Friday, December 29, 2017

The Great King


For I am a great King, says the Lord of hosts, and my name will be feared among the nations.
Malachi 1:14b

I have one deep allegiance that directs every other relationship and action in my life. That allegiance is to my King. Jesus is the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. He is my God and my King. And my heart is aligned under His rule first. That does not mean I always worship Him as I should. It is a lifelong task to serve my King and bring my thoughts and actions under His rule. But my heart loves Jesus first. And He is the great King Who rules all. He will make His will done in my life as I serve my King. And He is making His rule known among the nations.

Israel struggled in surrendering to God as King. They wanted earthly kings like the nations around them. But God’s plan was quite different. He would be their king and they would shout it to the world life under His rule. Yet they repeatedly rejected this covenant and eventually God judged their disobedience by captivity among the nations they envied until they turned again to God’s rule. He is the great King. He will be known among the nations as His people serve, love, and are blessed by Him.

Lord Jesus,
You are my great King! You are the Lord God Almighty! You rule the universe and love Your people. You give us all we need for life and godliness in the precious promises of Your Word. You died for sin, rose to defeat sin’s rule and took away death’s sting so we can know You and eternal life! I will fear and follow You, my King!
Amen

Thursday, December 28, 2017

beyond death


Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, “I have seen the Lord”—and that he had said these things to her.
John 20:18

Jesus is alive. The story of redemption is complete because Jesus is no longer dead. He has risen just as He said. Death has no more power over us. Sin no longer must be our master. By dying our death and now living, Jesus has given us our victory. The sorrow of death is turned into the joy of sins forgiven and eternal salvation as our future.

Facing death of a loved one, as well as celebrating Christmas, and being at this point in John’s gospel all in the last seven days has been an interesting work of God’s sovereign hand. I’ve realized at this stage of my life I will simply face more death, and eventually my own. That’s not morbidity, just part of aging. And the gospel gets so much clearer as the cold, hard truth of death keeps itself before me. There is resurrection and life in Christ who came to save His people. There is absence from the body and presence with the Lord. And in that comfort of the gospel is all that I need. And I am beyond comforted. I am strengthened knowing that loved ones who have trusted Christ are with Him and that I am with Him too and one day will be with them. This is confident assurance that robs death of its fear and its worst damage. Jesus is stronger and better!

Mary Magdalene saw the Lord and reported what He said to her. The disciples saw the Lord in resurrected power and were empowered to preach the gospel to their world. These are historical facts. And that same gospel message has been the content of all my faith since I first believed it so long ago. It is the foundation on which I have lived and will continue to live until the day when I too know that death is swallowed up in victory as my soul continues to live with my Risen Savior... my living, loving Lord!

Friday, December 22, 2017

smoke and glory


...and the sanctuary was filled with smoke from the glory of God and from his power, and no one could enter the sanctuary...
Revelation 15:8

A vision shown
of a heavenly throne
smoke billowing
as glory is filling
Your holy sanctuary

Justice will flow
down from Your throne
like smoke if rises
where Your glory resides
witnessed by prophecy

In Your glory
the final story
written in Your Word
revealing the glory of the Lord
for us to see

From smoke shines light
to illuminate our night
around Your throne
we will come home
forever to be free

Thursday, December 21, 2017

remember to praise


Remember to extol his work,
of which men have sung.
Job 36:24

Even when men are theologically skewed from the truth God has revealed, they can still get a few things right. This is the case with Elihu’s call to praise. He may not have an accurate or helpful theology of suffering, but his call to praise is certainly worthy of commendation. God should be remembered and praised regularly for His great works. Men should discipline their souls to offer praise to their Creator. It keeps things in holy perspective.

And so it is with my heart today. I will heed this call to worship. I know I am going to have a completely unpredictable day today. And I already know parts of it are going to be really hard to bear because of the reality of suffering and death. But God’s works are great. And suffering and death are only on the earth because of sin. Jesus has defeated both sin and death by His own suffering death on the cross and resurrection from the dead. So I will remember the gospel and remember to praise my God!

