The Hopelessness of Sin 

Recently, Martha and I were discussing a sermon I was preparing for a revival. Sermon topic: sin. It was a rousing conversation, taking the better part of an afternoon. The way these things go, if I were preaching on love, I’d be tempted to be unloving at some point during study time. If I were preaching on patience, we would inevitably have to go to Dallas during rush hour traffic. So this time we were studying sin. Now, we’re in that part of spring/summer where we’re putting off turning the air conditioning on for as long as possible. It doesn’t seem like summer if you can still have the windows open and hear the birds singing. So we were sitting there studying, trying to pretend that it wasn’t just a *bit* warm, and that we weren’t just a *bit* sticky, and that the birds singing were making up for the discomfort we were pretending not to have. Having experienced just a bit of that makes it so much easier to understand how the Civil War started. You raise the temperature just a little bit, and everybody becomes on edge. So having been reading the Bible passages on sin and studying about sin, and thinking about sin all afternoon, we finished up the afternoon with a light skirmish, and both sides retreated, vowing to install the air conditioner pronto. 

If you can’t relate to this woeful tale, I both admire you and am a little disgusted by you. The point is driven home to us every day. We want to do right, to be patient, kind, loving, wise, merciful… and just when it seems we’re making serious headway, the temperature rises a degree or two, and we find ourselves humbled and exasperated by sin. Solomon said “Surely there is not a righteous man on earth who does good and never sins.” (Ecclesiastes 7:20) Before salvation it’s like sin is the water we swim in — after salvation, the humid air we try to air condition. We’re surrounded by it, outside and inside. 

In post-Christian America it’s hard — even for Christians — to adequately and accurately articulate the nature and definition of sin. If you look up “sin” in the dictionary you will find the definition something like this: “An act that is perceived to be a transgression against a divine law.” 

To me that definition lacks a lot, but just three main things immediately jump out at me. 

1. Sin is not just an act. It’s a desire. Jesus said that sin is “from within, out of the heart of a man…”, that if you look at a woman to lust after her in your heart, or if you hate in your heart, you have become a sinner. 

2. The phrase “Perceived to be.” Sin does not have to be perceived. We sin everyday and it may not even cross our minds as having been sin. 

3. Also, this is so open ended because it doesn’t look to a specific religion for what constitutes a sin. Buddhists and Muslims have what they consider sin and they can differ greatly and have nothing necessarily to do with truth. 

Now here’s a Biblical definition of sin: 

1 John 3:4 

Everyone who makes a practice of sinning also practices lawlessness; sin is lawlessness. 

James 4:17 

Whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin. 

Romans 14:23 

…whatever is not of faith is sin. 

There’s not much comfort from the Bible when I look for justification for my sin. It was “just” an unkind word… but they weren’t being kind either! “Just” a sigh… that I knew would hurt someone’s feelings. “Just” impatience… because I was tired. But all I see in the Bible is that it was unkind. It was hurtful. It was impatient. It was sin. I knew the right thing to do, and not only failed to do it, but did a wrong thing instead. 

Amid all my attempts to justify and downplay my sin, the cross looms up, forever keeping me from taking my sin, any sin, lightly. That selfishly unkind word was the sin for which the perfect, sinless, spotless, second person of the Trinity, the only begotten of the Father, the one who sustains all things by the word of His power, the one who was in the beginning with God… in short, it was the sin the Lord Jesus Christ himself had to die for so that I could be forgiven. My sin offends God, in the same way that a child molester’s sin offends me, or a murderer’s sin offends me, or a terrorist’s sin offends me. I just have a far lower standard for what I see as truly offensive, as compared to God's standard. And just as that child molester could never do anything to make that offense right, I can’t do anything to make my offenses right. 

Micah 6:6-7 

“With what shall I come before the LORD, and bow myself before God on high? 

Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves a year old? 

Will the LORD be pleased with thousands of rams, with ten thousands of rivers of oil? 

Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?” 

So, everyone is a sinner, sin is lawlessness, not doing the right thing, not believing God, and no one can atone for himself. If that is not the darkest picture imaginable then we don’t know what a hopeless situation looks like. 

And I think that’s where we’ll leave it for now. It’s not exactly a cliffhanger, because likely you know what comes next, but Paul spends 7 chapters in Romans going over exactly how bad off we are before he reaches the glories of Romans 8. And Romans 8 would not be nearly as glorious if we couldn’t look into the bleakness of the previous 7 chapters first. 

Thankful to be in Christ, 

M&M

Give Us This Day Our Daily Bread 

MILES & MAR'S DEVOTIONAL - VOLUME XIX 

Let’s be real y’all. Sometimes writing this devotional is not that easy. There are times we’ve already been thinking on a subject or really diving into a text or passage and the ideas flow pretty freely. All that’s left is editing. 

Then there are times like this where we are strung out with 384 things on the to-do list and it’s just another reason to be depressed about how much there is on the to-do list. So I was scrounging around for a subject to write about and three days later had bupkis. Got to stressing about it a little and so Martha suggested that I pray about it. 

So…guess what we’re going to talk about. We’re gonna talk about prayer. 

This is quite possibly the last subject in the world I’m qualified to talk about. I myself do not feel like any type of “prayer warrior.” I do not wear holes in my jeans and have two knee sized divots in the floor by my side of the bed. I do not make it a point to never miss the prayer meetings and sometimes The National Day of Prayer passes by without me knowing it until someone mentions it the following week. 

