Roots by the River

  I received this question from a reader of How to Be Free from Bitterness . It may apply to some of you as well. "Generally speaking, should we continuously place ourselves in the company of those who repeatedly offend us?" This question involves at least two issues. They have to do with the kind of person you are. 1.        Do you take offense easily, even when someone has no intent to offend? 2.        Do you not take offense easily, even when someone wants to offend? If you are the first, the solution lies with you , not with the offender. The best way to keep from being hurt is to stay vulnerable, like a pillow. Do not try to build a fence around yourself. That is the way to get hurt more. That is the way to become hard-hearted and cynical. A fence (or wall) is a means of resistance, which means there will be a collision, which means hurt. If you avoid the temptation to take offense by staying away from people who...

  "Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice. Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you" (Ephesians 4:31-32). Reader question: If you have a deep-rooted bitterness and have thought you have forgiven, but it still surfaces occasionally, do you at that moment repent and ask for cleansing? I am frustrated with thinking that I have forgiven an offense and then realizing that I have not dug out the root. You might be holding onto the root of bitterness. In that case, you must confess it immediately. On the other hand, you may have truly forgiven the sin that made you bitter when you first confessed your bitterness. After you are forgiven for bitterness, you can still be tempted to be bitter again . This is like confessing a lie and then lying again later. It is not the same sin. It does not mean you were not forgiven the first time. As long as this temptation wor...

  God tells us why we are to forgive others, and He tells us how to forgive them: “Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you ” (Ephesians 4:32).   “Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you ” (Colossians 3:13). These are commands, and they are unconditional. God forgave us in Christ, and He expects us to do the same for those who sin against us. He expects the forgiven to forgive . Here is what Jesus told Peter when he asked Him how many times he should forgive his brother: “I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times. Therefore, the kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. As he began the settlement, a man who owed him ten thousand talents was brought to him. Since he was not able to pay, the master ordered that he and his wife and his children and all that he had be sold to repay th...

  So watch yourselves. If your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him. If he sins against you seven times in a day, and seven times comes back to you and says, “I repent,” forgive him. (Luke 17:3-4) Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, “Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother when he sins against me? Up to seven times?” Jesus answered, “I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times.” (Matthew 18:21-22) Peter wanted Jesus to commend him for forgiving his brother seven times in one day. Instead, Jesus expanded the requirement to seventy-seven times. Some translations render this “seventy times seven,” that is, 490 times. Is there a difference between the two numbers? No! They are intended to represent an infinite amount of times. Jesus did not want Peter to keep count. Although these numbers are figurative, let’s take them literally for a moment. Forgiving someone seven times in a day is hard enough. To get to seventy-seven sins, we would need e...

  Jude 15 uses the word “ungodly” four times. Verse sixteen gives the characteristics of ungodly people. The difficulty is that they sound like the Christians we know:   These men are grumblers and faultfinders ; they follow their own evil desires; they boast about themselves and flatter others for their own advantage. (Jude 16) Grumbling and faultfinding is stock-in-trade for the world. However, Christians can find it an easy habit to take up. Instead of providing light for the world, we spread some of the darkness. Jude says it is an ungodly practice.

Have you ever wondered how men who have been Christians a long time fall into sexual immorality, divorce their wives, or are dishonest or unethical? Christians tell me these leaders are special targets of the Enemy because they are so greatly used. Although that is a possibility, I have difficulty with it because of what 1 Corinthians 10:12-13 says: "So if you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don’t fall! No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it." If a man sins, it is not caused by the greatness of temptation, or by God’s unfaithfulness. Man thinks he is strong, so he is not careful. He is caught off guard and sins. As in everything, the little precedes the big. In C.S. Lewis’ The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe , Peter and Susan sought out the wise professor’s help whe...

“The quiet words of the wise are more to be heeded than the shouts of a ruler of fools. Wisdom is better than weapons of war, but one sinner destroys much good” (Ecclesiastes 9:17-18). It seems that we are heavy in this world with shouts and sinners , and light in quiet words of wisdom. May the Lord clearly lead this nation in the election this November. We are ready for revival or for judgment. Let us pray for revival.

