Fresh Start

Isaiah 52:12 NIV

But you will not leave in haste or go in flight; for the Lord will go before you, the God of Israel will be your rear guard.

How Does the New Year Look?

Now that Christmas has passed and all the rush of it has settled, there is a certain amount of reminiscing that happens.  Perhaps these stories of Christmas will warm your heart!  One woman told of her business friend’s daughter who refused the gift of a “new, gold Mercedes convertible because, she told her parents, ‘You knew I wanted a black one. ‘’’ Another writer had this horror story to tell.  “My boss told me they had to go to the Apple store after closing to return the iPhone 8 her nephew’s parents bought for the child after he cried all Christmas Day because he wanted the iPhone X.”  Listen to this great story.  “My childhood best friend threw a three hour crying fit when her high school boyfriend propose to her on Christmas.  The reason?  The ring he proposed with wasn’t the one she wanted.”   One more to help you appreciate your own Christmas Day.  “An acquaintance yelled at his aunt after she gave him a $50 Amazon gift card, demanded cash and then when his aunt refused (rightfully)—threw the card at her and left the family party.  He’s 40.”  How would you like to have those family members on your gift list?

Not everyone finds Christmas time to be a happy part of the year and in fact many aren’t all that thrilled about facing a new year either.  Haunting memories and traumatic experiences beat down the future for them.  Recent setbacks and crushing mistakes may give the new year a certain ring of doom to it; a foreboding pinned to it.  Perhaps this coming year is not exciting for you, it carries with it the same humdrum and disappointments previous years offered.  Not everyone looks forward to January 1 with anticipation and enthusiasm.  Some of us, and perhaps you do too, have a bit of dread as you await the coming year.  It is not crazy to feel that way.  You certainly aren’t alone if that is where you find yourself.

Many of us made big mistakes last year.  David from the Bible certainly is famous for several.  One that is rarely talked about is the time he decided to use his soldiers to count how many men he had who could serve in his army.  The commander of his forces was incredulous!  But Joab replied to the king, "May the Lord your God multiply the troops a hundred times over and may the eyes of my lord the king see it. But why does my lord the king want to do such a thing?" (2 Samuel 24:3 NIV) David would not back down and so for the next nine months Joab and his associates tramped all over Israel counting the men.  Altogether there were 1.3 million potential soldiers in the kingdom.  Something about his order to take the census though did not set well with David.  David was conscience-stricken after he had counted the fighting men, and he said to the Lord, "I have sinned greatly in what I have done. Now, O Lord, I beg you, take away the guilt of your servant. I have done a very foolish thing." (2 Samuel 24:10 NIV)

Somehow David realized that his demand to count the fighting men of Israel was a grievous offense to God and he was right.  Before David got up the next morning, the word of the Lord had come to Gad the prophet, David's seer:  "Go and tell David, 'This is what the Lord says: I am giving you three options. Choose one of them for me to carry out against you.'" (2 Samuel 24:11-12 NIV) The choices were not good.  So, Gad went to David and said to him, "Shall there come upon you three years of famine in your land? Or three months of fleeing from your enemies while they pursue you? Or three days of plague in your land? Now then, think it over and decide how I should answer the one who sent me." (2 Samuel 24:13 NIV) If it was me, I would have asked if there was a fourth option, but of course there wasn’t, and it would have been ridiculous of me to pose the question.  We cannot say for certain what about the census was so wrong; God after all ordered a number of them (pardon the pun) when the Israelites were making their way to the Promised Land.  It seems though that David was making the kingdom about himself and the ability it had to fend for itself rather than relying upon God and His power to save them.  Whatever the case, this was a huge mistake of David’s, publicly humiliating, and certainly he regretted it the rest of his life.

We must say that Job had a pretty rough year.  So did Ruth, losing her husband and Silas being beaten within an inch of his life.  Many of us still carry the scars of mistakes we have made, mistreatment we have suffered and losses that have nearly broken us.  Imagine if Thomas ended the year doubting the resurrection of Jesus, Peter suffering through his denial of Jesus, Mary her fears that Jesus had gone insane, and Euodia and Synteche and their humiliating quarrel that created turmoil in the Philippian church.  Your year might not have been very good, and it is certain that nearly every important person in the Bible had a pretty bad year too.

God makes a promise to us through the prophet Isaiah.  But you will not leave in haste or go in flight; for the Lord will go before you, the God of Israel will be your rear guard. (Isaiah 52: 12 NIV) You have trailing you memories of mistakes you have made and hurts you have suffered and perhaps for you they are like a lion hunting your down into this coming year.  They plague your plans and bring a certain amount of dread to the coming year.  God though is your rear guard.  He is the Savior of your past.  There are some things that you have done that were wrong and really wrong; words that never should have come out of your mouth.  Actions you took that were harmful to you or someone else.   Decisions you made that are costing you dearly.  Not only that, you have been hurt by others and the wounds are still tender, troubles have hit you that seem impossible to overcome.  Yet God is your rear guard.  He is the protector of your past and He will carry you out of it into a new day.

When the Israelites stood at the edge of the Promised Land, they had to decide if they were going to leave behind their past wanderings or enter into a new adventure.  It was a fresh day, that early morning as they marched up to the Jordan River.  It was a fresh start.  It was not just what was before them that could keep them back; it was what was behind them too.  You are at the edge of a new year and God is ready to lead you across December and into January.  What lies ahead you cannot say.  You do know what is behind you and it is up to you if you are going to let Christ your Savior take care of it, take it out of Satan’s hands and give it a new life as a step in the right direction.  Plenty let the past keep them from what God has ahead for them.  Surely you aren’t that sort.  You believe the promise God has for you as is recorded in the old King James Translation of the Bible, Behold, I make all things new. (Revelation 21:5 KJV) Whatever is behind, God is making it right so that you can move forward with His creativity and insight and direction and power and forge together, the two of you, a bright and “glorious morn”.  Today is the day you cross the river and start fresh with Christ as your Savior leading the way.

