Strict Obedience

In 1 Kings 13, there is an account that makes me scratch my head in wonder. It takes place soon after Solomon dies, and his kingdom is split between his son Rehoboam and the rebel, Jeroboam. A man of God (who is not named) is sent to Jeroboam in the northern tribes to prophecy that the idolatrous altars Jeroboam has built will be shattered. When the man of God left Rehoboam’s kingdom, he was instructed by God not to eat or drink anything until he returned home.

After the catastrophic prophecy was spoken, Jeroboam apparently felt guilty, so he offered to take the man of God to his home for a meal. The man of God rightly refused, quoting God’s direct orders. However, on his way home, another prophet (also unnamed) who lived in Israel got a word from God (so the text says). He was told to invite the man of God to his house for a meal. When the invitation was first given, it was rightly refused. Then the messenger said that an angel had told his master, the prophet, to invite him. He went.

When the food hit the man of God’s lips, the prophet told him that he was going to die because he disobeyed God’s direct command. The only way I can make sense of this is to assume that God worked through the prophet to test the man of God. At first this seems unfair or even capricious of God. It is not. God regularly tested His people to see if they would remain faithful. Remember when He asked Abraham to sacrifice Isaac. Think about the twelve spies sent into Canaan after the Exodus. Also, after the land had been mostly conquered, God told Joshua that He purposely left some unconquered people to test the Israelites’ obedience. Jesus told Peter that Satan had asked for him so that he could test him. Testing is part of any good education program – obviously it’s part God’s program too.

I have been tested on a number of occasions. When I was running my own business, it was very tempting to try to hide revenue from the IRS. I admit, fear of the auditor was as great a motivator as fear of God, but I did my best to follow the law. When I bought a car from a private party in Michigan, I was required to report the price to the Secretary of State so it could be taxed. I asked one counter person if she would believe I paid $5.00 for the car. She said she would write down whatever I told her. Tempting? I told her the true price. However, on two occasions, I fudged on the purchase price because other items were included in the total that were not strictly part of the vehicle. Curiously, though I loved both those vehicles, I ended up taking a huge loss when I sold them, and the vehicle that replaced them was a lemon. Punishment for disobedience?

I watched something happen in a church years ago that also makes me wonder. They were entering a building program, and the pastor pledged before God and the congregation that they would not borrow a single dollar to complete the project. When the architectural proposal came in with a magnificent edifice costing millions, the leadership reneged on the pledge and took out a significant mortgage. A few short years later, attendance dwindled, and finances collapsed; the church had to sell the building and move. Was it judgment for disobedience? Only God knows.

I sometimes wonder if American Christians are being tested with prosperity. My Social Security benefit puts me below the federal poverty level, yet I make five times the median annual income of the rest of the world’s people. The truth is that the poorest people in America are richer than most of the world’s population. For most Americans, there is little motivation to trust God when all their physical needs are met with such abundance. Our superior medical system takes care of our health needs. Ironically, our religious freedom has allowed churches to evolve into social clubs that seldom mention our need for God’s saving grace. Sadly, it is the persecuted church outside of America that demonstrates the true meaning of faith most often.

Americans were once a people who lived by the principles of the Judeo-Christian tradition as instituted by the Founding Fathers. That is no longer the case. I don’t need to mention all the ways that American society has slid from those founding principles. One religious conservative spokesman dared to suggest that the attacks on 9/11 might have been God’s judgment on an apostate America. America had failed the test. I won’t pretend to know if that was God’s intent when He allowed the attacks. I will say it is a sad irony that the Islamic perpetrators considered their actions to be a holy war against “The Great Satan” aka America.

The Apostle Paul told the Corinthians that the events in the Old Testament were meant to be lessons for the church. When God gives a lesson, He always tests His students; this is the clear message of all Scripture. God also gave us intelligence and reason to learn His lessons and hopefully to pass the test. Some years ago, John Stott wrote, “The true function of the mind is not to stand in judgment on God’s Word, but to sit in humility under it, eager to hear it, grasp it, apply it and obey it in the practicalities of daily living.”^[1] (Italics mine)

My purpose in writing this is not political. I don’t think America will get back to her roots by changing leadership or writing new laws. Strictly speaking, it is not America that needs to be saved. God’s people are no longer an ethnic or national group. The only way we can hope to stop America’s slide into paganism is for individual Christians to be strict in their obedience to God’s Word and outspoken in their proclamation of its requirements. Another name for that kind of activity is revival. A nationwide revival of the church would cure most of what is wrong in this country. That kind of revival is sorely needed in the American church. That kind of revival usually begins with one person. UR1.

Related posts: Merely Christian; What’s Your Ministry; Christianity: Religion or Philosophy; Necessary Obedience

^[1] John R. W. Stott, God’s Word for Today’s World (Cumbria, UK: Langham Preaching Resources, 2015), 11.

