Never Ending

Thursday, August 10, 2023

Today’s post is a message of hope written by Anna Murdock.

Then Peter came to him and asked, “Lord, how often should I forgive someone who sins against me?  Seven times?”  “No, not seven times,” Jesus replied, “but seventy times seven!”  Matthew 18:21-22

I saw an older man

dressed in torn and dirty clothes.

He was in need of a shave

and surely a hot shower

would have felt good to him.

This man, walking along my route,

was mumbling to himself

and counting his fingers –

touching each finger to his thumb;

   first the right hand -

   one, two, three, four …

   then his left hand -

   one, two, three, four …

   then back to his right hand -

   one, two, three, four.

And so it went,

on and on

and on and on.

The counting seemed

to never end …

   from right hand to left,

   from finger to finger

   to finger to finger.

What was so important

to this man of the streets?

What words were needing

to come out and be spoken?

Was he just “another one of those”

who mumbled quietly

as they walked along

the roads of our lives?

As I continued my drive to work,

weary from the day before,

angry from two days before,

feeling very alone

from the week so far,

I too began to mumble

and count the ways

   to weariness,

   to anger,

   to aloneness.

How many times

am I to forgive

(both myself and others)?

From right hand to left,

from left hand to right,

and back to the right hand

again…

   from finger to finger

   to finger to finger …

   the counting seems

   to never end.

How many times and ways

are the words “Be not afraid”

whispered, written,

        shouted to all who fear …

               (and don’t we all fear)?

From right hand to left,

from left hand to right,

and back to the right hand

again…

   from finger to finger

   to finger to finger …

   the counting seems

   to never end.

And what about God’s Love?

How many times is this Love

   seen, felt, whispered,

    promised, given, and received?

From right hand to left,

from left hand to right,

and back to the right hand

again…

   from finger to finger

   to finger to finger …

   the counting seems

   to never end.

If this man is “one of those”,

who mumble and count,

then I am one as well …

one of those

who cannot fathom

  such forgiveness,

  such assurance,

  such Love ...

  for it is all

NEVER-ENDING.

                                      ©2011 anna murdock

For You Today 

Our last word today is how my friend Anna introduced this image…of us…

Jesus says, "Seventy-seven times. It is never-ending...this forgiveness."  May we see no end to forgiveness, no end to God's assurance, and no end to the Great Love that binds us together.  May the One who is without limits send us out to share this 'never-ending' good news with others.  This is the community of faith that we are called to be.

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

Go to VIDEO

There are about 2,600 devotional posts and 400 sermons in the Rocky Road Devotions library.  

 

Title Image:    ©2011 Anna Murdock original work

Images without citation are in public domain.   Unless noted, Scripture quoted from NLT^©   

The Root of Guilt

Tuesday, January 17, 2023

The old system under the law of Moses was only a shadow, a dim preview of the good things to come, not the good things themselves.  The sacrifices under that system were repeated again and again, year after year, but they were never able to provide perfect cleansing for those who came to worship.  If they could have provided perfect cleansing, the sacrifices would have stopped, for the worshipers would have been purified once for all time, and their feelings of guilt would have disappeared.  But instead, those sacrifices actually reminded them of their sins year after year.  For it is not possible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.  Hebrews 10:1-4

Taking away sins is indeed a tricky business.  We can hear the preacher say:  In the name of Christ, you are forgiven…and a nanosecond or two later we are having the same thoughts and desires that got us into the debt of our evil in the first place.  And the guilt starts a new cycle.  Our base problem (sin nature, courtesy of Adam) makes us (as the hymn-writer has it) prone to wander and we can no longer imagine we are forgiven than jump over the moon.

What’s not so tricky is understanding this about me.  Having spent the better part of 8 decades in this human skin of a life examining the insides of Russell, knowing just how crumbly human clay feet can be, and how permanently the scars of our sins can destroy our sense of peace, I have become acutely aware of how successfully guilt can rob us of everything powerfully-good in our daily lives.  The annual sacrifices at the Temple could do nothing to asuage a guilty conscience.  Something greater was required to get at the root of our guilt. 

