The Rough Road Home

Wednesday, August 31, 2022

God says, “Rebuild the road!  Clear away the rocks and stones so my people can return from captivity.”  The high and lofty one who lives in eternity, the Holy One, says this:  “I live in the high and holy place with those whose spirits are contrite and humble.  I restore the crushed spirit of the humble and revive the courage of those with repentant hearts.  For I will not fight against you forever; I will not always be angry.  If I were, all people would pass away—all the souls I have made.  I was angry, so I punished these greedy people.                        I withdrew from them, but they kept going on their own stubborn way.  I have seen what they do, but I will heal them anyway!  I will lead them.  I will comfort those who mourn, bringing words of praise to their lips.  May they have abundant peace, both near and far,” says the Lord, who heals them.  “But those who still reject me are like the restless sea, which is never still but continually churns up mud and dirt.  There is no peace for the wicked,” says my God.  Isaiah 57:14-21

The prophet reaches into the psyche of every wanderer; thoughts of home seep into every waking moment of silence.  This part of Isaiah’s comforting word to God’s people, in captivity because they strayed from God’s ways, opens the possibility of return.  It’s a rough road home, but God is the one with peace for the troubled soul at the end of the journey.

Grasping the surreal possibility of being able to come home, after rejecting God, may not be easy to accept.  However, the only other alternative is the way the passage ends…no peace for the wicked!  The Father says you must come home!

Passages in Scripture like this one, and the Prodigal Son, the forgiveness of the thief on the cross next to Jesus, and many others, are so precious, offering hope to those who have strayed from their Creator.  They are precious because they reveal the heart of God, which is love that desires the best for each of us. 

In many lives, that central, loving heart of God’s may take many years to get through the hard exterior life tends to build around our own hearts.  But God’s love is tough, and relentless, and impervious to our foolish ways.  And when the weary, wandering soul finally arrives at nowhere else to go, the rough road of humble repentance only requires one small step.

And that one, contrite step towards God is all that’s required to have the floodgate of peace opened.

For You Today

You may have travelled the highways of life that seemed easier and much more suitable to bring you what you wanted, and been successful, or a dismal failure.  Either way, if you’re reading this far, you’ve also no doubt discovered rejecting God’s way has been emptiness of the soul.  The missing piece is like the dangling carrot in front of the mule pulling the cart….he’s never going to reach it, just like peace will always be just out of reach for you.  Time to rebuild the road home?

Hear one more time what the rebuilt road home looks like in your life:

The high and lofty one who lives in eternity, the Holy One, says this:  “I live in the high and holy place with those whose spirits are contrite and humble.  I restore the crushed spirit of the humble and revive the courage of those with repentant hearts.  

Restoration and reviving…it’s worth the trip, no matter how rough the repair job gets on the road back home.

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: 

Resting in Peace and Two Billion

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

A New Name

 

Friday, January 29, 2021
“Anyone with ears to hear must listen to the Spirit and understand what he is saying to the churches.  To everyone who is victorious I will give some of the manna that has been hidden away in heaven.  And I will give to each one a white stone, and on the stone will be engraved a new name that no one understands except the one who receives it.”  Revelation 2:17

There are a lot of opinions as to what the new name means.  Whether it is symbolic or literal, it carries deep meaning.  It may be a literal, lingual name, a name which sounds different.  Abram became Abraham.  Saul became the beloved apostle Paul. 

However, I believe that it is more.  I believe the “white stone” is that certain something Jesus places deep down inside us when we are saved.  In ancient times friends sometimes gave each other gifts of small white marble, cut to fit a hand, engraved with words of kindness.  It was something to stimulate the memory of kindness associated with a meaningful relationship.  This is the kind of quiet understanding God’s salvation brings, an assurance, knowing that Jesus is Lord, and you are His.  It is the newness of relationship that you cannot really explain, touch, smell, or know apart from a personal relationship with Jesus.  It is based on more than victorious actions; it is based on every good possibility God already knows about you.  John Wesley described it as his heart being strangely warmed.  