Your Gift from God

If you are a believer, you have a gift. Every believer. A gift. If you don’t believe me, read 1 Corinthians 12:4-11. Paul explained that the Holy Spirit grants a special, spiritually empowered ability to believers for the benefit of the body. The Spirit does this as He wishes not as the believer might wish. The Corinthian church was kind of a mess in the first century because the believers wanted the showy gifts – speaking in tongues, prophecy, healing, miracles – so that they could show off. Paul took pains to correct them: the body needs all kinds of gifts, not all of them would bring acclaim to the bearer. In fact, some might never be known for their contribution, but all were equally important.

I admit with sadness that over the years, I have heard countless “mature” Christians say that they have no idea what their gift is. Imagine this: you wake up on Christmas morning, bypass gifts underneath the tree, eat breakfast, go for a walk and watch a football game. The next day you go to work and leave the presents untouched under the tree. Same the next day and the next. Years later, someone asks what you got for Christmas, and you can’t say because you never opened your present. That would be sad if we were talking about Santa; we’re talking about God’s gift to you. How sad is that?

I have two reasons to say with confidence that my gift is teaching. Years ago, I was praying and fasting at a time in my life when I had no clear direction for God’s will for me. I was alone in prayer on the second day of my fast asking for guidance when I heard a voice – I don’t know if you would have heard anything; the voice of God in the Bible was often mistaken for thunder – but I swear I heard a voice say, “You are a teacher.” That was dramatic, but not particularly helpful at that moment. I had a teaching degree, and I was attending Bible college at the time, but I was working the night shift at 7-Eleven to support my wife and new baby daughter. There were so many newly minted teachers at that time that finding a job was nearly impossible.

Eventually, I found a job teaching in a Christian school, and over the next decade or so, I earned two graduate degrees in education-related fields. I thought I wanted a doctorate in education so that I could teach teachers. For several years, I taught; I worked in administration; then I burned out. I took what I thought was going to be a short sabbatical that ended up lasting twelve years. Driving a truck cross-country of all things. I compared my life to Moses’ years in the desert on the back side of Midian tending sheep. Paul recounts being taught by Jesus Himself for three years in the Arabian desert (possibly not far from Moses’ plot). But just as Moses and Paul learned invaluable lessons in their deserts, I learned many things in my solitary hours behind the wheel praying, meditating, and listening to Christian radio messages and music. Perhaps most important, I learned patience because you won’t last long in OTR trucking without it.

I said I have two reasons to believe I am called and gifted as a teacher. The Voice was the first; the second is that over the years, the church has confirmed that God gives me things to say, and He empowers me to say them for the benefit of His Body. This is all good, but as I wrote in my last post, I’m not sure what I am accomplishing at this season of my life. I may have to wait for that to be revealed when I am on the New Earth with the New Heaven as my eternal home. I will say this much with full confidence: my lesson today is that if you belong to Jesus Christ, you have a gift. More than that, if you don’t know what your gift is, I pity you and the Body you serve because they are missing out on what God has given you for their benefit.

If you do know what your spiritual gift is, I challenge you to make sure you are using it to the best of your ability. In his Corinthian letter, Paul likened the various gifts to different parts of the human body. Imagine, he says, a body with missing parts. A body without legs is crippled. A body without eyes is blind. A body without ears is deaf. A body lacking any of its necessary parts is unable to function properly. Whatever part God has designed you to play, you must play it, or His work in the Body will be hindered. Pledge now that you will strive to be a helper and not a hinderance. Jesus’ Body needs you.

 

Five Hundred

I hit a milestone with my last post; I have published five hundred articles. I consider writing to be my ministry in this season of my life, so those articles and the five books I have on Amazon represent the fruit of my labor. No, that’s not right. I don’t know what fruit my labor has produced. I write because I believe God has given me something to say; the change in my readers’ lives is the fruit. I am reminded of a song by Ray Boltz, “Thank You.” In it he imagines he has gone to Heaven and the people he has impacted throughout his life come to him to thank him for “giving to the Lord.” They say, “I am a life that was changed.”

I have no idea how many lives may have been affected by my writing. My books on Amazon are still setting records for the longest time at the top of the not-selling list. The statistics feature on my blog reports that I have had over seventy thousand views, but I am convinced that a large number of those are an anomaly. I suspect some type of robot program is sweeping through the articles and registering views that are not real readers. My largest audience in the last seven days is from Hong Kong, of all places, registering hundreds per day. Last October I supposedly had one thousand views per day from Singapore. Myanmar showed one hundred fifty on one day last year.

Those numbers are ridiculously out of proportion since I have only five hundred articles. Readers would have to open each one twice a day to hit one thousand views. Not likely. However, during my blog’s history, I have had views from around the world on a regular basis. For quite a while, Russia showed the largest readership after the US. China has risen to the top lately. India and most of western Europe regularly appear in the stats. At one time there was an obvious web crawler showing up with a name in Cyrillic, so I suspect that was a robot, although why the Russians wanted to check up on me is still a mystery.

