Day by Day

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"Destination and Directions"

"I have told you these things, so that in Me you may have peace." John 16:33
   

In His farewell conversation, John 14-16, Jesus is preparing His disciples for His imminent departure through death’s door. He speaks words of comfort to them. For the orphaned disciples, life would be like a difficult journey traversing “field and fountain, moor and mountain” and finally leading thought the valley of the shadow of death.

But the journey is worthwhile, for it has a glorious destination. The goal toward which they are striving is not anything in this world. It is not what man’s hands can build – the kind of houses people want today and already wanted in the time of Amos (3:15): “winter house,” “summer house,” “houses adorned with ivory,” “mansions.” The destination is the Father’s house of many mansions. To come face to face with our Father in heaven – that is also our goal.

But it would be purposeless for Jesus to point to the destination if He didn’t also give us the direction for getting there. What road must His disciples follow to reach their destination? Jesus is specific: “I am the Way and the Truth and the Life’ (John 14:6). This is one of many “I am” passages in John’s Gospel, showing that Jesus equated Himself with the Lord who revealed Himself to Moses as “I AM WHO I AM” (Exodus 3:14). Jesus is the Way, the only road leading to the Father, and all who believe in Him have found the way. He is the Truth, the Revealer of the true God and of His good and gracious will for our salvation. He is the Life, the Giver of eternal life beginning here and now and reaching its fullness in heaven.

Destination and direction for getting there – heaven and faith in Christ – that is why the Savior came.

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"Christ’s People, Like Roses"

A servant girl named Rhoda came to answer the door. Acts 12:13
   

A far cry from the celebrated “roses of Picardy,” mentioned in a popular song of yesteryear, are the wild roses found in fields and pastures. Yet they have a natural beauty of their own. The American composer Edward MacDowell was moved to name a piano solo after them.

To some, the wild rose is a weed. It grows low to the ground. Its stem is prickly, its thorns reminding us of what God said to Adam after the fall into sin: “It [the ground] will produce thorns and thistles for you” (Genesis 3:18). Of course, the curse of sin was really a curse on the sinner, for disobedience of God draws punishment, the ultimate wages of sin being death.

Human beings are by nature like wild roses. Totally sinful, they still retain some of the qualities that are good and useful for life in this world. The person of dissolute character may have talent for the arts and sciences. Then you say: “Think what such a person could be and do if moral and spiritual uprightness went along with talent! He would be a wild rose become an American Beauty!”

As a matter of fact, that is what God has in mind when He causes the Gospel to be proclaimed in the world. For the Gospel is “the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes" (Romans 1:16). Those who have come to faith in Jesus Christ as their liberator from sin and the fear of death are an entirely new creation. They are like prickly weeds turned into lovely roses.

Such changes have take place in Christians from earliest times. It took place in the servant girl in Jerusalem named Rhoda, or Rose, who recognized Peter’s voice and let him into the house. Yes, also servants can be beautiful roses in God’s sight. They can, in Isaiah’s words, cause the desert to "rejoice and blossom" (Isaiah 35:1) as the rose – this by the power of Him who has been called the rose of Sharon, our beautiful Savior, Jesus Christ.

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"Learning Life’s Lessons"

Let us love one another, for love comes from God. 1 John 4:7
   

In Harper Lee’s novel “To Kill a Mockingbird” we admire little Jean Louise Finch, nicknamed “Scout,” the six-year-old daughter of Atticus Finch, an attorney in a southern town. She learns that the larger world with its prejudices is not as innocent as her own little world.

We all make this discovery as we emerge from our childhood homes and enter the ever larger circles of life. Our parents help us make these almost daily adjustments to the world. We learn that we not only receive but also give, that friendliness will in most cases be rewarded with friendliness. We learn the lessons of sharing, of cooperating, or rolling with the punches, of having to live with people of different beliefs and backgrounds. In many of life’s situations it is proper to yield, to go fifty-fifty, to be satisfied with half a loaf instead of having no bread at all.

But we learn also that in some issues we have to stand firm and not make concessions. These are the moral and spiritual things of which God has spoken in His Word. The Ten Commandments are our guide for a moral life. They do not budge, although many try to set them aside. As for our Christian faith, no compromise is possible. We cannot cut the Gospel in two, as though we could rely partly on Christ’s redemption and partly on our good works to be right with God. We are expected to be consistent in our acknowledgement of Christ as our Savior, confessing Him not only before friends but also our enemies. As Christians we are called to be wholehearted in our love to Jesus, doing this not only in church on Sundays but also on weekdays. If we love Jesus, we also love our brothers and sisters, whom He loves and for whom He died.

