Walking With Jesus

What Is Your Idol?

“No one can serve two masters. For you will hate one and love the other; you will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.” (Luke 16:13 NLT)

An idol is anything that demands God’s rightful place in your life. It can be something material or an idea. The word translated “money” in the above verse speaks to wealth, riches, or what we treasure. It’s essentially anything to which we devote our life. It’s that which we pursue with our time, talent, and energy. It’s what gets us up in the morning and the last thing on our mind before we go to sleep.

Jesus used strong words to convey a critical message. When He said: “No one can serve two masters,” the word “serve” literally means “slave.” And the word for “masters” is the same word used in reference to God the Father and Jesus when referred to as “Lord.”

In Jesus’ day when someone was purchased as a slave, they became the exclusive property of their owner/master. In much the same way, when we yield our life to Jesus, we give Him total control of our lives. Baptism by immersion illustrates our death to self and our resurrection to new life fully devoted to serving our new Master, Jesus.

That’s so foreign to the way we think today it’s difficult to understand. We’re so used to doing what we want, when we want, to think of even Jesus telling us what to do is like a slap in our face. We rebel against anyone commanding us to do anything against our will. Yet, Jesus was clear that we have to choose.

We can choose our own way. He won’t stop us. But to choose our way is to walk away from Jesus and His offer of eternal life. We can’t serve Jesus and anything else. Either Jesus calls the proverbial “shots” in our life, or we’re ruled by Satan. To believe we rule ourselves is to believe a lie.

The bottom line for each of us is this – we allow the Holy Spirit to reign and rule our life – our thoughts, our actions, our desires, our plans, our future, our present, our hopes, our dreams, our everything, or we’re allowing sin and Satan to rule. We can pretend to be in control, but we’re only fooling ourselves.

And I understand, we’re not perfect and we can never be perfect in this life. Yielding our life to Jesus initiates a process of transformation that isn’t immediate, but it is definite. What does that mean? It means we’re immediately viewed differently by God. He sees us in ways that we likely will never understand completely this side of heaven. He sets us on a track to be what He envisions we can be, but it takes time.

He sees us through the lens of Jesus’ sacrifice on the Cross; He sees us clean and pure and completely forgiven; He sees us as what will one day be a reality when we get our new body; He sees us through the robes of righteousness that only Jesus deserves to wear. But in the meantime, there is a creative tension between what we are as a human being and what we’re becoming as a child of God.

The battle for us is to determine who is going to be Lord and to whom we will be slave – every day! And the reality is we are, have been, and always will be a slave to some lord – either Jesus or Satan, there is no other choice. Our spiritual roots will go down deep in our love for Jesus or our love for this world, owned and operated by Satan and his devilish emissaries.

Tim Keller gives us insight when he wrote: “Money, itself, isn’t usually an idol. What you put your money towards does show you where your idols are usually.” Every day our lives reveal whom we serve and to whom we’re enslaved. It’s ironic that Jesus is the only Master who sets us free to be everything He designed and desires us to be.

In my mind and heart, I have no option but to seek with everything within me to yield everything I am or ever hope to be to Him.

Food for thought.

Blessings, Ed 😊

Are You a Witness?

“After seeing Him, the shepherds told everyone what had happened and what the angel had said to them about this child. All who heard the shepherd’s story were astonished…” (Luke 2:17-18 NLT)

What is a witness? Isn’t it essentially a person who experiences a first-hand account of something? We witness things every day. Obviously, some things matter more than others. I witness my dogs eating their meals, but who cares, right? I care! Why? Because I’m responsible for their wellbeing. How I care for them is evidence of how much they mean to me.

What if I witness a crime or an accident? What’s my responsibility? Isn’t it to share what I saw? What if I’m involved in some way? I will share what I experienced, how it affected me. What’s my point? No one can share your story like you. No one can feel what you felt or respond exactly like you responded. As with the Shepherds, all they did was share what they saw and experienced.

What have you experienced with Jesus? How has He changed your life? What difference is He making in the way you live? What does it mean to you that you have the promise of a home in heaven when you die? How has your relationship with Jesus impacted your home life? Your work environment? Where you go for “fun?” How you relate to your neighbors and friends?

What is the evidence that you love and serve Jesus? I love what Joyce Meyer said: “If you are accused of being a Christian, there should be enough evidence to convict you.” How open are you with sharing your love for Jesus? If you’re not sharing it, could it be that it doesn’t exist?

