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Do you know your place?  Are you naturally humble?  Or is it something you find difficult, maybe always preferring the visibility of a top job, a leading role, being that go-to-person, or the king (or queen) of the hill? 

The minute you start thinking about displaying humility, you’ve already lost.  Humility is not a contrived action or attitude.  You can’t manufacture it or fake it.  It comes from the wisdom of knowing our place.

The Apostle Paul, in his masterpiece of Bible explanation, writes, Romans 12:1 Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God– this is your spiritual act of worship. 2 Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is– his good, pleasing and perfect will. 3 For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the measure of faith God has given you.

In view of God’s mercy.  Pleasing to God.  Worship.  Who’s King of the hill and King of kings and Lord of lords?  God.

What’s our place?  Do not conform to the world’s ways because God’s ways are higher and better.

How was Paul able to be a leader, a brilliant scholar, an accomplished apologist, the most powerful writer of the majority of the New Testament and yet be so humble?  On the Road to Damascus (Acts 9:1-22), he’d learned his place.  He was completely broken and humbled and realized the unmistakable, unchangeable, unrestrainable power of God.  When God has done that to you, it’s a lesson you never forget.  Humility is the wisdom of knowing our place.

Do you know yours or are you still partnering with the world?

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Lord Jesus, thank You for the grace and humility You displayed during Your time on earth, even as You were the most powerful leader this world has ever known.  Remind me always that the power of even a 3-year ministry can be life-changing for another human being so long as we know our place of continually pointing to You.

If fear of God is the beginning of Wisdom and Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and the Life, then knowledge, true knowledge, is the wisdom of acknowledging the truth.

Perhaps one of the saddest statements in all the Bible is about Jannes and Jambres.  (Who?)  Yeah, I know. They’re mentioned only once (2 Timothy 3:8), but these two are forever identified for the historical record as opposing the truth.  Learning, learning, learning. 

Always learning but never able to acknowledge the truth.  Isn’t that sad?

Do you know people like that?  I do.  They might have a list of degrees as long as my arm.  They may be able to spout chapter and verse of the Bible even.  Their heads may be full of facts and figures and history and peer-reviewed articles.  They may be able to speak and read multiple languages.  They may have a brain full of high IQ knowledge, but none of that knowledge has made it through the toughest 12-inch journey of discernment … from the head … to the heart.

The Bible tells us this is a sign of the last days.

2 Timothy 3:1 But mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days. 2 People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, 3 without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, 4 treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God– 5 having a form of godliness but denying its power. Have nothing to do with them. 6 They are the kind who worm their way into homes and gain control over weak-willed women, who are loaded down with sins and are swayed by all kinds of evil desires, 7 always learning but never able to acknowledge the truth. 8 Just as Jannes and Jambres opposed Moses, so also these men oppose the truth– men of depraved minds, who, as far as the faith is concerned, are rejected.

As if rejection in the faith wasn’t bad enough (and that’s eternally bad), these guys go down in human history as not only opposing the truth with depraved minds, but everyone knows it.  2 Timothy 3:9 But they will not get very far because, as in the case of those men, their folly will be clear to everyone.

Don’t be like those guys.

Paul says, 2 Timothy 3:10 You, however, know all about my teaching, my way of life, my purpose, faith, patience, love, endurance, 11 persecutions, sufferings– what kinds of things happened to me in Antioch, Iconium and Lystra, the persecutions I endured. Yet the Lord rescued me from all of them. 12 In fact, everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted, 13 while evil men and impostors will go from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived. 14 But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have become convinced of, because you know those from whom you learned it, 15 and how from infancy you have known the holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.

It’s not a matter of how much or even what subjects you know, except one subject:  it’s Who you know.  The best kind of knowledge is the learning that makes you wise for salvation through faith…the wisdom of acknowledging the truth.

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Father God, please help us in these last days before Your Son Jesus returns, for us to remain strong and faithful.  Preserve us in Your truth.  Keep us from being deceived.  Help us to continue reading the Scriptures and moreover, to keep believing them.  Remind us at all times than an accumulation of secular news is no match for the investment of storing up Your Word in our hearts and looking to You for wisdom.  Discipline our minds so we will not be deceived by the arts of the evil one who is running unleashed upon our world.  We ask Lord for Your continual reminder that You conquered death on the Cross.  No adversary can stand against You.  No power is greater than Your own.  Keep our eyes fixed, awaiting Your return.  Keep us safe, Lord, by the power of Your Holy Spirit.  Amen.