Most of the time, the referring URL’s and the devices used suggest personal use, however. It humbles me to think that people from around the globe are reading my blog. I am looking forward to that Ray Boltz experience so that I can see how God has used me. Understand, I am not bragging. Seventy thousand views in all the years I have been publishing is a drop in the ocean compared to today’s more popular blogs. Seventy thousand per day would be marginal for many of them. I don’t care. I believe God is using me in His way for His glory. How He does it or why He does is not for me to know. Not yet.

I am not sharing this for self-aggrandizement. There is a lesson here for every believer. There are many of God’s servants in the Bible who did what they were told and never knew how important it was. Think of Abraham waiting his whole life for the promise of a great nation from his offspring but never seeing come to pass. Think of Joseph spending years in prison and then in Pharoah’s house not knowing why. Think of Moses leading the Israelites out of Egypt and through the desert only to be kept from entering the promised land himself. Think of David being chased by King Saul for years after he was anointed as Saul’s replacement. Think of Saul the persecutor seen from the perspective of Paul the Apostle.

I have college degrees, years of ministry experience, published books, and this little blog. I say with Paul that I count all of that as dung, “because of the surpassing greatness of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord.” I also agree with Paul that I am the least of my Lord’s servants. That doesn’t keep me from hoping that something of eternal value has come from my labors. When Paul told the Romans that all things work together for good for those who love God, I believe he meant that God’s good plan would be accomplished through the lives of his faithful servants. As I have said before, Paul’s life is proof that the “good” he referred to was not always evident in his life. When he catalogues all his trials as God’s bond slave, it is obvious that “good” didn’t mean healthy, wealthy and famous to Paul. “Good” meant that he would hear, “Well done” when he stepped into eternity with his Savior.

Toward the end of his life, Paul proclaimed that he had completed the race and kept the faith. He knew there was a crown waiting for him which he planned to lay at Jesus’ feet in humble gratitude for all Christ had done, not what Paul had done. Saul the persecutor had a great deal to be sorry for; Paul the Apostle had much to be thankful for: God had rescued him from the fate of his namesake, King Saul, and placed him on the path prepared for Paul the Apostle. I pray that I am more like Paul than Saul. I hope I will see the fruit of my ministry someday. Because I know God uses broken people like me, like Paul, I believe I will hear, “Well done” one day. I hope you too are looking forward to hearing from Jesus when you meet Him on the first day of the rest of eternity.

Related Posts: The Goodness of God in the Bad Times; Working All Things for Good

A Christian Response to the Immigration Problem

 Several years ago, I wrote a piece called “Man the Lifeboats.” At the time, the situation at our border with Mexico was going from bad to worse. Since that time, the policies of the current administration in Washington have multiplied the problems exponentially. When I originally wrote the article, I was accused of being xenophobic – that I hated foreigners. That was not true then, and it is not true now. I love with the love of Christ all people regardless of their ethnic or national origin. This means I care about how they are treated. I sympathize with people who due to political or economic conditions find it difficult to stay where they are. I just don’t know the best way to show that love and sympathy.

A few months ago, Phillip Yancey wrote about a church near the southern border that was attempting to put a face and hands on the Jesus who loves the people who are streaming into America illegally. I wrote a response to Yancey in which I agreed in principle but disagreed with his conclusions. Since then, I have been struggling to come up with a Christian solution to the immigration problem. There is no dispute that individual Christians are to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, and shelter the homeless when possible. The greater problem is how a secular government can do its duty to its citizens while providing something like Christian charity to the immigrants.

My suggestions address several aspects of the problem. First, we must close the border. Completely. This is a primary role of American government according to our Constitution: protect its citizens by maintaining border control. Without borders, a country is simply a land mass and not a nation. With uncontrolled immigration, real enemies and essential threats to our way of life will flood the country. Read the statistics; they already have. Set aside the criminals and terrorists for a moment. The innocent families that flock to our country for a taste of the American dream are causing a tremendous strain on an already busted budget. As I wrote in “Man the Lifeboats,” we cannot rescue every person in the world who wants to come here. If we try, we will sink our own boat. It is the responsibility of our federal government to assure that that does not happen.

Once we slam the door on illegal immigration, we must apply the immigration laws that are on the books. We welcome anyone who comes here legally. We apply due diligence to assure that they are not going to bring us grief if we let them in. Yes, I know the wait to enter legally is up to ten years in some cases. There is a reason for that: we can only absorb a limited number of new people at a time. This allows the immigrant to become a productive member of society, thereby contributing to his own welfare. When immigration is allowed to flow unrestricted as it has for the past several years, our support systems are overwhelmed with people who are providing nothing to maintain the system. Legal citizens are then forced to provide support through their taxes. Many citizens resent that; it smacks of taxation without representation. Sounds like the patriot’s cry of 1776.

Third, we must deal firmly but fairly with the millions who have entered illegally. As much as I might like to say throw them all out, Christian charity demands a more nuanced approach. At the very least, sanctuary cities must be eliminated. For cities who want to defy federal law, all federal programs must be withdrawn. This is common sense and abides by the biblical standard of reward and punishment. The New Testament clearly promotes individual submission to authority; the same principle must apply to groups of individuals who identify as a city. Fair is fair.

