In Faith

Friday, April 28, 2023

“Now go and call together all the elders of Israel. Tell them, ‘Yahweh, the God of your ancestors—the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob—has appeared to me.  He told me, “I have been watching closely, and I see how the Egyptians are treating you.  I have promised to rescue you from your oppression in Egypt.  I will lead you to a land flowing with milk and honey—the land where the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites now live.”’  “The elders of Israel will accept your message.  Then you and the elders must go to the king of Egypt and tell him, ‘The Lord, the God of the Hebrews, has met with us.  So please let us take a three-day journey into the wilderness to offer sacrifices to the Lord, our God.’  “But I know that the king of Egypt will not let you go unless a mighty hand forces him.  So I will raise my hand and strike the Egyptians, performing all kinds of miracles among them.  Then at last he will let you go.  And I will cause the Egyptians to look favorably on you. They will give you gifts when you go so you will not leave empty-handed. Every Israelite woman will ask for articles of silver and gold and fine clothing from her Egyptian neighbors and from the foreign women in their houses.  You will dress your sons and daughters with these, stripping the Egyptians of their wealth.”  Exodus 3:16-22

Starting a new chapter in life can be exciting, uncertain, and even downright scary.  Truth be told, life, however short or long, is a series of new chapters.  The final new chapter for all of us on earth is leaving this life’s cares, pain, loved ones, and virtually everything we’ve accumulated.  Christians (myself included) believe the final earthly new chapter is but the introductory words of the gift our God bestows upon us, the book without end…eternal life. 

At this point in life I can only reasonably conclude that I have many less years ahead of me than behind me.  That does afford the opportunity to do some evaluation of what life has held, and how I have been held up, even in my weakest moments.  Looking back over ones’ journey is far more important than merely nostalgia.  It had better be so…even the word is formidable.  The word nostalgia is formed from joining two thoughts, returning home and pain[1].  The mental image is nothing less than picking at an old wound!

Standing on the verge of full retirement[2] I’m doing a lot of musing over what will occupy my days hence.  The excitement phase of any new chapter, being ready to launch itself into the unknown, will fade into development of whatever God has in store, and I cannot wait to see the color and shape of a new adventure.  If this new ride through God’s vineyard leaves me even half as breathless as the previous 75 years, it’s going to be white-knuckles on the dashboard all the way!

In some way I identify strongly with Abraham.  God called his name and said: Come here, Abe…I want to show you something.  Life really got interesting when Abraham responded:  OK…you lead…I’ll follow.

But that’s the meaning of faith, isn’t it?

For You Today 

You may have hit this retirement moment long before my time, or you may have a while to go; either way we should realize we have the same challenge to launch every morning our feet hit the floor.  He’s ready to lead; our choice is the privilege of following!

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

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There are about 2,500 devotional posts and 400 sermons in the Rocky Road Devotions library.  To dig deeper explore some of these:   Just When...  and  The Comfort of Being Known   

Title Image:  via Pixabay.com   Images without citation are in public domain.

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

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[1] The Online Etymology Dictionary

[2] My first retirement (2013) was from full-time to part-time (somewhat an oxymoron in pastoral work).

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^©   

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!

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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

The Time Has Come

[i][ii]

Monday, April 1, 2019

Then I heard again what sounded like the shout of a vast crowd or the roar of mighty ocean waves or the crash of loud thunder:  “Praise the Lord!  For the Lord our God, the Almighty, reigns.  Let us be glad and rejoice, and let us give honor to him.  For the time has come for the wedding feast of the Lamb, and his bride has prepared herself.  She has been given the finest of pure white linen to wear.”  For the fine linen represents the good deeds of God’s holy people.  Revelation 19:6-8

I’ve officiated at enough weddings in the past 40 years to know the pecking order of things when that special day of the ceremony arrives.  During one rehearsal a groom kept asking questions of the pastor about where he should stand, and if he should keep his hands folded this way or that.  When the 3-year-old flower girl had a melt-down everyone took a break.  The pastor took the groom aside and told him:  Listen, just stand in that one spot and look at the bride with everyone else…it doesn’t matter how you hold your hands, bud; nobody’s going to be looking at you.  Considering the norm, a groom will wear a $75 rented tux, while the bride’s gown makes the national debt look like an austerity program.  

When Elizabeth and I got married we saved the tux rental too because I had my Army uniform to wear.  One of the groomsmen told me it was appropriate; that uniform with the private’s stripe shouted that I was a guy who knew how to take orders!

The Marriage Supper of the Lamb will be like none other.  According to this end time prediction the bride will be beautifully dressed in the most elegant way, adorned with the sacrificial works of the church in caring for people throughout the ages.  But the groom, the spotless Lamb of God, Jesus Christ, the One Who died for this bride, will be the center of all creation and beyond. 

All that exists will be turned towards the groom on that day.  And that means every believer, every man, woman, and child who has trusted in Christ will be in attendance, and all attention will be on Messiah; no one will have eyes for anyone but Jesus.

The Apostle John, writing down this Revelation vision about that day as Jesus spoke it to him, recorded that the bride had prepared herself.  That preparation is the sum of all the good that has been done by believers in the name of Jesus over the last two millennia.  I believe it also includes those pre-cross saints, such as Abraham, Abel, the prophets, King David, Samson, and everyone who trusted in God’s promise of a Savior.  Every kindness ever done in the name of our Lord is remembered in Heaven (whether or not it is recorded on earth) and will be rewarded on that day.

When I was much younger that day of Jesus’ return, and the marriage supper of the Lamb seemed so much more removed from reality than today.  Perhaps, owing to the naïve nature of the 1950’s sans Internet and lightning-fast news reporting, as well as my own preoccupation with growing up, playing sports, and generally surviving the threat of polio and measles.  My mind just didn’t have time for thinking about all the wonders of the world coming to an end before I’d even had a chance to explore some of it.  

Fast-forward to the dawn of the 3^rd decade of a new millennium, I can’t believe it hasn’t happened yet!  Wars, rumors of wars, earthquakes, floods, famine, atmosphere collapsing…Jesus’ Mt Olivet sermon[iii] warnings of end times approaching read like the gloom and doom of the daily news reports.  Perhaps it’s just my age, or a different stage of preoccupation with Scripture’s forecast, but the question occupying my mind mostly these days is how much longer can it be?

For You Today

It isn’t for any of us to know the exact time, or exactly what it will be like when Jesus Christ returns to set everything right which has been wrong.  But we have the larger picture – it is going to be the best…better than any human imagination can conceive.  The time…when it comes…will be so grand, no believer will ever look back on this life wishing for the good ol’ times; as the poet said, the best is yet to be!

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

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[i] Title Image:   Pixabay.com

[ii] Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture quotations are from The New Living Translation©

[iii] Matthew 24-25

Missing Pieces

[1]

Friday, November 16, 2018

If you have ever had one of those nagging feelings, a sense that something is missing, this won’t be hard to understand.  My missing piece is a sense that I gave up something sacred to do something else … also sacred.  And it caused a void, a vacancy in me which cannot be undone.  But, like all the holes in me, Scripture speaks faith to my places of emptiness.

Hannah also had an emptiness; she was barren, unable to have children.  Three-thousand years ago that was more than a lifestyle choice, or something to let a fertility expert handle.  In Hannah’s world this was a flashing neon sign to all who knew her that God considered her unworthy and had made her a second-class woman.  It said all her outward beauty was for nothing; she would live in pain and shame all her days.

But Hannah was filled with more than pain; there was also faith.  She prayed with an open life before the Lord, promising to dedicate a first son God would give her back to God’s service.  Acknowledging God’s sovereignty was part of her thanksgiving prayer when God blessed Hannah with newborn Samuel:

For all the earth is the Lord’s, and he has set the world in order.  1 Samuel 2:8(NLT)

Hannah followed through and brought a newly weaned toddler to the temple to serve the Lord.  And this is where the hole, the missing piece in my heart, tracks with Samuel;

But Samuel, though he was only a boy, served the Lord.  He wore a linen garment like that of a priest.  Each year his mother made a small coat for him and brought it to him when she came with her husband for the sacrifice.  Before they returned home, Eli would bless Elkanah and his wife and say, “May the Lord give you other children to take the place of this one she gave to the Lord.”  And the Lord blessed Hannah, and she conceived and gave birth to three sons and two daughters.   Meanwhile, Samuel grew up in the presence of the Lord.  1 Samuel 2:18-21(NLT)

Every time I read about Samuel’s boyhood, spent in the temple, away from parents and his brothers and sisters, I get wistful about those years after leaving home.  Far from family, moving around in ministry, place after place, can grind that longing into a nostalgia that burns a hole inside.  Relationships at the end of a phone connection can only go so far.  Holding a hand, staring into your blue-eyed Mom’s face, a hug from your Dad, or brother; distance extinguishes such treasures.