“But you, dear friends, build yourselves up in your most holy faith and pray in the Holy Spirit. Keep yourselves in God’s love as you wait for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to bring you to eternal life. Be merciful to those who doubt; snatch others from the fire and save them; to others show mercy, mixed with fear—hating even the clothing stained by corrupted flesh” (Jude 20-23). There are six imperatives in these verses: build, pray, keep, be merciful, snatch, and show mercy. This is the kind of text we should read and reread, meditate on, and begin to practice. I put the emphasis on the verbs. Now let’s put the emphasis on the objects of the prepositions: most holy faith, Holy Spirit, God’s love, eternal life, those who doubt, the fire, and corrupted flesh. These are all very strong words. This is heavy! This post coordinates with tomorrow's reading in the To the Word! Bible Reading Challenge . If you are not in a daily reading plan, please jump on in. We would love ...

Psalm sing in Moscow, Idaho, September 2020. There are two types of suffering which are directly related to our Christianity. They are chastening and persecution. God chastens us because we are His children and are being bad. It is a cause for lack of joy. "And you have forgotten that word of encouragement that addresses you as sons: 'My son, do not make light of the Lord’s discipline, and do not lose heart when he rebukes you, because the Lord disciplines those he loves, and he punishes everyone he accepts as a son. Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as sons. For what son is not disciplined by his father? If you are not disciplined (and everyone undergoes discipline), then you are illegitimate children and not true sons. Moreover, we have all had human fathers who disciplined us and we respected them for it. How much more should we submit to the Father of our spirits and live! Our fathers disciplined us for a little while as they thought best; but God d...

Me in uniform a few years after becoming a Christian. In October of my sophomore year at the Naval Academy, I passed from death to life. I had just turned twenty years old. Eighteen months later my life began to have an effect on my classmates and those both junior and senior to me. This continued for the next seven years while I was on active duty in the Navy and ever since in civilian life. During my seventy-three years as a Christian, I have seen men turn to Christ and experience the joy of having their sins forgiven. I have also seen the harassment they get because of Jesus Christ. Some of them came through the persecution, and some of them caved. What happened in the cities in the Book of Acts happens to every new Christian. It is “revival and riot” on an individual level all over the world. Jesus prepared us for this beforehand. "All this I have told you so that you will not go astray. They will put you out of the synagogue; in fact, a time is coming when anyone who ...

"But godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing out of it. But if we have food and clothing, we will be content with that" (1 Timothy 6:6-8). This is a very sweet formula for godliness and contentment. The contentment is provided by God, who also gives us our food and clothing: "So do not worry, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?' For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well" (Matthew 6:31-33). What is godly religion? "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" (James 1:27). However, being godly is not the same as being religious. Most religion...

I would like to talk about two “Christian” expressions which are not Christian. The first is “I’ve been struggling.” This expression would be a fine one if it were used biblically: "For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms" (Ephesians 6:12). We are in a struggle. That is a fact. However, when people use the phrase today, what they mean is, “I am losing the struggle, and there is no way to win it.” They have fallen into sin, and they are trying to make a “spiritual” excuse for their defeat. The second expression is similar: “It was a real learning experience.” That also sounds spiritual, but it really means, “The whole thing was a spiritual loss.” We come out of both situations discouraged because both the “struggle” and the “learning experience” were sins that needed to be confessed. We give them spiritual n...

"Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. Blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and dish, and then the outside also will be clean. Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of dead men’s bones and everything unclean. In the same way, on the outside you appear to people as righteous but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness" (Matthew 23:25-28). "Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You shut the kingdom of heaven in men’s faces. You yourselves do not enter, nor will you let those enter who are trying to. Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You travel over land and sea to win a single convert, and when he becomes one, you make him twice as much a son of hell ...

To what or whom does the Christian look as his ultimate authority? First, authority always resides in some one , not some thing . The highest law of our land is the Constitution of the United States. We mistakenly speak of it as the final authority, but it is actually only an expression of the authority of the people . Similarly, God, not the Bible, is the final authority for Christians. The Bible is the primary expression of God’s authority, but it is not the only expression. "In the past God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom he made the universe" (Hebrews 1:1-2). Jesus Christ is the other main way God expresses His authority to us. However, since Jesus is a person, He is more than just an expression of God’s authority—He possesses that authority Himself. How do we know this? He made the worlds, and they are sustain...

