Jeremiah 22:8-9 "People from many nations will pass by this city (Jerusalem) and will ask one another, ‘Why has the LORD done such a thing to this great city?’ And the answer will be: ‘Because they have forsaken the covenant of the LORD their God and have worshiped and served other gods.’”
Deuteronomy 29:24-26 echo's this passage. It speaks of a similar destruction covering an entire land due to idol worship.
I am humbled in these passages, I fear the Lord because the beloved Creator is also the Jealous Destroyer. His very own people and place He promised so much glory to... Yet God devastates and crumbles them.
The concept of God being the God of "the now" is relevant here. That was then: Israel vows devotion, the Lord dwells. This is now: Israel forsakes the covenant, God brings destruction.
I think its interesting that Jerusalem isn't abandoned like a ghost town or becomes a town inhabited by invaders. Instead God brings destruction to His holy mount ruined.
I know that Jesus wept for Jerusalem upon His final entry into the city on Palm Sunday. Was Jeremiah in a similar situation? God has a love for this city, its people and its significance. Some forty years later after Jesus' death, Jerusalem was completely devastated again. Turned into a pile of rubble, so many dead. Was it because the Seed of Abraham was unimpressive to the residents? Christ, the Promise of God was among them yet ill received by a doubting Israel. The New Covenant, the everlasting one, was consummated and the people of Jerusalem in large part, dismissed it and did business as usual. Is the destruction of Jerusalem around 70 AD similar to the one Jeremiah speaks of around 586 BC because of who we are as children so short of the glory God has?
Monday, October 31, 2011
Tuesday, October 18, 2011
Jeremiah 17: 9-10
Jeremiah 17:9-10. "The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it? 'I the LORD search the heart and examine the mind, to reward each person according to their conduct, according to what their deeds deserve.'”
This might be the third most famous quote in Jeremiah. (Only Jer 29:11, and Jer 31:31-34 tend out-shine this one). Some popular secular mantras come in great conflict with God's Word here. We're told to "follow your heart" or "Listen to your heart" "what you feel in your heart correct." This is an popular illusion (lie) that our hearts a good, truthful and contain our destiny. However, Jeremiah clearly warns us here: the heart is deceitful and beyond cure, this is fact, not debatable according to this passage.
Here are a summation of the truths found in Jer 17:9.
1. The natural state of everyone's heart is deceitful, permanently.
2. There is no cure: for all our lives we manage a deceitful heart.
3. No human can understand the heart (implied by rhetorical question).
4. The heart is the strongest agent of deception. Above all things: move over idols, addictions and spirits. After Satan, the biggest deceiver is our own heart.
So my heart cannot be cured (permanently fixed) from deception -no matter how godly, how holy, or how much God uses me. There remains an agent present in my heart, able to deceive me until the day I die.
Similarly, the sin-nature (originating from Adam and Eve act of sin) inhabits permanently as well. No matter how many days since spiritual new birth in Christ, my heart still has the potential to be bent towards doing sin. I will never live cured (without a trace deceit) -but Jesus Christ can manage my deceit-disease, He can lodge His Spirit in my heart, and grow me from all afflictions of deceit.
In living, we must seek a pure heart or accept a deceitful one.
I think the spiritual disciplines in my faith life help me commit to seeking a pure heart. Praying for a pure heart must be done daily. Worship often, read Scripture daily, sing hymns, fast etc... A preacher once told me that inside of me are two dogs. The dog of a godly nature and the dog of a sin nature. They are fighting and barking at each other daily. They both are stuck in me, the only thing I can do is feed them. I choose the portions and the quality of the food: as I feed one, the other grows weaker and quiet. -I much choose to make all of my life into food for the godly dog, that his bark would be greater and louder and more frequent. Again this doesn't point to a cured state, rather a trained and conditioned Christ-centered heart being sanctified.
Now in verse ten Jeremiah states that only God can search and know our hearts. So even though no human can understand the heart, God knows it (which is a step beyond understanding it). Thankfully God gives, blesses, and delights in looking at the heart set on purity(verse 10). The implication here is that somewhere, somehow our heart of deceitfulness becomes able to earn a reward from God for good "conduct and deserving deeds."
There is no confidence/truth in thinking that our hearts are the safest operating center to receive orders from. Emotion and feelings are insulators to the content of the heart and that isn't a good thing. We must anchor ourselves on the Rock of our Salvation, our Redeemer Jesus Christ. Faith that is anchored on this eternal truth is deeper then our feelings, and emotions and truer to the Living God. Let us be rewarded by God for seeking a pure heart and inviting Christ's indwelling Spirit.
This might be the third most famous quote in Jeremiah. (Only Jer 29:11, and Jer 31:31-34 tend out-shine this one). Some popular secular mantras come in great conflict with God's Word here. We're told to "follow your heart" or "Listen to your heart" "what you feel in your heart correct." This is an popular illusion (lie) that our hearts a good, truthful and contain our destiny. However, Jeremiah clearly warns us here: the heart is deceitful and beyond cure, this is fact, not debatable according to this passage.
Here are a summation of the truths found in Jer 17:9.
1. The natural state of everyone's heart is deceitful, permanently.
2. There is no cure: for all our lives we manage a deceitful heart.
3. No human can understand the heart (implied by rhetorical question).
4. The heart is the strongest agent of deception. Above all things: move over idols, addictions and spirits. After Satan, the biggest deceiver is our own heart.
So my heart cannot be cured (permanently fixed) from deception -no matter how godly, how holy, or how much God uses me. There remains an agent present in my heart, able to deceive me until the day I die.
Similarly, the sin-nature (originating from Adam and Eve act of sin) inhabits permanently as well. No matter how many days since spiritual new birth in Christ, my heart still has the potential to be bent towards doing sin. I will never live cured (without a trace deceit) -but Jesus Christ can manage my deceit-disease, He can lodge His Spirit in my heart, and grow me from all afflictions of deceit.
In living, we must seek a pure heart or accept a deceitful one.
I think the spiritual disciplines in my faith life help me commit to seeking a pure heart. Praying for a pure heart must be done daily. Worship often, read Scripture daily, sing hymns, fast etc... A preacher once told me that inside of me are two dogs. The dog of a godly nature and the dog of a sin nature. They are fighting and barking at each other daily. They both are stuck in me, the only thing I can do is feed them. I choose the portions and the quality of the food: as I feed one, the other grows weaker and quiet. -I much choose to make all of my life into food for the godly dog, that his bark would be greater and louder and more frequent. Again this doesn't point to a cured state, rather a trained and conditioned Christ-centered heart being sanctified.
Now in verse ten Jeremiah states that only God can search and know our hearts. So even though no human can understand the heart, God knows it (which is a step beyond understanding it). Thankfully God gives, blesses, and delights in looking at the heart set on purity(verse 10). The implication here is that somewhere, somehow our heart of deceitfulness becomes able to earn a reward from God for good "conduct and deserving deeds."
There is no confidence/truth in thinking that our hearts are the safest operating center to receive orders from. Emotion and feelings are insulators to the content of the heart and that isn't a good thing. We must anchor ourselves on the Rock of our Salvation, our Redeemer Jesus Christ. Faith that is anchored on this eternal truth is deeper then our feelings, and emotions and truer to the Living God. Let us be rewarded by God for seeking a pure heart and inviting Christ's indwelling Spirit.
Sunday, October 16, 2011
Jeremiah 15:17-18
Jeremiah 15:17-18. "I (Jeremiah) never sat in the company of revelers, never made merry with them; I sat alone because your hand was on me and you had filled me with indignation. Why is my pain unending and my wound grievous and incurable? You are to me like a deceptive brook, like a spring that fails."
Jeremiah expresses frustrations in his conversation with God here. God had chosen him as His prophet, Jeremiah delighted in getting to know God's Word and suffered willingly for a long time because there was joy in his heart. However, for some time now as things started to unravel for Judah and the false prophets were talking about a god who is coming to save Judah and Israel again. Jeremiah in contrast, speaks about captivity, famine, swords, and death.
So Jeremiah is emotional and expressing to God verses 17 and 18. In 17 Jeremiah talks about his obedience to God's call and what sacrifices he made. He is enduring much rejection and affliction from others. His heart starts to rebel against God. In 18 Jeremiah says his wound is too big for God to heal... and that God is a mirage, a fake not reliable to refresh. So God being a "Spring of living water" (in chapter 2 verse 13) has now become a "deceptive brook."
