Tag Christianity

The Sovereign Over Our Blessings

Todd R 1 Comment

40 years after God first made a covenant with Israel, promising to be their God and bless them if they would love and obey Him, the covenant had to be renewed.  Israel had been led through wilderness for decades after refusing to enter the Promised Land, but Moses eventually gathered them again to finally cross the Jordan River and take the Land.  Moses prepared them by renewing the covenant, but before that, Moses reviewed blessings and curses from God that would come with obedience or disobedience.

We know that “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,”[1] and therefore any blessing is an act of grace because only Jesus lived a life of full obedience.  However, the choices of the ancient Israelites, and modern people, have consequences, and these blessings and curses carry a lesson about God’s sovereignty.  God would not make promises or threats that He is unable to carry out and therefore He must have the power and control to deliver on all of them.  Consider these parallel verses in Deuteronomy 28 showing God’s control over…

…all places, rural or urban:
“Blessed shall you be in the city, and blessed shall you be in the field.” (verse 3)
“Cursed shall you be in the city, and cursed shall you be in the field.”  (verse 16)

…reproductive and agricultural success:
“Blessed shall be the fruit of your womb and the fruit of your ground and the fruit of your cattle, the increase of your herds and the young of your flock.”  (verse 4)
“Cursed shall be the fruit of your womb and the fruit of your ground, the increase of your herds and the young of your flock.”  (verse 18)

…military success:
“The LORD will cause your enemies who rise against you to be defeated before you. They shall come out against you one way and flee before you seven ways.”  (verse 7)
“The LORD will cause you to be defeated before your enemies. You shall go out one way against them and flee seven ways before them. And you shall be a horror to all the kingdoms of the earth.”  (verse 25)

…the weather and its related benefits:
“The LORD will open to you his good treasury, the heavens, to give the rain to your land in its season and to bless all the work of your hands.”  (verse 12a)
“And the heavens over your head shall be bronze, and the earth under you shall be iron.  The LORD will make the rain of your land powder. From heaven dust shall come down on you until you are destroyed.”  (verse 23-24)

There are further curses, without parallel blessings, where God is declared as sovereign over…

…disease:
“The LORD will make the pestilence stick to you until he has consumed you off the land that you are entering to take possession of it.  The LORD will strike you with wasting disease and with fever, inflammation and fiery heat, and with drought and with blight and with mildew. They shall pursue you until you perish.”  (verse 21-22)

…human psychology:
“The LORD will strike you with madness and blindness and confusion of mind.” (verse 28)

…nature, including the smallest worms and crickets:
“You shall plant vineyards and dress them, but you shall neither drink of the wine nor gather the grapes, for the worm shall eat them.”  (verse 39)
“The cricket shall possess all your trees and the fruit of your ground.”  (verse 42)

…and even over the fates of nations:
“The LORD will bring a nation against you from far away, from the end of the earth, swooping down like the eagle, a nation whose language you do not understand.” (verse 49)

As we know, Israel was eventually carried away into captivity by Assyria in 722 B.C., and Judah to Babylonia in 586 B.C. because of their ongoing unfaithfulness to God, however God fulfilled His covenant through Jesus Christ, descended from the tribe of Judah, centuries after they returned from Babylonian exile.  In Christ, people from all nations can be His people, and He will be their God.

We are all in exile, sojourning on this earth, but our God, sovereign over all, has Promised a new Land, a new heaven and a new earth, and we know He is faithful, even if it takes centuries.  Therefore, praise God for the blessings He gives His people in all of the areas under His control, which is everything!

Nothing escapes His notice and nothing is beneath Him to be concerned about.  Pray for His blessings in all areas of life, no matter how large or small.

Amen.

