Justice for All

On July 1, 2019   /   Word of the Day   /   Leave a comment

Psalm 58: 1, 11

Justice—do you rulers know the meaning of the word? Do you judge the people fairly? No! You plot injustice in your hearts. You spread violence throughout the land.

Then at last everyone will say, “There truly is a reward for those who live for God; surely there is a God who judges justly here on earth.”

This is the first stanza and the last of Psalm 58. The first depicts life under human rule, the second reveals life in God. Sometimes it is frustrating living in a world ruled by man. Justice seems out of reach. Daily we hear of atrocities perpetuated by others, even by the rulers who are supposed to be the servants of and care for the people. It can deliver your heart into hopelessness. But, fear not, God’s ways will triumph and there will be justice for all.

There is reward for those who live for God. What does it mean to live for God, though? Is it something we truly do? Do we know how to? We live in a time when even within Christian circles we have become very enmeshed in the world. The worldly culture invades our Christian circles. Add to that the failing of traditional churches. Many people who identify as Christian do not attend church. The church ceased to meet people’s needs but the lack of congregating with other Christians has weakened us individually and as a group. We are, therefore, more influenced by the world culture that we live in everyday than by Christian culture. The outcome is that we may not know how to live for God. Where does He fit into our day to day life? What role does He have in my now?

To live in God’s justice and reward we must live for God. When He becomes the focus of our lives, life takes on a different complexion. That is not to say that you never have a problem. However, to the degree that we live in Him and to Him, we can avoid the sting of the world and its sense of justice.

God is a just God and a rewarder of His beloved. Don’t let the brokenness of the world system get you down. Look at the love of the Father. It is a much better view.

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God’s Will

On June 28, 2019   /   Word of the Day   /   Leave a comment

Psalm 37: 4             NLT

Take delight in the Lord, and he will give you your heart’s desires.

A friend of my emailed me this week, closing her message with “God’s will be done.” That is a heartening expression, is it not? What I heard in it was, “Not the world’s will but God’s will be done.” I am sending out a proposal and I believe it is God’s will so naturally, I want the people who must decide on the idea to follow God’s will. I don’t want them to bend to the world’s pressures, fear, ignorance or any other obstacle. So yeah, God’s will be done in this situation, as in all.

When I read her email, though, it did send me off thinking about something I have been pondering for a while and today’s verse captures the concept. God is willing to give me the desires of my heart because I take my delight in Him. I want you to see this verse from the Passion Translation too. It reads, “Make God the utmost delight and pleasure of your life, and he will provide for you what you desire the most.” This version clarifies what it means to “take delight in the Lord.” He should be the source of pleasure. He should bring smiles to our faces and we should want to be with him.

Now, I think I qualify for the first part of that verse. God is delightful to me. So, that takes me to the second part, He will give me the desires of my heart. So, I ask myself, whose will is this about, His or mine? This project is my desire. It is important that He approve but the truth today’s verse points out is that He is waiting for us to say something. He wants to know what I want, what my will is.

Of course, we all want to be in God’s will. I guess that goes without saying but it is important to note that He will give you the desires of your heart sometimes even when it is not His will. The Israelites wanted a king (1 Samuel 8: 5). It was not God’s will for them. Samuel warned them sternly about this path, but they insisted on being like the other nations and having a king, so, God told Samuel to, “Listen to their voice and appoint them a king,” (1 Samuel 8: 22). And so, Israel got a king. You might recognize his name. It was Saul. Eventually the kingdom was wrenched from Saul’s hands and given to David. Thus, what the people wanted did not serve them well, but God turned it around for them anyway.

The point I wish to make is that God is looking to you. He wants to know what your will is. It is not as though He did not counsel Israel about the wisdom of her choice. He does that. He will speak to your dreams and desires too but first you must communicate them to Him. That is how it works.

