Fresh Bread

   In the past decade, Krispy Kreme, Inc., became an American success story because of the company’s commitment to bake fresh doughnuts early every morning. Rather than selling any stale product, they dispose of it.

   Fresh bread is also crucial for Christian’s development. Morning is the best time for getting to know God. This principle was deeply impressed on the children of Israel through God’s gift of manna. It rained down from heaven early in the morning, six days a week. If they waited too long, the manna would evaporate. “So they gathered it every morning, every man according to his need. And when the sun became hot, it melted.” (Exodus 16:21). 

   Likewise, if we wait too long to have our devotions, the cares and pressures of the day will grab our attention before we turn it to the Lord. So, do not let the manna melt! And remember, the busier we are and the more we have to do, the greater our need to take the time to study God’s Book and pray.

   Jesus, our perfect example, followed the practice of having morning devotions. He considered it as essential to life as is physical food-and in some senses, even more important. “’I have treasure the words of His mouth more than my necessary food’” (Job 23:12). If you are late for work and must choose between your raisin bran or personal devotions, I say while fiber is important, it will not keep you from sin. “Your words were found, and I ate them, and Your word was to me the joy and rejoicing of my heart” (Jeremiah 15:16). 

   The Lord’s Prayer contains the line, “Give us this day our daily bread.” We should consider that line as applying more to the spiritual bread than the baked variety. When Jesus was tempted in the wilderness after a forty-day fast, He told the devil, “’It is written, “man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of God”’” (Luke 4:4).

   I cannot explain it, but it seems that spiritual food gave Jesus not just spiritual strength, but also physical strength. John 4:31, 32, records, “His disciples urged Him, saying, ‘Rabbi, eat.’ But He said to them, ‘I have food to eat of which you do not know.’”

   Elijah also received supernatural strength from eating heavenly bread that an angel prepared. “The angel of the Lord came back the second time, and touched him, and said, ‘Arise and eat, because the journey is too great for you.’ So he rose, and ate and drank; and he went in the strength of that food forty days and forty nights as far as Horeb, the mountain of God” (1 Kings 19:7,8). You might also find that if you wake up a little earlier for more devotional time with God, you will have increased energy throughout the day. 

   Although we covered some of this in the last section, it bears repeating: If we want to defeat the enemy who is always ready to assail us, we need the same secret weapon Jesus used. It is described aptly in Ephesians 6:17: “Take … the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.”

   We all desperately need and want to have Jesus abiding in our hearts. How do we get Him there? Another name for Jesus is “the Word.” When we are reading the Word, we are directly inviting Jesus into our hearts and minds. “Your word I have hidden in my heart, that I might not sin against You” (psalm 119:11).

   Since Jesus is the Word, He is also the secret weapon! Again, the principle is that as we spend more time with Jesus through prayer and Bible study, we will know Him better and therefore love Him more. And just as our natural reaction is to talk about those we love, both enemy and friend, about our Lord. Then, as we share our faith with others, our faith will become stronger-just as a muscle is strengthened by activity.

   More love, more witnessing, better surrender, more energy, even less depression-all this and much more comes in a direct chain reaction that begins when we use the secret weapon of personal devotions. “For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart” (Hebrews 4:12, KJV).

“If you ask anything in My name, I will do it.” –John 14:14

Jesus Answers Prayer

   A man asked Alexander the Great to give him a dowry in exchange for his daughter’s hand in marriage. The ruler consented and told him to request of his treasurer whatever he wanted. So he went and asked for an enormous amount.

   The treasurer was startled and said he could not give him that much without a direct order. Going to Alexander, the treasurer argued that even a small fraction of the money requested would more than serve the purpose. “No,” replied Alexander, “Let him have it all. I like that fellow. He does me honor. He treats me like a king and proves by what he asks that he believe me to be rich, powerful, and generous.”

   Jesus answered the demoniac’s unspoken plea for deliverance. He answered the prayers of the Gadara townsfolk when they asked Him to leave. He even answered the “prayers” of the devils when they requested to go into the pigs. It makes me wonder: Why do we pray so little? “Likewise the Spirit also helps in our weaknesses. For we do not know what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit Himself makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered” (Romans 8:26).