Next, we must transport any illegal entrants we can identify back to the place they fled, unless it can be proven that dire harm will come to them by that action. There may be diplomatic or fiscal measures that can be taken to encourage the cooperation of those countries who may deny access to the information we need. The carrot or the stick method is usually effective in tough situations. It is difficult if not impossible to estimate how many illegals are actually in need of asylum, but I believe the few who qualify can be found, and the rest can be repatriated. As an alternative, adult illegals could be offered a path to citizenship by serving in a branch of our military for four years active and two years reserve. Honorable discharges could be given the opportunity to become citizens.

My next suggestion is unfair to those who are waiting to enter the country legally, but I think it reflects a Christian attitude. If a person or family has been in the US for a considerable time (5 years? 10 years?), they should be given the opportunity to apply for citizenship if they have no criminal record, and if they are gainfully employed and self-supporting. Before allowing them to apply for citizenship, an arrangement must be made to pay their back taxes and their Social Security and Medicare contributions since many will not have had a Social Security number – at least not a legal one. If those conditions are not met, they too must be repatriated.

I realize that sending people back to where they came from will be a difficult and costly process. I suspect it will cost less to fly a family home than to feed, clothe and house them for a year. More importantly, if allowed to stay, the family would burden our economy for many years. Ultimately, it is not about what it costs but what we gain. Some might say this sounds un-Christian or at best unfair. I do not believe it is either one. However, if adopted, it should eventually have the effect of stemming the flow of immigrants. If they realize that the door is closed and people are being sent back, fewer will try to break in.

Make this personal. If a stranger walked up to your house, broke open your door and demanded that you feed, clothe, and house him, what would you say? When you discovered that his extended family numbered in the hundreds, and he had given them directions to your house, what would you do? Does your Christian duty require you to accede to his demands and turn over your home and your bankbook to him? I think not. The Fourth Amendment promises security in our persons and dwellings. You don’t have to be a Christian to recognize that criminal trespass is not acceptable. The Fourth Amendment simply echoes what the Bible teaches: God’s people have a right to private property. Violation of that right was dealt with seriously in the Mosaic law and reinforced in the New Testament.

Finally, my last suggestion has to do with individuals, not the government. Any Christian who is serious about helping the less fortunate – in this country or elsewhere – has the responsibility to give of their resources either directly or vicariously through any one of many Christian organizations that are fulfilling the biblical command to help the poor. Buy a bunch of thrift-store blankets and make a bagful of sandwiches and go to the homeless in your town. Be Jesus to them. If that is not practical for you, write a check every month to a charity that is doing God’s work. If every Christian did this, the plight of the poor and destitute would be improved worldwide. That is my Christian response to the immigration problem. If you like it, you have my permission to send copies of this article to your US Congresspersons.

Related posts: Examining Christian Charity; Loving Biblically

The Hidden Things

Several years ago, I wrote an article called “Daily Bible Reading.” I confessed to having abandoned my reading habit because I was getting depressed with the depiction of God as a God of wrath. (See also “The Goodness of Wrath.”) It is hard to imagine a way to bring modern people to worship a wrathful deity. As I wrote then, “The idea that God is sovereign, and humans must bow to His will is distasteful to pagans in any age.” Besides the distastefulness of wrath to moderns, there are many other things about God that are hard for them to understand.

I am fascinated by Moses’ address to the Israelites just before they crossed the Jordan into the promised land. God had revealed to Moses that He knew His people were going to become unfaithful and fall into idolatrous worship. He promised He would punish them and send them into captivity, but that He would preserve a remnant to fulfill His covenant promise. Moses told the people, “The hidden things belong to the Lord our God, but the revealed things belong to us and our children forever, so that we may follow all the words of this law.” In other words, don’t try to figure God out; just do what He says.

A bit later Moses made this statement: “See, today I have set before you life and prosperity, death and adversity. For I am commanding you today to love the Lord your God, to walk in his ways, and to keep his commands, statutes, and ordinances, so that you may live and multiply, and the Lord your God may bless you in the land you are entering to possess.” In the King James Version that first sentence is rendered, “See, I have set before thee this day life and good, and death and evil.” Obey Me and all will be well; disobey Me and things will get nasty.

Our self-made, self-important generation doesn’t like the idea of humility, especially when it includes the hidden motivation of a God who makes “evil” happen. The truth is that evil is not a thing at all; evil is the absence of something: goodness. As I have explained before, the Hebrew word for evil is not necessarily a moral judgement; it simply describes a situation where God’s goodness is absent. When Israel fell into idolatry, God’s presence was removed, and all manner of bad things happened. That was their fault, not God’s.

In my study today, I learned something interesting about the word “humility” in the New Testament Greek. “The Greek word for  humility is a compound word. The first part means “low.” In a metaphorical sense it was used to mean “poor” or “unimportant.” The second part of the word means ‘to think’ or ‘to judge.’ The combined meaning is to think of yourself as lowly or unimportant.”

