Our Memory May Haunt Us, But…
What a beautifully radiant day, Father. Thank You for its blessing and thank You that when it came to mind, it was followed by a desire that I might be as radiant for You, this and every day! All praise to You, God almighty!
Romans 4:1-8 (<<click here to read the passage)
In my youth, I think it was when I was in high school, I became very dissatisfied with my walk with Christ. I felt like I was constantly falling and was constantly seeking forgiveness. I remember falling on my bed at a West Virginia church camp of some sort and crying out to God. Part of that was the fact that I was falling into the same temptations over and over again. I’m sure that I knew that those sins were forgiven and forgotten by God, but I couldn’t forgive myself. I had committed no egregious sin, but their culmination all weighed heavily upon me. And even then, I held it to be true that sin was sin, regardless of its severity from my limited and adolescent perspective.
Romans 4:5 states,
…people are counted as righteous, not because of their work, but because of their faith in God who forgives sinners. NLT
My Life Application Study Bible reads,
We must remember that Jesus is willing and able to forgive every sin. In view of the tremendous price he paid on the cross, it is arrogant to think that there is any sin too great for him to forgive. Even though our faith is weak, our conscience is sensitive, and our memory haunts us, God’s Word declares that sins confessed are sins forgiven.
It then referenced 1 John 1:9,
If we [freely] admit that we have sinned and confess our sins, He is faithful and just [true to His own nature and promises], and will forgive our sins and cleanse us continually from all unrighteousness [our wrongdoing, everything not in conformity with His will and purpose]. AMP
And then one more passage came to mind, Psalm 103:12. This has come to mind before, but it is so powerful in dealing with the weight of sin we may carry! Its encompassing verses speak volumes.
8 The Lord is compassionate and merciful,
slow to get angry and filled with unfailing love.
9 He will not constantly accuse us,
nor remain angry forever.
10 He does not punish us for all our sins;
he does not deal harshly with us, as we deserve.
11 For his unfailing love toward those who fear him
is as great as the height of the heavens above the earth.
12 He has removed our sins as far from us
as the east is from the west.
13 The Lord is like a father to his children,
tender and compassionate to those who fear him.
14 For he knows how weak we are;
he remembers we are only dust.
Think about that 12th verse. If I place my finger on a globe and go north, I will eventually go south. BUT…if I trace my finger across the equator heading east – I will never go west. The two never meet. That is how far our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ has removed our sins from us!
Our faith may be weak, but we can cling to God’s Word – sins confessed are sins forgiven! Amen!
Nov 9th, 2022, Wed, 1:03 pm
The Ultimate Brass Ring
A thought-provoking quote from God the Spirit, from The Valley of Vision.
When I feel my lack of [the Spirit], light up life and faith,
….for when I lose thee I am either in the dark and cannot see thee
….or Satan and my natural abilities content me with a little light,
….so that I seek no further for the Spirit of life.
Teach me then what to do.
Romans 3:27-31 (<<click here to read the passage)
In reading through this passage and the Life Application Bible notes accompanying it, my attention was drawn to a part of the note regarding verse 28.
So we are made right with God through faith and not by obeying the law. NLT
The note reads: Faith is based on our relationship with God, not our performance for God.
Think about this for a moment. Any spousal relationship fails miserably when it is founded totally on performance. Whether we’re talking about being able to hold down a job bringing in lots of money along with an income that is ever rising or we’re talking about how much each individual contributes to household chores or preparing meals or maintaining finances and so forth – and anymore, those factors are by no means determined by gender – we run into trouble in short order. And dare we mention expecting our spouses to never let us down with how they look or what they wear or how they are at meeting our physical needs…
How about holding children to unrealistically high expectations regarding their competitiveness in academics, athletics, musicality, or any other arena? Those kinds of mindsets can lead us down some very dangerous roads.
We all want our families and our loved ones to succeed in their endeavors of life…but at what cost?
Now if performance is our sole goal, that is extremely detrimental. But…if the relationships are the core goal and that is of utmost importance, then can’t those other things factor in with great results? And if results are less than anticipated, again with solid relationships at the core, those relationships will stand strong regardless.
