daily java

Daily Java:

When they came to a place called The Skull, they nailed him to the cross. And the criminals were also crucified—one on his right and one on his left. (Luke 23:33)

Today is Good Friday, the day we mourn the passing of the physical body of the Son of God.

It is not the end, but really, merely the beginning.  If begins our life in Jesus, our participation in the Kingdom of God, our place at his table.

There was no way we could touch God. It would be like plugging our toasters into the high wire line. It would explode. The power and goodness of God is too great and we are too sinful.

So he sent his Son. He became human like we are, yet lived his life with no sin. He alone of all that have ever lived can touch God. And because he was human, he can also touch us. He is the bridge between us and God. We touch him, he touches God and through him, we touch God.

It is that power of being able to come into the throne room of God that Jesus brought us in his death.

1 Timothy 2:5-6 says: For there is only one God and one Mediator who can reconcile God and humanity—the man Christ Jesus. He gave his life to purchase freedom for everyone. This is the message God gave to the world at just the right time.

There is no election to decide who will bring us to God. Mohammed, Buddha, Krishna – there are no other choices. It is either Jesus or nobody.

Acts 4:12 says There is salvation in no one else! God has given no other name under heaven by which we must be saved. Jesus alone is our Savior.
As he died on the cross, several things went through his mind. These are seen in the seven last words that he said. In them is all of the sorrow, sadness, humanity and triumph of his death.

Father forgive them, for they don’t know what they are doing (Luke 23:34).
I assure you, today you will be with me in paradise (Luke 23:35-43).
Dear woman, here is your son. Here is your mother (John 19:26-27).
My God, my God, why have you abandoned me? (Matthew 27:46).
I am thirsty (John 19:28).
It is finished (John 19:30).
Father, I entrust my spirit into your hands! (Luke 23:46)

That I can go to meet my God like he did.

daily java

Daily Java:

Then Judas and Silas, both being prophets, spoke at length to the believers, encouraging and strengthening their faith. (Acts 15:32)

I was preaching tonight in a way I haven’t for a long time.

I went to the jail and visited with the inmates for a while. I usually spend about thirty minutes in each pod (those are what they call the small cell blocks – open areas with a metal table and seats and a TV). There are three pods and each pod has between two and seven rooms with double cots. The inmates – unless they are locked down in their rooms for some infraction – congregate in the open areas to talk, play cards or watch TV.

I have been going for a little over a month now, just getting to know them and talking about their problems, taking my time. Some have been there for a long time, some just for a couple of days. Some are gone when I get there that were there last week and I never see them again. One I saw on the street yesterday and he hugged me. I sometimes wonder if I do anything constructive when I go.

In Pod C tonight, one of the inmates asked what Passover was. I suppose that it surprised me since I have known about Passover for my whole life in one way or another. I told them the story of Moses leading the Israelites out of Egypt. I also told them that it was Passover that Jesus was celebrating when he instituted the Last Supper.

They asked about that and I told them how he took bread and wine and told his apostles that remembering him would be a simple thing. No fancy clothes or buildings or dishes – just bread and drink.

We talked a little more about Easter and then I got ready to leave. One of the guys was looking at my Bible (a paper back NLT Bible – we had bought a case the other day) and I asked him if he needed one. he said yes.

I went to the “bubble”, what they call the main control area where the guards are, and asked if I could leave it with him. They were agreeable. In fact, these are the most agreeable guards I have ever been around.

I went back to the pod and gave it to him, inscribing it with his name, my name and the church here in Boonville I was with. He was glad.

Another guy said he wanted one too if it were possible. I told him I would bring it next week and I left.

Probably about twelve to fifteen guys altogether. Thirty minutes in each section with a couple more in one more room where one man is by himself due to medical problems.

I have never really liked going into jails. There is a lot of misery and unhappiness there and it affects me. but tonight, we talked about Easter and the Last Supper and I liked it.

It made the whole thing feel like I was accomplishing something.

Seven Last Words of Christ: My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?

Seven Last Words of Christ: My God, my God, why have you abandoned me? (Matthew 27:46).

Jesus was human as much as he was divine. We forget that. He was conceived by the action of the divine and the human so that he could be part of us and understand how we felt. If he never felt like we do or had problems like we do, it would have been worthless for him to come.

He hurt as we hurt. He felt as we felt. He was hungry and said ouch when he hit his toe like we do. He was like us except that he was sinless. But even though he was sinless, he was no less human.