I learned that this word never appears in classical Greek. It had to be coined by Christians. The Greeks and Romans had no word for humility because they despised that attitude. Many people in our day have the same opinion. Humility is considered weakness. This requirement of Christian living is a mystery to non-believers, but it should not be a “hidden thing” to Christians. We are told to, “Humble yourself in the sight of God, and He will lift you up.”

The clearest expression of this is found in Paul’s letter to the Philippians. He says, “⁵ Think this in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, who, existing in the form of God, did not consider being equal with God something to be grasped, but emptied himself taking the form of a slave, becoming in the likeness of people. And being found in appearance like a man, he humbled himself becoming obedient to the point of death, that is, death on a cross. Therefore, also God exalted him and graciously granted him the name above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow.”

 

There is no hiding the fact that we are to adopt the same attitude that Jesus had. His incarnation and death on the cross are the ultimate demonstration of humility. His unconditional love for all humankind is a result of His humility which we are also called to imitate. God’s reasons for allowing adversity in our lives may remain hidden until we join Him in glory. However, Moses’ words to the Israelites apply equally to us. “See, today I have set before you life and prosperity, death and adversity. For I am commanding you today to love the Lord your God, to walk in his ways, and to keep his commands… so that… the Lord your God may bless you… But if your heart turns away and you do not listen… you will certainly perish.”

The world around us is certainly perishing. The reason why God is allowing that to happen may remain hidden to some. No one who reads the Bible with an open heart will wonder why. If the hallmark of our lives is humility and love, those around us will have the opportunity to uncover some of the things that were hidden from them. They may make the decision to place their faith in the God who never hides His love. Why He loves us may be hidden, but how He loves is there for all to see. We just have to show them.

Related Posts: Necessary Obedience; Blessings of Obedience

Long Distance Relationships

In this age of the Internet, long distance relationships are more common than they used to be. Previous generations had two options: mail that might take days or weeks to arrive and more recently, phones service was available that required long distance toll rates to connect. Today, I can email or text someone and expect it to be delivered within seconds. Video services make it possible to have virtual face-to-face contact at no charge with the right provider. Amazing.

We have all heard of people meeting on the Internet and ending up married, sometimes with less than pleasant results. Even with the ease of connecting online, there are vital components of a relationship that cannot be duplicated. Sociologists are noticing a change in the way young people interact with one another. They rely on and often prefer virtual contact instead of IRL (in real life) as they put it. Eye contact, body language, tone of voice, and physical contact are missing from online relationships. Those things matter.

Now, you might be wondering how Heaven matters in this. First, God made humans social beings. It is true that our interpersonal relationships were affected by the fall into sin, but damaged or not, we need social interaction with others. God’s command to care for others always has a physical component not possible in virtual reality. True, I could Zelle you some money if you are in need, but that seems hollow in comparison with handing you the cash or bringing you a meal or fixing your car. Caring for the needy online just doesn’t seem to cut it.

The second way Heaven matters in relationships is more complicated. This is why I was prompted to write this article. John MacArthur has been emphasizing the need for a relationship with God in his Strength for Today devotional that I am reading. I have been asking myself if I truly have an intimate relationship with God. There are many aspects of my relationship with Him that resemble long distance relationships. I love Him dearly, but He is not physically present to me. I can talk to Him in prayer, but I have only heard a voice response (I think) once. I believe He meets my needs, but there is seldom a one-to-one correlation between the need and the provision.

Someone is thinking about now that my relationship with God is spiritual in nature; therefore, it will be different from human relationships. True. But I cannot deny feeling the longing expressed by the Psalmist who said his heart longed for God like a deer pants for water. The deer can lap up the water; I can only bask in the knowledge that the Spirit of God dwells in me – spiritually.

MacArthur made a good point saying that knowing God is not sufficient for the kind of relationship we are supposed to have. Many people know a great deal about God, but do not have nor desire a relationship. When Jesus said that eternal life was found in knowing God and the One He sent, He used a Greek word for “know” that implies an experiential knowledge. We are supposed to experience God. I am a highly intellectual person; I know a great deal about God from years of studying the Scripture. But, I am beginning to question the experiential nature of my relationship with Him.

I believe I have experienced what Paul called the witness of the Spirit with my spirit. I have experienced the overwhelming presence of God in my life many times, but a meaningful relationship must have day-to-day remnants of the mountain top moments, I think. I sympathize with the Psalms when they ask where God has gone; why is God far from me. Knowing He is there and feeling His presence are two different things. Maybe my desire to have a relationship is enough. I agree with David that one day in the courts of the Lord is better than a thousand elsewhere.

I read somewhere that Mother Theresa spent the last decades of her life with no conscious presence of God in her life. Her ministry to the poor continued, and I suspect many were blessed by her persistence. She did not feel the blessing herself though. Then there is the popularity of the Dark Night of the Soul which describes “a crisis of faith or a difficult, painful period in one's life.” It would seem to imply that it is a common experience to go dry and seek water like the deer.