Paul[1] later described for the Jewish tribes of believers how Jesus’ sacrifce was that something better to root out the assault our arch-enemy, Lucifer makes on our vulnerable conscience:

Under the old covenant, the priest stands and ministers before the altar day after day, offering the same sacrifices again and again, which can never take away sins.  But our High Priest offered himself to God as a single sacrifice for sins, good for all time.  Then he sat down in the place of honor at God’s right hand.  There he waits until his enemies are humbled and made a footstool under his feet.  For by that one offering he forever made perfect those who are being made holy.  

Hebrews 10:11-14

A careful reading of Paul’s explanation offers the subtle (but sure) difference between a clear conscience and overwhelming unrest in the soul.  It is the enemies of Christ that are destined for humbling punishment, not the friends!

To be a friend of Jesus means trusting him.  When we trust him with our future, our past is included in the forgiveness of all the sins we have done, or ever will do.  Jesus, the flawless friend is the fulfillment of the title, Best Friend Forever

…a real friend sticks closer than a brother.  Proverbs 18:24b

For You Today  

Somewhere during your walk with Christ, the enemy will whisper in your ear an accusation or two about stuff you shouldn’t have done, or stuff you should have done, but didn’t, or maybe the desire for something evil that you just didn’t get around to doing….yet!  Remind the serpent that when you repented of that sin, God forgave you, and God never lies.  Apostle Paul wrote that too:

Even if everyone else is a liar, God is true.  Romans 3:4b

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

Go to VIDEO (read by author)

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: 

A Clean Sweep, But Not Swept-Away  and  Out of the Frying Pan, Into the Fire

Images:  Title Wikimedia Commons   Images without citation are either personal property of the author, or in public domain.

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

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[1] Paul was more than likely the author of Hebrews according to many scholars.

Why Schindler Got It

Friday, December 2, 2022

Give your love of justice to the king, O God, and righteousness to the king’s son.  Help him judge your people in the right way; let the poor always be treated fairly.  May the mountains yield prosperity for all, and may the hills be fruitful.  Help him to defend the poor, to rescue the children of the needy, and to crush their oppressors.  May they fear you as long as the sun shines, as long as the moon remains in the sky.  Yes, forever!  Psalm 72:1-5

Adolph Hitler was a king (of sorts).  He did nothing as holy as rescuing children of the needy; rather, he had them killed in concentration camps, and shot in the streets by his ruthless SS officers.  Oskar Schindler was a German businessman, capitalizing on the Nazi need for military weapons and supplies.  He used cheap Jewish labor to make a fortune.  Then one day he saw the little Jewish girl in a red coat.  The next day he saw her corpse loaded on a truck with many other bodies.  Schindler’s whole life became a mission to protect people from Hitler’s obsession with exterminating Jews from the planet.  In the end Schindler saved nearly 1,000. 

There is nothing that evokes compassion that will move most humans like seeing what Schindler saw.  A greedy businessman does not mend his ways when confronted with difficult social conditions, caused by, or exploited by his business practices.  He is unmoved by ethics or morality.  But the stark reality of a human life, barely embarked on breathing, has the embryo of change for even the most hardened of souls.  Schindler got it (the compassion to do right) because life’s most poignant reality, our human connection with God, pierced his hard heart.

King David prayed the prayer recorded in Psalm 72 near the end of his life.  He had lived long enough, sinned big enough, and learned life’s lessons well enough, to understand the God-connection we all have.  As part of the created order, all human beings are “children” of the Almighty.  We’re related.  David’s prayer was that the wisdom, courage, and compassion he’d learned, would now be passed along – and take hold – in his son, Solomon.  It would be necessary to see the nation through lean times, and help the nation be humble before God in their high times. 

Adolph Hitler, baptized as a youth into the Lutheran Church, did his best to stamp out the image and lineage of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, and David.  And it was done in the (supposed) holy name of preserving the purity of God’s created order.  It took a momentary confrontation of a child in a red coat with a Nazi-supporting, hardened businessman, to engage the holiness of God on a nightmare against humanity.  As King David had a prophet (Nathan[1]) who confronted him with his sin, and as Adam and Eve in the garden, Schindler heard the still small voice of God from out of the whirlwind of war’s madness saying …where are you…what are you doing?  He had to answer.

For You Today  

Oskar Schindler overlooked a lot to get to the top of the business world.  One day he could not get a little girl in a red coat out of his mind. 

