A Mediocre Devotional

Richard Sherman.  Does that name ring a bell?  If you’ve been anywhere near a television covering football this week, then it likely does.  He’s the cornerback for Seattle that had the loud and abrasive interview after the game this past Sunday.  As a quick aside, if you said that Richard Sherman was the guy that co-wrote world-famous songs with his brother you’d also be right.  But I’m not talking today about the guy that helped write songs like “It’s a Small World”, “Bare Necessities” from the Jungle Book movie, or “Chim Chim Cher-ee” for Mary Poppins (for which he won an Oscar).  Yes, that WAS Richard Sherman, but today I want to talk about the one that plays football.

Actually, I don’t really.  What I want to talk about today is specifically the reaction to the Richard Sherman that plays football.  At my house we watched The Interview right after the game.  I said, “I bet the league has a talk with him about representing The Shield” (as they call it), and I read a ton of responses worse than that on social media – up to and including kicking him out of football.  As another quick aside, I have no intention in this devotional of condoning his actions.  But I want to just point out a few quick somethings…then challenge us a Christians to ask ourselves honest questions.  And that being said, let’s get started down this twisty road.  First of all, we’re all upset at Richard Sherman and wanting Peyton Manning to throw 6,000 yards against him specifically in a few weeks.  Why?  Because he called himself the best corner and called another guy mediocre.  Jury, your verdict please.  “GUILTY!”  Really, jury?  But all you know of him is a 25-second rant on television.  “We said he was guilty!”  But he was raised in Compton, California and graduated high school with Straight A’s (including Advanced Placement classes).  “still Guilty!”  But he’s a Stanford graduate.  “So what?! Guilty!”  But he has a charity that helps raise money so that under-privileged kids can have school supplies and clothing.  And he volunteered to help the Special Olympics all the way back in high school.  And when charities came to Stanford and asked for volunteers, his teammates remember him as always the first guy to raise his hand to help.  “We said he was guilty!”  But is that a little wavering I hear in your voice?

As Christians, we’re called to forgive.  That includes everyone.  Not just church friends.  Not just ourselves.  But everyone…regardless of what they’ve done.  I used to be the guy that pounded my chest and proudly announced to anyone that could hear me when talking about the electric chair that “I’d be the guy that pulled the switch” with no reservations.  Now, I’m not so sure.  I used to be the guy that would hear stories of death row conversions and think “yeah, of course they believe in Jesus NOW!  They’re about to meet him!”  But I don’t say things like that anymore.  I mean, you hear some stories, and you think “how could God ever forgive that guy?”  Like this one story I read…it’s something that happened long before I was born.  This guy killed some other dude.  Then he buried the body in a hidden grave.  He thought he’d gotten away with it, until he found out that folks around him knew about somehow.  SO…he ran. Ran and hid and never did a single day in jail for it.  In fact, while on the run for that murder…he was still getting into fights.  But then he had himself his own little “death row conversion” of sorts.  Well, forgive me.  I’m paraphrasing, and I’m not telling it exactly right.  If you want the full story exactly as it happened, it’s Exodus 2:11-22.  You know, when Moses killed the taskmaster, then buried his body in the sand.  Then started telling the two Hebrews to quit fighting, and they asked him, “or what, you’ll kill us, too?”  So then he fled, and then got into a fight at a well protecting the daughters of the priest of Midian.  And then?  Oh, only God Himself came to Moses in the burning bush.  And God Himself told Moses what His plans were to use Moses to deliver Israel from slavery.

And what is Moses?  He’s a hero.  We tell our kids about how great a man Moses was!  Murderer.  We tell our kids how great God was to Moses.  Murderer.  We tell our kids about Moses going up the mountain to receive the Ten Commandments. Murderer.  We tell our kids that only one man, Moses, saw God on Mount Sinai and that his face glowed with radiance after looking directly upon God’s glory.  Murderer.  I’m sorry, I don’t mean to keep throwing that one mistake out there.  But why not?  We do it for simple things like guys playing football.  Richard Sherman didn’t curse.  He didn’t make any rude gestures.  He didn’t even pull a Mike Tyson from 2000 and proclaim “I want your heart! I want to eat your children!”  He just called another guy mediocre…albeit in an extremely inappropriate setting and a completely unprofessional manner.  And I suppose that’s where we’ve come as a society.  As a collection of Christians, too, I suppose.  Because a great deal of the vengeful “I hope for bad things on him” reactions were from good, Christian people.  All of those people that help others, and give to their churches, and pray for sick friends and family, and volunteer for local charity work wanted Instant Karma to get Richard Sherman. (and we all shine on…sorry, I couldn’t help it)  Meanwhile, all the other good things he may have done before then don’t seem to matter.  We don’t want forgiveness for something brash and insensitive.  We want Peyton Manning to light him up.  We want Demaryus Thomas or Eric Decker to knock him out in a couple of weeks.

Did anybody pray for him?  Did anybody pray that he let go of that anger?  Did anybody care that, off the field, he’s a prime example of giving back?  Did anybody act like a Christian about it all?  Or did we all pull out the pitchforks and torches and go chasing him down the street like in the old monster movies.  That’s what I did.  I said that the league would likely talk to him, and, while already rooting for Peyton, I hoped that much harder that Denver wins the game (by 300 points) in a couple of weeks.  Then as the next few days came and went, I heard the rest of Richard Sherman’s story.  Then I reflected on some of the stupid…and I mean absolutely, unequivocally STUPID things that I’ve said in my late teens and early twenties.  Well, late twenties, and all through my thirties. Well, and I guess my forties, now that I’m forty.  And I reflected on how I hope that those are not the things that I’m judged on today.  When we hear the name “Moses”, our immediate word association is not “Murderer”.  When I hear electric chair, I no longer say “I want to pull the switch”.  When I hear of stories like Jeffery Dahmer, I don’t think that sarcastic “yeah, I bet he did” type thoughts anymore.  Like the prodigal son coming home, the Father rejoiced.  When we hear of death row conversions, do we rejoice?  Are we the “other brother” when think of seeing murderers in Heaven?  That’s where the rubber meets the road on Christian forgiveness.

