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Over One Sinner who Repents

We all know the frantic, panicked feeling we have when searching for something that’s lost, such as our keys, wallet, or phone.  Hopefully, we’ve never known the sheer terror of losing a kid in a store, or if so, hopefully we know the sheer joy when that object or person is finally found.  That’s God’s joy in finding us when we repent and turn back to Him.

Most of the time, however, we are like the German groom in a 2013 Daily News article who didn’t even realize that he’d lost his bride when she went to the restroom at a gas station until he had driven 125 miles.  Sadly, many of us are lost in sin, just driving through life, but don’t know it.

I. Luke 15:1-24.  We will never realize that we are lost in sin and want to repent until we realize our worth to God and His incredible love for us.  For Jesus not to eat with sinners, as the charge was made, He couldn’t eat with any of us (Romans 3:23), but the truth was that He was eating with repentant sinners.  In all three parables that follow, God’s love for us and, thus, the reaffirming of our value to Him are the focus–even in the indignity of the watching Father running to His returning son.

II. 2 Corinthians 7:8-11.  A parent will demand his kid say he’s sorry to someone, but this just reinforces worldly sorrow in that child.  Even if the kid means it but continues to do the wrong behavior, he may have reached godly sorrow but not repentance.  Repentance produces actions that are consistent with a change of heart, mind, and attitude toward sin and selfishness.  When the lost son’s money ran out, he tried to fix his own problem by hiring himself out but found his life empty, physically and spiritually, as the pigs were eating better than He was.  Godly sorrow led him to consider that his father’s hired hands did better than he was doing at that moment.  But, it wasn’t until he “got up” and “went” to his father that true repentance was produced.

III. Romans 2:4-7.  Just as Simon the Sorcerer believed and was baptized but was not living out repentance (Acts 8:13-24), it is quite possible that those who have obeyed the gospel warm our pews with only a godly sorrow or worse–a worldly sorrow.  We need to produce fruit in keeping with repentance daily.  Eternity is at stake!

So, what stage are you in: sinning because the money has not run out yet?  Hiring yourself out to futilely take care of the problem by your own resources?  Or, is your stomach growling while you watch the pigs eat better than you do?  If this brings godly sorrow to you, let it produce repentance.  Get up and go to your heavenly Father.  He’s watching and will run to you with open arms.

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God’s to-do list

O Lord, what must your to-do list look like?
What perfect alignment between task and purpose?
Let my every thought today be given to your glory.
May every task of mine reflect my life and purpose in Christ.
Put my sanctification on your to-do list.

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Bible.07: By Living According to Your Word

In all 176 verses in this psalm about God’s Word, one in particular gives us the cure for sin and selfishness: we need to be “living according to your word” (Psalm 119:9).  Great!  But, someone new to Christianity can be overwhelmed by the hundreds of translations out there.  How can they each read differently and still be God’s Word preserved to us through the centuries?

I. Galatians 4:4-5.  After the canon was established, the gospel continued to be spread in Greek that, thanks to Alexander the Great who conquered a few centuries earlier, was a perfect and precise language to preserve God’s Word.  The gospel spread faster by use of the Roman system of roads and preached at synagogues that existed wherever at least ten Jewish families resided.  A few decades after Constantine made Christianity a legal religion and the “masses” were forced to leave paganism to flood the churches, Jerome translated the Greek Scriptures into Latin that would hold dominate for the next 1100 years.  Latin was not very perfect or precise but careful copying by the Masoretes and monks got us to the invention of the printing press in 1455.

II. Acts 12:4.  The greater availability of God’s Word spurred on the Reformation a half century later but also stirred Erasmus to translate the Bible back into Greek.  The problem?  He didn’t have access to the over 5,900 ancient copies of the New Testament that we do today, and so he largely drew from the Latin Vulgate.  His “textus receptus” was the basis for many of the early English translations, including the King James Version (KJV).  It is the filtering of the Greek Word, pascha, through the Latin and the compromises with the pagan masses come into the church that the KJV renders that word ‘Easter’ instead of ‘Passover.’

III. Psalm 119:9-16.  Later translations and the rise of textual criticism relied on better research and bring us ever closer to the originals, of which none still exist.  In 1947, the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, which were written about the time of Christ, confirm this in all the Old Testament books but Esther.  We can be confident, then, that the translation you have in your hand or on your phone will allow you to be “living according to [God’s] word.”

