June 27, 2012

Wednesday: June 26, 2012

READ: Judges 9-10

BACKGROUND: These 2 chapters are a great microcosm of the depressing cycle of the book of Judges. The people forget God and stop obeying him. Then they suffer. Then they realize they made a huge mistake and repent. Then God sends someone (a judge) to rescue and protect them. Then they follow God until that judge dies. Then…repeat.
By Verse –
9:1 – Jerubbaal is another name for Gideon.
2 – This is a particularly ironic verse. Gideon had been offered kingship by the people but he turned it down in an apparent show of humility because he knew God hadn’t appointed him to that. But then he turned around and named his son Abimelech. So it’s not surprising that this son ended up betraying his God, his country, and his family by violently appointing himself king. Why not? Abimelech literally means “my son is king.” Irony = thick. Stupidity = thicker!
7 – Jotham, the only one of Gideon’s sons still alive told this parable to the men. The geographic features described in the verse allow us to know that the reason they didn’t just seize and kill him was that he spoke to them from a cliff, standing above them.
15 – The big idea of this story is that Abimelech offers them no security and this evil arrangement will eventually bring about the destruction of both the people (at the hands of Abimelech) and Abimelech (at the hands of the people)
45 – “Sowed it with salt” is figurative and literal. It means totally destroyed it. How? Sprinkling salt all over everything meant that nothing could grow there again.
53 – Millstones were about 12-18 inches in diameter and 4 inches thick.
10:1-5 – We don’t know a lot about Tola or Jair other than the fact that while they were alive the people of Israel followed God and after Jair’s death they foolishly turned away again.
15-16 – Confessing sins to God also meant that they were rejecting all of the other pagan gods.

THINK: The theory of Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) is generally applied to the military realm of nuclear warfare. The idea is: if one superpower with enough weaponry to destroy another shoots off a weapon of mass destruction, then the power that has been attacked will respond with equal or greater force. Eventually, this will mean the complete destruction of both powers – thus deincentivizing the use of such weapons in the first place.

Though it’s a military term, I’m pretty sure that MAD applies to a lot of other situations as well. Just a few examples: The prank war on our recent High School Ministries trip to Chicago where it took 15 minutes to create a huge, glittery mess and 2 hours to clean it up immediately after. Or the time in college when we had a huge box of the big plastic Pixie-Stix at the house I lived in, and I decided it would be funny to hit my roommate in the back of the leg with one when he wasn’t looking and then 15 minutes later a bunch of us – especially me – had giant welts all over our bodies from a Pixie-Stix whipping fight. I could go on…

Judges 9 tells the story of some MAD. The murder and the faithlessness that it took to make Abimelech king meant that it really couldn’t have ended any other way. He destroyed those who had helped him gain power and eventually they destroyed him. The blood that was shed went well beyond Abimelech’s murdered brothers. And though it sounds like a crazy story from a different time period, it isn’t that far removed – spiritually anyways – from our lives today. We are constantly enticed by a wicked and self-absorbed culture to turn away from God and to put other things – often ourselves and our selfish desires – in his rightful place. We push God aside and ignore his will in order to chase after the empty promises of a sinful world. And when we do there is only one possible outcome: destruction. As with Abimelech and his supporters, it may not be immediate. But it will come. Eventually the sin and the selfishness will destroy us and we will play a part in the implosion of our culture instead of healing and redeeming it.

ASK: What are the things that I have put in God’s place? What are the things I’m chasing after rather than seeking and following him?

PRAY: Take some time to confess to God the things that you’ve put in his place – the things you’ve sought instead of being obedient to him. Ask for forgiveness and ask for the strength to put him first.

Posted by on June 27, 2012 in History.

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June 26, 2012

Tuesday, June 26, 2012

READ: Job 8

BACKGROUND: Chapter eight is the first speech in the book from Job’s friend Bildad. As we’ve pointed out before, Job’s friends are well-intentioned and their words always have some elements of truth to them, but in the end they are misguided because none of them truly understand what God is doing in Job’s life. It’s important to remember when reading Job that not all of the words are to be taken as Biblical truths in the way that the words of Proverbs or Psalms are. It’s a different genre, and the words of Job’s friends reveal their hearts, not God’s truths.

