Learn to say “talk to me.”

On Saturday, a group of people rallied in Charlottesville, VA to boast of their love for an ugly seam of hate that still runs through America. Things quickly got out of control and due the act of an unbalanced 20 year old from Ohio who decided to use his car as a weapon, one woman died on the street of that beautiful college town. 

I, along with thousands of others prayed for unity in America yesterday, as was fitting. Anger, fear, and loathing of others who are ‘different’ is as old as humanity. Hateful words and violent acts are not new in this day.  As much as ever, this nation (indeed, this world) needs the robust message of Christ’s Gospel, one that goes beyond pulpit prayers to overtake our Monday morning lives!  Some seem to think that the best response to people like the Neo-Nazi’s in Charlottesville is to silence them.  I wonder if that is really true?  Might we instead let the ignorance of their words become evident even as we surround them with demonstrated unity and powerful acts of caring?

Today you and I will have opportunities to interact with people who are hateful, prejudiced, repeating things they have heard. We need to learn to say “talk to me,” and, in an honest, courageous conversation, bring to light those things that are repugnant without anger. Asking another if they have really thought about that statement, asking them to go deeper than their emotions, could provide a exposure that leads to change.  Is it hard? Yes, it is difficult to listen wisely!  This is not appeal to just give an uncritical forum to prejudice or hatred. Please do not read it that way.  Proverbs reminds us that "A gentle answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger. The tongue of the wise commends knowledge, but the mouth of the fool gushes folly." (Proverbs 15:1-2, NIV)

The further wisdom of the Word teaches us to meet evil and overcome it, not with violence or power, but with love.  "Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everybody. If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. Do not take revenge, my friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,” says the Lord. On the contrary: “If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head.” Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good." (Romans 12:17-21, NIV)

Not along ago, I sat with a man who spewed hatred and racism. My first inclination was to tell him to shut his mouth, that he was an ignorant fool! But, I decided to let him talk, listening attentively and prayerfully. I wondered to myself, “If I let him talk, will he think that I agree with him?”   At appropriate moments, I interjected gentle objections, asked for clarity, and eventually his rant lost steam and he moved on.  Did he repent? Not at that moment, but he met a reaction I could tell was not familiar. He was ready for me to rise up in anger and was disarmed when instead I let him talk. I continue to pray for him to experience the love of Christ that will change him from the inside out.

It takes a bold love, a mind full of the Spirit, and a heart secured in the peace of God to stand courageously in the face of hatred and gently insist on the Truth without resorting to anger that only escalates tension, but, Christian, this is our calling. Like our Savior, we meet our world, not with closed fists but rather with engagement, with a powerful desire to drag evil into the Light.

Here is a word from the Word to ponder today.  
"Better to hear the quiet words of a wise person
than the shouts of a foolish king.
Better to have wisdom
than weapons of war,
but one sinner can destroy much that is good."

(Ecclesiastes 9:17-18, NLT)

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Shine Jesus Shine

Lord the light of Your love is shining

In the midst of the darkness shining

Jesus Light of the world shine upon us

Set us free by the truth You now bring us

Shine on me shine on me

Shine Jesus shine

Fill this land

With the Father's glory

Blaze Spirit blaze

Set our hearts on fire

Flow river flow

Flood the nations

With grace and mercy

Send forth Your word Lord

And let there be light

Graham Kendrick

© 1987 Make Way Music (Admin. by Music Services, Inc.)

CCLI License # 810055

Student Stand-by

A little over 4 decades ago, when I traveled home from college, I flew at a much reduced rate on a ‘student stand-by’ ticket. I stood at the gate and waited to see if the flight had empty seats left. I was not assured a reservation.  It was a very different time in the airline industry. Airplanes were not usually packed like they are today, so most of the time, as long as I did not try to fly on prime flights, I would make it home.  There was one trip home at Christmas when I spent most of the day in Chicago’s O’Hare Airport trying to get on a flight because weather issues had caused some cancellations which filled up remaining flight.  When I was 18 traveling that way was an adventure. Today, when I go to the airport, I want to be assured of a seat on that plane.

I am going to be direct! Are you ticketed with a full reservation for that final flight to the Presence of God?

Many people seem to believe that they will enjoy heaven on a space-available basis. Are you one of them?  OK, I hear you. “Jerry, what a lousy topic. Who wants to think about the end of life here?”  I understand that death can be grim, but here is reality, friend:  Mortality is 100%! And, the Scripture makes it clear that when this body ceases to function, we live on. The question is where will we spend eternity.

