Third Timothy

“Unjustly condemned, he was led away. No one cared that he died without descendants, that his life was cut short in midstream. But he was struck down for the rebellion of my people.” (Isaiah‬ ‭53:8‬)

This is the life of Jesus on a cue card. Isaiah prophesies about the coming Savior in a way only God could have inspired. In just a few short verses he describes the intimate details of a life delivered and sacrificed for the sins of man.

Anyone who can read the whole Bible will be able to dispel the rumors, the gossip—the scuttlebutt—that some bad actors seem bent on attaching to the life of Jesus; that he was married, or that he had an affair with Mary Magdalene, or that he had children. Plenty of people are more than willing to try and discredit the Savior, and others are equally willing to believe them.

But here Isaiah states very clearly, in advance, that he had no descendants. In the same passage Jesus is described this way: “There was nothing beautiful or majestic about his appearance, nothing to attract us to him. He was despised and rejected—a man of sorrows, acquainted with deepest grief. We turned our backs on him and looked the other way. He was despised, and we did not care.” Hardly the kind of man over which women would be swooning. But our Savior nonetheless. And he was holy, not a philanderer—yes, hard to imagine in a world filled with men of low standards, but he came for the very purpose of demonstrating righteousness in the face of temptation. And God could not have sacrificed a blemished Lamb.

Bottom line is, if you want the truth you go to the source; the Bible has all that you need and nothing you don’t.

I’m looking for a few good men to help fund this work of global outreach. After many years I still have only a handful of donors, most of whom are women. I would like to think a few men of God will stand up with me to the challenge of reaching the world with the hope and love of Jesus Christ. Come on, guys, help me reach the world. A regular commitment as small as $5 will help to connect more than 3,000 new readers every month from all over the globe. This is an amazingly effective tool to share the good news of Jesus, but also to offer comfort to those who don’t even know what they are missing—and it puts you on God’s radar for substantially bigger adventures!

“If you are faithful in little things, you will be faithful in large ones.” (Luke‬ ‭16‬:‭10)

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“If a man has a hundred sheep and one of them wanders away, what will he do? Won’t he leave the ninety-nine others on the hills and go out to search for the one that is lost?” (Matthew‬ ‭18:12‬)

Don’t feel bad if you are one of the ninety-nine left on the hills; you are not alone. And you are not lost. There is an extraordinary difference between you and the lost sheep.

Understand the value of being found. Whether it’s Jesus who is with you, or it’s the Holy Spirit, you have perfect guidance. You are being led to green meadows and calm waters; and you will get there. There is no square inch of land beyond his oversight and care.

The lost sheep, though. The lost sheep are being chased by wolves and run over cliffs. They suffer skinned knees and broken bones. They go hungry and sleep with burrs in their tails. They awake in a panic that every moment could be their last.

The Master searches for the one lost sheep because it is lost. It has no hope. It can’t find its way home. And such were you. Rejoice in the knowledge that you are found.

“The accuser of our brothers and sisters has been thrown down to earth—the one who accuses them before our God day and night.” (Revelation‬ ‭12:10‬)

Satan is a loser. The one who couldn’t succeed in turning the heavens against God is now trying to turn the earth against him.

Then Jesus came to conquer him here. Twice spurned, it makes Satan furious and he hates the children of God more than ever—having lost his audience in heaven, he mills about down here sowing discord and strife.

But he can only invite you to his destruction. You don’t have to yield. James writes that all we must do is resist him and he will flee; ultimately Satan is lazy. He knows how easy it is to convince people to gossip and hate, and he will simply go find softer targets for his lies and deceit.

Don’t fall in with the wrong crowd. If you find yourself constantly surrounded by criticism and complaint, Satan is not far away; don’t become his accomplice by spreading what he starts. Instead, the people who are too weak to fight him cannot stop you from bringing them before our God day and night in prayer. And with the Holy Spirit on your side you have more power than the enemy. Use it.

“Peter told them, ‘You know it is against our laws for a Jewish man to enter a Gentile home like this or to associate with you. But God has shown me that I should no longer think of anyone as impure or unclean.’” (Acts 10:28)

“I should no longer think of anyone as impure or unclean.” O God, help us to adopt this attitude toward everyone we meet.

How many barriers would melt, hostilities end, hatreds cease, if we could see everyone as the beautiful creation of God that they are, if we could love like he does, if we could understand the potential within that caused Jesus to willingly go to the cross?

A different world awaits. I made a wonderful friend of a black pastor and his wife who have both gone home now to be with the Lord. But when they lived here I was often a guest in their home. On one special occasion I was invited to a family seafood feast. Many friends and relatives had come to celebrate and, curiously, me; I was the only white guy.

