Pointing Fingers

I’m studying Job in two groups right now – I am sure by God’s provident timing. In the first two chapters of Job, satan comes before the Lord twice to give an account of what he’s been up to. I have a note jotted beside satan’s second appearance before God: “last mention of satan.” This is the last time that ugly face is seen in this book. But it’s not the last time satan himself shows up. You can bet he is the impetus behind what comes next in Job’s story.

You know the story. God gives satan permission to take all that Job has – his wealth, his children, and his health – to prove that Job will never curse the Lord. Job’s three friends, Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar come to “sympathize with him and comfort him” (v. 11). When they see him sitting on the trash heap, covered in sores and misery, “they sat on the ground with him for seven days and seven nights” and “No one said a word to him, because they saw how great his suffering was” (v. 13). If only they had kept their mouths shut.

I said that satan’s last mention was in chapter two, but he shows up in Job’s “friends” every time they speak. They all condemn Job for what must be grievous sin in his life. Why else would God bring such harsh punishment on him? But they don’t know what God has said about Job: “There is no one on earth like him; he is blameless and upright, a man who fears God and shuns evil” (1:8; 2:3). Satan didn’t have to show his face, he just let E, B, and Z do his dirty work. If Job’s friends truly wanted to comfort him, they should have reminded him of God’s faithfulness and love. They should have sang songs of hope, not blasted him with condemnation. Rather than comforting their friend, they added to his suffering.

Here’s my takeaway: Never assume you know a person’s heart before God and God’s reason for their situation. We are called to a ministry of “encouraging, comforting, and urging [one another] to live lives worthy of God” (1 Thess 2:12). We are not called to “straighten one another out.” I don’t want to ever be satan’s tool of misery in someone’s life, no matter how “righteous” my reasoning. Beloved, make sure you are God’s messenger of grace, not satan’s sledgehammer.

In God’s Waiting Room

I stood there tapping my toes impatiently. “Come on!” I muttered under my breath as I watched the timer tick down. 5 . . . 4. . . 3 . . . 2 . . . 1. Then the shrill “beep, beep, beep.” About time! My breakfast pastry was finally done! I popped open the microwave door and juggled the hot food. Then it dawned on me. I just told a microwave to hurry up. I couldn’t wait a minute and forty-five seconds for my breakfast.

In our hurry-up society, we hate waiting. Doctors’ offices, the DMV, a child who’s late coming home – they all make us a little crazy as precious minutes –or – hours tick away. Perhaps you know the anxiety of waiting days for test results, or for a phone call after a job interview. Or maybe your waiting has stretched beyond minutes and days to months and even years. And you’re not waiting on a doctor or a kid or a phone call. You’re waiting on God. You’ve been praying. And praying. And God delays. You haven’t gotten a closed door. But you also haven’t gotten an answer yet.

You’re in good company. Revelation tells of some folks who are also waiting on God. They are “the souls of those who had been slain because of the word of God and the testimony they had maintained. They called out in a loud voice, ‘How long, Sovereign Lord, holy and true until you judge the inhabitants of the earth and avenge our blood?’” (Revelation 6:9-10). They are waiting for God to do what they know He alone is able to do – but isn’t. Sound familiar? “God, You can do this, You can fix this, You can stop this. But You aren’t.”

The Scripture says that “each of them was given a white robe, and they were told to wait a little longer . . .” (v. 11). When God tells us to wait it is because He intends to act. Are you waiting for God? Have you been praying for a long time with no end in sight? Oh, please, don’t despair. Our Father doesn’t tell us to wait in vain. And He doesn’t tell us to wait unless there’s something worth waiting for. Beloved, will you “wait a little longer?”

Heaven

 When I was a little girl, I heard a minister preach about eternity – and it terrified me. I couldn’t wrap my childish mind around something that would never end.  I still cannot wrap my gray head around the concept of eternity – but I am no longer afraid.

Revelation 3:12 speaks of “the New Jerusalem, which is coming down out of heaven from God”  where we will drink “from the spring of the water of life” (Rev. 21:6). The Holy City will shine “with the glory of God,” with the “brilliance of a very precious jewel” (Rev. 21:11) Try to picture with me the descriptions in Revelation 21 and 22:  The city walls are made of jasper, the foundations are twelve precious stones, the gates of the city are giant single pearls  The gold that our world revolves around – that’s just pavement in heaven, where the streets are made of pure, transparent gold.  There is no sun or moon, “for the glory of God gives it light, and the Lamb is its lamp.” 

