The 260 Journey

Day 213

Today’s Reading: Hebrews 9 

I was speaking to a major league baseball player once who was struggling with the idea of death. I told him, here is your anxiety about death, starting with the least and moving to the greatest anxiety:

• The unlived life. You didn’t do your bucket list—so many things you wish you would have done. You start to realize what you didn't do and how much time you wasted.

• The regretful past. This is going backward and wishing you could take back words and actions. You wish you would have let more things go, apologized more, spent more time with your kids and your family.

• The gnawing possibility of accountability. This causes the greatest anxiety. It is the eternity issue. Is there a heaven and hell? Am I accountable? Will God judge me? If so, how will God judge me?

The first two on that list deal with mortality. The final item on that list deals with immortality. Is there something after death? That causes people’s anxiety to grow as they think, “Before I was only anxious about my last years on earth, but now I’m anxious about what is beyond and forever.”

We can brush off dreams unrealized. We can even brush off the stupid stuff we did that we wish we could take back. But eternity is different. Eternity keeps talking to us. And today’s chapter gives us a sobering reality check on it: “Every human being is appointed to die once, and then to face God’s judgment” (Hebrews 9:27, TPT). Everyone will stand before God, either as our Judge or as our Redeemer. His role is determined by the choice we make on earth.

When CNN cancelled Larry King’s interview show in 2010, King began obsessing with his death, becoming aware that there will come a day when he dies. But he doesn’t believe in the afterlife, so each day he started taking four hormone pills for human growth, and made plans to have his body frozen so that someday he will live again. He admits he knows “it’s nuts," but at least he believes when he dies the potential of him being resurrected someday thanks to cryonics gives him some hope. Larry King says, “Other people have no hope.”

Our hope is not in extending life here but extending life on the other side in heaven. Larry King is trying to extend the wrong way. What he fails to understand is that eternity is too long to be wrong.

There’s another who doesn’t want to face eternity. In The Last Word, Thomas Nagel, professor of philosophy at New York University and an atheist, admits he doesn’t want there to be a God:

“I speak from experience, being strongly subject to this fear myself: I want atheism to be true and am made uneasy by the fact that some of the most intelligent and well-informed people I know are religious believers. It isn’t just that I don’t believe in God and, naturally, hope that I’m right in my belief. It’s that I hope there is no God! I don’t want there to be a God; I don’t want the universe to be like that.”

Those words are raw and honest, and I appreciate the professor’s candor. But again, eternity is too long to be wrong.

In 1974 Muhammad Ali was set to box against George Foreman for the Heavyweight Champion title. While he was training, a father and his son, Jimmy, came to Ali’s training camp, because he wanted to meet the Champ. When Ali discovered Jimmy was battling leukemia, he told him, “I’m going to beat George Foreman, and you’re going to beat cancer.” Two weeks later, Ali visited the boy, who was dying. Ali told him, “Jimmy, remember what I told you? I’m going to beat George Foreman. You’re going to beat cancer.” 

“No, Muhammad,” Jimmy answered. “I’m going to meet God. I’m going to tell Him, you’re my friend.” 

Ali’s kindness and name recognition throughout the world has always impressed me. But on the day of judgment, we can’t count on name-dropping. The only name that will matter on that day is the name of Jesus. Even the Sportsman of the Century will stand before the true “The Greatest” and bow down. 

Paul reminds us that “God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus, EVERY KNEE WILL BOW, of those who are in heaven, and on the earth, and under the earth” (Philippians 2:9-10). What will you tell God when you meet Him? Can you honestly say when you do, “I know Jesus?"

The Bible says in 2 Corinthians 5:10 that “we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one of us may receive what is due us for the things done while in the body, whether good or bad” (NIV).

How can we be prepared for death? We need to remember that death starts eternity. So as C. S. Lewis reminds us, “Precisely because we cannot predict the moment, we must be ready at all moments.”

The saying goes like this: “Never fall in love with anything that can’t go to heaven with you. The more important a matter is, the less you should postpone it. So claim the gift of eternal life immediately.” Eternal life is a decision—one that cannot be delegated, and one that has a deadline. Today is the day of salvation.

Day 212

Today’s Reading: Hebrews 8

Why should you go to heaven?

I have asked many people that question. The number one answer I get is, “I am a good person.” I remind them about what Jesus said. Jesus, who cannot lie, said that, “No one is good except God alone” (Mark 10:18).

And based on that person’s answer . . . now two are good in the universe: God and that person. They start to see not only is that not the right answer, they start to see the futility of that answer. God the Father did not send His only Son to suffer horrifically on the cross so that you can do your best to get to heaven. The cross means more than that. Jesus did not die to get you to church. Jesus died to get you to heaven. You have no way to get to heaven on your own, you need help. You need a miracle. You need a new covenant. The old covenant put you in the driver’s seat to do your best, and the Old Testament revealed that even at your best, it can’t get you to heaven.

Hebrews 8 shows us the help and the miracle—it’s the new covenant: “Now Jesus the Messiah has accepted a priestly ministry which far surpasses theirs, since he is the catalyst of a better covenant which contains far more wonderful promises!” (verse 6 TPT).

What is the “far more wonderful promises” of the new covenant? What makes this so different? It’s what God says next in the form of two words. What follows verse 6 reveals the heart of God and offers us great help and hope. Those two words? I will.

Seven times in this chapter, God says, “I will.” The new covenant is all on God. Where the old covenant was man trying to do better, the new covenant is God saying, You can’t, but I will.

We live in a culture that embraces the I will: I will be better. I will get this right. I will be a success. I will be rich. I will get to heaven.

If you answer the question “How do I get to heaven?” with something you do, then the “I” of the “I will” is you. You can’t be the “I.” The “I” is the Son of God. It’s what He has done for you in the new covenant. Martin Luther so powerfully reminds us of this when he said: “What makes you think that God is more pleased with your good deeds than he is with his blessed son?” 

What follows the statement of “far more wonderful promises” is this (all quoted from the NIV):

“I will make a new covenant.” (Verse 8)

“This is the covenant I will establish.” (Verse 10)

“I will put my laws in their minds.” (Verse 10)

“[I will] write them on their hearts.” (Verse 10)

“I will be their God.” (Verse 10)

“I will forgive their wickedness.” (Verse 12)

“[I] will remember their sins no more.” (Verse 12)

The new covenant is what God does for you, not what you do for God.

Another word for you being the “I” is legalism. You are working to make God like you and bring you to heaven. Legalism eliminates God’s involvement in your life and puts it all on you. Legalism says that God will really love you if you can change. As Tullian Tchividjian said, “The ironic thing about legalism is that it not only doesn’t make people work harder, it makes them give up.”

That is when God says, I have a better covenant for you.

In Mere Christianity, C. S. Lewis said something that reminds me of the greatness of God’s I Will. Digest these powerful words: “Christ offers something for nothing: He even offers everything for nothing. In a sense, the whole Christian life consists in accepting that very remarkable offer. But the difficulty is to reach the point of recognising that all we have done and can do is nothing.”

That’s the new covenant.

Day 211

Today’s Reading: Hebrews 7

Comedian Ray Romano said this about parenting: “Having children is like living in a frat house—nobody sleeps, everything’s broken, and there is a lot of throwing up.” For us parents, this is so true. Let me tell you an “everything’s broken” story.

When my son was little, he loved to color. One day while I was away from my laptop, my son decided to take his coloring skills to a new level. He grabbed a black Sharpie permanent marker and drew all over the screen. I walked into my office and caught him. I was frozen, not sure what to do other than plan my son’s funeral. Then it hit me. My laptop was a Dell, and at the time, Dell had an amazing guarantee that if anything happened to the laptop, they would replace it. No way that guarantee means a Sharpie and a two-year-old, I thought, but figured I’d call Dell and tell them the story. The customer service representative laughed and said they would ship out a new laptop in a day and I could use that box to send back to Dell the one my son signed. They did guarantee their product.

Hebrews 7 takes guarantees to a whole new level. This chapter compares the old covenant under Old Testament priests with the new covenant under the High Priest and Savior, Jesus. And the writer finally arrives at the guarantee portion of the covenant:

“This makes Jesus the guarantee of a far better way between us and God—one that really works! A new covenant. Earlier there were a lot of priests, for they died and had to be replaced. But Jesus’ priesthood is permanent. He’s there from now to eternity to save everyone who comes to God through him, always on the job to speak up for them.” (Hebrews 7:22-25, MSG)

Jesus is the guarantee that the new covenant works and is better. Let me explain. When we are born again and come to God through Jesus Christ, we have a guarantee that we will make it to heaven. Under the old covenant a person was only as safe and secure as their next sin. And then they had to wait till the yearly sacrifice of the high priest for the sins of the nation of Israel. Under the new covenant, the writer tells us there is a guarantee. The Bible uses a comparable word to guarantee. It’s the word surety. That word means a person who takes responsibility for another’s performance of an undertaking. For example, their appearing in court or the payment of a debt. Remember the reality show Dog, the Bounty Hunter? He was a bail bondsman. When a person was released on bail money, but skipped appearing in court, Dog would hunt that person down to get that person to court.

That’s why it’s hard to be a backslider when our surety is Jesus. He comes after those who walk away from God, because He is the guarantee to get them not to court but to heaven. Jesus is the surety that we will make it to heaven. Jesus is, in a sense, your Dog, the bounty hunter. Ouch, I know that’s hard to say, but He is. He has too big of an investment in you to lose you.

How does Jesus help you in that? That’s where verse 25 explains an important point: “He is able to save fully from now throughout eternity, everyone who comes to God through him, because he lives to pray continually for them” (TPT).

Jesus is praying for you and me right now. And all of Jesus’ prayers get answered. He is committed to getting us home. Robert Murray McCheyne said it like this: “If I could hear Christ praying for me in the next room, I would not fear a million enemies. Yet distance makes no difference because He is praying for me.”

The short life of the Old Testament priests made their guarantee weak, and the writer of Hebrews tells us that since our Great High Priest, Jesus lives forever, this warranty lasts that long. Puritan writer Thomas Watson shares this wonderful insight about our guarantee:

“When God calls a man, He does not repent of it. God does not, as many friends do, love one day, and hate another; or as princes, who make their subjects favourites, and afterwards throw them into prison. This is the blessedness of a saint; his condition admits of no alteration. God’s call is founded upon His decree, and His decree is immutable. Acts of grace cannot be reversed. God blots out His people’s sins, but not their names.”

