His Highest for the Heights

09.14.11

Ezekiel 36.8 8“‘But you, mountains of Israel, will produce branches and fruit for my people Israel, for they will soon come home. 9 I am concerned for you and will look on you with favor; you will be plowed and sown, 10 and I will cause many people to live on you—yes, all of Israel. The towns will be inhabited and the ruins rebuilt. 11 I will increase the number of people and animals living on you, and they will be fruitful and become numerous. I will settle people on you as in the past and will make you prosper more than before. Then you will know that I am the LORD. 12 I will cause people, my people Israel, to live on you. They will possess you, and you will be their inheritance; you will never again deprive them of their children. NIV

How vast and deep and wide is the love of God that surpasses knowledge! I know I’ve chosen a rather lengthy portion of Scripture today but I really felt like one verse just wouldn’t quite get the job done in expressing the beauty in what I see here in Ezekiel 36. (Not because I see it, but because it’s there…)

One of my favorite verses in all of Scripture is, How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of those who bring good news, who proclaim peace, who bring good tidings, who proclaim salvation, who say to Zion, “Your God reigns!” (Isaiah 52.7 NIV). Mountains play a very important role in Jewish writing. I think it’s because they represent Princely portion, power, protection, and provision. And so my heart was drawn to these words that speak good of the mountains that were in the homeland of God’s people. Those mountains had grace!

Having never seen those mountains, I can only conjure up thoughts of what they looked like way back then and compare my thoughts to the mountains here in my own homeland of northeastern Oregon. I wonder what God thinks about my mountains. I wonder what the people here would think if God said to our mountains: “But you, mountains of Oregon, will produce branches and fruit for my people... I am concerned for you and will look on you with favor; you will be plowed and sown, and I will cause many people to live on you—yes, all of my people. The towns will be inhabited and the ruins rebuilt. I will increase the number of people and animals living on you, and they will be fruitful and become numerous. I will settle people on you as in the past and will make you prosper more than before. Then you will know that I am the LORD. I will cause people, my people, to live on you. They will possess you, and you will be their inheritance; you will never again deprive them of their children.”?

Do you wonder about what God thinks of your homeland? Do you think God thinks favorably about it or otherwise? Does it matter? The homeland of the Jews was God’s gift to them. Our homeland is where God in His wisdom and election placed us to carry out His will: From one man he made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands. God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us. (Acts 17.26-27 NIV)

Today, I am glad about what God thinks about my homeland and about what God thinks of me: He calls me His child. And He has chosen for me to live in the mountains and they are pretty!

God’s Man

09.12.11

Daniel 4.27 Therefore, Your Majesty, be pleased to accept my advice: Renounce your sins by doing what is right, and your wickedness by being kind to the oppressed. It may be that then your prosperity will continue.” NIV

Telling a king what to do is risky business: he might act… or he might react. Throughout Scripture men have been appointed by God to tell (advise) kings what to do. Some were very good at their jobs and others were just yes-men. The good ones were few and weren’t always favored. The yes-men were plentiful but often just told the ruler what he wanted to hear anyway. Daniel was one of the good ones.

Daniel saw the both the glories and the abuses of Nebuchadnezzar; he saw when the king abused his power and oppressed people needlessly. For all of the things that Nebuchadnezzar did, apparently he was a despot and had a mean streak. So God warned him to straighten up and fly right or suffer the consequences. And God sent His man to deliver the message. It makes me wonder, in whose life today am I God’s man; the messenger?

Well, I know for sure I am supposed to be God’s man to my family. My wife and kids are watching how I act and react. They will size up my faith by what faith they see in me. They will size up my faith by the advice and attention I give them. They will size up my faith by how I treat them, love them, and accept them. They'll notice whether I talk the talk or walk the talk.

And I am to be God’s man among God’s men in the Church. I am to be God’s man in my neighborhood, at my work, and while I am out in the community, shopping or getting gas, or whatever I happen to be doing.

