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For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. Hebrews 4:12

The point of a sword is sharp and it’s meant to penetrate a target.  It is not a club.  It is not a gun you fire from a distance.  It’s a weapon meant to get up close and strike a blow with precision.

This fine instrument, the sword of the Word of God, has limitless power.  It is something that can both build and tear down, heal and wound, create and destroy.  When I use it correctly under the direction of God’s Spirit, I will see all of the above and more.  It also is precise as it penetrates the heart of my sin, or my unbelief, or my challenge for which I have no direction.  Wherever it’s applied, the results of kingdom-sized.

It’s not that words are powerful in and of themselves.  The WORD has power because the Word is a person.  When I speak the Words of God, He is using my mouth to declare what He wants to speak into my world.  For every problem, there is a kingdom narrative to counteract it.  For every pain, there is a word to comfort.  For every temptation, there is an encouragement to overcome.  How will I know the right scripture to speak?  In some instances, it may be pretty obvious. But in others, where situations are complicated, problem solving and strategizing that is led by the Spirit of God is required.   Most of life is messy and I can’t possibly diagnose what’s wrong without the wisdom of the Spirit.  I also can’t put my finger on the scriptures I need to speak out loud, and in prayer, without His leading.

Some years back while teaching, a woman came up to me afterward to thank me for encouraging our group to pray with more precision and strategy.  She said that she was going to assemble some scriptures to pray about her marriage.  This sounded noble enough but when I asked her to tell me more, she explained that her husband had left her for a much younger woman but that God had promised her she’d get her husband back.  She was going to try to find scriptures that would support what she wanted – the breakup of her husband’s second marriage.  We had a long talk after that and I explained that scripture was not meant to be self-serving.  The Word is to be used to accomplish God’s will in this world.  God’s will and her heart’s desires were not aligned. I encouraged her to pray that her husband would surrender to Christ and be a godly husband in his new marriage.

 God said, My word that goes out from my mouth will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.  Isaiah 55:11   The exciting thing is that God desires to use me to bring His kingdom to earth.  “Thy kingdom come,” Jesus taught me to pray. But this privilege is conferred, and I become aware that I am commissioned to do God’s work ~ His way ~ with humble submission to His authority.  I am not Barney Fife with a weapon in my hands.

You spent your earthly ministry quoting the Old Testament.  You knew what to recall and how to apply it.  I need Your Spirit to guide me in all things.  Amen

They [strangers and aliens] desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city.  Hebrews 11:16

Shame is a powerful catalyst.  Volumes of books have been written about it.  Countless hours of counseling have been dedicated to those who live under the curse of it.  I’ve had a decade or two when it plagued me badly.  Shame tempts us to hide our true selves from others and from God. While the thought of this is tragic, there’s an even more disturbing thing to consider. Can God be ashamed of me?

I won’t wait any further to answer it.  He is not ashamed.  Let that sink in if you’ve always feared He is embarrassed by you or something you’ve done.  On the days I sin, He does not change His mind about me. I have been declared forgiven and before Him, I am righteous.  Though I will stumble and fall, though I will grieve His heart many times before I die, I still walk in the perfection imputed to me after the death of Jesus.  God continues to build a city for those He has redeemed through the blood of the Lamb.  The hammer never falters when He sees me make bad choices.  The Father never winces and wonders if He should change His mind about the promises He’s made to forgive me and call me His own.  Construction continues without interruptions and without a trace of regret.  Covenant love rules the present, and the future, no matter what failures unfold.

One of my very favorite scriptures is Psalm 34:5. Those who look to Him are radiant, their faces are never covered with shame.  Not all faces without shame are radiant.  They may be stoic and just plain unreadable.  But God’s radical love gives more than enough reasons for eyes to shine and for faces to reveal the overwhelming joy of sins forgiven and the anticipation of eternity in God’s presence.

All of this makes me examine the times I was reticent to openly declare that You are my Lord and Savior.  Forgive me.  Amen

Come, my people, enter your inner rooms, and lock your doors behind you.  Hide for just a brief moment until the indignation passes over.  Isaiah 26:20

When I am outside the safety of my home, there will be exposure and, oftentimes, danger.  I’ve been out walking when a thunderstorm comes out of nowhere.  There was a rush to get home.  I’ve been out in the middle of the lake when unexpected bad weather descended.  There was a rush to get to port.  I’ve been in an airport when there was a lockdown.  There was an urgency to find inconspicuous places of safety.

