God's Valentine

 (Read First Corinthians 13)

When Jesus was asked to name the greatest commandment of God’s law, He answered, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your mind, and with all your strength… and you shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”

Love, as the songwriter says, “is a many-splendored thing.” A Roman bishop named Valentinus was proclaimed as a saint by the early Catholic church, and he became the patron saint of lovers, as we know from celebrating Valentine’s day each year in February. The greeting card makers and the candy companies do a very lucrative business filling the yearly needs of lovers and would-be lovers who wish to express their tender feelings at this time of year.

But we find in the Bible a definition of love that takes us beyond the realm of feelings of physical attraction and romantic chemistry. There is a love described there that is modeled after the holy character of God Himself. It is a supernatural love, a love for the unlovely and the undeserving. A deep desire to offer one’s self and substance for the betterment of another.

The Apostle Paul wrote several lengthy letters to a very troubled church in first century Corinth. This congregation was experiencing problems galore! The people were divided into camps based on the personalities of their favorite preachers. They were acting proud and boastful about their spiritual gifts–God-given abilities that equipped them to serve one another! They were causing strife and discord over how to do corporate worship and celebrate the Lord’s Supper. There was even a sexual scandal going on that Paul needed to correct! 

He spends several chapters of his epistle speaking to the needs of this troubled church and instructing them on how their worship and ministries should function. He compares the church of Christ to a living body with many different parts that work together, suffer together, rejoice together. Every member should be doing its part joyfully and helpfully. 

But you know what? A church is made up of people. Yes, they are Christians, but they are still fallible. They are saved sinners, but they are still SINNERS. No one can ever be perfect before he or she passes through those pearly gates of our heavenly home! We all have rough edges, annoying little habits, manners of speech and action that are hard to live with. Part of the trouble in Corinth was that the believers were seeking the showier, greater gifts of the Spirit. They wanted to be up front, noticed, appreciated.

Well, Paul began to write in Chapter Thirteen of his letter, what he described as “a more excellent way.” And here is where he began to describe the supreme gift of the Spirit that is to permeate and characterize all the other gifts: DIVINE LOVE. This is God’s own Valentine to His church, and the gift that won’t give you cavities like candy! Or sound corny like a greeting card. Divine love gets us out of ourselves and shines the light on people around us. For that is the pattern our hearts become aware of as we learn about our loving Father, His Son Jesus, and the Holy Spirit who lives within us.

As we make our way through this magnificent description of love, we find that it not only reflects the loving character of our God, but it tells us how love relates to the commandments that God gave us to protect and cherish the very values that make life worth living.

Paul begins by describing a brilliant speaker: “If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels…” Without the power of love, all the words of human orators, or even angelic messengers, become nothing but noise…empty…meaningless. “A sounding gong or a clanging cymbal” may sound impressive or gain your attention. But they contain no meaning in themselves. 

The first speaker, of course, was God Himself. He spoke into the empty void and said, “Let there be light!” He used His voice to call creation into existence. Have you ever wondered why? Why did God create a universe in the first place? He had no needs that were not fulfilled. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit had made up the Trinity for all eternity past—a Trinity filled with love and blissful fellowship. They had decided to create the heavens and the earth out of the sheer overflow of their DIVINE LOVE! God’s very words are words motivated by His love.

Do we speak with love? Do we choose loving words to express our thoughts and ideas and plans? When we speak, we are launching our hearts and minds out into the world for others to hear.  Jesus taught “out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.” What worlds are we creating for others to hear when we talk? Are they worlds of praise and wonder, or worlds of complaint and misery? Or simply empty noise?

Paul goes on to write about knowledge. The early church was built on the knowledge of Jesus Christ and what He came to earth to accomplish for us: our salvation. It was also built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets who received messages direct from God! Many in the church of Corinth wanted those kinds of grand revelations. They wanted impressive knowledge that would make them stand out from the crowd.

But elsewhere, Paul warns that knowledge can puff us up with pride. It is love that edifies, that builds up other people, perhaps by sharing one’s knowledge in a gentle, loving way. We might have heads that are filled with great facts and doctrine about God and His Word. But the reason God reveals truth to our ears and our minds and hearts is so that we will believe and treasure His truth, and teach it lovingly to others so that THEY might benefit. Not so that WE might be applauded by men.