As a rule, we tend to share the things we love. We put stickers on our vehicle or wear clothing that promotes our favorite team or cause. What we love is often the subject of our conversations, whether it’s a sports team or our spouse or child. If we love our job, we tell someone. If we find a great restaurant, we’re not bashful about telling others. Why is it so difficult to share Jesus in normal, everyday conversation?

Donald Barnhouse wrote: “Every believer is a witness whether he wants to be or not.” Whether we like it or not, there’s no such thing as a “silent” witness for Jesus. While often attributed to St. Francis, the quote that says some variation of “Preach the Gospel. Use words if necessary.” Is a little bit like saying: “Perform surgery. Use instruments if necessary.”

Implicit in preaching the Gospel is the use of words. Granted, our lives need to back up and affirm the words we use, but witnessing with our lives, while valuable, isn’t enough. Not many, unless they know us well, are going to deduce that our conduct is Christ-generated. Maybe in the fifties, but not today. There are some very nice people who are far from Christ.

Being a witness for Jesus demands more than church attendance and a quiet lifestyle. Jesus wasn’t crucified for being quiet, He died because He was outspoken about who He was and about His mission on earth. If we’re not ruffling some “feathers,” we’re probably not being very effective in our witness. Being a believer in Jesus today is offensive period!

Does that mean we should be obnoxious and rude? Of course not. That wasn’t Jesus’ style, and it can’t be ours. Jesus was murdered for telling the truth, that He was God in human form. Maybe you haven’t noticed, but that’s just as hard for people to accept today as it was 2,000 years ago. It didn’t make sense then and it doesn’t today, unless and until it becomes embodied in a person of character whose lifestyle matches their words.

That’s what changed the world then and it will today if we’ll live like Jesus and not be bashful about sharing Him with others.

Food for thought.

Blessings, Ed 😊

Your Strength Will Equal Your Days

“Jesus was crucified in weakness, yet He lives by God’s power. Likewise, we are weak in Him, yet by God’s power we will live with Him to serve you.” (2 Corinthians 13:4)

*On the 15th of each month I devote a day to share with you a devotional by Sylvia Gunter. Please read these words slowly and attentively as you allow the Holy Spirit to speak through her to your heart. Blessings, Ed (used with permission)

Listen with your spirit to the Word of God in Deuteronomy 33:25b. “Your strength will equal your days.” and 2 Corinthians 13:4 “Jesus was crucified in weakness, yet he lives by God’s power. Likewise, we are weak in him, yet by God’s power we will live with him to serve you.”

Beloved one, by your Father’s strength you have life. I bless you with strength in your spirit for each day. Wake up every morning knowing that the living God is sustaining, strengthening, and renewing your spirit, soul, and body for the opportunities and problems that He sets before you.

Your Father’s power provides everything you need each day for being who you are called to be and for obeying Him as He appoints for you to honor Him. In Him you have inner quiet, security, and strength for each day. Be assured of His help and presence in all the majesty of His glorious detail with which He has ordained your days. You can have a constant and growing sense of His presence with you for His purposes and His pleasure.

By your Father’s promise you have life. “My comfort in my suffering is this: Your promise preserves my life” (Psalm 119:50). Your Father renews you with His promises. Think about the many times that He has been with you, has loved you, has taken care of you, has blessed you. Hold on to promises that He is making to you from His Word and by His Spirit. His words are your life.

Your faithful Father is watching over His purposes that await a future time for fulfillment. Enjoy life and be renewed, refreshed, and restored in your relationship with God and His faithfulness expressed in His Word.

In your Father’s Son you have life. You have the life of your Father and of his Son living in you to know Him better and love Him more. You are alive, awake, well, and fully present to life today by the power of his Holy Spirit.

By the power of the Living One you have life. The Living One lives in you as your life for each day. His life lights your way, your relationships, your time, your decisions. Meet Him daily spirit-to-Spirit. Be energized with the life of eternity upon all that you are, and think, and do.

I bless you in the name of Jesus who is your life.

For archive of past devotionals:www.thefathersbusiness.com

Are You an Accident?

“You made all the delicate, inner parts of my body and knit me together in my mother’s womb. Thank You for making me so wonderfully complex! Your workmanship is marvelous – how well I know it. You watched me as I was being formed in utter seclusion, as I was woven together in the dak of the womb. You saw me before I was born. Every day of my life was recorded in Your book. Every moment was laid out before a single day had passed.” (Psalm 139:13-16 NLT)

If you are alive, you have a purpose! God doesn’t make mistakes and He doesn’t create junk. Every person has been uniquely designed by God and bears the image of their Creator. God has planted eternity in the hearts of every person. Everyone will live forever, someplace.

When I was in Seminary, I took a course entitled “Ministry to the Mentally Ill.”Friends thought I took the class to gain insight into why I was the way I was, but it was an eye opener. As part of the requirements, we would go to a State Facility one day a week, mostly to observe and interact with patients, but they had areas of the hospital where there were people, young and old, who had more than mental issues.

That experience comes to mind as I readily admit that I don’t have answers to why some people are born grossly deformed in body and mind. One day we’ll understand perfectly, but in the meantime, we have the same option as everyone else on the planet – we either tuck that away in our “Ask the Lord about this when I get to heaven,” or we let it push us away from the Lord.

There are circumstances with which every person must deal during their lives. Tragedy, violence, mistreatment, hardships, many things we’d never choose for ourselves, but which God can enable us to use to make us better, not bitter.

Ultimately, we get to decide what we’ll do with the proverbial “cards” we’ve been dealt. I have chosen in my life to trust God with my outcomes. Like many, if not most, there are things I’ve done and experiences I’ve had that I’d like to have some “do-overs,” but that’s not how life works. I have chosen to believe the Bible is God’s Word, thus true and applicable to every avenue of my life.

The only way that I can make sense of my life is to trust that God has engineered circumstances to enable me to maximize my potential for His glory and honor. As a Jesus follower I don’t belong to myself. I’ve been purchased by the blood of my Savior, so I’m no longer my own, but property of my beloved Savior. I’ve experienced negative things in my life, but because my life has purpose, those experiences have purpose, and the Lord has used them to shape and mold me into the person He desires me to become as I grow into greater conformity to His likeness.

Very likely you have experienced heartbreaking, life-altering, soul-crushing things in your life that have caused you to wonder if God has forgotten about you, or worse, never realized you’d been born. On the authority of God’s Word, I assure you that is not the case. He knew you before the foundations of the world were ever laid.

Augustine wrote: “God loves each of us as if there were only one of us.” In God’s mind He loves you as if you’re His only child. The longer I live and the closer the Lord becomes to me, the richer I see my life for having experienced the painful and tragic things I’ve endured. Each one has enabled me to see Him more clearly and desire Him more fully.

I get that there are lots of things we don’t see clearly now, but one day, when our eyes and minds are finally fully opened and as we walk faithfully with Jesus, we’ll see we were each one purposely and intentionally designed to become the person we are. And all that it took for us to get there was no accident.

Food for thought.

Blessings, Ed 😊

When God Says “NO!”

“So to keep me from becoming proud, I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger from Satan to torment me and keep me from becoming proud.” (2 Corinthians 12:7b NLT)

Jim Mitchell wrote in a Family Life devotional: “I’d been waiting anxiously. This was not just any job—it was my dream job. One I felt qualified and gifted for. One I’d worked hard to attain and really wanted. And honestly, one I badly needed because my wife and I were in a difficult financial spot at the time. Which is what made the call so difficult. Well, that and the fact that it wasn’t a simple no. It was a no with the added detail, ‘it was unanimous.’ Apparently not a single person there felt I was the right fit. Not one. We weren’t just disappointed, we were devastated. Like, sobbing-together-in-the-floor devastated. Literally. We prayed and we tried to turn our focus to the future, but it crushed us.”

Like Jim Mitchell, the Apostle Paul, me, and perhaps you – what do you do when you’re crushed in a way you have no precedent in your life with which to compare it? When you’re denied something you not only want, but desperately need – at least that’s how you see it. How do ever bounce back? How do you make sense of something that doesn’t make sense to you?

Photo by Karolina Grabowska on Pexels.com

That’s how I felt when my wife left. To say I was devastated would be to sugar coat it. I literally wanted to die. I wanted to dig a hole and pull the dirt in over me. In my mind I had no future, at least none in which I wanted to participate. The emotional pain was so agonizing I couldn’t function. I needed a job, a place to live, in short, I needed to start life over again, but I had no will or desire to pursue any of it. I didn’t care if I lived or died, I just wanted this chapter of my life to be over.

