PURE

Friday, July 28, 2023

But the wisdom from above is first of all pure.  It is also peace loving, gentle at all times, and willing to yield to others.  It is full of mercy and the fruit of good deeds.  It shows no favoritism and is always sincere.  And those who are peacemakers will plant seeds of peace and reap a harvest of righteousness.  James 3:17-18

You know some people James describes.  Remember them right now…faces that evoke good memories, calm moments, full of reason and safety.  You know the things they’ve done for you, or someone else who didn’t deserve mercy.  You understand the strength of someone who doesn’t show favoritism, always to be counted upon for sincerity and truth.  You know a peacemaker or two…several if you’re favored with eyes to see.

James issues this descriptive love affair with wisdom, drawing on sweet memories of his older half-brother, Jesus.  James didn’t always recognize it, this wisdom.  Along with his siblings and mother he thought Jesus was a little crazy, what with all this radical preaching about new wine, loving your enemies, and camels squeezing through the eye of a needle.  But there were those other telltale signs of pure wisdom…good deeds, mercy, and gentleness.  Later, after the cross, burial, and resurrection, James began to understand what he’d witnessed.  The way his brother submitted to the powers that be, the nails, the spear in a lifeless side (which James couldn’t understand), these were all revealed to be the seeds of peace.  It was only when the great harvest of Pentecost appeared that James understood what his brother was doing; he finally saw wisdom in its holy purity.

I knew a man who walked like that, filled with wisdom that was gentle and led to peacemaking.  It was at a church I served as pastor many years ago.  He arrived at the church a few years after I got there.  I liked him the moment I saw him.  There was a gentleness about BobbyMac’s way of talking with a genuine unpretentious.  You felt calm next to him.  It wasn’t just me; others saw it too.

I can be deceived…easily.  I tend to trust people until they prove otherwise.  Some people come into your life for a reason.  Why Bobby Mac’s path crossed with mine became evident a few years after we met.  His gift of “peacemaking” in a church with a long history of contentiousness (particularly with firing preachers), was a welcome fresh breath of pure air.  The church was grateful for his presence and he was in leadership roles in no time.  Shortly after that his spiritual gift of sowing peace became necessary.  Some decisions I’d made as pastor stirred some memories of what former pastors had done, and a group within the church decided it was time to stir the pot of “pastor-change”.  It didn’t seem to matter what way I tried to reach out, to meet folks half-way….minds were made up, set in stone.  Enter the peacemaker…Bobby Mac.  Some of the words he used were exact duplicates of some of the things I’d said to try to fix the relationship of pastor and people.  But Bobby Mac said them differently; he sowed mercy with gentleness, and sincerely trusted the truth to plow through any favoritism from either the pastor-change group or my stubbornness.   

I cannot adequately describe just how Bobby did what he did without writing several books, but this one thing I can say:  God was all over that!  I felt like the Roman soldier who was staring at the way Jesus died on the cross:

“This man truly was the Son of God!”  Mark 15:39b

For You Today 

If you want the kind of wisdom that is pure, gentle, unbiased, peace-filled, and generating a harvest of peace-making, it’s available from the same One who is the Author of the peace that passes understanding:

Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything.  Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done.  Then you will experience God’s peace, which exceeds anything we can understand.  His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus.  Philippians 4:6-7

Pray for peace that way…and you’ll bump into pure wisdom from above as gently and favorably as Bobby Mac.

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

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There are about 2,600 devotional posts and 400 sermons in the Rocky Road Devotions library.  

 

Title Image:  via Pixabay.com   Images without citation are in public domain.   Unless noted, Scripture quoted from NLT^©   

 

An UNEASY Peace

 

Tuesday, June 21, 2022

Don’t forget that you Gentiles used to be outsiders.  You were called “uncircumcised heathens” by the Jews, who were proud of their circumcision, even though it affected only their bodies and not their hearts.  In those days you were living apart from Christ.  You were excluded from citizenship among the people of Israel, and you did not know the covenant promises God had made to them.  You lived in this world without God and without hope.  But now you have been united with Christ Jesus.  Once you were far away from God, but now you have been brought near to him through the blood of Christ.  For Christ himself has brought peace to us.  He united Jews and Gentiles into one people when, in his own body on the cross, he broke down the wall of hostility that separated us.  He did this by ending the system of law with its commandments and regulations.  He made peace between Jews and Gentiles by creating in himself one new people from the two groups.  Together as one body, Christ reconciled both groups to God by means of his death on the cross, and our hostility toward each other was put to death.  He brought this Good News of peace to you Gentiles who were far away from him, and peace to the Jews who were near.  Now all of us can come to the Father through the same Holy Spirit because of what Christ has done for us.  So now you Gentiles are no longer strangers and foreigners. You are citizens along with all of God’s holy people. You are members of God’s family.  Together, we are his house, built on the foundation of the apostles and the prophets. And the cornerstone is Christ Jesus himself.  We are carefully joined together in him, becoming a holy temple for the Lord.  Through him you Gentiles are also being made part of this dwelling where God lives by his Spirit.  Ephesians 2:11-22

