Filing taxes - Devotion for 9/13/07

Filing taxes – Devotion for 9/13/07

I hate doing my taxes. For years I did our tax returns by using the some of the computer software you can buy, but it always something I despise. I always get nervous putting in all the figures, hoping that I am doing everything right. Being a minister, there are certain things that makes filing our taxes a little more complicated, because in some respects we are considered self-employed, and in others, employed. So this year we did something different. This past year Jennifer and two others formed a new law firm, and since she is now self-employed, we felt it would be safest for us to use an accountant to do our taxes. The whole concept of turning everything over to the CPA to do for us is magnificent! No worries at all – we just turn over all our paper work and records, the CPA computes all the relevant data, finds savings for us, and completes the job. After using the CPA this year, it really made me wonder why it took us so long to use one. If we had gone to one a long time ago, I wouldn’t have had to have that time of frustration and worry as I attempted to file the taxes by myself. It’s a great thing to just turn it over to him and not have to worry any longer about it I got it right or not.

“For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast.”(Ephesians 2:8-9) Thank God that in life we don’t have to worry about doing everything to save ourselves. Goodness knows I’ve made so many mistakes in my life. Any audit of my life that God could do would certainly find me guilty. That’s why I’ve turned it over to Him. Because I know through faith that God’s grace is sufficient for me, and I know that it is sufficient for you. Don’t stress over the mistakes we make. Just keep God informed so that they can be corrected. Turn it all over to Him.

Waiting to be unstuck - Devotion for 9/12/07

Waiting to be unstuck – Devotion for 9/12/07

One time when I was young, my Aunt Cordy came to Wilmington to visit for a few days. One particular day when she was at our house all alone, and she had to go out into the garage to get something. When she pulled the door closed, and she suddenly realized that she had just closed a locked door, and she was now locked out of the house. But fortunately for her, she wasn’t all alone – our pet Golden Retriever Rusty was in the garage with her. That is, he was in the garage with her until she mistakenly hit the button to open the garage door, and then Rusty took off running. The very unfortunate thing for Aunt Cordy was that she was only wearing her nightgown and bathrobe. She called out to Rusty to try to get him to come back, but he was gone, and dressed as she was, she wasn’t about to go running off chasing after him. She was stuck, and desperate for someone to come home with a key who could get her unstuck.

You and I have all had some kind of situation that we have been stuck in needing help from someone. Maybe it was embarrassing, or maybe it was desperate, we all know what it is like to feel trapped in a situation. In Psalm 25, David knows what if felt like to be stuck. “My eyes are continually toward the Lord, For He will pluck my feet out of the net (Psalm 25:15). David certainly had to feel as if he was stuck in net on several occasions:

• Stuck in the net of the sin of adultery, murder, and the consequences
• Stuck in the net of oppression as he is hunted by Saul
• Stuck in the net of sorrow of his own children’s actions

David had plenty of nets to be stuck in. And although he may not have always made the right decisions which led to him sometimes getting stuck in the net, he sure knew what to do when he got there. He called out to God, and waited for the Lord. Are you waiting to be unstuck from some sort of net of trouble right now? “My eyes are continually toward the Lord, For He will pluck my feet out of the net.”

Tuned in - Devotion for 9/11/07

Tuned in – Devotion for 9/11/07

Have you ever noticed how good you are at tuning something out? Maybe it’s the sound of planes constantly flying overhead, or the sound of cars incessantly driving past your house – whatever it is, we have an amazing ability to selectively tune out some of the things we don’t want to hear. For example, as a kid when I would be sitting in front of the TV furiously playing Pitfall on the Atari, I developed the skill of tuning out the voice of my mother when she would tell me I needed to turn off the game. Amazingly enough, my sons must have inherited the same ability.

Today I give thanks that God is incapable of tuning us out. God loves us so much that He tunes in for every word of every prayer that we ever utter. In the mysterious ways of God, He is intimately tuned in to us, and God is eager to listen to us. This morning I read Psalm 141, and I was struck by the first verse: “O Lord, I call upon You; hasten to me! Give ear to my voice when I call to You!” I think all the exclamation points really made me pay attention. David was really emphasizing his need for God to tune in to him at that moment, and I know that we all can relate to those times. There are those moments when we are really in need of God hearing our prayers, and we feel that same desperation that David did. The good news is that we don’t have to try to get God’s attention. He is always tuned in.

