Today’s Scrip-Bit   20 November 2023 Luke 9:23.

20 Nov 2023 Leave a comment

by randyobrien50 in Christian Thoughts and Inspiration., Daily Devotion, Daily Inspiration, Inspirational Living, Spiritual Living Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Luke 9:23.       If any one will come after (follow) me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me.

Oh Chuh! Another Monday, another day of work!’ we complain. But let’s look at it from another perspective nuh. In the first place we should be thankful we do have a job to go to, for many of our fellow citizens don’t have one, and would gladly trade your situation for theirs. Then what about this perspective: I have a job and thus I am able to keep a roof over my head, and put food on my table. My family is not homeless or starving. We might be finding things a bit rough in this unstable and directionless economy, but we are amongst the blessed few. 

And that ought to be fuel enough for our fire, for our passion for life and Jesus Christ, under whose safe umbrella we are sheltered and looked after in good style. But sadly, that’s one of the major downfalls of our Christian society; we think we should be entitled to an easy life, what with all the amenities in our technology driven world, and as soon as something doesn’t go the way we believe it should, we throw up our hands and complain from now till next never, and threaten to give up. 

Oh, we Christians today are such wimps, it isn’t funny! As the body of Christ, His church, we’ve gotten both individually and collectively frail and feeble, forgetting the tough, but interesting and rewarding things we experienced with Christ at the helm of our earlier lives. But now, the words giving up something for Christ, sacrificing for His benefit, have become anathema to us. Yes, truly living for Christ has become repugnant and hateful to His believers, who only want to live the abundant life without having to lift a finger to enjoy it. 

And I hope it will be of benefit to remind us here of what we signed up for when we became disciples of Christ. Jesus said it thus: ‘If any one will come after (follow) me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me.’ (Luke 9:23) Now that is explicit as it can get. One commentator explains it thus: ‘Jesus called those who wish to be his disciples to discipline themselves in their everyday life by living in a way that is honoring to him and others.’ There is no hemming and hawing about it. You either are willing to sacrifice on behalf of Jesus and others or you are not, and it’s a lifelong process. 

And that’s why believers are the laughingstock of our community. We talk a great talk, but our walk is far from credible. Now here are a few more commentaries on discipleship. This one says: ‘A disciple of Jesus is someone who is following Jesus, being changed by Jesus, and is committed to the mission of Jesus.’ How many of us supposed believers can say we are truly committed to the mission of Jesus by the works that we do eh? Not a whole lot.  For, ‘Being a disciple is more than just being a follower. In the time of Jesus, the relationship between a disciple and master (teacher) was deep commitment and loyalty by both the teacher and the disciple.’ 

Nowadays though, you certainly don’t see too many of us showing that deep commitment and loyalty to Jesus. What we are these days are more like fans of Jesus, rather than disciples, as this commentary explains. ‘In contrast to a disciple is what many call a fan. This is best illustrated by comparing the fan of a sports team with one of the players on the field. A fan sits on the sideline and cheers on their team. They may invest some time in learning about their team. And they may invest in purchasing some of the appropriate swag so that they can fly the team colors. 

But the fan watches the performance from the stands or watches the game on TV. But they do not get directly involved. And if their team disappoints them, they may switch their allegiance to one they find more satisfying.’ Now that’s what so many of us do; watch from the sidelines and offer up glib, empty promises, and move from church to church seeking to satisfy our inner lusts. However, that’s not how true disciples operate. 

‘Disciples are those who are not content to watch from the sidelines. Their commitment to the Savior means they are actively engaged in the kingdom even if it is inconvenient, or difficult, or even if they don’t fully understand what Jesus is asking of them. For example, when the angel Gabriel told Mary that she would be the mother of the Son of God, even without perhaps knowing all that would be required of her, she nevertheless responded with faith and declared, “Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me according to thy word” (Luke 1:38)

Yes friends, those are the realities of the true disciple. Yuh see the different responses to Jesus calling Peter, Andrew, James and John, and that of the young rich man. Jesus said to the first four: ‘Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men. And they straightway left their nets, and followed him.’ (Luke 4:19-20) They left lucrative business simply to follow a rabbi they didn’t know. But the pull must have been very strong for them to just walk away from everything they had spent their whole lives building. But that’s the kind of obedience and loyalty Jesus desires from His followers. 

