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We know that, with all the distractions from the real purpose of Christmas, Jesus is the reason for the season. This Christmas Season I want to examine Jesus’ reason for coming to earth as the Son of God. I mean, Jesus is the reason for the season, but what was His reason for coming? I’ll spend this December’s blogs answering that question. 

Reason #1: Freedom. 

Jesus was born into a culture of barriers to many types of freedom. Those who accepted Him as Messiah often misunderstood the type of freedom He would bring, which barriers He would remove. 

The barrier many expected to be removed was oppression by an imposing empire, Rome in this case, but, had He arrived earlier, it could’ve been the Greeks, the Medes, the Persians, Babylon, Assyria or Egypt. Israel had been ruled for a total of more than half a millennium, if you add up all the eras of oppression. 

This was the freedom the Jews hoped for and expected. 

Then there were other freedoms they sought. John the Baptist wanted deliverance from His prison cell. One Jewish man asked for freedom from perceived unfair treatment by his brother in a civil squabble. But Jesus made it clear that these were not the freedoms He brought. 

Jesus pointed us to a different kind of freedom, one that many haven’t even known we needed. He said that the freedom He would provide would be the truest kind. Free indeed was the wording He used. The tethers He’d remove would be the strongest and most deceptive. We didn’t realize they were even there, yet they’d restricted our very ability to think and live. 

Jesus came to set us free from sin. 

But why did we need freedom from sin? What would we do with this freedom? What would be its purpose? To what would this freedom lead?

We find that answer, not in the words of Jesus, but in those of His servant Paul, who wrote, “It is for freedom that Christ has set us free.”

In the movie The Patriot, an African American slave named Moses learns that he will gain his freedom after the U.S. wins the war. A small-minded bigot in his group of militia sarcastically and derogatorily asks, “What are you going to do with freedom?”

In the movie Harriet, Harriet Tubman tells her former master, “God don’t mean people to own people.”

These two movie lines affirm Galatians 5:1 concerning a different, albeit vital, kind of freedom. The truth of Paul, Moses (in The Patriot) and Harriet (also known as Moses) is this: freedom, itself, is the reason for being made free. Freedom isn’t merely a means to an end; it is the end.

Freedom is the reason Jesus came; it’s the reason Christmas exists. 

And we can say, concerning our spiritual, eternal freedom what MLK Jr. said about the hope for American civil freedom: Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we’re free at last!

The ultimate, the final, the end: Freedom in Christ! Merry Christmas!

I’m not one to live in regret, but if I could have one redo, I know exactly what I’d do – or redo. 

I was eleven years old. The church our family attended, Elizabeth Missionary Baptist Church, had the tradition of the pastor standing at the front of the sanctuary at the end of the worship service during the last congregational hymn to receive anyone who would come forward for prayer. Some may go up to pray to receive Jesus as their Savior. Others may have a sick family member for whom to intercede. The pastor would pray with them for whatever need they had.

This particular Sunday morning, I went up to tell the pastor what I felt the Lord had said to me. 

I went up to the pastor and he bent down to whisper into my ear, “Gabe, do you know that Jesus is your Lord and Savior?” 

“Yessir, and I think God wants me to be a preacher.” I articulated what I’d perceived the Lord speaking to my heart. 

Then the pastor did what he sometimes did after speaking with someone at the altar. He stood up, turned, held up his hand for the singing to stop and addressed the congregation. “Gabe has professed this morning that he believes the Lord wants him to be a preacher.

The folks in the congregation had a very emotional response. Many cried and all seemed joyful. The singing resumed as everyone celebrated that God’s Spirit was active in His people, even this eleven-year-old kid. We got out of church a full half hour later than usual, and nobody minded, which was, itself, a miracle.

That was a top three highlight of my life, but the day wasn’t over.

That afternoon, after family lunch – which we called dinner – I did what I always did. I went to my friend Keith’s house where ten to twenty guys gathered to play basketball. Most of those guys were older than I, and I played the role of entertainer for the older guys. 

My talent was my artistic use of profanity. I imitated Richard Pryor, the foul-mouthed comedian of the day, and my friends in their late teens found it interesting – funny, even – that a kid my age could – and would – cuss with such skill and ease. 

Midway through the afternoon I realized what I was doing. My language was no different from what it had always been. My strong sense of the contrast between my afternoon behavior and what had happened that morning in church was embarrassing to me, especially since most of those guys playing basketball had also been in the worship service that morning. I felt like a terrible hypocrite, because I was. 

