Monthly Archives: June 2015

“Out of my distress I called on the Lord; the Lord answered me and set me free. With the Lord on my side I do not fear. What can man do to me?” Psalm 118:5-6

Fear is debilitating and lies at the root of a great many spiritual, emotional, and even physical ills. It solves none of tomorrow's problems and steals all today's joys. God did not create us to be fearful creatures, so not surprisingly the Bible actually has a great deal to say about fear and how God wants to relieve us of it.

Psalms 113-118 are called the Hallel (meaning praise) psalms, and were sung during the celebration of Passover. Psalms 113-114 were sung before the meal, Psalms 115-118 after the meal. Jesus sang the above verses after the Passover meal, just prior to His arrest (Mt. 26:30).

Think about this scene carefully. Jesus knew what was about to happen. He was already feeling distress, and the pressure would become even greater as He prayed in the Garden. At that time, He may well have prayed these very words. He called upon the Father out of His own distress. He knew the Father would hear and answer. He trusted the Father would set Him free.

In what way did God set Him free? For Jesus, freedom meant the removal of a cross (“take this cup from Me”). For the Father, freedom meant the courage to rise from that prayer and face the most difficult test anyone has ever faced. Jesus accepted that freedom, and went to the cross.

As you face a measure of “the day’s own trouble,” this psalm of praise can help you.

First, reclaim the powerful truth that because Jesus was tested, He is able to help you in your test (Heb. 2:18). He knows from very personal experience what is like for a human being to experience distress. Through the incarnation, God’s sympathy became empathy. He knows and understands the trouble you are facing.

Second, call on the Lord. Prayer is your lifeline. It connects you to spiritual resources God makes available to you. You were not created to meet your present distress through knowledge or experience. Chances are the problem you face is beyond the reach of will or determination. You need help from a power greater than yourself, and prayer connects you vitally to that power. Even Jesus did not try to live without prayer! Do not neglect prayer. Share your distress with God. Tell Him about it. Simply ask God to take your fear from you.

Finally, trust that God hears and will set you free. Also, trust the form of freedom God provides. Many times God has provided for me a solution I could not have anticipated. I thank Him for that freedom. Other times God has allowed the distress to remain, but has provided me a courage to face that challenge. In that experience I have grown. I have learned to thank Him for any expression of freedom He provides.

Jesus sang, and perhaps prayed, these words during His greatest test. You certainly should pray them during your present distress! Literally repeat them as you pray (praying the psalms is actually a great spiritual discipline). Through this prayer you will rediscover, “with the Lord on my side I shall not fear.”

Grace,

Dr. Terry Ellis
June 28, 2015

“I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself for me.” Galatians 2:20

We have a problem with grace.

In my experience most people long for grace, believe in grace, and are astounded by grace. Grace is both amazing and puzzling. It is beyond my comprehension, but personally I accept its reality and presence in my life. I no longer have nagging questions. But I increasingly sense that this is not typical even for faithful Christians.

Here is the problem in a nutshell: Most people do not for a serious moment believe that the parable of the prodigal son, for example, applies to them. They know alienation and feel that God is little interested in them, but they cannot truly accept that if they were the lost sheep or coin, God would seek them out. They live as if they are the forgotten prodigal, or the one who signed up too late to work in the vineyard, or the demoniac with one too many demons for God’s redemptive touch.

To be honest I have never really struggled with this. My pastor through my teenage years, James K. Pierce, set me on the path of grace. In seminary I learned more about the depths of grace from gifted men and women who were my professors. I have continued to be fascinated by God’s grace and committed to studying and teaching it. Again I can’t really pin down everything about grace, but I know in my soul it’s true.

David Seamands, a counselor, summed up the challenge in this way: “Many years ago I was driven to the conclusion that the two major causes of most emotional problems among evangelical Christians are these: the failure to understand, receive, and live out God’s grace and forgiveness; and the failure to give out that unconditional love, forgiveness, and grace to other people. . . . We read, we hear, we believe a good theology of grace. But that’s not the way we live.” (What’s So Amazing About Grace?, p. 15)

We don’t live out grace. Perhaps at some level many of us believe we are broken beyond mending. That’s not true of course, but most people appear to live with that suspicion. What if, instead, you lived “as if?”