And what about FAITH? Having a strong faith is surely a high priority to the Lord, right? Paul next makes the point that even a strong faith in the power of God comes to NOTHING if it isn’t reflecting God’s LOVE along with it. The Apostle Peter boasted about his great faith in the Savior. He claimed he’d follow Jesus faithfully even if all the other disciples turned aside. But Peter’s faith failed him the night Christ was betrayed and arrested. When people identified him as one of Jesus’ disciples, Peter became frightened and denied that he’d ever MET the Man!

After Christ rose from the dead, He restored Peter to his prominence as a leader, an apostle. And what did He ask this man whose faith had failed him? “Simon, son of Jonah, do you love Me?” Jesus asked this three times, one time for each of Peter’s three denials. When Simon Peter assured his Master that, yes, of course he loved Him, Jesus told him, “Then, you must feed My sheep—look after the needs of others.” This is how divine love is worked out and demonstrated.

Many Christians are willing to sacrifice everything for God’s kingdom—just as long as they are given the proper amount of credit in return! Self-sacrifice can be motivated by the selfish desire for personal recognition. The self-righteous Pharisees proved this. Their outward acts of holiness were well-known, even legendary. But inside their hearts, Jesus told them, there was no true love motivating their sacrifices. They only did them “to be seen by men.”

Paul gives a list of qualities that describe true love’s character. We can compare these qualities to the Ten Commandments and see how they connect with each other. “Love suffers long and is kind.” Patient, kind-hearted people tend to honor the Lord, as well as other people, rather than being eager to receive honor in return. Honoring our parents is one of the commandments, and as our parents age, honoring them takes more and more kindness and patience!

“Love does not envy, doesn’t parade itself, isn’t puffed up.” Envying what others have in the way of possessions, abilities, lifestyles and so on, leads us to the sin of coveting, which violates the tenth commandment. The Corinthians were seeking to out-shine one another with the showiness of their spiritual gifts. Paul is making the point here that this kind of competition is hardly focusing on meeting the needs of others. Rather it is an exercise in feeding our own ego.

“Love doesn’t behave rudely, doesn’t seek its own, is not provoked.” Behaviors like rudeness, greed and anger can quickly ignite into acts of theft and even murder. God’s commands against these things are His way of protecting the values of life and property that we mostly take for granted. Having a heart of love for God and for others means that we are devoted to protecting those values and promoting both the quality and quantity of what others possess. Doing others the good that we want them to do to us!

“Love thinks no evil, doesn’t rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth.” What kind of thoughts make our hearts rejoice, make them sing for joy and overflow with gladness? There are some folks, perhaps you and I sometimes, who get a secret thrill out of wickedness. Whether we read about personal scandals of the rich and famous, or see sinful behavior acted out in a play or a movie, there is something attractive to our darker side. We take a kind of delight in evil. We look at the sins of other people and enjoy the fact that they are worse than ourselves. 

Savoring the taste of evil in our minds can be the poison that pushes love out of our hearts. It can turn normal romantic attraction into lust that can lead to impure thoughts and adultery. Satan has a way of twisting good truth into half-truths, and then even more into outright lies. He might tell us, “God is so gracious and forgiving; He won’t mind so much if you flirt with this or that little sin. You can always confess it later and all will be well.” Of course, he will never admit the pain and remorse and loss of joy that comes with that sin. That hook is always well hidden in the tempting bait he holds out to trap us.

Delighting in the truth. Do we know the truth of God? God’s truth is the real thing. Truth is the reality as God has created it, as well as the way He sees it. The world is full of lies and half-truths that camouflage the truth of God. It is in the Holy Scriptures that we find truth in all its delightful fullness. Truth about God’s good creation and man’s tragic fall into sin. Truth of God’s promises to send a Redeemer, and Jesus of Nazareth, who fulfilled those promises. Truth about what love really looks like—from God’s perspective.

Love delights in the truth. It lives in the truth. It TELLS the truth. It shares the truth with others because we’re so delighted with it. We can’t keep it to ourselves. Paul finishes his list of qualities by using the word ALL four times. Love bears ALL, believes ALL, hopes ALL, endures ALL. In other words, when we encounter another person, love is prepared to accept them at face value and assume the BEST about them. And if that person fails us, love is willing to put up with their faults. Love is a faithful friend who is not easily put off by shortcomings. Rather, love keeps on believing the best and coming back for more. Love is TOUGH and very hard to overcome.

