The Christian Life

Posted on by korgrocker

“God’s way is perfect. All the Lord’s promises prove true. He is a shield for all who look to him for protection.”
Psalm 18:30 NLT

At first reading of our verse today, perhaps a new Christian would think that the Christian life before him will be an easy one, without the hassles and struggles the people of the world are facing into. After all, when we read about God’s way being perfect and God providing a shield to protect us, what could go wrong? Add into the mix a Bible full of God’s promises, which will all become true, so David wrote, then becoming a Christian must open a door into a utopian world never before experienced. But after a few weeks into the journey, reality starts to dawn, that being a Christian in the true New Testament sense introduces a way of life that not only includes the difficulties previously encountered, but also includes the discipline of following the Lord. So why do we seasoned pilgrims do it, plodding along the roads, sometimes as though through treacle, that lead to a life beyond the grave?

Well, for a start, we have to consider our future. We responded to the message of forgiveness of sins, to a God who loves us and cares about us, and who wants us to join Him in Heaven where we will live forever. We continue in our journey to try and become more like Jesus, cleaning up our lives, our thoughts, our actions, our relationships, in the process we call sanctification. To be honest, it can be hard work at times. It’s great when all is well, and we experience wonderful times of prayer and worship, our spirits flying high into Heavenly places, seemingly touching the very fringes of Heaven itself. But there are then other times when we find valleys of darkness and turmoil, when the Heavens seem like brass, and we cannot even pray effectively, let alone find the means to worship, times when we even find that opening the pages of our Bibles becomes a chore.

But none of this devalues the words of David, written so long ago. God’s way is indeed perfect. We cannot dispute that, and the wonderful thing is that He helps us understand and follow His way. One of His promises is written there in Deuteronomy 31:8, “Do not be afraid or discouraged, for the Lord will personally go ahead of you. He will be with you; he will neither fail you nor abandon you”. That verse was written to encourage the Israelites, but its timeless message hangs in the air over us even today. What a wonderful thought that our Lord Himself is there just before us, showing us the way, helping us over the obstacles our enemy, the devil, has placed in our paths, and nothing will happen that will cause Him to abandon us, whatever the circumstances. 

And we read that God Himself is our shield, protecting us from the fiery darts of the evil one. Ephesians 6:16, “In addition to all of these, hold up the shield of faith to stop the fiery arrows of the devil“. Our faith in God will protect us. It is often good to look back over our lives and see those times when disaster could have struck us down, was it not for God’s shield protecting us. Strange circumstances that inexplicably emerged to keep us safe. I remember times that could have gone horribly wrong was it not for God’s protection, times that even now, many years later, drive me to my knees in deep prayers of gratitude. 

So today, we pilgrims continue our Christian lives, embracing the One who made it all possible. We will not deviate to left or right, but instead will set our faces towards the Light that is before us. Those of us in our twilight years can perhaps see a faint glow on the horizon, likened to the dawn of a new day. That’s where we are heading, folks, and nothing will stop us because “God’s way is perfect”, His “promises prove true”, and “He is a shield for all who look to him for protection”. 

Father God, thank You for all You have done for us. One day we will find out the total story of Your goodness and love, and will fall at Your feet in worship. Amen.

Climbing the Walls

Posted on by korgrocker

“You rescue the humble, but you humiliate the proud. You light a lamp for me. The Lord, my God, lights up my darkness. In your strength I can crush an army; with my God I can scale any wall.”
Psalm 18:27-29 NLT

Psalm 18:29 was written in military language, with a picture of armies of well armed soldiers, and the protective wall located around a city. David declares that through God’s strength he can succeed in any military conflict, but I wonder what was in his mind when he thought about a seemingly impregnable wall before him. In God, he wrote, no wall is a safe place for his adversaries within. However, and David was very much aware of this, his own strength was insufficient to succeed in battle. 

We pilgrims will, most likely, not be involved in physical battles. We may not be conscripted or recruited into a battalion or other band of soldiers, armed and ready for conflict. But we will be fighting other kinds of battles, with health challenges, work difficulties, relational problems, money worries and so on. There will be some reading this today who are wondering where the strength to face the day can be found. They woke up this morning, and a feeling of dread flooded over them. A dark foreboding is perhaps rising up within and even a panic attack is making a start as there seems to be no way out from the wall of worries and anxieties just in front of them. Trapped and afraid, such people feel they have no way to turn and can think of no solution to their dire situation. 

