Truth is, humans have a heart of darkness. Left to our own devices, or trusting in anything (idols) other than love from God will trap us there. Jesus referred to this one time while he was in Jerusalem:
…from within, out of men’s hearts, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly. All these evils come from inside and make a man ‘unclean. Mark 7:21-23 (NIV)
Too many times we read these words and begin to pass judgment on a host of people who we just KNOW are living in darkness because they are not like us. We are too good to live in darkness – and we must have missed it when Jesus chastised the Pharisees and teachers of the law just moments earlier.
…Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you hypocrites; as it is written:
“These people honor me with their lips,
but their hearts are far from me.
They worship me in vain;
their teachings are but rules taught by men.”
You have let go of the commands of God and are holding on to the traditions of men. Mark 7:6-8 (NIV)
The Pharisees Jesus was talking to were considered the conservatives of Judaism. They held strictly to the Torah and the Talmud and were very outwardly moral. But because they trusted in the traditions of men (meaning adding to the law) they were far from him, they had hearts of darkness.
The little English sparrow is a great success story. The insignificant little bird is actually not a sparrow, but a member of the weaver family of birds. Brought to America, probably as a stowaway on early ships, it took hold in the New World and became one of the most dominant birds we see. Jesus also spoke of sparrows, the sparrows of Jerusalem. He remarked in Matthew 10 that two of them sold for just a penny. Then He makes the astounding observation that not one of them falls to the ground apart from the Father. The implication is that not only does He know when the tiniest of His creation dies, He is there. Jesus is making the obvious thing obvious. If God loves His little sparrows like that, then how much more does He love His children? When we are in trouble, God comes to our rescue. The psalmist in Psalms 102 considers himself as a sparrow alone upon a housetop facing great danger. That’s a pretty good picture of a helpless and hapless individual. But in verse 17 he says the Almighty would regard the prayer of the destitute. No one is ever alone who has his Father.
Bottom line up front: Darkness doesn’t mean the same thing today as it did 2000 years ago. In the first century people understood and feared real darkness so they got it when Jesus told them, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life” John8:12 (NIV). If you’re not a Christian you’re walking in darkness, put your trust in Christ who is the light.
Darkness has lost its meaning to us. Since the discovery of electricity and invention of the light bulb the world has been on a campaign to banish darkness. Just look around you some night: guard lights flood every house, street lights bathe our roads, office buildings shine through the night, spot lights sweep through the air, the rooms in our houses have lights on even if we are not in them, and our retinas burn as we stare for hours into the glare of our televisions. If you don’t believe it, you will the first time the electricity fails and the night as you know it stops…dark, dark, dark and silent…very silent.
Have you wondered about the guy wandering the highways with the backpack and run down shoes? Where’s he going? Where’s he from? Where’s he spending the night,? Is it in a pasture under a tree? And how does he keep warm in the winter? What does he eat and where does he get his water? Who would chose a life with such self imposed deprivation? Who would chose to be homeless?
But people who would never chose to live their physical lives like that make choices putting them in the same situation spiritually. Jude, verse 13, refers to ungodly individuals who are described as “wandering stars, for whom blackest darkness has been reserved forever”. The most tragic thing that can happen to a human being is to disconnect from God, in computer terminology, “disconnected from the network”.
Several years ago I observed men traveling down the Interstate Highway that cuts through our little town and wrote a poem about a fictitious man I called “Johnee”. I hope you enjoy it and see how it describes an absolute disconnect.
Johnee
by David Allen
They found him last night,
wrapped in his sleeping
blanket. Out on the Interstate,
dead as a hammer, stiff as
a board. Died sometime
in the night, all alone, all
by himself.No I.D., only, “ My name
is Johnee”, tattooed on his
chest.Where was he from? Where
was he going?Well, he’s not going anywhere,
anymore. And somewhere, long
ago, someone bounced him on
their knee
and said,
“ Oh, Johnee, you’ll
go far in this world”.But, this, this was too far,
Way too far.
Johnee lost his way. The way home grew so dim he could no longer see it. The darkness overcame him and he died. Johnee disconnected. Are you connected?
Listen to an audio presentation on this topic here
On May 29th, my darling little granddaughter, Sierra died. She fought a most heinous form of cancer for eighteen months. She died bravely, the way I want to when it’s my turn. I was with her at one o’clock in the morning when she breathed her last. Those eighteen months would take a volume to chronicle which I will never do. But, through all the hours of weeping and happiness, yes, happiness, there is something that I learned that is on my heart to share. Maybe it will help you, I hope so.
People usually deal with dying and death, particularly a tragic one, in pretty much the same way. They believe that no matter the severity of the illness, prayer will more than likely change the outcome. Their core belief is that God will interdict on behalf of the sick person and heal them. Modern medicine does what was impossible only a short time ago, people live who would have died then. These medical marvels are a gift from God.
But what about those who are not healed? And no matter how many, how long or how fervent the prayers, they die. When this happens some will blame God for “taking” their loved one. How could an all knowing, all powerful God let theirs die and let another live? It’s a puzzle that begins to eat at the very center of the believer’s heart. Well meaning friends might say, “If we had only had more faith”, or some other horrific statement, the sick one would have been made well. This is a satanic phrase and even though well intended strikes terror deep into the soul. How guilty would you be if your loved one died because you “didn’t have enough faith?” Yes, we should have faith, enough to move a mountain, as Jesus said, but this faith is not for physical mountains, but spiritual ones.
