Tag Archives: bible

Living in the Right Place

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James 1: 22-27…”Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like someone who looks at his face in a mirror and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like. But whoever looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues in it – not forgetting what they have heard, but doing it – they will be blessed in what they do. 

Those who consider themselves religious and yet do not keep a tight rein on their tongues deceive themselves, and their religion is worthless. Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.”

A little over a week ago I was standing on a hotel deck by a fire pit overlooking beautiful San Francisco, California. Directly across from me in the distance was the island that was home to the infamous – Alcatraz prison.  It paints the perfect illustration for this devotional entry. Are you living in the right place? My family and I were staying in a gorgeous hotel that was created by transforming its former occupant, the Ghiradelli Chocolate Factory, into luxurious 2 and 3 bedroom units in the city.  It was heavenly, and yes, the chocolate is still everywhere, too. I certainly felt like I was living in the right place while staring out at Alcatraz and considering what it must have been like locked up there instead. It’s a metaphor of course, and both are worldly prisons of different types, but in a simple way, it provides a good visual for the topic. To not be imprisoned by my fellow man, I have to choose to obey his laws. If I do not, I wind up in a place like Alcatraz. Your spiritual existence holds even greater stakes.

When we choose to accept the gift of salvation – choosing to place our guilt on the cross with Jesus – we are agreeing to be reborn so that we may exist in His holy presence. Washed clean. Absolved. One of Billy Graham’s main points throughout his entire ministry was that the cross should be offensive to us. It should revile us. Why? Because it’s our  sin nailed up in torturous agony. It’s our punishment. He took the bullet for us. He made the path that we cannot make ourselves. He provided us the right place to live. James is talking about what that means in his first chapter.

Where are you living? I often find myself being tempted back into previous states of mind, or pulled into new directions leading me away from the home Christ has made for me. Just last night I was having a great conversation with 2 old friends and we were rehashing stories from many decades ago. We sure had fun together. I cherish all those memories of laughter and bonding. It would be very easy for me as a human just to stay that person I was back then. To not grow. To not transform. Just stay that guy and be that way. But in reality, that guy was a miserable train wreck always one step away from total disaster. I was free to have all that fun, but my soul was locked up in a place far worse than Alcatraz. Lost and rotting away. Directionless. Pointless. The relationships I am honored to have from it all the only saving grace. The stories…they are all nailed up on the cross with the rest of my sin. It’s not that it was all bad, because that’s not true whatsoever, and we were loyal brothers to each other…that’s always the best of goodness. But the actions that I alone am responsible for…they add up to quite a mountain. I’m thankful each moment of each day that I was rescued. That Christ found me worthy enough to come get me. To pull me out of all my misery, wash me off, and give me a true life. An eternal life. To show me the right place to live. Placing a beacon of light within me that won’t allow to go back even when my mind is tempted to go there. The light pulls me back to the mirror James talks about. The mirror that reflects who I really am. Who God made me to be.

There is a modest house that sits mere steps from the front door of the church I’ve attended for well over 10 years. I park my car on the other side of the fence that separates the property often. I did just that yesterday. When my youngest daughter was going to preschool there many years ago, she would say (almost daily) that she wished we lived in that house so we could be so close to church. She said that because she spent a great portion of her early life before elementary school in the church. It felt like her home. It was the right place for her to live as far as she was concerned. I look at that house frequently. Yesterday I arrived for pre-service rehearsal (I’m a drummer in the praise band) and parked in my usual spot. I noticed as I looked at the house that there was a Halloween-like skeleton decoration hanging from the wall facing the church. I didn’t know what to make of that. I took it as a sign to keep away.

The reason this house fascinates me stems from the fact that it is indeed so close to our doors, but as far as I know, its occupant has never stepped foot inside. That truly bothers me. If we can’t reach them, how can our mission work spread beyond that house? We have all kinds of services and activities that minister to the people of the surrounding community, which is in dire need of them, and they take full advantage. Praise God. But that one house refuses to budge. I’m pretty sure every pastor of the church (United Methodists rotate) has attempted to get them in. I did just that myself a few years ago. I am not the knock-on-doors type, but one day I took a bible I bought with my own money and went and knocked on the door. I wound up having a conversation with a woman that lived there on her front porch. She didn’t invite me inside. I gave her a simple invitation, presented her the bible as sincerely as I could as a gift, and the end result of the effort was her saying – “Well, we all do our own thing, right?” Which was her polite way of saying…”Buzz off, Jesus boy.”

