Life Isn't Always Fair

The following comes from my book, MORE Amazing Stories & Daily Devotionals

In a NCAA Division II cross-country championship in California, Mike Delcavo and 127 runners came to a fork in the road. Mike and four others took the correct route and veered left. But the majority of runners missed the turn and took the shorter path, which shaved about 1,000 meters off the 10,000-meter race.

Mike and the four runners who followed him soon reunited with the larger pack. Since most of the runners took the shorter route, they were now in the lead. At the end of the race, Delcavo, who was the fastest runner, should have been declared the winner and the other runners should have been disqualified for leaving the correct course.

Because 122 runners took the wrong route, it presented a problem for the officials. How did they resolve it? Even though the race was over, they decided to change the official course route to legitimatize the runners who took the shortcut! Instead of Delcavo finishing first, the official results show he finished 123 out of 128.

The officials solved their problem by changing the rules and turning the wrong course into the right one. The decision wasn’t fair, but it sure made the runners who took the shortcut happy.

We live in an upside-down world that tells us the wrong path is the right one. “There is a way which seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death” (Prov. 14:12). What was believed to be wrong a few decades ago is considered to be right by some people today, and what was considered right is now called wrong. Isaiah said, “Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil, who substitute darkness for light and light for darkness, who substitute bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter” (Isa. 5:20).  

It’s easy to follow the large group that’s running the wrong way, but it takes courage to stay on the right path and live for the Lord. Paul writes, “If someone competes as an athlete, he does not win the prize unless he competes according to the rules (2 Tim. 2:5). And we all should play by God’s rules. www.makinglifecount.net   www.kentcrockett.blogspot.com

Even Caesar Confirmed the Resurrection

After Christ’s Resurrection, a Roman Emperor issued a decree for people to stop stealing bodies from Judah’s sepulchers. Without realizing it, he was confirming Christ’s Resurrection! The Nazareth Inscription is a powerful piece of extrabiblical evidence that Christ’s Resurrection was already being proclaimed shortly after He was raised.

The inscription is on a marble tablet written in Greek. Since the discovery was published in 1930, no scholar has produced evidence to disprove its authenticity. It’s an abridged decree by either Tiberius (14-37 AD) or Claudius (41–54 AD), pronouncing the death penalty in Israel for anyone caught robbing bodies from tombs. (Normally, grave robbers stole valuables, not bodies!) It refers specifically to “sepulcher sealing tombs,” a special type used in Israel.

This “Decree of Caesar” is known as an imperial rescript, having the force of law. Rescripts frequently dealt with unusual legal, religious, or political issues arising in a specific region. The text fits both the style and structure of other rescripts of Claudius. Matthew records one of the first responses to reports of Jesus’ Resurrection. The Jewish authorities invented a lie that the disciples had stolen the body (Matt. 28:13). Their goal was to spread an alternative story explaining why the body was missing and the tomb was empty. The Nazareth Inscription is very likely the Roman response to that very same problem.

In his dialogue with a nonbelieving Jew, Justin Martyr (AD 100–165) also refers to these early attempts to explain away the empty tomb of Jesus: “Yet you not only have not repented, after you learned that He rose from the dead, but, as I said before you have sent chosen and ordained men throughout all the world to proclaim that a godless and lawless heresy had sprung from one Jesus, a Galilean deceiver, whom we crucified, but his disciples stole him by night from the tomb, where he was laid when unfastened from the cross, and now deceive men by asserting that he has risen from the dead and ascended to heaven.”

