GOD DOESN’T GIVE UP ON US!

Posted on December 25, 2021 by randscallawayffm

Paul devoted all of Romans 11 to presenting proof that God is not through with Israel. We must not apply this chapter to the church today, because Paul is discussing a literal future for a literal nation. He called five witnesses to prove there was a future in God’s plan for the Jews.

Paul Himself (11:1) “Has God cast away his people? God forbid! For I also am an Israelite!” If God has thrown away His people, then how can the conversion of the apostle Paul be explained? The fact that his conversion is presented three times in the book of Acts is significant (Acts 9, 22, 26). Certainly Dr. Luke did not write these chapters and repeat the story just to exalt Paul. No, they were written to show Paul’s conversion as an illustration of the future conversion of the nation of Israel.

Paul called himself “he appeared to me also, as to one abnormally born.” (1 Cor. 15:8). In 1 Timothy 1:16 he stated that God saved him “But for that very reason I was shown mercy so that in me, the worst of sinners, Christ Jesus might display his immense patience as an example for those who would believe in him and receive eternal life.”

Paul used himself as the first witness. The fact that he was saved does not prove that there is a future for Israel. Rather, what is important is the way he was saved.  God has not given up on Israel.

Israel is God’s elect nation; He foreknew them, or chose them, and they are His. The fact that most of the nation has rejected Christ is no proof that God has finished with His people. In his day, Elijah thought that the nation had totally departed from God (see 1 Kings 19). But Elijah discovered that there was yet a remnant of true believers. He thought he was the only faithful Jew left and discovered that there were seven thousand more.

Note that this remnant is saved by grace and not by works (Rom. 11:5–6). Note also the parallel in Romans 9:30–33. It is impossible to mix grace and works, for the one cancels the other. Israel’s main concern had always been in trying to please God with good works (Rom. 9:30—10:4). The nation refused to submit to Christ’s righteousness, just as religious, self-righteous people refuse to submit today.

Lose self.  Gain all the benefits of being saved by grace, not works, or we are back to self again.  Only by grace are we saved from our sins through repentance to Jesus Christ our Savior.  The question becomes, Is He our Lord?

ROMANS—OUR CARE AND CALLING

Romans 11:1-2, The Message

The Loyal Minority

1-2 Does this mean, then, that God is so fed up with Israel that he’ll have nothing more to do with them? Hardly. Remember that I, the one writing these things, am an Israelite, a descendant of Abraham out of the tribe of Benjamin. You can’t get much more Semitic than that! So we’re not talking about repudiation. God has been too long involved with Israel, has too much invested, to simply wash his hands of them.

2-6 Do you remember that time Elijah was agonizing over this same Israel and cried out in prayer?

God, they murdered your prophets,
They trashed your altars;
I’m the only one left and now they’re after me!

And do you remember God’s answer?

I still have seven thousand who haven’t quit,
Seven thousand who are loyal to the finish.

It’s the same today. There’s a fiercely loyal minority still—not many, perhaps, but probably more than you think. They’re holding on, not because of what they think they’re going to get out of it, but because they’re convinced of God’s grace and purpose in choosing them. If they were only thinking of their own immediate self-interest, they would have left long ago.

7-10 And then what happened? Well, when Israel tried to be right with God on her own, pursuing her own self-interest, she didn’t succeed. The chosen ones of God were those who let God pursue his interest in them, and as a result received his stamp of legitimacy. The “self-interest Israel” became thick-skinned toward God. Moses and Isaiah both commented on this:

Fed up with their quarrelsome, self-centered ways,
    God blurred their eyes and dulled their ears,
Shut them in on themselves in a hall of mirrors,
    and they’re there to this day.

David was upset about the same thing:

I hope they get sick eating self-serving meals,
    break a leg walking their self-serving ways.
I hope they go blind staring in their mirrors,
    get ulcers from playing at god.

Pruning and Grafting Branches

11-12 The next question is, “Are they down for the count? Are they out of this for good?”

WHAT WE LEARN

Romans 11:9–10 are cited from Psalm 69:22–23. This psalm is one of the most important of the messianic psalms and is referred to several times in the New Testament. (Note especially Romans 11:4, 9, 21–22.) Their “table to become a snare” means that their blessings turn into burdens and judgments. This is what happened to Israel: their spiritual blessings should have led them to Christ, but instead they became a snare that kept them from Christ. Their very religious practices and observances became substitutes for the real experience of salvation.

Sad to say, this same mistake is made today when people depend on religious rituals and practices instead of trusting in the Christ who is pictured in these activities.

“Are they down for the count? Are they out of this for good?” We will discuss the answer to that last question tomorrow!  Consider this to be part one of three that we will walk through with Paul as he speaks to his Jewish counterparts.

Lord,

May the customs, rituals and religious practices of this Christmas season give you all the glory and praise and lead us to a closer walk with you by helping us know you more.  May all we think, say or do draw us closer to the realization of your powerful love, compassionate mercy and victorious grace that is found only in you.  There is no one like you.  Thank you for your longsuffering patience and goodness as we mature in your ways.

In Jesus Name, For Your Glory, Amen  

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WHAT IS THE VERDICT?

Posted on December 24, 2021 by randscallawayffm

We all belong to a religion!  We can belong to a religion without having any form of relationship with anyone.  Wait, what?  I knew a man who watched the show “Law and Order” religiously!  He never missed an episode, even while on vacation.  This show drove his behavior in the ways he responded to people around him.  He became highly judgmental of everyone who stepped in his path.  He had no compassion for anyone who broke the law he had invented in his own mind from watching his television show.  For example, he drove in traffic while consistently telling others how they should drive with hand signals and words no one else could hear while in his car. He was so principled about all of life that many didn’t understand his comments of correction for them that were rendered unsolicited.  He became “a person of interest” but not in good ways.  Most didn’t want to be around him and would avoid him when possible.  This is religion. 

There are many other types of “religions” that we follow religiously without any thought to relationship or reconciliation with our Creator.

Paul speaks to the Jews, his own tribe and culture, in which he grew up, about religion versus reconciliation and relationship.  Paul found The Way to God through Jesus.  Paul is sent by God to open the eyes of his fellow Jews and remind them that God came for them first but they turned their backs and followed their religion instead.  He tells them the most important relationship they could have had is now offered to everyone.  Why?  “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”  John 3:16. The prophets told the Jews in their scriptures that the Messiah would come and reconcile God’s people, save them from their sins and his name would be called Jesus.  But they stuck to their religion, their driving force for life on earth, but not life eternal.

Most Jewish leaders preferred religion over a beautiful, intimate, unconditional loving relationship with God, through Jesus Christ our Savior and Lord.  Go figure.

We must ask ourselves and really consider…

What is my preference?  What is my religion that I follow “religiously”?  What do I think about most?  What determination drives my behavior?  These are all important questions for reflection as we celebrate the birth of our newborn King, our Savior, who God sent to set things right between us and our God.  Our answers, along with our behavior will reveal what or who is most important to us.  I pray that the most important relationship is yours and mine from repentant hearts seeking reconciliation with the One and Only who loved us first and loves us most. 

ROMANS—OUR CARE AND CALLING

Romans 10, The Message

Israel Reduced to Religion

1-3 Believe me, friends, all I want for Israel is what’s best for Israel: salvation, nothing less. I want it with all my heart and pray to God for it all the time. I readily admit that the Jews are impressively energetic regarding God—but they are doing everything exactly backward. They don’t seem to realize that this comprehensive setting-things-right that is salvation is God’s business, and a most flourishing business it is. Right across the street they set up their own salvation shops and noisily peddle their knockoffs. After all these years of refusing to really deal with God on his terms, insisting instead on making their own deals, they have nothing to show for it.

4-10 The earlier revelation was intended simply to get us ready for the Messiah, who then puts everything right for those who trust him to do it. Moses wrote that anyone who insists on using the law code to live right before God soon discovers it’s not so easy—every detail of life regulated by fine print! But trusting God to shape the right living in us is a different story—no precarious climb up to heaven to recruit the Messiah, no dangerous descent into hell to rescue the Messiah. So what exactly was Moses saying?

The word that saves is right here,
    as near as the tongue in your mouth,
    as close as the heart in your chest.

It’s the word of faith that welcomes God to go to work and set things right for us. This is the core of our preaching. Say the welcoming word to God—“Jesus is my Master”—embracing, body and soul, God’s work of doing in us what he did in raising Jesus from the dead. That’s it. You’re not “doing” anything; you’re simply calling out to God, trusting him to do it for you. That’s salvation. With your whole being you embrace God setting things right, and then you say it, right out loud: “God has set everything right between him and me!”

11-13 Scripture reassures us, “No one who trusts God like this—heart and soul—will ever regret it.” It’s exactly the same no matter what a person’s religious background may be: the same God for all of us, acting the same incredibly generous way to everyone who calls out for help. “Everyone who calls, ‘Help, God!’ gets help.”

14-17 But how can people call for help if they don’t know who to trust? And how can they know who to trust if they haven’t heard of the One who can be trusted? And how can they hear if nobody tells them? And how is anyone going to tell them, unless someone is sent to do it? That’s why Scripture exclaims,

A sight to take your breath away!
Grand processions of people
    telling all the good things of God!

But not everybody is ready for this, ready to see and hear and act. Isaiah asked what we all ask at one time or another: “Does anyone care, God? Is anyone listening and believing a word of it?” The point is: Before you trust, you have to listen. But unless Christ’s Word is preached, there’s nothing to listen to.

18-21 But haven’t there been plenty of opportunities for Israel to listen and understand what’s going on? Plenty, I’d say.

Preachers’ voices have gone ’round the world,
Their message to earth’s seven seas.

So the big question is, Why didn’t Israel understand that she had no corner on this message? Moses had it right when he predicted,

When you see God reach out to those
    you consider your inferiors—outsiders!—
    you’ll become insanely jealous.
When you see God reach out to people
    you think are religiously stupid,
    you’ll throw temper tantrums.

Isaiah dared to speak out these words of God:

People found and welcomed me
    who never so much as looked for me.
And I found and welcomed people
    who had never even asked about me.

Then he capped it with a damning indictment:

Day after day after day,
    I beckoned Israel with open arms,
And got nothing for my trouble
    but cold shoulders and icy stares.

Lord,

I found you!  Now that we are reconciled, our relationship of love, peace, joy because of your love, mercy and grace unending becomes sweeter each day.  I love you with all that is in me.  You loved me and the rest of the world by dying to save us.  Who can ask for anything more?  YOU are my driving force.  YOU are my religion, reconciliation and relationship all rolled into your forgiveness and abiding love for and with me.  Thank your for holding tight to me and never letting go of our love for each other.  I will follow you.  I worship only you.

In Jesus Name, For Your Glory, Amen

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ALL ARE CALLED, CHOSEN AND LOVED

Posted on December 23, 2021 by randscallawayffm

Sometimes we “church people” think we are the only ones shaped and molded by the Creator to make salvation happen for others like it happened to us.  When we get so wrapped up in our busyness of life stuff, church programs, and trying to please family and friends; we get into trouble, forgetting that we are ALL called to play a part in God’s work. The trouble is multiplied when we then boast of our deeds and forget to give the one who gave us life.  We forget where all the glory is due—God is the One and Only who receives glory, praise and honor. 

We also walk farther and farther away from knowing God and hearing His voice call to us.  We come out from under his wings of protection as the busyness of the world seeps into our being.  The Holy Spirit sounds the alarm.  Blessed are those who hear the alarm and come running back to the One who loves us most.

We learned from Romans 8:28 that God will never stops loving us.  Because He loves us beyond our thinking, as the gentleman and lover of our souls, He waits for us to come to Him, abide in Him and focus on all His goodness. God is a jealous God who wants all our attention and focus on Him, not because of the power He can have over us, but because of the Love He has for us.  God is a Giver and wants to pour out His blessing over us with His best.  This is HIS work that He planned for each of us before creation.

Read as Paul skillfully takes us on a thinking journey what life on God’s terms means for each of our lives.

ROMANS—OUR CARE AND CALLING

Romans 9, The Message

“I’m absolutely convinced that nothing—nothing living or dead, angelic or demonic, today or tomorrow, high or low, thinkable or unthinkable—absolutely nothing can get between us and God’s love because of the way that Jesus our Master has embraced us.” Romans 8:28, The Message

God Is Calling His People

9 1-5 At the same time, you need to know that I carry with me at all times a huge sorrow. It’s an enormous pain deep within me, and I’m never free of it. I’m not exaggerating—Christ and the Holy Spirit are my witnesses. It’s the Israelites . . . If there were any way I could be cursed by the Messiah so they could be blessed by him, I’d do it in a minute. They’re my family. I grew up with them. They had everything going for them—family, glory, covenants, revelation, worship, promises, to say nothing of being the race that produced the Messiah, the Christ, who is God over everything, always. Oh, yes!

6-9 Don’t suppose for a moment, though, that God’s Word has malfunctioned in some way or other. The problem goes back a long way. From the outset, not all Israelites of the flesh were Israelites of the spirit. It wasn’t Abraham’s sperm that gave identity here, but God’s promise. Remember how it was put: “Your family will be defined by Isaac”? That means that Israelite identity was never racially determined by sexual transmission, but it was God-determined by promise. Remember that promise, “When I come back next year at this time, Sarah will have a son”?

10-13 And that’s not the only time. To Rebecca, also, a promise was made that took priority over genetics. When she became pregnant by our one-of-a-kind ancestor, Isaac, and her babies were still innocent in the womb—incapable of good or bad—she received a special assurance from God. What God did in this case made it perfectly plain that his purpose is not a hit-or-miss thing dependent on what we do or don’t do, but a sure thing determined by his decision, flowing steadily from his initiative. God told Rebecca, “The firstborn of your twins will take second place.” Later that was turned into a stark epigram: “I loved Jacob; I hated Esau.”

14-18 Is that grounds for complaining that God is unfair? Not so fast, please. God told Moses, “I’m in charge of mercy. I’m in charge of compassion.” Compassion doesn’t originate in our bleeding hearts or moral sweat, but in God’s mercy. The same point was made when God said to Pharaoh, “I picked you as a bit player in this drama of my salvation power.” All we’re saying is that God has the first word, initiating the action in which we play our part for better or worse.

19 Are you going to object, “So how can God blame us for anything since he’s in charge of everything? If the big decisions are already made, what say do we have in it?”

20-33 Who in the world do you think you are to second-guess God? Do you for one moment suppose any of us knows enough to call God into question? Clay doesn’t talk back to the fingers that mold it, saying, “Why did you shape me like this?” Isn’t it obvious that a potter has a perfect right to shape one lump of clay into a vase for holding flowers and another into a pot for cooking beans? If God needs one style of pottery especially designed to show his angry displeasure and another style carefully crafted to show his glorious goodness, isn’t that all right? Either or both happens to Jews, but it also happens to the other people. Hosea put it well:

I’ll call nobodies and make them somebodies;
    I’ll call the unloved and make them beloved.
In the place where they yelled out, “You’re nobody!”
    they’re calling you “God’s living children.”

Isaiah maintained this same emphasis:

If each grain of sand on the seashore were numbered
    and the sum labeled “chosen of God,”
They’d be numbers still, not names;
    salvation comes by personal selection.
God doesn’t count us; he calls us by name.
    Arithmetic is not his focus.

Isaiah had looked ahead and spoken the truth:

If our powerful God
    had not provided us a legacy of living children,
We would have ended up like ghost towns,
    like Sodom and Gomorrah.

How can we sum this up? All those people who didn’t seem interested in what God was doing actually embraced what God was doing as he straightened out their lives. And Israel, who seemed so interested in reading and talking about what God was doing, missed it. How could they miss it? Because instead of trusting God, they took over. They were absorbed in what they themselves were doing. They were so absorbed in their “God projects” that they didn’t notice God right in front of them, like a huge rock in the middle of the road. And so they stumbled into him and went sprawling. Isaiah (again!) gives us the metaphor for pulling this together:

Careful! I’ve put a huge stone on the road to Mount Zion,
    a stone you can’t get around.
But the stone is me! If you’re looking for me,
    you’ll find me on the way, not in the way.