[1] Romans 3:23

Doctrine in Action

Todd R 2 Comments
Photo by Ameen Fahmy on Unsplash

In C.S. Lewis’ book The Screwtape Letters, senior demon Screwtape writes fictional letters to Wormwood, a junior demon, on how to defeat his “patient.”  In one of these letters, Screwtape advises: “As long as [man] does not convert it into action, it does not matter how much he thinks about this new repentance… Wallow in it… Write a book about it; that is often an excellent way of sterilising the seeds which [Heavenly Father] plants in a human soul… Do anything but act. No amount of piety in his imagination and affections will harm [the cause of evil] if [it is kept] out of his will… The more often he feels without acting, the less he will ever be able to act, and, in the long run, the less he will be able to feel.”

Christianity is not a soul-less doctrine, but a restoration of the right relationships between souls and their Creator, which should lead to action.  Teaching should lead to love.  In 1 Timothy 1:3-4 Paul writes to Timothy: “As I urged you when I was going to Macedonia, remain at Ephesus so that you may charge certain persons not to teach any different doctrine, nor to devote themselves to myths and endless genealogies, which promote speculations rather than the stewardship from God that is by faith.”  In his commentary on the verse, John Calvin says that Paul “judges of doctrine by the fruit; for every tiling that does not edify ought to be rejected, although it has no other fault; and everything that is of no avail but for raising contentions, ought to be doubly condemned.”

Calvin’s note and Screwtape’s fictional letter remind me of the linked Monty Python video of philosophers philosophizing about soccer while simultaneously “playing” soccer.

Every doctrine and institution of the church should empower His people to live for Him.  Are we playing the right game, and are we playing to win?

Daily Readings for June 21 – 27

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Fellow travelers:

For those looking for a Bible reading plan, each week I post 2 chapters to read per day as a main reading plan, and for anyone who wants to read the whole Bible in 2026, I’ll post the extra chapters to read that week.  The main readings will include nearly all of the New Testament, plus Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, the Prophets, 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.  These readings will cover the Pentateuch, the OT histories, a few other OT books, plus Jude and Revelation from the NT.

Regardless, I hope this schedule encourages others to read and study their Bible more, whatever parts they decide to read.  Follow along (or not) any way you choose!

2 chapter a day plan:

Monday, June 22: Proverbs 23, Acts 18
Tuesday, June 23: Proverbs 24, Acts 19
Wednesday, June 24: Proverbs 25, Acts 20
Thursday, June 25: Proverbs 26, Acts 21
Friday, June 26: Proverbs 27, Acts 22
Saturday, June 27: Proverbs 28, Acts 23
Sunday, June 28: Proverbs 29, Acts 24

Extra chapters for those reading the whole Bible in 2026:
Judges 12 – 20

Minding Our Own Business

Todd R 3 Comments

Have you heard the term “virtue signaling”?  The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines it as “the act or practice of conspicuously displaying one’s awareness of and attentiveness to political issues, matters of social and racial justice, etc., especially instead of taking effective action.”  The phrase seems like it’s been around a long time, but the first use of it may have been as recent as 2013.[1]

Maybe the words “virtue signaling” are new, but the idea is at least as old as the Bible.  In chapter 26, verses 6-13 of Matthew’s gospel, he tells the story of a woman who came to Jesus with “an alabaster flask of very expensive ointment” which she poured on Jesus’ head in front of the disciples.  In Jesus’ view “she has done a beautiful thing to me…to prepare me for burial.”  But the disciples didn’t see it the same way Jesus did.  They indignantly said “Why this waste?  For this [ointment] could have been sold for a large sum and given to the poor.”

Jesus responded how it was “a beautiful thing”, but also made another comment that made it clear the disciples were virtue signaling.  He told them not to “trouble the woman.”  “For you always have the poor with you, but you will not always have me.”  I think Jesus had at least 3 points in this phrase, related to virtue signaling.

