Author Archives: Maxie Dunnam

If not the most, one of the most prevailing emphasis of the Bible is salvation. Immediately after the beautiful story of creation, including the creation of us humans, the story of “the fall” becomes central. By our deliberate act, we separated ourselves from God, and from that point on, the restoration of that relationship dominates the Biblical narrative.

As John Wesley testified to being “a man of one book,” it is not difficult to see salvation as his prevailing emphasis. There was a uniqueness to that emphasis. Unlike many other teachers and preachers, he did not put the emphasis solely on our coming into the Christian life in confessing, repenting, and trusting Christ as Savior and receiving forgiveness.

Wesley’s understanding was broader. He used the term salvation to refer to the entire saving activity of God in human lives. Thus, in the Methodist/Wesleyan tradition, we talk about “going on to salvation.”

In a letter to his brother Samuel on October 30, 1738, he wrote:

“Dear Brother, with regard to my own character, and my doctrine likewise, I shall answer you plainly. By a Christian I mean one who so believes in Christ as that sin hath no more dominion over him; and in this obvious sense of the word I was not a Christian till May the 24th last past. For till then sin had the dominion over me, although I fought with it continually; but surely then, from that time to this it hath not (dominion) – such is the free grace of God in Christ.”*

In Wesley’s mind and experience, there was full salvation.

The two pivotal dynamics of full salvation are justification and sanctification. Both are works of grace. In justification, we are pardoned and reconciled to God; the restoration of the image of God in us is begun, which is the beginning of sanctification.

Justification may be the miracle of a moment, but sanctification is the process of a lifetime. The dynamic process of sanctification is to work out in fact what is already true in principle. In position, in our relationship to God in Jesus Christ, we are new persons; that is justification and new birth. Now our condition, the actual life we live, must be brought into harmony with our position. That is sanctification.

Justification and the new birth, is the starting point of sanctification. Over and over, in his journal, he confirmed personal testimony of salvation working in the lives of believers.

I believe [the new birth] to be an inward thing; a change from inward wickedness to inward goodness; an entire change of our inmost nature from the image of the devil (wherein we are born) to the image of God; a change from the love of the creature to the love of the Creator; from earthly and sensual to heavenly and holy affections, in a word, a change from the tempers of the spirit of darkness to those of the angels of God in heaven!

What a possibility! from the tempers of the spirit of darkness to those of the angels of God in heaven! Sanctification … saved to the utmost. So we pray as we sing:

Finish, then, thy new creation pure and spotless let us be.

Let us see thy great salvation perfectly restored thee;

changed from glory into glory, till in heaven we take our place,

till we cast our crowns before thee, lost in wonder, love, and praise.

(Charles Wesley)

Tucked away in the Old Testament story of Joseph’s journey into Egypt is a verse packed with far more meaning than appears on the surface. It teaches an eternal truth that we’d do well to consider as we enter the New Year. Rehearse the story.

Sold into slavery by his brothers, Joseph found favor with the Pharaoh and became one of the trusted officials in Pharaoh’s court. A strange irony of fate, obviously the providence of God, brought Joseph and his brothers who had betrayed him together again. A famine had ravaged the land of Canaan. The people were without food and they came to Egypt seeking to buy food from the Pharaoh.

It was soon revealed that the person with whom they had to deal was the brother they had sold into slavery. The tables were turned. Here they were asking for food from the person they had cast away. When it came to Pharaoh’s attention that Joseph’s brothers had come, it pleased him. He instructed Joseph to bring the whole family away from Canaan, promising to give them the goods of all the land of Egypt, and it is at this point that a power-packed Scripture passage is found. “Do this, said Pharaoh, take wagons from the land of Egypt for your little ones and your wives, bring your father and come. Give no thought to your goods, for the best of all the land of Egypt will be yours.” (Ex. 45:20) King James’ version translates that word this way: Regard not your stuff, for the best of all the land of Egypt will be yours.

There’s all sorts of meaning in that.  Another translation has it – leave your stuff behind.

Six years ago, Jerry and I moved into a “life care community.” We have not had a single reservation. Being a Methodist preacher, we have moved numerous times. At our age and station, our intention is this is our last move, til the Lord moves us home with him. Though comfortable with that fact, we were not prepared for both the emotional and physical ordeal. Moving is tough!

The monumental issue: what do we move? What do we leave behind? Moving from 3600 square feet to little more than one third that size didn’t help. It’s amazing how much “stuff” you can accumulate in 66 years of marriage. Thus the pressing question, “What stuff must we leave behind?”

I invite you now to take a huge emotional/spiritual step with me … What is the stuff, the real STUFF, we need to leave behind as we move into 2024? Let’s be honest.

Self-pity is one bundle of stuff I want to leave behind. I don’t know of a heavier burden which many of us carry than self-pity. It’s the kind of burden we are unwilling to drop off. Someone hurts our feelings and we carry our hurt with us forever. We’re treated unfairly and we never forget it. Something happens in our family and it seems that we’re being put down. Someone else is receiving special treatment, so we get a kind of stepchild complex. We suffer physically and we get the idea that the whole universe is out to persecute us. Such an easy snare to fall into, self-pity. Let’s leave it behind this year.

The second bundle of stuff we need to leave behind is what I call illegitimate responsibility. I’m talking about the responsibilities which we rigidly claim for ourselves, but which don’t legitimately belong to us.

You know what I’m talking about?  We bury ourselves beneath a great burden of responsibility we can do nothing about; that really doesn’t belong to us. We have simply, illegitimately assumed it.  

Our journey into this New Year will be more meaningful if we can determine that there are certain responsibilities which are ours. These we will accept and give our resources to. There are other responsibilities which we simply have to leave with others and with God. Let’s leave it behind.

Along with self-pity and illegitimate responsibility, (we can’t name them all) I mention one other bundle that needs to be cast off as we stride into this New Year. I call it the bundle of cancelled sin.  The phrase comes from Charles Wesley’s hymn, ‘Oh For A Thousand Tongues To Sing.’  He claims that this is the work of Christ: 

 “He breaks the power of cancelled sin,

 he sets the prisoner free, 

his blood can make the foulest clean, 

his blood a veil for me.”

Scores of people who beat a steady stream to my study door for counseling are burdened down by cancelled sin. Somewhere in the past, they have done those things, been involved in those situations, had relationships about which they feel morbid guilt. They carry this burden around as an inside burden which no one knows about. But like a malignancy, it grows and spreads until it poisons the person and brings a sickness unto death. I doubt if there is a reader who does not have an idea what I’m talking about. The memory – the haunting memory of some past wrongdoing devastates our life.

It is the very core of the Christian gospel that God through Christ forgives our sins, and our sins are cancelled by God’s grace. But obviously, this fact and experience are not enough. Cancelled sin still has power – destructive power, in our lives.

How then is the power of cancelled sin actually broken? There is one key: confession and inner healing. I believe that under most circumstances, not only confession to God but confession to another is essential for healing and release from the power of cancelled sin. This is the reason James admonishes us to confess our sins to one another and pray for one another (James 5:16).  Once we have confessed to a minister or to an intimate friend, the poisonous guilt that has been bottled up inside is released.

A medical analogy is apropos. When an infectious boil appears somewhere on the body, antibiotics are given. If these do not destroy the infection, usually the infection is localized and has to be lanced. The surgeon uses the scalpel and opens the boil in order that all the poison might be drained.

Confession is something like the surgeon’s scalpel. Honestly opening our lives in confession, the poisonous guilt we have bottled up within has a chance to flow out. Confession becomes the cleansing process by which the self is freed from the power of cancelled sin.

Now there are two requisites for redemptive confession – one, you must trust the person, the person or the group, to whom you confess; and two, your confession must not be destructive to another person. We dare not disregard the health and wholeness of another in order to seek our own release. The big point is that the burden of cancelled sin is too great for us to carry into the New Year. You can leave that stuff behind, because God forgives. Let us leave it behind.

