Troubled Times

Friday, August 12, 2022

Think back on those early days when you first learned about Christ.  Remember how you remained faithful even though it meant terrible suffering.  Sometimes you were exposed to public ridicule and were beaten, and sometimes you helped others who were suffering the same things.  You suffered along with those who were thrown into jail, and when all you owned was taken from you, you accepted it with joy.  You knew there were better things waiting for you that will last forever.  So do not throw away this confident trust in the Lord.  Remember the great reward it brings you!  Patient endurance is what you need now, so that you will continue to do God’s will.  Then you will receive all that he has promised.  “For in just a little while, the Coming One will come and not delay.  And my righteous ones will live by faith.  But I will take no pleasure in anyone who turns away.”  But we are not like those who turn away from God to their own destruction.  We are the faithful ones, whose souls will be saved.  

Hebrews 10:32-39

To say that Christians suffer in troubled times is to understate reality by a country mile.  We face difficult circumstances just as much as every other human on planet earth.  There are some who face little, but others who suffer more than we can bear on our own.  This is why Paul’s advice to remember the early days, when we first accepted Christ, is so encouraging and helpful.  By doing so, we re-center our focus on the joy of being connected to heaven’s great cloud of witnesses, and earth’s heaven-bound family.  But Paul also tells us to look forward to the return of Christ, and how He will change everything in an instant.  If that doesn’t re-light your fire, your wood’s wet, my friend.

It is an easy temptation to fall into, spending all your time looking back to the good ol’ days, or forward to the coming joy of reuniting with loved ones and the reign of Christ.  But – truth be told – that isn’t where you live, is it?  You live in the here and now, political turmoil, climate change, dwindling resources, increasing age issues, inflation, and the ever-present shrinking trust in everything that comes across your screen on social media.  Who wouldn’t want to reminisce about good times of the past, and ruminate on the coming great times of the future?

Paul tells us to not throw away (our) confident trust in the LORD.  He tells us to get a firm grip on patient endurance, the unanxious, present and joyful spirit of faith in Jesus Christ.  And he tells us to live and rest in that, because there are plenty of people you know who will need you to have that ready for them when troublesome times begin to swallow them whole.  It’s then, with a present confidence and spirit of Christ, your helping hand is going to make an eternal difference in another human being’s life. 

For You Today

We are always mindful to pray for First Responders because they are on the scene when people need them most.  Let that describe your life’s mission, a follower of Jesus Christ, First Responder with the Spirit of Hope and Salvation!

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 the Connection and Joy in Troubling Times      

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

Turning Away

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Friday, December 21, 2018

Think back on those early days when you first learned about Christ.  Remember how you remained faithful even though it meant terrible suffering.  Sometimes you were exposed to public ridicule and were beaten, and sometimes you helped others who were suffering the same things.  You suffered along with those who were thrown into jail, and when all you owned was taken from you, you accepted it with joy.  You knew there were better things waiting for you that will last forever.  So do not throw away this confident trust in the Lord.  Remember the great reward it brings you!  Patient endurance is what you need now, so that you will continue to do God’s will.  Then you will receive all that he has promised.  “For in just a little while, the Coming One will come and not delay.  And my righteous ones will live by faith.  But I will take no pleasure in anyone who turns away.”  But we are not like those who turn away from God to their own destruction.  We are the faithful ones, whose souls will be saved,  Hebrews 10:32-39(NLT)

Covenant-breaking, the act of starting-out in faith, and then turning away from that faith, is not a light subject.  Nor is it a subject you will find lacking in the Scriptures:

Moses warned God’s covenant people Israel:

…and if you break my covenant by rejecting my decrees, treating my regulations with contempt, and refusing to obey my commands, I will punish you.  I will bring sudden terrors upon you—wasting diseases and burning fevers that will cause your eyes to fail and your life to ebb away.  You will plant your crops in vain because your enemies will eat them.  I will turn against you, and you will be defeated by your enemies.  Those who hate you will rule over you, and you will run even when no one is chasing you!  “And if, in spite of all this, you still disobey me, I will punish you seven times over for your sins.  I will break your proud spirit by making the skies as unyielding as iron and the earth as hard as bronze.  All your work will be for nothing, for your land will yield no crops, and your trees will bear no fruit.  Leviticus 26:15-19(NLT)

Jesus warned his followers about being shallow seed (Luke 8:13), and gets really specific a few chapters later about people who profess faith, and then, through spiritual laziness allow unbelief to take over:

“Anyone who isn’t with me opposes me, and anyone who isn’t working with me is actually working against me.  “When an evil spirit leaves a person, it goes into the desert, searching for rest.  But when it finds none, it says, ‘I will return to the person I came from.’  So it returns and finds that its former home is all swept and in order.  Then the spirit finds seven other spirits more evil than itself, and they all enter the person and live there.  And so that person is worse off than before.”  Luke 11:23-26(NLT)

