Don't Make Your Wilderness Into Your Grave

We've all experienced a season in the wilderness.  Maybe we've even experienced more than one.

In our memories, it is a dark place of uncertainty, struggle, difficulty, and often pain.  It is not a desert we ever would have chosen to walk through, even if what it led to was worth the trip in retrospect.

There we stood in the wilderness--day after day, month after month, maybe even year after year....struggling to lift one foot in front of the other as we slogged up sandy dunes taller than we had ever climbed before.  Each dune was so tall that when we slid down to the valley between them, we could see neither where we were headed nor where we had been.  Some days, in the deepest core of our wilderness, even when we mastered another summit, all we beheld from that height were equally-high mountains of sand as far as the eye could see.

We lived in the wilderness, a barren desert with no entrance to retreat back through and no visible exit.

Why am I here?

The Israelites surely must have asked this very question as they camped in the wilderness with Moses after leaving behind the slavery of Egypt and aiming towards their Promised Land.

We all know the story, how an eleven day journey transformed into a 38+ year wandering in the desert after the people lacked sufficient faith to possess the Promised Land.  Thirty-eight years of pointless wandering in circles, all the while transforming their wilderness into a graveyard as tens of thousands of people died to fulfill God's judgment.

God said to that unfaithful group: "your dead bodies shall fall in this wilderness, and of all your number, listed in the census from twenty years old and upward, who have grumbled against me, not one shall come into the land where I swore that I would make you dwell, except Caleb the son of Jephunneh and Joshua the son of Nun. But your little ones, who you said would become a prey, I will bring in, and they shall know the land that you have rejected. But as for you, your dead bodies shall fall in this wilderness. And your children shall be shepherds in the wilderness forty years and shall suffer for your faithlessness, until the last of your dead bodies lies in the wilderness" (Num. 14:29-33).

God's desire was not for the Israelites to wander aimlessly in their wilderness for 40 years.  He longed for them to have faith in Him.  He longed for them to obey Him.  Instead of grumbling and disobeying God in their lack of faith, God wanted them to understand that yes, they were meant to go through this difficult time in the wilderness, but to also understand that He. Was. There.  What's more, He. Was. Enough. 

God was with them in the pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night.  God was with them in the daily manna.  God was even with them in the evening quail after they grumbled about the monotony of manna.   

All the while, He was striving to prepare their hearts in that wilderness.  He was working to bring them to a Promised Land of plenty that He had prepared for them.  

As Moses told the Israelites, "And he [the Lord] brought us out from there [Egypt], that he might bring us in and give us the land that he swore to give to our fathers" (Deut. 6:23). 

The Lord brought them out of Egypt so he could bring them in to the Promised Land.   

He didn't merely bring them "out" in order for them to remain in the wilderness.  He desired to bring them "in" to a land where they could be fruitful.  And yet, instead of believing God....instead of obeying God, their disobedience kept God from bringing them "in" to the land of promise.

What cuts me to the quick is that last verse in the Numbers 14 passage above: "And your children....shall suffer for your faithlessness" (v. 33).

The children suffered for the faithless disobedience of their fathers and mothers, grandfathers and grandmothers.  Innocent children.....suffering needlessly for their elders' sin.  

This is not a mere history story.  It is not a "let's point our fingers at those stupid Israelites" story either.  No.  This lesson applies even to those of us this side of the cross--to those of us adopted into Moses and Abraham's spiritual family.  

Jesus told His disciples to expect difficulty in their lives if they chose to obey and follow Him: "A servant is not greater than his master.' If they persecuted me, they will persecute you also" (Jn. 15:20). He promised them trials to test them, to sanctify their souls. In short, He promised the child of God seasons in the wilderness.

God will send you and me through the wilderness. If for no other reason, He will be saving us from ourselves by working to sanctify our souls.  It's just a matter of when.  

When those seasons come, though, we can rest in peace knowing that as we struggle through the difficult days, God does not intend for us to remain there in our wilderness until all that's left are our sun-bleached bones. The wilderness need not be our grave.  

God only leads us "out" into the wilderness to "bring us in" to something far greater, to somewhere that we can bear fruit!  It's simply up to us to seek Him in our difficulty so that our hearts do not turn bitter and defiant.  

Otherwise, in our disobedience, we not only doom ourselves to pointless wandering in our wilderness, but we doom our children to all too many years of that fate as well.



Image: Stone marked grave in Libya

Twice in a Lifetime

God speaks. Through his Word, prayer, visions, dreams, or the divine arranging of life’s circumstances—Christians believe God speaks to them as part of their personal relationship with the Father and Son.

And were you to ask any of us, even when we have the Word of God before us in our hands...deep down, we still have difficulty with those dry spells when God is silent. The publishing world is filled with billions of words exploring those deserts.