The big question is “will you?”  Most of us have more Bibles and various translations available to us than Erasmus could ever have dreamed of, yet we spend much time in other pursuits rather than studying God’s Word to live it out in our lives.  We must live according to God’s Word so that we can one day live–according to God’s Word.

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Ever more conscious of our need

Father, thank you for the gift of generosity. Show us more and more how to give freely and gladly. We want to be like you in this respect.

Life is a wonderful blessing. Time brings us closer to eternity, and we are grateful for its passing. Trials cause pain, but we rejoice, O Lord, for they cast us upon your care to find relief in your promise.

Make us ever more conscious of our need for salvation and of the subtlety of sin. Awaken us to the power of the gospel. Lord, strengthen us in Christ.

We all have your Spirit. Although our life experiences are different, we know we have equality in Christ and enjoy all the privileges and blessings of eternal life you provide us. The fullness of your presence is available to all, and we praise you for your love of every single soul.

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Let us feel loved

Dear God, you desire to be near us.
We, too, desire it, or perhaps we don’t.
Distant from you, we choose our way,
create our loneliness.
Let us feel loved.

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The souls of men are empty

The universe thrums in praise to your glory.
The mountains shake before your majesty.
The valleys are filled with your goodness,
But the souls of men are empty by choice.
Open our hearts, O Lord, to your presence.

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No time for you

O Lord, the world rushes on in its small affairs, people with no time for you or for others, no patience to hear the word of truth because they are living a lie.

Keep me from going that way. Make me a crier of good news. Praise to you for showing me eternal glory. Your mercy and sovereignty have brought this gift.

Thank you for the peace of great hope, for living in the moment because we have heaven, for joy in the power of the Scriptures to save.

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Because you love

Heavenly Father, from you comes life and peace and freedom.
Because you love, we breathe and move and exist.
Make life more precious to me every day.
May that preciousness be extended to others who walk in spiritual death.

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In the silence of loneliness

Holy God, where impurity hides in me, purify and cleanse me.

Where fears lurk to hold me back from trusting in you, make faith to overcome.

When temptation appears at my weakest moment, put your Word in my mouth.

At times of sadness, when the heart breaks, cheer my soul in your goodness.

Touch me with your presence in the silence of loneliness.

When satisfaction in life is missing, fill my heart with your Spirit.

At every sign of vanity and uselessness of this earthly life, put the hope of eternity before me.

Let Jesus be to me my all.

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Bible.06: As They Do the Other Scriptures

The cross is the dividing line in history.  If the Old Testament is the New Testament concealed, then the New Testament is the Old Testament revealed.  So, how did we get the 27 books that fill the ‘canon’ or ‘rule of faith’?

I. 2 Peter 3:15-16.  God inspired and preserved the New Testament.  The new covenant was prophesied in Jeremiah 31:31-34 and spoken about by Jesus in Luke 22:20, but what a confusing time the 1st Century must have been for Christians wondering who and what to believe as God’s Word came first orally through various gifts of the Holy Spirit (1 Thessalonians 2:13) to its written form (1 Corinthians 14:37).  Peter calls Paul’s letters ‘Scripture’ along with other books at that time.

II. Matthew 13:24-25.  The enemy has always operated by sowing weeds, and so the time of confusion during the 1st Century was no different.  While Christians wondered what was from God and what was not, the enemy sowed perversions (gnosticism), false teachings (Acts 15:1), and heretics like Marcion who declared just the writings of Paul and Luke’s gospel as authoritative.  This, though, caused the church to re-evaluate what books they already considered authoritative and used in their worship services.  The declaration of later church councils on the 27 books we have in the New Testament today did not “give us the Bible” but rather confirmed what Christians had already been using for centuries.

III. 2 Timothy 3:16-17.  We have all we need from that which we know to be ‘Scripture’ as it thoroughly equips us.  God’s divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness “through our knowledge ….”

This means we can study and obey the New Testament.  Let us not be ignorant or unstable, twisting them to our destruction.  Rather, let us let God speak to us about His Son on the cross who rose from the dead.