Day by Day

[Soldier4Christ]

"Human Acorns"

They will be called oaks of righteousness, a planting of the LORD. Isaiah 61:3
   

This is a parable about oak trees and acorns representing people. What happens to their seed? Some acorns drop on the sidewalk, to be carried away by squirrels or to be crushed under people’s feet. Other acorns fall into the street gutter, but they have no chance there – because underneath the thin layer of dirt is solid concrete. Others drop on the parkway where they must compete with other plants. People run lawn mowers over them. Fortunately, at the end of the sloping street is a tree nursery. Acorns landing there are picked up by the owner, who plants them, nurses them along until he can sell them as little trees that will become big ones.

Imagine a home on that street where parents, like oak trees, have offspring – human acorns. Much can happen to the children. They can become the victims of all kinds of street events. In the city park is equipment for physical exercise, but that does nothing for mental or spiritual growth. Down the street are places called “joints,” where children can play electronic games or see cheap movies, and the older ones smoke pot. These are not places where human acorns can become sturdy oak trees.

But at the end of a downhill street is a school. Here children learn the three R's. They learn about the world and how to be good citizens in it. A part of their education is to learn respect for teachers. They learn how to get along together, how to respect the rights of others. If it is a Christian school, the children learn the greatest truth of all: Jesus Christ, God’s Son, loves them. He gave His life for their salvation. He wants them to love others.

You will agree: There are human acorns that get crushed in streets, that have no future in the gutters, that can’t develop in parks whose grass is cut by mowers. Those in the fourth group are the ones who will become what the Bible calls “oaks of righteousness.”

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"Your Sense of Values"

"Do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself." Matthew 6:34
   

The owner of a Jaguar in New Jersey was so enraged over a $25 repair bill on his speedometer that he did $36,000 worth of damage – to his own car, to a police cruiser and other cars, and to the garage doors.

Yes, people do foolish and harmful things, even when they don’t lose their tempers, because they have a false sense of values. Nowhere else does this become more evident than in the realm of spiritual choices, as the Bible amply demonstrates. The prodigal son in Jesus’ parable was willing to exchange his home and a father’s love for fleeting and deceitful pleasures. Judas Iscariot, a thorough-going materialist, betrayed his Savior for 30 pieces of silver. None of the rulers of this world, writes Saint Paul, understood what salvation and eternal life were all about, for otherwise they would not have crucified the Lord of Glory.

In our age, people’s sense of values needs a close look. Psychiatrist Frances C. Welsing, addressing herself to loveless parents, has written, “This culture has attempted to substitute material things for emotional needs, and it doesn’t work. As a result, even children from well-to-do families are getting into all kinds of trouble with drugs and sex.”

Of what use is wealth when children perish from spiritual poverty? What enjoyment can anyone find in worldly fame and fortune when it costs him or her their marriage, their health, their happiness?

God Himself proposes a set of values that assures peace with Him and with oneself. Jesus said that people do not live spiritually from bread but from the Word of God. He tells us of this priority: “Seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things [the things we need for everyday life] will be given to you as well" (Matthew 6:33).

When we love God above all things – love His Word, love the salvation He prepared for us all in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ – we bring our sense of values into clear focus.

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"What Christ’s Love is All About"

Love one another. 1 John 4:7
   

Sometimes, with good intentions, Christ’s love is presented as an entirely unstructured, formless, even mushy sentiment comparable to the feeling of a doting grandfather. So it behooves us to consider the Savior’s love as something that has body to it – that is very real and has functioning power.

The love that Jesus has, and that He wants us to share with one another, has a source and therefore a great force. Christ’s kind of love is not limited. It went all-out. It went the total distance in that He laid down His life so that He might restore us to fellowship with God, our heavenly Father.

The love Jesus wants us to exercise among ourselves needs a standard of comparison. Previously the commandments on the second table of the Law had said, in summary: “Love your neighbor as yourself” (Luke 10:27). Jesus explains this in its fullest sense when He states in His “new command”: “As I have loved you, so you must love one another” (John 13:34). That means: Let your love go all the way!

The love Jesus has, and which He wants us to practice as we live day by day in an intimate human fellowship, particularly in the family, needs an object. Far from loving abstract beings, it concerns itself with flesh-and-blood persons. Where but in the close marriage and home relationships does such love find its immediate – and very real – object?

In his first epistle, Saint John has more to say about the love lessons learned from Jesus. He knows how love welds parents and children together as they live under Christ’s love. This love, because it is love, must sometimes be “tough.” If it were lax, ignoring what is right in the sight of God, it wouldn’t be love. The motivation for true love comes from Christ’s love as the source. Saint John states, “I write to you, dear children, because your sins have been forgiven on account of His name. I write to you, fathers, because you have known Him who is from the beginning” (1 John 2:12-13). The sum of it all is this: “Love one another” (1 John 3:11).

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"High Fidelity"

It is required that those who have been given a trust must prove faithful. 1 Corinthians 4:2
   

In the recording industry, some years ago, “hi-fi” stood for high fidelity. Much enjoyment is derived from listening to music that is faithfully and accurately reproduced.

“High fidelity” is the mark of the children of God in the performance of their Christian calling. In this respect they are imitators – as children should be – of their heavenly Father, who faithfully keeps all His promises.

As “hi-fi” servants of God, we in life carry out and fulfill the Word of God which we hold in our hearts and confess with our mouths. We are stewards and caretakers of all that God has entrusted to us. We do credit to the high privilege that is ours when we are found trustworthy. When we are so found, then we, as the apostle Paul writes, are showing “that [we] can be fully trusted, so that in every way [we] will make the teaching about God our Savior attractive" (Titus 2:10). What sweet music it is to God – and in the ears of our fellow human beings – when with high fidelity we reproduce the Word of God in our lives!

In commending high-fidelity performance, and in encouraging us to continue, our Lord is not asking anything of us that He Himself was unwilling to render. All His words and works were marked by high fidelity. Of Him the writer of the book of Hebrews declares, “He was faithful to the One who appointed Him, just as Moses was faithful in all God’s house” (Hebrews 3:2). Jesus was faithful to all the will of God, His heavenly Father, to the point of death, even death on a cross. All this was for us, that He might redeem us from sin and enable us to give all the sweet sounds of heavenly music in all of life.

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"God Mends Broken People"

A broken and contrite heart, O God, You will not despise. Psalm 51:17
   

Eugene O’Neill, the American dramatist, is hardly known for great statements of faith. But he did write this: “Man is born broken. He lives by mending. And the grace of God is the glue.”

Every human being is born broken in sin, so the Word of God teaches. Here we think not only of criminals – killers, thieves, cheaters – but people wearing blue collars, white collars, or none at all. Included are all people, also those who profess faith in God. King David declares “Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me” (Psalm 51:5). Again, Saint Paul, the great missionary: “Nothing good lives in me. … The evil I do not want to do – this I keep on doing” (Romans 7:18-19). It is as the playwright said, ‘Man is born broken.”

When a doll is broken, the little girl tries to mend it. Many things in everyday life need mending: valuable plates and dishes, clothes, the screen door, the back fence. The broken human being, too, needs mending. In fact, he needs more than a little repair here and there, a little outward reform, a little cosmetic renovation. He needs a complete overhaul, a conversion, a new birth. God the Holy Spirit takes broken people and through the Gospel converts them into new persons – who repent of their sins and believe in Jesus Christ as the one who died for them and now forgives them.

To stay mended, it is necessary to stay close to Christ, love Him, pray to Him, serve Him, and do the kinds of good things He wants done in the world and in the church. We stay mended when we by faith adhere to the promises of the Word of God, for this is the Word of divine love and grace. It is as O’Neill said: “The grace of God is the glue.” "It is by grace you have been saved,” writes Saint Paul in Ephesians 2:8. What wonderful grace! No wonder that John Newton wrote in a hymn: “Amazing grace! How sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me! I once was lost, but now am found, was blind but now I see!” You can say the same.

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"Christians Are New Beings"


Because of His great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions. Ephesians 2:4-5
   

A well-known television pastor has stated, “Sin is a condition before it becomes action.” This is a helpful statement, for it distinguishes between what a person is by nature – sinful, that is – and what outward behavior results from it in words and deeds. The latter include words and works of commission, and also of omission; that is, the failure to say and do what is right. The time-honored, still helpful and still valid, distinction is original sin and actual sin.

People going about to solve human problems or improve society often fail to take human sinfulness into consideration. They assume that everyone is good, or potentially good, by nature; they are apt to overlook original sin. Their fond belief is that people, essentially the good ones, need only be shown or taught what is good and they will do it. Every system, whether in economics (socialism, for example) or in education, based on the supposed innate goodness of people will eventually stagger to failure. Its promoters fail to take sin into account – our tendency toward selfishness, pride, greed, laziness, sexual impurity, and all kindred vices.

Original sin is a fact, and likewise is actual sin, flowing from this condition. Both are well documented in the Bible. Both are there described as leading to the wars and woes of mankind. Both are clearly revealed as leading to God’s displeasure and as barring a person’s right relation to God for time and for eternity.

But God acted in grace and mercy. His saving act is briefly summed up in the sending of His Son, the holy and innocent Jesus, to atone for our sin, both original and actual. His sin-forgiving merit is imparted to us through faith, which the Holy Spirit creates through the Gospel and Holy Baptism, sustaining it through the same Word and the Sacrament of Holy Communion.

This is how we are freed from sin and re-created into new beings who love God and their neighbor.

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"The Call to Faithfulness"

"You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master’s happiness." Matthew 25:23
   

Christians are called to be “imitators of God, therefore, as dearly loved children” (Ephesians 5:1). We are to let the family resemblance show and be like our heavenly Father. Of course, some of God’s attributes are beyond our attainment. We can never be like God in faithfulness. God is faithful; He keeps His Word and covenant. Saint Paul writes, “God who has called you into fellowship with His Son Jesus Christ, our Lord, is faithful” (1 Corinthians 1:9).

Like the Father, so also the Son is faithful and therefore is called as Saint John writes, “the Amen, the faithful and true witness” (Revelation 3:14).

Like the Father, so also His sons and daughters are called to be faithful in the discharge of their stewardship, faithful in all of life. “Faithful” is the key word in Jesus’ parable of the talents. The “man going on a journey” (Matthew 25:14) did not demand of his servants that they be business geniuses or be given to high intellectual attainment. What he did require was that they be faithful in managing the property he entrusted to them. The servants who gained five talents and two talents were commended alike: “Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master’s happiness” (Matthew 25:21, 23).

“It is required that those who have been given a trust must prove faithful,” (1 Corinthians 4:2) writes Saint Paul. Whatever it is that God has given us – our moments and days, our hands and feet, our voice and lips, our silver and gold, our intellect and all our powers, our will and heart, above all, our life and love – He calls us to administer faithfully every entrusted talent. That's all He asks.

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"A Letdown Can Be a Lift"

Every day He [Jesus] was teaching at the temple. But the chief priests, the teachers of the law and the leaders among the people were trying to kill Him. Luke 19:47
   

Often the passage to a useful life leads through one or more doors marked “Failure.” The biography of John James Audubon tells how he left his studies in France to become a merchant in America. He ran a store and a grist mill but failed in both. Then he became a naturalist, especially a well-known painter of birds. The Audubon societies are named after him.