Matter of fact the times in my life where I fell by the side of my bed in prayer have either been because I was in mental anguish at the end of my rope or I just decided I wanted to earn some spiritual brownie points that week. Then there are those times when I’ve been getting in bed and decide that I sincerely want to bring a petition before the Lord for someone in need whom I love. I begin to pray and I am so happy to be talking with the Lord… then all of a sudden He gets a dial tone on His end and the next thing I know, it’s morning. These are not the brighter moments in my Christian experience. 

And while we’re being honest, I have a tendency to think better of myself when I hear other people pray ritualistic or even nonsensical prayers out loud in churches. Ok, so I might have just lost some of you there because I know that none of you do that. “What kind of person is this guy anyway? Judging other people’s prayers!” 

Now that I have officially convinced the majority of you that you never need come to this old sinner’s concerts any more, let me just assure you that I do pray. Obviously, I need the Lord’s help badly! However, I have a LONG way to go in developing my prayer life. This study is as much for Martha and myself as it is for anybody. 

My prayer life mostly centers around those times when I am in the moment and I don’t have time or ability to take the iconic “kneeling, hands together pointed skywards, and eyes respectfully closed” pose. Maybe I’m in the middle of some stressful predicament and just have no other recourse, no words, no ideas, and little hope of it ending well — in Dallas rush hour traffic with Martha driving and…(she’s a perfectly wonderful driver, but the other people are psychotic) I don’t need to break out loudly into a prayer in that moment about how God controls all things and something pertaining to how this is working for our good and tribulation worketh patience. Martha would have every right to wreck at that point. 

That’s when Paul comes to my rescue: 

1 Thessalonians 5:17 
Pray without ceasing. 

Now that might mean that God wants me to hole up in a monastery somewhere and forsake life as I know it, or maybe that every Christian should be a babbling robot wandering around in society, or just maybe… that we are to maintain a constancy with God where He is our first recourse and not our last when we are in a pinch, or tired, or happy, or sad, or just blah. 

There must be more to this than what meets the eye. 

I love what happened when the disciples asked Jesus to teach them to pray. If I had been there and asked Him that, I would have had a lot of expectations. I mean, seriously, this is the guy who tells me that if I ask God to remove mountains, He will do it for me. So that being the case, I’m expecting Jesus to whip out His brand new book “7 Keys To Living The Miraculous Life” or “Your Best Prayer Life Now” or something. That just proves that I’m human and Jesus is divine. 

He begins… 

Our Father in heaven - This is the hinge on which prayer turns. If God is not my Father, then I have no confident expectation that God hears my prayer, much less will answer it. If I am not God’s child, I am an enemy of God, not a member of the family. If I am God’s child, I know He hears me, no matter what. 

Hallowed be Your name - The underlying desire of prayer is to see God’s name proclaimed holy and vindicated. The proof is in the puddin’, so to speak, so I may call God “Father,” but if I don’t care about His honor and His glory — if I don’t love Him — I’m no child of His, no matter how much I say “Lord, Lord.” 

Your kingdom come - Honestly, this is a scary thing to pray. Before I was married, it was “Lord, Your kingdom come, but not before I get married.” When we have children it’ll be “Lord, Your kingdom come, but not before my children are right with You.” Then it’ll be “not before my grandchildren are right with you.” But no, there’s no exceptions. Your kingdom come, and come quickly Lord Jesus. And until that day, rule and reign in all that I have any influence over. It’s not mine. It’s Yours, and I trust You. 

Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven - Christ is chipping away at my preconceptions about prayer one by one. It’s not about who I am, it’s about who God is. It’s not about my honor, it’s about God’s honor. It’s not about my kingdom, it’s about God’s kingdom. It’s not about my will, it’s about God’s will. I’m coming to God, filled with my issues and my wants and my hurts, and Christ says “Come, all who are weary and heavy laden and I will give you rest.” But that rest is found in seeing my life through the lens of my relationship with God, His character, and His kingdom. Before Christ ever gets to any sort of personal petition, He’s telling me to lay my will on the line and ask for God’s will to be done, even if God’s will is at cross purposes with my own. 

(Now we get to the good stuff — the part where we ask God to work on our behalf and see great and mighty things done. Oh boy! And Christ has told us we can ask anything we want, so this is going to be really juicy. I’ve been waiting for this!) 

Here we go: 

Give us this day our daily bread - So really, I’m thinking at this point that God doesn’t have much of a vision for the future. I mean, how about give us this day my yearly IRA contribution or give us this day our daily taxes (love this time of the year) or ….  fill in the blank. But no. Give me, just for today, breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Give me, for today, what I need. I don’t need tomorrow’s need met today. Although… the deadline for taxes will be “today” before we know it, Lord. Just throwing that out there… 

And forgive us our debts - I love the line from that old hymn “Come Thou Fount” that says “Oh, to grace how great a debtor, daily I’m constrained to be.” Because the thing is, I’m asking for not only daily bread, but daily forgiveness and cleansing from sin. And I need the daily cleansing from sin just as much if not more than I need my daily bread. 

As we also have forgiven our debtors - This makes the previous part conditional. If I am not willing to forgive when I have been forgiven so much, then I am to expect that my Father will discipline me. Why? Because I am not the sole recipient of my Father’s love. He loves ‘my debtors’ too. And if He loves them, I am to love them. 

And lead us not into temptation - Another line from “Come Thou Fount” is “Prone to wander, Lord I feel it. Prone to leave the God I love.” How true that is. And we will learn it, either by God leading us into experiences where we learn our weakness, or by us knowing and acknowledging our weakness every day — Lead me not into temptation, Lord, because I am so prone to wander. Keep me from failing You. 