I realized I had a decision to make. Would I apologize to all those guys and embrace the call to preach or would I reject that call and resume my life of living, and speaking, whatever way I wanted? I’m embarrassed to say I chose the latter. 

I continued my life of choosing my own way over God’s way, and I don’t remember thinking of that Sunday experience again until ten years later when, at age twenty-one, I surrendered my life to Jesus and accepted His grace and His Lordship. After becoming a Christian, I soon remembered and embraced the call God had issued to me as an eleven-year-old. I still walk in that calling today, fifty years after that Sunday of calling-to-preach and cursing-for-fun.

So, what’s the one thing I would change in my past? My response to God’s call.

When the pastor asked me, “Gabe, do you know that Jesus is your Lord and Savior?” This would be my reply.

“Pastor Pope, I think God wants me to be a preacher, but I haven’t really even accepted Him as Lord and Savior. So this morning I want to ask Him to accept me and to help me accept Him and to help me walk with Him for the rest of my life and to help me to be the preacher he wants me to be.” 

That’s it. That’s the one change I would make. I believe that would change so many things in my life for the better.

Let me pose the question to you. Please don’t take on any regret, self-pity or bitterness towards another as you consider your response; in short, let your answer honor God. If you could change one thing in your past, what would it be?

John the Apostle is called in Scripture the one “whom [Jesus] loved.”

Interesting that Scripture would refer to one in particular as holding such a special place in Jesus’ heart.

Even more interesting is that it’s only in one of the gospels that deems John so special, and it just so happens the author of that gospel is John, himself.

So, was it true that Jesus really favored John over all the others? Or was it that John felt so loved by the Lord that he referred to himself in such a way? I suspect the latter.

I have six kids; they’re all grown now, but for years I’ve whispered in the ear of each of them, “You’re my favorite.” 

It was always fun to watch their facial expression when they heard my whisper. They knew I loved all my children and tried to treat them all fairly and equally, but they were still gladdened by the words from their dad that he favored them. I even once wrote them a song called My Favorite and sang it to them in a backyard family concert.

Something many don’t realize about favor is that it doesn’t have to be competitive. Jesus loved all His disciples, yet John felt it firsthand so strongly that in his writings he called himself the one whom He loved, as if he were the only one. I told each of my kids they were my favorite and I meant it every single time. God’s favor reaches to all who will believe in Christ. In Him there is neither male nor female, Jew nor Greek, slave nor free…Yet His love is so powerful that each of us feels kind of like it’s all for us. And it is. 

Of course, there is the feeling many have that they aren’t favored by God. It needs to be clarified for everyone that you are God’s favorite. You’re the one He loves. John was one of many Jesus loved, and you and I are each one of millions. The point is that, as St. Augustine said, “God loves each of us as if there were only one of us.”

The next question, having established that we are favored by God, is what we’re going to do with that favor. John wrote one of the four canonical Gospels, three canonized epistles and the book of Revelation, all while taking the good news about Jesus to the first century region of the Mediterranean. The grace-filled love of God may be the most motivating force that can enter the human heart. So how about we start thinking about what we’re going to do with that force. And if we don’t know how to begin, we start by telling people that we’re God’s favorites and they are, too.

It can be said that history is a cycle of cycles. 

For example, God’s people, the Israelites, repetitively sinned, suffered the consequences, called out to God for help, were delivered from their troubles, sinned again, and so on.  This continued from the time they entered the promised land until they finally were defeated by enemy world powers. 

Another example is the life of an individual person of God. Paul the Apostle wrote in Romans (chapter 7) that he, as a typical human in a struggle with his own ungodly desires, found himself in a cyclical life of defeat, unable over and over to do the Godly things he wanted to do. 

My life history, as I imagine yours is, is another example of unwanted cycles. Like Paul, I repeatedly disappoint myself. 

It’s well known and well documented that the patterns flow with powerful current from one generation to the next. Whether passed on through genetics or environment, parents’ poor habits and negative behaviors continue through the succession of children, grandchildren and their children, and their children. 

It seems unstoppable, this rolling of undesirable choices and actions. But the good news is that there is a solution. There is evidence that this solution actually works. It – or should we say, He – demonstrates over and over that destructive patterns can be interrupted and replaced with productive ones. 

The solution, of course, is Jesus. 

What finally reversed the sin patterns of God’s chosen people? The coming of the Messiah.