First and foremost, God’s goal from before the creation of the world was to be in a relationship with us – not just a king/servant relationship but an intimate relationship of parent/child. He sacrificed so much to insure the possibility of that kind of relationship. But the problem lies with us. Too often, our thoughts on the matter are, we can take it or leave it. It’s just one more thing to juggle, one more thing to check off our burgeoning list… But that mindset is distant, it is performance-based. Relationship doesn’t really factor in.
But oh, the benefits of giving ourselves over to one another! We’ve all seen couples and families who love each other with their whole beings. We long to be included in that circle, don’t we? Something so pure and accepting on all fronts is the ultimate brass ring.
The same holds true for our relationship with God. We see awesome examples of it as well. Such satisfaction in our interactions with Him – such fulfillment – such peace and contentment. And it is most certainly not beyond our reach.
Lord Jesus, we plead, give us the desire, a burning desire, for that kind of relationship first of all with You and then with each other. Fill us with Your love as we embrace it for ourselves and seek to give it away, as well. Amen.
Nov 8th, 2022, Tues, 5:30 pm
Time
It has been a taxing last couple of days, Father, and with the time change and it being dark already I am ready to crash. Help me to focus, not on my weariness, but on You. Amen.
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This past Sunday saw the end of Daylight Savings Time for this year. I couldn’t help but think of the comment an old Native American made when told the reason for it. He said, “Only a white man would believe you could cut a foot off the top of the blanket, sew it onto the bottom of the blanket, and you’d be left with a longer blanket.”
I know at one point in time (over 100 years ago) there were reasons for setting it up and that in the not-too-distant future, there is some movement in our federal government to bring it to an end. Only time will tell…
Time… It consumes our lives…literally. From the moment we are born, the clock begins ticking. Our days are numbered and none of us, for the most part, knows when our time will be up.
We are obsessed with time. We wish difficult times would pass quickly. We wish enjoyable, fulfilling times would never end.
But all of our wishes are to no avail. As they say, “Time waits for no man.”
The Bible, in the book of Ecclesiastes, talks about time.
For everything there is a season,
….a time for every activity under heaven.
A time to be born and a time to die.
….A time to plant and a time to harvest.
A time to kill and a time to heal.
….A time to tear down and a time to build up.
A time to cry and a time to laugh.
….A time to grieve and a time to dance.
A time to scatter stones and a time to gather stones.
….A time to embrace and a time to turn away.
A time to search and a time to quit searching.
….A time to keep and a time to throw away.
A time to tear and a time to mend.
….A time to be quiet and a time to speak.
A time to love and a time to hate.
….A time for war and a time for peace. 3:1-8
It’s hard to comprehend but at one time, there was no time, and I’m a firm believer that there will come a time when time, as we know it, will be no more.
MoreThanUseless’s key verse is Ephesians 1:4,
Even before he made the world, God loved us and chose us in Christ to be holy and without fault in his eyes. NLT
Before the world, there was no time. God has existed for eternity past…and He will never cease to exist. He is eternal. He is calling us, one and all, to life eternal.
In this world, we are bound by time. We run out of time. Our time is cut short. But in eternity, there will not be an absence of time, but rather endless time.
Lord Jesus, we may be bound by time here in this life, on this planet of Your creation but help us to use the time we have wisely. It is a priceless commodity, and we waste so much of it. May we invest in Your Kingdom. May we accomplish this by investing in others. Enable us to make the most of our time as we aim for the eternity that is before us and we are determined to bring along as many as we possibly can to join You in that endless time together. Amen.
Nov 7th, 2022, Mon, 6:24 pm
Computer Brains
The last post of the week, Father, may what comes forth from my mind through my fingertips find Your blessing, in its writing and its reading. Amen.
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How much time do you spend in front of computers? And yes, your phone counts.
