Month: January 2013

BEHIND THE WORD ‘HELPER’

Then the LORD God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.  Genesis 2:18

         Lest any woman should feel insignificant because of how the word ‘helper’ has been unwrapped in our past, let the Word speak for itself today.  The word for helper is ‘ezer’; one who provides aid or relief, one who imparts strength.  Adam was incomplete without a counterpart who completed him.  The word does not imply someone who is inferior.  A helper is not less valuable than the one who is helped.  How can we be sure of this?  Hold on.  Are you ready?

         God describes Himself as a helper, an Ezer.  Here’s just one example.    “Hear O LORD, the voice of Judah and bring him in to his people.  With your hands contend for him, and be a help (Ezer) against his adversaries.”  Deut. 33:7  It is used another 21 times in the Old Testament.

         As a helper to the man, a woman becomes his partner spiritually, bringing him her strengths.  She completes him in what he lacks.  He completes her in what she lacks.  Man does not carve out his path void of her input.  He thrives on her feedback.  He knows that, left alone, he will not walk the path God has laid out for him successfully without plugging in her gifts.  Where he is weak, she is strong, and vice versa.

         A woman is neither inferior nor superior to a man.  She is equal to him in worth.  (Her function in the relationship and Adam’s leadership and responsibility for Eve is another topic.  This devotional does not deny the order of authority as God designed it for the home.)

         Being an ‘Ezer’ is who I am.  I’m an image bearer of God just as Adam was.  Just as God comes alongside, lends strength and nurtures, I model after my Creator and help the one for whom I was created.  As an Ezer, I reflect the image of the glory of God.

In whatever ways Christian cultures have diminished a woman’s worth, heal our souls.  Lift our heads. Amen

GREETING DEATH FOR THE FIRST TIME

And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.  Genesis 2:17-18

         I remember my first encounter with death as a child.  My grandmother died when I was 13.  One minute she was there and, as far as I knew, had always been there.  The next minute, she was gone.  The house was empty.  The kitchen was quiet and the smells of her Swedish cooking were no more.  The change from her existing to not existing was a physical and emotional ‘thud’ to my gut.

         I felt this shift again when my mother died.  I was thirty.  Yes, I knew she was dying.  She had terminal cancer.  But even as she grew weaker, I could still bring her flowers, make her coffee, sit on the edge of her bed and talk with her.  But one day while visiting, she breathed her last and I looked death in the face.  The shift was swift and radical.  One moment alive.  The next moment dead.  One can never quite prepare for death’s finality.

         I don’t know if Adam knew what death meant when God warned him and set the only parameter he would have to follow.  He could enjoy everything God made and partake of it.  But, there was one tree that was forbidden.  Should he disobey, there would be instant spiritual death and progressive physical death.          As we will see in the unfolding plot line, he and his wife set a disastrous course in motion when they ate the forbidden fruit.  The shift they felt immediately was a spiritual one.  It was a ‘thud’ to their gut.  All they had known was pure love for God and a sense of His presence.  There were no barriers between them.  But in a moment, the shadows of shame, distrust, fear, embarrassment, and perhaps anger as they felt entitled to what God had forbidden, visited their souls.  The landscape of their soul left the state of innocence.

         Every person born encounters a moment when the spiritual death of Adam makes itself known.  It is the moment when innocence dies.  Some are sexually abused and innocence is shattered immediately.  For any who grow up in the best of homes, the awareness of spiritual death is more subtle and progressive.  Teasing at school, misunderstanding between siblings, angry words spoken by a parent for which there is hopefully an apology; these series of events reveal an imperfect world and bring the gnawing feeling that no one is completely safe and perfectly loved.

                  The over arching plotline of the Bible is that mankind fell, God sent a redeemer, mankind could be saved from his sin, and the full restoration of Eden would commence in his life.  While we may visit the gut-wrenching pangs of physical death, we know it is temporary.  Because of Jesus, we are already spiritually alive and will experience the Eden of a new Heaven and new Earth where death will not exist.  We will know what it is to be Adam and Eve in the land of perfection.  God will give it to us again.  He is, at this moment, preparing it as He once did when His Spirit hovered over the face of a dead earth and kissed it to life.

