Thoughts from Mark "Hat" Rackley

Now while he was in Jerusalem at the Passover Festival, many people saw the signs he was performing and believed in his name. But Jesus would not entrust himself to them, for he knew all people. He did not need any testimony about mankind, for he knew what was in each person.

• John 2:23-25

“Our Lord seemed to go so easily and calmly amongst all kinds of men-when He met a man who could sink to the level of Judas He never turned cynical, never lost heart or got discouraged; and when He met a loyal loving heart like John’s He was not unduly elated, He never overpraised him. When we meet extra goodness we feel amazingly hopeful about everybody, and when we meet extra badness we feel exactly the opposite; but Jesus ‘knew what was in man’. He knew exactly what human beings were like and what they needed; and he saw in them something no one else ever saw-hope for the most degraded. Jesus had a tremendous hopefulness about man.”

• Oswald Chambers, Daily Thoughts for Disciples (March 5, from Conformed to His Image)

I wrote not long ago that there might be many superheroes that would give up one superpower or another to be able to know the hearts of mankind.

Actually, that might be a nightmare.  You would be hearing hundreds of people lusting, greedily thinking how they might cheat on their taxes, coveting the neighbor’s lush green lawn, thinking of lies to cover for not fulfilling a promise.  Hundreds, thousands, of those thoughts every second of every day.  Not that we think them constantly, but there are 24 time zones on earth.  Hundreds and thousands or even hundreds of thousands are thinking those things every second.

But if we could see the top ten things on one person’s mind just as we are about to shake his hand, would we recoil our hand in horror?

But as Oswald Chambers said about Jesus, He understood mankind.  He knew the person’s heart.  He did not recoil from the sinner, nor did He praise the righteous man too much.

The way to raise a child these days is to provide an invisible fence.  Give them the concept that there is no boundary.  But then you redirect them when they are close to the boundary they cannot see.  Redirecting them becomes a form of reward.  They become starved for attention.  Thus, roaming toward and beyond the boundary gets the parent to pay attention to them.

While the parent is worried about their self-esteem, they already have self-esteem for twenty children their age in reserve.  They have become the puppet master, and the parent has become the puppet.  They have never been disciplined in a manner to reverse that concept, and that manner changes from one child to the next.  The problem is trying to find out what they crave more than life itself.  When they are sent to their room, they spend the next few hours trying to figure out where they went wrong.  Not to be good the next time, but to not get caught.

After all, the parents have said while driving that the speed limit is just a suggestion and nothing is against the law if you do not get caught.  These arrogant terrors who go to elementary school and middle school are learning from their parents.  Not in what they say, but in what they do.

But it comes back to that concept of what they crave more than life itself.  When God gets our attention by one form of punishment or another.  Okay, maybe not punishment for the believer but a test of faith…  God either gets our attention or He does not.  If we are arrogant enough to think we do not need God, God may never get our attention unless He removes that thing which we crave more than life itself.

The Holy Spirit has a way of doing that for those who turn, falling on their knees, and then laying prostrate on the ground, crying, “Lord, forgive me.  I have sinned.”

But not everyone does that.  Some of these arrogant people think that when they get to Heaven, their surroundings will be brighter than before, for they have arrived to brighten the day for others.

But if that is what they are thinking, they will never sniff the aroma of Heaven that spreads for hundreds of miles around.

As Rev. Chambers said, we should not overreact to the good or bad in man, but knowing what is in the person’s heart might just scare the ever-loving tootle out of us.

Soli Deo Gloria.  Only to God be the Glory.