sin

Godly Sorrow

~ Heather Davis ~ 6 Comments

Ever since Charlie Kirk’s assassination, rumors of possible revival are simmering in various places. I admit I am cautiously excited. However, this excitement is tempered by an understanding of the abject depravity of my fellow humans, self included. We are beings easily led by our emotions, but when those feelings fade, often so does our loyalty, inspiration, and yes, even our faith. What we need is not impassioned sentiment but genuine godly sorrow.

“As it is, I rejoice, not because you were grieved, but because you were grieved into repenting. For you felt a godly grief, so that you suffered no loss through us” (2 Corinthians 7:9).

Sorrow and grief over our wicked propensities is not where God wants to leave us, but it is the beginning of the transformation we must undertake to be truly useful to him. And here it is where the Great Shepherd ends up sorting the sheep from the goats, because not all people who hear the good news of the Kingdom of God will experience true godly grief.

There is another kind of sorrow, a subtle but dangerous mimic: worldly grief.

“For godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret, whereas worldly grief produces death” (2 Corinthians 7:9-10).

As we take a hard look into the darkness of our own hearts, do we truly see the perversion there? Do we grasp the vast gulf between our degenerate state and the perfection of a holy God? If we do, godly grief comes of its own accord, and although painful, it is good. Godly sorrow is the lancing of the infected wound so it can drain and heal. Freedom from the infection of sin comes through the agony of first excising the rotten portion of our hearts. It hurts, but it’s a pain bringing with it an incredible relief.

With true godly sorrow for our sin, we are driven to turn away from the darkness, repelled by it, rethinking our lives and motives and everything. Godly sorrow turns us completely around away from self-focus and sin-focus to face the Living God. And we are undone by His majesty and kindness, for in place of the hollowness sin leaves behind, He offers us forgiveness, total healing, and a sure hope for a future brimful of joy.

But worldly grief is a different thing. The sorrow of the world is either a false sorrow or it is a sorrow that feeds on itself.

False sorrow leads to false conversion, the seed sown on rocky or thorny ground, the “faith” springing up with joy at the good news but turning away because of persecution or being choked out by pleasures, worries, wealth, hardship, life. False, worldly grief is as temporary as it is shallow, quick to come and as quick to ebb; a feelings-based or even attention-based lip service to God that never reaches the heart or results in a changed person.

Besides this false grief, there is another worldly sorrow, one more closely resembling true godly grief and yet masking a fiendish self-focus. This type is the grief that turns inward, fixated on the horribleness of self and refusing to turn outward and gaze upon the glorious Savior with healing in His wings.

Worldly sorrow either lies and only pretends to accept the gift of salvation, or it gnaws itself endlessly until nothing is left, spurning the gift of forgiveness offered by the King.

Either way, death is the result, because only in the transformation brought about by turning to God and surrendering to His way of being is real life found. The Kingdom of God is the Kingdom of Life. Death holds sway everywhere else.

And there is only one Door into this Kingdom. The only way a wicked human being can enter is by turning to the Christ, the Son of God who was sent into the world to live a life with no need of sorrow over sin because He never sinned. The Door to the Kingdom is Jesus, and there is no other way in. We enter the Kingdom covered by the righteousness of the Christ or we do not enter it at all.

We who, in godly sorrow, turn our backs to our sin may now march right through the Door, frame soaked by the blood of a spotless Lamb, and enter into a Kingdom like no other. A Kingdom that is among us and yet is not yet fully realized; a Kingdom where tension between sin and holiness, life and death, will last a little while more but where ultimately sin, darkness, and death will be overthrown and swallowed up by joy, light, and life.

A Kingdom all are invited to enter, but only some will be willing to part with the sin they hold so dear.

Will you come? Will you abandon yourself to godly sorrow so you may be saved from certain death and given over to the promise of pleasures forevermore and abundant joy at the right hand of God? Friend, I hope you will. Godly sorrow may bring weeping during the night of this world, but joy is sure to come in the morning of the Great Day of the Lord.

Why Do We Still Suffer?

~ Heather Davis ~ 2 Comments

Wednesday night at my church, our pastor asked an interesting question regarding 1 Peter 1:5. The passage reads, “…who, by God’s power, are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.” Pastor John asked us how we would respond to someone asking why Christians still suffer if our God is guarding us through faith.

In other words, if God is so powerful and loving and if He truly guards His own, why do His people still deal with sickness, loss, grief, financial ruin, and the like?

My first thought was of Paul’s words in 2 Corinthians 5:1-2: “For we know that if the tent that is our earthly home is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For in this tent we groan, longing to put on our heavenly dwelling…”

I think of it as the tabernacle/temple/eternity paradigm.

Incredibly, God gave us an illustration of worship in temporary accommodations while in exile when He gave the budding nation of Israel the tabernacle (a specific type of tent) in which to worship Him during their journey between Egypt, the place of their captivity, and the Promised Land. You can read about it in the book of Exodus.

Once they were in the Promised Land and a kingdom was finally established, God gave the third king of Israel permission to build a more permanent worship site – the temple (see 1 Kings 6). However, because even the temple was built from corruptible materials in this sin-corrupted world, and because the people of the young nation were also sin-sick and twisted, the nation divided and eventually the first temple fell.

Yet even the temple is just a glimpse of our ultimate eternal worship place in the very presence of God. In the future city of the New Jerusalem, there will not even be a temple, “for its temple is the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb” (Revelation 21:22). This will be our permanent home; this will be our permanent place of worship!

So what does this have to do with tents and suffering?

This body – this life – is all temporary. What’s more, it belongs to a reality in which everything has a contrasting opposite: up and down, good and evil, fast and slow, light and dark, and so forth. But when we are “born again,” as Peter mentions in 1 Peter 1:3 (see also John 3, et al), we die to this duality and are made into a new creation – one prepared to someday live in a reality without sin, darkness, death, and decay.