What have you seen lately, or what will you see today, to remind you who, and whose you are?

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

Go to VIDEO (read by author)

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: 

       Choosing   and   What to Do

Images:  Title Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=723965   Images without citation are either personal property of the author, or in public domain.

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

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[1] Read 2 Samuel 12 for the account of Nathan the prophet confronting King David with his sins.

Living in Guilt and Anxiety; the Unsolvable and Unchangeable Presence of Hell

Wednesday, October 12, 2022

Pray like this:  Our Father in heaven, may your name be kept holy.  May your Kingdom come soon.  May your will be done on earth, as it is in heaven.  Give us today the food we need, and forgive us our sins, as we have forgiven those who sin against us.  And don’t let us yield to temptation, but rescue us from the evil one.  Matthew 6:9-13

Last year I remember seeing a post on a friend’s Facebook page:

No amount of guilt can solve the past,

and no amount of anxiety can change the future.  

It’s not terribly difficult to see the deep truth of that plea to live in the present.  No person can do the time-travel thing that is popular on TV these days – to go back in time and fix the mistakes, so everything will be perfect.  The few moments I spent writing those last sentences cannot be undone.  Time is a one-way door through which we pass, willingly or not.  Grieving over what transpired in that process has theraputic value, but only in the sense that we can learn, and then apply that knowledge for living in the next passage. 

This brings us to the second half of the saying – anxiety over the next passage, the future time of this revolving door we call life.  Anxiety is a wrestling match over the outcome of desired vs. undesired results of the present.  We want good stuff, good feelings, friendly places, and an easier ride.  Past experience tells us that there are precisely eighty-nine bazillion ways that can go wrong.  Truth be told, there are that many ways we are our worst enemy!  The future is unknown to us, and no amount of anxiety will help, it will only lead to stomach ulcers.

I believe that's why forgiveness is the only real solution.  To be forgiven by those to whom you are accountable, and have transgressed (chief and primary among those is God), and then to forgive those who are accountable to you for their brand of transgression.  Without both we can get stuck.  It is a choice we all make, to move forward without fear, or remain stuck in handwringing angst.

Others, those you have transgressed, who, for whatever reason(s), will not offer their forgiveness when asked, is about the only contaminating fly in the ointment of assuaging our guilt.  But that is not, or at least should not be, a reason to hold back receiving the healing forgiveness God offers, when others are too proud, or angry, to forgive.  Getting “stuck” in guilt is a form of self-punishment. 

This thought can be (like any good advice, or process) treated like a get-out-of-jail-free-card, or simply a mechanism to avoid the consequences of poor behavior or intentions.  It is not intended to be that, or simply a convenient crutch to avoid the harder work of forgiving and being forgiven.  The keys to this process of fleeing from the hell on earth of brokenness, are honest self-awareness, and destruction of our pride; the absence of either can derail any relationship. 

For You Today

If we value our relationship with God, we must hold sacred our treatment of each other.  The way Jesus taught us to pray was to ask God for forgiveness in the same way we have already forgiven others…that means the ball of offering forgiveness is always in our court FIRST.  When we refuse to acknowledge and enter the process of offering and seeking forgiveness, we yield to the temptation of the evil one, our enemy…and the contest is forfeited…game over…hell continues to reign.

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

Go to VIDEO (read by author)

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: 

Forgiveness & Families - Part 1   and   Families & Forgiveness - Part 2

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

Guilty! - Part 3

Friday, October 7, 2022

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.  Psalm 32:3-4

If we confess our sins, he who is faithful and just will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.   1 John 1:9 ^(NRSV)

So far in this series, in part 1, we’ve looked at how Reuben and his 10 brothers were consumed with guilt over selling their youngest brother into slavery, and Peter’s well-published guilt over denying the Christ he said he’d die for.  Added to those were the contrast of the sociopathic thief on the cross next to Jesus who mocked, and the remorseful penitent who asked Jesus to remember him when Jesus entered His kingdom.  We said with Isaiah that nobody is righteous; we have all fallen short with our sins:  We feel guilty because we ARE guilty.

