daily java

Daily Java: 

 There is a path before each person that seems right,but it ends in death. (Proverbs 14:12)

What do you do when past sins were fun and you had a good time doing them?

My drug experiences in the late 60's and early 70's when I was in the army were fun. I had a good time and remember them as a good time. Yet they were wrong. So what do I do when past sins are remembered as fun?

The thing is, whether they were fun or not, they were wrong. As the scripture above says, sometimes things just seem right but they aren't. They are wrong whether I liked them or not..

So my acid trips and my other excursions into drug use were wrong, even though they seemed like fun.
Yes. They were wrong no matter how good they felt.

Debbie Boone sang a song in the 70's that said “How can it be wrong when it seems so right.” The problem is, it can be wrong as hell and still seem right because when it comes down to it, you are not rational when you are doing wrong. You are in a different mindset that does not consider the things of God.

When you are stoned, you think you are king of the world. You think everything revolves around you and around your desire to do whatever it is you are doing. It really doesn't matter to you at the time that you are sinning against the grace of God. You are having a good time.

And quite frankly, you are not in the best frame of mind. When you are stoned, you are altered and you are in no condition to make any kind of judgments.

So what you are doing, no matter how great it feels, if it is wrong it is a sin and you need to repent.
The problem is, it is hard to repent of a sin that felt great.

But as the scripture says, what feels right to you is not necessarily right. It may end in death. Even though it felt great at the time, it was wrong. Recreational drug use is wrong, drunkenness is wrong, immorality is wrong – all these things are and were wrong even though you did them when you were young and stupid.

So you have to look at the word of God to see what is wrong and train your heart to do the right things.

Does God make allowances? Yes, I believe he does. But, on the other hand, do you really want to depend on whether or not he makes allowances for youthful stupidity? Do you really want to take that chance?

The drug use I did when I was in the army was wrong, no matter how much fun I had doing it. So what I need to do is repent, even though it is hard to do. I didn't feel that I was doing wrong even though I was.

Father, save me from my own stupidity, past and present. Save me, Lord. I praise you and depend on your grace to save me from my own inadequacy. I praise your name.

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Daily Java:

Listen! The Lord’s arm is not too weak to save you,
    nor is his ear too deaf to hear you call.
It’s your sins that have cut you off from God.
    Because of your sins, he has turned away
    and will not listen anymore. (Isaiah 59:1-2)

Calvin Coolidge was known for his economy of words. He didn’t say much. When he went to church one Sunday, someone asked him what the preacher spoke about. He replied “Sin.” When they asked him what he said, President Coolidge said, “He was agin’ it.”

God is against sin, no matter the form or the reason behind it. And because we are sinful people, he has to be against us. He doesn’t want to be, but he has to be. Sin is directly contrary to his nature, that nature of holiness.

That is why Jesus came, to take away our sin by his sacrifice and to bring us back into the presence of God as we were before the fall in the Garden of Eden. Jesus takes away sin. When we are in Jesus, we are free from sin.

That doesn’t mean that we can do what we want, but it does mean that when we mess up, and we will, God looks at us through the prism of his Son, Jesus, and sees us as sinless.

Our response is to remain as good as we can be. To be, as Jesus said, perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect. (Matthew 5:48). We know that we cannot be sinless, but we try to be. We do it because we love him.

The world has been taken over by sin. You see it everywhere in everything. Music is full of it, movies are chock full of it, our children reflect it in their language and the way they talk to each other, it is apparent in our music and even in our business dealings with each other. Sin has weighed us down and there is nothing we can do about it except to accept Jesus and his grace.

And above all, we have to recognize that sin for what it is. The apostle John said in 1 John 3:4-5: Everyone who sins is breaking God’s law, for all sin is contrary to the law of God. And you know that Jesus came to take away our sins, and there is no sin in him.

Sin is real and it tears up your life and your heart. Sex outside of marriage, drunkenness, greed, embezzlement, lying – all are tearing your life up. The only thing that can put your life and your heart back together is Jesus. He came to take that sin away.

The world sits in sin and wallows in sin because it will not recognize that power of Jesus. But God is able to take it away when you accept him into your heart, when you allow him in.

Everybody sins (Romans 3:23), even really good Christians that come to church each week (1 John 1:8). The only ones who are without sin are those who have given their hearts to Jesus and trust him.

