How to Jump Start Spiritual Life

Posted on August 10, 2020 by russellmckinney

I have an aunt named Betty Jean who was married to a man named Bill. Bill passed away several years ago, but I’ll always be indebted to him for doing me a great favor one day. For some reason that incident recently came to my mind, and I’d like to use it as a way of illustrating an important spiritual truth.

The year was 1987 or somewhere thereabouts, and my car at the time was a white 1978 Camaro Z28. That was a great car, one that I wish I still had, but it wasn’t without its periodic mechanical problems. That day those problems took on the form of a dead battery.

As many of you know, the answer for a dead battery is a set of jumper cables whereby you use the electrical juice from the battery in another car to “rejuice” (I just made that word up) the dead battery in your car. The process is pretty straightforward. The jumper cables have two attachment devices located at each end, and you attach the two devices of one end to the battery terminals of your dead battery and the two devices of the opposite end to the battery terminals in the other car. And since I owned a set of jumper cables, I didn’t think it was going to be too hard to use another car to get mine started.

I pulled the other car up close to mine, kept it running, popped the hoods on both cars, attached the cables to the batteries of both cars, and waited a minute or so. Then I tried to start my car. I figured that it would fire right up, but it didn’t. It wouldn’t even grunt. I thought, “That’s odd. My battery must be REALLY dead.” So, I decided to keep the cables hooked up, leave the other car running, and go back into the house for a while to allow the battery in my car to have ample time to charge. By now I was getting annoyed with the whole process, but I was still figuring that it would be just a matter of time before I got my car started.

I hadn’t been in the house long when Bill just happened to come along and out of nothing but curiosity check out the situation involving the two cars and the jumper cables. He made a slight adjustment regarding how one of the cable ends was attached to one of the terminals and then came to get me in the house. He said, “Russell, you never would have gotten your car started because the way you had that one end attached wasn’t pulling any charge to your battery. But go try it now. It should start.” He spoke the assessment with such authoritative expertise that I knew he was right before I ever walked out of the house and tried to start my car. That’s why it didn’t surprise me one bit when I barely turned the keys in my Z28 and heard that big 350 V8 motor roar to life.

Since Bill had walked out there with me to make sure that he had told me the truth, he was standing there while I unhooked the jumper cables and closed the hoods on both cars. I looked at him and gave him a sincere, “Thanks.” He just smiled and warmly said again, “It never would have worked the way you had it.” He wasn’t rubbing my mechanical inadequacy in my face. He was just glad that he’d been able to help.

The spiritual application of this story has to do with nothing less than salvation itself, and that application isn’t hard to understand. It goes like this: If you aren’t attached correctly to the right source, your spiritual life will never get charged and you will die lost. That right source, of course, is Jesus Christ, and you attach yourself to Him by placing saving belief in Him. That attachment allows you to pull His limitless power into your spiritually dead self and thereby experience salvation. Consider the following passages (all from the N.K.J.V.):

For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ all shall be made alive. (1 Corinthians 15:22)

And you He (Jesus) made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins… (Ephesians 2:1)

And you, being dead in your trespasses the uncircumcision of your flesh, He (Jesus) has made alive together with Him, having forgiven you all trespasses… (Colossians 2:13)

For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 6:23)

But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved)… (Ephesians 2:4-5)

Jesus said to him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.” (John 14:6)

You see, there is spiritual life to be found in Jesus, but the key is that you must be correctly attached to Him. Being almost attached to Him by knowing about Him but not really knowing Him as Savior won’t get the job done. Being correctly attached to the wrong source won’t either, and even mere religion itself is a wrong source. I say that because authentic Christianity isn’t actually a religion but is, instead, an eternal relationship with Jesus Christ.

So, in closing, what I’m trying to do here is get you to examine your spiritual connection (or lack of it) to Jesus. Are you truly connected to Him in a soul-saving, life-changing way that has spiritually charged your life by drawing from His power? Or is your connection to Him somehow lacking and leaving you to remain spiritually dead in your trespasses and sins? A good man named Bill helped me fix a bad connection one day, and maybe, just maybe, I can play that same role for you right now. All my bad connection cost me was a few minutes delay in getting my car started, but that bad connection of yours will cost you eternal separation from God if you don’t get the connection fixed. Remember, spiritual life is not the same thing as physical life, and there are a whole lot of people walking around who are physically alive but spiritually dead.