But here is the most beautiful sight of all: “The throne of God and of the Lamb will be in the city, and His servants will serve Him.  They will see His face…” (Rev. 22:3-4, emphasis added).  We will see the face of our Savior!  As a writer, here I fall silent.  What words could I offer to describe the glory of beholding the face of Jesus? And we will have to privilege of looking into His face forever.  For we will have life everlasting!  As hard as it is to comprehend, it is one of the foundations of our faith – everlasting life.

Everlasting life is the promise that has kept the heart of the Christian faith beating strong through trial, persecution, and oppression.  It has been the song on the lips of the martyrs down through history.  Life everlasting is not just about existence that never ends,  It is about the uninterrupted presence of God and His everlasting love (Ps. 103:17); everlasting righteousness (Ps. 119:142); an everlasting kingdom (Ps. 145:113); everlasting joy (Is. 35:10); everlasting salvation (Is. 47:17); everlasting kindness (Is. 54:8); everlasting light (Is 60:19 & 20); an everlasting name (Is. 56:5); and an everlasting Father (Is 9:6)?  It will be an everlasting paradise (Rev. 2:7)!

Beloved, I pray that this is your hope too. Heaven is very real, and so is hell. Your eternal destiny lies in one or the other. Don’t let the day end until you know where you’re going.

Love much

 “First Day in Heaven” by Kerolos Safwat.

Jesus is a dinner guest at the home of a man named Simon. Simon is a Pharisee – that means he is very important in the religious community and very well respected. He is also very arrogant and looks down on people who are not as “holy” as he thinks himself to be. While Jesus sits around the finely decorated table, a woman enters the house. This woman was well known in the community as a “sinful woman.” She has earned a living among men and is an outcast among the ”good” people.  The house has fallen silent as she moves among the crowd with an alabaster jar in her hands. Every eye is on her but her eyes are fixed on one person – Jesus.

As she kneels at His feet she is weeping and her tears make tracks in the dust that clings to Him until His feet have been washed clean. She reaches up and pulls away her head covering and gently wipes His feet dry with her long, cascading hair, then kisses them. Finally, she breaks open the alabaster jar and pours the costly perfume out on those clean feet.

Simon, like all who are gathered there, is shocked that Jesus has permitted such a sinful woman to touch Him. But listen! Jesus is telling Simon a story about a good man who forgave the debts that others owed him.

“Who will love him more?” He asks.

“The one who had the biggest debt canceled,” Simon answers.

“You have judged correctly,” Jesus says.

Then he turns away from Simon to look at the woman. Do you see the love in His eyes? “She had done something very beautiful for me,” He says. “She loves much because she has been forgiven much.”  Then Jesus blesses her and says, “Your faith has saved you; go in peace.” (Luke 7:36-50)

This story is your story. You have a sinful past just as she had, but Jesus has forgiven all your sins – just as he forgave hers. You love Him much because you have been forgiven much. Listen carefully to Jesus as He looks at you with love in His eyes and tells you, “Your faith has saved you; go in peace.” Go and fulfill the things that God is calling you to do. You have been washed in the precious blood of Jesus, Beloved. You can leave your past behind and go forward in peace.

Hebrews: The Living Way

In our last Hebrews devotional, we talked about the confidence we have to come to the Lord with all our needs and concerns – all because of the blood of Jesus (Heb 10:19). The author went on to call Jesus’ sacrifice “a new and living way opened for us through the curtain, that is, His body . . .” (v. 20).  There is so much here, we could spend days unpacking this one verse. The old covenant was built on the sacrifices of dead animals, whose blood had been drained away. But Jesus shed His blood on the cross and rose from the dead – He is a living sacrifice and a living Savior. And He is The Way (John 14:6) – the only way – to the Father.

But I want to focus your attention on “the curtain, which the writer says is “His body.” Picture Jesus on the cross, his hair matted with blood, His body beaten and broken, life draining from the holes in his hands and feet and side. And as death begins to crush the life out of Him, an unseen hand reaches down from heaven, into the Temple, and tears the tall, heavy curtain in two – from the top down (Matt. 27:51). The curtain had long separated sinful man from holy God. Now the perfect blood sacrifice had been given and God Himself tore the curtain and opened the Way into His presence.

Do you see the beauty here in Jesus’ broken body and the torn curtain? For centuries there was separation between God and man. But through the blood of Jesus, we are invited to “draw near” and “approach the throne of grace” (James 10:22; 4:16). Paul confirms that we have been reconciled to God in his great doxology: “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword. I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:35, 37-39).

