The 260 Journey

Day 61

Today's Reading: Luke 17

My goal today is to put you in a special category, which not many are in. My goal is to move you to the 10 percent category, because if I can get you there, I can get you some extra help on what God has already done for you.

How many want more miracles happening in their lives?

They can have that. And it is as simple as saying, “Thank You, God.”

Our 260 Journey leads us to Luke 17, where we read about an amazing miracle and then an even more amazing response. Someone got more than what they asked for.

While He was on the way to Jerusalem, He was passing between Samaria and Galilee. As He entered a village, ten leprous men who stood at a distance met Him; and they raised their voices, saying, “Jesus, Master have mercy on us!” When He saw them, He said to them, “Go and show yourselves to the priests.” And as they were going, they were cleansed. Now one of them, when he saw that he had been healed, turned back, glorifying God with a loud voice, and he fell on his face at His feet, giving thanks to Him. And he was a Samaritan. Then Jesus answered and said, “Were there not ten cleansed? But the nine—where are they? Was no one found who returned to give glory to God, except this foreigner?” And He said to him, “Stand up and go; your faith has made you well.” (Luke 17:11-19)

Let’s read the last part from The Message: “One of them, when he realized that he was healed, turned around and came back, shouting his gratitude, glorifying God. He kneeled at Jesus’ feet, so grateful. He couldn’t thank him enough” (verses 15-16).

One leper said, “thank you” and something happened: he got more than he asked for.

Being grateful will separate you from the group. Not many people say thanks. From the cashier at Walgreens to the drive-through worker at Dairy Queen to the supervisor at work. The leper went from receiving healing to getting one more thing by just saying, “Thank You, Jesus.” Something happened physically and spiritually to him.

Ten lepers were healed—nine went on their way (90 percent); one returned with thanksgiving (10 percent). Which group are you in?

We are quick to pray but slow to praise. I want to help you get to that elite 10 percent. As we move you from the majority to the powerful minority, keep these words and phrases from our verses in mind:

Realized
Shouting gratitude
Healed and saved

Realized

The realization is the wake-up call. God deserves your gratitude. One day you realize that what you received is not by accident and not by your own doing.

Jesus asked, “Where are the nine?” (MSG). God was asking what He already knew the answer to. He says about us: Where are the nine whom I have given life to, provision to, healing to, a house to, breath to, health to, a vacation to, a job to, a child to? Have they thanked everyone but Me today?

In Life Together, theologian and pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote: “Only he who gives thanks for little things receives big things. We prevent God from giving us the great spiritual gifts He has in store for us, because we do not give thanks for daily gifts.”

If you want to be part of the 10 percent, wake up to the realization that God deserves your thanks.

Shouting gratitude

Go big with your thank yous. Author Gladys Bronwyn Stern said, “Silent gratitude isn’t much use to anyone.” True gratitude is vocal and focused. Luke says that the leper was “glorifying God with a loud voice.” You realize not only who it came from, but you want others to know who the who is.

Gratitude goes the extra mile. Consider what this leper did:

He turned around.
He came back.
He shouted.
He kneeled at His feet.

Poet George Herbert says it best: “Thou who hast given so much to me, give me one more thing—a grateful heart!”

Healed and saved

“Thank You” gets God’s attention. And it makes God want to do more.

The leper was “healed and saved.” Nine got healed on the outside; one got healed both on the outside and on the inside. One “thank you” got him a lot extra.

Gratitude opens the door for you to get more than you asked for.

As Steven Furtick once said: “You can’t be grateful for something you feel entitled to.” So let’s stop today and enter the elite 10 percent and thank God for all He has done.

Day 60

Today’s Reading: Luke 16

What if you could hear from someone who had died, and they could tell you what’s on the other side? That’s what a story in today’s reading is. It’s a story that will stop you in your tracks. It’s the story of eternity. It’s the story of what’s beyond. More specifically, it’s a story about hell, realized too late.

There was a rich man, and he habitually dressed in purple and fine linen, joyously living in splendor every day. And a poor man named Lazarus was laid at his gate, covered with sores, and longing to be fed with the crumbs which were falling from the rich man’s table; besides, even the dogs were coming and licking his sores. Now the poor man died and was carried away by the angels to Abraham’s bosom; and the rich man also died and was buried. In Hades he lifted up his eyes, being in torment, and saw Abraham far away and Lazarus in his bosom. And he cried out and said, “Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus so that he may dip the tip of his finger in water and cool off my tongue, for I am in agony in this flame.” But Abraham said, “Child, remember that during your life you received your good things, and likewise Lazarus bad things; but now he is being comforted here, and you are in agony. And besides all this, between us and you there is a great chasm fixed, so that those who wish to come over from here to you will not be able, and that none may cross over from there to us.” And he said, “Then I beg you, father, that you send him to my father’s house—for I have five brothers—in order that he may warn them, so that they will not also come to this place of torment.” But Abraham said, “They have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them.” But he said, “No, father Abraham, but if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent!” But he said to him, “If they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, they will not be persuaded even if someone rises from the dead.” (Luke 16:19-31)

I have heard and read stories of people telling their beyond-death stories—some who visited heaven and some who visited hell. I’m not saying their stories aren’t true or false, we just don’t know. But we do know that this story is true because of who told it: Jesus, who always tells the truth. Jesus told this story different from a parable. Parables had no names of people, whereas this story did. And his name was Lazarus.

Here is a big question: what is the length of every man’s life? Forever, everlasting. Once born, the existence of man becomes as everlasting as the existence of God. His length on earth may be seventy or eighty years, which the Bible calls a vapor (see James 4:14). But your departed friends still exist right now. Remember that the poor man died but so did the rich man.

When the rich man and the poor man were born, they were both born without Christ; but when the rich man and the poor man died, Lazarus had Christ and the rich man had nothing. The rich man in fact had everything but God. The beggar had nothing but God.

And once you enter eternity, your destiny is fixed and cannot be changed. It was too late for the rich man.

I see some too lates here in this story.

1. He saw heaven too late. He who never thirsts for God here will thirst for Him immediately after he dies. He who never longs for a savior on earth will long for one in hell. The rich man was contented without a savior in this life, but as soon as he was in hell, he realized his need and his first cry was, “I thirst.” But the problem was that he thirsted for heaven and water too late!

2. He prayed too late. This was hell’s prayer meeting. The rich man not only saw what he never saw on earth, but his very first act in hell was to do what he never did on earth: he prayed . . . but he prayed too late because he prayed in hell.

He got thirsty too late and prayed too late. And when he did pray, he prayed to the wrong person: “He cried out and said, ‘Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water and cool off my tongue; for I am in agony in this flame’” (verse 24).

He prayed to father Abraham. This prayer could never have been answered. Even if this prayer was offered up on earth, it could have never been answered. This is the only instance in Scripture of a man praying to a saint, and it bore no fruit and got no answer.

If only this man could have felt the need on earth that he was feeling in hell and cried to Jesus on earth instead of Abraham in hell, God would have given him salvation.

Here’s what is scary about hell. The rich man had all five senses in hell.

He opened his eyes: he recognized Lazarus when he lifted his eyes.

He opened his mouth: he cried to Abraham.

He knew what water was and craved a drop of it.

He had feelings because he said he was being tormented.

He knew what was tormenting him—flames.

He remembered his father’s house and his brothers.

There was no lapse of time between the rich man’s death and him being in the flames of hell. Just as the believer dies and is in the presence of the Lord, I believe that the sinner goes immediately into the flames of hell.

Some think these are hard words to hear. It may be hard but it’s important. I think Billy Graham said it best: “If we had more hell in the pulpit, we would have less hell in the pew.”

As Thomas Hobbes once said, “Hell is truth seen too late.” If you are alive today, it’s not too late.

Day 59

Today’s Reading: Luke 15

Today’s reading contains one of the most incredible stories ever told. We call it the story of the prodigal son. Let’s read it together:

[Jesus] said, “A man had two sons. The younger of them said to his father, ‘Father, give me the share of the estate that falls to me.’ So he divided his wealth between them. And not many days later, the younger son gathered everything together and went on a journey into a distant country, and there he squandered his estate with loose living. Now when he had spent everything, a severe famine occurred in that country, and he began to be impoverished. So he went and hired himself out to one of the citizens of that country, and he sent him into his fields to feed swine. And he would have gladly filled his stomach with the pods that the swine were eating, and no one was giving anything to him. But when he came to his senses, he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired men have more than enough bread, but I am dying here with hunger! I will get up and go to my father, and will say to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven, and in your sight; I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me as one of your hired men.”’ So he got up and came to his father. But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and felt compassion for him, and ran and embraced him and kissed him. And the son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and in your sight; I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’ But the father said to his slaves, ‘Quickly bring out the best robe and put it on him, and put a ring on his hand and sandals on his feet; and bring the fattened calf, kill it, and let us eat and celebrate; for this son of mine was dead and has come to life again; he was lost and has been found.’ And they began to celebrate. (Luke 15:11-24)

When it comes to the word father, some people cringe. Today that name can evoke all kinds of images—from absentee, abusive, uncaring, to never saying “I love you” or “I’m proud of you.” Jesus enters an environment in which He is about to redefine the image of father, just as it needs help today.

In Middle Eastern culture, to ask for the inheritance while the father is still alive is to wish him dead. A traditional Middle Eastern father can only respond one way. He is expected to refuse and then drive the boy out of the house with verbal and physical blows.

But something strange happens . . .

The father’s granting the request makes clear that the character of the father in the parable is not modeled after a traditional Middle Eastern patriarch. Though in the previous two parables that Jesus tells—the shepherd in his search for the sheep and the woman in her search for the coin—the people do not do anything out of the ordinary beyond what anyone in their place would do. But the actions of the father in the third story are unique, marvelous, divine actions that have not been done by any earthly father in the past. On three different occasions the father in this parable clearly violates the traditional expectations of a Middle Eastern father. This is the first of them. An awareness of the redefinition of the word father takes place.

You are about to see that the father is more prodigal than the son. I’ll explain shortly.

In the parable the reader learns that the son “gathered all he had,” which the New English Bible rightly translates, he “turned the whole of his share into cash.”

This is demonstrated by the fact that the prodigal completes all transactions in “not many days.” He just wants the money for the inheritance.

The son got all that he wanted (gathered everything).

He got to spend it on whatever he wanted (loose living).

He got to go where he wanted (distant country).

And do it with whomever he wanted.

And when it was all done, he ended up with nothing.

You knew this when it came to pod eating. Can’t get lower than this.

That’s when something happens to this boy. He comes to himself:

When he came to his senses, he said, “How many of my father’s hired men have more than enough bread, but I am dying here with hunger!” (Luke 15:17)

Now enters the dad—the prodigal father. Did you catch what I called him? The focus is so much on the prodigal son when it should be on the prodigal father.

What does prodigal mean? We think prodigal means sinful and that bad living is associated with it. But prodigal is a neutral word. You can attach it to any noun, and the noun determines if it’s positive or negative.

It means to lavish, to go all out, extreme generosity. In the story the father is just as prodigal. This is the challenge for us who have prodigals. We must be just as prodigal as them. We have to be prodigal with grace, forgiveness, and love and lavish it on them.

Then the father does something unusual—he runs. He is getting prodigal big time.

Eastern gentlemen do not run in public. People of prominence did not and do not run in public.

Why does the father run? To protect him against others. He does not want him meeting the city first; he wants his son to meet open arms first.

Why does he run? To protect him from the comments of others. He is sending a signal to the community—a signal of forgiveness.

And then it gets crazier. He starts giving the son really significant things. The first is to order the servants to dress the prodigal. He doesn’t tell his son to go and get cleaned up. Rather he instructs the servants to dress him with the best robe and sandals. “Quickly bring out best robe and put it on him” (verse 22). This can only mean, I don’t want anyone else to see him in these rags!

The son never stops being a son while covered in mud. That’s an important message for you to remember. God loves you as you are—not as you should be. God loves you without caution, regret, boundary, limit, or breaking point. When the prodigal son comes back home, he doesn’t just get a ring, a robe, and shoes. The greatest thing he gets back is his father.

Day 58

Today’s Reading: Luke 14

You’ve been invited to a big party. Not just a party but God’s party. And it lasts a really long time . . . for eternity. In order to understand how this party works, Jesus told a parable. And what makes this parable amazing is when and where He told it.

I come from a family in which dinner table talk was the norm. Dinner would last a long time not because eating took long but because the conversation did. And here in Luke 14, this dinner conversation started in verse 1 and ended at verse 24—and the topics were intense. The conversation started with healing and proceeded all the way to the big party.

At our dinner table I learned the art of debate and how to defend your point of view over anything from politics to theology. Nothing was off limits. We are Italians, so the conversations would get loud and emotional, but always ended with dessert and coffee.

This Luke 14 dinner conversation with Jesus didn’t end with cheesecake and coffee but did end with an intense talk about God’s final party in heaven and why people will miss it.

In New Testament times, two invitations were usually given to a party or banquet. The first was given well in advance so that people could RSVP. Then when everything was ready for the party to begin, the host sent servants with a second invitation to tell everybody to “come, for everything is now ready.” You’d think that receiving such a wonderful invitation and news would cause people to stop whatever they were engaged in and go to the party, but that is not what Jesus said happened in this parable:

He said to him, “A man was giving a big dinner, and he invited many; and at the dinner hour he sent his slave to say to those who had been invited, ‘Come; for everything is ready now.’ But they all alike began to make excuses. The first one said to him, ‘I have bought a piece of land and I need to go out and look at it; please consider me excused.’ Another one said, ‘I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I am going to try them out; please consider me excused.’ Another one said, ‘I have married a wife, and for that reason I cannot come.’ And the slave came back and reported this to his master. Then the head of the household became angry and said to his slave, ‘Go out at once into the streets and lanes of the city and bring in here the poor and crippled and blind and lame.’ And the slave said, ‘Master, what you commanded has been done, and still there is room.’ And the master said to the slave, ‘Go out into the highways and along the hedges, and compel them to come in, so that my house may be filled. For I tell you, none of those men who were invited shall taste of my dinner.’” (Luke 14:16-24)

This invitation came at a time that something would have to be interrupted . . . something great would have to be chosen over something good. We have to choose the lasting over the temporal, the great over the good if we want to go to the party.

In the parable, Jesus said that some chose not to come because the party interfered with their business, possessions, and relationships. In each case the excuses were legitimate but not sufficient.

Legitimate but not sufficient. The point is—if you miss God’s party, it isn’t because you were not invited. It’s because you chose to make other things a priority over responding to Him.

The people who were invited all began to make excuses. The definition of excuse: that which makes (an offense or a crime) seem less serious or something used to justify a fault.

There are countless websites for excuses for sleeping in class, sleeping at work, and missing school and work. The following are actual notes that parents wrote to schools so their children could be excused for their absence:

• Please excuse Lisa for being absent. She was sick and I had her shot.

• Dear school: Please excuse John being absent on Jan. 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, and also 33.

• Please excuse Jennifer for missing school yesterday. We forgot to get the Sunday paper off the porch, and when we found it Monday, we thought it was Sunday.

I heard about four college freshmen who hung out together and were always intent on having more fun than studying. These guys were always late to a certain class, because they knew the professor was a pushover. They had a multitude of excuses why their assignments weren’t finished on time or why they hadn’t shown up for class. When it came time for the final exam, they were late. About the time everyone else was finishing, they showed up giggling and told the professor their car had a flat tire, so they wanted to take a make-up test later.

“No problem,” the professor said. “Have a seat in the four corners of the classroom. I’ll prepare a special final exam just for you guys, and I’ll make it easier—it will only have one question. And since you guys haven’t turned in all your assignments, I’ll give you another chance. If all four of you answer this question correctly, you’ll all get an ‘A,’ but if any of you miss it, you’ll fail the class.” He took a moment to write the question in four exam bluebooks.

The four guys were grinning when he handed them their books, but their smiles disappeared when they opened the test. The single question on the final exam was, “Which tire was flat?”

As the professor stood between them, they realized they were done for. They each tossed their exam books in the trashcan as they walked out. Their excuses had caught up to them!

Jesus said that when the second invitation was sent, “they all alike began to make excuses” (verse 18).

The first excuse: “I need to go and look at my new property.” The field would be there the next day. We make desires our needs. And when we do that, our desires start to control decisions, and this will always be a train wreck. The desire to be known, to be wanted, and to be loved. Our need is for God who will meet all our desires. We should have gone to the party.

The second excuse was that he’d just bought five oxen. He had something new, and the novelty was exciting. Some people hear the call to serve God and be part of a church, and they want to—until something shiny and new excites them. They get a new friendship, a new hobby, a second home. God always plays second fiddle to them. That means we’re there unless something new invites our attention.

Finally, the third excuse, that the man just got married. At times human affections can keep us from turning our love upon the Lord. This is not about putting marriage in a wrong priority. This is about being careful that we are not involved in relationships that keep us from making the right God decisions in our lives. That runs the gamut. I have watched affection make men and women compromise morals and standards, making unwise future decisions and marrying too fast without getting wisdom. Affection for people is important in second place. When people take the first priority over God choices, life is about to get real hard.

When it was all said and done . . . desires, novelty, and affection took the place over a God invitation.

God is throwing a big party and it’s going to happen really soon. I want to see you there—no excuses.

Day 57

Today’s Reading: Luke 13

There are more than 7 billion people on earth. Nearly sixty million of them will die this year. That is approximately 153,000 people dying every day, 6,400 people dying every hour, 107 people dying every minute, two people dying every second. Not a great thought to start your day.