After forgiveness - Devotion for 9/10/07

After forgiveness – Devotion for 9/10/07

Have you ever had an argument with someone you really care about – say a wife/husband, boyfriend/girlfriend, or even one of your parents? Obviously we all have, and at some point in time, hopefully, there is reconciliation. The two of you come together once again, and apologies are reciprocated back and forth, and then what? To me the time following forgiveness can be an awkward time. You’ve gone straight from being angry to being sorry to being . . . well, it’s just hard to describe. You’re kinda glad that the argument is over, but you’re still kinda stinging about some of the things that we said. You’re kinda glad that the apology was rendered, but you’re still wondering if this argument is going to come up again. So what do you do after forgiveness?

In John 5:1-15, Jesus comes upon a man who has been sick for 38 years, and he is unable to help himself. Jesus asks him if he “wishes” to get well, and the man begins to explain that he wants to get well, but he can’t get himself into the pool of water (there was a belief that at this particular pool of water, when it was stirred by “a spirit,” then the first person in the water would receive healing). So Jesus simply tells him, “Get up, pick up your pallet and walk” (John 5:8). Sure enough, the dude is healed, and so he gets up, and before you know if he’s getting blasted by some of the Jews because he’s carrying his pallet on a Sabbath, which was obviously work, and obviously a violation of the Sabbath. The dude passes it off on Jesus – “that dude made me do it” (Adam Seate paraphrase). Jesus found the guy in a short while in the temple and said to him, “Behold, you have become well; do not sin anymore, so that nothing worse may befall you” (John 5:14).

It’s safe to assume that the dude that was healed was in the temple to worship, which is a pretty cool thing to do after having been healed. But Jesus knew there was something else there, something else that needed to be said. This dude must have had something going on to make Jesus seek him out again and give him the little subtle reminder not to sin again. Now, I don’t think that Jesus was expecting perfection out of our newly-walking fellow. But I’m guessing that Jesus knew something deep, dark about this guy, and Jesus wanted him to know he had been forgiven, but he better not going back to his sinning ways. The guy might have been sort of in that awkward after-forgiveness moment. Harry Emerson Fosdick says in The Manhood of the Master, “Only by a stronger passion can evil passions be expelled.” So as the forgiveness has been granted, meaning that the sin or misdeed has been erased, it must be replaced with something positive, something good – a “stronger passion.”

After forgiveness has been established – after reconciliation has taken place – replace those hard feelings from the argument, those guilty feelings from the apology, and those awkward feelings after forgiveness, with something new – a new stronger passion. Embrace the forgiveness and give thanks to God for the reconciliation.

The Golden Rule - Devotion for 9/6/07

The Golden Rule – Devotion for 9/6/07

Have you ever noticed that there is no promise or guarantee associated with what is known as the “Golden Rule” – “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”? That sounds great and all, but like I said, there is no promise or guarantee that just because you treat them the way you would want to be treated that they are going to do it. So what makes this rule so “golden”? Yes, I know that by living up to it we are storing up treasures in heaven, and no I don’t mean to demean that – but as far as life on earth goes, sometimes it is really, really difficult to treat others the way I would want (and expect) to be treated. So who came up with the idea that this particular bit of wisdom would be called the “Golden Rule”? And why does virtually everyone know this particular rule, but so few live up to it?

I think the idea to call it the “golden rule” derived from the element of gold (Au for all you science geeks). Gold, as you know, is a precious metal and it is precious because it is rare and has high economic value. It’s high economic value comes from how difficult it is to find, and once found, all the different ways it can be used. Gold is usually found as a nugget or vein in the midst of rock. To obtain pure gold, many times one has to mine down into hard rock, and once a vein has been found, it then has to be chipped out, separated, and purified – quite an extensive process. Sometimes people can luck out and find gold in the bottom of a river where the water has naturally eroded away the rock and left pieces of gold – but to find said gold is like finding a needle in a haystack. I think the level of difficulty of acquiring this precious metal sheds some light on the level of difficulty of living up to the “golden rule.”