And as a human, the last thing on this earth he wanted to do was to be whipped and nailed on a cross.

He knew why he would be. And he came for that reason. Yet when it came, I think it surprised him in some ways.

For one thing, he never anticipated the loneliness of desertion by God. He may not have even considered it. But as the Bible said, he became sin so that we could have forgiveness from our sins. For God made Christ, who never sinned, to be the offering for our sin, so that we could be made right with God through Christ (2 Corinthians 5:20-21).

When he took the sins of the world on himself, God couldn’t be with him anymore. God is perfect and holy. In him there is no sin. When Jesus took those sins God had to move away from him.

Jesus knew this when he came. But I really think that the enormity of God being gone surprised him. He had always had a relationship with God. As the Word, he had been with God for eternity. There was no time when they were not in communion with each other. As Jesus, the human Son, he had always been in contact with God in prayer. He had always felt the nearness, the closeness of God in his life.

But as the sin-offering, he now had to endure the absence of God. And he did it so that we would not have to.

Of course, it was not permanent. It was only until he died. But for those couple of hours, he felt the loneliness so many feel when they do not have God in their lives, when they have not invited the Father to come in and be with them in their hearts.

For those couple of hours, he was alone. And it surprised him.

And the human side of him cried out, Wait! Where did you go? Why are you gone?

The divine side knew why God had to go, but the human side was caught by surprise.

And Jesus knew the loneliness that so many know outside of God.

Seven Last Words of Christ: Dear woman, here is your son. Here is your mother

Seven Last Words of Christ: Dear woman, here is your son. Here is your mother (John 19:26-27).

Mary had been through a lot in the past few days. Her son knew it was the end, and while she was not sure of what all was going to happen, she knew that something was. Events were unfolding in such a way that she knew it couldn’t go on like this forever.

Important people were getting angry with Jesus. Jesus also began to talk about dying, that there was something he was going to have to do. The apostles were worried, and so was she.

He had even said plain out a couple of days before, that he was going to die. As you know, Passover begins in two days, and the Son of Man will be handed over to be crucified (Matthew 26:1).

She was afraid. She had remembered what old Simeon said, the priest at the temple where she and Joseph had gone to dedicate Jesus. He had said: This child is destined to cause many in Israel to fall, but he will be a joy to many others. He has been sent as a sign from God, but many will oppose him. As a result, the deepest thoughts of many hearts will be revealed. And a sword will pierce your very soul. (Luke 2:34-35).

Well, she didn’t want a sword, thank you very much. She just wanted to see her little baby grow up and be happy. His brothers and sisters had managed to do that fine, but she had seen early on that Jesus was going to be a different person, not like the rest.

But this was not what she wanted. No! Here he was, hanging in front of her, nailed to a cross, dying, having gone through a terrible beating. And all for no real reason. At least none that she knew. She didn’t know what to do.

She wasn’t going to starve. There were Jesus’ brothers. They were doing well taking care of Joseph’s carpenter shop and all. One of the girls came over every day to help clean and cook.

But her son was dying. How would she live through all this? How could she bear it?

Then Jesus looked down at her. He was really only a few feet up. You could almost see into his battered and bleeding face.

He looked at her and saw her suffering. He was always like that. He could always tell when she was upset, even when no one else could see it. And he wanted to help her.

He knew the brothers didn’t understand. They didn’t realize what was happening. They would later, but she needed the comfort now.

He looked at John. He loved John. He was such a sensitive man. He knew he would help Mary sort all this out, even though he didn’t really understand himself. John was a giving person and would give comfort to Mary.

Through his haze of pain, he said, John, take care of her. and to his mother he said, let him take care of you. The brothers would make sure she had what she needed physically. But John would make sure she had what she needed emotionally, at least until the others came around.

She needed that. And he was more than glad to give it to her. She was, after all, his mother.

Seven Last Words of Christ: I assure you, today you will be with me in paradise

Seven Last Words of Christ:

I assure you, today you will be with me in paradise (Luke 23:35-43).

As Jesus hung on the cross, bleeding his life away, many around him taunted him and laughed. He was hung between two thieves, a snarky little comment by the ones crucifying him, trying their best to minimize him and his death. After all, if he is hung between two thieves, it is guilt by association, right?

One of the thieves took advantage of  the situation and began railing against Jesus himself. The other recognized Jesus for who and what he was. He also recognized that he and the other guy deserved to be punished.

He called out to the other thief, let him alone. We deserve this. He doesn’t.

