Author: David Short

EXHORT ONE ANOTHER

Hebrews 3:13

but exhort one another daily, while it is called “Today,” lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin.

Personal Challenge

We need each other in our lives. Our salvation, our relationship with Christ, gets worked out and grows in community. We were not created to go through life alone. This is becoming especially relevent in today’s political climate where everyone is trying to divide and isolate groups and individuals. It is even happening in our churches. We must fight the movement toward isolation and separation and keep pulling people together and encouraging one another. Lord have mercy! Lord, have mercy! Lord, have mercy!

I WILL…

Micah 7:7

But I will look to the Lord. I will wait for God my Savior, for my God will hear me.

Personal Challenge

We live in a day where contention with one another is the norm. It has not only become acceptible to press upon another your beliefs and expectations, it has almost become mandatory by society for people to do this. I choose not to do this. It is not my responsibility, and certainly not my right to make another believe what I believe However, it is my right to believe what I believe and to live my life accordingly. I am a follower of Jesus Christ. I strive to understand His teachings and live by them. Contrary to a lot of expectations in the world today, living by the sermon on the mount, the beatitudes, the commands to love our neighbor, are not what we are seeing from so many who claim the label of Christian. Lord, have mercy! So, please talk to those of us who proclaim to be followers of Christ and see if we are loving and caring as He expects us to be, before you judge us. I will look to the Lord. I will wait for God my savior for He will hear me.

ABLE TO AID

Hebrews 2:17-18

Therefore, in all things He had to be made like His brethren, that He might be a merciful and faithful High Priest in things pertaining to God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people. For in that He Himself has suffered, being tempted, He is able to aid those who are tempted.

Encouraging Words

Why did Jesus choose to become a human? In order to truly redeem humanity from the grip of death, a human had to be able to defeat death. Jesus became that human and life a perfect, sinless life as a human so that by His death and resurrection, death would be defected. Through Him we have been redeemed. Since he lived His life as a human, tempted and yet not sinning, He can aid us when we are tempted. Glory be to God!

HE HAS SHOWN US

Micah 6:8

He has shown you, O man, what is good. Or what does the Lord seek from you but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to be ready to walk with the Lord your God?

Personal Challenge

Jesus told us to judge not that we be not judged. Micah reminds us that God, throughout the entire Old Testament, has shown us what is good. Judging another for their choices that are different from ours is not good. We are reminded here to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk with the Lord our God. This is how Christians are to behave. We are not to delight in the misfortunes of others. We are not to withhold help from those in need. We are not to support those who would do these things. Lord, have mercy! Lord, have mercy! Lord, have mercy!

RELEASED FROM DEATH

Hebrews 2:14-15

Inasmuch then as the children have partaken of flesh and blood, He Himself likewise shared in the same, that through death He might destroy him who had the power of death, that is, the devil, and release those who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage.

Encouraging Words

The perspective of Easter, or Pascha as we call it in the Eastern Orthodox Church, is quite a bit different than the Western Church. We do not believe that God had to kill His Son in order to forgive us of our sins. When Adam sinned, the world and all of its inhabitants became slaves to the consequences of sin, which is death. We sin because we fear death. Jesus became human like all of us and also retained His God-ness. He lived a perfect, sinless life, and allowed Himself to die like every other human being. The end game here is that He came back to life, preparing the way for the rest of humanity to be able to rise from death as well. He died in order to break the bondage that death had on all of us. We, the Orthodox Christians, proclaim this every year at our Paschal celebration when we sing, “Christ is risen from the dead, trampling down death by death, and upon those in the tombs bestowing life!” Hallellujah!

THAT YOU MAY LIVE

Amos 5:14

Seek good and not evil so that you may live, so that the Lord God Almighty will be with you. As you have said,

Personal Challenge

Amos was a prophet who was called upon by God to press the people to repent of their evil ways and to return to worshipping God in the right way. What was this right way? Jesus made it very clear when He summed up the entire law in the Old Testament with two commands: Love God and love your neighbor. If anyone is
going to label themselves as a Christian, then the fruit of their labors must show that they are abiding by these commandments. So much of what we are seeing today in the politics of our country is so much about claiming the false label of being “Christian” and behaving as pagans by abandoning those who cannot defend themselves. This is not Christian. This is not seeking good over evil. Lord, have mercy! Lord, have mercy! Lord, have mercy!

Saint of the Week

St. John Chrysostom

THINGS TO AVOID

Titus 3:9-11

But avoid foolish disputes, genealogies, contentions, and strivings about the law; for they are unprofitable and useless. Reject a divisive man after the first and second admonition, knowing that such a person is warped and sinning, being self-condemned.

Personal Challenge

We live in a very contentious age. People have become conditioned to be mean and nasty to each other. This behavior is so contradictory to the teachings of Jesus Christ and yet practiced by so many who claim to be His followers. You cannot have it both ways. As this passage instructs us to reject a divisive person after the first and second admonition, I have chosen to unfriend and block people in my social media who confront the truth in contentious and divisive ways. Lord, have mercy! Lord, have mercy! Lord, have mercy!

REDEEMED FROM DEATH

Hosea 13:14

“I will deliver them out of the hand of Hades
And will redeem them from death.
Where is your penalty, O death?
O Hades, where is your sting?
Pity is hidden from My eyes.”

Encouraging Words

John 3: 16 tells us that God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son to save the world from perishing and to give them eternal life. Throughout the Scriptures, both Old and New Testaments, we find passages like this one that proclaim God’s desire to save all of His creation and especially his created children. I do not subscribe to universalism, but who am I to say who gets saved and who does not? Who am I to set the rules that God must abide by? For that matter, who is anyone who thinks they can do this? I believe that no one, especially me, deserves God’s grace and mercy, and yet He chooses to bestow it upon me, upon us. This belief makes it all the more important to love my neighbor, whomever they may be. Glory be to God!

KINDNESS AND LOVE OF GOD

Titus 3:4-8

But when the kindness and the love of God our Savior toward man appeared, not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us, through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Savior, that having been justified by His grace we should become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.

This is a faithful saying, and these things I want you to affirm constantly, that those who have believed in God should be careful to maintain good works. These things are good and profitable to men.

Personal Challenge

Once again, a society that proclaims itself to be “Christian” is striving to force upon others its definition and expectations of what it means to be Christian. This is the very mindset that Jesus fought against when He challenged the “institution” of Judaism that had polluted the gifts to them from God. Paul makes it clear to Titus, and the rest of us, that God’s pouring out of His kindness, love, and mercy has no dependencies on our behaviors. He gives it through His Son, freely and graciously. We cannot earn it. We cannot legislate it. We cannot fully receive it when we do not follow through with doing His good works, which are based on loving our neighbor. Lord, have mercy! Lord, have mercy! Lord, have mercy!