Only Resurrection Will Satisfy

March 30, 2024Todd R 2 Comments

Dear fellow travelers,

When the apostle Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 10:11-12 – “Now these things happened to them as an example, but they were written down for our instruction, on whom the end of the ages has come. Therefore let anyone who thinks that he stands take heed lest he fall” – he was referring to the story of Israel’s 40 years of wandering in the wilderness between Egypt and the Promised Land. In verse 5, Paul wrote “with most of them God was not pleased, for they were overthrown in the wilderness.” Paul assures us that “these things” help keep us from temptation and strengthen our faith in these last days.

But what are these lessons? One of them can be found in the only Psalm written by Moses – Psalm 90. A key verse in that Psalm is verse 12, which says:

“So teach us to number our days
that we may get a heart of wisdom.”

And what is wisdom? One way I describe it is: the ability to choose paths that lead to life, over paths that lead to death, paths that Moses unfortunately was very, very familiar with. He may have understood the consequences of neglecting God in our daily lives better than anyone for three reasons.

First, in recording the events of Genesis, Moses knew that ever since Adam and Eve, mankind has been facing, and mourning, the consequences of sin. The repetition of “and he died” in the genealogy of Genesis 5 and elsewhere reminded Moses of the result of missing the mark of God’s righteousness. Centuries before Paul, Moses knew that “sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned.”[1]

Second, Moses also saw the consequences of sin very clearly in the shortening of lifespans. In Psalm 90:10, he wrote:

“The years of our life are seventy,
or even by reason of strength eighty;
yet their span is but toil and trouble;
they are soon gone, and we fly away.”

This same Moses wrote about early patriarchs who were said to live hundreds of years[2], but by Moses’ day 80 years was considered a long life.

And also, Moses is known as author of the book of Numbers, which as the 4^th book in the Pentateuch, lines up with Psalm 90, the first Psalm in book 4 of the Psalms. Numbers tells of the consequences of Israel’s disobedience and grumbling on their journey to the Promised Land, and why it took 40 years and the entire generation that left Egypt (except Joshua and Caleb) died. Psalm 90 is almost a summary of what Moses learned from that experience:

“So teach us to number our days
that we may get a heart of wisdom.”

What does this have to do with the resurrection? Psalm 90 starts with these 2 verses:

“Lord, you have been our dwelling place
            in all generations.
Before the mountains were brought forth,
            or ever you had formed the earth and the world,
            from everlasting to everlasting you are God.”

Moses, who led Israel out of Egypt, through the wilderness for decades, and to the threshold of the Promised Land, says the only dwelling place of God’s people is not a specific place, but it is the Lord Himself. When we are with Him, we are home.

Moses concluded Psalm 90 with verses 16 and 17:

“Let your work be shown to your servants,
            and your glorious power to their children.
Let the favor of the Lord our God be upon us,
            and establish the work of our hands upon us;
            yes, establish the work of our hands!”

While Moses’ understanding of a resurrection and an afterlife was likely very minimal and vague, he was able to conclude that the best way to spend our short lives here is to do work that matters in eternity, which God has laid out for us to do[3]. We should let Him “establish the work of our hands.” All through the Pentateuch, Moses recorded the choices between life and death made by Israel, and one of his conclusions is: life is short; live for God!

However, a life truly dedicated to God only makes sense if there is a life to come. Only resurrection will satisfy because Paul wrote: “If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied.”[4] However, since there was an Easter resurrection and there is a resurrection to come, we may look forward to our Promised Land of a new heaven and a new earth. Moses knew our only other option is a long, purposeless meandering on this earth ending in death.

Therefore, let us pray as Moses wrote in Psalm 90:14 –

“Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love,
that we may rejoice and be glad all our days.”

May we – in wisdom – choose the paths that lead to life everlasting! Amen.

[1] Romans 5:12
[2] Genesis 5:27 and 9:29, for example
[3] Ephesians 2:10
[4] 1 Corinthians 15:19

Suffering of the Beloved

March 29, 2024March 24, 2024Todd R 2 Comments

Many Psalms contemplate the reality of evil and suffering in the world, but in most cases, those Psalms end on a note of hope. For example, Psalm 73 details the Asaph’s envy of the success and prosperity of the wicked in this world. He considered following their path, and verse 2 says “But as for me, my feet had almost stumbled, my steps had nearly slipped.” But by verse 28, the last verse of the Psalm, the writer is hopeful and returning to praise for God in faith:

“But for me it is good to be near God;
I have made the Lord GOD my refuge,
that I may tell of all your works.”

