March 19, 2012

Monday: March 19, 2012

Week 2, Day 2

READ: Matthew 2

BACKGROUND: Matthew, especially at the beginning of his gospel as he is establishing who Jesus is for those who don’t know him or haven’t heard, quotes the Old Testament with great frequency. His aim is to demonstrate how Jesus fulfilled all of the many prophecies about the coming Messiah, and he accomplishes this by lining up the story of Jesus’ life with the prophecies. Matthew actually quotes the Old Testament more than any other Gospel. Matthew – 93 times, Mark – 49 times, Luke 80 times, & John – 33 times.

Background by verse:
1-2 – The magi were obviously astronomers because they noticed a change in the stars after Jesus was born. And they very clearly expected to find a king when they saw the star that appeared. That’s why they went to the capital city – Jerusalem.
3 – Herod was afraid because he perceived that a King of the Jews would mean political and military takeover.
6 – Quoting Micah 5:2, a prophecy written 7 centuries before Jesus was born.
11 – They found Jesus in a house, not the manger. They didn’t take the red-eye overnight flight to Israel. They had to ride their camels. And, well, camels aren’t that fast. By the time they got there – long after Jesus had been born – he wasn’t still in the manger. But we can pretend he was for the sake of our nativity scenes. 🙂
15 – Quoting Hosea 11:1
18 – Quoting Jeremiah 31:15
23 – This one is not a direct quote from the Old Testament, but rather a combination of a few thoughts and themes. Notice here it says “prophets” instead of just “prophet.” Most Jews, especially in Jerusalem, looked down on people from Nazareth and so Nazarene became a synonym for despised or contemptible. This echoes the theme in prophecies from Psalm 22:6 & Isaiah 53:3

THINK: One of my favorite professors from college was also one of the most challenging. He had a habit of calling on people at random to answer questions during his class. Usually these questions had very little to do with what we were talking about – or at least not a whole lot – and they were never questions to which we already had the answers. He wanted people to come to the answers intuitively. But there was a catch: he was always looking for a very specific answer and he would publicly berate and make fun of anyone who got the wrong answer. He’d just start yelling and mocking you right there in class. Needless to say, when he asked a question it was wise to avoid making eye-contact with him at all costs. Inevitably, though, he’d call on you occasionally.

One day, he totally obliterated my friend Eric for stupidly answering “Milk?” to the question, “Since the water was polluted by refuse in Paris, what was the staple drink of Parisians in the 18th century?” I was cracking up as the professor responded, “Yes Eric! Brilliant! Like people in many urban areas today, whenever they got thirsty they would just walk into the hallway of their densely packed apartment building, and milk the cow who lived in the stairwell. Sharp thinking like that will really get you places someday, Eric. Of course, if you lived in 18th century Paris it would get you dead, because the answer to that question – the only one that makes sense – is wine!”  As we were walking home after class, Eric was hanging his head in shame and laughing at himself for giving that answer. And I’ll always remember his explanation because it really made me stop and think. He said, “I knew as soon as the word was coming out of my mouth that it was a dumb answer and he was going to kill me. And I knew, right away, that the answer was wine. But he puts so much pressure on you that it makes you doubt yourself!”

There is a relationship between pressure and doubt. I wonder how often the pressure and the stress of our world cause us to doubt God. Do we begin to doubt God’s promises and his goodness when things go wrong and we experience difficulty and hurt and pain and frustration and we get stressed out? The Israelites went through some difficult times. They were conquered and exiled. The pressure and the frustration of their world caused them to doubt God’s promises. But we see in Matthew 2 that God delivered! He sent the promised Messiah to bring healing and forgiveness and restoration. He always delivers on his promises. And though trials in our lives might tempt us to doubt, we can always be confident of his faithfulness.

ASK:  Are there areas in my life where I have a hard time trusting that God will be faithful to fulfill his promises?  As I look back, are there times when God delivered me from trials and kept his promises that I need to thank him for?

Posted by on March 19, 2012 in Gospels.

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March 18, 2012

Sunday: March 17, 2012

Week 2, Day 1

READ: Isaiah 1-2

BACKGROUND: Isaiah was a prophet in the Southern Kingdom of Judah (after the death of Solomon, the nation split into 2 kingdoms – Israel in the North and Judah in the South – and the Bible follows both kingdoms) who lived in approximately 740-680 B.C. During Isaiah’s lifetime Judah, which had been more faithful to God than Israel, was following in Israel’s idolatrous footsteps. Isaiah wrote to warn the people of Judah that unless they turned back to God and followed him with all their hearts – instead of just going through the motions while treating others poorly and oppressing the poor and worshipping idols at the same time – then they would be punished in exile. Israel had already been conquered by Assyria in 722 B.C. and it’s people had been carried off to a foreign land. Also, one of the major themes of Isaiah is the redemptive work of the coming Messiah – Jesus – and there is more prophecy about the work of Christ in Isaiah than in any other Old Testament book. One more bit of trivia: tradition says that Isaiah was martyred during the reign of Manasseh by being placed inside a hollow log and sawed in half. Though not found in the book of Isaiah, this is referenced in Hebrews 11:37.