As God’s children, we’re taught to live out Philippians 4:6: “Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.” And so we bring everything before the Father’s throne—every petition, every request, every decision we need to make.

Then, we’re many times disappointed because the kind of God we want is one who readily responds with “yes,” or “no” answers, one who gives 24-hour call-backs, one who speaks in clear 20th-century-ese instead of cryptic ancient Hebrew or Greek. In essence, we want a man-made God who thinks like us, not an Alpha and Omega God who strives to transform us to think like Him.

The interesting thing is that in my own life and in the lives of others, I’ve seen that even when God does reveal Himself to us on a daily, weekly or even monthly basis, it’s not enough. We want the communication to be easier, faster, more plentiful. So, we read books and attend seminars to learn how to hear God speak. We look at others who are receiving fresh revelations from God and wonder what they have that we don’t.

And yet, I think we’re getting it all wrong.

The more I look at individuals throughout Scripture, I see stories of men and women who had a healthy relationship with God—but I don’t see where God spoke to them every single day in a “Here’s your simple answer” kind of way.

Yes, “The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they display knowledge” (Ps. 19:1-2). God speaks as God each day. But, the intimate speech of relationship isn’t nearly as prolific.

Those times when God doesn’t speak, those “dry spells.” Isn’t that the foundation of faith? Believing in something I cannot hear, see, or feel? I believe so.

Consider one verse, one of those I normally gloss over, even if I’m familiar with the names: “The word of the LORD that came to Hosea son of Beeri during the reigns of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz and Hezekiah, kings of Judah, and during the reign of Jeroboam son of Jehoash king of Israel” (Hos. 1:1).

I know historians argue over exact dates, but approximates are good enough for me. One chart gives these dates for the four kings listed above:

Uzziah, King of Judah 790-739 BC
(Jeroboam II, King of Israel) (793-753 BC)
Jotham, King of Judah 750-731 BC
Ahaz, King of Judah 735-715 BC

The Lord’s first words to Hosea were “Go, take to yourself an adulterous wife,” implying that he was of marrying age. Add that number to possibly 75 years living in the midst of the four named kings, and you have a lifetime.

Do you see what that means?

God spoke to Hosea all his life, making his entire life an allegory, a message to Israel.

But even though God spoke to Hosea for that many years, His words seem to have been few. Hosea wasn’t a prolific writer. His God-given Word to the people only covers nine pages in my Bible. And critics disagree as to whether those nine pages are composed of two or four messages from God.

Think of it: a prophet of God, one holy enough to make the pages of Scripture--he may have only received two messages from God over the course of an entire lifetime.

God will continue to speak to His children throughout their lives if they will stay devoted and listening. That is comforting. But, God may not speak a novel to each person.

Some of us will simply be required to live by faith for much longer stretches between messages.


Pub. 08.01.10

Hey Santa, Define Good

Three weeks before Thanksgiving, and the mall is aglitter with everything corporate Christmas.  Tinseled lights span the open air over shoppers' heads.  Cantaloupe-sized ornaments adorn a floor to ceiling tree near one of the larger stores.  And every storefront's picture window tries to outdo the next in an attempt to catch a shopper's eye.

The store window that makes my jaw drop isn't a nearly naked Victoria's Secret or the more edgy Spencer's.  It's P.S. Aeropostale for kids.  Flanking both sides of the door on the glass are vinyl letters that read "Hey Santa, Define Good."  Behind the identical slogans hang life-sized images of young teens.

The right image shows a boy casually tossing a snowball inches above his hand while his left hand tightly grips a second snowball.  His deep smirk shows he's seriously considering his next move, likely pelting the person or place he's staring at intently in the distance.

To the left, though, is the more disturbing image.  A redhead smirks mischievously while she points behind both shoulders, an image that hearkens back to those old animated classics where a cartoon angel sat on one shoulder and a red devil on the other as the poor character struggled with these two parts of his conscience within.

Here, the angel is represented by a white girl holding a golden halo above her blonde hair.  The devil is represented by a black girl with a sulky attitude, her hands on her hips in defiance.  While the model has no horns on her raven-black haired head, her thin red leggings mimic the shape of those horns, making her association with the "devil" side of the conscience more subtle than with the cartoon devils of the past.

If I could get past the blatant racism that makes me gag where white girls are angels and black girls are devils, where white girls make good choices and black girls make bad choices--then I would be stuck with the equally disturbing Bill Clinton-esque message to our children:

Hey Santa, Define Good.

Define.  Good.

The Psalmist says, "There is no one who does good.  The Lord has looked down from heaven upon the sons of men To see if there are any who understand, Who seek after God.  They have all turned aside, together they have become corrupt; There is no one who does good, not even one" (Ps. 14:1b-3).