Yet until then, the new creatures we are still reside in these temporary, frail containers of meat and water. In this way, our physical bodies are like tents. And for those of us who are in Christ, our current bodies are temporary residences meant to be maintained long enough to function during our sojourn on earth, but they are not our permanent homes.

We are in essence camping in a foreign and often hostile territory on an ambassadorial mission for our King. We are sent here to represent Him to the world at large as well as to convince others the value of relinquishing their earthly citizenship and joining us in exile for the promise of a homecoming like no other.

Because we are not home, we will suffer the same homesickness, feelings of isolation, and sense of being misunderstood as any other stranger in a strange land. Also, because we are still housed in bodies inextricably tied to a planet broken by evil and sin, we will suffer just as all inhabitants of this world do. Sickness, death, and pain do not pass us by just because we are citizens of a different and eternal realm. We still live here, after all.

In addition to these general sufferings, there is the added complexity that we will suffer because of our choice to align ourselves with the King of kings, especially as we navigate in a world largely hostile to His message and dead-set (pun intended) on each individual being his or her own little god and calling the shots.

Suffering is part and parcel of the tent-dweller, and yet it is not all bad. Suffering strips us of self-reliance, of hubris, of many ignoble traits and daily reminds us we are not yet home. It also daily reminds us to rely on our God who is powerful and able to sustain us, even through suffering, until the day He calls us home.

Home.

It’s because of the promise of home we endure suffering. This homecoming will be unlike any earthly homecoming, because all of earth is still under the domination of sin. When our “tents” are destroyed and we clothe ourselves with our heavenly dwelling, all the bad things of the world will be destroyed along with them.

The new reality we were born into will finally be realized in its completeness. No more sorrow, no more shame, no more sin or death or pain or tears. All will be made new – even the heavens and the earth – and we will see the beauty of our King unveiled and in His splendor.

And THAT, my friends, is worth every ounce of suffering and more!

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.” And he who was seated on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.” Also he said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true” (Revelation 21:1-5).

Talk about Transformation: Jacob

~ Heather Davis ~ Leave a comment
This one is for the sisters who are going through Warren W. Wiersbe’s devotional, Becoming New together.

Day 15 of Wiersbe’s book touches on the life of Jacob, but I would encourage each one of you to read the patriarch’s entire story from his birth recorded in Genesis 25 at least through the death of his father Isaac at the end of Genesis 35. You can read it all in less than half an hour, and in this season of focusing on transformation, there’s a lot to be learned about the power of our gracious God from the life of this hesitant father of our faith.

Living up to His Name

At birth, Jacob was holding his brother’s heel and so was named Jacob1, (Hebrew: יַעֲקֹב ; transliterated Ya’akov). It wasn’t a particularly flattering name to give to a baby. Most Bibles have a note stating the name means “supplanter,” which seems a little odd. However, a brief word study reveals why. The word picture here is of a person seizing another by the heel, literally tripping them up in order to restrain, deceive, outwit, or by other nefarious means take their place.

And indeed, the young man lived up to his name. He tripped up his elder brother Esau twice while they were young men. First, he took advantage of Esau’s exhaustion (and an apparently cavalier attitude toward the traditional birthrights given to the firstborn son) by withholding a bowl of stew until Esau promised to sell his birthright to his younger twin for food2.

But Jacob didn’t stop there. At his mother’s urging, he also stole his brother’s blessing from their father by listening to the voice of his mother (not the first time a man fell by obeying the voice of a woman – there’s a lesson in this for us, ladies). This time, Jacob lied to his father, posing as Esau and taking great measures to deceive the blind old man for the sake of taking Esau’s place of prominence in their father’s pronouncement of blessing3.

Skeptics R Us

As if his conniving and scheming to take his brother’s place wasn’t enough, the young Jacob also shows signs of being a skeptic. Rather than associating himself with the Almighty, for years he refers to God as “the Lord your God4” (when talking with his father) or “the God of my father.5”

Sadly, his skepticism isn’t based on anything but hubris. Jacob continued to avoid associating Himself too closely with God even after the Lord sent him a dream proclaiming Himself to He Who Supplants, even reiterating the covenant He made with Abraham and Isaac to the rascally Jacob6.

And did our antihero man up and submit to the Almighty who was promising him such astonishing mercy despite his life of lies? No! Instead, he set up the rock he’d used as a pillow (ouch) and made a provisional promise to the Most High God. “If God will do thus and so for me, then I will deign to call Him my God.7”

It’s all quite humorous until we look deeply at our own motives, isn’t it? When have we also laid conditions on our Creator, pledging our fidelity to Him in exchange for prosperity or something else we desire? As if we have anything to offer the One who holds all things together; as if He needed us at all! But I digress… back to Jacob.

Reaping What Was Sown

Jacob travels on and falls head-over-heels for the lovely Rachel, hiring himself out to her father Laban for seven years in exchange for her hand in marriage8. But the crafty Laban has other plans – in the dark of the wedding night, he veils his older and plainer daughter Leah and sends her into the marriage tent in place of her sister9. Because wine flowed freely at wedding banquets and the only light sources were the stars and fires, it isn’t until morning that Jacob realized he’d been deceived. Oh, what goes around comes around! And it keeps coming.

Jacob promises Laban another seven years of service in exchange for his beloved Rachel. Thus, his household is established on a sisterly rivalry that could not have been pleasant10.

Let me take an aside to point out a fact: many non-believers will use this example (and others) to say “biblical marriage” includes sister-wives and their maidservants; in short, polygamy. However, if one actually reads the words of the text, what we see is that God used the sin of Jacob for His greater plan while simultaneously meting out the consequences of Jacob’s sin. The rivalry and bitterness of Jacob’s wives did yield a household of peace and joy. God did not bless these choices, but He did redeem them. That’s what He does. Speaking of redemption, let’s go back to Jacob.

Even in this mess of being used and tricked by Laban, God speaks to Jacob and offers him guidance11 – even though we have yet to see Jacob call God anything other than the God of his ancestors or build a single altar to worship the Lord (I don’t think a single stone and a conditional pledge counts as worship). And Laban continues to trick Jacob by attempting to circumvent his request for the speckled and spotted flocks12.

