“Do not quench the Spirit. Do not treat prophecies with contempt but test them all; hold on to what is good, reject every kind of evil.” 1 Thessalonians 5:19-22
We collect water from our air conditioning unit in a bucket and use it to water our plants. In summer, we can collect as much as 10 gallons of water a day! The other day I looked in the half full bucket, and there, lying on top of the water, was a lizard (anoli) … destined to die. Placing my hand in the bucket, it immediately grabbed onto my finger. Smart lizard!
This was interesting because when they get into the house, trying to catch them is almost impossible. Grandkids love to outsmart them all the time. But this little guy wasn’t running from me at all. In fact, at the speed with which it grabbed onto my finger, its reaction was more instinctive than thoughtful. Dropping it onto the ground, it looked to be in shock!
The speed with which it grabbed onto my finger, a finger it would normally resist, made me think about MY decisions. I too find myself shocked at the speed with which I choose to do what God considers good… or evil. Being saved and born again does NOT rid my life of the Old Nature that still considers some sin… fun! I’ve been thinking of that ever since.
Oh how I wish I didn’t have to fight myself all the time. One minute I’m praising the Lord and rejoicing in my salvation. The next, I’m doing something stupid and outside of His will. I’m like Paul who, even when doing good, evil is present! Oh how I’d love to get to the point of no thinking at all. Just grabbing onto God. But… until I get home, I’m called to practice and test everything.
“But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” Matthew 6:20-21
Katie found them first… in the bathroom. Little tiny black bugs. Katie doesn’t like bugs. But they were so small and so few in number that I wasn’t really bothered. That is until they started to multiply. Wanting to know what they were, I got my phone camera, took a magnified picture, then looked them up online. I’d never heard of a rice weevil before!
Back in the COVID days, and being a prepper of sorts, I thought stocking up on some basic items was essential. Who knew what was going to happen. But eating was one thing that HAD to continue. So I bought several 20 LB bags of rice. Double wrapping them in plastic was added security. Once I read rice, I went and found 50 lbs of rice infested with these little guys.
The article I read said that, in most cases, the weevils come WITH the rice. They were there before I bought it. I just provided them a home. The article said they are harmless, even if I eat them. Katie didn’t think so… so my garbage can is 50 lbs heavier this week. The process made me think of sin and the world and today’s verse proclaimed by Jesus. It is a Promicey!
I explained in church that a ‘promicey,’ my made up word incorporates a prophetical inspired word with a future promise. Jesus COMMANDED that Believers DO THIS VERSE! If we do, we are promised that our ETERNAL TREASURE will remain secure. Even against Rice Weevils, or anything else we can’t see or know. Afterward, our hearts move to where our treasure lies!
Where have YOU stored YOUR treasure? If it is with Jesus in Heaven, you need not be too concerned about the world. It’s a Future Promise! A ‘Promisey!’
“Come, follow me,” Jesus said, “and I will send you out to fish for people.” Matthew 4:19
It started with an invitation… my son Clint asking if I’d like to go fishing with him. Now that he has a boat, he can make invitations like that. Obviously I said yes, and yesterday morning found me driving in the darkness to meet up with him. Soon, we found ourselves gazing at a fish-finder, and out over the water, looking for signs of fish. We moved around a lot.
The only common thing that we found at every place we went was that fish were not biting. Maybe it was the time, or the tide or even the mood of the fish. Both live and artificial bait were used, but nothing seemed to work. Until it did! And then BAMM! Clint hooked onto a huge Redfish. It was a fight to get it in… but he managed. It was the only keeper we got.
Fishing is a sport of hope. Taking a piece of hooked bait and throwing it out into a world that we can’t really see or truly know and the long hours of doing it only prove that it MUST be HOPE that keeps a fisherman fishing. The anticipation of a huge fish taking the bait is a fisherman’s hope. This big one didn’t just bite at the bait… it swallowed the whole thing!
It was no accident that Jesus approached fishermen to start His ministry. To give hope, it’s best to use people who look for and want to have it! One day, years ago, I was just living in the world. Then I discovered something REALLY attractive… Jesus… and swallowed Him hook line and sinker! Now I too am a fisher of men. You? What side of the hook are YOU on?
If you have taken Jesus bait, are you making invitations to others to get hooked?
“Although I am less than the least of all the Lord’s people, this grace was given me: to preach to the Gentiles the boundless riches of Christ.” Ephesians 3:8
She wanted some plants, and needed some dirt. So there I was buying, then presenting her with, a bag of dark potting soil and some milkweed. The bag said it was ‘Organic’ and promised ‘bigger plants.’ It was also $1 cheaper than the other brands, a feature that ‘I’ happened to like. For what she was shooting for, it wouldn’t make a difference. So I got it.
Humus is that portion of the soil formed by the decomposition of animal or vegetable matter. It is a valuable constituent of soil… dirt. The darker it is the more decomposed matter it contains. Ya can’t really eat it or wear it, but without it, life would be impossible. We plant seeds or re-pot plants in dirt because the dark dead matter feeds and grows life.
