Fierce and Loving

September 30 (Mark 1:25)

But Jesus rebuked him, saying, “Be silent, and come out of him!”  (ESV)

A man with an unclean spirit accosted Jesus in the synagogue one day, and Jesus flared up and commanded the spirit to leave.  Most translations read that He rebuked the spirit, and this is a fair rendering of the Greek verb, but the earliest translation puts it even more strongly.  In the Latin version from the late fourth century, it says Jesus threatened the spirit.  Either way, we see Jesus with fire in His eyes and thunder in His voice setting this man free.

Now go on just a bit more to verses 29-31.  As soon as He left the synagogue, He went to Simon Peter’s house, where Peter’s mother-in-law was ill with a fever.  “And he came and took her by the hand and lifted her up, and the fever left her, and she began to serve them.”  Can you imagine a more tender, loving scene than this?  There is no fire or thunder or rebuke this time, just a gentle act of love.  She was lying in bed with a fever, and Jesus carefully gives her His hand and helps her up.

Friends, this is Jesus.  He is the one you want when the demons and the monsters come to call, for He is afraid of nothing and will stand up to the dark forces, fiercely and authoritatively sending them back where they belong.  He is also the one you want when you are breaking and shaking and at your wit’s end, for He will gently and lovingly help you to stand.

Jesus, I need You.  I need You to fight my battles and to help me stand.  Sometimes I am too scared even to list all the ways I need You, so I ask the Holy Spirit to intercede on my behalf, knowing You are all and only what I need.  Amen.

Copyright © 2018 by Steven R. Perkins

Uncomfortable Love

November 20 (Mark 5:7-8)

With a shriek, he screamed, “Why are you interfering with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? In the name of God, I beg you, don’t torture me!”  For Jesus had already said to the spirit, “Come out of the man, you evil spirit.” (ESV)

Most people do not want to seem rude.  We want to get along with others and for people to like us.  This natural tendency merges with the Bible’s talk about loving each other, and before you know it we have compromised biblical truth for conflict-free relationships.  We think we are “loving people to Jesus” when we fail to speak the truth.

When Jesus came upon a man possessed by multiple demons, He did not smile and accept his lifestyle.  He did not wish him well privately as he went on about His business.  His business, it turned out, was confronting the evil directly.  Did that cause the man discomfort?  Apparently it did, for he begged Jesus not to torture him.  He even invoked the name of God.  Had this happened today, he may well have said, “A real Christian wouldn’t make me feel bad about my condition.”

Of course, Jesus did not make the man feel bad about his condition.  In fact, Scripture says that He had addressed the evil spirit directly, not the man.  It is important when confronting sin, whether in the lives of friends and family or in ourselves, that we make a distinction.  Sin is evil.  Our participation in it is wrong.  The joy of forgiveness can belong to anyone who acknowledges this and accepts the healing grace of Jesus Christ.

Father, help me break the false identity that I am my sin.  Create in me that new heart capable of knowing, without a doubt, that I am Your child by the blood of Jesus.   Grant me the boldness that comes from walking in the Holy Spirit to confront sin with the truth and the true love of Jesus.  Amen.

Copyright © 2016 by Steven R. Perkins

Knowing That God Loves You

July 17 (John 21:23)

Jesus said to him, “If it is my will that he remain until I come, what is that to you? You follow me!”  (ESV)

One of the biggest challenges people face in accepting God’s goodness, His love, and His grace is the pain and suffering of others.  If I really believe that God guided my decision on something at work, how can I square that with His apparent absence in an atrocity where innocent people died?  Can I truly accept that He was involved in a small detail of my life but not in a far more significant matter of life and death?

I can only answer for the events of my own life.  You can only answer for yours.  We can use reasoning and logic with regard to free will and the fallen nature of mankind to try to understand horrific acts and God’s presence in them, but at the end of the day, I do not know why He does not reach in and stop tragedies.  The only thing I can do is look at what He has done in my own life.

And what do I find when I look at that record?  He has spoken to me countless times through Scripture, through the words of others, and in the depths of my heart.  He has guided me and provided for me.  He has heard my prayers and answered them.  He has saved me.  I cannot speak to anyone else’s experience of God, only to mine, and in the words of Joshua 24:15, as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord, because as Paul once said to Timothy, I know whom I have believed (2 Timothy 1:12).

