healing word

But when Elisha the man of God heard that the king of Israel had torn his clothes, he sent to the king, saying, “Why have you torn your clothes? Let him come now to me, that he may know that there is a prophet in Israel.”

2 Kings 5:8

The story of the life of Elisha the prophet repeatedly teaches about the impact of the Word of God through His prophets. In the story of Naaman, we find that this healing Word of God has reached the Gentile nation of Syria. Naaman was a Syrian official with a debilitating disease. His leprosy was incurable and he had heard from a reliable source that in Israel there was a prophet of God who was known for bringing God’s healing.

So Naaman, powerful military commander of all the Syrian army, a man who had previously warred and raided Israel, enters Israel and delivers a letter from the Syrian king directly to Israel’s king demanding that Naaman be cured of his disease. This caused no small amount of concern for Israel’s king, who felt this all was a pretense for a coming invasion.

But Elisha knew that God could work in this situation to bring about not only deliverance to Israel, but also the healing of Naaman. He confidently trusts that Naaman would continue to learn the value of the powerful Word of God through His prophet. 

Elisha’s confidence is not in himself. It is in God. Elisha never even speaks face to face with Naaman, but instead sends instructions to him to bathe in the Jordan seven times for his healing. After some convincing from his staff, a reluctant Naaman obeys the Word of the Lord and is miraculously made whole.

Similarly, we are healed only by trusting in what God has revealed and not by our own efforts. Had Naaman chosen to bathe in Syria in defiance, he would have remained a leper. But he came to trust the Word of God. And so we must trust in the gospel, that Jesus died for us who were sinners and could do nothing to save ourselves. This humbles us to trust in God’s revealed Word. Only then can we find healing and new life.

Pray first!

do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.

Philippians 4:6

Prayer is often the most overlooked of spiritual fortifiers. I may offer prayer as a last resort or an afterthought in a time of struggle. I’ll usually try to do so much to “fix” what I perceive as a problem that I wind up making the situation worse. I’m quick to foul it up and then I am slow to humble myself in prayer. O God, forgive me! I need this reminder today: Pray first, figure it out later!

Anxiety is meant to be a prayer driver. It is a dashboard light telling us to pull over and pay attention to prayer. And prayer that offers all of life to God in request will keep that anxiety from driving us into all kinds of self-created trouble! Prayer that is pleading and thankful, surrendered to the Lordship of Jesus, will free us from our fears.

This bizarre and totally outrageous year of 2020 has led me to pray. And I have prayed not only for my own requests, but for others at a distance deficit like never before. But I still haven’t done it quite like this passage states it. And why now, over eight months into this pandemic disruption do I finally realize that this cultural anxiety is a fervent call to serious and heartfelt prayer? I mean I’ve prayed a lot. But I don’t think I’ve kept the wisdom of the prayer we are commanded to practice here in mind. So I pray...

Lord Jesus,

I thank You that You hear me and answer prayer. I want to know Your peace in these anxious times. And so I ask You to guide me, my home, all whom I love, and my church safely through this perilous pandemic. Guide us safely through this awful political turmoil. Deliver us from attempted tyranny and transition us peacefully. May the plans of evil people come to utter frustration! Guide those who care now for our sick and our elderly. Spare us from the worst this pandemic could bring! Oh that fast relief from this virus could graciously arrive by Your providence! And most of all, as only You can by Your mercies, open this entire world to the healing gospel of Jesus Christ, I pray! And embolden Your church to hold out this hope to an anxious world.

Amen

self-justifying fail

And he said to them, “You are those who justify yourselves before men, but God knows your hearts. For what is exalted among men is an abomination in the sight of God.”

Luke 16:15

I try to talk up

     my good acts

Yet I am still a sinner

     bound to that fact.

Without Jesus to justify me

     I’m just a failure.

I want to look holy

     so I’ll try to put on a show

But I’m really fooling no one

     because God already knows

Without Jesus to justify me

     I’m just a failure.