By Verse:

5-6 – Bildad is reasoning that since God cannot be unjust, Job and his family must be suffering as a result of their sinfulness. Bildad is telling Job that if he would only ask God for mercy and become righteous, God would restore him.

6 – God describes Job in chapter 1:8 as a “blameless and upright, a man who fears God and shuns evil,” but Bildad is apparently confident that Job is a hypocrite. Bildad repeatedly tells Job that if he were pure and upright, God would quickly come to take away his suffering.

7 – Little did Bildad know when he spoke these words, that God would indeed give Job a tremendously prosperous future.

21 – Again, Bildad didn’t realize at the time that God was going to bless Job abundantly in the future.

THINK: A couple years ago I went through a pretty rough season of life. It seemed as though little by little God was stripping away a number of the things in my life that made me comfortable. It started with the death of my beloved Grandmother. Ten days later my “#1” Aunt passed away after a very brief battle with cancer. Within a month, I was laid off from my job and recovering from knee surgery. In the meantime, we completely drained our savings account with medical bills and taxes. Less than a year after that, my husband’s parents were divorced. During those difficult months, our hearts never even had a chance to think about recovering before the next heartache set in. Life hurts so bad.

Job was more familiar with suffering than I will most likely ever be. He was stripped of everything – family, fortune, health. Job’s friends failed miserably at being an encouragement and hope to him. They spent their time lecturing him with the false claim that he must have done something terribly wrong for God to allow all of this bad to happen to him. While there are certainly consequences for our sins (and Job was by no means sinless), we know from reading this book, that God was not allowing these afflictions to punish Job.

Unfortunately, we don’t always have such a clear picture of why such trouble comes upon us (and neither did Job, but we get the privilege of reading about what God was thinking in the first chapters of Job). We don’t usually know God’s plan through our suffering. We don’t always see the good that comes from the pain we endure. However, there are a few things we do know: God is always good. His ways are higher than our ways. And if we have committed our lives to Jesus, Bildad’s words in verse 21 are true for us, “He will yet fill your mouth with laughter and your lips with shouts of joy.”  We can rejoice constantly in the future hope of Heaven. In the midst of our darkest hours, no matter how hopeless our situations seem, if we have trusted Jesus for salvation, we can rejoice that we will soon be held in the everlasting arms of our Father God in perfect peace.

When struggles come, talk to God. If struggles in your life are a consequence of sin, ask God for strength to overcome the sin and be made righteous. When the hurts of life seem overwhelming, fix your gaze on Jesus and know “He will yet fill your mouth with laughter and your lips with shouts of joy.”

ASK: When life hurts, what can I do to keep my eyes focused on Jesus? Memorize Job 8:21, so that you can call it to mind in the midst of struggles.

Written by: Cari Widdel

Posted by on June 26, 2012 in Poetry, Uncategorized.

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June 25, 2012

Monday: June 25, 2012

READ: Matthew 18

BACKGROUND: By Verse –
3 – Like children = Huge faith, trusting, unpretentious
6 – Harsh words from Jesus here. Millstones were used to grind wheat and other grains.
14 – How amazing is it that the God of the universe is not willing that any people get lost and exist far from him. He loves people and he wants to use us to bring that message to the world.
22 – Whether your translation says “77” or “70 times 7” the basic premise is the same. Jesus isn’t saying we should only forgive someone 77 times or 490 times and keep a checklist or something. Instead, he using these numbers to use illustrate numbers beyond imagination.
25 – This selling into slavery was not an uncommon way of retrieving payment for depts.

THINK: Sometimes I think that 2 year-olds are more representative of humanity as a whole than we like to give them credit for. It’s easy – and comforting – to pass them off as immature and temperamental and say that they’ll “grow out of it.” But I often look at my own life and the lives of the adults around me and wonder how much “growing out of it” ever really takes place. This is particularly true in the area of forgiveness.

My 2 year-old is great at giving forgiveness and not so good at giving it. Immediately after one of the many times each day where he’s been disobedient or stepped on his baby sister, or thrown food on the floor he is quick to say, “I’m sorry.” This apology – whether heartfelt or not – is usually followed by him immediately assuming that everything is okay with the world and there should be no consequences. How could he possibly sit on a time-out after saying “sorry” right? The flip side of this forgiveness coin is that he is not quick to forget when someone else makes a mistake that aggrieves him. He likes getting forgiveness a lot better than giving it.

If I’m brutally honest in a moment of self-reflection, I do too. I’m not sure I ever “grew out of it.” It’s so easy to apologize, but so hard to accept the apology of someone else who has hurt us deeply – especially if they’ve done it a number of times and the hurt & pain that are inflicted become a pattern. At some point we just want to stop forgiving – to cut the person off and say, “You’ve had enough chances, but it’s too late now.”

That’s what the disciples wanted to do. That’s basically what Peter asked to do when he eagerly and excitedly – like he was throwing out some huge, righteous, amazing number – asked Jesus if he should forgive someone as many as 7 times. But Jesus laughed that off. He said, “Seventy times seven.”

Try for a minute to put yourself in Peter’s shoes. You come from a culture where forgiving someone 7 times is seen a s heroic. You want to follow Jesus more closely and so you’re trying to step out in faith, and then Jesus turns and he throws your self-righteousness right back in your face and says, basically, “Seven isn’t enough. Any number isn’t enough. Forgive unconditionally!”

He calls us to forgive unconditionally because we are completely and unconditionally forgiven by him!

ASK: Is there bitterness or hurt that I’m holding onto today? Is there someone I need to forgive? Is there someone I’ve hurt that I need to confess and apologize to?

Posted by on June 25, 2012 in Gospels.

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June 24, 2012

Sunday: June 24, 2012

READ: Proverbs 14

THINK: There’s a great deal of wisdom in this passage, and a number of helpful things to remember. But I want to focus specifically on the thread woven throughout this chapter of wealth, poverty, & success. It’s easy to get so caught up in the worldly methods of pursuing wealth and success that we ignore the poor and the needy around us or, worse yet, oppress them either implicitly or explicitly. But as Proverbs 14:31 reminds us, “Whoever oppresses the poor shows contempt for their Maker, but whoever is kind to the needy honors God.” The same God who made us also made every human on this planet, and we have a responsibility to care for his people. Today we’re going to do something a little different: there are some quotes about poverty listed below. Take a few minutes to read each one individually and think about how it applies to your life, specifically, as you try to live out the words of Proverbs 14:31.

“The curse of poverty has no justification in our age. It is socially as cruel and blind as the practice of cannibalism at the dawn of civilization…The time has come for us to civilize ourselves by the total, direct and immediate abolition of poverty.” – Martin Luther King, Jr.

“We think sometimes that poverty is only being hungry, naked and homeless. The poverty of being unwanted, unloved and uncared for is the greatest poverty. We must start in our own homes to remedy this kind of poverty.” – Mother Theresa

“Poverty is the worst form of violence.” – Mahatma Gandhi

“The fact is that ours is the first generation that can look disease and extreme poverty in the eye, look across the ocean to Africa, and say this, and mean it. We do not have to stand for this. A whole continent written off – we do not have to stand for this.” – Bono

“It is poverty to decide that a child must die so that you may live as you wish.” – Mother Theresa

“We cannot suffer with the poor when we are unwilling to confront those persons and systems that cause poverty. We cannot set the captives free when we do not want to confront those who carry the keys. We cannot profess our solidarity with those who are oppressed when we are unwilling to confront the oppressor. Compassion without confrontation fades quickly to fruitless sentimental commiseration.” – Henri Nouwen

PRAY: Ask God to open your eyes  to the poverty – physical, social, & spiritual – around you and show you the ways in which he wants to work through you to eradicate it.

Posted by on June 24, 2012 in Poetry.

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June 23, 2012

Saturday: June 22, 2012

READ: Psalm 19 & 20

THINK: When the great physicist Albert Einstein was asked if he believed in God, he responded: “We are in the position of a little child entering a huge library filled with books in many languages. The child knows someone must have written those books. It does not know how…That, it seems to me, is the attitude of even the most intelligent human beings toward God. We see the universe marvelously arranged and obeying certain laws but only dimly understand these laws.” Although Einstein marveled at the design he saw in nature, he did not believe in a personal Creator.

The psalmist shared Einstein’s sense of awe about nature but took the next step and believed in the Designer behind the design: “The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament shows His handiwork” (Ps. 19:1).

The wonder we feel as we behold our universe should serve as a road sign pointing to the One who created it. The Scriptures tell us, “All things were made through [Christ], and without Him nothing was made that was made” (John 1:3).

DO: Are you struggling in your beliefs? Look up at the stars tonight. In the sky is crafted an amazing road sign pointing to the Designer behind the design.

By Dennis Fischer in Our Daily Bread, September 4, 2009

Posted by on June 23, 2012 in Psalms.

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June 22, 2012

Friday: June 22, 2012

READ: Isaiah 31 – 32

BACKGROUND: Isaiah is sometimes called the “Bible within the Bible” and if you’re a lover of random facts and trivia you might enjoy these comparisons: Our Bible has 66 books; Isaiah has 66 chapters. The Old Testament’s 39 books and Isaiah’s first 39 chapters are about God’s law and judgment. The New Testament’s 27 books and Isaiah’s last 27 chapters are about God’s comfort and deliverance. Our Bible is truly amazing. The Bible was written over thousands of years by hundreds of different authors who lived in strikingly different cultures, yet the themes, the message, the answers, the HOPE for all humanity and for all time never changes!
By Verse:
31:1 – Egypt had lots of horses and chariots
2 – a bit of sarcasm from the prophet: “He is also wise.” – a bit like saying, “Yeah, right, let’s just depend on Egypt ‘cause you all know more than God….”
5 – Isaiah uses lots of similes, personification, and allusions. Here, God is like a bird….
9 – God is the fire
32:2 – During Christ’s return to Earth during the millennium, leaders will protect and comfort
6 – Wise people care for others.
9 – A warning to feel confident and secure only if you are trusting the Lord for your future.
13 – Without God’s blessing, the promised land is barren just like the surrounding countries.
20 – Those who follow God’s ways – (this is the way…walk in it!) will enjoy his great blessings!

THINK: My Bible prefaces each book with an outline, and these two chapters come under the heading: “Woe to those who rely on Egypt!” In other words, if you’re trusting in a few horses and chariots from some folks who think frogs have supernatural powers, you might want to reconsider. As usual, it’s easy to roll our eyes in exasperation at those idiot Israelites – I mean how hard can this trusting God stuff be? I find it amazingly easy to trust God, right? At least until I hear the evening news over the car radio: Wall Street had another bad day….the Dow Jones is down, and no recovery in sight. “Woe to those who rely on the Stock Market!” I guess I’m glad I don’t have much to lose. But the reality is, unless I am focused on God’s word, I continually find myself distracted into trusting just about everything but God. Whether it is wealth, or health, or governments, or relationships, anything that seems more secure than following God’s way is foolish!

ASK: Am I trusting in all kinds of earthly “Egypts” for my future? Do I believe that the men of this world have more wisdom than God?

Written by: Deb Howard

Posted by on June 22, 2012 in Prophecy.

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June 21, 2012

Thursday: June 21, 2012

Read: Proverbs 13

Think: I always get myself in trouble with snacking. I’m hungry, so I eat, but then when dinner comes around I am rarely hungry. I tend to fill my belly up with average snacks and then miss out on a delicious meal. Like yesterday, I had snacked on a peanut butter sandwich and then could only eat half of my cheeseburger with a fried egg on top. Now maybe the peanut butter sandwich was a healthier choice, the hamburger was awesome…and I didn’t fully enjoy it.

Proverbs 13 talks a lot about longings fulfilled. Verses 4, 12 and 19 all mention this idea, so it must be important. First of all, I think it shows us that longings are okay, and even a good thing. It isn’t wrong to hope for certain things within God’s will. I long for the day when slavery around the world is abolished. I long for Christmas time to come so my whole family can be together. I long to know Jesus in a deeper way. I long to have a good community and friends to walk through life with me. These longings are good and God wants to satisfy those.

The other thing I notice about longings is that the longer you wait for them, the better it is when it is satisfied. If it has been a really long time since I have seen my mom I am SO excited to see her. However, if I gave her a hug tonight and see her the next morning, it would be great, but not quite like if I hadn’t seen her in months. Anticipation brings excitement!

Many times, our longings are satisfied when we work hard for them. If I have a paper due and whip it out super easy, it doesn’t feel that rewarding to finish. However, if I put lots of work and time into it and cannot wait to finish the project well, it is super satisfying when I turn it in.

One of the most important lessons I have learned about longings is in purity. I long to be in a devoted, awesome marriage with a man who is faithful to God and to me. Many people think this kind of love can be found in cheap romance and one night stands, or having a kiss from a boy they think is cute. I disagree. I think we forfeit the amazing satisfaction God will give us if we try to satisfy this craving in ways that are outside of God’s design.

It isn’t easy to pass up on something now because we know something better is coming. It isn’t easy to give up the peanut butter sandwich for a fried egg cheeseburger coming much later. It isn’t easy to work really hard on something that we cannot see the end to. It isn’t easy to say no to desires now and wait for them to be fulfilled by your husband later. However, Proverbs, the book of wisdom, tells us we can do it and we should do it. When a real longing is fulfilled it is “sweet to the soul,” “a tree of life,” and  “fully [satisfying].”

May you be blessed as you wait for God to fulfill your longings and work diligently to achieve what he has set out for you to do.

Ask: What are my longings? Are they in line with what God wants for me? What areas of my life do I need to be working diligently in? Pray and tell God the longings inside your heart. He is the perfect person to be 100% honest with about what goes on in your head!

By: KVH

Posted by on June 21, 2012 in Poetry.

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June 20, 2012

Wednesday: June 20, 2012

READ: Romans 13

BACKGROUND:

By Verse:

1 – The rulers at the time Paul was writing this were most likely pagans, so Paul knew that Christians may be tempted not to obey them and claim allegiance only to Christ. Paul writes this to let Christians know that all government authorities are ordained by God and should be obeyed. When civil rulers overstep their proper function, the Christian is to obey God rather than man.

3 – Paul does not mean that this will always be true, but he is describing the ideal function of rulers.

4 – Rulers exist to benefit society by maintaining good order.

5 – Civil authorities are ordained by God and Christians should honor them to keep a good conscience.

8 – To love is the one debt that is never paid off. No matter how much one has loved, he is under obligation to keep on loving – not only fellow Christians, but all people.

9 – Jesus taught that our neighbor is anyone in need. Loving our neighbor as ourselves is not a command to love ourselves, but recognition that we naturally do love ourselves.

11-12 – The discussion of the coming of the end of the present age is used to motivate us to live godly lives. The phrases, “the hour has come”, “nearer now than when we first believed”, “night is nearly over”, do not indicate that early Christians thought Jesus would return within a few years. Rather, they regarded Jesus’ death and resurrection as crucial events of history that began the “last days.”

THINK: I’m at a stage in life in which I’m all too familiar with debt. My current debt is in the form of student loans and I’m really anxious to have them behind me. I’m incredibly grateful for a terrific education, but I’m getting awfully tired of paying for it. My husband and I are pretty serious about paying off our debt as quickly as we can and not acquiring any new debt. The word “debt” has negative connotations in my mind. It’s something I work hard to get rid of, and certainly not something I work hard to acquire.

When I read in Romans 13 that I am to have a debt that lasts forever, my first reaction is to feel burdened and frustrated (after all, that’s what the debt I’m familiar with leaves me feeling). And in complete honesty, the thought of a continuing debt of love being owed to some of the people in my life overwhelms me. There are people in my life that are hard to love. There are people that I am downright tired of loving. There are people that I feel like I have loved well, but have never shown an ounce of love or respect to me in return. There are people that I care for and show Christ’s love to who will never give me so much as a simple “thank you.”  Tired of listening to me complain? Me too.

That whiny attitude consumed me over much of the past few months. In pride, I had made up my mind to give up on loving some people because of dumb decisions they had made, but God reminded me that he never gives up on loving me. While I was growing weary in loving people, the Lord graciously opened my eyes to just how huge His love for me is. I’m so thankful that God’s love for me is not conditional on my behavior.  I’ve been completely humbled.

The call to have a continuing debt to love one another is a huge challenge. The word debt has serious work involved in it and we need to be busy paying it off. As verses 11-14 make clear, our time is short and there is no sense wasting it away on selfish, sinful indulgences. The greatest call on our lives is to love God and love others. Remember God’s love for you and make the most of your days by loving others.

ASK: Who do I need to love? How can I pay my continuing debt of love to others?

Written By: Cari Widdel

Posted by on June 20, 2012 in Uncategorized.

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June 19, 2012

Tuesday: June 19, 2012

READ: Romans 12

RE-READ: Read through this version of Romans 12:1-3 from The Message two times:

“So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you. I’m speaking to you out of deep gratitude for all that God has given me, and especially as I have responsibilities in relation to you. Living then, as every one of you does, in pure grace, it’s important that you not misinterpret yourselves as people who are bringing this goodness to God. No, God brings it all to you. The only accurate way to understand ourselves is by what God is and by what he does for us, not by what we are and what we do for him.” – Romans 12:1-3

THINK: Choose a theme that speaks to you – perhaps the idea that God is the real source of goodness in your life or perhaps the contrast Paul makes between what you culture draws out in you and what God draws out in you. What does this passage say about that issue?

PRAY: Pick one phrase from the passage that pinpoints the theme that impacts you. Repeat that phrase you yourself slowly several times. Each time you say it, notice your internal response. What thoughts, memories, or feelings goes it stir up?

Now bring these thoughts back to the passage, line by line, in a conversation with God: He speaks to you through the words in the passage, then you respond to what he said. (For example, if you feel the power of your culture is “dragging you down” you bring that feeling to each line of the passage and see how God replies.) when you’re finished, repeat the phrase to yourself one last times, checking your heart’s reaction. Is it different? Don’t worry if this process leaves unanswered questions. Just be open to what God is showing you through your thoughts.

LIVE: Consider on of the four “everyday, ordinary” parts of your life suggested in the passage: sleeping, eating, going to work, walking around. What would placing this activity before God as an offering look like? Howa would you think about this activity differently? Would the frequency, method, or other details of your activity change? Try it today!

From: Eugene Peterson, Solo

Posted by on June 19, 2012 in Epistles.

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June 18, 2012

Monday: June 18, 2012

READ: Ezekiel 31-33

BACKGROUND: By Verse –
31:1-18 – Verses 1-9 describe Egypt as a lofty cedar, 10-14 describe the destruction of Egypt, & 15-18 describe the reaction of other nations to her destruction.
1 – This is only a couple months before the fall of Jerusalem.
11 – Nebuchadnezzar
32:1 – March 585 BC. This is one year & seven months after the fall of Jerusalem and two months before the news reached Babylon.
14 – “Like oil” means undisturbed or untroubled – a sign of the prosperity of Egypt.
33:1-9 – This is a reminder of Ezekiel’s call to be a Watchman (1st seen in chapter 3).
21 – This is a paradigm shift in Ezekiel’s ministry. Jerusalem has now been conquered – which Ezekiel has been prophesying for 7 years. Now he’ll speak prophetically to the hope available to Israel because of God’s love and goodness.
23-29 – Ezekiel reminds those who avoided capture that they didn’t do so because of their own worthiness or merit.

THINK: I just got back from a trip to the Chicago area with a bunch of the high school students from Constance Free Church. We spent a day at Six Flags Great America, and I have to say the The Superman is one of the coolest rollercoasters in the world. It truly makes you feel like a bird. As I was waiting in the long line for the ride with nothing else to do I read some interesting facts about Superman, and I gotta say that he was pretty awesome! He was born on the planet Krypton but jettisoned to earth by his father only moments before the planet was completely destroyed. He ended up in Kansas, and he was discovered by a farmer and his wife who named him Clark Kent.  As he was growing up he discovered that he had superhuman abilities. He was, in fact, faster than a speeding bullet. And of course, he used his powers to help humanity. And growing up I never really considered the motivations of superheroes. They just saved the world because they had superpowers – just like I would do if I had superpowers. All of us would, right? Then, when I was in high school I heard a song by The Crash Test Dummies that really made me stop for a second and consider WHY Superman would do what he did.  They sang:
“Even though he could have smashed through any bank in the United States, he had the strength but he would not…Sometimes when Sup was stopping crimes, I bet that he was tempted to turn his back on men, join Tarzan in the forest. But he stayed in the city, kept on changing clothes in dirty old phone booths till his work was done…Superman never made any money, saving the world from Solomon Grundy, and sometimes I despair the world will never see another man like him.”

