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They Ask, but Do They Want the Answer…..????
Devotional/Discussion thought of the Day::
25 In those days Israel had no king; all the people did whatever seemed right in their own eyes. Judges 21:25 (NLT)
14 Then we will no longer be immature like children. We won’t be tossed and blown about by every wind of new teaching. We will not be influenced when people try to trick us with lies so clever they sound like the truth. 15 Instead, we will speak the truth in love, growing in every way more and more like Christ, who is the head of his body, the church. Ephesians 4:14-15 (NLT)
8 Serenity. Why lose your temper if by losing it you offend God, you trouble your neighbor, you give yourself a bad time … and in the end you have to set things aright, anyway?
Several times in the last week, people have asked for my professional opinion on things, or asked on behalf of a friend or family member.
Because they ask based on my “profession” my answer is bound to scripture, I can only speak where it is clear. I can’t deny scripture, but I also don’t have the authority to speak where scripture is silent. I can’t guarantee something or give permission for something, and pretend that I have the authority of God behind me. Why? The same for every pastor and priest. We don’t have the authority on our own.
We can offer comfort, correction, advise, but even that is to be in line with God’s word. with what He has revealed to us. If people want me to speculate, I suppose I could, but I have to know they will hear it that way. The very way the question is asked, leads me to believe it won’t happen.
We all oftne want to play God, or as I said Sunday, put on our Father in Heaven’s shoes. We want to do what we want, to believe what seems right in our own eyes. We want God’s comfort, but not His correction. We want His presence, but only if He can live with our standards, our expectations, our definitions of what is right and moral, and what is true.
Enter the pastor, the priest, and every other minister of the Christ. They who are tasked with speaking for HIm, pointing people to His peace, the peace that is tied to His mercy, forgiveness, compassion and the transformation that occurs in His presence. You want to know God is with you as you deal with trauma, even the trauma of the valley of the shadow of death? That we can do, we can point ot the cross. You want to know that God will wipe away every tear, we’re there, showing you the passage in Revelation. You want to know God will help you with temptation, and forgive you and pick you up, cleanse and heal you when you fail? No problem. That’s what we do. That is what we are called to do, to give you real hope in real situations, To point you not to some false comfort, but the God who is present. To give you hope along with the comfort, but hope that is based in God’s word, not our speculation. We will try to do it with all the care we have, even though that sometimes means we have to be blunt.
For us, we embrace the challenge of being there through your stages of grief, the stages of coping with any change. Anger, Denial, Bargaining, Depression, Acceptance. We’ll be there ( or we will try) pointing to the reason we have hope, the reasons we know God will keep His promises. The incredible ones that scripture speaks of, guaranteeing Even when you walk away, ticked off at us, we’ll still try to be there… ready with the words, “the Lord is with you!” and ready to help you pray, “Lord, have mercy on me.” knowing He has promised to be.
There is your answer, the one that lasts for an eternity…
Escriva, Josemaria (2010-11-02). The Way (Kindle Locations 182-183). Scepter Publishers. Kindle Edition.
Christianity and Lessons from the Blacklist!
Devotioal Thought of the Day:
15 I do not understand what I do; for I don’t do what I would like to do, but instead I do what I hate. 16 Since what I do is what I don’t want to do, this shows that I agree that the Law is right. 17 So I am not really the one who does this thing; rather it is the sin that lives in me. 18 I know that good does not live in me—that is, in my human nature. For even though the desire to do good is in me, I am not able to do it. 19 I don’t do the good I want to do; instead, I do the evil that I do not want to do. 20 If I do what I don’t want to do, this means that I am no longer the one who does it; instead, it is the sin that lives in me. 21 So I find that this law is at work: when I want to do what is good, what is evil is the only choice I have. 22 My inner being delights in the law of God. 23 But I see a different law at work in my body—a law that fights against the law which my mind approves of. It makes me a prisoner to the law of sin which is at work in my body. 24 What an unhappy man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is taking me to death? 25 Thanks be to God, who does this through our Lord Jesus Christ! This, then, is my condition: on my own I can serve God’s law only with my mind, while my human nature serves the law of sin. Romans 7:15-25 (TEV)
Liz: You’re a monster.
Red: Yes.
Liz: How can you live with that?
Red: By saving your life. (1)
With my schedule, I don’t get to watch television much, except when I am home sick, or occaisonally something dvr’d.
One of my favorites used to be Boston Legal – wihich surprised me, because I didn’t like any of the primary actors in it. But I was amazed with the brilliance of how they worked together, and how the writers strived to find ways to take the broken charachters and send them hunting, often blindly for some sort of reconciliation, some sort of justice they found, despite themselves. Have to admit, I became impressed with James Spader’s characterization. Enough so, that when the Blacklist came about – I wanted to see it – just to see if he could be a truly evil charachter.
Have to admit – it is the only television show I really watch these days, usually a couple of days later, and always fascinated with the depth of depravity and yet, a quest for some kind of vindication.
There is a blunt acknowledgement of evil, a confession that is there, unaware that there is grace. There is in each primary character – a questioning of the soul. You see it in Liz, as she struggles with the evil of each case, and the questions about her husband. You see it in Red, as he tries to help Liz, but also as he has his moments of solitude, (of course he goes and decides to do what he knows is wrong thereafter) you see it in the director, and in the partner.
There is an acknowledgement of our sinful selves, and attempts made to justify themseives by doing something good or noble or perfectly just. Except they realize, as we do, that the harder we try, the more likely we fail.
That’s perhaps what I like about the show – it strips us, not from the idea that we are not sinners, but from the idea we can justify ourselves. That we can explain away our own shortcomings, our own falures, our own tendency to sin. But it needs to go beyond that.
