All God's Children?

Thursday, December 15, 2022

For you are all children of God through faith in Christ Jesus.  And all who have been united with Christ in baptism have put on Christ, like putting on new clothes.  Galatians 3:26-27

A mixed message is where two or more ideas which contradict each other are both deemed to be valid.  If I tell you my team won the game, even though the other team scored more points, that is a mixed message.  Some mixed messages have greater impact than others.  If I tell you there are about 80,000 spiders on the acre on which your house sits, it could be a relatively interesting bit of trivia.  If I tell you not to worry about those 80,000 arachnoids who can eat 10% of their body weight daily, and that means if you weigh around 175lbs, all the spiders could only eat about half of your arm while you sleep tonight…that might be a mildly-concerning mixed message. 

One of the deadliest mixed messages is to hear:  We’re all God’s children.  There is some truth in the statement.  God created humans, and in that sense, we are all His offspring in the biological meaning.  However, the confusion of spiritual and biological convergence can have eternal significance far-beyond whether spiders will be chewing on you tonight.

When the Pharisees were looking for a way to convict Jesus of some offense to get rid of him, they claimed their biological heritage as descendants of Abraham as evidence that they were children of God.  Jesus disagreed and said so, plainly, that they were children of hell:

Jesus told them, “If God were your Father, you would love me, because I have come to you from God.  I am not here on my own, but he sent me.  Why can’t you understand what I am saying?  It’s because you can’t even hear me!  For you are the children of your father the devil, and you love to do the evil things he does.  He was a murderer from the beginning.  He has always hated the truth, because there is no truth in him.  When he lies, it is consistent with his character; for he is a liar and the father of lies.  John 8:42-44

Jesus also told the Pharisees they would not enter God’s presence, despite their biological pedigree, unless they repented of sins and trusted in Him:

Jesus told him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.  No one can come to the Father except through me.  John 14:6

Apostle Paul picked up on this and restated it so that we would have no mixed message about what it means to be a child of God:

But you are not controlled by your sinful nature. You are controlled by the Spirit if you have the Spirit of God living in you. (And remember that those who do not have the Spirit of Christ living in them do not belong to him at all.)  Romans 8:9

So the antidote for the mixed spiritual message sent by the statement “we’re all children of God” is to rephrase:  You’re a child of God if Christ lives in you.

For You Today  

The companion question about being God’s child is always on the table for any of us:  Have you accepted Christ?

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: 

   Inclusive and Diverse - and Dying

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^©   

A Treasure of Common Sense

Friday, May 20, 2022

For the Lord grants wisdom!  From his mouth come knowledge and understanding.  He grants a treasure of common sense to the honest.   Proverbs 2:6-7a

Solomon would have known a thing-or-two about wisdom; Scripture informs us there was not a wiser man on planet Earth.  Following the reasoning of Proverbs here, the wisdom of God, granted an honest person, is a treasure of common sense.  Common sense is defined as:  sound and prudent judgment based on a simple perception of the situation or facts.[1] 

A decision which is “sound and prudent” is my kind of joy.  Most of us have made more than enough of the other kind of decisions, the less-than-sound, and woefully-imprudent.  That kind of decision usually gets one in trouble. 

Now, having stated the (painfully) obvious, let’s unpack the source of common sense…how to move towards being a wise person.  It arguably begins with truth.  Solomon[2] tells us it is to the honest person that God grants a treasure of common sense.  So, that would be a starting point for developing into a person said to possess a treasure of common sense.  Sadly, in the 21^st century world that would be a sparsely-populated starting gate.  James Russell Lowell’s famous line, truth forever on the scaffold; wrong forever on the throne, has never more accurately described a culture that populates this world as now.