In contrast, Psalm 88 begins like this:
“O LORD, God of my salvation,
I cry out day and night before you.”

And ends like this (verse 18):
“You have caused my beloved and my friend to shun me;
my companions have become darkness.”

This is perhaps the low point of the Psalms, or even the whole Bible, ending with neither hope or praise, but only faith expressed in desperate prayer. The Psalmist, Heman[1] the Ezrahite according to the introduction, describes himself like this: “For my soul is full of troubles, and my life draws near to Sheol” (verse 3). And like this: “Afflicted and close to death from my youth up” (verse 15). After writing that his companions have shunned him, he says that “my eye grows dim through sorrow,” which I take to mean that his sorrow is so great it is clouding his perception of everything. Sorrow is all he can see. Heman feels he is near death, perhaps because of sickness or depression, or maybe because society has rejected him, and he feels left for dead (verse 8).

Such despair isn’t as uncommon as we might think in the face of trouble. The apostle Peter needed to encourage his first-century audience with these words in 1 Peter 4:12: “Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you.” Note that to Peter, suffering is not “strange” for a Christian, nor should we “be surprised” by it. Peter’s comment was immediately referring to persecution, but the same idea applies more broadly. Suffering is part of life in this world – for anyone.

But also notice the first word in the verse: “Beloved.”

Peter begins his statement about suffering with this so that those experiencing suffering do not think that God does not love them. Our circumstances don’t, and can never, mean that we are not loved by God. For us in modern times, we might be “surprised” by trials if we live in places friendly and welcoming to Christian culture. Those who live in places hostile to Christianity may not be as surprised at trials that come, but need reassurance that they are loved. In these places, that trials are not “strange,” but common, could bring people to a place without hope.

However, when we are feeling like Heman, God still loves us, and like Heman we can pour out all our frustration to God. He can take it. Even when we are in “the valley of the shadow of death,”[2] He remains with us and will sustain us. When it seems we have nothing else, He will be there and listen.

Consider whether the Father did not love the Son when He suffered, or whether His suffering was proof that He loves us? Therefore, Peter goes even farther in 1 Peter 4:13-14 – “But rejoice insofar as you share Christ’s sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed. If you are insulted for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the Spirit of glory and of God rests upon you.”

Good Friday was not the end of Jesus’ story, and although the day had three hours of darkness, the Son rose again and there was light! Likewise, Psalm 88 was not the end of the Psalms; the last Psalm (150), begins like this:

“Praise the LORD!
Praise God in his sanctuary;
praise him in his mighty heavens!”

And ends like this:
“Let everything that has breath praise the LORD!
Praise the LORD!”

He is risen and you are Beloved. Amen.

[1] Not He-Man, one of the fictional Masters of the Universe.
[2] Psalm 23:4

Learning Godly Fear

March 25, 2024March 23, 2024Todd R Leave a comment

Does being forgiven by God cause us to fear Him less, or to fear Him more? Perhaps it’s both.

Psalm 130:4 tells us this about God: “But with you there is forgiveness, that you may be feared.” To one way of thinking, this seems backwards: why does knowing that God has forgiven us make us fear Him more? Shouldn’t we fear Him less when forgiven? It depends on what we mean by fear.

For me, getting Psalm 130:4 to make sense with the order of forgiveness and fear required a re-thinking of repentance. My conclusion was: the one who has not been forgiven has not repented, and the reason they did not repent was that they did not fear God. They did not understand Him properly. They might be afraid of God, but that’s not the kind of fear referred to in Psalm 130.

In contrast, the one who has been forgiven has repented, and they repented because they understood it was the best thing for them to do, out of a fearful respect for God. A proper understanding of God’s character makes us turn to Him with our guilt, rather than run away from Him. We should not be afraid of God, where we are motivated to be passive – avoiding mistakes that would anger the one we fear. We should fear God in that we revere Him and respect His authority, and therefore actively seek to please Him.

A lot goes into repentance. When we pray and ask for forgiveness, it’s often a simple prayer made with the proverbial faith of a child, but there are a lot of assumptions we make when we say that prayer. Every prayer of repentance directly or indirectly acknowledges some or all of these things:

1) God as the source of the law, the ultimate arbiter of right and wrong
2) Him as the righteous judge who is personally offended by our sin
3) His omniscience, knowing we cannot hide our sin
4) His uniqueness, as there is no other God to turn to
5) His steadfast love for us, knowing He bore the cost of our sin, therefore enabling us to approach Him
6) His compassion for us, since He lived as a man
7) His power and willingness to heal us of sin
8) His consistency of character: that He is not arbitrary

If we don’t implicitly or explicitly believe these things, why would we repent and ask forgiveness from God? Why would we expect to get it? Exploring that set of statements could fill multiple volumes of theology books, but we don’t need that knowledge. In His grace, He honors our simple, heartfelt confessions. He paid the price for all our inadequacies – even when we don’t fully understand our own prayers or who we’re praying to. The Spirit pleads with the Father on our behalf[1]. Mercifully, our forgiveness is based on His faithfulness to us, not on our detailed theological knowledge. 1 John 1:9 tells us: “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”

Even our faith is imperfect, but His faithfulness bridges the gap between our childlike faith and His omniscience. He knows all our doubts and all their answers. We come as we are, but with fearful respect, and are forgiven.

Only through acceptance of the cross, where Christ’s atoning blood was shed for us, can God in His Holiness commune with us. Only through forgiveness will the Holy Spirit come and live in us. Only by tasting of His goodness do we really know what He is like, not before. And if we never repent, we don’t learn what it tastes like, we only know what you’ve been told about God, and we might not have been told the truth.

Psalm 130:4 shows us that genuine repentance leads to forgiveness and gives us a better appreciation of who God is. As we experience Him more, we live Psalm 34:8 for ourselves:

“Oh, taste and see that the LORD is good!
Blessed is the man who takes refuge in him!”

[1] Romans 8:26-27

What Wisdom Means to Me

March 22, 2024March 21, 2024Todd R 1 Comment

I’ve had some sort of working definition of “wisdom” for most of my life. I think most of us have. As a teenager, I remember joking that it was the ability to learn from other people’s mistakes. It sounded teenager-wise, but how do I know what’s a mistake? Later, I read somewhere about wisdom being something like “skill at living life”. Also sounds useful, but perhaps vague and worldly feeling. Even later in life, I started thinking of it as “being able to make decisions based on facts, instead of based on wishful thinking.” This has been even more useful, but which facts do you follow? How do you choose between two “true” options? What if you don’t have all the needed facts?

I think my current definition is better: Wisdom is the ability to choose between the path of righteousness and the path of the wicked. In the Psalms and the Biblical wisdom literature like Proverbs, there is a contrast between these two paths, and the idea that moral decisions are like choosing a route between places. You can be on one path or the other, and with wisdom, “you will understand righteousness and justice and equity, every good path”[1]

Moving down a path is an action, and therefore, wisdom is about taking the right action, not about what we know, believe, or say. It’s not about accumulating facts. Facts matter, but they aren’t wisdom all by themselves. Adding the context of the Great Commandments[2], wisdom is what tells us how to love God and others actively, and in a way based on obedience that leaves the results to God. For example, in the book of Acts, Ananias didn’t minister to Saul, the notorious persecutor of Christians, because Ananias thought it would end up well for himself[3], he did it because God told him to, and God knew that future Saul was Paul, the author of much of the New Testament. Ananias didn’t decide based on the facts as he knew them, but he adjusted the facts in light of revelation from God. Also, wisdom might sometimes tell you the best action is to do nothing, to not to do something specific. Sometimes wisdom flashes a red light while others are flashing green. “There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way to death” – Pr. 14:12 and 16:25.

This way of thinking about wisdom explains why the Way, the Truth and the Life must be a Person, not a set of rules or a philosophy. Truly, only each of us, in our individual relationships with God through the Holy Spirit, can learn wisdom. Only in a relationship with this Person can we figure out what our purpose and identity in the body of Christ is. This wisdom is proactive and specific to each of us. Nobody else’s situation is your situation, and nobody else has the same relationships, abilities, and resources. Books, advice, and experience can be helpful, but we each need to “taste and see”[4] the Holy Spirit in us, working at our very core where only He can reach, and directing us down the right paths at the right times.

True wisdom will put us on a path that provides us, and this world, a taste of heaven through us. It is informed by a justice and righteousness – God’s law and Christ’s character – that is not of this world. With wisdom we can build and create new things on the cornerstone of Christ. The world might not like it, but the world is not your Creator who is all wise. Therefore, pray for and seek God’s wisdom as the immensely valuable treasure that it is!

[1] Proverbs 2:9
[2] Matthew 22:37-39. In short, love God and love your neighbor.
[3] Acts 9:13
[4] Psalm 34:8

The Cross and Power

March 16, 2024Todd R 1 Comment

“And being found in human form, He humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.” – Philippians 2:8

Here Jesus endured the powerlessness that many feel. At any moment, Jesus could have chosen to free Himself from the cross, but He actively maintained His powerlessness for hours through the torture for our benefit. Any time we think power is the answer, we must consider this.

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