Posted in Belief, Eternity, God's Wrath, Grace, Heaven, Hell, Personal, Salvation, The Gospel | Tagged , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Seeing Him Who Is Invisible

Posted on August 7, 2020 by russellmckinney

By faith he forsook Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king; for he endured as seeing Him who is invisible. (Hebrews 11:27, N.K.J.V.)

Moses was the adopted son of Pharaoh’s daughter. As such, he was Egyptian royalty. That’s not the kind of societal rank that one casually or logically abandons. No, if he was going to forsake Egypt, his motivation was going to have to come from his faith in the unseen Hebrew God whom his biological family served.

But how did Moses acquire that faith? While it’s true that his mother, Jochebed (Numbers 26:59), served as his nursemaid throughout the days of his weening (Exodus 2:1-10), there is no Biblical record of their relationship continuing once Moses officially became the son of Pharaoh’s daughter. To the contrary, what the Bible says is that Moses was raised as nothing less than Pharaoh’s grandson and that he was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians (Acts 7:21-22). As best we can tell, he didn’t even visit his brethren, the people of Israel, until he was forty years old (Acts 7:23). That was the day that he, for all intents and purposes, ended his life in Egypt by killing an Egyptian who was oppressing an Israelite (Exodus 2:11-15; Acts 7:23-29). Following that murder he was forced to flee to Midian and build a new life for himself there.

Perhaps during the three or so years when Jochebed was weening Moses, she was able to teach him enough about Israel’s God to stick with him in his adult years. Furthermore, it could have been that Moses continued to have some kind of a relationship with her, his father Amram, his sister Miriam, and his brother Aaron during the decades when he was enjoying life as the son of Pharaoh’s daughter. We do know that at the age of eighty (Acts 7:30-34) Moses joined forces with his brother Aaron to take on Pharaoh (Exodus 4:10-17, 27-31), and since the Bible doesn’t describe the brothers needing to be formally introduced, that might imply that the family had kept up some type of relationship over the years.

Still, though, the question of what compelled Moses to initially forsake Egypt by killing that Egyptian is a good one. Acts 7:25 says that he supposed that his fellow Israelites would understand that he was attempting to become their deliverer. That fills in some of the gaps about why Moses did what he did, but the actual question of why he felt a burden to deliver the Israelites remains.

One thing that is irrefutable is that Moses met God, in the form of the Angel of the Lord, firsthand at that burning bush on the backside of the Midian desert (Exodus 3:1-6). That was an encounter to which the rest of us simply can’t relate. Whatever the drop was that first launched Moses’ trickle of faith in God, the meeting at the burning bush transformed that trickle into a mighty river. No matter what else would happen to Moses over the remaining forty years of his life (Deuteronomy 34:7), his faith in God would remain firm.

The takeaway for us in all this is that if you want to live victoriously for God, you must learn to see the invisible through eyes of faith. You must become heavenly sighted in order to do the most worldly good. While the masses live by the motto “Seeing is believing,” you must counter with, “No, believing is seeing.”

As the close to this post, I’ll offer an extended quote from Andrew Murray. In The Holiest of All, which is Murray’s commentary on the book of Hebrews, he talks about the indispensable role that faith plays in seeing the invisible God. May Murray’s words find a lodging place in our hearts and serve as a motivation for our deeds. He writes:

Here is the mighty power of faith; it sees what others cannot see. It sees, amid the thousand things others see and are guided by, something infinitely greater — it sees God. No wonder it leads a man to act different from other men. On everything it looks at, the bright light of eternity, of God, is shining. No wonder that under the inspiration of that Vision it can do mighty deeds, for it sees God as its helper and strength.

Let me here say to every believer that just as, in any pursuit, the eye by practice can be trained to see what others cannot see, so the eye of faith can be trained to see God everywhere. Abide in His presence till the heart is filled with it. Recognize Him in every thing that happens. Seek to walk in the light of His countenance. Seeing the Invisible will make it easy to forsake the world and do the will of God.

Posted in Attitude, Belief, Doing Good, Eternity, Faith, God's Will, God's Work, Heaven, Trusting In God | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

Praying with Expectancy

Posted on August 3, 2020 by russellmckinney

The great evangelist D.L. Moody once said, “If you pray for bread and bring no basket to carry it, you prove the doubting spirit which may be the only hindrance to the boon you ask.” Obviously, Moody knew his Bible. Over and over again in scripture, we find on full display the importance of actually expecting God to answer your prayer. For example, James 1:5-8 says:

If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given to him. But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for he who doubts is like a wave of the sea driven and tossed by the wind. For let not that man suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord; he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways. (N.K.J.V.)

