Hi, Zane.
Only a few minutes left to the morning. It looks like another 5 days have happened since my last devotional transmission. But you have to admit—you hear from me a whole lot more than I hear from you.
My life is kind of overwhelming—with a lot more that needs doing than I’ll ever get done. And some entries on my long-range bucket list are simply needing to be erased. Nevertheless, Becki and I took off to the coast yesterday with the two dogs. We had planned to attend church along the way—but then failed at that as we were too late getting off. Beautiful day. The dogs had a blast fetching balls in the surf again. A passerby agreed to take a photo with my phone. Hope it attaches OK.
My late friend and mentor, Jim Davis, often said, “Don’t get old! You won’t like it!” I’m fast learning he was right! Yet this “paradise” thing that Jesus presents in this reading is becoming more and more attractive all the time.
Be blessed. Love and prayers—Tua/Ray.
The hearts and minds of all those Jewish legalists who condemned Jesus to death were obviously blind to what they were initiating. The irony of it all is just overwhelming—and disturbing. Here they were very familiar with the whole system of sacrificing innocent animals for the sins of guilty humans based on the Scriptural principle that “without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness” (Leviticus 17:11; Hebrews 9:22), but their cold religious bondage left them with no clue that they were here transacting the premiere once-for-all fulfillment of that very tradition—sacrificing the very “Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world” (John 1:29).
The setting is hard to imagine—three men now hanging on crosses—with nothing more to do in life but die. Their natural endorphins had kicked in sufficiently to allow them, in spite of their horrific suffering, to think and speak. One of the criminals had come to embrace a HEART AFTER GOD, the other remained a stubborn unbelieving skeptic. The believing one demonstrated some wonderful divine revelation when he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom” (v. 42). The FOCUS VERSE is an absolutely wonderful response from Jesus. Question: Was Jesus telling the truth when he said, “I tell you the truth?” I believe He was. And if your answer is YES, and you personally embrace the finished work of “the Lamb of God,” be reminded of your own wonderful future. I have every reason to believe that you too will make that same transfer to “paradise” when you pass through the door of death. There’s nothing gloomy about that prospect.
This is not to say that I know all there is, or even very much, about life after death. I’ve never died before. But I have become absolutely convinced that there is such a thing—life after death. Neither do I claim to understand all that goes on between the Holy God and a sinful man that allows a condemned sinner to so drastically change his heart, his course, and his destiny so as to qualify him for ETERNAL LIFE. All I know is that it can and does happen in response to humble seeking, confession, and repentance. And it happened to this condemned criminal, not while kneeling at an altar in some fancy church or while attending an evangelistic campaign, but while hanging on a cross and opening his heart to Jesus. That has to be worth pondering.