The world in which we live is not consistently good. It often does worse than to kill a mockingbird. So it is up to Christians to walk a straight mile in a crooked world.

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"Skills for Christian Service"

Huram was highly skilled and experienced in all kinds of bronze work. 1 Kings 7:14
   

A man who was trained as a bookbinder stated that 41 steps were involved in binding a book. Every vocation calls for special skills. Technology cannot entirely replace handcrafts.

In person-to-person relationships special social skills are still necessary. No machine can render the human touch. Science cannot invent a surrogate mother – for example, an automation or robot – that can do what a loving mother so skillfully does: give tender, loving care to a baby, help keep the family together, and take an interest in what her children do.

To be an effective Christian requires skills. In His love God grants talents to us, and in His wisdom he gives them to each one, “just as He determines” (1 Corinthians 12:11). Several times Saint Paul enumerates such special talents and endowments that Christians have. These skills are to be used for the good of all, for the edification of Christ’s body, the church.

God wants us to develop the talents He has given us. They are a good foundation on which to build a life of service to God’s glory and the good of others. The shepherd boy, David, practiced his skills as a musician and poet, and he became a great psalmist. Helping to build Solomon’s beautiful temple was a man named Huram-Abi, who was “trained to work in gold and silver, bronze and iron, stone and wood, and with purple and blue and crimson yarn and fine linen” (2 Chronicles 2:14). Also gifted for performing skillful Christian services was Dorcas of Joppa (now part of Tel-Aviv), who sewed garments for the poor.

What skills can you sharpen to become a more competent Christian servant?

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"Closing the Communication Gap"

Faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the Word of Christ. Romans 10:17
   

Thanks to our highly efficient news media, we are living in an age of instant communication. Events abroad can be televised and seen locally by means of communication satellites stationed in space. The world has become an intimate whispering gallery. And yet much information does not get through. We call it a communication gap.

Communication gaps are a hindrance to the propagation of the Good News. Somehow the Word does not get around as it once did. “You have filled Jerusalem with your teaching” (Acts 5:28), said the members of the high council accusingly to the apostles. No communication gap there! Time and again the book of Acts reports at key points in its mission story, “The Word of God continued to increase and spread" (Acts 12:24).

Yet beyond Jerusalem, Judea, and Samaria lay a big world where millions of heathen lived, and most of them had not heard the Gospel of Jesus Christ crucified and risen again for everyone’s redemption from sin and death. Saint Paul did his utmost to close this communication gap as he traveled through the Roman Empire as a messenger whom the Lord had sent “far away to the Gentiles” (Acts 22:21). But a gap remained.

Saint Paul asks a series of questions bearing on the communication gap in the Gospel proclamation: “How, then, can they call on the One they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the One of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? And how can they preach unless they are sent?” (Romans 10:14-15).

To take the apostle’s questions in reverse order, the communication gap in the telling of God’s Good News is closed when we send missionaries into all the world, when these missionaries faithfully preach the Gospel, when the Holy Spirit leads believers to call on the name of the Lord. Locally, there may be a communication gap because we do not witness to our Lord at home, in school, at work, and in our communities. We begin to close that gap when we, in Saint Peter’s words, are always "prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give a reason for the hope that you have” (1 Peter 3:15).

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"We May be Weak, but God is Strong"

God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. 1 Corinthians 1:27
   

People say “It’s for the birds” to express the futility or unimportance of something. But these little creatures are not to be underestimated. In Salt Lake City stands a monument to sea gulls that in 1848 saved the crops of the new settlers by eating the crickets. We read in the Bible that God directed the ravens to feed the prophet Elijah during a famine. Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount points to the birds as teaching us not to worry, for the heavenly Father feeds them and us.

A great truth is involved here: God can do great things through weak beings. Saint Paul writes to the Corinthians, who had demanded wise and powerful speakers as their spiritual leaders: “God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise. ... He chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things – and the things that are not – to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before Him” (1 Corinthians 1:27-29).

God chose to save the sinful human race through His Son, Jesus Christ, who became a man – a man whom the enemies could nail to a shameful cross. This Christ had chosen twelve very ordinary men to be His disciples, and they turned the world of the powerful Roman Empire upside down through the preaching of the simple Gospel of God’s love. He chose also the apostle Paul, of whom it was said: “In person he is unimpressive and his speaking amounts to nothing” (2 Corinthians 10:10).

God still accomplishes His saving purpose that way – often through uninfluential people: little children whose faith in Jesus is an example to adults; through poor, and often poorly educated, people who possess the wisdom of God; through social outcasts whom God has accepted because they believed in Him. Through these He gets the job done.

