Isaiah 6:1

There are particular events in history that stand out as milestones. One such event was the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, from which our calendar years are measured. Another such event was the death of King Uzziah, who was one of the greatest kings of Jewish history. The greatest of them was King David who was the greatest warrior and administrator, who was a model of the coming Messiah. King Uzziah was also one who stood out for his righteousness and godliness, who reigned for 52 years, and when he died he left a sense of fear and uncertainty among the people of Israel. He was a king who sought God and as long as he did God poured out his blessing upon the nation. But late in his life he became proud and decided to also fill the role of priest and offer up an offering. For that sin God brought his life to an end and left the people wondering who they would ever find who would be a stable godly leader. At that time God anointed Isaiah as prophet who introduces the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up; and the train of his robe filled the temple. God uses the death of Uzziah as an opportunity to introduce the coming Messiah and King through his words spoken through Isaiah. At the appointed time the Son of God, the Logos, the Messiah, in the person of Jesus arrives on earth and through him changes the course of history. But at the time of the death of Uzziah, another event occurred which would have a profound effect on life on earth for hundreds of years. The year of the death of Uzziah and the announcement of a coming eternal King, the small village of Rome was established, which would grow into a mighty empire to be in power at the arrival of Jesus. What a powerful example we have before us of the sovereignty of God in administrating his plans on earth.

Prayer 

Father, there are so many examples in the Bible of people who late in life became proud of their accomplishments instead of continuing to walk humbly with you. With pride comes judgment and what would have been a life that finished strong, it instead ends in shame. Father, I find it amazing how these three events fit together; the death of Uzziah, the anointing of Isaiah and his prophesies about the Lord Jesus, and the beginning of Rome. Events like these don't just happen; they are under your sovereign control. Thank you for your love, mercy and grace. To you I offer up my praise. 

Deuteronomy 16:17 Gifts

Three times a year the Jews were to attend three particular feast and when they came they shall not come before the Lord empty handed, but shall bring a gift according to the blessing of the Lord your God that he has given to you. In like manner should we not also include giving to God, according to his blessing to us, as part of our worship of God? When we give how much should be given? The Law established the tithe as 10% of everything they earned and grew, but when Jesus died on the cross, he fulfilled the requirements of the Law and made the mandatory 10% tithe obsolete. In 1 Corinthians 16:2, Paul suggest an offering in size related to God's blessing. Whatever size gift is given it must be intentional, from the heart and cheerfully given (2 Corinthians 9:7). Proper giving is not without reward (Luke 6:38) and giving is one thing you can test the Lord on (Malachi 3:10). It is amazing today how many attend church and give nothing or maybe just a token amount. Is this an expression of God's gift to you or a lack of a thankful heart? "Will a man rob God? Yet you are robbing me. But you say, "How have we to robbed you?" In your tithes and contributions." (Malachi 3:8). Remember, as we give our account in heaven is credited (Philippians 4:7).

Prayer 

Father, your gift to us was your Son, Jesus Christ, and through him we have salvation, a gift so rich and free. Father, each day we experience the kindness of your grace, your mercy and a love that has no limit. We are so richly blessed to be in Christ, for besides him there is no other. Father, have mercy on us and forgive us for not loving and serving you in return as we should. We are so unwilling to sacrifice ourselves to advance the Gospel and so selfish about our financial gifts in support of the kingdom of Christ. Encourage us to give as we are able according to your blessing to us. 

Psalm 136:1 Thanks

The exhortation is intense at the beginning of this Psalm to give thanks to the One described as the Lord, the God of gods and the Lord of lords. There is no one else besides him for he is over all. We are to give thanks for he is good and his steadfast love endures forever. God is good and all the time God is good because God is love. This love is expressed in goodness; a goodness beyond all others; a goodness we have seen, proved and tasted. Our living God is the source and sustainer of all good. His great love and goodness endures forever and for that he deserves our constant thanks, no matter our circumstances. He is not to blame for this fallen evil world in which we live and even from this he has, out of his love for us, shown kindness by providing a means of salvation in his Son Jesus Christ.

Prayer

Father, how slow we are to give thanks and so quick to complain. In all things we are to give thanks. We can not do that if focused on our trouble, but we can if focused on your love and goodness to us. Father, I think of Jesus who was willing to come and live as a man in a world of sin and then accept our sin and die in our place. As he hung, nailed to the cross, feeling forsaken by you, out of love he prays for those who hate him so, to forgive them because they do not understand what they are doing. Father, how can we not give thanks for your goodness and steadfast love that endures forever?