But most importantly I am to be God’s man in my heart – like Daniel was. Daniel apparently did not see himself apart from the Lord. And so like him I am to see myself the same way. Daniel’s foundation was a little different than mine – he was raised in Jewish nobility, and I, in American ignobility – but the truth is our mutual faith is cut from the same bolt of cloth; his before the blood was spilled; mine after. Daniel seemed to get it much earlier than I did and so I have some later-in-life catching up to do. I prayed tonight on the way home: Lord, it isn’t the size of the job, the size of the paycheck, the size of the calling that counts: it’s the size of the heart for You; and the size of my character that counts for anything at all. That’s all that will matter in the end.

I’m not Daniel and I haven’t been called to advise a king but I am Paul and I am to serve a King. My other biblical friend, the apostle Paul, said this: So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God. (1 Corinthians 10.31 NIV) My life is pretty tame (and at times pretty lame) compared to Daniel’s but my calling is to walk like him with a heart for God, and in my vocation and avocation, to be, in my day and my way: God’s man.

What Life is Really About

09.11.11

Daniel 2.30 As for me, this mystery has been revealed to me, not because I have greater wisdom than anyone else alive, but so that Your Majesty may know the interpretation and that you may understand what went through your mind. NIV

Had Daniel been someone else, he might’ve eaten the king’s food, drank the king’s wine and claimed glory for himself in the interpretation of the king’s dream – had Daniel been someone else. But Daniel wasn’t someone else, he was a man of integrity and great faith. Men like Daniel are rare.

So much of whom we are and what we are is based on (we feel) what we have, do, or are called: possession, performance, and/or position. At least that’s how many sum up life – what I own, how I do, or what I’m called. It takes a tremendous character to leave it all in God’s hands and give Him the glory for where we are, what we are, and who we are. Daniel was quick to deflect attention from himself in order to keep the conversation pointed in the right direction: King Nebuchadnezzar, as important as you are and as much as what you have and have done, there is Someone far greater than you Who has given you possessions, performance, and position to accomplish His will in the earth! Daniel was given the opportunity to tell a great man what life was really all about: God. As I said, men like Daniel are rare; he realized it was all about influence and not about ambition.

Our world doesn’t understand faith like Daniel’s. Unfortunately many in the church don’t understand it either. Faith is that unshakable conviction that this life is all about knowing God – nothing else. Faith is the immovable understanding that everything in life is because of God. And faith is the steadfast expectation that everything in life is done in the wide open presence of God. Every situation or circumstance, every test, trial, triumph, or tragedy is done so that God can see what and where our hearts are. God is present with both believer and betrayer because God’s purposes transcend people though He uses people to cause His will to be done.

The difference between Daniel – a captive taken against his will to place against his preference – and everybody else in the narrative was that Daniel understood the presence and power of God. Daniel understood that God will do whatever He has purposed with anyone – including despots like Nebuchadnezzar… or our boss, or our neighbor, or our elected politician who does and says, over and over, what we don’t like. The way to approach these people is not because we have more wisdom than anyone else, but from the foundation of faith where we firmly hold that only God is God and the rest of us aren’t. God chose for a pagan king to know that; and He chose a man like Daniel to bring the message.

The events of this coming day and week are divinely designed and deployed to show where my heart really is. All that I am going to go through is to show how real my faith in God is. May I reflect His glory and give Him glory is all I say, think, and do…

Sola Fide, sola Deo Gloria, sola Christos!

Walled In

09.10.11

Lamentations 3.7-9 7 He has walled me in so I cannot escape; he has weighed me down with chains. 8 Even when I call out or cry for help, he shuts out my prayer. 9 He has barred my way with blocks of stone; he has made my paths crooked. NIV

If you know me or know the people who know me, you’d know that walled in is the way I have felt about living in Baker City, Oregon. Baker is not a bad place as places go – I actually like it here. But it seems Baker City (or Baker as we call it) is where I am to be, period. As a family we have lived in many different places and have always felt a certain freedom to live where we pleased (within certain limitations: employment, etc.) But we have lived here in Baker 5 years and 11 months; that’s the longest amount of time we’ve lived anywhere – (btw: 4 months was the shortest…Roseburg – that’s another story).

I think about Jeremiah’s words and feel a certain kindred-ness with them. I’m sure Jeremiah would’ve rather been someplace else than witnessing the overthrow of his country and the deaths of thousands upon thousands of his fellow countrymen. I’m sure Jeremiah would’ve rather not gone through what he went through. And when he wrote what he wrote, “He has walled me in so I cannot escape…” I’m sure he meant what he wrote – there was no place else for him to go under God’s mighty hand.