Whoever first said honesty is the best policy may have been a Solomon reader.  And she or he was right.  If not just because of some lofty aspiration to be noble or admired, but to rightly understand one can be neither without pure and discerning judgment.  And to be such a person requires an ongoing, absolutely intimate relationship with knowing truth, and speaking truth, all in the context of love.  Paul urged the believers at Ephesus to do just that:

Instead, we will speak the truth in love, growing in every way more and more like Christ, who is the head of his body, the church.  Ephesians 4:15

For You Today

You could go to graduate school at the most prestigious universities in the world for the next 20 years to study ethics and the workings of honesty.  You might come out with a PhD of this world’s approval, and high-sounding theoretical philosophy.  And the world would probably buy your books.

Or you could sit at the feet of the One who said:  I am the way the truth and the life[3], and begin to experience the common sense treasury’s flooding your soul with what really matters. 

Your call.

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

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

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[1] Merriam-Webster Dictionary

[2] Author of much of the Book of Proverbs, probably chapters 1-29

[3] John 14:6

Something to Weep About

 

Tuesday, August 11, 2020

You may never have entertained this thought or been troubled about it…or, perhaps, you’re like me and have often wondered about Israel in God’s plans.  The 12 Tribes are, after all, God’s special and treasured possession.  They serve a central role in Sovereign Yahweh’s hands to bring His message of hope, and His message of judgment to the world.  However (and this is my troubling thought), as followers of Jesus Christ, embracing the cross, with an uncompromising belief that there is only one way to approach God[1], and that through placing your faith in Jesus, how does that square with God’s embracing Israel, which denies the deity of the Son?

Admittedly, when I wonder about this, I always feel a little like Peter after the resurrection when Jesus tells Peter about how the future will not be kind to him, and the impetuous disciple questions Jesus about John’s future.

Jesus replied, “If I want him to remain alive until I return, what is that to you?  As for you, follow me.” John 21:22

The rebuke…it’s none ‘o your business, son…is stark, and meant to be.  Peter’s question borders on challenging God’s plans, which is to challenge God’s sovereignty.  Peter was headstrong, which is the beginning of the downward spiral leading to separation between human and God.  Peter had to learn that responding with your emotions before putting your brain to work never really ends well.

The Apostle Paul’s brain always seemed to be on the job.  For me, Paul’s answer, concerning Israel’s place in prophecy and God’s eternal plans, are enough to put my questioning to rest. 

And concerning Israel, Isaiah the prophet cried out, “Though the people of Israel are as numerous as the sand of the seashore, only a remnant will be saved.  For the Lord will carry out his sentence upon the earth quickly and with finality.”  Romans 9:27-28

Revelation[2] pictures 12,000 from each of the 12 tribes of Israel as being redeemed in the end.  That 144,000 is less than 2% of the 8.3 million population of Israel today, and 1 out of 100 if you consider an estimated 14-15 million Jews globally.

For me, this fits together with the point held by many Bible scholars, that, at the end, these are those who once rejected Christ, but now accept Him as Lord, Messiah, the anointed One of the lineage of David.  In their hearts they crown him King of Kings.

For You Today

Jesus told Peter not to worry about what plans God has for other believers, it was Peter’s job to follow Jesus, not approve of Jesus’ leadership.  This is especially important for us with plagues, natural disasters (can we say earthquake, North Carolina?), or any of the wars, famine, and other pandemics.  These are but the beginning of Christ’s new day.  Hear it from Jesus’ own testimony:

So when all these things begin to happen, stand and look up, for your salvation is near!”  Luke 21:28

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 another post on this text see:  Burning the Bridge of Integrity 

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[1] Jesus told him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me.  John 14:6

[2] See Revelation 7:4 & 14:1-3

 

The Truth Will Set You Free - From What?

 

Wednesday, May 13, 2020

John 8:31-34

Jesus said to the people who believed in him, “You are truly my disciples if you remain faithful to my teachings.  And you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”  “But we are descendants of Abraham,” they said.  “We have never been slaves to anyone.  What do you mean, ‘You will be set free’?”  Jesus replied, “I tell you the truth, everyone who sins is a slave of sin.

Our dog, Wellington the Methodist, is a prisoner each night.  He has an issue with his bladder, so his little “kennel condo” is his nighttime castle.  Each day well-before sunrise I open the little door to his kingdom and tell him, you’re FREE!  He lifts his head slightly, sniffs, and goes back to snoreing like a chain saw.  It’s the doggie version of OK…free…whatever; keep it down, please…dog trying t’ sleep here.