   One of the best observations about prayer comes from the book Steps to Christ:  

   The darkness of the evil one encloses those who neglect to pray. The whispered temptations of the enemy entice them to sin; and it is all because they do not make use of the privileges that God has given them in the divine appointment of prayer. Why should the sons and daughters of God be reluctant to pray, when prayer is the key in the hand of faith to unlock heaven’s storehouse, where are treasured the boundless resources of Omnipotence? Without unceasing prayer and diligent watching, we are in danger of growing careless and of deviating from the right path. The adversary seeks continually to obstruct the way to the mercy seat, that we may not by earnest supplication and faith obtain grace and power to resist temptation. *

   A fellow who had grown up in the city bought a farm and a milk cow. While in the feed store one day, he complained that his cow had gone dry. “Are you feeding her right?” asked the storeowner.

   “I am feeding her exactly what you have been selling me,” said the man.

   “Are you milking her at regular times every day?”

   “Not exactly. If I need six or eight ounces of milk for breakfast, I go out and get that and just let her save it up.”

   Of course, it does not work that way. When you are milking cows, you take all that is there or eventually you have nothing. That is true of God’s presence too.

   We must pray God’s Spirit will fill our hearts until they are “overflowing with a good theme” (psalm 45:1).

_________ 

   *Ellen G. White, Steps to Christ (Hagerstown, Maryland: Review and Herald, 1908), 94.  

“They… found the man from whom the demons had departed… clothed and in his right mind.” –Luke 8:35

New Clothes

   You have probably heard Hans Christian Anderson’s fairytale “The Emperor’s New Clothes.” It is the story of two scoundrels claiming to be gifted tailors who took advantage of a very vain emperor. They say they have invented a method to weave a cloth so light and fine that it looks invisible to all who are too stupid to appreciate its quality.

   They eventually present to the emperor what they say is a beautiful garment made of their cloth, which of course he cannot see. Not wanting to seem stupid, however, he pretends to admire its fine workmanship and beautiful colors. The scoundrels encourage the emperor to take a ride through the city to show off his stunning new garment. He does, and the people who have heard about the special material compliment the emperor on his new clothes because they do not want to look like fools either. Finally, an honest little boy points out the obvious: “Look! The emperor is naked!”

   Just as there is a connection between sitting at Jesus’ feet and being in one’s right mind, there is an equally strong connection between sitting at His feet and being clothed. “’Because you say, “I am rich, have become wealthy, and have need of nothing”-and do not know that you are wretched, miserable, poor, blind and naked’” (Revelation 3:17).

   We have already discussed the spiritual significance of nakedness, but we might still naturally wonder, “Where did the demoniac get his clothes?”

   I think the same One who gave skins to Adam and Eve also took off His robe to cover this naked man’s shame. Just as Elijah cast off his mantle on the shoulders of Elisha, just as Jacob gave a royal robe to Joseph, just as the father covered his prodigal son’s filthy rags, I believe that Jesus covered this man with His own robe. 

   This image is a symbol for you and me that Jesus will cleanse us from our guilt and shame and cover us with His righteousness. “We are all like an unclean thing, and all our righteousness are as filthy rags” (Isaiah 64:6). Only when Jesus gives us His righteousness are we truly in our right mind.

   Like blind Bartimaeus, we must rise, throw aside our ragged robes, and come to Jesus (Mark 10:50). An Old Testament prophet uses this very image to picture how God covers our sins: “He… spoke to those who stood before Him saying, ‘Take away the filthy garments from him.’ And to him He said, ‘See, I have removed your iniquity from you, and I will clothe you with rich robes’” (Zechariah 3:4).

“The whole multitude of the surrounding region of the Gadarenes asked Him to depart from them, for they were seized with great fear. And He got into the boat and returned.” –Luke 8:37

Rejecting Jesus

   In 1962, the U.S. postal authorities rejected a special Christmas stamp because it suggested a Christian cross. However, the design submitted simply showed a candle, framed by a wreath, burning in a window. There was concern among hypersensitive critics that people might think the wood in the windowpanes represented a cross. How differently from the attitude of the postal authorities seventy years earlier. Then they issued a two-cent stamp that showed Columbus planting a cross in the New World. That stamp was issued October 12, 1892, on the four-hundredth anniversary of the event.  

