God is at Hand

February 4, 2025February 3, 2025Todd R 1 Comment

The Old Testament prophet Jeremiah lived in a time full of false prophets, where the true word of God was rarely heard. It was also a time where idolatry and sin ran wild among the people of Judah, Jeremiah’s audience, a nation headed for destruction by Babylon, God’s chosen agent to discipline them. Yet the false prophets told the people: “You shall not see the sword, nor shall you have famine, but I will give you assured peace in this place.’”[1] Later, “They say continually to those who despise the word of the LORD, ‘It shall be well with you’; and to everyone who stubbornly follows his own heart, they say, ‘No disaster shall come upon you.’”[2]

These false prophets were essentially telling the people they can do whatever they want, so they don’t need a savior since God was not going to judge them. The false prophets also said that the people don’t need God as Lord, since there would be no negative consequences no matter what they chose to do.

Jeremiah fearlessly confronts these prophets and worked hard to get the people to take him seriously. At one point, God tells Jeremiah to proclaim: “Am I a God at hand, declares the LORD, and not a God far away?”[3] With this question, the LORD lets the people know that they can’t just set him aside as if He doesn’t exist. While God is a God of love, He is also a God of justice, and sin will not be ignored.

Both the Old and New Testaments warn that those who ignore God can infect the broader population. In Deuteronomy 29:18-19, Moses wrote: “Beware lest there be among you a man or woman or clan or tribe whose heart is turning away today from the LORD our God to go and serve the gods of those nations. Beware lest there be among you a root bearing poisonous and bitter fruit, one who, when he hears the words of this sworn covenant, blesses himself in his heart, saying, ‘I shall be safe, though I walk in the stubbornness of my heart.’ This will lead to the sweeping away of moist and dry alike.” [emphasis mine]. The whole church, the “moist and dry alike” can suffer from the influence of members who cast God aside as irrelevant or inconvenient. People who stubbornly insist on their own way.

The New Testament picks up the “root” image from Deuteronomy in Hebrews 12:15 – “See to it that no one fails to obtain the grace of God; that no “root of bitterness” springs up and causes trouble, and by it many become defiled”. This verse is in the context of God’s discipline, of understanding that when He judges His own people, it is not a final judgement, but one that is meant to refine them and make them holy. But it is also a reminder that we need to accept God as Lord, by His grace, in order for Him to be our Savior.

Like the false prophets of Jeremiah’s day, modern preachers can also teach that we don’t need Jesus as Lord and Savior. Some of them declare that we are free to do whatever we want because He is a God of love and therefore will never judge us no matter what. These ministers fail to see God’s loving, disciplining hand in our difficulties, feeding the “root of bitterness”.

Other preachers declare that God is a God of love, and therefore if we follow Him, we will be showered with blessings. These ministers see suffering not as discipline, but as a failure on our part to love God, thus making God’s love conditional. This also feeds the “root of bitterness” because there is no way we can meet God’s standard. We will always fall short and without grace all we can experience is frustration. There will never be enough material blessing to keep us satisfied under this theology.

However, we do need Jesus as Savior, and we do need Jesus as Lord, and we also have Jesus as Savior and Lord. We need to live like God is “at hand” and not “far away.” R.C. Sproul used to say Christians need to live “coram Deo” which means “before the face of God” in Latin. Always knowing that we live in God’s presence, that He is “at hand” reminds us not only of our need for Him as Lord and Savior, but also that He more than meets our need because He is a perfect Lord and Savior.

So, when Jeremiah tells us that God asks, “Am I a God at hand, declares the LORD, and not a God far away?” we can reply that we know we always live coram Deo because He is near. Only then can we pull up bitterness by its roots and experience true joy in His presence.

Live coram Deo today.

Amen.

[1] Jeremiah 14:13b
[2] Jeremiah 23:17
[3] Jeremiah 23:23

Weekly Readings for January 27 – February 2

January 26, 2025January 23, 2025Todd R Leave a comment

Fellow travelers:

Here is the list of readings for this week. Each week I will post 2 chapters to read per day as the main reading plan, and for anyone who wants to read the whole Bible in 2025, I’ll post the extra chapters needed for that goal. The main readings will include all of the New Testament, plus Psalms, Proverbs, the Pentateuch, Ecclesiastes, and a few other Old Testament books.

Reading 3 chapters a day on weekdays and 4 on weekends almost exactly covers the 1,189 chapters of the Bible, so the “extra” readings will be about 9 chapters per week.

Follow along (or not) any way you choose! I will often be re-posting old blogs that comment on the chapters in this schedule.

