OFFERING AS AN ACT OF WORSHIP

“When one of the Pharisees invited Jesus to have dinner with him, Jesus went to the Pharisee’s house and reclined at the table. A woman in that town who lived a sinful life learned that Jesus was eating at the Pharisee’s house, so she came there with an alabaster jar of perfume. As she stood behind Him at His feet weeping, she began to wet His feet with her tears. Then she wiped them with her hair, kissed them and poured perfume on them.”  (Luke 7:36-38 NIV)

In Luke’s Gospel, we read the story of a woman who brought to Jesus a jar of expensive perfume which she broke open and poured out on Him… as an offering. She did not have to give it, but she made a choice. She did not give from obligation, but an open heart. She did not come for an hour, put her offering in a basket, and immediately leave to go back to her daily activities. She stopped. She wasn’t too busy or distracted by the world to surrender her thanksgiving and linger with her Savior as an act of worship. This outpouring of her time cost her, but it would be repaid by an outpouring of mercy and peace from Jesus.

There are many contrasts in the passage. The Pharisees were religious and educated. The woman was sinful and wasn’t allowed to study. The Pharisees were there to question Jesus. The woman was there to worship Jesus. The Pharisees were prideful. The woman was humble. The Pharisees shunned the sinful woman. Jesus showed her mercy. Because the woman was willing to come before Jesus with her broken offering, she received wholeness and redemption. What a moment. 

-- Excerpted from “Altar’d: The Transforming Power of Surrender” by Susan O. Kent

#6366

REALLY, LORD?

“Christ suffered for our sins once for all time. He never sinned, but He died for sinners to bring you safely home to God. He suffered physical death, but He was raised to life in the Spirit.”  (1 Peter 3:18 NLT)

Really now, Lord Jesus, is our sin so serious as to necessitate the sort of ugly drama we are forced to behold on Good Friday? Why should the noon sky turn toward midnight and the earth heave and the heavens be rent for our mere peccadilloes? To be sure, we’ve made our mistakes. Things didn’t turn out as we intended. There were unforeseen complications, factors beyond our control. But we meant well. We didn’t intend for anyone to get hurt. We’re only human, and is that so wrong?

Really now, Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world, we may not be the very best people who ever lived, but surely we are not the worst. Others have committed more serious wrong. Ought we to be held responsible for the ignorance of our grandparents? They, like we, were doing the best they could, within the parameters of their time and place. We’ve always been forced to work with limited information. There’s always been a huge gap between our intentions and our results.

Please, Lord Jesus, die for someone else, someone whose sin is more spectacular, more deserving of such supreme sacrifice. We don’t want the responsibility. Really, Lord, is our unrighteousness so very serious? Are we such sinners that You should need to die for us?

Really, if You look at the larger picture, our sin, at least my sin, is so inconsequential. You are making too big a deal out of such meager rebellion. We don’t want Your blood on our hands. We don’t want our lives in any way to bear the burden of Your death. Really. Amen. 

-- Will Willimon in “The Best of Will Willimon”

#6339

KNOWING GOD AND OUR SINFULNESS

“Obviously, the law applies to those to whom it was given, for its purpose is to keep people from having excuses, and to show that the entire world is guilty before God. For no one can ever be made right with God by doing what the law commands. The law simply shows us how sinful we are. But now God has shown us a way to be made right with him without keeping the requirements of the law, as was promised in the writings of Moses and the prophets long ago. We are made right with God by placing our faith in Jesus Christ. And this is true for everyone who believes, no matter who we are. For everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God’s glorious standard.”  (Romans 3:19-23 NLT)

Knowing God without knowing our own wretchedness makes for pride. Knowing our own wretchedness without knowing God makes for despair. Knowing neither God nor our own sinfulness makes for false peace and the absence of truth. Knowing Jesus Christ strikes the balance, because He shows us both God and our own wretchedness and He brings true peace through the cross.  