Meanwhile the rich, young ruler’s response to Jesus’ words was entirely different. When Jesus told him: ‘One thing thou lackest: go thy way, sell whatsoever thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come, take up thy cross, and follow me. And he was sad at that saying, and went away grieved, for he had great possessions.’ (Mark. 10:21-22) Who knows if Jesus really expected the fellow to sell all his possessions and give away the proceeds to the poor, but He was surely testing the level of his devotion to God. And unfortunately, that’s how many of us react to God’s challenges; with a sad, grieved countenance. 

But please friends, although none of us wants to go through the fiery furnace, let’s remember what we signed up for: just that, if the Lord deems it necessary. Now let’s go to the throne of grace, through our Monday Morning Battle Hymn, asking for grace and mercy to live up to our promises. As one voice: ‘Our Father, who art in heaven, we, Your humble servants, praise Your Holy Name and thank You this Monday morning for life and strong faith in Christ, despite the mass confusion in our world. Heavenly Father, You are the ONLY ONE with the power to solve our many problems. 

Yes, we have all sinned and seriously disobeyed Your Word, but You are a merciful, forgiving and gracious God, who has faithfully promised to hear and answer our prayers when we humble ourselves, pray, and sincerely seek Your face. So, we come to You now, with sincere repentance in our hearts, pleading for wise guidance and direction to alleviate our problems. Oh Father, please ease the pain of the many suffering from negative situations, show them Your awesome grace and mercy. And faithfully keep Your promise to prosper us if we turn from our evil ways. Show this evil world that You are indeed Jehovah Rapha; the God who heals! We pray this in the holy and blessed name of Your Son, our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ! Amen! And again, we say: Amen!’ 

Now the seed we need to sow to get divine help is ingrained right there in our prayer…turn from our evil ways. Please, it’s high time we begun doing that! Much LOVE!

…being a disciple of Christ…is not cheap or easy…but the price is surely worthwhile… 

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Today’s Scrip-Bit 1 August 2020 Matthew 6:19.

01 Aug 2020 Leave a comment

by randyobrien50 in Christian Thoughts and Inspiration., Daily Devotion, Daily Inspiration, Inspirational Living, Spiritual Living Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Matthew 6:19.     ​Lay not up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt (ruin), and where thieves break through and steal:
 

Saturday, oh Saturday! Thou lazy, lumbering but oh so beautiful day! How I do LOVE thee! And I won’t stop to count the ways, because there would be just too many! (smile) Yeh friends, Saturday is one of our favourite days because it invokes the spirit of laziness and do nothing, but also of partying… that is when we could party. I guess we can do it some now with the stage 3 ease in the current Covid-19 lockdown. Let’s hope that we don’t overdo it and spoil the good thing we have going. You know that’s one of our favourite tendencies in this age of overdoing. 

But be that as it may, today is Saturday, so let’s check out the quotes our friend Anselm sent us this past week nuh, as he aspires to inspire us to a better tomorrow. And this first one is a doozy. (smile) ‘Don’t handicap your children by making their lives easy.’ Now isn’t that what our generation has done in spades! We’ve made life so easy for our children that they believe they are entitled to an easy life, and are the biggest whiners on the planet! They have no belly or backbone because they have not gone through any real hard times, and it’s only difficulties that build resilience and stick-to-itiveness! 

We’ve made them so soft, given them what they want, or what the advertising agencies said they needed and thus spoiled them rotten. Oh, I can understand our desire to not make their lives as difficult as many of ours were, but that difficulty is what made us strong and determined, and by removing most of the difficulty in their lives we’ve done them a great injustice, because now, when they face difficulties, many of them can’t cope. That’s why so many of them are seeing shrinks and are on psych meds at an early age and contend so much with suicidal thoughts, especially when confronted with the evil that’s found in social media. 