Well, there is good news for us pilgrims, because, like David, we know that, although our strength is insufficient, we have God’s resources at our disposal. And because of that, through our faith in Jesus, we have all the means we need to “scale any wall”. Jesus said, “Yes, I am the vine; you are the branches. Those who remain in me, and I in them, will produce much fruit. For apart from me you can do nothing” (John 15:5). Jesus continues two verses later, “But if you remain in me and my words remain in you, you may ask for anything you want, and it will be granted!” Really? Paul “got it”, as we read in Ephesians 3:16, 20, “I pray that from his glorious, unlimited resources he will empower you with inner strength through his Spirit. … Now all glory to God, who is able, through his mighty power at work within us, to accomplish infinitely more than we might ask or think“. 

But before we rush out and do something rash, we need to take a deep breath and prayerfully step back. The first step is that we must be aligned in accordance with God’s will. The battles we fight in this sad and bad world will always be before us, because that is what human life is all about. Sin and wickedness have destroyed God’s order, His perfect plans, and we are here deeply integrated with worldly life. But we have the power through God to survive the problems and challenges because he will resource us in two ways. Firstly, through our faith in Him we will be equipped to be an overcomer, able to face the problems. Secondly, God will often provide us with a solution to our problem, perhaps revealing a way out or remedy that we hadn’t considered, or even changing the circumstances or people involved, so that we are shown favour.  But we mustn’t get ahead of God and assume that He is with us when we make decisions or take actions that ultimately might put us outside His will. 

There is a story of a lady in Wales who lived in a village at the foot of a slag heap, leftover from coal mining activities. This heap of rubbish was a constant annoyance to her, and one day she read the verses in Mark 11:22-24, “Then Jesus said to the disciples, “Have faith in God. I tell you the truth, you can say to this mountain, ‘May you be lifted up and thrown into the sea,’ and it will happen. But you must really believe it will happen and have no doubt in your heart. I tell you, you can pray for anything, and if you believe that you’ve received it, it will be yours”. So one night the lady prayed that God would remove the slag heap and she then went to bed. In the morning she drew her curtains but the slag heap was still there. Her response was “I knew that prayer wouldn’t work”. This is not to say that God would not have removed that slag heap, but that perhaps God wanted to use the mountain of coal waste to help her faith and her fellow villagers, equally afflicted.

The Lord said to Joshua, and he is still saying it to us today, “This is my command—be strong and courageous! Do not be afraid or discouraged. For the Lord your God is with you wherever you go” (Joshua 1:9). In God we are invincible and through God’s resources, properly engaged, we can achieve anything. But as Paul knew from his fleshly thorn, the outcomes to our prayers may not be totally what we think. Paul asked God on three occasions to remove whatever was troubling him, and “Each time [God] said, “My grace is all you need. My power works best in weakness.” So now I [Paul] am glad to boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ can work through me” (2 Corinthians 12:9). So there we have it. If God wants us to climb the wall before us, and slay the giants within, He will resource us for the task. But we need to discern through faith that this is what God wants us to do; otherwise the enemies the other side of the wall, or even the wall itself, might fight back and overwhelm us.

Dear Father God. In You we have the strength to scale any wall. Please grant us the faith we need. Amen.

Clouds of Darkness

Posted on by korgrocker

“He opened the heavens and came down; dark storm clouds were beneath his feet. Mounted on a mighty angelic being, he flew, soaring on the wings of the wind. He shrouded himself in darkness, veiling his approach with dark rain clouds. Thick clouds shielded the brightness around him and rained down hail and burning coals. The Lord thundered from heaven; the voice of the Most High resounded amid the hail and burning coals. He shot his arrows and scattered his enemies; great bolts of lightning flashed, and they were confused. Then at your command, O Lord, at the blast of your breath, the bottom of the sea could be seen, and the foundations of the earth were laid bare.”
Psalm 18:9-15 NLT

