Walking With Jesus

An Easter Message

*Please allow this powerful Easter message from my friend Ray Majoran to speak to you and bless your life as it has mine. Blessings, Ed 😊

“And we are witnesses of all that He did both in the country of the Jews and in Jerusalem. They put Him to death by hanging Him on a tree, but God raised Him on the third day and made Him to appear, not to all the people but to us who had been chosen by God as witnesses, who ate and drank with Him after He rose from the dead. He commanded us to preach to the people and to testify that He is the one appointed by God to be judge of the living and the dead. To Him all the prophets bear witness that everyone who believes in Him receives forgiveness of sins through His name. (Acts 10:39-43ESV)

This Easter Sunday, we celebrate the resurrection of our Savior, Jesus Christ. He is the Son of God, the promised Messiah, the hope of the world. After suffering a brutal death on the cross, God raised Him up, loosing the pangs of death, because it was not possible for Him to be held by it (Acts 2:24).

For Christians, this is a day of great celebration. “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16).

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

For many, though, today is just another day on the calendar, one that is sometimes celebrated with Easter bunnies and chocolate eggs. Our public schools teach that the Bible is just a book written by a bunch of men who, for whatever reason, sought to gain some sort of power through myths and fairytales. Others believe that Jesus was real but only view Him as a good man or some sort of prophet.

While several people have debated the legitimacy of God and Jesus, secular historians can at least generally agree on the period when each of the 66 books of the Bible were written. The Old Testament was written between ~1500 BC and ~400 BC, while the New Testament was written between ~30 AD and ~100 AD.

If you’re a person who doesn’t believe in the God of the Bible, or if you’re a person who thinks that Jesus was just another man, or perhaps you’re a person who’s never really taken time to think about eternity — then on this Easter Sunday, I invite you to consider three things:

1) The Good News: The Bible lays out the narrative that we are all sinful human beings. Because God is holy and we are sin-filled creatures, we cannot enter into His presence. God and sin cannot exist together. To remedy our helpless state, He sent His one and only Son into the world who lived a sinless life and died as a sacrifice for our sins. As John 3:16 notes, you can enter the Father’s presence by putting your faith in Jesus. We are saved by no works of our own (Ephesians 2:9); instead, it’s by faith in Jesus Christ.

The Gospel message is really that simple: The Father made a way for you through Jesus Christ so you can live forever in eternity. Your sin is atoned for through Jesus. In heaven, God will wipe away every tear from our eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain, for the former things will have passed away (Revelation 21:4).

2) Jesus is the Only Way: Jesus himself declared that He is the only way to ever come to the Father and enter heaven (John 14:6). Whoever believes in Him has eternal life; whoever does not obey Jesus shall not see life, but the wrath of the Father remains on him (John 3:36). Therefore, it is impossible to say, “I believe in Jesus” and then in your next breath say, “but I think there are many ways for someone to get to heaven.” To do so would be to claim Jesus as a liar.

There is no other way, no other religion, no other reality. Buddhism won’t save you, Islam won’t save you, Hinduism won’t save you, Baha’i won’t save you, Judaism won’t save you, Wicca won’t save you, being a monk won’t save you, Sikhism won’t save you, sitting on your butt and ignoring reality won’t save you, and not even “calling yourself a Christian” will save you. Only a true, honest faith in Jesus Christ will save you. That and only that will allow you to go home and live with your Heavenly Father for eternity.

3) Some Simple Math: The Old Testament contains over 400 prophecies about the coming Messiah. When Jesus came into the world, He perfectly fulfilled every one of them. Do you know what the odds of that happening are? Think about it: one single man fulfilling every prediction about the coming Messiah, the Savior of the world. A professor named Peter Stoner worked with 600 students to figure out what the probability would be of just eight (of the over 400) prophecies being fulfilled in any one person who had lived up to the present time. The result: 1 in 100,000,000,000,000,000. Would you bet your life on those odds?

Lee Strobel, an atheist-turned-Christian, performed some calculations to try to figure out what this would look like in real life. Lee notes:

“I imagined the entire world being covered with white tile that was one-and-a-half inches square—every bit of dry land on the planet—with the bottom of just one tile painted red. Then, I pictured a person being allowed to wander for a lifetime around all seven continents. He would be permitted to bend down only one time and pick up a piece of tile. What are the odds it would be the one tile whose reverse side was painted red? The odds would be the same as just eight of the Old Testament prophecies coming true in any one person throughout history!”

