Scripture

Well Put Words

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“And that about wraps it up. God is strong, and he wants you strong. So take everything the Master has set out for you, well-made weapons of the best materials. And put them to use so you will be able to stand up to everything the Devil throws your way. This is no weekend war that we’ll walk away from and forget about in a couple of hours. This is for keeps, a life-or-death fight to the finish against the Devil and all his angels.

Be prepared. You’re up against far more than you can handle on your own. Take all the help you can get, every weapon God has issued, so that when it’s all over but the shouting you’ll still be on your feet. Truth, righteousness, peace, faith, and salvation are more than words. Learn how to apply them. You’ll need them throughout your life. God’s Word is an indispensable weapon. In the same way, prayer is essential in this ongoing warfare. Pray hard and long. Pray for your brothers and sisters. Keep your eyes open. Keep each other’s spirits up so that no one falls behind or drops out” (Ephesians 6:10-18, The Message).

Again, sometimes The Message has a way of putting a fresh spin on a familiar verse that gives it new life. I know sometimes Eugene Peterson got a little too loose with the paraphrase, but sometimes he got it right on the money.

Life is hard. If we want to survive and thrive, we’ll need every weapon that God has made available to us. Those aren’t guns or swords but prayer, Scripture, and community. We’ll need every bit of all of these if we want to still be standing when it’s all over but the shouting.

As I’m learning from my current community group, we really are in this together. We have to learn how to be strong for those who are weak and to believe for those in moments when they can’t. We can look to the four friends of the paralytic who would stop at nothing to get their friend to Jesus, even if it meant tearing a hole in the roof and lowering him like something out of a Mission Impossible movie. The Bible even says that Jesus healed the man because of the faith of his friends, which is why your circle matters (as I read recently).

May we avail ourselves of every weapon of faith that God offers to us so that we will be ready for the inevitable assault from the enemy (that is already here by the way). May we stand together and stand strong in the faith of those who have gone before, never wavering and never compromising until all the world has heard the good news of Jesus. As the slogan goes, everyone must know. May we never rest until God’s promise of worshippers from every tribe, tongue, race, and nation is a reality.

Resist?

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Here I am, thinking out loud again. That may get me into trouble, but I think I need to air out some of my thoughts on the whole idea of resisting for a committed follower of Jesus. These views do not reflect the views of my church or my city, yada yada yada. You know the drill.

Somehow, I think the whole mentality of resisting is similar to what people have said about Christians, especially here in America. Mostly, they’re known more for what they’re against rather than what they’re for. And that’s what strikes me about resisting.

People will say that the disciples were resisting when they were arrested and went back out and went right back to preaching in the synagogue again. I think it was more a matter of an allegiance to a higher power that overrode any civil or human authority. They didn’t have the mentality of “Well, since they tried to shut us down, we’re going to go at it twice as hard to shame them.” It was more like “Even though we submit to all human authority as commanded by God, in this matter we must obey God rather than man.”

I do think that we should never submit to anything that violates our faith or commands us to engage in sin. I do think we still proclaim that Christ is Lord even when the higher powers want us to bow the knee to Caesar (or to the modern equivalent).

It’s not a prideful resisting but a humble acknowledgment that our allegiance is to God rather than man. We’re not being contrarian. We simply believe that when it comes to a choice between man-made laws and the laws of God, God’s law wins every time.

I also think that we’re still commanded to love our enemies and pray for those in authority over us, whether we like them or agree with them or not. I prayed for Biden and now I pray for Trump that both would seek God’s wisdom in governing this nation of ours.

Jesus’ mission wasn’t primarily to oppose Rome or the religious leaders of the day. His main goal was obedience to the Father rather than civil disobedience. I’m sure to the Pharisees and Scribes, what he did looked like breaking their laws just to break them, but in reality, Jesus never once broke one of the laws that God set in place through the Torah.

I believe that as the end times draw nearer, our allegiance to God will come more and more into conflict with the laws of the state. Then we will have to choose to follow God or follow man. We may have to choose between persecution up to and including death or denying our faith to save our own skin. It will look like resisting. Maybe that’s what it really is. But ultimately, it will still be obedience to the highest authority and the ultimate allegiance to the only true King.