God is agin’ sin but he is not agin’ you. He loves you and never intended you to be in sin in the first place. His arm will pull you back in, his grace will remove that sin, his love will accept you.

Let him do it.

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Daily Java:

Haughty eyes, a proud heart, and evil actions are all sin. (Proverbs 21:4)

The Bible says it is the attitude that will condemn you, not just the action.

In other words, you haven’t actually done a bad thing. But you sat around thinking about it. You are just as guilty. You haven’t taken things from poor people to enrich yourself, but you look at them as if you were better than they. So the guilt is there as much as if you actually stole from them.

What does that mean? Does it mean thoughtcrime – a word coined by George Orwell in the book 1984 – has been invented by God? We may not do something but because we thought of it, we are guilty and going to hell?

No. What it means is that you can keep the body clean but unless you also keep the mind clean, it does no good. It also means that legalism will not save you. Simply by not doing something you are not made holy. Your holiness comes from your attitude, from your heart, from the very way you conduct yourself.

God is not looking for ways and reasons to send us to hell. If he had been, we all would have gone long ago. If he had been, it would have been a waste of time to send Jesus to die for us to bring us back to him.

It was Jesus himself who said he did not come to condemn, but to save. It was he who said he had come to bring people back to the Father.

If it were true that he was looking for reasons to send us to hell, why bother with the bringing back part? Just forget it, look around for those who had managed to not actually do anything and save them.

That is what we do with politicians. We are looking for those who have never done anything wrong (and maybe never really done anything period). Maybe they are greedy, or grasping, or lustful, but they have never actually been caught in a sin so they are fine.

God looks at the heart, not at the actions. He knows the actions are going to be bad because we have all sinned. We start off sinning. We’re lost from the beginning. So what is the point of trying to pretend we are anything we aren’t?

It is the insides, not the outsides that will save a person. I would rather have a child who makes a lot of mistakes but whose heart is good than a perfect child with no real feeling for me either way.

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.

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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:

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:

The serpent was the shrewdest of all the wild animals the Lord God had made. One day he asked the woman, “Did God really say you must not eat the fruit from any of the trees in the garden?” “Of course we may eat fruit from the trees in the garden,” the woman replied. “It’s only the fruit from the tree in the middle of the garden that we are not allowed to eat. God said, ‘You must not eat it or even touch it; if you do, you will die.’” (Genesis 3:1-3)

She was naked. And scared. The moment she and Adam ate that fruit, she knew it.

And now they had to hide.

He was embarrassed. He had done something wrong for the first time in his life, and for the first time, felt guilty. And scared. And naked.

They never had worn clothes but it had never mattered. Now it did.

He and Eve were standing looking at the Tree Of The Knowledge Of Good And Evil. It wasn’t in a prominent place in the Garden. It wasn’t even all that big and fancy a tree. The Tree of Life was big and fancy. It also was in the center and everything else kind of pointed to it. The rest of the Garden radiated from it.

The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil was over to the side. It was not on the main road. Even so, the Father had taken them to it when they first came and told them not to eat from it. They could have anything they wanted from any other tree, but not it.

He just told them once, but it, of course, was enough. They knew where the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil was and they knew that it was off-limits.

At first, it didn’t bother them. They lived their lives and were happy. But sooner or later they started coming over to where it was and just looking at it. Adam wasn’t sure why, but it seemed to draw them.

Every evening they walked with the Father and talked and laughed.

But not today. He and Eve had been standing there looking at the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil when the serpent came up and told them how good it would taste and that it would change their lives forever. In fact, when they ate from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, they would be Like God.

Adam was surprised when Eve walked over to the tree and picked a piece of the fruit and bit into it. She handed it to him and, almost as if he were in a dream, he bit into it.

Instantly they knew they had made a mistake. For one thing, the serpent was laughing. For another, they were naked. And the Father was going to be here any minute,

They had to hide.

And they were naked and scared.

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Daily Java:

How can I know all the sins lurking in my heart?
      Cleanse me from these hidden faults.
   Keep your servant from deliberate sins!
      Don’t let them control me.
   Then I will be free of guilt
      and innocent of great sin. (Psalm 19:12-13)

It is amazing what we are capable of, things we end up doing that we never dreamed we would.