Notice how God describes the person whose prayer requests are marked by doubt and a lack of faith. He calls that person “a wave of the sea driven and tossed by the wind,” “double-minded,” and “unstable.” Get the picture?

Anyone who has been to the ocean knows what a wave that is driven and tossed by the wind looks like. Such a wave has its course dictated by the wind. The wave rolls whichever way the wind pushes it. Basically, the wave is a victim of its circumstance. If the wind turns violent, so does the wave. If the wind turns calm, so does the wave.

Scuba divers, however, will tell you that the deeper you dive into the water, the less effect the wind has on the water. This fact of nature illustrates the secret to a victorious prayer life. It’s faith that allows you to dive deep enough into your wave to break free from that wave’s turbulence. When you pray in faith, expecting God to answer your prayer, a great calm comes over you. The Bible describes this calm as “the peace of God, which passes all understanding” (Philippians 4:7). While it’s true that this particular phrase gets used a lot in Christian circles, contextually in scripture it is named as a specific byproduct of prayer.

Even Jesus Himself spoke of the importance of praying in faith-filled expectancy. In Mark 11:22-24, He says:

Have faith in God. For assuredly, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, ‘Be removed and be cast into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that those things he says will be done, he will have whatever he says. Therefore I say to you, whatever things you ask when you pray, believe that you receive them, and you will have them. (N.K.J.V.)

Admittedly, it’s easy to see how the “name-it-and-claim-it” preachers of today can run wild with this passage. The fact is, though, that the Bible is the best commentary on itself, and there are other passages that place certain governors on which prayer requests God will actually grant. For example, if something lies outside His will, God won’t grant that request no matter how much faith accompanies it. As 1 John 5:14-15 says:

Now this is the confidence that we have in Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. And if we know that He hears us, whatever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we have asked of Him. (N.K.J.V., emphasis mine)

Likewise, God doesn’t obligate Himself to grant the prayer requests of rebels who don’t keep His commandments. As 1 John 3:21-22 says:

Beloved, if our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence toward God. And whatever we ask we receive from Him, because we keep His commandments and do those things that are pleasing in His sight. (N.K.J.V., emphasis mine)

Still, though, with these types of mitigating factors understood, let’s not make the mistake of watering Jesus’ promise down so much as to make it completely useless. His point is that believing — truly, genuinely, sincerely believing — produces major results in prayer. It’s doubt in the heart that ties God’s hands in so many situations. Why couldn’t Jesus do many mighty works in His hometown of Nazareth when He returned there as an adult to minister? It was purely and simply because of the people’s unbelief (Matthew 13:58; Mark 6:5). He willed to do many miracles there, but the people just didn’t have the level of belief/faith that would unleash Him to do those miracles.

I don’t know what it is that you’ve been asking God to do, but you’d do well to check your faith level in regards to how much expectancy you are coupling up with your request. Coaches are always asking their players to “buy into” the program of training and instruction those coaches are selling. Well, God asks the same thing of each of us. He wants us to buy into His program of training and instruction. But buying into anyone’s program requires a tangible level of faith that the person really will produce positive results in your life. Here again, the same is true of God. To borrow from D.L. Moody’s quote, it does you no good to pray for bread empty-handed. You must, instead, bring a basket with you when you make your request for bread. That is the type of prayer that God honors and the type of request that He freely grants.

Posted in Belief, Commitment, Desires, Discipleship, Doubt, Faith, God's Provision, God's Will, Inner Peace, Needs, Prayer, Prayer Requests, Rebellion, Trusting In God | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

The Day Mitchell Page Ended My Childhood (repost)

Posted on July 31, 2020 by russellmckinney

(I’m off this week, and so I thought I’d take the opportunity to reuse some old posts rather than write new ones. The reused posts will be ones that have never received a lot of views. Maybe God will use them in greater ways this time around.)

Today is one of those hot, sultry, late July days. The temperatures are in the 80s, and there is a slight chance of the thunderstorms that are such a classic trademark of summer in the mountains of western North Carolina. The trees are as full as they get. The grass has a tinge of brown here and there from the summer heat. Bees, gnats, and mosquitoes are everywhere. Ants are working themselves in double shifts.

