Has Life Fertilized You?

But he answered and said to him, ‘Sir, let it alone this year also, until I dig around it and fertilize it. And if it bears fruit, well. But if not, after that you can cut it down.’ Luke 13:8-9

Any day we face may be one where a person might feel well-fertilized by it. And I do mean fertilizer in the dung sense of the word. Things broke down, plans just didn't go well, or bad news arrived in the mail, you know the sort of day I mean. Life just seemed to really dump that fertilizer on us that day. Perhaps this parable of our Lord offers a different source for that fertilizer though. Any of us might be that little fig tree failing to produce fruit. And the owner wants to take us out, transplant us beyond the wall, and throw us onto the pile for burning. But there was this gardener in the parable too, and he wanted to give that fig tree one more chance. A year of special care and, yes, a load of fertilizer. In this parable, I see Jesus in Gethsemane praying that we not be taken out of this world but given that one more year of special care from the Gardener, one more chance to produce fruit. Of course by this parable we also see Jesus as that final chance to produce and be of value to the owner, or else!

A well-fertilized day may not seem so bad now,

Bucky

There Is Our Testimony

So they went out quickly from the tomb with fear and great joy, and ran to bring His disciples word. Matthew 28:8

Spreading the good news of Jesus was shown to us in this verse for today. Fear came with good news for the angel's face shone like lightning in a place only just beginning to see the new day. The angel told the women the good news of our Lord's absence from the place of death. But He had died as they were told to look where His body had been laid before the great news, He is risen. Such great joy! For it was just as He had foretold, death and then resurrection. And look, the guards had become like dead men, but there was no dead body to see! Then run and tell those who love Him, and run they did to spread the good tidings of great joy.

Tell it! Good news is fun to share.

Bucky

More Good News

But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, but My Father only. Matthew 24:36

"There's that word again, soon," they make light of that poor word in that series we like, The Chosen. Yet, when it comes to the good news of our Lord's return, we can only offer that same word. In an age where we like to place a date and time on our calendars to make sure that we are on time, there is no time or day to be known. The revealing of it is promised, but not until the time of the appearance. God knows it, but this is one thing that He keeps to Himself. It is a frustrating mystery to us that has tripped up a few cult types down through the years. Naming a date and time all but guarantees it won't be that day and hour, unless of course the namer did not really believe it, and then you fall into a whirlpool that never ends. And so, it will happen...soon!

Jesus will return for us, He promised!

Bucky

Slow Down And Do It Faster!

So God, who knows the heart, acknowledged them by giving them the Holy Spirit, just as He did to us, and made no distinction between us and them, purifying their hearts by faith. Acts 15:8-9

After much dispute, the moment came for us Gentiles in the council of the early church elders and disciples. And it was Peter who stood forth to speak up for us, speaking of the heart that God knows. Ah, the more difficult conflict may well be those hearts that God knows. While the Jews of our Lord's time may be known for their hardness of heart, the Gentiles of our time might be as well known for their waywardness of heart. Truly the seed of the gospel finds a lot of rocky and thorny ground in our hearts even now. Life for many of us remains quite complicated and brings to us many distractions for our attention. Each of us may at the same time be judged as too busy and too slow to get started. Meaning, I suppose, that we need to slow down and do less, but do more and do it faster. We can take some relief that our Lord commanded us to love one another, and not to satisfy what each may think we ought to be or do. One thing we can do with our Lord, take more time for prayer and the Word!

Praise God for time with Him!

Bucky

A Great Turning

Now after five days Ananias the high priest came down with the elders and a certain orator named Tertullus. These gave evidence to the governor against Paul. Acts 24:1

And with a subtle tip of the planet, the days will now grow shorter until the cold days of December. Of course to get there we have all the cool and pleasant days of July and August to get through.

Paul, the apostle of our Lord Jesus Christ, had some tough days to get through as well, not only imprisonment but a group of 40 men dedicated and oath-bound to see him dead. That is just the sort of popularity most of us would rather do without, I think. However, there was reason for Paul to rejoice, since by their hateful actions Paul was confirmed in his testimony of Jesus Christ! Paul had come hard about and all the way home from the days when those same 40 men would have held him up as their champion and hero in their war against those they knew as the Nazarenes or the Way.

Great turnings worked by the Lord Jesus!

Bucky

Waiting Here

until the day in which He was taken up, after He through the Holy Spirit had given commandments to the apostles whom He had chosen, Acts 1:2

The apostles were gathered again with Jesus, risen from the grave, and He gave them commandments. But wait, o people of action, one of the first commands from the risen Lord was to stay in Jerusalem and wait for something to happen to them. One of their first questions: Now, are You going to restore the kingdom to Israel? So often we want to go. Go forth, go do, gotta go something, but He tells us to wait on Him, stay until we are prepared here in this place. If we have to wait, then we want Him to go forth and do big things that we want to see happen, much like those disciples. And for what we call a long time now, nothing big has come but what He said would be seen - wars and rumors of war, earthquakes in various places, and so on. For those He said to see that we are not troubled. Dang, if we must wait for Him, at the least we want to worry and fret while we wait!

Waiting here, learning patience, kindness, love, and other fruits of the Spirit.

Bucky

Failed The Blood Test

And in her was found the blood of prophets and saints, and of all who were slain on the earth. Revelation 18:24

It's that time of the year for me, and the annual check up with blood testing. Well, I didn't pass out yesterday, but neither did they find any blood in me to test. Yes, I failed my blood test. We can assume that there is blood in me to find as I have not felt the urge to run around at night biting anyone on the neck like that Dracula dude back in the day. And while it might seem that I would be safe from this woman of Babylon in this condition, we run into one of the tragedies of the Bible, slaying.

In Genesis 4:10, the blood of Abel calls out to the Lord from the ground. The first slaying victim comes so early in the story that we can hardly believe it. How will the race of humans make it with only four, now three, people on the Earth? Well, the whole be fruitful and multiply thing took off like a rocket and it was not long before even Cain found a wife in the land of Nod and did some multiplying himself. All of this fruitfulness does not bring peace though, and just two little chapters later in Genesis (v11), God sees the entire earth filled with violence and corruption.

Interestingly, Jesus lays the blame for all of this at two doorsteps. In John 8:44, He tells of a devil who was a murderer from the beginning, and then in our verse today, comes that same woman of Babylon. It will not be difficult for us to figure out that this queen of Babylon must come with a king and that he must be that same murderer. But don't take my word for it, read the tale.

It is a lengthy tale, starting as it does just after the beginning and carrying its violence, corruption, and slaying to just before the end. However, in the middle comes a Savior, who is Christ the Lord!

Bucky

Let Him Be Him

Then they took away the stone from the place where the dead man was lying. And Jesus lifted up His eyes and said, “Father, I thank You that You have heard Me. And I know that You always hear Me, but because of the people who are standing by I said this, that they may believe that You sent Me.” John 11:41-42

What problem do you face this week that has you tied up in anxious knots? Lazarus had been sick, and then died, and now rotted in the grave for four days. Our problems are more like those around the tomb where they laid him. We may be like the disciples who thought sleep in this case meant the normal nightly rest. We may be like the sisters, Mary and Martha, who thought 'if only Jesus had been here' then the situation would not have got out of control. We may even be like Martha again, who had said she believed in Jesus, but then just knew there would be a terrible stench (and probably didn't want her dearly departed brother to be forever known as the source of that stink.) What we think we know by our anxiety over a thing may run up against what Jesus knows He can do at all times. And we may find new life in Him, if we will but let Him get on with being Him.

Believe in Him and live,

Bucky

Population Temptation

But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and harmful lusts which drown men in destruction and perdition. 1 Timothy 6:9

One can imagine some temptations that each of us will likely never face. The minister who gets up on a Sunday morning and preaches to tens of thousands of eager listeners to every word spoken, and thinks "I'm really saving many for the kingdom this day!" As a brother in Christ pointed out in his posting this morning, that minister ain't saving no one, Jesus does the saving. There can be a temptation by population when a ministry becomes big in numbers.

Pursuit of wealth, as our verse for today points out, may work out a bit too well for some few persons in our world. "Where did all these billions come from?" the billionaire asked the butler one morning. And suddenly it seems the temptations of all that loot come home to roost. Have you money to spend and to lend? There will be those glad to help you spend it and others showing up to borrow that wealth. And no one faces more difficulty in getting paid back than those who others think can afford to lose some weight off their wealth. This may lead to bitterness, and stinginess, and that whole host of other lusts and such, like the verse tells us.

So, to the prayer place to thank God for the temptations I don't face today!

Bucky

Getting Used To Abba

For you did not receive the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption by whom we cry out, “Abba, Father.” Romans 8:15

An affectionate term for our Father in Heaven seems to those of us raised in certain types of churches to be too much, or perhaps too little, or just too darn familiar! And yet, when Jesus submitted His will to the Father's in the garden that night, He began with that most familiar term, Abba. (Mark 14:36). It tells of our fallen beginning in this life that the One who knows our innermost thoughts we try to keep at a distance with stiff and formal terms or names for Him. We think with false humility that never should we use 'Daddy' or 'Abba' for God when we pray to Him. And yet, do we really want to spend eternity with a distant deity when we could have intimate and familiar contact with a Father we know and love as He knows and loves us?

Get familiar with the Father, our dear Abba!

Bucky

Did They Change Scripture?

And He said to him, “Go, wash in the pool of Siloam” (which is translated, Sent). So he went and washed, and came back seeing.  John 9:7

Oh, they did it! Perhaps it was inevitable, but the popular show about Jesus and His twelve disciples, The Chosen, made a change in portraying the event referenced by our verse for today. No Siloam? Yes, the pool of Siloam seems to have lost its moment of screen time, replaced by a humble bucket. With the bucket beside him in the show, the blind man of no name doesn't get to do his 'went' and 'came back' actions either. It tends to compress the event, and maybe the running time of the episode is why they chose to do it that way. But, but, change scripture?! Well may we shudder at the thought! The question that comes from this portrayal might be, "How is your faith now, believer?" 

As for me, my faith remains strong in Jesus. The healing of the man's sight remains the important part of this incident in our Lord's ministry. How he then 'saw' better than those blind guides, the Pharisees, also remains important. Is this then our moment to choose the Pharisee way or to follow the Lord? Do we shake fists and shout in protest over the change, or do we remember the Son of God, Jesus, and His healing of that blind man He loved? 

Can your faith remain in Him after a little scriptural slap?

Bucky

Not Always Pleasant

Know now that nothing shall fall to the earth of the word of the LORD which the LORD spoke concerning the house of Ahab; for the LORD has done what He spoke by His servant Elijah. 2 Kings 10:10

Our verse for today sits in the middle of a lot of killing violence. We cannot get away with portraying the word of the Lord as always nice or pleasant or easy. The word of the Lord often tells the story of great evil and terrible violence. Many times the violence was done by humans to one another, but there are times of punishing violence from the Lord too. The Deluge in Genesis was not a gentle shower for a few dirty people. It was a deluge from above that lasted until every person but Noah's family was killed. Some will gleefully shout, "Unfair!" and cast doubt on God's love for His creation. However, this tests whether we can still believe in God's love and goodness, and when we can, then we have faith in Him.

Faith believes when the word of God is not always pleasant to read.

Bucky

Like Children, Trust in Him!

Assuredly, I say to you, unless you are converted and become as little children, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven.  Matthew 18:3

One of the many statements Jesus made that leave us wondering and pondering. How does one come to be a little child again? Much of our lives we have been reminded to grow up, here He says to grow back? Of course the simile is in the word 'as', and not in becoming a child again. So what might be the qualities of a child we should seek out? Complete trust in her parents? Yes, that sounds like what Jesus wants from us. An innocent love for all those around him? Sure, sounds like one of those greatest of commandments our Lord mentioned. An earnest desire to learn from God's Son? Yes, the children did seem to flock to Him, and He would not suffer them to be denied. Those answers may not satisfy, or you may think of others. We always have what children have in Him though, the ability to ask of Him. And, when He asks of anyone, including us, as He often did in the scriptures, we can always trust in His knowledge because He knows. 

Like children, trust in Him!

Bucky

Long Serving And Long Waiting

You therefore must endure hardship as a good soldier of Jesus Christ.  2 Timothy 2:3

The news report this morning stated that nearly 200 veterans would gather to remember the 80th anniversary of the D-Day landings in Normandy, France. Average age of 100 among these long-serving veterans of what to us may seem a long ago event. 100 years old on average, that's some age going on there! 

When we say that no one among us knows what tomorrow may bring, often it is a bit ominous, like that proverbial bullet or cement truck is just waiting for the next day to strike us from this earth. Yet, you or I may need to prepare to be here a while too. 200 veterans in Normandy have shown us this morning that it can and does happen. Any one of us may be like those two older folks awaiting the birth of Christ at the temple in Jerusalem in the Gospel of Luke. The stories of Anna and Simeon both tell of great age, and we can see long serving and waiting too. While we might live like there is no tomorrow, we might also want to live with prudence as there might be a whole lot of those tomorrows too. 

Have a wonderful day in Christ today... He may come tomorrow, or we may see some long waiting. 

Bucky

If I Had

Now if I had stretched out My hand and struck you and your people with pestilence, then you would have been cut off from the earth. Exodus 9:15

When I sit down and reminisce a bit, I find that many of them contain an 'If I had' somewhere along the way. These are of course ridiculous speculations on my part as I have no idea how a change way back then might have affected me or anything else. Compare that to God's version in our verse for today and we can begin to see the great gap between God's knowledge of things and my own. When God uses the 'If I had' that is what would have happened. No doubt about it. When God says, His word is spoken, as sure and as certain as the Lord Himself.

By faith we receive it!

Bucky

Can We Elect George Washington?

The law of truth was in his mouth,
​​And injustice was not found on his lips.
​​He walked with Me in peace and equity,
​​And turned many away from iniquity.
  -- Malachi 2:6

In pondering the two leading candidates for the next presidential election, I wondered this morning if we might not elect George Washington again for a new start. Lots of things in this world seem to start out well, and then they decline to the present time. In Malachi 2, God lets His priests know that is what has happened to them. The Lord tells of His priest, Levi, and then compares this to how His priests are acting in the scriptural present time. And it ain't looking good for them. Of course it isn't difficult for us today to look at what comes out of our mouth and lips and do a little comparison too. And it ain't looking good for us all the time and with every word neither. Perhaps we too need a new start. A few years down the road from Malachi, Jesus told Nicodemus that very thing: you must be born again.

Praise God for a new start in Jesus!

Bucky