Category: Devotional

Scapegoats

~ Chuck Griffin ~ Leave a comment

By Chuck Griffin

Few Christians think much about the Jewish Day of Atonement, when the ancient Israelites would fast and reflect on their sins as the priests worked to expunge those sins through animal sacrifices.

The season of Lent preceding Easter may be the closest similar experience Christians now have. (Many Jews, of course, still observe the Day of Atonement, or “Yom Kippur,” but without the associated animal sacrifices.) During Lent, and especially Holy Week, we are similarly called to reflect and repent so that we may better appreciate and accept the forgiveness offered to us by Jesus Christ via the cross.

One unusual aspect of the Day of Atonement is recorded in Leviticus 16:20-26. Here, the high priest symbolically placed the people’s sins on a live goat, which was then led into the wilderness and set loose.

This “scapegoat” was one of two goats involved in the ritual. The other goat was sacrificed.

The goats, of course, were a foreshadowing of Christ. Jesus is the one who came as the final sacrifice for our sins. He is the one who bears away our sins forever.

And yet, despite the coming of Christ, people continue to lay the burden of their sins on other creatures. In modern times, we seem to prefer to use people instead of goats.

For example, troubled families often feel better if they can single out one person to label as particularly “bad.” Focus on the scapegoat, and no one has to examine his or her own problems too closely.

Of course, the scapegoat suffers much damage in such a family, particularly if the scapegoat tag is attached in childhood. These people often grow up to be what some call “volunteer victims,” deliberately entering relationships where they wind up the recipients of abuse, the role to which they’ve grown accustomed.

The search for sin is primarily an inward search, and we all have sin from which we should repent. Fortunately, Jesus is big enough and strong enough to bear all our sins away. He’s a very different goat than what we were expecting, though. He’s the Greatest of All Time.

No other scapegoats are needed. In fact, even modern-day scapegoats can find peace through Christ.

Lord, thank you for relieving us of the burden of sin in an eternal way. Help us to surrender more and more of ourselves to you each day. Amen.

Burnt Sacrifice

~ John Grimm ~ 1 Comment

Psalm 20 (NRSV)

By John Grimm

The best cattle, sheep, and turtle doves were the material for a burnt offering (Leviticus 1).  The unblemished and best male was to be offered by the priests.  The whole of the beast was to be burned, except for the entrails.  Performing this sacrifice was a means of atonement with God.  Nothing of the animal was eaten by the one who offered the burnt sacrifice.  The aroma was said to be pleasing to the Lord.

We now know that Jesus Christ is the one by whom we have atonement.  Jesus sets things right between us and God.  We can only get to God through faith in Jesus Christ.  We are thankful that bulls, rams, and turtle doves are no longer necessary to please God. 

Yet we Christians call upon the Lord and say we have not heard from God.  What are we keeping back in our faith?  Are we keeping the best of who we are from God?  Do we clamp onto our best and rely on our best to get us through troubles in this life?  We may do such activities because we do not want to see our best completely burnt.

Trusting in chariots, horses, stock portfolios, trucks, job titles, or anything else, keeps us from placing our pride in the name of the Lord.  It might be time to give up the things we trust.  As we continue through Lent, our time is being spent learning to trust God.  Maybe all we can do is trust God to protect us.  Then we can be focused on God alone and trusting him.

God, we are still learning that we can trust you.  It is not our belongings, no matter how wonderful they are, that can save us.  It is by trusting Jesus that we rise and stand. May our possessions be as burnt sacrifices as we learn to depend upon you.  In the name of Jesus Christ, we pray.  Amen.

Repairs Underway

~ Chuck Griffin ~ Leave a comment
“Ruth in Boaz’s Field,” Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld, 1828.

By Chuck Griffin

In this season of Lent, we spend a lot of time considering spiritual brokenness. That can lead to a basic question: How can a good, loving God leave this world in its broken condition?

The Bible actually works hard to answer that question. First, there’s the understanding that the brokenness is not what God desires. It is a result of sin, rebellion against God.

We also see, however, that God is in the process of repairing the damage, and he often uses what is broken to make repairs. I’m reminded of a man I met who made very good knives and other tools out of worn-out files.

As an example from “The Book of Judges,” take the story of Jepthah, found in chapter 11. His mother was a prostitute, causing his half-brothers to chase him away from his father’s lands to keep him from claiming any inheritance.

Jepthah did what many disenfranchised people do: He became a rebel, organizing a powerful guerrilla operation. But when God’s people came under attack, Jepthah used his forces to rescue them. The brokenness in his life actually positioned him to do God’s work.

Or look to the story in “The Book of Ruth.” Here, the widow Naomi lost both of her sons, leaving her in a precarious, life-threatening position. She was a Hebrew woman in a foreign country where she and her husband had moved, Moab.