The Holy Spirit not only cleanses me from sin, but also helps me identify it and keeps me from it. The closer I get to the Scriptures and the more I hide it in my heart, the more readily I will be kept from it - “Thy Word have I hid in my heart, that I might not sin against Thee.” 

But deliver us from evil - I as a Christian am not to fear the work or power of the enemy, but I am to be the first to recognize that I am a new creation in Christ, but still living in a fleshy carcass. I need God’s power and help to overcome evil both inside myself, and outside. 

For Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory forever - Everything that is, was, or ever will be is God’s domain, all the power to transport us from sin to righteousness is His work, and in the end there will be no glory attributed to me. It all is His. 

Ok, so that’s as far as I’ve gotten with this. Is there more to prayer? A lot more. Do I have a long way to go? All the way until I die. Will I mess up along the way? Probably before this day is over. Does God hear when I pray according to what I know to be true about Him and with the purposes of His Kingdom in mind? 

You bet. 

Keep praying, 

Miles & Mar

The Christian's Reaction to a Broken World 

Miles & Mar’s Devotional - Volume XVIII


With the explosion of violence over the last few weeks with Paris, Colorado Springs, and San Bernardino generating massive amounts of headlines, I felt maybe we should look at what the Bible says is the Christian’s reaction in this broken world. 

First of all, surprise should not be our reaction. To say that things are just now starting to get worse is to be ignorant of or to ignore history. During the bulk of humanities 6,000 years of history, the majority of the world’s population has lived in oppressive times. To list the number of manmade atrocities like wars, tyrannical governments, and genocides would be nothing less than depressing and far too time consuming. WWI was supposed to be the war to end all wars and yet WW2 claimed 70 million lives. Abortion statistics alone show that since 1980, 1,357,168,881 babies have been murdered in the womb worldwide. Man’s sin has left death, destruction, pillaging and chaos in its wake. So surprise should not be our reaction. Shock? Horror? Grief? Indignation? Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. But surprise that the enemy of our souls is making good on his goal to “steal, kill, and destroy”? No. 

How, then, should Christians react to mass killings and senseless murder? What is the right response to acts of terror? What is our stance in regard to refugees from countries who are beheading people of other faiths?

I believe there is a duality to our response. We should be compassionate to the victims and feel heaviness for the souls of the perpetrators of these heinous acts. Martha and I have been memorizing Luke 6, in which Jesus tells us “Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.” While it may be hard sometimes to out of a heartfelt sincerity to truly wish for the welfare of someone who is deserving of all the weight that the penal system can deliver, the fact is that none of those who are in Christ will ever pay for the sinful acts that we have done. Justice has been done, but not upon us. Christ has paid our debt in full. In that light, we should respond with prayer and forgiveness in our hearts toward the perpetrators, and with compassion and shared sorrow with the victims — (Romans 12:15) “Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep.”

The other side of the Christian heart should be a longing and a crying out for God to come and judge justly. I believe the imprecatory Psalms are there to help balance this out. David, seeing the wickedness around him, is infuriated because men are bowing before dead idols, children are being sacrificed to false gods, and the wicked seem to be prospering as they swallow up the weak. He’s praying and longing for the justice of God’s wrath to bring it to an end: (Psalms 7:6) “Arise, O LORD, in your anger; lift yourself up against the fury of my enemies; awake for me; you have appointed a judgment.” In Revelation 6:10, the martyrs in heaven cry out “O Sovereign Lord, holy and true, how long before you will judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth?”

God has a dual reality in His feelings toward this unrighteous world and it’s system. Read Ezekiel 33:1-20 where God declares that He “has no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live; turn back, turn back from your evil ways, for why will you die, O house of Israel?” Here God is declaring that He does not enjoy meting out judgment, but yet they refuse to turn.

Verses calling for God’s justice and speaking of God’s wrath are often hard to swallow — not because we have trouble understanding them, but because we are living in a world that is losing its moral compass and the concept of sin today has become vague and subjective, even nonexistent. But if God is righteous, He must judge evil in every form and every degree. Holiness requires its day in court. 

Men have need to beware lest in pity for the sinner they condone the sin,
or relax the struggle against evil.

A. F. Kirkpatrick 

We must show unconditional love, exhibit mercy, extend compassion, and demonstrate the gospel of grace with every fiber of our being. However, we must equally desire the demise of sin and evil, the vindication of God's righteousness and justice, and the culmination of all that we are promised at the return of Christ. 

May we find the balance and clarity of thought that we need in these times so that we can make a difference for the kingdom of our Lord. May He come in fire and judgment to make all things right (Isaiah 66:15-16), but while we wait, may we do as Jude says and “save others by snatching them from the fire.”

In Christ,

Miles & Martha

Silence in the face of evil is itself evil... 

MILES & MAR DEVOTIONAL - VOLUME XVII


Having finished going through the Beatitudes, Mar and I were debating what to write about next. Then the Planned Parenthood undercover videos came out. We both felt that we had to do whatever we could to actively stand against this organization and the practice of abortion.

Some may consider this a political subject, but this is a moral subject and morality does not get its power from legislation, but from the Lawgiver. In this case, it is even more connected because the Lawgiver is also the Lifegiver. God has called human life precious, sacred, and gave commandments that reveal His mind on these issues all through Scripture. Just one for instance, if you hit a woman who was pregnant and the baby died, then you were guilty of murder (Exodus 21:22-25). 

