Hope in Endurance

For everything that was written in the past was written to teach us, so that through the endurance taught in the Scriptures and the encouragement they provide we might have hope. Romans 15:4

We are an odd lot, these ones who believe in Jesus and His word. In a time of bad news, we turn to the good news. When things get tough and news of separations come, we are encouraged in Christ and in our endurance taught by His word. We are lifted up when we should be down for all time. The more difficulties we face, the more God hears His scriptures being spoken in the heart of those who believe. Paul from a prison cell wrote: Rejoice in the Lord always, again I will say, 'Rejoice!' What an odd duck! And yet, as we grow in Christ, we come to understand how Paul could endure and be encouraged in the hope we have in Jesus Christ.

And in what you have endured this week, be encouraged in Christ Jesus!

Bucky

Hold Your Peace

“The LORD will fight for you, and you shall hold your peace.” Exodus 14:14

The command comes from the Lord, and sitting down reading this verse, it might seem the easy way to go. Hold my peace? Not a problem. Imagine that this command comes to us while the mob rages in front of us. We know that to hold our peace will suddenly become much more difficult, because this mob is going to say the worst things and do things we don't want to see. It would be easier if the insults and injustices were hurled at us personally, but no, it will be any way they can get to us. Injustice will be thrown at those we love and respect. False witness will come forth against innocent ones. Now try to hold your peace. Already the arguments are marshalled inside you about whether the Lord meant our peace to be silent or not. Yes, not so easy now, is it? 

Another time of difficulty is in those battles of the mind. In place of winning the contest that takes place only in our imagination, the Lord calls us to hold our peace and He will fight for us. A little disappointment may leak into our feelings as we realize that in holding our peace there will be no more easy victories in the imaginary war to help us feel good. And what is the Lord doing there? He isn't fighting the way we would or would have Him to fight. The greatest difficulty in obedience of this command might be holding our peace while the Lord does in His perfect wisdom what we do not expect of Him. This very thing caused the Judeans of our Lord's day to reject Him as the Anointed One even as His love spoke a request to the Father to forgive them from the cross of His salvation. 

Amazing and wonderful is our Lord.

Bucky

What If The Things We Think We Know Aren't So?

Trust in the LORD with all your heart,
And lean not on your own understanding;
In all your ways acknowledge Him,
And He shall direct your paths.
  - Proverbs 3:5-6

NASA announces the discovery of a planet 23 million light years away. We might do well to ask many questions about this and how it helps us. Is it even a real discovery? Those who financed this big ol' x-ray telescope, the taxpayers, certainly hope the observers aren't being fooled by space ghosts or something like that. It is a good exercise for all those who think we know a thing or two to occasionally ask if we actually know what we think we know. The warning from Proverbs today is to not lean on our own understanding. Things we think we know may not be so! However, this verse is not, I think, a call to simply doubt everything we have been taught in schools or in books. It would be easy to become a science denier of everything, but doubting everything pretty much leaves us with nothing.  

It is that first line of our scripture this morning that leads us to understanding: trust in the LORD with all your heart. 

Bucky

The Fruits of a Broken Vow

Now Rizpah the daughter of Aiah took sackcloth and spread it for herself on the rock, from the beginning of harvest until the late rains poured on them from heaven. And she did not allow the birds of the air to rest on them by day nor the beasts of the field by night.  2 Samuel 21:10

Obviously Rizpah had to contend with cats, because laying out a cloth is just a cat invitation as all cats know. However, other than that, this verse cries out for the rest of the story. As harvest takes some days to complete, it would seem that this is some sort of vigil, but what? 

I think that I would rather not have read the rest of the story. The sackcloth was for mourning and something was missing from it. The bones of Rizpah's two sons were missing from it. Two kings were involved and a broken vow from the first. A famine for three years came from that broken vow and atonement was needed. Rizpah was a concubine of Saul and her two sons by him were part of the atonement agreement. They were hung with five others. The atonement offering was accepted though, and God healed the land. 

God gave us a good ending from a tough story. 