Listen, if one is bent on refuting God and Jesus, nothing you’re going to read here is likely to change your mind (including these crazy mathematical odds). You can argue until you’re red in the face. You can be a skeptic and declare, “There’s no way 400 of those prophecies are about Jesus.” But the fact of the matter remains: they are real. Even if you can argue away half of them, the other half will still taunt you. He’s created too much evidence for you to just ignore it. As Lee Strobel puts it, even if Jesus only fulfilled eight prophecies, you would still be walking across the earth hoping to flip over that one red tile.

God is real, and Jesus is the Son of God, Messiah, and King. Today, we rejoice in the fact that Jesus is alive, and one day, we will meet Him face to face.

If you’re reading this today and have never given your life to Christ, I encourage you to do it. Tomorrow is not promised.

PRAYER FOR TODAY

Heavenly Father, I humbly acknowledge that there is no one righteous, not even one (Romans 3:10). I am a sinner in need of Your mercy and forgiveness (Titus 3:5-7), for without it, I will be separated from You forever. Your wrath will be revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth (Romans 1:18).

Father, I desire to be made right in Your eyes. Thank You for sending Your Son Jesus, who died on the cross in my place, taking the punishment I deserve (Romans 5:8). Please forgive me for my sins, as I put my trust in Jesus Christ as my Savior. I believe that Jesus’ death and resurrection have provided forgiveness for my sins, and I put my trust in Him alone as my personal Lord and Savior. Thank You for forgiving me and saving me.

*If you prayed this simple prayer, please let Ray know by tapping on his name or tap this link to let Ron Hutchcraft walk you through a simple process that you can follow after you invite Jesus to be Lord of your life.

When Good Friday Gets Personal

*Obviously Good Friday has passed, but when I read this message by Ron Hutchcraft yesterday, it was just too good not to share. Hope it’s as meaningful to you as it was to me. Blessings, Ed 😊

Twenty-three marks on the wall of his four-by-four prison cell told the story. It had just been three weeks since the soldiers captured him – the number one name on the Most Wanted List – at a local bar and they hauled him into this cell. The charges were robbery, treason, and murder. Day 23 was going to be just another day there, or so he thought until he heard the growing sounds of that angry mob outside the window above him. He managed to grab the bars on the window and pull himself up high enough to hear what the crowd was screaming. It was a combination of shock and fear that swept over him when he heard they were shouting his name! “Give us Ba-rabbas! Give us Ba-rabbas!”

Then the chant gradually began to change. Now they were shouting with this bloodthirsty anger, “Cru-ci-fy him! Cru-ci-fy him!” Barabbas slumped to the floor. He couldn’t believe it. He’d been their hero, but now they were calling for his execution by the most brutal means of execution ever devised – death on a cross. Within minutes, five soldiers were dragging him, kicking and screaming down the corridor, up the stone steps, and to another door. They flung the door open, pushed him through it, and slammed the door behind him.

It took a little while for him to realize where he was. He was out on the cobblestone street of Jerusalem. He was free! Before reality could fully dawn on Barabbas, the door behind him opened again. He literally had to roll out of the way to keep from being trampled by this angry crowd pushing their way through with a bare-backed, bleeding man in the middle of them. As Barabbas plastered himself against the wall of that narrow street, he could see that man’s back had been so brutally beaten it was like one gaping wound, exposing tissue and bone everywhere. Barabbas’ first instinct was to run while he could, but he didn’t. He followed that crowd all the way up to that skull-shaped hill just outside the city, where from a distance, he heard the hammer and the spikes that the heartless executioners of Rome were driving into that man’s hands and feet.

It turned dark as night in the middle of the day and the skies opened up with a deluge of rain. Curious spectators just began to drift away. Finally, Barabbas felt safe enough to walk slowly to the top of Skull Hill, with his head covered. It was as if there was a magnet pulling him toward the man hanging on that middle cross between two other dying criminals. Barabbas had heard the man say from that cross, “Father, forgive them.” He’d heard many things at crucifixions. He’d heard cursing, and screaming, and threatening, but never “forgive.”

