Today is my middle daughter’s birthday. Happy Birthday Amber! In spite of isolation, the day has already started as a blessing. When I texted her earlier this morning she responded saying friends had come and decorated her front lawn and left a couple gifts. She is in Oklahoma City so our participation is truly long distance.

Easter’s celebration truly was different this year, but that was only on what man did. Easter will always be the same, however, because of what Christ did! Man is so self-centered that we keep thinking the event is ruined if we don’t do it right. Everything about Easter is about what Christ did, not what man did or does. The celebration God desires is the one when man has turned to Him through His Son Jesus Christ. This is why Christ came. This is the message we need to always proclaim. This is the truest celebration of Easter.

Even in this time of isolation we are never isolated from Christ Jesus and His Gift to us–The Holy Spirit. I want to listen to His nudges in how to make this time we are in a continued time of obedience and surrender to Him.

HE IS RISEN! HE IS RISEN INDEED!! I can’t begin to fathom the intense, overwhelming emotions the ones felt who came to address the body of Jesus on that Sunday morning only to find He had done just what He said He’d do–He would rise–conquer death! But where was He? Where did He go? Over time the followers found that Jesus went to His Father, our Father. This time He went as our Savior. This time He went to forever stand in the gap that sin had created between God and His creation–man (us).

As I reread Romans 8 this morning for the third time I was given a clarity which connected the content of the entire chapter. As the chapter begins Paul is telling the frailty and futility of the flesh. We can do nothing to please God following the old laws of the land in our flesh. Works will never get us to a place of peace with God the Father. Satan wants to keep us trapped in this place of struggle. I’ve lived in this trap so much of my life! Christ not only came to conquer this dilemma, but He also gave us a Gift in so doing–The Gift of The Holy Spirit. Christ lived his life on earth being obedient to The Holy Spirit. He conquered death in so doing. We now have this Gift too.

I know I have The Holy Spirit within me because it is a promise from Jesus. But, like I wrote yesterday, if I know this but don’t live this, then my character has not been developed within. My realization for today is that the character building which takes place from our learning comes from our yielding to The Holy Spirit. He will lead us into developing the characteristics of Jesus. He will lead us as we obey Him and surrender our emotional desires/cravings so we live life as The Holy Spirit directs us to do. The chapter ends saying “we are more than conquerors”. For today, my understanding for “more than conquerors” is that we won the battle through surrender rather than fighting. The fighting was done by Jesus Christ. We win when we surrender to Him and accept and then surrender to The Holy Spirit–our GIFT! A “more than conqueror” is one who faces the battle but doesn’t enter it. Instead, he claims the VICTORY already fought and won by Jesus Christ on the Cross.

Today I reread the 8th chapter of Romans. Tomorrow I will likely read it again. I don’t know of a chapter in the bible which describes in such detail the human side of living each day as well as the spiritual side of living each day. In so doing, it describes the battle therein.

What I found this morning while having my devotional time was a clarity I needed and I want to share. First of all I was reading an Oswald Chambers devotion which in part stated that teaching/learning is important, but it is only a start. If the learning doesn’t develop into character then it hasn’t completed its work. What hit me squarely between the eyes with this is the direct connection to us being “Christ-like”. We are told that Christ is molding us into His image. This is not being done only by what we know. It is done by whom we become. The character of Christ is to become the character of each one of us.

The first half of Romans 8 goes deeply into the struggle of living a life in the flesh vs a life in the Spirit. So much of this centers around belief and trust. Then, the believing and trust must be demonstrated with surrender and obedience. What hits me here is rather simple–do I worry about our present state or do I have a peace that passeth all understanding about it? I can learn the scriptures Philippians 4:6-7 which tell us to not be anxious about anything. But, if my character continues to demonstrate anxiety I will never know the peace God promises. There is a big difference between “learning” & “being”.

I’m needing to stay with this chapter for a while. When Christ went to the Cross so our sins are now forgiven once and for all, He created a pathway directly to our Father God through Himself. There’s so much more I want to learn and become as I continue this journey of human life knowing I have full access to my Father.

Today is Good Friday. I’ll bet those who lived and witnessed this day did not call it good. I can’t begin to fathom the depth and breadth of confusing thoughts going through the minds of Christ’s followers this day. They had to live a couple of days in the darkness of this before the GOOD of today began to shine LIGHT. We have access to the Light of Jesus today. We can understand the good of Friday and I will be forever grateful for the CROSS of Jesus and the price He paid for each one of us. In the absence of being able to celebrate this coming weekend as we have traditionally, I will still celebrate with all my heart this Jesus Christ–Savior of the world. How much I love Him!

