Month: June 2025

WHEN IT’S ALL BEEN SAID AND DONE
Robin Mark

When it’s all been said and done, there is just one thing that matters.
Did I do my best to live for truth?  Did I live my life for you?

When it’s all been said and done, all my treasures will mean nothing.
Only what I’ve done for love’s reward will stand the test of time.

Lord, your mercy is so great that you look beyond our weakness
And find purest gold in miry clay, turning sinners into saints.

I will always sing your praise, here on earth and Heaven after,
For you’ve shown me Heaven’s my true home.
When it’s all been said and done, You’re my life when life is done.

When it’s all been said and done, there is just one thing that matters.
Did I do my best to live for truth?  Did I live my life for you? 
Lord, I’ll live my life for You.

Philippians 3: 7-11 Phillips Yet every advantage that I had gained I considered lost for Christ’s sake. Yes, and I look upon everything as loss compared with the overwhelming gain of knowing Jesus Christ my Lord. For his sake I did in actual fact suffer the loss of everything, but I considered it useless rubbish compared with being able to win Christ. For now my place is in Him, and I am not dependent upon any of the self-achieved righteousness of the Law. God has given me that genuine righteousness which comes from faith in Christ. How changed are my ambitions! Now I long to know Christ and the power shown by his resurrection: now I long to share his sufferings, even to die as he died, so that I may perhaps attain as he did, the resurrection from the dead.

Observation

“How changed are my ambitions!”   The Apostle Paul lost much.  He was a Pharisee of high esteem and position, a student of Gamaliel, one of the most highly regarded teachers of Judaism and the Law.  Paul made it his mission to persecute the followers of Jesus, considered a dangerous heretic by religious authorities.  Paul’s conversion to Christianity would have obliterated all he had gained in his old life and accomplishments to leave him now marked as a dangerous heretic.   He counted the loss of the “useless rubbish” of rooting his worth and significance in worldly accomplishments as gain because he now found his significance and worth in truly serving God.  “I look upon everything as loss compared with the overwhelming gain of knowing Jesus Christ my Lord.”

Getting to this place in our lives is part of the sanctification process – that pruning away of the old growth branches of our lives to allow for new growth in godliness.  This process takes time, effort, commitment and sacrifice.  It is our lifelong pursuit from the moment of embracing our redemption in Christ.  It is not easy to let go of the recognition and even praise from our families, our peers, our society, for achievements that make sense to them.  It is not easy to exchange our achievements that mark success in our social sphere to become fruitful in the Kingdom of God.  It was not easy for Paul to lose it all.  It was almost unbearable for Jesus to bear the pain, suffering and shame of the Cross, but He considered it worth doing for our sakes.  If we are asked to give up our position, power, and praise, are we willing to bear the shame and sacrifice required to say “yes” to God’s plan and purpose for each of our lives?

Impact on Me

“We are called to be fruitful – not successful, not productive, not accomplished. Success comes from strength, stress, and human effort. Fruitfulness comes from vulnerability and the admission of our own weakness.” ~ Henri Nouwen

I think about people who are willing to be humbled, stripped of earthly successes and even shamed for the sake of allowing others to see Jesus living in and through them.  I try to be careful not to weigh my responses by what benefit I will gain from my actions.  This includes doing things to gain kudos from my Christian community.  False humility is really pride in another costume when I allow others to lift up my accomplishments, my kindnesses, my sacrifices (my own successes) rather than thanking the Lord for what He has done in and through me (my fruitfulness).  There is nothing wrong with receiving recognition for acts of  generosity, service and exercise of my skills, but there is something wrong when the recognition is the motivation behind giving in the first place.  This is one of those fine lines where I have to make sure that I am listening to the Lord and not the deceiver who is exceedingly sly. 

Devotion

Lord God, All-Powerful, All-Knowing, Father of Mercy and Grace, I come humbly before You in gratitude that You allow me to be one of Your instruments in bringing Your Kingdom on earth.  I can do nothing good that doesn’t come from You.  I place my skills and abilities, my time and energy, on Your altar for Your use.  I pray that You will watch and guide me so I can stay out of the way of the Holy Spirit accomplishing His will and purpose in and through me.  Never let me dare to steal any of Your praise by forgetting that I am just the instrument in Your hand.  In Jesus’ name, I pray.

Romans 12:1-2 NKJV  I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. ² And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.

Romans 12:1-2 Phillips With eyes wide open to the mercies of God, I beg you, my brothers, as an act of intelligent worship, to give him your bodies, as a living sacrifice, consecrated to him and acceptable by him. Don’t let the world around you squeeze you into its own mould, but let God re-mould your minds from within, so that you may prove in practice that the plan of God for you is good, meets all his demands and moves towards the goal of true maturity.

Romans 12:1-2 MSG So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.

Observation

I include the same verses from three translations here to make a point.  All of them express the same request (submit completely to the Holy Spirit’s work in you) and promise the same result (spiritual maturity).  As with all of us, each translator expresses himself/herself in their own unique way.  Being “conformed to this world”, allowing the world/culture to “squeeze you into its own mould” or becoming “so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking” – which one creates a better picture for you of how the culture around us will change us if we don’t submit ourselves to God and allow the Holy Spirit to be in charge of how we represent Jesus by our lives in this world? 

These verses are about becoming like Jesus – choosing to be a living sacrifice – taking our everyday, ordinary life and placing it before God as an offering.  Paul makes it clear that becoming like Jesus is not automatic, easy, comfortable or for the faint of heart.  Becoming more like Jesus is an on purpose sacrifice of fitting in with the culture of the world in which we live.  Not only can we not fit in with the obvious evil we see, but we must also be willing to turn over the tables (the sacred cows) of religion.  Neither is easy, but both are necessary if we want to follow in the footsteps of Jesus.