We want justice!  We want fairness!  But only for other people.  OUR sins aren’t as bad as those other people’s sins.  But through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, God no longer chooses to remember our sins…or theirs.  He doesn’t look at Moses and think “murderer”.  He sees the man to lead Israel to freedom.  He doesn’t see Saul as the man that killed Christians.  He sees Paul, the man that will sow the seeds for a thousand churches through a handful of epistles.  God doesn’t see us as the one mistake that we won’t let go of, so why is it that that’s how we choose to see others?  Forgiveness is forgiveness.  Jonah sat on a hill beside Nineveh and wished he had died instead of seeing Nineveh forgiven.  The lessons of Jonah and of the prodigal son aren’t just for the Ninevites and the son that left home.  We always spin them that way…repentance, forgiveness, and “come back home” lessons all seem to stem from those.  But I believe that the real lessons are from Jonah and the older brother.  Forgiveness.  Letting go.  Don’t be bitter that they didn’t get their comeuppance.  Rejoice that they found forgiveness from God.  And remember…always remember…and I mean that if you don’t ever listen to another whisper, listen for the whisper that tells you that Jesus plainly told us in Matthew 6:15, that if you don’t forgive others, the Father will not forgive you.  Others.  God didn’t specify which others…just forgive others.

~Dwayne

ListenForTheWhisper@comcast.net

http://listenforthewhisper.blogspot.com

 

 

 

From Parts Unknown

On the front end, let me say that I hope this devotional will help the people that sit around me at church understand that I’m not constantly whipping out my phone to text my friends right in the middle of a sermon or immediately after a prayer.  Sometimes when someone says something in church, my brain will flash this idea for a perfect illustration for a devotional.  When those brief glimpses of insight happen, I have to Notepad it (yes, I just used that as a verb) immediately or it’s lost forever.  That happened yesterday morning at church – and to show exactly how my brain works – Preacherman had just finished reading the 2 Corinthians 5:11-21 passage that has been the focus of our reconciliation lessons.  Specifically, he had just read 2 Corinthians 5:17  Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!  And where did my brain go?  Well, to Memphis Rasslin’, of course.  AND IMMEDIATELY!!  So I whipped out my phone and jotted this note:  “Loser leaves town. Mask. New wrestler. World tries to rip mask off.”  For those that didn’t make that same connection, I’ll elaborate a bit.

Back in the glory days of Memphis Rasslin’, there were these “loser leaves town” matches.  Sometimes the good guy would lose, and then come back the very next week…with a mask and calling himself “the Masked Marshmallow” or whatever.  Despite the fact that he had the same open-heart surgery scar down his chest and the “I love my momma” eagle tattoo hidden in his gross back hair, he claimed to be a NEW wrestler.  With the “loser left town’s” voice, he would pound his chest and claim to NOT be that loser that left town, but a the NEW wrestler come to clean up this town…The Lone Ranger or whatever.  Then the head promoter dude would come out and proclaim that if they could prove that the Masked Menace was really Loser Left Town, then he would be out for good.  So naturally, every wrestler that had a grudge against Loser Left Town would always come running in try to pull off the mask to show who he really was.

Are we tracking yet?  See now why I had the connection?  In Christ we are a new creation!  The old has lost the match and gone, and a new is here!!  But The World doesn’t buy it.  The World doesn’t believe it for one minute.  The World (which, as a personified entity refers to itself in the third person like good bad guy wrestlers do) says, “The World knows that you’re still the loser under that mask!  You’re not some New Creation, so The World is going to pull your mask off of you and expose you to be the fraud you are!”  So you find yourself in the fight of your life trying to keep your mask on.  You struggle against the world and say, “you can’t take off my mask…I’m not the old guy, I’m a new guy!”  But The World calls in its cronies from the back, and The World and its group of henchmen gang up on you.  You’re getting beaten down right in the middle of the ring in front of the whole crowd.  You keep wondering if help is going to come running out to save you – but you’re overwhelmed by the hoards of bad guys kicking you down and pulling at your mask and can’t get a breath to call for help.  Finally, when you’ve fought all you can fight, The World knocks you out…and then finally thinking it’s won, grabs your mask and pulls it off!  The World has pulled off the New Mask of the New Creation.  And the whole arena will see who you really are.

Listen for the Whisper that tells you that it’s not a mask.  It’s a cute story, and a fun little illustration about how we feel sometimes with The World beating on us, attacking us, and trying to question our new identity.  Where the illustration falls apart, though, is that in the story (and in our minds), we’re alone and trying to save our mask, and nobody ever comes running from the back to save us.  But in reality, the fight was won before we ever picked up the mask.  Jesus Christ was slain on Calvary and conquered the world and all the evil in it long before you put on the mask.  The World and all his henchmen don’t stand a chance and never did.  Which brings us to the other flaw in the illustration…true Christianity is not a mask.  When we enter the ring as The New Creation, we really ARE a New Creation!  “Go ahead, The World, pull this mask off…because like in the old Scooby Doo cartoons, sometimes it’s not a mask.”  The World can pull and pull at you for all its worth.  It’ll never get the mask off, because there’s no mask to pull off.  You’re not the Masked Christian. That other loser really left town.  You are the New Creation!  Can I get an Amen?