Thoughts on this passage (by verse):
1:5-6 – This is describing someone who has been punished by the whip, not someone who is ill.
7 – In Isaiah’s lifetime, Judah was attacked by Israel, Aram, Edom, Philistia, & Assyria.
17 – Isaiah was considered a social reformer and he constantly worked – with the Kings – for the cause of social justice because he felt that it was critically interwoven with faith and obedience to God.
18 – Scarlet/crimson, interestingly, was a colorfast dye in Isaiah’s world. Other colors might fade or wash away on their own, but it wasn’t possible to make something died red go back to white again.
29 – Oaks & gardens refers to practices of pagan idol worship
2:4 – Incredible visual imagery in this oft-cited verse. Inspired a famous sculpture by Evgeniy Vuchetich.
12 – The day of God’s judgment is a theme that occurs countless times in the prophetic books of the Bible.
19 – Revelation 6:15 contains a further description

Think: The “Senior Slide” is a pretty common phenomenon. Seniors, in the last half-year of their high school and/or college careers begin to lose interest and motivation in their schoolwork as they look ahead to the next phase of life. I certainly speak from experience – in both high school and college. But I can still very specifically remember a conversation I had during my last quarter of high school with my American Government teacher. I had begun showing up less frequently to her class, and I wasn’t exactly giving it my best effort. This didn’t seem like a big deal to me, though, because I had a comfortable “A” in the class. I mean, my precious GPA wasn’t in jeopardy so I didn’t think anybody should care. But my teacher cared. And she pulled me aside one day after class and said, “Mike, you know if you actually showed up every day and tried, or even if you showed up to the test review days right before the test, you’d be acing this class.” Confused, I responded, “I have like a 95% in this class.” And then she looked at me – and this is why I’ll never forget the conversation – and she said, “So what! You should have 100%. It’s a joke that you’re willing to settle for less. You’ll get your “A” but if that’s all that matters to you in life then you’re going to be a waste of potential.”

I think, when it comes to following God and being the people he calls us to be, we settle for 95% – or worse – all the time. We go through the motions enough to make sure that our salvation isn’t on the line, but we put in something far less than our best effort. And we justify it to ourselves by comparing ourselves to others who we don’t think are as good as us. “Well, at least I’m better than _________!” And we let ourselves off the hook because we do some good things. “Well, I know I should do more and stuff, but, like, I haven’t cussed in a week and I smiled at that one weird kid – I mean I didn’t talk to him…he’s weird – but I like gave him a smile and most people don’t do that.” And we show up at church and check off the box on the list of good things we did. But we don’t live the way we know God is calling us to live. We do just enough to get by.

All of us do this sometimes. The nation of Judah did. They settled for less and just went through the motions of their faith and in Isaiah 1:10-15 God says he hates that and he’s sick of it! If you’re in that boat right now, I want to encourage you with some wise words that were once shared with me. If you settle for anything less than 100% commitment to God then you’re wasting your potential. And you’re missing out on his best for you. God’s design for our lives is set up so that we can live fully and abundantly. And he doesn’t want you to waste your life; he wants you to live a life of meaning and significance and he wants to use you to change your world. Don’t settle for anything less!

ASK:  Are there areas in my life right now where I am settling for less than God’s plan for me? What would it look like for me to be sold out for Christ in my school/neighborhood/workplace?

Posted by on March 18, 2012 in Prophecy.

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March 17, 2012

Saturday: March 17, 2012

Week 1, Day 7

READ: Genesis 3-4, picking right up where we left off yesterday. 🙂

BACKGROUND:
3:1 – See how Satan lies? He twists the promises and the words of God.
2 – When Eve is tempted, something very interesting happens. She both takes away from and adds to the promises of God. God said, “You may freely eat!” and Eve told the serpent, “We may eat.” God said, “You may not eat the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil” and Eve told the serpent, “We can’t eat from it or even touch it…”  It’s easy to do this when we get tempted. It’s easy to justify our sin by making God’s gifts out to be less than they are and by making his commands out to be more burdensome than they are.
15 – This is talking about Jesus. It is the 1st mention of God’s grand plan to restore humanity, now broken off by sin, to relationship with him.
16 – This is a really interesting verse. I think many people, even within the church, believe that male dominance is a part of God’s design, and that men were created to be rulers over women. A close reading of Genesis 3:16, though, seems to indicate that this wasn’t the original way that we were created. Instead, like difficulty in growing crops and increased pain in childbirth and death, the fact that the husband will rule over the wife is a result of the curse. It is an observation about the way things are in a broken world.
24 – The Tree of Life is in Heaven. See Revelation 2:7
4:3-4 – God didn’t accept Abel’s offerings and reject Cain’s because he really likes steak and hates his fruits & veggies. It was an attitude thing. Abel brought God the first and best. Cain brought him the leftovers.
19 – This is the 1st time where God’s design for marriage gets messed up. Sadly, it isn’t the last.

THINK:  When my wife was a little girl she had some difficulty potty training. She got to the point where she knew that she needed to go, but she wasn’t ready to go on the toilet yet. So, instead, she would go and hide behind the recliner in her living room to fill her diaper. And if her parents saw her back there and asked, “Jenny, what are you doing?” or tried to approach her, she would defiantly reply, “Go ‘way!” Now, on some level I think that all of us can relate to the desire to do our business in peace. But I don’t think that mindset fully captures what was going on in Jenny’s head when she hid behind the recliner. She hid because, on some level, she was ashamed. She told people to “Go ‘way!” because she was embarrassed. I see the same emotion in our 2 year-old as he is potty training whenever he has an accident.

Shame causes us to hide. When we mess up or we don’t measure up then we just want to disappear. We don’t want anybody to know. We hide from God. We hide from our parents and our friends. And our pastors! I know this one is true from experience with some of my close friends and experience in ministry. Sometimes people make mistakes and then they quit coming to church and it’s not because they don’t believe but instead it’s because they feel like they’ve messed up too badly and they carry so much shame that they don’t feel like they deserve to be in church. Or to be around their friends who love them. Shame is so powerful! And we all experience it. We all mess up really badly from time to time in ways that make us want to hide.

That’s what happened to Adam & Eve. After they ate the fruit they hid from God. They hid because they were naked and they were ashamed. Notice that in Genesis 2:25 they were naked but not ashamed. They had nothing to be ashamed of. But then they sinned. They rejected and disobeyed God and they introduced brokenness into the world. And they were ashamed so they tried to hide from God. And of course, God being God and all, it didn’t work out and he found them. But I really want you to understand something in his response. There were serious consequences for their rebellion. Death, banishment from the Garden of Eden, and more. But those consequences came because God is sinless and perfect and he is a God of justice. But he is not a God of shame! Reread verse 21 of chapter 3. What does God do? He clothes them. God covers their shame. And he covers it way better than they could (i.e. with a few leaves).

He does the same for you and for me. There will inevitably be consequences for our sins. But we don’t need to hide in our shame. From anyone. But especially not from God. He covered Adam & Eve’s shame in the garden and he covered your shame and mine shame on the cross. And he is inviting us to be set free from shame so that we can have intimate relationships with him without feeling the need to hide – no matter how badly we’ve messed up.

ASK:  Am I hiding from God or from others right now because I feel unworthy? What does it mean for my relationships with other people – both believers and non-believers – that God is not a God of shame?

Posted by on March 17, 2012 in Law.

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March 16, 2012

Friday: March 16, 2012

Week 1, Day 6

READ: Genesis 1-2

BACKGROUND: With some of the Old Testament readings that are a bit longer – there may be questions you have that don’t get covered in the “Background” section. Please feel free to ask questions in the comment section and I’ll get back to you.

Genesis begins with the very beginning: the creation of the world. And you probably noticed that Genesis 2 isn’t a continuation of the creation story but rather a deeper look. Genesis 1 is written as a poem and Genesis 2 goes back and fills in some more intricate details, particularly as it relates to the creation of mankind.

Some thoughts on Genesis 1-2 (by verse):
1:1 – God obviously existed before the beginning of the heavens and the earth. He created them ex nihilo – out of nothing.
8 – Many translations, because it makes sense when we are reading it phrase the end of this verse “on the second day.” More literal translations say “on a second day.” This is because there in no definite article here – the “definite article” is the word “the.” And the Hebrew word “day” here – just as in Genesis 2:4 when it refers to the day that God made everything right after saying it took him 7 days to make everything – doesn’t indicate a 24-hour day. It means “time period.” Like when you say, “I remember back in the day…” 🙂 So, God could have created the earth in 7 consecutive days. Or, he could have created it in 7 different eras or epochs that stretched hundreds, thousands, or even millions of years. The Bible doesn’t say specifically – though interestingly enough even modern non-Christian biologists have come around to admitting that the earth was almost certainly developed in the exact order of the creation poem of Genesis 1.
26 – Being created in the image of God is a HUGE topic that you could write volumes about. In short: it doesn’t mean that we share God’s essence of being, but it means that we share his moral character and that we are created with will.
28 – Creation isn’t finished. It wasn’t finished even when God sat back and called it “very good.” He created a creation with the ability to create. He gave plants and animals and humans all the ability to create more of themselves. Creation was built to be ongoing. And even though sin messed it all up, God is still inviting us in to the ongoing creation – and re-creation – of the world.
2:24 – Something profound happens in marriage where 2 souls become 1 flesh. It is a glimpse of the unity and closeness of relationship God wants with all of us.