I have always read Romans with a desire to finish the book with a firm commitment to live exactly the way Paul describes for the new believer. Doing this I would give up following the laws I learned from church: go to church each Sunday and go to the other services which are held, pray for each meal, read my Bible daily, never use bad words, don’t think immoral thoughts, don’t get greedy and the list could go on and on. On the flip side of this type of living is what Christ wanted done. He said to abandon the laws and embrace living in GRACE. In so doing, I am to give up living “because I have to” to living “because I want to”.

As I am reading today’s scripture and reliving my life I find all of kinds of inner battles. If I lived by the law and didn’t follow Grace I would look good I thought to man and I wouldn’t look soft and wimpy like I interrupted grace or had it ridiculed in me when I was a boy growing up. My definition of grace was what a weak-willed person was like. This was driven by fears of not looking tough.

A few years ago I was told by one of our Celebrate Recovery men that he thought I was a pansy when we first had met. I was too forgiving and too nice. If I had been “tough” I would never have allowed myself to be used as I was growing up and I’d stood up to my dad. However, over time he decided I was tougher than most men he knew for I would tell my story and stand up for right living. This was what I wanted to hear, but my inner voice would tell me I was still the wimp.

This living by GRACE is something Satan will throw in the face of man as long as we are alive in this human flesh. Somehow I want to help others see the strength in living in GRACE. For in GRACE is found the freedom Christ offers to each of us.

Romans 6 is such a challenging chapter. In it Paul is addressing the grip sin has on us. He then puts this into the work Christ Jesus did on the Cross not so many years prior to his being in Rome. The Christians there knew of Christ but they didn’t have a good understanding of what Christ had done establishing a new means of creating a relationship with God our Father. The ways of the law were gone. They were replaced with GRACE.

The one thing I see more clearly now than ever before as I read this chapter is what obedience looks like in Grace rather than obedience in the old law practice which was works. Grace requires surrender while the law required works. There is still an element of obedience that must be addressed in Grace. That is the obedience to the Light Christ shed for us. Christ told us “He is the Light” John 8:12; “He is the Way, the Truth and the Life” John 14:6. It is later in the scriptures that we hear from the ones who were first to follow Christ living in this Light and living in this obedience to the Light. James 5:16 tells us to “confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective.” James is describing what living in GRACE requires through obedience.

The new law we are to now follow is confess–this is what the Light Christ sheds wants us to do. I have learned, and am still working on, telling when I am tempted. If we tell the person/s we confess to so they can pray for us, we can avoid stepping into the sin. This is the healing James 5:16 talks about.

Surrendering has a very different look than obedience to a law. The ones following the old laws were pious and proud. The ones who learned to follow the LIGHT were humble and meek for they knew their strength wasn’t in their pride of hiding, it was in their surrendering to the LIGHT and confessing/telling. I will be working on this the rest of my life.

Today’s devotional time has been one which I want to make permanent and never leave as I live out each and every day. This is Easter Week where Christ is knowingly heading to the Cross. Yes, he’s trying to help his disciples understand its importance, but we all know the answer to this. Christ did two things this coming weekend which are to be forever remembered and understood–He destroyed sin’s dominion over man and He made it possible for each one of us to enter into a personal relationship with His Father–our Father as a clean, set free vessel.

One of our Celebrate Recovery men had relapsed into porn. I mentioned this a couple weeks ago. He is now seeking professional help and working diligently to break this bondage. As I’ve stayed in touch with him I see so much of my own struggle evidenced in his own. I also see the sense of hopelessness wondering if “I” can do this? We all know the answer to this question for I can do nothing within myself. But, how do I ever access the Power of Heaven so I am “free indeed”?

In Romans Paul is trying to help the Jews of Rome to believe just what this Savior has done. He has destroyed the effects of sin and He has given man an entrance to an eternal relationship with God the Father and the opportunity to spend eternity with Him. We do this by accepting Jesus and not by completing the laws of the past.