Maybe my intellectual nature has gotten me too deep into my head; you think? Maybe it is enough to want the relationship even though it is a long distance one. There is one bit of knowledge that should comfort me: I know He lives in me, and He promised He would always be with me. One of my favorite movies has Jack Nicholson agonizing about his difficulty overcoming his flaws when he says, “Maybe this is as good as it gets.” I get that, but I also know that it will get better. The promise that I will dwell continually in God’s presence eventually is exactly why Heaven matter most in my life. If I could just find those streams of water in the meantime.

Related Posts: The Presence of God; Merely Christian

Bible Trivia?

Many years ago, I was in the midst of some earnest prayer. I don’t remember what the cause of my serious prayer time was, but I remember getting a revelation as a result. I am not known for my great memory of past events, so it is significant that I can remember this. I was driving an empty school bus at the time, and my attention was drawn to the gravel on the shoulder. It was impressed upon me that the sovereign God who made all things knew the position of every stone in that gravel. The Word says He knows the number of hairs on our heads, so I shouldn’t have been surprised. What I took away from that moment and I remember to this day is that nothing is without significance. Nothing. Not hair. Not gravel. Nothing.

I’m reading through the books of Moses in my daily devotions just now. I have asked myself repeatedly why God had so many very specific rules and regulations for His people. Many Christians consider Leviticus and Numbers boring if not insignificant. But if nothing is without significance, the minutiae of Levitical law has meaning. At the very least we can see that it was God’s way of demonstrating His holiness – His separateness – and requiring the same thing from His people. The detailed instructions for slaughtering sacrificial animals, the precise architectural design of the tabernacle, their clothing, the ritual cleansings all add up to a ton of trivia. Or does it?

The Scripture declares numerous times that the Word of God is true. Every word is God-breathed to use Paul’s explanation. Jesus said that God’s Word is truth. So, if there is truth in every word, nothing is without significance. The thing is that some of the truth seems incidental. Consider Balaam, a prophet of God (so Scripture says) who lived during Moses’ time and was called on to prophesy against Israel. It’s an interesting story in itself with angelic appearances and talking donkeys, but I find something else interesting. God had a prophet on the border of Canaan. In Moses’ day. Curious.

That was not the only time a spokesman for God shows up. Abraham met a mysterious character after he defeated the alliance that had attacked his nephew, Lot. He was returning home in the land that was to become Israel when the king of the city of Salem (later called Jerusalem) met him. This king, also identified as a priest of the one true God, was called Melchizedek. His name means king of righteousness. His city name, Salem, means peace, so he was also the king of peace. King of righteousness and king of peace. We learn from the writer of Hebrews that Jesus’ priestly ministry was after the order of Melchizedek. Curious.

Then there is Moses’ father-in-law. He was called the priest of Midian. Remember that at this time, there was no temple. The tabernacle with its altar had not been built. Yet God had priests ministering to various people who were not among His chosen. We do know that sacrifices to God were being offered as early as Cain and Abel. Cain’s murderous anger was because his sacrifice was not accepted while Abel’s was. This presupposes some instruction from God as to what would be acceptable. It also opens the door to the need for priests to explain and perhaps perform the sacrifices. They were out there, but we know little or nothing about them. And curiouser.

Here is another piece of trivia that hides a larger purpose of God. In Numbers 25 when the Israelites started mixing with the Midianites and worshipping their god, Phineas, the son of the high priest, speared an Israelite named Zimri and his Midianite wife, Cozbi, to stop the plague God had inflicted killing 24,000 of His people. You might wonder why those two were named specifically. We learn a couple verses after the incident that Cozbi was the daughter of the Midianite king. More than likely, Zimri was making an alliance through marriage – a common practice – and tripling his violation of God’s command: don’t marry their women, make no alliances, and do not worship their gods.

There are other examples of trivia that is not at all trivial. My point is that in God’s Word, nothing is without significance. Like most believers, I struggle to read through Old Testament passages that are not exciting stories like crossing the Red Sea or David sling-shotting Goliath. But Paul’s statement to Timothy proves true if we read with purpose and the Holy Spirit’s guidance: “All scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness.” (Italics mine.) So, get into the Scripture; make a plan to read every day with Holy Spirit illumination. You never know where a piece of “trivia” will open a new insight into God’s Word.

What’s Your Ministry?

The speaker at my church this week encouraged us to read the Bible and do what it says. That is not a revolutionary message by any means. We were also told that if we consider ourselves to be Christians, it is not enough to simply go to church. Nothing new there either. What strikes me is that this man who has been doing revival ministry for twenty years believes this is a message the church needs to hear. I assume the man seeks God’s wisdom on what to preach, so this is God’s message to our church: read the Bible and do what it says.

If you have been reading my blog for a while, you know that I have repeatedly lamented the fact that statistics show that most Christians are not reading their Bibles regularly. It comes as no surprise then that neither are Christians living much differently than their non-believing neighbors. Not reading and not doing; that’s the state of the church in America today. It’s no wonder that the country is going to hell in a hand cart as the saying goes.

