Month: April 2018

Genesis 50:14-21
Ephesians 4:25-32

A little boy was sitting on a park bench in obvious pain. A man walking by asked him what was wrong. The young boy said, “I’m sitting on a bumblebee.”
The man urgently asked, “Then why don’t you get up?”
The boy replied, “Because I’m hurting him more than he hurt me!”

How many of us handle forgiveness like this little boy? For some reason, we prefer to endure pain and bitterness for the sadistic satisfaction of believing we are hurting our offender more than he is hurting us. It is only when we get off the bench of un-forgiveness that we can begin to heal from the sting of being wronged.

And the story of Joseph in Genesis can help us in this regard.

You recall that Joseph was Jacob’s favorite of twelve sons. One day Jacob sent Joseph to check on his brothers who were tending sheep. When Joseph found them, his brothers were not so thrilled to see their father’s favorite son because they were extremely jealous of him. They almost killed their brother but instead sold him into slavery to a caravan of traders heading to Egypt. Through a long series of amazing circumstances in Egypt, God elevated Joseph from slavery to become Pharaoh’s, right-hand man. Because a great famine struck the land of Canaan, Jacob sent his sons to Egypt to buy grain. And guess who was in charge of selling them the grain?

After all those years, Joseph finally had his brothers right where he wanted them; pay-back time, isn’t revenge sweet? Surely Joseph was savoring every moment. He has the power and surely he can’t wait to execute the judgment his brothers so rightfully deserve.

Just when we are ready to lick our lips with Joseph as he exacts revenge, the story takes an unexpected turn. Joseph, who has the power to bring the hammer down on those who terribly wronged him, chooses to forgive them.

How can we emulate Joseph? (I want to give credit to Robert Jeffress, Lewis Smedes and Dr. Frank Minnereth, all of whom prescribe the following three steps of forgiveness.) (more…)

Luke 24:13-35
I Corinthians 15:1-7

Did you hear the story about a little boy who came home from school to find his pet German Shepard, Rex, with the neighbor’s dead pet rabbit in his mouth? Now, this German Shepard already had a bad rep in the neighborhood. So the ingenious young man, not wanting anything bad to happen to his dog, buried the rabbit in a nearby field. Then he went to the local Pet Store and purchased a similar looking rabbit and carefully placed it back in the neighbor’s rabbit cage. Later that evening as his family was eating dinner, there was a knock on the door. Guess what; it was the neighbor holding the alive and well rabbit exclaiming, “It’s a miracle! This rabbit died three days ago and we buried it the backyard!”

I have a better resurrection saga to tell than that: Luke 24:13-35.

First of all, this story reminds us of the hopelessness of life with Christ.

Verse 21 says, “We had hoped he was the Messiah who had come to rescue Israel.”

Perhaps the saddest words in the Bible, “We had hoped.”

The crucifixion had completely dashed the hopes of these disciples. They had followed Christ because they honestly believed that He was who He claimed to be; the Son of God. Just a few days before, they had heard Him say to two broken-hearted sisters, “I am the resurrection and the life, whoever believes in me will not really die,” and to prove it they saw Him raise His friend Lazarus. But when they saw Him die, their hope for a Messiah died with Him.

Someone said, “Perhaps the saddest death of all is the death of hope.”

In a powerful article that appeared last August in Psychology Today, titled Dying of Despair, psychiatrist Aaron Kheriaty observes the startling rise in deaths from suicide and drug overdoses over the last ten years. He points to a number of long-term studies that have analyzed the difference between high-risk patients who survive and those who die by suicide. Here’s his conclusion of this research:

Over a ten-year span, it turns out that the one factor most strongly predictive of suicide is not how sick the person is, nor how many symptoms he exhibits, nor how much physical pain he is suffering, nor whether he is rich or poor. The most dangerous factor is a person’s sense of hopelessness. The man without hope is the likeliest candidate for suicide… We cannot live without hope.” ¹

Later in the article, the author attributes the waning of hope in America to the decline in the practice of religion.

Our world is filled with so many who have no hope for a preferred future. They are represented by the average Joes who say something like, “I get up in the morning, stop for a donut on the way to work, and for a couple of beers after, then go home for dinner, play with the kids, watch a little TV, go to bed and start the whole thing over again the next day. Is this all there is?”

Perhaps the saddest death of all is the death of hope.

These two on the road to Emmaus had high hopes, but now the flame of hope was all but extinguished. (more…)