Under affliction of spiritual doubt, Jeremiah temperamentally lashed out at God because Judah has abandoned his prophesying. Yet God is good to reply to Jeremiah amid his sinning. In Jer 15:19 God asks for Jeremiah to repent and return to Him. His words have become "worthless" and "not noble". God makes Jeremiah see that it is for Judah to return to him and not him to conform to Judah. After this instruction and insight, God gracefully reassures the prophet that He is with him in Verse 20.
In my life, God has allowed me the trial of facing debt. Up until now, I have tried to ignore it. However, this enslavement has been heavy on my thoughts provoking worry and anxiety. This condition of living, this enslavement has stumbled my walk with the Lord. I don't see God as He really is: sovereign in allowing this debt to shape me. God is saying "Trust me." and I'm like "but this... but that -get this monkey off my back."
So what I did in response to the severity of my debt was to launch into a fast. I was desperate for God to show up and I was desperate for some action. So I forced this sacrifice upon me without preparation. The next morning I skipped all food and went to work. Instantly I was afflicted with a down-cast irritability so severe it was apparent on my face. People didn't approaching me, friends were asking if I was ok. My stomach was in knots and a pounding headache was hitting me hard. Suddenly I remember this passage of Scripture I read that morning, and how Jeremiah was wrong. -Totally incorrect in approaching God and belittling Him and casting doubt upon God instead of trust.
I decided that my fast was a "sacrifice" ahead of "giving my heart" to God about this. Like Jeremiah I felt God asking me to repent from my thinking/doubt/panic. God showed me that I needed His grace more than my own understanding or doing a fast. He was asking me to trust him and before fasting. So in remembering this passage, at my first break I ate some food and had some coffee. All the physical blockage was lifted and I was a joyful servant at work. People looked at me strangely, but I praise God because He used Scripture to talk me into the way He would have me go.
Jeremiah expresses frustrations in his conversation with God here. God had chosen him as His prophet, Jeremiah delighted in getting to know God's Word and suffered willingly for a long time because there was joy in his heart. However, for some time now as things started to unravel for Judah and the false prophets were talking about a god who is coming to save Judah and Israel again. Jeremiah in contrast, speaks about captivity, famine, swords, and death.
So Jeremiah is emotional and expressing to God verses 17 and 18. In 17 Jeremiah talks about his obedience to God's call and what sacrifices he made. He is enduring much rejection and affliction from others. His heart starts to rebel against God. In 18 Jeremiah says his wound is too big for God to heal... and that God is a mirage, a fake not reliable to refresh. So God being a "Spring of living water" (in chapter 2 verse 13) has now become a "deceptive brook."
Under affliction of spiritual doubt, Jeremiah temperamentally lashed out at God because Judah has abandoned his prophesying. Yet God is good to reply to Jeremiah amid his sinning. In Jer 15:19 God asks for Jeremiah to repent and return to Him. His words have become "worthless" and "not noble". God makes Jeremiah see that it is for Judah to return to him and not him to conform to Judah. After this instruction and insight, God gracefully reassures the prophet that He is with him in Verse 20.
In my life, God has allowed me the trial of facing debt. Up until now, I have tried to ignore it. However, this enslavement has been heavy on my thoughts provoking worry and anxiety. This condition of living, this enslavement has stumbled my walk with the Lord. I don't see God as He really is: sovereign in allowing this debt to shape me. God is saying "Trust me." and I'm like "but this... but that -get this monkey off my back."
So what I did in response to the severity of my debt was to launch into a fast. I was desperate for God to show up and I was desperate for some action. So I forced this sacrifice upon me without preparation. The next morning I skipped all food and went to work. Instantly I was afflicted with a down-cast irritability so severe it was apparent on my face. People didn't approaching me, friends were asking if I was ok. My stomach was in knots and a pounding headache was hitting me hard. Suddenly I remember this passage of Scripture I read that morning, and how Jeremiah was wrong. -Totally incorrect in approaching God and belittling Him and casting doubt upon God instead of trust.
I decided that my fast was a "sacrifice" ahead of "giving my heart" to God about this. Like Jeremiah I felt God asking me to repent from my thinking/doubt/panic. God showed me that I needed His grace more than my own understanding or doing a fast. He was asking me to trust him and before fasting. So in remembering this passage, at my first break I ate some food and had some coffee. All the physical blockage was lifted and I was a joyful servant at work. People looked at me strangely, but I praise God because He used Scripture to talk me into the way He would have me go.
Thursday, October 13, 2011
Jeremiah 12:7-8
Jeremiah 12:7-8“I will forsake my house, abandon my inheritance; I will give the one I love into the hands of her enemies. My inheritance has become to me like a lion in the forest. She roars at me; therefore I hate her."
Contextually this is part of the response God gives when Jeremiah asks why the wicked prosper and the people of Judah suffer condemnation (Verse 1-2).
So God announces in verses 7 and 8 that He hates His own creation and more specifically His own people that He set apart ever since the Abrahamic covenant. To me here, God is telling Jeremiah: nations of unbelievers will subdue you and enslave you all for their own benefit because Judah remains disobedient. Simply put: the wicked prosper because God's people are disobedient... The goodness, the prosperity, the favor and the blessing are all foregone by Israel.
Why then does the prosperity surface among the enemies, the heathen? How is gifting ungodly people productive to bring repentance to Judah and Israel? Wouldn't that make God's people interested in the things of the heathen culture instead?
I think in verse 8 there is a sensitivity to the character of God in relation to His creation that I don't pick up on often. God says His inheritance was like a lion in the forest "roaring against me." To me this illustration recalls a tipping-point that happened to my mom. I grew up without a father so my pride and anger were often out of control. At about 13 years old I told my mother I hated her. I told her I would beat her that next time she tried to discipline me. She wept, one of the only times I ever saw her cry in my life. My mother never imagined she could be treated with so much hate by her son because of the love she continuously poured out.
So God the Creator is heart broken by Judah and illustrates it as a lion roaring back at Him. His free-willed creation provokes God to hate His creation. When the angel who became Satan rebelled in heaven God must have condemned him like He did to unrepentant Judah.
It is a great loss to God to see His own inheritance disown Him. I think also about the Judgment Seat and how hard it must be for Jesus to hand down condemnation on the ones He created. At times I even wonder why does God -in His all knowing, allow people to be born and never come to faith in Christ? I understand that we have free will and God desires a relationship with us... But from God's pre-destined, all knowing perspective: how could He create a people knowing full well that they will disobey and have eternity in hell from the day they are born?
Ultimately that doesn't matter to me because I do not know who is and isn't in the Book of Life. So I must love all with faith that God can save each of them. Jesus is mighty to save. Afterall, I never planned on being a Christian, but God revealed himself to me in the sacrifice of Jesus and His resurrection.
Contextually this is part of the response God gives when Jeremiah asks why the wicked prosper and the people of Judah suffer condemnation (Verse 1-2).
So God announces in verses 7 and 8 that He hates His own creation and more specifically His own people that He set apart ever since the Abrahamic covenant. To me here, God is telling Jeremiah: nations of unbelievers will subdue you and enslave you all for their own benefit because Judah remains disobedient. Simply put: the wicked prosper because God's people are disobedient... The goodness, the prosperity, the favor and the blessing are all foregone by Israel.
Why then does the prosperity surface among the enemies, the heathen? How is gifting ungodly people productive to bring repentance to Judah and Israel? Wouldn't that make God's people interested in the things of the heathen culture instead?
I think in verse 8 there is a sensitivity to the character of God in relation to His creation that I don't pick up on often. God says His inheritance was like a lion in the forest "roaring against me." To me this illustration recalls a tipping-point that happened to my mom. I grew up without a father so my pride and anger were often out of control. At about 13 years old I told my mother I hated her. I told her I would beat her that next time she tried to discipline me. She wept, one of the only times I ever saw her cry in my life. My mother never imagined she could be treated with so much hate by her son because of the love she continuously poured out.
So God the Creator is heart broken by Judah and illustrates it as a lion roaring back at Him. His free-willed creation provokes God to hate His creation. When the angel who became Satan rebelled in heaven God must have condemned him like He did to unrepentant Judah.
It is a great loss to God to see His own inheritance disown Him. I think also about the Judgment Seat and how hard it must be for Jesus to hand down condemnation on the ones He created. At times I even wonder why does God -in His all knowing, allow people to be born and never come to faith in Christ? I understand that we have free will and God desires a relationship with us... But from God's pre-destined, all knowing perspective: how could He create a people knowing full well that they will disobey and have eternity in hell from the day they are born?
