River of Life Church

KEEP ON KEEPING ON

Bicycling is a major component to my health and recovery regimen.  When the weather allows, I try to ride at least 25 miles per week.  This keeps up the cardio and is easier on these rebuilt hips than most other exercising.  Winter is a difficult time to go when the weather is often below forty degrees, but just as the weather begins to warm and we all desire to leave our "nests", two other factors to discourage me arise - pollen and wind.

To deal with the pollen (and resulting itchy eyes, sneezing, coughing, sinus infections, etc.) I have started wearing my Covid mask on the trail.  I thought breathing through one of those things was hard in normal life, but adding a heart-rate of 125%-150% of normal and warm temps, finds a whole new level of difficulty.

The wind, which always seems to be more intense along the Dan River where I ride than it is at home, adds a dimension of resistance that always seems to try to stop me - one day last fall, I actually encountered a straight-line gust that stopped my forward motion and started pushing me backward until I was able to brake!   As I write this in this last week of April, the winds continue to be a significant issue, and it seems that no matter which way you're traveling, it will only be a few moments until the wind is again at your face, pushing, pushing, always pushing.

Yet, despite the difficulties and problems with this regimen, I keep on for the sake of my family and my friends.  There are days that I must wrestle with myself to find the motivation to put in the time and effort, but to give up would likely shorten my days upon the earth, and until the Lord says otherwise, I'm ready to stick around a while longer.

We recently looked at Jesus' letter to the church in Philadelphia (the other Philadelphia -  the one in Turkey) from Revelation 3.  One of the things the Lord commends the church for is their faithfulness to Him.  They had many challenges and obstacles to remaining faithful, yet they continued on.  They pushed through even when every wind of persecution, and the poison from the secular culture around them was so rampant.  The pressure to quit, to give up, to sit back and rest, must have been tremendous - as it was for most or all of the seven churches receiving letters - but they pressed on, they kept on.

Paul wrote to the Corinthian believers: "This is how one should regard us, as servants of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God.  Moreover, it is required of stewards that they be found faithful." (1 Corinthians 4:1-2)  Faithfulness keeps on despite winds of hardship, difficulty, and adversity.  It keeps on when it's hard to be comfortable in the existing circumstances. 

So, keep on keeping on.  When faithfulness to our Lord's calling is finished, there is great commendation and reward, as well as eternity with Him.

 

NOT (MY/THY) WILL BUT (THINE/MINE) 

In just a few weeks we will be celebrating the resurrection of our Lord with renewed interest in what that means for His followers everywhere.  While it may sound trite to say that the answer to all of mankind's ills is Jesus, it truly is quite a profound statement.  If we hold to the Biblical truth that all men (and women) are born into sin, and that therein lies the root of all our problems, then Jesus provides the solution to those difficulties, depravities, and the resulting death, whether it be physical or spiritual.  Obviously, not everyone's problems are rooted in their own sinfulness, and that is not the point of this last statement. 

However, it can be scripturally argued that all of life's ills are the result of sin, even if that sin is only traceable back to the original couple in the Garden of Eden.  And it is in another Garden that we find that Jesus provides the solution, according to Timothy Mackie, PhD, of Bible Project and professor of Biblical Languages at Western Seminary.

When the tempter approached Adam and Eve and lured them to disobey their Creator, his bait was the desire to claim for themselves the divine right to define good and evil. In other words, no longer needing to simply obey the leading of-, and subsist with the provision of- their heavenly Father, they were being offered the opportunity to say to God, "Not thy will, but mine."  The immediate and monumental result of this rebellion was the protection from all manner of evil and the provision for their every need evaporated like the morning dew.  No longer would they enjoy the fruits of God's labor without the need to toil for their food and shelter.  No longer would they be protected from the ravages of sin which always result in death.  No longer would they enjoy the fellowship of God's presence with them as they walked with God "in the cool of the day" (Gen 3:8).  Their perfect existence became one of survival through struggle until they could no longer do so because of age, illness, or violence. 

But, before mankind was ever created in the first place, even before the "foundations of the earth" were laid, God had a plan that would restore that which was about to be ruined.  While the Spirit of God yet hovered over the deep and before the Son began creating the universe, with the Father, a pattern for redemption was decided upon.  Approximately two millennia ago, the plan was activated.

The Son of God humbled Himself and joined the human race with all of its troubles and woes.  In His short life here, Jesus experienced pain, heartache, the death of loved ones, ridicule, and the knowledge that His life would soon end in extreme violence.  He made it clear to His disciples that this was God's plan for Him and it would happen as He said.  Certainly, having glimpsed the divinity of their rabbi, teacher, and friend, the disciples did not want things to end this way.  Their desire, right up to His arrest and crucifixion, was for Him to establish the Kingdom of God politically in Israel while delivering their nation from the clutches of the pagan Romans.  As we all know, that was not the plan.  Still, the very thought of what was about to happen was not easy for our Lord.

Matthew 26:36-46 tells us of the events leading up to Jesus' arrest by representatives of the high priest.  Jesus, along with Peter, James, and John, went to the Garden of Gethsemane to pray.  Earlier in the evening, Jesus had told His disciples over their Passover table that His death was imminent.  Yet, here in the garden, this place of repose and retreat, He began to labor in prayer.  In Verse 39, Matthew records our Lord saying, "Oh my Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me, nevertheless, not My will but Thine."  (KJV)

According to Dr. Mackie, it is in this blameless submission to the Father's plan that the Son of God had helped to devise that sin itself was defeated.  The sinless Christ had no flaw to condemn Him to the same destiny of mankind that had come about with Eden’s declaration of "Not Thy will but Mine".  Nevertheless, He submitted Himself to the Father's ancient plan, nullifying Adam’s rebellion and redeeming all of creation with "Not My will but Thine."

And now, like all of creation, we earnestly await the full manifestation of that redemption.  Come quickly, Lord Jesus!

Have a blessed Resurrection Day! 



FERDINAND MAGELLAN WE'RE NOT

Mankind has always been on quest for discovery.  Abram, who left his family home to set out and find where God would take him, was not the first, nor was he the last who left all that was familiar to explore those places which were not (familiar, that is).  The original inhabitants of North America are believed to have crossed the Bering Straits centuries before Europeans and Africans arrived on these shores.  Ferdinand Magellan, a fifteenth-century sea captain, and his crew were the first that we know of to circumnavigate the globe and prove that, indeed, the world is round.  For some of these explorers, their journeys were to fulfill an itch; for others, there were circumstances beyond their control that forced travel to another location.

On nowhere near the scope of any of the above people, and generally, always for pleasure, my wife and I love to explore places that are new to us.  And while the vast majority of the miles on my current car have been spent traveling to discover what new thing our grandchildren are doing, since we were dating 45 years ago, we have covered tens of-, if not hundreds of-, thousands of miles to see what was around the next bend.  Just a few days ago, we drove 220 miles roundtrip to see fall foliage and spy out another abandoned railway bed that we could take our bikes to in the near future - for more exploration. 

So, what does any of the preceding have to do with an article for our church calendar?  Just as God called Abram to leave his father's house in the land of Ur and to set out to discover the places God would lead him, our Creator continues to issue that same call to us as His children.  Whether or not we actually change our physical location, the call is to explore Him, His Word, and His blessing and provision for us.

Psalm 34:8 "Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good!  Blessed is the man who takes refuge in him!"

Numbers 11:23  "And the Lord said to Moses, 'Is the Lord's hand shortened?  Now you shall see  whether My word will come true for you or not.'”

Psalm 66:5  "Come and see what God has done: He is awesome in His deeds toward the children of man."

Isaiah 60:3-4  "And nations shall come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your rising.   Lift up your eyes all around, and see;  they all gather together, they come to you."

Luke 2:15 "When the angels went away from them into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, 'Let us go over to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has made known to us.'”

Malachi 3:10  "'Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test Me in this,' says the Lord Almighty, 'and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that there will not be room enough to store it.'" 

For His children, our Lord is much more than willing that we should explore Him and His relationship with us.  He even suggested through the prophet Malachi, that we should test Him by our obedience to His word to see if He would follow through with His blessing. 

There is a word of caution, here though.  When those who didn't believe demanded a sign from Jesus to prove that He was the real deal, He was less than pleased:  Matthew 12: 38-39  "Then some of the scribes and Pharisees said to Him, 'Teacher, we wish to see a sign from you.'   But He answered them, 'An evil and adulterous generation requires a sign…'"   Much rides on attitude.  A submissive spirit is encouraged to be an explorer and discoverer.  A haughty attitude is dismissed.

Unless your name is Neil Armstrong, it's very rare to go somewhere and see something that no one has ever seen before.  Nonetheless, it is extremely gratifying to be actually to see for yourself something or a place that you've only been told about.  So it is with our Father and His truths.  When you discover some aspect of Him for yourself, it is as though the whole world has opened up.

So, get out you bush gear, or your trusty Bible, and start exploring and discover something new - new to you, anyway.

BUILDING COMMUNITY, MAKING DISCIPLES, IMPACTING OUR NEIGHBORHOODS