He now could recognize the face that was beaten almost beyond recognition. It was Jesus – the man who had done no wrong, whose only crime was to love those that no one else cared about. And in that moment Barabbas found himself looking up into the eyes of that man on the middle cross and saying aloud, “Jesus, you don’t deserve to be there, I do. But because You’re dying there, I don’t have to die.” I could walk up to the cross where Jesus died and say that, and so could you.

I’m Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You on this Good Friday about “When Good Friday Gets Personal.”

I don’t know if Barabbas ever really made it to the cross, but I do know that getting to that cross to have your sins forgiven is your only hope of heaven. Our word for today from the Word of God is in Galatians 2:20, and it simply says, “The Son of God…loved me and gave Himself for me.”

If you’ve never been to Jesus’ cross and said those words, “For me. You’re dying for me,” this could be your personal Jesus-day. When you tell Him you are His, when every wrong thing you’ve ever done will be erased from God’s book, because the blood shed on that cross was shed to pay for it. And when you trade hell for heaven this very day, would you tell Him, “Jesus, you’re dying for what I’ve done. And today I am yours.”

And then, would you make a trip to our website? It’s ANewStory.com. I want to help you today be sure you’ve crossed over from death to life.

Good Friday – Jesus died for your sin today so you don’t have to.

Friendship With God

“You adulterers! Don’t you realize that friendship with the world makes you an enemy of God. I say it again: If you want to be a friend of the world, you make yourself an enemy of God.” (James 4:4 NLT)

While Cristiano Ronaldo, has the most Facebook friends (177+ million), there are many across our world who rise or fall on their Facebook and other social media popularity, but why? Can it be our understanding of friendship is so shallow? Or is it our lack of self-esteem that drives us to depend so strongly on such superficial affirmation?

Where do you look for friendship? Personally, my best friend is Jesus, but He has led me to wonderful friends from across the world, some of whom I won’t meet until we get to heaven. Then how do I know they’re my friends? Because our kinship with Jesus automatically makes us friends.

There is something I heard many years ago that says: “If you want someone to love you, love what they love.” That’s never truer than when someone loves Jesus. I’ve never met another person who loves Jesus that I haven’t loved. I may not have liked being around them all that much, but I loved them. Why would I say that? Because there are a lot of people we love, family members, relatives, and others in our spheres of influence we know well, but with whom we’d rather not have to spend a lot of time.

Personalities clash, points of view on critical issues differ, lifestyle choices and many other factors come to bear on why we choose those with whom we’ll be close and those whom we’ll keep at arm’s length. But when it comes to our friendship with God the rules change a bit. The ONLY basis upon which anyone can ever have a friendship with God is by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. How do I know that?

Because Jesus said in John 14:6-7: “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through Me. If you had really known Me, you would know who My Father is.” Our friendship with Jesus opens the way to know His Father and having kinship with the Father gives each of us as God’s redeemed children kinship with one another. Acts 2:42 makes this clear: “All the believers (in Jesus) devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching, and to fellowship, and to sharing in meals (including the Lord’s Supper, and to prayer.)”

Friendship and fellowship in the Body of Christ, the Church, should be as normal as wanting apple butter with bread. So, for someone who loves Jesus to shun, disrespect or disregard another believer because they aren’t a part of the same “brand” of Christianity is to slap our Savior in the face. His priceless blood was shed for EVERY born again, repentant sinner. The ground is level at the foot of the Cross where we’ll all equal in His sight.

Corrie Ten Boom had it right when she said: “When a Christian shuns fellowship with other Christians, the devil smiles.” When the world is falling apart, nothing should cement us together more strongly with our Christ-following brothers and sisters than our mutual love for our Savior. There’s a sense in which to deny love for a brother and sister in Christ is to deny our love for Jesus Himself.

Please, brothers and sisters in Christ, let’s grow up and lead the way for our lost loved ones and friends to come to Jesus as they witness our strong love for those in the Body of Christ who may believe differently than we do on some minor issues. One day, when we stand before the Lord we’re going to see as we’ve been seen and we’ll finally understand the miniscule things we viewed differently weren’t really all that important after all.

Food for thought.

