Holy Communion

Posted on by korgrocker

“For I pass on to you what I received from the Lord himself. On the night when he was betrayed, the Lord Jesus took some bread and gave thanks to God for it. Then he broke it in pieces and said, “This is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” In the same way, he took the cup of wine after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant between God and his people—an agreement confirmed with my blood. Do this in remembrance of me as often as you drink it.” For every time you eat this bread and drink this cup, you are announcing the Lord’s death until he comes again.”
1 Corinthians 11:23-26 NLT

Today’s verses are well known in Christian denominations, the Holy Communion, or Lord’s Supper, being the highlight of a service. The Roman Catholic denomination has a service called “Mass” in which they share in the sacrament of the Eucharist. But regardless of where they worship, all Christians celebrate a time when they remember the Lord’s Last Supper, in accordance with His instructions. Paul’s account in our verses today omits the events that preceded those momentous words of Jesus, while the Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke) capture the poignant drama of that fateful evening meal. 

There are two facets of the Lord’s Supper that I want to dwell on today. The first is that Jesus said, through Paul’s words, “Do this in remembrance of me as often as you drink it”. Jesus never intended for His people to delay celebrating this occasion, setting it apart as a special service perhaps four times a year. Some churches make the Lord’s Supper an integral part of their weekly meetings. Others only have such a service at irregular intervals, when someone remembers. But this is a very solemn and important part of a Christian’s life, because when we share the Communion with each other, it brings together the very essence of why we are Christians in the first place. There is the significance of the bread, being shared from, ideally, a single source such as a roll or a loaf, depending on the size of the congregation, and, nevertheless, primarily remembering that Jesus willingly sacrificed His body for us. This then captures the importance of being together in unity and spirit, and in the presence of the Lord. Then we have the cup of wine, which we share, as we remember Jesus’ death, where He shed His blood for the salvation of all who believe in Him. Today, it is sad in a way that we have abandoned the single source of the bread and the shared cup in favour of sanitised alternatives, which even take the form of a small plastic cup with two seals, with a small wafer of something sandwiched between the two and above the container of some form of juice. Where is the oneness in that? But the Lord’s Supper is an act of remembrance, and how we share it must never detract from the importance of Jesus and all that He has done for us. 

Jesus said, “This is my body, which is given for you”. We should note the word “given,” as many services substitute “broken” for it. Jesus was once described by John the Baptist as the Lamb of God (John 1:29), a statement with special significance because of the Passover lamb. We read in Exodus 12:46, “Each Passover lamb must be eaten in one house. Do not carry any of its meat outside, and do not break any of its bones”. John took great care in his Gospel to relate this account of the first Passover lamb with Jesus, in John 19:36: “These things happened in fulfilment of the Scriptures that say, “Not one of his bones will be broken.”” Why so many leaders choose to say, “This is my body, which was broken for you” escapes me. 

The second saying of Jesus was cataclysmic in its impact. The Jews, up to this point, had known only one covenant —the law of Moses. But Jesus came to bring a New Covenant, as we read in Matthew 26:26-27, “And he took a cup of wine and gave thanks to God for it. He gave it to them and said, “Each of you drink from it, for this is my blood, which confirms the covenant between God and his people. It is poured out as a sacrifice to forgive the sins of many”—the meaning of this we will consider on another day.

For pilgrims everywhere, the Last Supper is a time of remembrance, preparing our hearts through the confession of our sins and reminding us of the relationship between Christians both inside and outside our churches and fellowships. But above all, we remember all that Jesus did for us at Calvary. He died in our place, taking on Himself the punishment we deserved to redeem us from our lives of sin. And now we can stand before Father God wearing a cloak of righteousness given to us by Jesus. This is such an amazingly loving act that we can never forget it. Ever.

Dear Lord Jesus. How can we ever forget Your ultimate sacrifice at Calvary, where You died for us. We are so grateful and look forward to the time when we can join you in Heaven. Amen.

