March 7, 2025

II Peter 3: 10-13 But the day of the Lord will come like a thief. The heavens will disappear with a roar, the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and everything in it will be laid bare. Since everything will be destroyed . . . what kind of people ought you to be? You ought to live holy and godly lives . . . That day will bring about the destruction of the heavens by fire, and the elements will melt in the heat. (NIV)

I believe that a scientist looking at nonscientific problems is just as dumb as the next guy.*

As a Christian and a political conservative, I think I’m supposed to scoff at the very idea of global warming.  As a non-scientist, I make no claim to expertise in the matter so I tend to refrain from commenting. But . . . doesn’t this passage seem to describe some very extreme global warming?

After God destroyed all life on earth with the use of water (all life except those in the ark, that is), he placed a rainbow in the sky to remind us that he is never going to do that again. Instead, next time around, he plans to use fire. It sounds like it will happen instantaneously, as in nuclear warfare, rather than gradually, as in global warming, but does it matter? Peter doesn’t waste time on speculation and neither should we. What kind of people should we be is the critical question. We should live holy and godly lives, he says.

It is important to know what the future holds for our planet – else God would not have included the information in his word. But how much of scripture is devoted to the subject? Not as much as is dedicated to instructing us in how to live a Christian life. Not as much as there are words of hope about this life and eternal life. Not as much as there is about sharing the good news with the lost.

Concern about our physical environment is not silly or unscriptural, but as someone has stated: “It’s not that such issues are unimportant. It is rather, that they often take on importance only in the absence of more basic, more life and death matters.”* Concern about our spiritual environment should be the driving force in every aspect of life on earth. The right spiritual balance leads to the right physical action. To rephrase the recycling motto:  “Think globally. Act spiritually.”

If the priorities of our heart are wrong, nothing we do is really holy to God.*

March 6, 2025

Acts 17: 23 “For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: TO AN UNKNOWN GOD. Now what you worship as something unknown I am going to proclaim to you.” (NIV)

To whom are you addressing your worship?*

Paul was in Athens, waiting for his friends to join him. He was distressed by the sight of this city that was full of idols. It wasn’t enough for him to reason in the synagogue or with the people in the streets; he delivered a speech in the Areopagus – the home of the supreme tribunal of Athens.

The beautiful part of this story is how it illustrates Paul’s ability to turn anything – and everything – into a teaching moment. He may have taken advantage of the ignorance of the people of Athens as a launching point for a sermon, but he never called them ignorant. How effective would his message have been if he had started by trying to make his listeners feel stupid? Beginning with what they knew – and with what he knew about them – Paul crafted a speech to appeal to their level of sophistication without compromising the truth.

I don’t know the demographics of my readers. I tailor my daily posts for the audience that I think is out there. I assume that each of you believes in God and that you are familiar with Christianity, even if some of you don’t claim to be a Christian. I always encourage you to read the scripture for yourself because the context is important to understanding the message, and because you should verify that I am being true to the word.

So, here is where I apply today’s passage to you and me. Before we feel superior to the Athenians, let’s examine our own convictions about the God we worship. 

Have you ever heard someone express this sentiment: I would rather believe in God and find out I was wrong than not believe in him and find out I was wrong. It sounds good at first. But how different is that attitude from that of the Athenians who added an altar to an unknown god to their mythological pantheon? If you can allow the possibility that God might be a fairy tale, you are not worshipping God. God can’t be worshipped “just in case.” As Jesus proclaimed, in John 4: 24, “God is spirit, and his worshippers must worship in spirit and in truth.”

The worshipper can rise no higher than the god he worships.*

March 5, 2025

John 6: 28, 29 Then they asked him, “What must we do to do the works God requires?” Jesus answered, “The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent.” (NIV)

Good works do nothing to help us obtain God’s favor, but they follow naturally as we experience the love of Christ.*

When the people asked, What must we do to do the works God requires, Jesus knew what was in their hearts. Chances are, he saw that they were more interested in what he could do for them – feed them, perform miracles – than in how to be saved. So Jesus doesn’t answer a question they didn’t ask. Their faith is at ground zero so that’s where he starts. “Believe that I am the Messiah,” he says.

