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^©   

When the Foundation Crumbles

Monday, August 8, 2022

I trust in the Lord for protection.  So why do you say to me, “Fly like a bird to the mountains for safety!  The wicked are stringing their bows and fitting their arrows on the bowstrings.  They shoot from the shadows at those whose hearts are right.  The foundations of law and order have collapsed.  What can the righteous do?”  But the Lord is in his holy Temple; the Lord still rules from heaven.  He watches everyone closely, examining every person on earth. The Lord examines both the righteous and the wicked.  He hates those who love violence.  He will rain down blazing coals and burning sulfur on the wicked, punishing them with scorching winds.  For the righteous Lord loves justice.  The virtuous will see his face.  Psalm 11:1-7

The Psalmist, King David, writes of a time when the foundations of civilized behavior, governed by law and order, crumbles, and those who cherish peace in the absence of fear, cannot believe what their eyes are seeing.  What was being seen in that day was weapons drawn, ambush from secret places. 

What David describes is much like our day (and every day when human hearts run amuk), bullets flying, and even when they’re not flying, the threat of violence is enough to unnerve even the John Wayne types among us.  Danger, betrayal, bullying, and destruction are building a legacy of shame on God’s creation, with the collapse of everything that is holy, snatching-away the innocence of complete generations.  The false prophets of our day proclaim peace when there is none.  It's as if Ezekiel’s words are today’s news headlines:

…these evil prophets deceive my people by saying, ‘All is peaceful’ when there is no peace at all! It’s as if the people have built a flimsy wall, and these prophets are trying to reinforce it by covering it with whitewash!  Ezekiel 13:10

It’s a simple conclusion about where the building is headed once the foundation starts crumbling; everything fine and beautiful has a date with the executioner. 

You can tell by what David wrote that he wasn’t impressed with a state of lawlessness and its accompanying bleak outlook; he says:  Don’t look at the biggest mountain for me to hide behind.  That’s not my base of faith; I’m trusting in God, Who will eventually vindicate everything He’s declared.  Wicked brutality will have its end in judgment, overcome by the worthy righteousness of the Lord.

For You Today

As you look around at today’s violence in the land, and all the futile attempts to escape the judging hand of God, you will sense the Enemy…Satan and all the forces of Hell and evil…are offering a way to scramble to the top of the heap.  All you have to do is give-in to power plays, and siding with the winning political party, or financial group, or whatever trend of social engineering is popular.

A wee reminder from the preacher:  Don’t worry about the foundation of this world’s systems crumbling – don’t buy into popular trends and promises of peace, security and financial well-being; trust in God.

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:  Collapsed Foundations and Violence in the Land  Part 1 and Part 2  

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

Breaking with Tradition

 

Wednesday, November 4, 2020

Some Pharisees and teachers of religious law now arrived from Jerusalem to see Jesus.  They asked him, “Why do your disciples disobey our age-old tradition?  For they ignore our tradition of ceremonial hand washing before they eat.”  Jesus replied, “And why do you, by your traditions, violate the direct commandments of God?  For instance, God says, ‘Honor your father and mother,’ and ‘Anyone who speaks disrespectfully of father or mother must be put to death.’  But you say it is all right for people to say to their parents, ‘Sorry, I can’t help you.  For I have vowed to give to God what I would have given to you.’  In this way, you say they don’t need to honor their parents.  And so you cancel the word of God for the sake of your own tradition.  You hypocrites!  Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you, for he wrote, ‘These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.  Their worship is a farce, for they teach man-made ideas as commands from God.’”  Matthew 15:1-9

In the Gospel records Jesus responded to people consistently, no matter who asked the question.  Or, more accurately, Jesus responded specifically, depending upon how questions were asked.  In this case, the lawyers were interrogating with a loaded question, intended to put Jesus in His place.  It worked; as Jesus answered, it was obvious he owned the high ground, and turned the question right back on the pompous attitude the Pharisees owned.

The side-lesson here is that you’d better get prayed-up, and humbled-down before you ask God a question.  If you go to Him demanding He defend what He’s doing, you’re in for a rough ride.  You’ll fare much better if you go, humbly, truly seeking answers for how to rightly understand something, or how you can honor God with what you don’t understand.