Blameless Before God

Posted on by korgrocker

“The Lord rewarded me for doing right; he restored me because of my innocence. For I have kept the ways of the Lord; I have not turned from my God to follow evil. I have followed all his regulations; I have never abandoned his decrees. I am blameless before God; I have kept myself from sin. The Lord rewarded me for doing right. He has seen my innocence.”
Psalm 18:20-24 NLT

David was in a good place when he wrote these verses. He recorded how God had blessed him, with words such as “reward”, ”restored”, “innocence”, and “blameless”, and David was sure that he had not followed evil ways and he had “kept [himself] from sin”. He was also feeling good because he had “followed all [of God’s] regulations” and had “never abandoned His decrees”. But is that reality or wishful thinking? Looking at David’s life as recorded in the Bible, there were times when his claims of being blameless were true, but another time when he broke several commandments all at the same time (read the account of David and Bathsheba). David flip-flopped through his life much as we do, with the human predisposition to sin emerging from time to time, taking us away from God’s protective shield. 

But Paul had a different perspective, as we read in Romans 3:23, “For everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God’s glorious standard”. In David’s times there was a legalistic regime in place under the Old Covenant, where people could claim to be righteous if they followed all the rules and regulations laid down by God to Moses. But in what we call the New Covenant, we read (Romans 3:24), “Yet God, in his grace, freely makes us right in his sight. He did this through Christ Jesus when he freed us from the penalty for our sins”. We pilgrims know all about God’s grace with the wonderful divine exchange of Jesus’ righteousness for our sins. David claimed to be blameless through his adherence to God’s “regulations” and “decrees”. We pilgrims are blameless because of Jesus. 

Dear Father God. I don’t know where we would be if it wasn’t for Your Son Jesus. Expressing our gratitude doesn’t even scratch the surface of what You deserve. We can only bow before You in worship. Amen.

Going Away

Posted on by korgrocker

“But now I am going away to the one who sent me, and not one of you is asking where I am going. Instead, you grieve because of what I’ve told you.”
John 16:5-6 NLT

If someone says that they are going away, the natural, unthinking almost, response is, “Where are you going?” Well, Jesus said to His disciples that He was going away “and not one of you is asking where I am going”. Even if they had known where He was going, surely Peter, the impetuous one, would have made some comment. Throughout His time with His disciples, Jesus dropped many hints about how He would exit this world. We read in John 2:22, “After he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered he had said this, and they believed both the Scriptures and what Jesus had said“. Another example is in the following chapter in John, John 3:14, “And as Moses lifted up the bronze snake on a pole in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up“. Then we have John 13:33, “Dear children, I will be with you only a little longer. And as I told the Jewish leaders, you will search for me, but you can’t come where I am going“. 

But in John 13:36 we read that Peter did in fact ask Jesus where He was going, “Simon Peter asked, “Lord, where are you going?” And Jesus replied, “You can’t go with me now, but you will follow me later””. So Jesus must have meant something deeper and more profound when He said “not one of you is asking where I am going”. Jesus went on to say that instead of being concerned with what was going to happen to Him, they were more worried about themselves, “Instead, you grieve because of what I’ve told you”. That is a natural human response, of course, along the lines, “If You leave us what will happen to us?”. 

Jesus was facing into a horrific series of events, made infinitely worse by His knowledge of them beforehand. But He was seeing beyond that to the time when He would return to be with His Father back in Heaven. Mission accomplished. The most important three years that this planet had ever seen, years that contained God’s plan of salvation for all humans beings past, present and future. God didn’t create a race of robots that would live for a while on Planet Earth and then automatically enter His presence. In stead, He created a race of free-thinking people “in His image” who had free choice and could therefore decide where they would spend eternity. God effectively entered into the recycling business. He took men and women, soiled and dirty through wickedness and sin, and turned them into His children, clean and righteous, and all through the ministry and blood of Jesus. But there was and is a catch – the men and women concerned about their sin had to make a choice to accept the remedy, and to decide to follow Jesus. Decide to believe in Him, and allow Him to cleanse them from their sins. But isn’t it strange? People living their sinful lives prefer to stay that way, a bit like pigs preferring to wallow in a mudhole. 

