August 20th, 2024
by John Kelley
by John Kelley
Last night was the first night this summer where I’ve had to wear a hoodie on my back porch. It was a reminder that we are about a month away from fall. Temps are starting to drop. Soon, the leaves will begin to turn, and everyone will start lighting up their firepits in the evening. College and pro football games are back. Fall festivals and school activities are going to be in full swing. Fall has to be my favorite season of the year. This also means that backpacking season is here.
When you live in the south, summer is the worst time for backpacking. Ninety-five-degree days and eighty-degree nights with 95% humidity makes for a very uncomfortable backpacking trip. Everything gets wet from the humidity, and you sweat so much that you just can’t get comfortable at night. I don’t know if there’s anything quite as miserable as sleeping in a pool of your own sweat. Thankfully, there’s a large portion of the year where that’s not the case.
Of all the things that make fall the greatest season of the year, my favorite thing has to be fall colors. When the leaves change from green to red, orange, and yellow, it’s almost magical. The fall landscape looks more like something out of a painting than something that occurs naturally. The strange, underlying truth about fall, however, is that the leaves from those trees are dying. Shortly after showing off their amazing, beautiful colors, they will fall from the trees and die. Only God could make something so beautiful out of death. Isn’t that the basis of our faith, anyway? Each week, we come together as one people to celebrate a death. We sing songs about it. We preach about it. We wear crosses around our necks. We take communion to remember it.
As it was happening, Jesus’ death on a cross was one of the most gruesome of all the Roman crucifixions. According to some Jewish history accounts, Jesus was beaten to the point of being almost unrecognizable. He was already close to death before He was even nailed to it. Then He hung there, dripping in blood, and crying out to His Father. People were screaming profanities at him while others were weeping bitterly. This was not anything like looking at the fall colors. It was a nightmare scenario. Yet, it was in this moment, where God showed us the beauty of His love for us.
For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die— but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
Romans 5:6–8
Jesus didn’t die for the perfect. He died for the selfish, spiteful, undeserving, and hateful. He died to give us hope. He died to make the imperfect perfect. Even with all of the horrible things that were happening that day, God made it beautiful. He took something that we would compare to a hangman’s noose or an electric chair and made it the symbol of our faith. Only God could pull off something like that. He brought life from death.
But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.
Ephesians 2:4–7
One thing I’ve learned about God is that He does everything with intention. Nothing is an accident. If we just step back and look at creation, we can very easily see how the theme of death to life has always been there. The best meat is always the freshest meat. In other words, the closer that meat is to death, the better it will taste and the better it will be for you. It’s the same way with vegetation. The sooner we eat it after being removed from its life-source, the better it will be in taste and nutrition. Some of the best fertilizer you can use comes from previously living sources. The food we eat had to eat something else that was once alive. Without death there is no life. That’s why we’re finding out that manufactured sources of food can be the cause of disease; cancer, heart disease and diabetes. When we don’t do things the way God intended, the outcome is rarely ideal.
It’s the same with sin. God wants us to do things that bring life. In order for that to happen, we have to die to our sin and worldly desires.
I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.
Galatians 2:20
For the death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God. So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.
Romans 6:10–11
In order to live in a way that brings life to you, your family, and your eternity, we must first die. We have to die to our old selves, to our sin, to our worldly nature. When we do that, we are ready to live lives that produce fruit, not disease. We become life-givers who have a message of hope for a world that is looking for life in all the most unnatural ways. Everyone wants to love and be loved, but just like the food we ingest, we can’t look for it in unnatural, manufactured places. True love has one source, and that is Jesus Christ.
…but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
Romans 5:8
Only God can make death beautiful. Only God can turn death to life.
When you live in the south, summer is the worst time for backpacking. Ninety-five-degree days and eighty-degree nights with 95% humidity makes for a very uncomfortable backpacking trip. Everything gets wet from the humidity, and you sweat so much that you just can’t get comfortable at night. I don’t know if there’s anything quite as miserable as sleeping in a pool of your own sweat. Thankfully, there’s a large portion of the year where that’s not the case.
Of all the things that make fall the greatest season of the year, my favorite thing has to be fall colors. When the leaves change from green to red, orange, and yellow, it’s almost magical. The fall landscape looks more like something out of a painting than something that occurs naturally. The strange, underlying truth about fall, however, is that the leaves from those trees are dying. Shortly after showing off their amazing, beautiful colors, they will fall from the trees and die. Only God could make something so beautiful out of death. Isn’t that the basis of our faith, anyway? Each week, we come together as one people to celebrate a death. We sing songs about it. We preach about it. We wear crosses around our necks. We take communion to remember it.
As it was happening, Jesus’ death on a cross was one of the most gruesome of all the Roman crucifixions. According to some Jewish history accounts, Jesus was beaten to the point of being almost unrecognizable. He was already close to death before He was even nailed to it. Then He hung there, dripping in blood, and crying out to His Father. People were screaming profanities at him while others were weeping bitterly. This was not anything like looking at the fall colors. It was a nightmare scenario. Yet, it was in this moment, where God showed us the beauty of His love for us.
For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die— but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
Romans 5:6–8
Jesus didn’t die for the perfect. He died for the selfish, spiteful, undeserving, and hateful. He died to give us hope. He died to make the imperfect perfect. Even with all of the horrible things that were happening that day, God made it beautiful. He took something that we would compare to a hangman’s noose or an electric chair and made it the symbol of our faith. Only God could pull off something like that. He brought life from death.
But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.
Ephesians 2:4–7
One thing I’ve learned about God is that He does everything with intention. Nothing is an accident. If we just step back and look at creation, we can very easily see how the theme of death to life has always been there. The best meat is always the freshest meat. In other words, the closer that meat is to death, the better it will taste and the better it will be for you. It’s the same way with vegetation. The sooner we eat it after being removed from its life-source, the better it will be in taste and nutrition. Some of the best fertilizer you can use comes from previously living sources. The food we eat had to eat something else that was once alive. Without death there is no life. That’s why we’re finding out that manufactured sources of food can be the cause of disease; cancer, heart disease and diabetes. When we don’t do things the way God intended, the outcome is rarely ideal.
It’s the same with sin. God wants us to do things that bring life. In order for that to happen, we have to die to our sin and worldly desires.
I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.
Galatians 2:20
For the death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God. So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.
Romans 6:10–11
In order to live in a way that brings life to you, your family, and your eternity, we must first die. We have to die to our old selves, to our sin, to our worldly nature. When we do that, we are ready to live lives that produce fruit, not disease. We become life-givers who have a message of hope for a world that is looking for life in all the most unnatural ways. Everyone wants to love and be loved, but just like the food we ingest, we can’t look for it in unnatural, manufactured places. True love has one source, and that is Jesus Christ.
…but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
Romans 5:8
Only God can make death beautiful. Only God can turn death to life.
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