Home Sweet Home

One of my favorite hymns is “Mansion Over the Hilltop.” Written in 1949 by Ira F. Stanphill, the song is a great, bouncy tune and it is right in my range. I love it because it speaks of a permanent home, of being settled forever. As a military brat, we moved every few years and I longed for roots. My parents bought a house and we finally settled down in my high school years. Then I got married and moved again – in fact, we moved a lot, usually when the rent got several months behind. After the divorce, I moved again – back home. Married again. Moved again. And again. And again. We’ve not owned a home in fifteen years. I still don’t have roots. So a mansion – or even “A Cabin in Gloryland” (Curtis L. Stewart) sure sounds like heaven to me.

Maybe that’s also why John 14:2-3 has such a sweet spot in my heart: “In my Father’s house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am.” A place of my own. A place I’ll never have to move from. A place to call home. While I long for roots, I am content knowing I have a “forever home” waiting for me.

You were created for heaven, for eternal life, for God. Sin took all that away. But Jesus came to give it all back. He took on all your sins and died to bring you forgiveness. Three days later He rose to give you eternal life. He’s done all the hard work. All you have to do Beloved, is believe and call on Him as your Savior and Lord (Romans 10: 9-10). He will make you ready for heaven as He makes your place in heaven ready for you.

I’ll bet He’ll even paint your room in your favorite colors.

Self-made Misery

Have you ever really repented of your sins? Or are you just sorry about the mess you’re in because of them? Right now you’re probably thinking, “And good morning to you too, Susie Sunshine!” I know – you much prefer the nice, gentle devotionals, but I speak as He speaks to me through His Word, and sometimes it’s not always pretty. This came into my heart this morning as I read in Hosea. You may recall, Hosea was a prophet of the Lord with a beautiful story of redeeming love. But the love story is just two chapters out of fourteen where the prophet is declaring God’s anger toward and coming judgment over the nation of Israel. He is calling them to repentance so that He might restore them. But they refuse. Even though they are in misery from God’s punishment, they will not turn away from their sin and turn back to the Lord. Listen to Hosea 7:14 – “They do not cry out to me from their hearts but wail upon their beds.” They were crying about their miserable situation, but they would not cry out to God in repentance. Jump back just a bit to 5:15 where the Lord said, “I will go back to my place until they admit their guilt. And they will seek my face; in their misery, they will earnestly seek me.”

Here’s a hard truth Friend, sometimes we create our own miserable situations. We sin, we wander away from God and like sheep grazing with our heads in the grass, we are unaware of the danger we’re in. All the while God is calling us to turn back to Him. When we find ourselves tangled in the briars of sin or weighted down from falling into the creek, we wail and whine, but we don’t confess and repent.

John said, “If we confess our sin, He is faithful and just as will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9). Beloved, in the kindest, most loving way I know to say it – maybe it’s time to stop whining and start repenting.

 

Fours Steps to Guard Your Heart

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“Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life”(Prov. 4:23). That sounds really profound. But is it practical? How do you “guard your heart?” Read a little further (vs. 24-27) and you will see that you must guard your mouth, guard your eyes, guard your steps, and guard your direction.

Guard your mouth: “Put away perversity from your mouth; keep corrupt talk far from your lips” What we say affects more than the hearer.  Our words also feed our hearts.  It’s a cyclical affect – what comes out of my mouth comes from my heart and goes back into my heart again.   David said it this way, “He wore cursing as his garment; it entered his body like water, into his bones like oil” (Psalm 109:18).

Guard your eyes: “Let your eyes look straight ahead, fix your gaze directly before you” – watch what you’re looking at, listening to, and absorbing into your heart.   And I don’t just mean avoid looking at inappropriate stuff like pornography – I’m also talking about looking at things that just dull our spirits. Are those memes and goofy videos helping you grow more Christlike?