God,
I praise You now. I have been saved from sin’s dominion over me and granted life in Your Son. And all who believe in Him now have eternal life and will never perish. And so I praise You in Your great work in me. Give me more of that perspective, I pray. 
Amen

Wednesday, December 20, 2017

complete and total forgiveness


He will again have compassion on us;
he will tread our iniquities underfoot.
You will cast all our sins
into the depths of the sea.
Micah 7:19 

The prophet Micah hoped for the day when Jesus would accomplish this very prophecy. God would save His people from their sins, the very hope that the angel announced to Mary when she was told to name her son Jesus. He is the complete fulfillment of this prophetic announcement of pure grace. Jesus has trampled our iniquities. Jesus has cast our sins into the deepest abyss of the ocean. He is our Savior.

In Jesus all my sins are fully known by God and fully forgiven by Him. Because of the Lord’s compassionate love, shown by sending His Son Who was born in a manger and died on a cross for us, we can know that our sins no longer imperil us. We can find grace. We receive mercy because of the cross. We know we are forgiven because of the sinless Son of God Who took all sin upon Himself. He became sin, Who knew now sin, so that we might become the righteousness of God (2 Corinthians 5:21).

And as Christmas Day nears, I will celebrate God’s compassion poured on us in Jesus. I will know His peace despite heartache, hurts, and death because Jesus is a Savior; He is my Savior! I will be most thankful that He has tread down my iniquities and cast my sin away, in grace now clothing me in His own righteousness. I will celebrate the gospel good news of salvation when I celebrate the birth of my Lord.

Tuesday, December 19, 2017

Jesus is no secret.


The high priest then questioned Jesus about his disciples and his teaching. Jesus answered him, “I have spoken openly to the world. I have always taught in synagogues and in the temple, where all Jews come together. I have said nothing in secret.”
John 18:19-20

The only defense Jesus offered to Annas the priest when brought before Him for illegal questioning was to appeal to the public record. Jesus taught and healed and served people publicly. He was no secret conspirator. He spoke the truth and declared His purposes for anyone to hear. He taught in public gatherings. He had lots of followers who could tell His teaching as clearly as He could. He confronted the self-righteous religious elite at their every public debate with Him. He was never secretive.

Today Jesus is no different. He is not a secret. I love that I can pick up the gospels and by reading my Bible hear His words as clearly as when He said them originally. I can watch Him do His works, and be challenged by Him myself. I can gather publicly with His followers and be challenged together to follow Jesus. His teachings still confront a corrupt system of human religion. His life still stands as the example that I want to follow. His death and resurrection are still public, historical events that forever deal with what is wrong in me and compel me to believe Jesus and commit my life to Him. I don’t need a private, secret experience to find God’s favor or to bolster my faith. I openly commit to a very public Jesus, around Whom all the biblical story revolves and the history of humanity flows.

Lord Jesus,
I follow You and the world can know it. And in less than a week another very public worldwide celebration of Your incarnation will come and go. Some will barely realize what the event was meant to be. As I follow You, may I make You known to those who know me because Lord Jesus, You are no secret!
Amen

Monday, December 18, 2017

Revelation’s interpretive challenge


And in those days people will seek death and will not find it. They will long to die, but death will flee from them.
Revelation 9:6

For me, one of the huge problems with the preterist view of the Book of Revelation is to find proper historical analogy to the various plagues and judgments in the book. Normal reading of the text sees prophetic prediction going on. This has to be wrested away from the text to force the meaning of the Book of Revelation to be fulfilled in the first century or shortly thereafter. Revelation reads like prophecy. So interpretive honesty must humbly start there. It is the “when” of the events that is hard to pin down.

There is no event in the first century or in the Roman Empire for that matter, that fits this account of supernatural flesh eating locusts torturing humanity. It just isn’t found in history and the Romans would have some sort of record of this kind of event. So the preterist turns the Apostle John into an imaginative old man, says there is something deeper and non-literal to these plagues, and moves on to close the book. And this is usually a person who in every other text of scripture wants a normal, plain reading to govern the interpretation. This is a person highly committed to the gospel who misses a chance to see just how powerful Jesus is in judgment. 