I have no death wish, but I do anticipate that moment when I make the transition from time to eternity, from what is known to what is promised. I have an assured reservation, a place prepared, that takes most of the fear of death away for me.  This passage is one to live by though we preachers use it often at funerals.  Jesus said, “Don’t let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God, and trust also in me. There is more than enough room in my Father’s home. If this were not so, would I have told you that I am going to prepare a place for you? When everything is ready, I will come and get you, so that you will always be with me where I am." (John 14:1-3, NLT)

We need not settle for 'hope so, could be' thinking.  We can enjoy a confirmed reservation, purchased for us by Jesus Christ, made available to us as a gift. Like Paul, we can say, "I know in Whom I have believed and am convinced that He is able to guard what I've entrusted to Him..."   The Word makes this promise to those who live in faith - "So Christ has now become the High Priest over all the good things that have come. He has entered that great, perfect sanctuary in heaven, not made by human hands and not part of this created world. Once for all time he took blood into that Most Holy Place, but not the blood of goats and calves. He took his own blood, and with it he secured our salvation forever." (Hebrews 9:11-12, NLT)

That is a wonderful phrase - "He secured our salvation forever!"  We don't have to wait to die to see if there is room in the Father's house for us. We need not be anxious about our inevitable flight. He, at His own expense, purchased our salvation and gives us life, eternal and full! The ticket is issued, paid in full.

Christianity is not just about eternal life insurance, friend.  When we receive Christ, by faith, offering a simple prayer that affirms our hope in Him, we have just started the great adventure! Being 'saved' is as much about how we live now as it is about going to Heaven. Jesus makes us ‘saints’ (that just means “a God-loving person”) long before we become citizens of the Heavenly city.  Securing our ‘ticket’ we are then called establish His Kingdom here on earth; first by loving Him and then be sharing that love with others.

I want to be one of those Christians who brings a little bit of Heaven down to earth, don't you? I want people to sense the Presence of God in me, to catch a bit of the fragrance of Heaven when I pass by. And, as I walk in the Spirit, with a heart that is already at home in God's house, with a mind that is filled with the wisdom of Heaven, that will happen.

Here's a word from the Word for you today. Believe it and live - "... because of Christ, we have received an inheritance from God, for he chose us from the beginning, and all things happen just as he decided long ago. God’s purpose was that we who were the first to trust in Christ should praise our glorious God. And now you also have heard the truth, the Good News that God saves you. And when you believed in Christ, he identified you as his own by giving you the Holy Spirit, whom he promised long ago. The Spirit is God’s guarantee that he will give us everything he promised and that he has purchased us to be his own people. This is just one more reason for us to praise our glorious God." (Ephesians 1:11-14, NLT)

Are you trying to make Heaven on a ‘stand by’ basis? There is no need. Confirm your reservation for Heaven today, right now.  It’s not about a feeling, an emotional experience, or settling every question you have about spiritual matters.  The key is placing yourself – without any fear – in the hands of Jesus Christ.  Nobody is ‘too far gone,’ is too bad, is without need. I’m headed Home with a reservation. Are you?

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1. Jesus! What a friend for sinners!

Jesus! Lover of my soul;

Friends may fail me, foes assail me,

He, my Savior, makes me whole.

Chorus: Hallelujah! What a Savior!

Hallelujah! What a friend!

Saving, helping, keeping, loving,

He is with me to the end.

2. Jesus! What a strength in weakness!

Let me hide myself in Him.

Tempted, tried, and sometimes failing,

He, my strength, my victory wins.

3. Jesus! What a help in sorrow!

While the billows o’er me roll,

Even when my heart is breaking,

He, my comfort, helps my soul.

4. Jesus! I do now receive Him,

More than all in Him I find.

He hath granted me forgiveness,

I am His, and He is mine.

• J. Wilbur Chapman  Public Domain

Conversing with God in an age of smartphones

My friend handed me a thin book that began with a story about a mother who worked hard with her baby to reclaim that child from autism with extensive therapies.  The author’s point went from the epidemic of autism, which isolates the person from relating to others, and asks us to consider if we are so distracted by our own pursuits, particularly our electronic devices, that we are growing incapable of sustaining real relationships. The author, Patricia Snow, recounts this horrific, but all too common, story. “In a Barnes and Noble bookstore recently, a young child, in a voice loud enough to be heard throughout the store, kept saying, “Daddy! This is a triceratops. He has three big horns. . . . Daddy! This is a stegosaurus. He has a spikey tail. . . . Daddy!” For as long as I was in the store, the agonizing litany continued. Again and again, the strong-willed child tried to force her father’s attention, while her father, as I observed when I went to the children’s section to see, sat in a chair a few feet from his daughter, his legs spread and his whole upper body bent over the glowing screen of his phone.”  What must it do to a child to feel that kind of rejection, for that is what it is!

