old testament

Shadows and Light

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“Suppose a child gets separated from his mom in the grocery store. He panics and runs to the end of an aisle, not knowing where to go. But just before he starts to cry, he sees her shadow at the end of the aisle. He starts to feel hope. But what is better? The happiness of seeing the shadow, or having his mom step around the corner and seeing that it’s really her? That’s what Christmas is. Christmas is the replacement of shadows with the real thing” (Mercy Multiplied Facebook page).

I love that. Whenever I see a shadow, it can only mean that there’s light nearby. So much of the Old Testament is filled with the shadows of things to come. The sacrificial system pointed to an ultimate and final sacrifice. The Law pointed to a coming one who would fulfill all its righteous requirements. So many archetypes in the Old Testament are shadows of the Savior yet to come.

That’s what I love about reading through the Bible. All the stories in the Old Testament point forward to Emmanuel who is coming. So much of the New Testament points back to the birth, life, death, and resurrection of this Christ. In between are the Gospels that demonstrate that this is the Christ, the fulfillment of all the prophecies past and guaranteer of the prophecies yet to be fulfilled.

C. S. Lewis called this world the Shadowlands, where so much of the fleeting joy we find are shadows of the more real joy yet to come. That’s why so much of what we love doesn’t seem to last. Because the shadows fade when the true light has come. And one day, the Light of the World will return and the shadows will vanish and the real joy, hope, peace, and love will be revealed and never fade away.

Speak, Lord

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Right now, I’m having a random memory. I don’t know why, but the words that Chris Brooks always spoke before reading a Bible passage are coming back to me. He’d pray, “Lord, would you go before us in this text and make a way. And together we say, ‘Speak, Lord, for your servants are listening.'”

Sometimes, I invite God into my Bible reading. Sometimes, I just plow right in. Sometimes, it feels like God is speaking to me as if He’s been reading my diary. Sometimes, it’s like reading words off of a page that I forget as soon as I’ve read them. Hmm, I wonder if there’s a connection.

I don’t necessarily think that there are magic words that force God to give us new insights into Scripture. There’s not an Abracadabra and then suddenly you understand everything about John 3:16 or 2 Timothy 3:16. But I think praying God’s blessing over the reading of His word helps us to understand that these are His words we’re reading more than simply being an ancient text.

There are lots of ancient texts. Especially religious ones. But none of the others are living and active. None of them can transform. In none of them can a passage you might have read hundreds of times suddenly jump out at you with new insight and application.

I’ve loved reading through the Bible again this year. Even the parts that aren’t always easy reading are divinely inspired. I know that in the more depressing moments that the meta-narrative is still leading me to Jesus. As badly as God’s people fail, that’s how much grace Jesus showed us when He arrived. More and more, I can relate to all the bone-headed decisions and choices that these people made. More and more, I see my need to preach the gospel to myself over and over because I still see my deep need of it every day.

So as we open the pages of the Bible to seek God’s face more than gain new knowledge, we invite You, Lord, to speak, for we are listening.

Daily Bread Vs. a Lifetime Supply

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Recently, a friend sent me an article about trusting God for daily bread versus really wanting God to dump a year’s worth of supply in one drop so I don’t have to worry. In my flesh, I’d rather be set for life than have to be like the Israelites of old and trust God for daily provision.

Speaking of those ol’ people of God, they didn’t always listen. When God said to gather only as much as manna as you need for that day, they thought they’d be oh so smart and oh so clever and gather two or three days’ worth. What happened? The excess manna rotted and smelled to high heaven, as did the people’s attitude.

God supplies our needs daily because He knows our ultimate need isn’t bread. What we need most isn’t physical. We need God, and when we learn to trust God for each day, our dependence deepens and grows as we see each day’s needs met.

I confess I’m not very good at that. I tend to be forgetful. Thankfully, God has a gentle way of reminding me of the last 10,000 times He’s provided for me (sometimes without me even knowing or asking). He’s faithful even when I’m faithless and forgetful.

Anyway, I included the original article if you want to be blessed as much as I was:

Why Daily Bread Is Better

Saul

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Saul gets a bad rap sometimes.

I mean the guy who was king of Israel before David.

Of course, Saul did some fairly despicable things like trying on multiple occasions to kill David and having a multitude of priests massacred. It’s hard to overlook those, but David himself had some less than stellar moments when he was king.

