“The law of the Lord is
perfect, reviving the soul; the testimony of the Lord is sure, making
wise the simple; the precepts of the Lord are right, rejoicing the
heart; the commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes”
(Psalm 19:7-8)
My wife and I have been happily married for more
than seven years. We are very much in love, and we are also best
friends. I can think of no greater joy in this world than sharing some
adventure or even ordinary times with my Genevieve. Spending time
together is important, and we include the Lord in those precious times.
One of the activities we like to share each day is a
time of “devotions.” We simply make the time,
whenever possible; to bring Bible based written devotions into our lives
on an ongoing basis. Currently we are reading five of them each day: The
“Daily Guideposts,” “The
Life Recovery Devotional,” “Our Daily Bread,”
the “Upper Room,” and “Joy
for a Woman’s Soul.” I can testify that the latter one brings joy
to a man’s soul also. Best of all, we like to take a Book of the Bible
and share at least a Chapter a day, followed by prayer.
You may think you don’t have time for such things,
and some don’t have much, but most of us have more time than we
think. For some, including Scripture into their lives involves turning
off the television set, putting down the book, or making some other
similar sacrifice. You will give up some transitory pleasure or
another, in discovering anew or perhaps for the first time, that “The
law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul; the testimony of the Lord
is sure, making wise the simple; the precepts of the Lord are right,
rejoicing the heart; the commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening
the eyes” (Psalm 19:7-8).
As mentioned in previous studies and sermons,
Genevieve’s late husband, Bob Douglass, was my best friend. When she
lost him, I lost him, too. She remembers very well the devastating
emotions that attacked her in the loss of Bob, and also she recalls the
healing brought to her heart and life by Christian music, especially
music containing lyrics taken right out of the Bible. The Word of God
brought her through.
I had some dark years while living in Arizona. It
seemed like nothing worked out. If life could possibly fail for me, it
did, in surprising and disappointing ways. There was little money, but
every once in a while I would stop in a Bible book store that was on the
way home and buy some obscure cassette music tape from a barrel marked,
“fifty cents.” Those were the tapes that nobody wanted, but I found out
that several of them, obtained gradually through the years, were just
right for me. There was a Celtic tape, in which a woman sang, in Gaelic
and in English, words that were something like, “O
God of the harvest, God of the sea, include me in Your harvest and
catch me in Your net…” There was Handel’s “Messiah”
in its traditional form and also in the “Young
Messiah” version. In each case, the “Messiah”
is simply a presentation of various Scriptures, sung beautifully in the
style of 250 or so years ago.
As I drove home from another day of twelve hours of
work in a place that seemed to have no future for me or anybody else,
and crossed the dark Indian Reservation late at night, the Scriptures I
was hearing became real to me and blessed my very soul. I would survive,
as Genevieve was later able to do, because the Scriptures reveal so
eloquently that God is with you and me. And He delivers us, in
surprising ways and at just the right time.
As this sermon is given, we are three days into a new
year, a new decade, and we are ten years into a new Millennium that many
in my age group never expected to see. But here we are, together in this
troubled world, and it’s time to wonder, what kind of people are we
going to be? Every one of us has failed in some way or another. You can
never re-live yesterday again, or last week or the year before. The past
is an impenetrable barrier, whatever the wish of a science fiction
writer might be – we don’t and won’t go back in time. The future is not
ours to see, except we perceive the beckoning hand of our Savior,
calling from what, to us, is the end of time, into a new and better
beginning, right here and now.
What we can see and deal with to some extent is the
present and we need to see that we need the Lord and His Word in
our hearts and lives in a deeper way this New Year, or we will just
keep making the same mistakes we have always made.
Here’s some advice for the New Year from “Joy
for a Woman’s Soul,” and it should be noted that the title
continues, “Promises to Refresh Your Spirit,”
from Page 154 –“If we want to spread hope and joy,
if we want people to know our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, let’s stop
faking who we are. The only thing that’s separating them from us is that
we are forgiven. Our problems are no less tragic. Our lives no less
complicated. Our burdens no less heavy. For all of us life is mostly a
struggle to keep our weight down and our spirits up. The difference is
that Christians have Someone who will go the distance with them. In your
desire to share the gospel, you may be the only Jesus someone else will
ever meet. Be real and be involved with people. They may be closer to the
kingdom of heaven than you think. A good rule of thumb is to keep your
heart a little softer than your head! It’s in the darkest places, after
all, that the grace of God shines most brightly. That is where people
begin to see Him. By our scars we are recognized as belonging to Him.
Ask the Holy Spirit to help you be genuine in all your relationships.
And allow God to answer the world’s questions through your life”
– Barbara Johnson.
As Barbara Johnson says, “Let’s
stop faking who we are” in the New Year. I’ve often thought that
the real nature of humility is just being who we really are. No
pretense, no hunger to seem to be something else; just who we are, naked
in heart for all to see. And that is the only explanation for a parenthetical
statement about Moses, who was called “the man of
God.” In the Book of Numbers, in the midst of a recorded event
about a dispute between Moses and his siblings, Aaron and Miriam, (who
didn’t like Moses’ wife), we find these words inserted into the text: “Now
the man Moses was very meek, more than all people who were on the face
of the earth” (Numbers 12:3). This man from a pampered childhood
had been roughened by forty years in the wilderness. He could yell,
fight and be upset, and yet he was “meek,” a
word that is perhaps better translated as “humble.”
Moses was simply who he was, with no pretense at all.
And that’s my challenge to you for this New Year. Two
ideas, two concepts that will open your life to
the joy of the Lord. 1) Prayerfully study God’s Word, the Bible, using
devotionals or whatever other materials you might also need to help you
understand, for “the law of the Lord is perfect,
reviving the soul; the testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the
simple; the precepts of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart; the
commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes” (Psalm
19:7-8). Let His Word become more personal, more real to you than it
ever has before. And 2), Prayerfully, gradually become who you really
are. We don’t need the mask you have worn; what we need is you, created
by God to be exactly who you really are. God intends your life to be useful
and if you are pretending, you are offering the rest of us a poor
substitute. The Holy Spirit in you is beautiful. Take the risk of
letting Him shine from and through you this year. Let’s pray:
Father, use the words from Your Book, the Bible,
this year, to help me become the person You have always intended me to
be. Reach down deep into my pretense and heal me. Let Your light, Your Spirit shine
out of me into this world. Thank You. In Jesus Name. Amen.
