A Fire in My Bones

Have you ever had a job that ‘you hated’?  While I was at ACC, I sold Bibles for the Southwestern Company for five summers.  My first summer, I was in Lafayette, Indiana and I HATED MY JOB.  Some mornings, I cried as I drove to my first door-knocking assignment.

          

Jeremiah sometimes hated his job as God’s spokesman.  Jeremiah has been called ‘the weeping prophet’.  Some of his words from Lamentations help us understand this designation.

Lamentations 2:11 My eyes fail from weeping, I am in torment within; my heart is poured out on the ground because my people are destroyed, because children and infants faint in the streets of the city.

Lamentations 3:19 I remember my affliction and my wandering, the bitterness and  the gall. 20 I well remember them, and my soul is downcast within me.

Lamentations 3:48 Streams of tears flow from my eyes because my people are destroyed.  49 My eyes will flow unceasingly, without relief.

           

The reason Jeremiah ‘wept’ was his task from God was burdensome.  Listen to these words from Jeremiah.

Jeremiah 15:10 Alas, my mother, that you gave me birth, a man with whom the whole land strives and contends!  I have neither lent nor borrowed, yet everyone curses me.                                                                                                                                                   

Jeremiah 20:14 Cursed be the day I was born!  May the day my mother bore me not be blessed! 15 Cursed be the man who brought my father the news, who made him very glad, saying, “A child is born to you—a son!” 16 May that man be like the towns the Lord overthrew without pity.  May he hear wailing in the morning, a battle cry at noon. 17 For he did not kill me in the womb, with my mother as my grave, her womb enlarged forever. 18 Why did I ever come out of the womb to see trouble and sorrow    and to end my days in shame?

           

Jeremiah wept and he expressed his frustration because God gave him a burdensome task.  His own people cursed him and persecuted him.  So, why didn’t Jeremiah quit?  If it was so hard, why didn’t he say ‘I resign, that’s it!’  His own answer is found in Jeremiah 20:9, If I say, “I will not mention his word or speak anymore in his name,” his word is in my heart like a fire, a fire shut up in my bones. I am weary of holding it in; indeed, I cannot.  

There was an inner necessity, a drivenness, a compulsion in Jeremiah.  He must do what God called him to do.

Do you have that kind of compulsion for serving Christ?  Is there an inner necessity,  a drivenness within you that causes you to be faithful in serving Jesus?

Prayer:  God, help us to be strong like Jeremiah.  Help us to stand for you when it is hard.  Help us be faithful when the going gets tough.  Through Jesus we pray. 

Terry Brown

Abilene, Texas

The Power of a Word

 A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in pictures of silver.”  Proverbs 25:11

Oh, the power of a word! How scarcely do we comprehend the might of the spoken message: to set ablaze a heart with zeal, or reduce a reputation to ashes…to bolster the spirits of the weak or destroy the will of the strong...to commend or condemn…to praise or put down…to encourage or inhibit...to heal or wound…to reconcile or alienate…to inspire or inflame! Such is the power of the tongue. 

 It may be that among the sins of the tongue, ranking right along with abuse in the sight of God, is neglect. Perhaps it is as much what we fail to say that we ought as what we say that we ought not that displeases the Lord. A word uttered at the appropriate time can be of surpassing value in providing comfort, inspiration or determination. We may sin against others when we withhold from them the legitimate praise that would strengthen their hearts and hands for the challenges and crises of the day. 

Someone has written the following verses that fit the thought perfectly.

If you hear a kind word spoken

Of some worthy soul you know,

It may fill his heart with sunshine

If you’d only tell him so.

If a deed, however humble,

Helps you on your way to do,

Seek the one whose hand has helped you,

Seek him out and tell him so.

If your heart is touched and tendered

Toward a sinner lost and low

It might help him to do better

If you’d only tell him so.

Larry Fluitt

San Angelo, Texas

Whose Side Are We On?

Accept one another then, just as Christ accepted you, in order to bring praise to God.  

- Romans 15:7

When the apostle Paul wrote these words to the Christians in Rome, Jew and Gentile believers were spiritually united as one, but they were all over the map theologically. 

Baptism did level the playing field.  They were of one heart, sinners saved by grace, equal heirs of the kingdom, and empowered by the Holy Spirit.  Baptism did not wash away their human weaknesses or erase their religious, cultural and familial memories.  They brought those with them into communion with each other and disagreed on how to be a “church.”   

Paul’s letter is addressed to “All in Rome who are loved by God and called to be saints.”  When his letter was read in the house churches, they understood better than we can that Paul was not taking sides where they were concerned.  The last thing those beloved ones needed was divisive language!

[James Walters’ Chapter on Romans in The Transforming Word, ACU Press, 2009, is an excellent resource for further study]. 

A “zinger” comes in Chapter 15 verse 7 where Paul tells them whose side to be on collectively and how to do it.  “Accept one another, just as Christ accepted you, in order to bring praise to God.”   In other words, each member of the body is to be on the side of God. 

One of my favorite resources is a small yet highly informative book by Stanley J. Grenz & Roger E. Olson entitled Who Needs Theology? An Invitation to the Study of God (Intervarsity Press Academic (1996).  In it they describe three categories of Christian beliefs and how those categories evolved over the centuries.  (Due to limited space I must summarize more simply than I wish but the book is well worth reading.) 

The first category is dogma – beliefs considered essential to the gospel.  Dogma was first determined by Christian church leaders at Nicea I in 325 AD.  Denial of these beliefs was considered denial of Jesus the Christ and, hence, apostasy. 

The second category is doctrine - beliefs considered important but not essential to the gospel.  A Christian church or denomination may consider doctrinal beliefs “a test of fellowship without claiming that its denial is necessarily outright apostasy.”

The third category is opinion – beliefs that are, “interesting, but relatively unimportant to the faith of the church.”

The question I invite you to ponder with me is this:  When we find ourselves disagreeing over how to be a “church,” could it be that we have accepted opinions as doctrine, and doctrine for dogma?    

Father, give us a spirit of unity through Christ, amen.   

Sandra Milholland
Abilene, Texas