Then he looked at Jesus and asked would you please remember me when you come in your kingdom. I recognize you. You are the Messiah. Can you overlook my sinful life and just, if nothing else, claim to know me in that great day?

Jesus, through his haze of pain, looked at his fellow dying man and said, I promise you. Today  you will be with me in paradise. It is not long until we both die and I will not forget you.

We are dying, all of us. We begin the minute we are born. And Jesus promises life. As we die, we have to recognize that need for life. When we do, we call out to God, through Jesus, remember me. Claim me. Know me. Love me. See me.

And when we do, Jesus says to us, through his haze of love, today you will be with me in paradise.

Seven Last Words of Christ: Father forgive them

Seven Last Words of Christ:

Father forgive them, for they don’t know what they are doing (Luke 23:34).

He came to bring them back to God, yet they beat him, humiliated him, and nailed him to a cross naked to let him die slowly.

But when he died, and as he died, he said forgive them. They don’t know what they are doing.

But did they? How could he say that? They knew what they were doing. They were killing him because he disagreed with them. He had a different viewpoint than they and was more popular in it than they were so they killed him. They were trying to shut him up.

They wanted nothing more than to stop all dissenting points of view. And that was what he was: an annoying different point of view.

They had done this since their people began. In the Old Testament, prophet after prophet came and told them what God had to say. They didn’t want to listen so they tried their best to stop them.

It never worked, of course, but they tried. And when Jesus came, it was the same. They did not want to hear him, so they tried to stop him. But Jesus realized that they really didn’t understand it all. They thought they were doing business as usual. They thought it was normal to do this. Jesus knew it wasn’t.

He knew they didn’t realize his message and that when they did, they would be sorry they had turned it down. He knew that in a few days, a huge bunch of these people right here today would accept that message and then would feel sorrow for killing him. He knew that.

But they didn’t now. Not yet. And they didn’t realize that a God of love does not operate in an atmosphere of hatred. In this new order, killing is not acceptable. Obedience, like love, has to be from the heart or it is no good.

It was painful to him, beyond imagining. But he knew they just didn’t understand.

When people hurt the preacher in a church because he disagrees with them, when they cause him to be fired, when they try to make his family homeless, it is the same thing. They just don’t understand.

When people split a church because of doctrinal differences and put others out of their assemblies, it is the same thing. They just don’t understand.

When people work behind the scenes in an underhanded way to try to split a church, when they write letters, when they spread gossip or rumors, when they try to drive a wedge, it is the same thing. They just don’t understand.

They think they are doing it the normal way. But they aren’t. Sometimes, of course, they will never understand. Sometimes they will never come to a level of understanding and see what the will of God truly is. But even so, like Jesus said, they still just don’t understand.

Jesus went to his death forgiving those who had hurt him. How can we do any less?

daily java

Daily Java:

The disciples went and did as Jesus had instructed them. They brought the donkey and the colt, placed their cloaks on them, and Jesus sat on them. A very large crowd spread their cloaks on the road, while others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road. The crowds that went ahead of him and those that followed shouted, “Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest!” When Jesus entered Jerusalem, the whole city was stirred and asked, “Who is this?” The crowds answered, “This is Jesus, the prophet from Nazareth in Galilee.”  (Matthew 21:6-11).

Today is Palm Sunday, the Sunday that Jesus rode into Jerusalem. At that point, it would have been easy to let them appoint him king. They were looking for one anyway. The people of Israel wanted a king to deliver them from Roman occupation and Jesus, so far, was everything they were looking for.

But he wouldn’t let them appoint him king. Not yet, anyway. As he told Pontius Pilate at his trial, My Kingdom is not an earthly kingdom. If it were, my followers would fight to keep me from being handed over to the Jewish leaders. But my Kingdom is not of this world (John 18:36).

These people loved him, worshiped him, thought he was the answer from God. They screamed, “Hosanna!” or God save us, praise God. But next Friday, they screamed “Crucify him!” Kill him! Today they love him; Friday, they kill him.

It is weird how crowds work, how mobs think. Only five days from worship to hatred, exaltation to death.

Next Friday they don’t lay palm leaves under his feet, or their coats for him to walk on like a special carpet. Next Friday, he walked the same streets, only this time they spit on him and screamed at him, laughed at him and cursed him. Today is the Triumphal Entry. Next Friday is the Via Dolorosa, the Way of Sorrow. Same road, five days apart.