I was made for life, not death.  Every parameter and warning you give me is to save me from experiencing the pain of the fall.  I get it!  Amen

LABOR AND PROTECT

The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it.  Genesis 2:15

       My mother was a gentle soul with a great colorful and eccentric side.  She loved the outdoors, loved gardening, and loved good dirt.  When she visited us at our home in the Adirondack Mountains, she’d dig up soil to take home for her garden.  While this may not seem eccentric, let me paint a further extreme.  When she and my Dad traveled, she did not buy souvenirs per se, but brought home dirt from the area.  If you opened her top dresser drawer, you could see little baggies of dirt and sticks from Germany, England, and Bermuda.

         She also loved to collect kindling from the woods outside our home.  It was stacked meticulously like matchsticks in our basement.  On Saturday mornings, she would pop into the kitchen after breakfast, rub her hands together and exclaim, “What shall I get into today?”  That meant she was headed outside to tend, explore, and preserve her garden.  I can remember overhearing her say to a garden snake, “Well, hello there Mr. Snake.”  I saw early that when a man or woman finds divine purpose for their life, it is a beautiful thing.

         Adam was created to find fulfillment in labor that was given to him by his Creator.  He was told to do two things; work and keep.  To keep is to guard and protect.  To protect the garden from what, or whom, is an interesting thought.  There must have been evil outside the garden?  Satan was certainly there.

         Today, I don’t have to look very far to encounter darkness.  My garden, my personal sphere of influence, was given to me by God.  I labor with Him as He gives moment by moment instructions but I also protect what He’s entrusted to me. To labor without protecting is to throw my pearls before swine and allow the enemy to plunder recklessly.

         Adam was given authority over the earth.  God told him to rule and subdue it.  Protecting is part of ruling.  At whatever point I abdicate and assume that God will do all the protecting without my asking, I walk dangerously. When Jesus was prompted by His Father, He rose up to speak to the kingdom of darkness and inform them of their limits and parameters.  I am reminded of Jesus’ own words, “I came to destroy the works of the evil one.” 

         God’s children can be lazy.  We were given kingdom work.  God’s children can also be passive.  We were told to protect what is holy.  Doing both to the glory of God, we discover our personal mission statement.

While I work today, let me also be the watchman on the wall.  Amen

GARDEN DWELLING

The tree of life was in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.  Genesis 2:9

                  There, in their midst, was the ultimate temptation and test of obedience.  They could walk with God, the source of all knowledge, and hear things first hand, or eat of the tree and set a course of personal autonomy.  Their disobedient choice, which is to come in Genesis, set up the fall of man.  By nature now, we trade in the glory of our Creator, the thrill of walking with him, to the cheap thrill of living autonomously.

         What’s frightening is when I do it as God’s child. I was made to walk with God.   Intimately.  I am invited, on the other side of the cross, to know the life Adam and Eve once had.  I have the Spirit of God inside and I can walk with Him, enjoy His company, and hear His voice lead me through my day.  Instead of nurturing that personal relationship, I choose to open His scriptures and interpret them for myself.  I eat of His tree and decide that I’m smart enough to extract a meaning without taking time to ask Him how the daily manna applies to my situation.

         For over forty years, this is how I read the scriptures.  I never stopped to ask the Author to open my heart and talk to me as I read.  I just read.  I reasoned that He gave me a keen mind and I was equipped to make good decisions about my life and my future.  If a scripture seemed to fit, I applied it.  But mostly, scripture became something mildly inspirational on a Sunday morning.  Daily, I consumed the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and never showed up to walk with God in the garden.  I was a renegade child.

         Today, I choose to live in relationship.  Nothing I could ever figure out could come close to what God has in mind for me.  My knowledge of good and evil is pathetic and miniscule next to the One who is Knowledge.