I like guarantees! When we buy certain products, especially electronic products, or when we buy a car, that guarantee is important. In buying gifts we like to know about the guarantee. Does it say, “Satisfaction guaranteed or your money back!”?

God offers His Son Jesus as our guarantee. God backs up His promises with His Son. Every time we see the reenactment of that first Christmas, we are being reminded of God’s guarantee. Think of it this way. If I made a promise to you, and you asked for some guarantee; some surety; that I would keep my promise, I would not hand over my son, Christian, and say, “Here’s my son. He’s yours until I keep my promises.” That’s outrageous. But in a sense, God did that. He gave us Jesus, His Son, as a guarantee, as a surety that He will do what He said. “Here’s my Son, He’s yours forever!” to guarantee that you and I will make it to heaven when life is over.

Jesus is our guarantee! God proved that He meant what He said. He signed it, sealed it, and sent the ultimate guarantee—the living Word. He is unchangeable. He guaranteed it forever. No limitations. No fine print. No tricky words. Jesus is the guarantee—forever!

That’s good news. You are going to make it home to heaven.

Day 210

Today’s Reading: Hebrews 6

An old Presbyterian preacher named Clarence Macartney made a keen observation about airplanes and the Christian life:

“Between an airplane and every other form of locomotion and transportation there is one great contrast. The horse and wagon, the automobile, the bicycle, the locomotive, the speedboat, and the great battleship—all can come to a standstill without danger, and they can all reverse their engines, or their power, and go back.

But there is no reverse about the engine of an airplane. It cannot back up. It dare not stand still. If it loses its momentum and forward-drives, then it crashes. The only safety for the airplane is in its forward and upward motion. The only safe direction for the Christian to take is forward and upward. If he stops, or if he begins to slip and go backward, that moment he is in danger.”

This is what the writer of Hebrews is speaking of in today’s chapter:

“Leaving the elementary teaching about the Christ, let us press on to maturity, not laying again a foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God, of instruction about washings and laying on of hands, and the resurrection of the dead and eternal judgment.” (Hebrews 6:1-2)

Let us press on to maturity. Those are the words for moving forward and upward. It is the challenge of growth for the Christian. Always remember that maturity is not a gift, it is a journey. Inventor Rowland Hill once watched a child riding a rocking-horse and remarked, “He reminds me of some Christians. There is plenty of motion but no progress.”

Hebrews 6 is a plea for progress. It seems that these new Christians got stuck. The writer says we should know the foundational principles of faith, repentance, and laying on of hands, and that we should not stall out on these issues but press on toward maturity. As The Message so aptly puts it: “So come on, let’s leave the preschool fingerpainting exercises on Christ and get on with the grand work of art. Grow up in Christ” (verse 1).

It is easy to confuse maturity with experience. Experience is a wonderful thing but not always the best teacher. There’s nothing more tragic than when the years don’t match the maturity.

A group of tourists were visiting a European village and walked by an old man sitting. With a patronizing tone, one tourist asked him, “Were any great men born in this village?” The old man replied, “Nope, only babies.”

Every born-again believer starts life as a baby in Christ. Whether the new convert is six or sixty, that person is still a new Christian and needs to grow in the Lord. A baby Christian who has been saved for forty years is a tragedy. God intends for us to grow and mature so we can be a positive influence in the lives of others. Until we learn to dig into the meat of the Word for ourselves, we will never grow.

Amy Carmichael once penned these thoughts:

“Sometimes when we read the words of those who have been more than conquerors, we feel almost despondent. I feel that I shall never be like that. But they won through step by step, by little bits of wills, little denials of self, little inward victories, by faithfulness in very little things. . . . No one sees these little hidden steps. They only see the accomplishment, but even so, those small steps were taken. There is no sudden triumph on spiritual maturity.”

That is the work of the moment. Maturity comes through taking small steps, introducing new habits, and stopping bad ones. In one Peanuts comic strip, Sally was struggling with her memory verse for Sunday, when she finally remembered, “Maybe it was something from the book of Reevaluation.” I think every time we read the Bible, it should be in the book of "re-evaluation" for us to see if we are growing.

In most homes that have children present, you’ll usually find a growth chart. It keeps track of each child’s measurements. As a child ages, the body receives messages from the pituitary gland in the brain that tells it to get moving, it’s time to grow up. There’s nothing the child can do to stop or start the growth, it happens naturally. I wish the same were true spiritually. I wish once we become a Christian, our growth becomes automatic, but it doesn’t. There is no special gland to help us grow spiritually as Christians.

What if we did have a spiritual growth chart? If you could measure your spiritual growth in inches, how many inches have you grown in the last three to four years?

How much taller are you standing today spiritually from where you were last year?

What does growth and maturity look like? I think this story defines it for us.

A group of women who were studying the Bible together were puzzled by the words of Malachi 3:3: “He shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver” (KJV). One of the ladies decided to call a silversmith to see if he could explain. That week she visited a silversmith and asked him to explain the process of refining silver. After he described the process, she asked, “Do you sit while the work of refining is going on?”

“Oh yes,” he replied. “I must sit with my eye steadily fixed on the furnace. For if the time necessary for refining be exceeded in the slightest degree, the silver is sure to be injured.”

At once she saw the beauty and comfort of the expression, He shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver. As the lady was leaving the shop, the silversmith called her back with one more piece of information. “I only know when the process of purifying is complete by seeing my own image reflected in the silver.”

As Joseph Exell explains:

“Christ sees it needful to put His children into the furnace, but He is seated by the side of it, His eye is steadily on the work of purifying, and His wisdom and love are both engaged in the best manner for them. Their trials do not come at random. When Christ’s image is reflected in us, His work of purifying is accomplished.”

Day 209

Today’s Reading: Hebrews 5

In talking about the power of mentoring, UCLA’s great basketball coach, John Wooden wrote:

“[President Abraham] Lincoln fiercely believed in self-sufficiency, and in the maturity and character that struggles and hardships can bring. This lesson is so important for teachers and parents. It is only natural for us to want to shield our students and our children from anything that might possibly cause them hurt or to suffer or even to be uncomfortable. But some degree of pain is necessary for a person to become suited for the responsibilities that lay ahead.”

Pain is necessary. Those are true but tough words to swallow. In today’s chapter we encounter a topic that is not often discussed in our culture. The writer of Hebrews speaks of a classroom that is often overlooked but more so avoided—the classroom of suffering. And we see that Father God was doing exactly what Lincoln and Wooden spoke about with His Son Jesus: “Although He was a Son, He learned obedience from the things which He suffered” (Hebrews 5:8).

Suffering and learning. These are words we don’t normally associate together. Suffering and learning are partners, and they are integral in the life of Jesus.

Malcolm Muggeridge, one of the great British Christian writers, did not come to faith until later in life. His words on suffering and learning are powerful:

“Contrary to what might be expected, I look back on experiences that at the time seemed especially desolating and painful with particular satisfaction. Indeed, I can say with complete truthfulness that everything I have learned in my 75 years in this world, everything that has truly enhanced and enlightened my experience, has been through affliction and not through happiness.

Amy Carmichael can attest to that. Carmichael was a missionary to India in the early 1900s. She was the originator of the safe house, rescuing young girls at a time when the world did not know about the horrific exploitation of them. She did this at the risk of her own life.

In 1932, Carmichael was badly injured in a fall, which broke her leg and twisted her spine, and which left her mostly bedridden and in constant pain for the next twenty years until her death. Rarely did she sleep through a night without waking up in pain. However, while bedridden, Carmichael wrote sixteen books that are filled with awe-inspiring revelation. All coming from a fall, sleepless nights, and back pain. We could learn from her suffering.

Helen Keller said, “Although the world is full of suffering, it is also full of the overcoming of it.” Those are the learners. We try to avoid pain instead of learning from pain, which leads us to where we waste our pain. A. W. Tozer was spot on when he said: “It is doubtful whether God can bless a man greatly until He has hurt him deeply.”

Our Daily Bread tells the story of A. Parnell Bailey who toured an orange grove where an irrigation pump had broken down. The season was in a drought, and the trees were beginning to die. Next Bailey visited another orchard where irrigation was used sparingly. “These trees could go without rain for another two weeks,” the man giving Bailey the tour told him. “When they were young, I frequently kept water from them. This hardship and pain caused them to send their roots deeper into the soil in search of moisture. Now mine are the deepest-rooted trees in the area. While others are being scorched by the sun, these are finding moisture at a greater depth.”

That’s what happens in pain, we learn to go deeper in God. Pain takes us deeper so we are not hurt by the pain but have learned to draw our resources from a place of depth. As Mildred Witte Struven explained: “A clay pot sitting in the sun will always be a clay pot. It has to go through the white heat of the furnace to become porcelain.”

I want to be porcelain. I want to come out of the struggle with depth and value that wasn’t there before the struggle and pain.

Robert B. Hamilton’s poem called “Sufferings” captures it well:

“I walked a mile with Pleasure;

She chatted all the way;

But left me none the wiser

For all she had to say.

I walked a mile with Sorrow,

And ne’er a word said she;

But, oh! The things I learned from her,

When sorrow walked with me.”

Day 208

Today’s Reading: Hebrews 4

The second most difficult book in the Bible to understand is Hebrews, because of its assumption that the reader is familiar with the Old Testament. It is dependent upon reader’s understanding of the book of Leviticus and it is written to Jews who would know this book completely. The two key words in the book are sacrifices and priest. In today’s culture, we are not familiar with the concept of priesthood and sacrifices.

The basic premise of Hebrews is that these Jews were getting tired of the battles that go along with being a Christian. The more secular the world becomes, the more at odds we appear to be. The more we are committed to Christ, the more we experience conflict and collision. Some of these Hebrew believers were being persecuted and even their property was being taken from them. These new Christians’ wondered, How can we make it? Is it worth it? They were considering going back to the world and back to their old ways. 

