“Twice Mine”

Tom had just finished making his own toy boat.  He brought the boat to the edge of a river and started to let out the string tied to it.  He was admiring how smoothly his boat cut through the water when a strong current took hold.  Tom tried to pull his toy back to shore but the current was too strong and the string snapped.  He spirited along the bank to catch it, but soon his boat drifted out of sight.  He desperately searched for the boat until darkness set in.  Unsuccessful, he finally gave up the hunt.

Several days later Tom was walking home from school and passed by a toy store.  A certain boat caught his eye.  He pressed his face against the store window to get a better look and sure enough, it was his lost boat.  He ran inside and told the manager, “Sir, that's my boat in your window.  I made it myself.”  The manager replied, “Sorry, son, but someone else brought it in this morning.  If you want it, you'll have to buy it.”  Tom hurried home and counted all of his money; he had just enough.  He rushed back to the store and purchased his beloved boat.  As he walked home he held the toy tightly to his chest and said, “Now you're twice mine.  First, I made you and now I bought you” (Good News Publishers, “The Boy Who Lost His Boat”).

This touching story perfectly illustrates God’s relationship with us.  He created everyone and everything.  He designed, crafted, and breathed life into each one of us.  Sadly, people still drifted away from God by the sweeping currents of sin.  In order to bring us back, God decided to pay a substantial price; He gave His own Son to die (John 3:16).  With this sacrifice God now owns us twice.  He made us and he bought us.

There should be no doubt in our minds that God loves us and wants us to be with Him (John 3:16; 2 Peter 3:9).  Look at the enormous lengths God has gone to get back something that was already His to begin with!  1 Corinthians 6:19 says, “Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own?  For you have been bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body.”

Our Lord is beyond deserving of our love, worship, and above all else, obedience.  Let’s remember that we belong to God and serve Him in all we say and do.

SINGING WITH THE UNDERSTANDING: Ivory Palaces

Neal Pollard

A little less than a century ago, Henry Barraclough wrote one of the most unique, lyrically-rich songs in our songbook.  The musical arrangement is soothing in a way that matches the meaning of the words.  However, its poetry has caused some problems.

The first verse begins, "My Lord has garments so wondrous fine, and myrrh their texture fills; Its fragrance reached to this heart of mine, with joy my being thrills."  This and the following verses must be understood in light of the chorus, which essentially tells us that Jesus left the perfect splendor of heaven to come to this sinful earth because of His unmatched love.  With that background, we understand Barraclough's meaning to be figurative.  Jesus did not wear the clothes of a king while on earth.  Thus, the writer seems to speak of the qualities of Jesus' character, the power and influence of it.  Myrrh  is a perfume, a theme the writer uses through the various stanzas of the song.  So, this first verse speaks of the attractiveness of Jesus' character.

The second verse talks about the sorrow and pain He allowed Himself to endure.  While we think of aloe as a healing plant, the writer speaks of it in the sense of its bitter root (see the footnote at the bottom of the song in Praise For The Lord). While Jesus was a king, He was also the man of sorrows, acquainted with grief (cf. Isa. 53:3).

The third verse shifts the focus to Jesus as the Great Physician.  He's an attractive king, He's a suffering Savior, but He's also the able healer.  The word "cassia," as once again a footnote supplies, is a "medicinal herb."  The idea is that He rescues us from our sin problem.

The final verse refers to Jesus' second coming.  He will bring the faithful Christian to heaven.  Taken together, we see Jesus in the "garb" (clothes) of King, Savior, Physician, and Judge.  Driving it all is "only His great eternal love."  Understanding the underlying theme of the songwriter helps us to better worship and better appreciate the perfect Son of God. 

Aches and Pains

Dr. Paul W. Brand was a noted leprosy expert and famous for his surgical accomplishments with lepers in India.   One night he became terrified when he noticed he had no feeling in his heel, a sign that he might have contracted leprosy.  “He rose mechanically, found a pin, sat down again, and pricked the small area below his ankle.  He felt no pain.  He thrust the pin deeper, until a speck of blood showed.  Still he felt nothing… All that night the great surgeon tried to imagine his new life as a leper, an outcast, his medical staff's confidence in their immunity shattered by his disaster, and the forced separation from his family.  He waited until morning, then with steady fingers he bared the skin below his ankle, jabbed in the point--and yelled.  From then on, whenever Dr. Brand cut his finger, turned an ankle, even when he suffered from agonizing nausea from mushroom poisoning, he was to respond with fervent gratitude” (Dorothy Clarke Wilson, Ten Fingers for God, pp. 142-145).

What an awesome perspective!  While pain is certainly no fun, the alternative is to be paralyzed, or be infected with serious diseases like leprosy, or to potentially never know when something is wrong.  Feeling pain means we are alive.  Experiencing pain helps us to fix problems before they become severe.

This story teaches us an important lesson about spiritual pain as well.  When we sin, we are supposed to feel guilty and appalled with ourselves.  This is the reason God gave us a conscience.  Guilt often produces change.  Consider David’s emotional words of guilt, “O LORD, rebuke me not in Your wrath, and chasten me not in Your burning anger… For my iniquities are gone over my head; As a heavy burden they weigh too much for me… I am benumbed and badly crushed; I groan because of the agitation of my heart… For I confess my iniquity; I am full of anxiety because of my sin… Do not forsake me, O LORD; O my God, do not be far from me!  Make haste to help me, O Lord, my salvation! (Psalm 38:1, 4, 8, 18, 21-22).

It’s good when people feel guilty and ashamed of their sins.  This is how we should feel.  The real problem is when people stop feeling guilty.  The people in Jeremiah’s day got to a point of spiritual numbness that they “no longer knew how to blush” (Jeremiah 6:15).  Paul talked about people who were so engulfed and unashamed of their faults that God gave them over to their sins (Romans 1:18-32).  The more we ignore our guilt and spiritual pain, the deeper into sin we become.  What a sad day this is when it happens.

Whether it is physical pain or spiritual pain, God gave it to us so we can know when something is wrong and fix it.  Don’t ignore the warning signs.  If something hurts, especially in our spiritual lives, take care of it.

"Do Something Religious!"

Neal Pollard

Larry Wilde included a famous bit from one of Bob Hope's monologue:  "Once I was flying in a plane that was hit by lightning. A little old lady across the aisle said, 'Do something religious!' So I did--I took up a collection" (Binghamton, NY, PRESS, 7/12/69, 15).  We get the irony in his fictitious story about the lady's panic and Hope's greed.  Yet, it is not funny when those in religion try to take advantage of people's fears and anxieties.  The medieval practice of the Catholic Church was to allow people to "pay" for their sins by financial contributions called indulgences.  Modern televangelists have tried to do the same, assuring that financial contributions to their "ministry" would aid in their listeners' forgiveness.  It is outrageous that religious institutions and leaders would seek to extort through such disingenuous means, but equally pitiful that people would seek such an inadequate substitute.

Micah poignantly addresses this matter in his inspired book of prophesy.  He writes, "With what shall I come to the Lord and bow myself before the God on high? Shall I come to Him with burnt offerings, with yearling calves? Does the Lord take delight in thousands of rams, in ten thousand rivers of oil? Shall I present my firstborn for my rebellious acts, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?" (6:6-8).

We cannot pay for or earn our salvation.  All the money in the world could not pay the debt of a single sin.  Micah reveals the mind of God here.  He wants our hearts.  When He gets that, He will not get debates and disagreements about the need for our obedience in order to receive the benefits of His grace.  Jesus describes the good soil as the one where the implanted word is met by an "honest and good heart, and hold it fast, and bear fruit with perseverance" (Lk. 8:15).  Truly, let us do something religious!  But let that be guided by Scripture!

Transgender First-Grader?

Neal Pollard

In Fountain, Colorado, a little 6-year-old is making national news.  The focus is not as much on this little one, still innocent, born a male but professing to be a girl.  It is how the adults in the story are behaving that defies belief.

The mother, interviewed now by every media outlet, speaks solely and exclusively of the child with pronouns like “she” and “her.”  Her son believes himself to actually be a girl, so she is being raised as such.  He is in Girl Scouts, dresses like a girl, and is treated like a girl.  The story did not get media scrutiny until the child was not allowed to use the girls’ restroom at his elementary school.  It is not clear who it was, but someone alerted the media to this scandalous refusal.  The media, fully complicit with the aggressive GLBT agenda, are portraying this as a natural and normal circumstance that should draw the sympathy and support of one and all.

It appears that a great many people hearing about this are appalled and even up at arms over what these parents are pressing or even how they are parenting.  Having taken some time to consider this, my conclusion is anything but profound.  It is this, that the further we get from God the more bizarre and twisted our thinking and actions become.  However, when a society reorients its thinking in a way that moves from God, it does so to its own great peril.  Proverbs 14:34 talks about the national disgrace of sin.  This means a guilt that a person feels or should feel.  However, it is possible for a person to be beyond such feelings because of sin (cf. Eph. 4:19).  What a dangerous place at which to arrive!

Who knows how this story will end? Who knows how the six-year-old will grow up to be?What we can know from Scripture reveals a God Whose creation and design was perfect.  We change his order and pattern to our own hurt!