Tag Archives: Sin

Devotional

The Great Achilles

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Read Joel 12-17

ALSO IN SCRIPTURE
“Though the LORD is great, He cares for the humble, but He keeps His distance from the proud.” (Psalms 138:6 NLT)

tumblr_o5dqzbrhat1rqqedro1_1280Just last night, I decided to sit down and watch the three hour sixteen minute epic director’s cut of the film, “Troy”, starring Eric Bana as Hector, Orlando Bloom as Paris, Diane Kruger as Helen of Sparta/Troy, and Brad Pitt as the great warrior, Achilles. The film itself is a wonder to watch. It is epic in every sense of the word. The sets are amazing and huge in scale. One can’t help but feel like you are back in the 50’s watching a Cecille B. Demille flick, with far superior special effects and action sequences! If you haven’t seen it, check it out. I do recommend the Director’s Cut, which adds an extra half hour of footage on to the film.

For those of you who may not be familiar with the story of the Trojan War, though that is honestly hard to imagine, I will briefly and loosely sum it up for you. The most famous of the accounts of this story is found Homer’s epic poem, “The Illiad”. Basically, the story is about a forbidden romance gone bad. In Sparta, a city in the kingdom of Mycenae, a land that was believed to be founded by the Perseus (of Medusa fame), Princes Hector and Paris of Troy were negotiating at peace deal between King Agamemnon and Troy.

Unfortunately, Paris (who was more of a lover boy than he was a diplomat) fell in love with Helen of Sparta who was married to the brother of the King. Once the peace agreement was made, Hector and Paris sailed away for Troy; however, little did Hector know that Paris kidnapped Helen to take her back to Troy with him. As you can imagine, that put a quick and bitter end to the fledgling peace agreement that had just been reached the day before. The result of Paris’ unscrupulous act was a ten year war that King Agamemnon waged against Troy to defend his brother’s honor (and, let’s be honest, to subject another city under his rule).

This is where Achilles comes in. Achilles was a warrior who had a tenuous relationship with King Agamemenon (at best) and who fought for the king on many occasions. His mother, prior to his deciding to go fight for the king against Troy, had warned Achilles that he would either live a safe life and die unknown, or he would fight and die young, but be remembered for all time. Without getting into the different mythologies of Achilles, he was known for being the greatest of warriors and was widely seen as having no vulnerabilities. Choosing noteriety over safety, the egotistical Achilles decided to fight against the Trojans. That proved to be a costly choice for the brave warrior.

While the Trojans did end up losing Troy in the end, Achilles lost his very life after being shot through the heel (in some accounts) by an arrow loosed by Paris. In the long war, Achilles defeated and killed Hector, he helped lead the Mycenaeans win the Trojan war; however, he also overestimated his own strength and invincibilites and paid with his life for it. Once shot in the heel, Paris was able to kill the immobilized warrior. The hero did die young and remembered for all time, just as his mother warned him.

The parallel for us is pretty obvious. We often see ourselves as above being destructable. We do things as we do them, and we don’t give it much thought. We think that the way we live our lives is perfectly fine because “it hasn’t hurt us yet”; however, if we take anything away from the great Achilles, is that we all have our vulnerabilities. When we sin, when we steer away from the path God put us on, we expose ourselves to the arrows of death awaiting to hit us in the most unexpected and painful of places.

Lent is a forty day period where we are called to reflect on our lives and on the areas in which we need to tear our hearts (Joel 2:3), do a U-Turn, and head back to God.  It is a time where we should be reflecting on our sinfulness and where we should be looking to God, as Jesus did, to help us overcome and rebuke our temptations. Rather than letting our egos get the best of us, as Achilles did, we should seek to be dependent on God and humble in accepting the changes God is calling us to make. I pray that, as you journey through Lent, that you will abandon the way that the great Achilles took. I pray that you will humble yourself before God and repent (do a U-Turn). Don’t let your pride best you, don’t let it expose your heel; rather, in humility, be led to the great fountain of life that is Jesus Christ in which all of you, including your vulnerabilities, may be washed clean!

THOUGHT OF THE DAY
“It was pride that changed angels into devils; it is humility that makes people as angels.” – Augustine of Hippo

PRAYER
Lord, help show me my Achilles’ heel so that I may discard of it, abandon my pride, and turn to you as my refuge and my strength. Amen.

