Tag Archives: Faith

The New Devotional Direction – The Inside Story

Posted on June 27, 2015 | Leave a comment

Looking for Jesus in all the right places.
I John 5:6-9
6 This is the one who came by water and blood—Jesus Christ. He did not come by water only, but by water and blood. And it is the Spirit who testifies, because the Spirit is the truth. 7 For there are three that testify: 8 the Spirit, the water and the blood; and the three are in agreement. 9 We accept human testimony, but God’s testimony is greater because it is the testimony of God, which he has given about his Son.

Of Interest from William Barclay:
When he [Jesus] told us to eat his flesh and drink his blood, he was telling us to feed our hearts and souls and minds on his humanity, and to revitalize our lives with his life until we are filled with the life of God.  But John meant more than that, and was thinking also of the Lord’s Supper. He was saying: “If you want life, you must come and sit at that table where you eat that broken bread and drink that poured-out wine which somehow, in the grace of God, brings you into contact with the love and the life of Jesus Christ.”

My Thoughts:
A couple of years ago I wrote The  3R’s of Communion.  Recently I reviewed and rewrote it.  This is part of my own growth, finding words to make what I write more real than ever before.

The 3R’s of Communion.
• Responsibility — I believe what Scripture tells me that it’s Christ’s responsibility to continue and complete His work in me.  He has the power to pull it off, I don’t.  My responsibility is to regularly give Him back the gift of my faith as it grows and changes and trust he’ll do just what he says he will, build more in me.
• Revelation — Flesh and blood – the elements of communion shared between Christ and me have a powerful purpose. That little bit of bread or wafer that feels so dry in my mouth for a moment and the tingle of that small sip of wine on my tongue are actual physical reminders to wake-up and consider the “now” reality of my life in Him.  They are reminders that his plan is to show himself to me and as importantly to show myself to me.  Communion is Christ’s plan to feed, to cleanse and to nudge me one step closer to what He sees I can be – with a little taste of Grace and His life in me.
• Regeneration — Those “elemental” moments are blessings to remind me that this beautiful act is more than a ritual.  I can feel them as I take them!  I believe it is the perfect reminder that Christ meant it to be, my outside reaction to a real “inside” story –  the regenerating power of Christ living up to His promises to build and renew my life in Him.

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Aim Higher

Posted on June 24, 2015 | Leave a comment
Genesis 37
So Joseph went after his brothers and found them near Dothan. 18 But they saw him in the distance, and before he reached them, they plotted to kill him.  19 “Here comes that dreamer!” they said to each other. 20 “Come now, let’s kill him and throw him into one of these cisterns and say that a ferocious animal devoured him. Then we’ll see what comes of his dreams.”  21 When Reuben heard this, he tried to rescue him from their hands. “Let’s not take his life,” he said. 22 “Don’t shed any blood. Throw him into this cistern here in the wilderness, but don’t lay a hand on him.” Reuben said this to rescue him from them and take him back to his father.  23 So when Joseph came to his brothers, they stripped him of his robe—the ornate robe he was wearing— 24 and they took him and threw him into the cistern. The cistern was empty; there was no water in it.  25 As they sat down to eat their meal, they looked up and saw a caravan of Ishmaelites coming from Gilead. Their camels were loaded with spices, balm and myrrh, and they were on their way to take them down to Egypt.  26 Judah said to his brothers, “What will we gain if we kill our brother and cover up his blood? 27 Come, let’s sell him to the Ishmaelites and not lay our hands on him; after all, he is our brother, our own flesh and blood.” His brothers agreed. 

Of Interest:
• 26 Judah said to his brothers, “What will we gain if we kill our brother and cover up his blood? 27 Come, let’s sell him to the Ishmaelites and not lay our hands on him; after all, he is our brother, our own flesh and blood.” 

My Thoughts:
Sibling rivalry with a side dish of mercy?  I don’t think so!  Connivance, craftiness, and convenience sounds more like it to me.  Tongue in cheek… I wonder where they got all those traits?  Is it heredity?  It’s their family alright, the family that goes way, way back to when Eden could no longer be Adam and Eve’s home.  The brothers made the same mistake they did; deciding they could justify themselves with their own reason.  Have mercy on us Lord.  Restore our right thinking.  Help us to aim higher than being satisfied with doing less than the worst.

