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Day 362: Genesis 1–Revelation 21 — The Long Journey Home

Tuesday, December 28th, 2010

I do not remember a lot of the things preachers have said throughout my childhood, but I do remember one from brother Ken Hoover who ministered at the Southwest church of Christ in Phoenix when I was in Jr. High. He preached a series of sermons taking one book of the Bible at a time and he would start out with the theme of the book which was always “The glory of God and the salvation of mankind through his Son Jesus Christ.” The message is the same throughout. It’s a message of repentance, forgiveness, love, mercy, and grace. There’s some wrath and punishment thrown in there when necessary, but that is not the goal.

My family (12 of us on my wife’s side) have just returned from a 2 day trip to visit my sister-in-law and her 1 year old son at the rehab facility where they currently reside. She has had many struggles and taken many wrong paths, but we can finally see her starting to take responsibility for them and seeking God and family to help her change her heart and her actions. We have prayed and solicited prayers for her over the years and we finally begin to see the fruit of God’s working in her. She has a long way to go, but God is good and willing to forgive. May we all be as merciful as He is. Our visit was such a joy to all of us and we hope she will be encouraged to continue on her path.

When I read today’s passage in Zechariah 1, it really struck a chord:

“The LORD was very angry with your ancestors. Therefore tell the people: This is what the LORD Almighty says: ‘Return to me,’ declares the LORD Almighty, ‘and I will return to you,’ says the LORD Almighty. Do not be like your ancestors, to whom the earlier prophets proclaimed: This is what the LORD Almighty says: ‘Turn from your evil ways and your evil practices.’ But they would not listen or pay attention to me, declares the LORD. Where are your ancestors now? And the prophets, do they live forever? But did not my words and my decrees, which I commanded my servants the prophets, overtake your ancestors?
“Then they repented and said, ‘The LORD Almighty has done to us what our ways and practices deserve, just as he determined to do.’”

This passage could come from any of the prophets or really anywhere in the Bible as this is the message throughout, which is why I titled the blog post Genesis 1 – Revelation 21. As fellow blogger Powell would say “Read the whole thing. It’s good for you.”

The message of forgiveness is to each one of us, as “all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God”. As we close out this year and start a new, may we remember the message: that God loved me so much that he sent His Son to live and die for me so that I might be with him in this life and the one to come.

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Posted in Forgiveness, Grace, Love, Mercy, Repentance, Salvation | 1 Comment »

Day 358: Micah 2-6 — Regaining Focus

Friday, December 24th, 2010

I often get overwhelmed by swarms of details. Thinking of all the little things that need to be done will paralyze me with fear so that I end up not doing anything. Or I might feel that if there is a single part of the task that I am unable or unwilling to do, I might as well not do any of it. But if/when I am able to focus on the purpose of the task I can be motivated to push on to the goal. I often wonder if this misunderstanding and lack of focus is similar to what Israel faced throughout its history. Were they overwhelmed by the seeming complexity or specificity of the Law of Moses? Where there too many things to keep track of and to fall short of so they just gave up?

In the today’s reading in Micah 2-6, we again see the results of the many failings of God’s people. They had fallen so far and I’m certain had a hard time seeing their way back go God. But as we read in Micah the situation is simpler than what we believe. All the laws and ceremonies, do’s and don’ts, sacrifices and rituals are summed up in these few verses:

With what shall I come before the LORD and bow down before the exalted God?
Shall I come before him with burnt offerings,
with calves a year old?
Will the LORD be pleased with thousands of rams,
with ten thousand rivers of olive oil?
Shall I offer my firstborn for my transgression,
the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?
He has shown you, O mortal, what is good.
And what does the LORD require of you?
To act justly and to love mercy
and to walk humbly with your God. (Micah 6:6-8)

Wow! That’s only 3 things. I can handle 3 things. When we focus on the heart of the matter, what is really important and what God really desires, we may be spurred on to all the details of living rightly with God. But if our focus is off, no amount of rule keeping or sacrifice will bring us close to Him.

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Day 355: Amos 3-6; Revelation 9 — By the Light of the Slivery Moon

Tuesday, December 21st, 2010

Right now as I write this it is 1:30 AM on the winter solstice and I have awoken to partake in the viewing of the lunar eclipse. Unfortunately it is very cloudy and there are only brief glimpses of the slivery moon. Mildly disappointing. Like someone promised me a grand event and didn’t follow through (at least not with the grand part).