Not of Us

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“Now we have this treasure in clay jars, so that this extraordinary power may be from God and not from us.” (2 Corinthians 4:7)
“The most earnest and faithful minister of the gospel must ever remember that humbling truth. He has this precious treasure of the gospel entrusted to his charge; he knows he has it, and he means to keep it safely; but, still, he is nothing but an earthen vessel, easily broken, soon marred,—a poor depository for such priceless truth.
If angels had been commissioned to preach the gospel, we might have attributed some of its power to their superior intelligence; but when God selects, as he always does, earthen vessels, then the excellency of the power is unquestionably seen to be of God, and not of us” (Charles Spurgeon).

That’s true whether you’re a famous preacher in front of thousands or a simple witness in front of one person. All the power of the gospel comes from God. All the saving comes from God. All the changing of the heart from unbelief to belief and the changing of a soul from dead in sin to alive to God comes from God.

That’s key whenever you have a gospel conversation with anyone. It’s not your job to save anyone. It’s also not your job to be an attorney and prove the existence of God and the Bible and the historical validity of the resurrection and all that. You don’t have to win the person over by a compelling argument. You are simply a witness, telling what you saw, what God did, and how God changed your life.

As I’ve learned, people can argue all day long about theology matters. They can argue about whether God is real or the Bible is true. No one can argue your story. No one can say what happened to you didn’t happen when they see the evidence of a changed and transformed life.

I was reading today about the passage where Jesus sent out the disciples to carry His message. He told them not to worry what to say because when the moment came He would give them the words to say. So often, that’s the case when we are surrendered to God’s will and open to sharing about the hope we have with anyone who asks. We may not know what to say beforehand, but in the moment, the right words come and God is speaking with our voice.

I pray that we all — me included — would diligently seek out in prayer those people with whom we can have gospel conversations. I read something called a 3-open prayer that seems appropriate to be our prayer for those gospel conversations: “1) Lord, open a door to share the gospel. 2) Lord, open the heart of the lost to receive the gospel. 3) Lord, open my mouth to share the gospel.”

My Lent Readings

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So I may have gone a tad overboard with my readings for Lent. I suppose technically, some of them are specifically for Lent and some are devotionals for the entire year. Here’s what I’m reading. Hopefully it will inspire you to add these books (or others like them) to your to-read list at some point:

  1. God’s Message for Each Day – Eugene Peterson. This one is a daily devotional book from the author of the Message, more of a paraphrase than a translation of the Bible but still worth using. This little devotional has short readings for each day and has been very helpful.
  2. 365 Pocket Prayers – Ronald A. Beets. I don’t know if Ronald wrote these or compiled them, but there are 365 prayers, each with a different theme. There’s also a handy index listing the prayers by category in case you want to find a prayer for guilt or shame or anxiety or such.
  3. A Barclay Prayer Book – William Barclay. This is a prayer book that follows the Christian Year and Holy Days in the Book of Common Prayer and also has prayers for all seasons. There were a couple of phrasings in there that gave me a bit of pause, but overall, I’ve liked it enough to recommend it.
  4. It Is Finished: A 40-Day Pilgrimmage Back to the Cross – Charles Martin. This one is blowing my mind with new insights about Jesus’ journey to the cross. It’s very reverent and biblical in its retelling of the scenes of Jesus’ last week before the crucifixion. Another book I highly recommend.
  5. The Book of Common Prayer (1928 edition) – This book helps get me in the proper frame of mind for both Christmas and Easter with all the Advent and Lent readings leading up to Christmas Day and Easter Sunday. Plus, there are so many beautiful collects and other readings for all the Holy Days and other important days in the Christian calendar. It makes me want to be liturgical.

All that plus reading through the Bible in a year is a lot. So proceed with caution if you dare. Or you can recommend your own Advent and/or Lent readings that have encouraged and inspired you and maybe I’ll read them next year.

Funeral for a Friend’s Father

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“Death is not a chamber, but a passage; not an abiding-place, but a crossing over; not a state, but an act, an experience, a crossing of the bar, a going within the veil” (F. B. Meyer).

Today, I went to a celebration of the life of one of my friend’s father. He had recently passed away at 84. I can’t say that I knew him, having only met him once when he gave me and my friend a ride to the airport about 12 years ago.