It Takes Time

John 14:6 NIV

Jesus answered, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”

What Will You Do About The Truth?

Last month our church had a potluck and it was poorly attended.  In fact, there were fewer people in the worship service that day than I can remember.  A number of people put a significant amount of work into getting the potluck ready and the food was great.  Yet I wasn’t sure if we should have another one for a while.  I asked a couple if they thought we should wait a few months for the next church potluck or have one this month and they both smiled broadly and insisted that we have it this month.  I was caught off guard by their enthusiasm and then in a split moment of certainty, I knew that the Lord had spoken to me through them, that He wanted us to have a potluck so I went ahead and scheduled it.

I must admit though that I had a dilemma.  How was I to know that it really was God speaking to me and not just peer pressure?  It is not always God speaking to you when you want it to be and it isn’t easy knowing if you are right or wrong in it.  I did not have any Bible verse I could point to as evidence that this was coming from God.  Do you just rely on positive thinking and optimistic strategizing to guide you when you aren’t sure how to connect with the Lord on some matter that means a lot to you?  What is your go to method for hearing from God?  Most don’t care what God might be saying; they never give it much thought but what about you?  Have you come to the place where you want the Lord to show you the way?

Good people, God’s people have made horrible mistakes, when it comes to God.  We rightfully commend Peter for his tremendous faith taking God at His word and walking on the water.  When he and his fellow disciples were going across the Sea of Galilee in the middle of a great storm, they all saw Jesus coming toward them but at first none of them were really sure it was Him.  Timidly, Peter cried out to the Lord with a tremendous request.  "Lord, if it's you," Peter replied, "tell me to come to you on the water."  "Come," he said.  Then Peter got down out of the boat, walked on the water and came toward Jesus.  (Matthew 14:28-29 NIV)  However, quickly Peter’s faith failed him and he started sinking into the billowing waves.  But when he saw the wind, he was afraid and, beginning to sink, cried out, "Lord, save me!"   Immediately Jesus reached out his hand and caught him. "You of little faith," he said, "why did you doubt?" (Matthew 14:30-31 NIV) When Peter started out toward Jesus, He had complete confidence in God to take him along but it didn’t last and rather than walking in the might and protection of God, he went out in his own strength and insight.  He could see no way that he was going to survive the waves and down he went.

The same was true with Mary, the mother of Jesus.  Instead of maintaining her faith in Jesus and walking in Him, she trusted in her own wits and along with her children, came to the conclusion that Jesus had lost His mind.  What He was teaching and how He was behaving seemed irrational to her.  Then Jesus entered a house, and again a crowd gathered, so that he and his disciples were not even able to eat.  When his family heard about this, they went to take charge of him, for they said, "He is out of his mind." …Then Jesus' mother and brothers arrived. Standing outside, they sent someone in to call him. (Mark 3:20-21,31 NIV)  You can talk yourself into nearly anything if you rely just on you to figure out everything, including deciding that Jesus is crazy.  When Saul, who later became Paul was an unbeliever, he was convinced the Christian people were the worst sorts of souls and he set out on a quest to destroy them.  It seems so very reasonable, any conclusion you make when you are walking in yourself and deciding what you think is best.  The most rational and acceptable determinations are made by those who have no relationship with Christ.  They make sense and their arguments are levelheaded.  Mary, Saul and Peter all had their ducks in a row with their conclusions but just because the whole world agrees with you doesn’t mean it is so.

Jesus told His disciples not to talk about certain things until He was risen from the dead.  As they were coming down the mountain, Jesus gave them orders not to tell anyone what they had seen until the Son of Man had risen from the dead. (Mark 9:9 NIV)  There are many things you cannot understand nor can you grasp their importance until Christ is raised from the dead in you.  No matter how hard you look at a matter, regardless of how intensely you stare at a problem or an idea, you cannot get the gist of it until Jesus Christ has come alive in you.  Here is a Biblical example.  When Saul was just an ordinary person and had no sense of Christ in Him, he thought it was best to do whatever He could to stop the progression of the Christian message.  However, He met Christ and could no longer refute His Presence or authority as Lord.  Jesus became alive in Him and it completely changed the way He saw everything.  There is  a magical moment recorded in Acts 13 that completely altered the course of His life.  In the church at Antioch there were prophets and teachers: Barnabas, Simeon called Niger, Lucius of Cyrene, Manaen (who had been brought up with Herod the tetrarch) and Saul.  While they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, "Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them."  So after they had fasted and prayed, they placed their hands on them and sent them off.  The two of them, sent on their way by the Holy Spirit, went… (Acts 13:1-4 NIV)

Consider just how monumental this really was.  Saul, who had been instrumental in the horrific persecution of Christian people in the Middle East, who personally ordered the murder of Christians and their imprisonment was now being commissioned to begin the great missionary movement into the depths of the Roman Empire.  Not only that, Saul was accepting the call and going off on the enterprise...without coercion, without resistance on his part!  We treat this lightly because we are used to Paul being the greatest of all missionaries and the author of one fourth the New Testament.  This was new ground however; for the Church as well as for Saul. Never before had any Christian workers officially with the blessing of the Church been sent out beyond the narrow confines of the Jewish world and certainly not someone of Saul’s notoriety.  You must consider the risk being taken by everyone involved.  What if Saul turned on them?  What if he wasn’t spiritually strong enough to withstand the persecution they might face?  What if Saul’s Christianity had no staying power?  It was a most shocking enterprise!

Take a close look at how this decision to send Saul and Barnabas into the wild pagan world of Roman rule developed.  In this one church in Antioch, there were a group of believers who had some experience hearing from God and praying.  While they were in a time of worship, the Holy Spirit told them to make Saul and Barnabas missionaries.  Somehow, the Lord got this message across to each one of these Christian leaders and church members.  They knew it was God saying it and they were certain of what He said.  Also, Christ in some way prepared Saul and Barnabas for this dramatic change of course.  They were not like Moses or Gideon who were spiritually unprepared for the calling each received from God.  Saul and Barnabas were ready to go; up for the challenge.  God did that in them.  God prepared their hearts for this crucial mission.