I’ve watched enough police dramas over the years to have picked up a few of Sherlock Holmes’ human nature maxims about criminals.  In an ongoing investigation by police many criminals cannot stand not knowing what their opposition knows, so they attempt to implant themselves into the process.  The Pharisees are a study in this concept.  They are as guilty as can be in having ignored God’s ways for so long they cannot see their own sin.  Still, they enter the arena with a question that opens the door for Jesus to expose the so-called wise leaders and teachers of the law who accuse Jesus of what they, themselves are doing.    Criminology -101 tells us the Pharisees are rattled by Jesus’ lack of convention, but they make a rookie mistake for Marxist wannabe’s, they attack Jesus’ motives without protecting their own flank.  

Jesus’ answer moves the debate quickly from a neglected handwashing tradition to neglecting aged parents, fueled by greed, and accomplished with lies.  Jesus turns the Pharisees’ game on its ear by upping-the-ante a hundred-fold.  And it put the Pharisees on the defensive; in the next several chapters of Matthew the debate goes badly for the elders and rulers, and the final plan of finding a way to silence Jesus permanently becomes the final nail in their ethical and spiritual coffins.  Ironically, it also becomes the key to how Jesus would offer God’s grace to all humanity – they choose a cross to silence a Savior!

For You Today

The question is easily begged in this event:

Which is more important, man’s preferences, or God’s Word?

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

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

For other posts on Matthew 15 see:  Offended Pharisees and Parading Lies as Truth

 

Joy in Troubling Times

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Monday, October 7, 2019

Beside the rivers of Babylon, we sat and wept  as we thought of Jerusalem.  We put away our harps, hanging them on the branches of poplar trees.  For our captors demanded a song from us.  Our tormentors insisted on a joyful hymn:  “Sing us one of those songs of Jerusalem!”  But how can we sing the songs of the Lord while in a pagan land?  Psalm 137:1-4

It’s strangely perplexing when someone reacts to news in just the opposite way you’d expect.  A person hears that a friend just got a promotion and bursts into tears.  Another gets the news that her uncle just died and tries to stifle the smile.  What gives with our emotions and bad or good news?

The Psalmist is a case in point.  The mood of Israel after being run over by the Babylonian armies was sullen.  The enemy had killed every person who was a perceived threat, looting the temple, crippling the peoples’ spirit, and destroying any hope of ever returning to the days of David’s grandeur.  On top of it all the residents of Jerusalem had been relocated to Babylon where their captives could keep an eye on them.  They were rubbing salt in the wound by forcing the captives to sing them a happy little ditty.  Call me cynical, but how can you sing If you’re happy and you know it, clap your hands with a smile on your face when your heart’s been squeezed like a lemon and crushed like a peanut shell under an elephant’s foot?  The Israelites were weeping over the loss of their homeland, their Promised Land, their lives…and the Babylonian dogs were goading them to sing them a merry tune!  Some things are just too much!

At times I think I know just how the ancient people of God must’ve felt.  The land which I call home has been captured by a spirit of division, anger, crude perversion and deceit.  To say we live in troubling times is to understate the obvious by a country mile.  It is impossible to recount the sordid details of just how far twenty-first century culture has dipped into the morass of the Days of Noah, but suffice to say if God had not promised to never again destroy the earth because of the wickedness of man, the only climate change I would be looking for is the thunderclouds warming up for a 40-day monsoon.

And still, there is a prophetic cloud hanging over the sinfulness of America’s godlessness; there is coming a time when God will recompense evil with a sweeping, righteous judgment; no one will be able to stand in that day.

So, where is the joy in all this musing about the evil in our day, and the coming judgment that will push the souls of evildoers eternally into the abyss?  Is it just that the worm is going to turn, and those who truly worship God will get to play Babylon, and torture those who now are in power? 

In a word…hardly!  The joy is in knowing that the troubling times in which we live is (to those of faith) testimony that God’s Word is true, and He is without question moving the timeline of history along to God’s inevitable conclusion.  We now live in a post-modern, post-Christian culture.  For those who trust in Christ it is a test of faith that burns away the dross of unbelief.  In short, when God allows darkness, it is a certain proof that His light is patient, unwilling to summarily judge the wicked before giving them every chance to repent.  But someday that darkness will be surrounded and snuffed-out forever by the light of God’s goodness and righteousness. 

For You Today

The time will arrive soon enough for the judgment; this day let the apostle James help us understand what these troubled times are forming in our souls:

Dear brothers and sisters, when troubles of any kind come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy.  For you know that when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow.  So let it grow, for when your endurance is fully developed, you will be perfect and complete, needing nothing.  James 1:2-4

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 used from The New Living Translation©

Hope - Part 1

[i]

Monday, January 23, 2017

But in spite of this there is still hope for Israel.  Ezra 10:2b^(NLT)

I couldn’t begin to estimate the number of times I’ve watched a TV episode where a person on a gurney in a hospital, or at an accident scene, ceased to breathe, and the doctor or the heroic EMS calls for the paddles, yells Charging, bellows Clear, then takes the paddle-like electrodes, places them on the patient's chest, pulls the trigger, and POW! – the body lifts off the table like a space shuttle.  In a moment you hear:  got a heartbeat.  A life is restored; death is cheated; they call it revival!

