Monday, June 6, 2022

When I first came to you, dear brothers and sisters, I didn’t use lofty words and impressive wisdom to tell you God’s secret plan.  For I decided that while I was with you I would forget everything except Jesus Christ, the one who was crucified.  I came to you in weakness—timid and trembling.  And my message and my preaching were very plain.  Rather than using clever and persuasive speeches, I relied only on the power of the Holy Spirit.  I did this so you would trust not in human wisdom but in the power of God.  

1 Corinthians 2:1-5

Up to the time Paul came to Corinth he’d had more than his share of difficulties trying to spread the Gospel of Jesus.  It may be that people weren’t interested in hearing more deep thinking about religion and systematic theology of the hypostatic union of Christ.  Paul decided to leave behind all his theology degrees from seminary days with eminent Jewish scholar Gamaliel, and just let the Gospel truth be heard.  And when he trusted God more than Paul, the power of God was unleashed, and the church exploded in growth and impact.

This is a lesson all preachers need to keep on the front burner.  I’m not trashing theological education; I believe it is vital to the discipline of one’s mind and life to study hard, and be accountable to those who have gone before.  That said, the evolution of a preacher demands more and more of heart than head.

The picture of a little girl trying to fix the earth’s crack with bandaids looks ridiculous to any sane adult.  But to those of us who are less sophisticated, we might see only a big heart holding the bandaids…doing what she can to help.  Frankly, that is sometimes the only requirement God is waiting for to start a revolution.  One heart, simply trusting God, and purposfully beginning, is the deep secret of God’s way, hiding in plain sight.

For You Today

If you’ve got a lot of training about God, or anything else, or you’re clever, or got an IQ around 200, how much of that would you be willing to lay aside to speak the plain truth about who Jesus is, and what He did for us all?  That might just be enough to fix the cracks in today’s church.  Jus’ sayin’.

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^©   

Inside Job

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Monday, December 11, 2017

O Lord our God, others have ruled us, but you alone are the one we worship.  
Isaiah 26:13^(NLT)

I once saw a cartoon in the newspaper that had a little boy sitting in time-out in the corner of the room.  His brow was furrowed in an awful scowl; he was not a happy camper!  His head was turned as if to see where the parent was who had consigned him to such a reprehensible punishment, and there was a thought balloon over his head; it said:  I may be sitting on the outside, but on the inside I’m standing tall! 

The prophet gives us this look at the fiercely independent nature of the human spirit. We may be ruled in the sense that others have the power to tell us what to do in school, job, law enforcement, or, in the extreme, as one conquering army enslaves citizens of the conquest.  But in all these the fact remains constant that you cannot take away freedom of thought.  You may influence a person’s thought process, even to the extent of coercing certain behavior or getting them to say or sign-off on some action which is against their will.  But therein is the rub; against the will is a phrase that defines free will, the fact that you can strong-arm a person’s body, but the will of human spirit is a free agent.  It’s an inside job!

We have seen this indomitable quality of free will illustrated time and again in heroic soldiers taken in battle, imprisoned and tortured, but who refuse to break.  We have seen this will imposed to change whole cultures with leaders like Dr. Martin Luther King, Gandhi, Wilberforce, and movements of the powerless masses that culminate in an iconic standoff at a place like Tiananmen Square.

Enter the concept of worship! 

Scripture declares that we are created in the image of God, and that means we have a purpose like God’s purposes.  In the mix of that is a natural bent to worship and love God.  But even so, God has chosen to not tamper with the free will of human beings, preferring that we give ourselves willingly to love Him, rather than God coercing us into obedience.  God will and does work in the affairs of human beings to reveal Himself to us, and let us know His desire for relationship, but He has placed as off-limits (even for Himself) that piece of us on the inside that makes choices.

That places a huge gift of choice, and an even greater consequence of the weight of our actions, squarely in our own hands.  What it means is, ultimately we can never claim victim status when it comes to God; he has given us totally absolute sovereign choice over our eternal destination.

But the greatest realization that comes along with this gift of choosing whom we will, or will not, love and worship is the undeniable fact that God is rooting for us to come to Him so he can bless us beyond measure!

For You Today

What will you do with this incredible, holy, and sacred gift of free will?  Whom will you love and worship?

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