Category Archives: Uncategorized

Posted on

A Savior That Gets Under Your Skin

5×5×5 Bible Plan

Read: Matthew 15
Meditation: Matthew 15:12-14

Then the disciples came to him and asked, “Do you realize you offended the Pharisees by what you just said?” Jesus replied, “Every plant not planted by my heavenly Father will be uprooted, so ignore them. They are blind guides leading the blind, and if one blind person guides another, they will both fall into a ditch.”

Shift Your Focus… On a fairly regular basis, Jesus got under people’s skin. In fact, he flat out annoyed them—and it didn’t bother him in the least.  He didn’t come to earth to win a popularity contest, he came to get in the way of people’s headlong plunge into hell.  That meant he had to tell them the truth—even if it ruffled their feathers.  By the way, he is still doing that today, and chances are, he’s fixing to ruffle your feathers, too (if he hasn’t already)!

So why is Jesus so annoying?  How come he doesn’t always play nice?  What is it that makes him so willing to irritate sinners and saints—especially saints—alike? I’ve already given the answer, but let me restate it once again:

Jesus is more committed to your holiness than he is concerned about your happiness!

You see, it is holiness that will get you into heaven and keep you out of hell. Now that’s not just my opinion, that’s a direct quote from the Word of God.  Hebrews 12:14 (NLT) very clearly says, “work at living a holy life, for those who are not holy will not see the Lord.”

That’s why Jesus is so willing to get up in your grill and tell it like it is.  He wants you to be holy, just as he is holy.  That’s why he says things that are uncomfortable, that will make you squirm, that are frankly, offensive…things like,

“Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you cannot have eternal life within you.” (John 6:53, NLT)

“You will perish, too, unless you repent of your sins and turn to God.” (Luke 13:3, NLT)

“I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me.” (John 14:6, NLT)

“Not everyone who calls out to me, ‘Lord! Lord!’ will enter the Kingdom of Heaven. Only those who actually do the will of my Father in heaven will enter.” (Matthew 7:21, NLT)

“All who love me will do what I say…Anyone who doesn’t love me will not obey me.” (John 14:23-24, NLT)

And on and on the list of Jesus’ annoying sayings goes. Now of course, Jesus is not annoying for annoyance sake.  He says things that make us uncomfortable because he loves us, and wants us to partake of his holiness.  In fact, in the greatest act of love imaginable, he died on the cross so that you and I could enter through his sacrifice into the very holiness that will put us and keep us in right standing with a holy God.  That is called imputed holiness—which Jesus offers as a free gift, received only and completely by grace through faith.

What a deal—Jesus paid the full price for my holiness, and all I have to do is turn to him in full repentance of my sins, full acceptance of his death and resurrection, full surrender to his Lordship over my life, and I am declared holy.  Moreover, I am then declared legally holy because I now stand before God in the holiness of Jesus Christ.

Now there is one more thing: Hebrews 12:14 said we are to “work at living a holy life”.  Since Jesus has graciously done so very much to make us holy, we ought to gladly and thankfully make every effort (this is not about earning, mind you, you can’t earn what you’ve already been freely given) to live a life of complete and utter holiness before God.

Before you groan about this “holiness” thing—truthfully, it’s not such a bad or burdensome deal.  All you really need to do, in light of what has already been done for you, is to gratefully love God will all our heart, mind, and body.  Then once you’ve done that, just do as you like.

But just remember, to keep you loving God as he deserves, expect Jesus to annoy you along the way!

“How little people know who think that holiness is dull. When one meets the real thing…it is irresistible.” ~C.S. Lewis

Prayer… Today Lord Jesus, I desire to rid my life of behaviors and thought patterns that prevent my further growth in your holiness. I repent of those things that are keeping me from it and I ask your help in resolutely moving forward.

Posted on

Blog Update

Dear Blog Reader,

I will now be attempting to publish a day in advance in case you are following the Bible reading schedule provided in “Red Letter Challenge“.  The goal will be to get the blog posted in time, especially if you’re an early riser, for you to read both the assigned chapter in the Gospels along with my take on that day’s reading before you head off for work or school.

Hope that makes sense…and helps your journey through the Red Letters.

Soli Deo Gloria,

Ray

Posted on

Merry Christmas!