So I fall on God’s grace

     I call out to my Lord

I trust in Jesus to save me

     and I believe His Word.

Because Jesus justifies me

     I can be holy.

And I reject all efforts

     of boasting in what I do

I look up to One much better:

     “Jesus... I trust in You!”

Jesus justifies me.

That is what I need.

where idols thrive

Therefore speak to them and say to them, Thus says the Lord GOD: Any one of the house of Israel who takes his idols into his heart and sets the stumbling block of his iniquity before his face, and yet comes to the prophet, I the LORD will answer him as he comes with the multitude of his idols, that I may lay hold of the hearts of the house of Israel, who are all estranged from me through their idols.

Ezekiel 14:4-5

God wants to have the complete attention of our hearts. That is were we truly worship. That is where we hold to what we consider most dear. That is where our passions and deepest desires reside and flow out to control our actions. The heart is the center from which all of our attitudes, thoughts, words, and actions pulse out in all of life. And what resides in our hearts will affect all of how we will live.

Israel’s continuous struggle with idolatry was an individual heart defect spread across an entire culture. God’s diagnosis was that idolatry had infected the hearts of all the people of Israel. They had enshrined their idols in their hearts. And yet they blatantly went through the motions with God by inquiring of His prophet and pretending to care about what God said. But this heart idolatry created an impassible barrier to relationship with and obedience to God.

Heart idols fool us. We can pretend we aren’t worshiping falsely. I mean after all, you will find me in God’s house at all the right times! But inwardly our idols have our full attention. And until we tear down those secret shrines we will not truly know God’s blessing. We must repent of misplaced worship, tear down our heart idols, and worship God from that internal place of passion and commitment!

Lord,

My idols deceive me. Confront them and show me which ones I am worshipping. Help me to topple them so that You alone, in the glory of Your cross and resurrection, are my true worship. And lead me, Jesus, confidently forward in worship of You. I desire no more stumbling. I want Your grace to lead me in worship of only You!

Amen

thankfulness during uncertainty

We give thanks to you, O God;

we give thanks, for your name is near.

We recount your wondrous deeds.

Psalm 75:1

2020 gives us the chance to know a Thanksgiving holiday like none other in recent memory. The celebration here at the Burch home will be more subdued and sadly the first now of many not to include any members of the generation before mine. They are all gone from our lives now. And so my perspective has changed and I must take a new role to the next generation in my own home.

Our kids are adults and will be “coming home” to us for dinner for the first time as well. After decades of being the ones who “came home” or had dinner with family who lived day to day with us, this feels quite different. And in keeping with all the pandemic strangeness, our family feels it is best to keep Thanksgiving small. And with all the political puzzling and chaos, it feels like a weird time for us to be thankful. But I am seriously considering reading Psalm 75:1-7 around our table before we offer up our thanks. Seriously... it seems to speak to these divisive and uncertain times so well! 2020 stands a chance of being a landmark holiday year.

There are two clues as to how to be thankful in unsettled times right here in the very first verse of Psalm 75. CLUE 1: God is still near. Asaph wrote this psalm in a time when Israel was threatened by boastful, self-centered leaders and enemies (see Psalm 75:4-6 for this insight). Yet God was near and it is He Who steadies us in tottering times (Psalm 75:3). His justice is perfect when injustice seems rampant (Psalm 75:2). CLUE 2: God’s past deeds provide perspective. When the present feel uncertain, trust God, and remember what He has already done! A God-led past steadies our view of an uncertain present and gives assurance for a God-directed future.

Lord Jesus,

You are near. You will never leave us or forsake us. Thank You that You are God Who came near! We are never alone. You have not left us as orphans but forever made a way for us to be in You through Your cross. And You are in control. Your victory over death, Your teaching that gives us life, and Your Holy Spirit in Your Church encourage us in these uncertain days to trust only You!

Amen

a cloak is cast

So he departed from there and found Elisha the son of Shaphat, who was plowing with twelve yoke of oxen in front of him, and he was with the twelfth. Elijah passed by him and cast his cloak upon him.

