First Things First
Good Morning Friends,
Oh we would like to think we are good people but really if honest we should be ashamed of our own power. We are baptized by our vices and live in a battle between our pride and shame. In our impatience we would skip essential steps. It is the human condition and most would rather confess it to a bartender than a priest. Here we discover that we need handlers that do not eat souls at happy hour. Friends, if we are to serve the God of all History it takes a long time to work out our hangover of sin…40 years here, seven years there…it adds up beyond your lifetime and mine on this earth.
The problem is that we think we can do it quickly and that may or may not be God’s timing. So today I offer the sacrifice of a meditation in the hopes we get things in proper order…that we understand the nature of addictions, atonement and reconciliation and get First Things First.
Scripture: For I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes: first to the Jew, then to the Gentile.
Romans 1:16 (NIV)
Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony.
Colossians 3:12-14 (ESV)
In those days Hezekiah became sick and was at the point of death. And Isaiah the prophet the son of Amoz came to him and said to him, “Thus says the Lord, ‘Set your house in order, for you shall die; you shall not recover.’”
2 Kings 20:1 (ESV)
for you know very well that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night.
1 Thessalonians 5:2 (NIV)
“The tenth day of this seventh month is the Day of Atonement. Hold a sacred assembly and deny yourselves, and present a food offering to the Lord.
Leviticus 23:27 (NIV)
Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we boast in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us. You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God’s wrath through him! For if, while we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life! Not only is this so, but we also boast in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.
Romans 5:1-11 (NIV)
Message: Sorry for the fire hose of scripture but we are running out of time. Yom Kipper begins this Friday the 13th at sundown. It is the Day of Atonement. It is a test of self-control…confession. And frankly, one day a year does not seem enough. Of course, Christ’s sacrifice on the cross satisfied this cycle of sacrifice. That is, if we too sacrifice our old self on the cross too. That is the only way to be prepared. It all changes with a single word. I would like to say it is love but it is a special kind of love where a friend lays his life down for another. The word of the day is Propitiation. And I can hardly pronounce it. Yet it satisfies the one thing we all have in common…our need for righteousness. Too many try to do it on their own taking vodka shots for their sin. Their addiction is more visible to the world than ours. But make no mistake friends, all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. It is just too bad that liquor stores are open later than churches. No wonder a thief comes in the night. Here is the history. The image of atoning sacrifice for the Hebrew was the lid of the Mercy Seat of the Ark of the Covenant, housed in the Holy of Holies of the temple, symbolizing the presence of God on which blood was sprinkled once a year. The metaphor of atoning sacrifice is the same but the imagery changes for the Christian. The sacrifice that first came to the Jew now has the imagery changed to the cross of Jesus Christ, where God’s forgiving mercy annuls sin not temporarily but forever. Friends, there are no football games this Friday in Southwest Florida. Still I wonder how many this Friday the 13th will be at happy hour before sundown drinking gin for their sin. It takes a long time to build a Cathedral….it takes a long time to build a Temple in this body of believers. Someday there will be an accounting. Will you have your house in order?
Pray we realize we are dependent on God and for this love there is no substitute. Pray we realize that we need a refill more than once a weekend…once a year. Pray we do not substitute addictions. Pray our hostility and rebellion against God is forgiven. Pray we are reconciled to God. Pray we are transformed by the renewal of our mind, discerning the will of God for His good purpose. Pray Grace Triumphs. Pray we get our house in order. Pray we realize that for this to work our old self needs to be crucified with Christ. Pray as Christ prayed that it be God’s will not ours. Pray we realize that we are not appeasing an angry God but our own arrogance when we think we can save ourselves. Pray we realize that God’s Grace is sufficient.
Daily Devotionals 