God tells His people that, in this world, there will be times of trouble.  There will also be times of judgement.  What should God’s children do in the middle of it?  Retreat into physical and spiritual safety until they pass.

• The Israelites stayed inside their homes while the death angel ravaged the land of Egypt.
• Rahab, having declared her spiritual allegiance to the God of Israel, nestled in place while Jericho was being destroyed all around her.
• Noah took shelter in the ark when the floodwaters rose.

These safe harbors can be physical places like the security of a sanctified home but they are also spiritual places of refuge.  Throughout COVID, we are sheltering in place but God’s people are also sheltering their souls in God.  Jesus’ name is a strong tower and those who run to Him are safe.  My spirit, the place where the Spirit of God resides, has many rooms. I find that it is expansive the more time I spend there in prayer.  How could I begin to explore the depths of His dwelling place!

Every promise is a place of shelter.  Every righteous character trait of Jesus is a place to hide.  Every whispered assurance of love is a sanctuary and like the cavernous cathedrals across this world, His voice echoes through the chambers of my soul.

The stuff of this world drives me to safety and I am to live there until the trouble is over.  While there may be a respite coming from COVID, there will only be something else to take its place.  Until Jesus comes, sin will reign upon the earth and its bedfellows will besiege earth’s inhabitants.  Disease, broken promises, skewed power plays, loss, death.  As a child of God, I must learn to hide in the Rock of Ages.  “Show me your glory” must be my theme song and heart’s desire.

Seeing the glory of God in prayer puts iron in my soul.  Basking in His perfection defers my hope until a future day when God will make all things new.

Lord, until then, hide me.  My song of joy is sung to You only.  Amen

He asked her, “Who are you?” She answered, “I’m only Ruth, your servant. Spread the edge of your garment over your servant, because you are my related redeemer.”  Ruth 3:9

God never meant for any of us to live in the center of tragedy.  It goes against the very reason we were created; to worship God and to behold His glory.  To go down to the deep, away from the heights of God’s glory, is to subject our soul to dark plots and despair.  If our eyes focus on nothing but sad things, how can know joy in the midst of pain?

I’ve been feasting on the beautiful love story in the book of Ruth.  Her life had taken some dark turns and loss had become her companion.  With no husband, no heritage, no children, and living in a land as the most vulnerable of widows, she looked up from her circumstances long enough to to cry out to the one who could redeem her story.  She approached Boaz in an outrageous moment, as he was sleeping on the threshing floor to protect his store of grain from being robbed.  She startled him, and then proceeded to ask him to spread the edge of his garment over her.  Symbolically, it was an intimate request.  To be under His garment, his tallit, was to be united to him in covenant love.  In Hebrew, the account reads like this ~ ‘she pulled his wing over her.’ The four corners of a Jewish man’s tallit symbolizes being under God’s wings.

Jesus’ tallit, his shawl and outer garment, was touched by many who were sick and they became well.  He spread his garment over Jairus’ daughter and raised her from the dead.  The woman with the issue of blood, a woman who was ceremonially unclean, entered the crowd in an attempt to just touch the fringe of Jesus’ tallit. In doing so, Jesus felt spiritual power go out of Him and the woman was healed.

These days, it’s easy to be pulled into hopelessness.  We may grieve but we don’t  grieve without hope.  We can not rehearse the days’ events until they overwhelm us because God’s tallit beckons.  He lifts us up out of the shadows and hides us under His wings where there is protection, perspective, and healing.  Near to Glory Himself, our story is being transformed into a narrative of redemption.

David said, “When my heart is overwhelmed, I shall cry to You from the end of the earth; lead me to the cliff that is higher than I. For You have been a shelter for me, a strong tower against the enemy.  I shall stay in Your tent forever: I shall trust in the cover of Your wings.”  Psalm 61

There is an invitation to dwell in God’s tent, in the cover of His wings.  In doing so, we are lifted out of tortuous thoughts to praise our Healer and Redeemer.  He lifts us up to the cliffs, away from the carnage of the valley, where the billows of His wings descend upon the shoulders of the afflicted.  The cacophony of this world gone awry subsides. A holy calm invades to drown out the storm.