Fortunately God is not like that. He always follows through. Today’s reading in Amos 3-6 is replete with messages from God listing out the warnings and chances he has given Israel to repent. And since they have chosen not to follow him but rather the ways of the nations around him, he will soon destroy them utterly.

Yet just like the small break in the clouds for me tonight, there is a glimmer of hope as there is with every message from the Lord “Seek the LORD and live” (Amos 5:6). God never warns us just to let us know what is coming. He always gives the opportunity to repent and be made right with him.

If we choose not to repent, our fate will be the same as those in Revelation 9. If we do repent, well, you’ll have to read the rest of Revelation to find out how that turns out.

For now, I’m going to head outside one more time and hope for a break in the clouds and then back to bed with the sane people.

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Posted in Amos, Grace, Judgment, Mercy, Redemption, Repentance, Revelation | 2 Comments »

Day 247: 1 Corinthians 2:6-16 — God’s secret wisdom

Saturday, September 4th, 2010

1:25For the foolishness of God is wiser than man’s wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than man’s strength…2:14The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned.

There are a lot of things I don’t understand about God and the way He works. I don’t understand how God “hardened Pharaoh’s heart1” (Exodus 7:3-13, and others). I don’t understand how God “sends a powerful delusion” to “those who are perishing” (2 Thessalonians 2:1-12). We pray for God to be with us when we travel, and to grant us a safe trip. I believe He answers those prayers, but I don’t understand how He does it. Right now, many of us are praying that God will send us a minister to work with our congregation and help us grow, to His glory, and we are praying the He send a Christian couple to work at a nearby Christian children’s home as relief house parents. I have faith that God will honor those requests, but I don’t have a clue how He’ll do it.

You know what else I don’t understand? I don’t understand the kind of love that redeemed me from the pit and offered me the hope of eternal salvation — but I believe it. That’s all we’re asked to do. That’s all God has ever required from His people — a living, active, obedient faith that trusts in His grace to provide.

Do you have that kind of faith?

  1. For a nicely-written, documented-by-scripture article on this subject, see Who Hardened Pharaoh’s Heart?, by Kyle Butt and Dave Miller.

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Posted in 1 Corinthians, faith, Grace | 2 Comments »

Day 233: Romans 6 — Saved by grace

Saturday, August 21st, 2010

5:20Now the law came in to increase the trespass, but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more, 21so that, as sin reigned in death, grace also might reign through righteousness leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. 6:1What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? 2By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it? 3Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 4We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. Romans 5:20-6:4

Now how to go about a full treatise on grace in 500 words or less? Actually I’m not even going to try, but here are a few disjointed thoughts that reflect what’s on my mind; hopefully it’ll make some sense…

I can sum up verse 20 in 5 words: You can’t outsin God’s grace. Yet we hang our heads low, going through life feeling as if we aren’t “good enough”. Whatever that means. Paul would agree, and sums up his response to that thought in 6:23 — “For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Free gift. Did you realize the word Paul used for “free gift” comes from the same Greek word as “grace”? There’s a powerful message in that simple realization — grace is free. Actually that’s redundant. That’s like saying oxygen is a gas.

People talk about “cheap grace”, but I don’t think there is any such thing. Grace isn’t free; it cost Jesus his life (v. 21), and it will cost you yours in service to Him (Galatians 2:20). What people really mean when they talk about cheap grace is, “Oh, let’s not talk about grace, because that will give people the idea they can just sin all they want, and it won’t matter since they’re covered by grace.” That’s exactly what Paul is speaking against in 6:1-2. So yes, let’s talk about grace. Let’s thank God that through His grace we are saved (Ephesians 2:8-9), and let’s praise Him that because of His grace, we are free to do the very good works we were created to do (Ephesians 2:10).

A final thought — where did this idea come from that if we’re saved by grace, that means there’s nothing we have to do to accept God’s grace? Books have been written on the subject, so let’s leave that thought without explanation. You think about it. If I hand you a gift of $100, at what point is it yours? At the point where you reach out and accept the gift, but the fact that you had to do something to reap the benefits of my gift neither means you earned the gift nor does it diminish the value of what I have given you. Such is the case with God’s grace.

Holy Father, thank you for something we do not fully understand — our eternal salvation through Your abundant grace. May we live closer each day to You and more like the One through Whom this gift was effected.

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Day 232: Psalm 36:1-38:22; Romans 5:6-21 — Viruses and Allergies

Friday, August 20th, 2010

Well I’m traveling again and of course writing my blog entry at the last minute while on an airplane. Something in the New Jersey air really hammered my sinuses. Either that or I had a head cold going into the trip. Hopefully the return to the hot dry air of Austin will restore my nose and eyes to their former cheery selves.

