Tag Archives: Salvation

Chapter-a-Day

Things Change

1 Comment

Conversion_on_the_Way_to_Damascus-Caravaggio_(c.1600-1)For several days he was with the disciples in Damascus, and immediately he began to proclaim Jesus in the synagogues, saying, “He is the Son of God.” All who heard him were amazed and said, “Is not this the man who made havoc in Jerusalem among those who invoked this name? And has he not come here for the purpose of bringing them bound before the chief priests?” Acts 9:19b-21 (NRSV)

There has been a small yet intense debate among local historians and traditionalists in our little town over recent months. The debate concerns the wife of our town’s founder or, more specifically, the spelling of her name. The town has always held that her name was spelled “Mareah,” but archival evidence suggest that her name was always spelled “Maria” on legal documents and the spelling change seems to have occurred in her adult years. It is now believed that the change occurred around the time of a major shift in her life: the death of her husband and her subsequent marriage to a younger man who was the age of her son. And so, the debate quietly continues regarding how we should spell her name today.

The rather meaningless debate has been a quiet reminder to me that things change. We all go through dramatic changes in life. Life’s journey can take abrupt and unexpected turns, especially when you’re on a faith journey.

Today’s chapter chronicles one of the most dramatic and unexpected turns in history. Saul of Tarsus was a radical and conservative Jewish leader intent on persecuting, imprisoning, and/or killing any man or woman who claimed to be a follower of Jesus. Then, on his way to round up some Jesus followers in the town of Damascus, Jesus reveals Himself to the zealous persecutor. In one dramatic moment, Saul’s life takes an abrupt u-turn.

Things change. Saul would become Paul. His life would never be the same. The persecutor of Jesus followers would unexpectedly become their greatest champion. For the rest of his life he would push himself to incredible physical and spiritual limits, ceaselessly suffer the persecution he’d once afflicted on others, and constantly proclaim that Jesus was exactly who He claimed to be. Paul would change the course of human history.

Things change. People change. It was at the core of everything that Jesus taught. Fishermen became fishers of men. Enemies become friends. Hatred is transformed into love. Anger and bitterness yield to grace and kindness. Sin is washed away by forgiveness. Darkness is pierced by Light. Death is swallowed up by Life. Saul the executioner becomes Paul the evangelist.

You and I, we can change, too.

Chapter-a-Day

Contrasting Messages; Contrasting Paths

Leave a comment
"Relatively easy path to the summit" photo by Brian Taylor via Flickr
“Relatively easy path to the summit” photo by Brian Taylor via Flickr

“You will be sought, but you will never again be found, declares the Sovereign Lord.”
Ezekiel 26:21b

There’s no getting around the fact that the messages of the prophets were and are, by and large, depressing. Doom, gloom and judgement are a tough assignment to continuously deliver. I’ll admit that we’ve only made a little more than half way through Zeke’s anthology of prophetic messages and I’m already looking at the calendar with an eye to when we’ll be through it. I have been finding some fascinating stuff in it, but it’s hard to read day after day and not want for a little positive reinforcement.

Which, as I ruminate on it this morning, I believe is part of the point. The doomsday messages of the prophets is set on the timeline of history 400-800 years before the birth of Jesus. When the prophet Malachi ended his prophetic messages c. 430 B.C. there was a long silence until the angel Gabriel broke the news to Mary that she was pregnant. And, with that message doom began to give way to hope and salvation.

That Message of hope and salvation embodied in Jesus stands in stark contrast to the messages of doom and judgement of the prophets. I find it interesting that Ezekiel’s message in today’s chapter is of being lost and never found, while Jesus’ messages were consistently about finding that which was lost. Jesus preached of finding lost sheep, lost coins, and lost children.

On this life journey we experience different times and seasons. We may journey through difficult stretches in which our own foolishness, rebellion, and hard hearted choices consequentially result in having to plod along difficult paths. Feeling lost and hopeless are not unique to the human experience, and there are times when we can identify with the prophets doom and gloom. Jesus was sent, however, to show us The Way that leads to Life for any who has faith to ask, seek, knock, and follow.