Acts 7:56 - 58

Sunday morning I posted a VOM podcast of sister "Amber" and would like to make further comment about it in reference to the verses posted here. That post can be found here.  In that post it was mentioned that very often the only way those who persecute will hear the gospel and experience God's love is to persecute Christians. An example of this is the stoning of Stephen. He stood faithfully with the Lord and shared a strong testimony about Jesus. Those who heard rushed together and cast him out of the city and stoned him. Those witnesses laid down their garments at the feet of a strong persecutor of Christians, a young man named Saul. As Stephen gave his life, Saul watched watched with approval, but I believe what Saul experience there touched him deep inside his heart. I believe God chose Stephen to be a witness before Saul to occur before Jesus appeared to him on the road to Damascus when Saul became a believer named Paul. Do you realize that Stephen's witness and death prepared Saul to meet Jesus a short time later who become Paul who God used to write much of our New Testament. Do you realize that since Paul had a type A personality, God arranged for him to spend considerable time in prison so he would have time to devote to the writing he did? How do you suppose God might use your sacrifice to reach others for Jesus? How much are you willing to surrender for him?

Prayer 

Father, I find it interesting to see your hand involved with those who are faithful to stand with the Lord. Saul, the great persecutor of Christians witnessed the testimony and death of Stephen and then he had an encounter with Jesus on the road to Damascus and became one of the great Christians of all time, who went on to write a big portion of the New testament while in prison. Father, today you still use the witness of those being persecuted to touch those harden hearts of persecutors. The witness of love and forgiveness has more power than the force of evil. A life may be lost, but like in the case of Stephen and possibly in the case of Amber, others come to Christ. Father, I pray for the man mentioned by Amber. 

Hebrews 4:14-16

Our text contains two commandments: Hold fast our confession (v14) and, Draw near with confidence (v16). To hold fast is to persevere, waiting upon the Lord to gain strength (Isaiah 40:31), not letting anything distract us or discourage us. To draw near with confidence is to come before the throne of grace in prayer to find grace to help in our time of need. Our confession and confidence is based on truth about who Jesus is: Our great high priest, the Son of God, who has passed through the heavens before us. Jesus is able to sympathize with our weakness because in every respect he has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. The fact that Jesus is now seated at the right hand oh his Father's throne of grace, having died in our place for our sins, we have a basis for our perseverance of confession and for our confidence to boldly come before that throne of grace. Through the death and resurrection of Jesus we now have a lining hope to see us through those horrific trials of life.

Prayer

Father, as I think about the church in America, I wonder how well we would do in holding fast to our confession in the face of persecution? Would we while being tortured or even in the face of death, continue to stand firm with the Lord? I wonder if we have enough experience before the throne of grace to have the boldness to come with confidence to obtain help in time of our need? I wonder if maybe we shouldn't get to know our great high priest better to have a stronger foundation on which to encourage our obedience of these two commands. Father, have mercy on us that we would get our priorities in the right order. 

Jeremiah 9:23 - 24

"Thus says the Lord:" is something we need to carefully consider. The topic is about a wise person. First God tells us what a wise man is not to do. He is not to boast in his wisdom because if he does it proves he is not wise, but proud. As a mighty man, a man who avoids the snares of the world and is strong in the things of the Lord, he is not to boast in his might but to use his might to benefit others. If he is rich in the things of the world or the things of God he should not boast in that either but to use those riches to benefit others. Any boasting is pride and before ones fall comes pride. However, if one is going to boast it must be in the form of understanding and knowing the Lord and expressed in such a way that it makes clear the desires of the Lord and if we are to please him we are to practice steadfast love, justice, and righteousness, which he desires. As a wise person our boasting is to focus on the Lord and live out his desires.

Prayer

Father, I pray that by my conduct my works will show the meekness of wisdom, that I am a man of understanding. I pray that I would not be guilty of bitter jealousy or selfish ambition in my heart, that my speech would not be false to the truth. I pray that I would have wisdom that comes down from above, a wisdom that is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and sincere. O Lord, I pray that my life will yield a harvest of righteousness. (From James 3:13 - 18) 

Isaiah 12:2

Jesus, the Son of God, said, "I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?" (John 11:25-26 ESV). Thus, God is my source of salvation and through the death and resurrection of Jesus, God has become my salvation. Through faith, not by anything I could do, I trust in God for my salvation and because of his great love and faithfulness I am not afraid of death. Because the Lord God is my salvation he is my strength and through the Holy Spirit he strengthen me. Such love for me and such wonderful things you have done for me; I have gazed upon your power and glory, so how can I not express my love and thanks in songs of praise and worship to you?

Prayer

Father, thank you for the free gift of salvation that we have in Jesus Christ. Thank you for the relationship we can have with him and for all that is provided through that relationship. Lord, I desire you more than anything on earth. O Sovereign Lord, how great you are! There is none like you! You are the rock, the foundation upon which my life resists. Praise the Lord! 