2024 is a new year. Leave your stuff behind — self-pity, illegitimate responsibility, cancelled sin, all your junk. Leave it. You are forgiven. Your failure and weakness is accepted. Your past is buried in the sea of God’s loving forgiveness. Go into the New Year with Christ, and go joyfully. 

In the article last week I talked about Christmas in relation to the name given to the baby born on that day, JESUS

Rehearse a bit. Matthew reports that Joseph had a dream in which he was instructed to name his son, Jesus. The name means “God shall save us from our sins.” So, when the angel says, “His name shall be called Jesus,” the name reveals what he will do. The tradition of the name means He will save you from whatever holds you in bondage, and will lead you to the fulfillment of your life. But it helps us none unless we respond.

So let’s enlarge the perspective. Hold the angel’s announcement in your mind. “Fear not, for behold I bring you good tidings of great joy which shall be to all people, for unto you is born a Savior. There is more. The Gospel writer followed that announcement saying, “All this took place to fulfill what the Lord has spoken by the prophet. “Behold, A Virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and his name shall be called Emmanuel (which means, God with Us).” (Matt.1:22-23)

So that too is a name for the child of Christmas: EMMANUEL, “God with us.” The same prophet, Isaiah, had this to say about Emmanuel: “The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness, on them has … light shined … for to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.” (Isaiah 9:2, 6 RSV)

What promise! What hope! This is the word we desperately need to appropriate, for this is no naive notion, no surface optimism; this is the bedrock of reality which moves from the groaning of despair to hope and confidence. 

I remember an old movie, The Day After, that has a message here. The declaration of that movie was ‘Look what the world is coming to.” Its detractors and its champions had their day in the media. As a political statement it was hotly debated. But more important, there was a religious statement to be noted.

The theme music in the beginning and at the end was that of one of our great hymns ‘How Firm a Foundation”. That theme music at the end was set against the haunting appeal that goes out from the destruction, devastation, and despair of Lawrence, Kansas. Everything is contaminated, all is in chaos, buildings have crumbled, flesh has been melted off human and animal skeletons, and most of the survivors are disfigured and dysfunctional. There is no good water and no electricity.

Some students and a professor have put together a radio desperately seeking to make contact with the outside world. “Hello, this is Lawrence, Kansas, is anyone there?” They plead “Can anyone hear me? Is anyone there?”

At the end of the movie there is a sweeping camera panoramic of the devastation and despair; and a shot of those seeking to make radio contact. The music floats into your attention as that longing, anguishing plea is sounded again: “Is anyone there? Can you hear me? Is anyone there?” And the music calls to your mind the words that we sing to it: “How Firm a Foundation, Ye Saints of the Lord, Is Laid for Your Faith in His Excellent Word.”

Whether he intended it or not, the screenplay writer made a profound statement. Not “Look what the world is coming to,” but “Look what is coming to the world.”

Even when the world is reduced to radiation and dust, and our cries of despair may echo in emptiness around us, our foundation is firm. Is anyone there? Can you hear me? EMMANUEL: GOD WITH US.

What’s in a name? More truth than we can comprehend, but an experience on which we can all lay hold. JESUS, for he will save his people from their sins; EMMANUEL God with us. 

Yes, this Christmas—Jesus/Emmanuel, Savior, ever-present Lord and Sustainer, today and tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow—and for all eternity! “For the light shines in the darkness and the darkness will never put it out.”

We are in the midst of the Advent season. It’s Christmas time. Let’s stay with the story…at least reflect seriously for a bit. 

A central figure is Joseph. He is perplexed, deeply perplexed. The woman to whom he is engaged is pregnant and he knows the baby is not his. He is wrestling with what to do. Will he expose her, making her a public example? He can’t do that; he loves her too much. He takes the only course acceptable to his conscience. He decides to divorce her quietly, privately, hoping to cause as little a ripple in the community as possible.