Blessings, Ed 😊

Anger

“And ‘don’t sin by letting anger control you.’ Don’t let the sun go down while you are still angry, for anger gives a foothold to the devil.” (Ephesians 4:26-27 NLT)

What makes you angry? And yes, we All get angry, and so we should, because we’d sin by NEVER getting angry. Notice Paul isn’t telling us not to get angry, but not to sin WHILE we are angry. Anger at the right time and in the right way is perfectly right and normal for a believer.

Perhaps a reasonable question would be, was Jesus ever angry and if so, what was the cause? Injustice caused Jesus to get angry. When we put a higher priority on religious or political “rightness,” than on the needs of people, it upsets the Lord. Consider the man with the deformed hand in Mark 3:4 when the religious leaders were indignant because Jesus wanted to heal someone on the Sabbath. Jesus asked them a question: “Does the law permit good deeds on the Sabbath, or is it a day for doing evil? Is this a day to save life or to destroy it?” Jesus WROTE the law, He above all others knew its intent. Then, in His holy and righteous anger, He healed the man’s hand, even though He knew it would lead His accusers to plot His murder.

Again, in chapter 10 Mark records a time when the Lord’s anger was aroused. When parents brought their children to Him to touch and bless them the disciples scolded the parents for bothering Him, but the Lord discerned what was happening and the Bible says: “When Jesus saw what was happening, He was angry with His disciples.” He loves children, as we should, but more to the point, we should embrace and invite them, not push them away from us or the Lord.

A small child in his parents’ arms was very fidgety and distracting this morning in church. They were sitting right behind me and, admittedly, at first, I was annoyed. But as the service continued the Lord checked my spirit and reminded me of Jesus’ words in the above context when He told His disciples: “Let the children come to Me. Don’t stop them! (even if they’re noising and distracting 😊) For the Kingdom of God belongs to those who are like these children.”

Another instance, perhaps the most notable for it’s mentioned in all four Gospel accounts, is when He became angry upon seeing the merchants profiting from those who came to worship. The biggest issue wasn’t their providing needed resources for the coming worshippers, even though their prices were no doubt exorbitant, it was that they set up shop in the space that should have been reserved for the worshippers themselves.

Some Pastors and “profiteers” perform a similar disservice when they so focus on someone’s giving, they overshadow the very purpose of that giving – to worship and honor God, not the “servant” who uses millions of the people’s giving for their own profit and the building of their own “kingdom.” Which relates to the last major issue that ruffled our Savior’s “feathers,” sickness and death.

In Mark 1 a man with leprosy comes to Jesus, kneels in front of Him and asks to be healed. Then the Bible says in most translations some form of “Moved with compassion”, but some manuscripts use the word “anger”, but why? Why was Jesus angry? Could it be the human condition? The fact that something as horrible as leprosy has to even exist? Or worse, sin, which is often compared with leprosy? Perhaps Jesus’ frustration with the human condition arose from His knowledge of what His original intent was in allowing humans to be created in the first place. How far we’ve strayed, leading to such a tremendous cost to God the Father in allowing His only Son to be sacrificed as the only remedy to our sin and disobedience.

The realization that our sin put Him on the Cross should be enough to make any Jesus lover angry – angry enough at Satan to love everyone to Jesus that we possibly can.

Food for thought.

Blessings, Ed 😊

The Storm That Stops Us

By Ron Hutchcraft

*Please allow these powerful words of Ron Hutchcraft to challenge and inspire you. Blessings, Ed 😊

The snowstorm hit Chicago on a Saturday, and many of the people stranded at Chicago’s O’Hare Airport didn’t get out of there until Tuesday. That scene was not unique for O’Hare, of course. I’ve sat in a plane on the runway for three hours just because brief thunderstorms went through. The fact is, O’Hare Airport is a hub for so many connecting flights to so many places. And because it’s in the Midwest, it’s near one of the Great Lakes and it can get hit with all kinds of weather, which sometimes shuts down one of the busiest airports in the world. Someone said, “When O’Hare sneezes, the whole airline system gets pneumonia.” It’s true that when bad weather makes the hub close down, nothing can get to where it needs to be.

I’m Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about “Storms That Stop Us.”