Chapter-a-Day

A Small but Significant Question

Leave a comment

scriptwork“Now, Lord my God, you have made your servant king in place of my father David. But I am only a little child and do not know how to carry out my duties. Your servant is here among the people you have chosen, a great people, too numerous to count or number. So give your servant a discerning heart to govern your people and to distinguish between right and wrong. For who is able to govern this great people of yours?”
1 Kings 3:7-9 (NIV)

One of the foundational lessons I learned while studying acting was the importance of understanding your character’s motivation. A play is broken up into Acts. Acts are broken up into scenes. Scenes are broken down into “beats” of action and dialogue. For each beat, I ask my character the question: “What do I want?”

When my character moves across stage it is not because the director told me to do so. There is something internally driving my character to move from point A to point B.

What do I want, that is motivating me to walk across the room?

  • To get a sandwich?
  • To grab my book?
  • To find the remote?
  • To kiss the girl?

When my character says to the woman, “I love you,” there is a reason he says it.

What do I want from saying those words to her?

  • To emotionally manipulate her into trusting me?
  • To express my sincere devotion?
  • To salvage our broken relationship?
  • To conceal my hatred for her?

One of the things that I love about acting is the fact that it has taught me much more about myself and about life than I ever dreamed or expected. When you spend hours, weeks, and months working on a character and exploring his motivation for saying and doing everything, you eventually begin to question and explore your own personal motivations.

Here I am with a bunch of people who I really don’t like that much, doing things I really shouldn’t do, knowing that tomorrow I’m really going to feel like crap physically and feel guilty spiritually. Why am I doing this? What is it I want?

– To be accepted by this social group?
– To punish myself for something?
– To make the words, “You’ll never amount to anything” come true?
– Just to be stupid?

My acting methods led me down a path of intense, personal introspection, which led me to an honest reflection of both my character strengths, weaknesses and fatal flaws. This led me to grapple with the fact that there were some things I needed to change and some things I couldn’t change for which I am in perpetual need of both grace and forgiveness.  This led me to Jesus.

For God so loved the world [note: there’s His motivation] that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish, but have everlasting life.

In today’s chapter, God questions young King Solomon’s motivation. “What do you want?” The answer was critical in revealing who Solomon was, and who Solomon would become. Today, as I type this post in the pre-dawn hours of another day, Holy Spirit is once again asking me that small, but very important question:

What do you want?

 

wayfarer chapter index banner

Chapter-a-Day

Paying the Price (or Not)

Leave a comment

But the king replied to Araunah, “No, I insist on paying you for it. I will not sacrifice to the Lord my God burnt offerings that cost me nothing.” 2 Samuel 24:24 (NIV)

It was almost cliche. It was the first weekend that my sister and I, as teenagers, had been left alone in the house. My parents headed to Le Mars to spend the weekend with Grandpa Vander Well. I was fourteen. My sister was sixteen. We were given the standard parental instructions not to have anyone over, to keep the house clean while they were gone, yada, yada, yada, blah, blah, blah.

We invited a few people over. I honestly remember it only being a few people. Nevertheless, word spread that there was a party at the Vander Wells, whose parents were out of town. Somehow, the kids kept coming that night. At one point I remember hiding in the laundry room because of the chaos outside. I’m not sure when I realized that things were out of hand. Perhaps it was when members of the football team began seeing who could successfully jump from the roof of our house onto the roof of the detached garage.

This, of course, was the pre-cell phone era. News took longer to travel. The parents got home on Sunday evening. The house was picked up and spotless. We thought we’d gotten away with it. I’m not sure which neighbor ratted us out, but on Monday morning Jody and I were quickly tried in the kitchen tribunal and found guilty as charged. I could have made a defense that it was Jody’s idea and the crowd was mostly older kids who Jody knew. I could have pled the defense of Tim and Terry never getting in trouble for the parties that they had when the rest of us were gone. Forget it. I knew it was useless.

We were grounded for a week. I didn’t argue. I didn’t complain. I didn’t whine. I was guilty and I knew it. I gladly paid the price for my sin.

I was struck by David’s response to Arauna, who offered to give David everything he needed to atone for his mistake. David understood the spiritual principle that the price has to be paid for your mistake. David had blown it and he deserved to pay the price of the sacrifice. I had blown it and knew I had to do a week in the 3107 Madison penitentiary as a price for my infraction.

I think most all of us know when we blow it, whether we wish to admit it or not. I think most all of us understand that we deserve to pay the price for our mistakes. What is difficult is to accept that Jesus paid the price for us. That’s what the cross is about. When we arrive at the metaphorical threshing floor seeking to make some sacrifice to atone for what we’ve done, Jesus says “I’ve already paid the price. I’ve already made the sacrifice, once and for all. The only thing you have to do is accept it.”

