Attitude and Full-Grown Respect

4.7.2011

Psalm 66:16-20 16 Come and listen, all you who fear God; let me tell you what he has done for me. 17 I cried out to him with my mouth; his praise was on my tongue. 18 If I had cherished sin in my heart, the Lord would not have listened; 19 but God has surely listened and heard my voice in prayer. 20 Praise be to God, who has not rejected my prayer or withheld his love from me! NIV

Probably one of the most important aspects of all prayer, is knowing that God listens. If God is deaf, why pray? But God has perfect hearing and hears our prayers in ways we maybe don’t understand or realize. God hears our prayers in wisdom and judgment – is this person praying genuinely? Or is his prayer all for show and just to impress men? Is this person praying out of purity or is his heart sullied with dirtiness? Only God knows the true condition of our heart and the real motives behind our prayers.

The writer of Psalm 66 said, If I had cherished sin in my heart, the Lord would not have listened… (v18). So the first thing I need to do when my prayers seem to be hitting the ceiling is to examine my heart and see if there’s some secret place where I am playing footsy with some sin; God expects purity.

There are people out there today who’d say, “No, Paul, this is Old Testament stuff; it doesn’t apply to us today under the New Covenant!” I know what they mean, but I also know that God expects purity out of me (and every other believer) today like He did with any other saint in the Old Testament. The issue isn’t covenant – the issue is the basic condition of one’s heart toward God. Even if there was no covenant, my relationship with the Lord would still be characterized by how I relate to Him – am I a phony, or the real deal?

Paul said in 2 Corinthians 7: Since we have these promises, dear friends, let us purify ourselves from everything that contaminates body and spirit, perfecting holiness out of reverence for God. (v 7:1) It’s amazing what difference it makes with a good attitude toward God, along with a full-grown respect for His distaste of sin… Reverence for God is not reverence – for you or me or anyone else – if it is devoid of purity and respect. My life depends on knowing that God is hearing my prayers; but I especially need to know that when I am harboring sin or sins, His hearing is hindered by the cacophony in my soul.

What God Hears

4.6.2011

Psalm 65:2 2 O you who hear prayer, to you all men will come. NIV

God hears prayer – I don’t think He listens to much whining. What, today, is your prayer request? To what would you address, if God called you and said He wanted to go have coffee (or a Coke), and talk? My firm conviction is that most of our prayer is the whining of self (sorry folks, broad, sweeping generalization). And I want to own up that I am just as guilty as the next guy in this matter. Our prayers are, God fix it!, not, God, fix me!

Today, I am thinking about an elderly parent who is diminishing mentally fairly rapidly. Part of me wants to jump up, rush over to the town where this parent lives, and save the day – and I find my prayers are a reflection of that mentality. So, I waste a lot of mental energy scheming and dreaming about what I think ought to happen, rather than coming to God Almighty and humbly responding, Father, Your will be done, not mine.

Today, I am thinking about a 13-year old who needs his dad to pay more attention. And so rather than pray in inaction, Lord, what shall I do? (not a bad request) I pray in inaction, Lord, show me what to do! I think I hear God saying back, Paul, just be the dad I’ve created you to be! You already know what to do!

A lot of my praying is my attempt to just to check a box (pray without ceasing*); or to throw God a cheap substitute for my devotion in matters that are important to Him (“These people come near to me with their mouth and honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. Their worship of me is made up only of rules taught by men." *)

I think my biggest problem is I’m not broken - at least if I am, it's not working; I’m distracted. Maybe when I get desperate enough I’ll come to the One who hears prayer. That’s my only hope.

Father, Your will be done, not mine; may I obey You and trust You in prayer; and may my prayers be true communication and communion – not just whining away at my want-list…

* 1 Thessalonians5.17; Isaiah 29.13

Who Are the Poor

4.5.2011

Ruth 2:22 22 Naomi said to Ruth her daughter-in-law, “It will be good for you, my daughter, to go with his girls, because in someone else’s field you might be harmed.” NIV

Who are the poor? Keep that in mind. In the book of Ruth, Elimelech and his wife Naomi and their two boys went on an ill-fated journey to Moab (godless enemies of Israel) to escape the famine where they lived. As it happened all of the men died in Moab and Naomi – a widow – returned to her home in her native land with the widow of one of her sons, a woman named Ruth. Who are the poor?

Through a series of circumstances Ruth, while caring for her mother-in-law Naomi, goes to glean in the fields to find food for the two of them to live (see Leviticus, 19.9 & 23.22). The fields in which Ruth gleans belong to a relative of Naomi, a guy named Boaz. Naomi said to Ruth, “It will be good for you, my daughter, [to glean in Boaz’s fields] because in someone else’s field you might be harmed. [In Boaz’s fields, with his people, you’ll be safe.]

Think of what it took to get home from Moab – two women all by themselves. Think of what it took for Ruth to go out into the fields of strangers and look for food – all by herself. Ruth was poor, Ruth was a widowed-woman in a man’s world, and Ruth was defenseless.

Who are the poor? They are not just those without money. They are those without opportunity, they are those without defense; they are those without means. And, they are those who are watched over by God and helped by God’s people. The poor are the young, the old, the widows and the orphans. The poor are all around us and in the church, it is our duty – our God-given obligation – to care for them.

I can no longer live in this world ignoring the poor. As I read the Bible there is at least one thing I come away from it with: caring for the poor pleases God. The story of Ruth is one of how a poor woman was given back a husband and another poor woman was given back a destiny. Who knows but God what He’s doing through the lives of the poor, and what opportunities presented to them will be a part of His divine plan to the benefit of all mankind… As a believer, I must enlist in God’s service to the poor and lend a hand.

Choosing or Losing

4.4.2011

Judges 19:29-30 29 When he reached home, he took a knife and cut up his concubine, limb by limb, into twelve parts and sent them into all the areas of Israel. 30 Everyone who saw it said, “Such a thing has never been seen or done, not since the day the Israelites came up out of Egypt. Think about it! Consider it! Tell us what to do!” NIV

I’ve already done the math – twelve parts is the head, and the torso – that’s two; the upper arms, the lower arms, and the hands – that’s 8; the thighs, ten; the calves and feet (attached) equal twelve. Twelve bloody body parts sent to the leaders of the twelve tribes; a grisly statement of how bad things were. It’s no wonder they cried out, “Such a thing has never been seen or done, not since the day the Israelites came up out of Egypt. Think about it! Consider it! Tell us what to do!” I’d want to know what to do if FedEx delivered a body part to my house!

The darkest part of the night is always right before the dawn. This passage portrays truly one of the darkest nights in the history of Israel; and its ensuing civil-war. At least they hadn’t completely lost all sense of justice. I think this account is darker than the exile because the exile had some benefit in the long run – this just doesn’t make sense except to show that the anarchy and evil of their times shows just how far they had fallen in such a short period of time. Judges chapter one wasn’t all that long before…

Okay Paul, the point! The point is this is the reality of a nation gone astray. This is the reality of going one’s own way. This is the consequence of no God and no government (please don’t interchange the two). Think about it! Consider it! Tell us what to do! Repent… that’s what to do. There, but for the grace of God, go I.

I can have my own way if I insist upon it – I just have to remember that having my own way also includes everything that comes with it – bloody body parts and all. God loves me but will let me have my own way; the thought of bloody body parts however, gives me pause…

I am a disciple of Jesus Christ and I don’t plan on giving up on that; but, I must always remember that I can have what I choose and depending on what that is, I also have to remember that I my choosing can be my losing – not my salvation, but my testimony, my witness, my effectiveness, and my character. God save me from that!

Curse Confession Creation

4.3.2011

Judges 17:5-6 5 Now this man Micah had a shrine, and he made an ephod and some idols and installed one of his sons as his priest. 6 In those days Israel had no king; everyone did as he saw fit. NIV

First the curse – she lost her money and cursed that fact (Judges 17.2). I’m assuming she also cursed whoever took the money. Next the confession (same verse) – he confessed he’d taken the money and felt remorse (sorrow, guilt, and superstition) about what he’d done. Then the creation of some silver idols (Judges 17.4) that laid around and stayed around until the captivity of the Northern Kingdom around 722 BC (Judges 18.30)

Here are some realities: Cursed are those who steal; those who choose this kind of a life-style to get by in life. They steal money, time, resources, and relationships; they feel as if they have an inalienable right to everything. Nothing has a price because all of it is theirs – potentially. To them there are no boundaries and whatever isn’t nailed down or red-hot is just one more opportunity.

Blessed are those who confess and repent – what I did was wrong and I will turn from that, make restitution wherever possible and live rightly from that point on.

Doomed are those who make idols; who substitute the things of this earth for God; or make them to be suitable representations of God. God is not represented by things. Doomed also is the one who wanders from the truth and chooses to live by the principles of this world – this world and all that is in it is dead or dying and the rules are ever-changing and the scales are tilted against anyone who says I can play by the world’s rules and win. And doomed is false religion that creates a god of its own making to dodge the One who made us all.

We need a Savior because within certain boundaries and certain realities, we do as we see fit. As long as my fit doesn’t interfere with yours, or yours doesn’t inhibit mine; we’re gonna be okay – or so our rationale. We don’t need a king, we need a God! But not a god of our own making – we need God. The closing chapters of Judges are just plain bizarre to me – but so is the mentality that says, I can do whatever I want and no one’s gonna stop me…

Samson’s Obituary

4.2.2011

Judges 16:31 31 Then his brothers and his father’s whole family went down to get him. They brought him back and buried him between Zorah and Eshtaol in the tomb of Manoah his father. He had led Israel twenty years. NIV

When I read this verse today, I asked myself, Paul, so what exactly did Samson do? He led Israel for twenty years, he killed numerous Philistines; he was married once, slept with prostitutes, and had himself a girlfriend – one Delilah. He led Israel for twenty years and the sum total of his life seems to me to be: an odious irritant to Philistia.

In Judges 13 it says of Samson, “No razor may be used on his head, because the boy is to be a Nazirite, set apart to God from birth, and he will begin the deliverance of Israel from the hands of the Philistines.”(v. 5) So, in twenty years of leading his nation, Samson accomplished this: he began the deliverance of Israel from the hands of the Philistines. And what Samson began, continued through Saul, and finally was accomplished in David.

This morning’s reading made me think about my life and how my obituary might read. Samson’s was this: He began the deliverance of Israel from the hands of the Philistines and he led Israel twenty years.

Last night I heard a guy say, “none of us has peaked yet – we’re all still learning.” And that’s true. I want to learn up until the day I die. And I want to serve the Lord with what might be considered ever-increasing effectiveness. I think about my family, I think about my job and I think about my ministry and something in me pushes me to have an obit that reads a little more than, “He lived his life and led his family.”

Our lives mostly are what we make of them; and always what we make of our circumstances. Apparently Samson knew part of his mission; his life was a wreck and he wrecked just about everything he touched from his parents to Dagon’s temple in Philistia; but he was one odious irritant to God's enemies. What about you – any spark of divine fire in you to become more than just an odious irritant to … ? Are we living our lives so that others give God glory: If He can do that with him, then there’s hope for me! I hope so – for me and for you.

A Little Thanks

4.1.2011

Psalm 50:14-15
14 Sacrifice thank offerings to God, fulfill your vows to the Most High, 15 and call upon me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you, and you will honor me.” NIV

My hope in heaven one day is to have some long conversations with this guy Asaph, who wrote such beautiful and thoughtful psalms. I like his perspective and the simplicity of his faith; no pomp and circumstance, just simply saying, thank you. A little thanks goes a long way.

In Judges 11, a man named Jepthah fulfilled his vow to the Lord – he sacrificed his only daughter to the Lord. Human sacrifice has been around a long, long time, was a pagan ritual, and was strictly forbidden by Moses in the Law. But there is something the ancients held dear – at least for a season – their word; their oaths; their vows. Jepthah vowed to the Lord to sacrifice the first thing that came out of the door of his house to meet him if the Lord gave his army victory over the army of Ammon. Well, it was his only daughter who was the first to come out. Yikes! She did and he did. Weird story, weird ending. Imagine how Jepthah felt when they lit the fire to kill an innocent person and one that he loved…

Psalm 15 asks in verse 1, Lord, who may dwell in Your sanctuary? Who may live on Your holy hill? Out of the list of answers in verses 2-5 it says, “… [He] who despises a vile man but honors those who fear the Lord, who keeps his oath even when it hurts…” Jepthah was such a man. And Asaph said in his psalm, “Sacrifice thank offerings to the Lord…fulfill your vows to the Most High…”

Sometimes it hurts to keep our vows; sometimes it hurts to tell God, thanks. But God is more impressed when we keep our word than when we spout off our intentions. A little thanks to the Lord goes a long way to reveal a heart that is grateful to Him for all He is and all He’s done – even in the worst of times. Asaph said we’re to call upon God in our days of trouble implying that God knows and cares, and will deliver us; and the proper response to His delivery is our honoring Him in heartfelt gratitude.

Thank You God!