That decision, though it came out of the love and justice of his heart, didn’t set well. He continued to wrestle with it. In the deep midnight watches and wakefulness of his wrenching heart, an angel appeared with the astounding news:

“Do not fear to take Mary your wife, for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit; she will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for He will save his people from their sins.” (Matthew 1:20—23 RSV)

Jesus will be his name. It had been declared by the prophet, Isaiah, centuries before. The angel had announced it to Mary at the time of her Annunciation: “You will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus. He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High…and of his kingdom there will be no end.” (Luke 1:31-32, 33 RSV) So, the question, what’s in a name? 

“You shall call His name Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins.” That is Good News only when we are willing to admit the bad news about ourselves. The bad news is that we are sinners.

So let’s be very specific, name our common bondage and claim our deliverance.

Do you feel burdened down by guilt? Have you started to realize that the guilt may be from unconfessed sins?

Do you feel pain in your heart because there is a severed relationship that needs reconciliation?

Do you feel helpless because you are held in the tenacious grip of a debilitating habit? Alcohol? Drugs? Gambling? 

Is your energy being drained because you live too close to the line of moral compromise —cheating in business? Preoccupied with sexual lusts?

Does your pride often put you in the position of thinking more highly of yourself than you ought to think, of looking down your nose at others?

We could go on and on, but you’ll have to do that personally.

Painful though the process of confession and repentance may be, the joy that comes as a result is “unspeakable and full of glory.” For the one whose birthday we are celebrating these days is JESUS. He will save us from our sins.

A minister friend told a story of a couple who had been married for twelve years when the woman was stricken with cancer. Medically, the situation seemed hopeless. But each day in the hospital the couple read together the stories of how Jesus healed so many people in his earthly ministry.

As they read, their despair turned to hope, and they began praying together earnestly, knowing that the Lord who loved her would also heal her. But she was not healed. After her death, her husband wrote a letter to his friends describing how their faith brought them through the long days of suffering. Even to the end their trust never wavered. They believed that God’s way is perfect, and that there is a greater miracle even than healing: resurrection.

There is nothing distinctively Christian about belief in immortality; many religions – and many people with little or no religion – believe in the survival of the soul, the Greek philosophy that regards immortality as an inherent attribute of the human spirit. When we address the issue as Christians, we either have to talk about Christian immortality or restrict ourselves to using the phrase “eternal life.” Christian immortality, or eternal life, is different from the natural wish for survival. Our faith in personal immortality is anchored in the resurrection of Jesus. We rely on Jesus’ promise: “Because I live, ye shall live also.”

As Christians, we believe in the resurrection of the body and life everlasting. We do not go along with the Greek philosophy of drawing a sharp distinction between soul and body. We look upon a human being as an integrated whole. The “body” to which the Bible refers is spiritual rather than physical, thus the biblical language, “spiritual body.”

Jesus’ resurrection and his promise of eternal life speak to our feelings of worthlessness, our lack of self-value and self-esteem. The raging materialism of our day tends to reduce us to numbers. To our lack of confidence and feeling about value and worth, the promise of resurrection speaks a powerful word. Jesus is saying to us, ‘you are important, so important that I gave my life for you, so important that I offer you eternal life.’

Though we may not be able to explain the resurrection of the body and life everlasting, we affirm and proclaim this life-changing promise of Jesus: “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die; and whoever lives by believing in me will never die.”(John 11:25-26 NIV).

Healing we are not always promised, but the miracle of the resurrection gives us life anew. The mystery is profound, yet in faith we live with mystery in joyful anticipation until the full experience comes.

Prayer means that no one of us can ever say, “There is nothing I can do.”

I first went to the Soviet Union in 1981 and came away frustrated and confused. I experienced pain to see beautiful churches turned into warehouses, factories, and communist meeting halls. For a long time after that, the picture I had of the Russian church was of old women, clad in heavy sweaters and coats, sitting in the dark corners of the churches we visited, sometimes dusting the furniture, or praying before the icons. I kept asking myself, “What can these grandmothers do? How can they keep alive the faith of the church? Where are the young people?

A few years after that, at the celebration of 1000 years of the church in Russia, when someone asked a Russian priest whether it was healthy for the church to be composed of so many aged mothers, he replied with a story: “In the early days of communism, many churches were blown up and the priests, monks, and nuns were executed. Lenin argued that once the grandmothers died, nobody would remember that there had been a church in Russia. But now, Lenin is long dead, and the church is still full of grandmothers who were children when he was alive.” Then he concluded, “As long as the Russian church has its grandmothers, it will survive.”

I experienced the truth of that dramatically in the Czech Republic in 1991. Freedom had come a short time before. I was in Pilsen at the Maranatha Church. It was one of the most exciting experiences of worship and church life in which I’ve ever participated. The sanctuary of the church had been turned into a lecture hall of the university by the communist regime, but now the government had returned it to the church. Over 500 crowded in. At least 75% of them were younger than thirty—and all of them had become Christians in just the past three or four years.

That congregation had been kept alive by a few praying people. For over 30 years, eight elderly women gathered each week and prayed—week in and week out. As a result of the faithfulness of those “praying grandmothers,” a dynamic congregation was making a powerful witness. I never witnessed such joy, such hope, such confidence, such powerful dependence upon the Holy Spirit.

Keep that picture in your mind, remembering the word of that priest: “As long as the Russian church has its praying grandmothers, it will survive.” Add to that picture my assertion, “prayer means that no one of us can ever say, ‘There is nothing I can do.’” We can pray, for prayer is one of the greatest works that Christians are given to do.

Somewhere I read that Darwin kept a notebook to jot down the contradictions that he came across, contradictions against his theories. He knew that if he didn’t jot those contradictions down, he was so committed to his theories that he would forget them. 

It’s so easy to forget. It’s easy to lose touch with the source of life… how we got to where we are; all the blessings that have been poured out upon us. It’s easy to think that we are where we are today because of our own efforts. We’re like that man who was being honored at a banquet for things he had done. He stood to receive the award, but got his tongue twisted, and said, “I don’t appreciate this, but I certainly deserve it.” 

We may not verbalize, or even be explicitly aware of it, but we see our success, our achievements and accomplishments, as the result of our own doing. Maybe we need to keep a notebook and record those things that we have received, things that have been given to us, things that have been done for us, blessings that we had absolutely nothing to do with them coming to us. That would give us a perspective which would change our lives.

Notebook or not, I need to continually remind myself of how blessed I am. Though I was born in rather severe poverty in rural Mississippi, in the context of our world situation, that poverty in Mississippi would be considered rich.

Then I, I go from there. I did not earn – I simply received the gift of parents who loved me, who sacrificed for me, who encouraged me and supported me. I did not earn – I simply received the gift of a public school education. I didn’t earn – I simply received the right of citizenship in this great country, where I have the freedom to vote, and the freedom to speak out, and the freedom to enter into the political process that shapes the destiny of this nation. But I could have been born anywhere else. 

In my reflection on the bold fact of my being the recipient of so much, I have continued to think about what I started expressing in my article last week: Deliverance Through Thanksgiving. It all began with my devotional reading of Psalm 50, and being captured by verse 15, “and call upon me in the day of trouble and I will deliver you.” The condition for the fulfillment of that promise of deliverance is in verse 14, which expresses the first part of the sentence. “Offer to God a sacrifice of thanksgiving and pay your vows to the most high, and call upon me in the day of trouble and I will deliver you.”

The words sacrifice of thanksgiving got my attention. Sacrifice and thanksgiving don’t seem to go together. Sacrifice and thanksgiving. I don’t know all that means, but it means at least this – even when we are not in the mood for thanksgiving, even when we have not recorded in our notebooks that for which we need to be grateful, we need to express gratitude. 

