A Little Counter Scriptural?

Eight years ago ...





Psalms 95                                                                                     February 22
for a revival of worship in our churches                                      10802.22





O come, let us sing unto the LORD: let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation. 1



Jeremiah 38 - Then Shephatiah the son of Mattan, and Gedaliah the son of Pashur, and Jucal the son of Shelemiah, and Pashur the son of Malchiah, heard the words that Jeremiah had spoken unto all the people, saying,
Now when Ebed-melech the Ethiopian, one of the eunuchs which was in the king's house, heard that they had put Jeremiah in the dungeon; the king then sitting in the gate of Benjamin;
Then Zedekiah the king sent, and took Jeremiah the prophet unto him into the third entry that is in the house of the Lord: and the king said unto Jeremiah, I will ask thee a thing; hide nothing from me.
Then said Zedekiah unto Jeremiah, Let no man know of these words, and thou shalt not die. 24





[Also on this page -- which evidently documents the time I was reading the Bible and went with writing down paragraph openings, as those are verses 1, 7, 14, and 24 -- are my prayer requests for "Sarah @ 0257 this morning, and after a while she has to turn facing south, not north", my thrush mouth which I'd had since that Monday four days earlier, and my record that I'd read Greg Garrett's The Gospel According to Hollywood.]



Also there's a copy here in my journal of the Ensign devotion I'd written for that day (the 22nd of 2008 was a Friday, my typical Ensign date) ... it's getting a little late as I'm typing this, but I'd really like to share part of it that struck me. I was in a Lenten play at my church and reading the part of Judas, with my fellow actor reading as God, and two days later I gave part of my reaction to that: 


I didn't see Judas as a cold-hearted, money-hungry false friend at all and I tried to read the part Wednesday that way.  When God is drawing out of Judas the little things he'd done -- wishing Jesus hadn't let a prostitute break perfume over him because it was a waste of monetary value (Mark 14; actually, some other disciples complained about this too), stolen from Jesus and the disciples' treasury (John 12:6), taken the thirty pieces of silver to betray Jesus (Matthew 26:15) -- he starts to break down and his firmest convictions, his love of money and his belief in God, get turned inside-out.  When asked by God if he loved Jesus, I ... I mean, Judas had to admit with head downcast, "no".
Is that what all of us do when we're not careful, break down? Yes. But it's what we do AFTER we break down -- in Christian context, admit that we're full of sin, that we have actively separated ourselves from God's will for our lives -- that matters. Usually even people who aren't Christians have little good to say about Judas, hence his name going down in history as the traitor of traitors. Yes, he might be a good businessman, yes, he might be the go-to guy if YOU wanted to establish a living trust, something that would last beyond your death.


But no. Judas let his own failure, once he knew it was his own failure, destroy him.


Pharisees wouldn't take the thirty pieces of silver (about twenty bucks in today's money) back, and Judas hung himself. It is up to us to leave our broken pieces in the hands of someone who will restore us, who wants to restore us. And being guilty of shouting down the people closest to me myself, I can tell you it's definitely NOT me you want to turn to. My vantage point isn't big enough. Oh I can and I have prayed for that in hearing and handling the people closest to me, but I can say something and muck up everything. You need, I need, we all need, our Father in heaven for that.


David