1 Kings 19:19

When Elijah felt overwhelmed by the pressures of ministry, God called him to develop a leader. The prophet was called to find an apprentice to mentor, to begin training for leadership another person to what he did, And Elijah quickly obeyed the specific call of God to anoint Elisha with this task of a new prophetic ministry.

There are some interesting elements to Elisha’s call. He was a farmboy, but not just any old farmboy. His family was evidently wealthy and farmed a large field. There were twelve yoke of oxen (that’s at least 24 heavy livestock) all pulling plows that day. This means that Elisha was out working with a large group of people, perhaps all the men of his town. This was a very public call that Elijah made of Elisha.

Elisha’s response to this call was equally public. He stopped the plow, sacrificed his yoke of oxen to the Lord, burning their wooden yoke to boil their flesh, in answer to the call. Then he fed the crowd and probably the entire town of Abelmeholah as he officially said goodbye to farming and entered into obeying the call of God to be a prophet under Elijah’s care and training.

Elijah’s strange way of making this call is unique. He threw his cloak over Elisha and walked on. Elijah’s cloak would be an identifying image of his ministry (see 1 Kings 19:3; 2 Kings 2:8, 13-14). It became symbolic of the Lord’s power and presence with him, and to entrust that cloak to Elisha somehow showed how God’s presence and power would pass to him as well.

There is something powerful in the investment of mentoring leaders. And it is part of my own call. The gospel is propelled forward in this fashion from generation to generation. Jesus invested in discipleship and in about three years time left all that would become His church into the hands of His chosen twelve. And I am called as a Christian and as a pastor to be sure to do the same. I need to always be on the lookout for those on whom God calls me to cast my cloak.

consecrated by blood and oil

Then Moses took some of the anointing oil and of the blood that was on the altar and sprinkled it on Aaron and his garments, and also on his sons and his sons' garments. So he consecrated Aaron and his garments, and his sons and his sons' garments with him.

Leviticus 8:30

The first priests were consecrated (made holy and pleasing to the Lord’s service) by the blood of a sacrifice and with anointing of oil. This made them holy and set apart to the service of offering sacrifices in the tabernacle in the wilderness. God controlled the process. Moses just obeyed the command that God laid out. The result was that a holy God could be worshiped in a holy place, through a holy way, by a consecrated people.

These priests were cleansed and consecrated by obedience to the means that God had ordained. The nation could come to God, find atonement through sacrifice, and worship in holiness because of the blood and the oil.

And today, because of the final sacrifice, the completed work of Jesus gives me freedom from sin’s curse and defilement. The blood of Jesus has consecrated every believer. And the Holy Spirit, like anointing oil, has indwelt each believer. We are a holy, consecrated people with full access to God, consecrated to His service. We are a people, called to be holy for the Lord.

no matter what

...as it is my eager expectation and hope that I will not be at all ashamed, but that with full courage now as always Christ will be honored in my body, whether by life or by death.

Philippians 1:20

Paul’s hope rested in Christ no matter what. The apostle believed that the outcome of his imprisonment, whether it was release to preach the gospel, or martyrdom because of the gospel, would bring glory to Jesus Christ. When the end vision is to see Jesus made much of, our circumstances cannot rob us of the joy of our hope and those circumstances help us to worship Jesus at all times.

Of course it is the last six words of this statement of Paul that are the firmest commitment. We all can sign on to the wish to glorify Christ by life when given that option. It is harder to accept that we could do so by death. Will that ever truly be tested? I pray that I would have this kind of confident courage if it ever were.

Lord Jesus,

You are worth living for with all that I have. And like Paul, may I confidently pray to honor you in my body, no matter what.

Amen

What will following Jesus cost me?

For which of you, desiring to build a tower, does not first sit down and count the cost, whether he has enough to complete it?