She tried to send her childless Moabite daughters-in-law away to find husbands for themselves, but one of them, Ruth, refused. Instead, they journeyed back to Naomi’s homeland, where Ruth won the love of a man who ensured both she and Naomi would have a future.

In fact, what seems to be a simple story proves to be critically important to the story of Israel and the salvation of the world. When we see this story in the context of the Bible as a whole, we realize it’s about much more than the love between a daughter-in-law and a mother-in-law or the love between a lonely man and a needy woman.

Ultimately, Ruth and her new husband, Boaz, had sons, one of whom was a direct ancestor of King David. And that of course means they also are listed in the genealogy of Jesus Christ, who saves the world from sin.

When we see such stories in the Bible, we’re called to ask ourselves how God might be working through the brokenness around us today. We’re encouraged to understand that God sees the pain and says, “That’s terrible, but I’ll use it to my advantage.”

And of course, we’re also reminded that pain and suffering are not eternal. If God is working to repair the world, then an end to brokenness lies somewhere in our future.

Dear Lord, as we are confronted with our own brokenness, may we also be granted a glimpse of how you will transform it to your glory. Amen.

Deliverance

~ John Grimm ~ 1 Comment

Psalm 32:6-11

By John Grimm

It may be that the enticing aspect of the rapture is that we will be taken out of terrible situations.  However, God does not pick us up, sweep away the trouble, and then place us down again in the same place we had been.  It is true to say that God is our hiding place.  It is true that God keeps us while trouble is going on around us.

While God is keeping us during trouble, we hear cries of deliverance.  Other people, who also trust God, are gladly shouting praise to God.  It is possible to exult God during trouble.  We find that as God is faithful to us, we also can be faithful to him.

Can we continue to learn from the Lord the way we should go?  Can we heed his counsel, knowing God knows the very situation we are in?  As we give affirmative answers to these questions, we realize God’s steadfast love surrounds us.  Our hearts become upright as we trust God.  Then, we rejoice greatly!

Lord God, you are with us in our troubles.  You hide and preserve us.  We know that we can get through the trouble.  We praise you for enveloping us with your steadfast love as we trust in you.  You make us glad.  Thank you!  We praise you in the name of Jesus Christ for the deliverance you are giving us.  Amen.

Recognizing the Resurrection

~ Chuck Griffin ~ Leave a comment

By Chuck Griffin

Once again, I so need Easter. I remember saying something along those lines last year and rejoicing in Easter’s arrival, and I’m doubling down this year.

It’s easy to let the world distract us from our core beliefs. Fear often is the driver behind the distractions. Fear for our health, fear for our financial futures, fear that our lives, or even our churches, won’t be exactly the way we’ve spent years imagining them. So we spend our time working, saving and planning, hoping to manipulate circumstances as best we can. What little time we have to spare we devote to “recreation,” except we seldom spend that time actually re-creating our frantic selves.

The resurrection is the cure. The resurrected Jesus was able to say “fear not” repeatedly for a reason.

Blessedly, April arrives tomorrow, and Easter Sunday is April 17, starting a season of celebration built around the resurrection. Here’s a basic challenge for us all: Let’s once again recognize the resurrection as a very real and powerful event, one that changes everything else.

Try this each morning until we reach April 17. When you first arise, say out loud, “Easter is coming, and I have hope.”

Not all in church have fully absorbed the reality of the resurrection. In a prior appointment, I once had a woman enter my office to tell me she and her husband were resigning their memberships. Naturally, I asked why.

“It’s because of the way you preach about the resurrection,” she said. I pressed further, and she went on to say that they saw the resurrection as a sort of fable (my word, not hers), one designed to help people understand they have hope. “You talk about it as if it really happened!”

All I could say was, “Well, yeah! Christ’s resurrection is the foundation for what we believe. If Jesus Christ didn’t defeat death and come out of the tomb remade, our faith is meaningless.” Paul said as much in 1 Corinthians 15:14.

They didn’t stay in that local church, but a sound definition of the resurrection remained, and people who joined after the couple’s departure said they appreciated clear words about this key event impacting our lives.

This year, let’s recommit ourselves to a solid understanding of the transformative power of a very real resurrection. Now, I’m not saying we should rush early into Easter. First, we need to experience the remainder of Lent, Holy Week, and especially Good Friday, so we appreciate the sacrifice that makes Christ’s resurrection, and our own, possible.

Let’s be sure, however, that we all play a part in making Easter 2022 very real and very glorious, celebrating like a people full of hope and eternal life.

Lord, lead us through the dark and somber days remaining in Lent, and show us the great light of Easter.

A Widow’s Trust

~ John Grimm ~ 1 Comment

2 Kings 4:1-7 (NRSV)

By John Grimm

Can we trust one another?  Can we trust God when times are lean? 