What are Christians supposed to be doing based on their reading of the Bible? Simply put, they are to be doing ministry. Paul often refers to himself as a slave or bond servant of Christ. To be a servant or slave means there is a master to be served. Our Master has given us pretty clear instructions about what it means to serve Him. Our ministry to Him is to minister to others: love thy neighbor. What it means to love a neighbor was famously detailed in Jesus’ parable of the good Samaritan. In essence what He said was to do for your neighbor what he or she needs done, especially if they can’t do it for themselves.

I think most Christians think of ministry as a vocation that only a few people get into. The term “minister” usually refers to a pastor or preacher who works for a church. That view is too narrow for the term as it is used in the Bible. Paul explained to the Ephesians that those who are called to a vocational ministry are there to equip believers for “the work of the ministry.” In other words, it is the people in the pews who are the ministers, not the one behind the pulpit.

If I look at my life, I think of the years I spent teaching in Christian schools as ministry. I burned out and took what I thought of as a sabbatical, leaving “ministry” behind. The years I spent driving a truck for a living had me feeling like Moses tending sheep on the back side of the desert for forty years before he was called to his “ministry” of delivering God’s people from Egyptian slavery. I haven’t had a burning bush type call back to what some call “full-time ministry.” That phrase emphasizes the misunderstanding of what ministry means. Like all my fellow Christians, I am called to full-time ministry. I am to live my life in service to my Lord every minute of every day. Full time.

What is my ministry now? This blog is one part of my ministry. Thousands of people from around the world have read these scratchings of mine. I won’t know until I step into eternity how many people have been encouraged or enlightened by my writing. But that is not my only ministry. I regularly help people in the RV park where we live with projects and repairs. I have done something for every widow or single woman living here. I sometimes receive a modest wage for my efforts, but often the labor and materials are a gift in the name of Jesus. I also minister when I go to my part-time job at Home Depot and do my work “as working for the Lord.” When possible, I sneak in a word or two that comes from my faith perspective, although I am prohibited from outright evangelism by company policy. I think they are afraid I might “offend” someone if I presented the gospel openly, so I just live the gospel quietly in the aisles – full time.

I have not been describing my “ministry” as a boast—far from it. I am simply using my life as an example of how one does what the Bible says: serve Christ with your whole life. You don’t have to get a paycheck from a church to be a minister; you just have to live the Word. You may be the only Jesus some will ever see; you will likely be the only Bible some will ever read. Live intentionally for God as one of my former pastors used to say. Make it your business to be a witness to the goodness of God; that is the essence of what Paul meant when he said, “Do all things for the glory of God.” That’s your ministry.

Related posts: Make Time for Timeless Truth; Merely Christian; Christianity: Religion or Philosophy

 

Examining Christian Charity

Phillip Yancey recently wrote about a church near the Mexican border that is making an effort to serve the hundreds of people who cross into the United States without permission. The article is written in such a way as to elicit sympathy and compassion for the plight of the immigrants. It also applauds the work of the church. I get that. As Yancey encourages these emotions, he makes a statement that is either naïve or ignorant. He says, “We did not find, out there on our side of the wall, terrorists or drug dealers carting in loads of fentanyl with the intent to kill off America’s young. We didn’t find communists or thieves or rapists. We met ordinary human beings from distant lands who had sacrificed everything for an impossible journey, driven by an instinct for survival and the promise of a better life in the Promised Land—America.”

First, America is not “the Promised Land.” It is disingenuous to imply that God’s promise of land for Abraham is being fulfilled in America. Yancey is a capable theologian, so I know he doesn’t believe that. America is a place where two hundred years of Judeo-Christian principles of morality and industry have forged a better place than almost anywhere else in the world. For most of those years, immigrants came to America legally through the front door. We are a nation built by immigrants who were seeking a better life. They made one. The scene has changed, however. Today’s immigrants want the benefits American success has made available without doing the hard work to earn them; worse, they refuse to enter the country right way.

The second thing Yancey says that is misleading is that he didn’t see any “terrorists… drug dealers… communists or thieves or rapists.” Unless he has supernatural powers, he can’t know what was in the minds and hearts of those he saw. I know he was using a literary device to make a point: even terrorists are people. What his comment implies is that we should close our eyes to the flood of those who do wish us harm for the sake of Christian charity. That attitude is precisely what has put us in the horrible situation we are in at the border. The current administration in Washington has not only put on blinders; they have put out the welcome mat.

Forget Christian charity for a moment; common sense says we cannot continue to welcome millions of people into our country when they are going to immediately fall into our generous welfare safety net. Our multi-trillion-dollar debt should be enough evidence that our system is broken. Allowing a few million more people to drain the system can have only one result. I wrote “Man the Lifeboats” several years ago. What I said then is even more poignant now. If we keep rescuing people from the seas of trouble in their homelands, we will sink our own boat. (For an honest look at the current situation on the border, see “An Immigration Crisis Beyond Imagining” in Hillsdale College Imprimis.)

