Lent Devotions
Lent Week Two
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Second Sunday of Lent

If you are doing the Lenten Cross – light all but one. I am starting from the bottom, it seems symbolic to me. Here’s a photo of my cross:

The Second Sunday of Lent
The final words of Jesus
“Today you will be with me in Paradise”

Music
Pass Me not Oh Gentle Savior – Don Moen

Scripture
Luke 23:43 Holman Christian Standard Bible (HCSB)
43 And He said to him, “I assure you: Today you will be with Me in paradise.”

Devotion
I want to break this down by word.
Today -Jesus isn’t saying that sometime in the future or even tomorrow. Jesus is saying to this man, who has repented(confessed his sins) while hanging on the cross next to Jesus, today you will be with me in Paradise. This man knew he was a sinner. This man probably knew that according to the law he was going to hell. This man acknowledged Jesus as the son of God and asked him to forgive him.(Luke 23:39-43). Jesus’s response was today…TO HIM!

You – Jesus isn’t saying that the other thief was going to be with him in Paradise. Jesus isn’t saying that the ones who put him on the cross would be with him in Paradise. Jesus is speaking specifically to this man, who had declared his faith in Jesus, confessed that he was a sinner, and asked to be delivered. Jesus could have called him by name I’m sure, but the way we have it written is you.

YOU! THIS IS A PERSONAL PROMISE! This is a conversation and a promise from Jesus Christ to the thief as Jesus Christ was dying for his sins for him. As we know later in the story Jesus dies before the two thieves do and therefore Jesus paid the price before the thief died and therefore again, Jesus died first, paid the price and then the thief died and he went to Paradise to be with Jesus. Talk about a last minute conversion! Yet, that is all it takes to be promised life in Jesus! Recognize you are a sinner, repentance(in this case, confession and sorry), confess that Jesus is Lord, Wait – the next part of that verse is believe that God raised him from the dead! Romans 10:9 The thief was confessing Jesus BEFORE the prophecy was even fulfilled! The thief was confessing something that even those that had walked with Jesus were not sure about! The ultimate death bed confession! WOW!

WILL BE – this might be a bit nit-picky, but I’m going to say it anyway: will be.
Today.
you.
will be.
It’s not today you might be. It’s not today you could be. It’s today you WILL BE with me in Paradise. These are the words of Jesus Christ, the son of the Living God, the God whose word spoke creation into being, the One who is the way, the truth and the light and life, and God cannot lie! Jesus was not just saying something to make him feel good. Jesus wasn’t just using some strange turn of phrase to sound good in the King James version. When Jesus said that the thief will be with me in Paradise that’s what he meant.
He meant I’m going to die and pay the price.
Then, you’re going to die, and your sins will be forgiven and
then, you will be with me in Paradise.

Let every man be a liar but God is faithful and cannot lie(Romans 3:4; Num 23:19). What an amazing confirmation for this man as he hangs on the cross next to the man that he’s committing his life to, or what is left of it.

WITH ME – the need for Salvation is that by sin we are separated from God. That’s what happened with Adam and Eve in the garden.
They disobeyed God,
He had to remove them from the garden or Paradise, and
they no longer got to walk with him in the evening and
no longer had perfect fellowship with him.

Somehow Enoch walked with God and ended up being raptured/taken up.
Elijah had some amazing relationship with God that the Chariot came and picked him up and took him up to heaven.

We are not able to walk with God in the way that Adam and Eve did in the garden,  or not willing to walk with God in the way that  Enoch, Elijah, or even Moses – the friend of God – did.
Even so, our human nature does desire some sort of connection with the supernatural and that is our heart cry for us to be with God.

The thief just declared that Jesus was the son of God and was not a sinner and asked him to take him to his kingdom. In the midst of dying, Jesus looks at him and says you will be with me.  I imagine a life of crime would be one that’s very lonely. Always looking over your shoulder and such like and whatever drove the man to a life of crime would be something that again would cause extreme loneliness.

In my life, having mental illness and having a history of abuse and some other things have caused me to be peculiar enough that I have spent much time being lonely. There are people that would say “yeah I’ll be with you” and they are until life gets rough or until the second or third time I have had to back out of something because of an anxiety attack or migraine or pain or whatever. Sometimes it takes 10 to 12 times and yet I’m not someone that they can just call up and say “hey, Let’s go do this or that” and I can drop everything and go. People get tired that I have disabilities and difficulties.

Even worse than that, because of a life of low self-esteem and self-loathing, I’m constantly dealing with “what if they find out who I really am they won’t like me and they will desert me.” These are called cognitive distortions and yet they are real, and they make for a very very lonely existence. It only takes a few times where somebody actually makes good on what are supposedly cognitive distortion lies to re-establish those cognitive distortions that “everybody hates, me nobody likes me, I think I’ll go eat worms!”

Here’s this thief. Thieves are not cared for in the least. Think about how in the old west the cattle rustlers were despicable, horse thieves where despicable all because they stole the livelihood of others. There was no insurance policies for someone who was robbed back in Jesus’s day. Someone steals something from you and it’s gone and if that was the only something you had, now you are in a world of hurt.
I think about Matthew the tax collector or Zacchaeus, and how they were hated because they were tax collectors and they took extra. They were kind of government sanctioned thieves. The Pharisees were constantly ridiculing Jesus for spending his time with publicans and sinners and that if Jesus was actually the Son of God he would never spend time with these type of people.

Jesus stating to this thief that he would be with him speaks volumes

IN PARADISE – This can get very tricky because of various theological viewpoints. There is some question as to where was Abraham when the Lazarus the poor man died and the rich man came and said send him to talk to my brothers and Lazarus was in Abraham’s bosom(Luke 16:19-31).

• Some think that that was Hades, a waiting place until Christ died on the cross and brought them back up taking them to heaven.
• Some think that there is a place that’s not quite the kingdom of heaven but is not hell and it’s waiting place that when Christ returns in the Rapture and he calls up and then the dead in Christ will rise first will come up and meet him in the clouds.
• There’s the Catholic perspective of purgatory and I don’t know enough about that to speak on it.

There is the statement in Ephesians 1:20 where Christ is seated at the right hand of God and we are seated in the heavenlies with him now(Ephesians 2:6)? Is that figurative because we’re not there yet or when Stephen saw Jesus sitting at the right hand of God(Acts 7:56) just before he was stoned, was that stating that Jesus had died on the cross, he gone to set the dead free and then he went up ascended into heaven? That is what happens in Acts 1:9-11 and Jesus is seated at the right hand of God.  Then there’s the passage in Revelations where the martyrs are under the altar asking God “how long do we have to wait before judgment comes on the world?” Revelations 6:9-11.  All of this to say there’s a lot of variations out there to believe, to research and to decide on.

For what it’s worth here’s my take.

Where Jesus is is Paradise.

To be with Jesus is to be in Paradise.

I don’t know how many realms there are. Hell, Hades, Death. I know that Paul talks about being taken up to a third level of Heaven.
I like Got Questions Explanation of what Paul said:

In 2 Corinthians 12:2 Paul says he knew a man (assumed to be himself—he is speaking in the third person) who went to the “third heaven.” The “third heaven” here simply means the spiritual dwelling of God, as opposed to the other two “heavens,” the atmosphere and outer space. The three “heavens” implied in 2 Corinthians 12:2 would be the three different realms that we call “the sky,” “outer space,” and the “spiritual heaven.”

My point is that this man, dying next to Jesus, was promised that he wasn’t going to be lying in a grave rotting, that he was not going into nothingness, that he was not going into that Hades(the place where the rich man was was constantly to tormented by fire(Luke 16:19-31)).

Jesus said today you will be with me in Paradise.

My Story
I have had three near-death experiences. I have two that I have small paintings that depict, in part, what I experienced.. I have one painting in progress. I can tell you that in those near death experiences the beauty that I saw was so intense that I could feel the colors. The light permeated every cell of my body and the love washed over me as if I was immersed in liquid love. I have written about those in two blogs and I’m going to post those here, rather than rewrite them.