Devotional

Be Gone!

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Read Matthew 4:1-11

ALSO IN SCRIPTURE
“If you make the LORD your refuge, if you make the Most High your shelter, no evil will conquer you; no plague will come near your home.” (Psalms 91:9-10 NLT)

melaToday is Ash Wednesday, which kicks off the Lenten journey. Lent is, so to speak, a time in the wilderness. It is a time to fast, to pray, and to reflect on the sin we find ourselves enslaved to. What’s more, it is also a time for us to be take the journey with Jesus from the wilderness to the cross. Yet, we cannot make that journey without being prepared for it.

That is what the wilderness is all about. It is about time away from the trappings of the world. It is about time away from those things that make us comfortable. It is about time away from those things we long for in order that we might draw closer to God and be prepared for the transformation God is continually working within our hearts. Lent is a time for changing one’s heart and doing a U-Turn in order to head back in the direction God is calling us.

In the Scripture, we see Jesus enter into the wilderness for 40 days and 40 nights, the exact length of time of the Lenten season. During his stay in the wilderness, it is written that Jesus underwent a series of temptations from the devil. To be exact, we read of three specific things that Satan was tempting him and the exact ways in which he responds back to the devil.

First, Satan tempts Jesus with his physical needs. He suggests to him that he simply command the stones on the ground into loaves of bread. This does not seem to be an unreasonable suggestion. After all, why would God wish for Jesus to die of starvation in the wilderness? Surely, God did not send Jesus out there to die. Jesus, of course, does not fall for this temptation but responds by quoting Scripture, Deuteronomy 8:3 to be exact. Jesus rebukes Satan by reciting and upholding God’s Law!

This does not deter Satan, however, and so Satan takes the game up a notch. As we find out, Jesus is not the only one who knows Scripture. “Throw yourself from this high place”, Satan challenges Jesus. “For as the Scriptures say, ‘God will order his angels to protect you. And they will hold you up in their hands so that you won’t even hurt your foot on a stone.” Here Satan is quoting Psalm 91:11, but Jesus is not fooled for Satan is taking the verse out of context.

If one reads the Psalm, it is clear that those who make GOD their refuge have nothing to fear for God will protect them. Putting God to the test is NOT making God one’s refuge. Thus, Jesus rebukes Satan a second time, once again quoting God’s Law that is is not cool to put the Lord God to the test (Deuteronomy 6:16). Finally, Satan promises Jesus to give him all of the power and possessions of the world if Jesus will only bow down and worship him. Fat chance. It is at this point that Jesus gives Satan the strongest rebuke yet: “Be gone! The Scripture says, ‘You must worship the Lord your God and serve only him.’”

In Jesus’ wilderness temptations, we can see how temptation works in our lives. We can allow our physical needs to become temptations to stray from God. We can allow our own interpretations of Scripture to allow us to stray from God. We can also allow our desires, our hopes, our fears, and our ambition to steer us away from God. Like the snake in the garden, tempation slithers into our lives in the most subtle, but deceitful of ways. On the surface things seem fine until we find ourselves being constricted by the sins coiled around us.

With that said, Jesus’ wilderness experience we can see how to respond to the temptations that ensnare us. The truth is that Satan and/or the tempations we suffer only have the power that we give to them. If we are in a relationship with God, if we know what God commands of us through Scripture and through being a part of the community of God (aka the church), then we know the difference between God’s Word and our temptations.

This Lent, instead of giving up trivial things, take up Studying Scripture. Take up worshiping in a faith community that reflects the love and grace of God. Join in on small covenant groups with people who will nurture you in your faith and hold you accountable to growing in it. Begin to take your Spiritual needs seriously, and seek first the Kingdom of God and God’s righteousness. It is then that you will realize that you have been given power over your temptations and that, through Jesus Christ, you can command the devil to “be gone” from your life! I pray that this Lent you spend your time preparing to move from the wilderness of temptation to the cross of eternal love, grace and redemption!

THOUGHT OF THE DAY
“If any of you wants to be My follower, you must turn from your selfish ways, take up your cross, and follow Me.” – Jesus the Christ in Matthew 16:24 NLT

PRAYER
Lord, help me cast away my temptations to live my life fully in you who are my refuge! Amen.

