Our Days Are His

It is not an easy thing to find someone who cares about you as a person and acts in your interest because of their concern. It is inherent and expected that families care about those within the family unit whether immediate or extended in various connecting and loving ways. Compassion is also expected in a true friendship in concern for another person and in the loyal willingness to invest and involve oneself in the life on another. Compassion from the culture around us is varied and unpredictable.

We all need compassion from one another. By definition, compassion is a sympathetic consciousness of another and out of it, love brings forth the basis and actions that help us function, cope and live out our days on this earth. Yet compassion, given and received, feigns and fades as we as human beings must contend with the limitations and frailties of being human.

Yet there is “One” whose compassions fail not (Lamentations 3:22). Jesus lived out the compassion of God in the flesh as He both saw the needs those around him and lovingly and miraculously brought redeeming action to every situation he saw, felt and encountered. Jesus was the compassion of God as He loved and lived. He lived to feed the tired and hungry, both physical and spiritual food. He lived to bring healing to the needy while lifting up the broken and liberating the captive of sin and despair. Jesus was the compassion of God in the flesh addressing every need as He loved with the love of God.

The compassion of Jesus is extraordinary. The compassion that marked His life on the earth is the way He is now. It is not only that He sees and hears us, but He attends to us. As He died, we see the compassion of Jesus in one of the greatest example of compassion possible, as He attends to the request from the condemned man on the nearby cross. Jesus was weakened to the point of death, emotionally and spiritually drained, isolated and abandoned with the weight of the sin of the world laid upon Him. Yet He responds to this condemned man of sin, in love with the gift of eternal life. How can we ever doubt that Jesus will not see us, hear us and compassionately attend to us?

Then he said to Jesus, “Lord, remember me when You come into Your kingdom.” And Jesus said to him, “Assuredly, I say to you, today you will be with Me in Paradise” (Luke 23:42-43 NKJV).

The rich and privileged men stood in front of the crowds consumed with religious pretense, language and bluster as they came fully clothed in roles and robes of significance. They looked to the side without turning their heads or averting their eyes yet making sure people saw their slow hand movements as they purposely let their bulky offering fall into the offering box.

The old nondescript woman in tattered clothes quickly slipped the tiniest of coins in the offering box as well … blushing while glancing around, trying to avoid the stares of aversion and disdain.
The people admired and noticed the bulky shimmering robes and the overflowing offering of the man as he proudly basked in their admiration but disregarded both the gift and the woman who quickly exited the temple.

Yet, the Savior saw the truth midst the pretense. The Savior saw the giving of nothing and the gloating pride of the rich men and the delivery of everything by the poor woman. Thus the men, who gave nothing, received nothing but the false admiration of the moment devoid of the presence and blessing of God and the poor woman who truly released her heart found the richness of the abiding of God in her life.

Some were fooled in the days of the Savior and some are fooled today. Simply taken in and fooled by those who make a spectacle of their faith.  Don’t be fooled by those that make a show of their position, their wealth, their religious words and the trappings of their faith while they give nothing to their God.

Instead … see the truth and substance or real faith in those that release everything as they deliver their hearts to their Savior. The faith of the humble will always give a richness of life to the humble through the blessing of God because they  look to Him for everything they need.   It is the opposite way with the pretending of the proud. A certain emptiness will always remain in their faith because they desire what is essentially devoid of truth and substance, as the God they claim to know, is not needed or really acknowledged and thus little comes their way from God.

And He said, “In truth I say unto you that this poor widow hath cast in more than they all. For all these have of their abundance cast in unto the offerings of God, but she of her penury hath cast in all the living that she had.” (Luke 21:3-4, KJ21)

“For by grace are ye saved through faith …” (Ephesians 2:8, KJ21).

For centuries … parents, poets, politicians, philosophers, teachers, preachers, psychologists and writers have walked down the descriptive and analytical pathways of the metaphor of life being a road. These varied helpers have tried to help others navigate their own roads by offering insights and advice on the difficulties of roads being both considered and traveled by those under their responsibility or care and direction. Warnings have issued and warnings have been ignored. Advice has been offered and advice has been cast aside like unneeded excessive baggage into the adjoining ditch on these many and varied roads called life.

There seems to be in the heart of all human beings, a sense of stubborn ignorant, selfish and rebellious determination to walk down roads of our own choosing. We walk by the warning signs of experience, we shrug off the concern of those who would help us and we fail to consider the timeless advice from our God just because we want to go our own way on the roads that we want to walk down.

Roads of lust, coveting, greed and desire. Roads of pride and unconcern. Roads of power and self-absorption. Ancient ill-advised treacherous roads that seem new and fresh only because we are foolish and unwise to believe we are better equipped than the myriads of those tripped up on these dangerous pathways. How utterly vain and ridiculous we as human beings can be! How desperately we need a Savior with an endless supply of grace!

What a blessed reality to find a Savior with such an amazing grace on the rebellious roads each of us have travel throughout the days of our lives. Patient grace that knows every detail of our foolish journeys on roads that end at the cliff sides of danger and destruction to catch us as we fall. Immense and powerful grace, that intervenes to stop us from harming ourselves and others through the mysterious and miraculous presence of a Savior who uses people, places and things to help us. Welcome and inviting grace that redeems our choice of roads, again and again. It was grace that redeemed an adulterous David and proud Saul on their poorly chosen roads and it will be grace that will redeem us on our roads of life as well. Thanks be to God for the Savior that meets all of us on our ill-advised and badly chosen rebellious roads in life!

Suggested Reading … Psalm 51, Acts 9:1-9

You will say on that day, “I will give thanks to You, O Lord. Even though You were angry with me, Your anger is turned away and You comfort me. See, God saves me. I will trust and not be afraid. For the Lord God is my strength and song. And He has become the One Who saves me.” As water from a well brings joy to the thirsty, so people have joy when He saves them (Isaiah 12:1-3, NLT).

