Made Right

Friday, March 3, 2023

We are made right with God by placing our faith in Jesus Christ.  And this is true for everyone who believes, no matter who we are.  For everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God’s glorious standard.  Yet God, in his grace, freely makes us right in his sight.  He did this through Christ Jesus when he freed us from the penalty for our sins.  For God presented Jesus as the sacrifice for sin.  People are made right with God when they believe that Jesus sacrificed his life, shedding his blood.  This sacrifice shows that God was being fair when he held back and did not punish those who sinned in times past, for he was looking ahead and including them in what he would do in this present time.  God did this to demonstrate his righteousness, for he himself is fair and just, and he makes sinners right in his sight when they believe in Jesus.  Romans 3:22-26

In many dramas you will hear a character resolutely say:  I’m going to make things right.  He or she lied, or stole something, or in some way offended another person.  The statement is the desire to undo the wrong…to make it right again!  This is the essence of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the making right of all the wrong that’s ever been done, via the cross. 

I am aware that there are still five weeks left until Good Friday, but that is part of Lent…looking ahead to the Good News of forgiveness, being made right with God.  And making things right begins and ends with God’s love.  Paul’s letter to the believers in Rome puts a bow on this concept.  He explains the cross and God’s heart in nine sentences, 158 words…modern preachers could learn that lesson.  Ouch!

It's amazing to entertain that God’s longsuffering put-up with sins in ancient times, looking forward to the forgiveness He would make possible on the cross.  That should alert us to how gracious God is, because that means he was also looking forward to our days in the 21^st century.   He knew we would need forgiveness to be made right with Him.  In fact, you were on God’s mind before Day #1 of creation.

Some years the anticipation of Lent just about overwhelms me.  I want to rush to Good Friday, get the suffering, pain, and blood in the past, and sit, vigil-like by the empty tomb until the Easter dawn, so I can shout with the angels.  But with these thoughts of God’s forgiveness worked-out for time past, present, and future, there is a calmness to my joy, knowing that I have been made right with He who knows me best, and loves me most.

For You Today 

There is, and has been, only one caveat to being made right with God, and that is the leap of faith to believe Jesus died so you could be forgiven; he took the punishment for your sins.  Paul said it clearly in his letter to the Roman believers:

God did this to demonstrate his righteousness, for he himself is fair and just, and he makes sinners right in his sight when they believe in Jesus.   Romans 3:26

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

            Go to VIDEO (read by author)

There are about 2,500 devotional posts and 400 sermons in the Rocky Road Devotions library.  To dig deeper on today’s topic, explore some of these: 

Blush  and  Lenten Walk - Part 6      

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

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

Once Again; Slowly This Time

Thursday, February 23, 2023

Then the Lord spoke to Jonah a second time:  “Get up and go to the great city of Nineveh, and deliver the message I have given you.”  This time Jonah obeyed the Lord’s command and went to Nineveh, a city so large that it took three days to see it all.  On the day Jonah entered the city, he shouted to the crowds:  “Forty days from now Nineveh will be destroyed!”  The people of Nineveh believed God’s message, and from the greatest to the least, they declared a fast and put on burlap to show their sorrow.   Jonah 3:1-5 

I’ve never spoken to anyone who has never heard of Jonah.  Most of the time, whether it is someone who has been in church all his life, from the cradle roll to Senior Adult class – or someone who has never set foot inside a church, their immediate recollection of Jonah is his disobedience and being swallowed by a huge fish.  Thus proving the point, being a bad boy gets a lot more press than obedience.

I get the feeling that after Jonah’s unplanned submarine ride God spoke to him that second time a little more slowly, and with a tone somewhat like what my Dad used to have when I was dangerously close to my last chance to get it right (and treading on his last nerve!). 

God said:  Jonah…son…let me say this one more time….slowly…

NIN-E-VEH….NOW!

Seven of the sweetest words you’ve ever heard followed:

This time Jonah obeyed the Lord’s command…Jonah 3:2^(NLT)

While most people remember Jonah’s disobedience, it is the best news to recall how he began to get it right by repenting and being forgiven and used in God’s service. 

Certainly Jonah still had attitude problems to deal with later, but with his bigger problem solved – obeying the unmistakable command of God to proclaim a message of love to his enemies – Jonah was now able to hang around and have God do some major repair on the prophet’s sense of compassion.

And doesn’t that sound like somebody YOU know?

Well, more slowly this time…isn’t that US?

For You Today 

If you went to Ash Wednesday service yesterday, you may have had a cross drawn on your forehead with some ashes.  

Every year that cross of ashes helps me remember the Jonah in me – disobedient, running from God – apprehended by grace – marked by the ashes of repentance, mixed with the oil of healing.

I don’t mind that being remembered about me.

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

(Today’s devotion is a re-posting of this title from 3/2/17)

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: 

Do What?  and  Pyxis Points      

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^©   

Resting in the Shade of a Thornbush

 

Tuesday, April 5, 2022

When Jotham heard about this, he climbed to the top of Mount Gerizim and shouted, “Listen to me, citizens of Shechem!  Listen to me if you want God to listen to you!  Once upon a time the trees decided to choose a king.  First they said to the olive tree, ‘Be our king!’  But the olive tree refused, saying, ‘Should I quit producing the olive oil that blesses both God and people, just to wave back and forth over the trees?’  “Then they said to the fig tree, ‘You be our king!’  But the fig tree also refused, saying, ‘Should I quit producing my sweet fruit just to wave back and forth over the trees?’  “Then they said to the grapevine, ‘You be our king!’  But the grapevine also refused, saying, ‘Should I quit producing the wine that cheers both God and people, just to wave back and forth over the trees?’  “Then all the trees finally turned to the thornbush and said, ‘Come, you be our king!’  And the thornbush replied to the trees, ‘If you truly want to make me your king, come and take shelter in my shade.  If not, let fire come out from me and devour the cedars of Lebanon.’”  Judges 9:7-15

Lent is nearly passed; in 5 day’s time it will be Palm Sunday, and the Passion of our Lord will have begun.  The waving palms of adulation by Jerusalem crowds will give way to the crown of thorns from the thornbush.  And blood will flow!

The symbolism we find in Scripture is not always comfortable, but brings much comfort when understood.  And so many of the symbols are of the land, and simple things; simple things are hard to misunderstand if you’re awake at all.

In the time of the Judges southern Judah had a king.  The northern tribes were still depending on those charismatic unofficial leaders who would arise to meet threats by gathering the people to act as one.  Their king was the God of no name or face. 

Jotham, a descendant of Gideon, was such a spur-of-the-moment leader.  A crisis had arisen in Israel.  Abimelech had manipulated his relatives to have him proclaimed king.  They gave the power-grabber some money, and he used it to hire thugs to kill most of Jotham’s family.  But Jotham escaped and stood in the public place to tell the parable of the trees.  The olive tree, fig tree, and grapevine all refused the pomp and circumsance of being the king of the trees, so it fell to the only tree that would never produce the ease of shade, the thornbush.

Pretty easy to get the meaning:  Be careful of pressing-after that for which you’re not qualified. 

There is truly only one King; it was He who wore the crown fashioned from the thornbush.  That was certainly no comfort for the humanity of Jesus.  The spikes from that crown were meant to discourage any human flesh from getting too near it.  But Christ wore the crown of thorns, that we might be set free. 

For You Today

Jotham asked a key question to those who sang the praises of Abimelech:  Have you done right by the sons of Gideon?  And Jotham’s question stirs the question for us today:  Have we done right by the Son of God? 

For those who claim the title “Christian” discipleship is not a title, it is an active, lifelong process of asking, seeking, and knocking that aligns with Heaven’s demand to worship the only true King. 

The outcome is an up or down vote…rest in the shade of whatever comfort you prefer, or rest in the shadow of the thornbush.  It’s a solemn choice that will be heard around the world in Holy Week.

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

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

Startled!

Good Friday of Holy Week, April 10, 2020

See, my servant will prosper; he will be highly exalted.  But many were amazed when they saw him.  His face was so disfigured he seemed hardly human, and from his appearance, one would scarcely know he was a man.  And he will startle many nations.  Kings will stand speechless in his presence.  For they will see what they had not been told; they will understand what they had not heard about.  Isaiah 52:13-15

To say that Peter was startled when Jesus began to wash his feet is to muddle around in the understated.  Peter was mortified that the Holy One could even bear to have him around, much less treat him so well as to kneel in front of him like some faceless servant.  But that’s the nature of the greatest of all; he is willing to become the least of all to lift up the most lost of all.

