DAY 171 - Believing Is Seeing

John 5:20-24 (NASB) ²⁰"For the Father loves the Son, and shows Him all things that He Himself is doing; and the Father will show Him greater works than these, so that you will marvel.  ²¹"For just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, even so the Son also gives life to whom He wishes. ²²"For not even the Father judges anyone, but He has given all judgment to the Son, ²³so that all will honor the Son even as they honor the Father. He who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent Him. ²⁴"Truly, truly, I say to you, he who hears My word, and believes Him who sent Me, has eternal life, and does not come into judgment, but has passed out of death into life.

Jesus says He has the knowledge and authority to tell us we are going to live, even after we die. And that knowledge, He says, invades the present.  Truly, truly, I say to you, he who hears My word, and believes Him who sent Me, has eternal life, and does not come into judgment, but has passed out of death into life. Those hearing Jesus’ words the first time did not think about judgment coming after they died. They felt the judgment right now. Judgment was already felt in the futile, oppressive life they were living under the yoke of Rome.

Judgment today is felt as a kind of on-going struggle against the tide of life, a kind of invisible wave that seems to roll against us, causing us to lose our balance, to lose sight of what is really important, to be overwhelmed by more problems and demands and responsibilities than we can handle. Some of us struggle with determination against the tide of judgment believing that somehow, someway we are going to beat it. We believe life is going to be better. We try our best. But something fails us. Our hopes and dreams for the future fall flat.

This tide of life is not a wave at all, but a wall. It is the wall of our own death, making itself felt, pushing us to frantic striving or to passive resignation, but pressuring us right now in one way or another. Once we simply become aware that life is a gift we can make a movement to life that becomes a perspective. We see people with compassion, we confront problems with promise, we feel rooted in the midst of change. We know that no failure is fatal and there is an awareness of a supporting presence that always proves stronger than the tide.

Believing without acceptance is null and void. Believing without action is mere wishful thinking. It is also true to say believing is seeing. We believe so we can see and receive this perspective of eternal life on all our life. There are rational arguments for acceptance of the Resurrection, but they convince only the mind. The heart is convinced by action, we can decide to care or to be callous. We can live with the risk of love or the protection of loneliness. We can act out of conviction or cave in to compromise. We are constantly deciding in favor of life or death with the kind of life we see in Jesus. We accept. We decide. We act. And we pass from judgment to life.

From a sermon preached by Henry Dobbs Pope April 11, 1993

© Rhonda Hinkle Mitchell Broyles

DAY 170 - That’ll Be The Day

From Zephaniah 1 (NIV) ¹The word of the LORD which came to Zephaniah son of Cushi, son of Gedaliah, son of Amariah, son of Hezekiah, in the days of Josiah son of Amon, king of Judah:  ⁷ Be silent before the Sovereign LORD, for the day of the LORD is near. ⁹ On that day I will punish all who avoid stepping on the threshold, who fill the temple of their gods with violence and deceit.  ¹⁴ The great day of the LORD is near—near and coming quickly.

From Zephaniah 3 (NIV) ⁸ Therefore wait for me,” declares the LORD, “for the day I will stand up to testify. ¹¹ On that day you, Jerusalem, will not be put to shame for all the wrongs you have done to me, because I will remove from you your arrogant boasters. Never again will you be haughty on my holy hill. ¹² But I will leave within you the meek and humble. The remnant of Israel will trust in the name of the LORD.

What does the future hold for you? Will it be a dream come true – to finish school, find the right person to marry, becomes a success, reach retirement? As you look to the days ahead, does the future look promising and bright? Or do you see a lot of doom and gloom? Whatever we believe about the future has a profound effect on the way we think and feel and behave here and now.

The prophets in general and Zephaniah in particular spoke of the future as that day. The early church literally lived for the next thing God would do to accomplish His will and purpose for them and for His lost world. The words they spoke, the deeds they did, the prayers they prayed were all charged by a sense of God expectancy.

How do we view the future, and how does that view shape our life here and now? The most obvious way this belief shapes our life is to give us a sense of deep and abiding gratitude. We have a reason to believe that God will intervene in the future, because the intervention has already come in Jesus Christ. If you want to know what the future looks like, look at Jesus. Every time He makes a twisted body whole, opens the eyes of the blind, restores a relationship with forgiveness, confronts bigotry, breathes life into a dying body, the future is present. A preview is given that says, stay tuned and trust.

And the evidence given then is given now. A heart is touched, a life is changed, our self-centeredness is frustrated, the veil that hides God from our experience is temporarily lifted and the truth dawns on us. We see the future in events. We feel the future within and we know that day is a sure thing. The moment of seeing and experiencing a small bit of that day keeps us going through the moments when everything in us and around us say that any hope we may have had for the future is now null and void. Those moments and evidence of that day await us now and in the days ahead.

From a sermon preached by Henry Dobbs Pope February 21, 1993

© Rhonda Hinkle Mitchell Broyles

DAY 169 - Get A Move On!

John 1:14 (NASB) ¹⁴And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth.

II Peter 3:14-18 (NASB)  ¹⁴Therefore, beloved, since you look for these things, be diligent to be found by Him in peace, spotless and blameless, ¹⁵and regard the patience of our Lord as salvation; just as also our beloved brother Paul, according to the wisdom given him, wrote to you, ¹⁶as also in all his letters, speaking in them of these things, in which are some things hard to understand, which the untaught and unstable distort, as they do also the rest of the Scriptures, to their own destruction. ¹⁷You therefore, beloved, knowing this beforehand, be on your guard so that you are not carried away by the error of unprincipled men and fall from your own steadfastness, ¹⁸but grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To Him be the glory, both now and to the day of eternity. Amen.

We are a people who seem to be obsessed with growth and development, assuming that that road to happiness is a march ever onward and upward to a better life. So when we talk about Christian growth it is easy to picture growth as our becoming a better and better person, or as climbing a ladder of goodness that reaches closer and closer to heaven. Unfortunately, most of us know that is not necessarily so. A Christian is someone who has committed their life to Jesus Christ and whose goal in life is to be like Jesus. Theologically, Christian growth is called sanctification, a good word, but its meaning is obscured by language changes in recent years.

In Scripture, growth is often pictured as a journey. The first words that Jesus said to the disciples were follow me. Peter did that. It is hard to say that he became a better person, but he was different. He had changed because he had accepted the invitation to follow Jesus. Growth is every step we take in that direction, noting the importance of having a direction to our life.

I’m not sure we can always know when we’re on the right track. Obviously, no halo is going to grow over our head. But there are some inward signs and outward markers along the way that help us to know that we are still moving in the right direction. Grace is an inner awareness that we are living in harmony with the life of Jesus. Grow in grace, Peter says, and in the knowledge of our Lord  and Savior Jesus Christ. Knowledge can mean an intimate sharing of our life with another person, but here it seems to mean learning about someone. Before there can be a sharing of life there has to be a time of learning about Jesus. Growth takes perseverance. We receive experiences of God’s grace that encourage us but sometimes those experiences are in short supply. So Peter warns us beware…lest you be carried away and lose your steadfastness.  Steadfast means we stay with it and we continue daily and regularly. I know of nothing that makes it easy, yet I know of nothing that pays so rich a dividend for our life.

From a sermon preached by Henry Dobbs Pope January 31, 1993

© Rhonda Hinkle Mitchell Broyles

DAY 168 - A Wait And See Attitude

Habakkuk 1:2 (NIV) How long, LORD, must I call for help, but you do not listen?

Habakkuk 2:1-4 (NIV)  ¹ I will stand at my watch and station myself on the ramparts; I will look to see what he will say to me, and what answer I am to give to this complaint. ² Then the LORD replied: “Write down the revelation and make it plain on tablets so that a herald may run with it. ³ For the revelation awaits an appointed time; it speaks of the end and will not prove false. Though it linger, wait for it; it will certainly come and will not delay. ⁴ “See, the enemy is puffed up; his desires are not upright— but the righteous person will live by his faithfulness—

It is easy to sympathize with Habakkuk’s rage. How long, O LORD? Wait, God says, for it is not yet time to intervene. And if we are honest, many of us would reply that we don’t want to wait. Waiting in the grocery line is an irritation, waiting for a slow driver is infuriating. Wait, God says. It may not be in our nature, but it is in God’s, and God knows when the time is right.