I read an article a few years ago by a young man who had participated in a gang rape in a bar. He said he was repulsed by the whole idea, yet the mob mentality was so strong that he found himself engaged in the very act that appalled him. He said it was as if he had no will of his own and was deeply ashamed.

A friend of mine was a policeman in Houston involved in undercover narcotics work. There was rumors of a riot planned in one part of Houston and the police sent in my friend along with several other undercover policemen to see if they could diffuse the riot from inside before it got going.

He told me that the mob moved and began to chant and throw rocks through business windows. He threw a rock and thought, Wait. I am the police. Again, it was as if he had no volition of his own. He became part of the mob without wanting to.

You find some money and keep it, even though you have an idea of where it came from. You say something to hurt someone and wonder afterwards why you would ever do that. You engage in an affair with a woman, even though you love your wife and you cannot figure out how it was you even got started.

You do stuff that is stupid and you think, Wait. I am a child of God! Why am I doing this?

Sin lurks in our hearts. That sounds melodramatic, but it is absolutely true. It is just sitting there waiting for the opportunity to jump out. It is no wonder that the Bible speaks of the devil as a prowling and roaring lion, seeking whom he can devour.

Romans 3:23 says: All sin and fall short of the glory of God. That is for the world, for non-Christians and everybody for that matter. Everybody sins and messes up. It is the way we are made. God made us able to make choices, and the problem is, when the choice is too hard, we make the wrong one. It is human nature.

Even Christians have the problem of sin. 1 John 1:8 says: If we say we have no sin, we are lying and the truth is not in us. That is for Christians.

In other words, everybody sins. Some are saved sinners and some unsaved sinners, but we are all sinners needing the grace of God.

And the bad thing is – if the others are not bad enough – we don’t even know all we do in our hearts, all we are even capable of.

We do both deliberate and hidden stuff all day, both Christian and non-Christian. So if we all sin like this, who then can be saved?

We are not lost by the sins we commit, we are lost by the fact that we have not accepted Jesus and his grace. We are not saved by the sins we do not commit, we are saved by the grace of Jesus.

The Lamb’s Book of Life does not have the things we have done listed in it, it has our names listed. If we are his, our names are there. If not, they are not.

He knew and knows that we sin. It is our nature. But when we take him into our hearts, it changes the nature of our lives. We are no longer ruled by sin. We are ruled by him and his grace.

That doesn’t mean we do not still make mistakes. But what it does mean is that we stand before him clean and pure by his power, not ours. We are free and innocent by his strength. He makes us that way.

Praise his name!

you did something stupid and you didn’t tell anybody

Finally, I confessed all my sins to you and stopped trying to hide my guilt. I said to myself, “I will confess my rebellion to the Lord.” And you forgave me! All my guilt is gone. (Psalm 32:5 NLT)

You did something stupid and you didn’t tell anybody, or at least you didn’t tell your mother. You hide it for sometimes years.

Then one day, you tell what you did. And the relief is immense. If nothing else, you have gotten it off your chest. You no longer have to hide whatever it was.

Sometimes it wasn’t even anything big. You broke a vase when you were five and told your mother you hadn’t. A man came in and knocked it over and laughed because you would get in trouble.

Well, of course, she didn’t believe you. Or maybe you hid it so well, she was baffled for years over whatever had happened to whatever it was.

But when you told her, you were relieved.

Maybe it is something you did to a friend that hurt them. You never told them it was you. They may have suspected but it sat there. And one day you tell your friend it was you. Even though it may damage your relationship irrevocably, still it had to be said.

Even though there is hurt, there is also relief.

The same holds true with God. You have done things that have hurt you spiritually, that have damaged your relationship with the Lord. You hide them. Even though it is impossible to hide from God, you pretend that you do.

Then one day, it all breaks out and you confess to the Lord what you have done wrong. And when you do, there is forgiveness.

Of course, there is forgiveness anyway. God forgives. Forgiveness is not dependent upon your asking. If that were so, then we are saved by works. God sees our hearts and knows how we are. And he knows our weakness.

But he also wants to hear from us that we are sorry for what we do wrong. Just like anybody wants to hear I’m sorry from someone who has done wrong to them, God wants to hear it.

And when we tell him, he has already forgiven. When we ask, we accept that forgiveness. And all of our guilt is gone.