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If/Then

Posted on June 14, 2015 | Leave a comment

Genesis 28
16 When Jacob awoke from his sleep, he thought, “Surely the Lord is in this place, and I was not aware of it.” 17 He was afraid and said, “How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God; this is the gate of heaven.” 18 Early the next morning Jacob took the stone he had placed under his head and set it up as a pillar and  poured oil on top of it. 19 He called that place Bethel, though the city used to be called Luz.  20 Then Jacob made a vow, saying, “If God will be with me and will watch over me on this journey I am taking and will give me food to eat and clothes to wear 21 so that I return safely to my father’s household, then the Lord will be my God 22 and this stone that I have set up as a pillar will be God’s house, and of all that you give me I will give you a tenth.”

Of Interest:
Two things today:  “gate of heaven” and “then the Lord will be my God.”

My Thoughts:
Before this moment Jacob has been an “environmental” believer. He’s lived in a family with a history of God.  He’s probably spent his life listening to, and participating in, family rituals of faith.  That’s been his environment, his custom, but not necessarily his choice. He must have had some historical awareness of this area being the gateway to Heaven…maybe Eden fits in there too… but now it seems to come as a surprise to him that he hadn’t been aware of it before.  God has been present but not “in” him until this awakening.  He has been “not Godless but not Godly” either.  He is just like us.

After he awakes it’s a whole new ballgame.  Finally there is an inner understanding, not just a casual awareness.  “How awesome is this place!”  This is Jacob’s moment of redemption.  Now it is more than the faith of Abraham or Isaac, it’s his own personal faith.  Look at his response now – the If/THEN statement.

“If God will be with me and will watch over me on this journey I am taking and will give me food to eat and clothes to wear 21 so that I return safely to my father’s household…then The Lord will be my God…”

A brand new awareness of God… awesome yes…but still needing the reassurance of the “IF” just like us!

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An Unbelievable Plan

Posted on June 10, 2015 | Leave a comment

Genesis 18
v2. He [Abraham] looked up and noticed three men standing nearby. When he saw them, he ran to meet them and welcomed them, bowing low to the ground… v10 Then one of them said, “I will surely return to you about this time next year, and Sarah your wife will have a son.” Now Sarah was listening at the entrance to the tent, which was behind him. 11 Abraham and Sarah were already very old, and Sarah was past the age of childbearing. 12 So Sarah laughed to herself as she thought, “After I am worn out and my lord is old, will I now have this pleasure?”
13 Then the Lord said to Abraham, “Why did Sarah laugh and say, ‘Will I really have a child, now that I am old?’ 14 Is anything too hard for the Lord? I will return to you at the appointed time next year, and Sarah will have a son.”
15 Sarah was afraid, so she lied and said, “I did not laugh.”  But he said, “Yes, you did laugh.”

Of Interest:
…[Sarah]  “I didn’t laugh.”  But the Lord said, “No, you did laugh.” so she lied and said, “I did not laugh.”  But he said, “Yes, you did laugh.”
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v 13 Then the Lord said to Abraham, “Why did Sarah laugh and say, ‘Will I really have a child, now that I am old?’ I had to double back to Genesis 17:17  to find this; “Abraham fell facedown; he laughed and said to himself, “Will a son be born to a man a hundred years old?”  So laughter isn’t the issue here, nor is eavesdropping.  I think it’s the “little white lie.” Sarah tells that is the story.

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She’s been overheard and now she’s worried. These men are honored guests but they are strangers to Sarah.  She’s worried when caught that she’ll be in trouble. Right at the beginning the tense changes from strangers to v10 “Then ONE of them said…”.  And that “one” may be the key.  We don’t hear much about SSarah and her relationship to the Lord.  Maybe God really is a pretty much a stranger to her at this point.  There is evidence that she has prayed before.  She has been saved by her prayers out of some terrible situations her previous lies put her in.  …Maybe those were just “foxhole” prayers.  Maybe Sarah is caught in this place; the “not Godless, but not Godly either” way of life.  Whatever her flaws, God has a plan that includes her and a miracle in store for her.

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Isn’t that just how life goes for us?  We fumble about, manipulating life with “little white lies” and sometimes acting like God must be a stranger to us. We pray our own foxhole prayers to get us out of sticky situations.  Then Grace steps in and we discover, at long last, that God has indeed included US in his plan despite our flaws. We can hardly believe it, but that realization is when we begin to understand what a “miracle.” God has for our future as well.