What was the answer to Paul’s Romans 7 question “Who will deliver me from this body of death?” “I thank God,” he replied to himself, “through Jesus Christ our Lord!”

How did the generations of anger and violence that ran through my ancestral lineage finally grind to a halt? By God giving me faith to believe in His Son.

And how will women stop choosing the men who abuse them? How can people stop turning to substances that destroy their lives, materialism that leaves them empty, lies that lead them nowhere?

Praise God! It’s by turning to Jesus 

I can’t say that all my behavior has been corrected, but it isn’t because the power of Christ is insufficient; it’s because I haven’t always taken advantage of the power He’s put in me. 

Breaking these cycles ultimately comes down to one thing: turning to Jesus by faith. Every time we do that victory and success will be ours. 

God, please activate in us a new cycle of turning, over and over, to You for help!

At first glance, it’s an easy blank to fill in. Jesus told the fishermen sons of Jonah, “Follow Me and I will make you fishers of men.”

But let’s put out a little bit further with Him into some different waters and we find that He’s issuing another invitation to go fishing with Him.

After Jesus’ departure from planet Earth, the apostles took up the call to spread Jesus’ good news to the ends of the earth, Paul wrote to the believers living in Corinth an invitation to fish for promises. Better yet, to catch the fulfillment of promises, all the promises God has ever made. 

Promise-fishing with God is very different from any other fishing we’ve ever done. Normally, we cast a rigged line in the water; fish swim up to the baited hook; some consider it while some don’t. Some nibble at the bait and swim away free. Occasionally – very rarely in my experience – a fish takes the bait and gets caught; we’ve caught a fish.

That’s how many of us view the promises God has made. A few may be for me, and a few more could possibly be but it’s unlikely. Some are for someone else in some other time at some other place, but not for me here and now. So schools and schools keep swimming in the ocean of unfulfilled promises; I never catch them. 

Then along comes a nice, big boy and I hook him. What a pleasant surprise (and it’s always a surprise) when I actually catch a fish.

Through Paul, God promises that for those who are in Christ Jesus, every fish in the proverbial promise-ocean we shall catch – every fish in the ocean – every promise made by God. It isn’t a case of possibly catching some, definitely not catching some, and maybe catching a few. We catch every single fish in the entire ocean.

For all the promises of God are Yes, and in [Christ] Amen to the glory of God through us. 2 Cor 1:20

The only equipment needed to catch all these promises of God is faith. Jesus illustrated this principle when speaking to two blind men seeking to have their sight restored.

According to your faith let it be to you. Matt 9:29

But I don’t have that kind of equipment, you say. Not to worry. God even supplies the equipment. 

God has dealt to each one a measure of faith. Rom 12:3

There will doubtless be those who’ll try to discourage you from believing such a bold truth. For example, there’s a contemporary assertion that we cannot apply Philippians 4:13 to anything other than Paul’s application of it in his personal situation which we see in the context of that fourth chapter of the letter to the Philippian church. 

I take issue with that argument. I saw a mug someone made that sarcastically read “I can do all things through a verse taken out of context.” My view is that God’s principles can stand in diverse contexts. They are intended to be taken out of one context and applied within another. What we must guard against is distorting the meaning of the Scriptural principle when we apply it to a different set of circumstances. And that’s probably what the creator of the aforementioned mug meant. My point, though, is that my faith allows me to apply God’s promises made to various people throughout the ages to my own life, yet another benefit that being in Christ affords for us. 

So let’s go fishing. God supplies the equipment and guarantees all the fish in the ocean are ours to catch. 

And perhaps the biggest one in the entire ocean is the promise Jesus made to Simon Peter and his brother Andrew. We can catch it for ourselves if we’ll just use the equipment God gave us.

Follow Me and I will make you fishers of men Matthew 4:19

We’re approaching a very significant date in history. October 31^st we wear costumes and enjoy candy, but there’s a lot more to the day’s history than make believe ghosts, goblins, witches and monsters. Halloween, evolved from All Hallows Eve, established in the 700s, began as the eve of the first of three religious holidays: All Hallows Day (hallow meaning holy), All Saints Day and All Souls Day. These were days to commemorate the dead. I, for one, am glad I missed that triduum by a millennium and a couple centuries. 

The representation of the day, though, gets better as history marches along. On that day in 1517, Martin Luther, a monk fed up with superstition and the manipulation of the then church’s clergy of ordinary church people, launched a movement that turned the church upside down – in a good way. 

