conscience-driven attempt to save their powerless, endangered neighbors. 

King David sought a hiding place for his sins by attempting to forget himself.  He covered his sins with lies and conspiracy.  In the end it was a manure pile of an existence.  His true hiding place was found in confession, laying out his sinful, dark ways before God in prayer.  When he finally confessed his sins, David found forgiveness.

For You Today

You don’t have to be a murderer, sexual predator, or bank robber to need forgiveness.  It can be as simple as stealing a paper clip, or a harsh word spoken.  God’s Word says we all need to confess our sins.

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

Title Image:  via Wikimedia Commons  Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation©

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[1] For more posts on Psalm 32 see Better Than Guilt  and Oh, What Joy and Waiting in Pain and Old Brooms

The Light on My Path

[1]

Monday, February 10, 2020

Your word is a lamp to guide my feet and a light for my path.  I’ve promised it once, and I’ll promise it again:  I will obey your righteous regulations.  I have suffered much, O Lord; restore my life again as you promised.  Lord, accept my offering of praise, and teach me your regulations.  My life constantly hangs in the balance, but I will not stop obeying your instructions.  The wicked have set their traps for me, but I will not turn from your commandments.  Your laws are my treasure; they are my heart’s delight.  I am determined to keep your decrees to the very end.                    Psalm 119:105-112[2]

Let’s face it, when you have some age on you the light can grow a little dim for weary eyes.  My Dad almost made it to triple digits and his eyesight was amazing.  Dad had been wearing glasses since his forties, and when he reached 70, he awakened one morning and, as older people do, the first thing he did was reach for the glasses.  He put them on, and, as he looked around everything was fuzzy.  Dad removed the glasses to clean them and the world snapped into view.  He was blessed with what his doctor termed “second sight”[3]. 

A physical blessing is a gift that is always right in front of you.  Our pain and disabilities are front-burner issues, and when one is blessed with a pain solved, or weakness dissolved, the world snaps into alignment; new possibilities are in focus.

It is much the same in the spiritual realm, only deeper.  The Psalmist describes a light in dark places.  More dramatic than the alleviation of physical pain, the enlightening of spiritual understanding is a medicine to the soul.[4]

In the book of Isaiah, the prophet laments how much his generation (perhaps like ours) was walking in darkness, but foreshadows the coming of light for our souls:

So there is no justice among us, and we know nothing about right living. We look for light but find only darkness. We look for bright skies but walk in gloom.  Isaiah 59:9

And Jesus clearly picked up Isaiah’s words and drove them home to the point:

Jesus…said, “I am the light of the world. If you follow me, you won’t have to walk in darkness, because you will have the light that leads to life.”  John 8:12

These days there’s a lot of spiritual glop that is supposed to pass for enlightenment but offers little in the way of hope.  People dabble in spiritual vacuity that is supposed to place them on a higher plane but, in the end, it is hollow and shallow.  When the bubble bursts emptiness fills the room.  

That our generation is like Isaiah’s can hardly be disputed; the world is deeply divided, and America is truly the world’s leader in that commodity.  And what it will come down to for each soul is whether there is a hunger and thirst for the true light of heaven, or the darkness of momentary comfort.

For You Today

The Psalmist’s final word to us today is his determination to walk in the light of God’s Word until the very end of his days here on earth.  In our day we talk about finishing well; this is it, to know God’s Word, and heed God’s Word.  This is the light on my path, and like the Psalmist, I’ll stick with that until these earthly lights have run their course.

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©

[2] For another post on Psalm 119:105-112 see God's Word; Light for My Path; Lamp for My Feet

[3] This is a medical condition known as Presbyopia

[4] Proverbs 17:22