Ultimately that doesn't matter to me because I do not know who is and isn't in the Book of Life. So I must love all with faith that God can save each of them. Jesus is mighty to save. Afterall, I never planned on being a Christian, but God revealed himself to me in the sacrifice of Jesus and His resurrection.
Thursday, October 6, 2011
Jeremiah 10:23
Jeremiah 10:23 "LORD, I know that people’s lives are not their own; it is not for them to direct their steps."
Psalms 37:23 "The LORD makes firm the steps of the one who delights in him;"
Proverbs 20:24 "A person’s steps are directed by the LORD.How then can anyone understand their own way?"
Proverbs 16:9 "In their hearts humans plan their course, but the LORD establishes their steps."
I have difficulty understanding how God's steps in my day to day life add up to His will. This passage of Jeremiah (and the cross references) make it seem that pre-destiny is at hand. Certainly from God's perspective everything is pre-destined. However, I'm not God -I'm adopted into His family. I haven't clearly known God's steps, or followed His ways. I see God's steps are in motion in Scripture. As a born again believer I'm told: "Then Jesus said to his disciples, 'Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me (Matt 16:24).'" Everyday I forfeit this life to Jesus, so that Jesus would be alive in me.
I surrender my pride, my own plans for the future and trust, and walk by faith. Ultimately it becomes a gainful act, God comes into my life and shows me His "steps".
God made firm my steps once I committed to Him that I wanted to quit smoking. He faithfully has "strengthened my steps" and He gave me the victory over the odds of quitting cigarettes. His guidance of my steps has set me on a victorious path away from smoking for nearly five years.
Somewhere between Jer 29:11 where God declares that He knows the plan for our life (big picture) and Jer 10:23 God directing my steps (choice by choice). I get filled with thinking: "What about the filler: week to week, month to month, injustice after injustice..." I suggest (have found)that faith is the filler: dependence on Jesus. Trust, devotion to Jesus, service, humility, (fruits of the Spirit), that becomes the substance/filler between the God's steps for us and God's plan for us!
Back in the day: Buddhism, art school, drugs, drinking, Satan, the American Dream, free will, peer pressure and caring what others think, were steps I chose to succeed by. They all fought against me, feeding on my lack of self control.
Much of the deception of Satan in my life was believing that I was the center of the universe. "I create my own destiny." I was never told the wisdom of Pr 16:9 "They (my steps)are established by God." Proverbs 20:24 "steps are directed by God." Ps37:23 "strengthened, (firm) by God".
Surrendering to God's steps in my life is proving to be hard. I need therapy from the Holy Spirit to undo these lies I lived by: "do what makes you happy." Or "do what you love." I never gave God His due sovereignty. I never asked Him to "Establish, direct, and strengthen my steps."
In Christ Jesus I have been adopted into the family of God. This was done by having faith in the death and resurrection of Jesus. I invited Him to be Lord of my life forever. Scripture says, He became "a ransom for many (me!)." This gift of salvation has an implication: that life is not to be lived out for yourself anymore. God's steps for our lives is to deny ourselves and trust Jesus... one step at a time.
Psalms 37:23 "The LORD makes firm the steps of the one who delights in him;"
Proverbs 20:24 "A person’s steps are directed by the LORD.How then can anyone understand their own way?"
Proverbs 16:9 "In their hearts humans plan their course, but the LORD establishes their steps."
I have difficulty understanding how God's steps in my day to day life add up to His will. This passage of Jeremiah (and the cross references) make it seem that pre-destiny is at hand. Certainly from God's perspective everything is pre-destined. However, I'm not God -I'm adopted into His family. I haven't clearly known God's steps, or followed His ways. I see God's steps are in motion in Scripture. As a born again believer I'm told: "Then Jesus said to his disciples, 'Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me (Matt 16:24).'" Everyday I forfeit this life to Jesus, so that Jesus would be alive in me.
I surrender my pride, my own plans for the future and trust, and walk by faith. Ultimately it becomes a gainful act, God comes into my life and shows me His "steps".
God made firm my steps once I committed to Him that I wanted to quit smoking. He faithfully has "strengthened my steps" and He gave me the victory over the odds of quitting cigarettes. His guidance of my steps has set me on a victorious path away from smoking for nearly five years.
Somewhere between Jer 29:11 where God declares that He knows the plan for our life (big picture) and Jer 10:23 God directing my steps (choice by choice). I get filled with thinking: "What about the filler: week to week, month to month, injustice after injustice..." I suggest (have found)that faith is the filler: dependence on Jesus. Trust, devotion to Jesus, service, humility, (fruits of the Spirit), that becomes the substance/filler between the God's steps for us and God's plan for us!
Back in the day: Buddhism, art school, drugs, drinking, Satan, the American Dream, free will, peer pressure and caring what others think, were steps I chose to succeed by. They all fought against me, feeding on my lack of self control.
Much of the deception of Satan in my life was believing that I was the center of the universe. "I create my own destiny." I was never told the wisdom of Pr 16:9 "They (my steps)are established by God." Proverbs 20:24 "steps are directed by God." Ps37:23 "strengthened, (firm) by God".
Surrendering to God's steps in my life is proving to be hard. I need therapy from the Holy Spirit to undo these lies I lived by: "do what makes you happy." Or "do what you love." I never gave God His due sovereignty. I never asked Him to "Establish, direct, and strengthen my steps."
In Christ Jesus I have been adopted into the family of God. This was done by having faith in the death and resurrection of Jesus. I invited Him to be Lord of my life forever. Scripture says, He became "a ransom for many (me!)." This gift of salvation has an implication: that life is not to be lived out for yourself anymore. God's steps for our lives is to deny ourselves and trust Jesus... one step at a time.
Tuesday, October 4, 2011
Jeremiah 9:23-24
Jeremiah 9:23-24: "Thus says the LORD, “Let not a wise man boast of his wisdom, and let not the mighty man boast of his might, let not a rich man boast of his riches; but let him who boasts boast of this, that he understands and knows Me, that I am the LORD who exercises lovingkindness, justice and righteousness on earth; for I delight in these things,” declares the LORD." -(NASB)
People used to tell me: "find what you're good at, what you love, and go with it..." That led me astray... it was like the wise boasting in wisdom, or the strong boasting in strength or the wealthy in wealth. Yes, God gave those things to people but only that God would be sought after and glorified -not so that we could acquire something that resembles pride, materialism and the American Dream.
God is the centrality of life, the very perfect focus. In seeking to know God we are living out our supreme goal as people: to know, worship and give God the glory. God wants to delight in us.
Well here God (never changing) tells us how to please Him within the Old Covenant parameters, Jr9:23-24 serves as a "tell-all" for how to cause delight in the Lord. All this revolves around proper boasting.
I usually see boasting as prideful and egotistical because it shows-off of one's excellence and therefore centering the acclaim and reactions for self-glorification. But here God suggests a pride-less boasting, one that reflects your own understanding and knowing of God. -That exalts the Lord.
It makes me think of the pro athletes that are so engrossed in their sport that their performance is their identity. Athletes boast excellence by breaking records, and consistently performing well in their sport. They are no longer able to disassociate themselves from the sport. Whether its verbal boasting or boasting through defeating the competitor, God is righteously jealous of that boasting. God desires for us to understand and know Him more than any top athlete can boast in their sport.
Notice that God doesn't describe "knowing Him" as memorizing the ten commandments, or the Book of Romans (though I'm sure that would be a blessing). Knowing God (in this passage) is about knowing God's agenda for His lovingkindness, His justice and His righteousness. So how can we boastfully come to know the justice, righteousness and lovingkindness of God. Its found in Jesus, in Scripture and in prayerfully asking. Its in the knowing to be full of the knowledge of who God is. Desiring to know Truth which comes only through God. And then we can boast and delight in obeying Him because we understand God's way...
Paul talks about boasting in similarly: "But, 'Let the one who boasts boast in the Lord.' For it is not the one who commends himself who is approved, but the one whom the Lord commends (2Cor 10:17-18)."
People used to tell me: "find what you're good at, what you love, and go with it..." That led me astray... it was like the wise boasting in wisdom, or the strong boasting in strength or the wealthy in wealth. Yes, God gave those things to people but only that God would be sought after and glorified -not so that we could acquire something that resembles pride, materialism and the American Dream.
God is the centrality of life, the very perfect focus. In seeking to know God we are living out our supreme goal as people: to know, worship and give God the glory. God wants to delight in us.
Well here God (never changing) tells us how to please Him within the Old Covenant parameters, Jr9:23-24 serves as a "tell-all" for how to cause delight in the Lord. All this revolves around proper boasting.
I usually see boasting as prideful and egotistical because it shows-off of one's excellence and therefore centering the acclaim and reactions for self-glorification. But here God suggests a pride-less boasting, one that reflects your own understanding and knowing of God. -That exalts the Lord.
It makes me think of the pro athletes that are so engrossed in their sport that their performance is their identity. Athletes boast excellence by breaking records, and consistently performing well in their sport. They are no longer able to disassociate themselves from the sport. Whether its verbal boasting or boasting through defeating the competitor, God is righteously jealous of that boasting. God desires for us to understand and know Him more than any top athlete can boast in their sport.
Notice that God doesn't describe "knowing Him" as memorizing the ten commandments, or the Book of Romans (though I'm sure that would be a blessing). Knowing God (in this passage) is about knowing God's agenda for His lovingkindness, His justice and His righteousness. So how can we boastfully come to know the justice, righteousness and lovingkindness of God. Its found in Jesus, in Scripture and in prayerfully asking. Its in the knowing to be full of the knowledge of who God is. Desiring to know Truth which comes only through God. And then we can boast and delight in obeying Him because we understand God's way...
Paul talks about boasting in similarly: "But, 'Let the one who boasts boast in the Lord.' For it is not the one who commends himself who is approved, but the one whom the Lord commends (2Cor 10:17-18)."
Monday, October 3, 2011
Jeremiah 8:18- 9:6
In Jeremiah 9:3-6 God illustrates why Judah ripe for exile and judgment. God reveals that Judah was:
V3: Filled with lies instead of faithfulness.
-Judah goes from one evil to another without consideration of God.
V4: No one can be trusted: brothers deceive and friends slander.
V5: No one tells the truth. They taught their tongue to speak lies.
-Judah is worn out from doing wrong.
V6: They live in a world of deception, and in there they refuse to know the Lord.
This is not unlike the conditions that exist today.
So now we can see how hard it must have been to be this God-fearing upright prophet speaking Truth in a world where Truth isn't spoken. Jeremiah has the heart and head for God and so he reacts severely to Judah's despondency/condition. Its documented earlier at the end of chapter 8, verses 18-22.
Here's Jeremiah reaction to Judah's rebellions:
V18: My heart is sick... Joy has flown.
V19: provoked to anger.
V20: (according to my study bible) Verse 20 is an expression meaning that Jeremiah watched all opportunities for Judah's correction pass them by.
V21: Jeremiah is broke by the brokenness..."I mourn, horror has a hold of me."
Even into the start of Chapter 9 Jeremiah speaks of weeping day and night of over the slain Judeans. And most convicting of all Jeremiah says he would abandon them if he had the chance.
This is the reaction of a godly man surrounded by unbelief. There is a contempt but more so a mourning, a weeping for the state of his culture, and the individuals in it. Also there is a commitment to stay despite his personal desire to leave. Jeremiah stays perhaps because he knew it was God's plan for him.
Where is my sick heart for the lost? Am I so numb, acclimated to horrors of godlessness holding my culture? Do I engage my world and present chances for godly acts? Am I plotting to abandon people who need God for a home of peace and rest? Am I angry or indifferent to the unbelief of friends and family? If I am angry what are productive ways to deal with that? I must remain non-condemning to those that sin and spark anger. I know all to well how sinful I am...
V3: Filled with lies instead of faithfulness.
-Judah goes from one evil to another without consideration of God.
V4: No one can be trusted: brothers deceive and friends slander.
V5: No one tells the truth. They taught their tongue to speak lies.
-Judah is worn out from doing wrong.
V6: They live in a world of deception, and in there they refuse to know the Lord.
This is not unlike the conditions that exist today.
So now we can see how hard it must have been to be this God-fearing upright prophet speaking Truth in a world where Truth isn't spoken. Jeremiah has the heart and head for God and so he reacts severely to Judah's despondency/condition. Its documented earlier at the end of chapter 8, verses 18-22.
Here's Jeremiah reaction to Judah's rebellions:
V18: My heart is sick... Joy has flown.
V19: provoked to anger.
V20: (according to my study bible) Verse 20 is an expression meaning that Jeremiah watched all opportunities for Judah's correction pass them by.
V21: Jeremiah is broke by the brokenness..."I mourn, horror has a hold of me."
Even into the start of Chapter 9 Jeremiah speaks of weeping day and night of over the slain Judeans. And most convicting of all Jeremiah says he would abandon them if he had the chance.
This is the reaction of a godly man surrounded by unbelief. There is a contempt but more so a mourning, a weeping for the state of his culture, and the individuals in it. Also there is a commitment to stay despite his personal desire to leave. Jeremiah stays perhaps because he knew it was God's plan for him.
Where is my sick heart for the lost? Am I so numb, acclimated to horrors of godlessness holding my culture? Do I engage my world and present chances for godly acts? Am I plotting to abandon people who need God for a home of peace and rest? Am I angry or indifferent to the unbelief of friends and family? If I am angry what are productive ways to deal with that? I must remain non-condemning to those that sin and spark anger. I know all to well how sinful I am...
Thursday, September 29, 2011
Jeremiah 8:4-7
4 “Say to them, ‘This is what the LORD says:
“‘When people fall down, do they not get up?
When someone turns away, do they not return?
5 Why then have these people turned away?
Why does Jerusalem always turn away?
They cling to deceit;
they refuse to return.
6 I have listened attentively,
but they do not say what is right.
None of them repent of their wickedness,
saying, “What have I done?”
Each pursues their own course
like a horse charging into battle.
7 Even the stork in the sky
knows her appointed seasons,
and the dove, the swift and the thrush
observe the time of their migration.
But my people do not know
the requirements of the LORD. Jr8:4-7
In a time of religious pluralism where I was duped into looking for a faith that would work me; This passage is humbling. God installs within His people this instinctive return to Him similar to a boomerang in concept. In verse 7 it appears that the migratory birds are more faithfulness to the Lord's requirements of them then His own people Judah.
Within this passage God offers some reasons why returning to sin seems more likely than returning to God. "they cling to deceit, they refuse to return" v5. This shows the sin nature of mankind as preferable over the spiritual one where God is ruler. In the process of "clinging" Judah has shown to God that they refuse to return to Him.
Change in people is hard. With the help of the Lord, change is attainable. The second major point of contesting is "I have listened attentively, but they do not say what is right. None of them repent of their wickedness, saying, “What have I done?” Each pursues their own course. v6" God here is holding them accountable for their words as He pays close attention to their speech. God reveals to me that Judah was unable to take conviction/temptation and turn it into a conversation with God to bring about change. Instead there is a "passing of the buck", as if Judah had nothing to repent before God, as if their speech was correct, Withing the people of Judah there grew a sense of shamelessness.
I too have lived without shame for the sins in my life. I believed that if I was to love myself fully I had to love my sins. So I stopped trying to fight sin and gave in for about 10 years. If it weren't for the atonement in the shed blood of Jesus I would not have assurance of forgiveness. I would have been under the wrath of God similar to the Judah in this passage. Now, in the confidence of the Holy Spirit's indwelling I invite the Lord's corrections and return to Him every morning in prayer, worship and Scripture. Still though this passage is very relevant for this time and place in American society.
“‘When people fall down, do they not get up?
When someone turns away, do they not return?
5 Why then have these people turned away?
Why does Jerusalem always turn away?
They cling to deceit;
they refuse to return.
6 I have listened attentively,
but they do not say what is right.
None of them repent of their wickedness,
saying, “What have I done?”
Each pursues their own course
like a horse charging into battle.
7 Even the stork in the sky
knows her appointed seasons,
and the dove, the swift and the thrush
observe the time of their migration.
But my people do not know
the requirements of the LORD. Jr8:4-7
In a time of religious pluralism where I was duped into looking for a faith that would work me; This passage is humbling. God installs within His people this instinctive return to Him similar to a boomerang in concept. In verse 7 it appears that the migratory birds are more faithfulness to the Lord's requirements of them then His own people Judah.
