40 Days Closer to Christ

What if they decided to hold a concert and every member of the orchestra showed up with their instruments tuned anyway they wanted? I’ve been to a few middle school concerts and I have to tell you that it wouldn’t be good. There must be some standard to which all the instruments are tuned, or else you end up with a cacophony. But not only do the instruments need to be tuned, but they need to be tuned to a Master note.

In my house I have three guitars. (Actually since my kids played rock star with one of them only two are playable, but for illustration purposes lets suppose all three can be played.) If I tune one of them to with a pitch pipe or with an electronic tuner than I am pretty sure that it is conditioned for optimal performance. Now I can go to the second guitar and tune it by the first one. And I can get around to tuning the third one by using the second. Theoretically, all three should be tuned up just right. But if I strum a note on the third one, and check it with the tuner, more than likely it will be a little flat or a little sharp. It is just not quite in tune. No matter how good my ear is, a little variation sneaks in as they get tuned down the line. All three guitars have different tones and pitches but if they are all tuned with the electronic tuner and to the same standard then they sound good together.

It is the same way with us. We can get pretty close to where we should be in our spirituality, in our righteousness, and in our walk with God by sharpening ourselves against each other, but we will always be a little off. We need to go back to the Master to make sure that we are where we need to be. It is Christ alone who is the standard by which we measure ourselves. And it is by Him alone that we will be able to perform as we should. That is why we take forty days leading up to Easter and use it to draw closer to Christ and to reestablish our discipleship.

Forty days is the optimal period to form a new habit, to establish a new practice, and to change the pattern of your life. 40 Days – Closer to Christ is an activity (we won’t use the word program) that can change your life.

Forty is a significant number in the scriptures. When God brings about change, the scriptures often represent a significant event as having a forty day duration. Noah’s world was changed forever in forty days. Moses saw God face to face and in forty days received the word which is still the basis for law and government. The city of Nineveh repented in sackcloth and ashes and turned away God’s wrath in the space of forty days. David became a hero after all Israel cowered under Goliath’s forty day challenge. Elijah lived by faith for forty days after God sustained him with one meal. The disciples were given the mysteries of the kingdom as they were taught by the Lord during an intensive forty day seminar after the resurrection. Jesus prepared with a forty day fast for a ministry which culminated in the salvation of mankind.

We can grow closer to the Savior as we study His life and His appearances throughout scripture. We become the people we should as we strive to lead a life of diligent discipleship. In these forty days we can review and renew the vital things that bring us to the Lord. We can refresh our memories and recall the eternal truths of who God is, who we are, and how we can have a close relationship with Him. 40 Days – Closer to Christ is an opportunity to more fully develop that relationship, so that we may see as we are seen and know as we are known.

Thursday, March 11, 2010

Day 19 ~ The Life (John 14:6)


Mount Saint Helens belched gray steam plumes hundreds of feet into the blue Washington sky. Geologists watched their seismographs in growing wonder as the earth danced beneath their feet. Rangers and state police, sirens blaring, herded tourists and residents from an ever-widening zone of danger. Every piece of scientific evidence being collected in the laboratories and on the field predicted the volcano would soon explode with a fury that would leave the forests flattened.

"Warning!" blared the loudspeakers on the patrol cars and helicopters hovering overhead. "Warning!" blinked battery- powered signs at every major crossroad. "Warning!" pleaded radio and television announcers, shortwave and citizen-band operators. "Warning!" echoed up and down the mountain, and lakeside villages, tourist camps and hiking trails emptied as people heard the warnings and fled for their lives.

But Harry Truman refused to budge. Harry was the caretaker of a recreation lodge on Spirit Lake, five miles north of Mt. Saint Helens's smoke-enshrouded peak. The rangers warned Harry of the coming blast. Even Harry's sister called to talk sense into the old man's head. But Harry ignored the warnings. From the picture-postcard beauty of his lakeside home reflecting the snow- capped peak overhead, Harry grinned on national television and said, "Nobody knows more about this mountain than Harry and it don't dare blow up on him..."

On May 18,1980, as the boiling gases beneath the mountain's surface bulged and buckled the landscape to its final limits, Harry Truman cooked his eggs and bacon, fed his sixteen cats the scraps, and began to plant petunias around the border of his freshly mowed lawn. At 8:31 a.m. the mountain exploded.

Did Harry regret his decision in that millisecond he had before the concussive waves, traveling faster than the speed of sound, flattened him and everything else for 150 square miles? Did he have time to mourn his stubbornness as millions of tons of rock disintegrated and disappeared into a cloud reaching ten miles into the sky? Did he struggle against the wall of mud and ash fifty feet high that buried his cabin, his cats and his freshly mowed lawn -- or had he been vaporized when the mountain erupted with a force 500 times greater than the nuclear bomb which leveled Hiroshima?
Now, Harry is a legend in the corner of Washington where he refused to listen. He smiles down on us from posters and T-shirts and beer mugs. Balladeers sing a song about old Harry, the stubborn man who put his ear to the mountain but would not heed the warnings. (Billy Graham, Approaching Hoofbeats, pp. 13-14.)

One day a man came to Jesus and asked "Good Master, what good thing shall I do, that I may have eternal life?" Jesus told him to keep the commandments. The man replied that he had kept the law from his youth. So what did he yet lack. "Jesus saith unto him, If thou wilt be perfect, go [and] sell that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come [and] follow me. But when the young man heard that saying, he went away sorrowful: for he had great possessions" (Matthew 19:22).

Jesus Christ told us that He is the Life. Usually we think of the gift of Eternal Life. But more than that Jesus calls us to live a different life in the here and now. He lived the perfect life and the most fulfilled life. He calls us to the same. We should heed His voice and come away and live as He did. Most people really don't want to leave their old life and commit. Think of how different the life of the man in Matthew 19 would have been had he followed Christ. Others, like Harry Truman, ignore the call altogether. They can't be bothered and they never see it coming.

Life in Christ is easier than life in our own wisdom. Jesus said "I am come that they might have life, and that they might have [it] more abundantly (John 10:10). Life in Christ brings hope. It brings purpose. It brings peace that the rest of the world cannot understand.
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