While I never blamed God, like Paul, I begged Him to save my marriage, to change my wife’s mind, to let her love me again, but heaven was silent, at least that’s what I thought. In my darkest hour I cried out to God, believing I’d lost everything. Then, not in an audible voice, but one that was crystal clear, God said: “You haven’t lost everything because you haven’t lost Me, and I’m all you need!”

My circumstances didn’t immediately change, but I did. He gave me hope that life could be worth living again. He helped me see that me + Jesus was a majority. It didn’t matter what anyone else thought or believed about me, God loved me and was for me and that’s what became my guiding light. The only job that opened up was a sales position at a auto dealership. I loved cars, so I thought: “How hard can it be?”

I was driving a new Cadillac provided by the dealership, but I didn’t have money to put gas in it. I could have papered one of my walls with eviction notices, but He always made a way, and I was never evicted. Slowly things began to turn around. The Lord enabled me to win a contest, the prize for which was a trip to the Bahamas for two. Expenses were all covered, plus it included $500, which at that time was plenty to eat and do some fun things.

Since I was single, I asked my then 16-year-old daughter if she’d like to go with me and she agreed. We had a blast. She liked it so much when she got married, she chose that spot in the Bahamas to have her wedding.

So, what’s the point of my sharing all of this? Simply this: If you know Jesus, He’s literally all you need. Do you remember in Mark 6 when Jesus sent the twelve disciples out? What did he allow them to take on their trip? The clothes on their back and a pair of sandals. Why? Trust! He wanted to give them, as He gave me, an object lesson in learning to trust Him without reservation – for EVERYTHING! That’s what we need to do when God says “NO!”

Blessings, Ed 😊

The Key to Confidence

“For the next two years, Paul lived in Rome at his own expense. He welcomed all who visited him, boldly proclaiming the Kingdom of God and teaching about the Lord Jesus Christ. And no one tried to stop him.” (Acts 28:30-31 NLT)

In my experience one of the key reasons many people are reluctant to share their faith in Christ is a lack of confidence. Why is that? Where do we most commonly look to gain the confidence we think we need? Where is the focus of our concern? What’s often the first question we ask ourselves when thinking about the subject of sharing our faith?

Imagine you’re driving at night in a downpour. The wind is howling and though the wipers are moving as fast as they can, it’s difficult to see anything but the glare of your headlights against the driving rain. You consider pulling over, but it’s all strange territory and you’re not sure if it’s safe to even try. What do you do?

What is your source of confidence in that scenario? Yes, you may pray some variation of “Oh Lord, help me!” But ultimately, where does the proverbial “buck” stop? Who’s holding the steering wheel? Whose feet are operating the brake and accelerator? You, right? The scary scenarios may change, but most often in our minds we’re the one in control, we’re the one who is responsible for the outcome.

While as believers that’s not technically true, it’s typically how we think, and it carries over into how we think about sharing our faith. We’re the “subject” when it comes to sharing our faith, the same as in virtually any other scenario in which we find ourselves.

We hold ourselves responsible for the outcome! What if the person with whom I’m sharing doesn’t believe me? What if I say something wrong? What if I make them mad? What if I forget the Scriptures? What if _________ (and you can fill in the blank)? What’s wrong with this line of thinking? It leaves out the most important piece of the puzzle – Jesus!

Rather than be concerned about how well “we” do, our trepidation would be better handled if we did what only we can do and let the Holy Spirit do what only He can do. On some levels we are the car in the storm, with Jesus at the wheel. We’re never the “subject” when sharing our faith or doing anything else to the glory of God.

Jesus is the subject, we’re simply His instrument in accomplishing HIS purposes. Our job is to be completely surrendered to His authority, under His leadership. We’re the mouthpiece for His words, and the vessel through whom flows His Spirit, to accomplish His assignment.

Effectiveness in being used of God begins every day before the throne of God, yielding our will to His, offering our bodies as living sacrifices to be offered on the altar of His desires. We’re not our own, we’ve been bought with the price of the blood of our precious Savior on the Cross. Our job isn’t to be in our control, but under His.

