October 28, 2024

                    Claim Your Faith

“But if serving the LORD seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your ancestors served beyond the Euphrates, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the LORD.– Joshua 24:15

 It’s easy to throw out words, isn’t it? It’s not so easy to live out our faith – especially when it might cost us more than we are willing to give.

God’s people wanted to serve Him. But they wanted to serve other gods too. Today we would label those other gods as money, power, prestige, self. We might choose to serve our church, our pastor, our political leaders. And let’s not forget comfort, financial security, and all our many possessions.

We’re not called to any of that. We are called to serve God. We are called to follow Jesus. Hatred, revenge, greed – none of those things have any part of Jesus.

We are afraid. We’re afraid we won’t have enough money. We’re afraid “illegals” will steal our jobs and our homes. We’re afraid the government will demand our guns and destroy our way of life. We’re afraid of many things and we’re fighting to control it all.

We are justifying evil and claiming Jesus at the same time. And we wonder why our nation is in such turmoil. We can’t believe people are turning away from God. We don’t understand how our actions and our words are leading people to believe that God is evil when He is really only love.

We put our idols, and our fears, above the One true God. We choose to follow evil even as we proclaim that we will follow God.

We are at a crossroads. Will you follow idols? Will you allow fear to dictate your response to the evil we face? Or will you trust God? Will you truly follow Him?

We all have choices to make. Claim your faith and live it.

May 15, 2018

When Ugliness Takes a Fall

When they hurled their insults at him, he did not retaliate; when he suffered, he made no threats. Instead, he entrusted himself to him who judges justly. – 1 Peter 2:23

His mugshot was grainy. Dull. His expression was one of shock and disbelief. He’d skirted the law many times, hurting others and lying. He’d spewed ugliness, assuming he would never get caught. Until one day, he was.

There was no satisfaction in it. Not for me, anyway. Only a deep sadness that he still hadn’t changed. That’s the way of evil. It gets worse until one day goodness stops it cold.

It would be easy to gloat or cheer or let my heart be filled with satisfaction. I don’t know if the arrest has caused him to rethink his behavior or if he’s still blaming everyone else for his choices. Only God knows the truth of a person’s heart.

My hope is that his present reality causes him to reevaluate his choices, to turn toward Jesus, to invite Him into his heart. God loves this man just as much as he loves you and I. We forget that sometimes when our only focus is exacting revenge on someone who has harmed us.

It isn’t always easy to pray for our enemies but that is His calling on our lives. We are to do good to those who harm us. He tells us to love everyone, even those who have hurt us deeply. It isn’t an easy road but, then, His way rarely takes the easy path.

Sometimes it’s through grace and mercy, the same grace and mercy God shows to us, that others can clearly see Jesus. Don’t rejoice in the tribulations of others. Instead, pray that hardship will finally draw them home.

February 6, 2016

Walk Away

“Whenever you enter a house, stay there until you leave that town. And if any place will not welcome you or listen to you, leave that place and shake the dust off your feet as a testimony against them.” -- Mark 6:10-11

Sometimes you just have to walk away. All the drama and the hurt and bad feelings that keep pounding at you will only destroy you in the end.

It’s a hard lesson to learn. In our faith, we are told to forgive and to do good to our enemies. That doesn’t mean to continue to allow Satan’s minions to destroy your peace. It means giving the situation to God and trusting that He will handle it in His time and in His way.

Forgiveness is hard. Truly it is. We want revenge. That’s our human nature. Sometimes the most kind thing we can do, the most forgiving thing we can do, is walk away. I learned a long time ago that I can’t make people like me or even care about me. I can’t turn someone’s heart into something that it is not. I can’t force someone to live a faith they claim but show no evidence of in their lives.

It’s like a drug addict that blames everyone but the person in the mirror for that addiction. We are called to search ourselves and get that plank out of our own eye. Then give it to God. Don’t let that addict’s finger pointing cause you to doubt yourself or your faith.

I am not a perfect person. I don’t claim to be. That is one of the many reasons I am so thankful for my Savior, Jesus Christ. But I have reached a stage in life where the opinions of others no longer matter to me. I report to God. Period. I have searched myself. I fail Him every single day. That doesn’t mean I will continue to allow bullies to keep me on the defensive day after day.

I have washed my feet and walked away from their dirt. What about you? Are there people in your life who are toxic to you? Are there people who seek to destroy you? Give it to God and walk away. We are not meant to suffer abuse at their hands.

Trust God. If it is His will, they will change. But remember this too: We all have free will. We all have choices to make. A choice for anger, bitterness, jealousy, rage. It’s all there. Walk away and leave them to God. Forgive them from a distance. Love them from a distance. But walk away just the same.