Read: Luke 2

The angel said to the shepherds, “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord. This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.” (Luke 2:10-11)

It was the Sunday before Christmas, and a little brother and sister were in church singing a Christmas hymn with the congregation. And as the song finished, the boy belted out rather loudly, “sleep in heavenly beans.” His sister gave him the most righteously indignant stare she could muster, and in a not-too-soft whisper said, “It’s not ‘heavenly beans’. It’s ‘sleep in heavenly peas.’”

As you know, they both butchered the words of the most well-loved Christmas hymn of all time. What you may not know is that back in 1818 that hymn was born. The birthplace was St. Nicholas Church in a small Austrian alpine village where a 31-year-old church organist by the name of Franz Gruber composed a melody on his guitar because the church organ was broken. The melody was for a poem that had been written earlier by the 26-year-old pastor of that church, Joseph Mohr. The poem was entitled, “Stille Nacht”, and the melody quickly formed in Gruber’s mind.

On that evening, in time for Midnight Mass, the world’s most famous Christmas Carol was heard for the very first time. It’s the same song that by tradition believers still sing every year during the season of Advent. It’s the song, “Silent Night.”

Silent night, holy night
All is calm, all is bright
Round yon Virgin,
Mother and Child
Holy Infant so tender and mild
Sleep in heavenly peace.

Now I don’t want to spoil your Thomas Kincade image of “Silent Night”, but I’m not too sure how “calm” and “bright” the night of Christ’s birth was. The Bible tells us that Mary’s pregnancy had been suspect in the eyes of her village from the beginning. She had been unmarried when the news arrived that she’d be pregnant with the Messiah by the power of the Holy Spirit. Not too many of the townsfolk had bought that story, and she likely became the object of their cruel and incessant gossip.

Then when the time came for the baby’s birth, Mary and Joseph had been required to travel by foot the arduous journey from Nazareth to Bethlehem, not an easy trip for anyone in those days, especially for a woman in the late stages of pregnancy. When they arrived, they were forced to stay in a stable because the inn had no room. And there among the squalor of the smelly, noisy animals, alone, with no family to rejoice with her, no mid-wife to assist her, a teenage virgin girl gave birth to the king of the world. And if Jesus was like most infants, like my two daughters when they were born, there was anything but peace and quiet that night.

Yet in the simple, humble, unlikely birth of Jesus, something Divine, something Eternal was released on Planet Earth. As someone has pointed out, the best Christmas present ever was wrapped in swaddling clothes and laid in the manger. Franz Gruber truly did capture that indescribable, priceless gift with the words, “heavenly peace.” That night, God invaded earth, and heavenly peace was left in the wake of the Divine invasion. The angels who announced the Christ’s birth to the nearby shepherds couldn’t have put it any better,

Glory to God in the highest,
and on earth, peace on whom his favor rest.

The infant Jesus may not have slept in heavenly peace that night, Mary and Joseph may not have enjoyed a peaceful night’s rest either, but God’s peace invaded earth that night in Bethlehem, and you and I on this Christmas Day are its beneficiaries.

So let me ask you a very important question: Are you benefiting from God’s peace? Is the peace of God, as Paul called it in Philippians 4, “guarding your heart and mind in Christ Jesus”? Is the peace of Christ, as Colossians 3 describes, “ruling in your heart”?

Perhaps the peace that passes all understanding is the last thing characterizing your life today. Maybe worry, anxiety, fear and stress dominate your world at the moment. My friend, God wants you to have his heavenly peace. That is his gift, wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger, and the gift is just for you!

Now God’s peace is neither a blanket guarantee of global harmony nor a promise that your life will be conflict-free. It is just simply saying that if you are in God’s favor, which comes by virtue of accepting his Son as your Lord and Savior, his peace will guard your mind, it will rule your heart, and it will sustain your life.

The “heavenly peace” that Gruber wrote about and the angels announced is God’s gift to you this Christmas, even if your world seems a long way from being peaceful. It is simply the peace that comes from knowing that in the birth of Christ, eternity irrevocably invaded time and God drew near to you and me through Jesus Christ, our Immanuel.

That’s the heavenly peace God wants you to have on this very day, and every day for the rest of your life.

One night the small voice of a little girl was heard from the bedroom across the hall, “Daddy, I’m scared!”

The father’s response came quickly: “Honey, don’t be afraid, daddy’s right across the hall.”

After a brief pause the little voice was heard again, “I’m still scared!”