Our confidence grows out of reverent fear of our holy Father. Solomon said it well in Proverbs 14:26: “In the fear of the Lord there is strong confidence.” Dr. David Jeremiah explains what that means when he wrote: “Fearing God means living in awe of the Lord Jesus who represents to us the Father and resides within us by His Holy Spirit.” Our confidence isn’t an attitude, it’s a Person; it’s not dependent upon us, but Him.

As Dr. Jeremiah wrote: “The key to confidence is Christ.

Blessings, Ed 😊

Is God Good to Everyone?

“The Lord is good to everyone. He showers compassion on all His creation.” (Psalm 145:9 NLT)

Have you or someone you know ever said something like: “I don’t know what I’ve done, but God must have it out for me. It doesn’t matter what I do it never seems to work out well for me.” I’ve felt that way when I was younger, trying to find my way. It seems it’s always easier to blame God than let the mirror of introspection reflect what’s really going on.

While God needs no defense, it frustrates me when I hear someone getting God confused with Santa Claus. Rick Warren addressed this when he wrote: “Many people think you only get good gifts from God if you are good. But that’s confusing God with Santa Claus! With Santa we say, ‘You better watch out, you better not cry . . . Santa Claus is comin’ to town.’ But that’s not how God works. He doesn’t keep a naughty list and a nice list when it comes to his blessings.”

“Used by permission, © Ray Majoran, GlimpseOfInfinity.com” “Wildfire Sun”

In the context of teaching about loving our enemies, Jesus said in Matthew 5: “For He gives His sunlight to both the evil and the good, and He sends rain on the just and the unjust alike.” It’s ironic to me that the people who complain the most about God not being “good” or “fair” are too often professing believers. I hear things like: “I was way more qualified than the guy who got the job.” Or “I can’t believe they passed me over for that promotion. I come in early and leave late every day. What do they want? Blood?”

My boss when I worked for AFLAC often said: “I don’t hire anyone unless they pass the D-I-L test. “Do I Like!” If I don’t like them, I don’t care how qualified they are, I won’t hire them.” He reasoned if they didn’t make a good impression on him, they likely wouldn’t come across well with the ones they needed to influence for the company.

If you think about it, the world teaches: “What goes around comes around.” It basically teaches we get what we deserve. The Hindus call it karma. Rick Warren writes: “It’s the belief that there is a cause and effect for everything you do. Good things happen to you because of the good things you’ve done in the past, and bad things happen to you because of the bad things you’ve done in the past. But God operates by grace, not karma. If you got what you deserved, then you wouldn’t even be here on Earth. If you got what you deserved, then you would have nothing. Did you deserve to be born? Do you deserve to be able to see colors and taste flavors? Do you deserve forgiveness? No. Those are gifts of God.”

Grace basically means we get what we don’t deserve from God and mercy means not getting what we do deserve. Think of the angel’s announcement of the birth of the Messiah to the shepherds: “’Don’t be afraid!’ he said. ‘I bring you good news that will bring great joy to all people.’” Who first heard this great news? Shepherds, the lowest of the low in terms of social status. And who was it for? EVERYONE!

Let that sink in! Who is included in “everyone?” Every nationality, every ethnicity, every religion, every man, woman, and child who ever lived or ever will live. Why? Because God is good to everyone! Jesus illustrated this in innumerable ways from the woman “caught in the very act of adultery,” the Samaritan woman, and the woman with the issue of blood, to the man born blind and the man who laid by the pool of Bethesda for 38 years. He hugged lepers and tax collectors and invited even those who hated Him to follow Him.

In my humble opinion God gets the wrap of not being good, not because He’s not good, but too often those of us who bear His holy name aren’t good to others.

Food for thought.

Blessings, Ed 😊

The Secret of Joy

“The Kingdom of Heaven is like a treasure that a man discovered hidden in a field. In his excitement, he hid it again and sold everything he owned to get enough money to buy the field.” (Matthew 13:44 NLT)

What treasure are you seeking? Is it financial? Relational? Educational? Mental? Emotional? _________(you can fill in the blank)? Whatever it is, what’s it worth to you? There’s a lot of wealth in the city in which I live. Multimillion dollar houses are tucked away behind gates designed to protect against intruders. Cars that cost more than I made in five plus years when I was working, crowd our busy streets. These are often the “treasures” we pursue, thinking they will fill the emptiness of our soul.

The implication of the parable Jesus told in the verse above was the man wasn’t necessarily pursuing this treasure but found it during the course of his normal activities. That’s often how Jesus is “discovered.” Often in the futility of chasing something temporal, we happen onto that which is eternal.

