March 27
Deut 7:1-8:20 | PS 69:1-18 | Prov 12:1 | Luke 7:36-8:3
"I'm a good person". Sorry to say, but "No, I'm not", and neither are you. In Romans 3:12, we read, "...There is none who does good, no, not one.”" We might look like a good person, dress the part, and carefully keep all of our externals just right, but we read in Psalm 69:5, "O God, You know my foolishness; And my sins are not hidden from You." Am I saying this to make us all feel bad? No! God loves you! He loves you, and He loves me, in spite of who we really are. But, we forget this. Deep down we all know the truth about ourselves. As long as we think that God's love is earned, we will escape the reality of God's mercy and grace, that His love is bestowed on us, the unmerited recipients of His affection. My friend, Wellington, would start out his conversations to strangers that he would evangelize, simply, with "Jesus, loves you". Recently, I have been doing the same. It is amazing how those simple words often bring tears to others. This is the message that we need to hear and present.
In Luke 7:36-50, we see the interaction between Jesus, a prostitute, and a Pharisee. The disparity in the eyes of the guests at this dinner could not be more striking. The Pharisee was deemed the pillar of society, while the prostitute was among the lowest. The Pharisee saw himself as not needing much from Jesus, while the prostitute came to him in a spirit of desperation. We read the words of Jesus in 7:47-48, "Therefore I say to you, her sins, which are many, are forgiven, for she loved much. But to whom little is forgiven, the same loves little.” Then He said to her, “Your sins are forgiven.”" We must beware, "upstanding" members of society are apt to forget God, deeming themselves the rightful recipients of hard work and being a good person, but we read of a warning against this in Deuteronomy 8:11-14, "Beware that you do not forget the Lord your God by not keeping His commandments, His judgments, and His statutes which I command you today, lest—when you have eaten and are full, and have built beautiful houses and dwell in them; and when your herds and your flocks multiply, and your silver and your gold are multiplied, and all that you have is multiplied; when your heart is lifted up, and you forget the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage;"
Isaiah wrote in Isaiah 1:2, seven hundred years after Moses wrote what he did in Deuteronomy, "Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth! For the Lord has spoken: “I have nourished and brought up children, And they have rebelled against Me;". They were rebels, and so are we. They went astray, and so have we. They were not good, and neither are we. They worshipped false gods and so do we. If you fail to see this, consider that our gods are simply called by different names. They worshipped Gaia, or Mother Earth. Just take a moment to reflect on the religion of environmentalism today, as millions worship the earth. They worshipped Asherah, the goddess of sexuality, as we lift up every form of perversion in the name of love. I could go on to list the gods of money, power, etc., but the point is, repentance can not come unless one sees themselves the sinners that we are. Without repentance, acceptance of what Jesus did on the cross is lacking. Without acceptance, He will never be Lord of our lives, because we will assert ourselves lords over our own lives, lifted up in our disillusioned state of personal goodness. He loves us. His desire is to bless us, and enjoy relationship with us, but He will not force us. He loves us too much to overpower our free will.
Messages from Pastor Lloyd Pulley: