“But my life is worth nothing to me unless I use it for finishing the work assigned me by the Lord Jesus; the work of telling others the Good News about the wonderful grace of God.” (Acts 20:24)
Having been there before, I was telling my colleague about the many sights and sounds of New Orleans. One of the best among them is the wide variety of great food to be found there, including home-made beignets and a freshly brewed cup of chicory coffee in the French Quarter’s Café Du Monde. I had her anticipating the experience long before we ever landed at the airport. Due to our different roles in the organization for which we worked, we did not participate in all of the same presentations at the conference we were attending. On one of our first days there, my afternoon session adjourned early. I decided to walk a few blocks down the street and enjoy one of those delicious beignets that I had been so fondly recalling to my friend. I ordered a coffee and two beignets, one for me and the other to take back to the hotel for my coworker. When I later knocked on the door to her room, I had a big smile on my face and greeted her by saying, “I have good news and bad news. The good news is that I went for beignets, and I bought one for each of us.” She looked at me and said, “Okay then, so what’s the bad news?” I lowered my eyes as well as my voice and said . . . “I ate both of them!”
Isn’t that quite typical of most of us as we blunder through our lives? On many typical days, we start off with the absolute best of intentions. While we run errands, we plan to stop by the nursing home to check on our elderly neighbor who is confined there after a nasty fall. We have every aim to have lunch with a fellow employee who recently lost his wife but then allow the piles of paper and the need to return calls to get in the way of doing so. We sit down after our evening meal with purpose to address a card or check in by phone but instead justify we really need to take some time for our self to relax. It’s neglecting those things that God would want us to do. No one understood this better than the Apostle Paul who said – “I don’t really understand myself, for I want to do what is right, but I don’t do it. Instead, I do what I hate. But if I know that what I am doing is wrong, this shows that I agree that the law is good. So I am not the one doing wrong; it is sin living in me that does it. And I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. I want to do what is right, but I can’t. I want to do what is good, but I don’t. I don’t want to do what is wrong, but I do it anyway” (Romans 7:15-19).
In his 1970’s variety show, comedian Flip Wilson became famous for creating the character Geraldine who coined the phrase – “The devil made me do it.” Too often, we excuse our circumstances or our temptations for not doing what is acceptable in God’s eyes by finding someone or something to blame. Jesus made it clear that we must be responsible for our own actions. “For I was hungry, and you didn’t feed me. I was thirsty, and you didn’t give me a drink. I was a stranger, and you didn’t invite me into your home. I was naked, and you didn’t give me clothing. I was sick and in prison, and you didn’t visit me… And he will answer, ‘I tell you the truth, when you refused to help the least of these my brothers and sisters, you were refusing to help me” (Matthew 25:42-43,45).
During the season of Lent, we are challenged to get right with God in some way in order to exercise His will for our life. We seek to find answers to those things that keep us from being in full communion with Him. The traditional thought is that by giving up something we enjoy or rely on, we make a sacrifice thereby identifying with Christ’s suffering experience. In reality, any self-imposed denial we might make would fail in comparison with the price He paid and the ensuing grace He provides. Therefore, we should use the Season of Lent as a time to reexamine our relationship with Him. While we will inevitably fall short, we should be repentant conceding that confession truly is good for the soul. We don’t ever want to be face to face with the Lord and have Him say, “I have good news and bad news. ‘In my Father’s house there are many mansions’ (John 14:2), but unfortunately . . . there is no reservation in your name.”
REFLECTION: Consider a few recent good intentions that you neglected to fulfill. How did your lack of action in this regard miss the mark of becoming an effective witness for Christ? What can you “give up” this Lenten season that has until now served as a barrier between you and Him?
A NEW LOOKUP DEVOTION IS UPLOADED EACH WEEK. THE NEXT WEEKLY POSTING WILL BE ON SAT., MARCH 11, 2017. COMMENTS ARE WELCOMED.