December 27, 2013

Friday: December 27, 2013

READ: Psalm 113

 

THINK: A few years ago there was an experiment conducted at Princeton Theological Seminary among a bunch of people who planned to go into a career in pastoral ministry. When the would-be pastors arrived at a classroom they were given a relatively short amount of time to prepare some thoughts on the Bible story of the Good Samaritan. They were then told that they were running late and needed to hurry over to another building to record their talk. Along the route they had to travel to get to the other building, the experimenters placed a disheveled, homeless looking man who was coughing and appeared to be in rough condition. They found, much to their dismay, that few seminary students – even when thinking about and preparing to talk about the Good Samaritan – stopped at all to help the man. Most others just acknowledged him quickly to ask if he was okay and when he coughed and said “yeah, I will be” they kept on walking. It’s a really sad experiment…that shows pretty clearly that pastors or would-be pastors are not perfect people who are way better than everybody else, but it also shows just how easy it is for us to ignore those in need!

 

God cares about impoverished people. (It’s possible that you picked that up yesterday while reading Amos.) The Psalmist declares, “He raises the poor from the dust and lifts the needy from the ash heap; he seats them with princes, with the princes of his people.” (Psalm 113:7-8) The God who raises the poor from the dust is inviting us to be a part of what he is doing for them. That’s how he works. He gives us the privilege of doing his work when we’re willing to line our hearts up with his. And poverty is a cold-hard reality of our world that God cares deeply about.

 

Brokenness & homelessness, hunger and starvation, disease and death grieve the heart of God. Poverty is the result of sin in our world. And not just the sin of the people who are in poverty. Sometimes it’s easy for us to stop caring or avoid the issue by looking at people in poverty and noting that its their own bad choices that got them there. We see a homeless single teen mother on welfare and list off the many poor and sinful choices that she made to get her to that place and we use that as a license, a justification, not to care and not to help – as though we haven’t made bad and sinful choices ourselves.  Or we look at the developing world and see the poor choices their leaders have made and then turn our backs. And yes, poverty is the result of sinful choices – but not always and not only those of the impoverished. A young girl born into sex slavery or kidnapped and illegally trafficked across the world to become a prostitute or a slave isn’t there because of a string of her own poor choices. A kid born in the slums of India isn’t there because he made some bad decisions in the womb. But sometimes people are impoverished and suffer because of the greed of the Western world and the United States. Poverty is a sin problem. Not just an individual sin problem, but a communal sin problem. It is caused by the sinfulness and rebellion of the human race – all of us. You and me and we and they, the CEO in Minneapolis, the homeless man in Chicago, the single mom in New York, the orphan in Africa. It’s a sin problem, and it’s a tragic problem. And it’s a problem that God cares about.

 

I think, if we don’t line up our hearts with God’s heart on this one – if we read this today and then hop in our cars and plug our iPhones into the radios and then fill them with gas and drive to our houses and then kick off our shoes and sit on our couches and watch flat-screen TVs without letting God change our hearts at all – then we have a deficient gospel. We have a hole in our gospel. We can tell people that Jesus died for their sins, but we can’t really tell them why…we can’t really express his great love for people. We can’t explain fully that even though this world is broken and there is evil and suffering and poverty – the God of the Universe is at work to make things right again because he loves people. And he’s not just at work for some far off day in the future…he is healing and restoring right now. He is lifting the poor out of the dust today.

 

Jesus kicked of his ministry on earth with these words in Luke 4: “The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

 

PRAY: Open yourself up and be vulnerable – ask God to come in and shape you into his image. Ask him to break your heart for the things that break his. Ask him to line your heart up with his for the poor and broken people in the world. And ask him again today who he is calling you to be – and what he is calling you to do – to show his heart and his love to those people.

 

 

Posted by on December 27, 2013 in Psalms.

2 Comments

December 26, 2013

Thursday: December 26, 2013

READ: Amos 1-2

BACKGROUND: Amos – the guy the book of Amos is named after – was a prophet in ancient Israel about 800 years before Christ. But he wasn’t a typical prophet. He wasn’t a priest or a religious leader or anything like that. He was a shepherd – just a regular guy – whom God called to deliver a message, so he went to deliver it. And at this time the nation of Israel was split into 2 separate kingdoms – the north (Israel) and the south (Judah). And Amos was from Judah, but his message was for Israel. At this time the Judah was very poor and Israel was very wealthy.

THINK:  This is such a cool section of prophecy. Amos begins by saying:

“The words of Amos, one of the shepherds of Tekoa—what he saw concerning Israel two years before the earthquake, when Uzziah was king of Judah and Jeroboam son of Jehoash was king of Israel. He said: “The LORD roars from Zion and thunders from Jerusalem; the pastures of the shepherds dry up, and the top of Carmel withers…”

 

And immediately after this, Amos goes on to talk about how God is going to judge a number of different cities who were enemies of God and of Israel – Damascus (Syria), Gaza (Philistia), Tyre, Edom, Ammon, and Moab. And as the people are listening to this prophecy they are getting pretty pumped up. They fancy themselves as good faithful people who are following God and they are getting excited that God is gonna judge their enemies. You can just picture them there; with each passing city that Amos mentioned they are getting more and more excited. You can hear them saying, “Yes! God is gonna take out the Philistines at Gaza for their wickedness. That is awesome. And the Edomites! And the Ammonites! And the Moabites!”

