Bringing forth a Well of Life

The mouth of the righteous is a well of life,

But violence covers the mouth of the wicked.

Proverbs 10:11

The picture a well of life means less in modern culture than it did at the time this proverb was written.  We may never be so far from clean fresh water that we are in the least bit of danger.  That difference is key in understanding how valuable the mouth of a righteous person has become.  Because while water may be very easy for us to come by, a person who is in right standing with God, growing with Him, and speaking words of wisdom is as difficult to come across as ever!  A well of life was rare, a fresh well was a refreshment to the thirsty, and it could mean the lively hood for an entire community.  This is a rich comparison as the person who is in right standing with God through Jesus Christ.  The person who is growing in Christ offers just these things to the world: refreshment, peace, satisfaction and the hope of life.  By contrast the wicked mouth is marked by violence.  Conflict and dishonesty are the destructive forces that cause a person and a community to starve to death.  In considering our daily speech is it most characterized by the image of a “well of life” or is it characterized by violence and conflict?

What a Walk!

He who walks with integrity walks securely,

But he who perverts his ways will become known.

Proverbs 10:9

“Walk” in an important Bible term.  It has to Dow with a persons conduct in life as a whole.  It isn’t simply limited to our intentions or our wishes of what could be true, but it is the actual reality of how we live.  Down to the words we say, the thoughts that we think, and what we do and say when we think nobody is looking.  Once a dear friend of mine said, “I used to get a rush of adrenaline every time I was driving and saw a police car, but now I just wave when I see a police car.”  When asked what caused the change his answer was simple: “I just stopped speeding when I drive!”  Knowing that he was now obeying the law meant that he could have confidence when he saw a police car.  Often times, as believers, we walk around haunted by a guilty conscience.  We walk without security.  Sometimes this is because of real guilt and sometimes this is because of guilt which we have not brought before Christ and received His forgiveness.  Whatever the case, as the believer grows in Christlikeness, there will be an increasing reality of consistent integrity.  Words will be honest, and commitments will be honored, the right thing will be done, regardless of who is looking, and the result is a secure and confident life.  The alternative if the reality that dishonest and ungodly ways do ultimately display themselves.  Like in Edgar Allen Poe’s “Tell Tale Heart” trying to hide ungodliness only rots the life of the one hiding it and ultimately comes into full view most of the time.  

Wisdom - Saving Lives

My son, do not forget my law,

But let your heart keep my commands;

For length of days and long life

And peace they will add to you.

Proverbs 3:1-2

I could not count the time that wisdom has saved my life.  Wisdom was what let me know when to cross the street safely.  Wisdom is what taught me to use a harness when climbing over a 40 foot drop.  Wisdom is what taught me to tread carefully when my wife tells me that nothing is wrong when something clearly is wrong.  These verses are not a guarantee that every person who learns and applies wisdom will have peace and long life.  It is a guarantee that apart from God’s wisdom there is no hope for peace and long life.  The three above examples are rather obvious, but the principle is firm.  It is the sad reality of my life that almost every problem I have is one that I have made for myself by my own pride and foolishness.  When we take responsibility for our failures and shortcomings in wisdom and change our mind, deciding instead to make wise choices things shockingly move much smoother for us.  This is, of course, only truly possible as we walk in the moment by moment fellowship with our Lord Jesus Christ. 

The Creator

"In the beginning God created the heavens and the Earth." Genesis 1:1

Henry Morris once said that anyone who believes this verse will have no trouble believing the rest of the Bible. In this verse there is so much to be found. God created everything from nothing. It shows His limitless power. God created a world so beautiful. It shows His artistry and love. God created time, space and matter before any of those things existed. God's innovation is beyond comprehension to us. God didn't succomb to order and structure, reason and logic...He created and what He created dictated all of those necessaries as a mere result of what God had done.  When we discover how atoms hold together or how planets revolve and fly through space without colliding we are only observing what God designed. This is the God who loves us. This is the God who sent His Son to die for us. This is the God who promises salvation to all who believe in His Son and His payment for our sin.

The Right Prescription

Getting the wrong medication can be inconvenient, painful, and even life threatening. Even the wrong dosage of the right medication can be disastrous. Furthermore, many medications come with a list of side effects as long as your arm. What are we to do? Sometimes it seems like the cure is worse than the disease! Fortunately this is not the case in our spiritual life. As we continue to move on towards maturity and growing in the grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. His word is a precision scalpel, cutting to the heart of our need (Heb. 4:12). What is more the Lord is able to engineer ever circumstance, every difficulty, every trial to our exact needs. We can look at every day, every trial, every difficulty with the firm and confident assurance that this is the Lord's tool in my life to draw me closer to Him. Whether it is in my life by His permissive will, or His explicit will it is exactly what He is going to use to draw me to Him. That is an assurance, as we never need to ask if our prescription is correct. Praise the Lord, who cares for each of us!