“All the glory is due you! You are the Holy One! You’re the One, You’re the only One!”
I listen as my family and I sing these words. We sit together as one unit, one band of people suffering through a tragic loss; if you only knew what we had been through. You wouldn’t believe it if you could hear us singing these words with all of our hearts. You wouldn’t believe that just a little over a month ago, we lost one of our family members to cancer. A little girl, we loved her without measure and now she is gone. We are upset and we do struggle through life sometimes. However, you would never believe it if you could hear us now. We hold our heads high as we show God that we trust His judgment. “You’re the One, You’re the only One!” We know it, we believe it, and we sing it with pride… together.
Chelsea Chaney is a 17 year old Christian who loves God and Christ. She is a leader and inspiration to her family and friends. In addition to being active in the church, she is the captain of the high school varsity cheer squad, senior class president, student council president, book club president, and publicist for the Spanish club.
And my daughter…
“What the Old Man Does is Always Right” is a fairy tale by Hans Christian Andersen which tells of a peasant who trades his horse down to a sack of rotten apples, justifying his trades all the way down. If you can ignore the original moral it can be repurposed as a powerful parable illustrating the sins of attrition, those sins that slowly result in a drift away from a strong relationship with God. We can justify our actions all we want, but if in the end we are left with a rotten relationship our eternal reward is at risk. In an interesting twist, the man’s wife agrees with his actions all the way – showing that our drift can influence others away from God as well. Really, what the old man does isn’t always right. Read the full parable below.
9zp3i2gdwx
He was so proud of it. The lines were right, the joints fitted, the wood finished to a glow. The boat drafted better than any other and its beauty inspired use. He could remember it now looking at the vessel before him. Where had the beauty gone? The years had worn it so slowly he hadn’t even noticed. Now weathered, dull and leaking, the boat’s original beauty was only a faint remembrance…
Growing up in the church a lot of time was spent on two categories of sin, namely sins of commission, those things God tells us not to do but we do anyway, and sins of omission or those things God tells us to do but we ignore. These are important categories but with a warning: if we focus on a checklist of things we should and should not do, we by our nature grow to rely on OUR goodness and not on God’s. Jesus clearly stated over and over that his disciples would become children of God and be consumed with a relationship with God through him.
Jesus replied: ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ Matthew 22:37(NIV)
How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! John 3:1(NIV)
Over and over the Word of God explains Christians are about relationship not rules. Our obedience (omitted and committed) is because we love God and value His presence in our lives. We want to please Him. Because of this, I believe there is a far more dangerous category of sin, attrition. Attrition is any activity that causes a slow drift away from our relationship with God. The dangerous thing is that it can take the form of just about anything, including religion. Sometimes seemingly harmless activities over a lifetime (or less!) lead us to a point we are separated from God and don’t even recognize it until it’s too late.
We must pay more careful attention, therefore, to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away. Hebrews 2:1 (NIV)
Do you like to read? I do and I know you probably like to also, most people do. Also do you occasionally overhear a conversation about the latest best selling author’s current work? Notice the adjective, current. An author as well as anyone else’s fame is fleeting and only a few great names such as Shakespeare or Milton are generally known.The Greatest Author wrote the Greatest Book ever written. Sadly many have never read His book or even picked it up for a cursory examination. In that book lie the secrets to mankind’s beginning, present and future. It describes the path from here to eternity. Isn’t that exciting? The Bible is the “code” from the Master of the Universe for a better life here and a far better one to come.
Can you imagine stumbling upon a great treasure of an ancient king? And yet, here at our fingertips is a priceless gem, far more valuable than the riches of any king who ever lived. And it can be bought for a small price. My favorite Bible is one I bought at a garage sale for twenty-five cents. Think of that! The priceless Word of God for twenty-five cents! You may have a favorite copy of the road map to Paradise, I pray so, and perhaps you paid more than twenty five cents for it. Whatever you paid, read it, love it, live it.
For the word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart. Hebrews 4:12
Lou David Allen graduated from Abilene Christian University with a BS in Physics in 1962 and a MBA in 1976. He worked for NASA on the Apollo Moon Project in Houston, TX. His area of expertise is heat transfer especially related to space simulation systems. He was a junior college administrator and teacher for 21 years and was the mayor of Merkel, TX for eight. He now works as a salesman for a company he and his wife Rhoda own. Rhoda and David have been married forty-seven years. They are happy.
I recently had a discussion with a congregational leader who was bemoaning the prevalence of sports in the lives of our church youth. The leader believed our youth should spend more time in church than on the field. It’s almost as if we must choose to be a Christian in the confines of an assembly building or not at all. My response is a close look at the scriptures. The truth is, Christ intended for his follower to be disciples and spread the gospel everywhere at all times. A practical Christian will:
1. Go into the world. To spread the gospel we must go.
2. Serve as Christ’s ambassador. Ambassadors serve in foreign lands
3. Go where our gift influences the most. Don’t compartmentalize your faith into church and world.
4. Use every gift from God. What ‘s your gift? Use it to spread the gospel.