Revival is only needed when death is detected.  It is so in the spiritual world, as the natural world – deadness is the opposite of life.  Ezra detected the spiritual deadness of God's people.  Years before Jeremiah and Ezekiel had pleaded with God's people to get right with the Lord.  All the pleading was to no avail.  The people fell in deadness spiritually; they were carried away physically into Babylon (Iraq).  Later it happened again with the Persians (Iran). 

In every case it was a matter of spiritual deadness.  The people of God paid only cursory attention to serving their God.  They kept the rituals going, but the sap of vital worship had long ago dried up in God's vineyard.  Later Jesus encountered the same conditions and remembered the prophet Ezekiel when he mourned a wayward people:

These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.  Matthew 15:8^(NLT)

The captivities had the desired effect.  With the loosening of political ties, the reform of Nehemiah made it easier for some of the Jews to return to Jerusalem and rebuild the walls of the city, and the temple of God. 

Under Nehemiah's leadership the people responded with enthusiasm in the rebuilding of Zion’s walls.  However, the work stopped; they could go no further because spiritual deadness had (once again) set-in. 

Ezra was of the priestly line of Aaron. When he arrived on the scene, he surveyed what had happened during the reclaiming of the land.  As an expediency, the men had taken wives of the pagan cultures.  It was easier to get the land back when you were married into the family.  In their desire to hasten along the project of reclamation, the people of God had adopted the world's ways.  In their hope of returning to greatness as the people of God, they had sinned greatly against the very One they were supposed to serve.

There is a parallel today in the land of one nation under God.  Having been birthed in the cradle of Christian righteousness, our beloved America has become Godless.  We've gone from one nation under the blessing of God, to the politically correct, atheist-acknowledging nation under the judgment of God.  We are no better than ancient Israel.  They married women to gain back the lands they thought was their spiritual heritage.  We've sold our spiritual heritage to be at one with the world.  They (at least) thought they were doing right – we know, and don’t seem to care, that what we're doing is wrong! 

The church in America is becoming little more than a collection of social clubs where people can gather in support groups, where our lack of responsibility for sin can be affirmed, and we can all claim victim status.  Lost is the weeping, genuine mourning and confessing of sin.  And as a result of our sin, we are reaping an incredible whirlwind of death. 

Like the patient who died on the gurney there is a resuscitation needed in America's churches – a revival from the deadness of religion that comes no closer to the hem of God's garment than a child with a crayon competes with a computer.

How shall we be revived from the spiritual deadness?  Look to the revival of Ezra:

But in spite of this there is still hope for Israel.  Ezra 10:2b^(NLT)

The hope for America starts with the church, AND the repentance God calls for in any age.  What is repentance?  It is more than just the weeping of Ezra and the people.  It is in turning from our sins ^{(2 Chronicles 7.14)}.  Donald Grey Barnhouse tells of the Sunday School teacher who asked her class what was meant by the word repentance.  A little boy put up his hand and said, It is being sorry for your sins.  A little girl also raised her hand and said, It is being sorry enough to quit.

In our understanding, repentance is simply taking responsibility for your own actions.  Repentance is like the two electrodes of the defibrillator machine the doctor uses to shock the heart back to life.  One paddle is your Godly sorrow for sin; the other paddle is your promise to God to quit those sins with His help.

Is it too late for America? 

Have we gone too far?  Is there hope?  Yes, there is definitely hope, and that hope has a name - Jesus! 

While there is life and breath there is hope.  A visitor at a fishing dock asked an old fisherman who was sitting there:  If I were to fall into this water, would I drown?  The old salt sighed a bit then replied: 

Nope – fallin' in the water don't drown nobody; it's stayin' there what drowns ya.

For You Today

Over the next week or so we will look at using the resuscitation paddles on what’s left of the corpse of America’s churches.  Now that may be a graphic and not-too-pretty thought this morning, but it’s better than the alternative of what comes after a few nights in the hospital morgue! 

There is yet hope for America, and it lies within the churches’ response to her Lord to bring that hope to the surface.

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

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NOTES

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[i] Title image: Russell Brownworth (own work)