He forgives when no one else will. He loves when no one else seems to. He accepts when everyone else rejects.

And he is with us forever.

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Daily Java:

David replied, “I fasted and wept while the child was alive, for I said, ‘Perhaps the Lord will be gracious to me and let the child live.’ But why should I fast when he is dead? Can I bring him back again? I will go to him one day, but he cannot return to me. (2 Samuel 12:22-23)

King David had an affair with a neighbor and had her husband killed so he could marry her after she became pregnant. The Lord was angry with David. They had a son, who became ill. As David waited for the son to live or die, he fasted, lay on the ground – all of the things that an ancient Hebrew would do to show penance for his sin.

The son died. When David found out, he got up and cleaned himself up, worshiped the Lord in the temple and sat down to eat. His people asked him, why are you not sad anymore? His response was the scripture above.

In essence, he said: it’s all over and there is nothing I can do. So life goes on.

And it does. I am the world’s worst to think about things in the past and wish I could do them again. But it does no good.

Now that is easy to say but intensely hard to put in practice. There is no way to change the past, but we sit and dwell on it.

Omar Khayyam in his book the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam wrote something that is so true.
The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,
  Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
  Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it.
What happened to you thirty seconds ago is as irretrievable as something that happened in Napoleon’s time. Both are in the past. Both are totally unreachable and unchangeable. And to weep over them is futile.

However, it also human to weep over past failures.

All we can do is to say that what we did, if it was wrong, we will not do again. It is called repentance. And we may suffer consequences, as David did. He kept his wife, Bathsheba. But he lost so much more. If nothing else, he lost the knowledge that he was a good man.

You cannot get that back. You can still be a good man, you can still do god things, you can never do that again. But you know how you are now and you know what you are capable of in the midst of your own lust.

David gained a knowledge of his ability to be bad, a glimpse into his inner heart.

And there was nothing he could do about it. It was in the past.

All he could do was go from there and do the best he could.

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Daily Java:

O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting? For sin is the sting that results in death, and the law gives sin its power. But thank God! He gives us victory over sin and death through our Lord Jesus Christ. (1 Corinthians 15:55-57)

The death of Jesus looked like the end. The apostles were discouraged, the followers were ready to quit, the devil thought he had won a mighty victory. As the song goes, the demons of hell began to cheer, but little did they know that their end was drawing near.

When Adam sinned in the Garden of Eden, he saddled all of humanity with the knowledge of sin. All sin, Romans 3:23 says, and all fall short of the glory of God. And because we sin, we have no access to that Tree of Life that Adam and Eve were able to eat daily. When they ate the fruit of that tree, they were able to live forever.

But when God took them away from that Tree of Life, they began to die.

It took them a long time to die at first. They were still too close to the handwork of God in the creation. They lived for almost a thousand years. When God made something, he made it well. But even though they were very long-loved, they still began to die.

What a shock it must have been when someone caught the first illness, the first cold. When fatigue set in for the first time, or there was hunger, or even a cut. What a shock to see their blood flowing out.

They knew they were mortal now. And when the first person died, they knew that one day they too would die.

And everybody would one day die, because of sin. Including Jesus.

But Jesus didn’t sin (1 Peter 2:22). He did nothing wrong, yet he was mortal and as such would die.

Here was an anomaly. He didn’t sin, so he didn’t participate in what all humanity has in common: sin. Yet he was human, so he had to participate in another thing humanity all has in common: death.

But there is the power. When he died, the devil knew that he had him in his territory now. Death is the realm of satan and he has power there.

Or so he thought.

Because of his sinless life, Jesus was not bound by the fact of sin in his life and the tie all humanity has to Adam. Even though he was human, he didn’t have that tie of sin.

There was no reason for death to hold him. And God brought him back. He was under the power of God. He was shown to be the Son of God when he was raised from the dead by the power of the Holy Spirit (Romans 1:4).

Because of that defeat of death (the one he talked about in Matthew 16:18: all the powers of hell will not conquer it), he gives us the power to overcome through him.

His strength is great enough to compensate for our weakness. We do not have to stay dead any more than he did. He had to die because he was human, so do we. But because he was also God, he didn’t have to stay dead. Neither do we through his grace.