The crowd is almost at fever pitch here when Amos puts the cherry on top of the whole thing and names a 7th place that God is going to judge – Judah – the Southern Kingdom. And the people of Israel, at this point, are going ballistic. They are so excited and so proud and they’re feeling so superior and judgmental and accusatory. They see themselves on a pedestal high above all their enemies…even the Southern Kingdom.

And then…boom goes the dynamite…Amos drops the BOMB in chapter 2 verses 6-8. Now, the crowd is silent. The crowd is shocked. One minute ago they were excited. Now they’re stunned and angry. The message cuts deep.

There are 7 accusations that Amos levels:

1.     They sell the righteous for silver

2.     They sell the needy for a pair of sandals

3.     They trample the heads of the poor

4.     They deny justice to the oppressed

5.     Father and son use the same girl

6.     Lie down beside every altar on garments taken in pledge

7.     Drink wine taken as fines

These are serious accusations – major violations of the OT law – and the common theme is neglect of the poor and the needy and the marginalized. When Amos talks about selling the needy for a pair of sandals or lying down beside every altar on garments taken in pledge he is referring to the OT practice of giving someone your clothing as collateral for a loan or for some kind of service. But the catch was – God required that the coat be given back before sunset so that the person could be warm as he or she slept. Exodus 22:26-27 says, “If you take your neighbor’s cloak as a pledge, return it to him by sunset, because his cloak is the only covering he has for his body. What else will he sleep in? When he cries out to me, I will hear, for I am compassionate.” But if they’re lying down in the garments taken as pledge it means, very clearly, that they aren’t giving them back. They’re letting the poor people freeze at night and not caring.   The major issue that God has with Israel is clear: Those in power – those who have resources – are mistreating the poor and the powerless.

Over and over and over again in the Bible, God repeats that his people are to take care 3 groups of people: The aliens, the fatherless, and the widows. Over and over and over again. Foreigners and outsiders, orphans, and widows. The lost and the lonely. And when God speaks of these groups the warning is: Do not deprive. Do not ignore. Do not oppress. It’s almost as if he is saying, “Don’t not do this! Don’t not care. Don’t not provide for the marginalized. Don’t forget to do this! Don’t get so terribly comfortable in your daily lives that you forget to actively care about the poor and the needy.”

And God sends Amos to tell Israel that they aren’t doing it. And as Amos is talking about Israel in the prophecy it is almost as if they are an enemy of God…just like the cities that Amos talked about before Israel. And that is exactly what God wants to convey. That their self-centered, affluent, materialistic, comfort-addicted way of life has blinded them to the plight of the needy around them and made them enemies of God!

And that’s pretty huge! Cause they don’t see themselves that way at all! They call themselves God’s people. They worship God on the Sabbath (they go to church) and they make sacrifices to him (they sing the worship songs). And they go through the motions of the faith and check off the boxes and think they’re good to go and think since life is easy and okay it means they’re doing the right thing. But as soon as they walk away from the religious rituals they take off their God-hat and ignore the needy. They compartmentalize their faith, they are addicted to their own comfort, and they’re blinded to the difference that God wants them to make in the world and the message He wants them to bring.

There’s a pretty big challenge in these words for those of us living in 21st century America. As we step away from the season that, unfortunately, most wildly showcases the affluent materialism of our nation, I think we all need to ask ourselves what we are doing to actively care for the poor and the powerless and the lost and the lonely. God’s heart beats after these ones. Does yours?

PRAY: Confess your comfort. Your materialism. Your blindness to the need around you in the world. Ask God to open your eyes and your heart today and give you a vision of who he wants you to be to the alien, the fatherless, and the widow in your world.

Posted by on December 26, 2013 in Prophecy.

Leave a comment

December 25, 2013

MERRY CHRISTMAS! (2013)

It’s Christmas. Thanks for taking time out of your crazy, busy, fun day to spend time in God’s word and read this blog. Another Christmas post today and then back to our regularly scheduled 2 year journey through the Bible tomorrow. Today I want to specifically spend time thinking about just why this baby was such a massive source of hope. Some of you heard me preach on this recently, but it’s worth reminding ourselves again this Christmas day.

READ: Isaiah 9:1-7

THINK: Names are important. They are important to us: we all agonize over giving our kids good names that will have a positive connotation – which is really hard for my family because my wife Jenny is a high school teacher and 9 out of every 10 names in the baby book inspire her to get a grumpy look on her face and say, “No! I had a kid in Geometry with that name and he was horrible!” 🙂 But names are important to us, and they were VERY culturally important to the ancient Hebrews. And because of that – because these titles given to the Son born in this prophecy are such a key source of the hope God was giving to his people – I want to take a look at what they mean this morning:

What does it mean that he is a Wonderful Counselor? The root meanings of these two words are wonder and wisdom. Wonderful Counselor means that he brings a counter-cultural, amazing wisdom to the world. He is coming with a wisdom that confounds the conventional wisdom of our culture because our wisdom has failed.