We may at times give a hurried backwards glance at our failures, hesitating and restless in the uncomfortable realizations of feeling regret for our failures and sins. We may go slightly forward with our lives, but every now and then, the weight and residue of sin’s consequences may buffet us like a strong wind as we remember or face what remains.

We do not know which direction to go … whether to face into the wind or run from the imposing indictment of ourselves. We have seen the brutal reality of our sin and from the nastiest of nightmarish judgments that we sense we deserve, we can only long for a savior.

We long for a ray of expectation, for a glimmer of light to squeeze through the foreboding heaviness and give us a reason for a solution. We sense the disappointment of our Heavenly Father and yet He is our only hope.
We long to look up but our gaze is fixed on our failure. Then it happens, then a greater reality demands our attention. The only One that can change our helpless predicament has traveled the distance between hope and despair, between regret and promise and between foreboding and assurance to bring us salvation.

Our Savior has come! As we see Him, we faint in awareness … His love is greater than we can comprehend. He is here. He has come again. He is now with us, freely giving grace to erase all fear and His presence to empower us anew by securing the ground and the sustenance to journey forward anew into the days ahead. What joy we have as we drink deeply from His unending well of overflowing salvation. What joy to be welcomed again and again into the loving arms of the gracious beyond description Heavenly Father who travels beyond all sin to bring salvation in the gift of His Son!

Suggested Reading … Isaiah 12

The Lord will scatter you among the peoples, and only a few of you will survive among the nations to which the Lord will drive you. There you will worship man-made gods of wood and stone, which cannot see or hear or eat or smell. But if from there you seek the Lord your God, you will find him if you seek him with all your heart and with all your soul. When you are in distress and all these things have happened to you, then in later days you will return to the Lord your God and obey him. (Deuteronomy 4:27-30, NIV)

Christian believers often are confused about the grace that saves them. They often view grace as something new. They talk as if grace was recently found, languishing on a dusty shelf in a room filled with God’s gifts. Then after this gift of grace was found, God remarkably decides to gives it to us in a special way and unique way.

Grace is not something that God simply does as an action but rather one of the many acts that flow out from the attributes of God from His omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent essence and being. Our true understanding of His mercy and grace will always be blurred by our limited capacities, as God created beings even though we can be at the same time daunted by the scope of God’s love in granting us mercy and grace.

God’s unfathomable mercy by which He is able to lovingly see us as sinners and by His grace, to bestow on us His redeeming favor … is not new! God is who He always was, and who He will forever be (Malachi 3:6) and His mercies are new (Lamentations 3:22-23) only in sense that they flow endlessly by His grace into every new day.

God’s forgiveness was formally tied to a system of sacrifice to bring about the release from sin until Christ fulfilled all requirements for sacrifice and by His death brought redemption to all people, once and for all time, for all sin (1 Peter 3:18).  Still God always turned in mercy to those who sought Him in the Old Testament and gave grace to those who repented with a contrite heart. He welcomed back into His loving arms even those who had wandered so far that they worshiped false and useless gods which were made of wood and stone

The chosen people of the “First Covenant” and the followers of the “New Covenant” in Jesus Christ come to the same God and place their only redeeming hope in the same Living and Almighty God. God’s long-suffering and great mercy to see those who turn away from sin, selfishness, foolishness and falseness was and is always the same. His granting of favor through grace has always been the same because it flows from who God is and will forever be the same. Mercy and grace are not something new with God for they come from the God who is and will forever … be love.

He that loveth not, knoweth not God, for God is love. (1 John 4:8, KJ21)

Suggested Reading … Deuteronomy 4

Lord, how they have increased that trouble me! Many are they that rise up against me! Many there be that say of my soul, “There is no help for him in God.” Selah But Thou, O Lord, art a shield for me, my glory and the lifter up of mine head. (Psalm 3:1-3, KJ21)

There is much in life that can come against us. The battles can be inside of us with endless torrents of distresses, confusion and anxieties coming like menacing hordes overpowering our hearts with emotions and our minds with raging thoughts. The battles can come from stresses related to health issues and family interactions and commitments. These internal battles can come from or in response to our performances and obligations in roles and relationships related to our work and careers. The battles can be old coming from regretful actions and lingering consequences and the battles can be new ambushing us when we least expect them.

Real battles can also come against us from real enemies. Literal enemies that would wish to hurt, maim and even destroy us physically, emotionally, financially or by reputation. These combatant enemies can be individuals, or social, societal and even governmental entities but their intentions are always similar. They may desire possession of our place and position consumed by their selfish desires and gain. They may seek revenge and retaliation. They may even seek to damage us or even destroy us.

King David faced both the surging internal battles in his heart and mind and countless literal external intentional actions by enemies near and far bent on his destruction and the taking of his kingdom.
David offers the hope of a shield that would encompass protection from all that was coming against him both from the inside pressures and anxieties and from the literal battles with his enemies, wishing to destroy him. His only hope rested in the mighty shield of the Almighty God protecting him from all realms and all enemies that would come against him. In the midst of all that came against him, David knew and trusted that His Lord would come to him and fight for him. The Lord was David’s only glory and his only hope rested only in God alone.

We may face different pressures and anxieties than David faced and we may never face literal enemies bent on our destruction but we have the same Deliverer who protects us with an all-encompassing shield against all that would come against us. To the Lord alone, we give all glory for He alone can deliver us. He is the only true hope for strength, peace and deliverance from all that would come against us.

Salvation belongs to the Lord; your blessing be on your people! Selah (Psalm 3:8, ESV)

Suggested Reading … Psalm 3