“Failure” was a word written in large letters in the life and labors of Saint Paul. Converted to the Christian faith, he wanted to do mission work in Damascus and then in Jerusalem, but he failed in both places. Then Barnabas took him along to Antioch, where his ministry could begin. But even in later years the apostle encountered failure. In some places all the doors were locked, and he could do nothing, for the handles were on the inside.

When you receive a setback in your plans, think not only of Audubon or Saint Paul; think of Jesus. In many towns people would not listen to Him. Even the people of Nazareth, where His home had been, literally ran Him out of town. His acceptance in Jerusalem wasn’t any better, and we hear Him say: “How often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing” (Matthew 23:37).

Perhaps God wants to lead you from smaller to greater things. So He lets you experience setbacks and failures in these smaller things. Or He may force you to spend time on a sickbed, giving you the opportunity to think things through and to make plans for a more useful and satisfying life. He may lead you on unfamiliar roads, to strange cities in strange lands, so that your life will be fulfilling, to God’s glory and the good of all concerned.

We can live with disappointments if we keep in mind where we are, why we are here, and where we are going. We have the assurance of God’s loving-kindness, which He expressed to the full extent when He redeemed us and made us His own through His Son, Jesus Christ, our Lord.

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"Love Cannot be Measured"

These three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love. 1 Corinthians 13:13
   

A publishing firm had the custom of sending its retirees calendars printed on felt. When these were not delivered, it was found that the postal workers, finding the mail bags so light, put them away because they thought they were empty. Weight is not a reliable basis for judging the value or non-value of things. A load of coal is far heavier than a diamond, but not nearly as valuable.

Weight, size, bulk – these are not the important factors in one’s Christian experience. What about being “cumbered with a load of care,” as the hymnal line says? What would ordinarily be a heavy burden becomes light when Christ helps us carry it. Saint Paul speaks of the Christian’s sufferings as being “momentary,” adding that they work “for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all” (2 Corinthians 4:17).

Weight, volume, mass – these are not the qualities by which we judge God’s blessings. Gold and silver were once estimated by weight, and the heavier the bags containing these precious metals, the wealthier the owners. Yes, God blesses us also with this world’s goods, perhaps even abundantly as He did Abraham. But His spiritual gifts are greater. You cannot weigh them on the scales. You cannot estimate the worth of His love nor fully determine its dimensions. Who can grasp “how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge” (Ephesians 3:18-19)? Beyond our understanding are all God’s gifts flowing from His love: forgiveness, peace, eternal life in Christ.

Your gifts to God and to one another don’t go by weight or price tags, either. What counts is the love that prompts giving and serving. A cup of cold water given in faith is more precious in God’s sight than a river of gifts people don’t need. Parents know – should know – that the giving of themselves to their children is worth more than material gifts offered as substitutes for personal love.

In your house are meters or devices for measuring gas, water, and electricity. But love in your home cannot be metered, cannot be put in bags, cannot be bought. But how valuable it is!

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"Freedom with Meaning"

It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Galatians 5:1
   

It has been said, “Freedom so often means that one isn’t needed anywhere.” So employees no longer needed at work are given their freedom with the proverbial pink slips of dismissal. Such “freedom,” in many cases, leads to bondage – to the obligation to find another source of income.

Freedom from something, to be meaningful and enjoyable, had best be accompanied by freedom for something. Freedom in a vacuum can be boring. Here is a child, when asking its mother, “What can I do?” was told, “Do whatever you want to do.” The reply to that was, “I am tired of doing what I want to do.”

Freedom has a distinct meaning when considered in the light of the Gospel. Saint Paul lays much stress on freedom in his letter to the Galatians. False teachers had trailed him into the area, claiming that the Law of Moses which demanded certain good works, especially Sabbath observance and the practice of circumcision, was still in effect for New Testament Christians. This demand, according to the apostle, was “a different gospel” (Galatians 1:6). In fact, it was no Gospel at all, for the true Gospel proclaims that Jesus Christ has freed us from the curse of the Law by Himself bearing its curse: death. Now freed from the law and justified through faith in Jesus’ merit, we have forgiveness, peace with God, and the guarantee of a foretaste of eternal life now and the full enjoyment of it in heaven.

We are free in Christ, with Saint Paul bidding us: “Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery” (Galatians 5:1).

Free from something, we are free for something – free to leave life’s cares and burdens behind and to seek the higher good in Christ, free to leave the slavery to sin and serve the living God, free to enjoy all the blessings of God’s grace and to share the Good News with the people around us. It is wonderful to be free in this sense.

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"Jesus is There"

"Where two or three come together in my name, there am I with them." Matthew 18:20
   

A Christian congregation has great power. As bearer of the Office of the Keys it has the power to retain and forgive sins, as Jesus says, “Whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven” (Matthew 18:18). The members of the church exercise this power as they follow the three steps of brotherly and sisterly admonition which Jesus outlines in Matthew 18:15-17.

But how large must a congregation be to have the power of the Keys? Must it be housed in a cathedral-size edifice and served by a high-ranking clergyman? Must it have a hundred, five hundred, or a thousand members? Is it required that it be organized into a legal corporation recognized by the state?

None of this is necessary. Our Lord does not condition the church’s power on large numbers. In fact, as He goes on to speak of Christians coming together for prayer and for fellowship in His name, He uses the words “two or three.” Then He ascribes to so small a group the highest honor possible: “There am I with them.”

What a promise! When Christians assemble to fulfill the purposes for which Christ’s church exists – to praise the God of their salvation and serve Him, to hear His Word and administer the sacraments, to instruct young and old in Christ’s teachings, to admonish and exhort one another, to share the Gospel with the unchurched – Christ is in their midst.

Whether God’s people worship in a little white church on the prairie or in an inner-city storefront building, Jesus is there. It is important that you and I be there, too.

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"The Kind of Children We Want"

Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. Ephesians 6:1
   

An impressive sight in Copenhagen, Denmark, is Anders Bundgaard’s massive fountain of the Nordic goddess Gefion, who according to a myth turned her four sons into four oxen to plow a portion of land away from Sweden and add it to Denmark. Imagine, turning sons into oxen!

Long ago, before child-labor laws went into effect, children were made to do hard work in factories and on farms, almost as though they were oxen. In our time many children are abused in other ways – by inflicting bodily injury. In other homes children are neglected, or they are brought up to be self-centered individuals who turn out to be little monsters – and not so little monsters when they become users of drugs and alcohol. Some parents want to make status symbols of their children by pushing them into all kinds of glamour roles at school and elsewhere.

It is a good question for parents to ask: What kind of children do we want? Are we turning them into oxen? Are we fashioning sparrows and sending them out to fight hawks? It is no small task to be molders of children. Parents, teachers, and youth leaders need all the help they can get.

Such help comes from the Bible – from Jesus Christ, who is the center of the Bible. He Himself, we are told, “grew in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and men” (Luke 2:52). This points to mental, physical, spiritual, and social growth. We bring up our children to be like Christ when we teach them to love the Lord their God and to love one another. Such love comes as the Holy Spirit-induced response to the prior love of God, who gave His Son to expiate our sins, to reconcile us to God as His forgiven sons and daughters.

We should not turn our children into human animals, and we cannot bring them up to be angels, but we can guide them to be persons in whom the love of God dwells.

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"Finding the Lost"

The Pharisees and the teachers of the law muttered, “This Man welcomes sinners and eats with them.” Luke 15:2
   

We hear a lot these days about lost children – children who are kidnapped or who mysteriously disappear. The parents are broken-hearted.

United States history knows of other disappearances. In 1587, on Roanoke Island off the coast of North Carolina, Sir Walter Raleigh founded the third of his colonies. Belonging to that group was Virginia Dare, said to have been the first white child born in the new world. Three years after the founding, a ship came to bring supplies, but no trace of the colonists could be found.