Those who were listening to Jesus didn’t understand the kennel they were in, either.  They didn’t get it, that there was any need for being released.  They had their heritage of being descendants of Abraham…that made everything OK with the Creator.  So, Jesus, free….from WHAT?

I’m not sure the larger part of humanity understands this any better than those who were following Jesus around.  In just about every context I hear those words, the truth shall set you free, they just sound like another platitude, a cliché flung-out to fill space by the self-proclaimed wise, so that others will know they’re in the presence of wisdom.  It’s used as a foil in a verbal fencing match to proclaim, hey, I know the real story here, and you don’t, so see my point of view and, when you know the real truth, you’ll be better off.

So, at the risk of proving my own ignorance, let me just offer that Jesus wasn’t talking about truth, as in, was it the butler or Colonel Mustard who killed Professor Plum…or freedom, as in having the right to move from point A to point B unhindered…or freedom to be a plumber, doctor, or any other vocation.  Rather,  knowing the truth is becoming a genuine disciple of He who IS the truth.

Jesus told him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me.  John 14:6

The freedom of which Jesus spoke is not a matter of having your kennel door opened, merely for the purpose of personal choice to wander about and chase squirrels or whatever else turns you on…it’s a matter of having your mind opened to what’s really important in the universe – responding well to a loving Creator who gave you life in the body, and wants to energize your soul and spirit.

For You Today

So, how is life going…I mean, with all that freedom you enjoy?  Is it kind of dependent on the CDC guidelines, or whatever the day brings?  Or do you find yourself sleeping through life like Wellington the Methodist, just waiting for whatever handout of “freedom” those in charge decide to hand down? 

One day, all the personal choices you’ve been granted constitutionally, or those, by virtue of whatever slots in life you’ve been able to carve out for yourself, have come to an end, the only question that will matter is,

did you trust He Who IS the Truth to set you free?

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 other posts on John 8 see The Truth Shall Set You Free and Failure and The Cost of Truth

When the Foundation Crumbles

Wednesday, February 12, 2020

What are worthless and wicked people like?  They are constant liars, signaling their deceit with a wink of the eye, a nudge of the foot, or the wiggle of fingers. Their perverted hearts plot evil, and they constantly stir up trouble.  But they will be destroyed suddenly, broken in an instant beyond all hope of healing.  There are six things the Lord hates—no, seven things he detests: haughty eyes, a lying tongue, hands that kill the innocent, a heart that plots evil, feet that race to do wrong, a false witness who pours out lies, a person who sows discord in a family.  Proverbs 6:12-19[1]

A family, any kind of family, people gathered for any purpose of home, business, government, or some kind of endeavor have both the possibility of experiencing success or crumbling defeat.  It all depends on trust and truth.

Jesus made sure we understood how you cannot overestimate the value of truth.  He said it so plainly in teaching his disciples, identifying everything he did, said, and meant as steeped-in, and sourced-by truth.  He claimed to be the very embodiment of truth when he told his questioning disciple, Thomas:

Jesus told him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.  No one can come to the Father except through me.  John 14:6

Truth is so intricately woven into the fabric of God’s creation that humans can never achieve God’s purposes for our lives if there is a crack in the truth foundation. 

And therein is the answer to why things fall apart.  God’s purposes are clear, right, and unfailing…and they are inexorably tied to truth. 

The example of Adam and Eve’s fall hinges on the truth.  In Eden we observe the chief enemy, Satan, tempting Eve, planting a seed of doubt over what God had commanded; 18 seed-words of doubt which began generations of misery: 

Did God really say you must not eat the fruit from any of the trees in the garden?  Genesis 3:1

It was a question, but not an innocent one; Satan was setting Eve up.  This was a plot, an evil ploy to get Eve to intentionally transgress against God’s instructions.  The enemy’s evil lying tongue deceived the innocent woman, sowing a seed of doubt against God’ sovereignty.  When Adam and Eve allowed that seed to take root, truth was violated, and the fruit was full-blown discord between God and all humanity. 