I am under Your wings, listening to the music of Your promises.  Amen

 

Therefore strengthen your tired hands and weakened knees, and make straight paths for your feet, so that what is lame may not be dislocated but healed instead.  Hebrews 12:13

Perhaps you remember the moment you stood against the gale-force winds, ran out of strength and just gave up.  Every muscle in your body went limp.  Your shoulders drooped.  Your iron turned to mush.  It was too hard to fight the good fight anymore as you realized that you were running on empty.

I’ve had such moments in my life.  One, in my early forties, lasted 3 years.  By God’s grace, these are made up of moments instead of spans of time.  They are comprised of bad days, not months or years.  But oh, how I know what it is to live with lameness; every spiritual bone dislocated.  Please know that I am not discounting spiritual burnout. There is a time to acknowledge the need for rest.  There is a place for critical care.  This scripture is not to deny any of God’s children a dark night of the soul.  But I believe that the point is this ~ we do not need to live there nor were we designed to make that our dwelling place.  The night has a defined beginning and end before the dawn of renewed faith.

Much is forfeited when I throw up my hands.  While at the time it feels like a relief, the payoff is short lived.  Faithlessness and despair surround me with dark shadows.  I pay dearly if I throw my faith away and give up on God.  But here’s the thing ~ I’m not the only one whose faith suffers.  When others see my tired hands and weakened knees, when they see that my way is no longer straight, they will fail to be inspired when their own faith is tested.  My testimony of God’s goodness and grace are infectious and instructive.  By holding on to Jesus, I teach others to do the same.  “The Lord God has given me the tongue of those who are taught, that I may know how to sustain with a word him who is weary.”  Isaiah 50:4 Those who throw in the towel lose credibility to speak to weary pilgrims. 

The writer of Hebrews would be greatly displeased if we interpreted his words as a rebuke to just suck it up and paste on a smile. We must read between the lines.  God promises to strengthen our hands.  God gives strength to weak faith muscles.  He leads us in straight paths.  He heals the lame.  While the scripture in this passage sounds like a command to self-heal, it is an urging to turn to God for renewal.  We cry out in need, we submit to the Great Physician and Counselor, and He heals.

Like the pied piper, are we leading others onto the path behind us to unshakeable trust in a God who does all things well?  Moving through seasons of suffering is critical to the other members of the body of Christ.

By Your grace, don’t let me bring lameness to Your body starting with myself.  Amen

And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden.  But the Lord God called to the man and said to him, “Where are you?”  Genesis 3:8-9

I love the sound of the footsteps of one I’m longing to see.  The closer that person comes, the more the anticipation grows.  However, I dread the sound of the footsteps of one I’m not longing to see!

When I was 8, I ate some Easter candy that my parents told me not to eat it.  They were saving it for Easter.  The next afternoon, I was playing outside with two friends and remembered the candy.  Thinking that it would be the perfect snack for the three of us, I snuck in the kitchen and snatched it.  Oh, it tasted good and delighted my friends. 

That night in bed, I heard my father’s footsteps come to the bottom of the stairs.  Then, the dreaded question came.  “Christine, did you eat the Easter candy today that I told you not to eat?”  I lied.  “Nope, it wasn’t me.”  Suffice it to say, he got to the truth and I got spanked.

 Dread is always the response to someone I’ve wronged.  Let it be an authority figure and the dread will be a ‘cold dread’.  Is there any worse feeling than seeing the lights of a police car in your rear view mirror after realizing that you just ran a stoplight?

In spite of their sin of eating of the forbidden tree, God came searching for them.  The heart of God is for restoration even though discipline may also be called for.  I don’t believe God came bearing the tone of voice that my father used, “Where ARE you?”  That usually means that you’re in big trouble.  I do believe God’s question was that of a heartbroken Father who asked the question in a way that conveyed, “What happened?  Where did you go?”