Beautiful!

"...and all the children thought - and I agree with them - that there's nothing to beat good freshwater fish if you eat it when it has been alive half an hour ago and it has come out of the pan half a minute ago." C.S. Lewis The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe.

I've had a day so nice I must share it. After a productive morning I raced my way up the River to put a line in the water. I don't usually catch many fish and it is mostly and exercise in patience and the enjoyment of nature. This time, however, five beautiful trout chose to grace the end of my line. I will spare you all of the gory details of the fight, and which were caught on dry flies and which on subsurface flies. However, I did decide to keep two of the five. One because it was a nice fish and greedily grabbed at my fly as it floated on the surface. It was a planned attack, and a great moment of victory. The other I kept because he didn't allow me to get the hook from his mouth in time for him to have a chance at survival. That's okay...more fish for me. There are no pictures of the glory moments. However, the memories are strong. There are some pictures, however:

The catching was a riot. It was a bit overcast and gloomy with a mist in the air that almost seems to stand still as you walk through it. The river provides the most fantastic listening experience, it is amazing how you can hear so much and still feel like the words "peace" and "silence" some how apply perfectly. Then came the cooking.

I fished until 7:00 which means I didn't get home until 10 till 8, I really didn't each much today (besides a few donuts in the morning ). So I was ready to eat. Not long after I arrived April got home with the kids who had been spending the day with their grandparents who love them very much. The kids ooh'ed and ahh'ed at my catch (loved every second of that), and then let me put them to sleep without a fight. After they went down the cooking began! Salt, garlic powder, lemon juice and pepper all went into the tin foil pack and the pack went on the grill for 15 min. while the taters simmered. The results were delicious!

My mother was a bit concerned that I didn't "clean" the fish before cooking them. Well they aren't very big, and I don't mind eating around the fish innards nearly so much as I mind blemishing my fresh caught fishes with knife strokes. The fish was perfect. Soft, flaky, moist, and delicious. I am so thankful that our creator gave us fish to catch and eat. They really are a wonder. The taters were boiled and tasted remarkably like boiled potatoes. They were special in that they were grown by a brother in the Lord at our church body. That made them taste even better!

Of course a cup of decaf English breakfast tea had to be drunk with careful appreciation.

And all moves from better to best as my beautiful wife and I chatted about the events of the day over my late supper. She tolerated the fish smells without complaint and worked on the Sunday school lesson for tomorrow. Truly an amazing woman who I am so blessed to have and to hold, to love and to cherish.

Sometimes a day contains so much good that you may just think it will burst and leave even the other days overflowing. This was a day like that.

Jesus is your...

I have a Bible promise book that I treasure. Of course there are countless little volumes like this that aspire to give the reader a quick "at a glance" view of some applicable verses in any given situation. I have several volumes like this that I have received or collected over the years, but this one especially I appreciate. Most of the promise books I have seen jump right into the situations, verse prescriptions for every problem presented in a: "take two of these and call me in the morning" fashion. This promise book (God's Promises for Your Every Need, Word Publishing) starts with 16 chapters entitled "Jesus is your..." These are the 16 chapters that contain only Bible verses filled with Christ's character and care for us, along with a few of the verses referenced in each section:

Savior

Titus 3:5-6; 1 John 4:14; Ephesians 2:4-5

Lord

Philippians 2:9-11; Romans 12:1-2; Romans 14:8

Love

Romans 5:8; John 3:16; 1 John 4:7-12

Peace

Isaiah 26:3; Ephesians 2:13-14; Romans 5:1; John 14:27

Forgiveness

Ephesians 1:6-7; 2 Corinthians 5:17; Psalm 103:12; 1 John 1:9; 1 John 2:1

Righteousness

2 Corinthians 5:21; 1 Corinthians 1:30; Philippians 3:9

Deliverer

Isaiah 61:1; John 8:32, 36; Romans 8:2; Romans 6:22

Fellowship

1 John 1:3; 1 Corinthians 1:9; Revelation 3:20

Example

1 Peter 2:21, 1 John 2:6; Ephesians 5:1-2

Companion

John 15:15-16; 1 John 1:7; 1 Corinthians 1:9

Brother

Matthew 12:50; Hebrews 2:11; Romans 8:29

Guardian

Psalm 3:3; 2 Thess. 3:3; 1 Peter 3:12-13

Security

1 Peter 1:3-5; John 10:27-29; Romans 8:38-39

Sufficiency

2 Corinthians 9:8; Philippians 4:19; 2 Corinthians 3:5

Fulfillment

John 6:35; John 4:13-14; Romans 8:32

Everything

Romans 8:37; Ephesians 1:3; 2 Corinthians 5:21; Philippians 1:21

This is only a small sampling of the verses. After reading these chapters (the first 50 or so pages of this little volume) I wondered what the need for the rest of the book could possibly be? Jesus Christ IS the answer. If I am struggling in life it is because I have taken my eyes off of Him. If I remain Christ centered there is nothing that I cannot endure. If I can be convinced to become self centered I am destined for a tumble. I would encourage you this week to roll these terms around in your mind. Look up the verses. Notice these statements are sure, not contingent. "Jesus IS your..." not "could be", "might be" or "will be". This is His grace gift to you as part and parcel to the Saving relationship that you entered into with Him when you placed faith in Christ for Salvation. Roll over these qualities and trust Christ to be all of these things to you, as you are in Him.

I never was terribly handy. In our first home I had to adhere one piece of wood to another. Having no drill I had to drive the screws in by hand. It took a great deal of time and sweat to get the screws in place. The saddest part of the story is that very soon after the job had to be redone...with a powerdrill. How often do we sweat, work, and exert ourselves to get some thing done while Jesus stands over us saying, "You know I am going to have to undo all that you are doing before I can fix it." Even our best intentions result only in loss. We need Jesus.

A Free Gift

Romans 6:23 tells us: "For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord." This verse gets used when explaining salvation to people all of the time. After this verse is brought out we follow the usual steps through how we have a choice to either put our faith in Jesus and recieve the full life which he gives (John 10:10) or we can reject Jesus and face the judgement of eternal separation from Him (Revelation 20:15). While this is true, it is not actually what Paul is thinking about when He wrote the verse. (Note: I am not saying it is wrong to use this verse when explaining salvation. I am merely saying that the context points to a more direct application.)

Romans 6 isn't addressing non-believers telling them why they should come to Christ, here the Holy Spirit is addressing people who have already put their faith in Jesus, been identified in him in His death, burial and ressurrection. So what is this death that can be reaped by someone who is already saved? Is our salvation in question? Is our hope of eternal life to be dimmed by the chance that we may be reaping death for our actions constantly? No.

This chapter is telling us about the Christian life in very exciting terms. We are given the piciture in Romans 6 that the believer has two choices. We have been freed from the power of the Sin Nature that ruled us, and now we can present ourselves to God or to Sin. What happens if we present ourselves to sin? Sin pays wages!

Wages are earned. If someone recieves wages it is because he worked for them. After a week of work the employee doesn't have to beg for his wages, and then thank the benevolence of His employer for paying him. He earned the money and it was payed to Him. So what are the wages that we recieve for living as slaves to sin? Death.

Death in scripture is a powerful and complicated word. Death doesn't just mean physical death in Scripture. Death means separation. When Adam and Eve at the apple they were told that they would die on the day that they ate of it...yet they didn't physically die on that day. On that day they did die spiritually: they were separated from God. This rings true with what Jesus would say later in the true Lord's Prayer: "Now this is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent." (John 17:3) So, when the believer presents himself to his Sin Nature to obey it the results (wages) are separation from God. Though that believer is still saved by the work of God, because of His faith in Christ Jesus, He is out of fellowship. The thing that is needful in this situation is confession and repentance (1 John 1:9). This, however, is not the main thrust of what I hoped to address in this posting.

There is more great news yet here. The natural conclusion that we are bound to make from looking at, and understanding, Romans 6:23 in context is to say something to the effect of: "OK, I get it sin means death. So, I'm going to try super hard not to ever sin again and then I won't get death! Then I will earn life!" The trouble with this logic is that you can only earn one thing in this verse. If you want to earn something you have only death to choose from. If you want life (again, this is talking about the christian life, NOT salvation) we must accept it as a free gift from Jesus Christ. We must believe that real life only comes from him and recieve it! Trusting in Jesus fully is the way to be saved (we don't contribute even .0000001 percent of the process), living the Christian life successfully is trusting in what He has done and is doing (again, we don't contribute even .0000001 percent of the process). That's bad news for legalists, but GREAT news for Christians!