God has important things to say to you.  He has tasks for you that matter for eternity.  He has a way of looking at things that He wants you to see.  The Lord has plans for you, challenges for you, certain ways of doing things that are critical for you and for others that you may not even know yet.  You can be oblivious to Christ and remain in a spiritual fog if you like or you can come up into the bright sunlight of God and His word.  You can know what only Christ can show you.  You can see what only the Lord can reveal.  It is possible for you to be just as alert and spiritually alive as those Antioch church members who all knew God wanted Saul and Barnabas to be the first missionaries to the world outside the Middle East.

You must read the Bible if you want to hear from God.  You can never be certain it is Jesus talking to you if the Bible isn’t a part of your thinking.  You don’t read the Bible to get something out of it but to be with Jesus.  If you don’t care what He is doing or how He thinks, then keep the Bible on your coffee table or stuck in your phone.  But if you want God to talk with you and be close to you, then you must read the Bible.  Do what God says whenever you know what He wants you to do.  The Lord will be as silent as a door knob if you disobey Him and ignore what He is telling you.  Pray.  Just sit with God and tell Him you love Him and be quiet…do this several times a day.  You don’t have to ask for anything.  If you have a sin to confess then confess it.  If you feel the desire to thank Him or tell Him you love Him, then do that.  Mostly just sit with Christ and let the Lord have room in your mind to work in it.  Become someone the Lord talks with and gives His thoughts and directions.  Be a disciple that the Lord can guide and lead.  Make the best use of your time here on earth by being one of the Lord’s trusted friends.  Be a disciple!

How’s It Going?

1 Kings 19:4 NIV

"I have had enough, Lord," he said. "Take my life; I am no better than my ancestors."

Do You Ever Get Discouraged?

Last Sunday I was.  I came home and could not shake my frustration with how things were going.  It turned into grumpiness that led to moping about the house and not wanting to be around anyone.  I would like to say my discouragement ended that night but it didn’t.  The entire next day I felt its oppression and even into the third day.  It made me moody and I had a tough time concentrating.  The trouble is, I felt like I had a right to feel sorry for myself and be upset.  That made it almost a moral right; that anyone in my situation would and should be dejected too.  I honestly did not see any reason why I should change my mood even if I thought I could.  No one could talk me out of being discouraged, because my frustrations seemed justified.  I didn’t reach out to anyone for support and didn’t try to cheer up myself.  I was all alone in my discouragement…or at least it seemed like it.  Like crawling into a closet and closing the door behind me, psychologically, I shut everyone else out and convinced myself that no one cared how I felt.

One of the great preachers of all time, the world famous Charles Spurgeon went through long and intense bouts with depression.  He made life miserable for everyone in his family when he went through them.  He isn’t the only Christian leader who suffered from despair.  Charles Stanley, the great pastor out of Atlanta battled discouragement even while leading a great church and wildly popular radio ministry.  When you get discouraged, what leads to it?  Have you wanted to quit, isolate yourself; have you ever become hard to be around because of how dark your mood was?  There is such a matter as clinical depression and doctors speak of chemical imbalances that lead to terrible despair but that is a topic for another time.  Today we are looking at discouragement and its implications.  What should we do about our discouragement and how should we think about it?

We find many in the Bible who became so discouraged that it led to despair.  One of the great figures in the Old Testament, someone who was a shining example of courageous faith is the prophet Elijah.  The brutal honesty of the Scriptures gives us great insight into the psychology of discouragement and its spiritual roots.  Although he was a great man of God, Elijah battled despair and even his faith did not protect him from despondency.  Elijah is best known for the stand he took against paganism on Mt. Carmel.  Elijah courageously challenged the pagan priests of Israel to a spiritual contest.  Whoever’s God sent fire down from heaven and burned up a sacrifice placed on an altar would be declared the true God.  Eight hundred pagan priests stood on one side of the mountain with their altar and slain bull while just Elijah stood on the other side by his own altar dedicated to the Lord.  Elijah said to the prophets of Baal, "Choose one of the bulls and prepare it first, since there are so many of you. Call on the name of your god, but do not light the fire."  So they took the bull given them and prepared it.  Then they called on the name of Baal from morning till noon. "O Baal, answer us!" they shouted. But there was no response; no one answered. And they danced around the altar they had made.  (1 Kings 18:25-26 NIV)  There never was a response.  The pagan priests called late into the day but no fire came down from heaven for them.  Finally Elijah went to work.  Elijah took twelve stones, one for each of the tribes descended from Jacob, to whom the word of the Lord had come, saying, "Your name shall be Israel."  With the stones he built an altar in the name of the Lord, and he dug a trench around it large enough to hold two seahs of seed.  He arranged the wood, cut the bull into pieces and laid it on the wood. Then he said to them, "Fill four large jars with water and pour it on the offering and on the wood." (1 Kings 18:31-33 NIV)

It was then that a great miracle took place that verified the majesty of the Great God Almighty before the people of Israel.  At the time of sacrifice, the prophet Elijah stepped forward and prayed: "O Lord, God of Abraham, Isaac and Israel, let it be known today that you are God in Israel and that I am your servant and have done all these things at your command.  Answer me, O Lord, answer me, so these people will know that you, O Lord, are God, and that you are turning their hearts back again."  Then the fire of the Lord fell and burned up the sacrifice, the wood, the stones and the soil, and also licked up the water in the trench.  When all the people saw this, they fell prostrate and cried, "The Lord-he is God! The Lord-he is God!"  (1 Kings 18:36-39 NIV)  Immediately the people at Elijah’s command slaughtered the prophets of Baal and declared their allegiance to the Lord as the one true God.