You might ask why I think this. I am basing this on the rest of the story.  As soon as man fell, God already had plan for restoration.  The entire biblical narrative reveals a God who pursues, who loves while spurned, who gave up His only Son to make a way for the disobedient and rebellious to come home.

To every one who is running today, God comes searching.  If I am willing to come clean and admit my sin, I meet a Father with open arms, with a promise to forgive because of what His Son did for me at Calvary.

So much justice here is perverted.  The innocent are punished and we cry, “Unfair!”  But You, O Lord, know me.  Your judgments are true.  Yet, You came searching anyway for enemies like me.  Thank you.  Amen

It is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled for refuge might have strong encouragement to seize the hope set before us.  Hebrews 6:18

Have you ever been the object of revenge?  Perhaps you did something awful but later regretted it when you considered what this person might dish out in return.  What’s even worse is when we are innocent of the crime and yet we are their object of hatred.  What happened was an accident, but they believed it was intentional.  Maybe you’re hiding from your avenger.  You avoid certain stores, you abstain from family gatherings, all because someone has it in for you.  Perhaps you live reciting the verse, “God is my light and my salvation, whom shall I fear?”  This strengthens your inner man before entering the presence of the one who does not want you to prosper and would celebrate your demise.

Would it surprise you to know that God made provision for the man who needed to avoid his avenger?  Somehow the knowledge of this in the Old Testament escaped me.  (The announcement of this provision is found in Numbers 35 and Joshua 20.) If someone killed another person by accident, and his friends and family were out to get him, there were sanctuary cities instituted by God for the one who took another’s life by mistake.  He could go there, present his case to the elders at the gate, and then take refuge inside the city walls.  As long as he remained there, the avengers couldn’t harm him.  After a period of time, he could return to his home as an innocent man.

Each of us faces an avenger.  I have an adversary simply because of whose I am.  Satan doesn’t just hate me for being me, he hates me because I am the child of God, his enemy.  He seeks to kill and destroy and, indeed, you and I would be dead were it not for God’s protection.  Satan would love to have carte blanche except I am hedged in behind a boundary line set by God.  He is my refuge!  He is my sanctuary!  No accusations from Satan will stand.  Christ has declared me forgiven no matter what evidence Satan has against me.  He, the avenger, cannot prevail.

What is it you’re running from?  Maybe you’re afraid of God’s retribution?  Maybe you’re afraid of your own shame and guilt, brought about mistakes you’d give anything to erase.  Run to God.  I do, believe me.  Based on the inspired Word of God, I declare to you that He is our refuge.  He is the safe place when the past seeks to undo us.  He is the sanctuary when others seek to do us harm.  He is our hiding place when our mind and heart need concealment.  He is our fortress when the arrows of accusation fly.  He is our haven of rest when the atmosphere is threatening and frenetic.  Who stands at the gate to plead our case?  Not the elders. It’s Jesus!

“I go to prepare a place for you,” you said.  It’s here now and you knew your children would need You.  Amen

God chose you as the first fruits for salvation, through sanctification by the Spirit and through belief in the truth, to which he called you through our gospel, so that you may obtain the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. 2 Thess. 2: 13-14

I saw a quote earlier. “Your past is not God’s future for you.”  Many would argue that. They say that so much of what they have suffered continues to visit them over and over again. They continue to get sick. They continue to sustain disappointments. They continue to get fooled by people. They continue to face losses. They continue to work with challenging financial parameters. They experience life as a cruel cycle and the abundant life seems nothing but a dangling carrot.

This fallen world will continue to be fallen until Jesus comes or I die and step into His presence. My ultimate future will look nothing like my past or my present. Praise God! But until then, my circumstances here will continue to be challenging, if not cyclical. Life will continue to present set after set of problem solving exercises, but in the midst of that reality, the kingdom is also here now with respect to my internal world.

• My spirit is already seated with Christ in heavenly places. (In my past, it was not.)
• In God’s eyes, I have been declared righteous. In the past, this was not the case. I was a condemned woman.
• My soul has been ransomed from the snares of sin and death and is being sanctified. (In my past, it was not.)
• My past is not my future. My past is not even my present.

