Reminded of the Word of Truth

Treasured friend,

This evening I was rereading my April entry – and feeling sheepish as I read. I’ve begun dozens of messages to you, but haven’t gotten far before I was interrupted, needed elsewhere, or otherwise distracted. So, my treasured friend, I offer you my sincere apology.

By way of explanation—but by no means excuse—since I’ve last written to you, our family has sat by several sets of friends, fellow caregivers who have been through the ultimate challenge: watching loved ones decline, then enter the care of hospice, all the while knowing where the path is leading … that the journey of their beloved charges would carry them into eternity with their Lord.

We’ve seen faithful saints who’ve lived a lifetime in God’s service finish the course well—and collect their prize of eternal life. We’ve listened to words of comfort from preachers in services of tearful celebrations, and we’ve come to realize anew the fact that words, even beautiful words out of the Psalms or out of Paul’s writings to the early church, simply can’t express the range of emotions in these most poignant of all human moments.

And yet words are what we have to offer—as we come up against this frustrating reminder of the limitations of our humanity. Words, gentle hugs, tearful eyes, the squeeze of a hand. We’re here. We care. We’re praying. We won’t forget to hold you up in the days ahead.

That’s what we have in our comfort arsenals. That, and the truth of the Word made flesh, Who made His dwelling place among us—Who lived to demonstrate the Creator’s understanding of our pain at the curse of death—and who died to make a way for us to live. The paradox of faith in Christ. It takes dying to live.

When our hearts are torn by death’s separation—His presence seems just a little closer, a little more tangible. And we become a lot more desperate to feel it for ourselves. In those moments we long to be reminded of His promises, the words from His very own mouth—spoken to prepare His loved ones’ hearts for the painful separation from Him that they were about to experience. They then, like we now, didn’t understand what was about to take place, couldn’t see the bigger picture, could only be gripped by panicked and fearful emotions at the prospect of their Lord going to a place they couldn’t immediately follow. And yet, He offered these beautiful words …  

“Your heart must not be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in Me. In My Father’s house are many dwelling places; if not, I would have told you. I am going away to prepare a place for you. If I go away and prepare a place for you, I will come back and receive you to Myself, so that where I am you may be also. You know the way ⌊to⌋ where I am going.” “Lord,” Thomas said, “we don’t know where You’re going. How can we know the way?” Jesus told him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me” (John 14:1-6, HCSB).

Over the weekend, I had the privilege of using these words, and others spoken by Christ and expounded on by Paul, to reassure an old friend’s troubled questions about eternity (raised in her heart by the misguided and ill-spoken words of a charlatan Armageddon predictor).

Here is what I told her (and I'm telling you) that I know to be true—because Christ said so--check out His Word for yourself to see whether what I'm telling you is true. Here, then, is what I know: We know the way—the only way—to the place where we will be with Christ … and with our loved ones who have died in Him. The way is so simple that so many of us complicate things, so that others (surely not we ourselves) miss it. The way is clear and direct because Christ made it so.

He faced the recesses of hell Himself. That day on Calvary’s cross He entered death’s domain, He tied up the guardians of hell, and He conquered them once and for all—for every one of us who dares to believe—to ask Him to buy us back from slavery to sin—to apply His life-blood to our sin accounts. This is what He asks us to believe and receive—“If you confess with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. … For everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved” (Romans 10:9, 13; HCSB).

Perhaps words are enough to offer after all. Words from the mouth of our Lord, offering comfort and a compassionate challenge—your heart must not be troubled. … I will receive you to Myself. And the words of our own mouths: Lord Jesus, I choose to believe You and receive the free gift of salvation that You paid for on my behalf--with Your blood.

With those words, eternal companionship with our loving Lord opens up for each of us. So that at death's moment, we'll be more alive in Him than we ever were on this earth.That’s what happened to our friends this week. And when it’s our time—well, I can’t speak for you, but as for me, that’s the promise that will carry me through the end of this life and into the promised joys of eternity with Christ. That’s what I’m living for … and what I’ve staked it all to believe.

I pray you have this same assurance in your own heart—for your eternity, and for the eternity of the one you care for today.

Blessings and prayers,

Julie

© 2011, Julie-Allyson Ieron. All rights reserved. For reprint permission, email: orders@joymediaservices.com

A New Name ...

Treasured friend,

This evening as I was enjoying the gift of 30 minutes to relax quietly, I turned on a CD containing medleys of hymns and gospel songs. And I was transported to the church where I grew up and to the one I attended during college and grad school. Those were good days--marked by a sweet, sincere faith. Days of putting our hearts into our faith journeys. Both churches leaned toward the holiness traditions, and they were peopled by caring, compassionate believers who took seriously the idea of the family of faith.

I grew up with the hymnal beside the Bible in the pew pockets. And I was enriched by both--because both spoke of the true gospel--and how it works in real life every day.

I learned to harmonize by reading along in the hymnal--and became a strong, confident (and hopefully in-tune) alto in the process. My mind was sharp in those days (that sharpness may just be wasted on the young!)--sharp and absorbant, to mix my metaphors. Because in the repetition of the hymns Sunday after Sunday (certain of the elder folks asked to sing the same songs week after week--as my pre-teen eyes rolled) I not only internalized the truths, but the lyrics--all 4 or 5 verses of them.

My grandfather, in addition to being the preacher/pastor, also was the song leader. You could mark the calendar by the songs he chose. If it was Christmas it was "One Day" -- "One day when heaven was filled with His praises ... Jesus came down to be born of a virgin/lived among men my example to be ..." If it was Easter, it had to be "He Lives," and "Up From the Grave He Arose!" To this day, it isn't truly Easter until I've heard those two songs--even if Mom and I have to play them on organ and violin in our own living room. Will we be playing them next week? You bet!

I didn't realize it at the time, but those hymns along with gospel song lyrics popular in the 1970s, got under my skin--and pierced straight into my heart. And they echoed back to me in the most unlikely moments. Like one Sunday morning I recall at East Side Church of God in Anderson, IN, where I worshipped during college. Our pastor had given a passionate sermon. And, as always, the altars were open to anyone after he was finished. The instruments played quietly, while believers and seekers alike (although I don't think we called them seekers back then) were welcome to pray. There was no altar call or invitation, yet folks left their seats and knelt there for private moments with the Lord. The pastors would come alongside each one, pray for a moment, then move on.

Anyway, this particular Sunday, a buzz swept through the choir loft as the senior pastor whispered something to the choir director. When it made its way to the alto section, I got in on the act. A sinner had made the decision to follow Christ--right there at the altar on that ordinary Sunday morning. And the pastor wanted to celebrate by singing "A New Name in Glory." But no one knew the words.

Who knew all those years of brother or sister so-and-so calling that song number would come in handy? I tapped into my brain's computer and pulled out the words (first verse and chorus thank-you-very-much!). I started scribbling them on the back of an offering envelope--barely finishing as the organist struck up the intro. "I was once a sinner but I came, pardon to receive from my Lord ... There's a new name written down in glory/and it's mine! Oh, yes, it's mine!"

There was a party that morning at East Side's altar, accompanied by a joyfully sung rendition of C. Austin Miles' lyric that might even give the angels a run for their money. I can't remember ever finding that song as meaningful as that morning--because it was so timely--so relevant--so real. Someone I knew, who shopped in the same grocery and probably washed his clothes at the same Laundromat--was born again to new life, eternal life in Christ--that day, before my eyes.

It was one of the songs that played on my CD collection tonight. And it transported me back. To the sweetness of a sinner's name being written in glory while the angels (and the saints) sang joyfully to celebrate a soul coming home. And it put my tough day into a more productive perspective. So little of what I do--and what troubles me--will make it into eternity; precious little of the grousing I do ("No, Dad, you're diabetic so you can't have a chocolate cherry!" "No crackers with your soup, or I'll have to give you another insulin shot!" "Don't jerk your hand away when I'm trying to get a prick for your blood test!") has any significance, relatively speaking, when put alongside a sinner asking Jesus Christ to take her sins away through His shed blood on Calvary.

I'm glad Jesus gives us this glimpse into eternity, something to cling to in the everyday. Because He does open paradise for sinners (our pastor preached on that yesterday morning, in the second of Christ's statements from the cross, when Jesus said to the thief hanging at His side: "Truly, today you'll be with me in paradise" Luke 23:43). And the angels do rejoice when a lost sinner receives Christ's gift of salvation (Luke 15:10: "I tell you, there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents" NIV).

By remembering this fact that's more real and more substantial than anything I can touch or do on this earth, I am reenergized and refocused to take on another day.

I hope and pray you are, as well.

By the way ... in case you'd like to hear this song played or read its lyric, I found a site online that plays a simple arrangement of it and includes all the lyrics--and they're not even scribbled on the back of an offering envelope!: http://my.homewithgod.com/heavenlymidis2/newname.html

Enjoy!




Blessings and prayers,

Julie

© 2011, Julie-Allyson Ieron. All rights reserved. For reprint permission, email: orders@joymediaservices.com

Rattling Pans

Treasured friend,

A while back I sat through a friend’s wedding – another friend’s wedding. The second in as many weeks. This is not an easy feat for an over-40 solo woman whose marital status has outlived the rise and fall of four church single adult groups (due to the pairing up of all the singles into couples).

As I say, such was my circumstance that weekend. Sitting in the third row watching with tears of joy (and a not little melancholy) as another single friend gave herself away to her new mate. Reading the program, I was not surprised that she had chosen to have the infamous 1 Corinthians 13 read during her ceremony. Why does every bride choose that Scripture? I asked myself. I suppose it’s safer than the 1 Timothy section on submission; but still …

I put my brain on cruise control as the words rolled off the reader’s tongue. “Love is patient. Love is kind. …” Yada, yada, yada. Heard it before. Memorized it. Nothing new there. I may have even stifled a yawn.

Six days later I found myself in my music room, scrubbing away at my new cello (I was teaching myself to play--a task I've more recently classified as hopeless!) accompanied by my patient mother on the electric keyboard. We’d found that playing old favorites out of the hymnal (only those in appropriate keys) was about all the challenge I could handle on that instrument, so we were playing hymn 664, “Sweeter as the Years Go By.”

My scrubbing arm grew tired, so I dropped out as mom continued on to another song, on another page. Since my arm was too tired to lift itself and turn the page I allowed my eye to traverse 665. Six sixty-five, it turned out, was a reading. The title caught my eye and grabbed my attention. “The Character of a Christian.” Hmm. I’ve written a few things about character—namely a book titled Staying True in a World of Lies.

As I wrote that book several years ago and revised it last year, I searched the Scriptures for appropriate passages that addressed the subject of character or integrity. And I found many – mostly in the wise old book of Proverbs. So, as I considered 665, I found myself more than a little anxious to see what Scripture the editors had chosen to fit that intriguing title.

Just then I saw the reference at the bottom of the page. It read simply, “From 1 Corinthians 13.” Ugh. Lemme alone. Go away. Don’t they know the Apostle Paul most certainly penned those words just to be read at wedding ceremonies in the 21st century? What does love have to do with character?

But then, I read the list. It was written in a different translation than any I’d encountered before – and it was most certainly abridged – but it contained all the key ingredients of the chapter. Perhaps it was the late hour. Perhaps the newness of a different translation. Whatever it was, I suddenly realized that alongside our integrity, our truth, our unity of thought, word and deed that I wrote about in Staying True, there is another principle that is just as crucial in all our interactions with the secular world – whether at work, in the marketplace of ideas, in our churches, or (yes) in our homes and while we're busy about our caregiving duties.

And that principle is one that cannot fail without devastating consequences. Without it I am, according to the hymnal’s editors, a “rattling pan.”

That principle is love. Not the mushy stuff of wedding day kisses and for-the-camera smiles. But love. Like God’s love. Pure, unselfish, patient, and holy.

Here, in The Message paraphrase, is a repackaging of the key principles found in 1 Corinthians 13:1-7:

If I speak with human eloquence and angelic ecstasy but don't love, I'm nothing but the creaking of a rusty gate.


If I speak God's Word with power, revealing all his mysteries and making everything plain as day, and if I have faith that says to a mountain, "Jump," and it jumps, but I don't love, I'm nothing.

If I give everything I own to the poor and even go to the stake to be burned as a martyr, but I don't love, I've gotten nowhere. So, no matter what I say, what I believe, and what I do, I'm bankrupt without love.

Love never gives up.

Love cares more for others than for self.

Love doesn't want what it doesn't have.

Love doesn't strut,

Doesn't have a swelled head,

Doesn't force itself on others,

Isn't always "me first,"

Doesn't fly off the handle,

Doesn't keep score of the sins of others,

Doesn't revel when others grovel,

Takes pleasure in the flowering of truth,

Puts up with anything,

Trusts God always,

Always looks for the best,

Never looks back,

But keeps going to the end.

In those moments, as mom’s melodious notes played on, I knew--I don't want to be a rusty gate or a rattling pan--especially not in God's eyes and ears. So, my continuing lesson was to be love. Not necessarily a marriage kind of love (although I certainly wouldn’t rule that out), but more likely a lovingness that pervades everything else I do and say – and everything I think.

“By this shall all men know that you are my disciples,” Jesus said, “if you have love one for another” (John 13:35). This loving action – or interaction – with each other inside the faith, as well as those not yet in the faith – is the mark of a true believer. But it isn't easy and certainly doesn't come naturally--not by any stretch of the imagination.

I'm taking this new-old challenge to heart this week--and I pray in it you'll hear God's voice prompting you, as well. May my life, no matter how frustrating, challenging, angering, or debilitating--be best summed up in the word love.

Blessings and prayers,

Julie

© 2011, Julie-Allyson Ieron. All rights reserved. For reprint permission, email: orders@joymediaservices.com

You're Famous! Okay, not famous, but notable ...

Okay -- this is royally cool! Anderson University alumni magazine, Signatures, did a cover feature on blogging -- and featured this devotional blog and its author (namely, me!). Here's a link, you might enjoy following http://www.anderson.edu/signatures/winter11/article.html. I've already begun hearing from old college friends (who're you callin' old?) about it.

Blessings and prayers, Julie © 2011, Julie-Allyson Ieron. All rights reserved. For reprint permission, email: orders@joymediaservices.com