(Emphasis mine)

WHAT DO WE LEARN?

God never fails us.  God is for us.  God is the molder and shaper of His created.  God is unchanging love, compassionate mercy and unending grace.  “Compassion doesn’t originate in our bleeding hearts or moral sweat, but in God’s mercy.”

Those who seek God will find Him.

God doesn’t count us, He calls by name.  We can be blessedly assured of His love for us…I’ll call nobodies and make them somebodies; I’ll call the unloved and make them beloved.  In the place where they yelled out, “You’re nobody!”  they’re calling you “God’s living children.”

As God’s children, believers in Jesus for our salvation, our work is “To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.” (Micah 6:8) As we do this, God continually molds and shapes us to be more and more like Him, (Imago Dei), with His character traits maturing in us.  Sometimes it will be painful as His hands press into our clay-formed souls, molding in what is best for us and pinching away what is not.  But to be made fully in His image, it takes work that only God can do.  And it is good.  All good comes from God.

The Question we must ask and pray over…

“Do you for one moment suppose any of us knows enough to call God into question? Clay doesn’t talk back to the fingers that mold it, saying, “Why did you shape me like this?” Isn’t it obvious that a potter has a perfect right to shape one lump of clay into a vase for holding flowers and another into a pot for cooking beans? If God needs one style of pottery especially designed to show his angry displeasure and another style carefully crafted to show his glorious goodness, isn’t that all right?”

Lord, God,

Do want you must do to make me all you created me to be.  But be gentle.  I love you with all my heart, mind and soul.  Continue to transform my thinking and behaviors to match what you want, not want the world wants from me.  Help me to love like you love me.  Help me to know your ways and then walk in those ways with You.  May I reflect only You.  I know you are not finished with me yet.

In Jesus Name, For Your Glory, Amen

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BLESSED ASSURANCE! EXPECTANT JOY!

Posted on December 22, 2021 by randscallawayffm

If we knew and really believed there could be no one or not one thing on earth that could separate us from the love God has for us, would that change how we approach each day of living on earth?  Even today?

If we really believe that Jesus is coming back at any time of day or night, to get those who believe, love and follow Him and take us back with him to live with Him forever in the rooms He has been preparing for us, would that change how we begin today?  Would joy flood our souls with this expectant hope? 

Let me put this notion of expectant joy another way.  We are approaching that time when presents will be opened on Christmas Day as a way to honor the birth of our Savior, “God with us”, God’s gift of salvation to humanity.  Do we have as much expectant joy for Jesus’ return as children have for the gifts they will soon open on Christmas morning?  Multiply that joy times a million—to infinity and beyond!

Through good times and bad, Jesus is “God with us”.  If salvation of our souls wasn’t enough, God is not finished yet!  We live in expectant joy for the return of Christ to claim His own who believe, truly believe, in Him.  The Spirit of God is arousing us within.  God is ALSO expectantly joyful for what is coming next for us!  Friends, did you ever stop to realize that God is just as excited to see us as we are to see Him?  Yes!  Amen!

However, we are not good at waiting, so God provides His Spirit to help us…” the moment we get tired in the waiting, God’s Spirit is right alongside helping us along.”  When the hard times on earth get too hard for us to bear, God’s Holy Spirit steps in to give us the words of prayer that fail us in those moments of despair… “If we don’t know how or what to pray, it doesn’t matter. He does our praying in and for us, making prayer out of our wordless sighs, our aching groans.”

If that wasn’t enough, God loves us with the same love He has for His Son, Jesus!  “He decided from the outset to shape the lives of those who love him along the same lines as the life of his Son.”  What God starts in us, He completes through us.  He knows us by name.  He created us to worship, yes, but He also created us for purpose, unique to each one of us!  “After God made that decision of what his children should be like, he followed it up by calling people by name. After he called them by name, he set them on a solid basis with himself. And then, after getting them established, he stayed with them to the end, gloriously completing what he had begun.”

AND, don’t mess with what God is doing in each of us!  God is for us!  Hallelujah!  God knows what He is doing in us!  God knows you!  God knows me!  Warts and all, He knows what He is doing in us!  God will work ALL that happens around us and to us, in this world, the good and the bad, and create beauty from ashes.  “That’s why we can be so sure that every detail in our lives of love for God is worked into something good.”  Our God is amazing like that!

BLESSED ASSURANCE/EXPECTANT JOY

Believers, we are His Chosen.  “And who would dare tangle with God by messing with one of God’s chosen? Who would dare even to point a finger? The One who died for us—who was raised to life for us!—is in the presence of God at this very moment sticking up for us.” 

Oh, dear Friends, I don’t know about you, but in the hustle and bustle of preparing for Christmas, family gatherings, helping people, and preparing for Christmas Eve services to help others know and follow Jesus, I NEEDED to read and really understand once more the depth of God’s love for me and others who believe.  How about you?

Once more, like Paul, “I’m absolutely convinced that nothing—nothing living or dead, angelic or demonic, today or tomorrow, high or low, thinkable or unthinkable—absolutely nothing can get between us and God’s love because of the way that Jesus our Master has embraced us.

Take a beat, take a deep breath and breathe in these words of God’s assurance of His love for us.  May this season be filled with blessed assurance and expectant joy in you, through you and in your households.  God love us.  Let’s love each other like He loves us.  No matter what happens—love and grace wins.

ROMANS—OUR CARE AND CALLING

Romans 8:17-39, The Message

We go through exactly what Christ goes through. If we go through the hard times with him, then we’re certainly going to go through the good times with him!

18-21 That’s why I don’t think there’s any comparison between the present hard times and the coming good times. The created world itself can hardly wait for what’s coming next. Everything in creation is being more or less held back. God reins it in until both creation and all the creatures are ready and can be released at the same moment into the glorious times ahead. Meanwhile, the joyful anticipation deepens.

22-25 All around us we observe a pregnant creation. The difficult times of pain throughout the world are simply birth pangs. But it’s not only around us; it’s within us. The Spirit of God is arousing us within. We’re also feeling the birth pangs. These sterile and barren bodies of ours are yearning for full deliverance. That is why waiting does not diminish us, any more than waiting diminishes a pregnant mother. We are enlarged in the waiting. We, of course, don’t see what is enlarging us. But the longer we wait, the larger we become, and the more joyful our expectancy.

26-28 Meanwhile, the moment we get tired in the waiting, God’s Spirit is right alongside helping us along. If we don’t know how or what to pray, it doesn’t matter. He does our praying in and for us, making prayer out of our wordless sighs, our aching groans. He knows us far better than we know ourselves, knows our pregnant condition, and keeps us present before God. That’s why we can be so sure that every detail in our lives of love for God is worked into something good.

29-30 God knew what he was doing from the very beginning. He decided from the outset to shape the lives of those who love him along the same lines as the life of his Son. The Son stands first in the line of humanity he restored. We see the original and intended shape of our lives there in him. After God made that decision of what his children should be like, he followed it up by calling people by name. After he called them by name, he set them on a solid basis with himself. And then, after getting them established, he stayed with them to the end, gloriously completing what he had begun.

31-39 So, what do you think? With God on our side like this, how can we lose? If God didn’t hesitate to put everything on the line for us, embracing our condition and exposing himself to the worst by sending his own Son, is there anything else he wouldn’t gladly and freely do for us? And who would dare tangle with God by messing with one of God’s chosen? Who would dare even to point a finger? The One who died for us—who was raised to life for us!—is in the presence of God at this very moment sticking up for us. Do you think anyone is going to be able to drive a wedge between us and Christ’s love for us? There is no way! Not trouble, not hard times, not hatred, not hunger, not homelessness, not bullying threats, not backstabbing, not even the worst sins listed in Scripture:

They kill us in cold blood because they hate you.
We’re sitting ducks; they pick us off one by one.

None of this fazes us because Jesus loves us. I’m absolutely convinced that nothing—nothing living or dead, angelic or demonic, today or tomorrow, high or low, thinkable or unthinkable—absolutely nothing can get between us and God’s love because of the way that Jesus our Master has embraced us.