Death is unavoidable and undeniable, and you will one day become one of these statistics. Statistics tell us that one out of one will die. I know that is hard to believe, but it is true.

We try to sanitize the topic of death. Years ago people would die in their homes; today they die in hospitals or nursing homes. We try to keep death far from us. We think out of sight is out of mind. We don’t even let our pets die; we put them to sleep.

We use nice phraseology to deal with death. We say, “He is no longer with us,” “She is resting,” or “He has passed away.” None of this changes the definiteness of death.

They now call funeral homes eternal management care centers. Funeral home directors don’t want to be called undertakers or morticians, they call themselves death managers. People don’t care about what you call death as long as they can avoid it.

The great American poet W. H. Auden said, “Death is the sound of distant thunder at a picnic.” No matter what your picnic is, you still hear the thunder. People will try to avoid death and listening to that distant thunder through any means they can.

There is this crazy thing called "cryonics" in which scientists will put your legally-dead body after death in liquid nitrogen and hope one day through technology they will discover a way to wake the person up. The fee can be as high as $200,000 or more for whole body cryopreservation and $80,000 for a “neuro,” or head-only option.

There is something about our mortality and death we don’t want to talk about. You can take vitamins and drink green tea but we all will face death. You may live longer doing this stuff, but no one will know at your funeral whether you ate tofu or Twinkies.

Speaking about death is hard. But processing tragic death is even harder.

Jesus deals with this topic and how we are to process it in today’s reading. The opening scene of Luke 13 is intense. People come to Jesus with a tragic death story and then Jesus intensifies it:

Some of those present informed Jesus that Pilate had slaughtered some Galilean Jews while they were offering sacrifices at the temple, mixing their blood with the sacrifices they were offering.

Jesus turned and asked the crowd, “Do you believe that the slaughtered Galileans were the worst sinners of all the Galileans? No, they weren’t! So listen to me. Unless you all repent, you will perish as they did.” (Luke 13:1-3, TPT)

Jesus doesn’t stop there, but then tells more tragedy to make His point:

Or what about the eighteen who perished when the tower of Siloam fell upon them? Do you really think that they were more guilty than all of the others in Jerusalem? No, they weren’t. But unless you repent, you will all eternally perish, just as they did. (Luke 13:4-5, TPT)

“Why did these people die?” the people ask Jesus, and Jesus responds by telling them that they are asking the wrong question. Basically, He tells them, “There is a better question you should be asking, and here it is: why haven’t you died yet?”

Jesus essentially says, “Do you think they died because they were great sinners and deserved it? Of course not but keep this in mind all of you are going to perish one day, a great thing to do while you're breathing is to repent.”

Instead of processing why they died, we need to process if we are prepared to die.

Always remember, the Bible is not like a newspaper; it doesn’t have new stuff in it every day. It is always the same, because it’s the truth. And truth has no expiration date.

Jesus is telling us the issue is not why were these babies aborted, but why haven’t we been aborted. The issue is not why my friend died in a highway head-on collision with a drunk driver but why haven’t I? The issue is not figuring out if someone bad got cancer and deserved it, but why haven’t I?

The people were asking the wrong question. And too often we ask that same wrong question. That is the question Jesus is asking us to skip and to fast forward to something more important.

There are very few death scenes in the Bible because the Bible is concerned with how you live now. Consider this story:

A little girl whose baby brother had just died asked her mother where the baby had gone.

“To be with Jesus,” replied the mother. A few days later while talking to a friend, the mother said, “I am so grieved to have lost my baby.”

The little girl heard her, and remembering what her mother had told her, looked into her face and asked, “Mother, is a thing lost when you know where it is?”

“No, of course not.”

“Well then, how can the baby be lost when he has gone to be with Jesus?”

That’s the part you have to settle while you are alive. It’s not tragic if we know where they are. We have to settle on where we are going.

Until you are ready to deal with the question of your eternity then you are not prepared to deal with your death. Here is a way to explain it: Have you ever worked on a jigsaw puzzle? What do you do before you start putting pieces together? You start with the picture on the box in front of you. With the focus, you are able to make the crazy pieces make sense and as you connect them, you can see the big picture alongside the little pieces. If you don’t have the right box top in front of you while you are living, then life is confusing. The pieces don’t fit together.

Eternity is confusing, and how to get to heaven is confusing.

You need the correct box top in front of you. The way not to see life and tragedy as confusing is to see it from an eternal perspective. It is to set the box top in front of you—to put the Bible and Jesus in front of you and define the little pieces with the big picture, God’s picture.