Our God who minces words, who skips over centuries without comment in Scripture--this same God repeats this passage almost verbatim in Psalm 53: "There is no one who does good. God has looked down from heaven upon the sons of men To see if there is anyone who understands,Who seeks after God. Every one of them has turned aside; together they have become corrupt; There is no one who does good, not even one" (Ps. 53:1b-3).

When God repeats Himself, He wants to make sure we get the point.  There is no one good.

And if that's not enough, Paul repeats the same passage a third time in Romans 3:10-12: "as it is written, 'There is none righteous, not even one; There is none who understands, There is none who seeks for God; All have turned aside, together they have become useless; There is none who does good, There is not even one.'"

No matter how good we think we may be, it's clear--we're not, no matter how good we think our words and deeds are.  

So, let's define 'good.'

As Paul reminds us in Romans 3, to be "good" is to be "righteous."  Righteous is one of those big words that simply means to be perfect as God is perfect.  To achieve Godly perfection, a person would need to be perfect in every action, in every thought, in every word, and in every intent of our heart.  

Action.  Thought.  Word.  Intent.  

To be righteous is to be 100% perfect according to God's plumb line, not according to man's definitions.

Based on God's definition of righteousness and goodness, then, we all fail.  Jesus, Himself, said, "For I say to you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you shall not enter the kingdom of heaven” (Matt. 5:20).

The Pharisees worked diligently to make certain their actions lined up with God's laws.  The problem was that righteousness and goodness is not merely about our external actions.  It's about the heart.  

In the Old Testament after a long "to do" list of actions that one should do if he is to be considered righteous, God sums up by saying, "if he walks in My statutes and My ordinances so as to deal faithfully—he is righteous" (Ezekiel 18:9).  And if we go back to those Psalms, both repeat the phrase "seek after God."  

It is this seeking that indicates a person's faith in God.  As Paul says, "For in it [the gospel] the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, ^'But the righteous man shall live by faith'" (Rom. 1:17).

Righteousness is only obtained--even if only in a small part while here on this earth--by demonstrating faith in God, by seeking after God.  Faith is not empty faith like "I believe in the existence of God" but a faith in action, one that demonstrates belief that God means every word He says in Scripture and then acts and thinks accordingly.

Righteousness...goodness, if you will, should be the divine goal of all children of God.   It is not the punchline for a store window.

God, not Santa, defines what is righteous.  He defines it with His very character, with His just actions, with His mercy and compassion, with His judgment of sin. 

That's the message we should be teaching ourselves and our children. 

Hanging on the Right Peg

It is all too easy to put people on a pedestal, especially those we admire for one reason or another.

Perhaps it's someone we work with, the model employee whom we strive to emulate in our own career.  It could be the mother or father we uplift because of their parenting skills.   Or maybe it's a relationship between a husband and wife that we elevate, wishing our own marriage could be as perfect as theirs.

Even in the church, we tend to put our fellow Christians on pedestals. If we're honest, we're worse than American Idol judges with our own rating systems, each of us having a "good Christian" checklist in our minds that we unconsciously use to "rate" others and their walk with Christ.  When we find someone who meets those qualifications, we mentally place them high on a lofty shelf where we can look up to their visage  as we strive to be like them.

In this way, we put our faith in them versus in Christ; we strive to be like man versus like Jesus.

It's a recipe for disaster.

The prophet Isaiah speaks of such instances when we put our faith in men versus in God.

In Chapter 22, he speaks against a steward named "Shebna, who is in charge of the royal household" of Judah (v. 15).  2 Kings 18 further describes this man as second only after the king, obviously a position of great political influence, which would have also bestowed upon him great responsibility towards the people of Judah.

Yet, instead of spending his time caring for the affairs of State, Shebna made grand plans for how he would be remembered after this life, constructing a large tomb for himself.  Because of his pride and political corruption, God said, "I will depose you from your office" (v. 19).

Shebna was obviously not the kind of man one would stick his faith and trust in.  But then, God brings someone to power who sounds like a good leader, a man named Eliakim:

"Then it will come about in that day, That I will summon My servant Eliakim the son of Hilkiah, And I will clothe him with your tunic And tie your sash securely about him. I will entrust him with your authority, And he will become a father to the inhabitants of Jerusalem and to the house of Judah. Then I will set the key of the house of David on his shoulder, When he opens no one will shut, When he shuts no one will open. I will drive him like a peg in a firm place, And he will become a throne of glory to his father's house" (Is. 22:20-23).

Unlike his self-serving predecessor, Eliakim is a "father" or "supreme counselor"* to those in Judah.  The imagery here is of a ruler who nourishes the kingdom, one who has its best interests at heart rather than one who uses his position for personal gain.

Eliakim seems as solid as they come; the Lord even describes him as "like a peg in a firm place," a peg the Lord has driven in, Himself. 

Once firmly in power, you can bet the relatives and friends came out of the woodwork, each wanting to expand his own influence based on a relation to him.  Scripture says, "So they will hang on him all the glory of his father's house, offspring and issue, all the least of vessels, from bowls to all the jars" (v. 24).

The people of Judah put their faith in this man.  They hang all their hopes on him.

And in the end, they are disappointed; as Isaiah tells us, "'In that day,' declares the Lord of hosts, 'the peg driven in a firm place will give way; it will even break off and fall, and the load hanging on it will be cut off, for the Lord has spoken'" (v. 25). 

This peg, hammered firmly in place by the Lord himself--even it broke, fell.  I don't know whether that fall was Eliakim's mortal death, a fall from the king's favor, or evidence of pride and political corruption resulting from power going to his head.  Either way, the result is the same--the "load" of people hanging on him "will be cut off" and fall to the ground.

The only pegs firm enough to hold forever were the nails firmly hammered through Jesus' flesh and into an old wooden cross to secure our salvation.

The warning is clear--hanging one's trust and faith on any man will only result in both disappointment and, ultimately, being "cut off" from God.  The only way to avoid both is to put one's faith in Jesus Christ alone, to strive to emulate Him as the author and finisher of our faith, not to emulate an elevated pastor, deacon, or teacher. 

Even mature Christian men and women are just that--men and women who sin and fall on a daily basis just like you and me.  Our faith must be placed in God alone, not in someone else's relationship to Him. 

We can be sure: if our faith is hanging on anyone other than Christ, we will fall.



*Gesenius' Hebrew-Chaldee Lexicon

When The People's Hearts Shook

Faith.

When used in a secular reference, it is a non-threatening term meaning complete and utter trust, confidence in either someone or in some thing.  Used as a religious term, though, this small word can stir up a firestorm sufficient to destroy the planet.

Many in modern American society perceive such religious faith to be blind ignorance, the equivalent of sticking one's head in the sand.  Others consider faith a crutch for the weak-minded who cannot stand on their own two feet.

Hebrews tells us, "Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen" (11:1).  It is belief without proof--scientific, archaeological, or otherwise....the opposite of what our logical, hyper-rational society educates us to engage in.

No matter the negative publicity this kind of faith gets, this is what God calls all men to--a living faith in Jesus that marks our every step, one that permeates every hour of our day, every action we undertake, and every thought that we dwell upon.  The difference between faith and lack of faith only seems insignificant.  In truth, it is the difference between standing and falling, between eternal life and death.

This choice, though, is not new to our generation.  In ancient Jerusalem, King Ahaz was given a clear choice between faith and faithlessness.  The test of his faith began when the Lord sent the prophet Isaiah to the King in a time of great national danger.  Scripture reports how "his [Ahaz's] heart and the hearts of his people shook as the trees of the forest shake with the wind" (Is. 7:2).

Intense, earth-quaking fear shook God's people as they watched Rezin of Aram and Pekah of Israel join forces to wage war against Jerusalem.  And yet, in the midst of such danger, God called upon Ahaz to not weigh the political odds but, instead, to be a man of faith: "Take care and be calm, have no fear and do not be fainthearted because of these two stubs of smoldering firebrands" (Is. 7:4).

Ahaz had a choice--be fainthearted without faith or be strong of heart with faith. It came down to believing that God was sufficiently able to thwart the plans of man--any man, no matter how powerful that man seemed in military might, no matter how the odds were stacked.

In last week's blog, we contemplated the plans of man versus the plans of God and how the one was subject to the other.  Here, the Lord was calling upon King Ahaz to take this concept to heart, to believe that no man's plans can "stand" if God does not will it.

The Lord said, "Because Aram, with Ephraim and the son of Remaliah, has planned evil against you, saying, 'Let us go up against Judah and terrorize it, and make for ourselves a breach in its walls and set up the son of Tabeel as king in the midst of it,' thus says the Lord GOD: 'It shall not stand nor shall it come to pass....If you will not believe, you surely shall not last'" (Is. 7:5-9).

I like how the NIV phrases verse nine as "If you do not stand firm in your faith, you will not stand at all," hammering home this concept of standing = faith and the resulting promise that faith = standing.

In these verses, God promised King Ahaz his nation would be safe from its enemies, but only on the condition that Ahaz believe God's Word, that he have true faith in God.  If Ahaz chose not to trust in God, though, not only would he forfeit his own life and reign, but his nation would be forfeited as well. 

God even went further, telling Ahaz to "Ask a sign for yourself from the LORD your God; make it deep as Sheol or high as heaven.' But Ahaz said, 'I will not ask, nor will I test the LORD!'" (Is. 7:11-12).

The Lord's ensuing anger with Ahaz's response showed that He knew the King's heart and how this refusal to ask for a sign was only mock reverence.  In his heart, Ahaz had made a choice, to not believe God--sign or no sign--and with that choice, Ahaz and Jerusalem would both fall to their enemies.

