daily java

Daily Java:

For everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God’s glorious standard. Yet God, with undeserved kindness, declares that we are righteous. He did this through Christ Jesus when he freed us from the penalty for our sins. (Romans 3:23-24)

Everybody does something wrong no matter who they are and no matter how good everybody else thinks they are. It is a fact of life. Nobody is as good as they look.

That doesn’t mean everybody is necessarily sorry and good for nothing. But what it does mean is that there is no one who can really stand in judgment on someone else. Everybody messes up.

The thing is, though, that you might mess up little and in private, or in such a way that no one has caught you. Maybe you cheated on your taxes, or stole something from your workplace, or lied, or – the list goes on. You sinned. You just didn’t get caught.

Or you might have sinned big time. You robbed someone, or assaulted someone or even killed somebody. Everyone saw you and is waiting for your punishment.

But everybody has done something wrong. And in God’s sight, sin is sin. Anybody who sins has lost his right to be with God. God is good and holy and sinless and we are not. So we cannot be with him.

That is, if it is up to us. It isn’t. When we accept Jesus as our Savior, when we acknowledge God as our King, when we give ourselves to God, he declares us righteous.

We stand before the court, God in the Judgment Seat, Jesus standing next to us and Jesus says, “he is mine and I have taken care of everything.”

No plea bargain, no parole, no probation – just declared innocent.

Are we innocent? No, at least in our eyes or the eyes of the world. But we are in God’s eyes because he now looks at us through the eyes of Jesus.

Because of the sacrifice Jesus made – the dying on the cross even though he alone had done nothing wrong, had never sinned, and the raising from the dead – we are declared sinless.

We still sin, we still mess up and we still have to pay for what we have done to society, but in God’s eyes, we are fine.

No matter who you are, and no matter what you have done, God loves you and will forgive you.

All you do is accept him. Simple to do, but sometimes hard to live and hard to remember. But he loves you.

And that is the whole point of being a Christ-follower.

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Daily Java:

Leaving that region, they traveled through Galilee. Jesus didn’t want anyone to know he was there, for he wanted to spend more time with his disciples and teach them. He said to them, “The Son of Man is going to be betrayed into the hands of his enemies. He will be killed, but three days later he will rise from the dead.” They didn’t understand what he was saying, however, and they were afraid to ask him what he meant. (Mark 9:30-32)

Jesus scared his apostles half to death. It was not that he was mean to them, or tried to make them afraid, but they were anyway. It was because of his power and the absolute authority he radiated. It was also that he said stuff that confused the daylights out of them.

Jesus walked into any situation totally unafraid. He talked to anyone and was awed by none. He stood up to crowds and groups of people that scared the apostles. He talked easily to huge groups, he did things that were amazing, he healed and even pulled people back from death. He walked large.

He would say things that were plain old baffling. What did it mean? What was he talking about? Some of what he said sounded vaguely accusatory to them, but then he would explain it in another way. They were always off-guard a little around him.

And above all else, he was so good. He never seemed to do anything wrong. He never made missteps, he never got unnecessarily angry, but when he got angry, he was scary. It was almost as if the power of God was flowing through his anger.

On top of all that, he talked about dying and they couldn’t figure out why. Why would he die and leave both them and his work unfinished? It made no sense to them for Jesus to come and do stuff and then just die. He was supposed to be the Messiah, and in their minds (as in the minds of most Jewish people), the Messiah was supposed to lead Israel back to it great power.

Here he does it again. The Son of Man (that was him, wasn’t it? They thought so but were never really very certain) was going to be betrayed (by whom? All his people loved him) and he would be killed (how and why? That seemed counter to all he was doing to be killed). But then the kicker: three days later he would raise from the dead. Great. Another riddle. What did that mean? Why die if he was coming right back?

They didn’t understand him. They were not great complex theologians like the religious leaders were and they just didn’t understand. Of course, they were beginning to realize that the great religious leaders didn’t either.

In fact, they were beginning to understand that the great religious leaders were full of baloney. Every time Jesus got near them, they would attack him and Jesus would make them look stupid. The great religious leaders hated him.

And the more the great religious leaders hated him, the more the crowd loved him.

Jesus baffled his followers.  They hated to keep asking him silly questions for fear he might get irritated with him, but they just didn’t understand him.

And if they asked him what he meant, he might tell them something they didn’t want to hear. So they were caught in a quandary. They decided to keep their mouths shut and just listen.

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Daily Java:

Six days later Jesus took Peter, James, and John, and led them up a high mountain to be alone. As the men watched, Jesus’ appearance was transformed, and his clothes became dazzling white, far whiter than any earthly bleach could ever make them. Then Elijah and Moses appeared and began talking with Jesus. Peter exclaimed, “Rabbi, it’s wonderful for us to be here! Let’s make three shelters as memorials—one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.” He said this because he didn’t really know what else to say, for they were all terrified. Then a cloud overshadowed them, and a voice from the cloud said, “This is my dearly loved Son. Listen to him.” Suddenly, when they looked around, Moses and Elijah were gone, and they saw only Jesus with them. As they went back down the mountain, he told them not to tell anyone what they had seen until the Son of Man had risen from the dead. So they kept it to themselves, but they often asked each other what he meant by “rising from the dead.”  (Mark 9:2-10)

There were things that happened to the apostles that scared them half to death. And when they happened, they really didn’t know what to do. So sometimes they did something dumb.

Jesus took his inner circle – Peter, James and John – up on a mountain to be with him while he prayed. They were probably praying, too. But one of them looks up and sees something that just scares him to death. Jesus changed before their eyes and became transformed. His clothes were absolutely pure white.

And not only did he change, Elijah and Moses came to stand with him. The apostles just plain old did not know what to do. So, unfortunately, Peter did the wrong thing.

How they knew it was Moses and Elijah, I don’t know. Evidently it was revealed to them or they made a good guess or something. However they knew, they knew. And here they were, Moses, the embodiment of the law and Elijah, the embodiment of the prophets. Moses and Elijah, the Law and the Prophets, standing in front of them talking to Jesus.

To any Jew, Moses and Elijah were the most important characters from the Bible. The apostles were beginning to grapple with the fact that Jesus himself may have been just as important. They were beginning to see that. And it was becoming a fact that he may have been greater. If he was really the Messiah, and they were beginning to believe it, then he was maybe even greater than Moses and Elijah.

Peter said what would have been the most logical thing any Jew could have said. let’s put up three memorials to this occasion, one for each of the most important people in the Scriptures.

As it says in the passage, they really didn’t know what to say. But they said the wrong thing.

God wasn’t mad at them, nor was Jesus or, for that matter, Moses and Elijah, if they even noticed the apostles or were aware of where they were. It was just that you don’t put up a memorial equating Jesus, the Son of God and the Messiah with the Law and Prophets. That system is gone, Jesus has come.

The voice served to scare them even further. “This is my dearly loved Son. Listen to him.” They probably hit the ground. When they looked again, Moses and Elijah were gone and Jesus was standing there looking at them.

I have always wondered what happened when they got back to the rest of the apostles. Did they tell them? Jesus said not to, but that would be a hard secret to keep. Not only that, but Jesus adds until the Son of Man has risen from the dead. Great. Not only have they seen something that has knocked their socks off, but he also adds something about raising from the dead. When they were by themselves, they probably talked about this.

But they were privy to a secret that none of the other apostles knew. They had seen Jesus glorified. None of them except John ever saw Jesus like that again, and it was not until John was an old man a long ways away that he did.

What a blessing and a burden to lay on these men, to know something so phenomenal and yet not be able to talk about it.

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Daily Java:

When the Pharisees heard that Jesus had arrived, they came and started to argue with him. Testing him, they demanded that he show them a miraculous sign from heaven to prove his authority. When he heard this, he sighed deeply in his spirit and said, “Why do these people keep demanding a miraculous sign? I tell you the truth, I will not give this generation any such sign.” So he got back into the boat and left them, and he crossed to the other side of the lake.  (Mark 8:11-38)

There are times that you get so tired of some people. They are constantly on your case, constantly trying to make you irritated – and succeeding – and just want to keep things in a turmoil.

With them is no peace, so they will not allow peace with you either. Everything you say is “hurtful” to them, or they see hidden agendas or impure motives.

Their problem is that they hate themselves so they transfer that hatred to you. They are looking for a reason to be angry at life, and you are handy.

The Pharisees were a bitter bunch. It is obvious from their lives. They were lives of constant arguing and posturing, preening and jockeying for position. They were not happy and were always looking for someone else to make them happy by giving them honor or preeminence.

Jesus refused to do this. He just did his job (seeking and saving the lost – Luke 19) and refused to play games with them. Since life to them was all games, it made them angry. And if they were angry, someone else was at fault. God wanted them to be happy and prestigious and someone was stealing their glory.

So every time Jesus saw them, they wanted to argue. They came out with a list of stuff that they didn’t like about him and began to complain. They demanded over and over that he show his authority and power to them so that they could have some control over the situation. But Jesus refused.

And there came a time when he was tired of them and their constant arguing. So he told them to go away and leave him alone. They didn’t, of course. People like that never do. They did what they did best: character assassination.

When they could not completely impugn his motives or his background, they decided to kill him. Their last ditch effort was to get rid of him. If they could not control him, they would get rid of him.

Churches are like that today, unfortunately. There are some in the church that are empowered by personal status or the fact that the church has never disciplined them who make it their job to try to control the preacher. When they can’t, they drive him off. They do it to preacher after preacher and no one stops them. And no one understands why the church won’t grow.

These men and their ancestors did this to every prophet who came to them. And they thought it was normal.

What a shame to treat the kingdom of God like your own power conduit.

my first real job

People who work hard sleep well, whether they eat little or much. (Ecclesiastes 5:12)

My first real job was a fun job, especially for a young man 19 years old. I took money out of pay phones for Southwestern Bell Telephone Company in Houston, TX.

Until recently, every business in the world had a pay phone. Since, of course, this was long before cell phones were even dreamed of, everyone who had to call home did so on a pay phone. And each time they did, it was ten cents. More if long distance.

My job was to go to each of these businesses and take the money out of their pay phones. And there were some really strange businesses I got to go into.

Every morning, I got a bicycle lock (the pad lock with a long upper part) filled with keys, along with a binder filled with the cards that went with each pay phone I was to empty. The cards were punch cards, done on those new machines called “computers.”

Each key only fit one phone. And each key had a card with all of the vital information, including location, on it.

And phones were everywhere, from the fanciest hotels to the sorriest dives, from churches to strip clubs. It was my job to go into each of these places and take the money out of their phones.

All day long I would deal with people as wildly variable as you can imagine. After all, everybody in business had a pay phone for their customers.

I mostly drove around all day. I drove a step van with a big bin in the back that had the coin boxes locked into it. Every night I would go back to the shop and unload them.

My route would vary from day to day, but I usually covered the same areas each week. I covered much of southwest Houston, along with South Houston and also Texas City, where I had graduated from high school. 

I went everywhere and saw everything, from the most boring to the most interesting. Body painting studios were in vogue at the time and I had several of those in the Westheimer area of Houston (the alternative section of Houston).

Strip clubs were also becoming more accepted and I had some of those. In fact, I saw my first nude girl in a place called Red Baron. It was totally red inside and I had trouble seeing. A girl came over and asked me if she could help me and then led me by the hand to the phone. About half-way there, it dawned on me that if she had anything at all on, it was very small and below her waist. That made an impression.

Ice houses were big in some sections of Houston. Those were open air bars. I also had several just plain dives with drunks everywhere that I had to dodge around.

There, of course, were business buildings with offices and the like and restaurants, stores of all kinds, hotels, the airport, the bus station.

Downtown was on my route and I went into many of the businesses there, including some of the strangest places on old Market Square, the original center of Houston that had been taken over by the hippies. A Hare Krishna girl tried to pick me up one day.

I loved to go near downtown to the Bell Telephone headquarters at 3100 Main and call Ella on the brand new Touch Tone phones. Those were only at the 3100 Main building until the early 70’s and I would call and play her a tune of the buttons.

I also enjoyed calling Ella from some of the sorriest places I would go in, just for the fun of it. I even got robbed a couple of times, but in general, it was fun.

I got drafted in July after only about four or five months working at the job, and had to go into the army in August of 1969. I came out in August of 1971 and got my job back. There was a law that guaranteed your job if you were drafted so I wasn’t worried.

But for a while, I was on top of the world. It was a good and well-paying (to me at least) job. I had a car and an apartment, along with a pretty girl-friend and friends at church. It was almost idyllic. It was fun. It was the kind of life that every young man needs before he settles down.

I would love to go back and do it again. Much of that is because it was a carefree time, one in which I had no real worries or concerns. I made plenty of money so that I paid my bills and still had enough to take my girl out to do whatever she wanted.

But it was a good job too. It was one that had a lot of variety and one in which you got to meet everyone in the world.

There are no jobs like that now. Pay phones are just about gone, and not many jobs involve quite the interaction with the public that one did.

What a great way to start off life.

daily java

Daily Java:

Then Jesus left Galilee and went north to the region of Tyre. He didn’t want anyone to know which house he was staying in, but he couldn’t keep it a secret. Right away a woman who had heard about him came and fell at his feet. Her little girl was possessed by an evil spirit, and she begged him to cast out the demon from her daughter. Since she was a Gentile, born in Syrian Phoenicia, Jesus told her, “First I should feed the children—my own family, the Jews. It isn’t right to take food from the children and throw it to the dogs.” She replied, “That’s true, Lord, but even the dogs under the table are allowed to eat the scraps from the children’s plates.” “Good answer!” he said. “Now go home, for the demon has left your daughter.” And when she arrived home, she found her little girl lying quietly in bed, and the demon was gone.  (Mark 7:24-30)

This is one of the strangest stories in the New Testament. And it presents a picture of Jesus that is at odds with all of the other pictures given of Jesus.

Jesus is shown in many ways in the New Testament. And all of those ways are ways normal people feel. He was hungry, he was thirsty, he was angry, he cried, he laughed, he got visibly annoyed, he even got violent.

But this is the only time he seemed unfeeling and uncaring.

A Gentile woman asked him for a healing. He said no. She was not his kind and didn’t deserve the miracle. He was going to feed his own family, or the Jews.

Her response was equally surprising: even the dogs get a little to eat from the scraps under the table left by the children. And she was willing to eat scraps if by doing so it would heal her child.

Jesus’ response: that was a good answer. Okay, she is healed.

Why would the representative of a God of love say something like that to a desperate woman, a woman desperate enough to humiliate herself to have her child healed. This was something he gave away freely to all of the Jews who came. But not to her. From her he demanded humiliation. Why?

I do not know. It is out of character for Jesus. Someone may say that he was showing everyone her faith. But it is never shown anywhere else that Jesus would humiliate someone to show that they “had faith.”

Jesus had a mission to the Jews first, yes, and he pursued that mission strongly. But there were others that were not Jewish that were granted healing. And there were a lot of Jews who weren’t.

But this woman had to be humiliated. Deuteronomy 29:29 says:

The Lord our God has secrets known to no one. We are not accountable for them, but we and our children are accountable forever for all that he has revealed to us, so that we may obey all the terms of these instructions.

I guess you could put this into that category. But even so, it makes for an odd narrative. It also tells you that Jesus was unpredictable and was not to be put in a box. Maybe her attitude was bad and she realized it. Maybe she was demanding and realized her error. Maybe Jesus was tired (he was human, after all) and misspoke. Maybe a lot of stuff.

But the thing is, Jesus did something here that was so out of character that if someone found out tomorrow that it was not in the ancient manuscripts and had been added by an annoyed, racist monk later, it would not be surprising.

Always something new in the written word.

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Daily Java:

Wise people treasure knowledge,
      but the babbling of a fool invites disaster.  (Proverbs 10:13-14)

Ignorant displays of knowledge can be funny.

In 1973, I worked for a radio station in Odessa, TX. It was an easy listening station, back in the day when that meant quiet music played in grocery stores and the like.

The man I worked for was, although highly dishonest, was still a very educated man and a man who made his living with words. He did, after all, own a radio station, and all a radio station has to offer is words and music.

I have always had a large vocabulary because I have always read a lot. But most of the people I hung around with were not large vocabulary people. A lot of the words I knew were purely academic. I had never heard them, just read them. So I had no idea how they sounded when pronounced.

I was talking with the radio guy (Roy) and I used a large word – aficionado – and mispronounced it badly. Roy stood there for a few seconds and said (in his very resonant radio voice) Do you mean aficionado? And he pronounced it right.

I felt like a fool. I knew the word and knew what it meant, but I was showing off to a man I knew was educated. I even realized then that it was the word that I heard nightly in a station promo and had not recognized it. And I got called on it.

Since that time, I rarely mispronounce words. It is almost like a mania. And if I feel I am going to, I will generally substitute another word for it and then go check it out later. It is a quirk of my personality that I have to research my own conversations. Pathetic, I know.

It is always like that when I hear people try to show off their Bible knowledge when they really do not know what they are talking about. I am not talking about earnest seekers who make mistakes, I am thinking of the guy who likes to quote great blocks of the Bible to show everybody how well-read and intelligent he is. He ends up looking stupid.

I was watching a movie not long ago where the main character would recite Bible verses before he would do something bad. It made him feel good to quote the Holy Written Word before he did something wrong. Kind of like the people who used to like to buy church furniture for their bars and strip clubs. Sitting on church furniture made them feel “deliciously sinful” as one said.

A wise person learns more. It is not because he is any better, but it is because he has a thirst for knowledge. And a real wise person knows where the wisdom comes from. He knows it doesn’t come from within himself but from a source greater than he is.

Any source I learn from, no matter how small it may be, at lest for a moment is greater than me. And as I have said before, I do not mind asking questions. It is not that I am so great, it is that I hate looking like a fool.

And that especially goes with God. I want to treasure knowledge, not babble disaster. And only he can give me true knowledge or wisdom.

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Daily Java:

“These are the instructions regarding skin diseases and mildew.”  (Leviticus 14:57)

I have just finished reading a long, excruciatingly detailed list of things that were to be done if a rash or an open sore or anything else on the skin came up in the Israelite camp as they walked though the wilderness. It didn’t matter how small the rash or the sore, or small the mildewed section, it was to checked out ultimately, by a priest.

There were good reasons for this, I suppose. God was making sure that the Israelites stayed healthy, that hygiene was good. There were evidently some different strains of contagious diseases around then that looked like our leprosy and the like, so they had to be careful.

And it was a good thing too. Several years ago, I went to the cliff dwellings at Mesa Verde in southwestern Colorado. As we were looking around, the guide made mention that the Anasazi (the dwellers) threw all their garbage and refuse, including human waste, in the back of the dwellings into caves and openings back there.

That meant that the whole thing not only smelled horrible all the time, but there would be times when disease would run rampant throughout the camp. Hygiene was horrible. Talk all you want about the American Indian and their nobility in living off the land. They were a filthy people. I remember someone in a movie coming into an Indian camp and saying, there’s the dump, now where are the houses. Then he found out those were the houses.

The Anazazi just disappeared from history. Lots of reasons have been given. One of them was the fact that they completely exhausted the area in which they lived of all wood and materials. They were going further and further away to get firewood and such that sooner or later, they had to move.

But it could be that disease took them. To me that sounds logical. You cannot live with an open toilet and garbage dump sitting right behind you and breathing that all the time without it affecting you. Chances are high they just died from the living conditions.

Beautiful houses, marvelous architecture in the cliff dwellings. But behind all that beauty was a festering sore of a dump. And in front of the dump was a group of people too stupid to throw their trash outside their camp.

God was not going to have the Israelites like this. He wanted them to stay healthy, so if he had to micromanage their hygiene, he would. And they were healthy. He wrote all this into their laws so they would remain this way until Jesus came. I am sure that compared to the people around them, they were quite picky in taking care of themselves and their families.

In times past, people were dirty. Even until just a half a century or so ago, people bathed once a week, washed their hair once a month if that often. Germs were unknown of until shortly after the Civil War 150 years ago. Even the need to wash our hands before doing major surgery is not that old a practice.

Today, we live in a world that is unbelievably clean. Our toilet waste is taken away somewhere else. Our garbage is carefully put into special containers and taken somewhere else. We bathe every day and our bathwater is taken somewhere else. It is all taken away from where we live. So unless, we are slobs, we can live what to former generations, would be an almost sterile lifestyle.

I am glad. I would hate to be dirty all the time, wearing the same clothing day after day. That wouldn’t be fun. Of course, to them it was perfectly normal. But in our eyes, there is no real need for instructions on skin disease and mildew.

I suppose that it wouldn’t be hard to degenerate back into that kind of society, but we would remember. I read a sci-fi book about a group of people who had their memories erased and were placed in a wilderness setting to see how soon they would come back to any degree of civilization. One man’s memory came back and all he could think of was clean sheets and a good smelling woman with him. He slept on hides and all of them reeked.

It would be the same with me. I like being clean.

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Daily Java:

Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger by the way you treat them. Rather, bring them up with the discipline and instruction that comes from the Lord. (Ephesians 6:4)

It has been a year since my father passed away. He died at 1:25 PM today a year ago.

I have thought about him a lot in this past year, more probably than I usually did when he was alive.

He was a good man, and as much as he could be, a godly man. The word says, all sin and fall short of the glory, and he did, of course. As do I and all fathers. We are at best a shadow, a faint simulacrum of what we should be. God shows us a model of a Father and says that we are to try to be like it. And we do. And my father did.

We never agreed on a lot of things. But I always knew he loved me. he worked hard to take care of his family, and there was never any doubt in our lives who was in charge. My mother loved him and kept the home, took care of the kids, cooked the meals. She took care to live within his income and to honor him in our home. She called him the father when referring to him to us.

I could not have gotten a better model as a child.

I just hope I can be thought of by my children as he is by his when I am gone.

I loved my dad and I miss him.

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Daily Java:

The wise are glad to be instructed,
      but babbling fools fall flat on their faces. (Proverbs 10:9)

I was a boy with my parents going through something, I don’t remember what. It was a museum or exhibit of some kind. A man who was friends with my father asked the guide what seemed to me to be an elementary question. I don’t know if I already knew the answer or if I just wanted to feel superior, but I asked my father why he asked such a (to me) silly question

My father replied something to the order of “There is no such thing as a silly question.” I have found that over the years that is not always true, but it is true 98% of the time. He also told me that the man I had mentioned was one of the smartest men he knew with several degrees from college. He knew a lot already and now that he had asked his question, knew some more.

I have found that if I do not know the answer to something, chances are high that a lot of others don’t know it either. And the odds say that the vast majority of people are afraid of asking for fear of engendering just such a response as the one I gave my father. They do not want to look stupid by asking a “silly question” but don’t know what else to do.

So because they don’t know something but also don’t have courage enough to ask, they don’t know the answer.

So I started to ask questions. Sometimes the questions are welcomed. Most people enjoy explaining things to others. It makes the feel smart to know what you do not know and to tell you their information.

Of course, there is the person who feels superior to you because they know and try to ride that feeling of superiority by making you look small. They are knowledgeable fools.

But you can still learn from them.

I have also noticed that when I ask a question, most of the group I am with will look at the person guiding us with an expectant look on their faces. What teacher doesn’t enjoy seeing that on their listeners’ faces?

Many times, if not most of the time, if I had not asked the question, they would not have known.

Sure I look a little foolish for not knowing a simple thing like that. Maybe everybody else in the room knows it except me. But I have a thirst for knowledge and want to know too. My ignorance may surprise that group, but at least in the next group that is talking about whatever I didn’t know, I will know what I am talking about.

I asked a friend the other day a simple question like that. Everybody knew what they were talking about except me. I had never participated in that particular activity but it interested me. I asked, it surprised a couple, but my friend just told me the answer. Now I knew too.

I could have looked knowledgeable and cool and been ignorant. Or I could have asked the question and known.

I ask people about themselves and where they are from, what they do for an occupation, all the things that interest me. And I have found that people love to talk about themselves. It is each person’s favorite subject. They talk for a long time. My son says I ask too many questions. But he also admits that when we leave he knows a lot about somebody he would not have known otherwise.

Another preacher friend says he doesn’t like to do so, so it always surprises him when I tell him something new about his members that I have asked that person.

Different strokes for different folks, I suppose. I like to know and don’t mind looking ignorant to find out. And I find that I know far more things than the average person. Most of them are somewhat worthless, but still, I know them.

Am I better off? Maybe. Maybe not. But I will continue to ask questions, and be instructed.

daily java

Daily Java:

Jesus said, “How can I describe the Kingdom of God? What story should I use to illustrate it? It is like a mustard seed planted in the ground. It is the smallest of all seeds, but it becomes the largest of all garden plants; it grows long branches, and birds can make nests in its shade.” (Mark 4:30-32)

Today is the fiftieth anniversary of John Glenn’s space flight in which he orbited the world three times. A Russian, named Yuri Gargarin had flown into space less than a year before, and Alan Shephard had followed him within a couple of weeks. John Glenn went for three orbits and the space race was on.

But what would make people do this? What would make them reach out beyond the planet and try to do something so seemingly impossible?

In  1962, President John F Kennedy said:

We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too.

The space race, the orbits in space, and the final landing on the moon in 1969, were the result of people pushing themselves further than they even thought possible.

Jesus said that if we had faith like a mustard seed. I am not familiar with mustard plants, but I know that the seed is tiny and the end plants is quite large, almost a small tree in size. A similar analogy in our time would be an acorn and an oak tree. The acorn is quite small and the oak can grow to amazing size.

Jesus tells us in this parable that if we had faith like these seeds we could do amazing things ourselves. Just like we did in the space race, we could accomplish wonderful things for God if we would allow ourselves to believe we could.

Of course, faith is not a magic bullet. It is not true that if we think it, God will make it so. And sometimes our faith is finished in a different way than we ever thought before.

But the key is recognizing that we cannot do it ourselves, that it takes the power of God working through us.

America reached beyond this world to the moon in less than ten years because they had faith in their ability to do so. Unfortunately, America doesn’t have that same faith today. The space race is, at least for the moment, finished and we sit hunkered down on our planet trying to survive.

Our faith can make a difference. If we believe, we allow God to work in our lives and to do great things through us. The thing is, we have to believe or God will not do it.

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Daily Java:

He placed the turban on Aaron’s head and attached the gold medallion—the badge of holiness—to the front of the turban, just as the LORD had commanded him. (Leviticus 8:9)

What if God gave us a badge of holiness? The outlaw in the western said, “we don’t need no stinkin’ badges.” But how great it would be if we got some, if when we come to Jesus, he gave us a badge of holiness.

We could wear our badges of holiness and people would see that we were favored of God, that he was in our lives. People would know that our worship was sincere, and that we were really praying and not sleeping during the prayers at church.

It would be an authentication of our own holiness, approved of God. We would be ordained to holiness, wearing our badge.

What would it look like? In Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, the quest was to select the Holy Grail, the cup Jesus held at the last supper. There were cups of all sizes and shapes, both opulent and plain. The characters had to select one. If they chose the wrong one, they would die.

Several chose gem encrusted, gold ones and died. Finally the main character chose a simple pottery cup, the kind that would be used by a simple carpenter. And he was right. It was not the looks or richness of the grail, it was the richness of the God behind the grail.

The same without badges. Aaron’s was fancy, just like the rest of his High Priestly garments and was designed to impress the Israelites.  They had come from a country that was hyper fancy (Egypt) and God knew they were used to seeing that kind of thing. So he made the tabernacle and all of the priestly stuff like that.

But would ours be fancy? Or would it be just a simple button. I don’t think it would be plastic, because I do not like plastic in general. But maybe wood, or metal. Would it be large and conspicuous, so everybody could see it at a distance? You walk in the church building and everybody sees you have your badge of holiness on.

Or would it be discreet and maybe even go under your clothes, on a lanyard around your neck? And when you wore it, would it make a difference in your life? Would the badge itself change you. When people dress up, they act differently than when they have on jeans, so maybe it would make us different by its mere presence.

Or would it make any difference at all? Would it soon become an accessory like a cross around your neck that people wore to show off?

Interesting thoughts. I guess I am glad I do not have to worry about it. I have the Holy Spirit to seal me into the kingdom and that is enough.

hebrews 10

Here is the lesson plan for Sunday night. If you can use it, feel free. Just remember where you got it.

Hebrews: A New Day Coming
Hebrews 10: The Perfect Sacrifice

Have you ever tried your best to find the absolutely perfect gift for someone, the gift that would be perfect, that would make everybody smile, that would send the universe singing? When you find it, all other gifts you give at the time seem almost second best. You have looked for it, searched it out, found it for a good price, gotten it, hid it maybe for a couple of months then wrapped it and gave it. The one to whom you gave it loved it. It was perfect. It summed up all that you and they had in common, all that you felt for them. It may not have been expensive or it may have cost a lot. But it was perfect.

Jesus did that. He brought the one thing that no one else could give: a perfect life lived in sacrificial service to both God and humanity. A sinless and perfect life.

When humanity sinned, God had to remove them from the Tree of Life or they would live forever in their sins. That would be too bad for people to do or for God to allow the people he loved to go through. So, as Romans 5 says, people die because Adam sinned. We sin because we are built that way, but Adam was the one who brought that sin first into the world. Luke 3 says that he is the son of God, made, Genesis 2 tells us, from the dust of the earth. That son brought sin and by bringing sin, brought death. We die because of sin.

Yet Jesus didn’t sin. But he died anyway because he was human. As the last chapter said: man is destined to die once, and after that to face judgment (9:27). As a human and subject to the same physical laws as humans are, he had to, sooner or later, die. Only two people in the history of the world didn’t die – Elijah and Enoch. But for Jesus to be that perfect sacrifice, he had to die. A sacrifice was not a sacrifice until it had been killed and its blood shed on the altar.

But Jesus died, even though he had not sinned and, once dead, came back to life, breaking the hold that the devil had on humanity. He then became the perfect sacrifice, and took his own sacrifice into the Great Holy of Holies where the Almighty God dwelt and offered himself. And when he did this, he told us that our sins were forgiven and we can, ourselves, be sinless by his power.

That gives us confidence that we too can go before God. His is a new and living way, brand new, never before brought and never again needed. It was once given and once received. It was the perfect gift.

Our responsibility? Verse 26 – don’t deliberately keep on sinning. If we reject this gift, there are no more offers, no special one time only offers. The writer says, don’t throw away your confidence. Persevere. Keep on living as you should. Be strong. Don’t shrink back. He loves you.

Questions:

1. the old law was a constant reminder that you had sinned and you could do nothing about it. Wasn’t that kind of an unfair way to make people live?

2. If God was not pleased with burnt offerings and sacrifices (v5), why did he keep asking for them?

3. He set aside the first to establish the second (v9). What was the first and the second that he is talking about?

4. What do you think it means, he sat down at the right hand of God (v12)?

5. And how is it he waits for his enemies to be made his footstool (14)? That sounds kind of rough.

6. V17 – If God remembers our sins and lawless acts no more, what do you think that means? And also v18: where these have been forgiven, there is no longer any sacrifice for sin. Are there no sacrifices today?

7. V26 – Does this mean that we are dead if we keep on doing things wrong? Everybody sins.

How do you throw away your confidence (35)?

daily java

Daily Java:

Jesus went into the synagogue again and noticed a man with a deformed hand. Since it was the Sabbath, Jesus’ enemies watched him closely. If he healed the man’s hand, they planned to accuse him of working on the Sabbath. Jesus said to the man with the deformed hand, “Come and stand in front of everyone.” Then he turned to his critics and asked, “Does the law permit good deeds on the Sabbath, or is it a day for doing evil? Is this a day to save life or to destroy it?” But they wouldn’t answer him. He looked around at them angrily and was deeply saddened by their hard hearts. Then he said to the man, “Hold out your hand.” So the man held out his hand, and it was restored! At once the Pharisees went away and met with the supporters of Herod to plot how to kill Jesus. (Mark 3:1-6)

Watch someone long enough and they will do something you think is wrong.

In the presidential election, the candidates are scrutinized for every thing they have ever done that might be wrong. There was a rumor one put a dog on top of his car for a trip, another might not have been polite to someone in the past, a third took his dead baby home for a private funeral before burying it, another said something that some considered disrespectful to one of the “minorities,” another – it goes on and on.

Whether the things was actually wrong or not, or just something someone didn’t like is beside the point. When you want to find something wrong with someone, you can find it even if they are the sinless Son of God.

Jesus (in their eyes) sinned because he did “labor” (ie healing) on the Sabbath Day, the day that God set aside for rest. Now, that is picky in the extreme. But when you want something badly enough, you can find it.

Jesus knew this and did it anyway. There was a strong libertarian streak in the Lord that said I don’t care what you think, He didn’t have time to mess with people who would get mad anyway. He had a job in life to do. His job was bringing the grace of God and the healing power of that grace to the world, of bringing the lost back to God. He was here to save souls, not play games.

He was a faithful Jew and kept all the ordinances and commandments. But his interpretation of something and someone else’s interpretation of that same thing were not always the same. Just because they thought it was essential didn’t mean he did.

And simply because someone decided a while back that something was wrong didn’t mean it was, either. Not to Jesus.

He did what he was supposed to do even though people got mad. That is why people get mad at Christians when they act like Christians even in their everyday lives. Someone decided that there was a certain place for “religion” and the rest was for living. But God said our lives are bound up in our faith and are inseparable.

That makes people mad, but it is too bad. Just like Jesus, sometimes you have to go ahead and do something even though it will anger the establishment. Most of the time, they are going to get mad anyway. And they are just looking for things to get mad at.

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Daily Java:

Suppose you sin by violating one of the LORD’s commands. Even if you are unaware of what you have done, you are guilty and will be punished for your sin. For a guilt offering, you must bring to the priest your own ram with no defects, or you may buy one of equal value. Through this process the priest will purify you from your unintentional sin, making you right with the LORD, and you will be forgiven. This is a guilt offering, for you have been guilty of an offense against the LORD. (Leviticus 5:17-19)

When I was younger, we always had the invitation song (what other churches called an altar call). And invariably someone would come with the plaintive comment, “If I have done anything to offend someone, I am sorry.”

It always smacked to me of an all-purpose, one size fits all  request for forgiveness and I always saw it as worthless. And it is. But it is also the mindset of many people in the church. What if there was some sin I did and forgot to ask forgiveness?

The Israelites, although they lived with a loving God, also lived with the knowledge that nothing they could do could remove what they had done wrong. There was no place for forgiveness in the Old Law, there was only appeasing God and removing your guilt from in front of him.

And the laws were many and varied and covered every aspect of life. Not only  that, but they were also somewhat equal. A law was a law, and if you broke any law, you broke the Law.

But what happened if you inadvertently sinned? What if you did something wrong that you did not know was wrong. What if you shook hands with a person who had improperly handled a dead body? Or if you did something beyond what you were supposed to do on the Sabbath? Or – the list goes on.