These verses today dramatically portray God’s judgement on Planet Earth, judgement for all the sin and wickedness that just cannot be allowed to continue forever. There are two occasions in the Old Testament where God has catastrophically destroyed people and their infrastructures because of sin, and we can read the accounts of Sodom and Gomorrah, and the Flood, in Genesis. At other times God has judged His people by sending them into captivity. On an individual basis, God’s judgement is ongoing, with unrepentant sinners being “ … abandoned … to do whatever shameful things their hearts desired. As a result, they did vile and degrading things with each other’s bodies” (Romans 1:24). Paul continued, “Since they thought it foolish to acknowledge God, he abandoned them to their foolish thinking and let them do things that should never be done. Their lives became full of every kind of wickedness, sin, greed, hate, envy, murder, quarrelling, deception, malicious behaviour, and gossip. They are backstabbers, haters of God, insolent, proud, and boastful. They invent new ways of sinning, and they disobey their parents. They refuse to understand, break their promises, are heartless, and have no mercy. They know God’s justice requires that those who do these things deserve to die, yet they do them anyway. Worse yet, they encourage others to do them, too” (Romans 1:28-32). Does all this sound and look familiar as we observe what is going on in our societies?

 Our holy and righteous God will not tolerate evil and wickedness forever. We read in Genesis 6:5-6, “The Lord observed the extent of human wickedness on the earth, and he saw that everything they thought or imagined was consistently and totally evil. So the Lord was sorry he had ever made them and put them on the earth. It broke his heart”. We pilgrims probably have difficulty believing that our God could be so distressed over “human wickedness” but those four words “it broke His heart” sum up the impact sin has had, and continues to have, on our loving and gracious Creator God. 

Darkness is described by David as “dark storm clouds” and we read the fulfilment of this in Revelation 16:10, “Then the fifth angel poured out his bowl on the throne of the beast, and his kingdom was plunged into darkness. His subjects ground their teeth in anguish”. The events foretold to happen in the End Times will not be pleasant! 

David’s poetic language nevertheless acts as a warning to all humanity. There will come a time soon when the Gospel will have reached the furthest corner of the Earth, and then the end will come. This will initiate a series of events culminating with the destruction of Planet Earth and the introduction of a new order, populated by all those people, past present and future, who, through Jesus, meet God’s criteria of righteousness and holiness. Through the Holy Spirit, David prophesied of this time of judgement coming and his apocalyptic language portrays times of terror and anguish too hard to bear.

The End Times will be met with mixed emotions by us pilgrims. If we are caught up in them – they could arrive in our lifetimes – we will welcome the end and mourn the troubles, but Jesus reassured us of a good outcome for His people, as we read in Matthew 24:13, “But the one who endures to the end will be saved“. Jesus later said, “In fact, unless that time of calamity is shortened, not a single person will survive. But it will be shortened for the sake of God’s chosen ones” (Matthew 24:22). We trust Jesus, however, because only He has the words of eternal life.

Dear Lord Jesus. Thank You that even now You are preparing a Heavenly home for each of us. We proclaim our faith in You and look forward to seeing you one day soon. In Your precious name, Amen.

An Outburst of Praise

Posted on by korgrocker

“I love you, Lord; you are my strength. The Lord is my rock, my fortress, and my saviour; my God is my rock, in whom I find protection. He is my shield, the power that saves me, and my place of safety.”
Psalm 18:1-2 NLT

The preamble to this Psalm records that David wrote it “on the day the Lord rescued him from all his enemies and from Saul”. But David didn’t just write it, he sang it. David was an extraordinarily gifted man, able to govern wisely, a giant killer, a musician, song writer and singer, and all because he was favoured by the Lord. If David was asked about all his gifts, I’m sure he would have pointed to Heaven and say it was all because of His Lord.  In these first two verses of Psalm 18, look at the words David used in his song of praise and thanks. He wrote that the Lord was his “strength“, his “rock”, his “fortress”, his “Saviour”, his “shield”, and he finishes with the Lord being “the power that saves [him], and [his] place of safety”.What an accolade! David would have been the sort of person who you wanted to have around in church, encouraging people in their faith.

There was a time when David lived for a time in a cave, an account which we can read in 1 Samuel 22, but the first two verses read, “So David left Gath and escaped to the cave of Adullam. Soon his brothers and all his other relatives joined him there. Then others began coming—men who were in trouble or in debt or who were just discontented—until David was the captain of about 400 men“. There was something about David that drew people to him, and even his oldest brother, Eliab, who was recorded as saying to David, “But when David’s oldest brother, Eliab, heard David talking to the men, he was angry. “What are you doing around here anyway?” he demanded. “What about those few sheep you’re supposed to be taking care of? I know about your pride and deceit. You just want to see the battle!”” (1 Samuel 17:28). There were some interesting family dynamics in David’s life!