Five days separate these events. Five days. But next Friday is why he came and next Sunday is what his whole purpose in being here in the first place was going to be.

Next Friday he dies. That man, Jesus, the one who was born of a virgin, who never sinned, who was the incarnate God – he dies. And it was a painful death. His physical side rebelled at it. His physical side asked again, Why? Why have you forsaken me? In the Garden of Gethsemane his physical side was so afraid that he sweated like drops of blood. He was scared, so much so that he couldn’t even sleep the night before.

But next Sunday. That was the whole point. “He broke the bonds of sin and death and he rose up from the grave.” And in so doing, he gave us the chance to break the bonds of sin and death in our own lives and live a perfect, sinless life.

Today was jumping the gun, so to speak. He came to be King, but he came to be King on his own terms. We were not going to make him king. God was going to make him King.

He came to live and die and be raised to give us new life. He came to show us personally and in human form the love of God. He came to seek and save the lost (Luke 19).

Praise him for his coming. He is my King. Hosanna!

Ezekiel – A Wheel In A Wheel

The following is a character study, one of several, that I did for Firm Foundation Foursquare Church in Boonville, MO.

Ezekiel – A Wheel In A Wheel

Sometimes a man comes along who is a true visionary, one who see things that no one has ever seen before. Ezekiel was such a man.

Ezekiel was in Babylon, in captivity with his people. He was thirty years old when he saw the thing that would define his life.

In the middle of a storm, he saw four winged creatures, each with a different face: one human, and the others an ox, lion and eagle. They stood in flashes of lightning shining like fire. Beside each was a tall wheel, shining like a diamond, with another wheel in it facing out. The creatures could turn in any direction. The wheels had eyes all around them. the creatures and their wheels flew around over Ezekiel. Their wings were like crashing waves or the voice of the Almighty.

Then the creatures stopped and lowered their wings and a voice began to speak from a throne of a single blue gem. The figure on it was shining and Ezekiel knew it was the Lord.

The Lord gave him a scroll of what he was to say and told him to eat it. He also told him to know that he would be with him as he told the Israelites what God wanted them to know and that he needn’t be afraid. But first, God said, let all my words sink deep into your own heart first. Listen to them carefully for yourself.  Then he could go and preach what God said.

He abruptly found himself back in Babylon. He sat for seven days considering what God had said and had told him to do.

After seven days, God told him again that he had sent him. But he told him he would go as a watchman. It was he whose job it would be to tell the Israelites where they were going wrong. If they listened, that was good. If not, Ezekiel had done his job.

For years, Ezekiel made a spectacle of himself in front of the Israelites. They knew he was from God, they could see the presence of God in his life and his actions, yet they refused to listen to him.

He did everything he could think to do and all that the Lord told him to do. He used parables, object lessons. At one point he lay on his side for over a year to show them the time they would be in captivity.

He saw visions that were almost unbelievable. He saw a valley of dry bones being brought back to life by the power of the Lord. He saw a river of healing flow across the desert from the temple to the land of Babylon hundreds of miles away. He saw an angel measure the temple and its surrounding area meticulously to show God’s intimate knowledge of his people.

And yet his people would not listen. He wept over their loss and God’s separation from them. At one point his wife died and God would not allow him to mourn her death to show his feelings to the Israelites in their spiritual death.

So much happened to him. No other prophet saw so much. He remained faithful all of his life, always doing what was asked of him.

And it all started with the amazing vision of the wheels within a wheel and the glory of God.

Saul – You Get What You Ask For

The following is a character study, one of several, that I did for Firm Foundation Foursquare Church in Boonville, MO.

Saul – You Get What You Ask For

Everybody else had a king. Everybody. Except for poor, deprived Israel. They were a Theocracy, ruled by God under the direction of a judge. That meant that when all the nations got together for dinner, Israel alone was without a king. And they were embarrassed about it.

They came to Samuel, the current judge and high priest and told him how his sons were unacceptable to them as judges. They said: Give us a king to judge us like all the other nations have  (1 Samuel 8). Samuel went to God and told God that they had rejected him as judge. God said no, they had not rejected Samuel, but had rejected God himself.

God knew that they would want one. Moses had even told them how they were to treat him and how he was to act back in the book of Deuteronomy. But the Lord also told Samuel to warn them what a king would do. He will take your sons and draft them into his army. They will be serfs and servants to the king. He will take your daughters as servants. He will tax you beyond what you will be able to bear. He will not be fair.