Luke 14:28

Following Jesus is not a hobby or a part-time interest. Being a Christian is not a side interest or just a part of what a person is. Following Jesus requires serious, all the time, lifelong commitment. It isn’t something to do on a whim. What is the cost of discipleship? It is my entire life.

It seems pretty easy to take Christian teaching as an hour on Sunday kind of thing, as long as that sermon gets done before NFL kickoff! But that is not what it means to follow Jesus. Discipleship is a life obsession with loving, knowing, and being changed by Jesus. It started when I trusted in the gospel and then IT NEVER ENDS! Seriously... we give our lives to following Jesus, and then we spend eternity with our Lord! If that sounds like a letdown, then maybe the cost has never been committed to. The cost of discipleship is an investment of my entire life!

I know what you are thinking.

And the Spirit of the LORD fell upon me, and he said to me, “Say, Thus says the LORD: So you think, O house of Israel. For I know the things that come into your mind.”

Ezekiel 11:5

One reason God is the prefect judge is that He does not need to cross examine us to get to the truth. He knows more than our actions. God knows our minds. He knows our thoughts. What we think is under His scrutiny. That was one reason why Israel’s idolatry brought such severe judgment when it finally came.

God knows my mind and tests my heart. He wants my love for Him and true repentance from sin to be what happens in my heart. That is why Christian faith can’t be about mere external conformance. I need a heart change. I need to think in a new, holy, and transformed way with God’s power changing me.

Praise God that His Word can discern my thoughts (Hebrews 4:12). And His Spirit and Word change my thinking so that I can put off sin and put on holy living (Ephesians 4:22-24). Thank God that He changes my thinking!

light and life

For the commandment is a lamp and the teaching a light,

and the reproofs of discipline are the way of life...

Proverbs 6:23

This is my goal when reading God’s Word: I want to find light that shows me my way every day so that my life can be lived to please my Lord. I believe that in so doing I will also be happiest. I need the wisdom of God to light my steps. I need the discipline it brings in order to truly find meaningful life.

And so this proverb is a foundation to my day. It sets the tone for how I open the Bible. From God’s Word will come that light, that discipline, and that life. It is worth it to begin each day with an open Bible and a ready heart, asking the Spirit of God to shine the way!

O Lord,

Your Word is my lamp. Show me my path. Teach me Your truth. Discipline where I stray and build the character of Christ in me as You show me how to obey! You give me life in Your Word! May I live it as You give it. 

Amen

only God

Whom have I in heaven but you?

And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you.

Psalm 73:25

The heart whose sole affection is God will know constant worship. Look at this expression of worship in this verse! It shows what true, single-minded devotion to God looks like. Nothing in heaven or earth is greater than God, our Creator, our Sustainer, our Father! He is our hope and our future. He is our present help and friend. God is all we should desire.

Yet there are many things, many of them very good things, that can pull me away from this kind of devotion. The big thing that can do this in my life is “busy”ness. And the good time of busy that comes with ministry can strangely become something that I look to more than God. I can almost worship it. I must repent of such misplaced devotion!

O Lord,

I thank You for the privilege of serving You. But I confess that service is not the same as worship of You. Keep my heart focused on You, Lord Jesus. Amen

faithful and safe

And the word of the LORD came to him: “Depart from here and turn eastward and hide yourself by the brook Cherith, which is east of the Jordan. You shall drink from the brook, and I have commanded the ravens to feed you there.”

1 Kings 17:2-4

No matter how hard things may seem, God takes care of His people. Elijah came to ministry in a difficult cultural climate. Ahab and Jezebel led Israel in continuous, wanton idolatry. It was as if God had been wiped clean of the cultural memory, with no cultural or political interest in the worship of Yahweh at all.

The Lord brought a devastating environmental disaster upon the land with a drought in order to draw His people back in repentance. He used Elijah as His prophet to announce this judgment on Israel’s sin. God confronted the leadership using one man.

Although Elijah was considered an enemy of the state due to his stand for righteousness, he was untouchable in God’s plan! God kept Elijah safe and sound. Camped out by the brook Cherith, Elijah had every need met. The flowing stream and the daily food deliveries from ravens kept God’s truth speaker alive.

