That’s My King! SM Lockridge

“The Bible says my King is a seven-way king..

• He’s the King of the Jews; that’s a racial king..
• He’s the King of Israel; that’s a national King..
• He’s the King of Righteousness.
• He’s the King of the Ages..
• He’s the King of Heaven.
• He’s the King of Glory.
• He’s the King of Kings, and He’s the Lord of Lords.

That’s my King. Well. I wonder, do you know Him? David said, “The Heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament shows His handiwork. My King is a sovereign King. No means of measure can define His limitless love. No far seeing telescope can bring into visibility the coastline of His shoreless supply. No barrier can hinder Him from pouring out His blessings.

• He’s enduringly strong.
• He’s entirely sincere.
• He’s eternally steadfast.
• He’s immortally graceful.
• He’s imperially powerful.
• He’s impartially merciful.

Do you know Him?

• He’s the greatest phenomenon that ever crossed the horizon of this world.
• He’s God’s Son.
• He’s a sinner’s Savior..
• He’s the centerpiece of civilization.
• He stands in the solitude of Himself.
• He’s awesome.
• He’s unique.
• He’s unparalleled.
• He’s unprecedented.
• He’s the loftiest idea in literature.
• He’s the highest personality in philosophy.
• He’s the supreme problem in higher criticism.
• He’s the fundamental doctrine of true theology.
• He’s the cardinal necessity of spiritual religion.
• He’s the miracle of the age.
• He’s the superlative of everything good that you choose to call Him.
• He’s the only one qualified to be an all sufficient Savior

I wonder if you know Him today?

• He supplies strength for the weak.
• He’s available for the tempted and the tried.
• He sympathizes and He saves.
• He strengthens and sustains.
• He guards and He guides.
• He heals the sick.
• He cleanses lepers.
• He forgives sinners.
• He discharges debtors.
• He delivers captives.
• He defends the feeble.
• He blesses the young.
• He serves the unfortunate.
• He regards the aged.
• He rewards the diligent.
• And He beautifies the meek.

I wonder if you know Him? Well, my King is the King.

• He’s the key to knowledge.
• He’s the wellspring to wisdom.
• He’s the doorway of deliverance.
• He’s the pathway of peace.
• He’s the roadway of righteousness .
• He’s the highway of holiness.
• He’s the gateway of glory

Do you know Him? Well.

• His office is manifold.
• His promise is sure.
• His light is matchless.
• His goodness is limitless.
• His mercy is everlasting.
• His love never changes.
• His Word is enough.
• His grace is sufficient.
• His reign is righteous.
• And His yoke is easy, and his burden is light.

I wish I could describe Him to you, but

• He’s indescribable.
• He’s incomprehensible.
• He’s invincible.
• He’s irresistible.

Well,

• You can’t get Him out of your mind.
• You can’t get Him off of your hand.
• You can’t out live Him,
• And you can’t live without Him.
• The Pharisees couldn’t stand Him, but they found out they couldn’t stop Him.
• Pilate couldn’t find any fault in Him.
• The witnesses couldn’t get their testimonies to agree.
• Herod couldn’t kill Him.
• Death couldn’t handle Him,
• And the grave couldn’t hold Him.

Yea!, that’s my King, that’s my King. Father. “Yours is the Kingdom. And the Power. And the Glory. Forever” and ever, and ever, and ever, and ever. How long is that? And when you get through with all the forevers, then. AMEN and AMEN!

Why does the Bible keep starting all over again?

I was asked this very question the other day. I was sitting across the table from an eager young man that I recently had the privilege of leading to Christ. We met at a restaurant at his request. He had questions… and lots of them! It’s thrilling to see him so hungry to understand the Bible. In fact, he was more interested in discussing the Bible than he was eating.
When my friend Bill (not his real name) asked me this question, it took a moment to understand where he was coming from. Then I recalled the New Testament I gave him right after leading him to Christ, and the instruction I gave him about reading it. I failed to mention to him that there are four gospels, and that each writer is presenting Jesus Christ to the world through their writings under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.
This is what was puzzling to him. He would read Matthew and then begin to read Mark, only to discover that Mark was starting over and telling about the beginning of the story of Jesus all over again. He found the same thing happened when he got to Luke.
I then explained to Bill, that each writer was writing with the guidance of God to tell the story of Jesus. They were not giving us four different gospels, because there is only one gospel, but these are four independent witnesses sharing with the world, the truth about Jesus Christ. There are many things that each writer says that are similar, but if we read carefully we will find some distinct differences as well. I explained to Bill that the differences in their testimonies are COMPLIMENTARY and not CONTRADICTORY.
Bill was like a sponge as I explained that the four gospel writers were telling the story of Jesus, giving their unique perspective and it seems with a unique audience in mind too. It seems Matthew had the Jewish people in mind, Mark had the Romans in mind, Luke had the Gentile (anybody not a Jew) in mind, and John wanted the whole world to embrace what He had to say about Christ.
There is a lot more to tell, but I wanted to make sure Bill didn’t get stumped by reading these accounts and wondering why in one place two blind men are mentioned while another account only mentions one. To illustrate this, I asked Bill to imagine being one of four people that witnessed an accident. The policeman arriving on the scene asks him and the other three to write out what they saw. In those four accounts there would probably be many things similar, yet there would be distinct differences too. One might have only seen two cars crashing into one another, while another saw that a third car failed to brake when the first two cars crashed and included that in their report too. Another may have seen all three cars were damaged but because that person arrived on the scene a few seconds after the fact, he was not able to report anything about who hit who.
The fact that the reports of each person varied some doesn’t mean that somebody wasn’t telling the truth. In fact, whenever four witnesses give a report on the same crime and they all tell the exact same story the exact same way it sends up a flag to the detective interviewing the individuals that they must have gotten together to collaborate about their stories. This is called collusion. When this happens, witnesses are usually not considered reliable, and may in fact be trying to cover something up.
Satisfied with the answers I gave to his concerns, this inquisitive young man grinned widely. It is always a delight and blessing to see new converts with such a fervor to know Christ and grow in faith and understanding!

As a chaplain one of the most common questions that I get is why would a loving God allow so much suffering in the world.  People want to know why bad things happen to good people.  When I get asked that, I know the real question is, “Why am I hurting so bad and why doesn’t God stop it.”  I can’t begin to answer the question on an individual basis: “Why does any certain person suffer or go through hard times.”  However, I can give some insights from the Bible about suffering in general.

First, it was not God’s intention that we have suffering.  Genesis 2:31 says that when God had finished creation and saw all that He had made it was very good.  Everything was as it should have been.  No sickness, no suffering and no death.  That sounds pretty appealing, doesn’t it?  The problems all started when Adam and Eve chose to eat from a tree called the tree of knowledge of good and evil.  When God placed them in the Garden of Eden He told them they could eat from any plant or tree they wanted but that they should not eat from this particular tree.  When they disobeyed God and ate the fruit, they brought sin, suffering and death into the world.

God created us to have a true and meaningful love relationship with us.  To have that true relationship we had to have the opportunity to choose to love Him back or not.  If we do not have the choice, we are simply robot-like beings who show false and forced affection.  That is not real love.  God knew that, even with the possibility of pain, suffering and death in the world, it was better for us to have a choice to love Him than to be forced to.

The great news is that just like God had no intention for us to live in suffering, He has no intention of leaving it this way.  In fact, He has already put the solution in place.  You see, when God decided that it was better to have a real relationship with you and me rather than a fake or forced one and planted the tree of knowledge, He also knew that choice would ultimately cost His own Son His life.  When sin entered the world death also entered the world.  Romans 6:23 says that what we deserve for the bad things we have done is death.  God still wants to have that true, loving relationship with Him but in order for that to happen someone has to pay for the sins that continue to bring suffering into the world.  That is where Jesus comes in.  Because Jesus had never sinned, when He died on the cross as a perfect sacrifice He willingly paid the penalty for all sins in the world.  That includes yours and mine.

So what does all of this mean for you right now?  First, God understands where you are!  You may be going through a really tough time.  You know people who are sick.  You know people who have died.  It is very hard to watch.  God knows how you feel.  He watched from Heaven as His Son died to pay the penalty for sins He never committed.  He gets it!

Second, you can have hope.  I shared earlier that Romans 6:23 says that what we deserve for what we have done is death.  The great news is that the verse does not stop there.  The second half of the verse says, “but, the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”  The Bible says that if you ask God for forgiveness for the things you have done wrong He will forgive you!  You can believe that Jesus died on the cross and then rose from the grave to pay for your sins.  You can dedicate your life to living for Him. In the meantime, if you do these things you can know for sure that when your physical life is over, you will live forever with God in Heaven.  This does not mean that all of the sorrows of this world will automatically go away.  It does mean that you don’t have to do it alone!

If you have more questions about this, your chaplain would love to talk to you about it.  Reach out to him or her through the connect button on this app.

Romans 6:23 “For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”.

SAUL WENT “his way” UNTIL HE FOUND “THE WAY!” (Acts 9:1-9)

In some ways I think Acts chapter 8 took a detour in our Acts narrative, because Acts 9 seems to pick up where Acts 7 left off. In Acts 7 we have the story of the stoning of Stephen. Just before Stephen was stoned he accused his audience of being “stiff-necked, and uncircumcised in heart and ears” and he told them, “you do always resist the Holy Spirit” in the same manner as their forefathers did. He accused them of high treason against God Almighty by crucifying The Lord of Glory, and tells them they had rejected the very law they claimed to uphold. This was all they could take, and for that they stoned Stephen to death. I wouldn’t even mention this story again if it were not for the statement made in verse 58.

Acts 7:58 (AMP) Then they dragged him out of the city and began to stone him, and the witnesses placed their garments at the feet of a young man named Saul. [Ac 22:20.]

This “young man named Saul” is the same Saul we now read about in Acts 9:1-9. This is the famous conversion story of the man most people know as the apostle Paul. Though Saul is his Hebrew name, and Paul is his Roman name, I think most will associate the name Saul as his years before Christ, and Paul with his years since coming to know Christ.

It is interesting too that when we think of the name Saul, were are usually thinking of someone big, and mighty and powerful, because the first famous Saul of the bible was all these things. The word Paul on the other hand means “little, small, or humble.” This sort of tells the story of the one most of us know as Paul. He was a big man in the religion of the Pharisees as he would testify quite well in Philippians 3:1-11. As Paul lists his credentials in Philippians 3 in his pre-conversion days he says he counted all those things “but dung” in order to know Christ. His “bigness” kept him from getting to know God in a real and personal way. When Paul came to know Christ he was humbled and became small.

In the passage I selected for today’s reading big Saul met his match when He encountered the Lord of Glory. Jesus spoke to Him out of heaven, and said to him, “Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou ME!” (Acts 9:4) making it quite clear that any time the church is being persecuted it is a direct assault against Jesus since the church is “his body” (Eph 1:22-23) and He is the Head of that mystical body (Col 1:18). When anyone messes with the body, the head gets insulted and takes personal offense to it.

Since Jesus is God He could have disposed of Saul right then and there, and would have had good reason to do so too. Jesus had a much better idea than conquering his enemy this way. Jesus conquered this enemy by making the one who was going “his way” to come over to God’s side, which was THE WAY, as the text so aptly says.

Acts 9:1-3 (ESV) But Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest [2] and asked him for letters to the synagogues at Damascus, so that if he found any belonging to the Way, men or women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem. [3] Now as he went on his way, he approached Damascus, and suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him. [4] And falling to the ground he heard a voice saying to him, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?”

Perhaps you too have been conquered by Christ in a manner like the apostle Paul and now you are the Lord’s chosen vessel too, to bear his name to those who do not yet know Him. If so, you like Paul are on the winning team, for one day every knee will bow to Christ and every tongue will confess Him to be Lord. It is much better to bow to Him now as Savior and Lord, rather than bow to Him later as your Judge, just before you are sentenced to that everlasting abode for all those who have chosen to live life here without Christ (2 Thess 1:7-10).

Acts 7:58 (AMP) Then they dragged him out of the city and began to stone him, and the witnesses placed their garments at the feet of a young man named Saul. [Ac 22:20.]