John 14:1 “Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me.”

Don’t you love that?  You can almost hear the gentle, yet authoritative, voice of Jesus as He reassured His disciples then and His Word ministers that same wisdom to His disciples today.

Watch the nightly news (or worse 24/7 arguing heads who used to be “talking heads” but no one ever just talks anymore) and it’s easy to have a troubled heart. 

Jesus says “Don’t.” 

Trust is the Wisdom of Intentional Reliance on God.  In confusing times (and none were probably more confusing than when Jesus was telling the disciples He was leaving them, going away), it can feel like we’re adrift on a sea of uncertainties.  There’s no one we can trust, no solid ground for our feet, nothing sure except death and taxes and that’s all that’s on the news.

But into that whirlwind of conflict, Jesus calms. 

He speaks peace. 

Jesus says to trust Him.

On any given day, I’d like to throw in the towel on social media, except the Internet is my workplace for both theology and sewers (yes, but let’s not talk about that given many recent days of rain).  It gets disillusioning watching the country and people I love descending into insane conflict—divided, deranged, and destructive.  I want Jesus to calm my storm, and so He says His peace. 

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John 14:1 “Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me.”

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Thank you, dearest Jesus, for being humble and gentle, strong and willing to carry the burdens of our lives all the way to the darkest places: the earth, the Cross, and the tomb.  Thank You for rising from the grave to give us hope and reason to display the wisdom of relying upon You.  Help me to trust You with my life, my whole life.  Help me to give You this world I cannot carry on my shoulders, this world absolutely out of control.  Nothing is too hard for You and everything is too hard for me apart from You.  You have told us that persecutions are coming so we’d be prepared, but never without reminding us that You are supremely faithful.  You are worthy of our trust and our love.  Hold my gaze upon You when temptations are legion to look elsewhere.  You alone have the words of eternal life.  You alone are the Way, the Truth, and the Life.  Give me eyes, Lord, to see.  Give me ears to hear Your words of Wisdom so that I can trust You with my whole heart. Amen.

Part of the ongoing debate in the public square that is never mentioned is that we do not have the complete picture, only a part: selective stories, fragments of information from our slice of social interaction and media consumption.  We only have partial information about many things about which only God knows the complete story and how it unfolds.  Sometimes, the thing—if tomorrow’s fuller knowledge were known today—would change the way we view it. 

I’m reminded that among Jesus’ last words before His ascension, Acts 1: 7 “He said to them: ‘It is not for you to know the times or dates the Father has set by his own authority. 8 But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.’ 9 After he said this, he was taken up before their very eyes, and a cloud hid him from their sight. 10 They were looking intently up into the sky as he was going, when suddenly two men dressed in white stood beside them. 11 ‘Men of Galilee,’ they said, ‘why do you stand here looking into the sky? This same Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come back in the same way you have seen him go into heaven.’”

Jesus didn’t say the date or the time.  He said, “It’s not for you to know.”  It’s none of your business.  Live with the mystery since it keeps you humble.  It keeps you waiting.  It keeps you watching.  It keeps you hungering for more to go on.

Max Lucado, one of the Christians who couldn’t keep his judgments silent in recent months, somehow forgot the point of a fable he writes about called the Woodcutter’s Wisdom and the important lesson about patience with earthly judgments and holding the fragments of knowledge loosely lest they break in our hands.  I’ll link to the fable here  and reprint the text below.  It’s a long fable, but worth the read.

I’m reminded every day that I must look to the Author of all Wisdom and allow myself to live with the mystery…the things I don’t know, the things I can’t know, and instead, to remember the Simple Truth that there’s Wisdom in a well-placed agnosticism, and a willing acceptance that I just don’t know, I can’t know, and I won’t know until some other day that God has determined is the right time.

1 Corinthians 13:12 Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

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Lord Jesus, please help me to accept the mystery of Your return, of Your Kingdom, and of the way You work all things for our good and Your glory.  When things seem out of control, when things make no sense, please help me to show the greater part of wisdom in holding fragments of knowledge loosely, being content with what You have chosen for me to know.  Grant that I should listen and look to You, seeking the wisdom of Your Holy Spirit to discern the times as You see them, and avoiding the so-called wisdom of our times however much sense they might make in fragments.  Protect my heart, my mind, and my spirit.  Guard it in Jesus Christ my Lord, Amen.

