Reflections for May 20, 2009 - "Reciprocal Living"

The central theme of Scripture is God’s love for His creation. The enormity of His love is found in John 3:16 (NASB): “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.” Because God’s love is good news for a fallen world, this verse has become one of the best known verses in the Bible.

There is another verse that flows out of this one that we tend to neglect. It is John 15:12 (NASB): “This is My commandment, that you love one another, just as I have loved you.” We do not like to talk much about this verse. It would not be so bad if the last part of it was deleted. If we could just love as the world loves, we could live with it, because the world’s love is always conditional. The world’s version gives us the choice of withholding our love if the conditions are not met. Unlike the world, God’s love is unconditional. It can not be bought or earned. It can only be accepted or rejected. Our choice does not diminish His love, but it does determine whether we will reap the full benefits of it.

It is important to notice how emphatic Jesus was with this statement. It was not a suggestion; it was a command. It was not just any command but it was His command. This leaves us with two options, obey or
disobey. We can not withhold our love from those around us and be obedient to Him at the same time.

God recognized the difficulty we would have in fulfilling this command. Therefore, He gave us directions in His word to assist us in loving one another as He has commanded. Some call these directions Reciprocal Commands. The following may not be a complete list, but it is enough to assure us we would be in compliance to God’s command to love one another, if we followed them closely. (Different translations use different wording but the essence of the commands below can be found in the verses indicated.)

Keys to Reciprocal Living

• “Love one another.”(John 13:34)
• “Accept one another.”(Romans 15:7)
• “Have the same care for one another.”(I Corinthians 12: 25b)
• "Be subject to one another.”(Ephesians: 5: 21)
• “Bear with one another”(Colossians 3:13a)
• “Forgive one another.”(Ephesians 4:31, 32)
• “Build up one another.”(Romans 14:19)
• “Teach one another.”(Colossians 3:16)
• “Be kind to one another.” (Ephesians 4:32)
• “Encourage one another.” (Hebrews 3::13)
• “Admonish one another.”(Colossians 3:16)
• “Do not judge one another.”(Romans 14:13)
• “Do not speak evil of one another.”(James 4:11)
• “Do not murmur against one another.”(James 5:9)
• “Do not bite and devour one another.”(Galatians 5:14, 15)

Let me suggest that you make a copy of these keys and place it in a prominent place in your home or place of employment. If your employer does not allow scripture verses to be posted, leave off the reference and post the command. It is hard to see why anyone would object to the people around them living these commands. If your home and workplace abide by these rules it will increase harmony and production. Most of all, you will be fulfilling a part of God’s call on your life.

-- Dennis Lynn

Reflections for May 13, 2009 - "The Awesomeness of God"

On June 10, 2008, Fox News Website carried a piece about a new supercomputer that had been built by IBM for the Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration. It was called Roadrunner. The article explained the speed of this new computer this way: “To put the computer's speed in perspective, it has roughly the computing power of 100,000 of today's most powerful laptops stacked 1.5 miles high, according to IBM. Or, if each of the world's 6 billion people worked on hand-held computers for 24 hours a day, it would take 46 years to do what the Roadrunner computer can do in a single day.

As I read about this new supercomputer, I was amazed at the ingenuity of man. Then I thought about how tiny man is in comparison to God. The words of the Psalmist came to my mind. He wrote, “Even before there is a word on my tongue, behold, O Lord, You know it all. You have enclosed me behind and before, and laid Your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is too high, I cannot attain to it.” (Psalm 139:4-6 NASB) If man can build a machine like Roadrunner, God should have no trouble knowing everything about His creation. He should have no problem knowing our every thought.

When I think of the awesomeness of God, I am troubled by the way modern society has attempted to reduce Him down to an entity that we can interact with on an even plane. In so doing, we have lost our sense of reverence. We have ceased to fear Him. When reverence and fear are gone, we find it easy to thumb our nose at Him, when His teachings interfere with our desires. While this lax attitude might be expected in the world at large, it should never be seen within the body of Christ. It shouldn’t be but it is.

In many ways the Church, which is the Body of Christ, finds itself in the same shape as Israel thousands of years ago. The Prophet Isaiah admonished them with these words, “Woe to those who call evil good and good evil; who substitute darkness for light and light for darkness; who substitute bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter! Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes and clever in their own sight!” (Isaiah 1:20, 21 NASB) Isaiah had much more to say but this is enough to demonstrate that they had lost their awe for God.

The answer to this dilemma is for the people of God to recognize their failures and to turn from the image of God that they have created in their own minds to the image of God that is clearly spelled out in Scripture. We need to recapture the awe the Psalmist had when he wrote, “When I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers, the moon and the stars, which You have ordained; what is man that You take thought of him and the son of man that You care for him?” (Psalm 8:3, 4 NASB)

Dennis Lynn

Reflections for May 6, 2009 "Reflections on Mothers"

One could fill books writing about the work of a mother. Many times they fulfill the role of doctor, nurse, counselor, teacher, maid, cook, taxi driver, tutor, and the list goes on and on. Unfortunately, they are often taken for granted and do not receive the praise and encouragement that they deserve. Even worse, there are some who make it sound as if they are not contributing to society if they should decide to stay at home. I heard of one lady, who held a doctorate degree. Rather than pursuing a career in her field, she chose to stay home. She grew tired of the expressions on people’s faces when she told them she was a homemaker. Now, when she is asked, “What do you do?” she responds, ““I’m socializing two homo-sapiens in Judeo-Christian virtues so they will appropriate the eschatological values of utopia. What do you do?”

While this statement may sound sarcastic, it does reflect one of the most important tasks that a mother has. It emphasizes the importance that a mother has in teaching a child right and wrong and in passing on the truths of her faith. Lois and Eunice were two such women in the Bible. Lois was the grandmother and Eunice was the mother of Paul’s young protégé, Timothy. In Paul’s second letter to this young pastor Paul wrote, “For I am mindful of the sincere faith within you, which first dwelt in your grandmother Lois, and your mother Eunice ,and I am sure that it is in you as well” (II Timothy 1:5 NASB) Later in the same letter, Paul wrote, “You, however, continue in the things you have learned and become convinced of , knowing from whom you have learned them, and that from childhood you have known the sacred writings which are able to give you the wisdom that leads to salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus.” (II Timothy 3:14, 15 NASB)

Little did Lois and Eunice know that the things that they were teaching would help Timothy grow into a young man who would be remembered for centuries in God’s book, the Holy Bible. Other passages help us have a better picture of the kind of man he was. He was greatly respected (Acts 16:2), compassionate (Phil. 2:20), unselfish (Phil. 2:21, 22) and an encourager (I Thess. 3:2). Lois and Eunice were not the only people who had an influence on him but Paul certainly understood the important part they played in his life.

The message for mothers of our day is to never underestimate the importance of your influence over your sons and daughters and to not underestimate the importance of demonstrating and teaching a strong faith. You can never know what your teachings might accomplish, because a mother’s faith can have immeasurable impact on the world in which we live. Mothers, never let anyone convince you that your job is not important. There is no work more important than the work you do. You deserve our praise, appreciation and respect. You have mine.

My prayer is for you to have a joyful and fulfilling Mother’s Day.

God bless,

Dennis

Reflections for April 29, 2009 - "Leaky Cisterns"

The prophet Jeremiah had a message for God’s people that we in America would do well to heed today. He wrote, “I will take you to court and accuse you and your descendants of a crime that no nation has ever committed before. Just ask anyone, anywhere, from the eastern deserts to the islands in the west. You will find that no nation as ever abandoned its gods even though they were false. I am the true and glorious God, but you have rejected me to worship idols. Tell the heavens to tremble with fear! You, my people, have sinned in two ways __you have rejected me, the source of life-giving water, and you’ve tried to collect water in cracked and leaking pits dug in the ground.” (Jeremiah 2:9-13, The Promise: Contemporary English Version)

It is difficult for us to fully understand this passage because we have such easy access to water. For the people of Jeremiah’s day it was not so. They tried to capture all of the water that they could when it did rain. They dug large cisterns to catch the run-off when rains did come. This was a source of life for them during the long stretches between rains. When a cistern leaked it presented a major problem.

