Thoughts from Mark "Hat" Rackley

“Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword.  For I have come to turn
“‘a man against his father,
    a daughter against her mother,
a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law—
    a man’s enemies will be the members of his own household.’
“Anyone who loves their father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves their son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.  Whoever does not take up their cross and follow me is not worthy of me.  Whoever finds their life will lose it, and whoever loses their life for my sake will find it.

• Matthew 10:34-39

John wore clothing made of camel’s hair, with a leather belt around his waist, and he ate locusts and wild honey.  And this was his message: “After me comes the one more powerful than I, the straps of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie.  I baptize you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”

• Mark 1:6-8

Then I looked and heard the voice of many angels, numbering thousands upon thousands, and ten thousand times ten thousand.  They encircled the throne and the living creatures and the elders.  In a loud voice they were saying:
“Worthy is the Lamb, who was slain,
    to receive power and wealth and wisdom and strength
    and honor and glory and praise!”

• Revelation 5:11-12

The three Scriptures above have the word “worthy” in them.  That answers that question.  ..  Oh!  You wanted more?

No, my wife and I had a shouting match on her way to dialysis a couple of weeks ago.  I was thinking out loud about a post that I wanted to write.  At this point, I cannot even remember the subject or whether I wrote the intended post.  Actually, doubting if I did.  But each time that I tried to say a sentence, she would interrupt by bickering about how I could not write about that, because she knew I was guilty.  She had seen me squeezing through on a yellow light and it turned red before I was out of the intersection!  (In Germany, you have run the light if you enter the intersection on the yellow or red.  You know, past the line that in Pittsburgh, three cars are past every time.)  She had heard my sins when a bad word crossed my lips when I had to go into the ditch to avoid an accident!  Not using God’s name in vain, but not polite language, nonetheless.  She was trying to include all my past sins, some I had forgotten about – almost.  She was also trying something she had never done in her life, SHOUT!  She was seeing if it could release the stress inside her and lower her anxiety levels – a failure.  I became unnerved, pulled the car over, and told her that she could walk to dialysis on her own.  I started driving before she got out, but the mood became eerily somber.

Yes, people who have been happily married for nearly 46 years can have such spats.

So, I think that it is time that I make a confession that really does not need to be made, because we all know whether we are truly worthy.  …

I am a sinner.  I am not worthy of God’s Love.  I screw up.  And since I constantly get reminded of my screw ups, I am well aware that I fall short of the mark.

I am not worthy of salvation.  God, in His love for me, had Jesus die in my place, one death for many.

But am I worthy to write about living the Christian life?

Maybe, just maybe, because I have screwed up so often, I might be able to write about how you can, with the help of Jesus within you, pick yourself up and keep going.  You see, I am not worthy of salvation – on my own – I am MADE worthy through the blood of Christ Jesus.  Don’t ask me how.  I do not want to know the how.  When you get something that you should not be getting because you are unworthy, you don’t ask such questions.

So, as you read the 1380 posts (roughly at the time it gets posted) on this site, or just a few of them, there are some things that I write about where I have suffered but I am reaching the far shore on that one little problem.  And then there are those things that while I might point to a problem that needs fixing in each of our lives, I have three fingers pointing back at me.  Sometimes, I even admit it.

All who loves anyone or anything more than Jesus is not worthy of Jesus, not worthy of salvation.  John the Baptist (or Baptizer) knew that he was not worthy.  Only Jesus is worthy.  He is the only One without sin.  I have heard people like Mark Lowry define evangelism as being one beggar telling another beggar where to find bread.  So, other than the fact that these Scriptures all have the word “worthy” in them, they all point to Jesus being worthy, and we can be made worthy only by having Jesus within us, by accepting Him as our Savior and loving Him more than life itself.

I am a sinner and not worthy of the great gift Jesus has given me.  The gift of having my sins washed away, so that Jesus can lift me up as a brother.

Soli Deo Gloria.  Only to God be the Glory.