Such a great victory should have sustained Elijah and his faith to the end of his life but it didn’t.  The queen of Israel who was a staunch follower of the pagan religions when she found out about the massacre of the prophets of Baal, immediately ordered her soldiers to track down Elijah and kill him.  Elijah was afraid and ran for his life. When he came to Beersheba in Judah, he left his servant there, while he himself went a day's journey into the desert. He came to a broom tree, sat down under it and prayed that he might die. "I have had enough, Lord," he said. "Take my life; I am no better than my ancestors." (1 Kings 19:3-5 NIV)  Even the great Elijah saw no purpose in his life and could not imagine any way things would ever improve.  That is the nature of discouragement.  It may not be rational but it is reasonable.  Elijah witnessed one of the great miracles of all time and saw just how popular the Lord was still among his people but the threat of Jezebel the queen was enough to derail him.

The battle for Elijah’s mind did not end there in the desert.  He was never the same after this and finally God took him away in a fiery chariot.  It cannot be said that Elijah lacked evidence of God’s care and protection.  He was miraculously fed by ravens during a famine and raised from the dead the son of a widow who provided him lodging during a three year famine.  Elijah had more than enough evidence to believe in God and trust Him to take care of him but for some reason his faith in God drained out of him and he gave up on ever finding a reason to live.  Discouragement is not rational.  But it is reasonable.  No one could have blamed Elijah for seeing things as he did.  He had plenty justification for being afraid and thinking his situation was hopeless.  How could he ever out run Jezebel’s soldiers and who would stand up for him when they got to him?  He had no allies, certainly none as powerful as the king and queen.  God was not taking up his cause.  If He was, Jezebel would have accepted defeat and agreed that the Lord was God just as the ones on Mt. Carmel had.  Instead the Lord left him to fend for himself against the terrible and terrifying Jezebel.

Discouragement is the self-absorbed reaction to stress.  Despair is simply discouragement taken one step further.  Elijah fell into despair because he lost track of where he was.  He wasn’t off in the desert by himself.  He was not alone to face the great threat of Jezebel’s henchmen.  He was with God and standing in His might.  Now we must be careful here as we address this matter of discouragement.  The tendency is to feel sorry for those who are discouraged because they face such great trials and they can’t help being knocked down by them.  Of course the trials we face could be monumental and life altering but they may be insignificant too and not change the course of our lives in any measurable way.  It is not the size of the threat that determines how discouraged you become.  It is the loss of perspective.  My sister-in-law once had a conversation with her son that still makes me laugh if it were not so serious to those who were in the conversation.  The son came to his mom and complained about the actions of his sister, wanting something to be done to her obviously.  My sister replied, “Now who are you in charge of?”  She wanted to establish that he was not the parent of his sister, even if she was out of line.  My nephew quickly answered, “Myself!”  This was of course correct.  That was how he was supposed to respond.  But my sister-in-law immediately realized the error in that sort of thinking because he was not in charge of himself, his parents were.   If he was in charge, then he could do whatever he wanted and that could not be the case.  To clarify, she shot back, “No you’re not, I am.”

Discouragement is the emotional reaction to forgetting God is in charge of your life.  Rather than trusting Him to work out everything, you get tired of waiting for God to do what you want done and decide you know better than He does how everything should go.  Your frustration at not getting your way can be too much for you to handle and discouragement and despair often follow. The disciples were discouraged and dismayed when Jesus was arrested but our Lord wasn’t.  It was the way God was going to work out salvation for the world.  When my ego becomes too big to let God have final authority in those matters that impact me, then I become agitated and discouraged by what I don’t understand or like.  You don’t become discouraged because things are going badly, you become discouraged because you think you are smarter than God and know more than He does about what is best for you and others.   Your frustration at no getting your way either becomes anger or discouragement and you start moping and feeling sorry for yourself.

Once you hide your life in God and trust Him to in love take care of you and those you cherish, you will find that your joy and peace will bubble back up to the surface and your discouragement will leave you like a scared lizard.  Say this prayer when you are disappointed by how things are going and there seems to be no way out of your troubles.  “Lord, I don’t have any idea what to do and I don’t feel like I can take much more of this.  I need you to protect me from Satan and from fear and from discouragement.  Give me peace today.  Give me joy and help me let go of my problems and trust you to take care of them.  In Jesus’ Name I pray, Amen.”  Remember this simple little statement in the Bible.  What, then, shall we say in response to this? If God is for us, who can be against us? (Romans 8:31 NIV)

Bethel

Genesis 35: 1 NIV

Then God said to Jacob, “Go up to Bethel and settle there...

Where Are You Going?

We recently went camping with my brother’s family and my sister and her daughter up near Yosemite.  While there, the key to our car broke apart.  The metal part came out of the plastic fob that holds the chip which activates and deactivates the alarm system.  I could make the key work by using pliers to turn the metal section of the key while holding the fob near the key but I ran the risk of snapping off the part of the key I was using to grip it.  We went to a hardware store to have a duplicate made but it didn’t work.  My brother used his phone to try and find out how to get a replacement key and contacted the Toyota dealer closest to our campground. He was told that a new key would cost nearly $400. That was a stunning price and so he kept trying to find someone who had could help us get another key.  The suggestion was made that we go to a locksmith and see if someone could replace it for us but we did not know where to go or who to ask.  Finally it was time to leave and I was able to use the pliers to turn the key and we made our way back to “civilization”.  It was a four hour trip and I did not stop on the way for fear I could not restart the car.  As I drove, I kept pondering the dilemma.  Should I just go to a Toyota dealer near our house and pay the $400 or try to find a locksmith and see what could be done.  Mary Jo, once we got phone service, went on line to try and find a locksmith near our home but did not get a call back from one and the other said he was not equipped to fix the key.  He did though suggest a locksmith in the town next to our city and when we called there we were told he thought he could fix it.  When we got to the shop, the locksmith was able to replace the car key for just $35.  As we made our way home, I thought just how foolish I would have been to have gone straight to the Toyota dealership rather than following my brother’s advice and try to locate a locksmith.