Isaiah’s prophecy pointed to the startling, amazing, mouth-dropping reaction we have at seeing a humbled God…a crucified God.  And it worries us greatly, because, if he’s like that, and we are his disciples, the specter of becoming like that is in our future.

It’s in our DNA, this understanding of God’s image in us; we hardly think about it with the front-burner of our minds, but, deep inside we want to be exalted, lifted-up, and the center of attention – if you doubt that, just watch a two-year-old for a while.  But, at the same time, because of God’s image/stamp on our souls, we know our sin disqualifies this self-worship and separates us from even being near the throne, much less on it!  Like Peter, we’re startled, even repulsed by the thought of it.

This is what troubled young Francis of Assisi as he struggled with the pathway of his own conversion to Christ.  According to one story of his journey, early in the process of committing his life to God’s way, Francis was riding a horse down a road that passed a leper colony.  Lepers were the dirty side of life, emaciated, gray, and despised.  The horse saw the leper in the middle of the road and was startled.  When Francis got the beast under control, he saw the bedraggled, nearly former human standing in front of him.  After a long, frightening, paralyzing moment he dismounted, went to the man (who was motionless, expressionless, nearly lifeless, except for the automatic, unthinking breathing of lungs and beating of what was left of his heart). 

Doing the unthinkable, Francis took the leper’s hand.  It was a poor emaciated hand, bloodstained and cold like that of a corpse.  Francis pressed the hand and brought it to his lips.  As he kissed the lacerated flesh of the creature, who was the most abject, the most hated, the most scorned of all human beings, he was flooded with a wave of emotion that shut out everything around him….it taught him that following Christ may require doing some things that repulse us.  What Francis didn’t know then was that something greater was prompting him, allowing him to do that which, humanly speaking, he was incapable of doing.[1]

Perhaps the greatest lesson Francis learned in this moment was what Jesus did for Francis; when Jesus died for Francis on Calvary, he was kissing the sin-lepers of all eternity. 

And that kiss makes us whole.

For You Today

There’s no shortage of lepers in this world.  When’s the last time you kissed one? 

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©

For another post on Isaiah 52 and Good Friday see This Holy Week – Part 5

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[1] Taken from Arnoldo Fortini, Francis of Assisi, Crossroad Publishing. The Pastor’s Workshop

Deepening

Monday, March 30, 2020

Hear my prayer, O Lord; listen to my plea!  Answer me because you are faithful and righteous.  Don’t put your servant on trial, for no one is innocent before you.  My enemy has chased me.  He has knocked me to the ground and forces me to live in darkness like those in the grave.  I am losing all hope; I am paralyzed with fear.  I remember the days of old.  I ponder all your great works and think about what you have done.  I lift my hands to you in prayer.  I thirst for you as parched land thirsts for rain.       Interlude   Come quickly, Lord, and answer me, for my depression deepens.  Don’t turn away from me, or I will die.  Let me hear of your unfailing love each morning, for I am trusting you.  Show me where to walk, for I give myself to you.  Rescue me from my enemies, Lord; I run to you to hide me.  Teach me to do your will, for you are my God.  May your gracious Spirit lead me forward on a firm footing.  For the glory of your name, O Lord, preserve my life.  Because of your faithfulness, bring me out of this distress.  In your unfailing love, silence all my enemies and destroy all my foes, for I am your servant.  Psalm 143:1-12

Young David had been the rising star of Israel, having defeated Goliath, called to the palace to be advisor, spiritual mentor, and chief music therapist to King Saul.  When David later wrote this Psalm, he was remembering the aftermath of Saul’s paranoiac rage that drove David not only from the palace, but from any kind of life at all.  David was hounded by Saul’s armies, forced to live with the spiders and scorpions in caves, or just anywhere out of Saul’s reach.  In light of his reputation, position, calling, service and his very life hanging by a thread, we can understand the future king’s deepening into the downward spiral of depression!

If you’re one of those A-type, always up, optimistic persons who has never had a down moment, blessed with an always-full-and-running-over glass – on behalf of 99.75% of the world…you’re really annoying to the rest of us who live in reality!