Father, You know how difficult it is at times for me to accept that You love me.  Satan wants me to look at so many things to convince me that You don’t.  Yet when I stop and look at things clearly and calmly, I see at once Your immense love and grace for me.  Thank You, Father.  May I walk always in close and confident relationship with Jesus, Who more than anything or anyone, is the living proof of that love.  In His name I pray, amen.

Copyright © 2016 by Steven R. Perkins

The Worth Of a Person

July 10 (Matthew 6:26)

Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?  (ESV)

John 3:16 declares that He loved us so much that He sent His Son to us.  Jesus Himself taught about the worth of human beings in the verse for today and again in Matthew 10:29-31 and Matthew 12:11-12.  Despite that it says in Genesis 1:26 that God made human beings in His image, it took the life and work of Jesus to get the world to understand that.  Ponder that for a moment in these words from the classic Christmas song “O Holy Night.”

Long lay the world in sin and error pining

‘Til He appeared and the soul felt its worth.

Worth does not stem from our ability to do something, as the verse for today clearly teaches.  Our worth is based on not one physical or mental attribute.  Your worth, my worth, and the worth of each person from conception to the grave is based solely on the declaration of God, a declaration made in the act of creation itself and the words and work of Jesus.

This means that you have worth in the eyes of God Almighty.  And so does your cousin.  And your neighbor at the end of your street.  The same goes for your colleague.  And the people with whom you disagree most passionately on the truly important issues.  And those with whom you disagree on the trivial stuff.  The lady serving at the food pantry?  She has value.   And so does the pornographer.  And the one who will blow up a building tomorrow.  And the ones who will hold the hands of the wounded and dying in the aftermath.  Those who look like you, and those who don’t.  And they…we…all have worth for no other reason than the simple fact that God made us and loves what He made.  No one has made that more clear than Jesus Christ, Who offers true and full life forever to anyone Who follows Him.

What an amazing gift of love You have shown us, O God, by proving to us our value to You through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus.  May we be forever grateful, savoring it completely, and sharing it with others with the same love and grace we have received.  In the name of Jesus, amen.

Copyright © 2016 by Steven R. Perkins

God Loves You...Really

April 10 (1 John 4:16)

So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us.  God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him.  (ESV)

“Nobody Knows You When You’re Down and Out” is a blues standard dating back to 1923 and covered by everyone from Bessie Smith to Eric Clapton.  There is a reason it is a musical standard.  It speaks the truth.  Our world is based on performance, evaluations, and productivity.  If you have something to contribute, great, but if not, get lost.  We see it in sports, business, education, government, and even in relationships.

Now set that aside and listen to a man who walked and talked with Jesus.  John knows something different.  He knows about love, not greeting card love and certainly not the perverse carnival of self-centeredness that passes for love in popular culture.  Real, true, sober, no-frills, honest-to-goodness love is what God offers through Jesus.  That love dwells within us thanks to the Holy Spirit.  It is a love that grounds you, protects you, comforts you, directs you, strengthens you, supports you, encourages you, nourishes you, nurtures you, calls you, inspires you, challenges you, rebukes you, corrects you, and draws you ever closer to its source, the God of the universe Who sacrificed His life so you could live.

Do you seriously think that kind of love is contingent upon how productive you are or even upon how good you are?  The kind of love John is talking about is so far beyond our comprehension and our sins that it triumphed over death.  Come on, now.  Do you really believe that God does not love you?

Father, it is easy to believe that You do not love me when I listen to the voices of the world, the voice of my enemy, and even my own voice.  Yet when I listen to You and the words You have spoken through Scripture, the message is clear.  You really do love me.   Thank You!  Help me to walk and talk, to breathe and think in nothing but the love You have shown me in Christ Jesus, in Whose name I pray, amen.

Copyright © 2016 by Steven R. Perkins

A Plan For the New Year

December 27 (John 21:17)

Feed my sheep.