And isn’t that the way God’s love is toward you and me? Look at the patient way He dealt with His people Israel, giving them His laws, making them a privileged nation, pursuing them and disciplining them when they disobeyed Him. Promising a Savior again and again, and finally coming through on that promise by sending His only Son. And what amazing love it was that He included the Gentiles in His plan of Redemption! 

Paul’s paean of praise for the gift of divine love is a tall order for those of us who know Jesus as our Lord and Savior. His love is a supernatural love that is only possible in hearts where God’s Holy Spirit is truly at home. From all eternity past, Father, Son and Holy Ghost have loved one another. And that love ended up creating US. Let us imitate that love by showing it to one another, and by sending its bright beams outward into a sinful, sad, needy world.

MNA

2/13/2022

Deniers Restored

Have you ever had a close friend who really let you down...or even betrayed you? How difficult was it to get over that “let-down”...that betrayal? Were you able to forgive that person? Were you able to continue your friendship with him or her in the same way, or did your friend’s unfaithfulness cause a shadow to fall between you that just won’t go away?

Our relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ is like no other relationship on earth. The friendships we form with others in our lives can be--OUGHT to be--very special. Friendships within families, playmates and classmates at school, colleagues we work with, folks in the neighborhood we meet across the fence. But the Proverbs in the Bible speak of a “friend who sticks closer than a brother.” The Lord Jesus Christ is that kind of Friend.

When Jesus lived here on this earth 2,000 years ago, He had come on a wonderful, divine mission: “to seek and to save that which was lost.” His was an eternal rescue mission, seeking to save sinners from the eternal punishment in hell they truly deserved. Jesus was the eternal Son of God, and yet He was also a human being like you and I. And one of the genuine human needs that Jesus experienced was the need for friendships.

Jesus was kind and friendly to everyone He met, I am certain. But there were some people He befriended on a much deeper and more personal level than others. This is true for all of us and it is surely true of Jesus. His special, closest friends included two women of Bethany named Mary and Martha, along with their brother Lazarus. They opened their home for Jesus and His disciples to come and rest after their labors of healing and teaching.

But His closest friends of all were most likely the twelve disciples Jesus chose to instruct in private, teaching them the deeper truths about His kingdom and His plans.

Can you just imagine what it would have been like to have the Lord Jesus as a close friend, sharing with you his hopes and his dreams, his needs and his fears? Yes, Jesus was their Rabbi, their teacher, whom the Twelve held in high honor and reverence. After all, John the Baptist had pointed out Jesus of Nazareth as the “Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world.” So, anyone that Jesus later chose to be in His inner circle of disciples would feel awed and privileged to be so chosen. But Jesus was much more than their Teacher. He was their Friend as well.

And what a friend Jesus was! Here was a friend who could do wonders--heal sick people with the touch of His hand, or even by speaking a word! A friend who could fill the fisherman’s net after that fisherman’s boat had fished all night and caught nothing! Here was a friend who never uttered an unkind word or acted with selfish, prideful motives. A friend who truly cared about you even when you had nothing to offer but yourself. Here was a friend you could be totally honest with and never fear that He’d take advantage of the secret things you told Him.

Jesus gathered his twelve special, closest friends around Him. He Himself was the perfect Son of God...the ultimate, perfect Friend of sinners. But the twelve friends He chose were far from perfect. They were every bit as fallible as sinful friends could be.

On the night when Jesus needed friends the most, the night His worst enemies came to arrest Him, try Him and have Him killed...on that very night, it was one of His closest friends who betrayed and turned Jesus over to them. Judas Iscariot sold His Master and Friend for thirty pieces of silver. Later, Judas was so stricken with guilt and remorse that he threw the money away and went out and committed suicide. Sadly, he never even gave Jesus the chance to forgive him for his betrayal.

But what about Jesus’ other closest friends? All of them were with Him at the Last Supper there in the Upper Room. They were all there when they agreed with Simon Peter who proclaimed: “Even if everyone else forsakes you, I would never forsake you. I would go to prison, or even to death for you, Jesus!” They all said the same. Imprisonment...even death...nothing was too high a price to pay to remain faithful to their Best Friend of All.

