ESCAPE ARTIST Psalm 68

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Harry Houdini!  How does the great escape artist extricate himself from the seemingly unthinkable?  Is there one greater than Houdini?  Guess who.  Looking back, I can you see how God has gotten me out of impassible and impossible messes.  Some of my own making.  Other times the finger points somewhere else. 

Yet I can’t remember when life doesn’t bring more blessings than regrets and failure.  That Romans 8:28 still runs a booming and profitable business.  That Jesus continues to float my boat, making delicious lemonade out of the spent, rotten ones I hand over to Him.

Sadly, we’ve known others who get handcuffed in their own bitterness.  Shackled into righting some wrong in their own ways.  Trying to prove a point, always grasping to come out on top.  Broadcasting how clever they are while blaming everyone else.  Driven more by revenge than forgiveness and mercy.  Cooped up, cornered by sin’s stubbornness.  Thinking of someone?  Looking in the mirror?

Is God this way?  Hardly.  Jesus lives to forgive.  We can count on Him… always.  No need to fight our own battles…in our own strength…all alone.  He’s way ahead of us.  If only I’d rely on Him, His ways in His timing.  Watch Him handle my life’s muddy jumbles.  Why not?  What’s to lose?

Unfortunately, I’m hard-headed.  Not an easy sell.  Quickly tinkering with my little grey cells instead of falling on my knees (so to speak, at my age!) before God.  Thinking twisted thoughts rather than letting the Bible clear up my muddled mind and emotions.  God’s Word does that.  Even cuts through like a skilled surgeon’s knife bringing health and healing (Heb. 4:12).  Time to face heaven’s Sawbones?  

King David knows his share of troubles.  Many of his own making.  Like me.  Anyone else you can think of?  Still gawking in that same old mirror?  Psalm 68: 19-20–‘Blessed be the Lord, who daily bears us up;  God is our salvation.  Our God is a God of salvation, and to God, the Lord, belong deliverances from death.’  The Hebrew word ‘salvation’ means ‘escape’. 

Like Houdini?  No, from One far greater.  The Lord loosens the manacles of sin, unforgiveness, pride, you name it.  In this life, escape from what ties us up is often short-lived and incomplete.  But in heaven, well, that’s a different story.  For another time.  In another place. 

‘For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face’ (1 Cor. 13:12).  

Lord Jesus, thank you for helping us to live with more victories than failures.  For your sake.  Amen.

ALL THE HELP I CAN GET Romans 8

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I need all the help I can get.  And then some.  For all the messes I’ve conjured up.   Plus some foisted on me by others, well-meaning but mostly not.  Help!

So, who gives us a helping hand?  You know.  From God who works all things together, making good come from even disasters and trials (Rom. 8:28).  How?  When?  Where?  Like I know?  I’m as clueless as the next.  Ask Him.  Not about how insensitive and oblivious I am.  But for His insight and support.

Check out Romans 8 for two super-duper, crackerjack helpers.  All ready to jump in when we’re heading for the nearest exit.  Who?  First, there’s God the Holy Spirit.  Romans 8: 26-27–‘Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness.  For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words.  And he who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.’  Read that last phrase again.  See it?  Help is on the way.  Actually, it’s already here.

Here’s more–‘Christ Jesus…who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us’ (Rom. 8:34).  Who?  Jesus, the Son Of God.  Doing what?  Interceding…helping…speaking up for us.  What a team!  OJ’s legal ‘Dream Team’ of decades past looks like a bunch of incompetent flunkees.  No comparison to ours.  Not even close.

When tongue-tied in prayer, the Spirit speaks up for us.  When we feel the heavens closed off, Jesus clears the skies with the Father.  It’s all covered, making me wonder why I have so many fears.  Why?  After all, we’ve got a first string team like no other, on the go with all the bases covered…to help you and me.  Ponder that this week.

Thank you, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, for all your help, now and always.  Amen.

HIS PART… AND MINE Romans 6

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Looking honestly at my commitment to Jesus, I want to run and hide.  Sitting tight hoping to melt into the scenery.  Would like to forget all those times when I’ve let Him down.  What I said…and did.  All that I shouldn’t have.  Just me?

Romans 6 is a big chapter in the Bible.  Don’t speed read it.  Turn off those modern gadgets.  Concentrate.  Focus.

What grabs me is that bit about Jesus freeing me from sin because of the cross.  His death nixes mine.  His resurrected life gives me what only He can.  Romans 6: 22-23–‘But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life.  For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.’

Did you note that strange theological word–‘sanctification’?  Hard to unpack let alone understand?  Here’s where my Presbyterian heritage offers clues.