The New Testament reiterates this lesson, saying, "But My righteous one shall live by faith; And if he shrinks back, My soul has no pleasure in him. But we are not of those who shrink back to destruction, but of those who have faith to the preserving of the soul" (Heb. 10:38-39).

To stand against the tree-shaking fears of this life, we have two choices.  We can choose to have faith in God and stand through it all.  Or we can live in that faithless fear and fall, destroying ourselves, our souls, and many times, the others around us in the process.

Even when it seems the illogical choice...  Even when it's not the popular choice...  Even when the world calls you a fool...

Choose to stand.

Disillusioned By God & His People: Part II

I can look back in my past and see God's footprints as He carried me through one trial or another, those watershed moments that broke my heart and buckled my knees so I couldn't take another step on my own. In hindsight, I know God has always been for me, even when I couldn't lift my eyes to see Him or couldn't comprehend the why for the pain of the what.

Somewhere along the way, I bought into the assumption that the more I turned to God in these times of trial, the easier it would be to turn to him the next time I entered another trial, for I realize that there is always another struggle somewhere in front of me, just past the vanishing point where the horizon meets the sky.  

I assumed that as I matured in Christ, it would just become second nature to encounter the next difficulty sent my way, accept it as part of His plan, and move forward by His grace.  

But that's not how it works.  

For starters, no two trials are alike, so learning how to live abundantly in one trial doesn't make overcoming the next trial an easy task.  Then, there's the problem of reconciling what we know with what we expect--we may know in our hearts that another trial is coming, but we never expect it to come so soon on the heels of the last trial.  We also don't expect the next trial to be as hard as it always is; in our Christian walk, we assume maturity will make the trials easier to endure, if for no other reason than because we're more experienced in dealing with them.  

Yet, each time, we're blindsided by the sheer magnitude of the thunderstorm bearing down on us when seconds before, nothing was on the radar except clear blue skies.  As such, the latest trial is much like the first trial God sent our way.  It is a new choice to either turn to God or turn away from God.

Last week's message ended with Hagar running from an abusive Sarah, meeting the God of Israel, and returning to Abraham and Sarah where she would give birth to Ishmael.  Out there in the wilderness, the Lord had come down and spoken to her, offering her comfort and a promise that through Ishmael, her descendants would become too many to count.  In that moment of trial and despair, she chose to turn to the Lord, saying, ^"'You are a God who sees'” (Gen. 16:13).

Years passed fairly uneventfully as she continued her life as Sarah's maidservant.  Then came the birth of Isaac, the true child of promise, who, in her motherly eyes, usurped her son's place in both Abraham's heart and inheritance after all these years.  

After Ishmael incited Sarah's ire by taunting the young Isaac, slave mother and son were sent packing.  evicted from the camp and with nowhere to turn.  Scripture records, "So Abraham rose early in the morning and took bread and a skin of water and gave them to Hagar, putting them on her shoulder, and gave her the boy, and sent her away. And she departed and wandered about in the wilderness of Beersheba" (Gen. 21:14).

Here Hagar was, sixteen years later, right back in the same wilderness to which she had fled before. The irony of the situation couldn't have escaped her as she made her way into that place where she had once met with God.

Yes, it was the same place, but it was still a different trial.  And while Hagar chose to believe God those many years ago, things weren't so certain this time around.

For starters, the absence of any dialogue on her part when Abraham sends the pair away shows a woman as hard as flint.  If I had been Hagar being sent away with only a skin of water and bread, you'd better believe the annals of history would record me repenting, begging, pleading, and promising nothing shy of my firstborn child just to not be turned out on the road with thieves and jackals.  Yet, Scripture records nothing of the sort here.

Hagar's tight lipped retreat into the wilderness shows a proud woman...and a very angry woman, too.  I imagine she was so furious with Abraham for following Sarah's orders to send them packing that her pride wouldn't allow her to ask Abraham's forgiveness for Ishmael's actions. 

I imagine her turning on one heel and wordlessly marching away into the dust and sand, her head held stiff and high....never turning back for a second glimpse of the life she was leaving behind. No, her body would have stayed erect and unyielding until she was out of sight, as if she feared her resolve would crumble if she turned her head for just an instant.

But adrenaline fueled by anger can only last so long, and when the heat of the day along with the seriousness of her situation set in, Hagar had two choices--return to Abraham and beg for mercy or continue on this path to nowhere.  Drowning in her own pride, she chose the latter.

Still, Hagar did have another choice.  She could have called on God, the One who sees.  Yet, she refused.   

Scripture records, "When the water in the skin was used up, she left the boy under one of the bushes. Then she went and sat down opposite him, about a bowshot away, for she said, 'Do not let me see the boy die.' And she sat opposite him, and lifted up her voice and wept" (Gen. 21:15-16). 