A couple months ago I was home with my kids  and they were playing in the basement while I was trying to get some work done upstairs. And after a short time of peaceful playing I heard yelling and fighting. So, like any great dad, I yelled down the stairs to them with a piece of great wisdom: “Hey, why don’t you guys share the toy!” And then I went back to my work. For about a minute. Then the yelling started back up again so I offered up another piece of revolutionary brilliance: “Hey, just take turns.” And, just in case they didn’t want to listen, I put a little weight behind the advice and said, “Don’t make me come down there.” Those of you who have ever had children will be shocked to hear that 30 seconds later they were fighting again. Their childlike wisdom had failed them. So had the words of wisdom that I sent down the stairs. At some point when the word fails, the word has to become flesh and dwell among us. The only hope was for me to become incarnate in my basement.

What does Wonderful Counselor mean? It’s God’s way of saying to Judah – “I know that things are rough. I know that your king is awful. I know that the wisdom of the world is failing and there is fighting and conflict all around you. But I am coming downstairs! And there is hope because I have a greater wisdom – and I am going to embody it and give humanity a bigger better picture of who you are created and designed and wired and called to be. The Wonderful Counselor is coming with the wisdom you need.”

So what does it mean that he is a Mighty God? This one is such an incredible source of hope! The word for “mighty” in Hebrew is gibbor. Gibbor means hero. The one who is coming to invade the darkness with his light is a hero! He is the mighty champion of his people.  He has all the power – the power to end the oppression, the power to overcome the struggle, the power to heal the pain and fix the brokenness, set all things right and make all things new! He is strong where we are weak. He is the hero God!

How about Everlasting Father? Why is it significant that this promised one is an Everlasting Father. The word everlasting is a theological claim. The people of Judah were surrounded by nations that believed in a number of different gods, thought that they had regional power and authority, believed that they were capricious and angry, violent and spiteful towards humanity, and assumed that, like humans, gods could die or be born. When this prophecy claims that the promised one is everlasting it is a bold theological declaration that this God is eternal. He is from the beginning. He has always been and he will always be. He is not some demigod or some member of the pantheon. He is eternal, everlasting, and sovereign. Oh yeah, and he is Father. He doesn’t hate humanity like the pagan gods. Not at all. He created humanity in his image and he invites every person to connect with him in an intimate, loving, protective, grace-filled relationship. He is the Everlasting Father.

And he’s the Prince of Peace. Prince is a governmental function. It is a role in a kingdom. And his kingdom will be defined by Peace. The word for peace here is shalom. Everybody say shalom with me. Shalom. Our English Bibles do a magnificent job of translating the Bible accurately and they are incredibly reliable. But there are just a couple of words and phrases where our language fails to capture the full meaning of a word or phrase because we don’t have a cognate. And limiting shalom to the meaning of the word “peace” in English is like watching TV in black and white – there is so much color too it that’s missing. Shalom is this incredible concept of life being exactly the way it was designed to be. Shalom is full economic, relational, spiritual, and physical flourishing – not just surviving but flourishing! It is this situation of holistic health and fulfillment where nothing is missing and nothing is broken. Shalom will define his Kingdom. That he shall be called the Prince of Peace means that the Promised One was coming not just to deal with our personal problems on the inside but also to eventually make all things new in a Kingdom where there was no more poverty, injustice, violence, war, disease or death.

Why did the nation of Judah need to hear this prophecy 700 years before it would be fulfilled? They were living in darkness and their hope had dried up. They needed to hear about what was coming centuries on down the line because they needed to know that darkness would not have the final word, that death would not write the final chapter in their story. Things were bad and they were only gonna get worse…but there was hope. They needed to hear that there was hope.

I wonder how many of us need to hear that too, on this Christmas day. I suspect, maybe, that the answer is: all of us. That’s the message of Isaiah 9 – for Judah 3 millenia ago and for us today: Hope is alive! In Jesus Christ we can live every moment on the edge of hope. The WonderfulCounselorHeroGodEverlastingFatherPrinceOfShalom literally changes everything! Because the hope that is available in him is a totally different kind of hope – a completely new meaning to the word hope – than the one we are used to. See when we think of hope, most of us go to this place where we define it as passionately wishing something would happen. Hope means holding on to the belief that our dreams might come true. But God is not calling us to hope that something good might happen. In Jesus Christ we can hope with bold confidence! We need to shift our hoping from might to will!

No matter what the situation is in our lives right now, and no matter what happens in the future we have this incredible, unshakable hope that Jesus sets all things right and makes all things new! And we don’t hope that maybe he’ll do it. We live confidently in expectation and anticipation that it will absolutely beyond a shadow of a doubt happen. And how do we know? We know the same way Judah knew: Because God promises us it will. The very end of this prophecy, the last line in Isaiah 9:7 is God’s stamp, it is his holy seal, it is his assurance to us – his guarantee – that our hope is secure: he closes by saying, “The zeal of the Lord Almighty will accomplish this.” The zeal. The passionate determination of the Sovereign God will accomplish it. There is no doubt. It’s as good as done.