From the dead darkness comes a variety of plants. In our case… milkweed. Katie likes milkweed. Not because it tastes good… but because it draws butterflies. Katie REALLY loves butterflies. I do too. But not as much as I love her. So I work to make it possible for her to have what she enjoys to live joyfully. From caterpillar to butterfly, the process is beautiful.
Death returns live things back to soil. Soil grows life. It is a constant cycle. My life constantly consists of living and dying things… from hopes and dreams to situations and people. God uses dirty things to make and grow life. Even when I thought I was dead, He called. And like dirty Apostle Paul, I pass on life. What about YOU? After all… YOU were made from dirt!
“They are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of their hearts.” Ephesians 4:18
I see it all the time. But as often as it’s been seen and heard, I’ve never been able to understand or comprehend it. Having just preached an evangelistic sermon on what it takes to be rescued from hell and eternal death, the message was deliberately made simple and plain. So much so, I was unprepared for what I was about the hear after the service.
Easter has its visitors. But I happen to love visitors ANY time. The chance to share the ‘Good-News’ of the free gift of eternal life in Christ has yielded some marvelous wonders of grace and peace. I’ve seen people’s lives completely change at the understanding and receiving of that Good News. But I have also seen quite the opposite. Sunday was like that.
As a visitor came out, I was excited to ask, “Are you a Jesus person?” I guess my anticipation should have been muted. When the answer came back… “well.. not really,” my eyes popped open, and shock registered on my face. I tried for clarity, but none came. The person looked as if I was speaking Latin! They were ignorant… by choice! Their heart was hard! So sad.
What about YOU? Do You live in The Light… full of God’s Life because of the knowledge and understanding that come from willfully opening your heart to God’s invitation to join Him? Or are you just willfully ignorant? The difficulty in life… is the choice!
“As a father has compassion on his children, so the LORD has compassion on those who fear Him. For He knows our frame; He is mindful that we are dust.” Psalm 103:13-14
I LOVE my wife… therefore a disclaimer… this is NOT a vent in our house! Now that said, it doesn’t mean that every vent in our house is perfectly pure and clean. IN fact, I get flustered that they are not! I make sure to change out our AC air filter twice a year with a high HEPA rated air filter. Regardless, dust enters and leaves and lays it’s presence.
Working over at the church house, one of the things we had to do was pull all the vents, clean, and then spray paint them. Over time, dust had left it’s mark. To make the place appear new and clean, we did the work of masking the problem. They look great now. Anyone coming in would never notice that there is a recurring problem. But there is!
This last week was Holy Week. Easter is always my favorite Holiday because of this very principle. There is no mistaking the point. Looking into the suffering, torture and horrific death of my savior, I am FORCED to remember that His perfection was marred because of MY imperfection. Though I have received His forgiveness, sanctification is a process.
I am SOO thankful for the reminder that God is my FATHER! He knows all about me… including my weakness. Last night while dining with family, the antics and discussed missteps of my grandson reminded me of today’s verse. At NO time did we consider kicking him out of the family! That makes me thankful and blessed to be a believer. YOU?
Are you dusty and in need of a little cleaning? Jesus Works!
“He said to them, “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation.” Mark 16:15
It’s an old saying I picked up years ago. When someone asks me, “How are you doing?” One of my replies is “like Campbell’s soup… Mm! Mm! Good!” Another is.. “Like the man with the cape… SUPER… man!” It usually gets a chuckle. Jesus used the work GOOD when considering things too. One was in referring to the News of His death and resurrection!
Today is Good Friday. At least that’s what it’s been called seemingly forever! It is the day celebrated as being the day Jesus Christ died on the cross. But as strange as we might call a death day good, there’s controversy there too! Evidence suggests it could have been on a Wednesday or even a Thursday. But calling a tough bad day for Jesus, ‘Good?’ HUH?
Though math has nothing to do with it, accounting MAY be able to help account for what actually happened. Man was created in God’s image and meant to glorify God. When Adam and Eve CHOSE to sin, the JUST penalty, or cost for that sin… was eternal death and separation from God. Nothing could change that. The debt HAD to be paid. Enter Jesus.
The fact that Perfect Jesus came to pay the Perfect Price for my imperfection is like a math problem. When I CHOOSE to make Jesus my savior and substitute, God credits my life’s account with being Tetelestai… PAID IN FULL! And to me… AND God… that is a GOOD WORD! AND Good News! SO Happy Good Friday to YOU. Are YOU His?
A few years ago, Lutheran pastor Christoph Römhild emailed Chris Harrison, a professor at Carnegie Mellon University, for help on coming up with a visual representation of the over 63,000 cross-references in the Bible. They produced the multi-colored arc diagram in the header of this post. The image, a digital rendering of all the cross-references in the Bible, has a bar graph along the bottom representing books, chapters, and verses. The various colors represent the distance between the verses in a particular cross-reference.
Let me just say, I love this image (and, in true Bible nerd fashion, I am planning on displaying it soon on a wall in my home or office!)! The arc diagram is beautiful, symmetrical, powerful, and wonderfully descriptive. So what does it tell us about how we should think about and engage Bible?