A bit of confession is due here; there have been times, and not just a few, that I have felt like Peter:

Then Peter said to him, “We’ve given up everything to follow you.  What will we get?”  Jesus replied, “I assure you that when the world is made new and the Son of Man sits upon his glorious throne, you who have been my followers will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.  Matthew 19:27-28(NT)

The approval of God, and the crown of serving Him throughout eternity aside, the nagging wonder of all those nomadic, itinerant years, missing family birthdays, connection for my children with their cousins and grandparents – well, it wears on you and, if family means anything to you, you must take that before the throne. 

And when I did, Jesus spoke these words into my heart, through the Apostle Paul:

And now, just as you accepted Christ Jesus as your Lord, you must continue to follow him.  Let your roots grow down into him, and let your lives be built on him.  Then your faith will grow strong in the truth you were taught, and you will overflow with thankfulness.  Colossians 2:6-7(NLT)

I still miss my family, and we do what we can to stay in touch, grow in grace and love towards each other.  I value and treasure whatever time we get to spend together with the all-too-few visits on special occasions.  But God’s Word rings true; my heart overflows with thankfulness in this season; my Redeemer is making all things new, even as we speak.

For You Today

In a week this year’s Thanksgiving Day will be history.  But the season of Thanksgiving is eternally yours if you’re allowing your life’s roots to grow deep into Christ Jesus and building your life on him; thankfulness overflows every day!

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

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[1] Title Image: Courtesy of Pixabay.com

A Different Time

[i]

Friday, March 17, 2017

Come, let us sing to the Lord!  Let us shout joyfully to the Rock of our salvation.  Let us come to him with thanksgiving.  Let us sing psalms of praise to him.  For the Lord is a great God, a great King above all gods.  He holds in his hands the depths of the earth and the mightiest mountains.  The sea belongs to him, for he made it.  His hands formed the dry land, too.  Come, let us worship and bow down.  Let us kneel before the Lord our maker, for he is our God.  We are the people he watches over, the flock under his care.  If only you would listen to his voice today!  Psalm 95:1-7^(NLT)

I got caught in a bit of nostalgia the other day driving through a fast-food place for a cup of coffee on the run.  Waiting in the long line of cars (so much for fast-food), an older couple exited the building with a young girl in pigtails.  She was about 11 and she was holding Grandma’s hand and skipping!  On closer examination her mouth was wide with a smile, her face exuberant, and she held no electronic devices in her hands.  I thought:  How did Grandma and Grandpa get that IPhone away from her…did they just promise to buy her a Mercedes when she turns 15?

Then I took stock of Russell’s mood.  My wife was home sick, I was on my way to run sixty-two errands on a Saturday; none of the errands involved a golf club, but most required me to enter stores certain to be crowded (my favorite!), and the guy behind me just honked to get me to move because the car in front of me had moved three inches.  No matter what, I could not have written Psalm 95 in that moment.

C.S. Lewis seemed to work out a lot of his theology in his writing; I guess those of us who choose (or are compelled) to the written page do so.  In his writings somewhere, as he explained the rationale behind heaven’s actual existence, and why it was so logical that such a place existed, he mused that the mere fact we get thirsty presupposes that somewhere there is water; same for food and a place to lay down our head in sleep.  The deep longing in our souls for our Creator, that God-shaped empty place in our hearts of which Augustine wrote, is evidence-enough that heaven exists. 

We long for where we belong.

The little girl I saw skipping alongside grandparents struck that kind of chord in my soul, a longing for a different day, absent of the struggle between people, where the joy of thanksgiving, singing to the Lord, shouting joyful praise to our Rock of Salvation stems the tide of in-your-face anger and contention of this new millennial jungle.

It’s a longing for a different day…the kind of day for which we were created.

Just sayin’!

For You Today

Do you ever long for a kinder, gentler way?

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

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NOTES

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Title image: By D. Sharon Pruitt from Hill Air Force Base, Utah, USA, via Wikimedia Commons