~Dwayne

ListenForTheWhisper@comcast.net
http://listenforthewhisper.blogspot.com

Operator, Can You Help Me Place This Call?

Andrea and I have a group of friends.  Very good friends, actually.  In the essence of full disclosure (with no offense intended to any church people we know), they are, in fact, some of the very best friends we have.  Each and every one of them was born and raised entire states away from us.  Some of them across the country, even.  We met them through our Tim McGraw concert outings.  What started as basically general acquaintanceships, has turned into deep, honest loving friendships. We only get to see them about twice a year (and that’s on a good year), but through the magic of internet communications and texts and emails, we talk to them almost every day.  And they’re good Christian folks…and it’s truly a “sometimes we laugh together, and sometimes we cry” group of friends like we sing about in the old church hymn “God’s family”. 

So why did I tell you that?  Because we have other really good friends that we take for granted that they’re so close.  They’re not better friends or closer friends – other than the general location sense of being closer.  But since they’re closer, we don’t take the effort we should to stay in touch like we do with our “Tim Friends”.  And when we finally bump into them it’s always the same old stuff…you know the words, because I’ve said some of them to the very people reading this…”Boy, I haven’t talked to you in so long!  We’ve been busy, and dad’s been sick, and homework and big projects and work” – and it’s all the typical reasons we give for why we’ve not made the effort to pick up the phone and call.  And we say things like, “we should get together and go eat during the Christmas break when everyone’s off.”  But we don’t.  But we make plans months in advance for the out-of-state friends.  We schedule weekends specifically to meet them.  But won’t take 10 minutes to call the ones across town on a Friday to meet up.  Not sure why that is…but then we run into them at the store again, and it’s the typical “Boy, I haven’t talked to you in so long!  We’ve been busy, and dad’s been sick, and homework and big projects and work” excuses again.

And those are the exact same excuses we give for not talking to God.

When those are the VERY reasons we should be talking to Him more.  We ought to take more time for our friends, and we ought to make more time for God.  I’ll be honest. I’m not the best giver when it comes to the collection plate.  That’s not to say I’m not generous when it comes to giving when it needs giving, but my general weekly giving…it needs work.  But here’s the thing.  (And it’s principle proven by games like Candy Crush.)  We’ll throw tons of money at a game to keep from waiting 30 minutes.  And why is that?  Because there’s no little joint on the corner called “Time in Flash” – or some rhyming version to make a better analogy to the Cash place.  You can’t offer anything as collateral to bargain more time.  Father Time is undefeated as they do say.  SO while money may be worth a lot, and we may work hard for it, your time is more valuable.  You might give God 50% of all the money you make, but how much of your time do you give Him?  Even if it’s just to talk to Him?

 Is God worth more to you than 10 minutes of sleep?  Is God worth more to you than 30 minutes of a lunch hour?  Is God worth more to you than a reality TV show?  Or even an obnoxious commercial during the goofy reality show?  Well, of course He is!!  So why can’t you spare that time to talk to Him?  Get up 10 minutes early…or step out for 30 minutes of your lunch hour – you know, give up talking to Steve in accounting for 30 minutes to talk to your Creator.  I’m sure Steve’s got juicy gossip, but how about a little Thank You For Being There For Me chat with God?  How many times have you given up an episode of Honey YooHoo to spend that time praying?  Or when Chuck Woolery says he’ll be back in “two and two”, have you ever muted the TV and spent that two minutes and two seconds asking for forgiveness for your shortcomings – or just telling God “Hi, it’s been a good day”?

 Oh, I’m sorry, I forgot you were standing there.  Sorta got lost talking to myself.  Although I refuse to ever watch Honey YooHoo…but the shows I watch are just as important.  Maybe say a little prayer during the Duck Dynasty commercials…or pray by yourself when Phil prays at the end of the show.  If you really stop and think about it, there are a hundred different times during the day that you could use to talk to God.  Stopped in traffic.  Sleeping through a boring update meeting at work.  Standing in line at the store…instead of griping about the line, take that time to thank God for allowing you to be alive to talk to Him one more time.  Maybe when you’re on hold on the phone for the doctor’s office, say a little prayer for health…or thank Him for the doctors.  Or when you’re standing there pushing that elevator button over and over again…you pushed it once, it’s coming (but that’s a different devotional)…but instead of hitting the “Going Up” button a hundred times, stop and say a little prayer.  It doesn’t have to be a bowed head, hands folded deal.  There are a lot of prayer positions described in the Bible.  Just clear your mind, take a deep breath, and talk to God for a minute or two.

 Time:  Our most valuable asset.  And the one we waste the most.  God’s told us that our days were numbered before we were born.  We know that and quote that to other people, then we squander it anyway.  When Job’s tests were all over…after the loss of riches and family and health and all that he had lost, God blessed him double what he had before.  But through it all, there’s one thing that Job didn’t get back.  Listen for the Whisper that reminds you that Job didn’t get that time back.  So the time you’ve wasted complaining when you could have been praying is time you’ll not ever see again.  When you pray, you have a chance to talk to the Maker of the Heavens and the Earth.  How awesome is that?  Why would we want to spend our time doing anything else?  So the next time you’re stuck in traffic, or sitting at a restaurant waiting on your food, or taking a day off and waiting for the cable dude to be at your place sometime between Monday at 8:00AM and next March, take that time to do something amazing.  Take the time…no, make the time…to talk to God.  Once you get into the habit of filling in the gaps of your day with little chats, you’ll want to start purposely setting aside larger parts of your day for deeper conversations.  Jesus Christ WAS God, but while He was on Earth He took the time to talk to the Father in Heaven.  So why shouldn’t we?  Like the old hymn says, “Take time to be holy.  Speak oft with the Lord.”

