August, 2019 - The Text Messages

August 25, 2019

Tears of Grace

I heard something the other day that I hadn’t considered before concerning our tears before the Lord. King David wrote in (Psalm 56:8) that the Lord collects our collective tears in a bottle; that is, that every tear of every child of God who has ever or will ever live, every one shed in grief, sorrow, loneliness and despair is being collected for the day when He makes (Isaiah 61:3) “beauty for ashes” and “joy for mourning” and causes the days of “our light affliction” (2 Corinthians 4:17) to be over shadowed by an “exceeding and eternal weight of glory.”

But the same Bible which declares that also depicts the Lord Jesus as weeping.

Was He in despair? Yes and no. Was He grieved ? Again, yes and no. Was He afraid? Once more, yes and no, and to that last one some might be tempted to defend the Lord’s mightiness and say that our God is NEVER afraid. I say to you that in the garden, it was the human side of Jesus (the Son of Man) which cried out to His Father in (Luke 22:42), “If it is Your will, take this cup from Me; nevertheless not My will but Your’s, be done.” It was as the Son of God (the divine side) that Jesus earlier had said, ““Now My soul is troubled, and what shall I say? ‘Father, save Me from this hour’? But for this purpose I came to this hour.” (John 12:27)

So often, when we see the Lord crying, whether at the grave site of Lazarus or upon His humbly grand entrance into Jerusalem a week before His crucifixion, it is not for Himself. His are tears of empathy, compassion and yes despair – despair because those He came for were missing the point. He said then in (Luke 19:41-44):

“If you had known, even you, especially in this your day, the things that make for your peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes. For days will come upon you when your enemies will build an embankment around you, surround you and close you in on every side, and level you, and your children within you, to the ground; and they will not leave in you one stone upon another, because you did not know the time of your visitation.“

God’s grace was costing Jesus everything and the ones He came for were missing it – are you?

I have a terrible tendency to hurt my wife, not directly, not with hands or even words but by my actions I sometimes wound her deeply. A week ago as the message on grace was concluding and a time of reflection was called for in advance of the Lord’s supper I saw her – she was wiping away tears as once again she both reflected on the costly grace of God towards her and His call for us to be gracious to one another. One more time she was being obedient to the Lord in showing grace to me.

We’ve all sung about grace – most of us are familiar with the hymn Amazing Grace and some of us have sung songs about grace like the one we sang today with lyrics like “grace – comes – like – a – wave – crash – ing – o – ver – me.” We sing as recipients of grace with joy and exuberant gratitude but what does the song of the giver sound like? How do you know when grace has gone out of you? How do you know when you have shown grace? If I may, you know when grace has gone out because often time grace hurts the giver.

We are all called to be reconcilers (see 2 Corinthians 5:18) in a general and evangelistic sense and also in our most personal relationships (see Ephesians 4:26, Malachi 2:14-15). Ask the man (like Hosea) or the woman who has ever been betrayed in a relationship and then reconciled and forgiven his or her mate if the grace of that forgiveness hurt them and you will understand that often grace hurts the giver.

In order to reconcile the world to Himself, Almighty God dispatched His only begotten Son on a mission of reconciliation which would cost both Father and Son everything. Without question, the humiliation, suffering and torture of the Lord Jesus hurt Him but it also hurt the Father deeply nevertheless, without that costly grace we would all still be doomed to eternal suffering in hell; without that costly grace, relationships would fail and families would fall apart – nothing good results when grace is absent.

On our behalf, Almighty God weighed the cost of His grace and sent His Son anyways.

I wonder, can we sing of the Lord’s amazing grace as genuinely having only received it or does the song become more meaningful when being gracious has cost us too?

I think grace means more when its recipients give it away…

August 18, 2019August 19, 2019

Being Christ to the Least of These

“***For the poor will never cease from the land**; therefore I command you, saying, ‘You shall open your hand wide to your brother, to your poor and your needy, in your land***.’” Deuteronomy 15:11 (NKJV)

You see them standing on crowded street corners holding signs upon which are statements like, “Will work for food,” “Anything helps,” and a final “thank you” and “God bless you;” people who for various reasons find themselves homeless.