I look at that house from the viewpoint of the same way I looked at Alcatraz from the splendor of my renovated chocolate factory. I’m standing in this magnificent glorious place (God’s House) and just across the way is a prison. Now at the Ghiradelli location, I can’t go get the prisoners and invite them to live in the right place with me. Fairmont is in the business to make money, and I can’t afford to pay the fee for all of these hypothetical prisoners. (Alcatraz long ago stopped housing real prisoners). But when I’m standing in real glory, my church, I most certainly can go invite others to come join me. It’s up to them to decide. The price of admission is free, because the cross that they will find paid the price for them. But even though…free still isn’t good enough for so many. They would rather just keep looking at the mirror that will keep lying to them. The one that will let them forget who they are.

When we allow ourselves to exist away from God, whether physically or mentally (pride, jealousy, envy, and all the classics) we are not living in the right place. The safe place. The true place. His place. So I’ll conclude with the same question – Where are you living?

Gary Abernathy

 

 

 

 

For This Very Reason…

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2 Peter 1: 1-7…”His divine power has given us everything we need for a godly life through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature, having escaped the corruption of the world caused by evil desires.

For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; and to godliness, mutual affection; and to mutual affection, love.”

2016 was a spectacular year for me. Not many in the court of public opinion share that sentiment, but that was my experience nonetheless. I started the year with a burning desire to build this devotional blog globally. My intentions were good but my underlying motivation was wrong. My previous blog, a politics and war opinion forum, spread to well over 100 nations across the world with zero effort by me to make it happen. It just did. To this day, I still get hits on it all over the world from articles on everything from the Soviet Gulag to ISIS. It won’t die. I figured if I could do that with subjects I hated with every bit of my passion, then God would spread a devotional blog where all my loving heart was on display to even greater heights. By the end of 2016 it had spread to 25 nations and every continent on earth except Antarctica. I don’t think any one lives there. But something didn’t feel right, and God put a muzzle on me the second half of the year. The blog went dark. Even so, already in 2017 we have views from 4 countries just checking if there is anything new. Brazil, South Africa, Canada and the good ol’ USA. Let’s turn the lights back on.

The thing that wasn’t right was the position from which I was writing from. I never write from arrogance, but I was attempting to write from the standpoint of teacher, and God gently explained to me…1. I’m not ready for that. 2. Teachers hold a position of high responsibility in spiritual matters, and that I had better make sure I was ready for the consequences if I failed. I was basically given the option of – A. Shut up and learn. B. Face another painful rebuke. I chose – A. If you’ve never experienced a rebuking by the spirit, trust me, it’s much easier to just go where you’re told to go. The good shepherd swings that staff roughly if he has to. So, I dove myself back deeper into learning his ways. What a year it turned out to be. I was shown so much majesty I’d never be able to convey it all back to readers. That picture above this piece? That was taken back in the fall in the mountains of North Carolina. God hauled me up yet another big hill and let my eyes feast upon the very best of creation. He did that a great deal for me in 2016. He even took me to another grand hill, this time in Scotland,  where he showed me the very origins of my name and heritage, and to top it all off, “hugged” me with a huge burst of wind as I finished praying to him looking over his majestic vista. God was filling his child with good things.

Peter tells us in the above scripture not to just rest on the gift of salvation, but instead because of it, make every effort to use the freedom of existence without shackles, to transform our earthly life to meet up with our eternal one. Fill with good things, and when we do, we set forth on our destined path that leads to all those things being added to us. Eventually, we meet God, which = Love. Not any earthly definition of love. Actual, real, pure and holy goodness…Love. That is the final destination for those that belong to him, and we aren’t required to wait for it. We only must begin walking on the right path. God put me on that path. I’m still plodding along. If I had to mark my progress, I’m somewhere in the land of learning self-control while still gaining knowledge that will see me past that landmark. It’s fearful to let go of the world. Honestly, I’ve never met many earnestly aware that’s what they are attempting to do. I know a few and that’s it. We fail many of the tests, but our knowledge continues to increase as we fine tune where we went wrong and adjust. In the same way any other great thing was built – by trial and error. I have to state…God has been SO gentle with me this time. It’s not at all like it was when he had to conk me over the head to get my full attention. He knows that I know when I’m screwing up, lightly prods me in the side when needed, and lovingly whispers encouragement in my ears. I don’t know if this gentleness will remain for all of the walk, but I sure hope so. Either way, whether by staff to the head, or gentle encouragement in the ear, I will keep walking his walk until I get to him. I believe I can write again. Just not as a teacher, but instead, a brother sharing his experiences and things I’ve learned on the path. A guide. Maybe a funny looking Sherpa. There is but one teacher and his name is not mine.