The God Who created meal delivery by air certainly knows our need today! And He will care for those faithful to the gospel in dangerous times. Of that we can be sure.

True Guilt

It is a guilt offering; he has indeed incurred guilt before the LORD.

Leviticus 5:19

When I sin

     and disobey

          what God commands

or act in a wrong way

     whether I understand 

          or not...

I am guilty.

I have sinned.

I need forgiveness.

I must repent.

True guilt

    is helpful consequence

for what I have done

     in response and repentance

            believing God’s truth...

I need forgiveness.

I trust Jesus.

Guilt is covered.

Sin is forgiven.

one

There is one body and one Spirit—just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call— one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.

Ephesians 4:4-6

I write this grieving over what now is. In over thirty years of ministry leadership, I’ve never seen Christ’s church more divided than this contentious year of 2020. Our culture already fights over so many things. It is expected that those without Christ would be that way. But the church is designed to be a place of joyous, worshipful unity! Oh how we need to be reminded that NOTHING in this world defines us. We are to be exclusively and beautifully ONE in Jesus. We are divided and disobedient when we let medical masks, health guidelines, racial injustices, political opinions, and outspoken social media commentary and preferences pull our attention and worship away from Jesus! C’mon Christians! We are called to be much better than this! And I include myself in that plea.

Look at the unity in these three verses that should always be a part of who we are all the time: 1) One Spirit of God indwelling us. 2) One body of Christ, the church. 3) One hope of an abundant and eternal life. 4) One Lord — our Savior Jesus Christ. 5) One faith — the gospel and sound doctrine. 6) One baptism that unites use in Christ as His Church. 7) One God — the Father of us all.

Oh that we would center our actions and our conversations around Christian unity like this again and repent of our sinful, selfish, ugly divisions! Oh Jesus, hold this prayer in my heart and give me grace to love Your Church like You do!

five sparrows

Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies? And not one of them is forgotten before God. Why, even the hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not; you are of more value than many sparrows.

Luke 12:6-7

God loves people. And the person telling us this truth in this passage is Jesus Himself, God in the flesh, Who would give His life on the cross to show the immeasurable love of God for people. Humans put a price on virtually everything. But the price that God paid to save us is the ultimate cost. We need not fear. Jesus has proven His love for us!

What God treasures at the cost of the life of His Son, we should not trifle with. This is one reason why human actions that devalue life such as murder, abortion, racial hatred, genocide, and war are all evil. When we set our estimation of the value of all people everywhere from God’s perspective, all human life is precious, to be recognized as bought with the blood of Jesus!

Even the most corrupt sinner has been loved by Jesus. He died and rose for all humanity. No life is worthless in the eyes of our Savior, and should not be in ours either. We should treasure that truth!

when God shows up

So I arose and went out into the valley, and behold, the glory of the LORD stood there, like the glory that I had seen by the Chebar canal, and I fell on my face.

Ezekiel 3:23

There is a weird bit of Christian slang that I sometimes hear friends toss around to describe moments of transcendence: “God showed up”. Usually they are describing some experience of becoming aware of God’s working... a meaningful worship service, a helpful spiritual insight, or perhaps the conversion of someone they know. 

I get the slang because I have used it myself a time or two. But if we read the Old Testament prophets, we might be a lot less casual about tossing the phrase around! For Ezekiel, when God showed up, His glory was manifested visibly. The prophet fell on his face in reverent fear! It was kind of a scary sort of wonderful! Encountering God should lead to a demotion of our personal sense of importance and an exaltation of the Lord through our sincere, humble, and thoughtful worship.

prayer for wisdom and insight

Get wisdom; get insight;

do not forget, and do not turn away from the words of my mouth.

Do not forsake her, and she will keep you;

love her, and she will guard you.