Again the father responded, “You don’t need to be afraid. God is watching over you.”

There was a longer pause, but the voice returned, “Daddy, I want someone with skin on!”

Jesus is God “with skin on”, and he is right here, right now, forever with you, powerfully present through Christ, who invaded earth for all time at Bethlehem.

And if you have received him by faith, you can sleep in heavenly peace.

O God, how much you loved me that you would give me the best and costliest gift ever, wrapped in swaddling cloths and placed in a manger. Thank you. Once again, on this Christmas Day, I receive the Prince of Peace and invite his peace to rule my heart.

“It is good to be children sometimes, and never better than at Christmas, when its mighty Founder was a child Himself.”  ~Charles Dickens

Posted on

God’s Love Never Runs Out

Thanksgiving Thoughts

Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good; his love endures forever. Let the redeemed of the LORD say this! (Psalm 107:1-2)

I like the way The Message version renders the psalmist’s call to gratitude: “Oh, thank God—he’s so good! His love never runs out. All of you set free by God, tell the world!”

God is good—all the time! That truly is the testimony of my life—and I have a feeling it is true of your life as well.  Certainly, I ought to be proclaiming God’s goodness to anyone who will listen, and even to those who won’t, much more than I do. Add to that the fact that I am, on my best day, not so good, and on my worst day, frankly, pretty bad, only adds to the brilliance of God’s overwhelming goodness.

The New King James translation of the psalmist’s words are even more meaningful to me: “Oh, give thanks to the LORD, for He is good! For His mercy endures forever.” Mercy—I can really relate to that.  Now don’t misunderstand what I’m saying:  I’ll take either enduring love or enduring mercy—I can’t live without either one.  Love and mercy are simply different facets of the same diamond we understand as the goodness of God.

But God’s mercy really speaks to me, and I’ll bet if you thought about, it, you would say the same. Someone said that mercy is not getting what you deserve. The truth is, you and I depend upon God’s mercy every single moment just to draw in the next breath, since the holy and righteous God has had every reason and right to annihilate us from the planet because of our sinfulness. Jeremiah said it well in Lamentations 3:22-23,

Because of the LORD’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.

The entirety of Psalm 107 is simply giving one example after another of how God in his faithful love and enduring mercy has freed his people from what they deserve. And at the end of each example, the psalmist expresses the call to gratitude:

Oh, thank God, he is so good! His love never runs out!

I’ll bet you could write your own Psalm 107.  In fact, that might be a good assignment for you on this Thanksgiving Day. And then, like the psalmist suggested, we should go tell the world. Now that’s a pretty tall order, so how about starting with the people with whom you will enjoy the holiday meal today? Write your psalm and share it with your spouse, your family, and your friends.

I am not sure how they will feel about it, but you will certainly feel pretty good.  That’s what heartfelt gratitude to God for his faithful love and enduring mercy does.

“Peace of conscience is nothing but the echo of pardoning mercy.”
~William Gurnall

Posted on

Proverbs Again

So we’ve completed our first lap around Proverbs: 31 chapters in 31 days.  If you missed a day in our journey, I would encourage you to go back and read the post for that day. Or, if you’d prefer, join me on the second lap as we start over and make our way back through this amazing book of wisdom each day over the course of this new month.

I would also recommend that you do the assignments I’ve provided at the end of each blog post. The reason I offer these simple activities is to help us make the journey from being not merely hearers of the Word, but becoming doers of the Word, as James 1:22 says.  Making the effort and taking practical steps to actually put God’s Word into action may be the difference in merely knowing the Bible (there are lots of people in that category) and knowing God.  God has revealed himself in the Bible, but knowing him comes not just from stuffing more knowledge into our heads, but by opening our hearts and engaging our hands as well.

Again, I hope you will join me in this journey through the Book of Wisdom. As the old preacher said, “A Proverb a day keeps sin at bay!”

Soli Deo Gloria,

Ray

Posted on

A Thoughtful Walk Through Proverbs

Pastor Ray is just a few days away from launching his new blog postings.  Join him each day as he walks with you through the book of Proverbs.  In fact, why not join him in reading a chapter a day in Proverbs throughout the month.  For example, on Day 1 read Chapter 1, on Day 2 read Chapter 2 and so on.  Each day he will pull out an insight from the chapter to share his thoughts.  And, don’t forget….he would love to hear your thoughts too!