Luther wrote,
For although the whole world with all diligence has endeavored to ascertain what God is, what He has in mind and does, yet has she never been able to attain to [the knowledge and understanding of] any of these things. But here we have everything in richest measure; for here in all three articles He has Himself revealed and opened the deepest abyss of his paternal heart and of His pure unutterable love. For He has created us for this very object, that He might redeem and sanctify us; and in addition to giving and imparting to us everything in heaven and upon earth, He has given to us even His Son and the Holy Ghost, by whom to bring us to Himself. (2)
Red sees his own redemption in saving the life of another. I don’t think he means just her physical life either, but the emotional and spiritual life that can be lost in their line of work. (remember what he did before he went rogue) Perhaps by ridding the world with more efficiently of the truly evil, he can help her save her life. He wants to be her savior, her Christ, Even so, he cannot.
Luther sees it differently, noting that God is the one who can do, and has done, what Red so longs to do. He did come – and take on evil, personally as Christ carriest all our sin to the cross. That’s what Paul is talking about as well – who can rescue us from the despair of living in the presence of Evil? Only Christ.
Maybe we don’t see ourselves as the people on the balcklist – people beyond hope. Maybe were the Liz, losing her naivete about the world, about mankind with every episode. Maybe we’re Red, hoping beyond hpoe that we can save the next generation from turning into us.
What we need in each case – is to cry out to Jesus, the One who can save us, and has already provided all the means for our salvaiton, and more importantly, to leave anxiety over walking in evil behind, as we walk with Him.
We cry, “Lord, Have Mercy” and know, and trust.. He has.
(1) http://www.tvfanatic.com/quotes/shows/the-blacklist/page-4.html#sthash.HSTHtX83.dpuf
(2) The Large Catechism of Martin Luther.
Getting Past Betrayal: Finding Healing for That Which You Broke.
Devotional Thought of the Day:
6 We know that our old self was crucified with him, so that our sinful body might be done away with, that we might no longer be in slavery to sin. 7 For a dead person has been absolved from sin. 8 If, then, we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him. Romans 6:6-8 (NAB)
6 knowing this, that our old man was crucified with him, that the body of sin might be done away, that so we should no longer be in bondage to sin; 7 for he that hath died is justified from sin. 8 But if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him; Romans 6:6-8 (ASV)
18 For Christ also suffered for sins once, the righteous for the sake of the unrighteous, that he might lead you to God. Put to death in the flesh, he was brought to life in the spirit. 19 In it he also went to preach to the spirits in prison, 20 who had once been disobedient while God patiently waited in the days of Noah during the building of the ark, in which a few persons, eight in all, were saved through water. 21 This prefigured baptism, which saves you now. It is not a removal of dirt from the body but an appeal to God for a clear conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, 22 who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers subject to him. 1 Peter 3:18-22 (NAB)
613 God has a special right over us, his children: it is the right to our response to his love, in spite of our failings. This inescapable truth puts us under an obligation which we cannot shirk. But it also gives us complete confidence: we are instruments in the hands of God, instruments that he relies on every day. That is why, every day, we struggle to serve him. (1)
In my devotions today, I read of Peter’s denial of Jesus, and the grief that he dealt with, in realizing that he betrayed the promise that was made with all his heart, in realizing he betrayed Jesus.
How do you go on, after betraying someone you depend upon, someone you care for, someone you told you would die for? Do we just let the relationship fade into our past, even while we deal with the haunting guilt and the shame?
It maybe a family member you betrayed, or maybe an old friend, that person who you stood beside all those years. Definitely, all of us have betrayed God, some perhaps as tragically as Peter did, the night before Christ’s crucifixion. At some point in most of our lives, we’ve cried those same tears as Peter. We felt the pain and crushing anxiety of knowing that things will not be the same, ever again. In order to deal with this, we find distractions, new relationships, new hobbies, we work more, even things that would numb us from our pain.
We need hope, even when we feel things have gone beyond any reasonable expectation of hope.
Peter found such hope, and restoration, a complete transformation. Paul did as well.
Most translations in Romans 6:7 use the phrase “freed from sin” in translating dedikaiwtai apo tes amartias. I believe that this is a serious error, given the use of the root word’s ( dikaios ) multiple appearance in chapters 3-5. There it in its various forms is translated as righteious, made righteous, just or justified. It is more than being freed, it is God’s judgment, saying that you have been counted not guilty, that He views you as righteous, a view that is possible because Christ took upon Himself our guilt. This is more than just being freed from sin, it is declaring that sin has no claim on us, whatsoever.
The old ASV gets it right in saying we are declared justified, the NAB I think even makes it clearer with absolved from sin. We are cleansed and declared righteous, just, because of what. God has done.
In both passages, this answer is our baptism. Baptism, not as our work, but the appeal to God because we’ve been unifed to Christ’s death and resurrection. When we look at what God does, what He promises in baptism, we find the source of healing, of cleansing. We’ve died with Christ and live in Him. We have been absolved, counted righteous, cleansed, healed…
And it does something wonderful, it shapes us into God’s instruments, Our response to this work is to become God’s people, created to do good works, for we dwell in Christ.
How does Peter go from tears just before dawn on Good Friday, to the one who responds to others grief at their own betrayal of God? How can Peter point them to Baptism, and the transformation of their souls?
Because of the confidence that dieing with Christ, and being raised with Him brings. A confidence not in our ability to absolve us from sin, but His.
So rejoice in your baptism, may you grow in your knowledge of the extent of His love, mercy and healing given to you there.
