Living in Light

Friday, February 10, 2023

If anyone claims, “I am living in the light,” but hates a fellow believer, that person is still living in darkness.  Anyone who loves a fellow believer is living in the light and does not cause others to stumble.  But anyone who hates a fellow believer is still living and walking in darkness.  Such a person does not know the way to go, having been blinded by the darkness.   

1 John 2:9-11

John, the beloved apostle wrote about loving others…a lot!

But John wasn’t always so compassionate; at one point in time, he and his brother James were nicknamed the sons of thunder[1] by Jesus.  This was because the brothers were prone to anger and knee-jerk reactions. 

On the road to Jerusalem some of the crowds rejected Jesus.  James and John asked for permission to call down fire from heaven to burn up the unbelievers.  Jesus rebuked them and they had to recheck their theology of crowd control.[2]

Question?

How does a man go from wanting to incinerate a whole crowd for simply disagreeing with your position…to one who says that kind of hate means you don’t know the first thing about God?

Pretty simple, actually; John was not so set in his dark ways that he couldn’t entertain the possibility that he was wrong.  That’s called “being teachable.” 

And when that’s possible, then light coming into your life is also possible.  And the kind of light Jesus brings will dispel a multitude of darkness!

Paul said to be transformed by the renewing of your mind.[3]  This is what had happened to John, a thunderous, judgmental, hard-headed reactionary; He entertained the truth of Jesus’ kind of love and it changed everything.

John went from that kind of mindset where you’re absolutely certain you could straighten out anybody, because you’ve got a corner on the truth market, and everyone should do things your way…..to living in the light of God’s truth, that loving others is the only way to keep from stumbling around in life.

John learned the humility of love; he learned how to live in the light.

For You Today  

How’s the light in your world today?

If it needs turning up a little, do a love-check on your relationships; entertain the possibility that loving others is better than convincing others you’re right.

Better to be beloved, than a son of thunder!

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: 

Where Love and Truth Meet  and  Against the Tide 

This is an updated version of “Living in LIght published on Rocky Road Devotions August 13, 2013

Images:  Title via 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] Mark 3:17

[2] Luke 9:53-55

[3] Romans 12:2

Pondering a Hard Truth

Wednesday, December 21, 2022

Jacob loved Joseph more than any of his other children because Joseph had been born to him in his old age.  So one day Jacob had a special gift made for Joseph—a beautiful robe.  But his brothers hated Joseph because their father loved him more than the rest of them.  They couldn’t say a kind word to him.  One night Joseph had a dream, and when he told his brothers about it, they hated him more than ever.  “Listen to this dream,” he said.  “We were out in the field, tying up bundles of grain.  Suddenly my bundle stood up, and your bundles all gathered around and bowed low before mine!”  His brothers responded, “So you think you will be our king, do you?  Do you actually think you will reign over us?”  And they hated him all the more because of his dreams and the way he talked about them.  Soon Joseph had another dream, and again he told his brothers about it.  “Listen, I have had another dream,” he said.  “The sun, moon, and eleven stars bowed low before me!”  This time he told the dream to his father as well as to his brothers, but his father scolded him.  “What kind of dream is that?” he asked.  “Will your mother and I and your brothers actually come and bow to the ground before you?”  But while his brothers were jealous of Joseph, his father wondered what the dreams meant.  

Genesis 37:3-11

Truth is impartial to what we think of it; truth is simply (and most profoundly) its own reality.  One, plus one more, does not care if you think the answer is seven; it will always be as reality demands…two.  The difference between Jacob and his older sons was that Jacob entertained the possibility of truth told him by his youngest son, a truth which Joseph’s elder brothers refused to acknowledge.  This truth was what Joseph was given in a dream, concerning the future, when his older brother’s hatred of their youngest sibling would come full cycle.  Eventually the brothers, and even their father, would be dependent on Joseph’s forgiveness.

The story of Joseph’s jealous brothers selling their young sibling into slavery, and his subsequent rise to power in Egypt, followed by a famine, and his brothers being sent to find food, is a harbinger of God’s advent.  The birth of Christ, and the dream (even of Jesus’ disciples) of a political Messiah, sold for thirty pieces of silver to the cross, is the fulfillment of Joseph’s hard life with its ultimate victory, punctuated at last by his magnanimous forgiveness of the ones who persecuted him.  It is a resurrection truth, hard to entertain, but sweet to the reins when digested fully.