I encountered a whole different culture, foods prepared in new ways, music with which I was unfamiliar, and colloquialisms that seemed foreign but were strangely comforting. It was a splendid afternoon.

I wonder how things could be if we looked past color; my own experience proves that more color is added, that it’s not only black and white but also the colors of joy and peace and serenity and friendship—and laughter! We desperately need more laughter in this world. Let’s be like our Creator and see more in people and not less.

“We can rejoice, too, when we run into problems and trials, for we know that they help us develop endurance.” (Romans‬ ‭5:3‬)

I must be so happy I’m giddy and don’t realize it. If running into problems and trials is an indicator of joy, I have exceeded my quota. Apparently endurance also produces calluses that desensitize my emotions.

Do you ever feel like this, like you’ve passed your limits a long time ago, that the last drop of fuel in the bottom of the tank has disappeared? You become numb to the next event, whatever it is, and it causes you to be blind to opportunity, absent in the spirit.

This is a dangerous place to be. I confess my own shortcomings to you as my hopes in certain areas go unfulfilled for years, even decades; I start to wonder if God cares, is he aware of my plight, does he know I still exist?

But I fall back on this: “We know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them” (Romans‬ ‭8:28‬). “We” includes me—do I know that God is working everything together for my good? Yes. And I have to decide if I believe it.

I believe it.

“The angel of the Lord appeared to him in a blazing fire from the middle of a bush. Moses stared in amazement. Though the bush was engulfed in flames, it didn’t burn up.” (Exodus‬ ‭3:2‬)

How much of what’s going on right around us do we miss because our eyes are turned inward and we are focused only on what matters to us? The God of miracles does not close for business when we close our Bibles. And his power is not limited to our belief in his power.

“I keep looking for miracles as I walk through a field of burning bushes.” This was a comment made between songs by music artist Chris August during a live concert on SiriusXM satellite radio in 2012. I’m glad I wrote it down for posterity because it says so much more than one sentence can contain.

What would happen if we spent less time navel-gazing and more time looking for ways to be a help? We might have more lint in our belly buttons but others would have more hope and joy. Which one is better?

Don’t ask the next person you meet how they are—it will almost certainly be answered with a lie. They are not fine. Everything is not great. They are lying. Instead, try asking, “How can I pray for you?” Even unbelievers will usually accept a prayer made on their behalf, and it might start a conversation. A friend and I tried this at a restaurant and the waitress pulled up a chair, sat down, and unloaded. Make the people around you a part of your miracle. God saved you, right? You have direct access to the Creator of the universe. That’s a miracle.

“God is working in you, giving you the desire and the power to do what pleases him.” (Philippians‬ ‭2:13‬)

All this talk about loving your neighbor, loving your enemy, forgiving—and forgiving and forgiving and forgiving—it seems overwhelming, a weight too heavy to bear. It can seem impossible.

And you are right. It is impossible without help from on high—and help from within. Which is what God gives us. We can’t do it on our own so he comes to live inside us. That little nudge you feel to do the right thing, even when you don’t want to, when it’s not your first or second or third thought, is the Holy Spirit prompting you. He is along for the ride and always there to help you at every crossroad.

He is living inside you not just to give you the power, but for the purpose of “giving you the desire” to do what pleases God. As you mature in your faith it should become more common to choose right in the face of wrong, good in the presence of evil. You should question less, do more.

Years ago there was a big WWJD movement, with hats and t-shirts and bracelets, that suggested we consider What Would Jesus Do in whatever situation we find ourselves. Good idea on the surface, but it can lead to speculation. How about if we just look at what Jesus did? It’s on the record for everyone to see. The Bible is filled with historical accounts of his acts of kindness and compassion, loving sacrificially and forgiving endlessly. You don’t have to wonder what he would do, just do what he did. Be like Jesus.

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“I am sick at heart. How long, O Lord, until you restore me?” (Psalms‬ ‭6:3‬)

The scientific community has discovered that a section of the brain called the anterior cingulate cortex, when stressed and overstimulated by relational trauma, can cause nerve or muscle pain in the chest—heartache; it’s physical as well as psychological. It’s real.

As long as we have love, we will experience the possibility of the loss of it, which causes heartache. But this is no reason to distance ourselves from love, else we remove the source of its equally powerful healing properties.

It seems you can’t have the one without the other. And that is a living example of how we’ve been created in the image of God. It’s his pain in losing us to sin that produced the sacrificial love of Jesus. We were designed the same way, to share these heights and depths of emotion.

In the middle of pain is the nucleus of love—the pain of its loss only comes from knowing the joy of its possession. And the psalmist acknowledges the sickness while looking forward to the promise of an end to it.

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Dear Lord, I pray that you will give every reader of this post a taste of the sweetness of your love, the longing for its fullness, and the strength to endure the wait. Amen.