The author of Hebrews had one simple message to give them: Jesus. He wanted them to know they had a friend in high places who would get them through because He really understands what they were experiencing:

“We do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but One who has been tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin. Therefore let us draw near with confidence to the throne of grace, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.” (Hebrews 4:15-16)

That message is still true today: you are not alone. You have Someone with you and He is Someone who has been through what you are going through. The Message says it like this:

“We don’t have a priest who is out of touch with our reality. He’s been through weakness and testing, experienced it all—all but the sin. So let’s walk right up to him and get what he is so ready to give. Take the mercy, accept the help.”

Wow! We serve a Jesus who has experienced it all. Why is this important? Charles Spurgeon said it well: “A Jesus who never wept could never wipe away my tears.”

Is this really true? Does Jesus understand what you are going through because He has been through it Himself? Jesus doesn’t just know what you are going through, He knows what it’s like to go through it. This makes Him a personal Savior. There is nothing you have gone through that He has not gone through in some form or fashion.

He understands what it is to be let down by friends.

He understands betrayal.

He understands fear and wanting to quit.

He knows the pain of losing loved ones.

He understands having someone close to Him murdered.

Just to name a few.

 He found out what it’s like to discover your life is on the clock. (Some hear it like this: “You have cancer; you have three months to live.”)

He was a carpenter. He knows what it is to work a 9-5 job. He had deadlines and work orders.

He knew homelessness: Jesus said, “The foxes have holes and the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head” (Matthew 8:20).

Jesus knew what it’s like to cry out to God and ask why when things got tough: He said on the cross: “My God, My God, why . . .?” (Matthew 27:46).

So what is the result of having this kind of Jesus? The writer of Hebrews tells us in the first word of the next verse: Therefore. It means, “here’s the reason” I just told you what I told you. Hebrews 4:16 reads: “Therefore let us draw near with confidence to the throne of grace, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.”

He says, now that you know you have a High Priest who understands the pain of life, what are you going to do about it? And he gives the answer: “draw near with confidence to the throne of grace.” The King James Version says we are to “come boldly.” That says it all. In other words, we can approach God with frankness, bluntness. We can be open, plain, and daring—telling it like it is. We can have freedom in what we say. We can speak unreservedly. It’s real talk. It is going to Jesus, not trying to impress Him, but telling him, “This is who I am, and this is what I am going through, and this is how I feel.”

You say things like, “I am afraid,” “I don’t want to die,” “I don’t want to live,” “I can’t go on another day,” “I’m through with this marriage.”

The more you know Jesus, the more you can be real with Him. “Jesus loves you as you are not as you ought to be.” (Brennan Manning)

And He knows you! So you don’t have to pretend with Him.

We can go to the throne boldly. Or as The Message puts it, “So let’s walk right up to him and get what he is so ready to give.” How can we do that? We have the Son who understands and will take us to the Father.

Did you know there was a time in American history when any citizen could go to see the president? At the end of the Civil War, a dejected Confederate soldier was sitting outside the grounds of the White House. A young boy approached and asked what was wrong. The soldier explained that he had repeatedly tried to see President Lincoln and had been unable to do so. He wanted to tell the president that his farm in the South had been unfairly taken by the Union soldiers. But each time he tried to enter the White House, the guards turned him away.

The boy motioned to the soldier to follow him. When they approached the guarded entrance, the soldiers came to attention, stepped back, and opened the door for the boy. He proceeded to the library where the president was resting and introduced the soldier to his father. 

The boy was Tad Lincoln. He was the son of the President of the United States.

The soldier had gained access to the president through the president’s son. How much more should we rejoice in our access to the grace of the King of kings? We are connected to the Son and He can get us in to see the Father in tough times. The Son allows us to walk right up to Him.

Day 207

Today’s Reading: Hebrews 3

Thomas Edison had very little formal education. In fact, he was only in school a few months before his mother pulled him out and began teaching him herself. She encouraged him in reading, writing, and arithmetic, and allowed him to pursue other interests that appealed to him. Always a curious boy, he was particularly fascinated with mechanical things and chemical experiments, which his mother encouraged.

How did it come about that his mother pulled him out of school? And why? According to a rare interview Edison gave to a now-defunct literary journal, T. P. Weekly, published on November 29, 1907, his mother’s staunch support and belief in him made him the successful inventor he became:

“One day I overheard the teacher tell the inspector that I was “addled” and it would not be worthwhile keeping me in school any longer. I was so hurt by this last straw that I burst out crying and went home and told my mother about it. Then I found out what a good thing a good mother is. She came out as my strong defender. Mother love was aroused, mother pride wounded to the quick. She brought me back to the school and angrily told the teacher that he didn’t know what he was talking about, that I had more brains than he himself, and a lot more talk like that. In fact, she was the most enthusiastic champion a boy ever had, and I determined right then that I would be worthy of her and show her that her confidence was not misplaced.”

Thomas Edison’s mom spoke encouragement, life-giving words, into her son’s life and gave us one of the greatest inventors in history. Because of her staunch belief in her son and her words about and to him, the world has the light bulb, phonograph, camera, telegraph, generators, microphones, alkaline batteries, cement, and a host of other things.