Sometimes God’s timing seems to ignore our concerns. But this is only temporary and God has reasons. Will we trust in the meantime? We are called to wait in a spirit of trust, but not blind trust. Wait and watch, God says. Sometimes we have to ignore the visible data before our eyes that we might see the evidence God gives. Watch, and we will see that sin sows the seeds of its own destruction. Tyranny is suicidal. Watch and we will see truth holding true even if it is presently hidden from sight. Watch and we will also see God sowing seeds of life. Sometimes in our rush and anguish to help, we may dig up the seeds of life that God is planting and nurturing in His own way.

Wait and watch is the command. And the promise is the righteous will live by faith, with an ongoing trust and confidence in God. Trust prepares us for God’s work. Waiting and watching in a spirit of trust delivers us from complaints and deadening demands. Waiting in a spirit of trust reminds us that we need God.

As we wait, God fashions in our souls a gift. As we exercise the muscles of postponed answers and delayed knowledge, as we grow accustomed to seeing the evidence God gives, we develop the gift of discernment. Discernment is the ability to see the truth of God beneath the appearance of things. It is hearing the difference between what is real and what is just talk, between what needs action now and what can wait until a more opportune time, between the words best said and the words best left unsaid. Discernment can catch the details that others might miss and can ignore loud blaring of evidence that everyone else is screaming about. Discernment can distinguish between when it is time to comfort and time to confront. Discernment can do all of this and allow us to let in and live with the pain that everyone else is trying to shut out. As it was with Jesus, so it sometimes must be for us.

From a sermon preached by Henry Dobbs Pope February 7, 1993

© Rhonda Hinkle Mitchell Broyles

DAY 167 - Only Believe

Mark 5:38-42 (NRSV)  ³⁸They came to the house of the synagogue official; and He saw a commotion, and people loudly weeping and wailing. ³⁹And entering in, He said to them, "Why make a commotion and weep? The child has not died, but is asleep." ⁴⁰They began laughing at Him. But putting them all out, He took along the child's father and mother and His own companions, and entered the room where the child was. ⁴¹Taking the child by the hand, He said to her, "Talitha kum!" (which translated means, "Little girl, I say to you, get up!"). ⁴²Immediately the girl got up and began to walk, for she was twelve years old.

Romans 10:8b-11 (NRSV) 8bTHE WORD IS NEAR YOU, IN YOUR MOUTH AND IN YOUR HEART"--that is, the word of faith which we are preaching, ⁹that if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved; ¹⁰for with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation.  ¹¹For the Scripture says, "WHOEVER BELIEVES IN HIM WILL NOT BE DISAPPOINTED

Sometimes we give the impression that being a Christian means we agree that certain statements are true. This impression is not all wrong, but it is only half true. When Christianity is reduced to agreement on certain ideas, a distortion has taken place. Before Christianity is an agreement, it is a commitment. Mostly Christianity is accepting the open invitation of Jesus to only believe.

It is a straightforward kind of invitation, and whenever and however Jesus issues the invitation He is asking us to place our confidence in Him. Only believe. Try out some trust. Experiment with some obedience and see for yourself what will happen. Only believe…confess with your lips. We are called to a confidence in Jesus Christ inwardly and outwardly. It is a confidence that must constantly confront the appearance of things. It is a confidence that must move steadily through the storm of emotion and the tempest of changing circumstance when Jesus does not appear to be LORD at all.

Why make a commotion and weep? The child has not died but is asleep. Things are not as they appear, and at no time have things appeared to be so wrong, so lost, so devastated, so destroyed as when Jesus died on the Cross. We maintain our confidence against the appearance of things because we have a reason to. We have evidence that contradicts the present appearance of things. Our confidence is not wishful thinking. We do not have to muster up confidence in ourselves because we are by nature optimistic people. Our confidence is based on evidence that we believe is truer and stronger than the present appearance of things.

Jesus is LORD…God raised Him for the dead.  True or false? The question cannot be answered with our minds alone. It can be answered only by a decision of the will and the wager of our lives to live only believing.

From a sermon preached by Henry Dobbs Pope

© Rhonda Hinkle Mitchell Broyles

DAY 166 - The Proof of Love

Malachi 1:1-7  (NRSV) 1 An oracle. The word of the Lord to Israel by Malachi.^* 2 I have loved you, says the Lord.

Malachi 3:10-11, 16-17 (NRSV) ¹⁰Bring the full tithe into the storehouse, so that there may be food in my house, and thus put me to the test, says the Lord of hosts; see if I will not open the windows of heaven for you and pour down for you an overflowing blessing. ¹¹I will rebuke the locust^* for you, so that it will not destroy the produce of your soil; and your vine in the field shall not be barren, says the Lord of hosts. ¹⁶ The Lord took note and listened, and a book of remembrance was written before him of those who revered the Lord and thought on his name. ¹⁷They shall be mine, says the Lord of hosts, my special possession on the day when I act, and I will spare them as parents spare their children who serve them.

I have loved you, says the Lord. And how do we answer? Has the blight of indifference crept up and over us? We hear the words over and over again, “God loves you, God loves you, God loves…” The words sound so good, so promising, and so empty. Do we, like the people of Israel, long for some proof of God’s love?

The gift of life is a basic bit of evidence that we all have of God’s love for us. And most of us have more. We also have the gift of people who have cared for us and made life immeasurably richer for their having been a part of our life, nourishing our gift of life with praise and patience, with compassion and correction, with guidance and grace. And we have the gift of God’s Son, His declaration of love for us on the Cross and from the Empty Tomb. He has saved us and is saving us still from the lostness and the darkness and the folly of our ways, and will still be present to save us when the final darkness falls.

This is some of the evidence we share in common. And I believe most all of us could tell of some special evidence God has given us of His love. But sometimes that evidence, no matter how grand, seems to get a little tattered and torn. God has given evidence and promises to continue to give evidence. Past evidence is good, but we cannot nourish today’s love on yesterday’s diet. But, do we wonder about God’s love because we have wandered away from God’s will?

Whatever else we may have learned about love, we have learned it is not all sunshine and roses. There is rain and manure that has to be endured so that love can be nourished and live. Romance may lead the way, but love calls us to accountability. And that is why we may prefer to shy away from any notion of God loving us. It is not because we lack evidence of God’s love, but rather we lack the willingness to be held accountable to that love which lifts us to the question of if we are being faithful to Jesus. For those who want to know grandeur of love marriage is needed, for in marriage we make ourselves accountable to the one who gives us the gift of love. And accountability is what God wants from us, that He might continue to give to us.

From a sermon preached by Henry Dobbs Pope February 14, 1993

© Rhonda Hinkle Mitchell Broyles

DAY 165 - Right or Wrong?

Judges 21:25 (NIV)  ²⁵ In those days Israel had no king; everyone did as they saw fit.

John 17:13-21 (KJV) ¹³And now come I to thee; and these things I speak in the world, that they might have my joy fulfilled in themselves. ¹⁴I have given them thy word; and the world hath hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. ¹⁵I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them from the evil. ¹⁶They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. ¹⁷Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth. ¹⁸As thou hast sent me into the world, even so have I also sent them into the world. ¹⁹And for their sakes I sanctify myself, that they also might be sanctified through the truth. ²⁰Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word; ²¹That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me.

Moral absolutes are objective laws for right living that apply to all people, all times, and all places under all circumstances. They are necessary for the survival of a society. To say there are no moral absolutes is to believe there are no real rules.

We have often failed to live up to the moral rules. We have often disagreed about what the rules should be. Rules are objectively real. Values are subjective. But, there is a Creator God who has a plan and design for human life. God allows plenty of room for values, but has set down some laws that are right. The rules are right because they are from God. They may appear wise or foolish. They may appear hurtful or helpful. They may appear restrictive or permissive. But appearances are deceiving.

Thy word is truth, Jesus affirms, whether known or unknown, obeyed or ignored. All of that may sound like the old legalism and perhaps would be except that the words were spoken by Jesus. Thy word is truth, and thy word is Jesus. Can you feel the difference when the words are said, thy word is truth, and “thy word is Jesus?” Before the rules are laws, they are a person. We understand what is right by looking and listening to Jesus. We understand what is loving by looking and listening to Jesus. We understand what is just by looking and listening to Jesus, to the Jesus present in Scripture and presented to us through the Church.

I have given them thy word, and the “them” is us, fumbling, bumbling people like you and me who fit right in with the people Jesus called to His side and then who are sent to represent Him and His truth.

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

© Rhonda Hinkle Mitchell Broyles