THINK: I thought that the portrayal of “God” in the movie Bruce Almighty was fascinating. Morgan Freeman as God was, at first, slightly shocking. But then I realized that the character he was playing, sadly, wasn’t that far off from the way many people in our culture perceive God. Our culture paints God as just some nice old man who dresses all in white and isn’t that involved in our daily lives – and certainly doesn’t require anything of us – who shows up occasionally when we need help. God just gets painted as this genie-in-a-bottle sort of being that stays out of our way and then shows up in tough times when we need him to help us as long as we act like pretty good people. And I think it’s really easy for us to get sucked into that cultural mindset. It’s really easy for us to be influenced by our surroundings and get a really wrong, messed up picture of God in our heads.

This is what happened to the Hebrews. They knew the truth about who God was, but then they were enslaved in Egypt for 400 years. And over time they were influenced by cultural ideas about who God was. And some of those ideas in the culture surrounding them came from stories called The Atrahasis and The Enuma Elish. And these stories basically said that humanity was a giant accident – that the pantheon of gods didn’t really intend to make humans and that they disliked humans or, at the very least, acted in an impulsive, arbitrary, temperamental way towards humans. And so people lived their lives in fear of the gods, just trying to please or placate them so they wouldn’t bring harm. And this mindset began to rub off on the Hebrews. Culture began to blur their understanding of who God really was.

So, God called Moses to write the book of Genesis. And he inspired Moses to write the first 2 chapters to help the Hebrew people understand him properly. He gave us Genesis 1 & 2 so that we would very clearly understand that creation is not an accident and that humanity is not an accident, and so that we would understand that we are created in his image and he loves us and desires relationship with us. God is not violent and arbitrary and we don’t have to live in constant fear of him. God is the Creator and creation is his beautiful gift to us, his people, whom he created from the very start to be in an intimate relationship with him. This is the big idea of the creation story in Genesis! How awesome is that? Seriously, it’s awesome!!!

ASK: How has my culture influenced and impacted my understanding of God? If I am created – designed, built, and wired – by a God who loves me and desires relationship with me then how should I respond to him? How should I respond to the rest of this world he created for me?

Posted by on March 16, 2012 in Law.

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March 15, 2012

Thursday: March 15, 2012

Week 1, Day 5

READ:  Job 1

BACKGROUND:  The authorship of the book of Job is uncertain, and scholars suggest that it may have been written by Moses, Elihu, Solomon, or even Job himself. The events that occur in the book predate Moses and the Law (before 1500 B.C.) and they were likely recorded as the book of Job sometime between their occurrence and the time of Solomon (950 B.C.). While following the central character, Job, and the many afflictions he suffers, this book wrestles with one of the great questions that we ask as human beings: Why is there so much evil in the world and why do good people suffer?

Thoughts from chapter 1 (by verse):
3 – During this time period a man’s (sorry ladies, it was a very male-dominated culture and women couldn’t even own property) success and wealth was primarily determined by how much livestock he owned. When Job is called “the greatest of all the men of the east” it means he has more livestock than anyone else.
5 – It was common in the days before the Law (and the formal structure of the Levite priests) for the patriarch (the man of the household) to serve as priest for his family before God. Job does this. So did Abraham, Isaac, & Jacob
6 – “Sons of God” means angels. This phrase is also used to describe angels in Job 2:1, Job 38:7, & Genesis 6:2.
12 – Satan has to ask for permission. God is sovereign and Satan knows he can do nothing if God doesn’t allow it.
16 – “the fire of God fell from Heaven” may refer to lightning
20 – Tearing the clothes and shaving the head were common cultural expressions of mourning. Notice though, he very clearly indicated that he was in mourning and yet he “fell to the ground an worshiped.” Mourning and worship are not mutually exclusive in this verse.

