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:

When Jesus saw her weeping and saw the other people wailing with her, a deep anger welled up within him, and he was deeply troubled. “Where have you put him?” he asked them. They told him, “Lord, come and see.” Then Jesus wept. (John 11:33-35)

When I was younger and got angry, I would tend to do foolish things. Usually I would break something or hit something. The hitting stopped when I hit a door one day and it dislocated my wrist. I decided that I might could deal with the anger in a better way.

Today I don’t get as angry. I am not sure why, except for the fact that as I get older, I get more in control of some things. I still eat too much, but some things have finally gotten to where I can handle them.

The anger you feel at some problem is real and is not to be dismissed. There are those who would say that a Christian doesn’t get angry.

That is garbage. Jesus got angry. And he not only got angry, he also cried. The anger was from something he couldn’t do anything about. God never intended for people to get sick and die. But here Jesus was with someone he loved who were in grief over another friend of his who had died.

Now Jesus came to raise him back to life. But the whole grief thing got to him. It was just too much. He got angry at all of the trash that was happening in the world. The rage at how unfair things were got to him and he wept because of it.

He even knew one day he would stop it through the power of his resurrection. But it hurt now. He was angry now. He wept now.

But what he didn’t do was put his fist through the door, or yell at people, or break coffee pots (all my older pursuits). He just did what he could and looked to the future.

He also tried to comfort other people. He knew they needed the comfort. And he also knew there was no one to comfort him, but he did it anyway.

He got angry, but angry didn’t get him.

The key is to use the anger to something constructive, to not let it control you. Only a weird person never gets angry. And usually he is lying if he says he didn’t.

Be angry if you need to, but do it like Jesus did. Use it to fuel your desire to do something to change what you are angry at.

Daily Java: 

After this, Jesus crossed over to the far side of the Sea of Galilee, also known as the Sea of Tiberias. A huge crowd kept following him wherever he went, because they saw his miraculous signs as he healed the sick. Then Jesus climbed a hill and sat down with his disciples around him. (It was nearly time for the Jewish Passover celebration.)  Jesus soon saw a huge crowd of people coming to look for him. Turning to Philip, he asked, “Where can we buy bread to feed all these people?” He was testing Philip, for he already knew what he was going to do. Philip replied, “Even if we worked for months, we wouldn’t have enough money to feed them!” Then Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, spoke up. “There’s a young boy here with five barley loaves and two fish. But what good is that with this huge crowd?” “Tell everyone to sit down,” Jesus said. So they all sat down on the grassy slopes. (The men alone numbered about 5,000.) Then Jesus took the loaves, gave thanks to God, and distributed them to the people. Afterward he did the same with the fish. And they all ate as much as they wanted. After everyone was full, Jesus told his disciples, “Now gather the leftovers, so that nothing is wasted.” 13 So they picked up the pieces and filled twelve baskets with scraps left by the people who had eaten from the five barley loaves. When the people saw him do this miraculous sign, they exclaimed, “Surely, he is the Prophet we have been expecting!” When Jesus saw that they were ready to force him to be their king, he slipped away into the hills by himself. (John 6:1-15)

The apostles were always worried about things. What if kind of stuff. What if we don’t have enough to eat? What if people don’t like us? What if we get hurt? What if we fail?

There were a lot of people following Jesus around. In fact, there were enough people around him that there came a food shortage. They wanted to hear what he had to say but there just weren’t enough vendors to keep them fed.

And human nature being what it is, you know there had to be a lot of entrepreneurs around to keep everybody fed. But there were just too many people.  This was a huge crowd.

Jesus turned to the apostles and said something like he usually did: perplexing. “Feed everybody.” “We can’t feed everybody! There are too many. We can’t even get that much money together if we tried.”

Andrew points at a kid who had some food probably for sale. He had probably come up to the apostles and offered to sell it. And it is likely that he was one of many that were selling food. I would imagine, though, that he had sold most of it and just had a little left. Andrew said, here’s a little. But there are just too many. What did Jesus expect? They were only human.

Two ideas here. One was that Jesus expected faith. But he also knew that all this was new to the apostles. He knew that they would not be able to do anything and would be confused by his comment. So he would have to show them.

The other idea was that it surprised Jesus constantly that people around him didn’t have the same approach to the power of God that he did. He knew God could just cause this to happen, to just bring food up for hungry people where there was no food before.

I tend to think it may have been a combination of both. Jesus knew the power of God, yet at the same time he was always surprised by the faithlessness of those who were close to him. Not really faithlessness, I suppose, but lack of faith. There is a difference.

But Jesus was ready to just bring up food and the apostles were looking at what they had on hand: a pathetic amount of material for such a large group of people.

So Jesus showed them the power of God. He blessed the loaves and fish the boy had and began to break it up into pieces. And he broke it and broke it and broke it and soon there was a lot of food where there hadn’t been any..

Not only did he feed the crowd, though, he also had twelve baskets left over., one for each other apostles. He was saying, I can feed this huge group of people and still have plenty left over for each of you. I will not let you alone.

Of course, there were problems come from it. Everybody knew he had conjured the food from nowhere and this was a chance to get into something great, as far as they were concerned. Hang around with him and there will be free food. They were ready for an Occupy Jesus rally.

He knew this and ran. He left them because knew they were just looking at him as a free meal ticket. And he would have no part in that.

But one thing he could do, and he showed the apostles this in spades: he could feed everybody and still have some left over.
 

daily java

Daily Java:

When Jesus had finished telling these stories and illustrations, he left that part of the country. He returned to Nazareth, his hometown. When he taught there in the synagogue, everyone was amazed and said, “Where does he get this wisdom and the power to do miracles?” Then they scoffed, “He’s just the carpenter’s son, and we know Mary, his mother, and his brothers—James, Joseph, Simon, and Judas. 56 All his sisters live right here among us. Where did he learn all these things?” And they were deeply offended and refused to believe in him. Then Jesus told them, “A prophet is honored everywhere except in his own hometown and among his own family.” And so he did only a few miracles there because of their unbelief. (Matthew 13:53-58)

One of the hardest thing for a preacher is to come home. He wants to come home and tell the people he knew what has changed his life. He sees them in his mind responding in amazement that he had changed so much, they want to know what caused the change, through his change he brings more people to the Lord.

But it doesn’t always work that way, even Jesus was to find out.

Instead of a changed person, many of them see a former kid acting silly. They think that he is acting better than he should, and they bring up constantly how he was before he left.

Isn’t this so and so’s kid. I remember when … and the person’s influence is hard to keep.

We want to go back and teach and show and bring the love and grace that so transformed us to those we love, but it just so seldom works that way.

Jesus came back and encountered nothing but opposition. Even though he was the best kid that ever graduated that high school, still people could not get over the fact that he was a home-town boy and, as such, was putting on airs.

In fact, the opposition to Jesus was so strong that he wasn’t even able to do many miracles there. The unbelief was so strong that it even stopped the power of the Son of God.

When Jesus was on the way to Calvary, he told someone that if these people could burn green wood this easily, how much easier it would be to burn dry wood. In other words, if they could accuse and kill someone who was innocent, how much easier it would be to accuse and kill someone who was sinful. If they could kill him, the Son of God, how much easier would it be to do the same to humanity, who was sinful.

The same holds true here. If they could turn aside the best person that little town ever produced, from the best family that ever lived there, then how can we expect to do any better?

Don’t bank everything on going home and telling your old friends how you have changed. They probably will not listen. And it is easier to impugn you and remember your past than it is to acknowledge that you are telling the truth.

daily java

Daily Java:

Then the leading priests kept accusing him of many crimes, and Pilate asked him, “Aren’t you going to answer them? What about all these charges they are bringing against you?” But Jesus said nothing, much to Pilate’s surprise. (Mark 15:3-5)

I read  this today and it has resonated ever since. I put it on my Facebook page and so far have eight people “like” it.

It says: “Don’t ever mistake my silence for ignorance, my calmness for acceptance, or my kindness for weakness.”