But God’s plan cannot be circumvented. His purposes are bigger than Jacob and his bickering wives, bigger than the supplanter and his supplanter, and bigger even than all of their sin. God’s plan stretches through this debacle to establish the Nation of Isreal through whom the Messiah would one day come… but that is much later.

Becoming Broken

Jacob spent twenty years reaping the discord he sowed in his childhood home, and finally he was able to break free from Laban. On his journey to return to his homeland, the bald truth of what he did to Esau finally hits him. Fear of reprisal from the brother he tripped up and replaced seizes him, and the man finally shows a little humility.13

And Jacob said, “O God of my father Abraham and God of my father Isaac, O Lord who said to me, ‘Return to your country and to your kindred, that I may do you good,’ I am not worthy of the least of all the deeds of steadfast love and all the faithfulness that you have shown to your servant, for with only my staff I crossed this Jordan, and now I have become two camps. Please deliver me from the hand of my brother, from the hand of Esau, for I fear him, that he may come and attack me, the mothers with the children (Genesis 32:9-11).

For the first time, we see Jacob in a posture of understanding that the blessings he schemed for are not blessings he deserves. His heart his humbled, even if it is humbled out of mere self-preservation.

And that night, he wrestles with God. It isn’t until after the wrestling match, which resulted in a permanent physical disability, that Jacob finally builds a proper alter and worships the Living God14. It took time, consequences, suffering, and fear, but Jacob finally worships the God who graciously allows him to become a part of the lineage of His Messiah, through whom God would offer redemption to the whole world.

There’s much more to Jacob’s story than this overview. His wife Rachel stole her father’s household gods, and Jacob doesn’t rid his own household of this abomination until after the rape of his daughter Dinah and his sons’ over-the-top revenge.

My point? Jacob was not a perfect man by any stretch of the imagination. Yet he was a man transformed by God. What we see in Jacob is a solid reminder of the astonishing mercy and renewing power of our Living and Loving God. He uses our own bad choices to humble us, and yet there is no one out of reach of His redeeming grace.  

  1. Genesis 25:26 ↩︎
  2. Genesis 25:29-34 ↩︎
  3. Genesis 27 ↩︎
  4. Genesis 27:20 ↩︎
  5. Genesis 31:5, et al ↩︎
  6. Genesis 28:10-15 ↩︎
  7. Genesis 28:20-21 ↩︎
  8. Genesis 29:16-19 ↩︎
  9. Genesis 29:22-25 ↩︎
  10. Genesis 29-30 ↩︎
  11. Genesis 31:10-13 ↩︎
  12. Genesis 30:34-36 ↩︎
  13. Genesis 32:6-12 ↩︎
  14. Genesis 33:20 ↩︎

Half a Century | A Reflection

~ Heather Davis ~ 1 Comment

On March 10, 1974, a tiny human protested the forceful eviction from the warmth of her first home into a cold shock of light and noise.

That is to say, this past March, I turned 50. Oddly enough, checking the box labeled 50-59 doesn’t make me feel as old as the day one of my kiddos (then in middle school) exclaimed in utter disbelief, “You were born in the 1900s?!?” (emphasis unfortunately hers).

Yes. Yes, I was. Thanks for pointing it out.

Born in the 1900s, I am a member of Gen X who worked 40 hours a week during high school, began paying rent at the age of 19, and out of sheer stubborn, stupid pride, shouldered a variety of adult responsibilities and challenges that would probably cast many of today’s young people into a state of horrified catatonia at the mere suggestion. And I didn’t even have social media to document the trauma.

My earliest memories are rather vague: my great-grandfather, who shared his birthday with me, bending over and opening his arms wide; my great-grandmother lying oh-so-still in a bed; my dear Mammaw standing up from a rocking chair, sobbing with a tissue to her face, and walking toward my mama. These are shadowy pictures of great-grandparents; people who passed into eternity before I turned three.

Another early pictorial memory is of a smiling lady with short, dark hair. I recall her taking my hand in the church nursery and lead me out into the parking lot, where we were joined by a pair of trousered legs to her right. Then, the hand holding mine abruptly let go. Afterward, only vague, mixed-up images and a recollection of terror: a sense of being very, very alone and fear as a large car passed very close to me. Somehow being found by a kind older lady. Then – oh joy! – my mama bolting toward me, black hair streaming behind her.

Years later, my family filled in the gaps of this wordless memory, and I learned how close I’d come to leading a very different life. This was my brush with trafficking.

The more concrete memories began when I started school, and I won’t bore you with them. However, I am fascinated to think back on how the world has changed. For example, I began school in first grade, before mandatory kindergarten; a fact I recalled in high school when reading Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451.

“The home environment can undo a lot you try to do at school. That’s why we’ve lowered the kindergarten age year after year until now we’re almost snatching them from the cradle.”

Excerpt from Captain Beatty’s monologue; Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

Both my grade school experience and this quote leapt to mind the first time a younger mom confided to me during my homeschool days how she worried her 3-year-old wouldn’t be prepared for kindergarten if she couldn’t afford preschool.

How susceptible we are to suggestion…

Still, I’ve enjoyed a rich half century filled with highs, lows, in-betweens, fascinating people, and beautiful sunsets. I’ve seen certain fashions cycle through cool -> dated -> laugh-inducing -> cool.

I’ve shed tears and shared laughs; I’ve followed my heart into a cramped & stifling chamber of horrors; I’ve visited the depths of despair and found God there waiting to bring me home.

Then there are the crazy technological changes I’ve experienced, especially in telephone tech:

  • The rotary dial phone with its restraining cords redeemed by the gratifying wham-ching! of the angry hang-up. Bonus: these babies doubled as formidable weapons.
  • The first push button phones = less time to dial + retaining the pleasures of slamming the handset into the cradle.
  • The wonders of the first cordless phone and testing the bounds of its range before losing the connection. Sometimes you could even make it to the mailbox!
  • The advent of call waiting and caller ID – and screening calls.
  • The first cell phones for rich folk and doctors; monstrosities about the size of a brick.
  • The first time I saw a grandparent Face Timed into his grandkid’s birthday party brought a sense of Star Trek come to life.
  • Then there’s today, where people who can’t even afford milk still manage to pay their monthly cell phone bill. Formidable weapon turned formidable distraction.

<Random Phone-related Memory>

Waiting tables in the 1990s: one afternoon, the hostess led a party of four to their lunch table, each member of the party clutching their 90’s-era cell phones to their ear. The dining room din quieted for a moment, followed by a single snicker. Soon, the whole room was filled with poorly-stifled laughter as the four red-faced businessfolk quickly ended their calls and hid behind their menus.

<Cut to Modern Restaurant Lunch Scene>

Several people are staring at their phones while the hostess seats a party of four who have Bluetooth earbuds in, unobtrusively finishing their calls. All four send a text from their watch before using their phones to scan the QR code and read the menu onscreen. No one notices because this has become normal. And yet, despite the physical proximity of diners remaining the same as in the 90s, there is a vast and subtle social distance surrounding each one.

<Back to the Present Reflection>

Even email, now pervaded with marketing and scams, began as something different. I remember a time one checked emails on occasion via dial-up, hoping to hear the cheery voice proclaim, “You’ve got mail!” – and the email was from an actual, flesh-and-blood acquaintance.

I could go on, but I won’t. There is so much; far too much.

Yet what amazes me most in this last half-century is how God has shored me up through it all. From the moment He sent an older lady out for air at the exact moment a strange couple had spirited three-year-old me half-way through the church parking lot through the times I rejected Him and embraced the values of secular humanism all the way to the moment I recognized those values left me with a life bereft of meaning.

He’s seen me through a long season of intense physical pain and fatigue due to chronic, intractable migraine and post-viral syndrome. What’s more, He even sustained me enough to lay an educational foundation for my three children (then homeschooled), enabling all three to graduate from a private high school with honors and do well in college. The eldest just graduated with a degree in Civil Engineering. The two young ladies will graduate in 2025 with degrees in Cellular and Molecular Biology and Pre-physical Therapy respectively.

Since I was operating in a semi-conscious pain haze during most of their homeschooled years, I cannot claim credit for one bit of it.

Even better, two have maintained their relationship with God through college and the one who ventured away seems to be returning to the Truth that sets free. Only God can do this; I got more wrong in my part than I did right.

And today, the same God is sustaining me through a new season – a season of renewed health and reduced physical pain; a season of reevaluation and reflection. A season of burying the corpses of dreams and mourning what could have been.

Even in this season of upheaval and change, God is good; my Sustainer, my Counselor, and my King. Every moment of pain has only made Him more real, and so I bless His Name for all of the last half century – the good, the bad, and the truly terrible.

In seasons of joy and wonder, I am reminded these are mere glimpses of the true joy and wonder of eternal life in the presence of my King. And in seasons of suffering, loss, or disillusionment, He prompts me to remember this world is not my home as He removes all entanglements out of His lovingkindness.

No matter what the next few years or decades bring, I know I can rest in the completed work of Jesus Christ, my King; for in Him, my sins are forgiven and my future secure. Everything else is just another stepping stone toward glory.

Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.
(Romans 5:1-5)

Christmas Adam Ruminations

~ Heather Davis ~ Leave a comment

Today is “Christmas Adam” (because Adam comes before Eve, as my offspring have informed me). It’s not a bad time to turn our thoughts from the first, humble advent of Christ as an infant to the future second advent when He will come in unassailable power and glory. Indeed, speaking for myself, most of my bad attitudes or wayward thoughts can be corrected by this very meditation on any day, be it Christmas Adam, Christmas Eve, or any of the bothersome Mondays the calendar holds.

When I was teaching, I liked to end the year or semester (depending on the class) by challenging my students to ponder the upcoming main event of world history. I would read a quote from C. S. Lewis followed by a passage from Revelation, then encourage them to think of all their todays in light of the unknown Day when there will be no more choice, exhorting them to choose their allegiance wisely.

Shall we do the same here? I think we shall, if you’ll humor me:

In his radio-series-turned-book, Mere Christianity, C. S. Lewis writes:

Christians think [God] is going to land in force; we do not know when. But we can guess why He is delaying. He wants to give us the chance of joining His side freely.

I do not suppose you and I would have thought much of a Frenchman who waited till the Allies were marching into Germany and then announced he was on our side. God will invade. But I wonder whether people who ask God to interfere openly and directly in our world quite realise what it will be like when He does. When that happens, it is the end of the world.

When the author walks on to the stage the play is over. God is going to invade, all right: but what is the good of saying you are on His side then, when you see the whole natural universe melting away like a dream and something else—something it never entered your head to conceive—comes crashing in; something so beautiful to some of us and so terrible to others that none of us will have any choice left? For this time it will be God without disguise; something so overwhelming that it will strike either irresistible love or irresistible horror into every creature.

It will be too late then to choose your side. There is no use saying you choose to lie down when it has become impossible to stand up. That will not be the time for choosing: it will be the time when we discover which side we really have chosen, whether we realised it before or not. Now, today, this moment, is our chance to choose the right side. God is holding back to give us that chance. It will not last for ever. We must take it or leave it.

A startling thought, but a necessary one. Though we may grow impatient, wishing Christ would hurry and return, wondering if He doesn’t notice the breadth and scope of evil in our world today, we ought not forget those we love – and even those we love less – who are yet on the wrong side of the thing. After all, He tarried long enough for us.

With this in mind, let’s take a peek at Revelation 19:11-16:

Then I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse! The one sitting on it is called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he judges and makes war. His eyes are like a flame of fire, and on his head are many diadems, and he has a name written that no one knows but himself. He is clothed in a robe dipped in blood, and the name by which he is called is The Word of God. And the armies of heaven, arrayed in fine linen, white and pure, were following him on white horses. From his mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations, and he will rule them with a rod of iron. He will tread the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God the Almighty. On his robe and on his thigh he has a name written, King of kings and Lord of lords.

Wow. There’s no doubt His second coming will make an impression even on those who scoff at His first.

We are told in Philippians 2:10, “…at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow…” With an appearance like this, I have no doubt of it. Even confident knees, secure in assurance of the love of their King, will grow shaky and buckle under such a raw display of power and majesty.

So my friends, on Christmas Adam, tomorrow on Christmas Eve, and on through the rest of this year and as long as the Great Shepherd waits for His sheep to respond to His voice, I beg you to consider the Babe in the manger who will one day return as the bloodied, preeminent, unconquerable conquering King.

And because I love you as He loves me, though I little deserve it, I pray you will bow your knees quite willingly now before He returns and you have no choice left.

“Worthy is the Lamb who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing!”
(Revelation 5:12)

Choice and Consequence: A True Story

~ Heather Davis ~ 7 Comments

It happened in the spring of 2000; the moment that changed the trajectory of my life. I was in my mid-20s; an aimless young woman with no real plans. At the time, I was an avowed atheist and had bought into the pervasive lies hookup culture sold my generation at bargain prices, choosing to treat sex as a mundane social transaction. And now I was faced with the consequences: two dark pink lines proclaiming a positive pregnancy test, and the man I’d known for about a month waiting in the living room for the results.

Those lies were not such a bargain after all, it would seem.

I was terrified. This was NOT a good time for me to have a baby. I barely knew the father; had no idea if he would run the other way, if he would stay but turn out to be yet another abusive man, or how he would react.

Moreover, I was a waitress – a gig initially intended as gap year so I could decide what I wanted to do with my life. But the life decision had been postponed again and again until nearly a decade had passed. A decade I’d squandered either working as many hours as my bosses would allow or self-medicating my wounded heart with alcohol.

The job let me pay my bills, but there wasn’t a lot extra. Besides, waiting tables wasn’t exactly a family-friendly job, and having a baby would end the vague idea I had of going back to school and finishing my degree. To make matters worse, I didn’t think I was very maternal. I was deeply selfish, carried profound emotional scars, and often drank myself to sleep mainly because it seemed better than crying myself to sleep. I was a mess, not mother material.

I knew abortion was an option, but it was not an option for me.

That’s right. Even then – at a time when I rejected God, when my entire life revolved around my silly little self, and I had every reason in the world to choose it- abortion was not an option. Not even considered.

The reason was that I knew I could never live with myself after killing my child; knew I would spend the rest of my life wondering what he or she would have looked like. Knew I would see a kid at a grocery store and think, My kid would be about this age now, until it drove me deeper into the darkness that already consumed most of my heart.

So I kept the baby, and it was the best decision I ever made.

I was in love with my son the first time I felt him move, and he brought light and joy and fullness into the drab misery of my life. My aimless life now had purpose and meaning. I was someone – I was Mommy. I loved it more than I ever thought possible. And through the sudden responsibility of caring for a helpless tiny person, my hard heart was finally open to the God who created me. My life was saved in more than one way.

Why am I telling this story? Because I believe there is someone out there who needs to hear it. There are far too many women who have bought the lie that abortion is healthcare. It is not.

Merriam-webster.com defines healthcare as “efforts made to maintain, restore, or promote someone’s physical, mental, or emotional well-being especially when performed by trained and licensed professionals.”

By this definition, prenatal care is healthcare. So is caring for the needs of the growing fetus, childbirth, post-natal care, neonatal care, and caring for a woman who has suffered a miscarriage.

But killing a living being, no matter how small, is not healthcare. Nor is abortion a decision without consequences.

Before I go on, let me say a word to any woman reading this who has already made the fatal choice and is now coping with the emotional fallout you probably didn’t expect. There is hope for you, sweet one. There is a God who loves you and who forgives; a God who sent His Son to die and pay the penalty for our sin so we can be free to choose to reject sin and follow His way instead. Come to Jesus and find rest for your soul. He may not take away the crushing pain, He will not remove the consequences of poor choices, but He will redeem them nonetheless. He is good, and if you turn away from sin and self and turn to Him, He will soothe the ache in your heart and make you whole again. Stop reading my words and start reading God’s Word with a prayer for help in your heart. He will answer, if not in the way you may expect.

For those who are on the fence, please read on. There is a life at stake here.

Whether you believe it or not, there is a grave spiritual damage done when a child is destroyed by the one person who ought to love him most. The spiritual damage is unavoidable, and there is only one cure – surrender to Jesus Christ as Lord.

Then there’s the oft-suppressed fact that abortions actually can damage a woman’s physical health, even if it isn’t common. But what is common is the damage to her emotional health.

A woman may build up callouses on her conscience in order to cope with her selfish choice, true. But I’ve been pregnant and felt the stirring maternal emotions even in the weeks before I felt the baby move. The mother instinct is powerful. I still carry mom-guilt for careless words I said to my toddlers. I cannot imagine the guilt I would carry had I decided to kill one of them before they were born.

I desperately want to save women from swallowing this barbed lie and suffering the invisible, eternal scars it leaves. I literally shed tears when I think of it – not only for the babies who will never get to laugh, but for the mothers who will never get to hear that most wonderful of sounds.

I weep for the women who have been damaged by the moneymaking industry of abortion clinics.

So my sweet sisters, please, don’t buy the lie of, “My body, my choice.” The day I stared down at the two pink lines, I knew I’d already made my choice. The child growing inside me came about because of my choices and deserved the chance to make his own.

Even as an atheist, I knew this much. This is what the last twenty-four years of propaganda has chipped away at – the common sense understanding that a baby is a human being even at the very earliest stages.

Besides, it isn’t your body you are aborting – it is a body belonging to someone else. A fetus is genetically distinct from its mother because it is a unique human being. It is not a bit of amorphous protoplasm that might become a catfish or a cow; it is a growing and developing person in a very early stage.

That tiny, growing person deserves a chance to make his or her own choices, both good and bad. And ladies? You deserve the chance to watch them choose; to watch them learn and grow, succeed and fail, laugh and cry and live.

Behold, children are a heritage from the LORD, the fruit of the womb a reward (Psalm 127:3).

If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness (1 John 1:9).

Choosing Life

~ Heather Davis ~ Leave a comment

Moses was nearing the end of his substantial ministry, preparing to hand leadership off to Joshua, and getting the descendants of Israel ready to take possession of the land promised to Abraham many generations before. In light of his, Moses had just finished reiterating the entire covenant between God and His chosen people so they would go in with a clear understanding of what it looked like to keep their end of the promise. In short, Moses offered them a choice between life and death.

I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse. Therefore choose life, that you and your offspring may live, loving the LORD your God, obeying his voice and holding fast to him, for he is your life and length of days…
(Deuteronomy 30:19-20)

Note: I highly recommend reading all of Deuteronomy 30, but this is the gist.

Today, of course, believers are under a new covenant promise; a covenant bought and sealed by the priceless blood of the Divine Lamb of God who lived out that perfect obedience to God’s covenant law, laid down His life to pay the penalty for our rebellion, and took His life up again so all who put their trust in the sufficiency of His sacrifice may be set free from slavery to sin.

Because of Jesus and His sacrifice, we are given an opportunity at a new life, being remade in Him. Further, His gift of the Holy Spirit makes it possible for us to choose life. Yet obedience is still necessary for us. Indeed, Jesus equates our love for Him with our obedience to His commands many times in John 14.

Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him.”
(John 14:21)

And while it is popular in some circles to say we are “free from the law,” it is more accurate to say we are free from certain specific constraints of the first covenant meant for Israel before the first advent of her Messiah. We are not free to do as we wish; certainly if we belong to Jesus, we are not free to sin but free to escape from sin.

We are still liable to a moral law, one which Jesus actually accentuates rather than diminishes. For example, Jesus not only says we should not commit adultery, but that we should not even look lustfully at another person. He doesn’t just say, “Don’t murder,” but instructs us not to be angry with our brother – in fact, to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us. He calls us not to mere obedience but perfection (see Matthew 5:21-48).

This is what I want to hone in on. When it comes to a modern understanding of sin and obedience, I think we get a little confused. We look at a specific sin and think, “Well, at least it’s a small sin. It’s not something really bad, like murder.”

Or we hold our sin up against cultural norms and think it used to be sin but maybe it isn’t anymore. Perhaps God changed His mind, or maybe humans have progressed in our understanding of sin, or maybe it’s simply outdated to think of certain actions as sinful.

We think we’re comparing good and bad or better and best. But in reality, we are still comparing life and death.

Even though Moses was talking to an ancient people about a specific covenant between their nation and a holy God, the principle of what he says still remains. Brothers and sisters, when we weigh obedience to Christ’s holiness against conformity to our culture, we are still choosing between life and death, blessing and curse.

For the love of the One who gave all so we might have His righteousness, and also because I love and care about your eternal well being, my friends, I implore you: choose life.

Darkness, Light, and Subjective Morality

~ Heather Davis ~ 2 Comments

As our 8:45 p.m. flight took off, I watched the ground fall away through the airplane window. The ambient brightness of the city at ground level faded quickly. Night encroached. In my bird’s-eye view, large pools of light pushed back the darkness as we gained altitude, soaring over stadiums, shopping malls, office complexes, and street lights. The further from the city we journeyed, the more feeble the pools of light became and the more prominent the surrounding darkness grew. An apt visual metaphor for subjective morality.

We were heading home from a brief visit with family members who do not have (so far as I can tell) a thriving relationship with the living God. During the visit, I was told about the kids’ “religious classes,” and one of said kids informed me on Sunday, “We don’t have to go to church.” God’s name was invoked in the standard secular way along with a string of other words my husband and I have allowed the Holy Spirit to excise from our vocabularies.

But more telling was the fruit. The desperate striving to be a “good person” on a sliding scale of virtue. Anger when one has been hurt by the actions of another, but justifying similar actions in oneself.

I hate him because of what he did to me; when I did it, it was for a good reason. It was different.

Justice struggling to find footing on an unstable, convulsing foundation of right vs. wrong. A steady undercurrent of fear and uncertainty and thinly-veiled shame. Palpable darkness seeping in at the edges.

It’s a world I used to embrace, and the reminder left me both sorrowful and grateful.

I am deeply grieved for loved ones still imprisoned by the deceitfulness of sin. Yet I am grateful for the One who healed my spiritual blindness and shined the light of Yeshua (Jesus), opening my eyes to the singular Way of escape from my self-constructed cage of sin, guilt, and evil.

I glanced back out the window. Only pinpricks of light appeared below now, far-flung and lonely in the inky blackness of the night.

All our human effort to eradicate the darkness of sin – whether the poison within own rebellious hearts or the evil stalking us from without – are like those dwindling lights.

At ground-level in a large crowded city, all seems well. Our self-made righteousness blends in, and while we may be doing worse than some, at least we’re faring better than others. One can think of the darkness as somewhere out there, far away. OK, maybe I’ve been around the block more than once, but at least I’m not a murderer.

In the throng, it’s easy to fit in. Easy to hide.

But when we’re alone, the darkness looms and our good works flicker like a lit match in a drafty room. There’s no real warmth, little light to see by, and nowhere to run when the light is snuffed.

We can try to push back the darkness on our own, but we’ll never get far. A centimeter, a meter, maybe a little more, but our little circle of good works quivers as hungry shadows press in from all sides, waiting. Unrelenting. Inexorable.

No matter how good we try to be, we can never do enough good to erase the evil we’ve done. Instead, our good deeds only serve to highlight the murkiness of our motives and the taint upon our souls. The dim light we produce is shot through with shades of inadequacy.