What brought Saul’s reign to an end was impatience and insecurity. He got into trouble when he took matters into his own hands when he felt he had waited long enough, like offering the battle sacrifice himself instead of waiting for Samuel.

He also let insecurity get the best of him. His envy of David started when he listened to the people boast of how David’s conquests were so much bigger than his own. That envy spiraled into anger, hatred, and eventually murderous rage.

Most of us aren’t actively trying to murder our enemies, but I imagine more than a few of us can relate to Saul (not to be confused with another Saul who later became Paul and wrote a lot of the New Testament).

The issue is about who we trust and when we trust. Of course, we talk about putting our faith in God, but is that the automatic first response when things don’t go our way or when we have to wait longer than anticipated for something we want?

I confess that I am more like Saul sometimes in that I get overly impatient with God and envious of others who seem to have more than I do. I confess that I’m not alone in this.

While David had his numerous transgressions, he always made his way back to God. His repentance was genuine, as evidence by a changed lifestyle afterward. Saul said the words and felt bad, but nothing ever changed with his behavior.

I think I know who I want to emulate.

 

 

Lessons from the Book of Judges

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My church is currently going through a sermon series on the book of Judges. It’s not the kind of book when you want to feel good about yourself or the people of God. It’s a book where God’s people failed miserably and repeatedly, continuing a vicious cycle that involved them being hounded by a foreign people, crying out to God for deliverance, and God sending a judge to do just that.

I realized something today. In the book of Joshua, God commanded the people of Israel to utterly annihilate the enemies in the land they were claiming. At first, all went well, but further in, they fall into idolatry and are no longer able to drive out all the peoples in the lands they are taking.

These people are the very ones whose idols will enslave the people of God. These are the very ones whom Israel will serve as a result of that idolatry. Disobedience and sin always have consequences.

I also see that God never spurns the cry of His people. At some point, He probably would have been justified in bailing on them. After all, they did turn their backs on Him and run after other gods. They even forgot what He had done to bring them into this Promised Land.

God is faithful to His promises even when we’re not. God’s faithfulness often makes up for our lack of it. I’m thankful that God’s mercy isn’t dependent on my spiritual fervor or His grace dependent on my obedience.

All those judges that brought deliverance were pointing toward a coming Deliverer who would deliver His people once and for all. My pastor pointed out that while people may recoil from all the violence and bloodshed in the Old Testament, there is just as much of that in the New Testament. It was all directed at one man– the promised Messiah and Deliverer Jesus– who endured a very violent death on the cross for us.

That still doesn’t make for an easy read of Judges. I’m glad to be past it and into the book of 1 Samuel.

 

My Read Thru the Bible in 2017 Update

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My quest to read through the Bible in 2017 finds me in the book of Joshua. So far, I see that God has established a people who are in the process of becoming a nation while claiming the promised land.

I’ve noticed two things– 1) These people seem to go out of their way to screw up and to disobey what God has decreed, even when they’ve learned from numerous experiences that God’s ways are always best. 2) God continues to be patient with His people, though not always letting the people’s rebellion slide.

At first glance, it’s easy to be come frustrated with the people of Israel. Why can’t they just do what God says the first time and save a lot of trouble and heartbreak?

The more I look at these people, the more I see myself mirrored back. Why is it that I have such a reluctance to do what I clearly know God is asking of me? Why do I have such a tendency toward disobedience and outright rebellion?

Maybe the real question is this– why is God so patient with me after all the times I’ve given Him no reason to? Why is God still pursuing a love relationship with me when all I seem to do is respond with anything but love?

God’s people continue to be an imperfect representation of God and His Kingdom. We’ve gotten it wrong far more than we’ve ever gotten it right. We’ve made it far more complicated than it needs to be to get to God as we’ve set up way too many obstacles between people and God.

Still, we’re a broken people trying to figure out what it means to follow and serve God individually as well as corporately. We’re a work in progress that thankfully remains in progress not because we deserve it but because God has promised to finish what He started in us.

Now back to those meddling Israelites.

 

Regret

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Since this morning’s sermon at The Church at Avenue South from Aaron Bryant, I’ve been thinking about the story of Joseph in the Old Testament a lot today. More specifically, my thoughts have been centered on Joseph’s brothers.