Stormy weather doesn’t just shut down airports. It can shut down people, too. If you’ve been through a stormy time in your life recently, you know that tendency to sort of pull back, turn inward, and stop delivering what you usually deliver. And there’s a problem with that. Just like O’Hare Airport in Chicago, you are a hub – you are a hub through whom God sends love and encouragement and leadership and help to the people around you. If bad weather shuts you down, the people around you are hurting.

In our word for today from the Word of God, we see Jesus being battered by the most severe storms any human being has ever faced. He’s in agony on a Roman cross. He’s abandoned by most of the people He counted on. He’s suffering unspeakable pain, physically and spiritually. Jesus has been for so many the hub through which God has sent His love into their lives. Now, going through such awful turbulence and damage, will Jesus shut down and be all about himself?

John 19:25-27 – “Near the cross of Jesus stood His mother, His mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. When Jesus saw His mother there, and the disciple whom He loved standing nearby, He said to His mother, ‘Dear woman, here is your son,’ and to the disciple, ‘Here is your mother.’ From that time on, the disciple took her into his home.”

Here in the stormiest moment of His life, Jesus is still delivering God’s love into people’s lives. At a time when any of us would have been thinking totally about ourselves and the excruciating pain we were going through, Jesus is still thinking about the needs of others. Even then, even from the cross, He’s thinking about His mother’s needs. He’s thinking about the needs of the man on the cross next to Him. He’s calling for forgiveness for His executioners. With every reason to shut down, Jesus is still asking what He asked every day of His life, “Who needs Me here?”

And that is the model He has left for you and me, for those of us who have answered His invitation, “Follow me,” to still be delivering His love even when we are being battered by the storm. When we’re hurting, when we’re tired, when we’re stressed, our tendency is to think mostly about ourselves, isn’t it? We go into survival mode, “Everybody get out of my way. I don’t feel good,” or “I’m really busy,” or “I’m really tired.” And we get shut down, not by the storm, but by our self-centered, self-pitying response to the storm. Life is tough, so suddenly it’s all about me, right?

But Jesus calls us, Jesus shows us something better, something higher – a more supernatural way to live, to draw on His grace, to keep giving out His love even when we feel battered, to be all about others when I feel like being all about me; because I will find my life by giving it away.

You are a divine hub for delivering God’s resources into people’s lives. You just can’t let the storm shut you down!

Legacy

“You will bring them [into the land of promise] and plant them on the mountain (Mt. Moriah in Jerusalem) of Your inheritance, The place, O Lord, You have made for Your dwelling [among them], The sanctuary, O Lord, which Your hands have established. ‘The Lord shall reign to eternity and beyond.’” (Exodus 15:17-18 AMP)

A legacy is essentially an inheritance, something we leave for those whose lives our life has touched for good or ill. Some, because of their lives of crime or mayhem, leave a remembrance that scars and disappoints, even frightens those who knew them or perhaps even loved them. A parent or sibling of someone who has gone far astray.

On the other hand, when the Lord led the children of Israel out of Egypt, He had a destiny, a destination, a specific geographical location where He wanted to “plant” His people – on a mountain in Jerusalem. Both the Old and New Testaments refer to Jerusalem as “the Holy City.” According to Wikipedia: “Jerusalem has been fought over at least sixteen major times in history, with numerous sieges, attacks, and captures spanning ancient to modern times.”

Yet, to this day it remains a focal point of interest to the people of the world, but why? Because on some levels Jerusalem is the apple of God’s historical eye. He has unalterable plans for that great city revealed in His last book of the Bible when John writes in Revelation 21:2: “And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven like a bride beautifully dressed for her husband.”

It’s a day every believer in Jesus longs for, but why? Because it’s our inheritance! It’s the promised legacy of every Jesus follower! The truth is, whatever we are living and experiencing today, no matter how wonderful or how horrible, it will pale in comparison to what we will step into on that day. Our heavenly Father has prepared for us an inheritance that will cause our knees to bow, our eyes to involuntarily fill with tears of joy, and our hearts to pound with heavenly exaltation of our Risen Savior and King.

Our minds aren’t capable of imagining a more exciting, eternally gratifying way to celebrate our coming Savior, but what if there were ways we could pass on our gracious Father’s inheritance to those in our spheres of influence? What if as earthly moms and dads we could leave a godly legacy that would honor Jesus and bless our kids?

