Between Pinnacle & Pit - Part 4

Tuesday, August 23, 2022

No discipline is enjoyable while it is happening—it’s painful!  But afterward there will be a peaceful harvest of right living for those who are trained in this way.  So take a new grip with your tired hands and strengthen your weak knees.  Mark out a straight path for your feet so that those who are weak and lame will not fall but become strong.  Hebrews 12: 10-11

We are continuing with our investigation of the gap between the pinnacle of genuine faith, and the pit of unbelief. 

Chastisement, or when God disciplines, is what God does to make us “fit for use”. That is the whole purpose of training, to become useful for God’s Kingdom.  The sermon[1] upon which this series of devotions is based, includes an illustration of God’s purpose to take our brokenness and use it for His glory, and puts into perspective those difficult times of testing and training we all experience:

He cuts off every branch of mine that doesn’t produce fruit, and he prunes the branches that do bear fruit so they will produce even more.  John 15:2

A week, or so, ago (in 1978) the muffler fell off my car.  It’s that big Mercury, so you know it’s a long dude, and it’s heavy.  I got under the car trying to put that muffler back on for what seemed like an hour-and-a-half.  I was getting weary; I was on my back with arms in the air lifting that muffler for an hour-and-a-half, but I just could not get it right.  The pipe I tried to use to get the muffler back together was too long for the space.  It just wouldn’t fit. 

After trying so many times I was exhausted.  The point here is that I finally gave-in; I gave-up.  I prayed at that moment, out loud, under the car:  Lord, I give up.  I can’t get it done; you gotta do it.  You know me – I don’t have anything left.  I waited a few minutes for the LORD’s answer, and decided to try again.  I pushed it and the whole thing fell apart.  Now, a few years back the old Russell would’ve gotten angry, looked up and said:  Hey…why…what have YOU got against me?  But not this time.  I just said, OK…looks like you have some other plan here.  I crawled out from underneath the car.  I was picking up stuff to put in the trunk and walk home, but as I got to the back of the car, I noticed the muffler clamp on the back end was still attached.  I saw how impossible it would be to put the muffler back together. 

When I waited on the LORD, I saw the solution to the problem that was there all the time.  I backed off, gave it up, listened, and the LORD showed me the right way.  I had taken the wrong approach…I was doing it my way.  I waited until things came unglued before I prayed and trusted.

That’s the way of instruction.  A lot of times you don’t see the LORD’s instruction until retrospect…that time when you stop doing things your way,  look back, and it dawns on you, oh yeah! 

Imagine your life as a sweater being knitted.  God’s the knitter, and you decide to take the needles.  You make a mistake (don’t we always) but God’s not going to continue where you left off; He’s going to take out the error.  That’s called purging.

For You Today

The sweater or muffler in your life may be different than mine, but the principle holds…we can continue struggling with doing it our way…or we can learn early in the process to give-in, and give-up, to God’s teaching.

Tomorrow we’ll have the unveiling of God’s glory in this whole process.

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

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:                                                                 

         Why Does Bad Stuff Happen to Good People? and Seeing and Following the Light - Part 1      

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

---

[1] From a sermon, Chastisement, June 7, 1978, Russell Brownworth

Between Pinnacle & Pit - Part 2

Friday, August 19, 2022

Who ever heard of a child who is never disciplined by its father?  If God doesn’t discipline you as he does all of his children, it means that you are illegitimate and are not really his children at all.  Hebrews 12: 7b-8

We are continuing with our investigation of the gap between the pinnacle of genuine faith, and the pit of unbelief.  The issue is discipline, and it will drive you to one or the other.  Unbelief will receive discipline (from God), as well as faith.  Any “bad response” will drive you to the pit; God’s advice throughout this passage is to respond well to His correctives, and be lifted to the pinnacle of faith, a joyful relationship with your Creator.  So, the question is begged and on the table:

What is a Good Response?

In our text the writer poses the question:  What child isn’t disciplined?  This is a loaded question in contemporary culture’s parenting mode.  The lack of even the simplest forms of accountability when it comes to civil behavior, or manners, runs rampant in our land.  So is the result – a lack of respect for any kind of authority, and a nation’s character crumbling like the Towers on 9/11.

In fairness, you must consider the “WHY” behind parents not saying “no” to their children, backed-up by consequences.  It stems from a faulty evaluation of who we are at our base nature.  Parents imagine their children are “good”, and unacceptable behavior is merely a phase, which will give way to that inherrent goodness, like cream in a milk bottle, rising to the top. 