Devotional

Depraved

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Read Mark 7:14-23

ALSO IN SCRIPTURE
“God blesses those who work for peace, for they will be called the children of God.” (Matthew 5:9)

depraved-skullI am sure you are looking at this title and going, “Oh, no! Where’s he going to go with this.” I can assure you that I am not about to pull my inner Calvinist out. As a theologian, I do not subscribe to much of the five points of Calvinism. Still, on the point of “total depravity”, even John Wesley said (in a letter to John Newton dated May 14, 1765) he did not “differ from [Mr. Calvin] an hair’s breadth.” After all, the Bible clearly teaches that humanity strayed from the love and grace of God, allowing sin and evil to enter into the picture; however, the grace of God has given us the ability to choose good over evil and to choose holiness over sinfulness.

So, even though I don’t agree with the other four points of Calvinism, I am not going to take this devotion to a comfortable place in regard to human depravity. We all have that potential to fall to reject God and fall back into our depraved state. I see evidence of this in Scripture as well as in every day life. I would have to be morally blind and completely naïve to think that human depravity doesn’t exist in this world. All we have to do is turn on the news to find it. In fact, along with covering the depravity of human beings around our communities, our country and our world, the news networks (and I mean ALL of them) themselves engage in depravity.

I was just recently watching the news and seeing college kids at the University of California Berkley rioting on campus because a conservative/liberatarian speaker was coming to give a speech. When I say rioting, I mean wearing masks, throwing molotov cocktails, shooting fireworks at the school library, pepper spraying a woman who had a “Make America Great Again” hat on, knocking down power lines and making a bonfire out of school property. All of this because people are opposed to the current administration and, as a result, conservatives in general.

On the flip side, conservatives have done their share of riling up anger. They have engaged in irresponsible rhetoric, led a brutal campaign unlike I think anyone has ever seen before, thoughtlessly executed laws that have done harm to people, and engaged in “tit-for-tat” bomb throwing on social media. What’s more, as is usually the case when any side wins an election, there has been a lot of gloating as well. Not to mention the white supremacists and other morally debase people coming out of the wood work, spray painting swastikas on playgrounds, shouting racial slurs at people of color, and chanting “build that wall” at our Latino and Hispanic brothers and sisters, most of whom are citizens.

Don’t mistake me here, I am not engaging in political discourse or taking sides. As I see it, both sides are wrong. We live in an age where we no longer can look at one another as brothers and sisters, as fellow human beings, as children of God; rather, we look at others as enemies, as evil, as monsters, as ignorant, as dangerous, as threats, as demons that need to be sent back to the fires of hell. Burn, baby, burn.

This world is on fire with depravity right now. No, it’s not the first, nor even the worst time in the history of the world, but we are descending into the depths of destruction faster than anyone of us could have ever anticipated. People I once stood side-by-side with in serving others, are now chanting “fight fire with fire”. People I once could have an intelligible conversation with, are no longer stopping to listen anymore. Everyone anymore seems to be screaming expletives past each other, without stopping to pause and notice that they have lost the high ground.

Is this what God wants? Is this what God envisioned for us when we were created? How can we claim to love God when we hate our neighbor? How can we claim to listen to God when we cannot even have the respect and love to listen to one another? We have become a depraved people, spanning generations. I recognize that that NOT EVERYONE has engaged in the extremes of the depravity we have been seeing; even so, most of us who have not have laid quietly in fear of standing up IN LOVE against it.

Do you believe in Jesus Christ? Do you believe in all that he did and taught? Do you believe in the power of his resurrection and the coming of the Kingdom of God? If you answer yes to all of those questions, then you are called to be the peacemaker of the world around you. All of us who believe are. We are to look for truth on all sides and bring people together, rather than divinding them further apart. We are to take the long, hard, painful road of loving all people, especially those we disagree with or call our enemies. We are to be the hands and feet of our risen, living Savior. We are to counter depravity with the goodness and righteousness (aka justice) by the grace of Christ who is Lord. Will you join me in that? I hope so.

THOUGHT OF THE DAY
“All we are saying is give peace a chance.” – John Lennon

PRAYER
Lord, help me to assess my own fears and feelings so that I may rise above depravity and be a peacemaker in the world around me. Amen.