We all know what happened. The Garden of Gethsemane was a place of agonizing prayer for Jesus, where He sweated great drops of blood because the Cross of Calvary lay before Him where He’d be forsaken by His Father. And yet not one of the disciples could stay awake for one hour to pray along with their Master and their Friend. When Judas came and brought the mob to arrest Jesus, all His friends had the opportunity of fulfilling their pledge... “go to prison...even to death...” But they all ran away.

Human friendships are so often like that. We might have the best intentions of being the best of friends. Of remaining steadfast, loyal and true. But when the going gets tough, when our friend is facing opposition and mocking and deadly danger, so often our good intentions are not enough and our courage takes a holiday.

But the ultimate friendship failure is modeled for us in the denials of Simon Peter. Peter was one of Jesus’ inner circle of three. Peter, James and John were three of the first ones Jesus called to follow Him there by the Sea of Galilee. Peter and John actually "followed at a distance" as the mob dragged Jesus to the home of the high priest that awful night. Someone in the priest’s home knew John by sight and allowed him admittance, and John spoke on Peter’s behalf so that Peter could enter the courtyard and see what would happen to Jesus.

Of course, if Peter had wanted to be pointed out as one of Jesus’ followers, he wouldn’t have “followed at a distance.” He would have been at his Master’s side during the trial. But he wanted to conceal the fact that he had been with Jesus. And when some of the other people in the courtyard began to recognize Peter, this is when his pledge of friendship was put to the ultimate test. Have you ever made friends with an unpopular person? Or has a close friend ever become unpopular and you were faced with the choice of affirming or denying your friendship? This was Peter’s predicament.

When Jesus began His ministry, His popularity began to grow and grow. People were excited by this new prophet who could do miracles, heal people and feed thousands by multiplying a young lad’s lunch. During such times of high popularity it was fun and thrilling to be a close friend of Jesus of Nazareth!

Now, however, friendship wasn’t fun and exciting anymore. It was demanding. It was dangerous. To remain a friend of Jesus could be highly costly and even deadly. Perhaps Peter was recalling Jesus’ words: “If any man would follow after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross, and follow me...If anyone confesses me before men, I will confess him before my Father; but if anyone denies me before men, I will also deny him before my Father in Heaven.”

Peter’s friendship failed him that day. Just as Jesus had predicted in the Upper Room, Peter denied three times that he was Jesus’ friend and disciple. He denied that he’d even heard of Him. Jesus also predicted that this denial would take place “before the rooster crows.” And as Peter heard the voice of that crowing bird, his gaze just happened to meet the eyes of Jesus Himself as the Master glanced out into the courtyard. What a moment that must have been!

How lost Peter must have felt! “I’ve denied Him just as He said I would! I’m a traitor! I’m a wretched sinner! I’ll never be forgiven for this! It’s all over!” Peter went out of the courtyard and broke down and wept bitterly. When was the last time you or I wept bitter tears over our sins? For every time we sin against God or other people, we are betraying our Lord Jesus, who died on the cross in our place to pay for all our sins. To save us from our sins and give us the power to say “no” to sin in the future.

So was Jesus’ friendship with Peter coming to an end? Was there indeed no hope, as Peter feared? What does Jesus, the Friend of sinners, do with fallen disciples--friends who let Him down and give in to the pressure that bids us deny Him? You and I are so often tempted to sin against this best of Friends. Is there hope for you and me?

First of all, there IS hope, because Jesus PRAYS for His friends. In the Upper Room He told Peter, “Simon, Satan has asked to sift you like wheat. But I have prayed for you. When you are restored, strengthen your brethren.” And in His prayer to the Father later that night He thanked Him that He would “lose none of those you have given to Me.”

Second, there is hope, because Jesus INCLUDES His fallen friends. After His resurrection, the angel at the empty tomb instructed the women who beheld them: “Tell the disciples...and Peter that I will see them in Galilee.” Jesus made sure that as soon as possible after His victory over death and sin, even the most unworthy of His friends would know they had not been excluded in His atonement for sin or in His plans for the future!