When pollutants enter the body (such as pollen or cold viruses or the various toxins we put in our bodies by choice or not every day), the body tries to fight them off by creating antibodies and other immune responses. Snot is a great immune response. It wraps up the bad stuff in a gooey mucous coating which it then tries to expel. This is kind of gross and not very pleasant when you start having a sneezing fit at 30,000 feet.

God put great healing abilities in our bodies. The more pollutants, the more antibodies we create…up to a point. Eventually one will win and drive the other out. But the pollutants will eventually return. And our body is stronger to deal with them next time (if we treat it kindly). So should we get sick in order to make our bodies even healthier? Well I don’t want to spoil Romans 6:1 but 5:20-21 is a hint of what’s to come.

20The law was added so that the trespass might increase. But where sin increased, grace increased all the more, 21so that, just as sin reigned in death, so also grace might reign through righteousness to bring eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger so they say. But it sure does hurt when you’re going through it.

Today’s reading in Psalms 36-38 is also filled with joys and sorrows, triumphs and losses. But through it all we can trust in the Lord that grace will reign in us through Christ .

Oh, and if you thought my comments about snot and mucous were too gross, take a look at Psalm 38:5:

5My wounds fester and are loathsome because of my sinful folly.

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Day 230: Romans 3:19-4:8 — By Grace

Wednesday, August 18th, 2010

I’m a good person; I work hard, pay my taxes, don’t cheat on my wife, provide for my kids…You have heard it many times and may have even caught yourself voicing something along the same lines. It is a trap that Satan has set since the beginning and will use with way too much success until the end of time.

This balance between law and grace — odd that we refer to it as a balance, because there is no balance. They are exact opposites. In Romans 3:20 this is stated with the utmost clarity, yet we cling to Law. Law lets me be in control; grace puts me at His mercy.

In reality, Law should never be a source of pride, only shame. We like to talk about what we have gotten right, but Law points out the thousands of things we do wrong. That is the entire purpose of Law. It was never meant as a source of salvation but a resource to show us how much we need God’s grace. Only when I realize that I cannot do it myself, am I ready for God to really come into my life.

Even after obeying the gospel I continue to need grace. Because I am no better at keeping Law after than before. I continue to need God’s grace every bit as much as I ever did. The world wants a salvation they can pay for, own and go about their merry daily life having their paid receipt in their pocket. Grace was paid for but not by us; we could never cover the cost regardless of our wealth.

I realize at this moment how badly I need God’s grace. It is what I hope in because God can, will, and does keep his promises and try as I might, I sometimes fail. So here I sit having faith that as long as I’m doing my best, flawed as it is, God will through His grace make up the difference. Heaven depends on that promise (Romans 4:4-5) and I cherish it.

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Day 191: Acts 7:42-8:3 — Choices & forgiveness

Saturday, July 10th, 2010

And Saul was there, giving approval to his death…But Saul began to destroy the church. Going from house to house, he dragged off men and women and put them in prison. Acts 8:1, 3

Those are, I think, some pretty sad verses. Fortunately, that’s not the end of the story, because we know very well of Paul’s life & ministry, and we’ve read his letters. We also know that when Paul was doing these horrible things, he believed them to be the work of God, so he slept very well, having a clean conscience (Acts 22:3-5; Acts 23:1).

Do you believe Saul/Paul was forgiven for persecuting the Church? Of course you do. I do too, and so did he (Romans 8:1). Can you imagine Paul writing to the church at Corinth, telling them “I beat my body daily because the sins of my past are too great for me to bear”? I can’t imagine that at all. No, Paul was very convinced of God’s forgiveness, offered to Paul through His grace, bought with the blood of Jesus.

We have been offered that same grace, yet we hear people today say things like, “I know God has forgiven me, but I just have a hard time forgiving myself”, as they hang their head in shame. Consider this — if someone sinned against you and he repented, wouldn’t God forgive him? Wouldn’t you forgive him? Then what right do you have to not extend the same forgiveness to yourself that God has already given? To refuse to forgive oneself is to reject the forgiveness God has given us through Jesus, and we do not have that right.

Paul made some pretty terrible choices, as have all of us, but what part of “no condemnation” doesn’t cover that? Friends, we should thank God each day that we don’t have to live lives of despair and regret. We cannot change anything done in the past; we can only accept God’s mercy and move on to the future. That’s exactly what murderer, persecutor, and sinner Saul of Tarsus did.