In its Larger Westminster Catechism (1647AD), the question centers on the meanings of justification and sanctification.  Now I’ve done it.  Added another tough-nut-to-crack word–justification!  But listen to what the sage Catechism says–‘…in the former (justification), sin is pardoned; in the other (sanctification), it is subdued.’  I’m reading that again.  Hmm.  Fog begins to lift.  Can see some forest and trees.

Sin forgiven.  Justification.  Sin subdued.  Sanctification.  One accomplished, once for all, by our Lord Jesus.  The other lands in my ballpark, so to speak.  Forgiveness guaranteed.  Growing in the Lord less so as a moment-by-moment adventure.  What God does is complete.  What I do…well, you know, not quite.

Sin all forgiven by Jesus through faith in Him.  His part.  Mine is to subdue disobedience.  For me, it’s one step forward, two back.  Three forward with yet another one shoved in reverse.

Such is life this side of heaven.  But when glory comes, that’s a different story!  Mission accomplished… by God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.  All forgiven.

Me and you?  All grown up.  Dry behind the ears.  Seasoned and mature.  That’s no theological mumbo-jumbo.  Not by a long stretch.  You can hang your hat on it!

Thank you, Lord Jesus, for much better days ahead.  Amen.

HERE’S MORE Psalm 56

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Here’s another week with Psalm 56.  Says so much about God.  Going verse by verse, we discover that God is gracious, loving and kind.  Forgiving.  Trustworthy and worthy of ALL our praise.  With God on our side, as He is, by faith in Jesus His only Son, fear gets tossed out the window.  Or should.

He cares so much that it’s as if He has our tears in a bottle and a written record of them in His book.  Our picture on a refrigerator magnet in His kitchen.  Our childlike, homemade pictures plastered all over His office.  Sort of.

After all, God is for us.  On our side.  Our advocate, who stands up for us, even when double-crossers smear and slam us.  The Lord never throws salt on our wounds.  Never says one thing to our face only to badmouth us behind our back.  Never abandons us for a younger, cuter, wealthier convert.  Sticks with us through thick-and-thin.  As in forever.  For sure.

There’s no one in this world as good as our God.  No one.  So, enjoy Him!  Relish knowing that He’s always by your side, even when the winds blow hard against us and the tide starts dangerously rolling in.  Especially then.

Depend on Jesus.  Better than the Rock of Gibraltar.  He’s your Rock of Ages.  Takes whatever monkey off your back and carries it on His.  No matter what’s in store, He’s always minding the store.  You get the point.  Don’t you?

So says Psalm 56.  Soak in it!

Lord, what an honor to know and love you.  In Jesus’ name.  Amen.

YOKED HAND-IN-HAND Psalm 56

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My father had way too many fears for his own good.  Held him back from what he said he wanted to do.  Or did it?  We’ll never know as he’s been gone for decades now.  Not only my father, as I’ve had my own as well.  Who hasn’t?

The heebie-jeebies cold feet rarely produce much fun.  However, sometimes they keep us from the brink of a mega-mistake.  This is fear’s good part.  However, it takes so much effort to plow ahead overcoming those jittery shakes.  Like an unwelcome arm pulling me back, robbing me of joy and satisfaction.

Psalm 56 prescribes help.  One thing, right off the bat, is that having fears, even crippling ones, is not sin.  David, the psalmist here, is filled with them.  For his life primarily.  The Philistines are out to get him.  David doesn’t kick himself for being afraid.  After all, he knows where to get help.  As we do, don’t we?  Yes, the Lord–‘When I am afraid, I put my trust in you.  In God, whose word I praise, in God I trust;  I shall not be afraid.  What can flesh do to me?’ (Psalm 56:3-4).

Fear and trust are yoked together, hand-in-hand.  Left with fears alone, we’d be up a tree with out-of-control anxieties.  No hope.  No one to trust in.  But with the Lord on our side, trust marches front and center.  Fear flees heading to the hills.  ‘This I know, that God is for me’ (Psalm 56:9).

Do you know that God is on your side?  I wonder sometimes why He hangs around with one so faithless and fearful.  Me!  Why does He?  Because He loves me…and you.  Which has nothing to do with my efforts, my achievements, education, money invested, size of home or car.  Whatever.  None of that.  Rather, it’s all about Jesus.  All up to Him.  In His court–where we most need it to be.

When fears come, face them with the Lord by your side.  He stands incognito in front of and behind us.  Surrounded by God.  Never out of His care.  Never alone.  Nothing to fear?  Really?  I’ll chew on that this week.  You too?

For standing with us, dear God, we give you thanks and praise.  In Jesus’ name.  Amen.

THE NUMBERS SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES Psalm 51

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I’ve never been much for mathematics.  Not my long suite.  Doesn’t add up.  The only ‘D’ grade I ever earned was in junior high algebra.  Pocket calculators and computers save my financial planning career more times than not!