Guard your steps: “Make level paths for your feet and take only ways that are firm.”  The world is full of curbs and potholes and ditches that can easily trip us up and Satan is always planting landmines in our path.  We need to pay careful attention to where we set our feet – make sure the way is firm and free of danger.

Guard your direction: “Do not swerve to the right or the left; keep your foot from evil” – keep going in the right direction.  How do we know for sure what is the right way?  God has given us His Word and His Spirit.   By storing up God’s Word in our hearts (Psalm 119:11), meditating on the Scriptures (Psalm 19:14), continually, intentionally seeking God with all our heart (Jeremiah 29:13), keeping in step with the Spirit (Romans 8:5), and staying in community with fellow believers (Hebrews 10:25), we can stay on the good way.

Guard your heart well, Beloved, and you will guard your life.

A Real Love Story

Hosea is a beautiful love story. God instructed His prophet Hosea to marry Gomer, a prostitute, as an example to the people of Israel of how He took them out of their former life of wickedness and made them His own. As expected, she was unfaithful to Hosea, again a living example of Israel’s unfaithfulness to God. The Lord declares that He will punish Israel, banishing her to the desert and revealing her wickedness. But He also promised to restore Israel. In the desert where He sent her, He will “speak tenderly to her” (2:14). In the same place where she knew only trouble, God promised that “she will sing as in the days of her youth” (2:15) He will restore their relationship and send her enemies away.

Here’s what I find so wonderful. God said that He would “betroth” or commit Himself to her forever in “righteousness and justice, in love and compassion, [and] in faithfulness” (2:19-20). Then He says “You will acknowledge the Lord” (2:20). At first, I thought that acknowledging the Lord was her part in the restoration. That she would have to acquiesce to Him. But the word used means “to know” and pictures a husband and wife in their most intimate moment. So the truth is – “acknowledging the Lord” it isn’t a demand God is making, it is a promise He is proclaiming. After the season of discipline, God will pour out His righteousness and justice and love and compassion and faithfulness, and He will lavish her with love. And she will know her beloved in the most intimate, unifying, and satisfying way. She will know Him because He loves her.

That is true for you Beloved. God calls you into a deeper knowledge of Him, not so you can fill your head with facts, but so that you can know – in the very deepest part of your heart – that He loves you. No matter your past, no matter your sin, no matter how far you’ve run or how long – God wants you to know beyond a shadow of a doubt that He loves you. Listen carefully and you will hear His tender voice in your ear. “I love you, Child, you are mine forever.”

The God who Restores

I saw something very cool this morning as I was reading in Revelation. “To him who overcomes, I will give the right to eat from the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God” (2:7). Do you recall the last time we saw the tree of life? It was way back in Genesis, chapter 3 to be exact. After the fall of Adam and Eve, God banished them from the Garden of Eden and said “The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever” (3:22). Because they knew evil (notice the passage said they knew good and evil, but not good from evil) it would be a cruel thing to allow them to live forever with that burden.

Yet the Revelation verse shows that man is restored to all the good things God created for him to enjoy. The bounty of His blessing, the delight of His presence, and the promise of eternal life.

God restores. It is His nature to restore things that are broken. And not only in heaven but also here and now. I have seen broken marriages restored. Broken dreams reignited. Broke relationships knitted back together. Broken minds healed. Broken lives renewed. And broken hearts made whole. He is Elyshib – the God who restores. And He is working to restore you.

Is God Disappointed in Me?

 

“I don’t want to mess up and disappoint God,” my friend said. “I guess I should say I don’t want to disappoint Him again. I’ve done it so many times already.”

“You can’t disappoint God,” I replied. She looked at me with her head slightly tilted to one side.

“What do you mean?” she asked.

“Think about it – if you were to disappoint me that would mean you behaved in a way I didn’t expect. You can’t do anything God didn’t expect. He has perfect knowledge of your life and everything you are going to do. You can’t disappoint Him.”