What if you lived today as if God has you on His mind constantly and absolutely delights in you?

What if you lived today as if God will provide every single resource you need?

What if you lived today as if God has forgiven you and is in the process of mending every flaw?

What if you lived today as if God offers the same grace that washes over you to the person that is causing you trouble?

What if you lived today as if grace is real and all that truly matters?

You might not yet fully believe or accept the previous propositions, but living “as if” can be a starting point of trust. You will not figure out grace, but you get thrilling glimpses of it that are life-changing.

Take the gospel at face value. It is good news that God loves you infinitely. You now have enough information to make a decision today. Live as if.

Grace,

Dr. Terry Ellis
June 21, 2015

“And David was the father of Solomon by the wife of Uriah.” Matthew 1:7

It’s the middle of June. How about a lesson from the Christmas story?

The Gospel of Matthew begins with a genealogy, tracing Jesus’ ancestry back to Abraham. The dizzying list of names threatens to lull the casual reader into drowsy nap through the begats. Nothing here. Let’s move on to the real story that begins with Mary and Joseph.

However, if you slow down and look closely at the genealogy, you will find some very interesting details.

For example, Matthew noted especially for us that Solomon’s mother was Bathsheba, and he noted that she had been the wife of Uriah the Hittite. Matthew chose to remind us, in fact, of her adultery and her husband’s murder. He could have easily omitted her and the uncomfortable associations, but he did not.

In fact, quite contrary to typical Jewish genealogies, Matthew referred to four women in the lineage of Jesus. In addition to Bathsheba, we read Tamar’s name in v. 3. Her story is long and complex, but suffice it to say that she disguised herself as a prostitute, seduced her father-in-law and bore two sons by him.

Then there’s Rahab in v. 5 who did not have to pretend to be a harlot, she was a card-carrying member of the world’s oldest profession. Next we find Ruth, a fine woman except for the unfortunate fact of her ancestry. She was from Moab, and for reasons too complicated to go into, the law clearly stated that no Moabite shall be a member of the nation of Israel. Among a people who valued racial purity, she would be forever marginalized.

Lest you think it’s only the women who come out looking a little shady in this list, the guys have even more black marks. Start where Matthew began, with Abraham. He was a man of great faith, no doubt, but he also had more than a few qualities in his character that did not need to be there.

For example, on his first trip to Egypt, he told Sarah, his wife, to pretend that she was his sister. Sarah’s beauty attracted the attention of the princes of the land. They in turn praised her beauty to Pharaoh. Sarah, as instructed, told them she was Abraham’s sister and was taken to Pharaoh’s house. No harm, the Pharaoh thought, in dating someone’s sister. Long story short, the ploy saved Abraham’s life, but I doubt Sarah was too pleased to be passed off as a sister. Wives are sensitive like that.

Then, of course, Abraham impregnated a servant girl named Hagar. He did have Sarah’s permission, but doesn’t this story sound like something Dr. Phil should address? Concubines are simply never good for a marriage, I don’t care whose idea it is. The point is, Abraham was not a man of pristine character.

Neither was his grandson, Jacob (also in Jesus’ lineage). In plain English, Jacob was a cheat for much of his life, taking advantage of his intellectually challenged older twin, his blind father, and wrestling with God so hard he came out with a limp. This is not the kind of guy you want to discover in your family on ancestry.com.

Space is limited so I can’t go into the misdeeds of David (adultery and murder), or Solomon (700 wives/300 concubines, which is about 999 too many intimate relationships), or the numerous other kings mentioned here (evil intrigue and numerous apostasies).

What do we make of all this? God’s grace is so puzzling, and at no time more so than when Jesus entered the world. From the genealogy, to the selection of a poor, simple teenager like Mary as the mother, to the dirty little village of Bethlehem as the setting, the whole story of the coming of the King is oddly scripted. The casting and setting are strange.