THINK:  Here’s the million dollar question: How does one go about adequately addressing the problem of evil and suffering in a devotional blog post? I’d like to start by shattering any expectations you might have and admitting right off the bat that I can’t. Countless pages have been written about this topic and yet the questions remain. Why is there so much evil in the world? Why doesn’t an all-powerful God just stop it? Why does he allow bad things to happen to good people? Every single one of us has these questions from time to time, especially when bad things happen to us and we deal with loss and grief and pain.

The reality is that if we step back for just a moment to gain some perspective on our situations we often find that they’re a direct result of our own poor choices. Or the poor choices of those around us. And sometimes we blame God for not stopping or preventing the consequences of our own free will lived out. Because we’re created with wills as human beings, God doesn’t always allow us to just pray our way out of situations we’ve behaved our way into. But not all suffering is a direct result of our sin. What about the things in our world that we’d identify as pointless or needless suffering? What about natural disasters like fire from Heaven burning up Job’s 7000 sheep? What about tsunamis or tornadoes that kill and destroy? Why do they occur, and why doesn’t God just stop them?

I don’t know.

I know that on some level those things happen because our world is broken. And I know that our world is broken because of sin. Adam’s sin, my sin, your sin, our sin. And I know that God is at work right now to set all things right and make all things new and restore creation. And I know that the cross – the event in all of human history that most defines undeserved pain and suffering because of the evil of this world – was a part of God’s healing process. And I know that God is sovereign and his thoughts are higher than my thoughts and I wont always understand. And I know that just because God is sovereign and he permits evil in the world – because he created us with the will to choose it instead of choose him – does not mean that God causes all kinds of evil and sends tornadoes to destroy and kill and maim people or sends warlords to kidnap and exploit children.

I know that I long for the day when creation is restored and all things are right and evil and suffering are no more. And I don’t know when that day will be or how much longer we will endure the many horrible things of this world. But there is hope! No matter what we endure we know that God will use it to draw us to himself and teach us about his love. We know that he works all things out for the good of those who love him. And no matter what we go through in this life and no matter how painful it seems we can learn a few things from Job:

  • God is sovereign and we can trust that he is in control.
  • All of our suffering is temporary, and one day we’ll live in a better world.
  • God gives and he takes away. All that we have is his, not ours, and we don’t deserve any of it.
  • We can worship in the midst of our pain. In fact, sometimes our worst moments provide fertile ground to experience God’s love and provision most powerfully.

ASK:  Are there times when I’ve been mad at God because of things that happened in my life, and, if so, what is a more appropriate response? How does it make me feel, in the midst of all the evil of this world, to know that God is at working making all things new again?

Posted by on March 15, 2012 in Poetry.

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March 14, 2012

Wednesday: March 14, 2012

Week 1, Day 4

READ:  Joshua 1-2

BACKGROUND:  Joshua was written by Joshua sometime around 1400 B.C. and it is a book that describes the conquest and division of the Promised Land. It basically picks up right where Deuteronomy left off, and, sadly, it tells not only the story of great victory but also of religious compromise and unfaithfulness to God. God had been shaping his people for years (40 of them!) since they left Egypt to be a people who lived holy lives dedicated to him and shine as a bright light in the darkness of the world. At times they did just that, but at other times they turned away.

One of the most interesting things in the first chapter is the repetition of the phrase “be strong and courageous.” It appears in verses 6, 7, & 9, and the concept dominates the whole chapter.

THINK:  My son, Jimmy, is a pretty fearless kid. He’s only 2, but he loves climbing as high as possible – one whatever he can find wherever we are – and then jumping off. Sometimes I even catch him when he jumps. 🙂 Recently, though, he’s developed a fear of the dark. When he was younger he wasn’t afraid of the dark. My 10 week old daughter is not afraid of the dark. But last week when Jimmy got shut into a dark room he started crying because he was scared. And, after comforting him like any great father would (i.e. handing him of to Mommy) I began to wonder when and why people develop a fear of the dark. I mean, I know that dark is dark and you can’t really see anything, but nothing bad has ever happened to Jimmy in the dark. He’s never been attacked by monsters living under his crib. He doesn’t have any real reason to be afraid of the dark. And yet he is very afraid of the dark.

It’s tempting to think about a child’s fear of the dark in a condescending manner because I know that it’s an unnecessary and irrational fear. There really isn’t anything to be afraid of. But if I’m honest, as I look at my own life, I see unnecessary and irrational fears all over the place. How about you? When you think about your faith and your relationship with God in particular, is it dominated by confidence or fear? Are you strong and courageous…do you witness to those around you and live counter-culturally? Or do you just blend in because you’re too scared to live boldly? Do you trust that God works all things out for the good of those who love him? Or do you find yourself gripped with worry over your future?