In the days when John wrote Revelation, if a child fell ill and the situation worsened to the point of fearing for life and the doctors could not help, the father would stand over his child and give him a new name.  It wouldn't be just any name, but one of a great and valiant warrior.  It would be the name of a respected and strong individual, one whose name carried authority.  The child would become a new person in that name, and the disease must capitulate.  This is overcoming, allowing Jesus to take complete control of your life at the cross, with His blood, with His love, with His power.  The disease of sin no longer has control.  When you surrender to that power daily, there is nothing the world can do; you are an overcomer in Christ. 

For You Today

If you are a child of God in any true sense of the word, it is because you have been stood-over and a white stone of a new name has been placed within your being.  The blood of Christ, spilled at Calvary’s cross, has been applied to your life. 

And you have accepted that new name, and you bear it gladly. 

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 another post on Revelation 2 see Getting to the Heart of the Matter   

 

The Road that Leads Home

 

Monday, August 24, 2020

Don’t you see how wonderfully kind, tolerant, and patient God is with you? Does this mean nothing to you?  Can’t you see that his kindness is intended to turn you from your sin?  But because you are stubborn and refuse to turn from your sin, you are storing up terrible punishment for yourself.  For a day of anger is coming, when God’s righteous judgment will be revealed.  He will judge everyone according to what they have done.  He will give eternal life to those who keep on doing good, seeking after the glory and honor and immortality that God offers.  But he will pour out his anger and wrath on those who live for themselves, who refuse to obey the truth and instead live lives of wickedness.  Romans 2:4-8

For some people, the word “home” is not a warm and fuzzy safe kind of word; it’s more like a red flag that brings painful images, memories of abuse.  It wasn’t supposed to be that way, but the truth is all too stark to ignore, and the scars won’t let you totally forget. 

My experience is just the opposite.  My parents were not wealthy; I guess you could say we were middle class, somewhere just above the poverty line.  At times we ate a LOT of potatoes because it was easier to feed a family of four that way.  One area of the Brownworth home where wealth flowed generously was in kindness.  For me, the road leading back home was always a welcome road, a place of good memories with a strong pull towards the open door.

When I think back on that I cannot, for the life of me, wrap my mind around why I rebelled against the faith that so graciously helped form that good home and childhood.  I did exactly what the Apostle Paul wrote to the Roman church…lived for myself, refusing to obey the truth.   

In my case this wasn’t illegal stuff, like being a bank robber or a serial killer.  Rather it was just leaving God out of my life, trying to build a little kingdom of my own.  It was my choices, my happiness, my way that mattered, not God.  I had no drive to be the next king, or president.  I just wanted to be left alone to do what I wanted to do.

What eventually turned me back to the road that leads home is also what Paul wrote, about how patiently God waits for us; it is a loving patience that doesn’t approve of willfulness, but graciously waits like the father of the prodigal son.

My goal, as a pastor, has always been to help the churches with which I’ve served create an atmosphere of gracious waiting.  What I’ve found out about that is you cannot be that unless you’re intentional about it.  It’s not easy to wait.  But, oh, how it’s worth it.  The Apostle Paul overflowed with joy and thanksgiving for the faithfulness of the people to which he’d ministered; their responding to his letters with responsible service to Christ filled Paul’s heart with grateful thanksgiving.

I think there are but two components to waiting as a loving parent:

·       Speaking Truth in Love

Paul never hesitated to tell the truth.  My parents were a study in this.  They were gracious, but never patronizing.  In the end, the road that leads back to a home worthy of wanting to go home, is never false; only truth is a worthy foundation.

·       Readiness to Welcome

Once the Apostle spoke truth, a hard truth, particularly, he was then willing to be a silent waiter – with open arms.  That waiting, hard as it is, is necessary, because, especially in my case, truth takes a while to weed-out what needs to go. 

