Single Focus

Psalm 16:7-11

          It is so easy to get lost along the road of life. There are so many distractions. Some states are even outlawing some of those distractions. I heard about a man who got a ticket for eating a burger while he was driving. I hope it wasn’t a veggie burger! Of course cellphone and texting are not off the official list of “It’s OK to do these things while driving.” I’m not saying that these distracting things should be done. I am sure you have seen your share of slowness, drifting and weaving as a result of these activities. I know I have. But to give a ticket? Perhaps it was an extra ticket on top of some other offense.

          Our spiritual life can get off course by distraction as well. So many things can be used by Satan to get us off His best. Satan doesn’t have to kill us. He can just make us ineffective in our walk and He has succeeded. If we don’t bear fruit, we are just a dead stick. I don’t want to be a dead stick! I want life and life abundant.

          Our writer has put himself in the protective shelter of the LORD. He has resisted joining with those who actively seek false gods. And as a result he is experiencing plenty, although not necessarily the way we would measure plenty.

          He receives counsel, wisdom from the LORD, even at night. Often nights can be times when our worries and cares send us on unproductive detours. We start down the negative rabbit trail and spend hours worrying about things that will never happen. Instead, he receives encouragement during the night. His heart does the instructing. This means that he must have put God’s wisdom into his heart if during the night wisdom comes back out. Nothing in, nothing out. This is one of the reasons it is important for us to be in the Word. We need the Word washing us, cleaning out all the unproductive trains of thought.

          He focuses on the LORD rather than some other place. He exercises his faith. He could turn, but he doesn’t. And as a result he feels secure. Every part of him is secure. He is not trying to divide himself up into parts, but is telling us that every part of him is on board with what the LORD is doing in his life. NIV says heart, tongue and body. All of him sees the LORD as their refuge and safety.

          Verse ten is quoted by Peter in the first post-Pentecost sermon referring to Jesus and His resurrection. In our psalm the writer says these things as an expression of faith in the middle of his struggle for safety. He expresses confidence that the current situation will not end in his death. He also expresses his faith that even if he dies, death is not the end. There are eternal pleasures when we are in proper relationship to the LORD.

Getting Personal

Mark 13:12-13

      Some of the most difficult injuries to work through are those that come from our family. When a family member hurts us, it can be very difficult to heal. The closer the relationship, mother, father, sister, brother, the more pain that it often causes. That is because we are supposed to be safe at home. Family is there to meet that important safety need.

      God provided the family as a means to provide a safe place in the world. We are supposed to be able to ‘go home’ when things get tough and know that our family will be there to catch us. When the world out there gets too challenging, too scary, too intimidating, too hostile, we should be able to retreat to our family and find support.

      So when abuse, neglect, incest, or violent assault happens in the home, where are we supposed to turn for safety and support? When the one place that is supposed to be safe isn’t, what are we to do? Where are we to go? How are we to find refreshing?

      Jesus tells His disciples about what things will be like before Jerusalem is destroyed. He also tells us what it will be like before His promised return. He told us there would be wars and rumors of wars, that we would go on trial for our faith, and now He tells us that our families will turn us over to the authorities. Ouch! No one will be safe. Parents turning in children. Children turning in parents. Siblings turning on siblings. And the cost is high. Death results.

      But not just family will turn us in. Because of Jesus, we will become bounty for everyone. Everyone will be looking for Jesus-followers. We will be singled out as the object of hate. The ‘tolerance’ of those in the politically correct crowd will show its true colors. ‘Tolerance’ is only a way to control speech, to silence the opposition. Tolerance as it is used today is ideologically sanctioned and empowered bigotry.

      Notice carefully that this hatred is because of Jesus in us. I am afraid that many who claim Jesus don’t have enough Jesus in them, to warrant this hatred. The thin veneer of religion that many people wear will be cast off as soon as the least trouble arrives. They will step across the line and pick up the darts of accusation and derision. They will be some of the most vocal opponents, trying to convince everyone that they aren’t part of that group of people. Remember Peter’s reaction as he betrayed Jesus three times.

