Month: September 2017

. . . and we sent Timothy, our brother and God’s coworker in the gospel of Christ, to establish and exhort you in your faith, that no one be moved by these afflictions. For you yourselves know that we are destined for this.   I Thess. 3:2-3

Suffering and prosperity are not given in proportion to the evil or the good in a person. Righteous people suffer and the righteous also enjoy times of prosperity. Evil people suffer and evil people also enjoy prosperity.

What trips up those of us who judge others too quickly is the misintrepretation of ‘blessing’. God promises to bless those who honor Him and send into captivity those who disobey Him. But, if I interpret these two principles as external blessings and external hardships, I easily become another’s judge. How many times have I viewed someone in a prolonged season of travail and concluded that they must be living in sin. How many times have I heard a joyous person tell one happy story after another and concluded that they must be blessed. I must be more careful. These indicators are unreliable compasses.

What is blessing and what can I count on if I obey God? Peace. Calm. Wisdom. Joy. I can experience all of these internally even if, externally, I am in perpetual distress rather than ease. God entrusts many of His children with life-long travail because He knows that they will faithfully share in His Son’s sufferings. They will advance the kingdom and glorify their Father in heaven.

Job knew times of prosperity, both at the beginning of his life and at the end. In the middle though, we are familiar with the testing of his faith. God gave Satan permission to afflict him. As onlookers, his friends concluded what we are prone to conclude today. Job must have sinned and displeased God. They withdrew their compassion and started voicing assumptions of his guilt. Yet, who could know except God what great plotline was really behind the affliction. In the end, God spoke directly to Job’s friends and said, “My wrath is kindled against you because you have not spoken of Me what is right as My servant Job has.” Job 42:7b

It’s chilling to think that some of God’s choicest servants walk with the heavy burden of false guilt. They have internalized words of judgment that are not from God. Guilt has been heaped upon their suffering and it has caused their confidence in God to be shaken.

What is confusing is that God also sends times of ‘external’ captivity to those who have turned aside from their faith. He also sends times of ‘external’ blessing to those who have honored him with their lives of faith. But to use these latter realities as the only measuring sticks by which we judge others is to end up potentially throwing stones at a saint like Job. Stoning may not take his life but it will annihilate his hope. I must be slow to speak and quick to pray.

Comfort the one who has known perpetual hardship. It has not been a season for them but much of their life. Send them wise and intuitive comforters with life-giving words that will help them finish the race well. Amen

This is my comfort in my affliction, that your promise gives me life.  Psalm 119:50

    A promise is only invaluable to me if the promise came from someone precious and trustworthy.  The same words, spoken by a casual acquaintance, don’t carry the same weight as words spoken by my dearest friend.  There is comfort and meaning only because of the relationship.

    To experience true life-change from the Scriptures, I must understand two things; 1.) They are words.   2.) And, they are just words unless the Spirit reveals them to me.

•     If I read the Bible just to entertain myself with stories, just to acquaint myself with concepts, I will miss the relational meaning behind them all.  It will feel the same as reading a novel or the morning paper.
•     If I seek manifestations of the Spirit, in worship, in prayer, without the Word, I will feel some sense of the Lord’s presence but He will have no definition without the Word behind Him.

    To fully engage with Him and the life-changing power of His Word, I must engage with both.  My life was forever changed in 1997 when I came to the open scriptures and said, “These are just words on a page, nothing more.  Where are you?  Please open my heart to your words and reveal them to me.”  That prayer (still made every single day) transformed me from a ‘once-in-a-while-Bible-reader’ to a passionate student and disciple.  I don’t study it because I love to study.  I study because I’m wild about Jesus and I know He wrote the words.

    So, I contemplate the psalmist’s words this morning.  He reveals that God’s promises give him life.  How do words on a scroll drip life into his afflicted heart?  He has a throbbing, pulsating relationship with the One who wrote them.  The author and inspirational force behind the scriptures, when engaged, becomes the One who whispers the Torah in his ears.  In the context of love and faithfulness, promises spring to life.

    Every one of us who has trusted Christ knows that the Spirit lives inside us.  He is ever with us – because He promised that He would be.  So, why is that not more comforting?  It’s because we have not asked Him to fulfill the role He was meant to fulfill in our lives.  Interpreter, teacher, revealer, speaker of the Word to our souls. I’ve often said, “I know You’re here, Lord.  But I can’t feel it!”  I failed to realize that seeking the Spirit, void of the Word, was like asking someone to comfort me but putting a muzzle on their mouth so they couldn’t speak and putting a blindfold on my eyes so I couldn’t see them.  If I want the full effect of God in my life, I must embrace the Word and embrace the Spirit as speaker, teacher, and revealer.

I long for your Words to penetrate my heart as deeply as You intended.  Teach me.  Move me.  Speak your Word over me that I might see, that I might life.  Amen

Now we know that whatever the law says it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be stopped, and the whole world may be held accountable to God.  Romans 3:19

The radiance of God’s glory is veiled even though so many of His children, including me, ask everyday, “Show me your glory today.”  I’ve seen enough of it to change my heart but the amount I have seen is a grain of sand in the vast ocean of glory.  What happens when God shows His face and gives more than a small dose?  Apparently, silence.

Job was silenced in his accusations when God became present and started asking him questions.