God used this clear picture to give His people a message through Jeremiah. God accused them of rejecting the cistern of life-giving water that He provided and of digging cisterns of their own. The problem with their cisterns was that they leaked. The point of all of this is that only God can truly meet the inner needs of individuals. He holds the secret to the genuinely filled life that men and women seek. When people create their own substitutes for God and attempt to fill this need with things of their own making, they discover it is not enough to meet the need that exists. In review, God provides life-giving waters from a cistern that never leaks, while man digs his own cisterns and they always leak and fail to provide the life-giving enter peace that man desires.

Here lies the core problem with society in America today. We have fallen into the trap of placing our hopes for the good life in leaky cisterns. We have been lead to believe that peace, joy and abundance comes from possessions, power, prestige and pleasure. We have been lead to believe that protecting our rights is more important that fulfilling our responsibilities. Many sacrifice everything to achieve these things, only to discover that they may bring physical comfort but they do not fill the inner need that only God can fill.

It is time for the message to be heralded across the land that we were created by God to fellowship with God and nothing else but that fellowship will provide leak proof cisterns in our life. Nothing else will fill the emptiness that comes from rejecting the life-giving God and replacing Him with substitutes of our own making.

Reflections for April 22, 2009

One Saturday morning while I was still in high school, a friend and I went squirrel hunting. As we wandered through the woods, we soon realized that we were not sure where we were. After crossing the same creek twice in the same place, we decided to walk in a straight line until we came to a road. When we came to a road, it was a long distance by highway to the place where we had left our car. If we had had a compass and if we had known how to use it, we would have reduced our wandering considerably.

The illustration above is more humorous than it is tragic. However, it does lead me into another problem that is anything but humorous. It is the most serious problem facing our nation today. Despite what public opinion polls may say, it is not the economy, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the war on terrorism, education, immigration or any of the other problems that are often listed. I we do not check this problem, in time we will find ourselves on the scrape heap of great nations that have come before us. This problem did not occur over night and it may take it decades to bring about the demise of this great land. Make no mistake however, if it is left unchecked it will ultimately bring about our fall.

The problem is the loss of our moral compass. Presently, we are wandering around in a sea of moral relativism and we have all but lost our moral compass. When it has been completely obliterated from our public landscape, we will find ourselves in the same condition that the Jewish people found themselves at the end of the Book of Judges. The last verse reads, “In those days there was no king in Israel; everyone did what was right in his own eyes.” (NASB) All one needs to do is to look around and he/she can see evidence of this problem.

Unfortunately, this problem has also infected the church. Polls reveal that those who attend church regularly are as confused as those outside the church. In fact, attitudes toward many of the moral issues of our day vary little between professing Christians and non-believers.

Where do we find the moral compass that can help us to avoid certain demise? For over 200 years the Holy Bible has served us well as a compass. This does not mean that all of our people were believers but it does mean that the foundations of our attitudes toward right and wrong, good and evil could be found in the Scriptures. These foundations have been under attack over the last half-century. There has been a continual outcry by many to take the God who gave us the Scriptures out of the public square completely. Unfortunately, these forces seem to have the momentum at this time.

The answer to this problem must begin among believers. There must be a return of the Bible to the pulpits of America. Even more important, the Bible must once again become the moral compass of individual believers across the country. People must once again look to the Scripture for the principles of life rather than to the talking heads that parade before us each day on the pages of the media or the television screen. We must once again take seriously II Timothy 3:16,17: “All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for ever good work.” (NASB) Whether we do this or not will have a greater impact on the future of our country than anything else. I guess you could say that it is a matter of national security.

Reflections for April 15, 2009

Excuse me for being a week behind. I could not let Easter pass without calling our attention to the core belief that sets us apart from all other religions.)

