Rehab Russell

 

Wednesday, December 22, 2021

Work hard so you can present yourself to God and receive his approval.  Be a good worker, one who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly explains the word of truth.  2 Timothy 2:15

This verse is my life’s verse.  It chose me, I didn’t choose it.  It was first given to me by my Mom and Dad, written by my mother’s hand as an inscription on the flyleaf of my first Bible.  Later (and continually) that verse showed up in ways too numerous to recount in a short devotional.  Those ways were ambushes to my lazy streak, and gifts of encouragement to my “timid Timothy” ways.  That verse is not my “slogan” – it is my life-saving guide and reminder of the trust Jesus has in me, and that which I must forge on the inside of my character.

We will post more about that next week…which leads me to what’s been going on the past three months, and what’s ahead this week for Rehab Russell…and (perhaps) an encouragement for you.

I’m getting set to receive a Cardioverter-Defibrillator implant tomorrow.  This little gem is a combination of pacemaker (which is supposed to whip my under-performing heart pump into compliance), and a defibrillator (think hospital Emergency Room; think Surgery table with half-a-dozen professionals in scrubs.  One of the docs is holding paddles attached to a charger.  In my musing the paddles are poised over Russell’s chest getting ready to wake-up my ticker and tell him it’s not cool, this decision to call it a day).  The device they’re going to implant in my chest will be a personal hospital ER team and electric chair, all contained in a 6-ounce plastic computer/mini-reactor with twelve sensor leads surrounding my heart muscle which started beating about three-quarters of a century ago.  I keep musing on how loud the little voice will sound coming from within my chest cavity...CLEAR!  And…how, pray tell, did they fit the little doctor man inside that device?  I want to know!  Interesting ride through this life, ain’t it?

For the past few months that ride has been a stationary recumbent bicycle in the rehab unit 40-minutes at a time.  Don’t let the name fool you, “recumbent” doesn’t mean lay-back-nappy-time; it’s more wear-your-bones-to-the-nub-pedaling-for-your-life time.  I’ve logged a couple hundred miles on that thing and never left the hospital’s rehab unit.  One comes to think of it as the HAMSTER OLYMPICS…pedal like a fool…don’t move an inch.

And isn’t it the interesting/challenging times in life that cause you to think a little more deeply about this life?  I know it has been that way with me for the past several months since the doctor told me my heart pumps only 20% of the blood it ought to be pumping.  The deeper thinking you do with such information tells me there isn’t much that stands between me and hearing “CLEAR”!

For You Today

So…if the message isn’t as CLEAR as it could be today, let me CLEAR the debris out and speak CLEARLY.  It shouldn’t take the threat of a room full of medical first-responders to get you connected to God.  That’s something we are all hard-wired to work-on every day, to talk about with Him every waking hour, and keep the hub of your spiritual life from collecting cobwebs.  After all, as Peter the Apostle put it, bring your cares to Him…because He cares for YOU![1]  There is no more important or CLEAR call on your life every day.  Is there?

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

[1] Title and Other Images:  Russell Brownworth (own work)   Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation^©   

For other posts on this text see The Making of a Good Servant and Recycled Sermons

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[1] Loose “Brownworth” translation of 1 Peter 5:7

Making Sense of Consequences

Wednesday, April 9, 2014

“But if you don’t do what you say, you will be sinning against God; you can be sure that your sin will track you down.   Numbers 32:23 (TMSG)

Some of God’s people didn’t want to cross Jordan.  They saw what the East Bank held and begged Moses to let them stake out their chosen place.  They knew they were required to take part in the warfare that would secure the rest of the Promised Land, but they’d made their choice.

Moses warned them that promising to be part of God’s plan and family was a holy thing, and failure to fulfill those promises would carry consequences; their sin would track them down!

Most people are painfully aware of that “tracking you down” part as being the consequence of sinning against God.  We also are quick to point out our New Testament perspective that God forgives us when we confess.  Note the apostle John:

If we claim that we’re free of sin, we’re only fooling ourselves.  A claim like that is errant nonsense.  On the other hand, if we admit our sins—make a clean breast of them—he won’t let us down; he’ll be true to himself.  He’ll forgive our sins and purge us of all wrongdoing.   1 John 1:8 - 9 (TMSG)

So….case settled, right?  Even though we’ve sinned, we’ve confessed and been forgiven; God forgets it – books closed.  Right?

We could say “right” and move on; hardly anyone would question such a doctrine as God’s forgiveness – except for that nagging little fact that any of us who have asked forgiveness have also still experienced consequences of those forgiven sins. 

What’s up with that?

Our sin has tracked us down!

The drug addict who asks forgiveness still deals with craving.  The thief still thinks about stealing.  A child caught in disobedience still tries to distort the truth to head off sitting in time-out.  What happened to all that forgiveness talk?

One of the problems of accepting “part” of a verse is that we get a wrong view of the entire verse.  Even worse, we tend to pass on that view.  Forgiving and forgetting is what God does, but He will not erase what you have done.  What God does with the aftermath of forgiveness is something we tend to block out of the last part of John’s verse…purge us of all wrongdoing.

That’s what consequences are there for – to purge, or squeeze-out our bent towards doing wrong. 

For example, you made a bad decision to exceed the speed limit by double, but you live through the meeting with that telephone pole.  Immediately you beg God (and the traffic judge) to forgive you.  You’re sincere, and you fully intend to change your ways – no more “lead-footing” for you…no sir!  So God forgives, forgets and won’t bring it to the table again.  The traffic judge isn’t so magnanimous - $450 fine and 30 days in jail.

A month later you get out of the slammer and you’ve lost your job because you didn’t show up these past 30 days.  You’ve lost your license for 90 more days as part of the judge’s original sentence, and you’ve also got that mangled pile of junk that used to be your new Lexus.  On top of all that mangled Lexus will stay a junk-pile because you forgot to pay your car insurance. 

Whatever happened to forgiveness?  Was God just playing with my head about that?

God doesn’t “play” at anything connected with sin.  What he wants to do is purge it from your life.  Dealing with a mangled new car, no job and a financial nightmare is how we connect the dots between our actions and the consequences.

God’s not done with us when He forgives and forgets – He uses our behavior to continue teaching us and purging unrighteousness, so we will stand taller in the long run.  God’s in the rehabilitation business with humans, as much as the resurrection business.

Today…for you

If you’ve messed it up so that the consequences are big, remember the consequences are still working on you AND for you.   Despise them not!