Impact on Me

I am a person who wants shalom, but shalom is much different than peace-keeping.  Shalom is peace-making.  As a matter of fact, achieving shalom often requires standing up for the unpopular truth, being misunderstood by even those I love.  My culture wants me to be “kind and merciful” enough to forget that human goodness does not gain heaven on its own.  My culture wants me to accept sinful conduct as the norm because “everybody is doing it.”  Rather than judging and condemning them, does my heart ache to see those redeemed who are blinded by my culture?    God’s heart ached so for all humankind that Jesus, God made Man, made the great sacrifice of dying for us all.  How can I help them to come face-to-face with Jesus?

So, for me shalom, that redemptive wholeness of living in the presence of God, comes from learning to be a peace-maker – being a forgiver, turning the other cheek, becoming difficult to offend, going the extra mile, praying for those who spitefully use me, seeing past the behavior of a person to recognize a soul that needs healing and redemption, and so much more.  These are the types of sacrifices Paul is asking me to make – counter to my worldly culture but representing pure heaven-culture.

Devotion

Everlasting Father, God of Love and Mercy, Redeemer, Lord of All, Your goodness and mercy chases after me even when I think I don’t deserve it.  Give me the heart of Jesus for the outcasts as well as the “in group” (cultural influencers) who are blinded by this worldly culture.  Give me Jesus’ insight into the wounded and confused souls of those who might be offensive or disrespectful to me so I might have compassion for them.  Make me a peace-maker so that Jesus can continue His redemptive work in and through me – “The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because He has anointed Me to preach the gospel to the poor;  He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed; ¹⁹  to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord.” (Luke 4:18-19 NKJV)  In Jesus’ name, I pray.

Hebrews 4:12-13 NIV  For the word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart. Nothing in all creation is hidden from God’s sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give account.

Hebrews 4:12-13 PHILLIPS  For the Word that God speaks is alive and active; it cuts more keenly than any two-edged sword: it strikes through to the place where soul and spirit meet, to the innermost intimacies of a man’s being: it exposes the very thoughts and motives of a man’s heart. No creature has any cover from the sight of God; everything lies naked and exposed before the eyes of him with whom we have to do.

Observation

According to these verses, there is nowhere one can hide and nothing one can keep secret from God; He sees and judges it all – “the innermost intimacies of a man’s being.”.  For some, this would be terrifying because they don’t know and understand the nature of this God of ours.  They expect Him to be like us, having a human nature, and find this level of transparency and judgment unnerving and even threatening. What human can be trusted with complete knowledge of another – every thought and intent of the heart, every secret act, every shameful regret?  This kind of complete knowledge would give too much power to another by revealing the ugliest and most fearful, shameful, embarrassing secrets we work diligently to hold safe and secret within the dark, locked closets of our own soul.  Our safety, our future, our success, even our very life, would depend upon the nature and character of the person – good or bad – who had such power over us. 

For someone who understands our God as angry, stern or unyielding in His demands for perfection, this verse cuts in a way that further wounds and oppresses. For those who understand our God as just, merciful and loving, this verse cuts in a way to free them from their burden of sin as they come again and again to expose themselves in sincere repentance and be judged by Him, knowing that they have an Advocate Who does understand what it is to be human and guarantees the result will be mercy and grace.  The verses immediately following give us hope. “So then, since we have a great High Priest who has entered heaven, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to what we believe. This High Priest of ours understands our weaknesses, for he faced all of the same testings we do, yet he did not sin. So let us come boldly to the throne of our gracious God. There we will receive his mercy, and we will find grace to help us when we need it most.” (Hebrews 4:14-16 NLT).

Impact on Me

 This is a passage of Scripture that always arrests me as I read. I must stop and consider the sacrifice made to make this possible – not only the Cross but also asking His Son to become a vulnerable infant and grow up, experiencing life as a human so He could understand us, emotionally, physically, actually, and be our passionate advocate before Father God. Is it so much of a sacrifice for me to trust a God like this – One Who fully knows my deepest secret regrets, failings, betrayals and yet still loves me past reason?  Why am I still holding on to painful secrets that He already knows?  I must ask myself if I trust Him enough to relinquish to the Holy Spirit the keys to every dark, locked closet in my soul so He can clean out all the ugliness and shame. I must ask myself if I truly trust that Jesus will still advocate for me regardless of what He finds hidden in those closets – no matter how shameful, ugly, horrible or disgusting.

Do I truly believe He already knew my deepest, darkest secrets, my imperfections, my failings, my shame and, yet, still loved me enough to die for me before I knew Him as Savior?  What about when I fail Him now, slapping Him in the face by choosing my own way?  Will He turn the other cheek and advocate for me before the Father when I recognize my foolishness and come again to ask for mercy and forgiveness?    This passage of Scripture says, “YES!!”  Being transparent, exposed, judged by such a God as ours is not a risk, but, rather, a benefit; He is always just, merciful, faithful and full of grace for His children.

Devotion

 Lord, You are gracious, merciful and just – King of all kings, Lord of all, the Everlasting, All-Powerful God. You are the One Who knows me inside and out and yet still loves me. I marvel that You would have Your eyes on me, care about my moments, hear me when I call. Who am I?  Yet, when I come repentant, seeking forgiveness, grace and mercy, You always have time and a heart for me. Help me to trust You, invite You in, open my deepest, darkness, most sensitive places to You that, in my transparent exposure, complete trust, before You, I can truly be set free. Fill me with the boldness and courage to do just this. I ask it all in the name of Jesus. Make it so.