Death was imminent.  And still, Hagar did not call out to God for help.  She may have believed God had simply sided with Abraham and against her. Perhaps she had even convinced herself the previous encounter with God in the wilderness was just a fluke, that she had misheard Him, or that He had gone back on His word, abandoning her like everyone else in her life.  In truth, though, I believe she was angry with God, that she would have rather died in her anger than ask for His help, blaming Him for her present plight.

Although she may have been hardened with anger, Ishmael did cry out: "God heard the lad crying; and the angel of God called to Hagar from heaven and said to her, 'What is the matter with you, Hagar? Do not fear, for God has heard the voice of the lad where he is. Arise, lift up the lad, and hold him by the hand, for I will make a great nation of him^.' Then God opened her eyes and she saw a well of water; and she went and filled the skin with water and gave the lad a drink" (Gen. 21:17-19).

The phrase "What is the matter with you, Hagar?" could just as easily say, "What's your problem, Hagar!?  Why haven't you called to me for help?  Don't you know I'm just a call away? Are your pride and anger really worth your death and the death of your son?"  It reminds me of when Jesus said to Philip, "Have I been so long with you, and yet you have not come to know Me?" (Jn. 14:9).

God then reached out and provided that life-giving water to Hagar and Ishmael, but this mercy wasn't extended because of anything Hagar had done.  No.  It was extended because Ishmael cried out for help, and the Lord answered him.

This wounds me, the thought that like Hagar, my child may be the one who calls out to the Lord for me when I am too hurt, proud, or angry to seek His face.

Hagar knew the God of Abraham.  She had met Him in a most intimate way sixteen years earlier. Yet, this time, Hagar chose to embrace her anger, pride, and despair, and turn away from the Lord.  As much as I'd like to shake my head at her unbelief, I honestly can't.  If I've learned anything in my thirty six years, it's that my proper response to God in the next trial is not assured.  

A Christian can never grow complacent, believing him or herself "mature enough" to always respond as the Lord would have him do.  Turning to God in the midst of a trial will always be a conscious choice we will need to make again and again.  But we can be encouraged, knowing that although we change like the shifting sands, our Father never changes.  He will always be there for us, waiting for us to petition Him and rest in His arms of mercy as the storms of this life rage around us.

The Truth About Passover

On the rectangular block designated for this upcoming Tuesday, March 26, a ghostly gray font spells the word "Passover."  The word sits there quasi-transparent, hidden at the bottom line, as if the publisher were almost ashamed to put it (and every other holiday) on a wall calendar, choosing to label the holidays in the palest, smallest font so anyone could ignore them if he so chose.

For much of my life, Christians have ignored Passover as something for Jews only.  But the more I study Scripture, the more I'm learning the only way I can understand Jesus is to understand the Jewishness of Jesus.  The more I want to understand God the Father, the more I need to understand His relationship with His promised children in the Old Testament.

And understanding Passover?  It is integral to understanding Christ's sacrifice on the cross.

The first Passover was celebrated in Egypt, where the Israelites were slaves.   God told them "I will pass through Egypt and strike down every firstborn...The blood will be a sign for you on the houses where you are; and when I see the blood, I will pass over you" (Ex. 12:12-13).  Here, the word translated as "pass over" is the Hebrew word pasah from the noun pesah, which is translated as "Passover."  While "these words have no connection with any other Hebrew word,...they do resemble the Egyptian word pesh, which means 'to spread wings over.'"1

As Arthur W. Pink says in his book Gleanings in Exodus, "The word has, consequently, the very meaning of the Egyptian term for 'spreading the wings over and protecting;' and pesach, the Lord's Passover, means such sheltering and protection as is found under the outstretched wings of the Almighty.  Does this not give a new fullness to those words, 'O Jerusalem! Jerusalem!...How often would I have gathered thy children together, as a hen does gather her brood under her wings?' (Luke 13:34)...It is not merely that the Lord passed by the houses of Israelites, but that He stood on guard protecting each blood-sprinkled door!"2

Can you see the image here of our "mother hen" of a Savior standing with His protective arms spread in front of each blood-painted door while the death angel canvasses Egypt for firstborn sons? This is an image foreshadowing Christ's own sacrifice covering our sins, thereby protecting us from the curse of sin and death.  Yet, this image is not the image of a passive Savior whose past shedding of blood merely hides our sin, but of one who actively stands in the way at each door to protect His children.  He is our defender.

This story of Passover--it is, at its core, a story and a promise of redemption through such a defender.  