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All About Image

Posted on June 9, 2015 | Leave a comment
Genesis 16
Now Sarai, Abram’s wife, had not been able to bear children for him. But she had an Egyptian servant named Hagar. So Sarai said to Abram, “The Lord has prevented me from having children. Go and sleep with my servant. Perhaps I can have children through her.” And Abram agreed with Sarai’s proposal. So Sarai, Abram’s wife, took Hagar the Egyptian servant and gave her to Abram as a wife. (This happened ten years after Abram had settled in the land of Canaan.)
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Of Interest:
The three main characters.
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My Thoughts:
Only three people; Abram, the righteous one, Sarai the barren wife and Hagar the Egyptian servant.  It’s not hard to understand the humanity of these three people.   That great cartoon philosopher, Pogo, said it all, “we have met the enemy and he is us.”  Abram, Sarai and Hagar prove that everything old is new again. Without an interactive relationship with God and our faith we are like them; our own worst enemy.  No wonder the modern day solution often is use any means, any person, any activity as long as it produces the result we want and think is right.
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I wonder if our biggest sin is not really so much the “bad” stuff we do as the fact that while we’re not Godless, we’re not Godly either.  We are carelessly busy portraying the one whose image we represent in our world as ineffective and of no practical use in real life.  Could anything be worse than that? Thank God for Grace and time to grow.   Thank God he’s given us Jesus, his Spirit and these Old Testament “saints” that are the mirrors we are meant to see ourselves in.  Thank God for his Word and it’s promise that offers us the chance of a real image makeover.

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Best and Wisest

Posted on June 8, 2015 | Leave a comment

Genesis 13
Lot took a long look at the fertile plains of the Jordan Valley in the direction of Zoar. The whole area was well watered everywhere, like the garden of the Lord or the beautiful land of Egypt. (This was before the Lord destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah.) Lot chose for himself the whole Jordan Valley to the east of them. He went there with his flocks and servants and parted company with his uncle Abram. So Abram settled in the land of Canaan, and Lot moved his tents to a place near Sodom and settled among the cities of the plain. But the people of this area were extremely wicked and constantly sinned against the Lord.

Of Interest:
Lot took a long look at the fertile plains of the Jordan Valley in the direction of Zoar. The whole area was well watered everywhere, like the garden of the Lord.

My Thoughts:
Lot must have heard throughout his life the oral history that spoke of the perfection and beauty of the land God had promised, and there it was. Did he remember those stories as he saw the Jordan Valley laid out before him? This new place that seemed be exactly what God had promised, so beautiful and good…except for one tiny little snag…the people of the area were extremely wicked and constantly sinned against the Lord.  Lot may have reasoned; “good land, good oral history, good faith, and…God promised…how bad could it be,” right?

I have been in that position of making choices in my life with that same kind of reasoning. Lot was caught in the very same tension of decision making as we are today.  For the most part we assume “worst and clearly stupid” have been eliminated from our decision-making process because we now belong to God.  We forget we are still vulnerable to being blindsided by our self-confident “how bad could it be?” mindset. We forget that while “how bad could it be” may look better than “worst and clearly stupid” it still looks pretty poor compared to best and wisest.

 

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Right or Angry?

Posted on June 7, 2015 | Leave a comment

Genesis 4
When it was time for the harvest, Cain presented some of his crops as a gift to the Lord. Abel also brought a gift—the best portions of the firstborn lambs from his flock. The Lord accepted Abel and his gift, but he did not accept Cain and his gift. This made Cain very angry, and he looked dejected.  “Why are you so angry?” the Lord asked Cain. “Why do you look so dejected? You will be accepted if you do what is right. But if you refuse to do what is right, then watch out! Sin is crouching at the door, eager to control you. But you must subdue it and be its master.”

Of Interest:
• Think about this phrase: “Why are you so angry?”

My Thoughts:
We recognize and point to Cain as the first murderer but can’t quite comprehend why he was so angry.  It’s like one finger of our hand pointing at Cain when there are three pointing back at us.  Anger is an emotional word that is more easily denied in ourselves. We want to attribute to that emotion the higher level of violence of Cain’s sin.  But how about these words: irritated; testy; grumpy, frustrated or even jealous?  There’s the rub.  How often does your emotional thermometer go THOSE places in a day?