Within this passage God offers some reasons why returning to sin seems more likely than returning to God. "they cling to deceit, they refuse to return" v5. This shows the sin nature of mankind as preferable over the spiritual one where God is ruler. In the process of "clinging" Judah has shown to God that they refuse to return to Him.
Change in people is hard. With the help of the Lord, change is attainable. The second major point of contesting is "I have listened attentively, but they do not say what is right. None of them repent of their wickedness, saying, “What have I done?” Each pursues their own course. v6" God here is holding them accountable for their words as He pays close attention to their speech. God reveals to me that Judah was unable to take conviction/temptation and turn it into a conversation with God to bring about change. Instead there is a "passing of the buck", as if Judah had nothing to repent before God, as if their speech was correct, Withing the people of Judah there grew a sense of shamelessness.
I too have lived without shame for the sins in my life. I believed that if I was to love myself fully I had to love my sins. So I stopped trying to fight sin and gave in for about 10 years. If it weren't for the atonement in the shed blood of Jesus I would not have assurance of forgiveness. I would have been under the wrath of God similar to the Judah in this passage. Now, in the confidence of the Holy Spirit's indwelling I invite the Lord's corrections and return to Him every morning in prayer, worship and Scripture. Still though this passage is very relevant for this time and place in American society.
Monday, September 26, 2011
Faith in Unemployment
My darling wife (who is funnier than me) just got a job. It is the one God had reserved for her. I say that with confidence, I'm not sure she would -yet. Faith is hard to have confidence in when you are using it. But with distance, and wisdom anyone can look back and see times and places where faith in God pushed us through.
As her husband I had a unique vantage point that made me admire the things God was doing to her faith during her job search.
1. She had no desire to search for a job coming off of a summer long day camp as a organizer. Yet by the grace of God she applied to all the tutoring and teaching positions she could find. This kind of perseverance is faith filled the stuff good character is made of. We prayed for each good lead.
2. After a few interviews she opened up her search to include administrative work, day cares and nanny work. Lindsey prayed insisting that it would be "a job God would want her at." -Not what she envisioned.
3. In addition to the search, she did her three hour tutoring job so we could make ends meet. Still though, I was riddled with anxiety and money woes. I didn't tell her because I knew she was doing her best to find work.
This was about the time when the roof caved in. Lindsey stopped searching and said "Last year I prayed to work at this school, its the only one I want to work at. There's nothing else out here for me." She said this on the faith of her prayers. It wasn't a negative attitude, or admitting defeat. So I went along with it. Telling myself that we are trusting this strategy as God's children, dependent on Him... The new plan was to trust, be filled with peace, sit back and wait for that one school to jump out at us.
4. While tutoring, she remembered that last year she filed paperwork to substitute teach at the school where the tutoring program was held. Last year we were praying she would find a job there because it was so close to our home.
5. So Lindsey inquired about the possibility subbing this fall even though she never got called to substitute teach last year.
6. Within two days, Lindsey was substitute teaching at that school and doing the after school tutoring program also. She was answering their call to sub nearly every day.
7. I thought subbing for a school year was going to be that answer to prayer was. But lo and behold, last week they interviewed her for a position that opened up.
8. The offer was to work almost exclusively with one student with autism, it's a teacher's aide position with full benefits.
9. Less than ten day after this decision to stop looking, Lindsey is fully employed an confident in her abilities to succeed.
10. God is thanked, again and again.
So praise the living God who provoked us to trust and know that something good, something just right is within His reach. I can't get over how opposite the world this job search became.
As her husband I had a unique vantage point that made me admire the things God was doing to her faith during her job search.
1. She had no desire to search for a job coming off of a summer long day camp as a organizer. Yet by the grace of God she applied to all the tutoring and teaching positions she could find. This kind of perseverance is faith filled the stuff good character is made of. We prayed for each good lead.
2. After a few interviews she opened up her search to include administrative work, day cares and nanny work. Lindsey prayed insisting that it would be "a job God would want her at." -Not what she envisioned.
3. In addition to the search, she did her three hour tutoring job so we could make ends meet. Still though, I was riddled with anxiety and money woes. I didn't tell her because I knew she was doing her best to find work.
This was about the time when the roof caved in. Lindsey stopped searching and said "Last year I prayed to work at this school, its the only one I want to work at. There's nothing else out here for me." She said this on the faith of her prayers. It wasn't a negative attitude, or admitting defeat. So I went along with it. Telling myself that we are trusting this strategy as God's children, dependent on Him... The new plan was to trust, be filled with peace, sit back and wait for that one school to jump out at us.
4. While tutoring, she remembered that last year she filed paperwork to substitute teach at the school where the tutoring program was held. Last year we were praying she would find a job there because it was so close to our home.
5. So Lindsey inquired about the possibility subbing this fall even though she never got called to substitute teach last year.
6. Within two days, Lindsey was substitute teaching at that school and doing the after school tutoring program also. She was answering their call to sub nearly every day.
7. I thought subbing for a school year was going to be that answer to prayer was. But lo and behold, last week they interviewed her for a position that opened up.
8. The offer was to work almost exclusively with one student with autism, it's a teacher's aide position with full benefits.
9. Less than ten day after this decision to stop looking, Lindsey is fully employed an confident in her abilities to succeed.
10. God is thanked, again and again.
So praise the living God who provoked us to trust and know that something good, something just right is within His reach. I can't get over how opposite the world this job search became.
Thursday, September 22, 2011
Jeremiah 3:14-18
This is my first bite out of the dispensation apple. As I read this passage of Jeremiah, I almost flew over it with an understanding that God is still talking to a pre-exile Judah through Jeremiah. Things started getting blurry when God mentions the Ark being forgotten and not missed (verse 16) and Jerusalem becoming "Yahweh's Throne" in verse 17.
This premillennial prophecy illustrates God inviting His "faithless children"(Judah, Israel, believers both gentile or Jew, anyone He called to Himself and also "all nations"). God declares Himself as Master. Then God takes them to Zion (Jerusalem/the temple mount). Though this, God shows Himself to be the pressing owner and author of these events. It is here that a large number of devout Jews will be led by God to understand that Jesus is the Messiah they were waiting for.
At this point in my understanding I venture to say that Jesus will be throned in Zion and His 1000 year reign on earth starts.
Jeremiah 3:16-18 goes on to describe life under Christ's reign for His children Israel. Once assembled in Zion, God gives His people knowledge and skill through "loyal shepherds".
Those gathered will:
1 "multiply and increase"V16
2 "No one will remember or miss it (the Ark of the Covenant)." V16
3 "Jerusalem will be called "Yahweh's Throne" and all the nations will be gathered to it." V17
4 "They will cease to follow the stubbornness of their evil hearts." V18
5 Israel and Judah will return to the land God gave their ancestors to inherit.
As I look at the list above I praise God that He has mastery of me. I am not currently living as if I was in the millennial reign of Jesus but there is similar fruit.
Because of Jesus:
1 my life has increased in abundance I never thought possible.
2 I have traded the Sinaitic Covenant for the New Covenant freedom made in Christ's atoning sacrifice.
3 I "enter boldly" into the throne room of God through prayer.
4 I have a heart of flesh desiring purification and circumcision.
5 I have faith in the completion of God's promises to His people.
This premillennial prophecy illustrates God inviting His "faithless children"(Judah, Israel, believers both gentile or Jew, anyone He called to Himself and also "all nations"). God declares Himself as Master. Then God takes them to Zion (Jerusalem/the temple mount). Though this, God shows Himself to be the pressing owner and author of these events. It is here that a large number of devout Jews will be led by God to understand that Jesus is the Messiah they were waiting for.
At this point in my understanding I venture to say that Jesus will be throned in Zion and His 1000 year reign on earth starts.
Jeremiah 3:16-18 goes on to describe life under Christ's reign for His children Israel. Once assembled in Zion, God gives His people knowledge and skill through "loyal shepherds".
Those gathered will:
1 "multiply and increase"V16
2 "No one will remember or miss it (the Ark of the Covenant)." V16
3 "Jerusalem will be called "Yahweh's Throne" and all the nations will be gathered to it." V17
4 "They will cease to follow the stubbornness of their evil hearts." V18
5 Israel and Judah will return to the land God gave their ancestors to inherit.
As I look at the list above I praise God that He has mastery of me. I am not currently living as if I was in the millennial reign of Jesus but there is similar fruit.
Because of Jesus:
1 my life has increased in abundance I never thought possible.