Lord,

Thank you for your blessed assurance that stirs our expectant joy of your return.  May your peace and confidence permeate all our lives as we live for you.

In Jesus Name, For Your Glory, Amen

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LIFE SOLUTION: THE ARRIVAL

Posted on December 21, 2021 by randscallawayffm

There is nothing on earth more scary-exciting than giving birth to a child!  Right?!  In a span of five years, Randy and I welcomed three babies into this world!  Tomorrow, in fact, will be the birthday of the youngest child.  The pain of childbirth is duly accepted as part of the birth process as you realize what your body is really doing!  We may fight it but we can’t really do anything about it, thanks to Adam and Eve.  The process includes pain.  But then that final push brings your baby from the darkness of the womb into the bright light of the birth room. 

The heathy reactions of our infant are closed eyes with pitiful crying.  The infant had some had work to do, too.  He or she had to leave one safe place with venerable trust for a new place.  This arrival is welcomed by the delivery doc and nurses.  Mom and dad do what they are told to do until the babe wrapped like a burrito is in their arms.  I remember the next daunting thoughts…this arrival would not bring solutions to our problems.  It would multiply them!  As parents, we had to change all routines and regular habits as we adjusted our lives around the arrival of the newborn.  

At this time of year we celebrate THE ARRIVAL of a newborn that became the only answer, the only solution to life’s problems.  We celebrate the birth of Jesus, Emmanuel–God with us, Messiah, Savior, King of kings and Lord of lords.  Jesus, the One and Only who solves our sin-death condition once and for all for those who believe in Him.

THE ARRIVAL came into the world expectantly by some who still believed He would come, but unexpectedly by those living in darkness.  The Arrival brought God’s Light of love, mercy and grace into the world like it had never seen before the Light.  The Arrival with all the details was foretold centuries in advance.  But many got tired of waiting and turned away from God who promised a Messiah.  Maybe it was because their notion of Messiah was more about creating better living conditions with no thought about their souls’ condition.  So, there was that.  But for those who still believed, they knew and worshiped The Arrival promised.

The Chosen film series as given us more to think about as we mentally form the scene of The Arrival of Jesus over 2000 years ago. God, through His Son, came down to earth in the form of helpless, venerable newborn.  Only God can do that!  Then, to add to the excitement, The Arrival did not happen at home!  They were ordered, along with hundreds of others to leave their community, go to their district assigned as Bethlehem to be counted by the oppressive government so more taxes could be collected for the government!  After walking and riding a donkey, many miles, nine months pregnant the time came, ordained by God while His angels watched on.  Imagine the scene in heaven, too!

So, if you are nine months and want it all to happen, you could ride a donkey for a few miles?  Mm, maybe not.  Back to the barn, The Arrival was completely in the hands of Mary and Joseph who were spiritually prepared nine months earlier by the words of angels but now the baby is really coming!  I’m sure they didn’t imagine or prepare for the Arrival to be on the dirt, cold barn floor, with the smell of dung mixed with hay and straw.  They didn’t prepare to be away from home, but maybe this was a kindness to Mary whose reputation was soiled by misunderstanding God’s Plan for her from the hometown folks. 

But back to the birth pains, it is time for The Arrival!  Knowing that this arrival was Messiah, the Solution to our Sin Problem, Mary and Joseph did what God told them to do.  God chose His Son’s parents-on-earth well. There was nothing else to do, the Baby is coming!  Let’s do this!  God protected as He watched the birth.  Mary and Joseph, with child-like faith, trusted God.

Paul’s message today tells us how The Arrival affects all of humanity!  Those who really believe God and His Plan to save us through Jesus, His Son, are set free from the jailhouse of sin!  No more death, only Life!  So, what do we choose?  The Solution is Jesus!

Our old routines, habits and schedules are completely rearranged because of The Arrival of Jesus into our hearts, minds and souls.  Our new, redeemed lives now revolve around His life and teaching, HIS will and purpose for us, as live real life on God’s terms.  God is in charge!  He traded our worst for His best.  Oh, how He loves us!

ROMANS—OUR CARE AND CALLING

Romans 8, The Message

The Solution Is Life on God’s Terms

1-2 With the arrival of Jesus, the Messiah, that fateful dilemma is resolved. Those who enter into Christ’s being-here-for-us no longer have to live under a continuous, low-lying black cloud. A new power is in operation. The Spirit of life in Christ, like a strong wind, has magnificently cleared the air, freeing you from a fated lifetime of brutal tyranny at the hands of sin and death.

3-4 God went for the jugular when he sent his own Son. He didn’t deal with the problem as something remote and unimportant. In his Son, Jesus, he personally took on the human condition, entered the disordered mess of struggling humanity in order to set it right once and for all. The law code, weakened as it always was by fractured human nature, could never have done that.

The law always ended up being used as a Band-Aid on sin instead of a deep healing of it. And now what the law code asked for but we couldn’t deliver is accomplished as we, instead of redoubling our own efforts, simply embrace what the Spirit is doing in us.

5-8 Those who think they can do it on their own end up obsessed with measuring their own moral muscle but never get around to exercising it in real life. Those who trust God’s action in them find that God’s Spirit is in them—living and breathing God! Obsession with self in these matters is a dead end; attention to God leads us out into the open, into a spacious, free life. Focusing on the self is the opposite of focusing on God. Anyone completely absorbed in self ignores God, ends up thinking more about self than God. That person ignores who God is and what he is doing. And God isn’t pleased at being ignored.

9-11 But if God himself has taken up residence in your life, you can hardly be thinking more of yourself than of him. Anyone, of course, who has not welcomed this invisible but clearly present God, the Spirit of Christ, won’t know what we’re talking about. But for you who welcome him, in whom he dwells—even though you still experience all the limitations of sin—you yourself experience life on God’s terms. It stands to reason, doesn’t it, that if the alive-and-present God who raised Jesus from the dead moves into your life, he’ll do the same thing in you that he did in Jesus, bringing you alive to himself? When God lives and breathes in you (and he does, as surely as he did in Jesus), you are delivered from that dead life. With his Spirit living in you, your body will be as alive as Christ’s!

12-14 So don’t you see that we don’t owe this old do-it-yourself life one red cent. There’s nothing in it for us, nothing at all. The best thing to do is give it a decent burial and get on with your new life. God’s Spirit beckons. There are things to do and places to go!

15-17 This resurrection life you received from God is not a timid, grave-tending life. It’s adventurously expectant, greeting God with a childlike “What’s next, Papa?” God’s Spirit touches our spirits and confirms who we really are.

We know who he is, and we know who we are: Father and children. And we know we are going to get what’s coming to us—an unbelievable inheritance! We go through exactly what Christ goes through. If we go through the hard times with him, then we’re certainly going to go through the good times with him!

HOW DID “THE ARRIVAL” AFFECT HUMANITY?

  • “With the arrival of Jesus, the Messiah, that fateful dilemma is resolved. Those who enter into Christ’s being-here-for-us no longer have to live under a continuous, low-lying black cloud.”
  • “In his Son, Jesus, God personally took on the human condition, entered the disordered mess of struggling humanity in order to set it right once and for all.”
  • To all who believe and follow Jesus comes the amazing realization that The Arrival of Jesus is the Solution to Real Life.  “God with us” living in us!
  • “What’s next, Papa?” This is expectant, joyful, free from sin and death living in the wide-open spaces of God’s love and care.

Lord,

Thank you for leaving the comfort of heaven to come to save us.  God, thank you for sacrificing Your One and Only Son.  Thank you for loving us the way you do.  Help us to love like you love us.

In Jesus Name, Amen

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SPOILER ALERT:  I CANNOT BE GOOD

Posted on December 20, 2021 by randscallawayffm

God gave Randy and I quite a few opportunities to direct church camps back in our younger adult ministry years.  Our goal was always to teach kids more than “come and be saved”, but to go beyond that concept to living the life Jesus taught us.  We felt we were doing them a disservice if we didn’t.  We were seeing so many kids stream to the altar, over and over again, after a powerful message and then testify, “Now I will be good.”  Each year.  Same kids.  No sooner were the words out of their mouths than evil displayed its power of sin over the ones who declared themselves sin free.  Proclaiming “I will be good from now on” became their first mistake in their new life with Jesus.  With their declaration, pride and boastfulness seeped in like a lion on the prowl, as they misunderstood immediately WHO is should be now in control of their lives.