Do you know who Paul was talking to? You, Beloved. The one scrolling through this devotional on your phone. God loves you. Jesus died for you. If you trust in Him, there is nothing – not even your sin – that will keep you from God.

God of the Big and the Small

He is the Lord who calms the wind and the waves and brings peace where there is turmoil (Mark 4:35-41).  He is the Warrior who stands between His prophet and the enemy when the enemy is all around (2 Kings 6:15-17). He is the Savior who reached out His hand and rescued Peter from drowning (Matt 14:22-31). He is a mighty God who does might things on behalf of His people.

He is also my Provider who brought my family food when our pantry and checking account was empty.  He is my Protector who shielded me in a car accident. He is my Guide who brought me back home. He is My Father who notices even the smallest things in my life. Like my phone.

Shortly before Christmas, my very old phone died and I had no funds to replace it. My best friend’s daughter got a new phone for Christmas and they made a four-hour round trip to bring me her old phone which was still in great condition. It was a blessing and a gift of love from both my friend and from God who cared about me. Until last week when it slipped out of my pocket and into the tub. And we were out of rice. So it just sat on my desk, mocking me with its dead, black face. But two days later, on “a whim” I plugged it in and it came to life and has been working perfectly ever since.

I know you’re thinking, she’s not really going to turn a cell phone into a devotional, is she? Oh, yes I am. Because the God over the wind and the waves is also the God over empty pantries and dead phones. Paul said, “He who did not spare His own Son, but gave Him up for us all—how will He not also, along with Him, graciously give us all things?” (Rom 8:32).  He is the good and gracious God who cares about even the smallest detail of His children’s lives.

I spent two years recovering from a severe emotional breakdown by studying the Hebrew names of God in Scripture. There were so many that spoke to me, but the one that means everything to me is El Hayyay – the God of my life (Ps 42:8) because there is not one detail of my life that He doesn’t care about, whether I’m in a battle or watching my phone float to the bottom of the tub. He is Lord over the big and the small. Beloved, He is the God of your life, too.

Conversations with God

I always start in my prayer journal with a verse of Scripture, usually something from the Psalms. This morning I was drawn to Psalm 28:7: “The Lord is my strength and my shield; my heart trusts in Him and I am helped.  My heart leaps for Joy and I will give thanks to Him in song.” The Spirit pricked my heart and said,

“Do you trust in Me, Child?”

Yes, Lord, I trust in You.

“Then where is your Joy? Where is your song?”

They’ve been beaten down by angry people and responsibilities that shouldn’t be mine and not enough funds to get through the month and not enough time for myself. Yes, I do trust in You, but I’m just tired, Lord.

“That’s because you’re trusting in me with your head, and not your heart.”

Oh, Father, I long for Joy, I long for a song in my heart. How do I do this?

“Give thanks.”

For . . .? Do you have any idea how heartbreaking and draining this season has been? It’s gone on so long and there’s no end in sight. Honestly God, how can I be grateful for all this?

“Be Joyful always. Pray continually. Give thanks in all circumstances for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus” (1 Thess 5:16-18).

This? This is Your will for my life?

Then He reminded me of Corrie and Betsie ten Boom, the Dutch sisters who endured the horrors of a Nazi concentration camp for the crime of hiding Jews from the German Polizei.  The building in which they were crammed was infested with fleas, which cause Corrie to complain.  Betsie reminded her that they must “give thanks in everything,” which Corrie could not understand.  But because of the fleas, the guards refused to go into their building and they were free from sexual assaults and also free to hold daily prayer and Bible study sessions with their fellow prisoners.

Beloved, if you’re finding it hard to give thanks because of people or problems or struggles or heartache,  may I gently remind you – as I remind myself – to turn your gaze from your circumstances to the God who is able to make even fleas a blessing. He is up to good in your life – and mine. In all things.

Hebrews: Cheerful Courage

As I was studying Hebrews 10:19-25, the next Hebrews passage, one word caught my attention.  “Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus . . .” (Heb 10:19). This passage has a lot to say to us, far more than just one word, but when the Holy Spirit draws my focus with a divine highlighter, I’ve learned to pay attention.   The word is “confidence,” and no, the writer isn’t talking about “a feeling of self-assurance arising from one’s appreciation of one’s own abilities or qualities” (Google’s definition). The word he used in this context means “boldness, freedom in speaking.”  It always brings the story of Esther to mind.