Now, admittedly, that is not very pastoral sounding!  (Ya think, Russell?).  The only problem with a pastor not saying that would be an ethical disconnect from truth.  The fact remains that depression, either occasionally, or as a lifelong battle, is part of the typical experience of fallen humanity.  If you doubt that, you’re behind on your Bible reading, and/or need a reality check.  We live in an anti-depressant saturated society.  And it’s deepening!

I love old sayings (not just because I’m old – I’ve loved hearing them all my life).  One of those sayings is MISERY LOVES COMPANY – but, frankly, who wants another depressed person around when you’re already hanging on for dear life?  Answer:  just about everybody.  And with good reason; when you’re depressed who wants a Jack Russell Springer jumping up and down with a dog-toothy smile, wanting to play?  No, we want a Bassett Hound, willing to just lay next to us with body heat and a slow pulse we can feel in rhythm with our own.  We want someone who has, or is, walking where we’re drowning.  We don’t want to be told cheer up…it’s a beautiful day; we want to be understood, because whatever beauty God’s created to see out there, on our inside it’s darker than midnight!

For You Today

King David walked there, and he thought deeply about it, and gives us the kind of lifeline that brings a little refreshing rain on the parched ground of souls that have been ground down like powder and swept away with the wind of chance.  And David knows the only genuinely sane way out is the way of the upward; it’s to take the deepening sense of depression and own it before God.  Only there is the beginning of restoration.  Let’s face it, you can’t climb out of the pit; you must be led-out, by the Hand of One who has conquered it!  So, if you’re ready, He is!

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©

For another post on battling depression Psalm 143:  see Zombie No Longer

What Calls from Below

Friday, March 27, 2020

“Son of man, give the people of Israel this message:  You are saying, ‘Our sins are heavy upon us; we are wasting away!  How can we survive?’  As surely as I live, says the Sovereign Lord, I take no pleasure in the death of wicked people. I only want them to turn from their wicked ways so they can live.  Turn!  Turn from your wickedness, O people of Israel!  Why should you die?  

“Son of man, give your people this message:  The righteous behavior of righteous people will not save them if they turn to sin, nor will the wicked behavior of wicked people destroy them if they repent and turn from their sins.  When I tell righteous people that they will live, but then they sin, expecting their past righteousness to save them, then none of their righteous acts will be remembered.  I will destroy them for their sins.  And suppose I tell some wicked people that they will surely die, but then they turn from their sins and do what is just and right.  For instance, they might give back a debtor’s security, return what they have stolen, and obey my life-giving laws, no longer doing what is evil.  If they do this, then they will surely live and not die.  None of their past sins will be brought up again, for they have done what is just and right, and they will surely live.  Ezekiel 33:10-16

According to Scripture’s over-arching lessons there is no Switzerland-like neutral category when it comes to behavior; there is only good and evil.  Adam and Eve were created, then God said that was not just good, but very good!  God warned our great-great ancestors to stay away from the tree in the middle of the garden.  When they didn’t obey, God said it was bad (we’ve been finding out it was very bad ever since).  By the time their firstborn (Cain) killed his brother (Abel) it’s clear that what calls from below is the blood of our sins.

The prophet Ezekiel’s clear watchman message on the absence of a neutral position on sin is that, it matters what you do with what’s in front of you, much more so than what you did yesterday. 

Some of the conversations I’ve had with people since the onslaught of the newest plague, Covid-19, have turned to whether or not this is the beginning of the End-Time judgment of God.  Is the blood of past sins calling down the wrath of God on humankind?  There’s a case to be made for that; some would say a strong case!  After all, God does not wink at sin.  All the way through Scripture it is presented clearly that sin’s penalty is death.  From the very first warning of God to Adam and Eve, that, in the day they sinned their souls would experience death’s sting…through the cursing of the ground, decline of health and life’s longevity, and the displays of God’s willingness to save from sin, this has been the human story:  we sin, experience a little more hell until we repent; God forgives and covers the sin with His righteousness.  And we hardly learn the lesson.  It’s like the shampoo bottle instructions – lather, rinse, repeat. 

So, is Covid-19 God’s judgment gavel about to hit the bench?  Are we toast?  The answer is threefold, yes, no, and I really don’t know. 