      And we could all fall victim to our own weakness when facing torture and death. That is why Jesus gave the promise of this verse. If we stand firm to the end, we will be saved. We must persevere. We can’t quit in the middle of the race. We must finish. Faithful to the end.

      This won’t be a popular stance. We will be part of the few, the proud, the Marines… Oops, I dropped into commercial mode. The many will be against us. They will throw every accusation against us, but nothing will stick. We must stand. We must stand firm. We must stand firm to the end. And by God’s strength given to us by the Holy Spirit in that moment, we will.

Hard Getting In

Mark 10:23-25

      Life only seems to be getting harder. If you watch the news, and I would recommend against it, you notice that the world is a place of turmoil and heartache. Here in the United States, despite record numbers of people unable to work, the official unemployment rate slowly drops, defying simple logic. If so many people are out of work, have given up looking, why is this number touted as economic success? They are not fooling me!

      The wealthy get blamed for so much. It would be nice for a change if some of the rest of us took on some responsibility for the mess we are in. We have gotten ourselves over-extended, and under financed. We took on loans that we couldn’t afford. We made purchases that were luxuries and neglected the necessities, knowing that someone would be there to bail us out.

      Wealth can corrupt our minds. It deceives us into thinking it provides safety and security, when only the LORD can provide that. In Jesus ongoing discussion with His disciples, Jesus has loved a rich man to the point of telling him the truth: his wealth was getting in the way of his pursuit of God’s Kingdom. If he wanted the Kingdom, he would have to get rid of the wealth.

      And now Jesus turns his attentions to His disciples, wanting to drive home the lesson on wealth’s poison. He states simply that being wealthy and going to heaven is a difficult journey. It isn’t impossible, but very hard to accomplish. And when the disciples here this they stand amazed. Jesus is speaking in such straight forward and stark terms about wealth, that they don’t quite know what to make of it.

      And if Jesus had not intended to be so stark, He could have backed away from His statements, softening them. But instead He makes it even more pointed. Entry for anyone is difficult, not just the wealthy. The bar is very high when it comes to heaven. No one will scrape through, just barely making it. We are either in, or we are out. We either walk upright, or we have the proverbial gate slammed in our face. If we get there it is not because of something we have done or something we failed to do. It has nothing to do with ‘doing’.

      Jesus then gives a simple illustration that drives home the point. There are two primary ways of looking at this illustration, and both of them point to the same truth: getting to heaven is extremely difficult for anyone. The difference turns on the meaning of the phrase “camel through the eye of a needle” use here. The first meaning relies on a misspelled word, the word camel. It is only one letter different from the word rope. So if the first copy of the text had made this mistake, switching letters, then we get “rope through the eye of a needle” instead. And the illustration makes sense. It would be impossible to put a large ship’s rope through a home sewing needle. It would take a miracle!

      The second way to understand this phrase is to hear a reference to a small door in a city gate, barely large enough for a person to fit through. When the large city gates were closed at night for security purposes, there was a small door in the large door that would allow limited access into the city. This small opening would be easy to defend if the enemy broke through it. Only one person could get through at a time. You could possibly get a camel through it, if the camel were stripped of all its cargo, forced down on its belly and dragged and wedged through the door, quite a feat with stubborn camels!

      So the truth is clear either way you understand this phrase. Either it takes a miracle or we have to abandon everything in order to enter. In the context of the rich, if they hold onto their riches, they won’t make it. If we hold onto anything with more tenacity than we hold onto the LORD, we won’t get in.

      What are you carrying that won’t fit through the door?

Determination

Mark 2:3-4

      Perseverance is one thing that so many lack today. I like to define perseverance as the ability to stick with a task, project, goal, or dream until it is accomplished, even in the face of opposition or difficulty. It takes determination to persevere. It is easy to get discouraged and give up. But the most successful people in any endeavor in life have learned to stick with it. They have learned that almost anything can be accomplished if you are determined to make it happen.