Walk with me. I am not clever.  I need Your voice and Your hand.  Amen

THE BREATH OF GOD

Then the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature.  Genesis 2:11

         God breathes.  When He does, life erupts.  Adam was just a physical man, made of the dust of the ground.  He was not a spiritual being until God moved from on high.  Adam’s soul would not be made of earthly materials.  It would come to life only by a God-breath.

• Job knew it.  He said, “The Spirit of God has made me, and the breath of the Almighty gives me life.”  Job 33:4
• Ezekiel knew it as God said, “Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe on these slain, that they may life.”  Ezekiel 37:9 In a vision, nearly dead bodies came to life, stood on their feet, and became a great army.
• The world at the end of the tribulation will know it when the two witnesses, the prophets Satan kills, come back to life with a breath.  “But after three and a half days a breath of life from God entered them, and they stood up on their feet, and great fear fell on those who saw them.”  Revelation 11:11
• The disciples knew it.  When their souls were despondent after the crucifixion of Jesus, He appeared, told them to be at peace, and then breathed on them.  “Receive the Holy Spirit.”  John 20:21   They went from there to burn brightly for the kingdom.
• And we knew it at the time of salvation.  God breathed over us and our spiritual blindness was cured.  We looked up and saw a Savior; we looked inside and saw our sin.  “Unless a man is born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot see the kingdom of God.”  John 3:5

The breath of God is a source of spiritual renewal.  Our spiritual fathers knew it.  They made breathing prayer a way of life.  As they inhaled, they prayed ~ “O Lord Jesus,” and as they exhaled, “Have mercy on me.”  In 2008, I made this breathing prayer a part of my life.

Just this morning, I had the privilege of speaking to our congregation about our prayer ministry.  Knowing that I needed the favor of God’s presence and blessing, I prayed all morning, “I breathe deeply of you.” I was aware of my breathing, physically and spiritually, and felt in tune with the Spirit by the time I was to begin speaking.

I think of the phrase ‘the living dead.’  It refers to the meaningless existence of a person who is technically alive but soulfully checked out.  That never need describe any child of God.  The Spirit of God, the breath of God, is within us.  He longs to rise up and infuse us with eternal life.  The outgrowths are security, calmness, spiritual power, and the feeling of being wonderfully alive.  Many are waiting for heaven to experience the abundant life but it’s a breath away.

I look to no one else for life.  I feast on Your Word.  I drink of You deeply.  I breathe of Your Spirit.  So breathe over me.  Amen

EVERYTHING GOD STARTS ~ HE FINISHES

And on the seventh day God finished his work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work that he had done.  Genesis 2:1

         God finished what he set out to do.  No detail was left undone.  No outcome was disappointing.  He rested, not because He was weary, but because he was satisfied with what He had created.  When God begins to create, He finishes.  He does not abandon a project because things get too complicated.  He is never disappointed by limits or inadequacy.

         While I may try my hand at things and discover that something is too hard, too complicated, just plain impossible, or find that it was a mistake that I embarked on such a venture, God never experiences any of these realities.  What He begins, He finishes.

         When the project is me, or someone I love, or my calling, I can rest in such a wonderful truth.  Paul had another way of saying that God finishes what He starts.  “And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.”  Phil. 1:6  God cannot fail.  God cannot retract a promise.  God cannot change His mind.  I am His creation, just like planet earth, and every single day, He is crafting me and everything having to do with my life.  If He called me to ministry, He will work behind the scenes in things that are totally out of my control.

         Can I hasten or slow down His plans?  This is where I have to tread carefully here.  I believe I can affect the speed of the outcome due to the free will God gave me.  God’s original intention was for Adam and Eve to enjoy a life of perfection in the Garden of Eden and they wrecked it by their choices.  For four thousand plus years, it might have appeared that they ruined God’s plan but God still accomplished a way to restore Eden by the death of His Son.  Jesus came, crushed the head of the serpent who instigated their mutiny, and made a way for the redemption of mankind.