Devotional

Bewitched

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Read Galatians 3:1-5

ALSO IN SCRIPTURE
“Sin is no longer your master, for you no longer live under the requirements of the law. Instead, you live under the freedom of God’s grace.” (Romans 6:14, NLT)

TheWitch01The lights darkened, the room silenced, and the discordant sound of stringed instruments filled the air in an unsettling and disturbing manner. The sounds of violin and cello cut through me like seraded steel as the theater screen faded in from black to the image of a teenager’s stone pale and frightened face. It was clear from the way that she was dressed that she was living in seventeenth century New England and that she was among a group of people known as the Puritans.

As it turns out, her father is standing trial for not adhereing to the laws of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, at the time a British colony, because he believes those laws to stand against the teachings of the Gospels. As such he and his family are banished and end up moving out of the village they were in and settling in the wilderness of New England on the edge of a think and dark wood (aka forest). While I will not give away anything, as I run a tight “no-spoiler” ship, this is where the 2016 film, “The Witch”, opens up and where the horror begins.

This film, as I see it, is a work of fine art and there is much for us Christians to pull from it. On the surface, the horror is centering on a potential witch that lives in the woods and is preying upon a New England family that is doing everything they can to remain godly and to stay together as a family. But as misfortune after misfortune happens, and as the family becomes more and more certain they are “witched”, the more and more it is that the real horror is revealed.

Right from the opening scene onward, we are made aware that this family is hypersensitive to their sin, to the sin of others, and to the soveriegnty of God. It is not wrong to be sensitive to those things in a healthy kind of way, but this family is overly sensitive, to the point that every conversation is filled with talk about their sinfulness, the wickedness of the world and the uncertainty of their own, let alone anyone else’s, salvation.

At every turn, the family is reminded that they are wicked and sinful and they start to have the feeling that they are “witched” because God is punishing them and handing them over to the devil as a result of their wickedness. Nowhere, and I mean nowhere, is God’s grace really at play here in this film and in the psyche of the family. Even when God’s mercy is mentioned, it is with the understanding that they are in need of mercy because of their wickedness, and their pleading for it betrays their theology that they worship a God who just might not show mercy to them.

It becomes clear to me, without giving anything away from the actual story line of “The Witch” itself, that the family is bewitched by their own stringent, and horrific, theology. While it is true that God is  sovereign and it is true that we fall short of God’s glorious standard, it is NOT true that God is out to get us for our fallenness. Their theology is so damning that they could never, ever experience the grace and mercy that was already there waiting for them. They were so busy worrying about the prowling devil in the woods that they could not see that they had all they needed to thrive in the wilderness: their family and their faith.

Today’s challenge is this: don’t let yourself get bewitched by a negative and graceless theology. Rather, at every turn, steer clear of the devil by choosing to see the grace of God throughout your life, in your family, and in your community. Community is not perfect, but God is working to perfect it through your presence as well as others. Remember, God saved you from slavery to sin and death, so why negate that by making those things the foundation of your faith? Jesus Christ is the grace of God. That, and that alone, should be your faith’s foundation.

THOUGHT OF THE DAY
The devil’s work is division and separation from others.  God is the great uniter.

PRAYER
Lord, keep me from bewitching myself with bad theology. Remind me daily of your grace. Amen.

Devotional

Our Existential Problem

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Read Proverbs 3:5-18

ALSO IN SCRIPTURE
For the LORD grants wisdom! From His mouth come knowledge and understanding. (Proverbs 2:6, NLT)

EyeKnowIn the Garden of Eden story we learn that humanity’s downfall was in it’s desire to have wisdom and the ability to judge what is right and what is wrong. Humanity, in its infancy, sought to become independent of God and doing things for itself. Those things, in and of themselves, are not necessarily bad; however, the desire to have something NOW, rather than trusting that God will provide those things at the right time, is where the downfall begins.

The author of the Garden narrative saw the attaining of widsom as the downfall of humanity because the “wise” know, and what they know obligates them. In other words, once humanity could discern good from evil, people were then obligated to choose to do good over evil. But that knowledge wasn’t they only knowledge the ended up acquiring; rather, they also attained self-knowledge.

The story recounts how, following eating the forbidden fruit, Adam and Eve’s eyes were opened and they saw that they were naked. They became keenly aware of themselves and became self-aware and self-conscious. In the feeling of shame of their nakedness, Adam and Eve sewed fig leaves together in order to cover their private parts. Prior to them eating the forbidden fruit, of course, those parts were not private and there was no need to be ashamed of them.