Bucky

Treachery

Now the Feast of Unleavened Bread drew near, which is called Passover. And the chief priests and the scribes sought how they might kill Him, for they feared the people. Luke 22:1-2

It was the strangest irony, the people stood between the evil plans of the authorities and the intended victim. But Jesus was there to allow the murderous intentions of those authorities to take place and He did it willingly. The chief priests and Judas carried out the worst treachery in history, and yet it was our Lord's intention to lay down His life to save us from our sin. They hold the Passover observance in the same chapter of Luke, but when Jesus points out His betrayer no one gets it. Peter states that he will follow Jesus to prison and death, but Jesus knows what the man will do in his own strength. Between the priests, soldiers, betrayers, and even the disciples, we as humans do not come out looking good in Luke 22. Oh yes, that mob of people the authorities feared, they too would turn on Jesus later and allow His death even to the point of taking the blame on them and their children. We look at Judas and say, "treachery!" but would any of us have done better than Peter, or the other disciples, or the priests, or even Judas? And yet, there is our Savior in this same chapter in complete control following His Father's plan from start to finish.

Everything in our time may seem upside down and backwards, but our Lord is in control.

Bucky

Night Seasons

I will bless the LORD who has given me counsel;
​​My heart also instructs me in the night seasons. Psalm 16:7

My heart tells me things in the night seasons, but it may not be what David would call instruction. The prophet Jeremiah seems to hit closer to the mark when he writes of desperate wickedness and deceitfulness of the heart. (Jer. 17:9). Is this one of those conflicts in the Bible that make the atheists jump with glee?

The Bible speaks to me in two ways in regard to my heart. One is the condemnation of the Law in which it shows how my heart has been and still is in part while I walk this earth. The other portion is made of those words of my Lord that tell me how this heart is going to be when He is done working it over. This second part holds the promises of the Lord and His method of opening the way from Himself to me through Jesus the Christ. I'm not going to count verses to see which part is larger, but I know the one that is greater. I guess you might say that I know the One who is greater!

Rejoice in the greatness of Christ Jesus!

Bucky

What Is God's Plan In This?

The jailer called for lights, rushed in, and fell down trembling before Paul and Silas. He escorted them out and said, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved? ” They said, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved — you and your household.”  Acts 16:29-31 CSB

You will have heard of the kidnapping and ransom demand for a group of missionaries in Haiti. As a veteran of a branch of the United States Armed Forces known for charging on to enemy-held beaches, I have a suggestion for dealing with this circumstance. However, God's plan in this might be somewhat different, or maybe not. He has not yet told me His plans. One possibility though is that God may have our brothers and sisters in Christ right where He would have them. Paul and Silas did not do what their jailer expected of them when the doors and chains of the prison were  opened by a violent shaking, and from that the man was suddenly ready to listen to the good news of Christ. May our Lord Jesus overthrow the hearts of this gang of kidnappers by His good news! 

Prayer and supplication with thanksgiving today,

Bucky

Trust The Lord For That

And when she and her household were baptized, she begged us, saying, “If you have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come to my house and stay.” So she persuaded us. Acts 16:15

We often feel as this woman did that a little agreement from those we deem the Lord's champions will confirm our faith. If I'm judged okay by Paul or Luke or Peter, then I am good with the Lord. Of course the apostle Paul could no more see into my head than I can see into yours. When it comes to salvation, we need to trust the Lord for that. Yes, there are those times of doubt when it would be nice to see a Certificate of Salvation on the door of those who believe. We would in that case immediately disbelieve it because God does not issue those from His heavenly printworks. Faith is a thing that gets by without a lot of written proof. Which is kind of ironic since our main instruction on faith is the printed Word of God. We even desire to see each other's faith in action, and are often rewarded in that since... "faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." (Hebrews 11:1) You're thinking that perhaps I used something wrong in there somewhere.

The woman did do one thing that we can and should do to show the Church our salvation and that is to be baptized. The woman asked the apostles if they thought her statement of salvation was genuine, and they did. This is not a bad question since the baptism we do is just a dunking in some water with some words and is something that could be done unfaithfully.

May your salvation and faith shine forth to the glory of our Lord Jesus!

Bucky

Good Morning, Super Christian!

Mark 10:18 - So Jesus said to him, “Why do you call Me good? No one is good but One, that is, God.