But it seems that God delights in taking a stall and turning it into the birthplace of the King of Kings. He calls lowly, smelly shepherds to be the first audience. He takes humble people, some with checkered pasts, and has them take lead roles in the greatest story ever told.

And so the light should begin to dawn that God can take you with your checkered past and history of failure and sin, and work you into a special place in His plan. You may not be qualified, but God qualifies you through His grace. All you have to do is live your part.

Many people struggle with guilt. Some guilt is deserved for it alerts us to the presence of something in our personalities that does not need to be there. Other times the guilt is artificial and very harmful for it is the product of either an over-sensitive conscience or the result of an over-bearing personality that makes you feel guilty when you should not.

You must learn to distinguish between good and bad guilt. When the guilt is valid, ask forgiveness, make amends as necessary, accept grace, and quit punishing yourself. If God doesn’t hold the deed against you, then neither should you. Just quit it. Whatever your past, you have a place in the Father’s family.

Grace,

Dr. Terry Ellis
June 14, 2015

“We felt we had received the sentence of death, but that was to make us rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead.” 2 Corinthians 1:9

In the opening paragraph of his second letter to the Corinthians Paul referenced a particularly difficult time he encountered in Ephesus. He wrote that he felt that he had received the sentence of death while in Asia. He was utterly and unbearably crushed, despairing of life. We do not know the specifics, these details do not fit any particular period we know of in Paul’s life. What we do know is that he was walking through a deep darkness. While in that darkness, however, he found the purpose. The challenge made him rely not on himself but on “God who raises the dead.” (1:8-9). He learned about trust in God, even during the spiritual dry seasons of life.

The dry seasons are a part of every Christian life. How do we handle them? The longer I live as a Christian the more I understand the importance of perseverance. Victory in Christ for me is not a final score at the end of each week. The victory is in the daily walk with Christ. I find new and varied experiences in prayer that I had never anticipated. I find parts of the Bible speaking to me with a special and unexpected relevance. Most importantly, I have learned to pray even when I do not feel the prayers are rising higher than the ceiling. Through these experiences, I am convinced that perseverance and victory are the same.

Paul’s description of God here is important for understanding the spiritual dry seasons. He said rely on God who raises the dead. Easter never seemed to be far from Paul’s thinking. Perhaps that’s because new life was so important to him, just as it should be important to you.

There is a resurrection waiting for you every day. The dry seasons will come. You feel like you’re among the walking dead. But remember that you worship a God who raises the dead. Easter Sunday always follows Good Friday. God will not leave you. Persevere. The question we all have is how?

The Discovery Channel was one of the Ellis favorites for most of my children’s early years. We especially liked the nature shows. They’re pretty much all the same, but we still like to tune in to see what’s eating what. Cheetah’s like Thompsons Gazelles. Lions like zebra for dinner. Nile crocodiles seem to work their way into most every show and eat anything that comes into the river.

And of course drought is a frequent topic. We see animals struggling through the dry seasons. Some migrate. Some endure. Some die. One animal has a unique way of dealing with the dry seasons. It’s called the lungfish. As the water begins to dry up, the lungfish buries itself in the mud. The water hole will completely dry up. The surface will crack from the drought. The lungfish is a few feet down in the mud. When the rains come again, the lungfish senses it, and up it comes into a newly filled pond. The dry season didn’t kill it. It simply adapted and survived.

In the final analysis that is what we must do. Adapt and survive. I would love to believe that we can through physical grit and mental determination always walk to a new source of water. However, I have seen and experienced far too much of the drought, and know that some very good Christians remain in dry places in spite of their best efforts.

I’m very glad love, joy, peace, etc. do not depend on my ability to create them. The very good news is that we worship a God who raises the dead, in His time and in His way. The greatest gift He gives is not circumstantial victory at the end of every day, but His presence. He is with you, and He does not slumber or sleep. He will make certain you survive the spiritual dry seasons. He actually helps you to grow during them. And when one day we shuffle of this mortal coil, the final verdict will not be defeat, but glory that cannot be compared to the suffering of this present age.

Grace,

Dr. Terry Ellis
June 7, 2015