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As told by Max Lucado, “The Woodcutter’s Wisdom”.

Once there was an old man who lived in a tiny village. Although poor, he was envied by all, for he owned a beautiful white horse. Even the king coveted his treasure. A horse like this had never been seen before—such was its splendor, its majesty, its strength.

People offered fabulous prices for the steed, but the old man always refused. “This horse is not a horse to me,” he would tell them. “It is a person. How could you sell a person? He is a friend, not a possession. How could you sell a friend?” The man was poor and the temptation was great. But he never sold the horse.

One morning he found that the horse was not in the stable. All the village came to see him. “You old fool,” they scoffed, “we told you that someone would steal your horse. We warned you that you would be robbed. You are so poor. How could you ever hope to protect such a valuable animal? It would have been better to have sold him. You could have gotten whatever price you wanted. No amount would have been too high. Now the horse is gone, and you’ve been cursed with misfortune.”

The old man responded, “Don’t speak too quickly. Say only that the horse is not in the stable. That is all we know; the rest is judgment. If I’ve been cursed or not, how can you know? How can you judge?”

The people contested, “Don’t make us out to be fools! We may not be philosophers, but great philosophy is not needed. The simple fact that your horse is gone is a curse.”

The old man spoke again. “All I know is that the stable is empty, and the horse is gone. The rest I don’t know. Whether it be a curse or a blessing, I can’t say. All we can see is a fragment. Who can say what will come next?”

The people of the village laughed. They thought that the man was crazy. They had always thought he was fool; if he wasn’t, he would have sold the horse and lived off the money. But instead, he was a poor woodcutter, an old man still cutting firewood and dragging it out of the forest and selling it. He lived hand to mouth in the misery of poverty. Now he had proven that he was, indeed, a fool.

After fifteen days, the horse returned. He hadn’t been stolen; he had run away into the forest. Not only had he returned, he had brought a dozen wild horses with him. Once again the village people gathered around the woodcutter and spoke. “Old man, you were right and we were wrong. What we thought was a curse was a blessing. Please forgive us.”

The man responded, “Once again, you go too far. Say only that the horse is back. State only that a dozen horses returned with him, but don’t judge. How do you know if this is a blessing or not? You see only a fragment. Unless you know the whole story, how can you judge? You read only one page of a book. Can you judge the whole book? You read only one word of a phrase. Can you understand the entire phrase?

“Life is so vast, yet you judge all of life with one page or one word. All you have is a fragment! Don’t say that this is a blessing. No one knows. I am content with what I know. I am not perturbed by what I don’t.”

“Maybe the old man is right,” they said to one another. So they said little. But down deep, they knew he was wrong. They knew it was a blessing. Twelve wild horses had returned with one horse. With a little bit of work, the animals could be broken and trained and sold for much money.

The old man had a son, an only son. The young man began to break the wild horses. After a few days, he fell from one of the horses and broke both legs. Once again the villagers gathered around the old man and cast their judgments.

“You were right,” they said. “You proved you were right. The dozen horses were not a blessing. They were a curse. Your only son has broken his legs, and now in your old age you have no one to help you. Now you are poorer than ever.”

The old man spoke again. “You people are obsessed with judging. Don’t go so far. Say only that my son broke his legs. Who knows if it is a blessing or a curse? No one knows. We only have a fragment. Life comes in fragments.”

It so happened that a few weeks later the country engaged in war against a neighboring country. All the young men of the village were required to join the army. Only the son of the old man was excluded, because he was injured. Once again the people gathered around the old man, crying and screaming because their sons had been taken. There was little chance that they would return. The enemy was strong, and the war would be a losing struggle. They would never see their sons again.

“You were right, old man,” they wept. “God knows you were right. This proves it. Yours son’s accident was a blessing. His legs may be broken, but at least he is with you. Our sons are gone forever.”

The old man spoke again. “It is impossible to talk with you. You always draw conclusions. No one knows. Say only this: Your sons had to go to war, and mine did not. No one knows if it is a blessing or a curse. No one is wise enough to know. Only God knows.”