As Messianic Jewish rabbi and author Derek Leman says, "At the first Passover, it was more than just a promise.  There was an actual sacrifice, and an actual firstborn was redeemed....The lamb's blood in Egypt was the means of a mighty act of redemption."3

In other words, God's promise to redeem the firstborn son's life in Egypt was not a forward-reaching promise that would merely require faith now and sight generations later.  Even though this promise did allude to faith in such a future fulfillment found in Christ's sacrifice on the cross, at the very first Passover, the Israelite slave witnessed a fulfillment of the promise--an actual sacrifice of a pure, spotless lamb, an actual redemption of a firstborn son.

Here, though, the blood was mere animal blood, not the blood of the only pure Son of God. Much like with Abraham, the Israelites' salvation came not through the blood of animals but by their faith (see Galatians 3:6 and Hebrews 10).  As Lemen says, "though the option was given to the people for escape, they still needed to choose to exercise that option.  The Israelites needed faith and obedience, to believe God's Word and act on it.  The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world calls for action as well as faith"3

Faith in action was necessary for salvation.

Understanding Passover, then, is important to understanding the very nature of salvation, itself.  Had the Israelites merely hidden behind the doorposts and lentils covered with the lamb's blood yet did so without faith in God, they would not have been redeemed.   The same is true of us.  We cannot really have faith in God if we choose to not obey God's holy Word--all of it.  Faith in action.

For the Jews to celebrate Passover each year was for them to remember God's promise of redemption and His fulfillment of that promise.  Its celebration was intended to give future generations a real, historical example of God's faithfulness, of faith and a pure, blood sacrifice mingling together to redeem a son from the power of sin and death.  This reminder was preparing them for faith in Christ as their Passover lamb, hence John the Baptist's calling Him "the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!" (Jn. 1:29).

Christ's blood shed at Calvary--He is our choice.  We must act in faith, choose His covering of blood by living a life of obedience to Him.

Whether you choose to celebrate a traditional seder meal at Passover or not is a personal conviction, not something I'm trying to force on anyone. Understanding that Christ IS our Passover and living a life of active faith in Him is what is important. 




1 Rosen, Ceil and Moishe Rosen.  Christ in the Passover.  Chicago: Moody, 2006, 27-28.
2 Pink, Arthur.  Gleanings in Exodus.  Chicago: Moody, n.d., 93. 
3 Leman, Derek.  Finding Your Place at the Table of Tradition.  Nashville: Lifeway, 2008, 23-24. 

The Bandwagon of Popular Christianity

It sounds wrong to put those two words together in one sentence.  Popular.  Christianity.  In one sense, it's an oxymoron seemingly so contradictory as to be easily dismissed. 

Yet, the rise of the mega church in America hints at a truth to be found in such an incompatible phrase.  To be considered a mega church, 2,000 people must attend services there each week.  These numbers seem almost impossible considering the national anti-Christian trend across America, especially in the political arena.

Yet, according to Forbes, "Churches across America--like shopping malls, houses, corporations, hospitals, schools and just about everything else--have erupted in size in the last few decades. The number of mega churches in the U.S. has leaped to more than 1,300 today--from just 50 in 1970."  Of those mega churches, 9 out of 10 have "more than doubled in size between 2002 and 2007."

While not all mega churches are the same, the spike in attendees in these type churches along with the continued increasing failure to line up our personal morality with the Ten Commandments shows there are two types of Christianity at play in our nation.

There is a true Christianity that leads to salvation and individuals becoming more like Christ and, then, there is a popular Christianity wherein the hearer is drawn to the Word but stops short so that there is no fruit in their lives as evidence of salvation.

This may seem to be a modern problem, but it's anything but.

In the book of Ezekiel when the children of Israel were living in exile within Babylon, God says, "But as for you, son of man, your fellow citizens who talk about you by the walls and in the doorways of the houses, speak to one another, each to his brother, saying, 'Come now and hear what the message is which comes forth from the Lord.' They come to you as people come, and sit before you as My people and hear your words, but they do not do them, for they do the lustful desires expressed by their mouth, and their heart goes after their gain.  Behold, you are to them like a sensual song by one who has a beautiful voice and plays well on an instrument; for they hear your words but they do not practice them" (Ez. 33:30-32).

This passage describes God's people as desiring to hear His Word.  It's an "everybody's going to see the prophet" type mentality.  They were drawn to the beauty of Ezekiel's voice as one would be drawn to a beautiful song heard on the radio today.  Although the passage doesn't say so directly, I believe God's people were also drawn in by the beauty of God's Word, itself.

Yet, when it came down to it, the Word of God literally went in one ear and out the other, not staying long enough to penetrate and change their hearts.  The result was continued moral decline as is represented by their repeated greed, idolatry, and pursuit of their own "lustful desires."

This was a perfect example of a popular faith versus a faith of the heart.

Such is the case today with popular Christianity.  The masses are drawn in by the eloquence and popularity of the speaker, perhaps even by the beauty of God's Word spoken from the pulpits.  But when their feet leave the arena, their lives, for the most part, aren't changed by the Holy Spirit.