It is only through grace we can come to God. Law gives power to sin, but grace ignores sin. By the death of Jesus, we gain life. And in that life, we gain grace.

taking drugs for my mri

Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a huge crowd of witnesses to the life of faith, let us strip off every weight that slows us down, especially the sin that so easily trips us up. And let us run with endurance the race God has set before us. We do this by keeping our eyes on Jesus, the champion who initiates and perfects our faith. Because of the joy awaiting him, he endured the cross, disregarding its shame. Now he is seated in the place of honor beside God’s throne. Think of all the hostility he endured from sinful people; then you won’t become weary and give up. (Hebrews 12:1-3 NLT)

I had an MRI the other day. It isn’t usual for me. In fact, I have only had two in my life.

But I have always been wary of MRI’s. they are enclosed and I do not like enclosed spaces. When they talk about giving me one, I always tell them that if I start feeling claustrophobic, I will break the machine getting out. So they begin to make adjustments.

It also doesn’t help that I am 6’3” tall and 280 pounds. Most MRI machines are pretty small.

The first one I had was no problem. The place had a big and tall MRI so it was fine. It was close to my face, but it was open on the sides so I cold move the arm they weren’t checking. I could scratch my face, etc. that didn’t bother me.

The technician also gave me earphones to listen to. That was good. I just kind of got lost in the music and the time went by faster.

This time, they didn’t have a big and tall MRI. It was just a regular one. I made the usual comment about breaking the machine if I got claustrophobic so the doctor assured me that I would have some pills to help calm me down.

And they did. They gave me Xanax, which I had never had before. I was to take two pills an hour ahead of time and one more right before I went in.

Needles to say, they worked.

I have not been that stoned since the early 70’s. It was amazing.

I began to feel them work on the way over to the VA. When I sat down in the waiting room, I took the other. I could feel them kicking in.

The techs led me into the room and I laid down on the bed, or tray , or whatever.

Then came the moment of truth. I began to slide into the MRI head first. The MRI was looking at my back so all of my upper body had to be inside.

I heard the beeps and boops and noises associated with it and they pulled me out. I found out later that I had been in there for 45 minutes. That is truly hard to believe.

When I stood up, I was stoned to the gills. I looked around and noticed my hand moving – all the stuff a druggie does. The two techs looked at me strangely. They had a wheelchair for me, but I didn’t want one. I wanted to walk. I was cool and about nine feet tall.

And I did. Ella was in her scooter so she held my hand as we went to the car. I put her scooter in the back then got into the passenger seat and we went home.

It took the entire day to go away.

Now here is the bad part. It was great. I loved it.

And that makes me feel guilty.

Just about the time that you think you have things put behind you, they come back and bite you on the rear.

There was a time in the army when I would put almost anything into my mouth. I tried a lot of stuff and spent a lot of time high. I had a lot of problems especially with prescription drugs in Germany. Much of that was due to the extreme availability. There was a dispensary on base that would give you just about whatever you wanted with almost no questions asked. And many was the time that I felt like I did Monday at my MRI session.

Once a couple of years ago, the doctor was talking to Ella about all of her pain medications. She takes a lot of heavy stuff. I asked him about whether or not she would get addicted to them.

He said, no, she would get dependent on them. What’s the difference, I asked? His answer: a person who needs them to function in life like Ella does because of her pain, will get dependent. They need them because of the physical problems.

On the other hand, he said, a person gets addicted when he wants them. He wants the high, he wants the help in his mental attitude he feels they give. He wants to feel high.

I am an addict and I have to be real careful in my life. The VA sends me a bucketful of Hydrocodone each month for arthritis pain. And it would be so easy to disappear into that pill bottle. It sits almost mocking me.

And I keep it near to show myself that I take the pills, the pills do not take me.

I am over forty years removed from that time, yet it still can afflict me.

daily java

Daily Java:

But Israel violated the instructions about the things set apart for the Lord. A man named Achan had stolen some of these dedicated things, so the Lord was very angry with the Israelites. Achan was the son of Carmi, a descendant of Zimri son of Zerah, of the tribe of Judah. (Joshua 7:1-2)

When I was in the army, in basic training, it was drilled into us that we were responsible for each other. If one of us fell and was wounded, the others didn’t go off and leave us. It hurt the group, but we were shown that the group was important, not just the individuals.

That was well known by snipers. If there were three men on patrol, the sniper would wound one, and the other two were hampered by the fact that they were responsible for each other.