Isaiah was silenced when He saw God in all of His glory.  Immediately, he pronounced himself unclean.

Habakkuk tried to speak and nothing came out.

John, as well as he knew Jesus, saw him in his glorified state and fell as dead at His feet.  Jesus had to touch him and bring life back to John’s body.

One day, all of us will stand before God.  We will see him in all of His glory.  It won’t be the same as standing before human judges.  There, we are often acquitted, even though guilty.  Our judges are fallen and we grow cynical of earthly laws and their consequences when we are tempted to discount those in higher authority.

The most eloquent will be silenced on the day they see God.  He who has been self-impressed, insistent that his good deeds outweigh his bad deeds and are enough to earn him a place in heaven, will tremble and lose his voice in the presence of holiness.  Even the most faithful of God’s children will bow low in humility.  God is more glorious than any human description; more holy than flawed people can even conceive.

As a fallen woman, I can not imagine what perfection is like.  For now, I see glimpses of Him and it stirs me to worship and defer my will to His.  Since I was created to worship and to love God, this is the most exhilarating experience I will ever know in this lifetime.  Any of Satan’s counterfeits pale in comparison.

Let me see as much of Your glory as I can see and live.  Please, Lord. Amen

To the woman he said, “I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children.  Your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you.”  Genesis 3:16

The consequences of sin are so far reaching.  Because of the sentence God pronounced on the man and woman in the garden, their relationship with each other changed.  Where once there was respect and harmony and a complementary working relationship, now there would be a deep fracture of distrust.  Because of the fall, women would struggle to respect man’s role and men would be bent to abuse his authority and crush the woman.  The compulsion to do both would be in the very sinful DNA of both sexes.

We hear the fallout everyday.  “No man is going to tell me what to do!” a wife says.  And, “The old lady has me under her thumb!” says the husband.  The fracture can be understandable as, by nature, man wants to dominate and woman is afraid to trust.  The farther both are from Christ, the greater will be their sin patterns.

The only remedy to the battle of the sexes is for both to find peace with God.  The battle has no solution outside of that because at the center of the sex war is a greater battle between them and God.  A people without peace ~ can’t be peaceful.  A people without eternal rest ~ carry their angst into every relationship.

Is it really possible for a man and woman to live as the man and woman in the garden?  Prior to the fall?  The answer is ‘yes, for the most part.’  It will not happen without each one coming to Christ for the cleansing of their sin.  It will not happen without each one engaging in the work of sanctification.  It will not happen without each one putting to death the deeds of the flesh and submitting to God in all things.  It will not happen without the man and woman learning to submit and trust their Creator.  In doing that, they become like Christ.  Men become ones who can lead without ruling and women respond to become ones who can let down their guard to respect and trust.

I used to fear Your rule, Lord.  I was filled with distrust.  It has taken time for me to experience Your character and leadership.  Now, I’m putty in Your hands.  Amen

The Lord said, “I will surely return to you about this time next year, and Sarah your wife shall have a son.” And Sarah was listening at the tent door behind him. Now Abraham and Sarah were old, advanced in years. The way of women had ceased to be with Sarah. So Sarah laughed to herself, saying, “After I am worn out, and my lord is old, shall I have pleasure?”  Genesis 18:10-12

Sarah’s cycle of womanhood was long over.  Logic.  Science.  These proved that it was humanly impossible to bear a child in old age.  Sarah laughed at the thought of something so out of reach.  She knew the physical impossibility.

Miracles aren’t miracles without the ‘impossibility’ factor.  Is this not why faith is so difficult?  We are surrounded by circumstantial physical evidence that disproves feasibility.  If I have a history of not having seen God’s power move on my behalf, then I will always lean toward logic and move away from what seems ludicrous to hope for.

What might I ask God for today if all reserve was moved out of the way?  Where does it seem risky to trust God?  Where would others laugh in my face and state the evidence against faith-filled prayer?  That points precisely, perhaps, to what God would, and can, do.

“But you can’t ask God for that!” Satan whispers.  His taunts, like arrows, come at me in thoughts but also through the mouths of friends and family.  He is not above using faithless believers to parrot faithless words.  So few walk by faith and I should remember that the next time a brother or sister in Christ comes with their ‘prudent’ warnings.

God has placed me in hundreds of impossible situations throughout my life.  There were times I had to pray for a miracle or there would be some horrible consequence.  So for survival’s sake, I hung onto faith, stood in the Word, and prayed for a miracle.  I have seen so many that faith is becoming my default response rather than unbelief that points to hard physical data.

God defies the odds.  He cares nothing about physics, past evidence, and present obstacles.  He who spoke to the earth, a planet that was once dark and lifeless, to transform it into a stunning environment full of limitless possibilities, is the same God who can do anything miraculous in my world.

Lord, show me where I can exercise faith today.  For what can I trust You that would defy all odds?  I’ll go there.  Amen

For the past 9 days, I’ve been writing about meditating on the scriptures.  I felt prompted to compile them all together into an E-booklet.  It is free and you can download it here.  Share it with friends, your Sunday School class, or your small group.

http://files.constantcontact.com/043476d8001/d6c8b11e-26a6-49eb-8a8b-d1cb8aaacab5.pdf?ver=1504647234000