My generation came after the abortion question was ‘answered,' so I’ve never known a society without it and was somewhat used to the concept. It's wrong, but people are going to do it, so what do you do? I say this to my shame. Now to hear people say it’s "kinda cool” as they poke at the beating heart of a defenseless human baby -- it sickens me and makes me see the horror of abortion that I had not seen or felt before.

Indignation is cheap. Anyone can get bent out of shape. There is no great moral capital in human anger. It comes easy. But the absence of anger (and sorrow) in some cases is a sign of a disordered heart.
~ John Piper

We are called in Proverbs 24:11–12 to:

Rescue those who are being taken away to death; hold back those who are stumbling to the slaughter.
If you say, “Behold, we did not know this,” does not he who weighs the heart perceive it? Does not he who keeps watch over your soul know it, and will he not repay man according to his work?

Here is a video that really stirred me about this issue. If you watch one linked video in this email, this would be the one.

Our government is funding Planned Parenthood to the tune of 500 million dollars a year. The media has done a really bad job of covering this story, but there have thus far been six undercover videos about Planned Parenthood selling fetus parts for profit, not fully informing the mothers, and changing procedures to harvest parts intact for sale. Here’s a quick breakdown...

1. Deborah Nucatola, Planned Parenthood’s director of medical services, discussing the potential of selling aborted babies’ body parts for profit, while enjoying a salad, “We’ve been very good at getting heart, lung, liver, because we know that, so I’m not going to crush that part, I’m going to basically crush below, I’m going to crush above, and I’m going to see if I can get it all intact.”

2. An abortionist discussing prices for the organ harvesting while joking about wanting a Lamborghini. (Planned Parenthood is not supposed to get any compensation beyond reimbursement for cost from research companies.)

3. An interview with an ex-procurement technician Holly O’Donnell from the company StemExpress detailing retrieving specimens and harvesting organ parts for a percentage.

4. Inside a Planned Parenthood Clinic, this video shows Colorado medical director Dr. Savita Ginde identifying fetal parts in a dish - heart, stomach, arms. At one point, she says, “Another boy!” 

5. Melissa Farrell, director of research for Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast discusses altering abortion procedures to meet specific needs and the cost of “intact” fetuses. 

6. An interview with former StemExpress technician from video 3, Holly O’Donnell, discussing harvesting the brain from an aborted fetus with its heart still beating. 

More videos have been released just this morning and probably more coming.

Now, if you are still reading by this point, then please don’t stop now because I want this in context. 

In four decades we in America have made legal the deaths of 55 million babies. To help put that into perspective, most of us have been to an event that boasted 1,000 people…now multiply that number of people by another 55,000. Now imagine a nuclear bomb destroying the population of New York City, Dallas, and Houston…you would not even reach half. Think of it as over nine Holocausts or 18,333 9/11s. How is a sacrifice of an unborn baby to the god of "It's my right", or the god of "It's my body" any different from baby sacrifices to pagan gods of old? How can the fact that the baby is still in the womb make it ethical? 

If you were standing on the side of the street and could save someone from being hit by a drunk driver, but you didn’t because you just don’t want to get involved, were on the way to an appointment, or knew it would mean you’d have to make a statement to the cops, then that would mean you are not a very good person. There ya go. May as well say it.

Here we are at this crossroads in our history where the skeletons are out of the closet and to do nothing would be to indirectly take part in it. Romans says, “though they know the judgment of God that those who do such things are worthy of death, they not only do the same, but give approval to those who do them.” If you desire every human life, and yes, even your life to have value, then do not give approval to this by your lack of action at this time when it is possible to change the laws and reclaim this loss of national conscience.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer lived in a Nazi German camp until he was martyred by them and he said,

“Silence in the face of evil is itself evil:
God will not hold us guiltless. Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act.”

Here is a link that will lead you to your representatives so you can contact them. Maybe by the time you finish reading this ten minutes have passed…maybe you’ll watch one of the videos I linked and that will take a few minutes. Maybe by the time you contact your representatives you may have spent a total of an hour of your day. In this microwave society, anything that takes more than five minutes tends to lose our attention, myself included, and that is a shame.

I could go into a long tirade about where this logic will ultimately lead us in regard to post-birth abortions, euthanasia, and how in America those who were considered mentally inadequate in the early 1900s were quarantined and castrated, but I won’t. This is about what IS happening and Martha and I were both strongly convicted about believing what we believe, but yet having said nothing about it publicly until now. May this spur you on as well to stand for truth and make a difference and be salt and light. (Matthew 5)

In conclusion, as someone who knows people who have had abortions, I am familiar with the pain, shame, and trauma that comes with it which can last for years afterwards. But as a Christian, I also know that God is faithful to forgive us of any sin when we ask with a repentant heart. I have been forgiven more than my share of things that I still regret. There is no hate in me for those who go to abortion clinics or those who callously perform them day by day. There is only pity and an urgency to call them to Christ to meet the giver of life.

Let’s be the church and pull the helpless ones out from in front of oncoming destruction and call those who are drunk at the wheel to repentance.

Miles & Mar

Blessed Are The Persecuted 

MILES & MAR DEVOTIONAL - VOLUME XVI

We're in Matthew chapter 5, studying the Beatitudes.

Seeing the crowds, he went up on the mountain, and when he sat down, his disciples came to him. And he opened his mouth and taught them, saying:

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.

Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.

Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.

Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.

Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.

Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

Oh boy! Blessed are, (read: “happy are”) the persecuted. Does that not seem slightly disingenuous to say in this American culture where Christian values have for the past 250 years been the crux of our nation’s moral grounding? To many in the church the idea of “the persecuted” immediately brings to mind the long gone days of lions in the coliseum and Nero burning Christians as lights in his garden. But persecution of God's church is far from dead in this modern age, though it's not very newsworthy according to the media's standards.

There is a logical progression in these eight simple statements, and this is the culmination of all the others. When the kingdom of God is evident within His saints, then the world will respond with some form of persecution. When that starts happening, Jesus says here that you are not only blessed, but that you should rejoice and be glad on top of it, for great is your reward in Heaven! 

Here in America, “blessed are the persecuted” is rapidly coming into focus in a new way. All you have to do is pay attention to the news and you can easily see the growing hostility toward those who actively profess their faith. It’s still ok to have faith, but keep it to yourself and don’t dare preach it publicly or you might just find yourself like the elderly Christian couple in Idaho that are facing 180 days in jail + $1,000 fine for every day they refuse to marry a homosexual couple. There are children being prohibited from writing Merry Christmas to the soldiers, senior citizens being banned from praying over their meals in the Senior Center, the VA banning the mention of God in military funerals, numerous attempts to have veterans memorials torn down if they have any religious symbols such as a cross, and I could go on and on and so could you. The developments just over the past decade border on the absurd.

I will soon be thirty and I am seeing things I never thought I’d see in my life in the land of the free and I am certain that many of you that have seen more water go under the bridge are experiencing even greater culture shock. You realize it’s a whole new world when you think that for the entire history of the world it was deemed impossible not to have some level of belief in God... then the Age of Enlightenment and Darwinism made it possible not to believe... and now all of a sudden we are looking at a new majority whose leaders and thinkers deem it impossible for an intelligent person to believe. 

So here we are, the church, in the big middle of a nation absorbed with Darwinism, humanism, materialism, Freudianism, hedonism, and every other ism, schism, and heretical movement at odds with the truth claims of Christ and scripture. This truly is a blessed place to be for Christ’s church. America’s congregations have long been rocked to sleep by ease of passage, lulled by a sea of nonspiritual activities, and have squandered their time and efforts attempting to keep the waters calm by becoming culturally relevant and inventing a non offensive message. “Great is your reward in heaven” has been replaced with “Great is your reward here on earth.” “Lay up your treasures in heaven” has been replaced with “Build bigger barns so that you can store up enough to be able to enjoy your life now to the fullest.” And in a reality check for myself, when I see these things happening in my homeland, my gut reaction is not even close to being happy, rejoicing, and being exceedingly glad. It's not an obvious thing, this rejoicing when persecuted. 

I love what the writer of Hebrews says in chapter 12,
"He has promised, “Yet once more I will shake not only the earth but also the heavens.”
This phrase, “Yet once more,” indicates the removal of things that are shaken—that is, things that have been made—in order that the things that cannot be shaken may remain. Therefore let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, and thus let us offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming fire." 


It's when the world around us shakes that we can best see through it to that which cannot be shaken -- the eternal kingdom that we have received and that we are a part of. Listen to Paul in 2 Corinthians 4 --
"We do not lose heart -- though our outer man is decaying, yet our inner man is being renewed day by day. For this momentary, light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison, while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal." 

Let us resolve to rejoice as our Lord commanded and be exceedingly glad. Our momentary, light affliction here is preparing for us, and preparing us for, an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison. Truly we are blessed beyond all measure.

Miles & Martha

Blessed are the peacemakers 

Miles & Mar’s Devotional - Volume XV


Be sure to look back to the earlier devotionals to catch up if you are a new addition. We're in Matthew chapter 5, studying the Beatitudes.

Seeing the crowds, he went up on the mountain, and when he sat down, his disciples came to him. And he opened his mouth and taught them, saying:

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.

Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.

Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.

Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.

Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.

Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

Isn’t it funny what the word “peacemaker” brings to mind? A Colt single action army handgun; the Convair B-36 bomber aircraft; an early name for the MX missile. How many wars in the history of the world have been fought for the purpose of making peace? We see attempts on all sides to make peace — peace between genders, peace between races, peace between countries, peace between religions, peace between political parties. In most cases, we could say with Jeremiah, “They have healed the wound of my people lightly, saying, ‘Peace, peace,’ when there is no peace” (Jeremiah 8:11). 

Martha and I started reading through the Bible together with the new year’s beginning and of course reached Cain and Abel on day 2. That account is such an insight into the human condition after the Fall. Just a few short years after God made everything very good, man falls, and in the first pair of brothers — and some say they might have been twins because of the Bible’s wording — in that first pair you find the first murderer and his first victim. Not much has changed in the intervening years. The world cries out for peace, peace! but there is no peace.

Something I used to read through without much attention in order to get to the good stuff is the “howdy” at the beginning of each epistle. Romans 1:7 — “Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.” All the letters to the churches contain this exact phrase or some rendition of it. Peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Peter says in Acts 10:36 that the good news is peace with God through Jesus Christ. He’s not just talking about a feeling of tranquility within our souls. He’s talking about an actual peace with God through Jesus Christ where once there was war.

Christ Jesus is our peace (Ephesians 2:14). There is no other source of peace. Christ accomplished peace, not by putting someone else on the cross, as a human solution would do, but by putting himself on the cross. He did not take up a weapon in his own hand to force peace upon a people violent by nature, but allowed them to take arms against him and murder him, that by his sacrifice, those who were violent could be made into peacemakers themselves. He is our peace. 