 
~Dwayne
ListenForTheWhisper@comcast.net
http://listenforthewhisper.blogspot.com

 

January Prayer Theme

We're starting a new prayer ministry at church this month.  Each month will have a focus for prayer for the month.  I'm writing them out (with input from the other members of the team), and I decided to add them here to the Listen For The Whisper devotional page.  I hope it helps you when you pray.

The New Year:  A time for new beginnings.  It is a time to pray for reconciliation, forgiveness and renewal.

Holy God, as we start this new year dedicated to You, we pray that You will help us to offer each other the same forgiveness and reconciliation that You have offered to us.

Our identity is found in Jesus Christ who has given us the ministry of reconciliation (2 Cor. 5:18-19), and called us to selflessly love others (John 13:13-14).

We realize that we cannot be fully holy in Your presence to stand before You if we hold grudges (Matthew 5:23), and that You have called us to love one another and to forgive the shortcomings of others (Eph. 4:2-3)

The first obligation in our faith, our first ministry outreach is to our families (2 Chronicles 20:13), and that our calling to love and forgive begins there (Proverbs 15:20).  Like the lesson of reconciliation Joseph witnessed as his father and uncle met again (Genesis 33:1-4) was reborn in the reconciliation of brothers in Egypt (Genesis 45), we are teaching and witnessing to our children as we forgive the ones who have wronged us.

If God the Creator is able to forget the sins I’ve committed against Him and remember them no more, then I need to be able to forget what others have done to me (Hebrews 8:12).  The phrase “forgive and forget” does not appear in the Bible, but true forgiveness is found only when the wrong is not the first memory we have of someone.

Help us, God, to understand that our neighbors are not just those who live beside us (Luke 10:29-37).  All of humanity are God’s children and worthy of His love and forgiveness (Jonah 3:10-4:3, 4:11).  Being a follower of Christ means that we must love our enemies just as we love those who love us (Matt 5:43-48), whether our enemies are people from high school or rulers of foreign lands who hate us for our beliefs.

Our Salvation came at a price.  The price paid was the sacrifice of Jesus Christ dying on a cross.  As Stephen was being stoned, his last words were a prayer of forgiveness (Acts 7:60).  As my sins held Jesus on that cross, some of His last words were prayers of forgiveness (Acts 23:34).    As He forgave us, so we must forgive others (Colossians 3:12-13).  Forgiveness of others is not a suggestion or recommendation, it’s a requirement. (Matt 6:14-15)

Lastly, Loving Father, we pray that as the calendar turns from 2013 to 2014, that we will turn a page as well.  We pray that our change will be as dramatic as when You created light in the darkness.  We ask that you forgive our stubbornness and selfishness, and we pray that You help us start over.  May our Christian headstones clearly be marked with 2013 as the year we died to ourselves, and 2014 when were raised to live in Christ (Romans 6:11-14).

And we ask this and all else in Jesus’ name,

Amen

Like a Candle in the Wind

I was going to start this devotional with a reference to the prop comic Carrot Top, but didn’t want make people mad that I had compared God to Carrot Top.  So instead of saying that God is the original Prop Comic, let’s say that He knows we’re a little dense sometimes and relies on visual aids to keep our limited attention.  In Numbers 21 He used bronze snakes on sticks to cure snake bites.  In Exodus 20 He used tablets of stone to represent the unbendable rules of Old Testament Law.  In Numbers 15 God commanded blue tassels on the corners of the prayer shawl to remind them of the Laws of God.  In 1 Samuel 7 Samuel put a rock between Mizpah and Shen to remind them where the Lord helped them.  In Joshua 4 they placed stones in the Jordan as a reminder where the river stopped flowing as the Ark of the Covenant passed across.  At the Passover feast with Jesus in the upper room, He takes the unleavened bread and the wine and says “This is my broken body,” and “this is my blood.”  Throughout the Bible, God has told His people, “Here are things that you will do to remind yourselves that I am God.  Here are things the world will see to know that I am God.”  And now all these years later, God still uses visual aids.  No, I don’t just mean the rainbow to remember His promise to never again destroy the world by flood.  I mean YOU!  And no, I don’t just mean the baptism of water that symbolizes the death and burial of your old self, and the rising from the grave of the new creation that lives for a new calling and purpose (although that is a good one).

I mean that he uses you living your life.  Like in Philippians 2:14 when the Bible says that we are to do everything without grumbling or complaining.  But why are we to do everything without grumbling or complaining?  The answer is in verses 15 and 16.  So that “you will shine among them like stars in the sky as you hold firmly to the word of life.”  Just like Jesus said in Matthew 5…after He’s just given the list of beatitudes of how we’re supposed to behave, treat people, carry ourselves, and live our life… ¹⁴ “You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden. ¹⁵ Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. ¹⁶ In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.”  Wait, what?  So I’m a visual aid for God?  Well, yeah, I’m supposed to be.  I’m sorry if I’ve let you down from time to time.  I’ll forgive you if you’ll forgive me.  We’re supposed to be different from the world around us – for the explicit purpose of being noticed as standing out different from the world around us in order to bring glory to God.  Are you being noticed by those around you?  Are your actions always pointing out that you’re different from the world and in doing so bringing glory to God?  Let me ask you this (as non-accusatorily as I can):  Are you doing anything at all to bring glory to God?  Colossians 3:17 “And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.”

