peace for anxious hearts

For thus said the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel,

“In returning and rest you shall be saved;

in quietness and in trust shall be your strength.”

But you were unwilling,

Isaiah 30:15

God longed to restore Israel, but their own sinful choices had them frantically running away from Him in the opposite direction. He longed to give them peace. God longed to calm anxious hearts. But as long as they rejected Himm, they could not find that peace.

God loves to show us His grace and mercy. Even as Israel ran from God and right into the wall of His justice, God offered His grace for their return. He waited to be gracious (Isaiah 30:18). The Lord loves His people. He longs to bless them if they would but stop running from Him and come again to Him.

And so His promise of peace is there for our own anxious hearts. The rest that He promises is the best. The quietness of soul that comes in trusting in God is the source of an amazing joy and an inexplicable perspective on life. It is what our hearts need to feel and our minds need to know.

sarcasm unleashed

Then Job answered and said:

“No doubt you are the people,

and wisdom will die with you."

Job 12:1-2

Sarcasm isn't always a good thing, but in this case with Job, it is a sign of his health. He is responding to yet another string of personal attacks disguised as "friendly advice". Sarcasm shows that Job has not been taken in by the cut-and-dried inadequate theology of the masses that his friends subscribe to vigorously. It shows he knows God better than they do.

This delicious dig at their counsel: "You ARE the people... wisdom dies with you..." shows that Job stills trusts God more than the people around him. He may be tired of their approach, but he can still make his case for the truth that God has revealed to him in his suffering.

So the right sprinkling of sarcastic humor punctuates and seasons Job at this point. It is an insight into his soul and though he is suffering, he refuses to change what he knows about God. It is a way to stand for the truth, maintain his perspective, and relieve some of the stress of the constant attacks coming from well-meaning but misguided counselors.

always before me

I have set the LORD always before me;

because he is at my right hand, I shall not be shaken.

Psalm 16:8

God is always present. We cannot run from His intimate involvement in our lives. But we must be more than just aware of this. We must incline our hearts toward God so that we personally apply ourselves to the advantage that comes with the accessibility of a God Who is near.

David kept God "always before" him. He preoccupied his thoughts and purposes around God. Not only was God always with David, but David made conscious choices to keep his awareness focused upon God. And that way in which David applied himself to the relationship he had with God made all the difference. God was near, and David did not have to succumb to his worst fears. He could trust God because God was his foremost life's thought and commitment.

There is a strength in personally committing to good theology. It is one thing thought to just know that the scriptures teach God's omnipresence. It is a much better thing to hold your heart close to the nearness of God and habituate your life's experiences around that fact. Personal disciplines that center my day around Bible reading and prayer help to focus me in this way. And my life has been blessed even in struggles when I do this. So I purpose to set the LORD always before me.

second generation says "meh".

And all that generation also were gathered to their fathers. And there arose another generation after them who did not know the Lord or the work that he had done for Israel.

Judges 2:10

This account of the history of Israel after the conquest of Canaan describes a culture that lost its spiritual roots. The story scares me because I see the same dangerous pattern happening today. The worship of God collapses when a new generation fails to appreciate where the old generation was saved by God's hand. In the case of Israel, once the land no longer needed to be fought for, the easy life lulled them from God. It got easier to adopt the idolatry of the pagans around them. They did not know the Lord nor His work for them.

I see it now. My parents came to Christ unchurched, making me a first generation Christian when I believed. The gospel was a new thing in our family. It saved us in every sense. I know the Lord and His works, even in tremendous pain and loss that visited my home. God is real and His word is true. I know what once was and I know how the gospel saved us. I am blessed.

But somewhere along the way I have watched the generation after me take this for granted. My kids did not experience the gospel change in quite the same way as I did. The "second generation" Christians don't see what the first generation ones do. It is thus easier for them to be lured away. Indeed, I have noticed evanglicals in their 30's and younger who have a disturbing casualness to orthodoxy and don't commit to a real engaging evangelism. We must encourage these young Christians to look for God at work lest they forget and the book of Judges become the epitaph of the church.

sojourn

Abraham planted a tamarisk tree in Beersheba and called there on the name of the Lord, the Everlasting God. And Abraham sojourned many days in the land of the Philistines.

Genesis 21:33-34

A stranger there

faith's forefather

trusted God

and journeyed on

Flocks grazed

children played

in a land unowned

while they travelled on

Pitching tents

by faith living

pursuing the Lord

obeying God's Word

Content to believe

a land would one day be his

Abraham staked claim

and let God build his fame

Always a stranger

but a believer still

he wandered a land

seeing God's hand

A son now here

God's promise known

The old man believed

and good gifts received

religion blinds; grace enlightens

He answered, “Every plant that my heavenly Father has not planted will be rooted up. Let them alone; they are blind guides. And if the blind lead the blind, both will fall into a pit.”

Matthew 5:13-14

The tragedy with the Pharisees was that as close as they thought their smug legalism got them to God, they were really totally alienated from God in their sin and self-righteousness. The real proof of this was their failure to recognize God when He spoke directly to them as Jesus. Religion blinded them and made them blind leaders of the blind.

When men twist God's truth to their own path, the result is a religion led by the blind. It is what Jesus encountered in the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law. It can be found today. I have seen it far too often. I have even fallen for it in fundamentalist legalism of my past, and can slip into it again so easily. I remember being liberated by searching out the New Testament for myself in my teens and finding none of the works-based rules of my childhood in there.

And so I have been on a life's quest to live in that truth without reverting to simplistic rules that miss God's grace. I want to be a plant rooted in good soil by the Father. I want to be nurtured in His grace, live in it, grow in it, and show it in a world that needs grace over sin... not rules-based false righteousness that creates more sin.

the gospel and social activism

So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.

Romans 10:17

The gospel must be proclaimed for faith to truly exist on the earth. Faith comes by hearing. It is that clear. If the gospel is not preached, faith will not come and people will not be changed. It must be heard.

These days there is a lot of pressure for Christians to be involved in social action. I believe that such good works are a result of the gospel changing us. But they cannot really do what we hope them to do without the gospel. The gospel must attend our commitments to social change. We cannot end sex slavery, poor health conditions, water shortages, etc. on our own human power. Our own humanity got us into these messes!

The fact that the gospel has not attended recent cries for social action has created some really weird situations among Christians. We now have some "Christian gay rights activists". They have chosen to point out the evil of descriminatory prejudice while ignoring what the scriptures teach about homosexual practice. They conveniently ignore scriptural teaching on marriage to insist upon redefinition of marriage. But the gospel must address the entire issue, and not just the point that gets us social acceptance.

Christians should care about social issues. But we care with the gospel on our lips and in our hands. We know that hearing the word of Christ brings faith to some. And that faith in the gospel saves people who can then live the changed lives of the redeemed. The faith that comes by hearing is what the world needs most.