What do you do then? You have sinned and didn’t know it. There is a sin recorded to your name and you had no knowledge of it, but would in some way suffer the consequences. What do you do?

You bring a sin offering for unintentional sins and give it to the priest. He would offer the sacrifice and you would be forgiven. But when you did it again, even if by accident and not to your knowing, you would be guilty again. And have to do it again.

When Jesus came, he brought unconditional forgiveness. That means that, as long as you try to do what is right, he will forgive you.

Yes, you make a hundred mistakes during the day or week or month, depending on how good you are. But no matter ho good you are, you will do something wrong. When you do, God forgives you.

There is no need under the law of love that is in the grace of Jesus Christ to have to worry about something you might have done and ask forgiveness for that thing particularly. That is a penance-based religion, not a grace-based one.

When Jesus came, he came to set us free from the law of sin and death (Romans 8) and to give us freedom through the Spirit of life. That means that, yes, we do things that are wrong. But no, we do not have to ask forgiveness for each and every one or go to hell.

Grace keeps us free. If we walk in the light as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another and the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us from all sin (1 John 1:7).

If we are in him, we are cleaned. Praise God for his grace.

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Daily Java:

Seeing their faith, Jesus said to the paralyzed man, “My child, your sins are forgiven.” But some of the teachers of religious law who were sitting there thought to themselves, “What is he saying? This is blasphemy! Only God can forgive sins!” Jesus knew immediately what they were thinking, so he asked them, “Why do you question this in your hearts? Is it easier to say to the paralyzed man ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or ‘Stand up, pick up your mat, and walk’? So I will prove to you that the Son of Man has the authority on earth to forgive sins.” Then Jesus turned to the paralyzed man and said, “Stand up, pick up your mat, and go home!” And the man jumped up, grabbed his mat, and walked out through the stunned onlookers. They were all amazed and praised God, exclaiming, “We’ve never seen anything like this before!” (Mark 2:5-12)

Jesus knew before he did anything that it would make these people mad when he said to the man, you sins are forgiven. He knew it and he didn’t care. He did it anyway.

Jesus was the kind of man who was kind and gentle, but really did not suffer fools gladly. If you were in trouble or had difficulties, that was one thing. He would do anything to help you. But if all you were doing was picking trouble, he could also give that.

He stood before the man and said you sins are forgiven. The religious leaders were mad because they felt only God could do that and they didn’t like Jesus. Even though it was obvious to even the most casual observer that Jesus had some special spark of the divine in him, still they refused to believe.

There were even times when they would come up and demand a sign and Jesus would turn them away. If they wanted signs, there were signs galore. All they had to do was open their eyes and they would see a sign.

But when they came demanding a sign, they wanted nothing more than to be acknowledged by Jesus as leaders, as special people. And Jesus would not do this. He had little or no use for them and their legalism. They had made their minds made up in spite of the evidence, they would believe what they wanted to believe. So Jesus didn’t even mess with them. He went to people who would hear him and pay attention.

The man who Jesus healed knew who he was. The people standing around knew who he was. It was only those who were educated and “knew things” that had trouble believing in him.

And it made them mad as blazes when Jesus bypassed them and went directly to the people, having the audacity to just do what he wanted. That was why they killed him. He embarrassed them and challenged their authority. Nobody did that and got away with it.

The same unfortunately holds true in churches today. It doesn’t matter how much good is being done, those who want to be in leadership are going to fight it because they are either not in charge or are not being acknowledged or stroked.

And they will kill the preacher or the church leaders doing the good work if they have to in order to keep their positions.

It hurt Jesus then and it does now too.

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Daily Java:

Wisdom will multiply your days
      and add years to your life.
If you become wise, you will be the one to benefit.
      If you scorn wisdom, you will be the one to suffer. (Proverbs 9:11-12)

I just received word that an old friend had died. I haven’t seen him in a long time and found out by accident that his wife had died a few years ago.

Gene and I were good friends once upon a time, but when I left the Church of Christ we kind of drifted apart. We went to seminary together, and maintained the friendship for a couple of decades.

We were a lot a like, both of us subject to some problems in our lives, and both of us seemed to share certain viewpoints automatically. We tended to look at things the same, even though our backgrounds were totally dissimilar.

Six or seven years ago, we found out that his wife had died of cancer. She and Ella were good friends. Since that time, we haven’t seen him. He looked pretty bad then, and I didn’t figure he would live a whole lot longer.

He wasn’t much older than me, but when she died, it took all the color out of his life. He always had health problems anyway, including a predisposition to stroke with extremely high blood pressure. Couple that with the fact that he ate like a horse and was quite large and it didn’t help any.

There were some funny things w shared. When we were younger, he and I were built a lot alike except that he was several inches shorter. And we liked to go shop at thrift stores. I would always get him to try on the sports coats first, so if they were too long on him, they were fine on me. It would get him so irritated that I could always dupe him into being the coat model. And we would laugh.

We laughed a lot. I still have a pocket handkerchief I bought from a Goodwill when he was with me in 1979 in Spokane, WA.

We ate together, studied together in school, talked a lot for a while, he was a good friend. Then we just kind of dropped away.

We learned a lot together and together gained a lot of wisdom. He, for a while, was always more forward thinking than I was, then I passed him up. I was always smarter, he was always more practical.

With four daughters, his wife, Marsha, was a master at stretching a food dollar, and showed Ella how to be more frugal with the grocery money.

We were in school one day in about 1975 when one of the guys – Chuck I think – was trying to read the Bible out loud. He was reading about the phylacteries the religions leaders of Jesus’ day wore (little boxes with a  scripture inside tied to their wrists and foreheads). Chuck accidentally read “prophylactics” instead of phylacteries in the passage But all their works they do for to be seen of men: they make broad their phylacteries, and enlarge the borders of their garments (Matthew 23:5 KJV). We laughed until we had fallen off our chairs at the reading “But all their works they do for to be seen of men: they make broad their prophylactics, and enlarge the borders of their garments.” It embarrassed the fool out of Chuck but we were having too good a time to care.

From then on we formed an official society of those people in the New Testament who were for (pro) those little scripture boxes (phylacteries). We were the prophylacieries. From then on, every time we talked on the phone or saw each other, we would remember that.

I loved him and still do. Even though we have not seen each other in almost a decade, I feel the pain of the loss greatly.

I look forward to seeing him in heaven. May he rest in peace.

daily java

Daily Java:

Next Bezalel made the Ark of acacia wood—a sacred chest 45 inches long, 27 inches wide, and 27 inches high. He overlaid it inside and outside with pure gold, and he ran a molding of gold all around it. He cast four gold rings and attached them to its four feet, two rings on each side. Then he made poles from acacia wood and overlaid them with gold. He inserted the poles into the rings at the sides of the Ark to carry it. Then he made the Ark’s cover—the place of atonement—from pure gold. It was 45 inches long and 27 inches wide. He made two cherubim from hammered gold and placed them on the two ends of the atonement cover. He molded the cherubim on each end of the atonement cover, making it all of one piece of gold. The cherubim faced each other and looked down on the atonement cover. With their wings spread above it, they protected it.  (Exodus 37:1-9)

Every time I read about the ark and the tabernacle itself, I am amazed at one thing in particular. It was so small.

The who tabernacle was only 75 feet long. The ark itself was only four by two by two with a lid. The other items themselves were not all that large.

Opulent, yes. They were all made of special wood and covered in hammered and cast gold. Some of the more utilitarian items, like the altar of burnt offerings and the tent pegs were made of bronze and  many of the rings used for carrying it all were made of silver.

Of course, it was small because they had to carry it around on their shoulders. They were nomads for a long time so God didn’t want them to have to carry around a big building or anything really heavy like that.

Everything they had was portable. They would travel for a few days until they found a spot that would suit them for forage for their animals and water and such for themselves, then they would camp for a while, maybe even a few months. The wanderings didn’t mean they were constantly on the move, but it did mean that they had no real home base, no fixed place to live.

But inside of these small containers dwelt the Living God, God Almighty. He made it clear to them that when they sat up that tabernacle and placed that ark in it, that he would inhabit that ark. That was his earthly seat.

That was why Peter called his own body a tent (2 Peter 1:13-14 I think it is right to refresh your memory as long as I live in the tent of this body, because I know that I will soon put it aside, as our Lord Jesus Christ has made clear to me NIV. a tabernacle in the old King James), he knew it was temporary, never designed to last.

We are like that tabernacle, holding the earthly seat of God within our hearts. And when it comes down to it, we are not all that big either, considering that God lives in us.

But deep inside our hearts, there is a room with an ark, covered over in pure gold and inside that ark is the pure presence of God and his love.

And we carry him to all we know.

daily java

Daily Java:

The sound of harps, singers, flutes, and trumpets will never be heard in you again.. (Revelation 18:22)

I just read of the death of Whitney Houston. She had, hands down, one of the most beautiful voices I have ever heard in my life. She was a beautiful woman herself, loved by millions.