Do you do all that you do in the name of the Lord Jesus?  When you’re with your friends, do you pray?  When you’re with your church friends, do you pray?  When you’re with your friends, do you stand out as different from the world so that they notice your commitment to Jesus Christ?  Or do you conveniently (and silently) just play the Grace Card and count on God forgiving you when you deny Him with your actions in front of other people?  Do you tell dirty jokes in the name of the Lord Jesus?  Do you cuss like a sailor in the name of the Lord Jesus?  Do you do your drinking in the name of the Lord Jesus or maybe hope that people notice that your difference is only having 3 beers while they’re staggering around you? 

Take up your cross and follow Him.  When you accepted Jesus as Master, you accepted Him as Master.  Or else you didn’t.  That’s what it boils down to.  You either decided to let your light shine for Christ so that when you’re in the world you shine among them like stars in the sky as you hold firmly to the word of life.  Or you didn’t…and you still shine your light on you and whatever it is that you want to do.  Are you embarrassed of living for a new purpose in front of other people?  Do you take Matthew 10:32 “Whosoever therefore shall confess Me before men, him will I confess also before My Father who is in Heaven.” to mean “only the people at church when I went down front and gave my confession” – or do you believe that Jesus meant “all of mankind throughout the world”?  Are you afraid that people will mock you if you decided to live a life of Love, Joy, Peace, Patience, Kindness, Goodness, Faithfulness, Gentleness, and Self-Control?  Or is that just too hard to worry with doing?  Or is it just too much fun to blend in with the world and tease others and make snide comments.  Or instead of actually trying to make a difference in this world, would you just rather sit on the sidelines and make jokes about people you were called to love?

Listen to the Whisper that asks you “What are you doing to show the world that He is God?”  And if your answer is anything other than “with everything I do I’m trying to do it so that I can show the world that He is God,” then I’m sorry but it’s not enough.  I’m the first to admit that I fall short frequently…a lot…ok, honestly it’s most of the time.  And I’ll never be a good enough person to earn the Salvation that I accepted from Christ.  But when I lay my cards all out on the table to see what I’m holding in my hand, it shows that I’ve been holding on to a couple of jokers that I should have discarded a long time ago.  Temper and Tongue have been my trip-ups for a long time.  “But it’s hard to break the habit,” I say.  “I’ve been doing it for so long, it’s just who I am,” I say.  “I just get so frustrated by people that waste my time,” I say.  “I love Jesus with all my heart and believe that He is the Son of God,” I say.  Wait, What?  One of those things doesn’t belong with the others.  And saying one of them means that I need to stop saying the others. 

Which is harder, to stop losing my temper with people or to walk to a hill with a cross on my back…carrying the load until I can’t carry the cross any farther and someone carries it for me…because after I’ve carried the cross of my temper and my tongue until I couldn’t carry it any farther, Jesus carried those for me.  The same way that Simon of Cyrene carried Jesus’ cross when (after being beaten) he no longer had the strength to carry it Himself.  And then Jesus was hung on that cross…with my temper, my tongue, and my whole sinful self…and He died for all of it.  He was nailed to a cross, died a criminal’s death, and did it for me.  And I can’t stop doing the worldly things I do for Him?  He wasn’t lifted up shining like a city on a hill…He was lifted up and hung on a cross between two thieves.  And He did that for me…and you.  And we live in a world today, proclaiming to love Jesus yet we can’t say “no thanks, I don’t drink” or “God has forgiven me, so I forgive you – and will continue to forgive as many times as you offend me” or (the one I struggle with most) “I will not belittle and insult them, because God has been patient with me even as I’ve tried His patience time and time again.”

You want to be different?  Stand quietly in line at the store.  Don’t grumble and complain.  Ephesians 4:29 says “Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen.”  Does retelling the dirty joke you heard on the radio lift up others?  Does it set you apart from the world?  Is it a joke you’d tell to Jesus?  Live your life like Jesus has called you to live it.  Live your life the way you know God expects you to live it.  Live your life as a bold proclamation to everyone around you that God is King above all, and you serve Him and Him alone.  Live your life showing that you will not be corrupted by this world and coerced to blend in.  Live your life like a city built on a hill and shine your light for all to see…then people will notice that you are different.  And then you’ll shine among them like stars in the sky.  And when you boldly shine your light, it will shine on others and help show them the path to Life.  And God will look at you and say, “There’s my Bronze Snake, my stone tablets, my blue tassel…there’s the reminder for the world that I am God.”

~Dwayne

ListenForTheWhisper@comcast.net
http://listenforthewhisper.blogspot.com

Bible Bibliography

Let’s look at some totally disconnected (but are they really?) Old Testament verses, shall we?

Deuteronomy 32:6 “Do you thus repay the Lord, O foolish and unwise people? Is not He your Father who has bought you? He has made you and established you.”

Ezekiel 36:23 “I will vindicate the holiness of My great name which has been profaned among the nations, which you have profaned in their midst. Then the nations will know that I am the Lord,” declares the Lord God, “when I prove Myself holy among you in their sight.”  And Isaiah 6:2,3 “² Seraphim stood above Him, each having six wings: with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. ³ And one called out to another and said, “Holy, Holy, Holy, is the Lord of hosts, The whole earth is full of His glory.”

Micah 4:8 “As for you, watchtower of the flock, stronghold of Daughter Zion, the former dominion will be restored to you;” And Exodus 19:6 ”’…and you shall be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.’ These are the words that you shall speak to the sons of Israel.”