This is where I believe the real fall took place. Prior to the deception of the serpent on the tree, Eve and Adam saw each other as one. They did not look at the other as an entity unto themselves. They did not see each other as being separate, distinct, unique or individual. Instead, they saw one another as complimentary parts of the same whole. Hence Adam’s reaction at the creation of Eve, “ “At last! This one is bone from my bone, and flesh from my flesh! She will be called ‘woman,’ because she was taken from ‘man.'” (Genesis 3:23 NLT)

Yet, when the forbidden fruit was eaten, man became separated from woman, and woman became separated from man. They hid their bodies away from each other, and then hid themselves away from God. This is important to note because, in this we see what was common understanding in the ancient world: God created us to be in community, to be one with each other, and when we fail to do so we not only separate ourselves from each other but from God as well.

What compouds this reality even more is the fact that humans, even though they had been separated from each other down gender lines (and many more lines that followed that), they still believed they had knowledge of each other. What’s more, humanity grew in confidence in its ability to discern right from wrong, except that it was no longer utilizing that discernment in self-reflective ways, but in ways of judgement against other human beings.

Whether we take this story literally or not is really beside the point. Humans were created to be subjects, in that we are under the dominion of our own personal thoughts,  and are subjective by nature. While we think we know, and we think we have the ability to grow in our knowldedge, the truth is that we are limited in our knowledge, if we know anything at all.

Thus, our discernment is really based more off of what we think as opposed to what we, strictly speaking, know. The best we can say is that we think we know, which betrays the fact that our knowledge is dependent on our thoughts which are processed through our own subjectivity. Confused? What should be pulled from is this, humans have the ability to discern what is right and wrong; however, as subjective human beings, we cloud our judgment of right and wrong with our own personal feelings and justifications. We do so to our advantage and often to the detriment of others.

We should NOT rely soley on our own ability to discern right from wrong, but we should rely on God’s. What that means is that we will envelope ourselves in communities of service and loving accountability (aka churches), we will study the Bible (and its historical contexts), we will model ourselves off of the life and teachings of Jesus, and we will begin to live in a way that truly reflects our TOTAL TRUST in God. Acknowledge your subjectivity, refrain from judgment, embrace humility, and allow God to guide you in your discernment.

THOUGHT OF THE DAY
When the Bible says to seek and cherish Wisdom, it is pointing us to Jesus Christ who is God’s Wisdom personified.

PRAYER
Lord, fill me NOT with my understanding, but with your wisdom. Amen.

Devotional

THE CHRISTIAN MANIFESTO, Part 6: Captives

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Read Luke 4:14-21

ALSO IN SCRIPTURE
“And you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” (John 8:32 NLT)

LA5561-001
Man with hands chained above head, high section (toned B&W)

Recently, a fellow colleague and friend of mine got into a conversation about the scripture passage I was preaching on at the church that I serve. The passage is Luke 4:14-21 and is on Jesus’ first recorded visit to the synagogue in Nazareth following his baptism and wilderness experience. In that passage, Jesus is handed the scroll of Isaiah and he opens it up to the following passage: “The Spirit of the LORD is upon Me, for He has anointed Me to bring Good News to the poor. He has sent Me to proclaim that captives will be released, that the blind will see, that the oppressed will be set free, and that the time of the LORD’s favor has come.” Inspired by the conversation, I have decided to devote a series of devotions on this particular passage, which has become known as “The Christian Manifesto”.

Part 6: The Captives. Standing in the Synagogue in Nazareth, Jesus read the passage from Isaiah slowly and deliberately to the people gathered around. “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, for God has anointed me to bring Good News to the poor.” This was a message that, at least in the moment, was resonating with a people who had been under foreign occupation since the days of Assyria and Babylon. This time around their oppressors were Rome and the Jewish people were looking for the Messiah to come and save the day. This text in Isaiah had long been seen as the promise of the coming of the deliverer, the Messiah who was both anointed King and the liberator of the people Israel. Could this Jesus, this carpenter from their own village, really be that Messiah? They had heard of the great and amazing miracles and signs he had performed around Galilee, and they were hoping he’d prove his worth and identity here.