School has been out since the middle of May, which means that the boys have gotten quite used to sitting up past midnight and sleeping in late. The summer trips have all be taken. Most of the calendar dates have been met and scratched off. The next major event on the horizon is the return to school. It was on just such a day, almost thirty-five years ago now, that the last second of my “innocent little boy” era was snatched away and I lost one of the dearest things in the world to me: the wonder, safety, and insulation of my backyard sanctuary.

When I was a kid, my backyard served as the epicenter of the sports universe. It was a football field, a basketball court, and a baseball stadium all rolled into one. How it was used depended upon which sport was in season. Far and away, though, my favorite season was baseball and my favorite time of the year was summer. Virtually every day my schedule was the same: sleep till noon, get up and eat some cereal, and then head out to play the big game. For me, stepping out the door onto our carport and then out into the backyard was akin to running out of the tunnel and onto the field at a Major League ballpark. I’d even do pregame shows in my head, complete with announcers, before hitting the door.

The layout of my field was simple. Home plate was in front of the side of my swing set. The third base line was the pole of my basketball goal. The first base line was the middle support of our carport. And the canopy of huge trees that encircled our house was the outfield fence. Any ball hit high enough into any of those trees was a home run. All other balls were either fielded for outs by the imaginary players that manned each position or went for singles, doubles, or triples.

I used a plastic bat and ball and batted for each player in each team’s lineup. I batted right-handed for the righties and left-handed for the lefties. I swung somewhat weakly for the weak hitters and came out of my shoes swinging for the big studs. Over the years, I must have gone through fifty balls and a dozen bats hitting for the lineups of Major League teams. I wrote the batting lineups out on sheets of notebook paper, played regular innings, and kept precise score. Of course, my beloved Philadelphia Phillies rarely lost.

I wish I was a good enough writer to adequately convey just how important my backyard stadium was to me. It was my refuge from a world that didn’t always go to suit me. It was my empire where I ruled as undisputed king. It was my personal fantasy land where all my athletic dreams could come true. Even today if a psychiatrist asked me to go to a “happy place” in my mind, I’d find myself standing at home plate of that stadium, at the height of summertime, plastic bat in one hand, plastic ball in the other, just about to toss up the ball and cut loose with a mighty swing. No site from my warehouse of memories is safer or more magical.

Ah, but then came that one summer’s day, that one game, and that one swing. I remember it like it was yesterday. I was batting for the order of the Oakland As, and the specific guy at the plate was a player named Mitchell Page. That name has long since been lost to baseball history, but in 1977 Page finished second in the American League’s Rookie of the Year voting to future hall of famer Eddie Murray. I knew all about Page because I had his baseball card from that year, complete with all the information that I would ever need about the man.

Since Page was a left-handed power hitter, I switched over to the left side of the plate and mustered my strength to do his swing justice. I tossed the ball up into the air, paused for just a moment to get the timing right, and then cut loose with all I had in a left-handed swing. To my surprise the ball jumped off the bat in a way I’d never seen one do. I remember that it started off on a much higher plane than usual, a fact that caused me to first assume that I had hit the backyard equivalent of a mile-high Major League popup that would land somewhere between the infield and the outfield for an easy out.

The strange thing was, though, rather than the ball reaching an apex and coming down, the ball kept climbing higher and higher as it soared toward the canopy of trees. I stood there and watched it, thinking to myself, “Man, Mitchell Page shouldn’t have this kind of power.” I was having real trouble getting my logical mind wrapped around the illogical reality that was playing out before me. Higher and higher, farther and farther the ball sailed until suddenly, in a flash, just as surely as it had been headed toward the highest point of those trees, it disappeared completely from my sight!

I stood there for a while looking confused and puzzled, like one of those guys who thinks he just caught a second’s glimpse of Bigfoot or the Loch Ness Monster. I was thinking, “Did what I think just happened really happen? Could it be possible? Would the laws of the universe allow for such a thing? Did I just step out of time and space and enter into some parallel dimension like those I’ve seen on those t.v. shows The Twilight Zone and The Outer Limits? Did Mitchell Page just hit a baseball over the trees and, thus, completely out of the stadium?”

With my mind still racing I threw down my bat, forsook all pretense of the game, and headed off to find exactly where that ball had landed. I went through our back yard, down the bank, and into the woods. My eyes scanned every known place where any previous ball had ever landed, but there was nothing white to be seen anywhere.

So, then I made my way further out into the trees, out toward our neighbor’s gravel driveway. That driveway ran along the edge of the backside of that big canopy of trees, with the trees basically separating our property from hers. And that’s when I saw it, that white plastic baseball lying there in the middle of that driveway. I remember how the white of the ball stood out so vividly against the backdrop of the dark gray of the gravel. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, the unimaginable had happened: Mitchell Page had hit a ball completely out of the greatest backyard stadium of all time.

How did I feel at that moment? Well, would you believe that I literally had to hold back the tears? Rather than being ecstatic over such an awesome feat, I was devastated. I felt like a baby bird that had just been pushed out the nest where it had been nurtured and protected for so long. I was now living in a brand-new world and there was no going back to how things had been.

I didn’t even finish that game. As a matter of fact, I only tried playing a couple of times after that day, but my heart wasn’t even in those. I had grown too old and too strong for my own good. Now I needed a bigger stadium, and deep down I knew that such a place didn’t exist. Life would come hard and fast from here on out, and my safe place was no more. The yard, landmarks, and trees were still there, but they’d never hold the same fairy dust they’d once held.

Needless to say, after all these years my mind still makes occasional trips back to my backyard baseball stadium. Of course, I can never stay there for long. The past is the past and the demands of the present must constantly be met. But those fleeting memories serve as the lenses through which I personally view those words from Ecclesiastes 11:9:

Rejoice, O young man, in your youth, and let your heart cheer you in the days of your youth. (N.K.J.V.)

My youth is long gone now, and there’s a certain brand of cheer, let’s call it “little boy” cheer, that I’ll never know again. It’s not that my life is bad now. To the contrary, I’d say that in God’s eyes it’s better than it’s ever been. But that doesn’t mean that I don’t sometimes miss those imaginary big-league games in my backyard.

This post got me to thinking about Mitchell Page, and so I did a little internet research on him. I learned that he died in his sleep on March 11, 2011 at the age of 59. Something in me was saddened by that news. All I’ll say is that I hope he was a Christian. If he was then one day we’ll have an awesome conversation in heaven, and I’ll tell him what a profound influence he unknowingly had on my life.

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

How To Be a UCLA Basketball Player (repost)

Posted on July 29, 2020 by russellmckinney

(I’m off this week, and so I thought I’d take the opportunity to reuse some old posts rather than write new ones. The reused posts will be ones that have never received a lot of views. Maybe God will use them in greater ways this time around.)

Dr. Paul Chappell is the founding pastor of Lancaster Baptist Church in Lancaster, California. He tells the following story:

Last week we took our singles on a retreat up to beautiful Yosemite National Park. As we got back in for the evening service where I was to preach, one of our men said, “Pastor, I met a doctor who had brought a group of multiple-handicapped children to Yosemite. For many months they had studied about Yosemite. They began dreaming that somehow they might be able to go up the Bridal Veil Trail and see some of the park. So the doctor brought them.

As they came to this particular trail, it was very, very difficult for them. In fact, they were really just inching their way along. But they had this dream and wanted somehow to make their way up.

The doctor said as they were just inching their way up this trail, down from the mountaintop came a tremendous group of young men – tall men. As it turned out, the basketball team from UCLA had run up and down the trail, getting ready for their season. As those basketball players went by those young children with their multiple handicaps, the doctor said it was as if hope just fell out of their hearts and the actuality of their handicaps seemed to settle in, in a very significant way.

But the doctor said something wonderful happened about an hour later. That same team came running back up the trail, but this time each player picked up one of the handicapped children, put him on his back and ran him all the way up to the top of that mountain, then all the way back down to the bottom of the mountain.

Today, it might just be in your power to give someone a much needed lift. Even if the lift isn’t a literal one (as in the story), it can be an emotional or spiritual one. If such an opportunity presents itself, don’t hesitate to embrace it. It could be that somebody out there right now really needs you. Don’t let them face their mountain alone.

And let us not grow weary while doing good, for in due season we shall reap if we do not lose heart. Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all, especially to those who are of the household of faith. (Galatians 6:9-10, N.K.J.V.)

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Genuine Pearls

Posted on July 27, 2020 by russellmckinney

Pearls have historically commanded high prices. Their expensiveness is the result of their rarity. Thousands upon thousands of oysters are examined each year, but only a small percentage of them contain genuine pearls. I’ve read that out of every three tons of pearl-producing oysters, on average only three of the oysters have pearls inside them.