It would have been a lot easier to shoot our wounded. But that would have required a measure of ruthlessness and disregard for human life that we, as Americans, do not have.

Joshua told the Israelites that Jericho was all God’s. It was the first city in the land of Canaan that they encountered, so it was considered the first fruits of the Canaanite campaign. It was all God’s. And it was all to be burned up in a great big sacrifice to him.

But Achan, one man among six hundred thousand men, found some good stuff in there and wanted to keep it on the sly. So he hid it and everybody went on about their business.

The next city was a little town named Ai. It was small enough that Joshua just sent 3,000 men to fight it. They were roundly defeated. The Ai fighters chased them away easily.

Joshua knew something was wrong. He and the elders asked the Lord what was wrong. The Lord told them that someone had taken things that were holy to him and for that reason the entire nation would suffer.

They bought everyone before the Lord, first by tribes, then by clans, then families. You can imagine the dread Achan felt as it got closer and closer to him, then when the divine spotlight was turned on him specifically.

What had he taken? Not really all that much when you think about it. A beautiful robe from Babylon, 200 silver coins, and a bar of gold weighing more than a pound.

That was a fair amount of money, but when you consider the amount of wealth the Israelites were carrying anyway (they had more than enough to make the gold calf and to trim out the tabernacle beautifully with woven gold), his little bit was not all that much.

Besides, where would he have worn the garment? The minute he went outside in it, everyone around him would recognize it as an illicit item.

But the desire to get something blinded him. and it got him and his family killed.

The same thing happened to Ananias and Sapphira in Acts 5. They wanted prestige more than anything else and lied to get it. And they died.

In both of these instances, the people of God were at a crossroads. In Achan’s case, it was whether or not the Lord would put up with disobedience in his new Kingdom. In Ananias and Sapphira’s case, it was also whether the Lord was serious about what he said. And in both these instances, the people involved died.

In Acts 5:11, it says Great fear gripped the entire church and everyone else who heard what had happened. And you know that the Israelites realized the severity of disobeying the Lord.

But the point is, if one sinned, all were affected. In 1 Corinthians 5, Paul told the Christians there that they were sinning as a group. They had allowed things to go on in the church there that were wrong and not only were they not sad about it, they held it up to show their “diversity and tolerance.”

The issue here was a man who was living with his father’s wife. But because of their allowing him to continue his association with them, they also had other problems creeping in. Before long, as is always the case, they began to have people who were greedy, or worshiping idols, or abusive, or drunkards, or cheating people (1 Corinthians 5:10).

The church suffered because of the sin within. Paul said to not only remove themselves from these people but, Don’t even eat with such people (1 Corinthians 5:11).

Sin kills a church if allowed to continue. Sin would have killed the Israelites faster than they died anyway if allowed to go from the very start. Sin would have killed the church if allowed from the very start. Sin was killing the Corinthian church in 1 Corinthians 5.

So what do we do? I am not sure how far we can go, but one thing for sure, the churches in America that are growing are the ones who have a strong sense of morality and responsibility in their assemblies. The ones that are dying are the ones that have compromised and allowed people to just do what they want.

There is a backbone situation here. Do we have the courage of our convictions needed to show the world the reality of God and his grace?

We can do that without being judgmental.

I thought the answer that Rick Warren, the well-known pastor of Saddleback Community Church in California, gave one day when being interviewed on one of the cable news programs was great. They complained that his interpretation of the Bible was too harsh, and he said, “I’m sorry. I didn’t make the rules.”

All we can do is the best we know to do and to show the world that God is real, and that his standards are real. Otherwise, all the world sees is a bunch of people that are no different from them.

The people of Israel knew this, the early church knew it and the Bible says it.

daily java

Daily Java:

Then the chief priests and the elders of the people assembled in the palace of the high priest, whose name was Caiaphas, and they plotted to arrest Jesus in some sly way and kill him. “But not during the Feast,” they said, “or there may be a riot among the people.”  (Matthew 26:3-5)

A new pastor comes into a church that has had problems. Some of the members have been allowed to do what they wanted and felt empowered to be in charge. The new pastor does not recognize their presumed authority. And they become angry.

They work as hard as they can behind the scenes to break the pastor’s influence. They constantly complain, gripe, caterwaul about everything that is done, no matter how minor. They are a thorn in the flesh to the pastor and to the church.