But David was quick to credit the Lord with all His blessings so freely poured out on him. God was there for David through some difficult times and David was quick with his thankful responses to his Lord and God. Note though, that God didn’t take away the circumstances that David encountered in his life, but He did keep David safe within them. It is the same with all His people. We live in a sinful and wicked world, but that is how it is for human beings. Because of sin this world is a hostile place for God’s people, but as Jesus said to His disciples, “I have told you all this so that you may have peace in me. Here on earth you will have many trials and sorrows. But take heart, because I have overcome the world” (John 16:33). Think of all those people who have fallen away from the faith because they mistakenly thought God would save them from all their troubles. Instead of saving them from their troubles, God will save them within them. David knew that and we know from previous Psalms that he was always ranting about the wicked people, his enemies, who continually caused him grief, but in this Psalm David is singing his heart out with a song of praise and thankfulness.

What about us pilgrims? What problems are we facing into at the moment? Financial issues? Worries about our families? Anxieties about the state of the world, with the wars and famines? When Jesus said that he had “overcome the world” He proclaimed that He was bigger than anything we will find in this life. And in faith we can start to thank God for being for us all the things He was to David, who lived in a much more dangerous time than we do. So today, can I hear a chorus of praise and thanks to God, a song penetrating the dark fogs of 21st Century Planet Earth? Of course I can. We all can. Because we are the choir, practising for the time when we will indeed spend eternity praising the One who saved this sad, bad world.

Dear God. You have the world in which we live snuggled in the palm of Your hand, and in spite of all its sin and wickedness. Thank You for the assurance that You are standing with us through every circumstance. Amen.

Wonderful Ways

Posted on by korgrocker

“I am praying to you because I know you will answer, O God. Bend down and listen as I pray. Show me your unfailing love in wonderful ways. By your mighty power you rescue those who seek refuge from their enemies.”
Psalm 17:6-7 NLT

Where was David when he was praying these verses? My imagination takes me this morning to a holy place where a lonely figure is standing in an attitude of prayer, his hands raised with a face turned upwards towards Heaven. Perhaps the figure was fearful of the threats of the warring nations around him. Perhaps he was even surrounded by his enemies who were intent on capture or death. But regardless, he was standing in the presence of the Lord God of Israel, the Creator of Heaven and earth. He was the same Lord who had parted the Red Sea and brought His people through on dry land, destroying the Egyptian army in the process. The same Lord who had miraculously fed an entire nation with something called manna for forty years. And more recently, the same Lord who had directed a pebble into the unprotected forehead of a Philistine giant, a pebble slung from a weapon carried by the lonely figure standing there in an attitude of prayer and worship. 

David would have been aware of the writings of Moses, and of God’s love for His people. Deuteronomy 10:15, “Yet the Lord chose your ancestors as the objects of his love. And he chose you, their descendants, above all other nations, as is evident today”. David knew that his Lord loved him. All those days and nights spent in the wilderness looking after his father’s sheep had assured him of God’s love. He had no doubts, and answered prayers had bolstered his knowledge of God’s love to the point that he looked to God, expecting Him to do wonderful things for him, things desperately needed because of the predicament he was in. After all, he thought, who would have expected God to do such wonderful deeds for a group of Israelite slaves many years before? 

David did not have God constrained in a box of his own making, boundaries applied through his human thinking. He had an expectation that God had some “wonderful ways” ready and waiting to be applied to David’s predicament. What was his expectation of God? A miracle on the battlefield? Another Goliath moment? Another parting of a sea of adversity as he stood on the banks of danger before it? David wasn’t specific – he just looked to God in faith, his hands raised in prayer and worship. His upturned face shining in the light of his Lord.