2 I have traded the Sinaitic Covenant for the New Covenant freedom made in Christ's atoning sacrifice.
3 I "enter boldly" into the throne room of God through prayer.
4 I have a heart of flesh desiring purification and circumcision.
5 I have faith in the completion of God's promises to His people.
Wednesday, September 21, 2011
Jeremiah 2:13
“My people have committed two sins:
They have forsaken me,
the spring of living water,
and have dug their own cisterns,
broken cisterns that cannot hold water." Jeremiah 2:13
I think much of Jeremiah so far has opened my eyes to how God has been hurt relationally speaking by Judah/Israel/His people. There are many sentiments of betrayal, and rightful blame placing. I think God held Judah to a greater accountability because they new the living God.
In God we owe our total existence, and everything He has done to sustain us right down to the air we breath. Everything good, everything we get is out of His generosity. I am entitled to nothing. God therefore is indeed the "spring of living water."
Contextually Jr 2:13 is a metaphor that God uses to hint at Himself being the self-sustaining spiritual source of eternity. The spring of living water is the substance Judah needed to be filled and satisfied. It is naturally flowing, you just have to seek it out. my translation calls it a fountain.
Here are some quotes that illustrate God's holy anger against His children:
-Jr2:7b "you made My inheritance detestable."
-Jr2:8 "The experts of the law no longer knew Me."
-Jr2:11 "Yet my people have exchanged their Glory for useless idols."
-Jr2:19 "think it over and see how evil and bitter it is for you to abandon the Lord your God and to have no fear of Me."
-Jr2:32 "My people have forgotten Me."
-Jr2:36 "how unstable you are, constantly changing your ways."
-In Verses 20-28 God assigns five images to describe Judah: 1 a beast broke from its yoke. 2 choice grapes that lose their quality. 3 a stain that won't go away. 4 a young camel unable to walk straight. 5 a horny donkey in heat.
Judah in defiance of crediting God as the life source, abandoned their favor and their revelation as God's people. Instead they worked at finding their own spiritual water source as the metaphor implies. They dug for themselves cisterns (a well or a sort of storage space for water):
1 Judah made many cisterns instead of one spring of Living Water.
2 Judah dug and labored to find the right spot, instead of knowing where to go.
3 Judah dug to the desired depth, instead of going to God for abundance of water.
4 Judah fortified the walls to keep their cistern from collapsing. Yet God calls them cracked and cannot hold water.
And so all philosophies, all other gods outside of Jesus Christ are merely cisterns -made, measured, and crumbling; by myth, by man, by deception, by Satan. Jesus Himself said hundreds of years later that He is the giver of Living Water in John 4:10.
I know this to be too true. My own attempts to look at other people's cisterns and try and make my own have left me ruined and godless. Faith in Jesus and His atonement for me through crucifixion brought me to the fountain of Living Water and I drank and am quenched daily.
The Truth of Scripture, in Christ destroyed my leaky, crumbling cistern and removed my eyes on gazing at others' cisterns. Glory to the Lord Jesus Christ who is mighty to save. The words of God through Jeremiah struck me deeply -about who I was, who God is and His righteous indignation toward Judah and all who "lift their souls to another."
They have forsaken me,
the spring of living water,
and have dug their own cisterns,
broken cisterns that cannot hold water." Jeremiah 2:13
I think much of Jeremiah so far has opened my eyes to how God has been hurt relationally speaking by Judah/Israel/His people. There are many sentiments of betrayal, and rightful blame placing. I think God held Judah to a greater accountability because they new the living God.
In God we owe our total existence, and everything He has done to sustain us right down to the air we breath. Everything good, everything we get is out of His generosity. I am entitled to nothing. God therefore is indeed the "spring of living water."
Contextually Jr 2:13 is a metaphor that God uses to hint at Himself being the self-sustaining spiritual source of eternity. The spring of living water is the substance Judah needed to be filled and satisfied. It is naturally flowing, you just have to seek it out. my translation calls it a fountain.
Here are some quotes that illustrate God's holy anger against His children:
-Jr2:7b "you made My inheritance detestable."
-Jr2:8 "The experts of the law no longer knew Me."
-Jr2:11 "Yet my people have exchanged their Glory for useless idols."
-Jr2:19 "think it over and see how evil and bitter it is for you to abandon the Lord your God and to have no fear of Me."
-Jr2:32 "My people have forgotten Me."
-Jr2:36 "how unstable you are, constantly changing your ways."
-In Verses 20-28 God assigns five images to describe Judah: 1 a beast broke from its yoke. 2 choice grapes that lose their quality. 3 a stain that won't go away. 4 a young camel unable to walk straight. 5 a horny donkey in heat.
Judah in defiance of crediting God as the life source, abandoned their favor and their revelation as God's people. Instead they worked at finding their own spiritual water source as the metaphor implies. They dug for themselves cisterns (a well or a sort of storage space for water):
1 Judah made many cisterns instead of one spring of Living Water.
2 Judah dug and labored to find the right spot, instead of knowing where to go.
3 Judah dug to the desired depth, instead of going to God for abundance of water.
4 Judah fortified the walls to keep their cistern from collapsing. Yet God calls them cracked and cannot hold water.
And so all philosophies, all other gods outside of Jesus Christ are merely cisterns -made, measured, and crumbling; by myth, by man, by deception, by Satan. Jesus Himself said hundreds of years later that He is the giver of Living Water in John 4:10.
I know this to be too true. My own attempts to look at other people's cisterns and try and make my own have left me ruined and godless. Faith in Jesus and His atonement for me through crucifixion brought me to the fountain of Living Water and I drank and am quenched daily.
The Truth of Scripture, in Christ destroyed my leaky, crumbling cistern and removed my eyes on gazing at others' cisterns. Glory to the Lord Jesus Christ who is mighty to save. The words of God through Jeremiah struck me deeply -about who I was, who God is and His righteous indignation toward Judah and all who "lift their souls to another."
Tuesday, September 20, 2011
My Brotha D
Miracles evidence the hand of Jesus. I've been watching from a distance a fatherless youth trust in God as his Father. -Need I say more.
Its been two months now and Christ's love is deeply planted. Though it seems that "the honeymoon" might be over. I mean this because with surrender to Jesus: comes new realizations, my friend was just shown by God the distraction and deception Satan used most in his life. An how those things had slavery upon his life.
It is of the utmost urgency that upon receiving the grace and mercy contained in the atoning work of Jesus, we respond with repentance. My brotha D has gotten some distance from those enslaving things. Now, I think my friend is at the point where God is asking him to continue to say "no" to the past sins. Yet they yell loudly in his flesh. Christ is big in his life and reminds him that he is a new creation in faith.
What remains is a soul falling deeper in love with God through self-sacrifice. My friend lives in a home-life of darkness, a future without much hope. Yet Jesus is being trusted to bring the Light into his darkened places. With our eyes on God, we all hold strong even in facing that which once enslaved us. I commit D to the Lord this morning.
Its been two months now and Christ's love is deeply planted. Though it seems that "the honeymoon" might be over. I mean this because with surrender to Jesus: comes new realizations, my friend was just shown by God the distraction and deception Satan used most in his life. An how those things had slavery upon his life.
It is of the utmost urgency that upon receiving the grace and mercy contained in the atoning work of Jesus, we respond with repentance. My brotha D has gotten some distance from those enslaving things. Now, I think my friend is at the point where God is asking him to continue to say "no" to the past sins. Yet they yell loudly in his flesh. Christ is big in his life and reminds him that he is a new creation in faith.
What remains is a soul falling deeper in love with God through self-sacrifice. My friend lives in a home-life of darkness, a future without much hope. Yet Jesus is being trusted to bring the Light into his darkened places. With our eyes on God, we all hold strong even in facing that which once enslaved us. I commit D to the Lord this morning.
Monday, September 19, 2011
Jeremiah 1:5-10
I notice I apply faith to certain Bible passage more than others. Stuff like: 1 only through faith am I saved. 2 God never leaves or forsakes us. 3 God loves me and is my father. The Spirit of Jesus has blessed me to cling to these because they are most crucial to my faith and cornerstone lessons to grow with.
I think Jesus would scold me by saying "ye of little faith." when it comes to applying my faith to other passages in the Bible. Do i really believe the Truth that God spoke to Jeremiah?
Jeremiah 1:5 says:
“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you,
before you were born I set you apart;
I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.”
Do I have faith in a God so wise and in control that He is able to put a person in a specific time period and city center knowing fully what His subjects will do. and even more: Will this servant will do exactly what God wants him or her to do. Where is my faith and trust in God, as the maker of a pre-planned world. How can I keep from my own will and sins to walk in God's purpose? In a way, God has assigned a premeditated glory for Himself, lest we stray.
Jesus has the Book of Life, He knows the names from all eternity. Life from earth looking up to heaven is far different than God looking from heaven to earth. As I look up to heaven I use faith because without trust and obedience to God's plan, I feel like a "free willed" loose cannon (not good).
Since God chose, formed, and set me apart all before I was born -as the Scripture teaches. The pressing question why don't I submit to the Scriptures revealing this truth. Why does my faith run and hide when asked to surrender to Christ's unfolding plan for me. From God's perspective, everything is under control and nearly predetermined. It is a sin of unbelief when I doubt my purpose in Chicago, at Target, at church, at Moody, in trials, in addiction, in repentance and in Christ.
Here it seems Jeremiah struggled to believe God, similar to Moses he says he's not a good speaker. And God with a patient love convinces Jeremiah to trust Him for the plan of his life that's been going on since before Jeremiah was born. I must, must, must trust God in this way.
I think Jesus would scold me by saying "ye of little faith." when it comes to applying my faith to other passages in the Bible. Do i really believe the Truth that God spoke to Jeremiah?
Jeremiah 1:5 says:
“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you,
before you were born I set you apart;
I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.”
Do I have faith in a God so wise and in control that He is able to put a person in a specific time period and city center knowing fully what His subjects will do. and even more: Will this servant will do exactly what God wants him or her to do. Where is my faith and trust in God, as the maker of a pre-planned world. How can I keep from my own will and sins to walk in God's purpose? In a way, God has assigned a premeditated glory for Himself, lest we stray.
Jesus has the Book of Life, He knows the names from all eternity. Life from earth looking up to heaven is far different than God looking from heaven to earth. As I look up to heaven I use faith because without trust and obedience to God's plan, I feel like a "free willed" loose cannon (not good).
Since God chose, formed, and set me apart all before I was born -as the Scripture teaches. The pressing question why don't I submit to the Scriptures revealing this truth. Why does my faith run and hide when asked to surrender to Christ's unfolding plan for me. From God's perspective, everything is under control and nearly predetermined. It is a sin of unbelief when I doubt my purpose in Chicago, at Target, at church, at Moody, in trials, in addiction, in repentance and in Christ.
Here it seems Jeremiah struggled to believe God, similar to Moses he says he's not a good speaker. And God with a patient love convinces Jeremiah to trust Him for the plan of his life that's been going on since before Jeremiah was born. I must, must, must trust God in this way.
Thursday, September 15, 2011
Weakness and surrender
Up until, and including now I have made the choice to eat in such a way that causes me to be fat. I have not tried to portion my consumption. I haven't read nutrition labels to gain any strategy, and I remain quite unapologetic when I make a fatty pineapple upside-down cake.
Add to this, when I call upon my physical strength: I sweat, I'm sore and I strain over my shortness of breath. All my life, I have chosen not to workout regularly. I have convinced myself that there is very little I can do to lose weight. And people ought to love me for the inside not my outside.
The truth is: I'm healthy, I am not crippled just overweight with a borderline blood pressure reading. I know this guy who is passionate about exercise and eating right and he's got two blown knees. He is envious of the body I have. Someone once told me: I got Viking blood from my Swiss lineage, I would be a fool to not pump up and be an ox!
Still, even after all this thought and affirmation: How have I allowed myself to live with this weakness? I lie to myself every day to uphold my ignorance. I condemn myself first. But should I? Certainly with every lie isn't the King of Liars, Satan responsible too.
-In hindsight-
The lay of the land in my psyche regarding my physique is very much crippled by earthly constructs: Satan gained ground in my subconscious by making me hate the stereotypical man that appeared to get the ladies. I find the secular world of dating as shallow and self-gratifying. Honestly the society I live in exports immorality above all else. As a response, instead of asking God, I chose to allow food to be my condolence and beer. I didn't want to be desirable by social standards -that standard is shallow and superficial.
Then the beauty of women became powerful over me but I could not reconcile my hate for jock-type men/ nor try and become one of them. I was a social curiosity banking on humor. I became enslaved to lust, and fantasies about women; the snowball effect had triggered self-hate because of how I let myself gain this much weight.
More surface level contributors include working at restaurants, drinking lots of beer and getting the mad-munchies from hitting the joints.
These are the foundations of lies I attributed my weight gain and work-out lifestyle to. For years now, God has shattered my own understanding. He has taken up surrendered sins, and He has graciously changed my weaknesses into strength.
I'm talking about the strength of repentance. After salvation, I can't think of a more important sermon to preach on other than repentance. Repentance is the working out of my faith. I have been repentant and much satisfaction in my walk with Jesus comes from knowing His power has removed my addictions from me. And keeps it away: 1 Cursing, 2 Marijuana, 3 Cigarettes, 4 Pornography, 5 Masturbation, 6 Alcohol. This is the Sanctification of the Lord, a work finished in repentance. I tell of Christ's fixing power and it reminds me of His great love for me.
Still though I'm surrendering to God more weaknesses: I have vows concerning: purity of my eyes, eating and working out, facing bitterness/unforgiveness within. I pray with hope that these will one day be repented from. I am assured by the past, I just know that it is a journey to repentance it doesn't come overnight.
All this to say that I have lost 6 pounds and my wife is a big support. But it is to the Lord I pray that smaller portions would fill me, funner exercises would come, junk food wouldn't find me and that God would be blessed by His temple founded in me.
Add to this, when I call upon my physical strength: I sweat, I'm sore and I strain over my shortness of breath. All my life, I have chosen not to workout regularly. I have convinced myself that there is very little I can do to lose weight. And people ought to love me for the inside not my outside.
The truth is: I'm healthy, I am not crippled just overweight with a borderline blood pressure reading. I know this guy who is passionate about exercise and eating right and he's got two blown knees. He is envious of the body I have. Someone once told me: I got Viking blood from my Swiss lineage, I would be a fool to not pump up and be an ox!
Still, even after all this thought and affirmation: How have I allowed myself to live with this weakness? I lie to myself every day to uphold my ignorance. I condemn myself first. But should I? Certainly with every lie isn't the King of Liars, Satan responsible too.
-In hindsight-
The lay of the land in my psyche regarding my physique is very much crippled by earthly constructs: Satan gained ground in my subconscious by making me hate the stereotypical man that appeared to get the ladies. I find the secular world of dating as shallow and self-gratifying. Honestly the society I live in exports immorality above all else. As a response, instead of asking God, I chose to allow food to be my condolence and beer. I didn't want to be desirable by social standards -that standard is shallow and superficial.
Then the beauty of women became powerful over me but I could not reconcile my hate for jock-type men/ nor try and become one of them. I was a social curiosity banking on humor. I became enslaved to lust, and fantasies about women; the snowball effect had triggered self-hate because of how I let myself gain this much weight.
More surface level contributors include working at restaurants, drinking lots of beer and getting the mad-munchies from hitting the joints.
These are the foundations of lies I attributed my weight gain and work-out lifestyle to. For years now, God has shattered my own understanding. He has taken up surrendered sins, and He has graciously changed my weaknesses into strength.
I'm talking about the strength of repentance. After salvation, I can't think of a more important sermon to preach on other than repentance. Repentance is the working out of my faith. I have been repentant and much satisfaction in my walk with Jesus comes from knowing His power has removed my addictions from me. And keeps it away: 1 Cursing, 2 Marijuana, 3 Cigarettes, 4 Pornography, 5 Masturbation, 6 Alcohol. This is the Sanctification of the Lord, a work finished in repentance. I tell of Christ's fixing power and it reminds me of His great love for me.
Still though I'm surrendering to God more weaknesses: I have vows concerning: purity of my eyes, eating and working out, facing bitterness/unforgiveness within. I pray with hope that these will one day be repented from. I am assured by the past, I just know that it is a journey to repentance it doesn't come overnight.
All this to say that I have lost 6 pounds and my wife is a big support. But it is to the Lord I pray that smaller portions would fill me, funner exercises would come, junk food wouldn't find me and that God would be blessed by His temple founded in me.