Esther was a Jewish girl living in Susa, a province of Persia. The king of Susa had fallen in love with Esther and taken her to be his queen, but she hid her Jewish identity, as her people were not very popular in the region. In fact, they were so disliked that one of the king’s aides decided all the Jews in Susa should be killed in a mass extermination. The king put his “stamp of approval” on this heinous plan. Esther’s uncle begged with her to go to the king and plead for the lives of her people. But she knew that any person who approached the king in his inner court will be put to death unless the king extends his scepter as a sign of acceptance. Even his wife. Esther swallowed her fear and, dressed in her finest, walked across the palace’s marble floors and into the king’s presence. As God would have it, the king accepted Esther and she was (eventually) able to make her request.

There wasn’t anything in Esther that made her bold and confident, it was the God whose mission she had accepted, which brings me to the other definition for the word confidence: “cheerful courage.” Now I have had to do some very hard things that required a lot of courage and I pressed on into it, but it was “suck-it-up” courage and my knees were knocking. There was nothing cheerful about it. So how can I – as a sinful woman – have cheerful confidence to enter into the very dwelling place of God? Only by the blood of Jesus.

As we sang in worship yesterday, “There to my heart was the blood applied – glory to His name!”

Questioning God

If anyone should have believed in Jesus without wavering, it was John the Baptist. John’s whole life was for one mission, “to prepare the way for the Lord” (Luke 3:4). Even in the womb, he recognized the Lord, leaping at the sound of Mary’s voice (Luke 1: 41-45). He knew Jesus was the Messiah and he declared Him as “the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world !” This was confirmed to John at the Lord’s baptism – “I saw the Spirit come down from heaven as a dove and remain on him. I would not have known him, except that the one who sent me to baptize with water told me, ‘The man on whom you see the Spirit come down and remain is he who will baptize with the Holy Spirit.’” He added emphatically, “I have seen, and I testify that this is the Son of God” (John 1:29-34). Yet John asked a big question, “Are the one who was to come, or should we expect someone else?” (Luke 7:20). What changed? John was in a prison cell for calling out the unrighteousness of the King. No wonder he was questioning Jesus. He did everything God asked of Him and the results were harsh. Can you blame the poor fellow? Despite all he knew, John – weary and discouraged – began to doubt.

But Jesus didn’t chastise John. He knew the man’s heart and that those doubts arose from the overwhelming blow he had been dealt. Jesus pointed John back to the evidence. “What do you see, John?” “The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is preached to the poor” (Luke 7:22). Look beyond your circumstances, John. You preached the coming of the kingdom of heaven (Matthew 3:1). You spoke of my power (Mark 1: 7). Your own words are being fulfilled in Me. Then He added, “Blessed is the man who does not fall away on account of me” (Luke 7:23).
Questions are often the starting point for discovering the truth. Do you have a question for God? He will not chasten you. He will give you answers that will ground and strengthen your faith. Ask, Beloved, even with hot tears and a twinge of doubt. You will find that Jesus not only has the answers, He is the answer.

The More You Know . . .

To know, know, know him is to love, love, love him

Just to see him smile make my life worthwhile

To know, know, know him is to love, love, love him

And I do.

Written by Phil Spector and first recorded by “The Teddy Bears,” this song hit the number one spot in 1958. Through the years it was covered by many other artists and I bet as you read those lyrics, you were singing the melody. I know I did as I typed them. One of my daily prayers for my granddaughter is that she will grow in the knowledge of God and love for God every day of her life.  Because the more she knows God, the more she will love Him. How can she not?

When she knows that God is holy, when she knows that He is righteous, when she knows that He is high and lifted up and that He not only sees her but cares about her (Gen 16:13)  . . . when she knows that He is mighty, when she knows that He uses His power on her behalf (Eph 3:20) . . . when she knows that God is faithful and will “never leave [her] nor forsake [her] (Jos 1:5), when she grasps “how wide and long and high and deep” is His love for her (Eph 3:18) and understands that “nothing can separate [her] from the love of God (Rom 8:38-39) . . . when she knows that He loves her so much that “He sent His one and only Son” to die to save her (John 3:16) . . .

How can you not? Perhaps it never occurred to you that you can know God, but over and over His Word invites us to do just that. Paul prayed that believers will “know this love that surpasses knowledge” (Eph 3:19). I have discovered that the more I come to know Him, the more I love Him and the more I love Him the more I want to know Him. Beloved, can there be any better pursuit for your life than to seek to know God? “My heart says of You, “Seek His face!” Your face Lord, I will seek” (Psalm 27:8).