Yes …is the sense that God always judges humankind’s sin.

No …is the sense that we humans were created in the image of God, but that image is dimmed so much by our wickedness, we hardly can understand the concept of God’s will and righteousness, much less know what God is up to.

I Really Don’t Know …is my final answer – God has reserved the timing of his judgment to himself.  As Jesus told his followers…no one but the Father knows that day

For You Today

Considering we cannot know, when judgment will come, or even if Covid-19 is part of it, it is much smarter to do what Ezekiel suggested…turn…turn!  The Bible word for turning is repent; to repent is to turn away from sin and turn to God.

Remember, Ezekiel said that God said your past wickedness can’t destroy you if you turn to Him.  So…are you waiting for a particular reason other than unbelief?

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©

For another post on Ezekiel 33:  see The Lord's Consuming Fire

What the Angel Said

Thursday, March 26, 2020

From the depths of despair, O Lord, I call for your help.  Hear my cry, O Lord.  Pay attention to my prayer.  Lord, if you kept a record of our sins, who, O Lord, could ever survive?  But you offer forgiveness, that we might learn to fear you.  I am counting on the Lord; yes, I am counting on him.  I have put my hope in his word.                             Psalm 130:1-5

The readings for this day include passages from Ezekiel and Revelation, both of which have the small scrolls as centerpiece.  Both the prophet and the beloved apostle are told to eat the scroll; both remarked that it tasted as sweet as honey.  In Ezekiel’s vision the message is a funeral kind of dark:

Then I looked and saw a hand reaching out to me.  It held a scroll, which he unrolled.  And I saw that both sides were covered with funeral songs, words of sorrow, and pronouncements of doom.  Ezekiel 2:9-10

In John’s meeting with the angel the message is even more foreboding; for him, once the sweet-as-honey scroll is eaten, it turns his stomach sour:

[the angel] said, “There will be no more delay.  When the seventh angel blows his trumpet, God’s mysterious plan will be fulfilled.  It will happen just as he announced it to his servants the prophets.”  Revelation 10:6b-7

Both the apostle and prophet speak of God’s judgment.  And the Psalm for today connects each of us with that coming judgment; our dilemma is that every person is accountable for our behavior before Almighty God:

Lord, if you kept a record of our sins, who, O Lord, could ever survive?  Psalm 130:3

Who could ever survive God’s judgment?  It’s a very good question; it’s a question with only one answer – nobody survives the holiness CT scan.  

Frankly, if you see a guy on the street corner holding a sign that says REPENT, what do you think; what do you do?  For most of us, you almost don’t see the guy or his sign.  In complacency we shed messages like that and move along to the dental appointment or trip to the mall.  But Isaiah, the Old Testament prophet, as well as Paul, the New Testament apostle, tell us God scans the entirety of our lives, including what we do, say, or even think[1].  Every attitude and action of rebellion against God’s will is written on those scrolls.  Every time God brings a message across the screen of our lives, and we fail to remember, like the Psalmist remembered and repented, that we are imperfect creatures, not perfect Creator, another entry shows up in the log.  No one survives such scrutiny!

But the Psalmist holds the one thread of hope in all that; God offers forgiveness!

Lenten season is a time for that hope’s renewal, a time to remember who we are, and that to which we’re called to be – children of the Most High God.  It is a time to be penitent and be renewed, trusting in God’s promise to save those who reject evil in all its forms, turning to the Christ of the cross in faith.

Repentance is not a popular pill to swallow.  It tastes bitter and goes against the grain of our sin nature to confess we are not God.  But true repentance is unlike Ezekiel and John’s little scrolls – honey to the taste, but when it was all settled into the fabric of a man’s being, it turned their whole existence sour!  True repentance may be a little bitter going down, but it opens up an eternity of health lived in sweet reunion with God.

For You Today

Like addictions of any kind, it is the sweet (but false) promise of the next dose of our sins that keep pride in the way of our repenting, and having a joyful, forgiven, free-to-love and serve life.  Sweet and sour are both on the menu; as always, which one will we choose?

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

Go to VIDEO 

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

For another post on Romans 3:  see A Light Shines in My Heart or The Scroll

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[1] See Isaiah 53:6 and Romans 3:10