Devotion for Monday after Last Sunday
Daniel 3:1-30 Revelation 20:1-15
Is this a devotion? Or is it more of just a blog post? Good question! It is about the Gospel of Jesus Christ and it will hopefully get you thinking.
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord and
Savior Jesus Christ.
I was privileged to hear a wonderful Gospel sermon at the
funeral of a pastor friend not too long ago.
Unfortunately, the Gospel that had been proclaimed was severely clouded
when a church official got up a few moments later and extolled the virtues of
this pastor. By the time he was done,
you would have thought that my departed friend could walk on water, still the
storm, and heal lepers.
I knew this pastor, and he was not without sin. I knew how his sin affected his family and
how they thrived richly on the grace of God. Their marriage and family life was
lived in the forgiveness they each received from Christ, and through Him, they
were able to forgive and love one another.
I also know that doubts about this man’s eternal well-being arose when
this man’s goodness was extolled and the focus was taken from Christ. His
family expressed doubts because they knew he wasn’t perfect, as His heavenly
Father demanded, and the church official seemed to indicate his place in heaven
was because of his goodness. What a damnable confusion to place this man’s
works (stained and corrupted by sin) as holding a higher place before the grace
of God, and downplay his sinfulness and the confidence that is the Christian
hope in the forgiveness won by Christ.
This got me to thinking, “What do I want people to say about
me when I die?” Some of the things that
came immediately to mind were:
He was a great fisherman.
He dearly loved his wife and family.
He always preached wonderful sermons.
He was a wonderful pastor.
He wrote great articles for his blog and occasionally for the newspaper.
You know what? There
are problems with every one of those statements, each of them glosses over
truth . OK, in some cases is spits upon
and obliterates truth. There are many
times I was fishing and came home empty-handed.
While I love my wife and family, more often than I’d like to admit, I
have been less than a stellar husband and/or father. Unfortunately, I’ve had my share of sermons
that were poorly crafted, or my heart wasn’t into the preaching of them. And to be honest, there are days I’d have
rather been a fisherman of fish, than a shepherd of the souls God has entrusted
into my care. There have been article that I wrote which appeared in this, or
another paper, which I wish I could have destroyed rather than published. (This isn’t one of them)
Simply put, I am chief of sinners – just like Paul. I may indeed have the right intentions. I do want to love perfectly, but… Paul said
it so well. So I find it to be a law that
when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of
God, in my inner being, but I see in my members another law waging war against
the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my
members. Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of
death? Thanks be to God through Jesus
Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with
my flesh I serve the law of sin. (Romans
7:21-25)
On that day when my body lies in the casket before my family,
friends, and the congregation assembled, I pray that nobody talks about how
good I was. Why? I don’t want my family
to have any doubts about where I am. I am not perfect, I am a stinker – rotten
from the core – a poor, miserable, sinner.
Instead, I pray that this might be said of me. “Todd knew the frailty of his flesh. He confessed His sin, He confessed he was
undeserving of God’s grace, and he trusted solely in Jesus Christ who took his
death into His own flesh and rose three days later to give unto Todd life
everlasting. As a pastor, he never led
people to trust themselves or in their own works. He faithfully pointed to Christ, the Lamb of
God who takes away the sin of the world. For it is by grace that he was saved
through faith; as a free gift of God, not of any works, of which no man may
boast. For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever
believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. (John 3:16) By a gift of God’s grace, Todd was
given by God to trust solely in Christ. Today, his Savior took this sinner to
heaven – thanks be to God in Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen.
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