I remember the movie First Blood, the first Rambo movie. The main character was arrested by a bully policeman and all the rest of his deputies beat on him until he snapped. The problem was that he said little or nothing and they thought he was weak. I remember telling my son when we watched it that their problem was they mistook silence for weakness. When the strength finally came, it was deadly.

He was quiet but he was not weak. He endured but he was not weak.

When Jesus was before Pilate, he felt no real need to defend himself. He was not guilty, he knew it and those around him knew it too. it was just that they wanted a scapegoat for what they wanted to do and he was handy. They also mistook his quietness in life, his calmness in the midst of trouble and his kindness for ignorance, acceptance and weakness.

They were none of these. Here was a man with the power of God behind him but he felt no need to use it.

I have noticed that real warriors never speak of the wars they have fought. Those who have the real backgrounds are silent. They do their jobs and live their lives with no braggadocio, no noise, no self-adulation. Those who talk the loudest I have found are those who have done the least.

Jesus was silent at his trial, but he knew what was happening and let it do so. He was calm in the face of danger and death, yet he knew that it was because he allowed it to happen that it did. He was kind, even to the point of forgiving those who killed him, but the one thing he was not was weak.

I learned a while back to sit and listen, even when people are railing at me for whatever reason. I no longer get angry or take offense. It is not that I am weak. I don’t think I am. I am a strong man and have no issues there.

But I find I feel no need to answer back, even in the face of recriminations. Answering back does nothing, and quite frankly, I have found, as it was in the case of Jesus, that silence can be as frightening to people as threats. More so really, as you are unspoken. He almost drove Herod mad when he refused to speak. Yes, he died anyway, but it was what he came to do.

I want to say what I have to say and let it be. I came to serve and not to defend. And I suppose that some have mistaken that for weakness. But that is their problem. I stand assured in the power of God and will not fail. He is my strength as he was my Savior’s.

daily java

Daily Java:

You will be my people, and I will be your God. (Jeremiah 30:22)

We have a disobedient cat. Prisca is what Ella named her and she is a beautiful black cat, but in general, she is not affectionate and she is not obedient.

And I hate a disobedient animal around the house. She scratches things, tears up the toilet paper every night, loves to knock glasses off onto the concrete floor where they shatter into a trillion pieces.

She goes where we tell her not to, and won’t do what we tell her to do. In general, she is a disobedient little cat. Now I know cats are different than dogs and all that.

But this one is more so than any other. I suppose that all cats are wired that way. Dogs are eager to please, cats don’t really care either way. They will do it if it is convenient, otherwise no. They trade off being fluffy and figure that is good enough.

But another thing she does. She talks to us. We ask her something and she answers. She is the most conversing cat we have ever had. If you tell her she was a bad cat, she will explain why she wasn’t. If you ask her if she wants something, she will try to tell you. When you come in the door, she is there to say hi.

Sometimes, her attempts at speech appear almost human. It is as if she is trying to tell you something, but there is this species gap between the two of you and she can’t quite bridge it.

But Ella loves her. I personally think she would be a great crock-pot dish, but Ella loves her little Prisca. Stupid cat.

We are not God’s pets. Our relationship is different than that. But in many ways, he is as high above us and we are above Prisca. And in our limited way, we speak to him and he answers.

We too are disobedient. I suppose that if he were a God who would do so, he could look down each day and see us as disobedient. Stupid human, he could shout. You are a bad person! And we would try to explain why we sinned and why we fell short.

But it is because we are wired that way. And he knows it. We do the wrong thing because it is easiest. And when we do, we know we have done wrong.

Prisca knows when she has done wrong, and the phrase “Bad Kitty” will drive her into another room to lie under the bed. I almost imagine her under there saying, no, I’m not a bad kitty.

But the problem is, we are wired bad. And the only way to become good is let God rewire us, to let him change us, make us different. Then and only then can we become useful in his kingdom.

We are not pets, we are children of God by faith in Christ Jesus. And he is our God. And if we let him, we become useful in his kingdom.

blessing people who curse you

The following is an article I wrote for the Read Freedom jail ministry here at Cooper County in Boonville, MO

Bless those who persecute you. Don’t curse them; pray that God will bless them. (Romans 12:9)

What kind of freakazoid would advocate blessing people who curse him? Somebody curses me and I’ll take care of him.