   This story accurately depicts an important reality: The world will generally reject the cross and those who bear it. “The message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God” (1 Corinthians 1:18).

   The cemetery on the dismal shore of Decapolis represents the doomed world, which, on the whole, has rejected Jesus. Like the crowd on the beach who asked Him to leave, like the crowd who rejected Jesus at His trial and cried out for Barabbas, they preferred a lunatic to the Lord. This is profound evidence that they were living under the curse of sin. So, the Savior sailed away. However, He did not abandon the people because of their rejection. He left a representative to continue to witness to them and to demonstrate how He saves.

   Did you notice that it was the ones who had not experienced Jesus who wanted Him to leave and that the one who had felt His power wanted to stay with Him? People who have experienced radical redemption will not ask, “Is church over yet?” Like Mary Magdalene, they will cling to Jesus’ feet, and like Jacob, they will embrace the Lord and say, “I will not let You go unless You bless me!”(Genesis 32:26).

   The sobering truth is that when someone asks Jesus to leave, He will go. He has manners; He will not force Himself upon anyone. He knocks and calls, but He will not violate our freedom of choice. Charles Spurgeon made this comment:

   When traveling among the Alps, one sees a small black cross-planted on a rock or on the brink of a stream or on the verge of the highway to mark the spot where men have met with sudden death by accident. These are solemn reminders of our mortality, but they lead our minds still further. For if the places where men seal themselves for the second death could be thus manifestly indicated, what a scene this world would present! Here the memorial of a soul undone by yielding to a foul temptation, there a conscience seared by the rejection of a final warning, and yonder a heart forever turned into stone by resisting the last ender appeal of love.

   As the people of Decapolis began to piece together the day’s events, not only of the destruction of the pigs, but also the deliverance of the demoniac, they began to sense that there was One far more awesome, much more to be feared, than the devils that once possessed the now lucid man. I suspect they had dealt with the demoniac on many occasions by chaining him or driving him from their presence, and inexplicably, they chose to treat Jesus in much the same way.

   It is ironic that while the demoniac did not want Jesus to leave the country, the others in that land did not want Him to stay. It is one of the few times that a miracle drove people away from, rather than closer to Jesus. It would seem that these people had no Messianic expectations and wanted nothing to do with Someone who had so much awesome power-a power over which they had no control.

As Cary Grant was walking along a street, he met a fellow whose eyes locked onto him with excitement. The man said, “Wait a minute, you are… you are-I know who you are! Do not ell me…uh, Rock Hud-No, you are…”

   Grant thought he would help the struggling fan, so he finished the man’s sentence: “Cary Grant.”

   However, the excited fellow said, “No, that’s not it! You are…”  

   There was Cary Grant, identifying himself with his own name, but the fellow had someone else in mind.

   John says of Jesus, “He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him” (John 1:10). Even when Jesus identified who He was-the Son of God-the response was not welcome recognition, but rather rejection and crucifixion.

“Behold My hands and My feet, that it is I Myself.” – Luke 24:39

“If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me. For whoever loses his life for My sake will save it.” – Luke 9:23,24

Scars That Speak, Death That Heals

   Adoniram Judson, the renowned missionary to Burma, endured hardships while reaching the lost for Christ. For seven heartbreaking years, he suffered hunger and privation. During those years, he was thrown into Ava Prison and for seventeen months was incredibly mistreated. As a result, for the rest of his life, he carried the ugly marks made by the chains and shackles that had cruelly bound him.

   Undaunted, upon his release, he asked for permission to enter another province in which he might resume preaching the gospel. The godless ruler indignantly denied his request, saying, “My people are not fools enough to listen to anything a missionary might say, but I fear they might be impressed by your scars and turn to your religion!”

   I suspect that even after Jesus released the demoniac from his chains, he still bore the scars on his limbs from the many years of possession. In one respect, the scars were a testimony to God’s grace-just, as the scars of Jesus will remind us of His sacrificial love for eternity. The fact that scars linger is also a sobering reminder that while God forgives all our sins, the results of our poor choices might not be reversed in this lifetime.  

