Fresh Bread
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A few
years ago, Karla Faye Tucker became
the first woman executed in Texas
since the Civil War. While on death
row for a gruesome murder, she
experienced what appeared to be a
complete conversion to Christ. She
became a model prisoner and was even
forgiven by her victim’s family.
However, she was still given her
lethal injection.
We must
not miss the fact that accepting
Jesus does not always remove the
consequences of our sins, nor erase
the scars. The results of our sins
sometimes last beyond our
forgiveness. The salvation Jesus
promised to the thief on the cross
beside Him was freedom from the
penalty for sin, not from all its
temporal consequences. Jesus did not
take the thief down from the cross,
but He did save him. * In essence,
this thief was crucified with Christ.
*We can
thank God that in His mercy He
sometimes does altar our
circumstances and soften the
consequences of our bad choices.
For the
demoniac, the new life of following
Jesus began at a tomb. Paul
wrote about this death-rebirth
experience: “I have been
crucified with Christ, it is no
longer I who live, but Christ lives
in me; and the life which I now live
in the flesh I live by faith in the
Son of God, who loved me and gave
Himself for me” (Galatians 2:20)
What
does it mean to be crucified with
Christ?
As a
prank, a friend of mine sent me a
gift certificate for “One free
visit to the infamous Dr. Jack
Kevorkian.” This is the man who
is also known by the morbid moniker
“Dr. Death,” He is becoming
popular because many people are so
tried of hurting that they would
rather commit suicide than continue
living in pain.
In one
sense, a form of suicide is the
solution to following Jesus
successfully. It is not physical
suicide, but ego suicide. Paul wrote,
“he who has died has been freed
from sin” (Romans 6:7). Dead
people do not become offended or lose
their tempers. Dead people do not
behave selfishly or harbor bitterness
and grudges. Dietrich Bonhoeffer
observed, “When Christ calls a
man, he bids him come and die.”
Those
who are Christ’s have crucified
the flesh with all its filthy
passions and worldly desires.
“In the same way, count
yourselves dead to sin but alive to
God in Christ Jesus” (Romans
6:11, NIV). A.W. Tozer said,
The man
with the cross no longer controls his
destiny; he lost control when he
picked up his cross. That cross
immediately became to him an
all-absorbing interest, an
overwhelming interference. No matter
what he may desire to do, there is
but one thing he can do, that is,
move on toward the place of
crucifixion.
A pastor
was showing a fellow minister the
brand new cross his church had
sitting atop their steeple.
“That cross up there cost us ten
thousand dollars,” the minister
said, glowing.
“Well, then you got
cheated,” the other minister,
responded. “There were times
when Christians could get them for
free.”
To a man
seeking salvation, Jesus said,
“One thing you lack: Go your
way, sell whatever you have and give
it to the poor, and you will have
treasure in heaven; and come, take up
the cross, and follow me” (mark
10:21).
“The whole
multitude…asked Him to depart
from them, for they were sized with
great fear.” –Luke 8:37
A Storm of Fear
I
was amused to read that President
Benjamin Harrison and his wife were
so afraid of the new-fangled
electrical system installed in the
White House that they did not touch
the switches. If no servants were
around to turn off the lights when
they went to bed, they slept with the
lights on.
In the
stories of the crossing of the sea
and of the demoniac, everyone except
Jesus was entangled in fibers of
fear. The disciples were afraid of
the storm, only to become afraid of
Jesus when He calmed the sea. After
Jesus rebuked the storm, He turned
and rebuked the disciples for their
fear and unbelief. And there was
plenty more fear to go around. The
disciples were also afraid of the
demoniac. The demons were afraid of
Jesus. The pig keepers were afraid of
the possessed pigs, and the townsfolk
were afraid of Jesus.
By
calming the raging storm and the
raving madman, Jesus demonstrated
that he is Lord of all creation, of
both physical and spiritual worlds.
His actions brought peace and showed
that He has tremendous compassion.
What then do many of us fear?
For
several years, John Wesley, the
founder of the Methodist church,
doubted his own conversion even while
he worked tirelessly as a pastor. One
day he boarded a ship to cross the
Atlantic along with a number of
Moravian Christians. En route, they
encountered a terrible storm. All
hands were on deck as the vessel
reeled violently on the dark ocean
waves. Water was rushing in, and the
sails were ripping; yet these
Moravian families stood peacefully on
deck, singing hymns.
Wesley,
who was clinging, terrified, to the
side of the ship, asked, “Are
you afraid?”
One of
the men replied, “No, I am not
afraid.”
“Well,” asked a perplexed
Wesley, “are the women
and children afraid?”
The man
said, “No, we are not afraid to
die. Our lives are in God’s
hands.”
At that
point, Wesley became convicted that
he really did not have faith in God.
Not long after, the Prince of Peace
converted His heart. Later, Wesley
wrote, “He that fears God, fears
nothing else. If you do not fear God,
you fear everything else.”
Scripture says, “There is no
fear in love; but perfect love casts
out fear, because fear involves
torment. But he who fears has not
been made perfect in love” (1
John 4:18).
Christians who have a genuine faith
trust God regardless of external
circumstances. They know they have
nothing of which to be afraid,
because He is on the throne.
The Titanic
was built in Belfast, and of that
city took great pride in the mighty
vessel that was heralded far and wide
as “the unsinkable ship.”
When she
sank, sixteen members of a protestant
church in Belfast, all skilled
mechanics, went down with her. The
mayor said that the city had never
been in such grief as that which came
by way of the terrible tragedy.
Indeed, so profound was the grief
that it is said that when even the
most stoic men met upon the streets,
they grasped each other’s hands,
burst into tears, and parted without
a word.
On the
Sunday after the tragedy, a popular
American minister who was visiting
Belfast preached in the church to
which the sixteen mechanics had
belonged. The building was so packed
with people-not just church members,
but also lords, bishops, and
ministers of all denominations. The
sobbing of many newly made widows and
orphans filled the other wise silent
room.
The
great preacher took as his subject
“The Unsinkable Ship.”
However, he did not preach about the
eleven-story giant that struck the
iceberg. No, his message was about
that other “unsinkable
ship”- the frail little fishing
boat on the Sea of Galilee,
unsinkable because the Master was
asleep on a pillow in the aft of the
vessel. He said:
Thank
God, He [Jesus] still lives and rides
the billows and controls the storms,
and when the children of men take
their only true Pilot back on board,
they have nothing to fear. We will
ride out the present storms, and He
will bring the vessel through to the
fair harbor of our hopes.
God has
not promised to keep us out of storms
but, instead, to get us through them.
Though the Lord commanded the
disciples to cross the sea, He did
not guarantee them a calm passage.
Jesus might not prevent a storm from
striking at a ship, but He will not
let it sink the ship. If Jesus is in
the boat, we have nothing to fear. We
will reach our destination.
“He brought them
out of darkness and the shadow of
death, and broke their chains in
pieces.” -Psalm 107:14
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