I look at my circumstances and what has taken place in my life over the last 5 years and 11 months. I’d rather, many times, been someplace else – but there was never any place to go; no open doors of opportunity. I have felt walled in – trapped. I’ve not seen the overthrow of my nation by an invading army yet, nor have I witnessed thousands of my countrymen slaughtered; but I am witnessing the collapse of my culture. And I am seeing countless lives rendered useless by the inane pursuits we as a nation have embraced. The divorce rate hasn’t slowed; abortions are as numerous as ever; and now human-trafficking has emerged in the most non-suspicious areas of our nation. Emotions are running high and people are scared. I don’t know what to expect, except…I sense I get to witness it all from behind the walls of my existence here in Baker City.

When God walls us in, He always does so for a reason, and surely for a season. This is the season to trust Him and remain faithful despite the walls I feel are surrounding me. I’m not seeing any bright spots to flee to even if I had the opportunity too. I am trusting Him, and hunkering down right here until He gives the order to go somewhere else. And I am to represent Him faithfully until He does… the walls are there for a reason – amen?

Father, despite what I feel, I realize that Your presence is the safest place to be. Help me as I trust You here in Baker City and look for Your hand upon all I do here. You always do what you do for my best and for Your pleasure – may I remember that. And may I recognize that though the walls look like walls, may I see them as the outline of Your mighty hand safely keeping me and guiding me to do as You direct. Amen.

Treasures to Trash

09.09.11

Lamentations 1.11 All her people groan as they search for bread; they barter their treasures for food to keep themselves alive. “Look, LORD, and consider, for I am despised.” NIV

Treasures become trash when they pass from want to need, and when need turns to desperation. Many are the college students who need money and pawn precious things for a few bucks and somehow the money to buy it back never comes. Treasures are collected when times are good or when someone passes or because of some windfall. Treasures may be precious because of who owned them before or how much was paid in cash or effort to get them. But oh, what chattel they turn into when times get desperate.

The other side of the coin is what baggage they turn into in times of crisis or seasons of growth and maturity. Paul the apostle said, “But whatever were gains to me I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God on the basis of faith.” (Philippians 3.7-9 NIV) In these times bartering away turns into running away from anchors that drag on the soul or chains that bind on the mind. Paul said, “What good are these things I once thought were so good that only got in the way of my coming to know Christ!?”

In Lamentations, they bartered away their treasures desperately hoping that someone else in the same mess as they would be able to give them the food they needed to survive; you can’t eat treasures. Treasures are somewhat fleeting and their value is often fickle when the pain gets to be too much. If things are bad enough treasures indeed become trash; their sentimentality becomes weak, and they end up being used for some other ignoble purpose.

I tend to go here lately: treasures become trash in order for trash to become treasures. Paul, huh? What I mean is the truest treasure is that which is trash to the world – things like faith, honor, valor, fidelity; and just for good measure, I’m gonna through in virginity. (What is precious to God is usually worthless to most and for the last forty years or more virginity has been taking a cultural beating.) The true assessment of treasure is what it's worth in heaven.

Jesus said, “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” (Matt. 6.19-21 NIV)

Bartered treasure only means something if it’s worth something. One man’s treasure is another man’s trash when the going gets tough enough. But what may be trash to men is treasure to God when our hearts are in the right place: on Him and not the trinkets of this world.

Both Friend and Polemic

09.07.11

Revelation 12.7 Then war broke out in heaven. Michael and his angels fought against the dragon, and the dragon and his angels fought back. NIV

Not even heaven is immune from disruption. For war to break out in the midst of God’s presence is mind-boggling to me. Heaven is supposed to be a place of eternal serenity and harmony but even there things went south – at least for a time.

Such is the condition of the heart – things may fare well for a while, but this of heaven there is always the reality of confusion and disappointment. Why did Satan fall? Why does anybody for that matter? The fall of Satan was directly resulting from the condition of his heart which at one point was deeply and irrevocably poisoned with pride, jealously, and unspeakable pettiness.

I contend that God has ordained His own law to which He Himself is subject. Now don’t drive the bus off the cliff. God appears to operate within a legal system of some sort which He honors because He made it, and He doesn’t change the rules. If God changes the rules at His whim then we’re all in trouble because we won’t know what to expect from Someone who says, I am God. The question for me is why; why would God have rules, boundaries, limits?

If God operates under the rule of Law then it goes that we, His creatures, too must operate under the same rule. What’s good for the Creator is good for the created. I suspect that there are those who look at God operating under His own rules and suspicion that there is something hinky and who mistrust that what God says is what He really does.

The bad part of law especially the supposed awkwardness of God submitting Himself to His own law, is that if He does it, then we ought to as well. That just seems like a lot to ask for some folk. It is better in the eyes of some if God simply does whatever He wants to do because then we creaturely ones may follow suit. But God is far too smart for that and far too honorable. God cannot be tempted; His creatures can, but He Himself cannot. For God to be tempted is for God to turn upon Himself – another thing that God cannot do…

What really is war in heaven anyway? I mean, what could it possibly be? To be sure, I just don’t know, but I do know that the Author of the Bible chooses His words carefully and there is no misstatement in the word war. Whatever heaven’s war was it was a lost cause for those who sought to overthrow the King. Maybe war in heaven was a war of words over God’s choice of law and however He purposed to administrate it. Bottom line: Satan lost. My advice is: never sit down with God to play chess – you’ll lose.

And never set out to declare war on Heaven – you’ll lose there as well. The good news is, one day in the truly sweet by and by we will know our God better and see more clearly His purposes for us who at this moment remain a little lower than the angels. Who knows other than God why God does what He does? Again the good news: He does whatever He does in love and that ought to be enough for anyone – both friend and polemic.

Mirror Mirror on the Wall

09.05.11

Ezekiel 28.17 Your heart became proud on account of your beauty, and you corrupted your wisdom because of your splendor. So I threw you to the earth; I made a spectacle of you before kings. NIV

It is a dangerous step to take one’s eyes off of the glory of the Lord; the consequences can be dire. Mirror, mirror on the wall, aren’t I the fairest of them all? Gleaming glory of the Lord, revealed to us through Your written word!

One of the hardest things to overcome in life for many is the seeming unfairness of how giftedness or talent is dispersed. Most don’t understand the dispensing of gifts but they do understand that so and so has that, and I don’t. Or worse, I have this and so and so doesn’t. The fairest assessment of who we are is not what we have, but who we are with what we have. The cruelest cut often is comparing oneself with what one does or doesn’t have to someone else’s have or have not. But there again, it’s the comparison thing – or the possession thing; that’s what trips us up.

Self-worship insidious and subtle. It creeps in upon a person and, without the mighty power of the Holy Spirit, it is unstoppable. It feigns humility and false modesty. And it always keeps one eye in the mirror as it watches itself gavotte…  Look at the way we dress up and preen as we prepare to go out in public. And our society fuels the flames of self-worship incessantly; sadly though it’s only according to its rules: if you only look like this, dress like this, or use products like this.

The apostle Paul told the Galatians, “Let us not become conceited, provoking and envying each other.” (Galatians 5.26 NIV). He went on to say, “Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ. If anyone thinks they are something when they are not, they deceive themselves. Each one should test their own actions. Then they can take pride in themselves alone, without comparing themselves to someone else, for each one should carry their own load.” (Galatians 6.2-5 NIV) It is only before God we stand or fall.

Part of having a gift in the first place is being able to properly use that gift and not lord it over others who don’t have the same or similar gift; using that gift solely for the glory of God, not rubbing it in the face of those who don’t have it. Conceit is so dreadfully sneaky! I would rather have no gifts and a solid walk with the Lord, than have ten thousand gifts and all the accompanying attention and accolades of men, but no affirmation from God. The journey of the follower of Christ is all about character, not giftedness.

Wisdom trumps giftedness. Character supersedes content. We all must be wise to seek Him first – His Kingdom and glory – and then humbly use whatever we have from Him only and ever for the benefit of others. Pride came into the picture because of self-worship and that in turn corrupted wisdom. May I be wise with whatever I have; and content with whatever I don’t have from the Lord.