That is normal. But the weird thing of Christianity is that God calls us to something more than normal. He calls us to him. And in him, things are different.

Look at Jesus on the cross. He was dying and people were killing him and it wasn’t his fault. He didn’t do the crime but he was still having to do the time. But he looks down from the cross at those who were making fun of him and he said “Father, forgive them, because they don’t know what they are doing.”

As he is dying he forgives. Then he says, Okay, Johnny, you do the same. (He calls me Johnny because he has known me a long time) I say, how? How do I look at people who want to do me harm and bless them? His answer: I will help you.

And you know what? He does help me. I sure can’t do it myself. As far as I am concerned, hurt me and my family and a shotgun is not good enough for you.

But he says, forgive them. Why? Over in another scripture he says: because I have forgiven you.

But have I done as much to God as they have done to me? Yeah, I guess I have. I have done stupid things, I have broken laws, I have hurt people, I have been, in general, a stupid person. Yet he forgave me.

Now their version of being a stupid person may be different than mine. But even so. God calls us to a different way of looking at things. It is a way of looking at things through his eyes. And in his eyes, he forgives.

But what if they don’t ask? The people at the foot of the cross didn’t ask either. He just went ahead and did it.

And I want to tell you, it is a lot easier to live when the need for revenge isn’t sitting there inside you percolating like sorry coffee, ready to burn your insides up.

That kind of anger and resentment hurts you more than it does them anyway. They live fine with you mad. You, on the other hand, have a lot of trouble being mad for a long time. It will eat you up.

And Jesus came to forgive us. That was why he came in the first place, to forgive us and bring us back to God.

His forgiveness starts with you.

daily java

Daily Java:

Jesus replied, “I assure you, no one can enter the Kingdom of God without being born of water and the Spirit. Humans can reproduce only human life, but the Holy Spirit gives birth to spiritual life. So don’t be surprised when I say, ‘You must be born again.’ The wind blows wherever it wants. Just as you can hear the wind but can’t tell where it comes from or where it is going, so you can’t explain how people are born of the Spirit.” (John 3:5-8)

I was listening to someone trying to explain the nature and trinity of God the other day. It was a silly attempt. The nature  of God is so far above us that we cannot fully explain who he is. We just accept who he is. When we try to pin him down and get him on paper, we reduce him to the explicable. It is impossible to explain God. You can only go so far before you come up against a wall.

The same with the Holy Spirit. He is, after all, God, and again is inexplicable.

Nicodemus, the man to whom Jesus is speaking, asks Jesus for an explanation of how the Spirit works. Jesus said he couldn’t give him one. The Holy Spirit, he says, is like the wind. You know it is there and you can feel it, but you cannot explain it.

I have met people who said that if you can’t explain it, then they would have nothing to do with it. But as Jesus said, you really cannot explain the wind, either.  I worked for the phone company in the early 70’s but I never heard a good explanation as to why phones work, yet I used them. I do not understand electricity even though my father worked all his life for the light company. But I still use it. I have found no one who understands how computers work, but I have three. Five, if you count the phones.

There are lots of things I do not understand that make up an integral part of my life. Yet I use them and accept them. and I know that all these things are man-made. Someone somewhere understands them. but no one truly understands God.

And again, as I have said before, a God that you can understand and graph on a sheet of paper is not a real God.

I know he can make me new, I know he can change my heart, I know he can guide me and keep me safe. I know these things. And these things are enough.

I accept him even though I cannot understand him. And I praise him.

daily java

Daily Java:

And we are confident that he hears us whenever we ask for anything that pleases him. And since we know he hears us when we make our requests, we also know that he will give us what we ask for. (1 John 5:14-15)

Now here is the conundrum. What if he doesn’t give you what you ask for. The Bible clearly says that he hears us and will give us what we ask for. What about when he doesn’t.

I don’t have an answer to this question. I have heard a lot of pseudo-answers. He gives you what you need. Sometimes he says maybe. God knows what is best for you. He is not an order from or a warehouse. I even used that one today in my daily devotional on Facebook.