Reading Psalm 51, let’s pay attention to the Lord’s forgiving ways, as King David pours out his guilt-ridden heart to God, whose mercy and love he counts on.  So many verbs keep adding and multiplying–‘Blot out…wash me…cleanse me…purge me…create in me a clean heart…restore me…uphold me…deliver me’.  Sin…subtracted and divided.

Am I the only one who confesses sins to God yet feels like they’re still hanging around my neck?  Give Him my failures only to take them back like a boomerang?  That’s how it feels.  Does forgiveness give me the runaround?

No.  Not at all.  Unless forgiveness depends on me, I and myself.  But that’s not how it is.  It’s all up to Him.  Jesus takes my sin as if in a huge cup, which He feverishly gulps down, good riddance to the last drop.  Gone.

Hope can be found in Psalm 51.  The first half (vs. 1-9) shouts out confession.  Owning up.  Fessing up.  Coming clean with God.  Sin and its synonyms can be found twelve times.  God only once.  Then moving to the second half (vs. 10-19), we find God referenced six times with sin only twice.

What gives?  Think about it.  It’s as if we’ve emptied ourselves of sin by being humble and honest with God.  He empties us of failure, taking all of it on Himself on the cross, and then filling us with Himself with what’s been null and void which now becomes fully His.

This week spend time in Psalm 51.  Allow Jesus to divide and subtract any of sin’s rot and decay, all the while adding and multiplying Himself within our daily lives, making us clean as a whistle.  Free as a bird.  Scrubbed and spotless.  In apple-pie order.  Enjoy?  Why not?

Thank you, Jesus, for new life… forever.  Amen.

BLESS YOURSELF? Psalm 49

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As a pastor I performed numerous funerals.  Multiple times more than weddings, unfortunately.  At one church, I officiated at three funerals on the same day.  Felt like a conveyor belt was needed.  Little time to offer anyone some comfort.

Serious stuff funerals.  One involved a 9 year old boy, who drowned falling through the ice in a nearby pond seeking to rescue his dog.  The dog was saved.  He was not.  Oh, the screaming, weeping and wailing by family and friends.  Can still sense their cries.

Death comes for all.  We take nothing with us.  No U-Haul trailer behind the hearse.  No heavenly forwarding address for income checks.  All left behind.  All.

Psalm 49 gives us much to chew on this week–‘Be not afraid when a man becomes rich, when the glory of his house increases.  For when he dies he will carry nothing away; his glory will not go down after him.  For though, while he lives, he counts himself blessed…’ (vs. 16-18).  Blessing himself?  What gives here?

Our psalmist seems to allude to rich folk congratulating themselves, blessing numero uno for how lucky they are.  Clever and industrious.  How much they’ve gotten away with.  But not only those rolling in the dough.  Could be any one of us.  As in me, I and myself.  Really?

Yes…as in taking credit where none is due.  Smarty-pants being overly eager to get ahead.  Eyes too squarely on the ball.  My selfish priorities lining up like ducks in a row.  But what’s missing?  Something’s left out.  You know.

Psalm 49:15 shows its hand–‘But God…’–giving the Lord credit as it’s all due Him.  Being grateful and humble.  Not grabbing the headlines, or hoarding and craving those pats on the back.  After all, pride cometh before…well, you know.  I’d rather not be Humpty Dumpty!

And what happens to those who bless themselves?  Rarely get what they seek.  Accolades elude them.  Unsatisfied malcontents.  Down in the dumps.  Powerful yet pooped out all at the same time.

I wonder how it would be if our praise goes more to the Lord Jesus than anyone or anything else?  Giving Him well-deserved credit.  How would that be?

Let’s give it the old college try.  Pep rally songs and all our thanks to Him!

Thank you, Lord Jesus, for everything.  Amen. 

NEGATIVITY WHAT? James 3: 1-12

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I’ve heard that each of us possesses a ‘negativity bias’.  A what?  It’s a tendency to be more adversely affected by bad words or events than good, positive ones.  One critical comment about my morning sermon and all the good ones (if there are any–see what I mean?!) get tossed out the window.  That wisecrack gets carried home.  Complimentary ones rarely make it to the driveway.

It’s said that to overcome a negative experience requires four positive ones.  Cutting comebacks take a gargantuan effort to right their wrong.  One good word doesn’t equal a bad one.  Their caustic mouthful will do a number on our emotions, requiring a tall order to bounce back from.

Resonates like this warning from the Bible–‘And the tongue is a fire, a world of unrighteousness.  The tongue is set among our members, staining the whole body, setting on fire the entire course of life, and set on fire by hell’ (James 3:6).  Watch your mouth, as we’d say in New Jersey!