At one point, however, the market began to be atypically flooded with large quantities of pearls. As a matter of fact, there were so many pearls available that merchants began to seriously question the pearls’ authenticity. Were these new pearls merely well done imitations produced by man? No. Upon examination, the pearls were found to have actually been made by oysters.

Finally, after further investigation, the mystery was solved. As it turned out, the Japanese merchants had figured out a way to cause almost every pearl oyster to produce a pearl. You see, the merchants knew that a pearl is formed when some kind of foreign substance (a parasite, a grain of sand, etc.) gets lodged in a certain part of the oyster. To ease the irritation caused by the substance, the oyster begins to secrete a protective fluid called nacre that covers over the substance. This process continues and the nacre eventually hardens into a glorious pearl. Of course, all this takes a few years to happen. So, what the merchants were doing was harvesting oysters, purposely inserting artificial substances into them (substances such as beads or tiny bits of shell or buckshot), placing the oysters back into the ocean by means of nets, and then harvesting them again a few years later to retrieve the pearls. The larger the artificial substance, the larger the pearl.

When the market became glutted with pearls, wealthy buyers began to demand that each pearl be put to a special test to see whether or not it had been artificially created. This test involved the use of X-ray. Under X-ray, the false “hearts” created by the implanted substances could be seen. In this way, the genuine pearls could be identified and priced accordingly.

This illustration reminds us that, sadly, our churches are home to some fake Christians. On the outside, these people look saved. They carry Bibles, know the lingo, pray, sing the hymns, put money in the offering plates, etc. But on the inside their hearts are false. They don’t truly know Christ as Savior. They aren’t born again (John 3:3). God the Holy Spirit does not dwell inside them (Romans 8:9). They aren’t in the family of God (John 1:9-13).

I have no delusions that we will ever get it all sorted out this side of eternity. For one thing, lost people don’t always act lost. For another, saved people don’t always act saved. We can rest assured, though, that Jesus knows how to X-ray each person’s heart and there simply is no fooling Him. I can honestly say that being placed under His X-ray doesn’t frighten me. But can you say the same thing? If you can’t, you really need to ask yourself why that is.

Posted in Church, Salvation, The Heart | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Let Your Help Come From the Lord

Posted on July 24, 2020 by russellmckinney

I will lift up my eyes to the hills — From whence comes my help? My help comes from the Lord, Who made heaven and earth. (Psalm 121:1-2, N.K.J.V.)

The heading for Psalm 121 informs us that this Psalm is “A Song of Ascents” (N.K.J.V.). The Hebrew word translated as “ascents” can be defined as “a journey to a higher place.” The fifteen Psalms that receive this specialized heading are Psalms 120-134.

There are at least three possible interpretations as to when these specific Psalms (songs) were sung by the people of Israel. First, since the Hebrew word translated as “ascents” (N.K.J.V.) can rightly be translated as “steps,” these Psalms could have been sung by Israel’s priests as those priests, in order to offer sacrifices, ascended the steps that led up to the altar of the Jewish temple. Second, these Psalms could have been sung by Jewish worshipers who were making their way up to the city of Jerusalem to observe the Mosaic Law’s three prescribed annual feasts: Passover/Unleavened Bread, Pentecost (also known as “Weeks” or “Harvest”), and Tabernacles (also known as “Booths”) (Deuteronomy 16:16). Third, they could have been sung by the Jews returning to Jerusalem from exile in Babylon.

There is an honest debate among translators in regards to how verse 1 of this Psalm should be translated. The classic King James Version conveys the minority translation by rendering the verse:

I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help.

This rendering conveys the idea that the help comes from the God who resides in the hills, specifically the hills surrounding Jerusalem. However, the potential problem with this idea is that those hills (i.e. “high places”) were the sites of idolatrous worship shrines when wicked kings ruled Judah (Israel’s southern kingdom). The prophet Jeremiah probably had these sites in mind when he expressed the polar opposite thought of his help coming from the hills:

Truly in vain is salvation hoped for from the hills, and from the multitude of mountains: truly in the Lord our God is the salvation of Israel. (Jeremiah 3:23, K.J.V.)

To eliminate the problem of a contradiction with Jeremiah 3:23, most translations of Psalm 121:1 insert a question mark after the words “from whence comes my help.”  The New King James Version’s rendering is a prime example of this:

I will lift up my eyes to the hills — From whence comes my help? My help comes from the Lord, Who made heaven and earth. (Psalm 121:1-2, N.K.J.V.)