That’s Christmas. That’s what it is all about. It is God invading human history, stepping in to the pain, the violence, the hurt, the loss, the death, and the shattered reality of our world to to light up our darkness, to heal up our brokenness, and to bring us confident hope that by his zeal – because of his passionate determination – he will keep his promise to make all things new again. At Christmas, Christ is our hope. Not presents or trees or carols or reindeer. The WonderfulCounselorHeroGodEverlastingFatherPrinceOfShalom allows us to face anything & everything that life throws at us with bold confident outrageous hope.

PRAY: Thank God for giving hope to the human race by taking on flesh and becoming one of us. Thank him for being the Wonderful Counselor. And the Hero God. And the Everlasting Father. And the Prince of Peace. Thank him for Christmas.

Posted by on December 25, 2013 in Uncategorized.

Leave a comment

December 24, 2013

CHRISTMAS EVE 2013

A little something different today because, after all, it is Christmas Eve.

READ: Read the following verses and then read Matthew 1:18-2:6 & Luke 2:1-20

“So the Lord God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this, cursed are you above all livestock and all wild animals! You will crawl on your belly and you will eat dust all the days of your life. And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.” – Genesis 3:14-15

“But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, though you are small among the clans of Judah, out of you will come for me one who will be ruler over Israel, whose origins are from of old, from ancient times.” – Micah 5:2

“I see him, but not now; I behold him, but not near. A star will come out of Jacob; a scepter will rise out of Israel.” – Numbers 24:17

“Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel (God with us).” – Isaiah 7:14

“For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called ‘Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.’ Of the greatness of his government and peace there will be no end. He will reign on David’s throne and over his kingdom, establishing and upholding it with justice and righteousness from that time on and forever. The zeal of the Lord Almighty will accomplish this.” – Isaiah 9:6-7

“Out of the stump of David’s family will grow a shoot – yes, a new Branch bearing fruit from the old root.” Isaiah 11:1

THINK: It is so easy – even when we don’t mean to – to get distracted by the busyness of the Christmas season to the point where we don’t stop and allow the reality of what we are celebrating to overwhelm us. And it’s easy – even in the moments that we spend focusing on the Biblical narrative and the “reason for the season” to gloss over and not think deeply because the story is so incredibly familiar to us. But we should be overwhelmed! Because the entire Bible – the entire history of the human race on this planet – was a roadmap leading to the moment that God came down and took on flesh for us. And it is amazing!

God became man. The eternal God of the universe became incarnate in human flesh – and he didn’t come as an adult and he didn’t come as a strong warrior or a rich king, born in splendor and proclaimed to the world. He came humbly. As a baby. In a barn. He emptied himself so that he could fill humanity up. And if that fact – if the fact that God could have come in any way and he could have chosen to be born into any situation and he chose to come as a baby with no place to sleep but a manger isn’t staggering enough – check this out: There are 456 prophecies in the Old Testament about Jesus. Most all of them were written well over 700 years before he was born, many of them over a thousand years. If we stop at this point in the story…right as Jesus was born, where he was born, and how he was born…if we stop right here and pretend that he didn’t go on to fulfill every single one of those 456 prophecies – which he did – we can calculate the mathematical probability of him fulfilling the handful of prophecies about his birth. First, to even begin this calculation, you have to throw out the prophecy that a virgin would give birth to a son. That’s in there. But the mathematical likelihood is zero chance. Toss that one out, if you take 8 of the main birth prophecies in the Old Testament and do the math, this is approximately what you come up with according to a study by secular mathematicians at the University of Newcastle in England:

The likelihood that one baby could fulfill all 8 of those prophecies at once – in the year 0 AD – is 1 in 10 to the 17th power. That is the number 1 with 17 zeroes after it. 1 in 100,000,000,000,000,000. A half-dead horse with 3 legs would get better odds than that at the Kentucky Derby. Much better! Think of it this way: if you took 10 tickets, marked one with a sharpie, tossed them in a hat and stirred them around, and then had someone pick one ticket out of the hat – she would have a 1 in 10 chance of picking the marked ticket. Right? Well, if you took 10 to the 17th power silver dollars, and marked one with a sharpie, they would cover the entire state of Texas 2 feet deep. If you then stirred them all up, blindfolded a guy, and told him he could wade as far as he wanted but he could only reach down and pick up 1 coin, the chances that he would wander through Texas, reach into the pile, and pull out the single coin that had been marked are roughly the same as the chances that a baby could possibly be born and fulfill all 8 of those Old Testament prophecies written centuries before.

Yep. It’s ridiculously cool. This story of Christmas – of Jesus being born in that borrowed stable on a starlit night 2,000 years ago is the greatest and most compelling narrative ever written. It’s impossible yet true, it’s gripping, fascinating, and radically life-altering when we stop and actually dig into it – when we refuse to just gloss over it and turn off our brains because we’ve heard it so many times. So, do that this Christmas. Just dwell in the story. Let the truth and the absolute splendor of the events of that night wash over you and overwhelm you. Be amazed because this is amazing stuff. And then, be like the shepherds. They were so amazed that they told everybody about what happened.

PRAY: Thank God today! Let the enormity of the incarnation – God taking on human flesh – humble you and make you feel small. And then thank him for loving someone as small as you enough to come.

 

 

Posted by on December 24, 2013 in Uncategorized.

1 Comment

December 23, 2013

Monday: December 23, 2013

READ: Haggai. All 3 pages! 🙂

THINK: Lately, we have been reading lots of incredible things about the rebuilding of God’s Temple after the people returned from exile (in Ezra, Nehemiah, Malachi, Zechariah, & now Haggai). Check out these thoughts from the incredible Charles Spurgeon on what God’s dealings with Israel in the exilic period and the rebuilding period mean for all of us:

“I smote you with blasting and with mildew and with hail in all the labours of your hands.” — Haggai 2:17

How destructive is the hail to the standing crops, beating out the precious grain upon the ground! How grateful ought we to be when the corn is spared so terrible a ruin! Let us offer unto the Lord thanksgiving. Even more to be dreaded are those mysterious destroyers—smut, bunt, rust, and mildew. These turn the ear into a mass of soot, or render it putrid, or dry up the grain, and all in a manner so beyond all human control that the farmer is compelled to cry, “This is the finger of God.” Innumerable minute fungi cause the mischief, and were it not for the goodness of God, the rider on the black horse would soon scatter famine over the land. Infinite mercy spares the food of men, but in view of the active agents which are ready to destroy the harvest, right wisely are we taught to pray, “Give us this day our daily bread.” The curse is abroad; we have constant need of the blessing. When blight and mildew come they are chastisements from heaven, and men must learn to hear the rod, and him that hath appointed it.

Spiritually, mildew is no uncommon evil. When our work is most promising this blight appears. We hoped for many conversions, and lo! a general apathy, an abounding worldliness, or a cruel hardness of heart! There may be no open sin in those for whom we are labouring, but there is a deficiency of sincerity and decision sadly disappointing our desires. We learn from this our dependence upon the Lord, and the need of prayer that no blight may fall upon our work. Spiritual pride or sloth will soon bring upon us the dreadful evil, and only the Lord of the harvest can remove it. Mildew may even attack our own hearts, and shrivel our prayers and religious exercises. May it please the great Husbandman to avert so serious a calamity. Shine, blessed Sun of Righteousness, and drive the blights away.

“From this day will I bless you.”—Haggai 2:19

Future things are hidden from us. Yet here is a glass in which we may see the unborn years. The Lord says, “From this day will I bless you.”

It is worthwhile to note the day which is referred to in this promise. There had been failure of crops, blasting, and mildew, and all because of the people’s sin. Now, the Lord saw these chastened ones commencing to obey His word and build His temple, and therefore He says, “From the day that the foundation of the Lord’s temple was laid, consider. From this day will I bless you.” If we have lived in any sin, and the Spirit leads us to purge ourselves of it, we may reckon upon the blessing of the Lord. His smile, His Spirit, His grace, His fuller revelation of His truth will all prove to us an enlarged blessing. We may fall into greater opposition from man because of our faithfulness, but we shall rise to closer dealings with the Lord our God and a clearer sight of our acceptance in Him.

PRAY: Pray Spurgeon’s closing words today: “Lord, I am resolved to be more true to thee and more exact in my following of thy doctrine and thy precept; and I pray thee, therefore, by Christ Jesus, to increase the blessedness of my daily life henceforth and forever.”

Posted by on December 23, 2013 in Uncategorized.

Leave a comment

December 22, 2013

Sunday: December 22, 2013

READ: Malachi 3-4

THINK: Saint Iranaeus once said, “The glory of God is man fully alive.” For a few minutes, think about the second half of that statement and consider what it means to be “fully alive.” Have you ever felt this way? When? What were you doing?

REREAD: Malachi 3:1-5 from The Message:

“Look! I’m sending my messenger on ahead to clear the way for me. Suddenly, out of the blue, the Leader you’ve been looking for will enter his Temple—yes, the Messenger of the Covenant, the one you’ve been waiting for. Look! He’s on his way!” A Message from the mouth of God-of-the-Angel-Armies.

But who will be able to stand up to that coming? Who can survive his appearance?

He’ll be like white-hot fire from the smelter’s furnace. He’ll be like the strongest lye soap at the laundry. He’ll take his place as a refiner of silver, as a cleanser of dirty clothes. He’ll scrub the Levite priests clean, refine them like gold and silver, until they’re fit for God, fit to present offerings of righteousness. Then, and only then, will Judah and Jerusalem be fit and pleasing to God, as they used to be in the years long ago.

