Spending the Treasure of Time to Own Trinkets

Bev’s cancer diagnosis is a dark experience with an unexpected effect – it like a bright light that gives amazing clarity!  When the physician says, “You have cancer” and when you visit hospitals and labs on a weekly basis, the fact of mortality is undeniable.  I refuse to wander through days without purpose.  I choose to say “I love you” and to express appreciation often.  Early Christians called this awareness, ‘memento mori,’  keeping an awareness of death. It is not a fascination with dying, it is to help us to know and do the will of God that leads to His glory and reward in eternity.

Psalm 90 is attributed to Moses.  This man started well, disappeared into the desert at mid-life for decades, had that famous life changing encounter with God at the burning bush, and finished strong, leading Israel out of slavery and bringing them into existence as the ‘people of the Lord.’  He says,  "The length of our days is seventy years— or eighty, if we have the strength; yet their span is but trouble and sorrow, for they quickly pass, and we fly away. Who knows the power of your anger? For your wrath is as great as the fear that is due you. Teach us to number our days aright, that we may gain a heart of wisdom. Relent, O LORD! How long will it be? Have compassion on your servants. Satisfy us in the morning with your unfailing love, that we may sing for joy and be glad all our days." (Psalm 90:10-14, NIV)

We have so many opportunities afforded us in our time. We have wealth previous generations only dreamed about. We have leisure time.  “Not me, Jerry, I am crazy busy.”  Admit it - much of our frenetic activity is the result of our choices!  We do not have to haul water for a mile, hitch up the horse to go to town, or drag wood into our house for a cooking fire each time we eat!  We have the ability to create networks of relationships with many.  We live better and longer lives on the whole than any previous generation.  Yet so many allow their days to be taken up with trivial matters.  They hang onto grudges and hate. They invest inordinate effort in finding entertaining diversions. They neglect their families and friends to play video games or watch TV.  Are you spending the treasure of time to own trinkets? Will it take a diagnosis of cancer to awaken you to mortality and change the course of your life?

The Puritans brought a medieval custom with them to America. While they frowned on art for its own sake, they allowed portraits to be painted because they were an historical record. Often those portraits included a skull or an hourglass! Why?  Memento Mori! (To remember death!)   They did not fear death as we do.  Rather, they viewed it as the gateway to Life, as is evidenced by a walk through their graveyards where so many stones included references to Heaven and eternal glory.

Paul, inspired by the Spirit, lifts our vision beyond today.  As you read these words, may they not be fearful, but hopeful; words that give purpose to this day.  "For we know that when this earthly tent we live in is taken down—when we die and leave these bodies—we will have a home in heaven, an eternal body made for us by God himself and not by human hands. We grow weary in our present bodies, and we long for the day when we will put on our heavenly bodies like new clothing. For we will not be spirits without bodies, but we will put on new heavenly bodies. Our dying bodies make us groan and sigh, but it’s not that we want to die and have no bodies at all. We want to slip into our new bodies so that these dying bodies will be swallowed up by everlasting life.

God himself has prepared us for this, and as a guarantee he has given us his Holy Spirit. So we are always confident, even though we know that as long as we live in these bodies we are not at home with the Lord. That is why we live by believing and not by seeing. Yes, we are fully confident, and we would rather be away from these bodies, for then we will be at home with the Lord.

So our aim is to please him always, whether we are here in this body or away from this body. For we must all stand before Christ to be judged. We will each receive whatever we deserve for the good or evil we have done in our bodies." (2 Corinthians 5:1-10, NLT)

So, help us to live like we are dying – for we are!

Prone to sin or Perfected?

Are you ever baffled by your behavior?  You ask yourself, “Why did I do that? What was I thinking?” More than once I have stared into the darkness of the night, waiting for sleep, feeling foolish, or worse; feeling guilty, because of some dumb or sinful choice I made that day.  Despite our best intentions, we make mistakes. We choose immediate pleasure even when we know better.  Perhaps you are thinking that my perspective on human behavior is far too negative?  Paul said it first!

