Month: August 2020

I belong to a great gospel giving group called the Pocket Testament League.  This group is dedicated to presenting the gospel to the world through devotionals and the Gospel of John.

Here is an example of the contents of one of their booklets.  Enjoy!

The World’s Greatest Message

”As I live, saith the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked; but that the wicked turn from his way and live: turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways.”  Ezekiel 33:11

I have been pretty fortunate when it comes to substitute teaching  because overall I have been treated great by the kids no matter what the school or subject.  Some subs, however, are not so fortunate.  Kids see a sub and mistreat them.  It as though the students think subs have no feelings, so it is okay to abuse them.  When the kids see the teacher as robotic and without emotions, it becomes all right to treat them anyway they please.  That is often the process people use when they want to hurt others. They dehumanize them first, take away personal identity, remove the traits that would feel pain, and then go on to treat them anyway they want.

Unfortunately, that is what many do to God.  They see Him as a disconnected being overseeing the world with an uncaring eye and a cold heart.  Because they see Him that way it allows them to treat Him any way they like.  After all, if He has no feelings, He cannot be hurt so we can curse Him, mock Him, and reject Him at our own pleasure.  But that is not who God is.  On the contrary, God feels pain when we reject Him.  Not for Himself, but for us.  Peter tells us that, “The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward (us), not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.”  2 Peter 3:9

When people misunderstand the sovereignty of God and assume that God is pleased with all that He allows to happen in the world they ignore God’s nature as revealed in His Word.  We mistakenly say that if God was really hurt by the bad things in the world He would stop all evil, pain, and suffering since He is all-powerful. If He does not stop it, He must not care, or at the least, not be hurt by what He sees.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  God cares so much that He gave His only Son to suffer and die on behalf of those who cursed, mocked, and rejected Him.  Who else would do such a thing?

Additionally, we sometimes justify a particular sin or sinful way of life by telling ourselves that if it really hurt God or if He was really upset, He would change us.  After all, if we don’t like something someone else is doing and we have the power to change it, we normally try to change it.  But God has tried to change things.  Over and over in his Word he says in many different ways,  “turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways.”  His Word gives us all the ingredients for a joyful (Brynn) contented life.  Our rejection of those ingredients does not say as much about God as it says about us.

We can try to rationalize our bad behavior, just like the kids do with the poor substitute teacher, by changing God into an unfeeling being, but the truth is He has more feeling for us than we can possibly have for ourselves.  When we hurt, He hurts more.  Our tears stream down his cheeks and our breaks from Him break His heart.  He takes no pleasure in our pain and, in fact, He feels our pain.  An atheist said, “If there is a God, may he prove himself by striking me dead right now.” Nothing happened. “You see, there is not God.” Another responded, “You’ve only proved that He is a gracious God.” God loves us and often saves us from ourselves because of His great mercy. When we rebel against Him because we think He has no feelings, He shows His feelings by showing us grace.

God delights when we turn to Him and

sorrows when we turn away.  With His power He could grab us and turn us around, but He would much rather we turn responding to His love than to His heavy hand. When I was growing up, I did what my father ask of me, not because I was afraid of him (which I should have been, because he was one tough guy), but because I was afraid to disappoint him.  He loved me so much, that I had a hard time seeing him hurt.  If we could see how much our Father in heaven loves us, and how much our rebellion hurts Him, we would think twice about our tendency to rebel.

If we read the Word and open our hearts to it, we will see the nature of God.  We will also see our own nature.  Juxtaposing the two, we will see that it is us who should change, not God.  While visiting the U.S. after World War II, Winston Churchill was aboard a train bound for Missouri with President Harry Truman. They were in a special car which had the presidential seal hung up on a wall. Truman noticed Churchill studying the seal and he pointed out that he had changed it so that the eagle on the seal was turned toward the olive branch instead of the arrows. “Why not put the eagle’s head on a swivel,” suggested Churchill. “That way you could turn it to the right or the left, depending on what the occasion warranted.”   Unfortunately, that is what we tend to do in our own lives.  We put our behavior on a swivel and sometimes point it toward God and sometimes point it away depending on whether we want to war with Him or not.

We should not wait until we are forced to turn to God by our own self-destruction.  Some people seem to see the light, but others won’t turn to God until they feel the heat.  God has open arms, and to understand that fact we merely need to have open hearts.

We sometimes look at the great people of the Bible as super heroes who God enlisted in a task because they were fearless and would do anything they were told unflinchingly and without any hesitation.  But that was not so and the wonderful thing about the Bible is that it shows all sides of the people it portrays.  Even from the most obedient men and women we see reluctance, doubt, and fear.  We see also the great crutch of excuse-making that we all have used and will continue to use to avoid taking on tasks, taking on responsibility, or taking on criticism.  Someone once said that excuses are like arm pits, we all have them … and they all stink.  Well, the men and women of the Bible had arm pits, too.