Dear Friends, we cannot, no matter how much we declare it, be “good” on our own.  We need the power of Jesus in us, the power of God’s Holy Spirit helping us, in the choices we will make.  Life offers a million choices each day.  Jesus is not a twelve-step program, Jesus is the life-giver, sustainer, forgiver, redeemer and THE answer to all of life’s choices. Ask for His wisdom and He promises to give it!

Read as Paul, who knows he cannot be good on his own, explains…

ROMANS—OUR CARE AND CALLING

Romans 7, The Message

Torn Between One Way and Another

1-3 You shouldn’t have any trouble understanding this, friends, for you know all the ins and outs of the law—how it works and how its power touches only the living. For instance, a wife is legally tied to her husband while he lives, but if he dies, she’s free. If she lives with another man while her husband is living, she’s obviously an adulteress. But if he dies, she is quite free to marry another man in good conscience, with no one’s disapproval.

4-6 So, my friends, this is something like what has taken place with you. When Christ died he took that entire rule-dominated way of life down with him and left it in the tomb, leaving you free to “marry” a resurrection life and bear “offspring” of faith for God. For as long as we lived that old way of life, doing whatever we felt we could get away with, sin was calling most of the shots as the old law code hemmed us in. And this made us all the more rebellious. In the end, all we had to show for it was miscarriages and stillbirths. But now that we’re no longer shackled to that domineering mate of sin, and out from under all those oppressive regulations and fine print, we’re free to live a new life in the freedom of God.

7 But I can hear you say, “If the law code was as bad as all that, it’s no better than sin itself.” That’s certainly not true. The law code had a perfectly legitimate function. Without its clear guidelines for right and wrong, moral behavior would be mostly guesswork. Apart from the succinct, surgical command, “You shall not covet,” I could have dressed covetousness up to look like a virtue and ruined my life with it.

8-12 Don’t you remember how it was? I do, perfectly well. The law code started out as an excellent piece of work. What happened, though, was that sin found a way to pervert the command into a temptation, making a piece of “forbidden fruit” out of it. The law code, instead of being used to guide me, was used to seduce me. Without all the paraphernalia of the law code, sin looked pretty dull and lifeless, and I went along without paying much attention to it. But once sin got its hands on the law code and decked itself out in all that finery, I was fooled, and fell for it. The very command that was supposed to guide me into life was cleverly used to trip me up, throwing me headlong. So sin was plenty alive, and I was stone dead. But the law code itself is God’s good and common sense, each command sane and holy counsel.

13 I can already hear your next question: “Does that mean I can’t even trust what is good [that is, the law]? Is good just as dangerous as evil?” No again! Sin simply did what sin is so famous for doing: using the good as a cover to tempt me to do what would finally destroy me. By hiding within God’s good commandment, sin did far more mischief than it could ever have accomplished on its own.

14-16 I can anticipate the response that is coming: “I know that all God’s commands are spiritual, but I’m not. Isn’t this also your experience?” Yes. I’m full of myself—after all, I’ve spent a long time in sin’s prison. What I don’t understand about myself is that I decide one way, but then I act another, doing things I absolutely despise. So if I can’t be trusted to figure out what is best for myself and then do it, it becomes obvious that God’s command is necessary.

17-20 But I need something more! For if I know the law but still can’t keep it, and if the power of sin within me keeps sabotaging my best intentions, I obviously need help! I realize that I don’t have what it takes. I can will it, but I can’t do it. I decide to do good, but I don’t really do it; I decide not to do bad, but then I do it anyway. My decisions, such as they are, don’t result in actions. Something has gone wrong deep within me and gets the better of me every time.

21-23 It happens so regularly that it’s predictable. The moment I decide to do good, sin is there to trip me up. I truly delight in God’s commands, but it’s pretty obvious that not all of me joins in that delight. Parts of me covertly rebel, and just when I least expect it, they take charge.

24 I’ve tried everything and nothing helps. I’m at the end of my rope. Is there no one who can do anything for me? Isn’t that the real question?

25 The answer, thank God, is that Jesus Christ can and does. He acted to set things right in this life of contradictions where I want to serve God with all my heart and mind, but am pulled by the influence of sin to do something totally different.

WHAT DO WE LEARN?

We cannot be good on our own.  We need help.

Jesus died to free us and rose again to save us from ourselves and the power sin has over us.

Jesus sets things right with God on our behalf no matter who we are, where we’ve been or what we have done.  Go to Jesus, ask for His forgiveness.  Then invite the Holy Spirit to speak to your heart.  He will.  Then we must focus our hearts, minds and souls to follow the promptings of God’s Spirit who has our best interests at heart.  If and when we get too busy to hear, wander out from under His protection and power, run back to God.  Like the earthly father wanting for His prodigal son to return, as soon as we take the first step, Jesus runs to us with His forgiveness and powerful help.  The power of God has, is and always will be more powerful than the evil who opposes God.  “You, dear children, are from God and have overcome them, because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world.” 1 John 4:4.

“See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands; your walls are ever before me.” Isaiah 49:16. God know you.  God knows what you are facing today.  God knows the choices before you.  Remember, try to wrap your mind around this truth:  God knew you before you were formed in the womb of your mother.  He knows the “walls” we face each day and gave us the supreme answer to all of life’s questions. 

Our names are now firmly written on the nail-scarred hands of Jesus. Jesus knew us and knows us.  He thought of us while on the cross dying for our sins. Our sin held him there until it was finished. 

Consider this:  Who do you think loves you more and wants to help you be like Him?  Pray and meditate.  Take all the time you need.  I am and I will, all day long.

Lord,

You died and rose again to set our lives right with God.  God, you had a plan from the beginning to save us and then teach us your best way to walk, talk and live, explaining the full intention for The Law.  Your Plan’s root is based on your love for us.  I cannot thank you enough for all you have done, are doing and continue to do in my life.  I cannot be good on my own.  I gave up that notion long ago and now lean on you for wisdom, insight and understanding because of your great, loving, redeeming act of saving my soul.  Help me to hear you with focus to follow you without hesitation all day long today and every day of my life here while waiting to be with you there.  Thank you for being with us now.

In Jesus Name, For Your Glory, Amen

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WHY GO BACK THERE?

Posted on December 18, 2021 by randscallawayffm

A couple of months ago, Randy and I took a quick trip back to Oklahoma where we were raised. It was a spontaneous trip, planned in about 24 hours, complete with flight, rental and hotel, to see OU play football.  While there, we spent some time going back to revisit all the “haunts” where we grew up, taught school, had fun times, where family resided years earlier.  We visited the church where we gave our lives to Christ as children, then much later served as a ministry couple. 

This brought back many good memories but it also reminded us of all the mistakes, troubles and sin in our growing up years.  And we sighed.  What made it bearable was to realize, in grateful praise, all that God brought us through, how He saved our souls and made us whole.  Since that time, God has taken us on a journey, day by day, step by step, to follow Him no matter what’s happening around us.  We still make mistakes, but He forgives us and helps us keep moving closer to Him.  We don’t reside in that sin-place of thinking anymore.  In Jesus, we found new life and a new way to live.  We decided a long time ago, we’re not going back to where we were!  There is nothing there for us.  Sin no longer has a hold on us!  Only God, through Jesus, His Son! 

Why go back there?  Not Oklahoma, the state, but the sin that enslaves us?  We discovered you can go back home physically, but there is no reason to go back to place where sin tied us down.  We thank God for teaching us His way of life that leads to freedom.