Romans 3:12 - They have all turned aside;
They have together become unprofitable;
There is none who does good, no, not one.

The urge to read something about a super anything will often cause us to turn quickly to see if we might fit the description. You may have noticed the temptation within yourself to see if I might be talking directly to you this morning. I am, but not in the way of calling anyone out as a super Christian. The three gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke all have this response of our Lord Jesus to being called 'good'. Jesus also told us that John the Baptist was the greatest down here, but everyone in the kingdom of Heaven was greater than John. To bookend our Lord's words, we have Paul in his epistle to the Romans quoting King David from the Psalms, and putting us in our not super place. Goodness would certainly be a super quality of a Christian man or woman, but we do not bring it to the table ourselves. Good thing our Lord's Spirit is growing a bunch of super fruits in us. One day we will see such a harvest!

Have faith in God this day,

Bucky

Overcoming Dependency?

“Two women will be grinding at the mill: one will be taken and the other left.  Matthew 24:41

No, sorry, not drug and alcohol dependency, I'll leave that to the professionals, but Internet dependency. Is it possible at this point to overcome this dependency? In my days of information technology support, I have on occasion had the ornery urge to suggest to a person that he or she might read a book while their pc or Internet connection is down. Oh dear! You may not need to imagine the reaction having experienced a similar episode yourself. That I am still here with you awaiting the return of our Lord Jesus shows that I have not done this very often. It is not an idle thought either, people have died on their Internet device and not from natural causes so powerful can the dependency be to some. It is not a stretch to think that a smart aleck computer geek might be slain over the wrong words to the wrong person. And of course the Internet is such a wonderful tool for spreading the good news of Jesus too! As with many things in this world, it may be that only Jesus can overcome a dependency. We can update our verse for today:

Two people were on the Internet when one was taken... and the other did not notice for several hours. 

The Rapture, for those left behind in this age, may not be so immediately noticed as we once thought! 

Have a great day in the Lord! 

Bucky

Remember What Came Next

And it came to pass in those days that a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered. This census first took place while Quirinius was governing Syria. So all went to be registered, everyone to his own city.  Luke 2:1-3

Some among us may have noted the taxing authority's recent increase in power by data grab. I'm trying to be discreet as some of them might spew their Froot Loops onto the table if I state it bluntly. In times such as these, it might help us to remember what came next in our Lord's time. Oops, I gave it away there, what came next was our Lord's time! No doubt the decree from Caesar was not welcomed everywhere as many would need to travel to be registered. But that wasn't what came to mind first, they would, like us, have resented this new intrusion by the government into their daily lives. It was an exercise in governing control, not unlike what we face in our day. What excites those who believe in our Lord Jesus is what came next after this imperial decree. Are we the ones who will see the great events of the end times? It may well be! 

Have another hopeful day in the Lord!

Bucky

The White-Robed Elite

 You have a few names even in Sardis who have not defiled their garments; and they shall walk with Me in white, for they are worthy.  Revelation 3:4

Smyrna, in its more modern version, I have visited, but Sardis was not among the places I have seen. From this I can say that I am not among those white-robed elite our Lord pointed out with John. Hmm, one must pause for a moment, is that what our Lord Jesus wanted us to do? To understand that there was an elite group among the church that He would promote to walk with Him? I see in this short section of the Revelation that our Lord forgot to include the list of the names so that the others might get back on track by emulation. Certainly this message was going to cause some looking around at one another in the church at Sardis! Is that what our Lord had in mind? 

Often we are left with questions when our Lord sends His word to us. One thing we know by faith, there is one person to get a white robe from, and one person who forgives our sin, and that same person saved us on the cross by His sacrifice. Worried that we don't have that white robe, we come to Him in repentance. 

Have a forgiven Monday in Christ the Lord!

Bucky

Don't Despair, It's There!

