Working on a Harvest

Friday, June 3, 2022

Don’t be misled—you cannot mock the justice of God.  You will always harvest what you plant.  Those who live only to satisfy their own sinful nature will harvest decay and death from that sinful nature.  But those who live to please the Spirit will harvest everlasting life from the Spirit.   Galatians 6:7-8

The simplicity with which the Scriptures lay out our choices is sometimes too startling for 21st century minds.  We do not really want “simple” – we want multiple-choice, categories, and options…not just live or die.  To say there are only two choices, life and death, is to court the wrath of the “wokeness police”.  Yet, there it is, in Aramaic, Hebrew, Greek, King James, and whatever other language you need or want, the harvest will be what you plant, no matter whether you intended it to be that way, or, for that matter, if you think you’re entitled to something different.  The choice is only, plant, or don’t plant.  In short, the laws of harvest remain absolute; you reap that which you plant.

The harvest in the last week or so in America uncovers what we have been planting, cultivating, and are now horrified to own – at least 35 murders in 3 mass shootings…21 in Uvalde, 10 Black persons in Buffalo, and, just yesterday 4 more at a Tulsa Oklahoma medical center. 

Once again we have sowed violence to the wind, and are reaping a harvest of death’s whirlwind.[1]

If you want to pigeon-hole me as to which tribe I follow concerning the gun issue, here are the details (or ammunition if you will):

1.    I own a handgun, loaded, ready to defend our home if invaded.  I never wear it, concealed, or openly.  It stays under locked conditions for safety.

2.    I do not judge anyone…God’s Word is enough, and better at that, than my thoughts by an infinitely exponential mile.

3.    I do blame our culture that twists and bends every sense of goodness to turn a profit, including the NRA’s promotion, lobbying, and lack of decency, and Congress facilitating such under the guise of freedom.  I also include the purveyors of violence who pander to the culture with video games teaching children who cannot put a coherent sentence together, but are fluent in how to kill 98 “enemies” to reach the next level.  They learned this way of life, because we, the American public allow profiteers to spoon-feed violence to our children, and the weak-minded among us.

God has always judged, and will continue to judge, any who add to that.  It is the nature of He who Created us, and holds the next breath we may (or may not) take.  The choice is to be under His will of peacemaker, or under His judgment for peacebreaker.  Simple, uncomplicated, and lovingly just.

For You Today

My Dad was of the generation that didn’t mind letting you know there are consequences for our actions.  Have you ever heard this phrase:

You upset because you don’t think I’m being fair? 

I’ll give you something to be upset about!

I kinda think Dad knew something about reaping the whirlwind.

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

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

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[1] A loose borrowing of Hosea 8:7a  “They have planted the wind and will harvest the whirlwind….”

Despised and Rejected

 

Good Friday of Holy Week, April 2, 2021

Who has believed our message?  To whom has the Lord revealed his powerful arm?  My servant grew up in the Lord’s presence like a tender green shoot, like a root in dry ground.  There was nothing beautiful or majestic about his appearance, nothing to attract us to him.  He was despised and rejected—a man of sorrows, acquainted with deepest grief.  We turned our backs on him and looked the other way.  He was despised, and we did not care.  Yet it was our weaknesses he carried; it was our sorrows that weighed him down.  And we thought his troubles were a punishment from God, a punishment for his own sins!  But he was pierced for our rebellion, crushed for our sins.  He was beaten so we could be whole.  He was whipped so we could be healed.  All of us, like sheep, have strayed away.  We have left God’s paths to follow our own.  Yet the Lord laid on him the sins of us all.  Isaiah 53:1-6

The mixture of ambivalent feelings is not an easy pill to swallow.  But, with age, it can be the key to understanding, even though it can never be an acquired taste.  I have lived through enough seasons of Lent and Passion Week to make sense of the way Christ’s sorrow, and the pain of being rejected, becomes his joy in securing our forgiveness. 

With every shed tear in the garden, slap on the face by his accusors, lash laid on his back, and nail piercing holy hands, the Man of Sorrows receives the weight of my sin, and every sense of my sorrow and rejection.  And to be forgiven of all that, released from the guilt of more than poor choices and victimhood as an excuse for my behavior, is the transforming power to make my life’s experiences, (both lofty and lowy) meaningful, not just endurable.  I, who am Barabbas, am freed, as the Prince of Peace suffers my violence on Golgotha’s hill.  He is despised and rejected by all humankind; I am absolved of even the guilt of knowing that he took my place. 

One who is condemned receiving full pardon is a familiar theme.  Ever since the discovery of DNA, evidence has been used to sort out who did a crime…and who didn’t.  Everything about Isaiah’s 53^rd chapter cries out that Jesus was innocent, yet he received the judgment on behalf of the guilty. 

Isaiah compares all humanity, every one of us, to sheep, wandering, straying away from the purpose and goodness we were created-in, and, created-for, which is fellowship with God.  God, the faithful and righteous judge of our character and behavior knows we are not victims; we chose to ignore Him and follow our own desires.  And, in the next heartbeat, we find God taking on human skin and taking our beating.  With every swing of the crucifier’s hammer landing on three nails, the Lord of Heaven becomes the Passover Lamb.  Mankind, once again in bondage, is having innocent blood cover the household door of his life.

There are many responses to this unasked-for gift from our Creator.  Two of those responses are common, and way, way off-the-mark:

·       Some people take the I didn’t ask for anybody to be crucified for me attitude.  That’s just what Isaiah said, we turned our backs on him and looked the other way.  That’s just staying on the “I’ll be the one in charge of my life – just get out of my way” stance…defiance, self-reliant…still lost, still separated from God!

·       Others, understanding how unjust it is for the innocent to suffer for the guilty, fall into a deep sense of guilt, living the lie of trying to repay the gift.  But that just denies the purpose of the gift, which is to make us whole again, not cripple us with a different weight of unworthiness.

This gift of forgiveness is dragging us up out of the pit of mirey-clay so we can walk, unencumbered by our sins, into the daylight, validating that God does not die on a cross for the worthless worm, but rescues the apple of his eye, women, men, and children who were created in his image, people who are now sanctified to walk right into the presence of the King of Glory, look him in the eye and smile as we’re hugged like the long lost loved ones we are!

For You Today

This Good Friday, remember most that this is a Glory Story!

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

[1] Title Image: Gustave Dore’ (public domain) via Wikimedia Commons                                                              Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation^©