Sometime back I bought some inferior grass and weed killer.  It made claims of being the best.  You could see some results in a few hours, but two weeks later the weeds were back.  Lesson learned!  When I paid the price of using the good stuff, it took a few days to see the results, but those weeds were evicted; they must’ve gone into witness protection, because nobody’s heard from them in a while.

For You Today

Readiness to welcome back the one who travels the road home (to God) is like using the good stuff of truth and waiting.  You want results right away, but time is required, and God is faithful. 

So, don’t be in a hurry; instead, as you wait, be in prayer.

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

VIDEO

Title image Pixabay.com ∞  Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation©

For another post on activating your faith, see The God of Equal Opportunity and

                                      While You’re Waiting for God to Answer Series:  Part 1 and Part 2 and Part 3 and Part 4 and Part 5

 

Looking for a Place to Hide

 

Monday, August 17, 2020

From the depths of despair, O Lord, I call for your help.  Hear my cry, O Lord.  Pay attention to my prayer.  Lord, if you kept a record of our sins, who, O Lord, could ever survive?  But you offer forgiveness, that we might learn to fear you.  I am counting on the Lord; yes, I am counting on him.  I have put my hope in his word.  I long for the Lord more than sentries long for the dawn, yes, more than sentries long for the dawn.  O Israel, hope in the Lord; for with the Lord there is unfailing love.  His redemption overflows.  He himself will redeem Israel from every kind of sin.  Psalm 130:1-8

I can recall with vivid accuracy that anxiety, being on-edge, and the feeling of nervous forebode in the pit of my stomach; the preacher was talking about that book – the one where God records all our sins.  And he went on and on about it, picking at every-last-thing I’d ever done wrong.  And then he said if I wanted to make it into the other book, that one where the saved people have their names written, I’d better change – it was time to decide. 

That preacher hardly knew me, but, then again, he did.  He was speaking about the universal condition of human fallenness.  Every person has a sin nature, and we succumb to temptation in one way or another.  My sins may not have been the same as yours, but they are mine, nonetheless.  And that preacher knew it!  And I was definitely looking for a place to hide!

And then, along comes Solomon to back up the preacher’s argument, and then, blow it up in the next breath.  Solomon points to the most devastating (and annoying) truth in human existence – God keeps a record of our sins.

Lord, if you kept a record of our sins, who, O Lord, could ever survive?  Psalm 130:3

I don’t know how God could be God unless he was aware of everything.  My sins are not hidden from Him…and neither are yours.  Something deep within each of us tells us there is nothing we can truly bury so deep as to hide it from God.

But I also mentioned that in Solomon’s next stroke of the pen he blew up the whole judgment thing:

But you offer forgiveness, that we might learn to fear you.  Psalm 130:4

In just two sentences that take just 8 seconds to read aloud Solomon, the wisest man to ever draw breath covers the most important reality in the universe:  We have all sinned and are guilty before God…and God has already decided to forgive us.

That other book…the one where the saved people have their names written…your name is already in that book.  According to the Book of Revelation names are written in the Book of Life, and only erased if there is no forgiveness for sins.  But, for those who trust in the victory of Jesus Christ, whose death on the cross was for our forgiveness, those names are not erased, but proclaimed innocent in heaven!

All who are victorious will be clothed in white. I will never erase their names from the Book of Life, but I will announce before my Father and his angels that they are mine.  Revelation 3:5

So, the good news in that uncomfortable truth the preacher was laying on my 10-year-old self, about how if I wanted to escape the flames of hell and get my name in Jesus’ book…he was right about my guilt, but he should’ve told me my name was already in Jesus’ book, written in blood. 

For You Today

God knew each of us before we were formed in our mothers’ wombs.  He had written our name in His eternal book.  And with each entry the mind and heart of God uttered that familiar word we see in Scripture, Come! 

For you and me that is the sweetest word our souls could ever hear.  It means we don’t have to look for a place to hide, now, or ever.