These questions come to mind when we read about a prophet’s widow and her two children.  Yes, there are times that husbands die and the family cannot pay a creditor.  Yes, there are creditors who do not care about the situation. 

It is the prophet Elisha who conveys the trust for the widow.  She trusted him to find a way forward for her and her children.  This miracle of the oil could come only from God.  By speaking what could only come from God, Elisha shows the amount of trust the widow could have.  We need not know how much olive oil that was poured into the borrowed vessels.  We need only to know that all the debts were paid and the widow, with her children, could live on the rest.

We can trust God for our lives.  It is by depending upon the Lord that we can live.  When we believe in Jesus Christ, our life becomes an abundant life.  Maybe our situations are not like this widow’s situation.  Are we willing to trust a prophet today?  Are we willing to trust God when we are deep in debt?  Are we willing to trust God when a loved one dies? 

It could be that we learn to fear the Lord, like the deceased prophet had done. 

God, our lives can end unexpectedly.  Our families can be left owing much to creditors.  Increase our faith now so we can trust you like the widow did.  May our fearing of you strengthen as we see how trustworthy you are.  In the name of Jesus Christ, may we find the abundant life you have for us.  Amen.

Empty Space

~ Chuck Griffin ~ Leave a comment

By Chuck Griffin

In this season of Lent, the word “repent” comes up on a regular basis. Repentance requires more commitment than we may realize.

In the third chapter of Luke, we see how crowds of people responded to John the Baptist’s call to repent and prepare the way for Jesus’ coming. But when they showed up to be baptized, he called them a “brood of vipers.”

Clearly, there’s a little more to repentance than just showing up. As we read on in Luke, we see more clearly what the hairy, locust-chomping prophet was expecting: a true change of heart, the kind of transformation that results in a change of behavior.

The crowd asked, “What then should we do?”

John the Baptist’s answer was simple. If you’ve got plenty, and the poor around you have none, share! Stop being so greedy. He must have sensed there were a few folks in the crowd who planned to keep their extra cloaks and food despite being baptized.

If you have a job, particularly one where you have power over others, then perform your duties honestly, he went on. The soldiers and tax collectors whom he addressed directly were notorious for abusing their power to commit theft and extortion. Again, he must have seen the desire for sinful gain still glimmering in their eyes.

These were just examples. His main point was, you cannot say “I repent” but then go on with your old, sinful ways. “Repent” means that you regret your past actions and put them aside. Without true repentance, all the water in the Jordan River won’t help you.

Salvation is simple. All you have to do is believe that Jesus’ death on the cross is sufficient to pay for your sins. True belief by its very nature requires a repentant heart, however. If you don’t think the concept of sin, and in particular, your individual sins, are a problem, how can you take seriously the need for the cross?

Think of it this way: Ongoing sin fills up places in you where God needs to be. True repentance creates empty spaces, allowing God to rush in.

Anyone in church knows that we still have much to repent. Sadly, even the really obvious sins—murderous anger, adultery, theft, deception—go on among Christians, within what we call the body of Christ.

And then there’s the more subtle stuff—gossip, slander, greed and refusals to forgive, just to name a few—that can do as much damage long-term as murder can do short-term.

Yes there’s always plenty of repentance needed, even among those who have submitted to the water and taken on the name of Christ. I won’t go so far as to call us a “brood of vipers,” but I wonder if John the Baptist might.

Fortunately, we worship a patient, loving God, one who will grant us the power to change, if only we repent and ask for God’s help.

Lord, as we open ourselves to you, search us and show us what needs to be surrendered. Amen.

Unneeded Silence

~ John Grimm ~ 2 Comments

Psalm 32 (NRSV)

By John Grimm

I did it again.  I kept my sin to myself.   Well, at least I thought I did.  Did people notice how short I was with them?  How much did my losing battle with sin show up in my life?

The psalmist is blessed, even happy, that the Lord has not charged him with iniquity.  Why is this state possible for the psalmist?  The psalmist has not tried to be deceitful regarding the wrong actions and words the psalmist has performed.  The psalmist is honest with God.

I, too, have noticed this phenomenon in my life.  Telling God my transgressions has been a freeing experience.  Otherwise, I keep my wrongdoing bottled up.   When that happens, the “woe is me” attitude is one of the ways my body wastes away.  The bottled-up truth of my sin will come out eventually, for my strength has limits.

After I have told God my sin and transgressions, he teaches me how I can live.  His steadfast love, his love that knows no bounds, is around me.  He gives me the ability to shout for joy because his forgiveness has allowed me to be upright in heart.  It is when I have unneeded silence in my life, because of bottling up my sins, that I fail to know and experience the steadfast love of God.

God, during these forty days I grow closer to you by being honest with you.  I have sinned.  I have gone against you and hurt myself, and others.  Hear my confession.  It is you who forgives my sins against you.  May I have the time and space to tell others how you have forgiven me.  In the Name of Jesus Christ, I ask that I may know the ways your steadfast love surrounds me. Amen.

