RETURNING TO THE RIGHT PATH

“Jesus went into Galilee, where He preached God’s Good News. ‘The time promised by God has come at last!’ Jesus announced. ‘The Kingdom of God is near! Repent of your sins and believe the Good News!’”  (Mark 1:14b-15 NLT)

In the Greek New Testament, the word for repentance is metanoia (and several other related words. It means “to change one’s mind and one’s heart, leading to a change in behavior.” If sin is stepping off the path God intends, repentance is returning to the right path. True repentance is not simply feeling bad about what you did and asking for forgiveness, although those steps are essential as well. You’ve also got to commit to change. 

-- Adam Hamilton in “Forgiveness: Finding Peace Through Letting Go”

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FINISHING WELL

Those who end well have disciplined lives… To get to this point, the New Testament uses numerous athletic images. In 1 Corinthians 9:25-27, Paul pictures a runner. He said run in such a way that you win. But then he added, “Every athlete exercises self-control in all things.” Therefore he said, “I discipline my body and keep it under control, lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified.” The writer of Hebrews said, “Since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us.” (Hebrews 12:1) He too is talking about discipline.

A Christian who finishes well will practice spiritual disciplines… There will be the disciplines of abstinence such as fasting, silence, solitude, frugality, sacrifice, and chastity. But there will also be the disciplines of engagement such as prayer, fellowship, worship, study, service, confession, and submission.

These will help guard our inner lives. The disciplines will not become an end in themselves. For they are really disciplines in response to God’s grace. Grace and discipline are spiritual friends, when kept in the right order. Spiritual disciplines become a means of grace that help us get to the finish line. 

-- Donald W. Sweeting & George Sweeting in “How to Finish the Christian Life: Following Jesus in the Second Half”

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WITH EVERY FIBER

“Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.”  (Mark 12:30 NIV)

In his book “The Everyday, Anytime Guide to Christian Leadership,” Walt Kallestad wrote, “I saw a plaque in a shopping mall that contained the words of the great [Green Bay Packer] football coach Vince Lombardi on what it takes to be number one. The words on the plaque reflected the importance Lombardi placed on enthusiastic participation. I remember the plaque reading something like this: Every time a football player goes to ply his trade, he’s got to play from the ground up -- from the soles of his feet right up to his head. Every inch of him has to play. Some guys play with their heads, that’s OK. You’ve got to be smart to be number one in any business. But more importantly, you’ve got to play with your heart, with every fiber of your body. If you’re lucky enough to find a guy with a lot of head and a lot of heart, he’s never going to come off the field second.”

I believe that concept similarly applies to our walk with God. It involves every inch of the Christian -- one’s heart, soul, mind and strength. We are to love God with every fiber of our being. 

-- David T. Wilkinson, SOUND BITES Ministry

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VICTORY IN JESUS

“Now there is in Jerusalem near the Sheep Gate a pool, which in Aramaic is called Bethesda and which is surrounded by five covered colonnades. Here a great number of disabled people used to lie -- the blind, the lame, the paralyzed. One who was there had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there and learned that he had been in this condition for a long time, He asked him, ‘Do you want to get well?’ ‘Sir,’ the invalid replied, ‘I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred. While I am trying to get in, someone else goes down ahead of me.’ Then Jesus said to him, ‘Get up! Pick up your mat and walk.’ At once the man was cured; he picked up his mat and walked.”  (John 5:2-9 NIV)

Anyone who can be in a landscape of joy while maintaining immunity to it hasn’t come to the end of himself. He hasn’t experienced how good the good news really is. He should see that someone else’s victory over hopelessness is our own victory, because Christ has brought the same liberation to every single one of us willing to say yes, to stand, and to walk. Once we’ve been to the end of ourselves and the beginning of Christ, we share our victories together, and parties break out at unpredictable moments.

-- Kyle Idleman in “The End of Me: Where Real Life in the Upside-Down Ways of Jesus Begins”

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THE LAST WORD

“But to the Son He says: ‘Your throne, O God, is forever and ever; a scepter of righteousness is the scepter of Your kingdom.’”  (Hebrews 1:8 NKJV)

Christians sing, especially at Christmas and Easter, “And He” – that is, Christ – “shall reign forever and ever.” We stand for the singing of it, and for those moments when the Hallelujahs ring, we feel that someday, somehow, He will reign. But then we go back to reading the paper and listening to the evening news as if the end will be a whimper rather than a hallelujah.

At this point, it’s time to immerse ourselves in the good word of God. We need to know that though our political and social and economic structure seems so often to have some kind of fatal, deteriorative illness, so that every good scheme we develop turns only to embarrassment, these are not the last word. Even our best words are not the last word. I’m very sure that monarchy is not the last word, nor is dictatorship. I’m equally sure that socialism is not the last word, nor is communism. And although I happen to be a passionate believer in democracy and in those forms of economic freedom which foster democracy, I don’t think democracy is the last word, nor responsible capitalism. None of these! The last word is GOD. And then there’s an exclamation point. 

-- J. Ellsworth Kalas, from a sermon entitled “In the End, the Exclamation Point”, February 28, 1990

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