The first is that knowing what to do isn’t enough.  In fact, it just increases our responsibility.  James 4:17 says: “So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin.”  Although the disciples knew that giving to the poor was good, in this case were more concerned about sharing that knowledge than about using it.  Today, we might call such people virtue signalers, but the Bible calls them “busybodies” and “meddlers”[2]  People who go from person to person evaluating and criticizing their work instead of minding their own responsibilities.  These people are common on social media.

Second, that there is always an opportunity to help the poor – they always will exist and aren’t hard to find – and each disciple surely missed opportunities every day.  On what basis could they pick on someone else’s failure to help the poor?  By criticizing the woman, they revealed that virtue signaling was more important to them than actually being virtuous.

Photo by Guillaume de Germain on Unsplash

The last point is that service flows from worship, not the other way around.  When we worship Jesus, the ultimate servant, our own ability to sincerely serve others increases as a result.  The woman with the ointment knew this may be the only opportunity to anoint Jesus for burial, and knew she shouldn’t miss it.  On the other hand, the disciples wanted Jesus to punish the woman when they should have been minding their own business.  An internal posture of worship may be the best antidote to hypocrisy and the temptation to merely signal virtue.

The phrase “mind your own business” usually is said to someone we want to leave us alone, but the words actually mean that we should consider our own activities and motives more important than the policing of other people’s activities and motives.  We “always have the poor” with us and fall far short of the standard we need to meet to judge other people’s use of resources.

When we all stand before God in judgment, Jesus will tell the blessed: “I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.’”  In other words, the blessed minded their own business instead of just criticizing others (virtue signaling).  Jesus notices when we take effective action and doesn’t care much about our opinions of others’ effectiveness.

Therefore, pray that we can all mind our own business, in worshipful service, “for you always have the poor with you,” and thank God for His forgiveness, because I know I don’t mind my own business nearly as often as I should.  Sometimes I just blog about it.

“Many a man proclaims his own steadfast love,
            but a faithful man who can find?” – Proverbs 20:6

[1] https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/virtue signaling
[2] 1 Timothy 5:13; 1 Peter 4:15

Who We Shall Be

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The apostle Peter wasn’t always a follower of Jesus.  He also wasn’t always Peter; he was originally named Simon.  He got his new name when his brother Andrew took him to meet Jesus.  Andrew “brought him to Jesus. Jesus looked at him and said, ‘You are Simon the son of John? You shall be called Cephas” (which means Peter).’” (John 1:42).

Photo by Lionel Gustave on Unsplash

Something that stands out in Jesus’ words are the phrases “You are,” and “You shall be.”  It’s as if Jesus saw 2 people: the one Simon was, and Peter that Simon would be.  The Simon of the present and the Peter of the future.  Jesus knew there was work to be done with this Simon who would become His disciple, but He also knew that the work would be completed.  It was inevitable that Simon would become Peter, the rock, which is what the name Peter means.  Cephas also means rock in Aramaic, but Peter is the Greek name we know him by.

But in the meantime, Peter was going to be a work in progress, like all of us.  Jesus sees everyone as they “are” and as they “shall be.”  He sees the raw material and He sees what it will take to finish each competed work of art.  Jesus takes us as we are, begins our transformation there, and will complete it in eternity.

Revelation 2:17 says of believers: “To the one who conquers I will give some of the hidden manna, and I will give him a white stone, with a new name written on the stone that no one knows except the one who receives it.”  This new name represents our future, eternal identity.  The person we will be when God is finished with His work of creation in us, the person Jesus sees in us, but that is beyond our wildest imagination. C.S. Lewis wrote that believers will “one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship.”  This is how completely we will be changed and conformed to the image and likeness of God that He intended for us from the beginning.[1]

So, if you ever feel disappointed in yourself, if you feel unworthy of God’s attention, if you wonder how God could love someone like you, remember: God sees who you “are” and who “you shall be.”  And who “you shall be” is beautiful beyond what we can imagine, but not beyond what He can see.

“You are Simon the son of John? You shall be called Cephas” (which means Peter).”

[1] Genesis 1:26-27