Scripture informs us[1] that our sin nature does not give way…it resists any inhibition whatsoever:

For I know how stubborn and obstinate you are. Your necks are as unbending as iron. Your heads are as hard as bronze.  

Isaiah 48:4

So, a child left uncorrected, unaccountable, doesn’t tire of his unacceptable behavior, changing into a fine human being – he keeps pushing the envelope until it breaks.  He abuses parents, peers, and those who get in his way, until God, or the penal system intervene.  Just like a garden that is left unattended, a lack of discipline will evolve into a rowdy mess of weeds, unproductive, unsightly, and totally unstable.  Humans in that category are tempermental, angry, selfish, sociopathic child-adults, unable to play nice with others.

A side-effect to all this is the child infecting the parents.  Many a parent, unwilling to say “no” to their child, has become frustrated that their hands-off routine didn’t work!  They get to that last straw of frustration and begin to abuse their child(ren), in a knee-jerk rebound from their failure.  What then replaces permissiveness is overbearing punishment, frustrating the child beyond any hope of accepting the parent’s intended good will.  The conclusion is that permissive parenting doesn’t work, because it is founded on a faulty premise:  good children left to their own choices make good choices.  How wrong, and how sad.

For You Today

True discipline always begins with love for the child.  Defined by He who IS LOVE, genuine discipline is always accountability-based, instructive, helping a child to learn to obey God’s authority, so he can grow into God’s loved and loving child:

For the whole law can be summed up in this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.”  Galatians 5:14

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

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:  Punishment Island and Earth Day - Part 4      

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

---

[1] The word “stubborn” appears 66 times, relative to human obstinacy – (see the list here)

Game Over (from before the beginning)

 

Monday, May 23, 2022

The Lord is king! He is robed in majesty.  Indeed, the Lord is robed in majesty and armed with strength.  The world stands firm and cannot be shaken.  Your throne, O Lord, has stood from time immemorial.  You yourself are from the everlasting past.  The floods have risen up, O Lord.  The floods have roared like thunder; the floods have lifted their pounding waves.  But mightier than the violent raging of the seas, mightier than the breakers on the shore—the Lord above is mightier than these!  Your royal laws cannot be changed.  Your reign, O Lord, is holy forever and ever.  Psalm 93:1-5

And the one sitting on the throne said, “Look, I am making everything new!” And then he said to me, “Write this down, for what I tell you is trustworthy and true.”  And he also said, “It is finished! I am the Alpha and the Omega—the Beginning and the End.  To all who are thirsty I will give freely from the springs of the water of life.  All who are victorious will inherit all these blessings, and I will be their God, and they will be my children.  Revelation 21:5-7

My brother, Thom, is a month shy of being four years older than I am.  That made a huge difference when we were kids.  With his size and maturity, every athletic contest was over before it began.  Because of my stubborn nature, it never kept me from trying to beat the odds.  In all the years of human existence it has been thus…we resist the irresistable, and fight against the unconquerable!

Ultimately there were some changes with my brother.  I may have won a time or two.  He’s still the better athlete, but with what’s left of two sets of knees (his and mine), neither of us has the inclination to return to the contests.  Old men have their memories, and that’s enough of a playground.

I see a parallel on a grander scale in the wrestling match featuring God and humans.  It’s also way over from before the beginning.  The Psalmist rehearses the power of the thundering seas, which was a foreshadow of mysterious dark, menacing forces in the ancient mind.  Then he turns the page to the heavens, declaring the mightier power of the Creator.  The seas may be violently raging, but it is still the lesser, contained in the greater, the one, true eternal God.

This is the “Alpha” of Revelation’s vision of “Omega”.  God began the beginning for humanity and the globe of dust we inhabit.  He is also the end point of God’s heart-plan for us; He is our omega, our ending, or, frankly, the whole point of our existence!  He is, as the Revelator’s pen declares, the one sitting on the throne.  And THAT throne, which is above every other throne, is what decides the outcome of whatever is in its view.  There is nothing which escapes its power.

Back to the playground metaphor with my brother playing the lead part.  There came a time when we were more evenly-matched, and the scores of the games became closer.  But that’s where the analogy ends; humans will never get closer to the power, majesty, and splendor of He who sits on Heaven’s throne…not with physical power, nor because we wish or will it to be so.  None of us can overwhelm, outsmart or out-maneuver the Almighty.  We are, as the raging, violent seas, still the lesser, contained in the Greater.

For You Today

If you struggle sometimes with that final surrender of your destiny, understand that is the chink in our human nature…to hold out some vestige of hope that, one day our way, our choices, or our terms may be in charge, not God’s rule over our existence.  But that is the dream of a fool. 