Jesus continued, “God has sent me to proclaim that the captives be released.” There were plenty of captives, for sure! The people in Nazareth knew that. If Rome or their puppet Tetrarch Herod Antipas had it out for you, you either ended up captive, put to the sword or, worse yet, crucified. Just a short while before Jesus was born, King Herod (Antipas’ father), had 2,000 Galileeans crucified for rebelling against his rule. John the Baptist, the one who baptized Jesus in the Jordan, had become a critic of Herod Antipas’ and his wife. As a result, Herod had him arrested and, ultimately, beheaded. Yes, there were many prisoners who were looking for the day that the Lord’s Messiah would come and give them their freedom. The people in that synagogue were no doubt waiting for the day when the Messiah would come and set captive Israel free.

Yet, as the people of the Synagogue were about to find out, Jesus didn’t just have prisoners of Rome and Herod in mind, nor did he see the role of Messiah in quite the same way that they did. It was true that he was purposefully reading that passage in Isaiah 61, and it was true that he was proclaiming to them that he was the Messiah and that he was, in their hearing, fulfilling the words of the prophet. Yet, what Jesus meant by those words was not limited to the political captives of Rome or Herod. Nor was it limited to the releasing of captive Israel from Roman and Herodian oppression; rather, Jesus was about to fulfill the words of Isaiah, by freeing Israel from being captive to themselves. They were captive to their own biases, to the suffering of the “least of these” around them, and to all who were captive in any sense of the word.

Jesus came to liberate people through truth and awareness. Using the truth, and his example of servant-leadership, Jesus brings liberation to the people who are held captive by their social status. Jesus liberates the people who are held captive by their sins (and which one of us aren’t)? He came to proclaim release for the captives of elitism, of self-righteousness, of pride, of hatred, of bigotry, of hypocrisy, or discrimination, of social injustice and oppression, and of systemic evil. In other words, there is no limit to the understanding that Jesus had of what it meant to be captive. What’s more, if the captives of sin would accept such freedom in Christ, they would be transformed into liberators themselves, working alongside Christ to bring release to all captives in the world (both literal and spiritual). Christ is calling us to be freed by the truth, and to work for the release of all of the captives in our communities and beyond.

THOUGHT OF THE DAY
“I tell you the truth, everyone who sins is a slave of sin.” – Jesus of Nazareth (John 8:34 NLT)
PRAYER
Lord, set me free from the bondage that holds me from doing your will in working toward the liberation of others. Amen.

Devotional

Ixnay the Cliché

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Read Micah 6:1-15

ALSO IN SCRIPTURE
“Hate evil and love good, and establish justice in the gate; it may be that the LORD, the God of hosts, will be gracious to the remnant of Joseph.” (Amos 5:15)

highway-to-gloryThe end justifies the means. That is a cliché that I think is predominant in our society and/or culture. The end justifies the means. All we need to do is turn on television and watch any of a plethora of television shows, all we need to do is to go to the theater and watch any given movie and we will see a whole lot of that cliché being played out. We see heroes compromising their values in order to bring about some supposedly better end…and using any means necessary to make that happen.

Beyond television shows and movies, politicians will often use any means necessary to bring about what they believe to be a better end. Politicians who cut people down and use political action committees to destroy the reputation of their opponents, simply because they believe they’d make the best leader. Businesses who look at the bottom dollar as the end goal and use whatever means necessary in order to make the bottom dollar work out in favor of the company. Often times, the means to attain that end involves coldly getting rid of people and treating employees as expendable numbers, rather than being compassionate and not treating people as if they are expendable.

We also see this cliché play out in our communities. We see our government take people’s homes and property away, declaring it as eminent domain, in order to better commercialize and bring more money into a town and/or region. We see people who will cut people off on the road to ensure they’re not going to be late getting to work, or to a play, or to the nearest roadside coffee shop. I have even witnessed people cutting around funeral processions in order to avoid getting stuck in those situations.

The point here is this, in order to live by the cliché of “the end justifying the means,” we have to ultimately compromise our character and our moral code. The cliché certainly, and explicitly, announces that. The end justifies the means. That is really a nice way of saying the following: while normally taking this action would be deemed bad and/or immoral, it is okay to do so here because, in the end, things will work out for the better. The end justifies the means. Whatever means it takes to reach the end is justified by virtue of the end that is trying to be reached.