Somehow preterism is comfortable denying the Book of Revelation the same respect given all the rest of the Bible in matters of interpretation. And this is a key reason why I do not ascribe to this view that the Book of Revelation was all fulfilled in the fall of Jerusalem... or as some extend to view... in the collapse of the Roman Empire. It is such a big stretch of imaginative interpretation. 

The Book of Revelation is apocalyptic New Testament predictive prophecy literature. It details in elaborate visions times of God’s judgments upon mankind. It fits into a broader prophetic picture of what the Old Testament AND the New Testament apostles wrote of as “the Day of the Lord.” It describes and warns about God’s judgment to come. It is predictive prophecy. It is also very challenging to interpret for this reason, and I approach it with respect and a humble hermeneutic as a result. There are dispensationalists who equally harm the Book of Revelation by forcing it to interpret present events. It was not meant for that either. Again... humble hermeneutics should approach the text... for me, I’m OK that I don’t know all that is going on here, just that future judgments are the power of God that will be at work in the world.

Friday, December 15, 2017

presumption on God


If you have any words, answer me;
speak, for I desire to justify you.
If not, listen to me;
be silent, and I will teach you wisdom.
Job 33:32-33

Elihu speaks to Job. And the young man does tend to go on and on, echoing elements of the other three friends of Job, but with a proudly theologically precise tweaking of the past arguments against Job. Yet just like all the other friends, his main assumption is that Job has done sins that warrant his sufferings. He presumes to know Job as well as God knows Job. He presumes to know God’s motives. And in those presumptions are the folly of Elihu’s self-described wisdom.

The egregious sin in Job’s story is committed by all the characters as dialogues on suffering are spoken. The sin in the story of Job that each man makes is to presume to know why God is doing what He is doing. Even Job succumbs to this in his defensive speeches. No one can know what God thinks about a specific situation outside of direct revelation from Him. But young, impetuous, impulsive, experiential Elihu thinks he has wisdom to teach Job. He basically tells Job to shut up and listen to him. And then the young man with a dangerous confidence in his own theology rips into Job fiercely as he teases out an intricate, sometimes accurate, but ultimately presumptive, theological treatise on how God relates to humanity. It goes on for a total of five chapters and is only abruptly ended when God Himself thunders His answers to everyone out of a tornadic storm.

In the end, God pulls the plug on Elihu’s grand theological exposition and has the last word on Who He is and why He does anything! God alone confronts Job with the truth. God alone dispenses true wisdom. God alone reveals Himself and actually never tells Job the back story or motives behind Job’s pain. And Job seems fine with never knowing. God doesn’t have to explain Himself or His works. He is God.

Thursday, December 14, 2017

how repentance looks


Hate evil, and love good,
and establish justice in the gate;
it may be that the Lord, the God of hosts,
will be gracious to the remnant of Joseph.
Amos 5:15

The prophet Amos issues a call to repentance even as his prophetic message pictures painful judgment to fall on the house of Israel. There is hope beyond the heartache and an offered renewed relationship even in the midst of prophesied pain. God desired repentance from His people, even as He prepared judgment on a stubborn and unbelieving nation.

This repentance could be seen in three ways. First, the people must hate sin. They must see their actions, born from sinful hearts, as wrong and must hate the wrong they have done and thought. When we excuse our sin even when we are confronted, we cannot yet repent. We must hate sin to truly find grace. We must be repulsed by the ugliness of our evil. We must sometimes even repent of not hating sin enough. And when we hate that we have within us the desire to love our sin, we can begin to understand repentance.

Repentance must also be seen by loving righteousness. It seeks to love what God loves. It sets its affections on things above. It wants to love what is good and finds pleasure in God and the good things He is and does. We must love good, not begrudge the good, in order to be truly repentant.