The Nazareth Inscription forces skeptics to deal more deeply with the two major competing views of events: believing in the Resurrection of Christ or believing that His disciples stole His body from the tomb to perpetrate a great religious fraud. The account of Christ’s Resurrection was first circulated by the Apostles themselves, according to Scripture, and it was not a later invention by Christians of the post-apostolic period. The inscription is excellent evidence confirming this truth, and it brings to mind Paul’s statement, “If Christ is not risen … your faith is in vain” (1 Cor. 15:14). (Henry B. Smith, Answers in Genesis, April 1, 2015)  www.makinglifecount.net www.kentcrockett.blogspot.com  

Betrayal is the Most Painful Kind of Rejection

The following comes from my book, MORE Amazing Stories & Daily Devotionals

Before cell phones, my Christian friend Carl received an anonymous phone call. The caller said, “You don’t know me, but I have proof that your wife has been cheating on you. You’ll find an envelope taped to the dumpster behind the movie theater. Inside it you’ll find a cassette tape of phone conversations between your wife and her lover.”

Carl thought it had to be a prank call. He loved his wife and shuddered at the idea that she would be unfaithful. But just to be sure, Carl drove to the theater and walked around to the back of the dumpster. Sure enough, an envelope was hanging on it with a cassette tape inside.

He listened to the tape and the conversations verified the informant was indeed correct. Carl was devastated to find out his wife really was having a secret affair. She later divorced him and married the other man. To this day, Carl has no idea as to the identity of the man who called him, or how he got the taped phone conversations.

Betrayal is the most painful kind of rejection because it involves both hypocrisy and a violation of trust. At the Last Supper, Jesus held up bread and told His disciples, “This is my body.” As they were eating, Jesus handed Judas a piece of bread, which signified that Jesus was handing over His body to His betrayer. At that moment, Satan entered Judas (John 13:26-27).

The chief priests and elders had paid Judas 30 pieces of silver to betray Jesus. Later, Judas felt remorse and tried to return the money coins to the chief priests by throwing the coins into the sanctuary (Matt. 27:3). In the most extreme hypocrisy, the elders said, “It is not lawful to put them in the temple treasury, since it is money paid for blood” (27:6). They ignored the fact that they were the ones who paid Judas the money in the first place! In their minds, it was a crime to put blood money in the temple treasury, but it wasn’t a crime to pay Judas to shed Jesus’ innocent blood.

So what did they do with the money? They came up with an idea to make them look like they were doing a good deed for the community. They used the money to buy a potter’s field to bury strangers (27:7). How nice of them.

Judas’s betrayal didn’t stop God’s plan for Jesus from being fulfilled. And if you’ve been betrayed, God still has a good plan for you. What about Carl? He married a Christian woman and has been happily married for years. If you’ve been betrayed, don’t become bitter. Ask God to make your situation even better than it was before.  www.makinglifecount.net www.kentcrockett.blogspot.com  

Do You See What Actually Happened There?

The following comes from my book, MORE Amazing Stories & Daily Devotionals

The Archbishop of Paris was preaching to a large congregation in Notre Dame cathedral. He told the story of three rebellious young men who wandered into the cathedral one day. Two of the men made a bet with the third man that he would not make a fake confession to the priest. He accepted the bet and went to the priest for confession, making up a story about a sin he had committed.

When he finished, the priest said, “Go to the crucifix over there, kneel down before it, and repeat three times, ‘All this you did for me and I don’t really care.’” The young man knelt before the crucifix, looked up at the face of Jesus on the cross and said, “All this you did for me, and I …”

He choked up and tried again. “All this you did ...” He couldn’t go any further. His heart broke and he started sobbing. For the first time in his life, he understood what Jesus had done for him by sacrificing His life. The archbishop finished his sermon by saying, “You might think I made up this story, but it’s true. I was that young man!”

What should we see when we look at the cross? We see Jesus taking our sins upon Himself. “He Himself bore our sins in His body up on the cross, so that we might die to sin and live for righteousness” (1 Peter 2:14). We see Him opening the door into heaven “so that He might bring us to God” (1 Peter 3:18). Jesus didn’t have to die for us, but He did, so that we could spend eternity with Him. 

People who look at the cross and walk away unchanged do not see what happened there. Do you see it? Do you see what actually happened at the cross? Most people don’t see it. I hope you do. www.makinglifecount.net www.kentcrockett.blogspot.com