Psalm 95:6 Worship

"Oh come, let us worship and bow down; let us kneel before the Lord, our Maker! For he is our God, and we are the people of his pasture, and the sheep of his hand" (Psalm 95:6 - 7a ESV). The Lord called us by name and like being awakened from sleep we heard him and came. We are a people created by him in his image and as sheep he is our Shepherd. Because of his love, mercy and the kindness of his grace we come before him in humility to worship him for who he is and for all that he has done for us. As we come to worship, that worship is to be in spirit and in truth (John 4:23 - 24). Worship must involve both the heart and the mind. It must be real in the heart and must rest on a true perception of God. Jesus is truth so worship involves our knowledge of Jesus, but it is through Jesus that we obtain eternal life and become new creatures in Christ and as we are born again we are indwelt by the Spirit. With the Spirit in our heart and with the mind of Christ we are a people with strong affections for God rooted in truth, we kneel and bow down before the Lord our God our maker in worship. Only a child of God can truly worship and so as our relationship with Jesus grows our worship of God matures.

Prayer

O Lord, you are my God; I exalt you; I praise your name for you have done wonderful things, plans formed of old, faithful and sure. O God, who do I have in heaven but you? I desire you more than anything on earth. My health may fail, and my spirit may grow weak, but you remain the strength of my heart; you are mine forever. O Lord, you are my God; I earnestly search for you; my soul thirsts for you; my whole body longs for you. I have gazed upon your power and glory; your unfailing live is better than life itself; how I praise you. O Sovereign Lord, how great you are! There is no one like you! There is no one besides you. You are the rock, the foundation upon which my life rests. Lord, my heart rejoices in you.

Psalm 149:1 Singing

I have spent several days thinking about what to say on this topic of singing and have decided to narrow my thoughts to the following. This Psalm, as well as Psalm 96 and 98, starts with "Sing to the Lord a new song." I must confess that I prefer the old music that I know; the ones I have learned to sing that move me, that seem to connect me to God. The Bible does not remind us to sing old songs because our inertia is to connect to that which we already know.

So, why should we sing a new song to God? Psalm 40 gives us a clue. As we wait patiently for the Lord to deliver us from some difficulty, "He put a new song in my mouth, a hymn of praise to our God. Many will see [his deliverance] and fear the Lord and put their trust in him" (Psalm 40:3). These new songs are to be a testimony of new rescues and fresh manifestations of his grace toward us. But great care must be made that we keep our focus on God because of his great love for us in Christ. There is a growing body of new songs that lose this focus and speak more about us than they do about God.

Prayer

Lord, I believe you created us to sing; to "sing of the steadfast love of the Lord, forever" (Psalm 89:1); to sing of the "immeasurable riches of your grace in kindness toward us in Jesus Christ" (Ephesians 2:7). Thank you for the beauty of music and song.

God Desires Radical Living

One morning I decided to post Galatians 2:20 with some comments to Facebook, but as I was doing that I thought about how 2 Timothy 4:6 - 7 and Romans 12:1 - 2 related, so I decided to produce a short study of these three passages. The three postings are link below:

Galatians 2:20

2 Timothy 4:6 - 7

Romans 12:1 - 2

Romans 12:1 - 2

Here is a popular text that I have heard in many sermons and Bible studies, but I am not sure I have ever heard it discussed from the view of a non-western culture. There are many verses we tend to explain as though written in our western culture and as a result we fall short of the mark. As we look at these two verses try to put yourself in the place of a believer under severe persecution. Paul says he has an urgent message for us and as we struggle to learn it he asks God to show us mercy. He then speaks of our bodies as being a living sacrifice. We are spiritually alive because we are in Christ and we are physically alive because we are still breathing and thus we have bodies that could be offered as a sacrifice. Being willing to offer our bodies in the face of persecution instead of denying that we are Christians, is seen by God as holy and acceptable and an act of spiritual worship. The view of the world, and many in the western church, is that this is a waste of a life, but to those who have been transformed by the renewal of their minds, it is an act of worship. In the face of persecution this resolve is tested and we discern that it is God's acceptable and perfect will that we pay the price of being faithful and present our bodies as a living sacrifice. How will we see these verses when called upon to face persecution?

Prayer

Father, when I think about these two verses in the context of the persecuted church in which they were written, I can't but help see a richness of application. Because of your great love you were willing to sacrifice your only son so that we could have salvation. Again and again I read reports of believers willing to sacrifice a family member to remain faithful to the Lord, but to endure such sacrifice, one must have a transformed mind that clearly understands what is holy and acceptable to you. Father, encourage us to learn from those being persecuted and help us understand the Scriptures that apply to their kind of living that they call normal.