You see, the insertion of the question mark places the help as coming from the Lord who lives somewhere other than the hills. It is as if the Psalmist is contrasting Israel’s false gods, the ones worshiped in the “high places” located in the hills surrounding Jerusalem, with the true God. Those false gods couldn’t provide any real help, but the true God could. The true God, after all, was far greater and loftier than any hills that He created.

While this particular translation is by far the majority one found in the various English translations of the Bible, there are some commentators who still favor the wording found in the classic King James Version. For example, William MacDonald, in his Believer’s Bible Commentary, says the following:

I still prefer the KJV here, and I’ll tell you why. The temple in Jerusalem was the dwelling place of God on earth. The glory cloud in the Holy of Holies signified the Lord’s presence among His people. The city of Jerusalem is situated on a mountain and is surrounded by mountains. So when a Jew in other parts of Israel needed divine help, he looked toward the hills. To him this was the same as looking to the Lord. Since the Creator’s dwelling was in the Jerusalem hills, there was a poetic sense in which all help came from the hills.

No matter which translation and interpretation of Psalm 121:1 is the correct one, there is certainly no mistaking the fundamental teaching of the opening two verses of the Psalm. The Psalmist wants everyone to know that his help comes from the Lord. And how much help can the Lord offer? Well, as the Psalmist is careful to mention, we’re talking about the God who created all creation. Needless to say, a God with that much power can provide any amount of help that anyone — and that includes you — could ever need. So, don’t hesitate to seek His help the next time you find yourself in need of it. You really can’t do any better.

Posted in Adversity, Comfort, Encouragement, Fear, God's Love, God's Omnipotence, God's Mercy, God's Provision, God's Sovereignty, Grace, Idolatry, Needs, Problems, Trusting In God, Worry | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Robert’s Trip to the Dentist’s Office

Posted on July 22, 2020 by russellmckinney

Psychologist James Dobson, the founder of the Focus on the Family ministry, tells a great story in his book Straight Talk to Men and Their Wives. The story comes from one of Dr. Dobson’s friends, Dr. William Slonecker. Dr. Slonecker was a pediatrician who had the unfortunate assignment of having a ten-year-old terror named Robert as one of his patients.

Dr. Slonecker and his staff dreaded the days when Robert would show up for appointments. During those visits the little hellion would run around grabbing instruments, files, telephones, or anything else that suited him. All the while, his passive mother would do little more than watch him go.

During one examination, Dr. Slonecker happened to notice that Robert’s teeth were in poor shape. Slonecker wasn’t a dentist, but even he could tell that Robert had several cavities. Clearly, a referral to a local dentist was in order. But which of Slonecker’s dentist friends would be granted the “pleasure” of receiving the new patient? It was a tough decision because Robert’s behavior was bad enough to possibly end a professional friendship. After some thought, Slonecker settled upon a certain dentist who had a reputation for doing well with children.

The appointment was made, and Robert arrived at the dentist’s office fully ready to conquer the new terrain. “Get in the chair, young man,” said the dentist. “No!” shot back Robert. “Son, I told you to get into that chair, and that’s what I intend for you to do,” the dentist answered sternly. Robert stared the man down for a moment and then threatened, “If you make me get in that chair, I will take off all my clothes.” Calmly, the dentist replied, “Okay, take ’em off.”

Robert was surprised that his threat didn’t have more of an impact, but he wasn’t done yet. Immediately, he set himself to the task of taking off his shirt, shoes, and socks. Once they were removed he defiantly looked at the dentist as if to say, “You didn’t think I would do it, did you?”

“All right,” said the dentist. “Now get in the chair.” With less confidence in his voice this time, Robert responded, “You didn’t hear me. I said if you make me get in that chair, I will take off all my clothes.” But the dentist still wasn’t phased. Again, he calmly said, “Okay, take ’em off.”

This left Robert with only one more card to play, and he played it by taking off his pants and shorts. Now he was standing buck naked in front of the dentist and the dentist’s assistant. Then the dentist once again repeated his familiar command, “Now, son, get in the chair.” This time Robert did as he was told and sat cooperatively through a difficult session as multiple cavities were filled.

At the close of the session, Robert told the dentist, “Give me my clothes.” The dentist, however, wouldn’t oblige. “I’m sorry,” he said. “Tell your mother that we’re going to keep your clothes tonight. She can pick them up tomorrow.” Robert, by now a thoroughly defeated former tough guy, meekly followed the assistant out the door and into the waiting room. There sat not only his mother but a room filled with other patients and parents. Imagine everybody’s surprise as a ten-year-old wearing no clothes was led by his mother out of the office, into the elevator, and out into the parking lot.