I’ve always wondered why it was that when his brothers came to Egypt to buy food during the famine that Joseph recognized them but none of them knew who he was.

I realize that he was probably dressed in Egyptian garb and would  have had his hair and beard styled in the Egyptian fashions of that time.

I wonder if one of the reasons he was able to spot them was that they were still stuck in that moment when they made the horrible decision to sell him into slavery over 13 years ago.

Some of you reading this are still stuck in the past. You’re frozen in time in the moment when a relative hurt you or a friend betrayed you or a spouse deserted you. You haven’t been able to move past that moment in time.

Joseph had moved on, both literally and figuratively. By the time his brothers showed up, he had been though slavery, false accusations, imprisonment, and later exaltation. He had seen how God was with him through it all.

He was able to see at the end how God used what his brothers had meant for evil and turned it into something good. In fact, God used what was done to Joseph to set up the salvation of an entire nation in the making.

You come to the place where you release the hurt and pain done to you when you realize how God has redeemed it. When you’re able to forgive those who wounded you, you open the door to the prison and find out that it’s you that you’re setting free.

God still works all things together for good– even the bad and hard things– and that includes your story. That doesn’t excuse what people have done to you and it doesn’t lessen the pain, but it does mean that your wounds and scars are not the end of the story. God has a way of redeeming and restoring what was taken from you and giving you something so much better in return.

 

 

Thoughts on the Book of Jeremiah

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In my quest to read through the Bible in a year (again), I’ve made it to Jeremiah. I confess that the prophetic section of the Old Testament can be hard to read at times — I see time and time again where God’s patience runs out as the Israelites have abandoned Him and chased after other gods for so long.

I also see hope. I love the parts where God speaks of restoring His children to their land and to their former glory. Even though they deserve annihilation because of all their philandering and idolatry, God has promised after a time to bring them back to their home.

That gives me great hope. It means that the worst part of your story is never the last part. The part where the darkness seems never-ending and where hope seems so far away is not the last chapter. The ending is so much better.

Elisabeth Elliot once said that God’s story never ends with ashes. It never ends in exile and despait. Death and destruction do not have the last word. Neither does evil.

The terrorists do not win in the end. Fear and violence will one day be forever past tense. Love and mercy will be the currency of the new world order.

I truly believe in my heart of hearts that one day Jesus will come back and set everything right again. What got derailed in Eden will finally be fully and forever realized.

There’s a beautiful verse that speaks about how overjoyed the people will be when they see Jerusalem restored. It will be like dreaming with your eyes wide open, too good to be true yet still very much true.

The best part (to me) will be that all the pain and suffering that seems now like it will never end will one day seem light and momentary compared to the glory and joy that’s coming. It won’t even begin to compare.

All that from one little book in the Bible.

 

 

22,000 Steps

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Today, I set a new personal record for steps taken in a day. According to my Fitbit, I put in 22,874 steps totaling 10.15 miles and burning 3,195 calories in the process.

No wonder I feel so tired.

But those steps represent activity.  Those steps mean that I didn’t just sit on my rear and binge-watch Netflix all day (which is a good thing every now and then but not every day).

I participated in Serving Saturday with The Church at Avenue South. The group I was with served at the Room in the Inn headquarters on Drexel Street. For my part, I helped clean up the cafe where they serve the meal to the homeless men who come through on a daily basis.

It still feels good to serve like that and do something you know is contributing (even in a small way) toward people finding the grace and mercy of Jesus.

Every day you take steps toward or away from who you want to be. Every day you make choices and decisions that move you closer or further away from who and where God is calling you.

I won’t lie and say that every day I choose right. I’m thankful that the security of my salvation lies in the strong hand of my Savior rather than in my own strength. Otherwise I’d be screwed.

Everyday you must choose all over again whom you will serve, as Joshua reminded the Israelites way back in ye Old Testament times. You don’t choose Jesus once and then set your spiritual cruise control. You have to choose again and again with each new morning that you will follow Jesus and not every other competing voice that calls you in a contrary direction.

I ended up the night in Franklin for the Main Street Festival. I saw quite a few people that I knew and got in a lot more of my steps. I also had a fantastic hamburger which probably offset all those calories I burned in the entire day.

Oh well. It was worth it.