But she had a problem. She had let drugs, alcohol and their attendant problems take over her life. She was married to a man who enabled much of that and surrounded herself with people who not only allowed it, but encouraged it.

I am of the generation that lost several talented musicians and singers. Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, Mama Cass Elliot, Dennis Jones of the Beach Boys. Then later came people like Curt Cobain and it just seems to keep going.

From what I understand, Whitney Houston was from a church background, singing in the choir. So many young female singers today come from this background. And the maw of Hollywood and the entertainment industry takes them, chews them up and spits them out.

There is something about the call of music in a person’s life. I believe that music is a call from God to his praise and worship. When answered in him, the singer is happy and fulfilled. When answered in the world, the singer soon goes on a path of self-destruction.

It is astonishing to read of the personal lives of singers, the drugs, the sex, the debauchery – all in the name of music. And it doesn’t seem to matter whether it is rock and roll or country/western or rap or what. The end result is the same. The singer becomes a survivor of their own lives.

Not long ago I read of the lead singer for Three Dog Night, Chuck Negron, who was found on a street corner, strung out, painfully thin, just about dead. He was brought in to a Christian rehab center and saved from himself. And he is not alone in his predicament.

Mackenzie Phillips talks of her life in the world of drugs and how she and her father, Papa John Phillips of the Mamas and the Papas, would take drugs together, becoming so strung out that she has little or no memory of that period. And the list goes on.

My generation grew up thinking that was normal, that drugs were normal. I myself fell into the lifestyle as a young man, cramming anything I could get in my hand into my mouth. For so many of my age group, it became an obsession.

And we suffered for it. No, there were no lasting effects of LSD and other drugs like the doomsayers predicted with deformed children and flashbacks thirty years later. But neither was there any glory, neither was there any power or praise in it. It was worthless.

And their deaths were worthless, just as Whitney Houston’s death was worthless. The majestic voice that God bestowed on her is quiet forever.

And for what? Drugs? They are trash. She lost her life for trash. So many lost their lives for trash. And tonight I am weeping.

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Daily Java:

Then the LORD said, “I have seen how stubborn and rebellious these people are. Now leave me alone so my fierce anger can blaze against them, and I will destroy them. Then I will make you, Moses, into a great nation.” But Moses tried to pacify the LORD his God. “O LORD!” he said. “Why are you so angry with your own people whom you brought from the land of Egypt with such great power and such a strong hand?   Why let the Egyptians say, ‘Their God rescued them with the evil intention of slaughtering them in the mountains and wiping them from the face of the earth’? Turn away from your fierce anger. Change your mind about this terrible disaster you have threatened against your people!   Remember your servants Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. You bound yourself with an oath to them, saying, ‘I will make your descendants as numerous as the stars of heaven. And I will give them all of this land that I have promised to your descendants, and they will possess it forever.’” So the LORD changed his mind about the terrible disaster he had threatened to bring on his people. (Exodus 32:9-14)
I am the LORD, and I do not change. That is why you descendants of Jacob are not already destroyed. (Malachi 3:6)

The Israelites had made a golden calf to worship while Moses was away on Mt Sinai getting the Ten Commandments and the rest of the law of God. While he was up there and God was telling him how he would be caring for his people, the people below were turning on God.

When Moses came down he was mad. Under his direction, the Levites killed 3000 people and a plague was sent by God on the rest. A great number of people died during that period of time.

God was really mad at Israel. His response, to make a new nation out of Moses and his children. Moses said no. He told God, in essence, that you knew what you were getting when you started this whole thing. And if you kill them all, it will make you look bad in the sight of all the surrounding nations.

Moses said to God: change your mind. And God did.

The future actions of God are not set in stone. If they were, prayer would be useless, nothing but a rubber stamping of all God already intended to do.

The passage in Malachi says that God is the same as he was then. If he could have his mind changed then, he can have it changed today.

I don’t know what God was thinking when he was talking to Moses. Maybe it was wishful thinking on the part of God. Get rid of the whole bunch and start again. But Moses’ family was not a lot better. It was his brother who made the calf in the first place. His sister Miriam joined in rebellion against him later and contracted leprosy as a result.

It is interesting that we know about the children of just about everybody else in the Bible, but not anything at all about Moses’ children. Were they good? Were they holy and righteous? Were they the caliber of people that would produce a great nation? We don’t know. Jacob was a great man of God, but, for the most part, his kids were not all that great. And their children were also not all that great, either.

But one thing comes from this. And it is true or the Bible is wrong. We can change the mind of God if we try. God may be able to know everything that will happen, but I do not think he chooses to. And he can change his mind about what he will do when the godly ask him to.

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Daily Java:

Inside, the people were all shouting, some one thing and some another. Everything was in confusion. In fact, most of them didn’t even know why they were there. (Acts 19:32)

Everybody is angry. One group is arguing with another group and there are fights that break out. The only real problem is that nobody knows exactly what they are fighting about.

Bar fights are like that. Somebody gets mad at somebody else and a fight breaks out for no real reason.

Politics is like that too. Sometimes people are arguing with each other and really don’t have any idea why.

Church is sure like that. People get ideas in their minds that are not necessarily based on reality and before long there are opposing camps. If somebody were to be able to stand athwart the whole group and say Stop! What are you fighting for? Chances are nobody would really be able to articulate a good reason.

Two sisters in a church get in an argument and become angry with each other. Since the argument has to be over something doctrinal to make it holy, they drum up some hare-brained reason. The church divides down the middle into two camps and before long, the church splits.

A year later, the two sisters are having lunch and one asks the other, What was it we were fighting about? The other says, I don’t remember. Oh, well.

But the church has been hurt and the people holding to the cause of Jesus look stupid.

It is amazing how often things come in my email and those who are sending them do not really understand what they are sending. Someone else that they liked told them it was important so they send it off and are ready to fight for it. But they don’t really understand what they are fighting over.

It may be something as small as an interpretation of a Greek phrase, or a small point of philosophy. But it has become, although vague in their own minds, important enough to fight over and to split the church over.

In Acts 19, they were ready to kill a guy but really didn’t know why. They had gotten worked up in that way that mobs do, but didn’t understand why they were there in the first place. Most didn’t even know who the guy was.

Before you go off on some tangent, understand what the tangent is. Before you get ready to fight, understand what you are fighting about. Some things are not worth fighting over when you get to looking at what is happening underneath or who is behind them.

The things that are worth fighting for, engage in those. Just make sure in your own mind that you know what you are doing.

failure

Finally, the king’s chief cup-bearer spoke up. “Today I have been reminded of my failure,” he told Pharaoh.  (Genesis 41:9)

Tonight I feel my failure so strongly. I am jobless and if it were not for Ella’s monthly check, I would be homeless. My body hurts, my feet are killing me, my hands feel like blocks of swollen pain.

I am to a point that I wonder what I am going to do. The failure of the past couple of years is so strong on me that I almost cannot bear it. It colors everything I see and think. My days are colored gray and I have become numb. I really do not care about anything and my depression is so deep.

I do not see anything that I have done that has accomplished anything. If my wife were to admit, she probably would wish that she had never tied up with me. my son wishes his life were different and my daughter is unhappy.

I look at friends who have good careers or worse yet, great retirements who are my age and younger. I sit and wonder what in the world I can do to change it, but I honestly do not know. I have sold about everything I have of any value. I think that if my friends knew the extent of my failure in life, they would leave me.

All I know is preaching the gospel and the Lord has decided that he is through with me. he seems to have turned from us. I can understand his turning from me, but why in the world would he turn from Ella. She is so good, so simply worshiping, so simply loving.

I don’t know how long I can keep like this. Something has to give. All I want to do is sit in a corner and stare.

I cry with Jesus, My God, my God, why have you abandoned me? Why are you so far away when I groan for help? Every day I call to you, my God, but you do not answer. Every night you hear my voice, but I find no relief. Yet you are holy, enthroned on the praises of Israel.

Something has got to happen. Please hear me, Lord.

daily java

Daily Java:

Then Jesus went with them to the olive grove called Gethsemane, and he said, “Sit here while I go over there to pray.” He took Peter and Zebedee’s two sons, James and John, and he became anguished and distressed. He told them, “My soul is crushed with grief to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with me.” He went on a little farther and bowed with his face to the ground, praying, “My Father! If it is possible, let this cup of suffering be taken away from me. Yet I want your will to be done, not mine.” Then he returned to the disciples and found them asleep. He said to Peter, “Couldn’t you watch with me even one hour? Keep watch and pray, so that you will not give in to temptation. For the spirit is willing, but the body is weak!”  (Matthew 26:36-41)

There are times in your life that are absolutely overwhelming, but you cannot find others to share it with you.