Every Generation

~ Chuck Griffin ~ Leave a comment

2 Corinthians 4:16-18 (NRSV)

So we do not lose heart. Even though our outer nature is wasting away, our inner nature is being renewed day by day. For this slight momentary affliction is preparing us for an eternal weight of glory beyond all measure, because we look not at what can be seen but at what cannot be seen; for what can be seen is temporary, but what cannot be seen is eternal.

By Chuck Griffin

America and many parts of the rest of the world have embedded in their culture a love of youthfulness. In the media and elsewhere, we often glorify the young people of our world, even as we get older on average.

As Christians, we of course value young people deeply. Every new generation is in danger of missing out on the precious message of Jesus Christ as Savior, so we want to do all we can to reach the children and young adults around us. Sadly, American Christians as a group have not done a very good job of transmitting the message to younger people the past few decades.

As we realize our failure, some among us panic, and that can cause church leaders to fall into a kind of ageism. While wishing for more young people among us, they also begin to disdain all that white and silver hair that still arrives every Sunday.

It’s as if some church leaders are thinking, “These old people are the problem, and without them, everything would be okay.” This, of course, is silly—a lot of churches would end up with a mostly empty building.

As Jesus said, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few.” (Matthew 9:37.) And certainly, we shouldn’t chase away the workers we already have.

We do slow down some as “our outer nature is wasting away.” Older people, however, have an advantage, particularly if they have been in the faith a long time. Many have a deep sense of inner renewal—what we might call spiritual depth—and the life experiences they bring to a church’s outreach can be invaluable.

These people not only know how to plan and execute, they also often have more free time than your typical young adult! We also have to acknowledge that with medical advances and a better understanding of lifestyle choices, there are people in their seventies who can run circles around some people in their thirties when it comes to work.

Church leaders, don’t push these active older people away, even if they seem a little disengaged at times. Have you drawn them into the heart of your plans? Do you treat their worldview as something that remains relevant?

Once these experienced Christians are equipped with a proper understanding of the Great Commission (something lost on so many churchgoers for too long now), they can be a tremendous force for the kingdom.

Several years ago, I was doing ministry work in the Czech Republic. Senior Christians there were unusual because Soviet-enforced atheism had dominated their society and their minds for so long. The young Czechs proved to be more open to the gospel shortly after the Iron Curtain fell.

One Sunday, I worshiped with a small church made up mostly of families with young children. There was a white-haired exception among them, however. After the service, she asked me through an interpreter, “In your country, are there many older Christians, people like me?”

I suppressed a smile as I replied, “Oh, yes—most of the people in our churches are about your age.”

“Ah,” she said. “Wouldn’t that be wonderful!”

It is wonderful. Let’s never stop valuing what we have, and let’s get all the folks we have with us recommitted to the mission.

Lord, you work in our lives from the womb to beyond the grave, and every person is precious in your sight while here in this world, young or old. Give us the vision and the energy we need to grow your kingdom now. Amen.

Muzzled

~ John Grimm ~ 3 Comments

Psalm 39 (NRSV)

By John Grimm

I do not like to be silent.  It is my vocation that allows me to speak.  However, there are times to be silent.  As a Christian, there are times that my mouth can get me into trouble.  It is when I speak my piece that life falls to pieces!

Yes, I have been known to create problems for myself, and others, when I open my mouth.  It occurs to me that God may not want or need me to use the breath he has given me for all the purposes that I intend to voice.  Knowing the difference is necessary.   

My days will only be so long.  They are but a breath compared to the days of the Lord.  Then it is up to me to be silent.  I cannot speak and deliver myself from the trouble I have caused.  People would say, when you are done digging the hole you are in, put the shovel down!  If my hope is in God, then I can use my breath to state my hope is in God (v. 7). 

When God corrects me, I accept his chastisement.  God only corrects me so that I may be better, even holy as he is holy.  It is when I am going through the chastisement that I speak much.  My story about God chastising me need not be told to everyone while God is chastising me!  Only after God’s chastisement do I need to speak by giving praise to God.

It is a wise idea to speak more with God than with others, especially while God is chastising me.  Then I can speak to God how I have broken the peace between myself and others.  Others will know that I muzzled myself for my own good.  The speaking that is appropriate is praise of God.  It would be wise for me to know this truth. 

God, my relationship with you is important.  When I speak with others about my travails and my situation with the wicked, I realize I need to muzzle myself!  It is you who are capable and willing to get me through my travails and my being with the wicked.  I can trust you all my days.  Thank you for chastising me when I have needed such.  Thank you that I can speak your praises.  May I know the times I can take off the muzzle and let others know of how good you have been to me in my short life.  In the name of Jesus, I pray for such wisdom.  Amen.