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