Holy or Hellish?

Friday, July 14, 2023

I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made: marvellous are thy works; and that my soul knoweth right well.  Psalm 139:14

Whatever you can name in the universe, sky-scrapers, objects, organizations, or the basic building blocks of substance, all are neither good, nor bad.  Ethically, they are neutral – that is, until they’re taken in hand and used for good or evil.  Money, for instance, is simply coin, or paper, or the trust we place in an exchange of goods or services.  In the hands of a benefactor money can feed a million starving children.  It can also be used to place weapons in the hands of those who might kill children – holy or hellish.  The dilemma is never the agent used, but the one who holds the agent; is it for a holy purpose, or hellish purpose?

The Psalmist (King David) considered his composite nature (body, soul, spirit), and shouted to the heavens how intricately marvellous were the workings of God’s making.  It is true; the human body is an incredible engineering glory.  We are made for an interesting eternity of possibilities, and yet so simple as to be able to smile at an infant’s gaze, or laugh because we get the joke (even if it was lame).

Humankind have always tinkered with God’s creation.  As far back as Adam and Eve, we were told to “subdue” the creation and all it holds – to tend the garden.  With that assigned heavenly task, we have seen strong heavenly handling, and destructive hellishness. 

Once again, it’s never the substance of creation, but rather the employment of it which defines heaven and hell’s intent.  We all bear the DNA of Adam (which produced both Mother Teresa AND Adolph Hitler).  

In an article on genetic engineering[1] Christopher McFadden lists eleven reasons why that science is so important.  Among those reasons are uses in agriculture, medicine, and environmental control.  Scientists have discovered the genetic on/off switch (CRISPR), a medical breakthrough that has implications as wide as curing cancer and Alzheimer’s disease.  That’s the plus-side of genomic research.

There is also the possibility of being able to manipulate the results of the kind of children that are born.  The genomic manipulation of human embryos is the ethical bugaboo.  I have never heard a (morally) convincing argument that overturns Scripture’s claim of God’s creation being perfect in its origin; it is his handiwork and the most magnificent gift to us.  The “problems” we attempt to overcome with manipulating that gift are of our own making. 

Scripture also has a word for that – sin.  It’s pretty much explained in the first three chapters of Genesis.

For You Today 

C.S. Lewis wrote that with each thought or action we are creating who we are, turning ourselves into a more heavenly or hellish being.  That is bad (or good) enough; manipulating an unborn child’s life is a hellish-presumtion on what God has declared holy.

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] McFadden, 11 Facts about Genetic Engineering and Why It's Important, Interesting Engineering, April 25, 2020

 

A Well-Tended Will

Thursday, July 13, 2023

Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts.  Point out anything in me that offends you, and lead me along the path of everlasting life.  Psalm 139:23-24

“If you are faithful in little things, you will be faithful in large ones.  But if you are dishonest in little things, you won’t be honest with greater responsibilities.  

Luke 16:10

A friend and colleague, Dale Bost, shared a thought on Facebook a couple of months ago.  Here’s what he wrote:

God pursues us redemptively and invites us individually, every last one of us, to be faithful to him in the little we truly “have say over.”  There, at every moment, we live in the interface between our lives and God’s kingdom among us.  If we are faithful to him here, we learn his cooperative faithfulness to us in turn.  We discover the effectiveness of his rule with us precisely in the details of day-to-day existence.[1]

Dale’s post started the juices flowing of that occasional self-accountability-check.   I wanted to search-out (like King David) just how faithful my “will” is to God’s will.  I say the need for checking my accountability is occasional because I know me.  And, for that reason, my human nature resists looking too closely at my actions, especially my thought-life.  Deep-within all of us there is a war…continually!  When it comes to human beings’ nature, we’re constantly embroiled in that personal war within; we resist accountability, because we know deep-down that, without help, there’s no way to win that war.  We give-in; we sin.