For You Today

No one can undo history.  We cannot go back and undo Adam and Eve’s fall.  Neither can we return to the scene of the crime of our own first sins.  What is done is forever done. 

But we can affect the present and future.  We can make a commitment to truth; we can affirm God’s sovereignty over us, trusting that Christ’s forgiveness extended from the cross is true.  The original foundation may have crumbled, but a new building is possible.  He said it was so!

This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun!  2 Corinthians 5:17

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

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

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[1] For another post on Proverbs 6:12-19 see The Art of Division

Simple & Hard vs. Complex & Easy

[1] [2]

Thursday, January 30, 2020

Who may worship in your sanctuary, Lord?  Who may enter your presence on your holy hill?  Those who lead blameless lives and do what is right, speaking the truth from sincere hearts.  Those who refuse to gossip or harm their neighbors or speak evil of their friends.  Those who despise flagrant sinners, and honor the faithful followers of the Lord, and keep their promises even when it hurts.  Those who lend money without charging interest, and who cannot be bribed to lie about the innocent.  Such people will stand firm forever.  Psalm 15:1-5

From this Psalm there is a wealth to be learned about integrity.  And God makes it abundantly clear integrity is required to be accepted by your Creator.  What’s at stake is whether God will hear a single word you speak, or approve a single movement, word, or thought from you.  The tipping point is integrity.

The word integrity means integrated, defined as the quality of being honest and having strong moral principles; moral uprightness.[3]  It’s a simple concept, matching your behavior with Godly principles.  Old sayings abound about being a person of integrity:

          ·      Say what you mean; mean what you say

          ·      Actions speak louder than words

          ·      The distance between truth and deception can be a fine line, about as wide as the Grand Canyon. 

OK that last one’s not old; I just made it up now.  But you get the drift of how integrity is an easy thing to understand.  It’s just easier understood than undertaken.  That’s a matter proven by a little phrase David throws in the mix at the end of verse 4 about people who …keep their promises even when it hurts.  

It’s a fact that sometimes telling a lie is just easier than telling the truth.  A Sunday School teacher was holding forth with her 4^th graders and wanted to make a point about lying.  She asked, somebody tell me, what’s a lie?  Nobody spoke-up, so she turned to the one little girl who was her star pupil.  Margaret, do you know what a lie is?  Margaret thought for a moment, wanting to please her teacher and wanting her answer to be Bible-sounding, so she said, a lie is an abomination before the Lord, and sometimes a very present help in time of trouble. 

I think Margaret may have opened the can of worms for us.  The hardest thing to do sometimes (even though it is always the simplest thing) is to tell the truth.  Telling lies is easier in the short run, but the complications down the road can, and in fact always are, blistering!  A lie will have to be supported with another one, and another…until you’ve got Watergate syndrome…so many lies to cover the previous ones nobody (including the liar) even remotely remembers what the truth was in the first place.

And, of a matter of course, you have the pain of a pile of lies.  When truth takes a vacation, people get hurt.  Relationships deteriorate under the strain of broken trust.  People who were counting on other people have the rug pulled out from underneath them because a lie made it easier for somebody to shirk their responsibility, to hold up their end of a bargain.

Lies are easy and complex; truth is simple but sometimes hurts.  That is explained in two simple verses.  The first is Jesus speaking to deceptive religious leaders:

For you are the children of your father the devil, and you love to do the evil things he does. He was a murderer from the beginning. He has always hated the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, it is consistent with his character; for he is a liar and the father of lies.  John 8:44

The second is Jesus speaking to his disciple who wanted to know:

Jesus told him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me.  John 14:6

For You Today

Easy, complicated lies, or hard and simple truths…it all depends on whether you want a relationship with God or God’s enemy.

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

Go to VIDEO

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

[2] For another post on this Psalm 15 read Welcome?

[3] Oxford Dictionaries© Oxford University Press