Doesn’t sound so hard, does it? It’s where we all have to start. But we can’t stay there. It sounds paradoxical: there’s nothing we can do to save ourselves, but we can’t be saved if we do nothing. But like these people, we’re always wanting to know what we can do – to please God, to be saved, to meet the minimum requirements . . . Why do we think God is so hard to please? And if we believe he’s hard to please, why are we always on the lookout for what we can get away with?

God hasn’t drawn up a check-list of requirements for us to perform before we get his approval. All he wants is for us to love him. When we love him, we will want to please him. We will find out what pleases him by looking into his word and being directed by the Holy Spirit. Our works will not be items on our to-do list - they will be the bouquet of roses and the box of chocolates we bring to our true love.

His deepest desire is not that we would do great work, but that we would desire His fellowship above everything else.*

March 4, 2025

Acts 16: 13 On the Sabbath we went outside the city gate to the river, where we expected to find a place of prayer. (NIV)

Remember to always leave a place of divine providence.*

When we walk with God, our plans and expectations are often (or usually) preempted by God’s will. In this story, Luke, along with Paul and his other companions, goes down by the river, expecting to find a quiet place to pray. Instead, they found a group of women and began speaking to them. One of them, Lydia, a business-woman, responded to Paul’s message and she and the members of her household were baptized.

When you look for one thing and instead find something else – something better – it’s called serendipity. God is the master engineer of the serendipitous. I’m sure you can recall times in your life when God stepped in and improved on your expectations. My college career is a shining example of serendipity. Right out of high school, I attended a conservative, traditional Bible college; but after two years, I knew God was leading me elsewhere. In those days, Bible college offered little for young women who weren’t planning a career as a church secretary, church musician, or minister’s wife. Across the country, a new idea in Christian higher education was launched – a Christian “vocational” college – so off I went. The school had been open for one year when I enrolled, so nothing went according to plan – mine or theirs. The degree program I went there to pursue never really got off the ground so my hopes of a career in creative writing were dashed. The serendipitous element of this story is that even though I didn’t get the college education I was looking for, I received real-life experience and opportunities for leadership development that better prepared me for my future than anything a conventional college would have offered. The irony: in my life, I have served stints as a church secretary, a church musician, and a minister’s wife. And now I am finally getting to fulfill my life-long dream to be a writer!

There is nothing wrong with making plans and having expectations, but don’t fall in love with them. If you allow yourself to yield to God’s better idea, you may find yourself down by the river changing lives for eternity – and maybe even doing what you always wanted to do. 

If we are intent on achieving only our own plans, we will have no time for His.*

March 3, 2025

Acts 1: 16, 17 “Brothers, the Scripture had to be fulfilled which the Holy Spirit spoke long ago . . . concerning Judas who served as guide for those who arrested Jesus – he was one of our number and shared in this ministry.” (NIV)

Your past doesn’t have to be a picture of your future.*

In this passage, Peter is speaking to believers in Jerusalem. You would think that he could get his message across just as effectively if he neglected to mention the part about Judas having been “one of our number.” His audience might have concluded that Jesus didn’t screen his top management team very thoroughly - if they didn’t listen carefully to the whole story: the Scripture had to be fulfilled. Jesus had to be betrayed and someone was going to do it. Judas stepped up and volunteered for the position. What I find intriguing is Peter’s admission that Judas shared in the ministry. It makes him sound like he was a productive member of their merry band. Until he wasn’t.

I knew a preacher who went to prison for income tax evasion. Another preacher, one whose preaching spoke to me when I was just a kid, went a little crazy and tried to kill his wife. Another, whose writing I found to be challenging and scriptural, decided that he was really a woman. Does their bad end cancel out the good that they did?

I don’t believe that scripture teaches that our good deeds and our sins will be weighed, our fate decided by which is heavier, but it is certainly scriptural to believe that anyone can repent and return to living a Christian life. The fact is, the second preacher’s impact on my life was not diminished by what he did later. His good influence lives on in his son who is a successful minister today. The articles written by the third preacher may have become tainted in my mind but you may have read a quote from him in one of these posts.