“It’s for the birds”? The situation is hopeless? Not if God has a purpose to fulfill. Perhaps you are living proof of this.

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"The Angels Were in on It"

They were looking intently up into the sky as He was going, when suddenly two men dressed in white stood beside them. Acts 1:10
   

In 1992 Eric Clapton won the Grammy Award with his recorded song “Tears in Heaven.” He composed it after his four-year-old son had fallen to his death from an apartment building in New York City.

Christian parents who lose children through accidents or sickness can assuage their grief with the assurance that their little ones, on earth and in heaven, have “their angels” (Matthew 18:10) to attend to them – high-ranking angels, so Jesus stresses, who “always see the face of My Father in heaven.”

Not tears but great joy attended the heavenly homecoming of God’s own Son, the exalted Jesus. Participating in the joyful celebration were angels and archangels with all the company of heaven, also with the throne angels (the cherubim and the seraphim). They rejoiced because the Son of God, become man, had fulfilled His mission on earth and could now return in triumph. All along, when in all eternity the heavenly Father planned the salvation of sinful mankind, and also when at the fullness of the time the Son came to earth to die and to rise again, angels were concerned. The apostle writes that with the preaching of the Gospel “by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven,” angels hand longed “to look into these things” (1 Peter 1:12). The Greek verb implies that they leaned forward and strained themselves to catch a glimpse of what God was doing to save mankind.

There was joy also on earth when Jesus ascended into heaven. Saint Luke reports that the disciples “worshiped Him and returned to Jerusalem with great joy” (Luke 24:52). For Jesus it was “mission accomplished”; for them it was “mission to be accomplished.” And not only the angels and apostles but also we rejoice at the Son’s heavenly homecoming. In heaven Jesus intercedes for us and with His grace governs His church.

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"Fruit-bearing Christians"

You also died to the law … that you might belong to another, to Him who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit to God. Romans 7:4
   

Fig trees are often mentioned in the Bible. Quite frequently they are used as illustrations of people. For one thing, young fig trees have to be carefully cultivated if they are to develop properly and bear fruit. So it is with human beings. Careful, Christ-centered training of children is necessary if they are to mature into fruit-bearing Christians.

In a well-known parable Jesus speaks of a man who had planted a fig tree in his vineyard, expecting it to bear fruit. Our Lord was acquainted not only with orchards but also with vineyards, where grapes were grown. In John 15:5, again with emphasis on fruitfulness, He declares the source: “I am the Vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in Me and I in him, he will bear much fruit.”

In Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount mention is made of a fig tree as illustrative of people. There our Lord referred to a consistency: Figs grow on fig trees, not on thistles. He declared that the fruit of a tree is consistent with its nature, saying: “Every good tree bears good fruit” (Matthew 7:17). Applying this principle to people, He said: Know the prophets, preachers, and religious teachers by their public teachings and actions, checking whether they are consistent with the written Word of God. Know also other people – preachers or not – by their fruits, for they are the index to character.

The Holy Spirit enables us to be fruit-bearing Christians. Through the Gospel He calls us to faith in Jesus Christ, causing us to rely entirely on His atoning sacrifice for salvation. He enables us to be like good trees yielding the fruit of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, righteousness, and whatever else is truly good.

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"Winning for Jesus"

Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? 1 Corinthians 9:24
   

What is Christian preaching when stated in gymnastic or athletic terms? Someone has said, “It is a spiritual locker-room address in which a spiritual coach asks a spiritual team to be ready to go out there and win one for Jesus.”

One’s first impression might be that it is improper to drag in sports when referring to religion. Yet this is the very thing the apostle Paul did in chapter 9 of 1 Corinthians. There he discusses the length to which he will go – and to what extent he will exercise his Christian freedom – to win people for Christ. He writes, “I have become all things to all men so that by all possible means I might save some" (1Corinthians 9:22). He says it is his desire to win "those not having the Law [Gentiles]” (v. 21), as well as those under the Law – Jews.

For the apostle to be all things to all people for the sake of the saving Gospel of Jesus Christ requires considerable effort. He has to exercise and train. In this connection he comes to speak of himself as an athlete getting ready for the Greek games. He proposes to run and to box for a purpose: to “share the prize,” namely the crown of everlasting life with all who will believe the Gospel. He knows that his own efforts will not accomplish this. But he will get it done nevertheless, for God’s powerful and appealing grace is made perfect in Paul’s human weakness.

As Christians we are members of Christ’s church. We are all His disciples and witnesses, His performers in the arena of Christian living. With Saint Paul – and with the person quoted at the beginning – we want to go out there and win one for Jesus. We keep our eyes fixed on Jesus, “who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God’ (Hebrews 12:2).

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"Gold is Where You find It"

When Jesus had entered Capernaum, a centurion came to Him, asking for help. Matthew 8:5
   

An artist has pictured the Roman centurion of Capernaum with his helmet under his arm to indicate his humility. He is humbly asking for Jesus’ help in behalf of his sick slave.

A centurion was an officer in the Roman army, normally commanding 100 men. Four centurions are referred to in the New Testament: the one stationed in Capernaum, the centurion under Jesus’ cross, Cornelius of Caesarea, and Julius, who conducted Saint Paul and other prisoners to Rome. The first three were believers, and of Julius it is said that he treated Paul "in kindness” (Acts 27:3), gave him special privileges, and later saved his life. He, too, may have been – or later became – a Christian. It may strike us as unusual to find officers of the Roman army as followers of Jesus.

It is not possible to predict who will or will not accept the Gospel of salvation in Christ. Sometimes faith is found in the most illogical, unexpected persons: the thief on the cross, the jailer in Philippi, Saul the Pharisee, who was “breathing out murderous threats against the Lord's disciples” (Acts 9:1). The gold of faith, like the precious metal, is where you find it – in unusual persons, often in surprising places.

So the Christian church preaches the Gospel “to every creature” (Colossians 1:23) without distinction, leaving it to the Holy Spirit to perform the miracle of conversion. It is not necessary to look for outstanding examples of persons who came to the saving faith. You and I are cases in point. While we were yet sinners – while we were dead in sin – Christ died for us. We are all walking miracles of the grace of God.

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"Help for Our Prayers"

The Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us. Romans 8:26
   

Christians have the Father in heaven to care for them. They have also the Son of God to make intercession for them, as Saint John writes: “We have one who speaks to the Father in our defense – Jesus Christ the Righteous One. He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world” (1 John 2:1-2).

There is still another, the Holy Spirit, who not only prays for us but also with us. While Christ intercedes in heaven, the Spirit intercedes in our hearts.

Someone has written: “You might say the Holy Spirit performs a type of editing service on prayers.” In a publishing house an editor helps the author in making the message of his manuscript more effective and clear. An editor doesn’t do the work for the author; he helps him or her.

We learn from Holy Scripture that the Holy Spirit intercedes for us “with groans that words cannot express" (Romans 8:26). A hymn stanza explains: The Spirit “can plead for me with sighings that are unspeakable to lips like mine; He bids me pray with earnest cryings, bears witness with my soul that I am Thine.”

Saint Paul declares: The Spirit is in prayer partnership with us. He takes hold on the other end. The picture is of someone who helps us carry a heavy burden or move a piece of furniture by taking hold on the other end.

Often we don’t know how to pray and for what to ask. The Spirit teaches us. He whispers the answer in our heart. Our prayers may be weak; the Spirit, like a booster station, sends them on. He takes our groans, sighs, brief prayer fragments, our “Abba Father” (Galatians 4:6), and conveys them to the heavenly Father in our behalf.

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"The Clay that Counts for Something"

We have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. 2 Corinthians 4:7
   

Clay, as the expression “feet of clay” indicates, is a material not as permanent and precious as gold, silver, bronze, or other metals. Yet much can be done with it, depending on the artist or artisan who works with it.

Often mentioned in the Bible is the potter, a follower of an ancient craft and the creator of vessels, both artistic and practical. Saint Paul asks: “Does not the potter have the right to make out of the same lump of clay some pottery for noble purposes and some for common use?” (Romans 9:21). The apostle’s point is this: We cannot dictate to God, nor quarrel with Him, for the way He has made us.

Human beings, on the physical side, are creatures of clay, for they are the descendants of Adam, whose body God formed from the dust of the ground. To bodies of clay God added living souls, minds that think, hearts that love. These talents of mind and spirit God, the divine Potter, did not distribute to each in the same quantity and quality. As Creator He reserves the right to provide us with personal gifts as He wills. The result is that God created a human race for multiple, mutual service.

We know that clay has many uses. Known as kaolin in China, it is used for exquisite chinaware, for pottery, and for porcelain. But it is also used in rubber, plastics, textiles, paper, pencils, insulation, medicine, paints, and so forth. How versatile it is! And so are human beings because God has so variously endowed them.

This principle of varied usefulness especially applies to Christians, who are the eyes, ears, tongue, hands, feet, and other members of the body of Christ. By serving one another, they serve Christ, who, by His shed blood, redeemed them.

Should we despise common clay? Not for a minute, for look what God has done with it and still does!