This is one of the most wonderful sentences that Jesus ever spoke.  On the night of his arrest, Peter had denied knowing Him, just as Jesus said he would do.  This was not the kind of denial that some of us put forth when we remain silent about Jesus in conversation with friends.  Peter actually swore and cursed.  Imagine a man shouting, shaking his fists, and using profanity as he violently denied something.  That is how Peter denied Jesus.

Now it is after the Resurrection.  Jesus is fixing a breakfast of fish on the beach, and Peter and the others pull up in their boats.  Peter is not cursing and loud now, but there is an awkwardness there.  Peter knows what he has done, and he knows that Jesus knows, too.  Jesus gives Peter a chance to make it right.  He asks Peter three times whether he loves Him, once for each of Peter’s denials.  When Peter has confessed that he loves his Lord more than anything, Jesus does not give him further hoops through which to jump.  He does not lecture him.  He does not put him on probation until he is good enough to join the disciples again.  He puts him to work.

You did some good things in 2015.  You did some bad.  You may have even gotten more wrong than you got right.  As you look to the new year, you can spend your time beating yourself for all your mistakes and making plans, purely human plans, for how you are going to improve.  On the other hand, you can be faithful, accept the love and forgiveness of your Lord, and listen for what He wants you to do.  One of these approaches has all the appearance of discipline and promises success.  The other actually works.

Lord Jesus, thank You for this past year.  Forgive me for the times when I have rejected You and picked up again my sinful nature.  Like Peter, I truly do love You more than anything and accept the love that You have given me.  What do you want me to do next?  I wait, your humble servant, in patience.  Amen.

Copyright © 2015 by Steven R. Perkins

The Constant Care and Presence of Jesus

November 29 (Genesis 28:15)

For I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.  (ESV)

Our son and I were hiking in a sandstone canyon carved by the melting of glaciers in western Indiana.  I had pulled out my phone to take a picture of one glorious scene when I surprisingly received a bit of signal, and text messages started pinging through.  My friend’s wife had just been diagnosed with cancer.

It had been easy to revel in the splendor of God’s creation and to feel His goodness and love as we hiked the snow- and ice-covered trail beneath a brilliant, crisp, November sky.  But now?  We stopped and prayed together for our friends, but we before continuing on the trail, we talked about how some people are crushed by the trials that come to all of us, Christian and non-Christian alike, and how they can be led to question God’s love and even His presence.  I recalled this verse and others, and we talked about the sureness of God’s care for us, even, or especially, in moments when we do not feel it.

Illness.  Accidents on the highway.  Incurable diseases.  Losses of any kind.  Yes, we want to focus on Advent and the approach of Christmas.  There are lights to be hung and holiday preparations to be made.  Yet the very reason we celebrate the birth of one baby in a way we celebrate no other is because He was living proof of today’s verse.  Is He the One you cling to when the twinkling lights go out and the pains of life set in?

Every word.  Every breath.  Every act.  Every step.  All my life.  In my death.  Jesus.  Amen.

Copyright © 2015 by Steven R. Perkins

Jesus With You All the Time

August 30 (Matthew 28:20)

And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.  (ESV)

This is a beautiful promise that Jesus makes in the very last verse of the Gospel of Matthew, yet the English simply does not capture all of it.  Greek word order is highly flexible, allowing it to express concepts both by the meanings of the words and by their arrangement.  The first part of our Lord’s promise actually reads, I-with you-I am.  Notice the position of the words.  Where is Jesus?  At the beginning and the end of the promise.  Where are we?  In the middle.  He literally has us surrounded, wrapped in his embrace.

As for the word “always,” well, that is a fair enough translation, but the Greek actually reads “throughout all days.”  Day in and day out, Jesus is with us.  When we get up in the morning, when we go to bed at night, and then again the next.  And again the next.  And again and again.

Now put all that together.  Jesus has you in his loving embrace and He will never let you go.  He is not just in the corner of the room watching.  He is intimately involved in every fear, worry, concern, joy, celebration, and hope that you have every single minute of every day of your life.  How about that for a promise!

Jesus, my heart leaps at the thought of how close You are to me at all times!  Thank You, my Lord and Savior, for such a beautiful and powerful promise.  I want to live a life based on this truth and nothing else.  I love You, Jesus!  Amen.

Copyright © 2015 by Steven R. Perkins