Cheap Crosses

I read the story of a missionary shopping in a village market. One shop sported a sign that read “Cheap Crosses.”

As he continued his task he thought to himself, “That’s what many Christians are looking for these days – cheap crosses. My Lord’s cross was not cheap. Why should mine be?”

Then Jesus said to His disciples, “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me. For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it (Matthew 16:24-25).

You Are Light

A cold winter rain and wind storm, coupled with a careless driver, knocked out the power to the tiny community in which I lived. Soon my neighbors left their homes for other places with power for both light and heat. For nearly an hour every house within sight was dark … except for mine.

Several years earlier I bought three battery backup units. They plug into the house electrical system and work as a power strip. They also store electricity for power outages. Not only did I have power to operate my tv, radio, and laptop during power outage, but two lamps. I plugged my electrical devices into the batteries and I had light! One light in the midst of a world of darkness.

For you were once darkness, but you are light in the Lord  (Ephesians 5:8).

It’s interesting Paul doesn’t write that we once “walked” or “lived” in darkness, but we “were” once darkness. Darkness characterized all of our being. But now, through faith in Christ Jesus, we have experienced a complete change of being. There is a dramatic transformation – as dramatic as from being darkness to being “light in the Lord.”

Darkness does only one thing: it conceals. Light illuminates, reveals, and transforms. If you are not brightly beaming in the absolute darkness of sin and evil around you so that those used to darkness shutter their eyes in your light, you need to check the power source you’re plugged into.

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Rip Your Heart

Has the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed than the fat of rams (1 Samuel 15:22).

Little Billy had been warned by his mother that if he pulled his sister’s hair one more time he’d be punished. Being a little boy, Billy did what all little boys with a sin nature do: he pulled his sister’s hair again.

Mother told Billy to sit with his nose in the corner for ten minutes as punishment. Billy walked to the corner, grumbling with each step, sat on his little chair and stuck his nose in the corner of the room.

After a few minutes, Mother called to Billy from the kitchen. “Billy, are you still sitting with your nose in the corner?“

With squinted eyes Billy defiantly growled, “I’m sitting on the outside, but on the inside I’m standing up!“

We have the same problem as little Billy. We think that the outward religion of ritual is pleasing to God; animal sacrifices, fasting from food, kneeling to pray, not wearing jewelry or putting on religious jewelry and collars, or how long a man’s beard grows. In reality, God is after the heart.

In the book of Joel, Israel was in dire straits. God was judging His people for their sins and so they called for a fast and a sacred assembly (Joel 1:14). Sacred assemblies in the Law of Moses were for feasting – not fasting (Lev 23:1-37). Like the Jews, in our push to please God we’re way into the outward appearances. We wrongly jump to material and physical solutions, “Oh, fasting only means to avoid food. Let’s stop eating.”

Only a few verses later God exposits His desire from Israel, “Turn to Me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning. So rend your heart and not your garments; return to the Lord your God.” (Joel 2:12, 13).

It’s much easier to put on an outward show of religion than to surrender your heart. God desires the changing of our hearts rather than outward compliance and ritual.

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William P Mackay (1839-1885)

At the age of 17, William Paton Mackay left home for medical school. Fearing her son was on a pathway to eternal destruction, his mother gave him a Bible as a going-away gift. In the front cover, she wrote his name, her name, and a Bible verse.

Far from his godly parents and home, Mackay fell into sinful and prodigal living. Short on money for alcohol, he sold the Bible in a pawn shop.

Mackay graduated from medical school and was employed at the largest hospital in Edinburgh, Scotland. He was also elected president of the atheist society.

One day a seriously injured young man was brought into the hospital. The injury meant certain and soon death. Without relatives, the man’s only consolation was that his most precious possession be at his side. He wanted “the Book.” The man’s landlord was contacted and brought “the Book” to the man’s bedside.

When the patient died, Mackay asked the attending nurse to see what “Book” was so important to the man. “Was it his bank book or date book?” Still under the hospital bed pillow, Mackay found the man’s book was his Bible. Curious, the doctor opened the Book and found it was the Bible his mother gave him years earlier and he’d sold for a bottle of booze. Mackay’s own name, his mother’s signature, and inscription were inside the cover.

Mackay took the Bible to his office, fell to his knees, and read his mother’s inscription, John 3:16. For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. The atheist doctor pleaded for God to have mercy on his soul, forgive his sins, and receive him by grace through Jesus lest he perish.

The famous doctor, sinner, and atheist quit medicine and enrolled in seminary. In 1868, Mackay was ordained as pastor of the Prospect Street Presbyterian Church in Hull, Scotland, where he remained until his death in 1885.

He wrote, Jesus did all the saving work. He brought the cross to our level. Get saved by looking to Him … Lie down as wounded, helpless, ungodly sinner, and look away from yourself to Jesus.”

His legacy includes the hymn, Revive Us Again (click to listen).

Revive Us Again – William P Mackay (1863)

We praise thee, O God, for the Son of Thy love,
For Jesus who died, and is now gone above.

Refrain:
Hallelujah! Thine the glory, hallelujah! Amen!
Hallelujah! Thine the glory, revive us again.

We praise Thee, O God, for Thy Spirit of Light,
Who has shown us our Savior and scattered our night.

We praise Thee, O God, for the joy Thou hast giv’n
To Thy saints in communion, these foretastes of Heav’n.

All glory and praise to the Lamb who was slain,
Who has borne all our sins and has cleansed ev’ry stain.

Revive us again, fill each heart with Thy love.
May each soul be rekindled with fire from above.

Will You not revive us again, That Your people may rejoice in You? (Psalm 85:6)

• Click here to read about the hymn’s author, William P Mackay.