The end justifies the means…or does it? When we look to Scripture we see a ton of examples as to how the end never, ever justifies the means. David is, perhaps the most compelling and obvious of people to look at in this regard. David would do just about anything to be king, and once he became king he did just about anything to keep himself and his family in power. He slept with Bathsheba and to avoid scandal had her husband killed. He offed his political rivals with shrewd and shady expediency, looking as if he had nothing to do with it. He knew he was God’s chosen king and that God was going to establish his kingdom forever, and he let that go to his head. As a result his kingdom, his reputation, his power, and his entire family came crashing down.

Not only does the end never justify the means, the reality is that often times the means changes and/or destroys the end. What’s more, the means changes and/or destroys us in the process. Let us not be a people who justify any and every means to reach an end. Let us not be a people who justify evil by the end we are trying to reach. Remember that our call, first and foremost, is to live justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with God, regardless of the end. In fact, there should be no other end but that, and that end will dictate the means. Live justly, love mercy, walk humbly. It’s simple, it’s honest, and it’s the narrow way that leads to God’s Kingdom.

THOUGHT OF THE DAY
“In everything do to others as you would have them do to you; for this is the law and the prophets. “Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the road is easy that leads to destruction, and there are many who take it. For the gate is narrow and the road is hard that leads to life, and there are few who find it.” – Jesus, the Christ (Matthew 7:12-14)
PRAYER
Lord, I want to follow you in all that I do. Lovingly hold me accountable to your way and steer me clear of sin and evil. Amen.

Devotional

WORKS OF THE FLESH: Other Sins Like These

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Read Galatians 5:13-21

ALSO IN SCRIPTURE
“He has enabled us to be ministers of His new covenant. This is a covenant not of written laws, but of the Spirit. The old written covenant ends in death; but under the new covenant, the Spirit gives life.” (2 Corinthians 3:6 NLT)

In his letter to the church in Galatia, the Apostle Paul is writing to a community that is divided over the issue of male circumcision: should new Gentile followers of Jesus be counted as a part of the Jewish covenant without being circumcised, or should they have to be circumcised just as all of the Jews are circumcised. Being that Christianity at the time wasn’t a religion, but a sect of Judaism, this was a VITALLY IMPORTANT question. While Paul is opposed to making Gentiles be circumcised, he also is against divisive behavior regardless of which side it is coming from. In response to this division, Paul describes to the Galatian church what he calls, “the works of the flesh.”

FieryOWORKS OF THE FLESH: Other Sins Like These. One of the things that I think plagues the church is this notion that the Bible, the Church, and religion in general are nothing more than a set of dos and don’ts in order to strip fun away from people, as well as to hold them in subjugation to those who claim to have the authority to teach and enforce such rules and regulations. There can be no doubt that there is some truth to Karl Marx’s words, “Religion is the opiate of the masses.” The Church, and the leaders within the church have, in some cases, abused their authority and, as a result, have done a disservice to Christ, to the Christian community, and to the world. With that said, the same is true with any ideology, religious or not. Take a long hard look at Communism. Any ideology can be used as an opiate to the masses.

So, while there is some truth to Marx’s comment, it is far from THE TRUTH as a whole. Christianity is not merely a list of dos and dont’s. When we come to those places in the Bible that list what should be done and what shouldn’t be done, it would benefit us to at least research the historical context behind those dos and dont’s. What’s more, when have done that kind of deep probe of the Scriptures, we begin to see that those dos and don’ts are, more often than not, a social contract between God and the world, between God and God’s people, and between God’s people and their fellow human beings. We all live in a social contract today whether we practice religion or not. We have all agreed to live and abide by the rules of our local governments for the benefit of the whole community.

At the heart of the Bible is LOVE. It is our guide to learning how to LOVING God by loving others as God loves us. God wants nothing more than that. It isn’t about an egotistical God who, like a big bully in the sky, demands we follow arbitrary laws…just because. The Bible is our guidance to what a right relationship with our neighbors and, by virtue of that, what a right relationship with God looks like. Some of those laws in the Bible make sense for us today, some of them no longer make sense because we have come to understand otherwise, but the heart of the BIBLE…THE HEART OF THE LAW…remains the same: LOVE! That is a constant that will never change.

