Coffee With The Lord

This morning read some well known, but important encouragement to God-fearing parents and grandparents… “Hear [listen/heed]… The Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.” (From Deuteronomy 6:4-9 ESV) Sure seems like good advice to me in the times in which we live!

I just finished reading one of the saddest and most painful chapters in the Bible – Jeremiah 52 (the same period with additional details are recorded in 2 Kings 24-25 and 2 Chronicles 36). It is the sad story of a nation (Judah) reaping the prophesied consequences of their sin and rebellion against Jehovah.

First of all the chapter records the painful and bloody siege of Jerusalem by Babylon, the complete destruction of Jerusalem and the temple, and three deportations of the population to 70 years of painful exile. Think about it: from the siege of Jerusalem to the final deportation to Babylon itself was over 15 years of excruciating pain, violence, dread and death and finally deportation! (Interestingly what follows immediately after Jeremiah 52 in your Bible is the painful expression of Lamentations!)

It always amazes me that people quote Jeremiah 29:11 as a passage filled with hope and promise and positive intentions, and ignore the fact it expresses the incredible mercy of God articulated to a people who are about to experience 70 years of discipline for their sin and rebellion. I mean, here it is… read it in context:

“For thus says the Lord: When seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will visit you, and I will fulfill to you my promise and bring you back to this place. For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will hear you. You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you, declares the Lord, and I will restore your fortunes and gather you from all the nations and all the places where I have driven you, declares the Lord, and I will bring you back to the place from which I sent you into exile.”

Scripture declares: “The way of the transgressor is HARD!” (Proverbs 13:15) … And it is! God’s “discipline” is difficult and painful – BUT His purpose is positive and redemptive! … Ask the “exiles!” (Read Hebrews 12:5-11)

HEY, THIS IS REALLY IMPORTANT! – HOW DO YOU “GET RIGHT WITH GOD?

Believe me the alternative to being “right with God” is NOT something you want – it’s frightening, final and forever!

And the tragedy is, there are false, deceptive and misleading options that do not work (like thinking you can “be born into it, or trying to buy your way, work your way by your own efforts, deceive your way, or just wish your way… to being “right with God)!

In the Bible Apostle Paul – an authority on the subject – provides reliable information! I read it this morning during my time of “Coffee with the Lord”… Apostle Paul tried other ways and he discovered they were a “dead end.” Then he heard directly from the Lord by a “Devine revelation” the “good news” of the “gospel.” (Galatians 1:11-12)

Here is what Paul said about it… “We know that a person is not ‘justified’ (i.e. made right with God) by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ…because cause by works of the law no one will be justified! … I have been crucified with Christ! It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me. I do not nullify the grace of God – f or if righteousness could be gained through the law, then Christ died for no purpose.” (From Galatians 1:15-21)

There it is… No other way than FAITH! Trusting Christ to make us “right with God!” Full, complete identification by faith with all that Jesus Christ did on our behalf (and for our sin) through His death, burial and resurrection! That’s how to be “right with God!” Ask Paul, a self-righteous Jew, a persecutor of Christians – a “sinner saved by grace!” He knew what he was talking about!