It may be the death of a loved one, or the loss of a job, or physical illness. It could be anything. But you cannot find someone who feels as deeply about it as you do. So you have to go it completely alone.

And it is not that the people around you are stupid or insensitive. It is many times because they do not understand the magnitude of the problem in your life. They do not really understand how hard it is hitting you.

The apostles were good men. Jesus had grown close especially to Peter, James and John. The four of them just kind of clicked. But even though they clicked strongly on a friendship level, still they didn’t understand Jesus.

He was about to die. And there was nothing he could do about it. To top it all off, he was afraid. The human side of him looked with dread. I do not know if he knew all of the details of his death or not – I tend to think not – but he did know, just from observation, that it would be long and brutal.

And he knew it would involve crucifixion, one of the most painful ways to die invented.

He prayed for strength from God, he prayed that maybe there could be another way, he prayed that God would be with him. He prayed so hard that the sweat dripped off him like he was bleeding.

Then, when he went back to his friends, they were asleep. It wasn’t that they didn’t care, it was just that they were confused by all the things he had said and they were tired. So they went to sleep.

Sometimes it is easier to just go to sleep than it is to pay attention to something you do not understand, something that baffles you. The apostles were baffled. On the one hand, Jesus was the Messiah, the Christ, come to take away the sins of the world. On the other, he kept giving oblique references to what sounded like his death.

How could he save everybody and die at the same time? The two were at odds with each other. The more they thought about it, the more their heads hurt. So they went to sleep.

It probably embarrassed them when Jesus woke them up, but they sure were tired. So they slept.

And the Savior prayed and waited.

daily java

Daily Java:

But when the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit upon his glorious throne. All the nations will be gathered in his presence, and he will separate the people as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will place the sheep at his right hand and the goats at his left. Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the Kingdom prepared for you from the creation of the world. For I was hungry, and you fed me. I was thirsty, and you gave me a drink. I was a stranger, and you invited me into your home. I was naked, and you gave me clothing. I was sick, and you cared for me. I was in prison, and you visited me.’ Then these righteous ones will reply, ‘Lord, when did we ever see you hungry and feed you? Or thirsty and give you something to drink? Or a stranger and show you hospitality? Or naked and give you clothing? When did we ever see you sick or in prison and visit you?’ And the King will say, ‘I tell you the truth, when you did it to one of the least of these my brothers and sisters, you were doing it to me!’ Then the King will turn to those on the left and say, ‘Away with you, you cursed ones, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his demons. For I was hungry, and you didn’t feed me. I was thirsty, and you didn’t give me a drink. I was a stranger, and you didn’t invite me into your home. I was naked, and you didn’t give me clothing. I was sick and in prison, and you didn’t visit me.’ Then they will reply, ‘Lord, when did we ever see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and not help you?’ And he will answer, ‘I tell you the truth, when you refused to help the least of these my brothers and sisters, you were refusing to help me.’ And they will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous will go into eternal life.” (Matthew 25:31-46)

The point made here was not the stuff done. It was the service and selflessness behind the stuff.

Those who had helped Jesus, who had fed him and clothed him and all, never knew it was Jesus. They are surprised. “We didn’t know it was you. We fed a lot of people but don’t remember you.”

Jesus answer: when you did it to one of the least of these my brothers and sisters, you were doing it to me. I was there in the midst of those people that needed help. I was there in their hearts and I was there in your heart when you helped.

Those who didn’t help said, “Wait. If you had told us it was you, we would have given you the best of what we had. All we saw was a bunch of poor people.” And again his reply: when you refused to help the least of these my brothers and sisters, you were refusing to help me.

Again, the point was that those who were in Christ helped as they were helped. They loved as they were loved. The others waited for just the right opportunity so they wouldn’t waste their money.

I read an article the other day that said that conservative people tend to give a lot more money to charities and church and the like than liberal minded people. Their mindset is different.

You can imagine the liberals being at the front of any well-publicized event, with names in the paper and pictures taken. The others just do it out of love.

Jesus said here that if you love him, you are going to help others in some way. You may not have a lot of money, or things to give, but if you love him, you will do so.

When his heart is in your heart, you share your heart with others.

daily java

Daily Java:

Command the people of Israel to bring you pure oil of pressed olives for the light, to keep the lamps burning continually. The lampstand will stand in the Tabernacle, in front of the inner curtain that shields the Ark of the Covenant. Aaron and his sons must keep the lamps burning in the Lord’s presence all night. This is a permanent law for the people of Israel, and it must be observed from generation to generation.  (Exodus 27:20-21)

God is a God of light, not of darkness. He always wanted people to know that. He never intended to be worshiped in dimly lit church buildings. He is a God of light.

In the Old Testament, he had the temple area constantly lit. They used a set of special made clay lamps filled with pure pressed olive oil and they were to be kept lit all night.

The devil, on the other hand, is a god of darkness. He lives in darkness and those who worship him stand in darkness.

That darkness carries over into other parts of life too. God is a God of knowledge, the devil is a worshiper of ignorance. The less you know, the better off he is.

God is a God of enlightenment. He wants us to know his will, to learn what he says and to talk about it, to discuss it, to make it part of your inner being. No one ever pleased God by remaining ignorant.

Churches sometimes like ignorance because it gives them the ability to tell people what they want the will of God to be. It may be in the from of church-approved study material that only covers certain aspects of the Christian faith, or it may be in the necessity of their ministers coming from approved schools, schools that “do not teach error.” It may be in limiting the translations you can use to those that are so archaic that it takes an official church-approved interpreter (the minister) to explain it to you.

God always wanted his people to know, to be lit with the light of knowledge and wisdom.

Then and only then can one be truly pleasing to God.

daily java

Daily Java:

You must not offer the blood of my sacrificial offerings together with any baked goods containing yeast. And do not leave the fat from the festival offerings until the next morning As you harvest your crops, bring the very best of the first harvest to the house of the LORD your God. You must not cook a young goat in its mother’s milk.  (Exodus 23:18-19)

The old law was a law of micromanaging people’s lives. The laws were exquisitely detailed in their scope. They dealt with every part of the Israelites’ lives.

But we forget something. Mainly that those laws were never intended to be for us in the first place. They were made for a group of people who lived 1500 years ago and continued until the time of Jesus. When Jesus died on the cross and came back to life, he broke that law completely. He finished it, relegating it to the past and making it obsolete.

His new law was different. It was a law of the heart and not one of detail. It was intended to rule one from the inside, rather than the outside.

It was a law that knew that micromanaging would do no good. If one’s heart is not in order, all of the details would do no good.

It said that people are not saved by details, by the number of things they have done. It is a law that recognizes that sooner or later, by design or accident, someone is going to cook a goat in its mother’s milk. And it also says that, whether or not the goat is plain or with cheese, it will not matter if the heart is not saved.

In other words, you can do all of the stuff perfectly and still not have God in your heart. And if you have God in your heart, you will try your best to do what God wants anyway.

The new law took away the need for detail and brought in the need for commitment. And the commitment needs to be from the heart and not just from the actions.

That is the new law. It is a law that says love God and love your neighbor (Matthew 22). It is a law that says just because you have not done wrong doesn’t mean anything if your heart is not right (Matthew 5:28).

It is a Royal Law (James 2:8) and it was given us by the King who loves us and wants us to be more like him.

And he is a God of love. When we live in him, even when we make mistakes, we ourselves fill our lives with love.

That is the new law.

daily java

Daily Java:

Later, Jesus sat on the Mount of Olives. His disciples came to him privately and said, “Tell us, when will all this happen? What sign will signal your return and the end of the world?” Jesus told them, “Don’t let anyone mislead you, for many will come in my name, claiming, ‘I am the Messiah.’ They will deceive many. And you will hear of wars and threats of wars, but don’t panic. Yes, these things must take place, but the end won’t follow immediately. Nation will go to war against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in many parts of the world. But all this is only the first of the birth pains, with more to come. (Matthew 24:3-8)

The apostles wanted a leg up on the opposition. They figured they could ask Jesus and he would tell them when he was coming back. They really weren’t sure where he was coming back from or where he was going or why. But he had talked a lot about it. How would they know when he was coming back.

His answer: you won’t. There won’t be any signs. Things will happen just like they always have happened – wars, threats of wars, problems in the world just like always. But Jesus knew he would come back when God got ready.

You figure, Jesus himself didn’t know when he was coming back. In Mark 13:32, Jesus says: However, no one knows the day or hour when these things will happen, not even the angels in heaven or the Son himself. Only the Father knows.

There will be famines, earthquakes, stuff will happen and things will get bad and worse, but God would send him back when he got ready. Nobody has any advance warning. We just need to be ready for when it happens.

No matter what anybody tells you about the state of the world today, and the “signs of the times”, God will do what he wants to do when he is ready. And nobody, not even Jesus, knows when that is.

part of a line

Now that you belong to Christ, you are the true children of Abraham. You are his heirs, and God’s promise to Abraham belongs to you. (Galatians 3:29)

There were people who were instrumental in bringing me to the Lord and in putting me into ministry. And in turn, I have put people into ministry. And they have done the same, as will the people they have touched.