Finally, one day they realize they are not going to reclaim their former position. They leave in a large loud manner, telling the pastor how inadequate he is, using terms and descriptions of his abilities and efforts that they know will hurt him.

And then they leave, many times taking their unwilling and embarrassed families away from their church homes. Then they try their best, after they have left, to siphon off members. There is a big turmoil in the church. Younger members who are weaker leave because they cannot stand the stress and end up not going anywhere. The church is reduced in number and in influence in the community.

All because one or two men did not get what they wanted.

People are willing to destroy the church rather than not get what they want.

Something pretty bad happened to us several years back. I said they really didn’t understand what they were doing. My son disagreed vehemently. He said they knew what they wanted. I said, yes, they knew what they wanted and they worked to get it. But they didn’t really understand what they were doing.

Like the chief priests and elders above, they were doing what they thought was the way to handle church things.

The Jews had always killed the prophets who told them things they didn’t want to hear. Jesus said this same thing in Matthew 23. It was their “business as usual” attitude.

People who come in the church do the same. Sometimes it may be underhanded and clandestine, sometimes it may be overt and outright. Whichever way it is, it is sin.

People who tear up a church and try to kill its influence and the influence of the pastor are sinning. If you do not like something, leave. To spread discord and rumor, to oppose at every turn is sinful and those who do it are in danger of the kingdom of God.

It is an odd blindness, a spiritual bondage. And if not corrected, the people who do it may find themselves in hell.

was Jesus aware that he was sinless?

Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has gone through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to the faith we profess.  For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are — yet was without sin. Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need. (Hebrews 4:14-16)

Was Jesus aware that he was sinless? Did it ever occur to him?

Jesus was after all, supremely human. Although he was the son of God, he was still human. As such, he was, as Hebrews 4 says, subject to sin as we are. Yet he didn’t sin.

1 Peter 2:22 says He committed no sin, and no deceit was found in his mouth. He lived as a human, subject to the same temptations and problems as we are, yet he never even told a lie. He never sinned. He was sinless.

He had to be sinless in order to be the perfect sacrifice. But in order to be sinless, he had to have the capability to sin, or it would have been worthless. The whole incarnation would have been worthless if he could not have sinned or if it was easy to not sin.

After all, Hebrews says, he is like us, tempted in every way, yet without sin. If it were easy, that statement would have no power. If being sinless was something so easy, he yawned at it, it would be worthless.

But did he know he was sinless? As he started each day, did he say to himself, Well, I better be careful today. I don’t want to blow all the stuff God has given me to do.

Did it even occur to him that he had not sinned? I believe he found out the mission God had given him when he was baptized by John the Baptizer. It was that realization, I believe, that drove him to the wilderness for 40 days.

In the wilderness he came to grips with what he had come to earth to do. but I believe he didn’t know when he would die or necessarily many of the events surrounding his death, or even, at first, that he would die.

It became apparent that he would. He began to mention it as he goes on, especially after he has gotten a couple of years under his belt. But that wouldn’t take divine knowledge. He knew the religious people hated him and murder was their modus operandi.  So that wasn’t out of the question.

But did he know he was sinless? Was it a conscious effort? Or did he have such a relationship with God that he remained sinless?

I read a book in which a man went to heaven. After a bit, he found out he was a saint. He said, I never wanted to be a saint. The angel near him said, Oh, we never let people be saints who want to be. Nobody campaigns to be a saint. You are because of your life.

The same goes for people who campaign to be leaders in a church. Paul says for one to desire to be a bishop is good, but not necessarily that he campaigns to be. Those people are position junkies, not leaders.

I don’t think Jesus knew he was. If someone had told him, he probably would have been surprised. He did all the things humans do, yet never sinned. He had the perfect fusion of God and man and it all worked together well.

It may have been easy, or that might explain the long periods of time he spent in prayer. I don’t know.

But he was sinless and because of that has the mandate from God to make us sinless. That’s good enough.

daily java

Daily Java: All who rely on observing the law are under a curse, for it is written: "Cursed is everyone who does not continue to do everything written in the Book of the Law." Clearly no one is justified before God by the law, because, "The righteous will live by faith." (Galatians 3:10-11)

Law never saved anybody. The only thing law can do is point out what is wrong.