On our own, we’re caught in a losing battle of push-and-shove against our very nature. We cannot rescue ourselves from this losing battle; we can only prolong the inevitable moment when the darkness forever swallows our faint gleam.

But there is hope. There is a true and effulgent Light of the World powerful enough to banish darkness; a Light that heals and cleanses and restores and renews. And He has a name.

Walk as children of light (for the fruit of light is found in all that is good and right and true), and try to discern what is pleasing to the Lord. Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them. . . (Ephesians 5:7-11).

Friend, if you’re caught in the flickering and uncertain light of subjective morality, this is an invitation to you. There is a real Light, a true and powerful Light unconquerable by the darkness. His Name is Yeshua, commonly called Jesus in English. He is the Way, the Truth, and the Life, and the light of truth He brings is strong enough to scour the deepest and oldest stains from your very soul if you will turn your back on your sin and run into the light of His love and grace.

His morality is true Light, and while He knows we can never measure up to God’s standard of perfect holiness, He offers Himself as a bridge. Through His torn body, we can cross over from darkness to light, from death to life.

There, in the powerful Light of Truth from whence the Glory of God shines, the stains of our rebellion are scoured away. He’s given us the Word of Truth, and by its light we see Light. All our horrible secrets are laid bare, but in that pure light, they are exposed to be excised by the Healer of our souls.

But when anything is exposed by the light, it becomes visible, for anything that becomes visible is light. Therefore it says, “Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you” (Ephesians 5:13-14).

In Yeshua, we are restored to what we ought to be and have no more need of fallible, artificial lights of our own making. In Him and through Him, the full radiance of righteousness shines.

He is the only way; humanity’s only hope. But we must make a choice. We must choose Him; His way of sacrifice, letting go what we once were to become what He created us to be.

Step into the Light, let Christ shine on you, and find joy and peace, healing and wholeness, and rest for your soul.

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son,
that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.  
For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, 
but in order that the world might be saved through him.  
Whoever believes in him is not condemned, 
but whoever does not believe is condemned already, 
because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God. 
And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, 
and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. 
For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed.
 But whoever does what is true comes to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God" (John 3:16–21).

Jesus Didn’t Come for the Righteous

~ Heather Davis ~ Leave a comment

. . .He said, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. Go and learn what this means, ‘I desire mercy, and not sacrifice.’ For I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.”
(Matthew 9:11-13)

The above statements by Yeshua (Jesus) were made shortly after He called a man named Matthew to follow Him. Because Matthew was both Jewish and a tax collector employed by Rome, he would have been vilified as a contemptable sell-out by his fellow Israelites.1 Without a doubt, Matthew was as shocked at the Master’s call as the other disciples, who were probably wondering, Why is the Lord asking a traitor to join us?

Whatever their response, we know at some point after Matthew left his tax booth to follow the Messiah, Yeshua was found dining with other tax collectors and socially unacceptable sinners. The Pharisees did not care for His choice of companions and voiced their disdain. It was at this point my Lord offered His subtle rebuke in the form of a reference to Hosea 6:6: “I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.”

In the rabbinical style of His time, the Lord intended to point them not only to the specific verse, but the entire passage (probably Hosea 6:4-10). It is worthy of note here to point out the English translation is not exact, but bear in mind Matthew’s Gospel account was written in Greek; Hosea penned in Hebrew; and the conversation probably happened in either Hebrew or Aramaic – just in case you were wondering why it doesn’t appear to be a direct quote.

What shall I do with you, O Ephraim? What shall I do with you, O Judah? Your love is like a morning cloud, like the dew that goes early away. . . For I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice, the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings. But like Adam they transgressed the covenant; there they dealt faithlessly with me.
(Hosea 6:4, 6-7)

Do you see it? Yeshua is not only making clear His mission – to call sin-sick sinners to spiritual health – but He is reminding these wayward leaders of their own faithlessness. The quoted statement forces the hearer to decide which category he falls into. Am I righteous? Or a sinner?

Anyone as conversant with the Text as the Pharisees were, would know that Psalm 14:2-3 declares there is “none who does good, not even one,” and many of the proverbs discuss God’s abhorrence of human pride (see Proverbs 8:13, 16:5, et al).

Not to mention that to declare oneself righteous is as bold an act of hubris as can be imagined.

Matthew doesn’t record the Pharisees’ response to this challenge, but I doubt it was positive. In several other places, Matthew points out how this sect accused the Lord of casting out demons through demonic means, sought to destroy Him, and eventually conspired to have Him killed.2 Thus, it’s no leap of logic to assume they weren’t thrilled at His rebuke. After all, they were prominent religious leaders! How dare this young upstart presume to reproach them?

Hm. Indeed.

The thing is, it’s easy for us to fall into the habit of thinking, Oh, those awful Pharisees, roll our eyes, and quite miss the point.

Yeshua’s question is for us, too. Am I righteous? Or a sinner?

Do we, in living-color-lived-out truth, comprehend the gravity of our sin and our desperate need for the Messiah’s imputed righteousness? Or do our lives reflect smug complacency in our own decency?

When we read these accounts in our Bibles, it’s an easy thing to read as a bystander, observing without participating in the unfolding narrative. Yet the entire purpose of God’s Word is to teach us about Him and draw us to Him by showing us the path carved through the very flesh of His only Son.

If there were any other way to breach the chasm between our sinful selves and the holiness of the Most High God, Yeshua’s prayers in Gethsemane would have concluded without His betrayal by one of His close companions and the road to Golgotha.

We can never be righteous enough to counterbalance our sin. There are no Divine scales of justice where each bad deed weighs down one side while every good deed is placed on the opposite. There is only the living death of sin and the eternal life offered through the Messiah.

To be blunt, we all fall into one of two categories:

  1. Those who do not belong to Yeshua, who are walking dead just waiting for the animation of our bodies to cease, or
  2. Those who do belong to Him and have already begun the eternal journey that will continue once these temporary bodies wear out and are traded in for our eternal ones.