There are people who brought you to the Lord, and hopefully, you have done the same, as will the ones you touch.

All of us are part of a line. And that line begins with Abraham. If we are children of God, we are all spiritual descendants of a man who lived during the stone age more than five thousand years ago. He lived in a country far away, spoke a language that would be unintelligible to us, wore clothing we would consider strange and lived a lifestyle that we would find truly alien. The only thing he has in common with us is his humanity and his faith in God.

Yet he is our spiritual father. The Bible says that, as the children of God, we are his children too. Just as God is our heavenly father, we trace all of our physical spiritual roots back to Abraham.

And as he was faithful, so we strive to be faithful. The Bible tells us that his faith was what saved him, and it is that faith that was handed down to us.

Our service to God is not measured in things, in commands kept, in boxes checked. It is measured in faith. When we believe and have faith in his ability to save, we are saved. We are his.

My father died last year in February. He was probably the most influential in bringing me to a knowledge of God. He had his failings and his blind spots, but so do we all. My children see mine and their children will see theirs. It is the way life goes.

In that same way we see the faults of Abraham. He had trouble trusting God at times and twice lied to save his life. But at the same time, his acts of faith were so strong. And he was known as the father of all who believe (Romans 4:16).

When we come to Jesus, we stand in that line of faithful people. My relatives were all active in their churches going back a long ways. Sister Ella’s were the same, I suppose. There is a line both of us come from that is long and faithful.

Of course, not every relative followed Jesus. Some didn’t and some won’t. But in general, we have.

And it is that line, that huge crowd of witnesses that Hebrews 12 mentions, those who have come before us and stand waiting for us in heaven, that keeps us going strong.

I do not want to let them down. Neither do I want to let my Father down.

So I remain strong and in that line of faithful and I remain faithful. And I serve God.

our apartment in germany

The bed you have made is too short to lie on. The blankets are too narrow to cover you. (Isaiah 28:20)

Our apartment in Germany was so small. How small was it, you ask? It was so small that we had to go out in the hall to change our minds. Ba-dum-dum. Thank you. I will be here all week.

Seriously, though, it was small, probably no bigger than our current living room, which is not very big itself.

But we were newlyweds and really didn’t care at the time. We were together, we were in a fascinating foreign country, eating interesting food (when we could afford it – a GI’s salary was not very big), seeing things we had only read about.

We had a red 1962 Volkswagen with a sun roof and drove around all the time. If we were not driving, we walked, or rode the electric streetcars or the electric trains.

It was great. I had learned some German, Ella was from a German background and looked like everybody else and we would just go out and try to blend in. Of course, I was about six inches taller than most Germans but still, we got to where we looked downright native.

But back to the apartment. It was $200 a month (almost half my salary) and was on the third floor of a doctor’s house. It had two rooms with a bathroom that almost as big as one of the other rooms. We were fortunate in that, as the rest of the people on our floor had to go down the hall to a bathroom. It had an enormous bathtub that Ella washed clothes in. She hung them up to dry on the radiator.

In the main room was a banquette table with two chairs and a L-shaped bench. That was all the seating. There was a little kitchen inside a cupboard and a cabinet for storage. In the bedroom was an odd shaped bed (longer and narrower than American beds) up against the wall with a chifferobe and a dresser. I had also an old German army footlocker at the bottom of the bed. There was about three feet of floor space to do stuff in.

It had two big windows, one in each of the rooms that had shutter things that would come down and seal in the room with no light.

Across the street was a beautiful park that was attached to a Russian university down the street. Beside the Russian university was a Russian Orthodox cathedral used by Czar Nicholas of Russia when he would come to visit the in-laws, Alexandra’s parents. It was inlaid in gold and had a gold mosaic reflecting pool in front of it. (One of the reasons the peasants revolted against the Russian aristocracy).

In front of the apartment was a small cobblestone drive. We had to park a couple of streets down as there was no parking on the street and I didn’t want to pay for parking in the garage attached to the house.

The apartment was tiny. Ella would sit in the window, as German women would do, and watch people walk by. When I came walking up from the car, I would see her, this cute little 19 year old girl, sitting in the window watching for me. She would wave, I would give back a manly wave. I would climb six flights of stairs (something I did so easily that it amazes me) and I would be home.

We were happy. It was our home, our own. And we loved each other. I miss it. It would be horrible to live in such a small space now, but it was all so new.

daily java

Daily Java:

No one could answer him. And after that, no one dared to ask him any more questions.  (Matthew 22:46)

Near the end of Jesus’ life, the questions from the religious leaders got fast and furious. They were trying their level best to trick him into some open heresy that everybody could hear. But they never could.

Every time he answered them, he would answer them with an obscure reference that dealt with their question perfectly. And he, so often, would preface it with “Have you not read?”

Of course, they had read. They were big men, important in the Jewish faith. They had advanced degrees and loved to show off their learning and education. But they were thinking in terms of entrapment, and Jesus was thinking in terms of God’s will. The two do not go well together.

And when he would answer them in such a way as to make them look foolish, it made them so angry. In fact, angry enough to kill him.

They finally got to the point that they didn’t dare ask him anything else. They were into damage control as it was. The crowds loved Jesus’ ability to skewer the leaders and their self-importance. They loved his ability to make those who were making their own lives hard look foolish.

And what was even better, he did it so easily, considering that he was one of them: just an ordinary guy from somewhere ordinary. Jesus was just a carpenter from a small town. He had never been to seminary, he had never had a lot of formal education.

Yet he had the ability to say just the right thing to shut these people up. And the crowds loved it.

But the leaders hated it. And so the plans for Jesus’ death were born. Not out of noble reasons, or heavy religious thought, but out of jealousy.

For the most part, people get mad at church leaders not because of what they say, but because they themselves are not treated as important. To them, Jesus’ problem was that he did not give them the respect they felt they were due. And they were willing to kill because of the jealousy.

In churches, there are people who feel like they should be in charge. And if not in charge, then respected, looked up to, made to feel important. And if they are not, they are willing to drive the preacher and his family out, tear the church up, rip and shred.

Their own desire for preeminence is greater than their desire for the will of God.

They were then, and they are still today.

How it must break Jesus’ heart.

finding my wife

Then the LORD God made a woman from the rib, and he brought her to the man. “At last!” the man exclaimed.  (Genesis 2:22-23)

It was April 6, 1969, Easter morning, when I came to the Sun Valley Church of Christ and found my wife.

We had seen each other three times before and the third time we just didn’t click. But I gave it one more chance.

I had gotten a job with the Telephone Company and moved to Houston, TX, and gotten an apartment. I moved on Friday since at that time the Telephone Company employees (as were most companies) were off on Good Friday. I hung around town on Saturday, and then decided to give her one more chance.

I was extremely early that Sunday, as I usually am and always have been. I sat around for an hour before anyone else showed up. Her family was the first.

She got out of the car and was wearing a delft blue dress (white with a soft blue pattern). I was wearing my usual church clothes: black pants, white shirt, tie and a black and white checked sport coat. Mr Cool.

She was surprised to see me. I am not sure she knew for sure that I really was planning to move there or if that was just a line.

That night, I picked her up to go with me to church. Before church, we went and got ice cream at Baskin Robbins 31 Flavors. She was wearing a pink dress with pearlescent hose. The dress was kind of short and rode up when she got out of the car. She was embarrassed. I looked.

We hit it off great. In fact, I had supper at her house that next Thursday night (I ended up eating there almost every night). And our first date was the next week – on a weeknight! – when we went to Piccadilly Cafeteria for supper. Her friends were astounded, her parents were perplexed. She had always been such a shy girl and now dates on a school night. Fortunately she was an honor student so her grades were no problem.

Our first real date was to the Jr-Sr Prom alternative the Houston area Churches of Christ had each year. It was a formal affair. I wore a white dinner jacket (like the one James Bond wore), she had a yellow formal with long white gloves.

One of my favorite pictures is me trying to pin her corsage to her dress. I had never done that and hadn’t a clue how. We finally made it.

It was an all night affair, a formal dinner at a fancy hotel ballroom to begin with followed by bowling and then with a movie – Funny Girl.

The night ended with breakfast at a church about 6 in the morning. I went to sleep driving on the way home and we almost crashed. We stopped at a Dot Coffee Shop for a break.

As many things do in life, it seems so short ago. But it was forty-three years ago this April.

Life goes so fast. We dated, I got drafted into the army, I came home and we got married and lived for six months in Germany, we came home. I worked a few jobs then went to seminary and started preaching. The children were born, grew up and got married themselves. My hair has turned gray, hers is going.

And I still look when her dress comes up.

The Lord God made her for me and when I saw her, I said “At last.”