The next day, Robert’s mother returned to the dentist’s office to claim Robert’s clothes. The staff wasn’t one bit surprised when she asked to have a word with the dentist, but as it turned out she wasn’t there to rebuke him. To the contrary, she told him the following:

You don’t know how much I appreciate what happened here yesterday. Robert has been blackmailing me about his clothes for years. Whenever we are in a public place, such as a grocery store, he makes unreasonable demands of me. If I don’t immediately buy him what he wants, he threatens to take off all his clothes. You are the first person who has called his bluff, doctor, and the impact on Robert has been incredible!

Extreme situations sometimes call for extreme measures, and drastic problems sometimes call for drastic solutions. It could be that God is right now telling you to get radical regarding some situation or problem that has been plaguing you for a long time. If that’s the case, the only question left to be answered is: Are you willing to “go there” and do whatever it is that God is telling you to do? One day a dentist “went there” and a rebellious kid name Robert turned out all the better for it. That story proves that “outside the box” solutions can work. Obviously, you need to make certain that God is in your uncommon course of action, but if He is, then you should launch into it with confidence that He will stand behind you all the way.

Posted in Brokenness, Children, Choices, Decisions, Discipline, Disobedience, God's Will, Problems, Submission | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

The Mask of the Hypocrite

Posted on July 20, 2020 by russellmckinney

Popular pastor and author Chuck Swindoll tells the story of how his sister once bought him a gag gift for his birthday. The gift was a full-face rubber mask, the kind that you pull down over your entire head. She told him, “I’ll give you $10 if you will wear it into the pulpit one Sunday morning.” Chuck’s children loved the possibility of seeing him do that, and so they chipped in to raise the potential reward to $15.

While the idea of wearing the mask in a church service was a little too much for Chuck, he did get bold enough to wear it one night to a speaking engagement for which he was scheduled. Without offering any explanation for why he was wearing the mask, he simply walked to the podium and began his remarks. And what was his topic for that evening? Being authentic.

As you might expect, Chuck didn’t get too far into his comments before the entire room erupted with laughter. At that point he took off the mask and explained that the English word “hypocrite” is derived from a Greek word that referred to a stage actor in the plays from ancient Greece and Rome. It was customary for the actors in such plays to cover their faces with large masks that came complete with mechanical devices that were used to augment the actors’ voices. During the course of any given play one actor would portray multiple characters by donning multiple masks. Thus, the word “hypocrite” literally refers to someone who dons a mask of disguise in order to perform a fake role. The hypocrite isn’t authentic; he isn’t who he pretends to be.

In Matthew 7:3-5, Jesus says:

“And why do you look at the speck in your brother’s eye, but do not consider the plank in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me remove the speck from your eye’; and look, a plank is in your own eye? Hypocrite! First remove the plank from your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.” (N.K.J.V.)

Boy, Jesus sure loved hyperbolic illustrations. Imagine a person who has a plank sticking in his eye. Now imagine that same person peering intently into another person’s eye and saying, “Let me remove that speck for you.” The absurdity of such a scene isn’t hard to grasp. The person who has the plank sticking in his eye is merely playing a make-believe role. He’s not real. He’s not authentic. He’s appearing to care about objects sticking in peoples’ eyes when all the while he has a plank sticking in his own eye.

I suppose that we’ve all had times when we’ve played the role of hypocrites. We’ve fussed at our kids for texting while driving, but then we’ve hit the open road ourselves and started texting. We’ve complained when gossip was being spread about us, but we’ve had no problem spreading gossip about others. We’ve condemned people for not attending the Sunday morning worship service, but then we’ve thought nothing of skipping that week’s Wednesday night service. See how that works?

Perhaps now would be a good time for you to examine your own life and be honest about any masks you are wearing. Obviously, there is a certain level of authenticity that you’ll never be able to reach as long as you are keeping your true self hidden. Sure, you might be able to fool your friends and acquaintances. You might even be able to fool your family and friends if you are a talented enough actor. But one thing is for sure: you’ll never fool God. He always knows exactly who you are, and He wants all hypocrites to stop playing their fake roles, repent of their sins, and actually become the people they are pretending to be.

Posted in Backsliding, Character, Confession, God's Omniscience, Hypocrisy, Personal Holiness, Repentance, Sin, Truth | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment