READ: 2 Kings 9-10

THINK: On August 17, 2009 I pushed a U-Haul to it’s absolute physical limits on the way to pick up a couch, a love seat, and 2 recliners from HOM Furniture in Coon Rapids, Minnesota. Jenny and I had gone to U-Haul rental place and I had just paid for it when she whispered into my ear, “Hey, I think my water just broke.” I processed this statement, looked at my 9-months pregnant wife, and said, “Well, I already paid. I might as well pick up the furniture now. You go home and get everything ready. I’ll be there as soon as I can.” It was a find moment of husbanding to be sure. Jenny was actually really calm and not having contractions yet, but nonetheless I was determined to make the trip as quickly as I could.

I probably don’t need to tell you this, but U-Hauls aren’t fast. I’m guessing that the one I had went 0-60 in 18.5 seconds. But I floored it to the furniture store, got everything loaded quickly, floored it home, and floored it back to the U-Haul rental place. Then I hopped into my mighty Ford Taurus with Jenny and drove like a crazy person to her doctor 30 minutes away in White Bear Lake. It was my first kid, I didn’t know what should or shouldn’t be happening. The water breaking made me nervous. I was absolutely getting her to the doctor as quickly as possible. Nothing was going to stop me. I was trying to drive safely but speedily. Jenny felt like I was erring on the side of speedily. I almost couldn’t help it. In my mind I was Jeff Gordon because I was on a mission! Then she told me, “You’re driving like a crazy person. Slow down. I’m fine!” So I did.

In 2 Kings 9, Jehu is on a mission. God has had enough of the Baal worship and the idolatry or Ahab, Jezebel, and all of their friends and family. He had Jehu appointed king, and told him to completely wipe out the evil house of Ahab. Jehu understood very clearly that he had a mission from God. He knew what it was that God had called him to do, and he set about making sure that it happened. He pursued it with such passion and determination that when Joram’s lookouts saw him coming they said, “It’s Jehu’s chariot and he is driving like a maniac!” Jehu was coming hard and fast to get the job done. Nothing in this world was going to stop or distract him. The Hebrew word there literally means “madness.” Jehu was furious and unyielding in his pursuit of his calling.

What would it look like it we all pursued God’s calling on our lives the way the Jehu did? So often we get distracted. So often we pursue God half-heartedly. So often we ignore the things we know he’s called us to in order to chase after the desires of our own hearts instead. We live in the midst of a dark and broken world where so many people are lost and hurting and desperately in need of the hope we have. And God has given us a mission to bring it to them! Nothing is more important than that. Nothing is more critical than carrying out the mission God has given us. Nothing matters more to our world. So the question that all of us need to ask ourselves is this: what will it take for us to capture the spirit of Jehu and decide that we are going to pursue our mission from God with a furious, maniacal, unyielding, madness that refuses to be distracted or stop for anything else?

PRAY: Ask God to help you clearly see the specific mission that he has for you – the role he designed you to play in the building of his kingdom and the spreading of the gospel. Then pray for the unshakable courage and vision to pursue that mission with everything you’ve got.

READ: 2 Kings 6:34-8

THINK: Once upon a time, many moons ago, while I was a college student in Des Moines, Iowa, I decided that since I have a deep love for Mexican food I should go on a weekly “Mexican Adventure.” So I affixed a list of all the Mexican restaurants within 20 miles of Drake University to my dart board and started throwing a dart every Friday morning to determine where I’d have lunch that day. I anticipated a long and exciting year of visiting multiple places. But then something happened the 2^nd week. The dart hit El Aguila Real. So I went there. And that was it for me. It was – and it still remains – the best Mexican restaurant I have ever had the pleasure of eating at. I should probably be ashamed to admit this, but during the summer of 2004 I ate at El Aguila Real every single day for 2 months. By the 2^nd week I didn’t even have to order any more. They just brought me the #4 Combo – Beef Enchilada, Taco, & Chile Relleno with a Cherry Coke.

My first instinct was that I had stumbled upon something special. It was my place. I knew about it and not everyone else did. And I kind of felt special. I honestly had a thought cross my mind that I didn’t want anybody else to know about my spot. I thought about keeping it to myself. But then I was struck by the fact that I had stumbled upon cilantro and goat-cheese infused gold. How could I possibly keep that to myself? So I told everybody about it. I passionately described it’s brilliance. I invited them all to come with me. And, as all of my buddies returned to Des Moines for school in August there were about 10 of them who went with me to El Aguila Real. And, not including breakfasts, we all ate our next 8 consecutive meals there. And many more after that!

In 2 Kings 7 we read the story of 4 starving lepers who made the decision that it would be better to surrender the Syrian army and take their chances than remain under siege and starve. So, they went out to the Syrian camp and, much to their surprise, found it completely abandoned and full of food. Their first instinct was to keep all of it for themselves and maximize their personal gain. Then they remembered the pain of all the starving people and realize that keeping it to themselves simply wasn’t right. The incredible, outrageous nature of the news meant that they absolutely had to share it with everyone. They couldn’t do anything else because everyone needed to know!

Do you feel that same way about Jesus? Make an honest attempt to answer that question. Do you? Sometimes our familiarity with the gospel can leave us in a place where we forget how unbelievable the message is. The God of the universe came down and gave his life for us so that we could be forgiven and restored to right relationship with him. Please don’t ever forget: THAT. IS. CRAZY. It is the single greatest message that the world has ever known. By a wide margin! So the question for us is this: what will we do about it? Will we keep it to ourselves? Or will we do what is right and share it passionately and excitedly with every person that we meet – like we would if we discovered a great new restaurant?

PRAY: Confess that you have been more willing to excitedly share restaurants, status updates, and Pinterest ideas with those in your relational network than you have Jesus. Ask God to light your soul on fire for him and give you the boldness to share him passionately with others.

READ: Leviticus 11-12

THINK: Clean and unclean. That’s the big idea in these chapters. But what is it all about, and why in the world does God set up this dichotomy? And why does he choose the animals that he does to be clean or unclean? These are great questions. I’m so glad I asked them. 🙂 And the answers, I think, are simpler than we might expect yet very challenging at the same time.

There are a number of different theories out there about why God chose the animals he did to be on the lists of “Clean” or “Unclean.” Some believe that it had to do with pagan religious practices – that God wanted to draw a clear line between his people and those who worshipped pagan gods and often sacrificed pigs in the process. But the pagans sacrificed bulls too and God declared those clean. Still others want to point to biological and community health reasons for God’s decree. They point out that animals on the unclean list were inherently more disease-ridden and likely to be harmful to people in an era without refrigeration or modern amenities. There are 2 reasons I don’t think this is it: 1. The ancient Israelites didn’t. For them, when God revealed this and for centuries afterward, it never had anything to do with public health. They never thought that was the point and so I doubt it is.  And 2. God declared all animals clean to Peter in the book of Acts. Believe or not, the refrigerator still hadn’t been invented in 40 AD.

I think, in this case, the explanation that is simplest is actually the truest and best: God chose what animals were clean and unclean for reasons that we don’t understand even in the slightest. But why he did it that way was not the “why” that mattered. Not at all. For the ancient Israelites it was less about wondering what God’s logic was. After all, he’s God so who could ever know it? The “why” that mattered was: why is God setting up this system? And the answer is that it was about recognizing that God had called them to be set apart.

See, being set apart from the surrounding world is what this system and God’s laws are ultimately all about. God is holy. We are called to be holy. But being holy, as sinful and fallen human beings, requires a great deal of purpose and intentionality on our part. It doesn’t just happen. So, God set up a system of what animals were clean and unclean and what practices made a person unclean in order to help the Israelites actively pursue being set apart from the sinfulness of the world around them for him. In verses 44 and 45 of chapter 11 he repeats the phrase – driving home its critical importance – that his people are to be holy as he is holy. And the laws about clean and unclean food help them understand how intentional they must be in the process in order for that to happen. And the laws about the uncleanliness of childbirth serve as an incredibly powerful reminder that we are born unclean. Because of the sinful condition of our race, we’re born unholy and cut off from God and there’s nothing we can do to bridge that gap on our own.

The food laws and birth laws no longer apply to God’s people today. God communicated this clearly to Peter in Acts 10. But God’s call upon us to be holy as he is holy is not one bit less critical and applicable and important. We are designed to be set apart from the world around us. We are called to be counter-cultural. We are called to be dedicated and sold out for God in the midst of a world that may not understand all the reasons why we live as we do. Too often our lives look the same as the lives of the people around us. And our Christianity amounts to nothing more than cognitive assent to a few propositional truths that fail to affect our behavior in any discernable manner. But we are called to be disciples – to be ones whose lives are lived in the shape of Jesus’ life. Holy. Set apart. Clean. Lives like that have an impact – they make the world thirsty for what we’ve got!

So how can we do it? Here’s a really corny suggestion from this passage: mimic the clean animals. Clean land animals had to both chew the cud and have split hooves. We can “chew the cud” by meditating on God’s words – not inhaling it quickly to get it over with but taking out time to learn and apply it. We can have “split hooves” by being in the world but not of it – a part of this world but with affections that don’t seek the things of this world but instead passionately diverge from the world and seek Jesus. Do both and you’ll experience God more powerfully as you pursue holiness and cleanliness which is, at it’s heart, all about the ability to connect to our Creator in the way that he created us for.

PRAY: Thank God for bridging the gap for us and allowing us to connect to him. Confess the worldly things that have stolen your heart away from him lately, and ask him to help you push those aside and pursue holiness and relationship with him with passion.