Tag: death

Some Through Great Sorrow, But God Gives A Song

June 3, 2019 by ChristianHolinessDaily

“Steve from Berkley” was what everyone called him. I’ve written about him before. He has left an indelible mark on my life.

His long stringy hair was oily and gray. His beard was scraggly. We usually met in the dining room, but when I arrived at the nursing home to see him near the end of his life, he was unable to get out of bed.

When I first met him a couple years prior to his death, he was in a federal prison hospital. Thirty some-odd years before, he had robbed a bank. Though behind bars and confined to a wheelchair, his heart had soared in freedom. Freedom of the Spirit. Freedom from sin.

Now, on this visit, he was out of prison on compassionate release, but he was bedridden and near death. When he saw me, his smile grew from one ear to another. He sat up a little and stretched out his hand for a hug.

I don’t remember of what we spoke, not that particular day, but I do know that it was typical of him to brag of God’s grace and mercy. Even near death, Steve from Berkley was full of joy. In fact, his joy, while always full, now seemed to flood the entire nursing home.

I hope and pray that, when my time comes to leave this world, my joy grows by leaps and bounds. In fact, Why wait? — Lord, let the joy that you gave me overflow to those around me.

The Gospel of John seems to have more red font in it than any other. It is chocked full of the words of Christ. Reading through it this morning my heart stuck on three of the countless things that Christ says in chapters 14 and 15… The promises. It is those promises that compelled me to remember Steve from Berkley.

John 14:18 “I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you.”

John 14:27 “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid.”

John 15:11″These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full.”

Joy, from what I can see in John, is not a decision we make, not a discipline, and not an attitude. It is a gift from Christ all we have to do is receive it.

There is no doubt that death is scary, even for Christians like Steve from Berkley. It is a lone journey; no one may join us.

Yet Christ promises us that we shall never be alone. Always. Even until the ends of the earth, Christ is with us, holding our hands, gently leading us along, sharing His joy.

God Leads His Dear Children Along

In shady, green pastures, so rich and so sweet,
God leads His dear children along;
Where the water’s cool flow bathes the weary one’s feet,
God leads His dear children along.

- Refrain:
  Some through the waters, some through the flood,
  Some through the fire, but all through the blood;
  Some through great sorrow, but God gives a song,
  In the night season and all the day long.
Sometimes on the mount where the sun shines so bright,
God leads His dear children along;
Sometimes in the valley, in darkest of night,
God leads His dear children along.
Though sorrows befall us and Satan oppose,
God leads His dear children along;
Through grace we can conquer, defeat all our foes,
God leads His dear children along.
Away from the mire, and away from the clay,
God leads His dear children along;
Away up in glory, eternity’s day,
God leads His dear children along

Circling the Drain

August 9, 2018 by ChristianHolinessDaily

“Kick the bucket,” “pushing up daisies,” “go belly up,” “bite the dust,” “bought the farm,” “cash in his chips,” “dead as a doornail.” “Circling the drain.”

I heard all these euphemisms for death and dying when I was a boy, especially in old movies. I don’t hear so many of them today, or maybe I simply avoid the topic of death. One that I could identify with was the last one, “circling the drain.”

As a child, my brothers and I loved to swim in the Finley River which meandered through the farm where we grew up. Sometimes we would go upstream to Riverdale, an old mill and dam, and float back to our farm. On the way back, we would stop at Blue Hole and swim, for even when waters were shallow, Blue Hole always had enough water to dive and swim. It was inevitable that somewhere along the float trip, conversation would turn to whirlpools.

Whole floating we would sometimes pass a whirlpool, but never the life-threatening sink holes that one found on the James River, the larger stream that lay a few miles down from our farm. The James, it was said, was full of whirlpools that would suck swimmers and boaters to the bottom and drown them. Every year, we heard stories of new drownings.

Turns out the stories are based on facts. There were significant numbers of drownings on the rivers of Southwest Missouri when I was a kid. The whirlpools – the deadly kind – were not just turbulent eddies, but sink holes that opened into underground rivers and caverns. Get near one of those, and it would suck a swimmer straight to the bottom.

Sin acts the same way, for those Christians who are weak in their faith and still flirt with sin, it takes little temptation to lead them into sin. Sin, without fail, leads to eventual death. Sin sucks got right in and – once it has you – there is no escape. It is a bottomless pit that leads to death, a whirlpool from which the is no escape. Sin, when it claps is wicked hands around your throat, does not easily turn loose.