But now that Timothy has come to us from you, and brought us good news of your faith and love, and that you always have good remembrance of us, greatly desiring to see us, as we also to see you. 1 Thessalonians 3:6

For all of the good news of Jesus that is in the New Testament, it is interesting that only one verse in all of that good news says 'good news' as I search in the New King James version of the Word. Don't despair though, the word 'gospel' means good news and that occurs many times. The days come to us when we need some good news from the Word of God. A look in the spiritual mirror does not bring to us a vision of the self arrayed as a knight in the bright shining full armor of God that we would like to see. Often that vision looks more like the black dragon of sin blocking the way to the bridge across the great divide. But as Paul told his readers, we see quite poorly from this side of things. This is when we need the Good News of our Lord Jesus, and the reminder to not despair in what we think we see in that poor looking glass.

No worries, the Lord looking down sees that knight in full armor.

Bucky

Guilty Am I

Preach the word! Be ready in season and out of season. Convince, rebuke, exhort, with all longsuffering and teaching.  2 Timothy 4:2 

Yes, the days are in the 80's this week, but guilty am I this morning: Christmas tunes on the stereo. "October?" some might ask, "Why are you so late this year?" This is not the first day of course, I claim in my defense, but a better defense might be a biblical one. And so, I searched for 'out of season' and there it was! Be ready in season and out of season, Paul states to his friend Timothy.  So, this letter is not to me? Yes and no. You or I may have our time of preaching the word, but when Brother Timothy was following Paul's letter, we would be listening to the word. Paul might write to us the congregation in this manner: 

Listen to the word! Be ready to hear the word in season or out of season. Be convinced of the truth of the word, accept its rebuke and learn from it, be encouraged in the word, and listen with patient endurance and learning. 

Have an encouraging experience in the Word!

Bucky

It Is Time

Sow for yourselves righteousness;
Reap in mercy;
Break up your fallow ground,
For it is time to seek the LORD,
Till He comes and rains righteousness on you.  Hosea 10:12

In the days the prophet Daniel foretold when people would rush about and to and fro, it seems that we often do not have time to do all that we would like to do. Your life might even be one in which you would say never in place of often. The days are hectic for most people and news reports of tragedies come to us like shells from far away batteries. Even in times such as these though, this gem from Hosea shows us what to do in our distress: It is time to seek the Lord! Till He comes is exactly what we look for in this age, so what better time to sow righteousness and reap mercy?

Rejoice always in the Lord!

Bucky

You And I Need It

​Sing to the LORD, bless His name;
​​Proclaim the good news of His salvation from day to day. Psalm 96:2

Yes, this verse is a good reminder of bearing witness to others, but first thing in the morning or at any time of the day, the words are also a reminder to you and me. Wait, proclaim it to myself? Certainly, for how will we witness to the world if we do not proclaim it day to day to ourselves with singing and blessing? It goes back to that second most important commandment in which our Lord taught us to love our neighbors. Yes, sounds good to me, sounds like what we were taught back in the day... sounds incomplete to those who study the Word of God! The part we may forget in our zeal to pray for others is those two words on the end of the commandment: as yourself. In Mark 12:31 of the NIV, our Lord answers: "Love your neighbor as yourself." Therefore, when it comes time, early or late, proclaim the good news of His salvation to yourself also, from day to day because you and I need it.

Blessing and glory to His name!

Bucky

Rise Before The Gray Headed!

You shall rise before the gray headed and honor the presence of an old man, and fear your God: I am the LORD.  Leviticus 19:32

The mornings have taken on the feeling of autumn around here, even if some daytimes haven't quite got the message yet. This has become normal around here for the late September and early October timeframe as we might set a heat record on one day and then be 30° or 40° cooler within a day or two. The forty degree change on a single day seems to come more in the late fall of November now; like an old person, the season takes a bit more time to get going maybe. 

So, is there some message from the Gospel in this, or are you just going to natter on about the weather and seasons? 

Hey, I'm on the downhill side of life now. Gotta practice for old age and some nattering. Next I'll be repeating stories to you that I've told a few dozen times before and digressing down bunny trails that have nothing to do with the subject at hand. What was the subject for today anyway? 

All those things an old man may do and here comes this old law from Leviticus. Honoring an old man can be difficult at times, some more than others we might say, and yet it was the law.  This is one of those old time laws though that is easy to obey when we follow that second and equally great commandment of loving your neighbor as yourself, plus it takes care of honoring the old women too!

Question: Since I began turning gray a good decade or so past, do I still have to rise before the gray headed? 

Love in Christ this Friday! 

Bucky