"I don’t understand myself at all, for I really want to do what is right, but I don’t do it. Instead, I do the very thing I hate. I know perfectly well that what I am doing is wrong, and my bad conscience shows that I agree that the law is good. But I can’t help myself, because it is sin inside me that makes me do these evil things. I know I am rotten through and through so far as my old sinful nature is concerned. No matter which way I turn, I can’t make myself do right. I want to, but I can’t." (Romans 7:15-18, NLT)   As you read that you may groan or agree or both.  Christians are too familiar with the failures that arise out of the persistent influence of the sinful nature.

God gave the revelation of the Law of Moses and it increased guilt.  The choices made in ignorance no longer found any excuse.  The only way that “law” could make us right with God is if we were able to keep it flawlessly and we cannot!  As we awaken to God’s desires for us, as we taste the goodness of the Spirit, we join Paul in his scream: "Oh, what a miserable person I am! Who will free me from this life that is dominated by sin?" (Romans 7:24, NLT)  The old sinful nature sabotages our best intentions.  Unless . . .

We respond, by faith, to the grace offered by God, through Christ Jesus!  Romans 7 is NOT the last word.  "With the arrival of Jesus, the Messiah, that fateful dilemma is resolved. Those who enter into Christ’s being-here-for-us no longer have to live under a continuous, low-lying black cloud. A new power is in operation. The Spirit of life in Christ, like a strong wind, has magnificently cleared the air, freeing you from a fated lifetime of brutal tyranny at the hands of sin and death." (Romans 8:1-2, The Message)  God does for us what we cannot do for ourselves- makes us whole and holy.

Perhaps you are a little confused?  “Jerry, do we live in Romans 7 or 8?  Are we still prone to sin or are we perfected?”  The not so popular answer is both.  Through Christ Jesus we are made right with God, justified, and filled with assurance of life- overflowing and eternal. It is a ‘done deal’ in Heaven.  But, what God has declared about us is still being worked out every day in us.  The sinful nature has lost its grip to enslave us, but the power of temptation still works against us.  We live out the calling of Christ in a world still waiting the final revelation of the Kingdom!  What we know is that gaining mastery over temptation – no matter if it comes from the world systems that surround us, the appetites that reside within us, or the devil himself – comes only through humble reliance on the grace of God and the power of the Spirit. The moment we attempt the Christian life in our own strength or discipline we will find ourselves defeated!

Moses’ law was built around prohibition. It’s message was ‘do not’ and increased guilt. So, “God put into effect a different plan to save us. He sent his own Son in a human body like ours, except that ours are sinful. God destroyed sin’s control over us by giving his Son as a sacrifice for our sins. He did this so that the requirement of the law would be fully accomplished for us who no longer follow our sinful nature but instead follow the Spirit.” Romans 8:3 NLT   A rich and beautiful life in Christ is not without its problems.  As we read on in Romans 8, we find that our experiences with temptation and sin are not aberrant behaviors, but part of being human!  But, we also learn that God is always at work and caring for us as our Abba (dad)!  Thus, we walk by faith and grow in grace – ‘transformed with ever increasing glory.’

Here’s the word from the Word. Own the promise by faith and live in the power of the Spirit. "What can we say about such wonderful things as these? If God is for us, who can ever be against us? Since God did not spare even his own Son but gave him up for us all, won’t God, who gave us Christ, also give us everything else? Who dares accuse us whom God has chosen for his own? Will God? No! He is the one who has given us right standing with himself. Who then will condemn us? Will Christ Jesus? No, for he is the one who died for us and was raised to life for us and is sitting at the place of highest honor next to God, pleading for us  . . . nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord." (Romans 8:39, NLT)

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Come Thou Fount

Come Thou fount of every blessing,

Tune my heart to sing Your grace.

Streams of mercy never ceasing,

Call for songs of loudest praise.

Teach me some melodious sonnet,

Sung by flaming tongues above.