It’s interesting to think that Superman didn’t have to use his powers to fight for justice. He was free to do really anything that he wanted. He really could have robbed banks and lived comfortably, but instead he lived humbly, changed clothes in dirty old phone booths, and used his powers to save the world. That’s pretty cool. But what in the world does it have to do with us – or with real life?

Well, most of you probably don’t believe that you have a superpower, but guess what: you’re wrong!  You have a world changing superpower! It’s not the ability to fly or leap tall buildings in a single bound. And it is definitely not the kind of superpower where you get to start wearing your underwear on the outside of your pants like Superman does. But you have a superpower than can totally transform the world. It’s called the gospel. It’s the message that Jesus Christ – God himself – came to earth and took on humanity and died on the cross and rose again so that we could be forgiven and set free and reconciled to God. And saying that the gospel is a world changing superpower that you hold in your hands is not just a corny church line. The apostle Paul writes, in Romans 1:16, “I am not ashamed of the gospel because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes.” That message – the gospel – totally reshaped the Roman Empire and total transformed the history of the world.  And it has the power to totally reshape our world and totally transform our high schools and our friends…if we’ll only USE our superpower and share it!

But we don’t always do that. We have this world-changing message in our hands and so many times we avoid sharing it, we just hold on to it and keep it to ourselves. We take comfort in it – knowing that we’re saved – but we don’t offer that same comfort to those around us every day even though Christ died for them too! We have faith but we don’t share it. Why?

Fear. We’re afraid of what people might think. We’re afraid they’d reject us. We don’t feel like it’s urgent or like we’re compelled to do it, and we’re afraid that if we speak up we’ll lose friends or not be seen as cool. We just want to blend in so we’re afraid to do anything different. God has a bigger plan! So big that we HAVE to share!

Ezekiel 33 is a pretty heavy passage. God basically tells Ezekiel, “Hey, I’ve given you a message that these people need to hear. If you deliver that message to them and they reject it then that’s their problem and their own foolishness. But if you choose not to deliver that message to them, then they don’t even know…they aren’t fully aware the way they should be, the way I want them to be, and their blood – their suffering – is on your head because you could have done something but instead you sat by and you did nothing! You said nothing.” God tells him, I have made you a watchman. And the job of the watchmen in that day and age was critical. The watchman warned the people when armies were coming to attack. Without the watchman that information wouldn’t get there and death was assured. When the watchman did his job – it saved lives. When he didn’t – it cost many more lives.

If you are a believer in Jesus Christ – if you’ve accepted the gospel message as true – I believe that this is what God is saying to you tonight: “You are a superhero and your superhero name is The Watchman or The Watchwoman.” You are The Watchman – the Watchwoman. You hold in your hands the ability to save lives, and if you don’t utilize that ability – if you hold on to the information – the incredible, glorious, liberating information of salvation that is contained in the gospel then the blood of the people around you who perish is on your head. I have placed you right where you are – in this time and this place – to be a light, to be a world-changer, to share the gospel with those around you.”

I realize that may seem heavy, but it really isn’t for a couple of important reasons: 1. It gives us a mission and a purpose beyond just trying to survive this life, & 2. God doesn’t hold us responsible for the results. He simply calls us to make ourselves available to him to be used in whatever situations he puts us in so that he can draw those around us to himself. That’s an awesome purpose and mission for our lives! And I believe at the very core of my being that if we do it – if we just make ourselves available to God and allow faith to conquer our fears – we can create a whole new future for our friends, classmates, neighbors, teammates, & coworkers!

Posted by on June 18, 2012 in Prophecy.

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