Luther clarified in courageous confrontational fashion that we are saved by Jesus alone (not by Mary or any other saints) through faith alone (not by works or giving money to the church) as is established in Scripture alone (not by the Pope or the church). Luther’s movement is called The Reformation, a gross misnomer, since the church didn’t reform, but rejected Luther, resulting in history’s biggest church split. But Luther, under great persecution, even risking his life, held to his claims and became the father of the more aptly named Protestant movement. 

More than four hundred years after Luther’s birthing of the new paradigm, a pastor from the U.S. travelled to Germany where he was so impacted by the story of Martin Luther that he changed his name from Michael to Martin Luther. His last name was King and his son, Michael King, Jr. would have his name changed as well. 

Billy Graham called MLK Jr. Michael when the two men of God spoke privately. 

For the entire decade of the 1990s, my wife and I were part of a church in Dunn, NC, called Gospel Tabernacle. Rose Boyd, the church’s discipleship pastor, wearied of seeing symbols of evil exalted every Halloween, established an event she named Lift Jesus Higher. LJH supplied the city’s children with candy, games, prizes and all kinds of fun. Rose transformed the holiday for that city into a festive evening where Jesus was lifted higher than any other name. I guess Rose could be called the Martin Luther of Dunn. Maybe she could change her name to Martina? Actually, Rose fits her better.

This year I intentionally celebrate the Martin Luthers, MLKs and Rose Boyds of history, those God has used to tweak history’s course.
May you have a wonderfully celebratory October 31^st this year, and may you know God’s favor in the sweetest of ways!

Many people are reluctant to believe in Jesus because they don’t understand what it’ll really be like for them as a Christian. First, notice I said reluctant to believe. I say it that way because at some point faith is a choice. So, many don’t believe because they don’t want to. And all who believe have chosen to believe. But that isn’t exactly what this particular blog is about.

I want to address seven Christian-life surprises that, if non-believers knew about, they would decide to believe. These are surprising occurrences for Christians, usually early in their faith walk:

1. Your guilt immediately morphs into peace and freedom. This was the first surprise for me, and a very pleasant one (the only kind God has for His believing children). I believe of all the cancers to the human heart – and there are many – guilt is the most damaging. God knows its power against us and designated His Son as its remedy. As I sat sobbing from the pain of the realization of having sinned lifelong against God and people, He poured into my mind a flood of forgiveness that soothed my pain like oil that healed the guilt-wounds of my heart and left me with the elation of peace, knowing I was free from the consequences I deserved. 

2. What God asks of you He empowers you to perform. People often reject Christ because they think the only earthly things He’ll give them are lifestyle requirements. What He actually gives us is His own Spirit. Hard as it may be to believe, He really does give us the Holy Spirit who remains in us (right in the space of our most inner thinking, feeling and deciding – for life!). The remarkable thing is the way the Spirit offers His power to us from within. He neither takes control nor remains uninvolved. The power of His whispers to our heart are sufficient to persuade us to take right steps and walk in success. There are days of wrestling within ourselves, but His power, although He ever bestows to us the freedom of choice, takes us to victory by battle’s end. The point is that, once believers, we are not the same as before; we have far more working for us than our own efforts. 

3. God’s forgiveness is for all sins – past, present and future. If I thought God would forgive me of past sins, but condemn me for any future ones, I’d be reluctant, too. If anyone challenges you on this point, ask them if God, who calls us to forgive others in open ended, blank check fashion, would not, Himself do what He’s called us to do. Some think we must ask forgiveness for every sin, but I don’t believe our salvation depends upon our catching and confessing every sin we commit. My faith assures me that God forgives me for all my sin, whether known or unknown by me; that the faith to which I invite others. 

4. You are, literally, being made new. I had trouble accepting that for years. Then I realized that it isn’t based on feeling (I often continued to feel terribly tarnished and non-new), nor is the promise based on our performance. The premise for this truth is Jesus’ resurrection and ascension to Heaven where His body is glorified (new). Faith in Him who is new has made us new. Admittedly, this still takes faith to understand, but that doesn’t make it any less real.

5. The same power that loved and forgave you operates naturally in and through you towards others. It’s amazing when you’re wronged as a Christian to find the power to love and forgive. It looks undeniably like the stuff God used for us, and the sense of satisfaction that comes from wielding such power is like nothing we knew before. 