You don’t have to live on the southern border to face this same conundrum. There are people who already live in America who wish to take advantage of American generousity. They seem to prey on Christian charity (the foundation of our welfare system) at every level. COVID revealed a large segment of our population who would gladly stay home from work if the government would support them. There are still those who would rather ask for money from their neighbors than to get a job to earn what they need. I crash head-on to this dilemma when I see a panhandler on the corner or the neighbor kid begging for money. When does Christian charity become enablement?

Paul counselled the Thessalonians that if some people would not work, they should not eat. As far back as Solomon, the Bible encourages work as a necessary part of living. Yes, the Scripture also recommends helping widows and orphans, but the implication there is that they cannot feed themselves. It does not seem that Christian charity will always mean giving physical support. Maybe it can mean denying support so that the intended recipient will be motivated to help himself. It is not loving to keep a person dependent upon others when they are capable of fending for themselves. Nor does it seem incumbent upon Christians to foster behavior that will ultimately collapse our economy. Then we will all be hungry. Who will feed us then?

Related Posts: Pilgrim’s Progression; Conspiracy Theory, Part II

Light Shining in Darkness

Throughout most of human history, people believed that forces larger than themselves held sway over their affairs. That was until the era that has been called the Enlightenment. Before that, so many things were unexplainable that people naturally assumed a higher being or many higher beings controlled the universe. With the advent of modern science in the Middle Ages, people began to assume that all the mysteries of the universe would eventually be explained by science. In other words, supernatural explanations were relegated to the genre of myth. There is no need for gods when humans can provide all the answers.

We have almost come full circle in our understanding. What we see now through our electron microscopes and space telescopes has convinced honest scientists that a higher power must have had a hand in designing the universe. At the micro and at the macro level, the complexity of the things we observe reveals a design that can only have been created by a grand designer. This is not to say that scientists believe in the Creator God of the Bible, but those who remain open minded in their investigations realize that what they observe cannot have come into being by chance.

From beginning – let there be light – to the end – the lamb is the light – the Bible represents God as the bringer of light into the world. Nowhere is this clearer than in the opening passage of John’s Gospel. Speaking of Jesus, the eternal Word and Creator God, John says, “In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.” Not only did some people fail to comprehend what the light was, John says that they were condemned because they, “loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.”

Paul expands on this thought in his letter to the Ephesians. “This therefore I say and testify in the Lord, that you no longer walk as the Gentiles walk: in the futility of their mind, being darkened in understanding, alienated from the life of God, because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the hardness of their heart.” Their hardness of heart and their love of darkness caused them to be separated from true life which is found only in the light that comes from God. They are stuck in the futility, the emptiness of human reason.

For several generations after Enlightenment thinking began to take hold, there was a debate over which was supreme: faith or reason. Theologians who were swept up in the apparent power of science to answer life’s questions lost confidence in the supremacy of faith and put reason on equal footing. That kind of thinking led to the liberal theology that blossomed in the twentieth century. That mindset is evident today in organizations that call themselves Christian but discount the accuracy and authority of the Scriptures. In other words, they have extinguished the Light and turned to darkness.

Paul tells the Ephesians, “you were formerly darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live like children of light (for the fruit of the light is in all goodness and righteousness and truth).” To live in the light, we must know what is light. Saving faith demands obedience, and obedience requires knowledge. In his devotional, Strength for Today, John MacArthur cautions, “Anyone who puts his faith in Jesus Christ but who does not keep God’s Word constantly at the forefront of his mind will find himself entrapped in sin again and again.” The darkness will overtake anyone who does not keep the light on.

I have recently returned to part-time work in a big box home improvement store. I am reminded daily of the darkness many people live in. I think if the letter “f” were removed from some people’s vocabulary, they wouldn’t be able to put together a sentence. The frivolity and debauchery that characterizes the pastimes of many people is remarkable. Selfishness is rampant. The other day I commented to my tablemate in the break room that it had taken me two and a half hours to take my break because I was continually stopped by customers. I was given a tutorial from another table on how to avoid interacting with customers on my way to a break: walk fast, pretend to be on the phone, look only at the floor, take the back aisle and wear a scowl. These were the techniques my fellow associate claimed to use so that he could take his break on time. I was encouraged to see my tablemate give him one of those scowls he mentioned, and I asked him (humorously, I hope) to stop corrupting me.

If it was only unbelievers who walked in darkness, one might write it off as the evidence of sin in the world. Sadly, many who have placed their faith in Christ also stumble around in the dark because they don’t put into practice the principles of living in the light found in Scripture. Likely, they don’t read the Bible regularly (or not at all.) Jesus said we are to be the light of the world – not surprising since we are to be conforming ourselves into His image, He who is the Light. It is really dark out there these days; we must follow our Lord’s command and be the light. If you are a believer and don’t know what that means, crack open your Bible and start reading.

 Related Posts: Bringing the Kingdom; Read This or Die