What We Didn't Deserve

10.28.11

Job 19.28-29 28 “If you say, ‘How we will hound him, since the root of the trouble lies in him,’ 29 you should fear the sword yourselves; for wrath will bring punishment by the sword, and then you will know that there is judgment.” NIV

I don’t think Job could embrace why what was happening to him was happening to him. To be sure, he had moments of terrific doubt; his confidence was shaken, and all that he had relied on up to this point seemed useless and small. Tragedy can do that to a person. Especially when it is out of the blue… as tragedy seems mostly to be.

When things go wrong, my guess is most of us tend to look inward and ask, “What did I do?” I know people looking at us think that. I believe that was Job’s case. Unfortunately for Job his friends asked the same question: what did you do!? They were convinced that Job was being punished for some huge, secret, unforsaken sin. In their thinking, it had to be – why else would anyone suffer at the level Job was suffering if they hadn’t done something wrong?

The Book of Job is not just a clever story with sound intellectual point and counterpoint. Job’s is the real story of a real guy who experienced real tragedy, who had real friends who were really convinced that Job had done something really wrong to get what he got: to them that is how life worked: a series of paybacks. And here is Job’s defense…

“Since you are convinced I did something wrong to deserve this; and you’re going to attack me until you get me to fess up to what you are sure is the truth; since we’re going to play that game, then beware: you should fear the sword yourselves; for wrath will bring punishment by the sword, and then you will know that there is judgment.” In other words, don’t think you’ll escape if this is your only understanding of what is happening to me. If you think I am being punished, watch out: you will be too! Job was right: we cannot assess one set of reasoning just to one person that we can’t or won’t to others – the reasoning applies to all of us!

How often I have danced the dance inside when someone I don’t care for gets what I think they deserve. No one gets what they deserve – at least according to God. And if there is a truth for me today it is this: No one gets what they deserve because God is working in everyone’s life to give them what they don’t deserve: life. We are all sinners and deserve death. Ultimately we will get what we choose, but because of His love, mercy, and grace we don’t get what we deserve. Yes, there is wrath, and yes, there is a death and after that to face the judgment; but getting what we deserve…? Job was trying to tell his friends not to think that way about God.

 And hell? Hell is the destination of our choosing. Sitting in hell for eternity will be the cost of denying the goodness and reality of God who went way out of His way to give us what we didn’t deserve…

If Only

10.26.11

Acts 26.32 32 Agrippa said to Festus, “This man could have been set free if he had not appealed to Caesar.” NIV

Many times in my life the if’s have prevented me from doing something. Once when I was pastoring a church, I was asked by a men’s organization to submit a copy of my mission, goals, vision, etc. as a church, and that if I did, I would be considered for a possible financial grant. They rejected my response because I missed the due date by one day and they wouldn’t allow me any grace. If only I’d sent it in one day earlier. I even had a good excuse for being late.

Paul was considered by Festus and Agrippa (Acts 25-26) to be innocent. They heard his case and came to the reasonable conclusion that Paul had done nothing wrong and his Jewish accusers were just jealous of him. They would have set him free if he hadn’t appealed to Caesar. If only Paul; if only you hadn’t had to have your way! If only!

If only’s are under God’s control. God uses if only’s. God had a much bigger plan for Paul and his freedom wouldn’t have worked in God’s plan. God used Roman Law to His advantage and put Paul right in the middle of it. Agrippa and Festus could only see the if only and Paul’s continued incarceration – God saw Paul sharing the Gospel with Nero, the emperor. And Paul wasn’t any worse for wear because of it.

The if only’s can drive you crazy if you let them: if only I’d… But remember God uses all of our if only’s (both good and bad) to transform us in, and conform us to, His will. God’s purpose for our lives is greater than any if only’s we happen to run across. God is not short-changed by if only’s.

I’ve had several if only situations that are especially painful to me when I think of them. But in the greater scheme of things they are the times when I needed to learn something and in retrospect they were just tools along the way. If only’s will never stop; they’ll continue until we die, but in heaven I think we’ll be able to look back and see them in perfect clarity for what they really were in our lives: useful tools to guide us down the right path – God’s path.

And sometimes it is especially helpful to remember that Paul’s if only was designed by God for something greater than Paul’s immediate release. Had he been released, the Jews probably would’ve hunted him down and killed him out of revenge. They were probably saying something like, “Dang! If only he’d not appealed…he’d be dead by tonight!” If only’s work both ways.

I might opine my if only’s but I must remember and trust that God uses them to His advantage and His advantage is mine as well because He is my Father and He looks out for me… even when I miserably wail, if only!

With God at Starbucks

10.22.11

Job 13.3 3 But I desire to speak to the Almighty and to argue my case with God. NIV

There are many occasions in life when I wish I could just sit down at coffee and argue my case with the Almighty. After all, He is the Almighty. And don’t the Almighty’s do the almighty: like solve all of my problems and give me what I need to succeed? Seems like they ought with a Name like Almighty. I mean, it makes perfect sense to me…

Like Job, the only feed-back I get from the Almighty is this: trust Me; read My word, hang on every promise I’ve made, and trust Me. Seems like it would be so much simpler if He and I could just do Starbucks for about an hour and hash things out; I’d even buy.

Job’s story is very interesting because it seems God saw things in Job that Job didn’t see in himself. Job’s argument was he wanted to justify himself before God and show why he wasn’t deserving of the treatment he got; but God appeared to be uninterested in Job’s position. And according to chapters 1 and 2 of Job, God had bigger fish to fry with Satan’s accusations of God’s treatment of Job B.C. before calamity.

My problems are miniscule compared to Job’s. I haven’t suffered like he did. I haven’t experienced the utter collapse of my life like he did. But I do face things in my life that sure seem big to me. And I really want God’s help to face them and overcome them. What God saw in Job was a pure heart: Job loved God not for what he got but for Who God was. Said Job: Though he slay me, yet will I hope in him. Job knew which side of the toast was buttered.

God, however, doesn’t work in our lives because we know what side of the toast is buttered. God doesn’t work in our lives to give us what we want; He works in our lives to perfect what He’s begun in us through Jesus Christ. And He does so without having long conversations with us about how it’s going all going to pan out or how we feel about His methods. Job was dying for an explanation and God wasn’t going to give him one until He was good and ready. Job’s whining wasn’t winning. And mine won’t either.

Job’s success was not the result of a conversation with God and getting God to give him the gory details of all life was going to deal him. Job’s success was when God had to intervene and stop Job from going down a mental dead end that might’ve cost him his faith (I think that began about chapter 38 of Job’s book). God does do that for us as well; He intervenes to get us to stop thinking one way and get us to think another. Thank God for that every time you can – it’s a HUGE gift.

In the meantime, our job – yours and mine – is to seek God diligently with all of our heart. Hebrews 11 says: And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him. (v 6) Whatever those rewards are I’m betting they’re better (infinitely so) than sitting down with God over a steaming cup of today’s blend and arguing why I think my way is better than His and why I want Him to give me what I want. He thinks my character is more important than that.

Sometimes God’s silence is deafening and sometimes I just need to plug my ears in faith and watch with wonder as He leads me right where He wants me to be: trusting Him the whole way…

Only Your Treasured Possession

10.20.11

Job 7.17-18 17 “What is mankind that you make so much of them, that you give them so much attention, 18 that you examine them every morning and test them every moment?” NIV

Job’s question sprang from a mind under duress. The testing part was what got him. Job needed to know what was going on and couldn’t figure it out. His children had all died, his wealth had vanished, and his health was severely impacted. God! What is going on!? His natural reasoning asked: what’d I do?

I think Job was smart enough to figure out something was going on. I think he was able to reason that for some reason God had somehow intervened in his life. But it was baffling and seemed overtly harsh – God, what did I do to deserve this!? I promise, I’ll never do that again if You’ll just tell me what I did! So naturally, a question comes to Job’s mind: What is mankind that You even intervene in his affairs, that you examine him every morning and test him every moment?

We ought to be relieved that God pays so much attention to us. We ought to be relieved that He examines us and tests us – there is infinitely more to eternity than we’re prepared for here on earth and God is getting us ready for eternity. Solomon said, He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end. (Ecc. 3.11 NIV) Eternity is a big, big deal (in a very small way of saying it) and we are all being prepared for it, for life doesn’t just end on this blue/green ball we call home.

I imagine that eternity will be something like trying to breathe water, or walking through fire and not getting burned, or passing through solid walls effortlessly…just saying. But if that’s the case then we need to be prepared for it and if we’ll accept it, this life seems to be all about getting ready for the next. So that is why we are examined every morning and tested every moment: Someone is eagerly waiting for us!

God’s examinations are rigorous and His testing is vigorous. He is infinitely thorough and knows what we can handle. We just need to accept that. We need often to be reminded that we are examined every day. That might help us in the perseverance part of the fight for often we so want God to just leave us alone: look at Job 7.19. We need to live in the present but always keep close in mind that we are headed for eternity and God uses all of our today's to get us ready for all of our tomorrows.

So lead on, O King Eternal! Lead me where I need to be today and help me to trust You confidently, always. Help me to see Your presence in all I do and to be quick to remember that You will provide me everything I need this day for life and eternity. Thank You that is isn’t all at once for You know my capacity. Thank You that You are intimately acquainted with all of my days and all of my ways. May I learn today what You are trying to teach. Thank You God!

Q: “What is mankind that you make so much of them, that you give them so much attention,  that you examine them every morning and test them every moment?”

A: Only Your beloved and treasured possession.

What is From God

10.16.11

Acts 5.39 39 But if it is from God, you will not be able to stop these men; you will only find yourselves fighting against God.

Gamaliel was a wise man; he essentially told the emotional crowd of leaders, “Hey, if this is just human doing, it’s gonna fail! But if it’s from God, you’re gonna fail.” Wise words, his. I’m surprised at the partial belief that Gamaliel had; he knew God existed and probably in his own way loved and worshiped God. I think where he fell down in his thinking was he just didn’t believe Jesus was God’s Messiah: preconceived notions can be very powerful. I think Gamaliel believed God was going to send a messiah; he just didn’t believe Jesus was the One.

That’s where the whole story begins or ends for people: is Jesus God’s Messiah? If He is, then there are some changes that need to take place. If He isn’t, then we’re still accountable to God. The problem is no one wants to be accountable to God, Jesus notwithstanding. Gamaliel was in that difficult place of wanting to believe in God but rejecting Jesus as His Sent One.

Think about the things in your life that are from God. What are those things? Many will say their spouse is from God. Many will say their kids are from God. Many will say there employment is from God. We can point to a wide number of things that are from God. Well, how do we know that?

For one, the things that are from God are enduring; they don’t peter out after a while. For another, the things that are from God are things that change us internally; they have a transforming effect on our being. And the things that are from God, cause us to seek Him more earnestly. Pain, difficulty, discomfort and loss can all be from God with the one main purpose of getting us to call out to Him and seek Him for relief. And when they hang around longer than we want, they cause us to seek Him more.

We like to think that the things that are from God are the blessings we so desperately want from Him. But blessings need to be the right blessings and we need to be careful to see them properly or we’ll miss God in the midst of them. Pain, difficulty, discomfort and loss can all be masterful blessings that change us from weakling to warrior. And Gamaliel was right: the things that are from God are unstoppable; and trying to stop them only brings further frustration and disappointment… like an nagging itch that won’t go away.

Such is the enduring love of God that will not give up on people. God never gives up until that person eternally rejects Him. I’m not exactly sure when that actually occurs but the Scripture is very plain: it does. What is from God needs to be accepted as such and tested as such. We’re better off to carefully consider the circumstances and events of our lives in the light of His enduring love so that we know what is and keep it; and what isn’t and let it go.

Face Paint

10.15.11

Malachi 2.3 3 “Because of you I will rebuke your descendants; I will smear on your faces the dung from your festival sacrifices, and you will be carried off with it. NIV  

In ancient times, men of war used to paint their faces in order to intimidate their enemies. Their enemies did the same so on the battlefield there were opposing forces with their faces arrayed with color, passion, and determination to outdo and undo the other side. Such were the days of war. Nowadays men paint their faces with deceit, lies, and subtlety to intimidate the other side; to see who can make the biggest buck. The bottom line is who really has character; who really does what is honorable?

God told His priests through the prophet Malachi, I will paint your faces with dung to show who you really are (…let’s see what people think of you then). It is hard to be intimidated by one whose face is covered with crap (or egg if that’s the case). But God was serious because the leaders of His people were settling for less and making a mockery of Him.

What signifies who we really are; our paint, dung, or our character? We can make ourselves up to be just about whoever we want to be or have others believe we are – the question is who are we, really, on the inside. People can’t see our inside but they sure can see if our outside matches our inside; the one thing that really sets apart the child of God is the blood of Christ spread across his soul.

In Malachi, God said He would rebuke their descendants because of what they were: dung-faced fools who set a pattern for living that was in direct opposition to what God called and created them to be. The problem with patterns is what they do to our posterity: judgment of this age must be left to posterity; our descendants become the patterns we create once those present patterns become precedence. And all that’s left is a crappy society.

So the alternative is to live for God honestly, and to honor Him earnestly now, thereby setting a precedential pattern for our descendants to live by. That has been the call of God since the creation of mankind. And that means I need to pay attention to the things I do and say now, knowing they will have an effect on my kids and grand-kids.

And so today, on my face, do I wear the paint of godly character and the precious blood of Christ, or do I wear smeared dung because of my own reasoning and life-choices? It is up to me…  The pattern of my life today means a lot for the future and I can partially frame the future by how I choose to live today. Face-paint means a lot.

That City

10.14.11

Nehemiah 11.1-2 1 Now the leaders of the people settled in Jerusalem. The rest of the people cast lots to bring one out of every ten of them to live in Jerusalem, the holy city, while the remaining nine were to stay in their own towns. 2 The people commended all who volunteered to live in Jerusalem. NIV

If you think about it, this was a huge decision: moving from the country into the city. These people were mostly agricultural folk who made their living off the land. They farmed, they raised livestock. So to make a move into the city meant losing something of tremendous value. Were there fields in the city? Were there herds of livestock? It was really a huge decision to give up rural living. What did you do to live, public works!?

I thought about that city and what it meant for those people who were inhabiting the newly restored Jerusalem. You could have a house, you could plant a garden but you couldn’t compete with your countrified neighbors because they had the advantage of land whereas you didn’t.

And then I thought about another Jerusalem that waits in store for us: the New Jerusalem. Nobody will want to be outside that Jerusalem. Nobody then will care about fields, lands, cattle, sheep and goats. Inside the New City will be the presence of God and all will want that; and everybody will want to be there.

Peter in his sermon in Acts 3 made this statement: “Heaven must receive him until the time comes for God to restore everything, as he promised long ago through his holy prophets.” (v. 21). You see, God is going to restore everything; it all will return to the majestic and perfect way it was originally intended to be. Everything will be made new. That includes Jerusalem and that includes you and me.

The purpose and intent of that New City then will be different than what we think it is today. But one thing is for sure, the residents of the New Jerusalem will be restored and their original purpose and intent will be vastly different than what we think is important today.

Nehemiah is a picture of a restored city, a restored land, and a restored people. Nehemiah is a picture of the promise of what is soon coming for all of God’s true people. And Peter also said, “By faith in the name of Jesus, this man whom you see and know was made strong. It is Jesus’ name and the faith that comes through him that has completely healed him, as you can all see.” (Acts 3.16 NIV). The beggar was healed and restored into another life through Jesus’ Name, and by faith in Him. That same Name and faith is what beckons us to the New Jerusalem: the Name of the Lord will be there and unshakable trust in Him will be there!