For Free

03.11.15

John 4.14 14 “...but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” – Jesus (ESV)

I’m doing a Lent thing this year. It’s kind of Lent-Lite, but it’s the first time I’ve ever done Lent-Anything, so at least it’s a start. I’m not sure why I’m doing what I’m doing, but I’m doing it nonetheless. It seemed like the thing to do; sort of a, well-everyone-is-doing-it thing to do. I’m pathetic – I know it.

Today, in my Lenten reading was a reference to Isaiah’s words in Isaiah 55: “Come, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and he who has no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price.” (V. 1) The devotional then led to John 4 where Jesus tells a Samaritan woman, “…whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again.”

I thought about a plant in my office. It’s a start off of another plant and I stuck it in some watery dirt (or some dirt-ery water) in a tall Lexan vase and placed it by the window where it gets massive light in the morning and shadier light in the afternoon. The plant represents (to me) my business and what it takes to get a business going. Starting a start and starting a business are somewhat similar in my mind. Both take time and care.

And Isaiah told his hearers all those centuries ago: Hey! Come and get whatever you need to live…FOR FREE!!!!! In other words, whatever you need, God will give you – for free; just come to Him to get it. And that is where the trouble starts for mankind: coming to God for anything.

Even if it’s free; even if it’s too good to be true, we seem to think God is somewhat lacking or worse, deceptive – a divine bait and switch: I come to Him for free stuff and He slips shackles on my feet. Caught ya, ya little punk! And sometimes, it feels that way until I am really thirsty and really hungry and eating school paste just doesn’t get it anymore. (I never liked it anyway – it was too pasty!)

God is the God of the desperate and sometimes desperation is the only thing that gets through. That doesn’t mean God is mean, or cruel, or manipulative; it means He will let us get to the end of ourselves and He will still offer us free stuff to help us to believe and trust in Him. The woman at the well wanted Jesus to give her the water because she was tired of coming to get it time after time after time. Jesus said, Child I am giving what you need that goes way beyond your measly wants and needs: I am giving you life! (For Free)

The jury is still out on Lent but the reminder this morning of what Jesus offers to me is critical: I need what He freely gives – all the time! (The plant in my office needs water all the time!)

Father, I need You – all the time. My business needs You – all the time. And my life is incomplete, shrunken and lacking without You. Gracious God, give me what I need today and help me to be grateful for life eternal, abundant, and everlasting! Amen.

The Cat in the Bag

03.07.15

Matthew 6.14-15 14 For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you, 15 but if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses. – Jesus (ESV)

Last night Cathy and I went to a gathering of about five or so hundred people and listened to a woman give a talk about God’s redemption. She made the claim several times through anecdotes about various people she’s encountered over the years that God can redeem anything. The stories she told were about the broken lives of people she’d encountered and how God has used her to help these people become free to the love of Jesus.

She didn’t tell us the happy endings; she didn’t tell us how these people are now married and have children and their lives are renewed and perfect and without any ripples. No, she just told us that God can redeem anything we give to Him. That really got my attention as I sat and listened and tried to decide what I was still holding onto and keeping for myself (rather than giving to God). Her words made me think.

When Cathy and I got home we debriefed as couples often do and we talked about what this woman said. And it came to me that she perfectly explained the danger of unforgiveness. What she said about God redeeming everything was true with one caveat: God can’t redeem the things we won’t give Him. I thought: that is where we are when we won’t (or can’t) forgive. The whole business of unforgiveness is horrible: it’s holding onto things that eat away at us like a parasite. And the result is bitterness, anger, pain, misery, and a host of terrible things that eat us alive mentally, physically, and spiritually.

Jesus said this in Matthew 6: if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you, but if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses. God will because God can. God won’t because God can’t. Is there anything God can’t do? Maybe we ought to give this un-forgiveness thing some more thought. Maybe we ought to examine our hearts to see what we’re holding onto that is blocking God from setting us free and redeeming us completely.

Maybe we’ll show up at Heaven’s door and find the baggage we’ve brought with us is too big to fit through the door. Maybe God wants us to be free and unencumbered in our face-to-face meeting with Him, and unforgiveness is the filthy, putrid crap we’re trying to bring into His living room and dump all over the floor. And maybe the unforgiveness we hold onto is the same crap that causes others to sidle away from us after a brief encounter or two because we let that loathsome cat out of the bag.

God can redeem anything. Except. That which we won’t give Him; that which we keep to ourselves.

O Father! Free me from the things I hold onto. Reveal to me the things I cannot see and need to deal with. God help me to be completely free when I come into Your presence. Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts! And see if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting! Thank You Father. Amen.

He and Me

03.01.15

Psalm 91.14 14 “Because he holds fast to Me in love, I will deliver him; I will protect him, because he knows My name. – Anonymous (ESV)

Recently in a Bible study for some of the youth of our church we studied the Bible as a whole. We looked at the fact that the Bible was written by 40 different authors over a period of about 1500 years. (Actually, I think it is better to say the Bible was authored by One Author with forty different writers over a period of about 1500 years.) That would explain the continuity of the Bible which is not a book, but a collection of Books.

In one of the studies we looked at the Poetic books of the Bible and found that not all of the Psalms were written by King David. To be sure, many of them were, but not all. Psalm 91 is the second Psalm of the fourth book of the Psalms. Moses wrote Psalm 90 (or at least it is attributed to him). Psalm 91, the second psalm of Book 4 is anonymous. And Psalm 91 begins with the word, He.

Psalm 91, is not written in the third person; it is a first-person possessive: the first stanza being:

“He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will abide in the shadow of the Almighty.

I will say to the Lord, “My refuge and my fortress, my God, in whom I trust.”

I describes ‘He’ and says of he, that if he dwells in the shelter of the Most High (God), then he will dwell in the shadow of the Almighty. I then says, I will say to (or of) the Lord, “My refuge and fortress, my God, in whom I trust.” I knows a lot about he. And I knows that he (anonymously) does the best thing he could ever do by dwelling in the shelter of the Most High. And I sums it up perfectly by telling us what he does: I tells us what he thinks about God.

Farther down in the psalm I becomes a different I and he remains the same. I, in verse 14, becomes God, and God says of he: “Because he holds fast to Me in love, I will deliver him; I will protect him, because he knows My name.” The ESV doesn’t capitalize the pronouns of Deity like the NASB does, so I did to make the important distinction in this part of the psalm of who I and he and My and Me. And that is the basis of what happens to he when he knows and trusts God: God will deliver him and God will protect him because he knows His name.

It’s not just calling God, God; it’s calling God by Name, and by relationship: my God, the God whom I know and trust and expect to take care of me as I live out my life. Me knows that He will care for him all the days of his life because He knows that he knows His name. He knows that he knows where to turn for all of the days of his meager life in the strength and presence of Him.

I’m having fun today playing with words because I identify with he and me and I know where I stand with Him. I dwell in the shelter of the Most High because the Most High has allowed me to know He exists and I am safe with Him whenever, wherever, forever.

Father, thank You for the shelter in which to dwell and the shadow in which to stand. You have my back and will deliver me because he is me, and he who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will abide in the shadow of the Almighty. Amen!