When you see them. What do you do? Do you turn away and ignore them? Do you rolldown your window and shout at them? Do you pray for them? Do you share the love of Jesus with them? Do you serve them?

You might call them the “least of these” (Matt. 25:40,45) but the reality is that while so many people treat them as if they were nobodies and nothing – the Lord God made them and the Lord Jesus Christ died for them. They are just like you and me and frankly, you and I are at best, one calamity away from being right where they are now.

In His word, the Lord said that they’d always be among us (Matt. 26:10) and in a round-about way He implied that when we served them – we were serving Him (see Matt.25:32-40).

I’d like to say that in the process of serving the homeless or anyone else you are also worshipping Jesus. Listen to ALL of what He said to Judas in (Matthew 26:10):

“You have the poor with you always…but Me you do not have always.”

I think that Jesus was calling Judas out for his hypocrisy among a few other things when He made the statement we find in (Matt 26:10) referring to the poor. It was after Judas had griped about the waste of costly fragrant oil which a certain woman used in her worship of the Lord Jesus, implying that her sacrifice could have been put to better use that Jesus said those words to Judas,

At that time, people could literally worship Jesus to His face; they could thank Him, praise Him and sacrificially honor Him like the woman did in (Matt. 26:6-7) but most of them did not. In His statement, Jesus was pointing to the fact that He was returning to His Father (see John 13:3, John 16:28, John 20:17) but He was also pointing to times like those in which we live, where our worship of Him is most often carried out in sacrificial service towards others who are often less fortunate than ourselves.

Once upon a time I was like many people in my community, largely because I did not understand or really care to understand the plight of the homeless. I saw them as panhandlers and manipulators, as people who weren’t trying hard enough. In those days, even as a Christian I avoided them.

Now, my primary area of service IS to that same community. My heart hurts for them and I long to see them recieve Jesus as Lord and Savior and then to be transformed by the renewing of their minds through His Holy Scriptures.

Would you be Christ to the least of these? Dont sweep them under the rug, so to speak; don’t treat them as a nuisance to be rid of – treat them as people for whom Christ died; do for them what you’d have done for yourself if the shoe was on the other foot.

August 11, 2019August 11, 2019

The Valley of the Shadow

The 23rd Psalm is often read during the most trying times that we as humans experience – the grief of loss. But it expresses a reality which can only be known by someone who has learned to condition his or her life to trust in God at ALL times.

King David, the writer of this psalm began by acknowledging the Lord as his trusted and faithful shepherd; as the One who provides comfort, rest and refreshment while leading him on “paths of righteousness.” This was David’s lifelong confidence: the Lord would provide what he needed in every circumstance.

King David was a worshipper of God and while (as one pastor friend of mine reminded me recently) our worship is neither to pay God back or gain some benefit from Him; it is rather, indicative of our relationship with the Lord. I mention this because I’ve had fairweather friends (hopefully I’ve never been one) who only interacted with me when it was convenient or advantageous to them (I’m sure you had friends like that too), King David was not such a person.

So when David writes, “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; for You are with me; Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me” he was not treating the Lord like we do our insurance agents, but was expressing his confidence that no matter how bad it got the Lord would be with him.

As I said, most often the reference to the “shadow of death” is mentioned to console us in our deepest moments of grief over the loss of a loved one in death but the grief common to us all is much broader in scope. Maybe today your marriage or family is under the shadow, causing you great grief and concern over what might become of your life together. You may have just received an unfavorable and even terrifying medical diagnosis. Whatever your “hopeless” moment might be I declare to you that there is hope in that dark valley.

We must be careful here though. We are not promised that an exit from the valley of the shadow won’t still result in loss of a life, the death of a relationship, an on-going illness or some other grieving circumstance BUT be assured, we will exit with Him who led us through that valley and because we understand that the Lord IS with us we, like David will not fear.

The goodness and mercy of the Lord WILL follow us all the days of our lives and because of Jesus’ death, burial and resurrection we WILL dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

Is the Lord YOUR Shepherd? Are you passing through the middle of the valley of the shadow of death? Sometimes, it is only in that valley that you are able to see that your greatest need in any moment is a deep and abiding relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ.