Day by Day

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"When Facing Hard Tasks"

Be strong and take heart, all you who hope in the LORD. Psalm 31:24
   

Some things we have to do are hard. When General Robert E. Lee, his army in Virginia defeated, had to prepare to meet General Grant to surrender, he said: “I would rather die a thousand deaths.”

What difficult tasks have you had to perform? Give up your home or business? Prepare for the death of a loved one? Submit to serious surgery? Break bad news to a friend?

Think of some heart-rending assignments that people of the Bible had to carry out. Moses had to leave his flocks and herds to assume the staggering task of leading the murmuring Israelites out of Egypt amid crisis after crisis. King David had to flee from the would-be usurper of his throne—his own son, Absalom. Someone had to bring him the news that Absalom was dead, and David mourned his death with outcries of grief. Someone had to tell Mary that Jesus, her son, had been arrested, and she gathered up all her strength to stand under His cross.

What a task confronted Jesus! In Gethsemane He felt the full force of the evil confronting Him: the arrest, the farce of a trial, the condemnation, the crucifixion. No wonder that He trembled and sweated blood! Yet our Lord went ahead with what He had to do. He knew it was the Father’s will that He must suffer and die to redeem the sinful human race.

Because Jesus endured all for us, we are enabled to carry out what we know is God’s will, difficult as it is. General Lee, a biographer tells us, considered for a moment the possibility of exposing himself to enemy fire so that he might be rendered incapable of going to Grant to surrender. But he dismissed that impulse quickly saying: “It is our duty to live.” Suicide, direct or indirect, is not the answer to our problems. What we all can do is place ourselves into God’s hands, pray for strength, and then go forward to the unpleasant task.

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"The Wonders of God’s Love"

O LORD, our Lord, how majestic is Your name in all the earth! Psalm 8:9
   

Thomas Moore, the Irish poet and songwriter – “The Last Rose of Summer” is one of his – visited Niagara Falls in 1804. He was so impressed that he declared, “I felt as if approaching the very residence of the Deity.”

God’s world is not only full of beauty, but it is also full of awe-inspiring sights that attest God’s majesty and power: mountains, the redwood trees in California, the thundering cataracts.

Sometimes we feel so small by comparison. The psalmist had that feeling when he looked up into the sky. He exclaimed: “When I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that You are mindful of him?” (Psalm 8:3-4).

That question only the Bible can answer. It declares in one of the great Gospel declarations: “God so loved the world [so loved frail human beings] that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16). Only God’s love can explain why He bestowed on the human being – on so small a creature – a glorious mind such as the mighty elephants, the giant sequoias, or Pike’s Peak, or even the sun in the sky do not have. The human mind can penetrate space, construct wonderful buildings, discover the powers of nature and harness them, as at Niagara Falls.

Only God’s love can explain why He did a great deal more than give human beings mind and memory; He gave them immortal souls and hearts capable of being changed from the hardness of sin to the tenderness of love. In love God sent His Son, Jesus Christ, who not only showed the human family what goodness is, but also made us capable of it by giving His life for us and sending the Holy Spirit to make us God’s children by faith. Here is a wonder that exceeds Niagara Falls.

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"When Winners and Losers Both Benefit"

If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. 2 Corinthians 5:17
   

Sometimes, in court, not only the winner but also the loser benefits. In 1921 the composer Puccini brought suit against the publisher of the song “Avalon,” claiming it was lifted from his opera “Tosca.” The court agreed and awarded him $25,000. But the defendant benefited, too, for the song became a best-seller because of the publicity.

On several occasions Jesus chided His disciples for lack of faith, for pride and rivalry, for quick tempers. The disciples lost every argument they had with their Master. But by this loss they were enriched. They learned valuable lessons.

Is it not so also among Christians today – in the Christian home? Brothers and sisters with differences of opinion go to their parents for a settlement. Sometimes accusations are made: “He took what is mine” – a toy, perhaps. Father or mother makes a ruling. The one declared to be in the wrong may be assessed a penalty. Then it is not for the winner to gloat, nor for the loser to pout. The loser has gained something. He has learned a valuable lesson. He has seen the parents’ love and concern in action. The parent, noting the fondness for the thing in question, may present him with a similar thing for a birthday or Christmas. All have benefited.