Jesus was leaving this world so that His message could continue through His disciples. But there was one essential factor for which they had to wait – the Holy Spirit. Acts 1:9 (“After saying this, he was taken up into a cloud while they were watching, and they could no longer see him“) was followed by Acts 2:4 (“And everyone present was filled with the Holy Spirit and began speaking in other languages, as the Holy Spirit gave them this ability“). And that preceded a series of events ever since through the generations of faithful men and women who have shared Jesus’ message of salvation. Jesus went away, but it really has been as though he never left. What a Saviour!

Lord Jesus. We read about Your exploits here on Earth and wonder. And through Your shed blood, the devil is a defeated foe. Thank You. Amen.

The Father’s Love

Posted on by korgrocker

“The Father loves me because I sacrifice my life so I may take it back again. No one can take my life from me. I sacrifice it voluntarily. For I have the authority to lay it down when I want to and also to take it up again. For this is what my Father has commanded.”
John 10:17-18 NLT

Jesus said that His father in Heaven loves Jesus, His Son, especially because He was willing to sacrifice His life. Jesus’ obedience in fulfilling His mission of saving the world was one that we see develop through the pages of the Gospels, starting from an animal’s feeding trough and ending on a Roman cross at a place called Calvary. Jesus never wavered from completing His mission. He remained steadfast right through to the end. Paul wrote to his protégé Timothy the following, “This is a trustworthy saying, and everyone should accept it: “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners”—and I am the worst of them all” (1 Timothy 1:15). Isaiah, the prophet, looked down through the tunnel of time and could see the Messiah coming. About Jesus’ mission he wrote, “For the Lord God will help Me; Therefore I will not be disgraced; Therefore I have set My face like a flint, And I know that I will not be ashamed” (Isaiah 50:7). Jesus’ primary role was “ … to seek and save those who are lost” (Luke 19:10), and His Father loved Him for His obedience for being willing to sacrifice His life to make it happen. 

It is interesting that Jesus also said that the sacrifice of His life was followed by His being able to “take it back again”. It was difficult enough for the people listening to Him to absorb and accept what Jesus was saying about laying down His life, but then to say that He would “take it back again” was beyond their understanding. But Jesus made the point that His death was His to control. Only He had the authority to lay down His life. No-one else could make that decision. The act of crucifixion normally left the poor unfortunate victim no choice in the way it was carried out and the consequence of a slow lingering and extremely painful death. But it was different with Jesus, because he had the power to avoid the cross altogether. He could even have removed Himself from the cross at any time. But He fulfilled His mission right to the end, even providing reassuring words to the adjacent criminal who, in His dying breaths, reached out to Jesus for forgiveness. Jesus was in total control of His life right to the end.

So to is no wonder that Father God loved His Son, because He did what He had been commanded to do. We will never fully understand that relationship between Jesus and his Father, but we see its consequence in our faith-filled, everyday lives. The same love that Father had for Jesus is also poured out on us, His children. 1 John 3:1, “See how very much our Father loves us, for he calls us his children, and that is what we are! But the people who belong to this world don’t recognise that we are God’s children because they don’t know him“. Ephesians 1:4-5, “Even before he made the world, God loved us and chose us in Christ to be holy and without fault in his eyes. God decided in advance to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ. This is what he wanted to do, and it gave him great pleasure“. So we see God’s love and try and emulate it, in a humanly limited way, in our Christian lives. And in the process, perhaps those around us get a glimpse of the Father’s love.

Father God. We sing about Your amazing love, but it goes beyond a song. It started at Calvary and has poured out on all mankind ever since. We are so grateful. Amen.

The Cross Of Understanding

Posted on by korgrocker

“But they still didn’t understand that he was talking about his Father. So Jesus said, “When you have lifted up the Son of Man on the cross, then you will understand that I Am he. I do nothing on my own but say only what the Father taught me. And the one who sent me is with me—he has not deserted me. For I always do what pleases him.” Then many who heard him say these things believed in him.”
John 8:27-30 NLT

The crowd of people were still hanging around Jesus, listening to what He was saying. In modern times, if someone was talking about Himself as Jesus was, there would probably not have been a crowd. As soon as something religious or spiritual is mentioned today, people move away and carry on with their business. But the crowd around Jesus were staying the course, probably thinking that this Man had something they needed to hear, or hoping that He had a miracle waiting in the wings that they would then observe. They found that the teaching they were hearing was nothing like anything they had heard before, and to trump it all, this Man claimed to be the Son of God Himself. Jesus made the claim that His Father was God Himself, and all His teachings had come from His Father. Jesus then told them that His Father was there right with Him and what He did was pleasing to God. We then read that many of those in the crowd believed in Him.