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"Running the Race of Faith"

May 10, 2005

Let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. Hebrews 12:1
   

The Bible compares day-by-day living of the Christian faith to an endurance race. The apostle Paul writes: “Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize” (1 Corinthians 9:24). Elsewhere in the New Testament we read: “Let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us.”

There is a right and a wrong way to run the religious race. The right way includes that we prepare for it, be aware of the obstacles and overcome them, and run with persistence to the finish line. The wrong way is to make a good start but then drop out. Also, it doesn’t help if one gets into the wrong lane – one in which one’s spiritual life is foolishly endangered by spills and thrills.

In the world of sports there are races like that – perilous, purposeless, dangerously opportunistic. There are contests such as the running of the bulls in Pomplona, Spain. Men and boys run with the bulls through the streets. Many get hurt. The occasion for this mayhem, San Fermin’s festival, began in 1591. Since then 52 men have been gored to death.

In the race of Christian faith and life it is to no purpose – it is hazardous, in fact – to expose oneself foolishly to Satan and the temptations of a sinful world. It is asking for trouble.

But it is asking for and receiving divine assistance when we look to Jesus, the Author and Finisher, the Pioneer and Perfecter of our faith. In our behalf He finished His course all the way to Calvary’s cross. When we believe in Him as Savior and ask His help, we will receive strength to stay in the race until its victorious conclusion.

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"Getting a Second Life"

I have been reminded of your sincere faith, which first lived in your grandmother Lois and in your mother Eunice. 2 Timothy 1:5
   

When a three-year-old-boy from the Ukraine had received normal vision through a cornea transplant in the United States, his mother exclaimed, “My son was given a second life, and I with him.”

It is not a surprising statement since, under normal circumstances, the lives of parents are closely linked to those of their children. Whatever brings true joy and hope to children is of utmost delight to the parents also. The reverse is also true: Fathers and mothers suffer when evil befalls their offspring.

We find examples of mothers in the Bible who rejoiced over their sons – Hannah, for example, was happy to bring young Samuel to God’s house that he might learn to serve the Lord (1 Samuel 1:21-28). And those two widows whose sons were restored to life – the mother in Zaraphath with whom Elijah stayed (1 Kings 17:17-24) and the one in Nain whose son Jesus raised to life (Luke 7:11-17) – surely felt that they, too, had received a second life.

Perhaps the prime biblical example of a close union between mother and son is that of Eunice and Timothy. The apostle Paul tells Timothy that his sincere faith “first lived in your grandmother Lois and in your mother Eunice”. Later in his letter he declares that young Timothy had known the Holy Scriptures from infancy. Who had taught him? Not his father, for he was an unconverted Greek. Yes, the grandmother helped, but it was mostly Eunice. She began early to instruct him in what the Scriptures taught – that salvation comes through faith in Jesus Christ, the promised Messiah, who died for our sins and rose again. In later years Saint Paul further taught Timothy, but the initial credit goes to Eunice, an otherwise unknown woman living in an area that is now Turkey.

It remains true: When anything good comes to children, mothers rejoice with them. It is as though both had received a second life.

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"Praying Parents"

In the course of time Hannah conceived and gave birth to a son. 1 Samuel 1:20
   

By an act of Congress in 1988, the first Thursday in May was declared as National Day of Prayer. Traditionally the second Sunday in May is observed as Mother’s Day. The two occasions are close together, not only on the calendar but also as to content and intent. Prayer and parenthood are related topics.

Hannah, the mother of the prophet Samuel, is well known for her prayers both for her petition and her thanksgiving. In the temple she asked God for a son, and God gave her one. After the son was born, Hannah was back in the temple, where she spoke a prayer of thanksgiving as recorded in chapter two of 1 Samuel. It was a prayer that surely served as a model for the Magnificat, the prayer of praise Mary spoke when the angel Gabriel announced that she would be the virgin mother of the promised Christ.

Fervent prayer and faithful motherhood go together like a hand and glove. One can speak of the two topics in the same breath. Hannah and Mary were good mothers, largely because they were diligent in prayer and taught their sons how to pray, one of them, the Son of God, had become a human child. Again, Saint Paul told young Timothy, “I want men [people] everywhere to lift up holy hands in prayer” (1 Timothy 2:. Timothy was able to teach his parishioners how to pray because he himself had learned prayer from his mother Eunice and his grandmother Lois.

Mary’s Son, nailed to a cross as a sacrifice for the sin of the world, died with a prayer on His lips: “Father into Your hands I commit My spirit” (Luke 23:46). He had previously committed His mother to the care of the apostle John. He is our Exemplar on both counts: prayer and parental concern. We follow in His footsteps when we honor father and mother and when we faithfully cultivate the art of prayer.