Irritation
A little clipping that crossed my desk a long time ago expresses an often overlooked opportunity, “Life on earth would not be worth much if every source of irritation were removed. Yet most of us rebel against the things that irritate us, and cause us heavy loss that ought to be rich gain.
We are told that the oyster is wiser; that when an irritating object, like a bit of sand, gets under the ‘mantle’ of his shell, he simply covers it with the most precious part of his being and makes a pearl out of it. The irritation that it was causing is stopped by encrusting it with the pearly formation. A true pearl is therefore simply a VICTORY over irritation. Every irritation that gets into our lives today is an opportunity for a pearl culture. The more irritations that the devil flings at us, the more pearls are possible. We need only to welcome them and cover them completely with love, that most precious part of us, and the irritation will be smothered out as the pearl comes into being. What a store of pearls we may have, if we will!”
Most of us will probably admit we don’t have as many pearls as we have the potential for. However, if we adopt the philosophy of the pearl we can have more.
In the Yellowstone Park area of America grows an unusual evergreen, the lodgepole pine. Like other pines, its cones must stay on the tree for years. Even when it falls off, they usually do not open. They only open when exposed to extreme heat. Forest fires often destroy great expanses of this beautiful country. At the same time the heat opens the cones of the lodgepole pine. They are most often the first tree to grow back in a fire-ravaged area. The seed of new life was just waiting for the right conditions.
If you are overreacting in rage to minor frustrations, reevaluate your current situation and priorities. Everyone becomes fed up with something, but a spiritually healthy person deals with it.
Irritations are annoying, unpleasant experiences absent from danger, such as a mosquito buzzing around, or even a gnat. Life is a sand trap filled with various daily irritations like: TYPING IN ALL CAPS before you realize it, trying to spread frozen butter on warm bread, new upgrades of familiar operating systems, watching the clerk at the post office count paperclips while the line grows longer, and a dentist who hums in your defenseless face. The list goes on.
Remember we’re all in the waiting business. How we wait on God makes all the difference. Waiting on the Lord and not running before Him is often difficult, but always advantageous. His flight doesn’t always take off on our time.
Therefore “…glory in tribulations, knowing that tribulation produces perseverance; and perseverance, character; and character, hope.” (Romans 5: 3, 4)
Make this, and every day a “pearly day”.
Blessed Are the Merciful
“Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.” Matthew 5:7
The Greek words that Jesus used for “merciful” and “mercy” in this beatitude come from the root words “eleemon” and “eleos.” Both words have the idea of “a person who is emotionally moved by another’s suffering and in some way shares in that person’s suffering.” That is what the Lord does for us.
Aristotle said of the merciful, “They are emotionally moved by what they see and hear and in some sense suffer.”
Mercy is more than a feeling of kindness and a desire to care for someone. Mercy demands more than feelings. Mercy is action that helps the helpless. Mercy is compassion in action.
Before you get tired of thinking of having to show mercy so often pause and reflect on the many times you have been shown mercy.
Mercy has not always been considered a virtue. Nero was typical of such people. He believed that mercy was an emotion resulting in action that men and women should not display.
Polybius said, “Mercy is the morbid condition of souls that feel an excess of misery.”
A noteworthy Roman philosopher called mercy “the disease of the soul.”
By way of contrast Jesus said, “Blessed are the merciful for they shall receive mercy.” (Matthew 5:7)
The immediacy of God’s mercy is expressed well in this poem by Katharine Tynan that depicts a person having been thrown from a horse who pleaded for mercy: “Was mercy sought and mercy found. Yea, in the twinkling of an eye, He cried; and Thou hast heard his cry. Betwixt the saddle and the ground Was mercy sought and mercy found.”
In regular language, “mercy” means being caring and compassionate toward people who are in a state of need. That’s a position we are all in relative to the Lord, all the time.
We are, quite literally, at His mercy. Fortunately, the Lord is caring and compassionate to a degree we cannot fathom. He is the source of all caring and all compassion, and of love itself. So His mercy toward us never lessens, never abates, never ends; His whole purpose is to bring each of us, individually, to heaven.
The zenith of mercy is found at the cross. There it is love on steroids. There it is evident God saw our need and mercifully acted to meet it.
God’s mercy is reflected in the cross of Christ.. It is a direct reflection of His love for us. Mercy is an extension of and expression of love, “an act of kindness, compassion, or favor.” Mercy is a characteristic of the One True God.
Look for opportunities to show mercy today and every day. Remember,
“Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.”
Letter to the American Church
Have you ever had an idea for a book you would like to write only to find out someone has stolen your idea and written it. Eric Metaxas, author of the voluminous autobiography of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the German theologian, just stole mine. It is entitled “Letter to the American Church.” I am glad he did because he has done a much better job than I could ever have done. The thesis is he sees happening in the churches of America today what was going on in the churches of Germany just before Hitler took control.
Basically the thesis is the church failed to address what was going on in society until the time came when the state prohibited them from speaking out. Bonhoeffer spoke out, was sent to Auschwitz where he ultimately died days before the Allies liberated the camp.
Another German who dared to speak out was the Lutheran minister, Martin Niemoller. In the 1920s and early 1930s, he sympathized with many Nazi ideas and supported radically right-wing political movements. But after Adolf Hitler came to power in 1933, Niemöller became an outspoken critic of Hitler’s interference in the Protestant Church. For doing so he spent the last eight years of Nazi rule, from 1937 to 1945, in Nazi prisons and concentration camps. Niemöller is perhaps best remembered for his postwar statement.
“First they came for the Communists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Communist
Then they came for the Socialists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Socialist
Then they came for the trade unionists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a trade unionist
Then they came for the Jews
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Jew
Then they came for me
And there was no one left
To speak out for me.”