Knowing that God has good plans for us, and His might will bring them about for those who acknowledge His Kingdom, is the “win” of all wins.  Bow before the throne, acknowledging Jesus, the Lord of Lords, and King of Kings.

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^©   

Stubborn As a...Well, You Know

 

Thursday, May 12, 2022

Then he said, “Son of man, go to the people of Israel and give them my messages.  I am not sending you to a foreign people whose language you cannot understand.  No, I am not sending you to people with strange and difficult speech.  If I did, they would listen!  But the people of Israel won’t listen to you any more than they listen to me!  For the whole lot of them are hard-hearted and stubborn.  But look, I have made you as obstinate and hard-hearted as they are.  I have made your forehead as hard as the hardest rock!  So don’t be afraid of them or fear their angry looks, even though they are rebels.”  Ezekiel 3:4-9

A dear friend of mine recently said to me right after Sunday’s sermon:  I’d like to say I enjoyed the sermon, but my toes are really sore.  My response was:  When I was preparing that sermon, God’s Word broke MY toes to pieces before it got here to you today.  I’ve had to say that quite a few times over the years.

God gave Ezekiel a message, and, as a throwaway line, the Lord told him He had made the prophet as obstinate and hard-hearted as the people to whom he would preach.  Hmmmm. 

There are two thoughts that always come to my mind when the topic of a congregation’s sore toes comes up:

1.    I’m not sure many in the congregation understand how much it costs a preacher to deliver such a sermon.

2.    I’m not sure many in the pulpit understand how much the thought of how the sermon will alienate them to the congregation causes them to soften the blow, to the point of God’s Word being unrecognizable in Heaven.

These are human factors, indicators of our fallen nature, unwilling and stubborn to hear the corrective of God’s will.  It is the evidence of our pride of life which keeps us alienated from God, instead of that hoped-for intimate communion.

One of the harshest messages I’ve ever read was Jonathan Edwards’ Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.  Here is an excerpt of what he preached in 1741 to the congregation filled with people he loved:

The God that holds you over the pit of hell, much as one holds a spider, or some loathsome insect over the fire, abhors you, and is dreadfully provoked: his wrath towards you burns like fire; he looks upon you as worthy of nothing else, but to be cast into the fire; he is of purer eyes than to bear to have you in his sight; you are ten thousand times more abominable in his eyes, than the most hateful venomous serpent is in ours. You have offended him infinitely more than ever a stubborn rebel did his prince; and yet it is nothing but his hand that holds you from falling into the fire every moment. It is to be ascribed to nothing else, that you did not go to hell the last night; that you were suffered to awake again in this world, after you closed your eyes to sleep. And there is no other reason to be given, why you have not dropped into hell since you arose in the morning, but that God’s hand has held you up. There is no other reason to be given why you have not gone to hell, since you have sat here in the house of God, provoking his pure eyes by your sinful wicked manner of attending his solemn worship. Yea, there is nothing else that is to be given as a reason why you do not this very moment drop down into hell.[1]

For You Today

You may never have pictured your “just deserts” including being held over the flames of hell, roasted like a spider, dangling by a thread.  I’m certain there were those in the congregation that day who rather objected to the very idea.  Yet, historians hold that sermon was the kick-off incident that started the Great Awakening in America, a moral revival and turning to God we could certainly use today.  Words for a people as stubborn as a….well, you know.

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^©  

---

[1] BlueLetterBible.org (Edwards’ sermon Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God, Enfield, July 8, 1741)

SAFE

 

Friday, December 17, 2021

Listen to me, you fat cows living in Samaria, you women who oppress the poor and crush the needy, and who are always calling to your husbands, “Bring us another drink!”  The Sovereign Lord has sworn this by his holiness:
“The time will come when you will be led away with hooks in your noses.  Every last one of you will be dragged away like a fish on a hook!  You will be led out through the ruins of the wall; you will be thrown from your fortresses,” says the Lord.  “Go ahead and offer sacrifices to the idols at Bethel.  Keep on disobeying at Gilgal.  Offer sacrifices each morning, and bring your tithes every three days.  Present your bread made with yeast as an offering of thanksgiving.  Then give your extra voluntary offerings so you can brag about it everywhere!  This is the kind of thing you Israelites love to do,” says the Sovereign Lord.  “I brought hunger to every city and famine to every town.  But still you would not return to me,” says the Lord.  “I kept the rain from falling when your crops needed it the most.  I sent rain on one town but withheld it from another.  Rain fell on one field, while another field withered away.  People staggered from town to town looking for water, but there was never enough.  But still you would not return to me,” says the Lord.  “I struck your farms and vineyards with blight and mildew.  Locusts devoured all your fig and olive trees.  But still you would not return to me,” says the Lord.  “I sent plagues on you like the plagues I sent on Egypt long ago.  I killed your young men in war and led all your horses away.  The stench of death filled the air!  But still you would not return to me,” says the Lord.  “I destroyed some of your cities, as I destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah.  Those of you who survived were like charred sticks pulled from a fire.  But still you would not return to me,” says the Lord.  “Therefore, I will bring upon you all the disasters I have announced.  Prepare to meet your God in judgment, you people of Israel!”  For the Lord is the one who shaped the mountains, stirs up the winds, and reveals his thoughts to mankind.  He turns the light of dawn into darkness and treads on the heights of the earth.  The Lord God of Heaven’s Armies is his name!  Amos 4:1-13