Monday, January 27: Psalm 27, Genesis 27
Tuesday, January 28: Psalm 28, Genesis 28
Wednesday, January 29: Psalm 29, Genesis 29
Thursday, January 30: Psalm 30, Genesis 30
Friday, January 31: Psalm 31, Genesis 31
Saturday, February 1: Psalm 32, Genesis 32
Sunday, February 2: Psalm 33, Genesis 33

Additional readings if you want to read the whole Bible this year:
2 Samuel 4 – 12

Happy 3rd Blogiversary to Driving Toward Morning!

May 20, 2024May 19, 2024Todd R Leave a comment

Fellow travelers,

It’s hard to believe it’s been 3 years since the first post on this blog, “42 is Not the Answer”. Thank you to everyone who has been reading along, and especially to those who comment and share!

Looking back on my 1-year and 2-year blogiversary posts, here are some thoughts on how things have gone in year 3:

I posted 229 times since the last blogiversary, compared with 333 over the prior 2 years combined. Now that I have a library of old posts, I’ve been mixing a lot of those in with new ones to try and post more consistently. I’ve been slow recently, but at one point I had a 95-day streak!
I wanted to do more posts on history, holidays, groups of quotes, and other thiings like book reviews, but found these hard to come up with (other than the quotes). Sometimes these (especially the history ones) depend on what I’m reading, and it just hasn’t worked out.
I wrote last year that serial posts don’t work well, since I can’t know what order people are reading things in, or how WordPress will organize things. So, I’ve been taking some of my older serial posts, editing them, and re-posting as stand-alones. It’s been a good source of “new” material.

I continue to “consider how to stir up one another to love and good works,”[1] and hope to continue writing for many more years! However, as James wrote, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.”[2] Only God knows where this blog will go, but above all, I hope to follow where He leads faithfully.

Thank you for coming along for the ride

[1] Hebrews 10:24
[2] James 4:15

Holiness is Like a Bowl of M&Ms?

March 15, 2024March 11, 2024Todd R 4 Comments

Rock stars get a bad reputation for big egos and decadent lifestyles, and often for good reason. But sometimes it’s just a misunderstanding. Over the years, rock band Van Halen has been criticized over the infamous “brown M&M” clause in their contract with concert promoters. Listed among many requirements, including how they want the stage set up and safety concerns, was buried a requirement that there should be a bowl of M&Ms backstage. But not just any bowl: it had to have absolutely no brown-colored M&Ms. This clause gained the band a bad reputation, because what kind of egomaniac would make someone go through the work of picking out every brown M&M? Don’t all the colors taste the same anyway?

However, the clause had nothing to do with the band’s taste in M&M flavors or colors. In addition to all the contract terms needed to cover many “important things,” they also needed a quick and easy way to know that the workers at the arena had thoroughly read the contract. The M&Ms were that way. Because of the “brown M&M” clause, as soon as the band walked backstage, seeing the bowl of M&Ms would immediately let them know the “important things” would be covered as well.

What’s this story doing on a Christian blog? In the Bible, God describes His relationship with His people as a covenant, a form of contract, in this case between a King and His subjects. Some parts of this agreement – consider the long descriptions of the tabernacle and temple in the Old Testament – may seem dull and insignificant. Much of Exodus 25-27, and most of Exodus 35-40, detail the design of the tabernacle as given by God to Moses. The collection of the materials, the work of the craftsmen in building the various parts, and finally Moses setting up the completed tabernacle are listed in seemingly repetitive and pointless detail.

However, in addition to God wanting His tabernacle set up correctly, the mere accumulation of detail also makes a point – that God cares about every single detail of His covenant with His people. Nothing is to be ignored, just like the bowl of M&Ms. But this concern for detail does not mean that He holds every violation we commit over our head to make us feel guilty. Instead, it makes two points:

First, anything less than holiness is not good enough for God. If He accepted less, He would not be just. As one brown M&M was too much for Van Halen, or one drop of cyanide would be too much to put in our glass of water, one instance of sin is too much for God. Therefore, only Jesus, by living the perfect life, could be acceptable to God the Father. Fortunately for all of us, Jesus’ righteousness is offered to us freely. He met the standard of perfection for us.

Second, the level of detail lets us know that He cares about every detail of our lives. We can talk to Him about anything because there is nothing He is not concerned about or is not interested in hearing from us, or able to lovingly walk alongside us through. David wrote in Psalm 23:4 that:

“Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
            I will fear no evil,
for you are with me;
            your rod and your staff,
            they comfort me.”

The rod and staff of our Good Shepherd are not there to punish us, but to guide and lead us through every experience we have in this world, good or bad, and into the next world, where all is holy and good. His covenant with us – His contractual promise – is to be our God, and we are to be His people.

Our Father in heaven cares about every little thing. Even brown M&Ms.

Driving Toward the Morning Sun

What "Not Yet" Means for "Now"

Category Uncategorized

God is at Hand

Weekly Readings for January 27 – February 2

Happy 3rd Blogiversary to Driving Toward Morning!

Holiness is Like a Bowl of M&Ms?