All of us are afraid sometimes. But if there is a lesson to be learned from the first 2 chapters of Joshua it is this: we don’t need to be scared! We can be strong and courageous because God is powerful and he is in control and things might not always work out the way we planned or hoped but God is working all things out for our good and his glory. My challenge to you is to have faith like Rahab. She took huge risks – she put her life on the line by committing treason – because she had an unshakable confidence that God was holy and that he could accomplish anything. I pray you live your life with that confidence. Live boldly. Live radically. Live counter-culturally. There is so much darkness surrounding us, and so many people are living lives crippled with fear because of it. May we fearlessly be lights that illuminate!

ASK:  What fears am I struggling with that I need to release to God? What are some specific ways in which I can be more courageous in living and sharing my faith with lost people?

Posted by on March 14, 2012 in History.

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March 13, 2012

Tuesday: March 13, 2012

Week 1, Day 3

READ:  Romans 1

BACKGROUND:  Romans was written by the Apostle Paul sometime around 57 AD to Christians in Rome. Most of the letters we have from Paul in the New Testament were written to churches that Paul had planted or already visited along his missionary journeys. This one is different because Paul – as he explains in verses 11-15 – hadn’t ever been to Rome. Because he hadn’t ever preached and taught there, Paul uses his letter to the church in Rome to really explain the gospel in a deep and detailed way and say many of the things he would have said if he’d had the chance to visit. So, Romans is an amazingly rich book that tells us a lot about God.

Some thoughts from Chapter 1 (listed by verse):
1: Paul introduces himself as a “servant of Jesus Christ.” But the actual Greek word he uses is doulos which usually means slave. He is letting the Romans know, right off the bat, that he has given up his own rights & will to submit to God.
16: a.This is one of my favorite verses in the whole Bible! We should not be ashamed of the gospel – even if some people find it offensive or unbelievable – because it is the power of God for salvation. This always reminds me of the classic Newsboys song Not Ashamed, which really shows how old I am because I saw them play that in concert before anyone who is currently in high school was even alive.
b. When Paul uses the word “salvation” he’s talking about something bigger than just having our sins wiped away. God never just saves us from something, he always saves us to something. Salvation means being saved from our sins to fullness and joy and wholeness and eternity and relationship
20: Though we can’t know everything there is to know about God just from taking a nature hike, Paul makes it clear that creation points to its Creator.

THINK:  Relationships are so important to us as human beings. We’re built to be in relationship with one another. We have this fundamental desire deep within us to love and to be loved. To be accepted for all that we are. But because of this we are prone, as humans, to try to make our relationships into something they’re not and to elevate them to a place where they shouldn’t be. This is particularly true in our relationships with significant others. It’s easy to put a ton of pressure on our relationships and to get so intensely caught up in “being in love” that we begin to put our boyfriends or girlfriends on a pedestal. We become so consumed with the relationship that we make the other person the most important thing in our lives. We sacrifice time with others and even time with God and we compromise our priorities and our faith just to be them because, on some level, we are convinced that this is the best and most important thing.

But relationships fail. They fall apart. People break our hearts. Boyfriends and girlfriends dump us. I’ve been there. I got dumped over the phone once and I totally didn’t catch on that she was dumping me. I mean, she basically laid it out there in a very clear and very nice manner and I just didn’t get it. I just kept on talking as if it didn’t happen and she had to stop me and do it all over again. Then, when I finally got it things were super awkward because I told her “Oh, okay, I get it” but she didn’t want to have to dump me a 3rd time so she was like “Are you sure? I mean, you understand what just happened?” and I had to confirm again that I got it. Yet another example of my particular ability to be an idiot! 🙂 To be honest, she made a really spectacular decision and we moved on and it worked out amazingly for both of us in the end. But so many people get absolutely shattered when a relationship ends. I see it all the time in youth ministry. They’ve put so much stock in their boyfriend or girlfriend that they don’t see how life can go on – and some of them literally try to end it – simply because they got dumped. Now, I’m not saying it doesn’t stink when someone breaks up with you. It does. The pain of rejection is very real. But so often it shakes people to the core and destroys them because they’ve elevated the other to a place of importance that should be reserved only for God.

“For they exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen.” – Romans 1:25

There is only room for one God in our lives. We have space to worship only one. It is so easy to worship and serve another person. To elevate him or her to the place of God. To neglect God and neglect others out of devotion to this individual. And, for that matter, it is so easy to elevate all kinds of created things like money, clothes, cars, popularity, entertainment, video games, and more to the place of God. It’s easy to let created things become the most important thing in our lives. To allow them to take God’s place. To worship and serve them. And this is especially true when it comes to other people. But nothing other than the Creator can take the place of the Creator. To believe anything else or to live any other way is to exchange the truth of God for a lie. Don’t buy into the lie this world is telling that there is anything or anyone worth serving and worship except the God who created us and died for us to make relationship with him possible!

ASK:  Is there someone or something in my life that I’ve elevated to God’s place? What steps to I need to take to ensure that God is always in his rightful place in my life as the only one I serve and worship?

Posted by on March 13, 2012 in Epistles.

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March 12, 2012

Welcome to Through in 2!

Check this video out before you start for some tips on how to get the most out of your devotional experience.

Posted by on March 12, 2012 in Uncategorized.

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March 12, 2012

Monday: March 12, 2012

Week 1, Day 2

READ:  Matthew 1

BACKGROUND:  The first chapter of Matthew introduces us to two overarching themes that will be present throughout his gospel: 1. Jesus as the promised Messiah and fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy, & 2. The radical inclusion of all people – not just Jews – in the Kingdom Jesus was building.  So, how does it introduce these themes?

Verse 1 makes a very specific and unmistakable claim that Jesus is the promised savior of the Old Testament as Matthew assigns him four very significant names:

  • Jesus – from the Greek/Latin spelling of the Hebrew name Jeshua which means “The Lord is salvation.”
  • The Messiah – or the Christ in some translations, from the Hebrew Meshiah & the Greek Christos (which is the word Matthew uses here) which both mean “anointed one.”
  • The son of Abraham – The Messiah/Christ absolutely had to come from the line of Abraham as promised in the Old Testament.
  • The son of David – Same as Abraham. Also, the Davidic ancestral line establishes his kingship.

Verse 23 further establishes Matthew’s theme of prophetic fulfillment in the person of Jesus by directly quoting Isaiah 7:14 to state that the events surrounding the birth of Jesus took place for the specific purpose of fulfilling this prophecy.

The theme of inclusion of all the people of the earth in Jesus’ mission shows up powerfully too. As the “son of Abraham” Jesus is one through whom “all the families of the earth shall be blessed” according to Genesis 12:3. Also, in a totally radical move because women were second-class citizens in society in the first century AD & because Jews considered Gentiles (anybody who wasn’t Jewish) to be second-class citizens or worse, Matthew includes Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, & Bathsheba in Jesus’ genealogy. That’s four women! And two gentiles! One prostitute, one who pretended to be one, and one adulteress! Matthew is already building towards the Great Commission – to take the gospel into all the world – by showing that this Jesus guy is for everybody whether they are Jews or Gentiles, men or women, righteous or broken, kings or prostitutes.

THINK:  I’m a pretty big soccer fan. It’s possible that I’m an overly obsessive sports fan in general, but I really love watching soccer. And my favorite team is Manchester United of the English Premier League, partially because their star player is chubby and balding and I really relate to that & partially because they are the most dominant team in the league. They have a record 19 championships. I’m also a fan of the Yankees (as soon as the Cubs are out of it which is usually mid-April). I apologize to all of you who are offended by that…please bear with me! They, too, are the most dominant team in the league with a record 27 championships (the Cardinals are in 2nd place with only 11). In some ways it’s awesome to cheer for teams that win all the time, but here’s the catch: in some ways it’s really not. One of the most common criticisms leveled at United fans and Yankee fans alike is that they’ve lost the joy of being fans – they’ve become so accustomed to winning that it is simply an expectation rather than an excitement. Watching their teams win has become so commonplace that they’ve lost the wonder and the beauty of it all.

I wonder sometimes if all of us are in that boat when it comes to Christmas – this season where we annually celebrate the birth of Jesus. I mean, we’ve all heard the Christmas story a thousand times and we’ve seen glowing Nativity scenes in people’s yards all our lives. The language and the imagery are terribly familiar. But I wonder if, in that familiarity, we’ve lost some of the wonder about what actually happened that night. Has it all become so commonplace that we don’t even stop to think and to marvel at the miracle?

In Matthew 1, these things happened:

  • The Holy Spirit put a baby in the womb of a virgin
  • An angel appeared and told Joseph to marry her even though she was pregnant
  • The angel told Joseph to name the baby “The Lord is salvation,” because he was going to save the people from their sins.
  • Mary, the virgin, gave birth & Joseph named the baby Jesus.

It’s absolutely incredible! Outrageous! Amazing! The Christmas story is beyond comprehension. And one of the things I marvel at is the willingness of all the people involved to yield themselves to the will of God. Mary said, “Okay, God!” So did Joseph and the shepherds and the wise men. And God worked wonders and miracles through them. If anything, this story & this chapter in Matthew demonstrate that God is at work in our world and that he can and will do amazing things to accomplish his plan and restore a lost humanity to himself. Are you willing to let him work through you? Are you willing to follow in the footsteps of Mary & Joseph & the others and say “okay” to God? God wants to use you to make a difference for his Kingdom; he wants to work through you to do amazing things and change the world. He is real. He is present. He is calling. Don’t just go through the motions let your faith become so monotonous and dry that you miss out on the wonder and majesty of his design for your life.