Words are powerful. As Mother Teresa said, “Words which do not give the light of Christ increase the darkness.” In today’s chapter, the writer of Hebrews describes the heart challenge we all face and the antidote for it to be fixed:

“Take care, brethren, that there not be in any one of you an evil, unbelieving heart that falls away from the living God. But encourage one another day after day, as long as it is still called “Today,” so that none of you will be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.” (Hebrews 3:12-13)

We are told that any one of us can find our heart moving into unbelief. The writer says that we are to be aware of that enemy. And before we can even be afraid, we are told there is an answer to it—encouragement. Encouragement is what keeps our hearts soft. That is the power of encouraging words. Those kinds of words don’t just give us a Thomas Edison, they give us strong, faithful Christians.

Can I vent for a moment? I want to give you my pet peeve of “religious” encouragement. It’s when people give you the preface before the encouragement. They say something like, “I don’t want you to get a big head or get prideful, but you preached well, you sang well, your words were powerful.” Their preface waters down their encouragement. I want to tell them, “You’re not the pride police. Just say something nice without the caveat.” People are so discouraged today, and a word of encouragement gets them in the game, so give someone a word of encouragement without your “concern” for their pride. Be more concerned of an unbelieving heart than a prideful heart. That means just say the good words.

More people fail for lack of encouragement, I think, than for any other reason. Encouragement is oxygen to the soul. We don’t have enough encouragers out there. We need more encouragement in the home and in the church. Who knows what a word of encouragement could do for your spouse, your child, or the person you sit next to at your job. Just a “great job” could get someone through the day.

We need to make deposits into people’s emotional bank accounts. It will help them finish their day, the week, their life well. Day-to-day encouragement. Send someone a text of encouragement. Make a quick Mom-and-Dad phone call and encourage them. The people you think don’t need it because they always look happy are many times the ones who need it most.

A pastor friend told me about something that happened in his church. An elderly lady told him when he buries her that she wants a Bible and a spoon in her casket. He asked her why. She said, “At all the church fellowships I have been to over the last seventy-five years, when they come around after the dinner and give us spoons they are saying the best is yet to come—dessert. And when I die, I want people to know that the best is yet to come.” Well, he’d heard the story before—it’s been going around for years. But that’s not the end of the story. My friend said there was a part B.

A little while later, he needed to step down from ministry for a season due to some personal issues. It was a hard year for that pastor to be attending the church he’d led for decades but who was now on the sidelines. After the year was up, he prepared for his first Sunday back. He was nervous and scared and wondered if the church would even want him back.

That first Sunday back, he stepped up to the pulpit and watched in amazement as the entire congregation stood. They didn’t applaud. They held up spoons. They were encouraging him that the best is yet to come.

Day 206

Today’s Reading: Hebrews 2

My wife, Cindy, and I were sitting with our children’s pastor some years ago. As we were talking in our living room, our four children were playing in the basement. All our kids were under the age of eight, so there was a lot going on. At that time the children’s pastor was not married and had no children.

While we were talking we all heard a cry from the basement, but Cindy and I just kept talking. Finally he said, “Aren’t you guys going to do something?”

“It’s okay,” we told him. “That’s a ‘You took my spot!’ cry. It’s all good.”

We kept talking and then another cry came from the basement. We never flinched. He was unnerved. “Should we go check on them?”

“It’s all good,” Cindy and I said. “That’s a bug cry.”

We kept talking. Then a third cry came and we got up and left. He sat confused. “Where are you going?”

“That’s an ‘I’m hurt!’ cry,” we said as we rushed to the basement. “Someone hurt themselves and we need to go.” Meeting postponed.

When you are a parent, you know the cry of your children. Hebrews 2 is about our Savior who knows the cry of His kids. Let’s read this very encouraging passage:

“He had to be made like His brethren in all things, so that He might become a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people. For since He Himself was tempted in that which He has suffered, He is able to come to the aid of those who are tempted.” (Hebrews 2:17-18)

The King James Version doesn’t use the phrase, come to the aid. It uses a very old English word, “He is able to succor them.” The word succor actually means to run to the cry. I think it’s important to know that Jesus runs to the cry and not to the articulate. Sometimes all we have is a cry, and that moves our Savior to our rescue.

Psalms show us this over and over:

“In my distress I cried out to the Lord . . . my cry to him reached his ears.” (Psalm 18:6, NLT)

“In my trouble I cried to the Lord, and He answered me.”

(Psalm 120:1)

“I love the Lord because he . . . heard my cry.” (Psalm 116:1, NIRV)

David over and over uses cries for prayer. A cry is inarticulate but still has meaning. A cry is not grammatically correct, but it is understandable to God. A cry may be wordless but speaks with force and passion in the ears of God.

Tears are prayers. Tears talk when we can’t. There’s an old poem by John Vance Cheney that says in part, “The soul would have no rainbow had the eyes no tears.” Let me show you the rainbow of this verse. The writer of Hebrews was telling us that since Jesus became like us “in all things,” He knows the cry and the pain of those things. He can recognize the emotions of situations that we forget Jesus became familiar with. 