For many of us, the spiritual economics of this make no sense. We want to pay the price for our sin. We need to pay the price for our sin. We can’t believe that our guilty conscience can be absolved in any other way that for us to personally pay the price and feel the pain. So, we self flagellate. We become Robert Di Nero in The Mission (watch move clip at the top of this post), dragging a heavy sack of armor up some rocky cliff because we simply cannot believe that forgiveness can be found by any other means than personally paying the price.

How ironic that, for some of us, the obstacle to believing in Jesus is simply accepting and allowing Him to have paid the price for us.

Today, I’m thinking about the things I do out of guilt for what I’ve done, rather than gratitude for what Jesus did for me when He paid the price and made the sacrifice I deserved to make.

Related articles
Enhanced by Zemanta
Chapter-a-Day

Bad News; Good News

4 Comments

 

The Book of Life 2
(Photo credit: Waiting For The Word)

And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Another book was opened, which is the book of life. The dead were judged according to what they had done as recorded in the books. Revelation 20:12 (NIV)

This morning as I read through this verse I had a bit of a panic attack. It’s the end. I’m standing before God. The books are opened, and everything I’ve done is recorded in those books. I’m going to be judged according to what’s in the books. Yikes. This is bad news.

All of a sudden the memories of all the shameful things I’ve done come flooding into my mind. Every heinous thought. Every secretive deed. Every self-centered act. Every errant and angry word. I’ve thought, said, and done so many shameful things. There’s no way I’ll make the cut. I’m doomed.

Then I remember all that we’ve read and learned in this story that’s unfolded as we’ve gone through God’s Message a chapter a day. This is the good news and the core theme of the story:

  • Everyone is doomed. Everyone falls short. Once the books are opened and the truth is revealed there isn’t a person living or dead (Billy Graham, Mother Theresa, and the Pope included) who is “good enough” to earn salvation.
  • There is another book. If you read the chapter then you know that, along with the book that reveals all we’ve said and done, there is a second book mentioned: The Book of Life. This is the book of those who have “received Jesus, who have believed in His name.”
  •  Grace. Jesus promised that any who seek after him and seek forgiveness for all the crap they’ve every done will be forgiven. This is the crux of the story: Jesus suffering and dying on the cross was, in essence, Him choosing to pay the just penalty for all the shameful thoughts, words, and actions recorded under my name (and yours too) in those books John was describing. Jesus paid the penalty for all I’ve done, so that I don’t have to. I don’t deserve what He did for me. That’s called grace: unmerited favor.
  • Covered. In the ancient sacrificial system we’ve read about, the people would bring their sins and sacrifice to the priest. The word picture of the sacrifice was that their sins were place beneath the altar. As the lamb was slain and the blood ran across the altar and fell to the ground it was covering the sin underneath the altar. That is why in John’s vision of heaven Jesus is referred to as the “Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.” He was the sacrificial Lamb who made atonement to cover all our sins.
  • Gratitude. So I need not be worried about what is written in those first books John described. My sins are covered by His blood. I have received Him. I have believed in His name and my name is written in the Book of Life. This fact does not give me a sense of pride or arrogance. I am better than no one. I am simply forgiven. I have been given a priceless gift which I do not deserve. I am both eternally humbled and forever grateful.

I find it ironic that we reach this waypoint in our journey the week leading to Easter. This Friday is Good Friday, commemorating the good that Jesus did on the cross for anyone who would seek His grace and forgiveness. It is a good week to think on these things.

Related articles
Enhanced by Zemanta
Chapter-a-Day

A Worthwhile Spiritual Exercise

7 Comments
Long Road
(Photo credit: Johnny Peacock)

If the Lord had not been on our side….
Psalm 124:1a (NIV)

The lyrics of David’s psalm this morning are straight and to the point. Had it not been for God, he sings, he and his people would have been swallowed up by their enemies. Suddenly as I read the lyrics this morning I thought of all the ways my life’s path and destination would be different “If the Lord had not been on my side.”

If the Lord had not been on my side:

  • I would have given myself over to dark impulses a long time ago
  • I don’t believe I would have found my way out of dark places
  • I would be buried in and paralyzed by crippling shame
  • I would be a far worse arrogant jerk than I am
  • I would be nowhere near the waypoint in life I find myself
  • I would likely have never met Wendy
  • Wendy and I might not have survived a few of those years
  • As David sings: “The raging waters would have swept us away”

What a worthwhile mental and spiritual exercise to start my day, which leads me to a similar conclusion as it did David in his song.