ASK:  What are some incredible things that God has done in my life that I marvel at? What are some specific areas where I need to say “okay” to God?

Posted by on March 12, 2012 in Gospels.

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March 11, 2012

Sunday: March 11, 2012

Week 1, Day 1 – longer than they’ll normally be, but the reading is super short today and I’m excited to get things started. 🙂

READ:  Psalm 1

BACKGROUND:  Psalm 1, like much of the Bible – most often the poetic and prophetic parts but narrative parts too – is written in a specific pattern called a chiasm  (pronounced: ki-azem). A chiasm is a literary tool that was used a lot in ancient writing to help convey meaning and highlight certain themes and ideas within a poem or a book. In addition to the Bible, famous poems and literary works like The Odyssey, The Iliad, Beowulf, & Paradise Lost – among others – are written in chiastic structure. Put simply, chiasm is a symmetric ordering of ideas and phrases that ties an entire section – or entire literary work – together. One very common chiastic organizational pattern in the Bible is “A, B, C…C, B, A.” It sounds really complex and difficult to understand, but it’s actually pretty simple. Here’s a really easy example (that’s good for students to remember anyway):

A          When your messing with a flirt,
A’         you’re flirting with a mess.

A slightly more complex example:

A          Jimmy is a naughty boy
B                      who colors on the walls,
C                                  and then he sits on a time out.
C’                                 For a time in punishment he sits
B’                     because the walls are not for coloring,
A’         and Jimmy shouldn’t be naughty.

This is way more background than you’ll get during most days of Through in 2. But, the reason it’s included here is that Psalm 1 is a chiasm. A really interesting one. Read through it again as it’s broken down into that structure and see if anything hits you:

A _  Blessed is the one who does not walk in step with the wicked or stand in the way that
___  sinners take or sit in the company of mockers,
B ______  but whose delight is in the law of the LORD, and who meditates on his law day
________  and night.
C ______________   That person is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its
________________   fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither – whatever they do
________________   prospers.
C’______________   Not so the wicked! They are like chaff that the wind blows away.
B’______  ???
A’_ Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the assembly of
___ the righteous.
For the LORD watches over the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked leads to destruction.

THINK:           There is no B’ in the chiasm of Psalm 1. There first part of the Psalm is about the righteous person. The second part of the Psalm is about the wicked. But there is something missing in the second part. There is a parallel between the righteous person not walking with the wicked or standing in the way of sinners and, on the other hand, the wicked not standing on the day of judgment or sitting with the righteous. And in the middle there is a parallel between the righteous being firm and well rooted and fruitful like a strong tree and, on the other hand, the wicked being like chaff – the unwanted useless byproduct of wheat – that gets blown away by the wind. So we’re left to wonder why there is no parallel for the righteous man delighting in God’s law and studying it. There is almost ALWAYS a parallel of some sort in Hebrew poetry! The lack of one is glaring by it’s omission. But I think that’s the point. That’s the idea of Psalm 1 and that’s why we’re starting our journey through the Bible here.

The writer of this Psalm is telling us what separates the righteous and the wicked. What sends us on a path towards life and prosperity rather than death and destruction. What  makes us like trees instead of chaff. Close your eyes and picture a tree for just a moment – on a sunny day. Then picture a thunderstorm rolling in – with fierce wind and rain – and picture the tree in the midst of that. What happens to trees in storms? Sometimes they lose leaves. In the worst of storms they may even lose a few branches. But in the end, they remain. They stand firm because their roots are deep. Now close your eyes and picture a piece of paper outside on a sunny day, and then picture a storm rolling in with thunder, lightning, rain, & wind. What happens to a piece of paper in a storm? It gets soaked and ripped and blown wherever the wind wishes to take it. It may not survive even if the storm is small.

When the storms of life come – and they will inevitably come – will you be able to stand firm and survive because your roots or deep or will you be tossed around, beaten, broken, & destroyed? I think we’d all prefer the first option! So how do we get there? The message in Psalm 1 is clear: The Word of God! The Word of God appears in the life of the righteous person but it conspicuously missing from the life of the wicked person. As we begin this Through in 2 journey together, we can do so with great confidence that God will bless this process and that reading & studying God’s Word will give us strength to weather the storms of a broken world as we come to know Him more!

ASK:    How can I make reading & studying the Bible a priority in my life? Where can I carve out a place in my schedule to do it daily?

Posted by on March 11, 2012 in Psalms.

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