When trolling for speeders on the highway, the police no option for releasing you from their tickets if you have been speeding. All they do is punish. All the law can do is punish. That is not because the law is bad. We need law. It is just because that is the way all law is built.

That’s because there is no mercy built into law, only the pointing out of what is wrong. Law tells us that this is wrong, or that is wrong, or this other is wrong. The only way to be redeemed under any kind of law is to never do anything wrong in the first place. Under law, you cannot be good by doing stuff, if you have broken a law. It is impossible.

Yet we have all done wrong things. Someone says, Well, I’m a good person. I’m a lot better than the guy next to me. But so what? A policeman gives a ticket to the guy going 10 miles an hour over the speed limit just like he does to the guy going 30 miles an hour over the speed limit. Both are lawbreakers. The fine may vary by the speed but both get a ticket.

We all stand before God as lawbreakers. If you have ever told a lie, any lie, no matter how small or well-meaning, you are a lawbreaker. John 8 says that the devil is the father of all lies. Revelation 20 says that those who go into the lake with fire and brimstone will be accompanied by all liars.

If you have ever lied you are a lawbreaker and your chance of being saved by being a good person is nil, zip, zero, nada – none.

If you have ever stolen anything, the same is true, even if it is a grape in the grocery store. If you have ever broken a law – even a minute one like speeding or lying on your income taxes even a little bit, adding some stuff to your resume,  anything – you are guilty. 1 John 3:4 even goes so far as to say, Everyone who sins breaks the law; in fact, sin is lawlessness. Law is law, no matter how small the infraction. We all have done bad things. Some big, some small, but all have sinned.

So there’s a problem. If we cannot be good, what do we do? The apostle Paul, writing here, says the righteous will live by faith

Faith saves us. We can’t do enough to be good. But we can accept goodness when God gives it to us.

God makes us perfect and gives us grace. He never meant for us to try to keep some system of rules. He knew we couldn’t. After all, he gave Adam and Eve one thing not to do and they couldn’t do it fast enough, even though it meant losing everything they had.

God knows we are weak and he knows there is no way we could keep rules long enough to live our lives. And he wanted us to be with him. So he sent Jesus to be good for us. We are good through Jesus and in that way get to be with God.

As he says in another passage, Thanks be to God for his indescribable gift!

detecting and hating sin

An oracle is within my heart concerning the sinfulness of the wicked: There is no fear of God before his eyes. For in his own eyes he flatters himself too much to detect or hate his sin. (Psalm 36:1-2)

I was just reading an article about Roman Polanski. If you haven’t read about him, he is a filmmaker from the 60’s and 70’s who was caught having sex with a 13 year old girl. Rather than face prosecution for statuatory rape, he ran to Europe. The US has been trying to extradite him for several decades, but the Europeans have thwarted it.

At present, Hollywood is on his side. Their claim is that he is misunderstood and is a genius at what he does (The Pianist (2002); The Ninth Gate (1999); Frantic (1988); Chinatown (1974); Rosemary's Baby (1968), among a bunch of other dubious entries in IMDb.com). Their assetion is that since he has done some stuff that they like, he is exempt from normal people’s rules.

When it really comes down to it, there is a liberal assertion that anyone that is liberal and (allegedly) talented is exempt from the rules that govern regular non-talented people.

One person on TV even went on to say that it really wasn’t “rape-rape” as such. It was different.

And it was different. It was him and not me. If a normal person, a conservative, did something as bad as this, he or she would go to jail almost immediately and society would frown on them mightily.

But if a liberal does it, there has to be a good reason and he doesn’t need to be treated badly. He is, after all, sensitive.

It all goes back to the lack of the fear of God in their eyes, as the Psalmist says here. His self-image is so great that he is unable to see what he is doing wrong. Enough rationalizing and you can be blind to almost anything.

That is what happens when you want what you want to be the defining factor in life, I want this, so therefore, this has to be okay.

It is a sad thing, but it is true. And it will continue to be true as long as we do not fear God. When that fear is missing, and since we have to worship something since we are made that way, we begin to worship what we want.

That is why the apostle Paul said that the knowledge of God is death to those who are not saved (2 Corinthians 2:16). They see it as the death of what they want. They cannot see it as life because they do not have that mindset.

Lord, give me your mind so I can see your will.