Christ forgives those who turn to Him in repentance and faith, and always they are blessed, as Saint Paul tells the Corinthians: “In Him [Christ] you have been enriched in every way" (1 Corinthians 1:5). Take the example of Peter. He denied his Lord, but he repented and was reinstated in his apostleship. He benefited from this experience, and we do likewise. Christ died on a cross that we, who also have sinned, might not be losers but winners. All who repent, accept God’s forgiveness in Christ, and make a new start are winners.

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"Getting Back on Course"

"A wicked and adulterous generation asks for a miraculous sign! But none will be given it except the sign of the prophet Jonah." Matthew 12:39
   

In the fall of 1985, a 45-ton humpbacked whale, supposedly heading for warmer ocean water to the south, made its way into the San Francisco Bay, swam up the Sacramento River, and “landed” in a slough. A great deal of effort was required to get it back to its habitat.

Human beings, too, at times go off course, and one who did so deliberately was the prophet Jonah, who had a message to deliver. God had called him to preach the Word in Nineveh, the pagan capital of the Assyrian Empire. But, like the above whale, he got into the wrong channel. Instead of going east, to Nineveh, he boarded a freighter at Joppa and sailed west on a ship that was bound for Tarshish on the other end of the Mediterranean Sea.

But God put Jonah back on course. During a severe storm Jonah was cast overboard and was swallowed by a large fish. Preserved alive, the prophet heeded the second call from God and preached repentance in Nineveh. Jesus refers to Jonah’s experience and applies it to Himself: “As Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of a hugh fish, so the Son of Man will be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth” (Matthew 12:40). By being crucified, buried, and raised from the dead, Jesus Christ put a lost and floundering humanity back on course – the course of salvation by faith in Him.

Although Christians have been put on the right course, they sometimes have difficulty staying on the course. They sometimes wander far from home, as did the whale on the West Coast, as did the prophet Jonah. But they can get back on course, for they have Jesus as the Captain of salvation; they have His saving Word. So they pray: “Chart and compass come from Thee: Jesus, Savior, pilot me.”

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"Be What You Are"

Shine like stars in the universe as you hold out the Word of Life. Philippians 2:15-16
   

A worker at a New York state facility, it was learned, had stolen the chaplain’s fountain pen. This seemed strange since the worker was illiterate. Why would he need a pen? He said he took it to wear in his coat pocket so that people would think he was able to write. He pretended to be what he was not.

There is much deceptive role-playing in life, also in religion. People in church circles who at heart are not what they outwardly seem to be – or what they want others to think they are – are called hypocrites. The classic examples of sham religion were the Pharisees of Jesus’ time. Our Lord said to them, “You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of dead men’s bones” (Matthew 23:27).

Pretending to be what we are not is a temptation that comes also to us Christians. It came even to the apostle Peter, who on occasion would eat with the Gentiles. Saint Paul goes on to say that when Jewish Christians came from Jerusalem, “[Peter] began to draw back and separate himself from the Gentiles because he was afraid of those who belonged to the circumcision group” (Galatians 2:12). But Saint Peter knew also the right way – the way of truth and honesty he head learned from Jesus. He writes of Jesus, “He committed no sin, and no deceit was found in His mouth” (1 Peter 2:22).

Saint Paul, stressing the same truth, writes to the Philippians that they should “become blameless and pure, children of God without fault in a crooked and depraved generation, in which you shine like stars in the universe" (Philippians 2:15).

Christians are the children of God, and as such they conduct themselves in the world. People recognize them not only for what they are, but they see also the image of Jesus stamped on them. It cannot be otherwise. Jesus, the Holy One of Israel, bore their sins. Now in heaven, He through His Word and Spirit enables those still on earth to “die to sins and live for righteousness” (1 Peter 2:24).