As we peruse the activities of our day-to-day life, we’re thrust into the realization that circumstances change, but God doesn’t. The writer of the Hebrew letter confirms that “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever.” It may vary from person to person, but many of us don’t find Jesus because we’re searching for Him. He finds us most often in the changing landscapes of our daily lives.

Like Solomon, we try everything to find lasting happiness and joy, only to be disappointed by the trinkets of this world. But, ultimately, by God’s grace, we discover the Treasure is Jesus and find it a small price to trade everything we are or ever hope to be just to know, love, and serve Him.

Elisabeth Elliot was right when she said: “The secret of joy is Christ in me, not me in different circumstances.” Paul wrote in Colossians 1:27: “For God wanted them (us) to know that the riches and glory of Christ are for you Gentiles, too. And this is the secret: Christ lives in you. This gives you assurance of sharing His glory.”

If you’re a Jesus follower, have you ever tried to calculate the value of the gift of His presence living in you? Have you ever sought to compare the privilege of being forgiven, cleansed, freed to become a brand-new species of being like no other that’s ever existed, with anything this world can offer? Think of the most valuable gift you’ve ever received, knowing you’d give it away in a heartbeat to have what you’ve found in Jesus.

When I attempt to define the word “joy,” it occurs to me that true, Biblical “joy” isn’t brought about, isn’t a byproduct of anything of this world. Imagine closing your eyes in death and opening them in the presence of the same holiness, goodness, perfection, kindness, mercy, love, and grace that fills your heart and motivates your life as you experience Jesus on earth. Only now you don’t only sense His presence, you see His face!

This isn’t a passing feeling or temporary euphoria, it’s your new reality. There’s no way to describe what you’re feeling; you haven’t had any opportunity in your life on earth to give expression to anything like this because you’ve never experienced anything like this before. It’s all new, fresh, exciting, moving, beyond the power of words to explain.

You’re in the eternal presence of the living Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, whom you’ve read about, talked about, prayed to, loved, and served, but you never dreamed or imagined how joy-filled your new heart would be or how you could ever in a million years feel this light and free and alive!

He IS the secret of joy! Not only for this life, but for all eternity! He IS the Treasure worth selling all you own to have!

Hallelujah! What a Savior!

Blessings, Ed 😊

Your Pain Has Purpose

“I heard a loud shout from the throne, saying, ‘Look, God’s home is now among His people! He will live with them, and they will be His people. God Himself will be with them. He will wipe every tear from their eyes, and there will be no more death or sorrow or crying or pain. All these things are gone forever.’” (Revelation 21:4 NLT)

Heaven, a home with God forever, is hard to imagine, isn’t it? Every day we’re reminded that life on earth is temporary, but, especially when we’re young, we tend to believe we’re invincible and life on earth will never end. That tends to change dramatically as we age.

Today I changed the filter in our water system, a chore I’ve completed many times, but it took me much longer today because I couldn’t remember how I did it. Water was spewing all over the place and I was begging God to help me figure out what I was doing wrong. He did, but not before I’d made a big mess. Every time I knelt to try to reattach the filter housing I got a charley horse, first in my right leg, then my left. Pain is my near constant companion in this season of my life, but did you notice what that pain caused me to do?

Who did I beg for help? The Lord! He’s my constant companion, literally, and I can’t imagine not being near Him. That’s the joy and cause for my anticipation of being with Him for all eternity. Heaven would hold no appeal to me if Jesus wasn’t going to be there.

Rosaria Butterfield nailed it when she said: “A life outside of Christ is both hard and frightening; a life in Christ has hard edges and dark valleys, but it is purposeful even when painful.” This is a very sensitive topic, so I want to tread lightly, but from my perspective and based on my understanding of what the Bible teaches, God never wastes a problem.

Paul reminds us in Romans 8:28: “And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to His purpose for them.” And please understand, Paul is not saying that God causes everything. He doesn’t cause a driver to go 100 mph on a city street and slam into a family of six, killing them all. He doesn’t cause people to become addicts, murderers, or rapists. That’s ludicrous and an insult to a holy God.

So, why does Paul give us that assurance? Perhaps C. S. Lewis says it best: “We can ignore even pleasure. But pain insists upon being attended to. God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: it is his megaphone to rouse a deaf world.” (The Problem of Pain) We are so distracted by the busyness of life that we tend to ignore the pain of others, but not when it knocks on our door.