But here we are, pilgrims in another world. We may not be surrounded by physical threats. We may not be in a place of danger, “seek[ing] refuge from [our] enemies”. Paul wrote in Ephesians 6:12, “For we are not fighting against flesh-and-blood enemies, but against evil rulers and authorities of the unseen world, against mighty powers in this dark world, and against evil spirits in the heavenly places”. God has provided for us a rich armoury of spiritual weapons, more than capable of protecting us from such enemies. We know, like David, that God loves us with a perfect and eternal love, that will never end. And He has equipped us for all that we are likely to encounter in our journey to glory. But there is a little verse that intrigues and challenges us, a verse that David knew something about many years before it was written. Paul wrote in Ephesians 3:20 (AMP), “Now to Him who is able to [carry out His purpose and] do superabundantly more than all that we dare ask or think [infinitely beyond our greatest prayers, hopes, or dreams], according to His power that is at work within us“. We pilgrims have God’s power within us through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. Power just waiting to be released as God directs, and unconstrained by our human thinking. The power that parted the Red Sea. The power that fed a nation for a generation.  The power that David prayed about in his prayer for God to “show … His wonderful ways”. 

We pilgrims are a people of power through God’s Spirit within us. We sing about it in our worship services. But do we really believe it? So let us pray like David did today, for God to show us His “wonderful ways” in response to all that is happening in our lives and around us. These are times that really need a manifestation of God’s power, power to save the world in which we live.

Dear God. We sing about You “building a people of power” but we confess our lack of faith and belief in these words. Please help us, we pray, as we go about doing Your work today. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

True Heroes

Posted on by korgrocker

“I said to the Lord, “You are my Master! Every good thing I have comes from you.” The godly people in the land are my true heroes! I take pleasure in them! Troubles multiply for those who chase after other gods. I will not take part in their sacrifices of blood or even speak the names of their gods.”
Psalm 16:2-4 NLT

David’s thoughts seem to be leaping about in these verses. After acknowledging that God is the Source of all his good things, David moves on to consider the Godly people around him, defining them as his “true heroes”. The dictionary defines a hero as “a person who is admired for their courage, outstanding achievements, or noble qualities“, but does that definition apply in David’s thoughts? Certainly, to be a God-follower in an environment where other gods proliferate, takes courage, and “noble qualities” are required. But the outstanding achievements are more associated with successful exploits in battle, such as when David defeated Goliath, or when Samson  “ … found the jawbone of a recently killed donkey. He picked it up and killed 1,000 Philistines with it” (Judges 15:15). 

So, how can a Godly person become a hero? In the various Bible translations, the words “Godly people” and “hero” are only used by the NLT. Other translations refer to “holy ones” or “saints” being “noble” or “excellent”, but we get this picture of David’s admiration of people, God-believers, who stand firm in the face of a wicked and sinful environment, with idolatrous practices rife, and societal behaviour distinctly anti-God in their content. David took “pleasure in them”, he wrote.

In Biblical times, many examples of people acting as “true heroes” are recorded. Just turn to Hebrews 11 to find a few examples. But the essence of being a hero is having faith in God, because that will lead to a life spent at variance with increasingly secular points of view. We read in Hebrews 11:1-2, “Faith shows the reality of what we hope for; it is the evidence of things we cannot see. Through their faith, the people in days of old earned a good reputation“. Look at the abuse Noah must have experienced when he spent 100 years building his ark, in faith that this was God’s will for him and his family, and there are other examples of the “true heroes” in the rest of the chapter.

In David’s view, perhaps we pilgrims are heroes in today’s world, but are we anything special? Today’s society is very tolerant of people who are considered to be on the fringe in terms of beliefs and behaviours, as long as it does not impact the way that they go about their lives. But when the behaviour of those with particular ideologies clashes with mainstream views then there can be a process involving the law courts to resolve the issues. In my view the heroes of the faith in today’s society can be found protesting outside abortion clinics, even if it means arrest and fines, or in turning their backs on denominations that violate Biblical principles, even if they have been members for a considerable time. Today’s heroes of the faith stand up for righteous practices in the workplace even if it means dismissal from their jobs. Recent legislation has seen justice being pursued in law courts over the right to wear a cross necklace at work, or a baker refusing to bake a cake with homosexual overtones, for a gay couple. These are the “true heroes” today.

So, fellow pilgrims, we are men and women of faith, standing up for what we believe in an often hostile and sinful world. We live lives of faith, believing that  ” … it is impossible to please God without faith. Anyone who wants to come to him must believe that God exists and that he rewards those who sincerely seek him” (Hebrews 11:6). In the face of evolutionary science now taught as fact in our schools, “ … we understand that the entire universe was formed at God’s command, that what we now see did not come from anything that can be seen” (Hebrews 11:3), believing this because of our faith.

