Tag Jesus

Let God Speak to Your Inner Wilderness

Todd R 1 Comment

John the Baptist announced the coming of Jesus, baptized Him, and led the way for His ministry to begin.  This John was identified with “The voice of one crying in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord; make his paths straight’”[1] prophesied in Isaiah 40:3-5, which says:

“A voice cries: ‘In the wilderness prepare the way of the LORD;
            make straight in the desert a highway for our God.
Every valley shall be lifted up,
            and every mountain and hill be made low;
the uneven ground shall become level,
            and the rough places a plain.
And the glory of the LORD shall be revealed,
            and all flesh shall see it together,
            for the mouth of the LORD has spoken.’”

Is Isaiah talking about a massive, miraculous geological event, creating an easier route for Jesus to take to His kingdom?  Perhaps in the future something like this will happen, but I think Isaiah is saying that God’s power over nature is a symbol of His power to reform and perfect us into the character of His Son Jesus.

Before Jesus comes into our lives, we are a spiritual wilderness full of uneven ground and rough places.  The path of our salvation begins in this wilderness, an unorganized chaos of thoughts and desires.  We are like “children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes.”  However, the power of the LORD enters our low valleys – our guilty secrets, shame and depression – which will be raised up.  It progresses through our mountains and hills – areas of pride, self-sufficiency, and our desire for power – which will be made low.  God, with the same power that created the universe, removes all obstacles to the coming of His kingdom to us, and to the world.  He has given us His word, His Spirit, and fellow believers to strengthen us, “until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes.”  (Ephesians 4:13-14)

John the Baptist called his followers to confession and repentance.  In announcing the coming of the kingdom of God, John anticipated a time when our internal and external wildernesses will become a paradise.  Until then, we each have different hills and valleys, different uneven and rough areas.  Until then, the world remains full of false doctrine, cunning, craftiness and deceit.

Today, pray that the powerful voice of our LORD will reach into your wilderness and remove obstacles on the path to His kingdom.  Pray that His word and His Spirit will reveal His glory.  Pray that all believers will answer the call of “the voice of one crying in the wilderness” to build up His church.

Amen.

[1] Isaiah 40:3, quoted in Matthew 4:3.

A Ministry Lesson From Jonah

Todd R 2 Comments

In the Old Testament, God’s people – the Jews – were supposed to be a blessing to other nations[1], pointing them to God.  Ultimately this blessing came through Jesus Christ, but in the meantime God’s people didn’t always live up to His expectations.  One disappointing example was Jonah.  God said to him in Jonah 1:2 –

“Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it, for their evil has come up before me.”

But Nineveh was in Assyria, one of Israel’s enemies.  God said in the call to Jonah that they were “evil.”  50 or so years later Assyria would conquer Israel.  Jonah hated his enemy Assyria and didn’t want to prophesy to them even though God told him to, so what did he do instead?  He ran away.

In his commentary on Jonah, Warren Wiersbe wrote: “When you turn your back on God, the only direction you can go is down.”[2]  What did he mean?

Notice that in verse 3, Jonah goes “down to Joppa,” and “down into” a ship he found to take him to Tarshish, far away from both Israel and Nineveh.  Later in verse 5, Jonah “had gone down into the inner part of the ship and had lain down and was fast asleep.”  From the minute Jonah decided to run from God, he found himself in a descending spiral and ended up in despair, asking the sailors to throw him (down?) into the sea to calm a storm.  The Bible doesn’t use the word “down”, but you could say that after Jonah was tossed in the sea that he went down into the belly of the great fish when he was swallowed up.

It is only when Jonah prays a prayer of thanksgiving to God for saving his life and he says “you brought up my life from the pit, O LORD my God” that things start to look up for him.  He is then “vomited…out upon the dry land”[3] and given a second chance.

Like the ancient Jews, the modern church is also called to be a blessing to the nations, for example in Matthew 28:19-20, the verses known as the “Great Commission”:

“Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

This commission is to bless “all nations,” and note Jesus said to “make disciples,” not to “make converts” which means that the Great Commission goes beyond evangelism.  While we are all called to evangelize, and some are particularly blessed in it, the commission includes each Christian’s ministry to the church as well as we help each other live as Christ did, blessing those around us.  As Paul wrote in Romans 12:4-8, we all have a role in making disciples:

“For as in one body we have many members, and the members do not all have the same function, so we, though many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another.  Having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, let us use them: if prophecy, in proportion to our faith; if service, in our serving; the one who teaches, in his teaching; the one who exhorts, in his exhortation; the one who contributes, in generosity; the one who leads, with zeal; the one who does acts of mercy, with cheerfulness.”

This isn’t a full list of what are called “spiritual gifts,” but prophecy, service, teaching, exhortation, generosity, leadership and mercy cover a lot of different activities and ministries.

While Jonah had his call to preach to Nineveh, and all Christians have the call to “make disciples of all nations,” but like Jonah do we also have certain people or types of people – maybe those we consider evil – we’d rather not minister to?  Are there tasks that we run away from, even if we feel God is calling us to do them, because of who else is involved?  Are there times where we, like Jonah, are what Wiersbe called a “narrow-minded patriot,”[4] more concerned about being on the right side from our worldly or political perspective than about being on God’s side?

If so, the lesson from Jonah is: don’t neglect what God has called you to do, because when you do, “the only direction you can go is down.”

Maybe even into the belly of a big fish.

Who is God asking us to minister to today?

[1] Genesis 12:3
[2] Wiersbe, Warren.  Be Amazed (Minor Prophets Hosea – Malachi) (1996).  P. 99.
[3] Jonah 2:10
[4] Wiersbe, Warren.  Be Amazed (Minor Prophets Hosea – Malachi) (1996).  P. 113.

Why We Pray

Todd R 3 Comments

Why do Christians pray, and why should they pray?  We probably pay a lot more attention to what we are praying than why, and maybe sometimes we don’t pray because we don’t think its necessary.  This may happen when we don’t know the why.

There are many reasons (many “whys”) we could think of for why Christians should pray, and here are some:

Do we pray to tell God what we want or need?  No, because the Bible tells us[1] that God already knows what we need.  He already knows everything, including knowing what we need better than we do, as our Creator.

Do we pray to convince God we are worthy and deserve His audience?  No, because on our own we are unrighteous sinners and only deserve separation from God.  Jesus has already accomplished everything we need to be able to approach God.

Do we pray so that God will love us more?  No, God’s love is based on His own character, not our actions.  He can’t love us more, and won’t love us any less, than He does.  That He gave His Son to die on the cross for us proves this.

So, why?

Before teaching His disciples how to pray using what we now call the Lord’s Prayer, Jesus said to them: “Pray then like this.”[2]  We often think of the Lord’s Prayer as instruction on how to pray, but maybe miss that Jesus told His disciples to pray.  It’s something He wants us to do, and regularly.

We pray because Jesus tells us to.  “Pray then like this” said Jesus because God desires a relationship with us and a big part of that relationship should be time spent in prayer.

Thomas Becon, an English cleric and Protestant reformer in the 1500’s, wrote this about prayer[3]: “For God neither for our worthiness nor for our unworthiness heareth us; but for his commandment and promise sake. He hath commanded us to pray; therefore ought we to pray. For if we should never pray till we were worthy of ourselves before God to pray, so should we never pray: but we therefore pray, because God hath commanded us so to do. Our worthiness is the humble confession of our unworthiness; and our obedience unto the commandment of God to pray maketh us most worthy.”

Therefore, pray, and often.

“Pray without ceasing” – 1 Thessalonians 5:17

[1] Matthew 6:8, 6:32, Luke 12:30
[2] Matthew 6:9a
[3] McKim, Donald K.  Everyday Prayer with the Reformers (2020).  P. 65.

Edom’s Grudge Match

Todd R 2 Comments

Does life seem unfair?  Have you ever lost a game to a cheater?  Or were passed over for a promotion by someone you consider unethical?  Or did someone you just don’t like get something you wanted?  There are many reasons we might hold a grudge.

Esau, son of Isaac and Rebekah, surely felt that way about his twin brother Jacob.  The rivalry of these boys began as early as their birth.  Esau was born first, but Jacob came right after, holding on to Esau’s heel.[1]  The name Jacob can mean “he takes by the heel,” but also it can mean “he cheats.”  The twins even had a rivalry over the favor of their parents: “Isaac loved Esau because he ate of his game, but Rebekah loved Jacob.”[2]

Esau, as the firstborn (barely), was entitled to a double portion of inheritance, but he found that Jacob was still grasping at his heel, as told in Genesis 25:29-34 – 

“Once when Jacob was cooking stew, Esau came in from the field, and he was exhausted.  And Esau said to Jacob, “Let me eat some of that red stew, for I am exhausted!” (Therefore his name was called Edom[3].)  Jacob said, “Sell me your birthright now.”  Esau said, “I am about to die; of what use is a birthright to me?”  Jacob said, “Swear to me now.” So he swore to him and sold his birthright to Jacob.  Then Jacob gave Esau bread and lentil stew, and he ate and drank and rose and went his way. Thus Esau despised his birthright.”

Instead of a double inheritance, desperate Esau got only a meal of stew.  There’s more to this story, but the rivalry continued through centuries in a grudge held by Esau’s descendants (the nation of Edom) against Jacob’s descendants (the nation of Israel).  The one-chapter Old Testament book of Obadiah is a response to Edom’s schadenfreude[4] over Judah and Israel’s problems.

This short book is worth a read, but it is essentially a condemnation of Edom for their hate of Jacob’s descendants, summarized well in verse 10:

“Because of the violence done to your brother Jacob,
            shame shall cover you,
            and you shall be cut off forever.”

Photo by Hugo Fergusson on Unsplash

Under God’s judgement for a long-held grudge, the nation of Edom no longer existed by Jesus’ time.  Therefore, the message of Obadiah is that, even with all the reasons Esau may have had to justify it, his grudge was unjustified.  God’s favor is not a function of whether we deserve it, but a function of His mercy given to those who do not deserve it, and He expects us to treat others with the same love and mercy.  While God’s love for us is unconditional and purchased for us by Jesus on the cross, Jesus did say in Matthew 6:14 –

“For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you, but if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.”

Mercy is better than any grudge.

[1] Genesis 25:24-26
[2] Genesis 25:28
[3] The words for Edom and red are similar in Hebrew
[4] Enjoyment of someone else’s misfortune.

The Difference Between Grace and Mercy

Todd R 4 Comments

The words “grace” and “mercy” are often used interchangeably, as if they mean the exact same thing.  But what if they’re both used in the same sentence?  For example, the apostle Paul almost always opens his letters to the churches with some version of the phrase “grace and peace,” but in 1 Timothy 1:2 he added “mercy”, writing:

“To Timothy, my true child in the faith:
Grace, mercy, and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord.”

If grace and mercy were the same thing, it would be redundant for Paul to use both words, so they must have different meanings.  Paul uses these two words again later in the chapter, in 1 Timothy 1:13b-14, verses that give a clue to the different meanings:

“But I received mercy because I had acted ignorantly in unbelief, and the grace of our Lord overflowed for me with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus.”

Paul had been writing about how before Christ found him, he was a zealous persecutor of Christians, dragging them to prison and also supervising the stoning of Stephen, one of the church’s first deacons, then “But I received mercy…”.  Paul deserved to be punished for his hate of and actions against Christ’s people, but instead received mercy.

Then he writes that “the grace of our Lord overflowed for me with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus.”  Here, Paul is receiving something from God – faith and love.  Did Paul deserve these things?  No, but he got them anyway.

Perhaps mercy is when you don’t get a bad thing that you do deserve, and grace is when you do get a good thing that you don’t deserve.  In Christ, we get both grace and mercy.  Paul’s words in 1 Timothy match this description.  By mercy, Paul didn’t get the punishment he deserved for his sins, and by grace Paul did get the faith and love he didn’t deserve.

Therefore, Paul, along with all of us, have 3 things to be thankful for: God’s mercy, and the faith and love that we get by God’s grace.  None of us deserve the “faith and love” God gives us (or it would not be grace), but when we are saved, we all receive these same gifts.  And we get them in place of what we actually deserve.

So, consider what we have received by grace.  Even our faith is a gracious gift – “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God” (Ephesians 2:8).  This faith we receive is enough to save us and reconnect us to God but is not yet a perfect faith that enables us to fully trust God with all of our life decisions.  We receive a love that is part of God’s character and is what we are to give to all people, but not enough for us to love perfectly.  However, when we are reborn in the new heaven and new earth, we will have perfect faith and love.  What a world that will be!

Knowing the difference between grace and mercy gives us more to be thankful to God for, so thank God for both His grace and mercy, and the faith and love that come with them!