Ezra 10:11 “Now therefore, make confession to the Lord God of your fathers and do His will; and separate yourselves from the peoples of the land and from the foreign wives.” And Psalm 40:18 “I delight to do Your will, O my God; Your Law is within my heart.”

Proverbs 30:8 “Keep deception and lies far from me, Give me neither poverty nor riches; Feed me with the food that is my portion,” and Exodus 16:4 Then the Lord said to Moses, “Behold, I will rain bread from heaven for you; and the people shall go out and gather a day’s portion every day, that I may test them, whether or not they will walk in My instruction.”

Numbers 14:19 “Pardon, I pray, the iniquity of this people according to the greatness of Your loving kindness, just as You also have forgiven this people, from Egypt even until now” and Jonah 4:11 “Should I not have compassion on Nineveh, the great city in which there are more than 120,000 persons who do not know the difference between their right and left hand, as well as many animals?”

Psalm 97:10 “Hate evil, you who love the Lord, Who preserves the souls of His godly ones; He delivers them from the hand of the wicked” and Amos 5:15 “Hate evil, love good, And establish justice in the gate!  Perhaps the Lord God of hosts may be gracious to the remnant of Joseph.”

And that should be enough…but for good measure and a shot of tradition, let’s add:

Psalm 24:1 “The earth is the Lord’s, and all it contains, The world, and those who dwell in it.”

Psalm 62:11 “Once God has spoken; Twice I have heard this: That power belongs to God”
And one last Psalm reference
Psalm 19:1 “The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands”

Wow, those all seem pretty significant.  Those few verses tell us that God is our Father, and that He is holy.  That the nations of the world will be restored to God, and that His Will should be done.   They tell us that we should not be greedy and ask only for what we truly need (not what we truly want).  They tell us that we should ask God to forgive us just as He has forgiven others from the time they were taken out of Egypt…with the logical conclusion that if HE can forgive Nineveh, that maybe we should forgive our personal Ninevehs.  And that we should hate evil and rely on God to lead us.  And just for tradition let’s add that His is the kingdom, the power and the glory.  Amen.  Because in the end, when is it bad to praise God a little more?

Listen for the Whisper that tells you that when Jesus speaks, it’s with scriptural authority.  Just like my earlier devotional about Jesus’ quoting of King David as he died on the cross, this devotional proves that when Jesus speaks, He speaks with unequivocal knowledge of the Word of God.  By now, you realize that the verses above are just a few references from the Old Testament for what we call “The Lord’s Prayer” from Matthew 6:9-13.  And while we’ve found in older manuscripts that the last part was added to the original text, it’s not a bad ending to throw on there…even if it’s just tradition.  Sometimes you need to just get out of the way and let the Jesus speak for Himself.

Pray, then, in this way:

‘Our Father who is in heaven, Hallowed be Your name.
¹⁰ ‘Your kingdom come. Your will be done, On earth as it is in heaven.
¹¹ ‘Give us this day our daily bread.
¹² ‘And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.
¹³ ‘And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from evil. [For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.]

Yup…Amen.

~Dwayne

ListenForTheWhisper@comcast.net
http://listenforthewhisper.blogspot.com

F-R-E-E That Spells Free

In the first Madagascar movie, we meet Alex the Lion, Marty the Zebra, Gloria the Hippo, and Melman the giraffe.  (There’re some crazy penguins and later on some even weirder lemurs, but I’m ignoring them for the purposes of this devotional.)  But when we meet the main characters, they’re in the zoo happy, content, being fed, and hanging out with their friends.  Through the course of the movie, they ended up in (you guessed it) Madagascar.  And there’s where we run across the strange lemurs, and with them the unfamiliar surroundings.  They’re scared, and they want to go back home.  They have some self-realization along the way, but overall the theme is getting back to the zoo, back to comfort…back to home. 

In the second movie they end up in Africa (while trying to get back to the zoo) and have a fun adventure in Africa.  They all see where they came from originally and have a little more self-discovery, but they still really just want to get back to New York City…to the zoo where they know what to expect, back to comfort.  It’s the same theme in the third movie, of course.  They go all over Europe with a circus, put on a circus wig, sing a goofy “circus afro” song, and in the end, finally make it back to the zoo…only to find that they really weren’t happy there at all.  They were captives.  They didn’t know freedom.  Sure, there was comfort, and they knew what would happen every day – but they weren’t really free.  It’s what Marty the Zebra wanted in the very first movie…freedom.  By the time they’ve finally made it back to the zoo three movies later, they’ve all known real freedom.  When they finally get back to the familiar, they discover that are eager to break away from that bondage and live in the freedom that they’ve truly lived over the course of their adventures…

Now we’ll jump from Madagascar to the Gospel of John.  Chapter 8 to be specific: 31 To the Jews who had believed him, Jesus said, “If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. 32 Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” 33 They answered him, “We are Abraham’s descendants and have never been slaves of anyone. How can you say that we shall be set free?” 34 Jesus replied, “Very truly I tell you, everyone who sins is a slave to sin. 35 Now a slave has no permanent place in the family, but a son belongs to it forever. 36 So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.

Free indeed?  Ooh, I like that.  And then again in Galatians 5:1 and 13-14: 1 It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery. 13 You, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the sinful nature; rather, serve one another humbly in love. 14 For the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command: "Love your neighbor as yourself."

