April 19 (Romans 5:8)

but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.  (ESV)

Homer’s Iliad is the epic poem about the Trojan War.  In Book III, the goddess Aphrodite speaks with Helen, whose beauty it was claimed launched a thousand ships.  In Stanley Lombardo’s translation, we find the goddess a bit angry with the mortal woman.

Don’t vex me, b****, or I may let go of you

And hate you as extravagantly as I love you now.

I can make you repulsive to both sides, you know,

Trojans and Greeks, and then where will you be?

I cannot help but be struck by the stark contrast with the one true God.  The Greco-Roman gods were easily angered and vindictive.  They were thought to love you one moment and strike you down the next, and you could only hope and guess about which would happen.  Imagine, then, the shock when it was revealed to people whose only experience of gods was like this passage from the Iliad that the one true God loved them, even when they sinned against Him.

Two thousand years later, do we take this for granted?  How grateful, really, are we for the love of God?  There is no one, not one, on earth or in any other faith, like the One Who loves us, even in our sins.

Father, may I never take for granted the love You have shown me through the life, death, and life of Your Son, my Savior, Jesus Christ.  May all that I do reflect that gratitude to You and show others the joy of Your love.  Amen.

Copyright © 2015 by Steven R. Perkins

April 12 (John 13:1)

…having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.  (ESV)

I have finally found what I want as the epitaph on my tombstone.  John wrote these words about Jesus as he described the Last Supper, and I can think of nothing else I want to be said of me as husband, father, and friend.

Love is a tedious thing.  It is mundane.  It is tiresome.  Certainly there are the skyrocket moments of romantic love and the excitement over a relative’s or a friend’s success, but the kind of love that lasts to the end is a plodding, day in and day out kind of thing.  It keeps on going when you do not feel like doing something loving.  It keeps on going when you are just too tired.  It keeps on going.

I like the idea that I am going to have the opportunity to love the people in my life until the day I die.  There is satisfaction in contemplating the long years of loving service.  Sometimes the acts of love are dramatic, but mostly they are small.  Yet taken together they make up the fabric of a life well lived.

Jesus, thank You for loving me at all times.  Thank You, too, for calling me to just such a life of love with those into whose lives You have placed me.  Thank You for the daily heartbeat of love.

Copyright © 2015 by Steven R. Perkins

April 5 (Matthew 28:6)

He is not here, for he has risen.  (ESV)

Many people have been brought back from death, especially in a time of advanced medical knowledge.  Only one raised Himself.  Note the language in this simple announcement of the angel to the women at the tomb of Jesus.  The angel did not say, “He has been raised.”  This would have implied that someone else did the raising. 

Pause.  That is a sobering thought.  Jesus was not raised.  He rose.  You rise when you get up out of your chair, but you do this because you are already alive.  Jesus was dead, and yet He rose.  He died because He was human.  He rose because He is God.

Jesus never shouted it, but everything He did and said pointed to the truth that He is God.  Easter is not about celebrating the life of a good man.  It is about acknowledging the truth.  The One with Whom we live as brother and friend, because He invited us to do so, is the living God of the universe.

Jesus, I praise You!  You are my God, my life, and my friend!  May every day of my life be one of praise to You!  Amen.

Copyright © 2015 by Steven R. Perkins

March 29 (Ephesians 5:1)

For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.  (ESV)

I love the simplicity and straightforwardness of the Christian faith.  It is for freedom that Jesus set us free.  When you read those words, you may be tempted to say, “Well, duh!  What else would freedom be for?”

Strangely, though, many of us who have been set free by Jesus continue to enslave ourselves.  Does any of this sound familiar?  “I need to keep up a good act.  If they ever knew the real me, it would all be over.”  “I have to do this and this and this and then I have to go there to do that so I can get back here for that other thing.”  “I just have to hope this works out or I am ruined and then I don’t know what I’ll do.”

That does not sound like freedom to me.  Unfortunately, it does sound like me.  How would your daily thoughts, and therefore your daily actions, be different if you actually lived as if you were free?  In other words, how would your life be different if you believed the Bible as you claim to do?

Father, it is a daily choice for me to live in the freedom that Jesus provided or in the slavery of the world and my own thoughts.  May the Holy Spirit grant me the strength to choose the freedom bought for me at Calvary.  Amen.

Copyright © 2015 by Steven R. Perkins

March 22 (Amos 5:4)

For thus says the Lord to the house of Israel:  “Seek me and live.”  (ESV)

God is mysterious, for who could ever understand His love for sinners?  Yet He is also simple.  He is direct, bold, and clear.  “Seek me and live.”  We complicate matters.  We construct elaborate theories and philosophies.  We create labyrinthine bureaucracies and oh, how we love policies!  And while we spend our lives running around the mazes of our own construction, God waits patiently for us to realize the truth.

“Seek me and live.”  You may think this does not apply to you.  You are a baptized, Bible-believing, church-attending, serving-the-needy Christian.  Stop for just one moment and look at your life and see which metaphor fits it better.  Are you an eagle, soaring on the winds, or a rat scrambling through the maze?

“Seek me and live,” says God, the Father Who loves you and sent His son to rescue you from your sins and your sin nature and indeed from the fallen creation into which you were born.  As the old hymn puts, “Turn your eyes upon Jesus.  Look full in His wonderful face, and the things of earth will grow strangely dim in the light of His glory and grace.”

Father, I seek You today because I want to live.  I claim Your promise that those who seek You will find You.  I deliberately choose the life obtained for me by the death of my Savior, Your Son, Jesus Christ, and live that life in the gentle guidance of Your Holy Spirit.  Amen.

Copyright © 2015 by Steven R. Perkins

March 15 (Romans 6:4)

We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.  (ESV)

Today is the Ides of March, the day on which Julius Caesar was stabbed to death in 44 B.C.  Brutus, Cassius, and the other senators thought they were bringing about freedom from tyranny by assassinating Caesar, and perhaps they did, for about five minutes.  Yet anyone who knows anything about history knows that tyranny quickly sprang up again in Rome.  Its roots run deep throughout the world today.

Compare the death of Caesar with the death of Jesus.  While we recall the Ides of March as a significant event in history, no one participates in the death of Caesar in the way we participate in the death of Jesus through baptism, and for good reason.  Jesus was raised to life, and by participation in His death, we receive His life.  This is a great and wonderful mystery and the foundation of our faith.

Political and military struggles will continue until Christ returns.  Caesars will rise and Caesars will fall, and there is much to learn from the deeds of history.  No historical act, however, will ever bring life as did the death of our Savior.

Jesus, we pray to You because You alone are God.  May Your life reign in me even as I continue to die to myself.  Amen.

Copyright © 2015 by Steven R. Perkins

March 8 (Psalm 119:54)

Your statutes have been my songs in the house of my sojourning.  (ESV)

People do not write songs about the Constitution of the United States.  I know of no song writer who has looked at the Indiana code of law and said, “Now here is some some great lyrical material for my next album!”  Yet how many songs do we know that are based on or taken directly from the words of Scripture?

There is Christian rock, Christian rap, Christian metal, Christian blues.  There are praise songs, gospel, southern gospel, and contemporary pop Christian music.  What unifies these genres?  It is their lyrics.   They all sing about themes inspired by or drawn straight from the Bible.  And then there are the hymns.  I love the great, old time hymns of our faith.  From my childhood to adult life, they have been the songs of my sojourn.

Let Christian music fill your car as you drive.  Keep it on your phone for when you go to the gym or work around the house.  Find the Christian artists in the musical styles that you like.  Soak up the great hymns.  Let His statutes be the songs of your life.

Lord, thank You for gifting musicians to play and sing about You.  I need them.  I need their words, which are really Your words, and I need their music.  Bless all artists who serve You with the talents You have given them.  In the name of Christ Jesus, I pray.  Amen.

Copyright © 2015 by Steven R. Perkins