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.

A Whole New You

How dead is dead to God?  How much of your life can you still hold and make it through baptism into death?  You must completely die if you are to be of use to Him or true to your new self.  The end game of your Savior is for you to be buried and your hopes and aspirations die with you that the Lord Jesus Christ might raise you from the dead and make you good for God and perfect for salvation.  It is the buried seed that springs to life and bears much fruit.  Don't look upon your circumstances as a way for you to straighten yourself up and get things together.  Look at them as the power of God to kill off your old self and make you completely new in Him.  Our hope is not to survive and chase our dreams.  It is to be resurrected with the life of Christ fully alive in us so that the work of God might be manifested in all we do!  The freedom we have as believers is not a license to be some creature other than who we are in Christ.  Imagine a rose bush flaunting its freedom living as a blueberry or a gardenia behaving like a poison oak.  Turtles don’t work at being cheetahs and pigeons never behave like vultures.  Those who have Christ in them are new creations that are nothing like they were before they were born again.  There is a difference of kind between a Christian comedian and an unbelieving comedian.  A Christian physicist is not the same species as a non-Christian physicist and born-again teachers have a different “DNA” than do those still dead in their sins.  God will not be stopped in this process of raising you up in Christ.  He will not allow the diminishing of your soul as His new creation.  The world may look at you as nothing more than a rewrapped version of your old self but the world cannot see into your heart and discover the complete transformation of your being into one who is now joined with Christ and thoroughly remade into someone new.   Be done with the fantasy that nothing changed when God made you one with Christ.  A magical transformation has occurred and you will never be the same again.

We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death…  Romans 6:4 NIV

Evolution of Disdain

Titus 3:3 NIV

At one time we too were foolish, disobedient, deceived and enslaved by all kinds of passions and pleasures. We lived in malice and envy, being hated and hating one another.

When Was The Last Time You Got Into An Argument Or Fight?

Not too long ago I was substitute teaching for a middle school English teacher.  Each class had the same assignment.  Read a particular chapter from a novel originally written by a sixteen year old and answer questions on a worksheet about the book.  Because I did not have anything to do but sit with the classes as they worked, I decided to read the book myself.  The main character was a young teen that was part of a gang battling a rival gang of boys.  One gang was made up of wealthy kids who seemingly had everything and the other gang was known as greasers and was comprised of poor kids generally from broken and dysfunctional homes.  The book, which was made into a movie, explored the themes of friendships and hatred, of loyalty and disdain.  As the book wound down to its emotional conclusion, the central character, who was also the narrator developed feelings of empathy for the members of the rival gang and began to see a few of them as individuals with psychological pain and broken lives.  A revelation of sorts came to the main character after he and his older brother got into a bitter argument and each wanted the middle brother to take his side.  It all was just too much and the middle brother fled the home.  Finally, when all three were together, the middle brother begged the other two to stop fighting.  “We only have each other”, he cried.  It was then that the three boys, who were orphans living on their own in the home their parents had, grasped the terrible truth about conflict.  It tears apart what should be kept together.  We do have each other and that is a great and wonderful gift to possess.

When was the last time you got into a fight or argument with someone?  Did it go well?  Are you glad the two of got upset with each other?  How do you feel after you argue with someone?  Are you glad you got your point across?  Did you feel justified or even vindicated when it ended?  Do you tend to avoid arguments at all cost or are you the first to jump in when others disagree?   Is it important for you to make your case and be heard?  If you were to be asked, what would you give as the reason for most fights?  Can they be avoided?  Should they be avoided?

There have been fights since the beginning of time.  Some have been rather one-sided as in the murder of Abel by Cain.  Certainly the most famous and remembered were those between nations.  But is seems pretty likely that more than a few times Adam and Eve argued and may even have fought.  David famously bickered with his wife Michal and the great leaders of the church, Paul and Barnabas argued so contentiously that they went their separate ways and stopped working together.