6. The Holy Spirit doesn’t force you to do anything. Understanding this may put you among a minority of Christians because, clearly, not all Christians get it. But to not get this requires a discounting of Paul’s All things are permissible but not all things are beneficial (1 Corinthians 10:23). An understanding of grace (which may be, itself, the greatest of all Christian surprises) frees us from the idea that we now must or we won’t be saved, and clothes us instead with Jesus did and we believe it, so we are surely saved. To this day, after forty years as a Christian, it still surprises me that He is such a gentleman, always whispering rather than yelling, suggesting instead of ordering, yielding control when He could wrest it. What a surprise that the immortal God would conduct Himself in this way as He takes residence in our mortal hearts.

7. You’ll be in a new family that identifies with you like no other can. Now, I’m not saying the church is perfect in its behavior. It’s been commonly experienced and pretty well documented that it’s far from perfect in its treatment of people both inside and outside itself. But that doesn’t invalidate the church’s possession of the most powerful fellowship on earth. The earthly body of believers in Jesus Christ enjoys the deepest sense of kinship on this planet. Countless times I’ve met for the first time a person who is a believer, looked into their eyes, and sensed right down to my heart a lovely, piercing kinship connection that cannot be duplicated by any other commonality than that of faith in the one who saves, fills and defends us. Fellowship can be defined as fellows in a ship. They have a common mission, common challenges and a common destiny. Profound fellowship is what Christians have in the deepest sense. And you can’t understand it until you experience it. It’s yet another surprise in a life of pleasant surprises for believers in Jesus. 

I’m not always sure who my readers are. Do I even have any readers who aren’t yet Christians? I’m not sure. If you don’t yet believe, I hope this will help you cross the threshold of faith in Christ.

If you are a believer, perhaps this can help you as you invite others to believe in Jesus.

This week I celebrate my fortieth birthday. If you know me, you’re shaking your head right now; you know I’m in my sixties.

What I’m celebrating is my spiritual birthday. It was forty years ago that I was born again, when I began new life through faith in Jesus Christ. 

I’ve been reflecting on that week, forty years ago, and I want to share six blessings that have come along with my life of salvation and will come with anyone’s salvation.

1. God appoints the time, place and circumstances to bring us to His salvation. God allowed me to be so rebellious that my life would deteriorate to the point of desperation. My use of drugs and alcohol and life of sexual immorality and lack of integrity led me to a bed in my college dorm room where a demon would attack me in the wee hours of the night. As this evil spirit tried to paralyze and suffocate me, God told me to speak the name Jesus. I did and I saw this enemy imp lose power and flee from me. Little did I know at the time, God knew and planned millennia before that this would be the hour that I would bad-decision myself to a place of spiritual poverty and defeat, so He could come to my rescue and show me His love and power.

2. God reveals Himself by demonstrating His love and power. He revealed His love for me,  not only by rescuing me from an attack, but also by assuring me of His forgiveness and acceptance. The night after the night of the attack I asked God to give me His salvation. I felt nothing at first, so I assumed God was rejecting me, as I had rejected Him so many times before. That caused great anxiety for me. But then, He brought to my mind a horrible picture of the sinful life I’d lived up until then, showing me how unworthy I was to receive His blessings. I can’t explain how He did it, but as He was showing me my sin, He was at the same time letting me know that He was forgiving me for it. 

3. God gives us His own Spirit. It was the Holy Spirit who was leading me through the process of conviction and repentance. God, in the ultimate package deal, was giving me His Spirit along with eternal life. Yet, the following night, seven of my dormitory-mates, Christian guys who’d heard of my coming to Christ, visited to tell me about the Holy Spirit. “Now that you’re saved,” they said, “you can ask God to give you the Holy Spirit.” Little did they know, He already had given His Spirit to me. But these guys wanted me to receive the gift of speaking in tongues. I told them I’d love to receive that gift. They prayed for me to receive it and hoped to witness its manifestation, but that evening wasn’t God’s time for that. Two nights later, however, I was home for fall break. When I told my dad I had become a Christian, he had a very positive reaction. For some reason, that surprised me, and I was elated that my father was so proud of me. I went to bed that night so full of joy that, as soon as I lay my head on my pillow, I began to praise God in tongues. But that wasn’t even the most powerful manifestation of the Spirit’s power in me. That Sunday afternoon, I stopped at the home of a girl who attended Wingate University with me to give her a ride back to school. She and I had gone on a date eight days before (this was the night before the night of my struggle with the demon) and on our date we had had sex. When I arrived on that Sunday to pick her up, her family were all gone; she and I were the only ones in her house. I asked if I could help with her luggage and she directed me to her bedroom. Here I was in the bedroom of an attractive girl with whom I’d already had a sexual relationship, and nobody else was home. A still, small voice in my head said put the luggage in the car. There was no inner struggle, just a desire to obey the voice. I grabbed her bags and took them to the trunk of my car. I’m sure the girl was surprised, and as I thought about it more, so was I. That was the power of the Holy Spirit in me. What a difference He was making in my life.