One zinger feels like a knife in your heart.  The same with bad experiences.  Don’t expect to jump up immediately after being beaten down.  Takes time.  The scars linger though fade some with the Lord’s help.  Be patient… like I’m not!

Something goes wrong in my life and I’m back in Margaret Hague Hospital in isolation at the Sister Kenney Polio Ward with absolutely no idea what’s happened.   My world turns upside down… at age two.

Trust me–those feelings of abandonment and loneliness never totally leave me, which is another good reason to comb the Bible for God’s promises.  I dig for them holding on for good measure.  For it will take a lot of Jesus’ promises to overcome childhood losses.

With kindness, watch what words you say to yourself.  Replace the negative with Jesus’ promises and warmth.  Up the ante four times.  Keep at it.  Won’t come easy.  Satan’s grip is tight.  But Jesus’ is tighter.  Ultimately, depend on Him.

Thank you, Jesus, for keeping me close to you no matter what.  Amen.

PROMISES, PROMISES Joshua 21: 43-45

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I’m learning to be careful with what promises I make.  For some have memories like elephants!  Not good to let anyone down by breaking my word.  Not a barrel of laughs when it happens to me.  I can easily drum up decades-old broken promises without batting an eyelash.  That’s why I’d better be cautious opening my big mouth.  Promises made require promises kept.

Once again our Lord God embodies all the best.  You can hardly count His promises recorded in the Bible.  All have been or will be kept.  Guaranteed more than death and taxes!

When God’s people possess the lands promised them, they discover how trustworthy He is.  Stronger than the Rock of Gibraltar.  He minds the store and carries the load.  I know that at times it appears He’s disinterested or distracted.  Like He doesn’t care.  Head perched up in the clouds of heaven.

But it’s not true.  Not at all.  Only a few verses to read today.  If you tend to skip the suggested Bible reading, don’t even think about it.  I promise you’ll be sorry.  A promise which will be kept!  Only three verses in Joshua 21.

Anyway, not that I don’t trust you, but here they are!–‘Thus the Lord gave to Israel all the land that he swore to give to their fathers.  And they took possession of it, and they settled there.  And the Lord gave them rest on every side just as he had sworn to their fathers.  Not one of all their enemies had withstood them, for the Lord had given all their enemies into their hands.  Not one word of all the good promises that the Lord had made to the house of Israel had failed;  all came to pass’ (Joshua 21: 43-45).  See?  Told you so!

Could there be something pushing at and weighing down your heart and mind today that needs some heavy trust lifting…by the Lord?  Something way beyond your ability?  That only Jesus can deal with?

Why not bank on God keeping every word of His abundant promises…in His time…in His way…for His glory.  Promise?

Father, you are so good and faithful to me.  I love you.  In Jesus’ name.  Amen.

WHAT WAS THAT? Proverbs 3

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Recently I’ve noticed that the volume on our TV set needs to get louder.  Maybe it’s on the fritz.  But even talking with neighbors greater than socially distanced six feet, I’m straining to hear them.  Piecing together a word here and there, hoping my responses are not too off the wall.  What gives?

You know.  So does my wife!  Hearing loss, which must be premature in my case!  Wrong.  I remember a singer at a Christian conference center announcing before his solo that ‘everyone here has aids.’  I’m going to jump out of my seat fleeing this infected bunch until I realize he means hearing aids!  Now I can remain seated as one with aids. Thankfully, only the hearing type.

Proverbs 3:11-12–‘…do not despise the Lord’s discipline or be weary of his reproof, for the Lord reproves him whom he loves, as a father the son in whom he delights.’  It’s only natural to wonder why things go wrong.  Why Lord?

Like this infernal pandemic.  Illness…death…job loss…fears abounding…plans shattered…businesses shuttered.  Wake-up call from the Lord?  Why Lord?  To wake us up to Him?  To stop pushing Him to the very edge of our lives?  Why?

You know what C.S. Lewis writes in ‘The Problem of Pain’?–‘God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, and shouts in our pains:  it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world.’  He’s right.  Our world, our culture, many pastors and churches, are willfully deaf to God’s Word.

Bible literacy ebbs lower and lower.  Even God’s people are not exempt.  Awhile back one of my Moody Bible Institute professors whispers to me about how little today’s Bible school students know… of the Bible!  Is that possible?  Seems so.  If true of them, then the rest of the world can’t win for losin’ with nary a snowball’s chance anywhere.  Is it time to dust off you-know-what?  Could that be what Jesus is saying?

So, when God shakes you up with whatever it is you don’t need or want, what do you hear?  Anything?  Time to get closer to Him?  Confess and repent?  Look up to Him more than downward navel-gazing?  Exercise your weakened trust muscles?  Is that what you also hear?

Lord, I want to hear you loud and clear.  In Jesus’ name.  Amen.