   A few years ago, Karla Faye Tucker became the first woman executed in Texas since the Civil War. While on death row for a gruesome murder, she experienced what appeared to be a complete conversion to Christ. She became a model prisoner and was even forgiven by her victim’s family. However, she was still given her lethal injection.

   We must not miss the fact that accepting Jesus does not always remove the consequences of our sins, nor erase the scars. The results of our sins sometimes last beyond our forgiveness. The salvation Jesus promised to the thief on the cross beside Him was freedom from the penalty for sin, not from all its temporal consequences. Jesus did not take the thief down from the cross, but He did save him. * In essence, this thief was crucified with Christ.

   *We can thank God that in His mercy He sometimes does altar our circumstances and soften the consequences of our bad choices.

   For the demoniac, the new life of following Jesus began at a tomb.  Paul wrote about this death-rebirth experience: “I have been crucified with Christ, it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me” (Galatians 2:20)

   What does it mean to be crucified with Christ?

   As a prank, a friend of mine sent me a gift certificate for “One free visit to the infamous Dr. Jack Kevorkian.” This is the man who is also known by the morbid moniker “Dr. Death,” He is becoming popular because many people are so tried of hurting that they would rather commit suicide than continue living in pain. 

   In one sense, a form of suicide is the solution to following Jesus successfully. It is not physical suicide, but ego suicide. Paul wrote, “he who has died has been freed from sin” (Romans 6:7). Dead people do not become offended or lose their tempers. Dead people do not behave selfishly or harbor bitterness and grudges. Dietrich Bonhoeffer observed, “When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.”

   Those who are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with all its filthy passions and worldly desires. “In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus” (Romans 6:11, NIV). A.W. Tozer said,

   The man with the cross no longer controls his destiny; he lost control when he picked up his cross. That cross immediately became to him an all-absorbing interest, an overwhelming interference. No matter what he may desire to do, there is but one thing he can do, that is, move on toward the place of crucifixion.

   A pastor was showing a fellow minister the brand new cross his church had sitting atop their steeple. “That cross up there cost us ten thousand dollars,” the minister said, glowing.

   “Well, then you got cheated,” the other minister, responded. “There were times when Christians could get them for free.”

   To a man seeking salvation, Jesus said, “One thing you lack: Go your way, sell whatever you have and give it to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, take up the cross, and follow me” (mark 10:21).

“The whole multitude…asked Him to depart from them, for they were sized with great fear.” –Luke 8:37

A Storm of Fear

   I was amused to read that President Benjamin Harrison and his wife were so afraid of the new-fangled electrical system installed in the White House that they did not touch the switches. If no servants were around to turn off the lights when they went to bed, they slept with the lights on.

   In the stories of the crossing of the sea and of the demoniac, everyone except Jesus was entangled in fibers of fear. The disciples were afraid of the storm, only to become afraid of Jesus when He calmed the sea. After Jesus rebuked the storm, He turned and rebuked the disciples for their fear and unbelief. And there was plenty more fear to go around. The disciples were also afraid of the demoniac. The demons were afraid of Jesus. The pig keepers were afraid of the possessed pigs, and the townsfolk were afraid of Jesus.

   By calming the raging storm and the raving madman, Jesus demonstrated that he is Lord of all creation, of both physical and spiritual worlds. His actions brought peace and showed that He has tremendous compassion. What then do many of us fear?

   For several years, John Wesley, the founder of the Methodist church, doubted his own conversion even while he worked tirelessly as a pastor. One day he boarded a ship to cross the Atlantic along with a number of Moravian Christians. En route, they encountered a terrible storm. All hands were on deck as the vessel reeled violently on the dark ocean waves. Water was rushing in, and the sails were ripping; yet these Moravian families stood peacefully on deck, singing hymns.

   Wesley, who was clinging, terrified, to the side of the ship, asked, “Are you afraid?”

   One of the men replied, “No, I am not afraid.”

   “Well,” asked a perplexed Wesley,  “are the women and children afraid?”

   The man said, “No, we are not afraid to die. Our lives are in God’s hands.”

   At that point, Wesley became convicted that he really did not have faith in God. Not long after, the Prince of Peace converted His heart. Later, Wesley wrote, “He that fears God, fears nothing else. If you do not fear God, you fear everything else.”