God can – and does – perform miraculous deeds, but for the most part he has left the work of the Kingdom in the hands of imperfect people. (Perhaps the miraculous occurs every time any good is actually accomplished by our inadequate attempts to be helpful.) Even Judas, who betrayed the Lord for money, could have chosen to repent and return to sharing in the ministry of Jesus. After all, the Lord accepts our repentance after we have betrayed him for nothing.

Believe in Christ’s forgiveness. Then start living like a forgiven person.*

March 2, 2025

Acts 13: 29 “When they had carried out all that was written about him, they took him down from the tree and laid him in a tomb.” (NIV)

God always writes the last chapter.*

Jesus lived his whole life knowing what his destiny was. He knew the prophecies about the Messiah and that he was the fulfillment of them. (Read Luke 24: 27.) But what about the other people involved in Jesus’ life, ministry, and death who played key roles in carrying out the predictions in scripture? Did any of them realize the significance of their actions?

We see from the events surrounding Jesus’ life and death that God can use anyone to accomplish his will. In this speech in the synagogue in Pisidia Antioch, Paul doesn’t distinguish between those who cruelly executed Jesus and those who lovingly tended to his body afterwards. Everyone played their part in fulfilling the prophecy. Just as the players in the drama of Jesus’ life and death were unaware of their role in history, we may be clueless about God’s plans for our lives.

Many Christians believe that God has a detailed blueprint for each of his followers, but I’m don’t see it that way. While we are often faced with choosing between right and wrong, most often our big life-choices are between good and good. God gives us free will and so we get to make up our own minds about whom to marry, where to live, what career to pursue. Every decision should be preceded with prayer for God’s direction – because every decision has the potential of being that defining moment for those who are called to a specific path. But if God hasn’t spoken to you through a burning bush, or an angel, or your cousin Mordecai, chances are your calling is to glorify God in the everyday life you have chosen for yourself.

That having been said . . . even so, perhaps it would be wise to live as if you are expecting to fulfill a unique niche in history. Prepare yourself for your potential mission: study and meditate on God’s word daily; develop a healthy prayer life; look for opportunities to serve and witness; be open to the Holy Spirit’s counsel; love God and love others. Do this and you will fulfill God’s (large or small) purpose for your life. 

We make decisions throughout each waking moment of the day, but first those decisions must be evaluated and compared with what God has instructed his people to do.*

March 1, 2025

Romans 12: 15 Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn. (NIV)

Jesus knows how you feel.*

Today's passage appears amid a series of verses that could be captioned: Words to Live By According to Paul. They aren’t deep theological thoughts, but applying these principles will exemplify a Christ-like attitude more profoundly than any words of wisdom we might express.

Rejoicing or mourning with another speaks of our ability to empathize with them. We display the appropriate emotion for the occasion because we feel it also. It’s harder to do than you might think, no matter how much we might love the other person. We aren’t always made happy or sad by the same circumstances as others. We can be glad or sad for them but we don’t feel the same pain or joy.

Is there anything we can do to improve our ability to empathize? There may be a library-full of self-help books on the subject but I’ll save you the trouble of reading them. If we want to care more deeply we can accomplish it by becoming more like Jesus.

In Matthew 9: 36, we read that Jesus had compassion on the crowds. “Compassion” is a feeble attempt to convey the significance of the original Greek word used in this text. Matthew used a word that expresses Jesus’ “vehement affection of commiseration, by which the bowels and especially the heart is moved.”* We might say that our heart hurts for someone but Jesus felt it in his gut. The more closely we follow in the footsteps of Jesus, the more our hearts – our guts – will become like his.

It is not enough to merely don a mask of appropriate emotion. We may not be comfortable with the idea of such intensity but when Jesus rejoiced and mourned with others, he really felt their joy and sorrow. Living the Christian life often requires us to do things that we really don’t feel like doing, but if we are going to love others as Jesus loves them we are going to feel it in our guts!

The character of our Savior is compassion.*