One of the most comforting things God has revealed to me is that I can never take Him by surprise. I can’t catch Him off-guard. I can’t make Him wring His hands in heaven, lamenting a choice I’ve made that has derailed all His plans for my life. As I’ve seen on social media: “God has already factored my stupidity into my destiny.”

David said it a little nicer: “O Lord, you have searched me and You know me” (Psalm 139:1). He said God knows when you sit, when you lie down, and when you rise, He knows your every thought (Yikes!), and every word before you speak it. He knows where you are at all times (remember Jonah?). He is ‘familiar with all [your] ways” (v. 3b). He knows you because He created you. Before your mother ever suspected she was pregnant, God not only knew you existed, He knew everything about you (vs. 13-16). Your childhood skinned knees, your first day of school, your teenage rebellion, when you would fall in love, the address of the house you live in right now. He knew about the sins too – the alcohol, the drugs, the abortion, the affair, the divorce. And get this: He loved you.

I am the queen of mistakes. I have enough regrets to sink a battleship. I have confessed and repented and received God’s forgiveness. And I have peace that God has never worried about what I’m going to do next. Not only does He know, but He has already figured out how He can make work with it in His good plan for my life.

I’ll let David sum this up for us: “All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be” (v. 16). Take this to heart Beloved, God will never be disappointed in you.

Is God Still Speaking?

Sometimes God gives us exactly what we ask for. Amos was not a “professional” prophet, but he faithfully opened his mouth and spoke for Almighty God. He chastised Israel for turning away from God’s Law and disregarding and oppressing the poor. He called out those who were “complacent,” who lived in excess and ease and had no compassion for the downtrodden. Amos extended God’s hand of peace and life in calling for the people to repent and seek Him.

But they wanted no part of God – no wait, that’s not quite true. They wanted His blessing and favor. They didn’t want repentance and obedience. They rejected the word of the Lord and “commanded the prophets not to prophesy” (2:12) saying, “Do not prophesy against Israel, and stop preaching against the house of Isaac” (7:16). They told Amos to shut up. But they were really telling God to shut up because Amos was speaking the very words of the Lord. And so He did. “‘The days are coming,’ declares the Sovereign Lord, ‘when I will send a famine through the land – not a famine of food or a thirst for water, but a famine of hearing the words of God” (8:11). That is terrifying. Back in Deuteronomy Moses told the people of God “[These] are not just idle words for you – they are your life” (Deut. 32:47). A famine of the words of God was life-threatening. The people of God were taken captive for seventy years, and when they were graciously allowed to return home, God was silent. They had told Him to shut up and he gave them exactly what they demanded. For four hundred years.

The Word of the Lord has been stripped from almost every public place in America. God’s people have been told to stop proclaiming God’s Word. Not just in the public square, but even in God’s own house. (No, really. Google “Governor demands to review Pastor’s sermons.”) If you speak up for truth, you will be told to sit down and shut up.

Thankfully, God did not stay silent forever. John tells us that God once again sent His Word to His people, not through prophets, but in His Son, Jesus Christ, who is “The Word made flesh” (John 1:1, 14). He still speaks and His message is this: “For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have everlasting life” (John 3:16). Oh, hear the Word of the Lord. He is speaking to you, Beloved.

Finding God

My life verse is Jeremiah 29:13-14a: “You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you.” At first reading, I believed it was a directive – “Seek me with all your heart.” This is something I must do – it is my responsibility to find God. If I do not find Him it is my fault, because I did not seek Him adequately. Anybody else?

But in digging into this verse and studying the words used, I discovered that God is saying something very different. In fact, this is not a directive, so much as it is a promise. A promise I find great hope and comfort in. God is really saying something more like: “When you put forth the effort to seek me and to know me I will set myself in your path so you cannot miss me.” Man, that’s good stuff!! God says all have to do is turn my heart in His direction and He will take it from there. There is also an implication of God ordering my steps so that my path will intersect His.