         I press in close to my Christ today and yield every part of my life.  I bend my will to His so that His creation of my life, in every area, will quickly reach its intended outcome.  God dreams, God creates, God works, God battles, and He finishes everything pertaining to my life.  Then, He spends an eternity resting in satisfaction.  We will join in the party where we praise Him for a job well done.  His sovereignty is flawless and worthy of every celebration.  We can begin today, by faith.

I will not be anxious about my life.  You are my King.  Amen

RULING MY GARDEN

And God blessed them.  And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it.  Genesis 1:28

          Adam was told to subdue the earth.  That was ‘to rule and bring it under subjection.’  Subjection to what?  The laws of the Creator.  He was to take the principles of heaven, the ones God revealed to Adam as He walked with him in the garden, and bring them into effect on the earth.

As children of God, as ones who walk and talk with God intimately, our mandate is the same.  We are to have the mind of Christ, learn the ways of heaven intimately, and bring those spiritual laws into effect in the world.  When we encounter obstacles, we put on our soldier’s uniform and take care of it.

I was surprised several years ago to discover that when God formed the church, the very Greek word for church, ‘ekklesia’, is the word for ‘legislative body’.  What is the church legislating?  They are God’s corporate agent to rule and bring the kingdom of heaven to the earth.

I have a garden to rule, a sphere of influence to affect.  Through prayer, through the use of my spoken words, through the speaking of scripture, I radically change my environment to be conformed to something that bears the imprint of how things run in heaven.

Jesus, as the last Adam, showed us how to rule.  He lived in prayer.  Constant prayer.  He never moved, traveled, healed, spoke – without asking His Father what to say or do next.  And when He spoke, He quoted the scriptures.  Isaiah 49 says that He was born to speak the Word and His mouth would be a sword.  Talk about affecting your environment!

Adam, through sinning, abdicated his authority.  Jesus won it back on the cross and has, through the great commission, given it back to His disciples.  Today’s agenda is set before me.  Rule and subdue the earth.

I can’t pretend to know what to do unless I get on my knees and soak in the Word.  Fill me with Your message and set my feet to rule.  Amen

WHAT WERE WE LIKE WHEN WE WERE HOLY?

Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.”  Genesis 1:26a

         Man is made in the image of God.  He has full understanding of divine things.  There are no flaws or mistakes in his thinking.  He has intense desires to walk God’s path without a trace of misgiving.  He is able to see God, hear Him speak, and walk with Him in friendship in the cool evening hours.

         Heaven and earth are in Adam.  He has a body made of earth and a soul made of heaven.  He is perfect.  Holy like his Creator.  He is communicative, creative, trustworthy, and a righteous administrator of all God asks him to govern.  He is the perfect husband; Eve the perfect wife.

         But Adam and Eve will lose it all.  They will rebel and bear the guilt of creating mutiny against the God who gifted them with perfection.  Mankind still groans under the burden of fallenness.  Creation is in mourning; weeping for what was lost.  Some Christians break under the sadness of the times, under the curse of sin that eats away at their psyche like cancer.  Can I ask?  Do we not know our future?

         All is not lost.  Jesus came as the last Adam to redeem what was lost in the garden.  He died in order to give me the chance to, once again, be holy – as He is holy.  I am invited into a re-parenting process by His Father to be a perfect image bearer once again.  Daily, through my willingness to own what is flawed and then repent, God sets me apart from the curse of the fall to be like the last Adam.

         And when I die, that full restoration will happen instantaneously.  I will be with God, walking in the cool in the evening.  I will know what it’s like, firsthand, to have divine thinking.  I will be in the prime of life, healthy and energized, to enjoy kingdom life to the fullest.

         There are moments that are perfect here on earth, ones I’d like to freeze-frame.  When they are over, I can be tempted to live depressed.  Those perfect moments will not be interrupted in heaven.  We will all be glorified, living in the presence of God where color, creativity, and communion will exceed any perfection we have ever known here.  Life’s promise and the kiss of heaven did not end in Eden.  It was paused.  Then, it was restored again at Calvary.