Where are you on your walk? Are your feet even moving in the right direction? If not, the first and only place to start looking as to what went wrong is what you are filling your existence with. Where is your passion being funneled? We all get trapped in and by the world. It’s 100% guaranteed. Do you have the knowledge to get out of the traps? Has the staff pulled you out of those deep holes? You know whom you must call to for help.

For this very reason, start filling your life with goodness. “The Bible” has been mocked into cartoon like silliness by the world. But there’s grand reason the world does that…those are living words from the creator directly to you and Mr. World knows that. That silly book is life itself. It’s your passport to eternity. Start reading one psalm and one chapter of proverbs daily, and pray the Lord’s Prayer on your knees afterwards. Watch what happens.

See you on the path.

Your Brother,

Gary Abernathy

 

 

 

 

 

In God We Trust

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Proverbs 3: 1-10…Wisdom Bestows Well-Being…”My son, do not forget my teaching, but keep my commandments in your heart, for they will prolong your life many years and bring you peace and prosperity. Let love and faithfulness never leave you; bind them around your neck, write them on the tablet of your heart. Then you will win favor and a good name in the sight of God and man. Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight.”

The picture above is one of the two bibles that rest on the altar just steps away from where I write. One of them is my own study bible that originally drew my heart into hearing God’s words for me. The instrument that began to explain in detail to me why he created me. The other is the one pictured that belonged to my wife’s grandmother. A simple and devoutly faithful woman who lived in rural Kentucky her entire life. My wife Lisa holds her in the highest esteem. Her grandmother was God’s bedrock placed in her life as she grew up. The one who instilled the promise of salvation within her as she stumbled her way to eventually finding that promise to be true. When I put together that altar in the process of enormous change in my life to keep me grounded in relationship, and to display to my own family the vital importance of God’s daily presence in our lives, she quietly placed that bible along with mine. One day it wasn’t there and the next it was. When I pray daily, there is a symbolic piece on the altar where I ask to be made good soil for his word to be sown. There is a rock that I brought from the summit of Mt. Pisgah in an exercise of obedience, where I ask for just that…to be given strength to be obedient, and there are the 2 bibles. I place my hands on both, and I ask that his wisdom and knowledge be poured into me, so that it may come back out correctly for his will, his purposes, and his glory. Then I say, “And say hello to Lisa’s grandmother for me.” I do this mostly every day.

I never knew her grandmother. I only attended her funeral. She died from Alzheimer’s disease. I never got to meet this woman my wife holds in such high regard. But I know where her trust was. It was in her Lord. My wife has conveyed this to me repeatedly over the 20 years of our togetherness. Lisa, her mom, and her brother, pretty much fought the world alone as she grew up, with a faces coming and going, and her father abandoning her when she was too young to even know what that meant. But her grandparents provided home base. Grounding. God. I see these people I never met all over the 3 of them even today many years past their leaving the world. They were that strong of Godly presence. It was her grandmother that was God’s vessel for her husband and the three of them.

I want to be that for my family. I want to be so transformed by him that my family for many coming generations will thrive from the rock placed within our blood. I was the least likely and poorest person to pick for such a position. But God has plucked me from my wretched nature and continues to shape me how he desires. It’s an ugly process. Some days I feel like I’m already walking in heaven, and other days I feel like my soul is ripped up into an infinite shred of shame and tears. But as time has moved, my trust has grown strong in my creator. I do not trust my worldly instinct any longer, and when I need a reminder why, God provides it with mirrors into the horribleness of what that worldly instinct created. I recoil at the sight of it when I recognize in the moment what’s going on. As if for a split second, I get to see myself as he does. That altar I put up has a wood surface. My tears flow upon it. Just before typing this they flowed and I squeezed my eyes as hard as I could…as if wringing out a soaked towel. My tears to my hands and absorbed into the wood. I offer them to him in worship. My weakness turned into his strength. And maybe…he can use this soul for something good. Something righteous. Something holy.

In God we trust? Solely. Wholly. He will make our paths straight.

Gary Abernathy