Praise the mount, I'm fixed upon it,

Mount of God's redeeming love!

Oh to grace how great a debtor,

Daily I'm constrained to be.

Let Your goodness, like a fetter,

Bind my wandering heart to Thee.

Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it;

Prone to leave the God I love.

Here's my heart, O take and seal it,

Seal it for Your courts above.

Public Domain

Fewer words, more content!

 

I love communication.  Yesterday Bev and I had a deep, engaged conversation with our daughter Maribel. Words flowed back and forth between us about issues of the heart, healing, clarifying, loving words.  In a meeting with a member of our ministry team words created vision, introduced strategies for change.  In another conversation with a fellow pastor there were words of encouragement and comfort.  In between there were dozens of exchanges, polite but superficial – ‘weather talk’ I call it, the way we navigate through society.

Being a man of words, I try to understand the value of language.  Some people care little for the way they use the gift of words. They flatter and manipulate, lie and deceive, boast, complain, criticize – with little thought for the toxins they are spewing on those around them.  Others just talk – the torrent of words meaning next to nothing, using 100 words where 1 would do! If your mailbox is anything like mine it brings you glossy flyers advertising everything from political candidates to extermination companies and offers of advice on everything from bugs in the lawn to the best plan for investing retirement funds! There are 250 channels on TV, access to hundreds of radio stations, and the Internet that lets us browse for information on any subject we desire.   So many words have made diamonds into dust so often. Who do we trust, what should we read? Is the information accurate or biased?

Jesus teaches us to use the gift of words with care!  Do we practice the simple, authentic manner of speaking to which He points here? "Simply let your ‘Yes’ be ‘Yes,’ and your ‘No,’ ‘No’; anything beyond this comes from the evil one." (Matthew 5:37, NIV)  Mean what you say, say what you mean, He counsels.

Nowhere is this more important than when we are talking about the Gospel and our wonderful Lord. If we talk too much, saying things we know should be true, that are not practiced in our daily lives, we will cloud reality – to ourselves and to the world around us.  Jeremiah warned of prophets whose words were without inspiration. “These preachers are liars, and they use my name to cover their lies. I never sent them, I never commanded them, and I don’t talk with them. The sermons they’ve been handing out are sheer illusion, tissues of lies, whistlings in the dark." (Jeremiah 14:14, The Message)

Peter is even stronger in his condemnation of those who talk about a spiritual experience that they do not possess. They are, he says, “as useless as dried-up springs of water or as clouds blown away by the wind—promising much and delivering nothing. They are doomed to blackest darkness. They brag about themselves with empty, foolish boasting. With lustful desire as their bait, they lure back into sin those who have just escaped from such wicked living. They promise freedom, but they themselves are slaves to sin and corruption. (2 Peter 2:17-19, NLT)  Spiritual blather is not just a bother, it’s blasphemy.

The disciple whose tongue is submitted to Jesus and who communication is shaped by the overflow of the Spirit, is a fountain of life.  Sincere words, loving words, encouraging words, truthful words – are healing and hopeful. Honest words build strong ties between people.  God’s Word that shapes our words gives a beauty to our speech that brings admiration!

As you converse today, think of the value of the words you use.  Let this wisdom shape your speech, for God’s sake.

"The words of a man’s mouth are deep waters,
but the fountain of wisdom is a bubbling brook." (Proverbs 18:4, NIV)

"A fool’s lips bring him strife, and his mouth invites a beating.
A fool’s mouth is his undoing, and his lips are a snare to his soul." (Proverbs 18:6-7, NIV)

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Let My Words Be Few

You are God in heaven

And here am I on earth,

So I'll let my words be few.

Jesus, I am so in love with You.

The simplest of all love songs

I want to bring to You,

So I'll let my words be few.

Jesus, I am so in love with You.

And I'll stand in awe of You.

Yes, I'll stand in awe of You,

And I'll let my words be few.

Jesus, I am so in love with You.

Beth Redman | Matt Redman

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