But what did they make of what Jesus said about the Cross? The people of His day would have known about the cruel way in which capital punishment was dispensed by the Roman occupiers, so Jesus was prophesying about the death He would encounter in just a year of two. Such an announcement would have had an impact on the people, particularly as Jesus said it would bring understanding and confirm His claims about Himself. Previously. Jesus had told Nicodemus much the same thing, as we read in John 3:14-15, “And as Moses lifted up the bronze snake on a pole in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, so that everyone who believes in him will have eternal life”. 

John wrote that many people believed in Him, but I wonder how many of these same people were still believing in Jesus when He was crucified. Before Pilate, were they there in the crowd calling out for Jesus to be crucified? Or were they standing to one side, grieving deeply about what was happening? I’m sure there were some in both groups. I suppose we could ask ourselves which group we would have been in, if we bothered to be there at all. But such a question is purely academic because it was the sins of mankind that nailed Jesus to that Cross, not the crowds in the street. If there was no sin, then there wouldn’t have been a need for God to send His Son to die in that way. A sobering thought? But aren’t we glad that God had a plan for the salvation of sinners like us? What love and grace!

Dear God. We thank You for Your plan for the salvation of mankind. In fact, we will never stop expressing our gratitude, and love, for the One who died in our place at Calvary. Amen.

The Message from God

Posted on by korgrocker

“So Jesus told them, “My message is not my own; it comes from God who sent me. Anyone who wants to do the will of God will know whether my teaching is from God or is merely my own. Those who speak for themselves want glory only for themselves, but a person who seeks to honour the one who sent him speaks truth, not lies.”
John 7:16-18 NLT

Late one night a man, a Jewish leader, called Nicodemus paid a secret visit to Jesus, and we can read John’s account of the conversation between them in John 3. But we are all aware of the verse that succinctly states the message that underpinned Jesus’ ministry and teaching for the few short years He was here in earth. John 3:16-17, “For this is how God loved the world: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life. God sent his Son into the world not to judge the world, but to save the world through him”. And in Luke 19:10, following the conversion of Zacchaeus, we read, “For the Son of Man came to seek and save those who are lost.” Of course, we should also read John 14:6, “Jesus told him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me””. There is an essential element in the response to Jesus’ teaching and that is that we must believe in Him. This isn’t a detached, uninvolved belief, that has no impact on our daily sinful lives, but one in which we respond to in repentance, turning belief into the actions required by His teaching. 

Jesus told His listeners in the Temple in Jerusalem that He wasn’t preaching a message of His own making. He was communicating something that had come directly from God Himself, and this message will only be valid for those who genuinely want to do the “will of God”. So Jesus wasn’t interested in getting the glory for all the teaching and miracles he performed. In it all He looked up and pointed to His Father in Heaven, telling the crowd to do the same. Jesus continually honoured His Father in Heaven, and taught others to do likewise. The prayer He taught His disciples starts with the phrase, “Hallowed be Your Name”. Before anything else we look to God and give him all the glory, all the thanks, all the honour, and all everything else, because he and He alone is our God. 

There is much more that can be said about God’s message. It started with the love of a Father who sent His Son to die on a Roman cross at a place called Calvary, so that through Him we believe that he paid the penalty that our sins deserved – death – and instead gave us His righteousness. What a Saviour! What a God! What a Message! 

Father God. What can we do other than bow at Your feet in gratitude and worship. Amen.