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Posted in Acts, Free Will, Grace, Mercy | 4 Comments »

Day 162: 2 Kings 17 — Enough

Friday, June 11th, 2010

In Deuteronomy 28, before his death Moses told Israel that once they crossed into the Promised Land there would be blessings for obedience to God and curses for disobedience. Following the death of Joshua, Israelites did evil in the eyes of the Lord and worshiped various gods of peoples around them. They provoked the Lord to anger by serving Baal and the Ashtoreths (Judges 2:11-13). For approximately 325 years, over and over Israel turned from the LORD to other gods. GOD would use foreign oppression to chasten his people and then send a deliverer (Judge).

Following the death of King Solomon, God gives ten tribes of Israel to Jeroboam and promised that if Jeroboam walked in His ways and kept God’s statutes and commands, as David did, God would build an enduring dynasty through Jeroboam. However, once Jeroboam became King over the ten tribes of Israel he led the people away from God for fear that they would turn back to Jerusalem to worship God. He set up golden calves at Bethel and Dan, appointed men other than Levites to serve as priests, set up festivals other than what God had instituted, and led the people away from God’s commands and ordinances. Succeeding kinds of Israel led Israel to worship gods other than the LORD. The LORD was longsuffering but Israel persisted in the sins of Jeroboam and would not turn away from them. As given to us in the accounts in 2 Kings 17, finally God became very angry and used Assyria to remove Israel from His presence as he had warned in Deuteronomy 28. Assyria took many of the noble families of Israel to other lands, many of whom would never return.

So, where does that leave us today? We are God’s chosen people; his adopted children bought with the blood of His son, Jesus Christ. God loves us as his children. His grace for the forgiveness of sins is extended to us through Jesus. As with Israel, God also expects us to follow His ways. When we become His children, we take on the responsibility of turning from the ways that we lived previously and the ways that the world would want us to live in the future. Just as God promised Jeroboam that if he followed God he would receive blessings, God promises us the same. God wants to bless our lives but He also wants us to follow Him.

  • God is and has always been jealous for men to walk in His ways.
  • God is long-suffering and wants us to follow him. He will chasten us when we turn from His ways.
  • We should pay strong attention to whom we choose to follow – the ways of God or the ways that men tell us are better or are God’s ways.
  • Continuing to not follow God after having been saved, but walk in the ways we (humans) think is best will eventually take us from God’s grace. I don’t know where the line is drawn that God will finally have had enough, but I don’t want to know.
  • I sin when I don’t want to and try as I might, sin anyway. However, there is a difference in trying every day to follow God and continually searching for his ways, and living by whatever way I want to or that someone tells me is their opinion of the way. God gave us the Bible to use to find his way, and the Holy Spirit to guide us. These are what we should be using and listen to.

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Day 138: Luke 23:26-32 — Suffering on the Cross

Tuesday, May 18th, 2010

Jesus on the crossI grew up for a few years in East Austin. All my friends in the neighborhood were either African American or Hispanic. It was a tough neighborhood and we were all poor and struggling. The only way for me to survive was to act tough and crazy, so I was called the “crazy white boy.” One of my best friends was African American and we were at a park playing one day. A group of boys decided that this “crazy white boy” needed to be beat up. I stood with my friend ready to fight until I saw that he turned on me and sided with the group. I was disappointed and hurt. It seemed that at every corner of my young life was meant to be alone.

I have experienced more profound tragedies in my life with the loss of family and friends. No doubt so have you. There was a time in my Christian life that I wondered why God had allowed my sufferings. I have seen others suffer and was lost for words. Yet, as I continue to grow in Christ I have found that part of our Christian message is that God has not turned away from our plight nor does He miraculously deliver us from all of our sufferings. In Luke 23:26-32, Jesus is led away to the cross, Simon of Cyrene is made to carry the cross, women mourned, Jesus laments for the Daughters of Jerusalem and their children. God did not prevent Jesus from suffering, nor did He deliver Him from it. Jesus not only suffers on the cross, but here in our text He knows He could not stop the judgment that Israel and humanity had caused. The suffering of the innocent—the death of Jesus and the suffering of the women and the children—is an indictment of the institutions and means of human cruelty and a call to turn from our sinful inclinations and accept the cross and God’s mercy as the answer. Otherwise, “if they do this when the wood is green, what will happen when it is dry?” (Luke 23:31).

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