Unencouraging Response to Leadership

I’m up to Joshua starting today with my readings, and first, I was struck by the leadership that Joshua showed.  After 40 years of wandering about, Moses dies, and Joshua immediately takes up swift and decisive leadership with knowledge of where his mission and strength come from (the Lord).

Then follows perhaps the most unencouraging response that the people could have said (now I’m quite certain neither they, nor the interpretation means it this way).  They said, okay Joshua, we’ll follow you like we followed Moses!  Now, I realize that the generation that is following Joshua is not the generation that had a rather bad track record of disobeying God and Moses.  Something about a golden calf, and some serious trepidation about the Promised Land (giants and all), and see the previous post for examples of bellyaching.

So, if I were Joshua, I’m not sure that I would be heartened by that statement.  And to be blunt, it doesn’t take terribly long for the Israelites to start following instructions much the same way (kind of like us huh?) that they did in the wilderness.  They do a great job with the whole march around Jericho with the ark, and give a great shout, and the walls come tumbling down thing, but they then promptly disobey God and Joshua.  Achan and Zabdi take some of the devoted things that they were told not to take, and the Lord’s anger burned against all of Israel.  They had just witnessed some really cool miracles, and they were so distracted by greed that they derailed the nations’ following of God.

God quickly tells Joshua why He’s angry at the nation of Israel and they repent… You know, go to Joshua and read the story!  My point was made early on.  I just saw irony in the following like they followed Moses.

Romans 8:38-39

For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor thing present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.  Romans 8:38-39 (NASB)

I need to hear this verse a lot.  It’s actually the verse that comes to mind the most.  If I’m struggling with something, I think through it.  When I am having trouble preparing for worship on a Sunday morning, I sing through it (I know a melody to it that some random person at East Iowa Bible Camp came up with that I’ve remembered ever since).  This verse is a great comfort to me.

What I love most about it is that Paul doesn’t just stop at nothing can separate us from the love of Christ; he goes through all the spectrums.  He contrasts all of the extremes.  Nothing from death to life.  Nothing from angels to demons (and everything in between), nothing in our past, and nothing in our future (in other words, nothing we have done and nothing we will do) can separate us from Christ.  Oh what marvelous Grace He has shown us!  Need you another reason to worship!

It’s no wonder that the hymn writer wrote:

The love of God is greater far than tongue or pen can ever tell.  It goes beyond the highest star and reaches to the lowest hell.  The guilty pair, bowed down with care, God gave His Son to win.  His erring Child, He reconciled and pardoned from his sin.

And my favorite verse (I love the picture that he paints here)

Could we with ink, the ocean fill, and were the skies of parchment made.  Were every stalk on earth a quill, and every man a scribe by trade.  To write the love of God above would drain the ocean dry.  Nor could the scroll contain the whole, though stretched from sky to sky.

Oh love of God, how rich and pure!  How measureless and strong!  It shall forevermore endure the saints’ and angels’ song.

We will spend all eternity worshiping Christ our redeemer, yet even that time won’t even begin to describe the love that He showed us at the cross.  Let’s get a good head start yes?  Hope to see you Sunday singing praises to our King! (Or if you’re not in Manhattan, hope you are somewhere singing praises to the King!)

Giants

I was reading Deuteronomy 9 today, and I was struck by Deuteronomy 9:1-3.  Here we have God telling His people that they are going to head into the promised land and they are going to be faced with a people great and tall… giants.  Now, I don’t know about you, but when I think of a giant, I think of Fezzig from The Princess Bride.  He’s this huge, hulking man, who incidentally is known far and wide for his fighting prowess.  So, when I read Deu 9, I think of a land filled with a whole bunch of Fezzigs.

The Israelites aren’t stupid, matter of fact, they have a saying, “Who can stand before the sons of Anak?”  Well, the answer is simple, the Lord, because no one can stand before the Lord our God!  Long intro for pointing out that what I was struck by today is that there are a lot of giants in the Bible.  Of course, the one we think of most often is David and Goliath.  There we saw a short little guy against the greatest warrior that happened to be a giant, and what happened?  God showed that He can take the most unlikely of people and do incredible things, including defeating giants with one stone.  Why giants?  I think it’s because when Goliath is on the ground dead, no one is sitting around saying, wow, that David is sure some warrior.  Instead, when David says, my strength is the Lord of Hosts, people look and see that there is the reason why the giant was defeated.

What are the giants in your life?  I think God still likes to take unlikely heroes and defeat giants.  And I’m talking both inward giants and outward giants.  I believe that He is using some friends of mine to defeat the giant of unsafe drinking water.  The problem is this huge hulking problem, but with folks like them, and people like you buying filters and supporting them, that giant will be defeated.

We all have inward giants, and we need to know that those giants will be defeated.  Sometimes it happens with a single stone, and the giant is gone.  We need to make sure that He receives the glory for that, and sometimes the giant is defeated through a long campaign, but defeated he will be.  Make sure that God receives the glory for that too.

Really when you boil it down, Christ defeated all of our giants (sin) on the cross, once for all time.  So, if you have doubts, know that the giants in your life have already been defeated!  They are just fighting a rearguard action, but they have lost the battle!  Let us together rejoice in the victory we have in Christ!

     

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Numbers 11

I’ve been following my automatically generated read through the Bible in a year plan, and occasionally, when nothing strikes me to write on my blog, I will likely share with you some thoughts from my daily readings.  For the last couple of days, I’ve been working my way through Numbers, and something struck me today about the contrast betweenNumbers 9 and Numbers 11.

As I was reading about the cloud that covered the tabernacle in Numbers 9, I actually thought, wow that’d make a great blog post.  In case you don’t know what I’m talking about, when the Israelites were in the wilderness, their pace was determined by a cloud that would descend on the tabernacle when they were to stop, and lift when they should start again.  Sometimes, they would stay in one place for a couple of days and sometimes only a night.  The amazing thing is that the Israelites were completely and totally reliant on the Lord.  They were fed by manna and dew.  Their pace was determined by a cloud, and even the decisions about who was and wasn’t to share in the Passover meal were consulted with the Lord first.  One of the biggest lies that we can convince ourselves of is that we are self-reliant and independent.  It is truly by the Grace of our Lord that we live from moment to moment and that we share in the blessings He bestows.  The Israelites were just more obviously dependant on Him.

Then we get to Numbers 11, and the people start whining.  You know, it was really actually better in Egypt, at least there we got to eat meat.  Now all we get is manna, and there’s only so much you can do with manna.  In Egypt we had fish and cucumbers and leeks and garlic (they must have been Veggietales fans).  Why did we leave Egypt again?  It was really better in Egypt…

Sound familiar?  If it doesn’t, then congratulations on being way ahead of me in your spiritual walk.  The Lord has done some serious leading in my life, but all too often, I look back and complain.  As bad as things were, they really weren’t that bad.  Is this maybe one of the ways that sin creeps back into our lives?  We start craving just that little piece of meat, because all we’ve had is manna.  Sure, manna is from the Lord, and is sustaining us, and showing how much He cares about our wellbeing, but the meat tasted so good.  You know, I won’t eat the whole thing, I’ll just have a bite.  Well, maybe a couple of bites….  Eventually, the Lord gave the people what they wanted in the form of a flock of quail, but it was plague ridden.  How cruel you might say!  Was it?  The Lord was providing manna, and when that wasn’t good enough, He warned them about the alternative, and they essentially said death was better than manna (didn’t they remember Egypt).

This makes me appreciate all the more the Grace that Christ shows us daily!  Even when we keep going back for meat, he keeps standing there with the manna and dew saying, “I have here the perfect sustenance.  Eat of the Bread and drink of the Water that I bring you and you will be satisfied!” May we all find our satisfaction in Him!

Study in Justice

Amos 5:21-24

21     “I hate, I despise your feasts,

and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies.

22     Even though you offer me your burnt offerings and grain offerings,

I will not accept them;

and the peace offerings of your fattened animals,

I will not look upon them.

23     Take away from me the noise of your songs;

to the melody of your harps I will not listen.

24     But let justice roll down like waters,

and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.

 

These verses among some other have been consuming my thoughts, prayers and devotions lately.  I can’t help but ask myself the question, “What are we doing on Sunday mornings?”  Are we worshiping?  Or are we just offering empty sacrifices?  Are we just singing words together because that’s what we do?

The Lord makes a pretty strong statement here.    Matter of fact, there are only a couple of times in the Old testament that he talks about hating something.  The Psalms of David talk about hating a lot, but the Lord only expresses hate a couple of times, and oddly enough, each time it is an aspect of His people that He hates.  So here we are, “I hate, I despise.”  Boy that must be something pretty bad to hate and despise it.  Our ears perk up.  Here it comes; God is going to tear down some evildoers.  He’s going to point out his despising of those against Him.  Ready for it?  “I hate, I despise….. your feasts, and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies.”  Wow, He doesn’t like our offerings, and he can’t stand the noise of our songs.  That’s pretty harsh.  I mean, come on, we’re singing these songs for You Lord.  We’re sacrificing some stuff for You.  And you hate it.  Why?

I’ll get to that in a second, but this is what consumes my thoughts.  God doesn’t change.  He never has and He never will.  As Christians, we sometimes get this idea of the Old Testament God and the New Testament God.  No difference at all.  Throughout the entirety of the Bible, He has loved His people, He has worked to redeem them, and He has given His Son for them.  Because of Jesus, we have fellowship with Him, and we have forgiveness because of it, but I would ask this, is it still possible that when we show up on Sunday morning and we sing some songs, and we give some money, and we listen to a message that God still hates and despises that?  Is it possible that He’s still shaking His head in frustration because His people still don’t get it?  Is it possible that what we’re doing on Sunday mornings is terribly empty?  We’re just singing cute songs with good lyrics.  Our hearts may even be connecting, and worshiping through the Spirit because of our Savior Jesus Christ.  But Romans 12:1 tells us, “I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.”  Amos says it this way, “Let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.”  Here it is, this is what God wants for worship.  He wants us all week.  He wants all of us.  He wants us to be interested in bringing about justice and righteousness.  Then He’ll listen to us.  Then He hears our worship and says, that is sweet.

See, we have a disconnect.  We sing one thing and we do or act out something different.  In our closing song, we sing, “How beautiful the feet that carry this Gospel of peace to the fields of injustice and the valleys of need.  To be a voice of hope and healing, to answer the cries of the hungry and helpless with the mercy of Christ.”  We sing that, we don’t live it.  I don’t live it.  I’m not sure I know how to live it yet.  I do know this though; we can no longer be content.  We must have a holy discontent with our walk.  I am an excuse guy.  I’ve got lots of reasons why I don’t do things.  I’ve got lots of excuses for the troubles in my life.

So, discouraged, we shut down, we hit the guilt bunker.  We may even say, boy, that’s right, we need to work on that, but look at what Paul said in Romans, “by the mercies of God.”  It all comes back to where are we leaning?  We live in a “me” culture.  If I can steal a turn of phrase from Leonard Sweet, “We have the iphone, the itouch, the ipod, we can’t even spell wii without two i’s.”  We get this idea that we save ourselves.  Right?  We say, I accepted Christ….  I prayed a prayer….  It’s like we get this idea that we recognized our sinfulness and we repented, and we came to Christ, and then He saved us.  Where did we get the conviction of sin in the first place?  What drew us to Christ?  God draws us.  Christ saves us, we don’t do anything.  Who is going to keep us steadfast in the faith?  Well, I’m certainly not.  It is only by God’s mercy and grace I am going to hold to the Faith that saved me.  Who’s going to do justice in the world?  I’m not!  Christ is.  Christ alone.  So if we want to see fruit, where had we better be trusting?  Christ.  Christ alone.  Now I don’t expect to really get this until I’m before Him in heaven, but I sure better be proactively running the race.  Christ will give me strength.  Matter of fact, I’m firmly convinced that Christ brings us through the race, with or without us.  How often is he dragging me?  I wouldn’t even say that I’m fighting against Him.  We’re all too often just dead weight.  Figure out what He wants you to do and do it!  What is he telling you, well we’ve got His word to give us some guidance, we’ve got His Holy Spirit to help us in the right direction, but only if we’re not quenching Him!

 

What does His Word say about worship?  It says things like, let justice and mercy rain.   It says things like, “Then the King will say to those on His right, ‘Come you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.  For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.’  Then the righteous will answer him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you?  And when did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and cloth you? And when did we see you sick or in prison and visit you?’  And the King will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.’”

 

 

There is worship.  Right there.  Do we want to serve our Lord?  Do we want to love Him?  It’s easy to sing a song, but are we showing Him love?  He tells us right here how to show Him love.  He hasn’t changed since Amos at all.  He still wants to see justice and mercy raining down.  So here we are.  It’s a tough spot.  What in the world do we do?  Let me use the Love and Logic answer, something.  Whether that means buying a water filter so that someone might have water do drink, or visiting a nursing home and spending time with the lonely there.  Volunteer with the food pantry.  I know they can use the help.  Becca is organizing a supper for the homeless in a couple of weeks.  Call her and ask her to help.  Let us be more than empty words and hollow promises.  Let us wrestle with this.  Let us not be content.