It doesn’t take long perusing the Bible in our minds to find some excellent examples of excuse making.  Moses was called to “set his people free,” but argued that he was not the man for the job.  In Exodus 3 God tells Moses, “I will send you to Pharaoh that you may bring my people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt.” But Moses said to God, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the children of Israel out of Egypt?” He said, “But I will be with you…”  In the following verses clear into chapter 4, Moses has a series of excuses that God must address.  Things like, the Pharoah is too powerful to I can’t speak well enough, are faulty reasons that Moses gives to God.  Until Moses took his eyes off his own inadequacies and his difficult circumstances, he could not be used of God.  When he finally gave God the reins and the reign, Moses led his people to the promised land.

But, of course, Moses isn’t the lone example in excuse making. Arguably, one of the greatest Old Testament prophets was Jeremiah.  Surely, he must have tackled his task without hesitation. Right?  Not quite.

The word of the LORD came to me, saying, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.”

“Ah, Sovereign LORD,” I said, “I do not know how to speak;  I am only a child.”

But the LORD said to me, “Do not say, ‘I am only a child.’   You must go to everyone I send you to and say whatever I command you.  Do not be afraid of them, for I am with you and will rescue you,” declares the LORD.  Then the LORD reached out his hand and touched my mouth and said to me, “Now, I have put my words in your mouth.  See, today I appoint you over nations and kingdoms to uproot and tear down, to destroy and overthrow, to build and to plant.”  Jeremiah 1:4-10

Jeremiah was not too different from us.  “I can’t” or “It’s too hard” or “I don’t know how” or “someone else is better, stronger, smarter…” are just some of the excuses that he and we use to avoid uncomfortable tasks that we face.  Jeremiah and Moses, fortunately, overcame their excuses and took their tasks on and served God faithfully.  But some of us let our excuses stop us from doing those things we should do (or shouldn’t do).  This is especially dangerous when it comes to spiritual things.  Excuses abound… “The Bible is too boring and hard to understand.”  “I am really too busy for God.”  “I can’t talk to others about God, I don’t know enough.”  “When things get settled down, I will get more serious about God.”  The list goes on.

The prophet Jonah was called by God to go to Nineveh, a huge city and the avowed enemy of Israel, and call them to repentance.  Jonah had all kinds of excuses for avoiding that task.  He might be killed, it was a long journey, he didn’t have the “right stuff” to do it, and a classic excuse that he didn’t want to go because he knew God would forgive them and that would make him mad.  “But it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was angry. And he prayed to the LORD and said, “O LORD, is not this what I said when I was yet in my country? That is why I made haste to flee to Tarshish; for I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and relenting from disaster. Therefore now, O LORD, please take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live.”  So, Jonah didn’t want to go because God is good and would forgive Jonah’s enemies if they repented.  That’s really reaching deep in the excuse barrel.

These are just a few examples of excuse making in the Bible, but there are countless others from Eve blaming the serpent and Adam blaming Eve all the way up through Revelation.  Many of these people were called directly by God, but most of us are called by the Word of God.  We know what we should do, but so often we come up with excuses (and not such original ones at that) to sit on our hands. We should only marvel that God continues to call us to service when are so slow to act. We are like reluctant middle schoolers lining the walls of the gym at their first sock-hop.

We need to remember that God has plans for us and he will only give us tasks for which we are equipped. If we don’t do what we are called to do, someone with lesser skills, but a more obedient heart might have to take over that job.  We all know those people.  The ones who will tackle anything because there are so many who will tackle nothing.  It is better that we be one of the former than the latter. There is an old saying that a poor workman always finds fault with his tools. If we do not take on the spiritual tasks that we are called to do, we are really faulting God because He is our power to achieve.

There are usually three excuses for our inaction or our bad actions. First, we deny that we are being neglectful or that we are doing anything wrong. Second, we fall back on the “it’s not my fault” excuse that is always quite handy.  Third, we admit that we are wrong, but it is our circumstances that are at fault. So excuses are just that, they are not reasons and we can’t shape them to be reasons. We look to blame others, so we don’t have to look toward ourselves. We can’t just admit that we just don’t want to do what we are called to do or we just don’t want to stop doing what we shouldn’t do.   Like the outfielder who misses the ball and holds up his glove toward the sun to tell everyone the sun was in his eyes, we hold up our excuses, so everyone knows we are not at fault.

We will close today with a few humorous examples of excuses that have come in on accident reports to the police.

“As I reached an intersection, a hedge sprang up, obscuring my vision.”

“I pulled away from the side of the road, glanced at my mother-in-law, and headed over the embankment.”

“The pedestrian had no idea which direction to go, so I ran over him.”

“The telephone pole was approaching fast. I attempted to swerve out of its path when it struck my front end.”

“The guy was all over the road. I had to swerve a number of times before I hit him.”

Sometimes our excuses are as ridiculous as these.  I hope God isn’t publishing them somewhere for people to read.  Remember, excuses are the nails for building houses of failure.  Let’s avoid excuses; let’s avoid failure.