But the problem is that they are all junk. Theological drivel designed to hide the fact that we do not have the slightest idea how to answer the very real problem.

What happens when you pray for something and you need it, but God doesn’t give it. In fact, it is as if you are praying to a giant void, like your prayers are going no higher than your living room or even church ceiling.

You pray and pray and you fast and ask. You seek the Lord, you read the word, you do everything you are supposed to do and there is no answer.

People always bring up the apostle Paul in 2 Corinthians 11 when he says that he had prayed for healing three times and God finally told him no. “My grace is sufficient for you,” God said.

But that wouldn’t even be bad, if he would just say no. Or I am thinking about it, or later or something. Anything.

But instead, there is deafening silence. Does it mean he doesn’t love you? That he doesn’t care? I don’t think it does. But it sure feels like it. I will have to admit that the idea of a God who does not love us and care for us presents a bleak universe, one I don’t want to live in.

So I know he cares. His word says so, and I believe it. And like the old schmaltzy song says, “If you can’t see his hand, trust his heart.” Sure.

But there comes a time that it becomes more and more difficult to trust that he is there. When there is no indication of it, it gets hard.

Jesus says that our heavenly Father is better than we are as fathers. You parents—if your children ask for a loaf of bread, do you give them a stone instead? Or if they ask for a fish, do you give them a snake? Of course not! So if you sinful people know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give good gifts to those who ask him. (Matthew 7:9-11)

However, I would never ignore my children, never refuse to even give them the time of day. That is what he did to people in the Old Testament like King Saul who had disobeyed him. That is not how he treats his children today. Especially when that child has spent his entire life serving him as a minister, teaching of his love, suffering under the difficulties that come from being a pastor, loving him.

An article today of nothing but questions and problems. And no answers.

daily java

Daily Java:

The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, “Look! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world! He is the one I was talking about when I said, ‘A man is coming after me who is far greater than I am, for he existed long before me.’ I did not recognize him as the Messiah, but I have been baptizing with water so that he might be revealed to Israel.” Then John testified, “I saw the Holy Spirit descending like a dove from heaven and resting upon him. I didn’t know he was the one, but when God sent me to baptize with water, he told me, ‘The one on whom you see the Spirit descend and rest is the one who will baptize with the Holy Spirit.’ I saw this happen to Jesus, so I testify that he is the Chosen One of God.” (John 1:29-51)

It is funny that you can look at something for a long time and then suddenly see it.

Jesus’ mother, Mary, and John’s mother, Elizabeth were close. More than likely, since she was so much older, Elizabeth had died in the time between the conceptions and John’s and Jesus’ adulthoods. But since the two women were close, it is probably John and Jesus knew each other.

And all this time, John had looked at Jesus and just saw his cousin. Then, when Jesus came to be baptized, John realized that he was more that just his cousin. He was the Messiah John had been sent to proclaim.

It probably didn’t surprise him, or shock him. Jesus lived such a life that John’s revelation was more an “Oh, yeah!” moment than anything else.

I was working out in a gym in the middle 1990’s. I had taken a couple of college courses and got a free gym class as part of the deal. So I decided to do weight-lifting. There were all kinds of people in there, and I was ultimately paired up with another guy who wanted to lift a lot. Near the end of the course, he mentioned something, did I like to do that. I said no, I didn’t do whatever he said. he thought back across the time we had been together and said, well, what are you? Some kind of preacher?

I hadn’t told him what I did so I answered yes and then waited for his response. His answer: Oh. That makes sense.

I considered for a moment if he would be shocked. You! A preacher? But it didn’t surprise him and I was glad.

When John saw Jesus, he wasn’t shocked. Surprised, yes. The Messiah had been under his nose all this time, but shocked? No.

John didn’t know what was going to happen now. But he knew his job was to introduce the Messiah in the spirit of Elijah (Malachi 3). And he had done it. How much more would he work and what else would he do for the Messiah? He didn’t know, but he knew this: his main job was through.

It wasn’t any time until he was dead, beheaded by a man  who secretly admired him on the whim of a girl of dubious morality. A sad way to go. But as Jesus said, a great man.