Consider this…Imagine being given a brand-new car as a tax-free gift!  Your excitement is over the moon!  However, you still remember the fun you had with your old, present car.  You just can’t let go of the old clunker that was not dependable, full of dirt and rust in the undercarriage, and stained by all that you and your family had done to it.  Would you park the new car in the garage and never experience driving around in it, enjoying all the benefits of the newness?  Would you cling to the old car as if it was your only mode of transportation until it completely disintegrated?  Here is a better question, which one do you trust more to get you where you need to go?  New or old? 

Are we coming a little closer to understanding the difference between old and new?

Paul gave us the best explanation of all!  When we repented of our sins to Jesus, we packed up and left where sin lives.  To show this to the world, we were baptized as a witness the world that our sin was buried in the waters!  We were then raised up from the burial water alive in Christ!  We declared that we no longer live where sin is, the sin-world that separates us from God.  “We entered a new country of grace!”  Why go back there? says Paul.  Why go back to death when we can have life eternal?  Hang on to every word God says!  What God says is His best for us.  Always.  “Sin speaks a dead language.”  God speaks words of life.  I’m not who I used to be, praise God.  God is shaping me daily into all He created me to be.  I love Him heart, mind and soul.  All of me desires all of Him working in and through me for His glory. 

We cannot help but sing praises for all God has done, is doing, and will do for eternity all because of His great love for us.  He gave us Jesus and with Jesus we have a brand-new life.  Why go back there…to the old life that only leads to death when we can have life, Real Life?

And I’m singing…Resurrection Song by Elevation…

By Your spirit I will rise
From the ashes of defeat
The resurrected King, is resurrecting me
In Your name I come alive
To declare Your victory
The resurrected King, is resurrecting me

ROMANS—OUR CARE AND CALLING

Romans 6:1-14, The Message

 When Death Becomes Life

1-3 So what do we do? Keep on sinning so God can keep on forgiving? I should hope not! If we’ve left the country where sin is sovereign, how can we still live in our old house there? Or didn’t you realize we packed up and left there for good? That is what happened in baptism. When we went under the water, we left the old country of sin behind; when we came up out of the water, we entered into the new country of grace—a new life in a new land!

3-5 That’s what baptism into the life of Jesus means. When we are lowered into the water, it is like the burial of Jesus; when we are raised up out of the water, it is like the resurrection of Jesus. Each of us is raised into a light-filled world by our Father so that we can see where we’re going in our new grace-sovereign country.

6-11 Could it be any clearer? Our old way of life was nailed to the cross with Christ, a decisive end to that sin-miserable life—no longer captive to sin’s demands! What we believe is this: If we get included in Christ’s sin-conquering death, we also get included in his life-saving resurrection. We know that when Jesus was raised from the dead it was a signal of the end of death-as-the-end. Never again will death have the last word. When Jesus died, he took sin down with him, but alive he brings God down to us. From now on, think of it this way: Sin speaks a dead language that means nothing to you; God speaks your mother tongue, and you hang on every word. You are dead to sin and alive to God. That’s what Jesus did.

12-14 That means you must not give sin a vote in the way you conduct your lives. Don’t give it the time of day. Don’t even run little errands that are connected with that old way of life. Throw yourselves wholeheartedly and full-time—remember, you’ve been raised from the dead!—into God’s way of doing things. Sin can’t tell you how to live. After all, you’re not living under that old tyranny any longer. You’re living in the freedom of God.

SO, WHAT DO WE LEARN?

Once sin is repented and we are saved by grace, sin no longer has a hold on us.  Don’t go back and give the old life the time of day, Paul teaches.  Give God ALL your life, the good, bad and ugly, and He will lead us into new life that is beyond our wildest dreams.  Go full-speed ahead, full-time, not part time, into God’s way of doing life.  Live in freedom with God for the glory of God.  Realize the depths of His love for us and then love others like He loves us.  Once you taste this pure freedom, you won’t want to go back!

My prayer for all of us, dear friends.

In Jesus Name, For His Glory, Amen.

The head that once was crowned with thorns
Is crowned with glory now
The Savior knelt to wash our feet
Now at His feet we bow

The One who wore our sin and shame
Now robed in majesty
The radiance of perfect love
Now shines for all to see

Your name, Your name
Is victory
All praise, will rise
To Christ, our king

Your name, Your name
Is victory
All praise, will rise
To Christ, our king

The fear that held us now gives way
To Him who is our peace
His final breath upon the cross
Is now alive in me

Your name, Your name
Is victory
All praise, will rise
To Christ, our king

Your name, Your name
Is victory
All praise, will rise
To Christ, our king

By Your spirit I will rise
From the ashes of defeat
The resurrected King, is resurrecting me
In Your name I come alive
To declare Your victory
The resurrected King, is resurrecting me…

Yeah, I’m not going back.

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HE’S THE ONE!

Posted on December 17, 2021 by randscallawayffm

At this time of year of gift giving, Randy and I like to reminisce over the gifts we have given to our children and grandchildren.  We think of the reactions and the looks on their faces when we got it right.  (We didn’t always get it right, for we are human).  In our lean years of ministry and teaching, our kids received clothes because that’s what they needed most along with one requested toy.  Because they had generous grandparents, aunts and uncles, they also had a variety of others gifts that brought joy to their faces and filled in what we couldn’t do financially at the time. I praise God for them.

When our grandchildren came along, we loved trying to bring joy to their faces with what we thought they wanted as opposed to what they needed.  That’s always a lot more fun in the giving, right?  When needing is coupled with wanting, then you really hit the jackpot of giving! (Smiling)  When we succeeded, it made gift giving all the more enjoyable.  I felt my heart skip a beat to know they were happy.  When a gift is received well, it encourages us to want to give all the more! 

One year, we gave one of our young grandsons a particular gift that he had been longing to have for quite some time.  Because children are fickle, what they say they want can change in 24 hours, we wondered if he still remembered asking for it.  As soon as the first big rip of the paper revealed his heart’s desire, he shouted, “It’s the one!”  “THIS is the one I wanted forever.”  Yes, children are dramatic.  That’s what we love about them—when we are on the receiving end of their ecstatic joy!  It brought tears to our eyes to hit the mark with him with just the right gift!

God gave us a Gift we didn’t know we needed until we realized we needed this Gift most.  His gift was Jesus, who came at just the right time to make things right for a world of individuals, His created, who might stop routines and receive this Gift with open hands and outstretched arms.  Embracing this Gift with both hands, we grasped a forever Life! 

Friends, I wonder, did God shed a tear of joy when we shouted, “HE’S THE ONE!”  “THIS is the ONE I wanted and needed!”, upon opening our Gift?  Jesus, the One and Only, is the forever Gift that keeps on giving.  Jesus is THE Gift that is the difference between life and death forever!  Jesus is the Gift that opened the door to God’s heart.  God, who loved us from the beginning, prepared this Gift in advance for us to redeem us from sin and death.

THIS is the message of the greatest Gift in a nutshell.  Paul explains… 

ROMANS—OUR CARE AND CALLING

Romans 5:12-21, The Message

The Death-Dealing Sin, the Life-Giving Gift

12-14 You know the story of how Adam landed us in the dilemma we’re in—first sin, then death, and no one exempt from either sin or death. That sin disturbed relations with God in everything and everyone, but the extent of the disturbance was not clear until God spelled it out in detail to Moses. So death, this huge abyss separating us from God, dominated the landscape from Adam to Moses. Even those who didn’t sin precisely as Adam did by disobeying a specific command of God still had to experience this termination of life, this separation from God. But Adam, who got us into this, also points ahead to the One who will get us out of it.

15-17 Yet the rescuing gift is not exactly parallel to the death-dealing sin. If one man’s sin put crowds of people at the dead-end abyss of separation from God, just think what God’s gift poured through one man, Jesus Christ, will do! There’s no comparison between that death-dealing sin and this generous, life-giving gift. The verdict on that one sin was the death sentence; the verdict on the many sins that followed was this wonderful life sentence. If death got the upper hand through one man’s wrongdoing, can you imagine the breathtaking recovery life makes, absolute life, in those who grasp with both hands this wildly extravagant life-gift, this grand setting-everything-right, that the one man Jesus Christ provides?