So when you read His words to the Pharisees, it’s worth a heart check. Have you been trusting in your good works, or have your good works been the grateful overflow of a life rescued from death through surrender to the Lord Jesus Christ, Yeshua Messiah? Are you a recalcitrant miscreant relying on self-sufficiency? Or have you repented – made a 180o turn – leaving desire for sin at your back and making steps closer to the glorious Savior?

In fact, are you one of the sinners He came to call?

I know I am, and I’m blessed to call Him both Master and Lord. I pray you will come to Him, too, and we can glorify Him both now and for time out of mind.

  1. See “Why Exactly Were Tax Collectors So Hated?” and “Monetary System, Taxation, and Publicans in the Time of Christ,” et al. ↩︎
  2. See Matthew 9:32-32; 12:14; 12:22-24; 22:15; et all ↩︎

Homeschool Myth #1: You Need Limitless Patience

~ Heather Davis ~ 4 Comments

I don’t Have the Patience

“I could never homeschool. I don’t have the patience for it!” Thus goes the most common refrain I heard from other parents when they first learned I homeschooled – back in the day, of course (my kids are all now in college).

My reply never varied. “Neither do I!” I would exclaim.

Homeschooling has been called “parenting on steroids,” and it’s true. A homeschool mom or dad is with the next generation 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, with no weekends, no planning periods (at least not in my case) and you’ll often boast an entourage when you visit the necessary room. You’ll have every button you own pushed (including many buttons you didn’t know existed), you play the roles of both parent and teacher, and you will have every grain of patience tried, tested, and expended – often before 9:00 a.m.

Yet you do NOT need a limitless amount of patience. What you DO need is a vibrant relationship with the Most High God. He is the Giver of all good gifts, and that includes patience. Instead of needing to be able to rely on your own strong & stalwart patience, you need to live in surrender to His Holy Spirit daily, hourly, so the fruit of patience can grow in you.

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience... (Galatians 5:22a, emphasis mine).

Patience Is a Fruit

Don’t miss this: since patience is a fruit, we must remember fruit takes time to grow and mature. Patience is not a prerequisite for beginning a home school; it is a fruit cultivated as you walk through the process. And it is worth the labor to cultivate.

Will you fail? Absolutely. But I would argue it is actually good for you children to see past a carefully-curated, self-reliant, perfect-but-false image and instead watch the process of sanctification unfold in a real human being.

In fact, I see it as an advantage to homeschooling that your children have a front-row seat to watching you deal with your emotions, frustrations, and become impatient with them. It’s good they get to see you deal with stress inappropriately and repent, get back up, and keep going. It’s a lesson like no other when your young ones watch you lose your cool and learn that the world does not shift off its axis and career through space like an oversized ping-pong ball when a human being fails to respond to stress in perfect patience.

It is also good for children to learn that patience is developed over time so they know that they, too, will be afforded the opportunity to develop patience rather than carrying the weight of being expected to handle every bump with perfect composure the first time around.

When they see you fail, get up, dust yourself off, and keep going, they learn to do the hard work of moving through failure and sin to a place of repentance and renewal. Not to mention perseverance; that gem of a virtue which is so lacking in modern society.

Impatience Is Human

But of course, we are a notoriously impatient species. Just think of what happened to the fledgling nation of Israel when their leader Moses took a bit over a month in meeting with the Almighty and bringing back the tablets of His covenant. Rather than taking it as a good sign when they saw God’s glory remaining on the mountaintop, the restless horde decided to chip in their varied jewelry and make a trinket to worship. Impatience isn’t a modern problem; it’s a human one.

When the people saw that Moses delayed to come down from the mountain, they people gathered themselves together to Aaron and said to him, “Up, make us gods who shall go before us. As for this Moses, the man who brought us out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him: (Exodus 32:1, emphasis mine).

Would it be convenient if God called us to do hard things like homeschool and just bestowed upon us a wealth of patience, wisdom, and genius right off the bat, making us supernaturally perfect at the job at hand? Of course it would be convenient. But it wouldn’t build our relationship with Him as we learn to come and ask for our daily bread – or daily patience – and rely utterly on Him.

Trusting God to Fill our Lack

My friends, more than God wants perfectly patient little children, He wants children who understand our aching need of Him and who depend on Him in relationship. The psalmist writes in Psalm 81:10, “I am the LORD your God, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt. Open your mouth wide, and I will fill it.”

This is what He wants for us in anything we lack – a heart that understands its own fallibility and a desire to ask our Father for what we do not have, trusting Him to give it.

In my homeschool days when my patience was tapped (as it often was), I learned to cry out to the God who always showed such patience with me. And more importantly than anything else, I learned that my God’s grace truly is sufficient and His power is made perfect in my weakness – just as He said.

Watching the Fruit Grow

So what is the fruit of this daily struggle to learn patience, to fail and get up and try again? For one thing, I am a far more patient person than I was when I began this journey.

Perhaps more compelling is what I see in my kids, all in college as of this writing. They did not turn out perfect, nor did I expect them to. But at the ages of 23, 21, and 19, they are absolutely amazing young people. They are delightful to be around, they make me laugh and we have real fun together. Really. I enjoy my adult children, and they astonish me with their wisdom, their grit, and their willingness to do hard things.

And would you believe it? Each one of them has more patience in their early 20s than I did even in my 30s and 40s. They are not perfect, but they are exponentially more impressive and enjoyable than I was a their ages.

Patience, it seems, is not only taught through personal trial but also passed on to your young as they participate in the process. Our God is just good like that.

So if you are thinking of homeschooling but fear you don’t have enough patience, allow me to set your mind at rest: you don’t. Instead, you have something far better – 24/7 access to the Father of Lights who loves to give good gifts to His children and is there with you through the painful parts of acquiring those gifts. And you also have my testimony that it is worth it.

I hope that helps in some small way.