Gratitude can transform our life. No matter in what condition we find ourself, or in what depression we might be; no matter what’s going on in our life at this moment – IF, if we can get in touch with the God of the universe who says to us, “offer a sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving,” and do that, our life will be transformed. A sacrifice of thanksgiving means that the surface circumstances of life don’t have to merit it. Still we do it. Whatever the circumstances – our lives are to be an offering of gratitude.

But there’s more here. Another condition that we are to meet if we are going to appropriate the deliverance of the Lord, and it’s there in the text. ”Pay your vows to the most-high God.” 

Offer to God a sacrifice of thanksgiving. That’s the first condition to meet if we’re going to appropriate God’s deliverance. And the second is – pay your vows to the most-high God.

Are there commitments that you made which you haven’t kept? Are there vows to the Lord that you have not followed through on? This is what the Lord is saying to us today – listen – Do the things you promised when you received my love and forgiveness. Keep the vows you made when you accepted my salvation. 

It’s one of the most fantastic promises in scripture: call upon me in your day of trouble, and I will deliver you. But remember, the promise is based upon two conditions – One, offer to God a sacrifice of thanksgiving; and two, pay your vows to the most-high God. We can keep both of those promises today.

One of our big failures as Christians is our continual refusal to discipline ourselves in living with the word of God. We need to study the Bible. It is the shaping source of our Christian faith and way. In it we find the revelation of God which God provided through God’s Son, Jesus. It is food for our souls, direction and strength for our journey.

But not only do we need to study the Bible, we need to read the Bible devotionally, and there is a difference. Here’s the way I do it. In a time of quietness, reflection and prayer, I simply begin reading a pre-selected passage of scripture. With an open mind and heart, I read until some word grabs my attention. I stay with that word, allowing it to tumble around in my mind. I seek to taste the word by reflecting upon it in my mind and heart. I ask the word questions and I allow the word to ask me questions. Then in that moment and out of that reflection, I form the prayers I want to offer to God in response to his word.

A while ago I was doing this with the 50th Psalm. Verse 15 stopped me, “And call upon me in your time of trouble and I will deliver you and you shall glorify me.” I don’t know what was going on in my life at that particular time which caused that verse of scripture to be so significant, except that I am like most people … trouble is often my lot. Maybe I was concerned about one of our children; maybe I was wrestling with some problem; maybe I felt that someone or something was after me, and I was being tested. I know it wasn’t a huge earth-shaking thing or I would remember it. Nevertheless there it was, God’s word for me in that particular situation and I needed it. “And call upon me in your time of trouble and I will deliver you and you shall glorify my name.”

What a promise. Deliverance. None of us will pass through too much of our life without needing to lay hold upon that promise, because none of us will pass through too much of our life without being confronted with trouble. But as I reflected upon this staggering promise, I became aware of the fact that it was not complete within itself. Though it’s a separate verse in the Bible, it begins with the word and. If you look back at verse 14, you will find the beginning of the sentence: “Offer to God a sacrifice of thanksgiving and pay your vows to the most high.”  Then comes the promise: “and call upon me in the day of trouble, I will deliver you and you shall glorify me.”  

That set me to thinking all over again. And the word of the Lord came to me in a powerful way. God is not making a wholesale promise here. There are conditions we are to meet if we’re going to appropriate the promise of the Lord to deliver us.

I had never thought of it before. Deliverance comes through thanksgiving.

The promise of deliverance is especially beautiful if you see it in its entire Scriptural context. If you go back to the 10th verse of that reading, you’ll see God talking about all that he is and all that he has, and then in that beautiful 12th verse he says, “if I were hungry I would not tell you, for the world and all that is in it is mine.” What does a God like this, an omnipotent God who created and owns the whole universe – what does a God like this want? What does a God like this require of us? There it is. Offer to God a sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving. Wow! God’s hunger is satisfied by our love and gratitude.

Does that make you stand at attention inside? The deepest longings of the God of the universe, the one who created and owns the world, is satisfied by our praise and thanksgiving?

Deliverance through thanksgiving. What a way to think and live, especially during this thanksgiving season.