Third, there is hope, because Jesus VISITS His fallen friends. Paul tells us that Christ’s personal post-resurrection appearances included a separate personal visit to “Cephas”--the Aramaic translation of the name Peter. Apparently, it was at this one-on-one meeting that Jesus heard Peter’s personal confession and Peter received Jesus’ blessing of total forgiveness for his denials.

Fourth, there is hope, because Jesus RESTORES His fallen friends. After strengthening Peter’s faith after the resurrection, the Lord met with seven of His friends by the Sea of Galilee where He served them breakfast. It was here that He challenged Peter with His three-fold questioning: “Simon, son of John, do you love me?” And not once, not twice, but three times, Peter replies, “Yes, Lord, I love you.” “Feed my sheep,” Jesus told him, letting Peter know that their friendship was far from over. In fact, it was just beginning. And Peter would become one of the Lord’s greatest church leaders and evangelists.

Jesus is still the sinner’s ultimate Friend. He came to give His life for those who hated and despised Him. Those who denied and betrayed Him. And to those who simply trust Him to save them, He grants full forgiveness and eternal life and friendship with Him and the Heavenly Father. And our Jesus PRAYS for His friends. He INCLUDES them in His plans. He VISITS them in His Word and by His Spirit. And He RESTORES them when they fall.

If you are feeling lost and alone today, feeling like a failure...like you have let God down and could never be forgiven...DON'T be like Judas and give up to despair. Run to Jesus, the BEST FRIEND a fallen sinner could ever have. Trust Him to welcome you, pray for you, include, visit and restore you. "None who come to Me," Jesus says, "will I ever cast out."

MNA
9/11/16

Mercy...Who Needs It?

(a message based on Matthew 18:21-35)

In the beginning, when God created the heavens and the earth, everything was “very good”... including people. There was no strife, no sadness, no sin. And therefore, there was no need for mercy or forgiveness. Nothing had happened yet that required a just punishment, and therefore, no one had to decide whether or not to give out mercy instead of justice.

For that is what mercy is: rather than demanding what somebody owes you, according to justice, a merciful person chooses to give that person a break. To at least be patient. Maybe even forgive the debt completely, the way the king in Jesus’ story chose to do. The king showed mercy to a man who owed him a huge debt he could never have paid back. Why? Jesus said it was “out of pity for him.” The king felt compassion for the man and his family, and so he showed mercy by forgiving the debt.

In the beginning, back in the Garden of Eden, what did Adam and Eve owe to God? In a word, EVERYTHING: Life and breath, health and food, water and shelter, beauty and purpose, the glory of knowing and serving and sweet fellowship with God. All they could ever become and all they would ever wish for. All God asked for in return was for them to trust and obey Him. He didn’t expect them to “pay him back” for His kindnesses, for that was a debt they never could have repaid!

The first servant in Jesus’ story owed the king ten thousand talents. One estimate of just ONE talent of money places the amount at what a typical worker would earn in twenty YEARS. So if we do the math, and assume that the servant really intended to pay the king back what he owed...he would have had to work for at least two hundred THOUSAND years to do it! Obviously, Jesus wanted to make a serious point here, by choosing a ridiculously large amount for the debt the servant owed. He wanted to show that any plan he had to pay the king back was totally hopeless.

When Adam and Eve chose to disobey God’s command not to eat the forbidden fruit from the forbidden tree, they believed the serpent’s lie. He told them “You shall not surely die.” God had made it plain that disobedience would bring death. “In the day you eat of it,” God told them, “you shall surely die.” And, being a just and holy God who always keeps His word, His justice demanded that Adam and Eve should be put to death. Because of their disobedience, the guilty couple owed God their very lives!

But, just like the kind, compassionate king in Jesus' parable, God took pity on Adam and Eve, and on all their descendants. Even though they had to leave Paradise and suffer in a fallen world, and eventually die physically, God showed them mercy by promising a path to victory over the devil and a Savior who would one day pay off the debt of their sin. Actually, this promise was given to the serpent. God told him, “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her Seed. He will crush your head, and you will bruise his heel.” This was the first declaration that the Savior of the world would come, namely Jesus Christ.

Well, Jesus eventually did come. And He had been teaching His disciples about how we should treat those who sin against us. He told them they should be willing to forgive and receive back a brother or sister who is willing to admit their fault and turn from their sin. Peter, who was often the spokesman for the disciples, came to Jesus with a question. How many times were they expected to forgive the same person, presumably for the same kind of offense? Is there a numerical LIMIT for one’s willingness to forgive, after which justice has been delayed long enough?