But they wanted one. And they got one. Saul was his name, a modest, unassuming, tall young man who didn’t want the job. They pressured him into it and he became their king.

But what a king. He was cruel, manipulative and disobedient to God. He was just about everything Samuel had told the Israelites he would be.

His only real redeeming trait was his son, Jonathan. The Israelites loved Jonathan. And he would have been a good king except for the fact that Saul was so disobedient and arrogant towards God that God turned his back on Saul’s line. Saul became a single king, not the beginning of a line. He was bad enough that God cut him off immediately.

He started off well. He led his people into victory barely a month after his coronation. The Israelites were so happy about it that they were ready to kill anyone who didn’t think he was good. But Saul stopped them, showing mercy.

But Samuel was about to die. He was an old man. Saul knew that sooner or later, he would have to live without Samuel’s oversight. He began to flex his leadership muscles. A short time later, he was ready to go into battle. He had waited for seven days for Samuel to show up to give the sacrifice for the battle. When he didn’t show up, Saul decided to do it himself. When Samuel found out, he told Saul that God would take the Israelite kingdom away from him for his disobedience.

Saul disobeys one more time in a major way and Samuel turns from him, never to see him again. Instead, Samuel goes and finds David and makes him king, then he dies.

To make it worse, the people love David. He has become a mighty warrior himself.

Depressed and full of anger and jealousy, Saul tries to kill David so that God will let him keep his kingdom and give it to Jonathan, his son and David’s best friend.

But Saul dies, as Samuel said. And he loses his kingdom to David.

The people of Israel got a king. But with that king, they got strife, dissension, civil war and a king who not only abused them, but abused their relationship to God.

Sometimes, you get what you ask for. However, it is not always in the form you think.

Hezekiah – Live Long And Prosper

The following is a character study, one of several, that I did for Firm Foundation Foursquare Church in Boonville, MO.

Hezekiah – Live Long And Prosper

What if you were sick and about to die and God gave you ten more years?

He did this with Hezekiah, the last good king of Judah. Hezekiah was a good king who tried his best to do what God had wanted. He was one of a line of both good and bad kings. Some had tried to do what God wanted, some had not cared.

But almost all of them failed in doing the one thing God told them especially to do: get completely rid of all of the pagan altars. Only two kings did that and by the time the second one came along, it was too late for Israel. God had already decided to destroy them.

Hezekiah tried his best to serve God. He got rid of all of the pagan altars, all of the idol worship that so plagued Israel and he began again to give service and worship to God. He was, all in all, a good man and a good king.

But what made him so good was his absolute trust in the power of God.

The King of Israel, Uzziah, had brought Israel (the top ten tribes of the old nation Israel) to the brink of extinction. They had disobeyed God time and again and God was tired of them. on top of it all, Uzziah decided to thumb his nose at the emperor of Assyria, the world’s most dominant empire at the time.

Assyria invaded Israel and conquered them. Then he set his sights on their neighboring tribe Judah (the bottom two tribes of the old nation Israel). He sent a delegation to Hezekiah and told him in no uncertain terms that Hezekiah’s God had told him to invade Jerusalem just as he had invaded Israel. He was insulting and cruel in his comments.

Hezekiah took the letter to God, laid it on the altar and asked God what he was going to do about Sennacherib’s words of defiance against the living God (1 Kings 18). Sennacherib, the King of the Assyrians had even told him that his God, the Lord Almighty, was lying to him about delivering him.

But Hezekiah believed in the power of the Lord and, in many ways due to his belief, destroyed the Assyrian army.

But immediately afterwards, Hezekiah got sick. Isaiah the prophet even told him that the Lord said he would die. This filled him with sorrow and he turned his face to the wall and began to cry. He told God how faithful he had been and how hard he had worked for God.

Before Isaiah even got out of the house, the Lord told him to go back and tell Hezekiah he had ten more years. He even asked Hezekiah what kind of sign he wanted as proof. Hezekiah chose to have the shadow on the sundial to go back ten hours.

Hezekiah was a man of strong belief, of strong faith. He knew what God wanted of him and he did it. He made mistakes, of course. At one point, he took  the ambassador of the new empire, Babylon, through the palace and showed him all the wealth he had. Isaiah told him that because he did that, one day all he had would be taken from his sons and they would become captives.

His thought: at least it will not happen in my lifetime (1 Kings 20:19).

But even though he was a flawed human being, as we all are, he was also an example of the faith that says God will take care of us no matter what, and that we can count on him.