How about when the cars turning left in front of you poke along and you get caught at the next red light; or there’s all those things spouses do that cause a surge, maybe only mental, of one of those emotions? It’s just so much easier to be shocked by Cain’s action than to think about, and name, the moments in our life and faith that we’ve been “irritated; testy; grumpy, frustrated or even jealous” because WE just didn’t want to do what’s right.  Ouch! Every one of those moments in every day needs this reminder…”We will be victims of sin if we do not subdue it.”  There’s an enormous difference between being “not Godless, but not Godly either.”  It’s the difference between knowing faith facts and applying them.  That difference makes all the difference in a life of faith.

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Sin Loves Company

Posted on June 6, 2015 | Leave a comment

Day 1 of my Snippet Slog Through the Old Testament.  Not a scholarly verse by verse, chapter by chapter “slog” but what I believe God has in his mind for my mind.

Genesis 3
The serpent was the shrewdest of all the wild animals the Lord God had made. One day he asked the woman, “Did God really say you must not eat the fruit from any of the trees in the garden?”  “Of course we may eat fruit from the trees in the garden,” the woman replied. “It’s only the fruit from the tree in the middle of the garden that we are not allowed to eat. God said ‘You must not eat it or even touch it; if you do, you will die.’”  “You won’t die!” the serpent replied to the woman. “God knows that your eyes will be opened as soon as you eat it, and you will be like God, knowing both good and evil.”  The woman was convinced. She saw that the tree was beautiful and its fruit looked delicious, and she wanted the wisdom it would give her. So she took some of the fruit and ate it. Then she gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it, too.

Of Interest:
• Then she gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it, too.

My Thoughts:
I admit it, I’m defensive.  Eve has become our first picture of what sinful, lustful, greedy AND manipulative looks like.  No wonder I’m defensive.

There is no way to dispute the fact that Eve (and Adam) are NOT Godless.  They’re right there with God, firsthand, face to face, in a perfect environment.  This story is also our picture of the first chink in what it means to be Godly.  That’s why it’s called “original” sin.  They made it up!

It wasn’t like Eve had called Adam to dinner and served up a tasty dish without telling him where it came from.  Remember that phrase: “who was with her?”  I read more and look at this! Genesis 3:12 The man said, “The woman you put here with me—she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it.”   That first picture of Eve?  It’s the same as the first picture of Adam.   This must be where the old saying “sin loves company” comes from.

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Hello world!

Posted on June 5, 2015 | Leave a comment

I began what I call a timid [because I’m just me, not a scholar] and limited snippet [because what I read is often far less than a whole chapter] slog [because it’s hard] in the Old Testament last year.  I wanted to explore the human identity of some of the main characters of the Bible that I pretty much skip over to get to Jesus.  They often seem so remote to me but they’ve become heroic examples of what faith looked like in the “good old days;” days so much closer to the memories of God’s miraculous intervention in the lives of real people.

I wanted to look at them as people who didn’t always get it right the first time and see what happened in their lives.  Some stayed faithful and learned from their mistakes and some just let their worry or anger destroy them.  You know, people just like us.   People knowing and believing God but held back by flaws, or maybe just indifference, from becoming what God created them to be. This is exactly where many of us find ourselves.  This word journey is my attempt to see how God moved them, and still can move us, from being satisfied with being “not Godless, but not Godly either.”

I am absolutely convinced that there is a process God has designed for the purpose of revealing himself to those who care to look and listen.  It involves his Word, the Holy Spirit and time. At least this is how it works for me.  I read Scripture, I watch for the mental “stop sign” in those words that says “notice me.”  Those are the things I copy and paste into my iPad journal from my online Bible.  Yes, I’m a geek.  I type, I think, I backspace [a lot] and then I think and type some more until there seems to be a completion of the thoughts I believe the Holy Spirit has brought to my mind.  My journey with you with begins with these posts I call my Snippet Slog Through the Old Testament.   I want to hear what God might have to say to you from what I think He’s said to me.

It brings a smile to my face to imagine that God can use that oft repeated cell phone phrase, Can You Hear Me Now, as an object lesson for me and I hope for you.  I want to listen, I want to hear, but sometimes I just have to quit moving and stay in one place for good reception.  I hope you’ll read these blogs and ponder them for yourself.  One thing is absolute though, God is faithful to ask the question, “can you hear me now?”

 

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