Wednesday, May 2, 2012

Trust God --- And Move On

“You have heard that it was said, ‘Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.’ But I tell you, Do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if someone wants to sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well. If someone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles. Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one wants to borrow from you.” -- Matthew 5:38-42

Get over it. Move on. Let it go. Give it to God.

The words threaten to spill out of my tightly closed mouth. I’m just so tired of hearing about things that happened many, many years and numerous church families ago. But they can’t seem to let it go. They can’t seem to get past perceived wrongs. They can’t seem to stop trying to control something they never should have tried to control in the first place.

It’s tearing them up inside. And driving people away, though they’re too blind to see that. Because we all need to move on and trust that God will handle whatever situation needs to be handled, in whatever way He decides is best.

Ah. There’s the real trouble. They’re afraid that God won’t handle it in the way they think He should. In fact, I haven’t heard them mention God at all. I doubt they’ve even considered His views on the subject. They’re so busy offering their own that I’m not sure He has ever crossed their minds.

I want to urge them to take a deep breath and pray about it. I suspect my advice wouldn’t even register in their hardened hearts. They’re too focused on revenge. They’re too determined to right that perceived wrong from many years ago.

Are you holding on to a grudge from your past? Are you still angry at something you believe someone else did to you? Are you spending your moments focused backward rather than celebrating today? Maybe a little more time in the Word would create a lot less time to focus on revenge.

We don’t want to remember what Jesus said about revenge. We’d rather quote the Old Testament and demand justice -- in our time and in the way of our choosing. We don’t want to love our enemies. And we certainly don’t want to give them more than they’ve already taken.

But isn’t that exactly what we do when we can’t let go of the past? We’re giving them our time, our present and possibly our future. We’ve giving them our peace. And we’re letting them destroy our faith and trust in God, knowing that He saw what happened and that He’ll take care of it -- in His way and in His time.

Revenge is never about God. It’s always about us. And that’s a recipe for disaster. So let it go, and let God. Trust God. And move on.

Wednesday, March 3, 2011

Trust God To Handle It

Do not take revenge, my friends, but leave room for God's wrath, for it is written: "It is mine to avenge; I will repay," saids the Lord.

-- Romans 12:19

Who do you want to hurt today? Who does your heart want to lash out at for the pain they have caused you? Who does your mind have staring in the role of evil person who gets his just reward? Yeah, we all have someone we'd like to see suffer.

That's the way we humans are. When we're hurt, we instinctively want to hurt the person responsible. Or at least the person we blame. Sometimes we're responsible if for no other reason than we believed the lies that led us astray.

But retaliation is absolutely the worst thing we can do. It only produces a momentary gladness and can result in more heartache and wasted time as you focus on reliving the betrayal. I'm not saying that it's okay. It's not. I'm also not suggesting that you forget and, then, let it happen again. What I am saying is let it go and let God have it. Let Him avenge.

Because He will. Sometimes we get so caught up in the grand view of it all that we forget something really basic: We are God's children. You and me. God will repay evil done to His kids. He will. That's a certainty.

Hanging on to wrongs leaves us with a bitterness that can harden our hearts and cause us to miss so many blessings. By trusting God, we can get past all that and move on. God has so many blessings planned for us. Don't miss the future because you clung too tightly to the past. Give it to God, then let it go.

Monday, September 13, 2010

Do Good To Others

"He who mocks the poor shows contempt for their Maker; whoever gloats over disaster will not go unpunished." -- Proverbs 17:5

I doubt there's a human anywhere that hasn't at some point wished something bad on someone else. It could be as simple as wishing that speeding motorist who almost ran over your bumper gets a ticket. It could be something far more serious, like wishing the co-worker who badmouthed you to the boss would get fired. Of course, there's another level of retaliation that involves serious, bodily harm. We won't go there because I want to believe anyone reading this is above that.

Still, we do want revenge. We may know we aren't supposed to want it. God takes care of those things. He told us so. But we want the satisfaction of getting back at the person who hurt or harmed us. We think we deserve it. Well, if we got what we deserved we wouldn't be living under grace right now. That's a scary thought indeed.

We also want to blame others for their misfortunes. Or lack of advancement. We blame the poor for being poor. It's a whole lot easier than recognizing that many people are poor through no fault of their own. It's a matter of birth place or economic downturn or, yes, sometimes bad choices. It could be us struggling to pay bills rather than living a comfortable financial life. That makes us uncomfortable and we lash out.

We do that alot. We lash out at others even though the Bible tells us to pray for our enemies and to help those less fortunate that ourselves. God expects us to behave like His children. Jesus showed us kindness and compassion and yet we want revenge and elevation above and away from those who don't have the material things we have. Shame on us! We can do so much better, be so much better.