When Jesus went to the Cross, He took sin with Him–all of sin. By His raising from the dead on the third day He paved the pathway for our re-entrance into the possible relationship man had with God prior to sin–a one on one relationship which can start today when we accept Christ into our hearts. He cleansed this temple of ours (our body) when He did all of this and gave us His Gift–The Holy Spirit. My job is to keep this vessel (my body) in good shape for this Gift. I can’t do this by fighting with my own strength, I do this by letting go of all my old beliefs calling them out loud as lies. Isaiah 55:11 says: “So shall my word be that comes forth out of my mouth; it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I desire….” I desire to be set free from the bondage of sin and it’s hold on what I believe about myself.

Satan tries to convince us that our sin is too great or it simply is a permanent part of us. These are the lies we are to say out loud in response to his temptations. Christ took sin to the Cross. He didn’t prioritize sin, He took it all. Don’t let man or Satan do anything to convince us otherwise.

There is one thing that is not impacted by needing to stay confined to home–my sleep pattern remains the same–maybe that has more to do with being old!

Last week I began to sit in on Zoom meetings one of the superintendents is having with his admin team and his teachers and aides. This was nice as it allowed me to know what is taking place in the development of virtual classroom instruction for them. It also revealed a couple of things I could actually do for them I thought. The superintendent had forwarded to me a link to a conference speaker he had listened to recently. This message encouraged us to not offer a blanket statement of willingness to help. Instead, the speaker suggested naming three ways you can see yourself giving help. This allows the recipient to take them or delete them if they aren’t of help to them. I did just that, I responded back to the superintendent with three ways I could see myself helping at this point in time. Today I will begin working on two of them since he said that would be of benefit to the district.

God has been nudging me to reach out to those on my prayer list I don’t regularly see at this point. I started that yesterday and will continue this. I find it is appreciated by them and it also gives me a lift too. It turns out to be an unexpected blessing. God really is amazing!

This morning I have been awakened to so many relevant points and I don’t want to lose sight of any of them. One of the things I’ve been noticing of late is that now that I have to stay home I have so much time to reach out to others. However, am I doing that? Very seldom. Instead, I find that I have all this time to be selfish. When life before the present was happening I would say when I was home that I have these things to get done so I need to be selfish. Now that I have ample time at home I still do this same thing–stay to myself. I find it is easy to write this blog when I don’t have to talk about it with anyone.

As I began my devotions the theme for the day was hitting upon “walking in the Light”. I John 1:7 says: If we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin.” Then, as I read more I found that the fellowship we have with one another never includes judgment of them. The second chapter of Romans starts with this command in the 1st verse: “…for in posing as judge and passing sentence on another you condemn yourself….” Oswald Chambers says that we are to reach out to one another right where they are and bless them where they are (not judge them where they are). The Light they are to follow is not us. The Light is Christ Jesus. We are to encourage them right where they are to seek the Light and to seek what they hear from God in the Light.

This introspective time I have is showing me so much more than I’d ever expected. I want to keep my eyes and ears focused on Jesus Christ alone. As I reach out to others I want to do so only as a support of the Light Christ is shining already. I am not to be the barometer of their walk, Christ wants me (us) to leave that with Him.

The journeys of Paul throughout the New Testament are so much more real as I am reading them this time in the book of Acts. Today I’ve started reading the next book: Romans. Paul has just arrived in Rome as Acts ends and now Paul is writing a letter to those of Rome. Just reading the first chapter of Romans gives a description of life in today’s society. How sad that is. Man, left to his own, always turns to himself wanting to make himself–self-sufficient. We want to be our own god not needing our creator God.

As I started my devotions this morning and reading Oswald Chambers, he says that sin leads to death while the new creation God gives to us when we accept Christ leads to life–eternal life. There have been over 2000 years which have past since Christ’s physical time on earth. Here we are still looking just like we did then. What have we learned?

In answering my own question I have to admit I have learned that I am a man who has needed to recognize my own pride, my own desire to be self-sufficient. I needed to admit my sins and begin to confess them. I’ve had to learn to TRUST that God will use all of life to bring man back around to Him. I’ve learned that all the lessons of life man had to learn 2000 years ago are still the lessons I must learn today. I cannot live on the lessons which Paul learned. I have to learn them for myself. And then to bring this home–I cannot learn the lessons in life for my own children and grandchildren–they must learn these for themselves. Yes, I can model and teach, but the lesson must be personalized for each of them. God intimately loves each of us and each of us must come to God on our own where we begin to build our own relationship with God our Father and His Family–Christ Jesus and The Holy Spirit.