In 100 Days in the Arena, David Winter recounts a horrific time in the early church when the Christians were being killed for their faith. He includes this prayer:

“You give yourself with such total generosity, it might almost seem that you need us. There has never been a king like you ever before. You have made yourself available to everyone who needs you. Instead of high security, you have made yourself vulnerable even to those who hate you.”

What makes Jesus amazing is that our tears are enough to get His attention. It’s not our experience, our vocabulary, our education, our position, or our finances. A cry is enough to make Him run to our help. There is no such thing as a bad prayer—even if it’s just a cry.

Bruce Howell tells the story of a father and his young son and daughter who went swimming in the Atlantic Ocean off New Jersey. Though they were all great swimmers they got separated, and the dad, looking around, realized that the tide was carrying them out to sea. He called out to his daughter, “I am going to shore for help. If you get tired, turn on your back. You can float all day on your back. I’ll come back for you.” He and the boy made it to shore and then set out on a frantic search for the girl. After four hours, they found her far out in the sea. She was calmly swimming on her back and wasn’t frightened at all. The father was hugely relieved when the calm girl was finally back on shore. Everyone wondered how she could be so calm. She said, “Daddy said he would come for me and that I could float all day, so I swam and floated because I knew he would come.”

This is what Jesus is all about. He will always come for us. He will always be there.

Day 205

Today’s Reading: Hebrews 1

At Trafalgar Square in London stands the 170-foot-high iconic Lord Nelson column. Resting on top of the pillar is Lord Nelson. It towers way too high for a passerby to distinguish his features and really know who it is. So about forty years ago a new statue, an exact replica of the original that is on top, was erected at eye level so everyone could see Lord Nelson way up there. Someone had the idea that if you want to know who is “way up there,” we have to bring the exact representation down low enough for everyone to see.

This also happened about two thousand years ago in a very big way. God transcends our ability to see Him for who He is. The eyes of our understanding cannot define or figure out His divine features. So God pulled a Lord Nelson for us. He set before us an exact representation, “the image of the invisible God.” Now to know God, we must only look at Jesus. Here’s what the writer of Hebrews tells us:

“In these last days he has spoken to us through his Son. God made his Son responsible for everything. His Son is the one through whom God made the universe. His Son is the reflection of God’s glory and the exact likeness of God’s being. He holds everything together through his powerful words. After he had cleansed people from their sins, he now holds the honored position—the one next to the majestic God [the Father] on the heavenly throne.” (Hebrews 1:2-3, GW)

We live in a highly religious society today. I don’t think America is godless; I think America has many gods. The issue is, what does America’s god look like? One of the first things God did when He gave the Ten Commandments was to issue a warning from the very beginning about counterfeit gods. The Bible says this in Exodus 20 in the first commandment:

“You shall have no other gods before Me. You shall not make for yourself an idol, or any likeness of what is in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the water under the earth. You shall not worship them or serve them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God.” (Exodus 20:3-5)

Here is what stands out—that God gave the commandment against other gods not to pagans and idolaters but to Israel, the very people of God, a monotheistic people. Being religious never guarantees the worship of the true God. This was what we remember as we enter the book of Hebrews. Hebrews was written to religious people who were losing sight of Jesus. They were losing sight of the exact representation and likeness of God seen only in Jesus. And the book reminds them that God is in Jesus.

Divine truth must come from outside to us. It cannot be self-generated by us and come from within ourselves. Truth must be revealed by God to us. Without Jesus we come up with our own version of God; thus the thousands of religions in the world who have self-defined God instead of letting God define Himself in Jesus. As Colossians 1:15 says, “We look at this Son and see the God who cannot be seen” (MSG). God is fully revealed in Jesus.

That’s why any religion that doesn’t give Jesus the honor that God gets is counterfeit. Jesus tells us, “The Son will be honored equally with the Father. Anyone who dishonors the Son, dishonors the Father, for it was the Father’s decision to put the Son in the place of honor” (John 5:23, MSG). The Son is equally honored with the Father, because the Son is God in the flesh.

There are only two approaches to knowing God: one that begins with humans or the one that begins with God. Jesus is God’s self-revelation. We know God only through Jesus. Lloyd C. Douglas was the author of the classic book, The Robe. He lived in a boarding house when he was a university student. He tells the story that when he lived on the first floor, he resided next to a retired music teacher, wheelchair bound and unable to leave his apartment. Every morning they had a ritual: Douglas came down the stairs, opened the man’s door, and asked, “Well, what’s the good news?” The other picked up his tuning fork, tapped it on the inside of his wheelchair, and said, “That is middle C! It was middle C yesterday, and it will be middle tomorrow. It will be middle C a thousand years from now. The tenor upstairs sings flat, the piano across the hall is out of tune, but my friend, that is middle C.”

Says Donald McCullough of the story: “The old man had discovered a constant reality on which he could depend, an unchanging truth to which he could cling. Jesus Christ is our tuning fork, ringing out middle C in a cacophonous world of competing truths; his pitch defines tonal reality and sets every other note in its proper place.”

Society may be flat. The church may be sharp. But as McCullough reminds us, “When we listen to middle C two things happen: the revelation of Jesus Christ both separates us from God and unites us to God.”