The first two parts are attitudes and affections. The last part of this call to repentance is action. Those who hate evil and love good will seek to establish God’s justice. Their actions among other people will be just and fair first. Their repentant moral affections will want the right things done in the world. They will be people of justice like God is a God of justice, hating evil and loving righteousness.

Wednesday, December 13, 2017

sin, righteousness, and judgment


And when he comes, he will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment: concerning sin, because they do not believe in me; concerning righteousness, because I go to the Father, and you will see me no longer; concerning judgment, because the ruler of this world is judged.
John 16:8-11

The Holy Spirit’s convicting work has a three-fold emphasis. He is at work convicting all people in three crucial categories. This conviction (sense of wrong and awareness of God’s greater accountability) prepares the way for the good news of the gospel to be received by those who will believe it. I believe that all people everywhere know the feeling of conviction in these three areas. They may not realize that it is God doing this in them, but they are aware of a human deficit in three ways.

The first is conviction of sin. People know that other humans do wrong things. When they are really honest, they will admit that they do wrong things as well. They will argue and perhaps self-justify with “degrees” of wrong-doing when confronted with self sin, but sin and its negative affects on humanity are pretty well known. And the Holy Spirit convicts at a personal level as all people fall short of the glory of God in sin.

The second conviction area is righteousness. The world has imperfect standards, but even then human beings realize that there should be some standard of right. In the gospel, we know this standard is found in Jesus. Conviction of sin is strongest once we know Who Jesus is and why He entered planet earth to die for the sin of the world. Righteousness is the standard that His life shows us now that He is with the Father. And this standard aggravates our sense of sin, convicting us even further.

The third area of conviction concerns God’s right to judge sin and unrighteousness. Seeing Jesus as God’s righteous standard, convicting of sin personally, knowing sin deserves punishment, the Holy Spirit shows us that the world stands deserving judgment... that each of us is part of that condemnation. This is painful to realize, but sets us up for wanting something so much better. The Holy Spirit thus convicts so that the gospel can be heard for the really good news that it is!

Tuesday, December 12, 2017

the praise God deserves


And I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the sea, and all that is in them, saying,
“To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb
be blessing and honor and glory and might forever and ever!”
Revelation 5:13

Every creature in the universe sings out this worship song in John’s vision. It is a worship service to celebrate the worthiness of Jesus to judge the world of men. It is frankly not the kind of action we might celebrate with praise, but in John’s vision just before Jesus opens seven sealed judgments that will literally shake the heavens and the earth, all of creation shouts out His praise. God is to be worshiped for His justice, even as His judgments are devastatingly powerful.

The refrain of shouted worship in this worship acclamation is fourfold. The praise recognizes that God the Father and His Son deserve blessing,  honor, glory and might. The first two are what we humans “give” to God... we bless His name, we worship Him by honoring Him. We ascribe blessing and honor in our praises. The second two are attributes of God we recognize in our worship: God is glorious and we give Him glory... God is mighty and we know His power. We sing of His glory and His mighty power. Only God is glorious. Only God can do His wondrous works.

God of glory and might,
I worship You this day You have made. I bless Your name. I honor You as holy and righteous, the Lord of my life, the Savior of my soul, the Creator of all I know and all that I am. Forever may I give You blessing and honor and glory and might, my God!
Amen

Monday, December 11, 2017

when it just gets worse


But when I hoped for good, evil came,
and when I waited for light, darkness came.
Job 30:26

This is the simplest description of the most personal part of Job’s suffering. He kept hoping to turn a corner on his pain. He was waiting for it to get better. It had not done so, in fact, whose who came to offer their comfort in his losses only made it worse. There was no good news for the moment. There was no breaking light of dawn. There was only pain and suffering.

And this is a feeling that was more than just emotion. It was the reality of Job’s pain. It just got worse. And there wasn’t a lot of light in his dark days. There was no comfort coming from his friends and Job has resigned himself to that. It was a really bad time in his life. The pain had settled in. The realization that this experience was his new normal was Job’s painful expression. There isn’t anything a human can do to change that kind of reality. It must be accepted and then God must be trusted despite all parts of life seeming to be incongruous with grace.