4. God develops a family for us as He develops each individual in His family. The weeks after fall break were filled with new friends, brothers and sisters in Christ with whom I grew in my knowledge of and experience with God. God was bringing revival to that campus, so there were many new believers, like myself, joining the seasoned Christian students to form a strong community of believers there. Our hangout time was usually casual study and discussion of the Bible and praying together. My roommate, Ted, and two friends, Cliff and Beth, made up the nucleus of my life of fellowship. The four of us grew like crazy in our understanding of God and His Word, and the whole community was buzzing with excitement.

5. God prepares us for the way and prepares the way for us. Not aware of it at the time, I know now that God was building a foundation in me to live the life I’ve lived since. Over the years, God has given me a Godly wife with whom I’ve raised our six kids and now enjoy our six grandkids (number seven due any day now). He’s given us many, many ministry opportunities over our thirty-seven years of marriage and He’s provided richly for all our needs and has trusted us with many responsibilities. I often think back on my early spiritual development and can see the wisdom of God at work as He prepped me for my then future, now my past, present and still future. 

6. God reveals His plan in His own good time. One thing I’ve learned is that God controls the timing of things. It isn’t a blessing for Him to reveal His plans to us too far in advance, but that He makes them known to us at exactly the right time, which is usually as they’re being carried out, although sometimes beforehand. But always by His divine wisdom. He’s given us the ability to understand the past better than the future, so we must find contentment in trusting Him with the knowledge and control of our future.

Well happy birthday to me. And my brother Ted! Forty years! And eternity will be our real celebration.

Jerod was miserable. The confinement was bad enough, not being free to go beyond the length of the chain he dragged around the yard. But even worse were the constant entanglements with Mark who was chained to the same stake. If it hadn’t been for Mark, he wouldn’t be there in the first place. Sharing a stake of bondage with the one who’d hurt him made his life a living hell. 

Everyday Mark begged Jerod to set him free. “You hold the key to my freedom. How many times must I say I’m sorry?”

“You don’t deserve freedom, Mark! Why should I free you? I’m the one who deserves to be free.”

Yes, I agree. But please, have mercy on me! I’ll find a way to make it up to you, I promise.”

“So, I free you, remain in the bondage you caused for me, and wait for you to come back for my freedom? I don’t think so.” While Jerod hated that he was tied to Mark this way, the power he held over Mark was a small consolation, at least. 

“You were given the key to my freedom, but I wasn’t given the key to yours,” Mark pleaded, “Rest assured, though, that, once I’m free, I won’t sleep until I convince the judge to set you free.”

Jerod still didn’t trust him. His smooth talking led them to where they were. He wasn’t about to be fooled again.

Mark was relentless in his quest for freedom, so day after day he begged Jerod, sometimes nearly with tears. “I’m truly sorry, my friend. If I could go back and undo it, I would. Won’t you please free me from this bondage? I promise I’ll do everything possible to get you freed.

Jerod had to admit, Mark was wearing him down. He found himself actually considering letting him off the hook. Or, literally, the chain. After all, they’d been friends forever. And isn’t that what friends do, forgive one another?

So, Jerod woke up one morning determined to forgive his friend; he would let Mark go free.

Jerod rose and walked over to the stake to which both men were chained, He took the key out of his pocket, put it into the lock and turned it.

When Jerod turned the key, something amazing happened. Mark’s chain came loose, of course; no surprise there. But so did Jerod’s! 

Aghast with the surprise of his own freedom, Jerod ran and skipped and jumped and danced to the extents of the yard, far beyond where the chain had stopped him before. He looked around and saw Mark doing the same dance and realized he was so caught up in the joy of his own freedom, he hadn’t even thought about Mark. The two men, overjoyed, looked at each other and ran together for a hug that morphed into an arms-interlocking, knees-lifting duet jig, as the friends hop-danced in circles and laughed themselves silly. 