1. First, Scripture is beautifully unified.
The cross-references tell us that the Bible is a beautifully rendered tapestry rather than a chaotic patchwork quilt. Consider the fact that the books of the Bible were written in 3 languages (Hebrew, Greek, and a bit of Aramaic), over a millennium and a half, in a variety of types of literature, by about 40 different people, who lived in sometimes radically different cultures and across a geographical chunk of the world that spans about 2,500 miles. In the face of such diversity, the unity and flow of the Bible’s meta-narrative is breathtaking. In the image above, notice not only the comprehensiveness of touch-points for the references (they fill the whole span), but also the clear symmetry and balance. As Christians we believe in God’s superintending of the process. If the Bible’s development had been completely random, chaotic, purposeless in terms of going somewhere, I don’t think we would have the image before us.
2. Second, Scripture is authoritative.
The authors of Scripture received what had gone before them as foundational and as carrying authority. For instance, there are approximately 350 quotations of the Old Testament in the New Testament and at least 2300 allusions, not to mention many places where an Old Testament person, place, or institution is mentioned without a particular passage in mind. Yet, as the image above makes clear, we also have extensive cross-references between books of the Old Testament (e.g., the Psalms or Prophets refer back to the Pentateuch or the Historical Books), as well as between books of the New Testament (e.g., at times there is an interrelationship between the Gospels and Acts and the rest of the New Testament, such as when the letters or Hebrews or Revelation refer to the events of Jesus’s life, ministry, passion, resurrection, and exaltation). Scriptures or biblical events often are appealed to in order to reinforce what a particular writer is communicating. So authoritative texts are in the very DNA of Judaism and Early Christianity. To be “Christian” is to embrace the authority of Scripture as foundational for life and our common existence in the church.
3. Third, Scripture often points us to other places in Scripture.
At any point in Bible reading or study, we do well to pay attention to the echoes of what has gone before and the impact on what comes after. Our texts were not given by God in isolation but in particular contexts, including the context of the canon of Scripture. This means that as we read the Bible, we receive great help by paying attention to the cross-references in the margins, or the footnotes in our study Bible. As we study the Bible, we need to be sensitive not only to the immediate context of our passage of study, but also to the broader context in a passage to which our passage points us. For instance, when you read Jesus’s words about the temple in Luke 19:46, you can’t really understand them well without considering the context of his allusions to Isa. 56:7 and Jer. 7:11. Go look those passages up, thinking about the context (hint: both in part deal with corrupt leaders, among other important topics). We also get light on earlier passages as revelation unfolds. So, we see Jesus appealing to Ps. 110:1 as messianic (Mark 12:35-37), but we don’t get the full picture of that text’s implications until it is fulfilled in the exaltation of Jesus to the right hand of God (Acts 2:34-36; Ps. 110:1 is the most quoted Old Testament passage in the New). Considering the cross- references in Scripture gives us a much rich, deeper, and more accurate understanding of the Bible.
4. Finally, Scripture is Story.
Many students of literature speak of stories having a “narrative arc,” moving from the beginning (or exposition, or “inciting event”), to a crisis, a climax, and a resolution, and this certainly is the case with the Bible’s big picture. Thus, the cross-references we find in the biblical literature very often make reference to other places in the biblical storyline, whether the Psalms, or the Prophets, or Paul referring to Creation, or the Wilderness Wanderings, or the Christ event (notice that this can work in terms of anticipation as well as remembering). We get a sense of profound narrative movement as we work our way through the whole of the Bible. Thus, one of the most helpful things we can do to grow as readers of Scripture, is to read Scripture chronologically, putting the pieces of that grand story together.
In short, let’s be thankful for Bible publishers and their various tools that alert us to cross-references—and let’s use those tools as we learn to read the Bible better.
George H Guthrie – Helping You Read the Bible Better
“Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.” Philippians 2:4 ESV
Approaching the Aldi grocery store near me, quarter in hand, the lady coming out of the store pushed a cart in my direction and said, “Here you go!” When I went to hand her my quarter, she said… “that’s ok… pass it on!” I smiled because she sounded just like Jesus! I understood because I recognized the ministry value in doing the same thing!
Aldi grocery stores have a unique method of managing their shopping carts. One must pay a quarter to get one unlocked from the rest. The idea is to get people to return their carts back to the store without having to pay employees to go out to collect them. Gaining their invested quarter back, as simple as it sounds, provides interest enough to actually work.
In light of Holy Week, I was blessed by the thought of someone taking an interest enough to offer ME a free quarter! “Not much,” you say? Ahhh, but it worked! When I left, the Jesus model stuck with me and I absolutely ‘passed it on’ to the next person. Only this time I added, “Jesus wants you to have this! Happy Easter!” Their smile was the reward!
The last week of Jesus’ life, before the Savior of the universe was brutally killed for my sin, found Jesus… washing feet! He continually urged His disciples to do good to others and to look out for others best interest. Nothing is better than sharing the good Word of salvation with others. Nothing makes it more acceptable than to say it with an act of kindness!
Will YOU look out and pray for a divine appointment today to do something good for someone else’s interest… AND your own? Will you look out for Jesus’ interests today?