In his debate with the chief priests and elders at the temple (Matthew 21) Jesus warned them that the kingdom would be taken from them because of their turning-away from God.  The same about his Parable of the Talents (Matthew 25:24), where those who took the position of disciples later got disillusioned and just quit due to unbelief.  Jesus’ teaching at this point can be summed-up in one simple, but chilling statement:

“No one can serve two masters. For you will hate one and love the other; you will be devoted to one and despise the other.  Luke 16:13(NLT)

Timothy was warned by Paul about the shipwreck of faith (1 Timothy 1:19), even naming Hymenaeus and Alexander, two disciples who turned away.  He also warned the young pastor (1 Timothy 4:1ff) about disciples getting overwhelmed by seducing spirits, dwelling on one obscure or interesting sideline kind of issue (like somebody else’s sin), and getting lost by taking your eye off the priority of serving. 

Peter, the impetuous disciple, became quite a leader, warning the flock about (of all things) a lack of patience:

You already know these things, dear friends.  So be on guard; then you will not be carried away by the errors of these wicked people and lose your own secure footing.  Rather, you must grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.  2 Peter 3:17-18(NLT)

Turning the leaf back over from unbelief to faith, trusting in God, staying the course in and out of season, remember the great reward Hebrews offers to faithful servants.  God’s choice for His servants isn’t wrath, punishment and pain.  Rather, God wants to bless us – but we’ll never see it if we turn away!

For You Today

Have you been walking through a rough patch?  Is it getting so you only dwell on the sins and failures of others, and the loneliness that accompanies serving Christ? 

Take heart as we give the Apostle Paul the last word today:

So let’s not get tired of doing what is good. At just the right time we will reap a harvest of blessing if we don’t give up.  Galatians 6:9(NLT)

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

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[1] Title Image:  Pixabay.com

Resting in the Connection

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Tuesday, November 20, 2018

Think back on those early days when you first learned about Christ.  Remember how you remained faithful even though it meant terrible suffering.  Sometimes you were exposed to public ridicule and were beaten, and sometimes you helped others who were suffering the same things.  You suffered along with those who were thrown into jail, and when all you owned was taken from you, you accepted it with joy.  You knew there were better things waiting for you that will last forever.  So do not throw away this confident trust in the Lord.  Remember the great reward it brings you!  Patient endurance is what you need now, so that you will continue to do God’s will.  Then you will receive all that he has promised.  “For in just a little while, the Coming One will come and not delay.  And my righteous ones will live by faith.  But I will take no pleasure in anyone who turns away.”  But we are not like those who turn away from God to their own destruction.  We are the faithful ones, whose souls will be saved.  Hebrews 10:32-39(NLT)

If there is any vital lesson in life it is that of connection.  From the lowly worms in a dirt colony working on preparing land to yield its best crop, to the migrating flocks of birds navigating their southern-bound flight from winter weather, all of God’s creatures are connected. 

That includes the human flocks!

In the United Methodist tribe, we talk a lot about connectionalism, the art/discipline of being connected in Christ, for the purpose of the work of the Kingdom. 

Doug Ruffle, a UMC Pastor shared how he was blessed by this connection.  He was serving in a rural area of Argentina.  Ten days of torrential rains and the ensuing floods overwhelmed his little town.  Normal life came to a standstill, and the dangers of disease and shortages became a reality. 

Within a few days UMC churches from Buenos Aires, 125 miles away, had formed a caravan of cars bearing food supplies, mattresses and clothing.

Doug wrote:

Our ‘connection’ is a gift.  It became ever so clear to me the preciousness of that gift the year of the flooding. The Methodists in Buenos Aires saw their brothers and sisters out in the country were in trouble and answered the call. I give thanks to God for my Methodist friends for their timely response and solidarity. Though we are many people, congregations, and fellowships scattered across the world, we are still one church and one body united in Christ. The connection means we share in each others’ joys and work together to treat each others’ pains.[2]

There is something about being part of something larger than yourself that’s so big, and such a trusted blessing, it can hardly be defined.  It is family-strong, rescuer to the needy, strength to the faith-filled, haven to the troubled, home to the lost, joy to the sorrowing, and sacred in the eyes of God.

After more than a half-century in the church, much of that time as a pastor, I cannot figure out how people manage without the connectional assurance of a church family.  To my mind, the difficulties we find with close relationships are worth every risk, every inconvenience, every cost.  In Christ, it is much more than eternity together, it is the quality of that eternity – connected; everyone who belongs to Jesus belongs to everyone who belongs to Jesus.

For You Today

Here we are on the brink of the Holidays.  Do you just dread the hyper-activity of the season…or do you find rest in the connection?

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

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[1] Title Image: Courtesy of United Methodist Discipleship Ministries

[2] Doug Ruffle – My Experience With Connection