David had a lot of admiration for the “Godly people” around him, and he called them “true heroes”. I know people, Godly people, who I would count as being heroes. I’m so grateful for their courage and inspiration. Some have passed and I remember one man who is now part of that Hebrews 12 great cloud of witnesses. He was a hero to me and I know to others, and I thank God for him, and his unstinting and unwavering witness here on Planet Earth.

Dear Father God. You know the man I am referring to, and I pray that his witness will carry on, even though he is no longer with us. And I pray for the Godly people who I know, that You will uphold them in their lives of faith. Amen.

King Forever

Posted on by korgrocker

“Break the arms of these wicked, evil people! Go after them until the last one is destroyed. The Lord is king forever and ever! The godless nations will vanish from the land. Lord, you know the hopes of the helpless. Surely you will hear their cries and comfort them. You will bring justice to the orphans and the oppressed, so mere people can no longer terrify them.”
Psalm 10:15-18 NLT

In the middle of another rant about wicked people and what the Psalmist would like God to do to them, we read, “The Lord is king forever and ever”. It is important that in the middle of our frustrations about God’s apparent lack of action with the evil around us, that we don’t lose our perspective. In the end, it’s not about us, or the apparent injustice we see in our nations and societies. We need to look up and see the Lord. In the time of a national crisis, Isaiah looked up. King Uzziah had just died, bringing a fear of political instability to Judah after a long reign of 52 years. Uzziah was one of the good kings and Isaiah, fearful of what the days ahead would bring, went to the Temple and there we read, “It was in the year King Uzziah died that I saw the Lord. He was sitting on a lofty throne, and the train of his robe filled the Temple” (Isaiah 6:1). Isaiah looked up beyond the circumstances around him, and, if we read on in Isaiah 6, we find that his encounter with the Lord transformed his life and ministry. 

We pilgrims yearn for the King to return and bring peace and His Kingdom to this war-torn world. We know that the Lord is King. We know that He is coming back to this world again, although we don’t know when. We know that He is the forever King, present since before the world was created. But instead of looking around at the “wicked evil people” as the Psalmist did, we need to look up and see the Lord. Isaiah’s encounter with the Lord in the Temple changed him for the rest of his life. He wrote, “Then I said, “It’s all over! I am doomed, for I am a sinful man. I have filthy lips, and I live among a people with filthy lips. Yet I have seen the King, the Lord of Heaven’s Armies”” (Isaiah 6:5). The Lord asked Isaiah, “Whom should I send as a messenger to this people? Who will go for us?” and his reply was, “Here I am. Send me”” (Isaiah 6:8). Instead of wallowing in fear and misery, paralysed through the potential instability of his nation, Isaiah became a messenger for the Lord to his people.

There is something significant about having a forever King. We often forget that, although we are living in this world, with all of its sin and evil, we are in all reality citizens of another world, the Kingdom of God. There the Lord is King forever. No evil. No wars and strife. And it is there we run to when we are in danger of being overwhelmed by the worldly events around us. It might be helpful if we stand up and say to ourselves something like “I choose today to step into the kingdom where the Lord is King” and then take a step forwards, looking up as we do. We never know, but we might, like Isaiah, see a vision of the Lord, “high and lifted up”. Where is our faith because with the Lord anything might happen?

When we look up, we find an opportunity to see what the wicked in this world look like to God. When we look up we also find ourselves looking forward to the time when God will bring justice to correct all the injustices that have ever gone unpunished. And when we look up, we see the King and our hearts melt in the warmth of His gaze, flowing with love and compassion. There is no better place to be than in the presence of our forever King.