It is that war over which Apostle Paul so eloquently lamented:

But there is another power within me that is at war with my mind. This power makes me a slave to the sin that is still within me.  Oh, what a miserable person I am!  Who will free me from this life that is dominated by sin and death?  Thank God!  The answer is in Jesus Christ our Lord.  So you see how it is:  In my mind I really want to obey God’s law, but because of my sinful nature I am a slave to sin.  Romans 7:23-25

In the lament Paul not only held up a searchlight to the problem, but cast a backlight to the solution of sin’s power…Jesus Christ.  His love for us led to shedding his blood on Calvary.  That love covers a multitude of sin.[2]

For You Today 

I had thought about sharing a number of tips to keep your will in line with God’s will.  But they all stemmed from the same root – your will is yours, and it is the one thing God has promised to never possess without you willing it to him.

Recently my bride and I addressed the legal will thing; a trusted attorney friend wrote our wills.  In those wills, we made sure all we possess of this world’s goods pass to our children at our death.  When we signed them, they set in stone (so to speak) our will. 

That was also the will of the Father, as the Son died for us – that we would inherit all His righteousness, and He offers that freely.  The question is, are we willing to offer our will back?  Today’s call is to the surrendered life, your will matching His!

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] Rev. Dale Bost on Facebook, May 15, 2023

[2] Read 1 Peter 4:8

 

Celebrating the Unexpected

Thursday, June 15, 2023

The Lord kept his word and did for Sarah exactly what he had promised.  She became pregnant, and she gave birth to a son for Abraham in his old age.  This happened at just the time God had said it would.  And Abraham named their son Isaac.  Eight days after Isaac was born, Abraham circumcised him as God had commanded.  Abraham was 100 years old when Isaac was born.  And Sarah declared, “God has brought me laughter.  All who hear about this will laugh with me.  Who would have said to Abraham that Sarah would nurse a baby?  Yet I have given Abraham a son in his old age!”  Genesis 21:1-7

Two poignant facts emerge from the image of a 90-year-old woman nursing her newborn son:

1.    What a miracle she has experienced, which has brought overwhelming joy where there only existed emptiness and resignation!

2.    Can she possibly have the energy to last through the terrible twos?

I might (with all respect) add a third thought about the father…he’s gonna be 120-years-old when that kid starts college.  Our last child was born when I was 31, and it made me wonder if I’d have the strength.

We could call this the unexpected event of a millennium, but all Sarah could think of was the joy of that moment…she had to celebrate this unexpected gift from God.  And that is entirely spot-on when you suddenly realize you’re standing on holy ground, holding God’s promise in your arms.  It sounded too-good-to-be-true, but it was thoroughly a God-thing.  Sarah had laughed at the idea when she was eavesdropping outside Abraham’s tent as the Lord told him what to name the son (Isaac) his wife would bear next year.  That was the skeptic’s unbelief; now it was the laughter of the redeemed!

There are many things about a walk with Jesus that fall into this category of  unexpected joy, which dumbfound us, and at the same time, bring overwhelming joy and faith.  Every week during worship, as we approach corporate prayer time, my heart breaks a little as the requests for prayer-support reveal care and concern.   But interspersed with those are also prayers of thanksgiving as people celebrate the unexpected answers that came to impossible situations, some undoubetedly miraculous, most a simple sense of thankful awareness that God has graciously met a need.

I have always found the timing of God impeccable, able to both unnerve me by revealing how tiny my faith is, and at the same time bring a healing balm to that shaky faith.  His ways are immeasurably above my thinking. 

For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.  Isaiah 55:9

As Father’s Day approaches I’m reminded of my Dad, and the many kindnesses of what he taught me, both with words, and the way he lived a life of being useful and caring.  I’m also reminded of my journey as a father – never perfect in knowing what to do, but always trying to learn how to do better.  And being so very blessed to see and celebrate God’s unexpected gifts blessing our family.  

For You Today 

Once Sarah’s laughter was almost a mockery of God’s promise; in the end it was the celebration of the unexpected gift of promise-fulfilled.  This should give us all hope that, having a second chance, even in the face of our defeats and wrong choices is (and always has been) God’s plan.