The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree and as God makes peace, so do His true children. Christ's ultimate goal, as should be ours, was to make possible a peace first between God and man, and then between man and man.

This is so perfectly illustrated in the life of the Apostle Paul, one of the very first persecutors of the church. A modern day equivalent would perhaps be a leader of ISIS — one who is radically, violently against Christianity and against Christ. When confronted with his sin, Paul repented and was transformed into a powerful preacher of the Gospel of peace. Listen to his words in 2 Corinthians 5:17-21:

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. 

This is the business of being a peacemaker -- calling others to surrender their flag of rebellion against the King of Heaven. Then, and only then, can they find find peace within their own souls and with mankind in general.

Peace out,

Miles & Martha

Blessed are the pure in heart 

Blessed Are The Pure In Heart

Be sure to look back to the earlier devotional to catch up if you are a new addition. We're in Matthew chapter 5, studying the Beatitudes.

Seeing the crowds, he went up on the mountain, and when he sat down, his disciples came to him. And he opened his mouth and taught them, saying:

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.

Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.

Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.

Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.

Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.

Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

At the halfway point in the Beatitudes, there’s a shift. The first four are inner heart attitudes, all characteristic of those who follow Christ. We realize we are poor in spirit, totally undeserving of God’s mercy and grace. We mourn over our sin and our broken humanity. We stop demanding our rights from God and from others, knowing that God will take care of us. We hunger and thirst for the righteousness of God — to know Him and His ways better. This is where the shift takes place in the Beatitudes — the inner man is being renewed in the first four, and the results of that renewing are shown in the last four. The first result is mercy — coming to the aid of those who are in need, no matter their relationship to us. This time, we’re looking at what Jesus means by “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.”

This idea of purity was nothing new to Jesus’ audience. All their lives, the importance of physical purity in order to be right with God had been drilled into their heads. The idea of purity of the heart is equally emphasized, if not more emphasized in the Old Testament, but the easy thing to do, the human thing to do is to focus on what we can do ourselves — keep hands washed, don’t be in contact with Gentiles, don’t eat pork, etc. Christ, when He came, constantly highlighted the error in this kind of one-sided thinking. “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of the bones of the dead and everything unclean” (Matt. 23:27). 

In stark contrast to this way of thinking, Jesus says, “Blessed are the pure in heart.” Anybody can make his hands look pure, but like Prov. 20:9 says, “Who can say, “I have made my heart pure; I am clean from my sin?” The truth is that sin has stained each one of us, and the definition of the word Jesus uses here translated pure — “katharos,” means un-stained. Never, ever having been stained in the first place. 

Consider David’s prayer in Psalm 51 after his sin with Bathsheba:

Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love; according to your abundant mercy blot out my transgressions.
Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin!
For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me.
Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight, so that you may be justified in your words and blameless in your judgment.
Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me. 
Behold, you delight in truth in the inward being, and you teach me wisdom in the secret heart.
Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.
Cast me not away from your presence, and take not your Holy Spirit from me. 
Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and uphold me with a willing spirit.

He did not ask God to look at all the good things he had accomplished to weigh against his sin like we so often do. He called on God’s steadfast love and abundant mercy to give him a clean heart knowing he had earned neither. His conscience pricked by the light of God’s perfect law kept his sin ever before him. So when confronted by the prophet Nathan, he does not ask God to withhold chastening, but rather he recognizes that his sin was not ultimately against Bathsheba, her husband, their baby, or Israel, but ultimately against God.

This sensitivity to sin is a result of having been given a pure heart. A pure hearted person is ever developing a sensitivity to the sin in their own life because as they mature in the knowledge of the Scripture, the ugliness of their sin is more and more evident. I think where most of us find ourselves on a regular basis is summed up in Psalm 73:

Truly God is good to Israel, to those who are pure in heart.
But as for me, my feet had almost stumbled, my steps had nearly slipped.

As the writer of Hebrews says, “we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet he did not sin. Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need” (Hebrews 4:14-16). Now, because of Christ’s sacrifice on our behalf,  we can come confidently before the throne of grace to ask for mercy again and again. What a difference from before! And the difference is not that God has become less holy and more approachable. Rather, the difference is in us — in our position in Christ. 1 John 1:7 says, “If we walk in the light as He Himself is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin.”

If your life is characterized by light — striving to live as Christ lived, that is evidence of a pure heart. A clean heart before God through Christ, and a desire for an intimate knowledge of what pleases and hurts the heart of God is proof of sonship.

What is the promise for those who have trusted in Christ for their cleansing?  “They shall see God.” That is mind blowing! With our current physical eyes we cannot physically view God, but with a pure heart, we can see His workmanship in creation, detect His guidance in our lives, and discern His purposes in the midst of our times of trouble. We can also see Him through glimpses of the church, through whom He expresses His nature, goodness, and love. More than that though, with glorified bodies at the coming of our “great God and Savior Jesus Christ,” we shall see Him physically, face to face. Jude says He will “make you stand blameless in His glorious presence with great joy!” 

May we ever strive to increase in our purity and devotion to our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, in 2015.

In Christ,

Miles & Martha

Blessed are the merciful 

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.

Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.

Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.

Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.

Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.

Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

What a pleasure it is to once again feed upon God’s Word as we continue our trek through the beatitudes. I hope you have found this study to be a fresh look at this very well known and often very misunderstood section of our Lord’s teaching. Several months ago we started all the way back at “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” And here we are now — poor in spirit, repentant, meek, and hungry for God’s righteousness. Those first four beatitudes were inner attitudes. Now the rest of the beatitudes will deal with the outer workings of our salvation. The inner man has been transformed, and the outer man will be an evidence of that transformation. So Jesus first says,

“Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.”

Some would say that this verse is saying that if you are merciful to others, then they will be merciful to you. You show mercy, you receive mercy. Tit for tat. While that may sometimes happen, that cannot be the meaning on this verse and it is certainly not a reason for the child of God to be merciful. Here’s why: Who was the most merciful person to ever walk on the earth? Hands down, Jesus Christ.

This man who could have demonstrated his deity in countless ways by doing mind-blowing feats of wonder like causing mountains to crumble, causing the sun to turn purple, making oceans dry up, or any other unimaginable show of power chose to demonstrate his power through mercy. He used his unlimited power to give families back their dead, give sight to the blind, heal paralytics, free the demon possessed, calm storms, feed hungry crowds, cause the deaf to hear, and the lame to run.

Ultimate mercy met ultimate rejection. An entire nation that had witnessed miracles of mercy beyond comprehension was content to see Christ nailed to a criminal’s cross.

But Christ expected this. He said in Luke 6:32-36,

If you love those who love you, what benefit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them. And if you do good to those who do good to you, what benefit is that to you? For even sinners do the same. And if you lend to those from whom you expect to receive, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, to get back the same amount. But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return, and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, for he is kind to the ungrateful and the evil. Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful.

Jeremiah, that weeping prophet who cried day and night against the sins of Israel and begged them to come back to the God who loved them said in Lamentations 3:22,

The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.

In Jesus Christ, mercy and truth are met together; righteousness and peace have kissed each other (Psalm 85:10). We as Christians have been brought into the Kingdom of God by the mercy of Jesus Christ. It is His example that we are commanded to pursue. We are to be merciful, because God has been rich in mercy toward us as Paul so beautifully explains in Ephesians 2. I love 2 Corinthians 3:18 — “We all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another.” In our new life we possess the nature of God. Christ is in us, which is our hope of glory (Colossians 1:27). The Spirit is transforming us into the image of Christ, and part of that likeness will be a passion for both truth and mercy. We must preach and stand for the truth of God's Word, but we must also be quick to deal out forgiveness and aid to all, even to those who may not deserve it, but who are in need of it. In our own power all of this is impossible, but listen to these words of encouragement from Paul in 1 Thessalonians 5: 

Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you entirely; and may your spirit and soul and body be preserved complete and without blame at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. 

He who calls you is faithful; he will surely do it.

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness... 

Seeing the crowds, he went up on the mountain, and when he sat down, his disciples came to him. And he opened his mouth and taught them, saying:

 

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.

Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.

Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.

Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.

Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.

Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

Here’s a quick recap before we dive into the fourth Beatitude. The Beatitudes are Jesus’ intro to the Sermon on the Mount, right at the beginning of his earthly ministry. The Bible says Jesus went about preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and this sermon, these beatitudes, are the outline of the gospel of the kingdom that he will preach to thousands for the duration of his time on earth. He begins with “blessed are the poor in spirit.” The road to salvation begins here. No one will ever seek God and His righteousness who is self-righteous. First we have to recognize our spiritual poverty. Then, after we recognize how destitute we are apart from God, we mourn because we realize that we have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. In realizing that we are poor in spirit, and subsequently mourning, we become meek — humble and gentle. Rather than praying loudly and proudly in public like the Pharisee in Luke 18, we are like the tax collector who beat his chest and said “God, be merciful to me, a sinner.” We become meek because we realize that we have no right to demand anything of God. 

At this point, Jesus says, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.” This is a logical progression. Having realized that we are poor in spirit — empty spiritually, we see that only God and His righteousness can fill us up and make us spiritually rich. We cannot fill ourselves. So we hunger and thirst for His righteousness. Note Jesus’ usage of the words “hunger” and “thirst.” Hunger and thirst are desires that we must fulfill or else we die. As physical beings, we understand this perfectly. But as spiritual beings, unless we see our need for God’s righteousness and begin to hunger and thirst after it, we cannot live spiritually.

John chapter 6 records the time that Jesus fed 5000 men, along with women and children. Having received a free meal, the crowds followed him, and tried to get him to repeat the miracle. They were only wanting free food, not the words that Jesus spoke to them. But Jesus said this to them in verses 53-59,

“Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him. As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever feeds on me, he also will live because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like the bread the fathers ate, and died. Whoever feeds on this bread will live forever.”

After Jesus said these things, the Bible says that many of his disciples turned away and did not follow him any more. They weren’t hungry for spiritual bread. They only wanted a full belly. They were only interested in what Jesus could offer them in physical realm of Here-And-Now.

The word Jesus uses in this beatitude translated “righteousness” is dikaiosunē. It means “divine approval” or “what is reckoned right by the Lord.” This is the word Paul uses in 1 Corinthians 5 when he says, “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” At the moment of salvation, then, the righteousness of Jesus is credited to our account. We become, in him, the righteousness of God. And while salvation does have a one-time aspect — Ephesians 1:13 says that at the moment we believe, we are sealed with the Holy Spirit — it also has an until-we-meet-the-Lord aspect. Colossians 2:6-7 says, “Therefore, as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him, rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving.” As we received Christ, so we walk in him. He becomes our daily bread and our daily water. And again, Peter speaks of ‘growing up into salvation’ (1 Peter 1:23-25, 2:1-3), “You have been born again, not of perishable seed but of imperishable, through the living and abiding word of God; for “All flesh is like grass and all its glory like the flower of grass. The grass withers, and the flower falls, but the word of the Lord remains forever.” And this word is the good news that was preached to you. So put away all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander. Like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk of the word, that by it you may grow up into salvation— if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good.” 