God So Loved the World

Posted on by korgrocker

“For this is how God loved the world: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life. God sent his Son into the world not to judge the world, but to save the world through him.”
John 3:16-17 NLT

John 3:16 must be the most well-known verse in the Bible. Books have been written about it. Preachers have evangelised with it. I even heard of it being used at a funeral service, though the minister taking the service left out the bit about “everyone who believes in him” to instead reassure everyone present that they will all end up in Heaven, enjoying eternal life, anyway. But however we view this verse, it is a clear statement as to why Jesus came to this planet two thousand or so years ago. On that occasion, God demonstrated His love for all people in the world, and put into action the plan He had for the salvation of mankind since the beginning, since that fateful day in the Garden, when sin destroyed what God intended.

We notice that the tense in this verse is in the past. Two thousand years ago God expressed His love by sending Jesus. But this was a one-off act of love. God doesn’t keep sending Jesus because there is no need – His one-off birth, life and death, were all that was required to provide a timeless pathway, so that He could one day enjoy the presence of His creation in Heaven with Him. And by so doing, He gave “everyone who believes in him” the opportunity to make a choice about where we will spend eternity. This is a stark choice, John wrote. The options are to “perish” or to “have eternal life”. There is no other way, no half-hearted selection process. We either buy into God’s plan through Jesus or we are effectively turning our backs on Him, choosing instead a lost eternity in a place where we won’t want to be.

In life we don’t know when or how our death will come. Our lives could be cut short in a road accident. Or we could end our days in a hospital bed. We just don’t know, and if asked if we would like to know, we would probably decline the invitation. Looking at the behaviours of some who engage in what are called extreme sports, we perhaps think that some people believe they are immortal. But Jesus came to this world the hard way. Born as a baby to a peasant girl in her early teens, He grew up normally, as far as we can tell, but by the time Jesus started His public ministry, He knew how His life would end. But He didn’t flinch. He didn’t look for a way out. He resolutely looked forward to the Cross, knowing that He would have to endure the whipping, the abuse, the false trial beforehand, all before a devastatingly painful and humiliating death on a Roman Cross. Knowing that this was all part of His Father’s plan. 

Jesus came to this world so that all who believed in Him would have eternal life. And just to emphasise the message, He went on to say that He wasn’t on earth to judge the people there – that was going to come much later – but instead He was going to open a window of opportunity of salvation for everyone through Him. There will come a day when the window will close forever. Jesus taught about it in Matthew 25:31-46, or we can read about it in Revelation 20. Jesus will come again so we must be ready to meet Him.  We pilgrims will never perish and we will enjoy eternal life with Jesus in our Heavenly home. Forever.

Dear Father God. Thank You for Jesus, for Your plan of salvation for mankind, for Your loving kindness. We can never stop thanking and worshipping You. Amen.

The Bronze Snake

Posted on by korgrocker

“No one has ever gone to heaven and returned. But the Son of Man has come down from heaven. And as Moses lifted up the bronze snake on a pole in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, so that everyone who believes in him will have eternal life.”
John 3:13-15 NLT

Jesus made a statement that people who have gone to Heaven have never returned. But why would they want to? To the thief on the adjacent cross, Jesus called it paradise, inferring that Heaven is a wonderful place. There are those who claim that they died and went into Heaven but returned to their bodies when resuscitated, though Jesus’ statement to Nicodemus puts doubts on their conclusion, albeit briefly, of a visit to Heaven.  Of course there are those who are convinced that they have seen ghosts. But we should remember that after death our spirits end up in one of two places – Heaven for the believers and Hades for the non-believers. If they exist at all, ghosts are the product of Hades. Jesus gave us an illustration about the Rich Man and Lazarus (Luke 16:19-31) that sets out the difference between the two places. From this story, it is not surprising that the spirits incarcerated in Hades would want to escape.

But there was one exception – Jesus is the only Person who has lived in Heaven and who came to earth. He came down to this world, implying that Heaven is a place that is above, higher, than where we are. But that introduces even more wonder into His incarnation – Jesus left a place of comfort, He called it paradise, to join mankind to live as one of God’s created beings. And Jesus came to Planet Earth for one reason – to provide eternal life to all those who believe in Him. 

We can read about the episode with the bronze snake in Numbers 21. The impatient and ungrateful Israelite slaves were speaking out, grumbling, against God and Moses, because of the long journey and the sameness of the food, manna. “So the Lord sent poisonous snakes among the people, and many were bitten and died” (Numbers 21:6). This act brought them to their senses, and we read in the next verse, “Then the people came to Moses and cried out, “We have sinned by speaking against the Lord and against you. Pray that the Lord will take away the snakes.” So Moses prayed for the people“. And God gave Moses a remedy, “Then the Lord told him, “Make a replica of a poisonous snake and attach it to a pole. All who are bitten will live if they simply look at it!”” (Numbers 21:8). What a great picture of Jesus being lifted up on the Cross at Calvary. Just as the Israelites believed that by looking at the bronze snake on a pole they would be healed, Jesus said that all those who believed in Him, dying on that Cross at Calvary for their sins, would live for ever. The bronze snake prolonged the Israelites’ natural lives, but the Calvary Cross enabled people to live forever.

The Cross is central to our Christian faith. Without it there is no redemption from sin. No salvation and no eternal life. In John 14:6 we read, “Jesus told him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me”. There is no short cut into Heaven. The squeamish won’t find a sanitised route to eternal life. It is only through the blood of Jesus that we are saved. If anyone tries to tell us anything different, don’t believe them.

Father God. Once again, we thank You for Jesus and His willingness to come to this world to save mankind. I pray today for all those I know who have failed to embrace God’s Son and who are heading for a lost eternity. Amen.

Retaliation

Posted on by korgrocker

“He did not retaliate when he was insulted, nor threaten revenge when he suffered. He left his case in the hands of God, who always judges fairly.”
1 Peter 2:23 NLT

‭‭Whenever I think of the way the Son of God was treated during His life here on Planet Earth, and particularly during His trial and execution, I become deeply saddened. It’s hard enough to see such treatment when it happens to fellow human beings, but the Son of God, Jesus Himself. …? We read about how fellow believers are treated in authoritarian states such as Afghanistan or North Korea. Christians in some parts of India suffer greatly for no other reason that their belief in God. But surely the greatest miscarriage of justice took place in Palestine two thousand years ago, in a city called Jerusalem. 

Starting with the insults levelled at Jesus in the grounds of the high priest’s home, we read in Luke 22:63-65, “The guards in charge of Jesus began mocking and beating him. They blindfolded him and said, “Prophesy to us! Who hit you that time?” And they hurled all sorts of terrible insults at him“. But there is no record of Jesus even acknowledging what His tormenters had done. The next time He spoke was in front of the Jewish High Council, the Sanhedrin. In response to a question about whether or not He was the Messiah, ” … He replied, “If I tell you, you won’t believe me. And if I ask you a question, you won’t answer” (Luke 22:67b-68). Jesus was in control but submissive to the outcome of what was yet to come. Pilate asked Jesus if He was the King of the Jews, to which Jesus replied “you have said it”. And finally we read what He said in Luke 23:34a, “ … Father, forgive them, for they don’t know what they are doing …”. Jesus was happy to leave “His case in the hands of God, who always judges fairly“.

Jesus could have called upon angels to help Him, as we read in Matthew 26:53, “Don’t you realise that I could ask my Father for thousands of angels to protect us, and he would send them instantly?” He could have used His miracle-working powers to zap all His antagonists at a stroke. But in spite of all the abuse Jesus suffered, He kept focused on the reason why He came to Planet Earth. John 3:16,“ “For this is how God loved the world: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life“. Luke 19:10, “For the Son of Man came to seek and save those who are lost“.

We pilgrims can only fall down before Jesus in gratitude, that He did not flinch from the path set before Him, and He swallowed the bitter cup of death and sacrifice for the sins of humanity to the last drop. There will come a time when all those who were complicit in the trial and crucifixion of Jesus will be called to account. Perhaps, in hindsight, they realised their crime, and fell on their knees in repentance before God. Only then would they hear the Saviour grant them forgiveness. Today, there are many around us who either do not know what Jesus did, or have chosen to ignore the Good News of what happened that day at Calvary. Through their rebellion and sin they too are complicit in hammering home the nails. But we pilgrims know why we have been called, and we mustn’t flinch from fulfilling our calling, no matter what it takes. We may or may not suffer abuse. But, like Jesus, we press on to the Heavenly goal.