We shouldn’t be too hard on Peter for asking this. All of us have been sinned against by others. All of us have seen sinful people getting away without being punished, and have felt angry and indignant about it. After all, each of us is made in the image of our Creator, who loves justice and righteousness. We long for a just world where everyone is treated fairly and all the wrong things are made right. Jesus even said, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled.”

Jesus answered Peter’s question, telling the disciples--and us--that “seven times” is far too small a number! “I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times!” (Or, seventy times seven). In other words, the demands of mercy far outweigh the requirements of justice. At that point, Jesus tells his story of the unforgiving servant. He wants His followers to know who it is that really has the right to administer true justice, and the merciful way He has of dealing with all His servants.

Like the servant and his family were to the king in the parable, all our lives are in the hands of God, who can deal with us in any way He pleases. He alone has the right to sell us, use us, cause us to live or to be ill or well, or even to die. We are His creatures and we belong to Him. The Psalmist says in Psalm 100, “We are His people, the sheep of His pasture.” It would certainly be a fearful thing if God were not so kind and gracious, so loving and faithful. What if He delighted in inflicting pain and agony and tragedy on all His creatures instead of supplying them with all they need to live and grow and thrive?

And yet, rather than thanking and praising our good Creator and King, how do we treat Him? Do we often forget to pray and thank Him? Do we often complain and forget how much we owe the Lord for all His blessings? I know I do. I constantly need to be reminded of the enormous debt I owe to Him. A debt of gratitude, of love, of worship, of obedience to His commandments. And every opportunity I lose to pay that debt, is one I can never get back. It is a debt that can never be repaid. Even in a thousand lifetimes.

But the hopeless servant was shown mercy by his king. “Out of pity for him,” the master forgave him the entire debt he could never have paid. What a burden was lifted from the servant’s shoulders in that one moment! He entered the king’s presence with the weight of the world on him, and left that throne room completely debt-free! He was a forgiven debtor, without a care in the world.

Sadly, though, that’s not the end of the story. Apparently, the king’s kindness to him had made little or no difference in the servant’s own wicked heart. All the man could think about after leaving the throne room, was finding his fellow servant to demand back what he himself was owed.

Let’s consider for a minute the depth of this kind of wickedness. If the king had NOT shown mercy to him, forgiving his own enormous debt, then the amount the other servant owed to him would have seemed next to nothing! In fact, compared to what he owed the king, it would have been just a drop in the ocean! And the money would have been the king’s anyway, even if the first servant did collect it.

But this wicked, ungrateful servant chose to insist on justice, rather than show mercy. Instead of being melted and molded by the generous king’s example, instead of having his own heart moved to feel pity and show compassion on others, instead of being instructed by the abundance of forgiveness he himself had received, this first servant had the second poor wretch thrown into prison. And when the other servants informed the king about it, the king was filled with anger!

Jesus is telling His servants that all of them NEED mercy, and day by day, year by year, all of us RECEIVE mercy from the generous hand of our kind Creator and King. Every time we sin, every minute we withhold from God the worship and glory and honor and obedience we owe to Him, we are piling up a mountain of debt we can never hope to pay. And yet, because of the grace of God, and the once-for-all sacrifice of His Son Jesus on the cross, our sin debt has been paid!

Do you believe this? Do I believe this? Truly believe that my mountain of debt before God has been paid and forgiven? To really accept and believe it, I need a changed heart. You need a changed heart. A heart that is clean and new and loves God and His ways. A heart that longs to show the same mercy and grace to others that I’ve received from my Master.

Adam and Eve’s children, all their descendants, have proven again and again that it is much easier to insist on “our rights” and demand justice from others, than to love mercy and walk humbly with our God. The first, unmerciful servant was handed over to the jailers because he failed to show his own Master’s mercy to a fellow servant. In that way, the king was making a clear statement: You are surely no true servant of mine!

A “good and faithful servant” of our Father’s kingdom will do what he sees his Father doing, acting as He acts, forgiving as He forgives, loving as He loves, and, as Jesus taught us, “doing unto others what we would have them do unto us.” Let us all be quick to show mercy and forgive, and leave justice in the hands of the Lord. Truly, an unforgiving heart...is an unforgivEN heart!

