daily java

Daily Java:

At this point many of his disciples turned away and deserted him. Then Jesus turned to the Twelve and asked, “Are you also going to leave?” Simon Peter replied, “Lord, to whom would we go? You have the words that give eternal life. We believe, and we know you are the Holy One of God.” (John 6:66-69)

Jesus had just gotten through saying some things that the people listening found, quite frankly, offensive. He had been saying that in order to be pleasing to God, you had to eat him and drink his blood. He was, of course, speaking metaphorically. What he meant was that you had to take him into your self in such a way that he became part of you. It would almost be as if you ate him and drank him.

A lot of the crowd said, in effect, “Yuck. Gross.” And then said “This is very hard to understand. How can anyone accept it?”  (John 5:60). Jesus knew that his apostles were confused by such raw imagery and some just plain didn’t like it. So he asked them, are you going to leave too? They told him, where would we go? You are the answer to our questions. And we believe in you.

Sean Connery and Audrey Hepburn starred in a movie about the older Robin Hood and Maid Marian. He came back after the Crusades to find her in a convent. As they told each other what had happened in the intervening years, he told her of the atrocities that King Richard had visited on those he fought and the things that he had Robin Hood do. Some of them were baffling, others were appalling.

Marian asked him at one point, why did your keep on doing these things? Robin’s answer: he is my king. What else would I do after a lifetime of service but serve my king.

That has always rang in me somehow. There are things that God has done or left undone in my life that I do not understand. And many things that he has done or left undone that I quite frankly disagree with him over. But I have served him for over four decades. It will not be but a couple of years that I will enter my fifth decade of service to my king.

Someone asked me the other day why I stayed in ministry when things seem to be going so badly. And my answer was like Robin Hood’s. He is my King. Where else would I go? There are no other alternatives, no other avenues of approach, no other ways to serve him. He is my King.

There are a lot of things that I just plain do not understand and a lot that I do not like. But he is my King. And if I serve him as my King, I have to recognize that what he does in my life is up to him. He has used me mightily in the past. Right now, I don’t seem to be doing much. He has blessed us financially in the past. Right now, he has not.

But above all else, he is my King.

Jesus asked the apostles, are you going to leave too? I was going fine and then I said something that you didn’t like so you leave? And to their credit, they said no, we will not leave. For better or worse, you are the Holy One of God.

As we see in politics and everything else today, someone may be a trusted advisor or confidant for years, and then say the wrong thing. When he does, he is pilloried by the press and usually dumped by those who just yesterday thought he was great, simply because they didn’t like what he said.

Sometimes it is good but you don’t want to hear it. Sometimes it may be too hard for you to comprehend. But whatever God says is always good, even when you don’t want to hear it.

In Revelation 10:9-10; the angel give the apostle John a book. It was God’s will and plan in a symbolic fashion.

So I went to the angel and told him to give me the small scroll. “Yes, take it and eat it,” he said. “It will be sweet as honey in your mouth, but it will turn sour in your stomach!” So I took the small scroll from the hand of the angel, and I ate it! It was sweet in my mouth, but when I swallowed it, it turned sour in my stomach.

The word of God is often beautiful, but often harder to do than to listen to. I am convinced that many people prefer the old King James Version of the Bible simply because they can listen to it in comfort and not really understand it because of the outdated language. Modern translations give the word of God in a format that is too easily understood and they don’t want to do it.

The apostles found again and again that Jesus was not just some good philosopher. He was the real thing. And the real thing is sometimes hard to follow.

daily java

Daily Java:

Again a message came to me from the Lord: “Son of man, you live among rebels who have eyes but refuse to see. They have ears but refuse to hear. For they are a rebellious people. (Ezekiel 12:1-2)

You tell your kids something and they stand there glassy-eyed while you do so, but you know and they know that they will not remember it not pay attention to it the moment you stop talking.

It really makes you irritated. And it makes you want to tell them harder, or something, to make it, as Jesus said once, sink into their ears. But it probably won’t.

God told a lot of his prophets that they would be talking to a bunch of people who would probably not only refuse to listen, but would also kill the messenger.

In Isaiah 6, the Lord told Isaiah at his commissioning ceremony that no matter how hard he worked or how long he preached: they will not see with their eyes nor hear with their ears, nor understand with their hearts and turn to me for healing (6:10).

Others he told essentially the same thing. You will go and preach what I have told you to say, but they will not hear you. In fact, they will probably become angry at you for disturbing them and may even kill you. Except for the fact that you have done what I have told you to do, and maybe for the few that hear you, your time will be wasted.

A pastor gets up to speak. He looks over his audience. They sit waiting. Most of them are there because they have always come to church on Sunday morning and now they will sit though a sermon like they have always done, too. Many of them are not interested, in fact have their minds engaged elsewhere. Generally, the majority of the group will not remember a thing when they get up from their seats.

But the pastor preaches anyway. Somebody is going to hear this and respond, he hopes. Someone is going to change from what they are doing to what God wants them to do, he hopes.

After several years and maybe even several decades, he realizes that most of them are not listening. All he is doing, as far as they are concerned, is filling up a space that has always been filled up. He is not really doing any good, just preaching a sermon to people that do not care.

Of course, in both Ezekiel’s and Isaiah’s time, people did hear. And they did turn from what they were doing. But the vast majority didn’t. the vast majority were lost.

That was what Jesus was talking about in Matthew 7:13-14: You can enter God’s Kingdom only through the narrow gate. The highway to hell is broad, and its gate is wide for the many who choose that way. But the gateway to life is very narrow and the road is difficult, and only a few ever find it.

Hearing what God has to say and doing it is hard. Most will not. But some will. And it is the fact that some will that drives preachers and pastors on in doing what they do.

It drove the prophets, it drove the apostles, it even drove Jesus. They knew their success rate would be abysmal. Yet they continued doing what God told them to do.

And God blessed them for it.

daily java

Daily Java:

But don’t just listen to God’s word. You must do what it says. Otherwise, you are only fooling yourselves. (James 1:22)

We knew a  young man named Tim who was mentally challenged. When I met him I found out that he watched Food Channel all day long he knew all of  the Food Channel personalities and could discuss them at length, he knew the shows and watched what they made.

When I asked him if he cooked, he replied, “Nope.” Meals on Wheel came once a day with a little lunch and he would eat that, in front of a really big screen TV. And what is more, he didn’t think it odd in the least that he ate a mass-prepared, unseasoned meal in a foam container while he watched professional cooks prepare very good food.

I also knew a guy who read his Bible constantly. He took notes in a notebook and could quote a lot of Bible. But two things stuck out about him. One was that I have never heard more crackpot ideas about the Bible come from anybody like they did from him. It was almost like the more he studied, the weirder he got. And second, his lifestyle reflected the absolute opposite of what the Bible said.

In other words, all of his studying did no good.

It is like listening to positive mental attitude tapes and remaining depressed. Or reading cookbooks and never cooking. Or collecting maps but never going anywhere.

It doesn’t matter how familiar you are with something, if you do not do what it says, it is worthless to you. If you do not do what the Bible says, all of your knowledge and study is worthless.

You starve to death sitting in front of a plateful of the best tasting food in the world.

Romans 10:17 says So faith comes from hearing, that is, hearing the Good News about Christ. Faith comes by hearing, but there has to be action, too, or all the hearing you have done is worthless.

People go to church for decades yet never become strong in the faith. That is because they hear, but they do not do.

You have to do or the hearing is no good to you. It may be great to someone else, but it will amount to nothing to you.