Having been born again, having begun to hunger and thirst for righteousness and for the life of Christ, we can never go back to merely hungering and thirsting for physical stuff. At salvation, a massive priority shift begins to take place, and where once we were consumed with this world, with the here and now, with the cares and worries of this life, we now ‘seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness.’ What a promise Jesus gives here: “for they shall be satisfied.” Physical things can never truly satisfy. Not only does Christ satisfy our true need, but His supply is limitless. Just as the Israelites received fresh manna from heaven every day, so we receive fresh grace and fresh food from His word without measure. The Lord still calls as he did in Isaiah 55:

"Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters; and you who have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost. Why spend money on what does not satisfy? Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good, and you will delight in the richest of fare. Give ear and come to me; listen, that you may live."


In Christ,


M&M

"Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth." 

 

Seeing the crowds, he went up on the mountain, and when he sat down, his disciples came to him. And he opened his mouth and taught them, saying:

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.
Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.
Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.
Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.
Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.
Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.


Back when we first started going through the Beatitudes, we discussed how the first Beatitude speaks of how we in our humanness are poor in spirit — bankrupt of any righteousness with which to please God, and how that realization is the necessary first step for anyone to enter the kingdom of God. Then last time, we went to the next natural step in the progression: after realizing our lost and sinful state, we are brought to our knees in repentance and we receive comfort at the foot of the cross. We now come to the third Beatitude:

Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.

Meekness is not a word typically seen in your average Facebook status or Twitter post. When people do use this word, they generally mean submissive, easily lead, or impressionable. But the word as used in the Bible is very different from what we relate it to. The literal interpretation is “gentle,” but the Greek offers a much deeper meaning. The picture that this word conjures up is to have great power to do harm, but choosing to suffer insult upon yourself rather than using your power to cause injury.

I hope that an immediate picture came to your mind upon reading this description. Christ is the ultimate example of this attitude and it is an attitude that should be characteristic of all Christians. We are to love others in this way because He, who is ultimately the Judge of the whole earth, stood in our place, and took the injury we deserved upon Himself. There is no way to describe meekness more fully than in the condescension of Christ.

Jesus, God in flesh, who is the perfect image of God’s holiness, righteousness, and truth, came as a humble servant only to be called a devil when he healed the multitudes, to be betrayed by one close to him and deserted by others, to be spat upon for claiming to be who he had proved himself to be, and to suffer the most agonizing death invented by man, all to bring about good for those who sinned against his law and to make a way of redemption for us. 

More incredible still, even after Christ has come and we have killed him, this world keeps turning, sinners keep receiving ‘life and breath and everything’ from his hand, imperfect Christians are living in the protection of his grace and mercy, and the offer is still open for whosoever will come while this world becomes more and more vile with every turn upon its axis. God is still, at every moment, exercising the meekness that causes me to wonder in amazement. (I’m noticing a Pauline streak in me here with the length of my previous sentences. But looking at Ephesians 1:3-14, which is just one sentence in the Greek, I think he still has me beat.)

As with every Beatitude, this one ends with a promise; “They shall inherit the earth.” We may be meek and gentle here and we may suffer loss and insult, but there is a kingdom coming and we will rule and reign with Christ. Notice that this follows in the footsteps of our Lord. Philippians 2:5-11 speaks of Christ’s humility in stepping out of glory into this world to live and die as a man, and that passage ends with 

“Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed upon him the name that is above every name, 
so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 
and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” 

Christ suffered more than any man, but the day is coming when He will step out of glory to reclaim that which is His and will put an end to all sin and suffering to set up for Himself a righteous kingdom on this earth which shall have no end. And because of his meekness, we have been made joint heirs with Jesus Christ our Lord to inherit this earth that He will reclaim as His own.

But in the here and now, how do we work out this meekness in our everyday lives? Look at Titus 3:1-5 where Paul is speaking to Titus, who is the pastor of the Cretan church. This church was located in a place whose inhabitants had the reputation of being “liars, evil brutes, and lazy gluttons” (Titus 1:12). Here in chapter 3, Paul tells Titus to remind this church to be “subject to rulers and authorities, to be obedient, to be ready for every good deed, to malign no one, to be uncontentious, to be gentle, and to show every consideration for all men.” It seems to me that all of the things mentioned in this list are symptoms of a meek person. 

This Beatitude has a life application that hits very close to home in this day and time. This corner of the world is fast becoming hostile, not to religion, but to Christianity. Some, even among the church, would shout that we need to do the opposite of this list — to rebel, to fight back, to stop the tide of hostility with force. But Paul reminds us why we should be meek, taking insult and injury upon ourselves rather than returning evil for evil: “We also were once foolish ourselves, disobedient, deceived, spending our lives in malice and envy, hateful, and hating one another.” Now, how could someone of that description — foolish, malicious, and hateful — ever live up to the list of exhortations that Paul gave to the church in Crete and to us today? We can do it only through the power of the Spirit of God residing within us, because “when the kindness of God our Savior and his love for mankind appeared, he saved us, not because of good things we had done, but because of his mercy.” Realizing what we once were and would be apart from the kindness of God, brings about the humility from which meekness springs forth.