Sometimes life just gets worse. There is no other way to see it. It is best to accept this becuase given the decay of mortality and the curse on sin, that is every person’s destiny. There is hope beyond this only in Jesus. He died so death would end its finality. He rose so that hope would be our actuality. We know that God is making it all new and better eventually, but things must get dark before that dawn. The only hope for good is the gospel. That can sustain us as life gets harder and suffering dominates our days.

Friday, December 8, 2017

God will have His day.


Alas for the day!
For the day of the Lord is near,
and as destruction from the Almighty it comes.
Joel 1:15

The prophecy in Joel focuses on a future day in which God will judge the earth. Joel uses the devastation from a plague of locusts to call Israel to consider this greater judgment to come in the Day of the Lord. Just as the locusts left no food in the fields, so the Day of the LORD will be complete in its destruction. Just as the nation was powerless against the insect onslaught, so no one would be able to stop the Day of the LORD in its coming to destroy.

God will have His day. In the story of humanity and God recorded in the Bible, we know that before the universe is restored to its created “goodness”, a day of destruction will occur. The earth and all the elements of the universe will be burned up and remade as creation is restored to its original state of sinless perfection and the glory of God is known universally in the new creation. But before this renewal of all things, there must be a destruction of what has been cursed by sin. The curse has to be real. The destruction must happen. That is the Day of the LORD.

All the beauty of the earth and the heavens right now is marred by the curse of Adam’s fall. But that will not stand forever. God will redeem us from this mess through Christ, He will judge the world of humanity, bring an end to sin’s curses forever, and then magnificently restore all the universe to His original intention as Creator. It will be glorious. And it is that hope that is a source of confidence for our future, even as we live in present difficulties, struggling against sin and brokenness. The Day of the LORD will change it.

Thursday, December 7, 2017

hated


If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you.
John 15:18

My only offense to others
Should be the cross
My only “fault” to watchers
Should just be Jesus
My Savior, my Master, My King
Should be known in me
And if folks don’t like Jesus watching
They won’t care to look at me

Some people hate Jesus Christ
Because they know they must change
And the gospel calls them to another life
That they reject as strange
They refuse the gospel, refusing God
And don’t want to hear it ever
They look at Christians as somewhat odd
When we say we can live forever

If some today hat Jesus our Master
Then we may be hated as well
But Jesus is judge, rejection is their disaster
When the hate and rejection end in hell
My aspiration is to let Jesus live in me
Showing His love to people all around
No mater what others might think of me
I am Jesus’ disciple, pilgrim here, heaven-bound

Wednesday, December 6, 2017

overcoming the second death


He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. The one who conquers will not be hurt by the second death.
Revelation 2:11

By the grace of God, no Christian will taste the agony of the second death. Jesus has overcome for us. We will though Him overcome the second death (see Revelation 20:4-6 for what this is).  By faith in Jesus, Who took our sin’s punishment upon Himself so that we might know His gift of eternal life, we are not condemned. Because Jesus has overcome hell, we can know life forever with Him!

Death is real for all of us. We are mortal. But the sting of death and the terrors of hell are gone in Christ! He has redeemed us from sin’s curse. It has no power over our eternity. We have won in Jesus’ victory.

O Lord Jesus,
Thank You for having such love and for conquering the curse of sin so that I might know eternal life! And in Your death and resurrection is my strength and security. I am Yours for eternity. And though this mortal life will end, it will open up for me to eternal joy with You!
Amen

Tuesday, December 5, 2017

God is bigger than you think.



With whose help have you uttered words,
and whose breath has come out from you?
Job 26:4

This two part question is a response from Job to Bildad’s contention that since it is impossible for sinful humans to match the majesty of a holy God, Job must be in the wrong and thus he is suffering under God’s retributive judgment. Bildad’s words are lean and direct: man is just a maggot... a disgusting worm in comparison to the majestic God (Job 25:6).