To conclude on the “Works of the Flesh”, it is important to realize that Paul is not trying to give us an exhaustive list but, rather, he is listing specific sins that are going on within his church. We can see this in his summing the list up with “other sins like these” (Galatians 5:21). It is also important that we do not view Paul’s words as a list of dos and don’t. Instead, it is better to view them as a moral compass to help guide us all into a better relationship with God, into a better relationship with our neighbors, and into a better relationship with ourselves. That is the ultimate goal, it is what God wishes for all of us. Now, let’s go onto Paul’s “Fruit of the Spirit.”

THOUGHT OF THE DAY
“A flower cannot blossom without sunshine, and man cannot live without love.” – Max Müller

PRAYER
Lord, fill me with your love so that I may live freely into the spirit of the law. Amen.

Devotional

WORKS OF THE FLESH: Envy

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Read Galatians 5:13-21

ALSO IN SCRIPTURE
“[Jesus] instructed [the twelve disciples] to take nothing for the journey except a walking stick—no bread, no bags, and no money in their belts.” (Mark 6:8 CEB)

In his letter to the church in Galatia, the Apostle Paul is writing to a community that is divided over the issue of male circumcision: should new Gentile followers of Jesus be counted as a part of the Jewish covenant without being circumcised, or should they have to be circumcised just as all of the Jews are circumcised. Being that Christianity at the time wasn’t a religion, but a sect of Judaism, this was a VITALLY IMPORTANT question. While Paul is opposed to making Gentiles be circumcised, he also is against divisive behavior regardless of which side it is coming from. In response to this division, Paul describes to the Galatian church what he calls, “the works of the flesh.”

fieryEWORKS OF THE FLESH: Envy. If there was a universal vice, if there was a weakness that all people could claim in some fashion or the other, I think envy would have to be it. I don’t like to generalize, and perhaps there is someone out there who could claim never being envious of someone else, most of us have been envious of someone or of something at some point in our lives. I can remember growing up in a house that had no air conditioning and had no shower. All of my other friends had air conditioning and showers, but NOT MY HOUSE! I remember asking my parents why we couldn’t have a shower or an air conditioner and I remember them responding, “Be happy for what you do have.” Yes, I have experienced envy in the past and usually over things that were small and trivial. My mom was always keen on saying, “The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence.

While I didn’t like those sayings, the reason I didn’t like them was because they were true. The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence, the grass is always greener in someone else’s pasture, until you have what they have and then that grass seems to dry up and wilt. There is no end to this cycle. I want something until I have it and then I am not happy with what I have and I want something else. Every parent knows this cycle as their children have no doubt told them ALL of the things their friends have that they don’t have.

While that sort of behavior is expected in children, however, it is also found in the church. In fact, it is a work of the flesh that is prevalent in the church. Oh how we wish we were that church over their with the 10,000 person membership, raking in the millions upon millions of dollars per year! Oh, my, what we could do with all of those resources. Just think of the ministry that could be done if we had that big church campus, or that basketball court, or that hip pastor in the tight jeans, or if we had a jumbotron screen and a rocking praise band! These sentiments and more come from tons of congregations. What it implies is that, God blesses those people but has been rather cheap and stingy with us!

So let’s look at Jesus’ ministry. He started alone, picked up twelve disciples, then picked up hundreds…then thousands…of followers, then lost those followers, got arrested, was back to twelve disciples (two of whom either betrayed or denied him), and only one male disciple and a couple female disciples showed up at the foot of the cross. Jesus’ ministry was nothing to be envious of, there was no jumbotron, no cool and hip praise band, no steady cash flow, no mega church campus or anything else. His ministry was poor monetarily…but it was profoundly rich in many other ways. Remember, we are to model ourselves off of Christ, to not envy others as if we have nothing, and to be thankful for what we do have. And what is that? The Good News of God’s love for us through Jesus Christ our Lord. And that is all we, as the church, truly need! Now go and preach it!

THOUGHT OF THE DAY
“I know the experience of being in need and of having more than enough; I have learned the secret to being content in any and every circumstance, whether full or hungry or whether having plenty or being poor. I can endure all these things through the power of the one who gives me strength.” – Paul of Tarsus in his letter to the church in Philippi (Philippians 4:12-13, CEB)

PRAYER
Lord, help to be content in all things so that I may glorify you through what I have. Amen.