-- Adapted from Blaise Pascal

#5881

THE BLAME GAME

“The Lord God said, ‘Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?’ The man said, ‘The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit of the tree, and I ate.’ Then the Lord God said to the woman, ‘What is this that you have done?’ The woman said, ‘The serpent deceived me, and I ate.’”  (Genesis 3:11-13 ESV)

All blame is a waste of time. No matter how much fault you find with another, and regardless of how much you blame him, it will not change you. The only thing blame does is to keep the focus off you when you are looking for external reasons to explain your guilt, your unhappiness, or your frustration. You may succeed in making another feel guilty about something by blaming him, but you won't succeed in changing whatever it is about you that is making you unhappy.

-- Adapted from Wayne Dyer 

#5844

MY EASTER QUESTION: WHY GALILEE? – Part 2 of 3

One might have thought that the first day of His resurrected life, the risen Christ might have made straight for the palace, the seat of Roman power, appear there and say, "Pilate, you made a big mistake.  Now, it's payback time!"

One might have thought that Jesus would do something effective.  If you want to have maximum results, don't waste your time talking to the first person whom you meet on the street, figure out a way to get to the movers and the shakers, the influential and the newsmakers, those who have some power and prestige.  If you really want to promote change, go to the top. 

But Jesus?  He didn't go up to the palace, the White House, the Kremlin, or Downing Street.   (Jesus never got on well with politicians.)  Jesus went outback, back to Galilee. 

Why Galilee?   Nobody special lived in Galilee, nobody except the followers of Jesus.  Us.

The resurrected Christ comes back to, appears before the very same rag-tag group of failures who so disappointed Him, misunderstood Him, forsook Him and fled into the darkness.  He returns to His betrayers.  He returns to us. 

It would have been news enough that Christ had died, but the good news was that He died for us.  As Paul said elsewhere, one of us might be willing to die for a really good person but Christ shows that He is not one of us by His willingness to die for sinners like us.  His response to our sinful antics was not to punish or judge us.  Rather, He came back to us, flooding our flat world not with the wrath that we deserved but with His vivid presence that we did not deserve.   

It would have been news enough that Christ rose from the dead, but the good news was that he rose for us.

-- Adapted from a sermon entitled “He Came Back… To Us!” by William Willimon

DEBT PAID

“For God was in Christ, reconciling the world to Himself, no longer counting people’s sins against them. And He gave us this wonderful message of reconciliation.”  (2 Corinthians 5:19 NLT)

The bigger hope I cling to in the face of sin is not my goodness, but God’s.

[Some time ago my wife spoke at the commencement at Azusa Pacific University], so we gathered with a group of fifty or so faculty, alumni, and administration before the ceremony. A few dozen people had graduated fifty years earlier, and they were there also to celebrate with their freshly minted co-alums.

At one point, Jon Wallace, the university president, pulled three seniors into the center of the room and told us all that they were going to be serving under-resourced people in impoverished areas for several years after graduation. The graduating seniors said a few words about where they were going and why and we applauded. They thought that was why they were there. Then Jon turned his back to the rest of us, faced the three students, and told them the real reason they were in the room.

“Somebody you do not know has heard what you’re doing,” Jon said. “He wants you to be able to serve the people where you are going without any impediment. So he has given a gift. He has asked to remain anonymous, but here is what he has done for you.”

Jon turned to the first student and looked her in the eye. “You have been forgiven your school debt of $105,000.” It took a few moments for the words to sink in. The student shook her head at first. The thought registered. She began to cry at the sheer unexpected generosity of a mountain of debt wiped out in a moment by someone she had never met. Jon turned to the next student. “You have been forgiven your debt of $70,000.” Jon turned to the third student. By this time she knew what was coming. But it was as if she could not believe it was happening until she heard the words. “You have been forgiven your debt of $130,000.”

All three students were trembling. Their lives had been changed in a twinkling by the extravagance of someone they had never met. All of us who watched were so moved, it was as if we had experienced the forgiveness ourselves. There was not a dry eye in the room…

An unpayable debt. An unseen giver. An unforgettable gift. And the freedom of the debtors becomes a blessing to the world. Grace. The joy of forgiveness.