Father God, please forgive us for our lack of vision and understanding. You are our forever King and we praise and worship You today. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

Refusing to Repent

Posted on by korgrocker

“If a person does not repent, God will sharpen his sword; he will bend and string his bow. He will prepare his deadly weapons and shoot his flaming arrows.”
Psalm 7:12-13 NLT

In military language David set out the consequences for those who refuse to repent. In the context of this Psalm, repentance means turning away from wickedness. It is not just saying “sorry” and continuing in the sin. It is not even being remorseful, expressing regrets for the consequences of wickedness. True repentance means to stop doing whatever is defined as wickedness, and turning away from it, never to return. But notice, that, thankfully, God’s response to the refusal to repent is not immediate justice and punishment. David wrote that instead of using His sword of judgement, God merely starts to sharpen it. Arrows don’t appear straight away because God delays while He strung His bow. God’s “deadly weapons” are only prepared, delaying the “fiery arrows” still ready and waiting. We read in Psalm 103:8, “The Lord is compassionate and merciful, slow to get angry and filled with unfailing love”. Aren’t we glad about that?

Those who have rejected God enjoy for a season the fruits of their sin and wickedness, and unfortunately some believe that the delay in their judgement doesn’t mean God is being patient with them. Instead they question if there is a God at all. Psalm 14 starts with the verse, “Only fools say in their hearts, “There is no God.” They are corrupt, and their actions are evil; not one of them does good!” But there are many atheists in the world today who deny that God, or any god for that matter,  actually exists. Men and women who exercise their right to choose, and instead carry on their lives in blissful ignorance of the judgement still to come. What will they say before their Creator, when He asks them to provide an account of their lives? How will they react when they observe their lives from God’s perspective? Regardless of their stance while alive on Planet Earth, there will come a time when they will have to acknowledge the Saviour of the world. Philippians 2:9-11, “Therefore, God elevated him to the place of highest honour and gave him the name above all other names, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue declare that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father”. Those who reject God will one day still have to declare that “Christ is Lord”, an inescapable situation for even those who refuse to repent.

Regarding us pilgrims, there is always an opportunity for use to examine ourselves. Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians 13:5, “Examine yourselves to see if your faith is genuine. Test yourselves. Surely you know that Jesus Christ is among you; if not, you have failed the test of genuine faith”. David ended Psalm 139 with the verses, “Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. Point out anything in me that offends you, and lead me along the path of everlasting life”. We pilgrims often cast around looking at others who refuse to repent and hear God sharpening His sword, getting ready to deal with them. But do we fail to hear God “preparing His deadly weapons” as far as we are concerned? Perhaps something we should all think about today.

Dear Father God. We are so grateful for Your patience and mercy. At the foot of the Cross today, we repent of our sins and ask for the strength to turn our backs on all the things that grieve You. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

Understand Clearly

Posted on by korgrocker

“Pilate went outside again and said to the people, “I am going to bring him out to you now, but understand clearly that I find him not guilty.” Then Jesus came out wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe. And Pilate said, “Look, here is the man!””
John 19:4-5 NLT

Pilate’s words “understand clearly that I find him not guilty” have hung in the air ever since the Jews of that time condemned the Son of God to death. They killed their Messiah. Pilate made the correct legal decision over Jesus and he had Him brought out before the crowd to make his point. In Luke’s Gospel he wrote, “Then Pilate called together the leading priests and other religious leaders, along with the people, and he announced his verdict. “You brought this man to me, accusing him of leading a revolt. I have examined him thoroughly on this point in your presence and find him innocent. Herod came to the same conclusion and sent him back to us. Nothing this man has done calls for the death penalty” (Luke 23:13-15). Earlier in His trial Pilate declared that Jesus was innocent, ““What is truth?” Pilate asked. Then he went out again to the people and told them, “He is not guilty of any crime” (John 18:38). There was no doubt in the Roman authorities’ minds that Jesus was innocent of any crime and Pilate declared as such no less than four times. 

On what grounds did the Jewish people overrule the verdict of the civil court, instead finding Jesus guilty of the crime of blasphemy, in claiming as He did that He was the Son of God? Their decision was based on their interpretation of Old Testament prophecies, that said the Messiah will come to fulfil events that have yet to happen. They also failed to accept that God is Three-in-one, a Trinity of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. And that appears to a layman such as myself to introduce a great divide between the Jewish and Christian faiths. 

Pilate said “understand clearly”, and that is what we pilgrims must do today. We must “understand clearly” the basis for our faith. We must use our time wisely in prayer and reading God’s Word. We must align our Kingdom lives with God’s principles. We must avoid sinful situations. We must be steadfast, resisting the attempts of the enemy to draw us away into sin. We must discern areas of weakness and make them strong with God’s help. Hebrews 12:12-13, “So take a new grip with your tired hands and strengthen your weak knees. Mark out a straight path for your feet so that those who are weak and lame will not fall but become strong“. 

