Sing to Me

Since she was tiny, I have sung to Joy, mostly hymns and songs from my childhood, like “This Little Light of Mine,” “Jesus Loves Me,” and “Oh, Little Playmate.” I sang them fast and silly when we were playing and soft and slow when I wanted soothe her or rock her to sleep. Our favorite of all was and still is “I Love You a Bushel and a Peck.” I rocked and sang her to sleep almost every night with that song until she moved away a couple of years ago.
Now she is six plus years old, and a few weeks ago, she video-called me because she had fallen and given herself a nasty bump. Through her tears, she asked me to sing to her to help her calm down. She requested the Bushel and a Peck song. It blessed my heart to sing to her and to watch peace take her over as she relaxed in her bed.
It gave me a glimpse into one of my favorite verses, Zephaniah 3:17: “The Lord your God is with you, He is mighty to save. He will take great delight in you, He will quiet you with His love, He will rejoice over you with singing.”
Imagine this with me. You are going about your normal day – or maybe it’s not a “normal” day. Maybe it’s a hard, painful day, or a dull, colorless day. Maybe life fell apart in one fell swoop, or the stresses keep squeezing the breath out of you. From heaven, God looks at you and His heart swells with delight, and He breaks out in a song – a song just for you. Maybe it’s a soft melody to “quiet you with His love,” or it may be a happy song of rejoicing. But it is inspired by the pleasure He finds in you. Yes, YOU! You are a delight to God, just as my granddaughter is a delight to me. It blesses Him when we receive His love and comfort and rest in His presence.
The Bible says, “Sing for Joy, O heavens, and exult, O earth; break forth, O mountains, into singing! For the Lord has comforted his people and will have compassion on his afflicted” (Is 49:13). Whatever this day holds, you can trust in Him for He is full of compassion towards you. My song was a comfort to my granddaughter when she was in distress. God longs to be your comfort too. If you listen carefully, Beloved, you may even hear a tune drifting in the breeze.

Follow the Truth

I have mentioned before how much I appreciate my GPS in my car. I am an airhead when it comes to directions, so this little buddy of mine takes care of me and gets me where I need to go. I don’t have to juggle a map or written directions. I also like it because it tells me the speed limit for the road I’m on, and that is very helpful. Most of the time.
There is a stretch of road on my route to and from work where the official posted speed limit is 55 MPH. But my GPS says it is 45. No matter how often I update the thing, it continues to insist that I need to whoa it down to 45. It’s obvious that other motorists’ GPS says the same thing, because many people drive at 45. I passed someone on that road the other day, and when I stopped at a store, they pulled in behind me and berated me for exceeding the speed limit. I asked him why he thought it was 45, and he pointed to his GPS. I then pointed across the road to the posted speed limit sign, which clearly said 55. “I know what that stupid sign says, but I’m trusting my GPS! Now slow it down!” and he took off.
If that’s not a metaphor for the world today, I don’t know what is.
God has given us His Word, written with His perfect authority, to tell us who He is and who we are and how we are to live. The Bible gives us detailed directions to come to Him. It tells us how to relate to our Creator and to one another. But too many of us have decided we don’t have to follow what He has said. We hear voices that tell us something different, and we decide they are right and God is wrong.
Paul warned, “I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you to live in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel, which is really no gospel at all. Evidently, some people are throwing you into confusion and are trying to pervert the gospel of Christ” (Gal 1:6-7). These people had heard and believed the true gospel of Jesus Christ, but false teachers came with a false message, and they believed the lie.
There are many voices telling us many things, but there is only one true messenger and one truth found in a single source. Beloved, don’t be deceived into following the lie. Hold fast to Jesus, all the way to heaven.

The God Who Remembers . . . and Forgets

As I age, my memory is becoming a problem. I forget the next point I was going to make when I’m talking (not a good thing for a teacher). I forget what I am doing in the middle of doing it. I forget where I was going on my way, and I forget what I came into a room to do.
God has a perfect memory. Genesis 7 is the story of Noah, who built an ark, gathered up animals and food and his family at the Lord’s command, and when the rains came, bobbed around on the flood waters for a hundred and fifty days (v. 24). Then, the Scripture says, “But God remembered Noah . . .” (8:1). In Exodus 2:24 several translations say, “God remembered the Israelites” in their plight in Egypt. But God doesn’t remember as I did recently when I was digging through a box and discovered a shirt I had forgotten I even owned. That’s because He does not have an old, Swiss-cheese brain as I do. He has an endless capacity for knowledge and never forgets anything or anyone.
That is a huge comfort to me. God remembers every promise He’s ever made. Even when the fulfillment is long in coming, He doesn’t forget. He remembers His people. He remembers their situation. He remembers His love for them. He remembers that I am His daughter.
At the same time, God forgets. The Bible says that the Lord forgets every sin of mine. Listen to this good word: “I, even I, am He who blots out your transgressions, for my own sake, and remembers your sins no more” (Is 43:25). Whew! If God remembered even one of my sins, I would be condemned forever. He is the originator of “forgive and forget.” As my mother-in-law once told me, “God throws our sins into the deepest ocean and posts a ‘NO FISHING’ sign. Here is what we need to understand: God doesn’t forget, as I often do. Instead, He chooses to not remember. If that sin is under the blood of His Son, it doesn’t allow it to cross His mind. Here’s a thought: If God has chosen to forget our sins, who are we to hold on to them?
Memory can be a good or bad thing. Beloved, you can be sure that God will never forget you or His promises to you, and He will never remember what He has chosen to forget.

Holy Light, Come Shine on Me

“The lamp (light showing the way of truth) of the LORD searches (examines, tracks down) the spirit (breath, life) of a man; it searches out his inmost being (heart, chamber, bedroom, the most intimate part of the heart),” Proverbs 20:27.
When I am searching for something important – keys, debit card, phone, or most recently, my driver’s license – I turn on every available light and look throughout the room. I move things that might be covering up what I’m seeking. I go back over where I’ve already looked, just in case I missed it the first time. I check every corner, hunt through drawers, closets, and shelves, or, in the case of my driver’s license, slide the car seat all the way up and back. I keep searching until I find what I’m looking for.
God has a holy light, a brilliant and powerful light that illuminates every corner and crevice of our lives. When we read His Word, He shines that spotlight on you and me, searching our hearts and minds, our thoughts and intentions, our desires and passions, and our actions. At the same time, His Spirit moves everything we use to cover over our hearts. He looks into every crack and crevice, looking far deeper than we even know exists. He exposes the most intimate levels of our being to the place where we find the truth about ourselves. His purpose is to locate and root out everything in us that does not meet the perfect standard of His children. It is the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit (1 Cor. 6:11).
I need this holy light of truth to examine my life, to track down everything in me that is not conforming to the image of Christ. I need God to search out every offensive way in me (Psalm 139:24). In the deepest part of my heart, there are passions and desires – and as I’ve learned in the past 2 ½ years a great many fears – that need to be crucified to Christ Jesus (Col. 3:5; Gal. 5:24). If I am to truly love Him and be a vessel for His glory, I must be fully open to the Spirit’s examination.
I’m asking Him to freely roam throughout my heart, mind, and body and expose me to the core. That is frightening, but it will release me from the bonds of my flesh and the world. How about it Beloved? Will you set the Word and the Spirit free to do a sanctifying work in you?

Don’t Give up on God

The weary Jews had returned to Jerusalem after seventy years of captivity in Babylon. They found the city in ruins, the temple destroyed, and the protective wall a pile of rubble. The priests immediately set to work rebuilding the temple, and Nehemiah took up the task of rebuilding the wall. It was a monumental effort – a work that was completed in an astounding fifty-two days! But it wasn’t all smooth sailing. There was tremendous opposition from the neighboring enemy nations – outright hostility, intimidation, and ridicule. The threat was so great that the people “did their work with one hand and held a weapon in the other” (Neh. 4:17). Still, they would not be deterred. They “prayed to our God and posted a guard . . . and worked with all their heart” (4:9,6).
Like their enemies, your enemy is fighting a losing battle. Satan has no authority where God has called you. The truth is – he’s trying to intimate you because you intimidate him. If what you are called to do is so threatening to the enemy that he must try to make you quit, then it’s that much more important that you don’t. God has entrusted you and me with important Kingdom work; work that will be opposed by God’s enemies. We need to adopt Paul’s attitude: “I will stay on . . . because a great door for effective work has opened to me, and there are many who oppose me” (1 Corinthians 16:9).
I don’t know what God has called you to do, Beloved; maybe to preach His Word, teach a class, sing in the choir, or just be devoted to Bible study and prayer in your daily life. Maybe it’s something more challenging, like loving a difficult person or enduring through a health crisis in a God-honoring way. I do know that whatever God has called you to do, the devil wants to stop you from doing it. He will try his best to intimidate you and wear you down so that you will give up and walk away. I am here to tell you – don’t let him. Whatever God’s work and calling for you is, know that He always fulfills His purpose. You have His assurance that, despite the enemy’s best efforts, you can – and will – succeed, if you don’t give up. To those who trust in the Lord and don’t back down, He will “not grant the wicked their desire [nor] let their plans succeed” (Psalm 140:8); and He will “work out His plans for [your] life; He will fulfill His purpose for [you] and perfect that which concerns [you]” (Psalm 138: 8 – TLB, NIV, NASB respectively).

Thus Saith the Lord . . . ?

After many battles, David settled back in his palatial house of cedar and was immediately struck by the realization that the Ark of the Covenant, where the Lord dwelled between the Cherubim, was still housed between tapestries and animal skins; certainly not a surrounding for the glory of God!
He said to his prophet, Nathan, “Here I am, living in a house of cedar, while the ark of God remains in a tent” (2 Sam 7:2). David wanted to build a permanent sanctuary for the Lord, a place where His presence could abide in splendor and majesty. A place worthy of the Lord God Almighty.
Nathan immediately affirmed David’s plan: “Whatever you have in mind, go ahead and do it, for the Lord is with you” (v. 3). Only one problem here; Nathan was not speaking for the Lord; he was speaking what David wanted to hear. He would soon discover that he was wrong. God told Nathan, “Go and tell my servant David, ‘This is what the Lord says, “Are you the one to build me a house to dwell in?’” (v. 5). You can almost hear the emphasis on the word “this.” He spoke out of turn, putting words in the Lord’s mouth that He did not say. Nathan learned his lesson when he confronted David after the king’s sin (2 Sam 12).
I am very cautious of that as a Bible teacher and writer. There is a quote hanging above my desk that reminds me: “Teachers who teach with the authority of Scripture do so because they know first and then teach only and always what the Word of God intends to teach. They submit their teaching to the authority of the Bible by teaching what the Bible text teaches.” (Lawrence Richards and Gary Bredfeldt, Creative Bible Teaching, Chicago: Moody, 1998, 20.)
Paul warned Timothy: “The time will come when people will not tolerate sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from truth and turn aside to myths” (2 Tim: 4:3-4). I think we can agree that the time is here.
We can take a cue from Nathan here: Don’t be an ear-scratcher. Speaking for God, whether you are a preacher, teacher, social media poster, or just having a conversation with a friend, is a great responsibility (Jer 1:17, 15:19) that should not be handled lightly or casually. Remember, Beloved, do not speak on the Lord’s behalf until you have first spoken to the Lord.

The Great High Priest

Hal David wrote, “What the world needs now is love, sweet love. Teachers contend that the world needs to be better educated. We (now old) hippies believed the world just needed peace, man. The generation before mine insists that the world needs more respect. None of these are bad answers, but they miss the real issue that plagues the world. The writer of Hebrews said that the world needs a mediator – a high priest – because we are sinful people before a holy, righteous God. That is the point of the comparison in Hebrews 7:26-28 of the earthly priests and Jesus. That’s your cue to read those verses.
In the Jewish religion, the high priest came before the Lord to present sacrifices to atone for the sins of the people. But he first had to atone for his own sins before he could tend to theirs (v. 27). That meant that he was an imperfect priest. Because every human being will stand before God, we need a perfect mediator who is acceptable to Him. But Jesus needed no such atonement because He was without sin – He was the perfect priest and the perfect sacrifice that could cover all the sins of mankind – “once for all” (v. 27). One sacrifice for all the sins of all the people for all time. Jesus, who is our great high priest (4:14), is “holy, blameless, pure, set apart from sinners, [and] exalted above the heavens” (v. 26).
A point of clarification: Does that mean that every person is saved by the work of Jesus? Yes. And no. Every person’s sins are covered by the blood of Jesus – if they receive and submit to that covering. But God gave man a little thing called “free will” to accept or reject His offer. The one who rebuffs His grace doesn’t negate the work of Christ; he just refuses it. And God is very much a gentleman who will not force His grace on anyone who does not want it. But why would anyone not want it? Because they do not see themselves as sinners in need of grace. Jesus said, “[Satan] has blinded their eyes and deadened their hearts, so they can neither see with their eyes, nor understand with their hearts, nor turn – and I would heal them” (John 12:40).
I imagine that you, like me, have someone in mind as you read this, someone who continually pushes God away, perhaps even protesting that they are saved. How can you and I help? Pray, Beloved. Pray that the blindfold of the enemy be removed so that they can see and understand. Pray that their hearts will be open to God’s great offering. Grace is a gift, but it must be received.

Focus!

This morning, before I could get to my desk, I received a text message from my bank about a transaction that should not have occurred. We had cancelled a service a few days ago, but the draft was made anyway. I needed to track this down and make the business make it right. It was on my mind as my coffee brewed (you know I gotta have my coffee). When I got to my desk and laptop, I immediately went online to see what was what. I went to my bank site to verify the transaction and then to the business that drew out the funds. But we had cancelled the service, so I couldn’t get online. Now I was getting frustrated. I needed to make some notes to call them when they opened. I picked up my Bible so I could access the paper below it when I realised what I was forgetting. This was my sacred time with the Lord. I was about to let a worldly matter disrupt that. I set my Bible back down, rested my elbows on its open pages and apologised to my heavenly Father. And thanked Him for His patience with me.
After my prayer time, I jumped on the book of faces to post the day’s verses to our Scripture writing group. I noticed a friend had posted a video – wonder what that’s all about – click. Some friends have birthdays today; better send them a greeting before I forget, and I might as well check on this notification too. And down another rabbit hole I went. Oh, yeah, the Scripture of the day. Sorry again, Lord.
We know that the enemy uses distraction to his evil advantage. If he can pull us from our focus, even just for a couple of seconds or an “important” thing, we will drift far off course. That is why Paul warned the Corinthians to be aware of satan’s schemes (2 Cor 2:11). But let’s be honest. Satan uses all his tools, but you and I are the ones who take the bait.
God’s “word for the year” for me is Focus. On things like my health, time management, finances, organisation in my home and at work – whew! But most importantly on His Word. On prayer. On fellowship. On His mission. On Him. But don’t take my word for it: “We must pay more careful attention, therefore, to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away” (Heb 2:1).
There it is, Beloved, for you and me. Let’s make this the year we pay attention and focus with our eyes and our thoughts fixed on Jesus (Heb 3:1).

It’s a New Year! (And I slept through it.)

I went to bed last night at 10:00 p.m. I popped in my earplugs so I couldn’t hear the neighbor’s fireworks, and out I went. When I woke up this morning, I discovered that the new year had come in just fine without me. While I slept, God was overseeing the turning of the calendar.
When I was a child, I couldn’t go to sleep unless I knew that one of my parents was still awake. Children have fears about monsters under the bed or in the closet, and things that go bump in the night. As adults, we have fears about financial problems, broken relationships, car troubles, health issues, and countless other things that go bump in our hearts and minds. If that is you, I have a prescription that is better than any sleep aid on the market. The Bible says that God “neither slumbers nor sleeps” (Ps 121:4), and I find great comfort in that.
My curiosity got the better of me as I typed that verse; why “slumber nor sleep?” Don’t both words mean the same thing? Not exactly. Sleep is sleep – but slumber is different. Slumber means to be drowsy. Like I get sitting in my recliner, or even at my desk at work after lunch. I get drowsy on car rides; that’s why hubby does most of the driving. When I am drowsy, I am not paying attention. I don’t notice possible dangers. I can’t respond quick enough to oncoming traffic. I don’t hear someone coming into my office.
This verse means that God never gets drowsy. He never nods off. He never dozes or checks His eyelids for holes. He doesn’t yawn. He never gets bored or distracted. He is the unsleeping, always-alert, ever-vigilant guardian over His children. That means not one thing approaches you or me without His attention and interaction.
Whether you were watching the ball drop in New York (or on TV), shooting off fireworks in your backyard, or, like me, snoozing away at midnight, God was watching over you during the night. And best of all, He will do it again tomorrow night and every night of the year. I hope that brings you as much peace as it does me.
Beloved, get some good sleep tonight; Your Heavenly Father is standing guard over you.