DAY 164 - I Find That Hard To Accept

Acts 2:22-24, 38 (NIV) ²² “Fellow Israelites, listen to this: Jesus of Nazareth was a man accredited by God to you by miracles, wonders and signs, which God did among you through him, as you yourselves know. ²³ This man was handed over to you by God’s deliberate plan and foreknowledge; and you, with the help of wicked men, put him to death by nailing him to the cross. ²⁴ But God raised him from the dead, freeing him from the agony of death, because it was impossible for death to keep its hold on him. ³⁶ “Therefore let all Israel be assured of this: God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Messiah.” ³⁷ When the people heard this, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and the other apostles, “Brothers, what shall we do?” ³⁸ Peter replied, “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.

The Cross was not merely the work of the people around it, nor the power of evil behind it. The Cross was also the work of God. How can the Cross be the result of the plotting of sinful people and the plan of God? It is hard to understand.

But, understanding is not what Peter is calling for as he speaks to us through his words to the people of Jerusalem. Acceptance is what Peter is calling for, acceptance of the truth about God and about ourselves. Is it not true that we want a God who will make things right when life goes wrong? When our plans for the future fall through?

God is not indifferent to our prayer, but God does not bend His will to fulfill our wishful thinking. As we come up against that God who does not bend we realize in the depths that we have come up against One who is real and good and true. The good news about God is that we find God not only in the joyous experiences of life and the blessings of health and prosperity. The good news is that in addition to these obvious tokens of God’s goodness, life’s crucifixions are as much a part of God’s good will as the sunshine. The day of Jesus’ death is called “Good Friday.” The good is only that Jesus was delivered up by the predetermined plan of God.

In whatever is happening, God is at work in it, behind it, and through it to do and accomplish His purpose for us as well. That is the truth about God that we are called to accept and to trust, for trust is not merely a matter of a grim endurance in life’s hardships. Trust is actively believing that beneath the surface of what we see there is more. There is God. Trust is believing against all evidence to the contrary and against the present appearance of things that God is love.

If we find that hard to believe it may be because we are harder than the events that happen to us. The Cross declares that God is not only present and at work in the bad events of life, He is also at work in the bad in you and me, and that is our greatest hope.

From a sermon preached by Henry Dobbs Pope April 12,1992

© Rhonda Hinkle Mitchell Broyles

DAY 163 - Broken or Blessed?

Psalm 34:5-7, 17-18 (NRSV) ⁵They looked to Him and were radiant, And their faces will never be ashamed. ⁶This poor man cried, and the LORD heard him And saved him out of all his troubles. ⁷The angel of the LORD encamps around those who fear Him, And rescues them. ¹⁷Lord hears, and rescues them from all their troubles. ¹⁸Lord is near to the broken-hearted, and saves the crushed in spirit.  

Matthew 5:1-3 (NRSV) ¹When Jesus^* saw the crowds, he went up the mountain; and after he sat down, his disciples came to him. ²Then he began to speak, and taught them, saying: ³ ‘Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Our commitment to self-reliance often leaves the door open and allows pride, arrogance, and haughtiness to slip in, dressed in a garb of respectability. With the politeness of a gentleman outlaw, pride robs us and deprives us of being blessed.

“Blessed are the poor in spirit,” Jesus said. His message was not new. The Psalmist had said the poor call on God and God saves them from all their troubles, the prophets proclaimed it. Blessed is your knowing you have to have help to survive, to recognize your dependence on someone else and to know this as a gift. 

Poverty of spirit is recognizing our need for help and acknowledging our dependence on God. It is willingness to accept help as God offers it and not as we demand it. Poverty of spirit is the gift of acceptance, accepting the good and the bad that happen to us all as useful in God’s plans. It is accepting the limits of our power and control and accepting the responsibilities God gives. Poverty of spirit is remembering that we earn nothing but we receive much as we use the gifts and opportunities God gives us. Or maybe the simplest way to put it is that poverty of spirit means that we have been robbed of our pride and deprived of our arrogance so we are more supple and pliable people.