Too often we sit on our laurels waiting for God to do something or say something and He is looking to us to say something. “What do you want, children?” I love what my friend meant when she wrote about God’s will being done relative to my project. She had already agreed to pray for it, so her statement was like an exclamation point. Other times, though, I have sensed that people use that expression as an excuse to do nothing. There is another cute phrase I heard years ago when I lived in San Diego. It says, “God can’t steer a parked car.” That has always ministered to me. If we will start the engine, put the car in gear and begin on a determined course, our Father will act as navigator and direct our steps. Everything in the Bible tells us He will guide us. There is not theology or scripture, though, for sit in your recliner and wait for God to do something.

So, what is your will? What is your desire? What will bring you joy and fulfillment? Maybe your recliner needs an eject button. Stir yourself up. Of course, take it to Dad and let Him speak to your goals and embellish your ideas. He has great creative chops. He will bless the work of your hands and everything you set your hand to. So, start dreaming. Start thinking about what you would like to accomplish. It’s not ALL about His will. It’s not all about His desire. It just may be about the desire He has planted in your heart.

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Lord of the Harvest

On June 27, 2019   /   Word of the Day   /   Leave a comment

Matthew 13: 31 – 32

He presented another parable to them, saying, “The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, which a man took and sowed in his field; and this is smaller than all other seeds, but when it is full grown, it is larger than the garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and nest in its branches.”

I must give credit for a catchy phrase to Diane Jones. In a recent conversation regarding seed and harvest she said, “It’s seed sown, not grown.” Upon elaboration she explained that our task is to sow seed, but seed sown is not immediately grown. It takes time for that seed to germinate and produce roots and then a plant. This reality is demonstrated in today’s passage. It only takes a small seed, a seed even as small as a mustard seed, but when given time, nurtured and watered, it produces a plant larger than all the other garden plants. The key here is obvious; harvests take time.

Only a fool would sow seeds today and truly expect the crop to be ready tomorrow. However, faith gives you confidence that you will receive your harvest. Cast your seed and forget about it. If you have faith that you have done what God led you to do, then you should have confidence that in due time that seed will produce a harvest. By forget about it I mean, don’t worry. Relax, have confidence that when you sow, God brings a harvest.

What do you do in the meantime? You water it with your words. You proclaim that you will be getting a crop from that seed. You thank the Father for the rain of His goodness which He sends on all your seeds. Too many times we either forget about our seed or fail in our expectation of a harvest. A farmer wouldn’t do that. Can you imagine a farmer not expecting a harvest after sowing his fields? It doesn’t happen. On the other hand, he doesn’t have to walk through the furrows everyday looking for plants poking their heads through the soil. He knows about the germination period and he bides his time.

The point of today is, sow your seed in confidence. Expect God to bring a harvest. Speak positive words about your harvest expecting it to come in. Speak confidently about the crop. You don’t have to grow the crop, just sow the seed. Seed sown, not grown. Trust our Father to produce the harvest. He will, you know.

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Called to Preach

On June 26, 2019   /   Word of the Day   /   Leave a comment

2 Corinthians 8: 18

So we’re sending with him the brother who is greatly honored and respected in all the churches for his work of evangelism.

Most of us have been taught at least something about evangelism but there is probably more confusion out there than clarity. Evangelism is definitionally associated with the public preaching of the gospel. Jesus said, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” (Matthew 28: 18 – 20). This is the passage from which many people get their ideas on evangelism, but note, Jesus didn’t say go preach at every person you think is not as holy as you or whom you think is not saved. He told us to make disciples of the nations. You may also be familiar with this passage, “And He said to them, ‘Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation,’” (Mark 16: 15). So, there is the preaching piece and we might ask ourselves, to whom does this mandate speak? Is it to preachers or to everyone?