 “Yes, I’m on my way to visit you with Judgment. I’ll present compelling evidence against sorcerers, adulterers, liars, those who exploit workers, those who take advantage of widows and orphans, those who are inhospitable to the homeless—anyone and everyone who doesn’t honor me.” A Message from God-of-the-Angel-Armies.

PRAY: With your understanding of what it looks like for you to be fully alive in one hand and your awareness of God’s desire for your purity in the other, explore how you do or do not see the two connecting. Maybe you can easily see God’s presence with you in your picture of yourself fully alive, or maybe that’s hard to do; maybe you think living fully must be done behind God’s back. Be honest – even if you recognize that your beliefs are not true, tell the truth of what’s in your heart.

LIVE: Sit quietly with God, opening yourself to what he might want to say in response to what you’ve shared with him today. You might look back at the passage or reconsider Irenaeus’s words. Wonder at the freedom intrinsic in someone who is fully alive and pure before God.

– Adapted from Eugene Peterson in Solo

Posted by on December 22, 2013 in Prophecy.

Leave a comment

December 21, 2013

Saturday: December 21, 2013

READ: Hebrews 10

THINK: I’ve only ever been to one marathon, but it was a pretty interesting experience. I went to cheer on my wife and one of my friends and I noticed something about the runners, specifically the way they related to the spectators cheering them on. At the beginning of the race everybody was smiling and happy. But after the halfway point I felt like the look on most of the runners’ faces was saying, “I think I want to die. Yep, I definitely want to die. This was not a smart decision!”

But then something happened. It happened to Jenny when she ran by us. It happened to others as they ran by their friends and family members. And it happened to pretty much every runner when they neared the large crowd of onlookers at the finish line. They heard the encouragement being shouted to them and somehow it energized them. All of a sudden, the words “Way to go! You’re doing great! Keep it up!” shifted the looks on their faces and – it appeared – the thoughts in their minds. Runners seemed to pick up the pace and run with more passion and determination when they were being encouraged.

I don’t think that’s a coincidence. I also don’t think it’s unique to marathons. I think the marathon provided a great visual example of a profound spiritual truth: we need encouragement! We are built for it. We are designed to be in community and to do life together with others and to build one another up. We need encouragement in every single area and aspect of our lives. Especially in our faith.

The writer of Hebrews knew just how easy it is to get beaten down and discouraged along the Christian journey. That’s why he implored us to “Consider one another in order to stir up love and good deeds, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together…but encouraging one another…” There are so many encouraging words and truths in the Bible. And so many encouraging stories about what God has done and is doing in our lives. We need to share them with our brothers and sisters in Christ because they need to hear them!

PRAY: Ask God who you can encourage today. Then do it!

Posted by on December 21, 2013 in Epistles.

2 Comments

December 20, 2013

Friday: December 20, 2013

READ: Malachi 1-2

BACKGROUND: The name Malachi means “messenger” and the message that Malachi delivered would be the final prophetic utterance that God delivered to the nation at large for 400 years until John the Baptist declared, “Behold, the Lamb of God.” The book was written about 100 years after the return from exile and already the people had sunk to lows that were even worse than before they’d been conquered. The book is structured as a kind of question-answer format indictment of Israel’s incredible unfaithfulness toward God but God’s incredible love and promise for Israel.

THINK: “I have no pleasure in you.” This was the Lord’s stinging rebuke to His people through the prophet Malachi (1:10). God was angry with their careless, shoddy methods of worship. The animals they brought for sacrifice were not acceptable to Him because they were not the best of the herds and flocks. Instead, they offered stolen, lame, and sick animals (v.13).

While we may not be showing this degree of contempt toward God, sometimes we are too casual in our worship. A friend of mine made this observation about herself: “When I shop for simple things like soap or butter, I hardly think about it. But when I’m looking for a blouse to match a skirt, I shop very carefully. I go from store to store until I find exactly what I’m looking for.” Then she added thoughtfully, “I should pay that same attention when I am worshiping God. But sometimes I approach Him as casually as if I were shopping for a box of Kleenex.”

During worship services in our churches, we may fail to give God our full attention. We rush in late. Our thoughts wander. We need to discipline our minds so that we are not focusing on yesterday’s cares or tomorrow’s responsibilities. When we worship the Lord with all our heart, He will be pleased with us.

Our very best we offer to You,
Gracious God, Almighty King;
As we come to You in worship,
Let our lives Your praises sing. —Sper

 

­– David C. Enger in Our Daily Bread

 

PRAY: Spend some time examining your heart today and confessing the ways in which you have given your very best to yourself and the world and brought your leftovers to God – the ways in which you have approached him thoughtlessly and callously. Ask him to help you worship with your whole heart because he is worthy!

 

Posted by on December 20, 2013 in Prophecy.

Leave a comment

December 19, 2013

Thursday: December 19, 2013

READ: Nehemiah 5-6

THINK: There is something that anyone and everyone with a heart for God and a call to change the world must learn – one way or another – and it is this: the closer you get to doing what God wants done, the harder your enemy will fight to stop you.