Earlier in history an entire people disappeared: the lost ten tribes of Israel that were carried away into the Assyrian captivity in 722 B.C. They were undoubtedly absorbed into the general population and lost their identity. Missing children, missing tribes, missing people represent a human tragedy, especially if foul play was involved.

The Bible testifies to the greater tragedy of Adam and Eve and all their descendants lost in sin and subject to eternal death. But God wanted the missing to be found and to be restored to fellowship with Him. He sent His only Son, Jesus Christ, to be the Good Shepherd seeking the lost sheep. That was the purpose of His mission as the Savior Himsef said: “The Son of Man came to seek and to save what was lost” (Luke 19:10).

By laying down His life, Jesus paid the price for everyone’s salvation. He loved the world – the total human race of all times and places – and for it He died. It is therefore a matter of great concern to Him when one person goes astray. He wants to have a one-on-one relationship with each one of us. His love is not impersonal, not an en masse concern, although it is all-inclusive. He loves each person and wants each one to love Him. He searches for individuals. There is joy in heaven and on earth when the missing person is found and has returned home.

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"Jesus Still Leads On"

Jesus began to preach, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near.” Matthew 4:17
   

Daniel Boone, a frontiersman, has been called “the Columbus of the woods.” A painting by George Caleb Bingham shows him leading settlers through the Cumberland Gap in east-central United States.

Spiritually speaking, Adam and Eve and all their descendants were lost in the woods, unable to find their way out of the encumbered land of sin. But God had mercy. He promised to send His own Son to lead the way out of “the land of the shadow of death” (Isaiah 9:2) into the realm of light and life eternal. That Son was, at the “fullness of time,” born of the virgin Mary and was called Jesus, meaning Savior. He was in every respect – by His Word and divine works – revealed as the promised Messiah of whom Isaiah and the other prophets had spoken. When Jesus of Nazareth opened His preaching and healing ministry in Galilee, the evangelist Matthew pronounced Isaiah’s prophecy fulfilled.

Our Lord did more than show us the way to life; He Himself was – and still is – the Way, the only way, to the Father. He became that when He, as the Pioneer and Perfecter of our faith, endured the cross to atone for our sins and then rose again to assure us of the resurrection of our bodies to life eternal.

Human beings are limited in what they can do. Christopher Columbus and Daniel Boone could open up parts of the world for human habitation, giving economically depressed people anew lease on life. But saviors from sin and givers of eternal life they could not be. Only Jesus Christ is both Giver and Guide as we wend our way through this world, en route to the “better country – a heavenly one” (Hebrews 11:16).

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"A Time for Everything"

"As long as it is day, we must do the work of Him who sent Me." John 9:4
   

While Jesus was preaching and healing in Galilee and Samaria, Pharisees warned Him: “Leave this place and go somewhere else. Herod wants to kill You” (Luke 13:31). It is not clear why men who were opponents would say this; perhaps their intent was to get Jesus to leave, for He was gaining many followers.

Our Lord refused to be intimidated. Until the time came for Him to suffer and die for all mankind, he had His work cut out for Him, and no one, not even King Herod, could stop Him. Further, Jesus foreknew that it would be in Jerusalem, not in a Galilean or a Samaritan town, that He would be arrested and killed. He said, “Surely no prophet can die outside Jerusalem” (Luke 13:33). He was right.

We are thankful for Christ’s commitment to His work in our behalf. He said on another occasion that He must “do the works of Him who sent Me. Night is coming when no one can work” (John 9:4). Preaching, teaching, healing – this is what Jesus did during His three-year prophetic ministry. At the appropriate time he would also be our High Priest, offering up Himself on the cross for our sins.

Also for our lives it is true: “There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven” (Ecclesiastes 3:1). What Longfellow says of the village blacksmith applies to most of us: “Each morning sees some task begun: Each evening sees its close.” This was certainly the case with Jesus.