There is a great risk you take when it comes to your life with God.  You can without grasping what has happened, lose track of Him.  It is a subtle shift, one that barely registers in you but it happens and without warning you find yourself away from God and on your own.  You probably won’t realize it, which makes it difficult to undue.  We were at a campground with hundreds of campers there but only about ten of them came to a worship service offered on Sunday morning.  If the collection of campers at the campground fit the national average, somewhere around two hundred or more identified themselves as Christians but saw no need to attend the worship service they easily could have attended.  Of course there were probably a wide range of excuses many had for not participating but the majority most likely just did not see a need to obey the Bible and worship with God’s people on Sunday and they were oblivious to what effect that would have on them.  The Christian community is at a critical crossroad and you might be too.  How far will you go with your life in Christ?  Is it important enough to you to make it your top priority or will you like so many other American Christians drift away from God and be comfortable casually going along on your own?

The Bible has a fascinating case study that must be considered if we care about this life with God.  Jacob, the son of Isaac and grandson of Abraham, famously finagled out of his brother his birthright as the oldest son for a pot of soup and then tricked his father into giving to him the blessing intended for that same brother Esau.  Esau grew distraught over his change in fortune.   Esau said, "Isn't he rightly named Jacob? He has deceived me these two times: He took my birthright, and now he's taken my blessing!" Then he asked, "Haven't you reserved any blessing for me?"  Isaac answered Esau, "I have made him lord over you and have made all his relatives his servants, and I have sustained him with grain and new wine. So what can I possibly do for you, my son?"  Esau said to his father, "Do you have only one blessing, my father? Bless me too, my father!" Then Esau wept aloud. (Genesis 27: 36-38 NIV)  Esau became so infuriated by how Jacob had stolen from him the blessing his father had for him that he plotted Jacob’s murder.  When Jacob caught wind of Esau’s fury, he fled for his life to the home of his mother’s brother, some four hundred miles away.  Over twenty years Jacob stayed there, marrying a pair of sisters and gained their maids as concubines.  Altogether Jacob had thirteen children, a daughter and twelve sons.  Finally, Jacob was so fed up with his conniving and scheming father-in-law Laban that he was willing to risk his life and face the wrath of his brother rather than spend one more day living under Laban’s “rule”.

                                                                                                              

Jacob’s return to his homeland was no mere whimsy.  The Lord directed him back home.  In a dream, God ordered him to leave Haran and go back to where he met the Lord the first time.  “I am the God of Bethel, where you anointed a pillar and where you made a vow to me. Now leave this land at once and go back to your native land.” (Genesis 31:13 NIV)  Jacob packed up his family and left but not without trepidation.  He was afraid of leaving his controlling father-in-law and Jacob was terrified his brother still wanted him dead.  Almost home, Jacob was told by his servants that just ahead of him Esau, his brother, was approaching with four hundred men.  In great fear and distress Jacob divided the people who were with him into two groups, and the flocks and herds and camels as well.  He thought, "If Esau comes and attacks one group, the group that is left may escape." (Genesis 32:7-8 NIV)  Panicked, Jacob prayed to God for help.  Save me, I pray, from the hand of my brother Esau, for I am afraid he will come and attack me, and also the mothers with their children.   But you have said, 'I will surely make you prosper and will make your descendants like the sand of the sea, which cannot be counted. (Genesis 32: 11-12 NIV) 

How many of us have been in a similar situation, desperate for God’s help, we pray for Him to rescue us.  The Lord did save Jacob from his brother’s wrath.  In fact it went far better than he expected; Esau shockingly wanted to rebuild the brotherly bond he once shared with Jacob.  Rather than seeing God was in all this, Jacob turned down the opportunity to move close to Esau and his family and instead settled in Shechem.   The choice of where to set down roots seemed inconsequential to Jacob at the time.  He had “arrived safely” at Shechem Genesis 33: 18 tells us or as the Hebrew text reads, “in peace” or “shalom”.  In other words, Jacob felt pretty good about his move.  However Shechem was “hell” for his daughter and the devil’s playground for his sons.  Dinah, Jacob’s daughter, was raped there and two of her brothers in a fit of rage and lust, murdered all the men of the town and stole their livestock.  Crushed by the wickedness of Shechem and his own sons, Jacob found the Lord was still there with him.  Then God said to Jacob, "Go up to Bethel and settle there, and build an altar there to God, who appeared to you when you were fleeing from your brother Esau." (Genesis 35:1 NIV)

Before Jacob set off from Haran and moved his family south into Canaan, the Lord made it clear to Jacob who He was.  “I am the God of Bethel…”, not Shechem.  It was never Shechem God chose for Jacob to take his family, it was Bethel!  However, Jacob was not paying attention to the Lord and it cost Jacob’s family dearly.  Shechem was Jacob’s Sodom, his Egypt.  The happiness he had that his brother no longer wanted to kill him was like a spiritual drug for it numbed his fervor for God.  The lack of attention to the Lord’s guidance had proved disastrous.  He took his eyes off the giver of peace and put it on the pleasure of peace.  God is patient with our distracted minds but just like checking your cell phone when driving can cost you your life or the lives of others, the failure to keep your eyes on God can be devastating.  Nothing excites Satan more than when God’s people are distracted by all the stuff they are doing and they don’t have time to think about what the Lord is saying to them.  Before you know it, you give in to a little temptation here and disobey a scripture there and life begins to spin out of control.  You become so disoriented by Satan’s subtle prodding that the God of strength and wisdom will be a distant memory. You will find yourself thinking just like any pagan would and the fruit of the Spirit God so eloquently described in Galatians 5: 22 disappears.