In part 2 we looked at how false it is to develop our ways of dealing with guilt –  denial, or blaming others for what was (clearly) our choice.  The little boy in his white Sunday suit, who was told to stay clean, chased the family pet beagle, Buster, with a can of green paint, and wound-up caught, busted…paintbrush in hand.  Peter was caught in his betrayal.  King David was nailed by a prophet’s bold accusation.  Guilt consumes us from the inside-out, and there’s no such thing as a secret sin!  There’s no wondering about where the old saying comes from:  No peace for the wicked.   

Friend, if you’re eaten-up with guilt over something and have not confessed it to God, you will never feel forgiven because you aren’t forgiven!

So…what to do?

Here are a few simple, but vital steps to take

1.  Make certain you confess your sin

Don’t rationalize (hide the evidence or shift blame)…God already knows you’re a sinner… just confess, admit it to Him and be forgiven.

2.  Be humble – learn from past mistakes

You cannot do anything about what happened yesterday, but God rejoices in your confession, and loves to forgive and rebuild you!

3.  Pray for growth to use your past for kingdom good

Stand ready to help others in the areas you’ve been blessed by forgiveness.

4.  Spend time thanking God for his blessings

This is why we have the Lord’s table…come, ye forgiven, and beloved sinners...and rejoice!  

For You Today

Guilt was never God’s intended inner profile for His human children.  That’s why He came to us in a manger, innocent, and ready to die for us, so we can be forgiven, cleansed, washed whiter than snow…and restored to fellowship with our Creator.  Don’t miss THAT!

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

Go to VIDEO (read by author)

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: 

Old Brooms & Common Sense   and   Black Ice

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

Guilty! - Part 2

Thursday, October 6, 2022

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.  Psalm 32:3-4

Dealing with understanding the issues we have with guilt is a hard, but necessary medicine.  We have all sorts of techniques for getting rid of guilt, but, underneath, we still feel guilty.  Frankly, we hardly need to have someone tell us we did wrong; we are hardwired with free will, and that is enough to help us understand the conundrum of needing forgiveness, but refusing to admit we need forgiveness.  We don’t feel forgiven because we aren’t!

When a person simply tries to get rid of guilt for the sake of trying to feel better,  trying to hide the evidence, or shift the blame, we never accomplish what we’re after.  

A little boy was dressed by his Mom in his best Sunday suit – white!  She told him to go outside and wait by the car; she’d be out in 10 minutes….and don’t get dirty!  Thirty seconds later he’d found a bucket of dark green paint and was chasing after Buster the family beagle.  Paint sloshed everywhere, but he just couldn’t catch up with Buster.  As Buster ran for the safety of the front porch, the little guy followed in hot pursuit, just as the front door swung-open wide.  As the now green-paint-covered white suit and green-haired little boy screeched to a halt, he looked up to see his angry Mom staring down at him.  Bucket in one hand, brush in the other, and beagle cowering in the porch corner, the little guy stammered, I didn’t paint Buster!

Until we deal with the source of our guilt (sin) we can never feel forgiven, because we aren’t.  It’s like an elephant in the room that nobody wants to acknowledge.  Sin stands between us and God like a dark green paint stain. 

This was Peter’s agony.  In the Gospel accounts it tells us that when Jesus’ trial ended, they took him from Pilate’s house.  Peter was hiding in the courtyard, watching from a distance.  His and Jesus’ eyes locked and Peter knew he’d denied Christ.  He went out and wept bitterly.[1]  After the resurrection ^{John 21} it is recorded that Jesus had a conversation with Peter that searched deep into Peter’s soul.  It was a simple conversation, but forced the fisherman to deal with his guilt.

In King David’s case it took the prophet Samuel looking the king square in the eyes, calling him a murdering adulterer.  Until David faced the truth about his own behavior and confessed his sin^(Ps32:5) he was never going to be free.

For You Today

When we feel guilty we often default to using excuses for why we did what we did, none of which changes what God has said about our sin.  Sin will always be dealt-with!  And it will always be on God’s terms, never our excuses or denial.  Like the “heroes” King David, Peter, and others we read about in Scripture, there is never peace in our minds or hearts, when we live in unforgiveness.

Tomorrow we’ll wrap-up where to go with our excuses, rationalizations, and denial…how guilt doesn’t have to eat us alive from the inside, like a dark green paint splash on a Sunday suit.

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

Go to VIDEO (read by author)

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: 

Waiting in Pain   and   Better Than Guilt   

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

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[1] Mark 14:72