The great man of God, Charles Spurgeon reminds us: “A father’s holy life is a rich legacy for his sons.” My sense is it could also be true to speak of a mother’s godly life’s legacy or a grandfather or grandmother, uncle, aunt, brother or sister. Any of us, whether we have children or not can leave a legacy that will honor God and bless others.

Think of the Apostle Paul, Florence Nightingale, Charles Dickens, Harold Moody, George Frideric Handel, Mary Prince, Octavia Hill, Kathleen Lonsdale, Jess Boot, Olaudah Equiano, and Mother Theresa to name a few who have literally changed the course of human history through their sacrifices and the living of bold lives for Jesus. What kind of legacy am I, are you leaving to those in our spheres of influence?

My mind turns to the powerful words of C. T. Studd when he wrote: “Only one life, ‘twill soon be past, only what’s done for Christ will last.”

Food for thought.

Blessings, Ed 😊

Reference or Residence?

“You have had enough in the past of the evil things that godless people enjoy – their immorality and lust, their feasting, and drunkenness and wild parties, and their terrible worship of idols.” (1 Peter 4:3 NLT)

As children of God, we’ve all left our past. Whether our past has left us may be another matter. Too many who seek the pathway of the Savior want to keep one foot on the path to salvation and one foot on the path to their past. They long for heaven, but they also miss their past sins. Where do you find yourself today? You must decide or live in misery.

Another issue with our past that can trouble us is if we’ve been a “good” person and believe we can stay the same, just let Jesus ride along with us. But where’s the “transformation” in that? It’s as if we believe: “Lord, I’ve got this Christianity business, I just need your stamp of approval. Just let me know that I’m doing okay and I’ll keep on keeping on!” But that’s not how the Lord works.

Paul speaks to this in 2 Corinthians 5:16-17 when he writes: “So we have stopped evaluating others from a human point of view. At one time we thought of Christ merely from a human point of view. How differently we know Him now! This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun!” Jesus is never an add-on to our old life. We’re the caterpillar that becomes the beautiful butterfly. There’s no going back into the cocoon!

Toby McKeehan was on to something when he wrote: “The past is a place of reference, not a place of residence.” My sense is there are things in our past that we all miss, but I’m also confident what the Lord gives us in our new life so overshadows what life was like without Him, there’s really nothing to go back to. There are friendships I’d like to rekindle to see if I could help my lost friends see the light of Christ, but I don’t want to go back to life without Jesus.

We can learn things about ourselves when we look back, sometimes very painful, hard things that inspire and enable us to see how far we’ve come and help us gain strength and courage to keep moving forward even when it’s hard. We can also see mistakes we made in relationships that were crucial in changing the trajectory of our life, things we wished we could “take back” or “do over,” but life doesn’t work that way.

What is it in your life you wished you could change? Please don’t live there. By the grace and mercy of God realize you’re forgiven, take His hand and move forward. There’s a scene in my life I’ve relived hundreds of times, maybe more, but it never changes. No matter how many times I watch my tortuous failure, it never changes. And while Satan laughs and chides, Jesus extends His holy hand and invites me to walk from that failure into the hope He’s given me in Him.

We all have regrets, some, obviously more serious and life-altering than others, but the beauty of life in Christ is that He takes all of that into account when He gives us our new life. He channels all that negative energy we’ve burned in feeling sorry for ourselves and living in regret and enables us by His grace to forge a new path into a bright, God-focused life that honors and exalts Jesus.

A life led by His Spirit, motivated by His Spirit, filled and empowered by His Spirit. Yes, of course, we use our past mistakes, failures and sins as points of reference, but we don’t live there anymore. We’ve moved on by God’s grace and we’ve found new points of reference – victories the Lord has given us that encourage and empower us to see with Him all things are possible, even a brand-new life.

Food for thought.

Blessings, Ed 😊

Are You Listening?