Out of breath, Jerod hugged his old friend Mark and sat down to catch his breath over on the ground next to the stake. All this time, I had no idea that the same turn of the key to unlock Mark’s chain also unlocked mine. How much sooner I would have freed us both had I known this secret.

If you forgive those who sin against you, your Heavenly Father will forgive you. 

(Matthew 6:14)

In the fall of 1974, my parents became homeowners. They, my four siblings and I were ecstatic to be moving into our new house and out of the one we had rented for seven years from my paternal grandparents that was situated behind their house and was accessed by a quarter-mile-long car path. Our new house included five acres of land on Hobbs Road. Five acres isn’t enough land to sustain a family-of-seven farm operation, which was the means of our livelihood. So, my dad began leasing farms on Hobbs Road.

I remember riding in the pickup up and down Hobbs Road for the first several weeks of living in our new house. We were becoming more and more familiar with our new road. We saw our neighbors, the other Hobbs Road residents, the patches of woods, the open fields – some large, some small – and the turns, rises and falls of the country road. With each passing back and forth from the end of the road to our house, we became a little bit more familiar with Hobbs Road.

Soon my dad had leased three different farms on Hobbs Road, all totaling about two-hundred acres. Up until 1980, when my dad bought a three-hundred-acre farm of his own, we tended those three farms and added a few more, making our total operation about five-hundred acres.

These farms were owned by widows of farmers who had passed away after a life of farming their land, except for a couple of them who had retired. 

Over the years, as we tended these farms, going several times each week to the farms and working long days in the various fields up and down our road, we all gained greater detail in our perspective on Hobbs Road. Whereas we had initially driven the road at fifty miles per hour, we were now spending full days and weeks in one plot along the road. Our perspective of Hobbs Road included multiple vantage points as well as an overview of the span of the road since we still drove the speed limit to and from its end once or twice a day.

Because of these experiences, I got to know Hobbs Road in almost every way imaginable. I knew every ditch, field and building; and because I used to jog to the end of the road and back several times weekly (a total of 3.5 miles), I learned every part of the road’s surface as well as every portion of the shoulder of the entire road and every dog at every house. (All dogs in that culture were outside and not confined, since they played the primary role in each home’s security system.)

There weren’t very many things, big or small, about Hobbs Road that I didn’t know.

Learning the Bible can be an intimidating prospect. It’s such a big book and can be difficult to understand, especially when we first start reading it. For that very reason, it was fourteen years after I became a Christian when I finally decided to read through the whole Bible.

Reading through the Bible gave me an overall understanding, but it was a seminar I attended called Walk thru the Old Testament that really helped me build the framework for understanding the Bible. You can see – and participate in – a sample of WTOT with this link.

Around that framework I’ve been able, over the years, to fill in the detailed perspective that I gained in my time of studying short passages of Scripture. In seminary and other programs of study I’ve been able to organize Biblical information and doctrine around various topics. But my most helpful study has been seeking out answers to my points of curiosity, just in my personal devotional study time. Of course, listening to and reading great teachers have also helped me immensely.

All these approaches to studying the Bible (overview, organization, topical study, specific passage study) remind me of getting to know Hobbs Rd. (driving fast, driving slow, running, walking, working, exploring). I can’t say I know the Bible as well as I once knew Hobbs Road, but I’m working on it. 

And I have 3 suggestions for those hungry for Biblical knowledge:

1. Get started. How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time. The Bible is every bit the humongous beast the elephant is. Start eating today.
2. Delve into every part of the Bible and try to organize it in your head as you go. Three blind men each encountered an elephant. One felt the trunk and thought an elephant must be like a snake; another felt the leg and assumed an elephant to be as a tree; the third man felt his belly and thought an elephant must be like a wall. Once they all compared their experiences, they understood the elephant better.
3. Mix up your study. On an African safari, a man found himself amid a herd of elephants; demanding his driver take him out from the herd and to the top of a nearby hill, he stopped, turned, studied the elephants a few moments and said, “Ok, drive me back into the herd.” After repeating the routine of in-the-midst and on-the-hill several times, the man went home having thoroughly experienced the herd of elephants.

Elephants are magnificent creatures. And Hobbs Road has a special place in my heart. But studying and knowing God’s Word is one of the most important endeavors in all of life. May God bless you to grow in your understanding of His powerful Word!