I readily admit that I spend a good part of my day doing just that – Sunday service prep includes getting all the aspects of my sermon together, many of its components are honed from sources on my computer, it’s typed on my computer, Scripture, PowerPoint, hymn slide storage and formatting. Nothing is done with pen and paper.
The same goes for this blog. I use a hands-on printed Bible, but everything else is done on the computer.
I could go on and on with the many things I do. I browse Facebook, Twitter and Instagram (to very small degrees), and TikTok, as well. I do a bit of gaming, though at this point I limit myself to just one game – I have to be careful, for it can be very addictive!
I read some – though not nearly enough with everything else that’s on my plate. (The last time I read to any degree, most of it was via a library app on my phone and a tablet!)
Something on my bus route triggered a thought of an old Contemporary Christian song. I knew it was old – not Charles Wesley or Fanny Crosby old, mind you – but old enough that I was out of high school…ugh. The song was on an album put out by a group called Petra, entitled Computer Brains.
It was released in 1984 and it makes me smile to think how much computers have advanced and, really, have taken control of our lives. (I still used a typewriter then, though it was electric!)
Here are the lyrics of the chorus:
Computer brains, put garbage in
Computer brains, get garbage out
Computer brains, programming you
Computer brains, what can you do?
Break out
It is an ongoing battle to safeguard our brains and ultimately our hearts. What we ingest feeds our hearts and as Jesus said in Matthew 15:18-19,
But whatever [word] comes out of the mouth comes from the heart, and this is what defiles and dishonors the man. For out of the heart come evil thoughts and plans, murders, adulteries, sexual immoralities, thefts, false testimonies, slanders (verbal abuse, irreverent speech, blaspheming). AMP
What goes in, is what is going to come out.
Lord Jesus, may we be keenly aware of what we are feeding our hearts. May You alone be the programmer of our hearts. Amen.
Nov 3rd, 2022, Thurs, 7:04 pm
Wiped Clean
Fog blanketed our area this morning, Father – another one of the majesties of Your creation! Thank you for keeping us safe!
Romans 3:21-26 (<<click here to read the passage)
One thing that I do a lot on my bus is to extend grace. Now for some things a penalty must be paid – my first year I had a 5th Grade boy punch a 4th Grade boy…he was suspended from the bus for several days. A middle school student exhibited telltale signs of vaping – wispy smoke coming from the seat she was tucked behind and was suspended as well. But for many other things my students get regular warnings – sticking their heads out in the aisle, as well as their arms or legs, standing up while I’m moving or at a stop…those kinds of things.
Repeated infractions can be hard for me to let go of – frequently crawling under the seats, for example – but for the most part, I don’t keep a running ticket of wrongs if you will.
I feel, in many ways, that because God has repeatedly (and that number would be astronomical!) extended grace to me, the least I can do is extend it to my students and others, too.
But God has no hesitancies. As verse 24 in the New Living Translation states,
Yet God, in his grace, freely makes us right in his sight. He did this through Christ Jesus when he freed us from the penalty for our sins. (emphasis mine)
I like that but where it says, makes us right in his sight, other translations use the word justified.
The New International Version words it,
…all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. NIV
Then the Amplified Bible phrases it this way,
…all…are being justified [declared free of the guilt of sin, made acceptable to God, and granted eternal life] as a gift by His [precious, undeserved] grace, through the redemption [the payment for our sin] which is [provided] in Christ Jesus… AMP
One phrase that has stuck with me for many years is a sort of definition of the word justified. It goes like this – just as if I’d never sinned. Saying those four words together sounds like we’re saying justified and it gives us the definition at the same time!
Though I’m still using it, I haven’t quoted from my Life Application Study Bible in a while. Here’s a portion of the study note for verse 4,
When a judge in a court of law declares the defendant not guilty, all the charges are removed from his record. Legally, it is as if the person had never been accused. When God forgives our sins, our record is wiped clean. From his perspective, it is as though we had never sinned. He could do this because Jesus took the penalty that we deserved. Christ purchased our freedom from sin, and the price was his life.
What a wonderful gift we have been given!
Nov 2nd, 2022, Wed, 1:04 pm