Astronomers observe stars with telescopes. Biologists examine cells with microscopes. Sociologists discover patterns of human behavior with surveys and interviews. Psychiatrists delve into the mind through conversation. Humanity can know God by the life and words of Jesus Christ. When we grasp the hand of Jesus, we meet God in Person.

Day 204

Today’s Reading: Philemon 1

You can be forgiven of your past but still have an unfixed past. Forgiven and fixed are two different things, and sometimes people confuse them at salvation.

Being born again will change your relationship with God, but won’t necessarily change your relationship with your family, the courts, the IRS, the law, a judge, a probationary officer, VISA, a collection agency, a halfway house, or a bad marriage. At least not immediately. You are forgiven but not fixed yet.

Let me give you a scenario. If you robbed a bank and got saved after that, are you forgiven and really going to heaven? Yes. Are you going to jail? Yes. Are you now innocent since you are forgiven? Nope.

You are forgiven, but you may have a past that still needs to be fixed. You can be going to heaven and going to jail at the same time. God’s forgiveness always exonerates in the courts of heaven, but is not guaranteed in the courts on earth. Salvation forgives sin (past, present, and future) but it does not resolve it.

This is such an important issue that a whole book of the Bible is devoted to it. A twenty-five verse book, which is the best and most practical help on this issue—Philemon. The verses will pop off the page when I give you the background. We have three characters in the story: Paul, who is in prison, is the aged apostle and the writer of the letter; Philemon is a Christian who had a slave who ran away (and has the church in his house); Onesimus is the slave who ran away and who gets saved while he is trying to get lost among the residents in Rome.

In the first century, two million of the five million people in Rome were slaves. To purchase a slave was very expensive. There were 120 occupations for them—some were executives and had salaried positions; most slaves served between ten and twenty years and usually were free by the age of thirty. But if a slave ran away, it was like he was committing suicide. It was punishable by death or branding the letter “F” on his head, which stood for the Latin word Fugitivus.

Bottom line: Onesimus ran away.

Bottom line: by law he can be killed or branded.

Paul knows this. Onesimus knows this. Philemon knows this.

While Paul is in prison in Rome, guess who he meets? Onesimus. And guess who Paul leads to the Lord? Onesimus.

Now we come back to our original thought: you can be forgiven but your past is still unfixed. So Paul has to write a letter and send Onesimus back to Philemon with that letter.

Listen to some of Paul’s letter to Philemon. This is a masterpiece:

“I appeal to you for my child Onesimus, whom I have begotten in my imprisonment, who formerly was useless to you, but now is useful both to you and to me. I have sent him back to you in person, that is, sending my very heart, whom I wished to keep with me, so that on your behalf he might minister to me in my imprisonment for the gospel; but without your consent I did not want to do anything, so that your goodness would not be, in effect, by compulsion but of your own free will. For perhaps he was for this reason separated from you for a while, that you would have him back forever, no longer as a slave, but more than a slave, a beloved brother, especially to me, but how much more to you, both in the flesh and in the Lord.” (Philemon 1:10-16)

Jesus has forgiven Onesimus. Will Philemon forgive Onesimus?

Paul doesn’t mention the name Onesimus in the letter for nine verses. I want you to keep this in mind—this letter is being hand delivered. The Jerusalem postal service is not doing it, but the subject of the letter is; Onesimus. I wonder if he knows exactly what is in the letter as he is coming back to Philemon.

Commentary writer William Barclay says, “Christianity never entitled anyone to default on debts.” Paul leads him to the Lord and then leads him to address his debt issue. The IRS. The police. The outstanding credit card and collection agencies—for the Christian all these have to be addressed with an Onesimus letter.

Don’t call your irresponsibility a trial that God is going to get you through. Irresponsibility is fixed by integrity not a miracle. You address the unresolved, not rebuke it. That’s what the letter to Philemon teaches us.

Paul writes in verse 21 “I am confident as I write this letter that you will do what I ask and even more!” (NLT). Paul is saying, “You may be heating up the branding iron with the F on it. I’m asking you to put it down. I want you to forgive him—that’s the F I want heating up in your heart.”

Onesimus was useless when he was in verse 11. He stole from Philemon in verse 18. But here’s the game changer: he is now a brother in Christ, not just an employee.

Now the big question: what is the end of the story?

No one knows. The Bible does not tell us if Philemon forgives him or if Onesimus lives. I want to make a guess from something I saw in a church history book. In Earle Cains’s Christianity through the Centuries, he writes:

"Some fifty years after Philemon was written, just on the heels of the apostles, was the church father, Ignatius, a martyr on the way to his death. He was allowed to write letters of encouragement and one of those letters was written to the church in Ephesus. And in that letter he makes mention of their pastor. His name? Onesimus."

A coincidence or a miracle? Did the runaway slave become a pastor? Did the man who tried to hide out in Rome find himself leading the church in Ephesus? You may say, “That’s a big stretch. That’s a tall order.”

If an ex-murderer can write most of the New Testament letters, then I think this is feasible with God. Wait! That ex-murderer is the writer of this Philemon letter—the apostle Paul.

Jesus says it like this, “With people it is impossible, but not with God; for all things are possible with God” (Mark 10:27).