It is really hard to finish well. It is really easy to fall apart and never quite accomplish your goal. Why? Because the closer you get to doing what God wants done, the harder your enemy will fight you. And the story of Nehemiah to demonstrates two major ways in which that happens.

#1. The enemy will try to distract you! As you approach the finish line, as you get closer to accomplishing your goal and fixing something that’s broken and lighting up the darkness of your world – no matter what that goal is – there will always be a temptation to get distracted. To come down off of your “wall” – whatever that wall may be. And Nehemiah’s enemies tried to distract him. They knew this: On the wall, he was dangerous. Off the wall, he wasn’t. So, in chapter 6, verse 2 they try to lure him off the wall. It says, “Sanballat and Geshem sent me this message: “Come, let us meet together in one of the villageson the plain of Ono.” And Nehemiah receives that message and he says, “Ono. Oh no!” Bible puns are the best. 🙂 But seriously, this is how he responds (verses 2-4) “But they were scheming to harm me; so I sent messengers to them with this reply: ‘I am carrying on a great project and cannot go down. Why should the work stop while I leave it and go down to you?’ Four times they sent me the same message, and each time I gave them the same answer.”

So, these guys are trying desperately to get Nehemiah off the wall. Ultimately, they wanna hurt him, but they know that they at least have to distract him. They gotta get him off the wall. And here’s the deal – as you move forward and live the story that God created you for and make a difference in the lives of those around you, your enemy will try to distract you. And more often than not, those distractions wont be big, bad things. It wont be this crazy temptation like, “Oh, you’re supposed to go serve in a soup kitchen tonight, but instead you should get drunk and throw rocks at cats.” Because most of you are smart enough to think, “Hmmm, that’s not a good plan. I have something better to do.”

Instead, the distractions will be small. In Nehemiah’s case, they didn’t ask him to do something wrong, they just said, “Hey, come down from the wall for a minute and let’s talk.” In your case, it might be that you open up your computer to figure out how you can help victims of human trafficking, or to sign up to volunteer at a camp or food shelf, or type up a plan for how you’re going to help more people get access to clean drinking water or for how you’re going to share Jesus with the people at your school…but now the computer is open and a thought pops into your head, “I should check Facebook.” 2 ½ hours later you’ve “liked” 43 pictures, creeped on the profile of that person you have a crush on, and you got 2 new chickens and a cow for your Farmville.

And sometimes distractions come in the form of busyness. Sometimes good things keep us from doing great things. I think that one is particularly hard for all of us. We live in a crazy busy society. And we get so caught up in doing good things that we never have time to do great things! We skip church and we skip out on changing the world because we’re too busy being a part of it and chasing after it. And that’s right where the enemy wants us. Cause when we’re distracted we’re not healing the brokenness of this messed up world. But it’s easy to do! It’s so easy to get caught up in good things. We all do it. I do. But God is calling us to something more. He is calling us to be great. And to stay on the wall. Like Nehemiah did. To face the distractions and say, “I am not coming down!”

#2. The enemy will try to discredit you. We see this happen in 2 major ways in the life of Nehemiah. The 1st way his enemies try to discredit him is by spreading rumors. They tell some lies about him. And being lied and gossiped about, having rumors told about you, is a cold hard reality in the life of anybody who fights to change the world. In Nehemiah’s case, they start by passing around this letter to the people. In chapter 6, verse 6 Nehemiah writes, “Then, the fifth time, Sanballat sent his aide to me with the same message, and in his hand was an unsealed letter (Quick Bible verse interruption: When he says “unsealed letter”, its kind of like an ancient blog post, it means it’s meant for everybody to see) in which was written: “It is reported among the nations—and Geshem says it is true—that you and the Jews are plotting to revolt, and therefore you are building the wall. Moreover, according to these reports you are about to become their king and have even appointed prophets to make this proclamation about you in Jerusalem: ‘There is a king in Judah!’ Now this report will get back to the king; so come, let us meet together.” I sent him this reply: “Nothing like what you are saying is happening; you are just making it up out of your head.” They were all trying to frighten us, thinking, “Their hands will get too weak for the work, and it will not be completed.” But I prayed, “Now strengthen my hands.”

So, none of the stuff they said was true. If you read Nehemiah chapter 5 you realize it was the furthest thing from the truth. He was the most self-sacrificial leader he could be. But remember, when you do something for God you face opposition not because you’re doing something wrong but because you’re doing something right. So Nehemiah just shook it off, said “Hey, that’s not true,” prayed, and got back to work. And that’s what all great leaders do. Just do a quick Google search of any person who ever changed the world and you’ll find that people wanted to discredit them and said untrue things about them while they were doing what they did.