Wednesday, September 14, 2011
McPregnancy, McLabor, McBirth, McBaby
Today at some point, most likely my friends will get a special delivery from the stork that drops off newborns. If you were to tell someone completely ignorant of where babies come from, the whole stork story is not much more of a stretch than than labor itself. Except that the miracle of birth actually happens.
Jesus -the creator of all, fully knowledgeable in each of the days of this boy or girl's soon-to-be-born-life, will entrust and lease out the life of this child to two earthlings who are up for the blessing.
We usually think of faith and trust as something that we give God, totally true. But also, in this sense God is putting faith and trust in my friends to bring this child up in the fullness of what Christ has planned. Eventually the child will be choosing the way to go. But for now its hugely up to my friends.
That's why obedience to the Spirit is powerful. They will fail on our own to raise this child, but God honors a sincere heart striving for obedience. God loves prayers on behalf of this child. God levels the path and straightens their trail by grace. The more Christlike they are, the more merciful parents can be toward their kid. Jesus loves two endeavoring parents who count on Him.
Congratulations on the new life that is breathed today for the first time. What an amazing thing. The implications are infinite and joyous.
Jesus -the creator of all, fully knowledgeable in each of the days of this boy or girl's soon-to-be-born-life, will entrust and lease out the life of this child to two earthlings who are up for the blessing.
We usually think of faith and trust as something that we give God, totally true. But also, in this sense God is putting faith and trust in my friends to bring this child up in the fullness of what Christ has planned. Eventually the child will be choosing the way to go. But for now its hugely up to my friends.
That's why obedience to the Spirit is powerful. They will fail on our own to raise this child, but God honors a sincere heart striving for obedience. God loves prayers on behalf of this child. God levels the path and straightens their trail by grace. The more Christlike they are, the more merciful parents can be toward their kid. Jesus loves two endeavoring parents who count on Him.
Congratulations on the new life that is breathed today for the first time. What an amazing thing. The implications are infinite and joyous.
Tuesday, September 13, 2011
Philippians 2:12
So the thing that has been on my mind since yesterday is found in Philippians 2:12. "Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed—not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence—continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling,"
This is the passage often seen as one of the key verses supporting "a merit based salvation." In truth, the word "continue" indicates that this should be done after our faith is place in Jesus Christ as Savior. I see this verse as a response to the first part of chapter 2 mainly because the verse starts with "therefore" which links the previous passage as the cause to "work out you faith in fear and trembling".
And that previous passage is a doozie:
"1 Therefore if you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any common sharing in the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, 2 then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and of one mind. 3 Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, 4 not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others.
5 In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus:
6 Who, being in very nature[a] God,
did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;
7 rather, he made himself nothing
by taking the very nature[b] of a servant,
being made in human likeness.
8 And being found in appearance as a man,
he humbled himself
by becoming obedient to death—
even death on a cross!
9 Therefore God exalted him to the highest place
and gave him the name that is above every name,
10 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,
in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
11 and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father."
So to more fully qualify what it means to "work out your faith with fear and trembling". We must look to Jesus' example of humility. also here, especially in verses 1-5 is the need to place others ahead of ourselves.
All this to say that I heard a sermon yesterday that used a powerful illustration for this passage. "It was a black tie event. The elite of society had gathered in this grand theater to hear a solo concert from a master pianist. People had arrived early and as they were mingling waiting for the event to start a boy probably bored out of his mind went up to the grand piano and started playing Chopsticks.
The crowd started shouting "get him off." or "where's his mother." Off stage, the master pianist saw what was happening to this young trouble maker and he came up behind the boy telling him to keep on playing. as the boy sat there playing Chopsticks the master pianist improvised a profound enrichment to the simple sound of the song."
We are to be the boy working out our faith, counting on God to surround us and transform our faith as we go along working, fearing God and trembling at our surrender.
This is the passage often seen as one of the key verses supporting "a merit based salvation." In truth, the word "continue" indicates that this should be done after our faith is place in Jesus Christ as Savior. I see this verse as a response to the first part of chapter 2 mainly because the verse starts with "therefore" which links the previous passage as the cause to "work out you faith in fear and trembling".
And that previous passage is a doozie:
"1 Therefore if you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any common sharing in the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, 2 then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and of one mind. 3 Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, 4 not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others.
5 In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus:
6 Who, being in very nature[a] God,
did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;
7 rather, he made himself nothing
by taking the very nature[b] of a servant,
being made in human likeness.
8 And being found in appearance as a man,
he humbled himself
by becoming obedient to death—
even death on a cross!
9 Therefore God exalted him to the highest place
and gave him the name that is above every name,
10 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,
in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
11 and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father."
So to more fully qualify what it means to "work out your faith with fear and trembling". We must look to Jesus' example of humility. also here, especially in verses 1-5 is the need to place others ahead of ourselves.
All this to say that I heard a sermon yesterday that used a powerful illustration for this passage. "It was a black tie event. The elite of society had gathered in this grand theater to hear a solo concert from a master pianist. People had arrived early and as they were mingling waiting for the event to start a boy probably bored out of his mind went up to the grand piano and started playing Chopsticks.
The crowd started shouting "get him off." or "where's his mother." Off stage, the master pianist saw what was happening to this young trouble maker and he came up behind the boy telling him to keep on playing. as the boy sat there playing Chopsticks the master pianist improvised a profound enrichment to the simple sound of the song."
We are to be the boy working out our faith, counting on God to surround us and transform our faith as we go along working, fearing God and trembling at our surrender.
Monday, September 12, 2011
Think On These Things
There is a certain secular wear and tear of my mind as I age in this urban mindset. Materialism and capitalism occupy much of my minds thoughts still today. It is due to the conditioning of my mind when I lived in rebellion to God. Back then it was up to me (or so I thought) to figure out my purpose, my plan and my path. I tried to live without Jesus, but through it all God was drawing me to Himself. He still is though I resist much less.
Jesus scooped me up. It takes a stabbing of pride to admit that the understandings and principles I lived on were wrong. God did that. I lived on faulty logic, my mind wanted to tell me the things I liked and disliked. It was all to lead me to the death of my own desires.
I depend on Jesus for the renewing of my mind. It is a big battle these days. Forgiveness, bitterness and attitude are central to the mind battle. I admit that I gave Satan lots of room in my mind to trample, distort and effect my behavior/emotions/thoughts. -but God has cast Satan out of the mental battlefield I once invited him to. I labor with the Spirit to not invite Satan back into my thoughts -repentance is clutch to drive this.
It is the prayerful submitting of my own understandings and pride to Jesus that stirs change. The shed blood of Jesus is my agent of change. Scripture is the new direction.
I am diagnosed Bi-Polar 1 meaning that I have emotional problems and often I struggle to rise above my own intense feelings. But Jesus Christ knows this, and His omnipotence means i got to be real with Him about my feelings before I do anything about them. Everyone struggles with this problem to a degree.
I feel the Spirit's call to do something about this in prayer, Scripture and in faith-filled reliance on God's lead.
Here's are the passages I'm trusting God for:
Philippians 4:8
"Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things."
James 1:19
"My dear brothers and sisters, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry,"
Romans 12:2
"Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will."
Jesus scooped me up. It takes a stabbing of pride to admit that the understandings and principles I lived on were wrong. God did that. I lived on faulty logic, my mind wanted to tell me the things I liked and disliked. It was all to lead me to the death of my own desires.
I depend on Jesus for the renewing of my mind. It is a big battle these days. Forgiveness, bitterness and attitude are central to the mind battle. I admit that I gave Satan lots of room in my mind to trample, distort and effect my behavior/emotions/thoughts. -but God has cast Satan out of the mental battlefield I once invited him to. I labor with the Spirit to not invite Satan back into my thoughts -repentance is clutch to drive this.
It is the prayerful submitting of my own understandings and pride to Jesus that stirs change. The shed blood of Jesus is my agent of change. Scripture is the new direction.
I am diagnosed Bi-Polar 1 meaning that I have emotional problems and often I struggle to rise above my own intense feelings. But Jesus Christ knows this, and His omnipotence means i got to be real with Him about my feelings before I do anything about them. Everyone struggles with this problem to a degree.
I feel the Spirit's call to do something about this in prayer, Scripture and in faith-filled reliance on God's lead.
Here's are the passages I'm trusting God for:
Philippians 4:8
"Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things."
James 1:19
"My dear brothers and sisters, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry,"
Romans 12:2
"Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will."
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