When the Apostle says that the Gentiles used to be outsiders, there has to be just a little flapping of the undecided flag.  When hostilities have existed for centuries, it is an uneasy peace (at best) when the ink on a treaty is yet to dry.  Witness to this is everywhere.  Driving home on I-40 on Sunday, after our Annual Conference at Lake Junaluska in the beautiful Blue Ridge of the Great Smoky Mountains, every so often I saw a huge Confederate flag waving near a home.  For some, after 157 years, the War Between the States is only on pause.  In any neighborhood, predominantly black or white, those of the opposite color or heritage walk uneasily, especially after the sun goes down.  Despite the continual outcry from political heads over spilled blood, often the blood of children, gun sales are the healthiest investment ever.

Peace is elusive, something like nailing Jell-O to a wall.  It sags with every sideways glance, uneasy, tenuous, and barely believable.  Yet the Apostle claims, without stuttering, that Christ has put an end to that which divides the only race on planet earth, humanity.  And for those who will be embraced by Christ, He gathers them all close.

Anyone who does God’s will is my brother and sister and mother.”  Mark 3:35

For You Today

It takes vulnerability to love unconditionally, knowing that your trust can be, and often will be violated, broken, and crushed.  And Jesus demonstrated that for us on the cross.  He was broken for our unwillingness to love.  Let’s let Harry Emerson Fosdick have the last word today:

[1]

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^©  

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[1] Harry Emerson Fosdick 1930, God of Grace and God of Glory (info @ Hymnary.org) & (Wikimedia Commons)

Lenten Walk - Part 3

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Monday, February 19, 2018

When the Red Sea saw you, O God, its waters looked and trembled!  The sea quaked to its very depths.  The clouds poured down rain; the thunder rumbled in the sky.  Your arrows of lightning flashed.  Your thunder roared from the whirlwind; the lightning lit up the world!  The earth trembled and shook.  Your road led through the sea, your pathway through the mighty waters—a pathway no one knew was there!  You led your people along that road like a flock of sheep, with Moses and Aaron as their shepherds.  Psalm 77:16-20^(NLT)

We’ve been looking at the Lent pathway via some thoughts my friend shared with me about his family’s recent hiking excursion at Hanging Rock.  You’ve got to trust the path to take you to the high places, and you need a steadying stick to help navigate the soft, shifty places. 

Today Lent is five days-in; five of forty.  Mathematically that’s only 12½^% of the journey, but let’s go to the top of the rock this morning.  My friend, Richard, shared an insight he gleaned from being at the top that is particularly helpful in pastoral ministry. 

When you climb all the way to the top at Hanging Rock, you must have courage to get the best views!  Hmmm…I thought it was courageous just to get to the top; whatever did my friend have in mind?  Well, he said:  You have to get right out to the edge of the rock if you want to look down…straight-down at the best, most breath-taking views! 

I was afraid he was going there.  I love mountains and the grand, panoramic displays of God’s handiwork…from a safe distance.  Although vertigo is not my idea of a good high, Richard’s explanation made sense; not fun, but sense

Incidentally, speaking of sense, of the common variety, a disclaimer here:  I do NOT recommend you go near the edge of Hanging Rock without someone to hold you back after you’ve visited the psychiatrist following your decision to look a mile or two straight down!  Some people’s courage is other people’s craziness!

That being said, Richard was right…the view from hanging over Hanging Rock is the most breathtaking possibility.  Instead of looking straight-out and seeing nothing but tree tops, you get to look down and see the contours of the land, and all the interesting little details a horizontal view misses.  You get scope and clarity when you’re hanging that close to the edge.  Of course, my friend is a pilot/preacher and he’s used to that kind of thing

I got that perspective on a trip to Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe ten years ago.  Way against my better judgment I leaned out, over the edge to get this picture.  My perspective took my breath away; I was certain I was next to heaven, if not on my way TO heaven if my foot slipped.

So what does all this have to do with Lent?  I’m glad you asked.  In pastoral ministry it is important to see the pathway most people would miss.  If you are to be of help to your brother or sister in Christ you must spend time looking and listening from the point that takes courage.  You have to be close and vulnerable, like hanging over a cliff, if you’re going to see the path someone else is travelling.  It’s like dancing, you can’t look at your own feet; if you do, it’s only a mechanical movement, it’s not dancing.  You’ve got to look in your partner’s eyes and feel the music.  You’ve got to trust.

And isn’t that the whole idea of this Lenten season?  You have got to prepare your heart to lean fully out over the edge – to trust the One holding your backpack.  And as you learn to fully place all your weight on He who died for you, you become an incredible value of Christ’s presence to everyone you meet.

For You Today

What will it be…breath-taking leaps in following the Savior…or a safe distance?

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