Dear Fellow Children of God,
In Adult Bible Study last Sunday,
June 6, in our class on “Characters
of the Bible”, I taught on Noah. The
people of Noah’s time are described in this way, “5 The LORD saw how great man's wickedness on the earth had become, and that
every inclination of the thoughts of
his heart was only evil all
the time.” (Genesis 6:5) As
my wife says, “Things were REALLY bad!” Yet Noah was described as “a righteous man, blameless among the
people of his time, and he walked with God.” (Genesis 6:8) Somehow, Noah
separated himself from the sin of his day.
So, I asked
the class this question. “How can God’s
people seek to live righteous lives, and at the same time reach out to the
whole world with the love and forgiveness of God?” In many ways this is an impossible task for
us. My experience is that either God’s
children become judgmental and self-righteous, or we become permissive.” Jesus prays for us because we are “in the world,
but not of the world.” (John 17:13-16)
But our call to live in righteousness, yet to reach out with forgiveness is, to
a certain extent, impossible for sinners like us.
In my devotions on Wednesday, June
9, two of my readings touched on the topic of my question to the class. Even though we struggle with being both
righteous and mercifully forgiving, God does not struggle. Part of my devotions right now are readings
from Deuteronomy, and Wednesday I read chapter 4:25-31. God has called His people to righteousness,
to faithfully worship only the true Lord of all, to worship and serve only
Him. He tells them that, when they sin,
they will find themselves in exile and that they will end up worshiping idols
that cannot “hear or see or smell.” (Deuteronomy 4:28) Obviously such ‘gods’ are
not real and cannot help. Yet, in spite
of the fact that God’s people have sinned and rejected Him, He will not reject His
people. These are God’s Deuteronomy
words of grace and forgiveness. “29 But if from there you seek the LORD your God, you will
find him if you look for him with all your heart and with all your soul. 30
When you are in distress and all these things have happened to you, then in
later days you will return to the LORD your God and obey him. 31 For the LORD your God is a merciful God; he will
not abandon or destroy you or forget the covenant with your forefathers,
which he confirmed to them by oath.” (Deuteronomy
4:29-31). God is righteous and
forgiving, even if we struggle with both callings.
The Gospel reading for
my devotions on Wednesday was the well-known parable of The Prodigal Son, or
perhaps better titled, The Forgiving Father. (Luke 15:1-3, 11-32) You perhaps
know that in this parable, in this story with a lesson, Jesus tells of two sons
and a father. The youngest son asks for
his inheritance while the dad is living.
Then he leaves and squanders this gift.
In essence this younger son tells his dad, “I love your money more than
I love you. I wish you were dead. But since you’re still living, please give me
my money now.” When the younger son
falls on poverty and rough times, he returns home. The oldest son is angry and will not receive
this sinful, younger brother. Sometimes,
unfortunately, Christians act that way.
But, by contrast the Father welcomes his wayward son home with loving
arms. Paul Thielicke writes, “We must read and hear this gospel story as
it was really meant to be: good news!
News so good that we should never have imagined it. New that would stagger us if we were able to
hear it for the first time as a message that everything about God is so
completely different from what we thought or feared. New that He has sent His Son to us and is
inviting us to share in an unspeakable joy!” (For All the Saints, Volume
II, page 88.)
We struggle with our
Lord’s call to live righteously, on the one hand. In fact, we all fail in this effort because
of our wandering, sinful hearts. But, if
we nevertheless do seek to live in righteousness, even unsuccessfully, we also then
struggle with our Lord’s call to act in mercy and forgiveness. But, WHERE WE FAIL, GOD SUCCEEDS! God sent His Son who was born a human being,
and who did live a righteous
life. Jesus, this holy Son of God, who had
no sin of His own to pay for, surprisingly died to pay for the sin of the whole
world, for our sin. This loving Son of
God then rose from the dead defeating sin, and death, and hell, and He offers
eternal life to all who believe in Him. In
Jesus God is both holy and forgiving!!!