Sitting at the funeral service, I came to respect him as a man of God after hearing all the testimonies and stories. One thing I took away was that he loved his God and his family, serving in his church for many years as an elder, Sunday School teacher, and greeter. He was known for his faithfulness and generosity.

I also learned of his love of cats and how he also loved to travel in his Jeep to national parks and historic sights across the country, doing thorough research beforehand to make the experience more enjoyable. As a fellow cat lover and Jeep enthusiast, I can’t very well fault his tastes.

I’m certain that a mark of a man’s wealth isn’t a bank account or a mansion but the number of people who speak well of him and can truly say that they loved him and that he loved them. A life of being faithful to serve in small ways over years is a blessed life indeed.

I can only say that I wish I could have known him better. I would have loved to hear his insights on the Bible as well as some of the current issues facing the nation. I imagine he’d have his own unique take, as I gather he was a militant individualist who blazed his own path rather than follow where others have been.

I think he would have loved that the preacher basically presented the gospel at the end of the service. He would have wanted people to have a chance to respond to the gospel that God so loved the world that he sent his one and only son so that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. He’d have wanted to know that all his friends and family could know that Jesus loves them.

It did my heart good to hear those words spoken in his honor. Though I understand that his body might have been in that casket in front of the chapel, I remember the words that Billy Graham once said: “Someday you will read or hear that Billy Graham is dead. Don’t you believe a word of it. I shall be more alive than I am now. I will just have changed my address. I will have gone into the presence of God.”

I know that he is now more alive than ever. He is more healed and whole than ever. He is standing before Jesus right now hearing the blessed words, “Well done, good and faithful servant.”


Hope Deferred

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Recently, I took my Jeep into the shop for some minor repairs. At the time, I didn’t really think it would take long, so I didn’t get everything out when I left it. That was 9 days ago. As it turns out, my Jeep won’t be ready until Monday. That makes 11 days without my car.

It’s been frustrating. I’m not overly happy with the place I took my car. I felt they could have streamlined the process and made it faster. I’m catching a glimpse of what it’s like to live under circumstances that are outside your control.

I can’t really force the people to work on my car any faster. I definitely can’t go down there and fix it myself. I can only do what the Bible says in difficult circumstances — trust and obey.

I like to think that I’m a patient person, but in times like these, I find that I’m not. I find myself getting anxious and irritated by the delay. I also look forward to getting my car back and to how much I will appreciate my Jeep after not having it for almost two weeks.

Then I remember that verse in the Proverbs that says that hope deferred makes the heart sick. I can understand that a little better now. I know people are dealing with much worse. Someone out there is facing a return of cancer. Someone is looking at a job prospect they thought was a sure thing that didn’t work out. Someone is back to square one in the dating game after finding out that special someone didn’t quite feel the same. Someone is still waiting on a prodigal to return home.

There are so many cases of people whose hearts are sick because their hope got delayed or deferred. So many barely had the strength to wait for the answer only to find that that answer is not yet. So many have been tested beyond their ability to endure or cope.

But that’s when they find that in the middle of their weakness and failing God’s strength is perfect. They find that saying that God never gives us more that we can handle isn’t quite accurate. God never gives us more than He can handle when we finally come to the point of surrender. That’s when God really shows up.

Hope deferred is not hope denied. Sometimes, it is because God has something more in store for those of us who wait that we’re not quite ready to receive. But I do believe that when it comes, the wait will have been more than worth it.

A Heavenly Perspective

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“DAILY PRAYER (BY SPURGEON)
We have faith in Jesus, blessed be your name, but oh strengthen and deepen that faith! May he be all in all to us; may we never look elsewhere for ground of rest, but abide in him with an unwavering, immutable confidence, that the Christ of God cannot fail nor be discouraged, but must forever be the salvation of his people. We trust we can say also that we love the Lord, but we long to love him more!Let this blessed flame feed on the very marrow of our bones.
Amen.
VERSE OF THE DAY (COMMENTARY BY SPURGEON)
“By faith Enoch was taken away, and so he did not experience death. He was not to be found because God took him away. For before he was taken away, he was approved as one who pleased God.” (Hebrews 11:5)
It is faith that muzzles the mouth of death and takes away the power of the grave. If any man, who had not been a believer, had been translated as Enoch was, we should have been able to point to a great feat accomplished apart from faith. It has never been so.
Do not attempt to escape the pangs of death by any other way, but walk with God, and you will be able to say, “Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?” (1 Corinthians 15:55).”