Ratchet.  Ratchet.  Ratchet.  You can almost hear the tension rising, the volume increasing, the angst manifesting, the anger boiling, and the politics becoming more and more and more divisive.  This is not from God.  And yet, you’d never know that given the talk of Christians—well-educated, high-profile, nationally-known pastors, and political figures disguised as men of the cloth.  Hand-in-hand with darkness, they’re marching and protesting and denouncing their fellow man. 

To such men, I’d ask 2 questions: 

Are you in the place of God to judge another man’s heart? 

Have you forgotten James 3:8 But no man can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison. 9 With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse men, who have been made in God’s likeness. 10 Out of the same mouth come praise and cursing. My brothers, this should not be. 11 Can both fresh water and salt water flow from the same spring?  

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It’s a Simple Truth: the wise watch their words because it is their witness. 

Am I angry?  Yes, I am.  I’m angry at the witness these Christians (so they claim) are making to the culture.  What it’s doing to the Lord I love.  Do they not care about Him?

They seem to have forgotten the clear admonition from Ephesians 5:15 Be very careful, then, how you live– not as unwise but as wise, 16 making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil. 17 Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the Lord’s will is.

There are positives Paul outlines: being very careful, wise, good stewards, and seeking to understand God’s will. 

There are negatives: unwise, evil, foolish.

Over the next few devotionals, I’m going to be exploring Simple Truths about Wisdom.  In them, I’m calling Christians, myself included, back to our first love and to the role God has given us…not to be foolish, unwise, evil, agitating adversaries of one another, but to be disciple-makers, teaching biblical truth, and modeling love and unity for the world.

Two words can test your heart on this:  Donald Trump.

Do you care more about him than about Jesus?  I know this is painful.  What do your words say?

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Father God, please send your Holy Spirit to examine my life.  Psalm 139: 23 “Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. 24 See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.”  Lord, help me to honor You in everything I say and do, remind me at all times that my brother and sister in the family of man and in the family of God has been made in Your Image.  Keep me from sinning against You when there’s temptation of a 24-hour news cycle to view everything as politics, deceiving me into fear or judgment or unbelief in Your sovereignty.  Give me ears to hear clearly and willing hands to do as you command Luke 6:27 “But I tell you who hear me: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you.”  Remind me to pray for my enemies as well as those with whom I agree.  Help me to speak Your Word boldly and with great wisdom in this age.  Amen.

While the Simple Truth is that God doesn’t need to be invited into an event to show up, I believe God likes it when we invite His presence.  It’s not required for an omnipresent God, after all, He’s already there if He wants to be, but it is desired by Him and bears fruit for us when we desire it too.  It shows that we honor God, we remember Him, and that we hold ourselves and our conduct to a higher standard, one worthy of His being among us. 

In a day and age where political actions have become coarse, vulgar, an opportunity to oppose and resist and hate our fellow man, I believe Christians especially are admonished to maintain their witness no matter how tempting Satan might make it to make politics our god. 

I watch with a great deal of sadness at people I used to respect for their Christian beliefs fall into this trap, confusing and conflating politics with faith.  National organizations, pastors, churches, seminarians, it doesn’t matter how educated or reputed one is.  The bigger they are the harder they fall away and all the more witness is lost!  And worst of all, Christ and eternity bear the heavy brunt for their failure to listen to and obey Jesus’ command: “Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s” (Matthew 22:21).

I was especially honored when a good friend of mine asked me to write an invocation that would be appropriate for the Republican Assembly of Lake County, IL (RALC).  Given our current climate of politics, I thought you might like to read the invocation I wrote.

Will you please bow your head as I open our time with a moment of prayer?
Eternal Father, Loving God, Creator of everything, and Author of grace everlasting, we invite Your presence upon our gathering today. 

May we find during our time together, a common good, a greater purpose, and many productive means to bring glory to You.  May we be united in heart and mind as we lift our prayer into a realm we cannot see.  We seek Your guidance for the realm in which we live with its daily challenges to our moral trajectory as a nation; assaults upon what we know to be right; ridicule for our belief that life is every bit as precious in the elderly as in the unborn; and relentless threats chipping away at the Constitution, yet we hold it dear because we believe the Founding Fathers had wisdom, Lord, that came from You. 