“Theirs is the kingdom of heaven,” Jesus said. The poor in spirit know the sovereign rule of God in all that happens. We do not understand the mystery as it unfolds, but we know that the God who can be at work in the bleakness of the Cross can be at work in anything that happens, and in the end does rule. Jesus is the example of what He teaches. Without worry or haste He accomplished the work God gave Him to do and left the rest to someone else.

Poverty of spirit frees us from the pride that robs us of life’s deepest satisfaction, and allows us to experience the wonder and the bounty of God’s sovereign rule. Daily annoyances and irritations can make us bristle or they can break our egotistical ways. Every time the ego breaks a little of God’s laughter, relief, and joy are let in. Thanking God is the easiest way we have to remember who is in charge. Pride finds it hard to live in an atmosphere of thanksgiving. I do not believe pride can rob a grateful person. When we give thanks we always undermine pride’s power.

From a sermon preached by Henry Dobbs Pope May 3, 1992

© Rhonda Hinkle Mitchell

DAY 162 - Peacemakers or Troublemakers?

Matthew 5:9 (NIV) Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.

From James 4 (NRSV) What is the source of quarrels and conflicts among you? Is not the source your pleasures that wage war in your members?  You lust and do not have; so you commit murder. You are envious and cannot obtain; so you fight and quarrel. Therefore it says, "GOD IS OPPOSED TO THE PROUD, BUT GIVES GRACE TO THE HUMBLE." Submit therefore to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. ⁸Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Humble yourselves in the presence of the Lord, and He will exalt you.

We want to be peacemakers. Why then do we act so often like troublemakers? James tells us what keeps us from being peacemakers:  You lust and do not have.  A lust is a driving desire, a passion that seems to know no boundary. It literally means to overreach. It describes people who are inwardly disturbed by their desire and who blindly bump into others in the futile search to satisfy their wants. But, we do not always call these driving desires “lusts” or “passions.” We call them our “rights.” It is the way we legitimize our lust, and the winds of conflict begin to blow.

Of course, we do not need other people to have conflict. There is a force within us that seems to keep us stirred up and at odds even with ourselves. James says it is like we have been invaded by a foreign army that is waging war within us. The world tells us we can have peace if we will just exercise some control over others or over ourselves. If we can just make people do what they are supposed to do and what we want them to do, then peace will come is the promise the world whispers to our soul. No, James says, control will not give us peace. The only thing that will give us peace is surrender. Submit therefore to God. Give in to His work and His rule. Do this despite what you may be thinking or feeling, and you will receive God’s peace and become an ambassador of His peace.

One way we submit to God is by trusting Him. Trust replaces control with confidence and with wisdom. Another way we submit to God is to humble ourselves in the presence of God. Humility may be the most important contribution that Christians can make to peace at every level. Humility, rooted in trust, has the courage to acknowledge that the enemy may be as much in us as it is in others.  There is that sinking feeling that sometimes comes with trust, though, and that wondering if we’re doing the right things. Will God come through?

Peacemakers have a sense of belonging that rejection cannot take from them, a sense of worth that cannot be learned in a class on self-esteem. Their belonging and worth come from a sense of doing the work of God, for it was the work of the Prince of Peace to absorb the hostility of the world into His body on the cross, and bring peace.

From a sermon preached by Henry Dobbs Pope June 14, 1992

© Rhonda Hinkle Mitchell Broyles

DAY 161 - How’s Your Appetite?

Isaiah 55:1-2 (NIV)  “Come, all you who are thirsty,  come to the waters; and you who have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost. Why spend money on what is not bread, and your labor on what does not satisfy? Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good, and you will delight in the richest of fare.

Matthew 5:6 (NIV)   Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.  

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. The point is: Jesus blessed a need, not those who are righteous, but those who know their need and hunger for it. The blessing does not come to the self-satisfied achiever who is happy and content in all that they have accomplished.

Jesus confronts a prevailing heresy of our day. The heresy says that happiness depends on having. It is the belief that we will be happy when our wishes and desires have been met. Even finding our wishes and desires met, and then finding they do not make us happy does not seem to deter this persistent belief. I hear Jesus saying blessed are you when you have the right kind of hunger. Blessed are you when you recognize your inner emptiness. Blessed are you when you feel that hole in the soul that nothing has been able to satisfy. Blessed are you when you are successful and still feel your hunger. Blessed are you when you have failed and your failure has brought your real need to the surface, the kind of need God can work with. Jesus claims He can meet that need.

Perhaps the Good News for many of us today is not simply that Jesus satisfies our need, but that He makes us aware of our need to begin with. He awakens us from that slumber of soul that is slowly and most assuredly robbing us of life. The early church said that pride is the most deadly sin and sloth the most dangerous. This stupor of spirit is a necessary pre-condition for all other evils and undoings to creep into our life.

If Jesus blesses those who hunger and thirst, it must be because this is His work in our life as well, to stir up the right kind of desire in us, to awaken us from the slumber that kills, to kindle in us a hunger that He alone can and will satisfy.

From a sermon preached by Henry Dobbs Pope May 31, 1992

© Rhonda Hinkle Mitchell Broyles

DAY 160 - 100% Pure

Psalm 51:1-4, 10-12 (NIV) ¹ Have mercy on me, O God, according to your unfailing love; according to your great compassion blot out my transgressions. ² Wash away all my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin. ³ For I know my transgressions,  and my sin is always before me. ⁴ Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight; so you are right in your verdict and justified when you judge.  ¹⁰ Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. ¹¹ Do not cast me from your presence or take your Holy Spirit from me. ¹² Restore to me the joy of your salvation and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me.

Matthew 15:18-19, 5:8  (NIV) ¹⁸ But the things that come out of a person’s mouth come from the heart, and these defile them. ¹⁹ For out of the heart come evil thoughts—murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander. ⁸ Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.

The heart is the control center of our life. It regulates our thinking, feeling, and acting. Spiritual purity and moral purity are so intertwined that if we try to pull them apart we do serious damage to our life. King David gives us hope. David had lost something of that big-hearted goodness that had brought him such great benefit, but he knew and believed his purity could be restored and he cried out to God to have compassionate mercy on him. God answered David’s prayers. David would pay for what he did, but he would not be cast off from and abandoned by God. He would still be an object of God’s care and love.

The good news is that purity, morally and spiritually, is first, foremost, and forever a gift of God, and what our failure has taken from us God will give back. Rules alone about sex, honesty, truthfulness, fair treatment of people, even the well-known “golden rule” will not make us pure. At best they can only cover us with the perfume of goodness. These rules cannot reach the Heart of the matter.

Purity is a gift from God and it is found by those willing to expose their life to the gift. We do that in the same way David did, by confessing our sin as best we understand. The Greek word for pure is “catharsis.” Most of us are familiar with the word, a kind of shake down of the soul that removes the junk and leaves us renewed and refreshed. If the gift of purity is to come to us, there is no escaping the truth that some of the things we hold dear will have to go. They have to be removed and we need to let go.

Purity cuts out the dross that looks like gold, and the time comes when we recognize that our loss is gain. Where others see only random events happening, the pure see the plan of God unfolding. Where others see pain, the pure see a Presence. Where others see fate, the pure see God’s future. Where others see a pitiful excuse for a human being, the pure see a child of God. You know the kind of person I am talking about. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.

From a sermon preached by Henry Dobbs Pope June 7, 1992

© Rhonda Hinkle Mitchell Broyles

DAY 159 - Happy Sorrow

Matthew 5:1-2, 4 (NASB)   ¹When Jesus saw the crowds, He went up on the mountain; and after He sat down, His disciples came to Him. ²He opened His mouth and began to teach them, saying, ⁴"Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.

II Corinthians 7:9-11a (NIV) ⁹ yet now I am happy, not because you were made sorry, but because your sorrow led you to repentance. For you became sorrowful as God intended and so were not harmed in any way by us. ¹⁰ Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret, but worldly sorrow brings death. ¹¹ See what this godly sorrow has produced in you: what earnestness, what eagerness to clear yourselves, what indignation, what alarm, what longing, what concern, what readiness to see justice done.

When Jesus said blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted, He was not congratulating us on our misery but rather performing a kind of surgery for our soul. Surgery is seldom desired or attractive until we consider the options. One option to mourning is to avoid sadness and pain as much as possible, at which many people think they are very successful. But, one problem with avoidance is that it does not work.  The other problem with avoidance is that is does work. We successfully shut out the pain, but then experience the resulting condition of depression. Another option to mourning is “moaning.” If life doesn’t treat us right, we fuss and complain. Paul calls this “worldly sorrow.” He says it is deadly to mind, body, and spirit.

Paul says there is another kind of sorrow, the kind of which Jesus spoke – Godly sorrow that produces repentance. Blessed are those who mourn.  Mourning is feeling the pain of loss. Jesus is called a man of sorrows, a man acquainted with grief. He mourned His losses. He mourned the loss of Lazarus. He also grieved over the loss that sin causes, and will grieve until we wake up, see and feel the pain, and turn again to God. Do we mourn our sin? We may confess it, but it is hard, sometimes seemingly impossible for us to feel sorrowful for our sin.

They shall be comforted. They shall receive the gift of the Comforter, the Holy Spirit. Comfort is more than the easing of pain, though that is a real and important part of the comfort God gives. Comfort also means to strengthen, and that is the kind of comfort Jesus promises. It is a strengthening of the heart and a deepening of our roots in the love and mercy of God. When loss happens, whether the loss of someone we love or of our own failing, we remember that we are frail and fragile. Mourning gives a comfort that makes us more awake, aware, and appreciative. We are less likely to take the smallest gift for granted, to live in complacency or in uncaring ways.

Mourning also reminds us of the limits of life. It keeps us from inflated ideas of our control over life. Blessed are those who mourn, for they are the ones who will know the beauty and strength of the comfort offered in Jesus Christ.

From a sermon preached by Henry Dobbs Pope May 10, 1992

© Rhonda Hinkle Mitchell Broyles

DAY 158 - Heaven Help Us

John 1:9, 11-14, 17 (NRSV)  ⁹The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world.^{* 11}He came to what was his own,^* and his own people did not accept him. ¹²But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, ¹³who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God. ¹⁴ And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son,^* full of grace and truth. ¹⁷The law indeed was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.

John 5:24 (NIV) ²⁴ “Very truly I tell you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be judged but has crossed over from death to life.

Jesus does not answer all our questions about life after death. Much of the mystery remains, but we can believe Jesus has told us and shown us what we need to know. Eternal life is found by truthful living. Truthful living means betting our life that Jesus is right. It means pursuing our way through this world in accordance with His directions, living out of a sense of trust and obedience. For the Law was given through Moses; grace and truth were realized through Jesus Christ, the true Light … that enlightens everyone.

Have you had the experience of being grasped by the truth, of finding direction for your life in some unexpected way, of having a higher wisdom overrule what you would normally do, of having an answer given to you when you had all but given up? It can happen in a moment of beauty or of pain, in the midst of a busy day or in absolute solitude, and we know our life has been touched with the truth. The truth of Jesus often comes to us as an unexpected guest, but it never comes as a complete stranger. Truthful living is offered to everyone as a gift, but not everyone accepts or desires that gift. Why the refusal when acceptance could bring only good? It is because our commitment to self-will runs deep. I suspect that we can look upon the love of God and still turn our backs, still live in the shadow of self-deceit, and still bring harm to ourselves and even to those we love. We have a choice. We can and we do refuse the truth that gives us life.

In regularly obeying the truth we find in Jesus we find what John calls the true life. We can be pouting, fussing, complaining, rightfully angry, shading the truth in our relationships, or simply ignoring the truth in order to save something when all the while we know that the truth is what is needed most for our own spiritual health. It is scary to consider how many chances we have each day to refuse the true light, but it is hopeful to realize how many opportunities are ours to accept the true light and to make decisions according to the light Christ gives, generously and abundantly.

From a sermon preached by Henry Dobbs Pope April 26, 1992

© Rhonda Hinkle Mitchell Broyles