Do we pilgrims feel a bit tired today? A bit lethargic in our faith? Thinking about giving church a miss this week? The we must “understand clearly” what Jesus did for us. We must allow His love and grace to flood over us, flushing away all thoughts of giving up. There is no other way. Only Jesus has the words of eternal life.

Dear Father God. Thank You for Your blessings of grace and love. In the power of Your Spirit, we stir ourselves up once again and press on with our journey of faith in You. Amen.

Criminality

Posted on by korgrocker

“So Pilate, the governor, went out to them and asked, “What is your charge against this man?” “We wouldn’t have handed him over to you if he weren’t a criminal!” they retorted. “Then take him away and judge him by your own law,” Pilate told them. “Only the Romans are permitted to execute someone,” the Jewish leaders replied. (This fulfilled Jesus’ prediction about the way he would die.)”
John 18:29-32 NLT

Jesus, branded a criminal because He claimed to be the Son of God. Someone to be executed because they proclaim the truth. A miscarriage of justice if there ever was one, and a verdict that has had repercussions throughout the last two thousand years. In those days of religious zeal amid a rigid interpretation of the Jewish Law of Moses and the plethora of rabbinical rules and regulations added on since, blasphemy became a crime. The name of God and God Himself became a taboo subject and anyone crossing the red line drawn by the Jewish lawyers, whether mentioned in the Scriptures or not, were in danger of stoning or some other form of execution. But this is not just a feature of the Jewish faith. It emerges in other faiths as well, such as Islam. We have seen in recent years the furore over cartoon pictures of the Prophet Mohammad or the disfigurement of the Koran. The fatwah issued in response to a book written by the author Salmon Rushdie. In the Book of Acts we find a silversmith who ran a company making idols, silver shrines of the goddess Artemis.  Demetrius said, “But as you have seen and heard, this man Paul has persuaded many people that handmade gods aren’t really gods at all. And he’s done this not only here in Ephesus but throughout the entire province!” (Acts 19:26). A riot ensued, and it was only through the political skills of the local mayor that the situation didn’t deteriorate further. 

But in our verses today from John 18, we find Jesus criminalised for speaking the truth. We pilgrims could perhaps find ourselves also criminalised for speaking out in the name of Jesus. Recently, a man in the UK was handed down a large fine and a criminal record for praying silently outside an abortion clinic. The scandal of infanticide continues in our land, legally protected by the Abortion Act of 1967, and in the Uk in 2022 alone there were 251,377 abortions carried out in the name of “healthcare”. In addition, the politicians are discussing other forms of legislation to make it a criminal offence to provide any form of “therapy” (including pastoral care and prayer) for people perhaps confused about which sex or gender they are. Another debate is continuing over changing the law so that people can end their lives with medical assistance. The ideologues call it assisted dying, but it is suicide without any doubts. There are plenty of opportunities for people, Christians and pilgrims like ourselves, to become criminalised for speaking out Biblical truths. But two thousand years ago, the truth that Jesus proclaimed in His “trial” before Caiaphas initiated a process that led to His execution, “ … so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16b).

Over the years since Jesus died there have been many martyrs who stood firm in their witness for the truths of God. The first Christian martyr was Stephen and we can read the account of his death in Acts 7. The words that sealed his fate can be found in Acts 7:55-56, “But Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, gazed steadily into heaven and saw the glory of God, and he saw Jesus standing in the place of honour at God’s right hand. And he told them, “Look, I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing in the place of honour at God’s right hand!”” In previous verses we find that when Jesus left this world He returned to Heaven, ” ... where Christ sits in the place of honour at God’s right hand” (Colossians 3:1b). But as Stephen gazed upwards he received a vision of Heaven, with Jesus standing there, and I like to think that he was cheering Stephen on and preparing the way for him to enter Glory. Jesus hasn’t stopped cheering us on ever since, as we stand firm in our faith, declaring our allegiance to Biblical truths that declare God’s message for this lost generation.

Dear Lord Jesus. You willingly went to the cross for human beings like us. Because You took on our sins, we can now be righteous in God’s presence, for ever and ever. Amen.