How much I bear Your image today is my choice.  Rule in me today.  Conquer sin and death.  Live in me as You did in Adam.  Amen

HE MADE IT HOME

And God said, “Let the waters under the heavens be gather together into one place.  Let the earth sprout vegetation.  Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens.”  And God made the two great lights – the greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night.  And God set them in the expanse of the heavens to give light on the earth. 

Genesis 1:9-17

         I think of the homes we have purchased over the years.  When we toured each of them with a realtor, we either liked a feature, or disliked it, according to what would be ideal for certain members of the family.  When we saw our first kitchen, it was large, with an island, and immediately we knew it would accommodate the cooking I like to do.  Now, years later, there are pictures to prove it.  Both of our kids, at different times, were perched on the island helping me make something.  A spatula in their hand and a smudged face revealed what they were licking.

         This is what we do when we buy a home.  A certain bedroom will be ideal because it gets morning sun, or it’s near the bathroom, or it’s large enough to contain a certain piece of furniture.  We picture our loved ones in that space and think, “Yes, this was made for them!”

God did the same with Earth.  He made it for His creation.  Before He created Adam, He held the Earth in His hands and mused what it would require to make this place home for those He loved.  He knew we’d need to breathe, that we’d need water; water to drink and salt water to be suitable for the aquatic world.  We’d need nighttime for rest and daytime for work and pleasure.  The planning required divine omniscience and then the power to create it all.

         When He was finished with every phase, our Creator said, “This is good.”  Surely it resembled what we say when we make a place our home, paint the walls, re-arrange the space, move in our belongings, and then stand and behold it with satisfaction.  We realize that it’s just right.

         After the sixth day, God beheld the world He had made, declared it good, and prepared to create mankind.  This was the point of it all in the first place.  Making a planet a home for those He wished to love and bless.

When my roses bloom, when I grill fish for dinner, when the warmth of the sun warms my world, I realize again how personal You are.  You made earth my home and though we have polluted Your planet, You will touch it and make it new again one day.  I long to see Eden.  And I will.  Amen

WITH US IN MIND

And God said, “Let the earth sprout vegetation, plants yielding seed, and fruit trees bearing fruit in which is their seed, each according to its kind, on the earth.”  And it was so.  Genesis 1:11

         My God didn’t create a fruit-bearing tree just to make something interesting.  It wasn’t a science experiment.  It wasn’t a test in creativity to see how many different kinds of vegetation He could create.  He had a purpose for all fruit, vegetation, and seeds.  He has us in mind when he created all of it.  How can we know that?  And God said, “Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit.  You shall have them for food.”  Genesis 1:29

         I know how good fruits, vegetables and seeds are for me.  I can tell you many of their benefits and which vitamins they contain.  I can even tell you of their anti-cancer properties.  So can you, most likely.  Why is that?  Many think that natural foods just happen to be good for us.  Mother Nature is given the credit.  But there is no coincidence here.  They are good for me because my Creator made them just for my body.  God designed the positive chemical reactions between them and me.

         Yet, we eat too many genetically altered foods.  We consume so-called food that has been so dramatically altered from its natural state that it no longer has the beneficial properties that we need.  As a society, we are dying from mal-nutrition.

         A diagnosis of cancer in my immediate family has challenged our household to take a second look at God’s original design for mankind; to shop the outer aisles of the grocery store and let God’s creative bounty make up at least 75% of our dinner plate.

The bottom line to this is ~ God does all things well.  He loved me before I was created.  From before the foundation of the world, He knew me intimately and planned my life down to the last apple seed I would plant and then consume.  No wonder I say grace at meals.  He planned the meal from before Genesis.  Why?  To sustain my life so that I might glorify Him and take part in the redemption storyline of mankind.  If I’m sickly due to neglect of His provision, how can I be an effective minister?  And isn’t this a de-glorification of God?  I am starting to believe so.

A new kind of ‘saying grace’ is on my lips as of today.  Amen