“Spouting off before listening to the facts is both shameful and foolish.” (Proverbs 18:13 NLT)

As easy as it is for me to write, it’s often very difficult for me to listen well. It’s not that I don’t hear the words, I’m just not very good at hearing what’s behind the words. The feelings, emotions, anguish, heartache, anger, hurt. Those things often escape me in my concerns for myself and my agenda. And if I’m honest, I’d have to say I really want to listen “with my whole face,” as my wife would say, but there are parts of me that just don’t know how to do that. Am I alone in this? Is it just me? I don’t think so.

Pastor Rick Warren has some very helpful words on this subject when he writes: “What people say in a conversation is not nearly as important as what they are feeling. Many times, someone is saying one thing and feeling another. If you’re going to be a great listener, then you need to look past people’s words, even when what they’re saying is offensive. Hurt people hurt people, and words are an effective weapon. When people lash out or get defensive, it’s often because they’re afraid, insecure, or frustrated.”

Am I alone in not knowing how to effectively interpret feelings? Perhaps it’s my Alzheimer’s, but I’m struggling with knowing how to interpret my own feelings. Sometimes I’m angry for no good reason, frustrated by how I feel, what I can’t do, what I’d like to do but have no motivation to do it. What do all of those things have in common?

They’re excuses we use to avoid what we know the Lord is telling us to do. My sense is the Lord puts people in our life to give us practice in listening so we can ultimately be a better listener to Him. How can we listen to the “still, small voice of God” if we’re not open to hearing the loud, obnoxious voice of the person standing in front of us?

If we can’t get past the tone of someone’s voice or the angry expression on their face to hear the pain in their heart, how will we ever quiet our heart and mind enough to hear from the Lord. And here’s the irony: how often is the Lord speaking THROUGH those people to whom we’re not listening? My sense is, if you’re reading these words, YOU CARE! You sincerely want to hear from God, to do the right thing, to listen carefully and respond appropriately, so, how can we improve, especially in our attentiveness to the Lord, but also to others?

The key in my understanding is first, to decide we really want to hear what the Lord and others are trying to say, but a close second would be, we need to discipline ourselves to keep our mouths closed and our minds open in the process. We must not be defensive, even if we’re feeling attacked. We can’t defend what we don’t understand, but we’ll never understand until we listen with more than our ears.

We must open our heart to the Lord and to that other person’s ideas and opinions, especially of us, allowing the Lord to enable us to evaluate ourselves objectively and be willing to allow Him to shape us more perfectly into His image, not simply a better version or ourselves. And not simply to please another person, but Him.

Holy Father, enable us by Your grace to be more like You in how we listen, how we love, how we think, reason, and respond. All of us have been hurt by others, but none as much as You. Teach us to love, forgive, and accept those who have hurt us, but also those whom we have hurt. In Your Name. Amen.

Food for thought.

Blessings, Ed 😊

The Links in Our “Chain” to Jesus

“My prayer is not for the world, but for those You have given Me, because they belong to You. All who are Mine belong to You, and You have given them to Me, so they bring Me glory.” (John 17:9 NLT)

Please forgive me for stating the obvious, but God knows things we don’t know, including who will and will not be saved. This can be confusing, because we’re quick to believe if God knows it, where is our free-will to make our own decision? That’s the beauty of God’s knowledge; He knows the decision we will make because He is present with us when we make it. He is ever-present.

It’s not that He convinces us to make a choice against our will, He simply sits quietly, patiently, and lovingly in our presence as we make the decision, whatever it is, in accordance with our own will and desires. The point for our purposes today is there are people in our spheres of influence – family, friends, co-workers, classmates, neighbors, people we meet from day to day who are still uncertain as to what to do with Jesus.

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Some because they have no frame of reference, or because they’ve never heard of Jesus, others because they’ve had a bad experience with “religion”, still others because they lack understanding of what it means or how to make that commitment. Whatever the reason people are separated from a relationship with Jesus, often the key “link” to Him is a person who knows Jesus, knows them, and cares about their eternal wellbeing.

In a quote I read many years ago a Dick Eastman stated: “Behind the saving grace of every believer is someone praying.” How does that translate? If we as believers aren’t specifically praying for lost people, how will they ever come to Christ? There are many people for whom I pray each day by name, but there are many others across the world whose names I don’t know, so I lift them to the Lord by need or by location.