There is an enormous difference between SAFE and Safe…when used as directed.  A few days ago I was using one of those sponges that is “safe,” meaning it won’t scratch your stove, sink, or refrigerator's polished finish…but only when used in strict adherence to the instructions on the wrapper.  The manufacturer takes no responsibility if you disregard the instructions.  That means you can use it any way you want…but that also means you will live with the consequences.  In my case, the lady of the house would see to the consequences if I leaned hard on the scratchy side of that sponge, and left a trail of scrapes on her black porcelain cooktop!  I suppose it also makes sense that you don’t use Ajax cleanser on a stainless-steel sink, unless you prefer dull stainless to shiny.  I’ve learned a lot of things in our nearly 55 years of marriage (mostly the hard way).

So, what does that have to do with Amos?  Well, I was just connecting the dots when it comes to ignoring instructions from the manufacturer.  Amos learned that 2,800 years ago when God gave him the message that Israel’s time was about up.  Their self-serving, self-absorbed ways had run God’s patience thin.  They were about to experience the consequences of ignoring their manufacturer’s warning label.  They’d disregarded God’s instructions, and all the emails, texts, calls, and final notice letters…housecleaning was about to take on a new look.

When it comes to God-blessed nations, Israel and America would certainly be on anyone’s list.  But with blessing comes responsibility.  If you fail to follow His instructions, you set yourself up to be on your own in dealing with the consequences.

For You Today

The people who belong to Jesus have a responsibility to speak plainly to our culture and this generation.  We cannot afford to depend on our reputation, history, or resources with the arrogant attitude that says we will never be judged.  None of us is exempt from the manufacturer’s instructions.

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

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

For other posts on this text see When God's Message Stings and Stubborn to the Bitter End

A Fortress Like No Other

 

Friday, January 22, 2021

Let all that I am wait quietly before God, for my hope is in him.  He alone is my rock and my salvation, my fortress where I will not be shaken.  My victory and honor come from God alone.  He is my refuge, a rock where no enemy can reach me.  O my people, trust in him at all times.  Pour out your heart to him, for God is our refuge.  Psalm 62:5-8

      ·       Note – often, when writing these devotionals, I check back to see what I’ve written before on the same text, so I can list other posts on the same Scripture.  ^{(Hint:  check the footnotes)}.  This morning the check-back proved painfully fruitful.  Here’s what I wrote in October 2019 about Waiting in a Small Place:

When alone, particularly early in the morning as this moment can attest, I think of the life I’ve lived, and those small places that I return to…

·      stubborn, not submitted to Christ’s changing power

·      willful, hardly obedient, except if it can be seen by others

·      selfish, less than generous, except if it can be seen by others

·      fearful, not depending on the Rock of Jesus’ saving power

·      wavering, looking for a way out that I can see instead of faith-walking

·      wobbly-kneed, untrue, and crabby…hardly a tower of graciousness. 

Before I begin a day, I must always cover this ground in my prayers.  Like David, I know myself too well to imagine I’ll be just fine without God’s constant hand leading, and His Spirit forming me from the inside-out.

Now, what I wrote a year ago was true about Russell (and perhaps you as well).  And it was true about King David when he wrote Psalm 62 three-thousand years ago.  Truth doesn’t change, especially about human nature’s fragility.  Honestly most human beings spend more time than not in small places, inside our bubble, either denying vulnerability, or, perhaps, planning how to achieve safety in a scary world. 

King David knew both vulnerability and the false feeling of invincibility.  He began life as a sheep-tender, spending much time alone in the wilderness.  He spent some time in the company of a madman (King Saul), the object of a paranoid schizophrenic’s fear of losing his throne.  David also had to live with his sins, adultery, conspiracy, and murder of an innocent man.  As king, David was the most powerful man on earth at the time.  However, when he was alone with his thoughts, all David’s strength paled by comparison to the righteous, omnipotent power of Jehovah-God.  It’s easy (and right) to feel quite small at such times.