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

VIDEO

Title image Pixabay.com ∞  Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation©

For other posts on Psalm 130 see Night Waiting and What the Angel Said

Bird With a Death Wish

 

Wednesday, July 15, 2020

Revelation 22:18-19

And I solemnly declare to everyone who hears the words of prophecy written in this book:  If anyone adds anything to what is written here, God will add to that person the plagues described in this book.  And if anyone removes any of the words from this book of prophecy, God will remove that person’s share in the tree of life and in the holy city that are described in this book.

Our daughter, Jen, has a lovely home, and the yard is a peaceful oasis.  Except for one thing…a mockingbird that shows up sometimes, courting death.  It is a goofy bird with a death wish…meowing!  That’s right…bird – calling – (of all things) – a feline with an appetite for bird!  Every time we pull up in the driveway for a visit, I check the back porch for feathers.

Now, if that sounds strange (and, it certainly impressed me as such), there are stranger things.  I won’t bore you with the full tour of Ripley’s Believe It or Not, but the world is full of people and critters that do dumb things.  For today, (and eternity) the strangest thing I’ve ever encountered are those who insist on changing what God has said to suit what they want to hear with their itchy ears[1], rather than obey the Almighty Creator who has said, don’t mess with my Word.

At present we are dealing with a moderately lethal pandemic that has a death rate holding at about 4% of those who are confirmed to have the virus[2].  This is “mild” by comparison with the 1918 flu pandemic that had an infection to death ratio of approximately 20%.[3]  That being said, coronavirus is more than a blip on the screen, infecting roughly 1% of this country’s population.

Now, if one of the worst plagues (in modern times) killed 20% of those who contracted it, and the current plague is around 4%, what are we to make of a plague that holds stable at 100%?  And what, pray tell, could we possibly say about human mockingbirds meowing at a plague like that?

Of course I’m talking about the plague of plagues, the pandemic sin-demic.  It infects 100% of humanity, and the death rate is 1 out of every 1.  The source for this statistic comes from Scripture:

For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord. Romans 6:23

Now, that’s the bad news, and the good news.  The pandemic is real, and it kills us all, eternally.  But, for those willing to trust God at His Word, the cure, or recovery rate is just as comprehensive; everyone who entrusts his or her life and will to God, because of God’s great gift of forgiveness, will live forever.

But, for those who want to change God’s Word, make it say what it doesn’t, and silence it where it speaks plainly, the last sentences of Scripture hold an ominous threat – God will add to that person the plagues of all time. 

·       There were 10 plagues visited on Egypt for unbelief

·       There is coming a series of plagues, both diseases, natural disasters, and dictators who will enslave millions (read Revelation’s prophecy).

All of it will fall on the heads of those who not only ignore God’s Word, but try to make it say what it doesn’t.

·       For those whose God is wealth and power…the plague of getting what they want in the here and now, and Hell in the future

·       For those whose God is sexual perversion and promiscuity, a sexually-transmitted character virus that will rot the soul for eternity

·       For those whose God is their own image, an eternity alone, abandoned, and unbothered by any other voice, smile, or warmth of human contact; just a mirror to see how wonderfully amired they are…by no one!

This is the picture of my daughter’s suicidal mockingbird, looking into the face of death, and calling it closer!

Let’s Pray Together:

Father, our ways are strange and fickle, driven by a plague of coldness and hardness of the heart.  Let your Word rest on those frozen hearts, warming us with the fire of Heaven’s Hound.

For You Today

For every word of condemnation the Scriptures use to warn us, there is a corresponding, and loving offer of redemption…for those who will change their song from death wish, to life in the hands of Jesus.

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

Go to VIDEO                                                                                                                  

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

For another post on this text:  Words That Destroy and The Power of a Curse and A Life of Sacrifice

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[1] 2 Timothy 4:3

[2] According to 2019-20 coronavirus pandemic Latest updates (update as of 7/14/20)

[3] The Greatest Pandemic in History – Written by Richard Gunderman for The Conversation — Updated on August 7, 2019

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