      Our text today tells about a group of men who were determined to bring their paralyzed friend to Jesus. They were not going to let anyone or anything stand in their way. We don’t know how far they traveled. We do know they heard about Jesus’ powers to heal and they wanted that healing for their friend. We don’t know how this man was paralyzed. We don’t know how long he had been like this. We do know that his friends would not let anything stand in their way.

      I can picture them carrying their friend on that mat. They approach the place where Jesus is preaching and they try to push their way through the crowd, but the crowd won’t yield. They are not the only ones who want to get close to Jesus and hear what He has to say. They try another approach and it fails as well. And then one of them has an idea: let’s go around back, climb up the stairs on the outside of the house and dig through the flat roof! At first it seems a little “out there,” but the more they think about it, the better it sounds. They don’t think too long, they act. They rush around the back of the house, up the stairs and begin digging.

      Meanwhile below them Jesus is teaching. The teaching probably came to a stop as the noise of the digging was heard. Whispers about what could be happening move around the gathered crowd. First the sod is removed. Then the dirt gets moved, followed by the straw and sticks. The dust and debris fall in on top of those gathered inside the house and sunlight cuts through the dust and straw filled air. Then the final largest sticks are removed. At this point all eyes are looking at the hole in the ceiling.

      And then there is an unseen commotion above the hole. Then the sunlight is interrupted and the hole fills with an unknown object. Grunts are heard as muscles strain at lowering this object. Once the object passes through the hole everyone can see that it is a mat with a man on it that has been thrust into their midst. Now they know what all the commotion was about.

      This was determination. They could have stopped at the first obstacle. They could have looked at the journey and said that it was too far, carrying their friend. When they saw the crowd and realized that they would have to push their way through, they could have turned around and gone home. When they tried to get through the crowd and were unable, homeward they could have been. But they didn’t give up. They climbed the stairs, dismantled the roof without any tools, and then lowered their friend. They didn’t bring rope for lowering, so they had to improvise, perhaps using their own garments as extensions of their grip. They were determined to help their friend.

       How determined are you to accomplish God’s purpose in your life? Have you given up on following His call because you face a few obstacles?

The Land of a Thousand Excuses

Proverbs 15:19

      Do you know some folks who always have an excuse for everything? Maybe they have really bad luck, but often they are just lazy. They get in the habit of avoiding any movement at all by complaining about the difficulties they encounter along the way. First there was this problem, then this other problem popped up. They never have a clear path.

      And then there are other people traveling the same road, but they seem to avoid all the pitfalls. They sail right along. They get so much more accomplished. They become successful.

      Are thorns really able to hold someone back, keeping them from continuing their journey? Can’t you push your way through them? You may get some scratches in the process, pain that accompanies the journey, but in the end, thorns can’t prevent you from continuing. You could also go around, perhaps taking a detour, expending a little more energy and time, but still arrive at your destination.

      If you really want to get somewhere, you can find a way. Being familiar with the military, I know how to do Land Navigation. You are given a series of points on a map, given a compass and map protractor and told to find all the points, write down the specific ID for each point, and return to the starting place in a specific timeframe.

      Here in Georgia, land navigation can be especially difficult. This time of year the thorns are full grown, the swamps still have water in them, and it is HOT. It can be easy to see the points on the map and get discouraged as you pull yourself out of another tangle. And all the while the clock continues to tick. Every soldier in the military must learn how to do this. It is one of the most basic soldier skills.

      The best way to find the points is not to take a straight line between each one, but rather to find the points on the map and then use the roads to get as close to possible to those points before entering the think woods. You avoid many of the difficulties of the journey this way. But it requires thinking and planning in order for this to work.

      Next time you encounter a few thorns, push through, go around, but continue moving. It can be almost impossible to get moving once you stop. Discouragement can make your feet feel like lead.