March 22 thru 28 2009

Sunday, Joshua 5:9; He had been raised a Roman Catholic and for many years he had been very active. His first marriage ended in divorce and after several years he remarried. Because of his remarriage the priest told him that he could no longer participate in the Eucharist (communion). To a devout catholic this was a sentence to eternal damnation, feeling hopelessly lost he dropped out of church. I became acquainted with him when I became pastor of the church his wife attended. Experience told me not to push him too hard (like previous ministers had done) and after a few months he began attending worship services. Our private talks became more centered on his faith, he began to read the Bible and pray, he joined a Sunday School class and turned his life around. But each month when the call to communion was issued he would sit, convinced that the “disgrace” of his past made him unworthy. Then one Sunday as I uttered the ancient formula “this is my blood…” I looked in his direction and saw him holding the cup, his eye caught mine and he held it up in a mini-toast and drank. It was at this point that I knew that the message of grace had finally triumphed over the “disgrace” of his past. Regardless of our past, once the message of God’s grace takes hold of our minds it will roll away all disgrace! Today I have rolled away from you the disgrace of Egypt

Monday, Proverbs 16:3; What do you have to do this week? Write a report? Finish or begin a project? Make sales calls? Manage a business? Handle customers complaints? Respond to people’s problems? Go on an outing with the family? Regardless of what you do, successful outcomes are the result of commitment. You must commit the time, effort and energy necessary to accomplish what you set out to do. As a child of God you should add another form of commitment—that of committing the day and week to Him. When we do this, amazing things can happen. First, we are more cognizant of the fact that we should listen for God’s leadership as we go about our business; second, we more fully understand that what we are doing has been “committed” to bringing honor to God’s name; and finally, we will be wonderfully amazed at the insights and ideas that come to our minds as we seek God’s guidance daily. Commit your work to the Lord, and your plans will be established

Tuesday, Acts 2:28; Who is the one person you feel has given you the mentoring and advice you need to get where you are today? Everyone has such a person in their lives. When you talked to that person about the perplexities of your job or life you were able to draw upon the wisdom of their experience and felt an inner gladness or appreciation for that special relationship. Perhaps it was a former pastor, a supervisor who took a special interest in your career or a retired neighbor or relative. Today’s text reminds us that we can have such a mentoring relationship with our Heavenly Father—if we want it. We can draw upon God’s wisdom and learn “the ways of life” and be filled with gladness because of that relationship. But unlike earthly mentors we don’t have to call up a memory or set an appointment to visit with God. We can call on him anytime, anyplace for any reason. You have made known to me the ways of life; you will make me full of gladness with your presence

Wednesday, Mark 2:17; The voice at the other end of the line was that of a man who had once attended our church. He wanted me to come over immediately because he and his new wife were having problems. Upon arriving at their home, I on my best counselor’s face and inquired as to the problem. He proceeded to read every passage Paul had ever written about wives honoring, obeying and submitting to their husbands (he punctuated each passage with a litany of how she was not living up to this lofty ideal, which led to her providing an inventory of his spiritual shortcomings). He had just read from a passage in Ephesians that said the husband was the head of the wife and started to flip to another proof text. I stopped him and told him to read the next few verses. He told me that they didn’t apply. I took his Bible and read them to him—you know those pesky verses about husbands loving their wives as Christ loved the church, and that he should nourish and tenderly care for her. He refused to make the connection and I’m sad to say the marriage ended about six months later. But the lesson from my friend’s selective reading of scripture should be clear. He refused to acknowledge his own shortcomings and went out of his way to avoid being confronted by the fact. Until we realize that we need the great physician in all areas of our lives, not just for health insurance when we are sick or fire insurance for the hereafter, we can never be healed of the things that deprive us of the real joy of living. Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick; I have come to call not the righteous but sinners.

Thursday, Psalm 32:1,2; Have you ever known anyone that was genuinely happy all the time? I met such a man many years ago. When I first met him I thought it was an act, but over time I discovered that his happiness came from a deep-seated well of joy. Even when the chips were down he evidenced an optimism not born of the realities of the moment. One day I asked him the source of his inner radiance. “It’s simply” he said. “I keep short sin accounts. If I do somebody wrong, I immediately try to make it right. And every night before I go to sleep I tell God all the wrongheaded things I’ve done that day, ask his forgiveness and help in not doing them again.” Then he added, “When I’m right with others and with God I know things will have to eventually work out right for me.” Happy are those whose transgression is forgiven…to whom the Lord imputes no iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no deceit.

Friday, Psalm 33:1; “March Madness” has been sweeping across the United States! People abuzz with talk about the sweet sixteen and final four of college basketball. It seems that everywhere I go people are bemoaning losses and celebrating victories. Many of them retell the exciting moments of recent games and just bubble over with praise for the players and coaches. I don’t think they had March Madness back in the days of the Psalmist, but he no doubt realized how often people looked for their reasons to rejoice in the events of the day and their tendency to praise the accomplishments of their heroes. For that reason he reminds us all that as members of God’s team, we always have a reason to rejoice! And that we can always find plenty of positive things to say, if we will but say them. Rejoice in the Lord, O you righteous. Praise befits the upright!

Saturday, Second Corinthians 5:16; The Reverend Doctor G. Campbell Morgan, beloved early twentieth century preacher and Bible teacher once observed that all people are sinners by experience and savable by grace. A couple of centuries earlier, a European theologian and philosopher stated that people are spiritual beings having a human experience. Once we realize that everyone we meet, from the president of a company to a homeless person on the street, are really spiritual beings in a human body we come to see them as being sinners by experience but savable by grace. They are all people whom God esteemed enough to send his Son, Jesus to die for in order to reconcile them to himself. This realization will help root out our predisposition to judge others too harshly based on life’s externals. This makes it easier to pray for them, learn to love them and do all we can to help them find the true spiritual life that God offers us all through our risen Lord. From now on, therefore, we regard no one from a human point of view…