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"God Knows Us and Our Needs"

O LORD, You have searched me and You know me. Psalm 139:1
   

The human individual, a complicated being, is hard to evaluate. This seems to be especially true of people with artistic temperaments and highly individualized dispositions. A case in point is the Dutch painter, Vincent van Gogh. During his stay in Arles, France, he was deemed insane and put into a cell. Once when he wanted to sell some paintings to the deputy mayor, he was told: “Take these to the market-place and get some money for a cup of coffee.” As the 100th anniversary of his death approached, the city did all it could to acquire his paintings.

While human beings are often a puzzle to one another, God reads them like an open book. He searches and understands the heart. He knows all about us – has always known, even before we were born. “You know,” says the psalmist, “when I sit and when I rise; You perceive my thoughts from afar. You discern my going out and my lying down; You are familiar with all my ways. Before a word is on my tongue You know it completely, O LORD” (Psalm 139:2-4).

God knows all our needs, even better than what we do. He is aware of what we need the most, and He has prepared the solution to our greatest problem: sin. God realized that human beings had fallen into sin, death, and Satan. So He sent His own Son, Jesus Christ, who did mortal combat, overcame them, and rose from the dead in proof of His victory.

Jesus knew the thoughts of people. “He knew what was in a man” (John 2:25), the Bible says. He is our Good Physician, who understood so complicated a person as Vincent van Gogh. He understands us. To Him we can go in confidence and with joy.

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"The Golden Mean"

Godliness with contentment is great gain. 1 Timothy 6:6
   

In 1728 John Gay wrote “The Beggar’s Opera” as a satire on moral conditions in the government and wealthy society of England. The theme is not far removed from Christ’s parable of the poor beggar, Lazarus, lying at the doorstep of the rich man, “who was dressed in purple and fine linen and lived in luxury every day” (Luke 16:19).

Jesus had things to say to both rich and poor. He reminded the rich that it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter God’s kingdom. As for the poor, He did not urge them to start a revolution, but He had a heart for them. Both poverty and riches involve temptations.

The writer of this passage in the book of Proverbs in the Bible realizes the perils of both poverty and wealth: “Two things I ask of You, O LORD … Give me neither poverty nor riches, but give me only my daily bread. Otherwise, I may have too much and disown You and say, ‘Who is the LORD?’ Or I may become poor and steal, and so dishonor the name of my God” (Proverbs 30:7-9).

This believer wanted only his daily bread. His is a prayer for the golden mean, for a livelihood somewhere between poverty and riches. “Daily bread,” of course, is more than bread baked in an oven. It includes the gifts of God we need from day to day: apparel, a home, income to pay for heating bills, a job, health, the opportunity for education, and always a little extra to share with the poor.

Saint Paul writes: “Godliness with contentment is great gain. … If we have food and clothing, we will be content with that” (1 Timothy 6:6, . And thankful for that!

All the while we are, above all, thankful for our spiritual riches in Jesus Christ, who became poor – poor to the point of death on a cross – to enrich us with forgiveness, peace with God, a purpose in life, and eternal life to come.

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"On Being Resourceful"

I have become all things to all men so that by all possible means I might save some. 1 Corinthians 9:22
   

“Ingenuity” is a word that may not occur in Bible translations. But often stressed is the need to use our minds, to apply our hearts to wisdom, to do original and creative thinking toward fulfilling God-pleasing purposes, to be opportunists in a good sense.

Jesus said that His followers should be wise in their generation, to be “as shrewd as snakes” (Matthew 10:16). In a parable He commended an unjust steward, not for being dishonest but for using his mind.

Ingenuity – Saint Paul practiced it all the time, devising strategy in his mission work. He used the main roads and sea-lanes to reach key cities. He wrote, by way of explaining his approach to Israelites and Gentiles: “I have become all things to all men so that by all possible means I might save some. I do all this for the sake of the Gospel” (1 Corinthians 9:22-23). He knew how and when to use his Roman citizenship, his skill as a tentmaker, his knowledge as a scholar.