Consider just how wrecked Jacob’s family was spiritually.  As soon as he heard from the Lord that he needed to move to Bethel and build an altar there for worshipping God, Jacob knew that his family had big changes to make.  So Jacob said to his household and to all who were with him, "Get rid of the foreign gods you have with you, and purify yourselves and change your clothes. (Genesis 35:2 NIV)  Notice how bad it was.  So they gave Jacob all the foreign gods they had and the rings in their ears, and Jacob buried them under the oak at Shechem. (Genesis 35:4 NIV)  Satan had worked its way into the fabric of his family but Jacob had the courage and conviction to root Satan out and start over.  What a tremendous joy it is to be so full of God that He bursts out of you wherever you go!  With their hearts right, Jacob and his household practically sparkled with holiness and spiritual power.  Then they set out, and the terror of God fell upon the towns all around them so that no one pursued them. (Genesis 35:5 NIV)

Like a rat making a nest in your house, the impulses of Satan work their way into you and refuse to leave on their own.  We do this, we say that and don’t give a thought to whether it is of God or not as if it doesn’t matter but it matters greatly.  There is a Shechem for every one of us and if we take our mind off the Lord, we will find ourselves there and think everything is alright but it isn’t.  God’s power will have left us and we no longer have Him working with us.  We will say and do things that are more of the devil than they are of Christ and like Samson, we won’t realize we are making a mess of what we have been given.  But then, in our Lord’s patience and mercy, He will make Himself known to us and we will have to decide if we will go to Bethel or not.  When we get rid of our own foreign gods and do away with the stuff that we love more than Christ, we will find that the power of Jesus crucified and resurrected fills us and the fear of the Lord falls on those who come across us.  As you build your life with Christ and set your mind on Him at a moment by moment basis, you will have a way of knowing just what to do and when to do it that will be supernatural and unexplainable to human reasoning.  Make Bethel your home and stay away from Shechem.

Another Plan

Proverbs 14:12 NIV

There is a way that seems right to a man, but in the end it leads to death.

Do You Know What To Do?

Our youngest son recently played in his baseball league’s all-star game and he did well.  He drove in the tying run with a base hit to center and he was brought in to pitch the 7^th inning with the game tied and got the batter to ground out to second with the bases loaded to end the threat.  The bottom of that inning, our first batter grounded out and our second hitter came up with nobody on base.  He hit a drive deep into right field and got all the way around to third base for a triple.  Now the winning run was at third base with only one out and a left handed hitter up to bat.  He was in the ninth slot which meant he was the worst hitter in the line-up.  As I stood behind home plate watching the action, almost immediately a plan came to my mind.  I knew exactly what strategic move the manager should make to try to get the winning run home.  It was not my call though and so I waited to see what the batter would do.  Our team had been killed all year by the team we were playing so it was a monumental moment for them.  What would the manager do?  What was his plan for trying to score the winning run?  Was he thinking like me?

Perhaps you have had a tough time trying to figure out what to do.  It’s not easy sorting through all the options.  Maybe it’s more of a binary decision…this or that.  Here or there.  Yes or no.  The idea that God cares about what you do and has input into your decisions and decision-making is not universally accepted and outright rejected by many.  One of the primary arguments for abortion rights is the position that a woman has a right to do with her body as she wishes.  Without addressing the specious basis of that contention, we must consider the theological issue here.  Is God in the abortion equation?  Does He play a part in the decision-making of what to do?  Now that is a critical question to ask, and not just with regard to abortion but in every area of life!  Is there room for God to have a say in what you do?  It matters what you decide on this.  Either God guides you or He doesn’t and how you land on this can have huge ramifications for you and others.

The Bible certainly has a lot to say about this but let’s look at some particular case studies in Scripture that illustrate the ways others have dealt with this issue.  Rebekah is certainly not a well-known figure in the Bible but she plays an important part in the lineage of the nation of Israel as well as for Jesus Himself.  She seems to have been a young bride who married an older man in a quasi-arranged marriage.  After twenty years of going childless, finally she conceived and it was not a single child but twins in her womb.  She wasn’t sure why she felt so much turmoil in her womb so she went to the Lord to see what was happening in her.  The Lord said to her, "Two nations are in your womb, and two peoples from within you will be separated; one people will be stronger than the other, and the older will serve the younger." (Genesis 25:23 NIV)  That of course was surprising news but before we move off this, let us take a closer look at Rebekah’s response to the prophecy.  We don’t know how Rebekah heard what God said to her or why she knew God said it.  Perhaps there was an audible voice or maybe like many of us, somehow the Lord got this message to her in an inaudible but knowable way.  Regardless, the point to be made is that the Lord declared to her the future of her still unborn twins and Rebekah knew it was really God who put it in her brain.

Over the course of the next forty years, Rebekah grew more attached to her younger son Jacob than her older boy Esau.  This happens.  It isn’t shocking to us that parents develop favorites among their kids.  Of course it is sad and in this case it led to great turmoil and pain for the entire family.  Rather than trusting God to do what He said He would do and make the younger stronger than the older in due time, Rebekah decided to rush the process along in her own way.  Believing perhaps she was acting for God, she got her son Jacob to trick her husband Isaac to give the blessing he planned on giving to the older son Esau to Jacob.  Rebekah took advantage of her husband Isaac’s blindness by having Jacob dress up in his brother’s clothes and lie that he was Esau.  Then Rebekah took the best clothes of Esau her older son, which she had in the house, and put them on her younger son Jacob.  She also covered his hands and the smooth part of his neck with the goatskins. Then she handed to her son Jacob the tasty food and the bread she had made.  He went to his father and said, "My father."  "Yes, my son," he answered. "Who is it?"  Jacob said to his father, "I am Esau your firstborn. I have done as you told me. Please sit up and eat some of my game so that you may give me your blessing."  (Genesis 27:15-19 NIV)