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:   Lenten Walk - Part 8  and  Flamingled  and  Why There Should be Seatbelts on Dentist's Chairs                                        

 

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

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

When God Lets the Arrow Fly

Monday, May 8, 2023

When Pharaoh finally let the people go, God did not lead them along the main road that runs through Philistine territory, even though that was the shortest route to the Promised Land.  God said, “If the people are faced with a battle, they might change their minds and return to Egypt.”  So God led them in a roundabout way through the wilderness toward the Red Sea.  Thus the Israelites left Egypt like an army ready for battle.  Exodus 13:17-18

When God directed Moses to lead his children out of bondage in Egypt, it would have been so easy to march them directly to Canaanland, and let the party begin!  That would have been the way I would have planned the trip.  

It’s about 775 miles from Egypt to Israel, so they could have walked straight there in two months.  But they didn’t cross the Jordan river for 40 years.  Evidently there was a lot more to Israel becoming God’s people, than just 10 plagues and a visit by the death angel, before they would be ready for the prosperity of the Promised Land.

There is much I do not understand about how the sovereignty of God, intersects with the free-will of human beings.  However, the Israelite forty-year layover in the desert[1] is a great teacher of how we can navigate being free-will beings created by a sovereign God.  It all comes down to using the free-will we’ve been gifted, to cooperate with the sovereignty of God’s plans, rather than just do what pleases us.  After all, it is God’s sandbox, and we are visitors, whom God wants to adopt as family.  It pays to be on one’s best behavior!

When it comes to how that behavior shapes our relationship with God, I have this image of an archer with a bow, pointed at a target…the arrow flies, released by the archer.  God is the archer; we are the arrows.  The target to which God points each of us, is the place closest to God’s heart.  He wants us to hit the bullseye (so to speak), and lodge there.  The purpose is blessing.  God wants us close to the source of the universe’s wealth of wisdom and well-being.  He wants what’s best for us.  The problem for we arrows, having been released from the bow string, is we have freedom to be blown about by gusts of winds, or objects (all kinds of sins against hitting the target). 

While God’s eye is never off the arrows he releases, our free will is a type of sovereignty over the moments we are granted to live.  We are pointed at the right target; we have free will to choose how we respond to the direction we’re given. That direction is clearly stated in the prophecy of Micah 6:8:

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. 

The arrow God releases into this vastness of free will invariably chooses to do what is wrong, love power, and walk arrogantly and selfishly, despising God.  And God allows that.  (Full Stop)

The full weight of sovereignty of humankind over their destination is a gift of God to His loved creation.  But the weight of that gift’s incredible value is the corresponding accountability of consequence for corrupting the gift against the holiness of God.  (Again – Full Stop)  We despise God’s sovereignty with our free will, and the result is spiritual Chernobyl.

For You Today 

You have freedom; choose wisely how to cooperate with God today.

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:   An Uncertain Path  and  Cloud by Day - Fire by Night   

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

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

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[1] Read all of the Exodus story, from Moses at the burning bush, to the miraculous rescue of God’s people at the Red Sea, and provision of God through 40 years of wandering in the desert.

Entitlement Mythology 101

 

Thursday, February 24, 2022

“Listen, O Israel!  Today you are about to cross the Jordan River to take over the land belonging to nations much greater and more powerful than you.  They live in cities with walls that reach to the sky!  The people are strong and tall—descendants of the famous Anakite giants.  You’ve heard the saying, ‘Who can stand up to the Anakites?’  But recognize today that the Lord your God is the one who will cross over ahead of you like a devouring fire to destroy them.  He will subdue them so that you will quickly conquer them and drive them out, just as the Lord has promised.  “After the Lord your God has done this for you, don’t say in your hearts, ‘The Lord has given us this land because we are such good people!’  No, it is because of the wickedness of the other nations that he is pushing them out of your way.  It is not because you are so good or have such integrity that you are about to occupy their land. The Lord your God will drive these nations out ahead of you only because of their wickedness, and to fulfill the oath he swore to your ancestors Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.  Deuteronomy 9:1-5

Perched on the eve of conquering Palestine, the fledgling Israelite nation was warned by God to keep perspective on the source of the greatness they were about to experience.  God told them to not get puffed-up like a proud peacock over their supposed goodness, or integrity; their victory was a gift.

Many nations and many people have written their own brand of history.  It is said the winners of wars will tell the story of their own greatness, while truth goes begging.  Whether we like it or not, truth writes its own story, without regard to any other version. 