And yet David could write about that God, Jehovah, as the very reason to feel safe, to know safe and secure; this God of David’s was a fortress like no other.  And so the shepherd-turned-king could encourage his flock, Israel, to always trust God, and pour-out their hearts in prayer to Him. 

No matter what kind of scale you use to measure the importance of political views and policies, this world has always been a scary place. 

·       It is scary for Republicans to see the Democrats control, and the reverse is also true. 

·       It was hard, as a young child, for me to hear about the Russians dropping a nuclear bomb on my head. 

And when, at such times, I spend too much time inside my head, figuring out how I will survive, or what the government, or pandemics, or my own sins can do to unravel my life, it is time to stop that maddening process and run like a surprised jackrabbit to the fortress of my soul.  It is time to practice what I preach, placing all my trust in God.

For You Today

What does your fortress look like?  And, who built it? 

King David assures us that if your fortress is any place, person, or thing other than Christ’s outstretched arms, you’ve built yourself a house on a foundation of sand.  Better something built on the solid rock!

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

GO TO VIDEO

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

For other posts on Psalm 62 see Lightweights in the Wind and Waiting in a Small Place      

 

When Stubborn and Rebellious Meets Immovable and Faithful

[i][ii]

Monday, March 18, 2019

The Lord said to Moses, “Get going, you and the people you brought up from the land of Egypt.  Go up to the land I swore to give to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.  I told them, ‘I will give this land to your descendants.’  And I will send an angel before you to drive out the Canaanites, Amorites, Hittites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites.  Go up to this land that flows with milk and honey.  But I will not travel among you, for you are a stubborn and rebellious people.  If I did, I would surely destroy you along the way.”  When the people heard these stern words, they went into mourning and stopped wearing their jewelry and fine clothes.  For the Lord had told Moses to tell them, “You are a stubborn and rebellious people.  If I were to travel with you for even a moment, I would destroy you.  Remove your jewelry and fine clothes while I decide what to do with you.”  So from the time they left Mount Sinai, the Israelites wore no more jewelry or fine clothes.  Exodus 33:1-6

It was a simple thing; the zipper on my jacket wouldn’t cooperate, and I was late for the school bus that would take me to my first-grade class.  Mom started to help me zip-up, and I yanked the zipper out of her hand – NO! said the brat with all his superior 6-year-old wisdom, I’ll do it!  It’s almost like there’s a merit badge for always being self-sufficient and claiming to have accomplished life by yourself.  It’s like that with politics, family, relationships and matters of faith…we seem to learn the hard way, proving there are much fewer geniuses than we imagined.

Israel was helpless, enslaved for 400 years in Egypt.  God sent Moses to announce the captivity was at an end.  Pharaoh eventually capitulated and let the people go.  Slaves became free, and they imagined that meant they were in charge of the universe.  But that was a cardinal error; the brat-nation had much to learn. Stubborn and Rebellious Israel had met Immovable and Faithful God.

There’s that old saying, what happens when an irresistible force meets an immovable object.  The problem with applying that to a relationship with God is there’s nothing that is irresistible when compared with immovable God.  It’s much more that we, the created beings of God’s hands, are fragile, housed in temporary bodies with imperfect and limited knowledge.  When it comes to a contest with humans vs. Yahweh, we are more like the local nursing home residents’ football team going up against the New England Patriots in a Not-So-Super-Bowl…it won’t be pretty!

God, in His infinite wisdom, kept a safe distance (for Israel) from Israel.  They needed that space to find out just how dependent they were on their God.  Rebelliousness and stubborn ways need to experience stubbing toes and falling-down.  It’s how we learn to walk.

People who have suffered a stroke, or been in a coma, learn this lesson in a heartbeat.  When they wake-up they realize there are things that must be learned all over again.  Simple things, like how to pick up a ball, or say a simple word they’d used a million times. 

It is this way with the stubborn rebelliousness with which we convince ourselves we can make it just fine without our Creator.  Baby steps, all over again!

For You Today

If you want a tested, reliable, immovable and faithful path to spiritual liberty and life, let Scripture have the last word today and every day:

For if we are faithful to the end, trusting God just as firmly as when we first believed, we will share in all that belongs to Christ.  Remember what it says:  “Today when you hear his voice, don’t harden your hearts as Israel did when they rebelled.”            Hebrews 3:14-15

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

Go to VIDEO

---

[i] Title Image:   Pixabay.com

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