It is not supposed to be easy to “treat others the same way you want them to treat you” (Luke 6:31). I don’t think it is supposed to be easy. There is no guarantee that just because you are kind to your enemy that your enemy will be kind to you. I’m a dog lover, and at one point in my life I dealt with a lot of dogs as I worked for the electric company, and part of my job was to go to houses and cut off the power if they had not paid their bill. I dealt will all kinds of dogs in my job, and I learned that most dogs, even the meanest ones, if you treated them kindly that they would befriend you. One day I was to cut off the lights at a house the had a fence around it, and inside the fence was a large, mean Doberman Pinscher. Although the dog was barking and growling furiously at me, I began to try to talk to him through the fence. I got him calmed down enough, so I reached over to let him smell my hand, and he did, so it seemed like we were on good terms. Suddenly that dog turned and clamped down onto my hand, and now I was the one howling. So I punched him with my other hand. I didn’t have a problem with the dog after that, and I was able to do my job, but I was angry at myself for even trying to be nice to that dog. My coworkers would have just sprayed the dog with our “dog mace” and gone in to do the job, but I wanted to show kindness. And because I had been bitten, I became bitter – not at the dog, because the dog was only trying to protect his territory. I became bitter at myself for trying to live up to that “golden rule.” If you try to live up to the “golden rule,” it will get hard, and you can become bitter, because you will get bitten. But just because we get bitten doesn’t mean we should continue to try. “Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful” (Luke 6:36).

What's the combination? - Devotion for 9/5/07

What’s the combination? – Devotion for 9/5/07

Jacob and Aaron have been riding their bikes to school each day, and because they were unable to do the bike locks that I had for the, that meant that I rode my bike to their school each day. So, I decided to get them each a new bike lock – one that they can easily do for themselves. It is a simple combination lock, and it came preset with certain numbers that they would need to memorize to be able to unlock the chain. In telling them about the lock and combination, I explained to them why it was important for them to memorize the combination and not tell it to anyone else. “Because if you are the only one who knows the combination, you are the only one who will be able to open up the lock.” I told them that other people could come up and claim that the bike was theirs, but if they didn’t know the combination to the lock, it would be easy to tell that they weren’t telling the truth.

2 John 2:3 states, “By this we know that we have come to know Him, if we keep His commandments.” This epistle goes on to explain that when someone claims to know God, but doesn’t keep God’s commandments, it is obvious that that person is a liar. As it states in verse 8: “The one who says he is in the Light and yet hates his brother is in the darkness until now.” The right combination to truly demonstrating that we are children of God is to live according to His word, and to live out that word through our love and forgiveness of others. Recognize that “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God”(Romans 3:23). But God calls us to live a life that shows the right combination of things that proves we belong to Him.

Facing forgiveness - Devotion for 9/4/07

Facing forgiveness – Devotion for 9/4/07

As a child, I found myself in mischief from time to time (yes, only when I was a child – not when I was a teen, young adult, or even now at 36 . . . ok, maybe just a little mischief). Whether it was getting into a little trouble at school or breaking (accidentally) some of my mom’s china, I’m not sure what I feared the most – the punishment I would receive, or the forgiveness. See sometimes the punishment wouldn’t be that bad, and while being punished I could find some way to direct my anger at the punisher instead of myself for doing whatever it was that I was being punished for. Somehow as I would be sitting in detention writing sentences (and sentences and sentences), I could transfer my shame and sorrow for what I had done into anger at my teacher for making me write “I will not throw spit balls in class” 500 times (or more). So, in some ways, sometimes punishment was welcome, because in receiving punishment I didn’t have to fully accept for myself what I had actually done.

But forgiveness – now that was something completely different. Forgiveness was something to be feared, because in receiving forgiveness I would fully understand what I had done, and that I was being let off the hook. Sometimes forgiveness accompanied the punishment that I still had to incur, and that was even worse because then I had to endure the punishment (such as sentences, spankings, or sitting out recess), yet knowing that I had been forgiven I had to own up to what I had actually done.

Listen to a couple of verses from Psalm 130 – “If You, Lord, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand? But there is forgiveness with You, that You may be feared” (Psalm 130:3-4) It was difficult for me to relate “forgiveness” and “fear” that the author speaks of here until I really began to think about what forgiveness really means. To me, it really means that my “iniquities” and sins are washed away, and as I understand it in relation to Jesus Christ, He endures the punishment that was intended for me. That kind of love is something to revere, something to almost fear. I take that back – that kind of love isn’t something to fear, but the true understanding of all of our sins being forgiven is something to fear – because when we recognize how much we have been forgiven, we will recognize how much we are loved. Today, let us face forgiveness together, no matter what we have done.