We trust, Father, that Your Word is true when You said,  “Everyone must submit himself to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God” (Romans 13:1). Therefore let us hold our heads high and do Your will gladly. As You have said in teaching us how to pray, that Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.  Let it be our aim and our hope.

You remind us to give thanks for our daily bread and we ask Your blessing upon the food we will receive.  Bless the hands which prepared it.  Bless our conversation with goodness worthy of Your hearing.  Bless our bodies and strengthen us for the work You have prepared for each of us to do.  When we see mountains beyond our ability, Lord, help us to remember Your Word spoken through Your prophet Zechariah :

‘Not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit,’ says the LORD Almighty. Zechariah 4: 6  

You remind us that mighty mountains will become as level ground.  You take the foundation and complete what You begin, aligned with Your truth.  You remind us not to despise the day of small beginnings as You are the same God who can part any sea, still any storm, and multiply what little we can supply.

We give thanks for the callings upon our lives and may we each welcome any task You give, doing it in Your strength and with all gladness.  You are good, Lord; and we thank You for remembering this nation and for preserving the freedom we have to seek You in life and in prayer.  Bless us now, I pray, honoring Your Holy Name.  Amen.

He and I couldn’t have been more different, but we found middle ground at a gas station’s grassy parkway somewhere in Georgia.  He was traveling south from Shakopee, MN and I was traveling north from Florida.  He had ear piercings and multiple tattoos, spiked hair, and was wearing a Bad Wolves shirt as he got out of his rental van and extinguished his cigarette.  I had just paused “All Things Are Possible” from my CD of Hillsong Christian music as I got out of the car into the sweltering heat to stretch my legs.  He was moving his family down to help with his grandmother’s medical needs as she journeyed toward requiring hospice.  I was heading home after time doing some renovations and being with family.

As I spoke with him over his convenient beagle, having offered him some cold bottles of water, he opened up and told me his story. (I’m one of those people who experiences this a lot.)  I told him he was doing a beautiful thing, moving with his family to help family.  A way to live life with no regrets. 

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We talked matters of life and death and when one of his family members returned to the van, I said that one of the benefits of having hope in Christ, in eternal life, is that death isn’t the end—it’s a new beginning.  I quoted the Reverend Billy Graham about his death (which was actually re-quoted from D.L. Moody about Moody’s death), 

Someday you will read or hear that Billy Graham is dead. Don’t you believe a word of it. I shall be more alive than I am now. I will just have changed my address. I will have gone into the presence of God.” 

The woman who had just gotten into the van, having heard this part of the discussion, looked at me with misty eyes and a gentle smile that seemed to say something beyond sentiment.  Perhaps they’d been talking about that very thing.  Perhaps she’d been witnessing to the man from Shakopee.   Perhaps those words set the stage for the next leg of the journey and the discussions they’d have about Jesus and eternal life.  Perhaps they’d bring a message of hope from Shakopee and a Georgia gas station to the destination in Florida.

He loaded his beagle.  I got back in my car to head home with hours to drive and a mind and heart full of travel musings and pondering the surprising intersecting ways of God.  Every rest area in Georgia had been closed.  What gives, I thought!  I still needed a break so I stopped early to get gas for the car.  I had no idea that it was an opportunity God knew I wouldn’t have wanted to miss.

Colossians 4: 2 Devote yourselves to prayer, being watchful and thankful. 3 And pray for us, too, that God may open a door for our message, so that we may proclaim the mystery of Christ, for which I am in chains. 4 Pray that I may proclaim it clearly, as I should. 5 Be wise in the way you act toward outsiders; make the most of every opportunity. 6 Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.

One final look at the Sabbath.  There are people in the assembly, the church, the synagogue in need of healing.  Who among us is completely whole and without any brokenness all the time?  Jesus never layered an expectation of perfection upon people who gathered to worship.  They could come just as they are and learn the Simple Truth that a Sabbath blesses the whole man. 

Do you know it when you observe a Sabbath as the healing for your mind, your heart, your spirit, and your body?

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Matthew 12:9 Going on from that place, he went into their synagogue, 10 and a man with a shriveled hand was there.