The 2nd way that the enemy tries to discredit us is to tempt us to compromise. Nehemiah 6 continues in verse 10, “One day I went to the house of Shemaiah son of Delaiah, the son of Mehetabel, who was shut in at his home. He said, “Let us meet in the house of God, inside the temple, and let us close the temple doors, because men are coming to kill you—by night they are coming to kill you.” But I said, “Should a man like me run away? Or should someone like me go into the temple to save his life? I will not go!” I realized that God had not sent him, but that he had prophesied against me because Tobiah and Sanballat had hired him.  He had been hired to intimidate me so that I would commit a sin by doing this, and then they would give me a bad name to discredit me.” See, Nehemiah knew that he wasn’t allowed in that part of the temple. He could have gotten a big head and thought that he was pretty great and he deserved protection, but he knew better. He knew who God had called him to be and what God had called him to do – and that’s what he went after. But it’s easy to lose focus. The more you accomplish and the closer you get to your goal, the easier it is to lose humility and start believing that you’re really great. The easier it is to start patting yourself on the back and start taking credit where you used to give it to God. Unfortunately, we see it all the time. A recent study done by a professor at Fuller Seminary estimated that over 70% of leaders fail to finish well – even church leaders. It is easy to get close but then get distracted or discredited and never finish. And the closer you get to finishing what God has called you to do, the harder your enemy will fight to keep you from getting there. It’s never easy.

But we can be like Nehemiah. He said, “I came here to build a wall and I’m not stopping until the wall is built. I’m not giving up. I’m not giving up my good name, I’m not giving up my integrity, and I’m not giving up my cause, because God has created me to do this in this season.” God uses ordinary people who let him break their hearts and who are willing to stand up and say, “Somebody has to do something; it may as well be me,” people who may not be the best but definitely care the most, people who know that it won’t be easy and they’ll face discouragement and distraction along the way but know that with God all things all possible and through him this broken world can change.

Nehemiah’s world did. What’s the end of the story: It’s found in Nehemiah 6:15, “So the wall was completed on the twenty-fifth of Elul, in fifty-two days.” There was no miracles, no lightning that struck the opponents, just God working through someone who was surrendered to him and willing to fix something that was broken. 140 years. That’s how long they were in ruins. NOBODY thought the problem could be solved. 52 days. That’s how long it took God to change the world through Nehemiah.

How is God calling YOU to change YOUR world?

PRAY: Ask that question. Pray: “God, how are you calling me to change my world?”

Posted by on December 19, 2013 in History.

1 Comment

December 18, 2013

Wednesday: December 18, 2013

READ: Jonah 3-4

THINK: The ending of Jonah is, I think, the saddest ending of any book of the Bible. Even after all of the incredible experiences that Jonah has had and the amazing things his eyes have seen (the inside of a whale’s stomach!!!, an evil city turning to God and repenting after hearing him preach!!!!) he just doesn’t get it. He obeyed God but his heart never really lined up with God’s. The book ends with him sitting alone, grumpy that the Ninevites have been saved. And along the way Jonah reveals his true heart. He tried to run from God at the beginning of the mission precisely because he knew God’s heart. He knew that God wanted to save the city of Nineveh and call them to himself and he harbored so much hatred deep inside his heart that he didn’t want that to happen.

I think it’s really easy to lament the ending of this book in a judgmental way. For me anyway, it’s pretty simple to shake my head at Jonah and feel like he’s just a disappointment and feel like I never would have acted like that if I had been in his place. I mean, how could I? If I’d seen what he saw and been used how he was used I would be rejoicing! Wouldn’t I? Would you? I wanna believe we all would. But I know better. I look inside my own soul, and I get the privilege of looking inside the souls and hearts and thoughts of a number of people in my church. You know what’s in there? Anger. Hatred. Selfishness. Bitterness. Grudges.

I think that we are all prone to have a little Jonah in us. We desperately seek to be rescued from our own failures and shortcomings. But we don’t seek the rescue of others with nearly the same passion – especially when we’re the ones they have hurt. We tend to cry out to God and ask him to forgive us for the awful things we’ve done that hurt others and ask him to bring justice and judgment to those who have done awful things that hurt us. There’s more than a hint of irony there.

There is a place for justice. God is just. And there’s a place for forgiveness. God came and died for us so that we could experience it fully. And I think the key for us, the thing that Jonah missed and that sometimes we miss too, is really experiencing forgiveness. It’s remembering that like Jonah we deserved to be swallowed up and to die because of our disobedience but that like Jonah we have been liberated from the depths. When we sit back and marvel at just what it is to be forgiven – how terribly unworthy we are and how mind-blowingly incredible it is that God emptied himself for us – then it is so much easier to forgive those around us. To release our hatred and bitterness, line our hearts up with God’s, and pray earnestly that he would use us – our love and our lives – to call and reconcile them to himself.

Let’s all take time today to remember just how huge the gift of our salvation is. And then, in light of that, to release anything and everything inside of us that hinders us from wishing every person on this planet the same experience.

PRAY: Ask God to forgive you for the times when you’ve been like Jonah. Ask him to help you release any hatred and bitterness that keep you from being fully leveraged for the gospel in the lives of those around you (and feel free to admit to him that it’s not easy and you need his help if you’re gonna do it). Ask God to line your heart up with his and use you however he wants to reconcile the world to himself.

Posted by on December 18, 2013 in Prophecy.

Leave a comment