Glimpses of Heaven – Stairway to Heaven
Glimpses of Heaven – a Glimpse of Jesus

All I can say is having seen a glimpse, no matter how tainted it is by my finite mind, I declare that the promise of being in Paradise with Christ Jesus is exceedingly, abundantly above all we could ask or think and is so immeasurably enriching and enlightening and life-full, that to hear Jesus say to me some day “today you will be with me in Paradise” is second only to wanting to hear him say “Well done my good and faithful servant.”

Confession – Oh my! Hearing that Billy Graham has entered into his eternal life gives me jealousy! To know the riches that he is experiencing now and to know that he definitely paid the price and he sacrificed his life and gave it for the Lord, challenges me. I thank God that I got to know a little bit of the ministry of that man.

When I hear that someone has gone on, specifically, someone who has lived a ripe life for the Lord and was ready to go, I am full of rejoicing because I know I’m going to see them again! I know, in part, what an amazing party and celebration they’re going to have that our finite minds cannot comprehend. Everything here pales in comparison!

I do think that this is one of my favorite phrases that Jesus says at the end of his life. And I hope this gives you a little bit of an insight as to why I feel that way.

There’s a part of this verse I have not covered. Jesus said something else in Luke 23:43
A Bit of a word study:
Truly – NIV, ESV, NAS, BEREAN, CSB
I assure you – NLT
Verily – KJV, JUBILEE, ASV
I promise – CEV
I tell you with certainty – ISV
AMEN – ARAMAIC
I tell you in solemn truth – WEYMOUTH
I can guarantee this truth – GOD’S WORD TRANSLATION.

Jesus made a promise….declared a promise…I think in this moment, Jesus breathed that creative power, and the man became a new creature. Jesus was being GOD!

Numbers 23:19 Holman Christian Standard Bible (HCSB)
19 God is not a man who lies,
or a son of man who changes His mind.
Does He speak and not act,
or promise and not fulfill?

2 Corinthians 1:20 Holman Christian Standard Bible (HCSB)
20 For every one of God’s promises is “Yes” in Him. Therefore, the “Amen” is also spoken through Him by us for God’s glory.

The same promises that Jesus gave to this man, He gives to us.
The same guarantee that Jesus gave to this man, He gives to us.
Can it be anymore beautiful? No.
But, there is a down side to this story. The other thief.

He was on the other cross. He ridiculed Jesus.
There is a saying – in response to living your life for Christ being fantasy.

If I’m wrong – and there is nothing after this, what have I lost?
If I’m right – you will have lost everything.

What would it have taken for that other thief to hedge his bets? The thing is, it’s a heart attitude. He didn’t want to believe. His heart was hardened. He was presented with the gospel by the other thief. He said no, by not saying yes. In Lent Day Eight, I talked about Jesus crying out for those to believe in the LIGHT. It takes a response.

Another saying I’ve heard about pastors, but since we touched on the martyrs, and I’m not shy about the life of being a Christian is not a bed of roses(unless you include the thorns), I’m going to share this.

The Christian Life is hard –
but the retirement plan is out of this world!

Is there anything that is keeping you from saying “Jesus – please remember me today?”
Here are some simple tools for taking care of this need.
Got Questions provides a detailed explanation of The Roman’s Road.
Billy Graham’s version of the Plan of salvation

You can have that need for the supernatural in your life FILLED TODAY!

Don’t be a Judas!

Prayer and Worship

Just As I am – Aaron Shust

At Calvary – Casting Crowns

 

~~~~~~~

Hi!
My hope in the midst of despair and my joy in the face of depression is because of my relationship with Jesus Christ. If you do not have one, or are not sure you will join him in heaven, please check out these links:

• Got Questions provides a detailed explanation of The Roman’s Road.
• Billy Graham’s version of the Plan of salvation.

Thanks for joining me in this journey,
In His hands and under His wings,
~Christi
Ps 63:7 Because you are my help, I sing in the shadow of your wings.

M. Christine Wildman

“The Lord does not give me rules, but He makes His standard very clear.
If my relationship to Him is that of love, I will do what He says without hesitation.
If I hesitate, it is because I love someone I have placed in competition with Him, namely, myself.” – from My Utmost for His highest

Copyrights and Legal-eze
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• Naomi’s Heart Ministries
• Obed’s House Ministries
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