The truth of Joseph’s, and Jesus’ lives is hard to entertain.  Our world is always looking for easier shortcuts…computers that do better math than counting on our fingers…machines to do the heavy lifting…gene-splitting to make better human bodies, prettier, stronger, more able to cope with the harshness of life and our darker realities.  Somehow our notion of “truth” carries the lie that we are bound to create our own reality, sans God.  In some self-aggrandizing common consent, humanity has made God obsolete.  And that is the shroud they put on the face of a dead savior Friday afternoon.  It didn’t ring true Sunday morning.

For You Today  

Jacob wasn’t thrilled about Joseph’s second dream, because it meant a reversal of the order…the father bowing-down to the son.  But he left a little flap of wonder hanging for the wind of revelation to let in some light.

That is what Advent brings…revelation.  Let the wind blow today.

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

Go to VIDEO (read by author)

There are about 2,000 devotional posts and 400 sermons in the Rocky Road Devotions library.  To dig deeper on today’s topic, explore some of these: 

   Seven Deadly Sins - Part 3 - Envy   and   When Envy Grabs a Heart

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

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

An Upside-Down World

Tuesday, September 13, 2022

What sorrow for those who say that evil is good and good is evil, that dark is light and light is dark, that bitter is sweet and sweet is bitter.  Isaiah 5:20 The Lord observed the extent of human wickedness on the earth, and he saw that everything they thought or imagined was consistently and totally evil.  So the Lord was sorry he had ever made them and put them on the earth.  It broke his heart.  Genesis 6:5-6

I watched a video my cousin Rick sent to me.  I don’t have time to watch a lot of internet stuff, but this one caught my eye.  It was presented by a young woman host of a Youtube/TikTok video blog called Defender of the Republic.  It’s about the “upside-downness” of cultural norms in our world, particularly in the U.S.A.  From an unquestionable breakdown of morals and common sense, to racism, vaccinations, illegal immigration practices, and cutthroat government gutting what was once (at least) a marginally-trustworthy institution, she names today’s absurd inequity, injustice, and insanity without pulling punches.  Some of it could be seen as political partisianship, or just plain political rhetoric, but most is spot-on common sense.  According to John Q. Public, good is now evil, and, conversely, evil is incredibly the best!  All told, this stark assessment of our current world adds another billion tons of credence to Jesus’ prophecy:

“When the Son of Man returns, it will be like it was in Noah’s day.  Matthew 24:37

As God’s assessment in Genesis, that Noah was the only human being on planet earth who tried to stay away from evil, nothing could hold back the judgment flood that was brewing. 

And, I believe, there isn’t much doubt that the 21^st century has just as imminent a Judgment Day on the horizon.  The Days of Noah are upon us!  And Jesus gave an indelible reason why that is so, and will be universally-conclusive:

And the judgment is based on this fact: God’s light came into the world, but people loved the darkness more than the light, for their actions were evil.  John 3:19

For You Today

That judgment inevitably follows action is as predictable, and undeniably just, as when you jump out of an airplane at 10,000-feet without a parachute.  It’s unavoidable, and brings a close to the chapter you’re writing.

So here’s today’s (and tomorrow’s, and every-day’s) question:

Do you know the Editor who can shed light on your story?

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: 

Good and Evil; the War and God, with a Broken Heart

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

The Hatred Prison

 

Wednesday, March 10, 2021

For God called you to do good, even if it means suffering, just as Christ suffered for you.  He is your example, and you must follow in his steps.  He never sinned, nor ever deceived anyone.  He did not retaliate when he was insulted, nor threaten revenge when he suffered.  He left his case in the hands of God, who always judges fairly.  1 Peter 2:21-23

This may be one of the easiest passages to understand in all of Scripture.  It is, arguably, also one of the most difficult to incorporate into our thoughts.  It is even harder to practice.  When you’ve been wronged, the human response is to, at least, defend…and, more likely, hit back!   Our recently retired president was hailed as the Counter-Puncher-in-Chief; he proudly lived-up to the reputation.  If he sensed a criticism from you, the response would be lethal.

The problem with revenge is the jail time to which it is connected.  Certainly, the kind of revenge that involves committing felonies might require time behind iron bars.  However, the jail time that is most damaging to the human spirit, and the possibilities of genuine community Christ offers, and promises, won’t be incarceration time spent in Attica, Sing Sing, or San Quentin.  The prison of revenge remediation is found within; it is hatred which binds us more strongly, and with greater destruction to the soul, than any cellblock. 

In a previous post (The All-Inclusive Temple of God) I mentioned “cancel culture” which, considering some of the responses to that post, begs a deeper look.  This phenomenon of a power-shift in 21^st century cultural norms is a belief system that holds previous norms are wrong and should be silenced, dismantled, and banned.  It is closely connected to the unique brand of reverse prejudice which creates a revenge cycle, which, in turn, leads to hatred prison just as dramatically as the souls of slave owners in Colonial America wound up confined there. 

Cancel culturalists will probably eat me alive for this thought train, but here goes.  The comparison I make is thus: 

·       In the annals of slavery and since the end of such bondage, the black person was viewed as “less”.  White supremacists, pushers of Arian dominance, claimed a superior position and held down their captives with a strong hand.  Hangover prejudices persist to this day

·       In the new norm of cancel culture, anyone (even remotely) connected to the wrong of the previous norm are immediately suspect (at mildest), or (at worst) held as culpable, first-degree racists.

So, just laying this argument on the low shelf, whites persecuted blacks, and now it is the black person’s time at bat.  Evidentiary of that is the hyper-radical anger that classifies any white person as racist, purely based on race.

I know…the irony screams so loud it’s impossible to laugh or cry…it’s just stunning, that it matters not what a black person said in 1830, he was black, and white America considered him part of nature’s mistake.  In 2021 the tsunami of “equality” overwhelms whatever remorse or compassion the white-skinned descendants of racists may have, and relegates them to racist by color. 

In proper perspective, most white people have never come close to the kind of personal, or group pain experienced by those who are black.  And there is nothing whites can do to atone for the sins of racism and oppression of the past, nor those who would hold on to it in the present, and promote it for the future.  Racism is indefensible and heinous.

But neither is there a commonsense argument for revenge’s retaliation.  Not only do two wrongs never make a right, the only genuine, workable commonsense argument is on the side of mental health.  The only healthy choice regarding racism is not fists in the air, anger, and getting even…it is forgiveness.  For those who care, it’s the only way to avoid spending time in The Hatred Prison.

For You Today

It’s time to join the Cancel Culture movement…let’s cancel racism from any perspective, and put the Hatred Prison behind bars.

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

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

Living in Harmony

 

Thursday, August 13, 2020

How wonderful and pleasant it is when brothers live together in harmony!  For harmony is as precious as the anointing oil that was poured over Aaron’s head, that ran down his beard and onto the border of his robe.  Harmony is as refreshing as the dew from Mount Hermon that falls on the mountains of Zion.  And there the Lord has pronounced his blessing, even life everlasting.  Psalm 133:1-3

Harmony is…the quality of forming a pleasing and consistent whole.[1]

Almost 40 years ago music icons Paul McCartney and Stevie Wonder’s music video lit up the charts in a plea for humanity to find a way to exist in harmony:

Ebony and ivory live together in perfect harmony

Side by side on my piano keyboard, oh Lord, why don't we?[2]

Both of those artists helped define the distinctives of the Baby Boomer generation, those who came along after World War II.  In typical arrogance, fueled by youthful naiveté, the Boomers imagined we were the first to really get it right about how to have a perfect world.  The concept of harmony, just getting along with each other, learning to love each other, worked well in theory; in practice we didn’t do so well.

To wit:  2020.  If the dictionary is right about harmony being a pleasing, consistent whole (of divergent, cacophonous parts), we’re about as much in tune with each other in 2020 as sounds of a catfight in the middle of the night.

It’s hard for me to point a finger at the current generation for the way they’re proclaiming how to get it right in racial harmony, especially when my generation tried the same, worn-out garment of protest, public blaming, exclusion, infighting, and general unrest.  Fighting fire with fire makes for a catchy soundbite, but it’s a horrible methodology for bringing people to a point of respect, and even love, much less the promised land of harmony.

In the same way that light and the absence of light cannot exist in the same space, so harmony will never occupy the same space with anger.  Several weeks ago I preached a sermon on the text of Genesis 33[3] where estranged brothers Jacob and Esau reconciled after a 20-year feud.  The reconciliation only happened because they both decided that the anger that fueled the rift was just not working.  

In fact, putting aside the anger was the only way dust could have enough chance to settle so the importance of their relationship would be seen.

As a visual representation of the choices, I put together two doors, one marked “anger” and the other “reconciliation”.  The tagline for the sermon was:

If you choose reconciliation you must LEAVE the anger behind.  If you choose to remain angry you will NEVER reconcile with anyone.  You just can’t walk through two doors at the same time!

For You Today

Let’s go back to before this day’s generation, or my generation…back before Black Lives Matter, or Ku Klux Klan, or anything in recent memory…let’s let wisdom from Solomon be our last word.

A gentle answer deflects anger, but harsh words make tempers flare.  Proverbs 15:1

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 133 see Dew on the Beard and alt-Center

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[1] Oxford Dictionary

[2] Ebony and Ivory, written by Paul McCartney, 1981

[3] Read the Sermon Two Doors or watch it on Youtube

 

Years Ago - This Year

 

Thursday, July 16, 2020

Isaiah 44:1-5

“But now, listen to me, Jacob my servant, Israel my chosen one.  The Lord who made you and helps you says:  Do not be afraid, O Jacob, my servant, O dear Israel, my chosen one.  For I will pour out water to quench your thirst and to irrigate your parched fields.  And I will pour out my Spirit on your descendants, and my blessing on your children.  They will thrive like watered grass, like willows on a riverbank.  Some will proudly claim, ‘I belong to the Lord.’  Others will say, ‘I am a descendant of Jacob.’  Some will write the Lord’s name on their hands and will take the name of Israel as their own.”

Seven years ago my bride and I were blessed to purchase the first brand new car we’d had in 30 years.  I’d forgotten what that new car smell was like!  Our daughter gave us a set of white fuzzy dice as a funny reminder of the 1950’s fashion statement.  Back then, anybody who was cool had fuzzy dice hanging from the rearview mirror.  Back then, we watched Andy, Barney, Aunt Bea, and Opie on TV; today, we hang our facemasks on the car mirror

The words of Father God through the prophet Isaiah are like soothing balm on sunburn-scorched skin.  It proves one thing, even God’s people are in need of reassurance.  It’s not that we have lost faith today (as opposed to yesterday’s strong connection), but, rather, today the circumstances have changed, and an assault on our faith questions that connection.  It’s normal to run to your parent in times of crisis, or when you’ve been in a struggle.  We see that over and over in the Psalms, David wants to reach out and feel the embrace of his Heavenly Father.  Job, a man of intense faith and Godliness, constantly asks for clarification on the why of his troubles.  Jonah, the “disobedient prophet” tries to hide from his detestable calling from God of bringing the message of blessing to the despised Ninevites. 

When we look around, perhaps especially today, and see anger, protests, division, and hatred, it is more than mildly discomforting; it’s scary!  And we need God’s comforting voice telling us He is with us, and it will be alright.

As a pastor, just one of many thousands of pastors, I am always concerned about how the church is doing, and if we’re doing enough to pass along the faith to the next generation, who will take the reins and help steer the wagon for the generation that comes after theirs.  I don’t think you can be a pastor without that concern.

I first felt that concern as young man, seeing firsthand the results of the God is Dead movement, where the prevailing thought was that God, if ever such a being really existed, must now be dead, and we are on our own in this universe.  Among ministers and the faithful was a deep concern that the church could not survive such an onslaught of unbelief.  The wave of people leaving the church, particularly young people, the so-called future of the church, was astounding.  However, throughout the last half-century, the church has not only endured, it has matured, and changed, and adapted, and ministered, and grown.  In short, the church is still the church, God’s church, His witness, His special creation, and loved family.

Let’s Pray Together:

Father, we’re no different than Israel in Isaiah’s day.  We need Your comfort and blessing.  Abba, in Your mercy…

For You Today

The church, throughout the centuries has seen culture change, rearrange, come unglued, reassembled, knocked to its knees, and get up again.  The church has been there every step of the way because God said so. 

The church you knew in your youth isn’t gone, but today it doesn’t look like you remember it, or like you think it should look.  Rather, it looks like what God is moving it to be.  Our best hope of being faithful to God’s purpose and design is to continually fast, pray, and cooperate with God by serving others.  That is the one constant and calling of those who claim the faith, once delivered to the saints[1]. 

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:  God's Election

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[1] Jude 1:3