There is a bigger debt we labor under. We give it labels such as regret, guilt, shame, or brokenness -- sin. But God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself. We know what is coming, yet we need to hear the words just the same: Forgiven. Forgiven. Forgiven. 

-- John Ortberg in “The Me I Want to Be”

#5604

A TWO-DIRECTIONAL VIEW OF WORSHIP

"O come, let us worship and bow down: let us kneel before the Lord our Maker." (Psalm 95:6)

Worship involves a two-directional view. Looking upward we see God in all His majesty, power, glory, and sovereignty as well as His mercy, goodness, and grace. Looking at ourselves we recognize our dependence upon God and our sinfulness before Him. We see God as the sovereign Creator, worthy to be worshipped, served, and obeyed, and we see ourselves as mere creatures, unworthy sinners who have failed to worship, serve, and obey Him as we should. 

-- Jerry Bridges in “Trusting God”

#5111

EXTRAVAGANT GENEROSITY

“We love because God first loved us.”  (1 John 4:19 GNT)

Generosity begins not with what I give to God, but with what God has already given to me. The Bible says that extravagant, self-giving generosity is the tangible expression of the love that is in the very heart of God. We are generous to others because God has been so extravagantly generous to us.

Generosity is not optional for followers of Jesus Christ. It is the spiritual discipline that shapes our lives around the extravagant generosity of God. Our use of money undergoes a fundamental transformation when we stop asking how much of our wealth we will give to God and start asking how much of God’s wealth we will keep for ourselves. Generosity is the antidote to greed, which is one of the seven deadly sins. Greed is sinful because it is an inherent contradiction of the essential character of God. It is deadly because it results in spiritual arteriosclerosis that blocks the flow of God’s life into our lives and into the world. 

-- James A. Harnish in “A Disciple’s Path: Deepening Your Relationship with Christ and the Church”

#5107

THE STANDARD FOR SINFULNESS

“The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?”  (Jeremiah 17:9 NIV)

“There is none righteous, no, not one… All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”  (Romans 3:10, 23 NKJV)

Some would disagree with such strong words. They look around and say, “Compared to everyone else, I’m a decent person.” You know, a pig might say something similar. He might look at his trough partners and announce, “I’m just as clean as everyone else.” Compared to humans, however, that pig needs help. Compared to God, we humans need the same. The standard for sinfulness isn’t found in the pig troughs of earth but at the throne of heaven. God, Himself, is the standard. 

-- Max Lucado in “He Chose the Nails”

#5045

SEEING SIN FOR WHAT IT IS

“We are all infected and impure with sin. When we display our righteous deeds, they are nothing but filthy rags. Like autumn leaves, we wither and fall, and our sins sweep us away like the wind.”  (Isaiah 64:6 NLT)

According to a radio report, a middle school in Oregon faced a unique problem. A number of girls began to use lipstick and put it on in the school bathroom. After they put on their lipstick, they pressed their lips to the mirrors leaving dozens of little lip prints.

Finally the principal decided something had to be done. She called the girls to the bathroom and met them there with the custodian. She explained lip prints caused a major problem for the custodian, who had to clean the mirrors every day. To demonstrate how difficult it was, she asked the custodian to clean one of the mirrors. He took out a long-handled brush, dipped it into the toilet, and scrubbed the mirror. Since then there have been no lip prints on the mirrors.

When tempted to sin, if we could only see the real filth we’d be kissing, we wouldn’t be attracted to it. 

-- Brett Kays, cited in “Perfect Illustrations for Every Topic and Occasion”

#4976

SEEING SIN FOR WHAT IT IS

"For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and all are justified freely by His grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus."  (Romans 3:23-24 NIV)

Don’t call it a mistake, an unfortunate choice, a slipup, a disease, an addiction, a boo-boo, or “my bad.” Call it sin.

Around 1,600 years ago, Augustine wrote in his “Confessions,” “My sin was all the more incurable because I did not think myself a sinner.” That’s why preachers need that word that tells a vast story in only three letters. Without seeing the depths of sin, we’ll never understand the heights of God’s love and grace. 