This past weekend millions of Christians from all persuasions celebrated the holiest holiday of the Christian calendar. It is important that each one of us give thought to what it means. Let’s look at why Easter is absolutely essential to the Christian faith. The Cross was not a thing to celebrate in the Roman world. It was above all else a symbol of death. Make no mistake, when Christ went to the Cross, He felt the fullness of the pain and suffering it involved. The stripes upon His back were real; the spikes in His hands were real; the thorns upon His head were real; the strain upon His muscles was real; His death was real; and it all was for you and for me.

It is difficult for us today, sitting in our comfortable pews two thousand years removed from this historical event, to fully embrace its meaning. How can we comprehend this kind of love? Yet, we must, because until we do, we can never fully embrace the Cross and live in the newness of life Christ died to give us.

Would you shut your eyes for a moment and imagine yourself standing at the foot of the Cross? See through your mind’s eye the blood running down His face. Hear Him as He cries out; “Forgive them for they know not what they do.” Hear Him as He yells victoriously,“ It is finished!” Now, hear his breathing, as it slowly grows shallow until finally He looses consciousness and dies. He did that for you and for me, not because we deserved it, but because He loved us with an unconditional love.

The good news does not stop here. For His closest followers the Cross was a devastating loss because they did not realize what God was going to do with this unjust event. They did not understand the resurrection. They did not anticipate the empty tomb. It was not until the resurrection that their gloom turned to glorious celebration and unbridled commitment.

From the beginning, there have been those who have attempted to discount the resurrection. They have attempted to water it down as a tale of desperate people looking for a ray of hope in a situation that looked hopeless, or they have simply rejected it completely. Paul addressed those of his day who rejected the resurrection in his first letter to the Corinthian church. He wrote, “But if there is no resurrection of the dead, not even Christ has been raised; and if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is vain, your faith also is vain…..For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised; and if Christ has not been raised, your faith is worthless; you are still in your sins…..If we have hoped in Christ in this life only, we are of all men most to be pitied (I Corinthians 15:13,14,16, 17, 19 NASB).”

God does not say that we must understand the resurrection. How can we? It contradicts everything we know about life and death. He does say that we must believe it. It is a matter of faith. It is the event that validates everything that Jesus ever said about Himself. It is the belief that sets Christianity apart from other religions. For you see, we do not worship a dead martyr, we worship a living Lord.

(If you found this devotional thought worthwhile, I encourage you to share it with your friends.)

Reflections for April 7, 2009

From now to next February, college coaches across the nation will be trying to secure commitments from young high school athletes across the nation to attend their perspective schools. It is interesting to observe the recruiting language players use in this process. It is not uncommon for a recruit to make a commitment to a particular school, and in the same breath to say he is still open and considering other possibilities.

Apparently, I do not know the meaning of the word commitment. I thought when a commitment had been made, it was final. Apparently, the new generation sees it to mean something entirely different. Instead of being final, it refers to the direction one is headed unless something better comes along.

It is not my purpose to single out athletes. This same attitude toward commitment can be seen across the board in our society today. It is seen in the workplace, in marriage relationships, in friendships, in labor negotiations, and many other areas of society. People have reached the point that commitment means they will be faithful until it doesn’t fit their needs anymore. The thought of a commitment resulting in personal sacrifices is becoming rare.

Unfortunately, this secular adaptation of the word has crossed into the Christian understanding of commitment. It has become increasingly difficult to get people to make long term commitments to positions within the church. People are willing to serve as long as it does not pose an inconvenience for them. With this new type of willingness to serve, people are not willing to agree to serve for the long term, because something better may come along.

This understanding of commitment flies in the face of the teaching of Jesus. He did not pull any punches. He did not sugar coat His message. He did not leave wiggle room. He said, “If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it; but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it” (Matthew 16:24, 25 NASB). This teaching of Jesus does not mesh well with the modern concept of commitment. It calls for a total yielding of ourselves to a higher authority. It calls for sacrifice of ones self for others. It teaches that we find genuine life, not by self-indulgence but by giving ourselves in service to others. It paints a true picture of what commitment is suppose to mean.

It seems we are faced with a choice. Are we going to accept society’s view of commitment or are we going to accept Christ’s view? Society’s view promises the world and delivers emptiness. Christ’s command demands everything and gives us a fullness of life that can be found no where else. What will you choose today?