I do not have an all encompassing knowledge of the churches of metropolitan Atlanta and America, but I do have a fair familiarity with the churches in our area. To my knowledge there are only two pulpits that dare use an application of gospel truths to address civic and social issues of our time.
Metaxas raises some interesting questions, such as: “Silence in the face of evil is itself evil. Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act. God will not hold us guiltless.”
“Can it really be God’s will that His children be silent at a time like this? Decrying the cowardice that masquerades as godly meekness, Eric Metaxas summons the Church to battle.”
Metaxas refutes the pernicious lie that fighting evil politicizes Christianity. As Bonhoeffer and other heroes of the faith insisted, the Church has an irreplaceable role in the culture of a nation.
Doubtless ministers in Germany thought what ultimately happened could not happen in their happy homeland. After all, they remained free of pressure brought by the state as long as they did not speak against the developing philosophy of Nazism.
In America today there are philosophies and governmental policies contrary to our Constitution and the tenants of the churches. The question is will reaction be bold enough to prevent them from prevailing and muting churches and all who oppose them.
What stance is your church taking against such ascendancy and ultimate control? This is a five alarm book.
King of the Jews vs the King of the Jews
“Then Pilate entered the Praetorium again, called Jesus, and said to Him, ‘Are You the King of the Jews?’” John 18: 33
This was a crucial question posed at a critical time. It was of such importance that the account is found in all four gospels and is asked on four different occasions. Both Pilate and Herod on different occasions questioned Jesus regarding the title. It was a title used of baby Jesus by the Wise Men in seeking Him. It was a title posted above His head on the cross,
The emperor Augustus gave Herod the title King of the Jews and his connections with Rome, the emperor Augustus and his court were extraordinary. Throughout his long reign he desperately, but abortively, wanted to establish some kind of “dynasty” or royal line, as evidenced by his marriage to the Hasmonean princess Miriame. So obsessed was he with genealogical records that Josephus reports that he had the archives at Sepphoris destroyed, lest any rivals challenge his pedigree or put forth their own. Therefore, in addition to exercising his right as a regent he was personally concerned. Herod jealously guarded his title. He did not want anyone usurping it.
Augustine observed from this verse that earthly kingdoms are based upon force, pride, the love of human praise, the desire for domination, and self interest – all displayed by Pilate and the Roman Empire, but none by Jesus. To personalize this is it we who have the traits evidenced by Pilate to the restriction of the rule of Jesus in our lives.
Jesus did not say He did not have a kingdom, but rather that it was not of this world. He did not say He would not one day rule in this world in the millennium. He shall. He currently rules in the hearts of His loyal followers.
Where there is a king there is a kingdom, a territory over which he rules. If Jesus is your King, why be so concerned with the title while giving so little attention to His rule. To say Jesus is King is admirable, but it only takes on meaning when you can truthfully say, “Jesus in MY King.” Jesus Is King of all, or He is not King at all.
Don’t proclaim Him as your King of kings and Lord of lords and question His reign.
By His life Jesus defines the kingdom and demonstrates its principles and power. He deserves to be ardently worshiped and served because of His nature and our benefit.
As His servant obedience to Him, even in little things, such as turning the other cheek, may leave you with two broken jaws, yet thereby Jesus is shown to be your beloved King. Obedience is often costly, but always gratifying and rewarding.
With Jesus as our King Eden is restored in our heart.
Be loyal to the royal blood that flows in your veins.
Three Empowering Virtues – Part Four
“He has shown you, O man, what is good; And what does the Lord require of you But to do justly, To love mercy, And to walk humbly with your God?” Micah 6: 8
The third virtue noted by the prophet Micah is “to walk humbly with God.”
“To walk humbly with your God” means to live in conscious fellowship with God.
It is to recognize God’s absolute holiness and submit to His will.
In Scripture the term “walk” often refers to a lifestyle. To be humble means to be respectfully obedient.
We do not have the overt threats because of walking humbly with God as some are having.
During the deep depression of the early 30s a panel of distinguished speakers was addressing a large audience from Chicago’s South Side consisting mostly of black persons. Clarence Darrow, the eminent attorney, a professed atheist, was one of the panelists.
Economic conditions were deplorable and jobs scarce. Darrow masterfully capitalized on this to depict the plight of the people and question God. He summed up their woes, concluding, “And yet you sing? No one can sing like you! What do you have to sing about?
Instantly a lady in the audience shouted, “We got Jesus to sing about!” Her response was followed by a chorus of “Amens” and “Yeses” and “That’s right.”
Darrow, uncharacteristically, was speechless. He had no response to people who can sing above their fears and tears because they walk with the one who strengthens them to do all things He wants them to do. That still works.
When Elizabeth married the ultimately famous poet Robert Browning her parents disowned her. She and Robert moved far away to Florence, Italy. She loved her parents and sought reconciliation. Several times a month she would write telling them of her love. After 10 years there came a response. She received a package from her parents which she opened with excitement. Elizabeth’s happy moment rapidly faded when she found inside all of her letters to her parents — unopened.
Elizabeth, like Robert, was a poet. Her letters of reconciliation have been called “some of the most beautiful and expressive in the English language.” Unfortunately her parents never read them.
Like Elizabeth, our Lord went to extreme measures to achieve reconciliation. Have you left His love letters unread? As Micah said God has shown us, it is in the Book, what is good. To find what is “good” read and obey His love letters. Accept His offer of reconciliation.
Come to the cross. It is an exhortation to “do justly.” it was sin, human kind”s injustice, that put Him there.
Come to the cross. It is an appeal to love mercy because of the mercy manifested there.
Come to the cross. It is empowering, enabling a walk with God.