Take a look at Moses. The Hebrew boy did good. Raised up in Pharaoh’s house with all the wealth and status that goes along with it. But God had a plan for Moses, and He needed Moses to be in a certain desert at a specific time for a particular message. Moses killed an Egyptian and ran. But not aimlessly. He ran to Midian which was near Horeb, where the Lord had planted a certain bush (quite some time before I might add) in a certain desert. Moses took the sheep right where God was waiting for him. But Moses had to turn aside to receive God’s call. He had to approach the burning bush. And the encounter changed Moses’ life and the lives of God’s people forever.

Beloved, God is not playing a game of cosmic hide-and-seek with you. He wants you to find Him. He wants you to know Him. But He wants you to want that too. Make it your heart’s desire to see Him. He will not disappoint you. You will find Him. Right where He’s waiting for you.

What Do You See?

Sunday morning we dropped our granddaughter off at the nursery and headed to the sanctuary for worship. As soon as we settled in I turned my cell phone to vibrate and set it near me where I could see it in case the nursery texted me. When the pastor began his sermon I put my Bible in my lap and tucked my phone half-way under it. As I looked toward the pulpit and listened to the message, I was always conscious of my phone, keeping it in the periphery of my vision. If my girl needed me, I wanted to know it.

We tend to treat sin that way too, don’t we? We put on our best Christian clothes and sit up close to the front of the church. We post Scriptures and “Jesus sayings” on social media. We put the fish on our car and wear the t-shirt.  We have our Bible open and we come before God and repeat: “Our Father, who art in heaven . . .” But we also keep our favorite sin close by. Oh, not where everyone can see it, but just where we can catch the faintest glimmer of it, so we don’t miss it when it calls.  The Bible has a word for that: “cherished sin.” David said, “If I had cherished sin in my heart, the Lord would not have listened” (Psalm 66:18). The word “cherished” in the original Hebrew means “to see, look, consider, to realize, to know.” It’s doesn’t mean that we simply notice sin as we pass by it, but it means we are keeping sin in view and are always conscious of it. It also means we have failed to cut ties with it. And those are ties that bind us up and keep us from walking in the Spirit.

One more thing about this word “cherished” – I told you what I meant, but I didn’t tell you the actual word – it is “Ra’a and we first see it in Scripture in Genesis 16:13. It is the name Hagar gives to the Lord God when He finds her in the desert running from Sarai: “I have now seen the One who sees me.” 

Beloved, it’s all about where you’re looking and what you’re keeping in your line of vision.

Bitter or Better?

I don’t know much about Josh Shipp, other than he had a rough start to life. Abandoned at birth and passed from one foster home to another, he was on a self-destructive path until a foster family intervened and invested in his life. I don’t know his faith story – of if he even has one, but I love his quote:

You either get bitter, or you get better.

It’s that simple.

You either take what has been dealt to you and allow it to make you a better person, or you allow it to tear you down.”

For something outside of Scripture, that is a powerful truth. His words immediately took me to a familiar verse: “We know that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose” (Romans 8:28).

Both of these speak volumes, especially for those of us who have had to struggle in life. Like my daughter-in-law who is preparing to start college this fall. She wants to be a child psychologist. She wants to be for other children the person she needed in her childhood. She could let the hard things in her life make her bitter, but she’s put them in God’s good hands and is determined to let Him use them to make her better. And make other kids’ lives better too.

It’s a story repeated often in Scripture and in human history. Difficulty + God + time = purpose. Ask Joseph. Ask Ruth. Ask Paul. Ask me. I grew up the butt of everyone’s jokes at school and at home because I was naive and often said and did dumb things. My sense of self-worth was shot. I was stupid. So I determined to keep my mouth shut and learn so that when I said something it was well thought out, sensible, and would build others up. In the process, God built a fire in me for the Bible. The words you’re reading now are the product of God taking bullying, shame, and abuse and turning it into a ministry of The Word and words.

Beloved, whatever hard thing that has happened in your life can either make you bitter or, placed in the hands of God, become the mission and ministry of your life. It’s your choice. Choose the better path.