What Would We Do if We Could Turn Back the Pages?
Good Morning Friends,
When I think of my life as a book I begin to recognize that the primary demand of the Christian faith is for repentance. When Jesus preached the Good News, He said… “Repent for the Kingdom of heaven is at hand.” We need to recognize the revolutionary significance of the primary demand these words bring for those seeking the Christian life. We need to realize that repentance is not a call to a remorseful way of thinking but an invitation to change one’s basic attitudes about God, self, things and others. We need to answer the basic questions…”Who is God” and “Who am I?” When I read the Bible the words never seem to come back empty. When I am reading the Bible in relationship with the Holy Spirit and the book that is my life, I begin to see how my thoughts have changed. The notes and dates in Bibles mark the journey for many. Here I discover that sometimes I was asking the wrong questions. And it is here in our hope that we are learning to think right about God that we find ourselves repenting….we find ourselves wondering, What Would We Do if We Could Turn Back the Pages?
Scripture: Seek the LORD while he may be found, call upon him while he is near; let the wicked forsake their way, and the unrighteous their thoughts; let them return to the LORD, that he may have mercy on them, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon. For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways, says the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts. For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return there until they have watered the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and succeed in the thing for which I sent it. For you shall go out in joy, and be led back in peace; the mountains and the hills before you shall burst into song, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands. Instead of the thorn shall come up the cypress; instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle; and it shall be to the LORD for a memorial, for an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off.
Isaiah 55:6-13 (NRSV)
Ah, you who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter!
Isaiah 5:20 (NRSV)
Formerly, when you did not know God, you were enslaved to beings that by nature are not gods. Now, however, that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God, how can you turn back again to the weak and beggarly elemental spirits? How can you want to be enslaved to them again? You are observing special days, and months, and seasons, and years. I am afraid that my work for you may have been wasted.
Galatians 4:8-11 (NRSV)
From that time Jesus began to proclaim, ‘Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.’
Matthew 4:17 (NRSV)
Message: Yesterday I was watching the season opener of Doctor Who, the iconic BBC Science Fiction series about a time lord and his companions. The plot line seemed to call out to today’s scripture from Isaiah 5:20. It is about spiritual discernment and direction. In the show, Davros, the creator of the Daleks plays a Satan-like character whose practice is to convince people that what is good is actually evil and what is evil is, in fact, good. But as I think about the show I become more convinced that there are some questions the Bible is not designed to answer. Friends, it is tempting to look upon the Bible as a book of answers that allows us to plug in a question and out comes an answer. It is not easy to have a balance of faith and reason. It is not easy to always get the ingredients right to come up with the right answers. One needs a relationship with Jesus. Turning back is not the way forward. But as I struggle with Jesus’ call to repentance and the call to be faithful, I am more convinced that what we are being offered is not an answer book but a new way of seeing and experiencing God in the tension of the question and in that an answer. And it is here I think and feel we can sense the sacrifice in every person. Here we envision the unfolding of a new way to respond to a world marked by violence and injustice. Here we reject the challenge to choose between the lesser of two evils. Here we embrace the possibility of lavish grace. Friends, too often we seem to be asking the wrong question. Our willingness to question our own life in the face our own death, with confidence and love, may be the best evidence we are living in the world but not of it. Here we walk in a place foreign to most of our thoughts but not God’s. How is your plotline playing out?
Pray we not be reluctant to repent. Pray we realize that thinking too much about the past leaves us powerless to get to where we need to be. Pray we not turn our back on the only one who truly knows us. Pray we not squander what others have invested in us. Pray we find the way to freedom and life. Pray we radically reverse our way of thinking about God and His demands. Pray we have a sense of urgency in seeking the Lord while He is still near. Pray our spirit is not hardened through unrepentant sin. Pray we do not deplete God’s patience. Pray that the brevity of life not catch us unprepared because of our refusal to face the fact of death. Pray with urgency because the Jesus that is our Savior is also the Jesus that will be our Judge. Pray we ask the right questions. Pray we submit to God. Pray we find answers by looking into each other’s eyes.
Blessings,
John Lawson
Daily Devotionals 