Saul, who was king, could not bear the popularity of his young apprentice and tried to kill him.  Certainly we see arguments today rising to the level of murder and such was the case for many in the Bible.  Yet generally, arguments and fights do not turn to physical violence but often psychological scars are left and not everyone who gets into arguments “kiss and make up”.  Everywhere though arguments are taking place.  Most couples argue and many children quarrel with their parents.  Families fight and so do co-workers.  The disciples got mad at each other a time or two and the patriarch of both Jews and Muslims, Abraham, had to move away from his cousin Lot because the two could not agree on how to work together.  There are plenty of fights described in the Bible and most of them went badly.

Many conflicts are spawned by the low self-esteem of at least one person involved.  That was certainly the case of King Saul and his snowballing acrimony with young David.  Others flow out of one person or the other and sometimes both used to always getting what he wants.  How many arguments are due to the “spoiled brat” syndrome?  Rehoboam, the son of Solomon set off a war simply because he was spoiled by his father and did not want to give up some of his wealth by agreeing to lower the taxes that unfairly burdened the people of Israel.

There is a third cause for arguments and fights.  It is the lack of self-awareness found in many.  There is an odd account found in the Bible that illustrates it.  David famously began an affair with the wife of one of the most decorated soldiers in his army.  When she became pregnant, David had her husband killed and then married Bathsheba.  A courageous friend of David’s, a priest by the name of Nathan, approached the King and told him a story that David assumed was a description of real events.  "There were two men in a certain town, one rich and the other poor.  The rich man had a very large number of sheep and cattle, but the poor man had nothing except one little ewe lamb he had bought. He raised it, and it grew up with him and his children. It shared his food, drank from his cup and even slept in his arms. It was like a daughter to him.  "Now a traveler came to the rich man, but the rich man refrained from taking one of his own sheep or cattle to prepare a meal for the traveler who had come to him. Instead, he took the ewe lamb that belonged to the poor man and prepared it for the one who had come to him." (2 Samuel 12:1-4 NIV)

David, believing he was being told of an incident that had happened, burned with rage at the rich man and wanted him executed.  Yet David did not realize that this was simply Nathan’s way of pointing out the evil of David’s own actions.  Many times we get upset or aggravated because we don’t take a hard and careful look at ourselves.  We judge people without paying any attention to our own faults and bad behavior.  It is just what Jesus described when He spoke of splinters and beams.  "Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?  How can you say to your brother, 'Let me take the speck out of your eye,' when all the time there is a plank in your own eye?  You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye. (Matthew 7:3-5 NIV)  How many arguments would be stopped dead in their tracks if this were taken seriously? 

The bitter hatred Jonah the prophet had for the Assyrian people culminated in a bizarre encounter he had with God on a sweltering hillside overlooking the Assyrian capital.  He wanted the Lord to demolish the Assyrians then and there as he sat stewing over God’s mercy toward them.  Jonah certainly had a case.  The Assyrian armies were cruel and wrecked numerous nations including Israel.  There was no love for the one true God among the people and it did not seem that it would ever change.  And yet God wanted to give the Assyrians one more chance.  But Nineveh has more than a hundred and twenty thousand people who cannot tell their right hand from their left, and many cattle as well. Should I not be concerned about that great city?" (Jonah 4:11 NIV)  How easily so many write off those who hurt their feelings, act rudely, have been dishonest or don’t take their opinions seriously.  It is Sin in you which prods you to despise and judge others.  Like a poison of the heart, Sin leads to criticism and condemnation.  God always has one more reason to patiently wait for good to come out of any person you see.  When you get angry or impatient with someone, it is because of sin in you, not the imperfections in the one you dislike.

How many Christian people have stopped believing in the Cross of Christ?  We are not talking about the World that has no love for Christ or faith in Him.  We are saying that there are great numbers of Christian people who no longer believe in what Christ does through the Cross!  By dying, the Lord completely remakes any person who trusts Him for salvation. Not a part of that soul will be left imperfect.  Yet even Christian people criticize Christ’s “work in progress”.  Imagine the great artist Rembrandt having to watch as passersby sneer at the unfinished painting he has displayed in the window of his studio.  They see colors splashed upon it, brush strokes and empty blotches of canvas and despise what is there.  How wicked and foolish of them to doubt the skill of the great master as he works on his latest creation!  As much as the Christian community dislikes the term evolution because of how Charles Darwin and his followers have corrupted it, evolution is occurring all about us under the loving hand of our Savior.  He is taking broken and corrupted and damaged souls and remaking them into perfect and holy vessels bearing the Spirit of God within them.  How can we ever despise or grow frustrated with those Christ has died to save?  Will our Lord be happy with us if we fail to acknowledge that each person we meet is an evolving masterpiece of His?  Will He bless us if we criticize His perfect work?

How happy would our Lord be if we would see each person just as He does; as those Christ will eventually make perfect.  Never doubt the ability of our Lord to turn even the worst of sinners into the most holy of saints.  Your criticism, disdain and anger; your avoidance and disregard of any of His people is a reflection not of your insight into human nature but rather a sign of your ignorance of just how powerful God’s Cross is to make all things new and perfect.  It is the old way of thinking to criticize and have an attitude of disdain for those Christ died to save.   The evolution of the soul will take place and it is blasphemy to despise God’s work by looking down upon those He died to save.  Remember this admonition and promise of God!  So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer.  Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! (2 Corinthians 5:16-17 NIV)  When you look at someone who irritates you or frustrates you or seems less good than you, remember that your only responsibility is to gaze with wonder at how marvelously God will make perfect those He died to save and in prayer thank Him for making “all things new”.

Taken Apart

When God begins to work in us, He leaves no stone unturned.  He takes apart our entire personality bit by bit and regenerates it by fire.  From head to toe, where sin has marred us and warped our being, our Savior gets in there and goes to work.  Paul called it "being crucified in Christ".  James labeled it "the testing of your faith".  Peter spoke of it as "judgment" that starts with the "family of God".   John the Baptist described the work of Christ as that of baptizing "you with the Holy Spirit and with fire." Jesus called it a pruning.   God will not let go of us until we are a holy people who love with the same love Christ loved us.  It is a shame that so many speak only of the blessings of God without including within those blessings the purifying work of our Lord to make us free of Sin and righteous not just by decree but in actual day to day living.  There comes a point when we must decide if we really want to be wholly God's or if we are satisfied with the world having a part of us too.  The Lord won't force Himself upon you.  He won't tackle you and make you beg mercy.  He lets you go on your way but if you are born again, you will never be settled with the corrosive effect of sin working through you; you will want it out of you and it is then that a transaction occurs.  It will be your life for His.  You give God your life and He gives you His and God, like a surgeon, begins to go at all the damage your sin has caused you and others.  Meticulously He works on the habits you have developed that make you impure.  He grinds down the thought patterns that corrupt your actions.  The burdens that you grip with terrible force that other sinners have placed on your shoulders, He lifts from you.  God will not be satisfied with you until He has given you a "clean bill of health" and you are holy.  You may not even realize what our Lord has done for you until it suddenly dawns on you what a new person you are; that you are really transformed and have all the earmarks of Christ in you, the hope of Glory.

And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord's glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.     2 Corinthians 3:18 NIV

Choice

Proverbs 8:10 NIV

Choose my instruction instead of silver, knowledge rather than choice gold,

Is The Choice Yours?

When I was twelve or so, I was hanging out at my friend’s house when he suddenly went inside and brought me something to see.   I was not psychologically prepared for what I was about to encounter; no one had gone over with me such a time as this and I reacted reflexively rather than thoughtfully.  He had a pornographic magazine in his hand that he had pulled out of his father’s closet.  I had never seen pornography before; never encountered it, never in my life had to decide if I was going to look at pornography.  I didn’t know what the long term ramifications would be if I leafed through it with my friend.  It was of course a moral choice for me long before I understood the concept of moral choices.  I believed in God, was already a born again Christian, had been baptized and taught the Ten Commandments and the basic stories of the Bible.  Pornography was new to me though.  I liked girls, noticed them, was attracted to them and already had picked out several I wanted to like me.  Pornography though was several steps beyond my previous moral choices and I was the one who had to decide if I would look or not.

Life is filled with choices.  All living creatures have choice…plants and single cell organisms and bugs make mechanical choices.  They set their roots down here or there, move into this section of the water or not, leave the ant hill or stay and build the tunnels.  These choices though are mechanical; there is no thought given to them.  Squirrels and crows also make choices but their choices are instinctual, perhaps they think about what they choose but it is not highly organized thought, not strategic.  Dolphins and chimpanzees are able to make choices and think more about what they decide than crows certainly.  They show signs of loyalty and care in their choices sometimes but how much of what they decide is based on values of right and wrong we cannot say.  Can any animal choose to rebel against God or reject His will for it; it doesn’t seem so.  The Bible though tells us who certainly can choose for or against God; who has the ability to say “yes” or “no” to Him.

Our discussion today is not centered on all choices but one kind of choice—the moral choice. Let us make clear what a moral choice is.  A moral choice is the decision to agree or disagree with God in what you do.  Because God determines what is right or wrong and we don’t; it does not matter what our opinion is about something; the moral choice is built on how we respond to God and what He says to do or not do.  Some moral choices are easy to comprehend…do I commit adultery or not, do I steal from my brother or not, do I beat up the guy who took my parking space or not.  Other moral decisions take work to get at them.  We have to study the Bible carefully to get at them.  Do I have an abortion or not?  Do I party with my friends at a bar or not?  What sorts of movies should I watch? 

We all make moral choices, perhaps daily or even hourly but why is that so?  It is because God has made us free to make moral choices.  Consider the moral choice God gave the Israelites as they began their new life in the Promised Land.  "But if serving the Lord seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your forefathers served beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord." (Joshua 24:15 NIV) Not only do natural beings make moral choices because of God’s freedom granted to them, so also do supernatural beings such as Satan.  Satan has freedom to obey God or not as seen in the ancient book of Genesis.  Satan enticed Eve to disobey God and after Adam and Eve did make the moral choice to eat the forbidden fruit, God punished Satan for that moral choice of disobeying Him.  Of course Adam and Eve also were punished and for the first time in human history, sin became a part of the existence of mankind.  What was Satan’s first moral choice?  We do not know but we are told about the one involving mankind.  Satan was given freedom by God to support Him with regard to Adam and Eve’s moral development or rebel against Him and of course He rebelled.

If God were not morally free to choose right and wrong, then the universe would be run by a mechanical engine bound by limitations such as a computer has.  God however is free and therefore His decisions are real decisions He makes.  So why did He choose to make Satan morally free?  Why make people morally free?  What is the good in that if evil has a way into the universe through that freedom?  Now we must examine this question honestly and with care.

Consider our Lord’s options.  He could live forever within the Trinity with never another being in existence.  Clearly His love moved Him away from that option.  He could create other beings who were not morally free, who were mechanical in regard to morality.  They could only do what God said to do but then they would never have fellowship with Him in the same way those who are morally free can.  There are certain parts of a relationship that are not possible if you are not morally free.  You cannot have faith if you are not morally free.  You cannot hope without moral freedom.  And you cannot love if you are not morally free.  To hope, you must be able to choose not to hope.  It is the same with faith.  To have faith, you must be free not to have faith.  Most importantly, to love, you have to be able to not love.

Let’s examine this matter of love.  Love can be mimicked mechanically.  A creature licks your hand because that is what that sort of creature does.  Another creature can wag its tail when it sees you because that is the mechanical response.  We can trick ourselves into believing it is love because it looks like love and we feel love toward that creature but we know it isn’t love it has toward us.  Perhaps we even like that sort of thing more than the risk of real love but we have chosen something much less than love.  We have gone for a mechanical licking creature rather someone who chooses to love us.  Imagine a woman with a man only because he is rich and provides her family a house.  She may kiss him and hug him and write him love letters but she does it so that he will continue to provide for her.  We would never call that sort of relationship love because it is mechanical…it is forced, either by greed or need.  Love is a freely chosen response to another and must be so for it to be love.

God makes us morally free because that is the only way He can enter into a love relationship with us.  And here is the risk.  If we are free to love, then we are free to hate.  We are free to manipulate and free to ignore, disrespect and mistreat.  We are like the prodigal son, free to reject the one who loves us and again like him, free to come back to him in humility and a new sense of appreciation of what we have in that one we love.  If we are morally free, then we can do anything we wish to holiness, love and goodness.  We can hate, destroy, use, ruin, cheat, lie or kill ourselves.  We can do these things because we are morally free.  Here is the rub though.  Many are angry that God would create a universe where evil is possible.  They wonder what sort of cruelty would lead to a creation where corruption can take a seat alongside goodness, love and kindness!

Consider this.  Because God is love, he is free to love at a level that goes beyond our ability to fathom.  He took all our evil, all the sin we have produced through our moral freedom and absorbed it into Himself.   To understand God in this, we must listen carefully to the first part of John 3: 16.  For God so loved the world…  Not only did God love us so much that He gave us moral freedom, He loved us enough to take all the evil our moral freedom has produced and accepted the punishment Himself for it.  He took in Himself the damage our unholy choices have caused and died with them so that we would not have to live with the consequences of our moral choices.  God’s choice was to let us be free to make moral choices of good and evil. Even supernatural beings like Satan he gave moral freedom to choose good or evil.   Because we all have chosen evil and unholy living, God also chose, out of His moral freedom to take upon Himself the consequences of our sin…to die for them.

Some are angry with God for letting us choose evil.  They are mad that others can sin freely, can hurt people and wreck their lives.  That is the cost of being free to make moral choices.  Imagine though someone being mad at her mom for giving her a ride to school or being mad at his son for making him breakfast or being upset with his wife for being loyal to him and declaring her love for him.  How terrible would that person be?  Our God is so full of love for us that He gives us the freedom to act hatefully and bitterly and despise the freedom He has given us and then take all that hatred and bitterness into Himself and suffer the pain it has caused.   More than that, He chooses when we let Him, to join with us and make us completely new.  He gives us His life joined with our life and we gain His will to be holy and His strength to love completely.  What is the grace of God?  It is God’s choice to suffer the consequences of our moral choices, to give us the freedom to make those choices and then give Himself to us to be a part of us without, eventually, any of the damage our moral choices have caused us.

There is an old story of a little dog that loved a lion so much that after barking at the lion to stop heading into a hunter’s trap, he went after the lion that ignored his warning and jumped in front of the arrow that was intended for the lion.  As the dog lay dying, the lion roared at the little dog, complaining that the dog didn’t stop his headlong dash into the hunter’s trap.  He cursed the dog and complained about his wickedness for letting the hunter shoot his arrow.  The little dog smiled and simply whispered with his last breath, “I love you lion.”  How would that lion greet the little dog if three days later, the dog came back to life?  Would he hate him for his sacrifice?  Would he walk away from the dog’s warm embrace?  Would he realize what a great treasure that dog’s love is?  Would he forever be loyal to such a friend as that?  For God so loved the world…

Godventure

Have you considered the possibility that, like Abram, God is about to take you to a "new country", one that will establish your legacy with Him?  Are you willing to go off on a Godventure that could be the end of the old you?  When God told Abram to go, he gave him no information about the Godventure except what he would be in the end!  It was "go" and then "here is your legacy".  All the between parts were blank pages.  Where he would stop on day twenty-nine, what he would do in year ten, how his wife would react to month forty-three were all dark as night to him and they will be for you too.  The Lord will not give you a word in advance about the troubles you will face on your Godventure nor your triumphs along the way.  He will though tell you, "I will be with you!"  There were perhaps plenty of other believers in Ur when Abram was sent away...maybe even hundreds of them but none of them gained the legacy with God Abram acquired when at seventy-five that one particular old man believer left on his Godventure.  Perhaps it seems too late in life for God to make something new of you.  Maybe you feel inadequate for the task, not prepared for your Godventure.  The Lord did not give Abram wiggle room to assess His skill sets or resources.  He simply presented the Godventure and told him what he would be when it was all done.  Faith is not a tool in your spiritual bag of tricks; it is your reaction to God sending you.    God will not push you down the hill to get you going.   He will wait for you to take that step forward but when you do take that first step, He will begin to give you a supernatural burst of power you had not felt before you went with Him on this new way of His.  There was no hesitation in Abram when the call came to him to leave and there mustn't be any in you either.  The longer you muddle through your apprehensions, the harder it will be to finally pick up and go when you finally do go and the journey will have unnecessary trials and troubles that you would not have had to face if God didn’t need to rebuild in you the faith you had before you doubted.

Then the Lord had said to Abram, "Leave your country, your people and your father's household and go to the land I will show you.  I will make you a great nation and will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing.  Genesis 12: 1-2 NIV

New

A year is full of promise.  Everything is new and fresh about the days coming because "anything can happen" in them and yet we all know that we are full of calcified habits and mummified behavior patterns that we rarely undo.  Extra weight almost always stays on us; trapped in a body of routine.  It is the crisis that awakens us to change.  The crisis comes like a lightning bolt, the new day like a wave of the sea.  Inexplicably we welcome the wave and despise the bolt.   The pink slip and the cancer diagnosis we dread and yet they carry with them a hope we don't have in the new day.  Something must change when the lightning strikes and it does.  We see people from a different angle, think of our habits with critical awareness.  The person we took for granted morphs into a trusted friend; the walk in the park becomes alive with brilliant colors we hadn't noticed.  Not everything turns grey when the lightning strikes, sometimes neon green and strawberry reds explode out from the shadows.  Satan engineers a crisis when he is afraid we have begun to inch our way back to God but he miscalculates.  He thinks he wrecks us with the stormy blast but in fact the drenching rain can awaken us to what we have missed, what we might have if we just turn the boat around.  The old term "backslidden" describes the vast majority of us.  We have fallen back into our old crusty patterns of Godless doing.  We have stopped looking to Him for guidance, given up our electrifying dependence upon God for help and gotten by on mindless habitual religion rather than living faith.  Perhaps today you could cast your habits to the wind and do something wildly new with God.  Scream into the stars your praise.  Throw all the money you have in your wallet into some stranger's hand and invest in love rather than something more reasonable and rational.  Lock yourself in your room and sit with God until you are thoroughly uncomfortable and bored to tears.  Confess your hidden sin and make right your wrong.  Take someone's hand and pray for her.  Finally forgive your father or your coach that despised you.  Read out loud an entire chapter of the Bible and make each sentence pop with the joy of an angelic choir.  This is a fresh new day God has given you!  Make the most of it!

Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope: Because of the Lord's great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail.  They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.  I say to myself, "The Lord is my portion; therefore I will wait for him."  Lamentations 3:21-24 NIV

Wish or Do

There is a level of Christianity that never reaches farther than a wish.  It likes the thought of praying, it is impressed by sacrificial giving, it believes in loving hurtful people, it knows it ought to look away when tempted but it just will not make the move.   What good is an "amen" if it has no legs under it?  Would we think it reasonable for a fisherman to bait the hook and never cast the line out into the water or a student to prepare for an exam and never take the test or for a bride to stand at the altar with the man she loves and never voice the vows?  Are we Ananias and Sapphira who wished for the reputation of holiness without the sanctification of the gift?  Our born-again spirit longs to run to the horizons of holy living but our body wants to just go so far and no further.  Like the child standing at the edge of the pool who dreads the first chill of the water, we wait and wait to throw our lives fully into God, afraid of what true holiness will mean.    But those who have gone before us...the Apostle Pauls and the Apostle Peters and the Mary Magdalenes and the Ruths urge us onward and outward.  "Forsake the love of the world" , they urge.  "Abandon yourself to Christ."  Trust Him with the sorrow of leaving behind your chair and chase the dream of living within the wild unknown of God's will for you today.  Perhaps He has something risky and preposterous for you to do at this moment but you sit waiting and waiting for the breeze to blow another way so it will be easier for you.  It will never get easier; only more risky and more preposterous as the hesitation extends beyond the limits set by God.  Now cannot be later if you do not want to go away "sorrowfully"  like the poor young man who was too rich to go beyond the wish of Christianity.

How can you believe if you accept praise from one another, yet make no effort to obtain the praise that comes from the only God?   John 5:44 NIV