During the gold-rush days in the mid-1800s another tentmaker, Levi Strauss, observed that the prospectors needed strong, rugged clothes. So he conceived the idea to use rough tent material to make the Levi jeans. The idea worked, and in the course of time the Strauss company became the world’s largest apparel maker.

God blesses rightly conceived and properly motivated ingenuity in His people, as He did the know-how of Saint Paul in behalf of the Gospel. He blesses their efforts to spread His Word by person-to-person testimonies and by the use of the mass media. He doesn’t want them to travel by oxcarts or in slow boats to China when they can use aircraft.

God Himself showed great ingenuity in the way He created us in body and soul, and especially in the way He provided for our salvation. He gave His Son, Jesus Christ, born of a woman, to redeem us by taking our place. What love and wisdom!

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"When Good is Not Good Enough"

"Come and hear the message that has come from the LORD." Ezekiel 33:30
   

God said to the prophet Ezekiel: “My people come to you, as they usually do, and sit before you to listen to your words, but they do not put them into practice. With their mouths they express devotion, but their hearts are greedy for unjust gain” (Ezekiel 33:31).

Surely it is good to sit together in church to hear the Word of God. The hearers of the Word of God are distinguished from non-hearers – from those who turn away from God and refuse to hear what He has to say to them through His spokesmen.

It is likewise good when, with our tongues, we speak or sing the praises of God in His sanctuary. Many consider this “good” even when the performance is mechanical. They consider the mere doing of a thing a service to God.

What might be good – listening to the word with our ears and praising Him with our mouths – can turn out to be displeasing to God. Ezekiel was told the reason: The hearers do not put God’s Word into practice. They are, in the words of Saint James, hearers but not doers of the Word. Obedience is missing. Further, worship or devotion, even when expressed eloquently, is meaningless – is in fact hypocritical – when piety and sincerity are lacking. Hearts that should be full of faith are filled with greed leading to unjust gain.

What is “good” will indeed be good enough, will in fact be excellent and gratifying to God, when the love of Christ prompts our hearing and worshiping. Jesus Christ came to us as God’s great Prophet, and when He speaks the Word, our hearts are moved to receive that Word, believe it, and put it into practice. Our acts of devotion will be expressions of true faith and love, for they are prompted by our love for Him as our great High Priest, who offered Himself on the cross as the complete sacrifice for our sins.

So we say to our Lord: “Take my life and let it be consecrated, Lord, to Thee.” Take my ears to hear Your Word, my lips to praise You, my hands to do Your work, my feet to carry the Good News of salvation to the world. Then what is thought to be “good” will be good indeed.

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"Beautiful Flowers, Bad Fruit"

The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Galatians 5:22
   

Along in April or May, no tree or shrub adorns itself with more beautiful flowers than the wild crab. The blooms, in clusters of three to six, range in color from white to pale pink to deep rose. As for the fruit, the apples it produces are small – often less than an inch in diameter – and sour. They are inedible.

The Bible takes note of an all-flower, no fruit type of life. Some would-be religious people try to assume a decorative Christianity. Their speech is flowery, their prayers full of pious phrases, their behavior in church correct, their deeds eye-catching. The so-called electronic churches on television increase the temptation to practice a visual kind of religion. It is mostly flowers.

This is by no means a new development. The Old Testament prophets vehemently denounced external piety. Jesus exposed the false righteousness of the Pharisees. And Saint James in his epistle took note of would-be worshipers “wearing a gold ring and fine clothes” (James 2:2) – not that it is sinful to be well dressed but because this externalism betrayed a so-called faith lacking the works of love.

God, who is the Creator of all things, can appreciate beautiful flowers, but He realizes that they don’t provide food. The fruit does that. Good fruit is the test of a good tree, even as works of true love are the test of the true saving faith in Jesus Christ. The Holy Spirit, having through the Gospel brought us to faith in the Savior and His atoning work for us, makes us fruitful in all good works. He makes us like trees that bring forth their fruit in their season (Psalm 1:3). Not the flowers but the fruit of the Spirit are these: “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.” These fruits, not empty words and deeds, are the Christian's adornment.

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"What the Human Being Can Become"

[Give] thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in the kingdom of light. Colossians 1:12
   

What is the Human Being?

Shakespeare's Hamlet, in a moment of good feeling about the human being, exclaims in Act II, scene 2: "What a piece of work is man, how noble in reason, how infinite in faculties, in form and moving how express and admirable, in action how like an angel, in apprehension how like a god -- the beauty of the world, the paragon of animals!" At first blush this seems ludicrous -- like an All Fool's Day delusion.

Here someone will surely ask for equal time to say that the human being is not like an angel in thoughts, words, and actions. Attention will be called to sins and crimes reported in newspapers; robbery, killing, oppression, adultery, drunkenness. A paragon of animals? Sometimes it is the other way around: Animals show more sense. Male and female birds, like the cardinals, stay together permanently. Do human couples?

It is hard to place human beings. Surely they are neither animals nor angels. What are they? The Bible says: "God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them" (Genesis 1:27).

Adam and Eve were like God in holiness and righteousness, but when they sinned they lost this image or likeness. Sin had a way of growing, like cancer. Wickedness abounds in our world, in our present age as in all past ages. No uplifting measures designed by man can pull himself out of the mire. Only God could do it, and God did. He sent His own Son, whom we adore as our Lord Jesus Christ, to redeem us from sin. By faith in the Redeemer the human being becomes a new creation, a reconstructed being. He becomes the new person whom Jesus desires -- and empowers -- him to be: the salt of the earth and the light of the world.

Christianity holds that sinful humanity can be renewed in the image of God. We are neither angels nor animals. We are reborn persons, children of God, reborn when the Holy Spirit has done His work.

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"Free to be a Disciple"

Through the obedience of the one Man the many will be made righteous. Romans 5:19
   

This is a paradox: As we make ourselves captives of God's Word, we become free -- free from everything that can make life a kind of hell on earth: fear, guilt, self-service, and the "I have my heaven here on earth" syndrome.

Martin Luther, the great Reformer, writes, "I do the will of God, who sent Christ. To the Word alone have I listened; and I say, 'Dear Lord Christ, I want to be Thy pupil and believe thy Word, want to close my eyes and make myself a captive of Thy Word.' Then He makes me a free lord."

The Law makes humanity into a fear-filled, guilt-laden slave. It demands, threatens, and condemns. No one can reach the moral perfection it demands. Therefore the pronouncement: "Cursed is everyone who does not continue to do everything written in the Book of the Law" (Galatians 3:10). Thank God for this: "Christ is the end of the Law so that there may be righteousness for everyone who believes" (Romans 10:4). While the Law condemns, the Gospel announces God's saving purpose in Christ, creates and confirms faith in God's promise, and imparts all blessings for which Christ went to the cross: divine favor, forgiveness, life now and eternal life to come, membership in God's family, peace.

Only by faith in the Gospel are we made acceptable to God and made free for discipleship. The Reformation gave new emphasis to this truth. Hand in hand with freedom from the curse of the Law comes the freedom to serve God. God's saving grace in Jesus Christ does not compel us to discipleship, like a man being drafted and compelled to serve in the army; it prompts Christians to volunteer for service under Christ's banner.

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"From Killing to Kindness"

While they were in the field, Cain attacked his brother Abel and killed him. Genesis 4:8
   

The many killings reported by the news media are not a modern phenomenon. In Shakespeare's "Hamlet," the king is killed, and the uncle, Claudius, marries Queen Gertrude. Hamlet wants to kill Claudius but by mistake slays Polonius, the father of his beloved Ophelia. Her brother, Laertes, and Hamlet kill each other in a duel. Hamlet's mother dies of poison intended for her son.

We can go back to a much earlier source to see the killing instinct at work: the Bible. Cain, the first son ever to be born, killed Abel. Among Adam's other descendents was Tubal-Cain, "who forged all kinds of tools out of bronze and iron" (Genesis 4:22), some of them used for killing. Another descendant, Lamech boasted to his two wives, Adah and Zillah: "I have killed a man for wounding me, a young man for injuring me" (Genesis 4:23). As you read on in the books of the Bible you find many instances of individual and group killings, in peace and in war.

Some say the Bible shouldn't be read because it indirectly encourages people to shed human blood. But the opposite is true. Secular humanists and others who deny the reality of sin and claim an inborn goodness of human nature should read the Bible to convince themselves of the truth of this statement in Genesis: "Every inclination of his [man's] heart is evil from childhood" (Genesis 8:21).

Killings will not stop until there is a change of heart -- a change that only the Holy Spirit can effect through the Gospel. He makes the individual a new creation in Jesus Christ. The Spirit creates faith in the Savior, and with faith He engenders love: love to God and love to fellow human beings, including enemies.

Strange as it may seem, only the death of Christ, brought on by His enemies, can keep people from killing each other. For it not only reveals the horror of hatred vented against the Innocent One, but more important, it sets people free from the power of sin. God is at work in converted human beings, enabling them to change hatred, anger, jealousy, and other motives for murder into love, patience, and forbearance. In Christians the killing instinct turns to kindness.

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"Those Comforted Become the Comforters"

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ ... who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God. 2 Corinthians 1:3-4
   

The light of the sun is God's free public utility to all people. It is the same for everyone: for the sunbather resting on the beach, for the farmer tilling his fields, for the woman growing flowers in her yard. Since the sunshine is meant for all, those who are healthy can share it with the weak by taking them for walks; by letting more sunshine come into our dark city slums; by providing solaria, or sunshine rooms, for the sick and the institutionalized.

As is the Creator's sunlight, so is the comfort of our heavenly Father in Jesus Christ. It is free, and it is the same for all, as Saint Paul writes: "Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received."

God's comfort is the same for rich and poor, young and old, learned and unlearned, pastors and lay members in the church. Social standing, ethnic background, and skin color are no factors. In Jesus Christ, His Son, God loved and redeemed the whole world -- all humanity -- inviting everyone to accept the comfort of His forgiveness. Also with respect to God's compassion and consolation, in Saint Paul's words: "There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus" (Galatians 3:28).

The apostle makes this important point: God comforts us not only for our own sakes but also to equip us for comforting others in their troubles. The comfort is the same. How wonderful and God-pleasing, when Christians who have experienced divine comfort take that same consolation and speak it to others in their distress! It is like sharing God's sunshine.

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"Easter's Three Little Words"

"He has risen!" Mark 16:6
   

"Three Little Words" was the title of a popular song years back. The Christian faith has its three little words which convey the greatest news ever told. They say: "He has risen!"

Had the Easter message been "Christ is dead," life would be a succession of most distressing facts, as Saint Paul enumerates them in 1 Corinthians 15: preaching is in vain, faith is futile, we are still mired down in our sins, the dead will not rise, we will have no reunion with them (1 Corinthians 15:14-20).

But:"He has risen!" That entirely reverses the terms, and life has made a turn of 180 degrees. From the gloom of the grave Christ, the Light of the world, has emerged alive. He has kept every promise -- the promise that on the third day He would raise the temple of His body, the promise that He would see His followers again, the promise that they, too, would live and on the Last Day rise from the dead.

Christ's resurrection casts us Christians in entirely new roles. From mourning we proceed to rejoicing. Doubt and despair turn into faith. Truly, as Saint Peter declares: "In His great mercy He [God the Father] has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead" (1 Peter 1:3).

Since Christ has risen, many are the consequences for us as Christ's church. The angel bids us: "Go quickly and tell ... [that] He has risen from the dead" (Matthew 28:7), and the living Lord Himself issues this mission mandate: "Therefore go and make disciples of all nations" (Matthew 28:19). The Head of the church is alive, and from His throne at God's right hand He rules and guides the affairs of His kingdom of grace, eventually turning it into the kingdom of glory.

The three little words "He has risen!" describe an even that has changed life completely for us as members of Christ's kingdom.