18-19 Here it is in a nutshell: Just as one person did it wrong and got us in all this trouble with sin and death, another person did it right and got us out of it. But more than just getting us out of trouble, he got us into life! One man said no to God and put many people in the wrong; one man said yes to God and put many in the right.

20-21 All that passing laws against sin did was produce more lawbreakers. But sin didn’t, and doesn’t, have a chance in competition with the aggressive forgiveness we call grace. When it’s sin versus grace, grace wins hands down. All sin can do is threaten us with death, and that’s the end of it. Grace, because God is putting everything together again through the Messiah, invites us into life—a life that goes on and on and on, world without end.

ICYMI:  THE GIFT OF GRACE WINS EVERY TIME!

  • Sin is the gift of death; it looks enticingly pretty on the outside, but is nasty on the inside.
  • Grace is the Gift of Jesus.  For a while, it was ugly on the outside because of the price paid on a cruel cross, but the inside of this Gift produced salvation for all. 
  • This Gift of Grace was planned before creation from a Love that is extravagant and unconditional. 
  • God had us on Him mind we He prepared the Gift to come to earth and live among humanity.  Jesus had us on His mind as He moved among us and taught us and then obeyed God with laying down is life for ours. 
  • Sin’s debt paid in full. 
  • This Gift is beyond our wildest hopes and dreams.  To receive this Gift and hold tightly to Him brings joy that we never knew before in life.  When Jesus, the Gift was unwrapped from grave clothes and brought back to life, Life eternal was born and is reborn in all who receive God’s Gift.   
  • Wow, there IS no comparison!

“…imagine the breathtaking recovery life makes, absolute life, in those who grasp with both hands this wildly extravagant life-gift, this grand setting-everything-right, that the one man Jesus Christ provides…” Paul is overjoyed when telling about the Gift he received and wants everyone to receive as well.

This Gift is a “one-size fits all” for all who have sinned and fall short of the knowing the glory of God.  Believe and receive the Gift for HE’S THE ONE!

Lord,

The Gift has been received.  I will always believe for you keep on giving all that I need to mature in your love and grace.  There is no one like you.  There is no comparison between life or death, sin or grace.  Grace wins every time when compared to the alternative of life without you.  I choose life.  I choose the Gift of your salvation through you, dear Jesus.  Thank you, thank you, thank you, you ARE the One we want and need.  You are everything to me.  Thank you for your love that brought us together.  Help me to love like you love me.

In Jesus Name, Amen

And we’re singing, “Grace Wins” by Matthew West…

There’s a war between guilt and grace
And they’re fighting for a sacred space
But I’m living proof
Grace wins every time, yeah

No more lying down in death’s defeat
Now I’m rising up in victory
Singing Hallelujah
Grace wins every time

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PASSIONATE PATIENCE

Posted on December 16, 2021 by randscallawayffm

Who has it?  Who wants to do the work to get it?  Work?  Yes, it takes work to shape and form passionate patience.  This isn’t your normal, natural homegrown, do-it-yourself patience for short periods of time such as being okay with spilled milk of a child and helping them to clean it up.  This is God formed patience.  It is forming the kind of passionate patience that God has for us, forgiving us when we make a mess of things and come close to devastation of our lives and in the lives of those around us.  It does not come at once but is shaped over the years in our journey with Him.  The more we get to know our Lord, the more we become like Jesus in our thinking, talking and walking.  He then works in us as we begin to form His character traits. 

Just as children mirror their parents without even thinking, may we mirror the character traits of our Father in Heaven.  That’s what Jesus so perfectly mirrored to us while on earth!

Having patience in all troubles and circumstances is not easy.  Jesus told his disciples (and us), thought that there would always be troubles, but with the promise that HE has already overcome it all.  “I have told you all this so that you may have peace in me. Here on earth you will have many trials and sorrows. But take heart, because I have overcome the world.” John 16:33. So, therefore we are overcomers with Him. And what about that peace in Him!  Just to know that battles we face are only temporary and that victory is already ours, helps to frame life’s temporary skirmishes in our present circumstances into victory! 

Our Victor also sent the Holy Spirit to guide and develop passionate patience in us through troubles.  It is one of the character traits of God that Paul calls the fruits of the Spirit.  As we obey the work of God’s Holy Spirit living in us, as believers of Jesus, the Spirit begins to grow and mature us in all kinds of ways.  The closer to Jesus and the more pliable we are to His Spirit, we will discover that we are changing from the inside out. The deeper we go in His teaching, we see the “fruits” of His labor of love displayed in our lives, forming character traits which reflects the One we believe.  Passionate patience is one of those characteristics.  We cannot form this ourselves.  Patience for me is not a trait I was born with, it had to grow, it is still growing!

Paul tells us specifically of other fruits of God’s character, what they are and where they come from: “…the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against these things!”

“Those who belong to Christ Jesus have nailed the passions and desires of their sinful nature to his cross and crucified them there. Since we are living by the Spirit, let us follow the Spirit’s leading in every part of our lives. Let us not become conceited, or provoke one another, or be jealous of one another.”  Galatians 5:23-26

In this next passage, Paul tells us of the wonderful benefits of allowing God’s Holy Spirit to freely do His work in us.  Read on…

ROMANS—OUR CARE AND CALLING

Romans 5:1-11, The Message

Developing Patience

1-2 By entering through faith into what God has always wanted to do for us—set us right with him, make us fit for him—we have it all together with God because of our Master Jesus. And that’s not all: We throw open our doors to God and discover at the same moment that he has already thrown open his door to us. We find ourselves standing where we always hoped we might stand—out in the wide open spaces of God’s grace and glory, standing tall and shouting our praise.

3-5 There’s more to come: We continue to shout our praise even when we’re hemmed in with troubles, because we know how troubles can develop passionate patience in us, and how that patience in turn forges the tempered steel of virtue, keeping us alert for whatever God will do next. In alert expectancy such as this, we’re never left feeling shortchanged. Quite the contrary—we can’t round up enough containers to hold everything God generously pours into our lives through the Holy Spirit!

6-8 Christ arrives right on time to make this happen. He didn’t, and doesn’t, wait for us to get ready. He presented himself for this sacrificial death when we were far too weak and rebellious to do anything to get ourselves ready. And even if we hadn’t been so weak, we wouldn’t have known what to do anyway. We can understand someone dying for a person worth dying for, and we can understand how someone good and noble could inspire us to selfless sacrifice. But God put his love on the line for us by offering his Son in sacrificial death while we were of no use whatever to him.

9-11 Now that we are set right with God by means of this sacrificial death, the consummate blood sacrifice, there is no longer a question of being at odds with God in any way. If, when we were at our worst, we were put on friendly terms with God by the sacrificial death of his Son, now that we’re at our best, just think of how our lives will expand and deepen by means of his resurrection life! Now that we have actually received this amazing friendship with God, we are no longer content to simply say it in plodding prose. We sing and shout our praises to God through Jesus, the Messiah!

ICYMI:  THE BENEFITS OF THE HOLY SPIRITS WORK IN US…

“We find ourselves standing where we always hoped we might stand—out in the wide open spaces of God’s grace and glory, standing tall and shouting our praise.”

“We continue to shout our praise even when we’re hemmed in with troubles, because we know how troubles can develop passionate patience in us, and how that patience in turn forges the tempered steel of virtue, keeping us alert for whatever God will do next.”

“…we can’t round up enough containers to hold everything God generously pours into our lives through the Holy Spirit!”

“Christ arrives right on time to make this happen. He didn’t, and doesn’t, wait for us to get ready.”

“God put his love on the line for us by offering his Son in sacrificial death while we were of no use whatever to him.”

“…when we were at our worst, we were put on friendly terms with God by the sacrificial death of his Son, now that we’re at our best, just think of how our lives will expand and deepen by means of his resurrection life!”

We are friends with God!!  Because we believe in Jesus, we have this amazing friendship with God! 

Lord,

Our friendship just keeps growing and maturing and taking me to places I never thought possible.  You have had the patience to put up with my messes and shortcomings.  Your love and passionate patience is amazing.  You are the One and Only who sets things right with you.  Then, as an added bonus, you develop your kind of passionate patience in us.  I trust You. I trust in what you are doing continually in me.  Not there yet, but on my way.  Thank you, Lord.