Photo of Christians being arrested while singing Psalms in public, Moscow, Idaho. "I have given them your word and the world has hated them, for they are not of the world any more than I am of the world. My prayer is not that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one. They are not of the world, even as I am not of it. Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world. For them I sanctify myself, that they too may be truly sanctified" (John 17:14-19). Not “of” the world but “in” it. “Sent” and “sanctified.” Although we are not of the world, we can handle being in it because we have already been sanctified, set apart. Because we are not of the world, the world hates us. Jesus prayed that the Father would protect us from the evil one, and we are to also pray that He would “deliver us from the evil one” (Matthew 6:13). We have a problem. We do not want to be hated by the world. H...

“Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins” (1 Peter 4:8). I’m quite sure that this is not saying that love overlooks sin. Love sees sin, and then covers it. In this case, it covers lots of them: “a multitude of sins.” We know that this is true of the love of God, but is it true of us? The command is directed toward us: “Love each other deeply.” It must be true of us if we are going to obey God. 1 Corinthians 13:5 tells us that “love keeps no record of wrongs.” (The opposite of covering sins may be keeping a record of them.) “Love each other deeply.” Deeply has to do with the quality of the cover. Perhaps deep love provides deep cover, as in, “Thou will cast all our sins into the depths of the sea” (Micah 7:19). However, this cover is not speaking of our own sins, but of others’ sins, for two reasons: l) “He who covers his sins shall not prosper, but he who confesses and forsakes them will have mercy” (Proverbs 28:13). 2) “Love each ...

"The good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart, and the evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart. For out of the overflow of his heart his mouth speaks" (Luke 6:45). "The Lord says: 'These people come near to me with their mouth and honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. Their worship of me is made up only of rules taught by men'” (Isaiah 29:13). People have God-given escape valves to keep them from exploding. Laughter and tears are two of them. The mouth is another. The cure for a bad mouth is to keep good stored up in your heart. However, not everything that comes out of the mouth is from the heart. Some of what comes out of people’s mouths is just what they have been taught, whether true or false, like in Isaiah 29:13. This is why people can recite sound doctrine but lose their temper at home. The real person is the heart person, not the head person. We are two persons—the person...

"And now, brothers, we want you to know about the grace that God has given the Macedonian churches. Out of the most severe trial, their overflowing joy and their extreme poverty welled up in rich generosity. For I testify that they gave as much as they were able, and even beyond their ability. Entirely on their own, they urgently pleaded with us for the privilege of sharing in this service to the saints. And they did not do as we expected, but they gave themselves first to the Lord and then to us in keeping with God’s will" (2 Corinthians 8:1-5). We do not usually think of “severe trials” and “overflowing joy” going together. Nor do expect extreme poverty to well up in rich generosity. Another unusual image here is Paul’s description of how the Macedonians “urgently pleaded with us for the privilege of sharing in this service to the saints.” This is refreshing to read after getting so many letters “urgently pleading with us” to give. In this passage, Paul teaches the Co...

False teaching/false doctrine comes up several places in the New Testament (e.g. 1 Timothy 1:18-20 and 1 John 4:1-3). The doctrine Paul talks about in 1 Timothy 4:16 is not false teaching, and it is not the distinctive beliefs of various denominations. This doctrine is the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. How do we know? It is saving teaching—“You will save yourselves and your hearers.” Obviously our different secondary doctrines and practices cannot all be right. Some are not important. We have used the word “doctrine” and our secondary teachings to create divisions among saved people. To my knowledge, the Bible does not use “doctrine” that way. Read Romans 14. It is the primary doctrine of the gospel that saves and sanctifies and is, consequently, of ultimate importance. "For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking, but of righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit, because anyone who serves Christ in this way is pleasing to God and approved by m...

The title “The Sermon on the Mount” has a nice ring to it. We think of Jesus, sitting on a grassy slope teaching devoted followers wonderful truths of love and blessing. However, the Sermon on the Mount is not lovely idealism; it is startling realism. We would rather be starry-eyed idealists than have God’s realism. The first is wonderful because it is in our heads only; the second is just too much. Here are some of the reasons God’s realism is “too much,” from Matthew 5: “Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me” (v. 11). “It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled by men” (v. 13b). “For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven” (v. 20). “But anyone who says, ‘You fool!’ will be in danger of the fire of hell...” (v. 22b). “I tell you the truth, you will not g...