Some may argue the problem of popular Christianity is caused by the mega churches preaching only a popular gospel with a great big hole in the middle of it, that they only preach positive, humanistic messages to edify and uplift while avoiding messages concerning sin and judgment. 

Granted, this mis-defining of what it means to be a Christian is a definite problem.  Yet, I have heard half-gospel messages preached from both the mega church and the small church pulpit.  The size of the platform doesn't secure a listener from a false Christianity. 

So, what can we do to ensure we are not guilty of being merely a popular Christian? 

First, we can examine the Word of God, ourselves--in its entirety--to ensure we are receiving Godly instruction from our pastors.  If the preaching we sit under each week isn't lining up with the God we read about in Scripture, then we have a problem.

Secondly, we can follow James' advice.  He warned, "But prove yourselves doers of the word, and not merely hearers who delude themselves" (Jas. 1:22).

In other words, we must realize it is easy to delude ourselves into believing that just because we know the Word of God that we also do the Word of God in our day to day lives.  Then, we must examine our own practices and ask ourselves if Scripture is directing our every action and life choice.

In the end, anyone can be guilty of being a popular Christian.  We want to belong to something greater than ourselves.  We want to feel good, uplifted, inspired...something a worship experience can grant us.  And, as a general rule, we still want to be morally upright people.

We must choose a faith not that is popular and that simply feels good but rather a life-altering faith that consumes our thoughts moment by moment as we seek with all our heart and soul to become more like Christ.

Hope for the Unemployed

I've been there before, just another number among the ranks of the unemployed.

Even without children depending on me for their daily bread, it was a frightening place to be, a valley of indecision where I questioned every decision I had made thus far in my life.

How did I get here?  Had I missed God's calling on my life?  Did I make a wrong turn somewhere?

But no matter how many times I replayed a lifetime of videos in my head, I always came to the same conclusion--I knew I had followed God's will to this place.  So why was I here?

Years later, I asked the same question when husband lost not merely his job but his career.  I continue to ask the same question when I see friends and family without a job not for just a few months, but for years.

Why, Lord?

The pages of Ezekiel give a glimpse of one man who lost much more than one job.  He lost it all.

Scripture reads, "Now it came about in the thirtieth year, on the fifth day of the fourth month, while I was by the river Chebar among the exiles, the heavens were opened and I saw visions of God....the word of the LORD came expressly to Ezekiel the priest, son of Buzi, in the land of the Chaldeans by the river Chebar; and there the hand of the LORD came upon him" (Ez. 1:1-3).

In this short passage, we learn Ezekiel was a "priest" from the tribe of Levi, which had been set aside by God to serve Him forever in His holy place.

To serve in the temple was Ezekiel's career, something he would have been trained to do since birth.  This was also Ezekiel's birthright, since a Levite was not given a portion of the promised land.  God was His portion.

But there was no temple to serve in.  It had been destroyed by King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon.  Even if there had been a temple to serve in, Ezekiel was a prisoner living in exile.

In what must have seemed like an instant, Ezekiel was left with no lands, no inheritance, no temple, no career, no avenue of service.  

The earlier Scripture also references the "thirtieth year," which many scholars believe to have been Ezekiel's age.  Such an interpretation would coincide with the Old Testament rules about Levites starting to serve in the temple "from thirty years and upward, even to fifty years old" (Num. 4:3).

One can just imagine how Ezekiel felt.  He had finally achieved the age he dreamed about his entire life--the age when he could stop learning about being a priest and start being a priest, when he could  stop watching others from the sidelines and start serving in his own right.

Now, though, he was displaced, jobless, career-less, a prisoner, homeless, and all with a wife to support in a foreign land.   But although Ezekiel may have thought he could no longer serve God, none of these human factors stopped God from using Ezekiel.

When all seemed lost, Jesus came to Ezekiel: "on that which resembled a throne, high up, was a figure with the appearance of a man....there was a radiance around Him. As the appearance of the rainbow in the clouds on a rainy day, so was the appearance of the surrounding radiance.  Such was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the LORD. And when I saw it, I fell on my face" (Ez. 1:26-28).

God had a job for Ezekiel to do, an avenue of service--not the career Ezekiel expected for himself, but one God set before him anyway.

Had Ezekiel been serving comfortably in Jerusalem, he may not have been as open to God's career-change from respected priest to hated prophet.

These words should bring hope to the many who have lost their jobs, who have lost their careers.

You are not forgotten to God.  He still has a plan for your future.

It may not be in the job field you trained in.  It may not even be in a field you've ever considered.  Yet, sometimes, it takes losing it all for Jesus to show Himself to us in His glory like He did with Ezekiel.

A drastic, less-than-desired change, yes, but oh the glory He reveals to those of us who keep looking up through the trial.