Thanks, God. I am both humble and grateful.

Related articles
Enhanced by Zemanta
Chapter-a-Day

Damage Control

7 Comments

I will be careful to live a blameless life—
    when will you come to help me?
I will lead a life of integrity
    in my own home.
Psalm 101:2 (NLT)

Politics has always been a dirty business. Things have not changed in the nearly 3000 years since King David penned the lyric to this song. As I began to read the lyrics I was initially impressed. David is making several declaratory statements about who he is and what he stands for. Click on the link to the psalm above and count the number of times “I will” appears. At first I was intrigued and impressed at the statements, and then I get to the last line:

My daily task will be to ferret out the wicked
    and free the city of the Lord from their grip.

It was then that it struck me. Psalm 101 is a campaign commercial.

It’s morning in Jerusalem.
Hope. Change. Forward.

This psalm is a set of idyllic promises that only the Son of God could meet. Scholars muse that the song may have been written as David took over the tenuous united kingdom of Israel which, in middle-eastern style reminiscent of today’s headlines, had two major factions and several smaller tribal factions threatening his power. They think it might be David’s inaugural address, if you will. Everything is looking up. Everyone is excited. It’s a political honeymoon for the golden boy, the shepherd turned warrior, the national hero turned monarch. David steps into the spotlight and declares that his reign will be the ideal. He will be different than his maniacal predecessor. It fits. I get it.

Perhaps I’m cynical when it comes to politics, but as I read it over in light of the last verse I wondered if the psalm might have served a completely different purpose. Fast forward about twenty years after David’s idyllic inaugural. His life is falling apart. His own home is fractured. He is beset by multiple scandals in his personal life and administration. In almost Shakespearean fashion, David’s own son is leading a bloody coup against him. We are a far cry from the hope and glory of his early days.

It leads me to wonder. Could this psalm have been a way of publicizing his repentance and spinning his way out of the public scandals that threatened his reign. It’s damage control. You can almost hear the political consultants whispering in David’s ear:

“David. Your majesty. I know it looks bad but you’ve got to go back to what made you popular in the first place. Write a song. Get back onto the Billboard charts. People loved your rock star image. You’re not too old. Think Elvis in Vegas. The big comeback. You gotta make the people fall in love with you again.”

Today, I am thinking about my own cynicism. Whether you want to think of this song as an inaugural address or as damage control, it reminds me of the inescapable truth that we are a fallen people. All of us fall short. We want the ideal. We want to believe that the ideal is attainable in our leaders and in ourselves. We fall for the idyllic campaign promises only to be grossly disappointed. Then we start the cycle all over again.

But the truth is that my own life reads like David’s on a smaller, less public scale. I’m no different. I’ve made countless declarations to which I’ve fallen short. We all fail, disappoint, and fall short.

We don’t need a politician. We need a savior.

Related articles
Chapter-a-Day

No Pit So Deep

3 Comments
Bradley Olin via Flickr
Bradley Olin via Flickr

But I called on your name, Lord,
    from deep within the pit.
Lamentations 3:55 (NLT)

The man stood before me, tears streaming down his cheeks, as I explained to him a simple truth. Salvation was just a heart’s prayer a way. Call out to God. Open your heart. Ask Him in. Then it came. The pushback of shame I’ve heard many times:

“But you don’t understand the things I’ve done. If you knew where I’ve been. The terrible things… the horrible… the awful….”

I’ve discovered along my journey that when you live for any time in a pit, darkness has a tendency to attach itself to your soul. You begin absorbing the lies of darkness:

  • You are no good
  • What you’ve done in the darkness permanently marks you
  • You don’t deserve forgiveness
  • God doesn’t want you; No one wants you
  • You deserve this pit in which you find yourself
  • There is no way out.

The most amazing thing about Jeremiah’s Lamentation is the 180 turnabout he makes in today’s chapter. After two and a half chapters of wailing, weeping, and woe, Jeremiah dares to look up from his pit and see the Light. Amidst the destruction, depression and carnage Jeremiah reaches out to the life line of God’s love, compassion and faithfulness.

