Archive for January, 2025

Living Crosswise

“If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me” (Luke 9: 23).

On the day Jesus spoke these words, everybody knew what Jesus meant. In the Roman world, before a man died on a cross, he had to carry his cross (or at least the horizontal beam of the cross) to the place of execution. Therefore, He was speaking of an ongoing process. That process being a consistent lifestyle commensurate with His. To deny yourself is to live as an others-centered person. That one being Jesus. That prompts us to pray with heart “not my will, but thy will be done.”

Jesus made it clear that He was not speaking on this occasion of physical death, but spiritual by adding the word “daily.” No one could be crucified physically everyday. However, they could daily have the same attitude that Jesus had.

That is, to live as expressed in an old hymn by B. B McKinney entitled “Let Others See Jesus in You:”

“While passing through this world of sin,
And others your life shall view,
Be clean and pure without, within,
Let others see Jesus in you.”

An appeal resulting in fulfillment is found in this: “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service” (Romans 12: 1, 2).

When your life is a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God,” it is a fulfilling and rewarding life.

Albert Schweitzer, a man of some note, observed, “The purpose of human life is to serve, and to show compassion and the will to help others. Only then have we ourselves become true human beings.

I don’t know what your destiny will be, but one thing I know: the only ones among us who will be really happy are those who have sought and found how to serve. Life becomes harder for us when we live for others, but it also becomes richer and happier.”

Schweitzer’s observation reaches new heights when tweaked to indicate life is most meaningful and fulfilling when it is Jesus we seek to serve. We may serve others, but it should be done in Jesus. name and by His enabling grace.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow said, “Worthwhile people don’t just happen. You aren’t born worthwhile. You are born with the capacity to be worthwhile. It is your job to discover and develop the person you ought to be.” The person you ought to be is the you willfully and joyfully bearing your cross daily. Start today.

Hide and Seek

Can you say with sincerity and practice with integrity, “Your word I have hidden in my heart, That I might not sin against You” (Psalm 119: 11)?

Are you continuing to add in your mental storehouse additional Bible principles? Memorization is excellent mental exercise. It is a means of developing mental sharpness. Mental acuity is something to be sought.

To offer a technique for memorization consider II Peter 1: 5 – 9: 5 “…add to your faith virtue, to virtue knowledge, to knowledge self-control, to self-control perseverance, to perseverance godliness, to godliness brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness love. For if these things are yours and abound, you will be neither barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. For he who lacks these things is shortsighted, even to blindness, and has forgotten that he was cleansed from his old sins.”

At first glance that may appear too much to try to memorize. Try breaking it down as follows and it becomes easier.

“…add to your faith virtue
to virtue knowledge
to knowledge self-control
to self-control perseverance
to perseverance godliness
to godliness brotherly kindness
to brotherly kindness love.

For if these things are yours and abound, you will be neither barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.

For he who lacks these things is shortsighted, even to blindness, and has forgotten that he was cleansed from his old sins.”

It is the principle of how to eat an elephant. Cut it up into bite size pieces.

Once they are memorized, reflect on them often lest you forget them. By reflecting on them they are more likely to become your character traits.

Studies show that having information stored in your memory is what enables you to think critically. Critical thinking leads to the ability to solve problems. The more factual knowledge people have about a topic, the better they can think about it critically and analytically. In other words, the truths become instinctive, your basic nature. When people see information only once, they forget 70 to 80% of it within two weeks. They’re much more likely to remember information if they repeatedly try to recall it after it’s been partially forgotten.

Now you have been provided information on how to memorize Scripture and why, resolve to do it.

Are you practicing the words of God so that at the end of each day you can say, “With my whole heart I have sought You; Oh, let me not wander from Your commandments!” (Psalm 119: 10).

God Shed His Grace on America

Christie’s Auction House seems to be the model for our presidential election process. The voters are the auctioneer wanting to get all that is possible. The candidates are the bidders, each trying to top the other by offering more for the office. With each passing day the offers get higher. There is no way any candidate can provide all that is promised. No way.

November 5, 2024 is sure to be one of the most meaningful days in our nation’s history. Regardless of who wins there is sure to be a dramatic change.

One, Trump if elected will undertake the monolithic change of calling us back from the brink of an implosion.

The other, Harris is sure to lead us dramatically into the maze of leftist socialist decline.

Pray for our Lord to have at His disposal a new president open to His leadership. One who may not adhere to the faith as nearly as could be hoped, but one who is disposed to govern in such a way as to advance freedom of religion, freedom of speech, and the right of gun ownership.

Consider it is the duty of nations as well as men, to own their dependent upon the overruling power of God, to confess their sins and transgressions, in humble sorrow, yet with assured hope that genuine repentance will lead to mercy and pardon, and the recognition that the sublime truth, announced in the Holy Scriptures and proven by all history, that those nations only are blessed whose God is the Lord.

That did not come from a preacher, but a president. Appropriately quotation marks should be put around that statement and justifiably attributed to a president, President Abraham Lincoln. It is an extract from his March 30, 1863 “Proclamation Appointing a National Fast Day.”

Lincoln with his human frailties, like all of us, realized what some today try desperately to deny, there is a spiritual component to life. Until it is properly addressed and dealt with even the utopia promised by candidates would be a Gehenna.

We need a good president to lead us, but no president can do for us what is needed. Government can’t, only God can. The hearts of the people need changing in order for the nation to be changed.

Turn us again Lord, turn us again.

The days are few and the need for God’s people to pray is intensified thereby.

Neither candidate embodies biblical faith, but one mocks it, Harris, and the other, Trump is open to it and an ally of it. You chose which is more open to God.

PRAY – – – PRAY – – – PRAY – – – PRAY!