There is an even more serious issue for those of us who are conditioned by the instant feedback from our glowing phones as we pursue a vital prayer life, our conversations with God. Ms. Snow pushes that point with this about our knowing God. “If human conversations are endangered, what of prayer, a conversation like no other? All of the qualities that human conversation requires—patience and commitment, an ability to listen and a tolerance for aridity—prayer requires in greater measure. A book like Donald Haggerty’s Contemplative Provocations reminds us just how much time, silence, and patience with apparent absence are preconditions for a relationship with the Divine.”

Prayer can be difficult work! “Jerry, how can you say that? It is wonderful to pray.”  And, it is, but none the less, real prayer is hard. The simple prayers- “Thanks, God, for the sunshine today.”  Or, “Help me to get this task accomplished,” are easy.  Communing with God in a way that is intimate, life changing, and that comes to know Him, demands time, patience, and persistence.

Read the Psalms and observe what the Word says. "Of David. A psalm. I waited patiently for the Lord; he turned to me and heard my cry." (Psalm 40:1, NIV)  Paul famously speaks of asking the Lord several times to remove his ‘thorn in the flesh,’ "But He said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”  (2 Corinthians 12:9, NIV) What? No 30 second response? No, nothing like that!  Job endured a long season of silence, finally crying out in frustration – “I want to meet You face to face and make You provide answers to me!”  God never did explain Himself. He told Job that He was God and that was enough!  Even Jesus wrestled with the Father’s will that night before the Cross in such emotional stress that He sweat drops of blood and poured out words of anguish!

It is no accident that marriage is one of the Scripture’s prime examples of our relationship with the Lord.  A marriage that is marked by intimacy is not easily nor quickly made. A husband and wife must be intentional, self-denying, patient, pursuing the other constantly – to create the kind of ‘oneness’ that is the ideal.  If we would know God intimately, walk with Him in love, we cannot find Him in a holy minute, in an occasional perusal of the Scripture, and in the occasional 60 minute church service. We will have to wait on Him, listen carefully for Him, and endure times of unexplained silences.  We cannot truly find Him while we allow ourselves to be distracted by a thousand other things.

At the end of all that, we find a quality of life that is amazingly whole, a serenity that is rare, and eternal life now, here in this temporal world.  

Our word from the Word is a more lengthy one today.  Read this song of David with open heart and eyes.  Ask yourself, do I know how to wait on the Lord? Do I pray only for answers, or to know Him, richly and intimately?

"I waited patiently for the Lord; he turned to me and heard my cry.

He lifted me out of the slimy pit, out of the mud and mire; he set my feet on a rock and gave me a firm place to stand. He put a new song in my mouth, a hymn of praise to our God. Many will see and fear and put their trust in the Lord. Blessed is the man who makes the Lord his trust, who does not look to the proud, to those who turn aside to false gods. Many, O Lord my God, are the wonders you have done. The things you planned for us no one can recount to you; were I to speak and tell of them, they would be too many to declare. Sacrifice and offering you did not desire, but my ears you have pierced; burnt offerings and sin offerings you did not require.

Then I said, “Here I am, I have come— it is written about me in the scroll. I desire to do your will, O my God; your law is within my heart.” I proclaim righteousness in the great assembly; I do not seal my lips, as you know, O Lord. I do not hide your righteousness in my heart; I speak of your faithfulness and salvation. I do not conceal your love and your truth from the great assembly. Do not withhold your mercy from me, O Lord; may your love and your truth always protect me. For troubles without number surround me; my sins have overtaken me, and I cannot see. They are more than the hairs of my head, and my heart fails within me.

Be pleased, O Lord, to save me; O Lord, come quickly to help me. May all who seek to take my life be put to shame and confusion; may all who desire my ruin be turned back in disgrace. May those who say to me, “Aha! Aha!” be appalled at their own shame.

But may all who seek you rejoice and be glad in you; may those who love your salvation always say, “The Lord be exalted!” Yet I am poor and needy; may the Lord think of me. You are my help and my deliverer; O my God, do not delay." (Psalm 40:1-17, NIV)  Amen

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The entire article from which I drew the quotes above is found at this link.
https://www.firstthings.com/article/2016/05/look-at-me