Scripture warns in many ways against pride.  Solomon’s words tell it plainly: 

Pride goes before destruction, and haughtiness before a fall.  Proverbs 16:18

Claiming personal greatness is a symptom of the pride that goes before a fall.  Pride is a bulldozer paving the way down the slope of disaster.  The history of God’s special people is written over and again, with alarmingly similar results:

·       First stamp:  God’s great hand of favor clears the path for their success.

·       Second stamp:  Within a few generations (sometimes less), the truth is forgotten, and God’s greatness is claimed for the pride of a new leader. 

·       Third stamp:  God takes Israel to the woodshed (captivity, plagues, etc.).

·       Fourth stamp:  Repeat steps 1, 2, and 3.

American history bears unmistakeable parallels to Israel, of the way God blesses a nation.  That much is hardly questioned to my mind.  The troubling part of that statement, is, that we also bear the marks of the rubber stamp history of Israel. 

There is a sense of entitlement in the land today which smacks of the pride of privilege.  It’s not just white privilege that plagues, it is the endemic arrogance of any privilege.  Ethnic privilege, perceived greatness, dominant history, and any other sense of entitled platform is a house of cards awaiting collapse.  To borrow from James Russell Lowell’s thinking about truth ever being led to the scaffold, and wrong enthroned, in America, it seems, humility has been beaten with the shame brush, and pride lifted to the throne.  We are living in a false myth!

For You Today

Matthew Henry wrote a commentary on the entire Bible.  When it came to the Proverbs’ warning about pride, he gave us a Humility-101 kind of last word in this simple sentence:

Therefore let us not fear the pride of others, but greatly fear pride in ourselves.[1]

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

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

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[1] Matthew Henry Commentary on Proverbs 16:18

Thankful for Stress and its Ministry in My Life

 

Monday, May 24, 2021

God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.  Psalm 73: 26

From Our Daily Bread[1]:

In 1812, the genteel New Englander Ann Judson embarked with her husband Adoniram on a long ministry of danger and hardship. The Judsons were sailing to far-off Burma as pioneer missionaries.

Ann recorded in her diary how they survived in next-to-intolerable conditions. "Have been distressed for some days on account of the gloomy prospect before us," she wrote. "Everything respecting our little mission is involved in uncertainty. I find it hard to live by faith, and confide entirely in God when the way is dark before me."

Yet Ann added, "If the way were plain and easy, where would be the room for confidence in God. Instead, then, of murmuring and complaining, let me rejoice and be thankful that my heavenly Father compels me to trust in Him by removing those things on which we are naturally inclined to lean."

What is our attitude when the props we have depended on are suddenly gone? Are we grateful for the trials that can strengthen our faith? For the child of God, great stress can develop great faith--and reveal God's great grace. --VCG

When darkness veils His lovely face,
I rest on His unchanging grace;
In every high and stormy gale
My anchor holds within the veil. --Mote

Adoniram and Anne Judson were missionaries in a difficult spot.  I’ve ministered for about as long as they, but I was not challenged by nearly the severity they experienced.  In forty years in the ministry I’ve not missed meals, or been forced to claim bankruptcy.  The houses I’ve lived in, both parsonages and my own homes have been heated and air-conditioned.  We have been cared-for by God’s grace in so many ways. 

All that said, I can look back on some times, like Anne recorded in her diary, where I wondered if I’d missed God’s will, or if someone causing some problems had missed God’s voice.  In all the times of doubt, trouble, despair I’ve been driven to prayer and depending on God’s promises.  In all the times of plenty, joy, and blessing (which account for much more than the difficult times) I’ve learned, sometimes the hard way, to not get too full of myself, because the blessings were always at God’s hand, not because I deserved them.  And in both the difficult and delightful times there has been stress.  Bad stress is like a violin string pulled too tight, or sagging too loose; the notes are like molasses pits or screeching like you’ve dragged your fingernails across the chalkboard.  Good stress is when the string is tuned just right, cooperates with the other instruments, and produces sounds that lift one to plains of delight!

I’m thankful for the bad stress and good…one teaches me what joy and Divine connection is like – the other teaches me that I’m off course, and need to pay attention to God’s Word more.

For You Today

Are you thankful for the ministry of stress?

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] December 17, 1998 “Grateful for Stress”