Only Christ can compel sin to loosen is grip on your heart. Only Christ can toss you a life saver.

At a local amusement park in Branson Missouri, there was -in the 1960s – a ride called The Float Trip. On one turn was an artificially constructed whirlpool with a manikan perpetually circling it, as if condemned to an eternity of drowning. The ride has been transformed and renamed. The lifelike dummy is gone now, but the whirlpool remains. Temptation always remains, but Christ can transform you so that you no longer dive into it.

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Holiness is, perhaps, the most misunderstood concept in Christianity. Anyone who has striven to follow the life of Christ can likely tell you that it is impossible to do. No one can match His love, His grace, or His compassion. For no one but Jesus is perfect. Once the believer is filled with and empowered by the Holy Spirit, though, he or she is filled to the brim with the love of Christ, and desires nothing more than to please God and follow in Christ’s steps. The love of sin is gone. In its place is a love and passion for others. That is Christian Holiness. This is Christian Holiness Daily.

A Bridge Too Far?

August 6, 2018 by ChristianHolinessDaily

The scene was one of the most heart-wrenching moments in all of Star Trek: The Original Series. Spock had used his “Vulcan death grip” on Captain Kirk. The determination in the face of the Vulcan as he gripped his captain’s head, the raw, unbridled emotions was terrifying. It was surpassed only by the over-wrought fear on the face of Captain Kirk as he lost consciousness and fell to the ground. “You’ve killed him, Spock,” said Dr. McCoy. Cut to commercial. The six year old me never forgot that scene. The Vulcan death grip was a wonderfully terrible thing.

I had done so much wrong in my life that I was convinced God could never forgive me. I had been such a wicked sinner I had feared that I had crossed a bridge too far. After all, I had been saved, I knew right from wrong, I knew what God expected. I just found that I didn’t want to do what was right. Doing right involved sacrifice, and I didn’t want to sacrifice. It involved giving up control, and I liked being in control. Because I couldn’t see anyway to fix my life, I could not understand how God could fix it. I had no faith. I had no self-discipline. I had no comprehension of the power of God. And I had no grasp of the depth of God’s love.

Here is what I thought I understand. I knew that Hebrews 6 talked about those who sin too much and lose their salvation, or that’s what I believed. I knew that Romans 1 spoke of those who sin so much that God gives them over to a “reprobate mind.” I had read, in Acts 7, the sermon by my namesake, Stephen, that God had once given up on the nation of Israel and turned them over to worship false gods. And, I knew that the psalmist had spoken of that same event in Psalm 81:12.

It was in the Bible. Those people had gone too far, and God had given up on them, turned His back on them, and let them reap the rewards of their sins. I feared I was in the same place as the People of Israel. I didn’t worship a golden calf, but I did worship the idol known as self. God was, I was convinced, angry at me.

Here are the two points that we will be looking at as we continue our study on bondage to sin and freedom from sin through the power of the Holy Spirit.

First, sin is a frightful thing. Its grip on the life of an unbeliever or a weak believer is nothing less than a Vulcan death grip. Sin latches on to your heart and your soul and squeezes you, harder, and harder, and harder, and is not happy until you collapse, dead. If you manage to resist and break the grip, it stalks you, and doesn’t give up until it possesses you once again. It never gives up. Paul describes the wages of sin in Romans 1 as a depraved mind. God – knowing that the people of Israel would not repent – turned them over to the wages of sin, to live with their own bad decisions and willful disobedience, and as a result their minds and souls grew dark, and filled with muck, and the only word to describe them is depraved.

It didn’t have to be that way, though. They had plenty of chances to repent.I had once been convinced that Hebrews 6 tells us that we can lose our salvation by sinning too much. A closer reading reveals that that is not at all the case. Instead it says that we may lose our salvation if we stop believing in Christ the Messiah. I had done many, many things wrong, but I had never stopped believing in Christ, and I had never once thought that there is any other route to heaven but through Him. He is the Way and the Truth and the life. “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast” (Ephesians 2:8-9 NIV).

Sin can take you down. But it is only if you stop believing that your salvation may be in jeopardy. Your good works didn’t earn you salvation (salvation is by faith), so your bad deeds will not lose it for you. Sorry, you are not more powerful than the grace of God.

That Vulcan death grip was a farce. It didn’t work. Dr. McCoy saved the day. Jim wasn’t really dead. Spock showed emotion at the recovery of his captain. And, guess what. There is a cure for the death grip that sin has on your life, too. Confess your sins. Repent of them. And trust in God. It is NOT TOO LATE.

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