Jesus, God's Son, paid our unpayable debt so we'd be freed from sin's slavery, and out of gratitude, emulate God by showing mercy to others.

Have YOU trusted this merciful Savior, and turned from your sin to follow Him?

Timetables

“Life is just a game...at the end, the one with the most toys is the winner!”

Such homespun philosophies become the stuff of clever bumper stickers, but I don’t seriously believe that most people think in such fatalistic terms. Deep down in even the most calloused human heart, there is much more of a hunger for significance and a confidence that life and death are so much more than a game--some kind of cosmic joke.

But, to be sure, there are episodes in every life--many of them prolonged and agonizing--that make it appear confusing, tragic and disillusioning. The Bible certainly reflects this. Read the Old Testament books of Job and Ecclesiastes if you doubt that!

For millenia, all men, including all men of God, have wrestled with the troubling questions involving life and death:

- Why do the righteous often suffer while the wicked prosper and outlive them?
- What is the purpose behind the deaths of infants and the promising young people who are taken?
- If God is all-powerful, why doesn’t He deal with the wicked before they unleash their evil?
- Is it really necessary for natural disasters to occur throughout our fallen world?

In a way, it’s understandable that avowed atheists throw such challenges in Christians’ faces, because, in all honesty, we believers also struggle with those kinds of conundrums. We believe in a God of mercy and love, yet we behold tragedy again and again, bred in the cauldron of this sin-sick world. And we can’t help but wonder from time to time, “Where is God in all of that?”

Simon Peter, former fisherman, Jesus’ right-hand man, fierce, fiery preacher of the early book of Acts--Peter sat in a dark, dank prison cell, chained between two soldiers, scheduled to be beheaded the following day. King Herod had very recently executed James, another of Jesus’ close friends, to the great delight of the enemies of Christ. Now, it was Peter’s turn to be martyred. Or so Herod thought.

But Acts 12 goes on to tell of Peter’s miraculous release from that prison. You see, in God’s timetable, Peter had a lot more ministry ahead of him. Actually, as we read at the end of that chapter, it was almost time for Herod to become worm-food, rather than the Apostle he had thrown in prison.

James’s death...Peter’s rescue...both for the glory of God.

James and Peter were both strong pillars of Christ’s early church. Persecution had driven most of the believers away from the church’s birthplace: Jerusalem. Where Jesus died and was buried and rose again--where the Holy Spirit had descended and thousands had heard the Messiah’s message in their own miraculously given languages. James and Peter both remained where the opposition was hottest. They knew the dangers, the murderous threats. Yet they stayed to teach and encourage the Jerusalem believers.

Herod beheaded James...and because that pleased the Jews, he planned to do the same to Peter. Now the enemies of Christ’s church had the civil government on their side, with the combined might of the Roman empire behind it and them.

James was dead...Peter was next in line...the little church gathered to pray the night before the execution. The little prayer meeting lengthened far into the night...

Then, there came a knock at the door. Keep on praying, brothers and sisters, Rhoda will run and see who it is at this late hour.

Rhoda...who was it?...Who?? Peter??? Rhoda, you’re out of your mind!

But it was Peter. The believers were “astonished.” But God’s timetable always runs “on time.” It was time for James to graduate to glory. Perhaps that was the sacrifice necessary to encourage the church to pray earnestly for Peter’s release? It was time for Peter to be rescued for future ministry. Perhaps to reward the church for its earnest prayer and convince them of its power to move the arm of the Almighty!

Ecclesiastes 3:11 says “He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also, He has put eternity into man’s heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end.”

We can look at the world of life, death, delight and tragedy in two very different ways: Some, like Herod, look at events as only things that he has the power to manipulate and react to with his own limited wisdom. Others, like the tiny Jerusalem church, see events as under the sovereign control of an all-wise, all-powerful God who decrees from all eternity that those events will serve His own glory and His people’s best good.

When those events trouble and provoke us to doubt, isn’t it only because we are failing to take our wise Father’s timetable into account? Eternity is in our hearts. Let’s keep remembering that everything is--or will be--beautiful in its own time.

Because God has made it that way.