Dear Father God. Jesus never turned away from the Cross, even though He could have done. Please help us to follow His example. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

God is Patient

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“No, don’t say that. Who are you, a mere human being, to argue with God? Should the thing that was created say to the one who created it, “Why have you made me like this?” When a potter makes jars out of clay, doesn’t he have a right to use the same lump of clay to make one jar for decoration and another to throw garbage into? In the same way, even though God has the right to show his anger and his power, he is very patient with those on whom his anger falls, who are destined for destruction.”
Romans 9:20-22 NLT

Paul highlights in his letter the reality, the truth, that God is very patient with everyone, even those who deserve an immediate response to their wickedness. We often joke about standing away from a person who has uttered a blasphemy, or stated something scandalously evil, just in case a lightning bolt from Heaven zaps them on the spot, turning them into toast. But the reality is that God is patient and doesn’t respond immediately with any form of judgement. However, everything we ever do is saved up in books, to be opened some time in the future. In Revelation 20:12, we read, “I saw the dead, both great and small, standing before God’s throne. And the books were opened, including the Book of Life. And the dead were judged according to what they had done, as recorded in the books”. 

Miscarriages of justice are depressingly common. Not, I should add, just for those who are wrongly convicted of a crime, but for the multitude of those who commit crimes and then get away with it, because they are not caught by the police. Many others fail to account for their misdemeanours because there is insufficient evidence to convict them. We humans want to see justice done in our lifetimes, not having to wait for God’s Great White Throne. But God is patient because He knows that He has plenty of time. While a person is alive they have the opportunity to repent of their sins. Should they refuse then on the coming Judgement Day He will remind them of this fact. No-one will ever get away with their sins.

There is much going on in this world that causes God to get angry. The early Israelites made God very angry through their rebellion and sins. Moses wrote in Deuteronomy 9:8, “Even at Mount Sinai you made the Lord so angry he was ready to destroy you”. Moses was up the mountain receiving God’s commandments written onto tablets of stone but the Israelites were having a right old party down below, with a golden calf to dance around. God said to Moses, “ … I have seen how stubborn and rebellious these people are. Leave me alone so I may destroy them and erase their name from under heaven. Then I will make a mighty nation of your descendants, a nation larger and more powerful than they are” (Deuteronomy 9:13-14). I’m sure there is much about what we do and say that makes God angry. He will be patient while we are alive, but after death there is no escape from the consequences of our sin.

I have heard many times people say to me that they are a good person, and God will never send them to hell. They claim to be good because they give to charity, or live a life free of crime and even motoring offences. There is a Scottish saying about a person, that there is not a bad bone in their body. But God sees differently. Our bar for judging someone, especially ourselves, is quite low. But God’s bar is so high that no-one can possibly achieve a state where they will be considered “not guilty” just by their own efforts. Paul wrote in Romans 3:23, “For everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God’s glorious standard”. There is an analogy, that if the pass mark for an exam is 50%, and one person gets 49% and another gets 35%, then they both fail. The person with the higher mark cannot claim that they have passed the exam. In life, we spend our time in accruing marks on a Heavenly exam paper. Sadly, it’s an exam that no-one can pass in their own strength.

But there is Good News! We read in Romans 3:24-26, “Yet God, in his grace, freely makes us right in his sight. He did this through Christ Jesus when he freed us from the penalty for our sins. For God presented Jesus as the sacrifice for sin. People are made right with God when they believe that Jesus sacrificed his life, shedding his blood. This sacrifice shows that God was being fair when he held back and did not punish those who sinned in times past, for he was looking ahead and including them in what he would do in this present time. God did this to demonstrate his righteousness, for he himself is fair and just, and he makes sinners right in his sight when they believe in Jesus”. Such love! Such grace! How can we ever thank Jesus enough for what He did for us. 

Dear Lord Jesus. Once again we thank You for what You did for mankind at the Cross of Calvary. We worship You today. Amen.