Almost no one was as good as Charles Spurgeon at keeping his people focused on Christ and the Cross, no matter what. May the same be said of us inside and outside of the church buildings or homes where we gather. We need to remember that God’s plan is so much bigger than us and our fears and doubts and dreams, yet He is concerned with each of us and our needs. May we also be reminded that the story isn’t over until you get to the last page, and as I read the last page of the Bible and of our story, it’s a good one.

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.

Faithful

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“One person with a belief is equal to a force of ninety-nine who have only interests” (Peter Marshall).

I read a book once called Not a Fan. The gist is that Jesus doesn’t call us to be fans but followers. Of course, in this age saturated with social media, being a follower has taken on a whole new meaning. You can follow a person or a company with no real investment. But what Jesus wants are those who will lay down their lives for the sake of the Gospel, the Kingdom, and the King.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer said that when Christ calls a man, he bids him to come and die. Sometimes that looks like being martyred for the sake of the gospel. I think of believers living in daily fear of their lives in areas of the world that are hostile to the Christian faith. I think of people who will be disowned by their families and even threatened with death because they chose to follow Jesus.

Here in America, it’s not that bad. Yet. I have a feeling that the days of Christians having a soft and comfortable existence in the United States are coming to a close. One day, it might not just be inconvenient but illegal to be a Christian who exclusively claims Jesus as Lord. One day, preaching or speaking the gospel might not just be considered hate speech, but a punishable offense.

Tonight in my life group, we talked about what it means to suffer for Christ. Right now, it’s becoming less and less politically correct in this country to believe in Jesus and God as revealed in the Bible. In other places, confessing Jesus as Lord will almost certainly mean death. But throughout the Bible, we see where believers were able to endure suffering and even count it all joy because they knew something way better was waiting for them on the other side.

I’m thankful for my freedoms to practice my faith openly without fear. I pray that I will be more mindful of those who share my faith but don’t share the same freedoms. I pray that we in American churches will acknowledge and honor their courage and sacrifices for the sake of Jesus. I’m certain great rewards await them in heaven.

May we be found as faithful as them.

Be Ready

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“If with heart and soul you’re doing good, do you think you can be stopped? Even if you suffer for it, you’re still better off. Don’t give the opposition a second thought. Through thick and thin, keep your hearts at attention, in adoration before Christ, your Master. Be ready to speak up and tell anyone who asks why you’re living the way you are, and always with the utmost courtesy. Keep a clear conscience before God so that when people throw mud at you, none of it will stick. They’ll end up realizing that they’re the ones who need a bath. It’s better to suffer for doing good, if that’s what God wants, than to be punished for doing bad. That’s what Christ did definitively: suffered because of others’ sins, the Righteous One for the unrighteous ones. He went through it all—was put to death and then made alive—to bring us to God (1 Peter 3:13-18).

That’s the key. Be ready. If you live a godly life (or even make the attempt in the Spirit of God to live a godly life) it will draw attention. I heard once that believers should live questionable lives, but not in the sense of believing one way and living another but in such a way that the way we speak and behave will draw questions as to why we’re different (in a good way, hopefully).

I also think we should be praying at every moment for opportunities to have gospel conversations, especially with the family and friends we love and hold dear. I know the famous quote attributed to Saint Francis says to preach the gospel at all times and use words if necessary. I think from the Great Commission, words are always necessary. We simply need wisdom and discernment as to the timing of when we’re supposed to speak up and tell our gospel story.

The more the world slips further away from God, the more we will stand out. The more those not of God will hate us and mistreat us and try to trip us up. But also the more people will see something about us that they don’t have — peace under pain , joy in the midst of sorrow, patience under suffering, hope that never fails. Then some will want to know about that hope that we have. Then we should be ready to give an answer.

I found something that every believer should pray called the Three Open Prayer: “1) Lord, open a door to share the gospel. 2) Lord, open the heart of the lost to receive the gospel. 3) Lord, open my mouth to share the gospel.”