Back to that question
I asked in my Bible Class about Noah last Sunday: “How can God’s people seek to live righteous
lives, and at the same time reach out to the whole world with the love and
forgiveness of God?” We do so as we focus
on our Savior, on Jesus! God does call
us to live holy lives, but even in our best efforts we fail. Because of our failure, we need a forgiving Savior. Thankfully, our Loving and Forgiving Father has
reached out to us and saved us in
Jesus. So, the best answer to that question about how to live holy lives and to
also act with mercy. is that we do so with our eyes on Jesus, and we reach out
to others as fellow sinners who have found God’s mercy in our Savior.
My favorite fictional
pastor, Jan’ Karon’s Father Tim, often said, “If you keep your eyes on God’s
people you will always be disappointed.
But, if you keep your eyes on GOD, you will never be disappointed.” I pray that the unbelievable love and mercy
of our merciful and forgiving Lord, moves you to want to serve Him with lives
of humble obedience, and unbelievable mercy!
A Child of God,
Thankful that When I Fail, God is Impossibly Righteous AND Merciful!
Pastor Jonathan
P.S. St. John will again be hosting the Colony
Days Picnic THIS Saturday, June 12, preceded by an entry in
the Colony Days Parade.
This event is different this year
because of COVID. We are only serving
hot dogs, only serving individual bags of chips, individual condiments, and
individual water. We are, however, also
serving ice cream. The Colony Steel Drum
band is unavailable because of COVID. We are working on backup possibilities.
At the picnic, we will be inviting
folks to join us for outdoor worship the next day, and we will be offering to
pray with those who attend who attend the picnic. We are also receiving an offering to help
Family Promise. This is an opportunity
for growth as we serve our community and share Jesus’ love. Come and join us in this growth and service! J
Please call me at 841-4066 if you want to know how you can help.
P.P.S. THIS Sunday, June 13, St. John plans outdoor worship! The weather
forecast is awesome, but . . . please come at the normal times prepared just in
case. And please pray for the forecast
good weather. J
P.P.P.S. We have a member at St. John who has recently
lost housing. This regular attender has
applied for housing but none is currently available. She is looking for a place to stay or to rent
until housing is available. She does
have a cat. Please call the church at
745-3338 if you might have a place or know of a place for her to stay.
P.P.P.P.S. I keep working on our
yard and garden. Here are some new pictures from this past week. https://photos.app.goo.gl/iyMcmxDjLteBNEbY6
P.P.P.P.P.S J HOWEVER, I did get my boat back on
Tuesday. Here are some pictures of a
test run on Finger Lake with granddaughter, Annie! https://photos.app.goo.gl/eoYqWmCs3V5vwYAf6
*****
ABOUT THIS DEVOTION - I retired
at the end of August 2019 from serving as senior pastor of St. John Lutheran
Church in Palmer, AK. I was writing a weekly devotion previously
entitled, "Thoughts from the Pastor." When I retired
many asked me to continue writing these devotions. So I have continued writing. However, with life's changes I now call this
weekly devotion "Journeys Through Life as a Child of God."
Since I am no longer senior
pastor at St. John, I felt it right to only send this message to those who
asked to receive it. (Though I am now serving again part-time at St. John
as assistant to the pastor.)
Perhaps you also know that I “killed” my computer on November 7,
2020. In so doing I lost, for a time at
least, all my e-mail contacts. So, I was
really goofed up. Many who were
receiving this devotion each week were no longer receiving it. I tried to rebuild my distribution list, but
I am not sure how accurate I have been.
So, if
you stopped receiving these devotions and wondered why, now you
understand. And, if you are now
receiving these devotions and do not wish to receive them, please let me know,
and I’ll gladly remove your name from my distribution list. My e-mail address is jonrock53@mtaonline.net.
My
prayer is that these devotions help each of you in your daily walk with our Lord,
Jesus.
*******
Jonathan Rockey
Child of God
Husband, Father,
Son, Grandfather
Pastor Emeritus,
St. John Lutheran Church
E-Mail: jonrock53@mtaonline.net
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