We have adopted a belief that everyone is called to “preach” the gospel. I don’t know if that is true. Ephesians 4, verses 11 – 12 may help clarify this point, “And He gave some as apostles, and some as prophets, and some as evangelists, and some as pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of service, to the building up of the body of Christ.” There are the saints and there are those who have been appointed to equip the saints. The saints do the work of building up the body of Christ. They go out and tell people the good news about Jesus. The clergy are called to teach, preach and pastor. We are all ministers of God’s gospel, but we do not all have the same function. Enlightenment in this area will help each of us and the ones to whom we wish to minister.

There is another term we use frequently; witnessing. About this Jesus said, “You shall be My witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and even to the remotest part of the earth,” (Acts 1: 8). I do believe every one of us is a witness to Jesus and his ministry. Witnessing is where we get to tell people about what Jesus has done in our lives and to share our testimony. The greatest testimony any of us have is our lives. In other words, the way we conduct our lives draws people to us or repels them. When the love of God is evident in our lives it gives us the chance to talk about Jesus. Of course, most of us want to share what Jesus has done for us but that begins with living a life which makes people care what you have to say. Far too often we have confused our roles and end up in over our heads and on uncertain ground. Rather than telling people the good news about Jesus, we tell them the bad news about themselves. Somewhere we have gotten the mistaken idea that judging people’s behaviors and/or beliefs is the way to attract them to Jesus. There is nothing Biblical in that and we are doing harm rather than spreading grace. Paul said that judgment is putting stumbling blocks in someone’s way.

Our job is to spread the love of God. That’s the message of the gospel. God so loved . . .. We do not even have to decide who is and who is not a good candidate for the Kingdom. God will sort out folks and He will guide them and teach them just as He did each of us. Leave the preaching to the one God calls to the task and take up the mantle of ministry, i.e. ministering to the needs of all people. That is the role to which we are called. Carry the good news, the love and the power of God to the hurting. Lay hands on the sick and release God’s healing power. Pray miracles into people’s lives. Do the work of ministering to people’s needs and God will save their souls. I promise!

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No More Stumbling

On June 25, 2019   /   Word of the Day   /   Leave a comment

Romans 14: 13

Therefore let us not judge one another anymore, but rather determine this—not to put an obstacle or a stumbling block in a brother’s way.

Paul has an interesting message for us today. He was dealing with a problem of people judging each other. The Christian church had both Jews and Gentiles and their customs and beliefs were very different. Even their diets were different. Paul opened up the chapter by writing, “Now accept the one who is weak in faith, but not for the purpose of passing judgement on his opinion.” (V. 1). Interesting!

We have not been called to judge others, but we are very prone to it. We don’t like being judged either and we don’t usually make friends with those who judge us. So, why do we think people are going to want to become part of our Christian group when we begin with judgment? And here is a worse problem, will we have to account for those who did not receive salvation because we ran them off? That is a frightening thought.

We are told not to put an obstacle or stumbling block in another’s way. The implication is that we are barring people from reaching their place in Jesus and Paul said our judgments are largely responsible. We need to stop being the reasons people don’t want to meet Jesus. We must stop creating obstacles to salvation. Our ideas of people’s worthiness or what they should be are not furthering the Kingdom. We just haven’t been equipped with the knowledge or wisdom necessary to make those determinations. And why do we want to shoulder such a huge burden anyway?

Earlier in this same book Paul wrote, “Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus,” (Romans 8: 1). He was trying to introduce people to Christ and have each one accept and honor the other. He had quite a task on his hands as the early church sought to integrate people with very different lifestyles, cultures and values. Then again, it’s not so different from what we are dealing with today.

There is not a person on this earth that God doesn’t love. They (we) are all His kids and thus, all brothers. Even the ones who do not call Him Father are still His and He loves them despite any and all flaws. He sees His beautiful child, not a flawed person. People are fleeing from the Kingdom because of obstacles we have erected. Let us make a concerted effort to break down the walls of obstruction. And by the way, most of those walls are in our own minds. Let us no longer create separation and hurdles which are causing people to stumble. Instead, let us create an inviting, loving space where all people can enter and come to know God for the first time or to get to know Him better. He is love, let’s prove it.