So, basically, to me it sounds we’re like the dumb, ol’ animals in Madagascar – on a side note, I think that I would be the witty zebra.  We start off with the sinful nature given to us by Adam…and we think that since we’re doing what we want to do however we want to do it, then we must be free.  Then we hear the message of the Gospel, and we decide to follow Jesus.  But then we start hearing that nagging little devil on our shoulder…and that guy is going to town telling you, “just look at all these RULES!  Boy, this Jesus stuff is cramping your style…I mean, look at all these ‘thou shall nots’ and remember how fun it was back when we shalled?”  And you start thinking that maybe that little guy is right.  Because that life of sin is what was comfortable…it’s what we knew…it’s where our friends are.  And now they’re all going to say we’ve changed, and we’re no fun.  And if I go to church, then those people at church will all judge me for the person I used to be, and the stuff I did.  And yeah, maybe that little devil guy has a point about all these rules.  I mean, I like to covet…being jealous over someone else’s things makes me happy, right? (that was sarcasm)  And I like talking about people behind their backs – or on Facebook.  (not so much sarcasm in that one) So maybe I should leave this foreign land of Christianity and go back to where I was when Jesus found me.

Don’t go back.  Find the true freedom that can be found in Christ.  I mean, c’mon, did you really find yourself happy being jealous over someone’s things.  Or hating someone for 25 years over something that never really mattered?  Is that where you found your happiness?  Was that joy?  No, that wasn’t joy – and you weren’t really free.  No more than the animals in a zoo are free.  They’re alive, but there’s no purpose.  Even in the really fancy zoos, they fix up the cages so that they look really nice – but it’s still in a cage.  It’s an illusion of freedom designed to keep them happy while they’re locked in a box.

But to be free…to be really free…To borrow a line from an old song, “Where all is peace and joy and love” is something we should strive for.  The freedom from hating others.  The freedom from worrying about tomorrow.  The freedom from eternal destruction.  And somewhere Mel Gibson’s William Wallace is screaming FREEEEEDOMMMM!!!  Because it’s really the same speech he gave to his men in the movie.  You may live a long life, but someday dying in your bed, reflecting on your life, you can decide if you were really free.  Or did a ruthless king dictate your every move?  Was your whole life a game of deception trying to hide secrets from your wife, or your work, or the tax man?  Was your whole life a shell game where the truth was hidden under a coconut shell, and you kept slipping the truth around so your wife never discovered your lies?  A shell game so the boss never put two and two together and realized where the money went?  Do you want to spend your entire life in a neatly decorated cage…so that you think you’re free, but basically still just locked in a box?

Or do you want to live free?  The freedom of giving it all to God and saying, “You are the Good Shepherd, and I shall not want.  I trust you to lead me, and to carry me through the storms.”  Because those “rules” that the little devil on your shoulder complains about – are easy rules.  Don’t murder?  Don’t Steal?  Don’t Commit Adultery?  Those are easy – so why do we act like they’re not?  Oh yeah…because there’s always that first one.  “No Other Gods Before Me”…that one always trips us up.  Money, Sports, Women, Ourselves – lots of other gods try to sit where God should be.  And it blocks our freedom because those other gods cause us to have to break all the other rules.  And if we’d just let God be God, and do our role of following Him, then the rules, aren’t really even rules anymore.  To borrow another movie line, They’re more like guidelines than actual rules.  Because we never really have to deal with them if we’re following the right Master.  1 Peter 2:16 says Live as free people, but do not use your freedom as a cover-up for evil; live as God’s slaves.

So Listen for the Whisper that tells you not to chase the freedom you thought you used to have.  That sort of freedom is like a fancy zoo designed to give the illusion of freedom…leading to an empty and pointless existence.  I heard a line in a movie recently, “that’s not living, that’s just not dying.”  Live for the true Freedom given through Jesus Christ.  The Freedom that a parent offers to a child…the freedom to explore, and live happy, and share your joy with others…the freedom where you know the rules, but since you know how to handle freedom, the rules are a moot point.  And more than that, make sure you use your freedom the way the abolitionists used theirs in the late 1800’s.  Use your freedom to help others achieve their own freedom.  If it’s an encouragement they need, then give it.  If it’s a guiding light to help them back to the path, then give it.  If it’s an underground railroad to help someone that’s stuck in slavery to sin to find their way to your freedom, then give them that path.  Reach out your hand…the way Jesus stretched out His…and offer freedom to someone.  Tell them that the water is fine, come on in.  And be sure to help them when they struggle with their freedom. 

It’s like the Stephen King Novella Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption where the character Red has trouble adapting to life outside of his own cage.  Many will truly struggle with the concept of freedom.  Like the animals in Madagascar, they will seemingly always wish they were back where they were – because it’s simpler, and they remember the happiness of familiarity there.  Use the freedom you’ve been given to help someone appreciate their freedom, and help them to understand the freedom they have.  Paul was absolutely right in Galatians, For the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command: "Love your neighbor as yourself."  The trouble comes when we try to mix the freedom we’re given with our old slave mentality.  God’s not going to tell you what to do.  He’s going to tell you what He expects from you, and trust you to be able to handle it.  And if you see someone unsure of how to handle their freedom and do nothing to help them, then you’re not doing a very good job of handling yours.  For the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command: "Love your neighbor as yourself."  Janis Joplin said it this way: “Freedom’s just another word for ‘nothing left to lose’” – and if you’ve given every part of your life to God, you have nothing left to lose.  Trust Him fully and know true freedom.