I can’t think of a more apt contemporary parallel to the type of suffering Jeremiah experienced than the victims of Nazi death camps in World War II. This morning I was reminded of the words of Corrie Ten Boom, a Dutch Christian who was sent to the camps with her family for hiding Jews in The Hiding Place they’d made in their home. Her family all died in the concentration camps. Corrie was freed by a clerical error. Later in life she continuously shared this message from her own personal Lamentations:

“There is no pit so deep, that God’s love is not deeper still.”

After a litany of shame filled confessions out of the darkness of the spiritual pit he lived in, the man I mentioned at the beginning of my post looked up and saw a glimpse of light. He opened his heart. He took a step of faith. He uttered a simple prayer. His life changed forever.

Yours can too.

Related articles
Chapter-a-Day

For Anyone and Everyone

5 Comments
Martin Luther, author of the text of Christ la...
Martin Luther (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

In those days I will pour out my Spirit
even on servants—men and women alike.
Joel 2:29 (NLT)

A few weeks ago I discovered that a client of mine is a history buff like me. He introduced me to a podcast called Dan Carlin’s Hardcore History and encouraged me to download the episode call “Prophets of Doom.” I’m about half-way through the 4 hour podcast and I’m hooked. Carlisle shares a fascinating true story set during the Protestant Reformation in the first part of the 16th century.

As background for the story, Carlisle spends about an hour doing an excellent summation of the social, religious and political climate of Western Europe during this period of time. The tectonic plates of history are shifting. For over a century the Bible had been the secret text of the rich and well educated. The masses were only told the parts that the religious and political leaders wanted them to hear. Manipulation of the Message to maintain wealth and power became commonplace. Then Martin Luther did something radical that would change history. He translated the Bible from the original Greek into common German language (at that point it was only hand copied in Latin). The new invention of the printing press was then used to mass produce it to be read by anyone who could read their everyday language. For the first time, every day people could read and interpret God’s Message for themselves.

One of the radical realities of Jesus’ teaching is that salvation and the gifts of the Holy Spirit are poured out on everyone regardless of age, gender, social standing, or educational level. Anyone who believes is indwelled by the Holy Spirit and a part of the “Body of Christ.” As the people in 16th century Europe began reading the Bible for themselves, they began to realize this and it became a huge part of the change in tides that would shape history to this day.

I would love to jump on my soap box and explain how I believe the leaders of the modern church have continued to manipulate the system to ensure that only select individuals of their choosing get to participate in realizing and using their spiritual gifts, but that’s another blog post.

I thought about all of this as I read the ancient prophet Joel’s words. Even in Joel’s day the idea that women and common servants could and would receive God’s favor and the gift of God’s Holy Spirit was a radical notion. This morning I am reminded that throughout history man has manipulated God’s Message to further his own ends. Jesus carried out God’s plan to pour out love, salvation and spiritual blessing to anyone who will take the step to believe and follow. Even me. Even you.

Chapter-a-Day

Faith and Acting: They’re Both About Our Motives

7 Comments

Ah Wilderness Rehearsal[Believers] should be obedient, always ready to do what is good. Titus 3:1b

[God] saved us, not because of the righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He washed away our sins, giving us a new birth and new life through the Holy Spirit. Titus 3:5 (NLT) [emphasis added]

In acting you learn to study a character’s motivation:

  • “Why does my character say this?”
  • “What is driving my character to do this?”
  • “What is it that my character wants when he walks over here?”

Motivation is also critical in understanding our real life and relationships. It is essential, I believe and have discovered, in understanding my relationship with God.

I believe one of the most important lessons we can know about God’s Message to us is this: Entering a relationship with God, attaining eternal life, and receiving forgiveness for our tragic choices and mistakes cannot be earned through “doing good” or “living a good life.” It comes as a gift through what Jesus did when he suffered, died, and rose from the dead. All we do is humbly acknowledge it, receive the gift, and ask Him to come into our life.

For me, it was a simple conversation with God I quietly had in my head and heart in which I said, “God, I know I’ve blown it a million different ways. I need you. I believe that you died for me, and I want you to in my heart and life. I give my life over to you.” Once I took this step and received the Gift, I was inspired and motivated to do good works in response to this extravagant gift of Life I had been given.

The critical differentiation is in the motivation of the good that we do. We do good, not out of a motivation to earn God’s favor or stack the spiritual ledger in our favor with the hope that it might be enough to get us into heaven. Our motive for doing good is overflowing gratitude for the Gift we have been freely given through God’s kindness and mercy.

As with acting, if you don’t get the motivation right then our faith is only a poor attempt at going through the motions.