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Confident Heart

On June 24, 2019   /   Word of the Day   /   Leave a comment

Psalm 57: 7 – 10       NLT

My heart is confident in you, O God; my heart is confident. No wonder I can sing your praises! Wake up, my heart! Wake up, O lyre and harp! I will wake the dawn with my song. I will thank you, Lord, among all the people. I will sing your praises among the nations. For your unfailing love is as high as the heavens. Your faithfulness reaches to the clouds.

Again I find myself understanding why God said David was a man after His own heart. We might say, “He touches my heart,” and how could the Father’s heart not be touched from such an outpouring of love and gratitude?

Personally, I am stirred by David’s confidence. Continually the trust that David had in God appears in his songs. This confidence, or trust, was very real for David. He hung his life on that confidence. Even as a youth, David believed God and His word over the circumstances in the world. That was evident when he faced Goliath for he said to King Saul, “The Lord who delivered me from the paw of the lion and from the paw of the bear, He will deliver me from the hand of this Philistine,” (1 Samuel 17: 37).

It also seems that David’s confident trust goes hand in hand with praise. Which came first, I wonder. Did praise strengthen his heart? How does one grow into the depth of faith David had in God’s faithfulness? He wrote that his confidence inspired praise, but from where did the confidence originate. One might say, “David was able to exhibit confidence in facing Goliath because he had overcome both bears and lions,” but where did he get the confidence to face a lion?

David was the youngest of all his brothers. His older brothers were experienced, strong soldiers while he was still tending sheep and yet he had the faith of a giant. When he faced Goliath, he wasn’t tall or strong, he wasn’t arrayed in the finest battle armor. Instead, he said, “You come to me with a sword, a spear, and a javelin, but I come to you in the name of the Lord of hosts.” Now that is some confidence!

I find myself envious of that depth of faith and my soul yearns to stand as tall as that young shepherd boy. Not only did he shame the Philistine army but imagine the reaction of the army of Israel? His own brothers were part of that force, a force that was afraid to march out against Goliath and his cohorts. Were they inspired by David’s heroism? Were they ashamed of their lack of faith in the mighty hand of the Lord? Let us hope that most of them took inspiration from his confidence in God’s unfailing deliverance. What of us? Can we look at this lad and from his faith and actions draw strength into our own spirits? Are we bolstered by his praises and confidence?

If one young shepherd boy can rise from oblivion to the throne, overcoming titanic obstacles along the way, then what can we do, we who have not only the throne of God as our backstop but also the faith of Jesus and the power of the Holy Spirit? What prevents us from being the mighty warriors of our age? I hope you, like me, feel that longing in the pit of your stomach. I hope you find a voice of praise which rivals even that of David because I believe we will find strength, trust, confidence and might in those praises. Lift your eyes, lift your voices and be strengthened in the innermost parts of your being.

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Comfort

On June 21, 2019   /   Word of the Day   /   Leave a comment

Isaiah 51: 12

I, even I, am He who comforts you.

You do not have to rely solely on the comfort of friends because God has assigned the task of comforter to Himself. It is great to have the comfort of friends and family, but they are not always available. There is only one who is with you morning, noon and night. Yahweh, Father, Holy God is with you in all hours of the day. Furthermore, He knows your problems intimately so he can address them better than anyone else.

What’s more, He loves you so much that He does not want to leave the comfort of you to anyone else. He wants to be the one you call first. And you won’t awaken Him if you call Him in the middle of the night.

This is part of your covenant with the Lord. We didn’t even have to ask Him for His part of the bargain. He has freely offered to be your shelter, your refuge. It is a job He sought, not one that we gave to Him. That alone should give you some amount of comfort. He will take away all the sorrow, grief and worry. Just put everything on His shoulders and let Him be the comforter of your soul.

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