Proverbs 4:5-6

O wise God,

I need Your wisdom and Your insight to direct all of my thinking, my attitudes, and my actions today. I am a sinner, grateful, Jesus, that You are my Savior. Yet I am too easily tempted to turn away from Your words and make ruinous choices. I am too easily distracted by false wisdom and alluring patterns of thinking that come from my flesh and this world. Help me to not turn from Your Word!

I need wisdom now for the day that is before me. Give wisdom to discern what Your Word is saying so that I may share Your truth with others. You can make changes in me and in them as Your Spirit works in us through Your Word. I need insight. Please show me where my own heart is astray as I talk with others today. And if You could help direct me through spiritual insight to understand both my heart and theirs, our words together will come to honor You and can have lasting, eternal impact.

Lord, give me wisdom. Lord, give me insight. I will not forget that You alone provide these.

Amen

refuge, rock, and savior

Be to me a rock of refuge,

to which I may continually come;

you have given the command to save me,

for you are my rock and my fortress.

Psalm 71:3

Every person relies on some source of strength, some inner fortitude, some place of solace. You either work it up internally or focus on something or someone externally. David makes it clear in this psalm that God was his source, refuge, and strength-giver. He put himself into God’s care. He sought God as his secure rock and found God’s saving mercy and grace.

God is my rock. He is my higher ground of perspective over all that is around me. God provides the solid ground on which I can stand.

God is my fortress. In Jesus I find my security, my safety, my protection from the storms of life and the onslaught of evil in this world. I am secure.

God is my Savior. God gave the command to save me, and Jesus then willingly gave Himself out of love for all sinners and in obedience to the Father’s will. I am safe by faith in Him!

Chemosh and Molech

Then Solomon built a high place for Chemosh the abomination of Moab, and for Molech the abomination of the Ammonites, on the mountain east of Jerusalem. And so he did for all his foreign wives, who made offerings and sacrificed to their gods.

1 Kings 11:7-8

Solomon’s devotion to God alone was quickly lost when his passion for a sexually polygamous lifestyle overtook his heart. He literally loved THOUSANDS of women. He kept these wives and concubines in a royal harem, and since many of these women were also gentiles who were “given” to him in political treaty, he sought to keep them happy.

He built pagan temples to their false gods and allowed the worship practices of these idols to proliferate in his own household. Chemosh and Molech were particularly loathesome and evil false gods, both of which required human child sacrifice in rites of worship. Solomon’s lust took him way off track. And the gross nature of his idolatry brought God’s discipline. The kingdom never survived this.

The path to any idolatry starts with the heart. That is why I must let scripture examine my wants and motives. The heart and the things I want can easily lead me away from worshiping God.

walls

For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility...

Ephesians 2:14

Christians must not be divided when Jesus is our peace. But when Christians fight, fuss, and display divisiveness to those who look to us to see what reconciliation should be, it is solely because they have let something or someone other than Jesus define and lead them. Jesus changes hearts, breaks down barriers, and unifies groups of people. Nothing else can do this reconciling work that Jesus does!

Jesus first did this by erasing the barrier of Jewish law that was destroying the early Christian movement. The Jews did not need to keep the law to be saved by Jesus. The Gentiles did not need to do so either. The temple veil was torn from top to bottom to forever demonstrate that the Lamb of God is Who takes away the sin of the world. And the original “dividing wall” was broken down in the death and resurrection of Jesus.

False saviors do occasionally show up in the church. I am witnessing this now. Politics is an ugly one, causing division in the church when it should not. Cultural issues are another divider. They have combined horribly in 2020 to disaster in the testimony of the church. Why is it that for hundreds of years in America, Sunday morning is the most segregated time? Could it be that we are content in our sinful divisions, unwilling to believe that Jesus has the power to unite all believers of every race and background? “They prefer their own culture” is what all sides think. And the dividing wall of preference is built up when Jesus wants to tear it down so that we all clearly see just Him!

Oh how the church of every culture needs to draw close to the Savior Who has brought both Jew and Gentile together in ONE body! Oh how I need to guard my heart against comfortability with this unbiblical division.