So circumstantially, how am I to regard my life when painful things keep repeating themselves? I have to remember that from the outside, things are often the same. But the inside? That is to be in the process of continual radical change. Here’s an example. When my mother died, I was thirty years old. I did not have a strong connection to God. I had no idea how to draw close to Him to weather the trauma of losing a mother. I floundered, grew depressed and inconsolable, and my faith suffered for another decade. Much further down the road, my father died of cancer. My relationship with God was alive. Scripture had driven my root system deeper into the person of Jesus. I knew how to live in hope, draw strength from my Savior, and put scripture into practice. Everything was different even though cancer had once again re-appeared in my life in the death of a parent. Same circumstances. Different internal world.

My past is not my future. My internal world can resemble eternity with Jesus. Right now. In Christ, God has made it possible for my soul to live in paradise.

You walk with me and talk with me. You tell me I am your own. That changes today entirely no matter how ongoing my affliction. Amen

But those who do what is right come to the light so others can see that they are doing what God wants.  John 3:21

This scripture seems to indicate that I should do what is righteous so others can see it.  Is this a promotion of piety?  There are scriptures that warn against fasting for someone else’s approval, or praying lofty prayers to impress others, or making sure certain people know how much money was given to the kingdom.  Self-exaltation can’t be what is meant here. 

This is Jesus’ closing statement to Nicodemus and though this ruler of the Jews came to Jesus as one who probably believed he was living a life that pleased God, he left having been introduced to a new paradigm of what it means to live as a true disciple. 

Those who do what is right must first come to the Light.  It all starts with exposure of sin and the beholding of the Righteous One.  There is no way to spend time with the Him without an awareness that rule-keeping can be sinful if self is the focus.  I discover that the only way I can do anything that pleases God is to bask in His glory and depend on His grace to live as His child. 

From there, I want others to know that the ways that I choose to live (that might look impressive) are only possible because God changed this sinner’s heart.  I don’t want them to be impressed with me but, instead, enamored by a God who makes living like this possible.  When others see me do what is humanly difficult ~ forgiving others, trusting God instead of taking care of things myself, praying instead of worrying, giving grace to someone that doesn’t deserve it ~ these are indications that I am connected to God and something otherworldly is happening here. 

When I keep the rules and am proud of it, others notice but are turned off.  

When I depend on Jesus to help me do and say what He would do, people see the humility and power of a resurrected Christ. 

My witness and impact never starts and ends with me.  Amen

But the men [angels] reached out their hands and brought Lot into the house with them and shut the door. And they struck with blindness the men who were at the entrance of the house, both small and great, so that they wore themselves out groping for the door. Genesis 19:10-11

God is faithful to protect His children. The men who came to Lot and his family, the ‘angels unaware’, shut the door to the outside gang who had come to do Lot’s visitors harm. Knowing their numbers and their strength, knowing they could probably still break down the door, the angels struck the members of the gang with blindness. Even that didn’t stop them. They were still obsessed with finding the door and breaking in ~ so strong was their obsession with sexual perversion.

What does it take to break under the hand of God? Personally, it has taken a lot. My own heart was so darkened that it took a lot of time and pain to bring me to the end of myself. I wanted what I wanted ~ and I was obsessed in my own private and stubborn way. I have since learned that if not taught the sweet fruit of submission when we’re young, the desire for personal autonomy magnifies over time. So much harder to submit at 45 than at 4 years of age. That’s why we teach our children to obey the first time. We’re preparing them to say, “Yes, Lord!” when Jesus calls them.

You may be watching the Lord break the will of a loved one. You may be shaking your head at how stubborn they are. (And also humbled at the memory of how stubborn you were.) You wonder how much longer. Though they have felt the heavy hand of God, they are still groping for the door that leads them to satisfy their cravings for sinful pleasures.

Though it may look hopeless today, it is not. Not all believe, we know that. But those who burn the brightest for the kingdom experience a pivotal moment when they surrender in the fire. As you watch the crushing of that person you love, know that God knows their limits and frame. You can trust His hand that afflicts – even in your tears for their repentance.

Lord, you hear my cry. It’s hard to watch someone fight before they bow their knee. I know Your justice but I am comforted that You are also limitless in mercy. Amen