Job’s reply to Bildad’s observation is filled with strong sarcasm as it begins, thanking his friend for the great “help” such an observation is for the humiliated sufferer (Job 26:2-3). But then Job transitions to agreeing that God is majestic and powerful, but not without reminding Bildad that God is the source of the very breath by which men utter their words. God is sovereign and gracious to even allow Job and his friends to be having this strange theological free-for-all in the midst of Job’s staggering pain. Job recognizes the very breath that allows them speech to debate as coming from the Lord.

Then Job begins to preach about the power of God. God controls the fate of those now living, and relates to souls of those now dead who are in their eternity. Hell and death are open to His control and knowledge. He hangs all the stars and planets in space and controls everything about the earth. He sends weather, both pleasant and stormy at His will and command. All the natural forces that can make men tremble are under God’s direct control, and these are just the bare edge of what God does and Who He is (Job 26:14). Job’s reply to Bildad’s is summed up with this vivid reminder: God is bigger than you think!

Since that is true, we should be very careful what we attribute to Him and how we do so. We are only looking at the outskirts of His ways, and there is so much we do not know about an infinite, holy God. It is better to keep our theology humble and our submission to understanding God’s words and His works in check. He is bigger than we think. I’m in trouble once I’m sure I have God figured out! He is bigger than I can know.

Monday, December 4, 2017

wrapped in the wings of the whirlwind


A wind has wrapped them in its wings,
and they shall be ashamed because of their sacrifices.
Hosea 4:19

Idolatry is a devastating destruction, and generally those who worship what isn’t God, will find the results to come whipping into their lives like a storm wind without shelter when they need it the most. God, through His prophet Hosea, is laying out the case for Israel’s spiritual adultery. They have forsaken the faithful covenant love of God and gone after the worship of idols with an outrageous lusting abandon. And the awfulness of that idolatry adultery has so caught up the culture, that the nation is carried along in a whirlwind of unfaithfulness. It will eventually end in destruction and shame as survivors are led away captive from their nation.

God makes it clear that this was a destructive spiritual force that was ruining His people, but it was fueled by their choice to abandon God and seek the idols of the nations around them. The Lord was going to let them continue in this painful direction with their willful spiritual adultery only because the crash at the end of the whirlwind would be what it would take for the nation to repent, trust, and again return in covenant with God.

God will let those who find no shame in their sin continue in their unfaithfulness. But that is in itself a strong judgment meant to bring them to their senses. Wrapped in the dizzyingly dangerous swirling tornado of sinful choices, they will be carried along until it all comes tumbling down. And when it does, His mercy, grace, and forgiveness will again be offered to the repentant, broken nation. It is better though to avoid the blowing wind, to fear and obey the Lord, and to find His blessing in obedience.

Friday, December 1, 2017

Prince of my peace


Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me.
John 14:1

Jesus makes this promise/command right after He informs Peter that he would deny Jesus three times. I’m sure this caused a stir among the disciples and a sinking feeling in Peter. And yet Jesus makes this call to faith and promise of peace. The path to a calm heart is the peace of Christ. And that is found in faith in Him.

The disciples picked up on this truth and spread it through the church. They knew that believing the grace of Jesus brought the peace of Jesus into lives. Seventeen times in the New Testament writings, the church is greeted with “grace and peace”. It is practically an apostolic signature. Paul used it. Peter wrote it in his epistles. John proclaimed it. So this call to believe Jesus and thus calm troubled hearts certainly sunk in to become a hallmark of early Christianity. They believed and found peace. We believe God’s grace and find peace.

It is now December, and we are celebrating the gift of salvation in our Prince of Peace, Jesus. Despite the chaos in the world, Jesus reigns. Jesus brings peace... peace with God through the forgiveness of sins by His death... peace with our future by the hope of eternal life through His resurrection... peace in our present by interceding with us now before the Father. Jesus also brings peace with other people through the creation and growth of His Church as His people of peace. Jesus brings peace to our troubled hearts as we trust His sufficiency and then surrender our sorrows and weaknesses to His great healing and sustaining grace.

Lord Jesus,
Prince of my peace, I will not let me heart be troubled by the cares and worries around me. I will believe in You and find peace.
Amen