-- Kyle Idleman in “The End of Me”

#4953

SELF-CONTROL THROUGH THE SPIRIT’S POWER

“Like a city whose walls are broken through is a person who lacks self-control.”  (Proverbs 25:28 NIV)

Self-control… is a governance or prudent control of one’s desire, cravings, impulses, emotions, and passions. It is saying no when we should say no. It is moderation in legitimate desires and activities, and absolute restraint in areas that are clearly sinful.

Self-control is unpopular in many circles. Our culture offers many temptations and encourages us to fulfill our desires. Go ahead, experience it. Buy it. Try it. It’s your right. You’ve earned it.

Most of us recognize boundaries that tend to restrain us from obvious sins, but otherwise we pretty much live as we please. Knowing it is easy for us to say yes instead of no, and indulge sinful desires, God emphasizes self-control repeatedly. It is even listed as a fruit of the Spirit (see Galatians 5:22-23). You see, this self-control is not control by our own willpower, but rather control through the Holy Spirit’s power.

-- Jerry Bridges in “Respectable Sins: Confronting the Sins We Tolerate,” Discussion Guide by Stephen Sorenson


#4621

AN INTERESTING WORD

“For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,… For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our LORD.”  (Romans  3:23, 6:23 NIV)

An interesting word, sin. A century ago, our vocabulary was rich in synonyms for sin. Words like iniquity. Transgression. Turpitude. Depravity. Reprobation. And my personal favorite: peccancy. New Testament Greek had thirty-three different words for sin. Apparently we once knew our way around the concept.

You can learn a lot about a society by digging through their heap of discarded words. These days you don’t hear people worrying about their turpitude at the water cooler or sharing about their depravity during prayer request time…

We can wipe sin out of our dictionaries. If only we could wipe it out of our souls. As a culture, we can try to rub out the definition of sin, but the condition isn’t going anywhere. It cracks the whip on just as many slaves -- the entire population of the world -- as it ever did. If we fail to acknowledge its reality, there can be no mourning. And without mourning there can be no confession. And without confession we miss the richest blessing of God’s forgiveness and grace. 

-- Kyle Idleman in “The End of Me”


#4533

THE GOOD NEWS ABOUT GOD’S FORGIVENESS

“When we were overwhelmed by sins, You forgave our transgressions.”  (Psalm 65:3)

Although we may feel overwhelmed by the multitude of our sins, God will forgive them all if we ask sincerely. Do you feel as though God could never forgive you, that your sins are too many, or that some of them are too great? The good news is that God can and will forgive them all. Nobody is beyond redemption, and nobody is so full of sin that he or she cannot be made clean.

-- from “The Life Application Study Bible”

#4118

LIVING ABOVE THE ETHICAL NORM

It is a strange characteristic among human beings, that we tend to treat our criminals and our saints alike.  One lives below the norm, the other lives above the norm, but both have sinned against the norm.  The Christians (in Roman times) lived above the ethical norm.  The fact that we are not persecuted as Christians may well be an indictment.  Is it that we have won the world, or has the world won us?  Are we no longer a threat to the tranquility of sinful humankind by living above the commonly accepted norm?  That is a question that ought to haunt us.

-- Rev. Thomas L. Butts

#4060

COSTLY CONSEQUENCES

“While he was living there, Reuben had intercourse with Bilhah, his father’s concubine, and Jacob soon heard about it.”  (Genesis 35:22 NLT)

Reuben’s sin was costly, although not right away. As the oldest son, he stood to receive a double portion of the family inheritance and a place of leadership among his people. Reuben may have thought he got away with his sin. No more is mentioned of it until Jacob, on his deathbed, assembled his family for the final blessing. Suddenly Jacob took away Reuben’s double portion and gave it to someone else. The reason? “You slept with one of my wives; you dishonored me in my own bed.” (Genesis 49:4)

Sin’s consequences can plague us long after the sin is committed. When we do something wrong, we may think we can escape unnoticed, only to discover later that the sin has been quietly breeding serious consequences.