In Jesus Name, Amen. 

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PURE TRUST—A TRUSTING-HIM-TO-DO-IT TRUST

Posted on December 15, 2021 by randscallawayffm

We can all agree there will times in our lives that we throw up our hands and shout, “I can’t, I just can’t”.  Life’s challenges overwhelm us to the point of asking God and whoever else is in earshot, “What is going on?”  With our heightened emotions, the questions we tend to fall back on are; “What did I do to deserve this?” “Why me?” “What do I need to do next to get out of this?”  The next thing we humans do in an effort to sort it all out is to blame others as well as our circumstances.  “If only Joe would have listened to me in the first place.”  “If we had more money, better jobs, etc. this would not be an issue.”  Above all this, we ask, “Where is God?” 

Maybe a better question is who do we really trust?  God has been there all along.

Paul takes us higher in our thinking about life challenges and life itself.  He teaches us more about our growing relationship with God than how to handle our circumstances.  Because he is talking to Jews who are embedded in tradition, he wisely begins with the story Abraham they all know well but then almost shouts, “plot twist!”  Paul then relates, “But the story we’re given is a God-story, not an Abraham-story.”  No matter what we face in this life, trust in God is a gift from God to set us right with Him.  Embrace God. Embrace what HE is doing.  There is nothing we do to get God’s attention, love, or salvation for life.  We only trust.  God sets things right through Jesus Christ His Son. 

Consider Paul’s point.  If we solved all of life’s issues by ourselves, we would be boastful and arrogant and think we wouldn’t need God at all.  (And we would create an even bigger mess because of our lack of knowing.  Been there, done that!)  Doing life our way is not a great relationship to have with the God of Creation, Our Father in heaven, the one who knows all and is in all, the One and Only who knows us by name and knows what is in our hearts as well as what is in the hearts of others.  It is most certainly not the relationship God desires with us.  He knows we cannot solve problems on our own, battle evil’s constant arrows, while walking the tightrope between good and evil.  We need Him.  And He is there.  Waiting.

God knew from the beginning of creation that we couldn’t save ourselves.  He knew we needed a Savior to redeem us from our sins.  He sent Jesus, His Son.  God knew we would need a Guide so He gave us His Holy Spirit as a gift to live in us to help us.  And there’s more…

ROMANS—OUR CARE AND CALLING

Romans 4

Trusting God

1-3 So how do we fit what we know of Abraham, our first father in the faith, into this new way of looking at things? If Abraham, by what he did for God, got God to approve him, he could certainly have taken credit for it. But the story we’re given is a God-story, not an Abraham-story. What we read in Scripture is, “Abraham entered into what God was doing for him, and that was the turning point. He trusted God to set him right instead of trying to be right on his own.”

4-5 If you’re a hard worker and do a good job, you deserve your pay; we don’t call your wages a gift. But if you see that the job is too big for you, that it’s something only God can do, and you trust him to do it—you could never do it for yourself no matter how hard and long you worked—well, that trusting-him-to-do-it is what gets you set right with God, by God. Sheer gift.

6-9 David confirms this way of looking at it, saying that the one who trusts God to do the putting-everything-right without insisting on having a say in it is one fortunate man:

Fortunate those whose crimes are whisked away,
    whose sins are wiped clean from the slate.
Fortunate the person against
    whom the Lord does not keep score.

Do you think for a minute that this blessing is only pronounced over those of us who keep our religious ways and are circumcised? Or do you think it possible that the blessing could be given to those who never even heard of our ways, who were never brought up in the disciplines of God? We all agree, don’t we, that it was by embracing what God did for him that Abraham was declared fit before God?

10-11 Now think: Was that declaration made before or after he was marked by the covenant rite of circumcision? That’s right, before he was marked. That means that he underwent circumcision as evidence and confirmation of what God had done long before to bring him into this acceptable standing with himself, an act of God he had embraced with his whole life.

12 And it means further that Abraham is father of all people who embrace what God does for them while they are still on the “outs” with God, as yet unidentified as God’s, in an “uncircumcised” condition. It is precisely these people in this condition who are called “set right by God and with God”! Abraham is also, of course, father of those who have undergone the religious rite of circumcision not just because of the ritual but because they were willing to live in the risky faith-embrace of God’s action for them, the way Abraham lived long before he was marked by circumcision.

13-15 That famous promise God gave Abraham—that he and his children would possess the earth—was not given because of something Abraham did or would do. It was based on God’s decision to put everything together for him, which Abraham then entered when he believed. If those who get what God gives them only get it by doing everything they are told to do and filling out all the right forms properly signed, that eliminates personal trust completely and turns the promise into an ironclad contract! That’s not a holy promise; that’s a business deal. A contract drawn up by a hard-nosed lawyer and with plenty of fine print only makes sure that you will never be able to collect. But if there is no contract in the first place, simply a promise—and God’s promise at that—you can’t break it.

16 This is why the fulfillment of God’s promise depends entirely on trusting God and his way, and then simply embracing him and what he does. God’s promise arrives as pure gift. That’s the only way everyone can be sure to get in on it, those who keep the religious traditions and those who have never heard of them. For Abraham is father of us all. He is not our racial father—that’s reading the story backward. He is our faith father.

17-18 We call Abraham “father” not because he got God’s attention by living like a saint, but because God made something out of Abraham when he was a nobody. Isn’t that what we’ve always read in Scripture, God saying to Abraham, “I set you up as father of many peoples”? Abraham was first named “father” and then became a father because he dared to trust God to do what only God could do: raise the dead to life, with a word make something out of nothing. When everything was hopeless, Abraham believed anyway, deciding to live not on the basis of what he saw he couldn’t do but on what God said he would do. And so he was made father of a multitude of peoples. God himself said to him, “You’re going to have a big family, Abraham!”

19-25 Abraham didn’t focus on his own impotence and say, “It’s hopeless. This hundred-year-old body could never father a child.” Nor did he survey Sarah’s decades of infertility and give up. He didn’t tiptoe around God’s promise asking cautiously skeptical questions. He plunged into the promise and came up strong, ready for God, sure that God would make good on what he had said. That’s why it is said, “Abraham was declared fit before God by trusting God to set him right.” But it’s not just Abraham; it’s also us! The same thing gets said about us when we embrace and believe the One who brought Jesus to life when the conditions were equally hopeless. The sacrificed Jesus made us fit for God, set us right with God.

THINK ABOUT IT…

Are we willing to live in pure trust in God, with a “risky faith-embrace” of God’s actions in us?  Am I?

Do we really believe what we know about God really real?  This is the foundation of our trust.  So, we need to take time to ask and evaluate the strength of our faith-embrace in the God who knows us, acts on our behalf because He wants His best for us. 

Do we believe in God?  Do we believe God?

Is our relationship only a business deal with God?  “God, if you do this for me, I’ll do this for you?” 

“The fulfillment of God’s promise depends entirely on trusting God and his way, and then simply embracing him and what he does.”  Pure Trust in God.  Nothing more.  Nothing less.

When everything seems hopeless, who do we turn to?  “When everything was hopeless, Abraham believed anyway, deciding to live not on the basis of what he saw he couldn’t do but on what God said he would do.”

The Plot twist in our lives happens when we believe, “anyway”, and decide trust God to do what only He can do.  That’s when God intervenes.  Our trust is His “go button” it seems to do what only He can do.  Trust God.  Embrace and believe God.

“The same thing gets said about us when we embrace and believe the One who brought Jesus to life when the conditions were equally hopeless. The sacrificed Jesus made us fit for God, set us right with God.”

Lord,

Thank you for Paul’s message of hope, trust, faith, strength all because of YOU setting things right.  Your story is all about You making us fit and setting us right through you, dear Jesus.  Thank you for wanting an intimate, growing, holy relationship with me.  Abiding in you as you abide in me only serves to strength my trust, hope and faith in You.  Thank you for your love, your unconditional love, that was the foundation of the plan to save me, to save all who believe, who really believe.

In Jesus Name, For Your Glory, Amen.  I believe.

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