~Dwayne

ListenForTheWhisper@comcast.net

http://listenforthewhisper.blogspot.com

Mister October

I have to say that as far as Octobers go, this one shapes up to be a good one for me.  Despite a mild depression over having turned 40 in September, I have a lot to look forward to this October.  We have a trip to Branson planned.  We’re going to see a Beatles tribute band on Halloween.  My wife’s paternal grandmother will be celebrating her 90^th birthday…which by the way is more than double 40 so “Yay, Mammaw” for making me feel young!  And not least of which is the baseball playoffs.  Being a Braves fan, October has provided me with something to look forward to since the early 90’s.  Being a Cardinals fan as well, it’s given me something ELSE to look forward to, just in case.  The St. Louis fan in me seems to be rewarded with World Series trophies more often than the Atlanta is, but what can you do?  And usually by October the football season is shaping up, and I have a good feel on how the Razorbacks and Red Wolves will be doing.  And based on the play of Minnesota and New Orleans and the other teams in their divisions, I can usually get a feel by October whether there’s going to be any vested interest in the football playoffs come December and January.  And again, here lately, the New Orleans fan in me seems to be getting the better part of that deal.  The Vikings fan in me seems to be continually screaming, “My kingdom for a quarterback!”

The college football fan in me never has any conflict.  Arkansas State never plays the University of Arkansas, so every Saturday I can openly root for both to win.  That’s not always the case in pro football or the baseball playoffs, though.  And those are the times that duplicitous part of me that claims to love the Atlanta Braves AND the St. Louis Cardinals has to pick a side.  Same for the lying part of me that says I love the Minnesota Vikings AND the New Orleans Saints.  Especially THIS year as St. Louis and Atlanta came down to the wire over home field advantage throughout the playoffs.  I’m happy for St. Louis, but being honest with myself…I was REALLY pulling for Atlanta.  Of course, as I go back and proofread this devotional to get it ready to go out, they’re both down 2 games to 1 in their different series and on the brink of elimination, and neither may make it to the next round – so there’s a “chickens before they hatch” devotional in there somewhere.  But when the rare instance comes up that Minnesota plays New Orleans…it’s the one game a year that I really hope New Orleans takes a loss.  Regular season or playoffs doesn’t matter…when it gets down to brass tacks (whatever the entomology of that phrase…I’ll google it at some point), I’ll always pick Atlanta and Minnesota as my favorites.

And surely you’ve figured out the point by now…Matthew 6:24 and Luke 16:13, of course.  No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other.  That is to say, at some point you will find something on God’s throne in your heart…something…anything that’s NOT God.  The typical translation of the end of both verses reads “You cannot serve both God and money.”  But in truth, it’s not just money.  The original greek word is “μαμωνᾶς” – which usually gets transliterated mammon…with the usual translation of “worldly wealth”.  But it’s actually the comprehensive word used for every kind of valuable or material good.  It’s not wealth as a collective unit like we usually think of wealth.  It’s anything.  So where this usually gets looked at from a God vs Money or God vs Your Collection of Stuff, that’s not really accurate either.  It’s a simple matter of You cannot serve both God and anything you have that’s NOT God.

For Abraham, his mammon was Isaac.  For the Israelites it was a golden calf.  At one point for David, it was Bathsheba.  For Solomon in his later life, his mammon became women.  For me (among other things), it’s the gluttony of not knowing when to say “enough” when I’m eating.  It’s a struggle to turn away from the mammon.  It burrows in like a tick in a dog’s ear.  So I’m not saying it’s easy to get your mammon evicted from God’s throne, I’m just saying it’s an absolute necessity.  Exodus 20:4,5 is where God is laying down the Law for Moses in the form of the Ten Commandments…”The Decalogue” if you like to use fancy words (like using Pentateuch for the first five books of the Old Testament or duplicitous like I did earlier).  But either way, that’s where God tells Moses that He is a jealous God, and that man should not bow to anything – regardless of what it looks like.  Whether it looks like something in the Heavens, or something on the Earth, or something in the water.  (And as a side note, I find it ironic that we make golden crosses and plaster the “Jesus fish” on just about everything.  Not judging, just observing.)  But whether it looks like a new car, a football team, a spouse, a child…even if your mammon looks just like you, it doesn’t matter.  And there’s nothing wrong with any of those things in and of themselves.  They’re only wrong if instead of keeping the car in the garage or the football team on the field, you start putting them in God’s seat…and refuse to ever let Him take it back.

So as the sports-filled month of October gets geared up, and your team plays their team…or maybe your team plays your other team, Listen for the Whisper that tells you that God should always be your favorite team.  Whenever God competes with whatever other team you root for – gluttony, pride, vanity, deceitfulness, dishonesty, rudeness, vulgarity, complacency, or whatever yours is – that when comes down to it, God needs to be to us what the Atlanta Braves are for me in baseball and the Minnesota Vikings are for me in football.  Regardless of who God is competing against, we need to hope He wins.  It’s His throne, and we like to let all sorts of other things sit in it.  But none of them belong.  Like Goldilocks trespassing in the home of the three bears, the throne isn’t made for those for other things…and they’ll find the throne too hot or too cold, or too hard or too soft.  But for God, His throne is just right.  It’s His throne, and He alone belongs on it.  As humans, we’ll always be tempted from time to time to place something else where God is supposed to be in our lives.  But we can’t serve two masters…God knew that about us way back when He was giving us the Ten Commandments, and even farther back when Abraham decided that maybe Isaac belonged on God’s throne in his heart - and God knows it about us today.  So the question really boils down to this – can you support the coupe that wants the rightful King on the throne, or are you content to be complacent and support whatever “king” happens to be sitting in God’s throne in your life at the moment?  God’s told us that He’s a jealous God.  Are you willing to test that over a football team or a new car?  Or can you accept that God alone will sit on His throne, and let your only complacency come from being content to bow before God’s throne?

~Dwayne

ListenForTheWhisper@comcast.net
http://listenforthewhisper.blogspot.com