(All kinds of people show up at institutions of worship for all kinds of reasons.  Some need healing.  Some are there for reputation and appearances, putting on a mask of a cleaned up life made for TV or public consumption.  But doesn’t putting on an act speak of a deeper brokenness and worse, a prideful unwillingness to accept that they too are broken?)

Matthew 12:10b  Looking for a reason to accuse Jesus, the Pharisees asked him, “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath?” 11 Jesus said to them, “If any of you has a sheep and it falls into a pit on the Sabbath, will you not take hold of it and lift it out? 12 How much more valuable is a man than a sheep! Therefore it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath.”

More than just verbally teaching about the Sabbath, Jesus gave an object lesson that drove a veritable wedge to display that He means what He says about the Sabbath.  Is the Sabbath a day for legal bean counting of personal righteousness … or is it a set-aside from the daily grind to acknowledge God in our midst–a wonderful, benevolent, all powerful, almighty God whose love is so great He cares about the big and little things of our lives?  Matthew 11:28 “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.”  That’s the Sabbath.  We can humbly lay it all at His feet.

Matthew 12:13 Then he said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” So he stretched it out and it was completely restored, just as sound as the other. 14 But the Pharisees went out and plotted how they might kill Jesus.

It’s sad that the Pharisees preferred their legalistic view of Sabbath adherence to a different kind of Sabbath meant for the health and benefit of the whole man: body, soul, and spirit. 

What kind of Sabbath do you need?

For the pastor, theologian, or Bible teacher who reads about Sabbath, our challenge is double: reading Scripture is not only dependence upon God, but it’s work.  We cannot read the Bible as our nighttime reading for relaxation and meditation without it turning our minds back on.

(Barbara, maybe it’s just you…)

OK, maybe it is just me. I’m a walking anomaly, totally unable to compartmentalize my life and my Scripture reading into “Today it’s relaxation on the Sabbath. Tomorrow it’s study and it’ll be work.”

I am encouraged reading that Jesus healed people on the Sabbath.  His teachings about the Sabbath include the grainfield and picking grain to eat, but I love how His example in teaching about the Sabbath is helpful—directly so—for people like me. 

When questioned about lawfulness of the actions of the disciples and the Sabbath, Matthew 12: 3 Jesus answered, “Haven’t you read what David did when he and his companions were hungry? 4 He entered the house of God, and he and his companions ate the consecrated bread– which was not lawful for them to do, but only for the priests. 5 Or haven’t you read in the Law that on the Sabbath the priests in the temple desecrate the day and yet are innocent?

(Hold on.  Let that sink in.)

The priests in the temple desecrate the day and yet are innocent. 

How can that be?

6 I tell you that one greater than the temple is here. 7 If you had known what these words mean, ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice,’ you would not have condemned the innocent. 8 For the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath.”

Jesus quotes Hosea 6: 6 For I desire mercy, not sacrifice, and acknowledgment of God rather than burnt offerings.

Acknowledgment of God is better by relationship than by geography or inaction because Jesus IS God and He is among us. 

One can keep the Sabbath without desecrating it by acknowledging God’s righteousness. When we’re Sabbath working, promoting God’s gospel, and proclaiming our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, we’re actually honoring Him as Lord of the Sabbath!

On this Memorial Day weekend, I wish to remind all of us that freedoms in the United States of America were bought and paid for with the blood and lives of fellow Americans.  These heroes made the ultimate sacrifice of love, after all “Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13).  Even friends generations down the road who might forget … to remember … the sacrifice.

At the risk of inflaming the Internet trolls who have criticized my patriotism and written hate mail, today I remember the sacrifices of the fallen soldiers who have preserved my right, given by God, to be a Christian witness in this country. 

• My right to share the Gospel without fear of being boiled alive in acid or having my head severed. 
• My right as an American woman to dress as I please and to receive an education. 
• My right as an American woman to speak publicly and to inspire both women and men to live the Risen life.  
• My right to freely speak and freely think.  Not every nation welcomes the freedom to peacefully disagree and even protest, or to stand on the street corner soap box and proclaim the Name of Jesus.

On a day and a weekend too many people view as for picnics and barbecues or even as Veteran’s Day the Spring Edition, I choose to remember…and to say “Thank you” to those who are watching from heaven whose ears may never have heard those words while alive,

Thank you for sacrificing your life so I could be free.” 

I love you and I remember.