My Dear Friends in the Faith:
Barbara Jean Jackson Adolph (my mother) was a woman of love and discipline. To put it plainly, she did not take any stuff from her kids at all. She did not believe in time out and counting to ten. If you talked back to her in any way it was very possible for you to get knocked out and have to rise to your feet after being down for a ten count. She was firm but, she was fair. She said things one time and one time only. And she expected for her children to obey.
I will never forget the day that my mother left in the rain to go grocery shopping. She left clear instructions for the kids. She said "clean up your rooms and no playing ball in the house." In complete ignorance we did the exact opposite. We did not clean up and we played ball every kind of ball imaginable! We played every sport with a ball in it. Know what I mean? We played baseball, basketball, dodge ball, and kick ball. The trouble happened when we decided to play football. I threw a pass in the hallway and broke a vase. She was not there so we cleaned it up (so we thought).
A few weeks later, while doing some serious spring cleaning she found pieces of the broken glass left over from the sloppy domestic work performed by yours truly. And that's when judgement came upon us. My mother exclaimed with punishment in her vocal chords, "who broke the vase?" She interrogated each child like we were in a holding tank at a police station. When silence ensued she thought of creative ways to motivate us. So she rushed into the kitchen, took a knife out of the drawer, cut a lamp chord and put an extension chord in her hand.
She said "it's bad enough that you all disobeyed me but if you do not tell me who did it I am going to get all of you starting from the youngest to the oldest." Have you ever been in trouble for something that you did, but you did not want to suffer the punishment for it? If so, good because you can identify with my silence. I wanted to say "I did it!" My my tongue just would not talk at all.
It was then that maternal hand of judgement struck. My mother raised her hand to hit my younger brother Ron with the first lash, but my older brother Butch leaped from the front of the couch to the end of the couch to stand between my mothers judgement and my brothers punishment! When the blow landed that should have been for one of us, my older brother blocked it! My mother then proceeded to smite him in such a way that we cried sitting on the couch and she was not hitting us at all. Have you ever heard one of your siblings get in trouble and you cried because the sound of it hurt you too? That's how it was that day. You see, the punishment was designed for me. But, I had an older brother that blocked it!
Many people misconstrue the message of the cross. There are some churches and Pastor's who refuse to even acknowledge it. But, for true Christians it means everything. It is the place where our Elder Brother, Jesus Christ blocked it! God does not just wink at sin. Someone had to pay the price for all of our errors, mishaps, missing the mark, transgressions, mess up's, and the like. That momentous day at calvary something marvelous happened. He Blocked It! The judgement that should have fallen on us, fell on Jesus Christ!!! What God would have done to you and me, He did to His only begotten Son! The Bible says, "Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us: for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree: That the blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles through Jesus Christ; that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith" (Gal. 3:13-14, KJV).
Barbara Jean Jackson Adolph (my mother) was a woman of love and discipline. To put it plainly, she did not take any stuff from her kids at all. She did not believe in time out and counting to ten. If you talked back to her in any way it was very possible for you to get knocked out and have to rise to your feet after being down for a ten count. She was firm but, she was fair. She said things one time and one time only. And she expected for her children to obey.
I will never forget the day that my mother left in the rain to go grocery shopping. She left clear instructions for the kids. She said "clean up your rooms and no playing ball in the house." In complete ignorance we did the exact opposite. We did not clean up and we played ball every kind of ball imaginable! We played every sport with a ball in it. Know what I mean? We played baseball, basketball, dodge ball, and kick ball. The trouble happened when we decided to play football. I threw a pass in the hallway and broke a vase. She was not there so we cleaned it up (so we thought).
A few weeks later, while doing some serious spring cleaning she found pieces of the broken glass left over from the sloppy domestic work performed by yours truly. And that's when judgement came upon us. My mother exclaimed with punishment in her vocal chords, "who broke the vase?" She interrogated each child like we were in a holding tank at a police station. When silence ensued she thought of creative ways to motivate us. So she rushed into the kitchen, took a knife out of the drawer, cut a lamp chord and put an extension chord in her hand.
She said "it's bad enough that you all disobeyed me but if you do not tell me who did it I am going to get all of you starting from the youngest to the oldest." Have you ever been in trouble for something that you did, but you did not want to suffer the punishment for it? If so, good because you can identify with my silence. I wanted to say "I did it!" My my tongue just would not talk at all.
It was then that maternal hand of judgement struck. My mother raised her hand to hit my younger brother Ron with the first lash, but my older brother Butch leaped from the front of the couch to the end of the couch to stand between my mothers judgement and my brothers punishment! When the blow landed that should have been for one of us, my older brother blocked it! My mother then proceeded to smite him in such a way that we cried sitting on the couch and she was not hitting us at all. Have you ever heard one of your siblings get in trouble and you cried because the sound of it hurt you too? That's how it was that day. You see, the punishment was designed for me. But, I had an older brother that blocked it!
Many people misconstrue the message of the cross. There are some churches and Pastor's who refuse to even acknowledge it. But, for true Christians it means everything. It is the place where our Elder Brother, Jesus Christ blocked it! God does not just wink at sin. Someone had to pay the price for all of our errors, mishaps, missing the mark, transgressions, mess up's, and the like. That momentous day at calvary something marvelous happened. He Blocked It! The judgement that should have fallen on us, fell on Jesus Christ!!! What God would have done to you and me, He did to His only begotten Son! The Bible says, "Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us: for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree: That the blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles through Jesus Christ; that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith" (Gal. 3:13-14, KJV).
Well, after my brother took our punishment we ask him why did he do it? And, he said "I don't know. But, I do know this, you owe me big time!" Every time his room needed cleaning he would look at us and say "you owe me." When it was his turn to wash dishes, he would look at us and say "you owe me." When he needed something done, he would call one of us and if he sensed that we did not want to do it, he would say "have you forgotten what I did for you? You owe me!"
Wow! In many ways that is what I feel Jesus Christ is saying to every real believer today. In fact, scroll back up to the top of this devotional to the horrid painful image of Jesus on the cross and say this to yourself, "he blocked it for me and I owe Him big time!"
Your Friend and His Servant,
Dr. John R. Adolph, Pastor
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