For example, I lift many of my family members to the Lord by name, including those who are lost, specifically asking the Lord to open their heart to Him. But lately the Lord has encouraged me to add something to my prayer. Because most of them live in other cities and I have limited access to them, I’m asking the Lord to put someone in their life who loves Him and will love them to Him. Someone they can relate to, someone they will like and enjoy their friendship, but someone who is deeply in love with Jesus.

My prayer is basically that the Lord will put someone in that lost person’s life for whom I’m praying who will be a connecting link to Jesus. Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 3:6: “I planted the seed in your hearts, and Apollos watered it, but it was God who made it grow.” We never know for sure what our role may be, whether to plant the seed, water it, or bring it to harvest by God’s Spirit. We’re all simply “links” in the process. Our temptation is to believe “That’s someone else’s job!” But here’s the truth – that’s NEVER our decision to make. That’s God’s judgment alone. He can choose even a donkey to speak for Him if He chooses, so, what makes us think He can’t use us?

As believers in the Lord Jesus, the Lord has strategically placed us where we are: in the family, workplace, school, neighborhood, age bracket, social circles we’re in for a very specific purpose – there are people in those circles who need to know Him and He’s placed us in those circles to pray for them and point them to Him. There are likely more, but there’s at least one person in our spheres of influence who is waiting for someone like you or me to reach out to them. Let’s not miss an opportunity to invite them to Jesus.

Food for thought.

Blessings, Ed 😊

Darkness to Light

“For once your were full of darkness, but now you have light from the Lord. So live as people of light! For this light within you produces only what is good and right and true.” (Ephesians 5:8-9 NLT)

Notice a few things about the above verse that are easy to miss. First, before we came to know the Lord Jesus, we didn’t just walk in darkness, we “were full of darkness.” What does that mean? Imagine a large area, perhaps the size of a football field. The field is covered in sharp pieces of broken glass except for a curving strip about the width of your foot. How successful would you be trying to follow that narrow path barefoot in complete darkness? That’s life on this planet without Jesus.

We can’t escape what we are. As hard as we try to think right thoughts, make right decisions, or move in right directions, wherever we “step,” it only seems to bring pain, heartache, and negative consequences. “Yeh, but what about all the people who have lucrative careers, who can travel the world and live in luxury?” If “happiness” is your goal, having a lot of money can make it easier, but not necessarily enable you to reach your goal. Money alone doesn’t illuminate our path; in many cases it only contributes to the darkness. Money isn’t the issue, darkness is.

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Before Christ we ARE darkness, which means regardless of how much money we have, our judgment is clouded and the use of that money can be skewed in some very unhealthy ways. Is that to say that people with money never support humanitarian causes? No, of course not, what it means is their money can never get them to heaven. All the money in the world cannot buy someone the Lord’s forgiveness.

On the other hand, those of us who have yielded our lives to the Lord are not simply walking in the light, we ARE light. Jesus said to those of us who hunger for Him: “You are the light of the world – like a city on a hilltop that cannot be hidden.” (Matthew 5:14) Think about the reason for light. Isn’t it to show the way? Isn’t it to light the path, to not only enable us to stay on the right path, but to help others find their way as well?

The reason the Lord allows us to turn from darkness to light isn’t about us, it’s about Him. He’s the Light of the world. He came into a world filled with darkness and brought light to those who were willing to see it and embrace it, but the world hated Him and did all within their power to snuff out His light, but they couldn’t.

Satan couldn’t persuade Him, sin couldn’t tempt Him, death and the grave couldn’t hold Him so on Easter Sunday when He burst forth from the grave, the world that lay in darkness, once again burst forth in holy light that cannot now be extinguished. That’s the light we become when we open our hearts and lives to Jesus. But we cannot be light and continue to walk in darkness; we cannot grow in the Light when we are continually seeking to hide in the darkness. Paul addresses this in 2 Corinthians.

So, the question becomes: Where are you? Are you living and spreading darkness or light; despair or hope; separation from God or being united with Him? Regardless of how much of this world’s resources we acquire, they will not satisfy long term. Only Jesus can fill the God-shaped void the Lord built into our life when He created us.

Please open your life to Him today. Haven’t you walked in the darkness long enough? Please tap on ANewStory.com. and let Ron Hutchcraft walk you through a simple path from darkness to light.

Blessings, Ed 😊