-- from The Life Application Study Bible

#4014

IN THE EYES OF A HOLY GOD

“If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.”  (1 John 1:8 NIV)

A study done a few years ago showed that the first sign of incompetence is our inability to perceive incompetence. We deceive ourselves about our intelligence, for example. I may think I’m pretty smart until I read about a student who did not miss a single question on the SAT, ACT, and PSAT combined. We deceive ourselves about our talent, for people at a karaoke bar sing with far more confidence than reality would allow. We deceive ourselves about our appearance. A grandpa friend of mine boarded an airport tram and noticed an attractive young woman sitting nearby who smiled at him. He thought to himself, I’ve still got it. “Excuse me, sir,” she said. “I can stand. Would you like to take my seat?"

Nowhere does this inability to have an objective, accurate, reality-based view of our performance show itself more than in the spiritual realm. When it comes to moral character, the purity of heart, the duplicity in our actions, how many of us have given serious thought to how our lives would grade out -- in the eyes of a holy, just, righteous, and truth-telling God? That is why the most dangerous force in the world is not sickness or injury or bankruptcy.

It is sin.

-- John Ortberg in The Me I Want to Be

#3984

IN THE EYES OF A HOLY GOD

“If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.”  (1 John 1:8 NIV)

A study done a few years ago showed that the first sign of incompetence is our inability to perceive incompetence. We deceive ourselves about our intelligence, for example. I may think I’m pretty smart until I read about a student who did not miss a single question on the SAT, ACT, and PSAT combined. We deceive ourselves about our talent, for people at a karaoke bar sing with far more confidence than reality would allow. We deceive ourselves about our appearance. A grandpa friend of mine boarded an airport tram and noticed an attractive young woman sitting nearby who smiled at him. He thought to himself, I’ve still got it. “Excuse me, sir,” she said. “I can stand. Would you like to take my seat?"

Nowhere does this inability to have an objective, accurate, reality-based view of our performance show itself more than in the spiritual realm. When it comes to moral character, the purity of heart, the duplicity in our actions, how many of us have given serious thought to how our lives would grade out -- in the eyes of a holy, just, righteous, and truth-telling God? That is why the most dangerous force in the world is not sickness or injury or bankruptcy.

It is sin.

-- John Ortberg in The Me I Want to Be

#3984

WALKING DOWN THE WRONG ROAD

“Do not quench the Spirit,” Paul says. (1 Thessalonians 5:19)  Any time I have a desire, the Spirit will prompt me to set it before God and ask the question, “Lord, what do You want me to do with this?” Or I can simply ask regarding any course of behavior, “If I walk down this road, where will it lead in the long run -- toward or away from the me I want to be?”

God will never lead us to manage a desire in a sinful way. If I want to walk down the wrong road, I must begin by silencing God’s divine voice within me. I must be careful not to pray about this desire with a submitted spirit. I must make sure I don’t talk about this desire with wise friends who will hold me accountable. I must make sure I don’t look carefully at passages of Scripture on the subject and reflect on them. I must do all these things without recognizing I am doing them. I must keep myself in a state of spiritual and mental vagueness where God is concerned.

-- John Ortberg in The Me I Want To Be

#3983

FEEDING SIN

In 1939, a coast guard vessel was cruising the Canadian Arctic when the men spotted a polar bear stranded on an ice floe. It was quite a novelty for the seamen, who threw the bear salami, peanut butter, and chocolate bars. Then they ran out of the food. Unfortunately, the polar bear hadn't run out of appetite, so he proceeded to board their vessel. The men on ship were terrified and opened the fire hoses on the bear. The polar bear loved it and raised his paws in the air to get the water under his armpits. We don't know how they did it, but eventually they forced the polar bear to return to his ice pad -- but not before teaching these seamen a horrifying lesson about feeding polar bears.

Some people make the same mistake with sin that these sailors nearly made with the polar bear. They begin feeding it -- a little at a time without thinking through the consequences. "It says something about our times," writes Willard D. Ferrell, "that we rarely use the word SINFUL except to describe a really good dessert."

-- King Duncan in Collected Sermons

#3748