Rebekah heard the voice of God.  He spoke to her about both the present and the future and she knew it really was God saying it all after she did give birth to twins like God said she would.  But then something happened that takes place a million times across generations.  Rebekah went off on her own without God.  Perhaps you have done this too.  God spoke to you about something.  It was undeniably Him.  You were certain of it.  But then time passed and you stopped waiting for Christ to lead you.  You trusted your own wits.  You believed in your intuition, your understanding of things.  And then, without you even really knowing it, you were on your own…without God…without Him showing you the way.  It happened with Mary the mother of Jesus.  She knew God told her that Jesus was the Messiah, God in flesh.  It was a great miracle, His conception.  Mary bravely bore the child and raised Him to believe He was the Messiah.  But then something went wrong in Mary.  She watched Jesus as He moved among the crowds, heard what He was saying to them and grew concerned about Him.  The work of Jesus wasn’t going as she thought it would and Jesus wasn’t saying the kinds of things Mary expected.  Mary thought something wasn’t quite right with Jesus; that maybe He was losing His mind and so she decided to take matters into her own hands.  Without consulting God or even knowing what the Father wanted of her, Mary gathered her other sons and brought them to where Jesus was sitting with His disciples, teaching a small crowd in a home.  Then Jesus entered a house, and again a crowd gathered, so that he and his disciples were not even able to eat.  When his family heard about this, they went to take charge of him, for they said, "He is out of his mind." … Then Jesus' mother and brothers arrived. Standing outside, they sent someone in to call him.  (Mark 3:20-21, 31)

What happened with Mary happens over and over in the hearts of people who genuinely love Jesus and want Him to be in charge.  Something doesn’t seem right.  Plans aren’t going as expected.  It is tougher than you thought it would be.  The career isn’t taking off.  Family isn’t what you had hoped.  You aren’t what you envisioned.  It is hard and God is not fixing things.  Or, it could be too easy for you.  You’ve got everything together and you unconsciously don’t need God anymore.  He is just not on the list of things that matter most to you.  We don’t see this in ourselves, the impatience, the eroding faith in God, the nonchalance about His will and direction but it happens.  We slowly stop going to Christ for guidance.  We start figuring things out ourselves and without warning we are on our own, the master of our ship.  What comes of this growing independence, this “self-actualization”?  We are on our own!  We are like all others who have no God to guide them, no Spirit to help them along.

There is something heartwarming about the Israelites as they stood at the edge of the Red Sea with the terrifying Egyptian army and all their chariots and weaponry barreling down upon them.  Logic insisted they surrender.  As Pharaoh approached, the Israelites looked up, and there were the Egyptians, marching after them. They were terrified and cried out to the Lord.  They said to Moses, "Was it because there were no graves in Egypt that you brought us to the desert to die? What have you done to us by bringing us out of Egypt?  Didn't we say to you in Egypt, 'Leave us alone; let us serve the Egyptians'? It would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the desert!"  (Exodus 14:10-12 NIV)  We mustn’t forget what a frightening sight the parted Red Sea must have been as an escape route the LORD had chosen for them.  It could not have been inviting to see hundreds of feet of water piled up on each side of the path but they took it because the Israelites believed, even if it was just a bit of faith, that God knew the way for them.

Within you, if you have been born again, the Spirit of God lives and He is ready to guide you.  He can show you the right way to go at each moment if you are willing to let Him be in charge.  If though you turn your back to Him or ignore Him or reject Him, the Spirit will be silent and let you go along on your own.  He will give you the opportunity to see just what it is like without God putting your life together.  Rebekah found out  how great her plan was when a few days later she watched her beloved son Jacob walk out the door, never in her lifetime to return.  We need Christ to lead us, to show us the way.  It is the greatest of gifts to have the Lord of the Universe living inside us, ready to open doors for us, give us wisdom that is supernatural and make things work out that couldn’t without Him. 

Reality in Love

1 Corinthians 13:4 NIV

Love is patient, love is kind.

What Is The “Look of Love”?

Recently I was working in a classroom that I had been in a number of times before.  They were invited to visit another class at the school to see the exhibits the students of that class had made of different aspects of ancient civilization.  For example, one student made a model of the Parthenon, another a terracotta soldier of ancient China; others exhibited papier Mache maps of Rome or the pyramids of Giza.  Each student had an exhibit to share and explain and they were all exited to make their presentations to the kids of our class.  Before I brought our kids in the classroom though, I poked my head in to check and see if they were ready for us.  About three months before I had worked in that same class as a substitute teacher one day and as soon as I looked into room, several kids shouted, “It’s Mr. Walkup!”  Immediately the class started cheering.  Embarrassed, I ducked back out and returned to the class I was bringing to see them.  I was not prepared for that sort of reception and I think the teacher in the class was a little taken aback by their reaction to seeing me.  I had only been with them one day and it was shocking that they remembered my name and I was overwhelmed by their response.  That same day, I was talking with someone and that person told me I’m not very nice and that others are intimidated by me.  Once again I was stunned and left speechless.  I cannot say that I have ever encountered a day quite like that one where I faced such a wide swing of the pendulum and it was difficult knowing just how to process the feedback I received in just the span of six hours or so.

There is something to be said for honest if brutal evaluations.  Sometimes it isn’t pleasant hearing what others really think of us and it can happen that we are wildly surprised to find out just how loved and respected we are.   It cuts both ways.  We are loved and we sin.  We may not like what God has to say about us but He is honest in His evaluation of us.  The Bible insists that ‘all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God”, He means it. (See Romans 3: 23) It is worth noting that when the great man of faith Isaiah met God for the first time, he was not prepared for what he saw in himself.  "Woe to me!" I cried. "I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty."  (Isaiah 6:5 NIV)  Was this an aberration or how it really is when God comes upon us?  Whether it was Moses or David or the Apostle Paul, we have this same sort of experience; the realization that what is within is terribly ugly and corrupted.  It may have taken the witnessing of a miracle by Jesus to get the Apostle Peter’s attention but nonetheless Peter also upon figuring out who Jesus actually was awakened to his own sinfulness.  When Simon Peter saw this, he fell at Jesus' knees and said, "Go away from me, Lord; I am a sinful man!" (Luke 5:8 NIV)  Paul the Apostle expresses the thoughts of all who have ever met God personally.  I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out.  For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do — this I keep on doing.  (Romans 7:18-19 NIV)  There is a freeing discovery when we come to Christ our Savior that we are thoroughly riddled with sin and on our own can’t get out from under it.

You cannot fully appreciate just what kindness God has shown you to die for your salvation unless you meet Him.  Until you do, forgiveness of sin is only a casual determination of God to brush off what petty mistakes you have made.  “Ah, that’s good dude.”  But that is not how it is with us or with Christ.  God did not die on the Cross because we have just “blown it” a few times.  He did so because our sin is thoroughly wicked and completely ingrained in us; it took the violence of crucifixion to remove it all from us.  When we think of what Jesus had to endure to take out of us our sin, it cannot be fully realized without really meeting Jesus.  It is like trying to describe the skill needed to play professional hockey without seeing it firsthand or being told how smart a mathematician is if one has never tried to solve even a simple algebra equation.    When Jesus comes to us in the way He does, we come to grips with how kind He is to die for our salvation.  The Bible, in its magnificently understated way, gives us a hint of it.  But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. (Romans 5:8 NIV)

Let us for a moment do some theological math.  Or perhaps it would be better stated that we are going to think about this matter of God’s love using the logic of the Bible to shape our conclusion.  In discussing love, the Bible says that, “Love is patient, love is kind.” (1 Corinthians 13: 4 NIV)  The verb that is translated “patient” describes putting up with a lot or continually not letting upsetting matters trouble you.  Kind is a great way of translating this second quality of love, that love is constantly doing what is compassionate.  One way to look at the entire passage on love and in particular these two characteristics is to replace “love” with God.  The Bible tells us that in the equation, God is love or God equals love.  Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. (1 John 4:8 NIV)  But then we also see this point repeated later in the same chapter.  And so we know and rely on the love God has for us.  God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him.  (1 John 4:16 NIV)  It is not a stretch to make1 Corinthians 13 and in particular verse 4 all about God.  God is patient.  He does not let our constant sinning upset Him.  God is kind.  He deals with us gently like a loving mother or father would a reckless and misbehaving young child.

Let’s look at one example from the Gospels to get an idea of just what sort of person God is.  In John 8, Jesus addressed a crowd that had gathered to worship and discuss the Scriptures at the Temple.  Some of them accused Jesus of being demon possessed.  They tried to insult Jesus by calling Him a “Samaritan” which in their minds was about as bad a slam as it got.  Finally, they became so enraged with Him that they in a mad rush grabbed stones off the ground to kill Jesus.  Our Lord’s response was perfectly aligned with patience and kindness.   Rather than call ten thousand angels to decimate the entire crowd, He quietly slipped away.  At this, they picked up stones to stone him, but Jesus hid himself, slipping away from the temple grounds. (John 8:59 NIV)  The patience of God at this moment was astounding.  Do you remember the fire coming down upon Sodom or the plague of the firstborn on the Egyptians.  In an instant Christ could have wrecked everyone there but He didn’t.  He quietly faded into the background.  How many of us, if we had the absolute power our Lord did at that moment would have been so kind.  Consider just how painful it is for Jesus to watch us sin, be lazy and uninspired, disregard His commands and priorities, pay no attention to Him as He waits for us to do what is right.  How much does God put up with you and me?  Are we not ten times worse than those Israelites who were blinded by Satan and trapped by the Devil’s plot?  We know who He is and we still ignore Him!

Some may have thought I was too hard on Abraham recently with my critique of his faith.  Take a look at one incident that tells us a great deal about Abraham’s patience and kindness.  Genesis 13 provides a synopsis of just how Abraham’s mind worked.  His brother’s son Lot had traveled with him from Haran to Canaan and settled with him there.  Abraham had become extremely wealthy and acquired vast amounts of livestock and gold.  It seems apparent that he shared his good fortune with Lot.  Now Lot, who was moving about with Abram, also had flocks and herds and tents. (Genesis 13:5 NIV)  One would think that Lot would be grateful for what his uncle had done for him and do everything he could to stand behind him but such was not the case.  But the land could not support them while they stayed together, for their possessions were so great that they were not able to stay together.  And quarreling arose between Abram's herdsmen and the herdsmen of Lot.  (Genesis 13:6-7 NIV)  This conflict between Abraham’s employees and Lot’s became so bad that the only solution seemed to be to go their separate ways.  So Abram said to Lot, "Let's not have any quarreling between you and me, or between your herdsmen and mine, for we are brothers.  Is not the whole land before you? Let's part company. If you go to the left, I'll go to the right; if you go to the right, I'll go to the left." (Genesis 13:8-9 NIV)  It is critical to note that it was not just the employees who were arguing, Lot was quarreling with Abraham.  How was this possible?  How could Lot have had one single word of disagreement with his benefactor?  All he owned was due to Abraham and his generosity and kindness!  Is it conceivable that Lot would have for even a moment let his staff fight with Abraham’s workers?  Would not someone who had been so blessed by another have done all he could to have supported and stood loyally for that one’s cause?  Lot did not and it seems there was not an ounce of gratitude in Lot for all Abraham had done for him.  Selfishly he stood his ground and demanded that Abraham give him his way.  Finally Abraham could not take the tension between them any longer and rather than force Lot out, he gave him the option of where to settle.  He did not demand his right to the best land.  He simply in kindness and patience made peace with his nephew and gave to him whatever he wanted.

Jesus put it this way.  "You have heard that it was said, 'Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.'   But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also.  And if someone wants to sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well.  If someone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles.  Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you.” (Matthew 5:38-42 NIV)  This is perhaps the most elegant and practical teaching on patience and kindness you will find in any book ever written.  What if, with God and all His power and goodness living in you, you take one of these commands and look for an opportunity this week to practice it.  God will give you the opportunity if you are willing to be His disciple.  Many would not take up this challenge, but perhaps you will.