And the next quote wisely proclaims: ‘The man who removes a mountain begins by carrying away small stones.’ Now there’s an awesome lot of truth in that saying! When we confront big problems, or that mighty mountain we desire to move, it’s advisable to begin with the small tasks, which are always present, and work our way up to the big ones. That makes our lives easier and our problems less difficult to solve. It makes no sense to try and remove the entire mountain all at once. (smile) You’d notice that even with the great earth removing equipment we have nowadays, they still remove the big mountains one shovel full, or one relatively small piece at a time, never the whole thing at once. 

Then there’s this: ‘He who is untrue to his own cause cannot command the respect of others.’ Now that ought to be pure common sense! How can you espouse a cause then not be true to it and expect others to respect you eh? But unfortunately that happens a lot in these modern times. I don’t know if the causes are never truly espoused and just being used as facades for other stuff. But there are so many varied causes being espoused nowadays, that it’s become very difficult to know whom to trust, and often wise not to trust any of them. It’s so sad that so many people are not who they say they are, or what they are about. 

Consequently there’s so much disrespect and distrust and lack of faith in our society that we have to be ever so careful of whom we deal with. That leads us to this quote. ‘Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to reform (or pause and reflect).’ Now I’m not sure what that the author really means by that statement. For if you consider our way of life that we term democracy, basically meaning that the majority wins, then it doesn’t make sense. 

On the other hand, I guess one can consider it to mean that being in the majority is not a good thing. In some way it belittles or demeans you, because only the minority knows what’s best, are capable of ruling. I guess that’s why so many li’l cliques are ruling so many things in our world. (smile) But seriously though, I don’t know if there’s ever a bad time to reform or pause and reflect, because none of us are perfect, which means we all have room for improvement in all kinds of areas of our lives. 

And the last quote says: ‘Nothing is forever. Everything goes to 0 eventually.’ Technically speaking that’s not quite true, because eternity lasts forever. (smile) However, in the affairs of men, nothing really lasts forever; be they relationships, businesses, buildings, possessions, even societies come and go. Just look at all the great societies that have populated the planet over time. All of them eventually fell into decay and many disappeared completely, as will our current powerful one that’s now in sad decline and decay. I guess you can call it the nature of the beast. 

And that’s why Jesus gave us this all-important warning. ‘Lay not up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt (ruin), and where thieves break through and steal:’ (Matt. 6:19) Oh friends, what great wisdom is contained in those words! The treasures of earth are those that will not last forever, they will either get stolen or naturally rust and decay, because that’s just the nature of earthly things. Even the earth won’t last forever and is in a state of constant change with things like earthquakes and volcanoes and other natural disasters constantly changing and destroying it. 

No wonder Cousin Sol also advised: ‘Labour not to be rich (do not overwork): cease from thine own wisdom.’ (Prov. 23:4) For it’s all vanity, useless in the long run. Then Jesus gives us the real truth of the matter. ‘But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt (ruin), and where thieves do not break through nor steal.’ (Matt. 6:20) Yes mih people, the one place that will not see any destruction and last forever is heaven! Glory be! That’s why Jesus pointed us in that direction. ‘For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.’ (Matt. 6:21) And that’s the living truth. Wherever our treasure is stored, that’s where our focus will be. 

As the scholars explain: ‘6:19-21. The attention of the believer is directed toward treasures in heaven. The term ‘treasures’ implies the addition or accumulation of things. The two kinds of treasures are conditioned by their place (either on earth or in heaven). The concept of laying up treasures in heaven is not pictured as one of meritorious benefits but rather as rewards for faithful service, as is illustrated elsewhere in the teaching of Jesus.’ 

Oh friends, treasures can indeed be useful and valuable, but the sad fact of the matter is that the earthly ones don’t last or get us very far, they all leave us, or we leave them when the grim reaper comes a-calling. So we can enjoy them for a while, but should not set our hearts desires on them, but rather be more concerned with the treasures, the rewards that we can accumulate in heaven for faithful service in Jesus’ name, because those are the only real treasures that exist, that are worth working towards and the only ones which will last forever. Much LOVE!

…where’s our heart looking eh…to earth or heaven…