   Scripture says, “There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves torment. But he who fears has not been made perfect in love” (1 John 4:18).

   Christians who have a genuine faith trust God regardless of external circumstances. They know they have nothing of which to be afraid, because He is on the throne.

   The Titanic was built in Belfast, and of that city took great pride in the mighty vessel that was heralded far and wide as “the unsinkable ship.”  

   When she sank, sixteen members of a protestant church in Belfast, all skilled mechanics, went down with her. The mayor said that the city had never been in such grief as that which came by way of the terrible tragedy. Indeed, so profound was the grief that it is said that when even the most stoic men met upon the streets, they grasped each other’s hands, burst into tears, and parted without a word.

   On the Sunday after the tragedy, a popular American minister who was visiting Belfast preached in the church to which the sixteen mechanics had belonged. The building was so packed with people-not just church members, but also lords, bishops, and ministers of all denominations. The sobbing of many newly made widows and orphans filled the other wise silent room.

   The great preacher took as his subject “The Unsinkable Ship.” However, he did not preach about the eleven-story giant that struck the iceberg. No, his message was about that other “unsinkable ship”- the frail little fishing boat on the Sea of Galilee, unsinkable because the Master was asleep on a pillow in the aft of the vessel. He said:

   Thank God, He [Jesus] still lives and rides the billows and controls the storms, and when the children of men take their only true Pilot back on board, they have nothing to fear. We will ride out the present storms, and He will bring the vessel through to the fair harbor of our hopes.

   God has not promised to keep us out of storms but, instead, to get us through them. Though the Lord commanded the disciples to cross the sea, He did not guarantee them a calm passage. Jesus might not prevent a storm from striking at a ship, but He will not let it sink the ship. If Jesus is in the boat, we have nothing to fear. We will reach our destination.

“He brought them out of darkness and the shadow of death, and broke their chains in pieces.” -Psalm 107:14

From Prison to the Palace

   In one of history’s strangest reversals of fortune, South Africa’s Nelson Mandela, who had been imprisoned for more than twenty years by the country’s former apartheid government, became its first president in 1994 as well as the winner of the 1993 Nobel Peace Prize. Similarly, Bible history is dappled with amazing examples of those who have transitioned from the prison to the palace. The following is one of the most beautiful.

   It came to pass in the thirty-seventh year of the captivity of Jehoiachin king of Judah…that Evil-Merodach king of Babylon, in the year that he began to reign, released Jehoiachin king of Judah from prison. He spoke kindly to him, and gave him a prominent seat than those of the kings who were with him in Babylon.  So Jehoiachin changed from his prison garments, and he ate bread regularly before the king all the days of his life” (2 Kings 25:27-29).

   What a splendid symbol of salvation! The king of Babylon shows mercy to Jehoiachin, who had been languishing in a dungeon for thirty-seven years. He not only frees him from his chains but also speaks tenderly to him and gives him new royal robes in exchange for his prison rags. He even grants him a majestic seat at his own table in the palace in Babylon and feeds him with royal food from the palace kitchen. What’s more, he does this for the rest of his life-an obvious symbol of the coming eternity.

   Jehoiachin’s story is also the story of the demoniac’s deliverance and the story of our salvation. After we come to Jesus just as we are, He not only breaks our chains and brings us new royal clothing. He changes our status from death-row prisoner to child of the King!”  “Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us, that we should be called children of God!” (1 John 3:1).

   In one day, Joseph’s rank was changed from imprisoned slave to the prime minister of Egypt. In one day, Moses’ status was changed from doomed helpless baby slave to the son of the Pharaoh. Likewise, Daniel’s position was changed from Judean captive to chief counselor of Babylon.

   God has a royal plan for your life too! This is what He wants to do for you: He wants to grant you freedom from your chains, to give you a new name, to make you His child, to cover you with His royal robe of righteousness, and to feed you forever with the living bread and the fruit from the tree of life (see Revelation 2:7)!” “To Him who loved us and washed us from our sins in His own blood, and had made us kings and priests to His God and Father, to Him be glory and dominion forever and ever” (Revelation 1:5, 6).

“He who overcomes, I will make him a pillar in the temple of My God… And I will write on him My new name.” –Revelation 3:12