So, the question remains, what is the purpose of my pain? The obvious answer is “to point us to the Lord.” But crying out to the Lord to “fix this” isn’t exactly the purpose. On some levels pain is like the red light that is designed to have us stop at an intersection. We can ignore it, but usually at our peril. Or we can allow it to fulfill its purpose.

Ultimately the purpose of pain isn’t to make us suffer, but to enable us to see and understand that we are finite, frail, and inadequate to deal with pain on our own. It’s designed to point us to Jesus and find strength, healing, help, and adequacy in Him. I realize that some reading this may be mad at God for not healing someone, or not saving them from an accident or illness. And I get it. Every member of my immediate family has preceded me in death, but, gratefully, each one of them had a personal love relationship with the Lord and I will see each of them one day in full health and without pain.

Regardless of where you are in your walk with the Lord or what you’re going through right now, I can assure you based on the Word of God and my more than 60 years of personal experience as a Jesus follower, it’s a lot better to go through pain and death with Jesus than without Him.

Food for thought.

Blessings, Ed 😊

How God Judges

“You wicked servant!’ the king roared. ‘Your own words condemn you…” (Luke 19:22a NLT)

What comes first to mind when you think of God’s judgment? Is God’s judgment to be feared once you’ve yielded your life to Jesus? What is God’s standard for judgment?

In Hebrews 9:27, the writer says: “And just as each person is destined to die once and after that comes judgment, so also Christ died once for all time as a sacrifice to take away the sins of many people. He will come again, not to deal with our sins, but to bring salvation to all who are eagerly waiting for Him.”

George Müller, a great man of prayer, wrote: “God judges what we give by what we keep.” That idea has real merit! Think about what we tend to keep – hold onto: money, grudges, forgiveness, love, hatred, revenge, possessions, people, habits, sins – the list is long. In my mind’s eye I envision a tightly clenched fist, squeezing that which belongs to ME! “It’s MINE!” I can almost hear those words in a thousand different scenarios.

As a pastor I stood in the presence of a lot of people who had suffered severe loss. They dealt with their loss in a lot of different ways. Some were quiet, introspective, gentle as the Lord seemed clearly to embrace and comfort them. Others were visibly angry at God and the world, for taking “what’s MINE!” Whether a person, a possession, a position – in whatever form the loss came – neither God nor anybody else had any right to take it away. Healing can’t easily come to a spirit of bitterness and hatred.

What does any of this have to do with judgment? A lot! The Bible is clear that to a large extent, what we get is based on what we’re willing to give, including judgment. In His “Sermon on the Mount,” Jesus spoke to all areas of our lives, primarily from the standpoint of taking initiative. From the Beatitudes in the beginning of His message, He essentially is saying: “Take the initiative by being humble, by hungering and thirsting for justice, by being merciful, by having a pure heart, by seeking peace, by accepting persecution for doing right.”

Then He hones in and makes it very personal when He talks about being salt and light, by obeying God’s laws, by controlling your temper, by controlling your thoughts, and on and on. What’s my point? There is no judgment for those who judge themselves. When we yield our life and allegiance to Jesus and seek with everything within us to allow Him to model His life in and through us as He modeled His Father’s life in and through His life, we illustrate in living color how magnificent Jesus’ sacrifice on the Cross really was.

Please read Isaiah 53 with tissues in hand, in order to understand what real judgment looks like, the kind of judgment we deserve, but won’t suffer because “He bore our sins!” Because of Jesus and what He did in our place and on our behalf our “judgment” becomes our opportunity to be proactive in loving, giving, serving, forgiving, healing, helping, and on and on as we follow in the footsteps of our Savior.

Judgment is only an issue for someone who hasn’t yet given their life and allegiance to Jesus. And if you haven’t, what are you waiting for? You think Satan cares about you? Do you honestly believe if you had all the money and all the trinkets this world could offer, you’d be happy? Please stop believing the lies of the devil and let the Holy Spirit open your eyes and heart to Jesus.

Your judgment has already been given to Jesus. Let Him forgive and cleanse you of your sins. Please click the link below and see how you can know with certainty that you’re going to heaven when you die and have a life worth living while you’re here. https://hutchcraft.com/the-bridge-to-god

Blessings, Ed 😊