Monday Morning Music Ministry

4-21-25

As we awoke this morning my wife asked me about the “to-do” list I had scribbled out the night before. Oh yeah. Let me see what was important last night and what I somehow forgot to remember but needs attention. Sometimes that happens to all of us.

Actually I can check several to-do lists, because I seldom throw things away. Sometimes I find old scraps of paper and notes like that. Oh, here’s one:

Friday.

After breakfast, clean up yard, take kids to game.

Noon. Join friends to watch the Savior of Humanity be nailed to a cross at Golgotha. Mock Him. Watch Him die.
Evening. Have dinner with friends.

Of course I am not quite that old, but this could have been my to-do list for that first Good Friday. It probably describes how many people spent that day. Sometimes I come face-to-face with the likelihood that the previous week I would have recorded that my activities, planned or unfolding, would have included praising this gentle Jesus as He entered Jerusalem, laying down palms and garments; watching as He rebuked money-lenders outside the Temple and challenged the religious Establishment; become convinced that He was dangerous and needed to be… executed. Watching Him be whipped until nearly dead. I would have spat on Him as He dragged His own cross to Calvary.

Sometimes I realize that of course I would have done those things. Everyone else did that Week. Am I any different? Are you?

If I had kept a diary, some notes after the Crucifixion might have noted:

Watched Jesus be nailed through the wrists and feet.

Watched the soldiers slam the mocking crown of sharp thorns on His head.

Heard Him moan in agony. Heard Him ask God to… forgive the soldiers.

Heard Him ask God to forgive me… all of us.

Then,

Saw Jesus look down through His sweat and blood and tears… at me.

Sometimes I know that is how my diary would have read. Because He did look down at me. Not a 2000-year-old story-version of me… but me, today, now, here. God’s only Son looked down on all of us in those moments, supernaturally at us all, in that crowd, across Jerusalem, around the world, through time to today.

Jesus suffered and died for all of us. Yes, He made eye-contact. He knew us. He knows us. He loves us. To those who believe He was and is the Son of God, and that He would be raised from the dead to conquer sin and death – Oh, what a to-do list and diary entries for Easter Sunday would have been like! – He promises eternal life with Him.

Well. Back to the present. Despite the truth, not a story, the Salvation experience does compress time and space. The Bible tells us that the pre-incarnate Jesus was the Person by whom the universe was created; that God is the Great “I am,” not “I was” or “I will be sometimes”; that Jesus is the same “yesterday, today, and forever” (Hebrews 13:8).

The only thing that changes in these realistic stories is me. Oh… and you: the everyday folks who plan their days, go about their business, take the kids to games, and casually watch the Savior of their souls be mocked, tortured, and killed.

How would your diary entries read?

What would your to-do list be like?

Two thousand years ago, or now, you still can fill out your to-do list. You still have things to do. If they include meeting His loving, forgiving gaze, and responding to Him… do that item on that list. Think on these things this weekend. Sometimes it causes you to tremble. Or it should.

“Were you there” when they crucified our Lord?

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Click: Were You There?

4-7-25

There is a Bible verse about rain falling on the just and the unjust alike (Matthew 5:5). King Solomon said that time and chance happeneth to all. Jesus says that the sun rises on evil people and the righteous alike, and rain – or misfortune – pours down on everyone. These are reality-checks, not notes of resignation. We are to be aware that not everything in life is specific to individuals, rewards or punishments on this side of Eternity, but rather that we must rise above our circumstances (yes, even look beyond blessings). And, importantly, that hope and redemption always are available to all.

Ultimately, these factors are all components of faith. When we are among the people who love God, accept Christ, and endeavor to do good, yet suffer misfortune, we affirm our humanity when we wonder, even for brief moments, why bad things visit us. Why? Why?

The hard answer is that there is sin in the world, a condition that transcends our righteous efforts, no matter how sanctified some folks might be. It is a world that God created, but that human nature has corrupted. Our charge is to resist evil, to be overcomers. As we travel life’s paths, we realize that God does not tempt us… but He does test us. This is not to play with us or our emotions; but it is to enrich our spiritual maturity, to strengthen our faith.

Some applications of faith come supernaturally. It is Biblical to not only exercise faith but to pray for faith, for an “increase of faith,” and to realize that the Holy Spirit was sent partly and specifically to gird our faith. God requires much of us. He has issued commands throughout human history. Jesus shared many lessons and “marching orders.” But faith is the virtual foundation-stone of communication with the Almighty, and receiving blessings.

This week I endured some “rain falling” in my life. Moving my household goods and a massive collection of rare books, original artwork by famous illustrators and cartoonists, complete runs of many vintage magazines and newspapers to the house I will share with my new wife Mickey, the moving van took a rainy highway exit too fast, rolled over twice, and spilled its contents. Not a stick of my furniture survived, and my archives spilled over the road and wet ground. It was a valuable archive that took a lifetime to assemble (and I am old). Friends try to reassure me – “it’s only paper”; “insurance might cover the loss” – but, signed first editions and such aside, that was my life passing before my eyes.

Yet what was catastrophic for me pales in comparison, I quickly remember, to life-altering matters I once shared. My late wife Nancy sustained health “challenges” all her life long: diabetes; celiac disease; five heart attacks; several strokes; cancer; amputations; a heart transplant; a kidney transplant; ultimately Lewy Bodies syndrome, a form of creeping dementia. “That all must have been hard on you,” friends again said, reaching for sympathy. Are they kidding? Even a spouse cannot fully comprehend such curses. In our case, everything I experienced were mere inconveniences… especially as I beheld her life of acceptance, optimism, witnessing to others. Faith.

Where does one find the kind of faith that, like peace, passes understanding?

An underlying message of all God’s instructions – the bedrock requirement of those who would be children of God – is that we have faith. Faith in God’s Word; faith in God’s promises; faith in revealed supernatural things. Faith is “the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen” (Hebrews 11). If you have never found these characteristics difficult, you need a check-up from the neck-up. It is why we plead for the Holy Spirit’s help in times of emotional need. Can we be so faithful on our own?

Remember, we are told that to be saved it is as simple in God’s eyes as confessing that Jesus is the Son of God and believing that God raised Him from the dead. Faith.

I wrote a message some time ago that I had the “Big C,” and many readers thought I meant Cancer. OK, I rattled some cages, but what I meant by the Big C was… Christ. Faith in Christ does not make us immune from life’s vicissitudes; but it gets us through them, and even triumph over them.

This week, these truths – the only, only sane manner by which to endure and triumph over life’s storms – were brought home to me in ways I have not felt since the crises of my family’s “challenges,” even more poignant than my archives’ recent calamity. Pastor Loren Larson, of Family Worship Center, Baton Rouge LA, returned to the pulpit after months of coping with brain cancer, cancer throughout his body, attendant disorientation and, naturally, emotional distress.

His message is remarkable, and is Must-See TV for anyone dealing with cancer, suspicious of having cancer, a relative of a cancer victim… or anyone experiencing any challenges – shaky faith, lack of faith, or difficulty in exercising faith. Brother Larson admits, freely, to “human moments” when his fervent trust and beliefs were undermined; when those still, quiet moments bring terror instead of reassurance.

As he shared with prayer partners in the message, many of the tumors are shrinking, though some remain. He retains faith in the God who heals; and trusts that prayer can move the heart of God. Still, Brother Larson cannot shake the “human moments.” He praises God – not only for the evidences of healing, but reaffirming the truth that faith can heal the soul as well as the body. What can he, and we, do but trust and obey? Faith.

Faith in God is essential in our daily walk. Having, myself, chosen it (and often pushed into the mode by the Holy Spirit!) I cannot imagine going through certain situations without it… whether the situation is a little misplaced document or an impending life-altering calamity.

Faith in God is not merely the best way to navigate life’s journey, but the only way. It is God’s provision for us to keep dry from the “rain.”

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Click: I Believe, Help Thou My Unbelief